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30.07.2012, 21:00
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China )
[QUOTE=DavidPesenti;1622041] | Quote: | |  | | | The governments subsidize them because of the following reasons:
i pointed a flaw in your logic and you patch it with irrelavent information. Solar and Wind is too expensive for developing countries! The government cannot and probably should not subsidise power companies when their people live in abject poverty. | | | | | No actually, you didn't get my point. The governments should and must subsidze these powerforms for the reasons I have listed. Solar and wind can be expensive today, with increased demand and improved technologies we will reach to the point where they will be economically more feasible. Till that date, which I don't think is very far away, the governments should subsidize them.
Edit; what is with the groan mate. If you are going to groan everybody who disagrees you then you will have the best time of your life in EF.
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30.07.2012, 21:06
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | | | | | | Here is the original source of the 9000 number: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publica...ub1312_web.pdf
I am quoting from page 76-77:
"At present, the prediction of the cancer burden related to radiation exposure from Chernobyl must be based on the experience of other populations exposed to radiation and followed up for many decades. Such predictions are uncertain as the applicability of risk estimates from other populations with different genetic and environmental backgrounds is unclear. They do, however, provide an idea of the order of magnitude of the likely impact of the accident; among the nearly six million persons in the most exposed populations (liquidators, evacuees, residents of strict control zones and residents of contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine), predictions currently available are of the order of 9000 to 10 000 deaths from cancers and leukaemia over life. In the next years, careful studies of selected populations are needed in order to study the real effect of the accident and compare it to predictions."
As you can see the study is performed on a very limited number of population and it counted only the deaths and not the overall cancer results, death at birth rates,etc. Also they say that numbers are not conclusive and further study should be conducted.
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30.07.2012, 21:12
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China )
[QUOTE=Dark Blue;1622052] | Quote: | |  | | |
No actually, you didn't get my point. The governments should and must subsidze these powerforms for the reasons I have listed. Solar and wind can be expensive today, with increased demand and improved technologies we will reach to the point where they will be economically more feasible. Till that date, which I don't think is very far away, the governments should subsidize them.
Edit; what is with the groan mate. If you are going to groan everybody who disagrees you then you will have the best time of your life in EF.
| | | | | But with what money?! A third world country has very little. Waiting decades will not help them, they need the power now.
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30.07.2012, 21:14
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | Here is the original source of the 9000 number: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publica...ub1312_web.pdf
I am quoting from page 76-77:
"At present, the prediction of the cancer burden related to radiation exposure from Chernobyl must be based on the experience of other populations exposed to radiation and followed up for many decades. Such predictions are uncertain as the applicability of risk estimates from other populations with different genetic and environmental backgrounds is unclear. They do, however, provide an idea of the order of magnitude of the likely impact of the accident; among the nearly six million persons in the most exposed populations (liquidators, evacuees, residents of strict control zones and residents of contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine), predictions currently available are of the order of 9000 to 10 000 deaths from cancers and leukaemia over life. In the next years, careful studies of selected populations are needed in order to study the real effect of the accident and compare it to predictions."
As you can see the study is performed on a very limited number of population and it counted only the deaths and not the overall cancer results, death at birth rates,etc. Also they say that numbers are not conclusive and further study should be conducted. | | | | | The WHO figure is much smaller and it considers those significantly directly effected. Sure some sub-atomic particles from the explosion could have effected other people but in a statistically insignificant way.
In all seriousness though if you got all the people who benefited from nuclear power and then considered all the people who benefit from having a car and considered which one is more dangerous you would find that car ownership leads to in your view an unacceptable amount of deaths and should be avoided...
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30.07.2012, 21:19
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | The WHO figure is much smaller and it considers those significantly directly effected. Sure some sub-atomic particles from the explosion could have effected other people but in a statistically insignificant way. | | | | | This only proves that the numbers are not reliable.
ON the subsidy issue, your comment is contradicting with your school of thought actually. The governments of the developing countries should spend their money on the world oil cartels instead of developing their own industries and improving their capabilities. I remind you the oil price crises of the past.
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30.07.2012, 21:24
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | This only proves that the numbers are not reliable.
ON the subsidy issue, your comment is contradicting with your school of thought actually. The governments of the developing countries should spend their money on the world oil cartels instead of developing their own industries and improving their capabilities. I remind you the oil price crises of the past. | | | | | or build a few nice shinny clean nuclear power plants to provide the base load power they need to develop. or coal, or gas, or hydro what ever the situation demands.
The numbers really do not support nuclear power as being the demon that people make it out to be.
your suggestion that they should put their very limited funds into supporting an uneconomically viable, unsuitable form of technology seems entirely laughable!
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30.07.2012, 21:27
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | ON the subsidy issue, your comment is contradicting with your school of thought actually. The governments of the developing countries should spend their money on the world oil cartels instead of developing their own industries and improving their capabilities. I remind you the oil price crises of the past. | | | | | They don't spend money on oil cartels either. They don't spend. Period.
Besides which, as I explained previously, you need to back up solar and wind power with fossil fuel plants. So developing solar and wind on a large scale would increase their dependence on imported fuel.
Also, most of the companies active in that sector these days are pretty much high-tech. It's not that easy for a third-world country to catch up and build its own multi-billion industry in that sector (the same is true for virtually any form of energy they don't already have).
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30.07.2012, 21:30
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | or build a few nice shinny clean nuclear power plants to provide the base load power they need to develop. or coal, or gas, or hydro what ever the situation demands.
The numbers really do not support nuclear power as being the demon that people make it out to be.
your suggestion that they should put their very limited funds into supporting an uneconomically viable, unsuitable form of technology seems entirely laughable! | | | | | Funny what people find laughable.
Here is a fact for you to laugh at.
Source: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...o-solar-cells/
Also maybe you should check the cost of building some "shiny" nuclear power plants.
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30.07.2012, 21:34
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | They don't spend money on oil cartels either. They don't spend. Period.
Besides which, as I explained previously, you need to back up solar and wind power with fossil fuel plants. So developing solar and wind on a large scale would increase their dependence on imported fuel.
Also, most of the companies active in that sector these days are pretty much high-tech. It's not that easy for a third-world country to catch up and build its own multi-billion industry in that sector (the same is true for virtually any form of energy they don't already have). | | | | | But they can still produce them as licencees, it is a question of demand actually.
Additionally, with today's technologies even if you need to back up wind and solar with fossil fuel(mostly gas), still the total number of fossil fuel based plants will be decreased, hence the dependency will also be decreased.
would you care to explain this : "They don't spend money on oil cartels either. They don't spend. Period."
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30.07.2012, 21:35
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China )
I would LOVE to see us harness solar energy on a wide scale in an economically feasible manner. I fear that relying too much on nuclear energy is just going to further a problem with nuclear waste and deter us from developing better, cleaner long-term energy sources. But since our problem is immediate, I guess nuclear power is the way to go until we can find a better alternative. It's the lesser of two (three?) evils, I suppose.
What scares me is all this fracking that's been going on in the U.S. These gas companies are offering huge amounts of money to people to allow fracking on their land, but then people get sick because it "fracks" up (pun intended) their water supplies.
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30.07.2012, 21:45
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China )  [QUOTE=Dark Blue;1622090]Funny what people find laughable.
and one for you too
Source: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...o-solar-cells/
no till 2020 will it out compete other forms of technology in the US.
and then the article states this gem We should always be careful of extrapolating trends out, of course. Natural processes have limits. Phenomena that look exponential eventually level off or become linear at a certain point. Yet physicists and engineers in the solar world are optimistic about their roadmaps for the coming decade.
...so we are taking people who work in the solar power games work for it. The same people who lobby consistently for more funding using these statistics. I see a conflict of interest.
The article is refering to Solar Cells, not those massive solar plants that advocates claim to be able to provide base load power.
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30.07.2012, 21:46
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | | | | | | Isn't that comparing apples and oranges? A 1W PV cell provides 1W of power under optimal conditions and even then not 24 hours a day. In a real world situation, as I have explained before, you would need to back it up with a gas plant. Maybe one day PV will be something of importance but today it's still a niche in the overall picture. As much as the anti-nuclear lobby likes to present wind and solar as an alternative to nuclear, the truth is that a reduction or abandonment of nuclear will be compensated by mostly fossil plants including a lot of coal and the price will be heavy pollution and global warming. Photovoltaics is not more than a red herring thrown in to confuse those who don't understand the facts of power generation. It's a bit like campaigning against inter-continental flights and having a picture of a rickshaw on your broschure.
As I said, looking further to the future, I see projects such as Desertec having a significant effect on the way we source our energy. But until we get there, we shouldn't fool ourselves by pretending we've arrived.
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30.07.2012, 21:48
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | would you care to explain this : "They don't spend money on oil cartels either. They don't spend. Period." | | | | | Give me an example of the the government of a third world country giving money to subsidise an oil cartel. | Quote: | |  | | | ON the subsidy issue, your comment is contradicting with your school of thought actually. The governments of the developing countries should spend their money on the world oil cartels instead of developing their own industries and improving their capabilities. I remind you the oil price crises of the past. | | | | | | Quote: | |  | | | But they can still produce them as licencees, it is a question of demand actually. | | | | | Licenses usually imply the dumb side of production, as in having some production facility without transfer of key knowledge. That wouldn't help build up their own industries but just make them dependent on another foreign cartel.
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30.07.2012, 21:50
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | Additionally, with today's technologies even if you need to back up wind and solar with fossil fuel(mostly gas), still the total number of fossil fuel based plants will be decreased, hence the dependency will also be decreased. | | | | | How that?
Maybe if you make some very special assumptions. But in general?
Hint: in contrast to developed countries, we're not talking about replacing existing facilities but providing them where previously there weren't any. You are thus selling them into dependence on imported fuels.
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30.07.2012, 21:54
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | Isn't that comparing apples and oranges? A 1W PV cell provides 1W of power under optimal conditions and even then not 24 hours a day. In a real world situation, as I have explained before, you would need to back it up with a gas plant. Maybe one day PV will be something of importance but today it's still a niche in the overall picture. As much as the anti-nuclear lobby likes to present wind and solar as an alternative to nuclear, the truth is that a reduction or abandonment of nuclear will be compensated by mostly fossil plants including a lot of coal and the price will be heavy pollution and global warming. Photovoltaics is not more than a red herring thrown in to confuse those who don't understand the facts of power generation. It's a bit like campaigning against inter-continental flights and having a picture of a rickshaw on your broschure.
As I said, looking further to the future, I see projects such as Desertec having a significant effect on the way we source our energy. But until we get there, we shouldn't fool ourselves by pretending we've arrived. | | | | | I respectfully disagree with you. The graph there is completely relevant as it shows the decrease of cost solar pv per watt produced. I think this shows that we are getting there and with higher demand we go there faster.
As I am resisting to nuclear now, I also resist to the new fossil fuel power plants. In stead of building new ones, we should refurbish the old ones or replace them with the new ones, so that we can increase the overall efficiency and not increase the number of the fossil fuel power plants. We should also invest in renewing the transmission lines and increasing the efficiency in energy usage. in addition to increasing the share of renewable power, these are my solutions for the short to mid term.
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30.07.2012, 22:07
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | As I am resisting to nuclear now, I also resist to the new fossil fuel power plants. In stead of building new ones, we should refurbish the old ones or replace them with the new ones, so that we can increase the overall efficiency and not increase the number of the fossil fuel power plants. We should also invest in renewing the transmission lines and increasing the efficiency in energy usage. in addition to increasing the share of renewable power, these are my solutions for the short to mid term. | | | | | In principle and in and ideal world, I would agree with that. But we're not in an ideal world. We're in a world ruled by cartels and politicians (and also the laws of physics) and they are not going to replace nuclear plants by renewable sources (but they are pretending). If you look at Germany for example, there is large scale investment going on in fossil fuels. New areas are being opened for strip mining of lignite (whole villages being torn down and people thrown out of their houses). And lignite is just about the most polluting and dirty fuel you can imagine, and they're actually increasing their investment in it. New pipelines are being built for Putin's gas. There are even fracking projects going on. The windmills are nice but they are nowhere near as central to policy as the government would have you believe. On the contrary, they are a straw man that the government can point at every time you mention their energy policy. By supporting the anti-nuclear lobby, that is what you are supporting.
Instead of that we could be having a new generation of nuclear plants: They would be clean, safe, cheap, honest and reliable, and the profits could be used for research into real alternatives which would then gradually take over.
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30.07.2012, 22:13
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | How that?
Maybe if you make some very special assumptions. But in general?
Hint: in contrast to developed countries, we're not talking about replacing existing facilities but providing them where previously there weren't any. You are thus selling them into dependence on imported fuels. | | | | | Actually the need to replace in developing countries is even more crucial. Also, their potential gain in renewing their transmission lines are considerably higher than the developed countries.
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30.07.2012, 22:26
|  | Senior Member | | Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Thalwil
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | In principle and in and ideal world, I would agree with that. But we're not in an ideal world. We're in a world ruled by cartels and politicians (and also the laws of physics) and they are not going to replace nuclear plants by renewable sources (but they are pretending). If you look at Germany for example, there is large scale investment going on in fossil fuels. New areas are being opened for strip mining of lignite (whole villages being torn down and people thrown out of their houses). And lignite is just about the most polluting and dirty fuel you can imagine, and they're actually increasing their investment in it. New pipelines are being built for Putin's gas. There are even fracking projects going on. The windmills are nice but they are nowhere near as central to policy as the government would have you believe. On the contrary, they are a straw man that the government can point at every time you mention their energy policy. By supporting the anti-nuclear lobby, that is what you are supporting.
Instead of that we could be having a new generation of nuclear plants: They would be clean, safe, cheap, honest and reliable, and the profits could be used for research into real alternatives which would then gradually take over. | | | | | Thank you for being completely open. The renewable potential is really the victim of the both nuclear and fossil fuel lobbies. They both blame the renewable.
Let me be clear, I am not a hippi who thinks that everything would work according to the ideal assumptions. However, I believe this is not an excuse to accept whatever the lobbies and corrupted governments tell us to accept.
As I have said before, today's renewable technologies are far from being optimal, but trashing them will not help us to improve them. Thereare endless potentials, we just need to investigate.If we keep in mind that the future is there then we can get there. Other wise next thing you know we will be dumping nuclear waste into space (?).
Just for fun, here is one of the craziest ideas I have seen so far: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreduc...HEP_Lunar.html | 
31.07.2012, 03:52
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China ) | Quote: | |  | | | Losses in the transmission lines are minimized because energy production is localized. | | | | | I am 100% for wind and solar energy. But honestly is this point so wrong that in fact the opposite is true - you do not simply put a windmill next to a factory - you put a windmill in an offshore park where the wind blows. Since you will end up with a much large number of much smaller power generators of various kinds... and those produce their power whenever the sun shines or the wind blows... will you end up with a great challenge to make sure that everyone gets enough electricity when and where they need it. That was the key point the politicians overlooked for example in Germany - after two decades of subsidies in windparks and the decision to switch off a number of older nuclear power plants - was the grid not strong enough to deal with it.
Google "smart grid" to get an idea of the topic. IMHO one of the most interesting parts of the entire energy discussion far off all those ever repeating coal and nuclear arguments.
However, the grid challenge is for me not a reason to not invest in renewable energy. No matter how you turn it, one day will there be no more coal... so we need to develop some alternatives. Developing the alternative will take many decades so we better get started and slowly increase the percentage of alternative energy sources. So far do windparks work better than solar ones, but we will see what the future will bring. And to close the circle - the one country that subsidizes their solar research so strongly that the other countries already complain at the WTO because of unfair trade advantages... that would be China. In 20 years will we all drive electric cars with solar panels on the roof produced with the energy from that dam | 
31.07.2012, 08:05
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| | Re: World's largest hydropower project goes fully operational ( China )
Double post
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