• Nuclear power

    From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to All on Sun Mar 20 14:30:28 2022
    For most of my entire life now, ever since I studied physics, with one of my majors for my ma+phy PhD in the early 1970s, I've been wondering why absolutely nobody seem to realise that what I've been saying might be true.

    So now I ask all of the remainder of what's left in our true intellectual part of our Fidonet community to answer me this:

    Why do you think we are supposed to create more warm water (using Putin's gas) while we insist on wasting 70% of what our nuke plants are creating just to make all that wonderful warm water flushed into the ocean just to make electricity?

    I'm probably too old for this. I tried (lost by a couple of thousand MEP votes a decade ago), but now I hope that my kids (in their mid 50s) will be able to keep up that hunt for the truth, that I have searched for.

    Are you maybe up to it? Produce electricity at 35% efficiency, or just settle for the hot water at 95% efficiency?

    RFC

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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Bj÷rn Felten on Sun Mar 20 16:02:28 2022
    Hello Bjrn!

    20 Mar 22 14:30, Bjrn Felten wrote to All:

    For most of my entire life now, ever since I studied physics, with
    one of my majors for my ma+phy PhD in the early 1970s, I've been wondering why absolutely nobody seem to realise that what I've been saying might be true.

    Well, I guess I wasn't even able to understand the question. What /exactly/ are you proposing? After the last condensation step in the plant, the water temperature is usually between 30C and 40C. There is not much you can do with that (apart from feeding it back). Or what are you thinking about? And why would this only apply to nuclear plants? Coal power plants are pretty much the same in that respect.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to Gerrit Kuehn on Mon Mar 21 21:16:07 2022
    Well, I guess I wasn't even able to understand the question. What /exactly/ are you proposing? After the last condensation step in the plant, the water temperature is usually between 30C and 40C. There is
    not much you can do with that (apart from feeding it back). Or what are you thinking about? And why would this only apply to nuclear plants?
    Coal power plants are pretty much the same in that respect.

    To sum it up, thanks for explaining why nobody seems to understand what I am talking about.

    No, it's not about the 70% waste water *after* the steam engine. It's about stopping the uncomplicated and safe hot water generator from using it as an extreme pressure cooker, producing 350C water at 150 atm just to get at least 30% efficiency from the steam engine converting heat into electricity.

    It's about to reduce the produced water down to normal temps and pressure and use it to heat our homes directly, without taking the 30% efficiency turning electricity route into heat.


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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Bj÷rn Felten on Mon Mar 21 21:55:54 2022
    Hello Bjrn!

    21 Mar 22 21:16, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:


    It's about to reduce the produced water down to normal temps and pressure and use it to heat our homes directly, without taking the
    30% efficiency turning electricity route into heat.

    This sounds like what is called a "Heizkraftwerk" in German (heating plant). Quite common technology here, though certainly not nuclear powered.

    However, this won't produce electricity for you, unless you use just the excess heat... Oh, wait, now maybe I get what you mean: Are you crazy Scandinavians using electricity directly for heating your homes? That's technology we built here sometimes in the 1970ies (and phased it out soon). Only makes sense if you can produce electricity galore like people thought back then that it might be that way in the near future when everything became "nuclear"... well, history didn't take that path (at least not here).


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to Gerrit Kuehn on Tue Mar 22 02:53:30 2022
    Oh, wait, now maybe I get what you mean: Are you crazy Scandinavians
    using electricity directly for heating your homes? That's technology we built here sometimes in the 1970ies (and phased it out soon).

    Yes we are. We abandoned coal almost a century ago, and never phased it out to Russian gas.



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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Bj÷rn Felten on Tue Mar 22 18:15:00 2022
    Hello Bjrn!

    22 Mar 22 02:53, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:

    Oh, wait, now maybe I get what you mean: Are you crazy Scandinavians
    using electricity directly for heating your homes? That's technology
    we built here sometimes in the 1970ies (and phased it out soon).

    Yes we are. We abandoned coal almost a century ago, and never
    phased it out to Russian gas.

    Electricity is the most expensive form of energy we have. Back in the 1970ies some people thought that nuclear power would make it so cheap that it would be feasible to heat homes with it. Never happened.

    So yes, we do operate heating plants, usually by burning waste or biomass, or as combined heat and power plants ("Blockheizkraftwerk" in German).
    Nuclear energy was never as cheap as advertised 50 years ago, and meanwhile it is one of the most poisoned policy issues we ever had. Someone suggesting to use it for heating homes would be sent to the funny farm (if lucky - otherwise they might be tared and feathered straight away).


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to Gerrit Kuehn on Tue Mar 22 21:32:52 2022
    Electricity is the most expensive form of energy we have. Back in the 1970ies some people thought that nuclear power would make it so cheap
    that it would be feasible to heat homes with it. Never happened.

    Sigh. You are still dodging my original RFC.

    Electricity is maybe the most expensive form of energy you have in Germany. And if you still use coal and Russian gas to heat your homes, well, maybe you should not mock the crazy Scandinavians for rather using our excessive amount of electricity of what we are net exporters from our grid, that even Germany is connected to.

    We have the cleanest air in the entire Europe. The only time we get pollution up here is when winds from the south bringing us all the shit from Germany and Poland or from the west when we get all the shit from England.

    SWB (solar, wind, battery) power plants are nowadays a much cheaper form of producing clean and environmentally friendly electricity than even a Russian gas powered Blockheizkraftwerk can.

    If we in Scandinavia could stop wasting the 70% energy now wasted in our nuke plants and started using it to heat our homes, that would mean that we could export around 30% more of the hydro and SWB generated electricity we produce to e.g. Germany and other countries connected to our Scandinavian grid.


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  • From Mike Miller@1:154/30.1 to Gerrit Kuehn on Tue Mar 22 16:14:49 2022
    Hello, Gerrit Kuehn.
    On 3/22/22 6:15 PM you wrote:

    Hello Bjrn! 22 Mar 22 02:53, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:
    Oh, wait, now maybe I get what you mean: Are you crazy
    Scandinavians using electricity directly for heating your homes?
    That's technology we built here sometimes in the 1970ies (and
    phased it out soon).
    Yes we are. We abandoned coal almost a century ago, and never
    phased it out to Russian gas.
    Electricity is the most expensive form of energy we have. Back in
    the 1970ies some people thought that nuclear power would make it
    so cheap that it would be feasible to heat homes with it. Never
    happened. So yes, we do operate heating plants, usually by burning
    waste or biomass, or as combined heat and power plants ("Blockheizkraftwerk" in German). Nuclear energy was never as
    cheap as advertised 50 years ago, and meanwhile it is one of the
    most poisoned policy issues we ever had. Someone suggesting to use
    it for heating homes would be sent to the funny farm (if lucky - otherwise they might be tared and feathered straight away).
    It's frustrating, nuclear power is by far one of the safest forms of power production, and other than a small amount of nuclear waste, which is fairly easy and safe to store/dispose, it's incredibly clean.

    But some people with loud voices decided it was scary because they didn't understand it, so There We Are Then.
    --
    Mike
    BBS: warensemble.com
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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Bj÷rn Felten on Tue Mar 22 21:41:18 2022
    Hello Bjrn!

    22 Mar 22 21:32, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:


    Electricity is maybe the most expensive form of energy you have in Germany.

    Which is exactly what I wrote. "we" was referring to "us in Germany".

    And if you still use coal and Russian gas to heat your
    homes, well, maybe you should not mock the crazy Scandinavians for
    rather using our excessive amount of electricity of what we are net exporters from our grid, that even Germany is connected to.

    I'm not mocking anyone. I rather wonder why you want to do long-distance heating when according to what you wrote you already have a solution based on electricity you produce in abundance.

    "long-distace" distribution for hot water is rather inefficient. You would have to move the people close to your nuclear power plant (or the other way round) to make that work.

    We have the cleanest air in the entire Europe.

    Fine. What do you do with the nuclear waste of your power plants?

    SWB (solar, wind, battery) power plants are nowadays a much
    cheaper form of producing clean and environmentally friendly
    electricity than even a Russian gas powered Blockheizkraftwerk can.

    Guess what, you're not the only one in the know. ;-)
    Germany will be ramping that up rather quickly now, I guess. The BHKWs still newly built around here run on biomass.

    If we in Scandinavia could stop wasting the 70% energy now wasted
    in our nuke plants and started using it to heat our homes, that would mean that we could export around 30% more of the hydro and SWB
    generated electricity we produce to e.g. Germany and other countries connected to our Scandinavian grid.

    See above: this only works for homes close to the plants, and the cost for the new infrastructure needed (large, well insulated pipes put into the ground) is rather high even then.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Mike Miller on Wed Mar 23 07:02:50 2022
    Hello Mike!

    22 Mar 22 16:14, Mike Miller wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:

    It's frustrating, nuclear power is by far one of the safest forms of power production, and other than a small amount of nuclear waste,
    which is fairly easy and safe to store/dispose, it's incredibly
    clean.

    You opinion. Others think different. Apart from the nuclear waste issue (what is your solution there?) and the operation safety issues (solution?), it is neither CO2-free nor renewable. Where do you get Uranium from and how long will the supply last? Waiting for the next supernova to renew the stock is not a feasible option. After all, it is still burning fossil fuel, just with different type of fuel and a different burning process.

    But some people with loud voices decided it was scary because they
    didn't understand it, so There We Are Then.

    I think I understand it quite well, and I'm not scared.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to Gerrit Kuehn on Mon Mar 28 17:15:37 2022
    "long-distace" distribution for hot water is rather inefficient. You
    would have to move the people close to your nuclear power plant (or the other way round) to make that work.

    I get this knee jerk comment a lot. Ever since I first published my suggestion in the early 1980s. Everyone knows that hot water cools down fast when transported long distances, right?

    But what you know, based on your intuition, is mostly not based on scientific facts. Unlike all the people that publishes such cock sure statements based on intuition, I am a scientist. My PhD had maths and physics as my majors, so I could easily calculate how much you lose in a well designed hot water pipeline.

    I used a pipe from one of Ringhals' (four) reactors to Gteborg (56 km) as an example, and even I was baffled by the result. I had to go over my equations several times, but could not find any errors. The result was, that even in a worst case scenario (surprisingly in the summer months) the total loss would be less than 2%. As opposed to the loss in the electric grid (including all the transformers and other connection points on its way) that starts at 8%.

    30 years later, I was happy to see that scientists at the Lund University had made their own calculations, and came to a similar result with the same equations, albeit with a simplified system. Open like at Iceland, not closed like the coaxial pipe with hot water going out in the inner pipe and the cold return water in the outer, that I used.

    http://eljaco.se/files/Unnur_Margret.pdf


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  • From August Abolins@2:221/1.58 to Björn Felten on Mon Mar 28 13:33:00 2022
    Hello Bjrn Felten!

    ** On Monday 28.03.22 - 17:15, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:

    "long-distace" distribution for hot water is rather inefficient. [...]

    I get this knee jerk comment a lot. Ever since I first published my suggestion in the early 1980s. Everyone knows that hot water cools down fast when transported long distances, right?

    [..]

    http://eljaco.se/files/Unnur_Margret.pdf

    Interesting. I never heard of rock wool.

    --
    ../|ug

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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to Bj÷rn Felten on Mon Mar 28 19:33:26 2022
    Hello Bjrn!

    28 Mar 22 17:15, Bjrn Felten wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:

    But what you know, based on your intuition, is mostly not based on scientific facts. Unlike all the people that publishes such cock sure statements based on intuition, I am a scientist.

    I'm not into pissing contests, I'm out. However, I get the idea now why nobody ever responds to your bright ideas.


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Gerrit Kuehn@2:240/12 to August Abolins on Mon Mar 28 19:59:55 2022
    Hello August!

    28 Mar 22 13:33, August Abolins wrote to Bjrn Felten:


    Interesting. I never heard of rock wool.

    Quite common stuff around here for insulating buildings. What do you use?


    Regards,
    Gerrit

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  • From Björn Felten@2:203/2 to Gerrit Kuehn on Wed Mar 30 00:47:20 2022
    I'm not into pissing contests, I'm out. However, I get the idea now why nobody ever responds to your bright ideas.

    Removing people suffering from the Dunning-Krger effect, from any kind of discussions, is only positive. I increases the S/N ratio considerably.



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  • From Ward Dossche@2:292/854 to Björn Felten on Wed Mar 30 08:54:32 2022
    Removing people suffering from the Dunning-Krger effect, from any
    kind of discussions, is only positive. I increases the S/N ratio considerably.

    And with one blow, Google is flooded by searches for "Dunning-Kruger" ... 8-)

    \%/@rd

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  • From David Drummond@3:640/305 to Ward Dossche on Fri Apr 1 10:21:44 2022
    On 30/03/2022 17:54, Ward Dossche : Björn Felten wrote:
    Removing people suffering from the Dunning-Krüger effect, from any
    kind of discussions, is only positive. I increases the S/N ratio
    considerably.

    And with one blow, Google is flooded by searches for "Dunning-Kruger"

    :-)

    Guilty as charged.

    --
    Regards
    David

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