Re: Using nuclear power to make renewables and a hydrogen economy cost effective

From: charliew2 (charliew2_at_ev1.net)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:12:30 -0600

Alex Terrell wrote:
> "charliew2" <charliew2@ev1.net> wrote in message
> news:<10o9rptsn9a2n3f@corp.supernews.com>...
>
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, I'm continually amazed at how people with no experience
>>> of economics or business choose such a narrow definition of excess.
>>> If their trying to get rid of the stuff at below cost, that could be
>>> treated by excess. (I wonder if Ryanair considers the seats it sells
>>> for ?0.99 "excess seats").
>>
>> Those seats are a material thing. Electricity is energy. There's a
>> big difference.
>
> They are very similar as far as this discussion is concerned, as both
> cannot be stored and used later, and have very low marginal cost.

So show me how you can store any significant amount of electricity. Even a
big capacitor bank can only store a small amount, and only for dc current.
If you have a storage device for ac current, I would really like to see it.
Seats on the other hand, can be put in a warehouse for months, if necessary.

>>
>>>
>>> Enough of the friendly jousting. Do you know the efficiency
>>> (engineering definition) drop of a power plant that is running at
>>> half capacity?
>>
>> No. But I *do* know that such plants are designed for a specific
>> nameplate capacity, and they usually can be slowed down to 40-50% of
>> their nameplate capacity before they have to be shut down. Also,
>> the associated equipment is designed for maximum efficiency at the
>> nameplate capacity, so slowing them down does lose efficiency.
>> However, as was pointed out by another poster, it makes more sense
>> to slow them down rather than run them at their nameplate capacity
>> in order to generate hydrogen, because the efficiency loss in
>> hydrogen generation is greater than the efficiency loss in running
>> them slower.
>>
> Agreed if your using electrolysis to generate the hydrogen. However,
> the original post was about using the 3GW of thermal energy to produce
> hydrogen at 50% efficiency, insteasd of electricity at 40% efficiency.
>

If the numbers for the overall process, including H2 transportation,
pressurization, retail dispensation, etc., worked out as you have stated,
someone would have done this by now. That 10% efficiency gain would make
any plant using this technology rich. Why don't you get your spare change
together and invest in this business opportunity?

>>>
>>> Finally, using thermal sources to produce hydrogen at night, or when
>>> the wind blows, will still have merit because it enables full
>>> utilisation of plant (apart from the turbines), even if the
>>> efficiency gain (hopefully you can quantify this) is not that great.
>>
>> See above.
>
> This proposal means we don't use wind turbines to provide electricity
> to produce hydrogen (=inefficient) but we use wind turbines to enable
> a nuclear plant to produice hydrogen from its thermal energy
> (=efficient).

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