The climate change debate continues.

[facthunter]

IF  some forms of nuclear are cost  effective, people will  use it. Some don't have a lot of choice. The FACTS will decide. To me waste Heat seems to be Part of it. Waste heat goes into the Environment as does the waste heat from Ice and steam engines because they are far from 100% efficient, unlike Electric motors. Nev

[Siso]

Electric motors and converters still release heat as does anything that makes the electricity to power them. Would be interesting to see how much a WTG releases with gearboxes, muliple electric motors converters and hydraulic systems/ MWh.

[kgwilson]

Electric motors typically run at between 85% & 95% efficiency. Energy lost is mostly heat. Older AC induction motors usually run between 75% & 85%. Modern EVs convert over 77% of the energy at the wheels. The rest is lost to heat and friction. Fossil fuelled cars are very inefficient when converting the energy in the fuel to the wheels at between 12% and 30%. Again the rest is lost to heat and friction. 

[facthunter]

The  real waste heat is when you have to go to obvious and visible ways of disposing of it like heated water towers. All energy ends up as heat. (Entropy) Gears lose more than chains. Torque converters create heat, Hydro drives etc. electric is way ahead. Nev

[Siso]

With electricty (I'm a fan by the way) we need to remember transmission losses as well. 

[Marty_d]

27 minutes ago, Siso said:

With electricty (I'm a fan by the way) we need to remember transmission losses as well. 

Which is why neighbourhood batteries and a more distributed grid in general makes sense.

Keep generation, storage and usage close where possible.

[Siso]

So windfarms in city parklands? Was in Europe recently, Quite a few in Amsterdam and could see a WTG from the London Eye. The ones in Amsterdam that I saw close were 3MW machine, so reasonably large.

[Marty_d]

Australia's 'burbs are overwhelmingly detached houses. Thousands of hectares of them. All with roofs which in many cases already have solar panels.  

Cheaper than nuclear or new gas or coal to fund neighbourhood batteries and more solar, and smart boxes on each property. 

Batteries could still be connected to wider grid for importing or exporting when demand changes.