tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post6332395373064913854..comments2023-05-05T06:38:34.592-04:00Comments on IMHO: ENERGY! (Yay!)Niceguy Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-28173276773760247212010-04-18T21:29:47.279-04:002010-04-18T21:29:47.279-04:00Niceguy;
You flatter me – hyperbole wasted on a p...Niceguy;<br /><br />You flatter me – hyperbole wasted on a poorly-constructed, rambling post – but thank you.<br /><br />My point was more that the ignorant more often respond well to a well thought-out analogy. Of course the problem with analogies is that, at some point, they break down. <br /><br />2)That was a trick question – current technology renders hydrogen useless as an energy source for mobile applications. Unless you want a fuel tank the size of (and as dangerous as) the Hindenburg, you're limited to; Cryogenic storage – complex; Compressed – bulky, 10kpsi tanks are not user-friendly; Bound in hydrides – heavy. All of this ignores the biggest drawback – how do you get the hydrogen in the first place? Electrolysis is the means I'm most familiar with, but I would wager that any other means would still have the same problem – energy input greater-than energy output.<br /><br />3)Trains – That wasn't a trick question. Do line-losses prohibit using grid power for freight? “I don't know.” is a valid answer (one I respect and am not ashamed to use.) You're some kind of an automotive engineer (I don't know the focus.) I've spent 28 years in love with being an electronics technician. I think we can both say “not my area of expertise.”<br /><br />4)You heard it here folks – from an automotive engineer: “Ethanol IS better than gasoline...” <br /><br />Another useful stick to beat the ignorant with – if alcohol is such a bad fuel, why is it used in monster trucks, dragsters, sprint cars, etc. - all across the racing spectrum?<br /><br />The main reason I support ethanol is its value as a transition fuel that would have such a dramatic impact on our dependence on “Foreign Oil.” A secondary, more selfish reason is that Switchgrass – a prime candidate for ethanol production that doesn't compete with food production – grows well in Oklahoma, a state notorious for poor soil and frequent drought.<br /><br />5)My email – my secret shame exposed. I proposed recycling the waste via a star, specifically that big fusion reactor in the sky, our Sun. Back from whence it came, I say! (Well, it did come from a star, not our sun, but a star none the less.) I was born during the Mercury years, and grew up feeding on Apollo – to have my heart ripped-out by Apollo 1, then later by STS-51 – tough for a guy that's had a life-long interest in science, astronomy, and space.<br /><br />I specifically mentioned RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) knowing that they have survived reentry intact (relatively.) When NASA ditched Apollo 13's Lunar Module, they did so in the deep water of the Pacific, although the RTG wasn't recovered, no evidence of contamination or subsequent leakage has been found. In the interests of fairness, an earlier model RTG did fail and contaminate on re-entry (Transit-5BN-3 satellite.)<br /><br />Challenger, while spectacular, wasn't even violent enough to instantly kill all the crew. I think it is fair to say that space-based nuclear power has been safer than terrestrial, but I also realize that there has been far less use of it, so it's like saying that planes are safer than cars because fewer folks are killed by planes than cars.<br /><br />I think that a well-designed payload module, keeping in mind the critical failure modes – coupled with a reliable booster (I favor the Russian Soyuz – a cast-iron stupid (but reliable) engine that uses LOX/kerosene.) to launch the waste into the sun is a solution to be explored.<br /><br />At least, I justify my 'solution' as getting rid of the waste, not just storing it for future generations to deal with.<br /><br />Thanks for your time, Niceguy, I hope you don't mind me using you and your blog as a sounding-board.<br /><br />okiepoliAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-10228810318283907322010-04-13T23:20:28.445-04:002010-04-13T23:20:28.445-04:00Okiepoli,
Wow. That's... wow. That is a ton...Okiepoli,<br /><br />Wow. That's... wow. That is a ton of good points and a ton of good questions and I'd don't even know where to start! LOL<br /><br />First of all, AGREED: You can't cure stupid. And these people never realize that OUR freedom is THEIR freedom. They're idiots; stuck in their own little fantasy world, where nothing bad will ever happen to them outside of the occasional election of a Democrat.<br /><br />2) H2 and the ICE... I was saying "scrap the engine" assuming that cars would be purely electric and would go farther without lugging around a few hundred pounds of engine. <br /><br />I LIKE hydrogen, as a fuel, in an IC engine - but we'd need a delivery system. And that would be MUCH harder (and more expensive) to design, build, sell, etc... Than the necessary engine changes would be. Hydrogen FUEL CELLS? Yeah. That could work too. I'm just really high on the plug-in only / pure electric model right now.<br /><br />3) Trains - I was kind of making a concession there. And yeah, I was thinking LARGE FREIGHT. Moving a whole lot of concentrated mass over a great distance take a LOT of energy. SO if leaving that (and trucks, planes, boats) segment on diesel meant that EVERYONE ELSE went electric? I'd take that.<br /><br />4) Ethanol IS better than gasoline and I buy it wherever it's available. But it's still a hydrocarbon, and thus still produces CO2 when burned and thus still contributes big time to global warming. We need a far more radical paradigm shift in personal transportation than what is represented by ethanol.<br /><br />5) IN YOUR EMAIL - You asked how I propose we store the spent nuclear fuel. You also suggested sending into space/the sun/orbit. That's not as crazy an idea as it sounds, but if you can't store it safely on the ground, the LAST place you want it to be is strapped to a rocket! (I don't suppose you were alive to see the Challenger disaster?) Maybe someday, but not someday soon!<br /><br />As for what I would do with it? No idea. I'm not an engineer in that field. I just know that it's a lot easier to manage a solid than a gas or a liquid. Find a nice, stable, open bit of land, far from any fault line, and build a HUGE, underground, steel reinforced, concrete, lead-lined, bomb-proof bunker to let this stuff cool off in for the next 100 years or so. I don't really know.<br /><br />But like I said: 100,000 tons of Uranium is about the size of a large house. 100,000 tons of C02 is about the size of ALASKA. Which storage problem would YOU rather solve? ;) I may not have THE ANSWER, but I think I can still recognize the easier QUESTION. LOL<br /><br />Thanks for you comment, and your email!Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-80319813444373213682010-04-13T21:35:47.098-04:002010-04-13T21:35:47.098-04:00Niceguy;
If I understand correctly, what you are ...Niceguy;<br /><br />If I understand correctly, what you are saying in the paragraph that contains the phrase "I would go with about a 90% Edison model and about 10% Westinghouse." is that the limited DC grid could supply most of the household needs, while an AC grid supplies industrial needs.<br /><br />Remember to reserve a portion of that AC capacity for "the chair." (Edison must have been so disapointed.)<br /><br />Kidding aside, it should be pointed out to false conservatives that their favorite Middle East nation, Israel, gets a significant portion of its energy from solar. (I paint with a broad brush, not all are religious, nor care.) (Further aside - I find it helpful when trying to 'cure' ignorance, 'education' is more readily accepted when presented with comfortable subjects. I.e.; when trying to explain Net Neutrality, the typical wingnut couldn't care less that AT&T censored Eddie Vedder, or that Verizon denied pro-choice messages - but, tell them that Comcast blocked the BIBLE from being distributed, and cite FOX: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303623,00.html , and you might get their attention. Unfortunately, you just can't 'cure' stupid. /rant)<br /><br />Anyway, back to topic.<br /><br />DellDolly brought up Hydrogen, and you have said scrap the IC engine, so I ask - what is the best way of using Hydrogen in cars; IC, gas turbine, fuel cell, or some other technology?<br /><br />On the gripping hand - combine Hydrogen and nuclear - fusion power. (I like the National Ignition Facility, they have the coolest (hottest?) lasers.)<br /><br />Now, you mentioned trains - is electric power unsuitable for purposes other than light rail? Freight locomotives are diesel-electric, are the line-losses large enough that carrying fuel, engine and generator are better?<br /><br />Ethanol looks cleaner, and could easily be produced in my home state.<br /><br />okiepoliAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-42397138260329520252010-04-09T22:12:54.256-04:002010-04-09T22:12:54.256-04:00Classic,
Thank you truly for that amazing summary...Classic,<br /><br />Thank you truly for that amazing summary. That really nails, entirley, what the problem really is and has been throught recent history. It sums up my biggest lament back when Gore "lost" to Bush - that, once again, this necessary and bascially market-ready technology would be shelved again.Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-39928552519515713052010-04-09T21:07:40.696-04:002010-04-09T21:07:40.696-04:00The biggest problem with developing alternative en...The biggest problem with developing alternative energy sources is, as usual, the entrenched interests, that corrupt nexus of money and power that suppresses alternate technologies in order to protect their own bottom lines.<br /><br />Jimmy Carter is derided as one of the all-time worst presidents, but he was frequently quite foresighted, and nowhere was this more true than in the matter of energy. After the second phony oil crisis, which happened on his watch, Carter turned the government toward a serious effort at developing alternative energy sources. He wanted to spend <i>billions</i> on it, and managed to get congress to go along with him.<br /><br />The result?<br /><br />Reagan was elected, industry (mostly Big Oil) bought up and dismantled nearly all of the alternative energy companies that had sprang up, Reagan pulled the solar panels off the White House, and abandoned Carter's policy, revoking what he could via executive order and finally getting congress to defund it, thus ending the first and only serious effort at a national alternative energy policy.<br /><br />One must be careful when talking about the subject of industry suppression of technology, though--there are a lot of conspiracist crackpots out there who have latched on to the subject and polluted the data stream with a lot of nonsense. There is, however, a long, <i>real</i> history of industry suppression of technology.<br /><br />In the years after World War II, for example, Big Oil conspired with the Big Three automakers (but particularly GM) to buy up and dismantle over 100 mass transit systems in the U.S., most of them electric rail, and replace them with gas guzzlers. Perhaps the most visible example of this was in Los Angeles, where the subway system was bought up and scrapped, a development that eventually made L.A. the smog capitol of the world. They're now having to rebuild that system, at a cost of millions.<br /><br />The top recipient of alternative energy patents every year is Big Oil. They develop the technology in house or buy it up whenever it's developed from the outside. The patents are acquired, and the technology is then permanently shelved.<br /><br />One of the loudest recent examples of this happened in 2002, when Toyota brought to market a plug-in electric car using Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries. GM and Chevron, who had acquired the rights to the batteries, filed a massive lawsuit, and the line was pulled. They've sat on their patents for these batteries ever since, refusing to license them to anyone, or use them themselves.<br /><br />This sort of thing isn't just damaging because it keeps better energy sources off the market; it also keeps those sources from being properly developed via the normal technological innovations that would occur if people had been using them all these years. There's no motivation to build a better mouse-trap when the existing mouse-trap is sitting in some filing cabinet somewhere unused.classicliberal2https://www.blogger.com/profile/17960371221876522276noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-56504614461481370352010-04-09T18:58:30.250-04:002010-04-09T18:58:30.250-04:00DellDolly,
Hydrogen is a very interesting option,...DellDolly,<br /><br />Hydrogen is a very interesting option, especially becuase of how easy it would be to adapt it for transporation. One possible use of that expanded NUCLEAR power could be to extract hydrogen from water, and cars would produce only water vapor for emissions. <br /><br />I really forgot about Hydrogern completely in this post, but when I DO remmeber I tend to kind of skip past it, as I think the infrastructure hurdles are too great, and that we'd probablby achieve full-on solar (on some other form on non-consuming power) before we could make hydrogen practical. But you're absolutely right: As a FUEL, there's basically nothing better!<br /><br />And personally, I'll never understand or relate to that fear that causes people to NOT act. (I think they call it conserv-a-somthing?) Because doing nothing IS far more "scary," to me! And downright untenable in most cases.Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-30944460979827373092010-04-09T16:25:27.438-04:002010-04-09T16:25:27.438-04:00I am all for expanding nuclear power. Yeah, I know...I am all for expanding nuclear power. Yeah, I know it costs an arm and a leg nowadays to build a new nuclear plant with all the (necessary and appropriate) safety regulattions, but until we find a way to get energy from hydrogen cheaply, it's our only option. We need to step up to the plate and acknowledge that it's scary, but refusing to act should be even scarier to people!DellDollynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-37046957217586880862010-04-08T22:49:07.501-04:002010-04-08T22:49:07.501-04:00KK,
It sure would be nice if the media wasn't...KK,<br /><br />It sure would be nice if the media wasn't so amenable to making that (pork, etc...) the story, and just TRY to be objective while the pols fight it out, no? It seems to me that they're all too willing to help PAINT that narritive. I don't need them to be cheerleaders for the environmental movement, but they could at least STFU while the Scientists and Engineers present the FACTS. And the FACTS, as usual, do not support a Conservative or the Republican viewpoint.<br /><br />Thanks for your comment.Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-11767523350181718092010-04-08T22:43:25.636-04:002010-04-08T22:43:25.636-04:00I always got annoyed at the people you see on TV d...I always got annoyed at the people you see on TV driving their hummers claiming it was their God-given right to burn 8mpg and then complain gas was high. Looking at the most simplistic form of economics, one would see that these people are perpetuating the inefficient system we live in, and unfortunately it has not diminished over time... The Palin/McCain campaign reinvigorated the science hating right.<br /><br />One thing that angers me is that not enough people stress the importance of nuclear recycling. Naysayers tend to throw out these other sustainable options due to initial setup costs and they don't allow it to get the point of affordability, and then when the system they opted for comes crashing down, they start to run for the hills (unless they belong to the Tea Party, in which they then deny anything was wrong in the first place and insist everything was just fine and dandy).<br /><br />Alternative energy sources are good. Opened up drilling? Okay. Coal? Outlived its purpose. I agree that America needs to seriously update it's infrastructure, but I'm sure any attempt by this administration or any other Democratic one would be vilified as just another pork farmer buying votes...Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13492761988793782893noreply@blogger.com