General Discussions

[LP]

Batteries still have a very real issue. They need to be charged.

Yep it's an absurdity, they talk like solid state and higher energy densities are all on the same page, when in fact they are different sides of the ledger. Most of the functional ultra high energy research batteries are single use, and the solid state solutions need to be towed on a trailer behind a Toyota Leaf to get people 200 km!

[Mav]

batteries all degrade over time then must be dealt with somehow, as do solar PV, as do catalysts in fuel cells. None of them are currently recycled, at the moment the nascent art of recycling is a dream.

So recycling batteries & solar PV is pie in the sky stuff but recycling nuclear waste is a done deal:

Nuclear energy waste is evolving too.  They are finding ways to reuse spent fuel, rather than simply store it.

[LP]

So recycling batteries & solar PV is pie in the sky stuff but recycling nuclear waste is a done deal:

No not at all, but by volume for the amount of fission energy delivered the fission waste is minuscule, not even in the register.

The recycling issue for PV / battery is more analogous to developing fusion as the nuclear solution.

The renewable investment risk is huge, if they crack fusion the renewables  are worthless overnight! They must think fusion is a go and safe, they are now building a new pilot within the boundaries of greater London. That's a true bet by someone with deep pockets!

[Mav]

Not if you include lethality in the equation. Putin doesn't even need much polonium to do the job.

[Thryleon]

And it only took them 70 years to do it. Imagine how much better (and how recyclable) non-nuclear batteries will be in the year 2060 ...

the world has come a long way in the last 20 years.  Technology advances very quickly but I see more merit in advances in nuclear than I do in renewables.  Flooding the landscape with wind turbines and solar panels is noble but it just needs to have baseload somewhere in that equation.

[LP]

Not if you include lethality in the equation. Putin doesn't even need much polonium to do the job.

or lithium!

You need to think before you post, emotion is not going to cut it in this debate. How many micrograms of nuclear waste for every tonne of lithium, cadmium, sulfide waste?

We are building a new train tunnel in Vic with a budget in the billions, we could build a tunnel the same scale in the middle of nowhere and stored a hundred years of the whole world's nuclear waste earning trillions in the process, and it wouldn't even cover the area of a biro line drawn on the page of a street directory! Zero carbon emissions and stored for an eternity!

[Mav]

Emotional? Mr Spock is more emotional than my post.

[kruddler]

Or maybe you could say Mme Curie unfortunately was at the cutting edge of new rather than mature technology. Nuclear power is now very mature whereas renewables and battery technologies will improve rapidly. Confining the comparison of nuclear and fossil fuel energy generation to only existing renewables & battery technology is misleading.

The thing with batteries is, besides the waste issue that comes along with them, is the more power you force into them, and the smaller you make them, the more dangerous they become.

We are walking around with bombs in our pockets already, better technology just means bigger bombs.

Have a look at a video of a phone battery exploding and remind yourself it's usually in a pocket that is inches away from your manhood.
Remember the Samsung phone batteries exploding when they got too hot?

I'm all for more research into batteries, but there is a limit to the size and power they can get too, and the waste that comes with it. Not to mention the fact we will probably run out of resources and/or destroy the planet trying to find it.
In the end we'd hope to achieve something close to what nuclear power already gives us....so let's just skip 70 years of research and get to the same point we are now.

There are a couple of docos about batteries and technology worth watching from a few years ago. They go through the intricacies of it all and the challenges facing them. It actually does more harm than good to the point trying to be made imo.

[LP]

Emotional? Mr Spock is more emotional than my post.

References to Polonium are clearly meant to scare readers, ignoring some good works of fiction just how many people have been offed using this method, out of the nearly 8 Billion currently on the planet? I mean we are all at so much risk, popping off like Polonium lightbulbs!

My mates are going on a dive trip to Bikini Atoll next year, a friend who went there back in 2019 is taking them, they have been planning it right through the pandemic and keep getting delayed by a virus., Apparently though according to you sources fusion bombs have left the joint is contaminated for 10,000 years!

Nuclear weapons and fallout are bad, but on average you get more radiation from living above a coal seam than you get from a power station or weapons residuals. you are more at risk visiting Cardiff or Yarram for a holiday than travelling to Bikini Atoll or Fugkushima Japan!

Should we ban living in South Eastern Victoria, the major coal seam runs from Metung to Ballarat? Apparently not, but burying radioactive stuff under ground isn't a solution, so I hear!

Emotion won't cut it in this debate, the feel good solutions are falling short of expectation, and all they are really doing is just another version of pushing the problem into another time and space. The planet needs stuff that actually works without carbon emission now, and it can't wait for a the glimmer of hope promised but not yet delivered by some ideologues green nirvana!

The truth hides in plain site, so many people know it, the billionaires sell you batteries and panels while they develop nuclear and hydrogen on the quiet, they aren't going to go all in on a high risk renewable bet with the only home they can really ever have! All the other shizen, moving to Mars, living under the sea, sailing off to a new planet is for Homer Simpson!

FMD, They just approved billions for an offshore windfarm in Bass Strait, how long will that last? The Navys of the world scrap billion dollars vessels each year because they can't solve "The corrosion problem" and they have been working on it for 200 years. The green dream public think they are going to build a forest of wind farms offshore and let them run for decades and decades out at sea providing green carbon free energy, when in reality they will need to be rebuilt or replaced completely on regular intervals. They'll barely get the carbon budget back from the processing of the materials they need let alone power anyone with decades of surplus green energy.

The biggest reason all these green projects get approval is economics and nothing to do with the triple bottom line, they can be monetised so someone gets to make a profit even if it's only until the subsidies run out.

[Mav]

What uplifting emotional landscapes you show me! Young girls skipping through nuclear waste followed by cute fluffy dogs. It's not a threat to health at all!