Sanyo Solar Ark and Giant LED Display 196
shokk writes "Those of us who have played with CrystalFontz and Matrix Orbital serial LCD displays for geeky messaging will get a kick out of the 77k+ LED Solar Ark by Sanyo (only 21k of which are using as red/green/blue combinations for the presentation display). Not only does this behemoth show off its fantastically huge array of solar panels generating 530,000kWh/year and its high efficiency white LED technology, but it also sports a non-chemical water purification system in a very Feng Shui way. Lighting to restrooms underneath is provided by fiber optic paths from the white LEDs in the giant display above." It's a small plant as power plants go (600 kilowatts, when many plants are hundreds or thousands of megawatts) but it was cheap to produce, aesthetically pleasing, and of course, non-polluting, so that Godzilla won't visit.
With the talk of (Score:1)
Better have good aim... (Score:1)
Hm. Sure would suck to try to pee when they use "fade to black" transitions....
Japanese may be down but they will be back (Score:4, Insightful)
Compare that attitude with Firestone's policy of deny and cover-up when people's lives were at stake
But Firestone IS Japanese now (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Japanese may be down but they will be back (Score:1)
Compare that attitude with Firestone's policy of deny and cover-up when people's lives were at stake
So, is Firestone's Japanese parent [bridgestone.co.jp] focused on the customer?
Re:Japanese may be down but they will be back (Score:2, Interesting)
Japaness business men seem to have more of these things called 'ethics'. Not sure why. I know they have alot more suicides from CEOs if the company stuffs up etc. As opposed to the take the money and run attitude that seems common in western countires.
There never was a problem with Firestone tires... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ford was telling people to run the tires more than 25% below they're recommended inflation pressure because the proper safe pressure made the ride in these soccer-mom driven deathmobiles too harsh. If you look at how most street tires are manufactured, its very obvious that running at too low of a pressure will eventually cause a separation in the steel belts or braid in the tire, leading to weakening. It also puts too much strain on the sidewall, which weakens and eventually blows.
But, you know what? Its not Ford's fault either. There is one reason, and one reason only why these people were injured or killed: driver incompetance. A well-trained driver who is actually save behind the wheel knows how to maintain proper air pressure, knows how to control a car when a tire has blown, and most importantly knows not to jerk the wheel when you have traction on only one side of the vehicle. Otherwise you roll over and die, especially in a top-heavy truck like an SUV.
Hell, a number of published independant tests blew out the sidewalls on Ford SUV's and the cars stopped perfectly straight and in a controlled manner. An inexcusably poorly trained driver doing the exact wrong thing is the only thing that can lead to an accident in cases like that one. *Any* good driver knows that perfectly well. Its embarassing how easy it is for any idiot to get a license in the US, and people die because of it.
They do NOT die because of a non-existant policy to cover up a problem in a product.
Turn in the licenses.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Most drivers know about as much about their cars as they do about their computers: dick.
You put gas in it. You change oil and check other fluids every 3,000 miles. You take it to a mechanic here and there to check things out when they seem weird. You inflate tyres to the pressure indicated in the owner's manual. You drive. Drivers don't really need to know all that much about their cars, just as Joe Sixpack doesn't need to know all that much about the inner workings of his PC to use it.
However, it sure helps to have a clue about both.
I'm a pretty good driver and take good care of my car. I've only had one accident - which was major - and two speeding tickets in over 16 years behind the wheel. I did have a tyre blow out at 100kph+ during rush-hour traffic. It was just an inconvenience. Don't panic, keep the car straight, slow down, pull over, and stop. It ain't rocket science.
Re:There never was a problem with Firestone tires. (Score:1)
Re:There never was a problem with Firestone tires. (Score:1, Offtopic)
*Any* good driver would also know that you can't stop an 18 wheeler on a dime without causing a jack-knife. However, the instinct to simply slam on the brakes as you would in a passenger vehicle is too great to be ignored, so most US jurisdictions require a special license to drive vehicles of that type.
Perhaps another special class of driver's license should be required for SUVs, since driving techniques which lead to acceptable risk in ordinary passenger cars apparently lead to death in SUVs.
Re:There never was a problem with Firestone tires. (Score:1)
Many caravan models use a car frame rather than a truck frame, though some of the larger models do use truck frames.
Caravans also don't have the horrible gas mileage problems that SUVs do. My father drives an '89 Dodge caravan, and it has a 4 cylinder engine. Sure, you can't drive it the same way as a 6 cylinder car, but it certainly has no problem pulling a small trailer (with a motorcycle), or being packed full of heavy audio equipment.
He's a mechanic, and we got the caravan well after they had become popular. I'm certain he wouldn't have gone near one if they had any sort of track record of safety problems (and I don't remember hearing anything). Caravans are, IMHO, much better family cars than SUVs.
Re:There never was a problem with Firestone tires. (Score:1)
Yes it is. You just explained why a paragraph ago: Ford was telling people to run the tires more than 25% below they're recommended inflation pressure
The ONLY reason Ford was able to aviod this one was because of screwball federal legislation which shifts accountability away from the auto manufacturer when the issue of tires come up. If Ford sells a car with a defective headlight, or crank shaft, or cup holder or muffler or door handle, the liability is on Ford's shoulders. If the TIRES are defective, that liability reverts to the tire manufacturer.
What happened with the Explorers and Firestone tires entered a convenient-for-Ford gray area because Ford could say "look, this law right here says the tire manufacturer is liable." It's utter bullshit, because Ford specifically requested tires from Firestone that were orignially inteded for Ranger pickups and were now running underinflated on heavier Explorers.
The entire thing is all Ford's fault but their lawyers and lackeys in Congress were able to generate enough FUD that the whole thing became "murky."
You're right, most drivers are total idiots. Most of 'em probably don't check their tire pressure anyway. That doesn't mean it's okay for Ford to not test their products before selling them.
Re:There never was a problem with Firestone tires. (Score:1)
Got English? (Score:1)
Re:Japanese may be down but they will be back (Score:2)
One blurb from the PR office regarding a PR stunt and you suggest the Japanese economy is coming back?
Hey, I wish it was coming back. I moved to Asia ten years ago to take advantage of the booming economy and I really wish I could believe it was coming back, but I don't. Not at all. Not even close.
The Economist ran a special issue a few months back in which they predicted the Yen will collapse to at least 150 and maybe even 200 to the dollar by 2004. That totally trashes Americans like myself living in Asia. I sure wish it was all going to suddenly get better, but that is pure fantasy. The problems are very deeply rooted in the banking structure and the culture. It's not going to change.
New slashdot slogan... (Score:2)
Seems like the arched design would reduce output (Score:1)
Either way, it looks pretty cool, and what seems to be more interesting/potentially useful is the LED lighting and water filtration...can anyone provide some more info on how the chlorine-free filtration works?
Re:Seems like the arched design would reduce outpu (Score:1)
aesthetically pleasing??? (Score:2)
Re:aesthetically pleasing??? (Score:1)
Just think: in tropical locales, people could sail all day when it's sunny and charge batteries. Then if/when the wind died down or they needed to motor, they could run the boat on an electric motor. As well, all of the appliances on the boat could be run off of the sails. This could mean the end of the diesel engines on todays sailboats (save for maybe a small back-up) and would make long-distance sailing trips much more feasable as one would no longer have to worry about fuel/energy supplies.
Re:aesthetically pleasing??? (Score:1)
There was a story about sprayable solar collecting material "paint" some time ago, that would probably do the trick, when (if?) it will be working and cheap enough for commercial use.
Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:5, Insightful)
Something I've been thinking about lately...
When I was growing up (born in '64), superstition was still pretty widespread in mainstream society, such as rabbit's feet, black cat's crossing your path, "bread and butter", salt over the shoulder, knock on wood, etc. There were people who really took these things seriously: in fact, you might remember a twilight zone episode where some guy speaking about superstition matter-of-factly noted that many people believed in rabbit's feet (and then some guy piped up with "darn right" or something like that).
It occurred to me that these sort of things are almost totally dead, most likely caused by the homogenization of society caused by television and mass media.
Even astrology seems to have taken some big hits. I'm sure there are still some nutcases that follow it, but nothing like it once was.
One superstition, however, seems to be actually gaining prominence: Feng Shui. There are people who actually take it seriously. My wife has a friend (who's Asian) whose mother actually made her not buy a particular condo she was looking at because some Feng Shui witch doctor didn't like it. I've even heard some stories about dot-com idiots in the Silicon Valley who felt the need to blow big $$$ on Feng Shui analyses of their office spaces.
Not sure what the point of all this is, but I found it interesting.
[of course, I'm leaving out religion from this discussion of superstition, but that's another subject entirely. :)]
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
Anyway... Just because your a compulsive paranoid doesn't mean that they're not after you.
If enough people follow a given superstition, perhaps we need to question whats wrong with the ones who aren't following it?
I think it's time for the long white huggy coat with long arms that wrap around the back.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2, Interesting)
Many of the things that you mention, like the rabbits foot, or knocking on wood, are just a superstition. They don't have any practical use in real life.
Feng Shui is largely a superstition, but it also has a great practical aspect to it: It is also a great decoration & design strategy.
Houses that follow Feng Shui can look nice, clean and organized: not because of the spiritual aspects, but rather because Feng Shui helps you to reduce the clutter, keep things clean, and to find a place to put the flowerpot and hang the mirror.
And really, these houses would probably look nice if they followed any design strategy, but Feng Shui just happens to be the buzzword of the decade...
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
Some of these include not having particular numbers in the address (bad luck I guess) and not having the bedroom door opening in the same direction as the front door or else your energy flows out of the house while you are sleeping?
It always makes me laugh when I hear these stories from her.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
If you had a leaky house, this strategy might reduce drafts in the winter time, as the wall would provide somewhat of a baffle to the convection current.
Of course, Owens Corning sort of obsoleted Feng Shui.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Case in point, new building sites are inspected and all kinds of crazy nonsense is done to select sites, but quite surprisingly they knew not to build on formations that us westerners commonly build on that just happen to leak radon gas.
As with acupuncture, explaination loco, results unquestionable.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Case in point, new building sites are inspected and all kinds of crazy nonsense is done to select sites, but quite surprisingly they knew not to build on formations that us westerners commonly build on that just happen to leak radon gas.
I don't know; if you have enough rules, you're certainly going to coincidently eliminate some source of problem. That's like having a rule that "it's bad luck to walk under a ladder", and then crediting good luck when paint never falls on your head. Or a rule that a broken mirror creates bad luck, and then crediting the gods when you never get cut by broken glass.
If they happen to have a rule that building on scaly ground allows evil spirits to rise up and haunt you doesn't mean that they knew radon gas might also leak out of scaly ground (or whatever).
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
I think the point was they _didn't_ know. The theory proposed was that the Chinese have about 3000 years of experimental evidence about what works and what doesn't. Instead of using it to develop a consitent science, they just overlayed some superstition to explain the results.
Of course claims like avoiding radon gas should be looked at a little more closely. Given the life expectancy of medieval peasants i doubt the presence or lack of radon caused a statistically noticeable difference that would result in such spots being avoided. But i could be wrong.
This would be similar to the Biblical strictures against pork and such. Yahweh doesn't want us to eat pork. How can you tell? Cause sometimes after eating pork you get sick and die. Doesn't mean they knew about the parasites in pork.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
X-rays: explanation loco, results unquestionable (pictures of internal structures of a human body! damn!). Oh shit, I'm ~107 years too late for anyone to take that statement seriously... (first paper on x-rays was published in 1895)
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Speaking of not eating pork: can you tell me why people in the Western culture don't eat dog meat? Would you call that superstition too?
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Speaking of not eating pork: can you tell me why people in the Western culture don't eat dog meat? Would you call that superstition too?
Actually, there is a logical reason: It's because dogs are a domesticated animal, created by humans. Same for cats. They've been bred for thousands of years to provide companionship, emotional attachment, and last but not least, partnership in work. Therefore they don't tend to be seen as animals for food.
It's only in very poor countries where meat is scarce and companion animals are a luxury that you tend to get dog meat as food. Even then, many cultures won't eat them if they are working breeds and provide a useful service.
Re:Eating dogs. (Score:2)
Pigs are domesticated animals created by humans. They've been bred for thousands of years to provide garbage disposal.
IANAPF (IANA pig farmer), and I could be wrong, but I don't think your typical food pig has been modified by humans all that far from your typical wild pig. Not like wolves -> dogs.
I tend to doubt that pigs were bred for "garbage disposal", unless you mean that they are efficient at eating scrap-waste and making themselves into food. Personally, I look at pigs as a vital source of bacon and pork ribs (*smack* *smack*). :)
Re:Eating dogs. (Score:2)
The fact that you find pig tasty is also proof that eating dogs is a reasonable responce to certain conditions. Once humans decide to eat something, they learn to like it. The smell of dog revolts you and is tasty to others. The smell of pig revolts me.
I think the thing with dogs is more emotional than anything else. I never smelled cooked dog, so I don't know if it would revolt me or not (probably not, to be honest, I like meat -- a lot).
Jim Rome probably said it best one day: "I'm not going to eat the guy who brings me my slippers. I'm not going to eat the guy that protects my family". And that's really what it comes down to. Dogs have been bred to be "man's best friend" and be a useful part of the family. Pigs have been bred to be eaten, although some have pigs as pets, but then, people turn just about anything into pets.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
Pigs are filthy! THEY WALLOW IN SHIT! Good enough to keep people from eating them.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
That's a pretty easy one. Butt-sniffing and poop-eating. Talk about a prime way to transfer parasites. Dogs have got tons of worms, heartworms, tapeworms, ringworms, etc. Then we get onto the fleas & ticks and it gets even worse.
Cats suffer from the same issues, but not as badly because they don't tend to play in other cat's poop.
Any animal that is dumb enough to roll around in another dog's poop is certainly unsafe to be eaten.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:4, Informative)
First off - no one mentioned trichinosis - the worm that often lives in pig meat and is fatal to humans. If you eat pork with trichina worm that has not been well cooked, you can get infected yourself. That is the reason both Jews and Muslims have a superstition about avoiding pork - because 2000 years ago, give or take, it was real hard to cook pork well enough to kill the worm without making the meat into charcoal in the process. That no longer applies in a 1st or 2nd world country where we have ovens, yet the superstition persists and you get to hear all kinds of rationalization for it about pigs being dirty and what not, even in the face of contradictory evidence - which is a prime characteristic of a superstition.
Second - both pork and lobster, and even shrimp for that matter, are all haram. The only kind of sea food that is halal is that with scales on it, i.e. fish. If you don't have a learned person to ask directly, just whip out google and do a search, it should take you about 30 seconds. There is no halal method of slaughter for any of these animals to prepare them "properly."
Third - pigs are not naturally dirty animals. They seem to tolerate crap pretty well, but they certainly don't go out of their way to live in feces. It is humans, for the most part, that force them to live that way. Wild pigs certainly do not live that way at all - I grew up in an area with enough feral pigs to know that first hand.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Call it a law, I know the sharia does, but that doesn't make it any less groundless in a modern country. There have been plenty of laws, both western and eastern that were based purely on superstitious beliefs, with even less grounding in reality than the ban on pork, yet indeed they too were laws.
The only reason pork is popular, is that modern people do not think that they live with the pigs. However, they do:
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/nspills.
Sorry, but that is just a more sophisticated form of rationalization. Your link talks about all types of feedlots, not just hogs. In fact, there is only one reference to pigs in the entire article. Having been around cattle feedlots myself I can tell you that they are just as environmentally damaging as the hog feedlots and chickens aren't that much further behind.
As for Shrimp You are confusing Halal and Kashrut. Shrimp is not Kosher. Shrimp
http://www.islamonline.net/fatwaapplication
That link really doesn't agree with what you are saying, it leaves it pretty ambiguous, meanwhile this link, and my father-in-law, both agree explicitly that shrimp and lobster, or any other animal from the sea without scales, are haram:
http://www.al-islam.org/organizations/AalimNetw
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Not when the point is that making it a "law" does not confer any greater validity to a belief.
Your argument boils down to the idea that, because we have made cow production as hazardous as pig production, pig production is now okay.
Feed lots are no more a required part of hog farming than they are a required part of cattle farming. It is just that in the USA packing animals in tight places and treating the side-effects of that, namely disease, with anti-biotics and hormones appears to be more efficient because the full cost is not born by the farmers, we all pay for the resulting pollution.
But there is nothing inherent about pig farming that means they have to be raised in such terrible conditions. There are free-range hog farms just as there are free-range cattle and chicken farms.
Furthermore, hogs are vastly more efficient at turning grain into meat than cattle or any other form of livestock besides fowl. In this way, they have less of an impact on the environment per kilo of protein produced than cattle, goats or lamb.
Additionally, pigs are able to subsist on a wider variety of diet than cattle or just about any kind of livestock, including fowl. In nature, the output of one process is always the input for another - light/dark cycle in plants, herbivores producing fertilizattion for for more plants and meat on for carnivores, etc, etc. In that sense hogs both compete less for resources with humans than other kinds of livestock because they are more efficient and and are able to better live alongside humans by consuming some of the waste products that humans produce - mostly the by-products of food preparation.
If you want a modern responce to food animals, there is one, Vegetariainism. It also happens to place you solidly within the traditions of cleanliness.
Again with the traditions. How about the modern world? Vegatarianism has "unclean" effects on the environment too. The most severe one that comes to mind is global warming. If you accept that carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for increasing the rate of global warming, then you are likely aware of the fact that cow flatulance is the #1 source of such emissions. But, you are probably not aware that the #2 source of such emissions, which is a very close second at that, is rice paddies. With so many people, vegatarian or not, eating rice they are having almost as large an impact on our environment as the cattle industry, While pig flatulance is such a small contributor that you'd be hard pressed to even find it on anyone's list of contributors to global warming.
I appreciate your responses in this debate, and they are certainly head and shoulders above the knee-jerk rationalizations of my wife and her siblings. But, just like their responses, it is clear that yours come from a set of basic assumptions, based on an ingrained belief or faith. It really is impossible to argue with faith because, by its very definition faith means accepting some ideas as inarguable, and usually unprovable (or disprovable) truth.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
Not sure what the point of all this is, but I found it interesting.
Well feng shui does have practical benefits as others have commented. If you follow it your (house/apartment/office/whatever) will be more ordered and attractive than if you just tossed stuff around wherever.
Presumably underlying all the superstition is some experimentally developed human psychology. People who have messy cluttered stores don't get as much buisness as people with clean well organized stores. The fact that feng shui experts tell their customers that the store should be well organized by having a particular kind of pot in a certain corner may or may not be relevant. It might just be the fact that it forces cleanliness and organization, or perhaps it's been refined enough over 3000 years that they've found that people havea preference for a pot in the left corner of them room rather than the right.
Regardless of the exactness of the details, and the (in my opinion) irrelevancy of the mystical component, overall following feng shui probably gave you some increased chance of success in life compared to those who didn't bother.
Now days you could probably get just as good results with a good interior decorator, but that doesn't mean that feng shui won't still do the job. Of course the positive psychological feedback from having consulted a feng shui expert (for those who believe in it at least) probably helps too.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, the difference between feng shui and some of the other superstitions you mentioned is that some feng shui is actually real, meaning that it works. The real problem is that some people have taken what used to be a highly local practice and over generalized it.
For some very simple examples:
- You don't situate a house on a "dragon's tail" because the dragon will become angry or stir in his sleep. A dragon's tail in this context means a certain shape of hill; this obviously comes from earthquake country.
- In Hong Kong, face your windows to the south east. This is probably because if you face east, you avoid the afternoon sun so your home will be cooler when you get back home after work. If you face south, you can catch the breeze off the ocean, again cooling you down. You don't want to face north because the winter wind will make your (unheated) home too cold in the winter. This probably dates from times when whites lived on Hong Kong Island and chinese lived in Kowloon.
- There is some rule about not living in a certain kind of valley; unfortunately I've forgotten exactly what it said. The point of it was to avoid swamps that lay in the bottom of valleys because they were mosquito breeding grounds.
Just because a bunch of con men have taken over the name, doesn't mean that all of feng shui is bogus...
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:1)
The CFO was at the root.
Anyway less than 2 yr after all that was done the
company is out of business...
go figgure.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
Interior designers and architects do largely the same thing, but often to more western tastes. Their terms are artistic, rather than spiritual, but the effect is the same. Any deliberately designed space, done by someone who makes a living designing spaces, will be much more liveable and workable than a space haphazardly thrown together in the course of use.
Re:Speaking of Feng Shui... (Score:2)
eg: don't sleep with your head under a window. Why? When it rains, your head'll get wet.
eg: don't sleep facing a mirror.
Why? you'll scare the shit outta yourself if u get up at night.
It's all logic. Of course, over the years some reasoning has been lost and some of it is now crap. Just means you gotta be careful which 'expert' you choose.
NOW they come out with this... (Score:1)
"Lets thing with us" (Score:2)
engrish [engrish.com]
530,000kWh/year (Score:2)
It sounds great, and looks really snazzy but doing the math I am less and less confident in the potential of PV cells:
Max. power output: 630kW
Hours in a year: 8760
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:1)
530,000kWh/year = 60kW.
So enough to power 1000 light bulbs. Or 20 3-bar electric fires. Not bad
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:1)
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:2)
Yeah, I screwed that up - blame monday morning.
What I meant to say was, the (estimated) actual production is about 1/10th of the maximum - reasonable considering the cycle of the sun throughout the day.
Being generous, a normal domestic cycle will give you a similar figure, so we can calculate the number of houses catered for:
630kW = 1090A, 3 phase
1 house = 35A single phase
1090A = 125 houses (75% diversification)
The 35A above is for a small, all-electric house.
So, not terribly much electricity for such an impressive looking structure, is it? Of course, this is leaving out the problem of all the electricity being generated in the day, rather than morning and late evening when it's most needed.
Which brings me to my main point - why are we spending so much time and money on PV cells when they suck? There are plenty of technologies out there which may have far more potential, but need development. Our current fetish with PV cell indicates to me that people are more concerned with PR and the appearance of "greeness" than actually solving our energy problems.
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:2, Insightful)
PV sucks? (Score:1)
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:1)
nasty chemicals (Score:1)
Re:530,000kWh/year (Score:2)
So, what is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
From the writing in the Slashdot article, I've gathered the following:
It has solar panels.
It has an LED display.
It has bathrooms "under" it.
So based on this information, the "ark" is a solar-powered advertising sign with bathrooms under it which are lit by LEDs. Are the bathrooms underground? Are they porta-potties? Why were bathrooms part of the design when they seem rather unrelated to the concept of advertising? Is the "ark" a prototype for a whole bunch of "arks" which are to be produced and distributed for home use? Or for commercial use? Or are they too huge/expensive for more than a few organizations in the world to use? OR, is it a one-of-a-kind tourist destination somewhere in Tokyo? Will it fit on your computer desk, or is it the size of a couple football fields? (I got a small incling of scale in the flash animation, because little flowers were growing on the ground below the picture of the ark, but you never know)
Is this another example of the increasingly-common marketing mimimalism that companies like to use to infuse an annoying hybrid emotion (composited from annoyance and curiosity) into their victims in order to spur them to voraciously seek out all information available on the product just to find out what it IS?
Or was there some hidden screen on the website somwhere that said, in plain english, "The Ark is a ______, built for ______, it will probably be used for the purpose of __________ by _______ or _________."?
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
This is my girlfriend's interpretation of the article - if she's right, then the Japanese are wasting their technological brilliance. If she's wrong, then it's a good example of how lacking of fundamental data that the original article was.
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
Obviously
Re:So, what is it? (Score:5, Informative)
A photovoltaic collector provides the power to run a system of lights and a water purification system. The lights and water purification system are brought back together to provide a set of clean roadside restrooms. Some of the company's ongoing research (which is normally nothing but a revenue drain until productization occurs) is demonstrated to the public at large in a way that clearly benefits the company.
It is a brilliant, practical, impressive, and functional billboard that meets the needs of travellers, serves the purposes of corporate PR, and extracts the best possible value out of a huge pile of returned surplus PV cells that were returned to them because they didn't put out the advertised power.
Talk about making lemonade outta lemons.
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
Now, if you could only get yourself hired to write copy for Sanyo; their press releases would start to make some sense!!!
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
"Purpose of Establishment Solar Lab will conduct various activities to realize a clean energy society. Its focus is to present exhibitions to create an interest in global environmental issues and photovoltaic science among the younger generation which will lead in the future. We hope this museum becomes a "Place promoting Life" where new activities will be created through visitors, staff, business enterprises, and regional communities thinking about and discovering the relationship among the "Sun," "global environmental issues," "photovoltaics science," and "human beings.""
They also have the dimensions listed. Now the thing I would like to know is the actual cost of construction. $5; $500,000; $500,000,000? Who knows?
Re:So, what is it? (Score:1)
Pardon my density, I forgot who we were dealing with.
It looks pretty damn cool, but... (Score:1)
Incomprehensible (Score:3, Insightful)
Could he have at least said 77kw+? Solar Ark isn't very discriptive.
The use of the term "Feng Shui" is not necessary, and prettry much improper in this context.
Sheesh. Can't we do better than this?
Re:Incomprehensible (Score:2)
How about this: "Sanyo builds new clean power plant."
The Bullet Train (Score:1)
Cheap (Score:1)
Well considering that a high intinsity LED probably costs about 30-50 cents a piece in bulk... and then the time to wire them up..
And solar panels are about 50 cents a watt, maybe a little less in bulk.
I don't see how this thing cost less than several million dollars.
Lighting the restrooms (Score:1)
That's not what I read. My understanding is that the light is natural sunlight, collected by a device that follows the course of the sun by using a motor powered by its own PV cell. Where did you get the above quote? Did you just decide to make it up?
Mmmm, feels good.... (Score:1)
Non polluting? Ahem... (Score:4, Informative)
This web site does not describe the process they used to fabricate the solar cells. If they use the same old cheap process as usual, their cells slowly release arsenic in the environment. In 10 to 15 years, the cells will be too porous to be useful and so worn out they'll have to be scrapped.
Which of course will release all the arsenic still trapped in them.
I really don't know what's this legend about the semicon industry not polluting. Between the huge water use and the nasty chemicals, any semicon plant is a drain on resources. And solar cells release contaminants, so it's not an environmentally acceptable power source either.
Between a nuclear plant and a field of solar cells of the equivalent power, the latter would be by far the worst source of pollution.
"hypochlorous acid" != Chemical??? (Score:2, Informative)
Read this [193.51.164.11] and tell me that hypochlorous acid isn't a chemical.
Hmm. The description on the Sanyo web site sounds pretty close to swimming pool chlorine generators. They essentailly use electricity to genreate chlorine from good old NaCl.
I think using chlorine to purify the water is a good thing. That waterfall wouldn't be nearly as attractive if it was flowing with raw sewage.
Do your math! (Score:2)
Well... there's about 530,000 minutes in a year, thus, it produces 1 kWh/minute, or 60 kWh/h... which equals 60 kilowatts. So, it's not a small power plant -- it's a tiny power plant.
Little extra zeros tend to change the value of the number :-)
We need more of these (not first poster's either) (Score:2, Informative)
Sooner or later we are gonna run out of oil, and solar is the future. this shows that we dont big ugly solar farms to get the same result
bravo to the Japs!!!
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:3, Informative)
The main factor in this is a combination of the dirty manufacturing processes needed for solar cells, and their terrible return over their operational lifetime. We need develop cheap, long-lasting, efficient solar cells that don't create a lot of pollution during manufacture or else solar energy will remain merely a pipe dream.
One idea which has great promise is for us to put up power satellites. These satellites would collect the more concentrated solar energy outside the Earth's atmosphere, turn it into a microwave beam, and beam it down to collectors on the Earth's surface. Because of the enormous amounts of energy which would be harvested in this manner, it should be far less polluting than almost any other power generation method. The only real pollution would be in the form of heat pollution, but that can be taken care of with reflectors in space to lower the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth in that area, balancing out the heat added by the microwave beam.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:1)
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
While those efficiencies might not seem so bad recall the STC. Real world conditions are not nearly as pleasant. Typically due to dust and air pollution you're only seeing really 800 or so watts/square meter of sunshine unless you live in the mountains. Solar panels are also either dark blue or black so they retain a good deal of heat which affects their output voltage trmendously. Shadows and the angle of the Sun during the day are also going to cause output drops.
There's cases of using reflectors to increase the sunlight intensity on panels to increase their output. This causes you a lot of headaches however. Increased sunlight means a higher cell temperature which lowers your efficiency and output voltage. Adding active cooling just makes you entire system less efficient because power is being immediately used to cool the panels.
PV panels also require some nasty chemicals and most PV manufacturing plants are dirty monstrosities though many are getting better about the chemicals used. If you factor in all of the energy required to make a single solar panel though you're going to end up with a crappy cost/return ratio. Fossil fuels have good return ratios because biological and geological processes have been doing all the work of making the energy contained in the fossil fuels over millions of years. If you want to use the Sun to get power look into solar thermal rather than solar electric.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:1)
Trees? (Score:2)
Imagine if we could build organic solar collectors that would sequester CO2 as a side-effect and only require dirt as a raw material. Retreiving the solar energy would release much of the CO2, but net-net, there would be reduced atmospheric CO2 at the end of the process (they might create more dirt as a by-product). A potential downside is that they might take twenty years to achieve maximum efficieny, but if the process is pipelined, we'd have a constant supply each year.
Oh, wait...
Interesting, and I found some videos: (Score:1)
They're all real video and come in 3 diff. sizes: 28.8Kbps [boeing.com], 56Kbps [boeing.com], and 200Kbps [boeing.com].
This technology seems pretty promising in comparison to straight up solar panels, thanks for informing me.
Oil ain't done yet (Score:2)
Not that I'm in favor of lining the oil industry's pockets any further...
Re:Oil ain't done yet (Score:1)
Re:Oil ain't done yet (Score:1)
Temporary price spikes by OPEC have not proved sustainable because they brought forth new supplies, encouraged substitution of oil for coal or gas, and stimulated conservation by consumers and businesses.
In short, even if the new scientific evidence about oil is wrong, one can still say that the world will never run out of it. Higher prices will always bring new supplies to market.
What the hell does that even mean? We can't ever run out of oil because if we start to, we'll either use less, or find more, somehow?
Yeah, ok, IANA Geochemist. But any time Big Oil tells me I shouldn't be worrying, I start to think I might not be worried enough.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
Solar energy is a pratically infinite source of energy
Considering that a solar cell typically requires more energy to manufacture than it can produce during its lifetime, I'm not sure I agree. On the other had, negative infinity is still infinite.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
Solar isnt the future, nor is wind. The future is fusion and the way until we get it is fission. There is no alternative.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
In France I have seen some old stone houses where the owners open the shutters at night and then close them during the day. Walking in at noon you would have thought that you were in a cool cellar. No electric A/C need there.
Another example is in Egypt ( I think it was there ), some of the houses have a small tower on the roof, with slates all around it. The effect is the wind passing through it draws out the warmer air in the house. No electric A/C need there either.
This goes to show that sometimes tomorrows technology is actually a case rediscovering what some cultures have been using for centuries.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:1)
We could raise energy prices until it's possible to deliver with alternative energy. But I'll place a solid bet that any politician trying that will be facing a revolution as soon as people get their brand new electricity bill with an extra zero or two tagged onto the end.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
Nuclear energy isn't a viable alternative either, not until we come up with a good way to dispose of nuclear waste. The chance of it getting into the environment accidentally is bad enough, but with the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on it and spreading it around on purpose, the attendant risks and security costs make nuclear a non-starter. Not to mention that nuclear energy shares one of fossil energy's problems: it's running on a non-renewable fuel. When they dig up the last of the uranium, what then?
If you want a real innovative solution, how about a solar chimney [abc.net.au]? It combines the best parts of wind and solar power to give us cheap, clean, reliable energy 24/7/365.
Re:We need more of these (not first poster's eithe (Score:2)
The solar chimney project is interesting, and I've run across if before, but still, the thing is 5km wide, and 1km high. And again, you need 5 of them to replace a single fission reactor (if their 200MW output is 24/7/365, which I doubt, rather like an average of 50MW average, which would make it 20 of them to replace one plant assuming 100% efficient energy storage). We might as well build glass domes over most cities to capture waste energy. Again, it ends up being interesting, but not practical.
Re:Fusion and Fission vs. Solar (Score:1)
The alternative to fission isnt solar or wind. The alternative is freezing in a cave, because there arent going to be any solar and wind farms the size of Canada. No matter however much we may wish it. The scale of it is off by several thousand times from the realistic.
Re:Fusion and Fission vs. Solar (Score:2)
Or else we load it up into spaceships and shoot it into the sun. Of course we would first have to do a lot of research and design to make sure that the spaceships don't explode in the atmosphere and spread radiation everywhere.
If you want to coat your roof with solar panels and stick windmills on your backyard, by all means go for it. Maybe if you can get a decent setup with good batteries and are lucky enough to have a decent amount of wind/sunny days and such you might not even have to buy any power from the power company anymore.
Myself, I will keep getting my power from Indian Point 3. And you never know, maybe when we get fusion power you will be able to build a small one in your basement and pour some deuterium in every few days, who knows?
Tim
Re:Fusion and Fission vs. Solar (Score:2)
I see a VERY big problem with that. Every terrorist nut-job in the known universe will come out of the wood-work to dig up some nice nuclear waste to make 'dirty bombs' with, and then irradiate all of our major cities, making them unusable. So any nuclear dumping grounds will need fences, alarms, guards, etc, UNTIL THE END OF TIME.
Very expensive, that...
Re:Great! (Score:1)
SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. Gifu Plant
180 Ohmori, Anpachi-cho, Anpachi-gun, Gifu
Re:Great! (Score:1)
Location
SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. Gifu Plant
180 Ohmori, Anpachi-cho, Anpachi-gun, Gifu
Carbon debt - you can say that about anything (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, with processes like sol-gel you can almost make solar cells in a bucket, and cure them in an oven.