/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4817478]

What are the disadvantages of alternative energy like solar, wind, hydro, thermal, etc? How do they compare to LFTRs?

[Anonymous No.4817490]

high capital investments so it is more economical to stick with our fossil fuels and not replace all existing infrastructure including but not limited to coal mines, all vehicles, gas plants, coal plants, oil refineries, etc. Also, we have had the technology for internal combustion motors for many times longer than alternative fuel sources. We are still improving our technology.
One last note is that the energy density of gasoline is 20 to 40 times better than batteries.. so yeah, for now, we are fucked

[Nuka-Cola No.4817523]

lftr is not magic, it is now nuclear jesus, it has downsides and challenges, some huge.

most alternative energy sources are garbage. solar has a very high upper bound, but efficiency increases are starting to slow and become even more expensive

biofuels could be nice, but will require extensive genetic engineering to be commercially viable, also a long term thing

lftr is a good short term boost, nice and scalable, cheap and safe

[Anonymous No.4817877]

>>4817523
All the mentioned technologies are developed. They can be deployed now. LFTR has potential, but still needs millions to develop into a product. Fortunately, China has a LFTR development program, and the US is providing them a steady cashflow. All the other world's efforts are pure paper studies scrambling for venture capital and regulatory changes to get started.

[Anonymous No.4817889]

Solar is fission powered

wind is fusion powered

thermal is fusion powered

hydro is fission powered

All "alternative" energy sources are only possible because of nuclear in the earths core, or the sun. We are only getting a fractional heat byproduct and using it for our entire energy usage, wouldn't direct nuclear use make more sense?

[Anonymous No.4817897]

I honestly don't know much about LFTR, but I do know that we're gonna need some serious advancements in wind and solar technology before they're viable on a scale anywhere near fossil fuels. Eventually, though, fossil fuels are going to be so expensive and devastating to retrieve that no one will care.

[Anonymous No.4817899]

>>4817889
also i reversed the fissions and the fusions. sorry

[Anonymous No.4817932]

>>4817889

Not exactly. To force, fuel, and contain nuclear reactions is a pain in the ass.

It's a lot more efficient in most cases to leech off the preexisting, safe reactions going on deep in the earth and the sun.

[Anonymous No.4817945]

>>4817932
>in most case
Try "In certain very limited areas".

[Anonymous No.4817950]

>>4817932
>It's a lot more efficient in most cases to leech off the preexisting, safe reactions going on deep in the earth and the sun.

If it was more efficient, it would be cheaper.
It's not.

Wind on average have ~15-25% of their max capacity. That is, build a 1MW plant and you will get 250KW on average out of it.

Solar, for germany, is at 15% max. Build 1MW capacity and you'll see 150KW on average.

Nuclear, is over 80%, build 1MW nuclear and you'll see 800KW on average.

Nuclear is also very energy dense, build a reactor and it fits in a single building, and it can have a capacity of 1GW. Efter conservative 80% uptime rating, we're having 800MW output.

Want to replace it with wind? Okay, lets build 800 x 1MW turbines. But oh wait, their pretty much best case of capacity is 25%! So make that 3200 turbines. Now lets see, wind maintenance is approximately 1 USDcent per KWh produced... So that means we pay 70 000 000 in maintenance fees to keep those windmills running annually? What's a estimated lifetime before major service or breakdown for a windplant? 20-30 years. Same for nuclear? 60 years.

What happens with nuclear after 20 years of operational time? We uprate the reactor by 20%, it now produces 1+GW power on average. Meanwhile we've spent $1.4BILLION USD on maintaining our wind turbines.

[Anonymous No.4817956]

What about biogas? Buses in my town use it

[Anonymous No.4817954]

>>4817945

Sun is everywhere nigger

[Anonymous No.4817959]

>>4817954
>Sun is everywhere nigger
Even at the equator you have night 50% of the time. Then dusk and dawn further eroding the production.

Even worse in places where there's this thing called winter that ruins their usefullness 50% of the year during daytime too.

[Anonymous No.4817960]

Thorium good.

Fossil fuels are only used because the government subsidizes the shit out of it.

I like it because you can fit one in a neighborhood, so there's a "free market" of lftr producers potentially. You don't have to go to "big oil" or "big hydro".

[Anonymous No.4817965]

>>4817954
You live on a circle. Unless you're at the equator, you don't get most of energy. Atmospheric energy absorption by angle is exponential from scattering and reflection, so even a small angle or increase in travel takes a lot out.

Example, Germany/Britain is at 45 latitude, so roughly, Energy lost is a form

E = e^(kx)sin(45)

for some atmo absorption constant k, where x is distance from sun through atmosphere to panel.

[Anonymous No.4818125]

>>4817956
biofuel is more like a battery.It takes solar energy, and stores it in a chemical form. Then we add fire and get the energy for our uses.

Until we develop batteries capable of taking over our infrastructure, biofuel could be a great way to make use of other energies.

[Anonymous No.4818132]

Because revving your internal combustion engine to 12k is just too fun.

[Anonymous No.4818189]

Industryfag here. Two things are important in power systems: matching generation to load in real-time (including frequency and voltage regulation), and doing so efficiently.

Hydro is not "alternative." Wherever possible, it's the main source of power. From an operations perspective, it's the nicest to run, except that your generation is typically far from your load, which carries a few small problems in terms of transmission. But you can save power for when you need it, which makes it the best.

Thermal is good from an operational perspective. It's pretty stable, and okay in terms of response to load. You can use it for limited voltage regulation. However, most nukes are run at full blast all the time because they're expensive, so they don't contribute to frequency regulation. To be cost-effective, you need accurate forecasts, or else some small backup generators ready to go at a moment's notice (or else hydro regulation).

Wind and solar are fucking horrible to regulate. They come on whenever, there are ugly frequency spikes all over the place, they can't be used to regulate voltage, and most areas require online generation equal to 100% of the power generated to be held in reserve in case the wind dies down or whatever. A few utilities in the western USA are being slowly bankrupted by requirements to keep wind generation online. Initially, people said that with enough wind, it all balances out into a constant supply of power, but that's turned out to be untrue. It wouldn't surprise me to see that the average lifespan of electronic in wind-heavy areas is lower than in more stable areas.

[Anonymous No.4818209]

>>4817965
That only applies to the ground. Solar panels can tilted towards the sun so the sin(45) term is nonsense. The only difference is the path length through the atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.4818239]

cannot supply base-load power generation reliably if the only sources of power. Capital infrastructure costs. Declining energy prices too fast to make profit possible, and therefore no private sector motivation.

[Nuka-Cola No.4818248]

>>4817897
actually no, the price of natural gas just hit the floor after some new drilling technologies popped up, and some big reserves were found. peak fossil isn't for a while

lftr is just all around better for large and medium scale baseload power

[Nuka-Cola No.4818258]

>>4818189
>However, most nukes are run at full blast all the time because they're expensive, so they don't contribute to frequency regulation.

it's a combination of costs, and the fact that dialing a nuclear reactor up and down is very tricky, and sometimes dangerous (to the plant itself, mind you)

[Zorak No.4818266]

Hydroelectric power is an old, faithful technology. However, the environmental and ecological consequences are bad enough that the US will not be building any new hydroelectric dams. I'm not too certain about other forms of hydroelectric (such as coastal, underwater generators.
Solar uses a lot of rare Earth metals, which China has stranglehold on. Albeit many of these are not rare, they are a limited resource.
The same holds for wind, although with much less of a dependence on those rare earths.
Just about any power source requires mining, which is obviously a huge drawback.

[Anonymous No.4818336]

>cost
>location
>weather

[Anonymous No.4818431]

>>4817889

Don't you mean Hydro is gravity you dolt?

[Anonymous No.4818693]

>>4818431

How do you suppose that water gets up in the hills in the first place?

[Anonymous No.4819189]

>>4818693
Convection....caused by less dense water heated by the earths surface rising as water vapor.

[Anonymous No.4819193]

>>4818693
Furthermore, the energy produced in hydro is either the result of tidal forces or gravitational forces directly. The energy converted to electricity comes from gravity directly.

[Anonymous No.4819212]

MFW wind farms and solar farms take up more space than a dozen nuclear power plants to produce half the power

[Nuka-Cola No.4819238]

>>4819212
>half
try one one hundredth, at best.
>a dozen
ok, one one thousandth

wind is a fucking joke. full stop.

[Anonymous No.4819314]

Wind is pretty much a joke.
Personally I think the best bet (for places that get sunlight) is molten salt solar concentrators. They don't need rare earth minerals, they don't produce waste, they have minimal environmental consequences, the molten salt can be stored overnight to produce power, etc.

[Anonymous No.4819335]

What about fuel cells? I mean, I know they're not necessarily a new power source so much as a jump forward in efficiency, but how viable are they for maintaining us on current fuel sources for longer?

Another anon once talked about spending his life savings developing a fuel cell that harnessed the power of a thermite reaction. He said he'd been developing it all in secret and planned on open sourcing all of his data + prototype once he finished. Whether or not it was bullshit, would such a thing even be possible?

[AngryGreek !!17lgBbpKusF No.4819346]

The objection most commonly brought to my attention is the dollar cost per kilowatt hour.

Other objections of course include

>>4817950
>>4817490
>>4818189

As the last poster said, look for the dollar value of natural gas prices in the United States to look VERY attractive. When natural gas is this cheap, investing in alternative energy is not all that attractive. So, I'd say financial constraints, are also very powerful.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.4819572]

>>4817478
Solar: too expensive, no "on-demand" due to night, clouds, etc.
Wind: too expensive, no "on-demand" due to windless days / weeks / months.
Hydro: not enough natural formations to build damns. Good where the natural formations exist.
Geothermal: Good where there's the geology for it, which is rare, bad otherwise.

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.4819585]

>>4819572
Corrections:
PV sucks for lack of "on-demand" and too expensive.
Other solar sucks because of cost - maybe. I still can't find reliable numbers to my satisfaction, esp. with overnight heat storage from concentrating solar.
As noted else-thread, dams are great where the natural land features make it work, which is relatively rare.
Tidal sucks because it lacks "on-demand".
Wave sucks because of cost.

>>4817877
They cannot be deployed because they are not cost effective.

>>4817932
>cheaper
In some limited areas, yes. But basically: nope.

>>4818209
Motors to tilt those fuckers are not free. Add that to the cost. Also takes additional land and misc fixtures.

[Anonymous No.4819600]

>>4818132
I'll be disappointed if and when cars no longer have internal combustion engines.

[Nuka-Cola No.4819604]

>>4819585
>They cannot be deployed because they are not cost effective.
this is false
i know because i, uh, kinda sorta priced one out.
not because i wanted to build one in my backyard
that would be REALLY ILLEGAL, and would make the good people at the FBI very upset
uh
yeah

even at the start, with un-optimized plant design and materials, they would cost about the same as a traditional light water reactor, and have the same energy output. most of the cost goes into the graphite core and the hastelloy pipe layering

[Anonymous No.4819608]

Solar/Wind does not need on-demand production. It can just use batteries

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.4819613]

>>4819608
The batteries are even more expensive than the solar panels.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/

[Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH No.4819609]

>>4819604
I misunderstood. I thought that referred to "solar, wind, hydro, thermal, etc". Yes we can build a LFTR prototype now. Yes if that works we can probably build a commercial prototype, and then yes we can start full scale rollout.

My apologies.

[Anonymous No.4819611]

what we need to further study is piezoelectric

[Nuka-Cola No.4819654]

>>4819613
i'm going to play devil's advocate here, those liquid salt batteries look pretty nice (Mg, Sb anode and cathode, Mg2+ between them), very nice kilowatt hour values for very fucking cheap
sucks for anything mobile, since it'll screw up the liquid layers, but for stationary battery backup it should work great.

smart grid? fuck no, terrible idea
backup for your entire house, which is switched to when it's not drawing much current? sure
http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html

[Anonymous No.4819686]

/diy/ has a bunch of dudes that use solar cells for their own purposes. I guess they're fairly cheap as long as you don't buy them from some trendshop that sells them to idiots at multiple times the price they should be.

[Anonymous No.4819691]

>>4819686
As if you can't just buy a generator and fuel for like a tenth of the cost of solar panels, right?

[Anonymous No.4819711]

>>4819691

Well, they are under a dollar per watt at the moment and are expected to continue dropping.

[Nuka-Cola No.4819774]

>>4819711
true, they're becoming pretty good energy bill reducers if you build them yourself, but they're awful for baseload