|
Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:There's also the ocean extraction method. Does anyone know what the latest prices for that are? That's really not necessary, anyway. It's not a given that uranium mining is more environmentally destructive than mining for the minerals involved in renewable energy generation. Sure it has some unique problems, but the real environmental problems are dependent on the geology of the area (and therefore mining anything in that area would pose the same problems) and not the uranium itself.
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2013 23:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 17:53 |
|
|
Boner Slam posted:There is something wrong with this technique, which is that it inheretly assumes that the expected values fully characterize the distribution - as Bernoulli. Again, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's wrong. Your insurance rates are almost entirely based upon a few factors that they use to determine your risk factor. The #1 factor is your past history of driving, #2 is your demographic (16-24 year old males are the worst!), #3 is what you're driving, not just because of the cost of the car, but also certain things such as the observed nature of people that drive it, its probability chance of being stolen, etc...
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 00:06
|
|
|
Taerkar posted:Again, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's wrong. Car insurance is not the same as calculating the risk of something like a pipeline rupture or nuclear powerplant meltdown, just FYI. Like, nobody is using such a simple formula when the downside risk is effectively measured by ∞ instead of a dollar figure.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 00:11
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:There is something wrong with this technique, which is that it inheretly assumes that the expected values fully characterize the distribution - as Bernoulli. I'm not sure what else to tell you. It's very common in engineering to estimate quantities that we don't know with perfect accuracy, such as the probability that a dam will burst or the probability that a radiation container will leak. If you throw that away then you essentially throw away all of risk management, a cornerstone of engineering. My point stands anyway; the book is doing risk management in the same way that everyone but you does risk management. If you want to try to convince everyone else in the world that the standard method for estimating risk is incorrect, then by all means e: If you have 10000 containers and 1 leaks after 10 years, then the "probability" of leaking after 10 years is 1/10000. Why did you put quotes around "probability?" We can estimate the probability of a container leaking after N years, it's not an impossible feat. I don't understand what your hangup is here, could you try explaining it a little more? QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 06:49
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:Car insurance is not the same as calculating the risk of something like a pipeline rupture or nuclear powerplant meltdown, just FYI. Nuclear powerplant meltdowns do not have an infinite cost - even Chernobyl (and another Chernobyl is literally 100% impossible) has estimated cleanup costs of 250 billion.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 07:07
|
|
|
Piell posted:Nuclear powerplant meltdowns do not have an infinite cost That's why Fine-able Offense said "effectively measured by infinity", not "infinity". Example: your company is planning a product which, if it fails (10% probability), bankrupts your $100 million company. Risk management won't say "the expected loss is $10 million", they'll say "Holy poo poo! This is a way too high probability/a way too severe consequence!" Though theoretically the most you can lose is $100 million, it is effectively an infinite cost, so you'll want to drastically reduce the probability of it happening. Even if the potential gain in case of success is $200 million, you still wouldn't do it. Now, if you have 10 projects, each with a chance of failure of 10%, and a loss in case of failure of $10 million, then you can say that your expected loss is $10 million, which might be acceptable. Another example: say you're 40 and you want to perform a particularly risky stunt, with a 10% chance of you dying. Then you don't go ahead just because on average, you'll lose 5 years of your life. You either die or you don't, and if I have the choice between dying and not dying, I'll make drat sure that my chance of death is way below 10%, no matter what the potential gain is. If you use a non-applicable formula, you'll get non-applicable results, even if the input values are correct. Severity times probability is applicable to low and medium range severity, not if the consequences are very drastic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 07:48
|
|
|
.. but the conquences of a radiation leak are not very drastic. The worst-case at current tech is not Chernobyl, it's something marginally worse than Fukushima. That means, not very severe. Also, do you calculate the chance you'll be killed in a car crash when deciding whatever or not exiting your home? (Every shareholder on the planet would take a $100m risk with 90% of +$200m and 10% and going to 0)
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 13:06
|
|
|
Aureon posted:.. but the conquences of a radiation leak are not very drastic. This is the goddamned stupidest thing I have yet read in this thread, and that's (sadly) saying something. I know that goons are positively obsessed with white-knighting nuclear power no matter what contortions it requires, but calling the consequences of Fukushima "not severe" is just... do you expect anybody to take that statement seriously? Come on, man. As of late last year, TEPCO estimated the cost of the Fukushima incident + cleanup at around $11 TRILLION yen. So there alone is a "severe consequence" in the context we were speaking about (i.e., effectively uninsurable costs), never mind the actual real effects in terms of the ongoing dangerous and expensive containment protocols, the exclusion zone, etc. etc., all of which is real and necessary no matter how many sperg warriors make quips about TEH ATOMZ. I'm not opposed to nuclear power per se as part of a rational energy mix, but the way some people talk about it in this thread is just the gooniest, spergiest poo poo. I posted just last week about a tour I went on of a biomass generator where they literally just throw wood garbage into a pile and squeeze 6MWh out of it with no pollutants, noise, or other negative impact whatsoever, in a tiny unassuming building you could plop down in the middle of a dense urban environment without anybody noticing. Nobody gives a poo poo about that, but lets all go on and on and on about nuclear power being the Mary Sue of power sources and try to pretend like a $137 billion insurance bill isn't a valid policy concern for people in my line of work to deal with.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:As of late last year, TEPCO estimated the cost of the Fukushima incident + cleanup at around $11 TRILLION yen. Not actually that big of a deal in a country with a GDP of 3 quadrillion yen or so!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:11
|
|
|
Install Gentoo posted:Not actually that big of a deal in a country with a GDP of 3 quadrillion yen or so! You're right, if an accident only costs 2% of annual GDP, it's definitely "not very severe".
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:16
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:You're right, if an accident only costs 2% of annual GDP, it's definitely "not very severe". It actually isn't? Especially in comparison to the goddamn tsunami and earthquake that happened at the same time? This happens once, rather than fossil fuels which cause damage constantly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:25
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:This is the goddamned stupidest thing I have yet read in this thread, and that's (sadly) saying something. I know that goons are positively obsessed with white-knighting nuclear power no matter what contortions it requires, but calling the consequences of Fukushima "not severe" is just... do you expect anybody to take that statement seriously? Come on, man. 6MWh. drat. What a huge amount of energy. Maybe it'll replace the electricity used to build it in a few years. e: Please tell me you meant 6GWH because holy poo poo 6MWH 
Schizotek fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:32
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:6MWh. drat. What a huge amount of energy. Maybe it'll replace the electricity used to build it in a few years. The average energy consumption of a US home is 11 MWh per year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
Taerkar posted:Again, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it's wrong. I wrote my criticism of that argument. Either reply to that or don't. Edit: no need for me to get snarky. QuarkJets posted:I'm not sure what else to tell you. It's very common in engineering to estimate quantities that we don't know with perfect accuracy, such as the probability that a dam will burst or the probability that a radiation container will leak. If you throw that away then you essentially throw away all of risk management, a cornerstone of engineering. It doesn't matter and that was not the argument. There is something wrong with this methodology when doing this comparision. Taerkar posted:e: If you have 10000 containers and 1 leaks after 10 years, then the "probability" of leaking after 10 years is 1/10000. Why did you put quotes around "probability?" We can estimate the probability of a container leaking after N years, it's not an impossible feat. I don't understand what your hangup is here, could you try explaining it a little more? We are not talking about simplifications or their worth. It is not factually correct, and the poster before me pointed that out. First off, you don't know the probability. You know the frequence of events in the past. It is not the same loving thing. That you assume you can _estimate_ the "non quote" probability shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Second and more importantly, you equate a binary event with a continous value of "that much radiation by mining" by taking the expected value of a binary distribution. By that you assume that a barrel can leak or not leak, always with the same probability and always the same amount of leakage. And THEN you go ahead and claim that obviously this equates to a number value of radiation during mining. Without talking about the actual error severity of such an estimation, it is not correct in so many ways. A guy pointed this out. And instead of saying "I think in this case the difference is not important to the hypothetical argument" (which would have been fine) you guys went ahead and jumped on him like "just because you don't understand it dumbo". Literally. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to point out and it is also correct. And this kind of posting makes you look like an rear end Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:47
|
|
|
karthun posted:The average energy consumption of a US home is 11 MWh per year. If its the same generator that she talked about thats 30 million dollars for 6MWH. Thirty. Million. Dollars. I mean, I have high hopes for stuff like biomass. So I'm hoping shes just really really bad at stating her case.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:51
|
|
|
Install Gentoo posted:It actually isn't? Especially in comparison to the goddamn tsunami and earthquake that happened at the same time? The tsunami and earthquake are irrelevant to what we are talking about- that $137 billion bill is solely for the costs of Fukushima Dai-ichi related cleanup, not for tsunami related costs. The cause is not really material at all, though it should be noted that there was certainly a way to prevent the meltdown incident even with the natural disaster, if things had been done properly. And if you are going to sit there and seriously tell people that 2% of annual GDP isn't a huge loving cost for one corporation or entity to shell out for, then I don't think I even need to respond to that to make a point. In the words of Obama: please proceed, Install Gentoo. The entire point here is that certain energy-related accident events, like the Gulf oil spill, Fukushima, whatever, are not subject to a Time x Severity cost benefit analysis. That's all! That's it! A simple, easy to understand point that basically everyone in a relevant policy or industry position understands and accepts: you need to treat these things separately, both from a cost/benefit standpoint and a regulatory standpoint, because the insurance costs are effectively infinite if something goes wrong. And please read CombatInformatiker's post if you don't understand what "effectively infinite" means from an insurance perspective. And yet despite that simple fact, that we are even having this conversation is, again, pretty elegantly advancing my point: a lot of nuclear advocates in this thread are being irrational in a way I normally associate with ideological movements rather than discussions of how to make lights turn on. You can still be pro-nuclear while acknowledging that there's a serious issue at play of how to insure against these costs and to treat them with a higher degree of severity than you do other ones. I am pro-hydro power, and yet a big chunk of my loving job is asking questions like, "Well, what happens if that dam collapses in an earthquake?", because I am a loving adult and not a middle schooler pushing a pet cause I just discovered. The whole point being: as was seen in both Fukushima and the Gulf spill, people will cut corners and ignore the elephant in the room if you let them, so you need to consciously design everything to prevent that from happening because the severity threshold is so much higher. And not, you know, just handwave it away like some ignorant-rear end technophile that has apparently never interacted with a venal, MBA-having manager in his life. Install Gentoo posted:This happens once, rather than fossil fuels which cause damage constantly. Again, some pro-nuclear people in this thread keep making this argument like it's some kind of trump card, because apparently they know dick all about human psychology, politics, and economics. News flash: the costs of pollution from coal plants are what we call "externalities", and they are essentially socially-acceptable ones at that. By way of analogy, they fall into the same category as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes from eating lovely food- sure, everybody knows eating lovely food is bad, and the government could easily mandate everyone become vegetarian or whatever (thereby saving society enormous costs), but that's only a rational argument to make if you are somehow pig-loving-ignorant of all of the vested interests at play in making that decision, up to and including the average dude's love of Cheetos. If you want to make an argument to convince somebody to drop the trans fats and eat some celery, you can't do it by being Captain Smugboat McSperglord and trying to somehow stand athwart human nature. "This only happened once!" is a pretty hilarious argument to make in the face of a bunch of people telling you that just because something only happens once, doesn't mean it isn't prohibitively expensive to deal with. It's basically the worst, least-effective argument you can make (not that there is any reasonable argument to be made at all, since pointing out the insurance issue isn't inherently an anti-nuclear stance at all, but I guess such trivialities fall by the wayside once the Pro-Nuclear Jihad batsignal has been lit).
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:56
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:You're right, if an accident only costs 2% of annual GDP, it's definitely "not very severe". So, equal to three Katrinas.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 18:56
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:If its the same generator that she talked about thats 30 million dollars for 6MWH. Thirty. Million. Dollars. http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Series-GENSD7-7000-Diesel-Generator/dp/B003T1RTWO/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1366135394&sr=1-1 That should be close to 6mWh per year. And you can convert it to run off of biodiesel!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:04
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:6MWh. drat. What a huge amount of energy. Maybe it'll replace the electricity used to build it in a few years. Well saying Biomass is 100% CO/2 neutral is not really correct but 6MW is a lot. The largest offshore turbines we (Germany) are currently connecting are pulling that amount. And connecting and building a windpark offshore is expensive as gently caress. Connecting one field literally costs billions and it can easily cost several billions to build. Sure, we Germans are bonkers because we build our poo poo waay out there (because of coastal protection of our mudflap sea), still. Edit: If I'd tell you what regenerative energies are actually costing us in Germany you'd cry. It's ridiculous. Like unreal. A couple of millions for a nice generator on steady land is nothing. Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:06
|
|
|
Biomass generation is supposed to be meant as a supplemental energy source that also allows us to greatly reduce landfill usage.Fine-able Offense posted:The tsunami and earthquake are irrelevant to what we are talking about- that $137 billion bill is solely for the costs of Fukushima Dai-ichi related cleanup, not for tsunami related costs. The cause is not really material at all, though it should be noted that there was certainly a way to prevent the meltdown incident even with the natural disaster, if things had been done properly. Nothing you have posted does anything to contradict the cost analysis. This happened once, in the midst of a huge natural disaster, and that's it. You don't seem to get that 2% of GDP happening one time ever isn't actually a major thing? Sucks for TEPCO but I'm not exactly going to shed tears over TEPCO posting a loss for the next couple years. No one even died from it, and most of the land area that is temporarily evacuated is going to be just fine very soon, with a lot of it already being fine. Much of it was simultaneously devastated by the quake and tsunami too.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:08
|
|
|
hobbesmaster posted:So, equal to three Katrinas. That's a bad comparison, because we didn't pay anywhere near what Katrina cost. We kind of just threw up our hands and went meh.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:12
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:If its the same generator that she talked about thats 30 million dollars for 6MWH. Thirty. Million. Dollars. karthun posted:The average energy consumption of a US home is 11 MWh per year. God drat guys, you understand that there's a difference between measuring megawatts of energy produced per hour and somebody's average annual use, right? If you are going to try and do some incompetent napkin-math, it's over 50,000 megawatts of heat load per year. (Also I am a he) For the record, the facility in question, in heat-only (non co-gen) mode, produces enough heat to supply 25% of UBC's campus, mostly heat-energy intensive research buildings. So, equivalent to 25% of the heat load of a suburban town of 50,000 people. All from two trucks worth per day of literal wood waste. And it's just a small demonstration project, which I explained upthread when I talked about syngas and other things that clearly nobody bothered to read or understand, since they explain the much higher cost of the facility. In co-gen mode you're going to get even more efficiencies, and power output too; in a commercial application, it would likely be far cheaper to build, because you'd use natgas for the co-gen instead of trying to recover syngas. All I was saying is, "Hey, here's a cool thing that has some practical applications, going completely unnoticed in the race to defend nuclear power from the rapacious grip of simple mathematics". The cost of the actual facility is largely irrelevant since it's a pure research venture doing something nobody has tried to do before, which I figured would be of interest to people who clearly prize science above all else, right? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:12
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:Well saying Biomass is 100% CO/2 neutral is not really correct but 6MW is a lot. The largest offshore turbines we (Germany) are currently connecting are pulling that amount. 6MVA generators are on the smaller end of things. 6 MWh is the unit of energy those will put our in one hour*. That landfill will over its entire lifetime be outperformed by that generator running for one hour. Red_Mage posted:That's a bad comparison, because we didn't pay anywhere near what Katrina cost. We kind of just threw up our hands and went meh. Ok so 3 Sandys. edit 2: *assuming unity power factor, reread my post and noticed i said MVA hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:13
|
|
|
Install Gentoo posted:Biomass generation is supposed to be meant as a supplemental energy source that also allows us to greatly reduce landfill usage. If you think a one-time $137 billion dollar bill is nothing for insurance purposes, and doesn't elegantly illustrate the point people were trying to make here about Time/Cost analysis not being relevant for certain categories of cost, then I don't know what to say. I feel like you actually made my case for me, so thanks for that! I'm going to stop derailing the thread with this conversation.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:16
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:God drat guys, you understand that there's a difference between measuring megawatts of energy produced per hour and somebody's average annual use, right? If you are going to try and do some incompetent napkin-math, it's over 50,000 megawatts of heat load per year. Your misusing SI units. Its a common mistake. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:16
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:Your misusing SI units. Its a common mistake. Do tell.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:21
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:Well saying Biomass is 100% CO/2 neutral is not really correct but 6MW is a lot. The largest offshore turbines we (Germany) are currently connecting are pulling that amount. And connecting and building a windpark offshore is expensive as gently caress. Connecting one field literally costs billions and it can easily cost several billions to build. 6 MW is a good chunk of power. But we arn't talking about MW, we are talking about MW-H. Power, energy two different things. Don't get me wrong, regenerative energies are awesome and should be exploited as far as we can. Perhaps if Germany implemented it everywhere possible you can go from building eight new coal power plants this decade to seven.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:22
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:Do tell. Ok so its 6MVA, thats kinda cool.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:24
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:If you think a one-time $137 billion dollar bill is nothing for insurance purposes, and doesn't elegantly illustrate the point people were trying to make here about Time/Cost analysis not being relevant for certain categories of cost, then I don't know what to say. That doesn't make Time/Cost analysis not relevant though? The plant was there for 40 years.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:28
|
|
|
hobbesmaster posted:6MVA generators are on the smaller end of things. 6 MWh is the unit of energy those will put our in one hour*. That landfill will over its entire lifetime be outperformed by that generator running for one hour. Oh right, 6MWh is not a lot (especially for a 6 MW turbine). But why do you say that 6 MW is on the smaller side of things? I thought the largest turbine ever is around 7 something MW? Edit: holy moly, apparently they are working on 10 MW turbines. I wonder how large those fucker gonna be
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
hobbesmaster posted:Ok so its 6MVA, thats kinda cool. Well the whole thing is apples to oranges since it's a heat load for a central steam system and not an electrical load. Like I said, it's better to just say "25% of the heat load of an enormous university campus on a large, suburban parcel of land" and leave it at that. It gets even more complicated when you are talking about the co-gen, heh.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:Do tell. http://www.energylens.com/articles/kw-and-kwh Its entirely possible your first use of the kwh was correct. Just horribly akward and not terribly indicative of the capabilities of the generator.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
Schizotek posted:Its entirely possible your first use of the kwh was correct. Just horribly akward and not terribly indicative of the capabilities of the generator. Again, you're going to have to explain how you got confused when I said the facility puts out 6MWh. Because if I said that in the office, everybody would understand what I meant: it makes six megawatts of heat in an hour.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:31
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:Again, you're going to have to explain how you got confused when I said the facility puts out 6MWh. Because if I said that in the office, everybody would understand what I meant: it makes six megawatts of heat in an hour. What field are you in where units of energy are used for power?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
hobbesmaster posted:What field are you in where units of energy are used for power? I'm a power utility regulator. Edit: Like I am genuinely curious what confused you guys, I'm not trying to be a smughead or anything.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:33
|
|
|
Fine-able Offense posted:Again, you're going to have to explain how you got confused when I said the facility puts out 6MWh. Because if I said that in the office, everybody would understand what I meant: it makes six megawatts of heat in an hour. e:The  thing was uncalled for. I guess. But do read through that entire link again.e2: The best way to say it is that KWH would be used to measure how much energy burning a single unit of fuel would produce. It says nothing about the rate at which this occurs. It could take 10 years and still be measured in KWH. e3: gently caress whoever decided KWH was the unit to use for energy. Schizotek fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:33
|
|
|
karthun posted:6 MW is a good chunk of power. But we arn't talking about MW, we are talking about MW-H. Power, energy two different things. We already have too much regenerative energies in our net. It pushes down energy prices (not for consumers) while making the net unstable. Therefore we (the net owners) need to buy not only the energy to regulate the net, but we also need to pay energy companies to build, hold and maintain base powerplants such as coal or combined cycle plants on top of just gas turbine plants (because they are no longer profitable). Which is of cause what the consumers need to pay on top of the connection costs of all those offshore farms. And the difference between the sinking price and the guaranteed price for regenerative energies. All in all it's poo poo, but what can we do. We are not Norway. Edit: though it is pretty tough on the poors, I'd imagine Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:35
|
|
|
Boner Slam posted:Oh right, 6MWh is not a lot (especially for a 6 MW turbine). Huh?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:37
|
|
|
for regenerative energies I mean. Edit: Maybe turbine is the wrong word in English. A typical wind park with a lot of wind mills (?) is around 800MW (not h) but a typical wind mill turny thingy is 5-6MW tops offshore (right now typically) Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 17:53 |
|
|
Schizotek posted:The I read the link, but again: in the utility sector, measuring gross power generation in MWh is the industry standard. There's a bunch of reasons for that, but here look at this: http://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt-electric/northwest.asp I had that open at work for Reasons, but that's a FERC (aka American regulatory) document measuring loads in MWh. Edited: a better webpage with more measurements.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2013 19:39
|
|