Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo… then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo… then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?
Installed Wind Capacty - Germany
Ah, by mentioning thorium, you activated my trap card. I know you guys can’t resist it. Everyone in the industry knows it’s a pipe dream. It’s not viable with current tech.
ignoring the redditspeak, you haven’t addressed my point at all.
You didn’t really make a point, you randomly mentioned that Thorium reactors were made in the 60s and stated something irrelevant to do with nuclear weapons. I don’t care whether Thorium was or was not researched, nor why that may or may not have been the case - Thorium-based nuclear reactors are not at present a viable source of electricity generation.
A 2010 National Nuclear Laboratory report concluded the thorium fuel cycle ‘is likely to have only a limited role internationally for some years ahead’ and concluded claims for thorium were ‘overstated’.
Even if thorium technology does progress to the point where it might be commercially viable, it will face the same problems as conventional nuclear: it is not renewable or sustainable. And that’s A LONG way off.
“A 2010 National Nuclear Laboratory report” “for some years ahead”
It’s 2023, “some years ahead” is, y’know, now. 13 is “some.” Quite a few, actually.
Yeah, your 1960s thorium technology is way more timely.
World’s first commercial thorium reactor approved in China
Yeah, it’s still commercial-scale, not a “pipe dream” or “not viable with current tech.”
“not viable” is different from “impossible”, it just means that it’s gonna be too expensive and not worth doing compared to, yknow, just spending the money on renewables instead.
The article itself said it’s still counting in future tech advances. Just because the alpha test is done at full size is different than being commercial scale imo. But we shouldn’t even be judging power plants success on how well they can make profits, so whether it’s commercial scale or not should not be relevant. Unfortunately it is, but the article gives no indication that it is commercially viable with current tech. Just that it physically exists.
Nobody is saying that a thorium reactor can’t be built, I’m saying it’s a waste of money, energy, time and resources that would be better spent on renewables, and that the energy produced would be both more expensive and more environmentally damaging than the same power generated by renewables.
Based on what? And how can you possibly make that claim with any confidence if nobody’s built one until now?
They’ve been a technology that we’ve known about since the 1960s… we determined in the 60s it wasn’t as efficient as uranium.
We also determined in the 1960s that solar power was a pipe dream and it would never be efficient enough on a large scale to be worth investing in.
Maybe don’t use an Appeal to Antiquity.
Sourcing scientific research from 1960 is not an appeal to tradition and you know that perfectly well.
In response to your other point:
1960 - Hoffman Electronics creates a 14% efficient solar cell. 1961 - “Solar Energy in the Developing World” conference is held by the United Nations. 1962 - The Telstar communications satellite is powered by solar cells. 1963 - Sharp Corporation produces a viable photovoltaic module of silicon solar cells. 1964 - The satellite Nimbus I is equipped with Sun-tracking solar panels. 1964 - Farrington Daniels’ landmark book, Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy, published by Yale University Press. 1967 - Soyuz 1 is the first manned spacecraft to be powered by solar cells 1967 - Akira Fujishima discovers the Honda-Fujishima effect which is used for hydrolysis in the photoelectrochemical cell. 1968 - Roger Riehl introduces the first solar powered wristwatch. 1970 - First highly effective GaAs heterostructure solar cells are created by Zhores Alferov and his team in the USSR. 1971 - Salyut 1 is powered by solar cells. 1973 - Skylab is powered by solar cells. 1974 - Florida Solar Energy Center begins.
What a surprise, you’re wrong. Who could have seen that coming?