The world wide *total* number of dams with more than 1GW output is only 171. Much of that cement was used to make those dams. The current planned/build pump storage with capacity over 1GW is only 63. That is world wide.... that is 234 dams in total. Its has taken how long and how much to build that? And you suggest that 500 more in Europe alone is no big deal?
Oh and don't forget energy consumption is going up, not down. And we still have the rest of the world to go.
And how realistic is that we create lakes the size of the great lakes everywhere? Where in Europe would you put them for example. I am not saying pump storage does not work. What i am saying is that it does not work generally. Seriously Lake Superior is the largest lake in the *world* by area IIRC.
Guess how much energy is in 10000 tons of depleted U? Its a lot. Oh yes its a lot...
You need to pump the water to a higher level, so i can't see how a lot of flat areas are any good. Most pump storage i have seen/looked/wiki'ed are more or less in location that look like normal dams... Somewhere where there is a decent head so the lake does not need to be too huge. The energy for 1m^3 of water 10 meter high is about 1000*9.81*10 or approximately 100kJ. So for 16GWh with only say 10meters of head, you need 580 million cubic meters, or about 8x8 km at 10 meter deep (almost 6000Ha). So you going to need something really massive if you want to have enough for NY city for example, because 16GWh is just not that much.
Of course these things work well with smaller heads but then you need far bigger lakes or whatever. Once you run the numbers, properly, it does not look good. Pumped storage is niche solution. It works for only a few places and cases, not generally.
Also consider that 6000Ha of solar panels is going to get you a *alot* of power even as far north as the Falls. Its on the order of about 8GW at peek, so this lake can only store 2 hours of full production! That is the problem with energy storage... its a truly massive about of energy to store, many orders of magnitude than anything we have done or even considered before. Even adding 30% more or very little is still very little.
A huge amount of electricity is not used directly by a house. Things like water and waste utilities etc bump it up pretty fast. Then there is industrial electricity use. The claim that such and such a solar panel/battery whatever "will power 10000 households" is pretty useless when we are talking about real usage and demand patterns.
However 1MWh does seem well over the top. Even if we all needed a few tons of Aluminum from the local smelter a year.
Pumped hydro is rather expensive (billions for something that gives you only a few GW for a few hours!) and is only good in a few areas. It does not even get close to solving the energy storage problem. Cost per kWh is not informative since you still have to pay to generate it in the first place.
Even with all of this the biggest problem with batteries other than cost, is lifetime and reliability. Billions for pumped storage works because it will still be working in 20 years. Not so with batteries, at least yet. The liquid metal battery has some promise here.
The decay heat is the same and you must deal with it. A 1GW thermal reactor even after 1 hour may only give.5% or so decay heat (don't recall the exact numbers), but that is still 5MW of heat and that melts a lot of stuff fast without cooling. The fast turn on/turn off is a feature of liquid Fluorine salt reactor and works fine with Uranium fuel cycles. In fact its a property of a wider class of reactors called homogenous reactors, where the fuel is in the primary coolant. Again has nothing to do with thorium.
Thorium fuel cycle burns 233U. It just can't be that different from burning 235U or even a fast reactor that burns both 235U and 238U. The only thing that is really different is you don't need 238U in the fuel and this leads to less actinides. But with proper reprocessing U fuel cycles can deal with that as well.
As far as Thorium bombs thing:
Where is all this crap coming from?: "Thorium Remix 2011"
Claiming it can't be done when it has been done is a bit stupid. Sure it may be harder, but the very thing that makes it harder also makes dealing with reprocessing harder, which you *must* do for a Th fuel cycle. Further more a reactor is a source of neutrons that can be used to produce plain old plutonium for bombs. There is no way to credibly claim a nuclear reactor does not pose a proliferation risk. Or any other high flux neutron source for that matter.
You know that you can write the *same* list for Uranium reactors as well. In fact molten salt reactors work just fine with Uranium with the same benefits.
The waste from a reprocessing fuel cycle for Th and U is the same (to first order). You do in fact have the same "turn off" problems with both as well, because decay heat is something that happens in both cases. Th fuel cycle *has* been used to make not one, but 2 bombs. So it can be weaponized. It has been weaponized. Accidental core breach is totally possible. Fuel price has nothing to do with the cost of nuclear power (its all capitol costs).
I have no idea where this LFTR solve all problems crap came from. Buts its basically crap. Its another type of nuclear power with the same issues as always. The same engineering trade offs the same safety concerns etc....
I'll bet manufacturers are shitting their pants over home printed things...
No they are not. Even if printers got 10 or even 100x better than they are currently. Mass production is and will continue to be cheaper and better quality. You can't print cpu's or screens etc. This is not replicator technology and won't be for a long time.
Neither can 3d printers. Even the example one isn't really printed. All the important parts are proper gun parts. Really it should read something like "some parts of a.22 pistol have been replaced with 3d printed plastic parts". We are still a long way from true printed firearms.
At my mums High school a guy did make a gun in the schools metal shop and then used it to shoot the principal. That was back in the 70s.
There was one.. and it didn't even have a breading blanket. In other words it was not even a whole one. A breading ratio of 1 or greater has not been demonstrated. Also Thorium is really not any better than plain old 235U fuels if you have reprocessing. You *must* have reprocessing with Th since its not a fuel, its only fertile. The resultant 233U still produces high activity waste, very similar to what you get with 235U. The only thing that good about Th is there is about 5x more of it than U.
Power plants based on Th have all the same issues and those with U. Scrams still have the decay heat issues, there is still very serious radioactivity if there is any kind of core breach etc...
..the whole world might actually wake up and stop killing each other..
I know its the classic feeling of how we all behave. But its wrong. Otherwise there wouldn't be 7 billion of us on this planet. For the most part, we are not in fact very good at killing each other.
Eris currently has an apparent magnitude of 18.7, making it bright enough to be detectable to some amateur telescopes. A 200 mm telescope with a CCD can detect Eris under favourable conditions.[c] The reason it had not been noticed until now is its steep orbital inclination; most searches for large outer Solar System objects concentrate on the ecliptic plane, where most bodies are found.
We didn't see it because we didn't bother looking. Earth crossing objects, yea we are looking. To use this as an example of how we are blind to potential earth impact objects is plain stupid.
There does seem to be a lack of consensus regarding this..
Not really. Its a probabilistic model. The chance of it happening every year is the same. No matter how many years there hasn't been one, does not make it more likely the next year. Just because there was one last year, also doesn't change the odds of one happening next year. You are not due or over due or nothing like that.
Eris is a trans-Neptunian object. That is it orbits the sun further out than Neptune. It is between 37 to 98 times further away from the sun than earth depending on which part of its orbit its in. It is not even close to a impact risk and tells us *nothing* about if we can detect potential extinction level events.
If you do a little astrobiology, it becomes clear that life will most likely be more similar (Carbon based) than dissimilar (hypothetical Silicon based for example). The simple fact is that carbon is just a lot easier to manipulate and is more stable in many different forms that anything else by a really large margin. The next fact is that you are going to find carbon where ever you find silicon or anything else for that matter. Finally water is a really hard solvent to beat. There just really are not that many universal solvents around and there is a lot of water around.
It should also be noted that life needs a lot more than water and carbon. A good chunk of the periodic table is essential for life. Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and many of the metals (Iron, magnesium etc..).
We also know that for self replication you need some kind of information store. So something like DNA. Of course their make up can be quite different and we expect that, but it would still be carbon based life. In fact if their make up is not very different (ie does have DNA/RNA/amino acids) then that would make a very strong case for seeded life since we really don't think this particular combination of DNA/RNA and 20 amino acids are "optimal" in the general sense.
And that is things 250m diameter and smaller. Hardly impending-doom events. So the original statement is still wrong. There are not a whole bunch of doomsday level asteroids not getting detected till closest approach all the time.
If its big enough to be a doomsday (impending-doom), its big enough to detect early enough.
They offer practically zero protection against radiation. Cosmic background radiation is very difficult to shield against. Earth manages with 10 metric tons per square meter of atmosphere that is also a few km thick and we still get plenty of the secondary particles even at sea level.
Even an inch of lead won't shield you from cosmic radiation, this is lions share on longer missions. UV yes, but then a cotton t shirt does that as well.
Slashdot Mirror
The world wide *total* number of dams with more than 1GW output is only 171. Much of that cement was used to make those dams. The current planned/build pump storage with capacity over 1GW is only 63. That is world wide.... that is 234 dams in total. Its has taken how long and how much to build that? And you suggest that 500 more in Europe alone is no big deal?
Oh and don't forget energy consumption is going up, not down. And we still have the rest of the world to go.
Seriously? 500! And you don't see the problem? Well lucky your here so we can all be on renewables in 20 years.
Right... now find enough places to that in Europe.
And how realistic is that we create lakes the size of the great lakes everywhere? Where in Europe would you put them for example. I am not saying pump storage does not work. What i am saying is that it does not work generally. Seriously Lake Superior is the largest lake in the *world* by area IIRC.
Guess how much energy is in 10000 tons of depleted U? Its a lot. Oh yes its a lot...
You need to pump the water to a higher level, so i can't see how a lot of flat areas are any good. Most pump storage i have seen/looked/wiki'ed are more or less in location that look like normal dams... Somewhere where there is a decent head so the lake does not need to be too huge. The energy for 1m^3 of water 10 meter high is about 1000*9.81*10 or approximately 100kJ. So for 16GWh with only say 10meters of head, you need 580 million cubic meters, or about 8x8 km at 10 meter deep (almost 6000Ha). So you going to need something really massive if you want to have enough for NY city for example, because 16GWh is just not that much.
Of course these things work well with smaller heads but then you need far bigger lakes or whatever. Once you run the numbers, properly, it does not look good. Pumped storage is niche solution. It works for only a few places and cases, not generally.
Also consider that 6000Ha of solar panels is going to get you a *alot* of power even as far north as the Falls. Its on the order of about 8GW at peek, so this lake can only store 2 hours of full production! That is the problem with energy storage... its a truly massive about of energy to store, many orders of magnitude than anything we have done or even considered before. Even adding 30% more or very little is still very little.
It's how politics works now.
Now? You mean there was a time when it didn't work this way? Citation required.
A huge amount of electricity is not used directly by a house. Things like water and waste utilities etc bump it up pretty fast. Then there is industrial electricity use. The claim that such and such a solar panel/battery whatever "will power 10000 households" is pretty useless when we are talking about real usage and demand patterns.
However 1MWh does seem well over the top. Even if we all needed a few tons of Aluminum from the local smelter a year.
Pumped hydro is rather expensive (billions for something that gives you only a few GW for a few hours!) and is only good in a few areas. It does not even get close to solving the energy storage problem. Cost per kWh is not informative since you still have to pay to generate it in the first place.
Even with all of this the biggest problem with batteries other than cost, is lifetime and reliability. Billions for pumped storage works because it will still be working in 20 years. Not so with batteries, at least yet. The liquid metal battery has some promise here.
Don't forget tricks like stuffing, and doing mass orders and cancels at the same time and stuff like that....
Thorium fuel cycle burns 233U. It just can't be that different from burning 235U or even a fast reactor that burns both 235U and 238U. The only thing that is really different is you don't need 238U in the fuel and this leads to less actinides. But with proper reprocessing U fuel cycles can deal with that as well.
As far as Thorium bombs thing: Where is all this crap coming from?: "Thorium Remix 2011"
Claiming it can't be done when it has been done is a bit stupid. Sure it may be harder, but the very thing that makes it harder also makes dealing with reprocessing harder, which you *must* do for a Th fuel cycle. Further more a reactor is a source of neutrons that can be used to produce plain old plutonium for bombs. There is no way to credibly claim a nuclear reactor does not pose a proliferation risk. Or any other high flux neutron source for that matter.
You know that you can write the *same* list for Uranium reactors as well. In fact molten salt reactors work just fine with Uranium with the same benefits.
The waste from a reprocessing fuel cycle for Th and U is the same (to first order). You do in fact have the same "turn off" problems with both as well, because decay heat is something that happens in both cases. Th fuel cycle *has* been used to make not one, but 2 bombs. So it can be weaponized. It has been weaponized. Accidental core breach is totally possible. Fuel price has nothing to do with the cost of nuclear power (its all capitol costs).
I have no idea where this LFTR solve all problems crap came from. Buts its basically crap. Its another type of nuclear power with the same issues as always. The same engineering trade offs the same safety concerns etc....
I'll bet manufacturers are shitting their pants over home printed things...
No they are not. Even if printers got 10 or even 100x better than they are currently. Mass production is and will continue to be cheaper and better quality. You can't print cpu's or screens etc. This is not replicator technology and won't be for a long time.
Neither can 3d printers. Even the example one isn't really printed. All the important parts are proper gun parts. Really it should read something like "some parts of a .22 pistol have been replaced with 3d printed plastic parts". We are still a long way from true printed firearms.
At my mums High school a guy did make a gun in the schools metal shop and then used it to shoot the principal. That was back in the 70s.
There was one.. and it didn't even have a breading blanket. In other words it was not even a whole one. A breading ratio of 1 or greater has not been demonstrated. Also Thorium is really not any better than plain old 235U fuels if you have reprocessing. You *must* have reprocessing with Th since its not a fuel, its only fertile. The resultant 233U still produces high activity waste, very similar to what you get with 235U. The only thing that good about Th is there is about 5x more of it than U.
Power plants based on Th have all the same issues and those with U. Scrams still have the decay heat issues, there is still very serious radioactivity if there is any kind of core breach etc...
..the whole world might actually wake up and stop killing each other..
I know its the classic feeling of how we all behave. But its wrong. Otherwise there wouldn't be 7 billion of us on this planet. For the most part, we are not in fact very good at killing each other.
Eris currently has an apparent magnitude of 18.7, making it bright enough to be detectable to some amateur telescopes. A 200 mm telescope with a CCD can detect Eris under favourable conditions.[c] The reason it had not been noticed until now is its steep orbital inclination; most searches for large outer Solar System objects concentrate on the ecliptic plane, where most bodies are found.
We didn't see it because we didn't bother looking. Earth crossing objects, yea we are looking. To use this as an example of how we are blind to potential earth impact objects is plain stupid.
There does seem to be a lack of consensus regarding this..
Not really. Its a probabilistic model. The chance of it happening every year is the same. No matter how many years there hasn't been one, does not make it more likely the next year. Just because there was one last year, also doesn't change the odds of one happening next year. You are not due or over due or nothing like that.
We're fucking overdue you twit.
No we are not, and you have a potty mouth.
If you do a little astrobiology, it becomes clear that life will most likely be more similar (Carbon based) than dissimilar (hypothetical Silicon based for example). The simple fact is that carbon is just a lot easier to manipulate and is more stable in many different forms that anything else by a really large margin. The next fact is that you are going to find carbon where ever you find silicon or anything else for that matter. Finally water is a really hard solvent to beat. There just really are not that many universal solvents around and there is a lot of water around.
It should also be noted that life needs a lot more than water and carbon. A good chunk of the periodic table is essential for life. Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and many of the metals (Iron, magnesium etc..).
We also know that for self replication you need some kind of information store. So something like DNA. Of course their make up can be quite different and we expect that, but it would still be carbon based life. In fact if their make up is not very different (ie does have DNA/RNA/amino acids) then that would make a very strong case for seeded life since we really don't think this particular combination of DNA/RNA and 20 amino acids are "optimal" in the general sense.
And that is things 250m diameter and smaller. Hardly impending-doom events. So the original statement is still wrong. There are not a whole bunch of doomsday level asteroids not getting detected till closest approach all the time.
If its big enough to be a doomsday (impending-doom), its big enough to detect early enough.
They offer practically zero protection against radiation. Cosmic background radiation is very difficult to shield against. Earth manages with 10 metric tons per square meter of atmosphere that is also a few km thick and we still get plenty of the secondary particles even at sea level.
Even an inch of lead won't shield you from cosmic radiation, this is lions share on longer missions. UV yes, but then a cotton t shirt does that as well.
No they don't...
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
--Albert Einstein
1m^3 of water is 1000kg or about 2200lb. Not 282.5lb.
Whoosh dude.
And on that note, its longer than centuries. A lot of ocean rise is from isostatic rebound, which is slow. Very slow.
He seen Water World.