Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: set fair on 01/02/2021 19:13:01
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I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.
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I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.
Nuclear reactors spring to mind. The fission process generates energy regardless of seasonal variations.
And even when the reactor is "switched off", so to speak, the uranium fuel within it stores its latent energy for millions of years.
A perfect energy source. Harmless until activated. Then providing the equivalent energy of millions of tons of coal and oil. Without a carbon footprint.
Why aren't we building nuclear reactors? Instead of windmills. Don't you feel these modern windmills represent a deplorable regression into the 15th Century, when windmills were all they had.
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I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.
Nuclear reactors spring to mind. The fission process generates energy regardless of seasonal variations.
And even when the reactor is "switched off", so to speak, the uranium fuel within it stores its latent energy for millions of years.
A perfect energy source. Harmless until activated. Then providing the equivalent energy of millions of tons of coal and oil. Without a carbon footprint.
Why aren't we building nuclear reactors? Instead of windmills. Don't you feel these modern windmills represent a deplorable regression into the 15th Century, when windmills were all they had.
So, what's your plan to deal with radioactive waste?
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I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.
Nuclear reactors spring to mind. The fission process generates energy regardless of seasonal variations.
And even when the reactor is "switched off", so to speak, the uranium fuel within it stores its latent energy for millions of years.
A perfect energy source. Harmless until activated. Then providing the equivalent energy of millions of tons of coal and oil. Without a carbon footprint.
Why aren't we building nuclear reactors? Instead of windmills. Don't you feel these modern windmills represent a deplorable regression into the 15th Century, when windmills were all they had.
So, what's your plan to deal with radioactive waste?
Put the waste into ships, sail them into the North Pacific, then throw the waste overboard into the Mariana Trench.
This Trench is over ten miles deep under the Ocean. Ten miles of water would provide an adequate shield against radioactive effects on the surface.
Problem solved.
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I've always favored electrolytic decomposition of sea water. Hydrogen is an excellent fuel - clean burning and easy to handle. Oxygen is always useful even if you just dump it back into the atmosphere - it will get consumed when you burn the hydrogen! The sludge at the bottom of the cell contains just about every useful metal you can imagine and plenty of microplastic waste that would be better burned or buried.
In the bad old days, "town gas" was 50% hydrogen and powered pretty much everything domestic and industrial. Converting the gas grid to methane was remarkably painless, so reconversion to a hydrogen-based fuel shouldn't be a problem. Or it would be nice to use a bit more surplus electricity to convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide to methane and clean water - another useful material. Hydrogen as liquid or gas can be burned in a modified conventional internal combustion motor, saving 40,000,000 perfectly roadworthy vehicles from the scrap heap, or in a fuel cell to power electric vehicles with refuelling times and tank ranges similar to petrol (they are already doing it on a large scale in Orkney). Converting LPG power stations to native hydrogen will remove the UK's dependence on Russian gas and maintain the electricity supply when the wind isn't blowing.
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Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.
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Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.
Yes. The Germans were the first in this field, during WW2. Their synthetic oil refineries produced pure fuel, which was much better than the ground-contaminated oil from Romania.
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Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.
Splendid idea. Problem is that the ideal starting material is coal, and Margaret Thatcher destroyed practically all of the UK's coal stock - enough for the next 200 years. Next best is biowaste, but it's a horribly inefficient process because most of it is water. Biowaste to methane is OK if you don't mind wet methane.
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which was much better than the ground-contaminated oil from Romania.
What?
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Put the waste into ships, sail them into the North Pacific, then throw the waste overboard into the Mariana Trench.
This Trench is over ten miles deep under the Ocean. Ten miles of water would provide an adequate shield against radioactive effects on the surface.
Problem solved.
Thanks.
Next candidate please.
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Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.
Splendid idea. Problem is that the ideal starting material is coal, and Margaret Thatcher destroyed practically all of the UK's coal stock - enough for the next 200 years. Next best is biowaste, but it's a horribly inefficient process because most of it is water. Biowaste to methane is OK if you don't mind wet methane.
Nope that was during ww2, with the nazis,......, and hitler. You can synthesise petroleum from air
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20003650
Ethanol is also a good contender, anything liquid, easy to transport, in pipes for example, and store, in an open container.
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You can synthesise petroleum from air
You always could- typically, you started by growing plants, burying them and then waiting.
The new process is less efficient.
It is, in fact, absurdly inefficient.
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Nope that was during ww2, with the nazis,......, and hitler. You can synthesise petroleum from air
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20003650
Ethanol is also a good contender, anything liquid, easy to transport, in pipes for example, and store, in an open container.
Baffled by your enthusiasm for Nazism, but they certainly did indeed synthesise petrol from coal. I wouldn't go so far as to accuse Margaret Thatcher of being a Nazi (or indeed any kind of socialist) nor do I think the Luftwaffe destroyed many UK coal mines, so (as often) I am mystified by your sentence.
There was some enthusiasm for bioethanol in Brazil but it is a surprisingly unfriendly fuel with a poor energy density, a proclivity for dissolving the artificial rubber seals in conventional engine fuel systems, an annoying habit of absorbing atmospheric water, and a prodigious thirst for maize as a feedstock, which requires that swathes of rainforest be flattened and the starving hordes be rounded up and shot so that the crop can be turned into fuel instead of human or animal food. Not sure of the current status of "biodiesel" in the UK, which can contain 5 - 10% ethanol, but there is a stark warning on many filler caps NOT BIO because it doesn't lubricate the injector pump properly. That said, I have a friend whose company takes the inedible part of the crop and ferments it into various other agricultural fuels and lubricants.
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Nope that was during ww2, with the nazis,......, and hitler. You can synthesise petroleum from air
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20003650
Ethanol is also a good contender, anything liquid, easy to transport, in pipes for example, and store, in an open container.
Baffled by your enthusiasm for Nazism, but they certainly did indeed synthesise petrol from coal. I wouldn't go so far as to accuse Margaret Thatcher of being a Nazi (or indeed any kind of socialist) nor do I think the Luftwaffe destroyed many UK coal mines, so (as often) I am mystified by your sentence.
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Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.
Yes. The Germans were the first in this field, during WW2. Their synthetic oil refineries produced pure fuel, which was much better than the ground-contaminated oil from Romania.
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You need an anaerobic digester. And some livestock. Waste collection system. And a methane pump/compressor and tanks. Maybe some odorant. And some fields for residue.
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Here's a famous case
https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/chicken-manure-car-fuel-zmaz71jazgoe
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Apropos nuclear power, my father worked for the then Central Electricity Generating Board at the time when nuclear power generation was being considered for commercialisation. His summary, after several weeks of lectures and presentations, was "a very complicated way of boiling water". Years later I met my future father-in-law, also an electrical engineer, working for a nuclear reactor manufacturer. He made the same comment.
Whilst the energy density of nuclear fuels looks very attractive for specific applications such as space probes (low power, high reliability, long life requirement) and ships (weight of personnel shielding is just viable) it sadly hasn't proved practical for the most critical of commercial uses, as aviation fuel, and waste disposal is becoming a political and practical problem. Controlled fusion has been "10 years away" since 1950. It seems intuitively obvious that we should use the free fusion reactor in the sky to produce liquid and gas fuels that we have found convenient and practical complements to electricity (and eminently simple means of boiling water to make electricity) since cave dwellers made oil lamps.
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It seems intuitively obvious that we should use the free fusion reactor in the sky
I completely agree. Doesn't it seem strange that we humans are wondering where to get energy from.
Shall we get it from coal, or oil, or uranium, or waves or tides or windmills.
When all the time - the answer is literally staring us in the face. Every day - we see the Sun rise.
What is the Sun? It's a ready-made nuclear-fusion reactor. Containing enough hydrogen fuel to give us all the energy we'll ever need for 5 billion years.
And it's there - in our sky - at a safe distance of 93,000,000 miles. At that distance, it doesn't harm us by nuclear radiation. It's a constant free, safe supply of light and warmth - there all the time for us.
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It seems intuitively obvious that we should use the free fusion reactor in the sky
I completely agree. Doesn't it seem strange that we humans are wondering where to get energy from.
Shall we get it from coal, or oil, or uranium, or waves or tides or windmills.
When all the time - the answer is literally staring us in the face. Every day - we see the Sun rise.
What is the Sun? It's a ready-made nuclear-fusion reactor. Containing enough hydrogen fuel to give us all the energy we'll ever need for 5 billion years.
And it's there - in our sky - at a safe distance of 93,000,000 miles. At that distance, it doesn't harm us by nuclear radiation. It's a constant free, safe supply of light and warmth - there all the time for us.
We could, but the trouble is that we would need to harness it in some way, by either solar panels or wind turbines. This gives us a problem because the sun and wind are not constant, how would we get round that? .
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That was the original question, and I'm convinced that hydrogen and synthetic liquid fuel is the answer.
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That was the original question,
Well done Alan, I wondered whether the thread estrangement would be apparent.
I'm convinced that hydrogen and synthetic liquid fuel is the answer.
How about 2 differing sorts of liquid we could mix together to prevent explosion, similar to the precursors they now use in explosives due to it being so much safer. It would be awfully convenient if planes didn't burst into flames after a bad landing, or Ford Pinto for frying the driver
https://www.tortmuseum.org/ford-pinto/#:~:text=The%20Pinto%2C%20a%20subcompact%20car,production%20and%20onto%20the%20market.
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Stories of liquid rocket research disasters are horrifying. Any reasonably conventional approach requires a fuel and an oxidant and for low-altitude power we use ambient air as the oxidant to save having to carry liquid oxygen or hydrogen peroxide around. So what you are looking for is two components that themselves don't oxidise but combine spontaneously to make an oxidisable compound. That is way outside any chemistry I've come across.
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This whole thing reminds me of a comment by Arthur C Clarke. Stone Age people worried about being cold in their beds at night. When their beds were on top of a coalfield.
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Stories of liquid rocket research disasters are horrifying. Any reasonably conventional approach requires a fuel and an oxidant and for low-altitude power we use ambient air as the oxidant to save having to carry liquid oxygen or hydrogen peroxide around. So what you are looking for is two components that themselves don't oxidise but combine spontaneously to make an oxidisable compound. That is way outside any chemistry I've come across.
Well, I know the chemistry well enough but I don't think it's the first thing to consider here.
Perhaps Alan has some information on how well segregated things tend to stay when a plane runs out of control.
What happens when the plane crashes and the two precursor chemicals mix?
Given that it's pointless, will everyone just take my word for it that the "two precursors that mix to give a fuel" idea isn't going to work.
It's not really chemistry; it's physics.
Fuel represents stored energy.
If you get it from somewhere then that thing (or pair of things) must contain the stored energy (in order to provide it to the fuel)
And anything that stores enough energy to either fuel a plane, or to produce the fuel for a plane is going to be bad news when the plan crashes.
Same problem whether it's kerosene, batteries or uranium.
Stored energy trashes things if it escapes.
(Any number of model plane builders will vouch for the fact that even a stretched rubber band will demonstrate this issue).
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Rubber bands in model aircraft, worked very well. Without lubricating oil. The oil only made your hands get slimy.
The key thing in a model aircraft was: build a strong fuselage. To contain the released energy of the band.
Until the energy was successfully transmitted through the fuselage. To the twin-bladed yellow plastic propellor, at the front.
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To the twin-bladed yellow plastic propellor, at the front.
Did you just propose a toast?
Anyway, if you overwound it and the band snapped, the stored energy would certainly trash the doped tissue and probably some of the balsa.
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Let's toast to KeilKraft!
Their balsa wood kits were a very great pleasure. Also Airfix. Their plastic kits were enjoyable to glue together.
Without sniffing the polystyrene tubes of cement.
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There is, of course, another important form of stored energy in aircraft design.
Crashing a glider is a bad move.
The gravitational potential energy and/ or kinetic energy (often- so I understand- derived from solar energy- though Alan thinks it's because the world is slowing down in a way that, if it was, Stonehenge wouldn't be lined up at the solstice) are also able to cause damage.
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Perhaps Stonehenge is a key to the future.
Suppose its stones were re-arranged. To take account of changes in the Ecliptic, arising from Precession, and other terrestrial and stellar motions since Stonehenge was built.
Could the stones have value in future observational predictions
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Well, I know the chemistry well enough
Do tell, BC. The requirement is for two materials that don't oxidise, but combine very rapidly to form a product that does. Nothing in my textbooks.
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Attack BC! Go on -do it. We like to see the gods contend.
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Well, I know the chemistry well enough
Do tell, BC. The requirement is for two materials that don't oxidise, but combine very rapidly to form a product that does. Nothing in my textbooks.
No problem.
I know the chemistry well enough to be able to tell you that two such materials do not (in my fairly considerable knowledge) exist.
More importantly, they can't (see my previous post),
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In favour of hydrogen generation, when wind and solar are producing more than demand, is that theenergy loss could be offset by
1) In the winter (when your converting it back to electricity) the inneficiency is down to some of the energy is lost to heat which could be used as heat.
2) Converting it back to electricity could use air rather than oxygen - so the oxygen couuld be sold, improving the economics of the process.
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Absolutely agree, BC, but your reply #23 was a bit Delphic!
You can incorporate kerosene or gasoline in a gel so it won't spread so far if you split the tank, but then you have to un-gel it to get the plane to fly (more to go wrong) and the result of bending a plane full of napalm isn't necessarily better than one full of volatile liquid. Best option is to call ahead for a foam carpet and crash on a licensed airport.
I heard a controller explaining why he resigned: "Watching a departure one morning I said 'stop stop stop/ fire port engine/ shut down and evacuate right/ fire truck is moving/ other ground traffic stop stop stop / inbound traffic stand by' and realised my pulse rate had not changed."
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1) In the winter (when your converting it back to electricity) the inneficiency is down to some of the energy is lost to heat which could be used as heat.
Battersea power station (1929) fed waste heat across the Thames to a block of flats. It's pretty standard in Sweden for small local stations to burn all sorts of waste material and supply hot water to the nearest village.
However about 30% of UK energy use is for heating of one kind or another, so the most efficient use of hydrogen is directly piped to the home or factory, using the existing gas grid.
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However about 30% of UK energy use is for heating of one kind or another, so the most efficient use of hydrogen is directly piped to the home or factory, using the existing gas grid.
People are working on it.
https://hydeploy.co.uk/
"Watching a departure one morning I said 'stop stop stop/ fire port engine/ shut down and evacuate right/ fire truck is moving/ other ground traffic stop stop stop / inbound traffic stand by' and realised my pulse rate had not changed."
Though I can see his point, I'd sooner have him than Mr "OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!OhMyGod!".
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How about just pressurised inert gas as in air tools. We could extract the heat under compression for our homes and then power our houses with it. It is problematic because it is pressured, but isn't anywhere as problematic as flammable gas.
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I love air tools. The power/weight ratio of the end tool is around twice that of an electrical equivalent and they are pretty well idiotproof - very resilient to impact or being dropped in a puddle. Unharmed by stalling, and they don't overheat. And remarkably cheap. But the connection to the power source is necessarily heavy (it has to sustain 200 psi to ensure the safety valve blows before the pipe ruptures) and the whole system is extraordinarily inefficient: you need 5 to 7 times the end tool power to drive the compressor for an average garage installation. Domestic gas pressure is about 0.3 psi and a quarter-inch pipe will deliver 10 horsepower, with virtually no transmission loss.
Flammable gas isn't "problematic". Half the houses in the UK use it for heating and cooking every day, and it generates half of our electricity already.
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I love air tools. The power/weight ratio of the end tool is around twice that of an electrical equivalent and they are pretty well idiotproof - very resilient to impact or being dropped in a puddle. Unharmed by stalling, and they don't overheat. And remarkably cheap. But the connection to the power source is necessarily heavy (it has to sustain 200 psi to ensure the safety valve blows before the pipe ruptures) and the whole system is extraordinarily inefficient: you need 5 to 7 times the end tool power to drive the compressor for an average garage installation. Domestic gas pressure is about 0.3 psi and a quarter-inch pipe will deliver 10 horsepower, with virtually no transmission loss.
Flammable gas isn't "problematic". Half the houses in the UK use it for heating and cooking every day, and it generates half of our electricity already.
I would say it is Alan, any fool can go down the filling station and burn some liquid atmosphere heater, but to work on gas you have to be registered and have a fair amount of test kit, not mentioning the criminal liability that goes with it. I
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How about just pressurised inert gas as in air tools.
How about not suffocating people?
How about not going to the trouble of getting some inert gas?
How about we turn the clock back a bit further?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_power_network
to work on gas you have to be registered and have a fair amount of test kit, not mentioning the criminal liability that goes with it
Thank you for pointing out the (existing) solutions to the problems which you highlighted.
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You need a certificate to undertake house wiring too.
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You need a certificate to undertake house wiring too.
Yes and you can be criminally prosecuted but you don't need anything to fill up with petrol? How many petrol explosions of cars in garages have you heard of in regards to levelling a house? It is problematic and therefore more expensive to handle.
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How many petrol explosions of cars in garages have you heard of
Typically 2000 a minute while the engine is idling.
Cars blow up a lot more often than houses do. Granted , if our houses moved about on wheels...
There's an old (1970s )story about a company trying to get people interested in using hydrogen as a fuel.
They got a tanker truck full of liquid hydrogen, drove it to the edge of a lake, parked it up and dumped the contents onto the water. Then they waited 5 minutes and walked up to it and lit a match.
Then they challenged the oil industry to do the same with petrol...
Let me know if you still think gas is dangerous, and I will see if I can find a hydrogen supplier.
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what do you think of solar systems?
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Great while the sun shines. You still need an energy store.
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Why not solve all our problems at the same time. The ultimate power supply. Free fuel. No waste products. Instant on-off, no storage needed.
Matter-anti-matter.
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Free fuel ! antimatter is the most expencive substance you can obtain.
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I don't think so. Anti-matter comes with every thunderstorm. It's just inverted regular matter. A large electrical potential, and accelerate the charge backwards.........gets anti-matter. Probably turn out to be the cheapest fuel ever.
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I don't think so. Anti-matter comes with every thunderstorm. It's just inverted regular matter. A large electrical potential, and accelerate the charge backwards.........gets anti-matter. Probably turn out to be the cheapest fuel ever.
You do not know what you are talking about.
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Great while the sun shines. You still need an energy store.
Someone should start a thread about that.
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I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.
Nuclear reactors spring to mind. The fission process generates energy regardless of seasonal variations.
And even when the reactor is "switched off", so to speak, the uranium fuel within it stores its latent energy for millions of years.
A perfect energy source. Harmless until activated. Then providing the equivalent energy of millions of tons of coal and oil. Without a carbon footprint.
Why aren't we building nuclear reactors? Instead of windmills. Don't you feel these modern windmills represent a deplorable regression into the 15th Century, when windmills were all they had.
It's a surprisingly terrible idea. While the cost per kWh of a nuclear reactor, run flat out, is getting close to the cost of other power sources, nuclear reactors cost about four times the cost per watt that natural gas power plants do.
That's problematic, because nuclear reactors which are used only seasonally end up costing about twice as much per kWh.
Or, put it another way, let's say that peak average daily demand is 50% higher than minimum daily demand. That would mean your electricity generation would be around 50% more expensive.
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Living in a state with wet winters and dry summers, I favor hydroelectric to compliment say solar and wind energy, and also for diurnal shifts.
Nature will naturally make rain and snow to refill the reservoirs.
When there is high energy production and low consumption, simply store the water. When there is high demand and low production, release the water.
Now, reservoirs aren't completely without environmental cost. Taking up large amounts of land, and changing the river environment.
Pulsing water out of dams may also not be desirable, although one can improve the appearance of flow with paired coupled dams, or even a series of dams.
They also can provide the benefit of flood control (floods may be good for the environment, but not for people), and recreational benefits. And in some cases making rivers navigable that weren't navigable in the past.
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Living in a state with wet winters and dry summers, I favor hydroelectric to compliment say solar and wind energy, and also for diurnal shifts.
Nature will naturally make rain and snow to refill the reservoirs.
When there is high energy production and low consumption, simply store the water. When there is high demand and low production, release the water.
Now, reservoirs aren't completely without environmental cost. Taking up large amounts of land, and changing the river environment.
Pulsing water out of dams may also not be desirable, although one can improve the appearance of flow with paired coupled dams, or even a series of dams.
They also can provide the benefit of flood control (floods may be good for the environment, but not for people), and recreational benefits. And in some cases making rivers navigable that weren't navigable in the past.
We cannot do hydro electric in this country without vast expense, we have not got the mountains or rivers as we are only a small island.
UK biggest Reservoir.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water
Where as the 3 gorges has a capacity 200 times greater. The advantage of having a river like the yangzee and a nice canyon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Reservoir_Region
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We cannot do hydro electric in this country without vast expense
Well, nothing is cheap these days, and Wales is technically another country but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
Which illustrates the point that, for energy storage, you don't need a huge reservoir.
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Depends on how much energy you want to store. Dinorwig stores about 9 GWh, enough to run the National Grid for about 10 - 15 minutes. The entire Scottish hydropower system can supply about 1.5GW and probably represents the economic limit for the UK as it is heavily subsidised.
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Depends on how much energy you want to store. Dinorwig stores about 9 GWh, enough to run the National Grid for about 10 - 15 minutes. The entire Scottish hydropower system can supply about 1.5GW and probably represents the economic limit for the UK as it is heavily subsidised.
'twas in reply to generation. But I do agree that this has possibilities for pumped storage as you don't have to rely on river flow or valley suitability.
It isn't the land area its the river flow and hydrostatic head. Dinorwig is a our 500m from top to bottom as I remember and and pumps it's water up there during lay times, during peak flow dinorwig is probably going through as much water as all of the rivers in the UK. can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol? The alps is a good example of scale and hydrostatic
head,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
This single dam was about the size of the uks biggest Kilder Water. In this example though the Dam was 250m high and the valley it was situated in was about 1km above the village it destroyed. That is a lot of extra power.
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can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol?
In a word, no. Thanks to the ice age, the highest point in the UK is one spiky peak less than 1500 m above sea level and we don't have many usefully floodable valleys that haven't already been exploited.
There's an awful lot of water in Kielder, but only just enough to generate 6 MW - say one intercity locomotive - because it's less than 200 m above sea level.
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can you think of any valleys in the UK with a height of 500m and a river big enough to fill the Reservoir to make it big enough to power Bristol?
In a word, no. Thanks to the ice age, the highest point in the UK is one spiky peak less than 1500 m above sea level and we don't have many usefully floodable valleys that haven't already been exploited.
There's an awful lot of water in Kielder, but only just enough to generate 6 MW - say one intercity locomotive - because it's less than 200 m above sea level.
And the drop in height in the generation is negligible, MGH alan. There are places you can get a good drop but the river is not up to much. The Dolgarrog dam in Wales is one place but the refill speed is pathetic, still it probably generates as much energy as kilder water. It used to power the aluminium works, but that now is an artificial surf centre. It would make quite a good energy store though. You could get alot of pumped storage as it's by a tidal river.
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Dolgarrog generated 27 MW at maximum capacity, enough for 5 intercity locomotives in principle, but rarely exceeded 25% of its rated output over a year, so could not be relied on for anything other than aluminum smelting (on a rainy day).