you are saying with '40% efficient multijunction concentrators' that you are
a) turning 40% of available solar flux
into electricity, and covering 100% of the
available ground in doing so.
b) avoiding the storage, transmission, and
conversion costs. (to either put said
electricity into a battery or into coal,
oil or hydrogen)
c) providing 10 MW to 10 GW base load power
capability.
Sorry if I don't believe you. First, 964kWh/m^2/year means that you are extracting 110 W/m^2, when in Kansas the total amount there is about 140 W/m^2 - which means you are getting 80% efficiency. Reference please.
Secondly, even if you could get that for one solar cell, perhaps you can tell me of the technology which allows you to saturate 100% of the area with these cells, and the storage technology that has been developed which allows you to assume that the 954kwH that you cite goes into 100% efficient use.
You seem to think that users will somehow instantly use the energy as it is collected rather than needing to store it.
If you really are 'in the field' so to say, you know that people's usage of energy at home is very sporadic, with low needs at some points and high needs at others, and that the times solar collection is done hardly coincide with the times people use the energy.
My arguments with your numbers are that you seem to assume that conversion, transmission, and storage costs will simply 'go away' when we use solar power, because it is 'distributed'.
You will grant, won't you, that solar power is not strong enough to say, run a TV, computer, stove, and heat at the same time in a given domicile, won't you? And that it is not strong enough to run a high-rise building?
If so, then your 954kwH (which I think is wildly optimistic) will rapidly go down. And that 65% of the solar energy will need to be transmitted to where it is needed, as well as stored, given that 65% of the electricity usage is non-residential?
So, taking this into account -
Say there is a 60% penalty in converting energy into something storable, and collecting that energy (natural gas, etc), and a 60% penalty in storing the energy for usage someplace else. Say that there is a 9% penalty for transmission. And say there is a 20% penalty for maintaining the infrastructure. And say that even though you are using 40% efficient cells, you are really getting 20% efficiency (because you cannot saturate the ground with solar cells, but can only use them in about half the area). Then, in an average (170 W/m^2) power density solar area:
170 W / m^2 *.2 *.4 *.8 *.91 = 13 W / m^2 usable energy = 90 kwH usable/m^2/year
So, ok, not the size of alaska, but the size of italy. And about 60% the size of texas, which is fairly close to my other estimate. And still greater than the whole world's current energy infrastructure (reference; energy at the crossroads, page 340) (reference for kansas power density: earth radiation budget satellite erbs)
I think you should realistically consider the losses from solar energy rather than assume 'oh yeah, we're getting x kwH from solar, hence we're going to be using x kwH because its distributed!' Its exceedingly naive to think that you can get 100% a conversion rate for anything, and of course the larger the collection fields, the larger the maintenance costs.
And of course we haven't even touched the manufacturing costs and/or EROEI of these solar cells. I've seen everything from.5 up to approximately 3. This both hampers the production and slows the development of solar cells without *major* subsidy..
Like I said, every time I think about your numbers, I see
1) residential use is 3% per month, meaning 36% annual.
2) the mistake that you made in overestimating square footage is far more endemic than I think you realize. For the *apartments* are also counted double (or triple, or quadruple) by just taking the average and multiplying it by the number of units.
So I really don't know what square footage is available for solar cells, and of course apartments will need transmission lines to supply them.
Hence, I probably overestimated the amount of transmission needed (which leans towards your POV) but you probably overestimated the total amount of square footage available for solar cells (which leans towards mine).
And of course, I forgot about the intermittancy factor - a large part of the residential solar power is going to need to be stored in batteries due to intermittency, which would subject it to a 60+% efficiency penalty for storage.
Anyways, I'm going to call all of this a wash, since I'm not up for calculating it again, but to be perfectly honest, I think that overall these points will hinder rather than help the adaption of solar power. Even the EIA doesn't see solar power rising any time soon - out to 2025, solar is.1-.5%....
Of course they are not too sanguine about nuclear either, but then again I think that they are massively overestimating how much oil is left in the ground..
> Exactly. Solar power is available everywhere (did > you notice the deviation between the alaska and > arizona is only 2-1?). Solar IS the ultamate > distributed power source. If most of the power is > generated locally, they carrier requirement of > transmission is HUGELY reduced, and overall costs > come way down.
Ok, fair enough, lets go with your numbers -
200% current electricity use if solar panels covered every square meter of roof.
Now, lets talk about transmission and storage costs.
There are 116 million customers in the United States. Each uses on average about 907 kwH:
This means that out of the 3.8 * 10 ^ 12 kwH of electricity, about 1.05 * 10 ^ 11, or 3 % of the electricity is residential. And 97% is industrial.
Yet the number of commercial customers and hence the amount of square footage is reversed by a large margin. Only 15 million customers are commercial but they use 97% of the energy. Hence, a large portion of that energy generated by solar is going to need to be stored/transmitted for peak usages, and you will need to take a large cut out of that 200%.
Say that cut is 60% (generous for battery technology), minus 9% for transmission costs. Then:
200% *.4 *.91 = 74%.
Now, I went to your references - and I can see how you came up with 2.43 * 10^11 sq ft. You multiplied the number of domiciles by the average square footage. However, its not that simple - the numbers quoted there are for square footage *inside the house* not outside it. Hence, it is optimistic by about a factor of 1.5 considering houses that have more than one level or a basement:
74% / 1.5 = 49%
So, we are back to about 50% *even if* we consider your numbers, and we are back with the need to have a large infrastructure to transmit that power. And this is for putting photovoltaics on EVERY BLOODY ROOF in america along with the infrastructure to actually use these photovoltaics. And of course this doesn't even consider the necessity for large peak wattage for industrial customers, which renewables aren't even addressing.
And then again, we come to the biggie - whether or not we can use solar to take the place of oil and coal.
This would require 20 times the area of buildings and houses just to produce current energy demand - the equivalent to COVERING TEXAS WITH SOLAR CELLS. Take the costs for changing the solar energy into energy carriers like hydrogen and gasoline, and the collection and concentration of that energy, and you are up to covering ALASKA.
Now, you bemoan the current infrastructure costs for energy - but this hypothetical infrastructure is far greater than what we have today, by orders of magnitude. Right now, the *worlds* total energy structure (transmission, pipelines, refineries, coal mines, water reservoirs, etc) covers about 290,000 km^2.
Yet you are proposing an infrastructure which is about six times larger, JUST to cover the current energy costs of north america, and JUST for capturing that energy (and not storing it, etc). About 1.2 million km^2 (very generous) which is about the size of arable land we use for FARMING in the united states.
Wind isn't going to help to reduce this burden - since its power density is about 10 W/m^2, worse than solar, and worse than hydroelectric.
Hence, I highly doubt that solar is really going to save our skins. It'll reach a stable point, where the costs of its growing will exceed the benefits. Its a decent energy source, but it will reach limits, and those limits will be far lower than what we need.
Space based power is a different matter altogether, though. No real estate issues, no gravity and the ability to make *huge* power stations for focusing energy. Its the way of the future, but that future is at best a century or two off.
Please learn about the subject before you respond. Energy is my area of expertise, am I'm always appalled by how engineers and geeks can tell you the latest in computer technology to the day, but are 30 years out of date (or just completely misinformed) when it comes to renewable energy.
averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.
The numbers I quote are from Smil. You are right, it reaches the ground at 1000 W/m^2 *max* but the *average usable power* is approx 170W/m^2. From a random source on the web nature and availability of solar radiation.:
Solar radiation arrives on the surface of the earth at a maximum power density of approximately 1 kilowatt per meter squared (kW/m^2). The actual *usable* radiation component varies depending on geographical location, cloud cover, hours of sunlight each day, etc. In reality, the solar flux density (same as power density) varies between 250 and 2500 kilowatt hours per meter squared per year (kWh/m^2/year).
Now, take 250 kWh/m^2/year and change it into W/m^2, and you get
250 kilowatt hours/ 1 year
or 29 W/m^2
2500 kilowatt hours/ 1 year translates into 290W/m^2.
Which is within the range of what I - and Vaclav Smil, and the EIA quotes.
> The number you show is ENERGY consumption NOT > ELECTRICITY consumption, and its a little too > high (I guess the are spooks not energy > experts). From the Department of Energy, Energy > Information Administration total energy > consumption is 2.88E13 kWh. The total US > ELECRICITY consumption is 3.4E12 kWh - which is > what we are talking about.
Ok, lets say that you are right, and its 3.4x10^12. Even then, the figure of 4.5% becomes 45% BEFORE any transmission, maintenance, cleaning, and other costs associated with solar power, which are likely to cut that figure in more than half. You see any decent storage technologies on the horizon, do you? Even with your numbers, your math is incorrect.
And of course, that doesn't even touch the fact that the major problem that we are facing is not going to be electricity shortage, but energy carrier shortage. For energy carriers, we burn about 3 TW or an order of magnitude greater than what we are talking about here. Are we going to take 20 times as much land as our buildings and highways occupy in photovoltaics just to make up for this demand?
I'm sorry my friend but you sound like you have a SERIOUS agenda. (silicon with solar having a greater energy production per pound than nuclear fuel? Yeah right.) And an 'annual growth of 40%' is easy in a market which is less than.1% of the total. Sheesh. At even a 40% COMPOUND growth rate, it would take a good 30 years to get to half the electricity we generate.
Tell you what - would you agree to having the government both subsidize the development of solar technologies AND next generation nuclear ones, and see which one wins?
> Small breeder reactors allover the place? Now > there's a safe, low risk idea! Just like North > Korea, you too can make plutonium in your back > yard with your very own breeder reactor! Trucking, > shipping, securing fuel/waste to thousands of > minireactors without loss/theft/accidents? MTBF > multiplied by a million parts per reactor > multiplied thousands of power plants? Hmm.
I shouldn't respond, but this is just FUD. The idea behind the nuclear battery in the 10-100MW range is that you install the reactor with all the fuel it needs for 30-70 years. They are passively safe, and produce plutonium from U-238 in minimum quantities for fueling, and then burn that plutonium. They produce plutonium in three separate isotopes (239,240, and 242) which make them useless for the production of nuclear bombs.
You bury the reactor (they are about 15m by 3m ) and they are totally automated. They do all of their own reprocessing of waste, and you end up with 95-99% of the truly harmful isotopes transmuted. Slashdot talked about these briefly:
Economies of scale come into question, and new materials make the EROEI for this approach more than 1000.
I think that you are correct - that the current nuclear paradigm is not scalable and too expensive, but I am not talking about the current nuclear paradigm. You are hitting a straw man here.
Anyways, I really wish that solar in large scale like you suggest was economically feasible. Maybe in a hundred or so years. Where did you get your numbers?
Solar energy comes into the atmosphere at approx 1,350 W/m^2, and averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.
At 17% efficient panels, this becomes approx 30 W/m^2, which you can expect to use intermittently depending on weather and time of year.
Now, the average use of energy in a household is from 20-100 W/m^2. The average use in supermarkets and office buildings is 200-400 W/m^2, and industrial places like steel mills and refineries about 300-900 W/m^2. High rise buildings go for about 3 kW/m^2.
So - where is your excess? Even without considering costs of *converting* solar power or *storing* it for base usage, or even the energy cost of converting it, or even the inefficiency of the spacing of panels on roofs (ie: you'll never get 100% of the roof covered) and the inefficiency of incorrect angles in capturing the energy (most solar panels need a correct angle to the sun in order to get the 17% you are talking about), there is no excess to send to the high-rises, let alone the steel mills.
And of course that doesn't even count the energy cost in creating and maintaining the solar cells. It isn't for lack of trying - people have been working on photovoltaics since *1830*. And yet they only generate 20 times *less* energy than wind and only.1% of our total energy usage.
As to your numbers -
I don't know where you got your 'roof space' figure (2.43e11) but it seems high - that's about a 2000 square foot home for each three people in this country - but lets go for it.
Then, assuming that we get real solar power for about 8 hours a day -
170 W/m^2 * 2.43 * 10^11 ft^2 * 1 year * 8/24 in kilowatt hours
So - even without counting the 17% efficiency rate, OR storage costs, maintenance costs, spacing inefficiencies, etc. this is only about 30% of our national electricity needs. Multiply 30% * 17%, and you get about 4.5%.
> You don't get it. Its not about power density. Its > about transmission and distribution costs. The > capital cost of grid infrastructure is 10 times > the cost of generation.
I don't understand. What makes you think that its not possible to have standalone, passive, small breeder reactors?
yes, in the cases where you can get away with generation at the source, you get away with generation at the source. But even if we cover all the houses in the US with solar cells, that is about 3% of the electricity usage that we use. What about base load, and commercial districts?
And then of course what about energy carriers, like oil and hydrogen? Once you start talking about replacing these by solar power, you start talking about covering entire countries with photovoltaics..
Yes, solar and wind should be used in some places. But when you are talking about solar, the power generation *is* the infrastructure, and is very expensive.
I suggest you read 'Energy at the Crossroads' by Smil - its very instructive.
Saying nuclear power is a dead end is like saying that we should have cut and run when Newcomb made his first steam engine, or the first transistors were made in 1959.
Power density is the law about how to make energy cost cheaper, and by *far* uranium has the greatest power density - even more than fusion, if you take the costs of gathering the fuel source into account.
And solar energy is by far the most expensive, and will remain so (at least on earth) because the power density isn't there. Build power plants on mercury or in orbit, and the economics may change.
But then again, there is the small question of how to lift all that mass into space, which is where nuclear energy comes in again..
"Someone will start screaming pebble bed reactors at this point. Well maybe pebble bed reactors are safer but its not a certainty. Their key risk is they have large quantities of graphite in them. If you recall Chernobyl was the disaster it was partially thanks to graphite because in the event of an accident and enough heat graphite burns furiously. The pebbles have ceramic shielding to prevent the graphite from burning but there is a suspicion that manufacturing defects or mishandling might compromise the shielding and open up the chance a pebble would burn and explode. If it did it could damage the pebbles around it and start a non nuclear chain reaction."
You are talking about wigner energy at this point - there *have* been studies about wigner energy and its dissipation. The point at which this becomes an issue is if about *10%* of the graphite pebbles have defects in them.
And since the defects are machine detectable (even by machine) the chances of this happening are pretty damn slim.
Anyways, the poster is right - PBMR reactors aren't the answer, passive breeder reactors *are*. Make 'em underground, small, and portable. That way we can get economies of scale from them, and can work on them with trial and error.
Making huge, mega-reactors isn't the answer. Its sort of like constructing an aircraft carrier when you don't even have the experience putting together a canoe. You learn a hell of a lot from your mistakes, and the nuclear industry has to have the freedom to make mistakes.
"That's just U-235. U-235 accounts for only 0.7% of the uranium available. The other 99.3% is U-238. U-238 can't be used as fuel in our current reactors, but can be used in breeder reactors. What's more, spent fuel from current reactors can also be fed into a breeder reactor. With breeder reactors that 100 years turns into about 100,000. And we haven't even touched on non-uranium fueled reactors yet."
Actually, it turns into 100 million+. You can get uranium from seawater. And since the uranium in seawater is constantly being fed by the earth's crust, (and there are 10^18 tons of the stuff in the crust - the limit seems to be a saturation point of water) we could expand our lifestyle to the rest of the world until the sun expands into a giant.
Furthermore, these plants could be absolutely safe, based on passive technology, like Edward Teller suggested. 10GW passive reactors, no less. It'd be a beautiful thing, but we so happen to live in a world where people are even scared of the word atom.
actually, our supply of fissile material is pretty close to infinite (given our current level of energy production), if you include U-238.
In the US alone, there is at least 10 times as much U-238 as there is coal, and if you count the seas as a source of uranium, there is millions' years of supply.
source:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohe n. html
> Your Nader comment makes no sense to me. As well,
Its fairly easy to understand IMO. Nader takes republican contributions, gets put on the ballot and splits the vote. Hence, people saying "Vote Nader and Bush '04". Actions speak louder than, right?
> you keep trying to spin Soros as something less > than a dyed in the wool Democrat. Actions speak
Tell you what - lets forget about Soros' affiliation. I think he's libertarian based on the books he wrote, you think he's a democrat because of the contributions he's made.
Fair enough. Let's say he's a complete asshole. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Playing the ball not the man means talking about the issues, not talking about the person's background.
What matters is his points. Anyways, you've tried to bring up a counter argument (Kerry's flip-flop) which doesn't make much sense in the context of what Mr Soros said: his point was that this election was by far a referendum on the war, doesn't have anything to do with the commander in chief. If we re-elect Bush, that we solidify the strong anti-american sentiment that's growing around the world.
Right now, he's not worried about polls in this country but polls in *other countries* where he states our best(!) ally Britain has 16% approval rating for Bush, down to about 4% in France - and that "George Bush ran on a humble foreign policy in 2000" and has ended up alienating pretty much all our allies. As well as running up - in one year - a deficit about equal to *four* years of the worst postwar deficits.
That's the issue that I'd like to see debated. I bring it up here simply because you've shown interest in what I've thought - but unfortunately, I haven't seen a clear rebuttal about any of this, and I've read a hell of a lot online to try to get a clear response.
Anyway, I used to agree with you on Kerry being a flip-flopper, but now I'm not so sure. He had IMO a very clear message in the debates about the Iraq foreign policy - that he was persuaded that - in authorizing the use of force for the president - that Mr Bush would have gone through every possible contingency for peace and would have secured the same overwhelming coalition that his father did in 1991.
In other words, that he went about the war THE WRONG WAY. That instead of rushing into Iraq, we should have secured Afghanistan first, then perhaps yemen, all the while pressuring Iraq through the combination of sanctions and weapons inspectors. And, that at some point, the *world* would have lost its patience with Saddam Hussein and *then* we could have invaded him with the world at our back.
Its true that there's a lot of hindsight involved in this argument, but it makes sense. It should also be able to be checked via vote record.
> That's a flat out lie. Do a little research on the > guy even beyond the millions he's dumped into > political causes. See campaign finance reform, > where he simultaneously tries to minimize other > people's influence (McCain-Feingold) and dumps > $10s of MILLIONS of dollars into largely or purely > partisan causes. Note also that many of his > 'philanthropic' activities all have a rather left > political slant to them.
I did do a little research. Like I said, he's a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, *far* more right than the democratic party. He's even said that the reason why he doesn't favor the current Republican party is because they are heavily interventionist and heavily statist.
Like I said, he may not be a 'republican' in its current form, but he sure as hell is rightist.
Again, like I said, stop playing the man, and start playing the ball. He's never been *directly* involved in partisan politics - which means that he doesn't personally 'speak out'. It doesn't mean that he hasn't dabbled in politics or given contributions.
All of this is irrelevant anyhow.. what is relevant is what he has to *say*, not who he is.
Respond to his points and you won't be playing cheap politics.
horos
( ps - you could say that Nader is a 'tool of the republicans' (people do). He accepts heavy republican contributions, after all. Does that mean he's a republican? )
" reply, but this has got to be one of the biggest " and boldest lies I've read on Slashdot - and " that's saying A LOT. He's about as Republican as " Ted Kennedy. Look up his donations - just " because he's a rich capitalist doesn't make him " Republican.
Ok, touche - I was unaware of his donations prior to 2000. I assumed the donations after 2000 were because of his dislike of Bush. Nice link btw, if a bit sarcastic.
Republican was the wrong word... 'rightist' is a better phrase. In fact, 'rightist' was the phrase that I used in my original post. I regret my mis-statement here.
Anyway, I didn't mean to be misleading. However, I stand by my original statement as to him being rightist. The more I look at his site and books, the more I see that he favors policies that would make a true leftist wince:
- true laissez-faire economies
- full freedom of trade
- 'favored' status for major monetary players like the IMF
- legalization and corporatization of drugs
- capitalization of environmental affairs (ie:
make good environmental policies follow from
private ownership (ie: if everything is
owned, including nature, people will have an
incentive to protect their investment.
He's more libertarian than anything else. I'm guessing his support of the democratic party stems from him disliking the current incarnation of the republican party more than anything else (and no I don't know that for sure).
Yes, my statement about him being republican was a mis-statement, but calling him a democratic tool is just as misleading.
Again, like I said why don't you take his points that he made inside his article and rebut them? I maintain that what you are doing is still partisan by ignoring the issues and attacking the man.
> I stand by my opinion - breeders aren't a great idea, nad we need to look in a greatly diversified energy production system in the future.
Ok.. then you can perhaps tell me of such a method of doing so, one that will fit the surging demand as stated by professor Doty?
There are only *two* possible choices I see - coal and uranium/thorium.
Do a thought experiment once - take the united states rate of consumption per capita, halve it (for efficiencies' sake), and then apply that consumption per capita to the rest of the world. Mix in the fact that there are going to be 10 billion of us, eventually.
Now - how much oil equiavalent are people burning? Approximately 700 billion barrels oil equivalent, per year. Until fusion comes about, the ONLY thing that could possibly provide that amount of power is either space-based solar power, or uranium/thorium. Assuming you can get uranium from seawater, you could do this for millions of years.
As scalable, space-based solar power or fusion power isn't going to happen any time soon, all this points towards breeders, and breeders quick. And we'll be dragged there whether we like it or not.
horos
(BTW - Smil's not the one who is advocating breeders - I am. And if anything, David Doty's points in the review reinforce my own)
> The purpose of this political section seems to > be one thing and one thing only: Advance the > DNC's message and talking points and to expose > all the evil Republicans for the rich, lying, > fascist pigs that they are.
You'd be right on-the-money except for one thing - George Soros (as people have described here) is about as republican as they come.
> I mean, describing George Soros website as being > interesting from an apolitical point of view? > Come on! This guy has said that he would spend > all the money he had if he could guarantee that > President Bush wasn't reelected. He's one of the > top contributors to the Bush-bashing 527 groups.
Yeah of course its interesting from an 'apolitical point of view'. I used that term because it is not very often that you find someone with as strong a rightist viewpoint as Soros take as strong a stand against a rightist public figure, let alone a presidential one.
Instead of attacking his character, why don't you argue his points? *That* is political I admit, but I haven't seen any rebuttal of any substance here, except to slander Soros' character.
That is the 'play the man, not the ball' tactic that people use in politics way too often nowadays...
I think a much more fruitful direction would be to
> 1. make present fission plants safer and more efficient,
Unfortunately, there isn't enough 'enriched uranium' to make this an option. Only.7% of all uranium is U-238, and if we got everything (12 TW of power) from known uranium sources, the supply would last about 30 years, max.
> 2. increase research and development of other sources of power (geothermal used to crack water for hydrogen - I trust Iceland a lot more than Saudi Arabia...) such as geothermal, hydrogen, tidal, wind and solar.
Unfortunately, the timescale and EROEI for these energies just makes it impossible to follow this route.
Out of all energy usage, about 7% is renewable. Out of that 7% of renewable energy, 6.5% is 'new' renewable. The EROEI for wind is about 15 ( compared with 50-100 for oil), the EROEI for solar about 2. Geothermal is better, but on the contrary it is NOT renewable (geothermal plants wear themselves out) and the US does NOT have a large supply of instantly available geothermal energy.
the EROEI of a breeder reactor could be anywhere from 400-4000, depending on who you ask, assuming passive safety and automated reprocessing and power plant mass-production.
> 3. improve efficiency of consumption, so as to reduce load
yes, that's true... but it fights 5,000 years of trends. And even if it will happen (it probably will whether we like it or not), it'll probably NOT be enough. Wind energy - the greens favorite source - provided 1% of the *increase* in demand between 2002 and 2003. The other 99% of the increase, plus the *rest* of the energy was provided by coal, natural gas and oil.
> 4. Reduce the population. A lot.
Now, that's a possibility, but again, I doubt it will be something we choose to happen. And most likely it will happen on a *very* short timescale. Which is something I'd rather avoid, thank you very much.
Breeder reactors have everything necessary to fit industrial consumption:
1) able to emit enormous amounts of power, both in heat and in generation of elecetricity
2) able to handle peak power loads
3) ability to be commercial and to return profits for the companies who invest in them. ability to be metered and the electricity and power sold.
4) *very* *very* high EROEI
5) ability to be mass produced to lower costs
6) ability to cut greenhouse gases and improve the environment.
So - which would you choose? #4 or breeder reactors? Would you rather raise the rest of the world to an american standard of living, or have the world sink back to the time of child mortality, epidemics and ignorance? For as far as I can see, that's where we are headed if we don't get a substitute for oil real damn quick here..
And as far as I can see, there are no real alternatives - the numbers support breeders as the future. Coal might be workable for a bit, but then there are *large* greenhouse gas concerns. Solar and renewables are nice and all, but they are pretty feeble and I highly doubt that they will produce enough energy to keep the wheels turning in the short run. Ultimately, they might play a role, especially solar in space and artificial plants, but that's a long *long* ways away..
Anyways, if you are interested in more detail, read 'Energy at the Crossroads' by Vaclav Smil, where these numbers were taken.
> Usually when I try to connect to IGN, there's > about 5 players online. I understand it's like the > official Go network on the internet, but to me it > seems fairly useless.
WTH??? 5 players? When did you try?
Right now, I'm sitting here with 250 games, 800+ people connected.. Are you sure you didn't try NNGS instead (its been a while since I've connected there, and it might be close to dead..
> Where do you come up with 70% of wind is over water?
70% of wind is over water, simply because 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. In fact, more.. because most of the strong wind forces (hurricanes, etc) are fueled by the convection currents in the ocean.
The average depth of the ocean is approx 1.5 KM. Putting windmills over it is impractical simply because, well, you really can't make a windmill that requires a 500M pole practical.
As for 60%, it comes from the 'betz limit': 16/27 of the flow can be converted, optimally (its a physical limit) Modern airfoils do about 50% of that, so we get about 30% of the available energy from wind. intermittancy makes it worse, since we actually need to store it.
If you don't believe me, read either Vaclav Smil (Energies/Energy at the crossroads) or Lorenz (Nature and Theory of Atmospheric Circulation)
> Nuclear waste has a half life of thousands of > years. Plutonium is one of the most deadly > substances on the planet. Waste is the problem > and the proposed storage ideas are shakey at > best.
If you are going to say these things, at least make some effort to back them up with some figures or supporting logic. They are being said so often that they are sinking into uncritical acceptance.
'Nuclear waste has a half-life of thousands of years'.. yes, but the most dangerous ones (cesium and strontium) have half-lives of 40-60 years. And you can eliminate 95 of the 'waste' (which is in reality just fuel yet to be burned) by reprocessing it.
> Plutonium is one of the most deadly > substances on the planet. Waste is the problem > and the proposed storage ideas are shakey at > best.
No, its not. Caffeine is more deadly. Bernard Cohen (physics phd) has offered to eat a couple of grams of plutonium on TV as a dare to Ralph Nader (who as far as I can see, is the one who started this idiotic "Plutonium is the most dangerous substance on the planet" business.
Ralph Nader never took him up on it though.
http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem1Docs/NuclearArticle. ht ml
> The power plants can be run safely, look at what the U.S. Navy has done.
yes, they can, but I'd still say that the current programs are a failure, since they rely on active rather than passive safety features.
This article has to be taken with a huge grain of salt - the numbers are not only misleading here, they are just plain wrong.
First of all, wind as an energy source is limited primarily by the ability to store it, and low transmission wattages.
Secondly, there is no way that 'only 3% of the US resources could provide us with equivalent amounts of electricity.
*All* wind, *everywhere* has been estimated at about 2-3 PW, and all wind near the surface (within 1 km) at about 1.2 PW.
From that 1.2PW, 70% of it is over oceans and hence unusable, and perhaps 10% of that 30% is in position (100m from the ground) to drive windmills. That comes out to about 3% of the 1.2 PW.
Then, there is the question of wind speed and blade spacing. Too high a speed, and windmills can't function. Too low, and windmills can't function. Put wind mills too close together, and they interfere with each other.
Hence, its been estimated out of that 36 TW, perhaps a 5th of that can be used - at profitable levels. This is about 6.2 TW - if we put windmills everywhere that we could hold them.
Given that we use 10 TW equivalent in fossil fuels, that's about 60% of our total power - and that doesn't include any of the other factors like conversion efficiencies, storage efficiencies, intermittancy problems, and low transmission wattages.
We can convert - at theoretical maximum - 60% of that 6TW into electricity, or 3.6 TW. Now, this is about our electricity consumption today, but we haven't stopped there - efficiencies of storing wind power are 50% or less, and no good technology has been developed to store it.
So - the upshot? We could put windmills everywhere, all over the US, and still they would not solve our energy problems. They might take a chunk out of the usage, but they come nowhere close to solving the problem..
My guess is that people are just cherry-picking the best sites, and that wind is being subsidized in the process. Which, given our current state of peril, is a dangerous thing to do.
> The problem with fission reactors is that you have > much extremly dangerous material around and hope > that nothing goes wrong. You can make it as save > as possible but judging from human history > Chernobyl won't remain the only catastrophe and if > something goes really wrong in a fission reactor > it goes *really* wrong.
Sorry, but that doesn't really hold under scrutiny. If we were doing the smart thing, we'd be building IFR (integral fast reactors) - they last seventy years, you put your initial energy source (uranium 235 in them) and they consume it *whilst reprocessing the waste*. No long term energy, no excess plutonium, no heavy decommission costs.
They are also *passive* not *active*, and have built-in containment systems so even if you flew a jetliner into one, you wouldn't have a nuclear accident - the reaction would just wind down..
I swear, I really despair when I see this paranoia on *slashdot* the place where I would hope for some rationality. I'm much more worried that Mr Sterling's 'why don't we let 7 billion people starve to death - how's that for a solution' comment will come to pass.
> If we're worried about global warming, the > amount of heat that we produce should be a factor > as well as how much we insulate the Earth with > greenhouse gasses. Nuclear power releases very > large amounts of heat that would otherwise not be > released.
sorry, but that's just sort of silly.
The reason that carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases warm the planet is because they have a multiplicative effect on the solar energy that is trapped - just like one CFC acts as a catalyst to destroy 100000 ozone molecules, one CO2 molecule allows multiple infrared waves to bounce back to earth.
Its the ultimate blanket. Any energy that we burn on the surface, on the other hand dissipates immediately into space.
there are problems with this excess heat - effects on the environment and so forth - but this isn't one of them.
> Actually fusion isn't the cure-all it's widely > touted to be. It produces less radioactive waste > than fission, but still a fair amount (although > most of it is short half-life stuff). On the other > hand, fuel is much easier to get hold of by > electrolysing seawater and fractionating off the > deuterium.
umm. you can actually do the same thing to obtain uranium... (get it out of seawater that is). And cheaper than deuterium, too.
So all things being equal, fission is very competitive with fusion. Not to mention, being a lot easier to do.
Re:Fission and coal, if we have to
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 1
> If we have to, we can run everything on fission > power and coal, with batteries for vehicles. The > US still has about 400 years worth of coal left.
> Nuclear waste disposal isn't really a problem. > It's a political football in the US, but that's a > political problem, not a technical one. There are > rock formations that have been stable for twenty > million years. (Yucca Mountain isn't one of them, > though.)
If we have to, we could run everything on fission power alone. It involves embracing third generation nuclear plants like the Integral Fast Reactor - which use U-238 NOT U-235 and are passive, not active in design (ie: physical laws prevent the things from blowing up)). We could run this entire country for thousands of years on the WASTE that was generated from our current plants, which throw away about 99.7% of the available fuel. Furthermore, we'd obliviate the need for storing that waste.
I swear, the most myopic thing ever done - even more so than Ronald Reagan tearing solar panels off of the white house roof - was the closing of the IFR experiment in 1994. On the face of it, they were worried about proliferation. Proliferation - right. The design consumes the plutonium it generates, so no long term waste is left.
Sometimes I feel like somebody has chained me to the deck of the Lusitania. We've become so accustomed to the quick and dirty, painless way that we are going to hit a huge reality check in the next couple of years. And the problem with insight into what is going to happen is - well, you don't really profit from the knowledge, do you?
Slashdot Mirror
so..
.2 * .4 * .8 * .91 = 13 W / m^2 usable energy = 90 kwH usable/m^2/year
.5 up to approximately 3. This both hampers the production and slows the development of solar cells without *major* subsidy..
you are saying with '40% efficient multijunction concentrators' that you are
a) turning 40% of available solar flux
into electricity, and covering 100% of the
available ground in doing so.
b) avoiding the storage, transmission, and
conversion costs. (to either put said
electricity into a battery or into coal,
oil or hydrogen)
c) providing 10 MW to 10 GW base load power
capability.
Sorry if I don't believe you. First, 964kWh/m^2/year means that you are extracting 110 W/m^2, when in Kansas the total amount there is about 140 W/m^2 - which means you are getting 80% efficiency. Reference please.
Secondly, even if you could get that for one solar cell, perhaps you can tell me of the technology which allows you to saturate 100% of the area with these cells, and the storage technology that has been developed which allows you to assume that the 954kwH that you cite goes into 100% efficient use.
You seem to think that users will somehow instantly use the energy as it is collected rather than needing to store it.
If you really are 'in the field' so to say, you know that people's usage of energy at home is very sporadic, with low needs at some points and high needs at others, and that the times solar collection is done hardly coincide with the times people use the energy.
My arguments with your numbers are that you seem to assume that conversion, transmission, and storage costs will simply 'go away' when we use solar power, because it is 'distributed'.
You will grant, won't you, that solar power is not strong enough to say, run a TV, computer, stove, and heat at the same time in a given domicile, won't you? And that it is not strong enough to run a high-rise building?
If so, then your 954kwH (which I think is wildly optimistic) will rapidly go down. And that 65% of the solar energy will need to be transmitted to where it is needed, as well as stored, given that 65% of the electricity usage is non-residential?
So, taking this into account -
Say there is a 60% penalty in converting energy into something storable, and collecting that energy (natural gas, etc), and a 60% penalty in storing the energy for usage someplace else. Say that there is a 9% penalty for transmission. And say there is a 20% penalty for maintaining the infrastructure. And say that even though you are using 40% efficient cells, you are really getting 20% efficiency (because you cannot saturate the ground with solar cells, but can only use them in about half the area). Then, in an average (170 W/m^2) power density solar area:
170 W / m^2 *
3 * 10 ^ 13 kilowatt hours / 90 kwH / m^2 =
3.3 * 10 ^11 m^2 in km^2 =
330,000 km^2
So, ok, not the size of alaska, but the size of italy. And about 60% the size of texas, which is fairly close to my other estimate. And still greater than the whole world's current energy infrastructure (reference; energy at the crossroads, page 340) (reference for kansas power density: earth radiation budget satellite erbs)
I think you should realistically consider the losses from solar energy rather than assume 'oh yeah, we're getting x kwH from solar, hence we're going to be using x kwH because its distributed!' Its exceedingly naive to think that you can get 100% a conversion rate for anything, and of course the larger the collection fields, the larger the maintenance costs.
And of course we haven't even touched the manufacturing costs and/or EROEI of these solar cells. I've seen everything from
Like I said, every time I think about your numbers, I see
ps - I made two mistakes in my calculations:
.1-.5%....
1) residential use is 3% per month, meaning 36% annual.
2) the mistake that you made in overestimating square footage is far more endemic than I think you realize. For the *apartments* are also counted double (or triple, or quadruple) by just taking the average and multiplying it by the number of units.
So I really don't know what square footage is available for solar cells, and of course apartments will need transmission lines to supply them.
Hence, I probably overestimated the amount of transmission needed (which leans towards your POV) but you probably overestimated the total amount of square footage available for solar cells (which leans towards mine).
And of course, I forgot about the intermittancy factor - a large part of the residential solar power is going to need to be stored in batteries due to intermittency, which would subject it to a 60+% efficiency penalty for storage.
Anyways, I'm going to call all of this a wash, since I'm not up for calculating it again, but to be perfectly honest, I think that overall these points will hinder rather than help the adaption of solar power. Even the EIA doesn't see solar power rising any time soon - out to 2025, solar is
Of course they are not too sanguine about nuclear either, but then again I think that they are massively overestimating how much oil is left in the ground..
horos
> Exactly. Solar power is available everywhere (did
.4 * .91 = 74%.
> you notice the deviation between the alaska and
> arizona is only 2-1?). Solar IS the ultamate
> distributed power source. If most of the power is
> generated locally, they carrier requirement of
> transmission is HUGELY reduced, and overall costs
> come way down.
Ok, fair enough, lets go with your numbers -
200% current electricity use if solar panels covered every square meter of roof.
Now, lets talk about transmission and storage costs.
There are 116 million customers in the United States. Each uses on average about 907 kwH:
source:
eia energy usage
This means that out of the 3.8 * 10 ^ 12 kwH of electricity, about 1.05 * 10 ^ 11, or 3 % of the electricity is residential. And 97% is industrial.
Yet the number of commercial customers and hence the amount of square footage is reversed by a large margin. Only 15 million customers are commercial but they use 97% of the energy. Hence, a large portion of that energy generated by solar is going to need to be stored/transmitted for peak usages, and you will need to take a large cut out of that 200%.
Say that cut is 60% (generous for battery technology), minus 9% for transmission costs. Then:
200% *
Now, I went to your references - and I can see how you came up with 2.43 * 10^11 sq ft. You multiplied the number of domiciles by the average square footage. However, its not that simple - the numbers quoted there are for square footage *inside the house* not outside it. Hence, it is optimistic by about a factor of 1.5 considering houses that have more than one level or a basement:
74% / 1.5 = 49%
So, we are back to about 50% *even if* we consider your numbers, and we are back with the need to have a large infrastructure to transmit that power. And this is for putting photovoltaics on EVERY BLOODY ROOF in america along with the infrastructure to actually use these photovoltaics. And of course this doesn't even consider the necessity for large peak wattage for industrial customers, which renewables aren't even addressing.
And then again, we come to the biggie - whether or not we can use solar to take the place of oil and coal.
This would require 20 times the area of buildings and houses just to produce current energy demand - the equivalent to COVERING TEXAS WITH SOLAR CELLS. Take the costs for changing the solar energy into energy carriers like hydrogen and gasoline, and the collection and concentration of that energy, and you are up to covering ALASKA.
Now, you bemoan the current infrastructure costs for energy - but this hypothetical infrastructure is far greater than what we have today, by orders of magnitude. Right now, the *worlds* total energy structure (transmission, pipelines, refineries, coal mines, water reservoirs, etc) covers about 290,000 km^2.
Yet you are proposing an infrastructure which is about six times larger, JUST to cover the current energy costs of north america, and JUST for capturing that energy (and not storing it, etc). About 1.2 million km^2 (very generous) which is about the size of arable land we use for FARMING in the united states.
Wind isn't going to help to reduce this burden - since its power density is about 10 W/m^2, worse than solar, and worse than hydroelectric.
Hence, I highly doubt that solar is really going to save our skins. It'll reach a stable point, where the costs of its growing will exceed the benefits. Its a decent energy source, but it will reach limits, and those limits will be far lower than what we need.
Space based power is a different matter altogether, though. No real estate issues, no gravity and the ability to make *huge* power stations for focusing energy. Its the way of the future, but that future is at best a century or two off.
As
Please learn about the subject before you respond. Energy is my area of expertise, am I'm always appalled by how engineers and geeks can tell you the latest in computer technology to the day, but are 30 years out of date (or just completely misinformed) when it comes to renewable energy.
.1% of the total. Sheesh. At even a 40% COMPOUND growth rate, it would take a good 30 years to get to half the electricity we generate.
averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.
The numbers I quote are from Smil. You are right, it reaches the ground at 1000 W/m^2 *max* but the *average usable power* is approx 170W/m^2. From a random source on the web nature and availability of solar radiation.:
Solar radiation arrives on the surface of the earth at a maximum power density of approximately 1 kilowatt per meter squared (kW/m^2). The actual *usable* radiation component varies depending on geographical location, cloud cover, hours of sunlight each day, etc. In reality, the solar flux density (same as power density) varies between 250 and 2500 kilowatt hours per meter squared per year (kWh/m^2/year).
Now, take 250 kWh/m^2/year and change it into W/m^2, and you get
250 kilowatt hours/ 1 year
or 29 W/m^2
2500 kilowatt hours/ 1 year translates into 290W/m^2.
Which is within the range of what I - and Vaclav Smil, and the EIA quotes.
> The number you show is ENERGY consumption NOT
> ELECTRICITY consumption, and its a little too
> high (I guess the are spooks not energy
> experts). From the Department of Energy, Energy
> Information Administration total energy
> consumption is 2.88E13 kWh. The total US
> ELECRICITY consumption is 3.4E12 kWh - which is
> what we are talking about.
Ok, lets say that you are right, and its 3.4x10^12. Even then, the figure of 4.5% becomes 45% BEFORE any transmission, maintenance, cleaning, and other costs associated with solar power, which are likely to cut that figure in more than half. You see any decent storage technologies on the horizon, do you? Even with your numbers, your math is incorrect.
And of course, that doesn't even touch the fact that the major problem that we are facing is not going to be electricity shortage, but energy carrier shortage. For energy carriers, we burn about 3 TW or an order of magnitude greater than what we are talking about here. Are we going to take 20 times as much land as our buildings and highways occupy in photovoltaics just to make up for this demand?
I'm sorry my friend but you sound like you have a SERIOUS agenda. (silicon with solar having a greater energy production per pound than nuclear fuel? Yeah right.) And an 'annual growth of 40%' is easy in a market which is less than
Tell you what - would you agree to having the government both subsidize the development of solar technologies AND next generation nuclear ones, and see which one wins?
do you agree with me about the infeasibility of solar power, or do you find fault with my argument?
horos
> Small breeder reactors allover the place? Now
.1% of our total energy usage.
> there's a safe, low risk idea! Just like North
> Korea, you too can make plutonium in your back
> yard with your very own breeder reactor! Trucking,
> shipping, securing fuel/waste to thousands of
> minireactors without loss/theft/accidents? MTBF
> multiplied by a million parts per reactor
> multiplied thousands of power plants? Hmm.
I shouldn't respond, but this is just FUD. The idea behind the nuclear battery in the 10-100MW range is that you install the reactor with all the fuel it needs for 30-70 years. They are passively safe, and produce plutonium from U-238 in minimum quantities for fueling, and then burn that plutonium. They produce plutonium in three separate isotopes (239,240, and 242) which make them useless for the production of nuclear bombs.
You bury the reactor (they are about 15m by 3m ) and they are totally automated. They do all of their own reprocessing of waste, and you end up with 95-99% of the truly harmful isotopes transmuted. Slashdot talked about these briefly:
sstars
Economies of scale come into question, and new materials make the EROEI for this approach more than 1000.
I think that you are correct - that the current nuclear paradigm is not scalable and too expensive, but I am not talking about the current nuclear paradigm. You are hitting a straw man here.
Anyways, I really wish that solar in large scale like you suggest was economically feasible. Maybe in a hundred or so years. Where did you get your numbers?
Solar energy comes into the atmosphere at approx 1,350 W/m^2, and averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.
At 17% efficient panels, this becomes approx 30 W/m^2, which you can expect to use intermittently depending on weather and time of year.
Now, the average use of energy in a household is from 20-100 W/m^2. The average use in supermarkets and office buildings is 200-400 W/m^2, and industrial places like steel mills and refineries about 300-900 W/m^2. High rise buildings go for about 3 kW/m^2.
So - where is your excess? Even without considering costs of *converting* solar power or *storing* it for base usage, or even the energy cost of converting it, or even the inefficiency of the spacing of panels on roofs (ie: you'll never get 100% of the roof covered) and the inefficiency of incorrect angles in capturing the energy (most solar panels need a correct angle to the sun in order to get the 17% you are talking about), there is no excess to send to the high-rises, let alone the steel mills.
And of course that doesn't even count the energy cost in creating and maintaining the solar cells.
It isn't for lack of trying - people have been working on photovoltaics since *1830*. And yet they only generate 20 times *less* energy than wind and only
As to your numbers -
I don't know where you got your 'roof space' figure (2.43e11) but it seems high - that's about a 2000 square foot home for each three people in this country - but lets go for it.
Then, assuming that we get real solar power for about 8 hours a day -
170 W/m^2 * 2.43 * 10^11 ft^2 * 1 year * 8/24 in kilowatt hours
= 1.12 * 10^13 kwH
Google reference:
here
From the CIA factbook we use 3.602 * 10^13 kwH.
Reference here
So - even without counting the 17% efficiency rate, OR storage costs, maintenance costs, spacing inefficiencies, etc. this is only about 30% of our national electricity needs. Multiply 30% * 17%, and you get about 4.5%.
In other words, you did your math wrong.
> You don't get it. Its not about power density. Its
> about transmission and distribution costs. The
> capital cost of grid infrastructure is 10 times
> the cost of generation.
I don't understand. What makes you think that its not possible to have standalone, passive, small breeder reactors?
yes, in the cases where you can get away with generation at the source, you get away with generation at the source. But even if we cover all the houses in the US with solar cells, that is about 3% of the electricity usage that we use. What about base load, and commercial districts?
And then of course what about energy carriers, like oil and hydrogen? Once you start talking about replacing these by solar power, you start talking about covering entire countries with photovoltaics..
Yes, solar and wind should be used in some places. But when you are talking about solar, the power generation *is* the infrastructure, and is very expensive.
I suggest you read 'Energy at the Crossroads' by Smil - its very instructive.
yeah right.
Saying nuclear power is a dead end is like saying that we should have cut and run when Newcomb made his first steam engine, or the first transistors were made in 1959.
Power density is the law about how to make energy cost cheaper, and by *far* uranium has the greatest power density - even more than fusion, if you take the costs of gathering the fuel source into account.
And solar energy is by far the most expensive, and will remain so (at least on earth) because the power density isn't there. Build power plants on mercury or in orbit, and the economics may change.
But then again, there is the small question of how to lift all that mass into space, which is where nuclear energy comes in again..
"Someone will start screaming pebble bed reactors at this point. Well maybe pebble bed reactors are safer but its not a certainty. Their key risk is they have large quantities of graphite in them. If you recall Chernobyl was the disaster it was partially thanks to graphite because in the event of an accident and enough heat graphite burns furiously. The pebbles have ceramic shielding to prevent the graphite from burning but there is a suspicion that manufacturing defects or mishandling might compromise the shielding and open up the chance a pebble would burn and explode. If it did it could damage the pebbles around it and start a non nuclear chain reaction."
You are talking about wigner energy at this point - there *have* been studies about wigner energy and its dissipation. The point at which this becomes an issue is if about *10%* of the graphite pebbles have defects in them.
And since the defects are machine detectable (even by machine) the chances of this happening are pretty damn slim.
Anyways, the poster is right - PBMR reactors aren't the answer, passive breeder reactors *are*.
Make 'em underground, small, and portable. That way we can get economies of scale from them, and can work on them with trial and error.
Making huge, mega-reactors isn't the answer. Its sort of like constructing an aircraft carrier when you don't even have the experience putting together a canoe. You learn a hell of a lot from your mistakes, and the nuclear industry has to have the freedom to make mistakes.
Fortunately, China will probably do this for us.
horos
"That's just U-235. U-235 accounts for only 0.7% of the uranium available. The other 99.3% is U-238. U-238 can't be used as fuel in our current reactors, but can be used in breeder reactors. What's more, spent fuel from current reactors can also be fed into a breeder reactor. With breeder reactors that 100 years turns into about 100,000. And we haven't even touched on non-uranium fueled reactors yet."
Actually, it turns into 100 million+. You can get uranium from seawater. And since the uranium in seawater is constantly being fed by the earth's crust, (and there are 10^18 tons of the stuff in the crust - the limit seems to be a saturation point of water) we could expand our lifestyle to the rest of the world until the sun expands into a giant.
Furthermore, these plants could be absolutely safe, based on passive technology, like Edward Teller suggested. 10GW passive reactors, no less. It'd be a beautiful thing, but we so happen to live in a world where people are even scared of the word atom.
actually, our supply of fissile material is pretty close to infinite (given our current level of energy production), if you include U-238.
e n. html
In the US alone, there is at least 10 times as much U-238 as there is coal, and if you count the seas as a source of uranium, there is millions' years of supply.
source:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/coh
horos
> Your Nader comment makes no sense to me. As well,
Its fairly easy to understand IMO. Nader takes republican contributions, gets put on the ballot and splits the vote. Hence, people saying "Vote Nader and Bush '04". Actions speak louder than, right?
> you keep trying to spin Soros as something less
> than a dyed in the wool Democrat. Actions speak
Tell you what - lets forget about Soros' affiliation. I think he's libertarian based on the books he wrote, you think he's a democrat because of the contributions he's made.
Fair enough. Let's say he's a complete asshole. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Playing the ball not the man means talking about the issues, not talking about the person's background.
What matters is his points. Anyways, you've tried to bring up a counter argument (Kerry's flip-flop) which doesn't make much sense in the context of what Mr Soros said: his point was that this election was by far a referendum on the war, doesn't have anything to do with the commander in chief. If we re-elect Bush, that we solidify the strong anti-american sentiment that's growing around the world.
Right now, he's not worried about polls in this country but polls in *other countries* where he states our best(!) ally Britain has 16% approval rating for Bush, down to about 4% in France - and that "George Bush ran on a humble foreign policy in 2000" and has ended up alienating pretty much all our allies. As well as running up - in one year - a deficit about equal to *four* years of the worst postwar deficits.
That's the issue that I'd like to see debated. I bring it up here simply because you've shown interest in what I've thought - but unfortunately, I haven't seen a clear rebuttal about any of this, and I've read a hell of a lot online to try to get a clear response.
Anyway, I used to agree with you on Kerry being a flip-flopper, but now I'm not so sure. He had IMO a very clear message in the debates about the Iraq foreign policy - that he was persuaded that - in authorizing the use of force for the president - that Mr Bush would have gone through every possible contingency for peace and would have secured the same overwhelming coalition that his father did in 1991.
In other words, that he went about the war THE WRONG WAY. That instead of rushing into Iraq, we should have secured Afghanistan first, then perhaps yemen, all the while pressuring Iraq through the combination of sanctions and weapons inspectors. And, that at some point, the *world* would have lost its patience with Saddam Hussein and *then* we could have invaded him with the world at our back.
Its true that there's a lot of hindsight involved in this argument, but it makes sense. It should also be able to be checked via vote record.
any ideas on where to find something like this?
horos
> That's a flat out lie. Do a little research on the
> guy even beyond the millions he's dumped into
> political causes. See campaign finance reform,
> where he simultaneously tries to minimize other
> people's influence (McCain-Feingold) and dumps
> $10s of MILLIONS of dollars into largely or purely
> partisan causes. Note also that many of his
> 'philanthropic' activities all have a rather left
> political slant to them.
I did do a little research. Like I said, he's a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, *far* more right than the democratic party. He's even said that the reason why he doesn't favor the current Republican party is because they are heavily interventionist and heavily statist.
Like I said, he may not be a 'republican' in its current form, but he sure as hell is rightist.
Again, like I said, stop playing the man, and start playing the ball. He's never been *directly* involved in partisan politics - which means that he doesn't personally 'speak out'. It doesn't mean that he hasn't dabbled in politics or given contributions.
All of this is irrelevant anyhow.. what is relevant is what he has to *say*, not who he is.
Respond to his points and you won't be playing cheap politics.
horos
(
ps - you could say that Nader is a 'tool of the republicans' (people do). He accepts heavy republican contributions, after all. Does that mean he's a republican?
)
" reply, but this has got to be one of the biggest
" and boldest lies I've read on Slashdot - and
" that's saying A LOT. He's about as Republican as
" Ted Kennedy. Look up his donations - just
" because he's a rich capitalist doesn't make him
" Republican.
Ok, touche - I was unaware of his donations prior to 2000. I assumed the donations after 2000 were because of his dislike of Bush. Nice link btw, if a bit sarcastic.
Republican was the wrong word... 'rightist' is a better phrase. In fact, 'rightist' was the phrase that I used in my original post. I regret my mis-statement here.
Anyway, I didn't mean to be misleading. However, I stand by my original statement as to him being rightist. The more I look at his site and books, the more I see that he favors policies that would make a true leftist wince:
- true laissez-faire economies
- full freedom of trade
- 'favored' status for major monetary players like the IMF
- legalization and corporatization of drugs
- capitalization of environmental affairs (ie:
make good environmental policies follow from
private ownership (ie: if everything is
owned, including nature, people will have an
incentive to protect their investment.
He's more libertarian than anything else. I'm guessing his support of the democratic party stems from him disliking the current incarnation of the republican party more than anything else (and no I don't know that for sure).
Yes, my statement about him being republican was a mis-statement, but calling him a democratic tool is just as misleading.
Again, like I said why don't you take his points that he made inside his article and rebut them? I maintain that what you are doing is still partisan by ignoring the issues and attacking the man.
horos
> I stand by my opinion - breeders aren't a great idea, nad we need to look in a greatly diversified energy production system in the future.
Ok.. then you can perhaps tell me of such a method of doing so, one that will fit the surging demand as stated by professor Doty?
There are only *two* possible choices I see - coal and uranium/thorium.
Do a thought experiment once - take the united states rate of consumption per capita, halve it (for efficiencies' sake), and then apply that consumption per capita to the rest of the world. Mix in the fact that there are going to be 10 billion of us, eventually.
Now - how much oil equiavalent are people burning? Approximately 700 billion barrels oil equivalent, per year. Until fusion comes about, the ONLY thing that could possibly provide that amount of power is either space-based solar power, or uranium/thorium. Assuming you can get uranium from seawater, you could do this for millions of years.
As scalable, space-based solar power or fusion power isn't going to happen any time soon, all this points towards breeders, and breeders quick. And we'll be dragged there whether we like it or not.
horos
(BTW - Smil's not the one who is advocating breeders - I am. And if anything, David Doty's points in the review reinforce my own)
> The purpose of this political section seems to
> be one thing and one thing only: Advance the
> DNC's message and talking points and to expose
> all the evil Republicans for the rich, lying,
> fascist pigs that they are.
You'd be right on-the-money except for one thing - George Soros (as people have described here) is about as republican as they come.
> I mean, describing George Soros website as being
> interesting from an apolitical point of view?
> Come on! This guy has said that he would spend
> all the money he had if he could guarantee that
> President Bush wasn't reelected. He's one of the
> top contributors to the Bush-bashing 527 groups.
Yeah of course its interesting from an 'apolitical point of view'. I used that term because it is not very often that you find someone with as strong a rightist viewpoint as Soros take as strong a stand against a rightist public figure, let alone a presidential one.
Instead of attacking his character, why don't you argue his points? *That* is political I admit, but I haven't seen any rebuttal of any substance here, except to slander Soros' character.
That is the 'play the man, not the ball' tactic that people use in politics way too often nowadays...
horos
I think a much more fruitful direction would be to
.7% of all uranium is U-238, and if we got everything (12 TW of power) from known uranium sources, the supply would last about 30 years, max.
> 1. make present fission plants safer and more efficient,
Unfortunately, there isn't enough 'enriched uranium' to make this an option. Only
> 2. increase research and development of other sources of power (geothermal used to crack water for hydrogen - I trust Iceland a lot more than Saudi Arabia...) such as geothermal, hydrogen, tidal, wind and solar.
Unfortunately, the timescale and EROEI for these energies just makes it impossible to follow this route.
Out of all energy usage, about 7% is renewable.
Out of that 7% of renewable energy, 6.5% is 'new' renewable. The EROEI for wind is about 15 ( compared with 50-100 for oil), the EROEI for solar about 2. Geothermal is better, but on the contrary it is NOT renewable (geothermal plants wear themselves out) and the US does NOT have a large supply of instantly available geothermal energy.
the EROEI of a breeder reactor could be anywhere from 400-4000, depending on who you ask, assuming passive safety and automated reprocessing and power plant mass-production.
> 3. improve efficiency of consumption, so as to reduce load
yes, that's true... but it fights 5,000 years of trends. And even if it will happen (it probably will whether we like it or not), it'll probably NOT be enough. Wind energy - the greens favorite source - provided 1% of the *increase* in demand between 2002 and 2003. The other 99% of the increase, plus the *rest* of the energy was provided by coal, natural gas and oil.
> 4. Reduce the population. A lot.
Now, that's a possibility, but again, I doubt it will be something we choose to happen. And most likely it will happen on a *very* short timescale. Which is something I'd rather avoid, thank you very much.
Breeder reactors have everything necessary to fit industrial consumption:
1) able to emit enormous amounts of power, both in heat and in generation of elecetricity
2) able to handle peak power loads
3) ability to be commercial and to return profits for the companies who invest in them. ability to be metered and the electricity and power sold.
4) *very* *very* high EROEI
5) ability to be mass produced to lower costs
6) ability to cut greenhouse gases and improve the environment.
So - which would you choose? #4 or breeder reactors? Would you rather raise the rest of the world to an american standard of living, or have the world sink back to the time of child mortality, epidemics and ignorance? For as far as I can see, that's where we are headed if we don't get a substitute for oil real damn quick here..
And as far as I can see, there are no real alternatives - the numbers support breeders as the future. Coal might be workable for a bit, but then there are *large* greenhouse gas concerns. Solar and renewables are nice and all, but they are pretty feeble and I highly doubt that they will produce enough energy to keep the wheels turning in the short run. Ultimately, they might play a role, especially solar in space and artificial plants, but that's a long *long* ways away..
Anyways, if you are interested in more detail, read 'Energy at the Crossroads' by Vaclav Smil, where these numbers were taken.
horos
> Usually when I try to connect to IGN, there's
> about 5 players online. I understand it's like the
> official Go network on the internet, but to me it
> seems fairly useless.
WTH??? 5 players? When did you try?
Right now, I'm sitting here with 250 games, 800+ people connected.. Are you sure you didn't try NNGS instead (its been a while since I've connected there, and it might be close to dead..
horos
> Where do you come up with 70% of wind is over water?
70% of wind is over water, simply because 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. In fact, more.. because most of the strong wind forces (hurricanes, etc) are fueled by the convection currents in the ocean.
The average depth of the ocean is approx 1.5 KM. Putting windmills over it is impractical simply because, well, you really can't make a windmill that requires a 500M pole practical.
As for 60%, it comes from the 'betz limit': 16/27 of the flow can be converted, optimally (its a physical limit) Modern airfoils do about 50% of that, so we get about 30% of the available energy from wind. intermittancy makes it worse, since we actually need to store it.
If you don't believe me, read either Vaclav Smil (Energies/Energy at the crossroads) or Lorenz (Nature and Theory of Atmospheric Circulation)
> Nuclear waste has a half life of thousands of
.. yes, but the most dangerous ones (cesium and strontium) have half-lives of 40-60 years. And you can eliminate 95 of the 'waste' (which is in reality just fuel yet to be burned) by reprocessing it.
. ht ml
> years. Plutonium is one of the most deadly
> substances on the planet. Waste is the problem
> and the proposed storage ideas are shakey at
> best.
If you are going to say these things, at least make some effort to back them up with some figures or supporting logic. They are being said so often that they are sinking into uncritical acceptance.
'Nuclear waste has a half-life of thousands of years'
> Plutonium is one of the most deadly
> substances on the planet. Waste is the problem
> and the proposed storage ideas are shakey at
> best.
No, its not. Caffeine is more deadly. Bernard Cohen (physics phd) has offered to eat a couple of grams of plutonium on TV as a dare to Ralph Nader (who as far as I can see, is the one who started this idiotic "Plutonium is the most dangerous substance on the planet" business.
Ralph Nader never took him up on it though.
http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem1Docs/NuclearArticle
> The power plants can be run safely, look at what the U.S. Navy has done.
yes, they can, but I'd still say that the current programs are a failure, since they rely on active rather than passive safety features.
This article has to be taken with a huge grain of salt - the numbers are not only misleading here, they are just plain wrong.
First of all, wind as an energy source is limited primarily by the ability to store it, and low transmission wattages.
Secondly, there is no way that 'only 3% of the US resources could provide us with equivalent amounts of electricity.
*All* wind, *everywhere* has been estimated at about 2-3 PW, and all wind near the surface (within 1 km) at about 1.2 PW.
From that 1.2PW, 70% of it is over oceans and hence unusable, and perhaps 10% of that 30% is in position (100m from the ground) to drive windmills. That comes out to about 3% of the 1.2 PW.
Then, there is the question of wind speed and blade spacing. Too high a speed, and windmills can't function. Too low, and windmills can't function. Put wind mills too close together, and they interfere with each other.
Hence, its been estimated out of that 36 TW, perhaps a 5th of that can be used - at profitable levels. This is about 6.2 TW - if we put windmills everywhere that we could hold them.
Given that we use 10 TW equivalent in fossil fuels, that's about 60% of our total power - and that doesn't include any of the other factors like conversion efficiencies, storage efficiencies, intermittancy problems, and low transmission wattages.
We can convert - at theoretical maximum - 60% of that 6TW into electricity, or 3.6 TW. Now, this is about our electricity consumption today, but we haven't stopped there - efficiencies of storing wind power are 50% or less, and no good technology has been developed to store it.
So - the upshot? We could put windmills everywhere, all over the US, and still they would not solve our energy problems. They might take a chunk out of the usage, but they come nowhere close to solving the problem..
My guess is that people are just cherry-picking the best sites, and that wind is being subsidized in the process. Which, given our current state of peril, is a dangerous thing to do.
> The problem with fission reactors is that you have
> much extremly dangerous material around and hope
> that nothing goes wrong. You can make it as save
> as possible but judging from human history
> Chernobyl won't remain the only catastrophe and if
> something goes really wrong in a fission reactor
> it goes *really* wrong.
Sorry, but that doesn't really hold under scrutiny. If we were doing the smart thing, we'd be building IFR (integral fast reactors) - they last seventy years, you put your initial energy source (uranium 235 in them) and they consume it *whilst reprocessing the waste*. No long term energy, no excess plutonium, no heavy decommission costs.
They are also *passive* not *active*, and have built-in containment systems so even if you flew a jetliner into one, you wouldn't have a nuclear accident - the reaction would just wind down..
I swear, I really despair when I see this paranoia on *slashdot* the place where I would hope for some rationality. I'm much more worried that Mr Sterling's 'why don't we let 7 billion people starve to death - how's that for a solution' comment will come to pass.
> If we're worried about global warming, the
> amount of heat that we produce should be a factor
> as well as how much we insulate the Earth with
> greenhouse gasses. Nuclear power releases very
> large amounts of heat that would otherwise not be
> released.
sorry, but that's just sort of silly.
The reason that carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases warm the planet is because they have a multiplicative effect on the solar energy that is trapped - just like one CFC acts as a catalyst to destroy 100000 ozone molecules, one CO2 molecule allows multiple infrared waves to bounce back to earth.
Its the ultimate blanket. Any energy that we burn on the surface, on the other hand dissipates immediately into space.
there are problems with this excess heat - effects on the environment and so forth - but this isn't one of them.
> Actually fusion isn't the cure-all it's widely
> touted to be. It produces less radioactive waste
> than fission, but still a fair amount (although
> most of it is short half-life stuff). On the other
> hand, fuel is much easier to get hold of by
> electrolysing seawater and fractionating off the
> deuterium.
umm. you can actually do the same thing to obtain uranium... (get it out of seawater that is). And cheaper than deuterium, too.
So all things being equal, fission is very competitive with fusion. Not to mention, being a lot easier to do.
> If we have to, we can run everything on fission
> power and coal, with batteries for vehicles. The
> US still has about 400 years worth of coal left.
> Nuclear waste disposal isn't really a problem.
> It's a political football in the US, but that's a
> political problem, not a technical one. There are
> rock formations that have been stable for twenty
> million years. (Yucca Mountain isn't one of them,
> though.)
If we have to, we could run everything on fission power alone. It involves embracing third generation nuclear plants like the Integral Fast Reactor - which use U-238 NOT U-235 and are passive, not active in design (ie: physical laws prevent the things from blowing up)). We could run this entire country for thousands of years on the WASTE that was generated from our current plants, which throw away about 99.7% of the available fuel. Furthermore, we'd obliviate the need for storing that waste.
I swear, the most myopic thing ever done - even more so than Ronald Reagan tearing solar panels off of the white house roof - was the closing of the IFR experiment in 1994. On the face of it, they were worried about proliferation. Proliferation - right. The design consumes the plutonium it generates, so no long term waste is left.
Sometimes I feel like somebody has chained me to the deck of the Lusitania. We've become so accustomed to the quick and dirty, painless way that we are going to hit a huge reality check in the next couple of years. And the problem with insight into what is going to happen is - well, you don't really profit from the knowledge, do you?