CO2 to Fuel

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<<Fine you dont like this particular solution. It may never result in a viable fuel but we will never know if we dont look into it. And personally i would rather the us be on the cutting edge so we can benifit from the rewards instead of simply following others. Things will change no matter what you want.>>


Look at the economics. You are using electricity to make a liquid fuel. In short, you are using a very expensive manufactured energy source to replace a fuel that is efficiently pumoped out of the ground at low cost and refined and transported at low cost.
'
Even more ridiculous, our environmentalist friends are just chomping at the bit to use their hallowed "renwable" energy from solar and wind to make electricity at vast cost and reliability issues, and propose to use that very high priced energy to make another even higher priced energy.


It's absurd.
So your solution is do nothing to move forward?
 
<<Fine you dont like this particular solution. It may never result in a viable fuel but we will never know if we dont look into it. And personally i would rather the us be on the cutting edge so we can benifit from the rewards instead of simply following others. Things will change no matter what you want.>>


Look at the economics. You are using electricity to make a liquid fuel. In short, you are using a very expensive manufactured energy source to replace a fuel that is efficiently pumoped out of the ground at low cost and refined and transported at low cost.
'
Even more ridiculous, our environmentalist friends are just chomping at the bit to use their hallowed "renwable" energy from solar and wind to make electricity at vast cost and reliability issues, and propose to use that very high priced energy to make another even higher priced energy.


It's absurd.
You are right IMO about the absurdity of using expensive renewable energy for this. Nuclear is a better fit.
 
So your solution is do nothing to move forward?



That was the solution of environmentalists who succeeded in getting the construction of several WPPS nuclear power plants being constructed stopped in Washington State in the late 1970s.

More particularly, they promoted the idea of intensively promoting conservation through upgrading weatherization of homes and busineses---- that actually worked quite well.


Unfortunately, the new fashion for renewables came along and energy conservation has been abandoned in favor of buying unreliable and very expensive windmills.
 
Some say environmentalist like a dirty word. Remember when rivers actually burst into flames? Love Canal, strip mining. Even if you don't believe in the greenhouse effect isn't the world nicer when you can breath the air and drink the water?



Some of what environmentalists did ---- in the 1970sd and 1980s is fine.


But that has long since given way to very powerful special interest groups promoting extremist politics and an appetite for absurd bright ideas ----like the one being promoted in the video.
 
That was the solution of environmentalists who succeeded in getting the construction of several WPPS nuclear power plants being constructed stopped in Washington State in the late 1970s.

More particularly, they promoted the idea of intensively promoting conservation through upgrading weatherization of homes and busineses---- that actually worked quite well.


Unfortunately, the new fashion for renewables came along and energy conservation has been abandoned in favor of buying unreliable and very expensive windmills.
So again what is your solution? I hear lots of criticism of all new ideas but no ideas othe4 than just keep doing what we are doing untill we can't anymore.

And btw wind turbines have gotten much cheaper and more reliable.
 
Some of what environmentalists did ---- in the 1970sd and 1980s is fine.


But that has long since given way to very powerful special interest groups promoting extremist politics and an appetite for absurd bright ideas ----like the one being promoted in the video.
And you would have thought replacing .coal with oil was an absurd idea at that time as well. Or replacing horses with cars. Most innovations seem absurd when they are firts thought of.
 
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This is the embryonic technology of future "atmospheric processors". It is the typical technological solution product "ahead of its time". It will allow me to continue my lifestyle but at ever increasing cost. It is where significant US govt supported research $ should be directed, until widespread "national need" lets private investment roll in to move it into development and manufacturing.

It is why I roll my eyes when I read some posters talking of "end days" re our climate problems. I see us presently entering the "skinned knees" stage of climate change. We'll continue to manage the effects for another generation or two, solving some problems along the way. We may need to adjust our coastal development, and the method will likely be through ever higher insurance premiums. I'm Ok with this as I do not see basic human nature changing profoundly. The electrification and automation of the transport industry will make a hugh impact, and moderate some of the dooms day predictions. The climate forecast problems will be resolved by technology, and just as we don't live like our grandparents, our grandchildren will live quite differently from our present ways. The big "problems" in their lives will likely have more to do with global overpopulation and mass migration.
 
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CAPTSPIFF said," We may need to adjust our coastal development, and the method will likely be through ever higher insurance premiums. I'm Ok with this as I do not see basic human nature changing profoundly."

with that in mind,G. Marconi built one of his three wireless stations several hundred feet on the bluffs of Eastham , Mass. In less than ten years the station was moved to Chatham due to erosion. the loss has continued to this day. the bases of the four towers built are now covered by the Atlantic Ocean!

Human nature changing? people on the coast will never change, the are buying uninsurable homes as we speak? Marconi built his stuff in like 1903?
 
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… people on the coast will never change, the are buying uninsurable homes as we speak …

Been going to the Outer Banks for 30 years. Number of homes lost to the ocean in that time. Not allowed to rebuild on your land in many towns, if the ocean takes your home.

There's a good NOVA on moving the Gay Head lighthouse in Martha's Vineyard: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/operation-lighthouse-rescue. There's another show on it, too.

The Cape Hatteras, NC lighthouse had to be moved, too.
 
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That was the solution of environmentalists who succeeded in getting the construction of several WPPS nuclear power plants being constructed stopped in Washington State in the late 1970s.

More particularly, they promoted the idea of intensively promoting conservation through upgrading weatherization of homes and busineses---- that actually worked quite well.

Unfortunately, the new fashion for renewables came along and energy conservation has been abandoned in favor of buying unreliable and very expensive windmills.
Let's not rewrite history. It was bad modeling, bad assumptions, seriously flawed projections and bad economics that killed WPPSS. It is true that once people started realizing the phenomenal costs of this out of control fiasco that some smart people got out their calculators and proved that conservation was much more effective and cheaper than building a huge excess of power plants in a region already with an abundance of cheap hydro. Things like 3 Mile Island incident brought tougher regs which weren't planned for. And the financing based on a if we build it they will come dream was a disaster. Often, they were building ahead of the designers. WPPSS is a textbook classic boondoggle.
https://www.context.org/iclib/ic07/myers/
http://www.historylink.org/File/5482
 
This is the embryonic technology of future "atmospheric processors". It is the typical technological solution product "ahead of its time". It will allow me to continue my lifestyle but at ever increasing cost. It is where significant US govt supported research $ should be directed, until widespread "national need" lets private investment roll in to move it into development and manufacturing.

It is why I roll my eyes when I read some posters talking of "end days" re our climate problems. I see us presently entering the "skinned knees" stage of climate change. We'll continue to manage the effects for another generation or two, solving some problems along the way. We may need to adjust our coastal development, and the method will likely be through ever higher insurance premiums. I'm Ok with this as I do not see basic human nature changing profoundly. The electrification and automation of the transport industry will make a hugh impact, and moderate some of the dooms day predictions. The climate forecast problems will be resolved by technology, and just as we don't live like our grandparents, our grandchildren will live quite differently from our present ways. The big "problems" in their lives will likely have more to do with global overpopulation and mass migration.

I certainly wish this were true, but unfortunately the scope and scale of global systems that have been put into motion don't stop or even slow down with the flip of technology. These are very large-scale, planetary systems at play and they are accelerating faster than models have predicted. We are in deep trouble because notable change is going to take huge investments in systemic change and that is not going to happen until the fossil fuel industry buys in. So far that is not happening in spite of this being the current largest contributor of methane, which is a more serious greenhouse gas than CO2. As the earth warms thawing permafrost may surpass this, but at that point the planet may be past the tipping point of no return.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2668/nasa-led-study-solves-a-methane-puzzle/

"Professor Myles Allen, a geosystem scientist at the University of Oxford, said describing the “limited realistic potential” of carbon removal was short-sighted, and allowed people to “cling to the comfort-blanket of more conventional mitigation options”."

https://www.independent.co.uk/envir...d-climate-change-global-warming-a8187806.html
 
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Let's not rewrite history. It was bad modeling, bad assumptions, seriously flawed projections and bad economics that killed WPPSS.


Actually, it was the field day environmentalists had with repeatedly rewriting standards that required demolition of already constructed parts of nuclear plants to be rebuilt, followed by repeating that again and again that has led to the demise of nuclear power. The reality was that you could never put nuclear power plants into service when environmentalists controlled the regulatory process and were determined to prevent new nuclear plants from going on line by any of the numerous means at their disposal.

Even completed nuclear plants were demolished without ever going on line.

And of course just the reverse was done with "renewable" power. First hydroelectric power was defined as not being "renewable" because environmentalists didn't like it.

Then they created political demand for windmills regardless of their unreliability and high cost, and abandoned their previous enthusiasm for conservation because now they wanted NEW power supplies based upon their own political desires.


Unfortunately, too many people give knee jerk support to environmentalist politics, and we are paying a VERY high price because of it.
 
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Actually, it was the field day environmentalists had with repeatedly rewriting standards that required demolition of already constructed parts of nuclear plants to be rebuilt, followed by repeating that again and again that has led to the demise of nuclear power. The reality was that you could never put nuclear power plants into service when environmentalists controlled the regulatory process and were determined to prevent new nuclear plants from going on line by any of the numerous means at their disposal.

Even completed nuclear plants were demolished without ever going on line.

And of course just the reverse was done with "renewable" power. First hydroelectric power was defined as not being "renewable" because environmentalists didn't like it.

Then they created political demand for windmills regardless of their unreliability and high cost, and abandoned their previous enthusiasm for conservation because now they wanted NEW power supplies based upon their own political desires.


Unfortunately, too many people give knee jerk support to environmentalist politics, and we are paying a VERY high price because of it.
And the other side give knee jerk resistance to any change to benifit the environment.

Since you seem to support nuclear power so much can you tell us what is being done with all of the spent rods? And why is it so many plants are closing because they are not economically viable in states like pa where electric subsidies have been cut?
 
And the other side give knee jerk resistance to any change to benifit the environment.

Since you seem to support nuclear power so much can you tell us what is being done with all of the spent rods? And why is it so many plants are closing because they are not economically viable in states like pa where electric subsidies have been cut?
Spent rods live for 5 years in a water pool while the nastiest of radionuclides decay, then they are entombed in dry casks made of steel and concrete where they sit above ground.

I read a quote in a book where all of the world's civilian nuclear spent fuel for the past 60 years would fill a bit more than half of the the 1st floor of the empire state building. So it's not really all that much either.
(To compare, the world's YEARLY production of coal ash would fill the empire state building over 300 times, although a significant percentage of that goes into making concrete and cinder blocks)
 
Since you seem to support nuclear power so much can you tell us what is being done with all of the spent rods? And why is it so many plants are closing because they are not economically viable in states like pa where electric subsidies have been cut?


Of course environmentalists have torpedoed every plan to bury spent fuel rods underground ---Obama doing the latest hatchet job on that.

You guys MUCH PREFER having fuel rods stored with their current level of security so that you have that as an issue against nuclear power. You have been playing that card for decades, and there is no sign of any change.


Shucks, you guys use ANY issue you can conjure up to oppose anything you don;t happen to like. You guys used Spotted owls which you don;t care about a fig to get control of forests ion Oregon and Washington State, and you are currently working like BEAVERS to have four major hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington State dug up, despite the fact that they generate huge amounts of no carbon fuel.

Indeed, environmentalists passed a state initiative in Washington State promoting renewable energy which EXCLUDED hydroelectric power as renewable energy!

You guys have already been busy digging u[p hydroelectric dams in the west, and aim to do a lot more of that. Indeed, one of the barriers to more windmills in Washington State is all that already built hydropower ---- get it dug up and you can argue for building more windmills.

Many of you guys are political extremists and a menace to society.
 
Well it took a little while but there you go.
 
Of course environmentalists have torpedoed every plan to bury spent fuel rods underground ---Obama doing the latest hatchet job on that.

You guys MUCH PREFER having fuel rods stored with their current level of security so that you have that as an issue against nuclear power. You have been playing that card for decades, and there is no sign of any change.


Shucks, you guys use ANY issue you can conjure up to oppose anything you don;t happen to like. You guys used Spotted owls which you don;t care about a fig to get control of forests ion Oregon and Washington State, and you are currently working like BEAVERS to have four major hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington State dug up, despite the fact that they generate huge amounts of no carbon fuel.

Indeed, environmentalists passed a state initiative in Washington State promoting renewable energy which EXCLUDED hydroelectric power as renewable energy!

You guys have already been busy digging u[p hydroelectric dams in the west, and aim to do a lot more of that. Indeed, one of the barriers to more windmills in Washington State is all that already built hydropower ---- get it dug up and you can argue for building more windmills.

Many of you guys are political extremists and a menace to society.
So if we bury the rods they can't hurt anything?

And for the record I have never done anything concerning spotted owls or beavers.
 
So if we bury the rods they can't hurt anything?

And for the record I have never done anything concerning spotted owls or beavers.
Depends on where they go but pretty much. Local soil should not be oxidizing.

Personally I'd prefer we reprocess the stuff and extract the useful contents. Only 3% or less of the stuff is actually nasty materials and there is still a goldmine of isotopes and rare materials in that portion. The rest is mostly 238U, 235U and various isotopes of Pu (239Pu with a good bit of 240Pu that makes it useless for nuclear weapons)
 
And you would have thought replacing .coal with oil was an absurd idea at that time as well. Or replacing horses with cars. Most innovations seem absurd when they are firts thought of.

Indeed
 
Actually, it was the field day environmentalists had with repeatedly rewriting standards that required demolition of already constructed parts of nuclear plants to be rebuilt, followed by repeating that again and again that has led to the demise of nuclear power. The reality was that you could never put nuclear power plants into service when environmentalists controlled the regulatory process and were determined to prevent new nuclear plants from going on line by any of the numerous means at their disposal.

Even completed nuclear plants were demolished without ever going on line.

And of course just the reverse was done with "renewable" power. First hydroelectric power was defined as not being "renewable" because environmentalists didn't like it.

Then they created political demand for windmills regardless of their unreliability and high cost, and abandoned their previous enthusiasm for conservation because now they wanted NEW power supplies based upon their own political desires.

Unfortunately, too many people give knee jerk support to environmentalist politics, and we are paying a VERY high price because of it.
No, it was things like 3 mile island causing regulators to be more cautious. Environmentalist did not change engineering designs. That is just silly. Designs were changed to make the reactors safer and more foolproof to avoid another disaster. The input from conservationists came after things started going downhill. They suggested there was a better and more economical way, energy efficiency, which benefited everyone and had the lowest cost. But the real problem with WPPSS was that they ridiculously overestimated demand. This was then turned into an economic fiasco that promised investors full returns on their bonds regardless of whether the plants were built or not.

PS: the windmills came a few decades later. I haven't heard power companies complaining about their costs. At least PSE is not complaining. Considering modern units make power at about 5 cents a KWh and sell it for 11 cents it seems to have the shareholders happy.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...urces-of-electricity-and-its-getting-cheaper/
 
Personally I'd prefer we reprocess the stuff and extract the useful contents. Only 3% or less of the stuff is actually nasty materials and there is still a goldmine of isotopes and rare materials in that portion. The rest is mostly 238U, 235U and various isotopes of Pu (239Pu with a good bit of 240Pu that makes it useless for nuclear weapons)
Read up on the chronic, deteriorating problems of Hanford. We don't do a great job at this.
 
Been going to the Outer Banks for 30 years. Number of homes lost to the ocean in that time. Not allowed to rebuild on your land in many towns, if the ocean takes your home.
Erosion of coastal s
Read up on the chronic, deteriorating problems of Hanford. We don't do a great job at this.
Hanford produced plutonium for the military use of atomic weapons. That has little to do with reprocessing fuel rods.
 
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Of course environmentalists have torpedoed every plan to bury spent fuel rods underground ---Obama doing the latest hatchet job on that.

You guys MUCH PREFER having fuel rods stored with their current level of security so that you have that as an issue against nuclear power. You have been playing that card for decades, and there is no sign of any change.


Shucks, you guys use ANY issue you can conjure up to oppose anything you don;t happen to like. You guys used Spotted owls which you don;t care about a fig to get control of forests ion Oregon and Washington State, and you are currently working like BEAVERS to have four major hydroelectric dams on the Snake River in Washington State dug up, despite the fact that they generate huge amounts of no carbon fuel.

Indeed, environmentalists passed a state initiative in Washington State promoting renewable energy which EXCLUDED hydroelectric power as renewable energy!

You guys have already been busy digging u[p hydroelectric dams in the west, and aim to do a lot more of that. Indeed, one of the barriers to more windmills in Washington State is all that already built hydropower ---- get it dug up and you can argue for building more windmills.

Many of you guys are political extremists and a menace to society.
Dude, stop turning this into a You Guys vs Us Guys argument. That is actually part of the problem. We're all in this together and you might be surprised to note that some of "those guys" are actually not opposed to responsible application of nuclear energy in the short term.

You'll note that similar initiatives for renewable energy have been passed in at least 20 other states. That said, I'm personally not a big fan of the initiative process.
 
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