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The New Atomic Age We Need

nytimes.com

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Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#161

Post by danbruc »

Pietertje wrote: post #158
andbberger wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All energy sources carry the same essential thermodynamic burden. The difference is that nuclear doesn't also emit green house gases.

I highly doubt your first statement. Solar, for example, is no burden since if you do nothing it would land on earth anyway. For fossil fuels you release chemically stored energy as heat. The same applies for nuclear power. Which is an additional thermodynamic burden...

That is true but human energy consumption is still insignificant compared to solar radiation - about a factor of 10,000 according to numbers I just looked up on Wikipedia - so even if we get everything from fossil sources that doesn't make a big dent in the energy balance.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#162

Post by Terr_ »

lyschoening wrote: post #150
thebmax wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…

A large enough HVDC grid would almost totally eliminate the need for backup power. There's always wind or sun somewhere and HVDC transmission losses are <5% per 1,000mi. It's possible to build a grid where pumped and battery storage alone can smoothen out any fluctuations.

Then you'd need a global network for sun at night, which has correspondingly greater challenges in terms of coordination and "booting" it back up.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#163

Post by Pietertje »

danbruc wrote: post #160
Pietertje wrote: post #149

Does somebody know if nuclear power will actually be an improvement for the environment (only considering temperature here)? Essentially you just release heat which is stored as mass. A quick calculation shows that if you only consider heating up our atmosphere and assume an entire switch of all our energy consumption to nuclear energy you end up with a temperature rise of 0.1 deg C per year. I know it is a worst-cas…

Not an expert but the temperature of the earth is the equilibrium temperature between the amount of energy received and the amount of energy emitted into space. Human energy consumption is four order of magnitude smaller than the energy received from the sun, so the anthropic effect is not really important. Greenhouse gases on the other hand have a significant effect because they prevent radiating a fraction of all t…

Thanks, makes complete sense now to me.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#164

Post by chc »

danbruc wrote: post #19

Why not simply outlaw nonrenewable energy sources over ten years or so? Problem solved. EDIT: Would someone care to point out why that is not an valid option? Lack of technological viability? Lack of energy storage technology or capacity? Ideological resentment against a political over an economical driving force for the change?

This reminds me of the episode of Star Trek where Data asks Q how to solve a problem and Q answers, "Simple — change the gravitational constant of the universe."

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#165

Post by thebmax »

chadgeidel wrote: post #121
thebmax wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…

I don't disagree with your fundamental premise, but "would require an equal amount of backup power" sounds like hyperbole. I haven't read any proposal for "100% replacement" that doesn't take into account energy storage solutions. I think it's perfectly reasonable to question those solutions, but an equal amount of traditional power generation as backup seems excessive.

Case in point is a very cloudy day with no wind. Depending on where it is demand could be very high if it's cold out and heaters are running full blast. You will essentially need a full load supply to come from somewhere or you'll get rolling blackouts. Some regions can compensate with importing or hydro but otherwise you would have to power up the coal and gas. Batteries could maybe work in the future but again this would drastically increase the cost.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#166

Post by dasv »

ommunist wrote: post #66
Shivetya wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neither are base line power. Storage solutions, as in batteries, do not make me think that the hazards of such large scale deployments of lithium based solutions to be better than more advanced reactor designs we don't use for political reasons.

HMD vortex generator is so disruptive tech for existing energy market that Gritskevitch was offered to abandon his schematics for a lump sum in the late 90-ies. Fortunately his ideas met understanding of Al Gore and inventor now works in the US. But I hear no news about his US based dynamos. upd: Oleg died. This is great loss for humanity. His son has know how and is looking for 10M investment http://www.padrak.com/v…

Hmm. I hate to play the skeptic, but this "HMD vortex generator" looks like a cold fusion device. It somehow fuses deuterium nuclei into alpha particles while their electrons fall out and are harvested. On top of that, the slideshow claims that the rupture of the hydrogen bonds in water generates electricity (!).

The fact that it needs both a capacitor and a battery bank to be able to output electricity seems sketchy, too.

Edit: The homepage is full of UFO and conspiracy stuff. So, yeah, it very likely is a scam.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#167

Post by bjt »

While I agree with the basic argument that we are hurting ourselves with an irrational aversion to nuclear power, some of Thiel's arguments seem weak or overreaching. The worst, in my estimation, is this:

> Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators’ incompetence. Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year.

So on one hand you take the failure of a single nuclear plant, and count the direct, local deaths from that. On the other hand you take the sum of all coal-fired plants, and count the number of global, indirect deaths from them. OF COURSE the latter number is going to be bigger. The comparison is dishonest.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#168

Post by thebmax »

mightybyte wrote: post #148
tokipin wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the obvious solution is batteries, which improve all sources of power generation including traditional ones by serving as support during peak times. in principle you only need stored per house during night time, which may be a much lower bar than it sounds. if the utilities serve a role later it may just be them acting as high-volume energy storage facilities, but even that might not really be necessary if individual…

Batteries aren't the only solution here. Any kind of efficient energy storage will work. For example LightSail Energy has been working on compressed air storage for several years now.

I'm all for innovation in storage and think there might be a breakthrough at some point. But this goes to the heart of it. Right now a fully renewable grid that matches what we currently have is not financially viable. Not saying it won't become so at some point but it's a high hurdle. All things considered having close to 100% reliable electricity in every home in America for less than ~$100/month is hard to compete with.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#169

Post by another-one-off »

bjt wrote: post #167

While I agree with the basic argument that we are hurting ourselves with an irrational aversion to nuclear power, some of Thiel's arguments seem weak or overreaching. The worst, in my estimation, is this: > Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators’ incompet…

It is an apples to oranges comparison, but wouldn't the honest comparison would come out about the same?

My memory is that nuclear emissions from a coal fired station are comparable to a nuclear station, and nuclear doesn't produce smoke. So nuclear should still come out 13,000 people/year ahead.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#170

Post by lappa »

bjt wrote: post #167

While I agree with the basic argument that we are hurting ourselves with an irrational aversion to nuclear power, some of Thiel's arguments seem weak or overreaching. The worst, in my estimation, is this: > Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators’ incompet…

A bit more than 50

>The risk projections suggest that by now Chernobyl may have caused about 1000 cases of thyroid cancer and 4000 cases of other cancers in Europe, representing about 0.01% of all incident cancers since the accident. Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident

http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-did-c...?

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