Solar cheaper than nuclear
in [Design]
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From: Don Klipstein on 9 Aug 2010 22:04 In <d4a8f600-f532-4b35-84b1-5be2cb148b63(a)l6g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, miso(a)sushi.com wrote: >The waste issue hasn't been solved. The barriers are political. For example, there are plenty of salt domes that have contained petroleum for a couple hundred million years. Vitrified waste would stay there quite well. Then there are depleted uranium mines, which held uranium ore for a couple hundred million years or so. Vitrified waste with a few feet of concrete around it would do fine there. A doable amount of concrete will absorb enough radiation to make "high level" radioactive waste safe to store there. However, there is NIMBY. States don't want other states' trash, even if they can be paid well to take it. And there was the artificial barrier enacted in the early 1980's, requiring muclear waste to be monitored and retrievable. That rules out dumping it in salt domes or exterrestrially. > Reprocessing is very very messy, well unless you like vats of acid. Why am I not hearing complaints about manufacture of vehicle batteries? >I used to be pro nuclear until I read Helen Caldecot's "Nuclear Power >Is Not The Answer." No rants in the book, just facts laid out in a >linear fashion. - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com)
From: CIC on 9 Aug 2010 22:21 On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:57:55 +0100, Dirk Bruere at NeoPax <dirk.bruere(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On 09/08/2010 03:35, Bill Sloman wrote: >> On Aug 9, 7:42 am, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: >>> On Aug 8, 12:45 pm, nospam<nos...(a)please.invalid> wrote: >>> >>>> Dirk Bruere at NeoPax<dirk.bru...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>>> I think that within a couple of decades most houses will have their own >>>>> PV and battery set, and use the grid for (expensive) backup. >>> >>>> Show me a battery with a replacement cost which is less than the cost of >>>> the equivalent grid electricity it can discharge in its lifetime. >>> >>>> Of course if grid electricity prices rocket (due to technically illiterate >>>> eco wankers and politicians refusing to build viable large scale generating >>>> capacity) anything can happen. >>> >>> The easiest way to make any one technology competitive is by >>> kneecapping the others. >> >> A scheme well-illustrated by the oil industry, which dictates that the >> US has an immense and expensive "defence" forces, paid for by the tax- >> payer, to protect US-exploited oil fields around the world. >> >> The same subsidy, re-directed to sustainable domestic energy sources, >> would kneecap the US oil industry. Sadly, the kind of military or >> commercial intelligence that might appreciate this is in short supply, >> and James Arthur is one of the people least likely to understand the >> point. >> >> He probably thinks that it is right and natural that the US spends as >> much on "defence" as the next ten countries down the pecking order put >> together. Historically, the top nation spent as much as its two >> closest rivals, but the US managed to invent the military-industrial >> complex, and the oil companies, like the banana importers before them, >> are happy to exploit this irrational extravagance. >> >> -- >> Bill Sloman, Nijmegen > >So what would the $1tr pissed into the Iraqi sand have bought? >100 nuclear reactors plus 100GW of solar PV? That is true. There is a lot of waste on all the fronts. I would say people around Chernobyl have a different idea about nuclear energy. I know a few people from there and the stories they tell are very sad. I agree there is a lot of desert land in California and Arizona that have clear skies most of the year. I don't have a problem using solar or eolian energy. One single eolian generator can deliver 3MW. 50% conversion efficiency on solar panels is achievable. The energy of the future is going to be a clean, portable, and a lot more advanced than the energy discussed here. I don't believe there will be any distance transmission of energy, the way we do it today. But that is my personal opinion.
From: John Larkin on 9 Aug 2010 22:53 On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:04:44 +0000 (UTC), don(a)manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein) wrote: >In <d4a8f600-f532-4b35-84b1-5be2cb148b63(a)l6g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, >miso(a)sushi.com wrote: > >>The waste issue hasn't been solved. > > The barriers are political. > > For example, there are plenty of salt domes that have contained >petroleum for a couple hundred million years. Vitrified waste would stay >there quite well. Then there are depleted uranium mines, which held >uranium ore for a couple hundred million years or so. Vitrified waste >with a few feet of concrete around it would do fine there. A doable >amount of concrete will absorb enough radiation to make "high level" >radioactive waste safe to store there. Drop it over a mid-ocean subduction zone. You won't see it again for a hundred million years. John
From: Don Klipstein on 9 Aug 2010 23:02 In <ojc1669gal5p6l83l45p54m8e1pi6c6lva(a)4ax.com>, CIC wrote in small part: >50% conversion efficiency on solar panels is achievable. Can you give a cite for this? Especially should it be more practical than a layer of indium gallium nitride or relative-thereof cells, over layer of a gallium arsenide or gallium phosphide or relative-thereof cells, over a layer of silicon ones. The LED manufacturing industry is doing little with die sizes much larger than a 1 mm square, despite efficiency of InGaN varying generally inversely with current density for die sizes and amounts of current generally mostly used. I am aware of only one manufacturer making dice of that chemistry in a size so monstrous as roughly a 3 mm square, and one other ramping up production of something likely smaller but much bigger than a 1 mm square. And InGaN LEDs have been around since about 1996, and ones with roughly 1 mm square dice have been around since around 2001. -- - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com)
From: Nobody on 9 Aug 2010 23:35
On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:57:20 -0500, krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote: > But the solar nuts (you) keep telling us that point-of-use PV is the way to > go. If it were, wouldn't a PV plant use PV? Point-of-use PV isn't going to be practical for industry, which has high energy consumption relative to its area. Industry has relatively high usage of infrastructure (roads, electricity, water, sewage), which encourages density. OTOH, if you live in a sunny climate, have a roof, and aren't doing anything else with it, it may be worth using it to generate energy. The power produced will be quite strongly correlated with the power required for air conditioning, which is a major component of power demand variability at low latitudes. |