Nuclear power plants

the "footprint" required to build a nuclear power station is massive, using vast amounts of power generated from "conventional" resources. A uranium enrichment plant needs to be built to make the fuel, etc etc etc. Same goes for solar cells, very inefficient manufacturing process. Same goes for electric cars, they are clean where they go but they have to charge batteries from conventional power sources. Wind farms again have a massive footprint. Led lights are so expensive to produce most councils and govt bodies cant justify the purchase and installation costs that require a 30yr payback time before breaking even over conventional. It all comes down to expenditure and payback time in the development of any alternative power.

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Originally Posted by Offender90

Domestic wind generators are fine for remote rural properties, or even low density hobby farms, but not so suitable in built up environments because of inherent noise generation. Especially in the case of that home built jobbie with straight cut gears and bent sheet steel blades.

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That is an idea that perhaps is had been introduced by companies against alternative power generation.
Venturi based win generators are low in noise, produce more power than blade generators at less win speed and are used in many cities in the world.

Lifecycle energy cost payback time.

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Same goes for solar cells, very inefficient manufacturing process.

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1-4 years depending on the panel design.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

Solar Energy Payback | Solaria Corporation

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Wind farms again have a massive footprint.

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Less that 1 year

Comparing energy payback



http://www.vestas.com/files/Filer/EN...bel_120220.jpg

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Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Led lights are so expensive to produce most councils and govt bodies cant justify the purchase and installation costs that require a 30yr payback time before breaking even over conventional. It all comes down to expenditure and payback time in the development of any alternative power.

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Looked at LED prices lately? Prices (like computer prices) have halved every year as output per watt increases rapidly. LEDs now have double the light output per watt compared to fluorescents, and they have a way to go with recent technological advances.

Philips shatters LED efficiency record | SmartPlanet

I have progressively replaced 100W tungstens with 20W CFLs and now the latest 7W LED globes, still as bright as ever.

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Originally Posted by Chucaro

That is an idea that perhaps is had been introduced by companies against alternative power generation.
Venturi based win generators are low in noise, produce more power than blade generators at less win speed and are used in many cities in the world.

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As an acoustics engineer who has led a number of micro wind turbine noise assessments in urban environments (including the wind turbines on a prominent building in Perth's CBD), I can tell you it is impractical to generate a meaningful amount of electricity in built up environments without considerable noise impacts.

I've also read more than my fair share of "quiet" wind turbines marketing materials, only to be told by the companies they don't actually have any noise vs wind sound power data... And that after numerous email and phonecall ping pong. I'd be happy if that wasn't the case, but that's my personal opinion based on experience to date.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chucaro

That is an idea that perhaps is had been introduced by companies against alternative power generation.
Venturi based win generators are low in noise, produce more power than blade generators at less win speed and are used in many cities in the world.

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Arthur, Offender90 is an acoustics engineer who has been involved in a number of wind turbine projects.

EDIT - looks like Bojan beat me to it...

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Originally Posted by KarlB

All sorts of wild estimates of the total death toll from the Chernobyl disaster exist. The minimum like likely figure seems to be about 30,000 but the most likely figure is estimated at 985,000 mostly from cancer. This later figure comes from Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment written by Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president; Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity. The book is published by the New York Academy of Sciences. You can download a copy from here: http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf ( NB: size is 4.29 MB )

Cheers
KarlB


http://www.entity.cc/central/atomic/mush_or_80x.gif

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I have been there and meet a US Surgeon in Kiev who was there volunteering to train the Ukrainian doctors in plastic surgery on how to fix the skin and other damage(s) caused by this event, it still sticks in my mind what damage I saw both in material and human terms.
As Karl said build a fusion reactor

For a view of what Chernobyl looks like now click on this link (In Russian but do not worry):
Чернобыль - 25 лет спустя - Блог ЯндексаÂ*— я.ру

You can open in google chrome and get a rough translation but to see the street view like google maps just click on the image, then follow the arrows or drag the binoculars on the map below along the blue roads.

The fallout from this thread is amazing... it's going into meltdown. Jim :o:o:o

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Originally Posted by jx2mad

The fallout from this thread is amazing... it's going into meltdown. Jim :o:o:o

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What are you on about, no-one's been banned yet....:p:p:p

What is interesting is that the naysayers never provide a solution.

Coal is no good.

Nuclear is no good.

Hydro is no good.

Wind turbines are no good

All saying no while using electricity, gas, petrol or diesel.

All saying we should be using public transport but where does the fuel, resources & money come from to provide them

They should be setting up a model community that works?

I'm not a naysayer, nor an environmentalist on this topic because I don't believe that any one form of energy production has direct advantages over another without having another derogatory impact on the environment in a different form. I think it goes back to the statement that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but changed from one form to another and it is during this change that we believe that one form of production has advantages or disadvantages or is detrimental to our environment. I'm yet to see positive proof of any energy production that is ultimately free of any environmental threat. All we are really doing is changing the dependency on our different sources of fuel which changes what we see, hear, smell or feel. We are also subject to massive propaganda programs from very very wealthy and powerful companies and businesses whose agenda is hidden from us mostly in an effort to develop their own interests.