Energy Conversion Devices files for bankruptcy as solar energy lags.
The Detroit Free Press reports:
In the latest setback for the solar energy industry, Auburn Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices said today that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and intends to sell its assets, including its main subsidiary United Solar Ovonic.
“We firmly believe there is a strong and sustainable commercial market for Uni-Solar products,” Julian Hawkins, ECD’s CEO and president, said in a statement. “However our current capital structure and legacy costs are preventing USO from making the investments necessary for the future of the business without restructuring through the bankruptcy process.”
The maker of solar roofing materials, which will continue to operate, employs 750 workers, 60% of them in Michigan. They will remain active employees during the sales process though some have been furloughed, said company spokesman Michael Schostak…
All radioactive waste is not the same. Less then 1/2 of 1% is long-lived radioactive waste. These are transmuted transuranic isotopes, created by rare nuclear reactions, are the only stuff that lasts for more than a 100 years or so.
If we separate this tiny percentage of wastes, we can burn them up in special incinerators. We even have a 100 or so of these special incinerators in the USA. We call them nuclear reactors. The French already do this and call it “Actinide Burning”.
Unfortunately, this only works for about 1/2 of the 1/2 of 1% of the waste. Our present reactors are simply not powerful enough to burn up all of it. But a single reactor or two constructed for that purpose, could get rid of the other half.
Then we could bury the other 99.9% of the waste in a place like Yucca Mountain at the edge of Death Valley, and it would be barely radioactive in a hundred years. We have lots of experience with storing things like gold for more than 100 years, too.
End of the nuclear waste problem.
Or we could burn up all of it, in a future fusion reactor All of them would be powerful enough. So we wouldn’t even have to build a special reactor.
End of the nuclear waste problem, another way.
Solar power has value. But it is limited. It works great for battery maintainers on boats, or for shed lighting longdistances from conventional power. It works ok in passive water heating systems but at a large investment in parts. It can never be a player in the instant demand market of the national grid. Being horribly inefficient, and with the uncertainty of weather, along with the need for spinning reserve, it will never be able to supplant even a fraction of the fossil fuel generating capacity. Continued subsidies for this dead end technology is just a waste of money. I say dead end because of the obvious to all(but zero growth nuts) limitations of solar power. The recent discoveries of huge reserves of natural gas give us breathing room to get serious about building the necessary number of nuclear plants to supply cheap clean energy for an expanding economy, convert homes in the frost belt to electric heat, and replace older fossil fuel plants. The waste issue of nuclear plants has always been more of a political issue than a real logistical dilemma. However, we first need to remove the anti-human folks from their positions in the Dept. of Energy and the EPA. This can only happen if Obama gets evicted from the White House.
This is my shocked face 😮