Is Ammonia the zero-carbon emissions fuel we've been looking for?

Bartholomew Gallacher

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The plain and simple truth is that building new nuclear power plants is no longer economically feasible, until you are willing to sacrifice much of todays' safety standards.

And the original reactors where designed with submarines in mind; most of that work was being done by Alwin M. Weinberg in Oak Ridge Laboritories under a naval program being run by Hyman Rickover.

Also many of the "new ideas" date back to Weinberg, just like the molten fluor salt reactor, while others like the "traveling wave reactor" only work in theory so far, and there still need prototypes to be built.

Just look for example at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, an EPR three reactor design. The Finnish people want nuclear power. Construction started in 2005, building time more than tripled: it was scheduled to go online 2009, now they are planning for 2020. And spent twice the money which was the originally budget at last.

Flamanville 3 in France, same design, same story.

Hinkley Point C in the UK, not such a big success story either so far.

Most countries world wide just quitted constructing nuclear power plants altogether; the major ones which are still keen on getting new ones are countries with nuclear weapons in their weapons arsenal.
 
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Clara D.

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Now that I've listened to you, the people, of which I am one of, I now know what my next election promise will be:

NUCLEAR POWERED FLYING TACO TRUCKS ON EVERY CORNER BY THE END OF MY SECOND YEAR IN OFFICE!

WRITE IN CLARA IN 2020!

Since apparently the only qualifications for President are the ability to piss people off and spend most of the time trolling the internet, I'm overqualified.
And my hair is much better than T--man's...

 
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Bartholomew Gallacher

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Maybe they should lt Trump drink some Nuka Cola and model a fictional president in the Fallout series after him - that is, if after the Fallout:76 disaster there will ever be another Fallout game, of course.
 

Caete

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Maybe they should lt Trump drink some Nuka Cola and model a fictional president in the Fallout series after him - that is, if after the Fallout:76 disaster there will ever be another Fallout game, of course.
FO 4 , Tommy Lonegan


Trump survived.
 

Caete

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Now that I've listened to you, the people, of which I am one of, I now know what my next election promise will be:

NUCLEAR POWERED FLYING TACO TRUCKS ON EVERY CORNER BY THE END OF MY SECOND YEAR IN OFFICE!

WRITE IN CLARA IN 2020!

Since apparently the only qualifications for President are the ability to piss people off and spend most of the time trolling the internet, I'm overqualified.
And my hair is much better than T--man's...

I'm not going to vote for you. Obviously you have not thought the whole promise through. Are the tacos flying trucks? Are the trucks made of tacos and flying? Are they just Back tot he Future taco trucks that are flying? Are they trucks that sell flyiung tacos? What kind of environmental impact would escaped flying tacos have? Also, if they are on every corner, why do they need to fly?
 

Casey Pelous

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I'm not going to vote for you. Obviously you have not thought the whole promise through. Are the tacos flying trucks? Are the trucks made of tacos and flying? Are they just Back tot he Future taco trucks that are flying? Are they trucks that sell flyiung tacos? What kind of environmental impact would escaped flying tacos have? Also, if they are on every corner, why do they need to fly?
AND WHAT ABOUT THE AMMONIAS? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE AMMONIAS?
 
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Soen Eber

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Wenher von Braun would be quite disappointed by that news. He'd have to go back in time and use something else then after we dig him up and zombify him.
I just realized what I wrote here.

I'll take "Time-travelling zombie Nazi rocket scientists" for the win, Alex.
 
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Clara D.

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I just realized what I wrote here.

I'll take "Time-travelling evil zombie Nazi rocket scientists" for the win, Alex.
Was a good Godwin attempt, I give it 4 out of 5 Iron Crosses.
 

danielravennest

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This isn't rocket science... *cough*
What the public calls "rocket science" is actually engineering. It gets called that because Dr. Goddard and Dr. Von Braun are prominent in its history. But I'm an engineer, and safety is an important part of all engineering projects. You folks can discuss ammonia-powered vehicles all you like, but real-life engineering will have to consider safety in many parts of an ammonia fuel system:

* Plant safety in producing it
* Transportation safety in delivering it, via pipelines, trucks, and ships.
* Public safety in fueling, vehicle design, emergency responders, etc.

That is not to ignore that we have other dangerous things in our life. Gasoline and Diesel are flammable. Lots of people have gas stoves and burn logs in fireplaces. But those things have already had a lot of work and experience put into making them reasonably safe. Ammonia as fuel is new, and hasn't yet. Neither I nor anyone else can say how safe or unsafe it will be. We simply don't have the information yet.

Ammonia isn't a new *chemical*. I even have a book on it among my reference library, and likely lots of references to it among my various engineering handbooks. But using it as fuel takes it beyond the current uses in mostly making other chemicals, and therefore out of the relatively controlled environment of chemical plants.
 

danielravennest

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It's only a replacement for fossil fuel if your electricity is generated without using fossil fuels.
Which despite what President Trump wants, is the direction the world is headed. Electric cars now represent about 2% of world auto production, and about 0.2% of the total fleet. It will be a long time, if ever, that there are more electric cars than carbon-free power sources. For example, in the US, 62% of our electricity comes from coal and natural gas. 20% is nuclear, and 17.6% is various kinds of renewables (hydroelectric, wind, solar, etc.). The renewables share is growing faster than electric cars are adding electric demand, for now.
 

Caete

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AND WHAT ABOUT THE AMMONIAS? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE AMMONIAS?
I have a plan for the ammonias. We're going to build walls. And on those walls we're going to put signs. Those signs will say "NO AMMONIAS ALLOWED" The ammonias will have to obey the signs and leave, therefore we have no ammonia issue!
 
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