Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

Post by beat » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 11:54 PM UTC

acqq wrote: post #233

yazriel wrote: post #187

The article is completely unprofessional. The tone itself is very one-sided - which is bad enough. However, the factual omissions are ridiculous. Here are a few examples: the area used for wind turbines is large, but it is usually re-usable for agriculture, or increasingly off shore official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of…

> There is simply not enough uranium for a full build out of 3rd generation nuclear This is really important and is often avoided to be discussed: even if the 10% of all world's energy needs are covered by the nuclear energy at this moment, we know we're using some 70 Ktons of uranium per year. Then to use only nuclear energy we'd need 700 Ktons per year. Currently identified uranium resources total 5.5 Mtons, which…

Post by bluthru » Tue, Nov 03, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #232

bluthru wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"we need so big number of them, that it's futile." I guess my grandchildren will die then. You can build a lot of PVs and turbines in the same amount of time, and place them closer to where they're being used (reduce transmission loss). You can also place them on top of buildings (reduces AC load by 2%) and on top of parking lots (reduces car heat and urban heat island effect). You're not going to electrify poor par…

>You can build a lot of PVs and turbines in the same amount of time, and place them closer to where they're being used (reduce transmission loss). You can also place them on top of buildings (reduces AC load by 2%) and on top of parking lots (reduces car heat and urban heat island effect). That was not the point. The argument was that nobody can build all the hundreds of nuclear plants that we would need. How can we…

Post by mey » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #240

jandrese wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are a lot of alternate nuclear reactor designs that look great on paper but have never had the full scale engineering done to see if it is practical. And they look cheap because you don't even know half of the stuff you have to do that makes it expensive. It's like rocket design where you go "just put a bunch of explosives in a tube and go into space, this shouldn't be too expensive or difficult..."

This is where John D Clark's book "Ignition!" really shines: it's the history of the science of rocket fuel as problem solving. Plenty of candidates on paper, need to be tested for detonation, hypergolicity, ease of ignition, handling, effect on plumbing etc. Red fuming nitric acid is a good example: great oxidiser, doesn't need cryogenics but is liquid even in arctic temperatures. Only problem is it eats through the…

Post by Faint » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 12:01 AM UTC

hamiltonkibbe wrote: post #161

toomuchtodo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium batteries are in no way going to be so inefficient as to have a 50% loss of energy. They're already cost competitive in Hawaii for utility scale storage: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-d...

What happens when when 52MWh (~216 tons of lithium iron batteries) goes into thermal runaway?

Post by pekk » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #231

ageofwant wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assert that an article of this nature needs to be "professional", why is that ? It was written for the great mass of laypeople that (supposedly) holds the power over our nuclear future. It is intended to challenge the ongoing anti-nuclear narrative and re-educate. It achieves those aims admirably. While your criticisms may be arguably valid for a different audience they are irrelevant here.

I didn't mean to downvote you but accidentally clicked on the button and can't go back. However, I do disagree with your point. I'm pro-nuclear to the degree that it's economical, and found the article to be somewhat insipid due to grandparent's reasons. Just as there are plenty of people that are irrationally anti-nuclear, being irrationally pro-nuclear is no better at all.