Nuclear energy: for or against?

[BruceW]

...and then it gets night and you try to use your average 897 GW to operate a single light bulb.
The US has certainly enough desert area for PV. Assuming those deserts are suitable for it (I don't know which fraction will have issues with sand). But then you still have the high costs and the storage issue. And many countries don't have so many deserts.

I guess the problem is that at the moment, there are more commercially advantageous ways of making electricity. Maybe in a few years when fossil fuels run out, such projects will be commercially more viable (as well as nuclear power). But ideally we wouldn't want to use all our fossil fuels and pollute the world that much with them. So then the problem is if we can motivate ourselves enough to choose the less commercially viable options, and/or to invest more into research into making green technologies more commercially viable.

 

[jadair1]

Exactly. If I would have a way to generate infinite amounts of antimatter without costs (both money and energy), and if I can use them in a power plant with 10% efficiency, I don't care about that value at all. To generate more power, I would just produce and burn more antimatter.


jadair1: please surround quotes with [noparse][/noparse]-tags. Don't pretend that this text is from you.

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that text was from me.

I thought it was apparent from the link I posted with the excerpt taken from it and the preface from the other stating:

From the Hitachi Power Group: etc.

I do not imagine how anyone could think it was my work!

I will endeavor to make things clearer I am still finding my way around here.

BTW I really appreciate the education I am receiving here, it has been a long time since I have associated with people with this type of education and experience.

I have been in the construction business since my tech company collapsed in 2000, not that these are stupid people I am working with, far from it, but I doubt many know how to solve Complex Fourier Equations, Control Theory or Advanced Linear Equations.

Hell, I used to be a wiz at these but it has been so long since I have used any I would need to take refreshers in basic courses such as Calculus before I could even dream of tackling any of them again.

Sorry, off topic, I'm really here to learn.

 

[jadair1]

True enough. Most nukes do make saturated steam. There are reactor designs that produce superheated steam, but not like a modern coal-burner.



True.



True. That means 38% of the reactor core power leaves as electrical megawatts. The rest goes out through the cooling towers. The coal stations do the same thing, only it's more like 45% of the boiler power goes out as electric power.



False. All of the heat generated in the fuel is transferred to the steam (otherwise, the core would heat up continuously). I'm baffled by what this is trying to say. It doesn't make any sense.



Gibberish. See above.



Partly true - reactor fuel is considerably cheaper than fossil fuel in terms of $/Btu. That's one reason why it is worth the extra capital cost to build a nuclear unit. That doesn't mean the nuclear operators don't care about fuel cost, they do. But it isn't the dominating consideration that it is for the gas-burner or coal-burner. And that's why the fossil fuel interests (the gas drillers and coal mine owners) are so opposed to nuclear power. It cuts them out of the gravy train.

I don't know what the "radiation losses" are referring to.

Sorry, that was not me talking it was quotes from Hitachi and the article I provided the link to, I thought that was clear.

Apparently it was not.

 

[jadair1]

I'm guessing neutrinos but I don't think he really knows what he's talking about, he is mixing up different concepts.

Correct, I am attempting to learn, there is so much information/disinformation on the net a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[russ_watters]

In the case of solar it will increasingly be mistake to point to large central installation as the sum all efforts, which neglects all the distributed residential, small projects. This source indicates US solar capacity will be 10 GWe by the end of the year, or about two nuclear reactor equivalents, with new solar coming on at a rate of another 4 GW per year at this time, i.e. a new reactor equivalent every year and half.

I know it is getting redundant, but again I must point out that those numbers don't consider the low capacity factor or need for backup. Right now the need for backup can be ignored since the solar capacity is so low, but if it ever reaches a meaningful level, solar plants will basically all need identically sized natural gas plants built next door.

Solar generates the most power when needed most, but in some climates it is also likely to fail at those times: hot, humid summer days generate clouds.

 

[gmax137]

Sorry, that was not me talking it was quotes from Hitachi and the article I provided the link to, I thought that was clear.

Apparently it was not.

That's no problem, jadair, I was responding point by point to the posted text; it doesn't matter to me who wrote it. I'm not attacking you in any way - I'm just trying to shed light on these subjects.

 

[jadair1]

That's no problem, jadair, I was responding point by point to the posted text; it doesn't matter to me who wrote it. I'm not attacking you in any way - I'm just trying to shed light on these subjects.

Ok, thank you that that goes to my point of information/disinformation, I will read Global Research and Fairwinds articles as well as Tepco and IAEA. But I realize each has an agenda and what they have to say must be taken with a grain of salt.

For example the most strident anti-nukes are screaming that if spent fuel pool #4 collapsed spilling it's contents on the ground the whole site would need to be evacuated and all electronic systems on site would be fried causing the whole site to burn, explode or melt down depending on how strident the source is.

Personally I think the likelyhood of the pool collapsing is quite low as it has recentely survived a nearby 7.2 magnitude quake, but I would like to know the consequences of the worst case senario?

I know this should perhaps be in multiple Fukushima threads but the ongoing situation at Fukushima is the main reason for my recent conversion to the anti-nuke side from once being very pro-nuke.

And that is a position I am not totaly comfortable with.

 

[mheslep]

I know it is getting redundant, but again I must point out that those numbers don't consider the low capacity factor

Yes they do; I include the capacity factor for http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/redbook/PDFs/AZ.PDF: 25% or 6 kWh/m^2 out of a 24 hour day (that's measured over many years: winter/summer, night/day, sunny/cloudy). At 100% CF we'd be talking about 150 MW/km^2 (total ~2900 km^2) instead of the 20-30 MW/km^2 (~22000 km^2).* I was mostly addressing Argentum Vulpes' comment that one would have to "cover" over the southwest US to supply the US load w/ solar PV. Hardly.

or need for backup.

True, no backup calculation nor transmission from the dessert. Both are requirements to go mainstream w/ solar I agree, but the calculation above is just for land sufficient to supply average power. That is, the land calculation includes enough solar to produce, during sunshine, four times the average long term load and thus assumes storage to hold the extra. Storage will take some more space but not a significant share of the solar collection area. The present problem with storage is of course cost, and I expect will be for some time.

Right now the need for backup can be ignored since the solar capacity is so low, but if it ever reaches a meaningful level, solar plants will basically all need identically sized natural gas plants built next door.

Agreed. That seems to be what's coming at least initially. The new ~.7GW solar thermal plant, Ivanhoe, is a hybrid with natural gas hookup to fire its boiler absent sun.

* I didn't discuss pure solar thermal collection for heating, e.g. for hot water. In that case we're back again to starting with 1 GW/km^2 for six hours per day in Az.

 

[D H]

CNN is broadcasting a documentary on nuclear power tonight. Knowing CNN, they'll bend over backwards to present both sides of the issue.

 

[jadair1]

CNN is broadcasting a documentary on nuclear power tonight. Knowing CNN, they'll bend over backwards to present both sides of the issue.

Did you forget the sarcasm smiley there my friend.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes they do; I include the capacity factor for http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/redbook/PDFs/AZ.PDF: 25% or 6 kWh/m^2 out of a 24 hour day (that's measured over many years: winter/summer, night/day, sunny/cloudy). At 100% CF we'd be talking about 150 MW/km^2 (total ~2900 km^2) instead of the 20-30 MW/km^2 (~22000 km^2).* I was mostly addressing Argentum Vulpes' comment that one would have to "cover" over the southwest US to supply the US load w/ solar PV. Hardly.

Um...are you responding to the right post train there? I never mentioned or responded to any land area calcs, only solar capacity stats.

 

[russ_watters]

Did you forget the sarcasm smiley there my friend.

I was kinda wondering the same thing. It can be variable with CNN*, but there's the additional issue here of whether one should give both sides equal treatment if one side is science and the other crackpottery.

*CNN is owner/partner of "mother nature network" and "treehugger.com" and has featured some truly awful envirocrackpottery in content-sharing on cnn.com, including anti-nuclear crackpottery.

[edit] So I'm watching it now...maybe this should get its own thread...

The first segment discusses the viewpoint that there is no nuclear waste issue, a viewpoint I've been advocating for years. Key points:
1. Yucca mountain is a pointless, fantasy boondoggle. Paraphrase: 'what is this future 500 years from now it is meant to protect?' In other words, it is meant to protect something that is speculative and in the distant future. Why bother?
2. Nuclear waste is not particularly harmful and is extremely limited in volume. They showed some being stored in a parking lot at a nuclear plant. Just sitting there, harming no one. And available for recycling if we choose to do it.

Second segment is about France's nuclear power:
1. France built their nuclear society quickly.
2. France's carbon footprint is half what Germany's is per capita.
3. France's electricity is the cheapest in Europe.

And nuclear weapon non-proliferation:
1. We're buying Russia's nuclear weapons (I had no idea) to power our reactors (I did know that). 10% of our electricity/half of our nuclear power comes from Russian nuclear weapons. Some environmentalists are worried that nuclear power can lead to nuclear weapons, but currently, it is the other way around.

Wow, that was it? To call it a "documentary" is generous; was it even a half hour long? But it was short/concise, accurate and clear, so I'll have to give it some props for that!

Post-show discussion:
Environmentalist says it was one-sided because it didn't discuss "renewable" energy (duh; it wasn't about renewable energy) and claims 80% of our power can be renewable by 2050. The nuclear expert responds that that's "silly"; despite 25 years of heavy government subsidy, non-hydro renewable is only 2% of global energy production, while global energy production grows by 2% a year. Burn.

Hmm...maybe what CNN showed me was just an excerpt, because there was another clip shown that wasn't in what I saw.

They are saying that oil companies are pushing alternative energy because they know it is not a threat to them, but nuclear power is.

 

[mheslep]

Um...are you responding to the right post train there? I never mentioned or responded to any land area calcs, only solar capacity stats.

"those numbers don't consider the low capacity factor ..."

"those numbers" does not refer to area calculations above, based on capacity factor?

 

[russ_watters]

"those numbers don't consider the low capacity factor ..."

"those numbers" does not refer to area calculations above, based on capacity factor?

No, I quoted what I was responding to: post #139, which is about gross capacity only and was addressed to me (and I quoted the entire post). Your area calculations were in post #140, and were addressed to nikkkom.