Thread: Nuclear Energy... pwned?

  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    The newer nuclear reactors can run around 100 years off the same nuclear fuel. How's that for efficiency? The future of nuclear is here. So yes, I'm all pro-nuclear and less renewable. They're just not so profitable at the moment. More research is needed for them to be a viable alternative.
    A Nuclear Power Plant has an average life of about 30 years.
    Newer plants are designed to have an expected life of about
    40 - 60 years before they need to be decommissioned due
    to embrittlement.
    Staying away from General.

  2. #47
    Just a pushpin. bernt's Avatar
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    Vis, your calculations, big wind mills are 4-6MW, not 2.
    But windmills never operate at 100% efficiency, more like 30-40%. So it all works out in the end I guess.
    The REALLY big turbines are rated at 11MW, I think, so you'll get maybe 3 or 4 actual MW out of it, but there aren't many of those around.

    actually the only increase recently came when the government decided to privatize the energy providers, what do you know.
    That's because private businesses have to break even. They can't just run up a massive debt like the nations of the world.

    I guess if you're in it just for the sake of reducing CO2, then it's great. But if it was economically viable we'd all be driving electric cars and getting our energy from solar panels by now. The tech is there, has been there for quite some time, but the only thing actually keeping alternative energy in business is gov't subsidies (hence the 80% energy tax) and those simply aren't sustainable.
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  3. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Really, the turbines have an impact on the environment. Especially for birds. .
    Everything has an impact on the environment. However,
    the impact of turbines is far, far less than alternatives in
    almost every measurable way.

    As for your comment about, "especially for birds." That's
    pretty much just spin that wind opponents like to use.
    It's an exaggerated claim based on selective information.

    Figures from past studies in which these people cite
    were of farms which had 10+ year-old turbine designs.
    These were fast-spinning turbines with blades that
    had low surface area. In addition to that, these farms
    were located within migratory pathways and other
    areas in which there was a greater chance of collision.
    Newer turbines have slower moving blades with large s
    surface areas. Birds dodge these quite easily.

    The average mortality rate of birds from Wind Turbines
    is about 2.19 birds / turbine / year (these were studies
    from almost a decade ago that were studying farms with
    older turbine designs, by the way). The American Bird
    Conservancy says that between 40,000 - 80,000 birds
    may die as a result of turbine collisions per year. And
    while that does seem high, one should actually put it
    in perspective.

    150 million birds die / year due to utility lines. About 60
    million die from colliding with automobiles. Between 100
    and 1 billion birds die / year just from crashing into
    buildings.
    40 million die from collisions with communication
    towers. Bioicides ("pest"icides) kill another 60 million.

    Bird mortality due to Turbines seems to be nothing more
    than exaggerated spin by wind opponents. There's always
    room for improvement; but I wouldn't consider the impact on
    birds reason to oppose wind power at all.
    Last edited by Cheeze-It; 06-14-2010 at 12:02 AM.
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  4. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
    But if you people want to live in a fantasy world where wind power supplies all of our power then so be it but reality and numbers and this little thing called math....means it will never happen.
    See, you make assertions like that without any evidence to
    support them. The School of Engineering and Applied Science
    at Harvard says that by 2030, wind alone can meet all of
    China's energy demands. It could replace all coal and other
    fossil fuels. This the most populous country on the planet and
    the second biggest consumer of energy (behind the United
    States). This was the cover story to Science Magazine last
    September.

    That doesn't matter, because nobody is advocating wind
    entirely by itself. But a infrastructure based on wind and
    supplemented by other renewables such as geothermal,
    hydro, solar, etc can definitely meet the needs of the energy
    needs of the planet.
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  5. #50
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bernt View Post
    But windmills never operate at 100% efficiency, more like 30-40%. So it all works out in the end I guess.
    True, but obviously all this is taken into account when installations are done (and nb, even "base power" plants do not operate at 100%). It does not change the fact that there are plenty of functional and productive windfarms and there could be many more. We will not meet all our needs this way, but it could significantly reduce "projected" dependence on nuclear power.

    That's because private businesses have to break even.
    More likely it is because they must turn a profit in order to maintain a stable stock price, etc, which they need in order to raise operating and development capital. Which the government can cover with taxes. So you pay taxes to cover power, or you pay more to a private company, which is six and two threes. The "necessary" profit, of course, remains a pure leak -- you get nothing for that.

    I guess if you're in it just for the sake of reducing CO2, then it's great. But if it was economically viable we'd all be driving electric cars and getting our energy from solar panels by now. The tech is there, has been there for quite some time, but the only thing actually keeping alternative energy in business is gov't subsidies
    Governments must subsidize nuclear facilities -- otherwise no one will build them. The baseline is still existing coal power, which is effectively subsidized by the government because they are allowed to extract what should be considered a public resource at extremely low cost. By selling off our resources at next to nothing to private companies,* they are 1) receiving a hidden subsidy, the same as if the government built them equipment and sold it at a loss, 2) keeping energy prices artificially low in order to discourage any alternative.

    * eg, it will be interesting to see if it actually costs the government money in order to allow BP to drill in the gulf
    Last edited by MK27; 06-14-2010 at 05:33 AM.
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  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Actually I'm not sure what you are talking about. By 2007, and after you replaced the old network (which peaked at around 6000 turbines in the year 2000), you had around 2,500 turbines. That number has surely grown because in the last 3 years you increased your production levels.
    My numbers were based on bernts speculations, and the total 3465MW output from 2009, where around 400MW is actually from offshore parks. We did not cover the country with wind turbines, as i said i can see one from where i am sitting if i turn my head, i don't mind, and 86% of my fellow countrymen don't mind either.

    Sorry, Neo. But I know Denmark. And I know Danes. And your whole positive outlook on what is happening to your country is frankly knew to me.
    Privatizing DONG Energy was stupid, the entire COP15 was a farce, mostly everything else our current conservative/liberal government has been doing has either been cutting welfare or cutting taxes. So don't get me wrong, i do think that the increase in wind-power is brilliant, but i'm not overly positive about everything here.

    Personally I think its criminal what your government is doing. But I'm not the only one. And don't take me wrong when I say I suspect your stance is not representative of the vast majority of the population living outside the cities in your country.
    Why is it criminal? I don't quite follow you i think.

    Which has only been aggravating the tax weight on your lives.
    Sure, and it's financing everything around here?

    Again, you surprise me. Because while that was the intention, it isn't really working that well, is it? On the contrary, car sales in Denmark keep climbing while at the same time, because they are so expensive, Denmark has one of the oldest car population in Europe... which means generally speaking, Danish cars are less efficient and more polluting than in the rest of Europe.
    It's climbing, we are up almost exactly 100.000 cars from 2007 to 2010. Yet we still have less than half as many cars as we have people. And considering ticket prices for bus and train are up by 75% since 2001 and the number of bus routes and on-time train departures are down by 20% and 9% since 2001, i think there is some pattern to all this. 2001 being the year that our current government won the election.

    Looking at our neighbor Germany, where cars are dirt cheap, consider which is more CO2 friendly:
    Changing cars once every 3-4 years, usually very big and heavy cars such as German saloons since they are cheap.
    -or-
    Using the same car for 15 years, usually small japanese cars since they are the only affordable ones.

    Sure, we have alot of cars from 1987 that only do about 10-12 km/l, and i do agree that the current system with a static tax percent needs to be changed (to favor efficient and safe cars, while punishing Hummers and Porsches), our current system is still actually prefferable imo.

    The cost is in the taxes you pay. I'm sure you are fully aware what a *tax* is. And with your deficit breaking the 4.9 record and your government needing to find an extra 85 million kroner somewhere, I wonder what taxes they will raise that they haven't already. Raising the 80% energy tax? The 105% car tax?
    Nono they are liberals, they don't do tax raising, it's not their thing. They are trying to save money to get us back on track, by cutting child support checks and our national retirement support. The opposition, the socialists have made deals with the unions to increase the avg. work-time with an hour a week to get everything back on track, and also they want to increase government spending for things like large construction projects. Also i don't know where the 85 million you speak of comes from, they need to find 24 billion kroner, not that it helps :-)
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  7. #52
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Even if it were 85 million that looks like 10-20 kr a head, which is lunch money for most people in Denmark.
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  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Even if it were 85 million that looks like 10-20 kr a head, which is lunch money for most people in Denmark.
    No unfortunately it is not just 85 million, it is 24 billion, significant difference there. The government lowered the tax on the top of the economic curve, despite warnings. And now, in the recession, we owe alot of money.
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  9. #54
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The School of Engineering and Applied Science
    at Harvard says that by 2030, wind alone can meet all of
    China's energy demands.
    Sorry, I don't but that. China is going through it's industrial revolution right now and in 20 years or so they will be about where we were in the 60's and 70's with even more demand for power.

    But again go invest in it if you believe so strongly about it.

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