forums energies: society, ecology and clean technologies

It is a somewhat naive question, even silly, but we talk everywhere about this "tool", fabulous for some, unreasonable for others, as being an extremely complex and dangerous tool to implement, of its very cost. high, dangerous and almost indestructible waste that it produces, and possibilities of using it to make weapons ...

It is also recalled that it is a decarbonized energy, as opposed to the fossil fuels that produce CO2 in the end, and that nuclear power provides the flexibility to be able to produce energy when it is needed, as opposed to intermittent renewable energies that depend on wind, sun, tides, and other natural phenomena that are not regular or constant.

In fact, nuclear power is quite simply the tool which makes it possible to produce heat (heat being "the ultimate state of energy", if I may say so), a heat of a few hundred usable degrees ( out of possible millions), to simply heat water to turn turbines that will produce electricity .... Said like that, finally, nuclear power is "only" the heat that heats the water!

In short, all that for that? ... as the other would say!

After this observation we can therefore wonder if it is not possible to find a way to produce the same amount of heat (simply the one we need, no more), more easily, for less expensive and less dangerous?

For example, under our feet we have a real oven ... which also has some leaks (volcanoes!).


A thermal power station installed on a volcano should be able to provide the same amount of heat? ...
Admittedly, there are not volcanoes everywhere, but even if it means colonizing distant countries to bring back the uranium from the basement, you might as well go and recover the heat from the "subsoil"!

Or, given the technological progress, would it not be more economical to make a deep hole, where the earth's crust is thinner (the magma is formed between 70 and 200 km deep, finally it is not so far, it is a distance that I can do by bike), to get a little more of this heat that warms our feet? ...



Anyway, by dint of making holes deeper and deeper to bury the radioactive waste, we will eventually get to the magma ... and for once we will need more heat from nuclear!

That's ... it was the naive reflection of the day!

First thought: it is wrong to claim that nuclear energy is completely "carbon free", let's say that it is significantly less carbonaceous than others ...
On the other hand, if "civilian" nuclear power was imposed, with rather strange arguments, this was a direct result of military use, let us not forget.
On the last point raised, it is true that now nothing is really opposed to deep drilling for geothermal exploitation ... Perhaps too simple or not "glamorous" enough compared to conventional power stations? Although these drillings are not trivial, the risks seem insignificant vis-à-vis "artificial" nuclear power.

French nuclear power is imposed following the realization that we aroused the two oil crises (1973 and 1979) and our top big dependence on black gold, and those regardless of political currents.
Nuclear power is not a fossil energy, but a mining energy and therefore producing gas effect through extraction, its transformation and its implementation.

High temperature geothermal projects have been studied for a long time, especially in Los Alamos, where the possibility of fracturing the rock at great depth using an atomic bomb! As much to tell you that the project quickly fell into the water.
For more recent projects, technology Hot dry rock recently tested in Switzerland has not only emulated, especially because of the earthquakes caused by this technology (high-pressure water injection lubricates the flaws that begin to move).
Another difficulty, drilling water is sometimes difficult to recover because of the different fracture zones which makes this technology quite complex to implement.

A man-made earthquake hit Basel and its region on Friday. The earthquake of magnitude 3,4 caused only material damage.

The work of the geothermal project "Deep Heat Mining" was stopped. The public prosecutor's office in Basel has opened an investigation.

The earth trembled at 17h48. An earthquake of magnitude 3,4 on the Richter scale was recorded by the Swiss Institute of Seismology at ETH Zurich.

No significant damage has been found so far. However, reports reaching police reported cracks in buildings.

Public lighting also broke down in Riehen. However, no connection to the earthquake has been confirmed, said a spokesman for the cantonal police of Basel-Stadt.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/fre/un-projet-g%C3%A9othermique-provoque-un-s%C3%A9isme-%C3%A0-b%C3%A2le/5618194

An explanatory video:https://player.vimeo.com/video/63888173

Yes, it is good to specify why nuclear power is not "zero CO2 emissions", as we hear everywhere.

Ahmed wrote:Yes, it is good to specify why nuclear power is not "zero CO2 emissions", as we hear everywhere.

That's right, but it's true for almost all forms of energy. A wind turbine or a solar panel requires energy to be manufactured, transported, mounted, any extractive industry requires energy and causes CO2 emissions, if you cut wood by chainsaw and bring it back home with your car and your trailer, the same, if you liquefy natural gas if my memories are good you spend about 20% of the initial energy, etc, etc ....

It remains to put numbers behind all that, but I do not think it's huge for nuclear.

Ahmed wrote:Yes, it is good to specify why nuclear power is not "zero CO2 emissions", as we hear everywhere.

The subject has already been developed on these forums... here in particular: energies-fossil-nuclear / nuclear-and-effect-of-greenhouse-ges-co2-and-EDF-t8139.html et https://www.econologie.com/telechargeme ... eaire-co2/

What you say, Sicetaitsimple, is correct and explains why we got there in terms of GHGs ... And why the energy transition, yet in itself desirable *, is a new opportunity to dissipate more energy ...

* Provided you fundamentally revise lifestyles and consumption, which is not the order of the day, since this transition is only to perpetuate what allowed us oil ...

Grelinette wrote:It is also recalled that it is a decarbonated energy, as opposed to the fossil energies that produce CO2, and that nuclear power provides the flexibility to be able to produce energy when needed, as opposed to intermittent renewables which depend on the wind, the sun, the tides, and other natural phenomena not regular or constant.

Flexibility "when you need it" is when there is a big network x power plants connected / coordinated and which we have clearly anticipated the rise in power depending on the time, season, weather etc ... We can not especially do all or nothing with the power of a nuke power plant.
When the network is optimized to accommodate much more relocated renewable energies, this “opposition” between “when we need it” and “intermittent” will have a clear tendency to decrease.

Ahmed wrote:What you say, Sicetaitsimple, is correct and explains why we got there in terms of GHGs ... And why the energy transition, yet in itself desirable *, is a new opportunity to dissipate more energy ...

* Provided you fundamentally revise lifestyles and consumption, which is not the order of the day, since this transition is only to perpetuate what allowed us oil ...

I personally try to distinguish two problems because otherwise I get lost:

- the total volume of energy consumption (expressed in what you want, TEP, TWh, ...). This is what you talk about in your paragraph, I recognize that the problem is not simple because it is global. The "developed", or rather "force-fed" countries can certainly save energy, at least in the short term this will not compensate for the "thirst for energy" of other developing countries and to which we have often transferred a many of our most consuming industries.

- how to produce this energy, there is still a lot to do, including and especially in these developing countries.

Note: the term "development" having in the above sentences only an economic meaning, to simplify GDP.

Yes, this distinction is relevant, but I rely on another rather: means and ends. Improving the means (your second point) changes only a few things (in your first point) as long as the ends remain the same ... And we know that these ends are the continuation of the destruction of the conditions of life on earth, via the maximum dissipation of the quantity of energy or, if we prefer a more restricted explanatory grid, the maximization of the financial flows and the accumulation of the abstract value.
To summarize, efficiency is not the answer, since it is the problem!