Renewable Energy

redjeepǃ

cyd190468 wrote:

Redjeep! wrote:

Cyd, although I realise this wasn't serious, I still feel the need to correct you (damn OCD).

Silicon doesn't use nuclear radiation as a dopant. Just high energy ion beams in a rather large and expensive piece of kit called an ion implanter.

Doped silicon is one of the major products produced at our Lucas Heights reactor along with medical isotopes. The lucas heights facility isn't a power station it's a small stand alone research reactor specifically built for these two puposes. Look up neutron transmutation doping.

Fair enough. Thank you for sharing that. Genuinely interesting and I'd never heard of it before, despite working for over 20years in the semiconductor industry.

However I still don't think that that solar panels are typically doped by this method, which seems very unusual and uncommon and only used for a few specialist applications.

If you want to see how most solar panels are made Google 'Applied Materials' and check out their solar division.

ballysmate

I don't understand. What have glamour models got to do with this?
Ahh now I see. You are on about doped silicone not dopey.

redjeepǃ

Ballysmate wrote:

I don't understand. What have glamour models got to do with this?
Ahh now I see. You are on about doped silicone not dopey.

No. We're on about silicon not silicone.

ben@31

the playing mantis wrote:

not wanting to play devils advocate, but fukishima was not that much of a disaster was it? a crappy old facility actually proved itself to be fairly robust.

Did you know. As a ratio of deaths against power output, less people have died from nuclear power stations than from any other source of power? In fact more people have been killed by solar energy than nuclear power. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths ... ource.html

Both Fukishima and Chernobyl were not nuclear explosions, but steam explosions caused by accidents with the cooling system and both could have been prevented. No nuclear reactor plant can explode in a manner even remotely similar to an atomic bomb, but, as boiler operators have known for well over a hundred years, a steam explosion can pack quite a punch.

In 2011 1,901 people died in road accidents in Great Britain. But we don't stop using cars. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... itain-data

bompington

MountainMonster

ooermissus wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Three is a village/town in Florida, USA that weirdly enough is designed by Walt Disney, but that is beside the point. This town lives only on renewable energy, and only drive electric cars... The town in Florida is called Celebration, Florida.

Are you sure? I don't think Celebration is renewables only.

MountainMonster wrote:

With regards to nuclear being the only way forward, yes at the moment it is, but I stress the AT THE MOMENT

Seems that this is a myth that simply won't die. Nuclear isn't especially cost competitive and we don't have the capacity to build much of it at the moment. That may change - but every time we are promised a nuclear renaissance it doesn't pan out.

If you look at what is currently expected to be built globally to supply additional electricity demand over the next 20 odd years, it's: gas (around 25%), wind (a bit more than 20%), coal (a bit less than 20%), solar and hydro (more than 10% each), and nuclear (5%). Renewables are on track to generate a third of the world's electricity.

I guess that with a big push you could double nuclear's contribution - but not much more than that by 2030. I'd happily see more nuclear being built, though all energy sources have their own problems, but it's not a silver bullet. Even China is expected to build more than twice as much wind as nuclear - and it's the heart of today's nuclear industry.

Sorry, I only just noticed this. I'm not 100% certain about Celebration, I've only recently heard of the place, and it was mentioned recently at a conference.

ben@31

bompington wrote:

Pah uranium is nothing. Comparing the amount of thorium needed with coal, Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia of CERN, (European Organization for Nuclear Research), estimates that one ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium!!! or 3,500,000 tons of coal.

A handful of thorium would light all of London for a week. This make interesting reading...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... orium.html

the playing mantis

ben@31 wrote:

the playing mantis wrote:

not wanting to play devils advocate, but fukishima was not that much of a disaster was it? a crappy old facility actually proved itself to be fairly robust.

Did you know. As a ratio of deaths against power output, less people have died from nuclear power stations than from any other source of power? In fact more people have been killed by solar energy than nuclear power. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths ... ource.html

Both Fukishima and Chernobyl were not nuclear explosions, but steam explosions caused by accidents with the cooling system and both could have been prevented. No nuclear reactor plant can explode in a manner even remotely similar to an atomic bomb, but, as boiler operators have known for well over a hundred years, a steam explosion can pack quite a punch.

In 2011 1,901 people died in road accidents in Great Britain. But we don't stop using cars. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... itain-data

so you are agreeing with me yes? im the one saying nuclear is safe as!