Paris agreement

[Elthy]

There is lots of talk about energy storage for renewables, you just dont see it. Teslas Powerwall (and other decentral batterys), power-to-gas, hydropower, large grids (if your grid is large enough you dont need much storage capacity, somewhere there is allways wind or sun), biogas...

All of those are in production or at least small scale testing (power-to-gas), its just a matter of years until they are whidespread enough. That will definetly happen faster than building dozends of new nuclear powewrplants or finding a permanent storage solution for the radioactive waste.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I think rooftop solar is the future.  Solar farms, wind farms, and hydroelectric dams blight land and ruin sensitive habitat.  Nuclear is pretty good, but very hard to control and very dangerous if it gets out of control.

[Shpaget]

20 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Nuclear is pretty good, but very hard to control and very dangerous if it gets out of control.

No it's not.

Pretty much all new designs are self regulating.

[GeneralVeers]

On 12/14/2015, 9:40:41, A35K said:

There should be some sort of proper treaty signed by the major industrial countries, something that CAN be enforced.

There's that word again. "Should". Just keeps cropping up.

Such a treaty won't happen.

 

On 12/14/2015, 9:40:41, A35K said:

One thing that I don't get is why major powers such as USA, Russia, China, keep on spending billions in developing stealth technology, when this would only be needed when fighting against countries that are equipped with high tech radars.

Two reasons.

#1: So that your entire air force won't instantly become obsolete when the bad guys do get high tech radars.

#2: It's not just about preventing your planes from getting shot down. The other important reason for stealth is so that the bad guys don't even see the attack coming until something goes boom. If your top secret Death Beam laboratory sees an incoming bomber two hours away, that gives you two hours to evac your scientists and get the research and prototypes out of the target area.

[Bill Phil]

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

There's that word again. "Should". Just keeps cropping up.

Such a treaty won't happen.

 

Two reasons.

#1: So that your entire air force won't instantly become obsolete when the bad guys do get high tech radars.

#2: It's not just about preventing your planes from getting shot down. The other important reason for stealth is so that the bad guys don't even see the attack coming until something goes boom. If your top secret Death Beam laboratory sees an incoming bomber two hours away, that gives you two hours to evac your scientists and get the research and prototypes out of the target area.

Except... Bombers aren't really all that useful anymore. A barrage of missiles, launched from a dozen or more kilometers away would suffice. Or even missiles launched from a stealth fighter. Preferably ones with high yield.

[GeneralVeers]

You familiar with JDAM? Makes a Mk84 or any other piece of cheap iron almost as accurate as a missile for a much smaller price tag.

Okay.....I just went completely off-topic with Bill--err, Phil--err, Bill Phil (wow, that name threw me a bit) and generally the best strategy for that is to say something on-topic......ummmm.....oh! I've got one:

On 12/14/2015, 4:37:24, Elthy said:

This is one topic where i rely on the power of free markets. Renewables get cheaper every day, with almost zero running costs compared to convetional power its only a matter of time until they are a better choice even if you put enviromental long-term costs aside.

My personal testimony: non-renewables have also been getting cheaper every day. Por ejemplo, gasoline. Way back in the 70's (the nineteen-seventies) during the gas crunch, gasoline ran about two dollars a gallon. Today, in my part of the U.S., thanks to fracking etc., gas is below two dollars a gallon. And that's before you take forty-odd years of inflation into account, which means the price of gas today is something like one-fourth what it was back then, in terms of actual dollar purchasing power.

Oil and coal will continue to get cheaper along with renewables, though the prices of oil and coal are kinda flighty in the short term.

[Bill Phil]

I know about JDAM. But missiles are getting cheaper all the time. And bombers are easy to see, maybe not with radar, but with other detection methods. 

I know a guy who worked at a gas station in the 70s. Gas cost 40 cents a gallon. Now I don't know what inflation that is, but that's the later 70s.

And the purchasing power of the dollar is... Less. By a lot.

[Vanamonde]

Since I doubt JDAMs were under discussion at the environmental treaty talks, I suspect this thread is going off-topic. 

[Frybert]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

Since I doubt JDAMs were under discussion at the environmental treaty talks, I suspect this thread is going off-topic. 

JDAMs is the environment's future!

[lajoswinkler]

The very question is silly. Renewables can not possibly be the main source. Ever. This is why.

 

Renewables can not form the base load.

Observing the various energy sources just by comparing their power is just a sign you don't understand even the basics of the problem.

 

The main power source, if we want to phase out coal, is uranium nuclear fission. That's all we have. Nothing more. No fantasies about deuterium fusion, no fancy thorium reactors (they also need uranium) and certainly no solar photovoltaics.

[Elthy]

There you are again with your absolutes. We had this discussion several times, you know that using only fission has similar issues with stable grids, since they cant react to fast changes in demand. So for a grid made from nuclear powerplants you will need the same energy storage technology as for renewables, just a bit less. So it becomes an econnomical question: Whats cheaper?

Modern, safe nuclear power plants are quite expensive, so is permanent storage of that nasty waste. Renewables are also expensive and require a bit more energy storage for times with low wind/cloudy sky. Can you say which solution is cheaper? I doubt anyone can say which one is cheaper overall, but what i know is that renewables get cheaper every day, while nuclear gets more expensive (e.g. Hinkley Point C, Asse II).

 

And you tend to see solar photovoltaics as he main renewable energy source. Wind and biogas are more promising, solar just got popular among lots of people beacuse its something you can OWN and earn money with as a normal house owner...

Edited December 17, 2015 by Elthy

[katateochi]

I have a couple of questions / things to ponder, about renewable energy.  

If renewable (wind & solar in particular) where to be our favoured means of energy production, how much land would be required to house wind turbines and solar arrays in order to produce the energy required by our population?
I while back I did a (very rough) calc of the number of turbines needed to equate to the output of a single nuclear power plant.  It is something like 2000+ turbines required (and that is assuming there is wind).

Spoiler

	output capacity (MW)	efficiency (%)	Output
Wind	3	30	0.9
Nuclear	2200	90	1980

1980/0.9 = 2200

Fort Calhoun nuclear plant (1 of the smallest) - 500 MW
Palo Verde nuclear plant (1 of the largest) - 3900 MW
average is 2200 

Sources:
http://www.ewea.org/globalwindday/
http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/
http://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/how-much-electricity-does-typical-nuclear-power-plant-generate
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=3

With our rapidly increasing population size, land for both housing and food production is of increasing value (never mind environmental/wildlife considerations).  With each turbine requiring around 2-3 acres it seems that the resource of land is greatly at stake.  Can we afford the land requirements for wind power-production?
 

Wind power is regarded as a renewable energy source.  But is it really?
A turbine using wind to generate power logically must be reducing the energy of the wind that passes it.  Is that a factor worth considering?
A few turbines here and there will hardly have any measurable impact on the wind, but what about when you have enough turbines to power our societies requirements (let's say hypothetically we're going for the majority of power coming from wind)? Could that actually have a measurable impact on our weather systems?

 

And now a question about nuclear power 
Why the heck is Finland the ONLY country to have a proper nuclear waste disposal site?!?
By "proper" I mean a facility that requires no power to maintain, doesn't require maintenance and once full and sealed is designed to outlast the half life of uranium.  Onkalo (which incidentally means hiding place) is still in development but when complete will be the world's only such disposal site. And Finland have no intention of taking on other countries' waste (at least that was the last I heard).

Current "disposal" (storage) is fairly high cost, requiring power to maintain water baths where the waste is kept and requires constant supervision. Such sites pose a risk in case of natural disasters or war and really are just placeholders. Only one country has taken disposal of nuclear waste seriously.  That needs to change! 

 

[Bill Phil]

I think nuclear waste disposal isn't tajrn seriously because nuclear isn't taken seriously. If it were more common there would be greater reasons to store it in a good place.

[Bill Phil]

2 hours ago, Elthy said:

There you are again with your absolutes. We had this discussion several times, you know that using only fission has similar issues with stable grids, since they cant react to fast changes in demand. So for a grid made from nuclear powerplants you will need the same energy storage technology as for renewables, just a bit less. So it becomes an econnomical question: Whats cheaper?

Modern, safe nuclear power plants are quite expensive, so is permanent storage of that nasty waste. Renewables are also expensive and require a bit more energy storage for times with low wind/cloudy sky. Can you say which solution is cheaper? I doubt anyone can say which one is cheaper overall, but what i know is that renewables get cheaper every day, while nuclear gets more expensive (e.g. Hinkley Point C, Asse II).

 

And you tend to see solar photovoltaics as he main renewable energy source. Wind and biogas are more promising, solar just got popular among lots of people beacuse its something you can OWN and earn money with as a normal house owner...

Nuclear cost per kilowatt hour: about 2.4 cents.

Coal Cost per kilowatt hour: ~3.27

Solar cost per kilowatt hour: at the low end 12 cents, high end 30 cents

Which would you choose.

Found with a very quick googling.

[Spaceception]

On 12/14/2015, 2:57:12, legoclone09 said:

3 hours ago, katateochi said:

I have a couple of questions / things to ponder, about renewable energy.  

If renewable (wind & solar in particular) where to be our favoured means of energy production, how much land would be required to house wind turbines and solar arrays in order to produce the energy required by our population?
I while back I did a (very rough) calc of the number of turbines needed to equate to the output of a single nuclear power plant.  It is something like 2000+ turbines required (and that is assuming there is wind).

  Reveal hidden contents

	output capacity (MW)	efficiency (%)	Output
Wind	3	30	0.9
Nuclear	2200	90	1980

1980/0.9 = 2200

Fort Calhoun nuclear plant (1 of the smallest) - 500 MW
Palo Verde nuclear plant (1 of the largest) - 3900 MW
average is 2200 

Sources:
http://www.ewea.org/globalwindday/
http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/
http://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/how-much-electricity-does-typical-nuclear-power-plant-generate
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=3

With our rapidly increasing population size, land for both housing and food production is of increasing value (never mind environmental/wildlife considerations).  With each turbine requiring around 2-3 acres it seems that the resource of land is greatly at stake.  Can we afford the land requirements for wind power-production?
 

Wind power is regarded as a renewable energy source.  But is it really?
A turbine using wind to generate power logically must be reducing the energy of the wind that passes it.  Is that a factor worth considering?
A few turbines here and there will hardly have any measurable impact on the wind, but what about when you have enough turbines to power our societies requirements (let's say hypothetically we're going for the majority of power coming from wind)? Could that actually have a measurable impact on our weather systems?

 

And now a question about nuclear power 
Why the heck is Finland the ONLY country to have a proper nuclear waste disposal site?!?
By "proper" I mean a facility that requires no power to maintain, doesn't require maintenance and once full and sealed is designed to outlast the half life of uranium.  Onkalo (which incidentally means hiding place) is still in development but when complete will be the world's only such disposal site. And Finland have no intention of taking on other countries' waste (at least that was the last I heard).

Current "disposal" (storage) is fairly high cost, requiring power to maintain water baths where the waste is kept and requires constant supervision. Such sites pose a risk in case of natural disasters or war and really are just placeholders. Only one country has taken disposal of nuclear waste seriously.  That needs to change! 

 

I have a solution!

Most homes in the desert or near equator should get solar, but for high-energy needs nuclear fusion or thorium salt reactors are needed, they are safer and some I think can use nuclear waste as fuel. Molten salt reactors were being developed in the 50's or 60's but uranium was favored for some reason.

Wind turbines need a lot of room, yes, so we'd only be putting them along the coast (Where there aren't any fragile ecosystems), where they'd have lots of wind, and they won't take up any land area.

[Elthy]

I would like to know where those numbers come from. How old are they? Which costs are inculded (research, maintainance, deconstruction...)

Lets compare planned powerplants, you cant realy argue with 40 years old reactors which are not very safe:

Hinkley Point C:
This planned 3200MW powerplant will get 92,5 GBP pwer MWh, which is about 0,126€ per KWh. This price is guaranteed for 35 years and will be inflation adjusted.
I have no idea if/how the operator has to pay for deconstruction and waste disposal.

Generic on-shore wind powerplant in Germany, constructed 2015 (each year the guaranteed price is lowered):
According to the EEG (renewable energy law) they will get 0,089€ per KWh for 20 years, no idea if adjusted for inflation. If you plan to build such a wind powerplant you have to pay the money required for deconstrution and disposal into an escrow ccount (not sure if thats the right word), so its guaranteed there will be no additional costs for e.g. tax payers for decomission.

 

@katateochi: Totaly forgot to answer to you:
You calculate with 3MW per wind turbine, but the current standart (if you are building a new one) is 5-7MW, even up to 8MW offshore (which also has more like 50% runtime at full power compared to 30 onshore). Offshore is part of the solution to lower space required.

I dont know the numbers, but im sure that there is way, way more energy in the wind that we could ever tap to much. Even if we did, dont forget conventional powerplants have a similar effect, just in the opposite direction. They dont take energy out of the enviroment, they put new one in (hot water or air from cooling). With the warming earth i think taking energy out sounds a bit better...

Regarding nuclear waste disposal:
There are several factors which make it hard:
1. Almost none wants one in they backyard. There are reported cases where geolocical good areas in germany were ruled out because a politican lives nearby or gets elected there.
2. Its hard to find good spots. They are rare and also exploring requires quite much money, so noone want to pay for it and just waits until its not his problem anymore.
3. For additional safety you have to dig quite deep, but the energy comnpanys dont want to pay for that. They rather have something cheap that hold long enough that they wont live when problems happen (Asse 2!).
4. Its acutaly unkown if safe containment can be guaranteed for those millions of years required, there is simply no expierience on that topic.
 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Elthy

[Bill Phil]

Just google the cost per kilowatt. 

[Elthy]

Im not sure which one you mean. Its a complicated topic, just look at the wikipedia article which lists the cost for different countrys:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

It depends on lots of local factors, age of the powerplants, which costs you add to the price and much more. Just the numbers without circumstances are worthless.

[AngelLestat]

Nuclear will disappear faster than Fossil sources.
How I know this?  Because I understand all variables and because is already happening. Nuclear has 2 flaws, people don't want them around and is expensive.

From my point of view, all measures, economics, tech and investment are converging to a mix of fossil fuel with renewables, where the main source is renewables using hydrogen as storage.

-There are new cheap ways to produce hydrogen (with carbon capture that you can also sell) from fossil fuels.
-Renewables can produce all the energy they want meanwhile all excess is converted to hydrogen directly in each fuel station.
-The government will provide for free electrolyzers to fuel stations which will be added to the cost of renewable (which is still cheaper than nuclear).    

The last levelized energy cost study:
https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-analysis-90.pdf

[Elthy]

Sadly electrolysing hydrogen from water isnt viable yet, to expensive or inefficient. I hope it will become better in the next ~10 years, there is lots of research into that topic. For now there are other ways to buffer renewable energy. One is small batterys, ranging from 1KWh (often included in the DC-AC-converter of solar panels for houses) to larger ones that can provide power for days like Teslas powerwall. If we get intelligent electric meters and more flexible powerprices those will become way more attracitve, e.g. loading them over night with unused (and thus cheap) wind power...

[Robotengineer]

The main issue with renewables is that there is no way to store that energy cheaply and efficiently yet. Once we have a battery that can store a large amount of energy for a long period of time without deterioration, the transition to renewables will be quick and easy. Here is a link to a good news story on the battery issue, link.

[Shpaget]

How come no one considers the environmental impact of wind and solar? They are not as green as some would like you to think. I'd even argue that nuclear is far better for the environment than wind turbines.

[Elthy]

Which impact do you mean? The needed materials? Wind power plants killing lots of birds is a myth by the way, domestic cats kill several orders of magnitude more birds...

[lajoswinkler]

12 hours ago, katateochi said:

And now a question about nuclear power 
Why the heck is Finland the ONLY country to have a proper nuclear waste disposal site?!?
By "proper" I mean a facility that requires no power to maintain, doesn't require maintenance and once full and sealed is designed to outlast the half life of uranium.  Onkalo (which incidentally means hiding place) is still in development but when complete will be the world's only such disposal site. And Finland have no intention of taking on other countries' waste (at least that was the last I heard).

Current "disposal" (storage) is fairly high cost, requiring power to maintain water baths where the waste is kept and requires constant supervision. Such sites pose a risk in case of natural disasters or war and really are just placeholders. Only one country has taken disposal of nuclear waste seriously.  That needs to change! 

 

There is not need for it. If Finland was developed enough (or cared to advance in the field), it would reprocess the waste because that is not waste. Almost all of the "juicy stuff" that was inside when loaded is still inside after the cycle.

The only thing useless to us (at quantities present in waste) at this moment are highly radioactive fission products such as strontium-90, caesium-137. Concentrating those, vitrifying them and burying them is ok. But uranium? God, no. It's a pain in the ass to retrieve it from Earth, why should we throw it back?

 

5 hours ago, Shpaget said:

How come no one considers the environmental impact of wind and solar? They are not as green as some would like you to think. I'd even argue that nuclear is far better for the environment than wind turbines.

They get subsidized so they aren't astronomically expensive, but only very expensive.

Uranium nuclear fission is not only capable of producing copious amounts of base load power, but also has less detrimental effects on the environment and the grid. The site is way smaller, too.

Edited December 17, 2015 by DuoDex
Please avoid overtly political and rude comments.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

12 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

The very question is silly. Renewables can not possibly be the main source. Ever. This is why.

Renewables can not form the base load.

Observing the various energy sources just by comparing their power is just a sign you don't understand even the basics of the problem.

The main power source, if we want to phase out coal, is uranium nuclear fission. That's all we have. Nothing more. No fantasies about deuterium fusion, no fancy thorium reactors (they also need uranium) and certainly no solar photovoltaics.

I don't want to refute you, but I don't understand why solar panels can't provide power for the Earth.  My house runs entirely on solar, buying power when running very electricity-heavy appliances, and most of the time, selling power back. 

The EU uses 688 watts per person per year.  If the entire world (7 billion people) could live at EU standards, we'd need: 4.816e+12 watts total.  It costs US$0.70 per watt to buy a solar panel.  That's US$490, call it US$500, per person to support the entire world's population's electricity use.  Add a couple of commercial power plants (it doesn't matter what kind, since they will be used so little) and you can support the world's energy usage, IMO. 

Of course, this would involve world peace, plus world programs to distribute solar panels, which would cost US$3,500,000,000,000, which, if gawker.com is to be believed, means that facebook could fund this.