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.

[facthunter]

About 1/3rd of the Price I paid for Panels and better performance. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

I think Europe is seeing the consequences of climate inaction. My guess is even France will be seriously looking at solar and wind after this season.. 

 

The UK is in its 4th heatwave (I have suggested this is the new norm) Apart from the different tree species and narrow roads, it look a lot like an Aussie landscape in summer. And that means it too is becoming a tinderbox.

 

This is the third year running.

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[Siso]

France will be and I would say all ready are looking at wind and solar, but they will always have their NP to do the heavy lifting. The reason they are curtailing nuclear generation is because of environmental issues that weren't thought of at the time. I would think this would not happen with their new builds.

 

Are they really cheaper then Nuclear over 80 years, Really?  Currently France exporting about 12GW with a green grid. Germany, not so much!

 

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/72h/hourly

 

[pmccarthy]

Remember you are debating only about 9% of Australia's energy consumption. As a share of Australian energy consumption, hydrocarbon fuel declined only marginally, from 91.2 per cent in 2021-22 to 90.7 per cent in 2023-24. This has not been due to the take up of alternative energy sources, but due to the decline of energy consumed by the manufacturing sector. In the first two years of the Albanese government, energy consumption in the manufacturing sector declined by 10.4 per cent, or 5.2 per cent per annum.