Solar v nuclear in France

roys · Aug 22, 2024

Are they not going to need to mine a lot of platinum to make those hydrogen fuel cells.

John Burns · Aug 22, 2024

roys said:
Are they not going to need to mine a lot of platinum to make those hydrogen fuel cells.

Good point Roys. The industrial use is their main driver. Looks like Japanese electricity is to be nuclear with hydrogen as a side product, so I can only see EVs used, using hydrogen in the likes of trains, trucks and ferries for vehicles. When they made the decision to go hydrogen, battery chemistry was not like it is now. We will see how it pans out.

binky · Aug 22, 2024

John Burns said:
Look at the Utube link I gave about how hydrogen is made. It is actually happening right now. And cheaply.

nothing cheap about nuclear anything, plus you have to add the costs of the waste, but interesting. Another idea I've seen is to locate fertilizer plants next to steel works. Apparently that releases hydrogen as part of the chemical process.

John Burns · Aug 22, 2024

binky said:
nothing cheap about nuclear anything, plus you have to add the costs of the waste, but interesting. Another idea I've seen is to locate fertilizer plants next to steel works. Apparently that releases hydrogen as part of the chemical process.

They are near getting two for the price of one, electricity and hydrogen. That is why they chose the HTGR reactors. They operate at a much higher cooling temp, using helium as the coolant. The very high cooling temp is ideal to produce hydrogen.

binky · Aug 23, 2024

Have a read of the article below. Japan is quite different to the rest of the world due to the nature if it's land mass, ie it's nearly all mountains. So they will have different criteria to work to, and maybe that's why they like nuclear and hydrogen.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng...australia-liberal-coalition-peter-dutton-cost

John Burns · Aug 23, 2024

binky said:
Have a read of the article below. Japan is quite different to the rest of the world due to the nature if it's land mass, ie it's nearly all mountains. So they will have different criteria to work to, and maybe that's why they like nuclear and hydrogen.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng...australia-liberal-coalition-peter-dutton-cost

Australia was looking at large-scale reactors and small modular reactors (SMR). That is very different to the Japanese approach of HTGR reactors cooled by helium making them idea to produce hydrogen, to replace fossils fuels used in heavy industry.

Topology has little to do with it. Australia has little heavy industry so they have no need to replace fossil fuels for industry with clean burning hydrogen as Japan does. Australia has an abundance of empty land to erect solar farms and lots of sun to power them. Also lots of wind in many locations.

Japan is the only country with a serious project to eliminate industrial fossil fuel burning.

John Burns · Aug 23, 2024

One point is that 80% of the world lives in the sun belt, making solar and wind the obvious choice to easily generate electricity for them. As Tony Seba says in the presentation, he has done the figures for Alaska for solar, wind and battery storage, with them all checking out.