OT: French nuclear power

[newshound]

Interesting reading

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yeah, those signatories must be the ones who actually believe in man made climate change!

aha. cat's amongst the pigeons now.

Will the greenms admit AGW was total bullshit from the beginning so we dont need nuclear or windmills, or will they claim that windmills and solar panels will actually work without nuclear?

[Chris Hogg]

The latter, almost certainly. They'll just say we need more of them. Lots more. And a massive spider's web of interconnects to keep the lights on everywhere. The cost, the problems, the security and the impracticality of such pie-in-the-sky solutions just goes over their heads.

[Broadback]

I firmly believe that the Greens have caused a lot of unnecessary problems for us all.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Who fed the crap to the greens?

They are just useful idiots.

Who was Al Gore employed by when 'an inconvenient truth' was made'? Enron. Owner of a gas pipeline through which no gas was flowing...

Who funded it...?

Al Gore.

[Brian Gaff]

I have no issue with nuclear at all. The universe is full of radioactive stuff, as is the centre of our earth and of course the sun. There should be no real problem with keeping it away from places where it can do harm. I think the big thing we never get over is that unlike oil pollution its not visible. Brian

[bert]

In article , Chris Hogg writes

And the battery fairy will have sorted it by 2025...2035...2045

[Johnny B Good]

Not really. It was the vote seeking politicians who are *really* to blame for trying to appease the childish and impractical desires of "The Greens" (who in turn, had been the victims of 'educational reforms' which failed to drum a sufficient sense of cynicism into their Disneyworld inspired thought processes).

[Johnny B Good]

Coincidentally, around the same time as the "Fusion Power Fairy" finally makes good on its promise of unlimited clean and safe nuclear power for all. :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Highly similar situatins. Fusion is wating for contanement, reneables are waiting for batteries. The difference is as yet there is no theoretcial reaosn whu fusion containment cannot be built. Ther are theoretical reaosns why batteries cannot.

[Jethro_uk]

Would I be correct in simplifying things for my own consumption as fusion is waiting for engineering, whereas batteries are waiting for materials (which on turn rely on science) ?

I've read more than once that the Apollo missions were really just big engineering projects - the science of going to the moon (and indeed of interplanetary travel) is fairly well understood.

[Jethro_uk]

I did like the 10,000 tracked mirror array somewhere in the US which focuses to melt salt (NaCl ?) and the molten salt is then used as the heat source for a turbine to spin 24/7 (i.e. storing solar energy).

I think it's experimental - it takes a **** of a lot of space.

One day, maybe someone will suggest that for any other crop that "solar", a 20% return on land invested would be a non-starter.

(For the sake of argument, I am assuming PV efficiency is close to

20% ...)

[newshound]

Not *quite* the same thing. Fusion is technically bloody difficult, and might well remain so. Just because they've passed the "break even" point, turning this into a a real power station is still a long way off, IMHO.

Batteries OTOH have improved dramatically in the past 20 years or so, driven by the laptops and phone markets.

So now Li Ion is at close to its ultimate limits, but who would have guessed 30 years ago we'd now have not just an electric "commuter car", but something which gets close to traditional "GT" mileage and performance.

And I don't see why economies of scale should not keep battery prices coming down.

We are, of course, miles away from the green dream of an all renewables grid, with a month's supply of battery power for those winter lulls.

But, I could see the Tesla Power Wall sort of idea being viable for rich bastards who can afford a big roof full of solar panels, plus ground source heat pumps. And with smart devices it's possible to envisage more active demand management of the grid one day, which could reduce the capital and/or running costs.

I'd still bet on fission plant being around for the next fifty years or more though.

[charles]

Not just these markets. My wife's niece, employed by one of the Canadian Power Generators, was researching batteries for power storage 20 years ago.

[Nick]

Amusing to see John Laurie on the list. I think we all know what his prediction is ;o)

[Chris Hogg]

No longer experimental. Billions of dollars invested, mostly underwritten by the US taxpayer. And like a lot of green energy projects, results fall short of predictions/expectations. Now there's a surprise.

[DJC]

The pilot plant, built in the village I have spent the past 15 summers in is a white elephant.

[Chris Hogg]

A bit more:

And then there's this:

Abengoa own the CSP plants at Solana in Arizona and Mojave in California, discussed by Mearns in my previous post.

[Jethro_uk]

Chinese style ...

[Tim Streater]

As TNP keeps pointing out, in terms of what we actually need, batteries do not and will not solve the problem. What you are describing is fine for small scale use, but there is no new chemistry out there that we somehow have not discovered or don't know about or know about but have not exploited. Same applies to solar panels.