energy sources

[damian]

The Straight Dope: Followup: Why don't we ditch nukes and coal?

I've been reading the straight dope for years. He's entertaining if nothing else.

Anyway, I am not suggesting this is right or wrong, but there is probably some truth in it and even if it's half right it puts a lot of our current policy dilemmas into perspective.

No doubt there are some who would suggest you just arbitrarily deny people the energy they desire. That argument is about as futile as suggesting we somehow "force" immigrants to live out in the interior of Australia.

Anyway I thought it was a good read....worth poking around the site for other trivia if your that way inclined...

[TTIT]

Interesting article I've often thought the solar stuff seemed futile at best - to the point of wondering if even the energy used to create the panels is ever recovered Hopefully some clever bugger will come up with a better way to harness all those feral photons

[chrisb691]

I have had my doubts about the viability of 'alternate' sources, but that article certainly does change one's perspective a bit.

[damian]

There are solid economic arguments also. Fossil and nucleur are about half the cost to generate than most other systems, although transport cost is fixed obviously, so the cost at point of use isn't double with other methods (like solar and wind), but they are always higher by a signifigant margine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativ...ferent_sources

Wikipedia, but it's concise and readable. I can find you links to much more detailed reports if you've got a couple of days to kill

It's worth noting that Cecil isn't political, he neither favours right or left positions, he merely states the facts, and mixes in a little humour.

Also, I'll mention it again, search bluegen, australian company, ex csiro technology. It's a fuel cell you install at home, about the size of a large dishwasher (bigger with the integrated hot water system), uses piped natural gas (mostly hydrogen very little carbon) puts out 1.5 kW, max 2, at point of use. A very nice machine. I have been thinking of buying shares in the company, I think once production is properly underway they will have a bright future.

[Dropcat]

Hot rocks, aka geothermal - Hot rocks key to electricity needs: expert › News in Science (ABC Science)

Simple idea, you drill a deep hole, pump cold water down and get hot water back. The interior of the Earth is hot from the heat of decaying radioactive stuff at the core. That's not going to run out soon.

Iceland gets about 25% of it's power from geothermal, the rest from hydro. Geothermal is much easier in Iceland due to all those volcanoes laying about.

[ColW]

I agree the energy outlook on a global scale is bleak considering the expected population of 9.2 billion by 2050. Australia's relative population is expected to be 36M of which immigration will account for about 11M, the dilemma for us being, even if we aspire to reduce our energy use per capita in the meantime, the immigrants entering our country ( mostly from SE Asia who currently use 1/10th the energy we do ) will be likely to increase theirs, increasing need for the whole country to reduce usage even further.

I'm about 1/3 the way through this document

http://energy.unimelb.edu.au/uploads...e_numbers3.pdf

Page 45 puts "the bill" into some kind of perspective, keeping in mind this a local (Australian) solution, as for the developing global regions, their populations are unsustainable and there's no economic, scientific, or social solution available or ever likely to be

col.

[Harry72]

The silliest thing is the lack of funding for thorium powered reactors there is no need for any alt power at all...

[damian]

New Zealand gets signifigant % of it's electricity from geo and other "renewables".

The thing that strikes me is this:

Lets say Australia moves to 100% renewables (we can't but lets just imagine for a moment).

Lets say the whole western developed world follows suit.

The simple fact is that the rest of the world will put extreme pressure on their governments and energy suppliers to provide power in future and the ONLY way we know of to even try to satisfy that demand is via fossil and other non PC methods. If they are denied power the consequences are social upheval. Serious social upheval.

This seems to have been completely overlooked in the current debate throughout the developed world.

It's just a really unhappy element of the future.

The trouble with that paper is he glosses over some key problems. In fact just skimming it it just seems to me he lacks a fundamental understanding of the implications of a lot of what he's proposing. "superficial" was the word that kept popping into my head. It just looks like he's cherry picked quotes out of a lot of other papers and compiled a report. It's not Garnaut awful but it isn't a great paper...

[mic-d]

That's a useful little article. I'm happy at least that they think population will stabilize, I didn't know that and thought it was destined to go on until we reach some calamity (which still looks possible even at 9B).

Nuclear is with us whether we like it or not, but I wonder if you factor in clean up bills for Chernobyl and Fukushima whether it is quite as cheap as half price? I don't know. Personally I can't wait until thorium reactors are perfected and old technology can be decommissioned.
I also think we should be asked whether we want nuclear power generation here in Australia and I think the outcome of that referendum should be linked to whether the Australian export industry of nuclear fuels continues. I can't rationalise how we might refuse nuclear power here but be happy to reap the windfall of digging the stuff up for others.
It will be interesting to see if Germany can make up the shortfall in energy since deciding to phase out nuclear power and also control it's output of carbon from outside the carbon cycle ie fossil fuels. What future for a country that manages on 'alternative energy ' only?

I also wonder whether you ever recoup the energy that goes into making solar panels. Does anyone know?

[beer is good]

Back in the 1970's I read a fascinating piece written by an American engineer. The price of oil had gone through the roof thanks to greedy OPEC, and there was a call to put solar water heaters on the roof of every house in the US.

This engineer calculated that the energy (heat and electricity) needed to make the copper, aluminium and glass for solar heaters would exceed the amount of energy used by heating water with an oil fired heater. So he proposed making a solar water heater out of light weight concrete with (I think) tubes running up and down. He didn't take his idea any further as he had to earn a living as an aero engineer, but I was impressed that he had done the calculations.

Today, concrete is a dirty word as it is second after coal fired power stations for producing green house emissions.

Looks to me like we are stuck with oil for quite a while...

[mic-d]

I also wonder whether you ever recoup the energy that goes into making solar panels. Does anyone know?

I did a little digging and came up with a few references, which I have only glanced at:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
http://www.motherearthnews.com/energy-matters/dispelling-the-myths-of-solar...
http://www.watercrisis.org/apollo2/knapp/PVEPBTPaper.pdf

Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture
On a superficial view it seems quite positive. Thin film arrays may pay back in as little as a year. Usual caveats - I don't know what I am talking about...etc etc.

[damian]

For what it's worth:

I have read several analyses (sp?) of silicone photvoltaics, some indicating the net negative energy you mention, some demonstrating a large positive. I don't know but my feeling is that they are probably a net positive. It is true that recovering pure silicone and making it into the crystal sheets needed for them is energy intensive. Like most proper analysis it's complicated and I don't have the time and resources to look into it properly.

Chernobyl was much hyped in the media. It was obviously a disaster, but not nearly the catastrophy the mongers of panic would have us believe. There were some tens of immediate victims, but cancer rates and birth defects amongst those exposed have trended close to wider averages. I am not trying to trivialise it, but I don't buy into media driven exageration, lies and hype.

A potential greater problem will be if the international community deems the source of uranium responsible for it's long term disposal. tha would bite us. I doubt the rest of the world cares if we use it ourselves or ship it to them.

I don't know much about thorium reactors. What I will say is this: generators don't care how they generate. They are in the business of making money so they devise a system to meet customer tolerance (not expectations, just enough to stop them going elsewhere) in reliability, quality and price.

The FACT is that coal is by far the cheapest option for most of Australia. If power could be generated reliably 24/7 at the same or lower price point than coal they would dump it like a hot rock(no pun intended). Nuclear obviously has popular resistance. You can argue a reactor is theoretically safe but on the other hand in private hands they will always find a way to stuff it up.

If the community accepts that pollution from coal plants is an issue then the government has options to make it unviable to use it, or to at least clean up the process. The latter has already been done with australian industry often leading the world on emmissions from coal power and steel making. This occurred due to government intervention. One common tool of the left is statment like "we've got to start fighting pollution" implying we haven't yet. A great lie. Many of you are old enough to remember the smog and acid rain of the late 70's. All those cities are now more populace than they were then yet pollution levels are generally lower. Not perfect but the fight has always been there be it air pollution, deforestation over hunting etc.

Which tool the government uses, carbon tax, cap and trade or legislation, is irrelevant. The fact is the community should be on board because no matter which way it goes if the government acts to reduce pollution you and me will pay for it, at the bowser, at the post office, paying the power bill and at the supermarket with the transport component of our shopping. How much it costs us depends on how well the government devises it's scheme. And if you think you'll get compensation forget it. It'll still impact in economic drag and taxes diverted to covering the anti pollution efforts.

The golden rule of government: We always pay. Always.

Note I make no judgement above about whether the pollution needs to be reduced. I think it should, I think alternatives should be properly reaserched and implemented, but I think it should all be undertaken in a rational way, not the frantic political lunges we've seen.

Returning to the origional post though, it's all pretty much irrelevant given the polulation and development issues. It's like trying to stop a mudslide with a fork...

2c.

[mic-d]

I wasn't referring directly to the health effects of Chernobyl since I suspect it was overstated, based on what I've seen and read - such things as the bbc horizon program for instance. Although I have a foot in both camps because I can also believe that a whitewash has been perpetrated to protect the international nuclear industry (yes possibly a conspiracy theory but I don't k.n.o.w. Why for instance does there seem to be a blackout on coverage of Fukushima by the commercial networks in Australia ) I'm talking costs of cleanup, quarantine of arable land and associated loss, cost of relocation of residences, business and industry etc. loss of export markets etc. It all adds up. I wonder if those projected costs are included in the cost of nuclear electricity?
True, many many more people die from the coal industry and health impacts than from nuclear, but in the back of ones mind is the vision that if it goes wrong, (old technology)nuclear can do it more spectacularly than a coal, wind or solar power station. Although I just remembered, many many thousands have died from hydroelectric generation, but do those figures get bandied about?
footnote- I am pronuclear, but not for an industry such as in Japan where Tepco has been exposed for a number of cover-ups.

[ColW]

I've read a little on specific "social costs" of Chernobyl, displacement of the locals and such and how it pretty much mirrored the early implications of european settlement on
indiginous populations, depression, alcoholism, even sexual promiscuity?? Many have returned and continue to live off the land despite the warnings to their health. As for the contaminaton area and costs etc there are many varied accounts.

Australia has I believe made some inroads into nuclear waste disposal or rather storage techniques which includes fusing radioactive matter into glass inside stainless steel then burying it deep within the earth, but it's India I believe that's leading in the field of "fast" and thorium technology with the aim of reducing the waste from the industry. From a very, blurry and well into the future outlook, depending on how your imagination works, it's probably not a good idea to have this stuff sitting around.

But returning to the original post which deals specifically with the planets carrying capacity of humans, i've seen some varying opinions on this as well, some have suggested 1.5B others 20, perhaps the smart money will be an investment in pharmaceuticals, distilleries and condoms to placate the masses.

[Harry72]

Here's where we are at with Thorium.
If all major government's world wide put effort into this instead of stupid policies like "carbon tax" that wont work we all be better off