Check my profile, I know little bit about this . The steam temperature coming out of the last stage blading of a large base station turbine generator set (>=1000 MW capacity) is about 150F, that's 66C or 339K or 610R just to cover all the bases. That's at 2" of mercury vacuum.
If they improve this technology to the point where retrofitting a way to use that waste heat at these temperatures is feasible, I garuantee it'll be used. Anything that can reduce the heat lost to the condenser will increase cycle efficiency and increase $'s at any Rankine Cycle steam plant (oil, coal, nuclear, GTCC whatever).
BTW, our steam inlet temperature to the first stage blading is about 510F, 265C, 538K, 970R so your source appears to be reasonably accurate.
The waste comes from the approximately 65% of the original heat pumped into the primary circuit being lost to the river. You have to condense the steam coming out of the turbine so you can pump it. It takes a *lot* of energy to condense this steam back to water. You may not be raising a particular gallon of river(or ocean) water by more than a few degrees (usually less than 5-8F) but you are moving a whole pisspot full of cooling water through your condenser. So the total energy rejected to the environment is quite large. Real world example, the plant where I work is 34.2% efficient, which is actually pretty good for a large steam cycle power plant. The reactor core pumps about 3400MW of heat into the primary circuit and we get about 1175MW of electricity out of the turbine generator, the vast majority of the rest (2225MW) is transferred to the 1,000,000 GPM of ocean water used to cool that pesky steam back into water so it can be pumped.
Now if you could design an economical steam pump (or better yet a two phase pump - steam in and water at higher pressure out) your billions of $'s would be waiting for you. You would be able to knock the stuffing out of the Rankine Cycle and increase plant efficiency into the 50-60% range overnight.
No, you should read the article, (or re-read it). It states the 1000C ones were used in nuclear converters in "space probes". That's not even close to a large nuclear or fossil power plant.
These thermo-electric generators in space probes are driven from heat generated by decay of radioactive elements or small solid state fission cores and are all a few tens to a few hundred kW in size. compare that to a nuclear station which is 500,000 to 1,250,000 kW (electric output). A rather big diff.
Learn what the Rankine Cycle is.... then post to a discussion like this. The waste heat from a nuclear or fossil plant is nowhere near 250C... so this won't work (yet)
This thread reminded me of the Simpson's episode where Homer is in the fallout shelter when a nuetron bomb hits Sprinfield and at ground zero is the arrogantly cynical, obese, comics reading, DnD playing geek. At the last second the geek sighs and says "I've wasted my life." ***BOOM!!***
"The space occupied by the actual fuel cells might very well be in the order of a semi, but there are other types of waste generated from a nuclear plant also ("dirty" tools, clothes and spare parts among other things)."
True, but such lowlevel waste is divided into "burnable", and "meltable". The burnable pile volume is by far the larger (by several orders of magnitude) and the volume is reduced by specially licensed incinerators by 99.9%. The meltable can be deconned down to remove what realy has to buried and again reducing the volume by a large amount. Also, all that concrete and steel from the civil structures is buried in a regular landfill after the top inch or so has been removed and carted off to a disposal site, in effect a gross decontamination. It's way cheaper that way.
Just think about the ENORMOUS pile of coal ash generated by only a year of operation of a comparable sized coal plant, and that doesn't include the compustion gases mass that is directly released to the atmosphere.
I still stand by my position that a properly designed and operated fission power plant is by far the cleanest, most environmentally benign way of generating large bulk quantities of electrical power.
Interestingly enough to me, back when Excite first announced it's financial problems I started to receive spam on my private @home e-mail account. I have several I use, and I keep one account address "closely held" to avoid spam. I've been an @home subscriber for about three years with no inordinate spam problems. Suddenly I started getting spammed from @excite.com and @home.com and then from many other domains. All within a few days of @home/Excite announcing their cash crunch.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I'm betting an address database got sold for some quick cash.
It's not PC to note this but did you realize that all the fuel from 40 years of operation of a nuclear plant will fit into the same volume as a large semi-trailer?
That's incredible really.
Imagine, all the electricity needs of a family of four for 40 years generate about 3 pounds of fuel waste.
You are of course correct. I was only thinking of a pure H2 O2 reaction during my post. I suppose since the atmosphere is about 80% Nitrogen, any high temp combustion is going to bump into plenty of Nitrogen and cause several strange species to be produced.
No I meant nuclear fission. The splitting of U-235 atoms enriched in a matrix of U-238 and other elements. A proven, readily available environmentally benign power source.
The plant where I work has two 1180MW steam tubine generator sets. Each one has moving parts that weigh in at about 800tons, thats 1.6E+06 pounds. Thats a lot of pounds. Compare that to this little (admmitedly very cool) device.
H2 in gaseous form is NOT explosive unless it's in a mixture with O2 where it is about 4% to 85% of the mixture. Pure H2 is perfectly safe. And even if the H2 tank ruptures there is not going to be enough H2 to do anything. It might burn for a second or two and thats about it, most likely not enough H2 mass there to really do any damage (beyond the device it's in). Certainly not enough to cause an explosive misture in a large enough volume of air to matter.
And since this tank is gonna be small, it can be made really freakin tough. Think about how tough a good quality propane cigarette lighter tank is.
Last time I looked water was not a pollutant. But you better check with Greenpeace/Sierra Club/NRDC..... Anything beyond a horse and buggy can't be good for you.
Nobody deserves to be hacked. I found it quite sad that this story has no posts (so far) commenting that the person(s) who created and released a malicious piece of software are a**holes. hopefully it's that this goes without saying.
Yes, I agree with the sentiment that if you do not secure your boxen, you are an idiot. But if you don't, you do not deserve to be victimised.
If I accidentally leave my front door unlocked, do I deserve to be robbed/vandalised?
Slashdot Mirror
Check my profile, I know little bit about this . The steam temperature coming out of the last stage blading of a large base station turbine generator set (>=1000 MW capacity) is about 150F, that's 66C or 339K or 610R just to cover all the bases. That's at 2" of mercury vacuum.
If they improve this technology to the point where retrofitting a way to use that waste heat at these temperatures is feasible, I garuantee it'll be used. Anything that can reduce the heat lost to the condenser will increase cycle efficiency and increase $'s at any Rankine Cycle steam plant (oil, coal, nuclear, GTCC whatever).
BTW, our steam inlet temperature to the first stage blading is about 510F, 265C, 538K, 970R so your source appears to be reasonably accurate.
"Government would rather see all those foreign civilizations die and/or be conquered by the worldwide phenomenon of US invasion."
Now there is classic flamebait for ya.
BTW, anyone who actually likes GCC is a masochist.
Flamebait titfortat....
Uhhh, just so happens that -40 C equals -40 F.
Coincidence no doubt.
Yes.
Some of that heat will not be recoverable of course. A lot might though.
You are confusing reactor waste with waste heat.
The waste comes from the approximately 65% of the original heat pumped into the primary circuit being lost to the river. You have to condense the steam coming out of the turbine so you can pump it. It takes a *lot* of energy to condense this steam back to water. You may not be raising a particular gallon of river(or ocean) water by more than a few degrees (usually less than 5-8F) but you are moving a whole pisspot full of cooling water through your condenser. So the total energy rejected to the environment is quite large. Real world example, the plant where I work is 34.2% efficient, which is actually pretty good for a large steam cycle power plant. The reactor core pumps about 3400MW of heat into the primary circuit and we get about 1175MW of electricity out of the turbine generator, the vast majority of the rest (2225MW) is transferred to the 1,000,000 GPM of ocean water used to cool that pesky steam back into water so it can be pumped.
Now if you could design an economical steam pump (or better yet a two phase pump - steam in and water at higher pressure out) your billions of $'s would be waiting for you. You would be able to knock the stuffing out of the Rankine Cycle and increase plant efficiency into the 50-60% range overnight.
No, you should read the article, (or re-read it). It states the 1000C ones were used in nuclear converters in "space probes". That's not even close to a large nuclear or fossil power plant.
These thermo-electric generators in space probes are driven from heat generated by decay of radioactive elements or small solid state fission cores and are all a few tens to a few hundred kW in size. compare that to a nuclear station which is 500,000 to 1,250,000 kW (electric output). A rather big diff.
It's way less than a 30% conversion from chemical to mechanical energy. More like 15 - 20%....
Learn what the Rankine Cycle is.... then post to a discussion like this. The waste heat from a nuclear or fossil plant is nowhere near 250C... so this won't work (yet)
This thread reminded me of the Simpson's episode where Homer is in the fallout shelter when a nuetron bomb hits Sprinfield and at ground zero is the arrogantly cynical, obese, comics reading, DnD playing geek. At the last second the geek sighs and says "I've wasted my life." ***BOOM!!***
"The space occupied by the actual fuel cells might very well be in the order of a semi, but there are other types of waste generated from a nuclear plant also ("dirty" tools, clothes and spare parts among other things)."
True, but such lowlevel waste is divided into "burnable", and "meltable". The burnable pile volume is by far the larger (by several orders of magnitude) and the volume is reduced by specially licensed incinerators by 99.9%. The meltable can be deconned down to remove what realy has to buried and again reducing the volume by a large amount. Also, all that concrete and steel from the civil structures is buried in a regular landfill after the top inch or so has been removed and carted off to a disposal site, in effect a gross decontamination. It's way cheaper that way.
Just think about the ENORMOUS pile of coal ash generated by only a year of operation of a comparable sized coal plant, and that doesn't include the compustion gases mass that is directly released to the atmosphere.
I still stand by my position that a properly designed and operated fission power plant is by far the cleanest, most environmentally benign way of generating large bulk quantities of electrical power.
Interestingly enough to me, back when Excite first announced it's financial problems I started to receive spam on my private @home e-mail account. I have several I use, and I keep one account address "closely held" to avoid spam. I've been an @home subscriber for about three years with no inordinate spam problems. Suddenly I started getting spammed from @excite.com and @home.com and then from many other domains. All within a few days of @home/Excite announcing their cash crunch.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I'm betting an address database got sold for some quick cash.
For what it's worth I got an e-mail several weeks back from Cox saying basically they'd be taking over from @home and run the network themselves.
We shall see I suppose.
It's not PC to note this but did you realize that all the fuel from 40 years of operation of a nuclear plant will fit into the same volume as a large semi-trailer?
That's incredible really.
Imagine, all the electricity needs of a family of four for 40 years generate about 3 pounds of fuel waste.
You are of course correct. I was only thinking of a pure H2 O2 reaction during my post. I suppose since the atmosphere is about 80% Nitrogen, any high temp combustion is going to bump into plenty of Nitrogen and cause several strange species to be produced.
Hats off to ya.
Second Law of Thermodynamic and the Rankine Cycle.
Sigh.
No I meant nuclear fission. The splitting of U-235 atoms enriched in a matrix of U-238 and other elements. A proven, readily available environmentally benign power source.
Shoot, just consider weight alone.
The plant where I work has two 1180MW steam tubine generator sets. Each one has moving parts that weigh in at about 800tons, thats 1.6E+06 pounds. Thats a lot of pounds. Compare that to this little (admmitedly very cool) device.
Fission would be just fine. About as clean as it gets.
H2 in gaseous form is NOT explosive unless it's in a mixture with O2 where it is about 4% to 85% of the mixture. Pure H2 is perfectly safe. And even if the H2 tank ruptures there is not going to be enough H2 to do anything. It might burn for a second or two and thats about it, most likely not enough H2 mass there to really do any damage (beyond the device it's in). Certainly not enough to cause an explosive misture in a large enough volume of air to matter.
And since this tank is gonna be small, it can be made really freakin tough. Think about how tough a good quality propane cigarette lighter tank is.
That was some funny sh*t!! LOL
Umm, Hertz equals cycles(or rotations) per second.
(2.4E+06RPM (Rotations / Minute) / (60 Seconds / Minute) == 40000 Hertz
Or 40KHz
Burning H2 leaves you, surprise, water and heat.
Last time I looked water was not a pollutant. But you better check with Greenpeace/Sierra Club/NRDC..... Anything beyond a horse and buggy can't be good for you.
Nobody deserves to be hacked. I found it quite sad that this story has no posts (so far) commenting that the person(s) who created and released a malicious piece of software are a**holes. hopefully it's that this goes without saying.
Yes, I agree with the sentiment that if you do not secure your boxen, you are an idiot. But if you don't, you do not deserve to be victimised.
If I accidentally leave my front door unlocked, do I deserve to be robbed/vandalised?
Why can't the arrays be installed in the surface of the roadway? They could transfer their energy to any compatible car that passes over them....
Plus (here in the USA anyway) there is a LOT of road surface available which is currently only used to hold up vehicles.
Thank god you didn't get modded up,
because you,
quite simply,
are an idiot.
(and ignorant of this subject to boot).