Next Stage of the Solar Boom?

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
If there was the will nuclear waste from power plants can be successfully processed and stored safely. My statement is only for the people who feel they going to be able to change the temperature of planet Earth.
I'm sure many more American citizens have been killed by solar and wind power then the nuclear industry of the past few decades.

Meanwhile communist China it's ramping up to build 60 nuclear plants over the next decade giving them in unending source of power.


If you thought it was hard to build a nuclear power plant, wait til someone tries to do one to reprocess nuclear waste. They do it in France because they don't have as much nuclear material as the US. It'd be way harder to build one to reprocess waste. You'd basically have waste from all over the country going to one location. NIBYism is very bad in the US, that's why the Nevada storage site didn't go anywhere. I don't think there's any neighborhood that wants a nuclear reprocessing facility in their back yard.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by alarmguy
If there was the will nuclear waste from power plants can be successfully processed and stored safely. My statement is only for the people who feel they going to be able to change the temperature of planet Earth.
I'm sure many more American citizens have been killed by solar and wind power then the nuclear industry of the past few decades.

Meanwhile communist China it's ramping up to build 60 nuclear plants over the next decade giving them in unending source of power.


If you thought it was hard to build a nuclear power plant, wait til someone tries to do one to reprocess nuclear waste. They do it in France because they don't have as much nuclear material as the US. It'd be way harder to build one to reprocess waste. You'd basically have waste from all over the country going to one location. NIBYism is very bad in the US, that's why the Nevada storage site didn't go anywhere. I don't think there's any neighborhood that wants a nuclear reprocessing facility in their back yard.


Yup, I agree, we no longer have the "will" as a nation, we have become fat, tired and lazy. Leaders of the free world are in danger of being passed by China, just for that reason.
All the whining "climate change" people who want zero emissions have had it for decades in Nuclear but protest that too. Again, lazy, fat and tired all in the name of getting attention and other peoples money for a "cause".

The Nevada thing drives me freaking crazy. 10s of billions of US tax payer money spent building the place only to be shut down by ONE politician.
Was not exactly in anyones back yard in the middle of a mountain. Once again, its we the people, scared by our own "press" from events on other side of the world driven to paralysis. Maybe "we the people" even being played intentionally into paralysis by China, so they can pass us by, as an example with SIXTY new power producing nuclear power plants.
Easy as heck to "play" USA voters, just create an event and a cause that the USA media will report on, scare the people and right away, 60% of the population will be fooled. We used to be the can do anything lion of the world but grown soft and many of us like sheep, controlled and corralled no differently.

7.6 Billion people on earth, pick an event in some far off land where a handful die of some event or even 100 die and they can scare 100 million US voters into a cause.
The internet may not be good for this country after all, much of the population unable to process and put it in perspective. We whine like little children, thinking the man or lady on CNN has the answer, little do they understand, the man or lady has an agenda.

)

 

[Al]

Originally Posted by Donald
We need to get to fusion power. Its kind of like having a small version of the sun (which is fusion) in your power plant.

Not gonna happen

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by Al
Originally Posted by Donald
We need to get to fusion power. Its kind of like having a small version of the sun (which is fusion) in your power plant.

Not gonna happen


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

That power station is supposed to be fully operational in 2035.

They did say the same about LIGO and that was also several years and billions of dollars before it finally worked, it started in 1994.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO

 

[Al]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by Al
Originally Posted by Donald
We need to get to fusion power. Its kind of like having a small version of the sun (which is fusion) in your power plant.

Not gonna happen


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

That power station is supposed to be fully operational in 2035.

They did say the same about LIGO and that was also several years and billions of dollars before it finally worked, it started in 1994.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO

If I could bet someone that in 20 years there will be a commercially viable 5 megawatt fusion plant by 2035 I would beg borrow and steal every dollar I could bet that it won't happen. Been following this area for 50 years.

 

[Cujet]

Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
For all you science geeks out there...
Next Solar Stage


Solar thermal has it's place, no question. But it's nor more efficient or more effective. This is the very same thing that has been done for many years.

Originally Posted by Al

If I could bet someone that in 20 years there will be a commercially viable 5 megawatt fusion plant by 2035 I would beg borrow and steal every dollar I could bet that it won't happen. Been following this area for 50 years.


I'm not at all sure why people believe fusion is the answer, or why they think fusion is free of radiation.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by Al
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by Al
Originally Posted by Donald
We need to get to fusion power. Its kind of like having a small version of the sun (which is fusion) in your power plant.

Not gonna happen


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

That power station is supposed to be fully operational in 2035.

They did say the same about LIGO and that was also several years and billions of dollars before it finally worked, it started in 1994.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO

If I could bet someone that in 20 years there will be a commercially viable 5 megawatt fusion plant by 2035 I would beg borrow and steal every dollar I could bet that it won't happen. Been following this area for 50 years.


Well ITER is supposed to be about 500 megawatts in thermal output with about 50 input. And your math is a little suspect, 2035 is just about 15 years away so telling someone that you'd expect something in 20 years and then slip in 15 years is a bit suspect. Anyway, I don't think you'll find anyone to take your bet. After ITER, there's DEMO which is supposed to require 80 megawatts of input and 2000 megawatts of output. But that's not supposed to be completed until 2045 which is 25 years away. Then there's PROTO after that which is sometime after 2050 so you're talking over 30 years from now.

Fusion has some radiation, but it's only expected to last a century or so. Fission has radioactive isotopes that in some cases can last millions of years and others at least tens of thousands.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
It's interesting where you get the 300% more toxic number from. The problem with nuclear waste is that some waste like U-234 has a half life of about 245k years. I don't think you have that problem with solar unless you have waste that will be around for 700k+ years, I think some other by products of nuclear power are a couple million years.

Also as was mentioned before, the main problem with Nuclear is the long start up time and the cost overruns which appear to be normal with any project. It's one thing to plan for a project and then have the costs triple and then take years longer than you originally planned. That's carrying costs and when you borrow money, you still owe interest on it even when whatever you're building isn't producing a cent. Lots of time those projects go bankrupt. It's hard to push a concept where going bankrupt at the end is common. After going bankrupt and the project is sold for pennies on the dollar, then the whole thing starts to make money again.


Keep in mind, the longest lived isotopes are the least dangerous. It's the short lived stuff you have to worry about. That said, many 4th gen reactor techs will gladly use up all those actinides, making the waste issue, well, not one.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by alarmguy
If there was the will nuclear waste from power plants can be successfully processed and stored safely. My statement is only for the people who feel they going to be able to change the temperature of planet Earth.
I'm sure many more American citizens have been killed by solar and wind power then the nuclear industry of the past few decades.

Meanwhile communist China it's ramping up to build 60 nuclear plants over the next decade giving them in unending source of power.


If you thought it was hard to build a nuclear power plant, wait til someone tries to do one to reprocess nuclear waste. They do it in France because they don't have as much nuclear material as the US. It'd be way harder to build one to reprocess waste. You'd basically have waste from all over the country going to one location. NIBYism is very bad in the US, that's why the Nevada storage site didn't go anywhere. I don't think there's any neighborhood that wants a nuclear reprocessing facility in their back yard.


I wouldn't say France doesn't have as much nuclear material as the US, France reprocesses spent fuel from all over Europe and even Japan! It's shipped in. But you make a very good point about US NIMBY'ism, which, even if reprocessing wasn't banned in the US, would likely make that an issue. That's why 4th gen designs; heck even some 3rd gen ones, which could be situated adjacent to existing sites and use the waste stores would be the most practical.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Astro14
Sounds a lot like the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System...

Mirrors concentrate solar energy. Generates megawatts of steam to power a steam turbine and generate electricity.

Love the concept. Put it in the desert where irradiance is high and the weather is great.

Except that it's frying birds at a terrible pace. It takes an hour of burning natural gas to bring everything up to temperature. And five years into operation, it has yet to produce its rated power output.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility


Indeed it does, which occupies an obscene amount of land, cost significantly more per MW than a nuke, yet delivers a fraction of the capacity factor and burns gas each morning to start-up. It's the quintessential renewable white elephant.

 

[emg]

Fusion has been twenty years away for as long as I remember. I'll believe it when I see it.

Or when Musk says he'll have it working in five years.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Astro14
Sounds a lot like the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System...

Mirrors concentrate solar energy. Generates megawatts of steam to power a steam turbine and generate electricity.

Love the concept. Put it in the desert where irradiance is high and the weather is great.

Except that it's frying birds at a terrible pace. It takes an hour of burning natural gas to bring everything up to temperature. And five years into operation, it has yet to produce its rated power output.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility


Indeed it does, which occupies an obscene amount of land, cost significantly more per MW than a nuke, yet delivers a fraction of the capacity factor and burns gas each morning to start-up. It's the quintessential renewable white elephant.

The Cresent Dunes, a similar solar power facility near Tonopah Nevada, built with 700 million of taxpayer's dollars (out of it's total cost of near 1 billion), has had it's contract revoked by Nevada Power for non performance and is entering bankruptcy. Apparently Nevada Power got tired of paying 3-4 times the going rate for power because it had the word "green" associated with it, especially since the plant was completely unreliable.
We seem to have a lot of people who are bad at both math and science making decisions on energy projects. I'm a big believer in putting the money into R&D and not into economically unviable projects. When the science is there the energy industry will transform overnight, much like the recent transition from coal to natural gas.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by ArrestMeRedZ
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Astro14
Sounds a lot like the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System...

Mirrors concentrate solar energy. Generates megawatts of steam to power a steam turbine and generate electricity.

Love the concept. Put it in the desert where irradiance is high and the weather is great.

Except that it's frying birds at a terrible pace. It takes an hour of burning natural gas to bring everything up to temperature. And five years into operation, it has yet to produce its rated power output.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility


Indeed it does, which occupies an obscene amount of land, cost significantly more per MW than a nuke, yet delivers a fraction of the capacity factor and burns gas each morning to start-up. It's the quintessential renewable white elephant.

The Cresent Dunes, a similar solar power facility near Tonopah Nevada, built with 700 million of taxpayer's dollars (out of it's total cost of near 1 billion), has had it's contract revoked by Nevada Power for non performance and is entering bankruptcy. Apparently Nevada Power got tired of paying 3-4 times the going rate for power because it had the word "green" associated with it, especially since the plant was completely unreliable.
We seem to have a lot of people who are bad at both math and science making decisions on energy projects. I'm a big believer in putting the money into R&D and not into economically unviable projects. When the science is there the energy industry will transform overnight, much like the recent transition from coal to natural gas.

 

[alarmguy]

^^^ Yup^^^
Sadly many of the voting public, live in a fairy tale of so called "news" sources and politicians.
When so called government money (which is your money out of your paycheck) pays for a project such as this, that means that no smart corporations or CEOs wanted to be involved in being financially responsible for non cost effective project;.