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 Elemental wrote:

 admironheart wrote:

Would those be there without taxpayer assistance?
What will we do when all the good land for food is taken up by renewables?

Why does it need to be good land for food? Deserts and rooftops pick up a lot of sunlight, I hear.

"Good land" gets taken up by non renewables too. Strip mining is devastating. Not to mention pilelines / oil-spills which create multi decade long ecological disasters. Really it's nonsense. A solar thermal plant might take up a little more land than your average coal plant. It's not also taking up tons of space all over the world to collect it's fuel. It fuel falls from the sky. It doesn't pollute the air quality around it ether (which is also in the boat of "taking up good land").

 Elemental wrote:

 admironheart wrote:

Would those be there without taxpayer assistance?
What will we do when all the good land for food is taken up by renewables?

Why does it need to be good land for food? Deserts and rooftops pick up a lot of sunlight, I hear.

IIRC solar panels are negatively effected by general heat. they are most effective in less hot but still dry cool and sunny areas.

also the problem with deserts (i mean i live in one) is that one its really inefficient for people to live there. food water electricity it all has to be shipped in some how some way.

Anything using elecricity is affected by heat and cold. However, perhaps the benefit of being in a very sunny place outweighs the disadvantage of the panels getting hotter.

Mexico solar power schemes are coming in at under 2 cents per KWh, which is about half the current price of US nuclear electricity.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Anything using elecricity is affected by heat and cold. However, perhaps the benefit of being in a very sunny place outweighs the disadvantage of the panels getting hotter.

Mexico solar power schemes are coming in at under 2 cents per KWh, which is about half the current price of US nuclear electricity.

True.

also the alternative to that is mirror based solar generators for the desert which makes a lot of sense


though i guess maintenance would be the hardest part keeping those mirrors ship shape and dust free.
Also about shipping electricity i haven't heard much about the whole super conductor cables in a while. using super cooled cables for near 100% electricity transfers. wonder how that research is going.

The thing is keeping the super conductors cool will itself take a lot of energy. So you really don’t have 100% transfer. It’s 100% minus what gets spent keeping it cool.

 Desubot wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Anything using elecricity is affected by heat and cold. However, perhaps the benefit of being in a very sunny place outweighs the disadvantage of the panels getting hotter.

Mexico solar power schemes are coming in at under 2 cents per KWh, which is about half the current price of US nuclear electricity.

True.

also the alternative to that is mirror based solar generators for the desert which makes a lot of sense


though i guess maintenance would be the hardest part keeping those mirrors ship shape and dust free.
Also about shipping electricity i haven't heard much about the whole super conductor cables in a while. using super cooled cables for near 100% electricity transfers. wonder how that research is going.

These are the best options right now. PV is still not effective enough. One day it will overtake - but these mirror generators (they call this Thermal Power) are the most effective today.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
If hydrogen cannot be used as a direct combustion fuel safely couldlaefe amount of it be used to produce fuelcells to generate electricity to power vehicles?

speaking of vehicles I just recently noticed local school busses sporting "propane powered" stickers on their rears.

I've seen those on mass transit buses too.

I wonder. Is the explosion risk for H2 tanks significantly higher than the explosion risk for propane?

You know it comes to me that if they made hydrogen a fuel source they might have to add an odor to it. I understand that some forms of flammable gas have no actual smell but a smell is added to let people know there's a leak.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
You know it comes to me that if they made hydrogen a fuel source they might have to add an odor to it. I understand that some forms of flammable gas have no actual smell but a smell is added to let people know there's a leak.

They do. The methane gas (which is a carbon-hydrogen compound) you use to warm your house or to cook on is naturally odourless. They add an an organic sulphur compound to it that is harmless but has that nasty sulphur smell so you notice it when something is wrong.
However, for pure hydrogen this is more difficult if not possible since all known odourants you can add to hydrogen would contaminate fuel cells. Furthermore, hydrogen rises very quickly under normal circumstances, so if there was a leak in a house for example it would rise to the ceiling and then pool in the corners, making it difficult to detect by nose even if it had a smell. To ensure safety when dealing with hydrogen you need special hydrogen sensors. Otherwise you are never going to detect it until it is too late. A building containing hydrogen also needs special ventilation and ignition suppression for all electronic devices (or no electronic devices) in case of leaks. Because again hydrogen has the nasty tendency to pool under ceilings and roofs forming a permanent explosion hazard until removed, and even static electricity sparks can set it off. Obviously, this makes hydrogen a bad idea as a fuel in homes the way methane is used, but it makes for a good industrial and vehicle fuel. In vehicles it is quite safe exactly because it rises into the air when it leaks and does not pool on the ground. This makes it actually safer than traditional fuels (assuming the leaking vehicle is located outdoors). However, it is not a green fuel at all considering it is usually produced as a by-product from other fossil fuel production. It also is a gas under normal circumstances so it is not as energy-efficient as liquid fuels like gasoline (liquid is more dense than gas so a single tank of gasoline will get you farther than the same volume tank of hydrogen). That said, hydrogen can also be produced in a green, renewable way, though such processes are not efficient at all.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This makes it actually safer than traditional fuels (assuming the leaking vehicle is located outdoors).

Its only safer assuming you are lucky enough that it doesn't get immediately ignited by whatever caused the tank to become ruptured. However, situations that result in a ruptured tank are generally also producing friction sparks as well as shorting electrical cables. And unlike a regular vehicle crash where you'll end up with a fire, that will take some time to spread and could be escaped, the hydrogen will immediately explode if ignited.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
This makes it actually safer than traditional fuels (assuming the leaking vehicle is located outdoors).

Its only safer assuming you are lucky enough that it doesn't get immediately ignited by whatever caused the tank to become ruptured. However, situations that result in a ruptured tank are generally also producing friction sparks as well as shorting electrical cables. And unlike a regular vehicle crash where you'll end up with a fire, that will take some time to spread and could be escaped, the hydrogen will immediately explode if ignited.

Nah. It would escape really quickly (like virtually instantaneously quickly). And even in the unlikely case it does catch fire, again it is hydrogen so it is going to go upwards and not stay near the ground to hurt people. Hydrogen is really dangerous in contained spaces. Much less so outdoors. Outdoors, gasoline is far more dangerous and likely to catch fire in fact.
Now hydrogen does have a tendency to violently explode when heated too much (which would not be a concern under normal operations but could be in a crash or when a car catches fire). However it can (and is) easily taken care of by building a safety release vent in the fuel tank. If it gets too hot it can release the fuel, avoiding the explosion.

Nuclear energy is pretty much the only way at the moment.

Nuclear waste is a myth. I was taught most of my life that it was sludge in barrels that took up entire mountains.... when in reality, it's just a bunch of canisters on the property of most nuclear power plants anyway.

Now if only the people who want alternate energy would stop hamstringing any advancement with nuclear energy through government control with a gun, the future I was promised 20 years ago might be a reality 20 years from now.

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/this-tiny-crustaceans-unique-digestive-system-could-be-the-key-to-better-biofuels/

 BuFFo wrote:

Nuclear waste is a myth. I was taught most of my life that it was sludge in barrels that took up entire mountains.... when in reality, it's just a bunch of canisters on the property of most nuclear power plants anyway.
.

This is a gross simplification, and overlooks the fact that this waste has to be stored effectively forever, something which nobody's quite sure how to safely do yet, and has enormous potential for something to go wrong.

Nuclear power is too dangerous to be a worthwhile avenue when there are so many safer alternatives.

Frankly, I think centralized power production in general is a dead end.

 insaniak wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:

Nuclear waste is a myth. I was taught most of my life that it was sludge in barrels that took up entire mountains.... when in reality, it's just a bunch of canisters on the property of most nuclear power plants anyway.
.

This is a gross simplification, and overlooks the fact that this waste has to be stored effectively forever, something which nobody's quite sure how to safely do yet, and has enormous potential for something to go wrong.

Nuclear power is too dangerous to be a worthwhile avenue when there are so many safer alternatives.

Frankly, I think centralized power production in general is a dead end.

Look into Thorium reactors. The waste has a vastly shorter half-life, making storing it much safer over the long term.

 insaniak wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:

Nuclear waste is a myth. I was taught most of my life that it was sludge in barrels that took up entire mountains.... when in reality, it's just a bunch of canisters on the property of most nuclear power plants anyway.
.

This is a gross simplification, and overlooks the fact that this waste has to be stored effectively forever, something which nobody's quite sure how to safely do yet.

Not true. Sending it down a mineshaft in the desert/mountains is pretty effective. Enough to where it will definitely not cause any issues for at least 10s of thousands of years. Unless someone goes and digs it back up it won't harm anyone.

The stuff originally came out of a mine somewhere. Putting it back down a mine is just putting it back where it came from.

Sadly we've rather a history of putting things down mines only to find containers rupture and pollute the environment by seeping into it. You need mines of extreme depth and in very specific geological locations and you ideally still need access to the storage site so that you can long term check and maintain the integrity of the storage.

Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for a future disaster and if it gets into a major ground water source the contamination can be a disaster.

Then again companies are fracking away like mad at present and that's also setting us up for a FAR sooner potential series of environmental disasters.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:

Nuclear waste is a myth. I was taught most of my life that it was sludge in barrels that took up entire mountains.... when in reality, it's just a bunch of canisters on the property of most nuclear power plants anyway.
.

This is a gross simplification, and overlooks the fact that this waste has to be stored effectively forever, something which nobody's quite sure how to safely do yet.

Not true. Sending it down a mineshaft in the desert/mountains is pretty effective. Enough to where it will definitely not cause any issues for at least 10s of thousands of years. Unless someone goes and digs it back up it won't harm anyone.

The stuff originally came out of a mine somewhere. Putting it back down a mine is just putting it back where it came from.

You've got to be really careful with that. A lot of that stuff is highly corrosive and toxic in addition to being radioactive. If it corrodes the container and leaks into the aquifer you could poison vast areas.

It's not a terrible idea, but it does need to be implemented terribly carefully. Especially since much of it is going to be dangerous for a long time - some isotopes have a half-life of half a million years or more.

And so far the human race has managed one empire that lasted for around 500 years or so ish - before it tore itself apart through internal issues and external issues finished it off.

So yeah 500 years of history for a halflife of a million years.



Now who remembers Space 1999 where they stored nuclear waste on the moon. It wouldn't be totally daft to currently bury nuclear waste, but have it accessible. Either for use in powerplants that can use expired nuclear material (or re-enrichment whatevers) or to have it sent into space. At least if it were sent far enough away its potential to cause harm to the Earth is reduced.

Of course we'd need a near foolproof and cheap method into space so that's likely off the cards for a while. But I could see such an idea being used in the far future. Even if just to get rid of old stocks of the stuff (if we'd moved onto another fuel)

Shooting it into space is both expensive and risks a rocket explosion sending radioactive dust everywhere.

If you bury it under a desert mountain there aren’t any aquifers for it to poison. Just bedrock.

Vitrification will solve the nuclear waste issue. Take nuclear waste, dilute it with a lot of sand, fuse the sand into a hard block of glass, laminate it like a windshield and place that in an old mine.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Shooting it into space is both expensive and risks a rocket explosion sending radioactive dust everywhere.

If you bury it under a desert mountain there aren’t any aquifers for it to poison. Just bedrock.

Ah... there are indeed aquifers under at least some deserts, and probably under most of them. Deserts get that way due to receiving little rain; what does fall can and does percolate down until it reaches an impermiable layer of rock, where it collects and flows in an aquifer.

Case in point; here in the central valley of NM the water from the Rio Grande is strictly regulated and at any rate is not a sufficient supply for the six thousand people here in town. ALL of our water comes from wells... therefore from aquifers.


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 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Vitrification will solve the nuclear waste issue. Take nuclear waste, dilute it with a lot of sand, fuse the sand into a hard block of glass, laminate it like a windshield and place that in an old mine.

Not necessarily solve, but it will certainly simplify things.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Shooting it into space is both expensive and risks a rocket explosion sending radioactive dust everywhere.

So. . . if we build some space elevators, and put the launch platforms actually outside of the atmosphere, voila! problem solved

I remember watching a video when I was a boy. Talking about launching nuclear waste into space via space catapults (basically an electric launch platform that can fling waste out of orbit.) Where the heck is all this cool tech I was reading about when I was a kid?