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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Is there a reason radioisotope reactors put into use are all such a low wattage? Is it that their applications historically didn't need a lot of power, or is it an inherent limitation of the technology? You need a high neutron flux and the ability to move target materials in/out easily. So I think this is why open pool reactors are common for this kind of work, which being an unpressurized pool makes it difficult to have a high thermal output.
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Nov 10, 2021 04:39
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Sounds like argument for a global carbon tax. Yeah agreed. As long as these sorts of operations are allowed to externalize their costs and effects on the rest of the world for profit, they're going to keep going. If not by corporate entities, then it'll be done by autocrats that are happy to fund a petro-state. Ignoring the economic aspects of energy generation invites this kind of behavior. The best way to kill off coal is to create a dynamic where people can't afford to mine it, and the alternatives are simply cheaper.
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Nov 10, 2021 04:55
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Is there a reason radioisotope reactors put into use are all such a low wattage? Is it that their applications historically didn't need a lot of power, or is it an inherent limitation of the technology? You mean radioisotope thermoelectric generators? The Seebeck coefficient is measured in microvolts per Kelvin. The necessity of not melting your thermocouples places a pretty hard limit on how big a temperature delta you can take advantage of.
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Nov 10, 2021 05:09
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Phanatic posted:You mean radioisotope thermoelectric generators? But this is only a requirement for generating electricity directly from such a reactor, right? If you're only interested in using thermal energy directly (eg, to heat water) does that allow for scaling this sort of power generation? Capt.Whorebags posted:You need a high neutron flux and the ability to move target materials in/out easily. So I think this is why open pool reactors are common for this kind of work, which being an unpressurized pool makes it difficult to have a high thermal output. But RTGs are used in remote applications (doesn't get much more remote than beyond Pluto) for decades with no outside input.
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Nov 10, 2021 05:28
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:But this is only a requirement for generating electricity directly from such a reactor, right? If you're only interested in using thermal energy directly (eg, to heat water) does that allow for scaling this sort of power generation? I thought you were referring to reactors used to create radioisotopes, e.g. radiopharmaceuticals. AFAIK RTGs aren't fission reactors, they're using radioactive decay to generate heat.
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Nov 10, 2021 06:16
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Capt.Whorebags posted:I thought you were referring to reactors used to create radioisotopes, e.g. radiopharmaceuticals. AFAIK RTGs aren't fission reactors, they're using radioactive decay to generate heat. Reactor seems to be the wrong word, but I'm not finding a name for an RTG type system that is used to generate heat without also using thermocouples to generate electricity. Nuclear battery appears to be the more generic term? If that's a more accurate way to put it, couldn't a nuclear battery be used to drive a municipal steam system for decades with effectively no moving parts? AreWeDrunkYet fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 06:40
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Wibla posted:"But solar and wind is so cheap!" ... only if you don't take into account the capacity factor and the amount of (typically fossil fuel) reserve generation capacity you need to shore up production shortfalls when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining That's why we're paying out of our asses in europe for power atm. This is basically what I thought would happen 10 years ago when the germans got hysterical and everyone talked aobut how storage and smart grids would solve it. So far everyone's still talking about it, but I haven't seen any storage and I still don't know how the smart grid is meant to fix it, always felt a bit wishy washy.
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Nov 10, 2021 07:12
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According to the news, the french government just announced they want to comission six new reactors! Liberté, égalité, fraternité et nucléaire
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Nov 10, 2021 07:23
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CommieGIR posted:Greenpeace is already gone nutty with their preference to use natural gas as a "green energy bridge". Greenpeace? more like Brownpeace, tbh. Their frenzied anti-nuclear stance is actively hurting the planet. karthun posted:Longyearbyen still runs coal and will be replaced by ether natural gas or wood pellets, neither of which are carbon neutral nor renewable. They're phasing out coal now, switching to solar + batteries and diesel gensets. The airport added solar a few years ago, and got surprisingly good results. But those dark winter months are hard to bridge with storage, man  A reasonably sized SMR would be perfect, but alas, the Norwegian fear of nuclear power is only surpassed by the fear of running out of alcohol.
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Nov 10, 2021 07:24
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Reactor seems to be the wrong word, but I'm not finding a name for an RTG type system that is used to generate heat without also using thermocouples to generate electricity. Nuclear battery appears to be the more generic term? RTGs have issues with efficiency, cost to produce the isotopes, and security of the material which could be used as a "dirty bomb". They have been used for some very niche applications, providing power and I think heat for communications relays and navigation lights in the Russian Arctic but some of those have also resulted in radiological accidents. It might be theoretically possible, and I'm not a physicist so the quantities required for district heating may not actually be possible, but there's no doubt far better ways to provide heat in just about every location. I think even NASA has had supply issues with their RTGs and their demand can't be that big. e: there's also no way to control the production of heat. It will produce a steadily decreasing amount of heat whether you need it or not. So you have to use it, store it, reject it to the surrounds, or absorb it in the device itself. Capt.Whorebags fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 08:25
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Capt.Whorebags posted:RTGs have issues with efficiency, cost to produce the isotopes, and security of the material which could be used as a "dirty bomb". DOE kicked off a new Plutonium manufacturing program to make up for NASA's demand a couple years back. Supply is still slim but it's increasing.
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Nov 10, 2021 14:47
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:But this is only a requirement for generating electricity directly from such a reactor, right? If you're only interested in using thermal energy directly (eg, to heat water) does that allow for scaling this sort of power generation? No. These isotopes don't exist in sufficient quantity to do what you're talking about. I mean, take a look at real-world RTGs, like the ones that power space probes. The one powering the Curiosity probe generates about 2 kilowatts of heat, and cost over 100 million dollars to make. Sure, you could scale that cost down, but 10 lbs of Pu-238 is going to be expensive no matter what because you have to make it by neutron bombardment of neptunium-237, which is itself extracted from spent reactor fuel. Even if you say "But we just need heat, who cares what isotope it is," the used fuel bundles extracted from an operating nuclear reactor which are chock full of fission products simply make the pool of water they're stored in slightly warmer. You're not driving a municipal steam system for decades with that. Even if you used something hugely expensive and hideously dangerous, like polonium-210 (140 watts/gram), it's got a half-life of about 5 months. And fundamentally, handing out deadly radiation sources to local cities to make steam sounds like an absolutely awful idea in any context.
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Nov 10, 2021 15:05
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Yeah if you want to do nuclear district heating....just use a normal fission reactor. RTGs aint worth it energy wise.
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Nov 10, 2021 15:06
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Capt.Whorebags posted:It's not without its challenges. The South Australian grid has issues maintaining grid inertia on negative demand days and has to maintain about 200MW of spinning metal - natural gas turbines - to ensure stability. This requires SA to be an exporter of power, and loss of the interconnector would have to result in load shedding. The SA grid is long and "thin", so stability can be difficult to maintain on the best of days. Four large synchronous condensers have come online in recent weeks and the minimum gas capacity has been halved. Hopefully in the next few years the green hydrogen facility will be able to make that requirement for gas entirely obsolete.
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Nov 11, 2021 03:57
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So is South Australia a fluke or a model for reducing carbon emissions while lowering energy costs?
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Nov 11, 2021 21:29
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VideoGameVet posted:So is South Australia a fluke or a model for reducing carbon emissions while lowering energy costs?
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Nov 11, 2021 22:01
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VideoGameVet posted:So is South Australia a fluke or a model for reducing carbon emissions while lowering energy costs? Its not  They made 24% from Renewables, up from 21%. The rest of largely fossil fuels. https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/media-releases/2021-australian-energy-statistics-electricity Its more like greenwashing their carbon emissions.
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Nov 12, 2021 03:22
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CommieGIR posted:Its not South Australia is the state, Australia is the country. We've got a bunch of advantages that make renewables adoption relatively easy though. Lots of sites suitable for wind and solar and a relatively low population. All that said though, you're absolutely right that the federal government is absolutely shithouse and misleading on energy policy.
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Nov 12, 2021 03:40
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CommieGIR posted:Its not That's the entire country. Here's South Australia:  So ...
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Nov 12, 2021 06:56
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Somehow SA double posted. Sorry
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Nov 12, 2021 06:57
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Senor Tron posted:Four large synchronous condensers have come online in recent weeks and the minimum gas capacity has been halved. It'll be interesting to see whether the market for synchronous condensers is a short-run one; I get the feeling it's largely prompted by older engineers who don't trust frequency response when it's not delivered by large lumps of spinning metal.
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Nov 12, 2021 08:23
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VideoGameVet posted:That's the entire country. Again, that's because they can depend on fossil imports from the rest of the grid. So it's misleading.
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Nov 12, 2021 14:24
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CommieGIR posted:Again, that's because they can depend on fossil imports from the rest of the grid. The 'other' chunk includes imports and exports; the region appears to have been a net exporter since 2019.
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Nov 12, 2021 16:16
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Aethernet posted:The 'other' chunk includes imports and exports; the region appears to have been a net exporter since 2019. Its still misleading, because their dependance on Natural Gas, and the fact that the rest of Australia is heavily dependent on Fossil Fuels. Which isn't helping anyone at all.
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Nov 12, 2021 16:25
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CommieGIR posted:Again, that's because they can depend on fossil imports from the rest of the grid. Is the 60% stat fake? Yes, I can see they are using CH4 for close to 40% … but that’s much better than the USA and they aren;t burning coal. If they can maintain that trend, they could get to 80% or more. Given the “lowest electrical rates” in Australia, I’d say that’s good news. VideoGameVet fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 18:34
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VideoGameVet posted:Is the 60% stat fake? Yes, I can see they are using CH4 for close to 40% … but that’s much better than the USA and they aren;t burning coal. One state in the entirety of Australia is not burning coal. The rest are, and provide grid reliability for South Australia. So no, its misleading. Yes, South Australia cutting their carbon footprint is good news, but it continues to be at the detriment of the climate because they used Fossil fuels to do so via Natural Gas as their energy backer. This is like when Germany get's praised for their Renewables effort, you are looking at one specific time period and ignoring everything else  Right now, South Australia has a higher CO2 footprint than the entire nation of France. For context: The entirety of France is 67 million people. South Australia is 1.7 million.  The progress is good. But more must be done. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 18:58
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CommieGIR posted:The progress is good. But more must be done.
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Nov 12, 2021 19:30
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Grouchio posted:We're not/never saying poo poo's been solved. poo poo's been achieved and it's good news for going forward as we fight against energy dinosaurs. Its just important to remember: Australia is an energy dinosaur. They are a larger fossil fuel exporter than Qatar, and its a cornerstone of their economy.
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Nov 12, 2021 19:31
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CommieGIR posted:One state in the entirety of Australia is not burning coal. The rest are, and provide grid reliability for South Australia. So no, its misleading. Yes, South Australia cutting their carbon footprint is good news, but it continues to be at the detriment of the climate because they used Fossil fuels to do so via Natural Gas as their energy backer. The stats you posted show grid intensity of South Australia at 200g/kwh and France at 100g/kwh. Average annual household usage is about 4-5MWh for both countries, higher in some parts of Australia. 1.7m x 200 is less than 67m x 100. I'm not sure what the carbon footprint point was about as a result. 200g/kwh is a hell of a lot better than the rest of Australia. Yes, they're still using natural gas, but they're also starting to roll out grid scale batteries. It'll be interesting to see if South Australia can get to zero faster than France.
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Nov 12, 2021 20:37
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Aethernet posted:The stats you posted show grid intensity of South Australia at 200g/kwh and France at 100g/kwh. Average annual household usage is about 4-5MWh for both countries, higher in some parts of Australia. 1.7m x 200 is less than 67m x 100. I'm not sure what the carbon footprint point was about as a result. ....I'm not sure you are reading those stats or doing that math: ~200 / 1.7 = ~ 112g/kwh/million ~200 / 64 = ~ 3.0g/kwh/million That's not comparable. that's not even in the same ballpark. France is massively ahead there. The idea that South Australia is going to somehow buoy the remaining parts of Australia that burn significant amounts of coal, or being able to replace the remaining 30% of their energy generation with Batteries is very wishful thinking, for a couple of reasons. 1. You'd need to also up the amount of wind and solar captured to charge the batteries while also matching grid demand. Either you are charging batteries or matching demand, you are not doing both. 2. You'd need to match the remaining amount of natural gas in use with batteries. That's no small task Regardless, this isn't even in the same ball park of what France has done when it comes to emissions. And the idea that South Australia is going to go from ~200gCO2 to zero and surpass a country that is practically almost there is a fantastic claim. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Nov 12, 2021 |
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Nov 12, 2021 20:58
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Carbon intensity is grams of emissions per kwh. Power emissions per person is their consumption in kwh multiplied by carbon intensity. So annual emissions per person: SA: 200gx5000kwh (approx) = 1tonne CO2 F: 100g×4500kwh (approx) = 450kg CO2 So the typical power carbon footprint of a French person is about half of that of a South Australian. This is a reasonable point to make. However, you then talked about total populations for reasons that didn't make sense, as: Total power SA emissions: 1x 1.7m = 1.7MTCO2 Total power France emissions: 0.46x 64m = 28.8MTCO2 It's easier to get rid of 1.7MT than it is 28.8MT. I'm not sure what your equation is.
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Nov 12, 2021 21:20
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Aethernet posted:Carbon intensity is grams of emissions per kwh. Power emissions per person is their consumption in kwh multiplied by carbon intensity. So annual emissions per person: Except both states have the equivalent CO2 footprints, so the idea that France emit more doesn't make any sense. How do you come to the conclusion that they emit more based on household use alone? Household usage is included in the total CO2 use as far as electricity.
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Nov 12, 2021 21:21
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"Feel Good" (could be biased) article about South Australia's electrical grid: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/renewable-energy-south-australia-climate-change/
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Nov 12, 2021 21:26
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CommieGIR posted:Except both states have the equivalent CO2 footprints, so the idea that France emit more doesn't make any sense. Are you trying to say that France emits less CO2 than South Australia?
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Nov 12, 2021 21:34
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CommieGIR posted:Except both states have the equivalent CO2 footprints, so the idea that France emit more doesn't make any sense. How do you come to the conclusion that they emit more based on household use alone? Household usage is included in the total CO2 use as far as electricity. ??? Total emissions for South Australia in 2019 were 28MT, total emissions for France was 298MT. France emits more because it's bigger. I talked about power emissions above because that's what the chart was about, and talked about carbon footprint at a household level because figures for household power consumption are easier to find than per capita. France has lower per capita emissions than SA, but has higher total emissions. Because it's bigger. I think you may have interpreted the figures in your charts as total emissions rather than per kwh figures. This would explain my confusion.
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Nov 12, 2021 21:36
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Dante80 posted:Are you trying to say that France emits less CO2 than South Australia? In the context of Electricity Generation: They do. Aethernet posted:??? But the scope is different, we're talking about Electricity, the map is about South Australia's ELECTRICITY, not their overall footprint CO2. We're comparing Electrical Generation CO2.
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Nov 12, 2021 21:37
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CommieGIR posted:In the context of Electricity Generation: They do. Total electricity generated in SA, year to date: 14.6TWh. Total emissions from power: 14.6x200000 = 2.9MT. Using actual numbers rather that household numbers. Total electricity generated in France, 2019: 475TWh. Total emissions: 475x57300 (actual intensity) = 27MT You are welcome to go and look this up.
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Nov 12, 2021 21:49
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France has steadily generated about 50tWhr of power annually from fossil fuels for the last 50 years. S. Australia generates about 12 tWhr per year total. From all sources. Most of which are renewable. The difference between providing power to 1.7M vs 70M people makes your claim pretty incredible on it's face, commieGIR, and it really doesn't hold up. I think you've confused per capita with totals.
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Nov 12, 2021 22:42
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Lol at misreading per capita numbers as total and then digging in ignoring everyone pointing that out. No-one is saying that South Australia is there yet, but we are continuing to reduce emissions and increase renewables year on year. I get that you have a boner for nuclear, but unless you have a time machine to go back 50 years and set a domestic nuclear power industry there's no feasible timeline which sees us moving to nuclear power more quickly than massive renewables deployment.
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Nov 12, 2021 23:02
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Senor Tron posted:Lol at misreading per capita numbers as total and then digging in ignoring everyone pointing that out. There's also no timeline where renewables is going to replace fossil fuel generation, not in Australia, not in Germany. That was largely what came out of COP26 and why France is doubling down on reactors, why Russian is doubling down in it, why China is, and why nearly every other country is doubling down on renewables and nuclear. I may be wrong about the per capita, but there's no way Australia is going to scale to replace their fossil fuel generation with batteries and wind alone.
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Nov 12, 2021 23:16
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