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Post by anonposter on Jul 18, 2012 4:07:21 GMT 9.5
On the face of it it would seem domestic storage of wind power surplus could be managed. Assuming sufficient number of batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and hot water tanks, simply shunting of the surplus to all these storage sources would be all that is required. Being a tech challenged guy I'm sure I'm missing something. If you could build enough of them then yes, they could do the job, just don't expect it to be cheap (and it'd be a significant enough use of resources to push resource prices up pretty significantly). We also haven't actually proven energy storage using those technologies on the scale that'd be needed so can't say for sure that it'll work (though I suspect that if you throw enough money at it you could get something workable). Batteries tend to require frequent replacement if used in the manner you'd be looking at for backing up renewable energy, that'll be expensive (though would probably be done by recycling the old batteries into new ones so continuing resource usage should be low).
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Post by Laura on Jul 18, 2012 10:40:23 GMT 9.5
Barry, You did a great job in that debate, impressively quick on your mental feet! I wonder what vitamins you take? One comment though, the moderator asked whether different radioisotopes have different effects, and you said basically, an alpha particle is an alpha particle ... But different elements interact with the human body and with ecosystems in a different way. So there is truth in the moderator's objection to what you were saying, that you can't necessarily dismiss a radiation level as insignificant on quantitative grounds alone. Laura
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Post by lawrence on Jul 18, 2012 11:08:01 GMT 9.5
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Post by quokka on Jul 18, 2012 13:07:44 GMT 9.5
Laura, I'll take a stab at answering your question. The standard unit for measuring radiation dose is the Sievert (or milli Sievert or micro Sievert). The dose expressed in Sieverts takes into account the nature of the radiation (alpha, beta, gamma) etc, it's energy and the nature of the exposed tissue. Expressed in this way, a 100 mSv dose from naturally occurring Potassium-40 would be expected to have similar effects to 100 mSv dose from Cesium-137 from a nuclear power plant - because the unit of measurement is specifically designed to make it useful for radiation protection purposes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SievertThis does not make all radio nucleides equal. Some are certainly much more dangerous than others per unit mass or per unit of activity if inhaled or ingested. A unit of activity is the Becquerel which is the number of radioactive decays per second per unit mass. There is a list of contaminants and radiological risk factors here: www.evs.anl.gov/pub/doc/anl_contaminantfactsheets_all_070418.pdfAs Barry said, there is no green or red radiation - biological effects are about the same for a specific dose expressed in Sieverts no matter what the source.
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Post by QuarkingMad on Jul 18, 2012 14:34:12 GMT 9.5
To add more to what quokka said above. The main thing to remember is that Radiation is not a carcinogen like arsenic is, rather it is a mutagen that will mutate cells. Whether these mutated cells develop into a fatal cancer is up to many factors, such as dose over time, dose amount, individual immune system and DNA repair capabilities. The Argonne National Labratory in the link in quokka's comment notes in it's risk figures that you need to inhale (inhalation is worse than ingestion) 5000 particles of Plutonium for it to be fatal (EDIT: see quote below) QuarkingMad, A small correction, according to the ANL fact sheet inhaling 5000 3 micron particles of Pu "is estimated to increase an individual’s risk of incurring a fatal cancer about 1% above the U.S. average.". A stark difference to the unscientific Gunderson "hot particle" theory of 1 Pu atom = fatality. However a massive dose (i.e. 10Sv) in one instant will be fatal. The radiation not only mutates and destroys DNA but also overwhelms and destroys the repair mechanisms within the body.
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Post by quokka on Jul 18, 2012 16:26:19 GMT 9.5
QuarkingMad,
A small correction, according to the ANL fact sheet inhaling 5000 3 micron particles of Pu "is estimated to increase an individual’s risk of incurring a fatal cancer about 1% above the U.S. average.".
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Post by Carl Hellesen on Jul 18, 2012 18:33:05 GMT 9.5
However back to my main point, there appear to be a lot of matters affecting Sweden's real contribution to world ghgs that are not being factored in. This is an argument I hear from the anti-nuclear at home as well when they get shown the statistics of CO2 emission from us and other comparable countries. "Our emissions are actually larger than they appear since we import goods from countries with higher emissions. In fact, we have just as high emissions as everybody else, despite the nuclear power." So, matters proved, nuclear power does not reduce ghg emissions and we could just as well close down ours as they dont appear to help. Depending on how you count that is. But in that case other countries with higher ghg emissions should be allowed to write down theirs when they import goods from us as they have been produced with lower CO2 emissions. Otherwise the emissions would be counted twice. And in the end a country's ghg emissions would just scale proportionally with GDP, and nobody could do anything really. I think the sensible thing is to count each country's emissions separately. On the face of it it would seem domestic storage of wind power surplus could be managed. Assuming sufficient number of batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and hot water tanks, simply shunting of the surplus to all these storage sources would be all that is required. Being a tech challenged guy I'm sure I'm missing something Wow, it's solved then. Just buy enough batteries and the intermittency problem is solved. Have you any idea of what that would cost. And not to mention how much energy you would need to manufacture all these batteries. And how low the efficiency, as well as EROI, of hydrogen + fuel cell balanced wind power would be. There have been lots of threads on these issues on this website.
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Post by Laura on Jul 18, 2012 21:21:22 GMT 9.5
[quote author=quokka board=bncblogposts thread=283 post=1443 time=1342582664 I'll take a stab at answering your question. The standard unit for measuring radiation dose is the Sievert (or milli Sievert or micro Sievert). The dose expressed in Sieverts takes into account the nature of the radiation (alpha, beta, gamma) etc, it's energy and the nature of the exposed tissue. [/quote]
OK, if Barry was talking Sieverts in terms of radiation levels, that makes more sense. I don't remember him mentioning the units. That would have been a good thing to mention in his answer to the moderator's objection: the comparisons he's making of natural vs. nuclear power exposure take into account how the radiation affects the body. Apparently Sieverts don't include an assessment of what happens to the radiation in the ecosystem, though - I'm not sure how much it changes the picture if you look at whether specific elements are concentrated by particular species, etc.
Laura
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Post by davidm on Jul 19, 2012 3:56:47 GMT 9.5
However back to my main point, there appear to be a lot of matters affecting Sweden's real contribution to world ghgs that are not being factored in.
This is an argument I hear from the anti-nuclear at home as well when they get shown the statistics of CO2 emission from us and other comparable countries. "Our emissions are actually larger than they appear since we import goods from countries with higher emissions. In fact, we have just as high emissions as everybody else, despite the nuclear power." So, matters proved, nuclear power does not reduce ghg emissions and we could just as well close down ours as they dont appear to help. Depending on how you count that is.
But in that case other countries with higher ghg emissions should be allowed to write down theirs when they import goods from us as they have been produced with lower CO2 emissions. Otherwise the emissions would be counted twice. And in the end a country's ghg emissions would just scale proportionally with GDP, and nobody could do anything really. I think the sensible thing is to count each country's emissions separately.Fair as far as it goes but let me posit a couple of points, When Swedish industries outsource their jobs to other countries with their energy policies is there a corresponding outsourcing of jobs to Sweden from outside countries? I don't think so. And then there is the business of Sweden importing crude oil, considerably more than they did in 1970, and then refining it and exporting a good portion of the refined product. Would it be fair to add that to their ghg contribution? I guess one could say if they didn't do the refining someone else would. Hmmm, when you think of where the energy is coming from to refine the oil into saleable products to be exported I can't escape some feeling of irony. And as I indicated on another post not having any oil or natural gas like say Denmark and being a high tech country made nuclear power an awfully easy choice for Sweden. Generally pragmatics rules. I made some other points but that will do for now. My broader thought is that in an endless expanding world economy and population aren't we all caught in the Jevon's Paradox trap? You try to expand your piece of the energy pie and it translates out into expanding the whole energy pie, raising all energy boats so to speak(Eventual peaks, wherever they may be, factored in). Nope, I was just being discursive. I'm open to all clarifications and corrections and links thereof.
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Post by anonposter on Jul 19, 2012 8:01:59 GMT 9.5
This is an argument I hear from the anti-nuclear at home as well when they get shown the statistics of CO2 emission from us and other comparable countries. "Our emissions are actually larger than they appear since we import goods from countries with higher emissions. In fact, we have just as high emissions as everybody else, despite the nuclear power." So, matters proved, nuclear power does not reduce ghg emissions and we could just as well close down ours as they dont appear to help. Depending on how you count that is. Never mind that Sweden would have even higher emissions if it were burning fossil fuels domestically for electricity instead of splitting atoms (and the lower energy costs compared to imported fossil fuels probably means less industry has left than would have been the case without nuclear). But in that case other countries with higher ghg emissions should be allowed to write down theirs when they import goods from us as they have been produced with lower CO2 emissions. Otherwise the emissions would be counted twice. And in the end a country's ghg emissions would just scale proportionally with GDP, and nobody could do anything really. I think the sensible thing is to count each country's emissions separately. Though it probably would be a good idea to have some form of carbon tariff to ensure that a country can't get a competitive advantage by choosing to emit CO 2 into the shared atmosphere. I made some other points but that will do for now. My broader thought is that in an endless expanding world economy and population aren't we all caught in the Jevon's Paradox trap? You try to expand your piece of the energy pie and it translates out into expanding the whole energy pie, raising all energy boats so to speak(Eventual peaks, wherever they may be, factored in). Even so the increase in the standard of living does make it worthwhile.
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Post by quokka on Jul 19, 2012 9:39:28 GMT 9.5
Laura,
Your question seems to come down to issues of bio accumulation of radio isotopes. This calls for some expert knowledge for a decent response but I will note that by far the most important contaminants from the Fukushima accident are Iodine-131, Cesium-134 and Cesium-137.
I-131 has a half life of about 8 days which means that after two months there is less than 1% of the original amount remaining. There is no issue of long term accumulation, but there are good grounds for protecting the population in the short term from consumption of food contaminated with I-131 as it is known to increase the risk of thyroid cancer.
Cs-134 and Cs-137 have half lives of about two and thirty years respectively. In humans cesium has a biological half life (the time required for biological processes to remove half from the body) of a few months. As for other animals and plants, I don't know, but I suspect the situation may be quite complex. For example in plants, uptake of cesium may be influenced by potassium availability in the soil which obviously does vary.
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Post by David B. Benson on Jul 19, 2012 15:07:51 GMT 9.5
David M --- Denmark already has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, almost as high as Germany's. And you want to quintuple (or so) that bill by buying batteries?
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Post by davidm on Jul 19, 2012 16:29:32 GMT 9.5
As Montaigne once said, "What I say is by way of discourse, if it were my due to be believed I would not be so bold." Linked authoritative corrections are always appreciated. A little further note, somebody thinks batteries are part of the wind power storage solution.
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Post by proteos on Jul 19, 2012 17:23:27 GMT 9.5
David M --- Denmark already has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, almost as high as Germany's. And you want to quintuple (or so) that bill by buying batteries? In fact, it's Denmark first and Germany which has the second highest prices in Europe. Not that actually changes anything to the reasoning, but still. For reference, see Eurostat's database.
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Post by anonposter on Jul 19, 2012 18:30:34 GMT 9.5
36 MW (presumably that's the maximum power input/output, they don't actually say what the energy storage capacity is) isn't much in the scheme of things, we need a solution which scales to GW of power and TWh of energy (and it also has to be cheap enough for us to do it on that scale, physical possibility whilst obviously necessary isn't sufficient).
Whilst technically I'm sure you could make it work, I just don't think it's really worth trying (and it is almost certain to be a major maintenance headache).
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Post by davidm on Jul 19, 2012 21:42:43 GMT 9.5
David M --- Denmark already has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, almost as high as Germany's. And you want to quintuple (or so) that bill by buying batteries? In fact, it's Denmark first and Germany which has the second highest prices in Europe. Not that actually changes anything to the reasoning, but still. For reference, see Eurostat's database. Not on this version of the data. Of the major countries Ireland comes in the highest(Cyprus actually pays the most) and the Swedes pay more than the Danes.
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Post by proteos on Jul 20, 2012 4:57:28 GMT 9.5
Not on this version of the data. Of the major countries Ireland comes in the highest(Cyprus actually pays the most) and the Swedes pay more than the Danes. You're probably excluding taxes. You have to select all taxes included, because regular people pay taxes By the way, in the EU, many countries pay for renewables via a tax on electricity consumption, much akin petrol tax. Only small & medium consumers pay it, the big industries pay basically nothing.
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Post by davidm on Jul 20, 2012 5:49:30 GMT 9.5
Not on this version of the data. Of the major countries Ireland comes in the highest(Cyprus actually pays the most) and the Swedes pay more than the Danes. You're probably excluding taxes. I went back to your site and couldn't figure out how to make it include taxes so I went on google and found a useable for me site. Scroll down to get house hold electrical costs. Then yes it's Denmark then Germany. Given the major component of fossil fuel energy I guess that shows there is an element of positive responsibility in their high taxes. www.energy.eu/
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Post by davidm on Jul 20, 2012 5:58:17 GMT 9.5
36 MW (presumably that's the maximum power input/output, they don't actually say what the energy storage capacity is) isn't much in the scheme of things, we need a solution which scales to GW of power and TWh of energy (and it also has to be cheap enough for us to do it on that scale, physical possibility whilst obviously necessary isn't sufficient). Well if the battery was cost effective I don't see why it couldn't be scaled up. I read an interview with an IFR expert who said the optimum size for an IFR reactor was about 300MW. 10 batteries and you're there.
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Post by proteos on Jul 20, 2012 6:05:23 GMT 9.5
I have to admit that Eurostat's website seems designed to fend off curious people coming there to fetch data. Any table comes with default extracted data. To modify which data can be displayed you have to go to the 'Select data' tab to tinker with the software until you get what you want for all the parameters.
I've never found a way to link to a table with modified defaults etc. Maybe one day this will be possible.
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Post by anonposter on Jul 20, 2012 9:29:02 GMT 9.5
Well if the battery was cost effective I don't see why it couldn't be scaled up. I read an interview with an IFR expert who said the optimum size for an IFR reactor was about 300MW. 10 batteries and you're there. The cost effectiveness issue is probably going to end up the big deal breaker for batteries at utility scales. There are also worries about resource usage. www.theoildrum.com/node/8237 has a good overview of the kind of problem anyone trying to use batteries on a large scale will have to deal with.
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peterc
Thermal Neutron
Posts: 30
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Post by peterc on Jul 20, 2012 16:36:36 GMT 9.5
David M "..storage sources would be all that is required.." you need to take a look at this thread: bravenewclimate.com/2011/11/13/energy-storage-dt/My (biased!) summary: there is nothing, not even on the horizon, that can store the quantites needed at an affordable price.
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Post by Graham Palmer on Jul 20, 2012 17:06:35 GMT 9.5
Well if the battery was cost effective I don't see why it couldn't be scaled up. I read an interview with an IFR expert who said the optimum size for an IFR reactor was about 300MW. 10 batteries and you're there. I posted this on another thread but its worth repeating here. To get a clearer idea of the cost of storage, if you want to store, say, 1.5 days of the average household use of electricity, you would need something like this costing $20,000. (assume 20kWh/day, max depth-of-discharge of 50%,48V, 1600 Ah, $19,920, 10 year life) : www.allnaturalenergy.com.au/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=39&category_id=12&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2
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Post by unclepete on Jul 21, 2012 12:27:01 GMT 9.5
Very interesting discussion everyone. I'll put in my 2 cents worth. Electric cars are on the verge / are practical now (At least in a metropolitan setting) Provided electric power can be provided 24/7 ,cheap and off peak (nuclear), it could make quite a dent in oil/diesel use. Imagine a Google car (selfdrive) combined with batteries. We could go to the pub , have a few beers and be driven home emitting no Co2 A man can dream n'est pas ? And I think also that the Greens the world over have been and still are the main culprits in obstinately refusing to consider nuclear power and thereby impeding realistic Co2 mitigation
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Post by wilful on Jul 23, 2012 15:08:25 GMT 9.5
The connection between weapons proliferation and nuclear power cannot be denied, at least in as much as we know about North Korea and Iran's reported ambitions, trying to hide behind peaceful power plants. And way back in the 50s, it was military technology that drove the USA, UK and Soviet Russia to their preferred technologies. However, there are some 31 (?) countries peacefully using the atom, that could with ease become nuclear armed, but that have not shown the slightest interest in this path in the past several decades. The suggestion that more nuclear power generation will result in more nuclear weapons really doesn't hold water, the logic is quite difficult to follow.
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Post by markbolton on Jul 28, 2012 22:13:42 GMT 9.5
The argument that was used by during the ABC radio was "Nuclear power had failed the test of time. It has been around since the 50s and still hasn't found wide acceptance."
Essentially a fashion argument if it is an argument at all. The boring old 50s contrasted with the wizz bang "clean energy future". You absolutely should have owned that ground. It is the tie dye Greens that suffer from that perception. Trundling around on their recumbent bicycles and banging their heads on the wind chimes. They are the fuddy duddies. It's like saying comparing a Tiger Moth with a 747. You could have had him on the ropes with that.
In a debate you cant accuse the environmental lobby of running a propaganda war - like they have - without the Green glibly running out the Nuclear PR shill line. It gets ugly. Instead you can grab the lead like this : Its the young people without the baby boomer baggage that are the innovators we need. Old school nukes HAVE stood the test of time and only look like getting better. You could also have called it a false dichotomy. Building nukes doesn't exclude more research on other renewables. Make him prove that renewables can cut it.
Its almost like you sounded like and "apologist" rather than an advocate. I read the account of your conversion ( in my instance preaching to the choir ). It was enough to convince you ! Surely you can convince the audience ?
The presenter interrupted you a few times ABC presenters will always do that to talent they aren't sympathetic with you gotta be ready for that. You did get a bit mumble technical on the description of the Thorium reactor to start with. Sadly the Green scored points on glibness and polish. That only comes from practice. If you were to take a tip on presentation Monkton is good. Superbly rehearsed. You could bring quite a bit more passion to your presentation also. I know this is style rather than substance. Experienced activists can win the persuasion game but get thumped in the substance of the debate. I reckon you won the debate but lost the argument.
Interesting point Marion makes. "Did you think he was genuinely committed to the party line ? " I had that feeling too.
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Post by Carl Hellesen on Aug 8, 2012 23:42:33 GMT 9.5
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Post by anonposter on Aug 9, 2012 7:29:15 GMT 9.5
The argument that was used by during the ABC radio was "Nuclear power had failed the test of time. It has been around since the 50s and still hasn't found wide acceptance." Never mind that nuclear has found more acceptance than wind in those not much more than 50 years while wind power has been around for thousands of years. The fact is that we're only in relatively early days with nuclear while wind is already obsolete and for the most part should be put in the history books.
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Post by davidm on Aug 9, 2012 8:15:33 GMT 9.5
The argument that was used by during the ABC radio was "Nuclear power had failed the test of time. It has been around since the 50s and still hasn't found wide acceptance." Never mind that nuclear has found more acceptance than wind in those not much more than 50 years while wind power has been around for thousands of years.
The fact is that we're only in relatively early days with nuclear while wind is already obsolete and for the most part should be put in the history books.Yeah, sailing has been around for thousands of years and as fossil fuel goes up in price it appears to be ready to make a come back, principally in the area of water transport. The capital fortunately is sitting in ports all over the world. Folks are already getting ready. www.culturechange.org/sail_transport_network.htmlwww.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/848/1/
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Post by anonposter on Aug 9, 2012 8:56:17 GMT 9.5
Yeah, sailing has been around for thousands of years and as fossil fuel goes up in price it appears to be ready to make a come back, principally in the area of water transport. As I've said elsewhere, it'll be nuclear which replaces fossil fuels for large shipping, not wind (wind can't provide the reliability that the shipping companies expect). Even during the Arab Oil crisis we didn't see sailing vessels returning to prominence and most experiments in augmenting fossil fuel burning ships with wind are more about appearing ecofriendly than anything else. Makes the N.S. Savannah seem like a reasonable design.
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