More power blackouts coming

I have no problem with nuclear, but for us it just is not an option. Eskom in the current guise just can't afford the capital cost and with the way government work nuclear is too likely to be covered up under the state security gambit in order to get away with massive amounts of corruption.

Why not look at relatively green gas? plants are not too expensive and do not take too long to build. Get stuck in to the Moz gas fields and import gas otherwise.

Maybe get the grid sorted out so we stop losing so much power in transmission as another solid plan.

Get all government buildings to have decent solar arrays to power normal office hours equipment, especially aircons in summer.
 
Great, time to bring in some more firewood for my woodstove and make more candles for dark nights. ****ing Eksom.
 
bruce_the_loon said:
THESE ARE NOT CHERNOBYL REACTORS. THEY ARE STANDARD PWR REACTORS AND NEARLY 50 UNITS IN OPERATION FOR 30 YEARS HAVE NEVER GIVEN TROUBLE. SO STOP WITH THE CHERNOBYL SCARE TACTICS.
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^^ This. They are state of the art, so safe they've even looked at constructing them on barges to move them into disaster areas.
There has been no new reactors built in the US since 1979. They broke ground on 5 new ones in 2013.
Number of Russian Reactors under construction - 8.
Number of foreign reactors under construction by Russia - 12.
They are the world leaders in nuclear power.
 
If all these new reactors are being built will it not result in non-availability of skilled contractors to do the job?
It is not a job that should go to someone who is inexperienced.
 
LaraC said:
If all these new reactors are being built will it not result in non-availability of skilled contractors to do the job?
It is not a job that should go to someone who is inexperienced.
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My worry is the time it takes to construct them. The new US ones will go online in 2020.
We need results now - so we need to work smarter, not harder. Clamp down on illegal connections - not residential, commercial. We'll work on the residential later. :twisted: (Carrot, then the stick)
And we need to increase solar - they are fast to build and we have the construction infrastructure in place. Yeah, yeah, its not the holy grail, but its the best choice we have now.

Fun fact - around 5% of electricity generated is lost during transmission. (I know, that's an average. Voltage, distance, etc.)
 
Compton_effect said:
My worry is the time it takes to construct them. The new US ones will go online in 2020.
We need results now - so we need to work smarter, not harder. Clamp down on illegal connections - not residential, commercial. We'll work on the residential later. :twisted: (Carrot, then the stick)
And we need to increase solar - they are fast to build and we have the construction infrastructure in place. Yeah, yeah, its not the holy grail, but its the best choice we have now.

Fun fact - around 5% of electricity generated is lost during transmission. (I know, that's an average. Voltage, distance, etc.)
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We need results now and in the future, people complain that the ANC and Eskom aren't planning for the long term but when they do that people still complain. We need to diversify our energy that means coal, renewable (short term) and nuclear (long term).
 
Is the use of turbines compulsory in the generating of electricity? Could mechanical options be utilized as displayed in this layout?

Generator.JPG
 
LaraC said:
Is the use of turbines compulsory in the generating of electricity? Could mechanical options be utilized as displayed in this layout?
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Coal, nuclear and even concentrating solar all produce energy in the form of heat and we need someway to turn that into electricity. Even though it seems like it's wasteful (or at least more complicated) to go through the whole process, turning heat+water into steam and then using that to spin a turbine is actually pretty efficient, at least compared to the alternatives. You can see direct heat to electricity conversion with thermoelectric generators, but the efficiency is garbage and they don't scale.

LaraC said:
View attachment 179953
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Maybe I'm missing some more detail with that diagram, but that looks like a first-draft perpetual motion machine i.e. if that worked, you just hook up the 1MW electric motor to the output of the 6*100MW generators, get 599MW and then use the 1MW to power the original motor. In reality when it hits the gearbox it'll either turn too slowly or too weakly to move the generators. If you could make that work you could build a car on the same principle, where you put enough gearboxes between you and the wheels and you could turn an eggbeater handle and it could speed along the highway.
 
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kingrob said:
Japan is still trying to contain and cover up the Fukushima disaster, and it just make you realise how dangerous nuclear power is - even in the hands of people who know what they are doing.
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And yet, the deaths per kwH attributable to coal generation are 4000 times higher than nuclear.

Moot point, though. If it takes them a decade to complete a coal fired power station, I have a feeling we won't see a new nuclear power station in this country in our lifetimes.
 
they for got to add this in the article
"Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be shed, stage two for up to 2000MW, and stage three for up to 4000MW."
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LaraC said:
I doubt that kingrob referred to the type of nuclear technology that will be used.
It looks like he wanted to highlight the dangers when disaster strike or when something goes wrong. The impact of such disasters is catastrophic on the environment and there is no quick fix to solve it.
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You understood exactly what I wanted to say.

Thank you. :)
 
Nuclear will take 20 years to build, by then technology would have moved on to Hydrogen & Platinum fuel cells to store/release energy.

Elon musk will be beaming power from outer space in the form of high energy Microwave beams... Tesla corporation ftw.
 
znh said:
Nuclear will take 20 years to build, by then technology would have moved on to Hydrogen & Platinum fuel cells to store/release energy.

Elon musk will be beaming power from outer space in the form of high energy Microwave beams... Tesla corporation ftw.
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You live in some dream world if you think that kind of thing will be commercial in 20 years...
 
ToxicBunny said:
You live in some dream world if you think that kind of thing will be commercial in 20 years...
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You live in a dream world if you ever think Eskom will manage to build another Nuclear Power station in 20 years, at the rate they are going now (I would guess maybe 40 years), I like my odds better with Elon Musk. He is building battery technology, and already has a working space company...
 
znh said:
You live in a dream world if you ever think Eskom will manage to build another Nuclear Power station in 20 years, at the rate they are going now (I would guess maybe 40 years), I like my odds better with Elon Musk. He is building battery technology, and already has a working space company...
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I am making no pronouncements on what Eskom are capable of... all I am commenting on is the likeliness of Hydrogen/Platinum fuel cells being used as baseload in the next 20 years or Microwave power transmission being commercial either.
 
znh said:
You live in a dream world if you ever think Eskom will manage to build another Nuclear Power station in 20 years, at the rate they are going now (I would guess maybe 40 years), I like my odds better with Elon Musk. He is building battery technology, and already has a working space company...
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You just said it will take 20 years and now you're saying 40, make up your mind.
 
If we look at the progress (or lack thereof) at Medupi, I can foresee that a nuclear power plant will take forever to complete.

Personally I think solar power will get us out of the dung, as we get a monster amount of sunlight during the year and the panels are getting smaller and much more efficient.

That means if you bring a solar power farm online, you should be able to replace the area taken up by one solar panel with two in the near future. I know it's not cheap, but neither is the R10bn Eskom has spent on diesel.
 
km2 said:
Maybe I'm missing some more detail with that diagram, but that looks like a first-draft perpetual motion machine i.e. if that worked, you just hook up the 1MW electric motor to the output of the 6*100MW generators, get 599MW and then use the 1MW to power the original motor. In reality when it hits the gearbox it'll either turn too slowly or too weakly to move the generators. If you could make that work you could build a car on the same principle, where you put enough gearboxes between you and the wheels and you could turn an eggbeater handle and it could speed along the highway.
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I’m not an electric engineer and my subject knowledge is basic at best. I’m uncertain what amount of energy would be required to drive the generators.

The idea is that you use a motor to drive the generators which are connected via gearboxes. The purpose of the gearboxes would be to regulate the speed of the generators and to balance the load on the drive motor.
If it is possible to do the abovementioned you can generate maximum power with minimal input.

Your idea of a self-sustaining loop will only be viable once the system is able to generate sufficient power to drive the motor.
 
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