A warning about Renewable Energy

antoobrien

Icepick wrote: »

(decreases unsustainability)

At the moment the sustainability of wind is very unproven. Right now it's making other more flexible sources of fuel more important to balance the unpredictability of wind. Just take a look at today's generation figures - wind is producing more than forecast, which one might think is a good thing, but it creates other problems. There are other problems, when as often is the case that wind creates less power than forecast.

Wind energy has to be used immediately as it can't be easily stored. Fine you say close the wiers on Ardnacrusha and Inniscarra. Except we all remember what happened in Cork a couple of years ago when the water wasn't released form Inniscarra when it should have been (due to the search for somebody who went into the Lee).

Now the flooding in Cork was not the result of wind and I'm not trying to claim that, there were other factors involved such as the once in 300 year rainfall that happened at the time, which was worse than Dundrum got last year (it affected everything west of an imaginary line between Sligo and Youghal).


Coal and turf plants are harder to control, which is why the act as baseload for the system, so they can't be turned down easily.

That leaves us with natural gas - which still produces CO2, contributing to making it harder to meet those targets.

Before we start calling for wind power and other "renewable" sources we need to know the potential side effects and consequences of each type of generation equipment. E.g. what are the side effects of mining the raw materials? It's well known that the rare earth elements needed for the motors are largely mined in China, who don't give a rats ar*e about the environment - or the health of the workers. Could we be doing more damage by creating the turbines than burning fossil fuels or using nuclear reactors (if you're going to answer this one scientific evidence is required because it's not a no-brainer).

What are the effects of having the turbines too close together? It's well know than the turbines create wake turbulence, if they are too close together they interfere with each pother, drastically reducing the efficiency of the motors.

The motors themselves are not particularly efficient and have other problems. In cold weather they use electricity to keep the motors from seizing. This creates an extra burden on the grid at a time when (here in Ireland) we need the energy most.

They also interfere with local wild life, especially birds (though they're smart enough they'll figure out that they shouldn't fly near those big white things that move).

Scofflaw

antoobrien wrote: »

So the needs of the few outsiders, who pollute the environment to get there and build eyesores for their holiday homes (e.g. Michael McDowell's holiday home in Roscommon, which wouldn't look out of place on Embassy Row) outweigh the needs of the locals.

The bit about the infrastructure is as laughable as it is wrong. About half the population of the country live outside of urban areas. Where rural people have to pay to build and maintain sewage systems, wells or group water schemes, residents of Cork, Dublin, Galway & Limerick don't have to pay a red cent towards their ongoing costs (and it shows in the state of the water network in the cities).

There's a subsidy paid in this country to keep the townies quiet and to hell with the rest of us, so take your hiking boots and hike along grand canal quay.

I hate to say it, but we've been over this many times on this forum, and there is simply no way anyone can honestly claim that rural dwellers are anything but heavily subsidised by urban dwellers except through almost complete ignorance of the figures involved. If you're going to repeat this old chestnut, please provide evidence to back up what is otherwise rather visibly a cock and bull story intended to deny urban dwellers any moral right to have a say in rural issues.

We are all Irish citizens. Rural voters have a strong influence on - and proper interest in - primarily urban matters, and vice versa, because it's all the same country. The cities are there if rural dwellers need their services or wish to live in them - and vice versa.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Gurgle

Scofflaw wrote: »

there is simply no way anyone can honestly claim that rural dwellers are anything but heavily subsidised by urban dwellers except through almost complete ignorance of the figures involved

Would you be so kind as to point me towards a thread where this was established with numbers?

I've seen a few 'discussions' but its usually a case of more urban dwellers posting rather than conclusive figures.

antoobrien

Scofflaw wrote: »

I hate to say it, but we've been over this many times on this forum, and there is simply no way anyone can honestly claim that rural dwellers are anything but heavily subsidised by urban dwellers except through almost complete ignorance of the figures involved.

Scofflaw, take a look at the employment numbers in the urban areas vs the actual urban population. Unless we have all the kids working and going to school at the same time the employment figures don't stack up. We can say what we like about taxation and employment creating social transfers but it's distorted by the fact that a lot of rural people commute to towns.

Dublin is a good example of this. In the 2006 Dublin City had a population of 505k. Here's the entry from the census town profiles

394,720 workers resided in Dublin City in April 2006. Of these 56,752 worked outside the city leaving 337,968 who both lived and worked in the city. A further 104,865 workers travelled into Dublin to work resulting in a working population of 442,833. Dublin City was therefore a net gainer
in employment terms.

Please don't try to con us with figures that support the notion that towns pay for rural areas when the census tells us otherwise (and the outcry of townies against paying for water makes it more laughable).

Farmer Pudsey

antoobrien wrote: »

Please don't try to con us with figures that support the notion that towns pay for rural areas when the census tells us otherwise (and the outcry of townies against paying for water makes it more laughable).

Also large Urban area's are subsdised by spending on Bus/train services, large inter city motorways. The other reality is that all government offices/hospital etc are base in large urabn centres so again a taxpayer subsidy to these area's from Rural/small urban centres. So just counting the cost of county councisl is misleadind

antoobrien

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Also large Urban area's are subsdised by spending on Bus/train services,

In fairness, rural bus services are probably as heavily subsidized (if not more so) as city services

Gurgle

antoobrien wrote: »

In fairness, rural bus services are probably as heavily subsidized (if not more so) as city services

And largely consist of almost empty busses that operate twice daily at 11am and 3pm. It would make more economic sense to do away with these altogether and give pensioners vouchers to use taxis.

robp

antoobrien wrote: »

Just like the view that was "destroyed" by the 4 turbine windfarm in Indreabhan that would ruin the "visual amenity" of the area - a windfarm that can only be seen from a certain narrow corridor on the road!

There's an awful lot of hot air being talked about "visual amenitiy" - almost exclusively by non-locals who want their holiday area to remain quaint and rustic and to hell with what the people that actually live there think or want!

It worries me greatly that a more industrially country like the UK is taking a cautious approach to preserve their landscapes. In UK this approach is infact driven by rural dwellers. I am not sure why rural dwellers would support them unless its on there own land. Windfarms are only going to be private enterprises and they offer only limited local employment as the work is too specialised for the workforce already present.

Hundreds of wind farms could be built on Ireland’s great bog of Allen to generate electricity exclusively for the UK’s national grid under plans being considered by ministers.
...
The plans have been discussed among the coalition and appear in theory to appease both political parties. Liberal Democrats wish for an increase in green energy but have concerns over the high price of building wind farms offshore. Conservative ministers are worried about the backlash in some rural communities as wind turbines have become more common in Britain.
...
Mike O’Neill, the president of Element Power, said the project would solve a number of thorny problems for the British government. “Our experience is that it is easier to get planning permission in the Republic of Ireland, if you do it in a sensible and sensitive way,” he said.

http://www.evwind.es/2012/10/09/wind-energy-on-irelands-bog-of-allen-could-provide-uk-electricity/24508/

Gurgle

Gurgle wrote: »

I apologize, it was an inappropriate knee jerk reaction to a misinformed post.
On a pure technicality, I was calling your source a liar rather than yourself.

I am very much on the skeptical side of global warming, but the bullshìt pimped by the likes of turn180 is about as scientific as the old testament.

(btw I'm not a moderator on this forum, my posts have neither more nor less weight than yours)

Apology accepted.

To be honest I'm not interested in what turn180 has to say either on global warming, but the wattsupwiththat.com is very much different and very factual.

But I did find interesting his articles on wind energy and I've read it before on I Think the U.K times website, it has come up before about the German situation and the British have spent a lot of money on paying wind farm investors to keep them turned off for certain periods of time. I don't have the exact figures but the cost is quiet substantial because the wind companies are guaranteed income regardless of energy created.

Farmer Pudsey

antoobrien wrote: »

In fairness, rural bus services are probably as heavily subsidized (if not more so) as city services

Yes per head using them however the overall cost of subsidy to Dublin Bus, Irish rail which is now little more that an intercity train service. the building cost of Luas, Bus Eireann which again has most of it routes between large urban centre's ( yes it put's on morning and evening buses around some small urban area's but not many) the reality is that the level of subsidy per head of population in the urban area's would be much higher for these services.

Often urban dwellers fail to see the amount of subsidised facilities available. From tax incentivised leisure centre's, museam's, parks etc. Even the fact that someone in dublin when going on holidays can leave there car at home and get a bus to Dublin airport while the rural dweller has to pay a large sum to park in DA. This in turn subsidise the cheap fight of the dublin dweller. People often have tunnell vision re what is a subsidy and what is not.

antoobrien

robp wrote: »

if you do it in a sensible and sensitive way

That one line says a lot about the planning approaches involved. Dogmatic (in the uk) vs practical (here).

It's probably worth looking at the motives of the people looking to protect the "landscape" in both cases.

In the UK it's generally the rich and the landed aristocracy who can afford homes in the countryside and are trying to preserve "the landscape". As one relative of mine up it: You want to build a house in my countryside - faff off the council answer to me not the voters.

Here it's largely city dwellers trying to save the landscape from the "clueless" locals - You want to build a house, but it'll spoil the view I see once every few months!

Maybe we should import country people to lobby in favour of the oil exploration off Dalkey Island the same way as most of the protesters in at Shell to Sea are not from Mayo, or even Connacht.

Why do people not understand that electricity generation is only part of our energy requirements ?

If we were to add up the energy required by transport and heating from Gas and Oil it would be quiet substantial.

So when I say renewables will never be good enough I mean for our total energy requirments and that is where the Thorium fits in, the idea is to reduce our independence on foreign imported fuels, Thorium can produce electricity for heating, and transport, and hydrogen for heavy goods use. I'm not convinced global warming is a result of man, Or that it even at a stage or ever will be that will be a cause for concern, but I am a believer that the real danger to human health is exhaust emissions , now bare in mind Co2 is a harmless gas and we are taxed crazily on it. The other emissions from exhaust in particular Diesel is harmful, along with burning coal, turf etc. So the emphasis at the hand of the mighty E.U is on C02, taxing us on an energy we have no choice but to use, a wonderful scam to screw us for taxes!

E.U says, hmmm think of a plan to get more tax, oh I got it, isn't there much debate on global warming ? sure, ok then what we'll do is tax energy and use some of that revenue to fund campaigns, and universities to prove it's real, they will create computer models that give 100 year predictions so that means we still got time to do something about it, who cares if global warming is real or not or caused by man, and we'll create lots of jobs in the process helping even more to convince the world it's real, they will never question it and they will keep paying us more and more to save the planet, in fact they will beg us to stop global warming, wonderful idea sir, you deserve a promotion.

antoobrien

Deleted User wrote: »

So when I say renewables will never be good enough I mean for our total energy requirments and that is where the Thorium fits in, the idea is to reduce our independence on foreign imported fuels, Thorium can produce electricity for heating, and transport, and hydrogen for heavy goods use. I'm not convinced global warming is a result of man,

There was a debate on nuclear power in the infra forum - including thorium (see post 174 for the start of that) - however there are serious issues with it here. the first being that it's currently illegal (and our government has re-iterated a commitment not to look at it), the second being cost - for the price of one we cam build a motorway system, a few dozen hospitals or a few hundred schools.

While I like the idea of nuclear, the Thorium powered types are only at a research stage and are probably 10-20 years away from commercial development.

Gurgle

antoobrien wrote: »

Thorium powered types are only at a research stage and are probably 10-20 years away from commercial development.

As of now it may not even be possible, never mind commercially viable.

antoobrien

antoobrien wrote: »

There was a debate on nuclear power in the infra forum - including thorium (see post 174 for the start of that) - however there are serious issues with it here. the first being that it's currently illegal (and our government has re-iterated a commitment not to look at it), the second being cost - for the price of one we cam build a motorway system, a few dozen hospitals or a few hundred schools.

While I like the idea of nuclear, the Thorium powered types are only at a research stage and are probably 10-20 years away from commercial development.

Thorium Plants are being build in India and I think Pakistan. Though I don't think they are L.F.T.R which would be significantly cheaper to build.

And by the looks of it renewables are going to work out just as expensive if not more than Nuclear.

djpbarry

Deleted User wrote: »

Thorium Plants are being build in India...

India has plans to build thorium reactors, but they are nowhere near realising those plans.

Deleted User wrote: »

And by the looks of it renewables are going to work out just as expensive if not more than Nuclear.

How so? A rough, back-of-an-envelope calculation will give you a pretty accurate estimate of how much a wind farm, for example, will cost over it's lifetime. But, how much will a nuclear power plant cost? That's a question that is extremely difficult to answer.

antoobrien

djpbarry wrote: »

A rough, back-of-an-envelope calculation will give you a pretty accurate estimate of how much a wind farm, for example, will cost over it's lifetime. But, how much will a nuclear power plant cost? That's a question that is extremely difficult to answer.

Nuclear is mature enough to know the ongoing costs over the lifetime of a plant - it's been around since the 50s. The newer plants will have lower costs due to the efficiencies and smaller amounts of waste produced.

Wind - well that's a different story. We think we know the maintenance costs, but they haven't been operating commercially long enough to see if our estimates are correct.

In a thread in sustainability & environment discussing the pollution being caused by china's production of the rare earth metals required for the turbines, one of the posters used eirgrids figures to do the back of the envelope calculations. Nuclear came out as only marginally more expensive than onshore wind (€80/TWH vs €75/TWH), with offshore wind being significantly more expensive (€125/TWH).

The poster's calculations are interesting because it takes into account the expected availability, various capital and operating costs associated with each type of energy - including storage of spent fuels, extra infrastructure required for bringing power from wind farms to the grid, costs associated with maintenance of offshore turbines etc.

djpbarry

antoobrien wrote: »

Nuclear is mature enough to know the ongoing costs over the lifetime of a plant...

Is it? Tell that to Finland:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html?pagewanted=all

antoobrien wrote: »

Wind - well that's a different story. We think we know the maintenance costs, but they haven't been operating commercially long enough to see if our estimates are correct.

Turbines have been in use since the dawn of electricity generation – I think estimates of maintenance costs are going to be pretty accurate.

antoobrien wrote: »

The poster's calculations are interesting because it takes into account the expected availability, various capital and operating costs associated with each type of energy - including storage of spent fuels...

Well that is interesting, given that the cost of storing spent fuel is extremely difficult to quantify, as nobody really knows how long it will need to be stored for.

antoobrien

djpbarry wrote: »

Is it? Tell that to Finland:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html?pagewanted=all

Take a read of the should we go nuclear thread - I'm not going over it again it was covered there extensively. IMO the poster has dealt with your issue adequately, i'm not going to argue the point, and I suspect we're not going to change each other's minds on the matter.

djpbarry wrote: »

Turbines have been in use since the dawn of electricity generation – I think estimates of maintenance costs are going to be pretty accurate.

I'm not a mechanical engineer, but to say that we know the costs because turbines have been around is a bit silly considering the fact that the power source driving the turbines is not continuous. It brings up a few common sense questions:

Are the stresses are the same as for wind turbines those used in hydro, thermal or steam powered turbines?
What effect does the fact that, unlike other turbines that act within closed systems, wind turbines act in the open are have on the turbine?
The what effect does the variability of the power source have on the turbines?

Sorry but without quantifying the effects of these we simply don't know the maintenance costs or what effect they will have on the efficiency of the turbines over their lifetime.

djpbarry wrote: »

Well that is interesting, given that the cost of storing spent fuel is extremely difficult to quantify, as nobody really knows how long it will need to be stored for.

Isn't science wonderful, it can be used to calculate the half-life of radioactive materials, tell you when they will decompose into at what, at what rates and how much shielding is required to seal it.

If you wish to ignore the accumulated knowledge of the past several centuries of science, engineering and construction's knowledge, you might want to revise your statement that we "know" what the maintenance costs of turbines will be - lest you be described as a hypocrite.

I don't have time to reply to a few posts right now, but I want to say that I am opposed to Nuclear plants in their current form, ie the boiling water type that uses uranium.

The L.F.T.R plants are what I would like to see built in the next 20-30 years. The waste from these plants is 99% less than from current plants, and becomes safe after 300 years compared to 10,000.

The point I would like to make is that there is a whole bigger picture, which is energy independence. Not just normal electricity generation but for transport too, in the form of electricity for battery cars and hydrogen for HGV etc.

You see even if wind generation can meet our current electricity generation needs at a cost comparable to Nuclear, and thorium can do it cheaper but meet most of our total energy needs, which do you think is better ? In fact current Nuclear technology can meet a whole lot more than just electricity generation for normal use. The costs come down significantly when you take into account the amount of imported oil and gas that would not be required for heating and transport.

Renewables do not have that kind of generation capability of providing 100% of our total energy needs, not that I'm aware anyway.

Thorium is estimated to be much cheaper both in generation and total costs. The cost involved in building is much cheaper because you don't need the huge water towers made from concrete. Only using L.F.T.R which is why we should be doing our own research into making the reactors.

djpbarry

djpbarry wrote: »

India has plans to build thorium reactors, but they are nowhere near realising those plans.
How so? A rough, back-of-an-envelope calculation will give you a pretty accurate estimate of how much a wind farm, for example, will cost over it's lifetime. But, how much will a nuclear power plant cost? That's a question that is extremely difficult to answer.

India's Kakrapar -1 and -2 ahve been using Thorium for some time, but sadly not L.F.T.R.

They have plans for many more thorium plants.

India have vast reserves of Thorium so why burn coal or import oil ?

FROM WIKI

Commercial nuclear power station

India's Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world's first reactor which uses thorium rather than depleted uranium to achieve power flattening across the reactor core.[35] India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2013, after which five more reactors will be constructed.[36][37] The reactor is a fast breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons. As accelerator-based systems can operate at sub-criticality they could be developed too, but that would require more research.[38] India currently envisages meeting 30% of its electricity demand through thorium-based reactors by 2050.[39]

[edit] Existing thorium energy projects

The German THTR-300 was the first commercial power station powered almost entirely with Thorium. India's 300 MWe AHWR (pressurized heavy water reactor) reactor began construction in 2011. The design envisages a start up with reactor grade plutonium which will breed U-233 from Th-232. After that the input will only be thorium for the rest of the reactor's design life.[40]

The primary fuel of the HT3R Project near Odessa, Texas, USA will be ceramic-coated thorium beads. The earliest date the reactor will become operational is in 2015.[41]

Best results occur with molten salt reactors (MSRs), such as ORNL's liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), which have built-in negative-feedback reaction rates due to salt expansion and thus reactor throttling via load. This is a great safety advantage, since no emergency cooling system is needed, which is both expensive and adds thermal inefficiency. In fact, an MSR was chosen as the base design for the 1960s DoD nuclear aircraft largely because of its great safety advantages, even under aircraft maneuvering. In the basic design, an MSR generates heat at higher temperatures, continuously, and without refuelling shutdowns, so it can provide hot air to a more efficient (Brayton Cycle) turbine. An MSR run this way is about 30% better in thermal efficiency than common thermal plants, whether combustive or traditional solid-fuelled nuclear.[29]

In 2009, United States Congressman Joe Sestak unsuccessfully attempted to secure funding for research and development of a destroyer-sized reactor using thorium-based liquid fuel.[42][43]

CANDU reactors of Atomic Energy Canada Limited are capable of using thorium as a fuel source.[44][45]

At the 2011 annual conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences it was announced that "China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology."[46][47]

Current thorium projects

Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), MSR design, has been or is now being done in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Brazil, India, China, France, the Czech Republic, Japan, Russia, Canada, Israel and the Netherlands.[11][9]
China. In early 2011, China announced a program to develop a thorium-fueled reactor.[29] In addition, Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China's former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.[30] The World Nuclear Association notes that the China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 announced its R&D program, "claiming to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology"[13] According to Martin, "China has made clear its intention to go it alone," adding that China already has a monopoly over most of the world's rare earth minerals.[11]:157[15]
In early 2012, it was reported that China, using components produced by the West and Russia, planned to build two prototype thorium molten salt reactors by 2015, and had budgeted the project at $400 million and requiring 400 workers.Martin claims it "would make China the most advanced nuclear power station on Earth."[11]:157 China also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.[31] India. India's government is developing up to 62, mostly thorium reactors, which it expects to be operational by 2025. Martin notes that it is the "only country in the world with a detailed, funded, government-approved plan" to focus on thorium-based nuclear power.[11]:144 It currently gets under 3% of its electricity from nuclear power, relying for the rest on coal and oil imports. After its new plants are built it expects to produce around 25% of its electricity from nuclear power.[11]:144 In 2009 the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that India has a "long-term objective goal of becoming energy-independent based on its vast thorium resources."[32][33]
In late June, 2012, India announced that their "first commercial fast reactor" was near completion and would rely on thorium for its fuel: "We have huge reserves of thorium. The challenge is to develop technology for converting this to fissile material, stated their former Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission.[34] That vision of using thorium in place of uranium was first set out in the 1950s by physicist Homi Bhabha. After returning from studying the technology in the U.K., he recognized that India's vast thorium reserves could be the best source for a nuclear fuel.[35][36] U.S. In its January 2012 report to the Secretary of Energy, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Future notes that a "molten-salt reactor using thorium [has] also been proposed. Such systems could potentially offer many of the combined benefits of the alternatives listed. However, these systems have not received systematic study and the component technologies for these types of systems are less well developed."[37] That same month it was also reported that the U.S. Department of Energy is "quietly collaborating with China" on thorium-based nuclear power designs using a molten salt reactor.[38] However, some experts feel that thorium should be "the pillar of the U.S. nuclear future."[39]
Alvin Radkowsky, chief designer of the world’s second full-scale atomic electric power plant, located in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, founded a joint U.S. and Russian project in 1997 to create a thorium-based reactor, considered a "creative breakthrough."[40] He had also been chief scientist for the U.S. nuclear submarine program directed by Admiral Hyman Rickover. Although retired from the navy in 1972, Edward Teller "urged him to restart his thorium work" which he began 20 years earlier.[11]:169 In 1992, then seventy-seven years of age and a resident professor in Tel Aviv, Israel, Radkowsky founded a U.S. company called Thorium Power Ltd. near Washington, D.C. to build thorium reactors, hoping to help create a "new era of nuclear power."[40] Japan. In June, 2012, Japan utility Chubu Electric Power, still recovering from three nuclear plant meltdowns in 2011, wrote that they regard thorium as “one of future possible energy resources.”[41]
Israel.In May 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, began to collaborate on the development of thorium reactors[42] aimed at being self-sustaining, "meaning one that will produce and consume about the same amounts of fuel," which is not possible with uranium in a light water reactor.[42]
U.K.. In Britain, a few organizations are either promoting or examining research on thorium-based nuclear plants. House of Lords member Bryony Worthington is promoting thorium, calling it “the forgotten fuel” which could alter Britain’s energy plans.[43] However, in 2010, the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) published a paper on the thorium fuel cycle, concluding that for the short to medium term, "the thorium fuel cycle does not currently have a role to play," in that it is "technically immature," and would require a significant financial investment and risk without clear benefits," and which it feels have been "overstated."[13] Friends of the Earth UK, while not actively promoting thorium-based nuclear power, has described research into it as "useful" as a potential fallback.[44]

[edit] World sources of thorium

Thorium is mostly found with the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite, which contains up to about 12% thorium phosphate, but 6-7% on average. World monazite resources are estimated to be about 12 million tons, two-thirds of which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south and east coasts of India. There are substantial deposits in several other countries (see Table below).[13]



World thorium sources (2007)|[45]



Country

Tons

% of total



Australia

489,000

19



USA

400,000

15



Turkey

344,000

13



India

319,000

12



Venezuela

300,000

12



Brazil

302,000

12



Norway

132,000

5



Egypt

100,000

4



Russia

75,000

3



Greenland

54,000

2



Canada

44,000

2



South Africa

18,000

1



Other countries

33,000

1



World total

2,610,000

Farmer Pudsey

We ahve no idea of the true fiancial cost of wind ènergy it is still in its infancy. It is not proving to be anywhere as cheap as we were first led to believe. Maintenace costs in Irish conditions are only starting to occour now. We are operating turbines at much higher speeds than most other countries, we still have not factored in the cost of the storage system.

I never heard of thorium reactors until this post. However I have googled and read up on them. They seem to be a viable option. Biggest factor with nuclear is the not closing of older plants when they have served a durable life span. Uranium based nuclear seems to be a totally unstainable power solution. The same cannot be said for thorium. Costs seems to be in the order of coal based power stations. It also seems to have much less risk attached to it than uranium based plants. It would seem that in Ireland we need to have a discussion about it. The fuel itsef seems to be available with the United States having access to a couple of centuaries of it alone. It also has the advantage of being much much harder to develop weapon grade nuclear material from it so cost may be prohibitive for countries to develop weapons from it if it is possible at all.

I was opposed to nuclear power stations until receantly however I have relised that it may be the only sustainable way we can continue in the developed world. We in Ireland havind a nuclear plant will make no difference to world green house gasses however China and the US are totally different cases and it may well be that accross the world we will have to move in that direction.

Having read about it for the last 2-3 days thorium seems a feasible option

djpbarry

antoobrien wrote: »

I'm not a mechanical engineer...

And I’m not a nuclear physicist, so let’s leave that there.

antoobrien wrote: »

Sorry but without quantifying the effects of these...

You think wind turbines are thrown up willy-nilly without first being tested? A whole range of studies have been conducted to estimate the operational and maintenance costs of wind farms:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=wind+maintenance+cost

antoobrien wrote: »

Isn't science wonderful, it can be used to calculate the half-life of radioactive materials, tell you when they will decompose into at what, at what rates and how much shielding is required to seal it.

Science is indeed wonderful. It tells us that some products of nuclear fission have extremely long half-lives, which makes estimating the total cost of long-term storage rather difficult.

djpbarry

Deleted User wrote: »

India's Kakrapar -1 and -2 ahve been using Thorium for some time, but sadly not L.F.T.R.

I’m pretty sure only the proposed Kakrapar 3 will be fuelled by thorium.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

We ahve no idea of the true fiancial cost of wind energy...

Really? No idea whatsoever?

antoobrien

djpbarry wrote: »

And I’m not a nuclear physicist, so let’s leave that there.
You think wind turbines are thrown up willy-nilly without first being tested? A whole range of studies have been conducted to estimate the operational and maintenance costs of wind farms:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=wind+maintenance+cost
Science is indeed wonderful. It tells us that some products of nuclear fission have extremely long half-lives, which makes estimating the total cost of long-term storage rather difficult.

I know how these studies are put together. In a nutshell, there's some stress testing done on samples and a predication is made of when it should fail based on the known properties of the materials involved.

I'm curious how a you can believe that a couple of days/weeks testing of turbines can give an accurate guess prediction for the lifetime cost of maintenance of a turbine that's supposed to last 10-20 years, while at the same time the experience of the nuclear industry since the 50's combine with the knowledge of materials sciences now available to us isn't nearly good enough for you to make an estimate on nuclear.

I'm sensing a bit of kneejerkism causing some unconscious intellectual dishonestly.

Farmer Pudsey

djpbarry wrote: »

And I’m not a nuclear physicist, so let’s leave that there.
You think wind turbines are thrown up willy-nilly without first being tested? A whole range of studies have been conducted to estimate the operational and maintenance costs of wind farms:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=wind+maintenance+cost
Science is indeed wonderful. It tells us that some products of nuclear fission have extremely long half-lives, which makes estimating the total cost of long-term storage rather difficult.

Having just read some documentation on it (by the way I am not a nuclear physicists either) however that the nuclear waste from thorium is toxic for 500 years this is a big difference compared to uranium and if the right technology is used (particle beam) it cannot have a chain reaction ( a meltdown like in Japan). The reason that it is not popular is that it is not suitable for weapon technology. below is just is an article I came accross about it.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45178.html

djpbarry wrote: »

Really? No idea whatsoever?

Not really at present all wind farm are tax driven and are also getting paid an uneconomic rate for the electricity that they produce. The only feasible storage system is to dam a fiord type inlet along the West of Ireland and flood it with seawater. When we go about this we will have to make sure that no rare snail, bat, worm or plant is not in the vicinity. On useing a hydro scheme to store wind energy see attached url
http://www.sustainability.ie/pumpedstoragemyth.html

djpbarry

antoobrien wrote: »

I'm curious how a you can believe that a couple of days/weeks testing of turbines can give an accurate guess prediction for the lifetime cost of maintenance of a turbine...

A touch disingenuous, considering that wind turbines have been under development, albeit on and off, since the early 20th century.

antoobrien wrote: »

...while at the same time the experience of the nuclear industry since the 50's combine with the knowledge of materials sciences now available to us isn't nearly good enough for you to make an estimate on nuclear.

I never said an estimate could not be made. However, estimates of the cost of final waste storage are difficult to make – no final waste repository has been constructed yet anywhere in the world.

djpbarry

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Having just read some documentation on it (by the way I am not a nuclear physicists either) however that the nuclear waste from thorium is toxic for 500 years this is a big difference compared to uranium...

Not really – high level waste from uranium-fuelled plants will be unsafe for about 1,000 years.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Not really at present all wind farm are tax driven and are also getting paid an uneconomic rate for the electricity that they produce.

And that means an estimate of the cost cannot be made?