Nuclear Power Output Steadily Climbing Worldwide

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by sendler

But the density is not anywhere near the same scale especially when you throw in solar and windfarm capacity factors of 25%. Or less for rooftop. Germany's vast solar buildout averages 11%. How cost effective is that? Not including the cost of ever adding storage at TeraWatt hour scales.

Of course. Rooftop solar is never going to power LA or NYC. Rural areas with abundant sunlight can get away with getting most of their energy needs from these sources, but it isn't a solution for dense cities.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Of course. Rooftop solar is never going to power LA or NYC. Rural areas with abundant sunlight can get away with getting most of their energy needs from these sources, but it isn't a solution for dense cities.

And this would be only local use for lighting, ect. And intermittent. Which is only a very small part of total energy consumption of society when you consider all of the embodied energy in the food production and infrastructure, ect. all around us.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Sure, rooftop solar and those roof-mounted wind turbines won't solve the problem in a densely-populated area, but their potential to decrease the dependence on other sources should not be disconsidered at all.

[oil pan 4]

I want beta voltaics.
Just think a battery that lasts 60 to 100 years.
Apparently they don't just sell these to anyone, must be worried some one is going to build their own powered iron man armor.

[teoman]

From wikipedia : In 2018 a Russian design based on 2-micron thick nickel-63 slabs sandwiched between 10 micron diamond layers was introduced. It produced power output of about 1 microWatt (μW) at a power density of 10 μW/cm3. Its energy density was 3.3 kilowatt-hours/kg. The half-life of nickel-63 is 100 years.

So for 1 kg you get 3300 wh of total energy. But you can only extract that during 100 years. Or do they have some kind of throttlig mechanism to increase power output.

From my understanding if a battery is a jug with a tap on it this thing is a barrel with a tiny hole in it.

[oil pan 4]

These use natural decay.
Over 100 years the power output declines to half of what it was originally.
You can decrease output if you don't need it, but the excess power is wasted. If you use less power the battery doesn't degrade any slower or last longer.

[teoman]

The power density is pretty low. So you would need several tonnes of this.

But then you are good to go untill the end of your life

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Not sure if I would consider it a battery, since it doesn't seem to be able to hold externally-generated energy