Several hydrogen-powered cars have just completed a 13-day trip across the US. They stopped in 31 cities across 18 states.
And I had assumed that this technology was still in its infancy.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
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It’s not the capability of the technology that’s the issue – it’s the cost! Never mind all the issues around producing, distributing and onboard storage of the hydrogen itself, the current cost to manufacture these fuel cells is complet and utter non-starter and I am not aware of anything on the horizon that will change this. Hydrogen fuelled cars will likely never see the mainstream – their position in motive power evolution is likely to be usurped by direct storage of electricity to power cars.
Its unbelievable isn’t it? Where are these nuclear power haters hoping to get all that hydrogen from? From wind power? Actually they appear to be hoping to get it from solar. Any decade now.
How about all that platinum for the fuel cells? its hard to know where these kids, brought up on a diet of stupid, are taking us. Mostly down I would have thought.
Storage costs. Cooling costs for the hydrogen. Leakages and the accidents they will cause.
I say we stick with diesel. But just make it out of nuclear assisted furnaces using liquified-coal and oil shales. Along with municipal rubbish.
Jen,
think of a car manufacturer and you’ll find that they have a hydrogen car up and running, some like Bmw have been testing them for years.
The Nordic countries have the best distribution or refueling station setup, you can just about fill up anywhere.
The Perth hydrogen bus fleet are powered by a fuel cell that produces electricity to drive an electric motor and they get their hydrogen from a Natural gas refinery.
At the University of Tasmania they are experimenting with hydrogen and diesel fuel mixes to run diesel motors with much higher fuel efficiency. Strangely they were the first to try this and have attracted a lot of attention particularly from Japan.
The mixes are entirely variable 1 to 1 or 90 to 1 and I mean 90% hydrogen to 10% diesel.
I think they are splitting water ( electrolysis) now on remote island communities using wind generators as a power source.
Neville,
I believe the Perth hydrogen bus fleet was scrapped more than a year ago. Too expensive.
The best way to store and use hydrogen is to bind it to some carbon atoms – anything from methane up is lots easier than hydrogen alone. Then you’ve got all that existing technology for the storage and use of hydrocarbon fuels.
Incidently one of Lobos Motl’s commenters made the comment recently “the plants are trying to kill themselves and us by sequestering CO2.” Makes sense when you think about it. No Gaia, just every living organism for itself in the short term. Kind of hard to get excited about a little more CO2 for a while.
Exactly when, one might ask, did the Guano Report factor in the arrival and eventual dominance of the zero emission vehicle?
What, not at all?
So we’ll set up an Emission Trading System that will trash thousands of otherwise healthy marriages, as many otherwise viable small businesses, and take a massive bite out of everyone’s retirement savings, in a vain attempt to achieve an outcome that good engineering is likely to achieve anyway, possibly sooner.
Smoke 5 cones for breakfast followed by a curried yoghurt enema and it almost makes sense.
There are approx 600 million vehicles on the planet.
This number will increase steadily as the populations in China and India etc get more affluent and obtain vehicles for themselves.
You can’t get something for nothing.
As Mark has posted. The logistics for all these vehicles to be hydrogen powered is “fanciful”.
Finite resources of Lithium, Nickel and other ” battery compatible” materials will not service the huge numbers of vehicles. Take note that batteries are “Storage” devices. They do not make energy – you still need to get the energy for them from some other means of supply.
Alternatives such as wind or solar do not deliver enough energy per square meter to be serious sources.
Energy is never created it is transferred from one state to another. The trick is getting a large benefit from the small transfer of energy conversion at a cost effective point.
I’ve never had any doubts about technology of hydrogen-powered cars… just the cost of creating the hydrogen (as others have said).
Hydrogen will take more energy to create than it produces, so you need a pretty cheap way of doing that. Even using nuclear or coal to produce it is pretty costly (never mind wind power)
Hydrogen is an attempt to keep the status-quo pretty much as it is just substituting hydrogen for fossil fuels. The oil corporations hope that in this manner consumers will not be scared off by a huge change in the way they currently operate their cars – the user experience. This is from talking to hydrogen advocates and asking them the single benefit that hydrogen cars have and this was all they could come up with. The major customer of oil companies, the car companies, also like fuel cell cars because they have more things to go wrong and offer support the huge spare parts and repair industry that has grown up around IC cars.
We cannot possibly generate enough electricity to produce the required amount of hydrogen to fuel the current car fleet let alone the growth in car numbers over the next 20 years as we start getting short on oil and have to change.
We can however, as BEVs are twice to three times more efficient than FCVs, possibly generate enough power from renewables and other sources to power a reduced BEV and PHEV fleet where cities are more walkable and bikeable and public transport is greatly expanded. Car sharing will have to be far more widely used.
The sooner we start down this road the better and less disruption the will be due to Peak Oil. Hydrogen is a dead end that will only lead to more of the same.
jennifer – “And I had assumed that this technology was still in its infancy. ”
It is – this was a stunt to promote the idea that FCVs are a done deal. The truth is very far from this.
“The Perth hydrogen bus fleet are powered by a fuel cell that produces electricity to drive an electric motor and they get their hydrogen from a Natural gas refinery.”
What a horrible waste of good natural gas. You don’t add an extra level of conversion unless you have to.
But this I like:
“At the University of Tasmania they are experimenting with hydrogen and diesel fuel mixes to run diesel motors with much higher fuel efficiency. Strangely they were the first to try this and have attracted a lot of attention particularly from Japan.”
I think thats great. But you need the nuclear power to get the off-peak generated hydrogen to make this gig productive.
here’s how they get the hydrogen cheaply:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080731143345.htm
Green Davey – I think the Perth Hydrogen Bus Trial came to an end because the three year trial period was over and the three buses from the trial had to go back to Europe to be evaluated (and they were also owned by the company that provided them for the trial).
I think the technology is likely to be more practical for a depot vehicle like a bus rather than cars.
Janama,
Let’s hope the MIT have got the goods with this atificial photosynthesis.
Uni of NSW has been producing hydrogen from solar cells for a number of years now with the aim of every home producing their own hydrogen fuel for transport and home use as well.
Lets hope this is as good a system as it seems because I would like nothing more than to divorce myself from fuel and power companies.
From David Lamb, Low Emissions Transport Leader at CSIRO:
“Hydrogen was 40 years away 40 years ago. It’s still 40 years away,”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/06/16/2273538.htm?site=science
“…hydrogen and diesel fuel mixes to run diesel motors with much higher fuel efficiency” You can already buy LPG add-ins that improve the efficiency and reduce the pollution of diesel engines, or so the brochures say.
Neville – “Uni of NSW has been producing hydrogen from solar cells for a number of years now with the aim of every home producing their own hydrogen fuel for transport and home use as well.
Lets hope this is as good a system as it seems because I would like nothing more than to divorce myself from fuel and power companies.”
This will not do it as you still need a potential difference across the cells. That is you still need to apply a voltage to these cells before they will work.
If you want to divorce yourself from fuel and power companies put up some solar panels and/or a wind turbine and convert a car to electric power. You can do this starting today not in 20 years time when FCVs become practical.
These discussions usually have two things going on. One is promoting some sort of energy production or transport. But the subtext is that something is being excluded. What looks like hopeful promotion often is really the bigoted exclusion of nuclear and carbon-based energy and a call for subsidies.
Me I’ll take any ergs I can get so long as they pay their way. The biggest wind turbines might pay their way but only in the windiest places. One day the solarization of the built environment might pay its way so long as its not taking up other productive land use. But so long as there are no subsidies we ought not be bigoted against any way that we can gather calories, joules or megawatt hours.
But there is no substitute in this time period for nuclear and liquified carbon resources. A global energy crisis is no time to be excluding energy sources that we know work. After all this science fraud is really just an extension of an energy-deprivation-crusade that preceded the science fraud by many years.
And further to that we need a full-blown nuclear industry and domestic liquid-deisel production just to defend this continent. Supposing that people aren’t taking a make-believe approach to international relations like they are taking to climate science.
As a perth resident I recall well that the hydrogen buses were taken off the road because they were extremely unreliable and super expensive to fix. All up it was considered unviable, even as a trial. Matty
Yeah, carbon is the best way to store hydrogen. There is however, an aluminum – gallium alloy that disassociates water into hydrogen which is released and oxygen which corrodes the aluminum. So a car could run off water. The trick would be to recycle the alloy by reducing it.
Yeah, carbon is the best way to store hydrogen. There is however, an aluminum – gallium alloy that disassociates water into hydrogen which is released and oxygen which corrodes the aluminum. So a car could run off water. The trick would be to recycle the alloy by reducing it.
Hydrogen will never work on mass. It would require the construction of thousands of nuke plants to replace the gasoline car. But besides that there are huge limitations.
First is the production to consumption line would result in a 75-80% loss. That is, of the total energy put into making the hydrogen you would get in the end only 20% back. That’s pitiful, and thus we would use more net energy than today on a per person basis. It makes no sense at all to make hydrogen from methane, as you would get more energy from the methane as is. Hydrolysis is the only alternative and that is where the energy loss is the greatest.
Second, it’s extremely flammable. Vehicles would likley not be allowed to be stored indoors anywhere because of the leakage (it leaks from every container because it has zero viscosity). It also corrodes just about everything.
Third, the energy density of hydrogen is very low compared to gasoline. So you would need a container many time the size of a gas tank, and it would have to be under enormous pressure to get any volume and hence distance.
Thus there is no way a hydrogen economy will ever emerge.
How far can a car travel on hydrogen stored in a normal BBQ propane tank filled to the normal 17 psi? Not even 5 kms.
To travel 100kms, you need to store the hydrogen at 10,000 psi.
And what is the definition of a bomb? Rapidly expanding gas held in by a shell of material.
Now take 10,000 psi explosive hydrogen held in an extremely highly engineered tight shell/tank – what do you have? A really big bomb. Now make a hydrogen filling station with 10,000 psi and what do you have? – A little accident and whole city blocks are gone.
There is 2/3rds more hydrogen atoms in gasoline than in pressurized-liquid hydrogen. We already have the best hydrogen storage device there is – and that is called fossil fuels.
JR Wakefield at August 26, 2008 03:37 AM
Granted, producing hydrogen uses more energy than you recover, but this applies in all of the oil refineries as well, the point is that it is one way of turning electricity into a mobile fuel.Second, do you really think that hydrogrn is more flammable than petrol? Many years ago, forty or more, there were some TV programmes in the UK dealing with hydrogen as a fuel. Ordinary cars could, with a simple mod to the carb, run on straight hydrogen. None of your complex and expensive fuel cells. Using it as a cooking fuel was not very effective as the flame was nearly invisible and put out almost no infra-red, which is what makes a flame hot. They had to add a small amount of dust to it to get a good flame. If you are still worried about flammability, remember that it was the canvas and it’s doping that did most of the burning on the Hindenburg. (Also, most of the passengers did actually escape.)
Also worth mentioning is that, if there is a leak, (and the viscosity may be low, but it is not zero. That is liquid helium), any released hydrogen goes straight up, unlike petrol which runs around your feet. And I believe that there is a lot of work that has been done on some sort of metallic sponge which can carry a great deal of hydrogen. Don’t rule it out just yet.
Bill Illis at August 26, 2008 04:58 AM
Bill, check out the site below, it’s sounds interesting
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907102549.htm
Gee, it appears the last posters did not read my comment about the aluminum-gallium alloy that disassociates water into hydrogen (the oxygen corrodes the aluminum). The hydrogen can be produced on demand hence no need for storage. It seems to be an exciting break through.
“Bill, check out the site below, it’s sounds interesting”
Hmmm, very interesting. Looks like its fuelled by ammonia. The safety people will love that!
“The hydrogen can be produced on demand hence no need for storage. It seems to be an exciting break through.”
Actually there is a need for storage. The other primary product of the reaction is alumina which will have to be stored and disposed when refuelling. All of a sudden a convenient one-way fuelling process becomes a cumbersome two-way one (all the way back to the alumina refining centre.
Oh, and don’t forget the little problem of producing fuel cells at an economical price. Last time I heard they cost a few hundred grand each! There’s lots of work to be done to make them economically viable and I have heard of no breakthroughs in this respect.
The reality is that hydrogen is the wrong horse. Direct energy storage via new battery or ultracapacitor technology will spell the end of the hydrogen economy before it has even started to begin!
Edwards whats the matter with you? Of course hydrogen is more flammable than petrol. And it leaks more readily. You can get some oil shales and keep on adding hydrogen until you have methane. But its nutty to use hydrogen straight. Thats a recipe for no end of trouble.
Maybe some isolated farmer with wind power might use it up as its generated in some vehicle or other. But there can be no hydrogen economy as such. What a terrorist paradise that would be.
If you have nuclear power you can use off-peak heat and electricity and generation of hydrogen to liquify and gassify any organic material. Where piping is available its probably economic to take it all the way to methane. But if you are relying on tanking and trucks to transport it all around than diesel is probably the best bet. But hydrogen is never going to be economic to pipe around everywhere. You want to use it straight where its generated.
I believe compressed air will be the next fuel. Solar cells and wind generators feeding compressors with the compressed air tanks acting as batteries. Clean, no polution.
Cars, washing machines, fridges, food processors etc all running on compressed air just as the tradesmen currently use compressed air power tools.
Kevlar tanks that rupture instead of exploding when damaged.
“Direct energy storage via new battery or ultracapacitor technology will spell the end of the hydrogen economy before it has even started to begin!”
All that energy stored in a battery or a capacitor?
Kablooie!
Actually, once the CO2 hoax is disposed of and/or nuclear power is resurrected it will probably be good old gasoline made from coal or bio waste with hydrogen provided by nukes.
janama, have you done the numbers on energy storage of compressed air? Ever pumped up a bike tyre with a hand pump? You either insulate the tank to keep the heat in or waste the heat energy.
The compressed air power tools run from an electric, petrol or diesel powered compressor.
I suppose you could use windmills or solar but then you are taking a very low energy density source and subjecting it to high losses. I wonder if you could even transport your compressed air tank from the windmill to somewhere useful.
In general a more powerful engine will guzzle more energy than a less powerful one when both engines are working at an equal rate within their range. Compressed air sort of bridges this gap since you can have a small motor working all the time rather than a less efficient larger motor working only when you need the work. So compressed air is good. But seriously janama. This solar and wind business. This is gear that you just want in the background shaving off a few cents here and there from your bills. Its not something that we ought to rely on front and centre.
Compressed air is another thing that can be drawing of energy from off-peak nuclear. Solar is just for the background cost-savings at this stage. Thats going to remain the situation for centuries if not forever. Since while the solarization of the roads might in two hundred years lead to as much energy generation as we currently have, still by then we will be using far more energy if things go well for us.
Even if we could get by on solar alone to build all the solar equipment to do this would require nuclear/hydrocarbons. And unsubsidised energy is good. But seriously. When it comes to wind and solar we just have to let it happen in its own good time. And get busy removing the obstacles to nuclear power.
Eyrie – Solar panels driving the compressor/s – efficiency isn’t really a problem because the energy from the sun is free. These people who put a 2kw solar array on their house are wanking because the power company doesn’t need their power. But if they powered a highly efficient compressor all standard household needs could be met including the car. Kevlar tanks would be strong and lightweight.
There’s a guy in Melbourne who has developed an air engine.
http://www.engineair.com.au/development.htm
There was an item on Radio National’s Breakfast program this morning about Deakin Uni’s entry in the Ford sustainable vehicle challenge.
Their vehicle uses light-weight construction and a compressed air motor.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2008/2346288.htm
“I wonder if you could even transport your compressed air tank from the windmill to somewhere useful.”
Thats the point isn’t it. I mean if we had a range of good compressed air applications some Tasmanian farmer could have this generation and be using the compressed air on the spot. So that would seem to be doable.
Like if you just happened to have a big wind generator in Cooktown or somewhere in Tasmania where it was windy all the time. And you could produce and use the energy right there without having to transport it. That sounds like we could get there one day.
GrameBird knows what he is talking about.
Compressed air simplifies the research project. Far more than batteries. Its not subject to the same cost blow-outs from mass production as batteries since the tanks are just carbon-fibre.
So you’ve really only got two aspects to the research project. You’ve got the hunt for small efficient diesel compressor that can fully combust the diesel. As well as the equivalent compressor for off-peak electricity. And then you’ve got to get to where you can mass-produce these carbon fibre tanks really efficiently. Angelo De Peitro of Melbourne has already got this awesomely efficient motors. But he cannot get funding. I’m not suggesting government subsidy. But I think a general company tax holiday of 20 years minimum for all energy-production/savings ventures should be on the cards. And a little bit of enthusiasm for our local inventors would seem to be in order.
You could have this sort of technology capture a big chunk of the lower end of the market. Like you might have a good high-performance diesel. But those that cannot afford it might buy a crappy air-vehicle since they could become so damn cheap with mass-production. And phenomenally cheap to run. But also you could have a three-car house that buys an air car just to cut costs when the oil barrel price gets over 150USD again.
I personally think that people are wasting too many resources on battery and hydrogen romances. And these appalling giveaways to car industry bigshots. When a willingness to buy shares in a De Pietro venture and the streamlining of exporting the French/Indian version into Australia (perhaps the waving of registration fees and this sort of thing) could have really cheap if a little crappy transport for the poor and the cost-concious in a very short amount of time. Its just upsetting that compressed air just doesn’t have that same romance with people. Perhaps because its a low-end product. But its for people who have trouble meeting their bills that we ought to be particularly mindfull of here.
If the small compressor can fully combust diesel you can leave it on a great deal of the time even though you might be only using your wheels a couple of hours in the day. Here we are talking slashing energy costs like two thirds or something. Like really serious energy savings not just for the end-user but also for the production process. The weight of the vehicle itself becomes a lot less. The motor is a couple of kilos. The tanks next to nothing. And the small on-bard compressor sweet F.A as well. And even that is optional.
“Eyrie – Solar panels driving the compressor/s – efficiency isn’t really a problem because the energy from the sun is free.”
The sun is not free. Its very expensive except in some individual applications when the circumstances of the user and his area collide to make it doable.
For practical purposes the amount of energy out there for us to gather is infinite. But thats not the point. The point is the capital goods necessary for us to gather that energy. And the depreciation of these capital goods. That means that the renewable/non-renewable distinction is about 80% a furfie. Perhaps not 100%. But certainly its 80% a false distinction. Since solar cells wear out, wind rotors get stress fractures, all must be maintained and replaced.
Those factories that put together the solar panels and giant wind rotors aren’t getting all their energy from wind and solar energy.
You need capital to gather energy but you need energy to produce and operate the capital. So we need capital to get energy to get capital to get energy to get capital.
If we get silly about this and ignore or hamper our best sources of energy we will soon be in an insurmoutable energy/capital vortex. Where we won’t have enough energy to produce the capital to gather the energy and so forth. That sets us up for poverty and colonisation or at least bullying and shabby international behaviour.
You need to spend energy to get energy. So your energy yield better be good because we only have so much energy and capital. Your energy yield ought to be good at all times but it BETTER be good during an energy crisis and near-vortex like we are in today.
This analysis also highlights the criticality of slashing government spending, getting rid of taxes on savings and retained earning, reforming our monetary system and so forth to produce more capital… to get the energy… to get the capital… to get the energy.
We need everything we can get. All of the above and now. But subsidies leads to wastage of energy so solar and wind must stand on its own feet with a general tax exemption and effort to cut the red tape as its only assistance. Otherwise you will be wasting capital and throwing bad energy and capital after good.
This solarization of the built environment. Thats a two hundred year project. We can speed it up but only AFTER we are through this energy crisis.
So if you want all that solar you ought to be in favour of ringing this continent of nuclear for starters. Than let the solar campaign begin when we know we are out of the woods.
The only problem with compressed air as far as I can see is that it the same of the same problems as hydrogen.
Why do this:
generate electricity -> compress air (lose 50%) -> run compressed air motor (lose 50%) -> drive car
When you can do this
generate electricity -> charge battery (lose 10%) -> run electric motor (lose 5%) -> drive car
Unless the compressors and motors are very very high quality there will be significant losses. High quality means expensive and added to the lower efficiency of air compression results in an overall higher cost.
Battery electric vehicles are progressing rapidly and have the huge advantage of much higher efficiency and vastly lower moving parts count. A lot of really good different IC car engines that look good in the lab have been defeated by seals. Compressed air motors have this same dependence on tight sealing, long lasting and cheap seals. You can have any two of the previous list.
In saying that batteries have to be power dense, have a long cycle life and cheap and at the moment you can only have two of these as well. So it will be interesting to see what wins out – the mechanical simplicity of air or the higher efficiency of batteries.
Graeme – “All of the above and now. But subsidies leads to wastage of energy so solar and wind must stand on its own feet with a general tax exemption and effort to cut the red tape as its only assistance.”
Thats possibly true however so should nuclear if this is the case. Any Australian nuclear utility should have to produce or source it’s fuel, build the plants without any insurance subsidies or help from the Government and also pay for geological storage of any nuclear waste. How economic do you think that would be? Even Ziggy’s nuclear biased report concluded that nuclear power would need something like a 30% government subsidy to get up.
Whereas solar thermal at the moment is red hot with a consortium of companies going to build solar thermal plants in Australia.
http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/login.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wabusinessnews.com.au%2Fen-story%2F1%2F65440%2FWorley-plans-world-s-largest-solar-plant
“A consortium headed by WorleyParsons and including the state’s biggest companies is embarking on a major study to develop a series of $1 billion, 250 megawatt solar thermal power stations across Australia.
As foreshadowed by WA Business News on July 3, WorleyParsons formally announced the study today, which will be jointly funded by industry partners including Woodside Petroleum, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group and Wesfarmers.”
No Ender, they are going to do a study. Want to bet that indirectly the government is providing the money anyway? Nice bit of business for the companies. Is that 250 MW plant peak or average for one billion dollars? Australian big business has lost its collective mind with a little incentive from the government. Lets see what the study says about the economics and water requirements.
Nuclear power might need a 30% government subsidy to get up against cheap coal but against everything else it will win hands down and be available and reliable. So if you want to stop burning coal…..
“Thats possibly true however so should nuclear if this is the case. Any Australian nuclear utility should have to produce or source it’s fuel, build the plants without any insurance subsidies or help from the Government and also pay for geological storage of any nuclear waste. How economic do you think that would be? Even Ziggy’s nuclear biased report concluded that nuclear power would need something like a 30% government subsidy to get up.”
If they regulate it to death, impede the choice of sites, allow for vicious legal obstacles and people off the streets to launch nasty legal actions than you might need to turn around and subsidise. You ought not do that. Instead you’ve got to remove the impediments and give long-term guarantees.
But by its nature nuclear power is the cheapest and safest form of electricity generation that we have. In fact the chief cost is the implied interest on the initial construction costs.
We need to defeat NIMBY (not in my back yard) or alternatively the government could scope out all the many thousands of potential sites and make sure there are no legal constraints and no hope of legal challenges in advance.
I said twenty years before. A twenty year general tax exemption for any energy-production energy-savings operations. But really we need to make it 50 years so as to allow the amorization of interests costs for projects big and small.
It may be that without this general tax exemption the government would get involved thus tying the taxpayer to cost overuns. Well we don’t want that. This is why we want this tax exemption. So the government doesn’t need, and isn’t tempted, to get involved.
Getting involved in a non-harmful way might mean a 50 year guarantee to wave registration costs on air vehicles. Waving royalties for liquification for the purpose of domestic use. Royalties on uranium for domestic use. This sort of thing. Its got to be long-term guarantees for tax exemptions and not subsidies for any project. Because thats how you get the REINVESTMENT to become the lowest cost producer.
Subsidies guarantee malinvestment.
As to the insurance costs of nuclear thats a furfie. Insurance costs would be minimal since nuclear is so safe.
We might be able to run a deal where the locals, who have to put up with this nuclear power plant in a certain radius are guaranteed nuclear power at cost off-peak or something like that. This to shore up their housing prices. Sometimes you have to go with the flow.
But we cannot tolerate people getting in the way of nuclear on the basis of NIMBY. Because the fact is its not their back yard.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now what you are saying about compressed air losses.
“The only problem with compressed air as far as I can see is that it the same of the same problems as hydrogen.
Why do this:
generate electricity -> compress air (lose 50%) -> run compressed air motor (lose 50%) -> drive car”
Compressed air efficiency is close to 100% so long as you can contain the heat. So if you are driving around and you park the car. Or stop for the lights the compressor is still working in its comfortable range and its building heat as well as pressure. Its just powerfully efficient. You make a good point if you are talking about overnight storage. I’ll certainly grant you that.
I forgot to mention that the carbon fibre tanks have an inner lining of some other insulative substance. Thats why I forgot what the second part of the research project entails. It entails the best insulator.
If you have three compressed air tanks one might be used to get a lot of power out of your little compressor when you need it via driving the combustion itself at a high level of compression.
And on top of that if you can solve the problem of the water vapour icing things up as it leaves the tank you might be able to drive even the water vapour and CO2 into the other tank as well as ambient and waste air.
This thing can go along way for sure. Even now the proof is in the pudding. The vehicles, though really quite crappy, are astoundingly energy efficient. Almost unbelievably so. I have no shame and would buy one of these rattlers just as soon as it became available.
When you look at the cost-effectiveness of vehicles you must look not just at the retail end. You must look at the manufacturer, his suppliers, their suppliers, all the way down the line and predict the cost-response to mass-production.
This is where the air car, at least at the crappy end of the market, will beat all comers by a very long way. Not even close for the crappy, cheap and nasty end of the car market.
Because the response to mass-production will have a Moore’s law aspect to it. Which you just won’t get from complicated battery systems which may seem efficient if you are only looking at the retail end.
Eyrie – “No Ender, they are going to do a study.”
Yes as a preliminary to building them. Are they doing a study for a nuclear power station?
“Nuclear power might need a 30% government subsidy to get up against cheap coal”
But I thought nuclear power was economic no matter what. Graeme is calling for no subsidies so nuclear is a dead duck as far as I can see. However if you are OK with subsidies then solar thermal and wind are far cheaper without all the waste problems or are you going to let nuclear off disposing of it’s wastes properly. There is a reason wind and solar are growing so rapidly and fully commercial nuclear is stalled waiting for government handouts.
Nuclear power is inherently more cheap than coal for electricity generation. And this will be more and more the case as price pressures hit coal and don’t hit uranium in any kind of the same way.
I don’t know where this myth comes from that nuclear is more expensive. It can only be so because of the legal obstruction burden, or the Americans insane regulations on the reprocessing of fuel to bring it back up to usuable grade. I don’t know what their current regulations are but this was the madness that might have made this power a bit more expensive.
Light water reactors use one isotope of uranium that comprises less than 1% of total. This is madness. It was a vain way of attempting to stop nuclear proliferation. So it had a plausible excuse. But this is where all the nuclear waste comes from. As astonishing as that is.
If we were to negotiate taking this astonishing energy resource of the hands of foreigners just don’t send me to negotiate the deal. I couldn’t keep a straight face. I’d be shaking just in case we got turned down and had to let the foreigners keep their supply.
We should have listened to Bob Hawke and accepted all of the worlds nuclear waste because this is a gold-mine of unused fuel.
Breeder-reactors re-prepare the fuel as they generate energy. I was generically calling all reactors that use up all the fuel breeder-reactors. But apparently this is not the case and you have reactors that now have reprocessing away from the reactor as the way of using all the fuel. In any case the important technical matter is to use up all the fuel leaving a near inert waste that can safely be buried in the desert at low cost and no danger whatsoever.
The myth that nuclear electricity is more expensive than coal has two more potential sources. One is that at the retail end electricity markets tend to be non-competitive. So that its not entirely certain that the end cost is really related to production costs.
The other is just the leftist energy-deprivation two-step.
The energy-depriver says we must tax coal because of the CO2. Than he jumps to the other foot and claims that nuclear is no good because coal is cheaper. Don’t get sucked into this jive. Its just more lies.
1. In summary nuclear is the cheapest so long as all the fuel is utilized and legal obstruction isn’t taken into account.
2. Always be sure that you aren’t passing on leftist lies unwittingly.
Battery technology is over 100 years old. Any improvement on this technology is only incremental. Forget some magic bullet battery. Forget mythical super-capacitors. To get more energy stored in batteries you need larger and heavier sizes. I have already posted the fact that alternate active battery materials are too finite.
The laws of physics come into play here.You cant get something for nothing. Energy is transferred not created.
The only efficient energy sources are stored in fossil and other carbon products.(excluding nuclear)
And now this. Suddenly the government has discovered that there is no disposal soloution for the 10,000 hybrid car batteries that they will finance. Not forgetting the millions of other toxic product cells that are dumped.
see this article : http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24242306-601,00.html
Graeme – “Light water reactors use one isotope of uranium that comprises less than 1% of total. This is madness. It was a vain way of attempting to stop nuclear proliferation. So it had a plausible excuse. But this is where all the nuclear waste comes from. As astonishing as that is.”
I really think that you need to read up a bit on nuclear power. Only 1% of natural uranium is fissionable, the U235. It is not some leftist conspiracy but the unalterable laws of physics.
Enrichment plants concentrate this isotope to 5% for use in light water reactors. Breeder reactors are hideously dangerous and uneconomic at best and a proliferation nightmare at worst with weapons grade plutonium produced on a daily basis.
“In any case the important technical matter is to use up all the fuel leaving a near inert waste that can safely be buried in the desert at low cost and no danger whatsoever.”
Again your knowledge is somewhat lacking. Spent nuclear fuel, either from breeder reactors or light water reactors, contains radionucleides that can enter ecosystems and cause long term damage. There is also the irradiated containment vessels from decommissioned reactors that are highly radioactive for many hundreds of years that must be stored. Breeder reactors reduce slightly the amount of high level waste that has to be stored not eliminate it.
Beano – “Battery technology is over 100 years old. Any improvement on this technology is only incremental. ”
Consider that lead acid energy density is at best 60Wh/kg and the latest lithium ion batteries are more than 150Wh/kg this is a bit more than an incremental improvement. New material processes are giving new anode materials that allow very fast discharges and recharges.
In reality current battery technology, even lead acid, would give a car that would do 95% of current driving. That is trips of less then 100km that in just about all studies in all countries turn out to comprise the vast majority (up to 95%) of actual car trips.
Most of us only use the range of a petrol car to make less trips to the petrol station. If you can charge at home then this point is moot and a 100km range is perfectly acceptable.
“Granted, producing hydrogen uses more energy than you recover, but this applies in all of the oil refineries as well,”
Then there would never have been any advantage to FF. Thus this cannot be true.
As for the loss and storage issues:
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/4405
There is also the issue of transport. Trucking it to filling stations would put some 10-12 TIMES more tanker trucks on the road. There also comes a point where the energy in the fuel used to truck the hydrogen is more than the energy in the hydrogen. Local dealers won’t be able to make the volume of hydrogen required. It can’t be piped for long distance, like Natural Gas, as it takes more energy to relay pump it than you get out of it. All new pipining, millions of miles of it, would need to be layed, consuming FF to do that.
“Gee, it appears the last posters did not read my comment about the aluminum-gallium alloy that disassociates water into hydrogen (the oxygen corrodes the aluminum). The hydrogen can be produced on demand hence no need for storage. It seems to be an exciting break through.”
It’s still a major net energy loss. It takes a huge amount of energy to mine and process aluminum, and gallium is a rare earth metal. Plus include the energy to transport those metals. Major net loss.
Hydrogen as a fuel is a desparate last attempt at the perpetual motion machine.
Face it, there is no subsitute for cheap high density fossil fuels.
“. In summary nuclear is the cheapest so long as all the fuel is utilized and legal obstruction isn’t taken into account.”
Why do you always leave out the decommissioning costs? It has been estimated at 73 billion pounds for Britain to decommission their 19 worn out nuclear power stations. How many coal stations could you build for that?
“I believe compressed air will be the next fuel. Solar cells and wind generators feeding compressors with the compressed air tanks acting as batteries. Clean, no polution.”
Sorry, but not viable. There is a problem of thermodynamics:
http://canada.theoildrum.com/node/3473#more
“The answer is that compressed gas has a lower entropy than the uncompressed gas, and that the amount of useful work you can get out of something when it changes depends both on the change in energy content and the change in entropy. We usually focus so much on the energy side of things that we ignore the entropy side.”
“I really think that you need to read up a bit on nuclear power. Only 1% of natural uranium is fissionable, the U235. It is not some leftist conspiracy but the unalterable laws of physics.”
Oh for the love of dumb blonde sheilas everywhere thats my whole point.
Its less than one percent. So the light-water reactors use that less than 1% and they leave the other 99% in a state of radioactivity.
Breeder reactors and/or reprocessing makes most of the rest of the uranium suitable for nuclear generation.
With that in mind re-read what I have to say so that this time you might understand it.
Jimmy Carter outlawed the processing and reprocessing of uranium in centrifuges. Thus leading to the waste problem. I don’t know if this law is still in force. Now perhaps there was a waste problem prior to that but it would have been solved by new technology.
This sort of thing is typical in the energy business. Oil refineries and drillers used to burn off natural gas and I think LPG. Coal miners used to let it escape into the air and to some extent probably still do. You learn that the alleged waste becomes the most valuable part of the resource over time.
Now just go over what I’ve written again. And don’t mislead people if you don’t know what you are talking about. Because we aren’t into a new age of cheap energy until such time as nuclear crowds out coal for electricity and we can liquify the coal Thereafter we will have all the resources to put up wind and solar everywhere. And we can be very happy for the chance.
“It’s still a major net energy loss. It takes a huge amount of energy to mine and process aluminum, and gallium is a rare earth metal. Plus include the energy to transport those metals. Major net loss.”
Not quite that bad. The Aluminum alloy would be recyclable. And maybe something other than gallium could be used. I like the concept but I still think the best way to store hydrogen is to bind it to carbon.
Are you Ender of Ender’s Game?
“Why do you always leave out the decommissioning costs? It has been estimated at 73 billion pounds for Britain to decommission their 19 worn out nuclear power stations. How many coal stations could you build for that?”
Because they are not relevant. Why decommision it? You see this business is tied up with the refusal to use up all the fuel. Why not refurbish?
And in any case it cannot cost 73 billion to decommision. Thats just implausible. You just take the gear away and bury it somewhere.
Plus all plants, if you don’t want to keep them must be decommisioned. So that would be the case for some solar collector. The life of which is probably half as long as a nuclear plant. And you may have to decommision it if it becomes a white elephant.
If you claim that these British plants need this much money to decommision than we have to look at the specifics. To see if the claim is plausible or if they are being decommisioned in error. Do the British not need ongoing electricity? Are people who would like to see British energy production crippled forcing the decommisioning? How important is it that they be decommisioned? Would the decommisioning be necessary if these guys had access to the general tax exemption I propose?
If you want Australia all rigged up for solar you ought to be on the side of nuclear. We have to stop thinking of energy sources as competitors because really they are complements.
Nuclear energy makes the reindustrialisation needed to produce ubiquirous solar collectors, tiles, panels, roads, paths etc. viable.
Nuclear makes coal liquification more viable in huge furnaces. Makes oil shales liquification and refineries more doable. Makes waste wood and municipal waste in such furnaces more doable. Makes one day the seperation of the constituent metals from municipal waste more doable… Makes one day the refinement of Helium-3 on the moon more doable. Makes the enhancement and preservation of the natural environment more doable.
All things must be grist to our mill if we want the natural world to be in good shape and the humans to all be wealthy like we have been.
Your decommisioning costs don’t pass any sniff test. They sound like energy-deprivation propaganda at first blush. We have to see the specifics to take them seriously.
Beano – “And now this. Suddenly the government has discovered that there is no disposal soloution for the 10,000 hybrid car batteries that they will finance. Not forgetting the millions of other toxic product cells that are dumped.”
More examples of loose reporting from the Australian – this is from the article:
“According to Sustainability Victoria, rechargeable batteries, including nickel-metal hydride, are collected by a waste disposal company. Australia does not have the technology and services required to recycle these batteries, so they are processed overseas by a French company that “specialises in the recovery of nickel and cadmium to a strict environmental standard”.”
So they say they process NiCad batteries however Camry hybrids use NiMh, which they say in a pargraph above, which do not contain cadmium.
Although there is no facility in Australia to recycle these batteries that is not the fault of Toyota. No-one in Australia has yet had the forward vision to build such a facility – now is probably the time. We do not use dry batteries in our house as I have rechargable NiMh batteries in everything. I would like to dispose of them responsibly.
Graeme – “Its less than one percent. So the light-water reactors use that less than 1% and they leave the other 99% in a state of radioactivity.”
No U238 does not sustain a chain reaction. Only U235 can take part in a nuclear chain reaction in a nuclear reactor. If you put U238 in it will do nothing at all. If you cannot understand this then your knowledge of nuclear power is severely lacking and you need to do some reading.
I would start here:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power.htm
“Because they are not relevant. Why decommision it? You see this business is tied up with the refusal to use up all the fuel. Why not refurbish?
And in any case it cannot cost 73 billion to decommision. Thats just implausible. You just take the gear away and bury it somewhere.”
They have to decommission them because the reactor core gets too radioactive to use after 30 or 40 years. Again this is physics not a leftist conspiracy. Refurbishment is not an option because the containment vessel and core is the reactor and it is cheaper to build a new one.
Also the cost that he quotes is the preliminary cost it could run out to 120 billion. All the materials in the reactor core are highly radioactive and unless you are volunteering to go in and do it for a cheap price, in which case you will be dead quite soon after, then it is an extremely dangerous and hazardous operation that costs megabucks to do.
http://www.power-technology.com/news/news5599.html
Steve Stip – “Are you Ender of Ender’s Game?”
That is where I orginally got the name when I first joined the ABC forums over 8 years ago. Enders Game is my favourite SciFi book of all time. With Speaker for the Dead it is the best SciFi I have read. I ignore the third book as it is shite and I cannot believe it is from the same author.
Just stop it Ender. You are being an idiot or you are being a liar. I thought I was talking to someone who has been mislead.
Lets go over it again you blockhead.
0.7% of Uranium is readily usable right away. Now apparently you agree on this. Light water reactors only use this part of the awesome energy resource. They therefore set up the waste problem. Got it so far?
Breeder-reactors, while they are producing energy also set up most of the rest of the Uranium for ready usage. They do so by adding neutrons and thereby altering the isotope. Alternatively you can process the rest of the Uranium for this same purpose. One way is through centrifuges.
Either way the important thing is to use most of your fuel. Then I’m sure you will find that nuclear electricity is inherently the cheapest form of electricity. And that way you don’t have a waste problem.
You got it yet you dim bulb?
I’m not going to sit here and let you maniacal greeny loons lie to people about this or anything else.
Pull your head in and attempt not to be such a dope/dishonest fraud. Stupid or dishonest? You choose.
Is there nothing you fanatics WON’T try on?
Come back under your own name so you are incentivised to lift your game.
“They have to decommission them because the reactor core gets too radioactive to use after 30 or 40 years.”
WELL REPLACE THE !@#$%^&* CORE!!!!
There is no machinery or machinery part that cannot be replaced. So thats the end of that myth right there. And your mindless leftist propaganda can be falsified the very first time we find a nuclear power plant that has been in operation for more than 40 years.
Right. So the decommisioning furfie is a myth than. Thanks for displaying that with such decisiveness.
Look obviously you want to design any plant with the required modularity. So that things can be taken away for maintenance or replaced.
If this decommisioning cost nonsense has any legs to it than its only some design fault and probably built into the business by socialist planning and design.
We get new nuclear plant designs coming out all the time. They got a new one where the turbine and reactor are totally seperate and both underground. The first coolant is helium. With helium as the contact coolant they can run the reaction hotter and so thereby reuse even nuclear waste from nuclear submarines.
DON’T….. BELIEVE…. THE OLD… COMMIE… LIES.
Graeme – “Breeder-reactors, while they are producing energy also set up most of the rest of the Uranium for ready usage. They do so by adding neutrons and thereby altering the isotope. Alternatively you can process the rest of the Uranium for this same purpose. One way is through centrifuges.”
You seem to have a very sketchy understanding of the nuclear fuel cycle and your insults are touching however if you actually want to learn rather than bluster I suggest you drop them. I am being very polite.
U238 if irradiated in a breeder reactor changes to Pu-239 or plutonium. In that you are correct however it is not altering the isotope, it changes the element from one to another. Normal light water reactors cannot use Pu-239 and this is the main reason that they need to be refuelled.
Plutonium is weapons grade and can easily be diverted to weapons programs. Would you be happy with Iran having a breeder program? Breeder reactors normally reprocess the fuel from other reactors which is then used in reactors modified for MOX fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel
However this does not change the fact that U238 is not fissionable.
Centrifuges are used to seperate the lighter U235 and the heavier U238 to enrich natural uranium to the required enrichment level to use to make nuclear fuel rods for use in LWRs.
Breeder reactors use liquid sodium or gas for cooling and are nowhere near as safe as the new generation of LWRs.
All in all it seems an extreme way to generate power when solar thermal can supply as much heat to do much of what you say without all the waste and proliferation concerns.
Again leave out the insults – they only make you look like an idiot.
Ender:
With due respect how can anyone take you seriously when you’re a Hives Hamilton Disciple?
Earlier on you were asserting that…
“The oil corporations hope that in this manner consumers will not be scared off by a huge change in the way they currently operate their cars – the user experience.”
How the hell do you know what the oil companies are doing and what influence they have on the carmakers, Ender, you nimrod.
Where did you get that crap from? Hives no doubt.
Go away ender, you fool.
“Again leave out the insults – they only make you look like an idiot.”
No the insults will stay until you stop pushing crap like that. You will continue to be insulted until you apologize for being a Hives Hamilton disciple. Until that time the insults will continue rolling along.
You have no right to be taken seriously and have no right to expect the insults to stop until that time.
“However this does not change the fact that U238 is not fissionable.”
IT DOESN’T YOU IDIOT. No-ones trying to use U23 bloody-8 for fission.
Don’t furrow your stupid little brow in a pathetic attempt to compute. Just keep reading and re-reading what I’ve said already until the scales fall from your eyes.
I will look up the isotope that they prepare it to in the centrifuge later. But its not U238. And its not U235. Must go now. Will check it up later. How about you beat me to it and then go and give yourself and uppercut.
Graeme – “There is no machinery or machinery part that cannot be replaced. So thats the end of that myth right there. And your mindless leftist propaganda can be falsified the very first time we find a nuclear power plant that has been in operation for more than 40 years.”
I should say safely operated beyond this time. The interior of a reactor core and all the ancillary gear is exposed to high neutron flux which changes materials and weakens them. As a reactor core also can have extremely high pressure, hot steam it is not safe to operate a reactor much beyond 30 years and is the reason that they are licensed for this time. As much as we need energy operating unsafe nuclear power plants is not an option.
“Look obviously you want to design any plant with the required modularity. So that things can be taken away for maintenance or replaced.
If this decommisioning cost nonsense has any legs to it than its only some design fault and probably built into the business by socialist planning and design.”
Yes you can however to be safe a rector core HAS to be contained by a containment vessel. This contaiment vessel is extremely expensive because it has to last 30 years of neutron bombardment and contain any conceivable accident. It is the reason that nuclear power plants are a lot safer now than in the past. Modern reactors are modular however generally because of the cost of containment it only makes sense to have one containment vessel. Anything else would double the cost and make nuclear power plants more uneconomic than they already are.
RA – “You will continue to be insulted until you apologize for being a Hives Hamilton disciple. Until that time the insults will continue rolling along.”
Really – perhaps you should read Jennifers new footer to her posts.
“This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. We strive for tolerance and respect. We don’t always agree with what we publish, but we believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard.”
Jen – does this only apply one way does it? How about you reel in people like this and regain a scrap of respect.
Stop bawling Ender, you creep.
As I said, people would take you more seriously (within limits of course) and not insult you if you apologized for being a Hives Hamilton Disciple.
In actual point of fact Ender, you have nothing to offer this site other than turgid forms of declinism.
In other words you’re an economic declinist.
So you could start by apologizing to us for following Hives the pied piper. Are you going to do the right thing, Mr. Declinist.
Bird:
Is Ender preaching against nuke power? How unsurprising and unoriginal. This is the guy who said was selling his home on the coast and moving up to a mountain because all the ice was going to melt.
Ender: that’s two things you now have to apologize for.
1. being Hives disciple and;
2. Lying or spouting ignorant comments about nuke power.
Otherwise you could simply go away and re-read Hives newest book and feign intellectualism like that moron does.
Bird’s right go away and give yourself an uppercut, you moron.
And don’t be scared, Ender. Don’t be scared of a little warmening as it won’t killya.
“Really – perhaps you should read Jennifers new footer to her posts.”
Yes Ender, however she makes allowance for oppressively stupid people like Hives disciples who deserve a thorough intellectual kicking.
Jennifer – As I said, without descending into whatever swamp RA, who sounds suspicially like Birdy, crawled from how about you claw the blog back from the brink and start banning abusive trolls such as RA or at least disemvowelling them.
As for RA as his obvious lack in intellect is not made up for his limited range of insults perhaps you should have a guest post consisting entirely of crap that comes out of the mouth of RA. That way we can all have a good laugh at the stupid one’s expense. Someone who can only insult is a bit sad really.
Ender:
Lets go though this slowly shall we. ( I not “birdy” by the way so stop punching in he dark)
1. You have claimed you follow and like Hives Hamilton’s teaching which by definition mans you are an economic declinist.
2. You have said that you were going to sell your coastal house and move to higher ground.
3. You have opposed nuclear power.
4. You follow socialist and harsh redistribution policies
You can therefore not be taken seriously on any matter and deserve to be scorned and treated roughly.
However I am also a generous person and have suggested that you apologize for being a Hives disciple and making stupid comments about nuke power.
Will you now apologize and put a life of idiocy and declinism behind you or are you going to continue being a moron.
Stop bawling to jennifer. you could always go quietly and try to improve your own sad little blog.
Just apologize and be done with it. It will stop you from looking like an idiot.
Ender showing what he really wants for his birthday.
http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2008/06/i-so-want-one-o.html
I hope you get it Ender and tell us what it’s like in an accident at 60 kph, you moron.
Ender chooses the car for its obvious looks. idiot.
What did someone say about Ender’s dream car:
The Aptera is a rolling coffin that is using motorcycle classification laws (three wheeled vehicles are considered motorcycles) despite the obvious effort to present these vehicles to the public as if they were pasenger cars and subject to the same safety reguclations, which they are not. Aptera is engaged in wholesale fraud in which the public’s welfare is being ditched in an effort to make profits. I demand that this fraud be publically admited by the Aptera company and that they clearly state that these vehicles were designed to avoid the safety regulations that are there to protect all motorists. Palming these death traps off on our citizens desperate to avoid high gas prices is obscene
that’s right, it’s a death trap and Ender wants one…. moron
And Ender
One more thing: It’s really friggen dishonest of you to go asking for Jennifer to come to your aid when you’re dissing her on every alarmist website, you pathetic creep.
Ender. Have you sorted out how they change the isotope of the Uranium yet in order to exploit nearly all of it?
Lets not get distracted from breeder-reactors and nuclear reprocessing.
I would be more patient with leftists if I could ascertain that they weren’t just playing silly-buggers.
If you rotate uranium in a centrifuge with really hot steam the proton in the hydrogen atom can disassociate itself from the water molecule and lodge itself in the nucleus of a uranium atom. For some reason when you shoot a proton into a nucleus it winds up lodging itself as a neutron. So thats how you reprocess uranium 238 to some other sort of Isotope of uranium.
Bird:
Ender is a hard leftist residing in the Hives Hamilton wing/clique of leftism. There is as much point teaching him about nuke energy as there is trying to teach a Tasmanian Tiger good eating habits and table manners. It just ain’t going to happen. So stop wasting pixels on the Hamilton freak. …. until he apologizes.
Graeme – “If you rotate uranium in a centrifuge with really hot steam the proton in the hydrogen atom can disassociate itself from the water molecule and lodge itself in the nucleus of a uranium atom”
I am totally gobsmacked that you could believe this. I actually looked this up thinking that if someone believed this then it must be sort of true however I then realised my error.
I don’t know where to start. Firstly the only place neutrons travel fast enough to transmute elements is in a nuclear reactor. You can’t accelerate them in a gas centrifuge. A hydrogen atom is a proton and can be ionised (stripped of it electron) to be a proton. If you accelerated this electrically in an accelerator and smashed it into an element then theoretically it could capture the proton however it is more commonly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-process
“The temperature during a core-collapse supernova explosion reaches up to 2×109 to 3×109 Kelvin. The resulting black-body radiation produces a photon bath that can disintegrate the seed nuclei created by the s-process and r-process. Under these conditions it is believed that photodisintegration reactions are responsible for the production of some proton-rich atomic nuclei with more than 100 nucleons (A > 100). It has been recently proposed that neutron star mergers (collisions between two neutron stars in a binary star system) will have similar conditions and may also play a role in the production of p-process nuclei (nuclei created only by the p-process, not to be confused with P-isotopes),”
As you can see it would have to be pretty hot steam!!!
The reality is quite different to change U238 into a fissionable material you simply blanket it over a nuclear reactor core and let the neutron flux change it to plutonium.
Again you really really really need to read something on physics. I can’t wait to post your answer on Deltoid – God they will laugh almost as much as the last girl you asked out on a date.
Well you might be right Ender. So you tell me how they do the reprocessing?
“The reality is quite different to change U238 into a fissionable material you simply blanket it over a nuclear reactor core and let the neutron flux change it to plutonium.”
Hang on a minute. Where is your retraction you evil leftist lying jerk!!!!!!!!!!
You just spent hours trying to lie to people that they could not use up the rest of the uranium once the 0.7% Uranium 235 had been used up.
Without skipping a beat you than claim that they do indeed reprocess it to plutonium whereupon the U238 has now been transformed to fishionable material.
Now where is your retraction and your acknowledgement that yes indeed you can use the U238 converted to plutonium?
Man. I just cannot stand you jerks. If you are stupid don’t be belligerent with it.
“In many fast-breeder-reactor designs, the reactor core is surrounded in a blanket of tubes containing non-fissile uranium-238 which, by capturing fast neutrons from the reaction in the core, is partially converted to fissile plutonium-239 (as is some of the uranium in the core), which can then be reprocessed for use as nuclear fuel. Other FBR designs rely on the geometry of the fuel itself (which also contains uranium-238) to attain sufficient fast neutron capture.”
So when the U235 is used up, thats not the end of your fuel. Got it!!!!
Now we both agree on that now right! Because it came out of your own fingertips right!
So you just wasted hours of time naysaying me for no reason in either some sort of powerful act of mental constipation or a premeditated campaign to mislead people.
Now I’m going to find out whether my memory is all wrong on centrifuges and I suppose that might be the case. You will be the first to know when I find out one way or the other…… (you stupid jerk).
Well thats the best rope-a-dope I’ve unwittingly pulled off. Funny how silly ideas lodge themselves in ones head. Ender is perfectly right about centrifuges. They are used only for the isotope separation to change the grade of the uranium. Not to alter the isotope of individual uranium atoms.
The insults on this site are hilarious. I know they are well-intentioned though.
Bird:
Have you asked the leftist lying jerk to apologize for being a Hives Hamilton Disciple. Thought not.
this is the guy who thinks Hives is a god. And he’s telling people to be scared about Co2.
I wish he’s buy that friggen car.
Ender would have us all rely on supposedly cheap wind power for our electricity.
Uh huh!
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2007/gb20070824_562452.htm
How unsurprising Ender, our resident Hamiltonian disciple, is a wind aficionado.
The expert evaluation had discovered possible manufacturing defects and irregularities.
Wind turbines are possibly the worst possible way to harness energy to convert to electricity. And now the Germans are starting to learn what dis economies of scale is all about.
Dis economies of scale is the opposite of economies of scale which will mean the more we introduce turbines the greater the marginal cost of maintaining them.
Centralizing power management through coal or nuke offers economies of scale.
Personally I would rather Ender lived next to a wind turbine while I would live next to a nuke facility anytime.
No Ender we aren’t swapping. That’s where you’re going to live after the ETS and it’s not going to be a brick home either. Good luck.
And take Hives with You. Try and spend more time in the front room wearing an ECG machine just to check if the heart rate is slightly elevated.
“The expert evaluation had discovered possible manufacturing defects and irregularities.”
This comment was from the link in the above comment.
RA,
I almost envy Ender for the hilarious way you put him down.
Jeez Ender – looks like you’ve got a collection of rightist turds on the hook here.
Tell me do you reckon Ra is Birdy’s wife. Sounds like it to me? Might have to fix it so these turds get double ETS’ed and MASS taxed. They have to learn to to get back in line.
Bird – “You just spent hours trying to lie to people that they could not use up the rest of the uranium once the 0.7% Uranium 235 had been used up.”
No dickhead I took you from a vague reference to U238 having radioactivity (LOL) to the actual operation of a breeder reactor where non-fissionable elements are transmuted to fissionable elements. The reference to gas centrifuges was hilarious and you in the process have learned a little about nuclear energy so that now you are merely clueless rather than pig ignorant.
Mind you all reactors are breeders to a certain extent. The designs called breeders have this breeding of fuel enhanced however they remain uneconomic which is why none are still in operation outside government sponsored programs.
(BTW you looked at Deltoid didn’t you – what a pathetic loser).
Steve Stip – “I almost envy Ender for the hilarious way you put him down.”
Yes the last time I was put down so well the primary school teacher had to seperate us.
Ender,
I would bet that RA is female. She seems to be fond of you in a sisterly way. Bird is pretty sound all around but you bested him in the nuclear department.
Ender. Where is your retraction? And your knew admission that breeder-reactors can use up more than 0.7% of the fuel. What a total idiot/liar you are!
You wasted hours of time in total dishonesty. It was a filthy attempt to lie to third parties.
What a total fraud you are.
So what are you going to do next time idiot? Promote the cargo cult of subsidised solar collectors? Lie about nuclear having this big waste problem?
You are a proven idiot Ender.
The safety of the Aptera car is more related to the general problem of lightweight vehicles sharing the road with much heavier ones. i.e don’t get t-boned by a loaded semi even when driving a HumVee.
If the critics can be bothered actually looking at the Aptera website they will see that the Aptera has been designed by the manufacturer to the automobile crash requirements. The 3 wheel design is a result of the very simple drive train thus enabled and the motorcycle certification is a happy result of California motor vehicle law which means the thing can be built and sold without going through the formal government testing as a car which is the best way to get some real world data on its use, durability etc. Otherwise you wind up certifying a prototype and likely go broke while going through this process. Just ask any number of would be light aircraft manufacturers.
I think the Aptera is an inspired piece of design and unlike most other electric cars is actually beautiful, but then I’m partial to low drag aerodynamics.
Anyone guess where we can plant our first nuc power generator?
Ice on the windmill blades,
On the solar cells, thick snow.
Inside, safe and warmed
by a nuclear glow.
“Anyone guess where we can plant our first nuc power generator?”
Anywhere close to seawater. Because they are entirely safe. You want cold seawater to cool them. And by the way they are by the nature very good desalinaters. Anywhere the investors feel like putting them would be another answer.
We want them all around the coast. But we would want to prioratize and get them close to a rail link to coal and oil shales. Since we need to build big furnaces to be able to liquify carbon resources.
Bird:
I’d stick Ender near the blades of a wind turbine and watch the little creep sweat it out afraid he’s going to be decapped any moment.
I’d happily live near a nuke reactor.
French towns bid for reactors, by the way.
The Hamiltonian disciple, Ender is a complete moron and deserves scorn on every thread he goes to…. the big bawling big mary.
Yes Bird, But Ender doesn’t want reactors because the nihilistic little bastard is an economic declinist, so why are you trying to rationalize with him.
For the benefit of third parties. Just to show where these nutty ideas come from.
Nutty ideas about nuclear:
1. The idea that nuclear is expensive. Which it isn’t unless its legal obstruction, government cost overuns, only using 0.7% of the fuel, or looking at the retail end of the market in a situation of monopoly pricing.
2. The idea that nuclear has massive decomissioning costs. Which seems to be, if it is not entirely made up, about design failure. The failure to have sufficient modularity of design.
3. The idea that it is unsafe. Which has no statistical justification whatsoever. And no design justification.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is something to be said about gallic national vanity and obstinance here. These guys are about the only people being responsible with regards to energy generation. They are expanding their grid and selling energy to other countries. Which we ought to be doing also. We ought to be to saturation nuclear in our country and be selling it to Papua and Indonesia.
One of those countries, either the Morrocons or the Algerians, have changed their time zone. Just so they can import electricity from the French at off-peak prices. Thank goodness Berlesconi made a comeback in Italy and he has committed his country to nuclear power. It is just so irresponsible of any country not run by bloodthisty tyrants not to do so.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We have this moronic metric of trying to get some percentage of total energy from “renewables”. Not that there is any such thing really. I mean what a meaningless goal. To get 20% from “renewables.” A better metric would be to get more energy-per-capita from renewables than anyone else regardless of the percentage of total. So supposing we are getting more ergs per capita from wind and solar than the Germans. But we have so much nuclear and carbon-solids-liquification ……. that renewables are still a tiny percentage. Now that would be success.
“1. The idea that nuclear is expensive. Which it isn’t unless its legal obstruction, government cost overuns, only using 0.7% of the fuel, or looking at the retail end of the market in a situation of monopoly pricing.”
Exactly, nuke reactors are expensive depending on the level of regulatory controls and safety requirements.
“2. The idea that nuclear has massive decomissioning costs. Which seems to be, if it is not entirely made up, about design failure. The failure to have sufficient modularity of design.”
Exactly, however people like the Hamiltonian disciple and economic declinist has never heard of the term trade offs.
“3. The idea that it is unsafe. Which has no statistical justification whatsoever. And no design justification.”
Exactly, it actually been safer than coal to use. More people have died per unit of energy working at coal-fired plants than nuke.
The Hamiltonian declinist deserves a good clip over the head for peddling propaganda.
Looks like the love affair with wind power has crashed into the wall of reality. Here’s a Canadian greenoid columnist finally admitting what smart people knew all along – that wind power playing any significant role in energy production anytime in the near future is a chimera!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinions/columnists/Gary+Mason.html
Whoops, here’s the direct link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080826.BCMASON26/TPStory/TPComment/?query=
Where’s the Hamiltonian disciple as he has a lot to answer for….. the economic declinism and all.
the wind aficionado… fme when will this idiocy ever stop.
“Anyone guess where we can plant our first nuc power generator?”
Not too far north (N.H.) or south (S.H.) since we don’t want them scraped off by oncoming glaciers.
RA,
I don’t know if this applies to Ender but most leftists won’t stay around long enough for a good refutation. But I have some sympathy for leftists; they often want to correct the economic misery the fractional-reserve bankers get us in to.
More problems with wind:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html?_r=2&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
“fme when will this idiocy ever stop?”
Till you’re safely in your grave
or till the end of days
there’ll be idiots to save.
Of course Ender won’t stay around as he’s busy trying to find land on higher ground and drive that ridiculous looking car around. I hope he buys land near a wind turbine.
Think of it this way, beach front property will get less expensive. I hope the Hollywood crowd sells theirs and has to buy it back at ridiculous prices.
“I hope he buys land near a wind turbine.”
They’re forbidden in Italy because of the sound they make.
Well we don’t want to give up on any energy source so long as it pays its own way.
I’m up in Cairns and will be checking out CookTown. Cooktown strikes one as a place where alternative fuels might actually be cost-effective to have there with your nuclear power station and your steady supply of hydrocarbons.
Any erg is a good erg. We just have to be careful that discussions on how nice the Swedish people are aren’t really a putdown of Jews and our dark-skinned brothers.
That is to say, no discussion of alternatives ought to be seen as an excuse not to be pushing for a crash program in nuclear and hydrocarbons exploitation.