/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3786619]

Why isn't wave energy a popular alternative power source?
It sounds pretty brilliant.

[Anonymous No.3786631]

Harder and more expensive to build than another coal-guzzling pollute-o-tron.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786630]

>>3786619
I would suspect low power output for high capital costs and high maintenance costs.

Again, nuclear is the way to go, specifically LFTR.

[Anonymous No.3786653]

cuz shit grows on it

[Anonymous No.3786680]

>21st century
>Still using coal
We're supposed to have global cooling fans by now.

[Anonymous No.3786684]

Read
>Sea Water Prison
instead of Piston and I think THAT would be an awesome idea.

[Anonymous No.3786690]

High costs to set up and maintain. No profits for the stock holders to fap to.

[Anonymous No.3786693]

>new alternative energy method is pioneered by some small company that makes the cost of producing the energy cheaper than coal
>coal companies see this, drop the price of coal just enough to keep it's cost cheaper than alternative energy
>*wait tell new company goes bankrupt*
>raise price higher than before to make up for lost profits
>rinse and repeat

This is why monopolies are bad.

[Anonymous No.3786707]

>>3786690
>Coal and natural gas start running out.
> Your investments quadruples in value

[Anonymous No.3786746]

>>3786707
Unfortunately there is a lot of coal left and people prefer death, cancer and environmental destruction over Fox's version of a Nuclear power

[Anonymous No.3786754]

Do you know that all of UK can be powered by a 500 meter long wave power station on the coast?
This is with normal waves, and taken the general power consumption for UK in consideration (440W in average).

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786761]

>>3786754
What? This is the most bullshit thing I've heard all night, and I've been on for hours.

[Anonymous No.3786772]

>>3786754
In the UK, for some reason we build wind turbines everywhere....and most never move or have broken down

Spectacular waste of money and awful in environmental terms (soooo much concrete)

Any thoughts on the huge wind farms they want to build at sea (e.g. the 'Atlantic array in the Bristol channel)?

[Anonymous No.3786779]

>>3786761
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSBACzRE3Gw&feature=player_detailpage#t=201s

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786780]

>>3786772
>Any thoughts on the huge wind farms they want to build at sea (e.g. the 'Atlantic array in the Bristol channel)?
Yeah, an even bigger waste of money, and even more pollution.

[Anonymous No.3786783]

>>3786761
>>3786761
>>3786761
Wait a sec. I will give u the math.
In the mean time, read up some on wave generators.
Looks like you need it.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786786]

>>3786754
I just heard 122 sq mi of ocean, or something like that. THAT IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT THAN A THIN STRIP 500 METERS LONG, DIPSHIT.

[Anonymous No.3786792]

>>3786786
Heard?
Hello, mister "scientist". Please rely on math instead of anecdotes.

But I do agree. What the person you are replying meant was that it could power 100.000 UK households (not all of them).

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786796]

>>3786786
472*. Sorry, my hearing is failing me, apparently.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786799]

>>3786792
I just heard from the video he linked to.

And no, 500 m of wave generation is not doing 100,000 households. At least, that seems highly implausible.

[Anonymous No.3786801]

>Be billionaire
>Build sustainable renewable energy farm to power the whole country for generations to come
>People build statues of me everywhere for I am the hero my country needs but does not deserve
>Falsely worship me as a god
>Science advancement stales from religious dogma
>Threatened by Heresy and Xenos
>Imperium of Mankind collapses
>Chaos prevails

[Anonymous No.3786809]

>>3786693
>10 new little companies spring up when they rise prices.
>At least one of those coal guys starts business with this new technology.

Dude, its not as if those people feel any dumbass loyalty to coal. Get real. If its cheaper then coal, and at least comparatively as efficient, it will be used. They know everything there is to know about investment, and if this thing can bring in a decent return, people will take advantage on it. If it can't bring any return, then its useless. Stupid fucking conspiracy theorists...

[Anonymous No.3786810]

>>3786799
>>3786799

h=7m t=10s households=100.000 p=440w

P=0.18h^2t=0.18*7^2*10=88.2 kW/h
100.000*0.44=44000 kW
44000/88.2=500m wide wave.

Prove me wrong

[Anonymous No.3786814]

472 squaremiles?
sounds about as efficient as solar, ie. not very

[Anonymous No.3786817]

>>3786810
I'd like to know how you worked out 440w average first

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786827]

>>3786810
Ok, I think your numbers are a tad aggressive, but sure, that's how much energy is in 500 m of coastline.

And damn, 81% efficiency for some actual wave converters. Can someone explain to me why this isn't being used? What's the variability of waves like? Do we have the same problems with solar and wind where sometimes it's just off? What's the rough cost for a wave generator that covers about 1 km of coastline?

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786844]

>>3786817
Again, sounds like an aggressive estimate, but it's within an order of magnitude. Some website suggests US average is about 1.1 kw.

[Anonymous No.3786849]

>>3786817
I just did it backwards. If you do it backwards again, you will get what you want. This was a school assignment.

>>3786827
Sure it is more and less sometimes. But it's never "off", like with wind and solar. We should use it more, but no government is willing to do it (it seems).
It's much better than wind power too (since they make a lot of sound, take up much natural space, and can trigger epilepsy if being run at wrong frequency).

[Anonymous No.3786852]

>>3786817
It's from a book.
Dunno what it's called, but look for "open university" + "energy". Then you will find it.
It's a free book.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786856]

>>3786849
>trigger epilepsy if being run at wrong frequency
Frankly, epilepsy doesn't even enter into my calculations.

Time to look up capital cost per kw and operating cost per kw and expected lifetime of unit. Let's see how this compares to nuclear and coal.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786868]

>>3786856
Meh, not looking good. Judging from other people's estimations of cost, it's just too expensive. Not completely ludicrous, but overly expensive. Nuclear still wins.

[Anonymous No.3786897]

>>3786868
Yeah. Nuclear will always win (LFTR).
But it's not "clean" and it's not as renewable as wind, waves and solar (all three rely on the sun to exist).

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786909]

>>3786897
Protip: It's quite possible we'd run out of thorium well after the sun stops going.
Protip: solar, especially photo-voltaic, wind, and wave, all likely generate more pollution that LFTR would.

By any reasonable definition, LFTR is greener and more sustainable than solar, wind, and wave, especially photo-voltaic.

[Anonymous No.3786916]

There are huge maintenance costs for wave power.
Even if the materials used are very resistant to corrosion(ie. expensive), the many non-harmoniously moving parts will guarantee more than a regular number of breakages.

There are also problems with sea traffic, driftwood and other wind-driven garbage, sea life and possibly change of wave patterns.

I think the quoted numbers are overly optimistic.

[Anonymous No.3786929]

>>3786909
Can we agree that space-based solar made from asteroid/Lunar material > LFTR > everything else?
LFTR for now, SBS for later

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786937]

>>3786929
No. Space based anything is retardedly expensive. If we ever get enough free energy to put the solar into orbit that it would be economical, then there would be no need to put the solar into orbit.

[Anonymous No.3786941]

>>3786909
please explain what pollution these makes

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3786949]

>>3786937
I said made from asteroid/lunar material, not launching up.

Also forgot my trip

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786950]

>>3786941
First three hits on google
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-cells-prove-cleaner-way-to-produce-power
http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/the-pollution-of-photovoltaics/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics

The manufacturing processes for these things are not pollution free, especially when they wear out after 10 - 50 years, especially for the photovoltaic.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786952]

>>3786949
Again, this requires either strong AI (lol) for robots to build other robots in space mining asteroids, or likely enough energy that once we could do it, there wouldn't be any need to do it.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786965]

>>3786941
In short, if you have to make a X solar panels, my thorium plant will have a much smaller amount of material, and a ridiculously smaller amount of spent fuel "waste". Ok, the graphite might be a problem, but still a lot smaller than the waste of the used photovoltaic, the broken wind mills, and so on.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3786985]

>>3786965
Ok, well, I'm largely pulling this out of my ass. I did want to emphasize that we have so much thorium it's not an issue, and that it's definitely not clear which pollutes more between wind, water, solar thermal, and LFTR.

[Anonymous No.3786989]

>>3786952
>>3786965
>>3786985
I think everyone else left. You seem to cover all sides of the argument anyway :)

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3786994]

>>3786952
>strong AI
I would tend to disagree.
I reckon that you could send up relatively basic mining robots with a plasma gasification unit onto an asteroid. The robots mine the rock, chuck it into the PGU which then vaporizes it all into its constituent gases which are then centrifuged apart from each other and used in molds brought along with the robots to produce relatively low efficiency solar panels. I wouldn't imagine starting up such a project would cost more than 5 billion throughout its entire duration.

[Anonymous No.3787002]

DIPSHITS, LISTEN: it's not a fucking competition. there is no "____ power is best power". we need a suite of options for power generation, and wave is something that can make a good contribution. that doesn't mean we're going to power the whole fucking world with wave action and everything else is now obsolete. carry on.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3787008]

>>3786994
Only costing 5 billion? What? A single shuttle launch used to cost, what 0.5 billion? My ass it'll cost only 5 billion.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3787013]

>>3787002
No. Sometimes there are better options. LFTR is better than coal. Wind is a joke. Solar is for spacecraft and people off the grid. LFTR is better than damn near most things. I suppose the integral fast reactor looks interesting, but I like the possibility of little to no TRU production.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3787016]

>>3787008
>Robot development ~200 million
>SpaceX Falcon rockets ~1 billion
>Miniaturization of plasma gasification unit and modification for space operations ~250 million
>miniaturization of LFTR for initial power source for robots and PGU ~400 million
>other areas of research, paying people's salaries and so on another 3 billion

It's not out of the question, and I vastly inflated the last figure.

[Anonymous No.3787020]

>>3786994
>>3786952
I doubt space mining and manufacture would be easy enough for basic robots to handle. But we wouldn't necessarily need AI either.

How about using telepresence to control the more finicky operations?

Maybe there could be a small spacestation with an orbital transfer vehicle that could zoom in when a problem spot arises that couldn't be taken care of by telepresence.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3787025]

>>3787020
I would say we could nudge an asteroid into a orbit only a couple of light seconds away from Earth which would allow Earth control centers to do such operations if they're required.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3787026]

>>3787020
If we're talking about serious mining of asteroids, that's not happening near Earth. That means communication times become a factor. Perhaps we wouldn't need strong AI, but this is still very far future oriented.

I heavily doubt that we could construct and launch some magic construction device that gas-ifies rock and that can make of itself for only 5 billion dollars.

[Anonymous No.3787042]

>>3787026
What do you mean by 'serious'?
If you mean something like hollowing out Ceres or something, the station could then be situated at Ceres.

>>3787025
If you want to keep the yummy piles of resources outside the lunar orbit, you could put the major one in the L2 point and put the telepresence base on lunar farside, deep enough that there wouldn't be any danger from solar storms.

And if you did that, you could then at least partly power the base with solar energy.

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.3787048]

>>3787026
>I heavily doubt that we could construct and launch some magic construction device that gas-ifies rock and that can make of itself for only 5 billion dollars
Well, there are already a few operational plasma gasification waste disposal sites, like one in Taiwan which take in garbage and then sell the materials back for industry uses. It uses a very high current arcing through some crap to heat it up to ~12,000'C where nearly everything breaks down into its elemental gas. I wouldn't say this is undoable to launch to an asteroid but it'll certainly take it's own rocket launch to send it there.

As for these robot things, i was thinking of initially just sending an entire ship full of robot, PGU and railgun circuit-boards. This VASTLY decreases the complexity of the construction operation, because now you've just got to pour metals into molds of wheels/boosters/mining claws/chassis which you then plonk onto robots. You could have some crude infrared and radio communications and detection system which just needs to fracture off some rock and then dump it in the PGU chute. When you have aggregated enough materials, you construct a relatively crude mass driver also out of molds, hook it up the the new solar panels and you have got yourself both asteroid mining AND space-based solar.

I hope you can see a few holes in this plan so I can patch them up.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.3787058]

>>3787048
How are you separating the elements you want out the gas? You can't just put the gas in the mold to cool. You need to separate out iron and carbon and whatever else. And I don't think molds work that way. What prevents the mold from melting when you shove that gas in it? What about the wear and tear on the gas-ifier thingy? Too many unknowns for me.

[Anonymous No.3787063]

>>3787048
>I hope you can see a few holes in this plan so I can patch them up.

Contemporary robots are too retarded to do this. With better AI's there's nothing stopping you.

[Anonymous No.3787104]

>>3787026
>If we're talking about serious mining of asteroids, that's not happening near Earth.
That's interesting, because i heard near Earth asteroids were the prime candidates.

[Anonymous No.3789812]

ITT
>LFTR
>Not LFR

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3789857]

>>3787058

You don't really need a centrifuge if you have a good energy budget. There are sort of 'magnetic centrifuges' that can do the job of sorting materials down to different isotopes. Hold on.

[Anonymous No.3789859]

nuclear energy, best energy.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3789865]

>>3789857

http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/3.14.htm

It's from the guy who designed the self-replicating lunar factory. Pic related.

[Anonymous No.3789887]

>>3786653
this

[Anonymous No.3789924]

ITT: OP asks a valid question about a seemingly limitless energy source and every retard starts shouting about how nuclear is better.

Dumb.

[Anonymous No.3789942]

they already have hydro electric shit in a lot of dams..i dunno..too much maybe?

[Anonymous No.3789962]

maintainence costs
problems with shipping lines
problems with sea life

[Anonymous No.3789970]

>>3786810
Is this taking the inefficiencies of distributing the power into it?

[Anonymous No.3789975]

>>3787013

see, you're even assuming centralised power generation is the only option. there is no "only" option. there are plenty of parts of the world, even regions of the developed world, that aren't even on a grid. localised power generation on a windy island surrounded by stormy seas is obviously a perfectly viable solution. this doesn't mean LFTR is no use or shouldn't be a primary method of generating power. why are you so intent on splitting your world into absolutes? jesus christ you're an infuriating idiot.

[Anonymous No.3789978]

>>3786941
Manufacturing, how does it work.