More Solar

The Beer: IPA goes down very nicely. I've given away over a 1/2 case already and early results are good. Got $10 for a mixed sixpack. I don't know what I'm going to brew next, but I found the best beer label EVER. It's Ale House Flaming Damsel. I can't find a good pic of it to link to, so you'll just ahve to go out and find a six-pack.

The Bicycle: The Madone is back as of yesterday. I plan to ride later today when it stops raining. I also put in an application at the Bike Shop. Can always use a buck-or-two and would like to learn the skills this way, instead of trial-and-error.

The VRWC: The MSM Full-Court-Press is on for Solar Energy. 64 MW. Great. 300 acres. Only when the sun is shining. Maybe they'd like to tell how much it generates in MWh over the course of a year. It's not (64 X 8760). Is anyone else going to question any of this?

By the way, for those of you who can't do the math, the 100 Gigawatts he's quoting here will require 1/2 million acres. Remember the maximum Solar energy falling on the earth is a little over 1000 watts per square meter....at the equator....at the equinox....at noon....on a perfectly clear day. That's 10-100 watt lightbulbs....for half a day. Maybe.

EIA data shows current peak demand at around 800 GW, so we're talking 400 million acres to replace all the evil other sources of electricity. Good luck with that. At best, solar will only be a niche. I don't want to minimize the contribution (although, you can argue that's exactly what I'm doing). But it isn't the future.