LOL... Solar Plant Wants To Burn a Lot More Natural Gas

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Sure it is, but will it ever have a cost advantage? When will we stop seeing increased costs?

Now on the good side, we see what advantages and disadvantages there are for future products.

I just see it as another engineering task that fails to live up to what was sold.

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Of course it will. In fact we are closest to parity in the southwest now......which is why the Ivanpah project exists.

When will we see less increase in costs? Hard to say, but you knew that already. There are a number of technologies that show promise. The most interesting one (to me), is here:


http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jz500676c


By your metric, it does indeed fall short of what was sold. Does that make it a failure? It's not a black and white picture. As I said, there is a cost associated with learning new technologies. This is one of those costs and it's not an unreasonable one at that. It's a poor decision to simply abandon ship given that the input cost isn't absurd.

Does WC bitch about this kind of burned energy to produce energy:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...racoon_mtn.jpg

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH) is a type of hydroelectric energy storage used by electric power systems for load balancing. The method stores energy in the form of gravitational potential energy of water, pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation. Low-cost off-peak electric power is used to run the pumps. During periods of high electrical demand, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power. Although the losses of the pumping process makes the plant a net consumer of energy overall, the system increases revenue by selling more electricity during periods of peak demand, when electricity prices are highest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-...droelectricity

Or does WC bitch about eROI of tar sands?

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Originally Posted by DarrinS

What do you think of this?


https://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wil...ssion_reactors

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I wonder what materials he proposes to use. Corrosion/transmutation are real issues over time. That applies to the surrounding land as well.

There's also the additional issue of what's left after it's life cycle is through. The exact mix of what will go in and what will come out as a result hasn't been fully explained yet.

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Originally Posted by DarrinS

What do you think of this?


https://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wil...ssion_reactors

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I don't know what's so special about that kid.

LOTS of companies are looking into small reactors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor

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Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins

I was discussing the article that you posted. Arguments you don't make? It's your link, dumbfuck.

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So you are stupid enough to assume I agree with 100% of everything in it?

Just how pathetically stupid are you?

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Originally Posted by Agloco

By your metric, it does indeed fall short of what was sold. Does that make it a failure? It's not a black and white picture. As I said, there is a cost associated with learning new technologies. This is one of those costs and it's not an unreasonable one at that. It's a poor decision to simply abandon ship given that the input cost isn't absurd.

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Only time will tell as we see the final costs including increased upkeep as it ages.

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Originally Posted by Agloco

I wonder what materials he proposes to use. Corrosion/transmutation are real issues over time. That applies to the surrounding land as well.

There's also the additional issue of what's left after it's life cycle is through. The exact mix of what will go in and what will come out as a result hasn't been fully explained yet.

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The NPR show I posted discusses this.

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Originally Posted by Agloco

Of course it will. In fact we are closest to parity in the southwest now......which is why the Ivanpah project exists.

When will we see less increase in costs? Hard to say, but you knew that already. There are a number of technologies that show promise. The most interesting one (to me), is here:


http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jz500676c


By your metric, it does indeed fall short of what was sold. Does that make it a failure? It's not a black and white picture. As I said, there is a cost associated with learning new technologies. This is one of those costs and it's not an unreasonable one at that. It's a poor decision to simply abandon ship given that the input cost isn't absurd.

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WC can't handle this one.
Its a ways off.

Wonders why the government is even funding it...

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Originally Posted by pgardn

The NPR show I posted discusses this.

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:tu

I understand. In my first point I was referring to the materials use to make the reactor itself. Admittedly, I wasn't very clear.

As far as whats going into the reactor: I believe our child prodigy was proposing a downblended mix of U235 (that and using Pu239)? That's distinctly different from these thorium cycle reactors. The details of the mix and all of the associated mechanisms involved in moderating the reaction are, as of now, still quite fuzzy. He and his cohorts haven't given many details beyond "using old nuclear weapons", although he did say that he intended for them to be unpressurized (implies no water) and be safe vs. proliferation. If that's the case it needs to be protected from U233 siphoning. To that end, I don't believe that burying them underground will suffice.

The US essentially put a halt to advancing thorium reactors in the 60 and 70s due to proliferation concerns as U233 is a better fissile material in some ways than either U235 or Pu239. It's use in weapons was limited by the fact that it's invariably contaminated with about 0.1% U232, which emits a very energetic gamma. I don't think that stops a group of knuckleheads bent on destruction for destruction's sake though. I'm unsure if they (US) will now suddenly champion their use (thorium series reactors) without at least some reservation.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Only time will tell as we see the final costs including increased upkeep as it ages.

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Fair enough, but it's far too early to LOL about it.

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Originally Posted by Agloco

Fair enough, but it's far too early to LOL about it.

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Well, in my prediction, we will be both laughing and crying about it. I honestly feel we are pushing into what will be a good technology, but not yet advanced enough top be cost effective.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

So you are stupid enough to assume I agree with 100% of everything in it?

Just how pathetically stupid are you?

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It was an indictment of the entire article. Nice to see that you don't stand behind it at all though. The guy obviously is a or is regurgitating from oilco shills.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

where a natural gas plant would kill far less birds and be less costly.

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NG, and all carbon energy, is short term.

birds?

Bird Deaths From Solar Plant Exaggerated By Some Media Sources

There seems to be some hysteria online about bird deaths associated with the Ivanpah solar project in California. For example, this news article calls the solar power plant a “death ray“ as if it is a weapon. The same article says that hundreds of thousands of birds might be dying, or 28,000 or 1,000. That is a very wide range, and at least suggests that no one may have precise numbers.

So is the total 100,000 or 1,000? Brightsource says the number is much lower than 1,000.

What do these numbers mean compared to other sources of bird deaths? Power lines alone might kill up to 175 million birds a year, according to a US Fish and Wildlife Servicedocument. Up to 3.7 billion are killed by cats.

Also, the authors of the sensational articles don’t provide information on the hazards of fossil fuels to wildlife to balance their content.

More than one million birds died due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to the Audubon Society. The oil industry contributes far more to bird deaths each year than this one solar power plant, so why did the authors not mention this fact?

“Every year an estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds are killed in oilfield production skim pits, reserve pits, and in oilfield wastewater disposal facilities,” explained a document from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Up to 402,000 birds have died due to oil development in Canada’s tar sands.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/22/...eanTechnica%29

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Originally Posted by Agloco

Fair enough, but it's far too early to LOL about it.

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That won't stop WC from doing it though...

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Originally Posted by RandomGuy

That won't stop WC from doing it though...

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My ears were burning...

I'm laughing at the fact that once again, we have an expensive project that isn't as advertised.

I do hope I'm wrong, but I think the costs of this will be far more than advertised years down the road. It wouldn't surprise me if upkeep is more than double what was promised, a decade from now.

I've seen too many engineering projects in my life, and rarely does something new ever come in close to target costs.