Can Any Country Achieve Net Zero Without Nuclear?

[difalcojr]

How interesting. You were a witness to a "steam pot". Japan uses them everywhere too, I think. Don't get as much sun, maybe only get lukewarm, daily showers. Saves on your electric bill, though. SF Bay Area has the highest rates in the country, I think, and continually rising. Alarmingly. Evermore. If they were easier to install, DIY, from the hardware store, it would be wanted by many more, surely. Because everyone is upset over their energy bill going way up. So, rooftop, hot water heaters should increase in usage, probably, in any case, in the future, I would think. Everywhere possible.

How much average, daily insolation is available in Australia? Rough estimate. Looks always sunny and hot in most areas to me. Does it average 1,000 Watts / sq. meter, constant for a 12-hour, daily period? Is that possible for most of the year? Too much?

 

[difalcojr]

Looked it up.
https://www.hotspotenergy.com/DC-air-conditioner/australia-solar-map.php . and
https://climatebiz.com/average-peak-sun-hours-australia/#:~:text=Australia experiences an immense amount of solar irradiation,,sees between 1387 – 2264 kWh/m2 a year.

Shows about 3.8-6.2 kWhr per day, depending on the area. Not sure how they measured this insolation. To a flat, receiver plate on the ground? To a horizontal solar panel? Values seem way too low.

It's my understanding that if, on a clear day, the sun comes up at 6am and sets at 6pm, and a square meter receiver always faces that light, perpendicular to it, then the incoming energy is a solar constant. Constant value. Any time of day. Am I way off on this?

 

[difalcojr]

Well, I guess if I was way off above, you'd have let me know by now. I'll finish my thought then on long-term heat storage. Show you what I worked up for a simple reflection/refraction, geometric model. See what you think. The first picture is sideways (sorry, I don't know how to rotate the file here).

A model of a flat plate, transparent lens on the ground with the addition of a movable or pivoted mirror to follow the sun.
Time period of 6am to 6pm, 12 hours total.
Average of 1,000 Watts / sq. meter input to a square meter mirror and to a square meter, flat lens.

Calling the input angle the sun angle. Degrees are shown under the lens for each hour.
Also, using a mirror angle. Degrees are shown under the lens for each hour.

Only angles of 30 degrees or less were considered valid as incident to the flat lens. 30 degree cutoff to keep an E loss to about 5% at that surface. The reflection losses also may be more than shown in the 10am - 2pm period.

First shaded row shows 5 hours of 100% insolation. 10am - 2pm. That's what I think the lower online useful sunlight hours numbers refer to for Australia.
Second shaded row shows the above shaded areas, plus the addition of insolation received from the mirror reflections. That extra insolation from the reflection is shown as a fraction of the whole, calculated for each hour.

Total insolation adds up to over 12 full hours worth, about 7% more even. If that's about the E loss from the mirror, then it's a simple model of 1000W onto a square meter over the course of a day. Add up the shaded areas to check.

I think this may be enough daily energy to heat water to steam over a period of time in a closed system.

Well, these diagrams don't look great here now, but I hope they can show the geometry and simple calculations of angles and insolation additions. I also hope that this doesn't make me look like the Democrat's mascot.
I would have put this in the 'YOU: give energy solution' thread, but it's closed for now.

6am 7am 8am 9am

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[difalcojr]

Think this is needed for clarification/addition to above geometry and equation (tried to edit but my edit time must have expired):

insolation zone width (double line) = mirror height (1 meter) X sine (mirror angle - sun angle).

A mirror height increase of 41.42% , the length of the hypotenuse, will give even more additional insolation. As might side mirrors, I think, in the early morning and late afternoon hours.

Valid in theory?

 

[Astronuc]

What if exports are to a country that uses all of that coal to make finished products that are imported back. The co2 is exported as fuel and imported back within the finished product.

As far as I know, Japan, China and India are top three importers of Australian coal. The ranking may vary from year to year.

• Coal is Australia’s largest energy resource. At the end of 2021, Australia’s recoverable Economic Demonstrated Resources were 75,433 million tonnes (Mt) of black coal and 74,039 Mt of brown coal.
• Australia is the fifth largest producer, the second largest exporter and has the third largest reserves of coal in the world.

Ref: https://www.ga.gov.au/digital-publication/aecr2023/coal

Australia is apparently the lead coal exporter.
https://www.statista.com/statistics...f-thermal-coal-exporting-countries-worldwide/

The demand for coal is somewhat volatile.
https://www.movebeyondcoal.com/which_countries_buy_australia_s_coal

 

[Astronuc]

If you are lucky enough to have copious amounts of hydropower, you may be able to.

Apparently, Iceland is the example of net-zero without nuclear, and without fossil, at least as far as electricity and heating is concerned. There are import of fuel for cars/buses, aircraft, and ships/boats, and they have to import finished products, e.g., cars, aircraft, . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland

The numbers vary from year to year, or season to season. Iceland is fortunate to have abundant hydropower and geothermal, unlike most other nations, and they have the benefit of a relatively small population (est 375,318 people for 2023; Worldometer*). I saw a graph that indicated Iceland generated electrical power 70% from hydro and 30% from geothermal, but other articles state 80% and 20% respectively, so it could be anywhere in between at any given time. Perhaps less hydro in winter.

*from Iceland statistics - The population of Iceland was 387,758 on 1 January 2023
https://www.statice.is/publications/news-archive/inhabitants/the-population-on-1-january-2023/

Iceland has other issues - like an ongoing volcanic eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula near the town of Grindavik.

 

[Flyboy]

To return to the original question: I think that it depends on a number of factors. If you have reliable rain/snowfall and enough vertical drop to make hydroelectric plants viable year round, or sufficient geothermal potential, then yeah, you can probably achieve net zero without nuclear. As mentioned above, Iceland is a good example for both cases. But for some places, where neither of those options are practical, then the answer is probably “not at present”. Maybe some breakthrough in energy storage that reaches large-scale production and economical deployment will change that, but for now, I don’t see any way to store enough energy from fluctuating sources like wind and solar to be practical replacement for nuclear. All it takes is a couple days of calm weather and overcast skies to drain your reserves if you’re only using wind and solar with energy storage. Granted, it’s not going to be like that everywhere at once, especially if you partner with your neighbors on a larger continent, but for smaller communities on islands, like, say, Tonga or Hawaii? It’s a serious problem.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Iceland has other issues - like an ongoing volcanic eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula near the town of Grindavik.

This is coupled. The same geological activity that they use for electricity sometimes erupts.

The population of Iceland is 0.1% of the US's and about the same as the Pasco-Richland-Kennewick WA area. It's not quite the smallest country in the world but is not exactly big.

 

[Astronuc]

This is coupled. The same geological activity that they use for electricity sometimes erupts.

The population of Iceland is 0.1% of the US's and about the same as the Pasco-Richland-Kennewick WA area. It's not quite the smallest country in the world but is not exactly big.

Certainly, it's situational. There's a comparison of various nuclear nations and their distributions of thermal sources for electrical generation. Sweden has lots of hydro, but that's not necessarily available during the winter months, so they have nuclear, which is more of the balance during winter, along with biomass and fossil.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1013726/share-of-electricity-production-in-sweden-by-source/

This is perhaps more useful.
https://www.iea.org/countries/sweden

I'll have to dig in my notes to find the comparison.

 

[Nik_2213]

Temporarily ignoring 'commercial' nuclear fusion, currently still several decades 'down the road', I'd suggest that Australian solar power and bio-mass could be synergic. Part-sheltered by solar panels, bio-mass would have much lower water requirements...
Also, rather than mega wind-turbines, 'economies of scale' suggest that less efficient but much less expensive 'vertical rotor' designs may suit...

Similar synergies between solar and bio-mass would seem to suit eg North African coast, too. Some of the generated power may allow 'crop-grade' desalination, with concentrated brine waste fed to salt-pan evaporation and local commerce...
--
OT: Baffles me why 'hot country' desalination plants often discharge their 'toxic' brine waste into sea or underground when it is a useful chemical resource...

 

[Nik_2213]

A couple of thoughts:
Pumped storage hydro (PSH) often suffers from upper 'ponds' having large, rapid changes in waterline, which can be *bad* for wildlife and prohibit 'recreational' use. IIRC, may be mitigated by having weir-controlled marginal marshes and 'nesting' areas: Just needs some 'Common Sense' and lateral thinking...
PSH has disadvantage of considerable capital costs, big machinery and need for reliable water availability.
FWIW, you could also float solar panels atop the upper 'pond', mitigating evaporation losses...

Grid links of certain capacities and distances suit even current superconductive DC links when AC conversion and cryo-system costs become less than resistance losses and buried-cable cooling systems' costs....

 

[Rive]

Pumped storage hydro (PSH) often suffers from ...

What it suffers from the most is, that arbitrating between high- and low electricity prices is actually an economically quite tricky endeavour, not worth all the trouble around the attached 'green' and NIMBY opposition.

And, contrary to intuition in an environment where the recently introduced 'negative prices' are possible it's even worse.

Just as a reference: List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations#Under_construction
Surprise! Most active projects are in a country with quite notorious fame about economical matters...

In short: won't happen without further serious subsidies.

 

[sbrothy]

How much energy can you take out of the wind, before it starts having noticeable consequences on global weather and ecosystems. Last I checked the wind does important things. When it’s not enough they will be sucking the energy from the ocean currents? Surely nothing can go wrong there either…Who needs ocean currents? I say we just blot out the sun with solar panels and call it day.

Denmark was up to 55% wind power in 2022 and that figure is still rising. Everyone agrees it's a good idea but noone want the things in their backgarden. Apart from the ecological impact everything from houseprices and public health is affected. It's as if now we have the industry they're not going to stop.

Also Denmark is supposedly a nuclear free zone (although here the discussion has started on whether the hippie-ban from the cold war wasn't more a gut reaction than an intelligent exchange) but we share power with other countries through the electrical grid - notably Germany and probably France too - both countries with copious amounts of nuclear power plants. The whole discussion is hyprocritical IMHO.


EDIT: Ooops, wrong link, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

 

[Nik_2213]

"Superconducting electricity transport lines, even if they could be built,..."

Sorry, such exist and are in use...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
Scroll down to Superconducting cables
They are also proposed as part of energy super-grids, combining liquid hydrogen pipeline with cryo-cable...

 

[sbrothy]

Not the newest news but quite impressive. Of course China can play along.

What caught my eye was:

[...]more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty[...]

But the Danish company Vestas is right behind them. :)

 

[gmax137]

[...]more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty[...]

as mentioned in every "US-metric" thread ever, we Americans will use anything but meters as a standard

 

[sbrothy]

as mentioned in every "US-metric" thread ever, we Americans will use anything but meters as a standard

And one wonders why you stick to those. Fahrenheit I can understand, but your measuring units sometimes look pretty dumb from over here. :)

In Sweden one Mile is 10 Km. You'll hear things like "Oh, its right over here, just 120 Miles.". I've even seen a sign that said "Stockholm 100 M". :)

I went riverrafting up there but the real horror was the trip. It was "only" a 40 M drive but on a thin road with a cliff face up to the the right and 200 meters down to the left. I was frozen in the seat as the driver let go of the wheel to search for a coke in the back seat driving 140 Km/h.

 

[gmax137]

140 Km/h

I think that should be stated as 40 m/s, if you don't want to sound dumb. Lol.

 

[sbrothy]

I think that should be stated as 40 m/s, if you don't want to sound dumb. Lol.

I guess I asked for that on this forum. But when you say how fast you're driving you say miles/hour right? You don't say say yards/s or whatever you measure in over there?

 

[Vanadium 50]

but your measuring units sometimes look pretty dumb from over here. :)

Americans do this for Europeanns, who are never so happy as when telling other people how much smarter they are.

Sweden

Ah yes. Where when they make unit errors, they put them in museums and charge 17 EUR (well, 190 kr) admission to see them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

 

[sbrothy]

As I said. I asked for it. :)

What *is* pretty weird though is that Swedes use Km/h on their speedometers but still use those miles. It's a big country after all.

And just for the record I'm not from Sweden. :P
Although we have a history of some pretty weird measurement units here too. But that's a long time ago

 

[sbrothy]

I think that should be stated as 40 m/s, if you don't want to sound dumb. Lol.

Wait... 140 Km/h isn't 40 m/s is it? I'm pretty tired, about to go to bed.

Nvm.

 

[gmax137]

So one Swedish mile is just over 6 us miles? That is confusing.

 

[russ_watters]

What caught my eye was:
[...]more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty[...]

What makes it even more fun is that the Statue of Liberty is a lot shorter than most people think, since it is mounted on a Statue of Libery-sized base.

 

[bhobba]

The whole discussion is hypocritical, IMHO.

And the children shall show us the way:



Thanks
Bill

 

[gmax137]

The interviewee, Will Shackel isn't here to defend himself, so here's a couple of thoughts.

Somebody taught their kid a bunch of talking points. That isn't going to convince anyone of anything.

Well, most of us got our talking points from somewhere. But you're right, a four-minute interview is not going to convince anyone to change their mind. So what?

Show him the Chernobyl movie and see what he thinks.

Who is advocating for the RBMK design? No one. Who is advocating for Soviet-era culture? No one. He is advocating for nuclear power in Australia.

And why does he think he speaks for "all young people" and knows what they all think?

Well, he refers to a survey of 10 to 19 year olds. Maybe it is a bad survey, but maybe not.

I liked his "talking point" that the kids have not been exposed to the misinformation that previous generations experienced.

 

[Astronuc]

notably Germany and probably France too - both countries with copious amounts of nuclear power plants.

France certainly does - they have the largest suite of NPPs of any EU nation - Germany does not anymore. The shutdown all of their NPPs and started decommissioning all and demolishing the oldest. I don't know to what extent the newer plants were mothballed, such that they could bring them back online relatively quickly. The German decision was rather poor, and they became heavily dependent on native coal and Russian oil and gas.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed temporarily for Moderation...

 

[bhobba]

The thread has now been reopened. A post containing misinformation has been deleted. The post by Gmax referring to the deleted post was left because it is a quality post about the video.

Just to let you know, the video was not meant to give an expert opinion on nuclear energy but to indicate that the younger generation is more realistic about the dangers. Even a conventional power station has dangers, e.g. the Callide explosion.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Flyboy]

So one Swedish mile is just over 6 us miles? That is confusing.

Bit late but yes. Something to the tune of 6.2 miles.

It was a headache getting used to that when I started flying the Viggen in DCS, as that's one of the distance measurements it can output (mainly so they can show longer distances on the same analog output display while still keeping more precision at shorter distances), but it got easy pretty quick.

It's still funny to call out over voice chat that I'm still 5 miles out and they start looking for me visually, only to find out that I'm closer to 30 nautical miles away.