Using nuclear power to extract oil 9

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1. 

   sunflower Posted 8:26 am
   07 Mar 2007

   Unclear nuclearCandu costs $4 to $5 per watt electricity for tar sands heat.  Solar technologies cost $0.2 to $0.3 per watt for tar sands heat.  Alberta is the sunniest place in Canada.
   Perhaps Venezuela would like to use nuclear heat for their heavy crude low-CO2 oil enhancement needs.  

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2. 

   GRLCowan Posted 11:02 am
   07 Mar 2007

   Go there. Show them your $300 kilowattObviously tar-patch CANDUs applied to heating tar will heat it with steam, not electricity. That and honest costing make a difference.
   --- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
   
   Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

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3. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 11:22 am
   07 Mar 2007

   Wind to Hydrogen to Fuel Cell makes more sense
   
   They are a perfect place to use fuel cells with wind and solar to hydrogen.   They may even be able to make excess and sell it.   In fact, instead of turning the shale into "gasoline" they should be figuring out how to generate even more hydrogen from it for cars without putting zilch into the system except for wind and solar.
   
   
   
   The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.

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4. 

   dissociated Posted 2:27 pm
   07 Mar 2007

   Yes Southern Alberta is one of the sunniest areas.. in Canada, but NORTHERN Alberta is not so sunny.  It is however close to Saskatchewan, which has lots of uranium.  It's not surprising they want to use nuclear to cut this HUGE source of emissions, which is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the country, and a rather important obstacle to Canada meeting its Kyoto targets.  There's also the proposed Carbon dioxide pipeline:  http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/03/06/carbon ...

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5. 

   GRLCowan Posted 3:25 pm
   07 Mar 2007

   Fun factsPetroleum travels, typically, 10,000 km by sea, yielding 11.7 kWh/kg at its destination, of which less than 0.3 kWh is taken by the boat. Uranium yields 164,000 kWh/kg in a no-enrichment, once-through process; if it travelled the same 10,000 km on a nuclear-powered boat, more than 163,999.7 kWh/kg would be net. Thinking it matters where the tarsands are with respect to Saskatchewan shows a lack of clarity on the concept.
   --- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
   
   Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

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6. 

   amazingdrx Posted 10:50 pm
   07 Mar 2007

   nopeWind power to process the tar sands makes total sense.  As I have said for years.  Plenty of wind up there.
   Electric plasma drills bring up the crude in liquid form and leave the mess underground.  No mining, no costly eco-remediation.
   Hydrogen to add to the crude from electrolysis.
   Normally steam is used, that means contaminating water too.  Very little water use with wind powered plasma drilling.
   Plus this uses capital twice.  Once to setup wind machines to get the oil, twice as the oil is used up and wind machines feed the power grid instead.
   Mass production of wind facilitated by this plan would lower costs and make wind our main baseload power.  GHG climate change would slow and stop as wind takes over baseload.
   Furthermore, plugin serial hybrids will make all the oil from every source last 10 times longer.  Fuel farming will be history.
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

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7. 

   caniscandida Posted 11:33 pm
   07 Mar 2007

   "sunniest place in Canada"?The southernmost part of Canada is that rather featureless, industrialized tongue of SW Ontario, sticking down into the open, willing mouth of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.  During the War of 1812, it tasted nice enough to many Americans; but subsequently, after our guys got bit, we have let it just loll there.
   On the eastern corner, at least there are two very pleasant spots, Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake.
   But how "sunny" is it?
   Similarly, Nova Scotia extends pretty far southward, and enjoys a relatively mind climate.
   But how "sunny" is it?
   I trust that Sunflower knows what he is talking about, however unexpected his claim may seem.
   It is true, I have spent a fair amount of time in Alberta, on various occasions, and I do not remember a single cloudy day.  It was always during summer months, and almost always in the south: Lake Louise is surely one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, and the Red Deer Valley is an extremely important place to study Cretaceous dinosaurs and friends.
   In fact, I have spent at least as much time in Alberta as in Ontario and Quebec, and I have always enjoyed my visits there.  So it is always painful to hear about that province's energy-dominated politics.
   
   Chickens are our cousins!
   
   So are other sensitive animals!
   
   Enough is enough!
   
   No more factory farms!

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8. 

   GreyFlcn Posted 3:21 am
   09 Mar 2007

   Bleh, Hydrogen.From what I'm aware North and South Dakota, directly south of the Canadian border, have some of the highest volumes of wind in the entire US.
   Alberta is a bit farther north-west, but still I'd imagine they get their fair.
   _
   Also whats with this morbid facination with Hydrogen?
   Hydrogen is dead already.
   It sucks as an energy carrier when compared to battery systems.
   
   By a factor of 2-3x less effecient on an EnergyIn-EnergyOut basis.
   Besides which, the atoms are so tiny that it leaks through metal.
   
   In terms of how practical that is for use, it really sucks.
   If you want proper energy storage for wind, then I suggest using Flow Batteries.
   
   (Like every other successful wind project with energy storage)
   One could think of it as a closed loop fuel cell with a chemical liquid storage medium.
   
   However one could also think of it as a standard battery with lots of chemical liquid.
   
   Unlike a battery it has excellent charging and discharging speed, and very very high cycle life.
   Either way. Hydrogen is stupid.  Hydrogen is dead.
   
   Stop bringing it up.

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9. 

   GreyFlcn Posted 3:32 am
   09 Mar 2007

   Here, this entry even says"The extremely large capacities possible from flow batteries make them well suited to use in large power storage applications such as helping to average out the production of highly variable generation sources such as wind or solar power"
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery#Appli ...

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