|
Bates posted:So the US is getting in on the HVDC bandwagon with the The Plains & Eastern Clean Line. General Electric even went shopping in Europe so it can get done right and proper The final plan to defeat tornadoes turns out to be systematically bleeding the strength out of nature's fury with windmills.
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2016 11:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 19:27 |
|
|
Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I feel like former chemical weapons depots could also be reasonably used for housing those casks, especially as the casks are far less dangerous than canisters of nerve gas. Nerve gas often goes to poo poo in a few decades of inproper storage, definitely useless after a couple of centuries, nuclear waste can be dangerous for a time equivalent of the time between the ancient Sumerians and present day. It's the unpredictability of ensuring safe storage during this time frame that makes nuclear storage quite a bit more complex.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2017 12:06
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:On the time scale of 1000s of years we're not really worried about the radiation anymore. We're basically just worried about heavy metal toxicity at that point, in which case you'd want to take the same kind of precautions that you take with any dangerous industrial waste product. We know how to deal with all kinds of dangerous waste products, and we already do a pretty good job of dealing with nuclear waste; we don't need to seal it away inside of a giant mountain or launch them into the sun. In fact, spent nuclear fuel actually still has a lot of usable energy content in it, so ease-of-access is actually a desired feature of any storage solution. I mostly agree that the danger after several thousands of years is mainly chemical for the bulk of nuclear waste, but the radiation of core components is still in the double digits of mSv/h after 1000 years. This is not really a neglectable amount and is a good reason to think really hard about how it should be handled. The best option would naturally be to reuse and process the most dangerous waste further to convert it to more manageable compounds and then store the resulting waste long term in sealed vaults as many European countries do, but as I understand it the US is not too big on this? In addition the difference between coal waste and nuclear waste is that the really hazardous and radioactive nuclear waste is highly concentrated, which is very important distinction in terms of safety. This is all somewhat moot though as the main danger/public health issue with using coal is not its radioactivity. Finally, the radiation from coal burning is 100 times higher in the surrounding area of a plant, not in general and assumes safe non disturbed nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2017 03:27
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Assuming it somehow all stays in place for 1000 years despite being exposed to the elements in such a way that it's dangerous to people. Which is a pretty weird assumption to make, and would require rather unusual weather conditions to persist for 1000 years. A major risk is not only leakage but also intentional misuse, for example future actors digging up waste and making dirty bombs. Given the timescales potentially involved this is a serious problem. Also, with human induced climate change being a very real and ongoing thing, unforseen and detrimental weather patterns should almost be taken for granted.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2017 03:53
|
|
|
Infinite Karma posted:I hope you cited this as a pro-nuclear point? Highly concentrated waste is about as good as it gets - easiest to transport and most efficient use of storage. Would having 10 1-ton casks of diluted but still deadly waste to store for 1000 years be better than having just one 1-ton cask of more deadly waste to store for 1000 years" I don't cite it as pro anything, I think the discussion of nuclear vs fossil fuels is pretty thoroughly in favor of nuclear in short to long term. I cite it simply to highlight the very real problem of storage that some people here somehow ignore. In terms of ease of handling yes definately, but in terms of potency for damage its concentrated nature presents other challenges, especially since it will require exceptionally long term safe storage. As mentioned before the radiation hazard from coal burning is wholly insignificant, mostly because it is so dilute. QuarkJets posted:In addition to the other points raised, I'll mention that when we're talking about waste products, the apples to apples comparison is to compare the normal mechanisms for waste disposal: that's dispersal into the area around the coal plant vs storage in a cask near the nuclear plant. The radiation risks from either are very low, but if you're worried about the radiation emitted from nuclear waste then it's worth pointing out that the radiation emitted from coal waste is much greater than that, therefore you should be more concerned about coal waste. That was what the discussion was about, anyway. As mentioned above it is not as simple as comparing apples to apples because one of the apples basically do not exist due to its dilute nature (and different composition etc), while the other apple do exist and needs to be dealt with accordingly. fishmech posted:No it isn't. If I want to make a dirty bomb, literally all I have to do is buy a bunch of smoke detectors. Or, I could break into any of the thousands of hospitals worldwide that do radiation treatment and steal their radioactive material. Or I could straight up order radioactive material off Amazon. Or I can get some from any of the poorly guarded physics laboratories at various universities out there. Or any combination of these methods. The problem of international or accidentally release by future generations are serious enough for all end storage plans to include them so I don't really see what is so controversial about that. And when you talk about weather slowly eroding and diluting exposed waste to harmlessnes this assumes 1. the location of storage allows for efficient natural dispersion, 2. the storage is undisturbed during this time, 3. the nature and composition of the waste allows for slow sustained release and not release in big bursts, 4. human activity is not performed immediately downstream of any gradual release big enough to pose a health risk. You are naive if you think these are easy to predict and manage on the timescales involved. I'll totally give you that dirty bombs are crap as effective weapons though, and there are much better but less dramatic ways for intentional misuse.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2017 09:11
|
|
|
Fun tech for supplying water current generated power, fly model planes under water! http://minesto.com/ Not sure how great these sites will be in the short run if climate change make currents more unpredictable, but I assume the units and associated infrastructure will be somewhat movable since it the power generation is so spread out.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2017 17:47
|
|
|
LemonDrizzle posted:I wonder what happens when a large marine animal hits a moving turbine... Depending on speed, angle and size, I assume anything from bruises up to blubber explosion. They claim the technology is "in harmony with marine ecosystem" but I have a hard time imagining that a 10 ton winged torpedo does not bludgeon the snot out of any large animal it encounter.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
Syzygy Stardust posted:What’s the cost of that solar when you include the Patriot batteries to keep Iranian (proxy) missiles from blowing it up? You dont need more patriot batteries, you just aim the mirrors! Now you just have to hope no missiles are launched at night.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2018 11:28
|
|
|
Are stirling engines or something not used to maximize the energy retrieval from powerplants? If so, why not, lovely reliability? It always felt like the thermal spillage from nuke plants are such a waste and utilizing stirling engines to convert more thermal energy or enhance cooling would be so obvious, yet i have never heard anything of that.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2019 22:52
|
|
|
Apparatchik Magnet posted:The US, that has reduced its emissions more than any of the Europeans? Was this Swedish politician speaking on the day Greta was born or something? Ah yes, the US... 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2019 22:06
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:That $20 number is not the cost of solar plus the cost of storing it before distribution, that is the cost from the averaged costs inclusive of solar power that was fed directly to the grid which makes up the majority of power distributed from the combined facility. I think much of the current fuel price drop now in corona times have been due to a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. I assume if that resolves the prices will pop up a bit. Though I have also heard that a lot of big money is also divesting from fossil fuels since the long term value of the buissness is in doubt. Mostly due to the fact that stated reserves are not likely to be fully utilized due to climate change and the associated public opinion.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2020 20:55
|
|
|
MomJeans420 posted:Sorry, I forgot about this thread. Is this thread still as autistic as ever? Do we think renewables are going to skyrocket during a depression? There have been quite a lot of talk in europe about focusing the massive stimulus money after this crisis towards making the economies more in line with the Paris agreement. Which would likely involve more investment in renewables and less in oil and gas. Though so far the details about the post corona stimulus is far from decided.
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2020 08:40
|
|
|
Heck Yes! Loam! posted:That is so cool. Big fans tends to make it so.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2020 15:59
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:First off, this is great info and changes a lot. That's not 'ahead' as I'd define it, that appears to be "meeting". Its worth noting the article highlights that its more likely they will meet it due to drops in transit emissions, not so much that they cut power emissions significantly enough to make the goal. Why is biomass not renewable? I can understand some complaints, such as how handling some types of waste biomass in some ways can generatre methane emissions and how larger trees take time to accumulate the biomass and thus not offsetting the carbon emitted by burning trees right now. But over time it is almost completely renewable and dedicated energy forestry have very short generation time of 3-7 years.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2020 20:13
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:The issue is "what is biomass" because if you mean "biomass that's grown in a sustainable way that's not causing unsustainable land use change" then sure. So basically the time aspect coupled with submissive regulatory bodies that are implementing crappy regulation. Lovely. Rime posted:You're stripmining the soil biome to burn the production and pump carbon into the atmosphere, the gently caress is renewable here? Dedicated energy forestry can be grown in drainage ditches and are great at soaking up exess nitrogen in the waste water. Depending on implementation it can also benefit pollination, soil retention and be used for soil remediation (mainly heavy metals from fertilizers). At least here in Sweden dedicated energy forestry is mostly willow which is grown at least for a couple of decades before replanting, with harvest every 3-5 years. This means that quite a lot of carbon is bound up in the soil by the extensive root systems. Basically, it can be really great, and widescale implementation of it can be a good way to make use of either marginal land or boost/fix other farmland. Too bad much of the regulation associated to it seems to be poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2020 22:26
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:
Land use is not really an issue, any negative aspects for nature is easily compensated for in the long run by averting further CO2 emissions. Here in scandinavia they have even put up the solar panels on stilts so that the sheep can graze underneath, because the grass grows well in constant shade too. Infinite Karma posted:Fusion's difficulty in terms of energy-positive reactions that don't destroy all known or possibly physical materials seems to be on the level of "discover new physics that allow us to influence strong/weak/gravitational forces". Easy, surround the reaction with black holes that vacums up the littering neutrons! We didn't spend billions on CERN for nothing you know.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2020 21:39
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Look I'm extremely pro-solar and I can still admit that covering vast swathes of natural land with solar panels is problematic. We still need to do it but just pretending like there's no ecological cost to doing it is kind of stupid I didn't say it would not be problematic, I just said it is a non issue if we fry the planet and those eco systems are toast anyway. 26% of the worlds surface is used for livestock grazing, 155000000 acres of public land is used for livestock grazing in the US, surly half a percentage of that could be combined solar farms too. And this is of course ignoring the vast amount of non utilized area available on human built crap.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2020 22:13
|
|
|
Saukkis posted:Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options - UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE It's fun to read these reports because coal just tops basically all metrics of bad. Greenhouse gases? Check! Water use? Check! Human toxicity? Check! Ionizing radiation? Check! Even for land usage it is only the second worst after solar.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2021 09:49
|
|
|
Aethernet posted:You certainly could take a fusion plant to Mars. Everything else you can do with solar panels across the Sahara. Paving the Sahara in solar panels is fun in a vacuum but as far as I know we still lack all of the following things to make it work: The storage or energy transfer capacity to move the power to where it is needed Political will of both the users and producers Material resources Local stability to be able to use that efficiently. In essence if you are going to centralize electricity production it would be better to plop down a powerplant nearer to the end point users in a safe place, be that a massive fusion plant in Paris or Accra or wherever else that needs it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2022 14:42
|
|
|
evil_bunnY posted:Very few euro states have the know-how, and no one generates as much nuke power as they do. Yeah, France retained the industry related to building and maintaining nuclear power, the rest of the EU did not. If I recall correctly it is basically only France and China that can currently produce the nice big one-piece reactor vessels for civilian powerstations, the rest of the world having long since decommissioned their huge forges that was not useful for making anything else.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2022 10:14
|
|
|
evil_bunnY posted:The thing with France is that they've found themselves an exporter in no small part because of Germany's incompetence/willful negligence (lots of high up peeps have a vested interest in getting Germany hooked on russian energy). I thought it was also a postwar German policy to make themselves dependent on other nations so that they don't start more wars and get economic influence over their trading partners.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2022 09:52
|
|
|
Potato Salad posted:To an extent yes but that was never supposed to be steered by substantial cheap personal investment in a single country's supply, especially for a critical sector But they don't invest in just a single countrys supply? They import electricity from all their neighbors, not just France or Poland. For fossil fuels it is mainly Russian, Norwegian, American, British, and Dutch fossil fuels, roughly in order of import amount. In total Russia supplies approximately 22% of the total energy consumption for Germany but they are hardly the only suppliers, being about as big as the next two or three major suppliers combined. The point is though, that Germany seem to be perfectly fine with importing a lot of their energy needs and don't really seem to see it as a problem that they will end up buying Russian gas or French nuclear power.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2022 14:04
|
|
|
Kesper North posted:does it get rid of waste heat via cooling finns While I'm 100% certain the facility has a sauna somewhere I'm not sure it is driven by waste heat nor that the personnel can rotate through the sauna at a fast enough pace to provide a consistent heat dissipation.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2022 08:22
|
|
|
PhazonLink posted:they should make district heating be closer by and see if they can get animals that evolve to appreciate hot springs just like those japanese primates. In Sweden we apparently have exotic non native marine life in the sea around our nuclear reactors since the water temperature is higher there.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2022 10:06
|
|
|
freezepops posted:
Couple it with a subsidized system that pays them just to waste excess energy on something useful such as carbon capture or nitrogen fixing or whatever else that one can think of. We subsidize oil and gas in dumber and more expensive ways.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2022 19:58
|
|
|
Also, I'm pretty sure zaporozhtransformator whose production and headquarters are in Ukraine was one of the largest producers in the world. Now Ukraine has nationalized the company since a year back and is probably prioritizing their own state infrastructure due to Russia mass targeting their energy grid.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2023 06:23
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:Its something that's been demonstrated in large tech demos but never deployed as far as I know. Diesel and bunker oil remain cheep and there is very little pressure on ship owners to go green. It's what would be considered TRL7/TRL8 level technology. The next step would be to put it on a useful ship, and then scale up production. Though bunker fuel is mostly hydrocarbons I assume the contaminating sulphur and metals in it are kind of bad for the reactors then?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2023 16:31
|
|
|
marchantia posted:My understanding is that it will likely be so. Gas fracking has a very specific place it needs to be to get at the gas and if it's close to/going through a water table, so be it. Seems with enhanced geothermal there are regions that are better for doing it, wrt underground geology and whatnot, but it's in theory easier to avoid environmental issues that have plagued natgas So with enhanced geothermal, I guess it is not necessary to extract the liquid and any toxic heat-exchange liquid can mostly be recycled into the system? Or is it that it is simply not very toxic at all so it doesn't matter as much if it leaks into the water table?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2023 15:24
|
|
|
And the evaporate is troublesome to collect and use as a water source in that context I would guess.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2023 09:11
|
|
|
Potato Salad posted:crude thermal inertia has been approached before, napkin math usually says no -- like it's not even close There's that thermal storage company that also has special photovoltaics that also make use on the light emitted by the hot rocks (graphite if I recall?).
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2023 08:44
|
|
|
DTurtle posted:I will never understand the hostility to energy trade within the EU + periphery in this thread. Because the EU is not a monolithic block where countries share their resources and funding as within a country. The EU energy market and its pricing system has been something of a shitshow where countries with historically low energy prices get uncomfortable price fluctuations and countries have used imports as a substitute for expanding their own capacity leading to a lack of overall capacity.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 10:40
|
|
|
GABA ghoul posted:Then that's the end for the European 2050 climate goals and staying under 2 degrees of warming. The only way for most European countries to remain self-sufficient are fossil fuels. Long term there may be other options like massive efuel storages/usage or nuclear power, but that's on timescales that are completely incompatible with 2 degrees(or anything close to it). No, it's not a binary choice the solution is to build international transmission AND much more generation capacity.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 22:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 19:27 |
|
|
GABA ghoul posted:This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal. As far as I know plonking down a wind tower in the middle of a field will only create a very minor reduction in farmable land. So wind farms are not going to displace agriculture to any meaningful degree thus I doubt wind parks will create new wild habitats free of agriculture.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2024 13:20
|
|