# Scientists Create Solar Cell From A Brand New High-Effieciency Material



## micropage7 (Mar 31, 2014)

Can you imagine being able to recharge your smartphone or tablet just by lying it out in the sun? Well scientists from the Nanyang Technology University (NTU) have created the next-generation solar cell material, which not only converts light to electricity but also emits light.






The solar cell has been developed from the wonder material Perovskite, which could prove to be the answer in producing a highly efficient, inexpensive solar cells. As well as lighting up when electricity is passed through them, the light can be customized to glow various colours

The discovery came about almost by accident when NTU physicist Sum Tze and postdoctoral researcher Xing Guichuan shined a laser onto the hybrid Perovskite solar cell material. They discovered that when a laser beam was shone onto the Perovskite solar cell, it glowed brightly, which was unusual as normal solar cell materials absorb light but do not generate any.

“What we have discovered is that because it is a high quality material, and very durable under light exposure, it can capture light particles and convert them to electricity, or vice versa,” said Asst Prof Sum, a Singaporean scientist at NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS).

“By tuning the composition of the material, we can make it emit a wide range of colours, which also makes it suitable as a light emitting device, such as flat screen displays.”

*‘A Boon For Green Buildings’*
“What we have now is a solar cell material that can be made semi-translucent. It can be used as tinted glass to replace current windows, yet it is able to generate electricity from sunlight,” said assistant Professor Nripan Mathews from the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

This could radically change and improve so-called green buildings and the scientists are working on larger scale versions of the materials for use in large-scale solar cells.

“Such a versatile yet low-cost material would be a boon for green buildings. Since we are already working on the scaling up of these materials for large-scale solar cells, it is pretty straightforward to modify the procedures to fabricate light emitting devices as well. More significantly, the ability of this material to lase, has implications for on-chip electronic devices that source, detect and control light,” said Dr Matthews.

There is a patent pending on the new material, which cost five times less than the current Silicon-based solar cells

http://news.filehippo.com/2014/03/scientists-create-solar-cell-brand-new-high-effieciency-material/


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## Mussels (Mar 31, 2014)

sounds good, wonder how long it'll take to mass produce


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## Aquinus (Mar 31, 2014)

micropage7 said:


> “What we have discovered is that because it is a high quality material, and very durable under light exposure, it can capture light particles and convert them to electricity, or vice versa,” said Asst Prof Sum, a Singaporean scientist at NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS).



Basically because it's a rarefied material and because it's incredibly durable means that it can convert light to electricity and visa versa? So really, they have no idea how it works, they just found this out on accident. 



Mussels said:


> sounds good, wonder how long it'll take to mass produce



I think we're a little ways from mass production if this is the case.


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## FordGT90Concept (Mar 31, 2014)

Um, "They discovered that when a laser beam was shone onto the Perovskite solar cell, it glowed brightly, which was unusual as normal solar cell materials absorb light but do not generate any."  What makes them think it is producing light and not bending/reflecting the laser back?

They maybe cheaper than traditional solar panels but I suspect they produce substantially less power.


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## Aquinus (Mar 31, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Um, "They discovered that when a laser beam was shone onto the Perovskite solar cell, it glowed brightly, which was unusual as normal solar cell materials absorb light but do not generate any."  What makes them think it is producing light and not bending/reflecting the laser back?
> 
> They maybe cheaper than traditional solar panels but I suspect they produce substantially less power.



We might want to wait for them to figure out how it works before believing any claims.


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## Kaynar (Mar 31, 2014)

Mussels said:


> sounds good, wonder how long it'll take to mass produce


10 years if lucky (judging from past examples)

Not to mention there are many other non-silicon based options which get more and more efficient every year in UK and US labs.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Mar 31, 2014)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite

The long and short of it is that Perovskite is a relatively common mineral formation.  It is found in other minerals, and thus is not commonly observed as a "high quality material" in nature.  I'd hazard the guess that "high quality" was a poor translation from high purity.  

Why haven't others observed this?  The simple answer is that there has been no reason to observe it.  Calcium, Titanium, and Oxygen don't have obvious semi-conductive or photo-reactive properties in their elemental forms.  As such, there is no reason to believe a common Calcium-Titanium Oxide would have properties like this, especially considering the common occurrance of the oxide.  The behavior isn't common in nature because this mineral does not occur naturally in the purity that was being tested.  It isn't for lack of a reason that we've researched Silicon compounds to death, but most common oxides are a relative unknown unless they have obviously odd properties. 


Check out this article for a more in-depth look at the news, and a better definition of what is going on:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113107717/solar-cells-double-as-lasers-perovskite-033014/

This material has been around for some time, being tested as a semiconductor, but the luminescence is relatively new.


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## Steevo (Mar 31, 2014)

The amount of energy in photons available to any atomic material to have electrons stripped off is still the biggest hurdle, solar works, but its never going to be a cure all, nuclear with a mixture of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro is the only long term solution. 

http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/calculation-of-solar-insolation

At the 30-47 degree lat that many people live at and the suns declination during the winter and for the maximum quantum efficiency, conversion, storage and environmental cost its a fools errand to pursue at the local level. You can argue its been done and how well it works, but you are forgetting all the subsidies thrown at it, the true man hour cost, and impact of manufacturing due to the "if I can't see it it doesn't exist" thought process. 

https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=30242

As of yet the solar direct pope dream has been limited, and said "researchers" saying its going to get better are known to have a confirmation bias, and offer no alternatives or actual hard data on how its is going to get better.


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## FordGT90Concept (Mar 31, 2014)

Steevo said:


> The amount of energy in photons available to any atomic material to have electrons stripped off is still the biggest hurdle, solar works, but its never going to be a cure all, nuclear with a mixture of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro is the only long term solution.


But it isn't.  Nuclear power plants take a month to turn on/off.  They can't respond to the hourly variations in wind, daily variations in solar, nor weekly variances in hydro.  Geothermal...look at what fracking does (artificial earthquakes) and it is effectively the same damn thing.

Point being, we have to build enough nuclear power plants to power the entire grid to produce steady, reliable power.  When you do that, the latter becomes a waste of money because it only exists for politicians to point at and declare "I'm green!"  The only reasonable supplement to nuclear right now (that can actually reduce the number required to power the grid) is methane/natural gas and, seriously, you're better off having too much nuclear power than resorting to _that_.  Use in cars, trains, etc. that can't weigh several thousand tons.


Other than that, good post.


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## Steevo (Mar 31, 2014)

They can help supply the peak demand for areas like Phoenix, and other hot sunny places without adding more strain to the grid. Plus roofs in those areas rarely need maintained for weather reasons, and a high quality panel array could offset the damage caused to normal roofing material by blocking the sun and providing that extra energy benefit.

Geothermal in the areas that wouldn't require the insane depths or run lengths for the steam, look at iceland. 

Hydro creates power and helps hold water for municipal/agricultural use. Wind works reliably in a few key areas in the US. Like Judith Gap in Montana, its always windy there......


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## lilhasselhoffer (Mar 31, 2014)

Steevo said:


> They can help supply the peak demand for areas like Phoenix, and other hot sunny places without adding more strain to the grid. Plus roofs in those areas rarely need maintained for weather reasons, and a high quality panel array could offset the damage caused to normal roofing material by blocking the sun and providing that extra energy benefit.
> 
> Geothermal in the areas that wouldn't require the insane depths or run lengths for the steam, look at iceland.
> 
> Hydro creates power and helps hold water for municipal/agricultural use. Wind works reliably in a few key areas in the US. Like Judith Gap in Montana, its always windy there......



I'm not sure where to start poking here, so let's run this like every single alternative energy debate goes.

Solar:
I can be put up pretty much anywhere, and my operational carbon footprint is zero.  
On the other hand, my carbon footprint for creation is huge, I am only functional for part of the day, I am extremely weather dependent, and there's a very limited time I am functional.

Wind:
I am relatively abundant, easy to harness, and can run all day long.
On the other hand, I require a rather substantial infrastructure to support any reasonable power generation, I cost a boat-load of money in conductive metals, I only function where there is wind, and I need the right amount of wind.

Hydroelectric:
I produce lots of energy, have virtually no carbon footprint due to my extended running time, and I can provide very precise power output.  
On the other hand I require massive structures be put in place (not to mention the effects of damming on local wildlife), I represent a huge initial investment, and I can only exist where the precise conditions occur.

Geothermal:
I'm the clean burning cousin of fossil fuels.  Rather than combustion, I use the Earth's heat to create high pressure vapor.
On the other hand I've been linked to seismic events, not every location is suitable for me, and disasters are relatively common because boiling hot water tends to erode minerals (leaving me unpredictable and volatile).

Nuclear:
Hello, I'm the cleanest, cheapest, and most efficient energy source on the planet.  I can be put anywhere near a body of water, or even built into a battery that will provide power for 30 years (check this plan out, it's perfect for small towns in areas where running power lines would be prohibitively expensive).
On the other hand, my history is checkered.  Beyond the clubs people always use to bash me, I've been based almost exclusively on Plutonium enrichment in the past.  Thorium process are my future, but the radioactive waste of my past is holding me back from being the thing that frees humanity from fossil fuels.



I may be terribly biased, but nuclear power is the future.  Not the gigantic power plants of the 70s.  Not the futuristic power plants which are only now breaking energy equivalency.  Nuclear power utilizing Thorium could provide humanity enough power to be independent of fossil fuels.  Solar, geothermal, hydro-electric, and wind don't have this possibility.

It feels good to say solar power is the future.  People get to take pride in saying that they are making a difference, and that makes them feel good while doing nothing positive.  The real difference isn't one inactive douche feeling superior, it's all us flawed humans getting together and agreeing to better ourselves by taking steps forward.  We have to agree to taking the risks associated with newer and dangerous technologies, and use these technologies to make things better (rather than killing one another).  Please excuse the bright-eyed optimism, but we have the potential for so much more.  People need to be enlightened to it if we aren't the next evolutionary dodo.


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## FordGT90Concept (Mar 31, 2014)

Steevo said:


> They can help supply the peak demand for areas like Phoenix, and other hot sunny places without adding more strain to the grid. Plus roofs in those areas rarely need maintained for weather reasons, and a high quality panel array could offset the damage caused to normal roofing material by blocking the sun and providing that extra energy benefit.


I think you missed my point.  If you use 1 GWH during peak hours and you're producing 200 MWH in solar during peek hours meaning you technically only need 800 MWH from nuclear, what about the next day when it is cloudy and you're only getting 50 MWH?  Brown outs?  A good grid is going to have nuclear reactors capable of producing 1 GWH all of the time because that is what is needed.  Whether the sun shines or not is completely irrelevant.  Nuclear power plants can't turn on and off fast enough to compensate for the difference nor should they.  200 MWH is chump change for a serious reactor.

My entire point is that "green" for power grid is stupid.  It's 8000 year old technology for 8000 year old problems.  When you leave the grid, a 20th century technology, then yeah, you need to revert to 8000 year old technology.  Applying old technology to modern problems just creates a lot of waste.



Steevo said:


> Geothermal in the areas that wouldn't require the insane depths or run lengths for the steam, look at iceland.


Iceland is a tiny country sitting a geographical hotspot that only really exists in one other place (Yellowstone).  It's not plausible virtually anywhere else, and seriously, do you want to find out what happens when you make a dormant caldera volcano angry?  When you cool it, it stands to reason that it will hold back more pressure which means a bigger bang when it does blow.



Steevo said:


> Hydro creates power and helps hold water for municipal/agricultural use.


Let's not forget how it destroys the ecosystem.  USA is destroying more dams than it builds--which is a good thing.



Steevo said:


> Wind works reliably in a few key areas in the US. Like Judith Gap in Montana, its always windy there......


Not always.  And lets not forget how little power wind actually produces.  It also changes the local climate by mixing air that wouldn't otherwise be mixed.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> Hello, I'm the cleanest, cheapest, and most efficient energy source on the planet.  I can be put anywhere near a body of water, or even built into a battery that will provide power for 30 years (check this plan out, it's perfect for small towns in areas where running power lines would be prohibitively expensive).
> On the other hand, my history is checkered.  Beyond the clubs people always use to bash me, I've been based almost exclusively on Plutonium enrichment in the past.  Thorium process are my future, but the radioactive waste of my past is holding me back from being the thing that frees humanity from fossil fuels.


1) They can be built in deserts.  Phoenix, AZ, has a 1 GW nuclear power plant and they keep expanding it.  It just needs a really big radiator (expensive).
2) There's only been about 40 deaths attributed (acute radiation syndrome) to nuclear power and all of them were a result of Chernobyl.  More will die falling from/getting electrocuted by wind turbines.
3) Integral fast reactors can run on uranium or thorium.  They can also reprocess uranium excreted as waste from boiling/pressurized water reactors.  That's why all the nuclear power plants in the USA have a stockpile of the stuff.  It is valuable and they don't want to hand it off to someone else when the possibility exists that they'll use it in the future.


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## Steevo (Mar 31, 2014)

Peak demand for a hot sunny day VS peak demand for a cooler cloudy day for high A/C use? We are talking about supplement, not replacement. 

I live in Billings, and Yellowstone is in my area, there are hot spots all over here that could be easily tapped. Instead my house gets dirty from all the coal when the wind blows the wrong direction.

Wind, it mixes no noticeable air, http://dnrc.mt.gov/Trust/Wind/JudithGap.asp.

They work, and I have never not seen them producing.

Hydro, once complete its a eco friendly producer. Destroying ecosystems...I have heard the same thing about building berms to prevent the silt from washing down the river systems and out of fields and how the river needs the silt to replenish the cut aways, and how floods are beneficial when the silt piles up and it provides nourishment for the ground and plants its biased and only a partial tuth, there are millions of acres of unusable ground that is not fragile or unique, using it to hold water is not a sin, I promise. 

Um, electricity generation by solar isn't 8000 years old, its much more modern, and my comments are about much more than the power solar provides, more about the peak 1Kw per meter sq per day in a place like Phoenix, it destroys conventional roofing and causes a lot of heat soak, if we put a layer of solar above the conventional roof it shades it, keeps it cooler, which reduces heat soak and the need for energy expenditure to cool, plus provides power when the sun is shining causing heat to build up, so a solar array of decent size will help.


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## Aquinus (Apr 1, 2014)

Well, for New Hampshire, it makes sense to have a nuclear reactor as severe natural disasters on the coast are relatively uncommon and putting it on the ocean ensures that it always has a source of water, which is very important for a pressurized water reactor. The danger with damming in NH is that when snow melts come spring (like it is now,) a lot of water comes down from the mountains and rivers already can overflow like crazy. Forget damming it, nature can cause it's own havoc where ice will dam a river itself.

Remember tropical storm Irene from a few years ago? This is why damming is certain regions is dangerous. Imagine compounding a problem like this.





I should add that this was something like 13 feet above flood stage iirc.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

You already have water there. Thats great.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, and like the other half of the continental US need dams and don't care about NH flooding. Considering most of the food crop and a good portion of cattle are grown/raised in those states too..........

It makes sense to have nuclear reactors anywhere, but close to municipal areas the danger increases, so if we wire the power in from a safe enough distance to make the people feel good, and placate the idiots while actually doing something good and more reasonable than just throwing up theses stupidly subsidized setups we will all benefit.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Apr 1, 2014)

Steevo said:


> You already have water there. Thats great.
> 
> North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, and like the other half of the continental US need dams and don't care about NH flooding. Considering most of the food crop and a good portion of cattle are grown/raised in those states too..........
> 
> It makes sense to have nuclear reactors anywhere, but close to municipal areas the danger increases, so if we wire the power in from a safe enough distance to make the people feel good, and placate the idiots while actually doing something good and more reasonable than just throwing up theses stupidly subsidized setups we will all benefit.




I'm going to state this first, so it is clear.  I support nuclear reactor development as the future of our power system.  By my consideration, it is by far the safest and best power option we have.

This being said, you are fantastically unaware of geography, or intentionally spreading half truths.  Allow me to enlighten you.

North Dakota, South Dakota, and really the entire Midwest is the target of snow during the winter season.  This snow builds up for months, and then when the weather warms it melts quickly.  In an ideal world, this melting only swells rivers into their _yearly_ flood plains.  If the melt is too fast you get severe flooding.  

The more southern section of the Midwest gets plenty of seasonal wind.  They call these seasonal winds tornadoes.  Assuming we could harness one or two F4s a year, wind energy would be a nearly complete energy source for the United States.  Realistically, that doesn't happen.  Wind farms that spend 10 months of the year with little appreciable wind cannot pay themselves off, not to mention the tendency for wind reclamation to have a very limited band of speeds in which it can actually harvest power.

Moving farther south, you've got damming operations.  Kentucky, Nevada, and other southern states have decided that creating a dam, flooding the surrounding area, and screwing up the local flora and fauna is acceptable in the pursuit of power.  Hate to break it to you, but the environmental impact here always far outstrips the cost of cheap power here.  You're making a new lake, displacing both animals and people, and cutting the water flow on the opposite side of the dam in order to regulate power creation.  That kind of hubris kills species, screws with ecosystems, and is not a sustainable practice.


Compare all of this to nuclear reactors.  They need material during construction, akin to that of a dam (primarily concrete shielding).  They can be built anywhere, for approximately the same cost given the same environment (the big heatsink does make a "dry" reactor possible, but it gets really expensive).  By the nature of their construction they weather natural disaster better than any other power source.  They can use pre-existing and easy to find materials, and run for the next several thousand years.  Why aren't we embracing nuclear energy?  The simple answer is people are stupid.  We see three disasters, the one of which that actually had an immediate death toll was because of crap construction, and think nuclear energy isn't safe.  We parlay that lack of safety, and amplify the perception because the old nuclear grid was tooled up to make Plutonium for bombs.  Whenever alternative nuclear options arise we don't even look into them, because old prejudices prevent the average person from seeing the potential.  All of this is predicated on old beliefs that radioactive stuff glows green in the dark, and we aren't exposed to radiation constantly.  Hopefully there is a future in which our public schools rectify this foolishness, but I don't see it coming.



Back to the point of the story; I see these solar panels as a component of green design.  Utilize the panels as an outside covering to a building, and pulling the electricity into the core of the building.  This power runs a dynamic heat exchange at the core of the building, specifically utilizing fans to pump air around the system as needed.  Cool air is forced upward in the summer, while in winter time hot air can be generated and moved about the building freely.  "Free" air conditioning would mean most office buildings would have their single largest energy cost completely eliminated.

Actually producing useable power is another thing entirely.  Unless you're in a prime position to get huge amounts of light the cost to value ratio would be largely skewed away from being a reasonable purchase.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

Thanks for the enlightenment. I will discuss this with the USDA when I meet with them again this year. 

Just to be sure, the fact that I do work with precision agriculture in the northern plains and work with customers on a daily basis who are very well aware of the effects of the snow, wind, rain and storing water in vast quantity, are fully aware of the ecosystem displaced (sagebrush, god we need more of that shit....right up there with coyotes and prairie dogs) including losses to their farm ground for the storage, and ....believe it or not, they are OK with it. 



I am unaware of where you live or what you do, but I live here, I consult with the USDA and other agencies a few times a year to advise them as to the hurdles I see holding and keeping production and profitability back. When I lived in Colorado water was always an issue, it is here to, sometimes for the polar opposite reason. 


How about the closed basins where the land is so alkyd that no plants grow and nothing lives? We could hold millions of acre feet of water there with no leaching, and the power generated from the distribution of that water for ag and industrial use and possibly municipal use would be a tremendous benefit.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

Steevo said:


> North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, and like the other half of the continental US need dams and don't care about NH flooding. Considering most of the food crop and a good portion of cattle are grown/raised in those states too..........


A dam is what caused massive flooding on the Missouri river a few years back because the idiots in the Army Corps thought it was more important to protect the barge business than billions of dollars worth of land along the river---including a nuclear power plant that was completely surrounded by water for a time:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/28/news/economy/nebraska_nuclear_plant/

The only reason why that didn't end in disaster is because they had time to prepare.

The smarter thing to do is not build in flood plains, ever.  Nature will flood it, dam or not.  The dams give a false sense of security.



Steevo said:


> It makes sense to have nuclear reactors anywhere, but close to municipal areas the danger increases, so if we wire the power in from a safe enough distance to make the people feel good, and placate the idiots while actually doing something good and more reasonable than just throwing up theses stupidly subsidized setups we will all benefit.


Look at what is already close to municipal areas: coal power plants.  They're hundreds of times more dangerous than nuclear, they're making people sick, they're dirtying the water, and they involve moving hundreds of tons of coal across the country to keep running (burn diesel much?).  If you tore all the coal power plants down and built a nuclear plant where they stand, all of these problems would go away rapidly.

The only one benefiting from subsidies are the power companies themselves.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Apr 1, 2014)

Steevo said:


> Thanks for the enlightenment. I will discuss this with the USDA when I meet with them again this year.
> 
> Just to be sure, the fact that I do work with precision agriculture in the northern plains and work with customers on a daily basis who are very well aware of the effects of the snow, wind, rain and storing water in vast quantity, are fully aware of the ecosystem displaced (sagebrush, god we need more of that shit....right up there with coyotes and prairie dogs) including losses to their farm ground for the storage, and ....believe it or not, they are OK with it.
> 
> ...




... not sure exactly how to respond to something so bizarre.

You've cited a word, and I'm not sure you know what it means.  Alkyd is a form of polymer:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/15764/alkyd-resin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkyd

I'm going to work under the auspices of you meaning arid, or devoid of water.  It seems the most reasonable conclusion.


This said, what are you banging on about?  To have hydro-electric power options you need a dam.  To make a dam you need a river.  To have a river nearby you've got to have some source of water.  If you've got water, but no rainfall you're trying to grow crops in an environment which requires modification in order to farm.  Complaining that irrigation is needed, when the land is not good for farming, is hubris.

I'm sure you can cite one local river where you want to build a dam.  That seems to be the crux of your argument, which may or may not be viable.  What about the people living 100 miles from the river?  What about 300 miles?  How do you propose they get power and water?  I'd guess that isn't your priority, because it isn't your direct concern.  Now what about the people down stream from your dam?  How do they get water, now that their supply is under your control. 

It may be a bit to ask, but can you consider something more than how this influences your local area?  Dams don't influence one location, they influence everything locally and every continuing step in the water system.


My profile says I live on the East Coast, which you seem to think precludes me from understanding the Midwest.  You've made a foolish assumption.  I spent most of my life in the Midwest.  You say you're bringing the idea up with the USDA, presumably in jest.  Perhaps you should take a look at the USDA projections on arable land.  It's shrinking, due in no small part to water availability.  Rather than attacking the problem head on, you propose we move it.  If the land isn't arable, simply dam up the next fork in the river and wait for silt and water to make it viable.  Unfortunately, this is only kicking the problem to someone else.  It doesn't provide us with more arable land, it doesn't provide sustainable power, and it doesn't improve the quality of life for everyone.

I guess my simple answer to your challenge is that you've proposed an environmental Ponzi scheme.  Eventually we will run out of resources.  The cynic is betting on this happening after their death.  The optimist hopes the next generation will find a solution.  The scientist and humanist begin working toward a permanent solution.  That solution is sustainable mining, agriculture, and power generation. 

No fossil fuel alternative offers sustainable cheap power in the way that nuclear does.  You cannot contest that 100% clean power generation would somehow be impossible with nuclear energy.  You cannot contest that millions of gallons of water dedicated behind a dam is not partially motivated by the desire for huge amounts of water for crops.  We only seem to differ in that you seem  to want dams for their water bearing properties, and seek to justify this with power generation.  I don't share your goals, because they seem to be aligned with personal interests rather than the overall good of humanity.  Perhaps you need access to more water where you are, that does not make creating a dam the best solution, only the one that serves your short term goals.



Edit:
Wow, this discussion got side tracked.  I'm done with it, and allow anyone else the last word.  New solar generation materials are interesting, but it seems like this is touching on the far deeper issue of our future.


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## MT Alex (Apr 1, 2014)

The term he was probably referring to is alkali, and happens here in the West because of drought or bad farming practices, not what you were alluding to.

Many of you don't seem to have an inkling of how watershed management through dams works here in the West, where we have real mountains, snowpacks and run offs.  Try informing yourselves on the Columbia River Basin, Hungry Horse Dam or even Fort Peck Reservoir - you will find that most of your arguments don't hold water (yuk yuk) when examining the actual practice of large water ecosystems.  Hell, New Hampshire would damn near fit in my back yard.


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## Aquinus (Apr 1, 2014)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> I'm sure you can cite one local river where you want to build a dam. That seems to be the crux of your argument, which may or may not be viable. What about the people living 100 miles from the river? What about 300 miles? How do you propose they get power and water? I'd guess that isn't your priority, because it isn't your direct concern. Now what about the people down stream from your dam? How do they get water, now that their supply is under your control.



It's even more basic than that. You plan to dam a river? How many properties do you need to buy off of people to ensure that the government owns all the land that going to turn into a reservoir?  I'm less worried about power transmission as a significantly amount of infrastructure already exists. Also for the State of NH, we have an energy surplus, in other words, we use less power than we're producing so hydro power alone wouldn't help because we already already set.

For example, there is date from 5 years ago with information about this. It's interesting because Seabrook Station (NH's nuke plant,) is the highest producing of all of them, where the next two are hybrid natural gas/low-sulfur diesel fuel. My personal favorite is Merrimack station (because it serves me up,) but also because it's a relatively clean coal plant. Now people you start jumping on me for putting coal and clean in the same sentence, Merrimack station had a scrubber installed several years ago (at the cost of millions of dollars.) So yes, it's not as clean as say hydro or nuclear, but it's also pretty close to both Concord and Manchester and the closer you can put a power station to those that you're serving the less you have to deal with transmission costs. So despite the environmental factors (which are mitigated by the scrubber,) coal isn't a completely bad option, at least for us. Just saying. I think energy diversity is probably more important from a generation and cost perspective. So if the cost of natural gas goes up, it's not like my power bill is going to double. Same with diesel or coal.





Some reading

Here is also a little blurb about Merrimack Station.


> Merrimack Station is PSNH’s largest power plant, operating to meet customers’ electricity needs. Merrimack Station produces enough energy to supply 190,000 New Hampshire households, and employs about 100 people.
> 
> Guided by state and federal clean power laws, PSNH and its customers have invested in environmental initiatives to reduce emissions at Merrimack Station. The plant today meets or exceeds all environmental regulations; and, with the completion of the Clean Air Project, it is one of the cleanest coal-fired power plants in the nation.


PSNH site



MT Alex said:


> Hell, New Hampshire would damn near fit in my back yard.


That still doesn't make it suitable for expanding hydro though. 
Not that we actually need it though. I seriously think it would cause more problems than it would solve. It's more about impacting people above the dam and below the dam. It really would only exacerbate flooding in the area I think.

The same argument can be made for opposing Northern Pass (a planned high voltage DC power line from Canada with hydro power for Massachusetts,) where NH doesn't need the power but we'll have to stare at these power-lines that would basically cut our state in half, all just to give our (rather densely populated) neighbor electricity. It's like wind power. People don't want to stare at turbines and even more so because there isn't a huge demand for more electricity.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html

2012
Hydro-electric: $11.34 million/KwH
Nuclear: $25.48 millon/KwH
Fossil: $31.89 million/KwH
Gas Turbine: $35.67 million/KwH

Nuclear is the cheapest excepting hydro but hydro options have already been reasonably exploited.


Nuclear also is cheaper to build than a coal plant with scrubbers:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/electricity_generation.cfm
Conventional Coal: $100.1 million/MwH
Advanced Nuclear: $108.4 million/MwH
Advanced Coal: $123.0 million/MwH
Advanced Coal with CSS: $135.5 million/MwH

It's not even much more expensive than wind which is $86.6 million/MwH.  Look at how ridiculous solar is at $144.3 million/MwH and $261.5 million/MwH.

When you look at the hard facts, nuclear has a lot going for it:
1) fuel is cheap
2) environmental impact is low/almost non-existant
3) they can produce a ton of power
4) very little to no carbon footprint


Is that 280 MwH from hydroelectric worth the environmental costs?  If they need a dam for flood control then yeah, might as well exploit it for power too.  If the dam's primary function is power generation, I'd argue the ecosystem would be better without it.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

MT Alex said:


> The term he was probably referring to is alkali, and happens here in the West because of drought or bad farming practices, not what you were alluding to.
> 
> Many of you don't seem to have an inkling of how watershed management through dams works here in the West, where we have real mountains, snowpacks and run offs.  Try informing yourselves on the Columbia River Basin, Hungry Horse Dam or even Fort Peck Reservoir - you will find that most of your arguments don't hold water (yuk yuk) when examining the actual practice of large water ecosystems.  Hell, New Hampshire would damn near fit in my back yard.





It is, Alkali, auto spelling correct to the rescue!! 




lilhasselhoffer said:


> This said, what are you banging on about?  To have hydro-electric power options you need a dam.  To make a dam you need a river.  To have a river nearby you've got to have some source of water.  If you've got water, but no rainfall you're trying to grow crops in an environment which requires modification in order to farm.  Complaining that irrigation is needed, when the land is not good for farming, is hubris.
> 
> I'm sure you can cite one local river where you want to build a dam.  That seems to be the crux of your argument, which may or may not be viable.  What about the people living 100 miles from the river?  What about 300 miles?  How do you propose they get power and water?  I'd guess that isn't your priority, because it isn't your direct concern.  Now what about the people down stream from your dam?  How do they get water, now that their supply is under your control.
> 
> ...



The whole basin north of billings is a wasteland, 46.008411, -108.472126 The alkalinity of the soil makes the only viable growth sagebrush, and it won't even grow in many places. 

The alkalinity is caused by mineral salt condensation from trapped water and thousands of years of spring runoff combined with rock decomposition from the temperature changes, I live along Alkali Creek, and my water is so hard from minerals I have to use acidic cleaners. Its not caused by farming though, we are actually performing EC mapping now and trying to get aerial drones with the ability to fly unmanned for agricultural research (UX5) in order to help map water movement and complete management. We use drain tiling with sub inch accurate GPS mapping to land level and control the flow of water, and pumps to help remove subsurface water and help drain the mineral rich water away and reduce the load in the soil. 

http://www.theus50.com/area.php

I drive the length and width of NH every day when visiting customers, yet still never leave the corner of Montana. 

I think we are all saying the same thing here though.


1) Increase nuclear power generation. 
2) Reduce other forms of energy production. 
3) Solar by itself is a pipe dream.
4) Most "renewables" are a unstable form of power, and thus the infrastructure must be in place as if they are not always going to be available. 


Where we differ is in the ideology that some short sighted green-peace beatnik dirty hippies have, and how we can make them happy as well as provide realistic benefits to certain areas where they seem to thrive. People will demand some ideological fallacy such as solar due to them being inadequately informed and having deep seated while untrue ideas about it. 


I am saying hydro as it serves a purpose for holding water for people in direct use form (out of the tap), indirect use irrigation, and then continues on down the river, the only change being made is the initial fill, and the controlled release. What do you think happens in these arid climates when there is no rainfall for 3 months of the year and most of our water comes in the form of snowpack? We should all just move back to NH and destroy more farm/grazing land there right?

We do what we need to with a reasonable ecological outlook to make sure we provide a sustainable system.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, etc. will eventually have to have their population substantially reduced because the climate can't sustain the pattern of growth, dam or not.  In less than a few hundred years, we have wiped out millions of years worth of naturally accumulated water.  There's no fixing that.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, etc. will eventually have to have their population substantially reduced because the climate can't sustain the pattern of growth, dam or not.  In less than a few hundred years, we have wiped out millions of years worth of naturally accumulated water.  There's no fixing that.




I agree, there has been some serious  damage to the ecosystem in those areas due to the high population centers, water management will help by recycling it, remove waste and clean it, reuse it again and again, the irrigation of lawns and other areas is a waste, we get nothing from it other than a slightly prettier view. However the water issues can be solved, it just that water needs to start costing as much as oil so we build pipelines, or use offshore nuclear plants to help provide the drinking water and secondary cooling to plants. 

The solutions are hampered by idiots with fears of the unknown, such as nuclear incidents with reactors built before they were born where safety became lax and the potential for issues was underestimated.  AKA The McD issue, buy a cheeseburger for a dollar or a salad for 5. People equate everything to cost, and pay no attention to the real cost. 

The water issues in the west can be solved, but it is going to take some major shortages to get people to pay attention and finally move, they remind me of cattle at the feeder, why move when what you want is right there......


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

You may be right that the need for water might spur the adaptation of nuclear energy.  Nuclear reactors can purify water in the same way that they do on nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_desalination#Cogeneration

Nimitz-class carriers desalinate 400,000 US gallons per day using its two A4W 550 MWt (220 MWe) reactors.  A 1 GWe reactor, therefore, should be expected to produce in excess of 1 million gallons per day of potable water.  That may sound like a lot but actually, it's only enough to satisfy about 10,000 people.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

With advancements in water recycling it could easily meet the needs of many more. 

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/...-drought-water-use-varies-widely-around-state


I love the top post there, about how horrible ag is using 80% of their water, what the fuck do they expect to eat when ag is gone? Dirt? Fucking retards like that are the issue.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

Treating waste water is very expensive.  That's why they generally only do it in places (like aircraft carriers and submarines) where the alternative sucks (the equivalent of bottled water).


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 1, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html
> When you look at the hard facts, nuclear has a lot going for it:
> 1) fuel is cheap
> *2) environmental impact is low/almost non-existant*
> ...



Oh yeah, April Fools.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

No, not a joke.  They monitored the wildlife around the Chernobyl NPP and there were no notable abnormalities.  There were also people that didn't evacuate in Ukraine that have also not had any notable consequences from the radiation.  There's really only three environmental impacts of note:
1) The facility itself.  It's massive but so are coal power plants.  It also requires a lot of water.
2) The uranium mines.  They're usually open pit mines so kind of an eye sore but a lot of these mines are turned into a nature preserve after they have been fully exploited.  It's not all bad.
3) Meltdown.  If there's an explosion and it is not contained, the immediate area can be subjected to higher-than-normal levels of radiation.  Unless you're standing right next to the plant when it explodes, it isn't likely to be lethal.

Remember, Chernobyl NPP 3 exploded.  I believe it was #4 that kept operating for decades afterwards.  #1 and #2 operated for about a decade.  The danger of nuclear power is *vastly overstated* and often sponsored by fossil fuel energy companies because they understand, very well, that nuclear can kill their business if they don't (and they did) launch a marketing campaign against nuclear power.  It is really no different than the tobacco companies saying their products aren't addictive nor cause cancer.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

There is a documentary on netflix about it, and there are people still living close to the reactor. Most of the deaths associated with Chernobyl (I am fascinated with it) were the workers in the plant, and the human robots who were put in place to clean off the "hot" nuclear items on the roof and to look inside to see what happened. 
Hell, you can now climb through the reactor vessel safely, its the actual elephants foot that is radioactive, not the rest of the building. And yes, the other reactors continued to produce electricity for years after, and did so safely. 

There is more radioactive material in some beach sands that people bury themselves in, 10X the amount, than is present at Chernobyl. 

The LWR design was used over the breeder reactor as "it can't be used to make weapons grade nuclear material" however the threat of contamination and waste is a much bigger threat, considering a breeder reactor can be fueled once, and then refined on site for thousands of years, and the waste coming out can be used in medical and other ways we need it.

The issues at Fukushima wouldn't be issues if it were a breeder reactor, the reactor would have shut down and even without power would slowly cool by itself. 

*Pandora's Promise*


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

Let's not forget that the reason why what happened at Fukashima Daiachi happened because they lowered the elevation of the power plant by I think it was 5 meters.  They didn't want to put lift pumps in.  This is why the Daiachi plant flooded with the tsunami where other nuclear plants along the same coast did not.  In short, Chernobyl NPP exploded because of human stupidity.  Daichi melted down because of human stupidity.  Computers have advanced enough these days that humans rarely have to be involved at all (e.g. like the A1B reactors going into the Gearld R. Ford class aircraft carriers).


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 1, 2014)

Produces tons of radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with other than bury. Yeah that's not going to come back and bite us in the ass.  It'll be fine.

If you don't get that as a problem, then you don't get much.  Long winded answers don't mean anything.


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## ste2425 (Apr 1, 2014)

As long as it gets me one of these.





Joking aside, threads been an interesting read.


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## FordGT90Concept (Apr 1, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> Produces tons of radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with other than bury. Yeah that's not going to come back and bite us in the ass.  It'll be fine.
> 
> If you don't get that as a problem, then you don't get much.  Long winded answers don't mean anything.


Breeder reactors process uranium (or thorium) over and over until it eventually turns into plutonium.  Plutonium can be use to power satellites.  As Steevo said, the reason why breeder reactors aren't built all over the place is because you can take that same material to make nuclear weapons.  No one trusts anyone else with that technology.

Even so, if you took all the nuclear waste on the planet generated in the past 50 years and put it in one place, it would barely fill a football field.  It really isn't much.


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 1, 2014)

I'll just leave you with your delusions.


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## Steevo (Apr 1, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> I'll just leave you with your delusions.


Better than being left with a smog filled atmosphere and polluted land from mining for silicon, platinum, palladium, rhodium, and other precious metals required for the fossil fuels to burn without causing everyone in a 100 mile radius to get black lung, not to mention he wastewater and dangers of mining coal.

Or the toxic leach fields from lithium, http://www.greenprospectsasia.com/content/lithium-extraction-environmental-resource-curse-tibet





Yummy!!!

Better on the surface in another country where you can't see it and act innocent........amiright?

If you have nothing to contribute to the thread, why not go away?




FordGT90Concept said:


> Breeder reactors process uranium (or thorium) over and over until it eventually turns into plutonium.  Plutonium can be use to power satellites.  As Steevo said, the reason why breeder reactors aren't built all over the place is because you can take that same material to make nuclear weapons.  No one trusts anyone else with that technology.
> 
> Even so, if you took all the nuclear waste on the planet generated in the past 50 years and put it in one place, it would barely fill a football field.  It really isn't much.




Most of it can be reprocessed for use in breeder reactor stock, and if we really wanted diluted with common clay to the extent its no more radioactive than slightly above background, or close to a high altitude flight.


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 1, 2014)

I will go where I want.  Even to talk to people who think they know everything that can possibly every known about something.

Just maybe people will show a bit of curiosity of things outside their preconceived notions.

Evidently a waste of my time, but there you are.


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## Steevo (Apr 2, 2014)

I promise not to be offended if you aren't, but one line posts with no content is the McDonalds of forums. And no fries with that, I am getting ripped again.

Also....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining

3.3g per cubic meter of sea water.......so better not swim in the ocean..... it already polluted by nature with uranium. And all that uranium in the ground.......and the earth is still here due the the radioactive decay in the core keeping the metals hot and molten providing the magnetosphere, which plays hell with my GPS signals when it twists and warps.....damn nuclear!!! killing all of us!!!


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## lilhasselhoffer (Apr 2, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> I will go where I want.  Even to talk to people who think they know everything that can possibly every known about something.
> 
> Just maybe people will show a bit of curiosity of things outside their preconceived notions.
> 
> Evidently a waste of my time, but there you are.



I've seen the error of poking and prodding about hydro electric, and we seem to have debated for no reason (likely due to my inability to see the other side of the conversation).  On that point, I believe there is a consensus.  There is use for a dam for water retention and management, and if a dam is put in place it should capitalize on hydro electric power.     

I'm breaking my earlier promise, because this kind of stupidity cannot stand.  We do not produce "tons" of radioactive waste every year at nuclear power plants.  Anyone who says so either doesn't understand the scale of a nuclear plant, or has drank the green peace koolaid.

1) The most naturally radioactive place on the surface of the earth is a beach in Brazil.  Note, that's more than 10 times the background exposure, in a place that's never had a nuclear disaster.  The reactor at Chernobyl has a smaller radiation exposure than that.
2) Nuclear meltdowns are exactly that, a meltdown.  The explosions you see are actually hydrogen oxygen explosions, generated by vaporized water.  There has never been a fission explosion  at a nuclear plant, and there can physically never be one.
3) Chernobyl is a joke.  It's death toll has been zero since the day of the explosion, and immediate cleanup.  These people either died of a concussive blast, or severe exposure picking up the matter ejected from the reactor.  Cancer levels have been reported as slightly higher in that area, but correlation and causation haven't linked this rate directly to the reactor.
4) If you want to moan about radiation exposure I hope you never fly on a plane.  You're exposed to 30 times background during some flights, which is several orders of magnitude more than if you lived outside the protective fencing of a nuclear power plant.
5) Carbon emissions, on a yearly basis, just from fossil fuel reactors output more greenhouse gas tons than all of the nuclear material we need to dispose of (from reactors).  Kinda puts the storage question into a different light, no?
6) Green Peace is an organization of idiots.  They were hijacked by anti-capitalists years ago, and lost what they are founded upon.  The guy who started Green Peace wants more nuclear reactors, so that less of an impact is felt by the environment.  The current Green Peace idiots claim that Fukushima based radioactive Iodine can be found in California kelp.  This is years after the radioactive decay would have rendered it completely non-radioactive.  This is to say nothing of them whipping out a Geiger meter, measuring high radiation on the beach, measuring low radiation near the water, and then somehow concluding the beach is contaminated by Fukushima material (while the water is somehow the source of contamination but less radioactive).
7) I hope you never dream on going into space.  Exposure at the International Space Station makes a plane ride look like tanning with SPF100 sun screen on, versus tanning with cooking oil.

8) People who oppose reactors are idiots in general.  I make no judgements about them personally, but they lack information while trumpeting knowledge.  There is a terrible part of me that hopes they get cancer, and have to inform themselves about radioactivity.  Nothing quite like having a loved one bombarded by radiation to force you to inform yourself about radiation, which is why I'm quick to anger here.  We've understood half lives, decay rates, and radioactive emission (alpha, beta, and gamma) for years, yet these people pretend that the information doesn't exist.  My immediate reaction is to assume either idiocy or an agenda, with the later generally propping up the former.  One trip to the hospital can rectify this, when a simple radioactive compound allows doctors to kill a tumor without killing you. 

As far as I'm concerned modern medicine and science are a package deal.  Don't believe nuclear energy is a vital part of the future; I hope you don't get cancer, like Tang, or use Velcro.  Don't believe exposure to higher than background radiation occurs frequently; I hope you don't like flying, going out in the sun, or ever having satellites.  Believe that nuclear power plants are too dangerous; then I hope you don't like driving in a car, utilizing a bathroom shower, or operating a garden tool.  Reasonable risks are what life is built upon.  Nuclear energy has risks, but no more so than the things you do every day. 


On the off chance that this is an April 1st prank, well played.  Assuming this isn't a joke, you need to do some real research before you call others ignorant.  Claiming that other people "just don't see outside of their perceived notions" is short hand for you don't agree with me so your opinion is invalid.  Creationists try to use this crappy line of reasoning to push for teaching the bible in science classrooms.  Anyone who says "we look at the same facts and have a different causation," which they attribute to something with no factual data, is retarding progress.  Either find data to back up your conclusion, or your easily made proposal is just as easily dismissed.  Science is cruel and hard in this regard, but if we assigned equal voracity to any claim then geo-centricity, alchemy, and phrenology would all still be viable.



Edit:
Fixed grammar.


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