GreenThumbStick • User • The Register Forums

Boffins: 68 exoplanets in prime locations to SPY on humanity on Earth

Saturday 9th September 2017 00:12 GMT GreenThumbStick

Alien SETI project

I'd be more concerned with an Alien's SETI project finding our radio signals as they would be much closer to us and we would be far more interesting than just another planet amongst many billions they would be aware of by spotting planetry transits of stars. Finding planets is a novelty for us, but an advanced civilisation would have a good list of habital planets near them, perhaps using technology we haven't even figured out yet, or at the very least sending out far more space probes than we have yet managed. Their space probes would make transits of the Earth across the Sun observable from howerver far the aliens space probes had time to travel, not just planets Aliens may be living on.

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James Dyson's new startup: A university for engineers that doesn't suck

Friday 4th November 2016 14:54 GMT GreenThumbStick

Re: Sounds like...

Yes it sounds like an engineering apprenticeship, but that's a good thing. Most engineers on University courses are longing to turn theory into doing something practical and useful. You learn so much more than Uni when you start real work as you are always teaching yourself whilst working on things.

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Amazon guarantees bitterly contested Ohio wind farm project

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 16:13 GMT GreenThumbStick

Re: Utterly unreliable nuclear power !

Roland6 wrote:

"WRT to your wind investments; I suspect there are some who are gambling on the sale price of electricity going up, as the UK turns off existing generating capacity and finds itself with insufficient installed capacity as it delayed and delayed over installing new capacity."

It isn't just in this country though. Smart money won't touch nuclear with a barge pole, whilst it is falling over itself to invest in renewable energy. New generation nuclear is a hugely risky investment, unless you mug the tax payer and heap the risk on him as happened with Hinkley despite all the promises not to do that. New generation wind and solar energy has dramatically falling costs, whilst "too big to fail" new generation nuclear just gets ridiculously more expensive each year.

I can see that the state may wish to diversify energy production, so nuclear could pay a role but I don't like this "too big to fail" approach we have to nuclear. Also wanting to be a guinea pig for new nuclear, when we would be better off investing later on when costs are more predictable, though perhaps the timetable for closure of coal plants/old nuclear does not give room for that.

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Wednesday 2nd November 2016 15:49 GMT GreenThumbStick

Re: Utterly unreliable nuclear power !

Big John wrote:

"This French reactor problem has nothing to do with Nuclear energy generation itself. It has to do with faulty manufacturing of parts elsewhere. That could happen in any industry, so it's dishonest to impute the Nuke industry for this issue."

The safety issue is orders of magnitude greater with "too big to fail" nuclear power plants. That is a major reason behind the ever increasing cost of new nuclear. The aviation industry also has to ground whole fleets of planes. Maintenance also means shutting down the whole reactor for days or even months, they can't fix problems incrementally like they can on windfarm/solar farms. You are not going to have a 30 mile exclusion zone around a wind turbine or incidents that are well beyond the ability of emergency services to cope with.

I think there is a case for nuclear energy as part of a policy of diversification of energy generation, but "too big to fail" nuclear power plants with multiple reactors is just compounding the inherent risk of nuclear, the complexity and costs.

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Wednesday 2nd November 2016 00:05 GMT GreenThumbStick

Utterly unreliable nuclear power !

Critics of windpower harp on about it being intermittent, but wind load is an expected factor in the case for investment. In the UK it currently means we can burn less fossil fuel. The intermittency is not a problem to the grid at current investment levels (the need to close coal power stations is a far greater concern). The business case for nuclear power on the other hand is that it should supply reliable baseload power, whereas the reality is that many nuclear power stations often have to be shut down at the same time, well outside their expected operating plan. For instance the current plight of the the French nuclear industry, see following article. Whilst we had to grovel and beg China to invest in "too big to fail" Hinkley I am finding that the smart money is buying me out of my wind investments many years before I expected.

http://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-plants-down-due-to-quality-concerns/

[Note: This article will appear in the forthcoming December 2016 print issue of POWER.]

"The discovery of widespread carbon segregation problems in critical nuclear plant components has crippled the French power industry—20 of the country’s 58 reactors are currently offline and under heavy scrutiny. France’s nuclear safety chairman said more anomalies “will likely be found,” as the extent of the contagion is still being uncovered.

With over half of France’s 58 reactors possibly affected by “carbon segregation,” the nation’s nuclear watchdog, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) has ordered that preventative measures be taken immediately to ensure public safety. As this story goes into production in late October, ASN has confirmed that 20 reactors are currently offline and potentially more will shut down in coming weeks.

The massive outages are draining power from all over Europe. Worse, new questions continue to swirl about both the safety and integrity of Électricité de France SA’s (EDF’s) nuclear fleet, as well as the quality of some French- and Japanese-made components that EDF is using in various high-profile nuclear projects around the world."

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