2.8 - Radical Technology Flashcards
What is Dutch Disease?
- when an economy becomes dependant on one commodity
- lack of diversity in terms of income streams
How is Norway reducing its carbon footprint currently?
- Using renewables to generate power
- HEP (forms majority of energy production)
- tidal power
- currently developing thorium technology (Thor Energy)
- Carbon capture technology
How much energy does thorium produce?
- each pellet produces power equivalent to 800l of diesel
- each reactor has 2 million pellets
How does thorium reduce the environmental risk posed by nuclear energy?
- conventional power stations create plutonium from uranium fuel
- plutonium is highly radioactive
- thorium can be mixed with plutonium to create fuel pellets
- creates uranium-233 as a product of fission
- uranium-233 can also be used as nuclear fuel as well
How abundant is thorium?
- there is enough thorium to last 10,000 years
- thus is relatively sustainable in long term
Where is the largest carbon recapture facility?
- Iceland
- owned by Climaworks
- is powered by renewable geothermal energy
What is the point of carbon recapture technology?
- limit the affects of global warming
- by reducing the amount of GHG and carbon in atmosphere
What are carbon recapture plants?
- plants that capture carbon from the atmosphere
- allow for the use of coal and fossil fuels without increasing the net amount ofCO2 in the atmosphere
How do carbon recapture plants work?
- are made of 4 units
- each unit is made of 2 metal boxes
- suck CO2 from the air and mixes it with water
- the resulting product is sent underground
- turns into rock after a period of time
How much carbon does carbon recapture remove?
- each plant removes 4000 tonnes of CO2/yr
- equivalent to emissions released by 800 cars
What are the problems with carbon recapture?
- critics say it distracts from the main problem, burning of fossil fuels
- 31.5bn tonnes of CO2 emissions/yr
- is very costly, only 16 plants worldwide (2021)
What political considerations need to be taken when investing in radical technology?
- people may simply not be concerned enough about climate change
- thus there will be little political capital gain for carrying out radical action
- reward is not worth the risk
What are the economic considerations need to be taken when investing in radical technology?
- policies may use taxes
- public may be opposed to this use of taxes and may prioritise other things such as education
- plans may be too ambitious to be funded
- projects may be too underfunded to provide desired outcome
- microgeneration funds in the UK are notoriously hard to get and are not large
What technological considerations need to be taken when investing in radical technologies?
- some technology is yet to prove itself
- may need large amount of investment to become viable
- eg. Hydrogen
What social considerations need to be taken when investing in radical technologies?
- NIMBY movements may be against technologies
- this in addition with the fact that some technology is limited by physical geography can limit the extent to which it can be deployed
