Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
It has just struck me.
What painting would you think of at the mention of Japan?
http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/~kinsner/about/gwave.htmlIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Switzerland has frozen all new construction of nuclear energy plants!
I think the era of atomic energy is coming to an end!
Three Japanese reactors in one atomic station are in the melt-down phase.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I'm thankful to Gov. that they didn't decide to build a new atomic power station in Kent!
Interesting reading about earthquakes and tectonic plates. British Geological survey have recording stations for seismic activity all around the UK . The nearest to us is Elham. Check out Elham and Market Rasen for the 11th February, you will be surprised... nay shocked! and we are on the otherside of the world !!!
http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/helicorder/heli.html
Also for those who may be interested check out constuctive plate margins (part of the driving force for plate tectonics) and destructive plate margins. Oceanic crust is no more that 190 (circa) Ma (million years old), it always is subducted or obducted, (Alps and the Himalaya). Continental crust has been found in places to be up to 4,200 Ma.
For information on how the quakes could be "felt " here, look up P waves and S waves.
As for 'boring' at these areas , one does not realise the depths involved and the the immense pressures involved. Iceland can tap geothermal heat due to the source proximity to the surface, but that is one of the few places were it can be done safely.
Regards
Les Richmond . BSc (Hons) Earth Science
One my main fields of research was conducted in Iceland, Not thinking it would be relevent to the UK until last year's eruptions !
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Thank you Les.
Yes, one of my wilder moments. (sigh)
Naturally, the undersea lava upswell has oodles of cold water to heat up. Can drilling for super-heated water be any more dangerous than drilling for deep sea oil? Way less of a spillage risk for a start.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Drilling for super-heated water could cause the drill to overheat, and could cause vapours to eject from the bore-hole. It's easier to heat water under the sun, for example using glass to increase the temperature. In particular in summer.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
OK Alexander, let's change the word 'drilling' to searching. Where there is an upswell of lava there is already super heated water. It remains to be seen whether power could be generated at depth, at some depth and brought ashore via cables. I shall go wild for one moment more: Might it be possible to submerge an entire power-plant to feed of the plentiful heat? Les, help us out here.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
While I am on this kick...
All power generation is the transfer of energy from one sort, usually heat, into another sort, usually electricity.
Say that heat transfer pipes were to be laid along a lava-spilling fault (whether deep sea or active volcanic source on land), these pipes relay super heated water under pressure to a generator...hey presto-> electricity. There will be difficulty, but way less danger.
That is probably enough off-the-wall stuff from me.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Interesting stuff Tom.
We are not in a postion to reject nuclear fission yet and still need a range of power sources including fission. It is the possible development of fusion that offers a massive potential but that seems a generation away still.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Fusion, Barry. Is a pipe-dream. Certainly many of Arthur C Clark's musings have come to pass, but fusion is nothing but the modern take on "Jam tomorrow."
It is the plain fact that Fission is far too:expensive, risky, inefficient and polluting. To offer us any future.
This is yet more of the short-termism that so-called entrepreneurs and wheeler-dealers bloat the senses with. It suits them and their short lives and the devil take tomorrow. One must be ever careful not to turn every seed into bread, no matter how hungry we are.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Nuclear power is definitely on its way out, Barry. With the Japan scare, people and governments are going to keep well away from building new nuclear power stations.
Tom, electricity is usually obtained through movement. Vapour can only create electricity (in the viable form) through turning turbines. The same goes for wind and water.
Then there is the more recent and more expensive way of using light to create electricity without movement of turbines. But this needs more research to become financially practical on a large scale.
Then there is the atomic energy process, which is very expensive, and dangerous.
The idea of using great temperatures from molten rock, as you suggested, to heat water and create vapour to turn turbines, would encounter a problem: the infrastructure would be too expensive, if placed deep underground, and would risk melting, or collapsing.
Any outburst of lava could send it back up out of the ground in a million unrecognisable fragments.
The ecological options of wind, solar and water energy are each possible and in use. Water where there are water-falls, such as dams in hilly areas; solar in hot areas, and wind in windy regions.
Solar energy at present requires very expensive infrastructure, whether the energy comes through vapour turning a turbine or through the transformation of light into electricity (this in particular is very expensive and economically out of rangel at this stage).
That leaves us with wind and water energy as the two clean and commercially viable options, with an eye on solalr energy research too. Obviously, we can't go on burning coal, gas and petrol to produce electricity, as these resources pollute, are limited and are becoming increasingly more expensive.
We should be focusing on clean energy from wind, water and sun, and to improve the infrastructure-models we need more research. A type of wind-turbine that costs a lot less and can turn in high winds would be ideal, even though it may need integrating with other power supplies for the periods when there is little wind.
Research is required in order to obtain new and better energy-producing proto-types.
It's just a technical aspect, the answer is round the corner, and some-one will get there first, and present a patented model. It's just a matter of time.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
It's all a matter of time? How true Alexander, how true.
There is wave power, it's patents (as I understand it) are held by a Scottish company, but we splurge all this money for wind elsewhere. Tides too some say could be a valuable source of clean energy for the future.
What chance is there for usage to be husbanded when it is the first tranche of power that is the most expensive and the price drops the more you use, as at present? The real reason, I suspect, that little is actually done in reducing usage is because the domestic customer exists to be milked, over and over again.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I don't think so, Tom! Even though the State earns a lot on the sale of petrol, gas and electricity to the public, the price of oil and gas, which must both be imported to Britain, and also of uranium, for that matter, means that every day, enormous sums of money leave the national economy to import these resources.
This contributes to Britain's trade deficit, and the Government would be more than happy to supply power that is generated in Britain (wind/solar or water/wave obtainbed). It would not prevent the State from taxing it and earning an income, but it would cut out the $100 a barrel that currently leave our economy in order to import oil/gas.
It would also cut out the terribly high expenses of building 200 nuclear power plants, the number that would be necessary for Britain to have 100% electricity supply from atomic fusion, and obviously the risk of contamination would be gone too.
You are right about some sort of wave-power technology, but I think it is still on the drawing board, and cannot be put into practice, at least at the moment.
So again, more research is the answer, and the closing of Pfizer should actually be considered a God-given inscentive to open up some new centre here in Kent, and get researchers working on innovative projects.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The truth is that we need a variety of power sources including wave and nuclear. It would be wrong to abandon fission because of Japan but we do need to learn lessons from it.
With the advance of technology it would be wrong to write off fusion. It offers a massive potential and anyone who says it will never be able to be developed and be commercial is making the same mistake as that IBM boss who said that he could see a market for, (I think) 3 computers worldwide.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
I think we need to think more about micro-generation. In the future new houses should be built with solar panels, a small wind turbine and/or a CHP boiler (see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/02/domestic-combined-heat-and-power-boilers-electricity) Electricity produced when you don't need it is fed back to the national grid and you get paid for it.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
