onetrack Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 A man of few words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 11 minutes ago, Marty_d said: I think that's your most succinct message yet Jerry. Well put. I agree with every word jerry didn't say. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old man emu Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 One of the most profound pronouncements that has ever appeared on this site. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 (edited) 44 minutes ago, Marty_d said: I think that's your most succinct message yet Jerry. Well put. He's not one to waste words.... Oops, OneT beat me to it! Edited July 4 by nomadpete I'm too late to the party 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 I've heard Mr Duttin speak. He usually leaves me struggling to find words.... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 Get a "WINNER" for saying nothing. Will that work for ME too?. Nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 .... Deleted. reason Too profound. Nev 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onetrack Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 I personally think Jerry should preface his postings with warnings, the way that news articles do - you know, "5 minute read". In Jerrys case, one never knows whether it's going to be a "25 minute read", or a ".05 second" read. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 Or no read at all. A voiceless ponder 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Vegemite Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 I'm no scientist but I thought the whole point of a nuclear reactor was to generate heat to turn water into steam to drive turbines and generate electricity. Why you would want to use salt to cool it doesn't make sense to me. I thought they raised and lowered "rods" to regulate the fusion process and therefore the heat generated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry_Atrick Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 6 hours ago, facthunter said: .... Deleted. reason Too profound. Nev You could have said all that with a, "." Gotta get with the program 😉 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siso Posted July 4 Share Posted July 4 9 hours ago, Mr.Vegemite said: I'm no scientist but I thought the whole point of a nuclear reactor was to generate heat to turn water into steam to drive turbines and generate electricity. Why you would want to use salt to cool it doesn't make sense to me. I thought they raised and lowered "rods" to regulate the fusion process and therefore the heat generated. The salt has a higher boiling point(>1000degrees) then water meaning that the reactor part of the cycle can be kept at or close to atmospheric pressure instead of high pressure to keep the water liquid around the core. (70 bar in a BWR) The salt is then passed through a heat exchanger to turn water to steam for the turbines. Also in the very unlikely event that the reactor leaks it falls on the floor, cools and solidifies instead of flashing to steam. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onetrack Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 (edited) The move to use molten salts (there are several varieties being tried - lithium, sodium and fluorine salts) means that reactors can operate at much higher temperatures than water-cooled reactors, and the additional heat carried by the salt can produce a larger level of useable heat energy to produce power. In addition, molten salt reactors are experimenting with different radioactive fuel types to try and improve performance and safety, and to lower construction costs. I'm a fence sitter as regards nuclear power systems, but the problem as regards renewables is that they will likely never be able to make up 100% of our power generation base, so having affordable nuclear as part of the grid, with rapid response ability to suddenly changing loads, is certainly a promising idea. The major drawback is much of this new nuclear technology is still in the testing phases and it could be a decade before we see any advances in nuclear power plant technology. I personally feel geothermal power should be pursued as an additional energy source. We're sitting on trillions of tonnes of molten and liquid rock, we only need to find the way to drill down and harness that massive energy source. The simple block to more geothermal power is the major cost of it. But once harnessed, geothermal power is free and non-polluting forever, the same as solar energy. https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/17/1086736/how-hot-salt-could-transform-nuclear-power/ Edited July 5 by onetrack 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 (edited) Geothermal ' hot rock ' , was trialed in South Australia A fairly long time ago , but it failed every test to get water down to the ' hot rock ' then collect usable steam. It was dumped July 2014 . spacesailor PS : not before , I went up for a nosey . the people were proud to show, how it could work . Edited July 5 by spacesailor Word change 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 26 minutes ago, spacesailor said: Geothermal ' hot rock ' , was trialed in South Australia A fairly long time ago , but it failed every test to get water down to the ' hot rock ' then collect usable steam. It was dumped July 2014 . spacesailor PS : not before , I went up for a nosey . the people were proud to show, how it could work . Whilst that particular project may not have been successful this does not reflect in geothermal power. It does work overseas. Either our location is unsuitable or perhaps we are just not innovative enough. United States* – 3,900 MW (updated our numbers as per the notes below) Indonesia – 2,418 MW – with a last minute addition for 2023 at Sorik Marapi Philippines – 1,952 MW – updated numbers by DOE Turkiye – 1,691 MW – corrected numbers based on official license numbers by the Turkish authorities New Zealand – 1,042 MW – based on official numbers by the national regulator Kenya – 985 MW – addition of the first 35 MW of three plants at Menegai coming online in 2023 and some updates by numbers reported by KenGen (the country is inching closer to joining the Geothermal GW Country Club) Mexico – 976 MW – no change, yet updated numbers from the Ministry of Energy Italy – 916 MW – correction of our reporting of early 2023. Iceland – 754 MW Japan – 576 MW – corrections of plants and number based on official government numbers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 Just Solar and Battery can give many parts of Australia no need to be on an expensive and failure prone grid with a monopoly . In a lot of places it is already so expensive as to be in reality non available.. Nev 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 At risk of drifting off topic (don't we always?), I set off in a energy related quest to dig into the csg rabbit hole. However, I was unable to discover the present number of gas wells in Australia. Can anybody enlighten me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old man emu Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 1 hour ago, octave said: Either our location is unsuitable It has been explored in New South Wales. It seems that the rock strata in which this would work is not hot enough. https://www.energy.nsw.gov.au/nsw-plans-and-progress/major-state-projects/shift-renewables/geothermal-energy#:~:text=Geothermal energy is Earth's naturally,where there's high heat flow. Water coming from the Great Artesian Basin is "hot", it is not hot enough to indicate that geothermal power generation is would be possible. I have a feeling that a location would need to be under the influence of active vulcanism where you get hot springs as at Rotorua in NZ. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 I think there are places in Australia that are suitable for some types of geothermal Although Australia has no volcanic structures, there is significant potential for geothermal energy to be extracted using hydrothermal and hot fractured rock processes. From what I can see the problem is not that it can't be done but that ii is at this point uneconomic. Geothermal energy in Australia Australia has considerable geothermal energy potential, however the electricity produced is not financially viable in Australia due to three challenges: finding it: identifying suitable geothermal resources flowing it: producing hot fluid from the geothermal reservoirs at a high rate financing it: overcoming the significant up-front capital costs associated with enhanced geothermal system technologies and the cost of transmitting electricity from remote locations. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willedoo Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 6 hours ago, spacesailor said: Geothermal ' hot rock ' , was trialed in South Australia A fairly long time ago , but it failed every test to get water down to the ' hot rock ' then collect usable steam. It was dumped July 2014 . spacesailor PS : not before , I went up for a nosey . the people were proud to show, how it could work . spacey, if you're talking about the Paralana project east of the Beverley uranium mine, it was shelved due to lack of funding as far as I know. Petratherm was a small company with limited finances. They had a 24 million dollar Renewable Energy Development Program grant but couldn't raise the other 5 million they needed despite achieving a reasonable amount of technical success. Beach was the operating partner. I was there in 2011 putting in an earth tank to hold water for the scheduled drilling of the second well. I don't know how far they got with proof of concept as it was shelved in 2014 as you say. I found this photo I took in 2011 of the well (with old Gerty in the background). There wasn't much there at the time, just the capped well, a genset and fuel tank, and a shipping container set up as a small office with computers and gear for a passive seismic array. The best part of that job was staying at the Beverley mine. Talk about luxury. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onetrack Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 (edited) I was under the impression that drilling to the great depths required to access the hot rocks is currently very difficult and costly, due to the drilling equipment not being capable enough, as regards heat resistance, and I also guess, the torque levels required. To that end, some clever Americans are experimenting with using what essentially amounts to miniature microwaves on drill heads to vaporise the rock at extreme depths, so they can get substantially deeper into the Earths crust, and access the rock that is at high temperature, for geo-thermal power. They seem convinced they can make it work and turn it into a commercial reality. The process has great potential to reduce drilling costs to low levels, as compared to current rotary bit drilling technology. I must say I'm surprised that places with major volcanic activity, and lava flows close to the surface, aren't investing in more geo-thermal power. https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/quaise-geothermal-energy-drilling-gyrotron/ Edited July 5 by onetrack 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmccarthy Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 I understood that there was a technical problem that they couldn’t overcome. To do with pipes clogging up. I don’t remember the details. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willedoo Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 At the Paralana project, the rock had a high uranium and thorium content giving it a high heat production rate. Modelling suggested a temperature of 200°C at 4,000 metres which was approximately the original planned TD. That's about twice the depth of the average oil or gas well in that sort of country. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 I think, I remember they saying " problems at 3,000 ' " , Loosing ' hardness ' in the drill bits . My other-half , was not interested in drilling for heat , and preferred having a big " camp fire " . To keep warm . spacesailor 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willedoo Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 It would have been a good project if it had worked out. The idea was to power the nearby uranium mine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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