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Paper Mac posted:So, this is a scam, right? Reducing sulphur output from a diesel engine is also a worthwhile goal, but it needs to be done (and largely has been done) at the refinery. Once the sulphur enters the combustion cylinder, it's inevitably going to leave the tailpipe as an oxide (or sulphuric acid, or a complex hydrocarbon, but those are generally worse). They claim that the sulphur is magically getting bound to an ethylene molecule (presumably as thiirane, although they don't identify it as such). Thus, they've managed to "eliminate" sulphur emissions by transforming it into a chemical form which they couldn't (or just didn't bother to) measure. Note also that thiirane itself is flammable and somewhat unstable - if you release it into the wild then that sulphur atom is going to become SO2 anyways. A similar objection applies to any reduction in carbon output. Unless your car is periodically making GBS threads out bricks of graphite, any carbon that enters a combustion chamber is going to leave the tailpipe. Catalysis can convert it into forms that are harder to detect, but it doesn't magically disappear. The entire experiment design seems a bit lazy/silly. Vehicles don't burn diesel at 1 atm with haphazard air supply; they burn it at 15+ atm with a specific fuel-air mixture. Higher pressure means higher temperatures, which tends to provide a more complete combustion (the peak temperature within a diesel-burning cylinder is greater than the HNG+diesel flame that they tested). A Bunsen-burner trial is fine for initial analysis, but a reputable company would have tested their fuel additive in an actual engine before going public with their wild claims about 100% increases in efficiency. Dusseldorf posted:HNG is packed with ‘Exotic Hydrogen’ GulMadred fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 19:52
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Are they selling wristbands packed with exotic hydrogen to ensure positive body energy yet?
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Aug 2, 2013 19:56
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Paper Mac posted:So, this is a scam, right? At immediate first glance I thought it was genuine, because there have been materials that can suck up a ridiculous amount of CO2 reversibly (layered double hydroxides, for instance http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie060757k). A nanoparticulate LDH "gas" could be cheap enough and have enough surface area to completely soak up CO2, in principle. But then I read this garbage on their site: http://www.hydroinfra.com/en/solutions/what-is-hng/ quote:HNG is packed with ‘Exotic Hydrogen’ There's the bullshit about how they're somehow storing exotic matter, which is indeed a thing but not anything you can generate without a particle accelerator anyway. Also there's nothing to suggest that exotic hydrogen will neutralize CO2 or other pollutants; it would probably do something entirely different if it came into contact with another atom/molecule, like rip itself apart and leave the pollutant molecule unscathed. But pay very close attention to what HNG actually is; a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. For some reason, hydrogen-oxygen gas mixtures are a fascinating avenue for scams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070910/full/news070910-13.html), probably because practically anyone with an outlet can generate the legendary 2:1 hydrogen oxygen gas mixture purported to be an amazing fuel additive (except it really isn't) and being able to cyclically power a car because generating it takes less energy than creating it (except it doesn't, see water-car scam). Office Thug fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 20:00
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Thanks for the commentary, folks.Office Thug posted:At immediate first glance I thought it was genuine, because there have been materials that can suck up a ridiculous amount of CO2 reversibly (layered double hydroxides, for instance http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie060757k). A nanoparticulate LDH "gas" could be cheap enough and have enough surface area to completely soak up CO2, in principle. These are really neat materials I'd never heard of before, thanks for the link.
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Aug 2, 2013 21:09
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Office Thug posted:At immediate first glance I thought it was genuine, because there have been materials that can suck up a ridiculous amount of CO2 reversibly (layered double The laws of thermodynamics are just mainstream science. Think outside the box.  In other news, Germany predictably fails at replacing nuclear power with renewable power, CO2 emissions are on the rise again. I am currently alternating between disappointment at this lack of progress and smugness about the "I told you so  " opportunities to be had.
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Aug 3, 2013 12:30
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Plasma gasification is a real thing right? At least there's that?
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Aug 3, 2013 12:36
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blowfish posted:Said a campaigner for Greenpeace, “The Merkel government doesn’t do enough to protect the climate anymore.” http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/ posted:Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
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Aug 3, 2013 12:48
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Office Thug posted:Current worst-case nuclear plant construction, riddled with cost overruns and delays, versus current best case large-scale solar construction, with heightened momentum from the flood of cheap solar panels from the Chinese market. Who do you think wins? It's still nuclear, by a huge margin. Quantum Mechanic or Hobo Erotica care to respond to this?
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Aug 6, 2013 02:08
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Be careful. If you make too good a case for nuclear power the goalposts will shift back to "we can't talk about nuclear power because it's politically unfeasible. Better just frack!"
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Aug 6, 2013 02:32
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blacksun posted:Quantum Mechanic or Hobo Erotica care to respond to this? I'm not at all surprised nuclear is more viable for Germany and Finland than solar PV. I've said before in this thread that colder countries with lower insolation are probably going to have to go nuclear to go 100% zero-carbon. In fact I'm reasonably sure I specifically mentioned Germany and the Scandinavian nations as ones that would probably HAVE to be using nuclear. I'd be interested in a similar comparison of solar thermal in a more solar-viable country like Australia or the UAE. Decentralised PV isn't a major component of any large-scale renewable energy plan that I'm aware of, and it's generally factored in as a method of cutting demand more than a method of grid generation. Nevvy Z posted:Be careful. If you make too good a case for nuclear power the goalposts will shift back to "we can't talk about nuclear power because it's politically unfeasible. Better just frack!" Literally nobody in this thread, not even Hobo Erotica, has said that coal and CSG are preferable to nuclear fission. Stop constructing strawmen.
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Aug 6, 2013 03:15
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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How much water do concentrated solar thermal plants and solar PVs consume? I thought cleaning the mirrors took a great deal of water and transportation. And wouldn't the concentrated solar require a cooling water loop? Just wondering if water is a hiccup for arid regions looking to use solar.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:37
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All power plants that convert thermal energy to electricity have to dump a lot of heat to the environment (typically anywhere from about 80% to 150% of the electrical power generated), so, for example, a 500 MW solar thermal plant with 50% efficiency would also have to dump 500 MW of heat to the environment. This is normally handled by heating a huge volume of water a few degrees C (because the cooler the working fluid is when rejecting heat to the environment, the more efficient the power plant), but doesn't necessarily entail any actual consumption of water. If, for example, your water supply is 20 degC base and you heat it to 35 degC with your condenser, and your power plant is 500 MW electrical with 50% thermal efficiency, you need a flow of (500 MW / (4.18 kJ/kg/degK * 15 degK)) = ~8000 kg/second of water (which is about 8 m^3 of water per second). This sort of basic analysis neglects many factors, of course, not least of which is evaporation, but it should make it obvious that a nontrivial amount of water is required for thermal power plants of any appreciable size. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, about 2.5% of the water used by thermoelectric power plants is actually evaporated so the above example would evaporate about 200 kg/sec of water, or about 53 gallons/sec (or about 4.6 million gallons per day). For perspective, from the above link, NREL posted:According to the USGS the total amount of fresh water used at U.S. thermoelectric power plants in 1995 was 132,000 MGD (500 x 10^9 L/d), of which 2.5%, or 3,310 MGD (12.5 x 10^9L/d), was evaporated The paper also notes that about half a gallon of water is evaporated per kWh produced by thermoelectric power plants. I have no idea what the water consumption for PV would be.
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Aug 6, 2013 05:15
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John McCain posted:All power plants that convert thermal energy to electricity have to dump a lot of heat to the environment (typically anywhere from about 80% to 150% of the electrical power generated), so, for example, a 500 MW solar thermal plant with 50% efficiency would also have to dump 500 MW of heat to the environment. This is normally handled by heating a huge volume of water a few degrees C (because the cooler the working fluid is when rejecting heat to the environment, the more efficient the power plant), but doesn't necessarily entail any actual consumption of water. Edit: Stupid question above this sentence, but I then have to ask why evaporating out the water in cooling towers or dumping it out in the lake isn't horribly inefficient. Edit 2: Apparently GE is leading the way in water efficiency: http://www.gewater.com/zero-liquid-discharge-zld.html Blackbird Fly fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 05:45
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Quantum Mechanic posted:Literally nobody in this thread, not even Hobo Erotica, has said that coal and CSG are preferable to nuclear fission. Stop constructing strawmen. Blackbird Fly fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 05:55
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blacksun posted:Quantum Mechanic or Hobo Erotica care to respond to this? Not entirely sure what you mean by this, the post seems to speak for itself. Maybe I'm misreading a tone, but if you're trying to imply that I'm anti nuclear in certain situations you've got the wrong guy. That said, there are plenty of articles describing how the cost curve for solar PV continues to plummet, and they serve as an excellent way of quietly smoothing the energy demand spikes which electricity retailers charge huge premiums for. But as QM said, they're not great for utility scale deployment, and they can be expensive. And since not all solar resources are equal, there are going to be circumstances where nuclear is the way to go, maybe even in Australia. As I said in the OP, once it's up and running it packs a hell of a punch, and has safely delivered a whole bunch of TWh of power across the world. I still like videos so here's a nice time lapse of the biggest rooftop installation in Sydney going up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQU6R1_ZUXg
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Aug 6, 2013 06:18
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Pander posted:How much water do concentrated solar thermal plants and solar PVs consume? I thought cleaning the mirrors took a great deal of water and transportation. And wouldn't the concentrated solar require a cooling water loop? Just wondering if water is a hiccup for arid regions looking to use solar. Assuming you're willing to take the efficiency hit they can be air-cooled, and it's often perfectly acceptable to do so since you're only wasting sunlight rather than costly fuel. The water washing usage is fairly minimal. Blackbird Fly posted:I think the poster you responded to is addressing a general argument used by people in the best-selling game In Real Life to argue against nuclear power. My mistake, I've straight-up been called pro-coal before for not immediately wanting to fellate nuclear fission in all of its forms as the Salvation For MankindTM and it's kind of irrirating.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:28
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Can you have a nuclear power program that enables you to build power plants but not nuclear weapons? I mean it's pretty problematic for countries like the US to openly state that nuclear power is the best and most cost effective way of supplying power if it then denies it to a bunch of poor countries because we don't want nukes in unstable areas. We do it with Iran but we don't really want nukes where there could potentially be a civil war or a neighboring country might invade either. If the US transitions to nuclear power it sends a message and it needs a plan for how you deal with it on a global scale. I'm not saying the US should deny other countries using it. I'm saying that is what the US government will do and that it probably won't be a tenable position.
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Aug 6, 2013 21:11
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Anosmoman posted:Can you have a nuclear power program that enables you to build power plants but not nuclear weapons? Yes, just don't use Uranium. Or not; I guess U-233 is still a thing.
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Aug 6, 2013 21:14
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computer parts posted:Yes, just don't use Uranium. The answer is: Plutonium fuel with more than 7% Pu-240 burnt in a fast neutron reactor. Pu-240 causes nuclear bombs to "pre-detonate" and produce very low yields if there's more than 7% in the Plutonium mix. It's also extremely difficult to separate from Pu-239 because it has only one extra neutron (or 0.4% mass difference). Fast neutron reactors will burn anything that's even thinking about fissioning. The Russians have used a bunch of lead-cooled fast reactors for submarine propulsion. There's also a proposed Gen IV lead/bismuth cooled reactor.
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Aug 7, 2013 00:06
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Anosmoman posted:Can you have a nuclear power program that enables you to build power plants but not nuclear weapons? The IAEA is able to track the fuel cycles of countries in such detail that it's basically impossible for a compliant country to create weapons grade material from a reactor without the IAEA being aware of it (the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that no nuclear material has been diverted from the fuel cycle in Iran). Proliferation isn't a problem with nuclear power, it's just a political issue.
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Aug 7, 2013 01:04
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ANIME AKBAR posted:The IAEA is able to track the fuel cycles of countries in such detail that it's basically impossible for a compliant country to create weapons grade material from a reactor without the IAEA being aware of it (the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed that no nuclear material has been diverted from the fuel cycle in Iran). Proliferation isn't a problem with nuclear power, it's just a political issue. To explain further, the argument that the US and Israel is constantly bringing up is the capability for nuclear weapons which neither state wants Iran to have. Also, there have been some states that evaded IAEA inspections like Apartheid South Africa and Israel.
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Aug 7, 2013 03:33
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Court orders Obama administration to poo poo or get off the pot regarding Yucca Mountain:quote:n a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
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Aug 14, 2013 02:03
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Paul MaudDib posted:Court orders Obama administration to poo poo or get off the pot regarding Yucca Mountain: NRC is (not really) the Obama or any other's administration. The fact is they have been shuffling their feet for a while on any and all permits, applications, etc. Including Yucca Mountain. Senor P. fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 02:13
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Senor P. posted:NRC is (not really) the Obama or any other's administration. The fact is they have been shuffling their feet for a while on any and all permits, applications, etc. Including Yucca Mountain. Even if the NRC isn't directly under the NRC, Obama still shut down their inquiry before.
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Aug 14, 2013 03:21
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I forget, was there ever a reason why we don't store the "waste" at the WIPP in New Mexico?
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Aug 14, 2013 03:37
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Placebo Orgasm posted:I forget, was there ever a reason why we don't store the "waste" at the WIPP in New Mexico? Constant and vociferous uninformed anger at anything that has to do with anything nuclear. I mean, the facilityh itself was finalyl approved to open in 1992... but that opening was repeatedly held back until 1999! We have since sent a lot of waste there though.
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Aug 14, 2013 04:09
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Placebo Orgasm posted:I forget, was there ever a reason why we don't store the "waste" at the WIPP in New Mexico? More to the point, WIPP simply is too small-potatoes. Its total footprint is similar to that of the proposed Canadian waste repository (but the USA has much more waste to inter, since it runs something like 4x as many reactors). Its primary hoist has a 40-ton capacity; spent-fuel cask designs can easily exceed 100 tons. It doesn't have a radiologically-secure surface factory/lab (which could be used to inspect and repackage waste, if necessary). From what I can find online, it also lacks the sort of kill-on-sight security force which one would expect to find wherever proliferation-risk material is being handled.
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Aug 14, 2013 04:36
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I thought it was a local politician who obstructed Yucca Mountain, not Obama.
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Aug 14, 2013 06:31
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spankmeister posted:I thought it was a local politician who obstructed Yucca Mountain, not Obama. Harry Reid was definitely the driving force behind it, but Obama is the one who ultimately can apply pressure, not Reid. They're both responsible in different ways.
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Aug 14, 2013 14:47
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Anosmoman posted:Can you have a nuclear power program that enables you to build power plants but not nuclear weapons? You could have the richer states export tamper-resistant modular reactors, with these states also offering to replace the "core" with a fresh one when needed and also dealing with the spent core themselves. There's actually several advantages with this scheme, especially when it comes to breeders like thorium reactors and fast reactors, notably because many of the spent-core products would be very valuable nuclear isotopes and other products. It also guarantees fuel contracts, which is basically the only thing the US wants anyway.
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Aug 20, 2013 01:15
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Been a good few months for wind around here:quote:
I'm sure those numbers aren't that big internationally, but it's good to know we're getting better by some pretty significant margins. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/wintry-blasts-blow-away-wind-energy-records-20130826-2skhk.html#ixzz2dGioBpRV
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Aug 28, 2013 14:09
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France is looking to shoot itself in the foot apparently. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-20/france-plans-carbon-tax-atomic-cap-in-27-billion-energy-shift.html quote:France will introduce a carbon levy and a law to cap nuclear-power capacity next year under plans to boost renewable generation that will cost about 20 billion euros ($27 billion) a year, according to President Francois Hollande. For $27 billion a year they could be putting up a new nuclear plant generating some 450 TWh total over its 60 year life. The problem is that unlike Germany, they don't have extremely dirty coal to fall back on if this gamble doesn't pay off. They plan to cut nuclear capacity in half with their current total nuclear capacity being 425 TWh per year. Much like the Germans, they'll do this quickly and worry about the details later because nuclear is so scary etc.. The worst part is that other states are also depending on energy exports from France, with some 50 TWh being exported from them. I wish they'd just look across the border to check out how Germany is doing with its ridiculous plan. Because it doesn't look like it's going so well over there. Office Thug fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 15:50
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Don't worry I'm sure the US can export some coal if they need cheap, non nuclear, base load power.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:00
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This is just political right? What are the economics of their decision? They already HAVE these plants, why cap them?
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Sep 25, 2013 16:44
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Kafka Esq. posted:This is just political right? What are the economics of their decision? They already HAVE these plants, why cap them? If the goal is cheap power and no carbon, then no reason whatsoever. At best, you could say that they're trying to transition to a fully wind/solar economy but that's still going to require nuclear in the near term and it will raise power costs.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:47
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The purpose is to get votes from people who think nuclear->bad, alternative->good, and don't think any harder than that.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:54
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Germany's energy policy is nothing short of an unmigitated disaster and it's only going to get worse.
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Sep 25, 2013 17:07
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Don't worry I'm sure the US will be happy to export as many peaking gas turbines as you need and all the fracked natural gas you need to run them!
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Sep 25, 2013 17:23
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Can anyone recommend a good source of updates on the Fukushima cleanup?
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Sep 25, 2013 18:09
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Kafka Esq. posted:This is just political right? What are the economics of their decision? They already HAVE these plants, why cap them? I think it's because the plants are getting old and they'll be looking to retire some of the older ones around 2035 regardless. The entire fleet will reach its end-of-life point around mid 2045. But it sounds like they want to avoid re-licensing and retire them faster, with half the fleet going offline by 2026. The cap is just saying that they won't be replacing the retired plants with as many new nuclear plants. However, they've already pretty much "phased out" the construction of new nuclear plants via knee-jerk reactionary regulatory ratcheting. The ongoing cost of nuclear plants that were under construction in France magically doubled after Fukushima. More or less because they took a page out of US' book on how to "improve" nuclear safety. Their plan is obviously geared towards phasing out nuclear, and to hell with the consequences. Their alternative approach is "Spend exorbitant amounts of money every year to use renewables and use less energy", so it's hard to tell what the economics will look like. They won't get anywhere near as much bang for their buck as they would if they built another fleet of standardized nuclear plants. Heck, even with the doubled costs for their newer plants (~9 billion euros per ~45 TWh/year production with EPRs), it would be an uphill battle to go with renewables instead. They're going to invest 20 billion euros yearly to enact their plan. If they invested those 20 billion euros into building new nuclear capacity, breaking ground with 12 new plants right away, they'd only need to invest 20 billion every year over 6 years in order to completely replace their old nuclear capacity. They could stretch that over 15-20 years comfortably without needing to do any drastic refurbishing of current existing plants.
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Sep 25, 2013 20:36
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