Science & Technology News

[SailOar]

Bill Gates on Climate Change, Covid and Whether He Has Too Much Influence

Released this month, [Bill Gate's] book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” details his own exploration of the causes and effects of climate change. In it, Gates offers a framework for avoiding climate catastrophe by attaining what he deems the necessary goal of moving from 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions released each year to net zero by 2050. Noting that the world “has never done anything quite this big,” Gates argues that breakthrough technologies must play a critical role in getting there....

You’ve got to get today’s electricity to be completely clean. And as you stop using natural gas, a lot of the things, like heating homes with natural gas, become electricity. Powering passenger cars becomes electricity. And so the total electricity you need in the U.S. will go up by about 2½ times.

And so, to make electricity cheap and reliable, there are three different paths. Only three. And any one of them is fine. You can have a miracle in storage, which means a grid storage battery. And we should pursue it as hard as we can. I’ve lost more money in battery companies than anybody, so I’m taking it seriously. But if the battery can only go a certain distance, the only two other solutions to give you reliable power that’s cheap and clean is nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. All three of these paths have huge technical costs, safety and acceptance problems.....

[jimbunyard]

I thought I was referring to an Eagle's song...

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Bill Gates on Climate Change, Covid and Whether He Has Too Much Influence

Released this month, [Bill Gate's] book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” details his own exploration of the causes and effects of climate change. In it, Gates offers a framework for avoiding climate catastrophe by attaining what he deems the necessary goal of moving from 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions released each year to net zero by 2050. Noting that the world “has never done anything quite this big,” Gates argues that breakthrough technologies must play a critical role in getting there....

You’ve got to get today’s electricity to be completely clean. And as you stop using natural gas, a lot of the things, like heating homes with natural gas, become electricity. Powering passenger cars becomes electricity. And so the total electricity you need in the U.S. will go up by about 2½ times.

And so, to make electricity cheap and reliable, there are three different paths. Only three. And any one of them is fine. You can have a miracle in storage, which means a grid storage battery. And we should pursue it as hard as we can. I’ve lost more money in battery companies than anybody, so I’m taking it seriously. But if the battery can only go a certain distance, the only two other solutions to give you reliable power that’s cheap and clean is nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. All three of these paths have huge technical costs, safety and acceptance problems.....

Just because he is smart and wealthy, doesn't mean he right.

There is another way, install excess renewable generation capacity and a higher capacity grid. Hiding somewhere on my last computer's hard drive is a report that researched how much and where to install solar and wind farms in order to meet demand 99.99% of the time regardless of season, weather, time of day. It was based on the historical long term weather conditions all around the country.

Additionally we need to triple or quadruple the insulation in all buildings. We should start by changing requirements for new stock then look at upgrading existing stock.

Fusion is still decades away if ever.

Nuclear requires a change in public perception, developing a long term waste strategy, standardizing on a single or limited number of reactor designs and probably a shift to thorium rather than uranium fuel.

[newhaul]

The whole problem with nuclear power is politics.
https://environmentalprogress.org/bi...n-clean-energy

There are several other examples .

And yes smr is the way to go slow reactors are magnitudes safer than the traditionally used fast reactors . Just ask the US NAVY.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by newhaul

The whole problem with nuclear power is politics.
https://environmentalprogress.org/bi...n-clean-energy

There are several other examples .

And yes smr is the way to go slow reactors are magnitudes safer than the traditionally used fast reactors . Just ask the US NAVY.

Politics is the means by which different groups peacefully negotiate the division of power and resources. So what is it about politics that makes nuclear power a problem?
The fact that so many different groups are opposed seems like the problem, not politics.

I looked into that link. Run by a guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger) who's background is public relations. First article is "Jerry Brown's Secret War on Clean Energy" from 3yr ago. Claiming a conspiracy that sounds very Q-Inane. Or maybe the liberal equivalent.

He may be the one to convince people to give nuclear another try, but I'm not putting my money on it. Beyond convincing people, there are still tremendous technical hurdles. Starting with waste.

SMR would meet the need for standardized reactor design. There are plenty of other potential designs that could be used as a standard design. Who knows which one will be chosen. The point of a standard design is that there is a much larger pool of reactors to learn operational issues on and your only have to design one fix for any given problem and implement it on all the reactors rather than custom designing fixes for each reactor. This is why the Navy standardized reactor designs beginning in the mid-1960s.

But SMRs or any of the other US proposals aren't designed for Thorium. Thorium has a number of advantages in that they don't breed anything that can be used in weapons, there is less waste and it is shorter lived. It's still radioactive waste that would need to be stored for a significant fraction of a Megayear Thorium has its own set of problems that haven't been resolved in the US. The only people pursuing it seem to be the Indians.

To the best of my knowledge the Navy never got into fast reactors. The closest they got was 1 prototype reactor and 1 production reactor (original Seawolf) that used sodium coolant. Quickly withdrawn from service. Their interest was in making a much smaller reactor, not in making a uranium breeder reactor which requires something other than light water as a coolant. They may have been interested in fast breeders for weapons material production, but the DoE would have done that development.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Politics is the means by which different groups peacefully negotiate the division of power and resources. So what is it about politics that makes nuclear power a problem?
The fact that so many different groups are opposed seems like the problem, not politics.

I looked into that link. Run by a guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger) who's background is public relations. First article is "Jerry Brown's Secret War on Clean Energy" from 3yr ago. Claiming a conspiracy that sounds very Q-Inane. Or maybe the liberal equivalent.

He may be the one to convince people to give nuclear another try, but I'm not putting my money on it. Beyond convincing people, there are still tremendous technical hurdles. Starting with waste.

SMR would meet the need for standardized reactor design. There are plenty of other potential designs that could be used as a standard design. Who knows which one will be chosen. The point of a standard design is that there is a much larger pool of reactors to learn operational issues on and your only have to design one fix for any given problem and implement it on all the reactors rather than custom designing fixes for each reactor. This is why the Navy standardized reactor designs beginning in the mid-1960s.

But SMRs or any of the other US proposals aren't designed for Thorium. Thorium has a number of advantages in that they don't breed anything that can be used in weapons, there is less waste and it is shorter lived. It's still radioactive waste that would need to be stored for a significant fraction of a Megayear Thorium has its own set of problems that haven't been resolved in the US. The only people pursuing it seem to be the Indians.

To the best of my knowledge the Navy never got into fast reactors. The closest they got was 1 prototype reactor and 1 production reactor (original Seawolf) that used sodium coolant. Quickly withdrawn from service. Their interest was in making a much smaller reactor, not in making a uranium breeder reactor which requires something other than light water as a coolant. They may have been interested in fast breeders for weapons material production, but the DoE would have done that development.

I should have said politicians
Try again on the salt smr reactors you are behind the times
Would you like a few links to the some of the current tech on all 4 designs of smr that are being built and tested ( a couple have actually been brought online in Russia)
The navy does not have but one fast reactor in Idaho falls the 120+ others are smr tech.
An aside the navy runs the NRC.
Lastly I know reads like a conspiracy but Jerry brown is the reason for all the negatively toward nuclear power. His money was at the time in offshore oil and natural gas . And the power plants were the main user in California do the deep look .

An aside ( I carried a 4956 NEC certified all position all process nuclear welder) when in the navy

[AKA-None]

I believe you’re thinking the wrong way.
We don’t need a massive power grid. Maybe we need houses, and offices to be able to supply much of their own power.
We went from massive mainframes to mostly distributed systems. Why not reconsider where the power is used and move a lot of the power closer to where it’s used?

Like I keep telling my analysts stop attacking the symptoms and start looking at the underlying problem.

[jimbunyard]

The underlying problem is overconsumption forced onto 'consumers' by the manipulation of their desires by myopic, craven, power and money-infatuated cultural and political 'leaders'.

Unfortunately, the only likely 'solution', at this point, is to let 'nature run it's course'.

As we increasingly see, the results will be interesting, but not pretty...

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

I believe you’re thinking the wrong way.
We don’t need a massive power grid. Maybe we need houses, and offices to be able to supply much of their own power.
We went from massive mainframes to mostly distributed systems. Why not reconsider where the power is used and move a lot of the power closer to where it’s used?

Like I keep telling my analysts stop attacking the symptoms and start looking at the underlying problem.

If houses become much better insulated, then it may be possible to put enough solar panels on their roofs for them to supply their own power.

Same with light single story commercial buildings.

Multi-story offices and apartments will have too much demand for onsite solar to meet. Industrial......

As soon as you start looking at wind you are back to needing a major power grid.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Adelie

As soon as you start looking at wind you are back to needing a major power grid.

Incorrect actually for many decades since the late 1800's until quite recently in decades terms it was small scale for running single farms and up to small communities independent of large scale power grids.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/history-us-wind-energy
A 5 to 10kw wind generator and 5kw of roof mounted solar along with 15 kw of lfp bank would be perfect for off-grid life.
More battery would be even better .

Numbers are arbitrary for illustration.
Essentially just scaling up our boat systems for land based homes.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Incorrect actually for many decades since the late 1800's until quite recently in decades terms it was small scale for running single farms and up to small communities independent of large scale power grids. A 5 to 10kw wind generator and 5kw of roof mounted solar along with 15 kw of lfp bank would be perfect for off-grid life.
More battery would be even better .

Numbers are arbitrary for illustration.
Essentially just scaling up our boat systems for land based homes.

So what you are saying is a 20-story 200 unit apartment building could mount 4 10kW windmills (1 at each corner) plus the 40kW of solar panels you could mount on the roof would be enough to power the whole building?
And that wouldn’t interfere with the wind and solar mounted on adjacent buildings?

10kW mills have 23’ diameter rotors so it would be a losing proposition to put more on the building. Even then they would probably need city approval for the blades to swing out over the street. And then there’s the design and approval for the 50-100’ towers they need to be placed on.

Those are actual numbers for calculation purposes.

Bigger windmills have lower costs per MWhr installed capacity and will have a higher utilization rate being part of a grid.

The average house in the US uses 1.0-2.0 MWhr per month. That’s 1.4-2.8kW continuous.

Isolated houses would do well to have a wind turbine and solar both.

In a neighborhood only solar will fly unless you have wind before the neighborhood grows up around you.

Higher density residences or commercial and industrial generally don’t have the area to pack in enough wind and solar and then you need the grid.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Adelie

So what you are saying is a 20-story 200 unit apartment building could mount 4 10kW windmills (1 at each corner) plus the 40kW of solar panels you could mount on the roof would be enough to power the whole building?
And that wouldn’t interfere with the wind and solar mounted on adjacent buildings?

10kW mills have 23’ diameter rotors so it would be a losing proposition to put more on the building. Even then they would probably need city approval for the blades to swing out over the street. And then there’s the design and approval for the 50-100’ towers they need to be placed on.

Those are actual numbers for calculation purposes.

Bigger windmills have lower costs per MWhr installed capacity and will have a higher utilization rate being part of a grid.

The average house in the US uses 1.0-2.0 MWhr per month. That’s 1.4-2.8kW continuous.

Isolated houses would do well to have a wind turbine and solar both.

In a neighborhood only solar will fly unless you have wind before the neighborhood grows up around you.

Higher density residences or commercial and industrial generally don’t have the area to pack in enough wind and solar and then you need the grid.

You show me where multiple 20 story 200 unit apartments are in small communities!
Your example just doesn't pass muster this time

BTW in my region the majority of our power is from renewable sources namely hydroelectric and nuclear . Wind and solar barely register even with the wind farms all over Eastern Washington

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

... An aside the navy runs the NRC...

Where do you get such notions?

An independent agency of the United States government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for regulating the nuclear power industry. Among its chief duties are issuing licenses that allow commercial nuclear reactors to operate and carrying out inspections of power plants, including (reviewing/approving) the USN's Nuclear Powered Warships (NPWs).

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Where do you get such notions?

An independent agency of the United States government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for regulating the nuclear power industry. Among its chief duties are issuing licenses that allow commercial nuclear reactors to operate and carrying out inspections of power plants, including (reviewing/approving) the USN's Nuclear Powered Warships (NPWs).

Dig a little deeper

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Dig a little deeper

Elucidate.