From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 2:00 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The situation at Fukushima appears to be deteriorating
Since this thread is about Fukushima, can I just mention that if all the
power stations in the world could somehow switch to using renewables while
all vehicles in the world (bar a tiny few) continued to use fossil fuels,
that would STILL be a big boost for the environment.
With power stations you don't need to worry about the same factors (energy
density etc) but you do need to worry about other things - load balancing,
etc - which is why non-renewable sources are unlikely to go away completely
for power stations (unless we get something like a world-wide power grid,
which I don't suppose is very feasible). But they could still do a lot
better than they are now.
A mix of renewables and gas turbines (which themselves could increasingly be
fueled by algae bio-gas sources). Gas turbines achieve 50% efficiency, are
relatively clean and are able to be spun up or spun down quite rapidly
making them the best choice for spinning reserve - along with hydro, which
can also take on the role of spinning reserve.
LFTR could provide a portion of baseload power that coupled with a much
larger energy storage capacity (that acts to decouple supply from demand and
smooth it all out) and the available spinning reserve could ensure grid
stability 24X7X365
Some - varying from place to place - mix of renewable sources + baseload
sources + spinning reserve + energy storage capacity will gradually supplant
the current power generation mix dominated by large dirty unsustainable coal
fired thermo-electric and an aging fleet of increasingly scary reactors
(such as the one in Florida where they have just discovered that its high
pressure steam tubes are worn up to 30% for example) a fleet of nukes that
are operating well past their design specs - routinely getting relicensed,
with SFP getting filled far beyond original intended capacity - by tight
packing the spent fuel.
Speaking of baseload power sources; there is another baseload source that
has a massive potential to scale, but also is saddled with some potentially
serious problems - of the kind that is a terrible PR nightmare. I speak of
engineered dry hot rock geothermal, using a similar fracking approach to
engineer a steam permeable reservoir in a deep volume of hot dry rock. It
would inject high pressure water/poppant slurry into the micro-factures the
very high pressure fluid creates in the rock mass, but without all the toxic
solvents, surfactants etc. present in the witches brews the gas companies
are pumping down dissolved in the fracking fluid used by the kerogen and gas
fracking plays. It has been tried a few times and famously in Basil seems to
have triggered a fairly noticeable tremor - which ended that experiment
immediately. For some reason the earth tremors are "acceptable" and little
mentioned when it comes to fracking for gas or kerogen, but become large
point headlines for dry rock geothermal.
It is a problem, but perhaps it is not that much of a problem in many
geologic formations. A much improved understanding of how the forces and
stresses at work in the deep hot bottom of the crust dynamically behave and
what effects fracking will have could address this. If this issue can be
addresses this form of geothermal energy has a pretty big upside potential
for supplying baseload power - it gets very hot beneath our feet a few miles
deep. and good deep rock formations are very widely available.
Chris
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
