Pulsed helium3 fusion in a magnetic bottle, not lasers or same old tokawhatever...

[DukenukemX]

I guess you're completely ignoring the many decades of nuclear plants putting out tons of electricity and not a single one of them have problems.

Doesn't matter how many successful nuclear plants exist, because it only takes a handful to show the potential problems that nuclear can bring.

Your post is the perfect example of what I was talking about. Propaganda and misinformation being eaten up as if it's fact. Chernobyl is the only "disaster" that can be pointed to as something truly bad which happened and it was an extremely early design and was basically forced to fail. Even the most basic precautions would have stopped that from happening. Fukushima was the dumbest planning possible and likely done because of the NIMBYs. The only problem with Fukushima was the location.

So what? You mean to tell me there aren't any nuclear plants today that may have potential for unforeseen consequences?

Nuclear is safe in theory and practice. It has been used for decades and any health issues from it are far lower than any other type of main line power generation. Coal plants put out more radiation than nuclear.

I'm not advocating for coal over nuclear. I'm advocating for wind, solar, hydro, and battery over nuclear.

Don't even start up on the terrorist crap. Not only has it never happened its also never likely to happen. There's practically no way for terrorists to use anything from a nuke plant.

You think terrorists aren't a problem because it never happened?

As for nuclear waste, there's no reason to be storing it for hundreds of years. The stupidity of laws which ban reprocessing of fuel is the cause of needing to store it. There are literal tons of "nuclear waste" which can be easily reprocessed into usable fuel.

When has nuclear waste been turned into usable fuel?

It needs to be repeated. Nuclear is the safest and best form of man made mass electrical production in history. It is hoped that eventually fusion takes that spot but there is quite a bit of time yet before that can happen.

It takes 10-15 years to build and start working a nuclear power plant. We could skip nuclear and ignore fusion for solar, wind, hydro, and battery tech.

 

[SmokeRngs]

Doesn't matter how many successful nuclear plants exist, because it only takes a handful to show the potential problems that nuclear can bring.

So what? You mean to tell me there aren't any nuclear plants today that may have potential for unforeseen consequences?

I'm not advocating for coal over nuclear. I'm advocating for wind, solar, hydro, and battery over nuclear.

You think terrorists aren't a problem because it never happened?

When has nuclear waste been turned into usable fuel?

It takes 10-15 years to build and start working a nuclear power plant. We could skip nuclear and ignore fusion for solar, wind, hydro, and battery tech.

Sorry, your wind, solar, hydro and battery dreams are nothing but a pipe dream. Hydro has it's own problems with regards to what it does the local environment and is extremely limited in where it can be used. The pollution and waste to make, maintain and dispose of wind, solar and battery is way beyond anything any of the proponents want to admit. I think in most cases the wind turbines don't even break even in power generated with what it costs to produce, build, maintain and dispose of them through their rather short life. Battery storage is stupid and wasteful no matter how you look at it. Solar is extremely wasteful in the amount of land required to get any use out of it.

Wind and solar are useless as primary generation. It should be obvious that the sun isn't out 24/7 because there's this thing called nighttime that most people know about. Not only is the sun not always out, it's even sometimes covered up by things called clouds which greatly decreases the already terrible efficiency of solar panels. Then you have to make sure the panels are always clean of everything because that also destroys the efficiency. We should also talk about these things called seasons most of the planet has where solar output is greatly lowered during quite a few months out of the year and on top of that the amount of sunlight during the day is drastically reduced. Now onto wind. I can guarantee you that the wind doesn't constantly blow 24/7 where I am nor am I aware of any other place where it does blow 24/7. That's pretty bad if you're trying to get primary generation out of wind turbines and that's even assuming in the life of the thing that it actually generates more power than it does to manufacture, build, maintain and dispose of it.

Those are pipe dreams and anyone who has applied critical thinking into them knows it.

I'm not getting into the terrorist boogeyman with you. There hasn't yet been a terrorist action much less a successful action on nuclear plants yet.

I guess you didn't bother to read my previous post since I talked about reprocessing. In the US I don't think it's even a law that nuclear waste can't be reprocessed but a stupid presidential executive order. And again, there's no reason not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel since the vast majority of it after reprocessing is ready to be used as perfectly good fuel again.

It takes so long and so much money to even start building a new nuke plant because of red tape and such put into place to do nothing but stop new nuke plants from being built. This red tape has nothing to do with safety or security concerns because all of those studies have been finished and gone over with a fine toothed comb before the permit process is even started. But still permits are denied and/or revoked. It's almost a game for government entities. No matter how stupid or frivolous, government entities will allow any challenge to a nuke plant to be brought to court and at any point in the process. Governments on the federal and local level have the process for nuke plants setup to fail and to take much longer than it ever should. That's why it takes so long to get a new nuke plant and why it's so costly. The legal fees alone just to go through the process are astronomical.

I have a question for you now. What is your plan to handle the disposal of all these wind turbines and solar panels when they're useless in 15-20 years? We need to know the full details right now because much of that is effectively hazardous waste. Nuke plants are required to have a plan in effect to handle waste disposal and decommission before any permits are allowed. I see no reason why solar and wind should be treated any differently and need to know your answer because millions, if not billions of solar panels is not a small problem.

 

[Dayaks]

Doesn't matter how many successful nuclear plants exist, because it only takes a handful to show the potential problems that nuclear can bring.

So what? You mean to tell me there aren't any nuclear plants today that may have potential for unforeseen consequences?

I'm not advocating for coal over nuclear. I'm advocating for wind, solar, hydro, and battery over nuclear.

You think terrorists aren't a problem because it never happened?

When has nuclear waste been turned into usable fuel?

It takes 10-15 years to build and start working a nuclear power plant. We could skip nuclear and ignore fusion for solar, wind, hydro, and battery tech.

Did you ever figure out how much storage we would need?

 

[Tsumi]

Doesn't matter how many successful nuclear plants exist, because it only takes a handful to show the potential problems that nuclear can bring.

So what? You mean to tell me there aren't any nuclear plants today that may have potential for unforeseen consequences?

I'm not advocating for coal over nuclear. I'm advocating for wind, solar, hydro, and battery over nuclear.

You think terrorists aren't a problem because it never happened?

When has nuclear waste been turned into usable fuel?

It takes 10-15 years to build and start working a nuclear power plant. We could skip nuclear and ignore fusion for solar, wind, hydro, and battery tech.

Doesn't matter how many planes are flying, it only takes a handful of crashes to show the potential disasters they could bring. See how absurd your logic is?

Also, good job blatently displaying your lack of nuclear knowledge while trying to speak authoritatively on the subject. Standard nuclear reactors can only utilize U-235, which is about 1-5% of naturally found uranium. The whole mix is put in the reactor (sometimes enriched to 15%), and the rest of the uranium and plutonium is disposed of as waste, used for nuclear weapons, or used in depleted uranium armor and ammunition. Fast reactors are able to utilize U-238 and plutonium as fuel and produce far less long-lived radioactive waste than standard reactors; the problem is they're much trickier and more expensive to build since most are molten salt designs.

Battery tech is 10-15 years from being sustainably produced for grid-scale applications. Current lithium batteries need to be reserved for the transportation sector, so stationary batteries need alternatives, i.e. flow batteries.

 

[cjcox]

Sorry, your wind, solar, hydro and battery dreams are nothing but a pipe dream. Hydro has it's own problems with regards to what it does the local environment and is extremely limited in where it can be used. The pollution and waste to make, maintain and dispose of wind, solar and battery is way beyond anything any of the proponents want to admit. I think in most cases the wind turbines don't even break even in power generated with what it costs to produce, build, maintain and dispose of them through their rather short life. Battery storage is stupid and wasteful no matter how you look at it. Solar is extremely wasteful in the amount of land required to get any use out of it.

Wind and solar are useless as primary generation. It should be obvious that the sun isn't out 24/7 because there's this thing called nighttime that most people know about. Not only is the sun not always out, it's even sometimes covered up by things called clouds which greatly decreases the already terrible efficiency of solar panels. Then you have to make sure the panels are always clean of everything because that also destroys the efficiency. We should also talk about these things called seasons most of the planet has where solar output is greatly lowered during quite a few months out of the year and on top of that the amount of sunlight during the day is drastically reduced. Now onto wind. I can guarantee you that the wind doesn't constantly blow 24/7 where I am nor am I aware of any other place where it does blow 24/7. That's pretty bad if you're trying to get primary generation out of wind turbines and that's even assuming in the life of the thing that it actually generates more power than it does to manufacture, build, maintain and dispose of it.

Those are pipe dreams and anyone who has applied critical thinking into them knows it.

I'm not getting into the terrorist boogeyman with you. There hasn't yet been a terrorist action much less a successful action on nuclear plants yet.

I guess you didn't bother to read my previous post since I talked about reprocessing. In the US I don't think it's even a law that nuclear waste can't be reprocessed but a stupid presidential executive order. And again, there's no reason not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel since the vast majority of it after reprocessing is ready to be used as perfectly good fuel again.

It takes so long and so much money to even start building a new nuke plant because of red tape and such put into place to do nothing but stop new nuke plants from being built. This red tape has nothing to do with safety or security concerns because all of those studies have been finished and gone over with a fine toothed comb before the permit process is even started. But still permits are denied and/or revoked. It's almost a game for government entities. No matter how stupid or frivolous, government entities will allow any challenge to a nuke plant to be brought to court and at any point in the process. Governments on the federal and local level have the process for nuke plants setup to fail and to take much longer than it ever should. That's why it takes so long to get a new nuke plant and why it's so costly. The legal fees alone just to go through the process are astronomical.

I have a question for you now. What is your plan to handle the disposal of all these wind turbines and solar panels when they're useless in 15-20 years? We need to know the full details right now because much of that is effectively hazardous waste. Nuke plants are required to have a plan in effect to handle waste disposal and decommission before any permits are allowed. I see no reason why solar and wind should be treated any differently and need to know your answer because millions, if not billions of solar panels is not a small problem.

There's a plan to turn old blades and panels into plamsa via fusion!! The Circle of Strife!!

(10,000 years from today. "Fossil fuels rise in usage as people seek cleaner more efficient energy sources.")

 

[THRESHIN]

Doesn't matter how many planes are flying, it only takes a handful of crashes to show the potential disasters they could bring. See how absurd your logic is?

Also, good job blatently displaying your lack of nuclear knowledge while trying to speak authoritatively on the subject. Standard nuclear reactors can only utilize U-235, which is about 1-5% of naturally found uranium. The whole mix is put in the reactor (sometimes enriched to 15%), and the rest of the uranium and plutonium is disposed of as waste, used for nuclear weapons, or used in depleted uranium armor and ammunition. Fast reactors are able to utilize U-238 and plutonium as fuel and produce far less long-lived radioactive waste than standard reactors; the problem is they're much trickier and more expensive to build since most are molten salt designs.

Battery tech is 10-15 years from being sustainably produced for grid-scale applications. Current lithium batteries need to be reserved for the transportation sector, so stationary batteries need alternatives, i.e. flow batteries.

Batteries might be viable one day for grid storage, not anytime soon. The numbers are just too large. Even electric cars are one hell of a monumental challenge. I'm honestly not sure if it can be done.

Much of wind and solar is funded (at least partially) by oil and gas. This sounds stupid at first, but they know what you're touching on. Wind and solar don't have the capacity to power a large country. Only logical choice to back it up is natural gas turbines. They're super quick to fire up.

All the renewable push? Oil and gas funding. Anti nuclear groups? Heavily funded by oil and gas.

You have the right idea with the nuclear information in your post, but here's my learning time. Natural uranium is around 0.7% U-235. It can vary a little, not a lot. Fast neutron reactors do indeed need a fissile fuel such as U235 but they can indeed use up the other isotopes much better. Leads to far less waste and use of waste fuel as you have alluded to.

Current designs can and do use up some of the other stuff like U238 and plutonium 239. They're just not very good at it. Take MOX fuel for example. Light water designs are particularly bad at using the other elements. Heavy water is far better, about 20% of the reactor power comes from plutonium which is bred from U238. I admit that I'm not too sure on designs that use a graphite moderator as they aren't too common these days. The UK has a gas cooled graphite design, I don't know too much about that one. I'd imagine that it's somewhere between light water and heavy as that's where it's tendancy to absorb neutrons lies.

The interesting part is that any reactor could be capable of using up all the fuel. It could be capable of turning all the U238 into Pu239 and then using that up. The problem lies in neutron absorbers, often called reactivity poisons in the industry. When the atom is split there's a bit of randomness to it. Some isotopes absorb neutrons so less available to create more fission events. Over time, the fuel builds up too much poison and is no longer usable. Because of this we use less than 2% of the fuel.

Fast reactors overcome this by using fast neutrons (which is most). No moderator involved. Due to the speed of the neutrons, it's much harder for them to be absorbed.

France does a lot of reprocessing to remove the poisons from the spent fuel. Would be nice to see more of that.

 

[THRESHIN]

Doesn't matter how many successful nuclear plants exist, because it only takes a handful to show the potential problems that nuclear can bring.

No it really does matter. Nuclear is killing way less people than any other source of power and yes I'm including wind and solar. I care about how many deaths we prevent. It's pretty simple.

So what? You mean to tell me there aren't any nuclear plants today that may have potential for unforeseen consequences?

You mean to tell me that there aren't any coal natural gas, biomass, hydroelectric, wind farms or solar farms that may have potential for unforseen concequences? This is fear mongering.

I'm not advocating for coal over nuclear. I'm advocating for wind, solar, hydro, and battery over nuclear.

So you're either advocating for rolling blackouts or natural gas turbines. Take your pick.

You think terrorists aren't a problem because it never happened?

Please, explain to me how a terrorist will get spent fuel out of a nuclear plant.

When has nuclear waste been turned into usable fuel?

France, in particular, has been reprocessing spent fuel for decades now. This is not new. Around 10 years ago China took spent fuel from a PWR l combined with depleted uranium (pure U238) so that it mimicked natural uranium and then stuffed it into a candu. So there's two. There are plenty more.

It takes 10-15 years to build and start working a nuclear power plant. We could skip nuclear and ignore fusion for solar, wind, hydro, and battery tech.

Little less than that, but yes the time to build is a problem I'll give you that. This is also one of the big advantages of the newer designs that are now starting construction.

FYI the 10-15 years is mostly regulatory. Take away the red tape and we can build one of these things in a fraction of that time. Actual construction time for some of these new SMRs is around 2 years.

Ingoring fusion is ignoring our advancement in science as a species. I'd rather we stay out of the dark ages thanks.

 

[Crispy002]

This is one of my favorite things to share when fusion's slow progress is brought up:

 

[DukenukemX]

Sorry, your wind, solar, hydro and battery dreams are nothing but a pipe dream.

Just imagine what we could do if people weren't upset about seeing ugly wind blades.

Hydro has it's own problems with regards to what it does the local environment and is extremely limited in where it can be used.

And nuclear waste isn't an environmental hazard?

The pollution and waste to make, maintain and dispose of wind, solar and battery is way beyond anything any of the proponents want to admit. I think in most cases the wind turbines don't even break even in power generated with what it costs to produce, build, maintain and dispose of them through their rather short life. Battery storage is stupid and wasteful no matter how you look at it. Solar is extremely wasteful in the amount of land required to get any use out of it.

Wind, solar, and battery works and we can recycle everything. You don't need a lithium battery to store energy. Also nuclear power plants take longer to turn a net profit than coal plants, not that I care about their profits.

Those are pipe dreams and anyone who has applied critical thinking into them knows it.

Facts are there have been problems, and a lot of them are due to human intervention. In most cases if no humans touched the plant it should be fine, with the exception of fukushima.

I'm not getting into the terrorist boogeyman with you. There hasn't yet been a terrorist action much less a successful action on nuclear plants yet.

You should keep up with the news.
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/shooting-of-electrical-substations

I have a question for you now. What is your plan to handle the disposal of all these wind turbines and solar panels when they're useless in 15-20 years? We need to know the full details right now because much of that is effectively hazardous waste. Nuke plants are required to have a plan in effect to handle waste disposal and decommission before any permits are allowed. I see no reason why solar and wind should be treated any differently and need to know your answer because millions, if not billions of solar panels is not a small problem.

You can recycle turbines, solar panels, and even lithium batteries. Don't act like this isn't a thing. Wind Turbine blades are just made of wood, and we know how to deal with wood. Solar panels are recyclable but the problem is cost and if companies don't properly recycle them. This really shouldn't be a problem since nuclear deals with this since I'm sure properly disposing of it isn't profitable, but government regulation can fix it. We know lithium ion batteries can be recycled and have been, but it always comes down to cost. The key problem is cost not if we can do it like nuclear waste. Unlike nuclear, these are still evolving technologies and we'll eventually find ways to make them cheaper and better. Wind turbine blades don't always need to be made of fiber glass and wood, and lithium batteries don't always need to be made of lithium. Not that we can't use molten salt and water as a battery. Solar panels are also ever evolving.

 

[DukenukemX]

Doesn't matter how many planes are flying, it only takes a handful of crashes to show the potential disasters they could bring. See how absurd your logic is?

You just explained every persons fear of flying on a plane.

Also, good job blatently displaying your lack of nuclear knowledge while trying to speak authoritatively on the subject. Standard nuclear reactors can only utilize U-235, which is about 1-5% of naturally found uranium. The whole mix is put in the reactor (sometimes enriched to 15%), and the rest of the uranium and plutonium is disposed of as waste, used for nuclear weapons, or used in depleted uranium armor and ammunition.

You're making this sound worse.

Battery tech is 10-15 years from being sustainably produced for grid-scale applications. Current lithium batteries need to be reserved for the transportation sector, so stationary batteries need alternatives, i.e. flow batteries.

Again, I repeat, lithium batteries aren't the only battery we can use. We're also not 10-15 years from using them, we already do.

 

[sfsuphysics]

As for nuclear waste, there's no reason to be storing it for hundreds of years. The stupidity of laws which ban reprocessing of fuel is the cause of needing to store it. There are literal tons of "nuclear waste" which can be easily reprocessed into usable fuel.

Except it's not
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/parekh2/docs/RS22542.pdf

1981. Convinced that the project could not proceed on a private basis and that
reprocessing was commercially impracticable, Allied halted the Barnwell project.

Yeah yeah, 1981 was over 40 years ago I get it, but the reality is private entities make the power and profit from it, and then it's always left up to the government to deal with all the mess.

It needs to be repeated. Nuclear is the safest and best form of man made mass electrical production in history. It is hoped that eventually fusion takes that spot but there is quite a bit of time yet before that can happen.

Yes nuclear is super awesome, I'm not denying that, but much like you can recycle just about everything and have zero waste the "powers that be" won't do it unless it's financially profitable.

p.s. thank you for not spouting all the breeder reactor nonsense that inevitably comes up when people talk about "clean nuclear"

 

[KD5ZXG]

https://www.engineering.com/story/energy-storage-in-underwater-balloons

I'm geussing compressed air can't be in direct contact with water or it'd just dissolve? Mention in passing but neglect to say how or how long they might store heat from compression to use for later decompression. That could be more interesting than just baloons in a bathtub...

 

[Dayaks]

Just imagine what we could do if people weren't upset about seeing ugly wind blades.
View attachment 544938

And nuclear waste isn't an environmental hazard?

Wind, solar, and battery works and we can recycle everything. You don't need a lithium battery to store energy. Also nuclear power plants take longer to turn a net profit than coal plants, not that I care about their profits.

Facts are there have been problems, and a lot of them are due to human intervention. In most cases if no humans touched the plant it should be fine, with the exception of fukushima.


You should keep up with the news.
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/shooting-of-electrical-substations

You can recycle turbines, solar panels, and even lithium batteries. Don't act like this isn't a thing. Wind Turbine blades are just made of wood, and we know how to deal with wood. Solar panels are recyclable but the problem is cost and if companies don't properly recycle them. This really shouldn't be a problem since nuclear deals with this since I'm sure properly disposing of it isn't profitable, but government regulation can fix it. We know lithium ion batteries can be recycled and have been, but it always comes down to cost. The key problem is cost not if we can do it like nuclear waste. Unlike nuclear, these are still evolving technologies and we'll eventually find ways to make them cheaper and better. Wind turbine blades don't always need to be made of fiber glass and wood, and lithium batteries don't always need to be made of lithium. Not that we can't use molten salt and water as a battery. Solar panels are also ever evolving.

Most of what you wrote is wrong. We can’t “recycle everything”. Also large turbine blades aren’t “wood”. As hilarious as it would be to see a 120ft wooden blade, they are mainly epoxy and eglass or epoxy and carbon fiber.

Also the storage required for green energy I once calculated out to be about an 800 Hoover dam equivalent. If democrats get their way and we move away from natural gas furnaces that doubles. Electric cars would increase it further. The quantity of wind turbines and solar you’d need is incredible.

You have some places like Denmark in that chart with large %, but only about 20% of homes (6.7MW) are electricity for home heating and the other 80% burn items. Most of home energy use is usually heating. If you look at Denmark’s total energy profile wind is a tiny %. They also tap into Europe to fix the dips (making the rest of Europe less efficient).

Personally. I’d love to see $3 trillion spent on energy storage, a rough guess of what it’d take in the US, in the form of a mega dam, but no one actually thinks of what this would take. Vast quantities of short lived and impossible to recycle wind turbines is questionable. Chemical batteries shouldn’t even be mentioned.

Just want to point out, there’s nothing more detrimental to the cost of living and the poor than the “green” movement, which in reality isn’t green at all.

 

[sfsuphysics]

https://www.engineering.com/story/energy-storage-in-underwater-balloons

I'm geussing compressed air can't be in direct contact with water or it'd just dissolve? Mention in passing but neglect to say how or how long they might store heat from compression to use for later decompression. That could be more interesting than just baloons in a bathtub...

It's not that the compressed air would dissolve, it'd just bubble away, and the compressed air is your battery so if it bubbles away you just did little more than use a lot of power make bubbles in a lake.

You probably could do something similar with uncompressed air, and just use a winch system to pull a container of air underwater as a way to store energy. I'm not sure how much power you can store that way, or how hard that would be on the container but it's a viable way to put energy in and then get it out later.

 

[mullet]

Fusion is the future the only question is how far into the future. My gut tells me it has more to do with the status quo then advancing humans.

Here is the tokawhatever. lol

 

[KD5ZXG]

It's not that the compressed air would dissolve, it'd just bubble away,

Was thinking concrete diving bell. Bubble going nowhere without dissolving first...
Does it work if air inside the bell is imperfectly separated from water by a floating floor or tarp?
How might maintenence compare to a weighted baloon?

 

[Tsumi]

Was thinking concrete diving bell. Bubble going nowhere without dissolving first...
Does it work if air inside the bell is imperfectly separated from water by a floating floor or tarp?
How might maintenence compare to a weighted baloon?

I think it will work, but you will definitely lose air to the water over time. You'll also need water level sensors in order to tell how much air you have left rather than simply relying on air pressure to determine capacity, making the system more complex.

 

[Wat]

I guess no one here has a house near a wind turbine.

They are very loud. and of your house is in the shadow of one, the strobe effect of the sunlight is actually harmful to health.

Now a lot of places have increased the setback distances where wind turbines can be located, but 20 years ago anything went. Everything has a downside.


Oh, and now in new jersey, they think the offshore windmills are killing whales! I dont understand how they are jumping into the blades, tho.

 

[mullet]

I guess no one here has a house near a wind turbine.

They are very loud. and of your house is in the shadow of one, the strobe effect of the sunlight is actually harmful to health.

Now a lot of places have increased the setback distances where wind turbines can be located, but 20 years ago anything went. Everything has a downside.


Oh, and now in new jersey, they think the offshore windmills are killing whales! I dont understand how they are jumping into the blades, tho.

I saw a tv show back before I cut the cord and a lady had some on her farm because they paid he some money to put them there, she said the noise and the strobe effect drove her insane. She said she had to black out the windows and sleep with ear plugs.

On the whales dying, a long time ago when they first started keeping captive dolphins in tanks the first batches of dolphins were committing suicide and they couldn't understand why they were doing this, finally after looking into it the sound frequency from the water circulating pumps was driving the dolphins insane and they were commuting suicide, see dolphins breathing is not automatic like humans they have to make themselves breath, so they chose not to and died.

I am willing to guess all of the vibration and noise coming off those turbines in water no less makes the sound very loud and travel very far underwater effecting the underwater wildlife.


Wind turbines kill tons of large bird species (eagles, condors....) and all the eco animal lovers don't see to care, but will shut down an entire forest for some rare beetle.

 

[sleepeeg3]

The key problem is cost not if we can do it like nuclear waste. Unlike nuclear, these are still evolving technologies and we'll eventually find ways to make them cheaper and better.

Key problem is always cost for any technology. You ignore that.
Yes solar/wind are ever evolving. Let's let them evolve before wasting more money on them. We could spend that money on saving lives and advancing society instead.

all the eco animal lovers don't see to care, but will shut down an entire forest for some rare beetle.

They don't care. Worshipping the sun god is more of a cult than anything else. They don't think through the opportunity cost.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Was thinking concrete diving bell. Bubble going nowhere without dissolving first...
Does it work if air inside the bell is imperfectly separated from water by a floating floor or tarp?
How might maintenence compare to a weighted baloon?

I'm not sure what a diving bell is doing. I just know the link that was posted is talking about compressing air (using energy) into underwater balloons up to a particular pressure, I assume underwater so that the larger external pressure (water) allows higher pressures without the balloons exploding compared to them being in air, then when they want to get some of that energy back they open a valve and the pressurized air comes back out spinning a turbine to make energy.

 

[Dayaks]

I'm not sure what a diving bell is doing. I just know the link that was posted is talking about compressing air (using energy) into underwater balloons up to a particular pressure, I assume underwater so that the larger external pressure (water) allows higher pressures without the balloons exploding compared to them being in air, then when they want to get some of that energy back they open a valve and the pressurized air comes back out spinning a turbine to make energy.

This sound inefficient and a pain…. Just pump water between two heights….

 

[sfsuphysics]

Key problem is always cost for any technology. You ignore that.
Yes solar/wind are ever evolving. Let's let them evolve before wasting more money on them. We could spend that money on saving lives and advancing society instead.

If no one "wasted money on them" they wouldn't be as cheap as they are today. Technology doesn't magically get cheaper in a vacuum, research must be done on it first, often expensive research.

 

[DukenukemX]

Key problem is always cost for any technology. You ignore that.
Yes solar/wind are ever evolving. Let's let them evolve before wasting more money on them. We could spend that money on saving lives and advancing society instead.

Any energy generation that is done by private companies are the ones who care about cost because they look to turn a profit. Nuclear is cheap, like really cheap, but that's because the automated systems are so good that you rarely need human intervention. Plus you can keep a nuclear plant going for many decades. I believe energy should be a public service, so that the cost is justified for the benefit of society, not for profit. The reason we put nuclear waste underground is because that's the cheapest and most effective option of dealing with nuclear waste. Also, renewable energy is no longer expensive. Once the infrastructure is in place the cost of solar and wind will get cheaper than coal.

 

[sfsuphysics]

This sound inefficient and a pain…. Just pump water between two heights….

I'm simply commenting on the story that was posted above, I have no skin in the game either way. That said the problem with pumped water is you need some place to pump the water too which isn't always available.

 

[Tsumi]

This sound inefficient and a pain…. Just pump water between two heights….

In addition to land needs, you would have to have spare water. Spare freshwater is in very short supply these days and pumping seawater onto land has its own huge host of issues.

 

[DukenukemX]

In addition to land needs, you would have to have spare water. Spare freshwater is in very short supply these days and pumping seawater onto land has its own huge host of issues.

If you're generating electricity then chances are you're using a lot of water. Why you think Fukushima was facing an ocean? In most cases you generate heat, and them pump water to create steam, which turns turbines. If you're using water as a battery source you'll probably want to use seawater as it's not meant for drinking. Like I said before, there are alternatives to lithium batteries like salt. Again not 10-15 years, it's being used now. As soon as batteries are mentioned here, people flock to lithium batteries because it's easy to make a case against them.

 

[Tsumi]

If you're generating electricity then chances are you're using a lot of water. Why you think Fukushima was facing an ocean? In most cases you generate heat, and them pump water to create steam, which turns turbines. If you're using water as a battery source you'll probably want to use seawater as it's not meant for drinking. Like I said before, there are alternatives to lithium batteries like salt. Again not 10-15 years, it's being used now. As soon as batteries are mentioned here, people flock to lithium batteries because it's easy to make a case against them.

/insert facepalm meme here.

Please, keep repeating yourself and not addressing any of the issues presented. I'm sire it will make the issues go away.

For one, a nuclear power plant takes in seawater and dumps it back into the sea right away. A pumped storage seawater battery will need to pump saltwater onto large areas of land for meaningful storage. Turning land into reservoirs already has large environmental implications for freshwater, let alone seawater.

 

[Dayaks]

/insert facepalm meme here.

Please, keep repeating yourself and not addressing any of the issues presented. I'm sire it will make the issues go away.

For one, a nuclear power plant takes in seawater and dumps it back into the sea right away. A pumped storage seawater battery will need to pump saltwater onto large areas of land for meaningful storage. Turning land into reservoirs already has large environmental implications for freshwater, let alone seawater.

It’s less of an issue as a battery since you pump it back and fourth.

And like I mentioned earlier in the thread you’d need at least 800 hoover dams of power gen (maybe not all that water volume, depends how much backup you want) if you wanted all power to come from “renewable” energy it’s going to be trillions of dollars of construction for the storage. It’d be no small task and yes the water would have to come from somewhere. It’d be a large scale gov’t funded project.

For renewables to work you’d need a massive amount of storage… I can’t think of anything less bad than having two new beautiful lakes and IIRC one of the most efficient types of storage. Or we can crank up plants that make more sense like low waste nuclear.

 

[THRESHIN]

It’s less of an issue as a battery since you pump it back and fourth.

And like I mentioned earlier in the thread you’d need at least 800 hoover dams of power gen (maybe not all that water volume, depends how much backup you want) if you wanted all power to come from “renewable” energy it’s going to be trillions of dollars of construction for the storage. It’d be no small task and yes the water would have to come from somewhere. It’d be a large scale gov’t funded project.

For renewables to work you’d need a massive amount of storage… I can’t think of anything less bad than having two new beautiful lakes and IIRC one of the most efficient types of storage. Or we can crank up plants that make more sense like low waste nuclear.

and that's always been the problem with renewables. low output means we're building a metric shit ton of them. and then we want to use a pile of more land for storage? all this has a significant environmental impact, forget the cost. it works well on a small scale. yes i think we should be doing things that make sense, such as putting more into developing rooftop solar panels. it's not the magic bullet, there is no magic bullet.

If you're generating electricity then chances are you're using a lot of water. Why you think Fukushima was facing an ocean? In most cases you generate heat, and them pump water to create steam, which turns turbines. If you're using water as a battery source you'll probably want to use seawater as it's not meant for drinking. Like I said before, there are alternatives to lithium batteries like salt. Again not 10-15 years, it's being used now. As soon as batteries are mentioned here, people flock to lithium batteries because it's easy to make a case against them.

i'm really enjoying all your cited evidence. youtube is by far the most accurate source anyone could use. and denying all other evidence from other sources, brilliant.

 

[Tsumi]

It’s less of an issue as a battery since you pump it back and fourth.

And like I mentioned earlier in the thread you’d need at least 800 hoover dams of power gen (maybe not all that water volume, depends how much backup you want) if you wanted all power to come from “renewable” energy it’s going to be trillions of dollars of construction for the storage. It’d be no small task and yes the water would have to come from somewhere. It’d be a large scale gov’t funded project.

For renewables to work you’d need a massive amount of storage… I can’t think of anything less bad than having two new beautiful lakes and IIRC one of the most efficient types of storage. Or we can crank up plants that make more sense like low waste nuclear.

A pumped storage reservoir primarily for power storage will be varying in level greatly on a daily basis, even if sized for a week's worth of power. It would hardly be usable recreationally and have no other ecological benefit. Salt water on land also has the potential of contaminating groundwater as well.

Flow batteries IMO have the most promise for grid-scale energy storage. The biggest issue with flow batteries at the moment is hardly any research has been put into them (relative to lithium) and production capacity is correspondingly small.

 

[1_rick]

A pumped storage reservoir primarily for power storage will be varying in level greatly on a daily basis, even if sized for a week's worth of power. It would hardly be usable recreationally and have no other ecological benefit. Salt water on land also has the potential of contaminating groundwater as well.

Without making any larger commentary about the desirability of renewables, it's pretty obvious that a water reservoir for energy storage is a nonstarter in the western US, especially in California, with its idiotic insistence on destroying dams.

 

[Dayaks]

Without making any larger commentary about the desirability of renewables, it's pretty obvious that a water reservoir for energy storage is a nonstarter in the western US, especially in California, with its idiotic insistence on destroying dams.

It’s funny because Lake Arrowhead in CA would be great. Only a few miles the elevation drops ~3000 feet.

The lake has 15,640,000,000 gallons of water. 3000 ft of head is 1300PSI.

550 watts per GPM. Could get a couple of gigawatts out of it.

 

[KD5ZXG]

Nevermind PSI, what of whales catching fire from all them metric gallons of molten salt?

 

[Wat]

What if you had windmills several miles off the shore of southern California,spraying seawater in a fine mist up in the air. Would that allow the water to evaporate without carrying the salt with it? Then that extra water would hopefully dump out over the southwest.

Just a silly idea I just had, could it be practical?

 

[Darunion]

Nevermind PSI, what of whales catching fire from all them metric gallons of molten salt?

Whale fat oil power plants seems like a renewable resource for energy good idea!! lol

 

[DukenukemX]

/insert facepalm meme here.

Please, keep repeating yourself and not addressing any of the issues presented. I'm sire it will make the issues go away.

For one, a nuclear power plant takes in seawater and dumps it back into the sea right away. A pumped storage seawater battery will need to pump saltwater onto large areas of land for meaningful storage. Turning land into reservoirs already has large environmental implications for freshwater, let alone seawater.

If nuclear is using sea water then that means it's near the sea which means we could have another Fukushima disaster. We could also use the sea water for desalination plants to double as a battery and to create clean drinking water.

 

[DukenukemX]

i'm really enjoying all your cited evidence. youtube is by far the most accurate source anyone could use. and denying all other evidence from other sources, brilliant.

Nobody here provided any source other then their thoughts, which is worth about as much as a NFT.

 

[THRESHIN]

Nobody here provided any source other then their thoughts, which is worth about as much as a NFT.

I have provided you with many, many sources in the past in related discussions. I remember one in particular was the US environmental protection agency. You simply dismissed them as false without reading them.

In short, I'm quite done playing that game.

Regardless, this still does not address the fact that YouTube is probably one of the most unreliable sources of information there is.

 

[Tsumi]

If nuclear is using sea water then that means it's near the sea which means we could have another Fukushima disaster. We could also use the sea water for desalination plants to double as a battery and to create clean drinking water.

Using and dumping seawater immediately is a far cry from storing it for weeks to months at a time.

Desalination takes large amounts of energy and using it for drinking water means you can't use the reservoir as energy storage for the primary purpose. The water will flow only when there is demand for the water, not demand for electricity. As a matter of fact, such a setup will be a consumer of electricity, not storage, because the water will need to be pumped into the water distribution systems. You also won't be desalinating the water just to dump it back into the sea, makes no sense to do so. It's like you didn't give your proposal any kind of critical thought whatsoever.