Future energy sources?

[rick]

Alcohol from corn may be 'cheap' but not as much as from Sugar cane. Sugar beet also. Just in the USA they have a lot of corn.

[tamada]

Some years ago a Canadian university came up with some sort of enzyme that was able to convert green weeds to contain enough sugar to distill alcohol. My brother in law is a very intelligent chemical engineer. He originally went to work for Standard Oil which was then bought out by BP. He stayed with BP and that's when renewable energy was the next big deal. BP gave him a project in Florida to develop that new discovery. They chose Florida because weeds grew year round down there. He was successful and it went into production. It never made it commercially because of the costs and the project was finally dropped. Alcohol from cheap corn was cheaper and easier. He had thought that his process would be the next big deal. In the years that followed I never heard any more about it.

He later built a new huge home in Northwest Ohio. Everyone in that small Ohio town thought he had gone insane. He put hundreds of meters of deep trenches in his huge yard. and drilled two new wells. He ran water from the first well through hundreds of meters of the buried pipe through a heat exchanger and dumped that water into the second well. He heated and cooled his mansion with that system. It turned out that his electric bills were unbelieavablely cheap. No one laughed at him after seeing the results. The village was building a new high school and had him draw up plans for that same type of system for the school. It too was a success.

Geothermal is great solution but one has to know, like your brother-in-law did, where the subterranean hot spots are.

[AlexO]

They are not my numbers, Alex - as you can see in the linked article, they come from the CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.

Did not say they were yours. You were quoting some obviously biased green halfwits forecasts of what they believe are factual.
Biggest problem is there are no counter arguments allowed now.
Again, why would most of the developed world have/or had nuclear power sources.
Who has come up with the solution to cloudy days or no wind or too many very windy days?

[jackspratt]

"Biased halfwits" seems to sum up your point of view very succinctly.

The reason the developed world is leaning away from nuclear power, and has been for many years, is clear from the numbers in the article.

Did you bother to read it?

[Whistler]

They are not my numbers, Alex - as you can see in the linked article, they come from the CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.

Again, why would most of the developed world have/or had nuclear power sources.
Who has come up with the solution to cloudy days or no wind or too many very windy days?

Sorry Alex, very few in the developed world are adopting N energy. The developed world almost entirely abandoned that option. Only 10% Of the entire world's energy options today and appears to be shrinking

https://www.world-nuclear.org/informati ... dwide.aspx

[AlexO]

Whistler
https://world-nuclear.org/information-l ... lectricity.
The only reason that there are not many more is the lack of political intestinal fortitude to prove that it is really the only logical option to move away from fossil fueled energy production.

[Sport]

Whistler
The only reason that there are not many more is the lack of political intestinal fortitude to prove that it is really the only logical option to move away from fossil fueled energy production.

I dont know why, but I could not see Australia included in the lists for supplying nuke power to benefit the nation with its rich uranium deposits. Perhaps the list makers forgot to include OZ, must have been a typing error.

How do countries like, Bangladesh, Slovakia, Argentina etc and the like who are not as rich with the uranium as OZ do it.

[AlexO]

Buy it from countries like Australia, same as China buying Aussie coal.
The old horrors about nuclear plants need to be parked away.
How many military assets are powered by small efficient nuclear power plants?
No reason why the same safe technology cannot be used as the base load provider with the use of "renewable" being used when weather conditions allow. I would really enjoy the findings of some sensible person publishing the Carbon Footprint of the 'renewable energy' solutions.

[Whistler]

Whistler
https://world-nuclear.org/information-l ... lectricity.
The only reason that there are not many more is the lack of political intestinal fortitude to prove that it is really the only logical option to move away from fossil fueled energy production.

First of all you say the developed world has embraced nuclear energy, which is of course not the case, now you say they should have. You cannot have it both ways.

From every study I have seen, renewables are by far the cheapest form of electricty generation. Hydro, Solar, Wind all stack up as being much cheaper than Fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is in most cases the most expensive form and has many challanges. It takes a very long time to build and commission nuclear power plants, around 10 years. It is certainly CO2 free but produces the most dangerous waste. While Australia has a huge percentage of Uranium Ore, it has no refining or enriching capablilty, the current small use of enriched uranium sourced fuel is from France.

IMHO the greatest unsolved issue with renewables is storage. Massive battery systems in favour at the moment are expensive, there is a nasty footprint on providing the materials they require like lithium and cobalt. The other issue is longetivity, damned expensive when the battery life is reached.

Options, Kinetic Energy, pump water up hill when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, and drive turbines when the water is released downhill. Rinse and repeat. Chemical storage, use the electricity produced for electrolysis to produce green hydrogen that can be used for vehicles as well as industrial electricty generation. Can also be used to create hydrogen from ammonia, once again rinse and repeat.

What I do agree with you is on the political opposition to nuclear, the decision should be science/economic based not on hysteria.

[glalt]

Some years ago a Canadian university came up with some sort of enzyme that was able to convert green weeds to contain enough sugar to distill alcohol. My brother in law is a very intelligent chemical engineer. He originally went to work for Standard Oil which was then bought out by BP. He stayed with BP and that's when renewable energy was the next big deal. BP gave him a project in Florida to develop that new discovery. They chose Florida because weeds grew year round down there. He was successful and it went into production. It never made it commercially because of the costs and the project was finally dropped. Alcohol from cheap corn was cheaper and easier. He had thought that his process would be the next big deal. In the years that followed I never heard any more about it.

He later built a new huge home in Northwest Ohio. Everyone in that small Ohio town thought he had gone insane. He put hundreds of meters of deep trenches in his huge yard. and drilled two new wells. He ran water from the first well through hundreds of meters of the buried pipe through a heat exchanger and dumped that water into the second well. He heated and cooled his mansion with that system. It turned out that his electric bills were unbelieavablely cheap. No one laughed at him after seeing the results. The village was building a new high school and had him draw up plans for that same type of system for the school. It too was a success.

Geothermal is great solution but one has to know, like your brother-in-law did, where the subterranean hot spots are.

Apparently the success or failure of the project depended on the temperature of the water in the aquifer. He didn't know that until he drilled the well. Apparently the water temperature remains constant year round.

[Doodoo]

World's remaining supply of uranium
Thought it was more but in 230 years if not less we are out of uranium

"According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time."

[AlexO]

Whistler
https://world-nuclear.org/information-l ... lectricity.
The only reason that there are not many more is the lack of political intestinal fortitude to prove that it is really the only logical option to move away from fossil fueled energy production.

First of all you say the developed world has embraced nuclear energy, which is of course not the case, now you say they should have. You cannot have it both ways.

From every study I have seen, renewables are by far the cheapest form of electricty generation. Hydro, Solar, Wind all stack up as being much cheaper than Fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is in most cases the most expensive form and has many challanges. It takes a very long time to build and commission nuclear power plants, around 10 years. It is certainly CO2 free but produces the most dangerous waste. While Australia has a huge percentage of Uranium Ore, it has no refining or enriching capablilty, the current small use of enriched uranium sourced fuel is from France.

IMHO the greatest unsolved issue with renewables is storage. Massive battery systems in favour at the moment are expensive, there is a nasty footprint on providing the materials they require like lithium and cobalt. The other issue is longetivity, damned expensive when the battery life is reached.

Options, Kinetic Energy, pump water up hill when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, and drive turbines when the water is released downhill. Rinse and repeat. Chemical storage, use the electricity produced for electrolysis to produce green hydrogen that can be used for vehicles as well as industrial electricty generation. Can also be used to create hydrogen from ammonia, once again rinse and repeat.

What I do agree with you is on the political opposition to nuclear, the decision should be science/economic based not on hysteria.

Given that we (humans) are multiplying by huge amounts every year, where do you believe the storage of sufficient water ie flooding huge tracts of occupiable land is going to be acceptable. Just imagine depending on a hydro plant that is suddenly/ or not so suddenly badly affected by droughts that have become more frequent because of the suns affects on the Blue Planets climate (Australia, California, central Europe) I just find it unbelievable that a fairly intelligent species who depend on energy refuse to use a proven safe technology to ensure we do not either flood lands necessary for food production or dam rivers that provided a living for millions of people (the Mekong or any of the other major waterways). We are already getting reports about the affects of the damming of the Mekong and how the Chinese can (and will) control everything downstream. You think a few more windmills are going to solve a global crisis?

[Whistler]

Alex,

Not flooding anything to store hydro 40% of the USAs energy storage for more than 80 years has been pumping water up hills. You then pump the same water up the hill tomorrow. Works well. In places where there is a river surround by hills, not flooded flat lands, you need elevated terrain to place reservoirs

[Doodoo]

URANIUM SUPPLIES

Largest Uranium Reserves In The World
Rank Country Uranium Reserve (in 1000 metric tons)
1 Kazakhstan 304
2 Canada 275
3 South Africa 168
4 Brazil 156
5 China 102
6 Mongolia 50
7 Ukraine 41
8 Tanzania 38
9 Uzbekistan 37
10 Russia 25

[AlexO]

"Biased halfwits" seems to sum up your point of view very succinctly.

The reason the developed world is leaning away from nuclear power, and has been for many years, is clear from the numbers in the article.

Did you bother to read it?

Depends on what you want to read Pratty.
I lived through the Nationalised coal fired power station era in Scotland. The power stations were forced by political jobworths to buy coal from hugely inefficient UK coal mines.
If the cost of producing a ton of coal at the mine increased that cost was passed on to the electrical producer (forced to buy the nationalised coal mines coal) who in turn passed the increases to the end users, us, the people. The Thatcher haters would be now blaming her for the CO2 outputs from the power stations and coal fired steel mills that the unions wanted to keep. How do we control Icelandic volcanos, Australian or Californian bush fire CO2 outputs or any other natural occurrence. Do we execute a billion people each time to ensure CO2 levels are kept within some fantasy level or do we use existing technology to ensure the species carries on.

[AlexO]

Alex,

Not flooding anything to store hydro 40% of the USAs energy storage for more than 80 years has been pumping water up hills. You then pump the same water up the hill tomorrow. Works well. In places where there is a river surround by hills, not flooded flat lands, you need elevated terrain to place reservoirs

Agree whole heartedly, but that hill land still has people who depend on that land for a living. Tea, coffee, rice, animal grazing. When does the need for energy overtake the preservation of life for perhaps millions.
Look at what is happening to the river village peoples on the Mekong.

[Whistler]

If you say so Alex, but I know of plenty of rocky hills, even in Thailand that don't support any farming activities, the reservoirs used are those big stell round things that don't take up mountains of space, just a bit of space on the mountain

[AlexO]

Not saying your wrong .
But, I have seen long lost villages in reservoirs that are under water that used to be populated in Scotland.
I witnessed whole villages in Vietnam that were forced off their land including family burial plots for 'reservoirs' (Tailing ponds.)
I acknowledge the need for non polluting energy sources but the current solutions of dams etc will be the sources of absolute power for those upstream. Wars will be fought to ensure food and energy sources in the not-too-distant future.

[Whistler]

Alex, have you seen, heard of, or found any evidence of mountain or hill top villages being destroyed by a man made, purpose built, steel reservoir?

[tamada]

An Australian federal court rejected the objections ostensibly placed by the Tiki Islanders against Santos's drilling for natural gas on their Barossa field in September 2022. This forced the federal government regulator to recall Santos's and several environmental plans including Woodside's Scarborough natural gas development and effectively shut in all offshore exploration and development for about 14 months. Woodside got the go-ahead late November and Santos a few weeks later.

Oddly enough, it was federal judges that allowed and upheld these objections in the first place.

The likelihood of major foreign investment in these developments being withdrawn, as well as losing the primary Asian gas market must have prodded the government into being more assertive when the core of these objections were based on disturbing "Crocodile Man" and breaking "Whale Dreaming". The stark reality is Australia needs to be part of the transition from fossil fuels even if it entails embracing natural gas as the stop gap until something truly viable and sustainable garners the energy market.

So, are the Australian federal courts as fickle as American ones in that you file your cases in the court of a judge that aligns with your final aims? Or, like in the US, do the judges eventually get replaced by those favoring the incumbent government? The objections were supported under the previous administration whereas the loss of support in court comes after Labor won in the polls.