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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Hydroelectric batteries are 70-90% efficient: I'm not even sure it counts as much as a storage battery as it does a jumped-up waterwheel. This is more what I am talking about, or at least a place to start. If I find a better link I'll post it.
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Sep 17, 2014 22:43
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Hydroelectric batteries are 70-90% efficient: You just need to build absolutely massive projects and source vast amounts of water to use them....
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Sep 17, 2014 22:50
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Nintendo Kid posted:Bearing in mind that despite capitalist fuckups, still less than 2 deaths over the entire history of commercial nuclear power operated by private companies. Personally I'd chock this up to the amount of government involvement. Energy companies that run nuclear power plants have to work very closely with the DOE.
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Sep 17, 2014 22:51
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We could either use literally twice as much land and resources as we actually need to stave off baseload power concerns, as well as develop large and expensive storage systems to keep this excess power...or we could build some normal power plants.
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Sep 17, 2014 22:57
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Thanks for the help with the comments codewords. Here's the article if you want to read the comments and regret humanity. (Or at least Western PA.)
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Sep 17, 2014 23:38
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computer parts posted:We could either use literally twice as much land and resources as we actually need to stave off baseload power concerns, as well as develop large and expensive storage systems to keep this excess power...or we could build some normal power plants. What's wrong with developing storage systems (who says they have to always be large and expensive?) when we already can measure the pollution from "normal power plants?" Look, I don't want the USA to become Beijing. I also would love to believe that we could build "normal power plants" and learn to sequester the carbon (and mercury and...) emissions. Until we learn to do that, which is itself not a cheap proposition either, is it, I choose to believe that our species is smart enough to solve such problems. What I don't believe is that we have the will to do it until it's way too late.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:39
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Normal is codeword for nuclear.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:41
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You just blew my mind.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:43
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Dr. Faustus posted:Not sure where your figures come from. "Renewable" power sources rarely operate at full power, some of them entirely cease for regular intervals, and storage systems inherently lose a great deal of power during storage and while being used to re-generate power. Because of this, if we needed say 1 unit of electric power for the country, we would need 2-3 units of peak capacity output rated systems to handle it, with renewables, since a lot of time is spent operating at less than 100% output and you need to store up energy in the storage systems when even the overbuilt renewables aren't enough. Dr. Faustus posted:What's wrong with developing storage systems (who says they have to always be large and expensive?) when we already can measure the pollution from "normal power plants?" Science says they have to be large and expensive, since storing power inherently takes a lot of resources. You need to store enough energy to run the country for extended periods of time with minimal input in an all-renewables system. Also the pollution from nuclear power plants is effectively nil.
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Sep 17, 2014 23:45
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The problem I tend to run into when arguing for the benefits of nuclear is the people who wring their hands about how to effectively store the waste that IS created.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:04
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Nintendo Kid posted:"Renewable" power sources rarely operate at full power, some of them entirely cease for regular intervals, and storage systems inherently lose a great deal of power during storage and while being used to re-generate power. Because of this, if we needed say 1 unit of electric power for the country, we would need 2-3 units of peak capacity output rated systems to handle it, with renewables, since a lot of time is spent operating at less than 100% output and you need to store up energy in the storage systems when even the overbuilt renewables aren't enough. quote:Science says they have to be large and expensive, since storing power inherently takes a lot of resources. You need to store enough energy to run the country for extended periods of time with minimal input in an all-renewables system. It says that now. What about later on, if significant development returns on investment a significantly better storage system? quote:Also the pollution from nuclear power plants is effectively nil. No argument from me. I think using fission to boil water might be a bit much but I'm not against it; I'm for it. Especially if we improve it as well. What I was not expecting was the term "normal power plant" to mean "nuclear-fission-powered steam turbines," because in the US I think "normal" power plants are the coal or gas varieties. I misunderstood.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:07
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Hazo posted:The problem I tend to run into when arguing for the benefits of nuclear is the people who wring their hands about how to effectively store the waste that IS created. The solution is obviously to genetically engineer cats that change color when exposed to radiation and then invent and disseminate (through the arts) folklore about how people should be terrified when their cats start changing color.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:09
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Dr. Faustus posted:
This is impossible. You need to have at least 12 terawatthours of energy stored on hand ready for near-instantaneous conversion back to electrical energy, that's the amount of electrical production and consumption on an average day in the United States. No matter how you slice things, storing this will require a ton of money and a ton of space and a ton of resources. The kind of things that would be required to safely and reliably store this in a compact and cheap matter would themselves obviate the need to have normal renewable power sources in the first place, it'd require stuff that essentially could be used as a clean power source in and of itself.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:31
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Dr. Faustus posted:
Yeah, I just meant normal in the sense that from a design standpoint a nuclear plant is functionally similar to a coal or natural gas plant in a way that solar or wind isn't.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:34
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Hazo posted:The problem I tend to run into when arguing for the benefits of nuclear is the people who wring their hands about how to effectively store the waste that IS created. I don't see any issue with loading it into a rocket and firing it at the sun. Problem solved. Dr. Faustus posted:I think using fission to boil water might be a bit much but I'm not against it; I'm for it. Personally I feel that burning coal and gas to boil water is a bit much, but that's just me.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:40
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A big revolution in batteries could happen in the nexy couple decades with micro/nano technology. Instead of the large cells currently used you could increase charge density by having lots of very small cells in parallel. But there are still plenty of questions aboit how economical something like that would be, and it would be better suited for electric cars than grid generation.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:50
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McDowell posted:A big revolution in batteries could happen in the nexy couple decades with micro/nano technology. Instead of the large cells currently used you could increase charge density by having lots of very small cells in parallel. But there are still plenty of questions aboit how economical something like that would be, and it would be better suited for electric cars than grid generation. If you did this you would still need massive amounts of them to fit the nation's daily electricity usage and then some in storage.
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Sep 18, 2014 00:57
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Nintendo Kid posted:If you did this you would still need massive amounts of them to fit the nation's daily electricity usage and then some in storage. Yeah, like I said, they would be much better for electric cars if they could have energy density comparable to gasoline. Having Solar panels and windmills with giant batteries is dumb when you can just design new fission plants. But this is the Right Wing Media thread so here is some content shamelessly stolen from the Rob Ford GBS thread: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/192185-controversial-toronto-mayor-slams-obamacare
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Sep 18, 2014 01:04
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Nintendo Kid posted:This is impossible. computer parts posted:Yeah, I just meant normal in the sense that from a design standpoint a nuclear plant is functionally similar to a coal or natural gas plant in a way that solar or wind isn't. Phone posted:I don't see any issue with loading it into a rocket and firing it at the sun. Problem solved. Phone posted:Personally I feel that burning coal and gas to boil water is a bit much, but that's just me. McDowell posted:A big revolution in batteries could happen in the nexy couple decades with micro/nano technology. Instead of the large cells currently used you could increase charge density by having lots of very small cells in parallel. But there are still plenty of questions aboit how economical something like that would be, and it would be better suited for electric cars than grid generation. Nintendo Kid posted:If you did this you would still need massive amounts of them to fit the nation's daily electricity usage and then some in storage. E: Sorry, McDowell, but the technology to which I am referring is nothing like lots of little storage cells in parallel. It's a whole new science of battery, using chemicals and a scientifically-designed dialectric to create storage systems unlike putting lots of little units together. Dr. Faustus fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 01:09
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Nintendo Kid posted:Bearing in mind that despite capitalist fuckups, still less than 2 deaths over the entire history of commercial nuclear power operated by private companies. Which of the two wasn't Karen Silkwood?
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Sep 18, 2014 01:16
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There was a guy that got murdered by being thrown into some uranium processor.
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Sep 18, 2014 01:21
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Phone posted:I don't see any issue with loading it into a rocket and firing it at the sun. Problem solved. I remember talking to some neo-hippie* about this and brought up the idea that in a much, _much_ shorter timeframe than the half-life of fission products we'd have a 100% reliable surface-to-orbit transport method, and if she was really worried about nuclear waste we could send it up and chuck it into a long-term decaying orbit that would end up in the sun. Her response, in a worried tone of voice: "But what's that going to do to the sun?!"  * the sort whose father is a Manhattan corporate attorney and is bankrolling his daughter's alternative lifestyle to keep her out of his hair...
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Sep 18, 2014 01:38
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CarterUSM posted:I brought up the idea that in a much, _much_ shorter timeframe than the half-life of fission products we'd have a 100% reliable surface-to-orbit transport method...
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Sep 18, 2014 01:58
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And? What is it going to do to the Sun?
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Sep 18, 2014 01:59
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The entire Earth could crash into the sun, get vaporized and it would keep on shining. But that kind of ego crushing reality is just not acceptable.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:05
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Dabir posted:And? What is it going to do to the Sun? The photosphere of the sun is ~5000°C and the sun's mass is over 300,000 times that of the entire Earth. You could power the entire planet with nuclear reactors for a thousand years, chuck the entire agglomeration of its collective fission products at the sun, and we wouldn't even be able to see the impact from Earth. Dr. Faustus posted:In a less-horrible world I think you are correct. If we could convince some entity (a government, or a corporation with government-backing, for example) to build a "rail-gun," or a "Magnetic Satellite Launch System" on Earth (which is another technological achievement I believe we could make happen) then we could at least get those products into LEO. From there, we still have to figure out how to fire them off somewhere they will never come back. I think getting them safely out of Earth's gravity-well is the hard/expensive part. Yeah, the trick is getting it up out of the well. Once you do that, you can just do a minor burn and put it into an orbit that will slowly spiral inward over a few thousand years. Hell, a better solution in many ways would just be dropping it off in one of the Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system. That way, it's out of your hair, but still retrievable, if you're so inclined. I don't think you have to hit escape velocity to manage that, but I'm not an orbital dynamics guy. CarterUSM fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 02:07
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Tonight at a bar I saw a new graphic on Fox News on how the poor aren't really poor in this country, no mention of refrigerators but something like 80%+ have microwaves! I think it was a piece on O'Reilly but I really was trying to have a good time with friends. gently caress you Fox for distracting me.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:08
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Radio Nowhere posted:Tonight at a bar I saw a new graphic on Fox News on how the poor aren't really poor in this country, no mention of refrigerators but something like 80%+ have microwaves! I think it was a piece on O'Reilly but I really was trying to have a good time with friends. gently caress you Fox for distracting me. What I find baffling is that they claim that the poor having microwaves makes them not poor. I guarantee you could easily find a used microwave for like $5. You can get a brand loving new one for $50 and all told you could probably get that much money just walking around town scraping change out of the gutter for a few days.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:19
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ToxicSlurpee posted:What I find baffling is that they claim that the poor having microwaves makes them not poor. I guarantee you could easily find a used microwave for like $5. You can get a brand loving new one for $50 and all told you could probably get that much money just walking around town scraping change out of the gutter for a few days. Yet they're the first to shout class warfare.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:24
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ToxicSlurpee posted:What I find baffling is that they claim that the poor having microwaves makes them not poor. I guarantee you could easily find a used microwave for like $5. You can get a brand loving new one for $50 and all told you could probably get that much money just walking around town scraping change out of the gutter for a few days. Our nation is so wealthy that you can find microwave money in the gutters.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:24
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Dr. Faustus posted:Not going to comment on what's "impossible" with battery power. The science is, I think, too young. Sorry, but batteries that can hold several magnitudes the amount current chemistries can and are capable of constant deep discharge and charge cycles for decades at a time (the kind of things you'd need to store the entire nation's electrical output and needs) represent advances so far in battery tech that if we had them we could do things like eliminate most oil usage. We'd be talking energy densities that make gasoline look like a wet fart. Massive as in very big, huge. This is an extremely large amount of power. The amount of energy the US uses daily as electricity, is equivalent to the energy of a 10 megaton explosion - the energy of 20 of the largest nuclear fission bombs ever constructed (Ivy King), minimum, contained and ready for conversion to straight electricity with a snap of the fingers. Like, you don't seem to get that it's not like this is your computer battery or even the many large battery backup racks important facilities use to stay online. Your laptop battery needs to store mere dozens of watt-hours, a facility backup battery system might store a megawatt hour - America's battery backup needs to store terawatt hours, literally over a million times more power than a large scale facility might successfully handle. And unlike the industrial or data facility's batteries which might only undergo a few cycles of discharge and recharge since the power supply's steady, a reneweable-backing array of batteries has to recharge and discharge at least multiple times a day every day for years on end.
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Sep 18, 2014 03:36
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Dabir posted:And? What is it going to do to the Sun? Absolutely nothing, the difficult part is getting all that crap into low earth orbit. Rockets have a non-zero chance of blowing up and then you have nuclear waste parts potentially getting into the atmosphere and going wherever.
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Sep 18, 2014 03:42
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Dr. Faustus posted:In a less-horrible world I think you are correct. If we could convince some entity (a government, or a corporation with government-backing, for example) to build a "rail-gun," or a "Magnetic Satellite Launch System" on Earth (which is another technological achievement I believe we could make happen) then we could at least get those products into LEO. From there, we still have to figure out how to fire them off somewhere they will never come back. I think getting them safely out of Earth's gravity-well is the hard/expensive part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moo5nuLWtHs
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Sep 18, 2014 03:49
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ToxicSlurpee posted:What I find baffling is that they claim that the poor having microwaves makes them not poor. I guarantee you could easily find a used microwave for like $5. You can get a brand loving new one for $50 and all told you could probably get that much money just walking around town scraping change out of the gutter for a few days. Plus, you only pay for the microwave once. $5 bucks for 5 years of operation is ridiculously cheap. Rent, food, health insurance, cars; that poo poo costs money continually, every month.
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Sep 18, 2014 04:04
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Hazo posted:The problem I tend to run into when arguing for the benefits of nuclear is the people who wring their hands about how to effectively store the waste that IS created. Wait for Harry Reid to die, then shove it all into Yucca Mountain.
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Sep 18, 2014 04:46
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quote:RUSH: Look, I know that it's probably not a hundred percent, but all of these people in the NFL, I mean, what political party do you think they vote for and support? (interruption) Well, no wait. (interruption) Now, wait just... (interruption) Before you... (interruption) quote:RUSH: Now, may I remind you, was it last year or the year before when I, who am totally tuned in to this, very conscious and very aware, I was able, my instincts alone, to sense -- it started with this concussion business -- that there were forces out there that were out for this game, that had targeted this game in a political sense. This is what's the toughest thing to make people believe. Because football, sports, is for everybody, an escape from politics. But this is a pure political agenda now that's gotten itself intertwined with the NFL. Make no mistake about it. Good Lord the projection here 
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Sep 18, 2014 05:47
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Radio Nowhere posted:Tonight at a bar I saw a new graphic on Fox News on how the poor aren't really poor in this country, no mention of refrigerators but something like 80%+ have microwaves! I think it was a piece on O'Reilly but I really was trying to have a good time with friends. gently caress you Fox for distracting me. Yup, saw that myself when I was out munching on food. It's utterly stupid.
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Sep 18, 2014 06:10
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I wonder why Rush assumes NFL players, people who have boot strapped themselves into self made millionaires, vote Democrat? Must be some other thing, I can't quite put my finger on it. He's practically falling over himself to avoid saying it. I wonder why.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:12
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Even if renewables can't provide all the power we need all the time, it'd be stupid not to build them and reduce the need for fossil fuels.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:40
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CarterUSM posted:Yeah, the trick is getting it up out of the well. Once you do that, you can just do a minor burn and put it into an orbit that will slowly spiral inward over a few thousand years. I don't think it's possible to create a decaying orbit like that with a single minor burn; an orbit can only spiral inward if there's some force causing it to spiral inward. No way to get something into the sun unless you burn off the 30 km/s of delta-v from the Earth's orbital velocity. It's still possible in the reasonable future, especially with the half-life of nuclear waste, but it's still unfortunately not as simple as that. Idran fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 07:43
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