Base load power

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

The "traditional" nuclear industry (read: capitalist) has nothing to gain from using a Thorium cycle. They would lose significant revenue in charging for reactor cost, fuel supply and decomissioning costs.

Yep. The Nuclear Industry is like a massive car manufacturing business. They make money on spare parts (and fuel). They'll even sell at loss to set-up knowing they'll recoup costs in supplies amd maintenance down the road. It's a bit like buy that big plasma screen now and don't pay until 2012. No interest either.

That's the only thing in the way of Thorium but I think in the long run they'll go to it. When it's financially sound to do the switch. After they've burnt every litre of gas that is, whihc is the next big thing IMHO. So not anytime soon.

[Eternal]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

The "traditional" nuclear industry (read: capitalist) has nothing to gain from using a Thorium cycle. They would lose significant revenue in charging for reactor cost, fuel supply and decomissioning costs.

There is a great web page here: http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

As for it being actively promoted...well surprise surprise, China is implementing thorium based power as we fiddle about in Oz.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...h-thorium.html

Is it already up and running yet? No didn't think so. We already have the solution to coal fired power stations. Solar power, wind power & hydro have been proven to work and are already in use around the world (and please don't feed me that crap about base load - IT"S A MYTH!!!).

I simply cannot understand this constant desire amongst some people that the only way to get energy is to dig stuff out of the ground. If you try hard enough you really can give up this addiction.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Eternal

Solar power, wind power & hydro have been proven to work and are already in use around the world (and please don't feed me that crap about base load - IT"S A MYTH!!!).

All these work but working doesn't mean it covers the demand. Wind doesn't work. Solar, mehh so so, hydro waves and tides, right... not. Only dams to the job. When they need instant power the coal plants kick back in so it maybe a nice exercise but definitely not practical.

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Here is another option that seldom gets mentioned and I believe it is well within the current level of our technology it just requires the will to implement it. And it would provide Base load power
SPACE BASED SOLAR

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

Here is another option that seldom gets mentioned and I believe it is well within the current level of our technology it just requires the will to implement it.
SPACE BASED SOLAR

That would be super cool! Remember that Japanese project to have a system in geo-synchronous orbit with a big ombilical running down to the surface? Where's a good Romulan ship when we need one?

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Originally Posted by Eternal

crap about base load - IT"S A MYTH!!!).
.

What the hell does that mean !!!!!!!?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Eternal

Is it already up and running yet? No didn't think so. We already have the solution to coal fired power stations. Solar power, wind power & hydro have been proven to work and are already in use around the world (and please don't feed me that crap about base load - IT"S A MYTH!!!).

Prove your point....where are the economic and technical studies pointing to your assertion that solar, wind and hydro can supply not only enough power but be able to supply power at base load for both domestic and commercial purposes.

If you weren't so quick to just blithely dismiss what everyone has written here in order to push the misguided beliefs you've been indoctrinated with, and you actually took the time to research about thorium reactors and the history of the nuclear industry, you might know why thorium reactors are not being used at present. The reasons why have been mentioned in this thread before. I suggest you take the time again to read what was said.

[avandonk]

The simple problem is that fossil fuel electric generation is far cheaper than any wind solar or geothermal. So the apparent cheap option is the one that is built.

Fossil fuels are only 'cheap' because no value is placed on their replacement or pollution cost.

Just explore how expensive biodiesel or ethanol as a petrol substitute is. Jet fuel is even more expensive if at all practical. When the oil runs out what are you going to use for lubricants and plastic stockfeeds?

I am sure an economist could work out the cost of the pollution of burning fossil fuels. An average coal fired power station releases more radioactive and poisonous heavy metal elements than any nuclear reactor. We won't even mention the carcinogenic and poisonous micro particles. The real cost of the water for cooling towers is another cost not realistically charged to the generation companies. We have not got to the CO2 yet but that is another pollutant that is not charged for.

We can reduce our base load needs by simply using less. This can be done by a number of ways. One glaring example is all the light energy sent up into the sky uselessly in just Australia, needs an average sized power station to effect this act of futility not to mention how it upsets us astronomers!
I won't enumerate all the other methods.

Hope this helps a bit.


Bert

[Terry B]

Originally Posted by multiweb

All these work but working doesn't mean it covers the demand. Wind doesn't work. Solar, mehh so so, hydro waves and tides, right... not. Only dams to the job. When they need instant power the coal plants kick back in so it maybe a nice exercise but definitely not practical.

Why doesn't wind work?
On a personal note I live in a windy place with 3 small wind turbines within 1 km of my place. I will eventually join them with my own. It is windy more often than it is sunny.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

Here is another option that seldom gets mentioned and I believe it is well within the current level of our technology it just requires the will to implement it. And it would provide Base load power
SPACE BASED SOLAR

That's a pretty old idea. There was an article in Radio & Hobbies about 60 years ago about putting a solar electric power generator in synchrous orbit (they didn't even have the means to get it there then). Convert it into microwave energy and beam it to detectors on the ground to convert back to electricity. I must see if I can find the article.

Barry

[Hagar (Doug)]

Originally Posted by Eternal

Is it already up and running yet? No didn't think so. We already have the solution to coal fired power stations. Solar power, wind power & hydro have been proven to work and are already in use around the world (and please don't feed me that crap about base load - IT"S A MYTH!!!).

I simply cannot understand this constant desire amongst some people that the only way to get energy is to dig stuff out of the ground. If you try hard enough you really can give up this addiction.

Your comments here are definitely an uneducated endeavour to dismiss new solutions.
I work in the power industry as a senior shift manager involved in the generation side of the industry. If you would like to take a look at http://www.aemo.com.au you may well gleem some knowledge about the industry as it stands at the moment.
I will point out a few small points which you have overlooked with this blanket statement.
Hydro: Provides about 2% of the countries electricity supplies. During the past 10 years of drought that fell to less than 1%. The only new hydro built in the last 10 years was Bogong Power Station 140MW. This was built in the middle of an existing hydro scheme and it is very likely to be the last unless the greenies allow new dams to be built. Attempts to raise a few dam walls have been squashed as well. Hydro is largely used as peak load generation for obvious reasons. Once it's used it's gone.

Gas: Used almost exclusively as peak load generation due to the cost of gas, it's use for heating etc and lack of ability to store huge amounts of gas for generation. You can only pack so much in any of the pipe systems. Some base load stations exist but no new high capacity stations will be built unles they are gas turbine stations due to the building costs.

Oil/diesel: Very very expensive as a fuel source and generated output is not really very good.

Wind: is base load as long as the wind is blowing but it changes so readily that compensation with Gas or hydro must be used to maintain a stable system.

Solar: Base load during the day but nothing at night. Hardly true base load.

Coal: cheap to extract, cheap to use, very stable load characteristics, is available 24/7. Cost to build and maintain is quite expensive but high capacity generators and huge rotating mass makes the system very stable.

I guess your original statement is somewhat true but i'm sure you will be happy sitting in the dark and cold after 4:00pm during the winter months and will be very happy to have a system which is so insecure you will spend more time without power than you do with it connected.

To you it may be just a matter of turning on a switch and the lights come on but I can assure you the management and security of our electricity grid is a huge task managed by a group of extremely well educated and experienced managers and engineers.
If you can come up with a means of makeing wind and solar as stable as coal you will make a fortune with it. Electricity companies will be knocking at your door.

From where I sit our only alternative is Thorium reactors or one of the other reactor based systems. They will work 24/7 which is true base loading.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Originally Posted by Terry B

Why doesn't wind work?
On a personal note I live in a windy place with 3 small wind turbines within 1 km of my place. I will eventually join them with my own. It is windy more often than it is sunny.

The only way wind is really effective in a domestic situation is if you are prepared to use a battery storage system which uses the wind generator as a battery charger but the cost is very high indeed. In some respects a similar intallation to solar will work but again you need some alternative when the wind isn't blowing. The other problem with wind generation is the wind turbine usually only works in a relatively small band of wind speed.

To explain this fact: If you look at a large wind generator and imagine the speed of the turbine it looks to be spinning relatively slowly but in reality the tips of the turbine blades are running at just under the speed of sound. Should they inrease above the sound barrier you can imagine the noise created and the blades just self distruct with the pressure wave created.

Hope this helps.

[TrevorW]

And that's what the inention is here, to inibit the production of CO2

That's all

..
Mike[/QUOTE]


Mike but that's just my point , will it . I know that business in general will often pass increases in operating expenditure onto the consumer as a price rise instead of looking for more efficient ways of operating, taking the path of least resistence

if a tax is 10% and to negate that tax it's going to cost them 15%, they'll just pass the 10% on as a price rise

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

If coal powered generators are the only viable way to provide "base load", someone should let Tassie, WA know.. As for the rest of the world...
Hydro 20% of total power.
Tidal is being used more and more.
Geothermal is widely used and proven tech.

These power sources simply need investment, may be a 1/10th of the government support that coal gets.

Our national grid means that it is always windy somewhere so the base load can be provided. We just have to do things differently, the only thing stopping us is self interest and greed. That goes for nukes as well, something tells me that those who are pushing wouldn't riase the kids in the shadow of it.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Boy this thread is going fast just catching up with some of the posts. If you want to reduce your power bills then do a energy audit. It's not good enough to just put in low energy lights. It might come as a shock whats costing you money.

My house a farm have a total power bill of less then $1k a year and power is more costly in SA.
Peter conversion to cleaner fuel will not happen over night, but it can happen. Pricing the cost of carbon on the environment is a great step.

In the end the carbon "debate" is systematic about were australia is these days. We have become a country of knockers and can't doer's. China and India will take advantage of the new economies, any good ideas we do come up with will be driven offshore, the only diference will be instead of going to the US it goes to China. Sad really.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Originally Posted by KenGee

If coal powered generators are the only viable way to provide "base load", someone should let Tassie, WA know.. As for the rest of the world...
Hydro 20% of total power.
Tidal is being used more and more.
Geothermal is widely used and proven tech.

These power sources simply need investment, may be a 1/10th of the government support that coal gets.

Our national grid means that it is always windy somewhere so the base load can be provided. We just have to do things differently, the only thing stopping us is self interest and greed. That goes for nukes as well, something tells me that those who are pushing wouldn't riase the kids in the shadow of it.

Pretty easy to throw figures around and come up with false judgements

Lets start with Tassie, Since the connection of Basslink cable to Tassie the flow of power has almost always been towards Tassie.
Tassie is a very wet state barring of course Hobart (Second driest Capitol City) High montain range and a supportive government to build dams and water storages. Unlike the mainland and it's green tree huggers. Try building a new dam on the mainland...

Wind everywhere, No company will spend the money to build wind turbines everywhere for a minimal return for when the wind just happens to blow when it's not blowing somewhere else.
I can assure you the returns are just returns on windfarms in high wind areas. I manage wind farms in a couple of high wind areas in South Australia. They run on quite tight margins and are often all shutdown at the same time due to a lack of wind.
Take your average 40+ degree week in SA, what happens to the wind? It dies. Gas, hydro and coal takes up the slack on these days.
The next big part of scattering wind farms all over the country is providing the infrastructure to carry the load to the load base. In most outback areas it just doesn't exist.
Sounds good just build it. The most costly part of electricity production is the transmission costs and the losses in transporting it over large distances.
One example where wind has trouble with infrastructure is in SA. Hallet wind farm sits atop the hills above Hallet gas turbine station. When the wind farm is at full load the Gas turbines on the MOOMBAh gas pipeline can't run due to overloading the line. This area is one of the few high wind areas in Australia but suffers from huge electrical storms as well. When such a storm moves over the area the wind turbines have to be load constrained because a 132KV line tripwill overload the only remaining line and risk the overall system security of the SA grid.

The average price for electricity generation at the moment is around $30 per MW hour. The cost of transmission is $40 / MW hour.
Privatisation has lifted these costs to more than double what they were when Government owned.

When Australia has high tempratures accross QLD, NSW, Vic and SA the price regularly bounces to $12500 per MW hour sounds good doesn't it. The trouble is there is usually not enough to go round thus the price increase but a distibution company still only charges you the same as they get when supply and generation costs are $30/MWHr.

You don't need to be an ecconomist to work out the figures don't add up to good practice but it is what we have to live with until something better comes along.
Cummins Diesel are manufacturing peak load stations to fill the rare gaps in load and generation but at 250L of diesel / MWhr it is an expensive game to play let alone the cost of having a huge supply of diesel sitting on site in case of.

There is a nice little diesel station at Angaston in the Barrossa Valley in SA, it runs in anger a few times a year but you still only pay your 25C per kilowatt hour even though the price or cost to generate is 10 times the average price.

There will be no change in what we use to generate until it becomes cost effective at least now that the energy sector is privately owned.
Its a hard one to understand but it is all true. Transmission and losses over big distances is costly and I doubt you would like to pay $100 / KW hour and neither would our industrial sector. It would almost have us back in the dark ages cutting down trees for everything which would exaserpate our CO2 emissions.

If a tax was used to invest in infrastructure and development it may well work or go somewhere towards working but I doubt much will be left after mamgement costs of lots of shinny arsed pollies and their staff.
As I stated earlier all the electricity companies are already working on carbon trading and the staffing required because they can see a profit in the deal.

[Barrykgerdes]

Why do so many people complain about the emission of carbon dioxide and to a lesser extent methane?

Animal life exists because it can combine oxygen with carbon based substances (carbohydrates etc). The by-products of this process carbon dioxide, urine and faeces are completely recycleable. Vegetation and the energy from the Sun complete the cycle and turn these waste products back into oxygen and carbohydrates. This process has been going on happily for millions of years. In my days of learning it was refered to as the carbon cycle!


If plant life had to rely on animals to provide Carbon dioxide for its growth it would not flourish very well but luckily carbon dioxide can also be produced by burning carbon based material. This provides much needed carbon dioxide for plant growth. Even so it sucks all the carbon dioxide out of the air that it can, keeping the amount of carbon dioxide to an extremely low level in the atmosphere.

Of course we as humans have discovered that burning plant matter can produce heat that can be used as energy and to create energy in other forms. We also have discovered that concentrated carboniferous material (coal etc) has a much higher heat yield when burnt than other common plant based material.

This gets back to the original thread now. Coal has a finite amount and cannot be easily created. Once it is all used we will need another source of heat. Thus we must not waste it unnecessarily till we can discover a new recycleable method of generating the energy we need. Forget about nuclear energy. It has more problems than other means of generating heat. The obvious source is the Sun. We need to use its energy directly without it being converted into combustable materials. I am sure that this will eventually happen.

Barry

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike.

I do understand the view that to make a change you have to hit the hip pocket nerve. There definitely is some truth to that.

Even this Thorium reactor YouTube acknowledges the fact the Uranium Industry wouldn't want it as it threatens their market. Much like the Oil Industry no doubt has blocked many green inventions over the years and other industries act to protect their profits and block good things as a result.

Greg.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Interesting assessment Greg, I like your thoughfull apraisals on things not just this one but camera's, filters, everything, you are a good bloke

I'm not going to argue with what you have said but just comment two things.



Here in lies the proplem.. when one group comes out in support there is another group who claim the first group knows nothing simply becasue it contradicts their line. I mean regardless of what The Abbott says about this telling revelation, the Liberal Party utilise many economists, both amongs their ranks and to help design their policy, so economists are clearly not a useless tool...when the vast majority of them think the current carbon pricing scheme is a good idea and good policy and significantly better than the Liberal alternative - well, it does mean something.



And that's what the inention is here, to inibit the production of CO2

That's all

..great 6188 by the way

Mike

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Given our propensity to aim missiles at each other over these issues in the past, I've avoided becoming part of this debate to date. Well... I can't any longer

I'm going to clarify my position a little. I'm what I'd call a "political sceptic", not a "scientific sceptic". If I could be completely and utterly sure that the scientists entering into these debates with the loudest voices were not being unduly swayed by politics at the hand of any government with an unrelated agenda, then I'd be completely happy to listen... but I find that I can't be.

Thorium over uranium, wind or solar over coal-fired - at the end of the day we're running out of resources that have contributed to our current position - and we need to find answers quickly. Things have to change - and soon. Whether thorium is entertained as a base load power source, or some other newer reactor technology such as PBR (pebble bed reactors) is employed, maybe our government will channel some of this carbon tax into properly-audited research to point us in the right direction - if they're still functional enough to do so, which is debatable. Nuclear energy (fission) has more than its fair share of associated dangers and problems, relating to environmental concerns over contamination due to natural disaster, and then storage of spent material. Bring on fusion some say - surely it would have been written off by now if it were theoretically and practically unattainable. Research goes on, and I hope that it bears fruit because it seems like a panacea.

What I think the scientists and politicians have missed is... marketing. If you go with the flow you're called a "green fool" by some, if you oppose it you're a "denier" by the others. Come on guys - surely it can't be that hard to prove the central & salient point one way or another for the masses: is the balance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere as truly critical as some scientists and pro-carbon politicians promise it is? Government advice maintains that the so-called anthropogenically derived swing is critically dangerous to our atmospheric balance. To drill the point home properly, they should ask the scientists to perhaps demonstrate this in some appropriately-designed lab experiment if they can. So WHY is it so critical? This has never, as far as I'm concerned, been adequately explained to the man in the street. "It just is - we're scientists, so believe us" doesn't cut it in this debate. I have the UTMOST respect for mainstream science, but marketing these derivations ain't their strong point. I can understand the notion of a "point of criticality", but I don't think that most do, could or would.

Surely it can't be too hard to explain, if it's the undeniable truth, that a swing of only several parts per million will change the nature of our atmosphere in the way it transmits or blocks/traps infra red energy. Is there some narrow-band effect whereby the transmission qualities of the atmosphere change incredibly rapidly at, or around, some demonstrable point? If so, then tell the world this and demonstrate it. Even if it's not a true parallel, the point would be made easier to understand and relate to. As it is, it's easier to assume that this mightn't be the case, and that a few percentile points either way is not going to do the damage proposed. The reasoning and resultant scepticism behind a super-urgent introduction of a carbon tax is what it seems - a grab for cash otherwise.

I'm asking scientists here on IIS - can the actual science be demonstrated rather than ear-bashed into us? If so, then it might not result in so much fervent opposition, but until then it's all heresay to the common man. Show it to the general population on television, show it to them in the newspapers and magazines in glorius colour- don't just refer them to a bunch of scientific white papers and ask them to interpret them because they quite simply can't. People are generally visual - so give them vision! Where's Julius Sumner-Miller when you need him, eh? If the basic thermodynamics could be simply and convincingly demonstrated then I believe that the question on whether the carbon tax is relevant could be finally resolved for most, and then the next question be entertained - what to do with it.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Chris,

Epic post is epic.

H