Climate Change is here and man made

[grunge]

Absolutely. It's all about energy. Once we have fusion, we have effectively limitless clean energy. Not only does that at a stroke almost completely eradicate our CO2 output in itself, it also provides near limitless energy to power carbon capture "devices" - be they enormous machines, or vast bio-engineered floating algae tanks covering thousands of square kilometers, or whatever else you care to dream up.

It would also allow the removal of all hydro electric dam's. allowing water to flow to the places that the rivers used to feed.

I was watching 1 program where they were saying the Sarah desert grew in size around Morroco/Algeria due to hydro electic dams blocking water supplies that used to feed it.

Still very pie in the sky at the moment but as a species we should be lobbing as much money and resources at Fusion as we can.

CO2 Scrubbing wise I read something about some being built but were horrifically power consumption heavy at the moment. But then fusion fixes that.

 

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

Still very pie in the sky at the moment but as a species we should be lobbing as much money and resources at Fusion as we can.

Agree that we should continue to pursue fusion - at the same time - the difficulty of creating the enormous pressures/temperatures to fuse hydrogen into helium is enormous.

As unpopular as fission is - it's nuclear fission that we'll likely need to rely upon if we're to avoid a greenhouse catastrophe while at the same time meeting society's energy demands.

 

[Chippy_boy]

It would also allow the removal of all hydro electric dam's. allowing water to flow to the places that the rivers used to feed.

I was watching 1 program where they were saying the Sarah desert grew in size around Morroco/Algeria due to hydro electic dams blocking water supplies that used to feed it.

Still very pie in the sky at the moment but as a species we should be lobbing as much money and resources at Fusion as we can.

CO2 Scrubbing wise I read something about some being built but were horrifically power consumption heavy at the moment. But then fusion fixes that.

Again, I agree. The problem with renewables is that they just aren't available enough: no wind power when it's not windy, no solar when it's night time. OK, so we could do more with hydro and with ocean waves perhaps. But it's very hard to see how you could run heavy industry such as a steel or aluminium plant off a bunch of wind turbines. So we either have to (a) stop making stuff - hardly an option; (b) carry on making stuff and burning coal to do so - also not an option; or (c) use nuclear.

(c) is the only option and of course whilst no nuclear is completely clean and safe (even fusion) then at least fusion is safer and cleaner than the others. Incidentally I read that China is making great inroads with Thorium (rather than Uranium or Plutonium) fuelled reactors. Thorium is cheaper and more plentiful, but whether Thorium reactors are safer, I don't know.

 

[Chippy_boy]

As unpopular as fission is - it's nuclear fission that we'll likely need to rely upon if we're to avoid a greenhouse catastrophe while at the same time meeting society's energy demands.

At least with fission reactors, we know how to build them, as opposed to fusion which is still experimental. But we've got to figure out how to build fission reactors more quickly. The current lead time from initial inception to live running is like what? 20 years? How long have we been talking about Hinkley C? It's way too long. We'll have fourth runway at heathrow by then.

 

[grunge]

Again, I agree. The problem with renewables is that they just aren't available enough: no wind power when it's not windy, no solar when it's night time. OK, so we could do more with hydro and with ocean waves perhaps. But it's very hard to see how you could run heavy industry such as a steel or aluminium plant off a bunch of wind turbines. So we either have to (a) stop making stuff - hardly an option; (b) carry on making stuff and burning coal to do so - also not an option; or (c) use nuclear.

(c) is the only option and of course whilst no nuclear is completely clean and safe (even fusion) then at least fusion is safer and cleaner than the others. Incidentally I read that China is making great inroads with Thorium (rather than Uranium or Plutonium) fuelled reactors. Thorium is cheaper and more plentiful, but whether Thorium reactors are safer, I don't know.

the lack of sun/wind is a surmountable issue when it comes to wind and solar. Im not sure why they are taking so long to build and test ( there is a test one in Edinburgh at the moment ) but gravity energy stores are a good way around how to store excess energy produced by renewables and use it when its dark/still.

This one seems to be a pretty solid idea. basically a bunch of computer controlled cranes that build a tower of heavy concrete blocks when there is excess power, when power is needed they attach the blocks to turbines and slowly lower them generating power as they drop.

rsz_1rsz_energy_vault_storage_system - Power Technology | Energy News and Market Analysis

www.power-technology.com

One of the "popular" solutions for existing generators is to pump water into hydro dams for storage. but I personally wouldn't like to build more hydro damns to that.

I do agree Nuclear, while unpopular is needed. as you say Thorium is probably a good way to go. far less dangerous than uranium/plutonium and cannot be weaponised so the tech can be spread freely. and as you say, Thorium is very wide spread.

Molten Salt reactors seem to be a good step too.

Molten salt reactor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

A viable commercial scale fusion option could be decades away.

 

[Chippy_boy]

A viable commercial scale fusion option could be decades away.

Sadly, so are any new (as yet unplanned) new nuclear power stations!

 

[grunge]

A viable commercial scale fusion option could be decades away.

Unfortunately yep. there needs to be a stop gap. be it large scale renewables and gravity batteries or hopefully some other new batter tech.

Nuclear could be that stop gap but generally seems to take far too long to build as Chippy pointed out.

In Reality its going to have to be a mix of Renweables ( quick set up and leed time ) + fission while we get fusion going.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Unfortunately yep. there needs to be a stop gap. be it large scale renewables and gravity batteries or hopefully some other new batter tech.

Nuclear could be that stop gap but generally seems to take far too long to build as Chippy pointed out.

In Reality its going to have to be a mix of Renweables ( quick set up and leed time ) + fission while we get fusion going.

Energy storage from renewables and a serious increase in the efficiency of our grid and the things we connect to it is probably the best option in the short term. Whether that's achievable is another matter.

 

[grunge]

Energy storage from renewables and a serious increase in the efficiency of our grid and the things we connect to it is probably the best option in the short term. Whether that's achievable is another matter.

I'd happily take natural gas power stations too for the stop gaps as well as renewables/nuclear. main risks with gas is related to leaks rather than the burning it for power.

It was a natural gas leak that set the sea on fire a few weeks back!.

Grid efficiency and device efficiency is a whole other ballgame. what you dont want to end up with is people throwing perfectly good devices out to buy more efficent one. while in the long run that may help you then start to hit the side effects of disposal, manufacture, shipping etc etc. Unless said device has an insane level of upgrade to its power consumption its hard to justify unless its a "natural" update time.