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The World's First Osmotic Power Plant
ElectricSteve writes "Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway officially opened the world's first osmotic power plant prototype on November 24. The prototype has a limited production capacity and will be used primarily for testing and data validation, leading to the construction of a commercial power plant in a few years time. Statkraft claims that the technology has the global potential to generate clean, renewable energy equivalent to China's total electricity consumption in 2002 or half of the EU's total power production" What's osmotic power? Wikipedia to the rescue!
I wonder what environmental impacts this has, and if they will prevent these things from going into real use?
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment.
Nuclear power is the way to go! The Greenpeace crowd needs to acknowledge that they've done more harm than good, in lobbying against nuclear power.
Luddites the lot of them.
Although I like this idea. Won't it just deplete our supply of fresh water? If we're constantly running our fresh water through a membrane into salt water, won't our "fuel" of fresh water run out? Unlike oil, we need fresh water to live. Unless there is a reverse osmosis process that energy can be harnessed from, which I doubt.
I wonder if you could use the energy to power a desalination plant and then use the fresh water to power the.. hang on... I've gone cross eyed...
Unexpect the expected!
Ninnle Linux for the win!
The very first power generated by the prototype was used to boil a kettle to provide the guests with hot water for refreshments at the opening ceremony. The prototype has a limited production capacity and will be used primarily for testing and data validation.
"Ok Everyone listen up, we gotta test this thing for the next 2 years, so start drinking up"
Unfortunately nuclear power for civilian purposes does not come close to meeting it's claims, however there are a few designs in development or even at the prototype stage (pebble bed) that look promising.
"Osmotic power is synonymous to butt power. The more one farts, the more power is generated."
Somehow, I don't think that is 100% correct.
And what claims are those? Nuclear power is the predominant form of power in many countries and it does well. The pebble bed design is interesting, but even 70s plant designs were fine. People like to ignore the fact that coal burning plants send up far more radioactive elements in the atmosphere than even a "disaster" like 3 mile island.
What's more, there is a lot of posturing about nuclear "waste", when it is far from waste. If a byproduct is energetic enough to be dangerous, then it is energetic enough to be fuel. If it weren't for stupid proliferation treaties and unscientific environmentalists, we would be using breeder reactors to derive much of our energy form all this "waste". We wouldn't have a huge dependence on foreign oil, and possibly thousands of lives would not be in jeopardy because of wars in the middle eats.
But by all means, please keep singing your tune. There is no consequence to spouting lies like yours, no one gets hurt...
I'm working on renewable extraneous apostrophe power. It is limitless. The amount of IT IS people use instead of ITS guarantees it. So can you explain why a power source that supplies 3% of the world'd demand does not come close to "it is" claims?
I though this was a way to get smarter by sleeping on books.... huh
haha seriously... why hasn't this method been talked about in the top 5 ish ideas of renewable energy sources?
just hook a desalt plant to it and reuse it out put
Here in Ontario the big problem is cost. I don't know if this is an inherent problem with nuclear power or our province is just especially incompetent at running them, but nuclear plants we've had have just been fantastic money sinks (as opposed to every other method of power generation, which have been profitable) in terms of maintenance. One could argue that the monetary cost is worth it the environmental benefits of nuclear, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to look into alternatives.
CANDU reactors, which can run on unenriched uranium and have been around since the 60's. Waste levels are directly related to reprocessing bans. Do disappointing "current breeders" include the successful but politically dead Integral Fast Reactor that the USA democrats killed in the early 90's?
Desalination plant will consumer more energy than the water it produces can generate, because in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Why is it that every time anything power related is posted to /. there are a bunch of people who suggest perpetual motion machines? What happened to /. being for nerds? Nerds would know perpetual motion when they see it, and know that it's not possible. This is the fourth comment I've read in this thread that has fallen foul of this so far.
I hate printers.
expense: nuclear power costs very little. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
operating life: nuclear power stations have a long life span, plants built in the 60's are still going. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
ouput: do i even need to provide a reference on this one? nuclear power runs whole nations such as france.
it would seem good sir, that you are the one spreading bullshit. I call you out on your anti nuke nonsense, you know nothing about the subject past what greenpeace has shoved down your throat.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I was skeptical of the numbers, so I looked around to figure out how much energy we're talking about here. This link discussing desalinization is pretty useful... what we're talking about here is a desalinization plant run in reverse.
The short answer: 0.66 kcal (2760 joules) per liter of salt water converted to fresh water, so you'd get the same order of magnitude of energy *back* with an osmosis plant. The Mississippi river flow rate is 17 million liters per second at New Orleans, so the maximum possible energy output is 47 GW!
I don't see any obvious efficiency-loss factors here: it should be possible to do this pretty efficiently.
Another way of looking at the problem: the osmotic pressure difference between fresh water and seawater is 28 bar, which is equivalent to 280 meters of hydraulic head. That's roughly the same pressure gradient as is found across the Hoover Dam.
Now, the technical challenge of building miles and miles of carefully-folded osmotic membrane, and keeping it clean, is a bit daunting. But in theory, it should work!
Oh wait, Statkraft? Gosh, I thought they were talking about something important for a moment there.
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment.
Nuclear power is the way to go! The Greenpeace crowd needs to acknowledge that they've done more harm than good, in lobbying against nuclear power.
What's with the love affair between geeks and nuclear power? Is it because its science is somehow more "exciting" and "spacey" than other areas of exploration?
There are two main problems with nuclear. . .
1. It creates very, very toxic shit which never goes away and is a huge pain in the ass to store.
2. While in theory it can be run safely, human stupidity results in toxic spills and catastrophic failures. --A friend of mine lived in a town with a big honking nuclear reactor. Radioactive water was leaching into the ground water. Nice. Incompetence and corruption were to blame for the failure to implement proper maintenance on an aging reactor. Basically Homer Simpson and Mr. Burns were (and remain) at the helm.
There's nothing actually wrong with clean power. It works well and it doesn't create toxic waste. We live in a world where we can create power without also creating poison. That's awesome! That is the Star Trek future we could be living right now, and in many cases we already are. So I don't understand why this is even a debate unless it's purely about aesthetics; nuclear power is a fashion accessory which goes well with some people's preferred mode of reality. Or something.
-FL
First he wins Dancing With the Stars, now he's going to power a whole country!?!? Is there no end to this guy's abilities?
Nucular power ain't safe if there're terr'ists that gonna blow it skyhigh or steal fuel to make a dirty bomb.
If it weren't for the U.S. authorities clever detective work we'd a had another 9/11 on our hands.
Okay, that's funny right there. Why do I never have mod points when I see something like this that deserves them?
Last time I looked France even had a 40+ year old tidal hydro power station near Le Havre as well as a wide variety of other power plants. Try harder.
France consumed 447.27 Billion Kilowatt-Hours in 2007, but produced 542.41 Billion Kilowatt-Hours, 430 Billion Kilowatt-Hours were produced by nuclear power plants. They export electricity, but nuclear alone essentially covers their consumption. "France runs on nuclear power" would be an accurate statement.
In that post you provide one fact in one sentence, and it's nit-picky and deceptive. You then proceed to argue as though anyone who reads about the topic or your posts agrees with you. This is in stark contrast to the obvious evidence that the GP has read on the topic (the references provided), and the fact that you have about five people arguing against you.
I read your post because in my reading on the topic I came to the conclusion that nuclear is a great idea that's mostly opposed by antiquated concerns about accidents and waste. But, my curiosity was piqued when I saw an argument about something else, and figured that you might have a good point (i.e. obviously nuclear isn't taking off so maybe there's more validity to counterarguments than I am aware of). But I was sorely disappointed by the lack of references, explanations, or basic consistency or logic. You do sound as though you know enough that you could formulate a good opposing position if you weren't trolling though.
I am fan of Nukes, BUT, the mistake that nations make is when they depend on 1 type of power. For example, France is CURRENTLY an electricity importer BECAUSE they depended so heavily on nukes. Likewise, America is in trouble because we depend on Coal for 50% of our power. Instead, nations need to have a matrix of power so that when you run intro problems (say, emergency change needed at your nuke power plant, or under pressure from the world to drop your CO2 emissions, caused in no small part by your heavy use of coal power), then you can drop your usage. So yes, I want to see America's use of nukes increase to 33%, and go no further. Likewise, I would like to see us increase our AE to heavy percentages, but no more than 33% on any one tech. In fact, I would argue that Wind and Solar pv should not be more than 10%. The reason is that they are not base load power. OTH, The Mississippi is capable of generating a LOT of power. The same is true of other rivers around the world. Likewise, geo-thermal will no doubt be a major input to the world's matrix if Potter drilling gets done.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Desalination plant will consumer more energy than the water it produces can generate, because in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Why is it that every time anything power related is posted to /. there are a bunch of people who suggest perpetual motion machines? What happened to /. being for nerds? Nerds would know perpetual motion when they see it, and know that it's not possible. This is the fourth comment I've read in this thread that has fallen foul of this so far.
Alas, not all nerds know a joke when they see it...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I was wondering about this. The delta (which is mostly brackish water) typically has a great deal of life. I am wondering if the plants at the lowest level make use of this energy, or does it just get wasted? And just because somebody says that it is wasted, does not mean that it is. There is plenty that we do not know. Hopefully, we found out during these trials. I mean, if the miss has 47 GW available, that is a LOT of energy that could be REAL useful. Likewise, all over the world, you have loads of fresh water that mixes that can be used for CHEAP power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is all being built next to Oslo's Fjords....
No wonder Slartibartfast won an award for them!
Last time I looked France even had a 40+ year old tidal hydro power station near Le Havre as well as a wide variety of other power plants. Try harder.
79% of electricity produced in France is produced in nuclear reactors.
http://www.planete-energies.com/contenu/nucleaire/production-consommation.html
Another source says that out of all energy consumed in France (including fuel for cars and such), 44% is of nuclear origin.
Maybe it is not correct to say that nuclear power runs the whole nation, but the nation sure wouldn't run without it.
But one of the problem with this, is showing up RIGHT NOW. France got so reliant on one type of nuke, that right now, they have to shutdown a number of nukes (emergency fixes), so are currently buying power from areas all around them. At this current moment, France is importing electricity. We need to get nations to change their energy matrix. In particular, nations need to be encouraged to NOT do more than 1/3 of a single type of power. Think about China with dependency of 77% on coal and 10-15% on Natural Gas. or America with Coal at 48% and Natural gas at 19%. All these nations have such dependency on ONE form of energy that it is expensive to change.
America and China are fighting having to drop their fossil fuels because we are so dependent on this. If real issues (not the hysteria) ever show up on Nukes, then France will be forced to move away. And that will be interesting.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment. Nuclear power is the way to go! The Greenpeace crowd needs to acknowledge that they've done more harm than good, in lobbying against nuclear power.
Luddites the lot of them.
Obviously nuclear power hasn't solved the worlds energy problems yet and weather it will remains to be seen. Until then I'm all for researching all conceivable options - with the future uncertain few thigs are sure, but knowledge being power is pretty damn close. Oh, and I tire of fools who reject an idea just because that idea alone doesn't solve everything.
It just changes the salinity gradient of the river mouth a bit (which already shifts based on the river flow which is hardly static year round).
Ok, since you are criticising the worthiness of the guy's post as an argument then I think it is fair to look at some of what you say.
In that post you provide one fact in one sentence, and it's nit-picky and deceptive. You then proceed to argue as though anyone who reads about the topic or your posts agrees with you. This is in stark contrast to the obvious evidence that the GP has read on the topic (the references provided), and the fact that you have about five people arguing against you.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
That's because of the way you do it. Every single of your nuclear plants is most probably completely different from all the others, maintenance is also probably done by many different companies... every new plant is built like it was the first one you ever built, and every plant is maintained like it was the only one you had, so you never make economies of scale (but each politician who builds a plant gets to please a friend's company, yay).
NB: I'm just guessing for Ontario, based on how things are often done in North America and observations from an uncle whose job is to check the safety of nuclear plants.
A single real example disproves an ignorant blanket statement and you are reading far too much emotional baggage from elsewhere into a simple statement.
I suggest you reread my initial statement above before labelling me a troll - it is one mild sentence which gets my entire point across.
If you want more information please google for the German Government-commissioned World Nuclear Industry Status Report from August this year, anything I state in my own words here will be called a lie by those that have been tricked by those that wish to see a lot of antiquated plants built at taxpayers expense. Nuclear advocates should find out for themselves that power plants were not perfect 40 years ago and that the assumption that it was has held the industry back more than anything else.
... they should call the company/project "Norwegian Blue".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_energy
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
So you're not a fan of the big bang theory?
I think an osmotic power plant is the lamest type of power i can think of.
Fusion is the only way i can see it going, really if we are going to be great conquerers of the galaxy, and fly around in Millennium Falcon type spaceships.
Anyway, Fusion is the only way to go because, we will either fix the problem, or maybe blow ourselves up.
It will be a race between ITER and the LHC.
Between explosion and implosion.
Maybe we should hook.. them,. together?..
^mtrl drtw
If you could pipe the brine waste of a desalination plant to the osmotic plant the osmotic pressure would be higher, thus more energy could be produced.
However a desalination plant will not likely be in the same location as a osmotic plant. You would need a brine pipe line to hook them up.
Nope, it is not even close. Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power. Most electricity is used during peak hours where you need electricity produced from sources than can be turned on and off during the day. Currently only oil and coal have that ability. Some nuclear plants can at best have the turbines disengaged letting power waste, but you can't just turn them off.
Sweden similarly produces more electricity than they consume, but if Denmark replaced their coal-plants with windmills and nuclear power, major parts of Sweden would have a brownouts every single day during peak-hour, because in reality Sweden is buying coal-based electricity to fill the holes hydro and nuclear power can not, and due to an environmental policy of not building power-plants based on fossil-fuels they are entirely at the mercy of more pragmatic neighbours.
So salt water is heavier, and high pressure osmotic filters squeeze the salt out of salt water.
Here's another idea.
Run a pipe down to deep water; full of fresh water. At the bottom, there is higher pressure outside the pipe because of the density difference of salt to fresh water. This difference can push salt water through a reverse osmotic filter placed at the end of the pipe.
Now you have a pipe full of fresh water, and salt water that wants to get in there. That pressure difference could drive a flow of water through that filter.
What's more, the head could even drive that flow of fresh water up the beach, since the pipe would be pressurized at the surface. (It takes a higher tube of fresh water to equalize the pressure of a tube of salt water.)
Yea, because everyone who believes in the Big Bang theory denies the laws of thermodynamics.
I hate printers.
I provided links to prove all my points except for the blindingly obvious one that nuclear power produces a huge amount of energy. why don't you try reading the numerous links i gave you, and you might learn something.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
For the umpteenth time: this is irrelevant. What is dangerous about radiation poisoning is its concentration, not its absolute value. Our bodies, and pretty much every life form on the planet, has evolved with the ability to withstand a certain amount of background radiation. If you dilute the radiation enough, the problem will go away. So stop saying that the total amount of radiation released from a coal power plant makes it more dangerous than waste from a nuclear plant.
You may claim that, at nominal conditions, nuclear plants are cleaner than coal plants. You may even claim that nuclear waste does not give the same problems as coal combustion products. But claiming that coal power causes are more dangerous than nuclear power from the point of view of radiation poisoning is nuts.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Actually, in addition to nuclear waste the world may be running out of uranium: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/08/nuclear-react-1.html And not only that, but uranium mining is a very polluting affair http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=493&Itemid=66 http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/
(Of course, the World Nuclear Association downplays these issues: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html )
Ironically you need to burn fossil fuels in order to mine uranium; mining vechicles use diesel while the mining industry runs mainly on coal -- or have you heard of any solar-powered nuclear enrichment plants?
Who cares?
Nuclear is a huge % of the electricity. Norway isn't only hydroelectric as well, we have power plants running on natural gasses, the one in TFA, couple of wind turbines, etc, but Norway is a hydroelectric country, the same way France is a nuclear.
This is blinging
Not that I think it's a massive issue as I'm sure it'll cut down on usage, but isn't Polyethalene an oil product so we'll therefore still need some black stuff to be processed to get there.
:-)
My biggest worry about oil reserves running out is the rising cost of plastics. Having said that, I last did chemistry 25 years ago, so I'm assuming things have changed
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
Actually, I'd rather think of the bees, but then there are already too many sons of a bee ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's merely the first with a proper marketing scheme... :p
Since 2005 a 50kW test installation has been working in Harlingen, the Netherlands. This is a POS (pressure retarded osmosis) installation just like the Norwegian one. A 10kW RED installation has been installed not 20km away in the Afsluitdijk barrier dam.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TGK-4MDGP8H-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1111993059&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a85c6a42fb58101cbda1cb384456dd18
http://www.planete-energies.com/content/nuclear-energy/production-consumption.html for those of us who can't read french :)
insightful my ass! Nuclear power for civilian purposes produces enough energy for France, in fact it produces enough excess that they can run CERN with no negative effect on the environment. The only thing keeping it down are the lobbiests for coal/oil, big woop obsolete jobs are obsolete, while that sucks for the people who work in the coal industry it's just the way it is.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Thorium Fluoride
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Brackish water is released into the Eco-system all the time. Don't you have rivers running into the sea in your area?
the natural place for such a power plant would be in areas where this process already takes place, and then tap the power of it.
Your assessment is a lot like saying "Won't solar plants cause a lot of sunshine?"
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Running (away) being the major strength of the French
Oil ain't safe it terr'ists can set fire to it (or mix it with fertiliser and set fire to the mixture). Hydro ain't safe if terr'ists can poke a hole in the dam and drown folks downstream. Coal ain't safe if terr'ists can push sacks of it out of a plane flying over a rock concert. Squelch. There's only one way we can stop these terrorists. Take our shoes off before we get on a plane. That'll stop them.
Most electricity is used during peak hours where you need electricity produced from sources than can be turned on and off during the day. Currently only oil and coal have that ability.
And hydro. Which can also store surplus base power (by pumping water uphill).
No Bud Grace fans here?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Amen
Last I checked hydro dams could control the flow of water over the turbines, thus controlling the amount of electricity generated a damn sight faster than coal can. You also missed natural gas, which is faster than coal to start up, and basically every non-nuclear option that can be disengaged if there needs to be less power generated. An over-supply of any form of generation where the fuel is free and abundant will solve the problem of peak power.
You forgot the obvious link in case you're not the only WHOOOSH in this thread.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
It could be that the argument is not to produce a perpetual motion machine, just to mitigate the impact of any brackish water concerns. In that case, I think that its already been shown that the power produced by the osmo is sufficient. Of course, no clue as to what percentage freshwater output counts as successful environmental mitigation...
Hydro is better than Coal at providing for swinging demand. Hydro just turns the tap to a turbine and stores the energy (unless there's and overflow).
To put it another way the this is just another way of harnessing solar power. That is, the fresh water source of osmotic pressure gradients was created by solar energy evaporating seawater over most of the earths area.
There are only three ultimate sources of energy on the planet. Solar radiation generating wind, biological (i.e oil), direct conversion etc., radioactive decay, and gravitational energy residing in the the very hot earths core.
Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power
For interest sake, peak power is almost removed in some countries due to differing costs of electricity. You will be surprised how much industry (big and small) is started up at non-peak times.
Fusion is lame, we should be working on anti-matter plants. How else are we going to get solar system-destroying hyperspace starships before 2050?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"He may be right, he may be wrong, but whichever it is sure isn't a function of the number of people who agree or disagree with him."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the *downside* of democracy - it assumes it is.
If course, pretty much every other political system out there is even worse, since it doesn't have any measurements for how right or wrong the leader is *at all*, not even a flawed one.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
They better be careful with that logo, it looks suspiciously like the AT&T "Deathstar."
If you dilute the radiation enough, the problem will go away. So stop saying that the total amount of radiation released from a coal power plant makes it more dangerous than waste from a nuclear plant.
Actually, the standard radiation protection models do *not* assume that radiation is only dangerous beyond a threshold, which is why accidents like Chernobyl have very large numbers of fatal cancers predicted (~10000). Most of these will be in people only exposed to small doses, but the exposed population is huge. Nobody offsite from Chernobyl suffered from acute radiation effects, IIRC, just delayed effects such as cancers (particularly thyroid).
Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power. . . . Currently only oil and coal have that ability
I don't believe that coal is considered as a good candidate for turning on and off rapidly in order to meet peak power demand and oil is pretty expensive compared to most other energy sources. Around here (northern Illinois) most of our base load is met by coal and nuclear and most of the peaker plants are natural gas. Looking forward, solar has a potential for providing a significant peaking capacity in the cooling season, when A/C loads match solar availability pretty well. Also, I'd bet that most electricity is not used during peak hours, unless you stretch the definition of peak hours to a larger part of the day than is usually brought to mind by the term "peak".
I do feel that nuclear power is a strong component of a sustainable future energy strategy.
You don't feel that, you think that. That is, unless the idea of nuclear power gives you a warm feeling in your tummy.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
That's actually a valid point: the osmotic pressure is not something that will exist in a closed system. It's created by the water cycle, which is driven by the sun, and thus regenerates itself. It's solar-by-proxy, like almost everything else.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Like to get excited about this, but there are some unanswered questions.
1) how much energy will be required to clean, maintain, and replace osmotic filters (these are largely built, maintained and replaced, using existing energy sources) (need to subtract this off of output. Notice no figures provided in article.
2) article says generated enough energy to boil water in a pot for the party (article doesn't explain just how much energy was utilized just getting people to and from the grand opening). Venture a guess that it was vastly larger than that required
to boil the water in the pot. Subtract off the cost of all the other activities associated with this (keeping employees fed, warm, lights on, energy for tanks plumbing, etc and it would appear that the entire venture so far is net energy negative, so question arises how long until energy positive. Simply extrapolating the amount of water mixing from all the world's rivers is hardly equivalenet to saying that all that energy is harnessed.
3) although mixing does occur naturally, as one scales the output water must ultimately eenter environment, how will biologic hazzards due to altering natural salinity gradients be mitigated. Probably more of a problem for fishes and invertebrates is the volume of water diverted and the risk due to entrapment, particularly for larval stages (intakes may need to be shut down periodically to reduce risk).
Often new energy technologies are clever ways to get taxpayers to part with their money. We need to provide more incentives for clean energy technologies, we must insist that subsidies diminish rapidly and that ALL COSTS are taken into the equation so that only the truly workable merit much assistance.
As for those who don't seem to think the natural environment is worth saving, try living without it. Love mother earth or leave it needs to be the rallying cry for the truly moral among us. If you don't like the ecosystem here, move to outer space.
It would work, you know, you could certainly hook a desalination plant up to this and perform some desalination. I dont see where he mentioned bypassing the laws of thermodynamics at all or what the efficiency of such a system would be.
Oh wait, Statkraft? Gosh, I thought they were talking about something important for a moment there.
Statkraft confirms it: Fossil fuels are dying.
No negative effect on the environment? Do you think they acquire Uranium by magic? It may not have a negative environmental effect at the place where power is generated, but it sure as hell has one where it is mined.
... you _should_ think of the fish ... they have tasty children, too
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"expense, output, safety, expected operating life"
there not that expensive, there output is very high, they are one of the safest forms of generating power, and the expected operating life is pretty good.
The cost of the fuel needs to be weighed against the power output. Nucler fuel isn't expensive at all.
"That is what is known as a divide by zero error "
wha? I've never heard of that as a logical fallacy.
However, you seem to say the fact that the safety procedure worked is a strike against them.
Fact: 0 people died form TMI.
Fact: Statistically 50 people have died from the coal that is needed to replace the perfectly good reactor sitting there.
IFRs have been built, but shut down because loud ignorant groups like green peace.
IFRs reprocess waste to the point where it lasts about 200 years before getting back to background levels.
Just so you know, a breeder reactor is a reactor the reprocesses waste.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"but you can't just turn them off."
and why would you?
You turn them up or down, but it would be stupisd to turn them off, just like and system that uses laerger turbines. Do you think the shut down coal plants when power consumption is low?
Also, just disagreeing to someone without using fact or pointing out logical fallacy is a sign that you have a low skill in arguing.
The fact of the matter is, France gets almost all it's power from Nuclear, and it can be used for peak power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
True, but go ahead and name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nuclear power is the predominant form of power in many countries...
According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009 [PDF], that's false (see page 41 and 42).
Tonight's homework assignment is to calculate the ratio of size of a desalination plant powered by a Osmotic power plant, Transmission resistance cost can be assumed to be 0% as far as we do not know the distance between plants.
expense: nuclear power costs very little. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
Oh really? According to an independent (can't be said of your sources) report nuclear energy is not cheap and probably never will be. (See The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009 [PDF]).
ouput: do i even need to provide a reference on this one? nuclear power runs whole nations such as france
Such as? France is the only country that's consuming mostly nuclear energy (see the Statistical Review of World Energy 2009 that I linked to some posts above). Most of the worlds consumed energy is oil, gas and coal. Nuclear energy isn't even close.
it would seem good sir, that you are the one spreading bullshit. I call you out on your anti nuke nonsense, you know nothing about the subject past what greenpeace has shoved down your throat.
Wow. Playing the Greenpeace Card = instant +5. Well played Sir.
Actually, in addition to nuclear waste the world may be running out of uranium
Nonsense, the world has enough uranium to provide total energy demands for a few hundred years. The world is likely to experience a short-term uranium shortage soon because we have been using decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel for the last few decades and not bothering to open new uranium mines or invest in more efficient mining techniques.
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for a country like France, it's not a problem. They are connected to power grids of several neighbouring countries and can but and sell power as and when it makes sense. For a country the size of the USA it's more of a problem. Even if Mexico or Canada could supply enough to make up for a sudden shortfall in native production, the transmission losses (baring the sudden development of cheap room-temperature superconductors) would make it a bad idea.
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name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining
Slashdot trolls running on treadmills, connected to a generator made from metal extracted from seawater.
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Actually, south east Canada is hooked into America's eastern grid (which is why they went off-line when the east had a collapse several years ago). In addition, Western Canada, as well as Northern Mexico is hooked into the western half of the American grid. There are places that America sells Mexico electricity and Canada sells a lot our ways esp. in the northwest (cheap cheap hydro for Aluminum production). And we are increasing the use of superconductors right now. NYC has a short 5 mile link, and a new link is going into that hooks NM, Co, and Texas together. IIRC, it is only 50 miles worth, BUT, the price is coming down. I know that we are in fact, looking at doing a lot more.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
True, but go ahead and name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining.
Are you kidding? Have you ever heard of solar power?
I have learnt my lesson now - thanks guys. Linking to an advertisement is informative while suggesting that people look around them and learn about reality is not!
For one thing, consider why all these numbers for the cost of nuclear power vary incredibly wildly from place to place yet nobody wants to tell you anything about the costs for a single plant anywhere - not even to use as a shining example.
It takes a very long time to start up a large boiler and there are very serious thermal fatigue problems caused by large numbers of shutdowns and startups. The workaround for this is to just keep on shovelling in the coal even when you don't need the electricity. It's less coal than if it was running at full capacity, but coal fired power stations are really a base load power source and not very efficient for peaks.
This is just like the peak oil tar sands silliness - we have plenty of uranium ore but uranium ore of that is cheap to process into fuel was in fairly short supply until a new reserve was discovered about two years ago. Since it is not certain how big that is nobody can answer your claim either way, but with new technologies the issue can be avoided anyway.
Nukes don't run on magic beans, it's a rock that with a very difficult process that requires using huge amounts of energy to turn into fuel and if the rock is good enough you end up with something that will give you a lot more energy out than you put in. If the rock isn't good enough it isn't worth it.
Technologies such as pebble bed use a fuel that is less enriched so for that technology there IS a lot of uranium (while there's not much for the Westinghouse dinosaurs the nuclear lobby wants the taxpayers to build). Accelerated thorium uses a different fuel that is easier to find and produce and can apparently also use the depleted fuel rods from older reactors - however there is not even a prototype built of this technology so it's early days.
Now that is why you are getting the garbled third hand message about uranium running out when it was really about stuff that is good enough to use in the plants pushed by the old nuclear lobby running out.
Unfortunately he is correct. Consider that we are talking about steam here and very large turbines designed to run at fixed speeds. You don't have much more choice than on or off.
You provided two links to an advertisement which has claims that do not appear to be based upon credible information. I suggest for a starting point you consider the recent German government report on the state of nuclear power that was linked by another poster instead of the advertisement you linked, that should answer a few things about that advertisement.
Once you know more about the subject matter you will understand my point and then you can give me some reasons as to why you disagree. The new improvements in this field are a hell of a lot more interesting than parroting old propaganda based upon blatant lies.
Um... Osmotic power (or did you forget the topic already)?
Can you elaborate or provide a reference re: radiation poisoning? I don't know much about it, but I thought that the kind of radiation would make a big difference as to what a dose would do to you - gamma ranging from sunburn at low doses to crispy fried at high (which matches your statement), but alpha or maybe beta emitters being ingested would cause cancerous mutation roughly in proportion to how much you swallow (sucks to be an unpopular Russian.)
.evom ton seod gis eht
And you're making your mirrors and turbine systems out of what? Algae? Next.
It is not a perpetual machine. The sun will evaporate water as it always does. The it will rain down on the right side again.