Tesla taking orders for solar shingles April 2017

Since the moment Elon Musk announced TESLA would be offering solar-power generating roof shingles for houses last fall I have had a "solar shingles" Google-alert set up to notify me when news about this comes online. This morning I got an e-mail with a link to a Tech Times story claiming Elon Musk had announced on Twitter that TESLA would be taking solar roofing orders next month (April 2017). I have not been able to find these tweets.  If you have any information on this alleged announcement please let me know in the comments. Also, what are the implications of getting on the waiting list?  If the current administration is successful in gutting subsidies for home energy upgrades (including solar panel installation) will it be beneficial to get on the waiting list while Obama era subsidies are still in effect?

I spoke with a Solar City representative at Home Depot a few weeks ago and she was pretty dismissive of the solar shingle roll-out, telling me that they will only be available initially in some test markets in regions (Hawaii and southern California) with no annual snowfall because the current version of solar shingles are not designed to handle snow.  If this is the case I would rather sign up for traditional solar panels. I also thought the new TESLA plant in Buffalo, New York would be focussed on these solar shingles, but according to the Solar City rep, the main production at the Buffalo plant will actually be traditional solar panels made in collaboration between Panasonic and TESLA.

Any clarifying information would be helpful.  Please comment below.

Soda Can Solar Panels?

Mr. James Meaney of Cansolair out of Dildo, Newfoundland is wrapping recycling and renewable heating together to bring free energy to market!

Tip to John for the heads up!

Swimming in Ethanol's Ethos

The Arizona Chemical wood pulp mill in Panama City, Florida sits within a stone's throw of the Gulf of Mexico.

Hey there TPG readers, CHECK THIS OUT!!! This article has been translated to Hatian Creole.  I am both flattered and impressed at this unsolicited dissemination of TPG material. Quite cool :)

By Kristopher Hite

Walking on a balance beam, the idea of ethanol powering America's future took a shove from the scientific community this week. A new study published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology indicates that no matter the starting material whether it be corn kernels or wood chips, switch grass, and corn stover (all forms of cellulose), the environmental impacts of more ethanol, and other so called biofuels, in the gas tanks of America will mean increased environmental damage. Specifically, this study discusses the expanding "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Nutrient run-off from increased farm fertilizers being applied to crops throughout the Midwestern United States will drain into the gulf and cause larger algal blooms. This, in turn, will rob the water of dissolved oxygen killing fish, crustaceans, and other gulf-water inhabitants.

Here we have a case of clashing federal mandates. The EPA has required that steps be taken to reduce the size of the Gulf's dead zone while congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) in 2007 which requires the production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. These two orders just will not jive with current agricultural practices.

Multinational biofuel manufactures are sitting pretty with the current federal mandate written in the fine print of the EISA but the citizenry need access to the knowledge buried in this recent paper to hold these companies accountable for the their potential environmental impacts. To the credit of cellulose-derived ethanol the amount of nutrients running off into the gulf would be reduced by 20% if all ethanol were to be derived from cellulose vs. corn. But either scenario will undoubtedly kill more organisms living in the gulf and increase the area of the dead zone.

Ethanol as a fuel source for transportation, home heating, and industry continues to be a double edged sword. After taking flack for driving up tortilla prices in Mexico there was a shift to talking up cellulosic ethanol in lieu of corn ethanol, but with evidence like this being presented it makes the process a harder sell. But who needs to make a sale when you've already made a long term deal with the feds?

From an applied research side I am encouraged to seek out the cutting edge of cellulosic ethanol manufacturing technology so that mandated production is done in the least wasteful way. This research lays inside fungal genomes. Scientists continue improving enzymes produced by millions of years of evolution by tweaking the amino acid sequences and increasing efficiency and stability of some very useful enzymes, in the case of deriving ethanol from the woody parts of plants (cellulose) these enzymes are called cellulases. They break down the long chains of linked sugars that constitute cellulose. By manually changing the single amino acids and then testing thermal stability and conversion efficiency scientists are able to make the process of ethanol production more efficient. Recent research in the Journal of Biochemistry reports this process in action. By demonstrating that single amino acid substitutions, in the context of a chain of hundreds of amino acids, can stabilize enzymes dramatically a group from Cal-Tech proves that human manipulation of genes can, in fact, improve the efficiency of our transition to a home-grown renewable energy economy. The Carnot's and Tesla's of this age are hard at work at this biochemical frontier.

I am torn on this issue as I can see two futures coming of all this. One in which we have attained energy independence and are free to refine our energy equilibrium to the point of balance with the ecosystems in which we live. Or the other where our environment has completely eroded and we have no choice but to fight amongst each other for the scant resources still available. The technologist in me says "onward" while the environmentalist says "onward, but mindfully." In either scenario the ideal of efficiency is a positive one that can be easily applied locally by individuals adopting more mindful habits.


Note:  This blog post was picked up by an editor at SEED magazine and turned into and e-cover story - The Dead Zone Dilemma.   In this article Dave Munger questions my optimism and my advocacy as a scientist. In so doing he is questioning some basic tenets of scientific inquiry.

He asks - "Shouldn’t scientists just be interested in giving us the facts, staying removed from policy decisions and letting the general public and politicians decide how to act? Doesn’t becoming an advocate introduce bias into the scientific process, potentially tarnishing results?"

After contemplating these questions I responded in a post titled "Should Scientists Speak their Minds?"

Heinzelman, P., Snow, C., Smith, M., Yu, X., Kannan, A., Boulware, K., Villalobos, A., Govindarajan, S., Minshull, J., & Arnold, F. (2009). SCHEMA Recombination of a Fungal Cellulase Uncovers a Single Mutation That Contributes Markedly to Stability Journal of Biological Chemistry, 284 (39), 26229-26233 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.C109.034058
Costello, C., Griffin, W., Landis, A., & Matthews, H. (2009). Impact of Biofuel Crop Production on the Formation of Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico Environmental Science & Technology DOI: 10.1021/es9011433

Algae as an Alternative...

In today’s world, global climate change combined with unstable fuel prices due to the rising scarcity of oil has spurred a search for new and clean forms of energy. Plant derived fuels are an up and coming alternative energy source gaining attention. One such source is biodiesel generated by algae.

Algae are being analyzed as a source of biofuel for several reasons. With the potential of 65,000 different species being used for this type of process as well as the possibility of creating highly efficient genetically modified strains, research into this area of alternative energy should continue. Perhaps the biggest reason it is so appealing is the ease of growth combined with the amount of fuel produced per acre. Compared to corn, which produces 18 gallons per acre per year, algae can produce an astounding 10,000 gallons per acre per year. Recently Valcent, a biofuel company in Texas, estimates that it can produce 100,000 gallons/acre/year using their closed-system Vertigro. The Vertigro system is particularly appealing because it is scalable. By calculating how much fuel is used over the country we could create production plants to produce certain amounts of biodiesel according to location. By strategically locating new production plants we enable ourselves to decrease the costs of transportation and create new jobs around the country.

It may be argued that many in the United States are not using diesel engines currently but I argue that we should switch to diesel engines by slowly integrating more into our society. Diesel engines are more efficient and last longer than conventional engines. Europe has already begun integrating vehicles with diesel engines. To compensate for the lag in infrastructure in the U.S. biodiesel can be used into today's vehicles by using blends of regular diesel and biodiesel. The use of blends initially is appealing because over time we can slowly incorporate more biodiesel into the blends until we use pure biodiesel in our engines. Biodiesel derived from algae looks like a viable solution to our oil addiction. I do not think this is the only answer to our problems but it has potential to help us shift away from fossil fuel. Do you think biodiesel derived from algae is part of the answer?


Source: Greenchipstocks.com