Water Powered Cars

[TerrysID]

Wind-up cars and generators for each household will work when things get really, really, really bad, and help keep you trim, also... ;#)

[1veedo]

How do we dispose of the spent fuel rods -- highly radioactive and toxic?

That's easy. You can put it in oil/natural gas wells. Recap the hole you drilled in the cap rock. Reusing depleted mines for garbage disposal is actually a very profitable business because not many places can dispose of highly "toxic" stuff. If nuclear power plants start to be used more, that would be good industry to invest in. The only problem with nuclear power plants is that the plutonium that gets produced from spent uranium can be used in nuclear weapons, so you are right there.

 

On the other hand newer technology can use the plutonium. It's actually possible to turn nuclear weapons into fuel this way. I think if the government agreed to deplete nuclear stockpiles the general public would be behind the decision.

 

None of the other issues that come up, such as safety, hold any ground against nuclear plants. Many people have missconceptions about them, especially about nuclear meltdowns. The only problem comes when you misplace your plutonium and Iran gets ahold of it.

How do you store electricity? Batteries are the only method I know of now. Of course, making hydrogen and then using hydrogen fuel cells would be another method of "storing" electricity. But now you have the problem of transporting the hydrogen. And that's not trivial.

This is easy too, depending on the location. You can use excess energy to pump water up a hill and then you have potential energy. Even if there aren't any hills around you can artificially create storage. The latter is a bit more expensive then it's worth though. If prices keep rising it may become an option.

Third, the problem of waste disposal is such a long term problem. Isotopes with half-lives of millions of years. And don't forget the plants themselves. After 50 years of operation, even the pipes and walls of the plants are slightly radioactive as neutrons convert some of the atoms to radioactive isotopes.

Just burry the "pipes and walls" with the other waste. Again, disposing of nuclear waste isn't a problem.

Yes, but the nukes are going to have to be near the cities involved. That is, you can't have a remote nuclear plant in Wyoming that is shipping electricity to LA. You need the plants in LA. So we have the safety issues.

You mention this a couple times. I'm not an expert on the power grid but electricity can be transported from distant locations. For instance the local coal plant where I live helps power a fourth of the state of New York. When you look at so called "green power" where you pay extra to get power from solar/wind and the such, its' not like they're marking electrons from these locations and sending specially to your house. You're going to get power from whatever source the rest of your neighborhood gets it from, even if it is "dirty."

 

Essentially power grids work by sharing the power. You can build a nuclear power plant in the middle of nowhere and it would technically be powering the "local" area but now that it's taking care of that area the previous energy that was going there can now go elsewhere, offseting other local energy supplies, which indirectly effect the amount of power on another location (like LA). Basically the grid has one large supply of energy and you can put energy into the grid from any location you fancy to increate this total supply. Conversely if a power plant goes off line, the grid will pick off the slack. If the local coal plant shuts down, 1/4 of New York doesn't go without power. Plants as far away as California are would help to pick up the slack.

 

One way to prevent blackouts would be to make an excess of power plants. Instead of dropping sections of the grid when it reaches maximum capacity (which usually brings other plants offline thus making the situation even worse), you could have enough plants to always be able to introduce more power into the grid, no matter where you're putting them. The problem is that the production of these plants isn't going to return a very large payback to investors because it'll take work from other plants -- plants operated by the same companies. Add in the price to manage and build it and you've got an economic looser.

 

The blind hand of economics has really put us into places that have much better alternatives. I like to think of it as the "The Blind Watchmaker" of economics. As long as it makes people money in the short term nobody cares about planning the future*. If you dont take advantage of economic opportunities as they come up then you loose and company B buys you out. We could have a better power grid and better energy fuels if only people would have agreed 50 years ago to rethink things, regardless of profit. But now we've peaked on both oil and natural gas (natural gas powers the majority of America) and prices are going up. I think I'm quoting somebody when I say we're cluster****ed.

 

A couple good books to read if youre interested in this kind of stuff are buy Kenneth S Deffeyes; Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Energy Shortage and Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak. There's also a really good documentary called "The End of Suberbia." I think its' funny because In 2001 Deffeyes predicted Norway would peak in the next two years and in hindsight he was right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Norway_hubbert.jpg I read that and jumped strait to google to see what actually happened to Norway.

 

Beyond Oil is his latest book (2005) and it talks about renewable energy sources, such as "water power cars." I havn't read this whole thread but I assume (and hope) somebody else has already pointed out that "water power cars," ethonol "corn oil," and hydrogen power are all losers. Renewable resources are highly misunderstood by most people. It's like a giant public falsehood that makes people happy. "Technology will save us."

 

It kidn of falls in line with the concept of "ignorance is bliss." If you dont know how royally ****ed we really are you can wake up happy thinking the world is just going to keep chugging along. I was talking to a girl just today and she didn't know we were at war in Iraq! She was entirely too perky and I probably ruined her day by telling her that we were at war. I cant help but imagine how she'd react knowing that we peaked global oil production in December of 2005.

 

*unless planning for the future is economical -- for instance lots of manjor oil companies are selling fields to smaller indipnedent companies. Because oil production has, or very shortly will, peak, average oil prices are rising. The most money now you can make in oil comes from recent fields that are still relatively new and can pump oil much cheaper. Letting go of oil fields that aren't as profitable indirectly increase total earnings for the company because they can invest more heavily on the rest of their oil.

[SkepticLance]

To 1veedo

 

I believe you are altogether far too pessimistic. There have been lots of predictions of disaster in the past that proved wrong due to technological development.

 

Club of Rome, 1973, "The Limits to Growth' predicted disaster by 2000 due to resource limits. We went out and discovered more resources than they ever imagined.

 

Paul Ehrlich 1968, " The Population Bomb" predicted deaths by the hundreds of millions by the mid 1970's. Then came the Green Revolution.

 

Rachel Carson 1963, " Silent Spring" predicted massive ecological disaster due to toxic pesticides. And so we invented low toxicity and biodegradable pesticides.

 

Right now we face other potential problems. Energy shortage. Thousands of scientists are already working on this. New technologies are being developed by the hundreds. Most will fail. However, a few will prove to be just what the world needs.

[Endy0816]

Just so long as you don't mind spending more energy making the hydrogen and are a really careful driver. Though I'm sure no mode of transportation reliant on hydrogen gas has ever suffered any issues.