Nuclear Power, clearly the way forward.

Chunkers1980

Clearly, until viable renewable comes around (or waste to space, if that's not there yet)

Take Top Gear last night - nothing motorcar wise lives up to petrol (at the moment) in what we require.

montevideoguy

Don't quite get your point. Nuclear power is best but petrol is best?

Nuclear powered cars?


As for renewable energy... what is best will depend on where you are (solar panels aren't as effective in the UK as wind turbines or tidal power) whereas in other places you might see geo-thermal power being the way forward. The problem is that people think that there can only be one viable clean energy that needs to take off

bluechair84

There's not enough energy to power the world without nuclear. Maybe if we stopped using fossil fuels to power the national grid we could keep our petrol cars for longer. No one source will do though, we will always need a spread of sources as renewables don't provide enough, but can at least offset. I think Clarkson hit it on the head when he said the Veyron will probably be the automotive Concorde. But nuclear alone isn't the way forward, only as part of a package.
Anyway, you know that automatic shotgun from expendables? With the mini atomic cartridge? That's a good use for nuclear power 8)

Chunkers1980

Sorry. Nuclear is not a match for renewable in our current state of understanding. And renewable (none nuclear and like fuel cells as they require power of some sort to get the separate H and O) does not work in cars as yet.

bluechair84

I saw a topgear that looked at fuel cells, they need massive amounts of power to split water through electrolysis before the hydrogen is put to use. It's the same with electric cars, where do you get the power from in the first place? Renewables just don't provide enough energy to power the modern world.

Chunkers1980

That's entirly my point.

welshkev

aboput 3 years ago i did a rodshow around the UK to see if people would complain about the use of nuclear power. this wa just an exercise because basically they're going to use nuclear power as it';s chaeper than the alternatives :?

it's happening whether we like it or not

sheepsteeth

whats not to like?

is there any chance it will be blinking cheaper? if so, im in like flyn

Raymondavalon

This:



IS the future

Anonymous

Chunkers1980 wrote:

nothing motorcar wise lives up to petrol (at the moment) in what we require.

Well, sort of.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars do. They have similar performance to "normal" petrol cars (around 110-140BHP), have around the same range as an efficient family car, and have the same refueling process - just turn up to a fueling station, and use a pump to refill the tank.

They really strike me as the best replacement, since they don't require people to "change their ways". We can just carry on as normal.

But, the UK has no interest in setting up a hydrogen refuelling network yet. Some people would be cynical and claim it's because they're getting so much tax money from fossil fuels.

Some of the biggest oil producing countries are already implementing nationwide hydrogen refueling stations.

BUT, more importantly, I reckon...
A team of Scientists, mostly led by the British are inching ever and ever closer to building the world's first nuclear fusion power station. But they are woefully underfunded.
That really is the stuff of science fiction, and the results of cracking it are almost unimaginable. Nearly endless power, at a very low cost.
If ANYTHING deserves more funding, that is it.
These are the people that will essentially save the human race. It's hard to imagine a more significant single development in all of human history.

Anonymous

bluechair84 wrote:

I saw a topgear that looked at fuel cells, they need massive amounts of power to split water through electrolysis before the hydrogen is put to use. It's the same with electric cars, where do you get the power from in the first place? Renewables just don't provide enough energy to power the modern world.

That's a common fallacy, unfortunately.
Creating the hydrogen does require energy, but even taking that into account, the total energy use of a fuel cell car, including manufacture, is less than conventional vehicles.

Hydrogen is also one of the most common elements in the universe. It's not like we'll be running out of it any time soon.

bails87

Raymondavalon wrote:

Good point, well made.

cooldad

yeehaamcgee wrote:

bluechair84 wrote:

I saw a topgear that looked at fuel cells, they need massive amounts of power to split water through electrolysis before the hydrogen is put to use. It's the same with electric cars, where do you get the power from in the first place? Renewables just don't provide enough energy to power the modern world.

That's a common fallacy, unfortunately.
Creating the hydrogen does require energy, but even taking that into account, the total energy use of a fuel cell car, including manufacture, is less than conventional vehicles.

Hydrogen is also one of the most common elements in the universe. It's not like we'll be running out of it any time soon.

Kind of true, but Hydrogen as an element is very rare, and most is obtained from cracking hydrocarbons, a process which requires very high temps (lots of energy), and the reaction releases large amounts of CO2, feared greenhouse gas.
Electrolysis is relatively efficient - 80-90% of electricity used but the generation of the electricity is still very inefficient.
Better methods are in the pipeline, but not in the immediate future.

supersonic

You can't get more energy than you get out. So for a given power output, it comes down to what is more efficient: an internal combustion engine providing power directly to the wheels, or whatever we are using to crack the hydrogen from the compounds, then the efficiency in the engine it is to be used in.

Anonymous

supersonic wrote:

You can't get more energy than you get out. So for a given power output, it comes down to what is more efficient: an internal combustion engine providing power directly to the wheels, or whatever we are using to crack the hydrogen from the compounds, then the efficiency in the engine it is to be used in.

Which is why, all things considered, electric cars are still cleaner than petrol or diesel.
Even though with fossil fuels, you are essentiall putting the fuel into the car, and the engine generated the power, you still need enormous machines to extract, process and refine the raw materials. This uses electricity from the grid.

whereas with electric, you can charge your car from a wall socket (not hydrogen fuel cells, obviously). This basically, only uses electricity from the grid. This cuts out the electricity required to obtain and refine oil into fuels.
The trouble with battery cars that work in this way, is that the public has to change it's behaviour, and acceptance, to fit - the cars have to be charged for hours on end, and have far reduced range.

With hydrogen cells, the process to the end user is essentially the same. And they also offer greater mileage per refill than battery cars, as well as similar performance, and even lighter weight.

I see cars like the Tesla as being pointless. They're totally impractical, and only serve to get short term "wow" factor.
I say, sort out the day to day vehicles first, and THEN develop them into sportscars.

Maybe one of the biggest challenges to get public acceptance in Europe of electric cars though, is that current automatic gearbox cars are, by and large, not favoured. And driving an electric, gearbox-less car will feel like an automatic (except with mindbending torque from low revs).

I've driven a very old electric minibus years ago, and it's ability to accelerate unhindered uphill, with a full complement of passengers was just awesome

supersonic

But you would have to factor in the fossil fuels used at the power stations, and their extraction.

But if this power was nuclear, or renewable - then we will make a big step forward.

The infrastructure needs to be ready for it, agree with that.

bluechair84

So what would be the bi-products of nuclear fusion compared to the green iridescant goop we are left with after nuclear fission? If it was ever achieved as mentioned /\

Tartanyak

http://www.engr.psu.edu/h2e/Professors/ ... ylicum.pdf

Quite interesting to read if you're interested in other ways of producing hydrogen other than the zap-it-with-leccy way.

Thewaylander

Just so you realize in its current state the hydrogen based car is not a solution.

it uses some pretty expensive rare materials int he cell set up, and there simply isnt enough of it to supply us all with a car We will move on to synethetic fuels there are a few about but its mass production thats awkward.

As for the grid re-newables is the way witht he development of the smart grid heavily under way to cope with the slight fluctuation that can come from a green supply like this. There are so many forms of Re-newable power we just have to develop the tech a bit further and keep a wide variety of power types.

And they need to be develope because.

A) We don't have enough fossil fuels.
We don't have enough Nucleur fuels.

joshtp

I think the only real, long term answer is Nuclear Fusion.

I know it's a massive task to get it efficient and effective, but when (and it is when, not if) they do, it will be by far the best way to produce power for consumer use.

It may take allot of power to start, but a self sustaining fusion reactor would produce loads of power, very cheaply from, basically, sea water, the most abundant substance on the planet.



as for cars... Electric is the best short term answer I think... especially as motors and battery's continue to get better... in the mean time, maybe hydrogen, or fuel cell.... (although, as someone pointed out they both have major flaw's)

Thewaylander

Electric cars are still for general use in business useless. Whats the point of 200 miles range in good conditions get a 4 hours traffic jam in London and your up the shoot there would be only use for comuting to work.

And fusion is fantastic, but do you know what happes if it goes wrong?

Anonymous

Thewaylander wrote:

Electric cars are still for general use in business useless. Whats the point of 200 miles range in good conditions get a 4 hours traffic jam in London and your up the shoot there would be only use for comuting to work.

And fusion is fantastic, but do you know what happes if it goes wrong?

How would being in a traffic jam rack up 200 miles? An electric motor doesn't keep turning over like a petrol engine when you're stood still.

And as for fusion failure. Since it's so hard to maintain a fusion reaction, I'm pretty sure it basically just stops.
It must have gone wrong dozens, if not hundreds of times already, in the development process.

Thewaylander

Yee most of your electronics are still running Yee in an electric current, we also have battery bleed to consider. Most batteries also have a deteriating life span with constant recharge. there not there and the Tech isn't even on the way to make them work for most people.

And as for fusion? the reason why is they have kept it really small and in a magnetised containment set up, when you increase the size and get it to the point that it self sustains it becomes way more fun, huge huge heat and so on there is the potential for continual expansion and all sorts, the problems are HUGE to overcome.

This is how the energy industry veiws it, expensive hard to develope with inherrient risks which are hard to solve.

Anonymous

Thewaylander wrote:

Yee most of your electronics are still running Yee in an electric current, we also have battery bleed to consider. Most batteries also have a deteriating life span with constant recharge. there not there and the Tech isn't even on the way to make them work for most people.

Radio, CD player, yes, but these are pi**ing in the ocean compared to the motor that drives the car. Sitting in a traffic jam will do NOTHING.

Thewaylander wrote:

And as for fusion? the reason why is they have kept it really small and in a magnetised containment set up, when you increase the size and get it to the point that it self sustains it becomes way more fun, huge huge heat and so on there is the potential for continual expansion and all sorts, the problems are HUGE to overcome.

The magnetised torus is an integral part of the reactor. This is not going to get discarded in a full scale machine (which is actually being built, in France, by the way)

Thewaylander

Indeed, it's only way developed that they contain it currently that i know of that works properely. i mean think about it though. you have got ball off suspended plasmarised gas in a magnetic feild.

The energy market is pushing towards renewables mostly because we can easily develop the tech way cheaper, if we have a broad range of renewables we can cover the power supplies from a grid point of veiw, wether we can get it in place in time is a different ball game.

And trust me traffic jams do make a difference there is a decent amount of bleed on the set up's at the moment (Trust me i have seen some of the tests in company of the cars for the intelligent grid system) . But it still doesn't change the fact with current electric car tech for me to travel from Newport to Scotland via an electric car will take me about 3-4 days might as well bring horses back with that ... batteries are crap and will not be the way forward with transport.

They may be applied in the home well mind, smoothing out spikes from the grid, is it Honda ?working on the home managment system with CPU control and central battery store for the hosue?.

Anonymous

Thewaylander wrote:

But it still doesn't change the fact with current electric car tech for me to travel from Newport to Scotland via an electric car will take me about 3-4 days might as well bring horses back with that ... batteries are crap and will not be the way forward with transport.

i totally agree that battery cars are NOT a way forward (for god's sake, read some of my comments on why I endorse huel cell cars).
But, for city cars, as a replacement for the Smart car, say, a great little solution.
And no amount of leakage, or internal electronics in the car will eat anywhere NEAR what the motor takes up, and will have an absolutely minimal impact on mileage achievable.

What about... If cars could be designed with common interchangeable battery cells? So a "filling station" could have pre-charged drop in replacements?
You take your car in, and swap the batteries out for a set of freshly charged ones, and your go to a charging bay, to be used by another customer later on?
Stops would likely be much longer than current, but it would be a closer experience to what we currently have?

But personally, I'm still holding out for the polymer based fuel cells. If that is cracked, then we are on to a winner.
And I STILL maintain that fusion IS the future of energy. I cannot stress how important I believe the work these guys are doing is. It may not be sorted for years to come, but it has to start somewhere.

Thewaylander

I think its more 40-50 years to come on Fusion and it wont certainly be comercially viable power source until things are dire in terms of fossil supplies.

And even with interchangeble batteries, batteries are filled with nasty chemicals with a fairly limited life span to be fair there not that green in some ways( purely disposale of batteries is not nice).

For cars i think synthetic fuels and non natural gas if you like. things we can produce in a relatively carbon friendly manor and gives us the advantages we have now.
Though as a town car i think electric will be used but in places in london i don't think you will own one, you will pop £2 in a meter and take the car for 30 minutes (probably more complex with electronic payment methods but you get the meaning) that is the only place i see the electric motor actually being used regularly.

The Northern Monkey

Renewables is a project i'm working on at the moment at work.

We are currently in discussion with some of our clients in respect to producing their own energy... the main ways being solar and wind.
I can tell you all... its getting pretty big in the business sector

With regards to fuel for transport.... I don't mind if fuel prices go up. I'm all for the super effiecient cars (vw blumotion, Skoda green range etc etc) i'm not an eco warrior or anything, I just think there isn't really going to be another option say 10 years down the line.
Hybrids + elec cars etc etc are out because the cars as a whole have a larger carbon footprint than a normal diesel over a 15 year life span.

I now cummute to work on the train... 15 min brisk walk to the station, 10 min walk from station to work.
Not only does it save me £100 in fuel a month, but it slows the wear on my car, gets me fit and gives me some fresh air.

Like Clarkson said, fuel prices are going to go up no matter what... so just deal with it.

Thewaylander

yeh but should they.

I believe at the moment price per barrel is very similar to what it was 3 years ago when just hit £1 a litre at the pump.

http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/ ... _table.asp

So if it costs the same per barrel in crude form why are we paying 30p more than we were then?
It will go up but the price inflation at the moment is slightly artificial due to scare of lack of resource.

welshkev

i did a conference a few years ago that basically said that the government are going to put up fuel prices, create more bus lanes, reduce speed limits etc etc just to try and force drivers into using public transport, walk/cycle to work etc.

:evil:

The Northern Monkey

Thewaylander wrote:

yeh but should they.

I believe at the moment price per barrel is very similar to what it was 3 years ago when just hit £1 a litre at the pump.

http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/ ... _table.asp

So if it costs the same per barrel in crude form why are we paying 30p more than we were then?
It will go up but the price inflation at the moment is slightly artificial due to scare of lack of resource.

tax