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It should probably be noted that the era of nuclear reactors being particularly difficult to throttle up or down, or run at partial power, is well behind us. The complex interplay of power grids in central Europe has ensured that France has paid a lot of attention to this issue, and they've gotten pretty good at it.
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May 5, 2015 21:57
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Well the average age of a reactor in France is 24, while the average age of a reactor in the US is 30. The difference is mainly that French reactors are given the political space and funding to engage in responsible upgrades and best practices. Again, it's more of a political issue than a question of engineering. http://www.statista.com/statistics/272142/average-age-of-nuclear-reactors-in-selected-countries/
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May 5, 2015 23:21
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OwlFancier posted:"Quork" is the weirdest loving pronunciation I've ever heard. I take my pronunciation guide from only the finest Armin Shimmerman characters. "Quork" is how it's pronounced in physics, but Armin Shimmerman is awesome and I'm totally ok with it.
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May 7, 2015 19:55
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Baronjutter posted:What's the origin on the word and very non-intuitive pronunciation? German, of course. If it sounds like a real word then it's always French.
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May 7, 2015 20:10
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Trabisnikof posted:In California they've just announced they're changing the way the price of electricity gets calculated to help cover the costs of infrastructure that low electricity users (and solar owners) weren't paying their fair share. So things like that and requiring solar users to buy at retail and sell at wholesale helps too. The California rate changes were a big "gently caress you" to conservationists and solar power users of all kinds. Considering the kind of environmental issues California is currently facing, it was a completely tone deaf decision that doesn't raise any additional funding (most users will pay less) but encourages the wasteful users to keep ignoring their resource usage. Our financial needs for infrastructure are very real, but it is clear that we need to approach solutions with conservation in mind. The alternative is unsustainable - not only because of the environmental damage, but because spurring usage also spurs the need for ever more infrastructure. The loss of consumption disincentives - whether they be electricity taxes, gasoline taxes, etc. - is uniformly a step in the wrong direction.
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Aug 3, 2015 21:39
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It is probably indicative that theory-crafting a promising American nuclear-power future is requiring a total revamping of the industry. I think that as much as nuclear power is a wonderful technology that could do a lot of good for the United States, realistically I think that the scale of the projects are increasingly prohibitive for our country to take on, given the level of increasing dysfunction. Sure it's quite possible for the country to resolve many of these systemic issues, but I don't think that anyone is anticipating that we actually will. We increasingly struggle to complete large projects, with our political, industrial, and social forces increasingly divided and resistant to change. Massive, complicated investment projects that take decades to complete have always been challenging, but it's objectively more difficult now than it was in the mid-20th century.. With that in mind, I think it's probably best that we focus on more achievable green energy projects, with the hope that Europe and Asia will take the lead on nuclear power and develop the technology in ways that we can eventually take advantage of.
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Aug 8, 2017 20:07
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blowfish posted:So, since climate change isn't quite enough to put the US in crisis mode and make politicians prioritise national-level effectiveness over pork barrel spending and NIMBY concerns, we need to hope that China/India/Russia will get powerful enough to shake things up a bit and scare America into doing things again. Good thing climate change is predicted to make the world politically unstable then! More that America is constantly in a crisis-mode these days, which means that big projects and big changes are incredibly difficult. We're barely managing to keep our bridges repaired. There's widespread opposition to nuclear power at multiple levels, and major government projects of any kind are increasingly under threat. These projects take at least a decade to go from concept to completion, and in the US it takes significantly longer. The idea that we're going to silver bullet this by changing the base design kind of misses the point. The designs aren't the issue, it's the political, regulatory, commercial, and social obstacles that are truly standing in the way. And they aren't likely to be easily resolved. Don't get me wrong, nuclear is great and would be the best way forward if our country was more functional. But given the scale of our energy and climate problems, it is imperative that we pursue more achievable solutions. Smaller green energy projects with less opposition and a more diverse array of viable operators are the way to go forward. Maybe that is microplants and other forms of scalar nuclear power, but more realistically it's wind and solar.
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Aug 10, 2017 02:54
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Arglebargle III posted:If you ever needed proof that human people are not the Republican constituency. Liberal political organizations have been slow to respond to this oil industry talking point, and it's been spreading like wildfire in Republican states that are hostile to environmentalism. There's a real need to develop the idea that home solar represents a direct investment in the community energy grid, which reduces costs for everyone by expanding the generation base and increasing line efficiency. Investment in home solar reduces the need for costly infrastructure expansion that has to be paid for via bank loans and rate increases. These rooftop projects also help develop the local economy by employing local small businesses, as opposed to large out-of-state corporations that build and fuel the oil and gas plants. Conversely, as I'm sure everyone here recognizes, implementing a mandatory usage subsidy only increases wasteful power usage and drives the need for increased infrastructure spending. It's similar to how a utility-free renter will run the hose and air conditioning all the time: if you artificially disrupt supply and demand then someone else ends up picking up their tab. This fiscal viewpoint isn't being advocated sufficiently, particularly in conservative areas that are more interested in the bottom-line than climate concerns. Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 14:32
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angryrobots posted:I am not an engineer, but I have listened to a lot of presentations by engineers in the power distribution industry who would argue against every point here. Personally, I think the truth is somewhere between this idea, getting people to actually curb their usage, and developing utility level energy storage. I'd be happy to hear more about those concerns, if you're able to find those kinds of presentations and relate them to us. I certainly agree that finding ways to further reduce consumption and develop methods of energy storage are critically important for our energy future. I know that the energy industry has been surprised by the impact of rapid improvements in energy efficiency, which has reduced the need for new power plants (and the profit opportunities that go with such construction). There is a delicate realignment going on there, which is also being affected by the other technological changes that have been changing the industry over the last couple decades. Energy storage is another area where there are a variety of options for positive change. Utility-level storage (in the form of water storage dams, high-efficiency batteries, or other methods of energy retention) is going be very important, but local storage is another promising avenue. Hybrid/Electric cars in particular offer a huge opportunity for efficient, market-based energy storage. In many ways, line smoothing will require innovative ways of not only reducing demand at need, but also increasing it. quote:I'm going to guess that your utility company is crediting you for the KWh that you're generating, at the same rate that you purchase it from them when you're not generating. What other business that you deal with is willing to constantly buy something from you at zero profit, and for how long do you think this situation is tenable? But the utility takes that power and sells it to someone else, right? So it's not really zero profit at all. By taking on local power generation, home solar actually reduces production costs for the utility - participating in the public good and driving down rates by increasing overall supply and reducing the demand on the utility. Home solar projects are a net benefit to everyone on the electric grid, including the utility. Each installation represents, in the final sense, a reduced need for costly infrastructure bonds and rate increases. Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 15:12
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freezepops posted:Some of these points are also things that will generally happen to the grid as technology and price of those features comes done but it's rather disingenuous to claim that rooftop PV makes the grid cheaper to build or maintain. The grid upgrades you're talking about are paid for by the home solar installation because they're obviously critical to being able to achieve basic functionality. The idea that this investment into the grid should be ignored because it directly benefits the owner makes no sense at all - they're paying for the upgrade rather than that money coming out of the rate payments. It's clearly saving money for consumers as a whole, particularly because these improvements are happening regardless of the development of home solar. quote:The utility losses all the energy lost in the distribution system and has to pay for the equipment used to transmit the solar energy, pay salaries for the technicians and operators, telecom, billing etc. You are correct, net metering isn't a zero profit setup for the utility; it's a negative profit. Depending on where you are located only half-3/4 of the price you pay for electrical energy is for the actual energy. If there is a market issue where consumers are not paying or being paid the actual market rate, then that should be addressed, but basically what you're saying is that the market rate isn't pegged correctly and the utility is inherently unprofitable. That has nothing to do with home solar, if it is actually happening. I think that you're conflating things here. Syzygy Stardust posted:The personal solar issue is about 90% about loving over people who don't own solar, only about 10% about loving over the electric company. You're cost shifting and adding inefficient capacity, not lowering costs. This is simply outdated thinking that ignores the positive impacts of solar power. The entire reason that California has shifted its peak pricing periods to the evening is because solar has taken such a significant bite out of the traditional daytime peak. They are single-handedly flattening out the power usage curves, which has meant that a lot of power plants have been able to be retired or never built in the first place. That is saving Californian rate payers a ton of money, though of course for-profit utilities like Edison don't really see that as a benefit. Rooftop solar is helping drive down costs to all consumers, reduce brownouts, develop the line infrastructure, etc., but this sort of obsolete thinking is focused entirely on the reduced need for baseline oil plants. Now there's a conversation to be had about how profitable these utility companies can really expect to be in an open market, but I'm not seeing a justification for the government thumbing the scale in order to deter solar installations. All these sorts of mandatory usage subsidies do is increase consumption and ensure a continued reliance on big, centralized infrastructure investment (along with the bonds and rate increases that go along with them). Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:29
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OwlFancier posted:Either way it would seem rather odd for a power company to want to buy power off you at full price. The investors of a for-profit utility want to see sustained annual rate increases, usage increases, expensive infrastructure bonds, and a shuttering of any enterprise that would interfere with their service monopoly. That's inherent to the system and their self-interest. But those desires obviously need to be balanced against the good of the community as a whole. In this case, providing home solar market access is a net benefit to everyone because it increases electricity supply and thereby reduces prices. The only arguments against it can be equally levied against consumption reduction methods as a whole - the Edison company also doesn't want you to use EnergyStar home appliances and reduce your energy footprint, but that doesn't mean that we should encourage that as policy. There's no justification here for maintaining these sorts of for-profit monopolies. Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:53
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OwlFancier posted:I mean, I agree, full electrocommunism now, but I was more wondering why do they pay you for it currently? Well I think the justification is vested in the government's antitrust role. The utilities are the stewards of the electric lines infrastructure, but it was built for and by the public - often on the back of public bonds. There is a reasonable expectation that smaller players should be permitted access to that market, and that the public benefits by denying these utilities a monopoly of service. And of course it should be remembered that this energy is quickly resold to another consumer at market rates as well, far more efficiently than producing and transmitting that same energy across the state. It saves everyone money. And the proof is staring us right in the face, in the form of the peak usage periods flattening out to the point that noon - traditionally one of the most expensive periods of the day - is now one of the cheapest periods to buy and sell power. The system clearly works, but there is backlash developing as the fossil fuel companies realize that solar power is changing their profitable status quo.
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Aug 10, 2017 17:23
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angryrobots posted:From "our" standpoint, the current model of distributed solar is both unsustainable, and is being subsidized by our members who cannot afford solar. (And in many cases, the installation costs of individuals will take many years if they ever pay off. So the real beneficiary here is a private contractor who charges exorbitant installation fees to put in the PV array, with a big sales pitch and promises). I think the concern here (and it mirrors similar debates in other parts of the green economy sector) is that the desire to ensure everyone pays their "fair share" is going to result in a huge over-correction that discourages anyone from investing in green technologies because there's no personal benefit. And that the public loses out on the opportunities offered by these consumption reductions and increased efficiency. That is certainly occurring with these solar rate changes, where Republican legislators are intent on eliminating any possible benefit for solar adopters, in the hopes that oil and gas plants will remain the default solution. You see this in the "road tax" proposals that would have electric cars heavily subsidizing fuel hogs and semi-trucks, or water usage tiers that make high consumption easily affordable without offering any reward for conservation. It's this bizarre inversion of the free market, with Republicans defending the role of centralized private/public monopolies and promoting the concept of price fixing. Surely any reasonable system must be able to discourage waste, and encourage diversified investment into that market when it would improve the system as a whole. As a corollary: Each year the EnergyStar program saves Americans upwards of $15 billion in energy costs. It has created a massive industry in appliance upgrades and recycling. In many ways it has had more of an impact on the energy sector than all the rooftop solar projects combined. But all that rides on the microeconomics of personal benefit; if the money that those consumers save was systematically redistributed to subsidize the non-adopters and the electric utility profits, then they would never make those investments. And the nation as a whole would be so much the worse for it. The clear mandate here is to ensure that these sorts of programs can be viable going forward, and that consumers have a reason to invest in green technologies that benefit their communities as a whole. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 17:59
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The New York Times posted:Over the past six years, rooftop solar panel installations have seen explosive growth — as much as 900 percent by one estimate.
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Aug 11, 2017 04:06
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On the one hand, I grew up in Oregon's Willamette Valley which had all sorts of power lines running through the forests down from the dams and wind farms on the Columbia and the Willamette, and they really aren't a big deal. It's a price to be paid for having clean energy, and it's a fairly minor one. On the other hand, it's good that the regulators are paying attention to the desire of the citizenry, rather than just ignoring the people who will primarily affected. So one part "grumble grumble idiot NIMBYs" and one part "nice work with the responsive small government".
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Feb 4, 2018 06:59
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From reading the advocacy sites dedicated to opposing the lines project, the principle objection was that the lines could be seen at all. There was an adorable map where they had outlined the "area of potential visual impact" and it was dotted line in a 15 mile radius from the route. They suggested that the entire project could be buried, not just the sections going through the forest, but the energy company balked because it would have nearly doubled the cost. So while they may have promoted their opposition with pictures of clearcutting and endless transmission towers, complained about "increasing dependence on foreign energy", and talked about "destroying migration routes [and] potential agricultural lands", I think that it was probably largely focused on protecting the "viewshed" as they put it. http://www.notonorthernpass.com/resources/
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Feb 5, 2018 17:48
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evil_bunnY posted:Funny how when people get mad about the visual impact on a forest projects get stopped but if you’re worried about crude leaking all over your land, gently caress you. I mean that's kind of the flip side of it. I might think that the NIMBY's objections are pretty baseless, but on the other hand I don't live there and won't be affected by it. It should be up to infrastructure planners to convince the resident stakeholders that the project is a good idea, and if they don't like it then it's hard to justify ramming it through their community. People should be able to hold a degree of sovereignty over their state. Now this often ends up resulting in little more than public bribery as companies shell out money to the nearby towns, but it still results in something resembling popular support. If a project doesn't have it, then it probably shouldn't go forward.
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Feb 5, 2018 18:17
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OwlFancier posted:Immediate planetwide climate issues are an issue where I'm 100% a jackbooted statist who wants to crush everyone under tonnes of power pylons and wind turbines and nuclear reactors. I mean if there was a silver bullet capital "s" Solution then sure I'd say we should just do it and drat those who would dissent - the global threat of climate devastation is too urgent. But the reality is that we're going to need to keep picking away at the problem again and again in different ways, and alienating people with inflexible and heavy-handed projects isn't a sustainable method. I'm all for technocratic solutions, but I also recognize that it's important to keep public support on your side. So if Vermont wants to host all that infrastructure rather than New Hampshire, then that seems like a good compromise. Ideally, Vermont will see sufficient benefits from the process that next time an infrastructure plan comes around they'll be willing to adopt that one as well, and the NH folks will start to realize that they're missing out by not getting involved. Meanwhile, next time the project managers involved will have more experience with promoting these sorts of projects and finding community allies that can help advocate.
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Feb 6, 2018 01:53
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Baronjutter posted:It's important to take local concerns into account, but also be able to look at those concerns and potentially dismiss them if they are unfounded. Like local opposition to cell phone towers saying it will cause tumors or morgellions or whatever, those sorts of concerns can be dismissed out of hand. If the power line project will only temporarily disrupt a very narrow swath of land already adjacent to a road and no one from the parks department thinks the construction project will result in any long term harm to the local ecosystem, just do it. I think that ultimately it's important to have fair and coherent systems to deal with this sort of thing, and that are capable of efficiently resolving whether concerns are legitimate or not. The same kind of planning system that bars leaky oil pipelines should also be capable of greenlighting a project even when there's a vocal minority that is up in arms about hypothetically seeing it from 15 miles away. And I certainly recognize that often NIMBYs misrepresent themselves and their concerns, so it's important to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. But at the same time, I have major qualms about simply forcing projects on a population when there's widespread public loathing for it. If some neighborhood doesn't like an apartment building going in, tough for them, but I do think that the municipality as a whole should be able to say "look we just don't want this". Sometimes that certainly is going to result in suboptimal results, and the US definitely has issues with some communities getting much more access to power than others, but I do think that popular support has to be part of the foundation of these major projects. Perhaps some of these planning committees need to start finding ways of pitting these NIMBYs against each other more. For example, get a community to agree that a certain number of apartment complexes shall be built in the name of affordable housing, and then let the NIMBYs battle it out amongst themselves as to which tree roots are most worthy of protection. Popular support doesn't just have to be seen as an anchor around the neck of technocrats, it also can be a pretty useful tool for getting things done - when it can be harnessed successfully.
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Feb 6, 2018 02:16
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EoRaptor posted:Those sign supports are very expensive, and placing structure that close to the flow of traffic is a real hazard during accidents. Imagine a big rig hitting one and collapsing a section of panels and supports across all the lanes that could be dozens of meters long and electricaly live. The elephant in the room about solar roads is that road and rail construction is the last remaining arena of public works that is permitted in the United States. You can't get the political will to build publicly-owned solar plants because that's seen as infringing on the profit margins of the capitalists, but you can get bonds passed to build and upgrade roads. If they had found a way to routinely incorporate solar panels into road construction on a cost savings basis, that would have lead to a quiet energy transformation. And there's all sorts of neat things you could do with roads if they had powerlines running through them. But the technology just isn't there - it's prohibitively expensive to make the system work.
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Sep 25, 2018 06:12
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Also Americans throw away 40% of the food they do buy. Increased food costs are essentially a non-issue in any sort of macro sense.
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Oct 1, 2018 14:59
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At the end of the day, Americans mostly eat hyper-processed meat/corn/wheat combinations anyways, of which they usually throw out 40%. Only 10 percent of the population eats the minimum recommended amount of fruits or vegetables. The idea that electricity costs or carbon/kg ratios of urban greenhouses are going to materially affect food affordability is totally absurd.
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Oct 18, 2018 23:00
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Phanatic posted:This is one of the dumbest things I've seen posted in this thread. This sort of thing really needs to be understood by the public at large. At a certain point you can't parse something that is factually unreliable, because you don't have a foundation to build upon. If a source is 50% bullshit then it's 100% useless, because you can't believe any specific element. It's why people shouldn't watch tabloids like Fox or the Daily Mail, even though they sometimes have sane news coverage (their polling unit results for example) - without reasonable trust in the underlying medium you can't gauge the veracity of any specific material.
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Aug 27, 2019 18:54
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Phanatic posted:Environmentalists in Germany are literally insane. German environmentalists seem to have some pretty hosed up priorities. Frankly they seem indistinguishable from the coal lobbyists at times.
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Sep 8, 2019 19:23
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VideoGameVet posted:So say you create anhydrous ammonia or even a carbon based fuel from hydrogen produced by renewables and run aircraft on that? Anhydrous ammonia fuel cells created without cracking fossil fuels to make the ammonia would be entirely carbon-free. Apparently the Japanese are really pushing for this, which is exciting. A carbon-based fuel cell produced by renewable hydrogen scoops would be carbon-neutral, which would be an acceptable alternative. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07/ammonia-renewable-fuel-made-sun-air-and-water-could-power-globe-without-carbon Either way, we'd need to significantly increase power generation capacity in order to transition to this sort of economy. But the good news is that with stable fuel cells you could really do it on an industrial scale. Whether we're talking endless European wind farms, acres of Australian solar fields, massive American hydro plants, or standardized Chinese nuclear facilities, there's many different ways of capitalizing on that sort of fuel cell economy. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 26, 2019 |
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Sep 26, 2019 20:30
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Tab8715 posted:Aren't there many things we could turn off - theoretically that would save tons of power? Do we really need the Whole Foods sign bright green at 3AM even when the store is closed? Efficiency upgrades are certainly worth doing, and they're generally incorporated into modern consumer devices and smart grid type infrastructure. The most important thing is making sure that the end-users are actually valuing the electricity - the American tendency to subsidize resource usage causes a lot of problems with that. On an industrial level, big electricity users often activate at night rather than during the day, since power is cheaper when there's low demand. There's a little bit of that at the consumer level (e.g. dishwashers have timers to run at night, motion-sensor/timered lights are becoming more common, plug-in electric cars can often be set to charge at night, etc.) If you want to have more of this sort of thing in your own home, most electronics stores carry timer adapters that are pretty easy to incorporate. The technology has been around forever, though the newer ones are nicer to use. Wifi smartplug adapters are slowly replacing them, if you want those decorative outdoor LEDs to light up when your car parks after work, as opposed to at 5:30pm. Kaal fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 27, 2019 |
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Sep 27, 2019 00:30
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My understanding is that most of the good sites for hydro were already exploited in the 50s-70s
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Sep 27, 2019 18:28
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Tab8715 posted:I mean, if we use fossil fuels under our “carbon budget” and don’t go over... sure? Theory versus reality is huge. Germany is a perfect example, where it's spent a decade pushing renewables towards 50% of it's generation, but it still emits more carbon than a decade ago.
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Sep 27, 2019 19:49
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China is also building a massive network of high speed railways, which will be quite helpful. And they've been fighting desertification with huge reforestation projects. Basically the Chinese method of doing big projects is exactly the kind of methodology that the rest of the world needs to adopt. They're building coal plants because they want to bring the rural areas into line with the rest of the country, and they need power to do that. The best way to influence that towards clean energy is to fund publicly accessible research into improved solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear designs, and to make environmental issues part of any trade negotiations (i.e. Elizabeth Warren's plan to do just that)
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Oct 2, 2019 16:47
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Tab8715 posted:Do you have a link too this? Elizabeth Warren published an article on Medium talking about her intended changes to trade policy, and has brought it up several times in the debates. In short she wants to reformulate the American approach to trade policy, and ensure that more stakeholders are involved in the process - expressly including environmentalists, union reps, and other critical perspectives that are often shut out of discussions by the Republican elites. https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/new-approach-trade https://medium.com/@teamwarren/trade-on-our-terms-ad861879feca
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Oct 2, 2019 17:09
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Megillah Gorilla posted:This was done by - no surprise - some right wingers trying to discredit AOC. LaRouchites are such weird, culty people, even for Republicans. I remember when he came to the Oregon High School Mock World Congress and they all got thrown out after his speech because some of them were snorting cocaine in the bathroom. AOC, for her part, just thought the woman was either mentally ill or having some sort of crisis breakdown. Which is adorably empathetic, and also a very funny interpretation of a LaRouchite doing their schtick. I'm sure she's privately-thinking: "Oh you're an idiot Republican? I thought you were just broken." Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 17:47
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LaRouchites don't have a coherent political philosophy, and their ideas vary wildly depending on the current issues du jour and the location of each group, but are nonetheless largely composed of Republicans. Which largely makes sense if you think about what kind of voters are going to be interested in backing a cult of personality who's political views are dominated by conspiracy theories and rabid anti-minority rabble-rousing. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 19:38
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Deteriorata posted:Well, the ones I've dealt with always call themselves "independent," although they acknowledge that they vote straight ticket Republican in every election. That tracks 1000% with the LaRouchites I've interacted with. They're broadly anti-establishment, but particularly any establishment that isn't sticking it to the Jews / gays / blacks / "counterrevolutionaries". They tend to thrive in liberal areas where openly being a Republican is going to be met with disgust, but there's more tolerance for conservative ideas couched as "alternative thinking" and political independence.
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Oct 4, 2019 19:54
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Kashclarke posted:Ok that's interesting thanks, I think I read somewhere France has 80 percent of it's energy supplied by nuclear and it took 50 percent of it's fresh water, which seemed like probably the strongest case against it It's a complicated issue, but there's an important consideration here which is to distinguish between water withdrawal (drawing water for cooling and then returning it directly to the source) and water consumption (evaporative usage). Nuclear power generation can withdraw quite a bit of water (40 percent of US freshwater withdrawals in 2000) but actually consume very little (about 3 percent in the same period). The cooling towers used by some nuclear power plants can vastly decrease water withdrawal by recirculating water, but moderately increases the consumption levels. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-it-works-water-electricity https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/770/how-much-water-does-nuclear-power-plant-consume http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/styles2/
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Oct 29, 2019 20:43
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silence_kit posted:Ok, maybe you'll get it on my sixth post on the subject: in a hypothetical future world where the US's electricity is largely coming from wind & solar, absent other ideas mentioned in my earlier posts, a complementary technology is needed to be able to supply electricity when the intermittent sources cannot. If nuclear electricity cannot be this complementary technology, then it seems like other technologies, like electricity generated from natural gas, would have an important role to play. Even in your hypothetical world it makes more sense to use a base load than it does to fire up a nation's worth of peaker plants when the winds die down. That being said, this thread appears to be a bit outdated when it comes to nuclear plant load-following - modern designs are quite capable of ramping power quickly and efficiently (indeed some are actually faster than natural gas plants). As France and Germany have transitioned to more intermittent sources of power, their nuclear plant operators have learned to become more flexible. In your hypothetical United States, the same would be the case. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-market-forces-are-pushing-utilities-to-operate-nuclear-plants-more-flex/427496/
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Oct 31, 2019 09:04
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MomJeans420 posted:The energy generation megathread attracts spergs like moths to a flame, and they will never answer your question because there isn't an answer that they actually like. Kaal posted:Even in your hypothetical world it makes more sense to use a base load than it does to fire up a nation's worth of peaker plants when the winds die down. That being said, this thread appears to be a bit outdated when it comes to nuclear plant load-following - modern designs are quite capable of ramping power quickly and efficiently (indeed some are actually faster than natural gas plants). As France and Germany have transitioned to more intermittent sources of power, their nuclear plant operators have learned to become more flexible. In your hypothetical United States, the same would be the case.
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Nov 1, 2019 18:07
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:This pointless moralizing and emoting is a big reason you can’t understand why no government can or will make the decisions necessary to fix things. This is just stupid, especially given that there's plenty of governments that have already acknowledged global warming and are making strides to remediate the situation. Just because the US is not currently leading this effort does not mean it is not happening.
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Nov 2, 2019 00:54
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:It’s not happening fast enough or seriously enough. Ah yes, behold those goalposts as they sprint into the distance on petrol-fueled engines. Look man, there's another thread if you want to whine about the climate crisis and accuse people of being gullible idiots. This is usually a good thread, and it doesn't need someone Cramering in and rehashing 90s-era debates about whether global warming is caused by humans or magic. There's plenty of interest in different aspects of energy generation. Why don't you stick with that instead of making stupid and obnoxious posts about how green-anything is stupid? Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Nov 2, 2019 |
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Nov 2, 2019 01:59
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quote:The Keystone pipeline has spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into North Dakota this week, The New York Times reports. So in a surprise to no one, Keystone Pipeline has spilled again. At least another 350,000 gallons of crude are in Dakota wetlands. Of course last time TransCanada initially reported the spill was half the size it actually was, so who knows.
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Nov 2, 2019 03:08
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France has been leading the revitalization of European nuclear power through the design and construction of a new standardized plant. But they've been plagued with delays and overruns, which they've largely blamed as due to the loss of institutionalized knowledge from halting all construction for 20 years under more fossil-fuel friendly administrations. They're effectively having to relearn everything, and rebuild their heavy construction industry. For example: Right now they basically need to redo a bunch of welds on pipework that is very difficult to access at this point. At this rate, China will have its versions of the European Pressurized Reactor running before France does. Still, the Macron government appears to have learned from the German Greens debacle after Fukushima, and while it wants to promote wind power it is broadly intent on decommissioning coal plants rather than nuclear ones. Their overall plan is basically the same as this thread's - develop a fully functional and standardized nuclear plant design, and then build it around the world. Kaal fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 13:40
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