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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:30 am
“There’s something in the air,” notes energy minister Ian MacFarlane, “and I think it might actually be commonsense.” Everyone is suddenly talking up nuclear power:
WWF-Australia chief executive Greg Bourne, a former head of energy company BP Australasia, was quoted as saying Australia was destined – under all governments – to be mining uranium and exporting it to a growing world market.
Even doomsayer Tim Flannery sounds hopeful:
“Having travelled around the world looking at energy options, I am more favourably disposed towards nuclear power than I was previously, particularly when you look at the scale of the problem in China and the use of coal.”
Here’s to a future of nuclear-fuelled Buick-size refrigerators. Deeply green ex-NSW Premier Bob Carr has this to say in today’s Telegraph (not available online):
New fourth-generation reactors will be inherently safer and may only take two years to build. And storing nuclear waste in a dry, geologically stable country is hardly beyond the challenge of humankind. There’s so little real nuclear waste anyway …
Australia, with 40 per cent of the world’s uranium, can and should lead on this.
Absolutely. But Paul Gilding isn’t happy:
For the record, as an environmentalist, I think nuclear power is solidly illogical energy strategy and clearly unsustainable. It’s expensive and it’s inherently risky, creating dangerous waste and potent security challenges.
For these reasons I’m happy to have the technology fight it out in the marketplace and in the court of public opinion along with other choices, including renewable wind and solar energy, so-called “clean coal technologies”, gas and other emerging alternatives.
Nuclear will lose in a fair fight, so I reject the use of moral and emotional arguments in opposing it.
Progress!
- Took em a while. It was always a no-brainer.Posted by rbresca on 2006 05 04 at 11:24 PM • permalink
- The magnificent irony is that environmentalists are bringing us into an age of nuclear power.
I am far from convinced about man-made climate change but I am willing to join the Church of Hystericals until such time as we go – nuke! nuke! nuke!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 05 04 at 11:27 PM • permalink
- Try slapping a nice Johannes-Cumming pebble-bed reactor in those Abrams you bought off us. Not only should it go like a bat out of hell, but who’s gonna shoot at it?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 04 at 11:39 PM • permalink
Nuclear will lose in a fair fight, so I reject the use of moral and emotional arguments in opposing it.
Methinks Paul was drinking heavily when he wrote this. This level of irony, were it measureable like radiation, would set off detectors in geostationary orbit.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 05 04 at 11:47 PM • permalink
- The information that anti-nukes use is built on a mountain of bullshit, so Gilding’s prophecy that nuclear energy would not make it in the marketplace has a certain Sheil-ian quality about it.Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 05 04 at 11:50 PM • permalink
- Let’s see: France has the most nuclear power in Europe and the lowest electricity prices. Holland has the most wind-power generators (if you’ll forgive the oxymoron) and the highest electricity prices in Europe. Or do those markets not apply as a model for Oz?
Still, maybe Aussie power companies could start up some nuke plants saying that they were to help create atomic weapons to use against Israel, but secretly use them for power generation? At least you wouldn’t have to worry about UN inspectors.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 05 05 at 12:11 AM • permalink
- I think G Harry Stine once figured out that to power the US at then-current levels with solar cells would require covering all of Texas and most of Oklahoma with cells, and leave mountains of waste and hundreds of dead miners. Not that I’m saying that is a bad thing.
Also, as I remember it, the main anti-nuke leftie in California in the late 60s liked to brag that “the only physics I ever took were for constipation.”
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 05 05 at 12:15 AM • permalink
- In Australia’s case, gilding is probably correct, but not for the reasons he thinks – considering our enormous coal reserves, it will be hard to justify spending the money developing a nuke industry. Kind of similar reason it doesn’t make sense for the Iranians.
Of course, Gilding has his own vested interest in querying the viability of established alternatives to fossil fuel energy production.
I wonder if he intends to exclude all forms of government subsidy from his assessment of wind power (and include the volume greenhouse gas production to build a wind turbine) in his comparision?
- entropy
I have read this argument a few times, and I imagine there would be an impost in getting the infrastructure up and going – Australia has no nuclear university course, for a start and deficit of qualified people.
However there is still a certain Sheilism about this statement that I feel might over-ride all other considerations.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 05 05 at 01:03 AM • permalink
- There are many Coal fields in OZwith uipwards of 300years supply on their doorstep.Posted by knuckleheadwatch on 2006 05 05 at 01:41 AM • permalink
- Rafe C.,
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the biggest wind turbines max out at 5MW … but wind turbines usually only operate at 25% capacity.
Figures for Australia’s power demands are, allegedly,
here, but whatever program reads the files is a program I don’t have. A very rough guesstimation extrapolated from a couple of articles suggests about 50,000MW peak demand. Which would mean, if all of my math is correct, 12,000 turbines to provide 3%.
- Can we (Americans) drill in ANWR?
“No”
Can we drill in the Gulf?
“No”
Can we build some more refineries?
“No”
Can we build some nukes?
“No”
Rinse & repeat for 30 years…
“Golly! Gas is $3 a gallon!! This is like the apocalypse!!!”
Well, yeah– it kinda sucks. Can we do any of the things we’ve asked to do for the past gazillion years?
“No, but we can subpeona some evil oil industry executives, to see whether they are ‘gouging’ us. THAT will fix it!!”
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2006 05 05 at 02:53 AM • permalink
- #16 Sadly Zeppenwolf that mirrors exactly what’s been happening in Australia.
The Queensland Government has been coping grief for years for annual summer blackouts caused by an overloaded grid and summer storm damage.
But heaven forbid the Government encourage coal exploration and build more powerplants.
Labor’s greenie whinging mates wouldn’t put up with that.
— Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 05 05 at 03:19 AM • permalink
- #18 Well, i don’t know about that, Aussiejim.
I’ve been trying it out on the dog, the cat and the baby, but except from getting some toothy, slobbery grins (’cepting the cat, of course), “Nuke, Nuke, Nuke” is just not catchy enough.
How about
” Nukie, Nukie, Nukie! Oi! Oi! Oi!”
Or is it not original enough?
As far as oppostion to nukes in the States – I’m at a loss as to why nuclear waste disposal is considered a problem in a country that has a desert. Called Death Valley.
People were okay with nuclear power until Jack Lemmon cried in a movie, and after that it was widely accepted that nuclear power plants emitted dangerous radiation that would cause middle-aged men to have nervous breakdowns and were thereafter only allowed to be operated by donut loving yellow-skinned cartoon characters.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 05 05 at 06:39 AM • permalink
- For Chrissake don’t tell anyone that thermal (ie coal) energy produces masses of untreated radio-active waste.
Coal is a sedimentary rock, mainly former plant matter. Included in that sediment is nearly ALWAYS bits of rock and heavy minerals, including uranium compounds. Not much; forget the average % but call it rocks & stuff 2-5% and heavy minerals 0.5%
Burn coal and you get left with the un-burnable residue, called ‘ash’. Usually taken out to controlled landfill sites. Vast quantities of it.
Now a small amount of uranium compounds in coal ends up being quite a lot in the residual ‘ash’. What’s 0.5% of 100,000,000 tonnes pa?
Like I said, don’t tell anyone. Even though its reported on in great detail all round the world, the greenies conveniently ignore it as it shows that the world hasn’t ended with untreated nuclear waste disposal. Then their arguments against treated waste from nuclear power plants look a bit silly.
And yes, I appreciate that the per unit radioactivity is different, but the total count from the vast amount of untreated ash MAY surprise you.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 05 at 06:57 AM • permalink
- Erm, Tempo?
Been going on for 25 years now. Been a boom industry since 1992 (IIRC), as the Russkis flogged a mountain of plutonium from their old cans of instant sunshine to the French, Japanese, German and US nuclear industries.
As for us, I do not think that a nuclear plant could compete commercially with one of our coal fired power stations int eh Hunter Valley in NSW. The last one cost roughly AUD800M in todays dollars and sits on top of a vast open-cut coalfield. This is why the Evil-VRWC-Gaia-murdering-deathbeast-neoconazi-hoWARd government is working with the coal industry to develop new technology stack scrubbers and cleaner burning boiler technologies for the industry.
JUst don’t tell the ‘progressives’, OK?
MarkL
CanberraMarkL
Canberra
Burn coal and you get left with the un-burnable residue, called ‘ash’. Usually taken out to controlled landfill sites. Vast quantities of it.
One of the most deliciously ironic things I’ve seen in my life happened during the conversion of what was supposed to be a nuclear power plant into a coal-burning plant. The locals (ie, me, my family, my neighbors, etc.) had no problem with the plant—a little anxiety, but the area was mostly sensible people who realized life’s neither perfect nor safe. The opposition came from people who lived far enough away to get clear if there were any problems, and was led by a biology prof at a local community college.
Well, the anti-nuke nuts won, and after a few years doing nothing, the utility company decided to make the plant coal-burning. So they immediately bought up hundreds of acres of surrounding farmland and wooded hills to store the ash…
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 05 05 at 07:34 AM • permalink
- I’m so tired of that “unsustainable” crap.Posted by -keith in mtn. view on 2006 05 05 at 11:19 AM • permalink
- A typical leftist.
What he meant to say is “I reject your reality and I substitute my own”
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2006 05 05 at 11:43 AM • permalink
- Morons worrying about nuclear waste might consider that we each exhale 40,000 radioactive carbon atoms with every breath. Then there’s the whales and baby seals………..
Perhaps if they spent a few and nghts cold and hungry they’d worry a lot less.
Perth had some minor brown-outs a couple of years ago and you’d think the sky was falling.
Power companies want nuclear power? Deny service for a week. The greenies would be eating that baby seal after 3 days.
- Progress inded, qnd only 25 years too late. The “progressives” may yet prove themselves slightly less reactionary than Ned Ludd.
This is one area, probably the only one, where the French have shown themselves more intelligent than others. They went to a high percentage of nuke power long ago. Their legal system not being mired in the sort of irrational nonsense that ours is, their luddites could not game the system to delay projects for 13 years that should have taken three to build. That is what made nuke power uneconomical in the US, the lawsuits delaying them, driving the cost of capital skyhigh in an inflationary era. If we can avoid that nuke power should prove quite promising. For one thing, it is more concentrated than are “renewable” sources such as wind (except for the gasbags on Capital Hill).
Most environmentalist objection is really aesthetic in origin, not substantive or technological. The rich peoples’ objections to wind turbines off Cape Cod was aesthetic as well as an exercise in NIMBY, and thus perfectly in keeping with the character of the environmentalist movement.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 05 05 at 01:17 PM • permalink
(except of course for the misery-guts who’d like us all to be living back in the Stone Age where macrame-knitting was considered cutting-edge technology).
No, they don’t. Notice how many of them avail themselves of computers and the Internet to rail against industrialization and technology. Nope, these tree-huggers are a bunch of poseurs who would never give up the modern world if offered a choice. They just can’t admit they’re planet-rapers like the rest of us, so they get all frowny with us to assuage their own guilt.
Meanwhile, the grown-ups know TANSTAAFL.
- This is one area, probably the only one, where the French have shown themselves more intelligent than others. They went to a high percentage of nuke power long ago.
This is mostly a function of the French bureaucratic caste not giving a toss what the people think, though. From polls I’ve seen, apparently even in France a majority of the population is opposed to nuclear power, as everywhere else in Western Europe.
- I wonder how many people’s knee-jerk opposition to nuclear plants comes from imagining that those giant cooling towers are actually monstrous smokestacks.
You know, smokestacks that never seem to emit any smoke or anything. But just you wait.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 05 05 at 02:08 PM • permalink
- The US military is replacing depleted Uranium in its anti-tank/aircraft shells with Tungsten because of the alleged radioactive danger of DU. The fact that DU with a half life of 4.5 billion years is as radioactive as a house brick matters not at all. The truly ironic thing is these shells get vaporized going through armor and Tungsten is incredibly toxic when vaporized.
I wonder how many people’s knee-jerk opposition to nuclear plants comes from imagining that those giant cooling towers are actually monstrous smokestacks.
You know, smokestacks that never seem to emit any smoke or anything. But just you wait.
That type can’t tell the difference between steam and smoke.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 05 05 at 02:41 PM • permalink
- Right, remember Three Mile Island? Never, ever saw the reactors on TV, only those sinister, evil cooling towers. A quarter on a million coal miners died last century and several thousand since. How many died from Three Mile Island? None, nada, zip. Course Russia later kind of made up for it, but as bad as 4,000 deaths will be, coal does more every year and will till we grow up and quit burning dead plants.
- We need more electricity so that we can all have an X1!
X1 Prototype Specs
• 3-phase AC induction motor, 236hp at the motor shaft
• 182 ft lbs torque at the motor shaft, from 0 rpm to 6,000 rpm
• 13,300 rpm rev limit
• weight 1,500 lbs
• no clutch, single gear ratio 8.35:1
• Quaife limited slip differential
• Alcon front calipers, 4 piston
• Dymag Magnesium Alloy wheels
• inboard Bilstein race dampers, Eibach 2-stage springs
• steering: rack and pinion, 1.5 turns lock-lock
• Lithium Ion battery packPerformance
• 0-60 ~ 3.0 seconds
• Standing quarter mile ~11.5 seconds
• Top speed 112mph (electronically limited) What’s up with that?
• Range >100 miles in urban use
• Charger: onboard conductive. Input 100-250V 50 or 60 Hz. Current: user adjustable up to 80A
• Energy consumption 200 WHr/mile in urban use, equivalent to 170 mpg (33,705 WHr/gallon)
- ..as an environmentalist,..
There’s part of the problem…
Posted by Bashir Gemayel on 2006 05 05 at 03:57 PM • permalink
- #42, lmassie,
Even Chernoble wasn’t the catastrophy that the hysterics always said such an accident would be. It was the worst accident that could happen, and it can’t happen with the designs used now.
It is owing to the luxury allowed by Capitalism’s productive use of energy to extend man’s abilities and prospects that such a creature as a Greenie exists. Since they did nothing to supply the luxury, there is a disconnect between the luxury and what is required to attain it. Thus, they think they can demand results by no means. (Using a broad brush with the “they”, but you know…) I wonder how many of them realize how much in their lives are luxuries.
- I used to be against nuclear power before I was for it.
People were okay with nuclear power until Jack Lemmon cried in a movie, and after that it was widely accepted that nuclear power plants emitted dangerous radiation that would cause middle-aged men to have nervous breakdowns and were thereafter only allowed to be operated by donut loving yellow-skinned cartoon characters.
Yep, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and The China Syndrome pretty much killed the future of nuclear power in the US (for the moment). Please, DaveS, we don’t dump waste in a National Monument. How crass. That’s what the state of Nevada is for.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 05 05 at 04:58 PM • permalink
…and after that it was widely accepted that nuclear power plants emitted dangerous radiation that would cause middle-aged men to have nervous breakdowns and were thereafter only allowed to be operated by donut loving yellow-skinned cartoon characters.
shouldn’t there be an ‘inept,’ in there, before the donut bit?
- #27 Mark L
Scrubbing research at UQ. The main UQ page shows a picture of the cooling towers of a cola fired power station with the link and caption:
Sieves put a lid on greehouse gases researchers will test microscopic sieves that trap greenhouse gases before they escape coal-fired power stations and refineries.
- There is one type of nuclear power that could be OK if we really must have it. Accelerated Thorium reactors use a particle beam to start a chain reaction in Thorium. Its huge advantages are that when the beam is off the reaction stops, it does not produce any waste that can be used in nuclear weapons and the waste is radioactive for about 500 years instead of 10 000. Australia has 25% of the worlds thorium.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1615070.htmHowever that is not to say that we cannot improve energy efficiency and use renewable power. The X1 electric car that was mentioned before used AC Propulsion’s electric motor and controller.
http://www.acpropulsion.com/As it is AC it can supply power to the grid which it is designed to do.
http://www.acpropulsion.com/Veh_Grid_Power/V2G Final Report R5.pdfHundreds of thousands of these cars both battery electric and plug in hybrid could be a spinning reserve that any nuclear power plant needs as they suck at supplying peak (rapidly changing) demand. In combination with wind/solar the Thorium reactors/electric cars/renewable could be the answer to oil supply problems as well as future power.
- #52 Ender – about all I can add is dream on – none of your suggestions have any viability in any immediate future.
A quick look for Thorium reactors produced this comment, “This is a market economy so the economics will have to be in favor for thorium to move that way,” said Kazimi. “It could take another 50 years for us to reach the level where uranium prices are so high that thorium looks attractive.”
As for the others – energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy just will not and cannot deliver enough to have any significant impact on the world’s energy needs.
And finally your last suggestion is rubbish. Without even talking about limitations of energy storage density, costs, and the general poor overall life cycle analysis of battery storage – the suggestion that these devices could be plugged into the grid to provide spinning reserve is nonsense. Also the idea that nuclear power plants suck power from the grid is equally nonsense. Just for your information, the only time a power station will welch on the grid (i.e., take power from the grid) is when it is either not generating or if it happens to be an induction generator (such as a wind power generator). An induction generator relies on the grid for its excitation and will consume reactive power from the grid while it generates real power, and that characteristic alone can produce major problems for the power grid as the Europeans have discovered. Now returning to a base load power station (of any type – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hybrid – in fact any fuel you cared to burn or use), the installed generators are synchronous machines which means they are fully controllable in terms of both real and reactive power delivered to the grid. The fuel source merely provides heat that is then used conventionally to drive steam turbines, or in the case of gas fired power stations to drive gas turbines directly connected to the generators.
- Wand – Perhaps you could look at these analysises before going off and saying that they are rubbish.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/itsdavis/UCD-ITS-RR-01-03-a/
Lithium batteries have high enough energy density to make it economic. Spinning reserve is usually quoted at about 30cents per kWh. You would be paid for the energy you contribute.“Also the idea that nuclear power plants suck power from the grid is equally nonsense. “
I didn’t say this. Thermal plants like coal and nuclear have typical response times of up to half an hour. Fast reacting gas turbines or diesels must be kept online in peaky times to handle the transients. Vehicle batteries can smooth out the grid easily and provide storage to leverage renewable power.Anyway bye for now – see you again if I follow a link again.
- Slightly OT (well, Iranian nukes vs nuclear power, check out:
http://www.radioblogger.com/#001591It’s Christopher Hitchens giving the cruellest and most cold-blooded vivisection of Juan Cole that one can possibly imagine. Jaw-dropping stuff. I mean, Hitchens would have been kinder to have tied Cole face down, stark naked, to the floor of a gaybar on the busiest night of the year with a 44 gallon drum of vaseline next to him and a sign promising $1000 cash for everyone who partook of his dubious delights. He even gets away with calling him a madman, dope fiend and pederast in such a way as Cole has no comeback. Amazing.
Just read it, and remember NEVER to diss Christopher Hitchens. I actually took notes.
MarkL
Canberra
- Hi, Ender!
I just knew you’ve been lurking. Have you seen the asskicking your Computer Climate Models have been taking lately? Seems they haven’t been modeling reality very well. But I’m sure they’re utterly reliable for 50-to-100-year extrapolations.
Anyway, feel free to keep stopping by for more globalwarmencoolichanging fun. But gosh, leave a comment sometime, huh? I keep asking about you and you’re all mum.
- Dave S – don’t worry, he’s off again. I think Wand was a bit too expert for him to grapple with. He still couldn’t resist the old Google and URL spray, however. Point proven! Victory assured! Move on fast!Posted by James Waterton on 2006 05 06 at 03:08 AM • permalink
- #46: People were okay with nuclear power until Jack Lemmon cried in a movie, and after that it was widely accepted that nuclear power plants emitted dangerous radiation that would cause middle-aged men to have nervous breakdowns and were thereafter only allowed to be operated by donut loving yellow-skinned cartoon characters.
Yes, “The China Syndrome” is the “Silent Spring” of nuclear power.
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 05 06 at 03:16 AM • permalink
- Incidentally, does anyone have any idea which blog Ender’s come from? I checked out the usual suspects but came up lacking.Posted by James Waterton on 2006 05 06 at 03:17 AM • permalink
- OK Ender what to make of your latest…
Let me enlighten you about spinning reserve. Spinning reserve on a power system is sufficiently unloaded generation capacity available to take up the power that would be lost if the largest generator on the system dropped out. Got it? That means that if the largest generator on the system happened to be say 600 MW, then to ensure full supply reliability there would need to be 600 MW of generation capacity available immediately at all times. As I said previously, your suggestion that this could be replaced by “Hundreds of thousands of these cars both battery electric and plug in hybrid could be a spinning reserve that any nuclear power plant needs as they suck at supplying peak (rapidly changing) demand.” (Your words) is nonsense.
Even if these rechargeable batteries were grid connected and they were to supply power to the grid then the spinning reserve in my example would still be 600 MW of unloaded generation on the grid. The batteries would be nothing more than generators on the grid and not spinning reserve. Get it?
So you didn’t say “nuclear power plants suck power from the grid” – then what did you say? Oh wait a minute, perhaps you used the word suck when you meant “are not good at”. OK so you say nuclear plants are not good at supplying peak power. And you’ve clarified what you said to “thermal plants like coal and nuclear have typical response times of up to half an hour” Well not necessarily so … it just depends on how they are being operated. If they are in spinning reserve mode, the response is quite rapid and sufficient to cater for the loss of the largest machine on the grid, albeit with some small movement in grid voltage and possibly a frequency dip – but no big deal! I don’t know why you single out nuclear and coal plants because their electrical performance is no different from any other base load power station, be that diesel, brown coal, combined cycle gas, geothermal, biomass whatever. Starting a thermal plant from cold would take longer than half an hour, so I can’t work out what you are saying.
Now certainly the response time of a power station on start up is a function of the fuel type (and technology used) but your other statement “fast reacting gas turbines or diesels must be kept online in peaky times to handle the transients” is also just rubbish. That statement assumes that diesel or gas stations are needed to handle peaks – well not necessarily so! As a general statement, it is junk. The operation of a power system depends entirely on the system load characteristics, available generation, bidding into the pool (at least in Australia), dispatch and contingency bids/dispatch under emergency conditions and bidding/dispatch for auxiliary services. It may be a complicated activity on an hour by hour basis. The only reason that gas power stations exist for peaking purposes is that (sure) they are rapid response, but they can bid into the market at a sufficiently high enough price to achieve sufficient dispatch through the year to recover the investment. As for diesel power stations for peaking, forget it because the fuel is too costly to make them economic. And if a power system relied on fast response gas turbines to meet peak shortfalls, then the power system would be working in a planned brown or black out mode before power restoration. [This is how the power grid in the Northern Territory is operated.] [I presume when you used the word transient, you were referring to the system peak and not a real electrical transient which is something quite different].
…continued…
- …continued…
Ender ..
What we have on the power system in Australia on the interconnected grid consists of many base load coal fired power stations supplemented by a mix of gas turbines installed to provide peaking capability (and earlier decisions to install these stations were mostly cheap politics at the time – we are seeing the same thing with the Sydney de-salination plant) as well as some hydro stations and a mix of all sorts of other small supplies (again mostly in place to satisfy a political philosophy rather than usefully add to the power system). And the complex power system that we now have has varying power needs and network delivery needs and capabilities across it and under these circumstances local embedded generation to meet local peaks may become economic. Whilst a number of projects of this type have been identified and power distribution businesses are required to identify areas where augmentation will be required each year and follow a process evaluating alternative power sources before each expansion of the network, interestingly no alternative power generation project has proceeded. The simple explanation is that as with renewable power projects, none has been cost effective.
Yet you say “Vehicle batteries can smooth out the grid easily and provide storage to leverage renewable power.” I covered the battery bit above but leverage renewable power? The kindest thing I can say is that it makes no technical sense.
Oh finally your link to the Institute of Transport Studies in California on battery power. A nice piece of academic research. All that is suggested is that the batteries for electric vehicles be charged from the grid at times of low power costs and the same batteries could supply power back to the grid at times of high cost. Well nice in theory but nicely academic and fanciful. There are just a few small issues – number of batteries on line at times of low power costs and then again at times of high power costs, their availability, reliability etc etc..
It’s not surprising that the paper is sprinkled with so many ifs and buts. Then again greenies seem to thrive on hypotheticals.
- Wand – very interesting discussion, even for a layman like me. Thankyou. And thanks for confirming everything I thought about Ender’s expertise. I have a feeling he won’t be back for another drubbing, but rest assured he’ll be reading.Posted by James Waterton on 2006 05 06 at 04:06 AM • permalink
- Wand – if you could see past this 19th century massive power plant mentality and see that this is the 21st century where technology moved on from thermal coal plants.
From the sort of people that post here I am sure that all of you would agree that financing terrorists by relying soley on oil from unstable parts of the world is madness. Oil is the lifeblood of our society and while it is they have us over a barrel. The best way to get rid of terrorism is to reduce or eliminate our dependance on oil. Nuclear power alone does not do this as it really has no answer for the liquid fuels other than hydrogen. Hydrogen is an energy carrier however electricity is just as good and the distribution system is already in place.
Plug in hybrids and electric cars can eliminate this oil dependance. We should be able to grow enough ethanol/biodiesel or convert enough coal for the plug in hybrids. The upside of this is that this also means that instead of running large coal plants as spinning reserve where they consume almost as much fuel as when they are generating power we can use the cars charged from last nights off-peak time to peak shave and supply instant power for when a 600 MW turbine drops off the grid. A typical small car has at least 75kW and if it was a BEV then 600MW is only 8000 cars which is about 2 or 3 city parking stations. It can leverage renewable power because renewables need storage to work properly. If utilities can get other people to pay for the storage then so much the better. As for diesels I have seen them. Summer in Perth sees huge diesel generators plugged in at Kwinana along with all the ‘portable’ gas turbines that can be leased to cope with summer peaks. Most governments cannot handle the political flak of blackouts so even incredibly expensive generators like diesels are brought into play.
Actually I have not been lurking I just followed a link. You are so concerned with drubbing a lefty that you cannot see that changing how we use and distibute power can lead to us thumbing our noses at Saudi Arabia and saying they can keep their oil. Right at the moment they hate the US more than they hate the tribe down the road. Take away the US and Australia wanting oil then they will just go back to fighting amongst themselves like they have been doing for thousands of years. They wont have a lot of time for foreign terrorism.
This is my last post – see you later
- Ha Ender, still here at least for the moment.
So if I can see past the 19th century massive power plant mentality eh? Hmm first of all I suppose you really mean the 20th century but lets not quibble. What makes you think the need for large power stations has changed? BTW, we have large power stations because it is the most efficient way of delivering power reliably to people and industry. Without them our economy and standard of living would suffer. Take a look at any economy that is not as developed as ours for a comparison. Still if you think the mentality is old hat, then how about producing a credible technically feasible alternative, because nothing to date has come close.
Now just for fun, let me analyse your comments one by one:
From the sort of people that post here I am sure that all of you would agree that financing terrorists by relying soley on oil from unstable parts of the world is madness.
Who says we are financing terrorists? Good grief, you are begging the question, but let’s move on.
Oil is the lifeblood of our society and while it is they have us over a barrel. The best way to get rid of terrorism is to reduce or eliminate our dependance on oil.
Who says they (the terrorists) have us over a barrel and that this process will get rid of terrorism? I don’t agree with or see the relevance of this hypothesis but let’s keep moving on.
Nuclear power alone does not do this as it really has no answer for the liquid fuels other than hydrogen.
This statement makes no sense. I don’t see anyone here suggesting that nuclear power would replace oil. You comment about hydrogen is stupid.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier however electricity is just as good and the distribution system is already in place.
This is another stupid statement. Hydrogen is not an energy carrier. It is an energy source and not a very useful one at that despite many people pinning their hopes on ‘the hydrogen economy’. The reason why it is not a particularly useful fuel on its own is that it requires liquefying to cryogenic temperatures to achieve an energy density comparable to other liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Otherwise as a transport fuel (say in buses) it is only useful for short journeys with frequent refuelling. And this is why hydrogen where it is used is mostly blended with natural gas. But hey, many years ago, even I subscribed to the holy grail of a hydrogen economy fuelled by fast breeder nuclear power stations. [That was when I worked in the UK on their AGR nuclear stations].
Plug in hybrids and electric cars can eliminate this oil dependance. We should be able to grow enough ethanol/biodiesel or convert enough coal for the plug in hybrids. The upside of this is that this also means that instead of running large coal plants as spinning reserve where they consume almost as much fuel as when they are generating power we can use the cars charged from last nights off-peak time to peak shave and supply instant power for when a 600 MW turbine drops off the grid. A typical small car has at least 75kW and if it was a BEV then 600MW is only 8000 cars which is about 2 or 3 city parking stations. It can leverage renewable power because renewables need storage to work properly. If utilities can get other people to pay for the storage then so much the better.
This is all simply wrong. So what we are supposed to do is grow our fuel, or maybe burn some coal to supply the power to charge the batteries of our electric cars to drive in the streets and at the same time power the grid to even out peaks and eliminate spinning reserve. I think I got that. Well only one comment: pure bullshit. For starters, I suggest you re-read my explanation about spinning reserve. Even if we had 75kW batteries feeding the grid, they would not be spinning reserve… then there is the issue of battery capacity. I suggest you go away and think about what you are saying because it just will not work. Nuts! You also suggest that we grow our own fuel. Just for the record, all renewable energy sources, be they biodiesel, ethanol, whatever need a government subsidy to be economic. And even forgetting economics for the moment, the amount of fuel that could be supplied in this way is very limited. [Many years ago I participated in a study team that evaluated producing ethanol in NSW and at best we could produce enough to add to about 10% of the petrol supplied to a relatively small part of the state]. So dream on is about all that can be said. As for leveraging renewables – dream on a little more. How do you think the batteries of the electric cars that people need during the day are going to be available to store the energy from a renewable energy source (say wind power) at the times when that renewable source is generating power?
… continued …
- Ender … continued …
As for diesels I have seen them. Summer in Perth sees huge diesel generators plugged in at Kwinana along with all the ‘portable’ gas turbines that can be leased to cope with summer peaks.
Is that so? Kwinana is an oil refinery and you may think that diesel generators are used. A quick check shows that ‘the Kwinana Cogeneration Plant is a 116 Megawatt net electrical output combined cycle power plant, utilising two gas turbine generator sets, two heat recovery steam generators and one steam turbine generator set. ‘ Hmm no diesel sets here, but certainly at times of system peak it may be necessary to run all the generators on the power system, though I doubt there would be much surplus from Kwinana. So what!
Most governments cannot handle the political flak of blackouts so even incredibly expensive generators like diesels are brought into play.
Not necessarily so. The decision to bring any generator on line is dictated on need and costs and nothing more. And yes there are political implications but a diesel station, if it exists on the system would be used as any other in ascending order of costs. Interestingly the problems looming for more power outages and /or generation shortfalls across Australia are the result of left wing politicians espousing the sort of drivel you are suggesting that will not work and refusing to properly invest in infrastructure over the last decade or longer.
Actually I have not been lurking I just followed a link. You are so concerned with drubbing a lefty that you cannot see that changing how we use and distibute power can lead to us thumbing our noses at Saudi Arabia and saying they can keep their oil. Right at the moment they hate the US more than they hate the tribe down the road. Take away the US and Australia wanting oil then they will just go back to fighting amongst themselves like they have been doing for thousands of years. They wont have a lot of time for foreign terrorism.
Nice theory perhaps. Anyway I don’t care if you are left, right, centre or upside down. If you spout bullshit be prepared to take some deserved flack. One slight problem in changing how we use and distribute power along the lies that you ‘suggest’ is that it would involve massive change. It would require Someone Somewhere to decide what changes are to be made, by whom, issue orders and require compliance from society and they would need lots of capital as well. It will never happen but dream on.
Fortunately this is not the way our society works but please continue to enjoy your dreams about a utopian command economy where you can dictate what is right for the world.
This is my last post – see you later
Good bye
- Ender is at the top of his game – his smug cluelessness is breathtaking.
Plug in hybrids and electric cars can eliminate this oil dependance.
I’m trying to figure out why electric cars will eliminate oil dependence but nuclear plants won’t. Don’t nuclear plants produce electricity for electric cars?
And then there’s this gem:
We should be able to grow enough ethanol/biodiesel or convert enough coal for the plug in hybrids.
How the heck do you “grow” ethanol and biodiesel? Aren’t they mixtures of 10% veggies and 90% deisel (i.e., oil)? And how does using a mixture of 90% deisel fuel “eliminate” oil dependence? Wouldn’t it reduce it by, oh, 10%? And doesn’t Ender realize it takes energy to grow things?
I love how enviros are always creaming over some magic bullet while there are practical methods already in existence (remember back before the magic hybrids – which really don’t get much better mileage than regular cars in the real world- when it was all about electric cars for them? And they just seemed to think that energy came from that little plug in the wall?) As far as biodeisel – if I read one more glowing newspaper article about running your car on old french-fry grease, without an accompanying explanation of why the hell everyone’s not doing it if it’s so goddamn easy, I’m gonna spit. There’s a goofball on a motorcycle board I frequent who’s always pimping biodiesel. I kept asking him what kind of biodiesel he drives. After a couple of months of badgering he finally admitted that a biodiesel would probably be his next car – after his wife’s minivan wore out! Typical.
Anyway, I hope Ender comes back, finds some nit in my post, picks it while ignoring the rest, then trots off satisfied. Bonus points if he spouts a mountain of tangentially-related but ultimately irrelevant scientific-sounding data.
The best way to get rid of terrorism is to reduce or eliminate our dependance on oil.
Wow, a statement I actually agree with. And since we in the States get something like 30% of our oil from Canada, it would have the happy by-product of destroying Canada’s “free” healthcare system. Though I’m not sure the Canadians would be so happy about that.
- If you’re curious about Ender’s website you can click on his name, which will lead you to his profile page, and the way to his website is the “www” button on that page.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 05 06 at 09:50 AM • permalink
- Ender said he followed a link to this thread. I’m assuming it’s from some lefty blog, and I was wondering which one, so I could read their take on the issue.
A mea culpa – I was wrong about Ender not returning. Despite his promise to “see us again if he follows a link again”, he couldn’t help but turn up a second time to cobble together a different argument with some new toy blocks – unfortunately the ones he was playing with earlier were irrepairably damaged by Wand’s brutal demolition. And what do you know, just as poor Ender’s finished stacking them all up (a little haphazardly, it must be admitted), nasty old Wand comes along and kicks them over again! Boo!
This time I really think Ender’s done here. That is, unless he finds a bunch of other barely related “facts” and conjectures to bolt onto the ruins of his current argument. That would be fun.
Posted by James Waterton on 2006 05 06 at 10:20 AM • permalink
- I recently read that Hybrids have a higher energy life cycle cost than convential vehicles, once the energy cost of producing and disposing of the batteries are taken into account. I wonder if plug in Hybrids will work out better?
I also have just read that controlled fusion is still a distant hope. Seems the more we know the harder it gets. Not only is it a bitch to get the thing to light up but the rare elements needed to contain the generated radiation create their own disposal problems.
The hydrogen/fuel cell cycle is still something of an economic nightmare. Biofuels? Solar/wind? Check the hard facts. They’ll never scale up and still make economic sense.
There really is no choice but fission. It works. It’s cheap. It’s safe. Suck it up and get on with it.
- Another approach to shattering Ender’s wet dream is his insistence on electric cars. Lithium-ion batteries may be efficient, but they are not permanent. They do wear out, and have to be replaced and disposed of.
From the energy production perspective, this makes lithium batteries (or any battery, for that matter) a net loss, as batteries simply store electrical power, they don’t generate it. The net loss comes from the production and dispoal of the batteries. The laws of thermodynamics apply even to Mother Gaia™.
That’s my small contribution to this little discussion. Wand, you did a bang up job there. Thanks!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 05 06 at 11:01 AM • permalink
- Man, and ain’t that the truth, Imassie!!!!!!Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 05 06 at 12:46 PM • permalink
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