Energy • Hacker News Board

Re: Energy

#181

Post by snarfy » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:36 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #164

> terrestrial-based atomic energy... has major advantages when it comes to cost Are we talking public cost? Because that's all that matters. So far the public cost of nuclear power has been extraordinary, due to accidents and waste. I understand that some of these startups aim to process existing waste in relatively small distributed reactors but what is the public cost of spreading a bunch of "mini" toxic waste site…

You could make the same arguments for the long term public costs of burning fossil fuels.

Re: Energy

#182

Post by lutorm » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:38 AM UTC

smil wrote: post #137

DennisP wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup cost for solar is not all that amazingly cheap per watt, and if you include batteries it's probably more than nuclear. UPower's design doesn't require a large body of water: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/startup-d... For setup you deliver it with a truck and bury it. Other modular nuclear designs are a bit bigger but still in the range of small natural gas plants, which are competing quit…

Wouldn't trust a Silicon Valley startup to care about our properly execute for "safety." This is a pump and dump, making a quick buck.

You mean "release early, release often"?

Re: Energy

#183

Post by nl » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:39 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #164

> terrestrial-based atomic energy... has major advantages when it comes to cost Are we talking public cost? Because that's all that matters. So far the public cost of nuclear power has been extraordinary, due to accidents and waste. I understand that some of these startups aim to process existing waste in relatively small distributed reactors but what is the public cost of spreading a bunch of "mini" toxic waste site…

I agree with this entirely. I think too many self-declared science-minded people buy into the argument that "nuclear is a good solution" without looking at the numbers or risks. Whilst I understand the costs of fossil fuel use, I think that the distribution of risks associated with nuclear power makes cost estimation a lot more difficult that proponents assume (ie, safe almost always, very rare disasters that cause huge disruption).

However, my understanding is that Thorium-based fission reactors[1] reduce the risks somewhat. I haven't looked into this enough myself to decide either way, but I do have an open mind.

Fusion, OTOH is a totally different story. Maybe, one day we'll get that to work reliably and cheaply. I find it difficult to imagine a more significant change to the world we know.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

Re: Energy

#184

Post by ocschwar » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:41 AM UTC

hypertexthero wrote: post #162

Recently watched Cosmos Episode 6 where Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks of photosynthesis and how all our energy problems would be solved if we were able to learn the 'trade secrets' of how plants do it. This makes a lot of sense. Can anyone point out current research on this field? I don't seem to hear much about it. Edit: Just found this after searching #photosynthesis in Twitter: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/2…

There's a more efficient way to do that.

Use TCP/IP to synchronize the consumption of power with its production. Solar and wind are pretty awesome if you can schedule around them. And most of our power consumption is amenable to it.

Re: Energy

#185

Post by abalone » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:42 AM UTC

snarfy wrote: post #181

abalone wrote: post #164

> terrestrial-based atomic energy... has major advantages when it comes to cost Are we talking public cost? Because that's all that matters. So far the public cost of nuclear power has been extraordinary, due to accidents and waste. I understand that some of these startups aim to process existing waste in relatively small distributed reactors but what is the public cost of spreading a bunch of "mini" toxic waste site…

You could make the same arguments for the long term public costs of burning fossil fuels.

Absolutely. But these are questions that must be answered before we can say nuclear has "major advantages when it comes to cost".

Re: Energy

#186

Post by ageofwant » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:42 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

While I believe/hope you are right there are use cases for gigawatt energy sources that cannot be met even with pervasive PV deployments. We will not be manufacturing aluminium with solar. We won't be pumping gigga tones of C02 out of the atmosphere and seawater with solar. We won't convert the Ort cloud to habitats with solar. For that we need fusion or fission. No way around it.

Re: Energy

#187

Post by ocschwar » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:43 AM UTC

Eleutheria wrote: post #18

Distributed generation is where we should invest. Energy independence for the individual. Individual solar panels and batteries, personal windmills, personal reactors, etc. Imagine all the savings in infrastructure for energy transportation and reinvestment in other sectors. Imagine all the possibilities if people could switch their energy generation model as simple as buying a new product and installing it at home.…

Use TCP/IP to coordinate consumption and production, and your storage needs go down considerably.

Re: Energy

#188

Post by nl » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:45 AM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #179

mooreds wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone thinking about this needs to watch "Into Eternity", a movie about the Finnish nuclear waste repository: http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/ "In Finland the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock - a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years as this is how long the waste remains hazardous." It was eye opening.

That's just nonsense. Forth generation breeder reactors burn their own waste to something close to irrelevant. Existing "Waste" should be continually burned and the energy used to sequester C02 from the atmosphere, for example, not uselessly stored in a bunker. There is no reason for that facility to exist.

There are plenty of reasons for that facility to exist.

Fourth generation reactors (and thorium reactors) do improve the situation considerably (eg, 2 orders of magnitude less waste than a conventional reactor, and the waste stays around hundreds of years instead of tens of thousands[1]).

However there is an existing set of reactors that will be in use for decades, and their waste needs storage. There are also existing "temporary" storage facilities that need better long-term solutions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Po...

Re: Energy

#189

Post by saryant » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:54 AM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #155

Probably not. Energy isn't really what is holding the poor back - a lack of stability and security are. If I had to chose one technological improvement to help most people on the planet it would probably be benevolent AI, which could refocus many of our challenges to what is important. Getting people out of poverty and war. Energy is a tiny component of modern civilization.

Energy is the sole basis of modern civilization.

We are Hydrocarbon Man.

Re: Energy

#190

Post by abalone » Tue, Jun 30, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #176

abalone wrote: post #164

> terrestrial-based atomic energy... has major advantages when it comes to cost Are we talking public cost? Because that's all that matters. So far the public cost of nuclear power has been extraordinary, due to accidents and waste. I understand that some of these startups aim to process existing waste in relatively small distributed reactors but what is the public cost of spreading a bunch of "mini" toxic waste site…

Anyone thinking about this needs to watch "Into Eternity", a movie about the Finnish nuclear waste repository: http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/ "In Finland the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock - a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years as this is how long the waste remains hazardous." It was eye opening.

On a positive note: While I have major questions/concerns about distributing poorly secured fast reactors and toxic waste sites all over the planet, if this tech really does turn out to be a practical way to reduce the half life of waste...

Why not just turn the waste storage sites into reactor farms?

That would sidestep the problems stemming from decentralization and probably achieve some economies of scale too. Maybe smelt some aluminum with the energy. But even if you essentially threw the energy away, it might be useful as purely a waste cleanup solution.