YOU!: Fix the US Energy Crisis

wildman

On an earlier thread, someone said that you can't move H2 by pipeline. Why is that? Why can't we treat it the same as Natural Gas?

russ_watters

That said, there are also the issues of economic and political viability. These issues are somewhat a matter of will: we just have to decide to do it and if we wait, the decision will happen on its own. But the "it" of the capacity issue is big enough that if we wait, the consequences are disastrous. And really, there are two completely separate capacity problems. The first, what has just been discussed is 'where do we get the energy to power our cars when we run out of gas?' But the second is 'how do we stop pollution?' (global warming and otherwise). Answering the first question mandates that we add new capacity. Answering the second mandates that we replace our existing capacity (or augment it with nonexistent technology). These issues are big enough that this decision to go really needs to be made now. We need to decide to do the only viable (economically, politically, technically) thing to solve this two-pronged energy problem: start building nuclear plants at a rate of 20 a year for the next 40 years.

mheslep

• H2 Diffusion. Crudely: A seal that's tight enough for a CH4 molecule looks like a window screen to the smaller H2 molecule.
• Embrittlement
• Energy flow/pipe volume. For a given pressure, an H2 pipe needs 3.5X greater cross sectional area to push the same amount of energy down the pipe.

H2 pipes are therefore more elaborate than CNG pipes.

mheslep

8000GW of nuclear? Why? Did you mean worldwide? Current US electric is 1000GW, transportation/heating/etc another 1000GW equivalent of fuel, and the growth rate is declining w/ increasing end use efficiency (as you've pointed out?).

The missing part of this or Sen. McCain's build nuclear proposal is the fix for the broken approval / regulatory process in the US, or whatever it is that drives the current plant proposal costs skyward. That is the hard part, as attempted remedies are bound to bring out protests. As it is, I wouldn't favor building even plant #1 at a cost of $17B per 2GW plant. It certainly means taxpayer financing as the private sector won't touch capital that big for 6 to 10 year projects; Moody's has said as much. For the waste issue, Yucca is fine IMO, but McCain needs to say he's going to go ahead and turn it on, now not later. I'd support a fix, but where's the plan?

Count Iblis

The waste problem is not as big a problem if you use fast breeder reactors. And why not use radioactive waste that cannot be reprocessed like caesium-137 as a heat source?

mheslep

Cs-137 is bad juju. It enters biological pathways easily by chemically pretending to be potassium, stays in the body for a couple of months. We want to minimize hand-offs of Cs-137 and like biologically active radioisotopes, not increase them.

Count Iblis

Cs-137 will be produced anyway in nuclear fission reactions. So, why not design some fully automized factory in which you separate it and make some compound that contains it? This material would then presumably be red hot from all the heat generated by radioactive decay.

You can then make a heat exchanger out of it and use it in a powerplant or to produce warm water for homes. After 30 years the power of the Cs-137 heating element will be halved. You then recycle it in the nuclear waste reprocessing factory. The ability to do this safely depends on what we can do with machines and robots.

Robot technology is predicted to become much more powerful in the near future, so perhaps we should store radiaoactive waste in easy to access places.

mheslep

I know it is a byproduct of U fission. Again, you increase safety by minimizing the number of times its handled after its produced. I suggest: all reactors->truck/train-> single, permanent waste storage. Stop. Not: all reactors->truck/train->waste reprocessing->temporary storage->truck/trains in all directions ->install power plants -> remove from power plants -> temporary storage -> trucks/trains -> permanent waste storage.

russ_watters

I think you slipped a decimal place there: Reactors (I said plants, but close enough) run at 1 GW apiece, so 800 of them is 800 GW. Assuming 2 per plant, that's 1600 GW, which would be enough to cover our electricity and most of our transportation, as well as convert much of our current fossil fuel heat to electric.

It was early, though - currently we have 100 plants, 300 reactors, so my math doesn't quite work out, but you get the idea.

mheslep

Yes, arg, inventing zeros again.

Astronuc

Google CEO: How to fix U.S. energy problems
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10056099-54.html
Energy independence or at least much less dependence on external resources makes good business sense - not to mention provides for more security.

mheslep

Seems like Google owes more attribution to Pickens or DoE than a 'they also have plans'. Google's electric plan attached. The biggest Google change by 2020 is a big push in wind. Good idea, but it is not their idea, nor do they address the hard parts of making wind work (transmission costs and right of ways, base load power - esp over 20% wind, they propose 28%).
Also, they simply claim geothermal will go from 2.5GW to 80, 33X, an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary backup.

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Topher925

Google is investing some big money into all types of alternative energy. For example they gave 10 mill to venture capital company Makani Power (my companies competitor) for a high altitude wind generator. Other than throwing money around, I don't really see them doing much of anything.

vanesch

Also note the "savings from effciency", which just stands for "deficit I don't know how to fill in". Triple nuclear, and all the handwaving is gone... so are they going to spend some money on nuclear ? Or is that not Politically Correct ?

Ivan Seeking

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09...mw-hydrogen-7/

As I said, it is being done today. If it is being used in practical applications, how is it not viable? Yours is a subjective interpretation; just as when mheslp argues that a range of 40 miles makes plug-ins viable. How can a 40 mile range be viable if 125 to 400 miles isn't? And with a 300 miles range on gasoline, they must have a full sized tank. So there is much more room for hydrogen storage.

Also, as posted earlier:
https://www.llnl.gov/str/June07/Aceves.html

Ivan Seeking

Pretty much everyone is on-board for more nuclear power now. It seems that people have forgotten the ineptitude of our bureaucracy, which is hard to understand given the credit crisis. But, either way, we will have better options before we can build many plants.

vanesch

Naaah, it won't take 200 years to build many plants, will it ?