• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

First US nukes in a generation approved.

Seems that solar (and wind) would be more efficient when installed on pre-existing structures and used for supplemental energy, and not as a main "workhorse" energy source.
 
Stomatopoda said:
Seems that solar (and wind) would be more efficient when installed on pre-existing structures and used for supplemental energy, and not as a main "workhorse" energy source.
Click to expand...

In solar: sort of, sort of not. In the western US, we have vast, vast amounts of sunny land. Go out to Brewster County, Texas and you'll find ranchland that costs something like $1000/acre. If you had a truckload of solar panels, and the tilted metal stands that you bolt them to, you could literally drive the truck to the middle of this property and start unloading them. Drive a forklift around to get them all lined up. Do they need to sit on concrete footings? OK, drive a drill-truck and a cement truck out there. (What do you plug these panels into? That's another question.)

Or, of course, you could go to your local suburbs and get an acre of big-box-store rooftop space for free. That saves you $1000 relative to the Texas ranch land, plus you can find more local skilled labor. But look what you're installing: instead of driving a truck across some sagebrush, you're driving a portable crane ($$) into a parking lot and *hoisting* panels onto a rooftop. Maybe you can get a small forklift up there, maybe not; you might need a tower crane to place the panels one by one. You can't necessarily just plop heavy hardware down on a tar-and-gravel roof (it can damage the membrane) so you still need some sort of footings engineered in there, suddenly you're hiring a team of steelworkers. You have to work around the HVAC and whatever else is up there---instead of cheap, straight cable races, you're putting in all sorts of doglegs and dips and whatnot to navigate the maze.

And all of that to save $1000 on the purchase of some Texas land.

In other words, in terms of how the panels get installed (which is a reasonably large part of the cost), solar is *extremely* well suited to new-construction. It can be adapted to existing structures only with the usual (but substantial) annoyances of adapting anything to existing structures. This is true in places where land is cheap---the western US, Mexico, North Africa, central China.

The caveat is *transmission*. You can't build arbitrary amounts of solar in West Texas, because there's not yet a grid that can move that power from there to where it's needed. Not yet, anyway. (Meanwhile, Miami or Atlanta or DC are wired up already.)

Wind is entirely different. Wind turbines are expensive---it's an expensive generator and expensive blades---and it's only worthwhile to buy a generator if you plan on giving it the biggest blades it can handle, then putting it in a windy location on a tall, slender tower. And, though they're not as bad as their reputation, they make a nontrivial amount of noise. This is well-suited to rural plains and ridges, offshore banks, etc., and extremely poorly suited to "let me slap a turbine on top of my skyscraper" retrofits.
 
Last edited:
One of the reasons that the land might be cheap is that it is not buildable because of environmental regulations. Potential habitat loss, endangered species regulations, environmental permits, lawsuits from NIMBYs and environmental groups and the like have made harnessing solar and wind a challenge in new areas. On the roof of Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Winn Dixie, this is not usually a concern. I'm not saying it's easy; you speak the truth about the current installation issues for solar panels, but the suburbs may have more opportunity (especially if you can combine installation with incentives) than the prairie and the mountains.
 
I'm glad to hear about the new nuclear plant in Georgia. One down, 430 some-odd more to go :p
 
Stomatopoda said:
What's the shelf-life on those things, anyway?
Click to expand...

No idea, but I see Shadron upthread provided a good summary.

It really doesn't matter, however, as all they are useful for is as a deterrent, and that has worked well.
All we need is one, and the ability to fix it should we decide to do so.

I recall the classic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared

A Peter Sellers classic (one of many), but the book was good if not better. At the end, as I recall, it didn't work, but the effect had been achieved.

V.
 
JeanFromBNA said:
I'm glad to hear about the new nuclear plant in Georgia. One down, 430 some-odd more to go :p
Click to expand...

If you go from Phoenix to Los Angeles you will pass a large section of the countryside that is covered by those hideous windmills. Most of which are not turning.
The argument that you can still farm the land around them is specious, as I have never seen any agricultural activity, or even a cow, underneath them.

They take up (an estimated) 100 square miles of land, which could easily support at least a dozen Palo Verde class nuclear reactors. That should be enough to power most of the Western half of the US.

This is something we should have been doing a long time ago.

V.
 
Verde, the amount of land consumed by a nuke is irrelevant. Water is the big deal and all those 100s of square miles in the desert between LA and Phoenix don't have enough water to support one nuke much less a dozen.
 
Verde said:
If you go from Phoenix to Los Angeles you will pass a large section of the countryside that is covered by those hideous windmills. Most of which are not turning.
Click to expand...

That's the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm. Most of what you see near the highway is the oldest part of the installation---thousand of "tiny" 100 kW turbines at 100kW each---and they get good wind conditions 300 days a year. It's actually quite productive as wind farms go. But yes, it does look pretty crowded and industrial.

Modern turbines are much bigger single turbines producing ~2MW each. There are many of these installed at San Gorgonio, but they tend to be further from Route 10, up on the ridges. I think the rest of the valley will look nicer when the big turbines replace the rats-nest of small ones, which I presume will happen eventually.
 
SezMe said:
Verde, the amount of land consumed by a nuke is irrelevant. Water is the big deal and all those 100s of square miles in the desert between LA and Phoenix don't have enough water to support one nuke much less a dozen.
Click to expand...

Palo Verdes runs their cooling system from recycled water. I expect plenty of that could be pumped from So.Cal to handle a few more plants.

I was using a bit of hyperbole; clearly the wind farm space would not be entirely replaced by nuclear facilities, but there are plenty of good locations that would be suitable.

V.
 
ben m said:
That's the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm. Most of what you see near the highway is the oldest part of the installation---thousand of "tiny" 100 kW turbines at 100kW each---and they get good wind conditions 300 days a year. It's actually quite productive as wind farms go. But yes, it does look pretty crowded and industrial.

Modern turbines are much bigger single turbines producing ~2MW each. There are many of these installed at San Gorgonio, but they tend to be further from Route 10, up on the ridges. I think the rest of the valley will look nicer when the big turbines replace the rats-nest of small ones, which I presume will happen eventually.
Click to expand...

Interesting; I wasn't aware of that.

It is hard to gauge size when just driving by, but it seemed to be a lot of hardware to generate a fraction of the energy that a nuclear plant can produce.

V.
 
SezMe said:
Verde, the amount of land consumed by a nuke is irrelevant. Water is the big deal and all those 100s of square miles in the desert between LA and Phoenix don't have enough water to support one nuke much less a dozen.
Click to expand...

Except of course, the Hassayampa, the Salt, the Verde, Aqua Fria and Gila Rivers that are exactly convergent on the Palo Verde Area, yeah

except for those there's no water

oh wait, the colorado, yeah, except for those there's no water

oh wait http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_Arizona
 
shadron said:
Hey, a little ambiguity attracts the sharks.

I think resurrecting bomb tests is quite a lot larger bite to take, and a lot less justifiable.
Click to expand...

Where do you see anyone talking about resuming nuclear bomb tests?
(for the record I thought the thread was about nuclear we4apons as well.)
 
Verde said:
We have many, many nuclear bombs. We don't need any more of them.

We need more clean nuclear power generating facilities, so this is a good step in the right direction.

V.
Click to expand...

NOt sure that this design is the best to use (re: nuclear power plants), but our weapon designs are old and I'd much like to see several new designs and a staged arsenal replacement. Lighter, smaller, more reliable, that sort of thing.
 
SezMe said:
There's no small contingent of 'Mericans suggesting we renew our testing program over Iran. :)
Click to expand...

Are they volunteering to man the new backpack delivery systems? I know it's a long swim but I'm sure their dedication to the cause will assist in their efforts.
 
Trakar said:
Where do you see anyone talking about resuming nuclear bomb tests?
(for the record I thought the thread was about nuclear we4apons as well.)
Click to expand...

Did'ya see #5? #4? #3? No one actually mentioned restarting testing; like you, they thought I meant nuclear bombs. I just drew a conclusion and put a little english on the ball. I meant no harm, really.
 
Last edited:
shadron said:
Did'ya see #5? #4? #3? No one actually mentioned restarting testing; like you, they thought I meant nuclear bombs. I just drew a conclusion and put a little english on the ball. I meant no harm, really.
Click to expand...

For the record, we don't require nuclear tests to proof device design concepts any more. Our computer modelling is suficient to assure functionality(though many like a good excuse to Rock the Casbah every now and again, and I can't say that I don't feel better about designs after they've dug a few holes in the ground).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom