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  • OK, I guess you don't want to talk about it. Looking forward to jflorey2's response.

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    • Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
      I rather doubt that. I checked a bit, and wasn't able to find any evidence those reactors had been licensed or sold yet.
      Oh no, you are not a believer, the article specifically stated
      Miniature Nuclear Reactors to be on Sale Within 5 Years
      Michael Asher (Blog) - November 10, 2008 5:28 AM
      So a little math shows they have been sold for [ 2008 + 5 = 2013 ] about 3 years now. It says it's so. Not maybe, it says Reactors to be on Sale Within 5 Years.

      And that, is how one looses all credibility, by actually believing all the BS some blogger is pimping because it's "green".

      Tree style roof top wind turbines, solar roads, hydrogen as fuel, cheap internet in the USA, with a smidgen of scientific knowledge, 4th grade math, and common sense, it's nearly all a fraud, or a science experiment never planed to go outside a lab.
      Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
      || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
      || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

      solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
      gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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      • Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
        OK, I guess you don't want to talk about it. Looking forward to jflorey2's response.
        Not with you. Simply responding to your question in as respectful a manner as is due. Be careful what you ask for.

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        • Originally posted by Mike90250 View Post
          And that, is how one looses all credibility, by actually believing all the BS some blogger is pimping because it's "green".

          Tree style roof top wind turbines, solar roads, hydrogen as fuel, cheap internet in the USA...
          Whew, thought you had drunk the koolaid there. Sorry for doubting you.

          The first two, I agree, are just pretty ideas that aren't likely to be practical for ages. I cannot believe France is falling for the solar road thing ( see http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/deta...ysis_100027057 for a righteous takedown ).

          Hydrogen as fuel, well, that was a bet placed back before batteries got awesome, and seems to be continuing by inertia.
          Still, what seems like and probably is irrational exuberance about fuel cells is leading to some cool technology, so in 30 years we might look back and be glad some poor fool made that investment.

          Cheap internet might still happen. Heck, Google Fiber shook some big ISPs out of their slumber, and now I have a 50Mbps connection out of sleepy Time Warner for $50/month or so; that feels like I'm almost getting my money's worth. But my coworker in Spain gets about 10x more for his money.

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          • Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
            Cheap internet might still happen. Heck, Google Fiber shook some big ISPs out of their slumber, and now I have a 50Mbps connection out of sleepy Time Warner for $50/month or so; that feels like I'm almost getting my money's worth. But my coworker in Spain gets about 10x more for his money.
            In Panama we pay $35 for gigabit fiber which includes phone with LD and any CATV channels you want. I only pay for 500/Mbs. USA has piss poor communication infrastructure and way behind the world in technology. What Google is doing is smart biz. They and others are buying up all the DARK FIBER we at Worldcom laid down in the 90's and early 2000's. They are paying roughly 3 -cents on the dollar for the fiber cables.

            However Google is at a huge disadvantage and will loose the game. They do not have the infrastructure, experience, man power, or resources of ATT, local CATV, and TELCO
            MSEE, PE

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            • Not sure what behavior you're talking about. I'm usually polite, respectful, accurate, and careful with what I write.

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              • Ok guys I just deleted a few posts that I thought were going to far. Lets keep it civil, dont mind disagreement and arguments but I dont see why it needs to get nasty. Peace, out

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                • Thanks, Pete!

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                  • Originally posted by DanKegel View Post
                    Do you agree that one can whittle down the size of the problem with things like
                    - increasing appliance and building efficiency
                    No. That can decrease overall electricity usage; it cannot increase the penetration of unreliable renewables.
                    - shifting load to when power is cheap (demand management)
                    That will help, but will not be significant for a very long time. Very few industrial processes (say, aluminum smelting) can be shut down when the wind stops and restarted when it gets windy again.
                    - small amounts of grid scale storage sufficient to give time for efficient but slow peakers to start up
                    Those are not "small amounts." For a 1GW wind farm (which will not be uncommon) you'd need 1GW of grid scale storage. (That's power, not energy.)
                    Also, I'm not sure 'cheap' is the right criterion for storage cost. It just has to be cheaper than the full cost of using fossil fuel, including externalities like the cost of dealing with pollution and climate change caused by that fossil fuel.
                    Either cheaper without externalites or cheaper with externalities - but that means externalities of storage as well (i.e. fuel usage to make, transport and recycle the batteries, environmental impact of mining the lithium, etc)

                    Comment


                    • Let's look at our points of agreement, and see if we can expand them. Starting with load shifting:

                      Originally posted by jflorey2 View Post
                      "- shifting load to when power is cheap (demand management)"

                      That will help, but will not be significant for a very long time. Very few industrial processes (say, aluminum smelting) can be shut down when the wind stops and restarted when it gets windy again.
                      Aluminum smelting seems like a great example. After looking a bit at the literature, I see various discussions about the desired level of heat loss from the sides, bottom, and top of aluminum electrolysis cells. There has been a lot of trial and error over the years learning how to optimize the cells. It's not unlikely that, given proper incentives, industry could gradually reduce heat loss significantly. That would take many years, but since industry is always trying to reduce operating costs, it's kind of already underway.
                      We have a couple decades to ramp down our co2 emissions to zero, which is enough time for industry to adjust -- assuming we set clear targets and incentives.

                      But there are nimbler sectors. For instance, demand-management-capable heating and cooling equipment is already practical and being deployed in small numbers. http://ladwp.com/powerirp shows LADWP's 2015 plan included 200 to 500 MW of demand management by 2026. I'd bet you a beer that number will increase in their 2016 plan.

                      How much do you think load shifting can help in the next ten years?

                      Comment


                      • Dan I have come to a conclusion. You are either completely stupid, or a Trouble Making Passive Troll. JPM is right about you doing a lot of damage to supporters of RE. You go from Forum to Forum starting trouble with you ignorance and advocacy. You loose debate after debate, get your butt kicked, and do not listen or understand what is being said to you by professionals who know what they are talking about and make their living doing.

                        If you had any clue you would know it requires Conventional Generation for Base Load using Nuclear, Coal, or NG. There is no other alternative in a developed country. Nuclear is the best solution for many reasons to numerous to outline. I half agree with Florey, Nuclear is the right way to go and is part of the master plan using Distributed Power a concept that flew right over your head using one in a basement metaphor. It flew right over your head. It has a name DISTRIBUTED POWER. Lots of redundancy and back up for cheap. Something Solar cannot do.

                        I further halfway agree with Florey that NG Peakers to be used during peak demands is a possible solution. However Solar is not capable of peaking during Peak Demand. It is Impossible for Solar to do that. I bet you have no clue why either. Solar Peak Production does not happen during Peak Demand times. Not even GOD can fix it.

                        Do not confuse TOU rates and Peak Rates with Peak Demand as they are not the same thing. Peak Demand starts in the late afternoon and last until 9 to 10 PM long after the sun has set. We already have the RE source available and built out in most regions of the country, all that is required to use is a change in strategy and energy policy you are obstructing and blocking. It is called Hydro Electric which you can pretty much turn on/off with a switch as needed. You stop running hydro for base load and switch to peak demand.Where hydro is not available use NG turbines or excess hydrogen from nuke plants

                        All these facts have been explained to you in deep detail many many times over and over again and you are still clueless. You have lost every debate, and you are hurting your cause. I can only come to one of two conclusions, and you have to tell me which one it is please.

                        You are either Stupid or a Trouble making Troll like you are on other forums you get kicked off of.

                        Which one is it? We all want to know. My bet is a Troll as no one can be as ignorant as you are.
                        Last edited by Sunking; 12-05-2016, 04:47 PM.
                        MSEE, PE

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Sunking View Post
                          I further halfway agree with Florey that NG Peakers to be used during peak demands is a possible solution. However Solar is not capable of peaking during Peak Demand.
                          Sure, I think natural gas peakers are the current mainstream way of handling the daily evening load spike, but it isn't the only option.

                          Solar alone can't act as a peaker, of course. I've never disagreed with you there. But demand management can act to some extent like a peaker,
                          as can any of several kinds of storage. There's pumped storage (of which LADWP currently has about 1GW, enough to help for 6-10 hours in summer according to wikipedia),
                          customer-sited thermal storage (of which LADWP's area has about 12MW? so far), and batteries (SCE bought a 20 MW, 80 MWh battery, to be ready by end of this year),
                          and thermal solar towers with molten salt storage (Crescent Dunes puts out about 110 MW, and can deliver that for ten hours after sunset).
                          And when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, they can be used to charge that storage.
                          Of course, until there's enough storage and demand management deployed, or when it's dark and nonwindy for more than usual, we'll still have to fire up fossil fuel plants, but the more RE and storage we have online, the less often we'll have to do that.

                          But I suspect you don't need much storage until solar + wind exceed about 30% of generation; see e.g. http://www.utilitydive.com/news/four...g-deal/431686/

                          TOU pricing is important to provide an economic incentive to move load away from times when power is scarce and toward times when power is abundant.

                          All of the above is available now; it's a matter of society deciding we want to deploy it, and how quickly. It would take several decades to get our co2 emissions down by 90%, so if we want to prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees C, we'd better get started soon. And that's what California, Germany, and other areas are doing.

                          Nothing of what I wrote above is remotely controversial in the science-based community, as far as I know. The fossil-fuel industry doesn't like it much, and is working really hard to discredit it, just as the tobacco industry worked to discredit the science that said smoking causes cancer.

                          Now, lots of people look at what it would take to deal with the problem, feel it's too expensive, and decide that on that basis it's a bunch of bunk. That's only human. As costs come down, I think you'll find more acceptance of the science and the technical fixes for the problem, just as people accepted more efficient lightbulbs once they stopped sucking (which is only in the last couple years, thanks to LEDs).

                          I understand you disagree with all of the above, and think it's a liberal plot to take over the economy or something. But it's not, it's God's honest truth*, and even the Pope agrees.

                          Nuclear can play a role, too, though many people are leery of it since TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Personally, I think it's worth going down both the nuclear and the RE paths. Design redundancy is a good thing, and that way we'll have more tools in our kit for the future.


                          * modulo the inescapable typos and thinkos on my part
                          Last edited by DanKegel; 12-05-2016, 07:07 PM.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Mike90250 View Post

                            Oh no, you are not a believer, the article specifically stated

                            So a little math shows they have been sold for [ 2008 + 5 = 2013 ] about 3 years now. It says it's so. Not maybe, it says Reactors to be on Sale Within 5 Years.
                            Looks like those "basement" size reactors are still vaporware. The company in your article, Hyperion Power Generation, decided to change its name to Gen4 Energy in 2012 and is no longer in Arizona. Looking at the Gen4 Energy website, I can't find anything in the way of systems sold. And their 25 MW generating system product is a whole lot bigger than basement-sized once you include the support structures. Another company mentioned in the article NuScale, touts a mini reactor module (50 MW) but apparently has only built a 1/3 scale prototype for testing. Toshiba's 4S mini reactor doesn't seem to be faring much better: it apparently was proposed for a generating station in Alaska but that project was abandoned.Wiki has a list of designs as of 2014 and only one, in Russia, was actually operating.

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                            • Originally posted by Ian S View Post
                              Looks like those "basement" size reactors are still vaporware.
                              Mike knows that, he was just trying to see if anyone would salute the idea and show they had drunken too much kool-aid, I think.

                              SK probably knows it, too, but thinks it the most promising idea for the future.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Ian S View Post
                                Looks like those "basement" size reactors are still vaporware. The company in your article, Hyperion Power Generation, decided to change its name to Gen4 Energy in 2012 and is no longer in Arizona. Looking at the Gen4 Energy website, I can't find anything in the way of systems sold. And their 25 MW generating system product is a whole lot bigger than basement-sized once you include the support structures. Another company mentioned in the article NuScale, touts a mini reactor module (50 MW) but apparently has only built a 1/3 scale prototype for testing. Toshiba's 4S mini reactor doesn't seem to be faring much better: it apparently was proposed for a generating station in Alaska but that project was abandoned.Wiki has a list of designs as of 2014 and only one, in Russia, was actually operating.
                                Yep. Nuclear power has seen a long string of disappointments, from the first pronouncement of "too cheap to meter" power, to the McMurdo reactor, all the way to today's plant shutdowns and meltdowns.

                                That being said, it is still the best baseload source of power compared to fossil fuel sources. (And that's the important comparison to make.) Coal is too dirty and damaging. Natural gas is pretty good, but natural gas is such a good fuel for peakers, domestic heating/cooling, industrial process heat and transportation fuel that it's silly to waste it on base load power. Oil for electricity has been largely relegated to special cases like islands where they need a cheap and transportable fuel.

                                The future of nuclear lies in medium to large size plants. This allows investors to generate a large return to justify the large expense incurred by siting, construction, evacuation planning, nuclear waste handling etc. Most of those expenses are not significantly reduced by going to smaller plants, so they don't make as much economic sense. Fortunately, we now have good designs for large nuclear plants, and many decades of experience operating them. (Which tells us what to do, but more importantly, what NOT to do.)

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