OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
LOL! Well, in this case "waste heat" is just heat that would otherwise be rejected into the cooling water source. It's on a 3rd loop. This has been explored previously, but China seems to be big on it.
Where is the Electricity going to come to charge EVs ?
- Thread starter alarmguy
- Start date
- Status
Yes, that's the definition of simplistic....have to then wade through complexity to get to a "simple" answer...
We float giant oil rigs in the middle of the sea, drill deep into the ground and pump fluids into the ground causing small earthquakes. Then we ship it all over the world in giant ships or through billion-dollar pipelines that go to state-of-art refineries to turn that into a bunch of different products that once again get shipped all over the world. On top of that, there is an uneven distribution that leads to all kinds of geopolitical turmoil including but not limited to supporting horrific leaders and their barbaric regimes. Not to mention it's finite. Not to mention it can't go on forever. THIS IS THE SIMPLISTIC SOLUTION? Harnessing the sun directly only seems complex because we're in the infancy of developing and using this technology and all the existing power productions methods only look well-refined and simple because we've already spent trillions developing them. That's the only practical difference - time and how much effort we've put into it.Yes, that's the definition of simplistic....have to then wade through complexity to get to a "simple" answer...
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Marine reactors are more compact because they are lower output and they also run on very highly enriched fuel. Your typical power plant runs on fuel that's about 5% enriched (or, with a CANDU, not enriched at all) and these units are often producing over 1,000MWe, which means even more thermal energy, as these plants are about 30% efficient.
The use of very highly enriched uranium is not only because of size, but because marine reactors are not designed to be refuelled. The enriched fuel load lasts the life of the equipment, typically. The Russians have a nuclear freighter that runs like 25% enrichment, and it has been refuelled once now. It's about 20-25 years between refuel cycles.
Yes, marine cores are smaller, but they aren't THAT small. This is a KLT-40S (70MWe), which is a marine-derived unit that's now been fitted to a barge (two of them actually) and is powering, and heating, a town in Siberia:
The green thing in the centre is the reactor pressure vessel.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Photovoltaics have been in development since 1839, they are NOT new. And that's just the conversion of solar irradiance to useful electricity. We've used that irradiance in other ways for even longer, like to heat water for example. The problem, as I noted earlier, is that it's extremely diffuse and intermittent. We've made attempts to improve the efficiency, like by using CSP, but the land footprint of that is also massive, because, it's diffuse. And CSP is just an elaborate kettle like most thermal plants.
This is why we've been burning fossil fuels (because they are energy dense) even though the delivery and extraction mechanisms aren't overly simple. We've also discovered that these products can be turned into other products, which created additional reasons to seek them out and process them (see: plastics, lubricants, insulation...etc).
Then we discovered fission, which was 20,000x more energy dense than fossil fuels. So, even with a low efficiency (and old fashioned) method of boiling water to spin a turbine, the amount of energy produced was staggering. And yes, that's not a simple solution either; arguably it's extremely complex (except the boiling water part) but it doesn't have the problem of being intermittent, or diffuse. We have control over the input, we don't have control over the input with the sun, we only know it is predictably going to go away for half the day, every day, and we are limited in how much we can harness based on current technologies for both harnessing it, and converting it to something useful, and so far, despite the extremely long time this tech has existed, the best we've been able to do is around 44% efficiency for multi-layer "in a lab" PV.
Cool story...good night.
I've concluded that SciFi/Hollywood has led people to believe that batteries, filled by solar and wind can do real work. NONSENSE. Try heating your North East home with Wind/Solar and see how comfortable you are. Note: The North East quadrant of the USA consumes the most energy, it's no secret why. It's cold, and the population is dense. Cars consume little in comparison.
God forbid trying to power a real airplane with solar and batteries and actually go somewhere....
God forbid trying to power a real airplane with solar and batteries and actually go somewhere....
I used to watch the Concord fly in and out of Kennedy airport, once in a while they would fly over the south shore communities on approach ^^^
Really pretty sight to see in the sky. I lived 20 road miles from the airport and a stones throw away from the ocean.
(but boy where there protests at the airport)
) I cant blame them but the higher pitched defined "crack" of the engines (as I remember it) was kind of cool and I always knew when it was a Concord and to look up.
As I was typing this =
Your post is kind of an example of energy density and meshes with overkill's post. I think we would be a LONG way off before we will have electric motors propelling airplanes at super sonic speeds or near super sonic.
Really pretty sight to see in the sky. I lived 20 road miles from the airport and a stones throw away from the ocean.
(but boy where there protests at the airport)
) I cant blame them but the higher pitched defined "crack" of the engines (as I remember it) was kind of cool and I always knew when it was a Concord and to look up.As I was typing this =
Your post is kind of an example of energy density and meshes with overkill's post. I think we would be a LONG way off before we will have electric motors propelling airplanes at super sonic speeds or near super sonic.
Last edited:
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
That's why we'll arguably never see it. I expect jets will be powered by synfuels at some juncture, and here's why:I used to watch the Concord fly in and out of Kennedy airport, once in a while they would fly over the south shore communities on approach ^^^
Really pretty sight to see in the sky. I lived 20 road miles from the airport and a stones throw away from the ocean.
(but boy where there protests at the airport)
As I was typing this =
Your post is kind of an example of energy density and meshes with overkill's post. I think we would be a LONG way off before we will have electric motors propelling airplanes at super sonic speeds or near super sonic.
Have you ever looked at the top speed of a prop plane? They are pretty slow.
Now, look at the speed of a jet, significantly faster, right? Why? Because the jet uses thrust.
Of course there's no way for a battery + electric motor combo to produce thrust, ergo, there is no way for them to ever go faster than the current limits for a prop plane, which limits their utility. And then of course there's the issue of energy density, which translates into range. While a Cessna-style battery prop for island hopping and short jogs is possible, as soon as you get into long distance stuff, it isn't happening. That means no trans-atlantic or trans-pacific flights, or even trans-continental. Flying from Pearson to DFW in a single shot isn't something that a battery powered prop plane is going to be capable of. Flying from Toronto island to somebody's property in Muskoka? Yes, that's doable.
Jets go fast due to heat. The HEAT (heat of combustion) raises the Speed Of Sound. The SOS being the limiting factor in duct discharge velocity. As airflow in a duct or nozzle will "stagnate" or "choke" at the SoS, and will go no faster.
What this means is that the hotter the air, the faster we can push it out the nozzle. And the faster we can go.
Electric drive is COLD and has very limited speed potential due to this. If we run the numbers about 350Kts is a practical max for electric drive with no heat due to cold air at altitude and slow discharge velocity.
Remember, the SoS increases with temperature.
With this in mind, the Concorde with it's afterburners raises the "stagnation point" to about 2400MPH. That means the air can be discharged at 2400MPH, and the plane can fly at 1350mph. Overkill correctly called it "THRUST" and it's discharge velocity is far faster than the aircraft cruise speed.
Notice the big nozzle! It's that large when the AB is operating, to keep the pressure at the same level as it was without the AB. But the air is much hotter, and has expanded greatly. It's "choked" at the Speed of Sound in that nozzle, and discharging at 2500MPH or so.
Last edited:
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
It's just like the idea that electric cars could have their range dramatically increased by putting PV on their surfaces. It's that pesky issue of a diffuse source coupled with an inefficient collector again. People are extremely bad with these sorts of interpretations; people are easily fooled by optics. A couple examples:I've concluded that SciFi/Hollywood has led people to believe that batteries, filled by solar and wind can do real work. NONSENSE. Try heating your North East home with Wind/Solar and see how comfortable you are. Note: The North East quadrant of the USA consumes the most energy, it's no secret why. It's cold, and the population is dense. Cars consume little in comparison.
God forbid trying to power a real airplane with solar and batteries and actually go somewhere....
1. Look at a wind turbine. They are massive. People assume that when they are moving, they are producing significant power. This woman I spoke to was utterly flabbergast when I told her the massive wind farm she lived adjacent to wasn't producing any power. The rotors were moving, they just HAD to be producing massive amounts of electricity right? WRONG! all 5,000MW of wind turbines were, at that moment, producing about 40MW, meaning they were actually a load on the grid at the time.
2. I had somebody tell me, quite seriously, that most of Ontario's electricity came from Niagara Falls. They were ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that it was the largest source of electricity in the province. The Beck II station is huge, so that must be the case, right? Beck II produces around half the power of Darlington or Pickering. Even Lennox our old dual-fuel gas/oil plant has a higher installed capacity (2,400MW vs 1,600MW) though we don't use it very much at this time.
This is part of the fantasy/deceit/spectacle of the "green" movement, putting these huge arrays of wind and solar places and people assume they are doing all the work; that the "green transition" is well underway and that they are "powered by renewables". Of course it's a lie. A significant portion of the time, output from that equipment is absent and is being filled by fossil sources. The only exception is large-scale reservoir hydro, like Quebec, Sweden, Norway. And Sweden also has nukes.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Excellent explanation! I don't want to go too far into the weeds, but of course then there's ramjets. Probably the most famous example is the hybrid turbojet/ramjet engines (J58) in the SR-71.Jets go fast due to heat. The HEAT (heat of combustion) raises the Speed Of Sound. The SOS being the limiting factor in duct discharge velocity. As airflow in a duct or nozzle will "stagnate" or "choke" at the SoS, and will go no faster.
What this means is that the hotter the air, the faster we can push it out the nozzle. And the faster we can go.
Electric drive is COLD and has very limited speed potential due to this. If we run the numbers about 350Kts is a practical max for electric drive with no heat due to cold air at altitude and slow discharge velocity.
Remember, the SoS increases with temperature.
With this in mind, the Concorde with it's afterburners raises the "stagnation point" to about 2400MPH. That means the air can be discharged at 2400MPH, and the plane can fly at 1350mph. Overkill correctly called it "THRUST" and it's discharge velocity is far faster than the aircraft cruise speed.
Notice the big nozzle! It's that large when the AB is operating, to keep the pressure at the same level as it was without the AB. But the air is much hotter, and has expanded greatly. It's "choked" at the Speed of Sound in that nozzle, and discharging at 2500MPH or so.
I dunno about wind and solar not doing any work... You ever been in an ice boat, even with a 15mph wind? There enough power there to have acceleration on par with supercars...I've concluded that SciFi/Hollywood has led people to believe that batteries, filled by solar and wind can do real work. NONSENSE. Try heating your North East home with Wind/Solar and see how comfortable you are. Note: The North East quadrant of the USA consumes the most energy, it's no secret why. It's cold, and the population is dense. Cars consume little in comparison.
God forbid trying to power a real airplane with solar and batteries and actually go somewhere....
Obviously sailing ships moved many million tons of freight in their time, and biofuel for things like high speed air planes are coming. I do heat my house quite well with solar, these wonderful things called trees collect solar energy and store it for decades in convenient tubes in a nice forest until I need it.
I think from a broad perspective, we use a lot of energy in the form of fossil fuels, just because we can and its cheap. It doesn't have to stay that way, and technology developed around cheap fossil fuels will have to be replaced eventually. Lots of places are starting to do that. Long flights over oceans aren't going to be replaced by batteries real soon, but bio-fuel is a good subsitute.
Last edited:
The sailboat analogy is a great one! As most of the time, there is no significant wind and precious little potential for work, exactly as Overkill mentions above. People really do believe we can operate container ships with sails, all while introducing only slight delays, and modest reductions in cargo capacity.
The reality is that we use fuel for a very good reason. Sails simply can't perform the level of work needed. I understand there is a push to add sails to ocean going ships. This is to take advantage of favorable winds (when possible) and save fuel. It's the same fanciful idea as putting solar panels on top of your Tesla.
It is always good to consider my "heat" example. Try heating your Albany, NY home and office building with solar and wind (also heat and pump your water, and run some lights, the fridge, some fans, computers and well, you know). You've got 2.2 hours of sun per day in December, and insufficient wind to do any work what so ever. OK, fine, we CAN'T do it. Now charge your car.
Reality: We will be "burning" something to make all of this happen. Whether that's atoms, natural gas, oil, gasoline, propane, coal and/or wood.
Last edited:
I know your "expertise" is in power/technology and your posts are refreshing and informative which you just outlined some more informative information in 1 and 2 above. Common sense even before BITOG in my life I was pro nuclear energy.
Energy is a subject that always interests me but more so lately because of the agenda you refer to in your last paragraph. Sometimes I may not be as factual vs just common sense on some subjects but by nature I am a skeptic until something is proven to me. It just always amazed me, no matter the subject, how the public can be sold on something by the media and an agenda. In the last decade its become even worse because of social media.
Here is an example - (not energy related but an example of social media) How did a Stanford University pretty and blond girl who dropped out end up as the CEO of a company she founded that ultimately started at a valuation of $0 end up worth 9.5 billion dollars on a "vision" she had for simplified blood testing with one drop of blood?
On a machine that no one EVER saw work, yet, Charles Schultz, Henry Kissinger and other powerful people ended up on the board of this company. Girl was written up with praise in EVERY Wall Street publication, Forbes ect ect... TV interviews of woman in power, even met in the OBAMA White House! All around the globe woman groups were looking up to her.
WALGREENS Pharmacy bypassed their OWN INTERNAL control to be the first to get her blood testing device even though they were never given access to see it work! *LOL*
Well... this is so current she was just convicted in Jan 2022, still awaiting sentencing, 800 employees let go for a company that never had a working machine! It was all fraud and they ran over a million tests of Walgreen customers on altered blood samples on another company machines undercover. (Siemens) (to much to explain here)
Fascinating LIMITED true series on Hulu called "The Dropout" real names, real people. I mean Schultz who she convinced to be on her board was the former Treasurer of the United States of America ! for a company that never had a working product!
Her name was Elizabeth_Holmes click the name, even Rudolph Murdock invested in her company!
Last edited:
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I watched that show recently! LOL!
There are people travelling around the US using off-grid self-contained solar vans right now, and farmers running their farm with solar powered tractors. Are they commuting to a job 50 miles each way everyday, or plowing 200 acres in a morning? No, but its working for them with todays technology.
I think the question is how much of the current fossil fueled systems do we need, and at what cost? I think/hope later generations will be able to look back at our angst over losing the conveniences of fossil fuels and say at least we didn't totally wreck the planet before changing our ways, and in the end, we still did all of the important stuff in life using mostly renewables.
Anyways the scope of that discussion is too broad for BITOG rules...
Eventually we will run out of cheap fossil fuel sources, even if there is another couple jumps in exploration and extraction technology, the earths crust is finite after all. I kind of doubt we'll like the planet if we do manage to burn it all though... Seeing what 2000 ppm of CO2 does to the climate is a bit of a scary experiment!
We just finished it last night!
Electric motor propelled airplanes already exist, flying at super sonic speed is a waste, because it is a lot better to fly point to point slightly slower and cheaper.
The future of electric airplane is drone delivery, and people will fly point to point only as needed and not for work as much as before (now that we have work from home and remote desktop, remote machine control, etc).
Future of jet fuel airplanes are to fly further at slower speed, point to point, not super sonic, it is all about fuel economy.
It's not an all or nothing deal where all internal combustion is dead. There will still be a place for it, but certainly it's not a bad thing to bring in more sources of electricity other than just burning fuels.
As for powering jets, a more likely thing would be biofuels, which are being used right now in jets. They're supposedly really in demand because they bring down emissions even more than they're used - like a 25% blend might cut certain emissions in half. I know someone who worked at a company that was working on engineering yeast to turn sugar cane into biodiesel, although that seems to have fallen apart. They were also working on tweaking the process to make jet fuel.
- Status
