Nuclear Power

[GePap]

I await those power satellites in orbit colecting that solar energy without atmospheric interference, beaming it down..only problem is every so often the microwave beam will go nuts and blast a path of destrcution in your city.

[chequita guevara]

They'd also heat up the atmosphere and fry birds.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by optimus2861
Seriously, the thing to remember about wind power is that it can never supply more than about 10-15% of the grid, because you can't control it. When it's windy, you're making power and you've gotta have a load to take it

Well, you can always have a storage faility to soak up the energy for later use. Hm, maybe making hydrogen for fuel cells?

[GePap]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
They'd also heat up the atmosphere and fry birds.

Ohhh, we ward of the comng ice age and get cheap affordable food for all! Bring it on!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by optimus2861
Seriously, the thing to remember about wind power is that it can never supply more than about 10-15% of the grid, because you can't control it. When it's windy, you're making power and you've gotta have a load to take it; when it's not windy and you need power you can't just turn the wind up.

Batteries and fuel cells

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


I would say oil is getting governmental subsidies in the US. In one way or another. Just look at the background of the guys in your cabinet and the politics they are suggesting.

"the guys in the cabinet" have been there for all of three years (not even), and oil prices have been what they're been, relative to world prices, for decades.

[Ecthy]

Fuel cells are not good for short term / immediate demand such as car acceleraiton, which is why you use hybrid cars with batteries for acceleration and steep stages. Apart from that, fuel cells need to be fueled, and mass efficient hydrogene containers are usually carbone hydrates, so you also need a reformer. Pure hydrogene has less hydrogene in same volume than methane, ironically enough, plus it escapes every container. Fuel cell efficiency is pretty good anyway, 50%+ in practice, even 80%+ in theory.

So there's still a lot of room for improvement, but also many ways to fill that room. There just needs to be investment of time, which noone has, and money, which most want to spend on weapons and condoms.

Set priorities. Discuss.

edit: what I posted before editia was of course nonsense...

With the same (assumedly constant) molar volume of 22.4 l/mol under normal conditions, CH4 contains 4 mol of hydrogene while H2 has only 2. This was the point, the flu is just confusing me.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Pure oxygene has less oxygene in same mass than methane, ironically enough, plus it escapes every container.

What? Pure oxygen has less oxygen than methane of the same mass?

But methane is CH₄. There's no oxygen in methane.

[Ecthy]

damn, I was talking about hydrogene, and then about the amount of it per volume not mass

thanks, maybe I should stop trying to be scientific with this flu

[Rogan Josh]

More money needs to be spent on fusion reactor research. Once we have working fusion reactors our energy problems are over.

[Ecthy]

1. controlled fusion doesn't work and never will

2. even if it will, it'll cost a fortune, so the third world won't profit quickly enough

3. if you throw a bomb into a fusion plant, our universe goes kaputt

[Rogan Josh]

Ecth: Can you justify any of these statements?

1. Heisenberg said the same thing about controlled fission in the 30s.

2. Once the technology is up and running, it shouldn't be more expensive than fission. It is the research which is expensive.

3. Fusion reactions are hard to maintain - they have to be maintained by a feed back cycle, so throwing in a bomb will not destriy the world any more than for a fission reactor. Furthermore, since fusion is inherently clean there would be no fallout (unlike fission) (althoug this of course does depend on what other shenanigans you use to maintain the fusion).

[CerberusIV]

Random thoughts.

One of the reasons the French have stopped building nuclear reactors is the massive government debts their nuclear reactor programme has run up and the need to try and not break the single currency budget deficit limit.

No-one can really tell the true cost of decommissioning fission reactors because it varies between countries, reactor designs and methods.

Nuclear reactors are fine for base load power production but demand fluctuates and that is where gas fuelled plant comes in because it can be turned on and off more easily.

If you have a suitable mountain, hydro electric is the easiest storage option. There is a set up in the UK where off peak electricity is used to pump water up to a reservoir built into the top of a mountain. When more electricity is needed they allow the water to flow down again and drive the turbines.

Breeder reactors and reprocessing nuclear fuel sounds great in theory. The Sellafield plant in the UK was supposed to do this for a global market. Only the Japanese signed up, it isn't economic and the whole thing is likely to shut down. End of commercial reprocessing to produce recycled fuel rods.

[Ecthy]

Rogan, your replies are fair enough, but it will take centuries until "all our energy problems are solved".

The same could be said about fission plants, but people are so paranoid.

[DanS]

More money needs to be spent on fusion reactor research. Once we have working fusion reactors our energy problems are over.

Fusion research is already well funded. We should let the science develop at its own pace.