Just 5 years left to stop climate change

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Yes, Germany was concerned about the safety of Fukishima, and so decided to reduce nuclear power plant production.

Can anyone tell me when the last catastrophic earthquake hit Germany?

It was not about Earthquakes and you know it. Those plants have been running for 40 years now. The technology is far outdated and they do not have protection against airplane crashes, river flooding and frequently had multiple backup systems fail at once. They are old rustbuckets!

Originally Posted by applejuice

No. What makes Solar and Wind power "unpopular" is that they are very unreliable sources of energy. Electric Power Distribution needs to have reliable sources to deliver power at all times (what is called the baseload).

The reason Germany has not miracolously switched to solar and wind in a year is that it willt ake some time to build solar and wind, storage facilities and a better distribution grid with smart meters and the load. That will take some years, which is why the remaining reactors that are not totally rustbuckets are left running for another 10 years to have time to properly restructure. Energy storage is not really that hard at all if you deal with high temperature thermal machines: Thermal energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The other favoured idea by the German authorities is to use biogas energy to fill in the gaps. It has the advantage of a very fast reaction time to energy demand swings and thus is very adaptable (unlike nuclear power which is a baseload energy that is incompatible with solar and wind)

Originally Posted by Clarke

You don't need ten thousand of them, though. Perhaps you don't need even one thousand

Currently there are already over 400 reactors running, covering less than 10% of the world energy needs. Even if you build them twice as large, it means thousands. Plus the insane plan of Bill Gates and some companies to make "mini-reactors" with low power output that could power towns or factories.

Originally Posted by applejuice

I think, considering increasing demand, the fundamental problem in power generation is that most of it depends on thermal machines.

So does nuclear power.
"Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water" (Albert Einstein)

Originally Posted by Clarke

SPAAAAAAACE!
...Or the existing storage facilities. The waste from a few recycling cycles is not only much less for the energy it produces, but also becomes safe much faster.

There are no existing long term storage facilities. None, nada, null.
What are the french doing? They send their trash from their reprocessing plants to Russia where it sits in warehouses or in containers - great long term storage solution...

Maybe the industrial nations could churn out some hundreds of billions of Euros to build more nuclear power to replace the old nasty ones and then some more to replace coal plants in an effort to reduce CO2 emissions. But honestly why risk the pollution that comes with mining for radioactive substances, the risk of accidents (by human error, natural disasters or faulty construction or deliberate destruction in wars or terrorism) if you could put that same money to a better use in reducing energy demand, increasing efficiency, developing better energy storage facilities and higher efficient / lower impact renewable energy sources that have no such risks. I dont get it. And Nuclear power is not even carbon neutral at the moment.

EDIT. PS.: Oh I forgot - of course there is a long term storage solution widely used by industrialized countries already: Just dump it into the oceans. They are so incredibly unimaginably large that it will certainly not affect anyone.

[Fkeu'itan]

Shouting "SPAAAAAAAACE" is great and all... But you're kind of forgetting that we can't exactly happily blast of as and when we choose, as that too has it's downfalls.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by Fkeu'itan

Shouting "SPAAAAAAAACE" is great and all... But you're kind of forgetting that we can't exactly happily blast of as and when we choose, as that too has it's downfalls.

Railgun complex! Or space elevator! Both would be (comparatively) really cheap.

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

It was not about Earthquakes and you know it. Those plants have been running for 40 years now. The technology is far outdated and they do not have protection against airplane crashes, river flooding and frequently had multiple backup systems fail at once. They are old rustbuckets!

There's been two noticeable accidents in 40 years, from 400 reactors...
I get the impression that even rustbucket reactors have ludicrously low failure rates.

Currently there are already over 400 reactors running, covering less than 10% of the world energy needs. Even if you build them twice as large, it means thousands. Plus the insane plan of Bill Gates and some companies to make "mini-reactors" with low power output that could power towns or factories.

I did the calculation, and if we're as efficient as France, it'd take 20,000 reactors to power everywhere on Earth. However, this includes 1200 reactors for the Sahara desert, and 1800 for the Antarctic. I'm sure if I did the math properly, it'd be a much lower number.

Also, what's the analogous figure for oil/gas/coal? I bet it's quite a bit bigger.

Maybe the industrial nations could churn out some hundreds of billions of Euros to build more nuclear power to replace the old nasty ones and then some more to replace coal plants in an effort to reduce CO2 emissions. But honestly why risk the pollution that comes with mining for radioactive substances, the risk of accidents (by human error, natural disasters or faulty construction or deliberate destruction in wars or terrorism) if you could put that same money to a better use in reducing energy demand, increasing efficiency, developing better energy storage facilities and higher efficient / lower impact renewable energy sources that have no such risks. I dont get it. And Nuclear power is not even carbon neutral at the moment.

Because majorly reducing electrical demand involves changing how culture itself works, which in turn requires nigh-transhuman knowledge to be effective? Fixing/changing the machines is easier than changing the people in any non-trivial way.

[applejuice]

Heat is cheap money in terms of Energy. It is, probably, one of the most common types of energy we have available. But, unfortunately, cheap things are always very expensive. As long as power generation uses heat as an energy source, it will be governed by Thermodynamics and everything it implies. Global Warming, later renamed Climate Change, states that Earth is increasing its temperature, which means there's more energy in the atmosphere in the form of heat and that it is unable to radiate such energy to outer space in order to keep the temperatures at pre-industrial levels. One solution is to reduce the greenhouse gases or to reduce the amount of energy we dissipate in the atmosphere as heat (reducing the heat coming from the Sun is still fiction). Both are dependent of each other. There are alternatives to burning fuels for energy, mainly electricity but those alternatives are seen as malevolent by nature defenders and most of the climate change advocates. What we should be investigating is how to transform that 40-50% of heat into something useful instead of looking for more things to burn.

[Human No More]

It is possible to recycle some waste heat, but it's always going to be a case of diminishing returns, and it becomes hard to know when to stop adding more and more, with its own costs, when it reaches a point of being uneconomical - and indeed, the energy is mostly eventually dissipated to heat anyway as per the laws of thermodynamics.

[Dognik]

This thread is very interesting and I see some interesting posts. And i would like to do more about this issue. You know I myself am writing my final Exam about something that has to do with Regenerative Energies, and I think there are more people who are working or would like to work or get to know more about the future Energy systems and what people can do about it.

So my question is, can we open a thread about some practical things where we can present some ideas and maybe even develop some systems which could be useful in the future?
I mean as an alternative to just talk about "they could..", I mean we also "can".
Would someone like it?

[Moco Loco]

I like your idea, Dognik Probably wouldn't be nearly as depressing as this >.>

[Niri Te]

I think that is a GREAT idea Dognik, you start it, and PM me that you started it, and I will be a regular on it. What University are you going to?
Niri Te

Originally Posted by Dognik

This thread is very interesting and I see some interesting posts. And i would like to do more about this issue. You know I myself am writing my final Exam about something that has to do with Regenerative Energies, and I think there are more people who are working or would like to work or get to know more about the future Energy systems and what people can do about it.

So my question is, can we open a thread about some practical things where we can present some ideas and maybe even develop some systems which could be useful in the future?
I mean as an alternative to just talk about "they could..", I mean we also "can".
Would someone like it?

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Clarke

Railgun complex! Or space elevator! Both would be (comparatively) really cheap.

Or we could just teleport it into the sun while we're at it.... Or just put it into a transmogrifyer and turn it into chickens.

There's been two noticeable accidents in 40 years, from 400 reactors...[...]I did the calculation, and if we're as efficient as France, it'd take 20,000 reactors to power everywhere on Earth.

At the rate of present accidents, that would translate to 2 major accidents of Fukushima/Chernobyl style every year. Now you can calculate how many years this can go on until the whole landmass of the Earth is a radioactive exclusion zone... And even if lets say you half the risk, or quarter it because of some improved technologies, that is still more than one major accident every two years. If you assume a risk of only 1/10th (which would be quite fantastic), it means one accident of that magnitude every 5 years. That in not acceptable.

However, this includes 1200 reactors for the Sahara desert, and 1800 for the Antarctic. I'm sure if I did the math properly, it'd be a much lower number.

Wait, how did you do your calculations again? Did you use the landmass of the Earth divided by the landmass of France or something???? Please tell me you did not...

Because majorly reducing electrical demand involves changing how culture itself works, which in turn requires nigh-transhuman knowledge to be effective? Fixing/changing the machines is easier than changing the people in any non-trivial way.

Ah, now we dig to the core of the issue. The fact that it seems easier to find technological "solutions" or technological band-aids than to actually incite cultural and behavioural changes to a saner and sustainable society. You are probably right, but the cascade of techno-fixes over the past decades, centuries and even milennia has merely bought some time. In the end, cultural change HAS to happen, or the cascade will continue and in doing so will consume Earth. For the Europeans in the 1600s, the discovery of the "New World" was a huge thing - they did not have to change their culture to deal with the issues they started to have (overpopulation, resources running low) but had a fix for it. Just some naked indians had to move to the eternal hunting grounds for it. Then in the 1960ies the population bomb hit and food crisis loomed. The "green revolution" turned this away by turning bomb factories and technologies towards agriculture and herbicides, fertilizer and pesticides came to be. Whoever had that bright idea to poison our own food anyways. It again bought some time. The main "inventors" of the greeen revolution said so explicitly. That they" bought humanity a few more years to stop population growth". The pricetag was oceanic dead zones, nitrate loaded aquifers and overfertilization of EVERY SINGLE square meter on Earth. There was a study last month that showed that even the most remote areas receive a lot of nitrogen from the use of fertilizers, the spread of exhaust fumes etc. Maybe GMOs or nanotech can again push that a bit, buy another 2 or 3 decades, but these are all
TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS FOR A PERMANENT PROBLEM. At some point, humans will have to change their culture. And I insist that this point can be now as well as it can be in 2 or 3 decades. There is nothing that makes me think that it will get any easier in some years. Especially not with the convergence of crisis we see already that makes people cling even more to nationalism, egocentrism and fascism.

Originally Posted by Human No More

It is possible to recycle some waste heat, but it's always going to be a case of diminishing returns

Ther are some good concepts. An example from Austria is, they do have a powerplant there (I think it is geothermal). The steam is used to drive the turbines for electricity. The cooling is done by water that circles around the village and heats the homes. The residual heat that is left after that is then used to warm greenhouses to allow tomatoes to be grown in the Austrian winter. And I think they had the plan to put the pipes that came out of that under the streets and walkways back to the powerplant, so that even the streets would not be snowcovered in winter. I think IIRC they also had some industrial applications for the very warm water that is still too hot to warm houses with.

A smallscale application like that are "rocket stove mass heaters". They burn wood, but use the heat to a degree that the exhaust has about 40°C only. All the other heat goes to warm the house and thermal mass.

I really dont know why they still build power plants and warm rivers with the cooling water and then build homes that have to be heated with oil.

Originally Posted by Dognik

So my question is, can we open a thread about some practical things where we can present some ideas and maybe even develop some systems which could be useful in the future?

Be sure to put a link here.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Or we could just teleport it into the sun while we're at it.... Or just put it into a transmogrifyer and turn it into chickens.

I'm only partially joking. Cheap space travel opens up a lot of options for disposing of rubbish cleanly. IIRC, the current technology means that getting things into space costs around $5000/lb, whereas a space elevator reduces that to perhaps $50/lb, if not less. (Railguns would probably be cheaper still, but less useful for obvious reasons.)

At the rate of present accidents, that would translate to 2 major accidents of Fukushima/Chernobyl style every year. Now you can calculate how many years this can go on until the whole landmass of the Earth is a radioactive exclusion zone... And even if lets say you half the risk, or quarter it because of some improved technologies, that is still more than one major accident every two years. If you assume a risk of only 1/10th (which would be quite fantastic), it means one accident of that magnitude every 5 years. That in not acceptable.

What if you assume a risk of zero? Modern reactors are designed in such a way that the Chernobyl accident simply cannot happen. (The same circumstances just force the reactor to shut down.) Fukishima was entirely due to the surrounding geography, which wouldn't be an issue in... pretty much anywhere except Japan and the coastal US.

Wait, how did you do your calculations again? Did you use the landmass of the Earth divided by the landmass of France or something???? Please tell me you did not...

Yes, I did it as along those lines, because I wanted an order of magnitude estimate. Feel free to actually do it properly if you want an accurate figure. (You wouldn't even need any maths, just the appropriate diagrams.)

You are probably right, but the cascade of techno-fixes over the past decades, centuries and even milennia has merely bought some time. In the end, cultural change HAS to happen, or the cascade will continue and in doing so will consume Earth.

Only if there's an upper limit to the efficiency technology brings. Asteroid mining is a nigh-limitless pool of resources, for instance, albeit one that cannot be exploited ATM.

For the Europeans in the 1600s, the discovery of the "New World" was a huge thing - they did not have to change their culture to deal with the issues they started to have (overpopulation, resources running low) but had a fix for it. Just some naked indians had to move to the eternal hunting grounds for it. Then in the 1960ies the population bomb hit and food crisis loomed. The "green revolution" turned this away by turning bomb factories and technologies towards agriculture and herbicides, fertilizer and pesticides came to be. Whoever had that bright idea to poison our own food anyways. It again bought some time. The main "inventors" of the greeen revolution said so explicitly. That they" bought humanity a few more years to stop population growth". The pricetag was oceanic dead zones, nitrate loaded aquifers and overfertilization of EVERY SINGLE square meter on Earth.

There are two solutions to this, and both of them are questionably effective. We either stop using chemistry to support our agriculture, with the results that food prices spike (with the knock-on result that lots of people probably go hungry) and that something completely unpredictable and uncontrollable happens to the environment. The other option is to use chemistry more, and fix the problems as they occur. The ultimate extension of that would be an artificially maintained ecosystem, which would solve the problem entirely. That's an entirely plausible, albeit extremely long-term prospect.

At some point, humans will have to change their culture. And I insist that this point can be now as well as it can be in 2 or 3 decades.

You will never be able to artificially change the culture in the way you want, because humans are very very bad at caring about things either 1) not closely related to them or people they care about, 2) long-term. Climate change happens to be both.

However, the culture is not completely static either; it naturally mutates, at an accelerating pace. Knowing how people think in 30 years time is essentially impossible, and for all we know, a solution will present itself in that time.

[Fkeu'itan]

Is it just me, or is this whole thing with technology being our 'way out' just like the story of swallowing a spider to catch a fly?

It seems to me like there's a pretty simple way out of this, we just have to change our attitudes, but because we're human, and we can't, we seem to lie toourselves that we can 'technology' our way out of it, when that seems to be not the case.

[Niri Te]

Even WITH the technology, WHICH, by the way is a double edged sword, after all, is by three or four generations of NEGATIVE population growth. We all know what kind of chance THAT concept has.
Either the planet WILL limit this explosive growth through, it's causing a tremendous climate change, or we as a species will do it ourselves with a nuclear war.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Fkeu'itan

Is it just me, or is this whole thing with technology being our 'way out' just like the story of swallowing a spider to catch a fly?

It seems to me like there's a pretty simple way out of this, we just have to change our attitudes, but because we're human, and we can't, we seem to lie toourselves that we can 'technology' our way out of it, when that seems to be not the case.

It's just you (and swallowing spiders is a specious analogy, since it wouldn't work). Changing attitudes and improving methods are both needed.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Clarke

...disposing of rubbish cleanly...a space elevator reduces that to perhaps $50/lb, if not less.

Its not about cost but about safety.

What if you assume a risk of zero? Modern reactors are designed in such a way that the Chernobyl accident simply cannot happen.

Not even the most lunatic pro-nuclear engineers would assume such a thing. There is always chance for a technical failure, there are chances for environmental disturbances and there are chances for human failure. There are also chances for attacks. there are a few nice exploits that can be used by hacking PLCs for example. Or remember Stuxnet?

Yes, I did it as along those lines

I just realized I put way too much effort into these conversations in respect of doing proper calculations and research.

Asteroid mining is a nigh-limitless pool of resources, for instance, albeit one that cannot be exploited ATM.

Fine, then we will be able to first consume all there is on earth and then also the asteroids - that still leaves earth devastated.

We either stop using chemistry to support our agriculture, with the results that food prices spike (with the knock-on result that lots of people probably go hungry) and that something completely unpredictable and uncontrollable happens to the environment

The unpredictable thing would be that Earth can start to heal from being poisoned. Maybe there will eventually be pollinators again in all of China (which cannot be said about now). And food prices are a problem of globalization and so-called freemarkets, not of real scarcity. Half the food in the US is thrown away, but because US people are rich and Africans are poor they can just buy the food away from Africa.

The other option is to use chemistry more, and fix the problems as they occur.

Yeah - use more of what did not work in favour of the ecology of the earth in an attempt to fix it. Makes sense - not.
That is insanity - trying things over and over again (or more and more) and expecting different results

You will never be able to artificially change the culture in the way you want, because humans are very very bad at caring about things either 1) not closely related to them or people they care about, 2) long-term.

For indigenous people, the land is closely related to them, the birds are their brothers and the deer are their family. The salmon are their cousins and their ancestors are the lizards and kangaroo. Anything that is done has to be done in ways that will make it possible for the people in the seventh generation after oneself to enjoy the same life, the same healthy world.
This worked for 200.000 years, for 95% of human history. Humans are really really good at this. Unless they regard themselves as separate from the natural community. As the chosen species, as the ones that have the power to control and govern the world and the stars. When the attention span of people is reduced to the next quartely statement, the next years vacation or the length of a 140 character twitter message, I do not expect them to accept that they should care. Still it is needed - deeply and gravely needed - that this culture changes, that the vision of people widens, that they accept the nonhumans again as people and that they think of the next generations or lifetimes.
I dont expect to say anything that makes this in a blip. But I know it has to happen - one way or any of many others. But anything that does not work towards this is not really helping. If we need a crisis, a striking realization of the consequences of our actins, then maybe that will be the wake up call. But really, the members of this culture NEED TO WAKE UP to what indigenous cultures knew all along - that we are related to the Earth and al lits beings and that our actions have consequences to these close relatives and that the actions also have consequences for the next generations of these close relatives as well as our own grandchildrens children.

[Aquaplant]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Changing attitudes and improving methods are both needed.

What more needs to be said really?

We need better and efficient technology that in order to maintain at least some standard of living while not having to burden the planet needlessly.

Population control is also needed, because in order to have the sort of high tech sustainability, the earths population has to drastically go down. The numbers game where population serves as an advantage is a distant relic from the past and needs to be addressed when thinking about new and better systems of sustainability.