Our mad little primeminister talks about nuclear as an alternative to fossil fuels ...
i wonder if he has ever even seen this scheme ...
www.enviromission.com.au
of special interest is this very recent report on its economic efficiency ....
... yes, a clean green power station with ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY!:
http://www.watervilleresearch.com/companies/special/273-1.html
( May 03, 2006 ) " New York, NY -- EnviroMission Ltd. is a renewable energy developer with proprietary rights to Solar Tower technology. Solar Tower technology is a large-scale renewable energy technology with the potential to provide the benefits of renewable energy with the firm, reliable operating characteristics of conventional fossil-fueled plants at competitively lower cost levels. The Solar Tower capitalizes on the simple principle that hot air rises. Solar Tower power station technology has four basic components:
1. A solar collector that captures and heats ambient air under the collector,
2. A solar tower that accelerates and channels the strong updrafted wind,
3. Turbine generators that produce electricity from the moving wind, and
4. Heat storage and distribution facilities that maintain/enhance the heated wind for plant operation at any time of day throughout the year."
and on the Performance and Financial Projections page
http://www.watervilleresearch.com/companies/special/273-3.html
"The financial analyses performed indicate that under most conditions the Solar Tower Project is able to generate power at cost levels at least equal to those of other renewable resource facilities, primarily wind power, and in certain instances for larger sized Solar Tower Project configurations where construction and operation economies scale are more pronounced, equal to or lower than current conventional gas-fired and some coal-fired plants."
That's an outright looney fantasy you have right there. A solar power plant that produces anything near what a typical coal plant produces would take up hundreds of square kilometers. Combine that with the inefficient and inconsistent power output of solar energy and the sheer mass amount of manual labor just to keep it at decent productivity level and clean all the panels. Hold on, I think of you were to take a chunk out of the middle of Australia and move everybody to the coasts and plow 50% of the farmland, your idea just might work, until the next cloudy day.
Originally posted by NoontidalWhat do you think of the solar tower?
That's an outright looney fantasy you have right there. A solar power plant that produces anything near what a typical coal plant produces would take up hundreds of square kilometers. Combine that with the inefficient and inconsistent power output of solar energy and the sheer mass amount of manual labor just to keep it at decent productivity level and c ...[text shortened]... the coasts and plow 50% of the farmland, your idea just might work, until the next cloudy day.
Originally posted by flexmoreI mean, seriously, nuclear power is really quite efficient. I'm all for wind/solar/wave/hydro power, but do you think that it will efficiently provide for Australia let alone India/China etc?
Our mad little primeminister talks about nuclear as an alternative to fossil fuels ...
i wonder if he has ever even seen this scheme ...
www.enviromission.com.au
of special interest is this very recent report on its economic efficiency ....
... yes, a clean green power station with [b]ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY!:
http://www.watervilleresearch.com/c ...[text shortened]... d, equal to or lower than current conventional gas-fired and some coal-fired plants."[/b]
Originally posted by Esotericdont worry about china, china has got these http://www.biogas.cn/english.htm
I mean, seriously, nuclear power is really quite efficient. I'm all for wind/solar/wave/hydro power, but do you think that it will efficiently provide for Australia let alone India/China etc?
stream lined to the N th degree.
it also provides international training if you are interested.
Originally posted by Esoteric
What do people have against nuclear power?
problems with disposing of high-waste waste and environmental effects of uranium mining. and it's not really all that cheap either. furthermore, it's only a temporary solution just like oil. a limited resource.
solar tower will take a lot of space. but believing space would be anyhow significant factor shows a lack of judgement approaching cosmic proportions. - the 200MW station with a 1-kilometer-high tower suggested to be built in australia takes around 100 square kilometers of space. that's 10km * 10km patch. a tiny little dot of land in a country as vast as australia. it's a bit expensive to build, but works 24/7 and is practically free energy after building.
it's not a panacea, but it's a promising part of a solution.
edit: it seems they've scaled the project down to a 400m tower. probably a sanity check. 🙂 1 km tower seems like something the chinese could try pulling off...
nuclear power is very expensive ... tax payers will not like to pay for that ... and then have to deal with the waste?!?
wind and most solar methods are also a little expensive.
but this tower method looks like it should be able to pay for itself!
as for the ammount of land used ... in australia it would always be irrelevant ... further: much of the land under its roof could still be used as farmland.
Originally posted by wormwoodYeah, fair enough i guess. It would be a huge phallic symbol in the middle of the desert too, so thats a bonus.
Originally posted by Esoteric
[b]What do people have against nuclear power?
problems with disposing of high-waste waste and environmental effects of uranium mining. and it's not really all that cheap either. furthermore, it's only a temporary solution just like oil. a limited resource.
solar tower will take a lot of space. but believing ...[text shortened]... y a sanity check. 🙂 1 km tower seems like something the chinese could try pulling off...[/b]
you must also remember that china has also just completed the Three Gorges Dam on the upper Yangtse tiver.
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/07/eng20060607_271660.html
google earth it at 30 degrees 50' N and 111 degrees E and you will see that they stil have vast amounts of possible hydropower on some of the many other large rivers if they so chose to construct them.
Originally posted by Esotericnuclear power is an extremely efficient means of producing power, the only problem I have with it personally is the waste it produces. I don't believe there is any sustainable way of dealing with nuclear waste (to date). It's going to be a huge problem for future generations.
What do people have against nuclear power?
Originally posted by NoontidalI have to disagree on your 'hundreds of square kilometers' statement. Lets look at that. On top of the atmosphere the sun deposits 125 watts per square foot or about 1 KW per square meter.
That's an outright looney fantasy you have right there. A solar power plant that produces anything near what a typical coal plant produces would take up hundreds of square kilometers. Combine that with the inefficient and inconsistent power output of solar energy and the sheer mass amount of manual labor just to keep it at decent productivity level and c ...[text shortened]... the coasts and plow 50% of the farmland, your idea just might work, until the next cloudy day.
By the time that energy drifts down to earth, its lost about 2/3's of it so you can expect at best say, 50 watts per square foot or say, 400 watts per square meter. So if we use 10% cells, we would get 40 watts per square meter. Now say a coal plant can do one GW, 1000 mw.
So 1E9/40=25 million square meters. That is 2500 hectares which is 5000 meters by 5000 meters. 5KmX5Km= 25 square Km, way short of
hundreds of square Km that you quote. You notice I used very concervative figures, we have much better than 10 percent cell now, and in a few years may be 50 %. (see the latest issue of New Scientist, shows new work where each photon generates several electron, making a big jump in efficiency) If so, now 5 square Km gives you that one gigawatt. Just remember, the energy from the sun on the ground is several hundred watts per square meter so one hectare (10,000 M^2) puts that at 4 MEGAWATTS per hectare and even with 10 % cells thats near half a megawatt per hectare, 50% cells raises that to 2 megawatts per hectare or 20 GIGAWATTS in 10,000 hectares. Thats a big chunk of energy. I can't believe there would be any environmental concerns when you can get that much energy from a rather small physical area. 10,000,000 hectares gives you 5 to 20 TERAWATTS, enough to make a huge dent in the energy needs of the entire PLANET. That is a big chunk of land for sure, a big slice of my state of Pennsylvania here in the US. But think of how many such tracts of land you can have in Australia and not even know they were there. Of course right now its out of the question even to make a GW plant cost wise but if current research pans out, the cost could be even less than a coal plant. At a buck a watt, such a plant would cost about one billion $US and at say, ten cents a KWH coming in for such a plant, you might expect to generate say 5 GWH per day then you can expect to generate 500,000 bucks a DAY or 180 million bucks a year which pays for itself in about 6 years.
Originally posted by BromageWhat's wrong with having a "dump" vault thousands of metres underground?
nuclear power is an extremely efficient means of producing power, the only problem I have with it personally is the waste it produces. I don't believe there is any sustainable way of dealing with nuclear waste (to date). It's going to be a huge problem for future generations.