Re: Sub-sea nukes
A) Clever enough to use it
Or clever enough to understand some basic physics (Laws of Thermodynamics aren't suggestions) and see through the lobbying BS..
B) Able to capture it without generating a lot of very harmful chemical waste in the process of building the necessary equipment.
That happens, just in places like China or DRC where the minerals needed for extracted, processed and dumped into the environment. One of those dark sides to off-shoring. Producing solar panels or extracting rare earths isn't always a very 'green' process. And then there's contamination from heavy metals in solar panels once they've reached end of life and get dumped.
The wind may not blow all the time, but that’s no reason not to use its power when its power is available. We can store that energy for use when the wind isn’t blowing.
See previous comments about physics. Storing electricity is HARD. Storing energy is somewhat easier, and something we've done for centuries with things like coal bunkers.
But sure, if the 'renewables' lobby can produce electricity for £35/MWh, people would probably buy it because that's about 1/4 of the current wholesale price. Problem is that CfD hasn't been taken up, so electricity's being sold at market price and the operator is pocketing the windfall profits.
But when you've got say, CCGT @£40/MWh, or nuclear at say £80/MWh, we're forced to pay £150/MWh because wind scammers have preferential market access, and even though nuclear is essentially zero carbon, it doesn't get the same market rigging benefits as 'renewables', so we're forced to overpay for energy.
And 'storage' just makes it worse. So take something that costs £150MWh, spend another another >£100MWh to store that electricity. Any idea what price you'd have to sell it for? And of course there's also transmission losses, so probably around 30% of the energy lost in the process. So not only ruinously expensive, but also very inefficient.
Or extremely lucrative, if you're a subsidy farmer. You can 'fix' intermittency problems caused by 'renewables' by offering grid balancing services to keep supply at around 250V/50hz. You have to do this due to wind & solar's intermittency, so it's a cost created and imposed by the 'renewables' lobby. Traditional methods of a mix of base load and load following, ie coal/nuclear + gas or hydro storage don't have this problem, or massive costs.
The sun may not shine all the time but when the sun isn’t shining with sufficient power to run solar the earth itself is radiating energy back into space - and solar panels are now being developed which can harness this power.
Oh yes.. Darklight solar. But physics again-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Types
The average annual solar radiation arriving at the top of the Earth's atmosphere (1361 W/m2)... In other words, averaged over the year and the day, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m2 from the sun. This figure is important in radiative forcing
And marketing. Precise number depends on latitude and prevailing weather conditions, ie cloud cover will reduce potential input below 340W/m2. But the radiative forcing bit is fun, especially where that article mentions variations in UV over the solar history. According to dogma, solar irradiance is meant to be a constant and everything is the fault of CO2. But I digress..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Anything warmed radiates energy related to its temperature – the Sun at about 5,500 °C (9,930 °F) sends most as visible and near infrared light, while Earth's average surface temperature about 15 °C (59 °F) emits longer wavelength infrared radiant heat.
Yey! More physics! So all your darklight panels need to do is capture that radiated IR and convert it to electricity. Simples, and something you could do (very inefficiently) with a thermocouple. But physics, which gets a tad more complex. But suppose the Boltzmann constant is around* 1.346×10−23 J/K, so @15C it'd be around 2.019x10-22J, and J=W/s, and you're looking at a teeeny W/m2 potential energy source. Plus the practicalities of developing a solar panel that can maximise capture and conversion of both solar and re-radiated energy. Like normally, ie during the day, you'd want the panel facing the Sun. I guess you could include motors to flip the panel upside down at night to capture radiated energy from the ground, but the ground would have been shaded by the solar panel, so would be cooler anyway.
It's just one of those practical engineering challenges. We could capture CO2, split that to C & O, convert the carbon into one of it's densest solid storage forms, then use the oxygen to burn the diamonds you've created. Diamond would be converted back into CO2, and you could repeat the process for infinite energy. Just ignore the costs, and thermodynamics. Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. Sadly, because most of our politicians are f'ng idiots, they'll throw our money at scams like this.
Love and Kisses, RES B (Renewable Energy Scumbag)
Thank you for demonstrating my point that Renewable Energy Scumbags really don't have a clue when it comes to phyics, engineering or economics.
My suggestions for reform would be pretty simple. So we've just had another round of CfDs. So I have no problem with a 'renewables' company bidding say £40/MWh. All that needs to happen is make CfD contracts firm or good delivery. So you bid on delivering 500MW, all you have to do is deliver that. If you can't, then you pay a penalty for every MW you dip below 500MW. So to meet the committment, the 'renewables' company would need to ensure they can deliver a constant 500MW, so any costs for storage or back-up power would be the responsibility of the bidder.
Oddly, the 'renewables' scumbags don't like that idea because obviously it'd cost a lot more to turn their unreliable/intermittent power into the reliable source of energy we need. They're much happier getting someone else to foot the bill for stand-by, storage, transmission etc etc and simply pocket the profits from delivering an overpriced and unreliable form of energy.
*Kidding, although there might be a Nobel on offer if you can prove the currently accepted value is wrong. Good luck with that.