Nuclear Energy

[Skevitj]

What is it with people only reading half a sentence? Where did I say there wasn't an incident?

 

The plant may have still been operable, but if your safety protocols call for the plant to be shut down then you don't really have a choice but to shut it down. This is starting to turn into a few other similar threads: If not nuclear, what can Japan use? Considering the size of their energy grid and that their economy has been in decline for a while now, they pretty much have no choice but to increase nuclear capability.

 

You may be right with the on-site stationary diesel, I was under the impression that they were only open, portable ones, not part of the actual plant design, seems like that is a bit of mis-information on my part. I'm starting to see a few which claim they were part of the plant's actual design, just very poorly designed.

 

@HeyYou: The viability of hydrogen and hydrogen derivative (ie Ammonia) fuels is based on renewable generation, where we can generate well in excess of what we need and then funnel the rest of that energy off into electrolysis/other electrochemical methods to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen may be a pain to store, but it's still a lot easier than electrical energy, making it a pretty significant part of most larger (theoretical) renewable implementations. I've seen a few very similar things here, where we can expand renewable generation past what we need, and use the excess for desalination, which we need anyway, with the excess water being stored in our near-empty dams and used to fuel the grid as hydro during low output periods. Hydrogen off fossil/nuclear is almost never going to be viable.

 

Hydrogen as car fuel is starting to loose due to the difficulties in storing it, whereas hydrogen derivative fuels can often provide very similar energy contents, without the difficulties in storage, they each have their own pet problems though. I've seen some pure electric trial cars which can outperform any other car type for city/suburban driving. If battery development keeps going at its current rate, electric may be sufficient for the vast majority of transport needs..

Edited September 3, 2011 by Skevitj

[marharth]

What is it with people only reading half a sentence? Where did I say there wasn't an incident?

 

The plant may have still been operable, but if your safety protocols call for the plant to be shut down then you don't really have a choice but to shut it down. This is starting to turn into a few other similar threads: If not nuclear, what can Japan use? Considering the size of their energy grid and that their economy has been in decline for a while now, they pretty much have no choice but to increase nuclear capability.

 

You may be right with the on-site stationary diesel, I was under the impression that they were only open, portable ones, not part of the actual plant design, seems like that is a bit of mis-information on my part. I'm starting to see a few which claim they were part of the plant's actual design, just very poorly designed.

 

@HeyYou: The viability of hydrogen and hydrogen derivative (ie Ammonia) fuels is based on renewable generation, where we can generate well in excess of what we need and then funnel the rest of that energy off into electrolysis/other electrochemical methods to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen may be a pain to store, but it's still a lot easier than electrical energy, making it a pretty significant part of most larger (theoretical) renewable implementations. I've seen a few very similar things here, where we can expand renewable generation past what we need, and use the excess for desalination, which we need anyway, with the excess water being stored in our near-empty dams and used to fuel the grid as hydro during low output periods. Hydrogen off fossil/nuclear is almost never going to be viable.

 

Hydrogen as car fuel is starting to loose due to the difficulties in storing it, whereas hydrogen derivative fuels can often provide very similar energy contents, without the difficulties in storage, they each have their own pet problems though. I've seen some pure electric trial cars which can outperform any other car type for city/suburban driving. If battery development keeps going at its current rate, electric may be sufficient for the vast majority of transport needs..

Japan's economy is the third largest in the world. They don't need to be rushing to put up nuke plants.

 

If any renewable energy was currently viable, most companies would be using it.

[Blacckkfire]

The thing about nuclear energy is that if something goes wrong, the plant could leave a city infected with radiation. It is a dangerous form of energy. Now, I am not this green peace plant-loving hippy. I just look at things realistically. Nuclear plants are dangerous, no matter how clean they are. If better safety precautions are invented, I am all for it. But currently, that technology has not been invented. 6-foot-thick concrete is not working. Edited September 3, 2011 by Blacckkfire

[HeyYou]

There is plenty of oil right here in the continental us, and off our coasts, to last us quite some time. Trouble is, too many folks up in arms about drilling for it, at all..... I will grant, the oil companies are not the most responsible folks in the world..... but, they really aren't much worse than any other large corporation, their mistakes can just have longer lasting affects.

 

Hydrogen really isn't viable as an energy source, as it consumes more energy cracking it from its source (water...), than you get out of it. That, and to be able to carry a sufficient amount to have a decent range on your vehicle, it has to be compressed to ungodly levels..... If the tank ruptures, for whatever reason.... you get a really nice bang, and scrap metal scattered a fair distance. (and you might find a few bits of the passengers of said vehicle as well.... good luck though....)

 

I saw a guy on the science channel that ran his house with the hydrogen from water...and don't ask me how but it was a closed system..he changed his vehicle with it and ran his house with it so efficiently he actually got money back from the power company. So it can be done..as for the cost...well I don't know about that.

 

As for the oil we have...yes we have a bit. Not all of it is viably drillable it is..reserved for emergency drilling. I think we need to look to other sources of energy like nuclear...and do it now. Not tomorrow or next week. We drill that oil and we are back to the.'.oh its not our issue there is plenty of oil there'. To say oil companies are "not the most responsible" is the understatement of the year.

 

I also said...that I thought we needed to develop all kinds of energy sources and not just rely on one kind. Even a gas/electric vehicle would be a great start. On the cutting edge I saw a girl that made these kinetic energy pads and her idea was to put them down as sidewalk all over major cities. People walk on them all the time and they can actually create enough energy to run all the city lights, traffic lights, etc. There are so many things we should be doing including the safe development of nuclear energy.

 

Fact is that we can either suck it up now and start developing these sources and getting oil out of the government's ear...or we can be totally screwed when we run out and the Arab nations start running out also.

 

What? Use foresight? Plan for the future?? How.... how.... unamerican..... :D

[grannywils]

Gee, HeyYou, maybe if we start now.....:blush:

[Skevitj]

@marharth: Again, I didn't say they need to "rush" them out, just that there aren't too many sources (in the concievable future) which would be capable of supplying Japan's load profile, without taking up most of the country in the process, or sending them broke. There are a huge number of countries implementing renewable technologies. In Australia, there are entire small towns which for geographical reasons are cut off from the grid. A few of those have renewable penetration around the 90% mark. A lot of mining companies are also using wind turbines to cut down on fuel cost, they wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't financially rewarding. That's one of the main driving forces for the Global Carbon Market, it would provide the competitive boost needed to allow scaled up renewable arrays and storage technologies to become cost effective enough for general grid use.

 

@HeyYou: You could say that of pretty much the entire human race. People just struggle to look past the short term.

[HeyYou]

@marharth: Again, I didn't say they need to "rush" them out, just that there aren't too many sources (in the concievable future) which would be capable of supplying Japan's load profile, without taking up most of the country in the process, or sending them broke. There are a huge number of countries implementing renewable technologies. In Australia, there are entire small towns which for geographical reasons are cut off from the grid. A few of those have renewable penetration around the 90% mark. A lot of mining companies are also using wind turbines to cut down on fuel cost, they wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't financially rewarding. That's one of the main driving forces for the Global Carbon Market, it would provide the competitive boost needed to allow scaled up renewable arrays and storage technologies to become cost effective enough for general grid use.

 

@HeyYou: You could say that of pretty much the entire human race. People just struggle to look past the short term.

 

"Financially Rewarding" can be misleading though. Do they do the wind turbines, simply because that is a cheaper alternative to paying to have the grid extended to their location?

[Skevitj]

A lot of the towns have actually been physically disconnected from the grid so they can run their own island systems because it's cheaper, some just can't get connected because of geographical reasons. The point is largely irrelevant though, there are mandates on the prices which can be charged for electricity regardless of location, if it's cheaper at one place it cheaper everywhere (scale considerations obviously not being taken into account). This is a situation which is only relevant here, it pretty much depends solely on the regulations in an area, every country and to a lesser extent state is going to have/need a different solution to the various problems.