12 ms·
Takes too long to build fission plants to replace coal in the short term; easy to spin up lots of wind/solar. We've also got a ridiculous amount of renewable po
by wryun 4y ago
Takes too long to build fission plants to replace coal in the short term; easy to spin up lots of wind/solar. We've also got a ridiculous amount of renewable potential.
(I'm a candidate for the Fusion Party; we'd like to remove the ban on nuclear power in Australia because it would enable research)
- jp0d 4y agoI'm all for renewable power and environmentally sustainable technologies. This includes Solar, Beach, Wind power and Nuclear power. Preferably Hydrogen fuel cell cars over battery powered cars (purely for less batter and less toxic material to recycle and also logistically more feasible for long distance driving). We Australians need to raise awareness about its effectiveness. The new compact fusion reactor designs from the UK are quite exciting. It can power entire Australia and create a lot of jobs. It's sad that we aren't doing enough in that space.
- wumpus 4y agoIt's a shame that so many people are still pushing hydrogen for individual vehicles despite its total failure in the marketplace... despite significant subsidies.
- ncmncm 4y agoHydrogen fueled cars could be substantially more energy-efficient than battery-electric cars, but it doesn't matter much, because energy is very quickly getting cheaper, so the point where it simply doesn't matter.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThey cannot be even half as efficient - the process of electrolysis is only 40% efficient, then hydrogen must be compressed to insane pressure (which can require up to 20% of the enrgy contained withing) and transporting across the country. Only like 25% of energy you started with ever arrives to the fuel station
- Sinidir 4y agoIts actually around 70-80% efficient depending on method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien... Not that this changes the picture of hydrogen powered personal vehicles. Still the only viable option for grid level seasonal storage.
- ncmncm 4y agoHydrogen is very, very far from the only viable long-term storage. Liquified ammonia will also be popular. But we don't need any seasonal storage at all, just as we don't have seasonal storage of oil. We only need enough storage to hold out until a shipment of LH2 or LNH3 arrives from the tropics. Efficiency of H2 needs to fold in the cost of getting the power back out: Cf. "round-trip efficiency". But as I said, it doesn't matter very much, anymore, since generation is getting so cheap. Gasoline engines were never efficient, but few have cared much about that. Hydrogen won't, in any case, be "transported to the fuel station". It will be made right on the spot, or just down the street. And, won't be compressed, but will be poured in and allowed to boil up to pressure. That said, cars will be using batteries for the foreseeable future. In 20 years, H2 might get another chance, if batteries don't improve enough. Which seems unlikely.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago"It will be made right on the spot, or just down the street. And, won't be compressed, but will be poured in and allowed to boil up to pressure." Are the efficient machines you are talking about affordable and portable enough to be locally owned? Also you are talking about hydrogen being poured in - so that would be cryogenic cooling, right? that incurrs an energy cost as well?
- ncmncm 4y agoYes, liquifying hydrogen also consumes energy. But by the time we are doing that on every street corner, the whole grid will be driven from renewables, and joules will be very cheap vs. other concerns. In particular, the LH2 will be banked during peak generation time, so almost free.
- ben_w 4y agoThe hydrogen path is less energy efficient than the battery path, so it’s only useful if you have really cheap electricity. If the batteries themselves were to remain expensive even as the electricity to charge them/electrolyse water became cheap, I can imagine a scenario where the lifetime cost difference between batteries and hydrogen tanks might be more than the cost of the energy wasted as heat by making the hydrogen. I don’t think this will happen now. The same dynamic on a slightly smaller scale means I can also believe that hydrogen cars could be a Vimes’ Boot: low purchase cost, high running cost, so poor people have them because they can’t afford the cheaper option.
- jp0d 4y agoIt's been pointed out that Hydrogen fuel cell is less energy efficient in its current form. It's true and it'll probably needs a lot more research before it's viable and is competitive against battery powered cars.
- _hypx 4y agoHydrogen will be the future of cars. It is the only one that is sustainable. EVs are themselves the result of massive government subsidies and legal mandates. It is very likely a failed product without those market distortions as very few people can justify paying $45k for a small car and $60k for a large one.
- ncmncm 4y agoThere will be no compact fusion power. Money put into that is money wasted that could have been spent on something that has a chance of making a difference. Likewise, nukes: a dollar plowed into nukes generates, many years later, much less power than a dollar of renewables that start producing immediately. You spend on coal the whole time while the nuke is being built, and the amount you have spent just on coal, by then, would have bought as much renewable generating capacity as your nuke.
- arcticbull 4y agoIf we'd started building reactors when we first said it'd take too long, we'd have all the reactors we need. Instead of saying it's going to take too long, let's just start :) we might surprise ourselves in a few years.
- wumpus 4y agoDid you spend the same amount of money on solar/wind instead? How did that turn out?
- arcticbull 4y agoWhy would I want to cover the entire desert with solar panels instead of having one neat little tube shaped steam box? You know three nuclear power plants (spanning 19 reactors) in Ontario provide electricity for 9 million people? How many solar panels and wind turbines would you need to put in their place? A solar PV facility must have an installed capacity of 3,300 MW and 5,400 MW to match a 1,000-MW nuclear facility’s output, requiring between 45 and 75 square miles of land cover. That's twice the size of Manhattan. [1] Ontario has a generating capacity of 13.5GWe of nuclear energy. That would be almost 1000 square miles of solar panel - 4x the city of Toronto. I actually don't really care that nuclear's more expensive. It's the better option. [1] https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwarf-nuclear-plants https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwar...
- wumpus 4y agoThis appears to be a "no, we didn't spend the same amount of money on solar and wind." Glad you don't care nuclear is more expensive! That's a winning argument.
- arcticbull 4y agoI don't care if something is more expensive if it's better haha. Sometimes better things are more expensive. That's why we have subsidies. And yes, I do consider covering an area 4X the size of Toronto with solar panels to be worse than the 3 small buildings in the middle of nowhere (Bruce, Darlington, Pickering) we have now. I'm saying spending the same amount on solar would leave us worse off. There's a role for both, together.
- greenknight 4y agoHaving direct involvement in the wind industry... most plan -> completion developments take 5-10 years. heck even one from 2013 still hasnt had ground broken. The main reason? NIMBYs. Loads of people go out to the countryside to retire. imagine what these retires would do if their picturesque landscape is now comprised of windfarms? and they dont have anything else to do to fill up their day?
- wryun 4y agoSure, I should have said _relatively_ easy. But see how much of a reaction you'd get to a fission power station (regardless of the rights and wrongs of it...).
- ncmncm 4y agoTwo words: Offshore wind.
- Hikikomori 4y agoHow far though?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoHere's a list of offshore windmill parks in the North Sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in.... The closest ones to my country are about 13 kilometers offshore. Bonus numbers, the horizon 'drops off' at 5 KM distance, and modern windmills are about 300m high.
- baud147258 4y agooffshore wind has even longer timescale and you still have local opposition from NIMBYs and you add local fishers and conservation activists (I remember one project off the coast of France that received opposition from the Sea Shepherd)
- 4y ago
- DennisP 4y agoConventional reactors take a long time because they're very large, custom-built at the site, and we don't build many of them. That doesn't really say anything about reactors like the one in the article, which is small enough to build in a factory and transport to the site.
- wryun 4y agoEven the one proposed has a six-year timeframe (what's the bet that timeframe isn't met?). Imagine trying to get an SMR reactor up in Australia within 10 years, given the legislative environment and the public opposition to it.
- DennisP 4y agoThat's from now until the first reactor. It's not the time for each reactor after they're in production. In the US at least, a lot of wind, solar and long-distance transmission projects have also faced long political delays. That doesn't imply anything about our technical capability to build them, and the same is true of these new nuclear designs. And China, for one, will certainly not hesitate to build stuff like this, once they're able.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoYou forget energy storage.