“Marion: We really need another post to hang the issues you’ve raised … a guilt
driven backlash … it isn’t quite appropriate here.”

Yes, your quite right. This is the second time in as many threads I’ve gone off topic… now I’m feeling guilty. Another time then…

The problem is that the hair shirt strategies … efficiency and
going without aren’t promising. Efficiency doesn’t
ever seem to reduce energy usage. We have had a constant
barrage of energy saving devices during the last 20 years while our
per-capita emissions have risen steeply. On the other
hand, actually going without might
reduce a person’s footprint, but that won’t shut down the coal mines. To
do that we need alternative energy sources, even if we do learn to
live with less. Personally, I reckon going without has a lot going for
it. “treats” lose their excitement when they are an everyday affair. But
I doubt that this personal view will sell well.

A combination of falling oil prices after the panic in the 70′s, and indifference at AECL.

While the thermal input for multiflash is large it is almost free if co-located with a reliable heat source. RO however needs a lot more pumping effort because of the high pressure needed for membrane filters and the volume of regular backflushing. Figures I’ve seen are that MF needs 25-50% of the electrical effort of RO, the latter invariably drawn from the coal dominated grid to a standalone plant. Obviously the optimum is to build MF and low carbon thermal plant together. Claims that wind farms can ‘offset’ coal grid energy use by RO desals may not stand up to scrutiny in either theory or practice. See also
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf71.html

Teekay:

If a nuclear power plant really does require 20-83% more water per kWh to operate, this could be considered a problem.

As I said, the amount of additional water that a nuclear power plant will use depends on its thermal efficiency. In high temperature reactors, will be much less water per kWh than a lower-temperature coal or gas burner. Geothermal and solar thermal fresnel plants will, for instance, require even more water per kWh because of their relatively lower thermal efficiency.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf

My own view is that CHP works much better with Nuclear than with Biomass burning anyway. Why?

Because the regions that need CHP most are Northern areas, or the Antarctic, where Biomass is nil, or of extremely low productivity, and building heat is needed 8 to 12 months of the year. The high grade heat of the Nuclear Power plant is also very useful to supply process & building heat to remote Mines. Small Nuclear power plants like the Hyperion or the Toshiba 4S would be ideal for these applications.

Firm raises eyebrows with suggestion for nuclear powered mines:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Firm+raises+eyebrows+with+suggestion+nuclear+powered+mines/1907823/story.html

What ever happened to the Slowpoke III?

http://www.fuelsandenergy.com/presentations/Merson_Energy_Water.pdf

The detailed version:

http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/docs/121-RptToCongress-EWwEIAcomments-FINAL.pdf

According to the study, in the USA, Nuclear consumes 1.5 to 2.7 liters of water per kwh of electricity produced. Nuclear can & does use gray water for cooling.

Only 3.3% of total Water Consumption in the United States is for thermoelectric power generation.

80.6% is for irrigation. Which brings up the real culprit in unnecessary water consumption – namely – Biofuels & Biomass for Thermoelectric Power generation. The Greens, the EU, the UN, and environmental lobby groups like Greenpeace are big on Biofuels & Biomass burning for energy. The UN, Kyoto & the EU actually count biofuels and biomass thermoelectric power generation as Carbon Neutral. Utter nonsense.

The average corn ethanol fueled ICE vehicle uses 150 liters of water per km, mostly irrigation water, about 4.7 liters of water per km of ethanol processing water. The average Soya biodiesel fueled ICE vehicle uses 599 liters of water consumed per km, using Merson’s numbers. Compare that with the average Electric BEV, powered by Nuclear Energy, uses 1.7 liters of water per km, about 1/90th of the corn ethanol vehicle and 1/350th the biodiesel vehicle. That millions of children will die, to fuel the biofuel vehicles, just adds misery to the madness of biofuels. Nuclear is not a significant water user – biofuels are the real issue here. And we’re not counting the pollution caused by agricultural run-off – the ocean dead zones.

It takes 4.5 hectares of corn to fuel the average SUV for one year in the U.S., according to Pimentel (accounting for all energy inputs), enough land to feed 44 people, vs 3000 kwh of electrical energy, worth about $51 of Nuclear Electricity, with average nuclear energy production cost of 1.7 cents per kwh in 2004 in the USA.

And the Greens & Greenpeace are very big on Biomass fueled thermoelectric power plants, which are supposed to be Carbon Neutral. Denmark being the poster boy for that Scam. See Greenpeace’s much touted video here:

So Denmark burns straw in their thermal power plants. Normally the straw will consume Carbon from the atmosphere, decay or be composted or plowed back into the soil, returning nutrients & carbon to the soil, where most biomass carbon is stored. Burning straw is mining the soil of nutrients, one of which, phosphorus is likely to become in short supply in the near future. It also ACTUALLY DOES RELEASE THAT CARBON INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. Alternatively, the land that is used to produce biomass could produce forests which will capture carbon from the atmosphere, storing it indefinitely, in the trees, in the soil, and if harvested for timber, in buildings. Or the land could produce food for hungry people – a much more ethical use of the water & land. Therefore I must conclude that all rainfall consumed by biomass used for biofuels or for thermoelectric power plant fuel is freshwater consumed.

So with Denmark’s annual rainfall of 6100 M^3 per HA per year. Excellent yield would be 50,000 kwh per HA per year, assuming air dried. So that amounts to 172 liters per kwh of electric energy for a 40% efficient power plant. Compare with 1.5 liters per kwh for the Nuclear Electricity.

Similarly, including rainfall consumed plus irrigation water for biofuel production, puts the Corn Ethanol powered vehicle up to over 500 liters of water consumed per km, and the Biodiesel ( Germany is big on Biodiesel) powered vehicle at over 2000 liters of water per km traveled, vs the Nuclear Electric powered vehicle of 1.7 liters per km.

EPA to review Biofuel GHG emissions:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=epa-review-biofuel-emiss

The Dirty Truth about Biofuels:

http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/pf_bio.htm

Indonesian Rainforests decimated to supply energy according to the Greens / Greenpeace’s No Nukes Scam:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-kessler/indonesias-rainforests-an_b_337920.html

Alice Friedemann – Peak Soil, Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America – the Green’s plan ain’t so green:

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1

An excellent video on the absurdity of the Greenpeace / Greens / EU nutty Green Plan. Pain & suffering for the old, the sick & the poor. Lot’s of big bucks for the rich (notice how Greenpeace seems to have no problem with the extravagant energy wasteful lifestyles of its rich patrons like Gore & the Rockefellers)

http://www.ivc6.com/greenfieldtv/outofcontrol2.html

I like to add another erk of mine re environmentalists refusal to accept Nuclear power.

Once the science of CC was accepted we had to come to terms with the ramifications, and here I understand very well the denialists comparisons of CC “activists” to religious zealots. Since we are the cause of climate change the environmentalists say so must we be made – through sacrifice and repentance – to atone for our sins.

A pall of guilt has descended upon the people of the west. Every everyday thing they do from driving the kids to school to owning a pampered pet, is bad or wrong. People are constrained from relieving this guilt not just by the social structures and infrastructures we’ve built but also by their desire to maintain them. We like our freedom to much to succumb to the dictates of an authoritarian power telling us how we ought to live every detail our lives. This is a dangerous position. Where guilt cannot be relieved it is rebelled against. The drop in concern about CC reported recently in Australia is, I believe, a symptom of this rebellion. Denialism is another. A head in the sand response, yet another. This cannot go on!

The environment movement is engendering a silent revolt, a rebellion of inaction, much more dangerous than any simple laziness (which is the implied reason for inaction and – in the form of sloth – yet another sin).

Their refusal to accept anything that doesn’t equal atonemt, will, in the end, be their ruin. It need not be humanities. The promotion of cornucopian solutions (to steal from Finrod) is I believe our best shot. Who doesn’t want to be told they can have more of whatever it is they desire and actually feel sanctimonious about it?

Unfortunately, even this might not be as efficient as reverse osmosis. Somebody better at thermo than I ought to check.

If Rann has to step aside as a result of political scandal I’m not sure whether that will help or hinder SA’s long term energy and water problems. I think he is a closet nukularist but those around him are vehemently anti, though the public is swinging round.