I was forced to take a break from /. for over a year due to crushing work and family loads. I am back now. I too dearly miss reading at least once in every article about petrified Natalie Portman pouring hot grits down pants, selecting CowboyNeal, being reminded what an insensitive clod I was, pissing contests to have the lowest /. ID, entire threads hijacked to discuss grammar minutiae. What has happened to the /. I knew and loved? Maybe it is time for me to grow up?

I've been asking this forever! If Diesel engines have better torque, why not using them in hybrids as power plant (in a similar way Direct UPSs work). After all, most power plants I know are diesel, not gasoline.

And on top of that...why reciprocating engines? Why not turbines since that is also the design of power plants and seems should be much more efficient. I understand why we use reciprocating engines in "direct drive" usage, but in hybrids, generate the electricity with a turbine and drive only using the electric motors is my thinking.

My solar installation doesn't have any batteries. I use micro-inverters instead of a bulk inverter and am still connected to the grid. So, during the day (when the ACs or dryer aren't running) I push power back and help run my neighbors' houses, at night, I pull from the grid to run the house. This way I don't have to replace batteries every 5-7 years and if some panels get shaded/have a problem, they don't pull down the entire array.

It would be highly unlikely to just disable a valid core, because if they were doing a fair amount of that, it would be better to make a new mask set that was JUST a 2 or 3 core processor.

You obviously don't realize how expensive your proposition is. A mask set for processors of this complexity cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is just for the glass, let alone the cost of actually laying out and qualifying the new glass! So let's say they can change the cost of manufacture/die (the dynamic cost) by a HUGE $10 (that is an incredible reduction on a per die basis), you have to sell tens of thousands of them to simply cover the cost of the glass!

But usually Godwin's Law is invoked with a comparison to the Nazi's as evil. Here it's a reference to not-Nazi's as not-evil.

Talking of Nazis, did you know that every other use of an apostrophe in your first sentence was incorrect?

Huh? Let's see, their other use of an apostrophe:
Godwin's: Possessive, correct

Where is the "other use of an apostrophe in your first sentence" that was incorrect?

As for the American taxpayers being 'on the hook' for new power plants that will only happen if the plants somehow default on their loans, something no nuclear power plant has done in American history...

I see someone else has posted the WPPSS story, I will add Marble Hill, which caused Wabash Valley Power Association to default on its loans from the REA.

Why should anyone believe anything they say about the safety of their plant(s) if they're willing to lie under oath about something this minor?

I often wondered that about President Clinton....didn't exactly carry a lot of weight in these parts though.

Works at night. (Ground heat release.) Low maintenance, few moving parts, durable, doesn't require uncommon, imported elements or the same kind of energy inputted into its construction, doesn't make the ground under it useless. Politically this is easier to sell than relying on China for the arrays. Scaling photovolatics to the level needed to get to an all-day average of 200MW requires a lot more ongoing maintenance. This is easier for voters to understand, and looks 'cool' from the highway. :-)

Let's see, works at night with ground heat release...perhaps, but I am doubtful, their own drawing indicates a thermal gradient within the "chamber" caused by the "greenhouse effect," so any benefit of the ground thermal storage would seem to be quite low given the low rate of radiation as the required airflow cools the top layer and the thermal resistance of dirt is very high.

Low maintenance...perhaps, we'll let that slide for now.

Few moving parts...vs. photovoltaic? I think not since you can't go below zero in counts of physical items.

Durable...hmm, perhaps the materials are durable but I have no idea...they don't tell me what they are! I do know that the building I work in is all of 4 years old and has all kinds of leaks and problems...and it is tiny by comparison. This would be the largest area building ever built, by no small margin! The Dubai airport currently checks in as the biggest at not even 6% of this beast! So much for your low maintenance as well me thinks.

Doesn't require uncommon, imported elements or the same kind of energy inputted into its construction...how exactly are you going to move the materials to construct this monstrous structure there, let alone the over 2000 feet into the air? As for materials for construction, we have been producing solar cell materials for decades, it is essentially a commodity now and we don't have any idea what material they are going to build their tower out of do we?

Doesn't make the ground under it useless...this one made me laugh the most. How exactly is a 4 square mile greenhouse with untold winds at the core going to be used? Remember, the idea here is to raise the internal temperature significantly, so what are you going to do in there? Remember also that you can only access the land from the perimeter, and you can't put a lot of walls in there, they would disrupt the airflow. How is this useful land again vs. raised panel arrays that you could build any building you wanted underneath?

Politically this is easier to sell than relying on China for the arrays...okay, perhaps, and until a few days ago I could have said, oh really, but sadly they have announced that they had to turn to China for production as well.

Scaling photovolatics to the level needed to get to an all-day average of 200MW requires a lot more ongoing maintenance...huh? Why does maintenance go up with scale here? Add more panels to have peak production way past the current level of nearly 7x the production then! I already firmly believe their design will have a pittance the daytime production at night, so they won't be this magic, constant output station, just as panels aren't, you still need energy storage (again, I am not buying into the ground thermal storage) and you still don't have ANY moving parts!

This is easier for voters to understand, and looks 'cool' from the highway...I think you mean easier to fool voters into paying for, but yes, the coolness factor would certainly be there.

So of your ten points...I believe you only have two left standing, and both of those are pretty darn weak.

Photovoltaics routinely exceed 20%.

No that is wrong, please don't disseminate this sort of misinformation. The most efficient PV panels you can buy today are rated less then 20% efficiency, and that's per cell, a whole panel will be several percent lower. That's in ideal conditions - heat, inverters, charge controllers, batteries all knock a big chunk of that efficiency.

No, you are wrong...well, not exactly wrong, but you too are spreading mis-information. My solar panels on Monday produced energy for the day at ~900 Wh/m^2, and that is AC watts, so not your "ideal" number, a real number complete with conversion losses. My city's 30 year maximum flat panel solar radiation exposure for the month of January (from here) was 5.6 kWh/m^2-day. So let's assume Monday matched that maximum, that means my system hit 16% real world efficiency. I don't have the most efficient panels you can buy today, today's most efficient panels outperform mine by over 15%. That's now approaching the 20% quoted by the grandparent. I agree, it is incorrect to state "photovoltaics routinely exceed 20%" in the context of AC watts, but it is correct to state panels approach 20% and therefore cells exceed 20%.

And as I stated in another post, it sure looks to me like economically my panels are kicking the tar out of this idea in terms of cost and production.

OK, I haven't seen anyone look at this yet, but I may have missed it. I just put a solar array on my house, so the idea of electrical energy from the sun is fresh in my mind. Let's look at the numbers. They are looking at 200 MW for $750 M, or at a cost of $3.75/W. In doing this, they plan to use 4 square miles, and generate under 20 W/m^2. Now that is truly pathetic?! On a sunny day, my panels produce well over 130 W/m^2, and that is AC watts, therefore taking into account all the losses in the inversion. The cost of my installation was under $7/W, and is already done...making power! Today is a crumby, cloudy, cold day yet my panels are still producing ~24 W/m^2! Why is this even being discussed as an option??? Do they think they can increase their efficiencies? It seems to me they are going to be equally dependent on solar radiation as my panels are, yet my panels are crushing them in terms of output, now, today, let alone in a few years when the solar cells efficiencies are double what my panels' are. What does SCPPA know that I am missing????