Solar power station in Spain works at night

From Raw Story.  Excerpts:

A unique thermosolar power station in southern Spain can shrug off cloudy days: energy stored when the sun shines lets it produce electricity even during the night.

..
“It is the first station in the world that works 24 hours a day, a solar power station that works day and night!” said Santago Arias, technical director of Torresol Energy, which runs the station.

The mechanism is “very easy to explain,” he said: the panels reflect the suns rays on to the tower, transmitting energy at an intensity 1,000 times higher than that of the sun’s rays reaching the earth.



Energy is stored in a vat filled with molten salts at a temperature of more than 500 degrees C (930 F). Those salts are used to produce steam to turn the turbines and produce electricity.


It is the station’s capacity to store energy that makes Gemasolar so different because it allows the plant to transmit power during the night, relying on energy it has accumulated during the day.
..
As a result, the plant produces 60 percent more energy than a station without storage capacity because it can work 6,400 hours a year compared to 1,200-2,000 hours for other solar power stations, he said.



“The amount of energy we produce a year is equal to the consumption of 30,000 Spanish households,” Arias said, an annual saving of 30,000 tonnes of CO2.


Helped by generous state aid, renewable energies have enjoyed a boom in Spain, the world number two in solar energy and the biggest wind power producer in Europe, ahead of Germany.

Readers in the comment section had some great tidbits to add, including possible solar satellites beaming energy down to power stations, solar's capability to create energy without carbon dioxide, and while still not as powerful as nuclear plants, solar plants are as much as one-fortieth the cost and no nuclear waste.  What a fucking concept.  My favorite (partial but Right On)post and dumbass response: 

Gee, imagine where we might be today had America listened to the peanut farmer physicist who said we have to start now (late 70's), to avoid all the BS going on today with big energy and pollution and wars. BUT, NOOOoooooo!, Americans had to have an actor king, with a James Watt 'jehovah witness' anything goes for profit when it comes to natural resources because there is no tomorrow, in the White House.

..
George Washington Carver, just thought it was appropriate to write his proper name. For he was such an extraordinary man!

Actually, it was Jimmy Carter.  Crazy old Jimmy Carter.  We could have had solar collectors on all new buildings after say.. 1978.  Yeah, solar collectors sucked in the 70's and 80's, but with 30 years of hardcore Research and Development, we would have prevented the endless loop of Resource Wars the 21st Century will surely hold.

And all the oiltards laffed.  HAR HAR HAR!  That peanut farmer don't know nuthin'!  OIL is KING!  Turns out, they were wrong, he was right, and we're all fucked.

And why don't any of the progressive pundits ever bring this up?  Say it loud and proud:  Jimmy Carter was fucking RIGHT!

Breakthrough promises $1.50 per gallon synthetic gasoline with no carbon emissions

Great news! Corporate lawmakers will have to work overtime to kill this one.. But they will try. Excerpts:

UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.

According to Stephen Voller CEO at Cella Energy, the technology was developed using advanced materials science, taking high energy materials and encapsulating them using a nanostructuring technique called coaxial electrospraying.
And:
Professor Bennington, Chief Scientific Officer at Cella Energy said, “our technology is based on materials called complex hydrides that contain hydrogen. When encapsulated using our unique patented process, they are safer to handle than regular gasoline.”

No carbon emissions, stable fuel prices, a worldwide economic/ political alteration of power, influence and dependence, and you don't have to modify your car! All possible from Science! Thank you, Science! Does this prove you don't really hate America?

Even with all the instability and major unknowns in our collective, immediate futures, advancements like this prove how exciting this time is in relation to what could be: Provided we don't kill ourselves first.

Of Course They Did.

Letter: BP, Halliburton knew of flaws in cement in Gulf oil spill well. Friggin' ridiculous excerpts in italics:

Oil giant BP and contractor Halliburton knew of potential flaws in the cement slurry used to reinforce the oil well below the Deepwater Horizon rig before it exploded in April, according to a letter Thursday from the lead investigator for a federal probe of the Gulf oil disaster.

The letter from Fred Bartlit Jr. to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling said that tests in February on a cement slurry similar to what was used on the Macondo well showed instability -- and that both companies had the data.
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"Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data," the letter said."

"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well," the letter continued.

The news caused Halliburton stock to drop in value by almost 8 percent by the end of trading Thursday, to $3
1.68 a share. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, called for the oil spill commission to get full subpoena power, and for BP CEO Bob Dudley to agree to testify before Congress.

"The fact that BP and Halliburton knew this cement job could fail only solidifies their liability and responsibility for this disaster," Markey said in a written statement. "This is like building a car when you know the brakes could fail, but you sell the cars anyway."

Hey look! The perfect example of the failure of Government de-regulation regarding corporate safety practices, and all it took was a catastrophic environmental disaster that is far from over, far from "capped." Rather, the consequences of this disaster are just beginning to bloom. And there are no doubts this fruit will be poisonous..