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After a week of limited coverage of "unimaginable levels" of radiation inside the remains of collapsed Unit 2 at Fukushima[...], Nuclear-News.net reported February 11 that radiation levels are actually significantly higher than "unimaginable".
Continuous, intense radiation at 530 sieverts an hour (4 sieverts is a lethal level), was widely reported in early February 2017--as if this were a new phenomenon. It's not. Three reactors at Fukushima melted down during the earthquake-tsunami disaster on March 3, 2011, and the meltdowns never stopped. Radiation levels have been out of control ever since. As Fairewinds Energy Education noted in an email February 10:
Although this robotic measurement just occurred, this high radiation reading was anticipated and has existed inside the damaged Unit 2 atomic reactor since the disaster began nearly 6 years ago.... As Fairewinds has said for 6 years, there are no easy solutions because groundwater is in direct contact with the nuclear corium (melted fuel) at Fukushima Daiichi.
What's new (and not very new, at that) is the official acknowledgment of the highest radiation levels yet measured there, by a factor of seven (the previously measured high was 73 sieverts an hour in 2012). The highest radiation level measured at Chernobyl was 300 sieverts an hour.
[...] This coverage relates only to Unit 2's melted reactor core. There is no reliable news of the condition of the melted reactor cores in two other units.
[...] Whatever is actually going on at Fukushima is not good, and has horrifying possibilities. It is little comfort to have the perpetrator of the catastrophe, TEPCO, in charge of fixing it, especially when the Japanese government is more an enabler of cover-up and denial than any kind of seeker of truth or protector of its people.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @05:28AM
Tell it to the corporate puppet masters, they'll pat your back for it.
When I can afford the batteries, I'll do it. Be it only for the reason I can be independent from the grid. Now... this is a thought that scares shitless the gridders in Australia The same people that pushed me in installing the PV on my roof, the same ones that more than doubled the price of energy they delivered to my home about 4-5 years ago.
The same ones that continued to increase the price of electricity year after year since (albeit at a lower rate, but certainly still higher than inflation)
Believe me, it's not "my moral superiority" at play - just simple economics. This year, the PV-es on my roof paid themselves, in spite of me being forced on a "time-of-day energy pricing" contract; it took less that 5 years for RoI.
Heh, yeah... hi-tech indeed.
When I commissioned the home I'm living in, I paid a bit more for extra insulation between the outer wall and the drywall and for double-glazed windows. I also built a pergola along the side of the house facing the sun (the northern side) and planted exactly 3 wisteria [wikipedia.org]-s. The result: its now 36C degrees outside, 22C inside and the only sound I hear is the news droning on a TV I forgot to switch off since this morning (thus, I'm wasting the extra 350W my plasma TV sucks which I could put back on the grid). What I don't hear: the incessant humming of the AC - it needs 3 days of over 35C outside to have the walls retaining enough heat for me to start the AC (over 25C inside).
Yeap, I'm an egotistical bastard alright.
Do you fault me for this, jmorris? Are you somehow a social warrior in the name of African children? Or in the name of coal barons?
Not to worry, the moment I'd be paid enough for it to make economic sense, I'll be happy to share my personal "load buffering services" for the good of the base load (have I told you I'm a selfish bastard?)
Until then, I'll enjoy the feeling of "doing something for the environment" (for which I paid with my own money; jmorris can bitch at his leisure about my choices, I don't care, my money, my choice)
I'll also continue to feel like a mini-capitalist net producer of energy - in your face, gridders, I'll buy from you only when I'll really need it. If you won't be there, so be it, I'll see what I can do if it happens (see what I did here? I'm using the great mindset as the executive officers of the big corps - quarterly profits, eh? Amazing how this capitalist mindset works, even at small scale - large grin - ).
Ah, about scaling up. I forgot to tell you a bit of history. About 10 years ago, the PV panels were expensive like hell ($12k-15k for a 3kW installation). When I installed mine (late 2013), I paid $7500 for a 4.2kW worth of panels +inverter. Today, prices for a 5kW installation go as low as $4800. Chinese, of course.
Now, let's see: this year the prices for a PowerWall2 is $16500. Coming from our friend, Elon, who developed them for USian yuppies with money to burn on overpriced roadsters.
I betcha in 5 year time, the Australian market will be flush with the LiFePO4 [wikipedia.org] batteries, those batteries BYD auto [wikipedia.org] is so busy now [soylentnews.org] building for its EV buses [sustainnovate.ae]
Egotistical prick as I am and also being a tight ass, I'll wait until then to make my move. I guess the PV-es will be happt to speak the same language with the batteries, eh?
I can guarantee many will do the same - so many, that it will take a nuclear winter cloud blanket for Australia to experience blackouts (yes, the gridders will have a role in this, but the negotiation... ummm... power will be more balanced than the pay-up-or-else nowadays).
How do you like my capitalistic mindset (contrast with your 'advantages for Communism' thread title), jmorris?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 22 2017, @06:59AM
Where the heck are you? Google sez electricity in general is about 2 1/2 times more down under vs the U.S. but if you are out on the edge of the grid, OK, maybe you are getting shafted hard enough to justify trying something. Just how much are you paying? But again, that ain't typical for any significant percentage of the world. By definition since anywhere people actually live is always served by the grid fairly well.... assuming 1st world political stability of course.
Now lets address a few random thoughts in no particular order.
Do you actually think those cheap Chinese panels are going to last twenty plus years? A non-trivial number of the American made ones have suffered a lot higher drop than the ad copy promised and remember, the 'life expectancy' rating is like a battery, the 50% of original spec point. So unless you dramatically overspecced the system.......
You aren't even really on solar yet anyway. Until you connect the battery you are still running on the grid. Go outside on a bright sunny day and cut the mains switch and watch your home go dark. (there are exceptions but that is the general rule because it protects your appliances from sags) You are generating and selling electricity to the grid at above market rates. Most grid operators don't like paying for grid tied solar because it actually causes them about as much bother as the wholesale price of the energy. Then they, again because of government meddling to encourage solar, have to actually pay you more than they can buy the same energy from a large power plant for. So you are only a Capitalist in your mind, in reality just another welfare client who bought the spiel that they were from the Government and were there to help you. Except they also got you to sink a fair stack of your own money too.
And while solar tech is, like all tech, generally sloping down you are forgetting something. Fusion has been thirty years off for the last fifty years but they really are getting close these days. Do you want to be all in on a ten to twenty year payout when electricity cuts in half? Yes it has been going up lately, green mandates tend to do that, but tech advances outside the solar industry too.
Is there a chance solar gets so cheap it makes sense for large numbers of people? It could happen. But it hasn't done it yet. And since true grid free operation is going to need pricey, dangerous and short lived batteries the magic 8ball says "Unlikely." Research the concept "economy of scale". making more solar panels, etc. lowers the price but generating at a big ass station has decades of engineering optimizations going for it as well as scale. It is possible a million independent installs could be cheaper than one or two really big generating stations but it ain't the way to bet. Especially since the grid is universally assumed to remain and need to be maintained in every popular alt-energy scenario.
And as expected, yup you spent non-trivial extra cash making your home green ready and accept 25C as a reasonable indoor temp. Since you would need the AC on days when the sun was brightest we can assume your panels still can't supply sufficient power for it and you would by buying from the grid if it operates. Most people disagree that 25C/77F is a optimal indoor temp. But I live in Louisiana, I admit I have been known to let the house get that warm to keep the electricity bill lower... but the Mrs. is another story.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:50AM
Outer burbs of Melbourne, surrounded by a 18-hole golf course.
Yeap. And it's not the production cost, but the distribution. Wholesale, the energy is somewhere at AUD50/MWh, I'm paying retail 30c/kWh peak, 22c/kWh offpeak (23:00-06:00) + a fixed "service to property fee" of $1.05/day. Wanna do a calculation for how large is the difference they pocket?
The total energy that passed through the inverter to date is: 25850kWh.
Based on the stats I collected during 1 year before and the avg sun light, I concluded 3.6 kWh would be needed to cover the net consumption.
Thus, I installed 4.4kW (this is what the inverter screen is reporting me) - 20% overhead, expecting to a drop of efficiency of about that over the first 3-4 years.
It is about that - actually, it was 3.2kW generated today in full sun, but I need to climb the roof and wash the panels a bit, some showers mixed with dust from northerly winds let a quite stick fine layer of dust on the chinese panels that I have. I have a feeling that cleaning them will get them into 3.6kW.
I wouldn't hold my breadth for fusion, even more so that will take some 10 years at least from a functional prototype to an actual power station - fission is much easier and building a commercial nuke is over 5 years. I have more confidence in battery tech progress than fusion.
Other than that, if I can be self sufficient, yes I don't mind to be still in the payout when the electricity prices cuts in half - based on the invoices I receive, I have a hunch that the gridders won't pass the full lower price to me.
Only considering the "service to property fee" at the current price of $380/year (to be increased year-after-year), a reasonable-priced "electricity buffer" ($7500) is payback in 20 years. Yes, I know, they won't last that long, but I still think an off-grid solution that is viable given the prices the damn'd retailers charge here!!!.
Do you see now why Australia is so quick to embrace "power grid independence" as much as possible?
Why not?
When's 40C during Christmas (and the lamb is sizzling on the barbeque) and the lower temp over the year is 4C, 25C is warm but bearable. I'm not sweating and this means comfortable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @04:39PM
Thank you for solidly debunking every bit of bullshit that guy passes off as reasonable discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @04:37PM
Is there some reason you like shitti g on every idea that doesn't maintain oil/coal forever?