sir_bearington

13 ms·

61.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
> Battery: it doesn't have to be lithium (even thought, currently all planned ones use lithium-ion). Sodium-sulphur would be an option as well. Right: we assume some other form of energy that has yet to be commercialized will provid
62.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
> The GitHub estimate is only using known resources and reserves, a number which goes up every year as we discover more. It is not an estimate of total accessible lithium. Yes, it is. 5 minutes is the amount provided by known reserves. 1
63.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
> This is only looking at currently known reserves, a number which has doubled in only a few years. False. It is estimating at the total amount of accessible lithium, not just the known reserves. > For grid storage, weight and specifi
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> As far as I know building a long-term repository for the spent nuclear fuel is so simple... not a single nation solved it. The most advanced project (Onkalo, in Finland) may open in 2023. Back here in reality, there are several operati
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
No, the storage part is not there. Hydroelectric storage is expensive, takes a long time to build, and is geographically dependent to boot. Only ~5 minutes of global electricity storage can be provided with batteries using all known lithium
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> 1) Solar + transmission lines. It’s always sunny somewhere > 2) wind + transmission lines, always windy somewhere These don't produce power consistently. That's why one would need to build redundancy. Also it's not al
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
There is not enough accessible lithium to provide nearly enough storage [1]. 5 minute with known deposits, and 19 minutes estimated to be accessible with current mining techniques. Biofuels are low energy density, and don't provide nea
68.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
What gives you the idea that nuclear power plants can't be placed near rivers? Almost all that aren't on the coast are near rivers. And they don't need to use potable water. The Palo Verde plant uses wastewater. Because human
69.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
> Not sure if you're writing that off as unfeasible, but clearly there are solutions being thought about, and there are companies in the market today selling storage with costs going down every single year. It's not unreasonabl
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
The plant was fully capable of continuing operation, but they're restricted in how much they can increase the temperature of the river used for cooling. There has been no demonstrated impact of reactor cooling on fish populations, so t
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
The point is that nuclear is indeed capable of being built rapidly. Over the span of 15 years France went from 10% nuclear power to 80%. You claim that nuclear can't be built at speed, and that this isn't borne out by reality. Thi
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> So you can build nuclear in a tsunami zone? in a seismic zone? in an area without cooling? Yes, you harden the structure against tsunamis and earthquakes. That's part of why nuclear plants are so expensive. Atmospheric cooling can
73.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
You also need to build a secondary containment vessel for the reactor, which is a significant expense. Because the cost of this containment is a function of surface area and generating capacity is a function of volume it's better to in
74.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
What other power source generates carbon-free energy without intermittency or geographic dependency?
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
The whole point of the containment building is to contain a pressure vessel failure. American containment buildings are built to withstand impact of a fully loaded passenger airliner. That's why the containment vessels are reinforced c
76.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
Peak energy consumption happens in the evening, when solar isn't producing any energy. And nuclear costs just as much to run at partial capacity as it does to run a full capacity. So if you build enough nuclear plants to support the gr
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> You're arguing for nuclear on the basis of its build speed? That doesn't seem to be born out in reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#/media...
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
This is not a very good idea for several reasons. Naval reactors require fuel that is much more enriched than normal reactors. They also produce significantly lower electricity. The Palo Verde facility produces 3GW of electricity and cost $
79.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
Average decommissioning costs are $460-$730 million dollars per GW of capacity [1]. This is about 10% of the construction cost for most power plants in the GW range. Decommissioning adds $0.80 per MWh of electricity generated, assuming a ca
80.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
I think you misunderstand what combined cycle means. In a gas turbine - without cogeneration - the gas turbine is driven by heating air and the expanded air spins a turbine, which spins a dynamo (as well as the compressor blades). It's
81.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
There's actually extremely small amounts of nuclear waste. The entirety of the waste produced by USA's nuclear electricity generation fits in a volume the footprint of a football field and less than 10 yards high [1]. The cost of
82.
by sir_bearington 6y ago
Most levelized energy costs do include cost of decommissioning and maintenance. On the other hand, estimates of wind and solar do not include the cost of storage to actually make intermittent sources viable. Which is understandable, becaus
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> steam explosion that would completely disassemble the pressure vessel and core and would place maximal stress on the containment building itself. This venturing into the realm of hyperbole, at best. Nothing in your link mentions an exp
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
I'm not sure I follow. The vessel head corrosion was detected, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had the plant shut down. How does a story of a safety issues being detected, and operations ceased accordingly indicate unsafe managem
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> Even if the heat was free it would be hard for a steam turbine based power plant to compete with gas turbines. This isn't true. People started attaching steam turbines to gas plants precisely because it made economic sense to tap
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
There was no luck about it. It was a meltdown, and the pressure vessel was compromised. Secondary containment saved the day. Three Mile Island didn't become a Chernobyl not because of luck, but because the US didn't cheap out and
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> Does anyone honestly think the United States has institutions sound enough to safely manage nuclear power over multiple decades? Seeing as they have done so for 70 years, yes. I don't just think it, I observe that it has safely ma
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
It doesn't. But only 20% of mothers want to work fill time as compared to 70% of fathers. 30% of mothers want to not work at all, and 50% want to work part time. I don't think the argument here is that women make better parents th
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
You're still skewing the situation by putting this in the context of someone offending a foreign custom. This is crucial because the locals have unique ability to say what is and isn't offensive, the foreigner does not. But McNeil
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by sir_bearington 6y ago
> Imagine you go to a foreign country and point at something you like. To your surprise, this is a deeply offensive gesture to the locals and they get upset. Rather than apologizing for doing something unintentionally, you take the posit

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