Nuclear Power as Sci-Fi

The Guardian gets the award for the best headline with this report.

"It Feels Like a Sci-Fi Film" - Accidents Tarnish Nuclear Dream - Guardian UK - 26 Jul 08

"Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.

Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. 'It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed.'"

At 10.30am on the dot, two men in green overalls from the nuclear site appear at her door to collect the daily sample of water from her tap to analyse it for uranium. Levels have fluctuated daily.

Even after the official ban was lifted this week and the families' urine samples tested normal, Eymard won't drink from the tap. 'I always trusted that nuclear was totally secure. But now I wonder, have there been other accidents in the past we haven't been told about?'"

Nuclear Power as Sci-Fi

The Guardian gets the award for the best headline with this report.

"It Feels Like a Sci-Fi Film" - Accidents Tarnish Nuclear Dream - Guardian UK - 26 Jul 08

"Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.

Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. 'It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed.'"

At 10.30am on the dot, two men in green overalls from the nuclear site appear at her door to collect the daily sample of water from her tap to analyse it for uranium. Levels have fluctuated daily.

Even after the official ban was lifted this week and the families' urine samples tested normal, Eymard won't drink from the tap. 'I always trusted that nuclear was totally secure. But now I wonder, have there been other accidents in the past we haven't been told about?'"

When the Wind Doesn't Blow

Been increasingly looking into utility-scale storage lately. Somewhat surprisingly, the compressed air option seems to be in the lead at the moment. You can use it in a lot of locations unlike pumped hydro storage. You can go big like pumped hydro.

The problem area seems primarily to be one of efficiency. A good chunk of the energy used to compress air goes into heat. Those of us who hand pump our bike tires with portable pumps are a little aware of that effect. Conversely when compressed air is released, it wants to recapture that heat. With utility scaled systems, this heat is often provided by natural gas.

So to get around this efficiency loss, folks are designing heat transfer and storage systems. The heat generated on compression is captured and stored. When the air is released, this stored heat goes back into the air. This results in near 70% efficiency. Good enough for govmint work.

Add to that wind turbines designed to directly compress air and things start getting interesting. The wind plant that General Compression is working on, for example.

General Compression Aims to Double Wind Farm Profits - Cleantech - 20 Mar 07

"When the wind blows, General Compression compressors inside turbines are to pump air to over 100 atmospheres of pressure and send the air down the towers into an underground network of high-pressure pipes. The pipeline network is to collect and store 6-12 hours of energy. If the project is sited near a geologic feature such as a salt dome, aquifer, limestone cavern, or depleted gas field, the company projects energy storage times of weeks, or even months."

Storage Technology Comparisons - Capital Cost - Electricity Storage Association

Nice storage technology comparison graphs.

How Compressed Air Could Power the Future - Live Science - 04 Jun 08

"CAES can supply around 100 megawatts of power for several hours, and the needed geological formations (abandoned mines, salt caverns, aquifers) can be found around the world. Other storage devices, such as batteries and flywheels, cannot store nearly the same amount of energy and are much more expensive to install than CAES."

"To improve the efficiency, RWE and GE are working on a new design called advanced adiabatic CAES (AA-CAES), in which the heat that is removed from the air during compression is stored and later used to reheat the gas as it is discharged. 'In this case, the air is hot enough to drive an air turbine without using combustion gases,' Marquardt said. The efficiency could be increased to 70 percent, and if combined with wind power, an AA-CAES system would release no carbon dioxide, a major driver of global warming."

When the Wind Doesn't Blow

Been increasingly looking into utility-scale storage lately. Somewhat surprisingly, the compressed air option seems to be in the lead at the moment. You can use it in a lot of locations unlike pumped hydro storage. You can go big like pumped hydro.

The problem area seems primarily to be one of efficiency. A good chunk of the energy used to compress air goes into heat. Those of us who hand pump our bike tires with portable pumps are a little aware of that effect. Conversely when compressed air is released, it wants to recapture that heat. With utility scaled systems, this heat is often provided by natural gas.

So to get around this efficiency loss, folks are designing heat transfer and storage systems. The heat generated on compression is captured and stored. When the air is released, this stored heat goes back into the air. This results in near 70% efficiency. Good enough for govmint work.

Add to that wind turbines designed to directly compress air and things start getting interesting. The wind plant that General Compression is working on, for example.

General Compression Aims to Double Wind Farm Profits - Cleantech - 20 Mar 07

"When the wind blows, General Compression compressors inside turbines are to pump air to over 100 atmospheres of pressure and send the air down the towers into an underground network of high-pressure pipes. The pipeline network is to collect and store 6-12 hours of energy. If the project is sited near a geologic feature such as a salt dome, aquifer, limestone cavern, or depleted gas field, the company projects energy storage times of weeks, or even months."

Storage Technology Comparisons - Capital Cost - Electricity Storage Association

Nice storage technology comparison graphs.

How Compressed Air Could Power the Future - Live Science - 04 Jun 08

"CAES can supply around 100 megawatts of power for several hours, and the needed geological formations (abandoned mines, salt caverns, aquifers) can be found around the world. Other storage devices, such as batteries and flywheels, cannot store nearly the same amount of energy and are much more expensive to install than CAES."

"To improve the efficiency, RWE and GE are working on a new design called advanced adiabatic CAES (AA-CAES), in which the heat that is removed from the air during compression is stored and later used to reheat the gas as it is discharged. 'In this case, the air is hot enough to drive an air turbine without using combustion gases,' Marquardt said. The efficiency could be increased to 70 percent, and if combined with wind power, an AA-CAES system would release no carbon dioxide, a major driver of global warming."