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Bill White

Member

Registered: 2001-09-09

Posts: 2,114

Re: Small Nuclear Reactor proposal - Size of a large spruce tree

I am no expert, but it seems to me one could keep carbon dioxide at a temperature high enough so that daily sunlight would boil it and nighttime temperatures would reliquify it. The big problem with the scheme is the extremely low efficiency that the laws of thermodynamics would require. As I understand it, you can convert a very large percentage of thermal energy into mechanical energy (and thence via turbine and generator to electricity) if the temperature drop is from many hundreds of degrees Kelvin to only one or two hundred Kelvin. Oil and coal-fired plants generate steam at very high temperatures and get 30% efficiency or so as a result. But if this scheme has a delta-t (change of temperature) of only ten or twenty centigrade, its efficiency surely would be under ten percent-probably even less--which is lower than the efficiency of solar panels.

This makes much good sense to me. Okay. . . I cry "Uncle!"

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Small Nuclear Reactor proposal - Size of a large spruce tree

Bump need to fix but this sounds like its near the kilo watt power levels by its sizing

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Small Nuclear Reactor proposal - Size of a large spruce tree

This topics title was posted about in the nuclear is good topic....

Since I have been reading quite a bit about power and wattage from these sites I am seeing a trend that defines several megawatts is small while 500 w to 1 megawatt is micro in size....