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Are we even going to make it to the 2040s? It seems increasingly likely, if not inevitable, that we will have a nuclear war by then.
While they freeze to death this winter due to lack of natural gas over the conflict. How about turning on that coal fired plant for a few years until you get the whole reliable energy thing figured out.
While they freeze to death this winter due to lack of natural gas over the conflict. How about turning on that coal fired plant for a few years until you get the whole reliable energy thing figured out.
If the problem is a lack of natural gas for heating, I do not see how a coal fired electric power plant would help the situation. Sure keeping the plant on would generate more electricity but the problem does not seem to be a lack of electricity. From my understanding, the UK gets 3.4% of their electricity from coal and the UK is replacing that with other sources.
It's easy to turn electricity into heat.
It's easy to turn electricity into heat.
I am looking at a gas stove and a gas furnace. Please tell me how do I get these things to use electricity. Oh I need to replace them . . . that does not sound easy nor cheap especially by this winter. While gas powered electricity can be replaced with other sources, gas powered heating is not easily replaced.
Basically, every household, every business, they can get using a heat pump before winter hits is that much less gas usage. Any that switch to resistive heat is probably a wash.
Basically, every household, every business, they can get using a heat pump before winter hits is that much less gas usage. Any that switch to resistive heat is probably a wash.
"Can" does not mean it is cheap nor easy as you have said especially in the next few months. Just like I can reduce my gasoline usage to zero by getting an electric vehicle. The fact I cannot afford a new car nor have anywhere to install a charger in my apartment means little I suppose.
I didn't say that it's easy to get gas appliances to use electricity, I said that it's easy to turn electricity into heat. Your computer, for example, is busily turning electricity into heat. A small(ish) server farm where I used to work made a building need AC - cooling, year round, in North Dakota. The AC broke one winter. We opened the doors and placed fans to move freezing outside air in. Place still ended up being warm.
Anyways, the time to replace appliances is generally end of life anyways, that'
Then say that, don't act like I didn't say it and try to correct me by repeating what I said.
Because I did say it, ergo I didn't "Forget it". Maybe place less importance on it than you want, but I didn't forget it.
That said, firing up some coal plants probably wouldn't mitigate the problem completely, but it might help a bit. Partial mitigation is a thing, after all.
And the natural gas heating would be simple: 1. Fire up coal power plants 2. Use #1 to shut down some NG power plants, or at least run them l
In neither case will it produce hot water,
In neither case will it produce hot water,
Some heat pumps come with what is called a "desuperheater" [mastertherm.co.uk]. It dumps heat into your water heater, so actually, yes, it can produce hot water. Right now most links talk about geothermal, but my parent's house has a air source heat pump with one.
That said, low hanging fruit rears its head again. Get the main building heat off of natural gas, the rest of the house doesn't use a significant amount anymore.
Well, how a desuperheater works is quite interesting, but on average, no, it doesn't just support a "small amount".
First, it's operation mode depends on whether you're heating or cooling the rest of the house.
In the summer time, you're trying to get rid of heat from the house. As such, a desuperheater provides generally "plenty" of hot water essentially for free, because it simply dumps heat into the water heater until the water heater reaches temperature, then dumps it outside(or into the ground) as per d
I think that you're falling for the nirvana fallacy - if a solution isn't good enough to fix 100% of the problem, it isn't worth doing. Sometimes partial solutions is all you can do.
We're looking at a matter of margins here. They already have NG in storage, they already have alternative sources. They don't need to eliminate 100% of NG use before this winter, just the portion that they were getting from Russia, didn't already have in storage, and can't replace with other NG sources in the remaining time.
Energy is far less fungible in the case of heating if you have a natural gas furnace, and there is a lack of natural gas. I don't know how popular natgas furnaces are in the UK, but if there isn't enough gas and you don't have electric heat, it's a problem.
Yes, you can go buy a far less efficient electrical resistive heater, but how are supplies of those going to hold up when that first cold snap hits? And, really you're just moving the problem - now your electrical load on the grid is higher, and you nee
I'll admit that I didn't hit that "switching a significant number over to heat pumps in the time remaining is probably impossible" very well; forgot to put it in. But do you like repeating me? Me: "NG powers a lot of peaking plants" You: "And where does most peaking generation come from? Natgas turbines."
As for electric resistive heaters, they're common enough, and easy enough to build, that I don't think that they'd run out. But again, I mention how resistive heating isn't a good answer for this, so why r
What about saving the Planet? This should be our first one and only concern: Save the Planet!
What about saving the Planet? This should be our first one and only concern: Save the Planet!
The planet will be here when we are gone, but we should probably save the biosphere if we hope to continue to be here.
You have to be pretty stupid to think this is the position of the left... Well, you have to be pretty stupid to still be on the right, so I guess it makes sense. (Actual conservatives can be found on the left now that you've pushed the Overton windows so far right you make Hitler look like a centrist.)
"Also most people would agree coal is bad if you present the absurd number of deaths from the air pollution and coal mining caused by those"
Really? Because the impression I get is that, while many people might accept that it's happening, it's human nature to think it's not happening to you (or those you care about) unless it punches them in face and the coroner slaps a big old "coal" sticker as cause of death on your love ones' foreheads.
That "punch in the face" may be insufficient. Remember those COVID deniers that, close to death, still claimed it does not exist? Some people will rather die than let go of their stupid ideas.
That "punch in the face" may be insufficient. Remember those COVID deniers that, close to death, still claimed it does not exist? Some people will rather die than let go of their stupid ideas.
That "punch in the face" may be insufficient. Remember those COVID deniers that, close to death, still claimed it does not exist? Some people will rather die than let go of their stupid ideas.
That's not even remotely how evolution works.
Hey! What are you doing actually listening to what experts say, rather than building a big huge straw man out of misrepresentation and wholly debunked horseshit and then declaring it to be the opposing position?!
How do you expect to create a sense of faux outrage with facts instead of lies, manipulation, and grievance?
That would be a direct violation of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty they signed in 1963. I am not an international law lawyer so I don't know what all the ramifications of that would be, but I'd bet the political considerations by people that are still tolerating Russia's bullshit (China, India) would get an immediate recalculation.
You know, I'm not 100% certain but I bet you dollars to donuts that Putan doesn't give two shits and crackers about 60 year old treaty.
He probably gives a shit if the other signatories give a shit enough to cut trade. Namely, China and India.
He's already pissed off Europe and North America; pissing off the rest of Asia would cement his head's inevitable intersection with a bullet.
India and China won't cut off trade. Putin will make some excuse to withdraw .. anything from "Russia is not the Soviet Union" to "it wasn't a weapon, but a nuclear explosive device for geophysics research or landscaping/terraforming" .. I am sure the Limited Nuclear Test Ban has loopholes in it. Heck, the name itself has the word "Limited" in it. I'm sure Putin can come up with some explanation, valid or not, for withdrawing from it. He doesn't really need anyone to really believe the reasoning/logic is va
Well, considering the "limited" refers to limiting nuclear tests to underground explosions where no fallout leaves the testing country's borders, using a nuclear weapon anywhere meaningful inside of Ukraine would violate every single term of the treaty because it wouldn't be in Russia, it wouldn't be underground, and the fallout sure as hell wouldn't stay in Russia.
And when some of the fallout blows east back into Russia, I have a feeling there are some Russians that might care. As iron of a grip as he has
That's the interesting question: Will Putin treat attacks on Russian forces in the four oblasts he claims are now part of Russia (or 6, if you count Crimea and Sevastopol, which he claimed as part of Russia back in 2014) the same as he would treat attacks on internationally-recognized Russia?
The rest of the world doesn't see Ukraine forcing Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory as an attack on Russia itself, but the rest of the world isn't threatening nuclear war, so their opinions and decisions aren't
Will Putin treat attacks on Russian forces in the four oblasts he claims are now part of Russia (or 6, if you count Crimea and Sevastopol, which he claimed as part of Russia back in 2014) the same as he would treat attacks on internationally-recognized Russia?
The have explicitly stated they would [reuters.com], and it's hard to think of any other rationale for formalizing the annexation at the time they did than to build a pretext for escalation.
Of course the real question is, will they actually treat it the same? T
Article 5 is not triggered automatically. The country under attack has to call for it.
They'd be a big version of North Korea.
They'd be a big version of North Korea.
Only with real nukes and vodka....
They'd be a big version of North Korea. Only with real nukes and vodka....
They'd be a big version of North Korea.
They'd be a big version of North Korea.
Only with real nukes and vodka....
The vodka is what makes them scary.
If Russia uses a tactical nuke against Ukraine, they'll very likely have to face a US-lead coalition of conventional forces in both Ukraine and the Black Sea, and it would be over quickly. That leaves a tactical nuclear strike against a NATO country, which triggers article 5.
If Russia uses a tactical nuke against Ukraine, they'll very likely have to face a US-lead coalition of conventional forces in both Ukraine and the Black Sea, and it would be over quickly. That leaves a tactical nuclear strike against a NATO country, which triggers article 5.
I think it's clear to most people that Putin is batshit insane, even to some of his own people. While Putin might be more than willing to use tactual nukes in Ukraine, I'm still betting some of his military leaders might not be so keen on the idea. Hopefully, if he decides to go down that path others will see this as an escalation they cannot win and remove him in accordance with Russian tradition.
So I guess we should just stop solving problems then, because one danger to society that we lived with for 50 years, then went away for a couple decades, is back?
You really are a massive idiot.
I was born in the 1940s. I grew up with the Cold War. In grade school we learned about backyard fallout shelters and Strontium 90. (There's an old Twilight Zone episode where a guy builds a basement fallout shelter that I recognize from our school books.) There were commercials on Saturday morning TV for kids to volunteer for a sort of air patrol to look out for enemy bombers flying in. (As an adult looking back, I suspect that that was mostly a propaganda thing.) When I got my first social security c
Nuclear bombs are obsolete. Precision munitions are more useful.
Nuclear bombs are obsolete. Precision munitions are more useful.
I would be interested in hearing how you arrived at this conclusion. With eight nuclear armed nations in the world, reality seems to disagree with your assessment.
It isn't limitless, it isn't nearly limitless. And it surely isn't even close to prototype stage.
The amount of power it takes to achieve the roughly 75% power out of what is put in is a parlor trick that completely ignores the parasitic power requirements. So far the Qtot is embarrassingly small, while they preen and strut about Qp
note: Qtot is the total power out compared to the total power used to achieve that amount of power. Expressed as a decimal number. Qtot includes cooling and cost of generating the power to ignite the fusion process. Just achieving a Qtot of 1 is the very beginning. Next comes increasing that Qtot to a level that is much greater than the total amount of power needed to sustain that reaction, cover the total generating costs, and having a hella lot of power left over to distribute.
The idea that it will be radiation free - or nearly so - is an outright lie, unless the results of neutron bombardment is majickly eliminated.
Oh yeah, there is the tritium problem as well - we won't have nearly limitless energy until we have a similar almost limitless amount of tritium. Right now ITER has laid claim to a large percentage of the world's available supply of tritium.
Or special molten lithium spheres of the right isotope surrounding the fusion capsule. Lithium isn't really scarce, but don't ever declare anything surrounded by molten alkali metals as safe.
Anyone who says that nuclear fusion provided power is limitless or nearly limitless is either parroting a narrative or dissembling. They are just repeating the lies from nuclear fission. The same assholes at work. The fusion industry itself makes no such claims.
Anyone who says that nuclear fusion provided power is limitless or nearly limitless is either parroting a narrative or dissembling.
Anyone who says that nuclear fusion provided power is limitless or nearly limitless is either parroting a narrative or dissembling.
They are just repeating the lies from nuclear fission. The same assholes at work. The fusion industry itself makes no such claims.
True, dat. And with a process that has never worked yet. That's the strange part. We have true believers that we'll have that endless source of power, and it's never happened.
With going from the fission bomb, we got to operating plants in a few years. Fusion? Like the Peanuts cartoon with Lucy getting Charlie Brown to keep trying to kick the football, but always pulling it away. Here we are not a whole lot further than we were 20 years ago - just a few percentage points, so by the time we get to Q1.0 it
Actually we are a lot farther with fusion than 20 years ago. I recently listened to a long podcast of some leading researchers for the Wedelstein X7 stellerator. R&D has in no way stopped or stalled. The problem is that the way is _really_ long. Advances in other fields are needed. The biggest breakthroughs they had was apparently finally enough computing power to get that thing designed and advances in material sciences that allow a first stab at a wall coating (plasma is hell on almost all materials).
Actually we are a lot farther with fusion than 20 years ago.
Actually we are a lot farther with fusion than 20 years ago.
I recently listened to a long podcast of some leading researchers for the Wedelstein X7 stellerator. R&D has in no way stopped or stalled. The problem is that the way is _really_ long. Advances in other fields are needed.
Good heavens yes. The parasitic power consumption has to be almost eliminated. Remember, the successful fusion power plant must create enough power to power itself, plus enough power out to make it make sense. That's bootstrapping itself into productivity.
The biggest breakthroughs they had was apparently finally enough computing power to get that thing designed and advances in material sciences that allow a first stab at a wall coating (plasma is hell on almost all materials).
The biggest breakthroughs they had was apparently finally enough computing power to get that thing designed and advances in material sciences that allow a first stab at a wall coating (plasma is hell on almost all materials).
How can anyone - especially a clueless government like Liz Truss' Tories - possibly commit to building a production plant when the experimental plant ( ITER ) is not even close to being finished, let along producing power ?
Pretty sure they're just trying to distract us from their gross financial incompetence.
Well, consider that this 'dedication' is a lot like EV mandates that will only happen a decade or so after all the people who voted for it have retired from office. Or at least, have 2-5 election cycles in between. It's performative. Schedules can slip easily.
Then consider what has actually been committed: A toxic industrial site* has been selected to be the grounds of the plant, which is easy. They've pledged some money. Which they don't have to find, because again, future politicians** get to do that.
So yeah, standard distraction feel-good moves.
*It's a coal power plant site, of course it's toxic! **And in politician land, anybody after the next election is a future politician, even if the politicians in question get re-elected. Yes, if somebody voted for this now they don't have to vote to fund it in the future, and it is unlikely to hurt them if they do so.
Finally, commercial nuclear fusion power generation is only 18 years away instead of 30!!
So we've nibbled about 10 years off the 30 year estimate over the past 50 or so years. Extrapolating, at the rate of 10 years every 50, we are only a century away!
(Seriously, I wish them the best of luck -- but this can not be used to distract from the predictable and effective solution of dramatic expansion of fission nuclear power plants.)
Haha. Floating cities in the sky.
In the 1950s, it was. In the 1960s, it was.
And in the 2020s, it was.
OK, but we had a working fusion reactor here before the Chinese visited it, and we had to move it to Vancouver BC and then elsewhere.
So, just maybe, I might know something about this ...
OK, but we had a working fusion reactor here before the Chinese visited it, and we had to move it to Vancouver BC and then elsewhere. So, just maybe, I might know something about this ...
OK, but we had a working fusion reactor here before the Chinese visited it, and we had to move it to Vancouver BC and then elsewhere.
So, just maybe, I might know something about this ...
Nope. But you should get back to kindergarden, you will find people there that you can communicate with as an equal.
the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean.
the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean.
Assuming this isn't just BS propaganda (as far as I know, no one has achieved sustainable fusion in the lab, much less in any kind of power generating system) the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean. Remember how Natural Gas was supposed to be the 'clean alternative'? And of course nothing is cleaner than nuclear power - but that's been all but banned as well.
Assuming this isn't just BS propaganda (as far as I know, no one has achieved sustainable fusion in the lab, much less in any kind of power generating system) the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean. Remember how Natural Gas was supposed to be the 'clean alternative'? And of course nothing is cleaner than nuclear power - but that's been all but banned as well.
What colour is the sky on your planet. 16% of the UKs power comes from 13 nuclear reactors at 6 sites. A new plant at Hinkley Point is under construction... Doesn't sound like its banned here. Or were you just spouting utter bollocks in a poor attempt to bash "environmentalists"? The big issue here is that the tories, seem, like yourself, to live in a land of make believe... So nothing they promise can be trusted to become reality.
16% of the UKs power comes from 13 nuclear reactors at 6 sites.
16% of the UKs power comes from 13 nuclear reactors at 6 sites.
With utterly boring predictability. https://www.energydashboard.co... [energydashboard.co.uk]
Wind and sun come and go, and varying amounts of gas and other fuels are burnt. Meanwhile, the nuclear power stations carry on stolidly contributing their 4-5 GW all day, all night, weekends, Christmas, New Year...
The current government, and the potential replacement in 2024, are both very pro-nuclear.
However, this project is just nonsense. The minister promoting it, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is known for this kind of rubbish. He is a big fan of fracking too. Anything that is highly profitable for donors to the Tory Party, and nothing is more profitable than a free £200 million for some R&D that will conclude it's going to take many more decades and many more tens of billions in funding. Since it's clean energy they can both divert money needed for renewables, and claim it's proof of their green credentials.
The timescale alone is ludicrous. Only 5 years after ITER is supposed to reach "burning plasma", and ITER is a proof of concept.
I see they don't mention Euratom at all, the European agency that they worked with on the previous experimental reactor. They managed to negotiate continued membership even after brexit, but Rees-Mogg is a hardcore Eurosceptic (read: idiot) and is desperate for the UK to have some successes now it's on its own.
What's a European agency? Didn't we just vote Europe out of existence? The whole world is Britain now.
Sincerely, The Tory Party. The one which Got Brexit Done. And it is done. Anything else is just fake news.
What is your hangup with fracking? Canada and USA and elsewhere have been using fracking for decades.
What is your hangup with fracking? Canada and USA and elsewhere have been using fracking for decades.
Yes, and it has contaminated drinking water and caused seismic events.
What colour is the sky on your planet.
What colour is the sky on your planet.
(as far as I know, no one has achieved sustainable fusion in the lab, much less in any kind of power generating system)
(as far as I know, no one has achieved sustainable fusion in the lab, much less in any kind of power generating system)
(as far as I know, no one has achieved sustainable fusion in the lab, much less in any kind of power generating system)
The parent spoke about fusion (which only exist in experimental form in a few facilities (**), non of which can generate more power than it is consuming. ITER will be the first demonstrator of feasibility for this) not fission which is what most(*) nuclear energy comes from (at least for any large scale industrial energy production.
(*): At a much tinier, non-industrial scale there are RTG used in remote place (remote sea, deep space, etc.) which rely on natural isotope decay (so also fi
There is a universally-accepted design for gravitationally-confined fusion reactors, and evidence that they work. Simple design, too. Just make a big pile of hydrogen (2*10^30 kg should do), and wait. Fusion starts, and set up your energy receivers about 1.5 * 10^11 meters away, and collect all the energy you need.
It's a long standing tradition of people in opposition to anything that would improve the environment to reduce the pro-environment argument to the most absurd extreme view possible, and then misrepresent that as the mainstream argument. It's been happening since the 1970s without so much as a tap of the brakes, and shouldn't really surprise anybody at this point.
When you've got facts on your side, you argue the facts. When you have public opinion on your side, you argue that. When you have neither, you bang
the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean.
the environmentalists will all be quick to shut this down too. They're opposed to anything that generates power - no matter how clean.
You went full toolbag there. Never go full toolbag.
Remember how Natural Gas was supposed to be the 'clean alternative'?
Remember how Natural Gas was supposed to be the 'clean alternative'?
It's cleaner than coal. And lo! The coal plants were shut down, and the natgas plants were not.
And of course nothing is cleaner than nuclear power - but that's been all but banned as well.
And of course nothing is cleaner than nuclear power - but that's been all but banned as well.
Nope. Solar and Wind both have lower lifecycle emissions than nuclear. [impactful.ninja] (inb4 ad hominem: yeah that's an awful domain, but it's a very well-sourced article, so I posted it anyway. I will not respond to logical fallacies, except possibly to name them.)
If you knew anything about anything, it would really help.
Why would anyone care about the "lifetime emissions" of solar and wind, when they simply are not available all the time?
Your link doesn't say what you think it says. Here's what is says under lifetime emissions (g/kWh)
Wind: (onshore) 11 Wind: (offshore) 12 Nuclear: 12 Solar: 38-48
It's not hugely surprising that nuclear has a low carbon footprint. Renewable energy is diffuse and you need a large collection area, which means you need a lot of stuff to collect it which means you need a lot of concrete and/or steel which means lots of coke which means a lot of coal which means a lot of carbon. Nuclear power plants have a high power density, so while they're big they also emit a lot of power.
Wind scales well too because it scales vertically, which means the bigger the thing you put in one place the better, so building fewer, larger turbines works better. The amount of insolation is fixed and you can't do much about it.
Nuclear has some disadvantages, but lifecycle carbon emissions isn't one of them.
We have been over this. It does. End of discussion.
Tokamak style approaches for "sustainable fusion" require scale. There's no "sustainable fusion in the lab" unless your lab is at the scale of a full blown power plant.
This should be understood to be exactly that. The project itself would most likely not be a standalone commercial win -- if all goes right it would put out net electricity on the grid, but you have to consider the capital costs of the project. The real hope here would be that the engineering effort involved would produce a design that would t
Fission plants also have a scale problem. They are only viable when built to provide hundreds of megawatts of power. Military submarine and ship power plants are smaller, but they donÃ(TM)t need to be economical.
Fission plants also have a scale problem. They are only viable when built to provide hundreds of megawatts of power. Military submarine and ship power plants are smaller, but they donÃ(TM)t need to be economical.
This is clearly not true. Many companies are currently designing very efficient and scalable small modular reactors (SMR) designs. Several of them are out of the design and testing phase, and have been approved for commercial use. It is only a matter of time before they are brought to market and deployed.
But even the small military power plants are very efficient. They are literally only refueled once through their entire operational lifespan of 30 to 50 years.
When was natural gas the "clean alternative",
When was natural gas the "clean alternative",
Since like the '80s.
You see, at the time we were looking more at the serious, serious, pollution coal plants produce. Nuclear plants were on average 40 years younger than today, so they could hold for a while, but were already ridiculously expensive to make more of.
Enter natural gas - a carbon footprint a fraction of that of coal. New technologies were making it easier to get to. OTHER pollution types involving it, like ash, P2.5, and such were an even smaller fraction of that of coal. The most importan
What I get from all that is natural is the cleaner alternative to coal and oil. I suppose the only people advocating that natural gas was "clean" was the natural gas industry.
What I get from all that is natural is the cleaner alternative to coal and oil. I suppose the only people advocating that natural gas was "clean" was the natural gas industry.
You mean the Methane industry.
That's what natural gas is.
The process is "basically complete" in the USA as well, with only a few holdout coal plants left, I figure the same is true in the UK. But then, I was talking about how the situation was back in the '80s, remember?
Same deal with your other small comment - Yes, NG is used for a lot of baseload today, pretty much everywhere. So ANY non-NG generation stood up can replace NG pretty much directly, by either shutting down NG baseload, or NG peaking. Lower NG amounts used for electricity can go towards heating,
When was natural gas the "clean alternative", again and how much have you been smoking?
Compared to coal? Since forever. Sure it emits CO2, but it emits less CO2 per joule of heat and the plants have higher efficiency. And coal is FILTHY in terms of other pollution as well. I'm not pro nat gas or anything but I definitely remember it being touted as "clean".
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Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. -- Bertrand Russell