Germany: Nuclear power plants to close by 2022

Yes but not from our outlets.
 
The most common method of creating hydrogen is through electrolysis. That means electricity. So it would come from some form of electricity generation.
Think of hydrogen as another form of energy storage.
 
One more reason to concentrate on fuel cells :p

The energy for them has to come from somewhere as well.

The most common method of creating hydrogen is through electrolysis. That means electricity. So it would come from some form of electricity generation.
Think of hydrogen as another form of energy storage.


Ummm, why not use the electricity that would otherwise overwhelm the grid(from wind turbines) at night to create the hydrogen?????????
 
Ummm, why not use the electricity that would otherwise overwhelm the grid(from wind turbines) at night to create the hydrogen?????????

Then you still need that 1GW average generating plants per 1.75mil cars to create said electricity in the first place
 
Ummm, why not use the electricity that would otherwise overwhelm the grid(from wind turbines) at night to create the hydrogen?????????

:hmm:

Then you still need that 1GW average generating plants per 1.75mil cars to create said electricity in the first place

It's not a bad point actually. If you are going to have surplus capacity with renewables being left idle then why would it not be possible to have plants that would use the excess at times of low demand to create the hydrogen but that could also use that hydrogen when required to feed power back into the grid at times of high demand? Sure what comes out won't be as much as what goes in but that applies to all forms of energy transfer but if you think about it many wind farms are coastal or off-shore so there wouldn't be any shortage of the raw material.
 
Yes there are several storage approaches which could be used to store Electricity - Hydro pump for instance but the Hydrogen may be the most generally applicable - I do not see Hydro Pump working in the Netherlands for instance.

NB Hydro Pump : You have a reservoir up a hill, when you need power it is almost instant you turn the water on it falls down tubes to generators, when you have a surplus of power you swatch the generators for pumps so that the water is pumped up the hill ready for the next top up of electricity needed.

Example : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station


Why Hydro is best:

"Supplying power directly to the National Grid, it is Britain's oldest power station, and is believed to be one of the oldest Grid-connected hydro-electric stations in the world. It was first commissioned in 1906 and has been in fairly continuous operation since then, although it was closed for upgrading in 1990. A single turbine now produces up to 9.8 megawatts."

How cost effective is this then!!!! (Ed!) But damn, it needs an upgrade every 84 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_Dyli

Right I'd like to see the costs of this against a Nuke Power Station. I know what would be cheaper.
 
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The most common method of creating hydrogen is through electrolysis. That means electricity. So it would come from some form of electricity generation.
Think of hydrogen as another form of energy storage.

One way of achieving this would be using DeserTech to crack water into hydrogen, ship this hydrogen to mainland Europe and use it as fuel for cars & generators. The biggest problem still is the storage of hydrogen though....


Water based energy storage is needed if we want to switch to renewable energy, sadly a lot of idiots from the Green party actually BLOCK water storage plants "because you need to build roads through the forrest to them". Yeah, making sense, they don't.
 
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One way of achieving this would be using DeserTech to crack water into hydrogen, ship this hydrogen to mainland Europe and use it as fuel for cars & generators. The biggest problem still is the storage of hydrogen though....


Water based energy storage is needed if we want to switch to renewable energy, sadly a lot of idiots from the Green party actually BLOCK water storage plants "because you need to build roads through the forrest to them". Yeah, making sense, they don't.
You guys do have some coast both the North and Baltic Sea interface. The Greens need to get their act together, Hydro is by far the best for lack of CO2 emissions and costs, there is a small problem with them but hell there is a small problem with all types of Power station.

Funny news report this AM. Due to lack of sunspots we could be going in to a cold period loosing 1/2 to 1 deg Celcius due to this cause. Offsetting 'Man Made' Global warming. :lol: They for see a problem if the world does actually get colder and everyone is paying lots for Green energy taxes - yes I should think so.

"Scientists from the National Solar Observatory yesterday sent out a strong prediction that the weakening of the sun's magnetic field and a temporary disappearance of sunspots could occur by 2013. The consequences of this could send the world into a mini ice age similar to what we saw in the middle 1600?s which was coined the Maunder Minimum - a period in which brutal winters were felt with cold summers across the world."

http://www.masslive.com/weather/index.ssf/2011/06/if_the_prediction_holds_true_t.html

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2011/March/The-Earth-Growing-Colder-Sunspots-May-Hold-Key-/
 
No indeed - because we prefer to build nukes.

Seems with the sunspots we may not need zero CO2 solutions for the next 100 years possibly.

sunspots_400_years.jpg
 
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Funny you should bring up sun spots.

Map global average temperatures against CO2 emissions and there is little correlation. Contrary to the hype the warmest decade of the last century was the 30s and not the 90s! The amount of CO2 emitted each year as a result of human activity is negligible compared to the overall total.

Map them against sun spot activity and we have a winner!

Except we don't because goverments can't tax the sun. :(
 
No indeed - because we prefer to build nukes.

In the UK there simply aren't enough hills for hydro to become a major power source. We're running out of water in reservoirs as it is this year without using the stuff to generate power.
 
Ummm, why not use the electricity that would otherwise overwhelm the grid(from wind turbines) at night to create the hydrogen?????????

Not impossible. Although I would expect the efficiency of this process would make other storage options better. There is a lot of research into utility sized energy storage. In fact, I am working on such a project. BUT, it really isn't a viable solution at this time. It is expensive and doesn't produce any power.
Hydro storage takes a lot of space and has a massive initial capital cost. The link I had in one of my previous posts has many other large scale storage options.
 
Why not just use it as a fuel for hydrogen cars?
 
In the UK there simply aren't enough hills for hydro to become a major power source. We're running out of water in reservoirs as it is this year without using the stuff to generate power.
Some of what you say is correct. However when the water companies went private they closed multiple reservoirs - to save money of course, and of course it would actually be difficult to give an answer at the moment. The government only see Nukes and only have seen Nukes since the 1950's. When Mrs T. found out how much these things actually cost she stopped at one - Sizewell and that says lots - she saw it as a way to avoid trouble with the Unions Rail/Coal/Power but not at that cost!
 
Why not just use it as a fuel for hydrogen cars?

Because that would involve the expense of additional infrastructure. Keep the hydrogen production and storage local to your regular source ie costal and offshore windfarms and it is there when demand requires it. Also if all the cars were running on hydrogen fuel cells then the renewables wouldn't be at full capacity overnight which is when one would expect most people to be charging their vehicles.

This way the off peak electricity is not wasted but simply travels through the existing grid to be used as required. It shouldn't be that hard to set households up so that the car starts to charge once there is no demand from the rest of the house and since most cars seem to take about 8 hours to gain a full charge that covers sleep plus breakfast etc quite adequately.
 
It would be hard. You know this "Smart-Grid" word that gets thrown around. It is basically a word law-makers use to push ideas around. Utilities love it because it means "free" money. At the moment the method of getting electricity to you home is very dumb. You close a switch adding a path for current to flow through a load. This lowers the frequency on the grid, a generator sees this increases the fuel being put into the prime mover. This brings the generator back to synchronous speed.
The smart grid idea to use communication systems to give a tiered system and use electricity when it is cheaper.

Also, interesting tidbit. Usually pole mounted transformers that bring distribution voltages down to utilization levels (ie 120/240V) are undersized and use the night time cycle to cool down. Adding a car charging, which is a very large load, during that time takes away that time.
 
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,768956,00.html

Horrible Google translate:

Government wants to sacrifice the enviromental protection for network expansion


The energy revolution is taking shape: Federal and provincial governments have agreed on rules for a rapid expansion of electricity networks. Important national routes will continue to be planned by the federal government - the protection of nature is ignored in doubt.

Berlin - The rapid expansion of power lines is considered vital to the success of the energy revolution . Now federal and state governments have agreed on new rules for it. According to the future in planning networks of regionally significant Federal Network Agency will be responsible and not the respective provinces.

On these points agreed Chancellery Chief Ronald Pofalla (CDU) and the Federal Minister of Economics Philipp R?sler (FDP) with the heads of state offices of federal countries, such as SPIEGEL ONLINE has been confirmed from participating districts. Previously, the "Handelsblatt" reported about it.

The agreement on the transfer of powers towards covenant is remarkable: although it is only ten percent of the total need for new power held by 3500 kilometers, but so far, most states had spoken out against a uniform national licensing procedures.

A few weeks ago was Schleswig-Holstein, with its wind turbines as a single country that will accept the Federal Network Agency for nationally significant high-voltage power lines as a central planning authority.

The SPD-governed states also agreed to trim the nature protection law in doubt as to accelerate the expansion. The federal government is talking to EU Energy Commissioner G?nther Oettinger looking for, as it affects European law is concerned.

Open is whether the only country ruled by a Green rallied behind the agreement. Baden-W?rttemberg Minister President Winfried Kretschmann criticized on Friday morning in the Federal Council to shift the direction of federal government. He can not understand why electricity networks would be built faster, because only the federal government take over the planning. The countries have much more experience.

The agreement is to be fixed in the planned network expansion acceleration law. This is the end of June brought together with all other laws on energy policy in the Bundestag on 8 July will be decided by the Federal Council.

The agreement is a victory for Angela Merkel (CDU). The Chancellor had pushed for the agreement of the coalition government on a timetable for the nuclear phase-out earlier this month to a faster expansion of the electricity grid.

fdi / AFP / Reuters / dpa


Woaaaaaaaaaaaaaah look at this, something is actually HAPPENING! And I can almost hear the hundreds of Eco groups & local Green parties crying out in pain, rendered useless. I wonder what all the pensioners and unemployed people will do now.....
 
she saw it as a way to avoid trouble with the Unions Rail/Coal/Power but not at that cost!

Fortunately we had a get out card at the time in the form of new gas stations sitting idle as they cost too much to operate.

Ultimately the cost of energy continues to rise, so the economics which went against nuclear in the 80s will not match the economics of today.
 
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