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Post by deltav on Feb 28, 2017 19:12:13 GMT
teeth "...the current reserves of uranium have the potential (assuming breeder reactor technology) to provide power for humanity for billions of years, until the death of our sun..." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uraniumSo perhaps breeder tech is the key.
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Post by bigbombr on Feb 28, 2017 19:45:42 GMT
Billions of years seems exaggerated, but even without breeder reactors current uranium reserves would last at least 180+ years at current consumption. Breeder reactors increase this time considerably. We'll run out of coal and oil decades, if not a century beforehand. Fission is here to stay.
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Post by thorneel on Feb 28, 2017 21:22:35 GMT
None of the ones listed. Solar Power Satellites. Leave the fissionables for rocket fuel. I bunched it with solar photovoltaics, but frankly a few decades seems a bit short for it to become dominant. You need: - cheap access to space - large surface receptors - make sure the beam will always, always be on the receptors - convince people that the beam will always, always be on the receptors by accident, and not drift on a city by accident. And those people, many of them actually quite smart, seem to loose 50 IQ points already when hearing the N-word. - make sure the beam will always, always be on the receptors even when some (possibly many) very smart and very evil people will try to make it drift on a city on purpose. - convince people that those very smart and very evil people will never be able to do it, without explaining to said evil people your exact defences. - convince people that microwaves are harmless. And some of those people already claim to be allergic to wifi-level energy. - convince people that no, your microwave beam is not frying endangered birds on its path (or at least, not enough to make a difference) - convince people that your microwave beam is not screwing local weather - make sure your beam is not screwing local weather - convince people that no, your microwave beam is not punching a hole in the Ozone layer - seriously that's ridiculous - (make sure that your beam is indeed not punching a hole in the Ozone layer) - (I mean that's a long shot, but better safe than sorry) - make sure no-one will cause a Kessler syndrome on purpose just to shoot down this pesky spy satellite that keeps taking photos of Glorious Leader's private swimming pool secret military complexes - make sure no-one will cause a Kessler syndrome by accident - make sure no-one will shoot down one of your beautiful and very fragile photovoltaic flowers in order to cripple your energy production. And subsequently cause a Kessler syndrome. - out-lobby Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Bio - out-lobby (hopefully what's left of) Big Coal - out-lobby Big Uranium and Big Thorium - out-lobby Big Wind and the rest of Big Solar that makes business on the ground - and everything I'm forgetting Probably not impossible, too short for a major XXIe Century push.
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Post by deltav on Feb 28, 2017 21:26:41 GMT
Billions of years seems exaggerated, but even without breeder reactors current uranium reserves would last at least 180+ years at current consumption. Breeder reactors increase this time considerably. We'll run out of coal and oil decades, if not a century beforehand. Fission is here to stay. Breeder Reactors can "recharge" nuclear waste into usable nuclear fuel, somewhat like one of those rechargeable batteries can be recharged and used hundreds of times vs non rechargeable batteries which can only be used once. So that makes it no exaggeration. No more or minimal nuclear waste and nuclear waste can be turned into nuclear fuel over and over again. Even at current tech breeder reactors are only 25% more than regular reactors. So the reason it isn't done is that we have plenty of nuclear fuel anyway. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
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Post by newageofpower on Mar 2, 2017 4:36:49 GMT
I've heard that the current uranium supplies would only last a few years if scaled up to supply all the worlds energy needs, how true is that and how far can it be extended with more efficient reactors and waste burning reactors? Completely untrue. The vast majority (about 99.3%) of mined Uranium is simply discarded, because U238 doesn't fission in ways that we find efficient in commercial power generation. By putting this stuff into a Breeder Reactor (aka Transmutation Device, True Alchemy Machine), you can make useful fissiles out of U238. Breeding even 10% of existing "waste" Uranium into reactorable fissiles would give you enough fuel to meet current energy demands for millennia. Uranium is fairly common on Earth's crust; the problem lies in extracting it at a price sufficiently cheap to be economically competitive with current utility costs. If we could easily extract Uranium from seawater, for example, we could generate enough fuel for current power demands for over a billion years - and by that point, the sun will have rendered the planet basically uninhabitable.
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Post by thorneel on Mar 2, 2017 11:12:27 GMT
I've heard 800 years as a number for how long breeder reactors would keep us supplied from mineral uranium ore, but the problem with all those numbers is that they don't give you their expected increase in energy consumption. Also, I've heard that thorium is more abundant than uranium, if the latter starts to be scarce.
I'm still hoping to see the beginning of proton-boron fusion in my lifetime, as while it is harder to pull off, it is the cleanest known fusion process (and boron is available unlike helium-3). Boron is love. Boron is life.
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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 3, 2017 1:07:17 GMT
I've heard 800 years as a number for how long breeder reactors would keep us supplied from mineral uranium ore, but the problem with all those numbers is that they don't give you their expected increase in energy consumption. Also, I've heard that thorium is more abundant than uranium, if the latter starts to be scarce. I'm still hoping to see the beginning of proton-boron fusion in my lifetime, as while it is harder to pull off, it is the cleanest known fusion process (and boron is available unlike helium-3). Boron is love. Boron is life. Don't fuse my boron! ;n;
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Post by deltav on Mar 3, 2017 5:57:42 GMT
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Post by Hicks on Mar 4, 2017 23:58:04 GMT
Nuclear Fission. I am a big proponent of Thorium nuclear liquid salt reactors, mostly because you don't need to worry about uncontrolled meltdown if it's already melted and under control, as others have pointed out. If you asked me 10 years ago I'd have said hydroelectric, but as it turns out dams are both very ecologically damaging and limited by geography in a way nuclear reactors just aren't.
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Post by deltav on Mar 5, 2017 5:42:16 GMT
Nuclear Fission. I am a big proponent of Thorium nuclear liquid salt reactors, mostly because you don't need to worry about uncontrolled meltdown if it's already melted and under control, as others have pointed out. If you asked me 10 years ago I'd have said hydroelectric, but as it turns out dams are both very ecologically damaging and limited by geography in a way nuclear reactors just aren't. Thorium nuclear liquid salt reactors can still have accidents aka "meltdowns", but they are safer and the tech has built in safety measures. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687850713000101
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Post by n2maniac on Mar 7, 2017 6:00:46 GMT
Nuclear Fission. I am a big proponent of Thorium nuclear liquid salt reactors, mostly because you don't need to worry about uncontrolled meltdown if it's already melted and under control, as others have pointed out. If you asked me 10 years ago I'd have said hydroelectric, but as it turns out dams are both very ecologically damaging and limited by geography in a way nuclear reactors just aren't. Something can be overheated with too much power, it just is no longer the fuel rods dripping down.
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Post by Argopeilacos on Mar 8, 2017 12:42:45 GMT
I am all for fission, just go build your reactor far away from my house.
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Post by ccarby on Mar 14, 2017 1:17:28 GMT
We have at least 50 years of oil at current growth and that does not count new discoveries, coal, and the huge amounts of natural gas we have just sitting around. When prices do start to increase again solar will probably be the first phased in replacement. Fission is much better positioned but nobody wants it by their house.
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Post by vegemeister on Mar 14, 2017 9:19:51 GMT
I don't want any kind of power plant in my house.
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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 14, 2017 9:27:54 GMT
I don't want any kind of power plant in my house. Not even lemon power?
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