We already have a cheaper way to convert sunlight and air into fuel. We don't even have to manufacture them - they self-assemble themselves. They're called plants.
You apparently have not read the article. This technology promises to turn sunlight into liquid fuels with an efficiency above 50%, nothing in known biology can get even close to that.
There are other advantages to this technology besides efficiency when compared to bio-fuels. This sun to fuel technology does not compete with food for resources like water and fertilizer. It might compete for land but presumably these sun to fuel factories can be placed on land not suitable for crops. I will also assume that these factories can produce fuel at times that plants would not grow well, like winter.
I've seen the math on bio-fuels and it does not add up. Just about anything is better than bio-fuels.
Have you ever looked at trend lines for PV electricity cost?
I just did look and the gains PV has made in turning dollars to watts and joules and it is impressive. Even with these impressive gains solar PV is still somewhere between double and tenfold what energy from coal and nuclear cost, depending on location and who is doing the math.
While the costs for PV is lowering with time so is nuclear. Both must hit bottom at some point and I don't believe the trend lines will ever cross. I say this because of a very real problem with solar power, night. Nuclear power does not care what the weather is, it just keeps going. Using solar power to produce liquid fuels does solve some of the problem with nightfall since it inherently has a storage capability. Nuclear power as it is done now has a similar problem with solar, while solar power output can change suddenly we see that nuclear power plant output cannot change quickly. Both problems are solved the same way, by mixing these power sources with another that can produce power at a rate that changes with demand. If the claims about molten salt reactors proves true then this problem of nuclear power not being able to follow demand disappears with the next generation of nuclear power plants.
This gets to your next point.
Area is not a problem for the US either, it has plenty of deserts with good sunshine (it is obviously a problem for the EU).
Area is a problem. Those that claim we can just pave the desert with solar panels are forgetting about all the troubles past solar panel projects have had with the EPA and other entities concerned with the environment. Deserts are not just endless seas of sand, things live out there. Putting up solar panels disturbs the environment, displacing plant and animal life, and there are plenty of people that don't want to see that happen.
This is usually responded with a claim that we can put solar panels on the roofs of buildings. The problem there is that doing so destroys the economies of scale that make paving the desert with PV panels profitable. Instead of having all the panels in neat rows and columns at ground level they are now at great heights, spread out over great distances, in places where they collect leaves, bird droppings, snow, soot, and other debris that block the sun and destroy efficiencies.
I suppose it is possible that PV does become cheaper than nuclear power, can overcome the nighttime problem with storage, and can be done with putting it on rooftops instead of sensitive environments, but that seems to be years away and relies on a lot of different technologies to happen. Cheap, safe, load following nuclear power relies only on a single technology that was largely proven workable decades ago but was abandoned for purely political reasons. The only thing holding back nuclear power today is still largely political. We can change the laws of the land easily, the laws of physics not so much.
I agree, hydrogen alone is very difficult to deal with. It is much better to use the hydrogen as a feedstock to synthesize other fuels, fuels that have an existing infrastructure for storage and transport.
Propane is good but I'd believe that methane is better. Methane can be put into the national distribution lines that carry natural gas. The processes used to create propane and methane are identical to that for other, heavier, hydrocarbons like hexane, cetane, and everything in between. Those heavy hydrocarbons are liquid at atmospheric pressure, and are the primary components of gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel, and fuel oils. There is definitely a market for these fuels and an infrastructure to transport, store, and consume them.
I also believe that if we see a hydrogen economy that it will come in the form of hydrocarbons but also as ammonia. Ammonia is used as a fertilizer, industrial feedstock, and as a fuel. Ammonia is even better on the environment than propane and other hydrocarbons in the case of leaks and spills. Plants and animals can process them naturally and is not carcinogenic like hydrocarbons. Ammonia can be mixed in with other gasses to produce an analog to natural gas. The nitrogen needed as feedstock for ammonia production can be drawn from the air, which is a trivial process.
Ethanol, like ammonia, is relatively safe to plant and animal life which does make it a very practical fuel. It does have the tendency to damage seals and lubricants that are common for fossil fuels so it cannot fit as seamlessly like synthetic hydrocarbons into existing infrastructure. There are also legal obstacles for its use. I've spoken with people that make and use ethanol for various things (fuels, industrial solvents, disinfectants, and adult beverages) and the US ATF keeps a close watch on anyone that creates or consumes even relatively small quantities. If we are going to see large scale use of ethanol as a fuel, not just a fuel additive as it is now, then we need to see some big changes in the US tax codes first.
Making fuels from sun and air sounds like a tree huggers dream but as long as we can find something cheaper it will be useless.
We've all heard the phrase that time equals money, and there is a lot of truth in that. Time is money, energy is money, a lot of things are money. To make fuel from "free" things like sun and air will take time, labor, energy, and other things that require money to buy. This is going to be very expensive.
What I see as more promising is some research done by the US Navy where they want to make jet fuel using sea water. The US Navy found that it is much easier to get CO2 from water than from the air, meaning it takes less time, energy, and therefore less money. As a byproduct of the CO2 extraction they get hydrogen gas, which is fortunate since with the CO2 and the hydrogen they have the raw materials needed to make jet fuel. The energy required would come from nuclear power, something that the US Navy is very good at managing.
I believe that if we are going to see a leap forward in energy technology that it won't come from the tree huggers. I believe it will come from military research.
Also, in the linked article (yes, I did read it) there was a comment about shutting down an aluminum plant when there was not enough energy, one does not shut down an aluminum plant on a whim. Once everything in a smelter gets hot it is so much easier and cheaper to keep it hot. If allowed to cool then it takes a lot of time and energy, which means money, to heat it back up again. There is also the issue of continued heating and cooling stressing the equipment, that means repairs and more money.
I've seen a lot of people that think we can shift the load to match the supply but that does not work well in a real world. We can shift some loads to off peak times but at some point we are simply going to have to build more supply so that people can do their work on schedule. If production shuts down for lack of sun then that means time lost, and money lost. Solar powered anything is going to have to be so ridiculously cheap or people will go elsewhere, and I've never seen cheap solar power.
I saw a YouTube video of some engineers that went over the numbers on building a nuclear power plant. They priced out the labor, materials, and so on to build this plant but their numbers were as low as half as what real costs were showing. After a bit of thought they realized they had not accounted for the regulatory costs. We can build a safe, reliable, and profitable nuclear power plant if only the government would allow us to do so. There is nothing inherently expensive about building a nuclear power plant, it is only government policy that prices it out of existence.
The only bright side I see on this is that no matter how hard the government tries to kill nuclear power with regulation it is going to happen. Wind and solar is too expensive and unreliable to run a First World economy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are only going to get more expensive as we use up what we can reach economically. At some point those price curves flip and nuclear becomes "cheap" compared to everything else. A large part of the costs of any energy source we have now is due to regulation.
I'm not saying we need to do away with regulation. We cannot have liberty without law. What I'm saying is that regulation being such a high cost in nuclear power means that we can do away with those costs by simply deciding that nuclear power is something we want. Nuclear power has already proven to be the safest power source we have, and that is with the technology being relatively unchanged for decades. If we allow ourselves to advance that technology then we'd make it even safer, even cheaper, while everything else becomes more expensive.
Exactly. Science is not a democracy. We don't get to vote on the rules of physics, they are what they are even if we agree with them or not.
Here's a few things I picked up while following the climate change debate. Windmills and solar panels are expensive and unreliable means to produce electricity. Because they are unreliable we need something reliable to back them up. Right now, with current technology and politics, that means natural gas turbines.
While natural gas turbines are cheap and reliable they are not particularly efficient. So when we mix wind, solar, and natural gas together we get expensive electricity and no real carbon savings over having just burned that natural gas in a steam boiler for electricity.
People that believe we should reduce carbon output and also believe that nuclear power will kill us all are rejecting science twice over. I'll give on the global warming shit so long as we get nuclear power out of it. If the answer is not nuclear power then I will fight anyone that claims fossil fuels will be the end of us all.
It's fossil fuels, nuclear power, or the lights go out. A true scientist would admit we know very little about the environment. Anyone that says they've solved the equation is either delusional or trying to sell something. I'm not buying.
Let's see, we have a congressional hearing on whether or not there should be more government to regulate our lives. What do we get? SURPRISE! A large number of people called before congress say we need more government.
I've come across these kind of people before, and I've seen them called "watermelons". Why are they called that? Because they are green environmentalists on the outside but red communists on the inside. These people want more government and will use any excuse to get it. Right now the popular reason is the environment.
I'm not saying we should be allowed to pollute as we wish. I say that even if we had half of the government we have now we'd still have clean water, fresh air, clear skies, safe and nutritious food, and warm houses. How can I say that? Because generally people aren't dicks to their neighbors and tend to care about their children growing up to have children of their own. There are ways to deal with the outliers that don't require the government telling me what kind of light bulbs I can use.
Yes! Let's tax those evil rich coal producers so we can give the money to those evil rich windmill makers!
This is what I don't get about those tax-n-subsidize proponents that want to subsidize things like wind, solar, and what not. The argument goes something like, "Those evil fossil fuel people are making money off the poor! They take our money and poison the planet! We need to make them pay!" Okay, so we tax them. What do we do with that tax income then?
I'll tell you where that money goes. We subsidize electric cars because they are so expensive. Yep, very expensive. So expensive that only a rich person can afford them even after the subsidies and car makers sell them at a loss. Who's getting those subsidies then? Yep, rich people that are looking for a four door penis enhancement and car makers that use that money to make more SUVs.
Solar subsidies? Same thing. Expensive solar panels are bought by rich people that want to feel good about themselves and then file for a tax rebate for doing so.
Windmills? We tax the evil corporations that make coal so that another evil corporation can afford to make windmills. With the complex structure of corporate ownership in this economy it's quite likely that those that own the coal company also own the windmill company.
This is not a problem that can be solved with taxes, as the parent post pointed out. This is a technology problem, and a policy problem. We'd have many more safe, reliable, and cheap nuclear power plants if only the government would get out of the way. One possible solution I see is taking nuclear regulation from the federal government and give it to the states. Let the states regulate their own nuclear power plants. The US Department of Energy is so fearful of dong anything wrong that they don't do anything at all.
To those that say choosing nuclear power is just choosing death from radiation than climate change I say you need to look at molten salt reactors. MSRs will "eat" radioactive waste from current nuclear reactors and make it inert, while producing electricity and valuable radioisotopes for medicine and industry.
Another response to the nuclear opponents, I thought climate change was a worldwide problem that was going to kill us all so anything must be better than that. Seems like we can choose the status quo which gives us inevitable death from rising sea levels and destruction of the food chain, or freezing to death when winter comes and the windmills don't spin, or the slightest chance of increased cancers from radioactive waste in the environment. Which is a false choice of course because with a truly modern nuclear reactor we'd actually see less radiation in the environment.
Nuclear power is so reliable, safe, and inexpensive that using wind and solar becomes nonsensical. Electricity from steam, whether that boiling water is from coal, natural gas, or nuclear, is very cheap. Steam power is a technology that is well understood from many years of development and real world use. The only real problem with steam generation is that it does not handle changes in load well. To accommodate the changes in load we've come up with a variety of technologies but for big changes that happen relatively quickly we just plain need more generating capacity quickly. The answer to that problem is typically natural gas turbines, which while still relatively reliable, safe, and inexpensive still costs up to twice what the boiling water technology costs to run. The majority of that cost is in the fuel, more fuel is burned per power output.
With wind power we have a generating capacity that can change relatively quickly. To accommodate this we use the same technologies that we use to accommodate a changing load. That usually means natural gas turbines. Wind power, last time I checked, costs about as much as power from natural gas turbines. The more wind power we add the more turbines we need to make up for the changing grid conditions. Given that natural gas turbines are less efficient than natural gas boilers we end up with more carbon output per electrical energy unit produced, and it costs more. If steam power costs about 10 cents per kWh then wind and gas turbine power costs 15 cents per kWh.
Solar costs between 20 and 30 cents per kWh on grid scale, more on smaller scales. Until we solve this cost issue on solar power it makes no sense to use it. Solar power also runs into the same carbon output problem as wind, since solar power can change quickly because of weather it must be backed up with expensive and inefficient gas turbines. That means electricity costs can triple and we get no net reduction in carbon output.
So far one might conclude the solution to our energy cost and carbon output problem is nuclear power for base load, natural gas turbines for peak load, and maybe some wind power where it is optimal. But we have something "new" we can try.
People have been experimenting with molten salt nuclear reactors for decades but for reasons that are mostly political than technological this technology has remained undeveloped. Not only can molten salt react well to changing loads, and do so cheaply and safely, it can reduce the amount of nuclear waste from the old boiler reactors we've been using for decades.
There is no need to just have a monoculture when it comes to power.
Molten salt reactors can be made from about the 20 MW to gigawatt range so we could use this technology in many places. Its output does not rely on weather. The fuel is cheap and plentiful, or at least it would be if we had sane laws on handling uranium and thorium. While it cannot replace all other sources I foresee a reliable and cheap power source that we should be able to get 90% of our power from MSRs.
To those that claim anything "nukular" is a radiation hazard I have a couple responses. First, nuclear reactors reduce the amount of radioactive material. The energy that comes from a nuclear reaction is from taking something radioactive and making it not radioactive. The only reason that nuclear "waste" is considered "waste" right now is because the old boiler reactors are terribly inefficient. Second, if carbon in the atmosphere is going to kill us all then we need to find a way to reduce that carbon output. I see three choices, status quo, nuclear power, or reduction in the quality of life. By "reduction of quality of life" I don't mean wearing sweaters indoors because we turned down the thermostat in the winter, I mean people will freeze to death because the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow when we needed it to.
Taking this logically we need to stop building more windmills and start building more nuclear power plants. Anything else means people will die needlessly.
Anyone that has served their nation in defense of freedom deserves to be honored and remembered well after they are gone. Sir Christopher was one of many that fought evil but he has done so in a way to stand out among the many.
I mean, exactly what gas were you imagining a nuclear reactor running a gas turbine with?
The gas would be air from the atmosphere. I suppose a closed loop with helium or carbon dioxide might be used but I suspect an open loop system would be much less prone to failure.
As you say it is possible to boil water with any heat source so long as you have a proper heat exchanger. The problem with a high temperature reactor, such as a molten salt reactor, is that to use it to boil steam a number of heat exchangers would be needed to lower the temperature to something that could be used to boil water. It's possible but not likely something someone would want on a ship as it would be quite large. Boiling water with a 400C reactor core temperature is nearly trivial. Doing so with a 800C reactor core temperature is nearly suicidal.
I should not have implied it impossible o boil water from a high temperature reactor, merely impractical on a ship at sea.
What happens if one of the capacitor banks fails or the electro magnet blows up right during the discharge process? Nothing good I would bet.
What happens on a steam catapult if a pipe bursts during launch? Nothing good I would bet.
Mechanical systems fail, there's no avoiding that. What they have with EMALS is a system that they've determined to have a lower probability to fail.
I'll answer some of your questions and hopefully point out how an electric system is superior to a steam system. First is that the energy for launch is not stored in capacitors. There are four flywheels on board which are spun up slowly and can drive an alternator to produce the electric pulse required. I assume that there is redundancy here so that if any one flywheel fails in a critical moment the others can compensate.
With EMALS there is a computer system that can monitor the force and acceleration of the catapult. A failure of a single magnet along the line would likely be detected and the others used with increased power to compensate. This might mean a bumpy ride for the pilot but not a loss of the airframe. A similar failure with steam could likely mean loss of the airframe, and possibly the pilot.
There is also a very practical need to move away from steam catapults. The Navy wants to use the catapults to launch aircraft of a much wider weight range, from UAVs, to figher jets, to small cargo planes. Steam catapults lack the ability to handle such a wide range of loads. The Navy is also experimenting with alternatives to steam propulsion for the ship. Now they are still using a solid fuel nuclear reactor to boil water but that is not likely to remain the case. Higher temperature liquid fuel reactors are too hot to boil water but are very efficient at driving gas turbines. The Navy will still need electricity for things like lights, heat, radar, communications, and so on so the electric generation capability will always remain. If the steam generators can be removed then that means more room for fuel, crew, munitions, and redundant electric generation.
As someone with a reputation of knowing how electronics work among friends and relatives I am often asked to fix issues of interference on wireless devices. What is often the case is the baby monitor, Wi-FI, cordless phone, and microwave oven all operate on the same frequency. Now we get someone that wants to power his toys by transmitting noise in that band.
The article claims that the test subjects saw no drop in their Wi-Fi access from the use of this device. I don't doubt the report, I just expect that this was not a real world test by having other common wireless devices operating at the same time.
I wonder if the "greenies" will latch onto this. Given the unrealistic claims of energy sources and power distribution systems from these people I expect someone will read this report and expect to see all the power lines in the world disappear and be replaced with antennas.
I recall seeing film on TV of a US Army project that had a device very similar to this. It had a man standing on top of a hovering platform with lift provided by fans. I don't recall exactly when this demonstration was performed but judging by the quality of the film, uniform of the "pilot", and other clues it was likely 1950s or 1960s. Perhaps there is a "first" here that I missed.
You can't charge someone with having killed "someone" unless you name that someone.
Also, would not that someone have to be proven to be dead? The FBI claims that Roberts caused a plane to move in a manner that resulted from his actions. If someone can show the movement was in fact because of pilot action, or from wind, then there is no crime. Right?
People are not horses. Horses cannot own property, they are property. Saying that horses haven't found a new purpose in the days of the automobile is like saying we have not found new uses for a sextant in the days of GPS. A horse is a tool. People might be considered a tool but they are also the customer.
People like to deal with people, not machines. Unless there is some legal change that allows for machines to have authorities like that of arrest we will need people. This might mean an economy where a large portion of the population is employed to watch machines work all day but then how it that fundamentally different from now? A co-worker once told me that 90% of IT is watching a progress bar.
People are not going to obsolete themselves.
Also along with that thought of people wanting to deal with people is that I believe we are a very long way away from people allowing machines to watch their children. We will need teachers, nurses, nannies, and so forth. In the future we'll probably see class sizes shrink from 30 to 50 that we see now to where it's more like 3 to 5. I did customer support for a while and people will go out of their way to avoid talking to a machine. I can offer an automated system to process their payments but I can't make them. No company in their right mind is going to do away with the people that process money because that means potentially alienating a large number of customers.
So long as people can buy stuff there will be people willing to work so that they can buy stuff. The few unwilling to work to buy stuff will be arrested and detained by those that do.
We've had two millennia of technological advancement which have made much of the labor that people do obsolete. Even though at one time a large portion of the population was employed rowing boats we don't seem to have an unemployment problem on the scale of jobs lost to the internal combustion engine.
What will these former truck drivers do? I don't know but we've found work to make up for all kinds of jobs lost in the past. What did the buggy whip makers do? What of the people that spun ropes by hand? What of the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers? Do we still send people to get bled so that leeches aren't put out of work?
I don't know what these people are going to do but it appears we always find something for them. I'm not going to hold up technology just because the people that make buggy whips and shovel up horse shit might have to find a different job.
If unemployment gets real bad then perhaps we can legalize prostitution. That should keep people employed. If these people are so ugly and unskilled that they can't find work fucking then maybe they can find work in politics.
I'd like to carry my Colt M1911 but as one of my customers is a factory that hires convicts I must leave it at home.
On my keyring is keys for my truck, house, and gun cases, also a combination light and bottle opener, Swisstech Utilikey, wireless fob for truck.
Commonly in my pockets are cell phone, iPod touch, wallet, handkerchief, medicine bottle, pocket knife (don't tell the prison guards), and maybe change for parking meters and vending machines. If I'm wearing my carpenter pants I often shove a water bottle in one of the larger pockets.
I will often be found with a messenger bag filled with stuff. Swisstech tool, pens, pencils, Post-it notepad, chargers for phone and iPod, band-aids, Tylenol, Zyrtec, antacids, and any documents or books I need for the day. I almost always carry food, mostly just some granola bars and a bottle of water and/or Coke, sometimes a full lunch. If I need a computer that day I'll put in a Macbook Pro, USB mouse, and charger. That bag does get large and heavy.
I see this every time a new technology that comes along that could replace human laborers, technology means millions will lose their jobs. What always happens is that these people all seem to be capable of finding other work. The work I do in computers did not exist before computers existed. Before the electronic computers existed there was a job description called "computer". Had I lived in an earlier age I'd probably be employed as one of those computers.
Another reason that truck drivers won't find themselves out of a job tomorrow is that I've seen what a truck driver does. Working at UPS I saw that a truck driver will drive the truck and then have to load or unload the truck. They are also responsible for common maintenance, like fill the truck with fuel, check tire pressure, make sure lights are clear of mud and snow, clear the air lines of moisture, and more. When I was growing up on the farm the truck drivers were expected to back a truck up to a sorting gate and then chase steers onto the truck. They'd then drive to the auction house, chase them off. After the auction they'd chase another load of steers onto the truck, then haul them to a packing plant. Let's find a robot that can navigate all of that, chase steers, and not run over stupid farm kids that should not have been running around the parking lot in the first place
Then there are truck drivers that deliver frozen foods and other items to homes, that takes a skill set that robots have not yet reached. I'll hear an ice cream truck drive through the neighborhood occasionally, those people are still "truck drivers", no? Then there's all the other occupations that required skilled drivers, school buses, city transit buses, taxi and limo drivers, charter buses. We might put a robot in charge of moving cargo but I don't see anyone putting school children on a bus without someone to watch them, that person doesn't have to drive necessarily but they will be there.
That may even be true for cargo trucking. A person may not drive but they will ride along with the cargo to maintain the truck, load/unload cargo, handle paperwork, and put out fires. I mean real fires, ever seen a truck pulled off the road that's been blackened from brakes that over heated and started the tires on fire? Who's going to put out a fire on an driverless truck?
I can see this technology being adopted slowly. It will make the number of truck drivers shrink. If it means a truck driver can get a truck on the road, set the "autopilot" and then take a nap, then it could mean a reduction of as many as two out of three long haul drivers but those don't count for all professional drivers. People still need to drive buses, ice cream trucks, doorstep delivery, etc.
I will believe man made global warming is a crisis when the powers that be start acting like it. A few examples:
- Secretary Clinton is *proud* of how many miles she traveled in an airplane to far off nations. She couldn't make a phone call? - POTUS and family vacation in Hawaii at least once a year, a long way to go to play in the ocean. - Congress would not approve nuclear powered ships due to costs, built oil fired ships instead. That's not how someone would act if they actually believed that global warming is the greatest threat to our nation.
My Ford truck is the problem when these people fly their dog across the country in a 747. Right?
Which shape will get me highest the fastest? That's what I expect will be the most common question asked.
I see many possible problems with this, getting it FDA approved is just one of them. What will prevent someone from printing a hollow pill and stealing what what supposed to go in the middle to sell on the black market? The pills could be weighed but the pills could be filled with something of equal mass like sugar, sand, or something not so inert.
Will these pills be printed at the pharmacy? I seem to recall previous issues with poorly monitored medicine factories that did not require FDA oversight because they weren't "making" drugs as it was defined in law, they were merely mixing drugs that were made elsewhere and doing so in less than sanitary conditions. The FDA has failed us before and state agencies didn't feel compelled to pick up the slack, or was prevented from doing so by federal law.
Seems to me that there would be much less costly means to meter dosages than printing each pill individually. I can see this being used like it was described in the article, testing shapes in the real world before going through an expensive process of tooling up for mass production.
Edible 3D printing material could allow for making pills that carry all kinds of substances. Also, assuming high enough resolution on the printing process someone could make fake drugs. The little image on the label of what the pills inside a bottle should like like may no longer be sufficient to prevent theft of medicines, for example.
I can think of all kinds of legal and beneficial uses of technology like this too. As soon and someone reveals how this technology can be used for illegal activities in a public enough forum that some congresscritter sees it I suspect we're going to see a law passed that will ban or severely restrict this technology. I'll give the total freak out over the people that printed a firearm as an example of what kind of freak out to expect.
Good stuff, but the technology will very likely be held up by a government that cannot allow the public to have the freedom to experiment on their own.
Being "unreliable" is much more than exploding transformers. One means to measure this is with capacity factors.
What is the capacity factor of a typical windmill? I see that with the best technology we have today wind power has just reached 50% capacity factors. Under ideal conditions wind could approach 66% capacity factors. Solar does much worse with 25%, but I'll give it 33% to account for future improvements and perhaps some negative bias in reporting.
Then there are the power sources that burn stuff and/or boil water. This we have oil, coal, natural gas, biomass, and nuclear. These have capacity factors that top out around 95%, average above 80%, and on the low end are about 75%. I'll be nice and give them a 66% capacity factor to again account for any bias.
Hydroelectric is probably king in this. Capacity factors that exceed all others. Given an additional pumped hydro capacity it can account for lack of capacity from other sources. With multiple generators on a single site there might be a single generator that is down but the facility is still producing power at or near rated capacity barring exploding transformers. As awesome as hydro is I can confidently give it a capacity factor that is so close to 100% that it will be 100% for this thought experiment.
So then how much does this electricity cost? Hydro and the burn/boil group all cost nearly the same. Hydro wins on this up to 33% because of capacity factor. Hydro also is reliant on geography, we've dammed up all the rivers worth a dam in this world, there is no growth in this.
Wind costs about the same as the burn/boil group by rated capacity (a bit more really but I'll be nice again) but with its production capability reliant on the weather and geography it takes two to three times as much of them to get the same power out. This is part on capacity factor and part on the fact that the wind blows when it wants, not when we need it.
Solar is the worst. With a capacity factor of even 33% we'd need three times the amount of capacity from a 100% source like hydro, and some means to transfer or store the energy to when and where it's needed. Ignoring capacity factor solar power costs three times what we get from burning and boiling. With capacity factors included it goes up almost three times again. If I stop being nice and start looking at reality the cost of solar is near to or above ten times what it would take if we burned and boiled our power into existence.
You can mix and match all of this if you like, hiding much of the costs of renewable in the noise that is real life capacity factors, but it works out that solar is always a loss. Wind is either a small loss to a break even. Hydro is always a win but then we run into issues of geography and "environmentalists" that would rather see people starve than have a few common bait fish killed in a hydro turbine.
These environmentalists will likely complain about any energy source that emits carbon. On the basis of carbon output per joule produced nuclear and hydro rule, nothing beats those two.
What good is a nuclear power station when it's transformer blows up? It's good in that we can easily afford to build redundant nuclear power generation so that loss of any one will not affect the grid. It's good in that with a capacity factor well above 66% that by building four power plants for every three we need that we can be well assured that the power will never go out.
(Don't bother trying to correct my simplified computations. I am well aware that my accuracy sucks. Point is that it should be close enough to the real world to show that nuclear and hydro should rule the world.)
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We already have a cheaper way to convert sunlight and air into fuel. We don't even have to manufacture them - they self-assemble themselves. They're called plants.
You apparently have not read the article. This technology promises to turn sunlight into liquid fuels with an efficiency above 50%, nothing in known biology can get even close to that.
There are other advantages to this technology besides efficiency when compared to bio-fuels. This sun to fuel technology does not compete with food for resources like water and fertilizer. It might compete for land but presumably these sun to fuel factories can be placed on land not suitable for crops. I will also assume that these factories can produce fuel at times that plants would not grow well, like winter.
I've seen the math on bio-fuels and it does not add up. Just about anything is better than bio-fuels.
Have you ever looked at trend lines for PV electricity cost?
I just did look and the gains PV has made in turning dollars to watts and joules and it is impressive. Even with these impressive gains solar PV is still somewhere between double and tenfold what energy from coal and nuclear cost, depending on location and who is doing the math.
While the costs for PV is lowering with time so is nuclear. Both must hit bottom at some point and I don't believe the trend lines will ever cross. I say this because of a very real problem with solar power, night. Nuclear power does not care what the weather is, it just keeps going. Using solar power to produce liquid fuels does solve some of the problem with nightfall since it inherently has a storage capability. Nuclear power as it is done now has a similar problem with solar, while solar power output can change suddenly we see that nuclear power plant output cannot change quickly. Both problems are solved the same way, by mixing these power sources with another that can produce power at a rate that changes with demand. If the claims about molten salt reactors proves true then this problem of nuclear power not being able to follow demand disappears with the next generation of nuclear power plants.
This gets to your next point.
Area is not a problem for the US either, it has plenty of deserts with good sunshine (it is obviously a problem for the EU).
Area is a problem. Those that claim we can just pave the desert with solar panels are forgetting about all the troubles past solar panel projects have had with the EPA and other entities concerned with the environment. Deserts are not just endless seas of sand, things live out there. Putting up solar panels disturbs the environment, displacing plant and animal life, and there are plenty of people that don't want to see that happen.
This is usually responded with a claim that we can put solar panels on the roofs of buildings. The problem there is that doing so destroys the economies of scale that make paving the desert with PV panels profitable. Instead of having all the panels in neat rows and columns at ground level they are now at great heights, spread out over great distances, in places where they collect leaves, bird droppings, snow, soot, and other debris that block the sun and destroy efficiencies.
I suppose it is possible that PV does become cheaper than nuclear power, can overcome the nighttime problem with storage, and can be done with putting it on rooftops instead of sensitive environments, but that seems to be years away and relies on a lot of different technologies to happen. Cheap, safe, load following nuclear power relies only on a single technology that was largely proven workable decades ago but was abandoned for purely political reasons. The only thing holding back nuclear power today is still largely political. We can change the laws of the land easily, the laws of physics not so much.
I agree, hydrogen alone is very difficult to deal with. It is much better to use the hydrogen as a feedstock to synthesize other fuels, fuels that have an existing infrastructure for storage and transport.
Propane is good but I'd believe that methane is better. Methane can be put into the national distribution lines that carry natural gas. The processes used to create propane and methane are identical to that for other, heavier, hydrocarbons like hexane, cetane, and everything in between. Those heavy hydrocarbons are liquid at atmospheric pressure, and are the primary components of gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel, and fuel oils. There is definitely a market for these fuels and an infrastructure to transport, store, and consume them.
I also believe that if we see a hydrogen economy that it will come in the form of hydrocarbons but also as ammonia. Ammonia is used as a fertilizer, industrial feedstock, and as a fuel. Ammonia is even better on the environment than propane and other hydrocarbons in the case of leaks and spills. Plants and animals can process them naturally and is not carcinogenic like hydrocarbons. Ammonia can be mixed in with other gasses to produce an analog to natural gas. The nitrogen needed as feedstock for ammonia production can be drawn from the air, which is a trivial process.
Ethanol, like ammonia, is relatively safe to plant and animal life which does make it a very practical fuel. It does have the tendency to damage seals and lubricants that are common for fossil fuels so it cannot fit as seamlessly like synthetic hydrocarbons into existing infrastructure. There are also legal obstacles for its use. I've spoken with people that make and use ethanol for various things (fuels, industrial solvents, disinfectants, and adult beverages) and the US ATF keeps a close watch on anyone that creates or consumes even relatively small quantities. If we are going to see large scale use of ethanol as a fuel, not just a fuel additive as it is now, then we need to see some big changes in the US tax codes first.
Making fuels from sun and air sounds like a tree huggers dream but as long as we can find something cheaper it will be useless.
We've all heard the phrase that time equals money, and there is a lot of truth in that. Time is money, energy is money, a lot of things are money. To make fuel from "free" things like sun and air will take time, labor, energy, and other things that require money to buy. This is going to be very expensive.
What I see as more promising is some research done by the US Navy where they want to make jet fuel using sea water. The US Navy found that it is much easier to get CO2 from water than from the air, meaning it takes less time, energy, and therefore less money. As a byproduct of the CO2 extraction they get hydrogen gas, which is fortunate since with the CO2 and the hydrogen they have the raw materials needed to make jet fuel. The energy required would come from nuclear power, something that the US Navy is very good at managing.
I believe that if we are going to see a leap forward in energy technology that it won't come from the tree huggers. I believe it will come from military research.
Also, in the linked article (yes, I did read it) there was a comment about shutting down an aluminum plant when there was not enough energy, one does not shut down an aluminum plant on a whim. Once everything in a smelter gets hot it is so much easier and cheaper to keep it hot. If allowed to cool then it takes a lot of time and energy, which means money, to heat it back up again. There is also the issue of continued heating and cooling stressing the equipment, that means repairs and more money.
I've seen a lot of people that think we can shift the load to match the supply but that does not work well in a real world. We can shift some loads to off peak times but at some point we are simply going to have to build more supply so that people can do their work on schedule. If production shuts down for lack of sun then that means time lost, and money lost. Solar powered anything is going to have to be so ridiculously cheap or people will go elsewhere, and I've never seen cheap solar power.
For some reason the "here in Anchorage" line lead me to think the primary cause of cyclist deaths would have been... BEARS!!
Reliable and safe yes, inexpensive no.
I saw a YouTube video of some engineers that went over the numbers on building a nuclear power plant. They priced out the labor, materials, and so on to build this plant but their numbers were as low as half as what real costs were showing. After a bit of thought they realized they had not accounted for the regulatory costs. We can build a safe, reliable, and profitable nuclear power plant if only the government would allow us to do so. There is nothing inherently expensive about building a nuclear power plant, it is only government policy that prices it out of existence.
The only bright side I see on this is that no matter how hard the government tries to kill nuclear power with regulation it is going to happen. Wind and solar is too expensive and unreliable to run a First World economy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are only going to get more expensive as we use up what we can reach economically. At some point those price curves flip and nuclear becomes "cheap" compared to everything else. A large part of the costs of any energy source we have now is due to regulation.
I'm not saying we need to do away with regulation. We cannot have liberty without law. What I'm saying is that regulation being such a high cost in nuclear power means that we can do away with those costs by simply deciding that nuclear power is something we want. Nuclear power has already proven to be the safest power source we have, and that is with the technology being relatively unchanged for decades. If we allow ourselves to advance that technology then we'd make it even safer, even cheaper, while everything else becomes more expensive.
Exactly. Science is not a democracy. We don't get to vote on the rules of physics, they are what they are even if we agree with them or not.
Here's a few things I picked up while following the climate change debate. Windmills and solar panels are expensive and unreliable means to produce electricity. Because they are unreliable we need something reliable to back them up. Right now, with current technology and politics, that means natural gas turbines.
While natural gas turbines are cheap and reliable they are not particularly efficient. So when we mix wind, solar, and natural gas together we get expensive electricity and no real carbon savings over having just burned that natural gas in a steam boiler for electricity.
People that believe we should reduce carbon output and also believe that nuclear power will kill us all are rejecting science twice over. I'll give on the global warming shit so long as we get nuclear power out of it. If the answer is not nuclear power then I will fight anyone that claims fossil fuels will be the end of us all.
It's fossil fuels, nuclear power, or the lights go out. A true scientist would admit we know very little about the environment. Anyone that says they've solved the equation is either delusional or trying to sell something. I'm not buying.
Let's see, we have a congressional hearing on whether or not there should be more government to regulate our lives. What do we get? SURPRISE! A large number of people called before congress say we need more government.
I've come across these kind of people before, and I've seen them called "watermelons". Why are they called that? Because they are green environmentalists on the outside but red communists on the inside. These people want more government and will use any excuse to get it. Right now the popular reason is the environment.
I'm not saying we should be allowed to pollute as we wish. I say that even if we had half of the government we have now we'd still have clean water, fresh air, clear skies, safe and nutritious food, and warm houses. How can I say that? Because generally people aren't dicks to their neighbors and tend to care about their children growing up to have children of their own. There are ways to deal with the outliers that don't require the government telling me what kind of light bulbs I can use.
Great idea! Except that it would double the cost of an energy source that is already three times the cost of coal.
So, not such a great idea. How about we try something else, like nuclear power?
Yes! Let's tax those evil rich coal producers so we can give the money to those evil rich windmill makers!
This is what I don't get about those tax-n-subsidize proponents that want to subsidize things like wind, solar, and what not. The argument goes something like, "Those evil fossil fuel people are making money off the poor! They take our money and poison the planet! We need to make them pay!" Okay, so we tax them. What do we do with that tax income then?
I'll tell you where that money goes. We subsidize electric cars because they are so expensive. Yep, very expensive. So expensive that only a rich person can afford them even after the subsidies and car makers sell them at a loss. Who's getting those subsidies then? Yep, rich people that are looking for a four door penis enhancement and car makers that use that money to make more SUVs.
Solar subsidies? Same thing. Expensive solar panels are bought by rich people that want to feel good about themselves and then file for a tax rebate for doing so.
Windmills? We tax the evil corporations that make coal so that another evil corporation can afford to make windmills. With the complex structure of corporate ownership in this economy it's quite likely that those that own the coal company also own the windmill company.
This is not a problem that can be solved with taxes, as the parent post pointed out. This is a technology problem, and a policy problem. We'd have many more safe, reliable, and cheap nuclear power plants if only the government would get out of the way. One possible solution I see is taking nuclear regulation from the federal government and give it to the states. Let the states regulate their own nuclear power plants. The US Department of Energy is so fearful of dong anything wrong that they don't do anything at all.
I told you so.
We need more nuclear power.
To those that say choosing nuclear power is just choosing death from radiation than climate change I say you need to look at molten salt reactors. MSRs will "eat" radioactive waste from current nuclear reactors and make it inert, while producing electricity and valuable radioisotopes for medicine and industry.
Another response to the nuclear opponents, I thought climate change was a worldwide problem that was going to kill us all so anything must be better than that. Seems like we can choose the status quo which gives us inevitable death from rising sea levels and destruction of the food chain, or freezing to death when winter comes and the windmills don't spin, or the slightest chance of increased cancers from radioactive waste in the environment. Which is a false choice of course because with a truly modern nuclear reactor we'd actually see less radiation in the environment.
Nuclear power is so reliable, safe, and inexpensive that using wind and solar becomes nonsensical. Electricity from steam, whether that boiling water is from coal, natural gas, or nuclear, is very cheap. Steam power is a technology that is well understood from many years of development and real world use. The only real problem with steam generation is that it does not handle changes in load well. To accommodate the changes in load we've come up with a variety of technologies but for big changes that happen relatively quickly we just plain need more generating capacity quickly. The answer to that problem is typically natural gas turbines, which while still relatively reliable, safe, and inexpensive still costs up to twice what the boiling water technology costs to run. The majority of that cost is in the fuel, more fuel is burned per power output.
With wind power we have a generating capacity that can change relatively quickly. To accommodate this we use the same technologies that we use to accommodate a changing load. That usually means natural gas turbines. Wind power, last time I checked, costs about as much as power from natural gas turbines. The more wind power we add the more turbines we need to make up for the changing grid conditions. Given that natural gas turbines are less efficient than natural gas boilers we end up with more carbon output per electrical energy unit produced, and it costs more. If steam power costs about 10 cents per kWh then wind and gas turbine power costs 15 cents per kWh.
Solar costs between 20 and 30 cents per kWh on grid scale, more on smaller scales. Until we solve this cost issue on solar power it makes no sense to use it. Solar power also runs into the same carbon output problem as wind, since solar power can change quickly because of weather it must be backed up with expensive and inefficient gas turbines. That means electricity costs can triple and we get no net reduction in carbon output.
So far one might conclude the solution to our energy cost and carbon output problem is nuclear power for base load, natural gas turbines for peak load, and maybe some wind power where it is optimal. But we have something "new" we can try.
People have been experimenting with molten salt nuclear reactors for decades but for reasons that are mostly political than technological this technology has remained undeveloped. Not only can molten salt react well to changing loads, and do so cheaply and safely, it can reduce the amount of nuclear waste from the old boiler reactors we've been using for decades.
There is no need to just have a monoculture when it comes to power.
Molten salt reactors can be made from about the 20 MW to gigawatt range so we could use this technology in many places. Its output does not rely on weather. The fuel is cheap and plentiful, or at least it would be if we had sane laws on handling uranium and thorium. While it cannot replace all other sources I foresee a reliable and cheap power source that we should be able to get 90% of our power from MSRs.
To those that claim anything "nukular" is a radiation hazard I have a couple responses. First, nuclear reactors reduce the amount of radioactive material. The energy that comes from a nuclear reaction is from taking something radioactive and making it not radioactive. The only reason that nuclear "waste" is considered "waste" right now is because the old boiler reactors are terribly inefficient. Second, if carbon in the atmosphere is going to kill us all then we need to find a way to reduce that carbon output. I see three choices, status quo, nuclear power, or reduction in the quality of life. By "reduction of quality of life" I don't mean wearing sweaters indoors because we turned down the thermostat in the winter, I mean people will freeze to death because the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow when we needed it to.
Taking this logically we need to stop building more windmills and start building more nuclear power plants. Anything else means people will die needlessly.
Anyone that has served their nation in defense of freedom deserves to be honored and remembered well after they are gone. Sir Christopher was one of many that fought evil but he has done so in a way to stand out among the many.
I mean, exactly what gas were you imagining a nuclear reactor running a gas turbine with?
The gas would be air from the atmosphere. I suppose a closed loop with helium or carbon dioxide might be used but I suspect an open loop system would be much less prone to failure.
As you say it is possible to boil water with any heat source so long as you have a proper heat exchanger. The problem with a high temperature reactor, such as a molten salt reactor, is that to use it to boil steam a number of heat exchangers would be needed to lower the temperature to something that could be used to boil water. It's possible but not likely something someone would want on a ship as it would be quite large. Boiling water with a 400C reactor core temperature is nearly trivial. Doing so with a 800C reactor core temperature is nearly suicidal.
I should not have implied it impossible o boil water from a high temperature reactor, merely impractical on a ship at sea.
What happens if one of the capacitor banks fails or the electro magnet blows up right during the discharge process? Nothing good I would bet.
What happens on a steam catapult if a pipe bursts during launch? Nothing good I would bet.
Mechanical systems fail, there's no avoiding that. What they have with EMALS is a system that they've determined to have a lower probability to fail.
I'll answer some of your questions and hopefully point out how an electric system is superior to a steam system. First is that the energy for launch is not stored in capacitors. There are four flywheels on board which are spun up slowly and can drive an alternator to produce the electric pulse required. I assume that there is redundancy here so that if any one flywheel fails in a critical moment the others can compensate.
With EMALS there is a computer system that can monitor the force and acceleration of the catapult. A failure of a single magnet along the line would likely be detected and the others used with increased power to compensate. This might mean a bumpy ride for the pilot but not a loss of the airframe. A similar failure with steam could likely mean loss of the airframe, and possibly the pilot.
There is also a very practical need to move away from steam catapults. The Navy wants to use the catapults to launch aircraft of a much wider weight range, from UAVs, to figher jets, to small cargo planes. Steam catapults lack the ability to handle such a wide range of loads. The Navy is also experimenting with alternatives to steam propulsion for the ship. Now they are still using a solid fuel nuclear reactor to boil water but that is not likely to remain the case. Higher temperature liquid fuel reactors are too hot to boil water but are very efficient at driving gas turbines. The Navy will still need electricity for things like lights, heat, radar, communications, and so on so the electric generation capability will always remain. If the steam generators can be removed then that means more room for fuel, crew, munitions, and redundant electric generation.
As someone with a reputation of knowing how electronics work among friends and relatives I am often asked to fix issues of interference on wireless devices. What is often the case is the baby monitor, Wi-FI, cordless phone, and microwave oven all operate on the same frequency. Now we get someone that wants to power his toys by transmitting noise in that band.
The article claims that the test subjects saw no drop in their Wi-Fi access from the use of this device. I don't doubt the report, I just expect that this was not a real world test by having other common wireless devices operating at the same time.
I wonder if the "greenies" will latch onto this. Given the unrealistic claims of energy sources and power distribution systems from these people I expect someone will read this report and expect to see all the power lines in the world disappear and be replaced with antennas.
I recall seeing film on TV of a US Army project that had a device very similar to this. It had a man standing on top of a hovering platform with lift provided by fans. I don't recall exactly when this demonstration was performed but judging by the quality of the film, uniform of the "pilot", and other clues it was likely 1950s or 1960s. Perhaps there is a "first" here that I missed.
You can't charge someone with having killed "someone" unless you name that someone.
Also, would not that someone have to be proven to be dead? The FBI claims that Roberts caused a plane to move in a manner that resulted from his actions. If someone can show the movement was in fact because of pilot action, or from wind, then there is no crime. Right?
People are not horses. Horses cannot own property, they are property. Saying that horses haven't found a new purpose in the days of the automobile is like saying we have not found new uses for a sextant in the days of GPS. A horse is a tool. People might be considered a tool but they are also the customer.
People like to deal with people, not machines. Unless there is some legal change that allows for machines to have authorities like that of arrest we will need people. This might mean an economy where a large portion of the population is employed to watch machines work all day but then how it that fundamentally different from now? A co-worker once told me that 90% of IT is watching a progress bar.
People are not going to obsolete themselves.
Also along with that thought of people wanting to deal with people is that I believe we are a very long way away from people allowing machines to watch their children. We will need teachers, nurses, nannies, and so forth. In the future we'll probably see class sizes shrink from 30 to 50 that we see now to where it's more like 3 to 5. I did customer support for a while and people will go out of their way to avoid talking to a machine. I can offer an automated system to process their payments but I can't make them. No company in their right mind is going to do away with the people that process money because that means potentially alienating a large number of customers.
Horses don't buy stuff. Robots don't buy stuff. People buy stuff.
So long as people can buy stuff there will be people willing to work so that they can buy stuff. The few unwilling to work to buy stuff will be arrested and detained by those that do.
We've had two millennia of technological advancement which have made much of the labor that people do obsolete. Even though at one time a large portion of the population was employed rowing boats we don't seem to have an unemployment problem on the scale of jobs lost to the internal combustion engine.
What will these former truck drivers do? I don't know but we've found work to make up for all kinds of jobs lost in the past. What did the buggy whip makers do? What of the people that spun ropes by hand? What of the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers? Do we still send people to get bled so that leeches aren't put out of work?
I don't know what these people are going to do but it appears we always find something for them. I'm not going to hold up technology just because the people that make buggy whips and shovel up horse shit might have to find a different job.
If unemployment gets real bad then perhaps we can legalize prostitution. That should keep people employed. If these people are so ugly and unskilled that they can't find work fucking then maybe they can find work in politics.
I'd like to carry my Colt M1911 but as one of my customers is a factory that hires convicts I must leave it at home.
On my keyring is keys for my truck, house, and gun cases, also a combination light and bottle opener, Swisstech Utilikey, wireless fob for truck.
Commonly in my pockets are cell phone, iPod touch, wallet, handkerchief, medicine bottle, pocket knife (don't tell the prison guards), and maybe change for parking meters and vending machines. If I'm wearing my carpenter pants I often shove a water bottle in one of the larger pockets.
I will often be found with a messenger bag filled with stuff. Swisstech tool, pens, pencils, Post-it notepad, chargers for phone and iPod, band-aids, Tylenol, Zyrtec, antacids, and any documents or books I need for the day. I almost always carry food, mostly just some granola bars and a bottle of water and/or Coke, sometimes a full lunch. If I need a computer that day I'll put in a Macbook Pro, USB mouse, and charger. That bag does get large and heavy.
I see this every time a new technology that comes along that could replace human laborers, technology means millions will lose their jobs. What always happens is that these people all seem to be capable of finding other work. The work I do in computers did not exist before computers existed. Before the electronic computers existed there was a job description called "computer". Had I lived in an earlier age I'd probably be employed as one of those computers.
Another reason that truck drivers won't find themselves out of a job tomorrow is that I've seen what a truck driver does. Working at UPS I saw that a truck driver will drive the truck and then have to load or unload the truck. They are also responsible for common maintenance, like fill the truck with fuel, check tire pressure, make sure lights are clear of mud and snow, clear the air lines of moisture, and more. When I was growing up on the farm the truck drivers were expected to back a truck up to a sorting gate and then chase steers onto the truck. They'd then drive to the auction house, chase them off. After the auction they'd chase another load of steers onto the truck, then haul them to a packing plant. Let's find a robot that can navigate all of that, chase steers, and not run over stupid farm kids that should not have been running around the parking lot in the first place
Then there are truck drivers that deliver frozen foods and other items to homes, that takes a skill set that robots have not yet reached. I'll hear an ice cream truck drive through the neighborhood occasionally, those people are still "truck drivers", no? Then there's all the other occupations that required skilled drivers, school buses, city transit buses, taxi and limo drivers, charter buses. We might put a robot in charge of moving cargo but I don't see anyone putting school children on a bus without someone to watch them, that person doesn't have to drive necessarily but they will be there.
That may even be true for cargo trucking. A person may not drive but they will ride along with the cargo to maintain the truck, load/unload cargo, handle paperwork, and put out fires. I mean real fires, ever seen a truck pulled off the road that's been blackened from brakes that over heated and started the tires on fire? Who's going to put out a fire on an driverless truck?
I can see this technology being adopted slowly. It will make the number of truck drivers shrink. If it means a truck driver can get a truck on the road, set the "autopilot" and then take a nap, then it could mean a reduction of as many as two out of three long haul drivers but those don't count for all professional drivers. People still need to drive buses, ice cream trucks, doorstep delivery, etc.
In other words, move along, nothing to see here.
I will believe man made global warming is a crisis when the powers that be start acting like it. A few examples:
- Secretary Clinton is *proud* of how many miles she traveled in an airplane to far off nations. She couldn't make a phone call?
- POTUS and family vacation in Hawaii at least once a year, a long way to go to play in the ocean.
- Congress would not approve nuclear powered ships due to costs, built oil fired ships instead. That's not how someone would act if they actually believed that global warming is the greatest threat to our nation.
My Ford truck is the problem when these people fly their dog across the country in a 747. Right?
Which shape will get me highest the fastest? That's what I expect will be the most common question asked.
I see many possible problems with this, getting it FDA approved is just one of them. What will prevent someone from printing a hollow pill and stealing what what supposed to go in the middle to sell on the black market? The pills could be weighed but the pills could be filled with something of equal mass like sugar, sand, or something not so inert.
Will these pills be printed at the pharmacy? I seem to recall previous issues with poorly monitored medicine factories that did not require FDA oversight because they weren't "making" drugs as it was defined in law, they were merely mixing drugs that were made elsewhere and doing so in less than sanitary conditions. The FDA has failed us before and state agencies didn't feel compelled to pick up the slack, or was prevented from doing so by federal law.
Seems to me that there would be much less costly means to meter dosages than printing each pill individually. I can see this being used like it was described in the article, testing shapes in the real world before going through an expensive process of tooling up for mass production.
Edible 3D printing material could allow for making pills that carry all kinds of substances. Also, assuming high enough resolution on the printing process someone could make fake drugs. The little image on the label of what the pills inside a bottle should like like may no longer be sufficient to prevent theft of medicines, for example.
I can think of all kinds of legal and beneficial uses of technology like this too. As soon and someone reveals how this technology can be used for illegal activities in a public enough forum that some congresscritter sees it I suspect we're going to see a law passed that will ban or severely restrict this technology. I'll give the total freak out over the people that printed a firearm as an example of what kind of freak out to expect.
Good stuff, but the technology will very likely be held up by a government that cannot allow the public to have the freedom to experiment on their own.
Being "unreliable" is much more than exploding transformers. One means to measure this is with capacity factors.
What is the capacity factor of a typical windmill? I see that with the best technology we have today wind power has just reached 50% capacity factors. Under ideal conditions wind could approach 66% capacity factors. Solar does much worse with 25%, but I'll give it 33% to account for future improvements and perhaps some negative bias in reporting.
Then there are the power sources that burn stuff and/or boil water. This we have oil, coal, natural gas, biomass, and nuclear. These have capacity factors that top out around 95%, average above 80%, and on the low end are about 75%. I'll be nice and give them a 66% capacity factor to again account for any bias.
Hydroelectric is probably king in this. Capacity factors that exceed all others. Given an additional pumped hydro capacity it can account for lack of capacity from other sources. With multiple generators on a single site there might be a single generator that is down but the facility is still producing power at or near rated capacity barring exploding transformers. As awesome as hydro is I can confidently give it a capacity factor that is so close to 100% that it will be 100% for this thought experiment.
So then how much does this electricity cost? Hydro and the burn/boil group all cost nearly the same. Hydro wins on this up to 33% because of capacity factor. Hydro also is reliant on geography, we've dammed up all the rivers worth a dam in this world, there is no growth in this.
Wind costs about the same as the burn/boil group by rated capacity (a bit more really but I'll be nice again) but with its production capability reliant on the weather and geography it takes two to three times as much of them to get the same power out. This is part on capacity factor and part on the fact that the wind blows when it wants, not when we need it.
Solar is the worst. With a capacity factor of even 33% we'd need three times the amount of capacity from a 100% source like hydro, and some means to transfer or store the energy to when and where it's needed. Ignoring capacity factor solar power costs three times what we get from burning and boiling. With capacity factors included it goes up almost three times again. If I stop being nice and start looking at reality the cost of solar is near to or above ten times what it would take if we burned and boiled our power into existence.
You can mix and match all of this if you like, hiding much of the costs of renewable in the noise that is real life capacity factors, but it works out that solar is always a loss. Wind is either a small loss to a break even. Hydro is always a win but then we run into issues of geography and "environmentalists" that would rather see people starve than have a few common bait fish killed in a hydro turbine.
These environmentalists will likely complain about any energy source that emits carbon. On the basis of carbon output per joule produced nuclear and hydro rule, nothing beats those two.
What good is a nuclear power station when it's transformer blows up? It's good in that we can easily afford to build redundant nuclear power generation so that loss of any one will not affect the grid. It's good in that with a capacity factor well above 66% that by building four power plants for every three we need that we can be well assured that the power will never go out.
(Don't bother trying to correct my simplified computations. I am well aware that my accuracy sucks. Point is that it should be close enough to the real world to show that nuclear and hydro should rule the world.)