Solar FREAKIN' roadways discussion

[AngelLestat]

Those predictions are based on the tokamak, which is just absurdly problematic. Dense plasma focus and polywell fusion devices have a very real chance of being practical in under a decade.

Agree, but we still new in the laser approximation, you know how these things are.

First you get an prototype that it works ( generating 5% more energy that you waste in few min).

Then you get something that generate 10% in 1 hr, then years pass and you get something that generate 80% 12 hrs.

You build a comercial model, but its still very complex and expensive. So many years pass until you find a new shorcut to produce fusion using nanotec.

I hope being wrong.

But we dont need to let all our hope in 1 technology that we dont know for sure how hard is to achieve.

Bring on the radiation? It's not like I was saying you'd want to live there, just that people's reaction to nuclear disaster tend to be clouded in fear of a thing that can kill but they cannot see.

How it must be, the danger is real and it can be measure it.

The fact that you dont know for sure if you will be ok or not (also your family) is not something that worth to risk when renewable energy is cheaper and inexhaustible.

I would gladly tour the Chernobyl exclusion zone for the sake of science. The radiation there isn't all that terrible. A few milliseiverts above background; big freaking whoop. When there's science to be done, a little radiation isn't going to kill you. Radiation workers have a yearly dose limit of 50mSv. Scientific advancement and the progression of human society are worth that small price.

What experiments you want to make there? I do not think that a lizard has had time to become godzillla

I can't tell what you're trying to say. Are you saying you should put poles in people's crop fields? Do you have any idea what kind of havoc that could wreak? What do you do when they fall over? Just put your planting on hold? Sure, it's not like planting seasons are...seasonal.

I dont know what is the right translate. When I chosse the word Pole I mean "guidepost" to transport the wires in height..

Second, how often a guidepost fall? But you dont need them. The best its if you keep your wind generator close to the grid, in the border of fields or roads.

You dont need to have a wind farm. Is more efficient if you have them in different location to save in transmission losses.

Unless you have proof, I've got to write this off as paranoia. As to Canada, yes, we have Alberta that loves to extract from the tar sands, but you know what? We don't even use most of that crap. The Americans do, and China wants in. We're a nation that earns its wealth through natural resources; I won't apologize for that, as many nations do. China does it with heavy metals, South American nations have done it with crude oil and precious metals.

Look, before you misunderstand me, let me clear you that I know what kind of country Canada is. In fact it was always my favorite place to live since kid.

But what I want to said, is that accidents happens in all the world; secure measures are skipped. No country is exempt of flaws or human error. The benefic of Canada and Germany is that you dont have many natural disasters.

As I pointed-out earlier, nuclear power, when properly managed and designed, is ridiculously safe. The problems come when you have poor design and crap management.

They are still a time bomb, you can have the detonator well insulated, but it is still a bomb.

You need to deal with radiation waste, mine and enrich the uranium, it needs many workers all with high salary due to risk, > cost than renewable, etc.

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

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-16/new-wind-solar-power-cheaper-than-nuclear-option-study-shows.html

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/wind-and-solar-generation-half-the-cost-of-nuclear-95493

http://www.agora-energiewende.org/topics/optimisation-of-the-overall-system/detail-view/article/klimaschutz-wird-mit-erneuerbaren-deutlich-preiswerter-als-mit-atomkraft/

Couple points.

Common sense is not an argument for anything apart for the existence of oxymorons.

Wind and solar can't be used for base load because they aren't a continuous power source. That's why they can't completely replace coal.

All my arguments are detailed, if you dint find nothing to correct or reply is the proof of that.

First, Thermal solar produce energy day and night. Wind blows at all times in different locations, so if wind does not blow in one place, for sure would blow in another one. Electric cars can help to storage energy when you dont needed. Many countries like Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway had almost the 50% of their energy consumption using renowable.

They had complex software to predict energy consumption by zone and time, wind conditions in the whole country, etc.

Your points are made with too much empty rhetoric and too much emotion. Nuclear power is fine. Neither Chernobyl nor Fukushima are successful arguments against it.

Wind generator cost half than nuclear, they are renowable and safe.

So fukushima and chernobyl or other accidents are not good arguments against? What else you need? Blow up half planet? This is stupid.

Before we go off into a discussion of other power sources, let us not forget what the implementation of these road ways would cause. I could easily see an Orion type situation in the Infrastructure sector; One project could take the vast majority of the funding, leaving very little for invaluable maintenance...

That would not happen becouse nobody will invest in something like this. Is clearly a joke.

[mdatspace]

Actually, that's a maybe. Specifically these concerns come from fracking, which might help cause earthquakes. If true, they might be small enough to ignore, or the might be so big that geothermal near fault lines is a terrible idea (which is a problem since most of the best places for geothermal are right on fault lines). We just don't have enough data.

We have enough data. Most geothermal plants are located on hot rock, not fault lines. A good example? The geysers.

[Seret]

I don't like solar power because as people have said, it's pretty pathetic at generating power. That's why I believe fusion power is the way to go for the future

Future energy systems aren't a zero-sum game, there's no one energy source that will "win". Our demands are such that we'll need a diverse energy mix to meet them. We'll need nuclear (whether fission or fusion), and renewables and fossils fuels (particularly in transport) to meet our needs.

As for not being able to put wind turbines in farmland, that's just silly. It's done routinely. The whole wind sector in the UK was kickstarted by a farmer getting annoyed with official procrastination and importing some turbines from Denmark to put on his land. Do a Google image search for something like "wind turbine farmland" if you don't believe me. It's probably how most on-shore turbines are built.

http://solarroadways.com/military.shtml

Lol, he's really trying to hit that "mad inventor in a shed" meme, isn't he?

[vger]

So fukushima and chernobyl or other accidents are not good arguments against? What else you need? Blow up half planet? This is stupid.

The ratio of accidents is nowhere near high enough to declare nuclear power unsafe.

The kind of paranoia that spreads after even one incident is staggering. All school buses must now stop in front of train tracks because ONE bus got hit by a train when the warning gates failed. One.

[78stonewobble]

1. Lol, WTF? What lives? How a Fission reactor may save lives against renowable energy?

2. With common sense, green technologies start to have benefics in many countries, there is an added value to the energy that is produced with renowable resources. It has to be take it into account in the price when you sell that energy.

The same happens with organic food. The study that I am talking about is the main study that is delivery to all invesors in that ruble. I guess it has its central in Harvard.

1. Global warming is estimated to indirectly cost 5 million lives every year from the year 2025-2050. That's 125 million lives over all. That's by keeping coal and driving cars. Adding sun panels and windmills is actually adding pollution due to manufacturing, transportation and so on. Nuclear power would actually replace that biggest polluter and save us from adding pollution with sun panels and windmills. It's too late now to reverse the ongoing effects, but if we'd begun going nuclear in the 60's and 70's we wouldn't have killed all those 125 million people. But here we are 50+ years later and we're still not replacing the big ass coal plants.

2. "How to predict future taxation? ... Yeah, well all it took here was one government change and 4 years and the sun panel market changed for the worse.

PS: I wonder how much land has been "rendered inhabitable by humans" due to windmills. They make noise you know, enough to negatively affect sleep and significantly lowers real estate value.

Edited June 12, 2014 by 78stonewobble

[Reddragon]

PS: I wonder how much land has been "rendered inhabitable by humans" due to windmills. They make noise you know, enough to negatively affect sleep and significantly lowers real estate value.

Germany is building windmill parks along it's shoreline in the sea. That doesn't make any land 'inhabitable'. Of course, not every country could do the same but it's a good solution and it could be exported too.

[ZetaX]

It is also nonsense that we have a problem with land getting inhabitable due to noise. We don't need as much land as we do for growing crops. And I doubt the crops care. Apart from that, it probably isn't worse than anywhere in a city.

[Bagface145]

I really think thunderf00t does a good job explaining why they aren't possible. I really love the idea, but it's just not plausible

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

[pxi]

I think that in the context of discussing the radiation surrounding Chernobyl, some may find the following youtuber interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bionerd23

Therein you will find her literally frolicking through parts of the exclusion zone, digging up bits of nuclear fuel from the ground. With her hands.

You want to know the kicker? She recieved less radiation on her Chernobyl trip, than on a trip to a Brazilian beach.

Edited June 12, 2014 by pxi

[xcorps]

Wind generator cost half than nuclear, they are renowable and safe.

If you could point me to a wind generator that produces as much electricity as a nuclear plant...

So fukushima and chernobyl or other accidents are not good arguments against? What else you need? Blow up half planet? This is stupid.

In addition to Vger's, accurate comment, I'd like to point out that there was Zero loss of life due to Fukushima, and the loss of life at Chernobyl was less than 30. There were more fatalities in the wind industry in England in 2011 and 2012 than the worst 2 nuclear energy events in history. In fact, wind has 150 deaths per trillion KWH but nuclear has only 90 (INCLUDING Chernobyl).

So we should shut down wind, Right? Because the ecological impact is also pretty severe.

[Seret]

I'd like to point out that there was Zero loss of life due to Fukushima

IIRC there were two workers killed at the plant during the attempts to manage the incident (although not due to radiation). There would (assuming the linear no threshold model) also be some extra deaths expected whenever you release a significant amount of radioactivity, although at the levels of Fukushima they wouldn't be directly detectable over normal cancer rates.

However, in the context of the surrounding tsunami disaster that was occurring and killed many thousands of people, the release of radiation from Fukushima was almost completely inconsequential.

[phoenix_ca]

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

That page pegs the total cost of nuclear power as less than solar and offshore wind, not more.

We have enough data. Most geothermal plants are located on hot rock, not fault lines. A good example? The geysers.

I said most of the best places for geothermal is near fault lines, not the actual plants themselves. You need to into read harder.

[ZetaX]

The total cost of nuclear is somewhat off by not accounting (or not being able to account) for the cost of century-long storage.

[phoenix_ca]

The total cost of nuclear is somewhat off by not accounting (or not being able to account) for the cost of century-long storage.

You stick it in concrete. It's not like you need to keep the lights on or something. Or even have lights.

[ZetaX]

Just sticking it in conrete won't work. You need to throw it somewhere safe, and the past has shown that it happens way to often that it needs to be relocated due to ground water, fractures or whatever.

[AngelLestat]

The ratio of accidents is nowhere near high enough to declare nuclear power unsafe.

The kind of paranoia that spreads after even one incident is staggering. All school buses must now stop in front of train tracks because ONE bus got hit by a train when the warning gates failed. One.

There is 435 Nuclear reactors in the world, 99 of them had an accident. This mean 1 each 5. If you only take into account the major disasters with INES>4 is 16. This mean 1 each 27 had a major disaster.

Now lets compare it with other activities that are considered dangerous like oil transportation by sea.

There was 7600 considerable accidentes in history, so if we take that number and we figure out how possible is that 1 ship had an accident in its life-span is a lot lower than the nuclear plant example.

What you would said next? That war is safe?

1. Global warming is estimated to indirectly cost 5 million lives every year from the year 2025-2050. That's 125 million lives over all. That's by keeping coal and driving cars. Adding sun panels and windmills is actually adding pollution due to manufacturing, transportation and so on. Nuclear power would actually replace that biggest polluter and save us from adding pollution with sun panels and windmills. It's too late now to reverse the ongoing effects, but if we'd begun going nuclear in the 60's and 70's we wouldn't have killed all those 125 million people. But here we are 50+ years later and we're still not replacing the big ass coal plants.

So you are saying that if we add wind generators to remplace coal plants we are adding more pollution than remplace the coal plant with a new nuclear reactor???

I already told you, wind generators cost the half of a nuclear reactor for the same power output. Also the cost is a good guide to measure the pollution produced in the manufacture process.

2. "How to predict future taxation? ... Yeah, well all it took here was one government change and 4 years and the sun panel market changed for the worse.

PS: I wonder how much land has been "rendered inhabitable by humans" due to windmills. They make noise you know, enough to negatively affect sleep and significantly lowers real estate value.

About predict future taxation, I refused to explain something so simple again.

Noice?? That is your last card?

And why you would had trouble to sleep? Someone would install a wind turbine in your house roof? You dont have any road or car in from of your house?

If someone wants to put a wind turbine in your farm, they paid you 3000 U$S each for month. Seems a really good deal. I never hear nobody being paided for live close to a traffic road.

What about the kitegen approach, they produce noice too?

It is also nonsense that we have a problem with land getting inhabitable due to noise. We don't need as much land as we do for growing crops. And I doubt the crops care. Apart from that, it probably isn't worse than anywhere in a city.

How my link videos show, you are correct.

I think that in the context of discussing the radiation surrounding Chernobyl, some may find the following youtuber interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bionerd23

Therein you will find her literally frolicking through parts of the exclusion zone, digging up bits of nuclear fuel from the ground. With her hands.

You want to know the kicker? She recieved less radiation on her Chernobyl trip, than on a trip to a Brazilian beach.

I can show you many videos of "scientist" that give prof that Global Warming is a myth. What is that mean? It means that someone paid them money or they are dumb.

Every time that I post data, it was from International Organizations, what are yours sources? Tabloids, bloogers, solitary researchers?

And even if now is habitable, what was the cost to relocate an entire city? Without count the multiple death.

If you could point me to a wind generator that produces as much electricity as a nuclear plant...

OMG, I really need to explain this?

Nobody is saying that a single wind generator produce as a nuclear reactor!

I am saying that 1GW Wind Farm cost less money than 1GW nuclear plant.

There is no country in the world where Nuclear energy cost less than Wind. In some places is HALF the price of nuclear.

Is clear enoght?

I can give you the link of the world nuclear sociaty (they promote nuclear of course), in that page they show that wind energy cost a 15% more than nuclear, but in small letters they also said that all external cost as operation, uranium and wastes, maintenance are not in included in the cost.

And their use wind prices from 5 years old.

I already publish all different energy cost from trusted sources.

In addition to Vger's, accurate comment, I'd like to point out that there was Zero loss of life due to Fukushima, and the loss of life at Chernobyl was less than 30. There were more fatalities in the wind industry in England in 2011 and 2012 than the worst 2 nuclear energy events in history. In fact, wind has 150 deaths per trillion KWH but nuclear has only 90 (INCLUDING Chernobyl).

So we should shut down wind, Right? Because the ecological impact is also pretty severe.

HAHAHAHAHAHA LOL X3

I do not know whether to laugh or mourn. How can you be so naive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll

"4,000 fatalities[1][2] – Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine, April 26, 1986. 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers and nine children with thyroid cancer) and it is estimated that there were 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people.[3]

The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[5] A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[6] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[7] A disputed Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[8]"

Only 28 years have passed since the accident, so the list is not complete.

How can you prof if someone die by natural cancer or by chernobyl causes?

Easy, you had statistics from the average of cancer death in some location, if that average increase drastically there is only one explanation.

Phoenix_ca: That page pegs the total cost of nuclear power as less than solar and offshore wind, not more.

That is the total system cost from OFF SHORE. What about ON SHORE? is always less like I SAID.

In fact you can see more values down when it said that the cost of mw/h is less than half in Wind.

Edited June 12, 2014 by AngelLestat

[The Jedi Master]

Ignore, I did bad math and now I look stupid.

Edited June 12, 2014 by The Jedi Master
see above

[Red Iron Crown]

Lets all just stop for a moment and think about this.

Total length of all roadways in America: 6,341,421 km

Average price of one (SMALL) solar panel: $9.99

Average size of one solar panel: 1X1 meters

Total Price: $63,414,210 (if I did my math right)

In a recession. Think about it.

Your numbers are way off. You've only put a single $10 panel on each km of roadway.

[The Jedi Master]

Your numbers are way off. You've only put a single $10 panel on each km of roadway.

Whoops...

[Duxwing]

There is 435 Nuclear reactors in the world, 99 of them had an accident. This mean 1 each 5. If you only take into account the major disasters with INES>4 is 16. This mean 1 each 27 had a major disaster.

An INES >4 rating is not a "major disaster": it is an "accident with local consequences," at worst killing a few. For a major disaster, see INES >5.

Now lets compare it with other activities that are considered dangerous like oil transportation by sea.

Let's not: we're comparing power sources, not activities in general. Let's instead consider wind power. Ignoring the Chernobyl accident's extra cancer deaths because the estimates thereof vary from four thousand to almost a million and could make the number of deaths from any power source infinite, I found that nuclear power accidents have killed fewer people in history (136) than wind power accidents killed last year (~160). Should wind power keep killing at this rate (which actually will increase with the number of turbines) and we include the extra cancer deaths from Chernobyl, wind power will out-kill nuclear power in twenty-five years.

So you are saying that if we add wind generators to remplace coal plants we are adding more pollution than remplace the coal plant with a new nuclear reactor???

Nuclear power plants produce almost no pollution because they are few, power themselves, and yearly each produce about a few tons of waste--replacement parts and ludicrious safety standards included. Whereas wind turbines require constant, expensive maintenance and must be built by the hundreds, further increasing cost to life, limb, and ledger.

I already told you, wind generators cost the half of a nuclear reactor for the same power output. Also the cost is a good guide to measure the pollution produced in the manufacture process.

And where will they be built? Also, coal is far cheaper than wind and produces enormous pollution.

About predict future taxation, I refused to explain something so simple again.

Noice?? That is your last card?

And why you would had trouble to sleep? Someone would install a wind turbine in your house roof? You dont have any road or car in from of your house?

If someone wants to put a wind turbine in your farm, they paid you 3000 U$S each for month. Seems a really good deal. I never hear nobody being paided for live close to a traffic road.

What about the kitegen approach, they produce noice too?

A wind turbine is not only noisy but also can just fall over, crushing whatever lies beneath it and partly exploding into shrapnel; they therefore render huge swaths of land uninhabitable to all but the many people foolishly living near them.

I can show you many videos of "scientist" that give prof that Global Warming is a myth. What is that mean? It means that someone paid them money or they are dumb.

Every time that I post data, it was from International Organizations, what are yours sources? Tabloids, bloogers, solitary researchers?

And even if now is habitable, what was the cost to relocate an entire city? Without count the multiple death.

-We can say the same to you about your scientists.

-See my data.

-Chernobyl was wisely not built near a city.

OMG, I really need to explain this?

Nobody is saying that a single wind generator produce as a nuclear reactor!

I am saying that 1GW Wind Farm cost less money than 1GW nuclear plant.

There is no country in the world where Nuclear energy cost less than Wind. In some places is HALF the price of nuclear.

Is clear enoght?

I can give you the link of the world nuclear sociaty (they promote nuclear of course), in that page they show that wind energy cost a 15% more than nuclear, but in small letters they also said that all external cost as operation, uranium and wastes, maintenance are not in included in the cost.

And their use wind prices from 5 years old.

I already publish all different energy cost from trusted sources.

Is money more important than the workers' lives? I would gladly pay more for safe power: would you?

HAHAHAHAHAHA LOL X3

I do not know whether to laugh or mourn. How can you be so naive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll

"4,000 fatalities[1][2] – Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine, April 26, 1986. 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers and nine children with thyroid cancer) and it is estimated that there were 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people.[3]

The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[5] A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[6] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[7] A disputed Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[8]"

Only 28 years have passed since the accident, so the list is not complete.

How can you prof if someone die by natural cancer or by chernobyl causes?

Easy, you had statistics from the average of cancer death in some location, if that average increase drastically there is only one explanation.

While some people gawked at Chernobyl and its staggering death toll, wind power crushed them: literally. Wind accidents are routine and expensive, and at the current rate of wind power expansion, we will have to either consign huge swaths of land to power generation or literally live under the blades.

-Duxwing

[vger]

IIRC there were two workers killed at the plant during the attempts to manage the incident (although not due to radiation). There would (assuming the linear no threshold model) also be some extra deaths expected whenever you release a significant amount of radioactivity, although at the levels of Fukushima they wouldn't be directly detectable over normal cancer rates.

However, in the context of the surrounding tsunami disaster that was occurring and killed many thousands of people, the release of radiation from Fukushima was almost completely inconsequential.

It's not even really fair to count Fukishima as a "nuclear disaster," at least in terms of excuses to not keep using nuclear power. From that perspective, it would be just as logical to say we can't have nuke plants because a meteor might hit one. Fukishima was more or less a perfect storm.

[3_bit]

I think that these would be expensive. Fine, they may pay for themselves... but remember lighting up those LEDs at night will BURN through power. I think they might barely make breakeven just for power output.

[Duxwing]

I think that these would be expensive. Fine, they may pay for themselves... but remember lighting up those LEDs at night will BURN through power. I think they might barely make breakeven just for power output.

My hideously-bad, ignorant estimate indicates that the panels would waste enormous amounts of electricity:

A high-power LED uses one watt.

Let night, on average, last twelve hours.

A high power LED therefore uses twelve watt-hours per day.

Let each panel have five LEDs.

Each panel therefore uses sixty watt-hours per day.

Sunlight provides ~1kW/m^2

Let each panel have an area of 0.1m^2 and an efficiency of 0.3

Each panel therefore produces ~33 watt-hours per day.

60 watt-hours/day - 33 watt-hours/day = -27 watt-hours/day

-Duxwing

[ZetaX]

And there is absolutely no reason to have every panel shining it's LED light all night. Thus no energy lost here.

[Duxwing]

And there is absolutely no reason to have every panel shining it's LED light all night. Thus no energy lost here.

What would the panels' LEDs do instead?

-Duxwing