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What everybody is saying is a matter of simple physics. You can't produce 100HP of energy using only 20-30HP of energy. That IS a perpetual motion/energy machine and simply cannot be made to function.
I somehow doubt a car's waste heat even approaches that of a nuclear reactor...
Is this national "I'm Dense Week" or something?
Why do you and (and others here) keep trying to put a nuclear reactor in a car? Why are you comparing the waste heat from a car to that of a nuclear reactor? What the Hell is the problem with comprehension here?
I'll try one more time and I will type slowly so maybe this will get through.
An earlier post mentioned using waste heat from a nuclear reactor for the energy source when creating hydrogen.
Got that? No reactor in a car, no waste heat from a car.
A nuclear reactor.
Now for the next step: from the same previous post mentioned in the aforementioned bright red, italicized, bolded, underlined area.
The poster (the same one that posted the earlier post about using a nuclear reactor's waste heat) mentioned that the efficiency from this process (using waste heat from a nuclear reactor that is not in a car to create hydrogen) was pretty low.
So now we are talking about the efficiency rating for creating hydrogen from a nuclear reactor's waste heat. No car here, just a nuclear reactor.
Are you still with me?
So the question I originally posed and posed again and am posing once more - last time, I promise - is this:
Who cares if the efficiency rating for creating hydrogen from a nuclear reactor's waste heat (again, there is no car here - it's a nuclear reactor and it is not in a car) is poor if it's waste heat. If it's just tossed out through those big stacks then any recovery use of it (like creating hydrogen) is a plus is it not?
And I again will ask - last time, I promise - if I am missing something in the idea of using waste heat from a stand-alone nuclear reactor, not in a car, to create hydrogen as being viable.
And there is still no car here, nuclear reactor or waste heat or otherwise. The car comes in later after the hydrogen is created and sent to the station where it is put in the car.
Tek_Freek Gee...could you possibly be referring to a previous post of mine ?
Yeah I read your comment /question before and thought I'd let the whole thread die cuz a few on here are ,well...as you say ,are really dense, and, apparently never took junior high school science. And...I'm lazy...
Be that as it may...
You pose a fair and reasonable question, one frequently asked by people when they see heat, or sometimes even flames, shooting up a stack somewhere. To be honest it's not my field of expertise (finances etc) but I'll throw out what I believe is at least part of the answer.
When a process is very inefficient and takes huge amounts of capitol to finance it stands almost no chance of ever happening unless the product is so rare and valuable that all the money and facilities are 'worth" it. Such is the case for example with U235.. Think of the cost of building the Oak Ridge facility in Tenn as well as others; massive expenditures.....
If an energy producer is only going to get a few percent on they're money..Hell..why not just put the money in a savings account and bypass the potential liability problems.
Energy producers, yes we're talking Nuclear reactors here, not automobiles are corporations that exist to make money for themselves and their investors/share holders. As such they have huge rooms full of people that look at the dollars and cents issues of all expansions etc . Any project that is going to eat up huge sums of capitol, and whose generated cash flow will be relatively small just won't get voluntarily funded.
There's also the factor of the life time of the "hardware". An inefficient and massive process is by definition going to have a long time till the financial break even point. That's a little discussed point about photovoltaic panels for example. If a home owner has to pay 100% (non-subsidized) of the cost of these things from out of his own pocket, and the payback point is 20 to 25 years into the future, then can an intelligent person be expected to "go solar" when the published life expectancy of the hardware is also about 20 to 25 years?
Another factor. Nuclear reactors are generally built near free flowing source of water which is used for cooling...rivers, bays, shore line etc. The "free" source of cooling water is one of the major factors in answering the "where to build" question.
Let's say you've got a system that generates heat and in order to keep the hardware to within design temperatures you need to remove some of the excess heat. Lets call the source of the heat H and we're going to use a heat exchanger / radiator etc to move it. The H side of the exchanger is at 1000 Deg F. and is held at that temperature by the river water which although it varies throughout the year...for this discussion, lets call it 70 Deg. F. That's the cool side of the exchanger,let's call it , C We are at steady state...The plant managers are happy...The system is operating within design specs, discharge water isn't so hot that we're killing all the near by aquatic life (yes that's a real consideration) . All's well.
Now...what happens if you introduce something in between the H and C side of the exchanger, which in effect is what you're doing when you build an additional system that resides between the hot reactor H and the final cooling water C What you have done is in effect added another heat exchanger in series with the first. The unwanted side effect of that is that with the reactor operating at the same output level, you will not be able to maintain that 1000 F. operating temp....ie...the temp will go up. Of course that violates the design parameters so you could just throttle back a bit. Of course that means you won't have as much product (electrical power) to deliver to customers...and that too is not a good thing. You see the problem ?? Again there's no free lunch.
In order to "extract" a significant amount of power from this otherwise "wasted heat", without increasing the temperature of the discharge water, and with out cutting back on the electrical output , and without increasing the operating temperature of the plant....it's going to take a huge investment in new facilities etc. And like I said up front...aint likely to happen.
One last point...reliability. If you place a complicated subsystem in series with the reactors cooling system then the online reliability of the reactor in effect depends upon the reliability of the subsystem. Chain...weakest link etc Or you build it such that you can bypass it in case of breakdowns right ?? Does redundancy come cheap ?? Not usually.
I haven't read all the pages, but what I have read didn't address a couple of things;
What are these vehicles made of? Are they plastics that come from petroleum? Are they truly "green", that is, can the construction materials be easily recycled? What types of pollutants are generated into the air, water, and ground during the manufacture of these vehicles and the power systems? If I go to visit my son in California, or the one in Washington, will I have to stop every 90 miles to recharge for 8 hours, or is this just a "commuter" car, not to be used for trips? who is going to want to buy a vehicle that is THAT specialized? I won't!
When the scientists perfect broadcast power, so that an electric car can get power from an antenna, and run long distances, THEN perhaps I will be interested.
A hydrogen fuel cell would work, too, IF the infrastructure for hydrogen refueling could be safely built.
A battery powered plu-in vehicle? no thanks.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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I still think they should concentrate electric / hybrid technology on light duty delivery trucks and taxis that run 12-20 hrs a day, not commuter cars. That will bring down the cost and improve the reliability.
This seems a little 'old school', as in the 1970's we had several parking spaces at my engineering employer with plug-ins for electric cars that several coworkers had. Usually MG's or Triumphs, as well as a couple Simcas, Fiats, and some VW's. Someone even did a Vega if I remember correctly. I made a lot of parts for them while working swingshift in the machine shop. Our management encouraged 'invention' back in those days. And insisted that we have an 'open-stock' and free use of equipment for 'non-commercial' purposes (amazing... we actually leveraged many learned skills back into our 'work duties'... yes, good while it lasted... then came the witch CEO and POOF, no more engineering company... 120,000 engineers sent pack'n)
Why do you and (and others here) keep trying to put a nuclear reactor in a car? Why are you comparing the waste heat from a car to that of a nuclear reactor? What the Hell is the problem with comprehension here?
I'll try one more time and I will type slowly so maybe this will get through.
An earlier post mentioned using waste heat from a nuclear reactor for the energy source when creating hydrogen.
Got that? No reactor in a car, no waste heat from a car.
A nuclear reactor.
Now for the next step: from the same previous post mentioned in the aforementioned bright red, italicized, bolded, underlined area.
The poster (the same one that posted the earlier post about using a nuclear reactor's waste heat) mentioned that the efficiency from this process (using waste heat from a nuclear reactor that is not in a car to create hydrogen) was pretty low.
So now we are talking about the efficiency rating for creating hydrogen from a nuclear reactor's waste heat. No car here, just a nuclear reactor.
Are you still with me?
So the question I originally posed and posed again and am posing once more - last time, I promise - is this:
Who cares if the efficiency rating for creating hydrogen from a nuclear reactor's waste heat (again, there is no car here - it's a nuclear reactor and it is not in a car) is poor if it's waste heat. If it's just tossed out through those big stacks then any recovery use of it (like creating hydrogen) is a plus is it not?
And I again will ask - last time, I promise - if I am missing something in the idea of using waste heat from a stand-alone nuclear reactor, not in a car, to create hydrogen as being viable.
And there is still no car here, nuclear reactor or waste heat or otherwise. The car comes in later after the hydrogen is created and sent to the station where it is put in the car.
You are correct, your just trying to speak to the "Flat Earth Society" is pretty much a waste of time. They have no clue to what you are talking about.
What everybody is saying is a matter of simple physics. You can't produce 100HP of energy using only 20-30HP of energy. That IS a perpetual motion/energy machine and simply cannot be made to function.
No, you are not using a machine that is perpetual motion, energy is lost, you will still have to add makeup water in an engine that uses water to run after converting it to Hydrogen, just like you have to add gas when it is burnt off in a gasoline engine.
The perpetual motion is the only way those that can't understand or grasp can explain why to them it won't work. Hydrogen can be used two ways, to burn in an engine as a gas, and to turn it back into electricity to run an electrical motor with the hydrogen being manufactured in the same way that the car burning water is done at a power plant on a larger scale. By trying to claim it is a perpetual motion, they feel that makes it not doable and vindicates the fact they have no clue to what I am referring to.
I still think they should concentrate electric / hybrid technology on light duty delivery trucks and taxis that run 12-20 hrs a day, not commuter cars. That will bring down the cost and improve the reliability.
...
Batteries are bulky, heavy, and expensive with a limited life so maybe not the best for a commercial vehicle. UPS has been experimenting with hydraulic hybrids for a couple of years and is now into a pilot program in several cities. It looks to be very effective.
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