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News Roundup for August 21, 2024
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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

SMRs—at least the rector itself—can be as small as a shipping container. It’s often the support buildings that take up the most space. There’s no reason the reactor couldn’t be built underground with support buildings above on an area the size of a football pitch. Doable for just about any neighbourhood in the city.

And yes, while none that I know of have gone into mass production, there are plenty of SMRs around the world in testing or currently under construction, including here in Ontario. As of last year, several manufacturers were nearing the finish line for deployment:


Also, please inform me on what’s wrong with my argument about using storm water storage for hydroelectric. I’m curious as to why you seem so willing to laugh at the idea. If one can purchase a micro hydroelectric generator for a stream on the family farm, it hardly seems implausible for storm water system, does it?
 
Northern Light said:
Safe injection sites will be greatly reduced in numbers next year, based on leaked reports of a pending announcement from the provincial health minister this afternoon.
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Good. Karolina Huebner-Makurat would be alive today had she not been shot during a gunfight outside the Leslieville supervised injection site. And just as bad, the staff at the site colluded with drug dealers who congregate around the facility, like rats to a dumpster. If you're a junkie and risk taking your own life, so be it, but don't reduce the safety and enjoyment of everyone else while you're at it.

A good summary here of how Leslieville rose up against the injection site.

 
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zang said:
Also, please inform me on what’s wrong with my argument about using storm water storage for hydroelectric. I’m curious as to why you seem so willing to laugh at the idea. If one can purchase a micro hydroelectric generator for a stream on the family farm, it hardly seems implausible for storm water system, does it?
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My issue (and I don't have an engineering/hydrology background) is that I would imagine to be a reliable source of hydroelectric power, the generator needs a predictable source of water. I would think storm water isn't regular enough.
 
PL1 said:
My issue (and I don't have an engineering/hydrology background) is that I would imagine to be a reliable source of hydroelectric power, the generator needs a predictable source of water. I would think storm water isn't regular enough.
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That wasn’t the point though. The point was reclaiming energy through the storm water system. Few renewables aside from river hydroelectric and geothermal are predictable. Using a storm water system, which is already designed to capture and slow-release excess water, seems natural.
 
zang said:
That wasn’t the point though. The point was reclaiming energy through the storm water system. Few renewables aside from river hydroelectric and geothermal are predictable. Using a storm water system, which is already designed to capture and slow-release excess water, seems natural.
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Agreed, a hydro-electric system can work without working 100% of the time (e.g. tidal ones) BUT storm water is not only unpredictable but (generally) infrequent. I doubt setting this kind of system up if it were not used often would be cost-effective. Just because something CAN be done does not mean it SHOULD be..
 
Following up the safe injection sites new restrictions/closures and the new addiction treatment facilities, the press release concerning same:

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca news.ontario.ca

From the above:

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Putting aside the politicized rhetorical language, I broadly support the thrust of these changes. Evidence indicates that overdoses are up, not down, and that addiction rates are up, not down w/the increased prevalence of safe injection sites, and fear mongering aside, they do indeed have adverse impacts on surrounding areas.

Putting a great deal more focus on treatment beds and supportive housing strikes me as entirely supportable. I do not favour needless over criminalization of a health/personal crisis / addiction...... but it seems preferable to me
to facilitate recovery/treatment over addiction.
 
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zang said:
SMRs—at least the rector itself—can be as small as a shipping container. It’s often the support buildings that take up the most space. There’s no reason the reactor couldn’t be built underground with support buildings above on an area the size of a football pitch. Doable for just about any neighbourhood in the city.

And yes, while none that I know of have gone into mass production, there are plenty of SMRs around the world in testing or currently under construction, including here in Ontario. As of last year, several manufacturers were nearing the finish line for deployment:

https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2023-02/7650_smr_dashboard.pdf
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An interesting academic paper that uses the word "potential" a lot. The world awaits the first one that is commercially viable. The world also awaits the first regulator that would licence a nuclear reactor - underground - "in any neighbourhood". The one under development at Darlington will be on the grounds of a nuclear facility. A neighbourhood willing to be host to an underground nuclear reactor would be an added bonus.

Unless there has been an advancement in science that I missed, a nuclear reaction does not directly produce electrical energy; it produces heat which is used to make steam which is used to spin a turbine. Much of what you call "support buildings" would be the thermal and generation components.

zang said:
Also, please inform me on what’s wrong with my argument about using storm water storage for hydroelectric. I’m curious as to why you seem so willing to laugh at the idea. If one can purchase a micro hydroelectric generator for a stream on the family farm, it hardly seems implausible for storm water system, does it?
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In Toronto, the glacial Lake Iroquois shoreline is divided into three sections by the Humber and Don rivers. Just taking the central section between the two rivers, the elevation change of the old shoreline roughly follows Davenport Ave. In order for your proposal to have gravity-fed above ground tanks, the tanks would obviously have to go below the 'escarpment'. It is obviously not consistent, but the rough elevation change from 'the top of the hill to the bottom' is about 25-30m, so that would be the maximum height of tank(s). From the 'bottom of the hill' to the lake is another roughly 50m.

The unknown part of the plan is the size of the tank(s), since that would determine the volume of water at play. I'm not smart enough to know the potential energy available in a given head (height) of water, but the sustainability of that potential energy depends on volume. For the cost of redirecting all of the storm sewars into a central location (only those 'on top of the hill'), building tanks, building a penstock (pipe) to a generator on the lakeshore, yes, you could produce energy . . . so long as there is water. Once the tanks run dry, so does your energy. Even as the tanks were emptying, the amount of energy available is decreasing since the head of water is lowering. Sounds like a lot of money and bother for an inconsistent energy source.

A small in-stream microgenerator benefits from relatively consistent volume and flowrate but, even at that, are very limited in the power they can produce.
 
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zang said:
SMRs—at least the rector itself—can be as small as a shipping container. It’s often the support buildings that take up the most space. There’s no reason the reactor couldn’t be built underground with support buildings above on an area the size of a football pitch. Doable for just about any neighbourhood in the city.

And yes, while none that I know of have gone into mass production, there are plenty of SMRs around the world in testing or currently under construction, including here in Ontario. As of last year, several manufacturers were nearing the finish line for deployment:


Also, please inform me on what’s wrong with my argument about using storm water storage for hydroelectric. I’m curious as to why you seem so willing to laugh at the idea. If one can purchase a micro hydroelectric generator for a stream on the family farm, it hardly seems implausible for storm water system, does it?
Click to expand...
The SMRs Ontario is deploying are still quite large. Pretty far from the assembly line aspirations of SMR proponents.
 
lenaitch said:
An interesting academic paper that uses the word "potential" a lot. The world awaits the first one that is commercially viable. The world also awaits the first regulator that would licence a nuclear reactor - underground - "in any neighbourhood". The one under development at Darlington will be on the grounds of a nuclear facility. A neighbourhood willing to be host to an underground nuclear reactor would be an added bonus.

Unless there has been an advancement in science that I missed, a nuclear reaction does not directly produce electrical energy; it produces heat which is used to make steam which is used to spin a turbine. Much of what you call "support buildings" would be the thermal and generation components.


In Toronto, the glacial Lake Iroquois shoreline is divided into three sections by the Humber and Don rivers. Just taking the central section between the two rivers, the elevation change of the old shoreline roughly follows Davenport Ave. In order for your proposal to have gravity-fed above ground tanks, the tanks would obviously have to go below the 'escarpment'. It is obviously not consistent, but the rough elevation change from 'the top of the hill to the bottom' is about 25-30m, so that would be the maximum height of tank(s). From the 'bottom of the hill' to the lake is another roughly 50m.

The unknown part of the plan is the size of the tank(s), since that would determine the volume of water at play. I'm not smart enough to know the potential energy available in a given head (height) of water, but the sustainability of that potential energy depends on volume. For the cost of redirecting all of the storm sewars into a central location (only those 'on top of the hill'), building tanks, building a penstock (pipe) to a generator on the lakeshore, yes, you could produce energy . . . so long as there is water. Once the tanks run dry, so does your energy. Even as the tanks were emptying, the amount of energy available is decreasing since the head of water is lowering. Sounds like a lot of money and bother for an inconsistent energy source.

A small in-stream microgenerator benefits from relatively consistent volume and flowrate but, even at that, are very limited in the power they can produce.
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There is no lack of falling water in the world. The trick in finding developable hydroelectric resources is having enough water, dropping a sufficient height, with suitable geology for a reservoir (if damming) and not too far from demand centres. For the amount of energy such a system could produce over a year, we would be better off developing solar/wind resources elsewhere in the province.
 
afransen said:
There is no lack of falling water in the world. The trick in finding developable hydroelectric resources is having enough water, dropping a sufficient height, with suitable geology for a reservoir (if damming) and not too far from demand centres. For the amount of energy such a system could produce over a year, we would be better off developing solar/wind resources elsewhere in the province.
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Ontario Power Generation and the Ontario Waterpower Association say that Ontario has between 3,000 and 4,000Mw of untapped hydro electric potential.


I think the report glosses over many factors such as upfront costs, presence of Provincial Parks, FN cooperation and the environmental impact (they might be green and renewable, but have environmental impacts of their own). I could be wrong but there is only one major river in Ontario that is not dammed (Missinaibi).

Distance from market seems to be less of an issue; although admittedly does add cost. The technology of High Voltage Direct Current and DC/AC converter stations has matured significantly. Both Quebec and Manitoba make it work.
 
lenaitch said:
Ontario Power Generation and the Ontario Waterpower Association say that Ontario has between 3,000 and 4,000Mw of untapped hydro electric potential.


I think the report glosses over many factors such as upfront costs, presence of Provincial Parks, FN cooperation and the environmental impact (they might be green and renewable, but have environmental impacts of their own). I could be wrong but there is only one major river in Ontario that is not dammed (Missinaibi).

Distance from market seems to be less of an issue; although admittedly does add cost. The technology of High Voltage Direct Current and DC/AC converter stations has matured significantly. Both Quebec and Manitoba make it work.
Click to expand...

Folks can we bring this back on topic?
 
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