|
First you need a really deep hole to make it somewhat safe. Then your salt needs to be cooled down by some form of heat exchange. Preferably, without letting all those pesky fast neutrons, which irradiated it after the nuclear fission/fusion explosion, seep in. And finally, you would have to get that hole cleaned because continuously boring new ones is not all that energy efficient or sustainable. Plus you would have to transport and use literal h-hombs to use this. Some people have concerns about those. Sure, you could make it a one time thing to get some energy, but why? Whole it's a lot, It's not like the energy from a single explosion could power us for long. The only reason you might want to do it is to prove net electricity from fusion on earth just to make everyone shut up who says that it is absolutely unattainable. The science is there, but it's not economical viable at all. So to answer your question. Yes, that would work. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Dec 31, 2022 |
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 13:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 11:56 |
|
|
It was an actual plowshares project https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_PACER tldr; another unworkable idea by Edward Teller.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 14:25
|
|
|
AreWeDrunkYet posted:Maybe this is just crazy talk, but why does fusion power need to be a continuous source? The technology around setting off a fusion reaction is well understood at this point. And the technology around energy storage is getting better. Is it impossible to use hydrogen bombs underground to (for example) melt a large amount of salt at once, or boil a large amount of water to move it to a higher elevation? The amount of energy that can be generated is so large that the conversion to stored energy wouldn't even need to be particularly efficient. Why don't we make cars that move by dropping handgrenades behind them to give a push?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 15:34
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Why don't we make cars that move by dropping handgrenades behind them to give a push? That is a bad analogy, since the internal combustion engine literally works by controlled explosions. Also, the concept you are describing is called Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, and its rad as hell!!
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 15:50
|
|
|
Yeah, Project Orion is 
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 16:00
|
|
|
what if we use nukes to start and then maintain the heat and pressure for a fusion reactor?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 22:13
|
|
|
I'm kinda curious but suppose you had like a magic force field like the size of a small car and detonated a nuke inside it and then compressed it down to a golf ball what happens if the force and energy can go anywhere? I get this is kinda similar to some fusion schemes but my gut feeling is this is basically its own reaction?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 22:51
|
|
|
Why not just nuke ourselves, thus eliminating need for any more energy generation? Food for thought. E. It's still a good time for wind but I'm guessing not so good for everything else. They is down like 15GW from the recent peak, capacity factor this low can't be working out too well 
mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Dec 31, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2022 23:04
|
|
|
To point out something perhaps a bit obvious, harvesting Fission-Initiated Fusion Power™ in that matter would essentially be a large but difficult -to-reuse geothermal project. There's a lot of places on earth where that investment in geothermal power can produce much more reliable results over a long period of time, potentially creating hotspots for clean energy-intensive industry.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2023 00:42
|
|
|
Finally, we can get the fabled clean fracking.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2023 01:43
|
|
|
mobby_6kl posted:Lol at that nuclear quote. Supposedly they've earmarked almost half a trillion EUR for various bailouts and subsidies: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-half-a-trillion-dollar-energy-bazooka-may-not-be-enough-2022-12-15/ Ironically enough, 500 billion dollars would basically cover removal of 20% of world wide emissions. From an old post... mobby_6kl posted:New report just dropped (a week ago). Apparently 5% of power plants generate 75% of global (power generation) carbon emissions. They also probably generate a huge chunk of total electricity too since they're all huge coal plants, but still seems like pretty good news if we could replace them with renewables or nukes (lol). According to them this should be enough to cut total global emissions by 20% which seems absolutely massive. Maybe my mental math is wrong but that is roughly..... 51,000 MW. Assume 1 reactor in the range of 8-12 billion USD for 1,000 to 1,400 MW. About 500 billion dollars. (I'm assuming nice round numbers. 1,000 MWe per reactor. 10 billion per reactor. 51 reactors.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2023 03:43
|
|
|
Senor P. posted:
That’s actually enough money that no single person could afford it, you’d have to get 2 or 3 billionaires to collaborate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2023 16:17
|
|
|
radmonger posted:That’s actually enough money that no single person could afford it, you’d have to get 2 or 3 billionaires to collaborate. Really unfortunate that Musk just lost like 200 
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2023 16:26
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:Well those interconnection cost more money then the CDU types are prepared to ever invest into power infrastructure. As in, there was funding to build them set aside, in case we need some french nuclear power for some reason, and the CDU cut that funding. I am struggling to parse this post but anyway. You are sort of implying that I expected the CDU types to get big mobs of public funds into nuclear? I meant the CDU types would be looking after their mates looking for opportunities for investment of 100's of billions of dollars with a stable return. The logic makes sense that they opposed connectors and its nothing to do with funding reticence and I think more to do with avoiding French nuclear cutting the grass of the German power industry. It would loving gall the German populace for the French to get fat on supplying low carbon electricity to Germany. They would sooner buy Russian gas and to fire up more lignite mines. Anti-nuclear has become the default political choice now because you try and build a plant you will get activists the next day and get murdered in the polls the next election. Giving heaps of money to France validating Je vous l’avais bien dit would be the worst feeling for Germany.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2023 19:15
|
|
|
Whoa. https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/man-faces-terror-charge-for-damaging-power-plant-outside-las-vegas/ Guy takes out a Las Vegas solar facility with his Camry: quote:A man is facing terror-related charges after police said he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. "Two years for parts" sounds like a big transformer was melted.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:58
|
|
|
to be fair, "2 years for parts" is becoming more common by the month in the world of power transmission. I've never seen anything like it. Every company is begging for spares from everyone else, and tons of critical parts have backorder estimates I've never seen anything close to before.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 01:02
|
|
|
Has anyone figured out the motive for these apparently "terrorist" attacks on the power grid? It's hard to think of a reason to attack substations beyond really crazy people doing random violence or no-poo poo paramilitary attacks against civilian infrastructure.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 01:50
|
|
|
Infinite Karma posted:Has anyone figured out the motive for these apparently "terrorist" attacks on the power grid? It's hard to think of a reason to attack substations beyond really crazy people doing random violence or no-poo poo paramilitary attacks against civilian infrastructure. The most recent PNW ones were some dudes mission impossibling the alarm system on an cash register. No word on most of them, tho.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 02:25
|
|
|
FistEnergy posted:to be fair, "2 years for parts" is becoming more common by the month in the world of power transmission. I've never seen anything like it. Every company is begging for spares from everyone else, and tons of critical parts have backorder estimates I've never seen anything close to before.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 04:02
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:The government should have this poo poo stockpiled. What if there's a big solar flare that fries a bunch of parts at once? Large power transformers are bespoke items, each one is custom for the particular installation it’s serving. The government can’t “stockpile” that, these aren’t pole pigs that get turned out by the thousand. We’ve got enough solar monitoring now that we’d have enough warning before a flare hits to dump load if it’s a big one.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 04:28
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Large power transformers are bespoke items, each one is custom for the particular installation it’s serving. The government can’t “stockpile” that, these aren’t pole pigs that get turned out by the thousand. What's the component (or process) bottleneck in scaling transformers? Genuinely curious, is there that much more complexity to a larger transformer or is it (loosely speaking) just more wire?
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 05:09
|
|
|
They aren't exactly easy to build is the short answer. Steel, copper, oil, paper, and wood but specific grades and characteristics which often have one supplier worldwide. They're ordered for the application and assembled by hand (and cranes) and after assembly and processing there's a realistic chance it fails testing and needs rework. The remaining north American factories can get you a transformer in about 18 months if you order now and they like you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 05:55
|
|
|
Also, I'm pretty sure zaporozhtransformator whose production and headquarters are in Ukraine was one of the largest producers in the world. Now Ukraine has nationalized the company since a year back and is probably prioritizing their own state infrastructure due to Russia mass targeting their energy grid.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 06:23
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Large power transformers are bespoke items, each one is custom for the particular installation it’s serving. The government can’t “stockpile” that, these aren’t pole pigs that get turned out by the thousand.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 10:22
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why can't the government enforce a standard build? In part because each location needs a slightly different size. And if you use a larger one, you lose profits. Same as when storing a replacement part, instead of emergency ordering one when it is needed. The main reason is that the government doing things is socialism.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 10:35
|
|
|
People nearly always underestimate the storage cost of spares holding. Large motors need to be rotated every few months or so, electrical parts need to be kept somewhere climate controlled, long term storage fluids are often different to operational fluids. Seals, rubber and a lot of subcomponents perish quickly if the item is not in regular use. People nearly always forget to update a stored part with vendor updates (hardware or software). A lot of components require a tradesperson to open up and inspect periodically, maybe including crane lifts, specialized tooling, toxic chemical disposal etc. Warehouses are a source of wastage (people drive into things, drop things off shelves, theft, etc). In the org I work for, we work on 10% of the stored value each year in warehousing costs. You want to store 10 billion dollars worth of breakers and transformers? That'll be $10 billion capex to buy the components, 10's to a hundred million to ship it to your storage facility, probably a few hundred million in sheds and infrastructure to store it and a billion dollars a year in keeping it stored. And before we get the common "it is only dollars, people gotta stop being cheap and thinking about profits hurrrr", that is thousands of tonnes of copper, steel, rubber, etc along with the resultant extra wealth extraction from some no-doubt sensitive nature reserve, thousands of people looking at parts doing nothing (and then disposing them after the infrastructure it belonged to is upgraded) rather than helping man hospitals, aged care facilities or building/installing solar panels. And the thing is, there are lots of spares out there. Ukraine is having power failures because thousands of missiles are being used. This is just after a pandemic that severely crippled production for a significant portion of the world. Projects are getting delayed, breakdowns are a much bigger deal now but it is at the same time amazingly resilient in light of what is going on.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 11:04
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why can't the government enforce a standard build? Because the requirements of the transformer are dictated by the specific engineering details of the power facility. What makes you think the government is even *competent* to dictate the One True Power Facility? Like, you realize how difficult and complicated power engineering is, right? And then you want the government to say "No, no, wait, everyone can only use this one kind of power transformer from now on"? Even moreover, the notion of a stockpile doing much good in a repeat of the Carrington event is an incredible oversimplification. If large power transformers go down across the country, a stockpile of spares isn't even going to help much. First, where's the stockpile located? These things are huge, you can't put them on an 18-wheeler, there are only a few dozen of the specialized rail transport cars that are required to move them around. Okay, "build more Schnabel cars," you say. Fine. These things aren't installed by cheap labor, they're done by a crew of senior electrical engineers and integration engineers, overseen by senior engineers for the manufacturers of the transformer, the switchgear, the inverters, the substation owner, the transmission system owner, *and* a senior certifying engineer for the FERC and the state utility commission. There's like a thousand years of engineering experience just assembled to *watch*. And that's just for installing it, they're back again for the initial energizing, and then a healthy subset of those people will be back for 100-hour testing. If a big solar flare hits and all our LPTs get fried, spares alone will not get them replaced in any kind of acceptable timeframe, each one is a *major engineering effort*. What you're saying is basically like "Why can't the government enforce a standard dam?" AreWeDrunkYet posted:What's the component (or process) bottleneck in scaling transformers? Genuinely curious, is there that much more complexity to a larger transformer or is it (loosely speaking) just more wire? It is absolutely not just more wire. Everything is about maximizing efficiency; these are large capital-outlay devices that will be in service for a very long period of time, and manufacturing cost itself is very high. You've got something like half a dozen completely-independent design parameters that in turn feed into dozens of dependent paratmers that go into optimization You're not sitting down with a paper and pencil and IpVp=IsVs, you're doing intensive analytical and finite element modeling to *start* the design. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jan 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 16:15
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why can't the government enforce a standard build? Physics and legacy systems. Impedance is important, there are 3 different hv transmission voltages (765, 500, 345) in the US and a ton of different lv transmission voltages. Physical size and arrangement matter but mostly for the units connected to generators via bus or distribution class connected to switchgear. As mentioned storage is not the easiest thing. Most of the big stuff can be stored outside but control enclosures need to be powered to run heaters, transformers need to be oil filled, positive pressure needs to be maintained, big motors or generators need to be rolled over regularly. Edit: Phanatic posted:These things aren't installed by cheap labor, they're done by a crew of senior electrical engineers and integration engineers, overseen by senior engineers for the manufacturers of the transformer, You gave a better description of the issues but I'm going to have to disagree somewhat on that statement, I've seen a lot of green engineers doing the spec and design after all the experienced guys retired. Half the time the people assembling them are hacks and butchers too, keeps the work interesting I guess. There's a point where rail shipment is required but I've seen 300mva size go over the road before if it's not going cross country, I think the trailer had 18 axles. Still not exactly easy to ship this stuff. SpeedFreek fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jan 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
All those difficulties and costs are indeed hurdles, but JIT logistics is only better until there is a pickup, then it's suddenly catastrophically worse.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 18:55
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why can't the government enforce a standard build? To some level they do! Maybe not entirely governmental, it's regulated through industry standards, but IEEE does have standards that govern the manufacturing and testing of all transformers for critical characteristics. So my question is "what do you mean by standard build"? If you mean materials and general standards, they are! If you mean "voltage, KVA, fluid type", then I'd argue there is a big drawback to restricting available sizes just to have standards for the sake of standards. There are good engineering reasons to have a specific distribution system at 34.5kv instead of 12.47kv, and having the government mandate one or the other can lead to massive waste either in transformer size or conductor size. That's not a capitalism problem, waste is the enemy to both capitalist and socialist systems. With minimal preventative maintenance transformers last about 30 years in theory (40-50 in practice depending on environment, and I've seen 60 yo models in operation in arid regions). So to get at the idea of "spares", you don't just buy a transformer plus a spare to sit around for 30 years waiting for it to break. Buying lots of spares for stuff is something you can really only do at great expense with unavoidable imperative. You build redundancy into your grid so that if a sub does go down, others can pick up the slack. The one place I've seen proactive in-reserve spares is the nuclear industry. Post Fukushima, the NRC had utilities pool money together to get areva to construct rapid response centers (2 across the country) capable of bringing any needed equipment to nuke sites in tight timelines to avoid any situation where an event prevents a plant from protecting its fuel. That's about the only place where the cost and effort is seen as necessary. Everywhere else, build deterrence to mitigate terrorism, maintain redundancy, do PM, and replace equipment in reasonable lifecycles (PG&E lols at all of that). Phanatics post is pretty good. I will say that I've done some substation analysis and bits of design, but I am not at all an expert at it. It's both kinda simple and vastly complex, and the concept of copy-pasting standard power builds is something that happens in cities skylines, not reality, for very good reasons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 21:55
|
|
|
My system has numerous 138kv transformers in service right now that were built and commissioned in the 1920s. And countless transformers/breakers that went online in the 40s and 50s. This stuff can last a long time if properly monitored and maintained.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 02:59
|
|
|
Based on your username I'm guessing I'm really close to you this week, strangely enough it's not working directly for your company this time. The greatest part of lean mfg is when there's only one supplier, worldwide, for critical components for a critical part of modern life. Edit: oldest nameplate I've seen in this town was 1938 for in service 138kv equipment.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 04:34
|
|
|
Swedish government is looking to ease building nuclear power once more. Especially smaller scale stuff used for district heating. Meanwhile the Baltic republics are preparing to join the European electric network with Harmony Link sea cable (there is a landline to Poland, but it's DC). They are simultaneously preparing for the possibility of Russia shutting down their connection to Russian network before this is ready, but this seems unlikely because Kaliningrad also depends on the connection through Lithuania. If that happened then Finland would need to feed electricity to Estonia via Estlink to even out peaks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 12:04
|
|
|
Dang energy production is so volatile, I'm having to endlessly caveat my students' work. Yeah, Germany exported a lot of electricity to France in 2022 but a lot of that was burning Russian gas, which changed dramatically over the year, and France had a larger number of reactors than usual down for repairs and also we need to talk about river temperatures in August 2022... Energy stop being so volatile please
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2023 23:20
|
|
|
Well France had like 3-4 decades or something of stable energy production and consistent energy export surplus before the perfect storm of not building new plants, the 2010s nuclear shutdown policy, covid and then war hit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 08:18
|
|
|
That's good to know
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 14:12
|
|
|
energy is not getting less volatile
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 20:44
|
|
|
NRC Certifies First U.S. Small Modular Reactor Designquote:The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its final rule in the Federal Register to certify NuScale Power’s small modular reactor. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2023 19:33
|
|
|
Yay! I've been hearing about them from time to time so that's good news. Have they ever built a working reactor, or is this approval need first to do the test? I've tried searching and nothing much comes up besides some mockups.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2023 20:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 11:56 |
|
|
My station had to replace one of their main power transformers (~1000MWe) a couple years ago. We had a spare on site sitting about 80 feet from where it needed to be, and it took 17 days of round the clock work to execute and install. I don't know what the lead time is for a new spare. Our current backup plan is to use a spare from another site that's about 150 miles away. And the NRC Flex centers don't have spare transformers sitting around. They have stuff like generators, pumps, supplies, hoses, fittings, diesel fuel, etc. Materials needed to keep water flowing through a reactor pressure vessel to remove decay heat in case of a disaster.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2023 03:25
|
|