61274311
submission
WindBourne writes:
Following the Elon Musk recipe, Solar City has been using solar panels from China making them the largest importers of panels from China.
As of today, they have bought Silevo, a panel maker. In addition, they are announcing that they will build a new GW factory in Buffalo New York, with replication of that factory to follow.
35781433
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WindBourne writes:
British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson has written to President Barack Obama seeking help commercializing an alternative type of nuclear reactor known as an Integral Fast Reactor. This contrast with Bill Gates who is approaching China to share American technology with them.
26855956
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WindBourne writes:
China may be using thousands of miles of underground tunnels to hide a nuclear missile arsenal that is far bigger than current estimates, according to researchers.
They spent three years translating secret military documents, scouring the internet and studying satellite images for clues – and concluded that China may have as many as 3,000 missiles, compared with general estimates of between 80 and 400.
5522737
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4277403
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WindBourne writes:
Due to Ares I's payload limits, it appears that Orion is about to reduce to a crew of 4 rather than 6 for LEO. Nothing is being said about Moon access which was expected to be 4. Even though the ISS is about to jump to 6 crewmen, this will have no impact since it is expected that Soyuz will be there as well. But will it have an impact on Congress's mind set? With yesterday's news about Ares V slipping, is this the opening that Direct is looking for?
3812421
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WindBourne writes:
Regardless if you believe in Global Warming or Not, it appears that the US is about to join the rest of the west in combating CO2 output. At this time, Obama and the Dem's are pushing cap and trade. This approach was developed by Bush I as a means of dealing with SINGLE point of pollution emissions. That approach makes sense for a LIMITED number of emitters. But CO2 is dominantly from our autos, power plants, and manufacturing. In addition, China has moved to be the largest emitter of CO2 (as well as pollutions). This is in large part due to companies moving manufacturing bases there, while the Chinese gov has ignored the pollution problems. Since Kyoto, China has promised to address CO2 if US joined in.
Now, china has changed its tune. In particular, it is claiming that it and other developing countries should not have to control CO2 for anything that is to be exported, while insisting that they west, particularly the US, uphold the current Kyoto. Of course, under cap and trade that will encourage more commerce to shift elsewhere, while ignoring the real issue; solving the CO2, and perhaps pollution issues.
Since Kyoto, the nations involved have been shown to be cheating at all aspects of it. Basically, all the participating countries have tried to argue that their cap is much higher, so that it does not harm their industry. IOW, it should be seen that Cap/Trade does not really cut production since all knows that it will in fact, put the country at a disadvantage.
It seems that the ONLY way to do this, is to shift the Kyoto protocols from cap/trade to a time incrementally increasing VAT on all goods (those produced locally as well as imported) applied based on where the good came from and how much emissions from there (ideally, including pollution). That would give an advantage to countries such as Japan and France who have moved heavily towards nuke power and encourage AE. In addition, it would encourage ALL countries to lower emissions.
My question is, does something like this violate trade agreements? This is not a tariff, but a VAT that would be applied on all goods. Why do many of the Kyoto protocol countries, and now the US, seem to be preferring the cap/trade over a VAT (or a "sin" tax)? This appears to be the only way to level the playing field and get all nations to solve this problem.
3687877
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WindBourne writes:
China will be launching 2 news space stations this next year. One is for their civil program as ran by the military, while the second is openly for the military. It appears that their will be multiples of the military version to be launched in 2010. It appears that they are developing the same U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) that was canceled in 1969. In addition, it appears that China is accelerating their timelines on a number of the earlier space announcements.
837623
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WindBourne writes:
While Pickens, anschutz and others are investing billions pretty much into Wind energy, Google, Paul Allen, Kleiner Perkins, and others are investing into geo-thermal power. In particular, 2 new start-ups in AltaRock for EGS (fracturing deep rocks and sending water through the cracks to be heated) and Potter Drilling for new deep drilling rigs, and a small grant to Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab for mapping heat. Just google's investment alone is more money into geo-thermal than USA feds has invested in geo-thermal. Various European countries have several small RD operations while Australia is building a 1/2 GW plant.
Unlike Wind and Solar PV, geo-thermal is capable of being a base power plant. That is it can run 24x7. Solar thermal is the only other main Alternative systems that can run as base load power( with cheap salt thermal storage ). Solar thermal has 10's of gigawatts expected to come on line over the next 4-8 years.
It appears that a number of companies want to make money by producing lots of much cheaper cleaner energy.
432928
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197223
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WindBourne writes:
Spacex has finally come up with a flight review of the last falcon flight (pdf — sorry).
Apparently, 8 anomalies were uncovered, with none requiring a major re-design. The question remains of will the next launch be on-schedule or be slipped?
178833
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WindBourne writes:
Here is an excellent story about Elon Musk and watching his 2'nd launch. Elon Musk is betting his 2x fortunes for the chance to put mankind into orbit CHEAP. Even now, his timing could not be better. It appears that America will be without a man-rated launcher (again) for at least several years. Spacex could be the only American player during that time. If so, then he will be launching not just people to the ISS, but to multiple Bigelow space ships and doing cargo. But then again, with another failure or 2, he may end up broker than he was at age 12. Now the question is, will he also be able to build a launcher that is cheaper and bigger than the planned ares V due out in a decade?
129931
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WindBourne writes:
Paul Allen has a long history of being the true dare devil with regards to being on the ground floor of businesses. Now, in spite of Paul's funding of the winning X-Prize, it would appear that Bill Gates may actually beat Paul Allen into space. Of course, one possible side effect would be that Gates would get into the space race, perhaps funding some of the current attempts such as t/space or even a lunar base.
95288
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WindBourne writes:
Apparently, Elon Musk is going to sell Electric cars to the middle class masses, not just the wealthy.Musk's Tesla Motors, based out of San Carlos, California, will use the plant to produce its "WhiteStar" car — a four door, five passenger sports sedan which is 100 percent electric. I will be be nice to see this encourage GM/Ford/Toyota/Honda/etc to get the true hybrids and electrics out the door sooner, rather than later.
