[set fair (OP)]

I'm thinking big storage capacity, suitable for storing energy from the summer for the winter.

[charles1948]

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.

[Bored chemist]

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?

[charles1948]

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.

[alancalverd]

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. 

[Petrochemicals]

Petrol, synthesise petrol. Good to burn, easy to handle, cheaper to handle, safer than gas, more environmentally friendly than batteries, clean.

[charles1948]

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.

[alancalverd]

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.

[Bored chemist]

which was much better than the ground-contaminated oil from Romania.

What?

[Bored chemist]

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.

[Petrochemicals]

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.

[Bored chemist]

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.

[alancalverd]

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.

[Petrochemicals]

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.
.

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.

[Hayseed]

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.

[alancalverd]

Here's a famous case

https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/chicken-manure-car-fuel-zmaz71jazgoe

[alancalverd]

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.   

[charles1948]

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.

[Petrochemicals]

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? .

[alancalverd]

That was the original question, and I'm convinced that hydrogen and synthetic liquid fuel is the answer.