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Thread: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

  1. #17
    Senior Member Peter Parker's Avatar
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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    Quote Originally Posted by Bagpuss View Post
    Lol...fusion is one of those science endeavours that's always 50yrs in the future.
    There's a reason for that.


    In the 1970s this report (PDF) suggested an annual budget of ~$7B per year (2012 adjusted) with peaks around $9 might be enough to achieve useful fusion power by 1990. Or ~$3B per year delivering in 2005. Now, I'm not guaranteeing that the report was right, but the models it show compared to the minuscule funding allocated do seem to match what happened through the 80s and 90s. A minimum was needed to solve some very hard problems - e.g. materials, magnetic field control, plasma research, computational models. It works out to $70+B total cost over however many years.

    For comparison, fossil fuel subsidies in 2015 were $5300B

    So far, the costs for the ITER project are about $20B. If it works, it still won't be a functioning power plant. That has to come after in a prototype power plant called DEMO. Even if the costs of fusion add up to $200B that's under 4% of 1 year of fossil fuel subsidies.

    I think the world could've had huge amounts of clean energy by now if people with influence wanted it. But instead we've handed over trillions per year to oil-rich nations and companies, and been happy about it because we get to drive and fly around and be grateful that fuel prices only went up a tiny bit each year.

    [Edit] Or... just spend that subsidy on solar, wind and storage tech. I'm cool with that too.

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  3. #18
    root Member DanceswithUnix's Avatar
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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Except that the energy for recharging comes largely from fossil fuels, particularly if cars are recharged overnight. It raises the question of whether it is thermodynamicslly more efficient to generate electricity to charge a battery to power a car, or to burn the fossil fuel directly to propel the car.
    That is just an efficiency argument though, which being technological will change over time and will be driven to improvement by adoption.

    Part of the issue is energy diversity and hence security. Cars that run off petrol depend on petrol, ones that run on electric depend on something powering a generator. If the thermodynamic efficiency of that is anywhere close to parity, then I would prefer the technology with better energy diversity.

    Then there is the problem of cleanly burning those fossil fuels. That has to be easier in a static power plant than in a small mobile unit that has to drag it's exhaust scrubbing along with it. Easier to monitor, maintain & upgrade.

    Really, my only beef with electric cars (and the reason I don't have one) is that I wasn't convinced of their usability. A Tesla can charge fast, new standards seem to be going in place to charge three times faster than that. If that gets me a usable recharge in ~10 minutes, and lots of places to charge, then I'm in. That still won't be as convenient as diesel, but I find diesel quite nasty to drive. I have had petrol cars that only do 250 miles on a tank, which is getting into the realm of what modern electric cars can do.

    Edit: I saw a throw away comment recently that charging cars would be an insignificant load on the overnight grid. I meant to look up if that is true, but haven't yet. It does go against an IEEE article I read some time back where the batteries in electric cars were put forward as a way of storing energy during overproduction by allowing the grid to draw from all the connected cars at times of need as part of a smart grid. That seems far too sensible, will probably never happen.
    Last edited by DanceswithUnix; 13-12-2016 at 01:48 PM.

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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Except that the energy for recharging comes largely from fossil fuels, particularly if cars are recharged overnight.
    This is not true, at least in the UK. Fossil fuels supply 60-75% of daytime demand, and this drops to 40-65% at night.

    UK demand falls from a typical winter peak range of 40-50GW during the day to 25-30GW at night; nuclear is a constant 8GW. During the day renewables supply 2-10GW, and we rely largely on coal and gas to supply 25-35GW. At night renewables supply 1-7GW, leaving coal and gas to supply 10-20GW. Summer UK demand is 10GW less for both day and night ranges, so fossil fuel supply ratios drop even further in favour of nuclear and renewables, particularly at night. Data source: http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
    Last edited by chinf; 13-12-2016 at 02:48 PM.

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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Except that the energy for recharging comes largely from fossil fuels, particularly if cars are recharged overnight. It raises the question of whether it is thermodynamicslly more efficient to generate electricity to charge a battery to power a car, or to burn the fossil fuel directly to propel the car.
    My electric car isn't charged by fossil fuels. It's a lame excuse not to have one, there are far better reasons not to go electric.

    How to achieve carbon-neutral charging: sign up to a carbon-neutral tariff.

    * Yes: You have no idea where that particular electron got excited, it could be coming from dirty dirty coal; but if you're paying for a 100% "green" tariff your electricity is only bought/accounted for from green sources. It may be that that green electron made it to somebody who wants to see the world burn, but that doesn't really matter.

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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    Really, my only beef with electric cars (and the reason I don't have one) is that I wasn't convinced of their usability. A Tesla can charge fast, new standards seem to be going in place to charge three times faster than that. If that gets me a usable recharge in ~10 minutes, and lots of places to charge, then I'm in. That still won't be as convenient as diesel, but I find diesel quite nasty to drive. I have had petrol cars that only do 250 miles on a tank, which is getting into the realm of what modern electric cars can do.
    I was of the same view initially, but the other half needed a car and insisted it was leccy. I was expecting to have my bank balance decimated for something that wasn't much use.

    I got a cheap and nasty electric car. Living in a very hilly area I get between 65 and 90 miles depending on weather, particular trips and traffic. It costs me £175 a month on PCP with 0 deposit. It generally doesn't use Solar to charge, as it tends to be out at work when the sun is up. I can't afford a Tesla Powerwall yet, maybe in five years when the tech has improved.

    I say ninety miles, that was an extreme trip that I did once just to see if it was possible. It was (I think I could have done 94 in the end). Normally it does < 25 miles a pop, which is the round-trip distance for my daily commute. I tend to get an easy three trips out of it before I put it on charge again.

    You can get ~80% charge (charging slows as batteries fill and resistances go up) at any motorway service station in about twenty minutes. There are plenty of charging points in cities and many major towns. So the only time range is actually an issue is if you're going somewhere away from a motorway or really can't afford to have a coffee break. Thus, it's useless for sales reps and other road-warriors.

    I've never charged it up when out (apart from to see how much faff it is), if I need to go long range (e.g. holiday) I happen to have another car. But frankly, I so rarely go far enough to "nowhere" I could get away with renting a car for those days and still be quids in.

    For most two-car households it's an absolute no-brainer. Apart from one critical point - the charging point. Unless you've got off-road parking you can't charge it at home. So the ideal environment for leccy cars: the city, is ironically difficult to own one in.

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    Senior Member Xlucine's Avatar
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    Re: Star in a jar: limitless clean energy one step closer

    "no radioactive waste" by-products (Helium gas).
    Why do people keep repeating this myth? The walls will be subjected to a bombardment of neutrons, which creates all kind of interesting isotopes with varying half lives and decay products. Pretty much all feasible fusion reactions do this, so there will be nuclear waste just like from a fission reactor. Nuclear waste can be safely contained and stored of course, so this isn't an issue, but it does beg the question of why we aren't using the safe, economical & reliable fission designs that are already available.

    Quote Originally Posted by badass View Post
    Our fossil fuel based power generation is around 40% efficient (ish) and that Petrol powered cars are 25%-38% (http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...-of-38-percent) efficient, and that Diesel engines are up to 40% efficient.
    There are also losses in transmission (think power lines, substations etc) to take into account.


    However electric cars have some advantages over internal combustion cars.
    1. Regnerative braking - In town driving, the vast majority of fuel is spent on heating the brakes. Maintaining speed takes vastly less fuel than accelerating. Electric cars slow down by using the motors as generators. They still have brakes of course but they aren't used nearly as much. Manufacturers have a rating for electric cars to show what their equivalent MPG is compared to normal cars. It's the MPG equivalent rating (MPGe) Many electric cars have an MPGe rating of over 100 MPGe
    2. Reduction of localised pollution. Fossil fuel cars leave lots of nasty gasses wherever they are. Power stations don't need to be in cities. Also, since the scrubbing equipment doesn't need to me part of the car, it is viable to have a lot more of it and use a lot more weight meaning it is practical to make sure that what goes into the atmosphere is much cleaner than what comes out of a car exhaust.
    3. A significant percentage of our power now comes from Wind and Solar. That directly means that if 20% of our energy generated is zero emission, 20% of the electric car's energy is zero emission. If you really are concerned about reducing that, get some solar panels, a powerwall or similar and maybe even some wind generation on site and you can reduce it further. Note that microturbines are utter rubbish and a waste of time, effort and money. You need a good size field and a huge turbine.
    Typical transmission losses in the UK are 7%, pretty minor. There's losses inherent in charging the EV's batteries, and in the drive motors, but the oft quoted figure of 40% efficiency for diesel engines has no relation to cars - that's for full throttle at high RPM. Running a diesel at part throttle drops Thot significantly, and low RPM has a similar effect on efficiency, so a car on the road won't get anywhere near the ideal efficiency.

    (petrol cars probably also have less efficiency at part throttle, but they vary initial pressure as well as energy input so I cba to do the maths. Diesels are simple, they only change the heat input with throttle activation)

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    And yet the amount of renewables coming online keeps increasing, I now know quite a few people with plug in cars which can better make use of it, and tax breaks for cars next year will only be for electric vehicles not the improved fossil fuel burners.

    Oil and gas will always be a viable fuel source, in the same way that we didn't run out of coal. We just ran out of people who wanted coal because oil and gas were just so much easier and cheaper to handle. If people believe they are OK in an electric car, then the low cost of re-charging will attract people.
    We were running out of people who didn't want coal, until the germans decided that nuclear power wasn't good enough for them.

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