Alternative energy

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Typhoon
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Re: Alternative energy

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Ozy | Microwave technology for extracting oil from kerogen in oil shale

There have been attempts to convert kerogen in "oil shale" for over a century.
Will be interesting to see if the proposed technology goes anywhere.
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Re: Alternative energy

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IEEE | Why the Automotive Future Will Be Dominated by Fuel Cells
Range, adaptability, and refueling time will put hydrogen fuel cells ahead of the competition
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Re: Alternative energy

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.


Solar power, becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.

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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Alternative energy

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Originally published on Nexus Media.
By Jeremy Deaton

Renewables are cheaper than coal and gas across much of the United States.

For the second year in a row, wind and solar accounted for roughly two-thirds of new U.S. generating capacity, while natural gas and nuclear made up most of the rest.

That’s because right now, in much of the United States, wind and solar are the cheapest form of power available, according to a new report from investment bank Lazard.

Analysts found that new solar and wind installations are cheaper than a new coal-fired power installation just about everywhere — even without subsidies. The cost of renewables continues to fall rapidly.
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/22/lo ... r-wind-go/
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Doc
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Re: Alternative energy

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Nonc Hilaire wrote:
Originally published on Nexus Media.
By Jeremy Deaton

Renewables are cheaper than coal and gas across much of the United States.

For the second year in a row, wind and solar accounted for roughly two-thirds of new U.S. generating capacity, while natural gas and nuclear made up most of the rest.

That’s because right now, in much of the United States, wind and solar are the cheapest form of power available, according to a new report from investment bank Lazard.

Analysts found that new solar and wind installations are cheaper than a new coal-fired power installation just about everywhere — even without subsidies. The cost of renewables continues to fall rapidly.
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/22/lo ... r-wind-go/
Wind will never be cheaper without subsidies unless Coal, Oil and Natural gas get so expensive that Wind is cheaper. Usually when I read stoires like this I later find out that the person writing them has a vested interest in Wind and/or Solar.
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Re: Alternative energy

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except you are completely and utterly wrong and lacking in any sorts of facts - you progressives love your socialist enforced things.

households and government subsidise industry via an enforced utility system and shills for this try and stop people from leaving that system.
Mr Nahan said it has been estimated that solar photovoltaic systems installed on the South West Interconnected System were forecast to generate more than 750 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in 2015-16.
He told a conference in August he expected Perth’s electricity needs to be generated by rooftop power within a decade.
“That’s the reality,” he said. “So it is going to provide the bulk of additional capacity going forward.
The WA Government subsidises electricity costs to the tune of $600 million a year — or about $500 per household.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/envir ... b7f20fa0c4

i can buy my way out of the system and turn ongoing socialised costs into upfront cost self sufficent cost, everyone loves the idea except progressives and fascists demanding i subsidise them

the australian conditions that make this possible are also southern and western USA conditions - california, texas, florida are all somewhat similar to my area for being pretty damn reliable for plenty of sunlight
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Alternative energy

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I looked at solar for my house about a year and a half ago. Payback was about 20 years.

Today payback is about ten and it's starting to make sense for me. It has also gotten easier to self-install the panels using standardized mounting systems, so you can be your own general contractor and cut installation costs way down.

http://sunelec.com/cms/
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Re: Alternative energy

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Re: Alternative energy

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"This method enables solar energy to be stored in the form of chemical energy from the summer until the wintertime," says Fumey. "And that's not all: the stored heat can also be transported elsewhere in the form of concentrated sodium hydroxide solution, which makes it flexible to use."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121112.htm
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Alternative energy

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YMix wrote:
"This method enables solar energy to be stored in the form of chemical energy from the summer until the wintertime," says Fumey. "And that's not all: the stored heat can also be transported elsewhere in the form of concentrated sodium hydroxide solution, which makes it flexible to use."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121112.htm
No lie?

No, lye.
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Re: Alternative energy

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Nonc Hilaire wrote:
YMix wrote:
"This method enables solar energy to be stored in the form of chemical energy from the summer until the wintertime," says Fumey. "And that's not all: the stored heat can also be transported elsewhere in the form of concentrated sodium hydroxide solution, which makes it flexible to use."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121112.htm
No lie?

No, lye.
:lol: I did not red a quote for the efficiency of this lyeing process in the press release link. I wonder why?
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Oil Alternatives.

Post by noddy »

some clever buggers have worked out how to use ammonia as a stable transport for hydrogen and then use a membrane to separate the goodness for use.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/h ... l/10082514

granted the energy density takes a beating but the costs to produce and store also get massively reduced - hydrogen's big failing was the inability to store it easily.
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noddy
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Re: Alternative energy

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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... zi6pCezFrk
Thousands of ageing rooftop solar panels represent a toxic time-bomb and major economic waste unless Australia acts swiftly to keep them out of landfill, conservationists and recyclers say.

Australia’s enthusiastic embrace of rooftop solar has brought clear environmental and economic benefits, but critics say governments have dragged their feet in addressing the looming waste crisis.
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Re: Alternative energy

Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal ... zi6pCezFrk
Thousands of ageing rooftop solar panels represent a toxic time-bomb and major economic waste unless Australia acts swiftly to keep them out of landfill, conservationists and recyclers say.

Australia’s enthusiastic embrace of rooftop solar has brought clear environmental and economic benefits, but critics say governments have dragged their feet in addressing the looming waste crisis.
has there ever been any serious consideration over there to dedicating a couple thousand square miles of uninhabitable land to becoming the world's landfill? you might be able to make a bundle off it, and possibly even build some mountain ranges to positively impact local weather patterns.

or maybe just a giant recycling/sorting facility. a few decades from now, people might pay big to recoup the materials they paid you to take off their hands in previous decades.
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Re: Alternative energy

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Re: Alternative energy

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Sci Mag | Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane

The wildly speculative over-the-top headline would do Popular Science proud.

Interesting idea, however, the road from lab to full scale industrial deployment is a rather long one; few survive the long march.
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Re: Alternative energy

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Colonel Sun wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2019 3:33 am Sci Mag | Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane

The wildly speculative over-the-top headline would do Popular Science proud.

Interesting idea, however, the road from lab to full scale industrial deployment is a rather long one; few survive the long march.
True, though the article mentioned some plants of this type had already been built, albeit not with this new membrane afaict. Hopefully they'll be able to test this new tech in those existing plants. This is exciting because it represents a much more constant source than many other types of alt energy, therefore it will not need to rely on storage or base load generation to implement widely.
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Re: Alternative energy

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I havent attempted any maths on it but all these aggregations of small amounts of power tend to suffer from delivery problems.

Their have been many many attempts at things like solar roads but turning all those little trickles (which have impressive numbers in the aggregate) into actual high voltage AC for transmission involves physics problems that dont have solutions.

low power dc doesnt like travelling very far.
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Re: Alternative energy

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Vox | Geothermal energy is poised for a big breakout
What is geothermal energy?
Fun fact: The molten core of the Earth, about 4,000 miles down, is roughly as hot as the surface of the sun, over 6,000°C, or 10,800°F. That’s why the geothermal energy industry is fond of calling it “the sun beneath our feet.” The heat is continuously replenished by the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements, at a flow rate of roughly 30 terawatts, almost double all human energy consumption. That process is expected to continue for billions of years.

The ARPA-E project AltaRock Energy estimates that “just 0.1% of the heat content of Earth could supply humanity’s total energy needs for 2 million years.” There’s enough energy in the Earth’s crust, just a few miles down, to power all of human civilization for generations to come. All we have to do is tap into it.

Tapping into it, though, turns out to be pretty tricky.
One might think that Japan, like the USA, would be a natural candidate for geothermal power.

Geothermal power in Japan

Side note. The nation with the most volcanoes is the USA
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Re: Alternative energy

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A long march to attain a practical scale, will be interesting to see if the tech survives.

Sci Mag | Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane
A new membrane could unlock the potential of “blue energy,” which uses chemical differences between fresh- and saltwater to generate electricity. If researchers can scale up the postage stamp–size membrane in an affordable fashion, it could provide carbon-free power to millions of people in coastal nations where freshwater rivers meet the sea.

. . .

Blue energy’s promise stems from its scale: Rivers dump some 37,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater into the oceans every year. This intersection between fresh- and saltwater creates the potential to generate lots of electricity — 2.6 terawatts, according to one recent estimate, roughly the amount that can be generated by 2000 nuclear power plants.
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Re: Alternative energy

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IEEE Spectrum | Why the Shipping Industry Is Betting Big on Ammonia

I recall the much missed "Torchwood" advocating for ammonia as a fuel source.

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Re: Alternative energy

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May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: Alternative energy

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May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: Alternative energy

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More on geothermal

Catching fire
Past efforts to coax geothermal energy from hot, dry rock deep underground have faltered. But new techniques could crack the problem
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Re: Alternative energy

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Small scale fission with fluid metal cooling and running on nuclear waste of older types nuclear reactors. In the end they discuss the denial by the NRC of their application. And why the NRC maybe has never approved any application in over 40 years. Regulatory maffia?

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