Reply To: Mind, Spirit, Science connection?

[zapkitty]

redsnapper wrote: What you mean, “we”, Kemosabe? I expect the Japanese engineers know quite well what the temperature and watts of the thermal input is. And because “we” know the first law of thermodynamics, we do to (that is, apparently we do, since you’ve said the electrical and thermal output have been published). I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here. There’s no mystery about the efficiency, there was only a small disagreement as to whether it was being calculated correctly – not if it could be.

Just poking around the issue a bit… I can screw up as well as the next neko or even more so 🙂

But the parameters discussed are actually relevant to one of the potential issues that you raised in your initial posts: the local effect of the thermal output of a plant when air cooling is used. I wanted to be sure that the terms I was working with were ones others could agree on.

The solution is a sort of chimney, almost certainly fan-driven. The amount of air moved at a given temp, the chimney height and the chimney diameter would govern the extent of the local heating effect, if any.

Of course it isn’t technically a “chimney” as no combustion products would be expelled… and it would not be a “smokestack” or a “flue” nor would it even be a “cooling tower”… so what would be an benign yet accurate name for this column poking up over the neighborhood rooftops?

As for the stats, in general local ordinances are concerned almost solely with an appropriate flue height for dispersing specific pollutants before they reach the ground… something that is utterly inapplicable to an FF installation… and there are very few mentions of heat. Apparently 99% or more of heat regulation concerns thermal pollution of water… something else that would be inapplicable to a standalone FF station.

But I believe that the dispersion models used to determine standard stack heights would be a good starting point for a cooling system that fits in with the “plug n play” and “zero-impact” attributes of FF… but the varying ordinances in varying localities specify varying models…