The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Trashing nuclear promises > Comments

Trashing nuclear promises : Comments

By Tilman Ruff, published 21/8/2008

Time for Australia to stand up and be counted on the India-US nuclear deal.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All
Shadow Minister, hmm, a bit tricky arguing from analogy, (also with name calling) one can end up looking foolish, - in this instance it would not be correct to take the car away from the wheels, there is an already existing Geothermal industry established in over 20 countries, generating .5 of a percent of the total world energy requirement, - the Kalina heat exchanger Geodynamics is using is the same as an old plant in California, it would be a more correct analogy to talk of changing the petrol source for the car, - in this case simply getting it deeper, where incidentally there is an enormous amount more of it.
I guess you couldn't know your analogy would be false because you know almost nothing of Geothermal Hot Rocks, (GHR) Also known as Enhanced Geothermal systems, -(EGS) interesting if you would say this fellow, Dan Reicher of Google.org is Grandiose, when he says "EGS could be the 'killer app' of the energy world,". "It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind."
Well no doubt who said it you will keep on believing it to be grandiose, until you educate yourself properly, and that includes admitting Nuclear is failed technology, after 50 years, can still not dispose of the waste,
It is grandiose to think Nuclear can power the world, - it can, but for 10 years only, - a bit shortsighted what! It is not grandiose to know that GHR can power the world for thousands or even millions of years in co-operation with the sun, you just have to jack-hammer the scales off your eyes and get out there and look around.
We should not sell our uranium to the Indians or anyone else, but leave it in the ground till we develop space travel, - when we will actually need it.
Posted by Geoff Thomas, Friday, 29 August 2008 12:49:31 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff,

Rather than relying on your source i.e. Dan Reicher of Google.org (renowned source of profound pronouncements), I prefer to use CSIRO or the MIT report as the basis for my opinions. This is coupled with personal experience in designing and building power generation.

I have never said that there was not an established geothermal industry, rather that the existing established ones rely rather on close proximity to volcanic activity. The EGS in the US also mostly relies on the proximity of magma to the surface.

The MIT report predicts that the US "could" generate up to 100GW of power by 2055 this way based on available sites (mostly nearly hot springs etc) which in the US is a drop in the bucket (less than 2%)

The economic viability depends on the temperature, depth and permeability of the rocks. The higher the temperature the higher the efficiency and less water used in condensing. Steam below 200C is pretty much worthless in this regards.

Given the paucity of the Australian geothermal resources and their distance from either water sources or load, the cost of generation is likely to be prohibitive.

Rather than taking offense when someone punctures your fantasy, I would suggest that you read articles from real sources rather than IT gurus and company promotionals.

Many countries seem to be investing heavily in the "failed technology" of nuclear power as their energy experts have misguidedly not listened to Dan Reicher.

If and when GHR technology suddenly leaps forward and becomes economic and plentiful I will eat my hat, but I don't see it happenning in my life time no matter how much you want it to.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 1 September 2008 9:17:14 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Shadow Minister, there is nothing like information to stir up the conservatives who hate change, even if not to change is to die.
Hence we will now go further along the information road to see why Geothermal HR is superior to Nuclear, - firstly your admission of the proven 100 GW based on available sites, - this is not EGS despite you said it, but to proceed,
A GW (Gigawatt, is a thousand megawatts, (gigawatt - noun (abbrev. GW) a unit of electric power equal to one billion (10 to the power of 9) watts)
Your claim that the USA hot springs capacity is 2% is also incorrect, - according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_use_in_the_United_States , the USA Nameplate capacity, (which is arguably more than actual capacity, is 1,075174 megawatts, or 1,000 gigawatts, so the occasional hot springs could produce 10%, which is incidentally the same as the current Nuclear capacity in the USA.
When you get into the serious GHR, (EGS) sites, then it goes off the Terra scale.
Interestingly your hated Dan Reicher of Google.org as I quoted, was announcing 10 million dollars for mainly quantifying the U.S. Geothermal resource, - the Australian resource, now believed to be enough for over 7,000 years, is already researched through oil drilling records. - Your old records, showing only hundreds of years, still exhibit capacity way beyond nuclear (http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/index.html) and even probably coal, although we cannot afford to keep burning coal as you know.
Bringing GHR power from eg. Innaminca to the National Australian grid, already running 360,000 volts up most of the east coast, to Adelaide and Tasmania, is not a big problem, particularly given the latest installation of HVDC power transmission, already in America and Europe at 1 million volts with plans now for 1.5 million volts, - technology has moved on and most large power systems are not only superceded, but in need of replacement.
Lets use the new technology and include GHR access.
Posted by Geoff Thomas, Monday, 1 September 2008 12:42:25 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff,

This is like talking to a child. Don't you even read the links you are posting?

The link you quoted gives the average consumption in the US as 3300 GW (3.3TW)which would put the capacity in excess of 5TW to allow for peak etc. Which as I said would give the projected capacity as about 2% or a seventh of the present installed nuclear capacity.

And this is based on technology that is predicted to be available in the next couple of decades not proven as you attributed to me.

As there is a push to reduce CO2 emission by 50% by 2050, this drop in the bucket is not the answer.

I am not disputing that there is a huge energy store in the earth, just that most of it is practically unuseable for the foreseeable future.

I hate neither you nor Dan Reicher, I simply believe that you have made wild claims with no supporting evidence, and completely contradict the findings and predictions of those bodies with the intellectual muscle and resources to predict these things.

HVDC and other high voltage transmission systems which you so glibly toss into the mix are designed for transmission of large amounts of enery long distances, as the step up and down costs a fortune, as do the lines and insulation. This is not economic for small amounts. The 500MW GHR plant being proposed in a decade would probably cost less than the transmission line to Adelaide with HVDC.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 1 September 2008 1:21:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Again insults instead of intellect, you have made a serious mistake between capacity and consumption, - better you not quote figures if you do not even know the units, be a good boy go back to the link and look at the name plate capacities as I said, you will find I am absolutely correct.
A trap for young players is to confuse capacity with consumption but briefly, capacity plus time is consumption, if the capacity figure does not have a time figure after it, it is just capacity, - if I draw 2 kilowatts from my Solar system for 1 hour, I have used 2 kw/hrs, for 24 hours I have used 48 kilowatt hours. 100 gigawatts for 24 hours is 2400 gigawatt/hrs, which is 876,000 Gigawatt hours per year. - that is quite a sum just from the occasional hot springs in USA, but nothing like the real capacity for GHR / EGS in the USA.
For Australia, I have attached a map of the Oz GHR resource as per the later figures, (It is a poster I did for an exhibition on solutions to Global Warming we had here in Cairns) http://www.empower.iig.com.au/gone/Geothermal2pages.pdf - you will notice that there are patches quite close to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, etc, but where you did not understand the importance of the Cooper basin is that there is a huge resource there, it would be sensible to rebuild all of Australia's generation capacity currently done by Coal in that one area with the one HVDC line to the connection with the Eastern grid.
All the technology to do this already exists, it is far superior to Nuclear and doesn't declare war on our children, all it needs is the political will to make it happen and the highly corrupt and self interested Nuclear industry to just go away and stop trying to pull the wool over people's eyes that Nuclear is any sort of answer, - had you followed up this link, http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/index.html
you would know that anyway.
Cheers,
Geoff Thomas.
Kuranda.
Posted by Geoff Thomas, Monday, 1 September 2008 5:50:55 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
GT,

Reading the posts, and links, and using the car analogy:

I have a commodore with a speed capacity of 200kmph. I drive the 900km to Melbourne in 10hrs varying from 120km to 60km through town.

Capacity = 200
peak = 120
average = 90

The average consumption in the US is 3300 GW yet you claim the capacity is 1000 GW.

This does not add up.
Posted by Democritus, Monday, 1 September 2008 6:18:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. Page 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy