Inspired by: http://www.green-energy-news.com/arch/nrgs2009/20090070.html
Editor is criticizing Google for not attempting to find truly innovative alternative energy programs to fund.
--- my rebuttal --
Packaging power in attractive containers is something you do after you have a power source large enough to have acceptable losses.
You cited a company that captures solar energy using cylindrical lensing and transfers the power to subterranean solar power panels. This would incur large losses in power (i.e. gross reduction in efficiency), add to the complexity and cost. Useful energy is based in savings minus costs.
Also consider that the area (square meters) of a solar collector absolutely determines the maximum amount of power that it can convert. At the equator about 1 kilowatt of solar power is produced in 1 square meter; this falls off as you travel North or South from the equator. So no matter what, for the same power produced, the array size must be inversely proportional to its efficiency factor. You must first collect the power before you convert it.
That means that the array on the roof of the building you cited, must be "larger" that a solar array without the underground solar panels, due the required increased size needed to collect the same useful amount of power.
I think you probably mis-quoted the research endeavor.
More likely is that the cylindrical lensing heated a coolant (water and glycol) and a pump routed the coolant to subterranean "storage" cells; energy to be recovered during the night, or to provide hot water utility. The Earth is a natural insulator when the soil is relatively dry.
If you want innovative technologies:
See if you can find any information on a new nuclear process dubbed "Total Annihilation"; a government sponsored project. Named because it is intended to "completely" break down matter into energy, with no nuclear waste. A doctor near Chicago has been working on this for years. One-half ounce of ANY matter (nuclear waste, saliva, the free floating hydrogen in space, pollutants...) with this process has enough energy to launch a large spacecraft, run all the systems and circle the Sun, and then land gently back on Earth.
This technology could provide for many capabilities:
- sustain our planet without the Sun
- move our planet to anywhere in the Universe
- make energy virtually free
- power super-machines that rove the Earth and rebuild the eco-structures (reviewed in some magazine)
- provide for eco-friendly weather control
- ...
Another innovative technology is space-based solar energy collection. Virtually all of the related technologies already exists. This process also provides for eco-friendly weather control. PGE estimates that by 2015 they will have the first space-based power station.
In addition to providing for the worlds energy needs, Global Warming/Climate Instability is averted by causing just a couple of degrees variation in weather systems by shading/collection or by reflection/heating.
http://global-energy-system.pbworks.com
In space, mirrors of about 1 kilometer in diameter can convert about 1 Gigawatt of power and direct that energy in any of many means for use on Earth or in space. Thousands of these (produced like cars) would provide active control of global weather systems, provide inexpensive means to traverse between the Earth, Moon, Earth orbit, inner planets and asteroid belt, ... providing mining and other opportunities in space.
At this stage of renewable energy development, Innovation needs to involve basic production of power; dressing it up at this point is of little real benefit.
As for bio-fuels; it would take a land mass of 1 1/2 times the size of the United States that is dedicated to ONLY farming soybeans, to produce enough bio-diesel to meet the current energy needs of just the United States. This estimate assumes that ALL related land mass, including deserts and mountains, produces about 60 gallons of soybean oil per acre of farmed land.
Our salvation seems to be based in a combination of reducing the power we need to use, and providing alternative sources of energy.
James Dunn
