Worlds smallest violin plays.
On board Akademik Cherskiy, they might be playing balalaika[1].
[1] "Я играю на балалайке / Это самый русский инструмент"
The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
31–40 of 76 posts
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Permitting transmission lines will get much, much harder with scale needed to do what you're saying. With nuclear you don't need to build vast new storage and transmission, or cover the landscape with energy harvesters.
With nuclear you still have to cove rthe landscape with nuclear powerplants, uranium mining pits (people like to forget these because they are not in their backyard) and nuclear storage (which is still an unsolved solution). Then there is the problem that nuclear is terrible at anything but baseload, so you still need gas turbines for reacting to load. Everytime this is brought up nuclear proponents say research in n…
You are not exactly 'covering the landscape'. See https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_161.shtml for some of the math for the example of Britain.
See the calculation starting on this page https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_166.shtml
> Land use
> Let’s imagine that Britain decides it is serious about getting off fossil fuels, and creates a lot of new nuclear reactors, even though this may not be “sustainable.” If we build enough reactors to make possible a significant decarbonization of transport and heating, can we fit the required nuclear reactors into Britain? The number we need to know is the power per unit area of nuclear power stations, which is about 1000W/m2 (figure 24.10). Let’s imagine generating 22 kWh per day per person of nuclear power – equivalent to 55 GW (roughly the same as France’s nuclear power), which could be delivered by 55 nuclear power stations, each occu- pying one square kilometre. That’s about 0.02% of the area of the country. Wind farms delivering the same average power would require 500 times as much land: 10% of the country. If the nuclear power stations were placed in pairs around the coast (length about 3000 km, at 5 km resolution), then there’d be two every 100 km. Thus while the area required is modest, the fraction of coastline gobbled by these power stations would be about 2% (2 kilometres in every 100).
The book also has sections about the economics of clean up. About fast breeder reactors and thorium designs.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Permitting transmission lines will get much, much harder with scale needed to do what you're saying. With nuclear you don't need to build vast new storage and transmission, or cover the landscape with energy harvesters.
With nuclear you still have to cove rthe landscape with nuclear powerplants, uranium mining pits (people like to forget these because they are not in their backyard) and nuclear storage (which is still an unsolved solution). Then there is the problem that nuclear is terrible at anything but baseload, so you still need gas turbines for reacting to load. Everytime this is brought up nuclear proponents say research in n…
Nope because nuclear fuel energy density is 2000000x higher than all chemicals the land footprint is tiny. Like 450x less than wind total system.
Nuclear can load follow but chooses not to for economics reasons. Markets are human constructs and can be adjusted as needed. Also nuclear works fine with all forms of energy storage.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
What gas doesn't suffer from though is expensiveness (environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable) and scalability. EU countries might be able to run their industrial sectors on renewables but call me when Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil or even the US are able to do it without costs going up.
> environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Global warming is going to 'disproportionately impact the most vulnerable' even more. (Is there anything at all that won't? People with fewer resources have fewer options in dealing with new challenges, this seems like a fundamental fact.)
> Is there anything at all that won't?
Yes. Decline in stock prices or real estate for example.
> People with fewer resources have fewer options in dealing with new challenges, this seems like a fundamental fact.
Yes, that's almost true by definition.
Even in my examples, in general the people who start out rich will still be better off after a stock market crash than the people who started out poor.
Look on the bright side though: by symmetry any disaster averted or condition improved also helps the vulnerable more.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear is also low land footprint (energy dense) and low physical waste.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but you can't argue that the (relatively) small amount of waste isn't super nasty. Last I heard we still don't have a good way of dealing with it.
It's not more nasty than storing some kinds of heavy metals or other chemicals.
Mercury never stops being nasty mercury. It doesn't have a half-life.
Certain technologies, like fast breeder reactors, significantly reduce the volume of radioactive garbage coming out of your nuclear reactors at the end, because they re-use fuel multiple times.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes and nuclear. Gas is better than coal for air pollution and slightly better (but still very bad) for climate. Nuclear is low carbon and doesnt have air pollution so it is terribly counterproductive to build gas in its place.
Natural gas is not slightly better, it's significantly better than coal for climate. Emissions are about half as much as coal per kWh. Switching from coal to natural gas has probably reduced America's CO2 footprint more than all new renewable generation combined. In the short term and without cheap storage, renewables just cannot scale compared to natural gas.
Nope. Most natural gas is produced by fracking; the fracking process produces great amounts of excess methane which is released into the atmosphere; fracked natural gas is approximately as bad as, or may even be worse than, coal.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#37Glad I didn't lock in a "low" price with my gas supplier. Everyone was predicting higher energy prices.
That's a bit weird? If everyone was expecting higher prices, why didn't speculators make the prices go up already?
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gas is also laden with hidden costs. In particular, bad things happen when drilling shale and then more bad things building and running pipeline transports such as Dakota, Keystone, and Mariner. These things are all getting rammed through legislatures in a manner that bypasses all of the normal democratic process. For example, Mariner East somehow got declared a public utility which gives Sunoco rights to eminent dom…
What gas doesn't suffer from though is expensiveness (environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable) and scalability. EU countries might be able to run their industrial sectors on renewables but call me when Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil or even the US are able to do it without costs going up.
I'm unsure about industry, but at least for residential use gas won't be going away any time soon in Europe. In the UK 86% of houses use gas as the fuel for their central heating system, and even more use it for cooking and heating hot water. From 2025 in the UK new houses will not be allowed to use gas for heating, but it's still going to be a long time until all the old properties are retrofitted.
For new builds a heat pump + solar is the smart choice - they cost more upfront but the lower costs win in the long term (after 15 years or so, without grants). The problem is older properties don't have the same level of insulation as new builds, so even if there are grants for replacing the equipment it's going to be a long time until it pays off. It depends how big the grants are though, if a government is serious about going green then it's a worthwhile investment.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#39Glad I didn't lock in a "low" price with my gas supplier. Everyone was predicting higher energy prices.
Except for the data scientists at your gas company :)
You don't even need in-house data scientists for that. Just look at the futures market.
The futures market not only gives you guidance for how prices are expected to develop, but also lets you transfer the risk of price movements to willing counterparties. Sometimes for a fee, of course.
Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear has high capital costs and many plants are aging out as they reach 40+ years old. Natural gas is a very strong possibility when replacing these plants unless the government steps in somehow to alleviate multiple financial risks (beyond continue to provide cheap accident indemnification).
Yes. Though the high capital costs for nuclear are mostly down to policy, less so to technology.
I’m not sure. Even the Chinese haven’t been able to bring costs down, and that’s saying something. Are French reactors much more affordable?