|
Nintendo Kid posted:If Canada ever turns against us, we'd have way bigger troubles than not having new uranium from them. For instance, a shortage of maple syrup? Canada is basically the 51st American state anyway with the current government  , and it's unlikely a big resource rich country bordering the US will ever manage to escape US influence.
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 21:46
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 09:07 |
|
|
blowfish posted:For instance, a shortage of maple syrup? It can't be the 51st state or else Texas will get pissed because Canada is just a bigger Texas of the north.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:The problem becomes that both conversations of "what is going to happen realistically?" and "what should we do if I could wave a magic wand?" both end up kinda boring. If we talk about waving a magic wand, people just decide that some things are changeable with the magic wand (politics) but other things aren't (public opinion) or whatever. I'd use my magic wand powers to increase energy efficiency to maximum. Then we're arguing about two fantasies, neither of which are close to reality. On the flip side, arguing about reality is just depressing or smug as it ends with "well, we will see who is right in 2050! If we all still can afford electricity....". Public perception can be changed with public education and public outreach. Look at how much we've managed to shift public perception against cigarettes in the United States; smoking bans in bars were unheard of 20 years ago, and then 10 years ago it was becoming pretty common, and today it's harder to find a place that allows smoking than it is to find a place that doesn't. The average person is okay with this series of events because of large shifts in public perception, primarily delivered via education and outreach. The counterargument against nuclear power is that public perception is against it, and we can't change public perception. However, we know that the latter part of that statement isn't true. It's actually not even that hard to do, if you have some funding. But it does take time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 02:07
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Public perception can be changed with public education and public outreach. Look at how much we've managed to shift public perception against cigarettes in the United States; smoking bans in bars were unheard of 20 years ago, and then 10 years ago it was becoming pretty common, and today it's harder to find a place that allows smoking than it is to find a place that doesn't. The average person is okay with this series of events because of large shifts in public perception, primarily delivered via education and outreach. I just picked politics and public perception as examples of how that kind of dialog breaks down. If we're talking about nebulous concepts such as "changing public opinion on nuclear power" or "making energy efficiency a cultural value" it becomes relatively impossible situation to weight alternatives. No one has a good grasp of the costs of any cultural or social change. Not just in the costs of advocacy but the costs of time. Without well defined constrains to a normative discussion like that it boils down to different people's ideas of how much change is "acceptable" or "doable". Or we devolve into utopian alternatives. Meanwhile the descriptive discussion is rather depressing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 02:17
|
|
|
There is a fundamental difference between those two concepts, though, and we can certainly discuss that. Making energy efficiency a "cultural value" would require people to make sacrifices, sometimes significant sacrifices, in order to significantly drive down fossil fuel consumption. Improving public perception of nuclear power only requires that we sacrifice our ignorance There's also no reason that we couldn't try to do both of these things. Energy efficiency actually does improve each year, but we could do better. And while public perception of nuclear power took a significant downturn after Fukushima, there are still several strong rationalist arguments to be made for it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 11:35
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:There is a fundamental difference between those two concepts, though, and we can certainly discuss that. Making energy efficiency a "cultural value" would require people to make sacrifices, sometimes significant sacrifices, in order to significantly drive down fossil fuel consumption. My point is we can argue about these topics but to what end? To call more of D&D to arms? Or to debate hypotheticals? If it is a call to arms, then a more useful discussion would be how to do these things rather than which. For example, how would one change public perseption of nuclear? Or how would one change perceptions of recycled water? If we're debating hypotheticals then all the problems of loosely defined hypothetical conversations abound.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Energy efficiency *is* (becoming) a cultural value though, it's just driven primarily by economics than anything else.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 17:01
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Energy efficiency *is* (becoming) a cultural value though, it's just driven primarily by economics than anything else. Guys it was an example hypothetical in a post about how hypothetical conversations get nowhere fast, don't read too much into it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 17:06
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Energy efficiency *is* (becoming) a cultural value though, it's just driven primarily by economics than anything else. We've actually all already agreed on that, but thank you for your input anyway
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 10:42
|
|
|
A hippie friend just posted a water usage/MWH chart that had solar at 0 therefore the best. Obviously solar is awesome for various reasons but still not really great everywhere or for everything. But for water usage specifically, doesn't water used in power plants just end up being reused or steamed out and come back down as rainfall? Do we actually 'lose' potable water at some point?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:A hippie friend just posted a water usage/MWH chart that had solar at 0 therefore the best. I think it's more an opportunity cost (so, you can't use that water for something else if you're using it for cooling) and depending where you draw it from there can be environmental concerns.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 17:36
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:A hippie friend just posted a water usage/MWH chart that had solar at 0 therefore the best. Article on that info graphic.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 18:42
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:A hippie friend just posted a water usage/MWH chart that had solar at 0 therefore the best. I'd be more critical of water contamination. Coal plants have the capacity of to introduce horrific quantities of fly ash to rivers (see: Duke Energy). Fracking uses many millions of gallons of water to break up shale, introducing chemicals into the water that renders it (questionably, for lack of transparency based on claims of proprietary information) toxic. It also introduces the possibility of completely polluting nearby aquifers and water tables. Nuclear infrequently introduces minor levels of tritiated water (couple plants near me in IL have done so over a couple times over the last few decades). Nuclear isn't that bad all told, especially compared to the scale of problems introduced by coal/nat gas. Hydro fucks over an entire eco-system to turn a river into a lake. Speaking for nuclear power, water input roughly equals water output. Canal/river/lake water goes into the cooling water system, runs through a condenser to cool off the low energy steam, then discharges back to the canal/river/lake warmer. A screen filter captures and returns biologicals to the water without going through the cycle. Some of the water taken in is demineralized and used to make up primary-loop water (stuff that goes through reactor/turbine). I don't view much of the water used in the nuclear plant as "wasted" to make fuel, since it's eventually released back to the ultimate heat sink (canal/river/lake) or else evaporated (back into the environment). I think of that as different than fracking or true contaminating (fly ash).
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 19:09
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:A hippie friend just posted a water usage/MWH chart that had solar at 0 therefore the best. So its important to make a distinction between water consumption and water use. Power plants withdraw a lot of water:  Power plants don't consume must water though:  (both from http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33905.pdf) This is because they return the water back to a source body. However, that can still impact water quality, as the water coming out of the power plant is unnaturally high and thus can significantly impact the environment without regulation. This is probably a more accurate graph, and as you can see what cooling tech you use matters as much as the power plant type, if not more:  (http://www.cwatershedalliance.com/pdf/SolarDoc01.pdf)
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 19:12
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:
Yes, this. As the ultimate example, look at Palo Verde. Sure, it's located on the Gila River, but the Gila River's a dry riverbed for most of each year except at the end of the summer. It buys treated wastewater from Phoenix and boils 20 billion gallons of that each year.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 19:23
|
|
|
When they say "consume" water what do they mean. Does drawing water from a river and returning it warmer count as "consume" or is this suppose to portray that water is drawn up and deposited into a black hole?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 19:32
|
|
|
Bip Roberts posted:When they say "consume" water what do they mean. Does drawing water from a river and returning it warmer count as "consume" or is this suppose to portray that water is drawn up and deposited into a black hole? Consume means the water is not returned. I could have posted the returns chart, but its basically chart 1 - chart 2. So agriculture consumes a lot of water because the plants use it. Other ways water gets consumed is if it becomes so polluted in a process that it can't be returned. The water that Power Plants do consume is likely a combination of mostly evaporation and water that gets polluted/consumed in process (e.g. water sprayed on a coal pile to keep the coal dust down). These graphs do exclude the water evaporated from lakes used for hydro-power, but the study I linked goes into it. Edit: "Water consumption or consumptive water use is water lost to the environment by evaporation, transpiration, or incorporation into the product." That's the definition used in the chart.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 19:38
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J06Vhlw52o New discussion on nuclear power in Australia.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2014 11:39
|
|
|
A bit late, but the polywell guys put up a paper preprint on arXiv recently. Looks pretty neat.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2014 17:07
|
|
|
If the math checks out that's a pretty good step forward for the polywell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2014 22:07
|
|
|
the polywell dream is amazing, but sometimes i wonder if a fusion breakthrough would be the worst thing that ever happened to us would it be like a multiplier on what oil drove us to? 15 billion of us with a quarter acre, two cars, and an AR?
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 04:01
|
|
|
StabbinHobo posted:the polywell dream is amazing, but sometimes i wonder if a fusion breakthrough would be the worst thing that ever happened to us At a certain point Jevon's Paradox breaks down because your time is valued as well. Sure there will always be idiots that consider a 90 mile commute as a reasonable thing but most people would rather sleep in for an hour than drive to work. Also there are other services which are simply more efficient in a dense environment (regardless of the cost of energy it's going to be a long time before your farm gets fiber optic internet).
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 04:06
|
|
|
StabbinHobo posted:the polywell dream is amazing, but sometimes i wonder if a fusion breakthrough would be the worst thing that ever happened to us I don't think so. The availability of cheap energy led to huge gains in life expectancy due to less famine, better healthcare, etc. At this point, fusion power would likely just let us replace dirty power with clean power without the huge population boom that came with modernization. Most of us probably wouldn't even see significantly reduced energy prices
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 04:28
|
|
|
Mark Jacobson has a new report out for 100% renewables by 2050 for California. I haven't had time to do a full read yet, just skimming, but at a glance it seems to be of the same quality as his global 100% renewables plan (Part 1, Part 2). Some notable figures: http://imgur.com/7YrYZ6n http://imgur.com/SzAVZdG A reminder that this is the same guy that wrote this: Mark Jacobson posted:In this section, the CO 2 -equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions (emissions of CO 2 plus those of other greenhouse gases multiplied by their global warming potentials) of each energy technology are reviewed. We also examine CO 2 e emissions of each technology due to planning and construction delays relative to those from the technology with the least delays (‘‘opportunity-cost emissions’’), leakage from geological formations of CO 2 sequestered by coal-CCS, and the emissions from the burning of cities resulting from nuclear weapons explosions potentially resulting from nuclear energy expansion. Phayray fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Aug 9, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 15:09
|
|
|
Phayray posted:Mark Jacobson has a new report out for 100% renewables by 2050 for California. I haven't had time to do a full read yet, just skimming, but at a glance it seems to be of the same quality as his global 100% renewables plan (Part 1, Part 2). ...wow.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 15:12
|
|
|
Wind farms the size of Conneticut. I'm sure there won't be any hurdles to that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 15:15
|
|
|
Phayray posted:Mark Jacobson has a new report out for 100% renewables by 2050 for California. I haven't had time to do a full read yet, just skimming, but at a glance it seems to be of the same quality as his global 100% renewables plan (Part 1, Part 2). "Let's just put solar panels on top of every building in LA, no big deal guys".
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 15:49
|
|
|
For those that don't understand, all buildings over about 75 feet height in Los Angeles must have an emergency helicopter landing facility, with a minimum of 50 foot by 50 foot helipad and an additional clear area 25 feet from the helipad proper.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 16:23
|
|
|
Nintendo Kid posted:For those that don't understand, all buildings over about 75 feet height in Los Angeles must have an emergency helicopter landing facility, with a minimum of 50 foot by 50 foot helipad and an additional clear area 25 feet from the helipad proper. Why?
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:02
|
|
|
Frogmanv2 posted:Why? Officially it's due to the need for an escape route in case of fires, as enacted by a change in the fire code in 1974 adding the requirement. There's a bit more about it and what it's meant for the city here: http://clui.org/newsletter/spring-2010/elevated-descent-landingscape-helipads For obvious reasons though, this means a ton of buildings in LA couldn't legally have solar panels across most of their roofs, since they'd violate the spacing and helipad area requirements.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:14
|
|
|
Frogmanv2 posted:Why? Probably for evacuation in case of a fire.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:14
|
|
|
It is to be noted that many of the helipads would only be able to handle small helicopters carrying a few people at a time, since most aren't built to the same sorts of FAA standards legit rooftop heliports for public use or routine private use would have to be. So while well-meaning, it's not really thought through - kinda like how the top of the Empire State Building was intended to be usable for a Zeppelin dock, but it turned out to be wildly impractical.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:20
|
|
|
Didn't they realize that was a bit crazy and change that rule because it's resulted in a really ugly boxy skyline and they're the only city in the entire world that does that? http://brighamyen.com/2013/12/16/tweaking-antiquated-lafd-helipad-fire-code-alter-downtown-la-skyline/
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:22
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Didn't they realize that was a bit crazy and change that rule because it's resulted in a really ugly boxy skyline and they're the only city in the entire world that does that? They're considering allowing a variance along the Hollywood Subway corridor and nowhere else in the city. So if you wanted to build a 20 story building in downtown Los Angeles you'd still need to throw up a rinky-dink helipad and have space on the roof to fit it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 17:25
|
|
|
Phayray posted:Mark Jacobson has a new report out for 100% renewables by 2050 for California. I haven't had time to do a full read yet, just skimming, but at a glance it seems to be of the same quality as his global 100% renewables plan (Part 1, Part 2). Wow, that's a lot of land use. Jacobson provides the best argument as to why renewables are bad for the environment.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
In nuclear news, Russia is still on track with its BN series Fast Reactors. Their latest one is the BN-800, a ~800 MWe reactor that is currently undergoing testing since it reached criticality back in June. The goal of the reactor is primarily the destruction of weapons-grade plutonium, and it's going to be very good at it:quote:The first BN-800 from OKBM Afrikantov and SPbAEP, is a new more powerful (2100 MWt, 864 MWe gross, 789 MWe net) FBR, which is actually the same overall size and configuration as BN-600. The first is Beloyarsk 4, which started up in mid-2014. It has improved features including fuel flexibility – U+Pu nitride, MOX, or metal, and with breeding ratio up to 1.3. The MOX is quoted as having 20-30% fissile isotopes. However, during the plutonium disposition campaign it will be operated with a breeding ratio of less than one. It has much enhanced safety and improved economy – operating cost is expected to be only 15% more than VVER. It is capable of burning 1.7 tonnes of plutonium per year from dismantled weapons and will test the recycling of minor actinides in the fuel. From http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Fast-Neutron-Reactors/ The reactor is also designed with iso-breeding capability, meaning that after an initial fissile fuel loading phase (which could be reactor-grade plutonium from other such reactors) it can then be fueled with fertile materials that will be slowly converted into fissile fuel inside the reactor. Its transuranic profile is also self-regulating; transuranics are fissioned more rapidly if there's too much of them in the core, until equilibrium is reached. So this reactor could also act as a transuranic waste garbage disposal system. The design is robust enough that all of these things will be possible. However, the real question remains as to how efficient the reactor will be at doing all this stuff. Fast reactors are also a bit more expensive to build and operate compared to pressurized water reactors, before accounting for regulations. It's still pretty exciting to see this thing become reality, and technically this isn't even a Gen IV design.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2014 20:11
|
|
|
Meanwhile, in the world of solar thermal: Solar farm igniting birds in midair; wildlife leaders ask for halt to more construction quote:
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 20:58
|
|
|
Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Meanwhile, in the world of solar thermal: Because, you know, global warming won't kill many birds. Maybe more people would treat global warming as an environmental emergency if the people with the biggest professed interest in preserving the environment would act as if it were one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 21:13
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Because, you know, global warming won't kill many birds. You could also do it with nuclear. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 21:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 09:07 |
|
|
Emissions from coal plants poison and kill wildlife all the time, even without taking CO2 into account. Most forms of power generation are horrible for local ecosystems during regular operation, with the possible exception of nuclear and gas. fake edit: I'm trying to find comparisons for which methods end up doing the most harm, but it's difficult to find sources that are both trustworthy and easy for a lay audience to follow. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2014 21:33
|
|
