Solar power & Wind Power for residental use

[buickanddeere]

The be all end all to power the grid is of course fusion but until we can realize that a much more immediate and sane source of power for the grid would be fission but not the idiotic light water fission plants we have today. I'm talking about nuclear fission but LFTR based plants which run principally on thorium. We have lots of thorium and we can even use LFTR reactors to help rid us of some of the stockpiles of nuclear waste from the stupid light water reactors that we're stuck with today. Everyone would do well to bone up on it and start asking questions as to why we're not doing this. We've already developed the technology back in the late 50's and early 60s. It's a safer and much more sane source of fission power and we could replace the heat source in all existing fossil fueled power plants with a LFTR reactor almost instantly.
Like the gas pedal in your car or on your tractor it's a throttled reaction and doesn't run away like light water plants can so you can throttle up or back as needs arise or even walk away and it shuts itself down, not run away like a light water reactor running on uranium will. You can't produce weapons grade materials with it and the by products are much less with much shorter half lives, I'm talking 200 years instead of 10,000 years with uranium reactors and much less of it.
To learn more you can start here LFTRs in 5 minutes - Thorium Reactors - YouTube for a primer.
Then go here Liquid fluoride thorium reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia to learn more.
Then then proceed to here Thorium Energy Alliance Portal if it really interigues you.

I know the political and economic reasons the powers that are don't want it, nor do the people who are all wrapped up in idiotic wind and solar BS but if really solving today's energy problem concerns you, this seems to be the best bet for the foreseeable future.

Don't forget LFTR reactors have already been built and run so there are no new physics or anything complicated like developing fusion energy would be involved here. It's just politics and those holding us all hostage in the fossil fuel economy today.

I don't know why civilian plants tend to be light water . Perhaps it's the familiarity with military reactors and human nature not wanting to change.
A PHWR using heavy water has much higher neutron efficiency as there is not light water absorbing the neutrons. The PHWR also provides slow thermal neutrons .
A PHWR will operate for years on a load of fuel that won't even go critical in a PLWR.

 

[KennyG]

I don't know why civilian plants tend to be light water . Perhaps it's the familiarity with military reactors and human nature not wanting to change.
A PHWR using heavy water has much higher neutron efficiency as there is not light water absorbing the neutrons. The PHWR also provides slow thermal neutrons .
A PHWR will operate for years on a load of fuel that won't even go critical in a PLWR.

A higher neutron economy, not efficiency. You only need as many neutrons as you need. Heavy water reactors made sense when we thought that Uranium was going to be rare and enrichment was going to be expensive. Instead, both factors went the other way. The downside of heavy water reactors is the nuclear instability (positive reactivity coefficient) that requires more complex safety and control systems and the major cost of heavy water management, not to mention the maintenance complexity due to the tritium.

PHWR was an interesting idea, but I don't expect to ever see another one built.

 

[Egon]

Thanks again for the insight KennyG.

Smaller self contained nuclear generators would be nice if the design,handling and waste disposal/storage would be left to the knowledgable! They could be arranged/located for the grids benefit.

Unfortunetly "Cheap Power" , an existing infrastructure, policy guided by politics interfaced with profit production makes the reality a mere vision of what could be.

Needless to say I do not have sufficient knowledge to be confident in a vision.

I also doubt a few hours on YouTube would make me truly knowledgable!!

 

[truckdiagnostics]

Is it acceptable to price electricity out of the ability of the poor to pay for it by subsidizing wind and solar? For 98% Wind and solar is a religion for the wealthy righteous to prove how holy they are loving the "world". The other 2% make a fortune on the subsidized rates.

And there in lies the issue IMO. The self righteous are doing the same thing with the light bulb. We have to get rid of the incandescent bulb, it is hurting the environment, so now the incandescent and its replacement is expensive and that is if the poor can afford to spend the money to operate them. But that is ok, because we are taxing the rich, so we can give the subsides to the poor so they can pay for the high priced electricity and light bulbs. (doesn't make sense to me because the wrong one is picking the winners and losers) Here in the US anyway there is other examples of the same thing going on, using the light bulb as an example. Personally I don't care if they figure out how to generate electricity off cow farts, as long as those coming up with it do not pay for there development costs on the backs of the poor and middle class. We need to be good stewards of the earth, however in the same token we need to be kind to our fellow man. To think that man affects this and that diminishes the affect of what occurs naturally. If a large meteor hit the earth to day, arguing about, " Changing the environment and redistributing substances harmful to life forms is not acceptable either." would be kinda a mute point.

 

[dickfoster]

I don't know why civilian plants tend to be light water . Perhaps it's the familiarity with military reactors and human nature not wanting to change.
A PHWR using heavy water has much higher neutron efficiency as there is not light water absorbing the neutrons. The PHWR also provides slow thermal neutrons .
A PHWR will operate for years on a load of fuel that won't even go critical in a PLWR.

I know exactly why. The AEC wanted weapons grade material so that's what they pushed. The AEC is/was basically an extension of DOD. You simply can't get material for nuclear weapons from thorium. It's mostly all about politics and the economics of the same. It's a real live threat to the global fossil fuel camp including coal, gas and oil. Once you have a source of clean and cheap electric power to power the grid, even the environmentally disastrous and stupid electric cars start to make some kinda sense. Till then, those things are dumber than a box of rocks because they're running mostly on coal.

 

[dickfoster]

Not so well recognized is that cheap storage could even more important for nuclear. Right now, nuclear is limited to the minimum system load because of the need for nuclear to be baseloaded (100%, 24/7) to be economic because of the large capital cost/low fuel cost. With storage, a larger component of nuclear can be utilized. Because the wind power undependability is spread over a longer period of time than the predictable daily load cycles, storage may have greater value for nuclear.

Completely untrue if you use the right kind of fission to get your heat from nuclear. Look into thorium and LFTRs. That is a throtelled reaction like the throttle in your car. I don't think you'll ever realize any kind of cheap or sensible means of energy storage. Simple physics and the conversion loss is always going to be there working against it.
It's all right there, all anyone has to do is look.

 

[KennyG]

Completely untrue if you use the right kind of fission to get your heat from nuclear. Look into thorium and LFTRs. That is a throtelled reaction like the throttle in your car. I don't think you'll ever realize any kind of cheap or sensible means of energy storage. Simple physics and the conversion loss is always going to be there working against it.
It's all right there, all anyone has to do is look.

I think you misinterpreted my comment. It's not the ability to load follow, it's the economics. Modern light water reactors can cycle between 20% and 100% power over reasonably short periods of time and provide the load following function. However, any reactor design will suffer economically if it is forced to load follow. This is a characteristic of any source which has high capital and low fuel cost. The cost continues on the capital investment independent of how much power is generated. I'm not sure what the "tipping point" is on cost of storage vs. cost impact of load following, but it can be directly calculated. Storage may never be cheap enough to hit that point, but my guess is that if storage is cheap enough to support unsubsidized solar/wind, it will be more than cheap enough to supplement nuclear, independent of the reactor technology.

 

[dickfoster]

I think you misinterpreted my comment. It's not the ability to load follow, it's the economics. Modern light water reactors can cycle between 20% and 100% power over reasonably short periods of time and provide the load following function. However, any reactor design will suffer economically if it is forced to load follow. This is a characteristic of any source which has high capital and low fuel cost. The cost continues on the capital investment independent of how much power is generated. I'm not sure what the "tipping point" is on cost of storage vs. cost impact of load following, but it can be directly calculated. Storage may never be cheap enough to hit that point, but my guess is that if storage is cheap enough to support unsubsidized solar/wind, it will be more than cheap enough to supplement nuclear, independent of the reactor technology.

Well you don't have too much convincing to do for me on solar and wind. IMHO you never really recover the capital investment involved with those technologies so they have to reach into the taxpayer's pocket for subsidies.
I'd like to see a simple end to all subsidies of any kind. If it can't pay for itself, then there is really no need for it because people will pay what they have to for what they truly need. In the end analysis, subsidies are just another kind of socialism and socialism does NOT work over the long haul. We've had enough experiments already to prove that much. I don't mind paying taxes for what we need but I don't like paying for garbage and what other people want.

 

[houstonscott]

I started this thread to encourage solar power & wind power. I am stunned at so many negative comments. I am very encouraged by the positive comments on here. Seems this issue is viewed highly from a political point of view. I would hope that the world increased these forms of renewable energy sources, as to doing things that are not acceptable to the environment. Thanks for the 430 + posts ! Seems that this got people at least off the couch !!

Why did you feel a need to encourage others to use solar and wind, and do you now feel more enlightened and educated to the major short comings and environmental issues solar and wind are associated with and how fossil fuels and CO2 are not the boggy man you might have thought or believe before you started thread. Must have been a shocker for you to find out solar and wind are not realistically major energy producers or even renewal (what ever that means) and oil and gas are as renewable as any other known energy source. HS

 

[Redneck in training]

The thing is cost of electricity will go up regardless of solar or wind. It will go up especially if nuclear plants are build. I worked on many energy project over past 30 years. I don't remember single one without large cost overrun and delays. 30% or larger cost overrun is quite typical. I would predict that construction of nuclear plant will suffer 50% cost overrun even when they build them as cookie cutter. Then the utility will use that as excuse to rise rates.
My PV system would pay for itself in about 14 years without subsidy and without net metering. In fact our utility subsidizes geothermal or high efficiency heating by charging much lower rate for heating. Well unless you have alternative source of electricity. If you do they will take heating rate away and charge you full rate that is about 100% higher. If I would have net metering my system will pay for itself in less than three years. Assuming it lasts 20 years it should produce energy valued at about 81000 USD at today's retail rates.
So I am saying go ahead and start building clean coal, nuclear or combine cycle plants. Higher energy rates will bring my break even point just closer.