DP: Energy Edition.

Ok, I've got four links for you here.

The first is about connecting wind farms.  To help alleviate wind power's intermittent nature, scientists are suggesting we build a network of wind collection devices.  We could permanently feed about a third of the grid from these dispersed collection points, and store extra power for use in transport.

• Treehugger: Connecting the world's wind farms

Second is a billboard with solar cells on top of them.  So rather than just draining the grid at night to illuminate a hotpockets sign, the board actually generates more power than it consumes, a net gain for the grid.  (even if it does end up being a trickle back into the grid, it is valuable in not consuming the power to begin with.)  It would be cool to see every billboard powered this way. So instead of embodying the evil corporate pillaging of America like in "Who framed Roger Rabbit?", they'd be a symbol of our progression into the future of energy.  Adapting and improving our lives.

• Treeugger: its not a billboard; its a powerplant

And speaking of improving life, Google has finished the first stage of the solar installation at their mountain View Facility.  Its currently the largest corporate solar device and contributes a third of the facility's electricity.  Nice.

• Treehugger: more solar googleables to come

Lastly, we move on to a Slate article about electric cars, wondering if they're actually cleaner than gasoline when you account for electricity production.  Short answer: Yes, but the margins might come closer when you factor in battery disposal.  They mentioned in passing one of the most appealing parts about electric cars.  If electricty produciton gets greener, so to the cars.  Immediately.  "It's a lot easier to control emissions at a few power plants than at millions of tailpipes".

• Slate: Electric Vehicle acid test

Of course this upstream energy efficiency goal makes me wary of things like we have in the first three articles.  I do think we should be moving to electricity because we have so many ways for generating it, we have the infrastructure to deliver it, and we have a jump start on creating efficient devices to consume it.  But installing distributed systems and decentralizing energy production, while perhaps necessary and beneficial for renewable sources, makes upstream efficiency very difficult to effect.  Or at least more difficult than upgrading a few large power plants.

Think of it in terms of communications.  We shelled out a ton of money to run paired copper wires to basically every building in America.  Then cable; now fiber.  But it turns out that wireless technologies are providing the same capacities without all that expensive infrastructure.  And they're easy to maintain and upgrade, should the need arise.  So I guess its a case of moderation and balance in adoption.  Don't fill every inch of roof with solar panels immediately, because next year's models will harvest twice the energy at half the cost.  And though a nation-wide wind farm network might mean balanced loads, we can't build one over night.  The real trick is to keep the fear of indecision from paralyzing us into using fossil fuels for another 100 years.

There's a link in the slate article to a cool power source calculator that show what type of energy your area uses.  Check it out.  I bet you'd like to see that "non-hydro renewable" category a little higher.