Wind/Solar Combined

Yes, there are comments. No, there is no advantage to be gained by this whatsoever.

Spinning PV around just makes the panels dizzy.

Complicated connection scheme. It is just a waste of time and money.

Better spend the turbine aerofoil money on structural integrity of the blades.

Put the PV on the ground near the wind turbine if you must, but it is safer to place it elsewhere, in case the tower or a blade fails.

The problems of nuclear energy are many,but a possible solution to melt down has been developed and used in the form of "portable"nuclear plants.They use Uranium embedded in ceramic spheres.They are so designed that they cannot get close enough together to creates a melt down situation.Each one emits only a small amount of energy.They are designed to create only enough heat to do their job properly.This eliminates the need of much of the superstructure of a typical nuclear plant.When the spheres are exhausted,they are recycled and reused.

This is called a Pebble Bed Reactor.

Now, as for nuclear waste disposal,the ocean(YIKES!) is a good option.When properly encapsulated to withstand the pressure and corrosion at over 20000+psi they could be placed in the deepest part of the ocean.The deep ocean is constantly exposed to a "snowfall" of detritus from above,and anything on the bottom is soon buried by it.The debris on the bottom will be buried deeper and deeper over time.

It would be virtually untouchable without special equipment,no danger of future generations accidentally being exposed to it.

There could be a designated nuclear "tomb" for such purposes,and the heat emitted would be easily absorbed by the surroundings.

I expect a lot of criticism for this suggestion,but thinking objectively,it seems to be a viable option(IMHO)...but then again,what do I know?..Not much.

I would imagine the structure of such a containment vessel to mix the contents with graphite,(To ameliorate the reactions) surrounded by C60,enclosed in high strength concrete reinforced with C60,and covered in Stainless steel of appropriate type and thickness.Not cheap,but compared to the current methods,probably cheaper in the long run and less likely dangerous to future generations.IMHO.

But why dispose of it when perfectly good reactor designs (that may need additional engineering improvements) are out there that use spent fuel and high grade refined waste as fuel?

Sure OK, if you must dispose, go ahead, but make them into "spears or darts" that dive at a critical speed into the mud at the bottom (selected zone deep mud), maybe even guided, so that they totally bury up, and are forgotten, yes, I agree with you mostly.

There must be far more supply than demand for the waste,otherwise why would they be storing it in salt mines,at great expense?

The theory on that is that eventually the heat will melt the salt and seal it.

My question in that regard is why don't the use that heat (around 1400F [super heated steam] ) to generate more energy?DUH!

Actually salt formations have this wonderful capacity to push in slowly, not flowing, but definitely moving as though creeping up on whatever is dropped off in the tunnels.

Low level wastes as in the WIPP at Carlsbad-Hobbs, NM is an example of deep salt shaft storage.

I was talking about spent fuel primarily. No one has ever done this yet, but I am certain it can be done, if the will, and the fortitude were there to complete even one of the molten salt reactors, then people would see the potential for good.

Seawater is very corrosive. The deepest parts of the ocean may be seismicly active. Heavy parts of the walls abive might fall and damage containment.

Wherever waste is stored, keeping it away from corrosive solvents would be a gpod idea.

There are many materials that resist salt water.

SS316 Stainless,with a cast nylon outer coating comes to mind,right off the top of my head,and I am sure there are other materials that may perform better.

The SS is very resistant to salt water,and the nylon would protect it from abrasion,which could compromise the surface of the SS.

Any collapse large enough to affect such a strong container would bury it even deeper.

Nylon you say? Nope.

You suggest 316? Nope.

You suggest that any collapse that might damage the container will only bury it deeper....well maybe, but that's a pretty big gamble to assume nothing gets squeezed out in the process.

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Better to keep it out of corrosive solvents like seawater. Its probably going to be a valuable resource in the not to distant future, so lets keep our powder dry.

SS 316 is very resistant to sea water corrosion,but Naval Bronze alloy 464 is even better.It is used to make ship propellers.

The nylon coating was to protect the SS from scratches which could compromise the corrosion resistance.

A Teflon coating could be applied but I don't think it would be necessary with the naval bronze 464.

At any rate,after a few years,it would be buried several meters deep by natural processes.

Seawater corrosion isn't something I have to guess about. 'Very' corrosion resistant is a very relative term when discussing immersion of metals in sea water, especially at depth. Pitting corrosions alone have rates sufficient to pierce even very robust thicknesses of about any metal you might imagine within at most a few millenia....usually far far more quickly.

Teflon, viton, noskuchivon, slikdon, permiwon....I don't know for certain, and I do have to guess a little....but thwt said, I'm pretty comfortablre in that guess, because of the utter lack of stuff that holds up welll to the degredation of seawater at depth for extended periods.

I a few millennia they will be deeply buried,and the molecular weight of the uranium,if the encasement is breached,would tend to keep it in the deepest place.

Water is also a good shield for radiation,so anything would have to get very close to a breached container to be affected.Not much is going to be prowling around hundreds of feet below the mud,which will eventually be fossilized and entombed and yes, if you want to stretch out the time frame a lot,the ocean floor will be subducted under the tectonic plates,and it will melt into the mantle,and even further down the time line,the sun will exhaust all of it's hydrogen,and helium fusion will begin,which will force the hydrogen left in the outer layers of the sun to ignite,turning it into red giant,which will absorb the entire Earth into it's atmosphere,and the buried waste will finally be out of our hair.

Look up corrosion tables,and you will find many good polymers that will never corrode in seawater.

The corrosion you mentioned previously was crack or crevice corrosion,where 2 pieces meet.With good design,such as passivated metals,this will not occur.

I am no expert,and the idea is only a basic idea;there are experts in the various fields that would be recruited to develop the materials and structure of the containment vessel.

If you see any more flies in the ointment,please point them out.

Truth is not a compromise,but an opinion is just an opinion,as is mine,and I try not to confuse the two.

What's the minimum typical bury rate?

more importantly how much fluid exchange with the sediment?

you know about black and grey smokers, right? That upcoming superheated steam os not from an underground aquafer flowing by, it is from sea water seeping in then heated and forced up.

That dynamic of cold seawater seeping in and being warmed by heat from the Earth and in thios hypothetical casd decay of waste then rising to the surface being less dense will continue to occur

The immediate radiation is not the concern. Contamination of large swath of the ocean with mediun half life high activity high bioavailability isotope compounds the concern.

No I havent ever seen permanent plastics for seawater.

The corrosions I mentioned are pitting corrosions. Not stress cracking corrosions, not crevice corrosion ...and FYI those aren't restricted to place where metals meet anyway.

Pitting corrosion rates alone in sea water at depth will pierce any realistic metal container thickness, if you isolate flow, if there is too much fluid exchange, for lack of o2, for excess o2, if you look at it funny, if you never look at it. Just a fact.

And sure, you can say it ia my opinion that it is a fact, but that doesn't make it any less correct/accurate/valid.

Merely because we believe what we say/write does not back convert everything written into nothing more than a whimsical guess no better than random.

Merely because we usually believe what we say certainly doesn't make all ideas of equal value or truth. This crap about every idea deserves respect and equal considerationis utter trash.

That idea in itself isn't even self consistent, because what about the exact opposite of that idea...how can both have merit?

Merely because a human expresses an idea doesn't remove that idea being correct or wrong or nonsequitur or clever or stupid.

There should be no edict about being egalitarian towards ideas. Ideas don't deserve tollerance. Be elitist about ideas, because there are some truly great ideas and some horrible ideas and it would be a travesty to treat those in the same way out of a misplaced sense of fairness.

That is also my opinion, but it is a damn useful one.

Your knowledge of the subject has far exceeded my ability to defend my idea,so I defer to your unquestionable superior intellect and obvious infinite knowledge on matters of corrosion.

Nothing will ever last forever in the ocean,or on Earth,so we might as well forget about it.

I therefor yield the floor to you and depart.

As for me,I have better things to do than to battle windmills.

The new concrete, with sea urchin like patterns of fiber reinforcement will not crack until extremely high stress levels are reached. Concrete lasts one hell of a long time in sea-water. You are all still grasping at straws here.

Why throw away something the next generation will learn how to use and harness for the good? That is all I have to say on the matter.

I am with you on keeping what will most likely eventually become a valuable resource within reach.

Concrete degrades in seawater. Very nonporous concrete not exposed to currents or dynamic loads without reinforcement can last much longer than typical concrete, but it still degrades and eventually deteriorates.

The latest and greatest heralded as miraculous may indeed prove to be just as durable as they say. We will see....

Most of the comments on nuclear reactors seem to be based on the currently used thermal neutron reactors. They do produce a lot of waste, and utilize maybe 5% of the fuel. Fast neutron reactors are about 100 times better. They will consume virtually all the fuel, using as fuel the "waste" from thermal reactors as well as other elements such as thorium and uranium-238. Plus they have much less waste, because most of the transuranic elements produced are used to produce energy.

Its a stupid idea!

Thanks!

All anonymous posters are held in the same level of high regard by me.