Canada BS Thread

Until someone builds the first large scale fusion reactor or harnesses some serious tidal energy easily I don't see how the world can get by without Carbon based fuels.

 

Our current federal government has no interest in any action or even acknowledgement of climate change , don't hold your breath there

 

Most focus is on solar and battery storage for renewables

 

Lithium based technology is not sustainable. Not because it's not great technology though. Lots of Lithium on earth but not enough if we want to use it for mass storage to power entire countries. Not to mention that Lithium production has it's own environmental issues. I still have hope for the Aluminum-Air battery. It has potential and there is enough of the raw materials for it to be viable.

I prefer Tidal over Solar. Tidal is extremely easy to predict. However, for personal generation, solar would bring huge advantages if widely adopted.

Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I don't see any party winning the next election and taking real steps on climate change. If the NDP did I think they'd be committing suicide. They're are smarter than that.

 

I disagree , I think no matter who wins , they will be expected to make progress on it , it's not going to be acceptable to drag our feet anymore

 

I agree and I think that there is an apitite for some facing up on this file.

 

Now, after reading all these posts, I am thinking a 2016 taco might be the wrong choice and I should be responsible and get a Prius or a solar powered bicycle. No more superchargers for me!

 

It's called a Pious out here.

 

Good idea Jim , you should do that

 

Toyota Pious....yes I like that, very appropriate.

 

If I was going to go that far I'd probably snag a Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus EV on lease. Every few months they have a lease deal on them, even in Canada, and if you live in a city either car will work well.

 

On the topic of solar cells, current technology makes use of only a small spectrum bandwidth of the available light to convert to electricity. Research is ongoing to make large improvements on that meaning that solar cells can be more efficient (ie smaller packages) and cloudy days will have less loss of power production.

 

There's still a lot of room for improvement with solar cells. The current solar cells also aren't all that durable which is a consideration given that most of the sunnier area's of the world also have a possibility for hail.

Another thought I have about solar, in Canada, is that we don't get the wattage per area that a lot of the rest of the world does. Our best land and easiest land to develop for large solar projects is also our best land for growing things or for wildlife in this country. Unlike a wind mill, you can't just plop panels down and continue farming efficiently around them. You also can't build panels out in the shield without building a lot of infrastructure that is going to have an ecological cost. I think that solar would be much better off left for home generation and the reduction of residential power loads on the grid rather than for large grid power supply.

 

The sun hits the earth everywhere , what makes you think that farmland is the only place you could put a solar array ?

 

I never said that

Flat land tends to be the easiest to put an array on. There isn't as much development needed or engineering when you are working on a flat plane. Most of the land in Canada with the highest wattage per square foot is land that happens to be towards the border, tilt of the earth and what not. Therefore a lot of the easiest land to put up solar projects here already has a use.

It's just a consideration. Just like how the best places to sell and ship oil from in Canada also happen to be ecologically sensitive.

 

My bad , I misread your post

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...logging-plans/article24838800/?service=mobile

http://www.ancientforestalliance.org/photos.php?gID=7

 

Problem with both solar and wind is they require back-ups and can't be scaled to demand (either required stored energy or a quick fire backup plant like oil/coal)
Go nuclear. Also saves the land usage concerns of Sterdog.
Oz; while everywhere on earth gets sunlight, it's not the same amount of light: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_duration#Geographic_distribution
Takes metrological data into effect, not sure about the strength of light.
Also didn't realize newfies were literally in the dark until I saw that map.

 

Just FYI this map would be more accurate.



Wattage of solar energy per square foot isn't simply linked to the amount of sunny days. The angle and topography also play a role in the amount of watts solar can generate in an area.

Nuclear is an option but at most uranium has another 75 years of sustainability on earth. Thorium will require all new reactors and maybe give another 75 years. The long term option would be fusion development. Berkley past the critical step of generating more power from fusion than was being consumed by confinement. The next step is building a system that has the proper equipment to harness that energy. I believe the last estimate was with 50 billion dollars real world usable fusion technology would be available in 5-10 years. The problem is that no government wants to invest in it after the cold fusion, which was never going to work, chase in the 50's that cost the USA lots of money. It's to bad. Fusion power is literally +10,000 year sustainable and has no negative effects on the environment other than the footprint. It also doesn't yield anything fissile for bombs.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-change-will-push-canadian-business-onside-1.3106025