Will this be tomorrow's transportation?

[Redneck in training]

When driving from my house to the closets town that is about 12 miles away I see at least 1 dead animal but usually several. At spring when young are born the number of dead animals is significantly greater. Let's be conservative in our estimate and say there is a dead animal every 25 miles every day. US highway system is about 250000 miles. That is 10000 animals killed by cars every day. What should we do about that?

 

[dickfoster]

If what you say will happen then electric cars will become mainstream. Hydrocarbons will be used to make something more useful than fuel.

There are many uses for petroleum besides just burning it up to yield heat. Plastics, fertilizer, all sorts of other chemicals but all of that stuff is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what we burn for energy in cars, planes and trains or power plants. My guess is that transportation could indeed be powered with electric motors but more likely with fuel cells supplying the electricity with hydrogen supplying the fuel cell. If you simply just burn hydrogen or use it in a fuel cell, either way the exhaust is pure water. With a fuel cell you get the range problem licked and it's a more direct source from the fuel to the motive force without needing to haul batteries with limited storage around while adding in two unnecessary steps of energy conversion and the associated loss. I'm actually a fan of electrically driven cars but first we need a reasonable source for the electricity to run them and what we do today with batteries just isn't the way. That may be OK for a kids toy but not for serious transportation where you're trying to haul large loads over long distances at reasonable speeds.

 

[dickfoster]

I liked TBN for being fairly a-political, there's no need for that kinda stuff here. If you've got technical arguments I'm all for hashing it out.

For what it's worth(from your other post) I think salt based breeder reactors are something that should be looked at. I think designs that fail-safe and can be engineered based off of operational learning over the last 100 years have lots of potential, however they can still be difficult to implement at a local level.

Obviously, I don't think you've looked into it deep enough or else you simply don't understand so I suggest you dig a little deeper. We've done more than take a look at it. MSRs were built, run and tested back in the 60s'. They ran fail safe and they are scaleable. I posted a link to a document dealing with various nuclear fuels and different reactor designs along with all the advantages and disadvantages of each and the progress that has been accomplished to date. Did you even look at it? My guess is no.

As for the rest, not worthy of a reply except for just deal with it. Or perhaps a coloring book and some crayons may help you cope. The constant harping by technical ignoramuses on nonsensical solutions and rationalizing why something works when a seventh grade science student can explain why it doesn't is getting boring. I for one am tired of wasting time and money and paying for all the nonsense when real solutions exist. This has become an issue that is not really about energy any longer, it's now mostly about politics and it's costing all of us too much. Stupid stuff like a carbon tax isn't going to do anything for us. It's time to get serious and quit listening to lawyers and politicians prattle on about stuff they know nothing about and put our scientists and engineers to work and get something worthwhile accomplished.

This nation put men on the moon and brought them back within ten years from a flat footed start and developed the atomic bomb from nothing but theoretical physics to dropping the first atomic weapon in roughly five short years. Two of them of different types actually while thermonuclear weapons came about eight years later. All they had were slide rules and the determination to get the job done. What I'm talking about here has already been done for the most part. Now all we have to do is quit piddling and fiddling around and just do it. If we had when we should have, there would be no energy problem today.

If anyone has specific questions regarding Thorium or how it can and would answer our needs in the near term and for the foreseeable future, there is a ton of information on tap that will lay it all out flat for you. All ya gotta do is look.

 

[dickfoster]

Hydrogen distribution would have to build its infrastructure over time, like the cel networks did with placing towers one by one. They'll have to compete with dino fuels for quite some time, and it'll surely take a while for gas and diesel vehicles to be emission tested off the roads altogether.

We're not all being closed-minded about green technology, but subsidies seem necessary until economy of scale can provide profit margins to those in the biz big time. Remember that just because a company is involved in 'green technology' doesn't mean it's a good investment. Some will fail despite the growing fervor and gov't help. ("Solyndra, report!")

As long as operating cost favors ICE over electric or hybrid options by a large enough margin a lot of us still won't 'pay the freight' just to 'go green'. I'm sure many of us will also die waiting for a pickup that will tow squat vs a puny commuter 'beer can' that's far from living up to our 'manly' demands. (Just sayin' ...)

Actually I think all you have to do to bring hydrogen into widespread use is to power the grid with enough cheap and clean energy and you could produce your own hydrogen to fuel your cars etc. from water. Most of us did the electrosys thing in our high school chemistry lab. Water and electricity goes inta while hydrogen and oxygen goes outta. Bottle the hydrogen and let the oxygen go into the atmosphere for later use. A fuel cell in your car sticks the two back together down the road somewhere and you get electricity and water back out. Neat huh?

 

[turnkey4099]

When driving from my house to the closets town that is about 12 miles away I see at least 1 dead animal but usually several. At spring when young are born the number of dead animals is significantly greater. Let's be conservative in our estimate and say there is a dead animal every 25 miles every day. US highway system is about 250000 miles. That is 10000 animals killed by cars every day. What should we do about that?

Set up the barbecue!

 

[Egon]

Smaller stand alone nuclear power plants ( fail safe type ) would really enhance a power grid. Reduce transmission losses and be more flexible for variable power demands. The energy produce may not be conducive to run prime movers that are independant but could be used to manufacture a portable fuel.

I am not knowledgeable about fuel supplies and the handling of spent fuel. If these are done in a proper manner that is friendly to the environment all would be well. It means the system should be under supervision of the sceintific community rather than the money makers.

 

[the old grind]

Actually I think all you have to do to bring hydrogen into widespread use is to power the grid (*) .. and you could produce your own hydrogen to fuel your cars etc. from water. Most of us did the electrolysis thing in our high school chemistry lab. .. Neat huh?

Smaller stand alone nuclear power plants .. would really enhance a power grid. Reduce transmission losses and be more flexible for variable power demands. The energy produce may not be conducive to run prime movers that are independant but could be used to manufacture a portable fuel. (ie: hydrogen)

... fuel supplies .. If these are done in a proper manner that is friendly to the environment all would be well. It means the system should be under supervision of the sceintific community rather than the money makers.

DF, there are guys on the net who seem to demonstrate that electrolysis produced by a cars alternator can keep an engine running, and it's entirely plausible ... as long as the water pump and alt are the only loads on the demo engine. :scratchchin: No one ever shows a car with AT in gear or being driven. btw, Energy exchanges have various inefficiencies, but basically I say you're dead-on about what could easily be done. (and w/MSRs )

Egon, what you said is how what DF said recently seems so logical. Hate to suggest states or municipalities as owners (politics as usual) but a new and more localized MSR grid could be gradually interspersed (by demand) within the existing one, all the while planned to replace the 'dirty' bits as they age-out or are 'voted' out of operation. That said, IMO your caveat is an 'inconvenient' revelation.

Rail diesels went from DC to 3-Ph with motors and controls decades ago, and for those not familiar electric motor trucks may be exchanged/serviced independently of engine or 'generator' work. Highway tractors could adopt similar motor/bogie systems (by axle wt, etc), use currently common VFD controls (plug & play?) with regen programmable per load. (full/empty)

Makers could build to axle cap, power, and/or use 'category' and truck stops could offer xx hour exchanges along with charging or H2. Goals could include reducing fleet/driver downtime and perhaps recovering some lost diesel employment with regional shops that service standardized (in format) assemblies.

Yeah, now it sounds like science fiction, and to anyone who shares my belly laughs at space ships who strafe w/o automatic targeting and 'space-soldiers' whose longevity often depends on the skill of their swordsmanship. Anyway, another pipe dream shared on the internet by a luddite (and 66) actually hoping to see some of this stuff on the road within his lifetime. (sorry)

 

[adventure bob]

But Trump is gonna put coal miners back to work...so not thinking clean is coming anytime soon.

 

[Redneck in training]

But Trump is gonna put coal miners back to work...so not thinking clean is coming anytime soon.

Coal is not coming back no matter what Trump would do. Coal is more or less dead. It is killed by natural gas just on cost/kWh basis. Combine cycle power plant are pushing toward 70% efficiency. What it means the NG would have to be about about twice as expensive (btu for btu) as coal to break even. Considering environmental impact and other factors coal is not coming back.

So called clean coal is actually workable idea in principle but no go on economical basis. The plant gasifies coal, generates CO2, nitrogen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is burned in gas turbine that powers a generator, CO2 is used for fracking (doesn't make underground water poisonous but makes it acidic) and the nitrogen is used to make ammonia fertilizer. The problem is that the plant cost way more than nuclear.

Mississippi Power Adds Month, $62 Million at Kemper Plant | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

The MS Power plant is only 500 MW and cost close to 7 billion while nuclear plant of similar size cost about 4 billion.

 

[MossRoad]

Coal will be back within 10 years as they realize the environmental issues fracking is causing. What's really going to happen is the natural gas industry will tank, all of the new NG plants will never give a return on investment, coal plants and mines that were mothballed or abandoned will cost big $$ to bring back on-line, and, as with EVERY re-tooling in the power industry, the costs will be passed on to the customer.