RE: PG&E will shut off power for nearly 800,000 customers starting Wednesday
10-13-2019, 09:02 PM
10-13-2019, 09:02 PM
I love the idea of nuclear plants providing primary power for power grids. There are so many ways to skin this cat with all the difference reactor designs - Pebble Beds, CANDU, the new MKER...
MKER is interesting because it is derived from the RBMK reactor which means that it has the advantages of using light-water for the primary coolant loop, requires only a very low enrichment of fuel (2.4%), and can have individual fuel rods swapped out (even during operation) which improves burn-up of the fuel.
The improved design is much safer than the RBMK as they've made it inherent in the design of the reactor for a positive void coefficient to not be possible. This, along with other safety improvements and being much more powerful make it look like a promising design.
And on the renewable energy side of things, you can use wind turbines to "charge" a pumped storage hydroelectric plant, socking extra energy away for peak demand times or provide for sudden and unexpected surges.
Also good for peak periods would be solar - it's a foregone conclusion that the brighter the sun shines, the hotter it gets in your house, so why not put that bright ball of burning gasses to work?
Odd idea: shading suburban homes with large nylon sun screens. Because in many places your shade trees can't shade the house itself, and this day and age you don't want a tree that close anyhow.
Or, if you REALLY wanna get your green-freak on, you can get the frames they use for those sheet metal prefab building kits, put the frame over your house, and then mount the solar cells on the rafters. You'll have much more square footage for solar cells and keep your house cooler by having them shade the house.
Another interesting idea that's been getting bandied about is to create a standard for a DC electrical circuit in your home in addition to the AC circuit. This would make it easier to power DC appliances like home electronics and save energy by eliminating the need for all those additional AC/DC adapters. Large scale inverters have come a long way and are very efficient now. If the home DC circuit is buffered by a small bank of supercapcitors, then the home inverter can shut itself off entirely when it's not needed.
MKER is interesting because it is derived from the RBMK reactor which means that it has the advantages of using light-water for the primary coolant loop, requires only a very low enrichment of fuel (2.4%), and can have individual fuel rods swapped out (even during operation) which improves burn-up of the fuel.
The improved design is much safer than the RBMK as they've made it inherent in the design of the reactor for a positive void coefficient to not be possible. This, along with other safety improvements and being much more powerful make it look like a promising design.
And on the renewable energy side of things, you can use wind turbines to "charge" a pumped storage hydroelectric plant, socking extra energy away for peak demand times or provide for sudden and unexpected surges.
Also good for peak periods would be solar - it's a foregone conclusion that the brighter the sun shines, the hotter it gets in your house, so why not put that bright ball of burning gasses to work?
Odd idea: shading suburban homes with large nylon sun screens. Because in many places your shade trees can't shade the house itself, and this day and age you don't want a tree that close anyhow.
Or, if you REALLY wanna get your green-freak on, you can get the frames they use for those sheet metal prefab building kits, put the frame over your house, and then mount the solar cells on the rafters. You'll have much more square footage for solar cells and keep your house cooler by having them shade the house.
Another interesting idea that's been getting bandied about is to create a standard for a DC electrical circuit in your home in addition to the AC circuit. This would make it easier to power DC appliances like home electronics and save energy by eliminating the need for all those additional AC/DC adapters. Large scale inverters have come a long way and are very efficient now. If the home DC circuit is buffered by a small bank of supercapcitors, then the home inverter can shut itself off entirely when it's not needed.