The all things Political topic -In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

[ComradeYellow]

23 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Exactly correct. There is no such thing as “green” energy... yet........Out of all the available power sources nuclear is the cleanest relative to the capacity it can produce. 

I think nuclear is the closest thing to "green" that we're gonna get, I mean radiation is traditionally the color green, correct?

But seriously yes, there is so much room for improvement in nuclear energy and I think if resources are devoted to perfecting it's efficiency, we could be in absolute clear.

[Guard Dog]

20 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:

I think nuclear is the closest thing to "green" that we're gonna get, I mean radiation is traditionally the color green, correct?

But seriously yes, there is so much room for improvement in nuclear energy and I think if resources are devoted to perfecting it's efficiency, we could be in absolute clear.

Waste disposal will always be the problem here. The old saying says there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is seriously true when it comes to energy production.

[Azdeus]

11 hours ago, Elerond said:

There are other drawbacks in turbines than space. Like for example it is more difficult to control how much electricity is produced and you need temporal storages, like batteries, hydrogen etc.. Also noise pollution and turbines killing birds are problems. Need to build in windy locations, which creates its own challenges for transmission. Also repair routes and recycling materials from the mills need to be taken in account.

Nuclear plants also take lots of space and they need much more additional infrastructure. Like for example hundreds of kilometres of tunnels to store the nuclear waste. Massive cooling systems (which of course can be utilized in district heating). Uranium mines, storages for uranium ore. Processing plants for uranium ore, urania/yellowcake, uranium hexafluoride,uranium oxide and nuclear fuel (uranium rods). Storage spaces for ore, intermediate products and fuel/rods. Transportation for ore, intermediate products and fuel/rods. Cooling storages for used rods. Transportation for nuclear waste. Also you need lots of work force and automation from start to end of the supply line. Also you need to have complex repair plans and workers with know how to repair such complex systems. And addition to that you need natural disaster and force major plans. Also transmitting so much energy quite lot infrastructure and controlling systems. 

It isn't that easy for Rosatom and CNNC and they also need to work with lots of private companies and state owned actors in their projects. 

Let's not forget reliability, sometimes there's not enough wind to use the turbines, rare as it might be, so you can't have it as a "base" production. Nuclear doesn't have this problem.

 

[rjshae]

3 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Let's not forget reliability, sometimes there's not enough wind to use the turbines, rare as it might be, so you can't have it as a "base" production. Nuclear doesn't have this problem.

With energy storage you don't need constant energy production from wind turbines, just like you don't need it from solar cells. There are many practical ways of storing large amounts of energy.

[Skarpen]

2 hours ago, rjshae said:

With energy storage you don't need constant energy production from wind turbines, just like you don't need it from solar cells. There are many practical ways of storing large amounts of energy.

Did I missed this tremendous development in science that allows to store electricity? 

[Elerond]

5 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

Did I missed this tremendous development in science that allows to store electricity? 

You store energy which can be used to produce electricity

Potential energy storages like artificial lakes have been used from beginning of hydropower

Batteries are also quite old invention.

Using electrolysis to split water to hydrogen and oxygen is also couple hundred years old invention

Geothermal storages are bit newer invention

Compressed air/steam/liquid can also be used store energy

NASA has experimented with FES/Flywheel energy storages in which energy is stored as rotational energy

By lifting solid masses to high can also used as potential energy storages

And there are quite lot other ways to store energy.

So storing energy/electricity isn't the problem. Problems are scale and poor efficiency, especially when form of energy transformed multiple times. 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

Did I missed this tremendous development in science that allows to store electricity? 

Not sure how "tremendous" it is, but Aussies like big batteries for things like wind power on a day with no wind:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16723186/elon-musk-battery-launched-south-australia

 

The world's largest lithium-ion battery is now live in South Australia after being delivered a few weeks ago, easily beating the promise Elon Musk made of "100 days or it's free." The South Australian Government notes that for the first time, clean wind energy can be siphoned to the grid 24/7 improving the system’s reliability, whether the wind is blowing or not. The 100MW battery farm has enough storage capacity to power more than 30,000 homes.

...

Of course, Australia does have a few places here and there, that are less populated, so wind farms, solar cell farms (and the batteries for temporary storage) etc. can be made less intrusive esthetically.

 

Edit: I know from a local newspaper that the 30.000 homes is for 8 hours in case anyone wondered for how long

Edit2: Which has a web page with the number...

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/huge-tesla-battery-in-south-australia-primed-for-big-upgrade-20191119-p53byo.html

"The battery system's capacity will now be increased to 150 megawatts under an expansion plan put forward by French energy giant Neoen, the owner of the site, with the support of Tesla and the state and federal governments.

Paired with the adjacent Hornsdale wind farm, Tesla's grid-scale battery, known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, has helped reduce intermittency and manage increased demand during summer when the grid is under the most strain. In its first year of operation, it saved consumers more than $50 million, according to Neoen."

[Skarpen]

3 hours ago, Elerond said:

You store energy which can be used to produce electricity

Potential energy storages like artificial lakes have been used from beginning of hydropower

Batteries are also quite old invention.

Using electrolysis to split water to hydrogen and oxygen is also couple hundred years old invention

Geothermal storages are bit newer invention

Compressed air/steam/liquid can also be used store energy

NASA has experimented with FES/Flywheel energy storages in which energy is stored as rotational energy

By lifting solid masses to high can also used as potential energy storages

And there are quite lot other ways to store energy.

So storing energy/electricity isn't the problem. Problems are scale and poor efficiency, especially when form of energy transformed multiple times. 

 

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Not sure how "tremendous" it is, but Aussies like big batteries for things like wind power on a day with no wind:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16723186/elon-musk-battery-launched-south-australia

 

The world's largest lithium-ion battery is now live in South Australia after being delivered a few weeks ago, easily beating the promise Elon Musk made of "100 days or it's free." The South Australian Government notes that for the first time, clean wind energy can be siphoned to the grid 24/7 improving the system’s reliability, whether the wind is blowing or not. The 100MW battery farm has enough storage capacity to power more than 30,000 homes.

...

Of course, Australia does have a few places here and there, that are less populated, so wind farms, solar cell farms (and the batteries for temporary storage) etc. can be made less intrusive esthetically.

 

Edit: I know from a local newspaper that the 30.000 homes is for 8 hours in case anyone wondered for how long

Edit2: Which has a web page with the number...

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/huge-tesla-battery-in-south-australia-primed-for-big-upgrade-20191119-p53byo.html

"The battery system's capacity will now be increased to 150 megawatts under an expansion plan put forward by French energy giant Neoen, the owner of the site, with the support of Tesla and the state and federal governments.

Paired with the adjacent Hornsdale wind farm, Tesla's grid-scale battery, known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, has helped reduce intermittency and manage increased demand during summer when the grid is under the most strain. In its first year of operation, it saved consumers more than $50 million, according to Neoen."

Guys, those are backups that can sustain essential systems in case of emergency. In no way those are reliable ways to keep up the energy on a scale that a country needs on regular basis as a part of power grid. Those are neither reliable nor they can store large amounts of energy as rjshae claims. 

30.000 houses for 8 hours sounds nice, but when you have 1mil+ population cities with hospitals, factories and other heavy energy consumers it will last how long? Minutes? And after that how long for those backups to be repowered? And how much energy have to be put into this? Compared with solar and wind poor efficiency we will either hit a point where they will constantly be recharging the backups in a pointless cycle, or we would need to constantly increase the number of wind and solar plants ad infinite. And since the components for wind and solar plants are in no way degradable we will end up with half the world in wind and solar plants and the other half in wastage from those. 

As always "green" solutions tend to be more of a burden ecologically than traditional solutions. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Skarpen

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

 

Guys, those are backups that can sustain essential systems in case of emergency. In no way those are reliable ways to keep up the energy on a scale that a country needs on regular basis as a part of power grid. Those are neither reliable nor they can store large amounts of energy as rjshae claims. 

30.000 houses for 8 hours sounds nice, but when you have 1mil+ population cities with hospitals, factories and other heavy energy consumers it will last how long? Minutes? And after that how long for those backups to be repowered? And how much energy have to be put into this? Compared with solar and wind poor efficiency we will either hit a point where they will constantly be recharging the backups in a pointless cycle, or we would need to constantly increase the number of wind and solar plants ad infinite. And since the components for wind and solar plants are in no way degradable we will end up with half the world in wind and solar plants and the other half in wastage from those. 

As always "green" solutions tend to be more of a burden ecologically than traditional solutions. 

Interesting post, I know nothing about this topic so  I would be keen to see what others think about your concern around this type of green solution?

[Darkpriest]

@BruceVC

For you

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact

https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28

Probably recycling tech will improve over time, but currently we will be trading air polution and air heat for a soil polution and water polution, which can be as much if not more damaging

[Elerond]

3 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

 

Guys, those are backups that can sustain essential systems in case of emergency. In no way those are reliable ways to keep up the energy on a scale that a country needs on regular basis as a part of power grid. Those are neither reliable nor they can store large amounts of energy as rjshae claims. 

30.000 houses for 8 hours sounds nice, but when you have 1mil+ population cities with hospitals, factories and other heavy energy consumers it will last how long? Minutes? And after that how long for those backups to be repowered? And how much energy have to be put into this? Compared with solar and wind poor efficiency we will either hit a point where they will constantly be recharging the backups in a pointless cycle, or we would need to constantly increase the number of wind and solar plants ad infinite. And since the components for wind and solar plants are in no way degradable we will end up with half the world in wind and solar plants and the other half in wastage from those. 

As always "green" solutions tend to be more of a burden ecologically than traditional solutions. 

Some of those energy storages are used regular base to sustain load in electric grid and district heating here.

All the dam here have artificial lake, so that water flow can be controlled. (Hydropower makes 20% of Finland's total electric production)

Wind parks have batteries and hydrogen production plant in order to balance output to electric grid and store overproduction. (Wind parks make 10% of Finland's electric production)

Geothermal storages are used to store excess heat during summers to increase production capacity during winters. (geothermal heating, makes 33% of FInland's heat production)

But there is no point for example to first transform kinetic energy from wind to electricity and then transform it chemical or potential energy and then back to electricity unless it is excess energy that can't be fed in electric grid. Because there isn't way where you can transform electricity to another energy form with 100% efficiency (some of that energy always transforms in form that can't be stored ) 

[BruceVC]

16 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

@BruceVC

For you

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact

https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28

Probably recycling tech will improve over time, but currently we will be trading air polution and air heat for a soil polution and water polution, which can be as much if not more damaging

Great links and from very credible websites, I read the first 2 and its hard to argue with the real risk around how to dispose with the physical  sources of green energy....I hope @Gorthand @Elerond can provide a response that mitigates this problem ?

Edited April 28, 2021 by BruceVC

[Elerond]

4 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Great links and from very credible websites, I read the first 2 and its hard to argue with the real risk around how to dispose with the physical  sources of green energy....I hope @Gorthand @Elerond can provide a response that mitigates this problem ?

@gorth

@Elerond

For example Nokia already introduced process to reuse 100% of materials in lithium batteries in early 2000s. But battery recycling has seen some downturn after Nokia left cell phone making business. And of course larger batteries need larger processing systems than those which Nokia developed for cell phone batteries.

Also in case of soil and water pollution, coal mining, fracking and drilling oil also cause massive amount of that, so badly recycled lithium batteries aren't really adding amount of soil and water pollution (in comparison if same energy would be produced using either coal or oil) in world put moving it to different locations.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

30.000 houses for 8 hours sounds nice, but when you have 1mil+ population cities with hospitals, factories and other heavy energy consumers it will last how long? Minutes? And after that how long for those backups to be repowered? And how much energy have to be put into this? Compared with solar and wind poor efficiency we will either hit a point where they will constantly be recharging the backups in a pointless cycle, or we would need to constantly increase the number of wind and solar plants ad infinite. And since the components for wind and solar plants are in no way degradable we will end up with half the world in wind and solar plants and the other half in wastage from those.

That's based on the assumption that those sources are going to be your only sources of energy. Even Denmark, despite getting so much electricity from alternative sources now, doesn't put all the eggs in one basket. Diversification (sp?) is important. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you could always add a few nuclear power plants to pick up the slack on rainy day and use the renewable energy when it's there (and scale the storage as needed,if  possible). Not sure what the better alternatives would be? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious (with the caveat I don't believe oil and coal is the future for humanity).

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Great links and from very credible websites, I read the first 2 and its hard to argue with the real risk around how to dispose with the physical  sources of green energy....I hope @Gorthand @Elerond can provide a response that mitigates this problem ?

Are you going to hold it against me if I pull a @Gfted1 here and confess, in all honesty, that I'm probably too old to care, because I'll be dead and gone when it becomes a problem? Let youmg engineers find new solutions to new problems, not grumpy old forum residents that survived old problems

 

Edit: Buy a SpaceX 42 rocket and ship the junk to the sun? Might help your tan.

Edit2: I'm old enough to remember the old Space 1999 series. The solution to the worlds problem with radioactive waste was to store it in giant junkyards on the moon.

 

[Gorth]

Bad news for arms exporters and oil investors... Iran and Saudi Arabia caught in the act of having secret peace talks

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/28/mbs-us-and-riyadh-strategic-partners-with-few-differences

"Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has struck a conciliatory tone towards the kingdom’s arch-nemesis, Iran, saying he sought “good” relations after reports the rivals held secret talks recently in Baghdad."

 

Edit: The Financial Times article with more details is behind a paywall, so not going to link to it.

[Gorth]

Because people tire easily of all the peace talk, back to something more confrontational...

The love affair between Scott Morrison and China seems to be over. Regardless of whether he wants it to end or not.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/11/hong-kong-activist-welcome-to-campaign-in-exile-in-australia

"Hong Kong former legislator and pro-democracy activist Ted Hui is welcome to campaign on political issues in Australia and his arrival was not a matter for China, the chair of the Australian parliament’s intelligence committee said on Thursday, angering Beijing, which warned of further damage to already strained ties between the two countries."

 

Ok, just kidding. Scott Morrison wasn't consulted on the matter. Not his style to show any backbone.

 

Two different takes on the sudden increase in spending on improving existing military infrastructure in Australia's north:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/28/australia-to-upgrade-military-bases-expand-wargames-with

"Australia will spend $580m to upgrade four military bases in its north and expand war games with the United States, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce on Wednesday, according to extracts of the announcement seen by the Reuters news agency.

An airstrip in the Northern Territory will be lengthened to support larger aircraft, firing ranges overhauled and new training facilities set up for defence personnel and US marines."

 

Scott Morrison of course has a different version of the truth:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-28/scott-morrison-mike-pezzullo-war-conflict-china-australia/100100038

"Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied a major investment in military bases in northern Australia is aimed at sending a message to China."

"At the same time, he has also defended comments made by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton that the possibility of conflict with China over Taiwan should not be "discounted".
Mr Morrison was in Darwin to confirm a $747 million upgrade to defence facilities in the Northern Territory, part of $8 billion set to be spent on military infrastructure in northern Australia over the next decade.

Mr Morrison said the goal of properly resourcing the Australian military was aimed at keeping peace in an "uncertain" region rather than preparing for conflict."

 

The problem is, everyone knows Scott Morrison is a notorious liar. If little old me knows it, China probably knows it too. Doesn't require much effort by any intelligence service.

 

Speaking of China, England dreams of ruling the waves again... maybe they have a score to settle over the breach of the agreements on Hong Kong?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/27/uks-queen-elizabeth-aircraft-carrier-to-deploy-to-japan-s-korea

"Royal Navy flotilla will stop off in India and Singapore and also sail through the contested South China Sea."

"The United Kingdom’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will lead a flotilla of Royal Navy ships through Asian waters on port visits to Japan and South Korea on its maiden deployment, the British embassy in Tokyo has announced, as Australia warned of threats of conflict in the region.
The high-profile voyage, announced by the British embassy on Monday, is aimed at bolstering security ties in East Asia and comes amid tensions in the region as concern grows in Japan over any threat posed to neighbouring Taiwan by China, as well as increased tensions in the disputed South China Sea."

...

"It will be joined by vessels from the United States and a frigate from the Netherlands and will carry out exercises with forces from Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, the UAE, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Israel, India, Oman and South Korea, the British government said in a statement.

Other foreign ships currently in Asian waters include a French amphibious carrier and two US navy aircraft carriers, one of which, the USS Ronald Reagan, is based in Japan."

 

Lots of troops from faraway countries meeting in South East Asia

 

An Australian perspective:

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/home-affairs-boss-warns-drums-of-war-are-beating/news-story/183c411ad712c199182b4ee597fda42f

"One of the Federal Government's top national security officials has warned the "drums of war" are beating amid rising tensions with China.
In an Anzac Day message to staff, Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo said Australia must work to reduce the risk of war "but not at the cost of our precious liberty".
"Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war," Mr Pezzullo said."

 

Could it be the price of being the flea caught between two fingers maybe?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-21/us-china-preparing-war-drumbeats-conflict-australia-crosshairs/13260084

"Last year, at the 70th anniversary of China's triumph, Xi Jinping warned the Chinese people "the road ahead will not be smooth". He called on people to revive the spirit of the Korean War, to "speak to invaders in the language they know … to use war to prevent war".

Simply: tell the Americans that China is not afraid, it was victorious once, and will be again."

[Gfted1]

Eh, if China gets too big for its britches then we can just send Japan over to give them the pimp hand. Again.

[Sarex]

20 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Eh, if China gets too big for its britches then we can just send Japan over to give them the pimp hand. Again.

I think that if Japan tried anything against China again, China would sink those islands no matter the cost. Too many memories there, I think the Chinese people would force the government's hand.

[ComradeYellow]

40 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Eh, if China gets too big for its britches then we can just send Japan over to give them the pimp hand. Again.

...Flaws galore

We still have a military base in Japan so that situation would be kinda ridiculous.

Also I'm not too sure that a nation we dropped two nukes on would be willing to ask "how high" when we say "jump".

Japan isn't too fond of China but it is its 3rd largest trade partner.

[Guard Dog]

11 hours ago, rjshae said:

With energy storage you don't need constant energy production from wind turbines, just like you don't need it from solar cells. There are many practical ways of storing large amounts of energy.

Practical on a small scale yes. On a city wide scale that is a no. It is not realistic to expect to produce power in the order of megawatts from mass storage. Particularly since the inverter efficiency will never be better than 70.7%. 
 

that is not to say the technology will not improve going into the future. But as it stands today solar energy production for a single home it’s not only practical it’s a good idea. More than that is a pipe dream.

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, ComradeYellow said:

...Flaws galore

We still have a military base in Japan so that situation would be kinda ridiculous.

Also I'm not too sure that a nation we dropped two nukes on would be willing to ask "how high" when we say "jump".

Japan isn't too fond of China but it is its 3rd largest trade partner.

LOL we have a lot more than A military base in Japan. There are eight in Okinawa alone.

[Elerond]

4 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Practical on a small scale yes. On a city wide scale that is a no. It is not realistic to expect to produce power in the order of megawatts from mass storage. Particularly since the inverter efficiency will never be better than 70.7%. 
 

that is not to say the technology will not improve going into the future. But as it stands today solar energy production for a single home it’s not only practical it’s a good idea. More than that is a pipe dream.

Germans at least try to prove you wrong, or at least it feels like that Germany is full of solar panel fields like in above picture

[Guard Dog]

Just now, Elerond said:

Germans at least try to prove you wrong, or at least it feels like that Germany is full of solar panel fields like in above picture

They look great but where it the power going? Their output is DC power.  Which means the end-user must to be located very close by. Meters away not kilometers.  Additionally a mass storage and mass inverter assembly must be located very nearby. this does not absolutely have to be the case. If the end-user wants DC power the inverters are not necessary. If power is not required except when the sun is up and the batteries are not necessary. But if the power is meant to serve as a supplement to a C utility power than you need both.
 

The problem with DC power is ohms law. As resistance increases current decreases. The longer the transmission line the less usable it becomes. The lower the voltage dropped over the length of the run makes it less usable because inverters require a certain power level to work. And at peak efficiency thy are only 70.7% efficient.

Take my own home system as an example. The solar panels used to be 120 feet from my house. 35M give or take. I cleared some trees and moved them to just 12’ about 3.9 M. I’m still using the same 6 AWG stranded cable but my battery charge rate increased by + 25%. That after a change of just 30m. It makes that big a difference.

[rjshae]

9 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Did I missed this tremendous development in science that allows to store electricity? 

Let me shine a (flash)light on your perspective...