A proposal to run solar cells at night.

[NNadir]

There was an old ethnic joke that used to make the rounds in the seventies that involved Astronauts who planned to land on the surface of the sun at night.

I won't repeat it. You get the idea.

One of the big drawbacks to the humulogousically exponentialandacious grandifragalious solar industry is that solar cells don't work at night.

One hears all the time these elaborate schemes for batteries as big as the Ritz or even batteries as big as New Mexico, but it seems that the number of "world's largest solar systems" that operate "world's largestly" at night is still zeroilacious.

I was just reading a cool paper, in proof, in the Journal of Luminscence on radiologically induced crystals in cesium iodide crystals. Here is the abstract.

The actual article is actually all technical and there isn't any point in quoting it here. The main point is this:

Cesium iodide, for those of you who do not build radiation scintillation devices at home, is one of the most powerful converters of high energy radiation - gamma rays, x-rays, and short wavelength UV - into light energy, and as such, is used in many radiation detection devices, particularly in the medical industry. Basically, you irradiate it and it lights up.

By a happy coincidence, cesium iodide is a common constituent of so called "nuclear waste," which is not waste at all, but which represents an extremely important and valuable resource for future generations.

Much of the cesium iodide contained in used nuclear fuel is highly (and happily) radioactive. Although many uses for this material suggest themselves, particularly with respect to destroying the million ton quantities of carbon halides released by industries like, say, the silicon industry, it is also immediately clear that radiocesium iodide is a self illuminating material. For each MeV of radiation it absorbs, it gives off about 64,000 photons of visible light.

This means that in theory, people who are concerned that their marveliousmaximusically solar systems don't work at night could, in theory, haul them down to a big radiant pool of molten CsI and get all sorts of renewabilicallyious PV power at night.

This idea would make the intrinically unreliable solar PV energy industry as reliable as, say, nuclear power plants.

Just saying...

[losthills]

1. Can a person who says "highly and happily radioactive"

in reference to nuclear waste be considered sane?

Just askin'....

[NNadir]

2. It depends on who's asking.

If one is in a cult, like say the anti-nuke cult that despises science, I guess not.

I don't go to Baptist conventions to get my sense of reality checked, and I don't check with scientifically illiterate anti-nukes to get my scientific sense checked.

Now, if you have something to say about science, you are free to say it of course, but you won't. In fact, all you have to say is to question my sanity based on your interpretation of a subject about which you know or understand nothing at all.

There is not one fundie anti-nuke who knows the first or last damn thing about radiation chemistry. Rather, they sit around and attempt to insult those people who do. Such an approach is a direct appeal to ignorance.

Ignorance in this case, and in every other case, kills.

[losthills]

3. Did you actually write the words,

"so called "nuclear waste," which is not waste at all, but which represents an extremely important and valuable resource for future generations.?"

"Science," eh? Whatever, professor......

[NNadir]

4. Yes I did. I've read thousands if not tens of thousands of papers on the topic.

You, on the other hand, simply are appealing again to ignorance.

If you have a comment of science, you can make it, but that's not what you are doing. You have no idea whatsoever how a medical imaging device works because you have never bothered to look. You have no idea of how a nuclear power plant works. You know doodly squat about the chemistry of fission products or of actinides.

Therefore it follows that you are incompetent to discuss the value or lack of value of materials about which you can assert nothing, since you don't know anything.

If you were my student, you would last no more twenty-five seconds in my class because I am very intolerant of ignorance, especially deliberate ignorance.

[mkultra]

5. sounds cool expect for the spelling and grammer errors.

[Systematic Chaos]

7. I just love message board self-pwnage....

sounds cool expect for the spelling and grammer errors.

[mkultra]

14. lol

i fully admit to being retarded.

[wtmusic]

6. A track that circumnavigates the Earth would allow

a train-mounted solar array moving at 1,000 mph to continuously track the sun...and use only slightly more energy that it produces, which could be more than made up for by windmills mounted on the train generating electricity from the air rushing by.

And without a drop of your toxic nukey cesium iodine.

Hah. :P

[NNadir]

8. If you tow a swimming pool on the train mounted solar device, the water will evaporate

more quickly when the train moves quickalaciously.

You can thus get an extra boost by putting hydroelectric turbines on the system.

Good idea.

[FogerRox]

20. Time to buy stock in railroads.....

>wink<

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Whoopeeee! Now we can all go down to our local...

nuke plant and dip some gizmos into the wastewater so we can have our own free nightlights.

No, I am not anti-nuke, although I once was. I spent seven years in a company that dealt closely with
Westinghouse back when they built pretty much the world's safest nuke plants around the world. Our resident engineer started out as nuclear Navy and was on first-name terms with most of their designers and engineers, so I got a fairly decent education about nuke plants from people who actually built and ran them successfully.

But, they got out the business because the politics and economics were killing them. It makes no difference whether or not a nuke plant is safe and viable when just about everybody except the power company hates the idea and is pulling out all the stops to kill the idea. It also becomes a bit scary when those same power companies start saving money in design and operation. Westinghouse was losing some contracts to cheaper competitors, and there were no good ways to save money without compromising safety to some extent.

So, here we are. Aside from "Peak Yellowcake" and the possibility of running out of uranium long before we run out of oil, let's say nukes are really just fine and dandy- which they probably are. Even if they are the most reasonable and cost effective way of increasing powe on the grid, just how do you or anyone else propose to actually get the industry started up again in the face of massive opposition? A few are sort of on the drawing boards, but they will cost a fortune and are out in the middle of nowhere with the waste problem still far from being solved.

We might be looking at rationing electricity if we don't build enough powerplants of some type soon enough, and that might not be such a bad idea. Everybody gets the first few KwHs cheaply, but the next hundred cost twice as much. And the next hundred even more, and on and on...

Then we will conserve.

[NNadir]

10. First off, there is no such thing as peak yellowcake.

Second, the decision to only care about so called "nuclear waste" to the exclusion of all other energy waste is ridiculous and arbitrary, especially considering that there are zero deaths from so called "nuclear waste."

I think the "massive opposition" is over rated, but to the extent it still exists, it is merely a form of ignorance.

The cheapest exajoule scale form of energy produced on this planet - especially if one includes, as one should, external costs - is nuclear energy.

I was chatting with a fellow at STP the other day on the other website where I write.. His plant produced busbar electricity at 1.75/kw-hr.

The only people who believe that nuclear power is "expensive" are highly paid (off) illiterate anti-nukes of the Amory Lovins ilk. Of course, they are paid to be ignorant, just like Pat Robertson.

The fact that there is "massive opposition" to atheism does not create a god.

That's my point, ignorance kills.

[losthills]

11. Where is it going to come from?

The salt in the sea?

Oh yeah......

[NNadir]

18. It would be a waste of time to discuss this with a technical illiterate. n/t

[tinrobot]

12. Is it April 1, yet?

Just wondering.

[jpak]

13. Your cesium-iodide carbon-halide super space disruptor will supersede your molten salt breeder

reactor in the anals of science!

Huzzah!

:rofl:

[Systematic Chaos]

15. Uh-huh-huh-huh uhhhhh-huh-huh

You said "anal", Beavis.

Uh... huh-huh-huh... huh-uh-huh....

[eppur_se_muova]

16. It is a very good day to post.

Though I was expecting to see the justly famous I. Lipra as co-author.

[NNadir]

17. It's quite a fascinating molecule, Cesium Iodide.

One gets used to thinking of iodine has being an element with very subtle and complex chemistry - I mean what on earth is going on with IF₇ anyway - but cesium in itself is a fascinating element. One thinks of the mixed oxides for instance.

In fact there is a great more to the alkali halides in general than meets the eye.

The radiochemistry of CsI with all those diffuse clouds of electrons, is particularly fascinating.

Until recently, believe it or not, I really didn't have an appreciation of how important an industrial compound cesium iodide actually is.

I've been reading quite a bit about the behavior of this compound in nuclear fuels. Believe it or not, there are circumstances where one can have cesium metal in the presence of iodine gas. Is that cool or what?

Throw in a little fluorine and you're kind of in radiochemical heaven. It's very beautiful science.

[FREEWILL56]

19. If I get your post right it's that you wish to radiate the pvs to produce

power at night. Seeing as how you don't believe the radioactivity, of that nuclear byproduct that they have no use for, to be a hazard to the people who would have their pvs over their heads radiating them due to the added nuclear waste, I now propose that you don't even bother doing that as you can dip your ass into it and the glow from you will light the way eliminating the need for the lights all together. Heck, you can even brush your teeth with it so you'll have the BRIGHTEST TEETH around.
:eyes: :crazy: :think: :silly: :freak:

[FogerRox]

21. By a happy coincidence people use lots of electricity in the daytime, same time the sun is out

IIRC the last 2 blackouts in the NYC area were in peak hours during a heat spell.

IMHO there is little need to look for batteries or such to make solar work, solar works right now. Repeating the frame that this or that new idea or technology can make solar as good as another old school source of electricity is so much bogus methane emitting biomass.