My position exactly.
1 Like
So now you’re against nuclear power. Hmmm.
It looks like the round trip efficiency is only about 60%. That means that for every MWH that goes into the battery only .6 MWH comes back out.
Really? 2019? Wake me up when this happens. Like, everybody’s talking about it. Everybody has their favorite fantasy from which nothing happens . . . because it can’t. Favorite fantasy: nuclear.
Well, I suggest doing some research. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen. Bookmark.
So what? It’s free power, efficiency isn’t as important as scalability.
Yes, it is, not to supply all power but a good chunk of it.
from Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) | Department of Energy
The Department has long recognized the transformational value that advanced SMRs can provide to the nation’s economic, energy security, and environmental outlook. Accordingly, the Department has provided substantial support to the development of light water-cooled SMRs, which are under licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and will likely be deployed in the late 2020s to early 2030s. The Department is also interested in the development of SMRs that use nontraditional coolants such as liquid metals, salts, and gases for the potential safety, operational, and economic benefits they offer.
Once they are ruled safe, environmentalists won’t be able to block them.
Wake me up when that happens.
Shouldn’t be that long.
from 404
- How active has NuScale Power been in engaging the NRC?
In August 2020, NuScale reached a significant regulatory milestone with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). We made history as the company with the first ever small modular reactor (SMR) to receive NRC design approval—signaling to the world that NuScale is truly the U.S. leader in the race to bring SMRs to market. The NRC completed Phase 6 review—the last and final phase—of NuScale’s Design Certification Application (DCA) with the issuance of the Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER). Following shortly after in September 2020, the NRC issued a Standard Design Approval, which means that customers can move forward with plans to develop NuScale power plants, knowing that safety aspects of the NuScale design are NRC-approved.
Land is not free.
For example consider the wind turbine capacity requirement to handle the US annual electric generation requirement which is about 4 billion MWH/year. The average output is only about 25% of the nominal rating so the required nominal generation capacity is:
4,000,000,000 MWH/year / (8000 hours/year x .25) = 2,000,000 MW at nominal conditions
Wind turbines require about 100 acres per MW. That means that the land area is about 200 million acres. Here is the math:
100 acres/MW gives 200 million acres = 300,000 square miles. That is a bit greater than the size of Texas.
That is assuming no storage losses. A 50% storage efficiency would double the land area. The area could be even larger when you take into account that best locations go in first; increasing the number of wind turbines will force them to go on less productive locations.
I went on a cruise through the Baltic Sea, which is a prime location for wind turbines in Europe. While at sea, there were locations where I could see huge farms of wind turbines stretching along the distant horizon. Here is a close up view of one of the farms.
How will that fly with the wealthy elites who have their beach homes near prime locations for wind turbines?
From what I understand the Wankel engine is one of the best current designs for adapting to hydrogen based fuel.
From what I read it was based around the inherently low compression of Wankel (rotary in Mazda terms) engines, since hydrogen in existing high compression ICEs would cause severe pre detonation issues.
Maybe we will see the Rotary come back. They are awesome little engines but they have severe flaws that Mazda alone couldn’t work out. But from the research it’s believed that they are the easiest design to convert and run on hydrogen efficiently. The compression issue that plagued it running on gasoline would be a positive for hydrogen fuel.
Our science teacher in high school ran his old 6.9L IDI F-350 on disposed cooking oil. He made some contracts with the local restaurants for them to sell it to him at a very low cost. He also ran his tractors and his diesel lawnmower on it.
We had a snowmobile with a Wankel engine in it back in the seventies, it was a thing for a little while lol.
I think they will figure out a way to produce cheap hydrogen one of these days, they keep making strides in that direction.
And costs like 5 cents a gallon. What I am to lazy to figure out is, how much battery energy you can get out of it per gallon.
Production. Let’s go.
So far, it looks like eCascadia is the right approach to electrification. They got these things out there and put a million working miles on them pretty quick.
Lithium - drill baby, drill! 
3 Likes
From your article the range is only 230 miles and it takes 90 minutes to ger to 80 % charge. Libs might need to sprinkle more fairy dust to make their ideas better
1 Like
I want to see the reactions from Californians with EV vehicles when their famous brown outs start this summer.
2 Likes
There’s an opportunity for a new take on this old classic…
1 Like
