So /g/, let's talk about what your source of electricity will be in twenty years. Fusion is only 20 years away, 100 years ago, but solar is a pretty cool guy. You think it'll be the norm in that span?
I would hope we have evolved a little. I'm living on solar abd wind now. But would like to be able to run large appliances without having to add 100 batteries
>>44069528
Solar's pretty fucking impractical, even in super hypothetical futuristic designs it's just got too much required maintenance/replacement.
Battery tech is also shit, so naturally fucked at night if you want to use solar.
Hydro or geothermal's more likely to get some seriousface use someday.
>>44069528
Nuclear or go home bby
These pop a lot of birds.
>>44069831
My wind turbine pops snow geese in the winter. Wind blows 40 mph here constantly in the winter
>tfw will never have a star on my backyard
>>44069948
But wind doesn't scale that well, power is best gathered in an (somewhat) isolated way so as to not interfere.
Solar's golden everywhere, but completely impractical for anyone anywhere unless we invent some completely revolutionary tech.
>>44070003
What makes solar impractical?
>>44070069
see
>>44069692
The panels need to be replaced really fucking often and if you take into account the power required to CREATE panels... you're not that far ahead.
The battery shit is also killer, since again.... batteries need to be replaced and they cost energy to produce.
>>44070102
My panels are 15 years old and only lost 5% efficiency
Solar can't be used for mass power production. The worlds largest solar array can only produce a fraction of the power of a single coal plant, and it takes up about 5 times the area. The coal plant can generate power at 100% capacity around the clock no matter the weather, solar cannot.
Solar panels only make sense when installed on the roof of a house or other building, and only used to supplement power consumption. The elephant in the room is that producing solar panels is as terrible for the environment as anything else, and the energy that goes into their production is absolutely ridiculous. When you're expending millions of tons of fuel to mine, refine, process, and transport these materials around before you ever have a finished product you need to look at how long that panel would be producing before it offset its own production footprint.
How many people do you think are going to take a current solar panel, and keep it operating for 30+ years? Probably not a single one, but thats about how long it would take.
The energy density of solar is laughable. Even if you could gather energy with 100% efficiency and only use absolutely ideal locations you'd be getting maybe 400W per square meter.
This is a PATHETIC return for the footprint. Even under ideal conditions it's orders of magnitude too low for mankind's needs.
And we're not even considering the manufacturing and maintenance costs, including environmental damage. Solar panels are anything but green when it comes to their actual manufacture.
Solar has its uses as a backup or off-grid solution but it is worthless as a baseline power source. You could destroy the landscape with miles of solars that'll take 10 years just to pay for themselves, or you could build a single molten thorium salt reactor the size of a small bungalow.
>>44071105
Well in terms of actual production it's not THAT bad (except when you rely on shitty antique battery tech) due to the actual power consumption of everything going down massively at speed.
10 years ago solar was laughable, now solar is being considered but is greatly impractical.
Oh boy.
>>44069528
>>44072091
I wonder how much 64,000km^2 of solar panels cost.
>>44072179
about three fiddy
>>44072294
In trillions of dollars.
Liquid Salt Reactor or gtfo. Thorium is the future, but the greenies, and I mean green peace the worlds largest non profit org, are openly against anything that has the N word in it. The fanatics out there, regardless of political or religious/secular sect, are holding us back from using real technologies. GP members openly admit to knowing how great thorium and fusion are, but refuse to endorse it because of fanaticism. Welcome to the future, impulse, ignorance, and fanaticism still dominate. Only the masks on the players have changed.
The future of energy is in a /g/ like meritocracy breaking off and building a thorium powered future.
>>44069528
>So /g/, let's talk about what your source of electricity will be in twenty years.
>source of electricity
>source
That's not where the problem lies you dumbshit. We have no trouble coming up with different ways of generating energy, the problem lies with storage, especially large amounts for a long time. And until that problem is solved, solar panels mean jack shit.
>>44072518
I'm sure there's still space for using U235 and U238. Second best is still bretty good, and has a lot less lead time on it because of how Th/U233 tech is mothballed.
>>44069528
Generation IV fission plants. China and India are building them at rate Walmart imports for their store. China is going to have a Thorium plant by the end of the decade for a major city, and India is developing around 25-40 nuclear plants for their cities. They know oil is too expensive to import and with the security situation in the Middle East, they do not want to invest in the long term. Gas is an issue, because of Russia. Solar is an issue, because it needs conventional fossil fuels to extract the material, and then process it to make the panels. Not to mention, the extraction is dirty and dangerous to the environment. The battery life is an issue htat dates back to the invention of the battery. If you want to improve battery tech, you need figure out how to cool superconductors at room temperature. Wind is fracking useless. Nuclear is your only option to power your future needs.
>>44072962
You want the byproduct of those plants for medical research. The isotopes used in Uranium/Plutonium enrichment are helpful in cancer research, and chemotherapy. This is why Chemo and other cancer treatments are expensive. Not enough plants worldwide to produce a stable supply.
>>44071956
Humans, we have the answer to our problems, but we choose to ignore that answer.
pic related.
>>44069692
Definitely not hydro, the damage it causes to the local ecosystem is irreversibly devastating. Geothermal is definitely a contender.
Personally, I've always preferred methods such as solar or nuclear. Wind farms can die for all I care.
>>44069528
Gas, oil, coal with a slight increase in nuclear.
>>44069528
I believe in the potential of coal and solar energy
>>44070658
B-b-but with solar the energy is 'free'!
>>44070658
>The elephant in the room is that producing solar panels is as terrible for the environment as anything else, and the energy that goes into their production is absolutely ridiculous
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/recycling-batteries-into-solar-cells-0818
>muh fast breeder reactor
Solar energy will be the future, because the future is decentralization in general. With people dealing with their own solar panels (and everything that brings along), things like black-outs can be localized to smaller geographic locations. Plus, it doesn't require a monthly electric bill.
>>44075303
So a picture of a windmill on fire proves that windmills are bad for the environment?
>>44072091
>Ok, the hardest part is over with now that all of the solar panels are installed. All that's left is to distribute the power which shouldn't be too hard, right?
Solar makes sense in space
Nuclear is a lot better on earth
Natural gas hybrid vehicles when? stop trying to make fucking shitty batteries to be the only power source for cars.
Why even use batteries? Why not ultracapacitors? Wears out less than a battery, has a wider discharge rate (and doesn't have as much internal resistance at high discharge), and you can take the braking energy and shove it right back in to the cap.
>>44075392
Pretty bad for the guys who burned to death's environment.
>>44072518
>muh thorium shilling
Fuel cost isn't a problem with current Uranium reactors, the problem is the utterly enormous capital costs of building nuke plants in the first place. There's no incentive to invest vast sums of money on a unproven technology and replacing large amounts of infrastructure when gen3+ works fine and has pretty good passive meltdown protection.
Remember when PBRs were gonna change everything? Never did.
While nukes can provide baseload power reliably they can't ramp up and down for peak demand so they suffer the same problems renewables have, you need either lots of modern dispatchable gas/coal or get energy storage to work or massively overbuild on plants that have extreme costs to begin with.
>>44073456
Thorium molten salt reactors have near 100% fuel efficiency (ie: all the Thorium you put in the thing can be fissioned) and common medical isotopes are abundant in the dominant decay chains.
As an added bonus fuel processing is done on-line so you can pull a steady stream of shit like I-131, P-32 and Tc-99 out of the fuel loop. It's transuranic elements that something like a LFTR is very poor at producing. You either process it out on the fly and get insignificant quantities, or the reactor loses reactivity and shuts down because the fuel becomes poisoned.
![energy-payback-solar-europe[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/lpRL6Jv.png "energy-payback-solar-europe[1].png")
>>44070102
Payback times is between 6 months and 3 years depending on climate.
Many manufacturers have 25 year warranties.
![energy-payback-solar-italy[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/JBAiL28.png "energy-payback-solar-italy[1].png")
>>44075707
Thin film CdTe is becoming increasingly popular over traditional crystal panels.
>>44075392
Windmills experience tens of thousands of equipment failures and around 100 human fatalities annually. On average 2/3 of those deaths are maintenance workers while the rest are members of the general public.
Windmills also kill a shit-ton of birds but not nearly as spectacularly as solar reflector towers do.
Still nowhere near as deadly as coal, though. That shit kills a quarter of a million people annually.
>>44075603
>the utterly enormous capital costs of building nuke plants in the first place
The LFTR design is tiny and cheap as chips. The real barrier is red tape.
Hell, the real barrier to even the ridiculously expensive solid fuel reactors we currently use is still the red tape.
Solid fuel uranium reactors are multi-billion dollar projects but this isn't much a hurdle on a national scale for something as important as energy.
And most of that cost is actually for safety features rather than energy generation. Liquid-fueled reactors don't even pose most of the more expensive solid fuel risks so many costs aren't applicable. Chief among those being meltdown prevention.
>they can't ramp up and down for peak demand
Liquid reactors don't have this problem. You have fine control over the fuel in the core. It's also self-regulating; if you reduce heat extraction due to lower demand, the rising temperature in the core makes it less dense and limits the fuel's reactivity.
Fission is the only way until fusion.
/thread
>>44072091
rustles me everytime.
Solar is beyond shit and it will never become anything better.
>>44069528
>Fusion is only 20 years away
They say that every 10 years.
I never know whether to take you guys seriously or not. Do you people actually want info on solar or are you just trolling?
Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. There are two important things to consider about solar.
First is that the costs are still dropping and expected to be cheaper than every other form of energy.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/16/solars-dramatic-cost-fall-may-herald-energy-price-deflation/
Second is the US utilities think solar is going to destroy them.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/
>>44072518
Dunning-kreuger.
>>44078501
Nobody worth shit said this 20 years ago.
>>44078570
They said 20-50 years away, and even today, we're saying 20-50 years away.
Google Fusion is only * years away and watch the random estimates fly from all sides. OP isn't much better.
>>44078607
The 20 years is a joke.
>>44069528
>20 years
Lockheed Martin's compact fusion reactor is steadily eroding the competition. Energy generation is no longer a topic of debate. America'a global influence is massively diminished due to oil becoming comparatively irrelevant. The world is more peaceful and prosperous. Resources previously invested into new methods of power generation are used for nanotechnology and space exploration.
>>44078607
Is it just me or has ITER's estimates gotten less conservative over time? I'm pretty sure they said 2060-something back in 2006.
Official statement from my local authority:
(Rough trabslation) ~ due to overproduction of electricity you are not allowed to feed in our powerlines.
Btw, in our area all electricity consumed is produced through water energy. And as no one buys such expensive energy we can't produce more than we (locals) actually need.
>>44078607
>and even today, we're saying 20-50
Who are you and how would you know. You're just talking out of your ass at this point.
Wendelstein 7X in Germany will be able to contain the plasma for 30+ minutes soon (as in a few months away). This is not even comparable to what we had 20 years ago. This is getting serious.
>>44069528
>So /g/, let's talk about what your source of electricity will be in twenty years
In 20 years? Gen III/IV nuclear most of the world, using uranium. Gen IV Thorium in India.
>>44075438
>Solar makes sense in space
Actually, Solar's efficiency drastically decreases in space, relative to Nuclear. They handle the temperature extremes and cosmic radiation very badly compared to nuclear.
Nuclear has been operating on the moon for like 60 years.
>>44078804
>Nuclear has been operating on the moon for like 60 years.
Well why don't I get on a rocket and go to moon land for all the free electricity!
Passive dams all the way down rivers.
Not huge dams, just small-scale, and loads of them.
Maintenance costs are laughable, since small dynamos are cheap to replace.
They could also use brushless, increasing its age considerably with only a little more expense.
Passive dams will run constantly, and are also not held back by the fact that large dams need to be placed in very specific areas so as to not destroy the land around it, a huge downside.
Back-garden geothermal.
You can get a lot of heat from your own back-garden. Enough to heat an average house even in (a Scottish) winter. There is heating sorted.
You can even install this on your own in a weekend. More and more people are getting in to this. The deeper you go, the more heat you will get.
Stacked solar.
Solar is still shit, but they recently fixed the stacked solar panel problem, which will make it to market very soon. Actually very soon, not "it will just take 5 years" every 5 years.
"This kills the bird."
Anyone who is against Nuclear power is a literal retard. I hate you. Please die.
If LFTRs are so great why haven't anyone built one yet?
>>44079097
People who are against nuclear power think of you as the retard, and wish you to die.
If you want to convert an anti-nuclear nut, you have to understand the points they make, not dismiss them as being retarded.
I'm not even going to say which side I'm on, but you're going to assume I'm on the side you dislike because then it gives you an excuse to dismiss me as a retard.
Muh thorium.
>>44069528
Fusion is only 20 years away and has been so for the last 50 years.
>>44079285
Uranium: 1
Thorium: 0
>>44079510
Yeah, I wouldn't expect an electric generating fusion reactor until at least 2050
>>44079511
Thorium actually has to be converted to U233 before it's useful in a power producing reactor.
Uranium: 2
Thorium: 0
>>44078804
For satellites, you can't use nuclear, they already have a hard time shielding against cosmic radiation
They could /maybe/ use betavoltaics, but solar panels probably last longer out there (considering probes from 20+ years ago are still going)
Also why are threads where we have actual good discussion so slow? I went to bed and woke back up and only 25 more replies
>>44080278
Everyone on Apple threads, programming, desktop, and shilling.
I made this thread just to see if /g/ wasn't entirely dead.
>>44080278
>satellites
>can't use nucular
wat.
What is RTG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
saw this in /sci/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies
>>>/sci/6745491
>>44080736
And it's hardly used because it manages to be less efficient than solar panels
>>44073386
There's only 230 years worth of uranium power if the usage doesn't increase, and all suspected reserves are found.
We use 70,000 tons a year to provide ~11% of the yearly production total
All of the sudden, if nuclear were the only option, we would have 25 years of conventional reactors. Assuming demand does not increase.
Also you should make note that it takes more Thorium to produce similar levels of power, and that (known) reserves sit at a mere 1.5-2Mn tons. This isn't regarding that thorium designs are typically breeder types that can be fed from spent uranium waste, but still.
Nuclear isn't special and it isn't the answer either.
Solar is certainly the future. If you spend $2-3k intelligently and use low power devices you can be off the grid sans heating and cooling.
>>44081481
Except producing solar panels is worse for the environment
> and use low power devices
Why not just do this for all power sources?
And what's wrong with being on the grid?, it's more efficient
>>44081532
Ya but my power never goes out
>>44081481
Spend it intelligently and you can also heat.
Just put some pipes under your garden and some heat exchangers.
There is loads of heat under there, even in bitter winter times.
>>44081603
>solar power
>never goes out
So, you keep it in batteries that are also probably horrible for the environment and will wear out in about 5 years? great!
Why not just get one small solar panel, charge a battery, use the grid and switch to the battery when there's a power outage, which probably hardly happens for you anyway.
Fusion or die!
>>44081707
>not storing it in a flywheel with 0 friction
Step up, get knowed nerd.
But really, storage methods suck so hard.
Also, fuck the environment. Nobody cares about that, they just want reasonable power.
Renewables != people want to save da erf. They just want cheaper power.
You'd be lucky if even 5% of the people that bother to get solar and wind even give a shit about the environment at any reasonable level.
>not building a Dyson sphere
plebs
>>44081707
>relying on a centralized structure where the generator of the power retains control over it
solar panels are about freedom for the user of the power
It's simple switch to nuclear power, invest in new tech that prevents many of the issues. Make and subsidies the recycling of the the nuclear waste into usable materials... Not hard, but it would solve the problem and no one in power wants that.
>>44078997
>Back-garden geothermal.
the initial investment is ridiculous high. and if you dig deeper than just a couple meters things can get ugly with earthquakes and shit.
>>44081892
>Make and subsidies the recycling of the the nuclear waste into usable materials.
Not feasible. You just have to bury it into groud.
>>44081811
>Also, fuck the environment. Nobody cares about that, they just want reasonable power.
I kind of care ;_;
>But really, storage methods suck so hard.
Does anyone here know how supercapacitors hold? I've been meaning to read up on them for a while but my reading list just queues up annoyingly fast and I've dropped it twice already
>>44081853
but it's not different, and getting from the grid is cheaper for almost everyone than sustaining solar
and if you just used solar as a backup, then what's the difference?
>>44081912
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE
>>44081901
too true, however pulling 50f air from underground will shave a good amount from your heating and cooling needs over the course of the year.
>>44081920
solar 'as a backup' and using solar 100% of the time is no different, you wouldn't just let the equipment sit there doing nothing until the power goes down
>>44081901
pfft, is it fuck.
You can literally put a tube in your back garden with ease, whack a motor in there and heat exchanger.
It is a weekend project at best. (unless you have a complex garden surface with plants and structures)
You see it all the time with people wanting to save money on heating.
It is on pretty much any house-related TV shows as well. (I remember seeing this really great one before on Grand Designs, but the design itself was not grand in the slightest, don't let that trick you)
You are speaking taking a shovel and digging out cube sections a layer deep.
Then add a slice section in the middle as long as the shovel will go, again.
Add pipe to the end of garden.
Patch it up.
Move on to the next section, just do that iteratively through the garden until you are happy so you don't have a huge mess by digging the entire garden up at once.
A couple meters isn't going to do shit for earthquakes unless you are living on a fucking elephant balancing on a unicycle.
>>44081998
Yeah, my brain kind of died for a bit on that, ugh
Why not do what California (I think it was Cali, maybe Nevada?) does and offer supplying energy back into the grid?
Put a few panels on your roof, whatever you don't use gets shoved out for other people to use.
>>44082002
sure thing if you want to heat your trailer :^)
>>44082071
I am all for this, since when your batteries are full power is just wasted. I am not set up for it yet though.
>>44082071
this makes the need for other energy uncertain and will effect the price of the power when solar doesn't work
>>44082181
You'll still need other sources of energy for extended periods of no solar input (night, overcast, etc)
>not using pumped storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
>>44082253
The logistics become effected and thusly the price will more then likely increase, that is my point. The thermal salts can avoid this but that is not for personal use.
>>44082286
People are trying to sell off solar because there's not enough demand, governments are subsidising it even to try and get people to use it.
>>44082277
>let's waste energy but its ok because we get money from it
hate hate hate
>>44082101
That is a simple example of how to do it.
There are very easy methods to digging deeper and safer all around the internet.
And it is used by all sorts of people, even archaeologists.
It still doesn't increase the cost.
Not only that, you can spiral it as you refill the land, making sure to have the flow always going downwards. Forcing water upwards is wasteful.
One thing that can increase cost and be hugely beneficial is if you buy very heat absorbing materials to fill in around the pipes and above it.
Dirt is nice and all, but it isn't that efficient.
Just make sure not to end up killing your fucking garden by placing too much of it and starving the surface of nutrients.
Some good ol soapstones should do the trick.
In fact, these can make for good heat storage in general. Having them in a greenhouse is very useful for storing heat.
>>44078696
Uruguay?
>>44082329
load balancing the grid will always waste some energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
Fusion is not 20 years away. It's more like 50 years away
>>44082450
And 50 years later we'll be 50 years away.
The core problem of fusion seems to be that while the theoretical basis exists, there aren't enough supporting theories and mechanisms to make it actually practical. Basically, the nuclear community is waiting for the next Albert Einstein to make a breakthrough. The problem is that this person may or may not come.
SOLAR FREAKING ROADWAYS
NOT A SCAM
TOTALLY LEGIT FUTURISTIC SOLUTION
>>44082504
look up ITER, they are building a fusion plant right now in France that will create more power than it uses.
>>44082525
This.
>>44082525
don't forget that they have to be hexagons! The future is full of hexagons!
>>44082525
Energy problem: solved.
>>44082402
This, so many people don't realize the grid wastes huge amounts of power in balancing it.
One little mistake and shit hits the fan with brownouts or full-on blackouts.
Literally, a fucking eclipse caused a blackout before because the national grid wasn't aware of it and people were turning on lights.
This was more likely them trying to save as much money as possible by not putting in too much power and just letting localised brownouts happen and if they become too common revert.
The power grids get power based on past data.
They get power based on what is going to be expected to be used in the very near future.
So then the power companies need to start shovelling in that black gold and sticking some radioactive rods where rods should not go to generate power, and I think they usually take anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes to get to peak, depending on the facility.
This is why power storage is SO BADLY needing some evolution or completely new storage system entirely.
Battery storage is holding back SO MUCH of society, from national power grids to handhelds.
When we finally do get it, the future really will be bright, in a very literal sense.
So much shit will change when we finally get a reliable power storage that keeps up with our needs.
Solar and wind will actually become useful instead of a burden on grids.
Tablets won't be shit. (they'll still be shit)
>>44082611
>so many people don't realize the grid wastes huge amounts of power
I knew. Thought it was common knowledge.
>>44082624
>common knowledge
Fuuuuck no. Electricity comes from magic pixie dust as far as the general population is concerned.
>>44082624
Na, most people just think you throw the coal on the fire and they magic power to your house through wires.
But really it is a huge balancing act that would put that elephant on a unicycle from above in some post to shame.
This is why so many people think the power companies jew people out of money so hard, which is only partially true.
Nothing wrong with running a profitable business.
Only problem, which is true for most business, is those faggot execs getting the huge bonuses so they can take their self, their family and their extended family on first class trips around the world. Fuck.
clean coal is where we're headed
its not so clean though, but thats just to give an image of an environmentally friendly next-gen coal plant
>>44081827
pffft, not building a ZPM.
>>44082738
too true! which is why decentralizing power important, it gives you freedom of choice whether or not you want support those companies or not without going back to the stone age
>>44069528
In 20 years the market will still be dominated by hydro and coal which is starting to get phased out slowly.
There will be a mix of renewables and non renewables with a slightly higher percentage of renewables compared to today.
>>44082002
>stick a pipe in the ground and heat your home
>>44082916
I'm an idiot. Ment to write oil and coal.
>>44082974
You want to fight about it n8?
It is a common idea, especially in passively heated farms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpx-KzKGS8
A tube deep in to the ground and a pipe in it can be even easier that laying pipes flat after digging your garden out, now that I think about it.
You'll maybe need to hire a pneumatic drill to do it though, or get a corkscrew digger.
>>44082611
>keep pushing out about 10% more than needed
>have small backup cells/generators if there's a large peak that can push out a lot in a little time
>rev up the plant and hope it comes up before the backups die out
Do they not do this or is there something wrong with that plan
>>44083203
Some likely do. especially these days when you can get really cheap and efficient backup generators even at the industrial scales.
>>44081667
>angled bar magnets on a wheel
is this one of those 'free energy' guys?
Isn't the manufacturing of solar panels supposed to get paper thin and super cheap? Shit there will probably be solar windows if there isn't already
>not using a Tesla Coil to power all your household appliances
Plebeian fools.
>>44078732
Guys after planning and regulation and building s a power station can take 20 years to start running, even if a country committed its self to 100% nuclear *today* it would end up being 50 -100 years before they are likely to even get close to that target.
>>44083878
>that giant coil he wanted to build decades ago
He could have powered an entire city if he hooked it up to a large enough power source.
>>44084198
Would it be dangerous to have one, though? Or were the people of the city just too scared of a huge electrical tower giving them all their power?
>>44084235
As far as I can tell it wasn't as dangerous as people made it out to be, sans coming into direct contact with it.
He did and experiment in the desert with a much smaller version and had no issues with lighting up lightbulbs 2 miles away without frying anyone.
>>44083984
And then you get people like the NRA that killed off a very promising SMR (small nuclear reactor)
Fucking faggots.
They never even bothered to look in to seeing it it was safe or anything, they just straight up said "no" and the project died.
SMRs never.
>>44081466
No we have a *huge* amount of Uranium that we can get.
You know people stop looking for new place to find minerals/ores once the known reserves hit a certain level right?
Thats why oil reserves have been 20-30 years left for the last 100 years.
>>44081481
Yeah, but that 2-3K is the tip of a heavily subsidised iceberg.
Nuclear is the most efficient way and will always be, solar takes fucking miles. Just look at how much energy you get as your raw output, fucking E=mc^2 per mass unit. Fusion is even better because it does not involve heavy metals, and the only step beyond would be antimatter annihilation.
>>44084887
Antimatter annihilation has a nice ring to it.
>>44070102
Bullshit. Residential and light commercial grade panels last at least 20 years without anything more than slight efficiency losses.
> people arguing about utility scale solar when they should be talking about using solar on homes, businesses, and over parking lots to offset the need for centralized power generation
Why?
>>44071105
what if you could double it?
>>44073825
>Definitely not hydro, the damage it causes to the local ecosystem is irreversibly devastating. Geothermal is definitely a contender.
Hydro changes the ecosystem. Hardly devastating, and it's highly localized. Put it like this, 50 years after a dam was build if you removed it the current ecosystem would be changed.
Geothermal causes earthquakes, and leaches radioactives from the rocks. The waste water emissions from a geothermal plant would get any nuclear power plant shut down.
>>44075603
>While nukes can provide baseload power reliably they can't ramp up and down for peak demand so they suffer the same problems renewables have, you need either lots of modern dispatchable gas/coal or get energy storage to work or massively overbuild on plants that have extreme costs to begin with.
With a high temperature nuclear reactor, you can use natural gas as a booster for meeting demand. But you need to be above the temperature point of all PBRs. At least 500C, although that's not doing much, the higher the better.
>There's no incentive to invest vast sums of money on a unproven technology and replacing large amounts of infrastructure when gen3+ works fine and has pretty good passive meltdown protection.
Still wasting 99% of the fuel, much more expensive than a LFTR. China's aiming to have it's first LFTR critical by 2020.
Unproven is a funny term for a reactor design that ran for years already.
>>44075707
>Payback times is between 6 months and 3 years depending on climate.
That's all subsidy however. Cut the government grant and it's payback time is never, if you subtract investment returns from it.
>>44080278
>For satellites, you can't use nuclear, they already have a hard time shielding against cosmic radiation
Tell that to the Russians. They put nuclear powered RADAR sats in orbit. And not RTG or BVs. Actual nuclear reactors.
>>44081466
>There's only 230 years worth of uranium power if the usage doesn't increase, and all suspected reserves are found.
Without reprocessing, or fuel breeding.
>>44085273
You still need to clean them. Dust, bird shit, etc, even a small layer of dust can take off 10+%
>>44085299
Hybrid/electric cars that charge up in parking lots shaded by solar panels, there's a pretty neat idea (hopefully not more than half need to charge at once though (and it'd still need to be on the grid for cases like that, or on a "rainy day" /pun))
>>44080278
Another thing is that any kind of launch malfunction would be like setting off a dirt bomb over Florida (or wherever they're launching from).
>all these people arguing over which energy solution is 'best'
Providing energy for the world's population is a complex problem that requires a mulit-faceted answer, every method of energy production will be the 'local best solution' somewhere. Currently renewables provide approx. 22% of the world's power. The only imperative is reducing carbon emissions.
>>44085489
iceland already has Geothermal you dumbfuck
I bet fusion will be ready in 5 years
>>44084266
however it would destroy all IC
