Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rupe, I think that Nuke power is going to be the thing that bridges current coal power, to a proper green generating future.

We need to be building new base load generating capacity in the very very near future, and nuclear is less polluting than coal. Yes I know it pollutes for a long time, but it has a lot less environmental impact 'now' than coal is having. It's not as if we dont have the space to store the stuff forever. I feel that a mostly low polluting energy source such as uranium (even with the risks involved) is better than the current coal system. People need to get less emotional about uranium.

I have not come across anything else that is close to being ready for big powerplants. We dont have enough water for heaps of Hydro plants, wave technology is not working as well as hoped, solar is too weak, wind is too variable....geothermal is probably the closes thing out there, but it is usually available too far from major cities for efficient power transmission. DC can be used, but nothing is set up for DC transmission.

lol, thats my biggest post for months

Perhaps OBO... but it would take about 15+ years to build baseload replacement with nuclear... at least that long to train the staff to run it...

And harbour fulls of water...

At huge cost.... we'd need about 20 of the things.... and who'd want one in their backyard...

The thing is, nuclear could be built in a similar timeframe to current coal plants, but they are still building coal plants. Nuclear should have been being built by now.

Funny thing about power generation, all the people down the south east of Victoria that have the coal power plants - they look just like a nuclear plants lol. Moe, Morwel etc, swap coal for nuke, and you wouldnt notice the difference visually. Still the same amount of water, same steam, just no CO2.

I am naturally biased, coming from a mining background. I think that people let the hysteria of nuclear get in the way of the benefits. Yes Chernoble was a major disaster, but it was caused by human error. Same as the Titanic. People still sail on boats though.

I can guarantee that if the lights start going out in suburban australia due to a lack of power becuase we have been banned from building more coal plants by the world community, nearly everyone would be happy to have a nuclear plant in their general area.

Yep, but if eberyone could have one of these 1kw "bloom boxes" and solar on their roofs.... and every business had a "bloom energy server".... then perhaps we wouldn't need either coal or nuclear for base load...and could develope other renewables to meet the rest of the demand....

And would nuclear power generation substantially reduce CO2... perhaps some... but not as much as proponents like to suggest...

Here's a breakdown of nuclear power generation.... http://www.energybulletin.net/node/15345

As long as the exhaust contains nothing toxic it can exhaust indoors. I think that all these produce is CO2 and water. These may not need stacks even with mild toxics (SO2?) since they are outdoors....and one might want an exhaust indoors to reduce moisture buildup. Hard to tell anything at the moment.


As far as nukes and CO2 production, the best power source by far is negawatts: use less frigging power. According to numbers I've seen the US could profitably reduce it's use by 30% to 50% (I seem to recall the numbers being that or better). The only reason we don't do it is that most business wants a payback on investment of several years and consumers want a payback of just a couple years, while the power producers think in terms of a 30-year investment. Still, there are a lot of good options even at those levels for folks who look for them. The problem is lack of information and analysis.

Uranium?? Ahhhh...

What about Thorium? Here is a little blurb and article to wet your lips.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1

After it [Thorium] has been used as fuel for power plants, the element leaves behind minuscule amounts of waste. And that waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years, not a few hundred thousand like other nuclear byproducts. Because it’s so plentiful in nature, it’s virtually inexhaustible. It’s also one of only a few substances that acts as a thermal breeder, in theory creating enough new fuel as it breaks down to sustain a high-temperature chain reaction indefinitely. And it would be virtually impossible for the byproducts of a thorium reactor to be used by terrorists or anyone else to make nuclear weapons.

p.s. Meltdowns aren't an issue with Thorium Reactors...?

Ecogeek had a pro and con on Bloom Box. Here is the con: http://ecogeek.org/efficiency/3084

Yah, I was about to say the same thing - apparently countries use uranium in the nuclear reactors because that gives them "depleted plutonium" which can then be used in nuclear weapons. It's a kind of way of making weapons but not activley making weapons - "We're just making power....ooh look a weapon" THorium is much better in terms of just nuclear power.

Secondly, one of the problems with nuclear is the losses over the wire, because you're generating so much, you pretty much need to put it where you can spread the power everywhere - massive losses. BUT, if you made BloomBoxes (or solar cells or whatever) right next to the nuclear power plants, then we minimise those losses over the wire, putting the power into something which we can transport somewhere else which then "repays" the power put into constructing it. So your solar cells are basically batteries.

Here's an animation of how the fuel cell works... http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/sol ... animation/

That breaks one of the fundamental laws of physics. There is no such thing as a perpetual energy source.

Hey, Chilidude, please don't attribute that to me since I didn't say it!

On the other hand, apparently thorium is abundant enough that we could produce the power we need for a very long time, hundreds or thousands of years. Of course, we could do the same with reprocessing other nuclear fuel, but there is the little concern about making bomb-making material...

Ok so it seems the Boom boxes claims are too large but the critique is also overly critical. $700,000 - 50% = $350,000/5 =$70,000 but if you add in the Federal tax credit of 30% =$350,000- $210,000 = $140,000/3= $46,000 so if federal and state tax credits are used and you can look these up Fed=30% and my state = 50%! so claim # 2 is legit!

And it doesnt factor in savings from projected inflationary cost of electricity or depreciation of capitol investment deductions.
It still looks like a really good deal if all the incentives stay in place for a little while!

Hummmm. I wonder how much methane is on Mars...