Greener Cars, Snow to Antarctica, a Coming Ice Age

This prototype electric car has some impressive stats: a battery range of over 150 km per charge, and speeds up to 120 km/hr.

Staff and students at the University of South Australia have designed and built a prototype of what they reckon might be the future commuter car for Australian cities. Trev sounds rather impressive. He goes from 0 to 100kph in 10 secs, has a top speed of 120 km/h, with a travel range of 150+km between charges of his 7kWh 44kg lithium ion polymer battery....When charged from mains power he costs you $1 AUD per 100km to run, using what is said to be 1/5th of the energy of conventional car. TH

Speaking of lithium ion batteries, a recent announcement of Li ion nanowire batteries claimed a 10 times greater capacity than conventional Li ion batteries. New Energy and Fuel has taken a look at those claims, and carefully explains why it will take some time just to achieve a 3X or 5 X increase in energy density from nanowires in Li ion. But in the long run--with radical improvements in cathode design, the silicon nanowire modification should work very well.

On a colder front, Russian Acadamician Khabibullo Abdusamatov updates his predictions for a coming (little) ice age.

"A year ago, many meteorologists predicted that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would make the year 2007 the hottest in the last decade, but, fortunately, these predictions did not become reality," Abdusamatov said.

He also said that in 2008, global temperatures would drop slightly, rather than rise, due to unprecedentedly low solar radiation in the past 30 years, and would continue decreasing even if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide reach record levels.

By 2041, solar activity will reach its minimum according to a 200-year cycle, and a deep cooling period will hit the Earth approximately in 2055-2060. It will last for about 45-65 years, the scientist added. Source
via Tom Nelson

As for melting polar ice caps, think again. There has been a doubling of snow accumulation in parts of Antarctica, and prospects of rapid snowmelt in Greenland or Antarctica causing catastrophic sea level rise does not seem to be in the cards.

Personally, I like to think and act clean and green--within reason. Global warming catastrophism is not being green. It is being mindlessly faddish and fashionable. Being caught with your pants down when the next ice age hits could involve some painful frostbite.

Is Desalination Affordable?

The answer to that question depends upon what you can afford. EcoWorld has an interesting article on the question of affordable desalination. They even provide an online spreadsheet so everyone can crunch the numbers.

Different types of desalination entail different costs. Solar desalination, which is used for the Ecoworld calculations above, is one set of approaches. This online desalination reference discusses different desalination projects in California as of the 1990s.

Some relatively affluent countries, such as Australia and Israel, are forced to include desalination as part of an overall water strategy. Many Persian Gulf nations also utilise desalination.

Desalination by any method is expensive--due to energy costs. Nano-filters may eventually slash the costs by 75% or more. As photovoltaic costs come down, combining nano-filters with PV electric pumps will allow arid coastal regions in the mid to low latitudes more affordable desalinated fresh water. Even without improved electric storage, daytime-only production can be ample. If improved storage is available, 24 hour production should reduce overall costs eventually.

Quitting Britain for a New Life Elsewhere--The Egress of the Young Professionals

In just the past seven months, applications to leave the UK have soared 80% to almost 4,000 a week! What could possibly be driving so many young professionals to quit Britain for the new world?

Most people are relocating within the Commonwealth – in Australia, Canada and South Africa. They are almost all young professionals and skilled workers aged 20-40.

And many cite their reason for wanting to quit as immigration to these shores – and the burden it is placing on their communities and local authorities. The dearth of good schools, spiralling house prices, rising crime and tax increases are also driving people away.

Obtaining a visa to live abroad can cost as little as £1,500 for the right candidates. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and doctors are famously in demand. The only obstruction to emigration from the UK is a criminal record, poor health, advancing age and being a “third country national”.

...“It’s a shame people at the top don’t recognise they’re not doing enough to retain highly skilled workers in this country. A lot of them are quite young, and they’re not idle. They just can’t see a future for themselves in this country. They want to get married and settle down and buy homes, but they can’t see it happening here.

“And time and time again they are saying to us they don’t want to be seen as racist because they are quitting because of immigration. We tell them of course they’re not.”

According to the most recent Office of National Statistics figures, in 2005 the official number of people leaving UK shores was 352,000 – up from 249,000 in 1995. The majority – around 150,000 – migrated from London and the south east.

Source

(via Kim du Toit)

The same thing is happening in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and many other European countries. Changes in demographics and government policies that are unfriendly to indigenous Europeans are making it more difficult and dangerous to stay in Europe and the UK. Not to mention the increased crime that accompanies the changes above.

In Canada and Australia, the same sort of changes are happening--though at a slower pace. The conservative governments in Australia and Canada are trying to hold back the problems currently swamping Europe. As for South Africa, I suspect that those who emigrate from the UK to the former land of apartheid may enjoy a few years of affluence there before the country's economy begins to follow the path blazed by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Live and learn.

Britain's Tragic Brain Drain

Professor John Salt of the University College London, is concerned that Britain is losing too many of its finest brains.

Of those leaving the UK, almost half - 42 per cent - were professionals or managers.

They are heading mainly for New Zealand, Australia, the U.S., and Canada.

In his report for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Professor Salt said: "Migration flows are tending towards a de-skilling of the UK labour market."

....Organised gangs are offering to smuggle thousands of illegal immigrants into Britain for as little as £200 from a new base near the closed Sangatte welfare centre, it has emerged.

Source
Hat tip Immigration Watch

Breakthroughs in Solar Cell Technology from Australia and South Africa

Photovoltaic solar cells are poised for much greater utilisation, worldwide. According to The Energy Blog, the costs of solar power will be cut in half by 2010, and cost comparable to nuclear energy by no later than 2030.

News reports from researchers in Australia and South Africa suggest that the price reductions may even occur sooner than the predictions of mainstream energy analysts suggest. At the University of Queensland, plastics and nanotech crystals are replacing the silicon in the solar cells--greatly reducing potential production costs.

UQ Master of Physics student Michael Deceglie is working on improving the stability and overall efficiency of solar cells.

Mr Deceglie is testing two new ways of making solar cells out of dye-sensitized solar cell and a combined nanocrystal polymer solar cell.

The dye-sensitized cells use dye molecules to inject electrons into a thin titanium dioxide film while the polymer cell is a thin film of plastic mixed with microscopic crystals that channel the charge through the cell.

Mr Deceglie said both methods could produce solar cells that had similar efficiencies to current silicon technology but were cheaper more flexible, easier to produce and more environmentally friendly.

“Since electrons don't move well in the polymers, we incorporate nanocrystals with the polymer to provide a pathway along which electrons can move to generate electrical current,” Mr Deceglie said.

“The dye-sensitzed device works in a manner similar to phosynthesis in plants.”

Source.

South African researchers have developed another alternative approach to photovoltaic solar cells, using a unique metal alloy in flexible, very thin layers.

In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists, led by Professor Vivian Alberts, has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology” and “The South African solar panels consist of a thin layer of a unique metal alloy that converts light into energy.”

The photo-responsive alloy can operate on virtually all flexible surfaces. The new panels are approximately five microns thick (a human hair is 20 microns thick) while the older silicon panels are 350 microns thick. Alberts claims the cost of the South African technology is a fraction of the cost for less effective silicon solar panels.”

This claim is corroborated in today’s story in the South Africa Mining Weekly, where alongside the report about Eskom’s solar thermal project there is this: “The University of Johannesburg’s Professor Vivian Alberts, from the department of physics, has developed solar panels that may just take this technology further into the main-stream, owing to the cost reductions he has achieved.

Alberts’ invention is five micro-metres thick, combining several semiconductor materials which are as effective, if not more so, than silicon. As it uses no silicon, costs are dramatically lower. It makes use of normal window glass as a substrate, with molybdenum applied as back contact, followed by the core component, being a compound semiconductor comprising five elements - copper, indium, gallium, selenium and sulphide, replacing the silicon - with cadmium sulphide as a buffer layer, followed by an intrinsic zinc oxide layer and, finally, a conductive zinc-oxide layer. The most expensive part of the panel is the glass,” said Alberts.

Source.

Hat tips to keelynet.com and what's next in scitech.

The high cost of solar cell grade silicon has driven the production costs of photovoltaics upward. But scientists and engineers are always looking for ways to improve technology, to get around the roadblocks to economic utilisation. See this Energy Blog article for information about a new silicon feedstock for photovoltaics.

When eminent scientists predict that something is impossible, they are almost certainly wrong. Thomas Kuhn merely reminded us of something that young innovators have known throughout human history--sometimes the older scientists with vested interests in the old ways of thinking have to die off, before humans can move on.