| Author | Message | ||
     Blake |
The vaporware aspect of this along with the green aspect has me wondering if it is another Obama crony setup. | ||
| Sifo |
Not sure turbines burning anything but NG could meet emissions standards, and aren't turbines horribly inefficient in cruise or idle type conditions? They make perfect sense for trains, planes, and ships. Not sure they can compete with diesel in the trucking market. I thought these were considered a hybrid that can run on battery only. I would bet that it runs the turbine full blast to recharge the batteries as needed then shuts down. I can certainly see where it can work in concept. If it can compete with current technology, is always another question. Much easier to push this on truckers who can manage with refueling stations widely scattered across the country, as opposed to the typical commuter vehicle. | ||
| Hootowl |
We have so much gas we're running out of room to store it. The Saudis flared it for years, before we built facilities and pipelines over there that could use it. They basically give it to us. It's in their way. The rock bottom price is not stimulating demand. Makes sense to find another use for it as a fuel to take up the glut. | ||
| Hootowl |
"aren't turbines horribly inefficient in cruise or idle type conditions?" Blake, the article says the turbine spins a generator, which means it will run at a constant speed, likely through a reduction gear. Turbo shaft, most likely. | ||
| Aesquire |
The vaporware aspect of this along with the green aspect has me wondering.... You do have to keep skeptical on anything pimped as Green. OTOH, totally legit business is using Green as a sales tool and delivering real product. Of course, like any product, it's usefulness is not necessarily what the salesman told you.  But if all that was sold was "useful" and without ego, fun, or peer factors, life would be gray and boring. Can you honestly say a 1000 cc sports bike is more "useful" than one of the millions of 250 cc scooters found all over third world cities? When is the last time you saw a Ninja hauling bales of hay? | ||
| Hughlysses |
^ Yes, gas turbine efficiency sucks at non-design speeds. Using one for a hybrid power plant makes a lot of sense as it gets around this handicap. The Union Pacific railroad tried gas turbine freight locomotives in the late 1950's. Most burned heavy oil, but one actually burned pulverized coal. The oil-fired versions supposedly used 90% of the fuel at idle that they did at WOT. Railroad locomotives spend the vast majority of their service at low throttle settings so that didn't work out too well. The coal fired version didn't last long as the fly ash rapidly eroded the turbine blades despite efforts to prevent it. | ||
| Court |
>>>>Too many electrical generating plants are going from coal to natural gas. Roger that . . . . I've been on 4 new 500MW Combined Cycle plants (Ravenswood, NYPA500, Astoria 1 & Astoria 2) and ground will be broken for a new 1,000MW (about $2,000,000,000 of work . . . and another $650,000,000 for my part . . . the transmission lines and SF6 insulated substations. In addition . . . since retirement seems so damn borking . . . I'll be noodling about Sun Zia which is going to be awesome . . . . a 1,000 L.F. wide right away. There are 3 transmission line projects on tap that are over 1,000 miles in length. I'll be starting 3 here in New York within the next 6 months . . . Cricket Valley, Edic to Pleasant Valley and the ATP ?(Auburn Transmission Project). I still laugh when they told me that all the transmission lines and power plants . . . that would ever be needed . . . had been built. I've a sign on my wall . . . . I AM GOING TO RETIRE . . . the moment this isn't fun anymore | ||
| Aesquire |
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| Elsinore74 |
Richard Feynman quote: "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned." Probably already mentioned earlier in this thread, but worth repeating. | ||
| Aesquire |
Renewable energy. The unholy grail? https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2016/05/20/rene wables Many "Penny Arcade" toons are not safe for work, for children, or the easily offended. You have been warned. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://portlandtribune.com/sl/307848-185832-portla nd-school-board-bans-climate-change-denying-materi als | ||
| Hootowl |
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2016/05/20/airbus-u nit-unveils-3d-printed-electric-motorcycle/?intcmp =features | ||
| Aesquire |
Editorial http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435634/globa l-warming-transgenders-liberals-deny-science-when- it-suits-them?target=author&tid=897 | ||
| Aesquire |
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/we-should-crowdfund -this-insane-amusement-park-ride-fro-1496342766 | ||
| Aesquire |
http://gizmodo.com/whats-happening-with-hyperloop- your-guide-to-the-hype-1776120617 Personally, I consider this relic of '50's science fiction, and a couple of Gene Roddenberry's '70's tv pilots, to be a doomed project. While the idea of high speed trains in tubes, operating in a near vacuum to reduce drag and power use, seems great, it has a few problems that I consider deal breakers, but I also admit, I'm cranky and used to be cynical. Problem #1. The performance figures quoted are not ever going to see operational use. Any transport that subjects passengers to more than a fraction of a "G" just isn't going to be for the public. We could have built antipodal rocket service by 1970, but very few waiting for the TSA to demonstrate their need for more funding in a budget free world at airports is willing to actually pay for that ride. What's an Antipodal Rocket? You take off from New York, ( actually off shore several miles ) fly through space in a ICBM type trajectory, and re-enter, glide and land, anywhere on the planet ( with a big runway and a terminal to send you home ) in under 45 minutes. London to Sydney? Hong Kong to Dallas? doesn't matter. While boarding, and towing out to sea to launch will probably take well over an hour, the actual trip will always be less than 45 minutes. AWESOME! Eh? Consider, 2-3 g's on takeoff, for about 10 minutes. Then Free Fall for about 25, followed by another very bumpy 2-3 g's as the plane re-enters the atmosphere. Followed by a do or die gliding landing in the oldest versions... a modern design would have some loiter capability so if the runway is blocked by kangaroos you could do a go around. While you or I would certainly pay a premium to be in Thailand for the races, today, skipping the all day blood clot forming ride in a crammed 747, and enjoy the amusement park ride aspects, most grandmothers and children under 12 would not. So it never happened. The hyperloop /vacuum tube maglev train just won't get passengers to take the discomfort of the G loads to get the promised speeds. OTOH, even with gentle acceleration, transit time from LA to NYC would be shorter than an airliner. So that objection may be moot. Problem #2 Terrorism. Super projects that harness big power are an obvious target for terrorism. I'm actually surprised that there are so few murders with normal trains. One going supersonic just seems too obvious to me. But I could be wrong, and I'd be happy to buy a ticket. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://gizmodo.com/blue-origin-landing-looks-very- sci-fi-when-seen-from-th-1775730437 | ||
| Hootowl |
Hollywood's got nothing on that! | ||
| Pwnzor |
The video on salt reactors was very interesting. | ||
| Aesquire |
There has been a 50 odd year propaganda campaign against nuclear power. Sponsored, of course by the Soviets, originally, but now a solid part of the Green religion. But when the scam... er... concern is greenhouse gas emissions, and "peak oil", even the former head of the Sierra Club has changed his mind about nuclear. Why are all the nuke plants in the U.S. & most of the world Uranium cycle? To make Plutonium for Bombs. Since it's the U.S., France, and Russia that make the plants everyone uses, light water Uranium cycle is what you see. ( There are a few Brit home grown ones, but I don't think they export them ) The trouble is... you make Plutonium, and burn a small fraction of the Uranium before the fuel gets so contaminated it quits working. Congress passed laws requiring the fuel to be re-processed, then never funded the reprocessing plants, and there's been a decades long battle over where to put the waste. ( see Harry Reid ) So all those rods sit in cooling pools next to power plants. In storage until.... Thorium cycle reactors, OTOH are very efficient at burning the Thorium ( in a cycle of alchemical transformations... you actually burn the Uranium 233. ) and while not waste free, are far easier to re-process. And no Plutonium. Salt reactors should be designed to fail safe and shut down automatically if all the computers quit working. At the low point in the cooling system, you have a dump pipe, leading to several storage containers below ( not necessarily directly beneath... just down hill ) that split the salts into sub critical mass size bottles... presumably with heaters & pumps to send it all back to work after the problems are fixed. No valve in the dump pipe. Just wrapped in freezer coils to make a plug of hard salt to keep the molten salts in the loop. Power goes out, freezer shuts off, plug melts, and entire system drains to storage and shuts down. Elegant, simple, foolproof. The best safety designs are the ones that will work when everyone in the control room is asleep, held hostage, or zombies. That's not the case with a lot of designs. http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/the-elephant-foot- of-the-chernobyl-disaster-1986/ btw, making a power reactor with a graphite core ( like Chernobyl ) is like making a home furnace out of pine. You can do it, but expect possible fire hazard....  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Regarding that thorium video... some cool facts, cooler smart old guys, and a small number of oddly creepy people and editing. | ||
| Gregtonn |
"...there's been a decades long battle over where to put the waste." Solution? Deep wells drilled into carefully selected subduction zones. Time, heat and dispersion would render it harmless. Don't know that this method has ever been proposed. http://www.livescience.com/43220-subduction-zone-d efinition.html G | ||
| Aesquire |
Yes, as has dumping into ocean subduction zones encased in glass & stainless. Feed it back into the Earth to be spread in the mantle. I recommend against Lunar burial. That gets you a bad tv show. Or throwing waste into the Sun. We're pretty sure that's harmless. ..... but why bother? It is probable that some elements in today's uranium reactor waste will be incredibly rare and valuable for some purpose we don't know about yet. Storing it for future need and current security is the smart thing to do. Not necessarily easy. There's plenty of desert we already nuked in the 1950's where you could stash waste encased in glass and protect it from theft and leakage. Some sci-fi writers have suggested a priesthood of protectors to keep the waste safe for generations after civilization falls and science is forgotten. If that sounds pessimistic & paranoid, I will remind you that there is a current presidential candidate with a large following who never learned about the mass murders followers/exploiters of his ideology have committed in my lifetime. | ||
| Blake |
The documentary briefly touched on one of the major hurdles for the thorium reactor, finding a way to make one that holds up against the corrosive effects of the hot liquid thorium. Did they figure a viable means to solve that problem? | ||
| Aesquire |
Not, luckily, hot liquid metal Thorium. But molten salt is bad enough. It's a not simple but well understood chemical plant problem. Corrosion is an electrochemical process. That's why they are working on pumping hot molten salt around first, then building the reactor part with Thorium in the salt. After, presumably, solving the corrosion issues. The right seals etc. But this isn't all new stuff. Solar plants also use molten salt to transfer heat from collector to boiler/turbine. The energy density in one of those giant bird burners is high enough to make water not good enough a medium. Blow a pipe with hot salt and you have a big mess to clean up. Blow a pipe with liquid Sodium and the mess is on fire and water makes explosions. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/ is-it-really-summer-u-k-natural-gas-trades-like-it -s-winter 2017 will be announced as the warmest year on record. Bet ya $100. So will 2016. And 2018. I'm not worried about 2019, since odds are we'll be in an ice age by then.  | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2015/10/30/ former-president-of-greenpeace-scientifically-rips -climate-change-to-shreds/ Worth a read. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/10/eu-to-l aunch-kettle-and-toaster-crackdown-after-brexit-vo te2/ I have no informed opinion on the "brexit" but am well aware what happens when "well meaning" politicians meddle in daily life.... for your own good. Quick example... Toilets. After passing laws mandating less water consumption, many people ended up with toilets that needed 2 or 4 flushes to make the waste go away. This means that not only was no water saved, but more was wasted, and presumably a LOT was spent on plumbing to fix the problem of a long established system that suddenly had a major part that did not work the same as it had for over a century. If you're trying to flush a bucket of golf balls, ( a popular ad for one brand ) no big deal. Golf balls roll. If you are trying to rid your bathroom of a sticky mass of stuff that lacks a wheel like shape? On a fraction of a gallon? With the same slopes and pipe sizes designed for 4 gallon flushes in the 19th century? So. Toasters you need 4 times to toast bread. Kettles that take 6 times as long? When politicians who know nothing of science make your home appliances use MORE energy to do the job, ( because you have to make them do it over and over ) you have Modern Nanny State Idiocy. And in the U.S. it's unelected bureaucrats you can't get fired who screw everyone. How it works in the E.U. is a bit of a mystery... I guess you can't fire anyone, at all, in the E.U. Imperium? | ||
| Zac4mac |
A little bit of a side-track... Reading a story on BBC about light pollution worldwide and it showed satellite night images. Looking at the US, I noticed a huge bright spot, like the size of L.A. a few hundred miles north of Denver. Pondering for a bit I realize that's the North Dakota oilfields... amazing. Z | ||
| Ducbsa |
Zac, we won't have that inflicted on us after Pres Sanders takes office and a toss-up if it is Pres Cankles, depending on who donates to her Foundation/slush fund. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environ ment/wp/2016/06/17/the-u-s-is-powering-up-its-firs t-new-nuclear-reactor-in-decades/ Good news. |
