On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
> they oppose nuclear power.

It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.

Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.

There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
at least for the next few decades.

Just one of many reasons I never vote green.

William Hyde

On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 5:50:20 PM UTC+1, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8...@googlegroups.com>,
> Hamish Laws <hamis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 5:21:26 AM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> >> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
> >> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
> >> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
> >> they oppose nuclear power.
> >
> >Yeah, because unless somebody has exactly the same understanding of the
> >situation as you do they can't possibly care about something
> If the arguments they made stood up to reality, I'd
> consider them, but so far, all I've seen range from
> tendentious to cartoony un-reality. To be fair, yours
> are much better than most I've seen.
> >and the ability to use excess to fill storage (whether that's battery
> >storage, mechanical, pumped hydro, electrolysis of water to produce
> >hydrogen, methanol production...) combine that with Hydro, tidal,
> >geothermal power where they're practical and it's quite possible that
> >nuclear is not needed
> Storage is the big issue. If someone could come up with
> a really good flow battery at reasonable cost, that would
> be a game changer. Electrolysys <> Fuel cell is one example,
> but has issues. I've heard good things about the vanadium
> flow battery, but it's apparently got even worse cost issues.
(Trimmed)
In "Friday" Heinlein spotted the importance of power storage by imagining the Shipstone super-battery - sufficiently efficient and portable to make harvesting and storing solar energy in remote locations feasible, and the foundation technology for a massive and powerful company. One currently promising new energy store I heard about is a little more basic - see .e.g. the article at https://interestingengineering.com/science/concrete-blocks-serving-as-the-future-of-renewable-energy-storage

In article <7da78e36-b4a4-40b1-8ee4-30e19fb04367n@googlegroups.com>,
William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>
>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>> they oppose nuclear power.
>
>It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
>about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
>the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.
>
>Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
>more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
>nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
>build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.
>
>There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
>at least for the next few decades.

American atomic technology is notoriously unsafe, though. No sooner
did they start dabbling in it but hundreds of thousands of people died.

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 2:25:42 PM UTC-4, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <7da78e36-b4a4-40b1...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> >
> >> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
> >> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
> >> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
> >> they oppose nuclear power.
> >
> >It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
> >about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
> >the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.
> >
> >Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
> >more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
> >nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
> >build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.
> >
> >There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
> >at least for the next few decades.
> American atomic technology is notoriously unsafe, though. No sooner
> did they start dabbling in it but hundreds of thousands of people died.

In that case we must shift to the only logical alternative: virus based power.

William Hyde

On 5/30/2023 11:25 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <7da78e36-b4a4-40b1-8ee4-30e19fb04367n@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>
>>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>>> they oppose nuclear power.
>>
>> It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
>> about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
>> the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.
>>
>> Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
>> more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
>> nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
>> build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.
>>
>> There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
>> at least for the next few decades.
>
> American atomic technology is notoriously unsafe, though. No sooner
> did they start dabbling in it but hundreds of thousands of people died.
>
At least we were smart enough to conduct that experiment in another
country we were at war with at the time.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

In article <u55ipv$22vpc$1@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 5/30/2023 11:25 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <7da78e36-b4a4-40b1-8ee4-30e19fb04367n@googlegroups.com>,
>> William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>>
>>>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>>>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>>>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>>>> they oppose nuclear power.
>>>
>>> It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
>>> about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
>>> the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.
>>>
>>> Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
>>> more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
>>> nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
>>> build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.
>>>
>>> There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
>>> at least for the next few decades.
>>
>> American atomic technology is notoriously unsafe, though. No sooner
>> did they start dabbling in it but hundreds of thousands of people died.
>>
>At least we were smart enough to conduct that experiment in another
>country we were at war with at the time.

Was the US also at war with Nevada and New Mexico when it nuked the
shit of them?
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 5/29/2023 7:09 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 5/29/2023 4:32 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 5/29/2023 3:53 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> On 5/29/2023 11:04 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>> In article <97f3e744-e8d2-4e76-a642-b47f923b560an@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 11:19:44 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 8:38:22 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Aw, you're just saying that because you cannot see how the Market
>>>>>>>> can facilitate living on an Earth that is an incandescent ball of
>>>>>>>> molten magma, whereas I know the answer is blockchain.
>>>>>>> Spot-on satire of one point of view. But unlike disaster from the
>>>>>>> greenhouse effect, I think that one is sufficiently far enough away
>>>>>>> that it has not yet become a serious concern.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If we can achieve world peace, then we can make a serious start
>>>>>>> on decreasing our total energy use. Until that is done, our options
>>>>>>> are limited in that area.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If we can decarbonize, there's no need reduce energy use. Warming is
>>>>>> due to extra energy from sunlight being absorbed, not the heat from
>>>>>> burning fossil fuels.
>>>>>
>>>>> _Right now_ the pressing issue is greenhouse gas emissions. However,
>>>>> if we developed entirely carbon-neutral energy sources, radiated heat
>>>>> would still limit what we can do without Venusian-style planetary
>>>>> death. That limit is both very, very large compared to our current
>>>>> production of waste heat (like, at least three orders of magnitude)
>>>>> and something we could reach surprisingly quickly with continued
>>>>> exponential growth.
>>>>
>>>> If I recall correctly, the waste heat is six orders of magnitude to
>>>> reach the Sun's heat on Earth.  It is an easy back of the envelope if
>>>> you want to correct me.
>>>
>>> Recall that it is the last two doublings that add 75%
>>> of the total.
>>>
>>> Extrapolating the current 2.8% growth rate forward,
>>> the impact of the waste heat on global average T() is:
>>>
>>>    Years      Power Density      T(K)     DeltaT(C)
>>>                   (W/m2)
>>>    -----     ----------------  -------  ------------
>>>
>>>     100          1.4            288.1        0.1
>>>     200         14.0            288.9        ~1
>>>     300        140.0            296.9        ~9
>>>     400       1400.0            344          56
>>>     417       2070              373         100
>>>    1000       1.4x10^9         8600        8300
>>>
>>> Original table and full supporting calculations here:
>>>
>>> Section 1.3 (Thermodynamic Consequences)
>>> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#section.1.3
>>
>> You know, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future
>> (Niels Bohr).
>>
>> 400 years ago, we were sailing small crude ships around the planet.
>> Who knows what the next 400 years will bring?
>>
> Which is not a good argument for doing nothing about current problems.

At year +398, the Earth is hit by a wandering planet coming through the
Solar System. All of those years of hardship and privation, scattered
all throughout the cosmos. If only we had some extra electricity,
SkyWatch might have seen the wandering planet and given us enough
warning to do something about it. Instead, we shut down SkyWatch at
year +2.

Lynn

On 5/30/2023 12:30 PM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <u55ipv$22vpc$1@dont-email.me>,
> Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>> On 5/30/2023 11:25 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> In article <7da78e36-b4a4-40b1-8ee4-30e19fb04367n@googlegroups.com>,
>>> William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 3:21:26 PM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>>>>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>>>>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>>>>> they oppose nuclear power.
>>>>
>>>> It's a warm day out there, so the power I am currently using is probably
>>>> about 90% carbon free, as Ontario Power Generation will be running
>>>> the gas plants. On a mild day it might be all carbon free.
>>>>
>>>> Part of the reason for this clean power is of course Hydro, but much
>>>> more of our power (59% in 2019) is from nuclear. If we took out
>>>> nuclear and tripled our current wind and solar, we'd still have to
>>>> build more fossil fuel plants to make up the difference.
>>>>
>>>> There is no doubt in my mind that nuclear is part of the solution,
>>>> at least for the next few decades.
>>>
>>> American atomic technology is notoriously unsafe, though. No sooner
>>> did they start dabbling in it but hundreds of thousands of people died.
>>>
>> At least we were smart enough to conduct that experiment in another
>> country we were at war with at the time.
>
> Was the US also at war with Nevada and New Mexico when it nuked the
> shit of them?

Nuclear bombs didn't kill hundreds of thousands in Nevada and New Mexico.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 5/30/2023 3:20 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 5/29/2023 7:09 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>> On 5/29/2023 4:32 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> On 5/29/2023 3:53 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> On 5/29/2023 11:04 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>>> In article <97f3e744-e8d2-4e76-a642-b47f923b560an@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 11:19:44 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 8:38:22 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Aw, you're just saying that because you cannot see how the Market
>>>>>>>>> can facilitate living on an Earth that is an incandescent ball of
>>>>>>>>> molten magma, whereas I know the answer is blockchain.
>>>>>>>> Spot-on satire of one point of view. But unlike disaster from the
>>>>>>>> greenhouse effect, I think that one is sufficiently far enough away
>>>>>>>> that it has not yet become a serious concern.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If we can achieve world peace, then we can make a serious start
>>>>>>>> on decreasing our total energy use. Until that is done, our options
>>>>>>>> are limited in that area.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If we can decarbonize, there's no need reduce energy use. Warming is
>>>>>>> due to extra energy from sunlight being absorbed, not the heat from
>>>>>>> burning fossil fuels.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _Right now_ the pressing issue is greenhouse gas emissions. However,
>>>>>> if we developed entirely carbon-neutral energy sources, radiated heat
>>>>>> would still limit what we can do without Venusian-style planetary
>>>>>> death. That limit is both very, very large compared to our current
>>>>>> production of waste heat (like, at least three orders of magnitude)
>>>>>> and something we could reach surprisingly quickly with continued
>>>>>> exponential growth.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I recall correctly, the waste heat is six orders of magnitude to
>>>>> reach the Sun's heat on Earth.  It is an easy back of the envelope if
>>>>> you want to correct me.
>>>>
>>>> Recall that it is the last two doublings that add 75%
>>>> of the total.
>>>>
>>>> Extrapolating the current 2.8% growth rate forward,
>>>> the impact of the waste heat on global average T() is:
>>>>
>>>>    Years      Power Density      T(K)     DeltaT(C)
>>>>                   (W/m2)
>>>>    -----     ----------------  -------  ------------
>>>>
>>>>     100          1.4            288.1        0.1
>>>>     200         14.0            288.9        ~1
>>>>     300        140.0            296.9        ~9
>>>>     400       1400.0            344          56
>>>>     417       2070              373         100
>>>>    1000       1.4x10^9         8600        8300
>>>>
>>>> Original table and full supporting calculations here:
>>>>
>>>> Section 1.3 (Thermodynamic Consequences)
>>>> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#section.1.3
>>>
>>> You know, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future
>>> (Niels Bohr).
>>>
>>> 400 years ago, we were sailing small crude ships around the planet.
>>> Who knows what the next 400 years will bring?
>>>
>> Which is not a good argument for doing nothing about current problems.
>
> At year +398, the Earth is hit by a wandering planet coming through the
> Solar System.  All of those years of hardship and privation, scattered
> all throughout the cosmos.  If only we had some extra electricity,
> SkyWatch might have seen the wandering planet and given us enough
> warning to do something about it.  Instead, we shut down SkyWatch at
> year +2.
>
That's not a good argument either.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 2:50:20 AM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8...@googlegroups.com>,
> Hamish Laws <hamis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 5:21:26 AM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

Just to clarify, none of this is saying that we shouldn't use Nuclear power and I definitely think things like Germany's decommissioning of existing nuclear plants is moronic.
I'm just not convinced that nuclear is the only way forwards or should be a dominant contributor to future generation and want research into lots of different non-fossil fuel generation approaches
If the best approach we can come up with for the next 50 years is nuclear then I'll take that (although it seems more likely to me that it'd be a mix of nuclear and renewables with the percentages of either currently unknown and if we come up with effective and cheap storage solutions it may be that 100% renewables backed by storage and smart transmission is the solution)

> >> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
> >> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
> >> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
> >> they oppose nuclear power.
> >
> >Yeah, because unless somebody has exactly the same understanding of the
> >situation as you do they can't possibly care about something
> If the arguments they made stood up to reality, I'd
> consider them, but so far, all I've seen range from
> tendentious to cartoony un-reality. To be fair, yours
> are much better than most I've seen.
> >and the ability to use excess to fill storage (whether that's battery
> >storage, mechanical, pumped hydro, electrolysis of water to produce
> >hydrogen, methanol production...) combine that with Hydro, tidal,
> >geothermal power where they're practical and it's quite possible that
> >nuclear is not needed
> Storage is the big issue. If someone could come up with
> a really good flow battery at reasonable cost, that would
> be a game changer. Electrolysys <> Fuel cell is one example,
> but has issues. I've heard good things about the vanadium
> flow battery, but it's apparently got even worse cost issues.

Storage is definitely a factor, and there's all sorts of work being put in to develop solutions for it
From solar powered production of methanol to all sorts of battery research to thermal storage with sand...

South Australia had 80% of their electricity provided from solar and wind energy between Dec 1 and Feb 28 (admittedly our summer so probably more solar generation than other times in the year)
There were 10 consecutive days in December where not only did renewables provide for all of the state's energy usage but there was extra to export to other states with less renewables and over 85% of total energy supply in December was renewables
In 2022 it was about 70% renewables throughout the year
If SA increases their renewable generation and builds more storage then it should be able to run on 100% renewables all the time

> >The cost of a GW of solar production is about 1 billion and still
> >falling, the cost of a GW of Nuclear is 8.4 billion (according to The
> >World Nuclear Association)
> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way?

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
has a discussion of pricing and they're examining costs from places all over the world

> To a great extent,
> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.

Nuclear power plants typically take over 5 years to build, the nuclear energy institute states that during peak construction building a plant employs around 7000 workers, now I don't know what the actual job requirements are over the 5 years of production but it does seem likely to be a significant amount of cash being paid out in wages

Again, if nuclear proves to be the way to go then damn the cost and build it but it is a major factor that needs to be considered when we're looking at solutions

> >And that's ignoring that "Base load" is something we've created
> >deliberately to suit coal generators
> That strikes me as complete nonsense.

It's not nonsense, we've specifically got off peak tariffs and charging to encourage people to use energy during periods where there's naturally less demand
Because of the pricing we have situations. where businesses run night batches because the cost of electricity makes up for the additional staffing costs, the UK has storage heaters where they use night time cheaper electricity for heating to heat the house during the day, electric hot water heaters commonly run at night for the cheaper electricity

There's going to be some demand at night time but we've put a lot of time and effort into decreasing day time consumption and increasing night time consumption to even things out more for coal generation - which has a minimum output or else you shut the generators down and start them up again, which it's ideal for them as they take time. Although China and India are largely around 50% uptime for coal generators now.

>One extreme example,
> you do *not* want to shut down an aluminum smelter and
> let it all solidify overnight every night.

Yes, and we need to have solutions that will work for those cases (as well as communication, hospitals etc)
I did some work in a telecommunications company in the 90s and the main exchanges had generators and batteries while the smaller exchanges had batteries to provide cover in cases of power loss
Could an aluminium smelter have battery storage and switch to that in cases where demand is stretched?

But we can reduce the power usage at night with policy and pricing decisions, which reduces the need for storage and increases the delivery of power during renewable peak times for the areas
It's not going to be nothing at night times but we can probably make significant reductions in demand at night time which reduces the problems for renewables

> >we have about 90 years of uranium reserves for current usage
> And we've never had more than 30 or so proven reserves
> of oil. Proven reserves is an entirely different thing
> than all there is, obviously.

Coal is worldwide about 37% of generation, natural gas around 25%, Oil around 3%
Nuclear around 10%

So if we went for nuclear replacement of all the fossil fuel generation we'd be looking at about 7.5 * current demand
Which moves 90 years of known reserves down to around 12-13 years
I don't know how long it takes to find and develop a uranium mine and I'm not certain that the comparison with oil is all that relevant, I don't know how similar the situations are in terms of finding more proven reserves of oil vs uranium. I think a lot of the increase in oil reserves is due to increased ability to extract oil I don't know if we'll get the same from uranium.
>
> And that's using the insanely wasteful "once through
> throw most of the potential fuel away" non-cycle.
> Reprocessing alone expands that a lot,

The world-nuclear.org site says reprocessing gets about 30% of extra usage as fuel
There's currently about 400,000 tonnes of waste from commercial reactors and about 1/3 of that has been reprocessed
So there's around 270,000 tonnes of waste available for reprocessing
which at the 30% increase gives about 90,000 tonnes or uranium worth as fuel
So that's around 2 years worth of current uranium consumption

If we replaced all the current fossil fuel generation with nuclear it'd be about 3 months worth
and reprocessing kicks the reserves out to about 16 years

> before you even
> get into breeder reactors.

Which are about 25% more expensive to construct than the current standard reactors
Which again increases the financial risk compared to renewables and storage

> >Now it's possible to extract uranium from seawater but that's at a
> >significantly higher cost and a lot of the claims to lower the cost are
> >"yes, with this finely produced fibre extracting things over a month we
> >can reduce the cost to $260/kg" which is still significantly more
> >expensive and not proven to scale up
> True, it's expensive, but the cost of the uranium is not
> the main driving factor.

The main reason that nuclear is considered competitive is the low running costs after the extreme construction costs
If the low running costs rise that makes it much less competitive and, with a decades long time to recover the construction costs that makes investing in it risky - especially with advances in storage extremely likely over the next 10 years.
>
> >Thorium is unproven commercially
>
> But a number of demonstration reactors have been built.

Scaling up from demonstration reactors to commercial generation isn't always a quick and easy process
India appears to be significantly behind on their plans.

On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
> Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 5:21:26 AM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>>> they oppose nuclear power.
>>
>> Yeah, because unless somebody has exactly the same understanding of the
>> situation as you do they can't possibly care about something
>
> If the arguments they made stood up to reality, I'd
> consider them, but so far, all I've seen range from
> tendentious to cartoony un-reality. To be fair, yours
> are much better than most I've seen.
>
>> and the ability to use excess to fill storage (whether that's battery
>> storage, mechanical, pumped hydro, electrolysis of water to produce
>> hydrogen, methanol production...) combine that with Hydro, tidal,
>> geothermal power where they're practical and it's quite possible that
>> nuclear is not needed
>
> Storage is the big issue. If someone could come up with
> a really good flow battery at reasonable cost, that would
> be a game changer. Electrolysys <> Fuel cell is one example,
> but has issues. I've heard good things about the vanadium
> flow battery, but it's apparently got even worse cost issues.

Ultra-capacitor batteries are the answer. We just have to keep them
from discharging all at once. People are working on it right now and
some claim to have an answer. They should be chargable without losing
cells over 100,000 cycles at a very high efficiency, maybe over 90%.
They should not have a narrow temperature range like chemical batteries.
https://www.tecategroup.com/products/ultracapacitors/ultracapacitor-FAQ.php

Lynn

On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
> Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 5:21:26 AM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>> I flatly do not and will never believe that the people who
>>> claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2 induced
>>> climate change really care about that issue, as long as
>>> they oppose nuclear power.
>>
>> Yeah, because unless somebody has exactly the same understanding of the
>> situation as you do they can't possibly care about something
>
> If the arguments they made stood up to reality, I'd
> consider them, but so far, all I've seen range from
> tendentious to cartoony un-reality. To be fair, yours
> are much better than most I've seen.
>
>> and the ability to use excess to fill storage (whether that's battery
>> storage, mechanical, pumped hydro, electrolysis of water to produce
>> hydrogen, methanol production...) combine that with Hydro, tidal,
>> geothermal power where they're practical and it's quite possible that
>> nuclear is not needed
>
> Storage is the big issue. If someone could come up with
> a really good flow battery at reasonable cost, that would
> be a game changer. Electrolysys <> Fuel cell is one example,
> but has issues. I've heard good things about the vanadium
> flow battery, but it's apparently got even worse cost issues.
>
>> The cost of a GW of solar production is about 1 billion and still
>> falling, the cost of a GW of Nuclear is 8.4 billion (according to The
>> World Nuclear Association)
>
> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way? To a great extent,
> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.

There are reputedly going to be 300 orders of the new SMR nuclear
reactors over the next 24 months in the USA. Dow Chemical in Freeport,
Texas (30 miles south of my house) just ordered one to replace the steam
generation from a half dozen of their gas turbines that were bought back
in the early 1970s (GE Frame 7A).
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-certifies-first-us-small-modular-reactor-design

Lynn

On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 10:04:57 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:

> _Right now_ the pressing issue is greenhouse gas emissions. However,
> if we developed entirely carbon-neutral energy sources, radiated heat
> would still limit what we can do without Venusian-style planetary
> death. That limit is both very, very large compared to our current
> production of waste heat (like, at least three orders of magnitude)
> and something we could reach surprisingly quickly with continued
> exponential growth.

That is true. But what conclusions should we draw from it?

Some people do believe that this means we must focus on reducing
energy use, not just switching to carbon-free energy sources, if we are
really going to solve the complete problem.

I wish to be as likely as possible to avoid disaster in the short term, and
I also consider factors which avid environmentalists are inclined to neglect.

I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
difficult component of the task.

Particularly as we don't yet live in a world that is at peace. We *can't*
drastically cut energy use if the "other guy" doesn't if we happen to be
fighting a war with the other guy that we need to win for our survival!

John Savard

Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 2:50:20=E2=80=AFAM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrot=
>e:

>Nuclear power plants typically take over 5 years to build, the nuclear ener=
>gy institute states that during peak construction building a plant employs =
>around 7000 workers, now I don't know what the actual job requirements are =
>over the 5 years of production but it does seem likely to be a significant =
>amount of cash being paid out in wages

5 years? Vogtle3 construction started June 2009. It was connected to
the grid last month.

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

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,

>> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
>> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
>> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way? To a great extent,
>> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
>> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.
>
>There are reputedly going to be 300 orders of the new SMR nuclear
>reactors over the next 24 months in the USA. Dow Chemical in Freeport,
>Texas (30 miles south of my house) just ordered one to replace the steam
>generation from a half dozen of their gas turbines that were bought back
>in the early 1970s (GE Frame 7A).

You do realize that those SMR's generate about 50MW? That's about
1/20th of a CH4-fired traditional plant.

It's unlikely they'll replace baseload power. Useful for some
industrial environments and isolated communities in Alaska, perhaps,
but not scalable to provide replacement for fossil fuel grid plants.

On 5/31/2023 8:42 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>> On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
>
>>> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
>>> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
>>> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way? To a great extent,
>>> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
>>> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.
>>
>> There are reputedly going to be 300 orders of the new SMR nuclear
>> reactors over the next 24 months in the USA. Dow Chemical in Freeport,
>> Texas (30 miles south of my house) just ordered one to replace the steam
>> generation from a half dozen of their gas turbines that were bought back
>> in the early 1970s (GE Frame 7A).
>
> You do realize that those SMR's generate about 50MW? That's about
> 1/20th of a CH4-fired traditional plant.
>
> It's unlikely they'll replace baseload power. Useful for some
> industrial environments and isolated communities in Alaska, perhaps,
> but not scalable to provide replacement for fossil fuel grid plants.

Yes. Actually the pride of GE gas turbine offerings, the GE LM-6000, is
a 48 MW gas turbine fired with natural gas or diesel using a 100%
ceramic combustion path and power turbine. The gas turbine was first
used on the Boeing 747. It can fire at temperatures up to 2,600 F
giving it a 35% simple cycle efficiency and can be online in five
minutes for a hot start. The cost is $65 million for one or $50 million
each in quantities of 100. This is the competition for the SMR and will
win for power generation as long as natural gas is below $5/mmbtu. Add
a heat recovery steam boiler and the efficiency rises to 65% but the
startup is four hours.
https://www.ge.com/gas-power/products/gas-turbines/lm6000

The nuclear reactor SMRs do not require hardened domes and can be
installed in any quantity that you need. They will produce steam 24
hours per day at 50 weeks per year. They will get refueled once every
five years or so. They will win the situation where process steam is
needed for industrial plants and refineries.

There will probably never be another natural gas fired conventional
steam boiler built for a 1,000 MW with 30% efficiency. The last large
stream boilers that I know of are the Oak Grove 900 MW twins burning
lignite coal built in Texas in 2010. And Sandow 5 in Texas. All
natural gas large units for power generation use a combination of gas
turbines, heat recovery boilers, and steam turbines for overall 65%
efficiency and 90+% availability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Grove_Power_Plant

Lynn

On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 4:48:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> And here are the players, with analysis of the potental
> energy provided by each:
>
> Chapter 10: Renewable overview
> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#page=182

OTEC is missing from the report.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

I think it would be classed as both "alternative" and "renewable" since it relies on sun-powered
ocean heating. However, the small number of projects in action would seem to say it's impractical.

In article <u564oc$257cd$1@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 5/30/2023 3:20 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 5/29/2023 7:09 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>> Which is not a good argument for doing nothing about current problems.
>>
>> At year +398, the Earth is hit by a wandering planet coming through the
>> Solar System.  All of those years of hardship and privation, scattered
>> all throughout the cosmos.  If only we had some extra electricity,
>> SkyWatch might have seen the wandering planet and given us enough
>> warning to do something about it.  Instead, we shut down SkyWatch at
>> year +2.
>>
>That's not a good argument either.

"We should be getting out into space" is not "doing nothing about
current problems", and "doing something about current problems"
does not preclude getting out into space.

Frankly, if we get taken out by an asteroid at this point, it's
our own damn fault; we've known about the threat and had the
capacity to develop countermeasures for decades.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <ead0f4c6-9a6e-46f4-845c-8907a40ffaaan@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
>lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
>energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
>difficult component of the task.

It's going to be an especially hard sell to convince people they need
to be poor while the people telling them they need to be poor are
very conspicuously not-poor. (Thinking about all the glitterati flying
individually in their private jets to conferences about shutting down
energy generation for everyone else.)

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <7bee6207-77e8-4ead-a402-4c9cdbb65ff9n@googlegroups.com>,
Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 4:48:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
>> And here are the players, with analysis of the potental
>> energy provided by each:
>>
>> Chapter 10: Renewable overview
>> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#page=182
>
>OTEC is missing from the report.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
>
>I think it would be classed as both "alternative" and "renewable" since it relies on sun-powered
>ocean heating. However, the small number of projects in action would seem to say it's impractical.

I think I recall there were some issues with fouling by
marine organisms. At scale, creating ocean circulation from
the depths back up to the surface, bringing up nutrients
currently lost to the biosphere, would have some effect.
Arguably beneficial effect, but the "No! Nature is perfect!
You can't change *anything*!" folks would have connniptions.

I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
(His words.)

Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
to oppose it.
--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <UeqdM.536321$Sgyc.318200@fx40.iad>,
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Mike Van Pelt <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> writes:
>>In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
>>Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Thorium is unproven commercially
>>
>>But a number of demonstration reactors have been built.
>
>Can you actually point to more than the experimental
>operations at various national labs and the two small
>research reactors in India?
>
>And most of those were built in the early 1960s and
>shut down within the decade.

Five seconds of Google...

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx
--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <u56onv$2aqiq$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>Ultra-capacitor batteries are the answer. We just have to keep them
>from discharging all at once. People are working on it right now and
>some claim to have an answer. They should be chargable without losing
>cells over 100,000 cycles at a very high efficiency, maybe over 90%.
>They should not have a narrow temperature range like chemical batteries.
>
>https://www.tecategroup.com/products/ultracapacitors/ultracapacitor-FAQ.php

I keep hearing about these, but I really want to see something
I can buy at Best Buy or off Amazon. There was another
company several years ago promising one "real soon now"
(eStor? I think.) but as I recall, after collecting a bunch
of venture capital funds, they vanished.

But I do really want to see these.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:35:09 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
> we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
> energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
> in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
> newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
> had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
> catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
> (His words.)
>
> Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
> if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
> core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
> to oppose it.

Yes. Of course, though, James Nicoll pointed out one valid
argument for that kind of reasoning: with exponential growth,
eventually our energy use would warm the planet directly in
an unacceptable manner without help from the greenhouse
effect.

And population growth, and various human activities facilitated
by abundant energy would, of course, have negative environmental
effects.

The bulk of the people in the ecology movement do have an agenda.

One of the parts of that agenda is that they're anti-war, so they don't
believe we really need lots and lots of heavy industry to be able
to defend ourselves from Russia and China and so on. As long as
they stick to an agenda so obviously out of sync with reality, of course
their movement is going to be a non-starter politically.

But that doesn't change the fact that anthropogenic global warming
is both a scientific fact and a serious menace. If doing things their
way won't help, we have to find another way.

John Savard

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:43:29 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <u56onv$2aqiq$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Ultra-capacitor batteries are the answer. We just have to keep them
> >from discharging all at once. People are working on it right now and
> >some claim to have an answer. They should be chargable without losing
> >cells over 100,000 cycles at a very high efficiency, maybe over 90%.
> >They should not have a narrow temperature range like chemical batteries.
> >
> >https://www.tecategroup.com/products/ultracapacitors/ultracapacitor-FAQ.php
> I keep hearing about these, but I really want to see something
> I can buy at Best Buy or off Amazon. There was another
> company several years ago promising one "real soon now"
> (eStor? I think.) but as I recall, after collecting a bunch
> of venture capital funds, they vanished.
>
> But I do really want to see these.

I thought that ultracapacitors were real enough, but I wouldn't call them
"the answer", perhaps the ones that _aren't_ real are another order of
magnitude better in storage capacity so that if they were real, they could
be the answer.

I mean, though, I have to admit that pumping water uphill for use by
hydroelectric dams is a form of energy storage that will actually work
in practice, since it's based on *very* well-established proven technology.

I tend to be suspicious of things like super capacitors or super flywheels
improving on batteries to power electric cars. I will believe those when they
actually work in practice, because they require orders of magnitude
improvements to things we have.

Of course, we do have ultracentrifuges, and if they remember to make the
flywheels in pairs that rotate in opposite directions... they might be able
to achieve something that would work well enough for a... demonstration.

John Savard

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:36:23 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> Five seconds of Google...
>
> https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx

That page, though, seems to indicate that while research on incorporating Thorium
fuel into existing nuclear cycles has been done, it hasn't actually *gone* anywhere.

They tried it, then they gave it up.

That may just mean we don't need it yet (we haven't run out of Uranium, and we're not
building lots and lots of additional nuclear reactors) but it creates at least the impression
that the experiments that were tried... failed.

John Savard