A top to bottom look at green energy
I struggled with deciding in which forum to start this discussion. It could be germane to a lot of them. But since the Tesla thread has had so much activity, and Tesla's technology is central in the c...
Forum Discussion
There is one base loaded source of 'green energy' assuming you mean nonpolluting. And that is nuclear power. Yes the fuel must be disposed of the the spent fuel from these plants can be reprocessed and the volume reduced greatly. The remaining material can be safely buried in geologic structures. The volume is tiny compared to a fossil fuel plant or even wind and solar plants. Those windmills have to be disposed of for example and no one wants them. The blades are gigantic as you know if you ever passed some on the road. Solar plants aren't much better. another one went under in Nevada a week or so ago.
Solar and wind both have the same problem. The sun doesn't shine 24 hrs/day and the wind doesn't blow 24 X 7. There is no practical storage method in sight. Battery storage is very very expensive, I saw an estimate of Trillions to finance a battery storage system of large enough capacity. Plus there just is not enough Lithium or Lead available to build the required batteries.
Solar could work if you put the collectors in orbit and beamed the power down via microwaves. That would be extremely pricey. And also the definition of death ray seams to fit a multi-gigawatt microwave beam. The antenna farms would be very large as well. I doubt the Russians would be happy if we put something like that in orbit nor would we like it if they did or the Chinese.
Wind is just plain not reliable, not even in Wyoming. I paid attention to wind farms when we drove thru a lot of them this summer and did not see one that didn't have at least 10-20 inoperative wind mills I've read that so many of the wind power equipment manufacturers have good bankrupt that getting repair parts can be impossible. When they were install the claim was that they would have 20 or 30 years of working life, instead they are being torn down after 10 years or less. And of course the wind only blows whn it wants to, and often that does not include the hottest parts of the summer which are often windless. I believe wind farms are usually around 20% available, which means they put power in the grid one hour in five on average.
So you want to end air pollution build lots of nuke plants and hope for fusion power. Fusion plants by the way would be intensely radioactive after running for awhile. The fusion process produces lots of neutrons which would activate the plant structure.
So the moral to all this is: TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Fossil fuels are dirty and produce large volumes of waste
Solar intermittent and it has major waste disposal expenses. Plus a gigawatt sized plant takes up square miles of land compared to 100 acres for a GW fossil or nuke plant. It also kills tens of thousands of birds.
Wind is the same as solar. Takes a lot of land, kills birds and bats and it is very difficult to get rid of a 200 foot long plastic wind mill part.
Hydrogen is made from fossil fuel and is low density and has major storage and transport problems
Batteries are very expensive on the utility scale and there isn't enough raw material to make all we would need.
Nuke causes loud and irrational NIMBY battles.
Solar and wind both have the same problem. The sun doesn't shine 24 hrs/day and the wind doesn't blow 24 X 7. There is no practical storage method in sight. Battery storage is very very expensive, I saw an estimate of Trillions to finance a battery storage system of large enough capacity. Plus there just is not enough Lithium or Lead available to build the required batteries.
Solar could work if you put the collectors in orbit and beamed the power down via microwaves. That would be extremely pricey. And also the definition of death ray seams to fit a multi-gigawatt microwave beam. The antenna farms would be very large as well. I doubt the Russians would be happy if we put something like that in orbit nor would we like it if they did or the Chinese.
Wind is just plain not reliable, not even in Wyoming. I paid attention to wind farms when we drove thru a lot of them this summer and did not see one that didn't have at least 10-20 inoperative wind mills I've read that so many of the wind power equipment manufacturers have good bankrupt that getting repair parts can be impossible. When they were install the claim was that they would have 20 or 30 years of working life, instead they are being torn down after 10 years or less. And of course the wind only blows whn it wants to, and often that does not include the hottest parts of the summer which are often windless. I believe wind farms are usually around 20% available, which means they put power in the grid one hour in five on average.
So you want to end air pollution build lots of nuke plants and hope for fusion power. Fusion plants by the way would be intensely radioactive after running for awhile. The fusion process produces lots of neutrons which would activate the plant structure.
So the moral to all this is: TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Fossil fuels are dirty and produce large volumes of waste
Solar intermittent and it has major waste disposal expenses. Plus a gigawatt sized plant takes up square miles of land compared to 100 acres for a GW fossil or nuke plant. It also kills tens of thousands of birds.
Wind is the same as solar. Takes a lot of land, kills birds and bats and it is very difficult to get rid of a 200 foot long plastic wind mill part.
Hydrogen is made from fossil fuel and is low density and has major storage and transport problems
Batteries are very expensive on the utility scale and there isn't enough raw material to make all we would need.
Nuke causes loud and irrational NIMBY battles.
