When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Void · 2018-02-03 13:32:30

Spacenut, I don't believe fracking itself causes the earthquakes, it is the injection back down into rock formations that does. Many fracking wells generate Oil, Natural Gas ect. brine. Some are worse than others.

But here is some possible good news on that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrolithium

Quote:

Petrolithium is lithium derived from petroleum brine, the mineral-rich salt solution that is brought to the surface during oil and gas production and exploration.
Oil companies manage petroleum brine as a waste product, usually by reinjecting the brine back into the ground for enhanced oil recovery or disposal. A small percent is also used for "beneficial reuse," which can include production of drilling fluids, irrigation or dust and ice control.
In recent years, several companies have explored technologies to extract the abundant minerals that are found in brines, including from petroleum brine. These minerals include lithium, silicon, magnesium and potassium.
Process[edit]
Petrolithium is extracted using a patented nanofiltration process that allows for rapid extraction of lithium. Lithium chloride is separated from the oilfield wastewater in a matter of hours, rather than the months or years required in conventional extraction methods of solar evaporation or hard-rock mining.[1]

Pretty nifty, if they do get it working economically.
So a potential technological solve for the problem would be to reduce the volume of brine that needs to be re-injected. If you take out some of the dissolved chemicals, mine them essentially, and then distill out some of the volume of water, then you should be able to reduce the total volume of brine which needs to be disposed of in deep rock formations. This should reduce the earthquake problem.

Ideally, I would hope that other minerals could be extracted than those mentioned.

Further, I would like to use some of the water, and extracted table salts to fill a "Solar Cistern" which would be part of a process structure which I believe has great potential to produce food and energy, and would have a very tight recycling of the water.

But that will certainly require a lot of research and invention.

You have looked into that conversation some, here is the reference to Solar Cistern on this site:
Index
» Life support systems
» A possible life support "System" to be rehearsed on Earth then to Mars

Produced Water:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produced_water
Quote:

Water quality[edit]
The water composition ranges widely from well to well and even over the life of the same well. Much produced water is brine, and most formations result in total dissolved solids too high for beneficial reuse. All produced water contains oil and suspended solids.[citation needed] Some produced water contains heavy metals and traces of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), which over time deposits radioactive scale in the piping at the well.[1][2] Metals found in produced water include zinc, lead, manganese, iron, and barium.[3]:8

Last edited by Void (2018-02-03 14:06:59)

Void · 2018-02-03 14:18:46

Oh I am going to try to research your concern that you haven't encountered report of forest fire soot in ice samples. My opinion is neutral. I am not taking a biased view.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 080100.htm

Most information that I encounter from about 2013-2015 refutes the comet impact notion. Too bad for me.

So, I have to try to run for cover and return to this:
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … arger.html

I will look for soot as well.

So who are I to believe?
Quote:

Research suggests toward end of Ice Age, humans witnessed fires larger than dinosaur killer, thanks to a cosmic impact
February 1, 2018, University of Kansas

Here is another interesting quote which mentions ice cores:
Quote:

"Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Cosmic Impact ~12,800 Years Ago" is divided into "Part I: Ice Cores and Glaciers" and "Part 2: Lake, Marine, and Terrestrial Sediments."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … r.html#jCp

This should really ruffle your feathers pretty birdies:
https://www.iceagenow.info/younger-drya … mperature/
Quote:

Younger Dryas Analysis – No Evidence At All CO2 Drives Temperature
October 28, 2014 by Robert

I find this article very interesting because it mentions the nano-diamonds that were scattered around our planet some 12,877 years ago.
I discuss these nano-diamonds in depth in Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps.
The article goes on to say that soot and platinum group metal deposits found in the same layers as the nano-diamonds are evidence of a meteor strike.
What the article does not mention is the Gothenburg magnetic reversal, which I believe is the real culprit here, not a meteor strike. The article also does not mention the mass extinction at the time, which killed off so many ice-age mammals, including the mammoth, mastodon, short-faced bear, sabre-toothed cat, and many, many more.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Was there a time in the last few thousand years when CO2 was as high or higher than today?” asks this article by P Gosselin. “Yes, there was, at the end of the last ice age during the Younger Dryas (YD) cold period.”
“What was the temperature during that time? It was much colder than now, as much as 12°C in Greenland.
“Did the temperature go up when the CO2 level went up? No, it went down.
About 13,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, after two thousand years of warming, melting ice, and rising sea levels, came an abrupt reversal; a cold period that lasted over a thousand years.
The Younger Dryas is named for an alpine flower, Dryas Octopetala, the pollen of which is found in northern tundra areas during this time.
It is thought that the Younger Dryas was caused by the collapse of the northern ice sheets, changing the North Atlantic Overturning Currents. One theory is that the ice sheet collapse was triggered by a comet or meteor strike.
The evidence is a layer of nano-diamonds found in North America and Europe at about the beginning of the Younger Dryas. In that layer there are soot deposits and platinum group metals indicating an extraterrestrial source that caused large forest fires.
Gosselin goes on to show that the nano-diamond event triggered a massive increase in CO2 that lasted for less than 40 years.
However, that increase in CO2 did not cause warming. In fact, our planet continued to cool after the nano-diamond event.
And because the increase in CO2 lasted less than 40 years, it shows that large amounts of CO2 do not persist in the atmosphere for a thousand years as some in climate science claim.
There is no evidence in this data that CO2 drives temperature. On this plot, CO2 and temperature tend to go in opposite directions more than in the same direction.
The paper does acknowledge that CO2 stimulates plant growth, stating that organic matter in their core samples rose during the higher CO2 period from around 20% to a peak of 35%.

Unlike this author however, I do not dismiss that increased CO2 can warm things up. As I have said before I believe significant cooling could come from the replacement of 10% of the forests from pines to poplars. Albedo change being the contributor to cooling, apparently if true more powerful than the CO2. Of course the initial soot load in the atmosphere might have allowed to ice cover to advance in the beginning of the 1000 years, and that also would have contributed to albedo cooling.

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/110/32/12917.full.pdf
Quote:

Large Pt anomaly in the Greenland ice core points to a cataclysm at the onset of Younger Dryas

Alright, this is just a silly dog and cat fight!

But I will cheat and end with a reference favorable to the impact and forest fire theory:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/tag/younger-dryas/
Quote:

A study of the black mat at 50 Clovis sites in North America found a “discrete layer with … magnetic grains with iridium, magnetic microspherules, charcoal, soot, carbon spherules, glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds, and fullerenes with ET helium, all of which are evidence for an ET impact and associated biomass burning at 12.9 ka.”

Sigh...I don't know what the date of that article is.

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2007/06/04 … n-is-full/

Last edited by Void (2018-02-03 14:48:08)

elderflower · 2018-02-03 15:12:03

A fairly recent study found that the dating of the impact evidence reported from the beginning of the Younger Dryas was unsatisfactory and could not be use to support the impact hypothesis as a cause of this cooling event. The latest study seems to have resurrected this hypothesis and provides new dating evidence. The jury is still out.

SpaceNut · 2018-02-03 20:00:48

For the fracking and earth quake relation:
ap717818293588.jpg?itok=k3xUgosF

The Seismic Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes

New study links Oklahoma earthquakes to fracking

Pennsylvania confirms first fracking-related earthquakes

Back to the tiny asteriod, large meteor, or comet the passage of time pretty much erases much of the impact that would be seen on the planets surface and an air explosion would leave none....

Void · 2018-02-03 20:31:42

The material you presented supports the notion that the disposal of waste water. (That's a loaded word actually). Really the brine re-injected into the rock layers, causes the problem. And I have indicated that there could be solutions that would abate the problem and also benefit the human race.

My only problem is that I do not very much like it when pseudo priests attempt to enthrall the human race with a false reality. I do not accuse you of that. But you are flirting with it. The point is new technology may require more work. It should not necessarily be aborted just because some pseudo priests, want to feed on the human race.

GW Johnson · 2018-02-04 12:25:20

Climate science:

The world is far more complicated than any of our current models or theories. Explaining the Younger Dryas is still beyond us. That lack is why I choose not the temperature records or the climate models, but instead to chase the ice and rely on physics fundamentals.

The upside is that I can recognize a problem of recent origin relative to the last Pleistocene warming, and I can understand how to address it, and I need no "fault" assigned to do either. The downside is that this is not a path to quantitative predictions. So be it.

We already have good evidence that solar and wind power are economic to use, despite the disbelief of some. That industry has already provided more high-paying jobs than fossil fuels ever did, and so far these jobs have been impossible to automate out from under us.

So I recommend two things: (1) encourage the renewables for the jobs and the less-objectionable effluents, and (2) get on with solving the intermittency energy storage problem that limits their use. Why is this not a prudent course?

Fracking:

There is no fundamental reason why the process of fracking shale for gas and oil recovery could not cause earthquake activity. There is on the other hand no evidence that it ever has, beyond at most Richter magnitude 1, which is imperceptible to humans.

However, there is very good evidence that fracking wastewater disposal does induce earthquake activity, up to and including Richter magnitude 5 (so far) in Oklahoma. This happens when too much wastewater is forced down too few wells too close together too fast. It would not happen if there were less wastewater to dispose of.

There is also evidence that gas surfaces by other paths than the intended well, when fracking in regions of contorted geology. This is the source of kitchen faucet fires, for the gas dissolves into groundwater supplies. Many choose to disbelieve that this can happen, but their motivation is greed trumping concern for human welfare. The evidence, though infrequent, is real. Do not use fracking in regions of mountain-building. The massively bent and fractured rocks are the path for the unintended surfacing of gas.

There is also very good evidence to suggest there is not enough surface freshwater to support human needs, agricultural needs, and expanded fracking activity. This suggests we need a practical and economic way to re-use fracking wastewater. So far, there are hopeful results, but nothing commercial yet.

This stuff is typically a brine 10+ times more concentrated than sea water, contaminated with heavy metals and with mild to moderate radioactives. Plus whatever chemicals are used in the additive package that fluidizes the sand content. As I understand it, diesel fuel is one such ingredient, although this is hushed up, for injection of diesel into the Earth is already illegal.

Now using natural gas instead of coal for electricity generation confers many benefits regarding all sorts of objectionable effluents, and at all stages from recovery to final use. It is also more economical than coal, given the huge increase in availability due to fracking shale.

So, I recommend that we solve the reuse-of-frack-fluid problem and get on with this. It is a finite resource that helps solve many problems with emissions, while we are waiting for those technical solutions that make widespread renewables feasible.

Gas and Oil Transport:

The safest mode known is pipelines, although these also have accidents. Next safest is ships, and worst by far is rail and truck transport. The prudent thing to do is address the weaknesses as best you can, and just get on with it. Those whose greed exceeds their concern for human welfare will object to the expense of doing the safety things, that is how you recognize that particular character flaw.

With pipelines, you just build-in spill containment in sensitive areas. Crossing under rivers, just use a damned double-wall pipe. Bite the bullet and just do it! That's actually cheaper than cleaning up the inevitable spill properly. Remember, steel always corrodes buried in dirt. There is no way around that chemistry. Some places are worse than others, but all are bad.

For ships, it's as simple as (1) use the double bottom, and (2) use extra nav aids in rock bottom sounds. We're already doing that, pretty much, but it took the Exxon Valdez disaster to learn what should have been an entirely predictable lesson. Greed did that.

With trains, you have to keep the tracks in good repair, and you should never ship frack crude in a DOT 111A tank car: it's just too volatile. Its physical and volatility properties resemble diesel fuel more closely than any crude oil we ever had experience with. It's already illegal to ship diesel and gasoline in DOT 111 cars; only greed uses the excuse of "crude" in the product name to justify shipping volatile frack crude in those cars.

Truck transport should be more localized, and to maintain safety requires the infrastructure to achieve better traffic safety. Pointless politics and simple greed are the impediments that prevent this, nothing more.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-02-04 13:17:14)

SpaceNut · 2018-02-06 22:07:25

While the slowing of Florocarbons did for a bit seem to show a healing of the ozone layer its still not enough. Ozone layer declining over populated zones: study

Breath this:
000_hkg4547473.40d35083821.original.jpg

Nearly three decades later, the "ozone hole" over the South Pole and the upper reaches of the stratosphere are showing clear signs of recovery. The stratophere starts about 10 kilometres (six miles) above sea level, and is about 40 kilometres thick.
At the same time, however, ozone in the lower stratosphere, 10-24 kilometres overhead, is slowly disintegrating, an international team of two dozen researchers warned.

Ozone layer not recovering in lower latitudes

kbd512 · 2018-02-07 00:49:07

GW,

Using wind and solar where it makes sense is eminently sensible, but that's not most of what we're attempting to do. Attempting to replace fossil fuel and nuclear power plants is presently a waste of time and money in terms of dollar spent per kilowatt hour produced. There is no such thing as a grid scale battery, never has been, and nothing of the sort will exist in the immediate future. You know that as well as I do. In the near future, gas turbines can and will replace coal fired plants in the US because we know how to make and use gas turbines and liquid or gaseous fuels always combust more completely than solids. In simple terms, they're just more efficient. Again, you already know that. Developing countries lack the education and technology to maintain large numbers of gas turbines, so they will have to continue to use coal for the foreseeable future. It's still better than burning poop.

If it were up to me, which it's not, I would mandate that all new houses / apartment complexes / office buildings constructed include photovoltaic arrays to partially offset grid energy usage during the day, when usage is at its peak. The arrays should also be retrofitted to existing residential and commercial structures as time and money permits. The array power needs to be matched to actual usage. This would be why I want a 5kW array for my house, rather than a larger array. It won't offset all usage, but it will level our grid demand as a function of our usage curve. A larger array would be required for grid independence, but that's a task for another day.

The above suggestion is the right way to go about doing this. It avoids transmission losses, property owners can do their own maintenance to avoid what amounts to theft over government contract services premiums, and the local economies benefit when service providers charge fees for power equipment maintenance.

Attempts to construct gigantic solar or wind farms in the middle of the desert or other unused parcels of land runs into obscene construction and maintenance costs in terms of dollars spent per kilowatt hour produced, incredible losses from long distance transmission, and periods of time when the electricity being generated is basically transmitted to ground because the grid can't use it at the particular moment it's being generated. I already did a piece on why nuclear costs less than solar for equivalent output if we insist on this stupid and naive model that attempts to replicate what traditional power plants of the past did for us.

As far as grid scale batteries are concerned, Lithium-ion ain't it. Li-ion and similar lightweight battery tech should be reserved for mobile storage applications (computers and vehicles) while new battery tech that gets us to that magic 2.5kWh/kg is developed. Hopefully those 50% efficient photovoltaic panels are cheap commodities by then. Whereupon both of those things happen, then and only then can traditional power plants be replaced with photovoltaic panels and batteries. Nobody has addressed the cost of recycling the panels and batteries, either.

Void · 2018-02-07 14:29:18

Well, some good fortune perhaps:
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/r … id_century
Quote:

Reduced Energy from the Sun Might Occur by Mid-Century. Now Scientists Know by How Much.
UC San Diego scientists review satellite observations of nearby Sun-like stars to estimate the strength of the next “grand minimum” period of diminished UV radiation

So, a little breathing space, if it turns out that greenhouse gasses are a major threat.

Last edited by Void (2018-02-07 14:30:51)

Void · 2018-02-11 20:41:08

I didn't want to start a new topic for this so I put it here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articl … oming-true
Quote:

OPEC's Oil Price Nightmare Is Coming True
U.S. shale production is surging on higher crude, now the fear is waning demand growth.

While the oil people want the oil and condensates, law requires them to deliver the natural gas to the market instead of burning it off after a certain period of time.

So, the more shale oil, the more natural gas. The more natural gas, the less Carbon emissions.

Last edited by Void (2018-02-11 20:42:23)

SpaceNut · 2018-02-13 18:28:26

A gift as a result of global warming is about to allow for Antarctica Seafloor Scientists set to explore seafloor exposed by Antarctica's giant iceberg..as its a race to explore the untouched area.
Researchers will be looking for things such as sea sponges, urchins, sea cucumbers, sea stars, and anything else that may have taken root under the ice.
Scientists rush to explore underwater world hidden for 120,000 years

SpaceNut · 2018-03-09 23:00:56

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow well that is what we have gotten with this last nor'easter.... East Coast braces for its second nor'easter within one week. We were in the 16" zone of wet snow to which it was not much fun shoveling...

The first storm last week wiped out a larger stretch though Mass. though to Maine. with what was labeled a huricane force storm with a name. Since when did a nor'easter get huricane names? http://abcnews.go.com/US/bomb-cyclone-k … d=52113334

They would say that march is coming in like a Lion....

Over half a million people are still without power across the Northeast just before midnight Thursday as the region digs out from its second nor’easter in seven days.

Two to three feet of snow fell from New Jersey to New England as the major nor’easter swept across the Northeast on Wednesday and brought heavy snow to parts of northern New England on Thursday.

http://wtnh.com/2018/03/09/half-million … next-week/
snow totals at the end...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/noreaster-move … d=53603257

With this next storm early next week being more of the same with Dozens of vehicles crash in snowy Michigan pileup amid threat of 3rd nor'easter....

Another nor'easter? Watching track of Monday storm closely

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_st … ted_States

Nor’easter Ned: Let’s Name Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Tsunamis and Floods

yearly names

https://grist.org/article/boston-noreas … b-cyclone/

SpaceNut · 2018-03-21 21:13:03

There are some concerns of the salt concentration or frequency that would cause fresh water lakes and rivers to become to salty....
Table Salt May Offer Geo-Engineering Option for Climate Change

Common table salt might prove effective in reflecting sunlight and mitigating rising temperatures leading to climate change. salt could potentially be used to offer immediate temporary relief for global warming by deflecting energy from the Sun, keeping Earth cooler. laboratory measurements of the photometric properties of particulate materials of high reflectance, showing that table salt (NaCl) is remarkably superior to Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) as a scatterer of sunlight. Widespread distribution of Aluminum Oxide aerosols in Earth's upper atmosphere has been proposed as a means of solar radiation management to offset the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. atmospheric aerosols might reduce insolation at Earth's surface by several watts per meter squared (W/m2), the amount estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be the anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse warming.

SpaceNut · 2018-03-27 17:06:53

NASA renews focus on Earth's frozen regions

This spring, NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences are scheduled to launch the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, twin satellites that will continue the original GRACE mission's legacy of tracking fluctuations in Earth's gravity field in order to detect changes in mass, including the mass of ice sheets and aquifers.
This fall, NASA will launch the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), which will use a highly advanced laser instrument to measure the changing elevation of ice around the world, providing a view of the height of Earth's ice with greater detail than previously possible.
Together the two missions will make critical, complementary measurements of Earth's glaciers and ice sheets. Both missions will also make other key observations: for instance, GRACE-FO will measure groundwater reserves and deep ocean currents; ICESat-2 will measure sea ice thickness and vegetation height.
GRACE-FO and ICESat-2 will use radically different techniques to observe how the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are changing over time and how much they are contributing to sea level rise. Long thought to be slow-moving and stable, certain regions of both ice sheets rapidly lost ice in recent decades, contributing to a recently detected acceleration in global sea level rise relative to 20th century rates. Based on computer simulations, global sea level could be anywhere from 1 to 4 feet higher by 2100 than in the first decade of this century.
GRACE-FO detects changes in Earth's gravity over time to reveal how the distribution of mass in the Earth system is changing. These observations provide crucial information about how large regions of ice are behaving, such as the accelerating loss of mass from West Antarctica and the slower gains in East Antarctica. ICESat-2's laser instrument can measure the rate of ice sheet elevation change over the course of a year to within two-tenths of an inch (0.4 centimeters), allowing scientists to see when and where ice is growing thicker as snow accumulates, or getting thinner from melting.
Summertime sea ice in the Arctic Ocean now routinely covers about 40 percent less area than it did in the late 1970s, when continuous satellite observations began. This kind of significant change could increase the rate of warming already in progress, affect further sea ice loss in the Arctic, and alter shipping access to the Arctic Ocean. ICESat-2 will add to our understanding of Arctic sea ice by measuring sea ice thickness from space, providing scientists more complete information about the volume of sea ice in the Arctic and Southern oceans.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-03 22:03:27

6 Documentaries That Will Shut Down Any Climate-Change Denier

GW Johnson · 2018-04-04 08:36:26

Spacenut:

"Chasing Ice" is the one I, too, have recommended to understand the net effects we are seeing upon the ice. The observation of ice loss coupled with the basic physics of latent heat in phase change, is the proof-positive of excess heat coming from somewhere. "Fault" for that extra heat is irrelevant, it is there, and it is therefore prudent to reduce our activities that add heat to the environment to whatever extent is possible. To deny those effects is quite simply evidence of insanity, or insane levels of greed outprioritizing the good of humanity. Either is evil.

We already understand IR transmissibility through various gases well enough to understand the CO2 greenhouse mechanism, which is why CO2 needs to be treated as a pollutant to be reduced, again as much as we can. And we cannot yet do without fossil fuels, that is a fact. But we can use them more efficiently, and we can augment them with renewables to whatever extent is possible (see what Kbd512 said in post 308 above, he is right and I agree with him, about distributed vs centralized renewables), increasing the percentage as better technologies and hardware appear.

Kbd512:

I never replied to you in your post 308 above, and I should have. You are quite right about distributed "rooftop" solar and wind being the way to go right now, instead of centralized renewables limited by lack of storage. I quite agree, while also recommending that significant effort go into solving the intermittency / energy storage problem.

I disagree somewhat with you regarding cost-effectiveness of renewables vs nuclear, vs fossil. Only somewhat. Nuclear isn't as cheap as it should be because of two things: (1) an incredibly expensive bureaucratic permitting process, and (2) its economics, and more importantly safety, get hurt by the lack of a waste disposal method after 6 decades of experience, something utterly unacceptable.

That first is just political idiocy and bureaucratic inertia, compounded by an industry attitude that prioritizes money over quality-and-safety (as evidenced by 3 Mile Island and the other civilian incidents, all ultimately traceable to valuing the bottom line over all else). The permits could be far cheaper and easier if the quality-safety first of the USN's approach were instead enforced on the civilian application.

The second is again idiotic politics compounded by poor decision-making long ago. The Nevada waste disposal site should be put into operation, period. But the waste stream to be disposed of could be greatly reduced if we just reprocessed spent reactor fuel.

Wind power from west Texas is already proving rather economic, because of the $15B transmission line investment Texas made. Now the 3 sites actually connect to the grid, and the wind is usually blowing at one of them, at least. Add in intermittency storage, and those 3 sites could be expanded.

Meanwhile, gas-fired plants are economically superior these days compared to coal-fired plants, even without coal having to bear the full costs of the pollution it causes from recovery to final use. I'd like to see frack brine widely re-used to reduce pressure on our freshwater supplies. The sooner that reused frack brine technology becomes commercial, the better.

I would like to see frack crude shipped in the better-armored railroad tank cars that currently carry diesel. The longer we fail to do that, the more likely another Lac Megantic disaster becomes, right here in Texas. As well as Wyoming. And elsewhere.

GW

SpaceNut · 2018-04-04 16:45:17

Something that we are also learning about is the water under the ice of antartica as well and how warming is changing it as well.

kbd512 · 2018-04-06 14:56:45

GW,

I keep asking other people here, such as EdwardHeisler and SpaceNut, about their own reality-based solutions for cleaner energy. The silence has been deafening. I'm willing to discuss things that actually work, from an economics and availability standpoint, in the name of increasing efficiency. I take issue with the idea of denying energy resources to people in the name of "saving the planet". The planet's fine. Whether we all live through our technological adolescence or not is another issue entirely.

The reason I've argued so vociferously for the use of nuclear power is that anyone who can count knows that the energy density of nuclear fuels is orders of magnitude above all other forms of electric power generation. Nothing else even comes close. The volumes of wastes generated are negligible in comparison to any other technology. I don't care if we continue using Uranium in molten salt breeders or start using Thorium in molten salt breeders. Either system represents a monumental leap-ahead technology compared to existing light water reactors. The "spent fuel" problems of existing reactors all but vanish when we're consuming 95%+ of the energy content of the fuel, instead of 2% or less of the energy content and then calling it "spent fuel". It's most definitely not "spent fuel" if it still has 97%+ of the energy content it started with. All the existing "spent fuel" laying around is sufficient to power the entire world for the next hundred years or so without mining any new Uranium or Thorium. As far as the ultimate waste products are concerned, if you want to contend with long-lived actinides from fission, then use U235 and U238 (Pu239). If not, then use Th232 (U233). The waste products from U233 decay to the same radiation level as what was dug out of the ground (Th232) in 300 years and everything else is consumed or repurposed. A Th232 fueled reactor is mostly an "in machine", rather than an "in-out machine". Apart from electrical power, material only comes out when the reactor is decommissioned.

The molten salt breeder reactors are not pie-in-the-sky technologies. They simply existed and worked well enough to nearly put the nuclear fuel manufacturers out of business (likely as big a factor in why it was abandoned as its inability to produce practical nuclear weapons) before I was born. I think it's time that civilian and military nuclear technologies either advance or diverge to suit their individual interests. We're obtaining more fertile material every day by simply mining rare earth minerals and every country on the planet has an abundant source of Thorium. There's so much of the stuff that each country can pick and choose their "best" sources for the material.

Using abundant and readily available nuclear energy makes desalination of sea water economical and advantageous. We can stop over-consumption of limited fresh water supplies and switch to the largest water supply on the planet, piping it to wherever it needs to go in the same way we pipe petroleum products wherever they need to go.

We can focus development of solar / battery / capacitor technology on mobile sources that maximize power density, rather than unattainable (in the short to mid term) energy density. Stopping for a few seconds to recharge a super capacitor is not a major problem. A vehicle that can go 100 miles on a super cap bank and then recharge in seconds for mere pennies, and do so at least a million times, is much better proposition for its owner and the environment than a vehicle that requires heavy and expensive batteries with complex manufacturing, storage, use, and recycling requirements.

There are also internal combustion engines for vehicles, such as the Liquid Piston design and others like OPOC, that dramatically improve power-to-weight ratio and thermal cycle efficiency by over-expanding the exhaust products and increasing the efficiency of torque transfer by reducing unnecessary or inefficient movement of the rotating mass. Prototypical aircraft engines in general aviation are roughly .5hp/lb of mass. Liquid Piston would conservatively increase that to 1hp/lb of mass. That's a remarkable power-to-weight ratio improvement and it's thermal efficiency is roughly 75%, compared to 30% for an extremely efficient conventional piston-driven intermittent combustion engine. A vehicle engine based on that design could realistically double that figure to 2hp/lb (non-continuous use of maximum rated output, unlike aviation engines). Hybrids become far more practical. The heat transfer is so good that liquid cooling is not required. It's 3 moving components and 13 total components. Something tells me that we can probably figure that out.

Fuel cells that use marine diesel are roughly 45% efficient. Again, still better than 25% or less. This would negate the need for the use of bunker fuel, which is the dirtiest liquid petroleum product currently in use and accounts for substantial pollution as a function of how much is used.

I have only touched on a few ideas here regarding how to move forward. I'm still waiting for input from others.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-06 19:22:12

Manufacturers of what we use are not changing the designs, the source of energy or its efficiencies. The source of these energies are not free and or cheap and yet before the turn of the century we barely understood what a battery was or even that of an atom. Sure things were harder to do but we did survive for eons without power.
There will be no way for "saving the planet" or of scale of economics and availability standpoint, in the name of increasing efficiency. To make nuclear not in my back yard issue go away we could mount them on guarded oil rigs and cable the power back to land. They do not need to be the gigawatt size just capable to put on many locations along the coast in lots of locations.
Solar, batteries, super caps are all great but a rising cost will not make them plentiful to aid in the solution to the problem nor will people using more energy than they need just because they are to lazy to turn the lights off.....
As for what we can do starts with a decreasing of the energy foot print that we all use. Such simple things you and I have already done with changing incandesent bulbs to LED, changing out old appliances when we have the funds, insulating the homes that we live in just a bit better as we can afford to do so or forgo using energy to cool or heat it when the conditions normally warrant it.
Energy companies are in the business of making money not providing free or low cost energy....which is the same for any form of fuels as well.
I have been looking at a pedal powered recharging hybrid ev design with a few solar panels always enabled for general daily commute for work with more pull out panels when idle and capable of night time battery recharge from the grid or other sources such as a solar recharging bank that resembles a car port. This would be a DIY build mostly from hand crafted parts to make it affordable.
Here is an example of a petrol converted car http://www.evalbum.com/1529 What I am looking to build will be even smaller as it only needs to seat 1. so even half this size and mass or smaller.

GW Johnson · 2018-04-07 11:15:46

Kbd512:

As I tried to indicate, I agree about nuclear power. We agree entirely that current nuclear practices are not the right way to do, but they are what we actually have ready to field. Add fuel reprocessing and USN-style safety-first-or-be-tried, and we could once again have cheap permitting and less to put in the Nevada facility. I agree that salt-based breeders are necessary. Just not quite off-the-shelf today, although they soon could be.

The US and some other countries have enough "spent fuel" laying around to power themselves for years to come by reprocessing. Better that than leaving it laying around vulnerable to natural disasters as in Japan, or to terrorist action. Other countries do not have that double-edged sword of a resource laying around. They will need fossil fuel energy augmented by as much renewables as can be made to work. Without effective intermittency storage for large scale centralized plants, the European experience has been at most 20% renewables. Our experience here in Texas with the wind sites is quite similar.

Sooner or later the fossil stuff runs out, or becomes too "dirty" to use, for whatever reasons. Ultimately, we as a species will have to rely on a mix of nuclear and renewables. That's where the long-term development efforts need to go: making that mix as feasible and as safe as can be. I don't see that happening.

Spacenut is quite right to point out that the companies building and selling the stuff we use now resist change to a new product mix. That's human nature: to want to continue doing what has made your living up to now. The only way around that is for government led or funded efforts to create those new products for those (or other) companies to sell. That's what government is for, to do what private entities either will not or cannot do, yet which must be done.

Government has largely failed doing that function for a long time now. Doesn't matter whether you look at the US government, or at the lot of them. The power of big money to corrupt government into not serving the people has also been going on for a long time now. I see a correlation there.

We'll ride this handbasket slowly to hell unless we the people can figure out a way to get big money out of government. Until we do, our elected officials will continue to serve those who bought their jobs for them, not those who elected them.

By the way, there is nothing either "liberal" or "conservative" about saying that. It is simply an observation of fact. I personally don't even believe in those labels anymore. They are put there by those with the big money to distract us from what really needs to be done.

Going back to the dictionary instead of current popular usage, a "conservative" is one who says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Similarly, a "liberal" is one who says "if it is broke, then do indeed fix it". We all need to be both, depending upon the problem-to-solve that is at hand. The key to getting efficient, effective government is not politicizing the decision of whether something is broke or not. On pain of death, if need be.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-04-07 11:23:28)

Terraformer · 2018-04-07 13:44:47

As far as I can tell, if cheap and widely available electricity storage is developed it's game over for anything other than solar power in most parts of the world. We need better (cheaper, made from abundant materials) batteries.

GW Johnson · 2018-04-08 10:42:32

Well, a century's experience with lead-acid batteries shows a feasible technology for which the materials are fairly abundant.

The first big problem is the severe side effects of lead, all the way from its initial recovery, through all steps of the use and re-use processes, and all the way to final disposal.

The second big problem is low one-way efficiency of ~70%, leading to a two-way (in and back out) efficiency of only ~50%.

We really do need something better and less toxic. I wish I knew what it was.

GW

Terraformer · 2018-04-08 13:27:58

Lead is nowhere near enough abundant for the large scale energy storage. Lithium may not be, either. Sodium, however, is, so if we can make that substitution in ion batteries work, we can crack the problem. I posted one idea on this forum.

SpaceNut · 2018-04-08 14:24:14

We have become so dependant on having electricity and other forms of energy that it seems that we can not do with out it and it takes so long to restore it when its gone.
In Puerto Rico’s ‘last mile,’ power is still elusive as next hurricane season looms last people on the island still without power, more than six months after the storm.

Its been since Hurricane Maria’s destructive path September of 2017.

More than 1,200 FEMA-provided generators are still the primary source of power for most of the island’s hospitals, more than two dozen police and fire stations, correctional facilities, and water pumps throughout Puerto Rico.

There could have been portable solar wagons brought to the sites still without power as a temporary solution.
example electrical site product not an endorsement:
https://www.mrsolar.com/online-solar-0- … er-system/
http://www.solarilluminations.com/remot … er-systems
http://www.powerfilmsolar.com/products/ … 578&page=1
https://www.commodoreaustralia.com.au/p … enerators/

hot water :
https://www.motherearthnews.com/renewab … az80mazraw
http://bhasolar.com/product/rv-solar-hot-water-kit/
http://www.siliconsolar.com/shop/solar- … l-systems/

http://www.janwp.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?S … ode=JWPBWC

SpaceNut · 2018-04-08 14:41:15

There are lotsof battery materials but for what we are looking at unless you are safe with Do it Yourself then its going to be commercial regulated safety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery

Rechargeable batteries are produced in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from button cells to megawatt systems connected to stabilize an electrical distribution network. Several different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes are used, including lead–acid, nickel–cadmium (NiCd), nickel–metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion), and lithium-ion polymer (Li-ion polymer).

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-Y … tteries-1/
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Homemade-Battery
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Yo … e-Battery/

Then again recycle from other sources that are only partially bad:
http://www.ebikeschool.com/how-to-build … 650-cells/

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