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Transportation fuels are another good reason to go with nuclear. The waste heat can actually be used to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and reduce it to carbon monoxide. Then, using conventional industrial processes, methanol is produced. The burning of this methanol is net carbon-neutral.
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Mar 30, 2013 23:43
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There was a recent gallup poll, 37% of Americans had confidence in nuclear power and 31% of them had confidence in coal. Wind power was 71% and Solar was 76%. No major political or geographical category (including Republicans or the South) had a greater than 50% confidence in nuclear power. Nuclear power has a very steep road ahead of it at least as far as public opinion. http://www.gallup.com/poll/161519/americans-emphasis-solar-wind-natural-gas.aspx
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Mar 31, 2013 02:14
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The marketing perspective is where I think MSRs shine. They cannot have meltdowns and they stop running if power is lost, preventing a Fukushima-type incident. Mention the Methanol synth -- estimates show that it would cost roughly $2/gallon with current profit levels on each gallon sold. People like cheap gas. Mention the medical applications. Mention space travel. (Th-fueled MSRs produce Pu238.)
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Mar 31, 2013 02:33
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We just need to fake having invented Fusion. Everybody loves Fusion.
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Mar 31, 2013 02:49
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Sinestro posted:The marketing perspective is where I think MSRs shine. They cannot have meltdowns and they stop running if power is lost, preventing a Fukushima-type incident. Mention the Methanol synth -- estimates show that it would cost roughly $2/gallon with current profit levels on each gallon sold. People like cheap gas. Mention the medical applications. Mention space travel. (Th-fueled MSRs produce Pu238.) I think fear is still the biggest factor, and while I don't think that fear is based on scientific knowledge (it is the lack of it), Fukushima probably couldn't have happened at a worse time. Also, it seems socially it is much more than opposition from enviromentists and hippies, it pretty much goes across the spectrum. Ultimately, it is going to take time more than anything else and unfortunately aging reactors and climate change will be ongoing issues. The best case scenario is probably to limp along transitioning to more natural gas/wind power until public opinion shifts back to the other direction. Anyway, the sad thing about coal country is that coal is toxic not only to those who mine it but to the local population. The big issue is that there really isn't a back up industry for the greater Appalachia region, and coal provides steady jobs (until you die I guess). It is pretty difficult to transition fairly good sized chunk of the country to another industry while the national economy remains poor. Coal is terrible, but I can see why there is still so much resistance against getting rid of it in that part of the country. (Also, Appalachia is only one of the major coal regions). Roughly 10% of West Virginia's population are coal miners and undoubtably their wages support their families significantly and prop up the local economy. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Mar 31, 2013 |
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Mar 31, 2013 03:29
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Ardennes posted:Nuclear power has a very steep road ahead of it at least as far as public opinion. And I'd put money down that nuclear power will not make the climb, at least in my lifetime. Now, it would be one thing if public hostility to nuclear power stopped at construction, but this blend of loathing and fear has seeped into other aspects. What was construction hostility has, over the years, turned into consideration hostility; we have become incapable of answering the questions arising out of 60 years of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine, and nuclear research. We deal with nuclear waste by not dealing with it. Fears of a "terrorist attack" on a permanent, central storage facility were assuaged by permitting the growth of thousands of smaller temporary solutions that are now the permanent solution. In the United States, our 104 current active reactors date from the Carter administration or earlier. To replace these geriatric reactors with a new generation is impolitic and unpopular. To decommission them is impossible from a storage standpoint, impossible from an energy generation standpoint, and impossible from an environmental standpoint. 20% of power produced in the United States comes from these reactors and to fill this void, the combinations of wind and solar invariably include coal, oil, and natural gas facilities. We've solved this problem by re-licensing our aging reactors, extending their lifespan a decade at a time. Reactors originally rated for 20-30 years of operation are declared safe for an additional 10, 20, or 30 years of service, depending on the needs of the moment. Thinking about nuclear power makes me sad.
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Mar 31, 2013 03:39
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Sinestro posted:Transportation fuels are another good reason to go with nuclear. The waste heat can actually be used to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and reduce it to carbon monoxide. Then, using conventional industrial processes, methanol is produced. The burning of this methanol is net carbon-neutral. Waste heat from solar thermal can do this too - it's a big part of the plan for exporting renewable energy.
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Mar 31, 2013 04:00
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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Methanol is one of those fuels that is great on paper, but has a bunch of real world problems. When being used as an everyday car fuel, the biggest are; It attacks aluminum Not only is it toxic, but it can be absorbed through the skin When it burns, the flames are nearly invisible It has half the energy density of gasoline It is a popular fuel in auto racing, and there it has some upsides. Methanol fires can be put out with water, and the way it burns clean means it won't cause further accidents during a race by obscuring visibility. And some of the other downsides can be mitigated, like the engines needing to be replaced from such extreme use before the methanol eats them. In the real world though, making methanol for $2/gallon doesn't mean much if you have to burn 2 gallons to get as far as 1 gallon of gasoline would have taken you. Engines are either going to have to be more costly by adding non-aluminum layers to things, or go old-school by going back to (heavy!) cast iron, or costly to the consumer with shorter overall engine life (now that people are used to 200,000 mile engines lives). To be fair, it does have upsides. Methanol fires can be put out with plain water It is clean burning and biodegradable, and can be carbon neutral if using carbon from the air It is still problematic with modern piston engines though. An alternative might be for use in fuel cells to power electric cars. Something like the Chevy Volt, but instead of a gasoline powered piston engine as a mileage extender, a methanol powered fuel cell. Or as a way to charge it when away from a charging station, given that current methanol fuel cells don't put out enough juice to run an electric car on their own.
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Mar 31, 2013 04:04
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Let's see how energy is doing in the two biggest consumers. A crude oil pipeline ruptured in Arkansas spilling at least 10,000 barrels and there was a 15,000 gallon (357 barrels worth) of crude spilled in Minnesota this week as well. Over in China, it looks like 28 were killed in a gas explosion in a coal mine. Meanwhile, China's biggest solar builder just went bankrupt while holding 7.1 billion CNY ($451 million USD) in loans. Meanwhile, nukes are bad because of some reason and misinformation.
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Mar 31, 2013 19:30
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LP97S posted:Meanwhile, China's biggest solar builder just went bankrupt while holding 7.1 billion CNY ($451 million USD) in loans. I don't see how this is a strike against solar energy. I think that people do not believe that solar energy needs those Chinese subsidies to be cost-competitive with other energy sources. Technological improvements will get solar to be cost competitive with other energy sources. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Mar 31, 2013 |
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Mar 31, 2013 22:21
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Magical improvements applied to Solar, but not to Nuclear. Yeah.
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Mar 31, 2013 23:09
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Aureon posted:Magical improvements applied to Solar, but not to Nuclear. No, not magical improvements, real improvements. Efficiencies are inching upwards and the cost of silicon solar cells is dropping. Here is a talk by Richard Swanson, founder of the American solar cell company SunPower, where he talks about the economics of solar cells and approaches that silicon solar cell manufacturers are taking to lower costs. At the 33 minute mark he talks about technological improvements his company and other companies make to lower silicon solar cell costs: http://energyseminar.stanford.edu/node/387
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Apr 1, 2013 01:35
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silence_kit posted:No, not magical improvements, real improvements. Efficiencies are inching upwards and the cost of silicon solar cells is dropping. Here is a talk by Richard Swanson, founder of the American solar cell company SunPower, where he talks about the economics of solar cells and approaches that silicon solar cell manufacturers are taking to lower costs. At the 33 minute mark he talks about technological improvements his company and other companies make to lower silicon solar cell costs: http://energyseminar.stanford.edu/node/387 His point was more that efficiency/safety improvements have been made in nuclear as well (namely Gen III+/Gen IV reactors), but those get ignored; whereas solar's future gains are counted to its advantage.
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Apr 1, 2013 02:30
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You can improve solar all you fuckin' want, it's not going to solve the problems in storing energy.
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Apr 1, 2013 02:54
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KaiserBen posted:His point was more that efficiency/safety improvements have been made in nuclear as well (namely Gen III+/Gen IV reactors), but those get ignored; whereas solar's future gains are counted to its advantage. I didn't really get that at all from his post. It sounded more to me that he said that improvements to solar energy are imaginary. However, if you want to make that point, then OK. Point noted. The reasons why the improvements to nuclear energy have been ignored by American politicians have been discussed to death in this thread. This thread probably should more appropriately be titled "The Nuclear Energy Apologism Megathread" or maybe the "The Nuclear Energy Excuse Generation Megathread."
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Apr 1, 2013 04:05
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Install Gentoo posted:You can improve solar all you fuckin' want, it's not going to solve the problems in storing energy. The bigger problem is that physically, the best you can get with Solar (thermal-heat array) is ~20% vs 28% for raw combustion. New design elements like nano beads or flake arrays are at least 10 years out, and will require way more toxic etching materials (and higher quantities of gallium and rare earth minerals, greatly expanding the eco-footprint of upstream miners).
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Apr 1, 2013 04:37
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Install Gentoo posted:You can improve solar all you fuckin' want, it's not going to solve the problems in storing energy. Thermal has a 60-70% capacity factor.
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Apr 1, 2013 05:23
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Quantum Mechanic posted:Thermal has a 60-70% capacity factor. The sun isn't there at night, and we haven't gotten good solutions to actually store our solar energy yet. It's not like that's unsolvable, but it's way more important then improving the efficiency of each solar installation is. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 05:31
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silence_kit posted:I didn't really get that at all from his post. It sounded more to me that he said that improvements to solar energy are imaginary. Apologize and excuse for what?
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Apr 1, 2013 05:46
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Yeah, my point is that both technologies are undergoing substantial improvements. I'm sorry if that wasn't communicated well. Also, solar with molten salts can store 8-16h of energy. With basin pumping and other not-efficient-at-all technologies for worst cases, i guess that's doable. Problem is, with waiting technology to improve, it may be too late.
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Apr 1, 2013 05:48
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Install Gentoo posted:The sun isn't there at night, and we haven't gotten good solutions to actually store our solar energy yet. I was under the impression that thermal energy could be stored pretty well as molten salts, particularly hydrates that melt just above room temperature. The issue has been primarily one of demand, that there wasn't much of an incentive at this point to refine it into a commercial product. Part of the heating system would be a series of pipes, filled with these salts. Excess heat would melt them during the day, then they would give off the heat as they resolidified during the night. They'd be essentially maintenance free and last for decades.
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Apr 1, 2013 05:55
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Install Gentoo posted:The sun isn't there at night, and we haven't gotten good solutions to actually store our solar energy yet. You don't need solar to be stored at night in large as demand is higher during the day. Solar has a very nice overlap with usage which is a big selling point. Baseline demand at night can be picked up by sources that cannot be modulated easily like nuclear or coal but solar is a very useful part of a grid. Storage is only a big concern for an all solar grid, not for a grid with some solar.
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Apr 1, 2013 06:04
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Deteriorata posted:Part of the heating system would be a series of pipes, filled with these salts. Excess heat would melt them during the day, then they would give off the heat as they resolidified during the night. They'd be essentially maintenance free and last for decades.
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Apr 1, 2013 06:19
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PhazonLink posted:Apologize and excuse for what? Reminder, this is what anti-nuclear activists actually believe: 
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Apr 1, 2013 06:24
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Install Gentoo posted:The sun isn't there at night, and we haven't gotten good solutions to actually store our solar energy yet. Solar thermal stores energy as heat in molten salt in order to drive a turbine and can operate for 16 hours without any sunlight. That's how it achieves 70% capacity. It doesn't require underground salt pipes across the country, the stored salt drives a heat engine turbine. Also please don't strawman Stephanie MacMillan as the voice of nuclear skeptics, she's loving looney tunes. I'd mostly just rather avoid nuclear wherever renewable alternatives are possible. It's 100% true that some countries will require nuclear to be energy independent though. Quantum Mechanic fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 07:16
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Aureon posted:We just need to fake having invented Fusion. Set up a fission power plant that also has solar panels on it and call it a Fusion Power Plant (get it? Fusing two different energy sources? Whatever...) silence_kit posted:I didn't really get that at all from his post. It sounded more to me that he said that improvements to solar energy are imaginary. It already causes fewer deaths per year than any other energy source and it's more efficient than anything else. Nuclear power doesn't require much apologism, just defense against insane skeptics. (I concur that we need to implement solar, wind, and geothermal as well; we should have all of these and nuclear power)
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Apr 1, 2013 08:51
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Another thing is energy is very local and regionalized in the US, there isn't a reason to build nuclear reactors in the Northwest (a ton of hydro-electricity) nor is there to build wind power with minimal wind. Ultimately it is going to be about a mix of resources that make the most sense at a regional level and at the right balance. Better and more nuclear reactors has to be part of that solution ultimately, but other alternative forms of energy getting subsidies isn't a problem since it is going to be a mixed grid anyway. Also, direct government ownership or through a nationalized company might be the best way to build new reactors at this point.
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Apr 1, 2013 09:57
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Sinestro posted:Reminder, this is what anti-nuclear activists actually believe: I love how the toxic green sludge is coming out of the top of the cooling tower. She should have put the nuclear symbol wearing a witch's hat while stirring it like a cauldron for extra effect. Reminds me of the silliness that goes on with Indian Point around these parts. It makes me sad that stuff like this is keeping us from being a world leader in reactor design and deployment.
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Apr 1, 2013 12:35
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Quantum Mechanic posted:Solar thermal stores energy as heat in molten salt in order to drive a turbine and can operate for 16 hours without any sunlight. That's how it achieves 70% capacity. That's not really my point, my point is that minor improvements in the efficiency of panels and thermal towers mean nothing in comparison to what improvements in storage technology get us. We can always just build a shitload more solar and rely on volume to make up for inefficiency there after all.
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Apr 1, 2013 15:35
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With the massive influx of natural gas into the markets, any chance for some sort of revolutionary generation technology has essentially gone out the window. Solar photovoltaic was never anything more than a PR stunt in 90% of the country. Wind has a viable future, it is never going to get anywhere significant without a massive investment in long distance, low-loss transmission infrastructure. Seeing as we can't even get our poo poo together to make the necessary transmission infrastructure already needed, I don't foresee any new HVDC lines to support wind diversification popping up anytime soon. Natural gas is too cheap and too much of the population believes that electricity should cost them nothing. The money simply isn't there for this stuff. Also, any sort of macro scale storage solution is also just a academic exercise barring the invention of a dilithium crystal or something. Cheesemaster200 fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 16:01
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silence_kit posted:I didn't really get that at all from his post. It sounded more to me that he said that improvements to solar energy are imaginary. You can't compare "future solar" with "70s nuclear" (which is what's currently being run in the US) and end up with anything remotely honest. Comparing "today's solar" with "today's nuclear" would make far more sense (eg: PV solar using current best efficiency vs AP1000 reactors). If you want to say "future solar will improve to X% efficiency", use something like a scaled up LFTR for comparison, or any of the Gen IV reactor ideas. If we're to talk about building new plants, let's talk about new plants on both sides.
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Apr 1, 2013 16:23
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KaiserBen posted:You can't compare "future solar" with "70s nuclear" (which is what's currently being run in the US) and end up with anything remotely honest. Comparing "today's solar" with "today's nuclear" would make far more sense (eg: PV solar using current best efficiency vs AP1000 reactors). If you want to say "future solar will improve to X% efficiency", use something like a scaled up LFTR for comparison, or any of the Gen IV reactor ideas. I am sorry for changing the topic in the thread by pointing out in LP97S's post that a heavily subsidized Chinese solar panel company going under isn't indicative of photovoltaics as a whole. I guess I am not understanding the true purpose of this thread. Let the fellation of nuclear power continue. Edit: To actually respond to your post, although it is off topic to what I wanted to say in this thread, one obvious difference between employing new technologies in nuclear and solar is that the time in between new improvements in solar and rolling it out into new panels is much less than in nuclear, where it takes many years and many dollars to build a plant. Of course, in this thread we like to blame government regulations for this and not the fact that nuclear power plants are incredible feats of engineering and require extreme care and safety measures to ensure that they are operated safely and that their fuels and waste do not end up in the wrong hands. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 17:29
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silence_kit posted:I am sorry for changing the topic in the thread by pointing out in LP97S's post that a heavily subsidized Chinese solar panel company going under isn't indicative of photovoltaics as a whole. I guess I am not understanding the true purpose of this thread. Let the fellation of nuclear power continue. You brought up future gains. Your point (exclusive of future gains) was and is perfectly valid, but tangentially ignores another field's developments. When someone made an off-hand remark about said future gains only being applied to one source of power, you got all butthurt about your favorite renewable being insulted, and rushed in to defend it (the same thing you're accusing everyone else of doing, FYI). FWIW, I work on PV solar inverters (and lots of other power conversion equipment) for a living. I'm not exactly a huge nuclear proponent (though I am intrigued by the LFTR designs being floated right now), so you can leave the "fellation of nuclear power" bullshit elsewhere. Beaten by your edit: Obviously, rolling out new solar installations is faster. OTOH, nuclear plants tend to be much larger, and we've done an awful job of building out our nuclear infrastructure (including so many abandoned half-built plants) because of various nutjobbery (both on activists and governments). Safety is a factor, but as pointed out upthread: nuclear has fewer deaths/MWhr than anything else. Including solar (which, IMO, is skewed by early-adopter practices being less safe than they ought to be). Solar deaths are "invisible" in that nobody gives half-a-poo poo if I die from arc-flash related injuries in some AZ desert; it won't even make the local papers unless it's a slow news days. Whereas with nuclear (and to a slightly lesser extent, hydro/coal/other large plants) any hiccup is a major news story, and any accident tends to be large and destructive (if rare). IMO, the only way to make nuclear power both safe and affordable is direct state ownership and operation of the plants, but I see no technical reason not to do that. Hell, the government already does/funds all the research anyway, what's a bit more in construction and operation? As far as safety goes, I think a lot of people miss how dangerous solar power installations can be. The industry has a pretty awful safety record as far as industrial electricity goes (though it's improving quite rapidly); this is largely due to people not understanding how it works and the electrical codes evolving over the past few years. Large DC currents are insanely dangerous, and solar installers typically have half-trained residential electricians doing commercial-scale solar wiring work without understanding the safety protocols needed. Easy problem to solve, but it costs money in a business already fighting for economic viability. Solar has a promising future, but pretending it's perfect is insane. Sure, solar thermal can solve some of the storage issues (especially in areas where 2+ days of clouds are unheard of, like Abu Dhabi), and PV efficiency is increasing, but to pretend that it's the only solution is asinine, especially if you live in a non-desert area. KaiserBen fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 18:06
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Morbus posted:Not to nitpick too much, but "reactor grade" plutonium (that has been contaminated with large amounts of Pu-240) isn't "totally useless". It has a high rate of spontaneous fission which poses several design challenges, however with a good implosion system you could definitely fashion a working fission bomb out of it. The main challenges would be the high thermal output, and radiation exposure to those working with it (once in the bomb itself, the heavy neutron reflector and tamper necesary to implode such a core effectively would shield most radiation). To be sure, it is a pretty dumb material for a fission bomb, but that wouldn't necessarily stop a country from using it if all they wanted was a show-off weapon, and they didn't have access to U-235 or Pu-239. In fact, the US actually built and tested (successfully) such a device in 1962 (http://tinyurl.com/cum7prs). The yield is classified ("less than 20kt"), but as discussed more below, any country with abundant Pu-240 would have a straightforward path to greatly increasing that yield. That was a really informative post on the subject. Thank you! I just wanted to add that the plutonium they used in this test came from a MAGNOX reactor in the UK (http://www.ricin.com/nuke/bg/bomb.html), which was specifically designed to operate in both civilian and weapon mode when necessary. At the time, only two grades of plutonium were decided: weapons-grade, which contained less than 7% Pu-240, and reactor-grade which contained more than 7% Pu-240. Today, there are three grades, fuel grade covering 7-19% Pu-240 and reactor grade being anything with more than 19% Pu-240. What they got from the MAGNOX reactor was fuel-grade plutonium. All conventionally-cycled LWR and BWR spent-fuel plutonium is reactor-grade, containing more than 19% Pu-240. There is no record of anyone ever successfully making a weapon out of reactor-grade plutonium. Not a drop of spent-fuel plutonium from LWRs and BWRs in the US ever went into a successful weapon for instance, all the pure stuff they ended up using came from military fast-breeders. It's extraordinarily unlikely for anyone that doesn't have national support to get their hands on everything needed to build weapons. So when a country like the US tries to limit a nation's declared peaceful nuclear program due to proliferation concerns it can get pretty touchy. silence_kit posted:Edit: To actually respond to your post, although it is off topic to what I wanted to say in this thread, one obvious difference between employing new technologies in nuclear and solar is that the time in between new improvements in solar and rolling it out into new panels is much less than in nuclear, where it takes many years and many dollars to build a plant. You wouldn't need to do any R&D to make nuclear more economical than solar, since it already is even at 0.5-1.2% total efficiency. In the same time frame and with the same funding it'd take to have solar reach grid parity, we could have those Gen IV systems that get 30+% total efficiency and that can run on non-enriched fuels. But we wouldn't even need to do any R&D to make nuclear as competitive as it was in the 70s; standardizing one of the current designs and mass producing it like what France did would be enough to make it cheaper than coal again. Building nuclear reactors back in the 70s was 3 times faster and 4 times cheaper than today. Nuclear reactor construction costs have quadrupled in the west almost exclusively because regulations have gotten really sloppy: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html In all honesty, there's no reason not to shoot for every option that's theoretically viable. R&D is cheaper than people make it out to be, even when it's nuclear-based, and it's terrific for developing expertise in an industrial economy.
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Apr 1, 2013 18:52
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I guess I should let this go because it really isn't adding much to the thread, but I would like to get the last word in. KaiserBen posted:When someone made an off-hand remark about said future gains only being applied to one source of power, you got all butthurt about your favorite renewable being insulted, and rushed in to defend it (the same thing you're accusing everyone else of doing, FYI). That's not really true, but if you like to think about my posts in this thread in that way, go ahead. quote:Solar has a promising future, but pretending it's perfect is insane. Sure, solar thermal can solve some of the storage issues (especially in areas where 2+ days of clouds are unheard of, like Abu Dhabi), and PV efficiency is increasing, but to pretend that it's the only solution is asinine, especially if you live in a non-desert area. Ok, this is ridiculous. Nowhere did I say that photovoltaics should be used to the exclusion of all else or that it is a perfect technology. I just wanted to say that some heavily subsidized Chinese company going under does not doom the entire industry and that photovoltaics is predicted to become a relevant technology even without the government subsidies. Then the subject got changed, as it usually does in this thread, to bowing down and worshipping at the altar of nuclear energy. I get it, everyone here likes nuclear energy, the American government and environmentalists are misguided, etc etc, let's fill this thread with 16 more pages of this stuff. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 1, 2013 19:52
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silence_kit posted:I guess I should let this go because it really isn't adding much to the thread, but I would like to get the last word in. Whenever you have to type this on a post, just delete the post. It'll work out better that way. silence_kit posted:That's not really true, but if you like to think about my posts in this thread in that way, go ahead. You started whining because someone pointed out that you applied future gains to a technology, while they'd been discounted on other tech (not necessarily by you, though you did it later). You misinterpreted what he said and took offense that wasn't meant (as he clarified later). silence_kit posted:I didn't really get that at all from his post. It sounded more to me that he said that improvements to solar energy are imaginary. What part of this is not butthurt whining again? Seriously, you misinterpreted the original post (fair enough, we all do occasionally), and when told what was meant (by both me and the other poster) went off on a rant about nuclear fellatio. KaiserBen fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 20:04
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Install Gentoo posted:That's not really my point, my point is that minor improvements in the efficiency of panels and thermal towers mean nothing in comparison to what improvements in storage technology get us. We can always just build a shitload more solar and rely on volume to make up for inefficiency there after all. But your original objection was "the sun isn't there at night and there's no good ways of storing solar energy." We've already got the cost of thermal storage down to something like 40-50 dollars per kWh to construct, and even as low as 34 for a new type of concrete thermocline. I think you're underestimating what there is to be gained from increasing the efficiency of solar plants - if we can crank the heat of the tower up another 100 degrees or so we could reasonably fit gas turbines to them instead of steam turbines for something like a 150% efficiency gain (40% steam turbine efficiency to 60% gas). Gaining what is effectively half a new plant from an increase in tower efficiency is nothing to sneeze at. Cheesemaster200 posted:Natural gas is too cheap and too much of the population believes that electricity should cost them nothing. The money simply isn't there for this stuff. Actually over a 30 year timespan solar+wind works out cheaper than gas or coal generation, at least for Australia. It's probably not drastically different in the US. That's without taking into account the anti-CSG movement, which is really growing some legs. Also, no, macro scale heat storage is a very practical solution to the intermittence of solar generation - like I said earlier, heat storage is down to $34/kWh - that's insanely low. KaiserBen posted:IMO, the only way to make nuclear power both safe and affordable is direct state ownership and operation of the plants, but I see no technical reason not to do that. Hell, the government already does/funds all the research anyway, what's a bit more in construction and operation? I agree with this 100%. My issue is it's not going to happen, and I AM concerned about a nuclear network in the hands of a bureau undergoing regulatory capture or, god forbid, a private network/regulator. If you think the scare campaign against nuclear is bad now can you imagine the ads for that? A Dark Dystopic Future posted:The Democrats want to build nuclear power plants next to your children's schools and playgrounds. Energy Czar Obama thinks he's fit to hold your life in the balance of a single atom with his Big Green Socialist Ideas. Send a message to Obama and his nuclear army - government power is No Good
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Apr 1, 2013 23:24
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Cheesemaster200 posted:With the massive influx of natural gas into the markets, any chance for some sort of revolutionary generation technology has essentially gone out the window. Solar photovoltaic was never anything more than a PR stunt in 90% of the country. Wind has a viable future, it is never going to get anywhere significant without a massive investment in long distance, low-loss transmission infrastructure. Seeing as we can't even get our poo poo together to make the necessary transmission infrastructure already needed, I don't foresee any new HVDC lines to support wind diversification popping up anytime soon. I think you're right but there are two twists to it. First, its probably fairly short term. We have a natgas glut now, and the only place for it to go is the grid, but either its a temporary glut and that fades, or its a multi-decade sustainable glut and all sorts of other workloads shift over into it (most likely something like a fifth to a third of the 18 wheeler trucking fleet). Either way the price of natgas is going back up once we adapt to it. Second, your point about transmission capacity not getting installed is exactly why I think solar will do better than the raw numbers make it look. Solar can grow like a weed on roofs and empty lots, driven in parallel by individuals, landlords, co-ops, building and facilities managers. It co-locates with the power draw in a way that can net-reduce transmission capacity demand. If every home running 1kW in air conditioning had roughly 1kW in solar, the single biggest challenge of the current grid would be massively cut down. I think of it like HTTP vs. BitTorrent. HTTP (grid) is always going to be the baseline, but with bittorrent (solar) for a specific raw-bandwidth(amperage)-demand use case aggregating together lots of little upload streams adds up to massive effect. Its not about out-competing the grid in a "how big an install can you do with 30 year government tax advantaged bonds" tens-or-hundreds-of-MW kind of way, its about taking advantage of the fact that the power grid is a network and we have an amazing number of nodes with two-way capacity that we are only using one way now. There are ways to shift opportunistic workload to that while avoiding larger capital issues like transmission. StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 05:00
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Quantum Mechanic posted:I think you're underestimating what there is to be gained from increasing the efficiency of solar plants - if we can crank the heat of the tower up another 100 degrees or so we could reasonably fit gas turbines to them instead of steam turbines for something like a 150% efficiency gain (40% steam turbine efficiency to 60% gas). Gaining what is effectively half a new plant from an increase in tower efficiency is nothing to sneeze at. Are externally-fired gas turbines in use anywhere? As far as I know, the only "gas turbine" in widespread use is the conventional internal-combustion type. In fact, when you said "gas turbine", an externally-fired version didn't even come to mind, and I don't see why low temperature would ever prevent you from using an externally fired closed-cycle gas turbine. John McCain fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 07:37
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John McCain posted:Are externally-fired gas turbines in use anywhere? As far as I know, the only "gas turbine" in widespread use is the conventional internal-combustion type. In fact, when you said "gas turbine", an externally-fired version didn't even come to mind, and I don't see why low temperature would ever prevent you from using an externally fired closed-cycle gas turbine. As far as I'm aware ~600C is where gas turbines in a combined cycle (i.e. connected to a traditional steam turbine running off waste heat) become markedly more efficient than a single steam turbine.
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Apr 2, 2013 07:58
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