LENR vs Solar/Wind, and emerging Green Technologies.

Quote from Max Nozin

Do you know why they are adding gasoline into already 'highly combustible water fuel'?

It's the same with the 4 legs driven bio 1 horse power car: You have to add oats to water. Otherwise no smell after poop.

Quote from Wyttenbach

As said after three years of school you should be able to understand that insulation + heat pump saves you a factor of 20-30 (6 * 5) of energy.

But only in warm climates such as Atlanta or Washington DC. I have a heat pump. It stops working below ~40 deg F. The auxiliary gas furnace comes on instead. I assume the manufacturer set it up that way because it is inefficient at low outdoor temperatures.

Quote from Shane D.

"As electricity demand collapsed across the world because of lockdowns, renewables have taken a bigger slice of the market because many nations had decided to give new green technologies priority into the grid.'

This article says they are turning off nuclear plants in Europe. That surprises me. That is usually an economic disaster, because you have to keep paying interest and maintenance costs even when they are turned off. When you leave them running for baseline generation the cost of fuel is very low. This article says the French reactors were built in the 1970s and they are "paid for." Maybe they are, but the maintenance and staffing costs are still high. Maybe they have too many of them even for baseline generation. That seems to be what the article says, but it is a little unclear. Maybe they also have so much wind they might as well use it instead of nukes. You can't turn off the wind itself, although you can feather the turbine blades to do maintenance or during a storm. So, wind literally costs nothing to run. In Texas, wind power is so abundant that in many places electricity is free on nights and weekends. The customers are encouraged to shift consumption to night, for things like drying clothes. You might think this would bankrupt the power companies. I think it does not because they charge a fixed fee as well as a cost per megawatt-hour. That's what they were talking about years ago, and I think that's what they decided to do.

https://electricityplans.com/t…e-time-electricity-plans/

In Japan they have turned off nearly all nuclear reactors, in response to the Fukushima disaster. They are building coal and gas fired plants, I am sorry to say. If I were them, I would improve the sea walls and other safety factors at the nukes, and then turn them on again.

Japanese nukes are all cooled with ocean water, as far as I know. So they are all close to the ocean and vulnerable to tsunami.

When you see a large, modern, megawatt-scale wind turbine revolving, it does not seem to be doing much. It seems like a waste of capacity. The ones on land on average run at about ~30% of nameplate capacity. A gas turbine plant may also be running way below nameplate capacity, but you can't tell by looking. The wind turbine may not seem like it is doing much, but with each revolution it produces enough electricity to power the average house for a day.

Only a nuke plant runs at close to 100% of nameplate capacity day and night. The others have to be turned down at night, when demand falls.

Quote from JedRothwell

But only in warm climates such as Atlanta or Washington DC. I have a heat pump. It stops working below ~40 deg F. The auxiliary gas furnace comes on instead. I assume the manufacturer set it up that way because it is inefficient at low outdoor temperatures.

I installed a heat pump last spring to heat and cool a building at my business. The unit I installed is rated to work to minus 15 F below. (-15 F).

https://www.fujitsugeneral.com…lth-low-temp-heating.html

I ran the unit all winter and while we did not reach -15F, it did get down to 0 F a few days. There was no noticeable difference in heat output. It ran fine and kept the areas to the thermostat set temperature. Note, this unit does NOT have an auxiliary electric heating coil, so it was indeed the heat pump.

The unit is not huge, 18,000 BTU and is SEER rated at 20. I did notice a large reduction in my electric bill as the building was previously heated via an electric furnace. The cooling function was also much more efficienct / less expensive than the older A/C unit it replaced. Two for one.

So I can personally say that certain heat pumps can work at much lower temperatures from experience. I have to wait a few years to see how durable, etc. but my initial research showed that should not be an issue.

Heat pumps are not cheap, but the ROI is tolerable, especially if you desire to contribute to cleaner air. And the correct, modern versions can work at a much lower temperature than 40 F.

Quote from interested observer

With regard to capacity factor, the annual average for the U.S. wind fleet over the past decade has been 28 to 35%. By comparison, the U.S. hydroelectric fleet operated at 35 to 43% of capacity during that period. So, wind power is actually not that much less a steady source than hydroelectric power and nobody worries about that.

However, hydroelectricity is turned up or turned down to fit demand. When you turn it down, more water is left in the lake, so it can be used later. It is an ideal source of energy in that regard. The wind blows, or stops blowing, whether you need it or not. As I mentioned, you can tailor wind power to demand somewhat, by scheduling maintenance in advance based on the weather report. Or you can tailor demand to the availability of wind, for example in Texas where the power companies encourage people to run clothes dryers at night.

The capacity factor of the wind fleet on land is 28 to 35%. The offshore capacity factor is higher. Not sure how much higher. Sources vary . . .

People who think that wind cannot meet a large fraction of our needs should note this:

"Potentially, global onshore and offshore wind power at commercial turbine hub heights could provide 840,000 TWh of electricity each year, while total global electricity consumption from all sources in 2016 was about 21,801 TWh."

http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/wind-energy-factsheet

That is with present-day wind turbine technology. In other words, if you could store the electricity, it would be enough to generate 40 times more electricity than we now consume. The U.S., which has the best wind resources, could use wind to produce hydrogen fuel, or synthetic liquid carbohydrate fuel. That is a method of storing the energy. The hydrogen could be sent by pipelines to places like Georgia, which have no wind resources, and used with fuel cells to generate electricity. The liquid carbohydrate fuel could be sold to replace gasoline. Wind resources in North and South Dakota could produce more synthetic liquid fuel than all of the oil pumped by OPEC, putting OPEC out of business.

Incidentally, the idea of using hydropower to produce energy on demand came before Edison invented the electric power distribution system. In the 19th century, and even into the 20th century in few cases, water was stored in high reservoirs or pumped into towers, and then used to power elevators and other equipment with the water pressure or weight. Edison himself sold water-pressure powered record players. They were too noisy and messy. The only surviving modern technology is the use of pneumatic (air pressure powered) tools in auto repair garages and construction. These can be safer than electric tools, because they do not spark. The use of water for on-demand, instant turn-on turn-off power was first suggested by Charles Babbage, as far as I know. He described this in one of his many prescient papers. He was one of the few people in history who really were ahead of their times. Others include the two Bacons: Roger and Francis, and Arthur C. Clarke. Edison was not ahead of his time; he was smack in tune with it, in the right place, at the right time. He saw what could be invented, and how to invent it. Whereas Charles Babbage saw what could be invented but he was 150 years too soon, and the technology could not accomplish what he envisioned. They finally did make his computer, and it works:

https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

That water engine thing sounds like a low efficiency mechanical Suncell-like approach idk. Small amounts of water split and converted with most of the vapor expanding converting the thermal to mechanical energy. Wouldn't be convinced but that could explain some claimed positive experiments.

Quote from Alan Smith

They are short of big rivers in Japan. Most (if not all) of the UK Nukes are coastal or estuarial. Not everybody has as many big rivers as the USA and Africa. The French Nukes = ,ost;y on the Loire, Seine Garonne erc, are very cute - the reactors on most of them is in a little 'outdoor golf ball' while the turbines are in something like a very large barn. If it wasn't for the security fencing you would hardly notice them

The future of reactors/generators should allow for unintimidating compact architecture. People have negative psychological associations with the condensation stacks and such.

Quote from JedRothwell

But only in warm climates such as Atlanta or Washington DC. I have a heat pump. It stops working below ~40 deg F. The auxiliary gas furnace comes on instead. I assume the manufacturer set it up that way because it is inefficient at low outdoor temperatures.

We use a deep ground tube that works all year. Air water heat pump is restricted to -30C today.

Quote from JedRothwell

This article says the French reactors were built in the 1970s and they are "paid for." Maybe they are, but the maintenance and staffing costs are still high..

There are several issues with old nuclear plants:

- When they pass 40 years, they have certainly passed their design life time. Which means they would need to apply for extension that would be a very costly, complicated and time consuming process.

- maintenance starts to get a real issue. Spare parts tends to go out of production after 20+ years, which means they need to start changing out expensive large components. Nuclear plants are very complex plants with many utility systems, so changing out aging components will be complicated and expensive.

Also the steam system have been subjected to aging, which means whole piping systems could be required to be changed out.

Most important would be that old plants 35+ years do not comply with the present day safety in design requirements, so one might question If it is wise to keep them going If they cannot take a terror attack or natural Disaster, like flooding. Some French old plants are along rivers, and flooding have been a question.

Flooding was also a critical issue in Fukushima, where the back up generators where placed int he basement of the reactor buildings. An Absolutely crazy design. The generators where flooded, and the safety valves that needed back up power to function, failed to operate as required.

That was actually a strange design. Offfshore Oil and Gas platforms use Generally hydraulic systems to actuate safety valves, since they also then have an accumulator close to the valve that can operate the valve several times even If the hydraulic main supply system fails.

Here are some more news on the French situation

https://bellona.org/news/nucle…reliance-on-nuclear-power

Quote from oystla

- When they pass 40 years, they have certainly passed their design life time. Which means they would need to apply for extension that would be a very costly, complicated and time consuming process.

Most important would be that old plants 35+ years do not comply with the present day safety in design requirements, so one might question If it is wise to keep them going If they cannot take a terror attack or natural Disaster, like flooding. Some French old plants are along rivers, and flooding have been a question.

Flooding was also a critical issue in Fukushima, where the back up generators where placed int he basement of the reactor buildings. An Absolutely crazy design. The generators where flooded, and the safety valves that needed back up power to function, failed to operate as required.

The Fukushima reactor died directly during the earth quake. 3 months before end of live ... The stability of the reactors internal self sustain energy cooling pipe was the main problem. The steel was rated for a 5.5 earth quake at the beginning of the operation but after 40 years best case is 4.5, due the neutron capture degradation. Also the vessel cracked for the same reason. So it finally was a triple kill event with the flooding. The crack of the main vessel would have been a "minor problem" if they would have had enough refill water ready.

Today Japanese reactors must withstand an 8 fold stronger shock! What is equivalent to the whole building vertically falling down by 2 meters ! But still not enough after 40 years...

Quote from MarkGoldes

The Windmobile was invented by the late Prof. of Aeronautics James Amick (U. of Michigan). We designed and sent him the electric propulsion system. It was the cover story for Popular Science in November of 1976. Licensed as a motorcycle it could cruise at 65 mph on the freeway in a 13 mph crosswind. .

How to blow the future....