What is Digg?44 Comments
- thebigdripper, on 10/10/2007, -2/+141% is HUGE in a state like Florida. HUGE!!!
- davidryal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+91% is a lot when you think about how much energy Florida requires...
- manicallday, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9!% whatever. Just take out 75 billion from the Iraq budget and just use to power the rest of Florida with solar power.
- Bukowsky, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9yea. but it's a step in the right direction.... 1% is still better than 0%
- justinx0r, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9Wait, isn't capitalism supposed to destroy the environment?
- trevorjez, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7i thought florida ran on taser power...
- bubba9999, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5We can tase 3 times as many people with this new power for less cost.
- Modestexcuse, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Very simple; about dang time!
- carpespasm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3no, that's just how we charge them.
- GeneralFault, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3An economist that plays too much SimCity. Just because there is room for a dozen Google plants, does not mean that is what would be constructed if not for the solar panels. Additionally, making a billion dollars per year in that area is not very efficient if you are supplanting something that makes less but saves more (i.e. it would cost much more to create nuclear plants of the same size). Besides A smarter SimCity economists would realize that there is room for both if you put the solar cells on the roof of each Google plant.
- withoutashovel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Put a whole bunch of the "ONLY 1%?!?!" 's together, and soon you're powering much of country off of renewable energy. A little goes a long way.
- bubba9999, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2We were running the state off of Energizer batteries, but they're made in China.
- manicallday, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Breaking I just saw this:
"The US Senate Monday passed a mammoth 648 billion dollar defense policy bill"
I think that's just about enough to power the entire country. For free. Forever. I mean enough to power everything that you own all day long. We could make New Mexico just one big ***** solar panel. New Mexico could just be Earth's space reflector. - notthemama, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Nothing wrong with several approaches. Some days I like to cook using power from nuclear plants. Some days I prefer using power from solar. Other days I have a taste for coal generated. Why lock me into one way?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Big corn will turn into Big Solar.We'llget screwed in the end like we always do.
- Modestexcuse, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Do you all mind just taking this comment to the top????? I've never been that poplular.....
- Alex2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1164 watts per meter hitting the ground on average over 24 hour period, times 2 square miles = 849 megawatts of power of light energy hitting the ground over a period of a day.
Sell power at 8 cents a kilowatt hour.
Profit!
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=200+megawatt+h ... - santiago1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2 Too bad the people there don't.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Now if only Democrats like Ted Kennedy could see the benefit of alternative energy and let them build wind farms in Massachusetts.
- Buelldozer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Awww, c'mon. While it didn't adhere to the classical rules of the joke it WAS funny. :-D
- BigBlueCarbon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1times 20% conversion rate?
what's the return on investment? if it were that simple, lets start makin money. - nkthen, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1That's a good news...
http://www.mysolarenergyathome.com - scottknick, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1By the time you heat the water, turn the turbine and push the power out over transmission lines, your efficiency has dropped drastically. Far more efficient just to put photovoltaics on people's roofs. But that cuts the utility out of the picture (except when they have to purchase the excess production) so instead we get thermal boilers and wind farms and solar satellites.
Read Barry Commoner's classic, The Politics of Energy. It's an oldie, but the laws of physics really haven't changed much in 30 years. - GeneralFault, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's more likely due to the NIMBY's in Mass than to Ted Kennedy's personal feelings on the matter of alternative energy. Besides, there are literally thousands of other alternative energy schemes that do not require to pepper the landscape with those unsightly wind farms (and solar farms for that matter, though roof top solar isn't so bad). Personally, I am very interested in hydro wave/tide power. I saw a system the other day that did not require any moving parts in the water and could be easily scaled to any size and did not require direct waterfront property (though anything further than about 1/2 mile from the water would be ridiculous). The idea was simple, create a big box with a turbine in the top. When the box fills with water, the air is displaced and the turbine is spun up. When the water goes back out, the air returns and spins the turbine back up in the other direction (or using valves or veins the turbine spins in the same direction). Simple, elegant, efficient, cheap, invisible, What more do they need?
- BigBlueCarbon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1ya, but if we cover the country in panels, where will Big Corn grow its crop?
- GeneralFault, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Some guys in my office did some calculations on this a couple of years ago. It was determined that a panel with something like 80 sqmi should be enough to power the entire country. If the system was decentralized, it would only need to cover a small percentage of building roofs as most buildings use a small fraction of the energy that the sun delivers (at 20% efficiency) to it's rooftop.
- bobjrn2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I wish these companies would stop beating around the bush with solar power ideas and start promoting nuclear again. A source that would well exceed 1% for half the money. Damn 3 mile island incident.
Other than that, way to show everyone that corporate america isn't all bad. - Dolphinese, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Solar Energy Calculator.
http://www.davidjarvis.ca/essays/solar-energy-calc ...
Calculates Solar Panel Energy in terms of funding, relative to the energy needs of the USA in 2004. - GeneralFault, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That would be 6400 sq mi, which sounds like quite a bit until you realize that the rooftops of buildings in California alone cover over 5000 sq mi
http://landcover.usgs.gov/california.php - BigBlueCarbon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1i get 6000 sq mi
better to just build nuclear plants - vikramraja, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0It is great that a huge state like Florida is doing something like this for the environment, but should be experiment in Nevada or something?
- notthemama, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I can't possibly see Nevada letting Florida set it up there.
- skunk3gr33n1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Bah, what the hell, I'm feeling generous.
- Alex2, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12 megawatts at 8 cents per kilowatt hour is 16000 dollars per hour. or 160 million dollars a year.
An economist would put up a dozen Google plants making a billion dollars a year each in that 2 square mile area. - DeskFlyer, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3FTA: [As exciting as this news is, it’s easy to feel down when you learn that FPL’s solar plans for Florida only amount to about 1 percent of the state’s power plant capacity.]
:( - Buelldozer, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2Only in Soviet Russia...
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is