Power plant in space by 2035

[wanderingfool2]

16 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

As i said before, compared to nuclear those are unstable and more expensive. (Weather is unpredictable and thus their output.) From a practical standpoint those should be ignored, build reactors in safe places and use the surplus funds to develop their successor.

Weather in unpredictable in regions.  As an aggregate over larger areas it can be easily predicted (for output).  Mix in energy storage technology and wind/solar are actually quite viable and cheap options compared to nuclear.

 

17 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

That is highly questionable, at some pint you will have to send someone up and there goes all of the "savings". A fragile structure up in space exposed to high levels of radiation and high-speed objects doesnt spell "less expensive" maintenance....

Not really questionable, a satellite sporting solar panels should be quite reliable in space.  You won't really have moving parts, aside from the propulsion system but we've been deploying satellites with reliable maneuverability for years.  Solar panels itself the general maintenance is clean the panels...which in space is much less of an issue given you don't have weather and dust storms which cover the panels.  Apart from that it's just circuitry also...and you could easily build that to last the 25-40 years of an expected lifecycle of a solar array...I mean the voyager 1 has been in existence for about 45 years.

 

There are a wide range of satellites that have been in orbit that don't need any human intervention...so yea, to claim nuclear is less to maintain would most likely be false.

[Mark Kaine]

On 5/18/2022 at 3:28 PM, tikker said:

takes a while to load

took forever to load... on my phone 

 

 

but just a quick question, so this is actually "beaming" electrons in this case? 

i mean it sounds like it, and i know its physically possible,  I would just be surprised if actual humans figured out how to control this lol. 

 

On 5/18/2022 at 7:20 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Honestly though, I get wanting to put solar panels in space (no cleaning, consistent light, etc) but at only 13 times better than a panel on Earth I don't think that it's going to work out.  We would be better off having buildings being mandated to have solar on their roof; from there we can start working on other storage technologies.  Imagine if people had powerwalls and solar; I'd imagine the grid itself would be a lot less stressed. 

i agree, it somehow doesn't sound feasible, more like an experiment, which isn't necessary bad of course.

 

On a similar note,  am I the only one to expect them to upgrade this in 5 years or so to "first fusion reactor in space"?! it all seems so out there, they might as well. = )

 

 

[Lightwreather]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

am I the only one to expect them to upgrade this in 5 years or so to "first fusion reactor in space"?! it all seems so out there, they might as well. = )

That could very well happen altho I'm uncertain of the advantages of doing that? Seems like it would just be harder to get fuel up there, tho it might allay some people's fears and such.

Now the moon tho......

[tikker]

16 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

but just a quick question, so this is actually "beaming" electrons in this case? 

i mean it sounds like it, and i know its physically possible,  I would just be surprised if actual humans figured out how to control this lol. 

There is no beaming of electrons. They all stay put. The electrons for a current are provided by the metal of the wire. On the transmitter side, in this case in space, you generate AC power somehow and use that to wiggle electrons in the transmitter. These emit a wave of EM radiation, which you then transmit somewhere else and the EM wave wiggles different electrons in the wires of the receiver, generating an AC current there.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

That could very well happen altho I'm uncertain of the advantages of doing that? Seems like it would just be harder to get fuel up there, tho it might allay some people's fears and such.

 

They could use Project Orion to get  the fuel up... no problem!  

 

11 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

Now the moon tho......

Yeah, Space 1999 / moonbase alpha style  ; D

 

11 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

That could very well happen altho I'm uncertain of the advantages of doing that?

Oh Im not sure either,  but i think low / no gravity would probably help... i kinda always think thats the endgame for fusion reactors anyway.

[Mark Kaine]

32 minutes ago, tikker said:

There is no beaming of electrons

Google disagrees?!

"Electron beams are particle accelerators. In this case, the particles being accelerated are electrons and the beam generated is the equivalent of beta radiation. An electron beam's size and power are best described by the voltage and current. The voltage is the force which accelerates the electrons."

 

 

This sounds all eerie similar,  but it might just be a language limitation ...

 

Well I know what you mean, but ultimately I think the jury is still out on how this all works...

 

I mean as you say "wiggle,  somehow..." and I do wonder how you make them go in a particular direction,  and as i already asked what about storms, wind etc... ? 

 

Im definitely not saying this cant work, im just complaining about lack of explanation from this article,  the scientists,  anyone,  basically...

 

Definitely feels like a "it just works, trust me bro" moment. 

 

(edit: not directed at you, just generally how this feels like )

 

 

[tikker]

31 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Google disagrees?!

"Electron beams are particle accelerators. In this case, the particles being accelerated are electrons and the beam generated is the equivalent of beta radiation. An electron beam's size and power are best described by the voltage and current. The voltage is the force which accelerates the electrons."

 

 

This sounds all eerie similar,  but it might just be a language limitation ...

Electron beams are something drastically different from EM radiation That's a beam of electrons. Overly simplified, think a gun shooting electrons. To create those you need particle accelerators and you'll be doing stuff like CERN does, accelerating particles and shooting them around.

31 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Well I know what you mean, but ultimately I think the jury is still out on how this all works...

Technology-wise not really. This "beaming stuff" has been powering TV, radio, communications etc. for a long time now. I would guess the main challenges are getting decently sized infrastructure up there affordably and transmitting back a substantial amount of power.

31 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I mean as you say "wiggle,  somehow..." and I do wonder how you make them go in a particular direction,  and as i already asked what about storms, wind etc... ?

They go in the (opposite) direction of the electric field passing through. Relatively speaking, if the electric field from the EM wave goes "up", then the electron goes "down". Storms, wind and whatnot will affect this as much as they affect your Wi-Fi, phone calls and radio listening experience, thus likely little, but cloud cover and such may have noticeable impact (water is good at absorbing microwaves). What affects it and how much will depend on the frequency you use, for example. A benefit here is that it won't be transferring complex information like a TV signal, so losing a bit will be much less of a bad thing.

31 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Im definitely not saying this cant work, im just complaining about lack of explanation from this article,  the scientists,  anyone,  basically...

 

Definitely feels like a "it just works, trust me bro" moment.  =)

Think Wi-Fi. The router wiggles electrons in its anntennas, they send out the relevant EM wave, the antenna on your device interacts with that wave and electrons start wiggling in your device. The resulting current is then interpreted and information is extracted. To encode complex information you use e.g. modulation techniques, but the basic principle remains the same.

[Mark Kaine]

31 minutes ago, tikker said:

Think Wi-Fi. The router wiggles electrons in its anntennas, they send out the relevant EM wave, the antenna on your device interacts with that wave and electrons start wiggling in your device. The resulting current is then interpreted and information is extracted. To encode complex information you use e.g. modulation techniques, but the basic principle remains the same.

Ah, I guess that's a good explanation...

 

i found an interesting article  - I knew Tesla tried doing this but ultimately failed because he could only do it over "short distances" which really isnt the same thing lol (in practice at least)

 

Microwave power transmission

"In this method, microwave radiation is turned into DC electric power with the help of a microwave receiver and DC rectifier. The highest efficiency achieved with microwave power transmission was 84%, which was recorded in 1975, by a team in Japan, but systems with higher power output have had lower efficiencies. The next goal would be to achieve high-efficiency energy transfer over long distances."

 

"Research published in August 2021 at the University of Tsukuba, Japan reveals that high-energy microwave radiation can act as an efficient wireless source of power for launching rockets into space. When a rocket is sent to space, fuel accounts for about 90% of its weight, this load can be eliminated by the use of this microwave-based wireless energy technology."

 

 

 

but... there is also this,  which seems... better? (and deadlier lol)

 

Laser transmission

"The most efficient DC-to-laser converters have been shown to be solid-state laser diodes like those used commercially in fiber optic and free-space laser communication. Laser transmission allows a photovoltaic receiver to receive laser beams and generate electric power from the same. The merit of laser-based power transmission is that laser beams can be controlled more easily for long-range wireless electrical transmission."

 

...more efficient,  more easily to control,  but also note this is all kind of "experimental" stuff so far... so i think this space laser microwave thing is a test also... which yeah, i guess practice makes perfect?  

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.interestingengineering.com/welcome-to-the-age-of-wireless-electricity

 

but yeah, i definitely have a better understanding now how it all works...

 

 

[leadeater]

On 5/21/2022 at 4:12 AM, wanderingfool2 said:

Kazakhstan produces 41% of uranium apparently, and hasn't increased production in years.  So to fulfill the demand lots of mines still would need to be opened.

Why would they when the world is 99.99% anti-nuclear and nobody wants to allow any new reactors. Also Australia is a huge mining country with huge Uranium mineral reserves, they could supply the market just fine if they did it.

 

Current nuclear energy pricing is based on very little global usage, it'll only get cheaper as it get less scarcely used.

 

Yes there are even better reactor designs that are safer and cheaper, but again that's already irrelevant to the 99.99% so makes no difference. Until public sentiment changes then nuclear technology will stay at a stalemate.

 

We simply doomed ourselves with all the anti-nuclear rhetoric in the past and now we suffer because of it.

 

P.S. I know that Uranium mineral reserves were discovered in my country but we've basically refused to acklowdge it and a mining permit would never be granted for it anyway.

[wanderingfool2]

36 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Current nuclear energy pricing is based on very little global usage, it'll only get cheaper as it get less scarcely used.

While this statement is okay, the argument that people have been saying is that we should convert to nuclear.  So assuming we do convert to nuclear, there is more demand and thus prices start to skyrocket.  Fact that in with a single country that currently provides 40% is a recipe for disaster and it's a recipe for massive material prices. [I mean the perfect example is gas supply]

 

The fact is, people have been arguing in this thread that the solution to replace fossil fuel plants is nuclear.  That is an incomplete solution though as it assumes we won't be resource bound.  Apparently the estimates to start an Uranium mine is 10 year lead time.  While I do believe nuclear is an option, it's like I've said in previous posts the solution actually is mixing the different green tech.  It will provide the most resilience and balance out each of the faults.

 

I truly believe though that if Thorium reactors could be properly researched and built at scale though you could sway public opinion back to allowing nuclear.  The reason being, that you could use the rhetoric that it's a different reactor that is "impossible to explode/meltdown", which would hopefully change the public perception.  I think a lot of people are fearful of the word uranium, but if you said Thorium is a waste product already used in some products I think people would become more accepting of it.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

While this statement is okay, the argument that people have been saying is that we should convert to nuclear.  So assuming we do convert to nuclear, there is more demand and thus prices start to skyrocket.  Fact that in with a single country that currently provides 40% is a recipe for disaster and it's a recipe for massive material prices. [I mean the perfect example is gas supply]

 

The fact is, people have been arguing in this thread that the solution to replace fossil fuel plants is nuclear.  That is an incomplete solution though as it assumes we won't be resource bound.  Apparently the estimates to start an Uranium mine is 10 year lead time.  While I do believe nuclear is an option, it's like I've said in previous posts the solution actually is mixing the different green tech.  It will provide the most resilience and balance out each of the faults.

 

I truly believe though that if Thorium reactors could be properly researched and built at scale though you could sway public opinion back to allowing nuclear.  The reason being, that you could use the rhetoric that it's a different reactor that is "impossible to explode/meltdown", which would hopefully change the public perception.  I think a lot of people are fearful of the word uranium, but if you said Thorium is a waste product already used in some products I think people would become more accepting of it.

Well I also agree it is the answer for the next 50 years, I also don't assume that if it happens mining of Uranium would not increase. There are multiple countries with large supplies of it that simply are not mining it because they do not use nuclear power nor weapons and politically it's a non-starter to mine them.

 

So if the public starts to allow nuclear reactors then they'll also by extension allow mining, both aren't happening for the same reason. A country like Australia is more than  equipped to start mining Uranium in only a few years, mining is huge there, they know how to do it, quickly and in large scale.

 

If things really are so critical and need fixing immediately then the only answer on hand right now that can be done at scale, at cost, without destroying the environment simply is nuclear. If it's not on the cards and being considers then it's not actually such an immediate problem.

 

Also every nuclear facility built could be transitioned to any other nuclear technology later, they don't have to be fueled by enriched fuels forever. But as I'll point out again, if something needs to be done NOW! then it simply is the only options that can be done NOW! but that or any other nuclear technology is not going to happen without a drastic change and since nobody in the right places is talking about it then it cannot be such a NOW! problem.

 

Thing is by the time the situation demands that it must actually be seriously considered is also the time tens to hundreds of millions of people have already been so massively affected it's already a little too late. I'm quite sure all the Pacific Islanders think it's a NOW! problem already but their voice is too small. When those that think they wouldn't really have been adversely affected or not by much are then change will happen.

 

Hydro is ecologically devastating, wind is terrible when it comes to scale and land usage, PV solar is only viable as an offset and should really be residential and commercial building installed however it's also an ecological disaster waiting to happen when the panels need to be disposed of, CSP solar is great but still needs quite a lot of land, geothermal is only an option to those that have it.

 

Every single "Green" option is not green and does or will have massive impacts, guess what wouldn't? Yea exactly, nobody is actually serious about green energy if nuclear isn't an option. Also any large scale "Green" option similarly has 10 year lead times to build anything anyway so it wouldn't matter if global supply of nuclear fuel would take 10 years to increase, which it wouldn't, anything added today is less impactful than every other option.

 

My country is a green energy first country (well we say we are lol), I know very well just how long it takes to build out wind farms as I live by one of the largest in the country and I've seen them do it. Sure good option for us with our tiny population and tons of land, not so much for others. There is no way Europe is going to dedicate precious land for enough wind to mean anything in reality.

[wanderingfool2]

If the public accepted nuclear, that won't necessarily mean accepting mining of Uranium.  In Canada we have had a few issues where mining hasn't been allowed because the mining operation by public view was too damaging (ironically allowing more damaging drilling of oil).

 

Realistically, even with public support to build nuclear, that's 5 years for the plant...but suppliers are less likely to actually opening additional mining operations until close to plant opening (because that's just how things work when dealing with government projects)...so that still would be at best likely 10 years out from now, but more realistically like 15.  (Need to produce additional refining facilities, and I think the lead time for mining is also a result of it being considered a hazardous material so it's not likely a fully typical mining operation)

 

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

PV solar is only viable as an offset and should really be residential and commercial building installed however it's also an ecological disaster waiting to happen when the panels need to be disposed of, CSP solar is great but still needs quite a lot of land, geothermal is only an option to those that have it.

Well my view still is mandating new building must contain solar, that way it reduces things.  Mixed with energy storage and it could likely do more than just offset.  You still would need power plants, but the complete need for them would be drastically reduced.  As for the disposal issue, while they aren't currently being recycled with government mandates they could recycle them.  It's similar to how we use to have food scraps that went to the dump, and now it's a mandatory recycling...or electronics, where a fee is tacked on to compensate for recycling.

 

Not saying that it's a be all and end all, but I'd rather a stronger push on PV's than nuclear (and the surrounding policies regarding this)...at the same time lifting the ban on Thorium reactors.  With that said, maybe we will get lucky and someone will find a way to actually produce graphene at a commercial scale (sodium batteries require it to become the next big thing afaik)

 

My ideal policies would be:

- PV's mandating on new buildings [and gov't recycling program]

- Thorium reactor ban lifted/money into development of this

- Investment in energy storage capacity

[Donut417]

17 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

My ideal policies would be:

- PV's mandating on new buildings [and gov't recycling program]

- Thorium reactor ban lifted/money into development of this

- Investment in energy storage capacity

The cost of housing is already unaffordable in the US. Mandating Solar panels just makes it more so. Also according to Zillow the house I live in for example has a solar score of 38. I live in Michigan btw. We have winter 6 months out of the year and there are defiantly days you dont see the sun, maybe even longer than a day or two. Solar really only make sense in select areas like California, Texas, Arizona for example. 

 

People dont want nuclear, because they are afraid of it. So lifting any bans they might have on it wont work. Our power company has a license to build a new reactor. They have since stated they have no plans, mainly because complaints were filed and protests happened. So we get a nice new Natural Gas plan coming on line some time this summer. 

 

This is one that I can stand behind to an extent. Only because this could help combat rolling blackouts and times where power infrastructure is damaged due to storms. This could be a viable option for people who might not want to run a generator or who cant. This could also be helpful to grid operators to help with times of high power usage. 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 3:27 PM, leadeater said:

Hydro is ecologically devastating

Not to mention your at the mercy of mother nature. Lake Mead is down by a lot. Im pretty sure it was stated the Hoover Dam is unable to produce the max amount of energy it normally does. Hell even the pipes that provide water from the reservoir are no longer under water. Im pretty sure at least 1 or 2 of them are above the water and useless. 

 

 

On 5/23/2022 at 3:27 PM, leadeater said:

Every single "Green" option is not green and does or will have massive impacts, guess what wouldn't? Yea exactly, nobody is actually serious about green energy if nuclear isn't an option. Also any large scale "Green" option similarly has 10 year lead times to build anything anyway so it wouldn't matter if global supply of nuclear fuel would take 10 years to increase, which it wouldn't, anything added today is less impactful than every other option.

Exactly. Nuclear is the option we need. Yes we do Solar, Wind and Geothermal, but Nuclear could do the bulk. I think the other side of it, is figuring out ways to make things more energy efficient. For example we replaced all the lights in our home to LED, it showed in our electric bill. 

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Exactly. Nuclear is the option we need. Yes we do Solar, Wind and Geothermal, but Nuclear could do the bulk. I think the other side of it, is figuring out ways to make things more energy efficient. For example we replaced all the lights in our home to LED, it showed in our electric bill. 

While making things more efficient is important, switching over electric vehicles will require a lot more energy than is currently produced.

 

5 hours ago, Donut417 said:

The cost of housing is already unaffordable in the US. Mandating Solar panels just makes it more so

Housing prices are unaffordable here as well...but the trick is that the property itself is what has become so valuable making things unaffordable...but also the cost of adding solar to a project would be a lot less than most would think...also it could be partially funded by the government (like a reduced rate, but you effectively need to pay more in electricity bills...because economically the cost per kWh over the lifetime should be cheaper than Nuclear).

 

It actually does start making sense in the grand scheme of things in many places...but the issue is that it's based on savings where people end up calculating it...but typically it's not great when people think that it takes 25 years to pay off (or in places 30-40 years)...which would be the life of the solar panel.

 

6 hours ago, Donut417 said:

People dont want nuclear, because they are afraid of it. So lifting any bans they might have on it wont work. Our power company has a license to build a new reactor. They have since stated they have no plans, mainly because complaints were filed and protests happened. So we get a nice new Natural Gas plan coming on line some time this summer. 

Lifting bans on Thorium would eventually help, I think, because you get to change the rhetoric behind it.  It's no longer that "volatile" uranium that has lead to explosions and massive leaks.  It's now a product where when things go wrong the reaction stops.  It's also nice that the waste product is only a 500 year half life. 

 

So if test facilities could be opened up, it literally could be advertised as being a safe alternative to Uranium plants.  (And with the right political marketing I do believe you could convince people).  Using a fuel that doesn't require special tankers to transport (and is already used in some products)

 

6 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Exactly. Nuclear is the option we need. Yes we do Solar, Wind and Geothermal, but Nuclear could do the bulk

Based on the demand, it still would get back to my point that cost and production become a major issue relying on nuclear to do the bulk...specifically when the Uranium deposits are starting to be used up the price will sky rocket.  (The 230 years was apparently assuming 5.5 million tonnes but 10.5 mill tonnes of undiscovered).  We currently sit at about 8 mill tonnes discovered.

 

So let's put a better bounds on things.  Let's assume tomorrow the world wakes up and decides to go all Nuclear.

US goes from [30% share in nuclear]...they need 4x the current amount to replace gas.

China [~15% share]...they need 21x to replace fossil fuel.

 

It's how getting to roughly 50 years.

 

Let's include a few other countries

Russia [~9% share]...4x

India [~1.6% share]..33x

 

That in general would make 50 years more like an upper bound if everything was switched away.  It could very well be only 30 years Uranium left if the world switched.  (Which would actually make the entire cost per kWh really really high).

 

It's why I do think solar with energy storage is going to become the bigger thing.  The more I think of it, if space flight could become economical, then this could potentially be practical (depending how they are going to transfer the electricity)

 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

While making things more efficient is important, switching over electric vehicles will require a lot more energy than is currently produced.

It's still better health and also environmentally to switch to EV anyway, even if they are charged by giant dirty coal power plants. We can put aside the efficiency gains of large power plants, and the also transmissions losses delivering the power and just purely look at the health benefits of not having cities polluted with vehicle emissions. This alone is enough to do it, the health cost benefits are nearly incalculable however it's quite likely over decades scale massively beneficial.

 

Clean air is just something everyone should just want.

 

On 5/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

If the public accepted nuclear, that won't necessarily mean accepting mining of Uranium.  In Canada we have had a few issues where mining hasn't been allowed because the mining operation by public view was too damaging (ironically allowing more damaging drilling of oil).

True on a per country basis, not likely true globally.

 

On 5/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Realistically, even with public support to build nuclear, that's 5 years for the plant...but suppliers are less likely to actually opening additional mining operations until close to plant opening (because that's just how things work when dealing with government projects)...so that still would be at best likely 10 years out from now, but more realistically like 15.  (Need to produce additional refining facilities, and I think the lead time for mining is also a result of it being considered a hazardous material so it's not likely a fully typical mining operation)

Refining is the far bigger factor than mining, I've said it before Australia has this covered. Should the need arise and the world ask them to mine and supply Uranium then they have us covered.

 

That said we have no actual need to do this in reality, it's just easier and what we do. Spent nuclear fuel is by no means spent, the current policy at least in the US is to not reprocesses and only store it. The fuel is just neutron dense (I believe this is the correct lay term?) and will no longer react as required for nuclear fission, reprocessing the fuel will allow it to be used again. And this is all without talking about different reactor technologies. Other countries, not the US, already do this reprocessing to some degree.

 

We actually are not short of fuel, we would only be short of usable fuel and really by choice. Reprocessed fuel is more expensive, currently and maybe always, than new mined fuel.

 

Someone with more knowledge is welcome to chime in but I believe the amount of usable energy we get from nuclear fuel is actually only a very small portion of the true potential, the issue is that becoming neutron dense I mentioned.

 

On 5/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Well my view still is mandating new building must contain solar, that way it reduces things.

To a degree I have already agreed with this however it needs to come with funding so it's actually affordable otherwise it's just a cost barrier or will get done on the cheap just to tick a legal requirement box defeating potential benefits that could have been.

 

On 5/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

As for the disposal issue, while they aren't currently being recycled with government mandates they could recycle them.

The reality is the issue, the byproducts and waste in solar panels is actually hazardous. The issue is not that they aren't being recycled it's literally just the issue of when they become end of life no matter what you do with them there is an environmental impact. This is currently only a problem waiting to happen because of the long service life of solar panels and the past relatively small scale usage of them.

 

I have legitimately no idea what is going to happen to my solar panels come the time they need to be replace, there is no plan in my country for that. So odds are landfill as of now.

 

On 5/24/2022 at 5:53 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

Not saying that it's a be all and end all, but I'd rather a stronger push on PV's than nuclear (and the surrounding policies regarding this)...at the same time lifting the ban on Thorium reactors

There is no ban on Thorium reactors, there are no certified for commercial use Thorium reactors.

 

Also PV solar is not and will not address the power growth needs, it's a net effective decline in energy capacity to demand. It's self defeating. That's not a case for not doing it but it's also not a case to say current nuclear reactor technology shouldn't be more widely used because this is not a sufficient replacement.

[IPD]

I am convinced that Ethanol presents a cheaper, safer, renewable alternative to 100% pure EV, and with less environmental impact than the refinement of excessive amounts of rare earth minerals for a 100% EV vehicle.

 

Of course, getting infrastructure (fueling stations) and cars that are designed around specifically ethanol (rather than the shite that is flex-fuel)--is another matter entirely.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

It's still better health and also environmentally to switch to EV anyway, even if they are charged by giant dirty coal power plants. We can put aside the efficiency gains of large power plants, and the also transmissions losses delivering the power and just purely look at the health benefits of not having cities polluted with vehicle emissions. This alone is enough to do it, the health cost benefits are nearly incalculable however it's quite likely over decades scale massively beneficial.

 

Clean air is just something everyone should just want.

I'm not against EV's, but I'm also a realist in that full spread adoption of EV's at the moment will put an added need for electricity.  There is already places that experience rolling brownouts.  The need for additional energy production is coming quickly.

 

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

The reality is the issue, the byproducts and waste in solar panels is actually hazardous. The issue is not that they aren't being recycled it's literally just the issue of when they become end of life no matter what you do with them there is an environmental impact. This is currently only a problem waiting to happen because of the long service life of solar panels and the past relatively small scale usage of them.

 

From everything that I have read it still appears as though most articles and literature surrounding PV solar is that it assumes it ends up in a landfill to leach the chemicals into the soil.

 

Similar things were said regarding EV batteries, about the lack of recyclability and how batteries weren't being recycled.  Until you get a large scale, and government mandates it's typical to not have proper recycling facilities that are dedicated in a particular type of recycling.  At least from the articles I've read most of the assessments are coming from facilities that don't actually recycle the heavy metal portions...instead ending up in landfill.

 

Overall from what I've read everything points to the problem being that there isn't a recycling program in place; as again most of the articles assume no recycling.  If you have literature on it, I'm more than welcome to read it.

 

There are byproducts from the creation, but it seems again to focus more on that companies in certain countries decide to dump rather than process the waste.

 

5 hours ago, IPD said:

I am convinced that Ethanol presents a cheaper, safer, renewable alternative to 100% pure EV, and with less environmental impact than the refinement of excessive amounts of rare earth minerals for a 100% EV vehicle.

 

Of course, getting infrastructure (fueling stations) and cars that are designed around specifically ethanol (rather than the shite that is flex-fuel)--is another matter entirely.

The issue is that land it takes, with the added food cost (diverting corn supplies away from the less profitable feed to ethanol has meant higher feed prices thus higher overall food costs).  There's also the issue of turning up virgin soil to create enough land to create ethanol.

[nightwolf3140]

On 5/13/2022 at 11:05 PM, LWM723 said:

You can't "beam electricity". Maybe a long extension cord.

Yeah doesn't seem super legit

[IPD]

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm not against EV's, but I'm also a realist in that full spread adoption of EV's at the moment will put an added need for electricity.  There is already places that experience rolling brownouts.  The need for additional energy production is coming quickly.

 

The issue is that land it takes, with the added food cost (diverting corn supplies away from the less profitable feed to ethanol has meant higher feed prices thus higher overall food costs).  There's also the issue of turning up virgin soil to create enough land to create ethanol.

Wind-turbines down interstate highways will go a LONG way towards alleviating electricity supply problems for EV's--as their power generation can be almost directly routed to charging stations adjacent to said highways.

 

Do you know what most of the developed land in the USA is used for?  Grass.  Grass is the single-largest irrigated crop in the USA.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/04/lawns-are-a-soul-crushing-timesuck-and-most-of-us-would-be-better-off-without-them/

 

I've heard those (quoted) arguments before.  We are already subsidizing non-productive farm land and artificially price-controlling commodities so that the vastly-shrunken number of farms (remaining) will continue.  Moreover, corn is a tepid feedstock to utilize for ethanol production; there are much more efficient crops at producing it.  Doubly so if those crops fit into the natural crop rotations which require foods to not be grown on a given piece of land during a given period.  (Eg. Sugar beets, switch-grass, etc)  I also don't subscribe to the idea that we'd have to till virgin lands to meet demand.  That is such a distant requirement from where we are currently--as to be not worth consideration.  Nor do I consider the negligable impact to food prices (read: natural market forces rebalancing something that was artificially controlled)--anywhere near as disruptive as the impact to energy supply due to policies enacted over the last 18 months.

 

Nor do I consider any of this armchair poo-pooing of ethanol (namely E85) to be a remotely tenable position from the vantage point of national security--given how reliant the USA is upon imports for everything from energy to integrated circuits to rare earth minerals and lithium battery production.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, IPD said:

Do you know what most of the developed land in the USA is used for?  Grass.  Grass is the single-largest irrigated crop in the USA.

Thats because cities wont let people plant gardens in the front of their house in many areas. Truthfully we would be better off if people had the option to plant gardens helping them become more food secure. But then that takes money from the big food corporations. 

 

1 hour ago, IPD said:

Wind-turbines down interstate highways will go a LONG way towards alleviating electricity supply problems for EV's--as their power generation can be almost directly routed to charging stations adjacent to said highways.

Now thats an idea I never had and it could work. I think I read somewhere they thought about doing that will solar in some areas. The only issue is Wind and Solar really only work in select areas. I mean we are cold, over cast and snowy 6 months out of the year here in Michigan. Also Im not sure how such a project will work, I mean will they be government controlled or will power company get permission to use the land? Who gives permission? The interstate falls under both Federal and State jurisdiction. I remember when they wanted to build an outlet mall near me very close to i94. They had to get permission from the city, the state and Uncle Sam, by the time all the approvals took place, everyone backed out. 

 

1 hour ago, IPD said:

given how reliant the USA is upon imports for everything from energy to integrated circuits to rare earth minerals and lithium battery production.

And thats the biggest thing. Do we have the materials to produce the stuff here? Because the last two or so years have taught us that we can rely on other nations exclusively for production.  The other issue is our labor force. We dont have the necessary skills to really produce stuff in this country. Yeah you can train people, but that cost time and money, no company wants to spend time and money to make it happen. I mean look at the shortages in skilled trades. Its not like you can give someone an hour of training to be an electrician. Thats the issue, we are screwing ourselves in the end because we are going to start having major skill shortages and it will take lot of time and even many decades to build up a work force with the necessary skills. 

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Lifting bans on Thorium would eventually help, I think, because you get to change the rhetoric behind it.  It's no longer that "volatile" uranium that has lead to explosions and massive leaks.  It's now a product where when things go wrong the reaction stops.  It's also nice that the waste product is only a 500 year half life. 

It wouldn't make a difference. Read an article on Facebook today, one of the nuclear plans somewhere else in the state is shutting down. The governor wanted it to remain in operation, but the company who owns and operates it stated natural gas is cheaper so its not economical to keep in open. They stated it will take 19 years or so for them to clean up the site, remove the fuel rods and other radioactive components and demolish the site. The 3 comment down was like 'Oh great another 3 mile island". There is no changing the rhetoric behind it, you cant change these peoples minds. Im convinced world peace will happen before Nuclear Energy will be embraced by enough of the population of this country. 

[leadeater]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Similar things were said regarding EV batteries, about the lack of recyclability and how batteries weren't being recycled.  Until you get a large scale, and government mandates it's typical to not have proper recycling facilities that are dedicated in a particular type of recycling.  At least from the articles I've read most of the assessments are coming from facilities that don't actually recycle the heavy metal portions...instead ending up in landfill.

Recycling overall is mostly a pipedream, if you look in to what actually happens to most things that are said to be recycled they actually aren't or not cleanly. The problem simply is almost everything is too costly to actually recycle so doesn't. Most often it's shipped out to some other place "to get recycled". Not every country is Germany sadly, so odds are whatever you think is getting handled correctly then it isn't.

 

And that is the honest reality of the recycling industry, it's in name only, not actually being done.

 

Quote

Much of the plastic dropped in recycling bins isn’t being recycled. In 2014, 22% of PET plastic collected for recycling was exported out of the United States. Plastic production surged from 15 million tons in 1964 to 311 tons in 2014 — an increase of more than 2,000%. Currently, more than 300 million tons of new plastic is produced annually and less than 10% is recycled.

 

As soon as complexity comes in to the picture then recycling goes out the door. Electronics recycling is even worse than plastics.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Thats because cities wont let people plant gardens in the front of their house in many areas. Truthfully we would be better off if people had the option to plant gardens helping them become more food secure. But then that takes money from the big food corporations. 

As someone who does grow their own food the reality is for it to have any meaningful impact to a household you'd need a section of land that is just far too large. You'd be better off in a shared/community garden scheme so you can get the land usage efficiency up. Small plots of gardens are just woefully inefficient at food production.

 

3 hours ago, Donut417 said:

It wouldn't make a difference. Read an article on Facebook today, one of the nuclear plans somewhere else in the state is shutting down. The governor wanted it to remain in operation, but the company who owns and operates it stated natural gas is cheaper so its not economical to keep in open. They stated it will take 19 years or so for them to clean up the site, remove the fuel rods and other radioactive components and demolish the site. The 3 comment down was like 'Oh great another 3 mile island". There is no changing the rhetoric behind it, you cant change these peoples minds. Im convinced world peace will happen before Nuclear Energy will be embraced by enough of the population of this country. 

There's a lot of other untold not so great things about Thorium reactors. Do a little digging, it's not the wonder answer many think it is. I still think it's a great technology to further research but there is a reason it's not being used today. If it really was as good as Thorium activists think/say it is then the nuclear industry would be literally turning over the heavens to use it. Some wonder nuclear technology that is totally safe and vastly more efficient or doesn't require enriched fuels? Yea have a think about why they aren't jumping on this and it's not a conspiracy, there are real actual issues and those don't take long to find out what they are.

 

Thorium reactors simply aren't ready yet and will not be for a very long time, and currently they are not even remotely economic to operate.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

here's a lot of other untold not so great things about Thorium reactors. Do a little digging, it's not the wonder answer many think it is. I still think it's a great technology to further research but there is a reason it's not being used today. If it really was as good as Thorium activists think/say it is then the nuclear industry would be literally turning over the heavens to use it. Some wonder nuclear technology that is totally safe and vastly more efficient or doesn't require enriched fuels? Yea have a think about why they aren't jumping on this and it's not a conspiracy, there are real actual issues and those don't take long to find out what they are.

 

Thorium reactors simply aren't ready yet and will not be for a very long time, and currently they are not even remotely economic to operate.

You dont have to use thorium then. We have had Nuclear reactors for a long time. Use uranium like they have been. Even with the waste products its better off than burning more coal and Natural gas. Also its been proven more people die due to coal and other fossil fuels then Nuclear, even with events like Chernobyl. The fact is Wind and Solar are not going to be enough. Hydro electric is too destructive on the environment. Geothermal only works in select areas. The only viable way to produce enough energy cleanly is Nuclear at least until they figure out Fusion Reactors. 

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

If it really was as good as Thorium activists think/say it is then the nuclear industry would be literally turning over the heavens to use it. Some wonder nuclear technology that is totally safe and vastly more efficient or doesn't require enriched fuels?

Billions of dollars in funding would be required, and many governments don't want to invest in research for a technology that "already exists".  Mix in the fact that it takes a bit more effort to weaponize it and that's a recipe for it going no where.

 

There was a clip of a nuclear researcher, I think from the 2015 era, that effectively said funding and research was effectively banned/limited as well because thorium plants would be molten salt reactors (and the "literature" that is fed to those handing out the funding is based on uranium/plutonium MSR's which have a sorted history).

 

It's not particularly more efficient either...just there is an abundant fuel...but like all nuclear power plants massive upfront cost (and since it would need a different design likely the first ones built would be more costly than conventional ones).

 

China has built their first, so we will see...a few years of it running and maybe they will expand it (and the rest of the world can start looking into it).

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

China has built their first, so we will see...a few years of it running and maybe they will expand it (and the rest of the world can start looking into it).

I know and if it wasn't being massively government funded and accepted that it's running at a loss no actual power company would ever operate that. And that's the real problem, they just aren't commercially viable and depending on type actually starting the reaction isn't so "nice" nor "safe".