What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[StevenRB45]

Effectively changing to electricity as the main power source could allow us to be significantly more self sufficient than we are now.

Currently we have to keep the OPEC and Russia happy lest they turn off the tap off the tap at the other end. Coal, Oil and Gas are massively damaging to extract and at the moment most places with them are not ideologically aligned with ourselves at all...but we have to keep them on side.

You can generate electricity anywhere there is sunlight or wind or running water, you could go down a more localised generation route solar panels on every roof, used electric car batteries acting as power banks to store the energy until the night. Off shore wind, tidal, which obviously do have their own environmental impacts but you're looking at replacing burning a bunch of stuff that's been drilled out a of huge hole in the ground and transported half way round the world so perspective is always helpful.

This being the UK and the chances are we'll still have something ridiculous and expensive and long winded and over budget..because how would friends of government become rich if we didn't have that? But in terms of the possibilities going electric could mean being more self sufficient with energy rather than less.

I'm interested to see which way it goes but I don't necessarily think we need to break out the end of the world is nigh sandwich boards just yet.

 

[varesecrazy]

The concept of using car batteries as storage is good

But Im thinking they would be low on charge a great deal of the time..

Who controls the billing of the cars 'ebb and flow' of power?


I fully agree about green energy though..
I was an invester in a Low Carbon project
That supplies power to @550 houses through harnessed river power..

Just like wind turbines there are lots of times where its 'offline'..
Riverlevels driving most of its issues..
So 10,000 homes relying on a battery of them could be a little challenging

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

The concept of using car batteries as storage is good

But Im thinking they would be low on charge a great deal of the time..

Who controls the billing of the cars 'ebb and flow' of power?

I think the idea is to build banks of used car batteries when their performance falls below that being acceptable for use in cars - these could be quite significant installations. I think this is quite an elegant proposal.

I've also seen the proposal that, with your car being left plugged in all the time when not in use, the grid could pull power, a wee bit in each instance, from the car battery when needed to boost the public supply? That might not work too well for someone who is using their car to travel near the max mileage it's capable of to get to/from work every day?

 

[SB1500]

This was my courtesy car for 3 hours... it was 'good', but no flair or excitement at all. I suppose its a bit fun in corners but its nowhere near as fun as a Panda 169!

 

[DaveMcT]

EV car batteries are specced for fast charge rates and high power output at least for short bursts. They also dont like being 100% charged (lithium dendrites). All that limits the number of charge discharge cycles they can take before significant degradation kicks in.

The high cycle life of LiFePO4 makes them better for back up power. They are used in some cars but the capacity will be lower for the same physical size battery.

The nuclear option is still the best way to go. Sadly it won't happen in UK because our regulators are opaque at best and move at a glacial pace. They multiply the costs and timeline with no measurable effect on safety. Canada is doing good things with Moltex. They are using thermal stores to drive 1500 MW of peaker turbines from a 500MW reactor. They will also be using used "waste" nuclear fuel to fuel the reactor. No new mining and a the long term storage issue gets resolved.

 

[varesecrazy]

Nuclear cars.. it'll make hydrogen feel 'safe'

 

[DaveMcT]

Nuclear cars.. it'll make hydrogen feel 'safe'

But despite the well known accidents, Nuclear is actually the very safest power source we have. 100 people at the most were killed in the whole history of nuclear power. All of them at Chernobyl. Compare that to coal which kills a million people every year.

Nuclear is THE mosts efficient way to make hydrogen. The radiation and neutrons inside a water cooled reactor constantly split the water. A design could be made to do the job.

Today's PWRs use Recombiners to reform the O2 and H2 before an explosive mixture can build up. Fukushima exploded because they had no back up power so they could not stop gas bubbles developing and eventually exploding. Reactors that don't contain water don't have this problem.

The new 4th generation reactors (e.g. the British Moltex) using a chloride molten salt for heat transfer and a fuel salt in tubes are intrinsically safe.
Chloride salts are less corrosive than hot high pressure water. The corrosion rate (if any) is less that seen on today's PWR reactors.
The fuel tubes are vented so gases produced can escape. They massively pressurise traditional fuel tubes.
The reactor vessel runs at atmospheric pressure. Salt melts at about 400C and stays molten to about 1400C
There is no steam pressure vessel
There is no water to generate hydrogen
It cannot overheat, because the nuke reaction has a high negative temperature factor. The heat exchangers can be shut off at full load and it still won't over-heat. The reactor tank will get warmer but the power level drops to near zero. It is fundamentally unable to overheat. This feature can be used to allow the plant naturally follow the load demand.
The dangerous gasses produced by ruptured solid fuel reactors (caesium and iodine) never escape as gasses because they naturally become part of the fuel salt. The noble gasses are vented off and stored for a few days until they decay to background rad levels.
Decay heat is removed passively by air cooling which is always open.

Used fuel from PWRs has a half-life of 30,000 years. The waste from a Moltex has a half-life of 30 years. The used PWR fuel has had about 5% of its fissile energy removed. The other 95% is there for the taking. It's a fantastic energy resource that we are simply ignoring.

Ah but all this is pie in the sky it will never happen. Sadly in UK that's very true. Our nuke regulators are so opaque with that they want and so slow to do their stuff that costs double and even triple. Its said the white elephant going up in Somerset will cost £1.5 Billion for the plant plus £3 Billion for the regulatory processes. Regulations are massively important especially on something with so many ways to fail but UK has effectively killed its nuclear industry.
Moltex moved to Canada where things are happening. They expect to be online making power from (previously) waste fuel before 2030.

Elysium a US chloride salt reactor company are working to get the US regulations in place. USA operates a check box system specific to a reactor design. Quick and easy to repeat but slow to set up initially.
Elysium have a self regulating central reactor which can have up to six heat exchangers added. They can dispose of waste bomb material and they can even use depleted uranium for which there is no viable use.

 

[AndyRKett]

But despite the well known accidents, Nuclear is actually the very safest power source we have. 100 people at the most were killed in the whole history of nuclear power. All of them at Chernobyl. Compare that to coal which kills a million people every year.

I do love your numbers.

Depending where you want to look, and I know how you love to bias your data. Chernobyl alone has indirectly killed tens of thousands through radiation exposure and poisoned massive areas through fall out so really the actual number of those killed by nuclear accidents assuming we have no more till the end of time, will still continue to rise as the toxic exposure will go on causing a whole host of ultimately fatal health conditions.

Nuclear energy is the death that keeps on killing, and in the most unpleasant ways you could possibly imagine.

Obviously most deaths in the coal industry are due to industrial accidents cave ins, asphyxiation in deep mines, being run over by earth moving equipment etc, most of which are in China where there is little regulation of the industry or safety, many could be avoided with proper health a safety regulations but let’s face it the coal industry needs to give it a rest now as well and move to cleaner and more sustainable options.

Comparing the safety of coal to nuclear energy is like comparing Base jumping to
Bungee jumping, both have the potential to kill you in nasty ways and neither are really necessary

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

Or it will be these
View attachment 214040

Diesel powered charging stations :bang:

Still greener than putting it in the car to burn :devil:

I've also seen the proposal that, with your car being left plugged in all the time when not in use, the grid could pull power, a wee bit in each instance, from the car battery when needed to boost the public supply? That might not work too well for someone who is using their car to travel near the max mileage it's capable of to get to/from work every day?

Yep, vehicle to grid (V2G). Will work for most, and the more cars doing it, in theory the less power they'll need to take from each vehicle. Latest stats I saw advised would be as little as 1000-1500 watts, which is 4-8 miles range in most EVs. Less in the juicier ones like Tesla etc. But a great way of supporting the grid and your car earning you money while sitting idle.

 

[DaveMcT]

The Chernobyl accident (a product of the worst political system ever invented) has been played up for a reason. Nuclear power is hated by the hard greens, because it shoots down their whole argument. It's low cost, the safest power source we have, and its zero CO2.

When the build costs drop to parity with coal and gas, there will be no reason to not build nuclear plants. The Greens are right to complain about the stored irradiated fuel rods with a half life of 30,000 years they are a real problem. But the new systems will use those rods as fuel. Less than 5% of the fuel's fissile energy has been used. At least 19 times that amount is still there for the taking.

The new plants can generate 19 times the power already generated by nukes from day one before any new fuel has to be mined. The resultant waste has a half life of 30 years. That's easily engineered at definable costs. AND it's the same very small volume.

By the way, coal is radioactive and the ash is 20 times as radioactive. If a nuclear power station released a fraction of the radiation made by a coal power station it would be shut down immediately. Why is that?

 

[AndyRKett]

The new plants can generate 19 times the power already generated by nukes from day one before any new fuel has to be mined. The resultant waste has a half life of 30 years. That's easily engineered at definable costs. AND it's the same very small volume.

Lets go live now to the scene where they are building new molten salt reactors.....

Also just to say, everything in your post was conspiracy theory nonsense,

 

[StevenRB45]

Little-un is now in a routine where at the weekend we take him out on the morning then he goes down for a hour and a half nap.

Just enough to check cars over and wash one of them...but of course I went out this afternoon and as it was the 1st proper frost of the year so far the roads are salted a treat and it looks dirtier now than it did this morning.

 

[varesecrazy]

Bit of both with this one

Our local sainsburys is built into a development- Mall.. and close to a London bound train station.. so it has a 2 hour time limit ANPR
so people.. shop staff presumably.. park in the Garage - PFS as its not monitored

So they have an airline you cannot stop next to as cars park there for 8 hours

My punto managed to get in.. it had nice company that day

 

[portland_bill]

Bit of both with this one

Our local sainsburys is built into a development- Mall.. and close to a London bound train station.. so it has a 2 hour time limit ANPR
so people.. shop staff presumably.. park in the Garage - PFS as its not monitored

So they have an airline you cannot stop next to as cars park there for 8 hours

My punto managed to get in.. it had nice company that day

I've parked in the fuel station there a few times, as advised by the store, when doing an all-day training session with their van drivers. There used to be a small long-term car park, but they put M&S Food on that, so there must be quite a few displaced workers.

 

[dave]

How does netflix work with no internet? someone gave me log in details for net flix, when i am watching it on tv and orange light comes on my plus net router that means my internet is down, when that happens watching anything else it stops but netfix carries on like magic how the feck that happen?

 

[StevenRB45]

How does netflix work with no internet? someone gave me log in details for net flix, when i am watching it on tv and orange light comes on my plus net router that means my internet is down, when that happens watching anything else it stops but netfix carries on like magic how the feck that happen?

Most streaming services cache, so if your Internet supports it they will download ahead of where your are currently watching giving a buffer where it will operate until it reaches of where it's downloaded to or the connection is restored.

 

[dave]

Most streaming services cache, so if your Internet supports it they will download ahead of where your are currently watching giving a buffer where it will operate until it reaches of where it's downloaded to or the connection is restored.

where does it cache to. got no hardrive in my tv.

 

[Eklipze3k]

Memory/RAM, all smart TVs have some amount

 

[dave]

Memory/RAM, all smart TVs have some amount

is they a way to get other apps to use it like iplayer and itv hub etc? they all just stop after a few seconds when internet goes down.

 

[DaveMcT]

Muppets driving in misty conditions with rear fog lights going full blast.

Yes, they are good in thick fog, but if you can see to drive at 70mph, you dont need the elfin things. Many are bright enough to be dangerous. When drivers are getting blinded, they will take overtaking risks just to protect their retinas.