Electric cars and the grid..... it has begun.

[daleyd]

Unique in the sense that they have to deal with it.

There's loads of toxic waste from all sorts of industries that's just as dangerous, through being carcinogenic or poisonous or just plain heavy metal, and there aren't any long term plans like for nuclear how to deal with those thousands of years into the future. The complexities of other waste handling would also increase if put to the same rigorous standards.

There’s very good and widely understood reasons why nuclear has much more stringent safety standards than other industries though.

You can’t simply use whataboutery to point at other stuff. Most other industries already practice very good waste management, especially where things like heavy metals or toxic chemicals are involved - certainly in the developed world, though I do appreciate there are exceptions.

The difference is *most* other waste is localised and easy (or at least easier than dealing with radioactive material) to segregate and deal with. (* again I’m generalising, but it’s broadly true)

 

[DennisCA]

Nuclear waste is more localized than most wastes if anything and certainly not harder to deal with than say PFAS compounds which are now everywhere on the planet because industries cannot handle them properly. Nuclear waste is being dealt with.

The biggest, worst and most damaging waste though is CO2 and that will mark this planet for hundreds if not thousands of years.

And developed countries are pretty bad at dealing with even simple stuff like lead. We often send it to developing counries to deal with.

Getting the Lead Out: Why Battery Recycling Is a Global Health Hazard

From African shantytowns to the backstreets of China’s cities, small-scale businesses that recycle the lead from auto batteries are proliferating. Experts say the pollution from these unregulated operations is a lethal threat – with children being the most vulnerable to poisoning.

e360.yale.edu

We're pretty good at handling nuclear waste, but we sure turn a blind eye to lots of other stuff that actually is more likely to harm us. Never mind things like Coal which has put out more radioactive material into the atmosphere over the time it's been in use than nuclear power has, in addition to all the other poisons. And now countries in europe are considering firing up more of these things.

 

[daleyd]

Nuclear waste is more localized than most wastes if anything and certainly not harder to deal with than say PFAS compounds which are now everywhere on the planet because industries cannot handle them properly. Nuclear waste is being dealt with.

The biggest, worst and most damaging waste though is CO2 and that will mark this planet for hundreds if not thousands of years.

And developed countries are pretty bad at dealing with even simple stuff like lead. We often send it to developing counries to deal with.

Getting the Lead Out: Why Battery Recycling Is a Global Health Hazard

From African shantytowns to the backstreets of China’s cities, small-scale businesses that recycle the lead from auto batteries are proliferating. Experts say the pollution from these unregulated operations is a lethal threat – with children being the most vulnerable to poisoning.

e360.yale.edu

We're pretty good at handling nuclear waste, but we sure turn a blind eye to lots of other stuff that actually is more likely to harm us. Never mind things like Coal which has put out more radioactive material into the atmosphere over the time it's been in use than nuclear power has, in addition to all the other poisons. And now countries in europe are considering firing up more of these things.

Localised in the sense that it’s in one place, my use of the term was more in the sense that radioactive material generally emits stuff which then goes on to contaminate other things, clothing, materials etc hence the need for stringent gowning and hygiene procedures when working in radioactive areas - which again is not specific to nuclear industry but its well known that it is an issue.

Of course other stuff is dangerous as well, no one is disputing that, and it’s good that the nuclear industry is on the whole very responsible. It’s good for me as it keeps me in a job, but that all comes at a cost.

It’s on balance a worthwhile cost but you can’t deny it’s there.

 

[DAPPH]

It is possible to have a 1 to 2 week wind lull that effects the whole of Northern Europe. Those cold bright days in Winter when it's very cold.
No way of storing the energy so it's back to stupidly expensive gas.

I've always been led to understand that there is always wind movement out at sea it's what helps make waves .

Also told by my friend Wagner head of the European space agency research team ( he looks for problems in space when nothing yet has been built where such a problem might arise ie sealing separate capsules that will withstand the heat & cold of space using a glued or non glued gasket . ..... Sort of accurate crystal ball gazing & then building it successfully for a real experimental test in outer space ).

Wagner also said that there is always air movement above six mtrs especially on the lee side of hills & buildings that can be harnessed for power generation . Aged 17 five years ago his son patented a way of generating cost effective useful power in such conditions ... enough to power the whole of the sixth form science lab at the Amman Valley school . He built it and supervised the installation on top of the science labs . As far as I know it's still there & working efficiently .

 

[DAPPH]

It is possible to have a 1 to 2 week wind lull that effects the whole of Northern Europe. Those cold bright days in Winter when it's very cold.
No way of storing the energy so it's back to stupidly expensive gas.

If it is planned & built right green hydrogen from excessive turbine generation will be tanked up & on standby for such rare events ... you might have to wear extra jumpers till it is fully up & running in five or six years time though .

 

[DAPPH]

Metal Monkey's great post highlights issues.
Without the bribe of the very high initial FIT, the numbers just didn't add up - so widespread adoption of Solar just would not have happened.
Biomass Boilers? Same again.
If they'd been a good solution - then the bribe of the high FIT simply would not have been needed to make them attractive!
The early adopters/installers of Solar - how many of them are left trading (& supporting their installs and honouring their 20-year Warranty obligation? Not many it seems - cos as soon as the FIT was reduced, and there wasn't such a good screw out of it, the "Directors" wound the Co up, and leapt onto the next scheme where they could score big.
(I wonder how many of them started out by putting in Cavity Wall insulation for taxpayer grant money - you know - all the stuff that they are now having to take back out again at huge cost?)

I was on a dairy farm this week - looking at their system as they are looking at feasibility options with generator and inverters and a battery bank to see if they can cut the energy running costs.
They have had a 27kw Solar Array running through 6 SMA Sunny Boy Inverters for the last 8-years (The farmer reckons the system is just about to break-even - & if nothing breaks it'll start to move into the black).
First thing he said though was that the Installer vanished as soon as the artificial incentives got removed - leaving all the buyers high n dry.

The bribe as you put it is a way of subsidizing initial high production cost to make them viable & available to large numbers of folk in a fairly short period till the assured volume of production brings the price down , they are still viable systems though that hasn't really changed surely ?

 

[fizzy]

If it is planned & built right green hydrogen from excessive turbine generation will be tanked up & on standby for such rare events ... you might have to wear extra jumpers till it is fully up & running in five or six years time though .

Not that rare - happens several times each Winter. We don't notice because they just burn more gas. Fine when gas was cheap but now it is really hurting.

 

[DAPPH]

Metal Monkey's great post highlights issues.
Without the bribe of the very high initial FIT, the numbers just didn't add up - so widespread adoption of Solar just would not have happened.
Biomass Boilers? Same again.
If they'd been a good solution - then the bribe of the high FIT simply would not have been needed to make them attractive!
The early adopters/installers of Solar - how many of them are left trading (& supporting their installs and honouring their 20-year Warranty obligation? Not many it seems - cos as soon as the FIT was reduced, and there wasn't such a good screw out of it, the "Directors" wound the Co up, and leapt onto the next scheme where they could score big.
(I wonder how many of them started out by putting in Cavity Wall insulation for taxpayer grant money - you know - all the stuff that they are now having to take back out again at huge cost?)

I was on a dairy farm this week - looking at their system as they are looking at feasibility options with generator and inverters and a battery bank to see if they can cut the energy running costs.
They have had a 27kw Solar Array running through 6 SMA Sunny Boy Inverters for the last 8-years (The farmer reckons the system is just about to break-even - & if nothing breaks it'll start to move into the black).
First thing he said though was that the Installer vanished as soon as the artificial incentives got removed - leaving all the buyers high n dry.

So 8 yrs to break even , now 15 or more years of fantastic profit ..sounds a good RIO to me .

The initial installer has gone so what , that does not affect the performance of the set up does it ?
There will always be someone with the spares ,skills & knowledge to repair it if it breaks down .. similar to the thousands of the independent garages that repair all manner of cars , some of which also include cars eligible for dealership servicing's and repairs bu the owner choses to have someone they know , trust & can rely on to do it instead .

 

[DAPPH]

Frankly that it takes time to build nuclear only shows that its urgent to start as soon as possible. But it's no longer than the projected times I've seen to develop off-shore wind plants, which where I live are starting to be the only places left you can build on. So there are no quick fixes out of this.

National grid level energy storage is absolutely 100% needed for renewables to work without nuclear as baseload. And let me say that putting a smaller battery bank in every house is functionally equivalent to that, but let me also say that such a mass-rollout is simply not gonna be possible to do.

Why is it not possible in your view ?
We've put gas & water meters into houses as well as electricity ..it all took time , lots of money and materials granted , but they are there .
A developed intelligent battery storage in every property with the space for them is not impossible I assure you but it will take time and initially be expensive . I understand that in the Uk this intelligent grid & power system is being implemented slowly but surely .

 

[DAPPH]

Hang on a minute here now. Pumped storage was being built 50 years ago paid for by CEGB to reduce the need to keep coal fired stations running to "fill in" the demand induced grid dips. They are still being built, for the same reason. You say this is a scam? BTW these are generally massive projects, requiring substantial capital, with long payback times, but obviously worth building. I fail to see how multi site smaller scale storage schemes are less viable, if enough exist?

We have " electric Mountain " in Snowdonia , it's been running for many many years giving the national grid a boost when asked for .

 

[mike os]

We have " electric Mountain " in Snowdonia , it's been running for many many years giving the national grid a boost when asked for .

And ffestiniog power station at tan y grisau

 

[DAPPH]

I think we probably actually agree then....though in truth nuclear hasn't been set aside because of renewables, rather it was tossed to the side in the 80s/90s as it was (still is) massively expensive and gas was touted as the cheap alternative - which it was for the last 30 years.

Making renewables a scapegoat for nuclear demise I think is a bit of a false flag - it was already on the scrapheap long before renewables became a thing.

That tossing aside of nuclear makes me think back to when I mainly lived in Germany 1969 to 1980 and most weekends there were anti nuclear bomb & power demo's by thousands of students each weekend .... coincides nicely with the discovery of the massive gas fields in Russia , could it be that Russian pay masters put agents provocateur amongst the easily influenced & helped push the idea that " ATOM KRAFT , nein danke ! " was the way Europe should go and buy Russian gas till they got totally dependent on it?

 

[fizzy]

That tossing aside of nuclear makes me thing back to when I mainly lived in Germany 1969 to 1980 and most weekends therewere anti nuclear power demo's by thousands of students each weekend coincides nicely with the discovery of the massive gas fields in Russia , could it be that Russian pay masters put agents provocateur amongst the easily influenced & helped push the idea that " ATOM KRAFT , nein danke 1 " was the way Europe should go and buy Russian gas till they got totally dependent on it?

Most definitely!
Win win for Russia. They have been masters of the craft for many years including many strikes back in the 70s. And I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't the agitators behind all these eco protests now.

 

[merryman]

I think it more that Germany quietly looks after Germans. Coal and gas has been the cheapest way to produce energy so German industry gets a competitive advantage by sticking to it. Yes, they have now come unstuck but they still have a big manufacturing industry, we don't

 

[daleyd]

That tossing aside of nuclear makes me think back to when I mainly lived in Germany 1969 to 1980 and most weekends there were anti nuclear bomb & power demo's by thousands of students each weekend .... coincides nicely with the discovery of the massive gas fields in Russia , could it be that Russian pay masters put agents provocateur amongst the easily influenced & helped push the idea that " ATOM KRAFT , nein danke ! " was the way Europe should go and buy Russian gas till they got totally dependent on it?

Certainly possible, I think Germany started importing gas from Russia in the early 70’s??

 

[MetalMonkey]

No one is being sold it as that though The only people that I hear banging on about a magic bullet are the rabidly pro nuclear ones who insist that is the only way.

Most others accept that it’s probably a combination of a quite a few things (including more nuclear) that need to happen.

Well that is kind of the point - they were at the time.
All of the literature had the usual wonderful stock pictures of sunny skies, green fields and the ubiquitous laughing children - it was being marketed as the win/win solution, green and protecting the future.
It just so happened to also be a good investment due to the subsidies.

Likewise when nuclear was being pushed the claim was an abundance of clean cheap energy – so cheap and so plentiful it would be almost free. Yeah right.

Cynical grey beards might take it all with a pinch of salt – but you could say the same of E.V.s or indeed any of the claims for all of these initiatives.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the technology is bad or doesn’t work – it is about being realistic about the goals, expectations and the claims.

If humanity genuinely wants to walk back from major climate change, the solution it is not going to be a comfortable, politically popular, or a commercially profitable one. It also needs to happen fast.
Mostly what we are doing is wasting time skirting around the edges of the problem - at best achieving little or nothing, and in some cases making things worse environmentally or by making people believe they are actually making a difference.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Localised in the sense that it’s in one place, my use of the term was more in the sense that radioactive material generally emits stuff which then goes on to contaminate other things, clothing, materials etc hence the need for stringent gowning and hygiene procedures when working in radioactive areas - which again is not specific to nuclear industry but its well known that it is an issue.

I'll just leave this here [I didn't trawl through it all, but remember the publicity around the clean-up at the time - and it's still going on....]

CLICK HERE

 

[DAPPH]

I love Trawsfyndd - fits into the landscape far better than the amount if wind turbines that would replace it!
I have stayed very close to the site several times. And I am still not glowing in the dark - and people I know living in the village like the place as well. They are hoping to site some SMRs there.

Just think Fizzy we could have all those advantages and more if you had a 60 turbine array on the hills around you . You could open a really good earning visitor centre to see you into extreme old age with massive numbers of people who wanted to come out for a day in their EV's s and see them as a tourist attraction . You could even have dozens of pod point charging stations to let them recharge their EV's whilst they take a few hours walking well worn sheep tracks etc. in the locality .

Once our 20 plus year old cadre is off this mortal coil and our great grand kids are enjoying 24/7 electricity at a fair cost they won't give monkey's as to who didn't like them , they'll have grown up with them .

As my nephew said to me some 20 years ago , " I don't think any of us has the right to deprive our kids & grand kids of such a luxury . Such constructs will simply become the new telegraph & electricity poles where luddite types didn't like them at the time and a few more extreme ones tried to destroy some before getting locked up for criminal damage / endangering life .

 

[DAPPH]

Well that is kind of the point - they were at the time.
All of the literature had the usual wonderful stock pictures of sunny skies, green fields and the ubiquitous laughing children - it was being marketed as the win/win solution, green and protecting the future.
It just so happened to also be a good investment due to the subsidies.

Likewise when nuclear was being pushed the claim was an abundance of clean cheap energy – so cheap and so plentiful it would be almost free. Yeah right.

Cynical grey beards might take it all with a pinch of salt – but you could say the same of E.V.s or indeed any of the claims for all of these initiatives.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the technology is bad or doesn’t work – it is about being realistic about the goals, expectations and the claims.

If humanity genuinely wants to walk back from major climate change, the solution it is not going to be a comfortable, politically popular, or a commercially profitable one. It also needs to happen fast.
Mostly what we are doing is wasting time skirting around the edges of the problem - at best achieving little or nothing, and in some cases making things worse environmentally or by making people believe they are actually making a difference.

This global warming thing ..is it all man made ?

I read that we are losing 1.2 seconds every 10 yrs or so and in other scientific publications that the earth is slowing down in it's rotation .

Surely slowing down should prolong our day , losing 1,2 seconds every 10 years of so , to me indicates we are moving closer to the sun .

There is a very noticeable difference driving from Hamburg down into Italy by the time you get to the MIDI of France you have five or so degrees increase in temperature , to the toe of Italy 10 or more degree increase.

If we have moved closer to the sun by say 200 miles a year it's not surprising we are having prolonged increased heat .

What causes it .. underground nuclear testing , extraction of minerals ,oils & gases , movement of the tectonic plates , electro magnetic influence from the sun or other heavenly bodies ?

Am I alone in thinking this or is somebody else brave enough to stick their head above the parapet ?

 

[fizzy]

Just think Fizzy we could have all those advantages and more if you had a 60 turbine array on the hills around you . You could open a really good earning visitor centre to see you into extreme old age with massive numbers of people who wanted to come out for a day in their EV's s and see them as a tourist attraction . You could even have dozens of pod point charging stations to let them recharge their EV's whilst they take a few hours walking well worn sheep tracks etc. in the locality .

Once our 20 plus year old cadre is off this mortal coil and our great grand kids are enjoying 24/7 electricity at a fair cost they won't give monkey's as to who didn't like them , they'll have grown up with them .

As my nephew said to me some 20 years ago , " I don't think any of us has the right to deprive our kids & grand kids of such a luxury . Such constructs will simply become the new telegraph & electricity poles where luddite types didn't like them at the time and a few more extreme ones tried to destroy some before getting locked up for criminal damage / endangering life .

There already are a load of turbines on the hills around me. Not visible from my house fortunately but I drive past them every day. Some of them never turn a blade