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Lichtblick and Volkswagen To Build 'Swarm' Power Plants
Dr. Hok writes "As more and more renewable energy enters the grid, it gets increasingly difficult to match supply and demand 24/7. The answer of German power company Lichtblick and Volkswagen is a swarm of 100,000 flexible base-load generators. These fridge-sized CHP (Combined Heat and Power) generators that will be installed in people's basements in Hamburg starting early next year will feed electricity into the grid and the waste heat into their home's water/heating. The "ZuhauseKraftwerk" (HomePowerPlant) features a vanilla VW Golf natural-gas engine that generates 20kW electrical and 34 kW heat with an efficiency of 92%. The units are remotely controlled via a mobile network or DSL; they can ramp up in a minute if needed. A water tank ensures that heat is continuously available, while electricity is produced on demand. The swarm will replace two nuclear plants, they say. And your old oil heating needed replacement anyway."
The link you cited shows that the total CO2 footprint cannot be said to be zero.
indeed. but solar panels, and especially windturbines have a MUCH MUCH better CO2-footprint than nukes. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER ever ever would suggest coal power, nukes are 10 times better than those, but solar and wind is even 10 times better than THOSE.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Corporations might not have invested, but the governments are still putting massive amounts of money in this. (Last I looked 5 years ago, Germany put more money in researching nuclear stuff than renewable).
Granted a large part of the money goes to projects perhaps best summarized as "hm, what would actually happen if after all the water evaporated and the nuclear reaction stopped, a very hot very large lump of ver heavy metal thinks it could follow gravity and hit the water under the concrete floors?" and the gigantic amounts of money going to "Where do we put the rubbish? And why is there suddenly so many water in the salt mine we wanted to put it?"
And then there is something going into fusion of course (nice technology to have once mankind reaches to the stars, but no solution for clean energy on earth).
Not to speak of all the problems of nuclear energy:
It's best in very large power plants. You have problems with cooling everywhere (many had to be switched off in Europe the last but one summer, because the rivers were too hot or had not enough water).
It's not usable to react to changes in need. Heck it even has problems the usual change of need in day and nighttime. (In Germany they tried to make everyone buy heating systems for their homes that would use the electricity of the night so they could facilitate more nuclear reactors).
But the biggest question is still: If nuclear energy is such a safe and clean solution, why don't you want to allow Iran to use it?