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nuclear
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Yet another double standard – you’re comparing potential future nuclear designs with today’s renewable generators.Some of the 'small nuclear' designs on the drawing board can ramp up and down. And no doubt with large amounts of unstable weather dependent renewables to "depend" on, this will be necessary.
But other forms of generation don’t?Yes, because nuclear provides certain benefits...
Eh, CO2 is produced in the construction/decommissioning of the plants and the refining of the fuel? For lower-grade uranium ores, CO2 emitted per kWh approaches levels associated with CCGT plants....no CO2 from the plants...
In what way is gas “filthy”?...fuel trivially easy to store, large scale baseload and highly reliable. In some senses the opposite of fossil fuels (filthy, and with fuel (e.g. gas) that has to be imported day-by-day)...
I really wish people would learn the difference between “reliable” and “intermittent”....and in every other sense the opposite of renewables (unreliable and uncontrollable).
How often does a wind turbine need to be shut down for maintenance and how does that compare to a nuclear reactor?
Surely that should depend on how much is being spent?So if (and if is the key word) the government has to pay for the deep burial of waste or whatever, it's money well spent as far as I am concerned.
It really hasn’t – reactor design is virtually unchanged. Safety standards have been improved, definitely, but the technology is more-or-less the same.And yes, despite being a young technology, nuclear energy has already improved massively in the ~60 odd years its been in large use...
Wouldn’t that depend on the cost and availability of that fuel?We could be assured of our energy security by (easily) building a stockpile of nuclear fuel.0 -
Interesting view here on cost of nuclear power:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/expense-nuclear-power-energy-coalition0 -
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Since some of that stuff like molten salt reactors and thorium/U233, have been tested 50 years ago it's not like we're expecting a breakthrough anytime soon.Yet another double standard – you’re comparing potential future nuclear designs with today’s renewable generators.
And at the end of the day a nuclear reactor is just a fancy boiler. As it's baseload the electricity it generates would be worth a little over 3c per unit.
If you want to talk about breeder reactors then you have to accept that plutonium production started in 1944. How many breeder reactors are in use today, excluding those required to produce plutonium for the military ?0 -
Yeah, I'm inclined to lump Thorium and Breeder reactors in with fusion in the pipe dream category, for the foreseeable future at least.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Since some of that stuff like molten salt reactors and thorium/U233, have been tested 50 years ago it's not like we're expecting a breakthrough anytime soon.
And at the end of the day a nuclear reactor is just a fancy boiler. As it's baseload the electricity it generates would be worth a little over 3c per unit.
If you want to talk about breeder reactors then you have to accept that plutonium production started in 1944. How many breeder reactors are in use today, excluding those required to produce plutonium for the military ?0 -
found this today:
Nuclear generation costs
DECC commissions regular updates by independent consultants on estimated electricity generation costs for nuclear and other technologies. Cost data is broken down into detailed expenditure per MW or MWh for the lifetime of a plant, from planning costs right through construction and operating costs to eventual decommissioning costs. The latest independent report for non-renewable technologies was published in July 2011.
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/nuclear/nuclear.aspx#
and it seems to point to nuclear being the cheapest form of production including decomissioning costs0 -
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The argument will be settled by economics, and nothing else.
The reality of the situation is that governments, certainly in western countries, are not prepared to throw vast amounts of money into a technology without massive returns.
Nuclear is extremely capital-intensive and deeply politically unpopular. So, I can't really see those kinds of programmes that we saw in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s being enthusiastically pursued now.
Also, we have to consider that most of the major nuclear technology developments occurred during absolutely massive, unprecedented, Cold War era pushes to develop military uses of the technology both for weapons and power supplies for submarines, remote bases etc.
The majority of civilian nuclear technology in the UK, US, France, and former USSR etc all comes from those developments.
Other countries i.e. in Europe and Asia got their nuclear power technology via NATO / EurAtom / Atoms for Peace programmes etc as they were 'friendly nations', or because they were part of the Eastern Bloc and got Russian tech.
That kind of research is simply no longer happening as the whole Cold War paradigm ended and military forces are more concerned with combating terrorism threats these days than fighting superpowers with high tech weaponry. It's moved towards a much messier type of warfare, and one in which nuclear technology has very little place anymore.
So, all in all, I don't really see how Governments would be all that interested in the technology.
The only place you will see interest is China etc, where there's a command economy and a major energy crisis / smog problem due to their dependence on coal-burning power plants.
We need to focus on stable, renewable, safe power. Nuclear is probably going to remain in the mix for the medium term anyway, but it is definitely not the long-term solution to human energy needs.
We need to a) reduce consumption (without reducing lifestyle) and this is possible with better technology and better use of technology in buildings / transport etc.
b) Find ways of using more renewable and load balancing.
All of these experimental nuclear technologies are just that : experimental!
So, we are stuck with basically modified, modernised light-water reactor technology that is basically unchanged since the 1950s.0 -
The Indians are working hard on it because they have 1bn+ people expecting a 1st world lifestyle. Pretty sure they'll get it too.Yeah, I'm inclined to lump Thorium and Breeder reactors in with fusion in the pipe dream category, for the foreseeable future at least.Interesting view here on cost of nuclear power:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/expense-nuclear-power-energy-coalition
But the cost of an irrational "no to nuclear" is even higher, as they're finding out in Japan. (Emphasis mine)The closure of the last of Japan's 54 reactors marks a dramatic shift in energy policy, but while campaigners prepare to celebrate, the nationwide nuclear blackout comes with significant economic and environmental risks attached.
Uh oh ...Japan braces itself for a long, humid summer that will have tens of millions of people reaching for the controls of their air conditioners, raising the risk of power cuts and yet more disruption for the country's ailing manufacturers.In a report released this week, the government's national policy unit projected a 5% power shortage for Tokyo, while power companies predict a 16% power shortfall in western Japan, which includes the major industrial city of Osaka.
So ... the Japanese people are going to have to subsidise the higher cost of imported fossil fuel? Who could have seen that coming?the extra cost of importing fuel for use in thermal power stations could be passed on to individual consumers though higher electricity bills.
OUCH!!!!while utilities have turned to coal, oil and gas-fired power plants to keep industry and households supplied with electricity – imports that contribute to Japan's first trade deficit for more than 30 years last year.
Tomorrows nuclear power plants will be better than todays, but renewables will still be dependent on the weather.Yet another double standard – you’re comparing potential future nuclear designs with today’s renewable generators.
The best we can hope for is that the next generation wind turbines don't need neodymium, or that solar panels will likewise not need filthy rare earth metals.
Not to the same extent no - as Germany has and Japan is about to show.But other forms of generation don’t?
For one thing, it produces about 1/3 the CO2 output of brown coal, and is also a source of radon.In what way is gas “filthy”?
It's also concentrated in few areas, and in Europe's case is going to make us dependent on a long pipeline from Russia. Not a good idea for a nations economy and national security to be spending huge amounts of money on imported fossil fuel that cannot be strategically 'reserved' as easily as Uranium. See Germany and the sweetheart deals they've made with Gazprom, with the full approval of that country's environmental-left.
Intermittent. Unrelaible.I really wish people would learn the difference between “reliable” and “intermittent”.
I don't know if you drive, but when there's a light rain, and you only want the wipers on a little bit, you set them to "Intermittent." That means they work on a specific alternating basis - wipe, wait ~3-5 seconds, wipe again.
Renewables don't work like that as they are literally as reliable as the weather. That's closer to "unreliable" in my book.
In fact there is now empirical evidence to suggest that there is a strong NEGATIVE correlation between energy demand and supply from renewable sources.
In Ireland we had a very cold winter during Christmas 2010, power demand surged to near record highs as temperatures plummetted to well below -10C in parts. I went back to the family homeplace in Longford that time, and the heating system failed because it depended on circulating water, which had frozen. We had to put coal in the fireplace, and throw on EVERYTHING electric, heaters, immersion even the oven, to stay alive.
But the arctic front also came with a dead calm wind speed and of course record low solar radiation. Ergo, that baseline power that is so maligned in some circles could quite literally have been the difference between life and death for some at that time.
Last winter Germany had phased out large portions of its nuclear power plants and as a result they almost had a major blackout when temperatures there plummetted and all that solar power they'd spent a fortune on (importing solar panels from China) failed as for some inexplicable reason :rolleyes: they don't, work very well covered in snow drifts.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8925115a-6eb7-11e1-afb8-00144feab49a.html#axzz1uUDtCP7K
So you've just conceded the main point!It really hasn’t – reactor design is virtually unchanged. Safety standards have been improved, definitely, but the technology is more-or-less the same.
For a little country like Ireland, no not really. Especially if we planned on having fuel reprocessed.Wouldn’t that depend on the cost and availability of that fuel?0 -
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http://www.hanfordchallenge.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/Chronology_of_thorium_to_U-233_FOIA_Docs.pdfThe Indians are working hard on it because they have 1bn+ people expecting a 1st world lifestyle. Pretty sure they'll get it too.
the US did a lot of research into this from 1951-1979
I posted a link a while back about Toshiba? having made efficient motors without rare earths. Also you can use electromagnets if you don't mind loosing a little efficiency. Some panels need rare minerals. Silicon ones don't and we aren't going to run out of it any time soon.The best we can hope for is that the next generation wind turbines don't need neodymium, or that solar panels will likewise not need filthy rare earth metals.
so what you are saying is that instead of investing billions in building nukes we could have reduced peak demand by insulating homes.In Ireland we had a very cold winter during Christmas 2010, power demand surged to near record highs as temperatures plummetted to well below -10C in parts. I went back to the family homeplace in Longford that time, and the heating system failed because it depended on circulating water, which had frozen. We had to put coal in the fireplace, and throw on EVERYTHING electric, heaters, immersion even the oven, to stay alive.
Scandaniva has much lower temperatures and they can get by with passive heating. Nukes won't help as they are base load.
But lets look at that again. Circulating water had frozen. Such things would have crippled a nuclear reactor :pac:
Seriously having a pump means you weren't using electricity so what's the point ??0 -
To counter the argument about the -10C winter (a freak one off).
If you look at a country like France, where nuclear power is abundant, it had one of the most dramatic humanitarian disasters in recent history due to an unusually warm summer.
There were 14,000+ heat-releated deaths in 2003 in France ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave#France
The very freakishly cold snap in Ireland is as unlikely to be prepared for with/without nuclear power. The fact was that our houses are not designed for those extremes of temperature.
You'd seriously suggest that we install nuclear power, rip out millions of central heating systems and install electric radiators?!
The power system actually held up very well. The problem was that people did not have any preparations for those kinds of temperatures.
Even in countries like France, with lashings of nuclear, natural gas central heating and water-filled rads still remain extremely popular.
Also, millions of Irish heating systems held up perfectly well, and did not freeze during that cold snap.
The major issue was where incoming water mains froze and people had combo-boilers that instantaneously heat water from the mains. Those cannot be run without running water, it had nothing to do with electricity supply! Rather, just that the infrastructure in Ireland cannot cope with temperatures that cold.
In countries that regularly experience those kinds of temperatures, they normally have anti-freeze / "radiator fluid" in the radiators.
It's slightly easier than ripping out a perfectly effective heating system and replacing it with electrical heating (which even with nuclear power, would be dramatically more expensive to run than fuel-burning alternatives!)0 -
Just to point out the research done was very little compaired to uranium as its by-products it produces can be used in nuclear weapons0
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from the post before your yours.Just to point out the research done was very little compaired to uranium as its by-products it produces can be used in nuclear weapons
http://www.hanfordchallenge.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/Chronology_of_thorium_to_U-233_FOIA_Docs.pdf
the US did a lot of research into this from 1951-1979
Oh boy ... you do realise that all the original reactors from 1942 onwards were made so they could use by-products in nuclear weapons
it wasn't until 1956 that nuclear reactors were used for power
the US even tested U233 weapons so the military would have no problem using them, unless they weren't economic or the conversion ratio was too close to unity to allow reliable breeding0 -
No subsidies for Japanese nuclear power?So ... the Japanese people are going to have to subsidise the higher cost of imported fossil fuel?
I don’t doubt for one second that tomorrow’s nuclear facilities will be better than today’s – there are plenty of interesting designs in the works:Tomorrows nuclear power plants will be better than todays, but renewables will still be dependent on the weather.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/nuclear-reactor-renaissance
However, are you trying to tell me that energy storage will not move on one iota in the interim? Wind turbines and solar panels will not become more efficient? No advances will be made in harnessing power from the ocean?
Honestly Sean, you’re dogmatic ‘pro-nuclear/anti-everything else’ arguments are growing more and more ridiculous.
Funny how everything associated with non-nuclear forms of power generation has a “filthy” stuck in front of it.The best we can hope for is that the next generation wind turbines don't need neodymium, or that solar panels will likewise not need filthy rare earth metals.
What does that even mean?Not to the same extent no...
And that makes it filthy how?For one thing, it produces about 1/3 the CO2 output of brown coal...
Eh, radon is a decay product of uranium and thorium?...and is also a source of radon.
Eh? Is Ireland guaranteed a super-low price for uranium or something?For a little country like Ireland, no not really.0 -
the -10C winter (a freak one off).
I recorded -17C air temp here and in general I have come to accept -10C AT as normal for an Irish winter now.
from the met here:
http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-summary.asp
winter 2010 summary
Coldest winter for almost 50 years; drier, sunnier than normal almost everywhere. Mean air temperatures for the season were around two degrees lower than average for the 1961-90 period and it was the coldest winter since 1962/3 everywhere.
So not really a one off and I would be more inclined to say that our weather is in flux or in some sort of cycle and that we should be prepared for 2010 to happen again sooner rather than later. And I would agree that the housing infastructure is not up to the standard necessary for this kind of weather, although I took precautions by watching the weather report every day and timing the oil heat to come in as I felt appropiate. Electric dimplexs in the childrens rooms though.0 -
I was pointing out that the while research was done on thorium in the 50s it was very little compared to the the research done with uranium from the start of nuclear exploration to now.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »from the post before your yours.
http://www.hanfordchallenge.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/Chronology_of_thorium_to_U-233_FOIA_Docs.pdf
the US did a lot of research into this from 1951-1979
Oh boy ... you do realise that all the original reactors from 1942 onwards were made so they could use by-products in nuclear weapons
it wasn't until 1956 that nuclear reactors were used for power
the US even tested U233 weapons so the military would have no problem using them, unless they weren't economic or the conversion ratio was too close to unity to allow reliable breeding0 -
It certainly does! - Not safe at all.Actually it proves how safe N-reactors are, that aren't even up to the same safety specifications as the earthquake prone LA N-reactors.
Do you not realise that there was loss of containment and three meltdowns?
Without a cooling system?The Earthquake did no damage, The tsunami did no structual damage. What did do damage was the ineffective safety standards with an emergancy shutdown, like hitting the brakes on a 1000 m/hr train. I will be the 1st to admit that I might be going out on a limb, but if the reactors were not shut down nothing at all would have of happened and they would be working away aok today.
The jury is out on whether or not the earthquake did damage. There were reports that in fact the earthquake damaged the cooling system even before the tsunami struck. If there was no structural damage from these events, why was there no power to the plant?
The real danger IS spent fuel being kept on site. (Not was) Just like many similar design reactors elsewhere. They have yet to solve the spent fuel pool problem and SFP4 is looking very precarious indeed.With Fukushima, the reactors stayed intact after an earthquake, a tsunami stike, over heating and a fire. The real danger was spent fuel being stored on site.If you ask me it just shows what a battering a not the best built reactor can take. A real success story apart from the idiots running it. What annoys me is many thousands of people died due to the diasater and instead some people focus on a nuclear plant in which no one died as a case to turn people against Nuclear Energy, if only beds were built as safe as N-plants more people would be alive today. (statistically dieing from falling out of bed makes dieing due to nuclear energy a joke)-source Bang goes the Theory
Here we go again.
Not all deaths due to radiation are a result of acute radiation sickness. With Fukushima, I would not expect people entering the exclusion zone to suddenly drop dead. The problem here is that the place is heavily contaminated and the health effects will continue for many years to come.0 -
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yes there has been a lot of work on Uranium since they got the first reactor working 70 years ago. Since. In other words we've had working uranium reactors for 70 years. And the basics of nuclear physics that you need to build reactors hasn't changed since then.I was pointing out that the while research was done on thorium in the 50s it was very little compared to the the research done with uranium from the start of nuclear exploration to now.
70 years of R&D and nuclear reactors have a thermal efficiency of maybe 34% , compared to CCGT with 59%. If the same resources had been thrown into renewables...
How many breeder reactors are there in use today ?
How many reactors are in use today that don't use a single pass of fuel ?0 -
Can you clarify thisCapt'n Midnight wrote: »yes there has been a lot of work on Uranium since they got the first reactor working 70 years ago. Since. In other words we've had working uranium reactors for 70 years. And the basics of nuclear physics that you need to build reactors hasn't changed since then.
70 years of R&D and nuclear reactors have a thermal efficiency of maybe 34% , compared to CCGT with 59%. If the same resources had been thrown into renewables...
How many breeder reactors are there in use today ?
How many reactors are in use today that don't use a single pass of fuel ?
I can see that you are not a fan of nuclear power
So how do we get over the base load issue?
Going back on my post if more effort was put into liquid fluoride thorium reactor who knows were we could be.0 -
I have no problem with Nuclear. Its the waste. I lasts so so so so so so so long.
For this reason it just feels like we are being greedy towards future generations.0 -
Can you clarify this
I can see that you are not a fan of nuclear power
So how do we get over the base load issue?
Going back on my post if more effort was put into liquid fluoride thorium reactor who knows were we could be.
The thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants is very low because they produce quite low temperature steam compared to traditional thermal plants.
The only exception to this is the UK's AGR plants which run FAR hotter than any other type of nuclear power plant because they are gas-cooled. The original spec required that they would produce hot gas for the boilers/heat exchangers at similar temperatures to a coal-burning plant. They never quite achieved these design temperatures, but they're still a lot more thermally efficient than US, French or other designs.
However, they are a weird design and not used outside the UK. Traditional light-water moderated plants produce quite low temp steam and require special low-temperature / low pressure turbines to extract the energy from it.
A combined cycle gas burning plant is a LOT more thermally efficient, the modern ones, including all of the newer plants in Ireland, are really excellent in comparison to their traditional gas-fired predecessors.
However, all that being said, thermal efficiency of a nuclear plant isn't really all that relevant due to the fuel source. It's more of an issue when comparing fossil fuel / biomass plants with other designs of plants burning the same fuel.
Thermal efficiency of the heat exchanges is not something that I would argue in favour / against nuclear though.
I would argue that the long term economic cost, including capital investment is still rather unjustifiable, and absolutely so in the Irish context when we do have alternatives, particularly wind.
In an Irish context, we might be better off spending the price of a nuclear plant or two on a network of pumped storage facilities. These could also double-up as a water source for the urban areas in the East (and maybe others too) resolving our water crisis issues in the Greater Dublin area.0 -
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the point is that nuclear will only ever be used for low grade base load electricity, this means it will never be able to provide valuable peak rate electricity.Can you clarify this
I can see that you are not a fan of nuclear power
So how do we get over the base load issue?
anything can provide the base load
interconnectors, hydro and to a lesser extent pumped storage can provide peak power
Not much further, the chemistry has been worked out, the physics is ancient history at this stage. The problems are efficiency in neutron usage and economics.Going back on my post if more effort was put into liquid fluoride thorium reactor who knows were we could be.
When technologies are mature improvements are incremental and breakthroughs extremely unlikely.
Todays aircraft are essentially the same as the 1957 Boeing 707. All the features that diiferentiated it from almost every previous civil aircraft are used on every long haul aircraft today. (low mounted wing with 70 degree sweepback mounted halfway back, podded turbojet engines mounted underwing and their positions on the wing, all moving tail plane, cylinderical pressure tube with hemisphere ends , tricycle landing gear , etc.)
Rocket science, the newest rocket to be launched by ESA is just a modified 1957 soviet ICBM. The latest US launcher is an Ariane 5 mounted on top of a space shuttle solid rocket booster.
Nuclear science into this category, there aren't any big breakthroughs in the pipeline, improvements will be incremental.
How much steam could you store in an insulated underground cavern ??0 -
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yes it is that simple.The thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants is very low because they produce quite low temperature steam compared to traditional thermal plants.
ask the crocodiles that live in Florida downstream of the cooling water outletThe only exception to this is the UK's AGR plants which run FAR hotter than any other type of nuclear power plant because they are gas-cooled. The original spec required that they would produce hot gas for the boilers/heat exchangers at similar temperatures to a coal-burning plant. They never quite achieved these design temperatures, but they're still a lot more thermally efficient than US, French or other designs.
Desalination with reverse osmosis would be a cheaper way to provide drinking water. And since you can store it you could use renewables.However, all that being said, thermal efficiency of a nuclear plant isn't really all that relevant due to the fuel source. It's more of an issue when comparing fossil fuel / biomass plants with other designs of plants burning the same fuel.
Thermal efficiency of the heat exchanges is not something that I would argue in favour / against nuclear though.
I would argue that the long term economic cost, including capital investment is still rather unjustifiable, and absolutely so in the Irish context when we do have alternatives, particularly wind.
In an Irish context, we might be better off spending the price of a nuclear plant or two on a network of pumped storage facilities. These could also double-up as a water source for the urban areas in the East (and maybe others too) resolving our water crisis issues in the Greater Dublin area.
compare the costs to the plant set up in London.
there are many ways of storing the power from renewables, you don't have to use it as instantenous electricity
The efficiency is to show how much waste heat there is in a nuke , and also how far behind they are. IF you could use molten fuel in a centrifugal reactor (cf. some proposed missiles / NERVA) you could easily extract twice the power but there would be an issue with radioactivity. none of this is news, and if they haven't sorted out after 70 years they ain't going to sort it out any time soon.
interconnectors are cheaper than pumped storage
and we'd be better off investing in insulation towards passive heating and better hot water storage than in nuclear reactors and waste storage0 -
How would u insulate an underground chamber,? would depend on rock type, size of chamber , temp and pressure of steam....
Would it be possible to pump compressed air into old gas fields to use as an energy store ??Slava ukraini 🇺🇦
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »...
Desalination with reverse osmosis would be a cheaper way to provide drinking water. And since you can store it you could use renewables.
compare the costs to the plant set up in London. ...
In a low density population country that is basically drenched with rain about 364 days a year, the mind absolutely boggles at how desalination could ever be necessary to provide drinking water!?
We're practically drowning in drinking water, the only problem is that we don't have the necessary storage infrastructure to capture it.
Drinking water supply in Ireland should be a non-issue. The problem is Dublin in particular was built without any planning for demand. It's the same poor planning that has lead to public transport issues, traffic jams, lack of broadband etc etc.
Pumped storage for electricity could work with a network of reservoirs storing anything from fresh water to sea water.
In fact, you could probably even take a non-scenic harbour, dam one end of it and pump it full / empty it at peak / off peak times.0 -
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It's about surface to volume ratio.Markcheese wrote: »How would u insulate an underground chamber,? would depend on rock type, size of chamber , temp and pressure of steam....
lining a cavern with whatever works out best , then again very thick layers of rock don't conduct heat that well
CAESWould it be possible to pump compressed air into old gas fields to use as an energy store ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage
The german plant stores as much energy as all the battery systems worldwide0 -
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In a low density population country that is basically drenched with rain about 364 days a year, the mind absolutely boggles at how desalination could ever be necessary to provide drinking water!?
We're practically drowning in drinking water, the only problem is that we don't have the necessary storage infrastructure to capture it. .
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/02/water_vs_energy_analysis/
so real world costs of an operating plant are of a similar magnitude to the costs of the water meters.n general, desalinating seawater in a modern reverse-osmosis plant like Beckton requires the use of 7 kilowatt-hours (kWh or "units" on your electricity bill) of electrical energy to produce a tonne (1,000 litres)
...
A kilowatt-hour, purchased on the wholesale electricity markets, can generally be obtained for six pence or less at the moment: the necessary energy would cost a water company say £22 per person annually.
...
Nope: Beckton cost just £270m to build. Another 15 such plants - enough to provide London's entire water supply if required - would cost approximately £4bn, an investment of just £500 for each person living in the city.
cba looking up prices on the Shanon scheme but at a capital investment of £500 per person and £22 per person to run it would suggest that it would fix the major leaks in the pipes and then use this rather than fix all the leaks.
Yes we could provide potable water for less than the projected cost of metering it - don't forget that we only have to desalinate when natural supplies run low.0 -
Read the first 2 pages no mention of 3 mile island, not just Chernobyl and Japan it's too risky and not worth the cost especially with the number of new better self-producing sources for home use, which is what everyone wants not to be charged for the power they use and sell it back to the grid0
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »When technologies are mature improvements are incremental and breakthroughs extremely unlikely.
Nuclear science into this category, there aren't any big breakthroughs in the pipeline, improvements will be incremental.
While I don't necessarily disagree, i should point out that another factor affects the development of technologies and that is demand.
For example, car efficiency has not followed the kind of linear pattern you describe because of the cheapness of Oil over the past 50 years, particularly in the US where the tax on petrol is a fraction of what it is here.
There's been no urgency until very recently to develop nuclear power or anything else due to the ubiquitousness of fossil fuels.
As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.Shiny Cactus wrote: »Read the first 2 pages no mention of 3 mile island, not just Chernobyl and Japan
No one mentioned Three Mile Island because it was a total non-event.
Some Argon or some other inert gas was released. No effect on anyone.
Long-story short. Three Mile Island was irrelevant.
It is the safest form of power generation. It could indeed be safer but it has an utterly stellar safety record.Shiny Cactus wrote: »it's too risky
It gets bad press because of the cold war paranoia about radiation.Shiny Cactus wrote: »and not worth the cost especially with the number of new better self-producing sources for home use, which is what everyone wants not to be charged for the power they use and sell it back to the grid
As power grids currently are, renewable energy cannot provide enough power. We do not have efficient enough storage or power transmission for renewables to work.0 -
Interconnectors while need should not be use as one of the main sources of power for Ireland. Nuclear power is more stable then politicsCapt'n Midnight wrote: »the point is that nuclear will only ever be used for low grade base load electricity, this means it will never be able to provide valuable peak rate electricity.
anything can provide the base load
interconnectors, hydro and to a lesser extent pumped storage can provide peak power
Hydro for Ireland taped out.
Pumped storage said on this thread its a no go.
Chemistry and Physics will always be the same but our understanding of them will change. e.g cars, airplanes, power plant, computers, phones and rockets will they might have built off the old model there safer more efficient. I believe it was you who mention Moore's law in term of solar plane in the desertNot much further, the chemistry has been worked out, the physics is ancient history at this stage. The problems are efficiency in neutron usage and economics.
When technologies are mature improvements are incremental and breakthroughs extremely unlikely.
Todays aircraft are essentially the same as the 1957 Boeing 707. All the features that diiferentiated it from almost every previous civil aircraft are used on every long haul aircraft today. (low mounted wing with 70 degree sweepback mounted halfway back, podded turbojet engines mounted underwing and their positions on the wing, all moving tail plane, cylinderical pressure tube with hemisphere ends , tricycle landing gear , etc.)
Rocket science, the newest rocket to be launched by ESA is just a modified 1957 soviet ICBM. The latest US launcher is an Ariane 5 mounted on top of a space shuttle solid rocket booster.
Nuclear science into this category, there aren't any big breakthroughs in the pipeline, improvements will be incremental.
How much steam could you store in an insulated underground cavern ??
Which FYI will never workSolar power in the Deserts / Oceans
Cost of panels is €1/watt and dropping in a Moore's law way0 -
You say we don't have enough renewable resources now but how long does it take to build a nuclear power plant instead of moving forward to self-self-sufficient homes, and I say its risky I meant in terms of nationwide and worldwide concern for any government in Ireland to approve it and live to tell about it, and if we could stop any leak and dispose of any waste by flying it into the sun I been 90% with you0
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I have seen zero evidence that energy storage is going to improve, unless that fellow from CalTech perfects his solar > liquid chemical fuel gizmo (video posted on here a while back).However, are you trying to tell me that energy storage will not move on one iota in the interim?
Again, I have no reason to believe it will.Wind turbines and solar panels will not become more efficient? No advances will be made in harnessing power from the ocean?
I would like to believe that we can just build windmills and solar panels and live happily ever after enjoying a 1st world way of life and no downsides.Honestly Sean, you’re dogmatic ‘pro-nuclear/anti-everything else’ arguments are growing more and more ridiculous.
In fact when I was an anti-nuke, I wanted nothing more than to believe this. Unfortunately I don't believe it for the same reason that I don't believe in the tooth-fairy. Common sense. And the evidence.
That's because virtually every form of power has its issues. With regards to be putting "filthy" before everything, I make no apology for condeming coal, peat and oil power as, yes, filthy, nor for my questioning the environmental prudence of weather based renewables that depend on "rare earth" metals. Or that have a potentially devastating effect on birds and bats as wind mills do.Funny how everything associated with non-nuclear forms of power generation has a “filthy” stuck in front of it.
As for natural gas, if we accept that it's squeaky clean, there are still two key issues to my mind.- It's a very finite fossil fuel and we'll run out of it at the same time, if not sooner, than we run out of oil. It will also have to be imported from now on, likely from Russia. And again, it will likely have to be imported on a day-to-day basis because building a gas stockpile is somewhat more involved than building a uranium stockpile.
- We use gas for building heating as well and could potentially use it to fuel cars instead of Middle Eastern oil. Hence it seems to be strategically wasteful to use so much of it generating electricity. In fact in the United States, old time oilman T. Boone Pickens came up with the "Pickens plan" that specifically calls for the removal of natural gas from power generation and diverting it to NG powered cars.
Eh? Is Ireland guaranteed a super-low price for uranium or something?- By virtue of our size, the purchase of a strategic stockpile of fuel would probably be little more than a blip on the uranium market.
- Ireland could have uranium deposits in Co. Donegal, and at the beginning of the 2007 government two energy companies were looking for licenses to explore for it there. But Eamon Ryan rescinded the applications.
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