HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ems@Apple.COM (Mike Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Arguments
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:15:35 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

In article <1992Sep28.005421.10635@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>
>In article <1a4k79INNf10@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>In article <3211.1460.uupcb@spacebbs.com>, howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith)  writes:
>
>>>JW>Fossil fuel plants are going to be built in large numbers throughout the
>>>JW>world over the next 20-30 years,

>>That's OK, we just build our fossil-fueled plants in other states.

>Other states?  Other *countries* is more like it.  Over the next
>decade about 600 GW of new capacity will be needed worldwide; only
>20-25% of that will be in North America.  

Side note:  Isn't electricity one of the major exports from Canada 
to the US?  I'd be interested in knowing what fraction of the
exported power was Hydro and what fraction was CANDU ...

(I know, electrons are fungible, but when a big station is built with
a major trunk going over the border, you can kind of alot the output ...)

Maybe we won't buy CANDU reactors, but I think we are willing to 
buy their product!

>Nearly 2/5 will be in Asia,
>where economic growth rates are high.  China's GNP, for example, has
>been growing 8%/year since 1979, and the growth could hit double
>digits this year.  China has enormous quantities of coal, and
>no compunctions about burning it.

This, BTW, is what worries me the most about the energy future.
I'm not that worried about US Nukes, Canadian Nukes, European Nukes,
US Coal (scrubbed & gassified), etc.  But the thought of a 
Billion peoples worth of demand comming on line with alot of 
straight forward and dirty coal plants to power it looks like
an ecological nightmare in the making.

I'd rather they used western nuke plants than dirty unscrubbed coal.

Anyone know what the state of the art is in Chinese nuclear plants?
Are they like the Russian designs or more like western designs?

>Other Asian countries, like Korea and Japan, are buying more nuclear
>reactors (CANDU HWRs in Korea, US Advanced BWRs in Japan).

They don't have much choice.  Given that they have little fuel, they
are pretty much forced to go with capital intensive sources or export
hard cash in a haemorage worse than we do to OPEC...  Until something
like solar has a major cost breakthrough, I'd be very surprised if they
went with anything OTHER than nuclear.  When you have little land and
less fuel, a physically compact system that uses very little fuel (and
where breeders can make more than you bought...) is very attractive.

-- 
E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

"Nothing can keep an argument going like two persons who aren't
sure what they're arguing about."   O.A.Battista
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Roofs
Date: 28 Sep 92 23:17:03 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

amirza@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Anmar Caves) writes:

>... howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith)  writes:

>>One of the problems with solar water heaters is that they can freeze up
>>and burst on clear, cold nights due to radiation effects, even though
>>the air temperature is considerably above freezing. Most systems
>>automatically drain the black surfaced panels at night to prevent this
>>problem.

> Most modern SDHW systems use an antifreeze and a heat exchanger.
> Freezing is not a problem.


This is not the only, nor necessarily the best, way to solve the
problem.  Another is to use "integral storage" collectors, which
combine the collector and the storage tank(s).  Radiative cooling can
be minimized by use of selective surfaces and selective transparent
insulation, so that the long-wave IR from the hot tank is suppressed,
while absorption of shortwave IR and visible light from the sun is
not.  Surfaces are available with IR emissivity of .1 or less;
specially fabricated semiconductor multilayers have reduced this
still further, while maintaining good absorption at shorter
wavelengths.

Transparent insulating materials have been developed that transmit
75% of the incident light, yet have an insulating value of R-10.
An integral storage collector of this type will not freeze in
midwinter in central Europe, and I suspect in much of the US as
well.

Putting storage in the collector makes it heavier, though.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuke Stupidity Rebuttal
Date: 25 Sep 92 22:33:19 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Sep24.215502.9213@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>In article <53843@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>In article <STEINLY.92Sep23132719@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>>>In article <53823@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>   What's so logical about an average case analysis?
>>>
>>>   --------start quote
>>>	The criteria recommended in this article have no fundamental
>>>	basis. Indeed, there is no fundamental approach to this issue
>>>	and no way of proving whether any proposed criteria are right or
>>>	wrong except by using them over a period of time and discovering
>>>	whether the costs, risk, and other consequences of their use meet the 
>>>	requirements of society (185)
>>>   SOURCE: D.J. Higson Nuclear Safety Assessment Criteria
>>>   Nuclear Safety 31-32 April-June 1990 193-185
>>>
>>>So you advocate building lots of nuclear reactors and operating them
>>>under varying conditions for long periods until we have enough
>>>failure samples to do a rigorous estimate of all failure modes 
>>>and associated risk? 
>
>That's strange.  I thought we'd already done this.  How many nuclear
>reactors have we, as a race, been operating, under varying conditions,
>in military sea vessels and on land-based power stations, since the
>mid-fifties?  Surely this is a considerable amount of data?
>
>>No. Please excuse me if I opt out of further elaboration of this issue with
>>you, as you seem to lack a committment to rational discussion.
>
>Inasmuch as you've admitted yourself that the risk analysis is basically a
>subjective thing, I find it rather humourous that you're bailing out
>because the discussion isn't "rational"...

"Rational" and "quantifiable" are not always the same.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: meier@Software.Mitel.COM (Rolf Meier)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: "efficiency" of AC and heating
Date: 5 Oct 92 13:29:45 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

In article <1992Oct2.100946.6278@sinix.UUCP> egn@sinix.UUCP (Hr.Naepflein/PHILOS) writes:

>That's true, but electricity is often used for purposes for which it
>isn't necessary. Why using it for AC and heating? The total efficiency
>is very low, because the efficiency of generating power is very low.

Electricity is efficient for air conditioning for the same reason that
heat pumps are efficient.  For a given unit of electric energy, a heat
pump can move 2 to 3 times the amount of heat, depending on the
temperature differential.

Agreed that resistance heating is not particularly efficient.

However, in the end it all depends on your definition of "efficient".

________________________________________________________________________
Rolf Meier					Mitel Corporation
From: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Sup
Date: 30 Sep 92 08:23:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: spacebbs.3329.1460.uupcb
Reply-To: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith)
Distribution: na
Organization: SPACE BBS - Menlo Park, CA - 10 Lines + 4gB - 415-323-4193

E(>In <1992Sep25.192358.148@aston.ac.uk> foxp@cs.aston.ac.uk (Pete Fox,,,,unive
E(>ucb)) writes:

E(>>I used to be a fan of nuclear power - then I got a degree in physics and
E(>>know a bit more about it.

E(>If you consider this to be a persuasive argument against nuclear
E(>power, then you're arguing in favor of it: upwards of 90% of physics
E(>and engineering graduates support nuclear power, and the higher thedegree, t
E(>tronger the support.

90% of priests that graduate from seminary are in favor of religion too.

Most university physic departments are temples for nuclear energy.
That's where the jobs and the research money can be had.

A majority of college graduates at one time also believed in the
Ptolemaic theory of the universe.

How many university physic departments teach courses and have large
research grants in renewable energy?

Please cite the source of your statistics.

I have a BSc in physics with much graduate work in engineering and I am
very excited about solar and wind energy with hydrogen as a the
principle storage medium, fuel cells, etc. Rebel that I am.

hhs
---
 . SLMR 2.1a . This tagline stolen by Silly Little Mail Reader!
From: Tom Gray <tgray@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Date: 26 Sep 92 07:49 PDT
Subject: Re: --Early Turbine Still Operates
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1466300082:cdp:1466300084:000:674
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!tgray    Sep 26 07:49:00 1992


<responding to several who have asked>

Very little is left of the original wind turbine installed
in Nova Scotia.  However, that's not entirely out of line
with modern turbines being installed in the field.  Analyses
of wind turbine costs currently generally assume that two
major overhauls will be needed during the turbine's 25-year
life, including replacement of some major components.

The operating environment of wind turbines is very severe,
and poses a stringent test for typical industrial equipment.
Even so, the total cost of power produced by them is currently
in the range of 6-9 cents/kWh and reductions of 30-50% are
expected by the end of this decade.

Tom
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: SOLAR efficiency
Date: 29 Sep 92 13:41:18 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <1992Sep28.213033.1123@michael.apple.com> ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:

>> No it would not reduce peak capacity requirements. There would still
>> be cloudy days, like when Andrew crossed the South and left us all
>> under thunderstorms for several days. 

> Pardon me, but I was under the impression that Andrew, as big as it
> was, didn't cause the entire SunBelt to be clouded over!

I understand that, in fact, one can have large scale disturbances
that affect "renewable" energy collectors over wide areas.  This
year is a case in point.

The Mt. Pinatubo eruption has placed sulfur aerosols into the
stratosphere that are scattering about 10-15% of sunlight (at noon;
more when the sun is low in the sky).  You can see this yourself;
notive the large white nimbus around the sun.  Most of this sunlight
is scattered forward, but the effect has been to reduce the output
from the SEGS thermal collectors in California (which use only the
direct fraction of sunlight) by 20%.  This wouldn't affect flat plates
to nearly the same extent, but would affect concentrator PV or central
receiver solar thermal.

El Nino is also causing problems with the wind turbine fields in
Calfornia, with output down by 10% or so.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.energy,talk.environment
From: whitlock@dcss.mcmaster.ca (Jeremy Whitlock)
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Superstition (and the *Real* Problems)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, McMaster University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:21:44 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.221108.1452@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:

>[...]  I have posted extensively in the past
>about how using less electricity via efficiency is far cheaper
>than building the new capacity needed to supply inefficient equipment.
>This message is starting to get through to some utilities.  

Not true, according to Ontario Hydro's experience.  Conservation and 
efficiency were given top priority (ie. greater than supply) in its 
recent 25-year Demand/Supply Plan (currently under government review),
resulting in it being one of -- if not *the* -- most ambitious demand
management plans in North America.  According to their cost estimates, 
the demand management components are the most expensive, per MW, in the
whole plan.  (Cost, obviously, was not given top priority either).

Interestingly enough, Ontario Hydro has just announced plans to drop its
incentives next year which encourage users to switch to more efficient 
energy sources.  The reason: It was costing them too much.  (it's also 
just about all they have left to cut, except maybe workforce, since they've
dropped -- either explicitly or effectively -- all supply options available
to them in the short term.

>		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)

-- 
Jeremy Whitlock                 "My thoughts are mine, not Mac's"
Dept. Engineering Physics
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada  
Newsgroups: sci.energy
From: mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van Pelt)
Subject: Re: Nuke Stupidity Rebuttal
Organization: LSI Logic/Headland Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:15:29 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.170409.29413@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>The need for power generation is there.
>*Something* has to be used to generate that power.

That's where you are failing to comprehend the true genius of the "soft
energy paths" people.  It is possible to generate infinite energy by
conservation, with no energy generation at all.  That is what has made
Bangladesh is the richest country on Earth.

(And if you believe that one, I've got a carburetor that gets 200
miles per gallon of water that I'll sell you...)

-- 
Mike Van Pelt                          Here lies a Technophobe,
LSI Logic/Headland Products               No whimper, no blast.
sun!indetech!hsv3!mvp                  His life's goal accomplished,
mvp@hsv3.lsil.com                         Zero risk at last.
Newsgroups: sci.energy
From: jws@billy.mlb.semi.harris.com (James W. Swonger)
Subject: Re: Meyer's Hydrogen Nonsense
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:38:40 GMT
Distribution: sci.energy
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL

 The most obvious drawback of his contraption is that the H2 and O2 are 
released combined, not separated. Makes for poor odds of storing or
transporting the result. A lot of the power dumped in an electrolysis
cell is spent in separating the species once dissociated (ion current
times cell voltage). A cell which does not separate is useless except for
amusement.

-- 
##########################################################################
#Irresponsible rantings of the author alone. Any resemblance to persons  #
#living or dead then yer bummin. May cause drowsiness. Alcohol may inten-#
#sify this effect. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Billy!#
From: moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com
Subject: Re: SOLAR efficiency
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:29:34 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.155036.11517@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes...
>With an 800,000 volt line, you need 1 ampere of capacity for every 800 
>kW transferred. To send one nuke's worth of power, 1000 MW, requires 
>the tie to carry 1250 amps. Copper has a resistance of 10,700 ohms per 
>circular mil per 1000 feet.

...

>So let's look at it from the other direction. Let's assume we can
>tolerate a 10% loss on a 2,800 mile line. That means the total line
>resistance can't exceed 64 ohms, or .00432 ohms per 1000 feet. That
>would be a cable of 2.48 million CM, or about 1.6 inches diameter.
>Well what do you know, you could do it after all if you installed
>roughly 224 million pounds of copper line per 900 MW you wished to
>transfer. What's copper going for per pound these days?

Copper is much too heavy and expensive to be used in power transmission lines.
They use aluminum cables with steel cores to support the weight.  Even though
copper is a better conductor, they just make the aluminum cables thicker to
compensate and it is _still_ cheaper and lighter than copper.  Aluminum
runs something like 55 cents/lb in the commodities market I think, copper
is a couple dollars/lb, and makes less wire.

1.6" diameter cable actually might be small.  I live nearish to one end of a
765kV DC link which imports hydroelectric power from northern Canada.
There are two main conductors, and each one is 3 cables attached together every
50 feet or so with a spacer.  I don't know the diameter of each cable, but it
appears to be several inches, as they are rather substantial in appearance
despite being quite high off the ground.  They appear to be insulated though.

-Mike
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuke Stupidity Rebuttal
Date: 26 Sep 92 18:32:45 GMT
	<53930@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Sep26.070724.15965@nuchat.sccsi.com>
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com's message of 26 Sep 92 07:07:24 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.070724.15965@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:



   Change the data the model has to work with, and you change the model.  What
   you've done above is provide additional information to work with.  So, with
   the additional information, I agree that the two cases (losing 20 people in
   one disaster, with no deaths during  the remaiing time and losing 20 people
   over a period of 10 years) are not equivalent.

Funnily enough that argument strengthens the case for nuclear power!
If you argue losing 20 people in a single incident is worse than
losing 20 people statistically over a number of years, then almost all
nuclear plant accident scenarios are preferred as even the worst cases
involve mostly statistical risk to a population - I can think of
no credible scenario where a large population would receive a lethal
dose from a nuclear plant. In contrast, fossil fuel plant accidents typically
involve 10-100 deaths on an occasional basis, including transport
of fuel, mining and waste disposal - with waste disposal arguably
the historically most hazardous. This is in _addition_ to the
statistical risk that fossil plants pose by carcinogen emission, 
SO2 emission and potential greenhouse effects.

If you dislike low probability scenarios with high potential costs
then just the potential greenhouse effects should rule out fossil
fuel plants.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			 Lick Observatory     	  *
* steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		       "standard disclaimer"  	  *
* But, oh, love is strange 					  *
* and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth,      *
* I suppose 				              - B.B. 1983 *
From: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith) 
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: --Early Turbine Still
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:56:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: SPACE BBS - Menlo Park, CA - 10 Lines + 4gB - 415-323-4193
Reply-To: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith) 

PD>This is a bit misleading.  New wind turbine installation in the US has
PD>nearly ground to a halt.  It is far below even a few years ago.  The
PD>California wind farms were supported by generous contracts paying
PD>$.10/kWh or so for the electricity; those contracts are over or nearly
PD>over and the payments will now be much lower.

Well! it may be less than a few years ago, but it is very much a live.

1. US Windpower has recently installed 22 of their new "five-cent",
300kW, variable speed, wind turbines on their farm in the Altamont Pass
and, I believe, are also installing some at a farm at Suisun Bay.

2. Iowa-Illinois Power is heading up a consortium to build a large farm
around Iowa somewhere. They are surveying sites. (Drat! I've misplaced
that issue of Windpower Monthly)

3. The Bonneville Power Administration has requested 50MW of wind power
generation in the northwest to be on line by July 1995. The forecast is
for number of windfarms to be installed in the Columbia River Valley on
up into Montana. They are running out of new hydro power.

4. Four investor-owned electric utility companies have agreed to
collaborate on a 50MW project designed, developed and operated by US
Windpower in the Rattlesnake Hills in inland Washington state.

5. US Windpower has plans to install 750 of its 300kW 33-MVS turbines
in Maine starting in mid-1994 on a $225 million wind farm on land owned
by paper companies.

6. Vestas America, a subsidery of the Danish wind turbine manufacturer,
is installing 16 Vestas V27 turbines in a 3.6 MW wind farm in
California's Tehachipi Pass, due to go on line in this month.

7. A windfarm is planned in Wisconsin and I believe one was just
dedicated in the area.

8. I believe that these installations are to be built without the
benefit of subsidies because the new "five-cent" machines don't need
any.

9. There is a bill passed by both the House and Senate that would give
the industry a 1.5 cent/kWh production tax incentive. Bush, hopefully
has already signed it. This would help wind power by partially
equalizing the advantage of tax incentives given to other power
technologies.

With or without the tax incentives being given to wind power by a number
of countries the "five-cent", variable speed, turbines are going to make
it for wind power.

So there does seem to be a future for wind power.

PS - There is even talk of a "three-cent" machine.
---
 . SLMR 2.1a . Back Up My Hard Drive? I Can't Find The Reverse Switch!
From: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith) 
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Sup
Date: 27 Sep 92 10:06:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: SPACE BBS - Menlo Park, CA - 10 Lines + 4gB - 415-323-4193
Reply-To: howard.smith@spacebbs.com (Howard Smith) 

JW>In article <1992Sep24.183410.1491@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
JW>es:

JW>>Amory Lovins was much hated by the utilities in his early days but
JW>>is now an accepted expert in the field of energy efficiency and his
JW>>big consulting fees come from this expertise, not from anti-nuclear
JW>>bashing.  I have seen cases where EPRI has worked with him.  While
JW>>everything he says may not be perfect, he is not an example of the
JW>>type of person that you are looking for.

JW>It matters not who pays the man, or who he associates with.  The man has
JW>been a major force in the anti-nuclear movement, and he has benefitted
JW>greately from the resulting public interest in alternatives.  If anti-
JW>nuclear sentiment grows stronger, he grows richer, and he has the ability
JW>to influence anti-nuclear sentiment.  He is, therefore, a fine example of
JW>what I'm talking about, although I don't want to see this turn into a
JW>discussion of who fits onto who's hit list.

Probably, Mr. Lovins biggest audience is the nuclear power industry
itself. I had never heard of him until a few weeks ago when I purchased
a copy of the "Alternative Energy Sourcebook" from Real Goods in which
he wrote the foreword. His only mention of nuclear was that recently
"renewables came to provide some 11-12% of the nation's total primary
energy (about twice as much as nuclear power) and the fastest-growing
part". Real fire brand talk.

I have to admit though that I hear a lot of anti-nuclear stuff involving
some place called "Chernobyl" almost constantly on that thing they refer
to as "television". Is Mr. Lovins some sort of anchor-man on ABC News or
somethin'?  Huh?

hhs
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 . SLMR 2.1a . All hope abandon, ye who enter messages here.
                                               
Newsgroups: sci.energy