Showing posts with label generation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label generation. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Australians Will Not Accept Nuclear Power

Ian Mcfarlane the Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources says Australia should still consider nuclear power. He must be off his bonnet if he thinks Australians will have a bar of this dangerous form of electricity generation. If a Coalition government seriously suggested a move to nuclear energy people would be protesting in the streets. Then there is the "not in my backyard" syndrome. No community would accept such a potentially toxic plant in their area.

For Mr Mcfarlane's information lessons have been learned from the impossible situation in Japan where there in no solution to the problem. Australians do not want nuclear and will never want nuclear. Japan's economy is severely damaged and the Japanese will have chronic illnesses into the future. Much of the country will have to be fenced off, never to be used by humans ever again.

Australians like everyone else in the world will have to pay much more for electricity as systems of clean coal power generation are ultimately adopted and expensive solar, wind and tidal methods are in general operation. This will happen as countries are dragged screaming and shouting to the table to sign up for carbon pricing. Increasing climactic damage including hits on economies from bad weather will put strong pressure on countries to comply. Countries will put up barriers against products from other economies that do not have low emission policies.
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Science

Australians Will Not Accept Nuclear Power

Ian Mcfarlane the Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources says Australia should still consider nuclear power. He must be off his bonnet if he thinks Australians will have a bar of this dangerous form of electricity generation. If a Coalition government seriously suggested a move to nuclear energy people would be protesting in the streets. Then there is the "not in my backyard" syndrome. No community would accept such a potentially toxic plant in their area.

For Mr Mcfarlane's information lessons have been learned from the impossible situation in Japan where there in no solution to the problem. Australians do not want nuclear and will never want nuclear. Japan's economy is severely damaged and the Japanese will have chronic illnesses into the future. Much of the country will have to be fenced off, never to be used by humans ever again.

Australians like everyone else in the world will have to pay much more for electricity as systems of clean coal power generation are ultimately adopted and expensive solar, wind and tidal methods are in general operation. This will happen as countries are dragged screaming and shouting to the table to sign up for carbon pricing. Increasing climactic damage including hits on economies from bad weather will put strong pressure on countries to comply. Countries will put up barriers against products from other economies that do not have low emission policies.
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Science

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Power Generation Via Hydrogen Is Not Taking Off

It is amazing how many will see something new, then run with it to the extreme saying this will change the world. This is true for virtually all non-fossil energy producing systems, but all of them have drawbacks and none have revolutionized the power sector. The two major problems have been high cost and inconstant energy production during the 24 hour period.

Scientists have worked on hydrogen systems for decades and success seems very distant. It is not being accepted for widespread use. Actually, hydrogen is a "byproduct" of energy production. When electricity is generated by any method the excess not used at a point in time is passed through water. It splits in oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis with the fuel being stored to be used in the future. When hydrogen is recombined with oxygen, electricity is generate. Heat from the process can also be used directly for heating purposes.

As with other environmentally friendly electricity producing methods time will tell if hydrogen is accepted for general use. Perhaps hydrogen can be made in significant quantities from solar and wind generation. It could potentially make for a hybrid system producing electricity 24 hours a day. Until now, governments have been the main source of funding for hydrogen experiments. Apparently, the private sector sees little future in it. For non-fossil energy systems to flourish it is necessary for the community to work together. Unfortunately, individualism is the norm. Perhaps this is why there is very little progress.
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Power Generation Via Hydrogen Is Not Taking Off

It is amazing how many will see something new, then run with it to the extreme saying this will change the world. This is true for virtually all non-fossil energy producing systems, but all of them have drawbacks and none have revolutionized the power sector. The two major problems have been high cost and inconstant energy production during the 24 hour period.

Scientists have worked on hydrogen systems for decades and success seems very distant. It is not being accepted for widespread use. Actually, hydrogen is a "byproduct" of energy production. When electricity is generated by any method the excess not used at a point in time is passed through water. It splits in oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis with the fuel being stored to be used in the future. When hydrogen is recombined with oxygen, electricity is generate. Heat from the process can also be used directly for heating purposes.

As with other environmentally friendly electricity producing methods time will tell if hydrogen is accepted for general use. Perhaps hydrogen can be made in significant quantities from solar and wind generation. It could potentially make for a hybrid system producing electricity 24 hours a day. Until now, governments have been the main source of funding for hydrogen experiments. Apparently, the private sector sees little future in it. For non-fossil energy systems to flourish it is necessary for the community to work together. Unfortunately, individualism is the norm. Perhaps this is why there is very little progress.
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Sunday, June 6, 2010

Natural Gas Must Not Be Used as a Substitute for Clean Power Generation

It is proposed that natural gas be used instead of coal for electric power generation. The national climate summit put a deadline of 2012 for this to happen with the dirtiest power station, Hazlewood. Environment Victoria took up the challenge saying that natural gas with renewable energy resources could reduce Hazlewood's pollution by 14.4 million tonnes to just 1.8. Wind generation would gradually replace natural gas.

The claim is exceedingly optimistic. Too much faith is placed in wind generation despite the fact that electricity production by this means has peaked in northern Europe and it still does not make a profit.

Beyond Zero Emissions is even more optimistic. Its plan aims to end Hazlewood's use of coal by 2013.

The future looks good for natural gas production with gas being obtained from coal seams and 20 gas power plants being planned. Natural gas is not really clean though. Indeed, leakage of methane gas occurs. Replacing coal power generation with gas as a temporary measure is a mistake. What is the point of wasting millions of dollars in investment on the premise that something better will come along?

The best way to go in the short term is to build solar thermal power sites alongside existing coal power stations. Note that solar thermal only produces electricity during the day. A final solution will undoubtedly be tidal generation because the moon continues to circle the earth making oceans rise and fall day after day.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Natural Gas Must Not Be Used as a Substitute for Clean Power Generation

It is proposed that natural gas be used instead of coal for electric power generation. The national climate summit put a deadline of 2012 for this to happen with the dirtiest power station, Hazlewood. Environment Victoria took up the challenge saying that natural gas with renewable energy resources could reduce Hazlewood's pollution by 14.4 million tonnes to just 1.8. Wind generation would gradually replace natural gas.

The claim is exceedingly optimistic. Too much faith is placed in wind generation despite the fact that electricity production by this means has peaked in northern Europe and it still does not make a profit.

Beyond Zero Emissions is even more optimistic. Its plan aims to end Hazlewood's use of coal by 2013.

The future looks good for natural gas production with gas being obtained from coal seams and 20 gas power plants being planned. Natural gas is not really clean though. Indeed, leakage of methane gas occurs. Replacing coal power generation with gas as a temporary measure is a mistake. What is the point of wasting millions of dollars in investment on the premise that something better will come along?

The best way to go in the short term is to build solar thermal power sites alongside existing coal power stations. Note that solar thermal only produces electricity during the day. A final solution will undoubtedly be tidal generation because the moon continues to circle the earth making oceans rise and fall day after day.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Models Show Lasers Can Produce Energy Using Hydrogen-Boron as Fuel

Energy created by laser could be the way of the future. Researchers have used models and they show that lasers can produce "cold" energy by nuclear fusion. A new generation of fast, powerful lasers makes this possible. To achieve fusion a short, carefully controlled pulse is required. The pulse target is hydrogen and boron. Creating neutrons is not the objective because they cause radioactivity.

The Australian research is duplicating what is going on at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, but they are using deuterium-tritium fuel.

A single laser pulse can generate 500 times more electricity than all the power stations in the US. At first the research team did not believe hydrogen-boron fuel would work. However, models indicated that it was only ten times more difficult than deuterium-tritium. For it to work the laser pulse must be clean, that is, lasting only a million, millionth of a second. Optical energy is then converted to mechanical energy.

It is not commonly known but coal power stations actually emit radioactivity - it is a problem in Germany where they are considering burying polluted material. Producing energy by laser pulsing hydrogen-boron creates less radioactivity than using deuterium-tritium. Coal generation is very dirty compared to hydrogen-boron. The waste product is helium gas. Hydrogen-boron is also plentiful. Team leader Professor Hora say it could be some time before the research becomes reality.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Models Show Lasers Can Produce Energy Using Hydrogen-Boron as Fuel

Energy created by laser could be the way of the future. Researchers have used models and they show that lasers can produce "cold" energy by nuclear fusion. A new generation of fast, powerful lasers makes this possible. To achieve fusion a short, carefully controlled pulse is required. The pulse target is hydrogen and boron. Creating neutrons is not the objective because they cause radioactivity.

The Australian research is duplicating what is going on at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States, but they are using deuterium-tritium fuel.

A single laser pulse can generate 500 times more electricity than all the power stations in the US. At first the research team did not believe hydrogen-boron fuel would work. However, models indicated that it was only ten times more difficult than deuterium-tritium. For it to work the laser pulse must be clean, that is, lasting only a million, millionth of a second. Optical energy is then converted to mechanical energy.

It is not commonly known but coal power stations actually emit radioactivity - it is a problem in Germany where they are considering burying polluted material. Producing energy by laser pulsing hydrogen-boron creates less radioactivity than using deuterium-tritium. Coal generation is very dirty compared to hydrogen-boron. The waste product is helium gas. Hydrogen-boron is also plentiful. Team leader Professor Hora say it could be some time before the research becomes reality.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .