£370 MILLION FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM - GOING, GOING....

   This is on The Register (H/T Pournelle):

Russia, NASA to hold talks on nuclear-powered spacecraft

 Muscovites have the balls but not the money
Russia, the US and other nations are to discuss cooperation on building a nuclear-powered spacecraft, according to the head of Roscosmos – the Russian space agency.

Anatoly Perminov, Roscosmos chief, tells state-owned newswire RIA Novosti that nuclear spacecraft plans are to be discussed with NASA on April 15. Perminov added that "countries with a high level of reactor manufacturing technology" are to take part in the talks. The report mentions China, France, Germany and Japan: technically the UK can also make reactors but its capability is weak compared to the main nuclear players and its space presence even more so.

Perminov went on to add that Russia intends to complete its design of a "nuclear engine" for use in space by 2012, and that in order to actually build this, funding of 17 billion roubles ($600m) {£370 million] will be required. He envisages this funding coming primarily from Rosatom, the state nuclear agency, rather than Roscosmos. The international discussions suggest that funding or at any rate cooperation will also be sought from overseas.
It's widely acknowledged in the space community that propulsion more powerful than chemical rockets and power generation more capable than solar panels will be necessary if travel beyond Earth orbit is to become a serious activity. From the earliest days of spaceflight and before, in fact, it was assumed that nuclear power would provide both – and that space travel, mining, industry and so forth would soon spread through most of the solar system.
In the real world, humanity's deep-seated fear of nuclear power has meant that very few reactors have ever flown in space....
The Russians are showing every sign of being willing to finally break through the barriers of fear and deploy a powerful nuclear spaceship of the sort which might one day move the space operations of humanity beyond Earth orbit: what the Russians are not showing much sign of is having the money to do so.

The necessary $600m isn't a lot of money to NASA: but in fact NASA has plenty of nuclear space engine designs of its own on file if it wanted to build one. It's hard to see the discussions later this month bearing much fruit, much though space enthusiasts might hope for such.
***********************

     I have previously said how Britain could get a commercial orbital craft simply by putting up an X-Prize of £300 million, just above what we already annually give to the European Space Agency with no prospect of getting anything similar from them this century and at current rates not next either. The Russians do have the world's cheapest launch system - Soyuz. They have been producing Soyuz craft for 45 years and have it on a production line with all development costs long paid off. Not exactly state of the art but it works.

    Robert Heinlein said "When you are in Earth orbit you are half way to anywhere in the solar system" An orbital craft is needed for that. A nuclear spaceship is what will get the other half. If the Russians are preparing for the second half they are sure the first half is fixed.

   The £370 million being asked for is not a big sum - well not compared to what is on offer. It is only a bit above what we already spend in space (well ESA HQ in Paris) annually for virtually nothing; les than the £450 million spent by NERC annually (only 1 of many quangos existing to promote warming and other environmental alarms); 1/6th of a new Forth crossing; 50% more than the MP's office block Portcullis House; or I would guesstimate about 19 days worth of Britain's share in the war to promote Libyan democracy and our Al Quaeda friends lately from the "Balkans, Afghanistan & Iraq".

    On offer is, among others - easy trips to the Moon, feasible ones to Mars and the ability to get to the asteroid belt where one asteroid of 5km radius can hold 5 billion tons of metals which is roughly 5 times what the world uses annually. There are at least 40,000 asteroids that size or larger. The development of space will make everybody on Earth richer than almost anybody on Earth is now and the first countries involved will get in on the ground floor. Is that not worth it?

    According to the article Britain is an also ran in competition for partnership here. Partly because the last Labour government used regulations to bankrupt Britain' nuclear industry and sell of its technical capacity (eg Westinghouse which now makes probably the best mass production nuclear reactor in the world) at fires sale prices. Partly because no British government has shown any vision in space development. Even when we launched a satellite it was done in the teeth of government, who were cancelling the project and who made sure we never heard of it!

   So why should Russia choose us as a partner. Germany has gone to some lengths to be their main EU ally with things like the gas pipeline. China is their main political ally in the Shanghai organisation.

   Well firstly we would have to work at convincing them If we just go through the motions we will get nowhere. However if we actually try there are some things going for us. However friendly the germans may be being they aren't exactly lovable, least of all to the Russians. China is now the big and growing partner in anything involving the 2 countries and the Russians don't really want to see their future as a Chinese satellite if there is an alternative. Politically any such ship is going to drive the eco-fascist movement out of their tiny minds - it would be best to have the support of other Security Council permanent members to stop any Luddite resolutions, which excludes Japan and Germany. The US won't be involved because, as the article points out, they only do studies they don't ad actually doing things any more. So it is, or can be if want it, France or Britain. France has a fine nuclear industry while we have driven most of our experts to the USA and Canada. On the other hand if we don't have much of a nuclear industry we do have the English language. We could relatively easily hire nuclear scientists and engineers from the USA and Canada and rebuild our industry. To hire the very best people requires more than money and the chance to work on atomic space ships would attract a lot of the best.

      Going for this would not just get Britain in on the ground floor of the greatest expansion of the human horizon since we left Africa, arguably since we left the trees. It would also rebuild an industry in which we were once the world leader.
 From  the Warren Ellis graphic novel Ministry of Space

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Residential Clean Energy: Solar vs. Wind

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If you’re a homeowner interested in creating your own clean energy, chances are you are considering installing a solar pv array or a wind turbine.  Which is the better option?  Luckily Spokesman-Review did a story on Inland Power and Light in Spokane, WA and their efforts to see which is better for residential power generation – solar panels or wind turbines.  They installed a solar array and a wind turbine that were comparable in cost, and then sat back to see which one came out ahead.

The solar panels have produced about five times as much electricity as the wind turbine over the past 14 months. The sun’s ability to generate more electricity than the wind – even during short winter days – has surprised the utility’s engineers.

The utility bought a 35-foot wind turbine and a bank of solar panels. The systems are representative of technology scaled to individual homeowner use, Damiano said. Each cost from $22,000 to $24,000 to install.

The results were surprising to them because conventional thinking is that the Northwest would have more wind than it does sun:

But wind is more erratic than people realize, he said. The wind dies down, for instance, during hot weather and cold spells. Inland Power’s turbine is similar to the larger ones installed in the Columbia River Gorge. It needs a stiff breeze of around 12 miles per hour to start producing electricity.

Solar panels, on the other hand, generate a certain amount of electricity even on cloudy days.

This is a great example of solar vs. wind, but aside from understanding some of the basics about solar and wind power, it is really only applicable if you live in or around Spokane, WA.   At Mapawatt, we like to do the analysis ourselves and help show you how to your own analysis….so here we go!

We covered how to calculate solar power production in your area on our post “Solar Power Payback“.  For some reason, the utility did not share the actual sizes of the solar array or wind turbine, so we can only estimate those sizes given the price they paid.  Based on solar installer friends I have in Atlanta, I know solar installation prices (including panels, mounting equipment, inverters, labor, etc.) can be had for around $5/watt (since their system has been installed for awhile, and labor is more expensive on the west coast, I’ll use $6/watt) .  Since their prices ranged from 22k to 24k, I’ll take the high-range at $24,000.   Divide that by $6 and we can estimate that their solar installation was 4 kW.   Entering this value into the BP Clean Power Estimator, I get the yearly solar power energy produced for Spokane, WA at 4,856 kWh.

Now, the news article on the Inland Power pilot project states:

In the Inland Power pilot project, the solar panels produced about 15 percent of a typical household’s electric needs over the course of a year. The wind turbine produced less than 3 percent.

But this is a very poor way at analyzing clean energy because what is a “typical household’s electric needs”?  One home that is 5,000 sq. feet and has a family of six who don’t really try to save energy is going to use way more energy than a 2,000 sq. feet and family of three who tries to save energy.  This isn’t just a few percent, but could be double or even quadruple.  The only fair way to present this information is to give the yearly kWh produced, and recommend that people look at their utility bills from last year and see what percentage this would make up.  Or give the range that this could make up for different households, i.e. “This solar panel array would produce 50% in a smaller home that already conserves energy, but only 15% in a large home that doesn’t do a good job conserving energy”.  I firmly believe that when reporters try and over simplify energy data it only serves to confuse the reader more, or at worst give them false information that they then base their thought process off of.

Trying to estimate how much clean energy you can produce at your home is much easier with solar power than wind power.  This is because with solar, we know approximately how much solar insolation you will receive in a year based on your latitude and longitude.  This obviously varies due to cloud cover, but it can be reasonably estimated based on past history.  The only real variable for homeowners is shading by trees, buildings or other obstructions, but those can also be accounted for.

Wind power is not so easy.  I did tell homeowners how to find wind speed data for their homes in our post “Wind Speed data for Residential Wind Turbines”.  But I also pointed out the flaws in this method:

“So this data is helpful,  but unfortunately it’s not perfect.  Unlike the sun which shines straight down and is easy to predict (“Is there a tree in the way?”) wind blows from the side and is affected by the landscape, trees,  buildings, other houses, etc.  The only real way to predict how a wind turbine will perform at your house is to buy an anemometer.  Because wind can be so fickle, you can’t just rely on a computer program to predict if a wind turbine is going to be a good investment.  You should really do the measurement yourself, or have a reputable dealer help you do it.

Another thing to remember with wind-speed is that the “average wind speed” can be misleading when it comes to determining how much power a wind turbine will produce.  As I said in our post on the Anemometer, wind speed is so important because it is cubed in the equation above (P = .5 • ? • A • V³; where P = power and V= wind speed).  If you double your wind speed you don’t double your power output, you increase it by a cubic factor! For instance, increasing wind speed from 4 mph to 8 mph is not double the power output, but increases it 8 times (8³/4³=512/64=8)!”

Using data from a weather station will put you in the ballpark for determining if wind may work, but it wont get you all the way there.  For instance, if the wind speed is low at the weather station near you, the wind speed will probably be low near you, but a high wind speed at a weather station may not mean a high wind speed at your home.  The only way to accurately gauge how much power a wind turbine will produce at your home is to use an anemometer and a data recorder over a several month study.

But if we were to try to predict the yearly energy output from the wind turbine, we could follow my instructions to find the average wind speed for Spokane.  Doing that (see Wind Speed data link above) we get the following result:

At the bottom you can see that the average wind speed in Spokane over the course of a year was 8 mph.  One of the more popular wind turbines for residential use out there is the Skystream 3.7 sold by Southwest Wind Power.  This turbine is rated at 2.4 kW.  Even though this site says the Skystream wind turbine costs $14,000 to $18,000 to have it installed, let’s just assume this is the unit Inland installed for comparison’s sake.  Using the graph below on the Skystream wind turbine’s power output against wind speed, you can see that the Skystream produces 100 kWh per month wind the wind speed is 8 mph.

Using this information, one would deduce that this wind turbine would produce 1,200 ( 100 kWh per month * 12 months) kWh per year.  This is only a quarter of what we calculated the solar panels would produce (4,856 kWh) and this is very close to the real world results that Inland is seeing where the solar panels are producing 5 times more power than the wind turbine!  Of course I made many assumptions in my analysis, but I’m in the ball park and hopefully you can see how to do some of this analysis on your own.

As you can see, it is important to do your own due diligence when deciding between solar panels or wind turbines and the need to speak to many experts.  Don’t believe the turbine dealer who says “The wind always blows ’round here so you’ll produce a ton of power!”  Now you can do the analysis yourself!

Keep in mind, that this study is only for residential installations.  For utility scale installations, the prices change drastically as do the operating characteristics, mostly for wind due to the height of the turbine.

The story on Inland ends with a note that the up front costs of clean energy installations are out of reach for many, but I like the conclusion:

From a cost-benefit standpoint, erecting a wind turbine or putting in solar panels is still a reach for most homeowners, Damiano said. Those who take the plunge are making a lifestyle choice to reduce their carbon footprint, he said. Recovering the installation costs for turbines or solar panels can take years, even with the 30 percent tax subsidy available to homeowners.

“It will take you a chunk of time,” Finney acknowledged. But she encourages people to think about the long-term benefits.

“Some people spend $25,000 on a new car,” she said. “We decided this is how we wanted to live and how we wanted to spend our money.”

View the original article here

Emergency Solar Dynamo Radio LED Lights Charger Crank

This is a MUST for any survival kit. It comes with AM/FM/SW/weather band radio, thermometer, cell phone charger jack, bright LED flashlight, and a flip up LED reading Light. It can be charged by solar, hand crank, 110 outlet (power adaptor not included), or 3 AAA batteries (not included). Unit is small, compact, light, and easy to carry.


Features:

4 Ways to Power Up:
Hand Crank The Dynamo Handle
Unit is self-charged by the built in solar panel
Battery Power (3 "AA" Batteries Not Included)
DC Adaptor 6 volt (Not Included)
AM-FM Radio
Shortwave Band
Weather Band
4-Brilliant White LED Flashlight
4-Led Solar Powered Work Light
1-Red Emergency Light
Emergency Siren
Thermometer
Telescopic Antenna
Earphone Jack
Built In Speaker
Cell Phone Charging Jack (adaptor no included)
Dimension: 24 2x 118 x 84 mm or 9.5"x 4.6 x 3.3 inches
Weight 1 pound 3 oz (with out dry cell batteries)

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon

Solar / Hand-Crank Powered Emergency Flashlight, Radio, & Cell Phone Charger

The unit uses a rechargeable Ni-Cad battery: a rechargeable battery that has the ability of recharging over 500 times. This remarkable radio and light recharges these batteries using either the hand crank and/or solar panel to charge them. You can simply charge the battery in the sun, charge it in artificial light, or charge it using the hand crank. After the battery has been fully charged and discharged, one minute of hand cranking produces 10 minutes of play. The radio is compact with dimensions of 7-1/2 inches in width, 5-1/2 inches in height, and 2-1/2 inches in depth. To charge in car, 4.5 volt DC auto lighter can be purchased separately.

Price: $34.95

Click here to buy from Amazon

Survival Solar or Crank AM FM SW Radio LED Emergency Flashlight,3104

This is a MUST for any survival kit. It comes with AM/FM SW Radio, Flashlight, Thermomete, Cell Phone Charger, Blinking RED LED and Alarm Siren. It could be charged by Solar, Hand Crank, 110 outlet or Batteries. It also comes with 5 Adaptors that fits Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG phones.

Built in Thermometer
Telescopic antenna
Earphone Jack Small, compact, light, and easy to carry.
Can be Charged by Cranking, Solar or AC adaptor. Power adaptor is Included.
Can be used with 2 size D batteries
Dimension: 242x118x84mm or 9.5x4.6x3.3
Weight 470 gram or 1 pound 1 oz (with out dry cell batteries)
Charging& Play Time:
Method or Charging
Charging Time FM Play
Time
Light
Time

DC
Adaptor charging
4 Hours
8 hrs
8.5 Hrs.

Solar
Charging
10 Hours
8 hrs
8.5 Hrs.

Hand Crank Charging
(130 times/minute)
80 mins
8 hrs
8.5 Hrs.

(130 times/minute)
1 min
12 mins
13 mins.

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon

Aquabourne Wind up & Solar Radio AM/FM/WB - splash proof. V2 now works as an MP3 or IPod speaker!

Ideal for travel, camping, in the office, bathroom etc.No batteries required. Play time - 20 minutes of play from 1 minute winding (approx). 5 hours from 5 hours direct sunlight (approx). Runs directly from solar panel and charges when in sunlight

V2 great new features

Works as a portable speaker for all devices with a 3.5mm jack port- ie iPhone, MP3 player, Blackberry etc

Improved rubberised design

Can now charge from USB

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon

Solar powered boombox

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DIY vs. Off the shelf

We’ll get back to the nuclear crisis in Japan later in the week, but I needed something a little lighter for the middle of the week!

Pool and beach season is only a few months away, and aside from sunblock (I’m light skinned and adverse to skin cancer) and a cold drink, nothing goes better at the pool than some tunes!  The problem I had last year is that there are few electrical outlets at my neighborhood pool, and it’s a pain to find the large “d” batteries required to power my the cheap boom box I have.  And the batteries I do find only power the boom box for a few hours.

So I started thinking about how I could use solar power panels to make a boom box that I could use to play my iPod!

After a little searching on the web, I found 2 solutions:

Build my own solar powered boomboxBuy a solar powered boom box

Instructables has a great post up on building your own DIY solar powered boombox.  This system is composed of:

Solar panelBatteriesDigital amplifierSpeakersMP3 Player

Here is another good page for a DIY solar powered boombox.

I’m thinking about building my own solar powered boombox because I think it would be a great learning experience and a good conversation piece, but I’m not sure if the money I spend on all the parts and the time I spend learning the circuitry and assembling the boombox would be any less than I would spend if I bought one from a manufacturer.

Luckily I have that option because I could buy the Etón Soulra Solar Powered Sound System for iPod and iPhone (Black) for about $170 on Amazon.  Yes, this sounds a bit pricey, but you have to account for the “cool” factor right?

The Soulra can plug into the wall outlet and charge the battery for about 4 hours, but as this video review from the WSJ on the Eton Soulra points out, if you use the built-in solar panel you can extend the battery life for 8 hours!  The key is that the Soulra has to be in direct sunlight to charge, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you are at the pool or beach.

The biggest problems with solar sound systems seems to be that the solar panel used often isn’t large enough to power the boombox on its own (without charging the battery beforehand) and nobody wants to lug around a solar panel that they can’t carry in one hand.  Maybe someone needs to invent a solar umbrella that could power a boombox…and maybe a blender!  I’m going to continue researching this idea, but if I don’t end up shelling out the dough to get  a solar powered sound system, at the very least I’m going to make sure to get rechargeable batteries for my boombox!

View the original article here

Solar flare Class X 1.5 CME

Space Weather Message Code: SUMX01
Serial Number: 69
Issue Time: 2011 Mar 09 2354 UTC

SUMMARY: X-ray Event exceeded X1
Begin Time: 2011 Mar 09 2313 UTC
Maximum Time: 2011 Mar 09 2323 UTC
End Time: 2011 Mar 09 2329 UTC
X-ray Class: X1.5
Optical Class: 2b
Location: N90W10
NOAA Scale: R3 - Strong

From 1066 almost center

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Solar Cycle 24 Heats up

Several M class flares projected Monday glancing off EarthWatch for seismic and volcanic reactions...

HIGH SOLAR ACTIVITY: Solar Cycle 24 is heating up. No fewer than three sunspots (1164, 1165, and 1166) are crackling with M-class solar flares, and each of them has a delta-class magnetic field capable of producing even more powerful X-flares. Scroll past the double flybys for information about a CME now heading our way..
http://spaceweather.com/

M1.5 Flare / No Sunspots Needed: An M1.5 Solar Flare took place at 03:58 UTC Tuesday and was centered around the spotless plage region located in the south eastern quadrant of the visible solar disk.

M-Class Flares and two CME's - Several M-Class flares took place on Monday around Sunspots 1164, 1165 and 1166. Two Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's) did take place however both do not appear to be fully earth directed. These expanding clouds could deliver a minor blow to earths geomagnetic field within the next 72 hours. The largest flare thus far was an M3.7 which took place at 20:12 UTC Monday.
 
Solar Update - As reported above, several M-Class flares (7) took place during the day on Monday. Sunspot 1165 which is located in the southern hemisphere is in the process of rotating onto the western limb and will soon be out of direct earth view. Sunspot 1164 which is in the northern hemisphere will also rotate onto the western limb soon after 1165. The chances for strong solar flares will decrease somewhat once these regions are out of view, however there will remain the possibility for further flares around Sunspot 1166. Just to the east of 1166, Sunspot 1169 did show some minor growth during the day on Monday.
Solar Flux Update: Not to sound like a broken record, but the Solar Flux reading on Monday is 153 (No pun intended). This is yet again another high for Cycle 24. The last time the solar flux was as this level, was July of 2004. Please note that this flux reading is an estimate due to the Flare activity in progress The high-sensitivity channels on the measurement device were completely overloaded by the long duration flare and produced a SFI reading of 938.6 at 20:00z.
http://solarcycle24.com/

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