It really isn't that simple. The battery is connected to heating and cooling circuits so there is a lot of plumbing involved and you do not want airlocks in these systems. Many sensitive electrical systems would have to be protected from voltage spikes, safety systems designed to discharge energy stored in components around the vehicle would have to be alerted to the swap in a way that could not be seen in system failure plus the packaging would be a nightmare. I used to be very in favor of this imagining a national standardized battery fleet with people being charged at each swap for the power they had used, I'm not saying it's impossible but it is far more costly in terms of infrastructure and a safety nightmare. Can you imagine swapping fuel tanks, that would be far easier and safer.
This puts the Virus into the shadows
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Yojevol
Clocking on
Why would Fukushima have fared better as a CANDU rather than a BWR?
The reason that nighttime differentials have reduced is because there is no longer the need to keep the large coal fired stations ticking over at night. They have been replaced by gas fired stations which are much more controllable. So as as it's now possible to better match supply to demand, there is less need to encourage a nighttime usage.
Brian
novocaine
Established Member
OK, should preface this with nearshore tidal is inefficient. basically the energy is to dispersed to collect efficiently. We see small scale tests that give great efficiency but it's simply not directly scalable.
other tidal generation (estuary) is better but still not great, the strangford lough turbine is a good example but it is very much a local generator (1500 homes, when it works) and scaling of the system is all but impossible, it blocks about a 1/4 of the water way and needs to be in the deepest section of the inlet, adding more across the inlet won't work but an option to run them inline would, however, we have no idea on the impact of wildlife from doing that and each turbine would see less motive power due to the ones in front but also in dispersal of energy across a wider area.
in the UK we could maybe use the tech in 3-4 different locations but that won't happen due to the impact on shipping (they aren't going to do in in the Humber, it could work on the Seven but unlikely to work on the Mersey) . it's also very cyclical, with peak generation only achievable during extreme high tide, which means efficiency is affected simply because we can't turn it at it's peak output.
offshore tidal is a different thing again and as said with emerging tech of floating turbines we may start to see combined units, but distribution and tie back is going to become a challenge. current technology isn't there for tidal energy and investment in it is somewhat lacking (chicken and egg).
Thermal mass, they would have had much more time to get the power back on. Funnily enough, the only reason the CANDU is like this is that they lacked the technology to build a small pressure vessel when they designed it, it has a much larger calandria.
Speaking here from a position of ignorance where everything is obvious and easy I wounder if small scale generation would make sense in areas where we are trying to prevent cliff erosion. I'm imagining a long shore barrier shaped to throw waves up and over into a lagoon behind, taking out the destructive energy, with the water draining back through low head turbines. Not going to power the national grid I appreciate
bansobaby
Accustomly titled
With regard to the idea of battery swapping and the complexity/safety.... I understand the issues re cooling, electronics etc, but surely we are missing the point to an extent.
Whilst the manufacturers have their interests at heart, there is a case to be made for ‘government’ to dictate within reason certain criteria that must be met for the greater good.
At the moment the makers just want to sell the most units, they are not in it for any altruistic reasons.
Unlike the automobile evolution that occurred over a century or more, the switch to electric cars will happen almost overnight.
In my opinion there is an argument to say that the power pack must be standardised to a certain extent.
But as usual, the laws of economics will dictate that the most complex and ultimately most inefficient way will lead and by the time the mistake is realised it will be too late to change....
Whilst the manufacturers have their interests at heart, there is a case to be made for ‘government’ to dictate within reason certain criteria that must be met for the greater good.
At the moment the makers just want to sell the most units, they are not in it for any altruistic reasons.
Unlike the automobile evolution that occurred over a century or more, the switch to electric cars will happen almost overnight.
In my opinion there is an argument to say that the power pack must be standardised to a certain extent.
But as usual, the laws of economics will dictate that the most complex and ultimately most inefficient way will lead and by the time the mistake is realised it will be too late to change....
novocaine
Established Member
now we move away from concerns of efficiency and in to the realms of major environmental damage.
britainia terrace caused untold irrevocable damage to the Afon changing seabed to fallow pasture and pushing pluvial flooding to other areas of the coast.
sea defenses can not be considered on the microscale of localised damage, changes made have effect elsewhere, minor changes to places like Dungeness (still one of my favorite nuclear sites, the name is just fun to say, especially with a forced Scottish accent to mimic my old boss) have massive effects further along the coast, we see it on the east coast around Yorkshire where localised flood defenses pushed tides to new heights (the loss of spurn point), although it has to be pointed out this was in conjunction with exceptional circumstances.
I'm not an environmental specialist by any stretch, and would be happy to take the evidence presented by someone with great knowledge.
perhaps we shouldn't be trying to prevent cliff erosion and instead, stop building houses in stupid places (same goes for inland flood plains for that matter).
In some ways swapping batteries would suit the manufacturers it's a very expensive component which is rapidly evolving, renting batteries is seen as an ongoing income, there deterioration is seen as a barrier to sales but when you look into the details it just isn't a good idea
Exactly. It is totally different from all current nuclear reactors. It uses no plutonium, uranium or any other ore for fuel. If it goes wrong it stops working. Actually, the problem is getting it to start working
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Yojevol
Clocking on
They lost all their emergency coolant supplies due the 14m tidal wave. I'm not convinced the Canadian design would've been safer. Interestingly, the Magnox and AGR's can survive loss of coolant power because sufficient natural connection sets in. At least that's the theory, I'm not sure we've actually tried it. The Russians did, of course, and it all went pear shaped.
Brian
bansobaby
Accustomly titled
I’m sure you are right
.We as a society are much more focussed on risk now.
I wonder how the idea of a car would go down nowadays if it hadn’t yet been invented.......
”Here’s an idea....I’ve come up with an design for something that can deliver ten times the kinetic energy of a .50 calibre round, is in the sole control of the operator and will be available to pretty much anyone who wants one.....”
DBT85
Established Member
Am I the only one that quite likes seeing a mass of turbines as I drive through Wales?
Oh come now. The problem isn't getting it started. It's just keeping it goingExactly. It is totally different from all current nuclear reactors. It uses no plutonium, uranium or any other ore for fuel. If it goes wrong it stops working. Actually, the problem is getting it to start working
The shutdown itself is not the problem, it is the cooling of the still hot fuel afterwards. If memory serves, they had already shut Fukushima down when the wave hit. The CANDUs can shutdown without power, and they can cool the fuel bundles by gravity circulation. The large thermal mass means that everything happens much more slowly.
There are many other current designs which can also cool via gravity circulation in the event of complete power loss. The problem is again political. When it is time to give a permit to build a nuclear plant, the decision is whether to build one or not, and not so much a discussion of which designs are safest. The CANDU was inherently safer than most designs in those days, but cost more upfront for the heavy water, and produced less power for the amount of fuel they used. However, in practice they sometimes outperformed others as they can be refueled while running, so their uptime is higher. Again, they trade safety for money. The older CANDUs also ran on unenriched fuel, little ceramic pellets that you can hold in your hand (not so much after they are used).
DBT85
Established Member
I was under the impression that Fukushima survived the earthquake that was an order of magnitude higher than designed for, but the tidal wave swept away the diesel tanks which were above ground, so the generators couldn't run the pumps for cooling?
A chinese company is doing it seemingly fairly successfully right now. Personally I think it's probably the only viable solution unless we are able to create a battery that can charge in just a few minutes.
https://www.discoverev.co.uk/ev-news/does-battery-swapping-have-a-future-outside-china
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Though one of the guys at Culham told me that when they lose the containment, the (lithium/tritium, IRC) gas inside the Tokamak - mass approximately that of a postage stamp - slaps the sides so hard that they usually get a call from the local seismology station asking if it was themExactly. It is totally different from all current nuclear reactors. It uses no plutonium, uranium or any other ore for fuel. If it goes wrong it stops working. Actually, the problem is getting it to start working
Most incidents are not the result of a single factor, it is more often than not a sequence of events that completes the loop. Chernobyl had a design flaw, had they not decided to perform that exercise then the incident may never have happened and no one would have been the wiser, it would just be like any other nuclear plant and probably running today. Fukishima was in all accounts a safe, well designed and run plant but during design safety assessments no one thought about a potential tsunami that could take out the cooling system, in all honesty what was the real likelyhood, you cannot foresee all eventualities. The result was massive explosions due to Hydrogen that tore the buildings apart and a partial nuclear explosion in one reactor.
We may never know the full impact of Chernobyl and certainly not Fukishima but future generations unfortunately will, there were massive leaks of radioactive liquid that went into the pacific, some incredable levels of Strontium, Caesium and other material into the atmosphere and who knows the impact this will have long term.
Now if that was not bad enough the Japanese may well just dump thousands of gallons of contaminated water into the ocean because they have nowhere to store it, tanks all filling up.
We may never know the full impact of Chernobyl and certainly not Fukishima but future generations unfortunately will, there were massive leaks of radioactive liquid that went into the pacific, some incredable levels of Strontium, Caesium and other material into the atmosphere and who knows the impact this will have long term.
Now if that was not bad enough the Japanese may well just dump thousands of gallons of contaminated water into the ocean because they have nowhere to store it, tanks all filling up.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
If a vehicle on one charge does does say 1/3rd of the mileage and takes 3 times as long to "fill" it follows that to be comparable we would need 9 times as many charge points as we currently have fuel filling pumps.
That would be 9 times the number of filling stations along our roads.
Slightly fewer if home charging taken into account.
We need something like wartime utility standards, rather than simply allowing vehicle manufacturers to keep coming up with elaborate solutions, which has already been a disaster with fossil fuels; massive infrastructure, massive destruction of town and country, massive movement of goods and people who otherwise would have been locally sourced, massive air pollution, unsustainable waste of resources.
Climate change could be a chance to rebuild without making all the same mistakes. Even bigger mistake would be nuclear power IMHO.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Whatever the figure* one thing we do know is that the effects could have been far worse, devastating large areas of Europe, had it not been for good luck with wind and weather directions and conditions.
*Wikipedia: "....... 4,000 fatalities when solely assessing the three most contaminated former Soviet states, to about 9,000 to 16,000 fatalities when assessing the total continent of Europe...."
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The one point not being made is that for battery swapping to become viable then all batterys need to be the same in both size, charging requirements and connections otherwise there will be chaos. Then it would be a modern version of the horse and carriage where you travel so far, stop at the inn and get fresh horses, in our case batteries. This then causes issues for the manufacturers, it is easier for them to wrap a vehicle round the batteries to maximise space than try to put them in accessable compartments.
I still believe long term the hybrid is the answer, runs mostly on batteries which can be kept charged by a small highly efficient engine, maybe even a small turbine running parifin.
I still believe long term the hybrid is the answer, runs mostly on batteries which can be kept charged by a small highly efficient engine, maybe even a small turbine running parifin.
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