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"The New Kleptocracy"
"The largest financial theft in American history"


Must Listen Interview - - By Guns & Butter

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Sempra Energy, which builds and operates natural gas power plants, plans to invest billions in solar power plants in the coming years and expects to get about the same 10 percent return on the capital it typically gets, said Michael Allman, president and CEO of Sempra Generation. Because of the credit crunch, other firms may have a harder time than Sempra launching large projects, he said.

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Hybrid panels will boost efficiency and power

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Chinese Company Unveils Solar-Powered Car for $5,560

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The obvious benefit: a continuous 24-hour, 365-day supply of solar energy. Powered by solar energy itself, a single SPS could generate up to 10 gigawatts of power continually, according to Bova. If that's even remotely true, just imagine how much continuous power a group of these SPSs could provide.

The solar power satellite: a costly proposition
Things get a bit trickier when Bova delves into some of the cost issues. For instance, he says that an SPS could deliver electricity at a cost of only about 8 - 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which would make it very competitive with conventional power sources. He does recognize that the upfront costs -- both to build the satellite ($1 billion apiece) and to launch it (see: SpaceX launches) -- would be fairly substantial; launching it into space successfully would be a whole other story.

Over time, as economies of scale take hold and component prices drop, the scheme would begin to look much more appealing. How long that will take, though, is anybody's guess. We have the technologies in place -- solar, satellite and microwave -- but putting everything together (and making sure it all works) will be a tremendous challenge.

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Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payoutPay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package