Re: X-10 friendly switchmode PS

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

<stuff snipped>

> Very few larger scale technologies like solar are even close to being
> competitive even with substantial government subsidies. Unless there are
> significant technological breakthroughs (see below), solar cells will
never
> likely be sufficiently efficient to compete with other sources except in
far
> off the grid applications.

I'm confident that there will be breakthroughs.  They will come partly as a
result of the government offering even paltry subsidies to prime the pump
and partly from the effort of pioneers willing to spend big bucks on solar
systems.  You just have to compare a modern PC to one built in 1982 to see
how much was accomplished - stuff that many people thought impossible in the
'80's.  If solar technology advances at even one half the rate the PC
technology has, it really will be a player in reducing our dependence on
foreign oil.

>
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0114_050114_solarplastic_2.h
tml

> I find most tree-hugger proposals specious, naive and counter productive
> because they do next to nothing to address the problem. They do things
like
> ignoring the amount of energy needed to manufacture and transport solar
> cells and other recommended replacement technology or assuming that
supposed
> long-lived replacements will actually last as long as projected. I suspect
> that many such "feel good" proposals actually originate with energy
> companies hoping to distract  us so we will "ignore the man behind the
> curtain".

I thought the same of recyling as it's not the household trash that's the
real problem, it's big business dumping toxic chemicals in the air and
water.  I personally don't recycle because here, the same garbage trucks
that pick up the trash pick up the recycling the next day.  I also believe
that the faster dumps fill with non-noxious materials, the better.

The Simpsons said it best:

"Newspaper Tour Guide: And each paper contains a certain percentage of
recycled paper.
Lisa Simpson: What percentage is that?
Newspaper Tour Guide: Zero. Zero is a percent, isn't it?"

> There are plenty of fat targets like coal-fired generating plants and
> gas-guzzling SUVs (the purchase of which is subsidized by tax law) where
the
> payback is several orders of magnitude greater. We get more than half our
> electricity from coal and that is projected to grow at a far faster rate
> than any other energy source. Some companies (e.g. Cinergy, AEP) are doing
a
> pretty good job of bringing new plants online that use cleaner burning
> technologies and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Others should be
required
> to do the same.

You'll be happy to know that the EPA's new rules that old powerplants can
evade clean air regs by declaring new plants "upgrades" has been struck down
by the courts.  That's probably only because judges don't get millions of
dollars in campaign contributions.  Congressmen rolling over for Big
Business is not likely to stop any time soon, Abramoff scandals or not.  The
federal government has become a slave to big business and all of the efforts
of muckrakers like Upton Sinclair and Ralph Nader have largely evaporated.
Anyone who thinks Congress cares more if people get sick from Mad Cow
disease than they do about the health of the US cattle industry better get
some reality meds.  There's a woman who believes that there have been many
deaths from Mad Cow in the US - but that they've been misdiagnosed as other
illnesses and that the Feds just don't care to investigate.

--
Bobby G.

Simpson phone messages:

8:40PM You have 30 minutes to move your car.

9:10PM You have 10 minutes to move your car.

9:20PM Your car has been impounded.

9:30PM Your car has been crushed into a cube.

9:45PM You have 30 minutes to move your cube.