"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Wes" wrote in message
...
While googling I ran into this chart:
https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/images/LLN...y_Chart300.jpg showing energy
inputs and where
they go. Notice how much waste is in electrical distribution.
Yeah, it sounds like distribution is the problem that's holding up a lot
of
possibilities. Somebody has to solve that (not to make big improvements in
efficiency, necessarily, but just to make it possible to transmit power
over
long distances in the US -- politics and regulation are big impediments)
or
wind and large-scale solar are going nowhere. Not that I ever expect them
to
be a dominant source of power, but they could be significant.
Yes, you got it. Distribution has a lot of waste and a lot of the wind
potential is not
where the loads are. At least wind farms are not a total waste of time
and money.
Here is a picture of the grid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Un...sPowerGrid.jpg
There isn't much capacity where the wind is currently if you look at the
above and then
the you provided earlier.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.r...nds/fig13.html
It looks like the patient is suffering from a degenerative circulatory
disease.
https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/ The section of the site were this came from
looks like it has
some interesting reading material.
I notice that there assumptions for next few decades have coal as an
energy source. I
guess they didn't get the memo. 
Wes
I'm looking forward to seeing if my prediction made 20 years ago comes to
pass. I predicted then that more nuclear fission was inevitable, that it
would eventually dominate our electricity generation, with wind and/or
solar
being mostly of local application in a few areas. My heart sunk when Three
Mile Island put the final nail in fission's coffin for at least a
generation. I hope I live long enough to see something happen.
TMI and that damn movie did a huge amount of damage. Chernobyl, a reactor
that would
never be built in the US or any western country did a fine job of shoving
the corpse back
into the coffin when some of the hysteria wore off.
Yes, but there's another side to the story. A nuclear expert says the movie
may have contributed to making nuclear power safer. Unless I'm mistaken,
Larry currently is reading a book written by this guy:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...-a-guest-post/
I believe in nuclear generation, we have learned so much now that current
technology so
much safer than what was at TMI. I've said before and I'll say it again,
give me decent
rates and you can put it next door.
You can put a nuclear plant near where the loads are. Likely easier than
moving loads to
where the wind is.
Wes
Yup. I see no way around a vast increase in our use of nuclear power, at
least within 30 years or so.
--
Ed Huntress