21st Century Energy

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
TBenson
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by TBenson »

Interesting comments Anonymous guy, but regarding breeding plutonium...actually it's not at all difficult to breed more plutonium than the U235 that you are consuming. There have been many, many reactors already tested that burn up to 30% of the uranium, which includes essentially ALL of the .7% U235 plus another 30% of the U238. Additionally it's already been demonstrated that you can also breed Thorium in a 50/50 mix with the uranium.

What this all means...with properly designed reactors, current Uranium stocks are good for a minimum 200 years. Just the burnt leftover fuel currently being stored at reactor sites across the US could be burnt down in advanced reactors to provide 100 of those 200 years.

Plus, there are vast Uranium deposits we haven't even found yet, simply because nobody is looking.

Plus, we could use Thorium.

The bottom line is, nuclear fuels in advanced reactors could power the entire planet earth for a thousand years.

The claim that "the mining and extraction of Uranium requires burning more fossil fuels than the Uranium produces" is utterly untrue. In fact, the energy content of Uranium is so astronomical, it is by far the LEAST energy to mine and process of any energy source.
MARK-HARRISS
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by MARK-HARRISS »

I think there's three times as much thorium as any uranium, and all of that can used as a fuel once it's been irradiated.
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Richard Hull
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Richard Hull »

As I said before, to keep the US going with electricity pouring out of the outlets using only internal supplies, and not one imported BTU, it will be a situation of only coal or nuclear or both...........probably both. All the renewables will be relegated to the job of assist only.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Goldenspark
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Goldenspark »

"Wind has some merit, but it is dependant on batteries"
Not correct. There is now a massive push for offshore wind and wave that connects direct to the grid. Wind generators at 5MW each are possible now, with designs looking to go to 10MW. There is no doubt that these renewables must figure in the energy economy, if only because their time to generate is relatively short.
AnGuy
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

>...actually it's not at all difficult to breed more plutonium than the U235 that you are consuming. There have been many, many reactors already tested that burn up to 30% of the uranium, which includes essentially ALL of the .7% U235 plus another 30% of the U238. Additionally it's already been demonstrated that you can also breed Thorium in a 50/50 mix with the uranium.

No, That would mean nuclear energy is perpetual device. Creating more energy then consumed. All energy systems have entropy. When U235 splits, two neutrons are produced. At least one neutron must be used split another U235 atom so the reaction can continue. Plutonium is created when U-238 captures a thermal neutron . The U-239 decays into Pu-239. However very many neutrons are lost, becuase they are not captured and exit the bounds of the reactor, or are absorbed by other elements inside the reactor. The end result is the breeder reactors make better use of the U235 supply but the do not produce more fuel than consumed. Otherwise there would be no need to continue mining Uranium. Also remember the original purpose of breeder reactors was to create fissible material for bombs, not power generation.

>Plus, we could use Thorium.

Natural Thorium is non fissible becuas the fissible isotopes have short half-lives. India converts non-fissible Thorium into fissible material by using a small stock of Uranium. India has large quanities of Thorium but have very little Uranium and I believe they import all of their Uranium. Converting U238 into P-239 is more efficient anyway. India must use Thorium simply because they dont have any large natural uranium mines, and want to make the most of the fissible material they have on hand.

The only naturally occuring fissible materal available on Earth is U-235. Miniscule amounts of Th-233 or other fissible materials exist because of U-235 decay chain. This is because all fissible isotopes except U-235 have very short half-lives (on a Geological time scale). During the past 4.5 billion years, all Fissible materials have decayed into no-fissible materials. U-235 has a very large half-life, however even much of the planet's original stock of U-235 has already decayed. This is why only 0.7% of natural Uranium consists of U235.
longstreet
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by longstreet »

I think you have a misunderstanding of what nuclear energy is. There is a huge amount of energy stored in the strong force. I hate making generalities, but really anything above iron has energy stored such that when atoms are broken apart the resulting matter has less energy in the strong force, giving off the difference as kinetics. The problem is getting a neutron to effectively split the atom.

Think of it as a giant brick sitting next to a ledge. U-235 can easily fall off the ledge and we extract the energy when it does, but U-238 is a little more stable so it doesn't fall off as much. When you breed plutonium it is much easier to push off, and you only sacrifice a tiny amount of energy to do it. The ledge is still huge and you can still get a lot of energy when it falls off, a lot more than what you used to make it a little less stable.

Even assuming you are cleaver enough to do all nuclear transitions there is a hard limit to the energy you can get. But this has nothing to do with entropy. If you want to talk about converting the nuclear heat into electricity, then that's where entropy comes in. But not in converting nuclear energy to kinetic/heat energy. That is more of a conservation of energy problem.

edit: I happen to think that I should say there is no problem with entropy because the potential energy of the system does not increase when you breed plutonium. Potential nuclear energy is always decreasing in all these reactions. It's just there is so much of it that we can waste some to make it easier on our reactors.

Here is a page that describes this better: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... ucbin.html

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Richard Hull
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Richard Hull »

All fission energy is just the reclamation of locked down fusion energy and that is the stored dynamic energy of gravitation that fused such atoms in the first place. All nuclear energy be it fusion or fission, as it occurs in nature, is 100% gravitational in origin.

There is no perpetual moion machine here, just a nearly undamped oscillator universally exchanging potential energies.

Fission is not much different from burning coal or oil except one utilizes chemical (electron orbital or coulombic exchanges) and the other uses gravitational exchanges long ago locked within the various nuclear forces.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
AnGuy
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

>Think of it as a giant brick sitting next to a ledge. U-235 can easily fall off the ledge and we extract the energy when it does, but U-238 is a little more stable so it doesn't fall off as much.

Only odd numbered isotopes are capable of sustaining fission reactions . Odd number isotopes such as Pu-239, U237, U235,U233,Th233, etc. release more than one neutron when they are split. Even number isotopes decay with alpha particles or release less than two neutrons when split and therefore cannot be used to sustain the reaction . Even numbered istopes such as U238 also required vast Neutron Energies to be split. I believe U238 requires Neutron energies > 1 MeV to split. These higher energy Neutrons tend to pass through heavy isotopes without any interactions. In breeder reactors, the neutrons produced by U235 are slowed down so they can be captured by U238 which later transmute from U239 to Np239 to Pu-239.


>Even assuming you are cleaver enough to do all nuclear transitions there is a hard limit to the energy you can get. But this has nothing to do with entropy.

Sure it does. The lower the entropy a system has, the more difficult it is to extract energy. Its seems very unlikely that we will be able to extract energy from the nuclear interactions you are suggesting. Fusion is probably by far much more practical, and after 50 years and 100 billions poured into Fusion reseach, we still can't get a positive energy gain.

>I hate making generalities, but really anything above iron has energy stored such that when atoms are broken apart the resulting matter has less energy in the strong force, giving off the difference as kinetics. The problem is getting a neutron to effectively split the atom.

There lies the true problem. Virtually every atoms doesn't want to give up free neutrons. In 99.9% of all instances of natural radioactive, atoms give up a alphas instead of free neutrons.

BTW: The original point I was making was on the practicality of using Fission as a fossil fuel replacement. The bottom line is that nuclear fission isn't going to save us from an energy crash, at best it could postpone the inevitable by a couple of decades (probably a lot less). Certainly once Peak Oil is global reconized those that have large Uranium reserves aren't likely going to want to share it with the have-nots, especially since its easily weaponized. Those with remaining Oil reserves are likely to act similarly. Thoses that have neither Oil or Uranium (or lack the capacity to use Nuclear Energy) are screwed. Peak Oil will result in Peak Energy since mining and refining Uranium is dependant on Oil.

Heres a couple of good articles to read:
http://www.dieoff.com/page125.htm (Energy's role in our civilization development)

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ (Peak Energy)
AnGuy
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

>>"Wind has some merit, but it is dependant on batteries"

>Not correct. There is now a massive push for offshore wind and wave that connects direct to the grid. Wind generators at 5MW each are possible now, with designs looking to go to 10MW. There is no doubt that these renewables must figure in the energy economy, if only because their time to generate is relatively short.

I was referring to wind generation for individual homes. As far as commerical system there are limits too. Wind generation is dependant on a steady stream of wind. Not every place is suitable. and the amount of wind provided at any given time is unpredicable. For instance, One minute a 10 MW wind turbine might actually produce10 MW of power, but the next minute, the wind speed might fall and the turbine will only generate 3 MW. Unfortunately, electricity supply isn't elastic. If the load is 10 MW its needs a steady supply at 10MW, other wise pretty much all devices using electricity stop working. In many devices, noisy power will result in an early demise. Any national power grid based solely on Wind must include a fast storage system that can steady the output during wind power output fluxuations. It probably very unlikely that a system robust enough could be implemented without the use of base load fossil (or nuclear) power plants.
Q
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Q »

i thought this was a good place to post this.

today's edition of the asheville citizen times had a small article on the front page about how duke power is wanting to build a new nuclear plant somewhere in the carolinas. the time table suggested is that the site should be choosen by the end of next year, and the reactors should be online by 2015 (assuming that the plan goes through).
not much else was said, though most of the article was the typical responces from the obviously "against anything nuclear" crowd. the only posative aspect mentioned in the article was that it would generate roughly 1000 full time jobs.
some how i doubt that nuclear power will be considered before it will be to late to build.

Q
longstreet
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by longstreet »

A couple of decades? We have plenty of fissile fuel to last a lot longer than that. I think you are drastically underestimating the amount of energy available to us with our current technology that is just waiting for politics to release.

And please stop confusing entropy. For one, *increasing* entropy makes it harder to extract energy, not the other way around. This has to do with chaotic probability of kinetic interactions. For example if you have a completely stationary set of balls held together by gravity, and you drop another ball from a height, it is statistically improbable that any ball will ever reach that height again because that would mean every other ball is again absolutly stationary. This has nothing to do with nuclear energy because we aren't trying to raise the potential nuclear energy at all. We are decreasing it by 200Mev with every reaction and not looking back. Who cares if we need a 5MeV neutron if we're going to get that much more energy back.

edit: I'm sorry, that wasn't very studious. But really, we are not breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics by breeding plutonium.

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Richard Hull
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Richard Hull »

It will never be too late to build nuke plants. It might be too late to build them safely due to immediate power needs. This worries me as it might throw fission power back to the TMI knee jerk response if some slap-dash fission put-up crumbles early in its carreer. The old jobs are still kickin' and way beyond their design period which is a tribute to those old engineers and construction companies. The old ones need to be replaced now as they too might suffer increased risk of disaster or mischance due to sheer age and degradation of materials. Still we would blame the technology and never ourselves for a failure.

By the way, even numbered elements self-fission on their own without any neutrons. (not sustainable) The most rapid self-fissioner among the natural even numbered elements would be stock U238 and one of the slowest would be common Thorium 232. Admittedly the rate is slow per unit atomic density, but it is real and measurable, nonetheless.

Many folks don't know this, especially as regards thorium.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
AnGuy
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

> It might be too late to build them safely due to immediate power needs. This worries me as it might throw fission power back to the TMI knee jerk response if some slap-dash fission put-up crumbles early in its carreer.

I would suspect the number of engineers that persued a career in nuclear engineering have all but vanished and those with the skills and knowledge are on the cusp of retirement. I suspose that we could always import engineers from abroad, since most of the world did not abandon Nuclear Energy.

About a year ago northeastern states sued many of the business using coal fired plants in the midwest, blaming them for air pollution. Even if the Businesses decide to build new Nuke plants, I would suspect that many states and organizations would block any construction for quiet sometime. Since some states produce power with hydro and coal, they might not want trucks loaded with waste passing through on their way to Nevada.
DaveC
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by DaveC »

Want is an amazing motivator. The reason we can entertain so many alternatives, without regard to practicality right now, is that we are not yet in want.. in the US.

When the new prices of natural gas, filter through the market, the next thing to rise will be electricity, along with all other fossil fuels. It seems that everyone understands that you make more money at 2x$ per unit, than at 1x$ per.

Today a friend was telling about a metal treating company that is facing a 4x increase in their fuel costs, already. It could well put them out of business. Or.... it could finally get them to upgrade their furnaces.

But either way, we have few options but to pay the price.

Without a nuclear option right now, supply and demand will equilibrate... somewhere, but many will not like the price.

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Richard Hull
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by Richard Hull »

Dave is right. The is no WANT yet, save for "want of will".

Nuclear and coal are our only real option when quads of power are needed just to stay flush in future. The closer we get to the WANT, the options we have narrow tremendously. We now fiddle as Rome burns.

A tremendous debt overburden in the private sector alone will certainly be the trigger to major issues coming to the fore much sooner than expected as real money will be needed when prices skyrocket.

Soddy was right in his latter day musings as an economist. He might also be correct in his assumption that only nuclear energy will pull us out of the bottomless energy well.

Lots of mouths in developing nations trying to feed off the tit that we have suckled on for years. Suddenly we have to compete, just as our industrial base is disappearing in favor of the information age which lures us not to get our hands dirty making things anymore.

We are the future Great Britain. We will survive and remain solid, but our glorious age as a world class, dominant nation is just about lost. Unfortunately, the resources for any aspiring nation taking on this mantle in a sustainable fashion are just not there anymore. Certainly not at the level of the Victorian age, English empire or the level attained by the United State's meteoric rise after 1900.

Economic ruin due to a call on debt and energy's failure to sustain people in comfortable, affordable surroundings will bring about a transformation. How unsettling it will be will have to wait for future eyes to see.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
TBenson
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by TBenson »

As usual I agree with Richard but I'm not quite so pessimistic. I believe that when the need confronts us, the high-technology infrastructure will see money to be made and will go into overdrive and we'll very quickly see mass produced nuclear reactors rolling off the assembly lines. Japan, India, China, Canada, S. Africa, and of course the US are all setting up to compete in what could be the economic driver of the next century. The nation that best meets this new market need, with mass-produced, efficient, cheap, plug-n-play reactors, will dominate international affairs.

Oil was the primary underlying driving force for all economic and political development of the 20th century. Control of oil sources was the primary strategic consideration of every major war. I believe nuclear power will take over this role. Literally, human civilization is a machine that needs quads of energy to survive. This energy must come from some source, and it must come in massive, indescribable quantities. Nuclear is the only source that can do it, unless we're willing to pollute the air with a poisonous quantity of coal emissions. (For various reasons, I've concluded that global warming is in fact real and even more dangerous than most believe...but that's another debate).

Sorry, enough ranting and raving!
TBenson
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by TBenson »

As usual I agree with Richard but I'm not quite so pessimistic. I believe that when the need confronts us, the high-technology infrastructure will see money to be made and will go into overdrive and we'll very quickly see mass produced nuclear reactors rolling off the assembly lines. Japan, India, China, Canada, S. Africa, and of course the US are all setting up to compete in what could be the economic driver of the next century. The nation that best meets this new market need, with mass-produced, efficient, cheap, plug-n-play reactors, will dominate international affairs.

Oil was the primary underlying driving force for all economic and political development of the 20th century. Control of oil sources was the primary strategic consideration of every major war. I believe nuclear power will take over this role. As has been discussed ad nauseum, human civilization is a machine that needs quads of energy to function. This energy must come from some source, and it must come in massive, indescribable quantities. Nuclear is the only source that can do it, unless we're willing to pollute the air with a poisonous quantity of coal emissions. (For various reasons, I've concluded that global warming is in fact real and even more dangerous than most believe...but that's another debate).

So, count me into the nuclear power industry. That is, unless we can perfect cold or hot fusion in the next few years. It may yet happen but I'm not placing that as my primary bet.
HAL9000
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by HAL9000 »

I agree that nuclear will be the fuel of the 21st Century. When push comes to shove, desire for energy wins. The bad rap nuclear energy has received for the past sixty years is more of a product of goverment management and control than any intrinsic risks in nuclear power.

Goverments manage things poorly and tend to realize the destructive ability of any technology rather than a productive benefit. Look at the historical development of fission energy just in the U.S. The technology was intensely researched by the U.S. Goverment until their desired goals for it were basically perfected. Those goals were very compact and efficient thermonuclear weapons (and the supported infrastructure to get the materials for them) and naval reactors. That terminus of development reached it's nadir in the mid-seventies, for both us and the Soviets. The evolution of the tech stopped there and hasn't commenced since. Practical problems like waste transmutation and disposal, as well as passive safety reactor designs have not been explored in any physical application because nuclear power is controlled by goverments, and these areas of interest don't help you blow up, intimidate, or control through coercion other nation states, hence goverments aren't interested in them.

Look at fusion power now. ITER is a fat subsidy for Ivory Tower scientists to keep nice jobs and travel around the world to conferences on our collective dimes, and a diplomatic sideshow...whereas actual research being done (read: something actually being built) is into high energy implosion systems which replicate the behavior of a secondary in T-U nukes without a fission primary, which would be a boon to any military. Fission could very well be a viable alternative now, providing a phat grid and the heat to crack hydrogen for a petro-free economy. But we've lost thirty years of good research because the entities that hold the monopoly keys to the nuclear genie aren't interested in doing anything useful or productive with it, their motivations are different.
AnGuy
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

>Dave is right. The is no WANT yet, save for "want of will".

Perhaps, but desire to want something, does not necessarily mean it will actually be delivered. In order to build something you still need the proper materials, equipment and skills. Another factor to consider is bad decisions by the leadership to direct dwendling resources to social services instead of building new replacements. Please keep in mind that you're not thinking normally. You have the capacity to plan for the long term and act logically. Unfortunately, the majority of the population does not think even remotely like you do.

>Economic ruin due to a call on debt and energy's failure to sustain people in comfortable, affordable surroundings will bring about a transformation. How unsettling it will be will have to wait for future eyes to see.

Generally during severe transitions, countries almost always choose the wrong path, by invoking socialism. A few years ago I read an article that studied past difficult economic transistions. People lose thier jobs and become dependant on wealthfare. They elect (or put in power) politicians that will increase thier wealthfare benefits which are funded by excessive taxation which results in even more job losses. Eventuallly everyone ends up unemployed and the system self destructs.

In the case of the Former Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany, etc, those nations survived using forced slave labor. Even the US and other industrialized nations used massive social programs duing the Great Depression. Of course, these policies exacerbated the problems.

>We are the future Great Britain. We will survive and remain solid, but our glorious age as a world class, dominant nation is just about lost.

FWIW, I hope you are right, but I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the United States will remain united or will remain in a state of democracy as it does today. In the case of Great Britain, all except of the the smallest colonies seceded with in a few decades of its decline. Britain could no longer continue to function as a united nation after its decline.

Our way of life is 100% dependant on cheap Oil. Already our population has become severely polarized over mostly petty issues. I can't imagine the mentality of the population when the real crisis envelopes them. I just don't see Americans solidifying in the future.

Consider this; After 9/11, the country quickly changed focus from battling terriorism to focusing on the intelligence and security failures. Imagine in 1941, the population focused on the security and intelligence failures that resulted in Pearl Harbor, instead of focusing on the end of global fascism. We have become a nation of armchair blamers instead of taking actions to deal with crisises. Just look at the New Orleans crisis for a small taste of how Americans react.

In my opinion, WMDs, the rise of organized Islamic terriorism, and politial instabilty of the Middle East represent just as much danger to the US as did the spread of fascism to Asia and Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. And Peak Oil is by far worse than any past global conflict endured, since it will result in a permanent decline of living standards for the entire globle. No amount of investment in nuclear, coal and renewables, will replace oil. I have no doubt that PO represents the high point of mankind for perhaps hunderds of years.

Once the effects of PO take its toll, I suspect much of the world will plunge into chaos, and out of the mess will rise leaders overseas that will blame the US for their misery ("Those Americans used up all the oil on their gas-guzzling SUVs!"). So even if the US some how does manage to rebuild its energy infrasture, Much of the world will not, but they probably will have just enough resources to share thier misery with us. I have no doubt there is a vast supply of people in the Middle East that would stop at nothing to bring misery, in the form of a WMD to the US.
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

>Fission could very well be a viable alternative now, providing a phat grid and the heat to crack hydrogen for a petro-free economy.

The Hydrogen Economy is a pipe dream. This is because Hydrogen gas is extremely dangerous, and has a very low energy density. Hydrogen is dozens of times less energy dense than fossile fuels. In addition, imagine the expense of rebuilding the entire transportation infrastructure, and convert millions of apprtments and home to be heated using hydrogen. The cost is in the $100 Trillion dollar range. Already the avation industry has given up using Liquid Hydrogen as a avation fuel becuase the energy density is too low for aircraft to travel any significant distances, and there are severe issues with handling LH at cryogenic tempertures. Its only a matter of time before the auto industry abandons hydrogen because of the enormous costs of materials for the construction of fuel cells. The average fuel cell car costs over a million USD. No amount of mass production is going to bring down the costs to make these cars affordable (because of the need to precious metals). Combustion Engine cars powered by hydrogen and not practicle either , because Its not practicle to store Liquid Hydrogen (because it boils away very quickly even in the very best cryogenic containers) , and the energy density of H2 is too low to provide a usable travel distance. Oh and one last thing: Hydrogen is also a very bad greenhouse gas (much worse than CO2), and it is extremely difficult to prevent leakage.

A much more realistic solution would be (Coal or Biomass) to liquid hydrocarbons. However the enviromental affects of converting carbon solids to liquid fuels is enormous. In addtion, there is insufficent farm land to support both the demand for food and hydrocarbon fuels.

If you really study the facts, it pretty obvious that civilization as exists today cannot be sustained after peak oil.

Here a good starting link to read. While the writer goes a little overboard on some assumptions, the majority of the content is valid:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I recommend that you read the entire article and then decide (especially the second page that discussed the technical issues of Nuclear energy and Hydrogen).

Second Page:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

Sorry to crash your future, but In my opinion, its better to know that to remain ignorant!
longstreet
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by longstreet »

I think there is some merit in using sodium hydride to transport hydrogen from fission plants to either distribution stations, or directly to the cars. NaH reacts with water producing hydrogen and solid waste. This is much denser than liquid H2, and probably safer given proper storage methods. And possibly safer than gasoline. Really, I'm amazed more gas stations haven't gone up in flames considering how exposive contained gas vapor is, and how many morons drive cars.

The solid waste (NaOH) only requires heat to reform NaH. There was a company that encased NaH in tiny plastic balls actually stored in water, so there couldn't be a chain reaction, making the storage much safer than traditional NaH methods you may have heard about. They ended up packing it all away and going into the drilling business since no one cared about hydrogen much less anything related to an actual infrastructural.

Of course I have no idea how much NaH exists in nature. But since it's a closed recycling system we wouldn't burn through it like oil.

edit: I should note that pure heat recycling by nuclear plants would be different than the method that Powerball Inc. (the mentioned company) employed. They reacted the NaOH with methane producing CO2, which also was used to heat the mixture. There is a more complicated sequence of reactions that only requires heat energy and gives off the extra oxygen. I'm not a chemist though so that's out of my realm.

I could imagine a whole nuclear industrial complex. All the radioactive waste would just be buried right under the reactors, and not worry about transporting it anywhere. The reactors would be tied to plants nearby by large pipes transferring the "waste" heat to use in NaOH fractioning to support our mobile infrastructure, in addition to traditional electrical production.

“Hydrogen is the smallest element known to man. This makes it virtually impossible to store in the massivequantities and to transport “

This is physically inaccurate. Oil is almost nothing but hydrogen and we seem to be able to store that pretty well.

In addition I would like to say it seems kind of bogus that the paper states that the hydrogen economy would fail because it would cost too much to change the current infrastructure, while the whole rest of the paper states that the current infrastructure is about to fail anyway. Also it's equally ridiculous to stake the potential of nuclear energy on the current, oil based, use of Uranium.

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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by AnGuy »

> think there is some merit in using sodium hydride to transport hydrogen from fission plants to either distribution stations, or directly to the cars.

Sodium Hydride only has a small increase in energy density than presurized Hydrogen gas and has LESS energy density than Liquid H2. It is also dangerous because it spontaineously combusts when exposed to air. Gasoline vapors require either an ignition source or extreme pressure to ignite.

Here is a good short article that covers the issues will all of the major hydrogen storage technologies. Needless to say, all of them are pretty terrible:

http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-1/p20.html

>There was a company that encased NaH in tiny plastic balls actually stored in water, so there couldn't be a chain reaction,

That would never work because, its dependant on oil to make the plastic, and would generate lots of plastic waste once the plastic shells are crushed to expose the Sodium Hydride to water. I doubt a recycle form of plastic could be used because of the reactivity of NaH and NaOH.

>The reactors would be tied to plants nearby by large pipes transferring the "waste" heat to use in NaOH

Sodium hydroxide is caustic. Pumping a caustic solution through a nuclear powered heat exchanger seems to be a bad idea in my opinion and the required temperatures to decompose NaOH are much higher than steam can provide, since steam will decompose at high temps too. I also think the chemisty would probably prevent your idea from working on a national scale. In addition, NaOH could never be used as an avation fuel.

>>“Hydrogen is the smallest element known to man. This makes it virtually impossible to store in the massivequantities and to transport “
>This is physically inaccurate. Oil is almost nothing but hydrogen and we seem to be able to store that pretty well.

In the context of gaseous hydrogen, that statement is absolutely true. I assume that the writer was refering to gaseous hydrogen. In the case of hydrocarbons, hydrogen doesn't really dominate the molecule as you suggest, since the mass of a carbon atom is a dozen times more massive than hydrogen. In addition the combustion of carbon in hydrocarbon fuels often releases more energy than the hydrogen atoms do. It takes two hydrogen atoms to react with oxygen (H2O) but it takes two oxygen atoms for every carbon atom to produce CO2. In most hydrocarbon fuels only two hydrogen atoms are bound to every carbon atom present. The bottom line is that hydrocarbons are indeed a tough character to beat. Thats why we use them everywhere!
In my opinion, any future solution to energy independance must include the production of Hydrocarbons.

>In addition I would like to say it seems kind of bogus that the paper states that the hydrogen economy would fail because it would cost too much to change the current infrastructure, while the whole rest of the paper states that the current infrastructure is about to fail anyway.

I believe what the writer was trying to explain, is the there is insufficient energy reserves to make the transistion. Since all of the factories, the materials and infrastructure are dependant on cheap oil to function. Take away the cheap oil and the capacity to replace the instructure is lost, because the cost of every rises to a level that makes it extremely difficult, From the steel, to the electricity to the plastics to the workers that live dozen of miles to the factories. All these things are 100% dependant on Oil. All these things need to be replaced, in a time when there 300+ million americans to feed, clothe and shelter, and during a time when less and less hydrocarbons become available. We probably have less then five years (certainly within ten) before severe oil shortages occur. It probably took 50+ years to build the current infrastructure, and it certainly is going to take over a decade to make the transistion.

In addition, most of the industrialize world is already buried in debt. For instance, in a few years the US and Europe will run into very serious financial issues because of the pension liabilities. All of the money that was to be saved to pay for pensions (including social security) has already been spent or mal invested. When the Boomers start to retire (starting in 2008) the amount of required to pay the retirees will exceed the money coming in from those that are still working (in 2012). This will add another significant roadblock to make any energy transformation. Perhaps a transistion could have been made in the 1960's but its totally infestiable today. Back then we could have implement population limit controls, invested heavily in public transportion and we would have and more resources to make the transistion over an extended period.

>Also it's equally ridiculous to stake the potential of nuclear energy on the current, oil based, use of Uranium.

The extraction and processing of Uranium ore cannot be done with out the use of fossil fuels. The process of mining to smelting to U235 enrichment, requires vast amounts of fossil fuels.

>All the radioactive waste would just be buried right under the reactors

In my opinion, this solution isn't really pratical, since the waste will far out last the operational life of the power plant. In addition, if you intend to extract the plutonium to make better use of the spent fuel rods its makes more sense to transport them to regional reprocessing centers. Building individual reprocessing plants at each site would not be economical, since the waste produced at any plant would be enough to keep the processing plant busy all year long. In additon, there are significant issues dealing with the long term storage of acids and other liquid chemicals that are used to extract plutonium that become containmented after use. In the US, it has been more economical to just mine more Uranium than reprocess spend fuel rods. This also doesn't include the storage of containmented items that are used at the plant, such as protective clothing, piping, pumps and other consumables that are used during reactor maintaince.
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by longstreet »

Anonymous Guy wrote:
> > think there is some merit in using sodium hydride to transport hydrogen from fission plants to either distribution stations, or directly to the cars.
>
> Sodium Hydride only has a small increase in energy density than presurized Hydrogen gas and has LESS energy density than Liquid H2. It is also dangerous because it spontaineously combusts when exposed to air. Gasoline vapors require either an ignition source or extreme pressure to ignite.
>
> Here is a good short article that covers the issues will all of the major hydrogen storage technologies. Needless to say, all of them are pretty terrible:
>
> http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-1/p20.html

I would be cautious of how you take results of "energy density", because it's easy to lose all meaning. For example, you need H20 to react with NaH to get hydrogen. Apparently this site includes the water in the density. Obviously you don't need to carry the water everywhere, only when you need the hydrogen. Also there is something funky with that guys charts because apparently compressed H2 gas has less energy per kg than liquid H2, which is just crazy.

Besides, there are many different forms of solid H2 storage than NaH. It is just convenient that the cycle of NaH + H2O -> H2 (H2 + O2 -> Heat + H2O) + NaOH (NaOH + Heat -> NaH + O2) is fairly straight forward and produces no emissions at all.

> >There was a company that encased NaH in tiny plastic balls actually stored in water, so there couldn't be a chain reaction,
>
> That would never work because, its dependant on oil to make the plastic, and would generate lots of plastic waste once the plastic shells are crushed to expose the Sodium Hydride to water. I doubt a recycle form of plastic could be used because of the reactivity of NaH and NaOH.

You are so quick to dismiss all forms of possible avenues, while immediately validating all paths of failure? Why can't you recycle plastic? I'm sure we can find a way to do the job.

> >The reactors would be tied to plants nearby by large pipes transferring the "waste" heat to use in NaOH
>
> Sodium hydroxide is caustic. Pumping a caustic solution through a nuclear powered heat exchanger seems to be a bad idea in my opinion and the required temperatures to decompose NaOH are much higher than steam can provide, since steam will decompose at high temps too. I also think the chemisty would probably prevent your idea from working on a national scale. In addition, NaOH could never be used as an avation fuel.

It's not "my" idea. The recycling of NaOH was already tested by the afformentioned company in a pilot plant. This is just a possible example of how you can tie stationary energy (nuclear) with mobile energy (cars). This is a must to break the oil dependency. But to your specific counter on this specific example, you would not be talking about pumping NaOH into the reactor. You would obviously keep them separated for safety reasons, including possible fires of NaH during processing.

>
> >>“Hydrogen is the smallest element known to man. This makes it virtually impossible to store in the massivequantities and to transport “
> >This is physically inaccurate. Oil is almost nothing but hydrogen and we seem to be able to store that pretty well.
>
> In the context of gaseous hydrogen, that statement is absolutely true. I assume that the writer was refering to gaseous hydrogen. In the case of hydrocarbons, hydrogen doesn't really dominate the molecule as you suggest, since the mass of a carbon atom is a dozen times more massive than hydrogen. In addition the combustion of carbon in hydrocarbon fuels often releases more energy than the hydrogen atoms do. It takes two hydrogen atoms to react with oxygen (H2O) but it takes two oxygen atoms for every carbon atom to produce CO2. In most hydrocarbon fuels only two hydrogen atoms are bound to every carbon atom present. The bottom line is that hydrocarbons are indeed a tough character to beat. Thats why we use them everywhere!
> In my opinion, any future solution to energy independance must include the production of Hydrocarbons.

The problem with hydrogen has nothing to do with it's size. It all has to do with the electric binding properties, not just mass or size. If you just go by weight then hydrogen is more energy dense than gas. "difficulty" is all relative anyway, but certainly not "impossible". So we can't fit it all in tiny gas tanks like we do now. This lawyer is on a political trip, or he would be a bit more careful of the language he uses to describe the physical difficulties. He implies that hydrogen is impractical simply because it's first in the periodic table of elements? That is completely inaccurate.
>
> >In addition I would like to say it seems kind of bogus that the paper states that the hydrogen economy would fail because it would cost too much to change the current infrastructure, while the whole rest of the paper states that the current infrastructure is about to fail anyway.
>
> I believe what the writer was trying to explain, is the there is insufficient energy reserves to make the transistion. Since all of the factories, the materials and infrastructure are dependant on cheap oil to function. Take away the cheap oil and the capacity to replace the instructure is lost, because the cost of every rises to a level that makes it extremely difficult, From the steel, to the electricity to the plastics to the workers that live dozen of miles to the factories. All these things are 100% dependant on Oil. All these things need to be replaced, in a time when there 300+ million americans to feed, clothe and shelter, and during a time when less and less hydrocarbons become available. We probably have less then five years (certainly within ten) before severe oil shortages occur. It probably took 50+ years to build the current infrastructure, and it certainly is going to take over a decade to make the transistion.
>
> In addition, most of the industrialize world is already buried in debt. For instance, in a few years the US and Europe will run into very serious financial issues because of the pension liabilities. All of the money that was to be saved to pay for pensions (including social security) has already been spent or mal invested. When the Boomers start to retire (starting in 2008) the amount of required to pay the retirees will exceed the money coming in from those that are still working (in 2012). This will add another significant roadblock to make any energy transformation. Perhaps a transistion could have been made in the 1960's but its totally infestiable today. Back then we could have implement population limit controls, invested heavily in public transportion and we would have and more resources to make the transistion over an extended period.

For one, oil isn't just going to disappear one day. For another, human kind is very resourceful and we will come out of any “oil crash” that might happen, just like we did the plague and every other thing that should have destroyed civilization. We aren't just going to say it's too hard and then commit mass suicide.

> >Also it's equally ridiculous to stake the potential of nuclear energy on the current, oil based, use of Uranium.
>
> The extraction and processing of Uranium ore cannot be done with out the use of fossil fuels. The process of mining to smelting to U235 enrichment, requires vast amounts of fossil fuels.

This statement is only true in the present tense, and only because we haven't bothered to do it any other way. To say it's impossible to extract Uranium without using fossil fuels would just be foolish.
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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by longstreet »

I would like to know your source for H2 being a greenhouse gas.

Also, hydrogen isn't dozens of times less dense than gasoline. It's less than ten times; they're on the same general magnitude. If it wasn't so close we WOULD have abandoned it a long time ago. It's just people like their trunk space.

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Re: 21st Century Energy

Post by HAL9000 »

Anonymous Guy wrote:
> > The Hydrogen Economy is a pipe dream. This is because Hydrogen gas is extremely dangerous, and has a very low energy density. Hydrogen is dozens of times less energy dense than fossile fuels. In addition, imagine the expense of rebuilding the entire transportation infrastructure, and convert millions of apprtments and home to be heated using hydrogen. The cost is in the $100 Trillion dollar range. Already the avation industry has given up using Liquid Hydrogen as a avation fuel becuase the energy density is too low for aircraft to travel any significant distances, and there are severe issues with handling LH at cryogenic tempertures. Its only a matter of time before the auto industry abandons hydrogen because of the enormous costs of materials for the construction of fuel cells. The average fuel cell car costs over a million USD. No amount of mass production is going to bring down the costs to make these cars affordable (because of the need to precious metals). Combustion Engine cars powered by hydrogen and not practicle either , because Its not practicle to store Liquid Hydrogen (because it boils away very quickly even in the very best cryogenic containers) , and the energy density of H2 is too low to provide a usable travel distance. Oh and one last thing: Hydrogen is also a very bad greenhouse gas (much worse than CO2), and it is extremely difficult to prevent leakage.
>

First of all, hydrogen being a greenhouse gas is a bizarre notion. And either way, it will combine with something (lots of water...hmmm) or it WILL LEAVE PLANET EARTH because its so light. Its why you don't find it free in nature on any rock remotely the size of earth. There are a billion infrastructure problems with hydrogen, especially in a pure form. Engineering problems are as old as engineering.

> A much more realistic solution would be (Coal or Biomass) to liquid hydrocarbons. However the enviromental affects of converting carbon solids to liquid fuels is enormous. In addtion, there is insufficent farm land to support both the demand for food and hydrocarbon fuels.
>
Use nuclear power to crack H2O, take the hydrogen, run it over a ruthenium or iron catalyst in the presence of oxygen...joila, methane. Its a catalytic reaction, so don't go thinking there will now be iron and ruthenium blowing around in the wind.

> If you really study the facts, it pretty obvious that civilization as exists today cannot be sustained after peak oil.

But what about the chem trails? What about the CHEM TRAILS!?
>
> Here a good starting link to read. While the writer goes a little overboard on some assumptions, the majority of the content is valid:
> http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
>
> I recommend that you read the entire article and then decide (especially the second page that discussed the technical issues of Nuclear energy and Hydrogen).
>
> Second Page:
> http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html
>
> Sorry to crash your future, but In my opinion, its better to know that to remain ignorant!

"its better to know that to remain ignorant!" All your bases are belong to us.

Any of the fossil fuels we use today are basically hydrogen bound up in some chemical compound. When we seek fossil fuels, we really seek the hydrogen in them, and when we liberate the hydrogen in various exothermic reactions for our use, the waste products of that process are the fundamental problem!
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