by frog
What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.
It’s not as simple as that, of course, but this article from Cosmos canvasses the issue pretty well.
It’s a little old now (April) but well worth reading, if nothing else than for the summation of the deaths and healthcare problems caused by coal.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Media by frog on Tue, September 5th, 2006
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
have some good green news..
check out these wicked new green inventions..
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1359779.ece
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I read in the Guardian Weekly a few weeks ago an article about the approach of peak uranium. Spending billions of dollars on plants that will be completed when demand for uranium far outstrips supply is a terrible idea, and not just from a green perspective.
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As an acedemic exercise, its an interesting question. Of course, a better question is “is it any use to NZ”, and I guess the answer remains an emphatic no, large nuke large plants (irrespective of their colour, green or otherwise) are useless in a country our shape with our load.
And cnimmo has already whacked the other nail squarely on th’head.
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That is a very interesting article – with some exciting ideas – but does it sound a bit too good to be true? Nuclear power was supposed to be the answer to all our energy requirements – the issue of peak uranium is very relevant if these sub-critical reactors still need uranium to aid the reaction – although if the purely theoretical version needs none, then it could be a possible alternative.
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Sounds pretty good. The alternative design that does away with the need for uranium or plutonium sounds like the most interesting for New Zealand. The problem, as the article explains, is that such reactors would need to be designed, built and paid for from scratch. So while it argues that it’s an inexpensive energy, the reality is we don’t know. The typical process is that taxpayers foot the bill and private interests walk away with profits at every step. This isn’t a problem with nuclear energy of course, it’s a problem with market economics and a lack of real democracy. It also describes Thorium as an “abundant” supply of fuel. But we’ve all heard that before. Anyone know what NZ’s supplies of Thorium are like, and what the mining process involves? What about Iran? Could see them likely this technology.
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As to your question, frog: can atomic power be green? If these ADS reactors turn out to be everything they are claimed to be then I think they could be classed as such. The biggest stumbling block, however, would be the centralisation involved. To be green is meant mean that people have a say in things proportionate to the degree they’re affected by them. Centralising the supply and control of things such as food, water and energy is extremely anti-green and ensures that the narrow (usually unsustainable) interests of a few triumph of the collective interests of us all.
I could see a place for such technology (if the technical problems are overcome), but only if such technology was used to supplement localised energy production.
The more locally we are able to produce our own energy the far more sustainable a future I see ahead of us.
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IMAO, it could work, and it could work well for New Zealand in some form and some places. The most likely source of supply is Australia… I’d be surprised (and I am prepared to be surprised) if anything like an accurate assessment of New Zealand supplies of the stuff were available.
The need for it however, in regions where wind and water provide ample potential for power, is hard to see. It could help to support the larger cities perhaps.
respectfully
BJ
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Both of these ‘great green inventions’ articles are interesting – it’s always nice to hear that we don’t need to do anything ourselves because the boffins and capitalists are going to bring out lots of lovely new gadgets to save the world and we just need to sit back and CONSUME more stuff. We used to talk about the ‘consumer society’ (which was considered a perjorative phrase, but now it’s just taken for granted).
But the really intersesting thing is in these two quotes:
“It could prove the circuit-breaker to the two most intractable problems of the 21st century: our insatiable thirst for energy, and the warming of the world’s climate.â€?
(the nuke article)
“our conviction that only bottled water will do is causing increasingly precious plastics to be thrown away� (from the Independent one phil u linked to)
Who is this ‘us’ that is being referred to as having an insatiable thirst for energy and wanting only bottled water? Deducing from the use of the first person, the world’s environmental problems are being caused by the authors of these articles, in which case it should be easy enough to go around to the respective publications’ offices and shoot them.
It sounds harsh, and I know the Greens profess non-violence, but get real – these bastards are destroying the planet and they need to be stopped now.
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“Centralising the supply and control of things such as food, water and energy is extremely anti-green and ensures that the narrow (usually unsustainable) interests of a few triumph of the collective interests of us all.”
That is complete bollocks.
If everyone had to have their own diesel generators for electricity, would we be better off? Of course not, and a significant number of people would go without.
If everyone had to grow their own food, how many people would starve to death? The output efficiency of a million tiny farms would be very low. What would happen to those who had no land?
If everyone had to capture rainwater for drinking, what would the stats on waterborne disease and tooth decay look like? My guess would be very bad.
So your prescription is actually for everyone except a wealthy elite to go without electricity, food and safe water. Is this in line with the population reduction ideas of some environmentalists?
Localised energy production (microgeneration) is the worst idea ever- it is expensive, unreliable and still requires back-up capacity to be added to the power grid for when it is not working. And of course the proponents want their solar panels paid for by the taxpayer.
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anyone else following the ‘greening’ of the british torys..?
this is quite a fascinating saga…
‘cos what we have now is a leader of britains’ torys sounding like he is rod…
(seriously..!..)..cameron has totally ‘greened’ the torys..and it has been a very fast process…and a successful one..
i reported this morning that the torys are now eight points ahead of labour in the polls..and with a more than even chance of being the next government..
so the old school torys..(most of them now in deep shock)…just have to shut up and wear it…’cos this is the nearest the torys have been to power in a very long time…
and then again this morning i reported how he is telling britons that “no..!..there will be no tax cuts..”…
and promising just the opposite..an increase in taxes…justified by him as being needed to attend to britains’ environmental issues/concerns..!
and promising the full focus of any tory government on those very issues..
whoar..!..eh..?..(see what i mean about sounding like rod..?..)
now..what i take from this..(apart from delight in the sudden sea-change by britains’ tories..and the first signs of the long-awaited movement of our concerns into the mainstream..to become the concerns of all…)…is a question….
namely…what are our torys going to do..?
and what would any similar sea-change in our torys attitudes and policies would mean for us…?
(obviously not under the combover kid and his crew..but new national party leadership..)
‘cos a ‘greened’ national party would/could cause major upsets to the green party relationship with labour….
(and esp to the hard-left segment/people within the greens..eh..?..)
‘cos if a resurgant/greened national party were to offer a ‘better deal’ post-election than labour…what would they do..?
would they make the best choice for the environment..?
or would their personal ideologies make that impossible for them..?
these are all questions that need to be answered….if not at the next election…definitely the one after it….so..only five years..at the very outside..
this is a conversation we (as greens) need to have..eh..?
oh..!..and the other startling little bit of news from britain is that the grandson of teddy goldsmith..(a name familiar to many nz greens..and founder of ‘the ecologist’ magazine)..and himself the current editor of that mag has ‘come out’ in support of the new tory leader..and joined that party
yet only months ago goldsmith the younger was describing the torys (and their environmental policies)..with a sneer on his lip…
and he credits his change solely to the new leader… and the new green policies he is committed do….
(i saw an interview on bbc ‘hardtalk’ with him..those keen enough should be able to find that on their website..)
so….just to get back to the main question…
what would we do..?..how would we handle..?..
a serious greening of/by our torys..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Any chance of a translation for what Phil wrote?
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none needed – stream of consciousness is surely better than no consciousness
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uk_kiwi, you appear to have taken what I wrote and shoved it through a mincer. Maybe you’re infected by British authoritarian politics and can’t conceive beyond it? I did not say or imply everyone “had” to do anything, let alone own “their own diesel generators.” That you conclude my “prescription” “is actually for everyone except a wealthy elite to go without electricity, food and safe water,” says more about what’s going on in your own head than mine.
When I say “localised energy production” I’m talking about a diverse range of systems, from family size up to, say, 100 000 people.
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Well, now, phil has opened a can of worms, hasn’t he?
Phil, u did hear that the Nat’s have employed Ian Ewen-Street as an advisor on blue-green policy?
So, my guess is “our torys” will do more of the same, and if one of them gets nostalgic for the “good ol’ days”, whilst being lobbied by, say the British atomic energy industry, we could have a new “think big” project – a greenish nuclear power station, with overseas economic input.
No need for an SOE selloff, ‘cos this one will be private from the word go.
Or am I just messin with ya, in my usually cynical and bleak way???
Saw “An inconvenient Truth” last night, fully recommend it, but if that doesn’t bring you out of your corner shrieking conspiracy theories, nothing will.
Al Gore is speaking with the desperation of a man who has known of the research on climate change since his early adulthood, and is still trying to get anyone to pay attention as he inches towards retirement.
My 5 cents: we don’t need no atomic energy here!
BTW, wasn’t Thorium oneof the major tranquilizers of the 80’s?? I distinctly recall the phrase “thorium shuffle” used to describe trance-like motion… :p
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UK kiwi, please keep a civil tongue, there is no need to call anyone’s argument “complete bollocks” I think you should apologise to Christiaan.
Also, you say “Localised energy production (microgeneration) is the worst idea ever- it is expensive, unreliable and still requires back-up capacity to be added to the power grid for when it is not working.”
So have you got a reference for that, or is your own supposition?
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oops, scratch that, “thorazine”, not “thorium” was what I was thinking of.
Having read the Cosmos article thoroughly, still don’t like the idea of it in NZ, and I really think that dbuckley’s point about our energy load (which is skewed by a couple of large users on the grid in the South Island, plus maybe Fletcher’s in AK) is not heavy enough, or peaking heavily enough, for the kind of output a nuclear generator produces to be neccessary.
Of course, a few large offshore manufacturing concerns shifting here to take advantage of cheap energy prices could increase the loading quickly! Does Comalco have a pretty sister to bring to the dance?
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katie….somehow i don’t think ian ewen-street will drive a sea-change in the national party…
and i mean he was always a natty adrift in a foreign land..in his time in the greens..
so ..he’s just gone home .eh..?
but his return won’t make any big splash…
he will just sink…and the waters will just close over him…
and as i said ..it wouldn’t be under combover and anorexia..
it’d have to be from the next generation…
and i’m not picking the next election as crunch time…but the one after that…
btw..i also think al gore will be the next american president….fwiw
and that he will be a good one…
unlike many..i actually feel positive about the future..
and with the sea-changes underway i can see major changes in global priorities coming up…
and no..i don’t see/worry about nuke power happening here..for a multitude of reasons..
but one thing i am excited about is those magnetic frictionless wind generators that will charge in a breeze of 1.5 km per hr…
that figure again…1.5km per hr..
whoar..!..eh..?
and ’stuey..! stuey..!…the relatively mild riposte of ‘complete bollocks’ causes you clap your hand over your mouth in dismay..?
a word of caution to you….stuey….never..ever..ever..even think about visiting the rightie blog sir humphreys…
your sensibilities wouldn’t stand the strain..eh..?
and uk kiwi…(have you been there for a while ..old cap…’complerte bollocks’ is a very pip-pip sorta admonition..eh..?)
anyway..i don’t thinkanyone is advocating everyone have a belching deisel generator thumping away in their back yards..eh..?
i think we are thinking about trying a bit harder than that ..eh..?
anyway…cucumber sandwiches anyone..?..they are dashed good..!
phil(whoar.co.nz
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The efficiency of something like a whispergen is a lot less than that of a larger generation plant in terms of electricity production, and the time relocation of heat generated, particularly if it is used to generate electricity in the summer, is going to cost somewhat as well, if nothing else in terms of space used.
Large thermal plants and small hit the carnot limit and have to respect it. With more engineering resources a large plant can crowd the limits of the materials more effectively but the limit remains. That gives it one advantage and the maintenance story is another. The additional fuel used could be better used being burned solely for heat when necessary.
If it is a diesel generator instead the ratio goes down to about 4/3 and after line losses perhaps the advantage is only 10% for the local generator. The co-generator might have an advantage in winter… and I LIKE whispergen. Damned clever. No cigar yet.
For wind and solar, by all means, but co-generation by burning fuel is a net loser in most cases in much of our climate.
In other words, the efficiencies of scale are important to engineering a solution as well. Putting up local wind power is good. There are limits to how large a windmill can be built. Dispersal of energy production however, is simply not always a good thing.
respectfully
BJ
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What BJ said.
And ok, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful to Christiaan but that is pretty much what he is advocating. The comment about “a diverse range of systems, from family size up to, say, 100 000 people” does not take into account the needs of a successful modern economy- 24/7 electricity. If you get around this by building extra backups to cover the time when microgeneration is not working, then you simply spend a vast amount of money on idle capacity as well as the huge cost of the microgeneration. Stuey- it is simple logic- if you have a wind turbine, the utilization factor is something like 40% max. You also need backup power to cover the time when the wind is not blowing. If you are building backup power stations which will just sit idle 40% of the time then why build the wind turbine at all?
It is easy to imagine a house with a windmill, solar panel, rainwater tank and garden. But not everyone has the means, ability or space to do these things. If you also want the government to pay for it, which is the usual green demand, that is a gross misallocation of public resources.
It makes much more economic sense to centralise things as you get far, far more bang for your buck, plus a higher quality of life for all citizens rather than just for the nu-greens with 10-acre blocks. If they can afford 10-acre blocks they can afford to pay for the solar panels themselves!
The only problem is when the centralised systems get sold off by dodgy governments…
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And phil u, old chap, pip pip indeed!
Have you got a link for that 1.5km turbine? Sounds very cool. If they can get that utilisation factor up that is great.
And yes cucumber sandwiches are fab.
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uk..the link is in the first comment on this thread…
there is some very cool stuff there…
and as for cucumber sanwichs (shudder!)..
nowhere near as good as marmite and avo..?..eh..?
you’ve been away too long mate…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Actually these Thorium reactors are only a partial solution.
The real development to Nuclear Energy was made with the invention of the “Integral Fast Reator” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor )
I used to be totally anti-nuclear. I grew up across the water from the Sellafield plant, and while at school I measured the background radiation at local beaches being over 10 times the average.
But I realise now that I am anti-nuclear waste, not anti-nuclear power.
The IFR gets rid of a lot of the issues surrounding conventional fission reactors:
- The waste again does not contain the long-lived transuranics
- Low-grade uranium, and even weapon’s grade plutonium can be used as fuel. It can even use the waste from conventional reactors as fuel!
- It is highly efficient, getting 99.5% of the energy from the fuel instead of the 1% of conventional reactors
- If the nuclear reaction gets too hot (loss of coolant) then the reaction simply stops. No meltdown.
Hopefully we can get past the original fears about nuclear power and look forward to cleaner electricity.
By the way, someone asked why New Zealand would need Nuclear power. Well, we may not use much electricty now, but in a post-Peak Oil world when we are powering virtually all of our transport with electricity (electric cars, electrified rail, etc), then we are going to need a hulluva lot more. And only 55% of our electricity is from renewables right now.
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Bjchip: The efficiency of something like a whispergen is a lot less than that of a larger generation plant in terms of electricity production
Absolutely, but, the whispergen is no different to any other small CHP plant; you buy it for the heat output, which is equal to that of a conventional boiler, using the same amount of gas, but you get some electricity as a free gift.
But then they invented condensing boilers, which convert over 90% of heat input to heat output, and the case for domestic CHP just vanished.
And of course, all of this is acedemic, as NZ is not well served for gas…
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1) I’m not sensitive, I’m trying to keep frogblog from sliding into worse personal attacks.
2) Yes large plant have economies of scale, but isn’t transport of electricity notoriously inefficient, giving an avantage to distributed and a disadvantage to centralised?
3) It is possible to store windpower, in batteries or by pumping water uphill. So the 40% issue is not relevant. Yes the wind doesn’t blow all the time, but you just have to build more turbines so you produce more electricity than you need so you can save some for when the wind is not blowing.
4) UK kiwi, you make an absolute statement without reference, and then your justification is … a) it’s just “logic” … right yes, like I said – that absolute statement was your own theory and b) you cite BJs post as backup, but his post says “Putting up local wind power is good.”.
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Yeah, what you said Stuey. uk_kiwi’s logic fails to take into account local storage of energy, including up and coming technologies, such as converting renewable energy into and storing as hydrogen.
In any case uk_kiwi doesn’t actually address my argument—which was a political one—that “the more locally we are able to produce our own energy the far more sustainable a future I see ahead of us,” because centralisation (especially in our hierachical society) leads to a few people having disproportionate say (anti-green by definition).
Any inefficiencies (purported but unsubstantiated by uk_kiwi) inherent in the localisation of energy collection, that outweigh the political advantages of energy independence, are already addressed in my argument, by the word “able.”
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…oh yeah and not only local storage but feeding back into a network.
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Speaking as a South Islander, hydro and wind go well together. When the wind blows, lake storage can be saved.
… and speaking as a Green, an urgent and ongoing task for everyone is the constant monitoring of, and reduction in, the amount of electricity needed/used in all situations.
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UK-Kiwi… something I pointed out was that solar and wind power are actually useful in the small-scale… with the corollary that they vastly reduce the requirements for large scale plants if they are used wisely… and that climate affects the co-gen efficiency and economy.
You actually have to have a use for the heat for it to be useful and there is no way not to lose efficiency if you try to store energy. None. That’s a fundamental of thermodynamics.
The broader point is that there is a place for ALL forms of generation, large and small, and in the concentration of people into cities (saving transport costs) we incur an energy density problem that the small personal generators can’t handle well… in those cities. Engineering a good solution for the nation is NOT a matter of advocating a single answer. It is a matter of balancing the needs and the capabilities of all the technologies available. Nuclear is one of those technologies, and pebble bed and thorium based solutions MIGHT be part of the answer we finally adopt.
This government has shown us exactly how serious it isn’t, and the Nats would be far worse… but we knew that going in. If we go reasonable we go into government… if we go ballistic, we just go.
respectfully
BJ
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Stuey
1) Fair enough. To their credit, the greens have kept out of the recent schoolyard shennanigans in parliament…
2) Losses in transmission are usually only 5-10% (Wikipedia has 7.4% for the UK which is probably comparable to NZ). This can be alleviated by building power stations closer to load centres where possible, especially peak load stations. This also reduces the need for transmission lines.
3)Batteries and/or hydrogen storage are woefully inefficient (much greater than 5-10%) and cannot be used large scale at any reasonable cost with current technology.
As for building extra turbines, Denmark has found that even with geographically diverse turbines, they had to keep all their thermal plants running just to maintain security of supply. While NZ may be well suited to some wind power as it is complementary to Hydro, the max possible would seem to be about 20%, and that’s if you can get the turbines- prices are sky-high because of global demand.
NZ however has a lot of geothermal energy still to be captured, plus project Aqua, plus efficiency upgrades to existing stations.
eredwen- while conservation of electricity is a noble goal, we live in a growth oriented society with thousands of new people, houses, offices every year. No efficiency increase will cancel that out- we simply need to build more power stations.
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Stuey, it is possible to store wind power, but there’s no need really. Pumping water into the dams is a much less efficient option than simply using less of the dam at the times when the wind option is generating heaps – same net effect without all the wastage. Our dams basically are huge batteries.
I think nuclear power can be green but may still not be appropriate for NZ. We have geography that really lends itself to hydro.
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BJ
I respectfully disagree. Society is best served by getting the most reliable electricity generation for the least cost. Microgeneration is a neat thing to have if you have a ten-acre block, but there is no way that the government should pay for it, or force power price rises to the poorest people to pay for it.
While there may be scope for small scale town or city size generation, this already happens through the national power grid, with much more reliability and fault-tolerance.
The Danish experience has shown that even macrogeneration of renewables did not reduce the need for baseload. Of course there is no silver bullet, but microgeneration is certainly not it IMHO.
Personally I like the Soviet answer- use the waste heat from reactors to heat the houses and provide hot water. A shame that can’t be done here with thermal plants.
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Society is best served by getting the most reliable electricity generation for the least cost … huh? Did I say something that this is somehow supposed to disagree with? I am re-reading my post and I still don’t understand how this is a “disagreement”. I may reckon costs differently from the way you do, but that isn’t apparent from anything else here… but the next line of yours however, holds a clew…
there is no way that the government should pay for it
Government should NOT pay for preparing for the future, or prepare for the future? Society should NOT undertake to manage its infrastructure and demands at the national level?
If there’s a disagreement it is apparently, in this area.
respectfully
BJ
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Sorry, I should have stated what I disagreed with
I don’t believe that “solar and wind power are actually useful in the small-scale… with the corollary that they vastly reduce the requirements for large scale plants if they are used wisely…”
They seem to neither reduce the need for large scale plants, nor produce useful amounts of electricity.
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Thorium, waste disposal issues, weapons grade byproducts or whatever, I think Jeanette hit the nail on the head re nuclear power in New Zealand in her recent media release:
“The main reason nuclear power would specifically not work in New Zealand is that nuclear plants generate single, large â€bundles’ of energy. They are not subdivided into several units like our Huntly power station, where if one unit goes down the others keep operating.
New Zealand’s electricity system has to be able to back up its largest unit in case it goes out of service and these reserve turbines must be already spinning at the cut-off point if blackouts are to be avoided. Nuclear shutdowns, and they happen frequently, would remove 1200 megawatts without warning, compared at a large gas station of 400MW or 250MW at one of the four Huntly units. A single nuclear plant would thus risk security of supply because the NZ system cannot provide instant back up at any reasonable cost.
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Can nuclear power be green? Oath it can. We need about a 20 year respite from CO2 emissions to prevent runaway global warming before we get controlled nuclear fusion up and running. Then we won’t need to worry about the nuclear waste dumps we’ll have created. As well as almost-free electricity, fusion will give us thermonuclear-temperature plasma torches that can break down radioactive waste into stable elements. Our descendents in 12 000 CE won’t have any radioactive waste dumps to worry about.
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Thorium reactors look like an excellent conversion option for all the existing nuclear plants, and I’d guess it’s likely to b retro-fitted to them in coming decades.
Building new nuclear plants, even relatively clean and safe thorium ones, is going to be problematic, because of the public perception of nuclear, and because of the inertia of the nuclear industrial complex. In France, for example, they have just broken ground on the pilot plant for the new generation of PWR (uranium) reactors, which they want to roll out by the dozen all over the world. The design is somewhat safer but not fundamentally different from existing plants, and the fuel cycle is the same. We (French greens) will fight them tooth and nail, it’ll be a crucial issue for next year’s elections…
… but if they were thorium reactors, I’d support them.
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Don’t forget, folks, there are major cost breakthroughs in solar electric systems which are going into production in the next year or two.
Photovoltaic panels which don’t require silicon will be cheap enough (within the next couple of years) to compete with coal or gas generation. In NZ, they could be rolled out pretty quickly in a decentralized way (probably wouldn’t even need subsidies, just a bit of a tax incentive to install panels on your roof) and could quickly make a significant contribution to daytime peak loads. NZ has so much hydro that it’s relatively easy to balance the load of both solar and wind.
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Good ideas Alistair!
What we currently use electricity for, and how we could do things differently are a very important part of any serious discusion on this topic.
And good ideas Ben Wilson!
… and there is a whole prospect of wave and current power (from the sea) and small scale … and …
We also need to discuss how much electricity we each use and for what …
for example: by simple changes in the way we do things, my monthly bill now averages out at around $50. (down from about $90). Most of this is by remebering some of the things that my parents and my grandmother did, and why, and adapting that to suit. We have yet to install solar panels, and then there is the future prospect of the development of small wind turbines … and water wheels and …
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To carry on … multiply that percentage saving of one household by a million or so other homes, and it does make a difference. Then move on th our big buildings and our streets and … industry and commerce and hospitals and schools and … redesign, retrofitting and behaviour modification and …
In summary: rather than just starting with “think big” generation, and its distribution, work up the chain from the other end and see what can be saved, utilised differently, changed, etc.
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alistair: “We (French greens) will fight them tooth and nail, it’ll be a crucial issue for next year’s elections…” ensuring, no doubt, that the rest of the world will continue to burn coal for decades to come. Nice outcome.
Why be against a safe, proven design like the ones being proposed? Thorium reactors are probably at least 10-20 years away, and first generation ones will probably have a lot of problems, as in all engineering.
Also, with those solar panels you mention, they have been developing them for 30-odd years now and they are “always” one big breakthrough from being economic. And even if they are, what will power NZ at 5pm on a dark winters day? There will have to be backup power stations sitting idle for each watt of solar capacity installed.
If you are going to spend money it would be far better to buy solar hot water heating and better home insulation, well-proven technology that can actually reduce demand.
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uk_kiwi:
Solar panels would be a part of the mix along with other renewables (wind water etc). Electricity can be stored in batteries. Wiring systems (and meters to measure the flow/cost) can be two way (feeding into or out of the Grid).
Also direct solar panels on the roof can heat water and homes/buildings, thus reducing the amount of electricity needed … hence “5pm on a dark winter’s day” will hold no fears!
New buildings can be of “passive solar” design, built to absorb and retain the sun’s heat in winter (and to remain cool in summer) …
In our 1920’s house we are mindful of that future time now, with every modification we make.
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Photovoltaic cells are already cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels. I was born in 1948 so I can remember when Telstar, the transatlantic TV geostationary satellite was launched in 1962. PV cells were so expensive then that it was the only application where they were economic. Now you can buy garden lights for $2 each which incorporate them. Soon you’ll be able to buy amorphous silicon panels like wallpaper, get them cut to size, nail them to your roof, solder an electrode on top and underneath, hook them to an invertor and use the power and sell it to the grid.
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The central issues surrounding Thorium are in the well to wheel equivalancy. The cost of running nuclear is underpinned by ‘oil and expensive little men in white coats’. Neither of these lend subcritical reactors to scalability – they have to be big. An off the shelf Thorium based technology is a long way off… whereas climate change is creeping up.. current emmission rates suggest that we couldnt build Thorium into the carbon(less) economy in time and certianly not on current accounting models.
However.. even that is solvable (pulls out C&C harp)
There are other emerging technologies proving to be very efficient at reducing carbon signature from existing fossil sources while potentiating economical biodiverse feedstocks and could do so at a scale relevent to NZ needs. (ie: http://www.w2energy.com)
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UK_Kiwi – we simply disagree then. Solar and Wind DO work and CAN work in most of New Zealand (based on Area). They run into trouble when tasked with providing reliable power to Auckland and to a lesser extent, Wellington and Christchurch. Since I understand the engineering and the limitations for both current Nuclear Plants and Solar Panels, I am pretty sure of myself here.
I would be remiss however if I didn’t point out that Jeanette’s point about “large bundles” of power is a false objection. While it is true that the power plants are often built in pairs, they often share resources, waste pools and infrastructure costs. This allows them to back each other up. It makes them less economically attractive as well… which leads to my second point.
The “accident” problem… which isn’t NEARLY the problem that it is painted. The singular solution to this issue however is that while Nuclear Power can be safe, OR it can be profitable, IT CANNOT BE BOTH AT ONCE. This is an area where the profit motive is entirely inappropriate as a managing force, and where its betrayal of the nation could turn ugly.
Contrary to the assertion that the plants shut down frequently, the number of times a Nuke run by the US Navy has actually left a ship DIW (*dead in the water) is, given their numbers, really quite low. Relating to the previous point however, the nukes of the US Navy were run on a “cost no object” basis by a really unusual Admiral named Rickover.
This has to be considered with regard to engineering, not ideology.
respectfully
BJ
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Focus Fusion may be fraudulent (they’re asking for money). If it’s not, and it becomes production technology, it could be very attractive, in terms of being:
– cheap
– able to be small
– able to be decentralised
– relatively free from polution
http://focusfusion.org/log/
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UKkiwi:
“Why be against a safe, proven design like the ones being proposed?”
Yeah. Good question. It’s core doctrine, is the main answer. Plus the unsolved question of the waste.
Personally I’ve pretty much come to favour the idea of building new reactors in France (don’t tell my mates, they would non-violently crucify me!)
In the specific context of France, with a proven good safety record even with the older, unsafer models, nuclear safety isn’t a problem for me (UNLESS civilization breaks down eh.) The technology is under state control, which resolves to a certain extent the profit/safety equation that BJChip rightly posits. I’ve spent enough time with EDF engineers in nuclear power stations to convince me that they take security very seriously. Economy of scale is the main thing that makes it economically viable.
Only question, in the case of France : what are we building new reactors for? Most of the existing ones have 30 years at least in front of them, and we already have 80% nuclear electricity.
Convert everything else from oil to electricity is one answer, I suppose. And export a whole lot.
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it’s not a case of irregular sources of energy like wind requiring back-up capacity to also be built. the backup is already there – the idea of wind & solar is to reduce the load on the existing capacity.
even if photovoltaic cells are not competitive, solar home water heating is said to be able to save 30% of a household’s electricity bill & doesn’t require photovoltaic cells. if you own your house, why would you not do this?
that must also be a significant reduction in national electricity use.
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For those interested:
http://www.wind-hydrogen.com/concept_wind%20hydrogen.html
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Most probably redundant but I think we have to ask ourselves about how much energy we use. When a car is supplied to market 85 % of the energy it will use in it’s lifetime has been used to create it. So if you keep driving for ten years past it’s use by date, and it’s spewing heaps of carbon into the atmosphere and buckets or iron oxide flakes are falling off it, you are still being better at conserving energy. Buy a brand new electric car as soon as the old petrol driven one starts smoking and your just adding to the problem.
Energy consumption of products after sale is not really the issue even if we’ed like to think it is.
The problem is we keep buying things that won’t last and they’re all designed as ego gratification.
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Christiaan… I read up on fuel cells a while back and they are still miles away from being efficient sources of power. To the point where you’d be better off pumping compressed air into containers then using that to drive electric motors. Hydrogen/ oxygen from water is going to be many, many years away before we figure out a way to utilise it. Stands to reason really when one of the earth’s most abundant resources, water, is most abundant because the atoms that make it up are very strongly entwined.
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artyone, I’ve been reading up on fuel cells since I was a kid, and while the technology is still in development (particurlarly storage of fuel), so is the technology that this whole discussion is based on, so I don’t think it’s inappropritae to put it forward as a technology that is complimentary.
There is also a lot of research going into fuel storage for fuel cells, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a break through within the next 5 years.
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Christiaan-Artyone…
While I’d be surprised to find a breakthrough in the storage of H2, there’s a decent chance of getting light to break down the molecules rather than electricity. This is a bit more efficient and could become useful in time.
Storing hydrogen is however, a continuing and major techical difficulty. It’s not quite as bad as Helium, but it is bad, and a lot of people have worked on it for a long time and not come up with anything that really works well. However, latch a carbon onto it and it becomes easier to store, more energy dense, easier to burn, safer in general and easier to dispense.
The energy we put into building things that don’t last, the “consumerism” that this entails and the engineering that goes into it, is related to the cost of each of the things that goes into the product. Right now energy isn’t costed properly, and it hasn’t been for a long time. Human civilization can’t afford to set the price where it belongs cause it would kill half the population of the planet, and it can’t afford not to, because it will probably kill a similar percentage of our children.
respectfully
BJ
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The future achievements of developmental technology are impossible to predict. They may eventually fulfill the hope of clean, green, unlimited power, or they may not.
What if these dreams are ultimately unfulfilled?
Regardless of future, hoped-for technologies, we should always, at any given time, aim to be living within our ‘energy budget’.
By this I mean that at any given time, only a population of some particular limited size can be catered for by currently available ‘green’ power. If we don’t have enough ‘green’ power available, then we should seek to limit population growth until ‘green’ technology catches up.
This should limit our immigration and birthing policies. If we are not civilised enough to realise this, then we are destined to overpopulate and destroy the earth regardless of the technologies we develop. Including pie-in-the-sky Thorium reactors.
As well as limiting population to a sustainable level, it is important to prevent multi-story apartment blocks and commercial premises being built if they prevent incident solar radiation falling on neighbouring properties. How could we call ourselves green if we stop even a single property from having direct access to the solar and wind energy that would ordinarily hit that site?
Our government’s current policy of relying on population growth and immigration to sustain our economy is at odds with any realistic ‘green’ energy policy goals.
New Zealand is more likely to accept someone elses cheap ‘castoff’ mothballed old-technology nuclear reactor componentry, than to afford a brand new Thorium reactor, even if Thorium reactors should come to fruition at all.
If we regain control of our population growth (in stark contrast to most of the rest of the world) we will have an opportunity to keep NZ green. Otherwise no amount of hoping for clean nuclear power will be helpful if we fail to understand the concept of ‘energy budgeting’.
If we can marry high technology energy solutions, with down-to-earth population control, we can have the best of both worlds without pretending that clean nuclear power is just around the corner.
Ian
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