Power for the future

[CMircea]

In an attempt to save the OpenTTD Icon topic, I made this one. So let's continue, i'll start with my opinion:

Coal
Coal is a very cheap form of energy, but it's also the biggest pollution generator. We always talk about CO2, but how about the extremely toxic CO gas, eh? Inhale some of it and kiss bye bye to your life Also, coal reserves are very small, especially for high-grade coal; instead we could use that coal to make steel.

Oil
This ain't cheap, and ain't a greenhouse as well. A very bad choice for power plants as most cars today need oil to run, and we don't have too much left.

Natural Gas
This is much cleaner but we don't have much left. It should to be used as fuel for cars, as you don't need a new engine to use this, and it's much much less polluting than petrol.

Hydrogen Fusion
Until we can power more than a few light bulbs, this ain't gonna help in any way.

Nuclear fission
I support this. Doesn't pollute the atmosphere with gases, but radiation is a problem, and you need to store that waste somewhere. However, it generates A LOT of power, and modern nuclear plants are very safe. Chernobyl's RBMK was a faulty design, that's why it blew up, and that's why nuclear power gets a bad reputation This is what should be built from now on as other power plants are decommissioned. I don't understand why countries decommission all nuclear plants, what's the benefit of a nuclear-free zone? You're gonna rebuild Chernobyl or what? Or you don't want to spend money to properly train people to operate those things?

Solar
This doesn't pollute a dime directly. But it doesn't produce much power either

Wind
Same as solar, except that it can produce quite some power in very windy areas. Noise? Pick either noise in a small area and a windmill or air filled with junk! Personally I'd pick the former option.

Hydro
Dams don't pollute directly at all, and they can be helpful in 2 or even more ways. You can make energy and supply a city with fresh and clean water; but they must be build in a good place so you don't destroy the area around them. Also this can't get depleted as water doesn't disappear, and you don't need to deal with waste. I support this more than nuclear power

[Ameecher]

Solar
This doesn't pollute a dime directly. But it doesn't produce much power either

Indeed but production of solar panels is highly polluting and to produce the volume of power needed through solar panels would need a hell of a lot of solar panels = lots of pollution.

Wind
Same as solar, except that it can produce quite some power in very windy areas. Noise? Pick either noise in a small area and a windmill or air filled with junk! Personally I'd pick the former option.

There's the rather annoying argument that they are ugly. Personally I like them but NIMBYs are always like that unfortunately, ridiculously impossible to please.

Hydro
Dams don't pollute directly at all, and they can be helpful in 2 or even more ways. You can make energy and supply a city with fresh and clean water; but they must be build in a good place so you don't destroy the area around them. Also this can't get depleted as water doesn't disappear, and you don't need to deal with waste. I support this more than nuclear power

Just do what China did with the 3 gorges dam and sod the surrounding area, relocate 6 million people to build it.

I think everyone has realised that fossil fuels really aren't the way to go (yet governments still build these power plants). The nuclear issue is a tough one. Uranium is a limited resource, it will eventually run out, admittedly you can use plutonium but that isn't going to be around for ever either. Also, Nuclear power may be very safe but all it takes is that one problem and the consequences are massive, even in Ukraine now there are cows with deformed heads and mutated potatoes. Yes it is a highly efficient energy production method it does also have the added disadvantage of not being available to provide power on demand. If there is a sudden rise in power it can take a fair old while for a Nuclear plant to meet that demand and then another few hours to go offline and as you say, there is the issue with the waste.

[athanasios]

Solar energy yes, but not through solar panels. That is a failure. Dams can be used as batteries.

[orudge]

I think nuclear will probably have to be used as the main "reliable" source of energy. The likes of solar and wind can likely be used in more small-scale installations, but due to their unreliability (it's not always sunny/windy) and the fact they don't produce that much power, I don't think they could be our main source of power. Things like tidal power, as being trialled in Orkney, may be good to supplement such technologies though, providing a fairly constant stream of electricity for "free".

[ThorRune]

Hmm... How is the alternatives about wind a "noise in a small area and a windmill or air filled with junk"? There's not going to be less or more junk in the air based on windmills!

I personally think they are ugly. They don't pollute with gasses, but they pollute in every other way (accept vibration and smell) - sound-pollution and visual pollution. Windmills don't just look ugly, they sometimes look kinda cool when you pass them by, but they contineously move in a monotone way. Breaks a lot of the visual and recreational value of an area, for little benefit. Windmills out on the sea is a good idea! But don't put them in the middle of everyones face. Tidal mills is a good idea too, those gigantic underwater mills relying on the tide.

Nuklear is scary. There should be very, very strict, internationaly enforced security rules for nuklear powerplants, because the effects of a lapse in security is not acceptable. If there are other alternatives, i'm not positive to nuklear power.

Norways main source of own electricity is water-based powerplants. However, these things are ugly-ugly. They completely ruin a beautiful huge lake, put long big pipes down the mountainside, and is rather unreliable if you have a dry season. Power prices in norway somewhat fluctuates together with the rain. I like this source of power nonetheless, it is not polluting in the same way as wind-based power, and is very good for the general enviroment.

[Ameecher]

Wind turbines out at sea can have dramatic effect on the environment there. They destroy a large amount of the sea bed to anchor them and the vibration of the turbine can upset aminals that use the area as a habitat. Also, they look no different to on land ones except they are a few kilometers out to see but are bigger so are still quite "oppresive" if that is the right word. Personally I love them.

[orudge]

The other issue with building things like solar panels and wind turbines is that, while they don't "pollute" as such when running, they do cost a lot environmentally to build. If you're sticking a solar panel on every roof, that's a lot of chemicals and suchlike necessary to build them, whereas you could just build a couple of nuclear plants, keep them all self-contained and so on, and job's a good'un.

Interestingly enough, in Anglesey right now, they're campaigning to try to ensure that a nuclear plant is built to replace the soon-to-be-decommissioned Wylfa in the future. The plant provides lots of employment locally, provides electricity for the aluminium smelter (which actually uses about 13% of all the electricity in Wales!), and is even a bit of a tourist attraction. (I went on a tour of the plant about 10 years ago, was rather interesting.) It seems as though the local people who live and work near nuclear plants are often more keen to keep them than all the environmentalists who go along and say "nuclear is bad!", resulting in losses of jobs, and a reliable power supply!

[jonty-comp]

If I become a theoretical physicist, and discover how to utilise Zero-Point energy, then I'll give you all a call.
(Note for the non-physicists: Zero-Point energy could offer potentially infinite energy, but it's pretty hard to get hold of.)

[michael blunck]

Solar energy yes, but not through solar panels. That is a failure.

Solar thermal power plants!

The technologies needed have been already developed and part of them have been in use for decades, e.g. in the US.

"Satellite-based studies by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have shown that, using less than 0.3% of the entire desert areas of the MENA [Middle East and North Africa, mb] region, solar thermal power plants can generate enough electricity and desalinated seawater to supply current demands in EU-MENA, and anticipated increases in those demands in the future. "

regards
Michael

[CMircea]

For now, nuclear is the way to go. And we need some damn good security with modern technology so it's impossible to go in there. A little bomb there can bring us Chernobyl II, and that ain't good at all. Storing the nuclear waste doesn't need as much space as you think. Also, I don't know what kind of plants you got there, but today's plants can rise in power quite fast, and go down pretty fast as well. And uranium resources won't last long, but that applies to enriched uranium in current known reserves. However, natural uranium is plenty deep in the Earth's crust, but it requires heavy water to be used in most designs, which ain't easy to produce, but easier than enriched uranium.

[Ameecher]

I don't think people are worried about the space needed to store nuclear waste, but where it is actually it is stored.

[hertogjan]

Solar
This doesn't pollute a dime directly. But it doesn't produce much power either

Indeed but production of solar panels is highly polluting and to produce the volume of power needed through solar panels would need a hell of a lot of solar panels = lots of pollution.

For solar energy one does not necessarily need solar panels (or: photovoltaic cells). Solar energy can also be used directly for heating, which is also energy.
Also solar energy can be used generate electric energy without solar panels. This is usually done by focussing the sunlight with mirrors to a central point, which will become very hot, and then the heat can be converted to electricity. This form of converting solar energy to electricity is cheaper than using photovoltaic cells. (This is called "solar thermal energy", as mentioned before.)

I also missed a few options in the opening post. What about
geothermal energy - Both for heating and producing electricity.
tidal energy
energy from sea waves
electrochemical energy from salinity of seawater - This form of electric energy can be obtained at places where large quantities of fresh water and salt water are close together, so that one can use them as a giant battery.

[Chrill]

My two cents... I believe nuclear power is the way to go, as soon as the nation in question has found a good way to store the waste. For example, Sweden are still using so-called "Temporary Storage" and that is not the way. Nuclear power is today safe enough to be considered.. secure

[michael blunck]

For now, nuclear is the way to go.

I believe nuclear power is the way to go, [...]

"Nuclear power" is just an error, but no way into the future. There´s not a single argument for it.

regards
Michael

[XeryusTC]

I think we should use a system like they used in the matrix, just hook a bunch of cows up to some sytem and extract energy from them while they grow, and if they grow old enough we can slaughter them and eat them. This way they're also useful when they are not on my plate :9~


All seriousness aside, I think that solar thermal energy is the way to go, IIRC there were/are plans for a gigantic plant of that kind in some desert. A bunch of mirrors, a 1000m tower and loads of water allow for the same as every other energy plant on the planet: steam driven generators. With this method you can warm water far over the boiling point (by a few hundred degrees) and you'll survive quite a while into the night with your hot water. And in the meanwhile you can store excess energy in potential energy by moving water up to a higher point, this potentional can then be used by letting the water fall past turbines like happens now in hydroplants (aka dams).
I also think that harvesting tidal energy is good, it doesn't polute our view (I don't understand why people are always upset about this, I think that modern wind mills look quite cool) and aquatic life gets used to it soon enough, I think. The only downside is that you can only use it at places where the tides are always the same, off the coast of the Netherlands for example it won't work because the tide is simply to irregular.

[athanasios]

As I see some people have done research and are not in ignorance.

Solar Energy is the future and Hydrogen is going to replace Gasoline in about 10 to 15 years from now.
If you are not aware of HydroSol project here are some links:
http://www.athenaweb.org/ATH/DGRTD/DGRT ... mments.doc
http://www.ecoage.net/hydrosol-project.htm
And a video in Greek language where the coordinator of the project analyzes the method (and also provides some info about his lab):
http://technologein.pathfinder.gr/Hydrosol/

regards
athanasios

[michael blunck]

[thermal solar power]

Just to give an idea how much space would be needed for solar thermal power: the red squares are showing the areas needed for thermal solar power plants to fully supply the world (left), the 25 European countries (middle) or Germany (right) with electricity. That´s not much.

Essentially, mankind doesn´t have an energy problem.

desertec.jpg (194.11 KiB) Viewed 3611 times

Image courtesy DLR studies, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Medi ... ooperation

regards
Michael

[CMircea]

Just to give an idea how much space would be needed for solar thermal power: the red squares are showing the areas needed for thermal solar power plants to fully supply the world (left), the 25 European countries (middle) or Germany (right) with electricity. That´s not much.

Essentially, mankind doesn´t have an energy problem.

Yea, but mankind has a motivation problem. Most leaders only care to get their pockets filled with green paper, so better let the money go in their wallets than go to construction. That's a big problem.

[michael blunck]

Yea, but mankind has a motivation problem.

I don´t see that. Motivation (to avoid the outcome of further emissions of CO2: climatic changes, rising sea levels, ...) isn´t the real problem.

Most leaders only care to get their pockets filled with green paper, so better let the money go in their wallets than go to construction.

The big suppliers of electric energy seem to prefer to stick to fossil fuels like coal or like to reanimate already "dead" technologies like nuclear energy. And because of their enormous political influence and because of the fact that they´re not engaged in alternatives like thermal solar power, the advent of "new" (but alreay established technologies) is irresponsibly delayed.

OTOH, the technology for thermal solar power is available, it´s simple and clean. With regards to Europe, the north-african and/or middle-east deserts could host the needed power plants, giving those countries an assured income, especially at a time when crude oil production will be dropping.

regards
Michael

[doktorhonig]

However, we should take care to produce the power ourselves, and not become dependent on politically unstable countries. But I don't think this would be a real problem.