Nuclear fusion is going to be ... 1 year away!

[Locut0s]

Solar and wind aren't renewable, regaurdless what might be said. In most cases, they never make back the energy spent to just build the solar cell/wind turbine.

They are expensive, in the case of solar use rare materials, and they break down faster then most other energy generation methods. Solar especially has a half-life, and a fairly short one at that.

Compare that to nuclear, Our nuclear plants are producing as much if not more energy as when they where first built. Require very little as far as parts/maintenance goes, and produce HUGE amounts of energy. All while producing less waste/power output then any other source of power generation (That includes solar and wind, by a large margin).

Fission reactors get a bad wrap because the waste produced is highly concentrated and deadly. I say, So what? It practically comes out, hand wrapped for disposal, non is released into the air, and the amount that we have produced thus far is minuscule. Even if our entire system went to nuclear, the waste output would be peanuts compared to what we are currently shoving out, unregulated, directly into public air. People have this crazy notion that we have rivers of radioactive waste which would touch every corner of the earth. The fact of the matter is, there simply isn't enough radioactive material out there, We couldn't even make a small like/pond of the stuff if we tried. There just isn't enough material.

Compare that to coal and solar, and all the sudden we could make huge lakes filled with the waste produced from those processes.

The biggest crock out there is that solar/wind is "renewable" (WTH does that even mean? For them to be renewable they would have to reuse waste, and they sure as hell don't do that. Nuclear is the ONLY tech that actually is capable of reusing its own waste product). They are dirty techs, a facade put on by the "green" movement to make people feel better. Just because people are familiar with the sun and wind they are comfortable with using it for energy. But you throw in something they don't understand an all the sudden they bare up arms to try and stop it, because its "unnatural".

I hate "renewable" techs with a passion. They are the bane of real energy innovation pushed forward by the "green" money scam. People playing off of emotions to try and make money, that is the only reason they are even considered today.

But hey, if you want to buy into that garbage, might as well go all out. Lets demand that Anandtech get this http://www.co2stats.com/

Do you deny the need to switch to a zero carbon emission economy or do you just deny the lifetime feasibility of solar/wind to bring about such an economy?

That is do you agree with AGW and think that nuclear is the solution or o you deny AGW all together?

 

[disappoint]

Um are you sure line losses eat up that much power? From a few years ago, in my physics class, I learned that line losses were minimal with high voltage lines.

Line losses are minimized with higher voltage. Not minimal. Big difference. Yes it's about 50%. But it would be much much worse than that if we tried to use low voltage for long distance power transmission lines.

The reason is I^2R losses. That is current squared multiplied by resistance gives the line loss in terms of heat. given P=IV, you can increase the voltage and decrease the current to minimize loss due to heat while still carrying the same amount of power.

 

[Locut0s]

Line losses are minimized with higher voltage. Not minimal. Big difference. Yes it's about 50%. But it would be much much worse than that if we tried to use low voltage for long distance power transmission lines.

The reason is I^2R losses. That is current squared multiplied by resistance gives the line loss in terms of heat. given P=IV, you can increase the voltage and decrease the current to minimize loss due to heat while still carrying the same amount of power.

http://climatetechnology.gov/library/2003/tech-options/tech-options-1-3-2.pdf

7.2%??

 

[destrekor]

It does sound an awful lot like Spiderman 2. I think deuterium was even the material Doc Oc traded Spiderman for from Harry Oswald. You think Stan Lee knows something we don't?

Well it's not too crazy that Spiderman had the same concept regarding the basics of Fusion. We've known exactly what is necessary and kind of the exact basics of how to achieve it.
Just, having the technological fundamentals able to achieve what scientists have been setting off to do for quite a while, has just been a troubled journey.

 

[Hacp]

Line losses are minimized with higher voltage. Not minimal. Big difference. Yes it's about 50%. But it would be much much worse than that if we tried to use low voltage for long distance power transmission lines.

The reason is I^2R losses. That is current squared multiplied by resistance gives the line loss in terms of heat. given P=IV, you can increase the voltage and decrease the current to minimize loss due to heat while still carrying the same amount of power.

Yes we went through that equation and got something like 5%, not 50. Where did you get that 50% number....

 

[Triumph]

same way they cram all that graham.

Ahahahaha 😀

 

[Cogman]

Do you deny the need to switch to a zero carbon emission economy or do you just deny the lifetime feasibility of solar/wind to bring about such an economy?

That is do you agree with AGW and think that nuclear is the solution or o you deny AGW all together?

Question, How much carbon does a nuclear plant emit into the atmosphere? Answer, zero. The only place you could argue that it puts out carbon is in the mining of uranium. Which, honestly, is the downfall of ALL power generating source, including solar and wind.

Solar doesn't run forever, solar cells have to be replaced, quiet frequently in fact. And wind is just as bad for malfunctions/repairs (Though, I would say that it does a bit better then solar in this aspect). And this is all for the tiny squirt of electricity that they give. Its a crock. The mining, fabricating, and replacing of parts for both techs easily offsets their "renewable" energy output.

So in answer to your post, None of that really comes to mind when I say we should be mainly nuclear. What comes to mind is the fact that nuclear is about as close to zero-emissions as we can get, so we should be spending all our "green" research money in figuring out how to make better nuclear power, not crappy solar cells.

Nuclear is a win-win for pretty much every group of people (except for retards that don't understand it). It releases basically NO carbon, produces TONS of energy, and uses very little natural resources. It would use even less if we where allowed to reuse the nuclear waste here in the US, but retards who don't understand it decreed that that was bad and enacted laws effectively preventing it from producing even less waste then it does now.