Post #137,736
1/25/04 10:59:48 PM
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'Too cheap to meter' . . .
. . just didn't work out. The reason utility companies aren't clamoring for nukes is that they're way too expensive to run.
A very big problem is the size of an economical nuke. It's so big, If it goes down (and it will go down as any high technology will), you need a huge amount of spinning reserve to take up the slack - or your grid goes down. The only practical spinning reserve on that scale is hydro - so you have to take all your most economical generating capacity off line and dedicate it as spinning reserve for your most expensive generating capacity. That's a real economic killer right there.
Next problem is waste disposal, and that hasn't been solved yet. The waste gets very, very hot and the radiation degrades containment, and if it breaks lose it can contaminate groundwater for thousands of years. Even the best geological storage is riddled with cracks and unknown water flows.
Safety of nukes in operation is a very distant third - maybe even fourth after investment amortization and general operating expenses.
No. Nobody's going to be screaming for nukes in the near term except GE and other nuke manufacturers, and they've been down so long their restart costs would be astronomical anyway.
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Post #137,740
1/25/04 11:07:52 PM
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Alternative sources of energy
The Hydro Electric power is good, but only if you are near a source of high powered water like a river that you can build a dam on.
Solar power works, but only when the sun is shining.
Geothermic power has possibilities, but not sure if we have enough research to pull it off?
We still should have plenty of coal, but need to figure out a solution to the pollution problem caused by burning it. Also the safety and health of the miners to mine the coal comes into question.
Antimatter explosions are way beyond our technology to control.
Wind powered windmills only work when the wind is blowing.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,741
1/25/04 11:14:05 PM
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Landfills
The way I see it, landfills are the best counter to burning fossile fuels. Most of what goes into them is wood and paper - in other words, carbon. Problem is, I don't think we can generate enough waste to keep up with our energy needs.
Eventually, of course, the landfills will become coal beds, but not until after millions of years of geological upheval (and they'd have to be a lot bigger than they are now).
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Post #137,750
1/25/04 11:40:10 PM
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Problem with landfills
is that they have other waste besides paper and wood. Like clothes, shoes, rotten food, metal, plastic, etc. You would have to hire a team to sort the landfill and remove the stuff that should not be used as fuel.
Research into hydrogen fuel cells might be interesting if they can make giant fuel cells. Just get a source of H2O and use electricity to seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen and use the hydrogen as fuel for the cells to generate power. I do not think this technology has been perfected yet.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,752
1/25/04 11:52:38 PM
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I'm not saying use it for fuel . .
. . I'm saying it's a carbon dump, burying carbon counters digging it out and pumping it out. I just don't think the balance is enough.
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Post #137,742
1/25/04 11:14:23 PM
1/25/04 11:21:00 PM
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Re: 'Too cheap to meter' . . .
Why do you have to build huge gigawatt reactor complexes? Why not smaller ones, say enough to run a part of town (or an entire small town), with a backup on site? The hydro plants could be diverted to "big jobs" or supply a part of the overall grid.
Waste disposal - this is bear, yes - but I still can't see why some of the huge savings of an established, distributed nuke grid could not be plowed into digging extremely deep storage mines.
Mines need not be wide, just very deep. Automated drillers could bore down for miles - even to the aesthenosphere (remember the "Moho" project?). Once in place you only need throw the waste in and cap the mine when at some determined capacity.
Also, since you've been around the whole time, when did people *really* start to think of nukes as evil? Even I remember as a kid talks of "free unlimited energy" from nukes.
edit: Project Mohole [link|http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/amsoc.html|http://www7.national...chives/amsoc.html]
It also occurs to me you could use hydrogen devices for mining storage cavities - drill a very deep hole, set off a really big nuke, instant spherical chamber :)
-drl
Edited by deSitter
Jan. 25, 2004, 11:21:00 PM EST
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Post #137,747
1/25/04 11:26:19 PM
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Problems of scale.
If you're going to have all the technology for safety in place, and the monitoring, and highly trained staff and other overhead required to run dangerous high technology, and expensive insurance, you've got to be running on a scale that can pay for that. The overhead for a small nuke isn't going to be that much different from a big nuke, so bigger is better.
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