Google seems to be on the right track by investing into R&D for solar thermal power. With the amount of money spent in the Iraq war invested into CSP (concentrating solar power) plants the US could become independent from oil forever:
http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-politics/how-far-could-68b-go-in-securing-our-energy-independence-pretty-damn-far/

The former president of The Club of Rome has just presented a very interesting White Paper on supplying solar thermal electricity from Africa to Europe:
http://www.desertec.org/index.html

Cheaper solar energy is very good, but assessing an "environmental fee" on all coal producers would be one more good thing to do in our effort to halt global warming and to clean up the environment! Kinda like tobacco and alcohol...uh..."health maintenance fee".

What would a Manhattan Project look like for renewable energy cheaper than coal?

Would it be one large integrated project following a strong theory and working out each of the engineering problems as components in a relentless, talent-rich, and well-funded effort?

Which theory makes the most sense? Solar Thermal (lots of sun, cheap materials, a need for lots of capital, plentiful desert land)? Photovoltaic (thin films, nano tech, good for roofing)? Cellulosic Butanol from microbes? Algal biodiesel? Are there any others that could completely replace fossil fuels? Which would you push for?

As many do on this site, HealthyBreeze simplifies things significantly -- here, the history of the Manhattan project, and its usefulness as an analogy to our present circumstances.

In point of fact, the Manhattan project did not focus single-mindedly on a lone technological solution to any of its ultimate or intermediate goals. Examples: It studied both U-235 "rifle" bombs as well as Pu-239 "implosion" bombs. One of each was deployed in Japan at the end of World War II. When it came to separating uranium by isotope, they tried both cyclotrons and gas diffusion, sometimes in different sequences and combinations. Later, when considering hydrogen bombs, they considered both the "conventional" as well as the Teller-Ulam configurations until it turned out that only the latter was viable.

Frankly, I think the analogy with nuclear weapons or the Manhattan Project is kind of strained and not terribly helpful. The point of that project was not to "win the war," it was to develop a certain weapon which military planners thought would help win the war. And its success relied on other technologies and initiatives, from aviation (building a plane that could safely drop the bomb) to military operations (capturing enough Pacific islands to make it practical to attempt a bombing run).

Similarly, if our goal here is to "win the war" on global warming, a Manhattan Project aimed at solving a complex set of problems surrounding a single product misses the boat -- here I am admitting that while the project pursued multiple paths, it had a single and fairly well circumscribed goal.

If our current "dirty" generation mix doesn't rely on a single technology, why should we thing a future "clean" mix would? If there are any analogies that need to be made, I'd point to the industrial revolution or the "IT-revolution" instead -- those being multiplayer, multipolar sequences of events in which a large number of government and private actors each contributed a small part to a process which, in the end, substantially changed the way we do things.

NBK,
insightful comments. another comparison would be the 'race to the moon', which was a tight coupling of govt and private sector. for example, the integrated circuit had already been invented but was languishing. it wasn't until the spending from the moon project that it took off.
but we must all agree that the govt has failed to spend anything near what it should be spending on R&D for energy independence (no political finger pointing...both parties having dropped the ball). We gave away considerably more to oil companies in tax breaks for "more exploration" than invested we in R&D, which is totally wrong headed.
this kinda reminds me of ben & jerry's refrigerator. whatever happened to that?
danm

From Wikipedia:
‘A geothermal heat pump operating at COP 3.5 provides 3.5 units of heat for each unit of energy consumed (e.g. 1 kW consumed would provide 3.5 kW of output heat). The output heat comes from both the heat source and 1 kW of input energy, so the heat-source is cooled by 2.5 kW, not 3.5 kW.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
In my previous post numbers corresponded to typical operational AC with thermodynamic Coefficient Of Performance of 3.

You are technically illiterate and full of hatred, Poet.

I think EP just wants to keep the discussions accurate. Once wrong statements are made and not challenged, they tend to become accepted, much like Wikipedia.

The CoP of an air conditioner is defined by the heat removed from the cold side, not the heat expelled from the hot side.  A technically literate person would know, not ignore or obfuscate, that distinction.  You aren't one, and I'm not going to let you mislead people by letting your errors (if they are indeed accidental and not deliberate) go by without rebuttals.

The above comment was, of course addressed to the nameless one and not sjc.

It seems unfortunate computing uses so much energy only to emit much of it as heat, necessitating still more energy be applied in elaborate cooling systems. Eventually you'd think a goal would be the evolution of equipment that could do serious computing yet remain at room temperature. I suppose companies are not willing to build systems from low power equipment spread over larger/taller areas and replace a larger quantity of physical equipment on each service cycle.

Would it ever be practical to run the waste heat from a server farm to some sort of heat engine and so reduce what is now a total wastage of all that energy?

Poet:

For you information, there are many new Inverter type R410A AC/Heat Pump with SEER over 20 and a few go as high as SEER 23. Those new Inverter type units are like CVT equipt cars, both compressor & evaporator speed vary according to demand to maximize the efficiency and eliminate oveshoots.

GE invented Inverter Type motors over 15 years ago but they have only been used in AC for the last 2 years or so. High accuracy electronic thermostat controls have also been around for many years.

We installed a new R410A SEER 21 AC/Heat Pump Inverter type unit 7 months ago and are very pleased with the overall performance and very high efficiency. The Heat Pump maintains the inside temperature @ 71.4 F (+/- 0.2F) with outside temperatures down to -17C. (we had -12C so far) Both outside and inside units are extremely quiet.

Since 01 January 2007, new AC/Heat Pump units should have a SEER of 13 or more. Of course, it is still legal to sell older SEER 9 to 10 units in stock, for another 3-4 years.

Jim,

I think it would be hard to concentrate the waste heat from servers enough to drive a generator. If the heat is to concentrated the servers fry, and if it is not concentrated enough, the turbine won't turn. You could, however, use it to heat the building. I think some buildings in Canada are designed to get by just on the heat from human bodies and office electronics. Assuming a cold climate, that could work for much of the year.

The real problem is that the real cost of coal is buried in subsidies and externalities, such as lower tax rates, lax regulation mine safety, free grants of mineral rights, regulations allowing mountaintop removal mining, and a free pass on the enormous pollution problem.

And the real cost of petroleum is buried in tax subsidies, a free pass on pollution, and of course the $500B defense budget to protect our supply, the most gawdawful waste of money and resources in the history of mankind.

Give renewable resources those kinds of subsidies, and they would match coal and petroleum for cost efficiency today.

Well said Dollared. And unlike more usual rants about Bush or Cheney or Dems or Republicans or big oil or those SUVs or ......................

The economic and political distortion caused by the enormous use of fossil fuels too often goes unnoticed. It has been there all our lives so it feels natural.

It is apparent that fossil fuel must, perhaps has, peaked. And so has our ability to maintain enormous imports of cheap energy with political or military methods.

Hogwash. We all know this planet's going to hellin-a-hand basket. Technology can't avoid the inevitable apocalypse! Repent.

The energy problems we face are so huge and neither US party appears to have any grasp on the twin problems of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. VP Cheney had some foresight and spoke about oil production issues 10 years ago.

We need to look at all options. In my mind, that means revisiting nuclear, wind (nimby will fade when the problem becomes apparent), geothermal, solar, biofuels: all need to be explored. Biofuels may be best produced for limited usage, perhaps to replace jet fuel. Electification of rail is important for efficiency's sake.

How can I google his?

We need coal. Get over it.

Let us focus on the future instead of trying to handicap the present.

I agree with a massive Manhattan project focusing (independently and not getting in the way of entrepreneurs in the field) on energy independence through efficiency and technology; not higher taxes (which has failed to make Europe energy-independent).

Massive research in wind, solar and ocean power (and nuclear) towards widespread, sustainable applications in this arena in the very near future.

Someone said on here that EVs charged from a coal fired power plant pollute no more than a hybrid. I do not accept that.

If 2000 pounds of coal produces 200 kwh and that is enough to propel an EV 1000 miles then it seems to me that 1 ton of coal would produce more pollution than a car traveling 1,000 miles.

I do not have the numbers yet, but I thought I would bring this up for discussion.