Sustainable Energy, USA and worldwide

So did Germany. There ones aren't even the same type...

edited 9th Apr '13 4:45:28 PM by Silasw

Yes, people knee-jerked a lot about Fukushima. I found it rather annoying, myself. It's not as if that particular problem was easily repeatable. Though, of course, with nukes, the Didn't See That Coming problem is always there...

This pisses me off.

As I understand it pebble bed reactors would be inherently fail-safe rather than needing all the extra systems, but with all the bureaucracy surrounding nuclear power(at least in the US) have yet to be approved by whatever committee validates reactor designs. Combine that with the lack of widespread education on the topic and how long it takes to build a reactor and it'll likely be quite a while before we start seeing them in use.

edited 9th Apr '13 4:52:17 PM by jaustin89

However, they also piss off Donald Trump, so it's not all bad.

I'm aware that in the case of solar power they have managed to make batteries that can hold a charge and bendy panels.

It still annoys me about Fukishima. We have mining accidents, and coal and oil problems all the time, but there isn't nearly the hysteria about them, even though the damage is far greater.

Molten salt is where it's at.

because the coal industry gives us jorbs.

edited 9th Apr '13 5:00:50 PM by Midgetsnowman

Re: Bird deaths & Wind Turbines— Having a hard time finding reliable statistics, but wikipedia estimates the annual deaths in the US to be between 0.2 and 0.44 million. Compared to 14 million from fossil fuel plants and 50-100 million from cars and trucks.

The only thing every site I've seen can definitely agree on is that the turbines are disproportionally bad for endangered species. Plants have also been able to decrease mortality rates by about half just by turning off the turbines when birds are near and turning them back on once they pass.

Deadbeatloser 22: I'm waiting for the day Hydrogen becomes a viable petrol alternative.

Hope you're patient, then, because you've a looooong wait before H₂ becomes as practical and generally accepted by the public as a tank of gasoline/diesel, even if oil prices do go significantly higher.

@ Solar power in the desert:

As with most power sources, "alternative" or otherwise, desert solar farms (either photovoltaic or the really fancy overglorified tea kettles) have significant downsides.

For starters, deserts aren't generally where people are, for what should be obvious reasons, so you have to use power lines to get the generated electricity from the source to the majority of the users. Baring practical room temperature superconductors, that means line losses, resulting in a lot less juice making it to the end user. (The obvious response, "MOAR POWER!", has practical limits imposed by physics and finances.)

Also, while I don't really find their point convincing there are plenty of environmental groups that oppose such facilities due to interrupting the local ecology (which does exist, if not in the way most people would think, hence my not totally rejecting the argument), often the same groups that oppose any power generation method (but are quite fine with all their electronic gadgets and such ). Given how such groups multiply costs for construction far beyond base material+labor, with insisting on ridiculous amounts of paperwork and filing lawsuits against projects to run up their costs, making those solar plants on any noteworthy scale is pretty much "wishful thinking" territory.

"Sustainable power" in general

Unfortunately for the "sustainable" crowd, a lot of what they support is impractical due to many reasons, but plain old physics is one of the biggies. The technology isn't capable of overcoming physical laws no matter how many tons of pixie dust and how many cubic miles of unicorn farts you use, and no matter how many Solyndras you throw taxpayer money at. And that's not even getting into the NIMBY/BANANA^note Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything crowd, like the desert solar power opponents mentioned above.

What about Tesla's work in wireless power transmission? Plant a solar collection satellite in orbit and transmit the power to ground stations. My bro says there'd be an efficiency issue with this, but could that be a viable area of research?

Hey, I've got a good fifty years or more left in me. I can wait.

The reason no one is following that up is because it would be impossible to properly charge for it. The oil companies actually are blocking attempts to develop clean energy because if something good enough comes around, the oil industry will have a huge problem. It won't collapse completely because, you know, plastic, but it could have huge effects.

@Journeyman: For the satellite thing, sure, just as soon as you figure out who to give control of that Microwave Death Ray.

More seriously, wireless power transmission has even greater limitations than the wired kind, courtesy of the Inverse-square Law. Never mind the whole "ZOMGWTFBBQ CANSAR RAYZ!" thing (see the hysteria regarding cell phones and cancer).

For Solar Power Germany has had a surrprising margin of success. Not exactly known for being a bright and sunny country.

About space-based solar power using "death rays", that's a misconception.

Tuefel, don't be so sure.

Cassidy, reality isn't perception. There are plenty of things that are quite safe, but a perception of danger is often enough to make a position politically untenable (see nuclear power, for something vaguely on-topic to this thread).

edited 9th Apr '13 6:26:39 PM by Nohbody

Never mind the article is out of date by over a year and the arguement about the subsidies is coming from the people who are competing with the solar power industry. You know the same parts of the German government who tried to defund solar in the first place who are also tied to the coal industry and already established big power businesses. Gee that doesn't familiar does it.

Never mind coal and nuclear also frequently get subsidies and tax breaks from governments so that arguement is kind of hollow.

Also that there is a good chance in 5-6 years solar will be competing directly with coal in Germany.

The solar panels and other renewables of any size are tied into the national grid. One one day in may last year Germany produced 22 gigawatts of power off of solar alone.

A lot of this has meant less reliance on coal and nuclear power for Germany to the point where future power plants have been scrapped and some plants have been closed.

Sounds like it is workign well to me.

Ah, we have an actual naysayer. I was wondering where one of those would show up to rain on our sunshine...

So yeah, Germany's solar policies have flaws. Policies tend to have that. They're still doing a fantastic job of it, given their country's climate. They're reconsidering strategies, but that's SOP. It's certainly not how the article you linked seemed to portray it, "blind faith" my ass.

As for deserts, I've lived in them, and, the same way there's an econolgy, there's populations, and they can be quite dense, although focalized around specific areas, namely water sources, big roads, pastures, and mining companies. You can have a valley overflowing with greenery and, less than ten km away, naked red rock. Egypt is the archetype for that style, but there's lots of other regions that have this high-contrast thing that allows for electricity generation very close to urban and rural centers while still using soil that's otherwise completely worthless.

Learning curve, man. Solar energy costs have dropped drastically over the last decade, and will continue to do so, while fossil fuels only grow more expensive.

edited 9th Apr '13 7:51:42 PM by TheHandle

If a country follows up abolishing nuclear power with actually stepping up with wide-scale solar, I gotta say I'm not gonna be crying much over that.

Solar has its downsides to be sure, mostly that there's a physical hardcap of power/area and how efficiently you can transmit the power over long distances (it falls off pretty quickly after 2000 miles or so). Some of Europe's more sprawling areas could pull it off at least.

If we were to be really clever, Northern Africa and the Middle East could cover most of Europe. Not only would this break their dependence on oil, but it would also keep the Middle East in a very similar niche market and avoid destabilizing their economy too badly in the process.

For really dense and geographically isolated countries though (Japan), you pretty much have to do nuclear.

edited 9th Apr '13 8:04:10 PM by Pykrete

Also, weren't they working on a way of using coal efficiently, cheaply and cleanly (Romney CLEAN COAL meme goes here) through MHD turbines? They had a fifty-megawatt demonstration plant in Montana but nothing ever came of it.

I know, coal isn't permanently sustainable, but we aren't running out any time soon, so it might be a good addition to our basket if we can make the tech work.

Poland has enough coal for at least 200 years (yet we import most from Columbia thanks to privilidges of local mining unions). When oil runs out maybe it will be profitable to mine it extensively again.

Experimental Coal plant tech

edited 11th Apr '13 5:21:10 PM by TuefelHundenIV

they always say solar is "space intensive", why not just stick it on the roofs of warehouses and such? we've got so many buildings with space on top that could be making power and money for the companies.