Solar powered planes suck
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Well, one other way I know of is gravitational potential energy storage: typically you pump water to a high place when there's power available, then use hydroelectric turbines to recover the energy later.
I wonder if that could be scaled to higher volumes? Load a train with stones (or blocks of lead/iron, etc), put it on rails on a steep mountain, and just pull it up and let it fall down once a day?
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In followup articles, he talks about most of the other forms of renewable energy.
Someone needs to beat the politicos over the head with a lump of uranium...because we know how to do fission correctly, and it, geothermal, and to some extent hydro are the only non-fossil-fuel baseline sources we have, until fusion comes on line at least.
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because we know how to do fission correctly
The reasonable fear (not that much of what you hear is reasonable) comes from those things we did along the way to get said knowledge. Plus the enrichment used for the reactor designs that don't just use heavy water makes people nervous (and most places don't have enough spare water to use heavy water reactors). Not saying we shouldn't be using it, but there are reasons to be careful.
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Well, one other way I know of is gravitational potential energy storage: typically you pump water to a high place when there's power available, then use hydroelectric turbines to recover the energy later.
The kind of environmentalists who are promoting this stuff can barely stand normal dams.
Plus that has really shitty efficiency, but.
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Plus the enrichment used for the reactor designs that don't just use heavy water makes people nervous (and most places don't have enough spare water to use heavy water reactors). Not saying we shouldn't be using it, but there are reasons to be careful.
Look at the Experimental Breeder Reactor II for an example of a breeder-burner capable fission reactor design.
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When I was a kid, pebble-bed reactors were going to conquer the world.
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powerslaves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_UIkS5m9gc
Anyway, if we could just get a nuclear power station in Poland, we'd be set. But nooo, still on coal, because we're a major coal producer and the good government will do anything to save those mines, even if they're basically ripping a hole in our pockets. And if they don't, the miners take pickaxes, go for the parliament, and the politicians quickly change their minds.
Fuck us.
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What we really, really need is order-of-magnitude better battery technology. Batteries are really the limiting factor in ALL of these considerations.
There are some interesting advances in batteries that aren't just boxes of chemicals. I heard of a place that was experimenting with pumping air into a big bag underwater. Energy in is the pumping, and you get it out when needed by releasing the pressure to drive a turbine or similar.
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I wonder if that could be scaled to higher volumes? Load a train with stones (or blocks of lead/iron, etc), put it on rails on a steep mountain, and just pull it up and let it fall down once a day?
Reminds me of resetting the weights on a cuckoo clock...
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Pumping air is hugely inefficient. Pumping water uphill would be a better idea.
Environmentalists will block both ideas if attempted at scale.
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Anyway, if we could just get a nuclear power station in Poland, we'd be set. But nooo, still on coal, because we're a major coal producer and the good government will do anything to save those mines, even if they're basically ripping a hole in our pockets. And if they don't, the miners take pickaxes, go for the parliament, and the politicians quickly change their minds.
Two things:- The reason we don't have a nuclear power plant yet is greenies and hysteric fucktards who don't know shit about how nuclear plants work, who organize protests every time someone tries to build one.
- EU actively tries to kill out coal mining (via CO2 quotas etc.), and our govt seems to help them significantly too - their goal is to make coal so expensive it becomes infeasible to use it as energy source. But despite their best efforts, it's still much cheaper than renewable energy. Poland's climate doesn't help them, with short days in winter (bad for solar energy) and mild winds (bad for windblowers).
Fun fact: the sole reason Germany is turning to solar energy is government subsidies.
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In Germany, power independence is an issue more strategic than environmental. (Despite pretending otherwise.)
In the US, we just don't really give a fuck and are strangely resistant to change in many, many ways. We'll get effective renewable power when people finally look at their change and go, "why the fuck are we still minting pennies?"
It doesn't help that our creaking power infrastructure is already basically at its limit.
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We'll get effective renewable power
when people finally look at their change and go, "why the fuck are we still minting pennies?"sometime after someone actually figures it out.RTFY
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It doesn't help that our creaking power infrastructure is already basically at its limit.
Had a social conversation with a Power Company guy along these lines...
He was pushing smart meters, and I don't like their smart meter implementation, and he was genuinely taken aback or somewhat confused that I was advocating going ahead and building more capacity.
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In Germany, power independence is an issue more strategic than environmental. (Despite pretending otherwise.)
There are many ways to achieve power independence. For example, nuclear plants, which they already have plenty of.
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I think the Germans just feel guilty for being productive and stuff, so they're penalizing themselves by sabotaging their energy industry.
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There are many ways to achieve power independence. For example, nuclear plants, which they already have plenty of.
I think they're turning them all off after fukushima?
I think the Germans just feel guilty for being productive and stuff, so they're penalizing themselves by sabotaging their energy industry.
Probably
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Can't pull power from the Brownsville station, have to go straight to coal?
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I think they're turning them all off after fukushima?
Hey. Can't mess with that stuff. Those German tsunamis are nasty business.
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Well, the anti-nuclear activists have always had a lot of support in Germany.
Fukushima was an awesome opportunity for the CDU to get appreciation for something the Greens would probably have caused eventually.
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The funny thing is that turning those off is causing more contamination because coal/gas plants are needed to supply energy.
But... nuclear plants are bad no ?
thosehippiesgreenies should play more sim city
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The German Greens aren't hippies anymore.
Recommended reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundi_(politics)They still want to enforce pseudo-green things of course.
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The funny thing is that turning those off is causing more contamination because coal/gas plants are needed to supply energy.
You're making the same mistake I used to do. You expect people to know / research stuff.
Meanwhile, we have people thinking that products containing DNA should be marked as such.[1]
[1] - Might be a hoax. Prior experience points towards
though,
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Fixed. But to me they are evolved hippies
You're making the same mistake I used to do. You expect people to know / research stuff.
I try to forget that. I want to believe :/
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I want to. I do not. My years doing helpdesk as part of my work madee see the ugly reality
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he was genuinely taken aback or somewhat confused that I was advocating going ahead and building more capacity.
Because, heaven forbid, if any of the existing power generators fail and we fall below capacity that we be able to bring anything online to compensate within a few years...
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Because, heaven forbid, if any of the existing power generators fail and we fall below capacity that we be able to bring anything online to compensate within a few years...
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The Brownville plant is owned by the state of Nebraska, I don't think they are allowed to sell power to Missouri...or something like that. I don't really know how it works.
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For the average guy in the street, 'research' is what happens when you still can't find your house keys after looking in all the usual places...
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possibly even bread
I'd wager some of it would survive the whole process.
But yeah, DNA. Because there's DNA in GMO, you know, and GMO is evul.
Also the reason this joke still works. Some people even got fired over it.
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Atomkraft? Nein danke – Wikipedia
