[GWSG] Calisolar; thorium reactors; Gore's call to action

[Tilley, Al]

On my way out the door:

1.  The US Department of Energy is supporting Calisolar’s silicon cell manufacturing plant with $275 million in loan guarantees.  Calisolar’s new facility, located in an old auto plant, will cut the cost of processed silicon by more than half and produce the materials for 2 gigawatts of solar power each year.  http://www.energy.gov/news/10376.htm

2.  The Ecologist takes on thorium reactors: untested, greatly more expensive than current nuclear plants, and not as clean as has been claimed.  They begin to look like yet another covert and bogus argument against the transition to renewable power.  In that they join grain ethanol, natural gas, and the fuel cell for private transportation.  Like those red herrings, I will ignore thorium technology unless something genuinely more hopeful surfaces about it. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/952238/dont_believe_the_spin_on_thorium_being_a_greener_nuclear_option.html

3.  In celebration of July 4 we have Al Gore’s Rolling Stone article, “Climate of Denial.”  “Here is the core of it: we are destroying the climate balance that is essential to the survival of our civilization. This is not a distant or abstract threat; it is happening now. The United States is the only nation that can rally a global effort to save our future. And the president is the only person who can rally the United States.”   Gore issues a call to patriotic action and, in the end, to action not just by the president but by all of us.   http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622
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