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Old 11-11-2018, 02:51 PM   #11 (permalink)
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You do realize nuclear power is in its early stages of development?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kach22i View Post



The article is correct in pointing out this is a political problem, not an engineering technical problem. The two are however intertwined.

When a new technology comes along and changes the politics, this disruptive technology will one day it's self become obsolete and do what it can to hang on to the past. This is how I view nuclear power, it is making it's last stand, and I just hope it doesn't have another melt-down.
The nuclear power plants we use today are simply improved iterations of gen 2 pressurized water reactors. They are inefficient in small scale applications with Navy reactors accepting these inefficiencies as a small trade-off for boundless power and long life. There are numerous nuclear designs that have not been granted research life simply because of the fear mongering. Some of these designs are far more benign and compact. This will allow local production (within reason), reducing the need to expand infrastructure. Inter-related designs can reduce waste to a relatively small volume as one reactor can eat and reduce the waste of another design.

Nuclear power will be the pivot pin to renewable energy. Without it, renewables cannot supply the consistent and concentrated energy needs of a modern society. Battery stacks, potential energy schemes and a myriad of other ideas can be eliminated by a single nuclear power plant in the neighborhood.

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Old 11-12-2018, 09:19 AM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
Where I work uses around 20 mega watts of electricity on average through the day and 2 billion BTUs of natural gas.
Putting up some solar panels would be pointless.
You made your case by taking the most extreme example saying why try, it's pointless.

Quite honestly, that is your problem.

There are people out there "trying", I've seen them give public demonstrations and think there is hope for progress.

If you do not believe in progress, why do you use any technology beyond the stone age level is my question to you.


https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/t...of-the-future/
Quote:
Published: Oct. 23, 2017
Transparent solar technology represents 'wave of the future'
Contact(s): Andy Henion , Richard Lunt

See-through solar materials that can be applied to windows represent a massive source of untapped energy and could harvest as much power as bigger, bulkier rooftop solar units, scientists report today in Nature Energy.

Led by engineering researchers at Michigan State University, the authors argue that widespread use of such highly transparent solar applications, together with the rooftop units, could nearly meet U.S. electricity demand and drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels.
At the college lecture I went to last year they were just entering a commercial licensing agreement with a manufacturer.
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Old 11-12-2018, 09:36 AM   #13 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut View Post
The nuclear power plants we use today are simply improved iterations of gen 2 pressurized water reactors. They are inefficient in small scale applications with Navy reactors accepting these inefficiencies as a small trade-off for boundless power and long life. There are numerous nuclear designs that have not been granted research life simply because of the fear mongering. Some of these designs are far more benign and compact. This will allow local production (within reason), reducing the need to expand infrastructure. Inter-related designs can reduce waste to a relatively small volume as one reactor can eat and reduce the waste of another design.

Nuclear power will be the pivot pin to renewable energy. Without it, renewables cannot supply the consistent and concentrated energy needs of a modern society. Battery stacks, potential energy schemes and a myriad of other ideas can be eliminated by a single nuclear power plant in the neighborhood.
Good post.

Years ago when the Chernobyl incident was still fresh in people's minds, NPR did some special coverage on it. They had a scientist in the US claiming an experiment they had publicized prior to doing which included removing the control rods under certain conditions was poorly imitated by the Russians who wanted to beat them to the punch.

This experiment was supposed to lead the way to Fusion reactors and collect data. The US experiment was suspended in the aftermath of Chernobyl, federal funding eventually withdrawn.

However that story is not reiterated in the Wikipedia listing below.

The US experiment was eventually successful conducted, but funding dried up. It died on the vine.

Chernobyl disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
Quote:
The event occurred during a late-night safety test which simulated a station blackout power-failure, in the course of which safety systems were intentionally turned off. A combination of inherent reactor design flaws and the reactor operators arranging the core in a manner contrary to the checklist for the test, eventually resulted in uncontrolled reaction conditions.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/resea...nobyl-nuclear/
Quote:
On the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the worst commercial nuclear power accident in history, Greenpeace has documented nearly 200 "near misses" at U.S. nuclear reactors since 1986.
On the lighter side, sometimes technologies collide and just do not mesh.

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More funnies.
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Old 11-12-2018, 10:17 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Actually it's not a problem. Where I work turns a 20 million dollar a year profit in large part it is the most efficient plant of its kind for electrical use, water use reduction, recycling and reuse, natural gas and bio gas conversation, the amount of chemicals used versus product yield and has the highest product yield per raw materials of anyone else in the world.
They spent 30 million dollars a few years back to just to reduce, reuse and recycle water.
Something to the tune of 100 million when the plant was built to put nearly all motors on variable speed drives which eliminates starting surge and can improve pump efficiency up to 90%.

For example our partner plant spent 40x more money on chemicals overall and produced less product in 2015.

So using solar panels to power everything is a ridiculous pipe dream, unless power is just going to be turned off at night.

I have no problem with progress or solar panels.
I drive a nissan leaf and I'm arguing with the local electrical coop to put in grid tie solar.
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Old 11-12-2018, 11:50 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
So using solar panels to power everything is a ridiculous pipe dream, unless power is just going to be turned off at night...........
The "All or Nothing" fallacy cannot die soon enough for me, the world is not black and white, never has been.

Heck we had sailing ships at the same time as coal burning ships, coexisting technologies in transition is the norm not the exception.

The future isn't going to be all coal, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy, it will and is "All of the Above".

Thanks for the plant operation example OilPan, a good one.
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Old 11-12-2018, 12:16 PM   #16 (permalink)
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I agree with Oil Pan4 on this simply because he is right.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kach22i View Post
You made your case by taking the most extreme example saying why try, it's pointless.

Quite honestly, that is your problem.

There are people out there "trying", I've seen them give public demonstrations and think there is hope for progress.

If you do not believe in progress, why do you use any technology beyond the stone age level is my question to you.


https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/t...of-the-future/


At the college lecture I went to last year they were just entering a commercial licensing agreement with a manufacturer.
No matter the improvements in solar collectors, you must still store that energy after collection and transport it. Luckily, electricity is relatively easy to transport. The storage part, not so much.

I live in a decades old house that is now surrounded by much newer housing developments. Many have solar panels on their roofs as add-ons or as perks during construction. I've had several Solar Panel Companies come to my home to try to get me to put their panels on our roofs. They do their calculations and come to the conclusion they cannot put much of a dent in my electric needs. I work out of my home with two out-buildings in back that contain a prototype machine shop and wood/plastic fabrication shop. If my son has his way, a small forge area will grow between them, expanding on our heat treatment oven. We simply use far too much energy for any reasonable solar array, on site, to help us. Wind power is not allowed as we are now in city jurisdiction.

I am an example of what Oil Pan4 is talking about. Too much of our modern lives use far too much energy due to the need for CONCENTRATED energy. Large city centers as well as industrial centers need that intense concentrated energy. Renewables can provide that but only by massive farms outside the need centers. Also, this means storage will need to be implemented because a few days of cloud or still air would mean the end to productive or comfortable activity. Since storage is not available in most places, fossil fuel power is used as that baseline. Since you must build this baseline power to cover this need, it is going to be a large power plant. This means you have doubled your power capability and the associated costs. It is far better to simply build a power plant to cover all the needs. But if emissions to the environment are a concern, that power plant had better be nuclear.

I am all for renewables. Go ahead and put it on your roofs and businesses. Just realize it is not the end all and be all for a modern society.

I grew up on a South Pacific Island though my Great Grandfather was North American Blackfeet. I grew up riding a water buffalo. Our ranch provided all we needed and our excess was sold and traded for the things we could not make or grow ourselves. Our heating was wood. We collected rain water or hand carried it from the stream. Waste was collected and composted. We were happy and healthy. I can live that life. But, can you persuade the rest of the 3rd world that they should continue to live that way too?
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Old 11-12-2018, 02:37 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut View Post
No matter the improvements in solar collectors, you must still store that energy after collection and transport it. Luckily, electricity is relatively easy to transport. The storage part, not so much.
I enjoyed reading your post, lots of depth.

Below is the overall topic or at least a sidebar of it, yes?

Grid energy storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
Quote:
Grid energy storage (also called large-scale energy storage) is a collection of methods used to store electrical energy on a large scale within an electrical power grid. Electrical energy is stored during times when production (especially from intermittent power plants such as renewable electricity sources such as wind power, tidal power, solar power) exceeds consumption, and returned to the grid when production falls below consumption.

As of 2017, the largest form of grid energy storage is dammed hydroelectricity, with both conventional hydroelectric generation as well as pumped storage. Alternatives include rail energy storage, where rail cars carrying 300 ton weights are moved up or down a 8-mile section of inclined rail track, storing or releasing energy as a result; or disused oil-well potential energy storage, where 100 ton weights are raised or lowered in a 12,000 ft deep decommissioned oil well.

Developments in battery storage have enabled commercially viable projects to store energy during peak production and release during peak demand.

An alternative to grid storage is the use of peaking power plants to fill in demand gaps.
One area of storage I don't see mentioned in that Wikipedia entry is using the batteries in electric cars as storage and to provide power at peak times.

This concept was introduced to me in about 2011 when the Volt first came out. I went to a local electric car meeting, a grad student was going to write a paper on it and the topic was an item of group discussion.

My point being, we are not there today (renewables), may never be there 100% but are on our way.

As I mentioned before developing countries with little infrastructure (ie Africa) are candidates for renewables.

https://www.statista.com/chart/13491...energy-sector/


As a country we need to decide if we invest into the future or into the past.

EDIT:
I have to update this, found where Wiki mentions using elec cars.

Electric vehicles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
Quote:
Companies are researching the possible use of electric vehicles to meet peak demand. A parked and plugged-in electric vehicle could sell the electricity from the battery during peak loads and charge either during night (at home) or during off-peak.[42]
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Old 11-12-2018, 02:45 PM   #18 (permalink)
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Gen 4 nuclear is the future.
It can at least replace coal and natural gas.
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Old 11-12-2018, 02:49 PM   #19 (permalink)
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One Hot Island: Iceland's Renewable Geothermal Power
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...thermal-power/
Quote:
Clean energy boom

Today, 99 percent of Iceland's electricity is produced from renewable sources, 30 percent of which is geothermal (the rest is from dams—and there are a lot of them), according to Iceland's National Energy Authority. When transportation, heating and production of electricity are considered as a whole, geothermal provides half of all the primary energy used in Iceland. (Although there are efforts underway to use the island's supplies of renewable energy to power its fishing fleet and motor vehicles through conversion to hydrogen fuel, these efforts are still at the earliest stages of development.)
There may be a different solution for different areas.

Nearly half the world's population lives near coastal areas, and most of the world’s megacities are located in the coastal zones.

I think the answer to future energy production is in the oceans and tides of the world.
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Old 11-12-2018, 02:52 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Renewables plus storage would have to be cheaper than nuclear for it to become the primary electricity generating technology; otherwise we'll just have nuclear.

I'm a big fan of using EVs connected to the grid to smooth power delivery, but we'd probably need half of all vehicles to be EV. Currently 1% of vehicles sold are EV. Maybe we're 30 years out, at best, from being able to implement such a system?

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