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Eric S. Raymond: Why Alternative Energy Isn’t

39 points by ntoshev 18y ago

einarvollset 18y ago
"[In comments Eric S. Raymond] Says: Um, what global warming? There hasn’t been any since 1998. Recently global average temperature has actually been dropping rather dramatically, enough to wipe out the last century of warming trend." Good lord, did I really consider this guy a luminary in my teens? I am ashamed.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  The thing about being a contrarian is that you end up wrong sometimes...possibly a lot of the time. I think we still need them, though, to keep us questioning common wisdom. And ESR, for all his flaws, is still an interesting character and a useful member of society.
  - wheels 18y ago
    My opinion of him isn't too high. He likes to brandy himself about as some sort of hacker hero, but in truth, he's not really contributed much to OSS. Combined with him standing up a packed audience at my college without even bothering to call and cancel, and general nutjobery (see his rants about guns or mysticism) I'm somewhat less than a fan. We need wackos like Stallman. He's a little south of sanity, but damn, he's slung a lot of code and really changed the landscape of technology with his idealism.
    - graywh 18y ago
      Now I'm confused. Are you talking about RMS or ESR?
      - abstractbill 18y ago
        He's saying (and I tend to agree) that RMS is the useful kind of nutjob/wacko, while ESR is not.
    - omouse 18y ago
      Stallman is wacko for being an idealist and sticking to his principles?
      - wheels 18y ago
        Pretty much. Most influential wackos tend to be single minded about some ideological point. Sometimes that gets them a peace prize, other times it involves invading neighboring countries. ;-) I've talked to him. It's amusing. And inspiring. And a little frustrating. At least as of a couple years ago he'd still interrupt you every single time you said "Linux" to stick a "GNU" in there.
    - mroman 18y ago
      ESR has contributed plenty of code: http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html Why do you refer to Stallman as a wacko? Why do you accuse him of being insane? I would love to read the opinion of someone trained in human mental health care insofar as Stallman's mental health is concerned.
      - corentin 18y ago
        He's not clinically insane; it's just that he "doesn't have people skills"...
      - wheels 18y ago
        > http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html That's a long list, but most of them are toys, scripts or quick hacks. Even the ones that almost look significant at first glance -- i.e. bogofilter or sed -- not so much. His version of bogofilter was 900 lines of code and his version of sed 1700. I'd guess that the total amount of code that he's written that gets packaged for a standard Linux distribution is maybe 5k LOC. That's being generous, honestly. And that's what I find disingenuous when he's busy talking about his prolific OSS background. The comments about Stallman's sanity weren't meant to be taken literally. I assumed that was obvious.
        mroman 18y ago
        Ok, you don't think that's much code/of very high quality/of much usefulness . . . very well, I now respectfully ask you to tell us how much/of what quality/how useful code YOU have contributed.
    - iuguy 18y ago
      > My opinion of him isn't too high. He likes to brandy himself about as some sort of hacker hero, but in truth, he's not really contributed much to OSS. OSS ESR has been involved in or founded: Fetchmail, GPSd, CML2, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Jargon File, Terminfo/Termcap, VC Mode/GUB in Emacs (ESR is the second biggest lisp contributor to Emacs after RMS), Contribs to Gnuplot, Gnome, Python, Groff and Nethack, GNU Toolkit SED, Hexdump, gif2png, Bogofilter, Countless Howtos at the LDP With the exception of the above, you're right he's not contributed much to OSS. I'm not saying ESR's not a polarising person (I've met both ESR and RMS, both can be black and white people) but he has contributed a lot to OSS.
      - wheels 18y ago
        As noted below, his versions (or contributions) to most of those software projects were all pretty trivial. And listing "projects" like hexdump is kind of cute -- it's 211 lines of code. The one claim that stood out there -- the one that gave a really testable statement that would have surprised me if true was, "ESR is the second biggest lisp contributor to Emacs after RMS". I thought, hey, there'd be a surprise, so I decided to run cvstat on the emacs lisp subdir: - RMS contributed the 2nd most code to Emacs' Lisp with 217542 lines of changes. - ESR contributed the 39th most code to Emacs' Lisp with 6367 lines of changes. The reason that I don't like the guy so much is because he claims to speak for a movement, that by his own prognostication is a meritocracy, and I don't feel like he has the credibility for that. Combined with the fact that I think a lot of what he says is bozo-riffic, I'd prefer him step back from his self-appointed spokesman position.
      - blogsworth 18y ago
        i.e. nothing substantial in the past half-decade
  - tptacek 18y ago
    http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a5pk/eric_s_raymond_on_paul_graham_yo_dont_you_be/c1a6ua http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a5pk/eric_s_ra... But I'm sure he is useful to society. We're all unique snowflakes.
    - Hexstream 18y ago
      My respect for him just had the beating of its life.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    There is a difference between a contrarian and someone who is wrong on basic facts: "And no, electric cars aren’t the answer either; the power to run them has to come from somewhere. The best case is that people will charge them off the grid at night. This will require power plants to be burning just as much additional fuel as if the cars themselves were doing it, perhaps more given transmission losses." --ESR "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory calculates that there is enough excess nighttime generating capacity nationwide to charge 84 percent of the 198 million cars, pickups, and SUVs on the road today. Ideally, the energy charging those cars would come from carbon-free sources, which would reduce almost to zero the greenhouse gas emissions per mile. But a joint study by Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council found that even if a plug-in vehicle got all its electricity from coal-fired plants (the U.S. electricity grid is about 50 percent coal), it would still emit only two-thirds of the greenhouse gases released by a conventional car. Over the next thirty years, the study concluded, widespread adoption of V2G could eliminate 450 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of retiring a third of the current fleet." From Earth: The Sequel (p. 226)
    - mindslight 18y ago
      > there is enough excess nighttime generating capacity nationwide to charge 84 percent ... This only means no new power plants. The current ones would have to step up production at night. > it would still emit only two-thirds of the greenhouse gases released by a conventional car 2/3 isn't significantly different than 1 as far as I'm concerned. Especially when were talking about what goes into making the batteries. Without clean grid electricity, electric cars are merely a feel-good way of outsourcing the problem.
      - swombat 18y ago
        As Al Gore put it in his movie, all those things add up... 1/3 here, 25% there, 15% over there, another 1/3 of what's left from here, etc... 1/3 is quite a lot in that respect.
        mindslight 18y ago
  - yost 18y ago
    > a useful member of society Sure. You can gauge a hacker's grip on reality based on what specific year they stopped taking him seriously. One does not get granularity that fine very often. Few people spend a day a week composing more and more whacky odes to junk science and more and more possessed rants against the cultural tapestries of entire continents. Even fewer people manage to slowly but consistently rack it up over the better part of a decade. Every field should get itself some Raymond or other, really. Now excuse me while I go sip some latte, nibble some brie, and appease to some Islamofascists with my fellow Idiotarians.
- tocomment 18y ago
  He says there are other problems with CO2 in the article. If not global warming, what else could be bad about it?
  - DabAsteroid 18y ago
    He might be referring to reduced nitrogen (e.g. protein) content in plants: http://www.sspi.gatech.edu http://www.sspi.gatech.edu A book, "Silent Power", summarizing the work of the SSPW to date will be published here. Chapter One "Climate Change - Nutritional Impacts" explains how the food we eat is slowly changing due to rising CO2 http://www.sspi.gatech.edu/chapter1.pdf http://www.sspi.gatech.edu/chapter1.pdf From that .pdf: In one important study, Dr. Clenton Owensby and colleagues, studied ruminants grazing in a FACE range with a doubled CO2 level on Kansas’ grassy rangelands. Their studies into the impact of increasing carbon dioxide on those rangelands revealed a surprising effect. The grass these animals foraged from the FACE range had less nitrogen and correspondingly less protein. The protein content and digestibility, even by the four highly efficient stomachs of ruminants, was reduced at increased CO2 level.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  Wow. That's quite a statement. How does that match up versus this graph, Eric? http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20040.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20040.htm
DabAsteroid 18y ago
From the article: What’s going to replace oil? Why replace oil? It is relatively dense, we have 70,000 years worth, and it is rechargeable.
- pragmatic 18y ago
  An interesting study in bias from so called free thinkers. You can think freely as long as it agrees with the consensus. (I'm referring to how this was voted down.)
  - tptacek 18y ago
    It's not "bias" just because you sympathize with the argument. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; instead of offering any, this commenter simply says "oil is rechargable and we have enough of it for the foreseeable future", despite a welter of evidence contradicting those statements. That strikes me as less of an argument than a cry for attention.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  Accessing those 70,000 years worth is very costly. The carbon in accessible fossil fuels is around 1600 gigatons, which will be exhausted in much closer to 100 years than 70,000. Doing so would pitch our atmospheric carbon content around 2200 gigatons, nearly three times the current content of 600 gigatons. http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20050.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20050.htm Based on physical models pointing at similar conclusions from a plethora of different directions, this will raise temperatures. By how much? We'd reach approximately 1650 ppm carbon. At only 1000 ppm, many models predict a raise of temperature from 3.5 to almost ten degrees C (varying across the world). Most importantly, the heat will mostly be circulated to polar regions, melting them. The last step of the argument is quite well known: at 4.5 degrees C, the land borne glaciers will begin to melt, drowning entire cities and countries. Before that happens, 20-50% species will be lost, and billions will face water shortages. The ensuing ecological niches and prevalence of human targets may end up creating many new diseases. http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20046.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20046.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20054.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20054.htm Why replace oil? Because it's tremendously risky not to, and not nearly so hard as people seem to believe.
jbert 18y ago
"The combination of these problems [storage and transmission aren't 100% efficient] means that household energy conservation is mainly a way for wealthy Westerners to feel virtuous rather than an actual attack on energy costs. Household conservation slightly decreases the maximum capacity needed locally where the conservation is being practiced, but has little impact further away, where demand has to be supplied by different plants." Errm...doesn't the fact that transmission is less than 100% efficient just multiply up the gain? If I lose 50% of power sending it to a house, if that house saves Y kwH, I need to generate 2Y less kwH? i.e. the worse the transmission %, the more effect I get from efficiency at the point of use? Or did I miss his point?
- streety 18y ago
  I haven't read the whole post yet but what I think he means is that if energy efficiency goes up locally there will be a bunch of power stations sat idling because it isn't efficient to send the energy long distances to areas where demand hasn't fallen. For example cutting demand in the US by 100MW won't stop a 100MW power station from being built in India. It makes sense but only if you confuse efficiency and demand. Increased efficiency should decrease demand assuming all other things are equal. Surprisingly all other things aren't equal.
  - jbert 18y ago
    Ah, thanks. Well, the demand generally increases over time, so efficiency just means you can delay building that next 100MW plant in the US a while longer - which is useful. I agree with his basic point that "a dense form of energy is useful for transport". But he doesn't seem to have much beyond that. He also neglects the point that turning power -> useful work done is more efficient for electricity from a battery, which is pretty relevant. And for fuels, is more efficient in bigger engines/power plants. Wikipedia tells me diesel engines get in the region of 45% efficient, petrol 30%, electric 90%. That's a lot of room for transmission loss.
    - streety 18y ago
      Absolutely. Demand is, to my knowledge, rising and showing no signs of stopping any time soon. The aim of efficiency drives are to slow this rise, not lead to the decommissioning of power stations.
maxklein 18y ago
I prefer not to pay attention to pseudo-racists with strong opinions and few proofs. Give me numerical proof anyday over the type of race-baiting uproductively negative rambling that ESR seems to love.
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  Give me numerical proof ...Of what? Do you mean something like this?: http://www.amazon.com/Bias-Mental-Testing-Arthur-Jensen/dp/0029164303 http://www.amazon.com/Bias-Mental-Testing-Arthur-Jensen/dp/0... http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036 http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Inte...
  - maxklein 18y ago
    So you're saying here that you support the notion that people with darker skin are less intelligent than people with lighter skin color?
    - defen 18y ago
      It's fairly well established that the mean IQ (i.e. g, or general intelligence factor) of people of African descent is lower than that of people of European descent, which is in turn lower than that of people of East Asian or Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
      - logjam 18y ago
        [citation needed]
      - maxklein 18y ago
        Quite apart from the argument you are proposing there - what does that have to do with skin color? Everybody that lives at the equator in all parts of the world have dark skin, it has nothing to do with if a person comes from Africa or not. And it's not "fairly well established". Not in any way that one would deem scientific. It's fairly well established in the minds of bigots and in the minds of people who are looking to justify their denial of rights to certain groups of people, but it's not established in any meaningful way. For example, take a look at the body of evidence showing that the earth is round. Now, using the same SCIENTIFIC criteria, show me the evidence that people of African descent are less intelligent than people of european descent - you'll find that the 'studies' that were done are very fuzzy, very open to intepretation, use very skewed sample size, and are not pure at all. What you are really trying to say is that In tests conducted in the 70s with tiny groups of African-American people of mixed race, who came from long disadvantaged communities, there was a difference in problem solving ability according to a certain metric, compared to affluent children from educated homes. The evidence is weak and very unscientific. If you REALLY want to prove that the IQ is lower, then I demand sample groups approaching 2000, I demand that the tests be taken in Africa, and written in an African language, I demand that the socio-economic backgrounds of the participants be the same or similar, and I demand that all questions related to verbal ability be removed from IQ tests. IQ has not been measures properly, and having lived in several continents, nothing I have seen indicates to me that there is any significant difference in IQ between people living on different continents, once you factor in their family background. But people like you once found a study that fitted in with your narrow perception, and you hang on to it like it was the holy grail. It's flawed, and it's an argument similar to creationism.
streety 18y ago
What I found most sad about this is that in the entire post he didn't post a single link. Not one. There is a lot of new technologies discussed and I for one would like more information so I can make an informed evaluation. This post doesn't provide it.
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  he didn't post a single link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power The "atmosphere tower" might be the convection "energy tower": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29
  - ash 18y ago
    Or "solar updraft tower": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
  - streety 18y ago
    Playing around with some figures sourced from wikipedia and assuming best case scenario meeting the demand for oil would require an area the size of Germany be turned over to algae oil production. One of the points raised in the post that I didn't quite understand was tidal power being presented (although it isn't explicitly stated) as though it isn't time variable. The last time I checked the tide went in and then out twice a day. You can trap it in a reservoir and then slowly release it but there are going to be periods when it generates no power.
    - DabAsteroid 18y ago
      You can trap it in a reservoir and then slowly release it but there are going to be periods when it generates no power. Why not use pumped storage? What is needed is elevation to overcome the head-deficiency inherent to the equilibrium periods. This is achievable by sacrificing some of the stored water, to pump a smaller amount of water to a higher elevation.
ash 18y ago
"...tidal generators and atmosphere towers." Atmosphere towers?! What's that?
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  It might be this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29
  - ash 18y ago
    Thanks for the link! Citation: "Currently, no known physical implementation of an energy tower exists." The article refers to another similar concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower "A research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s."
    - DaniFong 18y ago
      These designs are quite silly. In fact the best location for a solar updraft tower is in between the forest floor and it's canopy. In fact, there are already billions of implementations of concept, taking advantage of the entropy differential between the strata of forest biospheres: trees.
pragmatic 18y ago
I knew this would send the Al Gorites into a rage. How dare he question the environmentalist religion. Science is not consensus.
- orib 18y ago
  Science is also not the unqualified saying loudly "LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU". In many cases he's simply dead wrong, but people listen because what he says is more pleasant than the truth. We're running out of resources (not just oil. Copper, platinum, I belive... indium? are all going to be in short supply in a short few hundred years). The climate is changing. We don't care if it's man made or not, it's harming our living conditions. We're still polluting our lakes -- the great lakes have large segments of horribly toxic sediment, for example. (although cleanup is going well, and costing only a few billion dollars.) And yes, I am a physics student taking some extra classes on analyzing human damage to the environment, and a number of my professors are researching or otherwise involved with this stuff, from attempting to create efficient solar cells to cleaning up the great lakes. I'm not an expert on our environmental challenges, but I think I have a somewhat better-than-average grasp of the situation.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Take a look around you on this board. Who are the people saying LALALALA? It's certainly not the skeptics. The skeptics are more than willing to engage in intelligent debate. There's only one side of this discussion who doesn't want to hear the truth -- that's the side that keeps down-modding everything that doesn't fit into their worldview.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    >We're running out of resources (not just oil. Copper, platinum, I belive... indium? are all going to be in short supply in a short few hundred years). You should google a man named Julian Simon.
lemonysnicket 18y ago
I guess non-hackernews is hacker news...(Maroon linked to this in his post as one of his favorite pieces of 'nonhackernews')
stcredzero 18y ago
Geothermal is like hydropower, economically speaking, but requires unusual geology. Basically the only place it can work on a large scale is in Iceland, home of a full third of the world’s active volcanoes. There's at least one startup working on this: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/altarock-breaks-new-ground-with-geothermal-power-918.html http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/altarock-breaks-new-g... Apparently, with advances in drilling technology, and developing the tech to fracture hot dry rock could greatly expand the range of possible geothermal sites.
lliiffee 18y ago
> And no, electric cars aren’t the answer either; the power to run them has to come from somewhere. The best case is that people will charge them off the grid at night. This will require power plants to be burning just as much additional fuel as if the cars themselves were doing it, perhaps more given transmission losses. It has to be said. This guy is simply lazy, and did not do the research necessary to have informed opinions. Here are the facts I gathered in about 5 minutes. (Its pretty sloppy research, but hey-- I'm just posting a comment!) 1) Electric grid transmission efficiency: ~90% http://www.energetics.com/gridworks/grid.html http://www.energetics.com/gridworks/grid.html 2) Internal Combustion Engine Efficiency: ~20% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Energy_Efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Ener... 3) Power Plant Efficiency: ~33% http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/electricity-generation-efficiency-its-not-about-the-technology/ http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/electricity-generation-e... 4) Battery Efficiency: ~80% http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm 33 * .9 * .8 = 23.76 23.76 > 20
- mrtron 18y ago
  Also factor in the alternative sources we could use to create electricity that are not practical for having on the car itself. Wind, solar, geothermal, etc. If we could produce endless supplies of cheap renewable energy, it would be a no-brainer to switch to electric cars.
  - yters 18y ago
    That's a really good point. It's much more efficient to centralize alternative power production than to decentralize it in a bunch of cars.
    - DaniFong 18y ago
      That's not necessarily true. To decentralize production it merely needs to be the better economic choice. There is no fundamental reason why polluting energy sources should be cheaper: this is only true with most current technologies in most current situations.
newt0311 18y ago
More interesting reading: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ Basically shows that nuclear is the only viable alternative to coal and oil.
Lagged2Death 18y ago
Alt-energy contrarians very often make the same argument: "We'll never be able to supply all power needs from renewables. Therefore the whole alt-energy movement is a doomed, loopy pipe dream." Has it ever been the goal of serious alt-energy boosters to replace all power with renewables?
- ibsulon 18y ago
  It's the long term goal. The short term goal is to do more.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  Asymptotically. We have three problems: power capacity, power on demand, and power portability. Renewable energy sources can solve the capacity problem, if our energy consumption goes down through efficiency and changing habits (in particular, if we stop flying everywhere...). The main thing we must optimize for is energy per day versus cost. Power on demand is another major problem: we need to supply a 'peak' of power when people demand it. Renewable energy wavers during its production, so we need to store some proportion of its energy somehow. The main thing to optimize for here is energy capacity versus cost, assuming you can get the power out fast enough. Efficiency also factors in, though not hugely. Anything over 50% is ok. Portable power is most problematic. We need an energy source that's clean, but that has a high energy density, measured relative to both weight and volume. Solving each problem leads to different possibilities. For example, if you solve the weight problem, but it takes up tons of room (hydrogen), you might be able to power airplanes. You can also power trains. If you solve the volume problem, you can easily power automobiles and two wheeled vehicles. (for example, hydrocarbon fuel cells work pretty well here. We're trying to make compressed air vehicles that will work well here) If you have solved the low cost and efficiency problems, and it doesn't weigh too much, you can power ships, in particular, container ships. If the fuel is buoyant you can make a double hulled vehicle and store the fuel in it. (compressed air works very well here).
  - DabAsteroid 18y ago
    If ... it doesn't weigh too much, you can power ships, in particular, container ships. If the fuel is buoyant you can make a double hulled vehicle and store the fuel in it. (compressed air works very well here). Why would the fuel need to be buoyant? Ships use steel hulls, steel is denser than seawater, and, despite that, ships float. Some ships are even powered by lead-acid batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine#The_snorkel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine#The_snorkel) -- though these batteries are recharged by onboard diesel generators -- and yet they float. Aircraft carriers and icebreakers are even powered by uranium -- 18 times the density of water. Pressurizing the space between the two hulls of a double-hulled boat would require thicker steel than normal. (For a single curve, the tensile PSI needed is the air-pressure in PSI multiplied by the radius in inches -- for a sphere, divide by two.) Since steel is denser than seawater, this would tend to make the vessel sink (so the fuel would hardly buoyant unless it were further being contained in-between the hulls in carbon-fiber cells -- but that would obviate the need for two hulls). It would also impact the shape of the boat, since containing pressure is easier with a smaller radius-of-curvature (e.g. the usual flat-sides of containter ships would be counter-efficient for this task of retaining air-pressure). An efficient design of such a container-ship might have two or three long, parallel tubes as hulls, with a container-platform mounted above on blade-pylons (to slice through the water). Optimally, the tubes would remain entirely submerged during cruising, so as not to interact with surface waves (which interaction normally causes efficiency losses).
deleted 18y ago
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DaniFong 18y ago
This is strongly false. Utility scale flywheel systems can store massive amounts of energy, and can do so quite cheaply. So can compressed air. If you look at household electricity usage, an enormous amount is taken up by refrigeration, and air conditioning. Much of the rest is taken up by appliances: washers, dryers, that sort of thing. Finally there's heating and lighting and electronics. The major energy expenses are now transport, which we're trying to address, stuff, which is hard, and air travel, which will have to be scaled down because it's polluting the environment like crazy. http://www.wattzon.org/gameplan.htm http://www.wattzon.org/gameplan.htm
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  Utility scale flywheel systems can store massive amounts of energy, and can do so quite cheaply. Yet, electric utilities use lead-acid batteries, instead (providing ~30 seconds of backup power). If utility scale flywheel systems are cheap, why aren't they being added to nuclear power plants (so those plants can be used more-effectively for peak power)?
  - DaniFong 18y ago
    Utility scale flywheel systems are being added to new powerplants, but it's been slow going. Utilities are not exactly dynamic organizations; my cofounder used to consult for one, getting them to change anything was an enormous pain. There are many growing companies in this area: Beacon Power is one in particular. http://beaconpower.com/ http://beaconpower.com/ They aren't being added to nuclear powerplants because nuclear powerplants have a wide and controllable dynamic range (they can run higher or lower depending) and new ones aren't being created. There are large scale installations of flywheel systems in government use, though. The Princeton Plasma Physics Lab used a flywheel system for peak power delivery, as did many other government labs; including particle accelerators.
    - DabAsteroid 18y ago
      They aren't being added to nuclear powerplants because nuclear powerplants have a wide and controllable dynamic range (they can run higher or lower depending) Nuclear powerplants, typically, are capital intensive. For this reason, their operators aim for high capacity-factors. Unless economic forces are being ignored, they cannot easily be throttled. They run at 100%, all of the time, except when they are being refueled. The only nation that uses its nuclear powerplants in load-following mode is France -- since such a high proportion, some 80%, of its electricity is nuclear -- and France pays a price for that. Additionally, it is not mechanically good for a nuclear-powerplant to throttle up and down. Such cycling causes parts to wear-out faster. If it is going to be used at all, it is best to keep it on, at a steady output. There are other considerations. The nature of reactor poison build-up is such that throttling-up immediately after throttling-down tends, in typical reactor designs, to be difficult to do. Unlike nuclear-powerplants, hydro and gas-turbine powerplants load-follow well (though the more-efficient gas-turbine powerplants take longer to start-up and might have to burn fuel, idling). . new [nuclear powerplants] aren't being created. The United States continuously adds nuclear capacity (through uprates, improved management, refurbishment of previously shut-down reactors, etc.). (http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/images/press191_02-06-1.gif http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/images/press191_02-06-1.gi...)(http://uspowerpartners.org/images/Section2Topic-NuclearEnergy-Graph1.gif http://uspowerpartners.org/images/Section2Topic-NuclearEnerg...) Additionally, up to 33 reactor-units are expected to be on-order there, soon. (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#preparing http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#preparing) Several reactor-vessels have already been ordered for new reactor-units to be built in the United States. Worldwide, 36 power-reactor-units are under construction, 97 are planned, and 221 are proposed. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html Japan's nuclear share of its total electricity production (past and projected): http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html 2008 30% 2009 37% 2017 41% 2050 60% It has 3 reactor-units under construction, and 12 more are planned. South Korea's nuclear share of its total electricity production (past and projected): http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf81.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf81.html 2006 39% 2017 47% 2035 60% It has 4 reactor-units under construction, and 4 more are planned.
jdavid 18y ago
ummmm, just a note, did everyone notice ALL of the icons on the header of this site?

39 points by ntoshev 18y ago

"[In comments Eric S. Raymond] Says: Um, what global warming? There hasn’t been any since 1998. Recently global average temperature has actually been dropping rather dramatically, enough to wipe out the last century of warming trend." Good lord, did I really consider this guy a luminary in my teens? I am ashamed.

SwellJoe 18y ago
The thing about being a contrarian is that you end up wrong sometimes...possibly a lot of the time. I think we still need them, though, to keep us questioning common wisdom. And ESR, for all his flaws, is still an interesting character and a useful member of society.
- wheels 18y ago
  My opinion of him isn't too high. He likes to brandy himself about as some sort of hacker hero, but in truth, he's not really contributed much to OSS. Combined with him standing up a packed audience at my college without even bothering to call and cancel, and general nutjobery (see his rants about guns or mysticism) I'm somewhat less than a fan. We need wackos like Stallman. He's a little south of sanity, but damn, he's slung a lot of code and really changed the landscape of technology with his idealism.
  - graywh 18y ago
    Now I'm confused. Are you talking about RMS or ESR?
    - abstractbill 18y ago
      He's saying (and I tend to agree) that RMS is the useful kind of nutjob/wacko, while ESR is not.
  - omouse 18y ago
    Stallman is wacko for being an idealist and sticking to his principles?
    - wheels 18y ago
      Pretty much. Most influential wackos tend to be single minded about some ideological point. Sometimes that gets them a peace prize, other times it involves invading neighboring countries. ;-) I've talked to him. It's amusing. And inspiring. And a little frustrating. At least as of a couple years ago he'd still interrupt you every single time you said "Linux" to stick a "GNU" in there.
  - mroman 18y ago
    ESR has contributed plenty of code: http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html Why do you refer to Stallman as a wacko? Why do you accuse him of being insane? I would love to read the opinion of someone trained in human mental health care insofar as Stallman's mental health is concerned.
    - corentin 18y ago
      He's not clinically insane; it's just that he "doesn't have people skills"...
    - wheels 18y ago
      > http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/software.html That's a long list, but most of them are toys, scripts or quick hacks. Even the ones that almost look significant at first glance -- i.e. bogofilter or sed -- not so much. His version of bogofilter was 900 lines of code and his version of sed 1700. I'd guess that the total amount of code that he's written that gets packaged for a standard Linux distribution is maybe 5k LOC. That's being generous, honestly. And that's what I find disingenuous when he's busy talking about his prolific OSS background. The comments about Stallman's sanity weren't meant to be taken literally. I assumed that was obvious.
      - mroman 18y ago
        Ok, you don't think that's much code/of very high quality/of much usefulness . . . very well, I now respectfully ask you to tell us how much/of what quality/how useful code YOU have contributed.
  - iuguy 18y ago
    > My opinion of him isn't too high. He likes to brandy himself about as some sort of hacker hero, but in truth, he's not really contributed much to OSS. OSS ESR has been involved in or founded: Fetchmail, GPSd, CML2, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Jargon File, Terminfo/Termcap, VC Mode/GUB in Emacs (ESR is the second biggest lisp contributor to Emacs after RMS), Contribs to Gnuplot, Gnome, Python, Groff and Nethack, GNU Toolkit SED, Hexdump, gif2png, Bogofilter, Countless Howtos at the LDP With the exception of the above, you're right he's not contributed much to OSS. I'm not saying ESR's not a polarising person (I've met both ESR and RMS, both can be black and white people) but he has contributed a lot to OSS.
    - wheels 18y ago
      As noted below, his versions (or contributions) to most of those software projects were all pretty trivial. And listing "projects" like hexdump is kind of cute -- it's 211 lines of code. The one claim that stood out there -- the one that gave a really testable statement that would have surprised me if true was, "ESR is the second biggest lisp contributor to Emacs after RMS". I thought, hey, there'd be a surprise, so I decided to run cvstat on the emacs lisp subdir: - RMS contributed the 2nd most code to Emacs' Lisp with 217542 lines of changes. - ESR contributed the 39th most code to Emacs' Lisp with 6367 lines of changes. The reason that I don't like the guy so much is because he claims to speak for a movement, that by his own prognostication is a meritocracy, and I don't feel like he has the credibility for that. Combined with the fact that I think a lot of what he says is bozo-riffic, I'd prefer him step back from his self-appointed spokesman position.
    - blogsworth 18y ago
      i.e. nothing substantial in the past half-decade
- tptacek 18y ago
  http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a5pk/eric_s_raymond_on_paul_graham_yo_dont_you_be/c1a6ua http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1a5pk/eric_s_ra... But I'm sure he is useful to society. We're all unique snowflakes.
  - Hexstream 18y ago
    My respect for him just had the beating of its life.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  There is a difference between a contrarian and someone who is wrong on basic facts: "And no, electric cars aren’t the answer either; the power to run them has to come from somewhere. The best case is that people will charge them off the grid at night. This will require power plants to be burning just as much additional fuel as if the cars themselves were doing it, perhaps more given transmission losses." --ESR "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory calculates that there is enough excess nighttime generating capacity nationwide to charge 84 percent of the 198 million cars, pickups, and SUVs on the road today. Ideally, the energy charging those cars would come from carbon-free sources, which would reduce almost to zero the greenhouse gas emissions per mile. But a joint study by Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council found that even if a plug-in vehicle got all its electricity from coal-fired plants (the U.S. electricity grid is about 50 percent coal), it would still emit only two-thirds of the greenhouse gases released by a conventional car. Over the next thirty years, the study concluded, widespread adoption of V2G could eliminate 450 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of retiring a third of the current fleet." From Earth: The Sequel (p. 226)
  - mindslight 18y ago
    > there is enough excess nighttime generating capacity nationwide to charge 84 percent ... This only means no new power plants. The current ones would have to step up production at night. > it would still emit only two-thirds of the greenhouse gases released by a conventional car 2/3 isn't significantly different than 1 as far as I'm concerned. Especially when were talking about what goes into making the batteries. Without clean grid electricity, electric cars are merely a feel-good way of outsourcing the problem.
    - swombat 18y ago
      As Al Gore put it in his movie, all those things add up... 1/3 here, 25% there, 15% over there, another 1/3 of what's left from here, etc... 1/3 is quite a lot in that respect.
      - mindslight 18y ago
- yost 18y ago
  > a useful member of society Sure. You can gauge a hacker's grip on reality based on what specific year they stopped taking him seriously. One does not get granularity that fine very often. Few people spend a day a week composing more and more whacky odes to junk science and more and more possessed rants against the cultural tapestries of entire continents. Even fewer people manage to slowly but consistently rack it up over the better part of a decade. Every field should get itself some Raymond or other, really. Now excuse me while I go sip some latte, nibble some brie, and appease to some Islamofascists with my fellow Idiotarians.
tocomment 18y ago
He says there are other problems with CO2 in the article. If not global warming, what else could be bad about it?
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  He might be referring to reduced nitrogen (e.g. protein) content in plants: http://www.sspi.gatech.edu http://www.sspi.gatech.edu A book, "Silent Power", summarizing the work of the SSPW to date will be published here. Chapter One "Climate Change - Nutritional Impacts" explains how the food we eat is slowly changing due to rising CO2 http://www.sspi.gatech.edu/chapter1.pdf http://www.sspi.gatech.edu/chapter1.pdf From that .pdf: In one important study, Dr. Clenton Owensby and colleagues, studied ruminants grazing in a FACE range with a doubled CO2 level on Kansas’ grassy rangelands. Their studies into the impact of increasing carbon dioxide on those rangelands revealed a surprising effect. The grass these animals foraged from the FACE range had less nitrogen and correspondingly less protein. The protein content and digestibility, even by the four highly efficient stomachs of ruminants, was reduced at increased CO2 level.
DaniFong 18y ago
Wow. That's quite a statement. How does that match up versus this graph, Eric? http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20040.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20040.htm

DabAsteroid 18y ago

From the article: What’s going to replace oil? Why replace oil? It is relatively dense, we have 70,000 years worth, and it is rechargeable.

pragmatic 18y ago
An interesting study in bias from so called free thinkers. You can think freely as long as it agrees with the consensus. (I'm referring to how this was voted down.)
- tptacek 18y ago
  It's not "bias" just because you sympathize with the argument. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; instead of offering any, this commenter simply says "oil is rechargable and we have enough of it for the foreseeable future", despite a welter of evidence contradicting those statements. That strikes me as less of an argument than a cry for attention.
DaniFong 18y ago
Accessing those 70,000 years worth is very costly. The carbon in accessible fossil fuels is around 1600 gigatons, which will be exhausted in much closer to 100 years than 70,000. Doing so would pitch our atmospheric carbon content around 2200 gigatons, nearly three times the current content of 600 gigatons. http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20050.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20050.htm Based on physical models pointing at similar conclusions from a plethora of different directions, this will raise temperatures. By how much? We'd reach approximately 1650 ppm carbon. At only 1000 ppm, many models predict a raise of temperature from 3.5 to almost ten degrees C (varying across the world). Most importantly, the heat will mostly be circulated to polar regions, melting them. The last step of the argument is quite well known: at 4.5 degrees C, the land borne glaciers will begin to melt, drowning entire cities and countries. Before that happens, 20-50% species will be lost, and billions will face water shortages. The ensuing ecological niches and prevalence of human targets may end up creating many new diseases. http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20046.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20046.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20054.htm http://www.wattzon.org/plan/pages/GamePlan_v1.0%20054.htm Why replace oil? Because it's tremendously risky not to, and not nearly so hard as people seem to believe.

jbert 18y ago

"The combination of these problems [storage and transmission aren't 100% efficient] means that household energy conservation is mainly a way for wealthy Westerners to feel virtuous rather than an actual attack on energy costs. Household conservation slightly decreases the maximum capacity needed locally where the conservation is being practiced, but has little impact further away, where demand has to be supplied by different plants." Errm...doesn't the fact that transmission is less than 100% efficient just multiply up the gain? If I lose 50% of power sending it to a house, if that house saves Y kwH, I need to generate 2Y less kwH? i.e. the worse the transmission %, the more effect I get from efficiency at the point of use? Or did I miss his point?

streety 18y ago
I haven't read the whole post yet but what I think he means is that if energy efficiency goes up locally there will be a bunch of power stations sat idling because it isn't efficient to send the energy long distances to areas where demand hasn't fallen. For example cutting demand in the US by 100MW won't stop a 100MW power station from being built in India. It makes sense but only if you confuse efficiency and demand. Increased efficiency should decrease demand assuming all other things are equal. Surprisingly all other things aren't equal.
- jbert 18y ago
  Ah, thanks. Well, the demand generally increases over time, so efficiency just means you can delay building that next 100MW plant in the US a while longer - which is useful. I agree with his basic point that "a dense form of energy is useful for transport". But he doesn't seem to have much beyond that. He also neglects the point that turning power -> useful work done is more efficient for electricity from a battery, which is pretty relevant. And for fuels, is more efficient in bigger engines/power plants. Wikipedia tells me diesel engines get in the region of 45% efficient, petrol 30%, electric 90%. That's a lot of room for transmission loss.
  - streety 18y ago
    Absolutely. Demand is, to my knowledge, rising and showing no signs of stopping any time soon. The aim of efficiency drives are to slow this rise, not lead to the decommissioning of power stations.

maxklein 18y ago

I prefer not to pay attention to pseudo-racists with strong opinions and few proofs. Give me numerical proof anyday over the type of race-baiting uproductively negative rambling that ESR seems to love.

DabAsteroid 18y ago
Give me numerical proof ...Of what? Do you mean something like this?: http://www.amazon.com/Bias-Mental-Testing-Arthur-Jensen/dp/0029164303 http://www.amazon.com/Bias-Mental-Testing-Arthur-Jensen/dp/0... http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036 http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Inte...
- maxklein 18y ago
  So you're saying here that you support the notion that people with darker skin are less intelligent than people with lighter skin color?
  - defen 18y ago
    It's fairly well established that the mean IQ (i.e. g, or general intelligence factor) of people of African descent is lower than that of people of European descent, which is in turn lower than that of people of East Asian or Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
    - logjam 18y ago
      [citation needed]
    - maxklein 18y ago
      Quite apart from the argument you are proposing there - what does that have to do with skin color? Everybody that lives at the equator in all parts of the world have dark skin, it has nothing to do with if a person comes from Africa or not. And it's not "fairly well established". Not in any way that one would deem scientific. It's fairly well established in the minds of bigots and in the minds of people who are looking to justify their denial of rights to certain groups of people, but it's not established in any meaningful way. For example, take a look at the body of evidence showing that the earth is round. Now, using the same SCIENTIFIC criteria, show me the evidence that people of African descent are less intelligent than people of european descent - you'll find that the 'studies' that were done are very fuzzy, very open to intepretation, use very skewed sample size, and are not pure at all. What you are really trying to say is that In tests conducted in the 70s with tiny groups of African-American people of mixed race, who came from long disadvantaged communities, there was a difference in problem solving ability according to a certain metric, compared to affluent children from educated homes. The evidence is weak and very unscientific. If you REALLY want to prove that the IQ is lower, then I demand sample groups approaching 2000, I demand that the tests be taken in Africa, and written in an African language, I demand that the socio-economic backgrounds of the participants be the same or similar, and I demand that all questions related to verbal ability be removed from IQ tests. IQ has not been measures properly, and having lived in several continents, nothing I have seen indicates to me that there is any significant difference in IQ between people living on different continents, once you factor in their family background. But people like you once found a study that fitted in with your narrow perception, and you hang on to it like it was the holy grail. It's flawed, and it's an argument similar to creationism.

streety 18y ago

What I found most sad about this is that in the entire post he didn't post a single link. Not one. There is a lot of new technologies discussed and I for one would like more information so I can make an informed evaluation. This post doesn't provide it.

DabAsteroid 18y ago
he didn't post a single link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power The "atmosphere tower" might be the convection "energy tower": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29
- ash 18y ago
  Or "solar updraft tower": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
- streety 18y ago
  Playing around with some figures sourced from wikipedia and assuming best case scenario meeting the demand for oil would require an area the size of Germany be turned over to algae oil production. One of the points raised in the post that I didn't quite understand was tidal power being presented (although it isn't explicitly stated) as though it isn't time variable. The last time I checked the tide went in and then out twice a day. You can trap it in a reservoir and then slowly release it but there are going to be periods when it generates no power.
  - DabAsteroid 18y ago
    You can trap it in a reservoir and then slowly release it but there are going to be periods when it generates no power. Why not use pumped storage? What is needed is elevation to overcome the head-deficiency inherent to the equilibrium periods. This is achievable by sacrificing some of the stored water, to pump a smaller amount of water to a higher elevation.

ash 18y ago

"...tidal generators and atmosphere towers." Atmosphere towers?! What's that?

DabAsteroid 18y ago
It might be this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_tower_%28downdraft%29
- ash 18y ago
  Thanks for the link! Citation: "Currently, no known physical implementation of an energy tower exists." The article refers to another similar concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower "A research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s."
  - DaniFong 18y ago
    These designs are quite silly. In fact the best location for a solar updraft tower is in between the forest floor and it's canopy. In fact, there are already billions of implementations of concept, taking advantage of the entropy differential between the strata of forest biospheres: trees.

pragmatic 18y ago

I knew this would send the Al Gorites into a rage. How dare he question the environmentalist religion. Science is not consensus.

orib 18y ago
Science is also not the unqualified saying loudly "LALALA I CANT HEAR YOU". In many cases he's simply dead wrong, but people listen because what he says is more pleasant than the truth. We're running out of resources (not just oil. Copper, platinum, I belive... indium? are all going to be in short supply in a short few hundred years). The climate is changing. We don't care if it's man made or not, it's harming our living conditions. We're still polluting our lakes -- the great lakes have large segments of horribly toxic sediment, for example. (although cleanup is going well, and costing only a few billion dollars.) And yes, I am a physics student taking some extra classes on analyzing human damage to the environment, and a number of my professors are researching or otherwise involved with this stuff, from attempting to create efficient solar cells to cleaning up the great lakes. I'm not an expert on our environmental challenges, but I think I have a somewhat better-than-average grasp of the situation.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Take a look around you on this board. Who are the people saying LALALALA? It's certainly not the skeptics. The skeptics are more than willing to engage in intelligent debate. There's only one side of this discussion who doesn't want to hear the truth -- that's the side that keeps down-modding everything that doesn't fit into their worldview.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  >We're running out of resources (not just oil. Copper, platinum, I belive... indium? are all going to be in short supply in a short few hundred years). You should google a man named Julian Simon.

lemonysnicket 18y ago

I guess non-hackernews is hacker news...(Maroon linked to this in his post as one of his favorite pieces of 'nonhackernews')

stcredzero 18y ago

Geothermal is like hydropower, economically speaking, but requires unusual geology. Basically the only place it can work on a large scale is in Iceland, home of a full third of the world’s active volcanoes. There's at least one startup working on this: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/altarock-breaks-new-ground-with-geothermal-power-918.html http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/altarock-breaks-new-g... Apparently, with advances in drilling technology, and developing the tech to fracture hot dry rock could greatly expand the range of possible geothermal sites.

lliiffee 18y ago

> And no, electric cars aren’t the answer either; the power to run them has to come from somewhere. The best case is that people will charge them off the grid at night. This will require power plants to be burning just as much additional fuel as if the cars themselves were doing it, perhaps more given transmission losses. It has to be said. This guy is simply lazy, and did not do the research necessary to have informed opinions. Here are the facts I gathered in about 5 minutes. (Its pretty sloppy research, but hey-- I'm just posting a comment!) 1) Electric grid transmission efficiency: ~90% http://www.energetics.com/gridworks/grid.html http://www.energetics.com/gridworks/grid.html 2) Internal Combustion Engine Efficiency: ~20% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Energy_Efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Ener... 3) Power Plant Efficiency: ~33% http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/electricity-generation-efficiency-its-not-about-the-technology/ http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/26/electricity-generation-e... 4) Battery Efficiency: ~80% http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm http://xtronics.com/reference/batterap.htm 33 * .9 * .8 = 23.76 23.76 > 20

mrtron 18y ago
Also factor in the alternative sources we could use to create electricity that are not practical for having on the car itself. Wind, solar, geothermal, etc. If we could produce endless supplies of cheap renewable energy, it would be a no-brainer to switch to electric cars.
- yters 18y ago
  That's a really good point. It's much more efficient to centralize alternative power production than to decentralize it in a bunch of cars.
  - DaniFong 18y ago
    That's not necessarily true. To decentralize production it merely needs to be the better economic choice. There is no fundamental reason why polluting energy sources should be cheaper: this is only true with most current technologies in most current situations.

newt0311 18y ago

More interesting reading: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ Basically shows that nuclear is the only viable alternative to coal and oil.

Lagged2Death 18y ago

Alt-energy contrarians very often make the same argument: "We'll never be able to supply all power needs from renewables. Therefore the whole alt-energy movement is a doomed, loopy pipe dream." Has it ever been the goal of serious alt-energy boosters to replace all power with renewables?

ibsulon 18y ago
It's the long term goal. The short term goal is to do more.
DaniFong 18y ago
Asymptotically. We have three problems: power capacity, power on demand, and power portability. Renewable energy sources can solve the capacity problem, if our energy consumption goes down through efficiency and changing habits (in particular, if we stop flying everywhere...). The main thing we must optimize for is energy per day versus cost. Power on demand is another major problem: we need to supply a 'peak' of power when people demand it. Renewable energy wavers during its production, so we need to store some proportion of its energy somehow. The main thing to optimize for here is energy capacity versus cost, assuming you can get the power out fast enough. Efficiency also factors in, though not hugely. Anything over 50% is ok. Portable power is most problematic. We need an energy source that's clean, but that has a high energy density, measured relative to both weight and volume. Solving each problem leads to different possibilities. For example, if you solve the weight problem, but it takes up tons of room (hydrogen), you might be able to power airplanes. You can also power trains. If you solve the volume problem, you can easily power automobiles and two wheeled vehicles. (for example, hydrocarbon fuel cells work pretty well here. We're trying to make compressed air vehicles that will work well here) If you have solved the low cost and efficiency problems, and it doesn't weigh too much, you can power ships, in particular, container ships. If the fuel is buoyant you can make a double hulled vehicle and store the fuel in it. (compressed air works very well here).
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  If ... it doesn't weigh too much, you can power ships, in particular, container ships. If the fuel is buoyant you can make a double hulled vehicle and store the fuel in it. (compressed air works very well here). Why would the fuel need to be buoyant? Ships use steel hulls, steel is denser than seawater, and, despite that, ships float. Some ships are even powered by lead-acid batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine#The_snorkel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine#The_snorkel) -- though these batteries are recharged by onboard diesel generators -- and yet they float. Aircraft carriers and icebreakers are even powered by uranium -- 18 times the density of water. Pressurizing the space between the two hulls of a double-hulled boat would require thicker steel than normal. (For a single curve, the tensile PSI needed is the air-pressure in PSI multiplied by the radius in inches -- for a sphere, divide by two.) Since steel is denser than seawater, this would tend to make the vessel sink (so the fuel would hardly buoyant unless it were further being contained in-between the hulls in carbon-fiber cells -- but that would obviate the need for two hulls). It would also impact the shape of the boat, since containing pressure is easier with a smaller radius-of-curvature (e.g. the usual flat-sides of containter ships would be counter-efficient for this task of retaining air-pressure). An efficient design of such a container-ship might have two or three long, parallel tubes as hulls, with a container-platform mounted above on blade-pylons (to slice through the water). Optimally, the tubes would remain entirely submerged during cruising, so as not to interact with surface waves (which interaction normally causes efficiency losses).

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

DaniFong 18y ago

This is strongly false. Utility scale flywheel systems can store massive amounts of energy, and can do so quite cheaply. So can compressed air. If you look at household electricity usage, an enormous amount is taken up by refrigeration, and air conditioning. Much of the rest is taken up by appliances: washers, dryers, that sort of thing. Finally there's heating and lighting and electronics. The major energy expenses are now transport, which we're trying to address, stuff, which is hard, and air travel, which will have to be scaled down because it's polluting the environment like crazy. http://www.wattzon.org/gameplan.htm http://www.wattzon.org/gameplan.htm

DabAsteroid 18y ago
Utility scale flywheel systems can store massive amounts of energy, and can do so quite cheaply. Yet, electric utilities use lead-acid batteries, instead (providing ~30 seconds of backup power). If utility scale flywheel systems are cheap, why aren't they being added to nuclear power plants (so those plants can be used more-effectively for peak power)?
- DaniFong 18y ago
  Utility scale flywheel systems are being added to new powerplants, but it's been slow going. Utilities are not exactly dynamic organizations; my cofounder used to consult for one, getting them to change anything was an enormous pain. There are many growing companies in this area: Beacon Power is one in particular. http://beaconpower.com/ http://beaconpower.com/ They aren't being added to nuclear powerplants because nuclear powerplants have a wide and controllable dynamic range (they can run higher or lower depending) and new ones aren't being created. There are large scale installations of flywheel systems in government use, though. The Princeton Plasma Physics Lab used a flywheel system for peak power delivery, as did many other government labs; including particle accelerators.
  - DabAsteroid 18y ago
    They aren't being added to nuclear powerplants because nuclear powerplants have a wide and controllable dynamic range (they can run higher or lower depending) Nuclear powerplants, typically, are capital intensive. For this reason, their operators aim for high capacity-factors. Unless economic forces are being ignored, they cannot easily be throttled. They run at 100%, all of the time, except when they are being refueled. The only nation that uses its nuclear powerplants in load-following mode is France -- since such a high proportion, some 80%, of its electricity is nuclear -- and France pays a price for that. Additionally, it is not mechanically good for a nuclear-powerplant to throttle up and down. Such cycling causes parts to wear-out faster. If it is going to be used at all, it is best to keep it on, at a steady output. There are other considerations. The nature of reactor poison build-up is such that throttling-up immediately after throttling-down tends, in typical reactor designs, to be difficult to do. Unlike nuclear-powerplants, hydro and gas-turbine powerplants load-follow well (though the more-efficient gas-turbine powerplants take longer to start-up and might have to burn fuel, idling). . new [nuclear powerplants] aren't being created. The United States continuously adds nuclear capacity (through uprates, improved management, refurbishment of previously shut-down reactors, etc.). (http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/images/press191_02-06-1.gif http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/images/press191_02-06-1.gi...)(http://uspowerpartners.org/images/Section2Topic-NuclearEnergy-Graph1.gif http://uspowerpartners.org/images/Section2Topic-NuclearEnerg...) Additionally, up to 33 reactor-units are expected to be on-order there, soon. (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#preparing http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#preparing) Several reactor-vessels have already been ordered for new reactor-units to be built in the United States. Worldwide, 36 power-reactor-units are under construction, 97 are planned, and 221 are proposed. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html Japan's nuclear share of its total electricity production (past and projected): http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html 2008 30% 2009 37% 2017 41% 2050 60% It has 3 reactor-units under construction, and 12 more are planned. South Korea's nuclear share of its total electricity production (past and projected): http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf81.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf81.html 2006 39% 2017 47% 2035 60% It has 4 reactor-units under construction, and 4 more are planned.

jdavid 18y ago

ummmm, just a note, did everyone notice ALL of the icons on the header of this site?