131–140 of 160 posts
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Why shouldn't I believe them? Assuming they are pointing to the datacenter equivalents of wind/solar/nuclear energy as the reason why datacenter use is shrinking. Edit: Did you mean to imply that Coal is not actually going away because the 'cheaper alternatives' are fake?
Mainly Natural Gas. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2...
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The real solution is how do you get the people being conned to recognize that they are being conned and quit voting for the people conning them. If there wasn't a payout (e.g. people being (re)elected), then it wouldn't be happening.
Oh, they know they're being conned, they're not stupid. It's just that they believe that both sides are conning them, and they vote for the most appealing set of lies.
More and more people are turning to Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders, If Kirk Sorensen and others are right this will revolutionize energy (and probably not just energy but mining, water desalination etc.) as we know it unlike wind or solar ever could. Natural gas and coal should die once and for all as they are as dirty as it gets. I strongly believe we are ready for truly nuclear…
Yeah, and fusion is just around the corner... I wonder why the tech community has this infatuation with nuclear power. Ever since I registered my three-digit slashdot account, I've been reading exactly this post, just that the type of reactor people dream of seems to change every five years or so. Good to know it's "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders", right now. Meanwhile, solar power has lowered prices by a factor of…
Because it works.
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There's one problem with nuclear that probably will never be overcome: it takes around 20 years from commissioning to the eventual connection of a nuclear power plant to the grid. You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years. That's 17 years of not producing electricity.
"You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years." A nuclear power plant can crank out 5 gigawatts. There aren't any solar or wind plants of that capacity that were constructed in any amount of time, much less three years.
Based on EIA data, in 2016 the capacity factor of US nuclear power was 92.5%. Utility scale PV was 27.2% and wind was 34.7%: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...
Based on 2016 capacity factors you need to install a total of 17 gigawatts-peak of American utility scale PV or 13.3 GWp of wind to match the annual energy production of 5 gigawatts-peak of nuclear reactors. Last year the US completed about 10 GWp of utility scale PV and 8.2 GWp of wind (5.57 real annualized gigawatts, assuming same 2016 capacity factors going forward).
Storage, though? Nobody's going to install sufficient storage in the next 3 years that you could shut down the nearest reactor without burning more natural gas. Large scale storage is just starting to enter the mainstream.
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Yeah, and fusion is just around the corner... I wonder why the tech community has this infatuation with nuclear power. Ever since I registered my three-digit slashdot account, I've been reading exactly this post, just that the type of reactor people dream of seems to change every five years or so. Good to know it's "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders", right now. Meanwhile, solar power has lowered prices by a factor of…
"I wonder why the tech community has this infatuation with nuclear power." Because it works .
Not cost effectively, which is why even with existing protections from generally-applicable liability standaeds the industry demands greater direct subsidies and/or liability shields and without them has no interest in building new plants.
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There are actually things like peat moss[1], which are a semi-renewable energy, which I see being far more useful in a "dark age" scenario. Not to say, it's not good to keep coal in the ground for the same reason. Just thought I would share another tid-bit lol [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphagnum
Have you ever seen a large peat moss power plant? Ireland has some. They're gross polluters.
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There are actually things like peat moss[1], which are a semi-renewable energy, which I see being far more useful in a "dark age" scenario. Not to say, it's not good to keep coal in the ground for the same reason. Just thought I would share another tid-bit lol [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphagnum
peat extraction is extremely harmful to the environment due to large amounts of carbondioxide and methane released by the extraction process. Calling it "semi-renewable" is highly misleading. It's a really destructive source of energy. (As far as I'm aware most peat extraction happens not for energy usage, but for gardening and agricultural use - but the harm is the same.)
I agree it's destructive, but it is actually classified as semi-renewable because it takes "only" a thousand years or so to develop (where oil is millions). In the case at hand, we were discussing a "dark ages" scenario where we end up regressing a bit. I was just bringing up that there are alternatives to coal (also destructive).
FYI peat covers approximately 2% of the earths surface, and around 7% of it is used in agriculture, gardening, and energy[1].
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>...But you are absolutely right that its entirely due to natgas and that will maybe last us a decade or two but certainly not three. Citation? Unfortunately it looks like there are large proven reserves of natural gas: >...The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that as of January 1, 2014, there were about 2,474 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resources of dry natural gas in the Uni…
"Yea, nuclear has so far been the safest form of base load power we have ever used. Unfortunately anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than other sources of power." I thought it was telling that the only world leader who reacted to Fukushima by mandating the end of nuclear…
What was telling is she didn't want to do it but was forced by public opinion, the fact that she proceed to run to the front of the parade notwithstanding.
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There's one problem with nuclear that probably will never be overcome: it takes around 20 years from commissioning to the eventual connection of a nuclear power plant to the grid. You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years. That's 17 years of not producing electricity.
"You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years." A nuclear power plant can crank out 5 gigawatts. There aren't any solar or wind plants of that capacity that were constructed in any amount of time, much less three years.
Adjusted for the capacity factor that's over 5.75GW. Sure, it's not one plant, but quite possibly most of that capacity wasn't commissioned until 2013. Better still, they're just getting started with this.
The beauty of this power source is that it scales great - instead of erecting one 7MW turbine you can do that with any number of them, limited only by your budget.
Meanwhile it takes 5 years to construct a single 1GW block of nuclear and you can't just simultaneously start building another one next to it.
Nuclear won't win, because it's expensive and doesn't scale well.
I disagree with the metrics here. In the US Hydro power is not considered renewable yet it powers roughly a third of Canadians. Quebec's Hydro Power also powers a large part of New York, Vermont and Massachusetts.