Best energy alternatives to stop global warming

[rtxoff]

If you're talking about hydroelectric power, like hell it doesn't depend on the weather. That water comes from precipitation deposited over a vast area, and unexpected reductions in inflow to a dam's reservoir can mean the dam needs to be run at less than max capacity (in a really bad situation, possibly even only a small fraction of capacity, or if the area has a drought, stopped entirely).

And what exactly does that mean for the energy production of such a facility? However i never heard of such an case.

Would it not also mean that there will be plenty of sun at such times?

Edited June 17, 2014 by gpisic

[lajoswinkler]

you forget the SOLAR TOWER that also can work day/night

http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/solar_tower.jpg

Whenever I encounter people who are all solar-hyped, they really have no idea about energy efficiency, costs, engineering, etc.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Vanamonde
Reaction image.

[AngelLestat]

Said wherever you want, the Solar Tower is already 100% funded. The construction begins at the end of this year in Arizona.

The tower would had 800 Mts with a capacity of 200Mw. They are also trying to close other deals for Texas, China and Chile.

[m4v]

Whenever I encounter people who are all solar-hyped, they really have no idea about energy efficiency, costs, engineering, etc.

Nobody here has an idea of anything if it isn't written in the Wikipedia, and you aren't the exception.

[theend3r]

If nuclear plants would be cost efficient, then maybe I would not be so against.

But their are not, and the risk that any of our already nuclear plants had an accidenct with their facilities or wastes in the next 20 years is too high. So why to add more future problems even if the new nuclear plants are more safe?

Yes, they are. I'm from Czech Republic and about one third of our power comes from nuclear powerplants. I'm quite experienced in those matters and nuclear power is FAR cheaper than coal and I daresay most other sources thanks to extremely low operating costs.

Fukushima and Chernobyl are labeled as the 2 most expensive/damage industrial accidennts from all time.

And you want thoudsand of them before said that Nuclear is unsafe..

Take a min and try to think what are you saying... Your nuclear fanatism makes you blind.

Nuclear power is still more than two times safer than anything else.

The rest is probably drivel too, but it's 2:14 am here and I can't be bothered to go through all that.

Btw I can't see this thread not getting locked soon.

[shynung]

And what exactly does that mean for the energy production of such a facility? However i never heard of such an case.

Would it not also mean that there will be plenty of sun at such times?

It would need to lower its power production, otherwise the dam would run out of water pretty fast.

Also, lack of rain does not always mean the sun is shining. In winter conditions, both the sun and the rain would be incapable to be used as a power source.

[phoenix_ca]

And what exactly does that mean for the energy production of such a facility? However i never heard of such an case.

Would it not also mean that there will be plenty of sun at such times?

It means it's subject to the weather. You said that they don't depend on weather.

And furthermore...what, we're supposed to have multiple sources of base load now? Is that what you're proposing? I makes little-to-no sense to invest in multiple power sources that can all on their own provide for all the power needed for an area, when instead you can have a solid base load generation like hydroelectric or nuclear supplemented with other sources.

And still, the base load question hasn't yet been answered in this thread. The most I saw was "import it from someone else". That's short-sighted and naive. For one, you'll just end-up shuffling-off the problem of base load generation to someone else, which basically amounts to "No nuclear reactors in my backyard, but yours will do fine." It also assumes that nation-states will all get along perfectly. Nuclear power (be it fission or fusion) is an efficient means for a nation to provide its own power supply. Over-dependence on neighbours is both a security risk and just general bad practice as it leaves you at the mercy of foreign powers. Just look at how much the USA is trying to get out from under the boot of foreign fossil fuel dependency, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia.

Nobody here has an idea of anything if it isn't written in the Wikipedia, and you aren't the exception.

The Solar Updraft Tower is on Wikipedia, but I don't see whatever point you're trying to make. Are you saying that if it's on Wikipedia people shouldn't know about it? Or that people never know about anything outside Wikipedia? Or...something else? Very confusing, and I get the sense you're just trying to get-out a snide ad hominem.

Edited June 18, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[Specialist290]

On the subject of heat, we of the moderation staff have noticed that the temperature is rising a fair bit in this thread. We know that this is a topic that a lot of posters are quite passionate about, and in and of itself that's not a bad thing, but there seems to be an undercurrent of passive-aggressive and dismissive attitudes toward anyone with an opposing viewpoint in quite a few of the most recent responses in this thread. Pointing out legitimate flaws in your opponent's argument is one thing, but accusing or implying that your opponents themselves are inferior or unintelligent because they "just don't get it" is neither productive to the discussion at hand nor behavior we consider acceptable.

We're all reasonable people here, I'm sure. Let's all keep a cool head, and attack the argument, not the person.

[Dodgey]

Gpisic, I mention you by name because I was asking what we could utilize as a base load if not for nuclear, a question which no one has answered yet. The kardashev scale, what does it have to do with anything. I'm not opposed to renewable energy, I think that it is the future but the fact remains that they are unsuitable for base load, that is where the conflict is in this thread. As it stands today nuclear energy is the best solution to the problem of base load in a green future. Chernobyl was a result of 70s Soviet mentality and extremely poor communication, as well as other mistakes made by people who where manning the plant at the time. Faults which are unable to occur today due to much more stringent policies and safety features. Fukushima again was the result of bureaucracy, the aftermath from it is very minimal, no one was killed and relatively little radiation was released.

With regards to the solar tower, at most it can supply power for 15 hours with no sun, not very good if you have bad weather, you still need a base load.

[PakledHostage]

I was asking what we could utilize as a base load if not for nuclear, a question which no one has answered yet.

On the contrary, I think it has been answered many times in this thread. It just keeps getting dismissed "Fox News style" by misrepresenting or ignoring what was said and dismissing peoples posts with some variation of "it won't work, you stupid hippie".

There is a lot of work going into energy storage technology, be it flow batteries, using renewable energy to generate methane or hydrogen, etc. These technologies are not yet mature enough to be practical on a large scale but that doesn't mean we won't one day be able to store enough energy to allow us to use renewable sources for base load. Either by using technology based on these ideas or something else that hasn't been thought of yet. (i.e. using quinones in flow batteries is a very recent development and seems to show a lot of promise.)

It really comes down to time frames. If we are talking about alternatives that are available today, or alternatives that may be available in the future.

Edit: I should add that I live in a part of the world that already gets most of its power from a renewable source: hydroelectric. There is no nuclear power station to pick up the slack. Hydroelectric power supplies the base load, even in the typically dry late summer months.

Edited June 18, 2014 by PakledHostage

[shynung]

There is a lot of work going into energy storage technology, be it flow batteries, using renewable energy to generate methane or hydrogen, etc. These technologies are not yet mature enough to be practical on a large scale but that doesn't mean we won't one day be able to store enough energy to allow us to use renewable sources for base load. Either by using technology based on these ideas or something else that hasn't been thought of yet. (i.e. using quinones in flow batteries is a very recent development and seems to show a lot of promise.)

It really comes down to time frames. If we are talking about alternatives that are available today, or alternatives that may be available in the future.

Edit: I should add that I live in a part of the world that already gets most if its power from a renewable source: hydroelectric. There is no nuclear power station to pick up the slack. Hydroelectric power supplies the base load, even in the typically dry late summer months.

Hydroelectric power, given a reliable water source, could be a base load generator. However, not all countries have access to these; think of those living in desert-like environments where there are very little water around. An ideal power source in that context must be usable practically everywhere, and be powerful and reliable enough to be used as base load generator.

As one user in this thread posted before, renewable energy solutions must be tailored to the specific resources a nationstate/region has at hand. Power storage solutions must have enough capacity to cover the times when the primary source is inactive, which means having to design the system to match the power source capabilities.

Excluding non-renewable, weather/climate/environment-independent generators (such as fossil fuels and nuclear sources), power generation solutions isn't a one-size-fits-all affair.

By the way, I'm somewhat surprised no one has mentioned waste-to-energy plants as of this post.

Edited June 18, 2014 by shynung

[Seret]

You're right, I'm a moron that has no concept of anything scientific.

Look, you made a dubious statement, got called on it and proved unable to back it up. You can interpret that as a personal slight, or you can realise that you're just being held to the same standards of proof as everybody else here. Up to you.

Whenever I encounter people who are all solar-hyped, they really have no idea about energy efficiency, costs, engineering, etc.

This is an unhelpful comment, and beneath you lajoswinkler. Broad-brush ad hominems like this will just turn an interesting discussion into a childish argument.

Regarding solar updraught towers the argument against them is purely economic. Some perfectly functional prototypes were built in Spain (IIRC?) and proved the concept. The problem is that the efficiency of regular PV has gone up and the cost has nosedived so that it's now much more cost effective to just spend the same money on a conventional PV farm.

[phoenix_ca]

Aye, looking at the WP page about them the chimney solar plants are expected to get all of 200MW for something on the order of a 1,000m tower (I just...WHAT? That's a megaproject in-and-of-iteself, and only the Kingdom Tower is planned to reach such a height) and a 7km diameter around. That's one hell of an aviation hazard, which would necessitate restrictions on airspace (very much like how we deal with other tall buildings and mountains), along with a gigantic land footprint. For a measly 200MW. Plop a dozen nuclear reactors down in a fraction of that space and you could output 12GW of power. I certainly can't see China springing for that any time soon.

These ideas about better storage tech are nice and all, but they don't exist yet. Cars being used as storage requires people to actually have electric cars in the first place and for so many people to have them that it makes sense to use them in such a way. We aren't even close to that yet, so at best its an interesting thought experiment of what could be. Nuclear power provides piles of power right now which enables developing nations to greatly increase the quality of life of their citizens, for a significant capital investment sure, but paltry operating costs.

And yes, hydroelectric can indeed be used in a base load manner. It's actually quite reliable, but you still need the geography for it, and as has been mentioned before there are some nasty environmental impacts of flooding a huge portion of land.

[78stonewobble]

We need to keep improving solar panels. I would sincerely hope that the final development of solar energy is to not use panels at all, but to use genetically engineered plants that we can actually draw energy from.

Earth is utterly covered with living solar-collectors, and they are far more efficient at it than man-made solar panels.

While I do think that sounds very cool...

But isn't using plants for electrical use, exactly what we do when we burn them in our powerplants and release co2?

Coal is fossilized plants and/or sunflower oil...

Edited June 18, 2014 by 78stonewobble

[Seret]

Earth is utterly covered with living solar-collectors, and they are far more efficient at it than man-made solar panels.

Oops, didn't spot this earlier. They're actually not. Plants are only about 7% efficient, current off-the-shelf PV tech is over double that and produces a higher grade energy source. The neat trick plants have is that they sequester carbon while doing it, so I suppose you could give them the edge on that basis.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Seret

[phoenix_ca]

Oops, didn't spot this earlier. They're actually not. Plants are only about 7% efficient, current off-the-shelf PV tech is over double that. The neat trick plants have is that they sequester carbon while doing it, so I suppose you could give them the edge on that basis.

Indeed. Photosynthesis is pretty amazing, but boy oh boy is it ever over-designed (settle down, it's just an expression; evolution made this mess), and does some astoundingly stupid and inefficient things:

"Complicated, inefficient, and confusing." A rather apt statement. The case in point is RuBisCo, which is just ridiculously bad at what its supposed to do. That and you'll see at the end just how remarkably little energy actually gets to leave the cycle and go do something useful. O.o

Plants are amazing, because they work, despite what would be the engineering equivalent of building a bridge out of chocolate.

Edited June 18, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[78stonewobble]

1. Your replys 1-2 are already answered. If you only way to continue with this discussion is giving fake facts and nonsense then is over.

2. First, there is no way to make something super safe, or it has a super cost, or is not super safe.

Mostly all important accidents are just a a chain of unfortunate events. Not becouse is earthquake safe means that nothing can happen.

3. First, a natural disaster is just a natural disaster, there is nothing that we can do. But when an eartquake or tsunami strike, then with the time you can rebuild the town, but if remains radioactive then is other issue.

1. No, they were glossed over and ignored. The lives one, has it's basis in a who report's future predictions, which doesn't seem to be a problem for you, since your own arguments have sometimes been based upon predicting. ie. future taxation for many years ahead. The thing about actually managing to provide a secure electrical and heat supply purely by solar, wind, geothermal or wave production for an entire industrialised nation is a problem that has not been solved anywhere.

And it certainly IS a fact that the Onagawa nuclear power plant successfully withstood both the earthquake and tsunami, even if it was closer to the earthquake than the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

2. Define super safe... As in safer than most other things? Then nuclear power is very safe. But you're right nothing is completely safe and I've never claimed nuclear power was completely safe, but neither is solar-, wind-, geothermal- or wave-power.

Again with the radioactivity and the "big" numbers. People get blinded by "big" numbers.

Here is one for you. Staying our course and only slightly augmenting our power supplies, not replacing them, with token amounts of renewable energy sources is continuing a policy that will indirectly kill 125.000.000 people over 25 years.

In that comparison, nuclear power is allmost thousands of times safer.

If we look at direct deaths:

"Does any energy source kill a significant number of people? In a post from last year, we discussed human fatalities by energy source, and how coal is the biggest killer in U.S. energy at 15,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, while nuclear is the least at zero. Wind energy kills a mere 100 people or so per trillion kWhrs, the majority from falls during maintenance activities.

We in the United States actually care more about this kind of thing than most other countries, so our numbers are the lowest in the world. The global averages in energy-related deaths are significantly higher than in America, with coal at 100,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs (China is the worst), natural gas at 4,000 deaths, biomass at 24,000, solar at 440, and wind at 150. Using the worst-case scenarios from Chernobyl and Fukushima brings nuclear up to a whopping 90 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, still the lowest of any energy source."

3. If a natural disaster is just a natural disaster and we can do nothing about it, then the fukushima accident doesn't even count. We should also stop earthquake proofing buildings in earthquake regions and cancel the pacific tsunami warnings. Now, we don't even have to resettle an tsunami or flood unsafe city (which actually would be a good thing).

[peadar1987]

Exactly! When people say "you can never make nuclear 100% safe", I tend to agree and then say "so what?". Apply the same standards to the coal industry and let's see where it gets you.

Incidentally, the greatest loss of life associated with the nuclear industry, as far as I'm aware, is slips, trips and falls inside plants. Which makes them approximately as dangerous as a large warehouse.

[Elthy]

You forgot about 50.000 liquidators who died from radiation after helping at chernobyl.

Also i have no idea how people die from solar panels. Maybe they fell from the roof while monting them but same accidents happen when building nuclear power plants...

[lajoswinkler]

This is an unhelpful comment, and beneath you lajoswinkler. Broad-brush ad hominems like this will just turn an interesting discussion into a childish argument.

Regarding solar updraught towers the argument against them is purely economic. Some perfectly functional prototypes were built in Spain (IIRC?) and proved the concept. The problem is that the efficiency of regular PV has gone up and the cost has nosedived so that it's now much more cost effective to just spend the same money on a conventional PV farm.

My reaction was appropriate for the level of ignorance encountered, and I seriously don't understand why is everyone so uptight about it. Here we are, being trolled like mad by people who have zero knowledge of physics and energy distribution basics, and someone makes a facepalm after careful writing, and gets an infraction and people get all mad at him. Honestly, what a circus. But ok, I'll let it go.

Yes, the concept works, but in order to make serious power, you need a huge structure, best somewhere in the torrid zone. It should be a large stack of at least 1 km in height. I wasn't born in 21st century and I was alive and sane while various looney projects began emerging online before the era of Youtube. These same discussions were held even back then. What happened with solar tower idea? Nothing. The costs of such thing are enormous, much, much, much greater than building a fission power plant of the same capacity.

Some people here need a serious reality check and basic education in natural sciences. It's not a sin to point that out. But thank you for the first sentence, I appreciate that.

You forgot about 50.000 liquidators who died from radiation after helping at chernobyl.

Also i have no idea how people die from solar panels. Maybe they fell from the roof while monting them but same accidents happen when building nuclear power plants...

And that's a big, fat lie.

Edited June 18, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[rtxoff]

And that's a big, fat lie.

To debunk something as a lie you will have to show some evidence against that "lie".

I am curious what evidence you have regarding this matter?

Edit: I hope for you that some or the remaining families don't get ever the chance to meet you in real life. Who knows what would be the methods of teaching you how many liquidators really died from that accident. Luckily we are all protected by some shielding coat called internet and we can't be held responsible for the pain we inflict to some persons by saying some stupid things.

Edited June 18, 2014 by gpisic

[m4v]

The Solar Updraft Tower is on Wikipedia, but I don't see whatever point you're trying to make. Are you saying that if it's on Wikipedia people shouldn't know about it? Or that people never know about anything outside Wikipedia? Or...something else? Very confusing, and I get the sense you're just trying to get-out a snide ad hominem.

Yes, my comment was an ad hominem. But read the text I was quoting, lajoswinkler's reply was an ad hominem as well so I was just returning the favor. Why were you so quick in picking up my fallacy while ignoring his?

But my comment has some truth, lets be honest here, most of us don't talk from experience nor we have the formation for actually tackle energy problems. Lets not assume we known the whole truth about this subject.

[Dodgey]

To debunk something as a lie you will have to show some evidence against that "lie".

I am curious what evidence you have regarding this matter?

47 workers died in the clean up and disaster and 4000 people are expected to die from cancer caused due the radiation. Very shy of 50000.

While I do think that we all need to become a bit more objective in this discussion I can't blame lajoswinkler for the reaction that was given. It's akin to saying 100s of people have died from Fukushima.

Edit

Common guys. Let's stick to the arguments here.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Dodgey

[andrewas]

Yes, tens of thousands of liquidators are dead. But while that sounds like a lot, this if from a group of between 600K and one million, so we expect thousands of deaths over a thirty year period. The WHO estimate is under four thousand deaths related to Chernobyl.

[Elthy]

I had the number from a german scientist leading an institute about radiation. I wasnt able to find the direct souce but he is qouted by wikipedia and the german green party, so i think its the reasonable upper limit of estimated deaths...

Additional we have a rise in the risk of cancer and other hard to pin down long time results. No matter what, its worse than anything that could ever happen with green energy.