Nothing like this will be built again (2002) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#241

Post by otagekki » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

tda wrote: post #176

otagekki wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The introduction of this video is a good support to the parent comment above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ASvupr8Zg It's a massive logistics challenge and it would require an unprecedented level of cooperation between Saharan nations and given how unstable the region is as of current... I'm afraid it's not happening for another 30-50 years, when climate change will probably corner these countries or their rich…

Or we could just overthrow all their governments and make them vassal states. Sounds crazy? Well just take another good look at Saudi Arabia, crazier things happened in name of energy stability. If the choice is between unlimited renewable energy for Europe and sovereignty of the Sahara I know where I stand

You really think it'd be that easy? Europeans, especially France and the UK backed off from that part of Africa mostly because they don't want massive uncontrolled immigration.

For over 50 years now France has been corrupting those countries' elites at the expense of more than 90% of the population. For 50 years those countries' cooperation level with each other have been hindered and their industries dilapidated to keep them poor and dependent from Europe or outside aid. Dictators have already been put in place (like how can anyone even stay in power for 25 years with nobody batting an eye despite the country lagging behind in everything?) to pillage the regions economic resources and pollute their soil, especially uranium and other metals.

Do you really think it'd be internationally acceptable to commit a massive genocidal war after what Nazi Germany had done to Jewish Europeans eight decades prior?

Overthrowing the established governments is only going to make matters worse. Just see how much of a mess Libya is right now, 10 years after Gaddafi died. French civil aircrafts still won't even fly over it.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#242

Post by satori99 » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

otagekki wrote: post #118

tda wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only it was a conscious choice... I fear significant climate has happened already, and even if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow will continue for a long time to come. Putting up a few km2 of solar in e.g. the Sahara now is surely less effort than decommissioning dozens of nuclear plants in 50 years.

The introduction of this video is a good support to the parent comment above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ASvupr8Zg It's a massive logistics challenge and it would require an unprecedented level of cooperation between Saharan nations and given how unstable the region is as of current... I'm afraid it's not happening for another 30-50 years, when climate change will probably corner these countries or their rich…

Work has already begun to lay undersea power cables between Singapore and massive solar arrays in northern Australia.

https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/trade-investme...

https://suncable.sg/

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#243

Post by elihu » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 11:50 PM UTC

grogenaut wrote: post #215

valarauko wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said roman concrete is a thing they've been chasing for a while Roman concrete isn't some magical substance that we're hoping to replicate - we already know how it works - it just would really suck for the type of building projects we have now.

Aah, I thought we were trying to replicate it or one of it's properties still, maybe in the context of modern concrete. Would love to know more.

In my (probably flawed) understanding, I think the drawbacks of Roman concrete in a modern setting is that it takes a really long time to cure (like a year or so) and it uses salt water, which would not interact well with regular steel rebar.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#244

Post by pfdietz » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 11:54 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #149

tda wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only it was a conscious choice... I fear significant climate has happened already, and even if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow will continue for a long time to come. Putting up a few km2 of solar in e.g. the Sahara now is surely less effort than decommissioning dozens of nuclear plants in 50 years.

Why not do both? Solar power works really well in the Sahara, but not so well in Northern Alberta. While the Sahara's emptiness is penetrated with limitless sunlight, Northern Alberta features vast, rolling plains where waste heat from nuclear plants could be used to heat homes for people escaping the burning wastes of California and BC, while generating carbon-free energy for the North American grid. Waste heat can…

The problem with high latitude places like the northern half of Alberta is that hardly anyone lives there. The population is not high enough to justify something as large as a nuclear power plant.

A similar thing happens in Alaska. The largest grid there, the Railbelt grid, has an average power flow of just 600 MW.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#245

Post by labcomputer » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 11:55 PM UTC

mydeskistoosm wrote: post #162

soperj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

passive fail-safe already existed 20 years ago. CANDU Reactor is exactly that. Doesn't even need enriched uranium.

So what happened? Why aren't we in a world of abundant energy?

Dealing with nuclear waste is still a thing, even with safe reactors. Here in the US, we can't seem to find a permanent place to bury waste.

Don't forget, either: Nuclear waste isn't just spent fuel. The reactor core remains radioactive after the plant is decommissioned.

That's one of the things that nuclear fusion proponents seem to forget. Even without the spent fuel problem, fusion reactors still produce nuclear waste.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#246

Post by pfdietz » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #123

bocytron wrote: post #21

French power grid agency RTE made a report[0] forecasting 2050 France energy mix, and because of loss of knowledge and increased security measures, even with strong political will, France won't be able to maintain its 70% nuclear power electricity share. Most nuclear-intensive scenario in this report is max 50% nuclear energy. [0] https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-12/Futurs-Ene... in french

In unrelated news, lowering nuclear to 50% of electricity is set as a political goal. In other unrelated news, safely maintaining the current nuclear electric power would have required a massive buildup starting 10 years ago (to replace the reactors that are currently arriving at the end of their life).

I thought the political goal was maintaining nuclear as high as 50%.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#247

Post by visitect » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 12:53 AM UTC

isolli wrote: post #111

Spooky23 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny when I read the Foundation novels, it seemed silly to me that people could lose track of technology and fall backwards. Then you read something like this and realize Asimov had a point!

On this topic, I recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

Thanks for posting that link; I had not seen that lecture before and found it highly enjoyable. For others that might gloss over a random link to youtube, this is a lecture from 2019 delivered by Jonathan Blow titled "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization." In this talk, he discusses the problem of generational transfer of knowledge within the historical context of civilizations who failed to do so successfully. At about the halfway point, he transitions to the related topic of declining software quality, which I suspect will resonate strongly with many programmers on this forum.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#248

Post by jhgb » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #189

aerostable_slug wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumped hydro has been viable for energy storage for decades and decades, running 70-80% efficiency. It's more efficient than most alternatives, to include compressed air, but it can't be dispatched quite as quickly. The real problem is the fact that environmentalists tend to hate dams, especially large hydro projects, so there's a major political battle on top of finding funding for these kinds of capital-intensive p…

Even if we could build dams with no worry about the environment, it wouldn't help. There are not many places left to build them, and a lot more would be needed. Sure use them where we have them, but they are not a something we can grow.

> There are not many places left to build them

...unless you go radical? https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potent...

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#249

Post by jhgb » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 1:19 AM UTC

lcvw wrote: post #105

mlindner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, but do people actually believe that? It sounds like a tactic by oil companies to sucker in gullible people in order to punt a problem down the road. It also acts as a great excuse by politicians to avoid having to deal with a problem. IMO, the reality is that these plants will never convert to anything other than natural gas and will eventually be shut down, still running on natural gas. Hydrogen is…

I seem to remember that you can’t even pump hydrogen through existing natural gas infrastructure because the smaller hydrogen molecules are more prone to leaking. I would imagine the equipment at a plant has a similar problem and combine that with lower efficiency from burning a fuel that the plant wasn’t designed for, and the abysmal efficiency from converting electric energy to hydrogen and it seems like pure snake…

Coal gas contained significant amounts of molecular hydrogen (~50% or so) and it had been used for decades. What magic did those people know back then?

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#250

Post by jhgb » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

hkt wrote: post #146

pfdietz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels do not require rare earth materials.

Wind turbines do though - neodynium, if memory serves.

They don't either, it's just that PMG turbines are somewhat more preferred if you can build them. If you can't, nothing prevents you from building turbines with induction generators.