Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

While most of what you said is true the power generation density of nuclear is much MUCH greater than solar or wind. Therefore 150 solar and 200 wind farms will take up a shite load of land, which we don't necessarily have close to the cities so the cost of transmission will be very high. Not to mention the cost of the solar panels, however it is going down all the time.

But still nuclear is not viable in Australia's future, nor should it be. Yes, the generation is clean but what about the uranium extraction, and the depleted uranium disposal. At least with coal they just lug it out of the ground, burn it and thats it. Uranium is some much nastier proverbial-stuff.

Yep, and the "Bonsai" grand nuclear future seems to be also tied to two other really nasty propostions...

(1) The development of a uranium enrichment capability and associated development/deployment of a ballistic missle system across Australia's northern arc.....

(2) The US proposal that if they buy our uranium, then we have to take back the waste.... oh and all their other waste from previous years as well......

Actually working on that theory I wonder if we should take back all the steel cans from the export of our steel slabs or iron ore....

Perhaps the US and Australia, and other countries, could take back all the landmines they've produced and that have been sown throughout large areas of the world....

The problem is that solar is a joke when it comes to generating large amounts of power, i know i've done installs here at work for remote gear, and the second there's a cloud in the sky solar's power generation drops to a pathetic level (believe me, there is a tale of woe associated here)

nukes while being expensive as you point out, are actually capable of generating the power we NEED.

solar and wind are all fine and dandy for situational stuff, but they pale in comparision to our requirments.
also, i think there's a lot of scare mongering about radioactivity and storing spent fuel rods. you'r talking about a very small amount of toxic material on comparison to coal.

1870 micrograms (1.8mg) of nuclear waste is produced per KW/Hr............

depending on the grade of waste between 20 and 60 micro grams ingested or inhaled will lead to a very high probability of fatal cancer.

It should be noted that strontium (one of the radioactive waste isotopes) will be assimilated in calciums place and there is another that will in potassiums place

with some of the half lives in excess of 100,000 years we must be very confident in predicting safe storage conditions.

my last quarter electricity consumption would have resulted in 6,678,571 micrograms of nuclear waste

if you want to put that into our perspective we measure in ppm for our levels..........6.6 ppm if dissolved in 1000L

so, my 6.6 grams per quarter waste is a very small amount but then an amount .00001 time that is fatal if it gets out........................

True, but rapidly becoming less true .... and vast (not ten panel home units) solar farms scattered across this VAST EMPTY land of ours supplemented by vast wind farms....with a national interconnected grid....
possibly even connected via trans-tasman cable to NZ hydro stations

Would mean the possible constant production of power.... even allowing for time differences.

I really do believe we do have the capability to implement solar now....

Can we meet base load now.... no..... but we can build a large proportion of it quickly and with the sort of investment needed for nuclear or :groan: "clean coal" we could make some giant strides before even the first possible clean coal or nuclear power station would ever be commissioned.....

I for one would rather do taht than sit around for another twenty years waiting .....

There's a big problem with the idea of solar farms in the middle of no where - you can't transport power over an indefinate distance.

in terms of toxicity, the material produced by a nuclear reactor is highly controlled, far more then what's released from coal powered stations. Coal power stations actually pump plenty of radioactive material into the atmosphere, more then is produced by a nuclear plant, only it's uncontrolled and spread over a large area. coal typically contains high doses of radioactive elements.

Don't believe that true these days Timmy.... there are some losses but grids and generating capacity are being connected between countries....

Here in OZ between states and state grids would be miniscule.... most of the US state grids are interconnected and they're a hell of a lot bigger than us....

Across the Tasman..... now that's a challenge... but I've read that it's believed it can be done....

Solar is not a joke... PV cells are not what would be used on large scales, you would use solar thermal. Solar thermal is being added to existing coal fired power stations to preheat the water used in steam turbines. It could be used to ultimately to supply a large percentage of the power generation during the day for minimal outlay because the infrastructure and grid is already there..

If the whole world switched to nuclear power, apart from the fact that it would take many many decades to try and build that many power stations, there would only be enough uranium to power the world for about 20 years. Nuclear is not the answer, it is another finite resource. Solar, wind, geothermal, wave etc are all theoretically unlimited .

Interesting. Timmy, can you link me to some info on this statement?

with you EB

I take offense at some upstart suggesting solar is a joke.
Nuke is no joke take a look at 3 mile island, chernobyl and a host of other places.
If the oil lobby had not been such a pack off *frack* money grabbing
sharp things we would have had PVs on every roof space.

Checkout what China is doing...
Creating solar cities through shear weight of numbers.

Perhaps ppl need to take more responsibility for using so much power
in their Macmasions!
Don't worry about delivering power to houses a 1000 miles away,
thats what the power corps would want us to do!
Make it on your roof feed to the grid... de-commision some power stations
and make a stand as others are doing.

Next you will be cheesed off because you can't get your finger out of your
ear ( had another place in mind ) and stop being so negative.

Who do you work for?
I also am with you EB!

Honestly, I think PV panels are the one of the worst things to happen to the "alternative" energy arena. I forget the exact number from my engineering classes, but I think the max theoretical efficiency of any PV is somewhere around 35%. That ain't that great. Sure, they have their applications like space travel, but they are not a very good general tool. Although it is true that covering 1% of the US' western desert in PV where noone lives would power the entire world. It's just those pesky transmission cables that throw a wrench. High temperature superconductors maybe?

A much better use is solar thermal as EB pointed out. You can create energy cascades to use and store the energy. For example, instead of just boiling water with sunlight, you can melt several successive metals, each with a lower melting temperature, and then finally end with boiling water at a measly 100C. Some French guy suggested this about 100 years ago. Can't remember the name at the moment.

Either way, reliance on a single technology or technique is stupid. Just as natural systems become stronger through diversity, so our own resources need to be diverse in a way that no single shortage will wreak havoc on our energy supply. (possible exception of the sun going nova ).

There is another source of RELIABLE renewable energy for Base Load power - Geothermal power. By sinking deep well heat exchangers into the Earth's crust, we can have a long term source of steam for power production.
Combined with Tidal, Solar and Wind generation, we have the makings of a flexible, renewable power system. Perhaps it will not provide ALL of the power we want (demand?), but it will provide all we NEED, if sized appropriately and demand side management is implemented to limit excessive peak loads
While transmission and distribution lines do have losses in the order of 7 - 10%, this does not make having a remote system, at the edge of the grid uneconomical, it actually reduces the size of the transmission infrastructure needed as part of the load is supplied by the local generation sources.

In WA, there are 2 major locations for power generations:
Muja and Kwinana. There are other, grid connected, generations locations inland from Geraldton and in Kalgoorlie (at the ends of major transmission lines) Wind generation sites are operating near substations on the transmission lines at Mungarra and Eneabba. The Esperance and Albany wind farms are close to regional centres and reduce the power fed thorough transmission lines to these locations Solar generation is a reality in Kalbarri, but there could be many more solar sites in the northern wheatbelt and goldfields.

If geothermal power generation were installed at the remote ends of the power transmission lines, the power could be fed either way, depending on sources which are available at that time. Combine these with wind (yes, you do need to pick the sites carefully to maximise return on investment) and solar, and you will have a robust system, providing the needs of the community, with little contribution to CO2 and other GHGs.

Agreed tamo single production is much like putting all of ones eggs in the same basket, and may make a huge target, but to sling off at PV is not helpful.
How efficent is coalfired, gas,or any other non-renewable?
what about re-use recycle and repair? or just use less, I am sure that would reduce the need for power station building imeadiately...

Efficiency of coal power is about 50% and nuclear is about 70%. These are theoretical numbers, and are lower in practice (although coal is rather close to theoretical max).

I'm not slinging off on PV (if that means what I think it means). I'm just tying to point out that there are other/better ways to use solar energy. Everyone gets tunnel vision around solar and is locked into PV. But like I said, they do have their applications.