Those interested can find validation for Bucky's copncept of living inside your current energy income.

Here is a link featuring a picture that was buried deep inside a conference proceedings on Concentrated Solar Energy.
http://h2-pv.us/H2/H2_Basics.html

Shown about in the actual spot where it ought to be located is a yellow box representing the area needed to be covered with solar PV to produce all electricity now consumed from the national electrical grid.

A second box colored red shows the size required to displace all oil for a national fleet of 200,000,000 light vehicles (cars, vans, pickups) using PV-made Hydrogen. This box is not place where it does the best good.

The total for both boxes represents a smaller size area than the oil sands in Canada up for exploitation, and that oil will pollute and run out, whereas the PV will operate clean for it's 25 year guaranteed lifespan.

My computations show that one acre of PV receivers will produce 657,000 kilograms of Hydrogen during the 25 year guarantee period of the photopvoltaic panels. Each kg H2 is equal to one gallon of gasoline, so it could be said that wind and rain harvested over 25 years produces 657,000 GGE (gallons of gasoline equivilent).

One acre is 4047 square meters. At 13% efficiency in the sunny southwest USA sunbelt that is 526.11 kilowatt hours of electricity each peak sunny hour between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm, on an annual average. Some parts of California, Nevada and Arizona have a better than 6-hours peak sun daily average around the year.

Each day one acre of PV generates 3.16 megawatts of DC electricity, and over 35 days that comes to 110.5 megawatts, which is ample to make a whole acre of PV fresh new from raw materials. In other words an acre of PV can breed it's own replacement, have children, once every 35 days. In the 25 years of the common guaranteed period of PV panels, one care of PV can breed 260 new acres of PV.

Every time the amount of PV installed doubles, the price drops 19%. The faster new PV is made, sold, installed, the faster the price drops. The doubling rate is increasing as ever new factories come online around the world. Currently the doubling rate is about 3 years.

More links to information here:
http://h2-pv.us/H2/PDFs_Dloaded.html
http://h2-pv.tripod.com/PV/solar_maps.html
http://h2-pv.us/PV/DOE_Slides/Govt_PDFs_01.html
http://h2-pv.us/H2/h2_safety_swain/swain_safety.html
http://h2-pv.us/H2/H2_Basics.html
http://h2-pv.us/H2/H2-PV_Breeders.html

CDROM National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap-- A National Hydrogen Vision 33162.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/33162.pdf

CDROM Proceedings of the 2002 U.S. DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Annual Program 32405.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy02osti/32405.pdf

CD-ROM ZIP 47.8 MB High-Performance PV Project-- Exploring and Accelerating Ultimate Pathways 35267.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35267.pdf

CD-ROM ZIP 64 MB International Solar Concentrator Conference for the Generation of Electricity or Hydrogen 2004 35349.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35349.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35349CD.zip

Solar America-- A Solar Energy Tour of the United States (CD-ROM ZIP 344.8 MB) 28494.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy02osti/28494CD.zip

Transportation Energy Data Book Edition24_Full_Doc.pdf 9525 KB
http://www-cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb24/Edition24_Full_Doc.pdf

Renewable Energy Atlas of the West atlas_final.pdf 50,775 KB
http://www.energyatlas.org/PDFs/atlas_final.pdf

Workshop_hydrogen_storage.pdf 8601 KB
http://www-cep.cma.fr/Public/themes_de_recherche/procedes_de_conversi/title_plas_pub/one-day_workshop_hy

Sincerely, Lion Kuntz, Sonoma County, California, USA.

http://www.ecosyn.us/Ecovillage/ Ecocities, Palaces For The People, Octet Truss Updated, Ecological Synergy Microfarming, H2-PV = 26,280 kg H2 from an acre of PV per year.

Joshua, I need to apologize for misquoting Bucky. As I researched my thought process, I found the roots of my concept. (Bucky used the income vs. savings parable, where I used active/inactive).
I quote here from Critical Path, Introduction: Twilight of the World's Power Structures.
"...able to live entirely within its cosmic-energy income instead of spending its cosmic-energy savings account (i.e., the fossil fuels) or spending its cosmic-capital plant and equipment account(i.e., atomic energy)--".
"Humanity's cosmic-energy income account consists entirely of our gravity- and star(99 percent Sun)-distributed cosmic-dividends of waterpower, tidal power, wavepower, windpower, vegatation-produced alcohols, methane gas, vulcanism and so on."

I will endeavor in the future to separate my own concepts from those that I am attempting to quote from Bucky, but as you can see the concepts are as valid today as they were when published in 1981.
Thanks for your enthusiasim.
Jon

Jon,

I never new about Bucky's active/inactive energy distinctions and the role of the catalyst as you described it. "Cosmic accounting" is the only way to level the playing field and we all need very cogent and pursuasive examples like you just offered to help make the case.

Thanks!

Joshua Arnow

Jon,

I never new about Bucky's active/inactive energy distinctions and the role of the catalyst as you described it. "Cosmic accounting" is the only way to level the playing field and we need very cogent and we all need pursuasive examples like you just offered to help make the case.

best,

Joshua Arnow