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Trabisnikof posted:Plus, do you really think a nuclear plant doesn't use a lot of steel? Or that their generators don't have magnets in them? The amount of concrete in a nuclear plant actually has a meaningful impact on the carbon footprint of a nuclear plant. Nowhere near as much as all the windmills you'd have to build to get the same power output out of at absolute peak, let alone the amount you'd need to build to average out to the same output.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:49
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Install Windows posted:Nowhere near as much as all the windmills you'd have to build to get the same power output out of at absolute peak, let alone the amount you'd need to build to average out to the same output. Do you actually have any evidence to back this claim up on the resource side? (I know about capacity factor) Plus the mining required for capital is tiny compared the mining for fuel, which is 0 for solar/wind. Remember, its all about understanding the scale of the problem.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:53
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Trabisnikof posted:I forgot to include that one! A whole 200 tons? Wow. Imagine that. A whole dump truck for a single plant per year. That sure is a lot.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:57
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Trabisnikof posted:Do you actually have any evidence to back this claim up on the resource side? (I know about capacity factor) Yes, go look up the amount of steel you need for 3,666 windmills with 44 meter diameter rotors (which would each generate 600 kilowatts at full output) mounted on supports high enough to get the wind consistently versus a single 2.2 gigawatt nuclear power station. That's completely wrong, since you need to build a shitload of wind turbines while modern reactor designs can literally use the tons and tons of "waste" older plants generated to run for quite a while if we stopped mining uranium tomorrow. The scale of the problem is you need a shitload of wind turbines to meet the power output of a single nuclear power station, let alone multiple, let alone meeting the power output consistently instead of the rare cases of full output.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:01
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Phanatic posted:A whole 200 tons? Compared to 0, yes yes it is. Especially since that's tons of ore not a valid measure of environmental impact. Install Windows posted:Yes, go look up the amount of steel you need for 3,666 windmills with 44 meter diameter rotors (which would each generate 600 kilowatts at full output) mounted on supports high enough to get the wind consistently versus a single 2.2 gigawatt nuclear power station. Listen, I can understand how big wind turbines are. I would figure nuke nerds would also know how big nuclear reactors (and their pipeworks) are. Install Windows posted:That's completely wrong, since you need to build a shitload of wind turbines while modern reactor designs can literally use the tons and tons of "waste" older plants generated to run for quite a while if we stopped mining uranium tomorrow. Once again, comparing future designs to present realities. What power reactors under construction right now can do that? Experimental designs & research reactors don't count. Install Windows posted:The scale of the problem is you need a shitload of wind turbines to meet the power output of a single nuclear power station, let alone multiple, let alone meeting the power output consistently instead of the rare cases of full output. Even if we assumed that wind uses more mined goods for capital than nuclear, we've now falsely equivocated all kinds of mining to be equal (and ignored how industrial metal recycling exists on a scale nuclear fuel recycling has only dreamed of). See how we've successfully ignored a valid drawback, which is nuclear still has to mine its fuel while renewables don't. Edit: I'm not even anti-nuclear, just the echo chamber gets really bad in here.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:13
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Trabisnikof posted:Listen, I can understand how big wind turbines are. I would figure nuke nerds would also know how big nuclear reactors (and their pipeworks) are. Nowhere near as much as all the wind turbines you'd need to equal the power output in an endless ideal situation, let alone what you actually need to match average power output over time. If you think 1983 is the future you should probably stop trying to argue in 2014. There's no assumption here, it's facts. The only one falsely equivocating here is you, by pretending that mining for fissile material is anywhere close to the massive ongoing mining you'd need to build and then maintain the hundreds of millions of wind turbines minimum to replace fossil fuel and nuclear instead. That isn't a valid drawback at all, you colossally disingenuous man. You are in fact anti-nuclear, the only way you can see an echo chamber s if you are anti-nuclear and see anything positive about itas an echo chamber. Edit: Note that I'm being overly generous to you by not mentioning the additional resources for the vast power buffering systems needed to maintain a solar/wind system against variance in production and demand that nuclear can handle easily. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 01:23
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You're still trying to compare nuclear's fuel and materials (which are each effectively unlimited and limited in environmental impact) drawback with wind's capacity factor drawback. Just because wind doesn't 'need fuel' doesn't mean they're on the same par as a baseload replacer as nuclear power.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:29
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Comparing nuclear to wind is stupid because no one is arguing that wind isn't great. But all the wind in the world literally cannot ever power the world as we live in it.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:39
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Pander posted:
Baseload's a myth, though. You know, if you assume ideal generator availability, transmission network availability, and perfect meteorological forecasting skill.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:40
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Nevvy Z posted:Comparing nuclear to wind is stupid because no one is arguing that wind isn't great. But all the wind in the world literally cannot ever power the world as we live in it. And there's certainly a perception that the two cannot coexist, hence "I'm not anti nuclear but we should use wind instead of nuclear for reasons such as-" as a consistent response to "hey we should use nuclear to power the world."
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Jan 15, 2014 01:41
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Phanatic posted:Baseload's a myth, though. You know, if you assume ideal generator availability, transmission network availability, and perfect meteorological forecasting skill. Regulators HATE this guy! Learn the one secret trick to eliminate uncertainty in power distribution!
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Jan 15, 2014 01:42
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Even if we grant much reduced overcapacity for renewables than in this comparison, wind is still going to use way more resources to build than nuclear. Also 200 tons of fuel per reactor year really isn't much, and you can reduce that to low double digits if you use fast reactors. e: also regarding wind vs. nuclear: We'll need some (lots of) storage for renewables anyway. Current nuclear designs are certainly load following to a certain extent (100% to 50% in an hour), so they could run in a pattern according to average energy use and provide a certain percentage. Why not put renewables on top of that? You could have enough wind or solar or whatever to ensure sufficiently reliable overall power on average, with storage to buffer their short-term intermittency and/or to keep up with load spikes which nuclear dials up to meet in the meantime. Any super-sensitive manufacturing equipment that can't survive ultra short power grid fluctuations could be directly hooked to nuclear. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 01:43
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Seriously, "uses less materials" is one of the worst possible arguments to make in favor of wind, because it definitely isn't true unless you compare it to something like coal where you're dumping 100 tons of poo poo into a single power station every 3 hours (and the largest coal plant in the world currently use 1200 tons per hour every hour 24/7).
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Jan 15, 2014 01:45
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Trabisnikof posted:Once again, comparing future designs to present realities. What power reactors under construction right now can do that? Experimental designs & research reactors don't count. There are some older fast breeder reactors that can do exactly that. Most have in fact already been shutdown due to Green protestors, proliferation red tape and high costs. Also don't mind that ~95% of every discarded fuel rod actually is still perfectly fine uranium.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:48
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Trabisnikof posted:Couple that with the reality that nuclear is consistent and inflexible. Nuclear plants (and coal) can't shut down in the middle of the night and then power back up for the day. In a grid with a lot of nuclear, it becomes less cost effective for renewables to operate. I have no idea what you're talking about here. Nuclear plants are fully capable of conducting load-following, and they do it in France all the time. Nuclear power is just so cheap to operate and supply so much power that there's no reason to turn it down unless there's no fossil fuel alternative.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:03
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Trabisnikof posted:Do you actually have any evidence to back this claim up on the resource side? (I know about capacity factor) Here you go, in slide form. Here is a more detailed report.. Based on this map (at 80m, since this was nitpicked earlier), 6.5 m/s is pretty generous for land-based wind farms. It's more materials for less energy and a shorter lifespan. Obviously we can recycle but as mentioned, making the capital materials argument for wind against nuclear is really weird. As to this, Trabisnikof posted:Once again, comparing future designs to present realities. What power reactors under construction right now can do that? Experimental designs & research reactors don't count. So does the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, the world's first and the US's only commercial fast breeder reactor, not count? If not why? Phayray fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 02:08
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Actually, something I'm not sure of, if we somehow over generate what happens to excess generated power? I'm sure that's a thing long dealt with but I never actually looked into it.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:11
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Nevvy Z posted:Actually, something I'm not sure of, if we somehow over generate what happens to excess generated power? I'm sure that's a thing long dealt with but I never actually looked into it. In most cases, countries/areas surrounding the point of excessive generation have the ability to absorb the impact by turning off peaker stations that might otherwise be operating, or lowering output at baseload stations. But this is with relatively small overproduction compared to international/national grids. In a grid with a very high amount of generation coming from unstable sources, you'd have to try to soak it up through massive build out of actual storage facilities, and past a certain point just finding a way to safely dump power to the ground - otherwise you could wind up burning out transmission lines or end user points.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:18
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Trabisnikof posted:Once again, comparing future designs to present realities. What power reactors under construction right now can do that? Experimental designs & research reactors don't count. In addition to Enrico Fermi 1, there were also the shutdown Phenix and Superphenix in France and the Schneller Brüter in Germany which was scrapped right after being finished (now it's one of the favourite examples of greenies arguing that nuclear power is forever doomed  ).There are the three new fast breeder reactors in Russia I've mentioned already, of which the BN-800 is actually currently being built, following up on the existing BN-600 fast reactor (non-breeding) which has been operating for quite a while. While the Indian fast breeder reactor currently under construction is technically a prototype, it's commercial scale (500MWe). suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 02:22
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blowfish posted:While the Indian fast breeder reactor currently under construction is technically a prototype, it's commercial scale (500MWe). It's actually supposed to sell commercial energy a year after it starts up too.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:24
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Trabisnikof posted:Compared to 0, yes yes it is. Especially since that's tons of ore not a valid measure of environmental impact. How loving disingenuous do you have to be to think you can just ignore environmental impact if you shuffle something into the "capital" column? Tell me, if it takes 4000 wind turbines at least, under optimal conditions, to equal the power output of a nuclear power plant, and those wind turbines have an operational lifetime of 20 years, what is the upper limit on the steel content of a wind turbine such that the averaged annual steel usage to replace the wind farm is less than 200 tons per year? Then compare that to how much steel is actually in a wind turbine. Or, let's look at just the rare earths involved. Wind turbines require ~500 pounds of rare earths per nameplate MW, or 600 tons of rare earths alone to match a nuclear power plant under perfect conditions. Guess how you get rare earth metals? Mining. Guess what comes with that mining? Radioactive tailings, 1 million tons worth. What's that work out to be per year, averaged over their lifetimes? But nooo, it's capital so it doesn't count.
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Jan 15, 2014 03:00
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ohgodwhat posted:Or, let's look at just the rare earths involved. Wind turbines require ~500 pounds of rare earths per nameplate MW, or 600 tons of rare earths alone to match a nuclear power plant under perfect conditions. Guess how you get rare earth metals? Mining. Guess what comes with that mining? Radioactive tailings, 1 million tons worth. Also a shitload of atmospheric carbon, because you don't have the baseload power necessary to replace all the fossil-fuelled vehicles in your supply chain with electrics. (which are obviously also going to require rather a lot of rare-earths to make, but  )This whole mining angle feels like a false lead to me, because in what reality are we not going to end up digging out all this crap anyway?
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Jan 15, 2014 03:42
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Phayray posted:I think someone posted this a while back in this thread: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/04/should-other-nations-follow-germanys-lead-on-promoting-solar-power/  How is this being reported on in Germany itself?
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Jan 15, 2014 05:34
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Renaissance Robot posted:Also a shitload of atmospheric carbon, because you don't have the baseload power necessary to replace all the fossil-fuelled vehicles in your supply chain with electrics. (which are obviously also going to require rather a lot of rare-earths to make, but This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:38
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Trabisnikof posted:This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock. We're not pretending to care, we actually care and know what's up rather than pretending to both.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:44
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Trabisnikof posted:This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock. This is just a misplaced attempt at martyrdom. I am a hippie environmentalist, and I'd love for the solution to just be wind farms and reduced consumerism, but that doesn't mean I'm going to accept bad math.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:50
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Trabisnikof posted:This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock. It's amazing how smug you can be while not at all getting what he said.
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Jan 15, 2014 05:55
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Trabisnikof posted:This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock. I don't see why you're getting so angry. You don't answer any of the rebuttals brought up and instead you give us a temper tantrum. How is this better than a "gently caress D&D!" post? America Inc. fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 06:55
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redreader posted:My wife is from Arizona, and when I visited there recently I was anecdotally asking people if they knew anyone who used solar energy. Nobody did, it seemed. As of about 2000, when my parents were buying a home in Arizona, the cost to put solar up on the roof was ridiculous. You were better off just throwing that money into a nice swimming pool. I can't imagine it has changed much under the brilliant Republican leadership that state is known for.
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Jan 15, 2014 06:58
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Hedera Helix posted:
"The Energiewende has some issues. Our solution: Energiewende 2.1 - Energiewende harder!" e: also "Argh gently caress the utilities electricity got more expensive again" To be fair, some of our newspapers (mostly the classier ones) have very occasional pro-nuclear articles in them maybe twice a year. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 08:53
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Trabisnikof posted:This is sum of irony of this thread wrapped up in a little package. People pretending to care about energy, the environment, or society. Its not about science, economics or even logic. Because really, its all just about feelings and identities wrapped up in polices. Just like the "hippies" and "environmentalists" you so openly mock. Gosh I'm sorry, allow me to rephrase: Focusing solely on the mining impact of various energy sources as a way of comparing them is a red herring, because there is no realistic scenario in which human civilisation recognisably continues that won't end with us taking the earth for every valuable resource it's got. Trying to say that this or that energy source results in a lower mining impact and is therefore better is stupid, because it's not like we won't do that mining anyway; the materials will just find another use. If you want those numbers on the table at all, you should be talking about how to offset the damage caused rather than pretending there's any way to convince humanity to just not cause the damage in the first place.
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Jan 15, 2014 16:05
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Renaissance Robot posted:Gosh I'm sorry, allow me to rephrase: Quick extension to that: If we spread out the mining over a long time (by, say, not heavily subsiding things that require a sharp increase in mining immediately) then the impacts will be much less costly to offset and therefore be more likely to be offset in an acceptable way. I'm a bit stretched for time right now so I'll postpone the  posting to the weekend.
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Jan 15, 2014 20:26
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A big power supplier in Germany, EnBW, has been barred from retiring 4 unprofitable gas and coal power plants because authorities fear base load can't be satisfied. A total of 41 plants in Germany did receive a temporary or permanent permission. EnBW will probably receive compensations to keep the plants online. http://www.n-tv.de/ticker/EnBW-darf-unrentable-Kraftwerke-nicht-vom-Netz-nehmen-article12086481.html
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Jan 15, 2014 22:30
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Lurking Haro posted:A big power supplier in Germany, EnBW, has been barred from retiring 4 unprofitable gas and coal power plants because authorities fear base load can't be satisfied. A total of 41 plants in Germany did receive a temporary or permanent permission.  is all I can say to that.
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Jan 15, 2014 22:58
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Rand alPaul posted:As of about 2000, when my parents were buying a home in Arizona, the cost to put solar up on the roof was ridiculous. You were better off just throwing that money into a nice swimming pool. I can't imagine it has changed much under the brilliant Republican leadership that state is known for. you can't "imagine" the price of solar has gone down in the last 14 years? wtf are you posting in an energy generation thread for if you are that massively clueless about the topic?
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Jan 16, 2014 06:07
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Rand alPaul posted:As of about 2000, when my parents were buying a home in Arizona, the cost to put solar up on the roof was ridiculous. You were better off just throwing that money into a nice swimming pool. I can't imagine it has changed much under the brilliant Republican leadership that state is known for. In 2011-2012 Arizona had a huge statewide subsidy program, which when combined with the federal subsidy actually made solar panels a good investment. The only problem was that electricity is already pretty cheap (you just use a lot of it) and peak load in your average suburban home occurs at night rather than at day, so most of the power that you'd produce would be sent back to the grid where you're getting paid pennies on the dollar for it. I don't know if those subsidies are still around, but this was a lot more recent than 2000 And there were also a bunch of different companies that would do the work of putting up solar panels on your roof, so obviously there were some people buying them.
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Jan 16, 2014 06:08
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StabbinHobo posted:you can't "imagine" the price of solar has gone down in the last 14 years? wtf are you posting in an energy generation thread for if you are that massively clueless about the topic? Yeah that's totally what I said and wasn't addressing state subsidies. 
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Jan 16, 2014 06:48
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QuarkJets posted:In 2011-2012 Arizona had a huge statewide subsidy program, which when combined with the federal subsidy actually made solar panels a good investment. The only problem was that electricity is already pretty cheap (you just use a lot of it) and peak load in your average suburban home occurs at night rather than at day, Even in Arizona? Sure, a good chunk of people turn up the temperature when they're gone during the day, but nobody wants to come back to a 110 F house when they get back from work during the summer.
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Jan 16, 2014 06:59
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ohgodwhat posted:Even in Arizona? Sure, a good chunk of people turn up the temperature when they're gone during the day, but nobody wants to come back to a 110 F house when they get back from work during the summer. Average lows in Phoenix during the summer hover in the mid 80s so I'm guessing it's more that they still use a lot of AC at night along with whatever else.
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Jan 16, 2014 19:29
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Even in hot climates a lot of people just put on the AC when it's bed time so they can sleep.
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