"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:g6epgj$sq0$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "cr88192" <cr88192@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:6f21$4889b3aa$7937c448$16798@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> biofuels typically rely on solar anyways, but the volumes are more
>> limited
>> (more fuel means bigger facility, ...).
>>
>> nuclear can be very productive and very cheap, but for whatever reason
> many
>> people are afraid of it (especially breeder reactors and likewise).
>>
>> China, India, and Japan use large amounts of nuclear power (uncluding
>> breeder reactors) with no real problems. even the soviets only had a
few
>> problems, and they were pioneering many of these technologies, while
> making
>> use of minimal safety and poor workman****p.
>>
>> I still personally believe that nuclear is likely to be both the
safest,
>> cleanest, and most economical option, and we have enough nuclear fuel
(if
> we
>> include U-238, Plutonium, Thorium, ...) that there is no danger of
>> running
>> out (only that many people in the US and Europe are afraid of anything
> that
>> isn't the ultra-rare U-235, which then they only burn a small amount of
>> it
>> and try to discard the rest, in a show of pure inefficiency...).
>
> Except for one thing, I agree.
>
ok.
>> and most economical option,
>
> That's typically coal. Most of what I've seen over the years places
coal
> as
> cheaper than nuclear by a large margin. But, this link shows nuclear
> being
> fairly competitive with coal.
> http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
>
ok, yes, but I had figured that coal would probably raise in price greatly
following the fall of petroleum, as much of what was formerly done by
petroleum, would be done using coal instead, at least until this starts
running out as well...
skimming, the article seems primarily relevant to U-235 light water
reactors, built under US or European restrictions. Chinese or Soviet style
reactors could be built much cheaper, and breeder reactors don't really
have
issues with disposing of spent fuel or reprocessing, if people were
willing.
this is also partly why I complain:
the US and Europe place far too many restrictions on things, making
nuclear
plants far more expensive than the need to be...
> I just saw on a TV program that some university is work on a CO2
scrubber
> for the atmosphere. Supposedly, the "green" groups are actually
_opposed_
> to such a solution... !?! The TV show claimed this was because "greens"
> actually have another agenda: restricting people's lifestyles. Hype
> backlash or truth?
>
I suspect the 'greens' are up to something, in any case.
'greens' seem unable to deal with, of all things, a world actually
containing people...
>> hydrogen though, would need to be stored in pressurized tanks.
>
> Android... walking around with humans. Do you actually want _fuel_ of
any
> type on board? Until electron storage is adequate, I'd be thinking
> compressed air which drives an electric generator through an escapement.
>
people ride on motorcycles, and use cars and chainsaws, all of these
things
use fuel, and are much more dangerous than an android would likely be...
of course, if the air were compressed down to a liquid state, this brings
up
a possible idea for non-combusting energy storage and production, of
course,
the difficult part is keeping cryogenic effects under control. possibly,
the
tanks would need to offer "displacement" for any liquid gas removed, and
would need to be designed in such a way as to prevent cryogenic explosions
(possible with some liquid gases, though a lesser problem with liquid
nitrogen or liquid CO2 I think).
a simple, albeit likely thermally inefficient, option would be to drain
liquid gas from the bottom, and make up the difference by pumping in warm
gas from the top, which would serve to reduce the tank developing an
internal vacuum (causing gas expansion, followed by extreme cold) within
the
tank.
one could use a heat source (such as heat pumped in from the processors,
or
possibly injection of compressed air), to help boil the gas and drive the
turbines. or, it comes up as a possible thought that the turbine could be
designed to both suck in and combine the liquid gas with ordinary air in
the
form of a mist, causing explosive expansion, and driving the turbines.
or, potentially, if using LOX and a boiler setup, the cryogenic effects
from
the LOX could be used for achieving a far more energetic steam reaction.
the
cryogenic effects being used to much more quickly re-condensate steam,
creating a strong vacuum, and allowing a much bigger and more powerful
flame
to be used without exceeding a reasonable heat and waste-gas output.
the then boiled off LOX would be used as the oxidizer in burning the fuel.
>> also, as a detractor, electrolysis is not a very efficient way of
> producing
>> hydrogen (so, a better option may be needed).
>
> Electrolysis of _what_ isn't a very efficient way of producing hydrogen?
> I
> know of two electrolysis methods for producing hydrogen: water and
> chloralkali. They both use electricity. But, one is likely to be more
> efficient than the other.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlor-alkali_process
>
yes, this can work. I have done this before, but it tends to corrode the
conductors (I guess, it works if people have titanium...).
IME, I had usually noticed fairly low internal resistence with this (me
suspecting most of the current probably just goes in one electrode and out
the other...). I had usually assumed that distilled-water electrolosys was
probably more efficient.
in the past, have actually in the past done some interesting things. for
example, before using a variation of this process to create sodium diodes,
partly by performing electrolosis, and then creating a barrier (metal in
my
tests) in the middle of the process and stopping the reaction. if done
right, it seems that there is a somewhat non-uniform resistence.
this is along with using caustic materials (such as baking soda, lacking
lye
or similar) to create crude (and sadly poor) batteries (steel, nickel, and
baking soda, the difficulty is in producing black, rather than green,
nickel-oxide...).
> Personally, I'd prefer that hydrogen should be the produced from some
> "trapped" form of hydrogen, say as a component of dirt or rocks through
> some
> chemical process. Or, alternately, through genetically modified yeast,
> amoeba, etc. Something we can kill easily and keep in tanks. We don't
> want
> little critters escaping and "polluting" the atmosphere with massive
> amounts
> of hydrogen... do we?
>
HCl+Sodium...
any such process needs to be cheaper than conventional fuels, and with one
notable drawback of hydrogen being its need to be kept under high pressure
(unless it can be catalyzed into some other solid or liquid form and have
the process effieciently reversable).
another thing, is its main advantage I would think, would be using it as
an
alternative to battery storage, limiting its production to means
efficiently
contained within the device in which it is being used (such as
electrolysis).
otherwise, if a gaseous fuel is used, as a fuel, likely propane or methane
could be cheaper to produce (methane at least can be fairly effectively
produced via organic processes).
>> for example, I had read before
>> of someone pulling off higher-efficiency water cracking with
microwaves,
> so
>> efficient production could be possible.
>
> The article I read didn't say what frequency or energy levels used for
> that... I'd guess that the energy requirements were larger than
> electrolysis though. Microwaves are interesting in that they can be
> directly converted to electricity. If you can find an efficient source
> for
> generating microwaves, you're in business... ;)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectenna
>
possibly, I don't know personally...
if it can go much about 45% or 50% though, it should be workable...
>
> Rod Pemberton
>
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