Renewable energy

[turkster]

Yes - that's right, I remember now, it was called the china syndrome.

Apparently there was a film named after it which was released a just a few days before the Three Mile Island incident

[GreenPiggy]

Fusion reactors would be almost totally safe.
There has to be a huge containment pressure on a fusion reactor for it to work, as soon as anything were to go wrong then presumabely these containment facilities would be toast, effectively shutting the reaction down straight away.
The only reason the Sun undergoes fusion is because of the insane gravitational forces holding it all together.
It doesn't happen 'quite' like in spiderman 2

[RVF500]

Tony Blair and the government lately issued papers on the global warming issue, but does Tony travel by Tube? of course not, he continues to be chauffered (SP?) around everwhere. And as for Two Jags....

There has been a lot of discussion about the use of vegetable oils as an alternative to deisel in deisel engined cars. Cleaner, cheaper, renewable, sustainable. An engine mod is needed and off you go. Slight chipshop smell if you stand at the back of the car. What's the first thing government does? Tax you 25p per litre on top of the cost of buying the oil because you are now using it as a fuel. You have to have a storage facility and send in your tax returns for how much you have used as fuel.

The message here being that they are more interested in revenue than in environmental issues. More lies. Merely making the right noises to appease a voting group.

[turkster]

F
The only reason the Sun undergoes fusion is because of the insane gravitational forces holding it all together.
It doesn't happen 'quite' like in spiderman 2

Yeah apparently you would need a mass of fuel the size of the moon to create a gravitationally contained self-sustained fusion reaction .


The thing about taxing bio-diesel is kind of stupid although I can see why the government wouldnt want to drop the tax completely but they could easlily drop it a good bit. It happens like that here in Ireland too although apparently it still works out cheaper than unleaded petrol . You can buy it cheaper as heating oil and use it anyway. It would be interesting to see if you got prosecuted for it

[SilentDeath]

Its not just a case of replacing non-renuable energy, but also making it more efficient so that less needs to be used.

This link.

One of the examples is that Thermo electric generators could be used in cars, powered by waste heat from exaust gasses - also car radiators could instead be made up of TEC units as converting heat to power will also cool the heat source (potential use in computers maybe? yes thats my post at the bottom )
This would essentially make any electrical features of a car compleatly free - lights, music, air con (mechanical but could be powered by the power from them) and also to recharge the car battery.

Nuclear fission can never be safe, even if the waste was sent into space, the main problem remains when stations need to be decommisioned - usually when the cost of continual maintenance exceeds the cost of building a new one - and then new ones are not build because there is still no way to dispose of what waste it creates.

I dont think bio-diesel is a great idea, ok it costs much less if you dont bother with the tax, but (and I havent read up on this) I expect it will damage the engine and require more maintenance.

Nuclear fusion sounds great, and I havent read much about it, but its still very far off in the future isnt it...

I wouldnt want micro solar or wind, becuase its just so unreliable. Not only is there the problem of it not being there all the time - and needing to be stored. Theres also the problem of it being low voltage - useless for household items unless you mod them slightly
Stepping it up to mains voltage will have losses too, how much I dont know, but enough to make it less desirable. Not only that, the voltage is going to varie with the sun or wind, im sure you wouldnt want almost constant brown-outs. You would have to use SMPS (switch mode power supply) to stop it up and keep it constant and they are expensive for any resonable output (enough to run a home anyway!). SMPS is typically max effiecency of 87%.

However I wouldnt mind living next to a small river/stream and using it for hydro power.
Infact if you want free power, connect a generator upto the mains water supply (if your water is unmetered). Sure its wastefull, but whos going to know?

[RVF500]

The only real drawback with bio-diesel is that it is much heavier than the mineral variety. In cold weather this could cause the oil to solidify. Not really a problem as this also happens to mineral deisel in particularly cold climates and is mitigated against by adding a certain amount of kerosene to the tank. A similar remedy could be used with bio-deisel.

The main reason I haven't done it is that I have a brand new car and I'm sure it would void the warrenty as well as affect the resale price unless I converted it back. Might look at an older vehicle in future and see how it pans out. So I'm putting cost against environment too. I simply can't afford to be enviroinmentally friendly. As will just about everyone else unless a mass move is instigated by manufacturers. Can you see that happening?

The biggest opposition from government would be the loss of revenue. If we switched, the price of cooking oil would skyrocket. Betcha.

[turkster]

I wouldnt want micro solar or wind, becuase its just so unreliable. Not only is there the problem of it not being there all the time - and needing to be stored. Theres also the problem of it being low voltage - useless for household items unless you mod them slightly
Stepping it up to mains voltage will have losses too, how much I dont know, but enough to make it less desirable. Not only that, the voltage is going to varie with the sun or wind, im sure you wouldnt want almost constant brown-outs. You would have to use SMPS (switch mode power supply) to stop it up and keep it constant and they are expensive for any resonable output (enough to run a home anyway!). SMPS is typically max effiecency of 87%.

However I wouldnt mind living next to a small river/stream and using it for hydro power.
Infact if you want free power, connect a generator upto the mains water supply (if your water is unmetered). Sure its wastefull, but whos going to know?

I dont know about micro solar but i'm sure small wind turbines generate at normal houshold voltages. As you say though output would fluctuate a lot but if you sell the surplus off to the ESB (or whatever you have over there) you getsomething for it.

Yeah I think hydro power is pretty cool. So long as you have a stream/river to do have it on. Although water supply cant be 100% reliable in a small scale situation.

[SilentDeath]

the ovltage is comealtly dependant on the generator. I could quite easly buid a generator for any voltage DC or AC.
The common ones are AC at low voltage, for small stuff. The big ones dont money, as anough money is thrown around to get them usuable anyway...

PV cells (solar power) - each cell is 0.45v iirc at max light/electrical output, they can be added in series to get any DC voltage but then still have to be switched and stepped up (inefficent, considering most household items need much lower voltages so it has to be stepped back.)


what would be great for the environment is if at every street, where the transformers are (11kv down to 240v for residential areas) they could be modified to output lower voltages like 12-50v - 240v would still be needed ofcourse.
Most devices run off 12v or less anyway. Anyhting with chips needs less than 12v. Things that need more than 12 are typically stepped up anyway - tv's 20kv microwaves 12kv, flurecent lighing 1.8kv (depending on tube type).
The only things 20v is good for is house lighting. At 240v less current is needed so the bulbs will last longer.At 12v DC stuff is generally much more effecient to 240v AC.


Ignore my typos, you know what I ment!

[turkster]

The idea of 12v lines supplied to your house as well as 240v is very good idea actually . It would save a good bit of power in PSUs etc and would make UPSs etc very easy to make/cheap. Only problem is with the low voltage you'd get quite a voltage drop between the transformer and your house (depending on the distance to transfromer and the conductivity/size of cable). This would mean youd still have to have some voltage regulating/transforming circuits in PSUs etc .