The U.S. can power the WORLD with solar panels!

[Lord of Planar]

Point is, nuclear power CAN BE SAFE if operated properly, which the US Navy has been doing in literally hundreds of surface ships and submarines for over 60 years. And we could do it commercially too if the commercial operators did so with similar training, rules, and regulations as the Navy follows, from build, to materials, to fabrication, to testing, to operation... It is eminently doable.

Keep the union mentality worker out of it, and we will be OK.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Keep the union mentality worker out of it, and we will be OK.

Unions tend to be obsessed with worker safety, so I don't get that.
Perhaps you want a nice obedient workforce who can be ordered to pick up hot lumps of uranium ... like at Chernobyl?

 

[Lord of Planar]

Unions tend to be obsessed with worker safety, so I don't get that.
Perhaps you want a nice obedient workforce who can be ordered to pick up hot lumps of uranium ... like at Chernobyl?

Unions are all talk and enforce what ever enriches them. They are no better or worse than anything run by humans. You have good and bad.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Unions are all talk and enforce what ever enriches them. They are no better or worse than anything run by humans. You have good and bad.

Boilerplate "unions are bad" which does not address my claim. Furthermore, non-fatal workplace injuries are more likely to be reported and/or compensated, in a union shop.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Well that's definitive. If anyone in the Navy had heard rumours of a leak or accident it would be one of you Nukes. And if you had anything to hide you wouldn't have replied at such length. You've convinced me.

The US Navy never reached a certain diagnosis of the loss of USS Scorpion (SSN-589). Seems like a conventional missile explosion though.

That's one of the theories, yes ("hot torpedo"). Another is they developed some sort of leak in the torpedo room which allowed sea water to enter the ship's battery compartment causing a release of explosive gases. One of the side theories there is HOW the leak occurred - some speculate as a result of a collision with another sub (likely Russian) during a "crazy Ivan" event.

Regardless, the Scorpion's demise had nothing to do with their nuclear reactor.

 

[brainflame]

No one knows. Tesla never got it to work - and as to masers being bounced off satellites... not a clue. Sounds a little far-fetched, honestly, but I know nothing about masers.

From what I remember seeing on the subject of Tesla transmitting power wirelessly, he did try to build a transmitting station. But JP Morgan pulled the funding. Because there was no money to be made if people could receive energy freely. As for Masers, they are the same as Lasers. Except masers use radio wave frequencies rather than light.

 

[brainflame]

Nuclear waste IS an issue - but not one that's unsolvable.

But nuclear energy isn't REMOTELY "complicated." It's an incredibly viable source of power. Unfortunately, too many people fear nuclear energy - mostly out of ignorance, but then in part due to disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima - both of which were eminently preventable.

Consider the US Navy has been successful using nuclear reactors since 1958 and the submarine Nautilus (SSN 571) without a significant nuclear incident in that time - 63 years.
What makes nuclear power safe and practical is training, adherence to strict specifications, and no short-cuts. It can work; it has worked, and it continues to work today. Unfortunately, such training and adherence to strict specifications is hard to achieve in a competitive commercial environment.

If you watched the documentary I mentioned, you would find that nuclear wast is an unsolvable problem. That is in any way that is even remotely economically feasible. Next, I don't know about Chernobyl. But as far as Fukushima is concerned, the only way it could have been prevented was to be able to see into the future. I don't think it is possible to build something that can withstand every single possible event. And to do so would probably again make it economically unfeasible. Solar panels are safe. They're clean. And they are as cheap as the government would like to make them. The technology for them is constantly improving.

Also, solar panels last anywhere from 20 to 30 years. It takes anywhere from 1 to 4 years for them to output the amount of energy it took to create them. That is from mining the ore they are made of to the finished product. So in that they are almost perpetual motion. Where you get more energy out of a device than you put into it. As for nuclear subs, there was at least one that sunk. I don't know if they ever recovered the reactor from it to dispose of it properly. If they didn't, it isn't a good idea to leave nuclear reactors laying around. Apart from that, the navy has indeed been using nuclear reactors on ships. But just as with the ones on land, there are other costs to take into account. Such as what to do with the waste they produce.

 

[brainflame]

I saw the pictures and am not disputing the acreage of just the panels themselves (which is what your pictures illustrate). I merely pointed out - and rightfully so - that that acreage is an IDEAL and doesn't represent reality. In reality, there are rows between rows of panels, access roads, etc. etc. that take up more space than your ideal picture shows. That's all. And I did it by using the two largest wind farms in the US as an example.

No point in arguing this. Just is.

I'm sure the people who created those pictures weren't some hicks drinking moonshine in the back woods. Or some assholes trying to sell others on something that doesn't work. Rather I think they were made by intelligent people who sincerely want to solve a problem. And as for the one that shows the amount of solar panels it would take to power the U.S., it shows a square area about 140 miles per side. Elon Musk thinks it could be done with an area that would total an area 100 miles per side. And his engineering skills have made him a multi billionaire. So don't b e so quick to discount what he says.

I also said before that all those solar panels wouldn't have to be in one spot. There may be a greater area than the one shown just in the space taken up by rooftops. Also, the actor Ed Begley Jr has been using them for decades. He recently built a large nice house with a swimming pool. I don't know how often he runs the air conditioner or whatever. But he drives an electric car that he probably powers at home. He pays around $10.00 a month in utility bills.

 

[Ug make hammer]

If you watched the documentary I mentioned, you would find that nuclear wast is an unsolvable problem. That is in any way that is even remotely economically feasible. Next, I don't know about Chernobyl. But as far as Fukushima is concerned, the only way it could have been prevented was to be able to see into the future. I don't think it is possible to build something that can withstand every single possible event. And to do so would probably again make it economically unfeasible. Solar panels are safe. They're clean. And they are as cheap as the government would like to make them. The technology for them is constantly improving.

Also, solar panels last anywhere from 20 to 30 years. It takes anywhere from 1 to 4 years for them to output the amount of energy it took to create them. That is from mining the ore they are made of to the finished product. So in that they are almost perpetual motion. Where you get more energy out of a device than you put into it. As for nuclear subs, there was at least one that sunk. I don't know if they ever recovered the reactor from it to dispose of it properly. If they didn't, it isn't a good idea to leave nuclear reactors laying around. Apart from that, the navy has indeed been using nuclear reactors on ships. But just as with the ones on land, there are other costs to take into account. Such as what to do with the waste they produce.

"Nuclear waste is a problem" the same way night-time is a problem. You haven't "solved the problem" of sufficient batteries (pumped hydro etcetera) so you don't get to dismiss nuclear waste recycling. They both have the same problem, of not having been done enough to become economical.

I asked before how you'd produce so many panels, and upfront cost. Also many batteries and cost. Seems all you've got is a big square on a map, and you're trying to sell it with no figures.

 

[PeacefulWarrior]

It would take some doing. But it could be done. And in one way or another it should be done. Because not only is human caused global warming a reality, but it is speeding up! We have more than enough useless desert areas in the U.S. to put solar panels where we could power the world. Just think of it. We could be the next Saudi Arabia of electricity. But transmitting that electricity around the world would be difficult. Maybe it could be done with transmitted radio waves as Tesla envisioned. Or maybe we could do it with MASERs bounced off satellites, but sent back toward earth in a diffuse manner. Where animals in the path of the beam wouldn't get cooked.

I will show you a picture of the U.S. and an area on it that shows the entire area compared to the U.S. it would take to power the world. Though keep in mind that they wouldn't all have to be in one spot. I will also show you another picture of the U.S. and the total area of solar panels it would take to power just the U.S. It shows a square area that is around 140 miles per side. Elon Musk thinks it could be done with a total area that is just 100 miles per side.

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Its an interesting concept.

 

[brainflame]

Decay chains are probabilistic. However, that's what's so good about Thorium: a different set of decay chains, with a lot less trans-uranics in them.



Wouldn't happen. All modern designs Fail Safe: if the fuel melts without coolant, it falls out into reservoirs, each too small for the chain reaction to be sustained.

We actually learned something positive from Chernobyl. Uranium fuel forms a stone-like muck (called Corium lol) which slows down its reaction. Chernobyl certainly melted down, but the ecological damage happened before that, with the explosion and fire (chemical fire: it used graphite as a moderator). It's pretty much stable now. Nobody is talking about building more reactors like that, it was a false economy of a very large pressurized moderated reactor, designed to use (cheap) weak fuel.



Sounds quite reasonable and balanced ...

Short term waste can just be stored short term, and it dwindles away. The very long term waste is similarly harmless (in fact most elements in Earth's crust include some long term radioactive isotopes). It's the medium term and short long-term 'transuranics' which have to be securely stored. These are much less of a problem (so far as we know) with the reaction products of Thorium. But they can also be recycled into new fuel (or lesser radioactive waste) using a fast reactor. The French were working on a full-scale fast reactor when it got shut down by ... if you can believe it, a greenie with a shoulder-launched missile.

Personally I've given up on fast reactors, they are cemented into the public consciousness as Bomb Makers (they do in fact produce Plutonium). But chemical separation works, to separate the worst waste, which can then be stored somewhere with stable geology. Now someone will start speculating about asteroid strikes, and we're back to justifying the safety of a technology which even including ****youshima and Chernobyl, is safer than fossil fuels and safer than rooftop solar.

Or we could stop calling Fast Reactors that. "Recycling reactors" sounds better hmm?

I recently remembered why they gave up on thorium reactors. On the TV show about them they speculated that they did so because thorium reactors didn't match up well with the whole nuclear weapons thing. Next, nothing is fail safe. As for what melted into the "elephant's foot at Chernobyl, the outside did form a shell. But they said that on the inside it was still melting through the concrete. Next, "short" term or long term, there is nothing safe about nuclear waste. At least in the U.S., there is no permanent place to put it. No state want's it. No matter how "safe" the government says they can make it. Probably because real experts are telling the states that the government is just blowing smoke up their ass. Also, some of the radiation will remain dangerous for longer than humans have even existed. Face it. Solar panels are safe. And they work.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Being told repeatedly that nuclear sucks, by someone who plainly knows less about that than I do, is rather boring for me.

If I don't get some numbers on these panels and batteries, I'm abandoning the thread.

 

[KevinKohler]

The farther you try to transport electricity, the less electricity you end up with at the other end.

 

[Ug make hammer]

The farther you try to transport electricity, the less electricity you end up with at the other end.

Superconductors. Though the liquid nitrogen needed uses half as much power.

 

[Lord of Planar]

The farther you try to transport electricity, the less electricity you end up with at the other end.

Superconductors. Though the liquid nitrogen needed uses half as much power.

It doesn't take superconductors. It just takes a voltage high enough to make the line resistance in significant factor.

Yes, you end up with less energy, but it is marginally less when using HVDC. It doesn't have the same inductive losses as HVAC.

 

[Ug make hammer]

It doesn't take superconductors. It just takes a voltage high enough to make the line resistance in significant factor.

Yes, you end up with less energy, but it is marginally less when using HVDC. It doesn't have the same inductive losses as HVAC.

HVDC is better for long distances. Not perfect though. I wonder if insulating the cable would help with corona discharge ...

Conventional power plants are spread out well enough that I don't think anyone has tried 'shipping' electricity from the West coast to the East. It might be quite insane, but you wouldn't expect the proponents of One Big Solar Farm to say so. It's a future thing, they will say.