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Can we build a baseload renewable grid, or do we have to go nuclear?


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"it's the way it feels when such a policy is claimed as better than other ideas" - where did I claim this? You keep saying I am insinuating things.

 

I'm tired of repeating my requests for you to desist.

 

"the insinuation of it being a superior choice is there none the less"

 

I've had enough of this.

 

You sir, are conducting yourself like a naive evangelical. The options of discussion appear to offend your sensibilities. I will leave this conversation in the hands of people who can be bothered with such histrionics.

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Unsubsidized engineering studies are not corrupt. Unsubsidized investment studies are not stupid. Power generation before government intrusion was thermodynamically and financially optimally efficient.

 

The footnote is discounted return on investment. You do not care how much energy you are generating. You care about the ratio of energy out to energy in, then the cost of net vs. buying Treasury paper for rate of return. No refinery runs off the grid. Refineries run off their own created fuels.

 

No fuel ethanol plant runs on burning ethanol - it is corrupt. Athabasca tar sands in Canada, recovering heavy petroluem, is the largest consumer of Canadian natural gas - it is corrupt. Solar farms are flat out bullshit, voltaic or thermal on the scale of (unsubsidized) electrical utilities. Two-axis steering issues are minor. North American deserts have wind-blown silicate dust, and larger. Daily washing acres of optical surfaces is tip of the iceberg. An hour sandstorm in San Berdoo will frost your windshield and strip paint off your car. Soutwestern US deserts enjoy frequent annual Santa Ana winds and such - sand riding sustained 50 mph wind with gusts to 80+ mph.

 

BTW, solar farms are sails, too - huge surface areas of thin panels. Look up the video of Galloping Gertie, the Tacoma Narrows bridge built just like that.

 

NOT BLOWING IN THE WIND

Wind farms

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I grew up in WV, I've seen what mining coal does to the environment, mine tailings, strip mines , polluted rivers and streams. The environmental destruction is beyond what most would believe. If they tried to build another coal fired plant here I would be all about raising as much hell as possible to prevent it. Even when they recover the ash the ash is full of heavy metals and radioactive isotopes. What are going to do with such material? The volume is far more than can be stored, it's a nightmare. If coal and hydro were the only alternatives I would be all about the wind and solar, Geothermal is too isolated for use in most areas, but in the areas where it is useful it is a great idea. Nuclear can allow us to avoid the expense, environmental problems and ugliness created by renewables, New generation power plants can and will solve the waste issues. It will take a mix of power sources to solve the energy needs of the future, nuclear will be a big part of it but not all of it.

 

I agree with your analysis of the problems with coal-fired power plants, but I do not understand your quick dismissal or the "ugliness" of renewables. There are so many kinds of renewables, so many technologies involved, and options and opportunities to be considered, and indeed even new ones always being realized, that to characterize them so frankly and simply I think doesn't do them justice.

 

Some seeming "renewables" are not so renewable, environmentally friendly, or economically viable, as I mentioned with corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, or algae biofuel. In the case of corn ethanol, it's land degradation, water, fertilizer, and so much inefficiency that it makes endeavor questionable. Using only the starch, worked by fermentation (which converts much of the energy into heat and is lost), etc. we end up with ethanol. The rest of the crop residue is either thrown back on the fields, fed to animals, or burned, so automatically most of the energy was lost. In the case of cellulosic ethanol, it proves difficult to find the correct feedstocks with desirable characteristics and methods that are energetically and chemically favourable to extract the cellulose, and many common plant components like tannins and lignins impede processing, extraction, and fermentation. Thus, it's expensive and energy intensive. Extremely high growth rates and production of biofuels for algae biofuels often is done in labs with heated, treated, and maintained photobioreactors that must consume outside energy to grow the algae and harvest them. So they may or may not be energetically and carbon neutral or negative. And they cost a heck of a lot per barrel.

 

I also think that the hype over solar and wind is mostly that: hype. As UncleAl mentioned, they both have significant problems associated with them. I'm not even sure what we'll do with the wastes generated after the panels have outlasted their life expectancy. More electronic and technological toxic waste?

 

Maybe changes in thinking and technology will allow us to pass these hurdles to unleash the potential of these renewables, but I do believe there are simpler and better ways of approaching renewables. I'm a very big fan of KISS and Murphy's Law.

 

Sometimes the limitations are resources, thinking, or methods. People have to be willing to be flexible, to be inventive, to be brave. Biochar itself is a very promising renewable...maybe one of the best we have. It gives me some hope.

 

Btw, one more thing brought to my attention is an essay I read earlier. Don't underestimate the power of exponential growth:

 

Background and contents - Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis overview - article by Al Bartlett

 

Even if access to more energy and resources increases, we face a possible and very real threat of a downward spiral, simply due to locust-plague-like numbers and consumption. Everyone driving a car, eating a burger, etc. takes a big toll on the world. 6.7 billion of us now, 9+ billion in 2040? Can anything, short of mining the solar system and gobbling up a few Jupiters, deal with us then?

 

Edit: UncleAl, I just read your essay and love it. Great points. I've wondered about the effects on weather and winds if we suck too much energy out of them, or tidal and oceanic power, etc. We change the dynamics of so many natural systems...for better or for worse? No matter what we do, though, it seems we are going to change and mess up something, somewhere.

 

Farming is a classic case of this, and something that people have done to affect ecosystems, lands, and water and nutrient cycles worldwide.

 

This quote is well worth mentioning:

 

Thermodynamics tells us how the universe balances its books. There is no cheating conservation laws. Burning food for fuel and sucking tidal energy out of the Bay of Fundy are bad ideas. Beef, poultry, swine, and people cannot eat what is burned. Moving entire national nuclear stockpiles of energy out of natural phenomena, daily, cannot be swept under the rug without wrinkles appearing.

 

Conspiracy theorists, zero-point energy that!

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I have to admit that the idea of the ugliness of renewables is in the eye of the beholder. To me at least the idea of thousands of huge wind mills or hundreds of square miles of solar panels isn't something I hope to see. I have to agree that at least in some areas solar panels and wind mills are just fodder for the elements. I live in a hurricane prone area, not many things can stand up to hurricane force winds with out some real problems.

 

The taller the object is the worse the effects of the wind are. you don't see as many bare metal panel carports and other flimsy construction here as you might in areas not affected by hurricanes. Some people do build them but they seldom last longer than the next hurricane.

 

It makes you feel good to live in a house that has survived several big storms, not much can hurt them or at least it makes you feel that way. I remember when hurricane Hugo hit a couple decades ago, I saw huge tracts of coastal forest, huge strong cypress trees and tall pines that looked like a giant lawn mower had cut them off about 75 or 80 feet above the ground, the forest had a crew cut!

 

I know windmills could be made to withstand that but it just shows that the problem has many facets that need to be covered. Things like satellite dishes and other thin wind catching structures just become projectiles. I can't imagine what the effects the ocean would have had one things like tidal generators. the ocean is fare more powerful than the wind in hurricane. During all these huge storms the local nuke plant just sat, invincible. Didn't really do us much good until all the electrical lines had been replaced but at least we didn't have to replace the electric generators too.

 

The way i see it, some areas are going to be more suitable than others for different types of power. I can't see any areas being suitable for coal fired plants simply due to the environmental damage done by mining coal, then you add in the pollution of the plant it's self.

 

Hydroelectric has it's own problems, it's sometimes difficult to see but they are huge problem to the environment. The effects on anadromous fishes and the stability of the land pose real problems. Possibly even release huge amounts of greenhouse gases like methane.

 

We will have to figure out which energy sources make more sense to which areas. It's bad that geothermal isn't more wide spread but then every one would have to deal with the effects of having geothermal energy close to the surface which isn't always a good thing.

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Nuclear 'waste' is not immortal, it is fuel!

 

Gen3 and Gen4 reactors can 'burn' both nuclear waste AND old bombs.

 

Our current level of nuclear waste could run our entire civilisation for the next few hundred years.

 

Running 1 ton of waste through a Gen3 reactor apparently gives you 100kg of super-radioactive waste (10% the waste) that is SO 'hot' it burns itself out to a safe level within 500 to 1000 years. That's not 'forever'.

 

So if ANYTHING, heavy nuclear using countries like the USA and France should at least build enough Gen3 nuclear plants (and Gen4 when they arrive) to provide power while much more cost effectively dealing with the waste and the proliferation issue.

 

PS: I'd prefer a solar civilisation myself, but dealing with waste is one reason I'd prefer Gen3 nukes. Also good for the space race & moon colonies etc.

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  • 1 month later...
Since the rooftop of most buildings is not very useful, why not use it? Now, solar pv isn't cost efficient YET. We need advances in either the material used, or the efficiency. But those are coming so why not take advantage of it?

 

There have been great advances in sterling engines that can be placed on rooftops. Each one can produce like 25 khw. Sterling is the name of the company and they have been working with Sandia a govt sponsered lab.

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Cool but what do they do at night? How much do they cost, only to provide power during the day?

 

I'm not saying that renewable's can't ever produce a reliable, 24 hour power supply, but am wondering if they will only do it after we've spent 4 or 5 times the money that a nuclear system would have cost.

 

I hope I'm not breaking any rules but I'm trying to get help on a CSP Molten Salt Tower I have a design in my head for. My partner and I have been working on this since Sept. I beileve we can build a plant for less than $2 million where I have had estimates of $ 6 to 12 million. I am not an engineer which is why Im here trying to get some questions answered. If we are right by bringing down the cost and running it 24 hours a day 7 days a week with up to a 95% uptime.

 

In answer to your questions about the Nuclear system once the money that was spent to develop the nuke tech yes. With out that factored into the cost later rather sooner but it will happen.

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this is a repost of a reply i made in another thread, but it seems apropos. :)

 

just saw a piece last night on one of the pbs shows on a new type of battery intended to store mega-watts of electricity on a scale suitable for power grids. i don't recall a mention of the energy density and this following article doesn't mention it either, but it's a fair starting point for some more looking. ... anyway, new type of battery: >> . . . . . :cheer:

 

Liquid Battery Offers Promising Solar Energy Storage Technique

... Recently, researchers from MIT have designed a new kind of battery that, unlike conventional batteries, is made of all-liquid active materials. Donald Sadoway, a materials chemistry professor at MIT, and his team have fabricated prototypes of the liquid battery, and have demonstrated that the materials can quickly absorb large amounts of electricity, as required for solar energy storage.

 

"No one had been able to get their arms around the problem of energy storage on a massive scale for the power grid," says Sadoway. "We're literally looking at a battery capable of storing the grid."

 

The battery consists of three layers of liquids: two electrode liquids on the top and bottom (electrodes are usually solid in conventional batteries), and an electrolyte liquid in the middle. In the researchers' first prototype, the electrodes were molten metals - magnesium on the top and antimony on the bottom - while the electrolyte was a molten salt such as sodium sulfide. In later prototypes, the researchers investigated using other materials for improved performance. ...

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  • 3 weeks later...

The thing that excites me, as I've probably mentioned before, is the idea of getting something for nothing. Well, not quite nothing, but something that backs up the grid as part of our efforts to go electric when the oil peaks and starts to run down.

 

And that something is V2G ev's. According to Shai Agassi, 50 thousand V2G's in his Better Place scheme = 1 gigawatt.

 

(Can someone please explain what that actually means? There's no time attached to it, so 1 gigawatt for ... how long? There's some subtle semantics in the jargon that I'm missing... power V electricity V kw/h.)

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