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You don’t realize what it takes to make solar panels,

"You don’t realize what it takes to make solar panels, most of the raw materials that are required to make come from places like China which don’t have much in the way of human rights and usually slave labor is used like Dan mentioned."


 

Actually solar panels use silicone as their main active component. Plus glass for covers and aluminium (aluminum) for frames.

Silicone is made from sand - it's abundant all over the world. Aluminium is made from bauxite - and Australia is the world's largest supplier of bauxite, a country with a human rights record at least as good as the USA. (arguably better.)

 

 
 
Reply #57

Forgot about that, but even then that’s minuscule compared to the amount of carbon that’s released into the atmosphere each year. Even more minuscule when nuclear power plants only need refueling every few years as opposed to coal and natural gas plants that need to be refueled every second of everyday, every day of every week, every week of every month, every month of every year.
 
Nuclear power is a difficult matter to discuss

Even including all radiation related accidents, it is a matter of fact that the mortality rate per unit of energy of nuclear is among one of the lowest.

Per kWh, it is relatively green even with the fuel cycle emissions included.

Nuclear power plants are some of the most reliable machines ever built.

Then, in theory, we can make even current pressurised water reactor tech much less problematic.

If you were to do things like fuel recycling, separation etc., you could get a years high level nuclear waste for one power plant into the single metric ton range.
Which sounds like a lot, but given that that is about a percent of the actual core material, and given how much energy you get from that, that is minute.

But, nuclear power is facing a lot of issues.

There is currently one single final storage facility for high level nuclear waste ob the entire planet.
And we need like at least ten times as many.

There has been no meaningful research into nuclear fuel recycling.
The big fear is nuclear proliferation, the uncontrolled spread of technology needed to create nuclear weapons.
Which fuel recycling very much is.
But without it, instead of splitting off the ton of stuff that is REALLY nasty and storing that in those facilities we have to store ALL of the nuclear fuel that ever is used in any nuclear power plant as "deadly in minutes for about a thousand years".
That multiplies the final storage situation with a hundred.
So we either need significantly more final storage sites - of which we have, as said, one - OR we need a few of these storage sites and a way more stable political climate.

And then, the thing I know most about probably, the engineering side of things.
You design a machine for a certain lifetime. You usually design it with a certain buffer to that design lifetime.
But almost all nuclear power plants online right now are very much at the end of their lifetime.
And even though the designs are out there for new ones - we haven't really build many in the past few decades.
It's a long and expensive process to even get started on that project, and even if you manage to build it, it will be INCREDIBLY expensive and might come online in a decade?

Nuclear power could be a reasonably safe stop gap solution for the next 40 years.

If people would be less NIMBI-ish.
If governments would try to not show of in self interest and actually care about educating their population and giving them the best -not themselves.
Then we would have to get a lot of projects up and going very quickly, but can under no circumstances drop the standards on any of them, cause, you know, Chernobyl, Fukushima etc.
And maybe have a solution online in 10 years - and would have to work on its replacement right away.

Saying in total:
That could have been a very good solution, in a better timeline than this one, started a decade ago.

In this timeline, it is very unlikely it will make any sense and get anywhere and that we are probably better off just going with the proper solution right away and skipping that stop gap solution.
 
At the end of their lifetime

<blockquote>
almost all nuclear power plants online right now are very much at the end of their lifetime.

 

 

</blockquote>
Indeed, which is why hundreds of new nuclear plants should have been built over the last 30 years while 95% of the current plants should have been closed down over the last 15. Why? So we don't have more avoidable black eyes like this:

 

 



 

I'm only posting this because I know the opponents will eventually use it against me as indisputable evidence that all nuclear power is dangerous when in reality a new designs simply don't do this. Nuclear's only down fall is being stuck in the 60s thanks to long standing public fear holding it back.
 
#57

Louis, yes

"I believe Sean that you forgot about the nuclear waste. That is the biggest problem with nuclear plants."

The trolls ALWAYS conveniently forget about the <span style="font-size: 18pt;">tiny tiny</span> little problem of the barrels and barrels of green oozing waste that as of yet- NO ONE wants in their backyard.

Even the trolls for some REASON, don't want the waste near them. hmmmm. Don't know if it's the fact that it causes significant death via poisoning in very short period and lasts 48,000 years. .... of if they just don't like the yucky glowing green part.

Whatever.

Extremely harmful to human life.

They won't be built.

Yes, lots of people are genuinely scared and won't tolerated money being wasted on this crap.
And the desperate infiltrating of Wikipedia and other sources to spread blatant lies by the trolls who are desperate to get tax payer funds isn't going unseen.

A nuclear plant BEHEMOTH cement cave costs BILLIONS of $$ and takes 10+ years.  

A Solar plant uses NO cement, is very easy to build in a few months and doesn't cost much and heaven forbid something bad happens....nothing bad happens.

There is no environmental damage. There is no waste when a solar panel operates. They are so popular, solar panels are being installed directly on rooves. Creating Electric right where most of it's used. Now that's efficient.

 

Certainly can't do that with nuclear, or coal, or NG power plants.

 

------

However, This post is about <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Battery operated appliances</span>. Let's pay respect to the original posters theme and stay on subject.

If certain individuals want to create a new thread about nuclear _____ stuff,  they need to please do that.

[this post was last edited: 4/6/2023-20:18]
 
It's nothing short of ridiculous to claim that a discussion of replacing gas tools with electric tools cannot also include the concerns about the origin of the electric power for those tools.

 

And for that kind of discussion nuclear power is extremely appropriate. As is solar power, electricity generated by water (as in dams), wind power, etc etc etc.

 

To stick to one solution is not only short sighted but invites some sort of disaster down the road.

 

 
 
From the U.S. Energy Information Adminstration

" Although significant renewable capacity has been added in the past decade, differences in the amount of electricity that different types of power plants can produce mean that wind and solar made up about 17% of the country’s utility-scale capacity in 2021 but produced only 12% of our electricity. "

Wind and solar contribute so little so far they arent even a contender yet for dominance. Seems the more I look at the graph on that page and see how coal, natural gas are used less and less it makes sense why my energy costs are going higher each year with all these bright ideas. While the other half of the world pollutes like its still 1935. And as far as nuclear F THAT. We had one Fukushima and one Chernobyl and that was enough. And they arent over yet and wont be on our lifetimes.

www.eia.gov

Wind, solar, and batteries increasingly account for more new U.S. power capacity additions - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov www.eia.gov
 
Portable battery op Frig/Freezer

I'm wondering if it's using a compressor.

Charge your batteries during the day using a simple 12 volt solar panel for FREE.


bradfordwhite-2023040712262002653_1.jpg
 
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Lots of questions...

How much does the battery setup add to the cost of the range?

What is the life expectancy of the battery?

What is the cost of the battery replacement?

How easy is the replacement process?

How much extra complexity is it adding to the overall design?

How reliably is the design?

This smells like an expensive gimmick, both upfront and later down the road.
 
Electric ranges with battery back up

First of all, there is no such thing as an induction oven. This is a common misconception that people keep asking me about. There are ranges with ovens that have an induction top on them but there’s no such thing as an induction oven.

I’m not sure how popular these will become, but they make a lot of sense. I don’t think the problems would be very significant with them, it just depends on your home and situations you’re trying to solve.

I do see these battery. Backup ranges has been a clever way to get rid of gas in apartment buildings that don’t have enough electrical capacity, of course this will work just as well with an electric range that has resistance burners on top resistance burners are 80% efficient induction is about 90% efficient there’s not that much difference

I love the idea of using it to back up and operate things like you refrigerator etc. if there’s a power outage the batteries in these ranges hood operate a refrigerator for weeks if there was an emergency or power outage.

John
 
That isn’t very practical tbh. I think you’re going to start seeing a lot more grid based battery storage. Home battery storage for solar is somewhat practical, but it’s also a big cost and a lot of maintenance. When they’re new they’re great, but you’re going to have a lot of clunky old battery systems in 20 years time.

The reason that grids and distribution of power developed in the first place was to make it a utility that we don’t have to think about.

I could see a lot of scope for people just having solar panels and selling the excess back into the grid, to be used or stored.

Battery powered dishwashers, washing machines and cooking appliances isn’t practical and it creates a massive amount of local maintenance, complicated systems in every appliance, bulk and weight and even fire hazard.

These stories aren’t how green energy is going work for most people, other than maybe off grid houses and hobbyists / enthusiasts.

The rest of us expect things to just work and not to have to think about the nuts and bolts of the power grid every time we make a coffee.
 
Battery powered appliances are but one of many examples of solar, wind and hydro resulting in complexity and dangers on orders of magnitude greater than any other means of energy production. About the only places batteries make sense are in phones, computers, emergency lights, and medical devices to ride through the interruption of normal power before transferring to emergency power, to save work data before shutting down, or to facilitate moving the device or person to another location.

 

Any other application is too impractical. Maybe with ultra capacitors but I'm still waiting.
 

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