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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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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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… 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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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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For those interested:
http://www.wind-hydrogen.com/concept_wind%20hydrogen.html

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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, 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 ‘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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