Power of Local Knowledge and Solutions
Posted by: rocknroli on: October 29, 2009
Here’s an interesting story on human ingenuity and perseverance. Finding local resources to power your lives, is something that appeals a lot to me about renewable power resources. There’s something about being self-sufficient for basic needs, that is very powerful and motivating.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717149,00.html
Hridyan is One!
Posted by: rocknroli on: October 9, 2009
Hridyan turned one on 23rd!
But I can’t say time flies or anything similar. It was one long sleepless year…
But it was also the most incredible year…..he turned out to be the smiliest and happiest baby. He is walking now and according him all the rest of us have been sent on this earth to take him on strolls. It seems like talking is not going to be strength …maybe he’s taken after dad on that. “Light” was his first and so far the only word. He’s a relentless flirt and I am embarrassed regularly by his smiles to random women on the street. He’ll smile till they are forced to respond. I think he knows when someone succumbs and says “he’s so cute” 
. Loves to eat with us and eats just about everything including all spices. So much more…maybe the pictures will say it better….
http://picasaweb.google.com/hridyan
Can’t wait to see him start on his other tricks….this is an unbelievable age. But he’s growing up fast….sometime just too fast.
Love it……ok, almost all of it
Doga?!?!
Posted by: rocknroli on: August 19, 2009
- In: Life
- Leave a Comment
This site is hilarious. Since I am not white, I am not sure how true the author’s claims are – but it seems insightful and one hell of a good read.
One paragraph from this article, left me in splits for a loooong time…
“White people like to make the most of their free time, but many of them discovered that time doing yoga was time away from their dog and time with their dog was time away from yoga. It was becoming a fairly significant problem. Thankfully, Doga has been created to allow white people to combine two of their favorite things into one expensive, time consuming activity called Doga or dog yoga.”
(I don’t know if Doga really exists …and actually don’t want to know)
New WR – Usain Bolt
Posted by: rocknroli on: August 16, 2009
- In: Life
- Leave a Comment
I fell in love with Usain Bolt since his Beijing Olympic race and the world record. He did it again today at Berlin. The way he wins reminds me of Barbaro from a few years back at Kentucky Derby. It’s a “I win, no arguments, very clean” attitude. I’d be very surprised if he ever tested positive for an illegal substance. Beautiful!!
Check it out here:
Update: He does it again in a few days. New WR for 200m. None of the contenders were even in sight. Unbelievable!!
Exercise and Weightloss
Posted by: rocknroli on: August 6, 2009
(Got back last weekend from an a-mazing trip of Singapore and Indonesia. Made new friends, partied and learnt a whole lot about life and work in South East Asia. Will post some pictures – out of the 10,000 that were taken by 8 or so cameras – some other time)
In the meanwhile, found this article today:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html
I had been having this feeling since Hridyan was born. For some reason – spending 30-mins to lose 200 calories and then regain that in a half a slice of Tiramisu – did not seem like an efficient process operationally or even by the economic theory of efficient use of resources. Muscles burning more calories (than fat) also seems to have been muffed by this article – thankfully. I am beginning to believe that eating less if the only was to reduce weight – and that gives me lesser guilt about skipping gym sessions 
. Now I only have to figure out how to eat less….
Who knew…
Posted by: rocknroli on: July 17, 2009
- In: Life
- Leave a Comment
I am leaving Hridyan behind for 2 weeks while I go for a trip to Asia with Haas. When I signed up I thought by the time he’s 10-months, I might feel better about leaving him. But it seems it worse than if I had left him a few months back – ’cause he’s so responsive now – and is doing all these cute things. He’s getting cleverer everyday and 15-days seems like an eternity…
aaahhhh!
Cotton Castle
Posted by: rocknroli on: July 10, 2009
- In: Wallpapers
- 1 Comment
Advantages – Concentrated Solar Thermal (CSP)
Posted by: rocknroli on: July 8, 2009
I attended the CSP Today conference last week in San Francisco. A well attended event with many industry gurus sharing their views about the state of CSP in US.
It seems to me that there are three main advantages that are often touted for CSP (over Photovoltaic let’s say…) – Storage, cost and predictability of output. Besides predictability, the other two seem to be subjective.
Storage
This is the only solar technology that allows for storage naturally. Since the solar radiation is indirectly converted to electricity, there is an opportunity to store the collected heat in molten salts, before converting the heat to electricity.
The cost of setting up the molten salt system is exorbitant. The financial viability of the storage option depends on the incentives. In Spain, the power companies are incentivized based on the total energy output (MWh) into the grid. So they try to maximize the energy produced and having storage allows for higher energy / capacity factors – thus more revenue. Also the feed-in-tariff is enough to justify the extension of the salt system.
In US the companies are incentivized for the installed capacity (MW) through the investment tax credits. The credit is independent of the total energy production. So in US, the additional investment in the storage technology is not financially viable currently. The scarcity of projects demonstrating the molten salt technology also leads to more risk, leading to financing hurdles. The whole industry is waiting to see Solana (280MW, 6 hours of storage) project in Arizona get financed and built to lead the pack.
Cost
The common understanding is CSP is cheaper than PV due to the use of off-the-shelf, commodity components like mirrors, turbine, etc. It also was known to have higher efficiencies in solar to electricity conversion (~15%).
Due to the global oversupply in PV panels and reduced demand due to the financial crisis, the prices of the panels have drastically reduced. On the efficiency front, the PV at 15-20% efficiency is typical now, further adding the cost parity. The result is that PV is now at parity or close to parity with CSP. One western region utility claimed that they pay 0.16 c/Kwh for CSP and 0.14 c/Kwh for PV. This difference was attributed to the timing of the PPAs, generally the difference is not significant anymore.
Predictability
The ability to provide “firm power” is a clear advantage of CSP at this time. Due to the output being provided by a steam turbine (and not directly from the field) and a ~2 hour built-in buffer in the trough technology, small variations in the in insolation do not affect the turbine output – like a passing cloud. PV on the other hand can have a very sporadic output profile. The firmness of power is highly valued by the utilities. No other solar technology existing has this benefit. This benefit is unique and is valuable, and I believe would be discussed more in months to come.
