where should the watts come from

[kberger]

where should the watts come from

President Obama has laid out a plan called "New Energy for America." Some of the goals are very ambitious. One of them is to have 25% of our electricity come from renewable resources by 2025.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy
The idea is that North Dakota is a windy place, and we just have to build a whole lot of windmills there and then build transmission lines to send all those gigawatts from the plains to places like Chicago. The proposal is out there, and it won't be cheap. A high voltage transmission line to connect North Dakota to Illinois will cost at least $10 billion.
http://www.twincities.com/ci_11868236
Things like this have been tried in Europe, and from what I understand, it is difficult to rely on the wind. E.ON's 2005 report showed a case where 6,000 MW of capacity in Germany at one time produced 40 MW.
http://www.windaction.org/documents/461
I don't think the sun and wind will be able to generate enough reliable energy to get 25% of our electricity from them. I am a big fan of nuclear energy, I wish we would have a lot more of it. This may be the only time where I think "why can't we be like France?" where they get 87% of their electricity from nuclear.

 

[pancakeman]

Re: where should the watts come from

I have heard amazing things about tidal energy, they have very low operating cost and take little power to run, but they work constantly. I did a research paper on it not too long ago, but I seem to have lost that particular file. I believe, and don't quote me on this, that the efficiency of tidal is around 80%, which means that it utilizes 80% of the potential energy of the water. The efficiency of nuclear is ~40%, and solar is less than 10%.
It doesn't produce as much energy as a nuclear plant, but it doesn't have most of the ruin-your-**** problems a nuclear plant can have. Best of all, any city with access to a large body of water, preferably with strong tides, could potentially have a plant. The amount of wattage would vary, but at least it would be a clean source, which is a start.

 

[AeroJonesy]

Re: where should the watts come from

The answer definitely should involve nuclear. Possibly clean coal, too, but I don't know enough about it to say for sure. I've heard that it's the best thing ever and that it's the worst thing ever.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: where should the watts come from

Nuclear power is the answer. It always has been the answer. But that would cut into the oil lobby's profits and the ignorant and reactionary people are more than willing to help them.

 

[WildBerry]

Re: where should the watts come from

Nuclear power is the answer. It always has been the answer. But that would cut into the oil lobby's profits and the ignorant and reactionary people are more than willing to help them.

I'm not entirely sold to it being a definitive answer, but you're right, the grounds on which it is opposed are funny - as if using oil didn't cause environmental damage.

The main issue with nuclear is the waste disposal. The sediments that are sedentive enough to safely harbour that junk without it seeping to ground water or anything are not very common. Our country has a very firm base rock, but the places still are far and few between. I assume that with the size of the U.S. this is somewhat less of a problem, though.

 

[Johnny]

Re: where should the watts come from

Just store the nuclear waste topside til we can launch it into space and then do that.

 

[tarnok]

Re: where should the watts come from

I'm not entirely sold to it being a definitive answer, but you're right, the grounds on which it is opposed are funny - as if using oil didn't cause environmental damage.

The main issue with nuclear is the waste disposal. The sediments that are sedentive enough to safely harbour that junk without it seeping to ground water or anything are not very common. Our country has a very firm base rock, but the places still are far and few between. I assume that with the size of the U.S. this is somewhat less of a problem, though.

My brother was studying to be a nuclear engineer in the navy till he pissed off an admiral and he told me that waste disposal becomes a non-problem if you reprocess your spent fuel. He said that the reason we don't is because the same facilities can be used to produce weapons grade fissionable material and we want other countries to follow our example in not reprocessing waste so we can be sure they aren't producing weapons.

I'll see if I can find some support later when I've had more than two consecutive hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour period.

 

[WildBerry]

Re: where should the watts come from

My brother was studying to be a nuclear engineer in the navy till he pissed off an admiral and he told me that waste disposal becomes a non-problem if you reprocess your spent fuel. He said that the reason we don't is because the same facilities can be used to produce weapons grade fissionable material and we want other countries to follow our example in not reprocessing waste so we can be sure they aren't producing weapons.

I'll see if I can find some support later when I've had more than two consecutive hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour period.

The waste isn't entirely a non-issue, but it is pronouncedly less so - while the left-overs still aren't non-toxic, you don't have to look forward for several tens of thousands of years when looking where to dump it..

What you say of the political reasons behind little reprocessing is probably true, though. If you have something on that, it'd make for an interesting read, I'll be waiting for your post.

 

[tarnok]

Re: where should the watts come from

Well I couldn't find a source that didn't looked terribly biased, but two sites that were clearly against reprocessing sited the nuclear weapon problem and Bush apparently was trying to start a reprocessing program that would have other countries sending us their waste to be reprocessed. Apparently France, the UK, Russia and Japan reprocess their fuel. The opposition sites claim that there would still be high level waste, but another site claims that reactor fuel is no longer useful when it becomes 1% contaminated with reaction by-products, so if we could recover all the actual fuel it sounds like we'd reduce the radioactive waste by 99%.

I dunno. This is one of those topics on which it's difficult to find sources that are not biased and know what they're talking about.

 

[Nazdakka]

Re: where should the watts come from

Nuclear power. It's well understood technology, deployable right now, and waste problem is a surmountable engineering challenge, not a fundamental problem.

Unless they can make carbon capture work, 'clean coal' is PR speak for 'slightly less filthy coal'. The renewables aren't ready for the big time yet, and neither oil nor gas are long-term feasable for much the same reasons as coal.

 

[Galabab]

Re: where should the watts come from

i agree that renewable energy is bs. Too expensive, too unstable. Its a nice dream but its far too naive.

Nuclear may be the way to go.

BUT. Im not so sure nuclear fuel isnt gonna run out soon too. Even at todays consumption rates!
Anybody has numbers on uranium left on earth?

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: where should the watts come from

I'm not entirely sold to it being a definitive answer, but you're right, the grounds on which it is opposed are funny - as if using oil didn't cause environmental damage.

The main issue with nuclear is the waste disposal. The sediments that are sedentive enough to safely harbour that junk without it seeping to ground water or anything are not very common. Our country has a very firm base rock, but the places still are far and few between. I assume that with the size of the U.S. this is somewhat less of a problem, though.

The waste disposal could be less of an issue than it is, if more fast reactors were built so the fuel could be reprocessed. A 30 year half life or less for the resulting waste wouldn't be very worrisome at all. At any rate, at least the waste from nuclear plants is small and solid, where we can keep an eye on it, as opposed to released into the air.

EDIT: Galabab, some of the fast reactors make new fuel faster than they use it up. But fission would just have to last until engineering advances enough to get a fusion plant online. Furthermore, even the regular light water reactors don't use fuel very quickly. The United States just started mining Uranium again after 50 years of using what was stored in warehouses.

 

[tarnok]

Re: where should the watts come from

One of the articles I found quoted some scientist as saying that if we reprocessed our fuel we wouldn't need to mine anymore uranium for about 400 years.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: where should the watts come from

Oh yeah, you were right about the politics stopping fast reactors. Apparently because they produce plutonium and actually have a possibility of melting down, there aren't many of them worldwide. Ironically, every nuclear weapons program to date has used some form of thermal reactor for plutonium production. Thank you wikipedia.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: where should the watts come from

Anyone else think that given that the energy crisis is based on running out of a non-renewable resources (Fossil Fuels) switching to a higher energy but lower available source with higher cost & longer pollution and still non-renewable resource (Uranium) is not the way to go?

Not to mention those sources are better used for times you need a small high power source in a wide open space that the pollution does not matter in (space exploration threads anyone?)

IMHO We need to find better ways to use the Large, Long Term, Steady Sources. Tides, Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Gravity etc.
So far the only one we have is a less reliable combo called Hydro-Electric.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: where should the watts come from

up and coming! (not really, but at least we're trying with a bit of effort, if you look at Japan, Germany, Island,...)

Australia has THE biggest hopes for turning into such a renewables supported country:

geothermal sources aplenty (even natural uranium decay may heat up water for an unimaginable amount of time for them)
wind aplenty
area and sun light aplenty
sparce population per hectar...

this country is wasting its potential, currently...

 

[WildBerry]

Re: where should the watts come from

IMHO We need to find better ways to use the Large, Long Term, Steady Sources. Tides, Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Gravity etc.
So far the only one we have is a less reliable combo called Hydro-Electric.

Huh? Hydro-electric is one of the most reliable, not to mention that it has probably the lowest turn-off-turn-on -costs, so it's best for working with electricity use peaks (just make that dam churn more when people come home from the work). The issue is that both the output AND the potential for growth are limited.

But even with the associated problem, hydroelectric dams have good things going for them, even if they are by all means incapable of solving the growth issue.

 

[BobCox2]

Re: where should the watts come from

I'm pointing out the only source we have made good use of is dependent on rainfall (solar) and gravity not to mention it is also the water supply and the need to distribute if in different ranges for use as power and water leads to conflicts.
I agree it should be a source just not the last renewable one to be developed.

Oh yeah, you were right about the politics stopping fast reactors. Apparently because they produce plutonium and actually have a possibility of melting down, there aren't many of them worldwide. Ironically, every nuclear weapons program to date has used some form of thermal reactor for plutonium production. Thank you wikipedia.

Thank you for pointing out the one good reason to use it all up now.

 

[Stoutwood]

Re: where should the watts come from

Anyone else think that given that the energy crisis is based on running out of a non-renewable resources (Fossil Fuels) switching to a higher energy but lower available source with higher cost & longer pollution and still non-renewable resource (Uranium) is not the way to go?

But it is renewable to some extent in breeder reactors. You also overestimate how quickly we will use up the Uranium on Earth. Finally, the pollution would actually last less than the hydrocarbons we spew into the air if people would let us break down the long-lived isotopes like we should be doing.

Not to mention those sources are better used for times you need a small high power source in a wide open space that the pollution does not matter in (space exploration threads anyone?)

Hopefully by the time that becomes an issue we will have made a feasible fusion plant.

 

[stillman]

Re: where should the watts come from

I think the tidal energy is the best idea...however, people are too afraid to dump giant structures into the ocean. We can blame the fishermen for this, since they've raped the oceans and have taken every last large fish out there. So much has been taken, that the thought of anything new coming anywhere near the ocean frightens people. I say put in the tidal generators and stop the fishing industries.

There aren't going to be any real fish left in 20 years (imo) anyway, so why not end the fisheries right now and get it over with? Move it all to land (grow the fish in aquariums on land for human consumption).