Also, is $75/mo. about average for an electricity bill? That's incredible.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
Unfortunately, those costs do not include the disposal of nuclear waste. That's left to the government from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bill companies for that. There has been a big mess with that fund. Many users are paying for it even though they do not use nuclear energy. Worst, a lot of the nuclear waste is in temporary storage.
It is very hard to devise a secure, reliable, permanent storage to wait the hundreds of thousands of years for the waste to decay. Of course, nobody wants that storage in their backyard. I have yet to find a backer of nuclear power that would like to live next to the nuclear waste permanent storage or to the nuclear power plant.
Unfortunately, those costs do not include the disposal of nuclear waste. It is very hard to devise a secure, reliable, permanent storage to wait the hundreds of thousands of years for the waste to decay.
Okay, it’s really pretty simple.
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN.
Don’t bury it, don’t encase it, don’t reclaim it, don’t try to store it at all.
Put it on top of a rocket and SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN. Or into interstellar space, whichever is cheaper for a given payload at a given time.
Problem solved. Permanently. There’s no debate, no discussion.
Unfortunately, those costs do not include the disposal of nuclear waste. That's left to the government from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bill companies for that. There has been a big mess with that fund. Many users are paying for it even though they do not use nuclear energy. Worst, a lot of the nuclear waste is in temporary storage.
It is very hard to devise a secure, reliable, permanent storage to wait the hundreds of thousands of years for the waste to decay. Of course, nobody wants that storage in their backyard. I have yet to find a backer of nuclear power that would like to live next to the nuclear waste permanent storage or to the nuclear power plant.
No manufacturing or consumer use includes the environmental costs in their product cost or usage. That is the main problem! Many cleanup issues are left to taxpayers to pay for them in superfund sites:
There are a lot of flat surfaces that do little but absorb or reflect heat. It would make sense for all these areas to be generating electricity. Though I am sure it is not the reason this is not happening on a wider scale I am am uncertain if energy storage solutions can deal with such an uneven power supply at present.
I'm not all that worried over the energy storage. There are many ways to do, at small scales and giant scales. Batteries, thermal pools, artificial lakes and dams. It's just not happening right now because we are fine with the tried and true coal based power plants and gas/oil burning engines. We're not going to make the transition or see it at wider scale until they become too expensive or we run out of oil.
There is an utmost need to get the transition started ASAP, so it's great to have the leader of the most valuable company in the world say something about. It's even better that said company is more valuable and makes as much or more money than the traditional titans of the world that are the oil/energy companies. Then, it is simply great that they are leading by example.
Unknown. Don't you think those things would be factored in to the total cost?
Not when you want to make them look cheap and/or when they're such wild cards. Decommissioning is a huge complicated business and is avoided as long as possible, we still don't have a secure storage facility for ANY of the powerplant nuclear waste (instead the fuel rods are stored scattered all over the country in cooling pools waiting for some "answer"... the Nevada site built but never certified.. etc.) so how could costs be calculated? So like with a lot of messy processes they keep it simple and do "operating costs", maintenance, labor etc. Maybe construction if they didn't get to do that under some special Energy/DoD program...
In some ways the classic externalized costs: final storage won't be paid for by the power company so there's no financial reason the company should budget that in, even if it could...
My neighbour is an engineer for a CSG company. He installed a 130 MWH gas fired power plant right on top of a cluster of CSG wells which provided the gas essentially for free Basically five big generators sitting in a row in a forest. The whole plant took up about five acres, and actual output is 130 MW 24/7. It was amazing to look at, like standing next to five giant locomotives chugging away, but noise level about the same as five trucks. Oh, and it cost $30 million to get it up and running.
I like that Apple is spending resources on developing solar tech, even better that it it a private deal and isn't being subsidised (I think) by governments using borrowed money to be paid for by the next two generations of taxpayers. But I won't delude myself into thinking solar is a rational decision for large scale gridded power production.
I am all in favor of nuclear and wish the regulating agencies would allow modern plants without all of the red tape. Right now it is nearly impossible to build a nuclear plant in the USA and ones that have tried are seriously overbudget. Nuclear could replace coal and most natural gas if we tried.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Okay, it’s really pretty simple.
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN.
Don’t bury it, don’t encase it, don’t reclaim it, don’t try to store it at all.
Put it on top of a rocket and SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN. Or into interstellar space, whichever is cheaper for a given payload at a given time.
Problem solved. Permanently. There’s no debate, no discussion.
We could not afford to do that. We have not launched anywhere near that amount of material before. Maybe with reprocessing we could. Also the moon is a much easier place to send things too then the sun, and you can have all that fun Space 1999 possibilities too.
We have not launched anywhere near that amount of material before.
What’s the total weight? Price per kg is plummeting right now. Just put it on top of a Falcon and recover the rocket every time.
Also the moon is a much easier place to send things too then the sun…
Yeah, but we WANT the Moon, see. We’re going to be drawing lines and claiming land up there in the very near future; why would we want to alienate (womp womp) potential future land? Throw it somewhere it can never come in conflict with human interest.
Let's just hope First Solar can deliver on their promise and have the solar farm up and running and not run away with all the money like GT Advanced did.
Comments
Forgive me, that’s before subsidy, right? It wouldn’t be possible to have a single chart and incorporate the different subsidies for all nations.
I don't know. I'm (perhaps wrongly) assuming this does not account for subsidies).
Also, is $75/mo. about average for an electricity bill? That's incredible.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
Doesn't nuclear still deliver more "bang for the buck" (pardon the expression)?
Once plant retirement and decontamination costs and storage of spent fuel and contaminated parts are all added in?
I tend to doubt it.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
It's all relative. It looked very high to me.
Once plant retirement and decontamination costs and storage of spent fuel and contaminated parts are all added in?
I tend to doubt it.
Unknown. Don't you think those things would be factored in to the total cost?
Clean energy? This is not clean energy at all. You must produce the panels and that is environmentally aggressive.
BTW, how long will take the panels to environmentally pay off all the resources used and pollution generated to produce them?
Clean energy? This is not clean energy at all. You must produce the panels and that is environmentally aggressive.
BTW, how long will take the panels to environmentally pay off all the resources used and pollution generated to produce them?
All power sources have some kind of "environmental impact", don't kid yourself.
Unfortunately, those costs do not include the disposal of nuclear waste. That's left to the government from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bill companies for that. There has been a big mess with that fund. Many users are paying for it even though they do not use nuclear energy. Worst, a lot of the nuclear waste is in temporary storage.
It is very hard to devise a secure, reliable, permanent storage to wait the hundreds of thousands of years for the waste to decay. Of course, nobody wants that storage in their backyard. I have yet to find a backer of nuclear power that would like to live next to the nuclear waste permanent storage or to the nuclear power plant.
Okay, it’s really pretty simple.
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN.
Don’t bury it, don’t encase it, don’t reclaim it, don’t try to store it at all.
Put it on top of a rocket and SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN. Or into interstellar space, whichever is cheaper for a given payload at a given time.
Problem solved. Permanently. There’s no debate, no discussion.
Unfortunately, those costs do not include the disposal of nuclear waste. That's left to the government from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bill companies for that. There has been a big mess with that fund. Many users are paying for it even though they do not use nuclear energy. Worst, a lot of the nuclear waste is in temporary storage.
It is very hard to devise a secure, reliable, permanent storage to wait the hundreds of thousands of years for the waste to decay. Of course, nobody wants that storage in their backyard. I have yet to find a backer of nuclear power that would like to live next to the nuclear waste permanent storage or to the nuclear power plant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_waste_treatment_technologies
No manufacturing or consumer use includes the environmental costs in their product cost or usage. That is the main problem! Many cleanup issues are left to taxpayers to pay for them in superfund sites:
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/about.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_the_United_States
There are a lot of flat surfaces that do little but absorb or reflect heat. It would make sense for all these areas to be generating electricity. Though I am sure it is not the reason this is not happening on a wider scale I am am uncertain if energy storage solutions can deal with such an uneven power supply at present.
I'm not all that worried over the energy storage. There are many ways to do, at small scales and giant scales. Batteries, thermal pools, artificial lakes and dams. It's just not happening right now because we are fine with the tried and true coal based power plants and gas/oil burning engines. We're not going to make the transition or see it at wider scale until they become too expensive or we run out of oil.
There is an utmost need to get the transition started ASAP, so it's great to have the leader of the most valuable company in the world say something about. It's even better that said company is more valuable and makes as much or more money than the traditional titans of the world that are the oil/energy companies. Then, it is simply great that they are leading by example.
Actually, it's a somewhat stupid question.
Gee, a little harsh, there... didn't GTAT trumpet solar tech among its core competencies?
Unknown. Don't you think those things would be factored in to the total cost?
Not when you want to make them look cheap and/or when they're such wild cards. Decommissioning is a huge complicated business and is avoided as long as possible, we still don't have a secure storage facility for ANY of the powerplant nuclear waste (instead the fuel rods are stored scattered all over the country in cooling pools waiting for some "answer"... the Nevada site built but never certified.. etc.) so how could costs be calculated? So like with a lot of messy processes they keep it simple and do "operating costs", maintenance, labor etc. Maybe construction if they didn't get to do that under some special Energy/DoD program...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
In some ways the classic externalized costs: final storage won't be paid for by the power company so there's no financial reason the company should budget that in, even if it could...
I like that Apple is spending resources on developing solar tech, even better that it it a private deal and isn't being subsidised (I think) by governments using borrowed money to be paid for by the next two generations of taxpayers. But I won't delude myself into thinking solar is a rational decision for large scale gridded power production.
Yep.
I am all in favor of nuclear and wish the regulating agencies would allow modern plants without all of the red tape. Right now it is nearly impossible to build a nuclear plant in the USA and ones that have tried are seriously overbudget. Nuclear could replace coal and most natural gas if we tried.
Incredibly high or incredibly low? I live in NYC in a 2-bedroom apartment and my electricity bill averaged $74.93 per month in 2014. Anyone living in a home and/or using electric heat or range would have a much higher bill. I know people spending several hundred $ per month on electricity.
Okay, it’s really pretty simple.
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN.
Don’t bury it, don’t encase it, don’t reclaim it, don’t try to store it at all.
Put it on top of a rocket and SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN. Or into interstellar space, whichever is cheaper for a given payload at a given time.
Problem solved. Permanently. There’s no debate, no discussion.
We could not afford to do that. We have not launched anywhere near that amount of material before. Maybe with reprocessing we could. Also the moon is a much easier place to send things too then the sun, and you can have all that fun Space 1999 possibilities too.
We could not afford to do that.
‘Course we could.
What’s the total weight? Price per kg is plummeting right now. Just put it on top of a Falcon and recover the rocket every time.
Yeah, but we WANT the Moon, see. We’re going to be drawing lines and claiming land up there in the very near future; why would we want to alienate (womp womp) potential future land? Throw it somewhere it can never come in conflict with human interest.
Okay, it’s really pretty simple.
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN.
Don’t bury it, don’t encase it, don’t reclaim it, don’t try to store it at all.
Put it on top of a rocket and SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN. Or into interstellar space, whichever is cheaper for a given payload at a given time.
Problem solved. Permanently. There’s no debate, no discussion.
Seemed like a good idea, until...
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