Nuclear & other power source discussions

[Tommy]

Your cost estimates are based on "round trip" costs, and the majority of those costs come from the "getting there" part - not the "getting back" part.

As for the quantity, let's face it - we aren't going to be switching to fusion all at once. It will be a gradual process, which means there would be time to scale up lunar operations. Yes, eventually we would need to process 300 tons of regolith every day, but it would be decades before demand became that high.

As for sending the initial "parts" to the moon, we have designs dating back to the '70s that could reduce the cost/ton to less half of what it currently costs just to get into orbit. The HASTOL program uses proven technology, and could be part of a full cislunar transport system - all using proven, existing tech.

It won't be cheap, easy, or happen in my lifetime. But if energy demand continues to grow at even a fraction of the current rate, it is inevitable. At the current rate of demand increase, in less than 60 years the energy demand will exceed the total amount of energy that the Earth receives from the Sun - so even if we had 100% efficient solar power - and completely covered the Earth with solar power plants, we wouldn't be able to harness enough energy to meet the demand. Since it will take several decades to build the lunar infrastructure, don't you think we should start soon - before it's too late?

Mass drivers aren't the only way to get things from the Moon to the Earth cheaply. In fact, for a rotovator based cislunar transport to function efficiently, you would need to send similar amounts each way. Water, food, and materials (for expanding the infrastructure) would need to be sent to the Moon, and an equivalent mass would have to be sent back.

Cargo "pods" sent back via the cislunar transport would need very little thermal shielding as it would be entering the atmosphere at only about mach 12. For cargo sent back using mass drivers, ablative shielding mad from regolith would be sufficient (estimated to be about 1 ton shielding for a 15 ton cargo unit.)

Yes, some manuevering propellant would be required, but studies of regolith brought back by the Apollo missions indicate that it should be possible to create chemical propellants from materials available on the Moon. Also, we've learned a lot since the days of Apollo, and have much better computers. MCC's would be significantly smaller than those required by Apollo.

I don't offer this a "quick" solution, but unless we find a way to "bypass" the first law of thermodynamics, it's the best idea we have for meeting the Earths long term energy needs.

If looking at various energy sources from the potential to cause greatest loss of life and general destruction then hydropower comes out on the top.

The statistics that show hydro power is more dangerous are the kind of statistics that don't really tell the truth. First, the vast majority of dams are NOT hydroelectric, but are included in the statistic. The vast majority are used for flood management and actually PREVENT damage and loss of life - but that isn't included in the statistic. When they talk about the risk of coal/gas power plants, they don't include the risks associated with obtaining and transporting the fuel - or the risks posed by the pollution they create.

The dams already exist, are required, and it's kind of a "no-brainer" to realize they should be converted to hydro power. If even one tenth of the "flood management" dams were converted to power generation, the "risk per kilowatt" would be lower than the risk for any other power source except solar.

True, some dams have been built that really shouldn't have - greed overcame common sense - but that's true for pretty much any human endeavor you can think of.

 

[T.Neo]

Your cost estimates are based on "round trip" costs, and the majority of those costs come from the "getting there" part - not the "getting back" part.

Except... even if you had a dedicated operation that has a lot of in-situ development, you will still need to ship a large amount of mass from Earth (which will also be pretty expensive in and of itself).

Yes, 1000 times less return than cost is absurd, but even half the return for initial cost is enough to make the entire operation implausible.

As for the quantity, let's face it - we aren't going to be switching to fusion all at once. It will be a gradual process, which means there would be time to scale up lunar operations. Yes, eventually we would need to process 300 tons of regolith every day, but it would be decades before demand became that high.

Not all at once, no... but in order to make it any sort of profitable program you will need an acceptable capability. And even a gigawatt requirement would have need a considerable infrastructure on the Moon, even if the return payload would be maybe less than 500 kg per year.

As for sending the initial "parts" to the moon, we have designs dating back to the '70s that could reduce the cost/ton to less half of what it currently costs just to get into orbit. The HASTOL program uses proven technology, and could be part of a full cislunar transport system - all using proven, existing tech.

Yes... good luck building HASTOL, 'proven, existing tech' or not.

Halved surface/orbit costs are probably still not enough but... they're better than nothing.

It won't be cheap, easy, or happen in my lifetime. But if energy demand continues to grow at even a fraction of the current rate, it is inevitable. At the current rate of demand increase, in less than 60 years the energy demand will exceed the total amount of energy that the Earth receives from the Sun - so even if we had 100% efficient solar power - and completely covered the Earth with solar power plants, we wouldn't be able to harness enough energy to meet the demand.

If you are using hundreds of petawatts of energy on a single planet, supplying the energy is the least of your problems (you have waste heat issues, for example).

If current growth rates continue, human civilisation is expected to hit Kardashev scale I in 2200, not 2070. And I would really not be surprised if the actual level turns out to be a good deal lower than that, with a realistic (read: up into the tens of billions, which is a scary thought for other) reasons) population, and a power-per-person figure that is not even that good in terms of energy efficiency, you would get a level far lower than hundreds of petawatts.

Since it will take several decades to build the lunar infrastructure, don't you think we should start soon - before it's too late?

I don't see why anyone would be wanting to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on a (currently) unworkable infrastructure to solve a problem that probably won't exist.

All the while, a very real energy crisis problem with far more realistic solutions is present... :uhh:

Mass drivers aren't the only way to get things from the Moon to the Earth cheaply. In fact, for a rotovator based cislunar transport to function efficiently, you would need to send similar amounts each way. Water, food, and materials (for expanding the infrastructure) would need to be sent to the Moon, and an equivalent mass would have to be sent back.

Yes... that is nice physics-wise, but does not make the huge problem of building and operating the rotovator go away.

Nobody has built even a small example of a rotovator or a mass driver. Even experimental military examples do not count, as there is a lot about their operation that can differ from a civillian, constant-use, payload lobbing system.

Cargo "pods" sent back via the cislunar transport would need very little thermal shielding as it would be entering the atmosphere at only about mach 12. For cargo sent back using mass drivers, ablative shielding mad from regolith would be sufficient (estimated to be about 1 ton shielding for a 15 ton cargo unit.)

Yes... depends on which braking system you use to get it down to mach 12... personally I prefer 600 ton+ fusion powered cislunar tugs... :shifty:

Even if they require minimal thermal shielding, and minimal mass... you still have to produce them on the Moon, which is no easy feat. And they also have to land, even the simplest solution (parachutes) would be pretty complicated... and the recovery teams, and the recovery area where you (hope to) recover the payloads once they land...

Yes, some manuevering propellant would be required, but studies of regolith brought back by the Apollo missions indicate that it should be possible to create chemical propellants from materials available on the Moon. Also, we've learned a lot since the days of Apollo, and have much better computers. MCC's would be significantly smaller than those required by Apollo.

Making chemical manuvering propellant on the Moon is tricky. You have lots of oxygen, yes, but fuel is more difficult... hydrogen is rare, and metals (aluminium, magnesium) are in a solid form, which makes burning them effectively in an engine difficult.

Even if you solved the fuel problem, each package would need its own RCS thrusters, plumbing, propellant tanks, avionics. At least some of which would have to be made totally in-situ.

I don't doubt the power available to an MCC in the year 2200, but this is also a pretty large operation- much larger than Apollo. You will have to have an MCC, and controllers on the Moon, and recovery teams... it will not be zero effort. Or zero cash.

I don't offer this a "quick" solution, but unless we find a way to "bypass" the first law of thermodynamics, it's the best idea we have for meeting the Earths long term energy needs.

I agree with you here. I doubt it would be a solution to world energy needs within the next 100, or even 150-200 years, but we will be utilising extraterrestrial fuel sources at some point, eventually.

My point is that the whole spaceflight technology climate just isn't conducive to make such an endeavour economically feasible, and it is certainly not a viable solution to a 21st century energy crisis. Maybe one day though.

 

[Sky Captain]

How would cost of developing He3 fusion reactors and going to the Moon to mine fuel compare to the cost of building a space based solar power stations? Both recquire large amounts of infrastructure to be lifted from Earth, substantial R&D effort and both could vastly benefit from utilization of local resources.

The statistics that show hydro power is more dangerous are the kind of statistics that don't really tell the truth. First, the vast majority of dams are NOT hydroelectric, but are included in the statistic. The vast majority are used for flood management and actually PREVENT damage and loss of life

Most of the dams built purely for flood control arn't that big to cause large scale destruction if they break. In this case I'm more worried about those really big hydropower dams that impound multiple km3 of water and have densely populated areas downstream. In my country we have 3 hydropower facilities impounding total of ~1km3 of water that have densely populated areas downstream. If there is a catastrophic breach consequences to may country would prportionally be worse than Japan suffered from eartquake and tsunami.

The dams already exist, are required, and it's kind of a "no-brainer" to realize they should be converted to hydro power.

But why it is not being done? Hydropower facilities usually are very profitable to energy company because they are cheap to run and can be used to supply the expensive peak demand. Clearly there has to be some other issues than just lack of realization a profit could be made there. Now those dams cost money to maintain, if they had hydropower plant added they would generate money.

 

[T.Neo]

One thing that interests me is [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microhydropower"]micro-hydropower[/ame].

I wonder if this could be used en-mass to produce considerable amounts of power, while still being usable in areas where hydroelectric dams would either be impractical, or where an environmental or economic cost would be too high?

 

[Wishbone]

If oil price is sufficiently high, anything can be practical.

 

[T.Neo]

If oil price is sufficiently high, anything can be practical.

Not really, if it isn't practical, it just isn't practical, regardless of the cost of oil. If oil costs are sufficiently high, it only really makes it more impractical.

There are a whole lot of practical alternatives that far surpass mining the Moon, and oil isn't used majorly for electricity production, either.

 

[jedidia]

We are already at a level where we can generate more power with nuclear fusion than we put in to it, generating a net gain.

Uhm, no, we aren't. At least not if the Tokamak didn't have an essential breakthrough during the last three months, an event I would certainly have heard in the news...

 

[T.Neo]

I was browsing today and came across the concept of a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcritical_reactor"]subcritical reactor[/ame], and that of an [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_amplifier"]energy amplifier[/ame].

What advantages could it offer and what technological problems does it face?

Can the whole system be made viable energy wise, and viable economically?

How does it rate in comparison to traditional Fission and Fusion, in terms of safety, reliability, cost, development, sustainability and ability to supply?

 

[FADEC]

We should not use a technology for generating power which is not controllable and which contaminates thousands of humans and other beings and thousands of square kilometers of land. To rely on nuclear power in such a tectonic environment like Japan is not only daring. It is crazy.

A meltdown in the middle of Europe or the USA would change everything. But the meltdown in Japan won't change anything I fear. Japan is too far away just like Chernobyl.

Norway should be a paragon. They use almost 100% hydropower. No atomic plants and not even coal power stations. We already have enough power sources. To rely on nuclear power is expensive, rather risky and therefore simply stupid. Those statistical "residual risks" are only usual diffuse scientific arguments.

 

[jinglesassy]

@FADEC

Ever hear of the three mile island incident?

 

[Sky Captain]

We should not use a technology for generating power which is not controllable and which contaminates thousands of humans and other beings and thousands of square kilometers of land. To rely on nuclear power in such a tectonic environment like Japan is not only daring. It is crazy.

A meltdown in the middle of Europe or the USA would change everything. But the meltdown in Japan won't change anything I fear. Japan is too far away just like Chernobyl.

Norway should be a paragon. They use almost 100% hydropower. No atomic plants and not even coal power stations. We already have enough power sources. To rely on nuclear power is expensive, rather risky and therefore simply stupid. Those statistical "residual risks" are only usual diffuse scientific arguments.

Japan don't really have an options. They consume huge amounts of electricity and it has to be generated somehow. Only alternative currently to nuclear power would be to replace nuclear power plants with coal power plants and import millions of tons of coal per year. Coal is worse than nuclear regarding pollution. While nuclear reactor causes significant pollution only when it fails catastrophically a coal power station spews tons of toxic crap all over the place during normal operations. Hydropower - given the Japanese demand for electricity I guess all suitable sites are already exploited.
Besides this Fukushima disaster is largely caused because TEPCO wanted to be cheapo and ignored the risks that came with the plant location in tsunami prone area. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict a possibility of large tsunami in area few hundred km from major subduction zone.

 

[Urwumpe]

Coal is worse than nuclear regarding pollution.

Dubious claims. Please reinforce your statement with sources. :hello:

(And please - not post a link to this "nuclear power plants are better than coal" nonsense: http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2 - The whole article most have been written by somebody who missed nuclear physics at high school, and the most important relativation of the claims happens in a foot note at the end of the article: The ash is only worse if the nuclear material is properly stored in casks or water pools. )

 

[Belisarius]

There is of course another alternative - radically cut domestic energy consumption by draconian orders to cut off the power.

When I was little, the following happened in the UK in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis:

The global effect of the 1973 oil crisis also drove up the price of coal... To reduce electricity consumption, and thus conserve coal stocks, a series of measures were announced on 13 December 1973 by Heath, including the "Three-Day Work Order", more commonly known as the Three-Day Week, which was to come into force at midnight on 31 December. Commercial consumption of electricity would be limited to three consecutive days each week. Heath's objective was business continuity and survival. Rather than risk a total shutdown, working time was reduced with the intent of prolonging the life of available fuel stocks.

Wikipedia

That was a real crisis, the present day one seems a bit tame in comparison. It finally lasted 8 weeks, until it was revoked by the next govt after elections in February 1974.

I remember it as a fun period: my parents were home 4 days a week, we'd light candles and play monopoly, go for walks in dark streets and chat with neighbours.

No TV, no lights, no heating, no refrigerators and only 3 days of work. Now I'm not proposing anything like as radical an action as that, but maybe some symbolic action in countries with potential energy shortages ahead might go a long way to really wake the public up to the realities of energy supply and politics.

 

[Urwumpe]

And nine months later....

 

[Belisarius]

Funny you should say that...

Dr Eric Beard of the University of West Brighton has stated that :

"There is an unequivocal link between the hour when we switch the lights off for Earth Hour, and the corresponding increase in the birth rate nine months later... An independent study has found a corresponding link between the lack of things on the telly and the birth rate. This was shown in the three day week introduced by British PM Edward Heath in the 1970's"

http://www.buildwith.net/blog/2010/03/23/EarthHourCausesGlobalWarming.aspx

 

[Bonanza123d]

i know the future. I have an idea that I will not give to anyone. It would solve the world energy criesis. Worth $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[Artlav]

Funny you should say that...

Hm, same thing happened here when the main TV tower caught fire a few years ago. All the studios were under it, so the screens went blank all over the country.

 

[Urwumpe]

Hm, same thing happened here when the main TV tower caught fire a few years ago. All the studios were under it, so the screens went blank all over the country.

Should happen more often here, maybe all the fears of Europe dying out will be gone then... our infrastructure is too reliable for the population growth.

 

[T.Neo]

There is of course another alternative - radically cut domestic energy consumption by draconian orders to cut off the power.

That is not going to work. It is almost like... cutting off people's feet, so that the demand for shoes will be lower.

Now I'm not proposing anything like as radical an action as that, but maybe some symbolic action in countries with potential energy shortages ahead might go a long way to really wake the public up to the realities of energy supply and politics.

South Africa needed no symbolic action, in the case of the Western and Northern Cape in 2005-2006, when someone left a loose bolt in the turbine of the Koeberg nuclear powerplant, which caused extensive damage. As a result, there was only a partial ability to supply to these affected areas (electricity from coal-fired plants all the way up in Mpumalanga), and the citizens of Cape Town and elsewhere had to cope with only intermittant power; Cape Town municpality alone, is a city of 3 million people, it is a port city, there is a lot of peripheral industry that goes on there, etc.

Furthermore in 2007-2008, load shedding affected the entire country, simply because Eskom had not built new powerplants to meet growing demand. This also had a negative impact on business, infrastructure and the road network (traffic lights were out, of course). Fortunately as a relatively warm country, nobody in SA really needed electric heating...

I remember it as a fun period: my parents were home 4 days a week, we'd light candles and play monopoly, go for walks in dark streets and chat with neighbours.

Maybe that is a different era; we had a localised 3 day power outage due to cable theft, and by the end of it I was ready to tear my hair out. Maybe that's because I have little life outside the internet and I rely on electronic means to know what's going on in the outside world, but the fact is that modern society is heavily reliant on electronics and by extension electricity; and for more things than leisure or entertainment in the home.

And... the correlating birth wave might not be a good idea either; after all, that's only going to increase demand, and in far more ways than just those relating to the power grid... :lol:

Dubious claims. Please reinforce your statement with sources.

(And please - not post a link to this "nuclear power plants are better than coal" nonsense: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...r-waste&page=2 - The whole article most have been written by somebody who missed nuclear physics at high school, and the most important relativation of the claims happens in a foot note at the end of the article: The ash is only worse if the nuclear material is properly stored in casks or water pools. )

I don't think it is very comprehensive to regard pollution only in terms of radiation; the main offense of coal-fired plants comes in the form of chemical, not radiological waste... waste that may be far less dangerous intrinsically than radioisotopes released by a nuclear accident, but is emitted continuously by the means of operation of a coal-fired plant.

Not only is the CO2 increase and resultant warming effect known, but particulate air pollution can be seen visually, and has been apparent at several locations in the last ~100 years.

It'd be very interesting to see, how many more deaths have resulted from chemical based air pollution, compared to how many have resulted from the release of radioactive materials during civillian nuclear power incidents...

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't think it is very comprehensive to regard pollution only in terms of radiation; the main offense of coal-fired plants comes in the form of chemical, not radiological waste... waste that may be far less dangerous intrinsically than radioisotopes released by a nuclear accident, but is emitted continuously by the means of operation of a coal-fired plant.

It is more about how you compare something: The leaking of isotopes by a closed cask is by design very small, while a chemical plant can only filter the biggest amount of the ash out, but not all.

Not only is the CO2 increase and resultant warming effect known, but particulate air pollution can be seen visually, and has been apparent at several locations in the last ~100 years.

Only because you can see it, it is not worse - the hidden death traps are more dangerous.

Also, I think you tend to overestimate CO2 - CO2 is dangerous as long as it is emitted, once you stop emitting it, it will slowly reduce and the effects of it will slowly drop. But this will all happen in a few centuries of time, even in the worst case in less than 10000 years - many nuclear isotopes remain a problem for about 100 times as much time.

It'd be very interesting to see, how many more deaths have resulted from chemical based air pollution, compared to how many have resulted from the release of radioactive materials during civillian nuclear power incidents...

It is not just about deaths, but also illnesses and how long the effect goes on. At the local nuclear waste dump, we have for example the effect, that there are far more boys being born than girls, which is also linked to the still unknown effects of a long-term exposure to weak radiation.

What is researched well, is short-term exposure to strong radiation, but not a long-term effect of weak radiation. It is only known that weak and long-term causes more health problems as a short and strong one.

That is why I think comparing both kinds of pollution is also a pretty futile endeavor currently - we know about both not enough now. We can just tell for sure, that they are generally not good. But we can't tell yet how bad.