Associate
Pumping water uphill into resevoirs for hydroelectric dams is the best way, but of course we only have so many places we can do that.
The clean green energy thread - Lets talk about alternatives to nuclear power and how we can save th
- Thread starter SkScotchegg
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Pumping water uphill into resevoirs for hydroelectric dams is the best way, but of course we only have so many places we can do that.
Nothing wrong with HVDC and HVAC grids combined with smart grids.
Anyway full report thingy here http://www.pwcwebcast.co.uk/dpliv_mu/100_percent_renewable_electricity.pdf
It's not just power from north Africa, it is the most suitable renewable energy from all EU and north Africa countries, on a standardised smart power grid.
CSP does that themselves. But the idea is a smart grid which covers every type of energy in all countries
Soldato
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Pumped storage works but requires massive invasive civil works. I doubt there are sufficient sites for pumped storage to meet Europes needs.
Smart grids can smooth demand profiles but lighting and cooking are fairly immediate demands that can't really be smoothed.
CSP may have some thermal lag allowing it to generate after the sun stops but I you would need vast vast thermal stores by current conventional standards to keep generating at meaningfull load factors for any time after the heat source is stopped.
Solar powered hydrogen storage makes more sense but captial costs will be heavy.
Nuclear technologies win out on practicality on so many levels.
Smart grids can smooth demand profiles but lighting and cooking are fairly immediate demands that can't really be smoothed.
CSP may have some thermal lag allowing it to generate after the sun stops but I you would need vast vast thermal stores by current conventional standards to keep generating at meaningfull load factors for any time after the heat source is stopped.
Solar powered hydrogen storage makes more sense but captial costs will be heavy.
Nuclear technologies win out on practicality on so many levels.
read the report and csp already stores to generate all night. It;s not really an isue. seing as it works by heating oil to very high temperatures, then using that heat to drive a turbine.
For teh Uk yes, for europe wide, with different time zones it makes it far easier for a smartgrid, to be exactly that.
Soldato
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I stand by my thoughts on the concept of thermal energy storage.
why not go read up on it, rather than guessing.
Soldato
This thread stinks of German.
Soldato
Ok this should be a laugh.
You're pretty much right on all accounts. It was easier to produce weapons material from uranium so that led the research, was adapted more for power production and given the amount of engineering that goes into designing the plants it didn't make sense to start up on something else when all the money was in uranium.
Thorium is more abundant than uranium, easier and safer to mine and stable countries hold huge deposits of it. And as you say the proposed implementations will produce far less waste that will decay to safe levels much quicker. I'm just glad it's finally being developed.
Man of Honour
Odd, as they're much the same as yours. The main difference is that you've included government subsidies and I didn't because I was talking about solar power and not about public money being spent on things that buy some votes.
It was out because I made a mistake - the panel I was looking at was 2.8KW and I misread it as 2.0KW.
http://www.discountedheating.co.uk/shop/acatalog/Grant_Solar_PV_2.8kW_Portrait_on_Roof_Package.html
I've just looked at various websites promoting solar power and they're giving figures of between £5K and £8K per KW.
And the actual PV itself isn't viable. I think my estimate of £200 a year holds up pretty well according to your figures.
At £200 a year generated by a 2KW panel and with the middle price of £6500 per KW, it would take 65 years to repay, which is still far longer than the life of the panel and still ignoring the interest you could earn on the initial payment of £13000.
You could make a return on it, but that's due to the government buying the green vote and not due to PV.
Man of Honour
Lorries could do it, planes couldn't, not sure about supertankers but I doubt it.
Lorries probably wouldn't be feasible as soon as cars, but it could be done with better batteries.
Man of Honour
That's essentially the problem now. Fusion requires the sort of temperatures you get in the core of a star (which is a giant nuclear fusion reactor). The magnets are what's used to contain the plasma because you're certainly not going to find any material that would hold it.
You can get vastly more energy from the fusion reaction than is required to make it happen - after all, stars do that all the time. The problem is doing it on Earth in a safe, controlled way. The best so far is JET with an output of 65% of input sustained for half a second. A much lower efficiency could be sustained almost indefinitely - they turned it off after 5 minutes because there was no point continuing with it once they'd proven that it could be sustained.
There are plans afoot to build the next generation, having learnt a lot from JET. That facility, ITER, should be able to sustain economic fusion (i.e. more output than input) for a little while and peak at 10x for a very short while.
They're talking seriously about an actual power station in ~40 years.
Man of Honour
CSP using very high temperatures isn't so bad for that because it will continue to generate electricity for a couple of hours into the night from the remaining heat in the tank. Night usage is generally much lower than day usage, too. You do need something else generating electricity overnight or a lot of space for pumped storage hydro, but it's not as bad as it might look at first. Assuming you have enough sun in the first place, of course.
Soldato
Masdar is a daft idea whilst Abu Dhabi hosts an F1 race next door surely? 
Soldato
Have all gyms use unpowered bikes and hook em up to stuff so when you pedal your making elect for the city your in.
Man of Honour
Molten salts are being favoured over oil now - they're not flammable, they're less toxic and they'll go to higher temperatures.
Can you give me an example of a CSP plant that generates all through the night? Last time I looked they didn't go all the way through the night, only into the night. Maybe molten salts made enough of a difference.
Aside from the frankly impossible levels of international cooperation/governments willing to put their entire country's economy/operation in the hands of foreign governments/groups who will inevitably use it to blackmail the others.
or if it all hits the fan use their supply for themselves and **** the rest off.
Associate
By the time nuclear fusion is developed properly, Britain will be underwater 
Originally posted by kalvindeane:
Why will we be under water?
Why will we be under water?
Soldato
We're an Island, we should be developing tidal power generation.