A real energy future....

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Since this is a conversation only between Zachstar and Skybird, maybe you guys can keep it in PM? :hmm:

-S

Maybe you can read the entire topic first? And perhaps contribute? This was not meant for just Skybird as you can see.

But if it is driving you nuts with all this tech that is not OMG oil and coal then maybe the 300 years out of a Saudi sized field discussion is better for you.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

Maybe you can read the entire topic first? And perhaps contribute? This was not meant for just Skybird as you can see....

I'm not sure anyone else but maybe one or two other people care is the point.

-S

[Zachstar]

I see what you are trying to do. And I am not playing this time. If you aren't going to discuss these tech solutions to the current energy crisis. Leave

Go back to your oil and "clean" coal.

[Zachstar]

Now to get it back on topic YET AGAIN! (Can we keep it that way this time?)

I posted that news article on the Li-Ion tech. Now there is even more good news!

From MIT may have come the "solution" to home storage of energy.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssCo...45191020080731

By Scott Malone
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.
A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods.

This was one of the big breakthroughs I have been waiting for!

Reason 1: We need a system to complement EEstor batteries in situations where either you need a steady flow over time or you need to be able to store a LARGE amount of energy (For say local grid)

Reason 2: Has to deal more with economics but EEstor is going to be in demand for a LONG time and I don't think many home owners are going to be able to get them at first. So these cells are a good mid range in my view.

[Skybird]

I do not wish to sound profance, but has anybody experiences with Sanyo's new Eneloop accu cells? They are said to store electric powerr over mkuch longer beriods of time with minimal losses only and by that are superior in capacity to regular NiMH accus even if by numbers they have a slightly higher capacity (mA).

Sorry, Zachstar, I cannot comment much on the tech stuff you linked to. but I need new accus.

[Zachstar]

What in the world is an accu?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

What in the world is an accu?

:rotfl:
:rotfl:

A lonely indignant question all alone in the prairie trying to raise attention!

Accumulator batteries? Rechargable batteries?

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Accumulator batteries? Rechargable batteries?

I see.

Well I have not had experience with Sanyo's cells. Sorry

[UnderseaLcpl]

Nukes are the answer. As I am 25 years old and still know everything you should listen to me:rotfl:


Seriously, though, I consider nukes to be a good stopgap until we discover some new energy-harnessing capability that is nonthreatning, or at least less threatning than the old ones, whilst being much more economical thant running the world with wind-power and other ridiculous ideas.

I was going to write an exhaustive defense of this position, but given the increasing popularity of nukes, I would like to see contrary views before I do. However, I bet I can guess some of them;

1) Nukes are unsafe (explode, meltdown, melt people, make 3-eyed fish) I will enjoy answering that one.

2) Nukes are expensive. (before saying that, consider what, exactly makes them expensive)

3) Something relating to "real" clean energy sources (excepting hydroelectric turbines)

4) What do we do with all the waste, and by extension, what if the terrorists get it?

----------------------------

As far a gas and oil are concerned I have no great vision of a new power source other than that the market should be allowed to work. If people can't afford gas, they'll give up on cars and internal combustion engines. Either a revolution in portable potential energy (or an improvement on things like batteries) will be developed or people and industry will find other ways to adapt until something better comes along. I'm sure it will be a time of social and political upheaval, but hey, we've had lots of those before and we're still here.

Frankly, I am unconcerned about the gas situation. I will bet anyone here whatever they wish that we will not run out of oil in any of our lifetimes. Call me crazy, but I see an emerging historical pattern in environmentalism and resource conservation and I am certain that we will repeat it many times without ever learning our lesson.

[Zachstar]

Nuke plants take too long to construct BEFORE the court battles and all that.

[Skybird]

Nukes are too expensive, if only you calculate the follow up costs, and hidden costs. Running the existing ones is an option, but it has been shown that their cointribution to saving the climate is too small as if the current ones would make a significant difference. Buidling new nuclear pants is a calculation that does not work, from an economical standpoint. This is with regard to German conditions, vbut I can'T imagine it is so totally different elsewhere. Also, that that French plant has had a series of accidents over the past weeks, while that Swedish ones had several accidents last year and it's company tried to cover things up, is not encouraging. But the main cost is the fiancial one. If looking close enough, it simply ruins every economic calculation from the community's perspective.

[Skybird]

A real energy future - an honest political future? Energy, environment and politics are linked together and can't be seen as separate entities.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/op...gewanted=print

Now for the bad news: sheer irresponsibility may be a winning political strategy.

(...)

Hence my concern: if a completely bogus claim that environmental protection is raising energy prices can get this much political traction, what are the chances of getting serious action against global warming? After all, a cap-and-trade system would in effect be a tax on carbon (though Mr. McCain apparently doesn’t know that), and really would raise energy prices.

The only way we’re going to get action, I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral.

[August]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

Go back to your oil and "clean" coal.

Oil and coal are going to subsidize your lifestyle for the foreseeable future whether you like it or not. Learn to deal with it.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I see the primary argument agains nukes is expense. So be it.

Nuclear reactors are actually quite cost-effective to build, even under most extremely cautious and sometimes silly Federal regs. The main cost of building and operating the plants comes from insurance costs. These insurance costs are based on irrational fear of nuclear catastrophes. How many dissenters have ever been inside a nuclear plant? The thing practically runs itself. You would have to be deliberately trying to cause a radiation leak to actually make one. Only a very unlikely series of unfortunate circumstances could cause one.

Nuclear disasters are also over-rated. Many people cite Three-mile island without actually knowing anything about it. Some think it was close to a "meltdown" without knowing what that term means. Others think the reactor leaked "dangerous radiation"

Firstly, a meltdown is nigh-impossible. I have said it before, and I will continue to say it until I stop hearing that stupid term; there is no meltdown. That term comes from that retarded movie "The China Syndrome" wherein a nuclear reactor "goes critical" (has an uncontrollable reaction) that causes the reaction mass to become so hot it melts the containment unit and threatens to melt through the Earth's surface until it reaches the water supply. The nature of the term is engendered by the ludicrous belief that such a reaction could melt a hole to all the way to China.
The very nature of this argument should discourage any belief in it but amazingly it does not.
Secondly, no American has ever had their cause of death established as "exposure to Nuclear power plant radiation". You are much more likely to die from cancer caused by natural radiation than that produced (assuming it was somehow released" from nuclear power plants.
Producing an "uncontrolled" reaction in a nuclear plant would have to be deliberate. Even the Russians haven't managed it and we know all about their history with nukes. Before anyone says something about it "The 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that there may be 4,000 extra cancer cases among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed and 5,000 among the 6 million living nearby.[4] Although the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and certain limited areas will remain off limits, the majority of affected areas are now considered safe for settlement and economic activity"
This is from wikipedia but the deaths hardly constitute a threat on the level most anti-nuclear activists subscribe to.
The General consensus is that the "explosion was caused by atmospheric overpressure which was in turn caused by a fire that had nothing to do with the fissionable materials contained therin.
If the explosion was nuclear in origin, all the better. What a ptitiful amount of damage for something people fear so much.
Blame it on my being American, but I also consider the fact that the Soviet Union ran the damn thing to be a major factor. That's almost as bad as referring to an episode of "Captain Planet" for one's arguments.
The death toll from this one, isolated incident, in the hands of an irresponsible, and I must say, socialist government, caused fewer deaths than coal-mining accidents throughout America's history as a nation.

The failure of the nuclear industry to establish itself, until recently, as a primary power source in the U.S. is due to nothing more than irrational fear and the costs associated with it.


Skybird also posits that France and Sweden have had recent nuclear accidents. Maybe they did, but the lack of international outrage and the fact that U.S. media has somehow not covered these failures extensively leads me to believe that they were minor and probably killed no-one. Without doing any research whatsoever I can confidently say that news concerning gas prices somehow eclipsed these incidents and that is most likely because they are trivial and if they did kill some people it was not because of exposure to radiation, they pose no threat to the public of the aforementioned nations and, well what more is there to say?

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by August

Oil and coal are going to subsidize your lifestyle for the foreseeable future whether you like it or not. Learn to deal with it.

That was not the point of the statement.

I know damn well that Coal plants are going to see increased activity at night due to

A) Their ability to use much more of the energy in coal and pollute far less than the average motor car...

B) The Nuke plants are unable to feed the grid enough to prevent A...

I have "learned" to "deal with it" but I am not going to learn to live with outright false claims of centuries of oil and coal or other BS that even a high school student can tell you is not true without serious economic and environmental destruction.

And I am not going to learn to deal with false claims that solar and wind and tidal alone will supply our energy future. A real energy future requires a new massive power source. Either its space solar or fusion.. You take your pick...