robots in disguise!

a polish invention?

The elite Polish solar powered cave spelunking and recon into very dark places team.

or. EPSPCSRVDPT. simple.

More desert warfare for me please!

"See you in hell, soldier boy!"

Well i suppose the Irish army couldn't suck any more.

But what happens when they scorch the skies?

Of course this technology has to be used in the killing of brown people with oil, doesn't it?

But it was us who scorched the skys.

I'm all for more death and destruction if it's environmentally friendly.

I just want the solar powered plastic plants

Here come the Superman pics...

Hell with soldiers. 50% efficiency is about 2-1/2 times the efficiency we can manage today, and solar is already a competitive energy source (over the long term, in the right environment). Alternative energy = no more oil wars.

And in 5 years I can look forward to the headline:

Military-industrial complex produces 50% efficient solar cells, making the military-industrial complex obsolete

Biiiirrrdddmaaan!

Meh - the mods removed my 'Exxon Surrenders', part of the submission but I suppose that cliche is worn down to bare threads anyways.

GIS for solar soldier:

Imagine: They could have been Vietnam Vampires.

Hell!.....back in Nam....alls we had was a P-47, a can of Beans and Balls, and a can of Sterno....Shoots!! Sissified soldiers nowadays gonna want Lazy-Boys in their HumVees next.!!


/Git down and 'gimmee fifty.....!!

Was I the only one who was so distracted by the annoying Flash ad that covers the whole page that I didn't bother to read the article and, in fact, made a mental note to never visit this website again?

...and this is why I'm skeptical of apochalyptic predictions of peak oil. There are just too many ways to mine energy out there and there's just too much money in it for the chicken little's of the world to be proven correct.

Cuervoman "git down and give me 50.....!!

/Sure thing, got change for a buck?

HOW ABOUT SOLAR POWERING THEIR ASSES BACK HOME AND GETTING THEM OUT OF THAT HELLHOLE.

ilyag
annoying Flash ad
I got a bunch of blank spots where ads were supposed to be, because I have my hosts file point most ad servers back to my machine. I need to update it, I haven't in a while and am starting to see more and more ads.

Adblock Firefox plugin #1

Eidolon:

...and this is why I'm skeptical of apochalyptic predictions of peak oil.

You're looking at it the wrong way. The main worry isn't that we're about to run out of oil. The worry is that industrial consumption is outpacing innovation in efficiency. By the time this planet's natural resources run out (and we don't know if it's happening in the next 100 or 500 years), you better hope that we'll have advanced enough to be able to commence large-scale industrial space travel. Based on current trends (and despite fantastic predictions of science fiction movies), this isn't a likely possibility.

One day, this planet will be dead. I hope for our children and their children that they will be smart enough to figure out how to go on living after this happens.

ilyag

One day, this planet will be dead. I hope for our children and their children that they will be smart enough to figure out how to go on living after this happens.

If you think that is going to happen within the next three, hell, twenty generations I think your mistaken

The Czar

What makes you say that? The growth of industrial consumption is exponential, not linear. You underestimate the power of exponential math.

It seems like humans existed before the use of oil. If we run out there will still be life.

WITH CHRISTOPHER REEVE GONE, WHO WILL STOP THEM NOW???

No fighting at night or on cloudy days???

/DRTFA

Seems like we should have had a Manhatten like project for alternetive technologies years ago.

Stealh bombers would lose some of their effectiveness if they have to operate on blue sky cloudless days no?

will this involve republican vaginas on some level?

Yet another example of the military leading the way in technology. 50% efficient solar cells on the roof of my house? Yes please! Hell, there are houses out there already with solar arrays on the roof that actually produce power and send it back to the power company.

/can't wait to send TXU a bill rather than the other way around

I like the concept that if we only have 25% efficiency now, that I can just "order up" some more efficiency. I am the military, even though scientists have only been able to get 25% efficiency in the past, I now need 50% efficiency, so get me that and I need it in 6 months.

geekmafia: Stealh bombers would lose some of their effectiveness if they have to operate on blue sky cloudless days no?


That's why they have blue.

MillenniumKnight: I like the concept that if we only have 25% efficiency now, that I can just "order up" some more efficiency. I am the military, even though scientists have only been able to get 25% efficiency in the past, I now need 50% efficiency, so get me that and I need it in 6 months.

Wow, hate to peel back the tinfoil here, but usually this sort of thing is announced when the university or corporation(s) in question have some new concepts/methods/technology and need funding in order to develop it. What it looks like in this case is that several different groups may have pieces of the puzzle, and DARPA is funding a joint effort to put it all together and build some, if possible.

BTW, you probably wouldn't have that 25% either, except that DARPA and its predecessors funded development of higher efficiency cells for satellites.

Sweet knickers, Fatbert! Thanks for the link - I learned something today.

These things need to be cheap and long-lasting in order to beat the big guys.

America's volunteer military, to the T.

you all are lucky, back when i was a recruit we had two sticks and a rock for the whole squad, and we had to SHARE the rock!


..Sargeant Johnson, yo. *halo nerd*

geekmafia: Stealh bombers would lose some of their effectiveness if they have to operate on blue sky cloudless days no?

If you're counting human eyesight. But for radar it would change nothing.

Stealth in a nutshell: Some young, smart guy at Lockheed read a Russian(the irony) mathematician's equation on calculating the cross-section of a 2D triangle's radar signature. And from this a plane was born. Basically putting a bunch of triangles together(computers helped of course) into a body that could actually fly.

beer4breakfast:

He was joking about solar-powered airplanes, and how they'd only operate on cloudless days.

ilyag: He was joking about solar-powered airplanes, and how they'd only operate on cloudless days.


Aww fudge, that's what I get for being lazy and not following the entire thread for context.

there's nothing funny about a sadistic bastard with a battery up his hass


/you don't have to be the grabber of me!!

Steak you know, you could just use Firefox with the adblock extension. I don't see any ads but those little google text ads.

CitizenjaQ

I hope you're right. I doubt it - since the world was fighting before oil was ever a reason - but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Mother of Christ, is there no such thing as an editor anymore?

Acronyms are always fully-capitalized; DARPA is an agency, whereas Darpa sounds like a poor imitation of a seal's bark.

ilyag: Was I the only one who was so distracted by the annoying Flash ad that covers the whole page that I didn't bother to read the article and, in fact, made a mental note to never visit this website again?


Adblock is your friend

beer4breakfast: Stealth in a nutshell: Some young, smart guy at Lockheed read a Russian(the irony) mathematician's equation on calculating the cross-section of a 2D triangle's radar signature. And from this a plane was born. Basically putting a bunch of triangles together(computers helped of course) into a body that could actually fly.


And if you extend the theory, you can get "curvier" airframes like Tacit Blue. Although the CPU time for something like that is just monumental. Flat triangles are a lot easier to calculate.

beer4breakfast

You know, it shouldn't be ironic that a Russian came up with this, I can think of three really spectacular advances in aerospace that are sort of like this that were founded in the work of Russian mathematicians or physicists.

Urm, two of them are near the cutting edge and are probably something I won't discuss. But one of them was definitely Ufimtsev's diffraction work. We use Russian work all the time, you practically have to learn to read technical Russian to keep up. Their optics and aerospace guys are second-to-none.