YOU: Fix the US Energy Crisis

[Vanadium 50]

What power supply? Do you mean the base of the LED bulb?

Yes.

Are you sure that you are feeding the bulbs with AC power and not half wave rectified DC?

No, I'm a frigging moron. Yes, this is AC.

Have you tried putting the same 25 w LED bulbs in an ordinary lamp socket rather than in the ceiling fan?

Not for 500 hours. My house is a place where I live, not where I test LED bulbs.

Since you had three similar failures at similar low-life hours, it suggests something funky and not just a simple case of bulb lifetime.

My theory is "Crap from China" - i.e. it's possible to build such a bulb, but the vendor has chosen not to.

 

[gvlr96]

I'm not American but clues from your post indicate that you are so I will do this from an American Perspective. The way I see it, coal needs to be gone, nuclear and hydroelectric are the best options and a country which takes the risks to be a leader in new tech is at an advantage as it can sell that tech to other nations.

1 Introduce financial incentives for consumers and manufacturers of hybrid and electric cars, as well as (for manufacturers) mass production of carbon fibre cars bodied/chassis which are lighter so consume less energy in operation. (2017 onwards)

2 Install limited renewable sources which are not so developed, but make sure designs are easily upgraded. Fund research into improving efficiency especially in unfavourable conditions. (2018 onwards)

3 Take advantage of all locations where new hydroelectric generators can be installed. (2019 - 2025)

4 Build enough gen 3 power stations to cover current coal power stations so the coal plants can be decommissioned. (2020 - 2035)

5 Research and implement improvements in the grid in terms of capacity, automation, reducing losses and chemical OR mechanical storage methods. (an example of mechanical would be water pumped upstream so potential energy can be released through a hydroelectric dam) Also look into HVDC link with Canada and Mexico. (2020 - 2050)

6 Re evaluate the role of natural gas in the grid looking at the situation at the time. (2030)

7 Turn coal plants and mines into national parks and commit to afforestation in these areas to reduce the carbon content of the atmosphere. attempt afforestation as much as possible in all areas. (2030 onwards)

8 Fund experimentation with fusion and gen 4 reactors and where possible sell this technology to friendly nations. (2035 - 2060)

Predicted result - US becomes a net exporter of oil. Cars become greener and are no longer significantly affecting the planet. 90+% of energy production comes from nuclear and hydroelectric. Grid becomes more efficient lower losses and storage capability so the US spends less on energy production and power stations can be turned down. The US profits from exporting its new expertise to other countries. Carbon content of the atmosphere is under control and perhaps reducing.

 

[BoeingJet]

Here is my reply to the the question. (I'm just 12 years late)
Nuclear.
Go nuclear.
Go antimatter if you wish.
Go die if you think US has enough space for solar panels.

 

[mfb]

Go antimatter if you wish.

Where do you get the antimatter from?

Go die if you think US has enough space for solar panels.

It has more than enough space for that. Space is not the issue.

 

[gvlr96]

Here is my reply to the the question. (I'm just 12 years late)
Nuclear.
Go nuclear.
Go antimatter if you wish.
Go die if you think US has enough space for solar panels.

I'm not big on renewables, but your comment on solar panels is silly. The US has a low population density and plenty of empty desert space to build solar panels. Out of the way and somewhere they will be at their most efficient.

 

[Andy SV]

Hmm ok I'll try..
My thoughts on what can be done to improve the energy situation of, well the hole world.
First what do we do with the energy we move things we cool things we calculate and we heat things. And the more we can calculate, move, heat, and cool stuff
the better our lives seem to be.
So what's the most common form of energy electricity and after that is hydrocarbons.
So do you like being free to do whatever you want or would you like someone to tell you no you can't heat up the coffee and by the way you can't open your fridge again for another hour. I personally would tell that person to "notional expletive" right off. I think most people would. So it would be improbable to get people to do something like that voluntarily. We need more energy right now as it is so doing with less is counterproductive.
So I think LFTR liquid fluoride thorium reactors are what can handle that need
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou..._uC5eItSEVieIyQLg&sig2=Tjz2TO6_4Ey5azVv2UTY7g
What about cars though can't have a LFTR in a car?
No but if we can use that power to distill CO2 from the air and grow algae with it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_bioreactor
That can supply for the big trucks fairly directly, but cars! We need um.
Well if you dry the algae put in a big can and displace all the oxygen with hydrogen heat it up a bunch at high pressure (sorry can't remember the article)
You get something very much like crude oil . Just think how cooperative exon and shell would be if there was $$$ to be saved and made by them.

Ps I hope this is not I'll received it was a bit of work

 

[mfb]

How expensive will electricity from LFTR be? What are their risks? How to handle their waste?

Without at least a full-scale demonstration reactor, these questions will stay open. Advocates don't get tired telling everyone they will be the best ever, but they won't provide free energy either, and we don't even know how expensive it would be.

 

[Devils]

Renewable energy (wind, solar, etc) is now cheaper than coal and getting cheaper every day. The time for nuclear power, of any description, is over. Its not economically viable given the issues of waste disposal. Thorium reactors have been actively proposed for a decade, and they remain just that - proposals.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Renewable energy (wind, solar, etc) is now cheaper than coal and getting cheaper every day. The time for nuclear power, of any description, is over. Its not economically viable given the issues of waste disposal. Thorium reactors have been actively proposed for a decade, and they remain just that - proposals.

Actually thorium's day may be coming at last.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-china-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor/

 

[Andy SV]

How expensive will electricity from LFTR be? What are their risks? How to handle their waste?

Without at least a full-scale demonstration reactor, these questions will stay open. Advocates don't get tired telling everyone they will be the best ever, but they won't provide free energy either, and we don't even know how expensive it would be.

Ah ok so a demo LFTR was built in the 60s by Weinberg
Setup cost is is expected to be about 10 to 12 billion and then 200 million per 100MW reactor
The risk is very low compared to conventional nuclear power
And the one element that won't react can be sold to NASA as probe fuel
The rest of the nuclear waste stream will be inverted or in other words it will eat conventional reactor waist as fuel
Cost ...
Fuel costs for thorium would be $0.00004/kWh, compared to coal at $0.03/kWh.
If you want to fact check
http://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/

 

[mfb]

"energyfromthorium.com" is hardly a reliable source.

Fuel costs for thorium would be $0.00004/kWh

Fuel costs are not the point. Fuel costs for solar power are $0/kWh. The overall costs matter.

and then 200 million per 100MW reactor

That would be significantly below the cost of uranium reactors, and I don't see why. You have all the components of an uranium reactor, plus a more complex fuel preparation process.

The risk is very low compared to conventional nuclear power

Risk is more than the risk of releasing radioactive material.

 

[Andy SV]

I really don't feel like doing your homework for you so do a web search.
Whether or not you trust the website is irrelevant because that is a list of the papers and articles used by them. do you except the reliability of Oak Ridge National Laboratory?
You did not ask about over all cost you asked about the cost of electricity which is directly related to fuel
Thorium fluoride is not complicated. Dissolve thorium in hot fluoride.
And as to risk well I did not say release of radioactive material just risk.
But let's get into it.
It works at atmospheric pressure so a coolant containment vessel is not needed.
No hydrogen and oxygen dumping off the coolant (no coolant needed )
No rods to shoot through the roof so no missile shield. Processing of the thorium is safe you can hold the pure metal in your hand and is converted to fuel chemically not isotopicly
What else you got?

 

[mfb]

Whether or not you trust the website is irrelevant because that is a list of the papers and articles used by them.

The selection still matters. Do you pick only the papers with the most optimistic estimates? Do you show all?

You did not ask about over all cost you asked about the cost of electricity which is directly related to fuel

The cost of electricity is the overall cost. That includes everything necessary to get the electricity.

And as to risk well I did not say release of radioactive material just risk.

And where is the argument that all types of risk are low compared to uranium reactors?
Let's pick increasing construction costs as example. After decades of experience and hundreds of reactors built, they still can get much more expensive than planned. How can you expect that the costs of thorium reactors - without even a demonstration power plant - can be calculated more accurately?

Thorium fluoride is not complicated. Dissolve thorium in hot fluoride.

Seriously?

You have to remove fission products, for example. From a hot radioactive liquid. While the reactor is running. And without creating corrosive fluorine compounds.
You can also separate fission and breeding, but that makes the reactor design more complex, and you still need to get rid of the fission products.

It works at atmospheric pressure so a coolant containment vessel is not needed.

You certainly want to contain the fuel, although you don't have to design it for high pressures, fine. You have to be much more careful with leaks. A water leak in the primary cycle of uranium power plants is really problematic, but not directly a leak of reactor material. In LFTR it is.
If your salt freezes once in the reactor, you have a big problem - you need methods to keep it liquid all the time. That makes fixing leaks ... interesting.

And so on. LFTR comes with various advantages, but also with many disadvantages that all will need a lot of R&D to handle. And it is unclear how expensive that will make reactors because - as mentioned - there is not even a demonstration power plant.

 

[Andy SV]

What are you talking about? pick what? I have nothing to do with that site.
It was simply a place that had a collection of articles from Oak Ridge
And most of the points you bring up have been addressed or are though not to important by the OP this is a wish and dream thread with a side order of physics
If you want to learn about it watch this https://m.youtube.com/?tab=w1#/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
Otherwise
go jump on someone else's day dream already

 

[mfb]

What are you talking about? pick what? I have nothing to do with that site.

"You" was not meant personally. A list of publications can be biased even if the publications are not.

And most of the points you bring up have been addressed

Not with a fully functional system. Writing publications based on simulations is great, testing things in the lab is better, but the final system will never look as simple as the initial designs.

I don't doubt that the power plants are possible. But making up cost estimates now is more wishful thinking than reality, especially if the estimates are way below the cost uranium power plants have for very similar components.

go jump on someone else's day dream already

There is no need to dream. We have a (nearly) CO2-neutral, proven power plant concept, tested hundreds of times, with acceptable costs.
If an alternative design or some other energy source turns out to be better in the future: sure, switch to that for new power plants. But don't set all hopes on something where we don't know if it will work out.

 

[Andy SV]

I have nothing against conventional nuclear power it's safety record is incomparable. Being held by your mama is more dangerous.
And compared to coal or crude there is no category in which it does not excel
With the exception of fuel availability.
conventional nuclear power is Excalibur.
I just happen to think LFTR is Excalibur with the magic sheath

 

[mfb]

With the exception of fuel availability.

Even at the current price and without reprocessing, the fuel will last for decades. Fuel costs are a small fraction of the overall costs - double it and the electricity price doesn't change notably, but suddenly much more uranium is available. Add reprocessing and we have enough for centuries even if we build many more power plants.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

I have nothing against conventional nuclear power it's safety record is incomparable. Being held by your mama is more dangerous.
And compared to coal or crude there is no category in which it does not excel
With the exception of fuel availability.
conventional nuclear power is Excalibur.
I just happen to think LFTR is Excalibur with the magic sheath

Nuclear power certainly beats coal or crude in its ability to render 1000+ square kilometers unfit for human habitation for thousands of years.

 

[mfb]

Coal makes life worse on all 510 million square kilometers. Coal ash kills more people every week than the use of nuclear power killed in all of human history combined. And that is not even taking global warming into account.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

Coal makes life worse on all 510 million square kilometers. Coal ash kills more people every week than the use of nuclear power killed in all of human history combined. And that is not even taking global warming into account.

I am against using fossil fuels. Of course global warming is one problem. But I was thinking about this issue today specifically because I was reading about the effects of coal mining operations, including the chemicals used, on the water quality in Appalachia. When there was a massive MCHM contamination of water in Charleston, WV, people could not drink their tap water for months. The authorities in Appalachia now seem to be trying to lower the water safety standards. Follow the money.

But the problem with nuclear power is that if a disaster occurs, such as Chernobyl, there is a very quick destruction of the ability of a region to support human life. This problem remains for thousands of years. I know people will say Chernobyl was an isolated incident. On the other hand, if the second explosion had not been prevented, according to Gorbachev and others, Kiev itself would have been destroyed, and much of Europe would have become uninhabitable.

I am basically pro-nuclear if we do it right. But I don't trust the people who are in charge today to do it right. Meanwhile we need to continue using fossil fuels and conserve energy, while we develop green energy. What is the alternative? Fusion reactors are not ready. Unless a safer fission reactor is available, perhaps based on thorium, it seems we are not going to be building lots of new ones.

 

[johnbbahm]

Hmm ok I'll try..
My thoughts on what can be done to improve the energy situation of, well the hole world.
First what do we do with the energy we move things we cool things we calculate and we heat things. And the more we can calculate, move, heat, and cool stuff
the better our lives seem to be.
So what's the most common form of energy electricity and after that is hydrocarbons.
So do you like being free to do whatever you want or would you like someone to tell you no you can't heat up the coffee and by the way you can't open your fridge again for another hour. I personally would tell that person to "notional expletive" right off. I think most people would. So it would be improbable to get people to do something like that voluntarily. We need more energy right now as it is so doing with less is counterproductive.
So I think LFTR liquid fluoride thorium reactors are what can handle that need
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou..._uC5eItSEVieIyQLg&sig2=Tjz2TO6_4Ey5azVv2UTY7g
What about cars though can't have a LFTR in a car?
No but if we can use that power to distill CO2 from the air and grow algae with it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_bioreactor
That can supply for the big trucks fairly directly, but cars! We need um.
Well if you dry the algae put in a big can and displace all the oxygen with hydrogen heat it up a bunch at high pressure (sorry can't remember the article)
You get something very much like crude oil . Just think how cooperative exon and shell would be if there was $$$ to be saved and made by them.

Ps I hope this is not I'll received it was a bit of work
You bring up a lot of good points, The liquid fluoride thorium reactors look like a good possibility
within our current technology.
As to the liquid fuels, we can now skip the Algae step, as with the energy form solar and the LFTR reactors,
we can split hydrogen directly from water, to mix with the atmospheric carbon.
The resulting olefins, can be made into any fuel necessary by todays heat engines, and fit into the existing distribution
infrastructure. As energy storage goes, hydrocarbons seem to have very good energy density.

 

[mfb]

Meanwhile we need to continue using fossil fuels and conserve energy, while we develop green energy. What is the alternative?

More fission. Just not with the stupid reactor design of Chernobyl.
There is significant political resistance in many countries, but that resistance not based on facts. It is based on fear of things people don't understand.

But the problem with nuclear power is that if a disaster occurs, such as Chernobyl, there is a very quick destruction of the ability of a region to support human life.

The region can support human life. There are humans living there. And various animals spread there thanks to the low number of humans present. They might have a slightly higher cancer rate, but studies didn't find negative health effects (after the initial high radiation doses went down).

The risks of ionizing radiation are often hyped in the press, but apart from very few exceptions they are tiny. With the linear no-threshold model, you need an additional dose of about 1 Sv to increase your lifetime cancer death risk by 5%. Smoking regularly is more dangerous. And 1 Sv is a huge dose. A UN report in 2005 found radiation levels 10 to 100 times the regular background dose according to the Washington Post. That probably means something like 10-100 mSv/year. Or 10 to 100 years to accumulate 1 Sv depending on where you are if the activity would stay constant. There are inhabited places with a natural background radiation of much more than 10 mSv/year, without a higher cancer rate. The remaining radiation is nearly exclusively from Cs-137 with its half-life of 30 years. Even if all the cesium stays in the area, and the activity goes down only via decays: in 100 years, it goes down by a factor 10 - which means the exclusion zone will have 2-10 times the natural background dose. That is within the range of variations of the natural background doses over the world.

Chernobyl lead to a higher cancer rate - sure. But it did that via the doses people got in 1986, not via the low radiation levels remaining today.

And, as said before: Chernobyl was the result of a stupid design coupled with ridiculous ignorance of all safety protocols. While the second part is always hard to control, the design is easy to control, and no Western reactor has the design that made the Chernobyl accident possible.I think a localized damage is much better than damage that is spread out more.
If I have 100% chance to die in 0.1% of the area and 0% elsewhere, I simply don't go to this place.
If I have a 0.1% chance to die everywhere, I cannot avoid it.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

@mfb Can you explain why there is still a strictly guarded exclusion zone around Chernobyl if it is safe for humans to live there? Why is Pripyat still a ghost town? The fact that a few older people don't mind living in the area does not mean it's safe for humans.

Even with modern reactors, the fact is I simply do not trust the people in charge of this technology. Look at what happened to the people of St. George, Utah. Of course this was not a problem of nuclear reactors but of weapons. But my point is who do we trust? We can't even trust government authorities to maintain a safe water supply. Do we really want more fission reactors in an era of deregulation?

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/radiationdeathanddeception.html

Trust must be earned.

Anyway, that's all I have to say at this time on this issue.

 

[mfb]

The exclusion zone is in the large range between "cannot support human life" and "is without any danger".

Look at what happened to the people of St. George, Utah.

Someone detonated nuclear weapons close to the town. How is that related to nuclear power plants?

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

The exclusion zone is in the large range between "cannot support human life" and "is without any danger".Someone detonated nuclear weapons close to the town. How is that related to nuclear power plants?

As I stated, it relates to the trust issue. We need to trust not only the science and engineering, but also the operations and oversight. In that way, even the failure to provide clean drinking water applies to the trust issue.

 

[russ_watters]

As I stated, it relates to the trust issue. We need to trust not only the science and engineering, but also the operations and oversight. In that way, even the failure to provide clean drinking water applies to the trust issue.

It isn't usually wise to weigh hypothetical risks higher than known/actual risks - it can lead to bad decisions or decision paralysis. In this case, opponents of nuclear power succefully got its expansion halted with activism in the '60s and '70s. It can be said that at that time the safety record was thinner so speculation was more warranted, but still, the danger from fossil fuel pollution was known to be high. What's known in retrospect is that the result of the anti-nuclear activism was likely on the order of hundreds of thousands of preventable premature deaths, with thousands more happening every year -- in the USA alone. Today there is some argument to be made that renewables present a partial alternative to nuclear (though their ramp rate has ben very slow and comes at great cost), but in the 1970s there was none.

The impact gets broader if you consider the sorry state of the nuclear industry (with Westinghouse's bankrupcy) wouldn't be an issue if hundreds more nuclear plants had been built in the US over the past 30 years. A mature and stable nuclear industry in the West would have provided a basis for the growth in the East to be powered at least partly by nuclear instead of coal. Currently, China in particular is choking its people to death on an unfathomable scale -- more than a million a year.

 

[russ_watters]

I think a localized damage is much better than damage that is spread out more.
If I have 100% chance to die in 0.1% of the area and 0% elsewhere, I simply don't go to this place.
If I have a 0.1% chance to die everywhere, I cannot avoid it.

Agreed, for the health risk. Then there is the displacement risk, which is similarly overblown:

First, note that the risk of a place becoming uninhabitable is not without precedent, nor is displacement in general. A similar effect was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The population was down by around 250,000 people the year after Katrina, and remains some 90,000 people below that level today.
http://www.npr.org/2015/08/19/42935...ler-but-population-growth-rates-back-on-track

For the most part, displaced people received government and/or insurance payments or direct assistance (trailers) to resettle elsehwere temporarily or permanently.

Chernobyl and Fukushima together resulted in about 180,000 long-term displacements; I'm not sure how many have been able to return:
http://www.fmreview.org/crisis/meybatyan.html

Broader; forced population displacements are a relatively normal thing in today's world. Most governments do it when "necessary" to make way for "important" projects of all scales. The most extreme example is of course the Three Gorges Dam, which displaced over a million people.

Nuclear accidents are sexier and an abandoned city above the surface for all to see would be a more compelling than one hidden under water, but the effect is basically the same.

So I agree that contrary to what the fearmongering says, this is both a manageable and "normal" risk. What generally you get with the fearmongering is "this is bad" without context to juge how bad it is compared to all the other "bads" we accept and deal with in our everyday lives. That context is essential for making the necessary informed choices between "bads".

 

[Andy SV]

As to the argument of permanent displacement of large populations do to radiation and poison from an accident I agree the risk is unacceptable and we should overhaul the entire industry
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/johnny-haglund-the-earth-is-on-fire/#slide-1
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
What you thought I was talking about nuclear

 

[mfb]

Germany alone had more than 1000 square kilometers of coal surface mining. Here is a long list of disappeared villages. Some regions got converted to lakes afterwards, but most are still desert-like.
There are also areas that got converted to forests or used otherwise, they are not included in the 1000 square kilometer number.

As comparison: The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 2600 km².

 

[Andy SV]

Diese Verbindung ist in deutscher Sprache, die ich nicht lesen kann