Government and Science

[lakhota]

Department Of Energy Makes $150M Bet On Solar Tech

On Friday, Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu announced a "game changing" development in solar energy. A company called 1366 Technologies, headquartered in Lexington, Mass., has developed a silicon solar wafer that would cut the cost of solar cell manufacturing by an estimated 50 percent.

The wafer technology was developed with the support of a pilot innovation investment program housed under the Department of Energy, known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E). According to director Arun Majumdar, "ARPA-E is looking for high risk ideas that, if successful, can be high impact. Those that don't exist today."

Unlike traditional wafers--which are sliced from a large block, resulting in considerable losses of material (up to 50 percent)--these new wafers are individually cast to specific measurements, a more efficient model of production.

In 2009, ARPA-E made an initial $4 million dollar investment in 1366 Technologies, and on Friday, announced it would make an additional $150 million dollar loan guarantee to take the company's research and development to the next level.

If projections regarding cost savings are accurate, solar may be on its way to becoming competitive with traditional fossil-fuels -- though some in the industry remain concerned about barriers still in place.

"There are two main areas of concern: price and value," said Brian Keane, president of Smart Power, a green energy marketing group. Keane explained that the primary "value" of solar "is that it's good for the environment. But quite frankly, no American actually thinks that's good value."

Keane says that U.S. consumers need to be convinced that solar is a viable proposition. "The perception is that solar is an idea from the 1970s that just didn’t work. They think it’s not strong enough to power their lives, compared with oil, coal and nuclear power."

Still, Keane added, "If we can cut the price [of manufacturing] in half, that really helps us with the value proposition to the American people."

Others point to concerns around the marketplace itself. Lew Milford, president of the Clean Energy Group, a non-profit advocacy group focused on energy and climate concerns, said that many new and innovative technologies fail because they never reach commercialization. Milford called this the "valley of death" that innovative tech companies must cross after their initial rounds of funding, and the hurdle that oftentimes prevents them from becoming scalable and reaching market potential.

Milford suggested that the problem of access to capital might be solved with something like the President's suggested--"Clean Energy Bank"--to finance clean energy initiatives, but acknowledged that the highly political climate surrounding budget negotiations would complicate its creation.

With ARPA-E in particular, Milford thought that a better and more robust relationship with state governments was essential for the success of the agency's investments. "In the end, I think states are a really critical backstop for all of this," he said. "State policy is increasingly going to create these markets."

While many state governors remain skeptical of climate change policy and energy reform on the whole, Milford contended that many of the same governors were nonetheless supportive of clean energy technology, given its potential to create jobs and strengthen state economies. By way of an example, Milford pointed to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is critical of climate change concerns but remains "a strong supporter of offshore wind farms in the state."

"ARPA-E just doesn’t have the states as customers," said Milford, and it still needs to figure out "how to you commercialize the products that it is funding."

ARPA-E director Majumder insisted that the agency already has a close relationship to the states. As evidence, he pointed a program, Sunshot, that specifically addresses the question of cost competitiveness and solar technology. "We have a very close relationship with the states," he said.

Majumder said that one of his primary concerns around solar energy had to do with manufacturing: "In the mid-90s, the U.S. had 40 percent of the manufacturing of photovoltaic cells," he explained. "Now we have less than 5%. We have to regain that technology lead back -- and that will be based on innovation in the U.S."

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/17/dept-of-energy-makes-150m_n_879542.html

[lakhota]

Solar at the Cost of Coal

Building the Future of Energy

1366’s mission is to make the cost of solar power competitive with coal power.

Our approach is simple. We take a proven, safe, abundant material –silicon– and develop practical manufacturing solutions that increase efficiency and dramatically cut cost.

Our manufacturing solutions are compatible with existing supply chain processes, delivering a large impact without the complexity.

1366 has a team of veteran scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, including MIT professor and photovoltaic industry expert Dr. Emanuel Sachs, with extensive experience in process and machine design.

The initial technology for 1366 was developed by our team at MIT and is now being commercialized.

The science is understood. The material is abundant. The products work.

All that is left is to build the largest manufacturing industry in the history of mankind. This is what we intend to do.

www.1366tech.com/about-1366/

[lakhota]

Government does, and should, have a role in science.

[lakhota]

The Biggest Threat Facing the Country Today Is Fast Creeping Ignorance

It's reached epidemic levels in government. Isn't wanton ignorance among those we trust with nuclear policies, war, famine, jobs, the national debt and more, a concern?

I am old enough to remember the days when what Americans were told to fear most was "Creeping Communism."

There were even hearings. There was a blacklist. There were arrests and even a couple of executions.

In the end all communism turned out to be creeping toward was its own extinction.

We may not be as lucky with the new creep we're facing today: Creeping Ignorance.

As a story from AlterNet put it, "3/4ths of Senate GOP Doesn't Believe in Science: The Tea Party and its allies had made it unacceptable to the GOP base to be anywhere except pandering to the anti-science crowd." (Full Story)

The Right, which hated and feared commies and their (largely imaginary) infiltration into government, not only don't seem to care about creeping ignorance in government, but have come to embrace this new breed of government infiltrators.

The explanation for this embrace is simple as the minds of the infiltrators: science, and for that matter any other factual analysis, tends to flatly contradict many of the Right's most cherished fictions, such as:

The more you cut taxes the more tax revenue flows into federal coffers.

History proves America is a Christian nation.

Climate change is either not happening at all or, if it is happening, it has nothing to do with our use of fossil fuels. ("I personally believe that the solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do. ..." - Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin)

Slashing regulation of business and high finance is good for business, good for the nation and good for the American public.

If the rich are allowed to keep more of their earnings they will share it with everyone else, (trickle down.)

School science classes should be "fair and balanced," like Fox News, when teaching the origins of life on earth by teaching the biblically-inspired "creationist" version alongside Darwin's scientific theory of evolution.

President Obama "may not have been born in America" as he claims.

President Obama is "a secret Muslim."

And the list of Creeping Ignorance goes on and on, growing longer with each passing month.

More: www.alternet.org/teaparty/150382/the_biggest_threat_facing_the_country_today_is_fast_creeping_ignorance/?page=entire

[lakhota]

3/4ths of Senate GOP Doesn't Believe in Science -- When Did Republicans Go Completely Off the Deep End?

The Tea Party and its allies had made it unacceptable to the GOP base to be anywhere except pandering to the anti-science crowd.

You’ve got to go back to the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 for a precedent to the anti-science mania that is currently sweeping the GOP. Then, the issue was teaching Darwin’s work on evolution in the schools. Today, the issue is global warming. Then, as now, large numbers of politicians tapped into the stratum of popular culture that simply rejects science as the basis for public or personal decisions. The chief prosecutor of high school teacher John Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, gloated that literal interpretation of the Bible trumped scientific knowledge. This resonated with large masses of ordinary folks, the ones H. L. Mencken and the liberal press were calling “yokels” and “morons.”

Turns out the yokels and morons won, at least for a generation. Scopes was found guilty of violating the Tennessee law that prohibited teaching evolution, and his conviction (though later overturned on a technicality) galvanized the anti-evolution movement for years. Politicians came pouring in. Scores of resolutions were introduced in state legislatures and school boards all over the country, setting back the teaching of evolution for decades until logic and reason and the scientific method gradually reasserted themselves in the culture.

Today, Republicans are falling over themselves in a rush to ridicule the science that shows our use of fossil fuels is producing greenhouse gases that are warming the planet to disastrous levels. These findings were confirmed even by the Bush administration before it left office, as well as by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and every other significant scientific academy around the world, not to mention the unpaid global work of hundreds of volunteer scientists for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But anti-scientists are undaunted by facts. More than half of the incoming Republican caucus denies the validity of climate change science. Some 74 percent of Republicans in the U.S. Senate now take that stance, as do 53 percent of GOP in the House. Here’s a sampler of what some of their leading illuminati have to say about it:

More: www.alternet.org/story/150340/3_4ths_of_senate_gop_doesn%27t_believe_in_science_--_when_did_republicans_go_completely_off_the_deep_end?page=entire

[lakhota]

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the trial


State v. John Scopes ("The Monkey Trial")

law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm

law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm

[lakhota]

SHOULD CHILDREN BE EXPOSED TO FACTS? Are Reason and Empirical Evidence Suitable School Subjects?

law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/onionOpinion.htm

[lakhota]

Scopes Defended By Super-Intelligent Chimpanzee-Man from Future

law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/onionChimpman.html

[lakhota]

[lakhota]

Evolution In Our Schools

www.theonion.com/articles/evolution-in-our-schools,14624/

[lakhota]

Intelligent Design

Intelligent design (ID) is an anti-evolution belief asserting that naturalistic explanations of some biological entities are not possible and such entities can only be explained by intelligent causes.* Advocates of ID maintain that their belief is scientific and provides empirical proof for the existence of God or superintelligent aliens. They claim that intelligent design should be taught in the science classroom as an alternative to the science of evolution. ID is essentially a hoax, however, since evolution is consistent with a belief in an intelligent designer of the universe and with an unlimited number of other metaphysical myths. The two are not contradictory and they are not necessarily competitors, though evolution clearly contradicts the creation stories of numerous religions. ID is proposed mainly by Christian apologists at the Discovery Institute and their allies, who oppose the science of evolution because it threatens their hidebound, literalistic view of Bible stories. The approach of the Discovery Institute to scientific discoveries that contradict their literal understanding of the Bible is reminiscent of the early twentieth-century organization known as the World Association of Christian Fundamentalists.

So, should we teach ID in our biology classrooms even though ID is not a viable alternative to natural selection? The answer is "yes, if we teach ID properly." The answer is "no" if we are asked to teach ID as a viable scientific idea worth spending precious classroom time on. To teach ID properly would be to demonstrate to the students that nothing of scientific interest follows after one posits an external agent to explain something. To say the eye was designed by God or an alien race is to say: Stop, go no further in trying to understand this; give up; don't do science. Students might be taught that ID is just the kind of belief that some philosophers and theologians find interesting but since it doesn't lead to any deeper understanding of biological mechanisms, doesn't lead to new discoveries or research ventures, and doesn't have any practical scientific applications, it is left to those in other fields to pursue. A good biology teacher ought to be able to explain why ID, even if true, is of little scientific interest in about 15 or 20 minutes. That should leave plenty of time to instruct their students in science.

Much More: www.skepdic.com/intelligentdesign.html

[billisonboard]

Jun 18, 2011 10:15:45 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

It's not just religion, it's "new age" it's "gut feelings" it's what do the experts know? We have a strong history of anti-intellectualism in the country ....

I think many movies re-enforce this. How often do you see a movie in which some "average citizen" is sucked into some intrigue and wins out over the professionals.

[handyman2]

We each have a mind. That mind is enhanced by being exposed to all manner of known facts and theories. That is what makes progress. Being exposed to all facets allows the mind to raise questions and seek answers. There is nothing but good comes from exposing the mind to everything.
I remember when people scoffed at a idea to go to the moon and beyond saying it was not possible man could survive the trip. WELL? Had we just accepted that premise there would be no Internet, cell phones, satellites etc.
Exposing the mind to free thought of all subjects is what got us out of the dark ages.

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

I was hoping that Lak would have all the posts in this thread. That would have likely been a record. A dubious record at that.

Regarding solar, I bought six solar flood lights that I have here at my shore house. I love them. Bought at Walmart for $10 each. They are made by Westinghouse.

[ed1066]

The left wing echo chamber is getting smaller and smaller...

[ed1066]

No Lakhota, the earth is not flat...

[handyman2]

The use of solar is still in it's infancy stage and is a worthwhile technology that needs more research to make it cost effective for single family homes. Somewhere the answer is there but we are not there yet. Like the theme of making better storage modules and bring down the cost. Currently a full house system is not cost effective but promising.

[lakhota]

How far back in time are anti-intellectual Republicans trying to take us? Biblical times?