The Oil Drum

bmcnett:
I am also eager to see more development for just plain bikes, as well, or electrics that attach/detach easily. I'd like to see commuter trains built with 'Biker Cars' (and Biker Bars?), so we can have 'intermodal commuting' .. your legs do the first-mile and the last-mile, easy!

re: The Scotsman article..
This was in Drumbeat a few weeks ago. I'm afraid it hasn't improved much with age.

Here is my first of a handful of comments below that unfortunate article;

"..."according to a study by scientists"

"The research was carried out by a team in Greece.."

Who is this reporter? Daniel Parker needs to connect this claim to a trackable group or institution for this article to have any meaning. This is as fresh as the Foreward in Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear', which claims that, tho' fiction, the work represents the findings of 'real scientists at real universities'. Oh my!

According the the US's NREL, or National Renewable Energy Labs, a solar electric installation will recover its embodied energy, including the aluminium and other 'balance of system' (BOS) components in 2 to 5 years, depending on which technology is used plus other particulars. Anything that requires a fuel input to operate is, by definition never able to recover all it's energy inputs, since they are continually being added on top, while pollution is spilling out the backside.

They don't mention the advantages that we can get from rooftop solar to gird against the increasing likelihood of grid failures (I'm assuming for UK, the US is certainly lagging), whether caused by intense weather conditions or underinvestment in maintenance, probably both. Distributed generation, with both Solar and Wind will help to level the loading on the wires so that overcapacity disruptions (meltdowns) can be lessened, and remote areas can continue self-generating when key links have gone down.

Here are two links with some checkable findings..
http://www.nrel.gov/pv/thin_film/docs/20theuropvscbarcelo...

http://ge5.green-e.org/myths/Myths-Solar.htm

Best Hopes for responsible reporting!
Bob Fiske

-- should be noted from the NREL study that the best of these panels can recover their embodied energy in about one Year, when you're not counting the BOS components.