Liquid Flouride-Thorium Reactors? (and other Alternative Energy sources)

[droomph]

So...do you want these Flourine-Thorium reactors, which are better and should have been chosen anyways? What do you think about the retro-fitting and the potential dangers?

Also, as the real discussion - what do you think is keeping us from having clean and reliable energy, and what can we do about it?

 

[Mr. X]

The thing that is keeping us from having clean, reliable energy, is the big oil companies.

They know that if technology like this advances, they will lose most/all of their money, so they spend a lot of money every year to get lobby groups to try and downplay all of the reasons for using cleaner energy.

 

[Esper]

Not just big oil, but all the other industries that rely on oil, like car companies. If we adopted better energy sources more quickly then car companies would have to play catch up since no one would buy petrolium-powered vehicles if there was a cheaper, cleaner alternative.

And there's also the fact that oil is so ingrained in how things are made and run that you'd need huge amounts of overhaul to the infrastructure of cities and that won't happen while politicians are being given lots of money from big oil.

 

[Mr. X]

Newer cars are slowly transitioning to electric anyway, so this isn't as big of a issue as it would have been in the past.

Speaking of electric cars, ever hear of the GM EV1? It was built during the 90's, however, due to the oil companies aggressive financing of lobby groups, and other groups, who were to stop efforts to build charging stations for this car, helped to kill it. The real deathstroke to this vehicle, however, was when Chevron (A oil company) managed to purchase the patents and a controlling stake in the company that produced the batteries used in this car. Other then that, just general price manipulation done by all oil companies also helped to kill this car. Also, GM later repossed and destroyed all prototypes and test models of this car since they considered the EV market to be 'unprofitable'.

This example is just proof that, in these times, people care more about profit then they do advancement.

Edit - Some clarification. The EV1 was built to use NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries. The design for for that battery is what Chevron obtained.

While Li-Ion batteries are superior to NiMH batteries, NiMH's cheaper production cost, and it being much safer then Li-ion, would have made it a better choice for initial releases of modern electric vehicles.

Other companies have attempted to produce their own varients of NiMH batteries without walking all over Chevron's patent for this technology, with minimal sucuess. While they have manged to produce usable NiMH batteries for electric vehicles, they are not as effective as the model that Ovonics (The producer of the batteries, before Chevron got the patents) produced.

Wiki page for more info about this if your interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

I've heard mention on these. I think they are certainly more attractive than Uranium power plants. If we are to use nuclear let us use elements that don't have long half-lives.

There still aren't too many electric car chargers out there that I've seen. Hopefully there'll be more but at the same time if we were all to move on to electric cars we will need to hurry up and build alternatives to coal and other fossil fuels used to create the electricity itself.

 

[Mr. X]

Not really.

Solar panels could be used.

 

[droomph]

Solar panels aren't that great of an idea, unless you really want to park in the sun.

Nuclear power plants are great for the very reason that they operate like a coal plant, but without the carbon dioxide output. Sure, they may generate waste, but if that's taken care of, there's 1) no real damage to the environment and 2) No major changes to the infrastructure need to be taken (for example, a coal plant uses the same mechanism as a nuclear plant, just different sources of the steam.)

 

[Mr. X]

Charging stations for electric cars would be in the sun.

Although, adding a solar panel to electric cars would be a good idea. It wouldn't elimiate the need to charging stations though, but it would mean you would need them less. (Your going to be parking the car in the sun anyway, so you might as well let the batteries recharge a bit during that time.)

As for nuclear power, the thing is that the waste has to be properly disposed of. Disposing of it properly is costly. Given that greed is the centerpeice of humanity, I'm willing to bet that not all nuclear waste is properly disposed. Are you willing to bet against me on this?

Edit - Again for nuclear power, if the waste is disposed of properly and the plant itself properly maintained there is little risk... But what about events that we can't forsee? Remember what happened recently in Japan?

And as for properly maintaining the plant, what if its a problem that we can't immedietly see? The damaged concrete shielding at the David-Besse Nuclear Plant is a prime example of this. The shielding, according to them, was damaged back in '78. It took them 34 years to find the damage. (I personally don't beleive this, I feel that they are just trying to cover their asses with this, however this is whats going on record as the 'truth'.)

 

[LonsoKitty]

Lol, solar panels are already being put out there, little by little hopefully things start changing.

 

[Alex]

I think the video refers more to power plants than electric cars. That's nice that Thorium is an alternative to nuclear power using Uranium, but it only really ups it by having less radio-active waste. Don't get me wrong, the waste is awful, but in this case it's definitely not worth the trouble of renovating 104,000 uranium nuclear power plants just for that benefit. If we're going to spend the money we need to do it right.

That being said, I think the world would benefit from an abundance of wind turbines and solar panels put up around the region. It might aesthetically look bad to some, but take a look at what we've already coated our soil with: wires. Wires and cables have been around forever now.

Wind turbines can be planted on the ocean where the country marines agree they would disrupt the least for vessel travel. Those don't bother anyone aesthetically. I see solar panels being put up on top of wire poles and whatnot around my city. I think that's very smart. And some condos are starting to be built with "green" roofs that have grass and flowers growing on top, to lessen the glare on concrete. We can couple that with solar panels as well, but put them on the edges of building roofs. Satellite dish and a solar panel on top of your home. Nothing we've never seen before.

 

[TRIFORCE89]

Sure. Why not?

And for your real discussion point, because they aren't as profitable. That someone can make money off of it is the reason we have oil, electricity, etc. The alternative sources at the moment right now is too much development for very little gain, unfortunately.

Also, there's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing. Take hydrogen-powered cars, for example. There's been a few unsuccessful (in terms of sales and use) of these in the past, and development still continues (thankfully). But, here's the thing. The refuelling stations! You need one, as you do a gas station now. But no one is going to build one when no one has a car. But no one is going to buy the car if they can't refuel it. So... uhh...

These aren't things that can be fixed by the markets. They need to be legislated.