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True-- for now. The question is: is it better to spend billions researching new generations of nuclear reactors or to spend billions working on energy storage?
by api 13y ago
True-- for now.
The question is: is it better to spend billions researching new generations of nuclear reactors or to spend billions working on energy storage?
The former will lead to a switch from older, less concentrated fossil fuels to a newer, more energy-dense fossil fuel. But it's not without well-known problems.
The latter will result in a permanent, eternal solution to the energy problem.
There are limits to how much solar and wind is available, but those are orders of magnitude beyond our civilization's current energy requirements. Other limits to growth -- arable land, decreasing fertility with increasing wealth -- will likely prevent us from ever even approaching those limits.
Solve the energy storage problem and the industrial revolution becomes as permanent as the agricultural revolution. Nuclear power won't do that. So energy storage technology is IMHO a more prudent, higher dividend investment than better nuclear reactors.
- ctdonath 13y agoIn the meantime, "the latter" has well-known problems which are not being solved and which are being flat-out ignored by advocates. Those problems include the rarely-discussed (see, even you just shot right past them) "solar strip-mining" and atmospheric disruption issues. Show me any form of serious progress on the energy storage problem, please. Tesla's $40,000 car battery is about the best there is, and that's not encouraging.
- digikata 13y agoThere are many problems not solved with new and old nuclear systems too. Case in point is the Southern California Edison plant which failed trying to upgrade an existing, known system on their nuclear plant. I haven't really heard of solar based "atmospheric disruption" issue. On the other hand, I have wondered what the effect of releasing gigawatts (terawatts?) of heat (and electricity that will become heat) derived from nuclear power plants year after year. Solar is a closed system energy source; we're going to receive that energy one way or another whereas nuclear is adding energy to the system derived by converting matter - energy that isn't a normal input.
- ctdonath 13y agoThe problem is you're taking that energy from one area and shifting it elsewhere. Acres of untouched natural fields suddenly covered with solar panels wicking away the bulk of light & heat will wreck the local ecosystem. Sure it's not aggregating an undue accumulation of additional heat, but shifting it around in large scales does impact. Make those solar farms big enough, and you'll start seeing atmospheric effects akin to the "heat bubble" effect cities suffer.
- digikata 13y agoNo, if the panels are on rooftops, and the electricity is mostly used in the same building, you have the same net thermodynamic effect of the sun hitting the building. No additional entropy is generated. If cities at large become net exporters of electricity it would in some small part alleviate heat bubbles. If the panels are next the the city, you do concentrate heat more in the city as electric is delivered, but no more than electric supplied and consumed from non solar sources. If the panels are adjacent to the city, you again alleviate the heat bubble to some small extent because you're cooling one area and increasing the thermal gradient between the hot city and cooler solar panel farm. I don't know how one would conclude that any of these effects are of a magnitude to "wreck the local ecosystem".
- ori_b 13y agoPumped water storage is probably one of the better options out there right now. Of course, it's far from perfect, but it certainly beats batteries. In addition for evening out dips and bumps in unreliable renewable energy, it's a good option for excess using excess capacity in nuclear power plants in order to deal with load variation. (Nuclear reactors don't like changing their energy production levels, so evening out the load on them by buffering with pumped water energy storage is a great benefit). Flywheels are also another option, although I don't think they're nearly as popular. Overall, purely mechanical solutions seem to be preferred over chemical energy storage for large installations.
- dredmorbius 13y agoPumped-hydro suffers from a serious capacity lack. Flywheel storage is OK for spinning reserve (responding to fluctuations on the order of an hour or two) but is too expensive otherwise. My money is on thermal storage, and cheap-substrate batteries (molten salt, liquid metal) for longer-scale storage. For national scale grid storage there are many alternatives for which there's simply not sufficient material to create a feasible alternative.
- cobrausn 13y agoWouldn't it be nice to have guaranteed power for the next few thousand years while you work on the 'eternal' solution? I don't see why there has to be an either-or here.
- api 13y agoI seriously doubt it would take us thousands of years to figure out how to store power at grid scale, especially if we got more serious about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage The other solution is large-scale intelligent power grids. The wind always blow somewhere and the sun always shines somewhere. The amount of grid-scale storage backing required for uninterrupted power is probably less than 12 hours. I'm sure someone has done a solid analysis on this.
- rmc 13y agoThe wind always blow somewhere and the sun always shines somewhere Sure, but then your power supply is in the hands of other countries. What happens during war?
- jeromeflipo 13y agoWould you wage war against a country that is essential for your energy needs and that doesn't store any energy?
- ctdonath 13y agoHistory responds with a resounding "YES." No different from wars over water supply.