Hi Roy! :-)

 RJT> Sure,  and it's seriously inefficient all over the place.  And 
 RJT> hardly economical.
Well, both are really seperate issues. Inefficiency is no problem in this
case, I would say, since we get the sunlight for free. So it doesn't matter
if we only get 5% of the possible power out of it. It's not like we're
running out of it if our solar cells are inefficient.

 RJT> I remember reading an article quite some time 
 RJT> ago entitled "The Hydrogen Economy" or something pretty close to 
 RJT> that,  and none of it has come to pass at all.
Yep, investing into that kind of technology doesn't make sense econimically
as long as cheaper alternatives exist.

 RJT> I saw some serious windmills in both Western PA and in West Virginia 
 RJT> this past summer on a couple of trips we took,  though I didn't get 
 RJT> much info on either of them.  Those things were *huge*,  and 
 RJT> probably subsidized all to heck.
Those around here are rather small installation and I don't think they're
being subsidized much. The government did run a few experimental windmills
in the 80s, but those were huge things which didn't turn out to work well
compared with the cost of maintaining them. I think after that fiasco, the
government preferred to stay well clear of the matter.

 RJT> It's not "a few" though,  it's a lot more than that.  If
there was 
 RJT> some way to do this economically it would be happening on its own.  
Well, economy does not take long-term effects into account. If nuclear
power stays cheaper than wind power, for example, there is no way the
economy will ever favour wind power, no matter what future costs nuclear
power may cause. I don't think that all impulses for new technology should
come from the economy. It's also a social problem - do we want future
generations to have to deal with nuclear waste material or do we want to
invest in cleaner ways of generating electricity?

 RJT> The only way it seems to be happening now is when individuals choose 
 RJT> to do it (and pay for it out of their own pocket) on a small scale,  
 RJT> or when government money is used to subsidize it on a somewhat 
 RJT> bigger scale.  Neither approach offers much longer term viability.
I think small-scale employment of alternative technology can be a start, at
least it gets the equipment tested and initial problems get resolved.

 RJT> And it would actually cost quite a bit to do so,  most people who 
 RJT> offer that suggestion (which came up over and over again back when I 
 RJT> used to read the SPACE echo) don't understand the costs involved in 
 RJT> that kind of a maneuver.  Not to mention that nobody would want the 
 RJT> launches to take place anywhere near them!
Well, if rocket technology were used more, the things would be
mass-produced, which would make them cheaper than they are now. But I don't
think anybody would want to take the risk. ;)

 RJT> They even got all fired 
 RJT> up about NASA's RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) which 
 RJT> are basically a bit of plutonium or other isotope embedded in a 
 RJT> solid block of ceramic material.  Those things are designed to 
 RJT> survive reentry and crash scenarios...
They are. But then there was one russian spy satellite that crashed and
that also had a nuclear power source of that kind, and I think there was
quite a stirrup because radioactive material was set free a few kilometers
around the crash site. I don't remember the details, though.

 RJT> What I've read on it was more on the level of speculation,  ideas 
 RJT> getting tossed out and such,  nothing that was seriously considered 
 RJT> to be implemented.
Oh well, so we have the waste material, but we have no idea whether or
long-term storage will work for the time it needs to work.

Ciao
Pascal

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