Nuclear Energy?
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I'm just curious to see how this goes. Let's hope it doesn't descend into too violent an argument. What are your opinions on nuclear energy? Do you think the incident at Fukushima is a valid reason for countries like Germany to discontinue nuclear power usage (and then import nuclear energy from France hehehe...)?
Personally, I think usage of nuclear energy is important in order to keep up with the inevitably increasing electricity demand, especially as cars and trains are encouraged to become electric.
Sure, take necessary safety procedures into account - Fukushima could have been more ready for an earthquake and tsunami, but given the size of the Earthquake, the plant survived remarkably well. It is, in my opinion, unreasonable to suggest that Nuclear plants in non earthquake areas (e.g. UK) have as many safeguards as those in danger zones.
And ultimately of course, we just have to wait for China to build some shiny new thorium reactors XD
So. Discuss!
PS: Here in the UK, some email have just been released revealing that the government worked with nuclear operators to try to play down the extent of the Japan incident, before it had even fully unfolded? What's your opinion on this? Should governments and operators be fully open with people, or in some circumstances is it necessary for the government to pull the strings, as people may rely on intuition and unscientific thinking in such a way that they decide nuclear energy to be more dangerous and less important than it is.
Personally, I think usage of nuclear energy is important in order to keep up with the inevitably increasing electricity demand, especially as cars and trains are encouraged to become electric.
Sure, take necessary safety procedures into account - Fukushima could have been more ready for an earthquake and tsunami, but given the size of the Earthquake, the plant survived remarkably well. It is, in my opinion, unreasonable to suggest that Nuclear plants in non earthquake areas (e.g. UK) have as many safeguards as those in danger zones.
And ultimately of course, we just have to wait for China to build some shiny new thorium reactors XD
So. Discuss!
PS: Here in the UK, some email have just been released revealing that the government worked with nuclear operators to try to play down the extent of the Japan incident, before it had even fully unfolded? What's your opinion on this? Should governments and operators be fully open with people, or in some circumstances is it necessary for the government to pull the strings, as people may rely on intuition and unscientific thinking in such a way that they decide nuclear energy to be more dangerous and less important than it is.
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I think it's fine. As long as we have good safety procedures I don't see I reason to not, honestly...until we get cold fusion working.
Absolutely. And it need not be cold fusion either. I mean, I'd be happy if we could get hot fusion working, and we are trying. As I see it:
Uranium Fission < Thorium Fission < Hot Fusion < Cold Fusion
In my opinion (call be a pessimist if you want), cold fusion is probably not real anyway - they never replicated the results...
Uranium Fission < Thorium Fission < Hot Fusion < Cold Fusion
In my opinion (call be a pessimist if you want), cold fusion is probably not real anyway - they never replicated the results...
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I'm not against Nuclear but think that more effort should be put into renewable sources.
We have earthquakes, we just don't brag about them. ;0)
| ...non earthquake areas (e.g. UK)... |
I think it's preposterous that our most important forms of power production are elaborate methods to boil water to spin turbines. There ought to be some process that looks like
matter in ---(magic happens)---> energy out
matter in ---(magic happens)---> energy out
Renewable sources are good, IMO especially solar where possible. Unlike many people, I think wind turbines look rather nice, but apparently they're very cost inefficient. I used to advocate the Severn barrage, but according to George Monbiot, that's about as expensive as energy gets.
I think most of ours aren't enough to damage nuclear plants directly, and any 'tsunamis' they cause could probably be stopped by a child's sandcastle :P
On the subject of Briton's [is that still a word!?] bragging about insignificant natural 'disasters', there is this brilliant bit from Russell Howard (either Good News or Mock the Week) about some news report about a tornado in the north somewhere.
He repeated the words of one local in his fantastic yokel voice: "It chased me down the street. It were like a giant carrot!". The tornado was also reported to have "knocked over several people's bins" XD
| Grey Wolf wrote: |
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| We have earthquakes |
I think most of ours aren't enough to damage nuclear plants directly, and any 'tsunamis' they cause could probably be stopped by a child's sandcastle :P
| Grey Wolf wrote: |
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| we just don't brag about them |
On the subject of Briton's [is that still a word!?] bragging about insignificant natural 'disasters', there is this brilliant bit from Russell Howard (either Good News or Mock the Week) about some news report about a tornado in the north somewhere.
He repeated the words of one local in his fantastic yokel voice: "It chased me down the street. It were like a giant carrot!". The tornado was also reported to have "knocked over several people's bins" XD
Missed your reply at the time of my last post, helios. I agree with you. All power plant's are just contributing to our ultimate hot and fiery entropic end... But that's life. And the second law of thermodynamics is a bitch ^^
In fact, generators are ostensibly like your flowchart, but you have to turn the output energy (thermal) into usable energy (electrical). That's where it all breaks down with turbines and so forth.
Antimatter generators are like your flowchart, but you'd still have to do something with the energy (photons) that come out, which would probably involve energy wastage as heat again, even if not using turbines.
In fact, generators are ostensibly like your flowchart, but you have to turn the output energy (thermal) into usable energy (electrical). That's where it all breaks down with turbines and so forth.
Antimatter generators are like your flowchart, but you'd still have to do something with the energy (photons) that come out, which would probably involve energy wastage as heat again, even if not using turbines.
| firedraco wrote: |
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| until we get cold fusion working |
That'll be never.
@helios,
We should look for stockpiles of anti-matter floating around in space that we can use to convert matter directly to energy...
I'm wondering whether we can take hydrogen from the gas giants. Jupiter is something like 80% hydrogen (if not more) and has a mass of 1.9x1027 kg (Wikipedia) which means that it has roughly 1.5x1027 kg of hydrogen (WolframAlpha).
In 2008 4.74x1020 J of energy was consumed (Wikipedia). Hydrogen fuel cells have 50% efficiency (Wikipedia), which means that 1.5x1027 kg of hydrogen would produce e = mc2 * 50% = 6.75×1043 J. Assuming constant energy usage as per that of 2008, that would last 0.142405063291139x1024 years, which is a really really long time. Obviously that doesn't factor in the amount of energy used in transport, nor does it solve the problem of how that much hydrogen could feasibly be transported to Earth, but still... That would be pretty awesome, since hydrogen combustion only produces water. That kind of solves two problems - water would become incredibly cheap (not that it is particularly expensive now). Also, since NASA rockets only use hydrogen and oxygen as fuel, they could just take both from Jupiter anyway.
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| 50% efficiency |
That can't possibly mean 50% of the total energy possessed by the particles. The mass change from separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules to water (yes, there is a mass change) is not half the mass of the constituent particles.
A chemical reaction can never possibly release as much as a nuclear reaction, which in turn won't release as much as matter/antimatter interaction.
The first of these is because the electromagnetic force is far weaker than the strong nuclear force at short distances. I'm not sure which force causes matter/antimatter interaction, so I don't know how it works there.
But the point is that you would have to apply e = mc^2 with m as the difference in mass between a hydrogen atom and an oxygen molecule and a combined water molecule.
Sorry to dent your otherwise ingenious plan :P
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I was expecting someone to point out a massive flaw in my plan, though I didn't know what it would be. Thanks for explaining it.
We could find anti-Jupiter and use it as a source of anti-Hydrogen, then it would be a 100% conversion to energy :)
Maybe we could annihilate Jupiter and anti-Jupiter, and use the resulting energy for even longer.
We could find anti-Jupiter and use it as a source of anti-Hydrogen, then it would be a 100% conversion to energy :)
Maybe we could annihilate Jupiter and anti-Jupiter, and use the resulting energy for even longer.
EDIT: Until recently, I didn't get any of the e=mc^2 stuff either. Doing A Level physics finally fixed it for me :)
If we annihilated Jupiter and anti-Jupiter all in one go, we'd certainly get a lot of energy. In fact we would have turned the mass into energy with 100% efficiency. Whether we'd want all that energy at once, of course... ;)
Antimatter would be nice, but finding a source in the near future is unlikely IMO. As you say, cold fusion is most likely imaginary.
So that leaves us with three stages, if things go as I'd like them to:
1. The last use of fossil fuels, continued used of Uranium fission, increased use of renewables
2. Phase out expensive renewables and also uranium fission due to waste storage issues; replace the energy demand with thorium fission
3. Eventually get all our energy from (hot) fusion, using deuterium in some way - there is a lot of it (about 2% of seawater IIRC)
If we annihilated Jupiter and anti-Jupiter all in one go, we'd certainly get a lot of energy. In fact we would have turned the mass into energy with 100% efficiency. Whether we'd want all that energy at once, of course... ;)
Antimatter would be nice, but finding a source in the near future is unlikely IMO. As you say, cold fusion is most likely imaginary.
So that leaves us with three stages, if things go as I'd like them to:
1. The last use of fossil fuels, continued used of Uranium fission, increased use of renewables
2. Phase out expensive renewables and also uranium fission due to waste storage issues; replace the energy demand with thorium fission
3. Eventually get all our energy from (hot) fusion, using deuterium in some way - there is a lot of it (about 2% of seawater IIRC)
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| We should look for stockpiles of anti-matter floating around in space that we can use to convert matter directly to energy... |
All we need is some electromagnetic launchers on Earth which we can use to cheaply launch loads of stuff into space. Then we can build the giant macroscopic collider with superconducting magnets in space! XD
Nah, just take a neutron star and use to slingshot large objects to ludicrous speeds.
As long as they are well built (Chernobyl was not), well maintained (Chernobyl was not), in a safe area (Fukushima is not) and we actually spend money on them, not letting them fall into disrepair, why not?
The LHC sparked fear and it is harmless, people do not really hear both sides of the argument with nuclear power (and the LHC), so most people will not be happy, but they will not be happy with not enough power.
Isn't Jupiter a failed star, couldn't we do that with real stars and get even more energy?
The LHC sparked fear and it is harmless, people do not really hear both sides of the argument with nuclear power (and the LHC), so most people will not be happy, but they will not be happy with not enough power.
Isn't Jupiter a failed star, couldn't we do that with real stars and get even more energy?
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@helios,But it takes energy to accelerate things. Accelerating 1 kg of rock might require more energy than is released.
I don't think so. IIRC if it had been a bit bigger, then it would have been a star. I don't know how much bigger. I like to think if it had assimilated Saturn at some point, we might have had two suns, in which case it would be far too hot for us to exist
| STLreliant wrote: |
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| Isn't Jupiter a failed star |
I don't think so. IIRC if it had been a bit bigger, then it would have been a star. I don't know how much bigger. I like to think if it had assimilated Saturn at some point, we might have had two suns, in which case it would be far too hot for us to exist
| neutron star and use to slingshot large objects to ludicrous speeds |
Sounds like a good idea, but I'll have to read up on slingshot orbits. I've never quite understood how they work, but I can probably get it now... Presumably you'd need two neutron stars in a binary system in order to fire the objects in opposite directions. Or perhaps it doesn't matter if one of the objects is at rest... The application of Galilean relativity to linear momentum collisions is another thing I don't like T_T
In fact, from what I have read, Chernobyl lacked any form of shielding (aside from a simple roof and walls) between the reactor unit and the outside world. Moreover, it apparently exploded when they performed tests to see how it would perform in the event of a cooling failure. This test was supposed to be performed before the reactor was turned on, but it hadn't been, so they didn't it afterwards instead...
| (Fukushima is not) |
Actually, I read that Fukushima Daichii's problem was that is was built in an area deemed to be quite safe. Because of this, it's safety mechanisms were not up to the tsunami. I don't think there is a problem building nuclear plants in such locations, provided they are capable of surviving these incidents.
| people do not really hear both sides of the argument |
Very true. Lots of people like to jump on the fear bandwagon (often with the help of the media), and they won't listen to the rational arguments. They hear the word "radioactive" and immediately run for the torches and pitchforks ^^
This is what I was getting at in my OP:
| Xander314 wrote: |
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as people may rely on intuition and unscientific thinking in such a way that they decide nuclear energy to be more dangerous and less important than it is |
I read about a plant in America which had its reserve diesel generators in seismically damped rooms undergroup. Fukushima's cooling failed because the diesel generators were destroyed. By having them underground, they are kept safe, and coolant flow may be maintained.
| Isn't Jupiter a failed star |
Depends what you mean :P I'm not sure if it has enough hydrogen either in comparison with other elements. However, if it were sufficiently large, I guess it could undergo fusion. Size is the key though ;)
| do that with real stars and get even more energy? |
You might have difficulty extracting hydrogen from the sun. It is really, really hot :P Perhaps you could use electromagnetic scoops though.
How about giant electromagnetic turbines driven by the solar wind. I don't know if it would actually work (the whole thing might just drift), but I think it's a nice idea.
By this stage some of you may have noticed my fixation with giant electromagnets. I assure you that this is perfectly normal.
As an alternative energy source for the earth I propose we utilize a combination of magnets and small children. We build a very large generator that's magnets orbit it's copper wire core by force of the small children turning a crank really really fast. GENIUS? genius.
Oooooor we could look towards perfecting solar power. I think I read somewhere that butterfly wings are fantastically efficient solar conductors. If I'm remembering this correctly we should probably fund researching why that is, and how to emulate it.
Oooooor we could look towards perfecting solar power. I think I read somewhere that butterfly wings are fantastically efficient solar conductors. If I'm remembering this correctly we should probably fund researching why that is, and how to emulate it.
| Isn't Jupiter a failed star |
| But it takes energy to accelerate things. Accelerating 1kg of rock might require more energy than is released |
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| attempted to gather enough hydrogen |
Lol you make it sound like Jupiter consciously made the decision ^^ Naturally, any large object will 'try' to gather material around it due to gravity. I think Jupiter would have had to be quite a lot bigger, but I don't know the actual numbers. Wikipedia probably does ;)
| But it takes energy to accelerate things. Accelerating 1kg of rock might require more energy than is released |
I think the implication was that if you make it go fast enough, it's all the mass is converted into energy as well. Some of that mass already existed at the start, so it need not be input (but not all the mass as accelerating an object to relativistic speed does increase it's mass).
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