Nuclear energy is more expensive than renewables, CSIRO report finds

Well...I disagree.

The batteries we think of conventionally are chemical in nature. But thermocouple cells can also form batteries. I believe Georg used thermocouples in his experiments, in fact.

So the power supply on Voyager is much more like a battery than it is a reactor. The heat generated by the plutonium generates the voltage in the thermocouple directly, not like in a nuclear reactor with a steam turbine and a rotating magnetic field. That's a generator, not a battery.

 

There's also some capacitance for instantaneous voltage regulation, but it's not a heck of a lot.

 

guess we will see if these diamond batteries get any better or not....

 

Eh. Kinda.

The world's longest running battery is a voltaic pile made out of copper and zinc disks separated by an electrolyte. The energy is technically stored in the chemical bonds，but it's not like we had to do any work to store it there.

 

It's a good idea to refrain from holding your breath.

 

I'm confused. Do you believe the concerns are genuine or the result of corruption? I thought you were arguing they were legitimate, but I can find no evidence in the 40 years of the facility's existence that they were...

 

better to refrain from saying never....

 

Here's another potential problem with scaling.

The internal resistance of a supply is related to its size. If you try to scale this technology up the internal resistance will indirectly scale with it.

Do you know what's inside an EV battery? A whole mess of AA sized cells connected by really thick low resistance conductors. Current and voltage can be transformed, so why not just one big cell filled with an equal amount of charge? A mess of smaller cells are much harder and more expensive to manufacturer than one big one.

It's because the internal resistance of a large cell is harder to mitigate than the combined internal resistances of a mess of smaller ones.

You can't make just one big beta voltaic cell, you'd have to make a battery of millions of tiny ones. The manufacturing cost needed to replace a conventional 12v 600amp car battery in diamond alone would make Elon faint.

 

We don’t know because we do not live there and there is only so much information on the internet. For all we know the Philippines were never able to pay the upfront cost of commissioning the plant

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/philippines.aspx

But the real question for me is - why not geothermal? It already has a hugely successful geothermal industry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_the_Philippines

in fact given that there are plans to ship power from Darwin to Singapore they would be better off shipping power from the Philippines to Singapore as it is a thousand k closer

 

You can produce more power with a potato in an afternoon than you can with a beta voltaic cell in 28000 years...

 

You gave Bataan as an example of humans building nuclear plants in stupid locations.

As far as I can tell the only stupidity displayed was not fueling and using the reactor they built.

 

It was the first one that floated to the top and safety concerns were listed but
https://frontiergroup.org/articles/how-many-us-nuclear-plants-are-located-near-earthquake-faults/
glad I live in Australia where we only have one reactor and it is nowhere near a fault line

 

Lady, a third of your country is arid or desert; where the only non poisonous critter trying to kill you is a crocodile; where even your teddy bears are riddled with chlamydia; where running into the sea to avoid all the wild fires gets you eaten by a shark.

The safest place you could be is right inside that reactor...

 

Because most of the world is not conducive to geothermal energy. There is a big one to start with.

Also, it tends to be very maintenance intensive.

I have actually been a strong believer in building more hydroelectric dams for decades. But I am also a realist and know that is not always possible. However, it is in general more possible than proposing geothermal almost anywhere.

 

guess we will see, I would just be happy never having to pay for electricity for lighting and small devices again, and no power outages, outdoor security cameras could run forever - just need them in an aaa or aa form factor

we just need to keep the power source separate from devices, or you end up getting things like cellphones that are designed for planned obsolescence in a few years

 

You're welcome to invest.

https://citylabs.net/products/

To run a security camera you'll need about 10 watts per hour. These will lose half their capacity after 12 years. They aren't the proposed carbon type, but the shorter half life means greater charge production. You'll just need about 80,000 of their largest one to run your security camera for 20 years. Each one weighs only 7.54 grams, but altogether you're looking at 600kg. So you might have to beef up the mounting bracket a bit.

 

Geesh..

Think they'll knock it down to 400 million for you considering the bulk purchase?

 

I was researching this to make another point.. But wow.. This is actually interesting.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-...led that bee,researchers write in their paper.

The matrix shouldn't make batteries out of humans.

They should obviously use insects...

 

https://www.beeculture.com/the-electrical-world-of-the-honey-bee/

Fully sidetracked now.

A swarm of bees flying in the same direction would produce a magnetic field. This field could induce a current in a wire perpendicular to the field (parallel to the path of bees). The resistance in the wire would affect the bees' ability to fly... But with enough bees I'll bet you can do a lot better than a diamond battery's micro amp of current. And since it's thousands of volts.. Wow you can transform that down and get lots of current.

I take it back. Invest in bees, FreshAir. Much sweeter potential there.

 

no intention of investing, but your free to if you want....

 

I had a clock that ran on a potato when I was a kid.

 

I had a Mr. Potato Head when I was a kid.

 

My "Mr Potato Head" used a real potato.

 

You can not get more silly than that.

 

You don't know me well, then.