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Post by Enderminion on Apr 3, 2017 2:08:17 GMT
you also don't want nuclear anywhere near cities Speak for yourself, matey they had to evacuate a city in ukraine because of a nuclear... issue
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Post by darthroach on Apr 3, 2017 2:21:40 GMT
Speak for yourself, matey they had to evacuate a city in ukraine because of a nuclear... issue They certainly evacuated it, but did they have to? Hundreds of people still live in the exclusion zone, and the powerplant itself only shut down 10 years after the meltdown. Don't get me wrong, radiation can be incredibly dangerous, but it is also far, far less deadly than the average person thinks. As someone from the former USSR, I can absolutely guarantee you that the plant having a meltdown in the first place, as well as the fatalities caused by the cleanup were 100% down to bureaucratic incompetence and complete disregard for human life, not inherent dangers of nuclear energy.
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Post by argonbalt on Apr 3, 2017 2:52:12 GMT
Fukushima is a strikingly similar case, where even with extensive bio-concentration the radioactive caesium washing up on the west coast of the USA will be about as bad as flying a passenger airliner.
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Post by Pttg on Apr 3, 2017 2:53:28 GMT
Solar and wind are the cheapest power source.
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Post by argonbalt on Apr 3, 2017 2:58:44 GMT
Solar and wind are the cheapest power source. Not at all, no one power source is "the best" or necessarily "the cheapest". Even a self contained gas generator off the shelf for say 500$, export that to pluto and the cost goes up to 100's of millions. That is not to say that they are bad or explicitly expensive just that that blanket statement is pretty dumb.
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Post by Pttg on Apr 3, 2017 4:52:17 GMT
Solar and wind are the cheapest power source. Not at all, no one power source is "the best" or necessarily "the cheapest". Even a self contained gas generator off the shelf for say 500$, export that to pluto and the cost goes up to 100's of millions. That is not to say that they are bad or explicitly expensive just that that blanket statement is pretty dumb. In the context of 21st century (2001-2100) it's safe to assume that we won't get to Pluto. Since most power plants have a lifespan of 50 years, we can be pretty sure that the next decade or two of power plants represent the majority of power produced in the 21st century. Anyway, barring something like the Great Mistake, the majority of humanity will reside on earth for the foreseeable future. In which case, the conditions of Earth apply. And the conditions of Earth favor surface PV. As an aside, Space-based requires rectennas which are actually about the same size as the solar panels the replace. I'd go into detail about the rest, but I already cited it several times and so just go read a previous post, but you won't. Solar and Wind are the cheapest sources of electricity per kWh. Yes, there is an asterisk that it varies depending on the place, but nuclear is dramatically more expensive per kWh, and there's not a lot of movement in that price... unlike solar. As an aside about space solar, I suppose very large visible-light lasers might work OK for transmitting power to large thermal receiving stations. But all of that only becomes useful if you have on-orbit mass manufacturing and don't mind orbital lasers capable of delivering gigawatts per square meter to the surface. I'm (broadly) in favor of it, but I'm not sure we'll see that fully deployed in the next 83 years.
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Post by acrosome on Apr 3, 2017 13:13:48 GMT
In the context of 21st century (2001-2100) it's safe to assume that we won't get to Pluto. Since most power plants have a lifespan of 50 years, we can be pretty sure that the next decade or two of power plants represent the majority of power produced in the 21st century. Anyway, barring something like the Great Mistake, the majority of humanity will reside on earth for the foreseeable future. In which case, the conditions of Earth apply. And the conditions of Earth favor surface PV. Space-based requires rectennas which are actually about the same size as the solar panels the replace. Actually, very large visible-light lasers might work OK for transmitting power to large thermal receiving stations. But all of those only become useful if you have on-orbit mass manufacturing. I'm in favor of it, but I'm not sure we'll see that in the next 83 years. I personally would love to see more renewables being used- especially PV. But as you just alluded to they are not going to become magically more significant in the next 80 years. They are going to become more significant, yes- just not magically so such that they outstrip fossil fuels. We're going to be stuck with fossil fuels for the time being, unfortunately. I suspect that PV works best as a distributed system, for instance if every house had some and the batteries to go with them, and you can't do that very productively in Seattle. Solar and wind do invite valid criticism regarding reliability- there was an excellent article in The Economist a few months ago about this, and about how hard it will be (economically) to have something more traditional such as a minimum number of fossil or nuclear plants to fill in the gaps once an established wind/solar network drives down the cost of electricity. Well, in the near future, at least, because though they are expensive to establish renewable systems have incredibly low marginal operating costs once they are established, unlike fossil or even nuclear. But remember, we're talking about the next 80 years, not Buck Rogers. So anyone building the nuclear plant to cover the renewables when they fail (clouds, no wind) is going to run at a heavy loss. They would simply have to be government-subsidized, or no one will build them. Also, shouldn't beaming power to the ground from space frighten you at least as much as nuclear power does? Jesus- that's a damned destructive weapon, isn't it?
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Post by Pttg on Apr 3, 2017 17:06:18 GMT
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Post by The Astronomer on Apr 5, 2017 9:28:02 GMT
An important note is that it'll take more than just rooftop solar panels to power the entire world.
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ndeo
Junior Member
It's not a flashlight... It's a High-frequency relativistic boson cannon
Posts: 67
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Post by ndeo on Apr 5, 2017 10:02:55 GMT
While Utility-scale Solar PV may be the cheapest, there are other factors to consider such as energy storage which may offset the amount saved from using solar PV power plants. Currently, Solar PV alone may be insufficient to provide enough energy during peak demand even with storage and is more difficult to manage than Baseload sources which can provide variable amounts of power on demand The footprint required for both Utility Solar with batteries is much larger than a nuclear reactor of the same capacity and without the option of baseload power. Just because it's the cheapest doesn't necessarily mean it is the optimal solution, with my prediction being that solar will contribute a sizable but not complete amount to the grid I also really want a micro-reactor in my home that basicly supplies enough energy for my entire lifetime Cherenkov Radiation looks so cool too
...Sometimes I forget to put enough accumulators for my solar farm in factorio and it brings my entire factory to a halt, no backup baseload :/
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Post by Enderminion on Apr 5, 2017 13:42:26 GMT
if you see Cherenkov radiation in the air ndeo, RIP
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Post by The Astronomer on Apr 5, 2017 14:22:19 GMT
I CAN'T CHANGE MY OWN VOTE
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Post by Enderminion on Apr 5, 2017 18:33:22 GMT
I CAN'T CHANGE MY OWN VOTE I CAN, CHANGE MY, OWN VOTE
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Post by The Astronomer on Apr 6, 2017 3:29:51 GMT
I'm surprised how many people vote for fossil fuel. These are probably going for realistic/pessimistic cases. I guess we should also focus on active carbon traps too.
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Post by n2maniac on Apr 6, 2017 5:04:39 GMT
I'm surprised how many people vote for fossil fuel. These are probably going for realistic/pessimistic cases. I guess we should also focus on active carbon traps too. It was already trapped so well as a fossil fuel I am curious how long it will be before humanity confronts fossil fuel use in a serious enough way to stem its use, and what the major driver will be (environmental impact, fuel scarcity, foresight)?
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