Friday, July 18, 2008

One hundred and one

It was the last day of the elementary school term today so I was asked to go along in my capacity as school councilor to give a little inspiring speech.
There are one hundred and one students at the school this year.
I saw Mr Gore on TV today talking about achieving energy sustainability in ten years, an entirely achievable goal. Then heard a senator state that they could build wind turbines coast to coast and it still wouldn't provide enough power. I am glad I am not a relative of that burk, I would be ashamed.
The small amount of reading I have done suggests that solar thermal power plants would do the trick, ie, heating some media in pipes with mirrors aimed at the sun. Lie on a tarred roof in the middle of the day and you immediately feel that something valuable is being wasted with all that heat.
The area of mirrors required to generate all America's power needs would be the size of that orange square I have drawn in the gulf of mexico. One hundred miles by one hundred miles. Well worth building in some of the sunnier states in my humble opinion. I would much rather see America devote itself to its own infrastructure than contributing to the collapse of infrastructure in other countries.
It is easy to find articles about this on the web, the link below is one small example.

Some further reading.