NASA Unveils Greenest Federal Building In the Nation 172
An anonymous reader writes "NASA just unveiled its new Sustainability Base — an exceptionally efficient building that harnesses technology developed for the International Space Station. The high-tech complex produces more energy than it consumes and it was just awarded LEED Platinum certification, making it the greenest federal building in the nation. The project features an extensive network of wireless sensors that allow the building to automatically react to changes in weather and occupancy and NASA's forward-osmosis water recycling system, which cuts water use by 90% compared to a traditional building."
More Buck Rogers not less! (Score:5, Insightful)
This should stick in the craw of those luddites that believe Space Tech doesn't have any use on Earth!
Even the displays will be green! (Score:3)
There will be no red or blue pixels on any display used in the building, and no greyscale shit either. Just imagine the glorious greenish glow from all those high-tech CRTs which can be got cheap from almost any landfill...
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"There will be no red or blue pixels on any display used in the building"
Almost a hilarious statement considering my own field of 'green' tech.
Re:More Buck Rogers not less! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes... except without a goal, the money that you spend on those degrees would be wasted. I'd say that one good goal is worth more than a million Ph'Ds.
You know what you get with more doctorates and no goals? More people looking for hair loss remedies and erectile dysfunction pills.
People work towards competing against limits, or each other. I'd prefer that they spend billions on "tin cans in space" than on arms proliferation or viagra. Let's face it, there is a time we have to suck it up and get into space or we are extinct as a species. We might have a billion years to do it, or events may conspire to make that period of time much, much shorter.
Space exploration challenges our need for new materials and technology more than just about anything else I can think of. We also know that the solar system alone has enough in the way of resources to keep us going for a very long time, but we have to pay the steep upfront costs of infrastructure there to be able to take advantage of it. Those costs will not become magically smaller as time goes on. Nothing about the iPad or smartphones is going to get us there. We have to design specifically for non-terrestrial environments and stresses.
Without a space program, I am not sure what you think all those post-grads would be doing except looking for jobs that no one wants to hire them for.
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It wouldn't have been developed if there wasn't a need. The need was for survival in space. Without that pressing need, many technologies would not have even been dreamed up.
Reading between the lines (Score:5, Funny)
NASA's forward-osmosis water recycling system, which cuts water use by 90% compared to a traditional building.
You are drinking your own urine.
And whatever other urine they can find.
On the plus side, the entire process renders the building water orange and tastes like Tang.
Yes and? You always have been (Score:5, Informative)
You are eating someone's shit, breathing someone's farts, eating someone's rotting corpse and drinking someone's pee. Welcome to the wonderful world of nature. (Plants grow on fertilizer (shit), oxygen is the bad breath of plants, meat and plants are dead bodies, and every bit of water has been through someone's digestive track).
Always strikes me as funny that people who would happily pay a fortune for the right to drink from a spring that a bear shat in but refuse to drink tap water that has been filtered and monitored to hell and back. You were made from dirt, eat dirt and will become the dirt in someone elses cycle of life. Enjoy!
Re:Yes and? You always have been (Score:5, Funny)
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Boggles the mind.
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I could be wrong but I thought you could only get to Iron in a star.
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Every element heavier than gold was made in a supernova.
I could be wrong but I thought you could only get to Iron in a star.
Is the latter not included in the former? >_>
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Iron is lighter than gold, by quite a bit. I don't know if he was saying that iron, and everything heavier than it, were made in stars, in which case it would include gold, or that iron, and everything lighter than it were made in stars, in which case it would not include gold.
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Everything up to and including iron can come from normal fusion. To get past iron you need something more. I don't know if there are processes shy of a supernova to do that, but certainly a supernova does, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that there are other processes as well, though maybe more limited.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-process [wikipedia.org]
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Always strikes me as funny that people who would happily pay a fortune for the right to drink from a spring that a bear shat in but refuse to drink tap water that has been filtered and monitored to hell and back.
If you're talking about bottled water, it's probably from a municipal water supply, just in a different part of the country. But you're right that tap water in developed countries is safer, cleaner, and (according to blind taste tests) tastier than any other kind of water you can get.
Most greywater systems focus on reusing the water for toilets. Who cares if it's safe to drink if you're just going to piss in it?
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That's why greywater recycling systems *don't* spray greywater. You pipe it at least twenty-two inches underground and distribute it to deeper root systems. An orchard is the typical endpoint for a three-way valve system diverting water from a laundry machine to the outdoors - and it works very well. The extra contents, provided you don't use salt-producing washing compounds, are actually very good for plants.
This green stuff that works isn't your typical suburban stuff with a few tweaks, it's a deep re-
The Rorschach Response (Score:2)
You are eating someone's shit, breathing someone's farts, eating someone's rotting corpse and drinking someone's pee. Welcome to the wonderful world of nature.
Whoa there Gene Simmons, I didn't ascribe any positive or negative value to my observations.
I would however just add that usually I'm drinking someone else's rotting corpse pee filtered many months/years/eons through nature though, not from an "in the can and back by ten" kind of system...
Always strikes me as funny that people who would happily pay a
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Just like real astronauts. Also, you are wrong:
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I've noted it before, and I'll note it again: "You can't pee into a Mr. Coffee and get Taster's Choice."
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Have you every actually had Taster's Choice? I argue that your premise may actually be false, or at least that the product of the event may be indistinguishable from the normal brewing method.
Re:Reading between the lines (Score:4, Funny)
Well, duh.
Everyone knows that it's American BEER that's made of pee.
Taster's Choice and other American Coffee are composed of charred feces.
Can't be mixing up your excrements like that.
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Everyone knows that it's American BEER that's made of pee.
That's only true if you don't know anything other than beer that's advertised on TV.
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I hate to break this to you: Every drop of water you've ever drank or bathed in has at one point been dinosaur piss. It's true. And all that great soil? Microbe or worm offal. And you can't live without it!
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I would hope the recycled water has a separate set of pipes that only supply the toilets. That would make a lot of sense in areas where water is scarce.
Navy ships use sea water in the toilets. Kind of nasty looking in some places, but saves a lot of fresh water.
Re:Reading between the lines (Score:5, Funny)
So its got what plants crave?
Aerospace Please (Score:2, Insightful)
While I understand there is going to be spin off technologies from the Space program, I would rather they focus on their primary responsibilities.
Re:Aerospace Please (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like Tang and velcro?
If we're ever going to do human space exploration, this "green technology" could certainly pay off because people are going to have to carry everything they use. The line between what is and what is not "aerospace" is not as clear when you start to talk about long-distance space exploration by humans.
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Also, is to release budget from the smaller one they have to reallocate money, what a better way to reallocate budget while doing relevant research.
Why I don't understand is how wireless sensors are more green, if they probably require more energy to transmit through RF, than a regular wire. I'd have thought all their sensor network would be running over their AC lines instead, which could also
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While I would love that too, the problem is that it costs a lot of money to go into space. Money that many people are seeming hesitant to give them, as they don't think they get anything out of it. Projects like these demonstrate the practical applications of technologies developed for space exploration, and hopefully make it much more attractive to fund them for more space exploration.
Mostly glass and steel (Score:4, Funny)
The article claims it's the world's greenest building, but from the pictures it looks kinda blue, steely and clear for the most part.
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The article claims it's the world's greenest building, but from the pictures it looks kinda blue, steely and clear for the most part.
It's also ugly as sin.
Nasa needs to build a bio dome (Score:5, Interesting)
The first bio dome failed because the concrete consumed more oxygen then was previously believed. The facility never produced enough oxygen even to cure the concrete and thus couldn't be sealed.
NASA should build a bio dome that can be sealed. People don't need to live in it all the time. Use airlocks so people can go home at the end of the day. The point is that the facility should produce enough air, clean water, power, and food to keep five or more people alive indefinitely.
Once we can build such a facility we can theoretically set up bases on the moon or other planets. We might even consider keeping the plants alive entirely with artificial light since regular light cycles won't be useful on other worlds. We might have to turn geothermal energy into light or even use a fission reactor.
I don't care if nasa built an environmentally friendly building. That has nothing to do with space exploration. Want to impress me? Build something that produces more oxygen then the occupants consume.
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Most building mass would I imagine be taken from the surface of the destination.
More likely would be sealing off an underground cave or tunnel. Digging requires no more than the equipments mass. Sealing would require material for airtight foam.
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If all you have are robots, though, then why would you need a cave? Have the robots build the structure and get the plants started. Then humans can come with life support systems and take over.
Re:Nasa needs to build a bio dome (Score:5, Insightful)
Another genius.
"Green" means something besides "environmentally friendly". It means "sustainable", too. And if human beings are going to be traveling really long distances in space, more than just "fly to the moon and fall back", then sustainability is going to be a big part of the technical hurdle that needs to be overcome.
Want to impress me? Start a permanent colony on another planet or outside of the solar system (not you, Karmashock, I mean NASA, but you are welcome to try). But even with this perfect dome you want NASA to build, they better have conservation down to a science, which NASA is trying to do, to their credit.
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And if we actually had the technology to take humans long distances in space, that might matter. But we don't, and it doesn't. There will be no Mars landing in our lifetime. And humans going to any other world other than Mars? Get back to me when someone actually learns to make that wormhole.
This building has nothing to do with space exploration, and everything to do with the government's greener than thou initiatives.
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Show me one thing they did with this building that was both new and applicable to building a colony on another world.
ONE thing.
And then tell me why they couldn't have done that in small scale to prove the science rather then building it into their swanky new crib at 10000 times the cost of an experiment.
You want to talk about concervation and sustainability? How about conserving your budget and sustainably managing your programs so that you can do decent science and discovery?
If you can't manage these progr
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As to less waste and fewer natural resources, that isn't new or in any way innovative or in anyway helpful in designing or researching a sustainable space colony.
As to economy of scale, you're ignoring the fact that your project consumed more resources then a standard building. Money is a resource.
If your ideas ignore money then we can colonize space using 1970s technology. Just throw money at it. If we launched 200 apollo rockets at the moon we could probably get a good little moon base going. And follow t
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The first bio dome failed because the concrete consumed more oxygen then was previously believed.
And here I was thinking it was because Pauly Shore wasn't funny.
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With current environmental policies there will be applications for that biodome right here on Earth...
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That's the cause of the operational failure.... The overall cause of the failure is more subtle and quite relevant here - the Biosphere ultimately failed because a) it was designed in accordance with ecological and philosophical philosophies*, and b) it was operated in accordance with ecological and philosophical p
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I don't care if nasa built an environmentally friendly building. That has nothing to do with space exploration.
Actually, it does. Much of the technologies used in the building were technologies first developed for use in space, where resources are extremely scarce, and need to be used sustainably.
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For Oxygen production, forest is about the worst you can get. When a tree gets over a certain age (not sure...not a plant scientist) it consumes more oxygen than it produces. You are much better off with Algae, or some kind of grass.
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When a tree gets over a certain age (not sure...not a plant scientist) it consumes more oxygen than it produces.
Depends on the age at which that happens. If it's quite old when that happens, then the tree could be replaced by a younger one when that happens.
More water conservation (Score:2)
If they want to be even greener, why not save more water and reduce the volume of waste discharged into the sewers? Not stopping at using the recycled grey water for flushing urinals and toilets, but providing waterless urinals in the mens rooms and urine separating toilets in the womens rooms. Maybe going even further and collecting the urine from the (waterless) urinals and urine separating toilets and processing it separately (eg as fertiliser) rather than discharging it into the sewerage system.
Lies (Score:5, Insightful)
From NASA's site it looks like the majority of power comes from an on-site fuel cell.
That's a bit like me building a big garage, installing a big-ass natural gas generator and saying my building returns power to the grid.
Now yes, fuel cells are better than natural gas, but it's still not the building producing it's own power. It's a small power plant on the same lot as the building
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From NASA's site it looks like the majority of power comes from an on-site fuel cell.
That's a bit like me building a big garage, installing a big-ass natural gas generator and saying my building returns power to the grid.
Now yes, fuel cells are better than natural gas, but it's still not the building producing it's own power. It's a small power plant on the same lot as the building
Bloom boxes (the fuel cells mentioned in the article) use natural gas as well. Then it's only question about the efficiency (in regards to CO2 and emissions).
Fuel cells might be the most efficient method of producing electricity in small scale, but in larger scale they tend to lose to bigger plants... for now (potential is higher though). Bloom boxes are rated for 100 kW and 200 kW approximately, with > 50% electrical efficiency. Gas turbines, gas engines can achieve this, but only in larger scale, thus
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So Hoover Dam is the greenest building...
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That's a bit like me building a big garage, installing a big-ass natural gas generator and saying my building returns power to the grid.
LEED doesn't recognize natural gas, coal, or large-impact hydro (like Hoover Dam) as sources of renewable energy. So while you could still LEED certify you're building with a natural gas harvester, or a coal fired power plant, or an oil rig (assuming the oil rig isn't movable and has a mailing address per the LEED minimum project requirements), you will have to do so without achieving the "On-site renewable energy" credit.
Also that being said, LEED projects are based on a theoretical energy modeling prot
"produces more energy than it consumes" (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only thing producing more energy than it consumes is a perpetuum mobile.
Cognitive Dissonance (Score:2)
Considering all the posts complaining about, "Why is NASA fooling with this "green" hippie bullshit", I just noticed the following headline on another site,
Now watch the quick 180 about how "innovative" and "forward-thinking" it is that Apple is working toward sustainability from many of the same people who were criticizing NASA's green initiative.
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Not that impressive (Score:2)
The high-tech complex produces more energy than it consumes...
Pfft. Big deal. This applies to all coal fire plants as well.
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I think you'll find that a coal fire plant consumes a lot more energy than it produces and that this energy intake is in the form of, well, coal.
If it didn't, we wouldn't need the coal, because we'd have just invented perpetual energy.
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If would have been cool if... (Score:2)
"Go Team." - Unknown
line item or extension? building bueaurcracies (Score:3)
I wonder if this new building really is a new building, or is it an "extension?"
Some snips from Wayne Hale, former Space Shuttle program manager
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
Construction of Facilities, February 26, 2012
A long standing federal law states that any new buildings must be approved by the Congress; any new building must be its own separate line item in the Federal Budget. This is to make sure that the legislators know exactly what is being built on Federal property; to ensure that money is properly spent and not wasted. ...officers and enlisted, who served at Fort Laramie in the late 19th century.
Every year the post commander would propose building 4 or 5 new officer’s houses, and every year Congress would strike those line items from the Federal budget. No new houses. Until one year, he had a really ingenious idea. He proposed that since the army was often in the field pursuing the “hostiles” that the government should construct four “field kitchens” to feed the men. Then, the commandant used the maintenance budget and the free labor of the troops during the winter months to build “extensions” on those “field kitchens”.
True in the 1880’s, true in the 1990’s, and still true today; it is no so much following the rules as it is finding a way to get what needs to be done in spite of the rules.
In fact, in Federal installations all around the country, I have encountered “additions” that were bigger than the original building. Makes you wonder about the effectiveness of a rule that was probably written in the 18th century.
So my advice to anybody trying to get things done in the byzantine maze of Federal regulations is to get creative. There is almost always a way to accomplish the mission in spite of the obstacles. Sometimes it pays to study history because other clever people have gotten their mission accomplished by perfectly legal and legitimate ways to work through the regs.
for more see, http://waynehale.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com] Construction of Facilities, February 26, 2012
The Memory Hole (Score:2)
The great thing about using Flash to announce your research goals is that outsiders can't use copy and paste to actually discuss them, or worse yet, make a backup copy to embarrass you when all those dreams of using Computational Fluid Dynamics to reduce energy waste and advanced greywater recycling tech to reduce water usage turn out to be little more than PR fluff. No, just retroactively alter the goals to reflect dismal reality.
Re:Still not truly green (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone knows that the solar panels consume far more energy in their production than they ever produce in their lifetime
Completely bogus. [wikipedia.org] It takes maybe 1-4 years to recoup the energy cost of construction, and the panels can last 30 years.
Re:Still not truly green (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone knows that the solar panels consume far more energy in their production than they ever produce in their lifetime
Completely bogus. [wikipedia.org] It takes maybe 1-4 years to recoup the energy cost of construction, and the panels can last 30 years.
When you look at not just your "source", but the source's source, over at http://alpha.chem.umb.edu/chemistry/ch471/evans%20files/Net_Energy%20solar%20cells.pdf
You will find it's not as simple as you make it out to be.
"However, it should be noted that the above payback periods assume that the modules are always operated at their maximum power points [5], as with a maximum power point tracker. It is also assumed that no photovoltaic power is wasted or dumped, as would sometimes occur in many stand-alone systems, such as those using battery storage"
Solar panels are NOT working at their maximum power point during most days of the year. Not even close to half of it, actually. The time to "recoup" the production energy will be significantly longer than you or the Wikipedia "summary" imply.
Re:Still not truly green (Score:5, Informative)
But even "significantly longer" is infinitely better than "never", so for those keeping score, the AC who said,
...is completely full of shit.
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But even "significantly longer" is infinitely better than "never", so for those keeping score, the AC who said,
Everyone knows that the solar panels consume far more energy in their production than they ever produce in their lifetime
...is completely full of shit.
Unless the panel is placed in an area where it rains a lot and winters aren't particularly sunny (UK anyone?). I can easily see that a solar panel in a temperate region can easily fail before it's broken even with production cost.
Re:Still not truly green (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you ask all the people in Germany whose solar panels have already paid for themselves?
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In fairness, they only pay for themselves in Germany because of huge subsidies, which they are now not doing anymore.
I remember talking to a French friend who was thinking of putting up solar panels. In the US, it didn't make sense because my rates are ~$0.11/kWh. In France he was looking at getting reimbursed at something like $0.30/kWh which changes things enormously, and IIRC in Germany they were being assured similar rates (paid by all electricity users). The Germans have recently reduced their subsidie
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In fairness, they only pay for themselves in Germany because of huge subsidies
Yup. Over here in the US, there are absolutely [yahoo.com] no subsidies [wordpress.com] on energy production.
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Oh, that's true enough, and there are even solar subsidies here. My point was that the fact that you can get a return on your investment thanks to subsidies really has no bearing on whether or not the solar panel will produce more power over its lifetime than it took to make it.
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Unless you're going to cite some actual failure rates, shut the hell up with your FUD.
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Not if they break? You're going to have to cite some really impressive failure rates for anyone to think you're not just grasping at straws.
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Quit relying upon outdated Wikipedia. Technology in semiconductor manufacturing progresses so rapidly that Wikipedia is a TOTALLY FUCKING USELESS source of information.
WIKI = What I Know Is, and what Wikipedia knows is OUTDATED in today's rapid-paced world of technology.
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Sorry, the truth isnt nearly as cleancut as either of you want to make it.
It takes up to 4 years assuming constant peak utilisation according to the source you point to. Constant peak utilisation is obviously an extremely unrealistic assumption.
More plausible usage patterns would result in longer times to break even. In practice tropical installations with well chosen location can get close to that. Marginal usage cases may never recoup in that sense at all though. Economically it can still make sense for o
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I read the papers (http://alpha.chem.umb.edu/chemistry/ch471/evans%20files/Net_Energy%20solar%20cells.pdf). They assume slightly below average conditions for a variety of different areas, and different types of cells. The worst scenario was still under five years for payback.
You keep stating "assuming constant peak utilisation according to the source." The source doesn't assume this.
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"It takes up to 4 years assuming constant peak utilisation according to the source you point to. Constant peak utilisation is obviously an extremely unrealistic assumption."
Maybe for silicon PV. Hi, this is past 2010, we've got low-power PV PRINTING. ROI even under worst conditions in the UK is 2 years. It's what is in use on our solar-assisted crop production sheds. ROI already achieved.
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the panels can last 30 years.
I've always wondered what exactly it is that causes solar panels to "wear out". Is it exposure to sunlight and/or weather? Degradation of interior components?
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the panels can last 30 years.
I've always wondered what exactly it is that causes solar panels to "wear out". Is it exposure to sunlight and/or weather? Degradation of interior components?
Don't forget lead-free solder.
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What everyone must keep in mind is this: Even if absolutely none of the solar panels produced today will ever break even (a debatable point, if nothing else), if nobody bought them now, there would be no incentive to increase efficiency in the manufacturing process. Unless physics makes it impossible for solar panels to ever be an economically viable option, I still think it's worth putting the effort into improving the state of the art in the field, even if it has to be subsidized by, oh, I don't know, may
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Except that can't be true.
1. Solar panels eventually pay for themselves in electricity. It might take a while depending on the climate, but they do have a payback period.
2. Companies selling solar panels want to make a profit.
3.Companies selling electricity on the grid using non-solar methods want to make a profit.
If solar panels never produced more energy than they consume to m
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Re:Still not truly green (Score:5, Informative)
It's true for the high-end space-ready panels intended for satellites (as used on satellites). When news of that hit the climate denial blogs, every anti-environmentalist idiot out there assumed it applies to all solar panels.
Re:Still not truly green (Score:4, Insightful)
Never heard of wood?
Ever heard of fire?
Wooden office buildings haven't been in vogue for about 150 years or so.
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Ever been on tour of Downtown Seattle, which had a huge fire that burned down all of downtown once? You cannot build a wood building in Seattle's downtown anymore.. :)
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Because there's no energy needed at all to erect a building made of wood. Nope, none.
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So far, we've got nano-printing tech that puts the energy ROI on solar panels to roughly 2 years.
Expected lifetime (low-ball) of TFP solar cells is a decade.
The poster has no clue what they're talking about.
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Oh shut the fuck up. Just because something is not universally applicable does NOT mean that it isn't impressive, or that it cannot be used for a significant amount of the population. I am so tired of you assholes thinking that because something doesn't meet your needs exactly that it's crap.
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"This building is in Mountain View California. The climate does not require much from a building to maintain the interior temps"
You must not live in CA. Up in San Fran, middle of July, that bay can freeze over.
Mountain View is not very far from San Fran, and shares the same bay.
Try again when you're a resident of the area and know the weather.
Re:and what a bargain! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Grün (Score:5, Informative)
There are bike racks on both sides of the front door, and only 3 SUVs in the parking lot.
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Seeing that we're on the topic of patriotism. And now that I think about it. I don't see any of the T.P.Crew helping any American. Where is the public record of, "the T.P.Crew did this, and because of that, those America
Actually, building green makes $ens$e (Score:2)
I'll admit I'm skeptical about the efficacy of the fuel cell, I would th