hoopy frood wrote:The point I was making in general is we have far better forms of energy providers right here on this planet. This planet which is composed mostly of billions of tons of seawater going about it's ceaseless tidal business. This planet which has a heat source far greater than that of the Sun, right under our feet.

The_Metatron wrote:This is describing an engineering problem, not an economic problem. It has to do with balancing production with demand on the power grid. This balancing problem appears everywhere stochastic sources of power are used such as wind and solar power. Nuclear and coal plants don't have a volume control. That is, their power output is not particularly modulatable.

This means, they can't easily adjust to match demand on a grid that contains a bunch of uncontrolled stochastic generators, such has home solar and wind stations.

There are solutions, and the steampunk train idea is not far off. It just doesn't have a lot of capacity. What does the trick is pumped hydroelectric plants. It turns out there are more of these than I realized, a couple of them right here in Belgium.

When demand is low, use the excess nuclear power to fill up a big dam reservoir. When power demand is high, drain that reservoir back through the same equipment that pumped it up, using the power so produced to balance the grid.

Denmark does something similar with their wind turbines' power. They send excess over a DC link to Norway, which then simply dials down the demand on their own hydroelectric plants. When Denmark needs some power back, Norway simply opens up the valves a little farther on their hydroelectric plants. Hydroelectric is very modulatable, from nearly full shutdown to maximum capacity, and it can be done quickly.

Another approach is smart grid technology, which allows control of the stochastic solar and wind generators. While such a situation can't command power from a solar plant in the shade, it can shut down output from solar stations when it is causing a power imbalance on the grid.

I think the pumped hydroelectric is a better solution, but it's a hell of an infrastructure component to build.

hoopy frood wrote:

JoeB wrote:

hoopy frood wrote:The simple expedient of drilling a few KMs into the crust would provide you with a long-term heat source four times hotter than the surface of the Sun, which as it happens is rather cool in terms of area. And 91/4 million miles away.

Exactly where do you find heat sources in excess of 20000 degrees C a few KM into the crust?

A few kilometres is all you have to drill in order to harness that heat source.

which is all I said.

Loren Michael wrote:

hoopy frood wrote:Only in a capitalist system where it might fuck up the profiteering on energy.

See above for the problems the article talks about.

Countries with extremely high levels of government intervention in the economy have historically been some of the dirtiest and poorly managed. See: China, Russia, Cold War-era Eastern Europe.

tuco wrote:

Loren Michael wrote:

hoopy frood wrote:Only in a capitalist system where it might fuck up the profiteering on energy.

Countries with extremely high levels of government intervention in the economy have historically been some of the dirtiest and poorly managed. See: China, Russia, Cold War-era Eastern Europe.

That is for a fact, however, the reason why they were dirty, as you say, is not because their economies were centrally planned, but simply because those in power, communist parties, did not consider damage to environment to be a factor to care about.

There is no correlation between high levels of government intervention in the economy and negative environmental impact.

tuco wrote:Another lets say cause of negative environmental impact, in the countries mentioned except China I know little about, was a lack of private property and lack of rule of law. I am sure you can imagine what such conditions imply in the context being talked about as I am lazy to go into details. Indeed, as you noted we would have to be more specific as our statements are too general. Still, ethical capitalism is either an oxymoron or a capitalism were state intervention and control is inevitable in my opinion.

Nuclear power and coal fired stations have the same problem - demand fluctuates!

Energy Revolution Hiccups: Grid Instability Has Industry Scrambling for Solutions

By Catalina Schröder

Sudden fluctuations in Germany's power grid are causing major damage to a number of industrial companies. While many of them have responded by getting their own power generators and regulators to help minimize the risks, they warn that companies might be forced to leave if the government doesn't deal with the issues fast.

It was 3 a.m. on a Wednesday when the machines suddenly ground to a halt at Hydro Aluminium in Hamburg. The rolling mill's highly sensitive monitor stopped production so abruptly that the aluminum belts snagged. They hit the machines and destroyed a piece of the mill. The reason: The voltage off the electricity grid weakened for just a millisecond.

tuco wrote:ethical capitalism is either an oxymoron or a capitalism were state intervention and control is inevitable in my opinion.

Loren Michael wrote:consider how the historically incredibly unusual norms of willingly relenquishing power have enabled democracy

Bryan Caplan wrote:Why bring this up? Because like the democrat of a thousand years ago, I advocate a radical political change: anarcho-capitalism. After we've privatized everything else, I think we should privatize the police and courts, and abolish the government.

Bryan Caplan wrote:Since we've never had anarcho-capitalism, this peaceful equilibrium sounds like wishful thinking. But it's no more wishful thinking than stable democracy. Both systems sound crazy when first proposed. Neither can be stable as long as people expect them to be unstable. But both can be stable once people expect them to be stable.

Panderos wrote:

Loren Michael wrote:consider how the historically incredibly unusual norms of willingly relenquishing power have enabled democracy

Bryan Caplan wrote:Why bring this up? Because like the democrat of a thousand years ago, I advocate a radical political change: anarcho-capitalism. After we've privatized everything else, I think we should privatize the police and courts, and abolish the government.

Er...no.