Powering the world via solar CSP: a map

How much land would it take to produce the world's total electricity? According to this article, using CSP (concentrated solar power = mirrors + steam turbine) then the map would look like this:

What are we waiting for?

Labour questions government cuts

From the Guardian today:

Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, said: "These warnings show why it is so risky for the government to be cutting public sector contracts now when the recovery in Britain is so fragile and people around the world are worried about a double-dip recession. David Cameron is misguided and wrong to say the most urgent priority for Britain is to slash the deficit. The most urgent priority should be to secure Britain's economic recovery by boosting jobs and growth."

I agree with Ed.

State of the Carbon Market

Point Carbon has just produced a report on the state of the carbon market. Here are some points from the first page:

• Point Carbon’s fifth annual survey shows general dissatisfaction with the Copenhagen outcome. Seventy percent of the 4,767 respondents were either “very dissatisfied” or “dissatisfied” with the outcome. This sentiment was evenly shared across major countries.
•  For the first time, an outright majority of respondents say the EU ETS has caused emission reductions in the companies they represent. Forty-three percent of all respondents think the EU ETS is the most cost-effective instrument for reducing emissions in the EU, against 20 percent who disagree with this notion.
•  More EU ETS companies appear long in phase 2, based on the survey results. This year, 28 percent of respondents said their company had an EUA surplus in 2008-12, up from 24 percent in 2009 and 15 percent in 2008. The cement/lime/glass and pulp/paper sectors had the highest reporting of surpluses.
•  EU ETS companies know little about their phase 3 allocation. Twenty-four percent of EU ETS respondents said they were “very uncertain” and 13 percent said they had “no idea” how many free EUAs they would get in phase 3. However, 68 percent thought they would be short EUAs in phase 3. Furthermore, one-quarter will bank at least part of their credit limit into phase 3.
•  Fifteen percent of respondents have seen fraud, embezzlement or corruption in connection with a CDM or JI project. We further see that 28 percent of respondents in China have reported improprieties in connection with CDM projects, whereas respondents based in Brazil reported seeing the least fraud.
•  Expectations for a global deal are down. Among our respondents, 37 percent expect a global deal in Cancun, against 59 percent for Copenhagen in last year’s survey. Only 27 percent of respondents based in the US expect a Mexico deal, while Japan (47 percent) and Brazil (58 percent) have the highest shares of respondents expecting a deal in Cancun.

•  Expectations for US cap-and-trade by 2015 are down to 61 percent of respondents. This is the lowest in three years, and down from 81 percent in last year’s survey. But among respondents in Japan, the share expecting a Japanese ETS is up from 61 to 80 percent.
•  Respondents expect a global carbon price of $35 or €31 in 2020. This is down from $39 and €35 in 2009.

So can we say the EU ETS is working?  I am encouraged that more than twice as many respondents believe the ETS is the most cost-efficient way of reducing CO2 than those who don't. The price of CO2 (EUA) on the ETS market is currently just over 14EUR per tonne.

Mach 5 = 3800 mph

Do you need lithium-ion batteries that can survive Mach 5? I had no idea that we were creating (unmanned) planes capable of flying at 3800 mph...

Link

Solar update

First Solar's factory in Frankfurt. Note the reels of flexible solar material.

Less than 5 weeks ago, I did a post on Solar's Great Leap Forward. In the meantime, the manufacturing cost of Chinese conventional PV has dropped from $1.28 to $0.85/W (source). This is a 77% reduction in 6 years.

And today I saw that First Solar have reduced the manufacturing cost of their thin-film PV from $1.08 to $0.76/W (source: Big Gav). This is an 83% reduction from the price 6 years ago.

These are really significant price drops! Hopefully Lomborg (and ironically George Bush) will be proved right and renewables will cost less than fossil fuels by 2035.

Who are we? What are we?

“The more we delve into genomics the more we become uncertain as to who and what we are,” said Lipkin. “Fragments of retroviruses represent up to 10 percent of the human genome. The number of bacteria on and in our bodies outnumber human cells by 10 to 1. These are not silent passengers.”

 Wired Science

Sea level rises

Update 20 Jul 2011:
Latest figures are back to 3.2mm per year (+/- 0.4mm). 32 cm (12.6 inches) per 100 years.
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Update 17 Jun 2011:
Latest figures are  still 3.1mm per year (+/- 0.4mm).
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Update 14 Nov 2010:
Latest figures are  3.1mm per year (+/- 0.4mm). Down from 3.2mm in July
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The latest figures from Colorado University show a trend in sea level increase of 3.2mm per year (+/- 0.4mm). This is 32cm (or 12.6inches) per 100 years.

How damaging is just over one foot increase in a century? What are the odds it will be more than this, ie that the rate of increase will accelerate?