Humm. The Tesla model S is an actually sustainable product. It is cheaper than some of its gasoline powered peers. It's at least 80% cheaper to keep after paid off (90% cheaper maintenance, 90% cheaper electricity vs European gasoline, 75% cheaper USA electricity vs USA gasoline with lower taxes). If you drive a lot, a Tesla model S can fully pay for itself if you keep it for a decade, with maintenance and gasoline savings alone. Although a Tesla Model S is out of my pocket, I still love Tesla because its electric cars done right. Looking forward to the Model E. About Tesla being sold just to environmentalists. You're wrong. Lots of people are buying it for its cost X benefit advantages. As the supercharger network grows large enough the range anxiety issues will be 99% gone. Leaving just the cost which the Giga Factory and the Model E will fix. If one could buy an EV for US$ 40k in the USA today with 160 mile range, the car would fully pay for itself for any one with a daily 100 mile round trip commute. The race is on, Tesla Model E or enhanced range LEAF.
Please enumerate all those new techs Germany is developing as a result of Energiewende ? Hint: Solar panels are from China. Wind turbines made in Germany are no more efficient than those made elsewhere. Pumped Hydro was invented by the French. HVDC transmission is not a Germany invention either. You statement just shows you are a blind solar+wind cheerleader who has zero understanding of the economics and the engineering behind it, like the vast majority of your crowd. Go study up on how the electrical grid works instead of transposing you dreams and hopes into the real life. Energiewende is just a massively inefficient jobs program. Germany's grid is peak 65GW demand. 20 large conventional nuclear power plants would produce half of Germany peak electricity needs, combined with existing hydro, biomass, pumped hydro, solar and wind might zero out Germany's need for natural gas and coal for electricity. Can be done @ 200 billion euro. Would say bye bye to Putin's natural gas. But the poor brainwashed NIMBY Germany people don't want nuclear. How sad !
The coal burning mafia is just as bad as the uneconomical renewables, ran @ trillion euros worth of subsidies over 20 years. Germany scale subsidies are barely doable for Germany, but not a solution for India, China and many other poorer countries. Actually doing the Germany solar push closer to the equator would be truly economical. In places where isolation @ peak summer - peak winter is less than 30% difference. But in Germany isolation @ peak summer is 10x more than peak winter = very bad idea. Germany would do it a lot better with lots of nuclear instead. NEW Nuclear humms 24x7 365 days/yr, with 97-98% uptime (stopping just for scheduled maintenance, that gets scheduled for when its very rainy and hydro is running @ 100+%). I'm pro nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar and wind (in that order). Wind is the worst. Nuclear is the only reliable, scalable, low CO2 energy source. Use Hydro and Geothermal when you can. But most countries don't have lots of hydro or geothermal. Solar and wind goes very well in countries with lots of hydro. Learn actual facts about low CO2 energy sources. Many reputable climatologists have stated there's no solution to climate change without lots of nuclear. Reexamine your NIMBY assumptions. If you are against nuclear you are being pro coal. It's only logical if you face ALL THE INCONVENIENT FACTS !
Political will = unfair subsidies. Doing it @ a huge loss is a very bad idea. I think Tesla will be able to do it economically instead, even if its barely @ break even, but not at a loss. You really should rethink your concepts. Germany's energiewende is a major train wreck. It just shows how much stupidity a developed country's government can go to when a minor fraction of the population gets brainwashed with uneconomical ideas. Tesla+Solar City+Giga Factory = economically sustainable renewables Germany energywende = economical stupidity at mass scales Don't get me wrong. I want to solve climate change. I want to END the vast majority of coal consumption in the world + at least half of natural gas/petrol consumption. But I want to do it @ an economical fashion, not in a way that only works for ultra rich countries that can afford to spend trillions of Euros in subsidies over 20 years. The Germany solution is not applicable to China or India. Not even a solution for Italy, Spain and many other countries that don't enjoy Germany's productivity. Get real. Without doing the math (actual costs) you can't call is a solution that just depends on political will. You must call it economical suicide !
Work more aggressively ? How ? Billions are being thrown at battery research. Why don't you do it instead of telling me to ? It's the difference between wanting something because its aligned with your pleasant view of the world versus facing the hard problems as they are. I don't like nuclear because it's sexy, I like nuclear because it keeps the lights on ! And emits about the same total CO2 as wind, without the intermittency issues. Solar + Battery storage will work in moderately sunny areas. Will work even better in very sunny areas (equatorial / high tropical areas). Solar + Wind won't work in large scale in most places being deployed. Wind is just too intermittent. It's way too expensive to store a single week worth of electricity even @ 90% cheaper prices than current Li-Ion batteries. Plus wind turbine prices are not dropping like solar PV. In 10 years wind will be way too expensive compared to solar. But even free solar panels without storage won't work either. Unless of course you're just playing the game of let's be pro wind/solar, because we want the world to keep burning coal and natural gas. Yet you still defend wind like its a great solution. Nuclear can fully displace coal/natural gas. High temperature nuclear deployed mostly as mixed electricity / hydrogen production can be kept @ 100% power, just shifting from electricity production to hydrogen production to power fuel cell cars. Plus in the future pure EV cars will increase off peak electricity demand for recharging. Attaching energy storage to nuclear results in a fully predictable solution, without the seasonalities of solar or the ups and downs of wind turbines. Wind is a proper solution for some places in the world, places where wind blows at moderate speeds for at least 6-8 hrs/day. Or places that have lots of big hydro, where wind can be paired with big hydro (hydro provides combined baseload and load following, wind just helps save water volumes in dry seasons).
My Brazil has 70% hydro and less than 2% nuclear. I'm for having Brazil with 10-15% nuclear only, retiring gas and oil electricity (we have almost no coal electricity), Solar and Wind will be a big part of the solution due to big hydro convenient load following abilities. See, I'm not a radical pro nuclear guy. But North America and Europe don't have hydro resources to get even to 25% hydro, so the solution up there is different. There you need 50% nuclear + hydro + lots of solar. Wind messes the equation, because there's not enough hydro in most areas to load follow wind.
Hope those pan out, but even so, what would be the cost to build a 3GW solar farm with 1GWd (GigaWatt day) worth of energy storage ? Let guess for a second iron air batteries could deliver US$ 100 / kWh for the batteries alone, 1GWd @ $ 100 / kWh = 2.4 billion USD for the batteries alone, 3GW worth of solar should be about US$ 1.5 billion for the solar panels alone. Then you have all sorts of ancillary storage, solar farm, transmission costs and the cost of the land, since a 3GW solar farm is tens of Km2 of land must put it on cheap land. Why 3GW ? Its enough so that even in a TX winter, it should still be able to deliver 1GW to the grid from sunrise-end of peak demand hours, with juice left to power it until sunrise at lower demand. Pretty quickly we are talking US$ 10 billion or the cost of a full size water cooled nuclear reactor. But that only works for sunny land, or perhaps less than 1/3 or North America / Europe population. Gen IV will deliver nuclear reactors that can be operated for 40 years for the construction cost of a Gen III reactor. Someone criticized why I'm studying nuclear and not solar/wind/smart grid. Answer: I can find detailed in depth sources on advanced under research nuclear technology, with discussion lists where I can find all kinds of nuclear minds (from those that are fixated on current water cooled tech, to some of the folks actually working on molten salt research). Try finding discussion lists where you can read in depth techn
Nuclear power can be extremely economical if you stop using the "stop gap" water cooled reactors as your reference and move on to reactors that are cheaper, more reliable and extremely simple to operate. If you would please stop generalizing calling nuclear power when you should call it "obsolete water cooled reactors". Its like trying to compare a B787/A350 with a first generation B727. Its not just the automation, its the overall efficiency of the turbines, a B727 kept three people very busy flying it, a B787/A350 needs two just for exceptional situations. Water cooled nukes are very poor at scaling down. Molten Salt reactors can be scaled down to 1/10th of a large water cooled reactor while still being substantially better in every category (from economics to safety). So even a Westinghouse AP1000 is still useless for ships (way too big, way too expensive, uneconomical to scale down). A MSR powered large ship would be far cheaper to operate than a regular one, as long as it was designed as such:
1 - Nuclear ships can go fast, might need a stronger ship hull (a 50% speed up would substantially increase the economics of operating ships that routes like Brazil-China, China-Eastern USA, Europe-Australia for example)
2 - Nuclear ships would use 1/10th the space for fuel+powerplant, there would be lost of extra space free for more cargo
3 - If the world ever decides to tax the CO2 emitted by ships, nuclear would be the only choice left, either as straight nuclear ships, or nuclear produced diesel like fuels. Modern really stealth submarines don't have access to oxygen to burn fuels, so the "obsolete nuclear reactors" are the main choice, with the recent alternative of hydrogen fuel cell subs, but even though hydrogen fuel cells are very efficient, fuel cell subs must carry hydrogen and oxygen to produce on board electricity for propulsion, which make them very limited in speed and submerged range. Diesel subs are only used by inferior cost oriented navies which don't have the budget to go nuclear.
Nooo, atomic weight is just one variable in moderation efficiency. Variables are:
atomic weight like you pointed out
microscopic cross section (probability of a neutron hitting the moderator)
macroscopic cross section (microscopic cross section * density of moderator)
neutron capture (probability of the neutron being eaten by the moderator atom)
protium has excellent macroscopic cross section, but fairly high chance of neutron absorption (becoming deuterium)
deuterium (heavy water moderated reactors) has much lower macroscopic cross section, but much lower neutron capture probability
heavy water CANDU reactors are known for being far more efficient than water cooled/moderated reactors due to their neutron economy, the main reason most water cooled reactors aren't heavy water moderated is the cost of obtaining tens of tons of very high purity heavy water
the other problem is having a material that is a good moderator and coolant opens the possibility of having a reactor that is too moderated
FLiBe salt does some moderation, but actually a very small share of total moderation in a classic MSR reactor, lots of graphite are needed for the bulk of the moderation, I think the reason is the cross section of F Li and Be. Carbon has a much better microscopic cross section.
Off course, a fast reactor wants as little moderation as possible.
CANDU reactors are able to burn a lot more U238 than regular water cooled reactors. Its able to run using unenriched uranium fuel, and is also more efficient at using Pu+U238 fuel than other water cooled reactors. It also help that CANDUs can get new fuel/remove old fuel online, without shutting down the reactor. Light water reactors loose too much neutrons to run on unenriched uranium, this means that CANDUs have the highest burnup and highest plutonium production potential among water cooled reactors, in part because neutrons travelling up and down are unmoderated, but most neutrons (travelling sideways) are moderated, this allows for a much higher fraction of fast fission in a CANDU than a regular reactor. CANDUs have about 50% higher burnup than regular reactors, which means more U238 becoming Pu, which with reprocessing allows for more Pu U238 fuel to be made, just about doubling a overall closed fuel cycle usage of mined uranium. Mostly due to deuterium advantages as a moderator over protium. Funny oxygen isn't considered a moderator at all. I think its due to the cross section thing (probably the same reason Fluoride isn't a moderator in MSR reactors).
I'm not designing nuclear reactors. But most common molten salt designs are:
F Li Be - traditional ORNL MSR demonstrator (ran in the 60/70s for 5000 hours)
Disadvantage is that 6Li makes tritium, requiring Lithium to undergo enrichment to reduce normal 6Li concentration of 8% down to much less than 1% leaving mostly 7Li. On the other hand FLiBe have very low neutron absorption and moderation, helping with the neutron economy of the reactor. Typical moderators are graphite.
Another commonly mentioned salt uses Chloride instead of Fluoride, but no concrete design has been proposed with such thermal core materials.
No MSR reactor operating over 900C has been proposed, because its really hard to find a stable alloy that can take the neutrons and the heat for decades without degrading. Typically 700-800C normal operating ranges are proposed allowing usage of hastelloy family materials (although I don't know enough to discuss which variants are better), with some tolerance for quick excursions up to 900C for short periods as a safety margin.
The main advantages of molten salt reactors are:
Core nuclear fuel is dissolved with the coolant, and easily separated from the moderator. Draining the coolant with the nuclear fuel into a drain tank = moderation gone which immediately kills criticality, while current reactors use water for moderation AND cooling, so you can't remove the moderator.
Nuclear fission produces Xe and Kr, both have high neutron absorption cross section, since the fuel is dissolved in the core, those gasses bubble up and can be captured in a bottle, avoiding Xe buildup from poisoning the reaction like it happens in a water cooled nuclear reactor.
No temperature gradient between the nuclear fuel and the coolant (its all mixed together), increases in reactivity quickly heat the core fluid which triggers an automatic, passive melting of the freeze plug, leading to a safe shutdown into the drain tank.
The core fluids don't react with Water or Oxygen, so any leaks either freeze solid (self plugging) or leak into the catch pan, draining into the drain tank, everything in the core freezes solid even at temps as high as 300C. No risks of hydrogen formation leading to Chernobyl / Fukushima type explosions.
The core fluid has significant thermal expansion from the lowest operating temperature (the lowest temp the core fluid is a liquid) to the highest operating temperature, this allows for very significant negative temperature coefficient, leading to no need to having control rods at all (although many designs were proposed with control rods just to make the NRC happy), this also means the reactor automatically load follows (less electricity demand = high core temperature = lower core density = lower nuclear reactivity, higher electricity demand = lower core temperature = higher core density = right nuclear reactivity). The ORNL MSR demonstrator could be controlled by simply reducing/increasing air flow over the heat exchanger, it would load follow very nicely, compared to water cooled reactors that need expensive boron injections to operate at less than full load.
Using 233U fission has much lower delayed neutron fraction (similar to 239Pu), but this is more than offset by the temperature behavior of the core material.
The whole idea is just elegant and logical... Of course I'm not a nuclear engineer, so I can't be sure the proponents are hiding something, but I tried really hard to find something bad about it, just couldn't find it.
And I thought I wrote too much ! I'm not a scientist. I work in the general STEM area (computer infrastructure and telecoms). I don't have a chemistry or a physics degree (although high school physics and chemistry in Brazil is far more advanced than in the USA, and I was a A student on STEM subjects, and I have an incomplete computer engineering degree). But even if all of your ideas are viable, they are still scientific ideas, while hydrogen fuel cells are commercially a reality (in medium scales) for over a decade, with a few GigaWatts worth of fuel cells in operation right now, using either hydrogen directly, or making hydrogen from natural gas, methanol or something else using a reformer. I'm not a big fan of hydrogen fuel cells, because I'm yet to see an economical and clean means to making hydrogen in large scale from H2O. Making H2 from hydrocarbons still generate too much CO2. But we can jump start the hydrogen economy from natural gas in the USA where CH4 is cheap right now, then build some high temp nuclear reactors dedicated to make H2 cheaply and cleanly, and have lots of dual use reactors that make electricity in the day and evening and hydrogen low electricity demand hours. For cars, electric vehicles might still be a little bit too heavy, but the low cost of electricity, advanced aerodynamics shows that we can make cars people love and want to buy (Tesla Model S). In summary, I don't believe in fuel cell cars. I do believe in fuel cells used for higher duty, larger vehicles like buses, locomotives and small/medium boats. It took mankind over 50 years to go from ultra expensive fuel cells to semi affordable ones, why do you think your amonia ideas would become a commercial reality in less than many decades ? Good luck in your scientific endeavours.
Those studies ignore the transmission losses to send whatever solar power is produced thousands of miles away and the utterly impossible mission of storing terawatt days worth of electricity for overnight usage. It's a DREAM, not a feasible PROPOSAL. And you fall for it. Let's start by doing solar in large scales for local utilization is sunny equatorial/upper tropical metro areas. Places like northern Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Singapore, southern middle east. In those places solar would produce over half of the LOCAL electricity needs, and could be complemented with peaking natural gas plants for overnight demands. But solar in Germany=nuts. Solar in Canada=nuts. Those places need nuclear, cause wind=intermittent energy source. Understand how the grid works. Too much electricity is just as bad as too little. There's no point in producing cheap wind electricity if half of the produced electricity happens when you don't need it and its not economical to store it. The only economical electricity storage solution at grid scale we have today is pumped hydro, and most countries don't have suitable sites to do it. Even with Tesla Giga factory reducing li-ion battery pack costs by half, it will still be too expensive.
"That is cheaper than any nuclear accident" Ohh how much non sense... Go study nuclear facts, not nuclear lies which is what you believe in. Wind electricity today is not economical. Its only done due to huge per MWh incentives which are destroying the rest of the power generation industry. And wind+solar+biomass alone cannot run the country's electricity's need. You need to study FACTS, not LIES. I want to get rid of all COAL burning to produce electricity in the world. Natural gas pollutes less, but on the other hand, it can't be stored in significant enough quantities (like store enough to make up for a rise in demand for heating in the winter), if natural gas price doubles, and coal is mostly retired, electricity prices will shot up. Solar is useless in the winter up north. No, it's NOT economical to generate lots of solar in TX and sent it elsewhere, all of those optimistic TX alone can power the USA with solar ignore not only the trillions of dollars worth of transmission upgrades, but also ignore the massive electrical losses due to transmitting all of those dozens of GWs worth of electricity up to 2000 miles away. I never see an actual grid transmission expert defending those crazy ideas, those who actually know what it takes to keep the light on. Its always to head in the clouds environmentalists that overplay the nuclear risks and ignore the cost of things. Like the trillion dollar Germany renewables plan that is stuck since it resulted in increased dependence on Putin's natural gas, plus it has no hopes of ending Germany's massive burning of filthy brown coal it produces in huge scales. Natural gas equipment suppliers love selling wind turbines too, they know wind isn't the solution. Solar is a partial solution to sunny places, not a solution for Canada, not a solution for the upper half of the USA. Not a solution for Germany. I don't mean worthless, but it can't be used in the scales proposed. It would work very well for Central America, the upper half of South America, the upper half of Africa, exactly where it's not being used in large scales. See the pattern ? Its only used in the worse places for its usage. Its a con, not a real solution !
No I don't work with anything nuclear. I'm a computer / telecoms guy. But I did studied this stuff in deep enough detail to understand why it should work. And they guys proposing it are surprisingly open, even having in depth forum discussions at http://energyfromthorium.com/f.... Come read up on the posts, understand the data. Its a lot more logical than trying to power Germany with solar+wind in the winter.
Only in your dreams. Wind blows when it blows. Typically at night, including the low electricity demand hours of 11PM-5AM. But it doesn't blow every night. The theoretical dream of having a very high power grid capable of shipping tens of GW between several wind hotspots ignore the huge costs of ginormous transmission lines, and look who keeps funding those ideas ? Big transmission suppliers like ABB. It's not about doing what's best for the general population, instead doing what is good for their profits. And because you love wind you become their cheerleaders for free.
I see you have both radiophobia and nuclear lies being fed to you. I suggest you open your mind to the nuclear world. You might want to start with: http://energyfromthorium.com/f... The smallest nuclear reactor proposed is 50MWt in size, about 20x too powerfull for a locomotive (1-2 MWt scale), 100x larger than a truck engine (200KWt scale). The smallest scale transportation where nuclear reactors would make some sense would be large ships. Anything less would be foolish. Just because someone says something it doesn't mean it makes sense. I believe in electric vehicles, charged mostly with 11PM-5AM cheap electricity. But hydrogen fuel cells could make sense for larger vehicles, that would require a very large battery, where having a large hydrogen tank would work better ($$$) instead. But currently hydrogen is being produced from natural gas. So its still CO2 producing. The only economical large scale hydrogen production solution is actually high temperature nuclear reactors, like Molten Salt reactors that are able to sustain 700-800C operation due to the nuclear fuel being molten in the primary coolant, avoiding any meltdown risks. Typical nuclear reactors use solid fuels where the nuclear fuel runs around 1800C, and goes through very steep temperature gradients until hitting the coolant @ 280-350C, creating meltdown risks.
Please elaborate. Things don't happen out of the blue. Just because one could buy lots of free wholesale electricity doesn't mean energy storage is economical on a GWh scale at wholesale prices. One MWh @ 30 dollars = 3 cents per kWh, current storage solutions are economical when one can sell those kWh at 10x that price. That's the big difference between the pro nuclear guys, actual numbers/facts guys, vs the I want more solar & wind NOW crowd. The latter just don't do the math or do the end consumer Feed In Tariff math, ignoring the math at the wholesale scale which is killing baseload generation.
Yep, 200 hrs isn't much, but the documents I read explain in detail why the USA and Germany renewable energy policy is stupid.
Don't know if you will be able to read this without enrolling into the course first: https://class.coursera.org/nuc... I never claimed I was an expert, rather I claim is that the more I read about nuclear, the more I'm impressed with the in depth detail and clarity the nuclear experts write with, the more I read about solar+wind, but more I come with the impression those guys know nothing about the grid, specially cost x benefit facts. If solar+wind were that great, Hawaii would be already running on solar+wind alone, after all they have pretty much the most expensive electricity of the USA. BTW, I'm totally pro wind and solar where you have LARGE HYDRO plants that can do fast load following in large scale. That's just not true for the USA and most of Europe. BTW2, like most critics you failed to combat my argument with this little thing called facts. All you did was try to embarrass me without exposing any of your argument, which I know is weak. BTW3, Germany is clear proof solar+wind isn't ready for prime time (not even 20% combined capacity), by shutting down just 5 nuclear power plants, the Germany solar+wind expansion caused activation of lots of peaking coal and peaking natural gas plants, which are far less efficient than baseload. Solar+Wind is destroying baseload capacity in the areas where specially wind is being aggressively pursued. However like I said, in places with lots of hydro, hydro can do agile load following then lots of solar and wind can be used to maintain hydro reservoir levels, like in my Brazil
I'll be sure to look, but I tell you, we're waiting for those advanced batteries, and there's no expectation they will hit the market in less than 5 years, perhaps will take over 10 years. If those were promissing, Elon Musk wouldn't be investing on the Giga Factory with Li-Ion technology. Hopefully the Giga Factory will showcase an economical solar PV + GWh scale energy storage. The Giga Factory itself is planned to run producing 100% of its own energy, not clear if they will sell anything to the grid, I would hope they will use storage to only sell to the grid at peak demand hours, which should be economical for them considering they should have the absolute lowest cost battery energy storage solution in the planet. You see, I'm not against solar+wind, but we must stop putting all of our hopes and dreams on it. Right now if we want to combat climate change effectively we need lots of nuclear, even the outdated water cooled nuclear is better thousands of wind turbines.
There's no bullying. There's ignorance and lack of interest in finding the truth. I like solar panels for many applications, and support rooftop PV and solar CSP plants. But the current wind energy credits are destroying the USA regional grids. The credits given for wind turbines are making regional grids to into negative energy costs overnight (more power than needed in the grid, even with all peaking plants shutdown, and wind turbines are still making money because they can pay a little bit of money to deliver electricity to the grid, like paying one dollar to sell a MWh to the grid while making 23 dollars per MWh by the wind credits), results, baseload natural gas, baseload coal, baseload nuclear is getting destroyed, but those are needed when the wind isn't blowing. The USA is shooting itself in the foot with a bazooka. We need to explain this truth to everyone thinking wind turbines are great. The credits must be reformulated, such that they are a % of revenues earned from selling that electricity, instead of a fixed value, this way wind turbines would be forced to have large energy storage capacity, so they don't sell into an oversupplied electric grid.
That's because water cooled nuclear reactors are too complex and too expensive. If instead we get molten salt reactors, those can power large civilian ships (fuel costs 80% less, reactors will cost less than half per MW produced). Nuclear powered ships could go 50%-100% faster since their fuel is so cheap, they could make the really long trips far more quickly. The real problem is the perception that nuclear must be risky. The reality is IF nuclear was risky, US nuclear ships wouldn't be allowed in ports all over the world.
Wrong ! In many ways, military and civilian water cooled reactors of today should have been 40 years ago technology. Basic Nuclear in the USA research pretty much stopped in the late 60s during the Nixon administration. The really sharp, ambitious nuclear scientists (from the Manhattan project), wanted either metal cooled fast reactors or thorium molten salt reactors. Nobody wanted a water cooled reactor. A water cooled reactor was the Navy's solution to the Navy's problem with Navy's knowledge set. Plus lets compare the world's largest Navy nuclear reactor.
The latest nuclear carriers use 2 A1B nuclear reactors, rated at 300MWt each.
And those reactors run around 50% power most of the time. A full sized civilian reactor usually is 4000MWt (1300-1400 MWe). Very, very different beasts. The navy doesn't need inherently safe reactors, they have extremely competent officers running its nuclear reactors. Civilians need inherently safe, walk away if anything goes bad, reactors. With molten salts we can built 500-1000MWt reactors that are far safer AND far more efficient than the 4000MWt water cooled reactors. I have spent over 200 hrs studying lectures, papers, analysis, for molten salt tech. And why they were never seriously pursued. No technical reasons. Political reasons instead. While I prefer molten salt reactors over sodium cooled fast reactors, the later are also way safer than water cooled reactors. Killed in the 90s by Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. By order of big coal and natural gas interests. If you want nuclear research to restart, we first need to combat the real enemy of nuclear power today which is the public, that was carefully fed lie after lie about nuclear power, and the BIG lie that solar+wind can do the trick (THEY CAN'T).
EVs will be more expensive than hybrids. Charging a Tesla Model S with off peak residential mixed with some free supercharger top offs leads to Tesla Model S having at least 80% cheaper operating cost than either a high economy regular car or a hybrid. Tesla Model S are designed to be extremely cheap to maintain, Elon Musk stated they don't want their service centers to be a profit center, plus charging a model S with electrons instead of gas is at least 80% cheaper. Heavy Oil refineries use enough natural gas / electricity to refine a gallon of gasoline that would be enough to propel a Model S around 20 miles down the freeway. Plus when you have solar panels in your house offsetting 100% of your electricity (including model S charging) they it gets over 90% cheaper with the current incentives. I'm against the wind electricity production subsidies, those are killing the electric grid (killing baseload generation, both nuclear/coal/natural gas). But solar is much better, since we actually need lots of electricity when the sun is shining. Wind shouldn't be allowed to earn any credits when the grid is running with negative costs (it has too much electricity, companies must pay to generate), since the credit is paid regardless of the electricity cost right at that moment, wind operators are being net paid to overload the grid (it already has more electricity than needed at that point).
Can you quote us a source for lithium being difficult to recycle ? I remember reading from Elon Musk that not only the tech to fully recycle the Li-Ion base components exist, but it's also cheaper to recycle than to get new raw materials. It's one of the questions, wouldn't it be better to recycle Tesla Model S batteries that are too degraded to function as model S batteries or to use those for stationary energy storage. With an efficient enough giga factory it might be better to recycle soon, and use new batteries to stationary storage instead.
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And I forget the safety factor. Lots of rich Soccer moms love the Tesla. Built like a tank. Don't underestimate a mother love for their kids !
Humm. The Tesla model S is an actually sustainable product.
It is cheaper than some of its gasoline powered peers.
It's at least 80% cheaper to keep after paid off (90% cheaper maintenance, 90% cheaper electricity vs European gasoline, 75% cheaper USA electricity vs USA gasoline with lower taxes).
If you drive a lot, a Tesla model S can fully pay for itself if you keep it for a decade, with maintenance and gasoline savings alone.
Although a Tesla Model S is out of my pocket, I still love Tesla because its electric cars done right. Looking forward to the Model E.
About Tesla being sold just to environmentalists. You're wrong. Lots of people are buying it for its cost X benefit advantages. As the supercharger network grows large enough the range anxiety issues will be 99% gone. Leaving just the cost which the Giga Factory and the Model E will fix.
If one could buy an EV for US$ 40k in the USA today with 160 mile range, the car would fully pay for itself for any one with a daily 100 mile round trip commute.
The race is on, Tesla Model E or enhanced range LEAF.
Please enumerate all those new techs Germany is developing as a result of Energiewende ?
Hint: Solar panels are from China. Wind turbines made in Germany are no more efficient than those made elsewhere. Pumped Hydro was invented by the French. HVDC transmission is not a Germany invention either.
You statement just shows you are a blind solar+wind cheerleader who has zero understanding of the economics and the engineering behind it, like the vast majority of your crowd.
Go study up on how the electrical grid works instead of transposing you dreams and hopes into the real life.
Energiewende is just a massively inefficient jobs program. Germany's grid is peak 65GW demand. 20 large conventional nuclear power plants would produce half of Germany peak electricity needs, combined with existing hydro, biomass, pumped hydro, solar and wind might zero out Germany's need for natural gas and coal for electricity. Can be done @ 200 billion euro. Would say bye bye to Putin's natural gas. But the poor brainwashed NIMBY Germany people don't want nuclear. How sad !
The coal burning mafia is just as bad as the uneconomical renewables, ran @ trillion euros worth of subsidies over 20 years.
Germany scale subsidies are barely doable for Germany, but not a solution for India, China and many other poorer countries.
Actually doing the Germany solar push closer to the equator would be truly economical. In places where isolation @ peak summer - peak winter is less than 30% difference. But in Germany isolation @ peak summer is 10x more than peak winter = very bad idea.
Germany would do it a lot better with lots of nuclear instead. NEW Nuclear humms 24x7 365 days/yr, with 97-98% uptime (stopping just for scheduled maintenance, that gets scheduled for when its very rainy and hydro is running @ 100+%).
I'm pro nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar and wind (in that order). Wind is the worst. Nuclear is the only reliable, scalable, low CO2 energy source. Use Hydro and Geothermal when you can. But most countries don't have lots of hydro or geothermal. Solar and wind goes very well in countries with lots of hydro.
Learn actual facts about low CO2 energy sources. Many reputable climatologists have stated there's no solution to climate change without lots of nuclear. Reexamine your NIMBY assumptions. If you are against nuclear you are being pro coal. It's only logical if you face ALL THE INCONVENIENT FACTS !
Political will = unfair subsidies. Doing it @ a huge loss is a very bad idea.
I think Tesla will be able to do it economically instead, even if its barely @ break even, but not at a loss.
You really should rethink your concepts. Germany's energiewende is a major train wreck. It just shows how much stupidity a developed country's government can go to when a minor fraction of the population gets brainwashed with uneconomical ideas.
Tesla+Solar City+Giga Factory = economically sustainable renewables
Germany energywende = economical stupidity at mass scales
Don't get me wrong. I want to solve climate change. I want to END the vast majority of coal consumption in the world + at least half of natural gas/petrol consumption. But I want to do it @ an economical fashion, not in a way that only works for ultra rich countries that can afford to spend trillions of Euros in subsidies over 20 years. The Germany solution is not applicable to China or India. Not even a solution for Italy, Spain and many other countries that don't enjoy Germany's productivity.
Get real. Without doing the math (actual costs) you can't call is a solution that just depends on political will. You must call it economical suicide !
Work more aggressively ? How ? Billions are being thrown at battery research. Why don't you do it instead of telling me to ?
It's the difference between wanting something because its aligned with your pleasant view of the world versus facing the hard problems as they are.
I don't like nuclear because it's sexy, I like nuclear because it keeps the lights on ! And emits about the same total CO2 as wind, without the intermittency issues.
Solar + Battery storage will work in moderately sunny areas. Will work even better in very sunny areas (equatorial / high tropical areas).
Solar + Wind won't work in large scale in most places being deployed. Wind is just too intermittent. It's way too expensive to store a single week worth of electricity even @ 90% cheaper prices than current Li-Ion batteries. Plus wind turbine prices are not dropping like solar PV. In 10 years wind will be way too expensive compared to solar. But even free solar panels without storage won't work either.
Unless of course you're just playing the game of let's be pro wind/solar, because we want the world to keep burning coal and natural gas.
Yet you still defend wind like its a great solution.
Nuclear can fully displace coal/natural gas.
High temperature nuclear deployed mostly as mixed electricity / hydrogen production can be kept @ 100% power, just shifting from electricity production to hydrogen production to power fuel cell cars. Plus in the future pure EV cars will increase off peak electricity demand for recharging.
Attaching energy storage to nuclear results in a fully predictable solution, without the seasonalities of solar or the ups and downs of wind turbines.
Wind is a proper solution for some places in the world, places where wind blows at moderate speeds for at least 6-8 hrs/day. Or places that have lots of big hydro, where wind can be paired with big hydro (hydro provides combined baseload and load following, wind just helps save water volumes in dry seasons).
My Brazil has 70% hydro and less than 2% nuclear. I'm for having Brazil with 10-15% nuclear only, retiring gas and oil electricity (we have almost no coal electricity), Solar and Wind will be a big part of the solution due to big hydro convenient load following abilities. See, I'm not a radical pro nuclear guy. But North America and Europe don't have hydro resources to get even to 25% hydro, so the solution up there is different. There you need 50% nuclear + hydro + lots of solar. Wind messes the equation, because there's not enough hydro in most areas to load follow wind.
Hope those pan out, but even so, what would be the cost to build a 3GW solar farm with 1GWd (GigaWatt day) worth of energy storage ?
Let guess for a second iron air batteries could deliver US$ 100 / kWh for the batteries alone, 1GWd @ $ 100 / kWh = 2.4 billion USD for the batteries alone, 3GW worth of solar should be about US$ 1.5 billion for the solar panels alone. Then you have all sorts of ancillary storage, solar farm, transmission costs and the cost of the land, since a 3GW solar farm is tens of Km2 of land must put it on cheap land. Why 3GW ? Its enough so that even in a TX winter, it should still be able to deliver 1GW to the grid from sunrise-end of peak demand hours, with juice left to power it until sunrise at lower demand.
Pretty quickly we are talking US$ 10 billion or the cost of a full size water cooled nuclear reactor.
But that only works for sunny land, or perhaps less than 1/3 or North America / Europe population.
Gen IV will deliver nuclear reactors that can be operated for 40 years for the construction cost of a Gen III reactor.
Someone criticized why I'm studying nuclear and not solar/wind/smart grid.
Answer: I can find detailed in depth sources on advanced under research nuclear technology, with discussion lists where I can find all kinds of nuclear minds (from those that are fixated on current water cooled tech, to some of the folks actually working on molten salt research). Try finding discussion lists where you can read in depth techn
I'll take the TROLL moderation as a badge of honor, don't have the guts to use engineering/scientific arguments, hein ?
Nuclear power can be extremely economical if you stop using the "stop gap" water cooled reactors as your reference and move on to reactors that are cheaper, more reliable and extremely simple to operate.
If you would please stop generalizing calling nuclear power when you should call it "obsolete water cooled reactors".
Its like trying to compare a B787/A350 with a first generation B727. Its not just the automation, its the overall efficiency of the turbines, a B727 kept three people very busy flying it, a B787/A350 needs two just for exceptional situations.
Water cooled nukes are very poor at scaling down.
Molten Salt reactors can be scaled down to 1/10th of a large water cooled reactor while still being substantially better in every category (from economics to safety). So even a Westinghouse AP1000 is still useless for ships (way too big, way too expensive, uneconomical to scale down).
A MSR powered large ship would be far cheaper to operate than a regular one, as long as it was designed as such:
1 - Nuclear ships can go fast, might need a stronger ship hull (a 50% speed up would substantially increase the economics of operating ships that routes like Brazil-China, China-Eastern USA, Europe-Australia for example)
2 - Nuclear ships would use 1/10th the space for fuel+powerplant, there would be lost of extra space free for more cargo
3 - If the world ever decides to tax the CO2 emitted by ships, nuclear would be the only choice left, either as straight nuclear ships, or nuclear produced diesel like fuels.
Modern really stealth submarines don't have access to oxygen to burn fuels, so the "obsolete nuclear reactors" are the main choice, with the recent alternative of hydrogen fuel cell subs, but even though hydrogen fuel cells are very efficient, fuel cell subs must carry hydrogen and oxygen to produce on board electricity for propulsion, which make them very limited in speed and submerged range. Diesel subs are only used by inferior cost oriented navies which don't have the budget to go nuclear.
Nooo, atomic weight is just one variable in moderation efficiency.
Variables are:
atomic weight like you pointed out
microscopic cross section (probability of a neutron hitting the moderator)
macroscopic cross section (microscopic cross section * density of moderator)
neutron capture (probability of the neutron being eaten by the moderator atom)
protium has excellent macroscopic cross section, but fairly high chance of neutron absorption (becoming deuterium)
deuterium (heavy water moderated reactors) has much lower macroscopic cross section, but much lower neutron capture probability
heavy water CANDU reactors are known for being far more efficient than water cooled/moderated reactors due to their neutron economy, the main reason most water cooled reactors aren't heavy water moderated is the cost of obtaining tens of tons of very high purity heavy water
the other problem is having a material that is a good moderator and coolant opens the possibility of having a reactor that is too moderated
FLiBe salt does some moderation, but actually a very small share of total moderation in a classic MSR reactor, lots of graphite are needed for the bulk of the moderation, I think the reason is the cross section of F Li and Be. Carbon has a much better microscopic cross section.
Off course, a fast reactor wants as little moderation as possible.
CANDU reactors are able to burn a lot more U238 than regular water cooled reactors. Its able to run using unenriched uranium fuel, and is also more efficient at using Pu+U238 fuel than other water cooled reactors. It also help that CANDUs can get new fuel/remove old fuel online, without shutting down the reactor. Light water reactors loose too much neutrons to run on unenriched uranium, this means that CANDUs have the highest burnup and highest plutonium production potential among water cooled reactors, in part because neutrons travelling up and down are unmoderated, but most neutrons (travelling sideways) are moderated, this allows for a much higher fraction of fast fission in a CANDU than a regular reactor. CANDUs have about 50% higher burnup than regular reactors, which means more U238 becoming Pu, which with reprocessing allows for more Pu U238 fuel to be made, just about doubling a overall closed fuel cycle usage of mined uranium. Mostly due to deuterium advantages as a moderator over protium. Funny oxygen isn't considered a moderator at all. I think its due to the cross section thing (probably the same reason Fluoride isn't a moderator in MSR reactors).
I'm not designing nuclear reactors. But most common molten salt designs are:
F Li Be - traditional ORNL MSR demonstrator (ran in the 60/70s for 5000 hours)
Disadvantage is that 6Li makes tritium, requiring Lithium to undergo enrichment to reduce normal 6Li concentration of 8% down to much less than 1% leaving mostly 7Li.
On the other hand FLiBe have very low neutron absorption and moderation, helping with the neutron economy of the reactor. Typical moderators are graphite.
Another commonly mentioned salt uses Chloride instead of Fluoride, but no concrete design has been proposed with such thermal core materials.
No MSR reactor operating over 900C has been proposed, because its really hard to find a stable alloy that can take the neutrons and the heat for decades without degrading. Typically 700-800C normal operating ranges are proposed allowing usage of hastelloy family materials (although I don't know enough to discuss which variants are better), with some tolerance for quick excursions up to 900C for short periods as a safety margin.
The main advantages of molten salt reactors are:
Core nuclear fuel is dissolved with the coolant, and easily separated from the moderator. Draining the coolant with the nuclear fuel into a drain tank = moderation gone which immediately kills criticality, while current reactors use water for moderation AND cooling, so you can't remove the moderator.
Nuclear fission produces Xe and Kr, both have high neutron absorption cross section, since the fuel is dissolved in the core, those gasses bubble up and can be captured in a bottle, avoiding Xe buildup from poisoning the reaction like it happens in a water cooled nuclear reactor.
No temperature gradient between the nuclear fuel and the coolant (its all mixed together), increases in reactivity quickly heat the core fluid which triggers an automatic, passive melting of the freeze plug, leading to a safe shutdown into the drain tank.
The core fluids don't react with Water or Oxygen, so any leaks either freeze solid (self plugging) or leak into the catch pan, draining into the drain tank, everything in the core freezes solid even at temps as high as 300C. No risks of hydrogen formation leading to Chernobyl / Fukushima type explosions.
The core fluid has significant thermal expansion from the lowest operating temperature (the lowest temp the core fluid is a liquid) to the highest operating temperature, this allows for very significant negative temperature coefficient, leading to no need to having control rods at all (although many designs were proposed with control rods just to make the NRC happy), this also means the reactor automatically load follows (less electricity demand = high core temperature = lower core density = lower nuclear reactivity, higher electricity demand = lower core temperature = higher core density = right nuclear reactivity). The ORNL MSR demonstrator could be controlled by simply reducing/increasing air flow over the heat exchanger, it would load follow very nicely, compared to water cooled reactors that need expensive boron injections to operate at less than full load.
Using 233U fission has much lower delayed neutron fraction (similar to 239Pu), but this is more than offset by the temperature behavior of the core material.
The whole idea is just elegant and logical... Of course I'm not a nuclear engineer, so I can't be sure the proponents are hiding something, but I tried really hard to find something bad about it, just couldn't find it.
And I thought I wrote too much !
I'm not a scientist. I work in the general STEM area (computer infrastructure and telecoms). I don't have a chemistry or a physics degree (although high school physics and chemistry in Brazil is far more advanced than in the USA, and I was a A student on STEM subjects, and I have an incomplete computer engineering degree).
But even if all of your ideas are viable, they are still scientific ideas, while hydrogen fuel cells are commercially a reality (in medium scales) for over a decade, with a few GigaWatts worth of fuel cells in operation right now, using either hydrogen directly, or making hydrogen from natural gas, methanol or something else using a reformer.
I'm not a big fan of hydrogen fuel cells, because I'm yet to see an economical and clean means to making hydrogen in large scale from H2O. Making H2 from hydrocarbons still generate too much CO2.
But we can jump start the hydrogen economy from natural gas in the USA where CH4 is cheap right now, then build some high temp nuclear reactors dedicated to make H2 cheaply and cleanly, and have lots of dual use reactors that make electricity in the day and evening and hydrogen low electricity demand hours.
For cars, electric vehicles might still be a little bit too heavy, but the low cost of electricity, advanced aerodynamics shows that we can make cars people love and want to buy (Tesla Model S).
In summary, I don't believe in fuel cell cars. I do believe in fuel cells used for higher duty, larger vehicles like buses, locomotives and small/medium boats.
It took mankind over 50 years to go from ultra expensive fuel cells to semi affordable ones, why do you think your amonia ideas would become a commercial reality in less than many decades ?
Good luck in your scientific endeavours.
Silly me... taking every sentence 100% serious... duuh.
Those studies ignore the transmission losses to send whatever solar power is produced thousands of miles away and the utterly impossible mission of storing terawatt days worth of electricity for overnight usage.
It's a DREAM, not a feasible PROPOSAL. And you fall for it.
Let's start by doing solar in large scales for local utilization is sunny equatorial/upper tropical metro areas. Places like northern Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Singapore, southern middle east. In those places solar would produce over half of the LOCAL electricity needs, and could be complemented with peaking natural gas plants for overnight demands. But solar in Germany=nuts. Solar in Canada=nuts. Those places need nuclear, cause wind=intermittent energy source.
Understand how the grid works. Too much electricity is just as bad as too little. There's no point in producing cheap wind electricity if half of the produced electricity happens when you don't need it and its not economical to store it. The only economical electricity storage solution at grid scale we have today is pumped hydro, and most countries don't have suitable sites to do it. Even with Tesla Giga factory reducing li-ion battery pack costs by half, it will still be too expensive.
"That is cheaper than any nuclear accident" Ohh how much non sense...
Go study nuclear facts, not nuclear lies which is what you believe in.
Wind electricity today is not economical. Its only done due to huge per MWh incentives which are destroying the rest of the power generation industry.
And wind+solar+biomass alone cannot run the country's electricity's need.
You need to study FACTS, not LIES.
I want to get rid of all COAL burning to produce electricity in the world.
Natural gas pollutes less, but on the other hand, it can't be stored in significant enough quantities (like store enough to make up for a rise in demand for heating in the winter), if natural gas price doubles, and coal is mostly retired, electricity prices will shot up.
Solar is useless in the winter up north. No, it's NOT economical to generate lots of solar in TX and sent it elsewhere, all of those optimistic TX alone can power the USA with solar ignore not only the trillions of dollars worth of transmission upgrades, but also ignore the massive electrical losses due to transmitting all of those dozens of GWs worth of electricity up to 2000 miles away.
I never see an actual grid transmission expert defending those crazy ideas, those who actually know what it takes to keep the light on. Its always to head in the clouds environmentalists that overplay the nuclear risks and ignore the cost of things. Like the trillion dollar Germany renewables plan that is stuck since it resulted in increased dependence on Putin's natural gas, plus it has no hopes of ending Germany's massive burning of filthy brown coal it produces in huge scales.
Natural gas equipment suppliers love selling wind turbines too, they know wind isn't the solution.
Solar is a partial solution to sunny places, not a solution for Canada, not a solution for the upper half of the USA. Not a solution for Germany. I don't mean worthless, but it can't be used in the scales proposed. It would work very well for Central America, the upper half of South America, the upper half of Africa, exactly where it's not being used in large scales. See the pattern ? Its only used in the worse places for its usage. Its a con, not a real solution !
No I don't work with anything nuclear. I'm a computer / telecoms guy.
But I did studied this stuff in deep enough detail to understand why it should work. And they guys proposing it are surprisingly open, even having in depth forum discussions at http://energyfromthorium.com/f.... Come read up on the posts, understand the data. Its a lot more logical than trying to power Germany with solar+wind in the winter.
Only in your dreams. Wind blows when it blows. Typically at night, including the low electricity demand hours of 11PM-5AM. But it doesn't blow every night.
The theoretical dream of having a very high power grid capable of shipping tens of GW between several wind hotspots ignore the huge costs of ginormous transmission lines, and look who keeps funding those ideas ? Big transmission suppliers like ABB. It's not about doing what's best for the general population, instead doing what is good for their profits. And because you love wind you become their cheerleaders for free.
I see you have both radiophobia and nuclear lies being fed to you. I suggest you open your mind to the nuclear world.
You might want to start with: http://energyfromthorium.com/f...
The smallest nuclear reactor proposed is 50MWt in size, about 20x too powerfull for a locomotive (1-2 MWt scale), 100x larger than a truck engine (200KWt scale).
The smallest scale transportation where nuclear reactors would make some sense would be large ships. Anything less would be foolish.
Just because someone says something it doesn't mean it makes sense.
I believe in electric vehicles, charged mostly with 11PM-5AM cheap electricity.
But hydrogen fuel cells could make sense for larger vehicles, that would require a very large battery, where having a large hydrogen tank would work better ($$$) instead.
But currently hydrogen is being produced from natural gas. So its still CO2 producing.
The only economical large scale hydrogen production solution is actually high temperature nuclear reactors, like Molten Salt reactors that are able to sustain 700-800C operation due to the nuclear fuel being molten in the primary coolant, avoiding any meltdown risks. Typical nuclear reactors use solid fuels where the nuclear fuel runs around 1800C, and goes through very steep temperature gradients until hitting the coolant @ 280-350C, creating meltdown risks.
Please elaborate. Things don't happen out of the blue. Just because one could buy lots of free wholesale electricity doesn't mean energy storage is economical on a GWh scale at wholesale prices.
One MWh @ 30 dollars = 3 cents per kWh, current storage solutions are economical when one can sell those kWh at 10x that price.
That's the big difference between the pro nuclear guys, actual numbers/facts guys, vs the I want more solar & wind NOW crowd. The latter just don't do the math or do the end consumer Feed In Tariff math, ignoring the math at the wholesale scale which is killing baseload generation.
Yep, 200 hrs isn't much, but the documents I read explain in detail why the USA and Germany renewable energy policy is stupid.
Don't know if you will be able to read this without enrolling into the course first:
https://class.coursera.org/nuc...
I never claimed I was an expert, rather I claim is that the more I read about nuclear, the more I'm impressed with the in depth detail and clarity the nuclear experts write with, the more I read about solar+wind, but more I come with the impression those guys know nothing about the grid, specially cost x benefit facts.
If solar+wind were that great, Hawaii would be already running on solar+wind alone, after all they have pretty much the most expensive electricity of the USA.
BTW, I'm totally pro wind and solar where you have LARGE HYDRO plants that can do fast load following in large scale. That's just not true for the USA and most of Europe.
BTW2, like most critics you failed to combat my argument with this little thing called facts. All you did was try to embarrass me without exposing any of your argument, which I know is weak.
BTW3, Germany is clear proof solar+wind isn't ready for prime time (not even 20% combined capacity), by shutting down just 5 nuclear power plants, the Germany solar+wind expansion caused activation of lots of peaking coal and peaking natural gas plants, which are far less efficient than baseload. Solar+Wind is destroying baseload capacity in the areas where specially wind is being aggressively pursued. However like I said, in places with lots of hydro, hydro can do agile load following then lots of solar and wind can be used to maintain hydro reservoir levels, like in my Brazil
I'll be sure to look, but I tell you, we're waiting for those advanced batteries, and there's no expectation they will hit the market in less than 5 years, perhaps will take over 10 years. If those were promissing, Elon Musk wouldn't be investing on the Giga Factory with Li-Ion technology.
Hopefully the Giga Factory will showcase an economical solar PV + GWh scale energy storage.
The Giga Factory itself is planned to run producing 100% of its own energy, not clear if they will sell anything to the grid, I would hope they will use storage to only sell to the grid at peak demand hours, which should be economical for them considering they should have the absolute lowest cost battery energy storage solution in the planet.
You see, I'm not against solar+wind, but we must stop putting all of our hopes and dreams on it.
Right now if we want to combat climate change effectively we need lots of nuclear, even the outdated water cooled nuclear is better thousands of wind turbines.
There's no bullying. There's ignorance and lack of interest in finding the truth.
I like solar panels for many applications, and support rooftop PV and solar CSP plants. But the current wind energy credits are destroying the USA regional grids.
The credits given for wind turbines are making regional grids to into negative energy costs overnight (more power than needed in the grid, even with all peaking plants shutdown, and wind turbines are still making money because they can pay a little bit of money to deliver electricity to the grid, like paying one dollar to sell a MWh to the grid while making 23 dollars per MWh by the wind credits), results, baseload natural gas, baseload coal, baseload nuclear is getting destroyed, but those are needed when the wind isn't blowing. The USA is shooting itself in the foot with a bazooka.
We need to explain this truth to everyone thinking wind turbines are great.
The credits must be reformulated, such that they are a % of revenues earned from selling that electricity, instead of a fixed value, this way wind turbines would be forced to have large energy storage capacity, so they don't sell into an oversupplied electric grid.
That's because water cooled nuclear reactors are too complex and too expensive.
If instead we get molten salt reactors, those can power large civilian ships (fuel costs 80% less, reactors will cost less than half per MW produced).
Nuclear powered ships could go 50%-100% faster since their fuel is so cheap, they could make the really long trips far more quickly.
The real problem is the perception that nuclear must be risky.
The reality is IF nuclear was risky, US nuclear ships wouldn't be allowed in ports all over the world.
Wrong !
In many ways, military and civilian water cooled reactors of today should have been 40 years ago technology.
Basic Nuclear in the USA research pretty much stopped in the late 60s during the Nixon administration.
The really sharp, ambitious nuclear scientists (from the Manhattan project), wanted either metal cooled fast reactors or thorium molten salt reactors.
Nobody wanted a water cooled reactor. A water cooled reactor was the Navy's solution to the Navy's problem with Navy's knowledge set.
Plus lets compare the world's largest Navy nuclear reactor.
The latest nuclear carriers use 2 A1B nuclear reactors, rated at 300MWt each.
And those reactors run around 50% power most of the time.
A full sized civilian reactor usually is 4000MWt (1300-1400 MWe).
Very, very different beasts.
The navy doesn't need inherently safe reactors, they have extremely competent officers running its nuclear reactors.
Civilians need inherently safe, walk away if anything goes bad, reactors.
With molten salts we can built 500-1000MWt reactors that are far safer AND far more efficient than the 4000MWt water cooled reactors.
I have spent over 200 hrs studying lectures, papers, analysis, for molten salt tech.
And why they were never seriously pursued. No technical reasons. Political reasons instead.
While I prefer molten salt reactors over sodium cooled fast reactors, the later are also way safer than water cooled reactors. Killed in the 90s by Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. By order of big coal and natural gas interests.
If you want nuclear research to restart, we first need to combat the real enemy of nuclear power today which is the public, that was carefully fed lie after lie about nuclear power, and the BIG lie that solar+wind can do the trick (THEY CAN'T).
EVs will be more expensive than hybrids. Charging a Tesla Model S with off peak residential mixed with some free supercharger top offs leads to Tesla Model S having at least 80% cheaper operating cost than either a high economy regular car or a hybrid.
Tesla Model S are designed to be extremely cheap to maintain, Elon Musk stated they don't want their service centers to be a profit center, plus charging a model S with electrons instead of gas is at least 80% cheaper.
Heavy Oil refineries use enough natural gas / electricity to refine a gallon of gasoline that would be enough to propel a Model S around 20 miles down the freeway.
Plus when you have solar panels in your house offsetting 100% of your electricity (including model S charging) they it gets over 90% cheaper with the current incentives.
I'm against the wind electricity production subsidies, those are killing the electric grid (killing baseload generation, both nuclear/coal/natural gas). But solar is much better, since we actually need lots of electricity when the sun is shining.
Wind shouldn't be allowed to earn any credits when the grid is running with negative costs (it has too much electricity, companies must pay to generate), since the credit is paid regardless of the electricity cost right at that moment, wind operators are being net paid to overload the grid (it already has more electricity than needed at that point).
Can you quote us a source for lithium being difficult to recycle ?
I remember reading from Elon Musk that not only the tech to fully recycle the Li-Ion base components exist, but it's also cheaper to recycle than to get new raw materials.
It's one of the questions, wouldn't it be better to recycle Tesla Model S batteries that are too degraded to function as model S batteries or to use those for stationary energy storage. With an efficient enough giga factory it might be better to recycle soon, and use new batteries to stationary storage instead.