Friday, July 13, 2007
Power
I came across a blurb about a new type of battery that may be used in the national power grid. And I hope it works out (and I'm bearish on this), because power generation is not a trivial thing, as Steven Den Beste lays out in a series of articles he wrote a few years ago (and are well worth reading to get a sense of the immense scale of power generation here in the States):
- Carb on Emissions
- Ene rgy Dependence
- More on Energy Dependence
- More Practical Problems
- Obscure Energy Sources
- Biomass
- It's so sensible, it must be fatally flawed (and it is, as Steven Den Beste shows)
As Steve says:
If any proposed energy source can't be scaled up to generate 10 gigawatts average (1% of that), it won't be large enough to make any significant difference in the grand scheme of things even if it works and is really, really cool and clever and innovative and nifty.
Even though these were written about five years ago, it's still nuclear power that has the best chance of weaning us off expensive carbon-based fuels as a power source.
