This is the second official duty for me ya. For those who read my posts before can easily distinguish my writing and presentation concept. What to be written? Story tale again. Warm up.... Scientists discover, engineers deliver. Actually I don’t have enough time and energy to write down but having deadline means that I must write down something even if it is nonsense. Let me apologize if this post isn’t fun to read.
Nuclear energy is the cleanest, greenest electricity... Obviously you just need to chop down a hectare of trees, flatten the ground, and build a nuclear power plant. That is all the amount of carbon footprint left for 60 years of useful life. Heat produced by the reactor boils up water and creates steams which then rotate the turbine to produce electricity. This process emits nothing to the air just like a steam engine in the 80’s but with different heat source.
Can Malaysians run nuclear power plants? Yes, we have the ability and knowledge to run nuclear power plants but are we expert in it? No. We are not an expert and this is among the reasons why we should have one.
Can’t get the idea? Suppose you went to a regular car workshop. Can the mechanics repair a BMW? Yes they can. In fact they can repair almost every type of car. Move on and visit a BMW specialist workshop. They are totally experts when handling with BMWs. Now compare these two workshops and you will notice that mechanics at BMW specialist workshop can repair BMWs better compared to the regular workshop. They had become BMW experts because they learnt about BMWs, drove BMWs, and some even possess a BMW. Apply this theory to our topic just now; Malaysians can be expert in nuclear power plant once we have one.
Nuclear versus RE. Nuclear power plant had been around since 1960’s. Developed countries had started to focus more on renewable energy (RE) and fusion technology. Why are we keen to learn nuclear? By time we became experts; nuclear is considered as old school. Don’t worry about RE, we are moving at the same pace as they are. In Malaysia, RE source we can consider is limited.
Wind... On 2008 maximum average wind speed recorded in Malaysia is at Mersing with a staggering 6m/s. Enough to blow several sheets of paper but insufficient to power a wind farm.
Tidal... Energy that we could harvest from tidal is too small.
Waves... Give me one spot in Malaysia where we can do surfing consistently for at least 180 days a year. If no, then forget about waves.
Geothermal... Do we have a volcanic eruption? Do we often have earthquakes over 3 on a richter scale? This is because we are not on top of an active tectonic activity and hence we have too little geothermal, sufficient for some hot spring bath. Unless we dig deep to the earth’s core.
Microhydro power plant... As the name clearly states micro which means small scale thus empowers only up to 20 houses in the rural area close to a fast flow river is close to its maximum potential.
Biomass, Biodiesel, and solar is the most potential RE in Malaysia but currently the cost to energy produced ratio is too small. The best photovoltaic solar panels using polycrystalline at its best have an efficiency of less than 35% without even considering the whole system’s power lost (inverter’s efficiency, tilt angle, dust, and irradiance) whilst both biomass & biodiesel power plant runs at an efficiency lower than 50%. In fact biomass and biodiesel burn releases carbon to the atmosphere but it is consider as part of the natural carbon cycle and hence can be considered as RE.
Nevertheless RE might dominate the world in the future but by observing the trend; it might be another 150 years to come. Owh owh note that some people also considers nuclear power plant as RE because it emits nothing to the atmosphere but as it takes up large land area which interrupt the ecosystem (similar to Hydro power plant) plus nuclear waste plus limited recycling cycle of depleted fuels, its existence in the RE family had been denied. That’s it about RE.
Wind... On 2008 maximum average wind speed recorded in Malaysia is at Mersing with a staggering 6m/s. Enough to blow several sheets of paper but insufficient to power a wind farm.
Tidal... Energy that we could harvest from tidal is too small.
Waves... Give me one spot in Malaysia where we can do surfing consistently for at least 180 days a year. If no, then forget about waves.
Geothermal... Do we have a volcanic eruption? Do we often have earthquakes over 3 on a richter scale? This is because we are not on top of an active tectonic activity and hence we have too little geothermal, sufficient for some hot spring bath. Unless we dig deep to the earth’s core.
Microhydro power plant... As the name clearly states micro which means small scale thus empowers only up to 20 houses in the rural area close to a fast flow river is close to its maximum potential.
Biomass, Biodiesel, and solar is the most potential RE in Malaysia but currently the cost to energy produced ratio is too small. The best photovoltaic solar panels using polycrystalline at its best have an efficiency of less than 35% without even considering the whole system’s power lost (inverter’s efficiency, tilt angle, dust, and irradiance) whilst both biomass & biodiesel power plant runs at an efficiency lower than 50%. In fact biomass and biodiesel burn releases carbon to the atmosphere but it is consider as part of the natural carbon cycle and hence can be considered as RE.
Nevertheless RE might dominate the world in the future but by observing the trend; it might be another 150 years to come. Owh owh note that some people also considers nuclear power plant as RE because it emits nothing to the atmosphere but as it takes up large land area which interrupt the ecosystem (similar to Hydro power plant) plus nuclear waste plus limited recycling cycle of depleted fuels, its existence in the RE family had been denied. That’s it about RE.
Fusion... Our sun is the best example of fusion. Its potential even though the technology doesn’t exist yet is promising. Then why don’t we abandon nuclear power plant and focus on fusion? Because the basics of fusion is closely related to fission, which is the process used in a nuclear reactor.
Some say "then if it is hard enough then lets us remain on crude and coal burning". Boring topic. Dull and dry. Ask everyone, everywhere and it will be global warming and crude depletion. Maybe next time I’ll write down another story tale regarding this issue but this is the end for now.
2 comments:
Great, I like this "kind" os posts.
I totally agree on Nuclear energy being the cleanest, greenest electricity. NPP defiantly the best solution for the current sitution. Fuel consumption have increased recent decades, same goes to the green house effect,CO2 emmision and so. Beside that, fossil fuel is also depletting, therefore NPP is the best solution.
vaageesan ganeesan
macha15_swimfaster@yahoo.com
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