Dutton's Folly (nuclear power)

[Jerry_Atrick]

That is bs: https://www.energyglobal.com/special-reports/02082023/the-baseload-fallacy/

 

I forgot to mention earlier... the policy is not designed to see a nuclear power generation system in Aus; it is designed to make it feel so expensive, we will stick to fossil fuel as we would have killed new renewables on the hope of nuclear..

 

 

 

 

Edited December 15 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

9 hours ago, spacesailor said:

As if they were used to them , & knew just what to do l .

Yes, trained firies have a fair idea what to do once they assess the incident.

 

Honestly, we have a far bigger problem assessing chimney fires, which often render the house ununhabitable even when we get there so quickly that all you saw was a whisp of smoke.

 

BTW, we haven't yet had to deal with any kind of lithium battery fire. But no doubt they will happen. Everything except bricks, concrete and steel might catch fire one day.

 

 

 

Edited December 15 by nomadpete
My eloquence escaped me

[spacesailor]

Steel does burn .

An " oxy- lance " ( stee tube ) is used to cut through reinforced concrete  , or scrap copper boilers .

The steel- tube burns at the end & when air pressure is send through the same tube, it sends molten steel with it .

spacesailor

 

https://www.google.com/url

 

sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DvqzJjOjThFc%26pp%3DygUQI294eWhlbHBpbmR1c3RyeQ%3D%3D&ved=2ahUKEwiiq9G4gquKAxUQRWwGHaanDJkQwqsBegQIDxAE&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw2dcvF_AO_dOoXFtGRzd86u

 

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Steel does burn .

An " oxy- lance " ( stee tube ) is used to cut through reinforced concrete  , or scrap copper boilers .

You were talking about house fires Spacey.

So that was the context of my answer.

 

 

I have seen I beams bend like wet spaghetti in a domestic fire but  have not seen steel or cement actually combust.

 

[facthunter]

STEEL only burns in exceptional Circumstances. Ie White hot and in an oxygen rich Atmosphere.  Steel wool will burn if it's fine enough..   it's NOT going to  combust in the Normally accepted way..  Rust is cold oxidation  often Hydrates Nev

[Marty_d]

For those who say renewables don't work when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow... For those sites chosen for wind and solar farms - what are the actual stats? How many consecutive days is the longest time that it hasn't? And for those days, is it possible to build storage capacity of whatever kind - battery, pumped hydro, molten salt, whatever - for less per gigawatt than nuclear?

 

If the answer is yes, then there's absolutely no reason to go for a more expensive option.

 

The age of big power stations producing energy 24/7 whether it's used or not is over. It can be done far more efficiently and cheaper by a mix of renewables with storage, probably neighbourhood batteries etc, which also gives you a safer and more reliable decentralized grid.

 

[spacesailor]

40 days and 40 nights .

Of rain,  according to one book .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

40 days and 40 nights .

Of rain,  according to one book .

spacesailor

[kgwilson]

Politicians especially the conservative lot are always talking of base load power. Energy experts say this is an invalid term and relates to coal fired power that is unable to change with demand and operates in the very small window from full on to flat out. Nuclear generation falls in to this same category. The term that is relevant is peak demand and the ability to address this as it happens at any time. This is where batteries come in to play as does Gas and (if we ever get any) pumped hydro. Batteries react almost instantly with Gas and pumped hydro a little behind.

 

Renewables especially solar provide huge amounts of electricity on sunny days and when it is hot everyone uses air conditioning. The biggest cause for alarm is on hot sunny days when brown outs are likely due to demand. Dutton & Co are always on about what about when the sun don't shine & the wind don't blow. Simply it is the ability to store energy. Coal & nuclear won't do this and have never done this. It is just that there has been more being produced than we can use.

 

We need a lot more storage capacity. At times there is more energy being produced from rooftop solar than required on the Eastern Seaboard. South Australia regularly exports excess wind and solar energy to Victoria & NSW. There are lots of battery projects on the way & these will have the capability of reacting to peak demand. 7 nuclear plants won't & they are supposed to use the existing supply infrastructure but Duttons mob have forgotten that this infrastructure has mostly already been repurposed.

 

The rollout of renewable projects should be full on but it is thwarted by red tape, NIMBYs and basic ignorance.

[Jerry_Atrick]

54 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

The rollout of renewable projects should be full on but it is thwarted by red tape, NIMBYs and basic ignorance.

It's the basic ignorance caused by and coupled with fossil fuel lobbyist that drives NIMBYs and red tape.

[onetrack]

The Libs rolled into Collie in W.A. with their nuclear proposal - despite the fact the LNP nuclear power study done by Frontier Economics, doesn't even mention any possibility of Collie as a site of a nuclear reactor. In the Frontier study, it says both W.A. and the N.T. are too small for nuclear reactors and our power generation systems are too isolated to even consider them as part of any East Coast energy centre.

 

For those on the East Coast, Collie contains W.A.'s only operational coalfield and was the centre of power generation in W.A. for many years. Collie has been downgraded in the power generation stakes in recent years (with gas turbines, wind farms and solar power generation increasing in various areas around the State), and the coalfields and generating plants were sold to private enterprise (with an Indian company being a major investor), and their operations have run at major losses for years - to the point where the W.A. Govt has been bailing the coal power plant operators out.

 

The W.A. Govt is intent on closing all the coal-fired generators, and ceasing coal mining in W.A., and to assist Collie into the renewable power transition, the State Govt has installed some major size, grid storage batteries in Collie.

The W.A. Govt is intent on pouring money into Collie to assist in coal-generation employees transitioning over to renewable energy jobs - and Duttons plans got short shrift from Roger Cook, the W.A. Premier.

 

And the local Libs big nuclear presentation in Collie went over like a lead balloon - partly because a survey they claimed to have carried out with locals, no-one knew anything about - and the Libs "core promise" centres around small modular reactors (one of which is now promised for Collie if the LNP is re-elected) - but no SMR has been built anywhere in the world, the technology is still in the "prototype/testing" phase - so the Libs can't even provide any accurate costing on an SMR, because none exist!! 

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-16/collie-inquiry-into-nuclear-power-generation-in-australia-/104732722

 

Edited December 16 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, spacesailor said:

40 days and 40 nights .

Of rain,  according to one book .

spacesailor

I'd rather go by BOM records

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/maps/averages/solar-exposure/

 

 

 

Edited December 16 by nomadpete
Just had to justify it with a link

[nomadpete]

This map shows the average hours of sunshine per month.

 

It shouldnt be too hard to figure out the average backup power required for 'days the sun don't shine'.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/maps/averages/sunshine-hours/

 

Of course the average doesn't account for the exceptional seasons, but a contingency allowance would cover that.

 

BTW, pumped hydro can come online very quickly - less than 1/2 a second.

 

But we need to start building a bunch of them.

[old man emu]

It seems that the sensible answer for Australia is to concentrate on solar, which still works when the wind doesn't blow, and store the excess on battery farms. If we have a national grid, electricity produced in low demand places - mainly anywhere away from the major conurbations, can be transmitted through the grid to the high demand areas. It would cost money, but I wonder if creating battery farms would not be lots cheaper than trying to build thermal generating plants. Of course, my idea depends on advances in battery performance, which I do not doubt will happen. 

[kgwilson]

Australia is the sunniest county on earth so solar makes so much sense. Even though the subsidies have all but gone, the rooftop solar installation industry is still going gangbusters now with more than 4 million installations. The one thing we are not short of is land. The problem is that the vast open spaces where huge solar farms could easily be installed are a long way from where most of the population lives. This though has not deterred the plan to export solar generated electricity to Singapore vi an undersea cable.

 

Plans for solar & wind has met with considerable resistance from locals in outback areas, mostly due to fear of the unknown. Even though solar & wind generation has been around for decades and there a proven cases where cropping and grazing co-exists perfectly with both there is still a lot of resistance. Of course a lot of the negativity is promoted by the fossil fuel industry especially coal & gas.

 

California now has almost 14 gigawatts of battery storage. It took 5 years to get to 10 GW & just 6 months to add another 3GW. here in Australia our total is just 3GW. This is forecast to increase to 36GW by 2035 unless of course stupidity over rules logic and common sense.

[facthunter]

When the sun doesn't shine the wind might still blow. There's also the Possibility of Tidal. YOU KNOW they are LYING when they talk of BASELOAD. It's %{*^?@ Meaningless.. EVEN an Aluminium Smelter doesn't have a steady load. One EV can power a house for A day. We need a quick response source to avoid blackouts. Aging Coal fired Power Stations FAIL without warning and can't be MADE reliable.  Australia HAS to be the MOST suited Place in the world for Wind and solar,  and it's doesn't have to be concentrated in a few sites. ANYONE could set up an array. That would not allow Monopolies to charge what THEY Like.. This IS a STUNT to keep Coal for longer and Kill electric cars and stuff up a Labor initiative.

[onetrack]

There are any amount of renewable energy and energy-storage solutions that the LNP simply ignores, in their quest to keep their fossil fuel mates rolling in money.

 

Heating bricks with solar or wind energy, and then using the stored heat to generate power, is an elegantly simply solution that works admirably. The system uses fire bricks (which are a simple, basic product, that has been in use for thousands of years), to store solar or wind energy by heating the bricks to 1500°C (using electrical heating wiring through the bricks), and the bricks can retain their heat for days, if fully insulated.

 

The heat is recovered using air blown through the bricks, which superheats the air, and the superheated air is then used to generate steam, which can drive generators. The steam can also be used in many industrial processes, thus providing cheap energy for industry.

 

https://rondo.com/how-it-works

[kgwilson]

My average power use is 7 kWh per day. This is for a 2 person household with only electricity. Solar panels provide around 50kWh a day at present & most of that is exported. In July the figure is 28-30 kWh/day. Of course it is less on cloudy days. Since February I have produced 9.3 megawatts. I have done just on 20,000km in my EV and other than the 6 long trips I have done of about 2600km all the power has come from solar and my 2 hours of free power per day & most of that is my own solar anyway. My last power bill was a $30.00 credit. The car battery stores 64 kWh so in theory I could run the house for 9 days off the car battery.

 

Duttons devotees ignore this but most people with solar on their rooftops know these are real benefits. The Rondo system and numerous other storage systems like molten salt superheated by the sun & stored for later release are way cheaper and simpler with no radio active issues and don't take years to build.

[old man emu]

Def'n:

CONSERVATIVE: averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.

LUDDITE: a person opposed to new technology or ways of working.

SYNONYM: a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase.

 

So are "conservative" and "luddite" in the consumable -v- renewable debate, synonyms?

 

[Marty_d]

Just combine them.  They're either Luddatives (give you the shits) or Conservatites (what cross-dressing high court judges wear).

[facthunter]

Laxatives give you the $#!ts' . Dutton and Co take us all for fools. At this stage not one STATE wants it. (even Benito Chrisafulli. ).  Fletcher  and Birmingham have had enough.  THEY were Moderates...Nev

[old man emu]

4 hours ago, kgwilson said:

people with solar on their rooftops know these are real benefits.

The problem with our democracy is that the majority  of electors have the common sense, but their elected representatives (notice I didn't say 'leaders') do not. 

[onetrack]

As plebs, we don't see the regular high pressure lobbying and other corporate pressures applied to our political masters, that sends decision-making skew-whiff, and directed towards favouring the corporates and the super-rich.

[nomadpete]

The public are already voting with their own wallets, just look at the PV panel sales. When batteries reach a critical pricepoint, the public will be buying them in big numbers. Combined with suitable EV interface, a modest house battery will put an end to reliance on grid power.

[spacesailor]

I'm toying with the idea  of a BEV .

But $ 50,000 worth of petrol will last an awful long time ! . Which is something I lack .

 At $2.00 a litre it is about a full tanker  . To tow behind my Pajero.

the wife's against it , as she says I'm SKI .

My reason is " the huge que " to get cheaper fuel . $1.77 in merrylands Sydney. 

spacesailor

Ps. :  no rooftop panels