Girl Torque
VL Calais 5L
though then both the cars and the power stations will require water.. the other precious resource that's being stretched to it's limit 
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Hydrogen Powered Commodores - Not so far away?
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shaggerz
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Nuclear power teamed with hydrogen fuel would be an excellent solution in my opinion. No emissions
Don't start on nuclear waste... its much smaller than the amount of carbon currently just being dumped into the air each year.
Plus these days nuclear power stations are designed to be 100% failsafe. The way these things are designed, the only way any radiation could be released is if the laws of physics were to suddenly be skewed.
Can go into detail if neccessary
Don't start on nuclear waste... its much smaller than the amount of carbon currently just being dumped into the air each year.
Plus these days nuclear power stations are designed to be 100% failsafe. The way these things are designed, the only way any radiation could be released is if the laws of physics were to suddenly be skewed.
Can go into detail if neccessary
shaggerz
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Why not hey
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2005/February/Thenuclearsolution.asp
This article briefly summarises the problem with our current energy situation and the potential solutions that are already available to us. My opinion is that electricity should be readily available in whatever quantity is required. Conserving electricity is a flawed plan that is neccessary to minimise the side effects of electricity generation. If you minimise or even eliminate the side effects, then electricity generation can be scaled up to whatever level is required to meet demand. This in turn will present excellent solutions to many other resource problems the world is facing. For example, as has been stated earlier in this thread, the water shortage can be solved with desalination plants, which an abundant electricity supply would easily allow. The dependence on fossil fuels for powering vehicles could be eliminated through the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. Hydrogen is an energy vector because it requires more energy to produce it than is gained through its combustion. An abundant electricity supply would allow electrolysis of water on a large scale to produce hydrogen on a scale that could supply a percentage of fuel for the automotive market, and potentially in the long term, completely eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels.
For all these things to occur, a source of electricity is required which is clean, cost effective, and safe. Events in history that have occured as a result of experimentation and implementation of nuclear energy have left people worldwide with a bitter taste in their mouths, and as a result, nuclear power has an extremely powerful negative reputation.
The first and possibly most obvious reason for this stigma is that the scientific principles that allow for the creation of nuclear weapons, the destructiveness of which was seen during the second world war, are also used in nuclear power.
Individually, people are very intelligent, but as a society, reputation and opinion, no matter how well proven to be false, are almost always going to dictate the outcome of any decisions that affect the general public. People automatically assosciate the massive destruction caused by the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan with every nuclear power plant around the world, and often even the word 'nuclear' itself.
Reinforcing the negative stigma that nuclear power has endured are the two largest nuclear accidents in history. On April 26th 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine suffered from a power surge which resulted in a catastrophic explosion in one of the four reactors. The explosion damaged the reactor building to such an extent that the highly radioactive core of the reactor was exposed to the atmosphere and highly radioactive debris from the explosion was scattered over the landscape. The official death toll from this disaster is 56, but thousands have died since as a result of the radiation that covered the area for miles. Chernobyl to this day is uninhabitable, and will be for hundreds and possibly thousands of years.
Although the massive catastrophe surrounding the event has stuck in the minds of people worldwide, they usually forget, or do not know, that the Chernobyl accident was caused by a series of problems. Firstly, the design of the reactor involved highly radioactive graphite tips on the control rods that are inserted into the reactor to slow down the reaction. When the rods are inserted into the reactor, the graphite tips actually cause a brief power surge.
This fundamental flaw was hidden from all but the top echelon of government, for fear at the time (during the cold war) that this information could be used against the Ukraine. The chain of events that caused the explosion began with a routine test of the reactor in the middle of the night. The staff on duty violated procedure and performed the test with far too few control rods inserted into the reactor. When the power output climbed to a dangerous level, a master shut down switch was pushed. All control rods were supposed to then drop fully into the reactor, completely shutting it down. Due to there being too few control rods in the reactor, as the rods dropped, the graphite tips actually accelerated the nuclear reaction, causing a massive power surge and then the explosion that destroyed the reactor building.
You can read more about the accident at Chernobyl here: http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/
The second major nuclear accident occured at Three Mile Island in the USA. A major loss off coolant incident resulted in core meltdown, but due to the large concrete containment structure surrounding the reactor, no fatalities occured and no radiation was released into the atmosphere.
You can read about it here: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
Modern nuclear reactors are designed to entirely eliminate the possibility of human error and even mechanical failure. They rely on the very laws of physics, such as gravity and the moderating effect that water has on the reactor, to ensure that even if a deliberate attempt was made to destroy the reactor, it could never occur. As an added measure of security, all reactors are housed in a thick concrete containment building, preventing any radioactive material from leaving the plant.
Few people realise that the coal industry records hundreds of fatalities each year as miners die when coal mines collapse. Nuclear power, when the facts are carefully examined, is far safer than most other forms of electricity generation. There is a fantastic article about it here: http://www.uic.com.au/nip14.htm
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2005/February/Thenuclearsolution.asp
This article briefly summarises the problem with our current energy situation and the potential solutions that are already available to us. My opinion is that electricity should be readily available in whatever quantity is required. Conserving electricity is a flawed plan that is neccessary to minimise the side effects of electricity generation. If you minimise or even eliminate the side effects, then electricity generation can be scaled up to whatever level is required to meet demand. This in turn will present excellent solutions to many other resource problems the world is facing. For example, as has been stated earlier in this thread, the water shortage can be solved with desalination plants, which an abundant electricity supply would easily allow. The dependence on fossil fuels for powering vehicles could be eliminated through the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. Hydrogen is an energy vector because it requires more energy to produce it than is gained through its combustion. An abundant electricity supply would allow electrolysis of water on a large scale to produce hydrogen on a scale that could supply a percentage of fuel for the automotive market, and potentially in the long term, completely eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels.
For all these things to occur, a source of electricity is required which is clean, cost effective, and safe. Events in history that have occured as a result of experimentation and implementation of nuclear energy have left people worldwide with a bitter taste in their mouths, and as a result, nuclear power has an extremely powerful negative reputation.
The first and possibly most obvious reason for this stigma is that the scientific principles that allow for the creation of nuclear weapons, the destructiveness of which was seen during the second world war, are also used in nuclear power.
Individually, people are very intelligent, but as a society, reputation and opinion, no matter how well proven to be false, are almost always going to dictate the outcome of any decisions that affect the general public. People automatically assosciate the massive destruction caused by the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan with every nuclear power plant around the world, and often even the word 'nuclear' itself.
Reinforcing the negative stigma that nuclear power has endured are the two largest nuclear accidents in history. On April 26th 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine suffered from a power surge which resulted in a catastrophic explosion in one of the four reactors. The explosion damaged the reactor building to such an extent that the highly radioactive core of the reactor was exposed to the atmosphere and highly radioactive debris from the explosion was scattered over the landscape. The official death toll from this disaster is 56, but thousands have died since as a result of the radiation that covered the area for miles. Chernobyl to this day is uninhabitable, and will be for hundreds and possibly thousands of years.
Although the massive catastrophe surrounding the event has stuck in the minds of people worldwide, they usually forget, or do not know, that the Chernobyl accident was caused by a series of problems. Firstly, the design of the reactor involved highly radioactive graphite tips on the control rods that are inserted into the reactor to slow down the reaction. When the rods are inserted into the reactor, the graphite tips actually cause a brief power surge.
This fundamental flaw was hidden from all but the top echelon of government, for fear at the time (during the cold war) that this information could be used against the Ukraine. The chain of events that caused the explosion began with a routine test of the reactor in the middle of the night. The staff on duty violated procedure and performed the test with far too few control rods inserted into the reactor. When the power output climbed to a dangerous level, a master shut down switch was pushed. All control rods were supposed to then drop fully into the reactor, completely shutting it down. Due to there being too few control rods in the reactor, as the rods dropped, the graphite tips actually accelerated the nuclear reaction, causing a massive power surge and then the explosion that destroyed the reactor building.
You can read more about the accident at Chernobyl here: http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/
The second major nuclear accident occured at Three Mile Island in the USA. A major loss off coolant incident resulted in core meltdown, but due to the large concrete containment structure surrounding the reactor, no fatalities occured and no radiation was released into the atmosphere.
You can read about it here: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
Modern nuclear reactors are designed to entirely eliminate the possibility of human error and even mechanical failure. They rely on the very laws of physics, such as gravity and the moderating effect that water has on the reactor, to ensure that even if a deliberate attempt was made to destroy the reactor, it could never occur. As an added measure of security, all reactors are housed in a thick concrete containment building, preventing any radioactive material from leaving the plant.
Few people realise that the coal industry records hundreds of fatalities each year as miners die when coal mines collapse. Nuclear power, when the facts are carefully examined, is far safer than most other forms of electricity generation. There is a fantastic article about it here: http://www.uic.com.au/nip14.htm
Girl Torque
VL Calais 5L
surely solar is the safest way to go though (just putting it out there, be interested in info)
Wombat
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I'm 100% behind Shaggerz...(you wouldn't be a scientist of some kind would you? My speciality is microbiology)
Sure, solar is amazing...until you do the figures...to run a city like Sydney, I think the figures show you need to cover several hundred square kilometers of land with cells, and then you don't answer the problem of "base load", or a standby for when power needs spike from time to time at night and day.
Atomic is the best...simple as that. There weren't thousands of deaths from Chernobyl. there is no "ongoing" death toll. there was an increase in childhood thyroid tumors, easily treated, and which would have been completely avoided if the government there had stepped in quickly and distributed iodine tablets after the accident...in fact, the biggest death toll was 50,000 needless abortions by women in Europe who were frightened by the media.
Chernobyl was a 50 year old, badly maintained, badly designed reactor...modern reactors bear as much resemblance to Chernobyl as a Model T Ford to a VE Commodore. A coal plant produces hundreds of thousands of tons of waste each year...a nuclear plant makes a few bucketfuls of easily managed waste which, if properly looked after in a geologically and politically stable country like Australia, is no worry at all, despite the doom and gloom merchants.
The fact is, thousands of people die each year in coal mine accidents. Also, one little overlooked fact is that if you live near a coal fired plant, you absorb more radiation than living the same distance from an atomic power station. This comes from naturally occuring radon gas and natural isotopes of uranium in the fly ash coming out the stacks which was in the coal, and the fact bthat the atomic plant is purposely designed to contain any radiation, but a coal plant is not.
Hydrogen is a wonderful idea...however, it requires a vast amount of power to split the water hydrogen gas and oxygen. Hydrogen is, if produced with electricity from a coal-fired plant, a negative energy source, requiring more power to make than it can produce, not to mention the pollution from a coal plant.
Solar is a pipe dream...wind power is good, but greenies don't like it and people who live near it don't want it in thier back yard. Tidal power is perfectly good, but again, greenies don't like it. Ethanol is another power source which is energy poor...if not for government production subsidies, it would be so expensive no-one would even think of using it.
So many "alternative energy" sources and products are reliant on vast amounts of cheap energy to make them, that even a few enviromental groups are whispering the heretical term "atomic"...
There are no easy answers.
In fact, Australia is sitting on the biggest and best answer already. There are two solutions: We have a "hot rocks" energy project in central Australia, where a chance situation of deep stable hot rocks deep in the crust of the Earth could provide plentiful geothermal energy for us. Secondly, we have the worlds largest reserves of Thorium. It can be used in reactors slightly different to a uranium reactor, however, after the reaction is started, by it's nature, it means that if anything goes wrong, the reaction stops by itself...no "meltdown", no explosions possible. There two things are our best chance for cheap energy.
However, similar to the stem cell debate in parliament, while we have un-scientific politicians using emotions rather than cold hard science to make decisions, we won't progress much beyond chucking black stuff into furnaces...
Sure, solar is amazing...until you do the figures...to run a city like Sydney, I think the figures show you need to cover several hundred square kilometers of land with cells, and then you don't answer the problem of "base load", or a standby for when power needs spike from time to time at night and day.
Atomic is the best...simple as that. There weren't thousands of deaths from Chernobyl. there is no "ongoing" death toll. there was an increase in childhood thyroid tumors, easily treated, and which would have been completely avoided if the government there had stepped in quickly and distributed iodine tablets after the accident...in fact, the biggest death toll was 50,000 needless abortions by women in Europe who were frightened by the media.
Chernobyl was a 50 year old, badly maintained, badly designed reactor...modern reactors bear as much resemblance to Chernobyl as a Model T Ford to a VE Commodore. A coal plant produces hundreds of thousands of tons of waste each year...a nuclear plant makes a few bucketfuls of easily managed waste which, if properly looked after in a geologically and politically stable country like Australia, is no worry at all, despite the doom and gloom merchants.
The fact is, thousands of people die each year in coal mine accidents. Also, one little overlooked fact is that if you live near a coal fired plant, you absorb more radiation than living the same distance from an atomic power station. This comes from naturally occuring radon gas and natural isotopes of uranium in the fly ash coming out the stacks which was in the coal, and the fact bthat the atomic plant is purposely designed to contain any radiation, but a coal plant is not.
Hydrogen is a wonderful idea...however, it requires a vast amount of power to split the water hydrogen gas and oxygen. Hydrogen is, if produced with electricity from a coal-fired plant, a negative energy source, requiring more power to make than it can produce, not to mention the pollution from a coal plant.
Solar is a pipe dream...wind power is good, but greenies don't like it and people who live near it don't want it in thier back yard. Tidal power is perfectly good, but again, greenies don't like it. Ethanol is another power source which is energy poor...if not for government production subsidies, it would be so expensive no-one would even think of using it.
So many "alternative energy" sources and products are reliant on vast amounts of cheap energy to make them, that even a few enviromental groups are whispering the heretical term "atomic"...
There are no easy answers.
In fact, Australia is sitting on the biggest and best answer already. There are two solutions: We have a "hot rocks" energy project in central Australia, where a chance situation of deep stable hot rocks deep in the crust of the Earth could provide plentiful geothermal energy for us. Secondly, we have the worlds largest reserves of Thorium. It can be used in reactors slightly different to a uranium reactor, however, after the reaction is started, by it's nature, it means that if anything goes wrong, the reaction stops by itself...no "meltdown", no explosions possible. There two things are our best chance for cheap energy.
However, similar to the stem cell debate in parliament, while we have un-scientific politicians using emotions rather than cold hard science to make decisions, we won't progress much beyond chucking black stuff into furnaces...
shaggerz
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The issue some people have with uranium reactors is that the fuel might be used in weapons. Little do they realise that the uranium enrichment process that is used to manufacture fuel for power plants only allows a concentration of up to 3%. For the uranium to be used in nuclear weapons, it must be enriched to 99%, meaning that fuel for nuclear power stations is useless for weaponry.
Their concerns are not without merit, however, as uranium reactors DO produce plutonium as a by-product and this CAN be used in nuclear weapons.
Thorium is a far safer alternative to uranium and technology exists today to build a reactor that utilises it as fuel. As Wombat has stated, in a thorium reactor, the reaction is not self-sustaining, and produces less harmful by-product than uranium, none of which can be used in weapons.
On an unrelated note, I have seen radioactive Thallium keyrings available for sale on ebay for $19.95 or something, and I reccomend everyone BUY ONE! Not only will you be supporting nuclear technology, but you'll have a keyring that glows in the colour of your choice for up to 10 years without batteries or any external power source
sixshooter
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1vngal said:
They wont be expensive to run...just filler up with water and away you go... just expensive to rebuild engines due to the high cost of manufacturing a hydrogen engine.
If they make the engine system fully enclosed it would be even better... as the water vapor could be caught from the exhaust and recycled to be used for fuel again... therefore you'd have a close to self sustaining engine that only outputs energy without waste.
About time the car companies stopped being slaves to petrol fueled cars. The cost of fuel must be hurting their sales figures atm.