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On the Nuclear point - Have you heard of or done much research into the Thorium Liquid Fluoride Salt reactors? It's pretty loving amazing stuff, and Australia has the largest reserves of Monazite (The primary ore you extract Thorium from) in the world.
WarpedNaba fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Sep 4, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 08:33
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Hobo Erotica posted:I've heard of it, yes, an one of the reasons I started the thread was to learn more about these sorts of things. Preferably with prices. Hooooo boy, have I got figures for you. First up: Here are the obligatory threads. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/index.php http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reactor/thorium_reactor_1.php/ http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/10/a-nuclear-reactor-in-every-home/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor Hope you've got a couple of hours. Turks posted:Thorium reactors are a promising technology but since they aren't ready for commercial deployment yet an accurate analysis of cost can't be made. The outline for an Australia using only renewables was done with existing technologies in mind but even then true cost can't be known without actually trying it. I understand that the only major issue is due to mass production and chemical extraction of certain byproducts of the fuel cycle. Thorium reactors have had valid models produced and run for six years as prototypes in the US. Admittedly, those models were back in the fifties and a fair amount of the research has been mothballed, but the concept is feasible, working models have been produced and the possible gains are monumental. Rand alPaul posted:This pro-Thorium website of dubious credibility says a 1 GW Thorium plant would cost $250m to construct. That was considering the elimination of safety precautions and an economy of scale. quote:In fact, you might be able to go as low as $220 million or below, if 80% of reactor costs truly are attributable to expensive anti-meltdown measures. This is not a statement, it is merely speculation, one of the things that research into Thorium energy should be able to give more concrete figures on. WarpedNaba fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Sep 4, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 08:55
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the posted:Cool, thanks for the info. I was just wondering if there was any possible way that families could possibly provide their own power, or if there were any simple initiatives that could be provided on a citywide level to reduce consumption. I know that painting roofs a certain color was famously suggested by our President (and mocked by Conservatives). One of the issues that you have to consider is the centralised power supply that most areas of the world contend with. A decentralised network of power suppliers could reduce more consumption via bypassed transmission loss than any measure I can think of (off the top of my head). If we want to continue our mass-communication lifestyle, I doubt consumption is the issue - merely the safety, sustainability and growth of our supply.
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Sep 6, 2012 07:44
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I don't see an issue with the mining situation in Australia (Being a Kiwi) since it's not like metals are a renewable source. Baring recycling and asteroids, anyway. The China/America political maneuvering about it, however... Either way, it's not so much an energy issue as a resource issue.
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Sep 7, 2012 10:03
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Which, to be fair, always tends to be very interesting. Help them out by summarising what they've said in laymans terms. They get the thrill of knowing they educated someone and a useful format for further explanations.
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Oct 29, 2013 12:11
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