Greenhouse gas emissions: to reduce we must change the way we access power!

energyguy1024 · Newbie

Greenhouse gas emissions: to reduce we must change the way we access power!

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

It's perception fed to the public by competing energy industry interests.

Why?

For example, Germans pay for high priced energy since gov't legislation to ban nuclear power use. They want to be seen as a model for the rest of the world that 'Green Energy' works.

Reality is; Germans buy increasingly from French nuke NPP's now.

Of course there will be high hydrocarbon use if Germany wants prosperous economy to make up for increased energy use demand which puts pressure on sub-terrain CO2 deposit & atmospheric pollution and coal mine/plant worker accidents.

German risk & finance subsidy policy politics will make funding very confusing and open to corruption.

Germany is a major EU member and thus are taxed heavily and enterprise is regulated in Germany meaning other EU county currencies/banks need to be bailed out, Germany must pay for these bail-outs. This politic is not shared, already most Scandinavian countries are not too happy with this arrangement (Finland, Sweden). Also notice some Scandinavians want nuclear power.

This is the hazard of fiat currency monetary system and Keynesian economy like in Canada and the U.S. The Hydrocarbon industry is connected to the banks, oil/hydro corporatism is favored in N. America, high unemployment & big 'slow inflation'. A lopsided Green approach to energy production favors financial policy dependency in status quo in other words, the Banks-control-the-State.

In China the 'State-control-the-Banks' you see more open economy system.

China not happy with the world reserve U.S. dollar $$ currency and now purchase gold and precious metals and other currencies. The Chinese worry about small 'flash inflation'.

Notice they are heavily invested in NPP's for the future they might use small NPP's at inland China sites with an integrated electrical grid. Chinese already notice too much coal use creates too much pollution in some of their manufacturing areas and they want to replace with cleaner safe NPPs because they produce more cheap power in the long run. Most of the developing world will not follow the western anti-nuclear policy they want independent free market where people control of State & Bank multi-use NPPs with domestic policy control of their energy generation. It will be more of a holistic intergrated energy dynamic where Nuclear energy is central core with other energy technologies like solar, wind and hydrocarbon tailored use based on each nations energy needs.

I don't think the developing world wants to follow the 'western economic' plan. Notice the IMF/world bank not welcomed in Asia they already had bad experience with IMF bank in the mid 1990's.

The developing markets will want adequate energy at valued cost with domestic control of resource.

read: http://www.nuclearspace.com/SMR_reactorserve.html

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 on Tuesday 7th of June 2011 06:43:39 PM

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 on Tuesday 7th of June 2011 06:57:59 PM

energyguy1024 · Newbie

I agree that NPP's are a key facet of the way that energy is produced in world today, but after seeing incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima happen, isn't there an argument to move away from nuclear energy use?

I understand that the rest of the world isn't going to quickly jump on to the western civilization's "anti-nuclear" policy, but with the constant advances we see in technology today, I believe it is very possible that we will see a shift towards energies such as wind, solar, and possibly even biomass. The United States saw a dramatic increase in wind energy consumption from 2005 to 2009. Granted, wind energy has a lot of defects that need to be worked out before it can become a substantial source, but there is a large area for growth there.

In the end run, these energy sources may not be as effective as the fossil fuels or nuclear energy, I agree there. But if we keep destroying the environment with these things, we could be causing a problem that is far greater than the most effective way of producing energy.

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

energyguy, sorry don't share your enthusiasm for wind-solar-bio. These are niche energy tech sources (Bio. is GHG emit). OK use for high priced localized energy production will never supply the baseloading power needed to provide bulk electrical power demands or multiuse Power Plant dynamics such as fertilizer production, desalination, medical isotope production, food (irradiation) preservation prevention of deadly E.coli food poison. To name a few benefits of nuclear.

Finally, the pressure of risk and raising capital financial dynamics tends to put pressure on taxpayers. Nuke does require large initial start-up cost but this can be shared by both private and public investment money and has to be transparent by law for both businesses and public. 2nd,3rd,4th...etc. fiscal year operation payback 10%,20%,30%...etc. per year reduction in electrical bills (NPP raw plant operation costs ONLY).

I don't share the mainstream media reportage of Chernobyl & Fukushima both are preventable accidents both are in decommissioning mode. I don't share the sentiments anti-nuclear zealots have over nuclear technology and science. 'Radiation Hormesis' is still the most accurate science compared to the 'LNT model' with regard to human exposure to radiation. [see link]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=exposed-graphic-science

Finally, I don't subscribe to politics of fault in Ukrainian or Japanese people just because they happen to live by an NPP accident. I respect people and support fair trade & their free market. I still eat Ukrainian imported foods and Japanese agricultural products (suchi and wasbi paste.)

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 on Wednesday 8th of June 2011 04:47:46 PM

energyguy1024 · Newbie

How far can you really go with nuclear energy though? Understandably, you are pumping out MASSIVE amounts of energy, but then what? If we are using Uranium 238, which we largely are, we are ending up with a large amount of plutonium as toxic waste, which will sit around till roughly the end of the world. (figuratively speaking)

I know that the output of nuclear energy is far greater than wind, solar, or even hydro, but they aren't really that efficient of a source. Nuclear energy on average on achieves 30% efficiency, where as hydro-power can achieve up to 85% efficiency (granted you can't achieve as much power). But why isn't it possible for technological advances to find a way to convert mass amounts of energy from hydro-power?

My goal with this message board was to try to get a collective opinion of ways that will help the environment without drastically hurting the output of energy around the world. This doesn't involve the elimination of nuclear energy, or even fossil fuels for that matter, but some steps need to be taken to conserve the health of the earth. shouldn't they?

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

For sure nukes without a doubt have the crown for energy density-presently. But this can change as physics science could over take fission. Fusion, antimatter or other science/tech may emerge, it's the nature of advancement with small steps (research innovation) toward newer power sources.

Essentially what we feature on this site mostly: fission, fusion, antimatter and speculative future concepts. None of these concepts are discovered over night and far future concepts will probably happen in incremental discoveries based on improvements.

We mostly market nuclear for space power and propulsion. Humans and robotics are much more dependant on nukes in space for transit or on extra-tierra habitat power. Solar power in space has a limited inner solar system range of operation.

Generally the public is not given the true nature of nukes and advanced power systems unless they take the time to do research.

There are hundreds of nuke reactor designs and architectures you can read intro here [see link] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_technology

U238 use is not an end onto itself in the nuclear field. The nature of closing the NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE is in effect recycling. It's using spent fuels and to manipulate them around the nucleogenesis cycle this requires specific reactors designed to 'burn-up' recycled fuel generating energy in the process. So ideally the spent fuel waste that you might see in light water reactors (LWR) or boiling water reactors BWR is used in other type of reactors whose spent use would be used again on another type of reactor providing energy for electricity in each cycle step until the spent fuel amount is reduced to a high level radiation waste that at the moment serves no other purpose but for geological storage at very reduced amounts from thousands hundreds of kilos to grams.

MOX fuels or mixed oxides can used in LWR, BWR, PWR reactors etc. and have minuscule amt. of Pu238 but this is not a serious threat. The reactors we market are small reactors using liquid or paste or gas nuclear fuel form in a particular geometric fashion with other stable nuclides. Small Modular Reactors (SMR) example: fast flux reactors, Thorium thermal or molten salt reactor variety have lower start-up costs and are within reason for operational costs have passive safety operations preventing sub-criticality heat build-up like Fukushima reactors cores and spent fuel rod pool cool down cure operations.

We advocate for space (ultra high temperature small fast reactors the higher the temperature the less products of nasty long lived isotopes. Of course, these reactors are used for propulsion in space flight much more efficient that chemical rocket propulsion. Here is a recent NY time report on SMR's. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/science/earth/13nuke.html?_r=2

So anyway some energy technologies are limited like solar-hydro-wind or stream they can only provide a limited amount of energy as primary and additive as secondary like a car you can improve speed with topical applications until you must change the mode of car propulsion (engine technology) to increase speed.

Nuclear power at the moment can provide adequate power without the GHG's, safely and WMD proliferation free fuel with far less Geo repository spent fuel waste at a reasonable cost.

The philosophy behind peaceful nukes and advanced power is silly evil ways (ideas) of curtailing human beings & planet earth's normal functions will NOT work. The best policy is to promote humans beings and planet earth and to spread humans colonies in solar system and beyond.

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 on Thursday 9th of June 2011 05:26:18 AM

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 on Thursday 9th of June 2011 05:38:08 PM

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

I remember that Dr. Helen Caldicott who is the leader of the anti-nuclear movement recently had a debate with George Monbiot who seems to be an apologist for the nuclear industry and takes the position that the dangers of radiation have been exagerated. The debate soon turned into a mud slinging festival with Helen calling George an obscene monster who is responsible for the deaths of one million people who died at Chernobyl. I immediately saw the fallaciousness of Helens arguments for even if what she said was true one must remember that everyone eventually dies and what we are really talking about is one million shortened lives.

Rather than confronting Dr. Helen directly I merely asked her the question "Is there such a thing as a magic nuclear reactor that produces no radiation?" She e-mailed me back with her resounding "no". I can't help it to think that a lot of times when women say no they really mean yes.

Now I am not all talk but I actually walk the walk. I have actually worked at the National Ignition Facility which is a multi-billion dollar experimental fusion reactor which is a sort of a nuclear fire cracker. The promise of fusion power is the reduction or even the elimination of radiation. If the project succeeds as a proof of concept all that will be needed is to increase the frequency of the explosions to make it commercially viable. However I have often wondered if commercial viability can be better achieved by increasing the size of the explosions with the only obstacle being political viability.

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

Personally, anti-nuclear zealots like Dr. Caldicott are the majority and it will take many more George Monbiot's in media to bring balance in nuke reporting in media.

Glad you work @ HOTPOINT ICF plasma confinement. Here in my area we have General Fusion http://www.generalfusion.com/generator_design.html Jeff Bezos (Amazon) has dropped millions $$ here on GF.

We promote POLYWELL fusion http://www.nuclearspace.com/bussard_POLYWELL.html

We will have to see is fusion energy is any closer to commerical apps.

energyguy1024 · Newbie

Nuke, since I don't feel I will be able to convince you of any potential growth in the non-fossil fuel sector of energy development... Can you direct me to another message board with people concerned about the use of GHG's and the effect they are having on the environment?

androbot2084 · Veteran Member

The problem with George Monbiot is that he seems to be an apologist concerning the dangers of radiation. While certainly the dangers of radiation have been exagerated nevertheless the fact is that any possibility that a nvclear power plant can melt down is vnacceptable. With cvrrent designs of 4th generation nvclear reactors the claim is that a meltdown is impossible so the reactor is inherently safe. Vnfortnately with the introdvction of the 4th generation nvclear reactor what this also means is that cvrrent 2nd generation reactors are obsolete and jvnk which is not good news for the owners. However this is trve with any new technology. I have heard owners of compvters complain that anytime a new compvter is invented it makes their investment in their old compvter obsolete. That is why sellers of compvters are starting to offer generovs trade in allowences to owners of old electronic eqvipment.

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

Good point androbot2084 I tend to think generally 'new' nukes size, tech, management, efficiency and safety have moved on from old nukes. Problem is public has not turned its attention to new nukes to examine what 'new' nukes offer.

Energyguy1024 focus is GHG's and points to Bio fuels a some great source.

Not for me!

Any man-made attempt to curtail the production of healthy food by arable land bio-fuel crop occupation is horrible policy. The focus should be to allow agriculture and nature to produce a much as possible and for the energy industry to do no harm. Nukes is the best energy tech to operate along side nature,wildlife and agriculture. In some cases unintended consequences nukes boost agriculture, wildlife and nature.