# Huge Ivanpah solar power plant, owned by Google and Oakland Opens



## Sasqui (Feb 13, 2014)

You have to watch the video to appreciate the magnitude, wow.

https://www.youtube.com/results?filters=week&search_query=huge+ivanpah+solar+power+plant&lclk=week

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal land near the California-Nevada border, formally opened Thursday after years of regulatory and legal tangles ranging from relocating protected tortoises to assessing the impact on Mojave milkweed and other plants.

The $2.2 billion complex of three generating units, owned by NRG Energy, Google and Oakland-based BrightSource Energy, can produce nearly 400 megawatts -- enough power for 140,000 homes. It began making electricity last year.

More:  http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25134528/huge-ivanpah-solar-power-plant-opens-industry-booms


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 13, 2014)

400 megawatts is pathetic.  A single nuclear reactor can put out in excess of 500 megawatts.


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## WhiteLotus (Feb 13, 2014)

And how much does a nuclear reactor cost to build, fuel, and maintain? 400Mw is 4/5 of a nuclear reactor, so I'm struggling to understand your argument of it being "pathetic".


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 13, 2014)

It still raises costs.  The plant is solar thermal, which means that it can store some energy for release when the sun sets, but that usually is not enough to last through a cloudy or rainy day.  You need a natural gas or other plant to generate electricity when the sun is not out, and even if you have sunny days 99% of the time, you need that alternative plant to make up for that 1% of days or else face brownouts.  And it's not like other solar plants can make up for one being down in capacity; if clouds are obscuring the sun over one solar plant, there are likely clouds over many other solar plants too.

I like solar, but you need to be smart in implementing it.  Solar can only make up small percentage of the grid unless someone develops a better way to smooth out its variability.

Also, the capacity of solar plants is misleading.  400MW is the peak instantaneous generating capacity of the plant, probably on the summer solstice.  If you built a 400MW nuclear plant, you can be pretty sure that it will generate 400MW 99.9% of the time.  A 400MW solar plant can only hit 400MW a small fraction of the time, and if you measure their output over long periods you will find that the 400MW solar plant is only generating ~100-150MW on average (since you have to account for nights, cloudy days, and the changing of seasons).


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## Arjai (Feb 13, 2014)

I have no idea why people are hater's of Solar. It rapidly pays for itself and then is essentially free. Mantainance cannot logically approach that of a Nuclear plant.

Also, pathetic is not having a diversied grid. Solar, despite not being 100% efficient is still better than nothing. AND, technology is improving and it can become more efficient. Nuclear has gotten better, safer over time. Why can't Solar keep improving?

This is a good thing, despite what some may think.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

WhiteLotus said:


> And how much does a nuclear reactor cost to build, fuel, and maintain? 400Mw is 4/5 of a nuclear reactor, so I'm struggling to understand your argument of it being "pathetic".


a) A reactor produces reliable power 24/7/365, rain or shine, all year around.
b) This facility cost $2.2 billion which is more or less the same as said nuclear reactor.  It will be as expensive or more expensive to maintain all those heliostats than a nuclear reactor producing more power.
c) A nuclear reactor in the same place would have a smaller environmental (this is protected public land) impact than those monsters.



Arjai said:


> I have no idea why people are hater's of Solar. It rapidly pays for itself and then is essentially free. Mantainance cannot logically approach that of a Nuclear plant.


Prove it.  This thing will likely never pay for itself.  Let's not forget that 3/4 ($1.6 billion) came from taxpayers.  This is a prime example of how governments waste money.

FYI, it's about $60/MwH in South California.  You can figure out how many years that would take to pay for and don't forget the high maintenance costs.



Arjai said:


> Solar, despite not being 100% efficient is still better than nothing.


LOLsey!  It's more like 10-20% of the solar energy captured; hence, why they take so much space.



Arjai said:


> AND, technology is improving and it can become more efficient. Nuclear has gotten better, safer over time. Why can't Solar keep improving?


AND, no!  This is effectively thousands of mirrors pointing at a focal point.  The technology really isn't improving.  Solar cells (even the best haven't exceeded 45% efficiency) are improving slowly but those aren't deployed in grid-level power stations like this.  They heat a boiler (like nuclear) and use the steam to push a turbine which, in turn, runs a generator.


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## jcgeny (Feb 14, 2014)

a lot of nuclear waste are stocked just below Seattle : the M$-Steam city...problem is that the "big bottles" are leaking ...so all this area , that looks like a swamp : is being contaminated , soon all this will be in Toronto ... or will melt with : *The Seventh Continent 
*


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## buildzoid (Feb 14, 2014)

Solar power takes up way too much space and is unreliable to the point that you still have to run a coal/nuke power plant in parallel with it. Honestly we should give up on running solar anywhere outside of the Sahara desert and instead research how to make nuke plants safer and more efficient except that would mean switching over to Thorium fuel or something other than uranium which is not something the US is interested in doing because you need uranium to make nukes.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

Solar power plants on houses and businesses make some sense because it reduces grid load during peek hours but as a means to power the grid, no way.

We already know how to make nuclear power plants 99.99% safe and produce 1% of the waste as BWR and PWR reactors produce.  See EBR-II.  Thorium has a much lower atomic weight and thus, has a much lower energy potential through nuclear fission.  Uranium is still by far the best but electric companies are using a 60 year old design that was pioneered for submarines during the height of the Cold War, not a design that makes sense for commercial power generation (breeder reactor).


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## the54thvoid (Feb 14, 2014)

Think of the future people.

It is plants like this that infuse the technology side to develop.  Reducing costs of production, efficiencies of storage and reduction in footprint are all long term aims.  Look at how clean our Coal/Gas PP are today in comparison to the early days.   Hating of certain renewable energy is understood (wind power is a really hit and miss idea) but solar is not a lame duck and as material science improves and storage of excess (which is developing, with a lot of hope - New Scientist article on it last year) makes it a good proposition.

It's short sighted people that do not look to the future that needlessly lambast the tech.  And yes, these things do get funded by Governments but it is not a waste.  Investing in and giving the relevant community the incentive to develop the technology is not wasteful.  Yes there is corruption and yes there is waste in all these things but the development and location of traditional power is no different.

I'm no greenie (though I stopped running crossfire and now use less watts/hour ) but as a planet, we absolutely need to invest in the things we are now that are hugely expensive.  If you don't want your future to be run by the Taliban with an agricultural non tech ideology (or quakers for that matter) then it is only these sources that matter.  

One day we might get to fusion but getting there will make these solar plants look like small change.  Let's not forget the US spent a staggering $682 billion on 'Defence'.  

FTR, I'm also an advocate of nuclear.  But it does have a hugely significant down side and that be the waste products and where to put it...


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

the54thvoid said:


> Look at how clean our Coal/Gas PP are today in comparison to the early days.


They are not.  "Clean coal" emissions scrubbers that cost a fortune.  It's so expensive, it exceeds even renewables in terms of cost which is why environmentalists push for them (cheaper to build a wind turbine farm with huge government subsidies to boot).  But wind turbines and solar collectors can't produce the amount of power industrialized nations require so the trend over the last decade has been a rapid shift towards natural gas.   Natural gas is cleaner than coal (and cheaper than "dirty" coal too) but it's still puts out huge CO2 emissions.  Nuclear?  Virtually no emissions of any kind.

There are ZERO integral fast reactors in commercial operation and they could literally supply power to the entire planet indefinitely.  We have the technology to make this whole subject moot and we're not using it because of some asinine fear of nuclear.  IFR will be the norm eventually; it's just a matter of how long we try the wrong stuff before we make the right decision.

The fact of the matter is that power requirements are doubling every year and the surface area of the Earth is extremely finite.  The more surface area you cover with wind turbines and reflective surfaces, the more you alter weather patterns which turns into climate patterns.  This "green" path we're on is untenable and already causing changes.




the54thvoid said:


> FTR, I'm also an advocate of nuclear.  But it does have a hugely significant down side and that be the waste products and where to put it...


IFR can process 99% of the waste from BWRs and PWRs into power.  Its waste is mostly plutonium which can be used to power space satellites.  It literally turns waste into treasure.  Oh, and did I mention IFR can run off of thorium too?


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## Jack1n (Feb 14, 2014)

If it has higher efficiency it could store excess power on high capacity batteries which potentially could make it viable for 24/7/365,but still have a long way to go for that.


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## the54thvoid (Feb 14, 2014)

Jack1n said:


> If it has higher efficiency it could store excess power on high capacity batteries which potentially could make it viable for 24/7/365,but still have a long way to go for that.



Getting worked on all the time.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7482/full/nature12909.html


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## jcgeny (Feb 14, 2014)

solar energy is perfect in desert like the las vegas area .
Morocco is having all its electricity with that , it s paid by german's banks

there is no trouble if temperature gets 50-60 *c or 120*F with solar plants . while nuclear energy needs plenty of water to cool it...
if you have read about tchernobyl or kyoto recent explosion , few kg are making big areas no more healthy .
that can not happen with solar...

let us offer plane tickets to kyoto @ fordgt90 and his girlfriend for StValentine ...    </3


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

Jack1n said:


> If it has higher efficiency it could store excess power on high capacity batteries which potentially could make it viable for 24/7/365,but still have a long way to go for that.


You always get less power out of a battery than you put into it.  Batteries have never been used in grid power generation and they never will for that simple fact.  The "battery" for solar, as The Von Matrices pointed out, is natural gas turbines. They run to fill in the gaps solar creates.




jcgeny said:


> let us offer plane tickets to kyoto @ fordgt90 and his girlfriend for StValentine ...    </3


Fukishima is safe except for parts inside the reactors and in the immediate vicinity of the reactors (because the earthquake destroyed the foundation of the station).  The same goes for Chernobyl and the surrounding area.  It's easier to bottle nuclear radiation than air emissions from coal/gas.  I'd rather stand down wind from Fukishima than I would from a coal plant.


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## jcgeny (Feb 14, 2014)

you repeat the officials speech .... that has as much lies as the official-11-september one .
here in france , we reacted after all lies we had heard with the nuclear-cloud of chernobyl : according to chirac-the-cocksucker , it stopped itself at our frontiers ....
so no restriction on anything like being outside or on food and plants , mushrooms ...
same like the air in NY days after 11/9 , no masks was needed because of gwbush orders ....that s why all policemen and fire brigade are all dead of cancers...same happened to some french .
so we have a "greenpeace" for nuclear : crirad : http://www.criirad.org/index.html
some pages are translated : look right top :  http://www.criirad.org/english/presentation.html
fuskushima report is in french , english and japanese  :  http://www.criirad.org/actualites/dossier2011/japon_bis/en_anglais/english.html


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## Lionheart (Feb 14, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 400 megawatts is pathetic.  A single nuclear reactor can put out in excess of 500 megawatts.


 Such an arrogant & egotistical response!


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## jcgeny (Feb 14, 2014)

that looks crazy big







full news is at : http://www.dailytech.com/Largest+Solar+Thermal+Plant+Ivanpah+Goes+Live+Commercially/article34333.htm


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## de.das.dude (Feb 14, 2014)

solar = still crap. it hasnt really advanced much.

nuclear is the way to go. or sustainable hydrogen farming from water sources with solar power etc.


we can always put the nuclear waste onto a rocket and chuck it away into space.


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## Aquinus (Feb 14, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> 400 megawatts is pathetic.  A single nuclear reactor can put out in excess of 500 megawatts.



That's a small one. NH has one on the seacoast that can do over 1 gigawatt and powers 1/3 of the state. One town over we have a coal burning plant with a scrubber and a few towns the other direction we have a bio fuel plant. As long as you take the steps to keep it clean, I think a combination is the best way to preserve our resources. A nuclear power station may not make sense up in say, northern NH, but makes sense in southern NH where there are a lot more people and more demand for electricity.


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## de.das.dude (Feb 14, 2014)

one thing... how are they gonna keep the reflectors clean XD


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## ne6togadno (Feb 14, 2014)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesium-137


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## buildzoid (Feb 14, 2014)

jcgeny said:


> solar energy is perfect in desert like the las vegas area .
> Morocco is having all its electricity with that , it s paid by german's banks
> 
> there is no trouble if temperature gets 50-60 *c or 120*F with solar plants . while nuclear energy needs plenty of water to cool it...
> ...



Chernobyl was a snowballing of terrible decision making. Turning of safety systems conducting test a 1/3 of required power. Setting the coolant flow way too high. The turning off of the automated reactor shutdown systems. Basically Chernobyl was the result of doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing when trying to run a nuclear power plant safely.

Fukishima happened because when they built the plant they decide that it be a good way to save money by lowering the height of the anti flood barriers. If the real barriers were as tall as the ones in the plans the tsunami wouldn't have damaged the plant.


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## the54thvoid (Feb 14, 2014)

buildzoid said:


> Chernobyl was a snowballing of terrible decision making. Turning of safety systems conducting test a 1/3 of required power. Setting the coolant flow way too high. The turning off of the automated reactor shutdown systems. Basically Chernobyl was the result of doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing when trying to run a nuclear power plant safely.
> 
> Fukishima happened because when they built the plant they decide that it be a good way to save money by lowering the height of the anti flood barriers. If the real barriers were as tall as the ones in the plans the tsunami wouldn't have damaged the plant.



Yes to this.  Both plants were irresponsibly developed.  Chernobyl could not be built today by Nuclear Safety standards and TEPCO who ran Fukishima were notoriously secretive about their plant.  Meltdown can be avoided by 'proper and sensible' planning.  The waste is absolutely still an issue though.  Alpha particles that form low level waste may not emit harmful radiation (in the same manner as beta or gamma) but they are contact 'toxins' that can be inhaled and once inside your body they go to work slowly irradiating you.
It's not the spent fuel we worry about - it's everything else that becomes contaminated by the irradiation.  My best buddy works for energy companies and he knows the problems- he's pro nuclear but he's not naive about the waste problems.


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## PopcornMachine (Feb 14, 2014)

It's like people feel insulted that someone is even trying something other than fossil fuels or nuclear power.

Don't get it.  Were stupid not to try these things and refine them.  A society based on waste that we don't know how to handle is just stupid.

I know I used that word twice, but it's really appropriate.



buildzoid said:


> Chernobyl was a snowballing of terrible decision making. Turning of safety systems conducting test a 1/3 of required power. Setting the coolant flow way too high. The turning off of the automated reactor shutdown systems. Basically Chernobyl was the result of doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing when trying to run a nuclear power plant safely.
> 
> Fukishima happened because when they built the plant they decide that it be a good way to save money by lowering the height of the anti flood barriers. If the real barriers were as tall as the ones in the plans the tsunami wouldn't have damaged the plant.



So you're saying a nuclear power plant can be made perfectly safe?

There is no safe reactor.  There can always be a bigger wave or a bigger earthquake.

Shouldn't have to explain that.  If there is an alternative, we need to make it work.


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 14, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> So you're saying a nuclear power plant can be made perfectly safe?
> 
> There is no safe reactor.  There can always be a bigger wave or a bigger earthquake.
> 
> Shouldn't have to explain that.  If there is an alternative, we need to make it work.


_Nothing_ is perfectly safe.  You need to calculate risk and determine what is acceptable; everything is a trade off.  Is the ridiculously low chance of a nuclear leak acceptable?  In a perfect world, no.  But compared to spending 10x that cost to build base load renewable plants (not to mention land use issues) or building fossil plants that contribute to air pollution and global warming, I would say it was.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

jcgeny said:


> you repeat the officials speech .... that has as much lies as the official-11-september one .
> here in france , we reacted after all lies we had heard with the nuclear-cloud of chernobyl : according to chirac-the-cocksucker , it stopped itself at our frontiers ....
> so no restriction on anything like being outside or on food and plants , mushrooms ...
> same like the air in NY days after 11/9 , no masks was needed because of gwbush orders ....that s why all policemen and fire brigade are all dead of cancers...same happened to some french .
> ...


France is running BWR and PWR too.  They're not IFRs and that's what we need to be building everywhere.

FYI, France has the lowest CO2 emissions of industrialized nations because of their commitment to nuclear.  The places where CO2 emissions are climbing, they aren't building new nuclear reactors (e.g. China, Germany, USA).




de.das.dude said:


> we can always put the nuclear waste onto a rocket and chuck it away into space.


a) That's ridiculously expensive.
b) Why do that when we've only extracted 0.5% of the fission power out of it?  This is why IFRs are so important: they literally hit three birds with one stone (dispose of nuclear waste, produce grid power, produce power for deep space satellites).




de.das.dude said:


> one thing... how are they gonna keep the reflectors clean XD


Maintenance workers.  Lots of maintenance workers.



ne6togadno said:


> ...


You do realize that Chernobyl was a terrible design, right?  It wasn't used outside of the USSR.




PopcornMachine said:


> So you're saying a nuclear power plant can be made perfectly safe?


YES!



PopcornMachine said:


> There is no safe reactor.  There can always be a bigger wave or a bigger earthquake.


IFRs shut themselves down in five minutes without any human intervention (uses chemistry and physics).  In earthquake prone areas, they can and should be built on shock absorbers.


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## PopcornMachine (Feb 14, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> _Nothing_ is perfectly safe.  You need to calculate risk and determine what is acceptable; everything is a trade off.  Is the ridiculously low chance of a nuclear leak acceptable?  In a perfect world, no.  But compared to spending 10x that cost to build base load renewable plants (not to mention land use issues) or building fossil plants that contribute to air pollution and global warming, I would say it was.



So costs are never going to go down and a bunch of mirrors and a steam generator present the same risk as a reactor.

Thanks for clearing that up.

This is why these discussions never end.  People ignore information to make a point. Or at least pretend they made a point.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

Costs do not go down with solar power plants.  Heliostats are expensive and require replacement and constant cleaning.  The steam turbines themselves also have to replaced eventually.  Solar power plants undeniably destroy more habitat than nuclear power plants do.  Environmentalists have already pointed out that the Ivanpah dry lake bed was established to protect an endangered turtle and they're destroying its habitat by building these monstrosities.

Wild life didn't leave Pripyat when humans did.  I believe there has been no documentation of mutations around Pripyat either in wild life.

For the record: only about 5000 people have ever died directly due to radiation exposure.


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## PopcornMachine (Feb 14, 2014)

5000 dead people are ok.  Again, can't thank  you enough for clearing that up.

I guess I didn't know any of them either.


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 14, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> So costs are never going to go down and a bunch of mirrors and a steam generator present the same risk as a reactor.
> 
> Thanks for clearing that up.
> 
> This is why these discussions never end.  People ignore information to make a point. Or at least pretend they made a point.





PopcornMachine said:


> 5000 dead people are ok.  Again, can't thank  you enough for clearing that up.
> 
> I guess I didn't know any of them either.



You are taking an overly simplistic view of the topic.  All decisions need to be analyzed by the expected value rather than solely on the consequences of the most catastrophic failure.  The best decision is the one with the greatest expected value.  As difficult as it might be for you to accept, human lives can easily be factored into this equation.  When designing safety systems, there has to be an acceptable risk of human injury or otherwise the system's cost is infinite.

Every day we put our own lives into situations (like driving a car) where our chance of death is much greater than zero.  Why do we do it?  Because the chance is low enough that the benefit (getting to a location quicker) outweighs the minuscule chance of dying or getting injured.  That is a positive expected value.

My point is not that nuclear power is the best option for electricity production; it is that its risk needs to be put into perspective.  Having a minuscule chance of a catastrophic disaster can be a better scenario than a larger chance of a major failure.


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## buildzoid (Feb 14, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> So you're saying a nuclear power plant can be made perfectly safe?
> There is no safe reactor.  There can always be a bigger wave or a bigger earthquake.
> Shouldn't have to explain that.  If there is an alternative, we need to make it work.



Not perfectly safe but very very close to perfect because a semi controlled fission reaction can be terminated very quickly in many ways. The Chernobyl reactor almost turned itself off by a natural processes when the reactor generated so much Xenon 135 that it dropped bellow 1% of operating power but humans intervened to make sure that it didn't shut down completely and screwed up the reactor's automatic shutdown system.

Also nuclear power plants can run on fuels other than Uranium that are less dangerous and still generate way more power than an equally sized solar array.
Now don't get me wrong I don't believe that nuclear power is the ultimate solution but as of right now it's the best we have. Instead of building huge solar arrays that are 20-30% efficient and unreliable to the point of being useless at night we should be using the money to research ways to achieve 75+% efficiency and some way to keep the power running at night. There is no point building a larger version of something that we know is not as good as it could be. 

For example if you wanted to run the US(317,000,000 people) during the day entirely on solar plants like this one running at peak power you would need 2,265 of them that's over 10,000 square miles. That's to run during the day so if you also wanted nighttime power you would need 4,530 of them so that half of them can charge the accumulators that's over 22,000 square miles. Now take in to account that there is no way in hell that they would all be  producing 400MW constantly so lets say the would do 200MW each and oh look 45,000 square miles are being used for solar power plants. Now please note that my calculation doesn't account for land taken up by the accumulators. Also this crazy 45,000 square mile solar power plant setup would cost about 20 trillion dollars excluding the costs of accumulators for nighttime power.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

Ohio is 44,825 sq mi.  Let's not forget that excluding the desert, most areas that are suitable for large solar power stations are also great farming land.  Sacrificing farm land in the name of power generation is counter-productive.


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 14, 2014)

buildzoid said:


> For example if you wanted to run the US(317,000,000 people) during the day entirely on solar plants like this one running at peak power you would need 2,265 of them that's over 10,000 square miles. That's to run during the day so if you also wanted nighttime power you would need 4,530 of them so that half of them can charge the accumulators that's over 22,000 square miles. Now take in to account that there is no way in hell that they would all be  producing 400MW constantly so lets say the would do 200MW each and oh look 45,000 square miles are being used for solar power plants. Now please note that my calculation doesn't account for land taken up by the accumulators. Also this crazy 45,000 square mile solar power plant setup would cost about 20 trillion dollars excluding the costs of accumulators for nighttime power.





FordGT90Concept said:


> Ohio is 44,825 sq mi.  Let's not forget that excluding the desert, most areas that are suitable for large solar power stations are also great farming land.  Sacrificing farm land in the name of power generation is counter-productive.



I'm sure you'll agree that the 100% solar example is completely ridiculous; not even PopcornMachine suggested that.  I've never heard anyone suggest that a 100% solar electricity supply is achievable.  You can put wind turbines on farms with minimal impact to land use and use the inedible cellulose the farms generate as an energy source,


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## PopcornMachine (Feb 14, 2014)

I'm being simplistic?

If you don't have to take a risk, if there's another way, why not try to find it and make it work?

You're right it is simple.  Why do so many people have trouble grasping the simple?


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 14, 2014)

The only option better than fission IFR is fusion reactors.  Fusion reactors likely can't be started without enormous power draw and IFRs could provide that.  There are huge risks associated with fusion but it must be done.

Remember, it takes a fission explosion to start a fusion reaction in hydrogen bombs.  We've known this since the 1950s.


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## buildzoid (Feb 14, 2014)

The Von Matrices said:


> I'm sure you'll agree that the 100% solar example is completely ridiculous; not even PopcornMachine suggested that.  I've never heard anyone suggest that a 100% solar electricity supply is achievable.  You can put wind turbines on farms with minimal impact to land use and use the inedible cellulose the farms generate as an energy source,


I'm fully aware it's ridiculous but the fact remains that coal and gas plants have got to go and solar is definitely not capable of replacing them all so we have to go more nuclear than solar.


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 15, 2014)

PopcornMachine said:


> I'm being simplistic?
> 
> If you don't have to take a risk, if there's another way, why not try to find it and make it work?
> 
> You're right it is simple.  Why do so many people have trouble grasping the simple?



The issue with your reasoning is that you are continually discounting opportunity costs.  In a world of finite resources, I argue that there are much better ways to allocate them.

You can dedicate resources toward finding a way to make a better solar plant.  Or, you can accept the very low risk that a nuclear power plant would meltdown and instead allocate resources toward medicine.  I can assure you that medical research would save many more lives than would ever be killed by that nuclear plant.


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## wesley_farkenharder (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Wild life didn't leave Pripyat when humans did.  I believe there has been no documentation of mutations around Pripyat either in wild life.



Um, didn't you see the wonderfully done documentary called "The Chernobyl Diaries?"  

But to the point, I'm 100% for any source of energy that won't give people cancer.  Cancer sucks.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

That's a horror film--a work of fiction.  It was filmed in Hungary and Serbia, not Ukraine where most of the fallout landed (especially Pripyat).  Considering the poor reviews, I'd say it isn't even worth watching.

There were two documentaries filmed *in* Pripyat in 2008--one for an HBO short.  Pripyat is not safe because the buildings are unstable but it is safe from a radiation perspective.




PopcornMachine said:


> 5000 dead people are ok.  Again, can't thank  you enough for clearing that up.
> 
> I guess I didn't know any of them either.


What you're drinking is more likely to kill you.  It's a tiny price to pay considering it is much better for the environment than coal and it can address increasing energy demands where "green" reasonably can't.  Even countries that milk the "green" cow for all it is worth haven't been able to derive their grid power from much more than 20%.  Nuclear (specifically IFRs) are the best answer humanity has to the other 80%.

Oh and the number I gave (5000) is for generations of people.  As of 2008, Chernobyl incident only has 28 confirmed deaths due to acute radiation syndrome (ARS).  Have this food for thought:


			
				UNSCEAR said:
			
		

> http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2008/11-80076_Report_2008_Annex_D.pdf
> 
> There appears at present to be no persuasive evidence any measurable increased incidence of all cancers combined or breast cancer alone among the general populations of the Russian Federation and Ukraine.  There also appears to be no pattern of increased incidence of solid cancers among the inhabitants of the areas deemed contaminated compared to the inhabitants of the areas deemed uncontaminated, and no difference in the trends with time for areas with different levels of radioactive deposition.


Everyone that got a lethal dose of radiation was more or less in or right next to the facility during and immediately after the explosion.  They received in excess of 6 Gy of radiation.  See page 14 (18) of the above link for a breakdown.  If you don't die from radiation exposure within a year, odds are, you're not.  Virtually all that did had skin damage from beta radiation.  Only 15 deaths from thyroid cancers occurred out 6000 (as of 2005) and this was preventable--USSR didn't have the iodine available to prevent it at the time of the incident.

The report says in conclusion:


> From this annex based on 20 years of studies and from the previous UNSCEAR reports [U3, U7], it can be concluded that although those exposed to radioiodine as children or adolescents and the emergency and recovery operation workers who received high doses are at increased risk of radiation-induced effects, the vast majority of the population need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the Chernobyl accident.  (This conclusion is consistent with that of UNSCEAR 2000 Report [U3]).


The worst nuclear accident in human history and there's a very short list of people who are in actual danger or have died from it.  And just because someone may count themselves among those numbers doesn't mean they'll die because of it.  It's merely a risk factor that can't be absolutely ruled out yet because most of these people are still alive and healthy.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 15, 2014)

buildzoid said:


> Chernobyl was a snowballing of terrible decision making. Turning of safety systems conducting test a 1/3 of required power. Setting the coolant flow way too high. The turning off of the automated reactor shutdown systems. Basically Chernobyl was the result of doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing when trying to run a nuclear power plant safely.



People over exaggerate how bad Chernobyl really was.  The other reactors at Chernobyl continued to run for over a decade after the accident.  The disaster happened in 1986 in reactor 4.  The other 3 reactors continued to run until reactor 2 was taken offline due to a fire.  Reactors 1 and 3 continued to run until 1996 when reactor 1 was shut down, and reactor 3 continued to run until 2000!

At this point, spending the money on IFRs is definitely money way better spent than spending it on Solar.  IFRs have proven to be extremely safe, by design they are basically meltdown proof.  Not to mention the waste actually has extrmely low levels of radiation and most experts say that simple sea water uranium extraction would be enough to provide enough fuel to satisfy our energy needs indefinitely.

Also, the prototype IFR was brought online in 1964, and cost about $233 Million in todays money.  It was a very small reactor designed only to test the theory.  It still managed to produce 20MW of electricty *24/7/365 fo**r 30 Years!
*
As for this solar project, everyone seems to make a big deal about Google being involved, but no one seems to want to mention the fact that they actually pulled out of the project financially in 2011 because they said this type of solar power wasn't economically viable.  Interesting...

Also, while the maximum output of this solar array is 400MW, the expected average output is only 126MW.  For the money they spent on this thing they could have built 10 IFR reactors, easily outputting close to double the electrical power and they wouldn't need 5 square miles of desert.

If people are really worried about nuclear contamination caused by nuclear reactors, even though IFRs make it basically impossible, what is the argument against putting them out in the Nevada desert, in the areas that are already massively contaminated from all the nuclear tests conducted in the 60s?  There are 1,300 square miles of desert in Nevada designated as the Nuclear test site, put the nuclear reactors there.  There is very little chance of earthquake, and pretty much 0 chance of tsunami or a tornado strong enough to cause any damage.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

Google contributed very little.  US taxpayers are footing 3/4 of the bill (loan guarantee) and the remaining 1/4 is on NRG Energy and BrightSource Energy.  I guarantee you that if taxpayers weren't eating 3/4 of the bill, this project wouldn't have left concept phase.  It makes about as much sense as buying a brush for a hairless cat.




newtekie1 said:


> If people are really worried about nuclear contamination caused by nuclear reactors, even though IFRs make it basically impossible, what is the argument against putting them out in the Nevada desert, in the areas that are already massively contaminated from all the nuclear tests conducted in the 60s?  There are 1,300 square miles of desert in Nevada designated as the Nuclear test site, put the nuclear reactors there.  There is very little chance of earthquake, and pretty much 0 chance of tsunami or a tornado strong enough to cause any damage.


Water.  You need a lot of water to make steam but...this solar power plant does too so lose-lose for desert projects.

Also, high-skilled labor.  People that run a nuclear power plant expect good accommodations which usually means close to a city and a relatively short commute (Pripyat was created principally to run the nuclear power station).  Solar power plants don't require high-skilled labor (maybe one guy that checks on it once a month) so it doesn't matter where they put it.


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## jcgeny (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> ....
> 
> For the record: only about 5000 people have ever died directly due to radiation exposure.


i wonder where he learnt that numbers....of course in america
if you had really worked at school [to get a rock solid brain...] you would remember the nuclear bombing of japan :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
Casualties and losses
20 U.S., Dutch, British prisoners of war killed
90,000–166,000 killed in Hiroshima
60,000–80,000 killed in Nagasaki
Total: 150,000–246,000+ killed

these deads are only the first with enriched uranium ...but by now and starting with cia_bush [vice-president] , they also kill arabs "for" [petrol of] Irak ....with depleted uranium HURRAH
they use it everywhere on everything solid , like tanks ...for example .
instead of keeping it at home , the nuclear waste from usa are like dog$'$hit in the desert...but they are contaminated and pollutants of the air and water .
its like the napalm in Asia , they use weapons that kill during thousands years .

i wonder if i should quote the minister of the usa FOR EUROPE , that was saying to his ambassador in Ukraine
...............................................................................................FUCK EUROPE , in a scrambled phone call....that some people were able to record and post on youtube .
viva usa.gov and believe-it  [if you want to kill&die YOUNG]


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## newtekie1 (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Water. You need a lot of water to make steam but...this solar power plant does too so lose-lose for desert projects. The fact they're willing to truck the water out tells me they don Also, high-skilled labor. People that run a nuclear power plant expect good accommodations which usually means close to a city and a relatively short commute (Pripyat was created principally to run the nuclear power station). Solar power plants don't require high-skilled labor (maybe one guy that checks on it once a month) so it doesn't matter where they put it.



True, but I think a system similar to Area51 could be implement to ferry works to and from the plant. Nice living accommodations could be built at the plant to house the workers when they are on shift days, 3-4 days at a time.  A small airport set up at the plant as well, and planes used to ferry workers from Las Vegas.

And it was my understanding, but maybe I'm wrong, that IFRs don't require as many people on staff to run.  I seem to remember reading about the EBR-II reactor being manned at times by only 3 people in the control room.

I'm talking about putting IFRs out in the desert, not traditional nuclear power plants, and I'm really only saying put them there to shut up the people saying "OMG, I don't want a big scary nuclear reactor in my backyard."

Water would likely be an issue, but I would think they could pump it up from Lake Mead.  They are already pumping water from Lake Mead as far away as Utah.  Of course there is concerns of Lake Mead drying up too, so who knows.  But the great thing about steam is that after you use it, you can re-condense it and re-use it.  Of course there is always some loss that has to be replenished, but it isn't as big of an amount as many might think.  And, even if they couldn't pump up water from Lake Mead, there is a natural aquifer under the test site, and it can be reached by drilling.  We know this because we did tests with nuclear weapons below the water table to see what affects it had on the water.  So wells could be drilled and the water from the aquifer used.  And the water is already contaminated to hell with radiation thanks to the nuclear testing, so no worries there either.


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## The Von Matrices (Feb 15, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> Water would likely be an issue, but I would think they could pump it up from Lake Mead.  They are already pumping water from Lake Mead as far away as Utah.  Of course there is concerns of Lake Mead drying up too, so who knows.  But the great thing about steam is that after you use it, you can re-condense it and re-use it.  Of course there is always some loss that has to be replenished, but it isn't as big of an amount as many might think.  And, even if they couldn't pump up water from Lake Mead, there is a natural aquifer under the test site, and it can be reached by drilling.  We know this because we did tests with nuclear weapons below the water table to see what affects it had on the water.  So wells could be drilled and the water from the aquifer used.  And the water is already contaminated to hell with radiation thanks to the nuclear testing, so no worries there either.



Or you just design a plant like the Palo Verde station.



> The Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Arizona desert, and is the only large nuclear power plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water. The power plant evaporates the water from the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

jcgeny said:


> i wonder where he learnt that numbers....of course in america
> if you had really worked at school [to get a rock solid brain...] you would remember the nuclear bombing of japan :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
> Casualties and losses
> ...


Uh huh.  With that logic, iron (and derivatives) has killed billions of people.  Better pitch your computer because it has iron in it.  It might just kill you with its...metal-ness-ity.




newtekie1 said:


> True, but I think a system similar to Area51 could be implement to ferry works to and from the plant. Nice living accommodations could be built at the plant to house the workers when they are on shift days, 3-4 days at a time.  A small airport set up at the plant as well, and planes used to ferry workers from Las Vegas.


Groom Lake has thousands of employees and there is literally a dedicated airline to shuttle them too and from Las Vegas as well as scheduled buses.  There's nuclear power plants upwind from dozens of cities already and they haven't caused problems.  There's no reason to put them out in the middle when their only real threat (talking BR and IFR here) is psychological.



newtekie1 said:


> And it was my understanding, but maybe I'm wrong, that IFRs don't require as many people on staff to run.  I seem to remember reading about the EBR-II reactor being manned at times by only 3 people in the control room.


They require more than BWR and PWR because they also reprocess spent uranium.  They don't need many people controlling it but they still require a lot of people to inspect and maintain equipment.  For sure the number is under 100 if not under 50.  It depends on how many reactors and how large those reactors are too.




newtekie1 said:


> I'm talking about putting IFRs out in the desert, not traditional nuclear power plants, and I'm really only saying put them there to shut up the people saying "OMG, I don't want a big scary nuclear reactor in my backyard."


Another problem with deserts is that they aren't close to population centers.  The further the station is from the customer, the more electricity is lost in transmission.

I, for one, would welcome an IFR in my backyard.




The Von Matrices said:


> Or you just design a plant like the Palo Verde station.


I knew about Palo Verde but never realized it operated off of treated waste.  Problem is, Ivanpah doesn't have cities to draw off of either. The closet city is 40 miles away (Las Vegas) and I would be more concerned about transporting waste that far than the power station.  They'd have to treat it in Las Vegas before sending it and...if that were the case, I think they'd rather keep it to themselves.


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## jcgeny (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Uh huh.  With that logic, iron (and derivatives) has killed billions of people.  Better pitch your computer because it has iron in it.  It might just kill you with its...metal-ness-ity......


talking about metal-ness to kill , yes , once again thanks to FORD and usa , that kills and wounds a lot every years :

Worldwide it was estimated in 2004 that 1.2 million people were killed (2.2% of all deaths) and 50 million more were injured in motor vehicle collisions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision

tell me right word like metal-ness-ity..... to describe that the 200k of atomic-bombs are 20 times your first "calculation"
and tell me if few seconds to kill them is a world record or not and if there is some computers able to kill so fast


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

This might surprise you but everyone is going to die one way or another.  Acute radiation syndrome and thyroid cancer (assuming you didn't have access to iodine-131) are so rare, CDC doesn't even track them!  Gee, I wonder why...maybe it is because there hasn't been a single death in the *USA* attributed to radiation exposure?  Oh, and by the way, USA has about 1/4 of the world's nuclear power plants.


The fuel used in nuclear reactors of all types can't explode like a fission weapon.  The explosion at Chernobyl NPP, like all meltdown explosions, was caused by the hot uranium coming into contact with much cooler water turning the water into steam violently.  The uranium used in reactors isn't pure enough (pure being U-235) to be weaponized.

If you're so concerned about nuclear weapons, you should embrace nuclear power because decommissioned nuclear weapons have their U-235 removed, diluted with U-238 (96%+ of uranium found naturally is U-238) and then used as fuel.  It's win-win.


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## BiggieShady (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Another problem with deserts is that they aren't close to population centers. The further the station is from the customer, the more electricity is lost in transmission.


There is 360 sunny days per year in average desert. Deserts have huge potential if network could be as low maintenance as wind turbines where you have long period of uninterrupted operation before servicing. For that they should develop self-cleaning collectors - there is no moisture in the desert so there is only dust to be blown or swept from the collectors. That would help mitigate maintenance issues from remote location.
About electricity transfer, when you convert direct current from the collectors into high voltage alternating current, energy is not that much lost on distant transfers (thank you Tesla). Granted you need a huge network of collectors for that.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

The steam turbines this plant uses run generators that produce AC, not DC.  Even so, you're still losing energy as heat through the wires.  The closer the generator is to the customer, the more efficient the system.

FYI, only about 35% of the energy produced in the USA (excepting Texas grid which is closer to 60%) is actually used.  The rest is lost/wasted.


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## BiggieShady (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> only about 35% of the energy produced in the USA (excepting Texas grid which is closer to 60%) is actually used. The rest is lost/wasted.


I have looked it up.


> Efficiency of Electrical Grids
> 
> Area  % Efficiency
> 
> ...









You guys have priorities to sort when it comes to electricity network



FordGT90Concept said:


> The steam turbines this plant uses run generators that produce AC, not DC.



I don't know, it makes no sense to me to generate AC before transmission.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 15, 2014)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Groom Lake has thousands of employees and there is literally a dedicated airline to shuttle them too and from Las Vegas as well as scheduled buses.  There's nuclear power plants upwind from dozens of cities already and they haven't caused problems.



Yeah I know Groom Lake had thousands of employee.  Smaller planes could be used, probably even a few prop planes would be all that is needed.  Heck, if their spending $2 Billion+ on a nuke reactor in the desert, an extra $50 Million for a few commercial jets and smaller support planes is nothing.



FordGT90Concept said:


> There's no reason to put them out in the middle when their only real threat (talking BR and IFR here) is psychological.



Oh, I completely agree.




FordGT90Concept said:


> Another problem with deserts is that they aren't close to population centers.  The further the station is from the customer, the more electricity is lost in transmission.



Yeah, but that is an equally big problem for solar, since solar generally has to always be placed in the desert to achieve acceptable consistent output levels.  Obviously, because deserts tend to have the largest number of clear sunny days.



FordGT90Concept said:


> I, for one, would welcome an IFR in my backyard.



Me too!



BiggieShady said:


> You guys have priorities to sort when it comes to electricity network



You have to remember, the US is massive as well.  The US is ~3.7 Million Square Miles in size.  Japan is only ~145,000, and the European Union is only ~1.6 Million.  As Ford pointed out, the further you have to transport the power, the lower the efficiency.


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## jcgeny (Feb 15, 2014)

ford says anything clever , he has no idea how are doing chained reactions in the process of nuclear .
about electricity troubles of california and next to it....  the bug is coming from state government that fixes the price of electricity [like soviet communists ] but it is a too low level so nothing is repaired  and sometimes the whole states has no power...
electricity made by sun should be cheap enough for californians , cleaning of mirors will be made for "free" by blacks and chinese innocents jailed to do this or roads or any job but without any salary , of course


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## BiggieShady (Feb 15, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> As Ford pointed out, the further you have to transport the power, the lower the efficiency.



Fair enough, so by that logic Texas as a largest US state has most efficient electrical network simply because it's mostly uninhabited?


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## newtekie1 (Feb 15, 2014)

BiggieShady said:


> Fair enough, so by that logic Texas as a largest US state has most efficient electrical network simply because it's mostly uninhabited?


I believe Texas has a higher efficiency than the rest of the US because they have a large number of electrical generation plants spread throughout the state.  So overall the power generation happens closer to where it is used.

Ideally, to keep efficiency up, building a lot of smaller IFRs closer to where people live would be better than a few large ones out in the middle of nowhere.  That way you don't lose as much efficiency in transmission.


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## FordGT90Concept (Feb 15, 2014)

jcgeny said:


> about electricity troubles of california and next to it....





jcgeny said:


> the bug is coming from state government that fixes the price of electricity [like soviet communists ] but it is a too low level so nothing is repaired  and sometimes the whole states has no power...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
It had nothing to do with actual power systems.  It was caused by illegal market manipulation by Enron (yeah, them) and politics.



jcgeny said:


> electricity made by sun should be cheap enough for Californians...


California is about average in terms of energy costs.  I provided a DOE link previously.


Texas has the highest efficiency because it is the smallest grid.  The east and west grids cover the rest of the USA.  It's also inefficient because USA hasn't deployed smart grid technology in any meaningful way.  That likely hasn't happened because internet infrastructure in the USA is so shitty.


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