[HN Gopher] US DOE to offer $6B to keep struggling nuclear react...
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US DOE to offer $6B to keep struggling nuclear reactors online
Author : ghouse
Score : 153 points
Date : 2022-02-16 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.utilitydive.com)
| willis936 wrote:
| Meanwhile the entirety of fusion energy sciences is ~450 M USD,
| which is about 1% of DoE's entire budget. Inertial confinement
| fusion (listed under nuclear weapons stockpile maintenance) is
| 530 M USD.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/fy-22-bud...
| jpitz wrote:
| Do US contributions to ITER come out of the DOE budget?
| willis936 wrote:
| I thought I linked the FES budget somewhere around here but
| apparently I never did. Here it is:
|
| https://science.osti.gov/-/media/budget/pdf/sc-budget-
| reques...
|
| 86 M USD cash, 220 M USD in-kind. The 450 M USD FES budget
| does not include in-kind contributions. I don't actually
| understand the accounting here.
| willis936 wrote:
| Yes, ITER contributions make up 220 M USD of the 450 M USD
| that is the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) budget under the
| DoE.
|
| Most of that is paid in-kind, which means domestic
| manufacturing of components sent to ITER, so it's a bit like
| a stimulus. The US has also (famously) regularly failed to
| put in what they budget for, even in the past ten years
| having some years where they contribute less than half of
| what they agreed to.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Well to be fair I don't think anyone is even remotely close to
| a viable on grid Fusion Reactor. It's a meme at this point but
| we're still several decades away from that point. Does more
| budget help that? My understanding is that most of the problems
| are around building sufficiently small and powerful Magnets and
| "Fusion" budget doesn't help solve the problems in that space.
| willis936 wrote:
| High field magnets do enable potentially economically viable
| designs. There are still engineering challenges that require
| effort. Materials will be in high neutron flux and high
| thermal gradients for years.
|
| Throwing money at problems warms up the industries around
| them. No one will get good at making HTS tapes unless they
| can pay to keep the lights on. Also, the plasma physics
| research is far from complete. Study of burning plasmas
| (coming with ITER) and different configurations of optimized
| stellarators (coming never?) are important places to shine
| the flashlight on.
|
| We aren't on the home stretch, but that isn't a reason to
| stop, slow down, or even not speed up.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >We aren't on the home stretch, but that isn't a reason to
| stop, slow down, or even not speed up.
|
| Agreed, I'm very pro fusion but at this point you have
| companies like Commonwealth Fusion that have raised
| multibillion dollar amounts on their own so maybe that's a
| more viable path than DOE/NSF Grants to Universities?
| willis936 wrote:
| It is quite exciting to see CFS' series B funding. I
| worry about commercializing too soon because companies
| need to turn a profit. The publicly funded fusion
| scientists and engineers are quite good at what they do
| and could efficiently spend money on research and new
| machines until the blueprint for a reactor is ready. The
| benefit of public programs is that they don't need to
| make quarterly profits and some problems are bigger than
| a year.
|
| CFS has a path to be profitable even if they don't make a
| blueprint for reactors. Research needs high field magnets
| and they're positioning themselves to be _the_ supplier
| of them.
| sgift wrote:
| The meme at this point has a second part that almost no one
| bothers to quote and answers your question:
| https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-
| qimg-762f32a6dbfbecc4ec824b...
|
| If you never properly fund something then you shouldn't be
| surprised if it never happens.
| willis936 wrote:
| Great chart. Here is the source copied from the higher
| resolution version found on reddit, for those curious:
| U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, 1976.
| "Fusion power by magnetic confinement: Program plan"
| ERDA report ERDA-76/110. Also published as S.O. Dean
| (1998), J. Fus. Energy 17(4), 263-287,
| doi:10.1023/A:1021815909065
|
| The graph was taken from PPPL FIRE's 1976 report, freely
| available here:
|
| https://fire.pppl.gov/us_fusion_plan_1976.pdf
|
| Obviously the 1976 chart did not have inflation data from
| 1976 to 1998, so you can see why we are below Logic I even
| though the budget is close to 500 M.
|
| The entire PPPL FIRE site is a treat for anyone with some
| time on their hands.
|
| http://firefusionpower.org/
| panick21_ wrote:
| For that fusion budget you could develop very viable commercial
| molten salt (or molten salt cooled) nuclear reactors.
|
| Fusion has no practice reason to exist compare to advanced
| fission. The improvements in energy density are not really
| relevant factor at that scale, meaning the difference from oil
| to fission, and oil to fusion doesn't really gain you much.
|
| Fusion fuel cost over the long term is likely more expensive
| then a fission fast breeder (not to mention a potential of
| thorium thermal breeder).
|
| Is a fusion reactor going to be cheaper to build then a
| advanced fission reactor? Not from anything know so far.
| Advanced fission concept are viable with pretty normal tubes
| pretty industrial steels or at most advanced aerospace
| materials. Any fission reactors actually consider would have
| waste more complex and expensive parts.
|
| The nuclear waste argument is sometimes made in favor of fusion
| but with the right kind of fission reactor this problem and
| issue that has very viable practical solutions and storage for
| a few hundred years is viable.
|
| Sometimes nuclear proliferation is held up as a reason why
| fusion is good, but that argument doesn't really work either
| once you think threw it. Access neutrons of fusion can
| certainty be used for all kind of things.
|
| Are fusion reactors inherently safer? That's questionable. To
| come up with a scenario where a modern molten salt breeder (or
| even molten salt reactor) leads to massive safety hazards for
| anything outside the exclusion zone is very hard to imagine.
|
| The scenarios you have to come up with for both fusion or
| advanced fission to be massive safety concerns are both
| possible and incredibly unlikely.
|
| My approach would be to do something like NASA did for
| Commercial and Crew, have competitive fixed price competition
| between a group of providers and offer the 2-3 winners of them
| at least 2 deployments.
| willis936 wrote:
| >For that fusion budget you could develop very viable
| commercial molten salt (or molten salt cooled) nuclear
| reactors.
|
| Could you, though? Look at the "Nuclear Energy" category. It
| is entirely devoted to fission reactor research and has a
| 1.85 Bn USD budget. That's a SPARC every year. Where are the
| LFTRs on the grid?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > While the reliability and 24-hour availability of power from a
| reactor is part of their appeal, the fact that the plants cannot
| easily be shut down and restarted means that they sometimes
| operate at a loss when there is ample supply on the market. That,
| he said, makes the DOE support program one of the only ways to
| keep some nuclear plants online as a carbon-free resource.
|
| This is an interesting economic quirk I hadn't thought about.
|
| Solar energy is inherently variable as the sun rises and sets but
| also with weather changes. Nuclear is the opposite of variable,
| as it can't be turned up or down quickly. Energy storage
| continues to be one of the big gaps in our clean energy strategy.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Solar is awesome in that yield scales with load peaks.
|
| The problem with nuclear is an example of why deregulation was
| stupid. As a society of electricity consumers, we are sitting
| on lawn chairs on a railroad track with an electric train
| approaching us. It's obvious to anyone with a pulse that
| electric cars are ramping up and will displace the current
| fleet, and equally obvious that that operating model (plug in
| your car at night) will increase base load requirements.
|
| So because we've detached planning from electrical generation
| and distribution, we have 50 different sets of cartels
| optimizing for short term returns on the spot market. The
| various electrical shit-shows in California and Texas are like
| failed-state levels of dysfunction. North of NYC, electrical
| supply rates are up _50%_ because we turned off a massive
| reactor complex and replaced it with volatile natural gas. We
| 're decommissioning nuclear at a point in time just before we
| need it, environmentalists were bought by gas extraction people
| and Wall St. accounting is very bad at dealing with capital
| assets with 50-100 year lifecycles.
|
| If you think about it the "energy storage" problem is absurd.
| Installing millions of inefficient distributed battery cells in
| potentially millions of buildings, for want of adequate
| electrical generation is beyond dumb, and the scale of waste
| and wasted value is staggering. It is solely a byproduct of a
| market designed to maximize producer profit.
| apex3stoker wrote:
| >environmentalists were bought by gas extraction people
|
| In the US, opposition to nuclear energy is more like
| opposition to homeless shelters - people don't want the
| plants near them. I don't think environmentlists are that
| powerful politically as to significantly impact the
| trajectory of nuclear power policies in the US, otherwise,
| they would have the power to significantly impact climate
| change policies too.
|
| Besides, what I have seen is that environmentalists are
| pretty divided in term of nuclear energy. There are strong
| opponents like green peace and Sierra clubs, there are strong
| supporters and there are many who are ambivalent. This
| further reduces their political power as a group.
|
| I think nuclear energy supporters should stop blaming
| environmentalists as they are pretty much non-factor if they
| want nuclear power.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| There's tons of FUD about nuclear waste, including with
| respect to environmental impacts. I think environmentalists
| have been coming around to nuclear, but I'm pretty sure
| that's a more recent development. At least my perception
| circa 10 years ago was that environmentalists were largely
| (if not overwhelmingly) opposed to nuclear. Certainly for a
| long while, environmentalists worked (perhaps unwittingly)
| with the fossil fuel industry to promote personal
| responsibility and lifestyle campaigns ("everyone needs to
| go vegan", "we just need more recycling", "get rid of
| SUVs", etc) rather than substantial energy reforms (like
| nuclear or carbon tax).
| apex3stoker wrote:
| I don't think nuclear waste is a key factor, but cost
| overrun is. Source:
| https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-
| costs-u...
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| > Solar is awesome in that yield scales with load peaks.
|
| This might be true in California but peak in Poland and many
| other places is after sun sets.
| jsight wrote:
| Its a problem here in the US too, though probably to a
| lesser degree. South facing solar is the most efficient in
| total energy produced, but it starts to drop off just as
| A/C loads start to accelerate toward their peak.
|
| West facing panels help, but the ROI isn't as good without
| variable energy pricing.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| And in some places in winter. And in some places in summer.
| Sometimes by HUGE multiples that operate inversely with the
| availability of solar power. For long periods that
| batteries struggle store power for.
| [deleted]
| bottled_poe wrote:
| > We're decommissioning nuclear at a point in time just
| before we need it, environmentalists were bought by gas
| extraction people and Wall St.
|
| It's insane that the environmentalist movement is
| inadvertently supporting the fossil fuel industry due to
| their traditional stance on nuclear. Modern civilisation
| requires reliable base load and nuclear seems like the only
| viable option which satisfies both the reliability and
| globally accepted environmentally sustainable goals.
| Maursault wrote:
| > It's insane that the environmentalist movement is
| inadvertently supporting the fossil fuel industry due to
| their traditional stance on nuclear.
|
| The environmentalist movement, anti-nuke section, had
| little to nothing to do with the downfall of nuclear power.
| It was always and only economics, nothing else contributed
| to this. Nuclear is very complicated and thus very
| expensive, and this has nothing to do with regulations.
| Everything about generating power from nuclear is just
| expensive. If there was any opportunity to turn a profit
| with nuclear power, and I mean even the slightest margin of
| profit, you could not keep investors away, nor prevent
| nuclear power plants being built in every county in the
| country. There is a false narrative that supporters of
| nuclear energy seem to insist on perpetuating, which is
| that if the idiots would stop being so irrationally afraid
| of nuclear, we could have cheap, clean energy. This is a
| completely false position. The scardies have nothing to do
| with it. It is all and only economics that is killing
| nuclear power, and nothing else whatsoever enters into it.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The environmental movement is 9/10ths feelings, and 1/10th
| science. A lot of environmentalists just don't like rural
| people so they do things like rail on and on about pickup
| trucks whilest on a plane bound for a European vacation.
| That three eyed fish on the Simpsons probably resulted in
| thousands of deaths due to the environmental folks choosing
| coal over nuclear. The goal is good vibes, not results.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I would gladly join a more scientific environmental
| movement but I haven't found one. And I looked
| Aloha wrote:
| I don't disagree really.
|
| They focus on ideal outcomes over what we can
| realistically accomplish - I've had plenty of discussions
| where people just ignore the trillions in infrastructure
| we have baked into steel and concrete, as well as people
| habits and lifestyle - folks honestly seem to think that
| with enough political will you can just turn all of that
| off in 2-5 years.
|
| As with everything in society, we didn't get here
| overnight, and turning a vast ship takes time.
| tormeh wrote:
| It would be super easy to turn off all fossil fuels. Just
| flick the switch and make do with what electricity
| generation is left. The question is just how much we're
| willing to pay. Taking most of civilization offline is a
| bit much to ask, obviously, so flicking the switch is off
| the table. That said, we could probably do it in less
| than 5 years of wartime effort.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| sofixa wrote:
| > A lot of environmentalists just don't like rural people
| so they do things like rail on and on about pickup trucks
|
| What? I don't think there are many environmentalists who
| "don't like rural people" and have a problem with pickup
| trucks used where they're appropriate ( like on a farm).
| In a country like the US, they're often abused as a
| suburban vehicle, which is a _preposterous_ waste which
| deserves railing on against.
| [deleted]
| willcipriano wrote:
| You may change my view today, but I have yet to meet a
| person who is passionate about pickup truck use, who will
| also decry air travel as a similar waste. I'm sure people
| like that exist, but I bet a lot of them don't use
| computers.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| There's a reason why US produce over 2x CO2 per capita
| than EU, and cheap flights like Ryanair are extremely
| heavy used here.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I'm right here thank you very much
| alternatetwo wrote:
| Here as well. I'm even against SUVs which are the
| environmentally unfriendly car of choice here in Germany.
| rurp wrote:
| Yep, the vast majority of trucks I see in my city are
| spotless and probably only used for commuting. It's far
| less environmentally and financially costly to drive
| around town with a car, but for whatever reason a lot
| people think that commuting in a truck is cooler so
| that's what they burn their money on. Some absurd percent
| of 4x4 vehicles, like 90%, have _never_ been driven off
| road.
|
| Conversely, there's a lot of overlap between
| environmentalists and people who like to go outside and
| get off the beaten path. Driving in remote areas a lot
| pretty much necessitates having a truck. I've never heard
| any animosity from environmentalists towards truck owners
| who actually use their truck for truck things.
| caoilte wrote:
| They make you feel safer because you're in a bigger
| vehicle and higher off the road. Ironically they tend to
| roll more easily so are often more dangerous.
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| Ahhh yes, the "for my cause and values it's OK and worth
| it, but for yours, not so much".
|
| Even in this example alone you neglected to consider the
| number of trucks that are used to tow something. Say you
| need (or want!) to tow a heavy trailer once a month or
| every other month. Should you buy one vehicle that can do
| this, and then use it to commute 90% of the time, or
| should you buy two vehicles, and let one sit around
| unused most of the time?
|
| Now what about the person that needs to haul some things?
| Surely a small trailer + SUV is superior to a truck? Not
| so fast: gotta store that trailer and be comfortable with
| it. My guess is for 95% of people, a truck for utility
| purposes is far superior.
|
| Finally, newer trucks are actually surprisingly
| efficient. I just got 22mpg 360 miles round trip in my
| full ton pickup truck. Been shopping for minivans, aside
| from the rare hybrid minivan, they only get around 26mpg
| on highway.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Should you buy one vehicle that can do this, and then
| use it to commute 90% of the time, or should you buy two
| vehicles, and let one sit around unused most of the time
|
| Or maybe rent a vehicle if it's only for towing once
| every other month.. Unless renting costs upwards of 1k,
| it'd be many years before buying makes sense for usage
| once every other month.
| njarboe wrote:
| In these types of conversations someone always brings up
| the idea of renting a vehicle instead of owning one that
| can do what you want to do "once a month". Renting a
| truck or SUV that can tow a decent amount of weight is
| expensive, if you can find it, and the friction of
| finding, renting, insuring, picking up, loading the
| truck, unloading, dropping off, dealing with things when
| you ding the vehicle, means you mostly won't do that
| activity. Once a year, rental makes sense. Once a month,
| nope.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Those are terrible mileage numbers for a modern gas
| vehicle, let's be clear. I recently averaged 37mpg with a
| 200hp VW in Comfort mode on a trip up and down CA 101.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Is it really that common to need to haul/tow stuff? I
| live in Europe, and the only people I know who need this
| regularly are tradespeople. Most people I know don't even
| have a car at all!
|
| Also, 22mpg efficient. You gotta be kidding me. You
| should getting _at least_ 35mpg before you can call
| yourself efficient. A Vauxhall Zafira (MPV) can do 41mpg.
| A smart car can do 67mpg.
| rurp wrote:
| I guess I wasn't clear, but what I meant by "using trucks
| for truck things" I meant things you can do with a truck
| but not a car. Towing, moving construction supplies
| around, and other such tasks are all valid reasons to own
| a truck since you can't practically do that with a car.
|
| On the other hand, commuting through a city can be done
| just as well or better by a car in every sense. 22mpg is
| terrible mileage compared to a modern car and the fact
| that it seems good reinforces my point of how wasteful it
| is to commute in a truck.
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| The beauty of attacking a caricature of an
| environmentalist is that you can be as judgemental as you
| want about a fictional judgemental person.
|
| You can then safely lump that caricature in the same
| bucket as people with actual policy proposals, and ignore
| the latter outright.
| floor2 wrote:
| This is just a completely imaginary attack on people you
| oppose. A textbook example of a "strawman argument".
|
| The problems of pollution, climate change, etc are real.
| The science is clear.
|
| Please don't make up an imaginary bad actor who has bad
| motivations for why they want to solve or improve some of
| these problems. This is a rhetoric device designed to
| distract people from the problems and solutions by
| getting them to dislike, distrust or hate the people
| trying to help.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >nuclear seems like the only viable option which satisfies
| both the reliability and globally accepted environmentally
| sustainable goals.
|
| Hydro?
| Hammershaft wrote:
| > It's obvious to anyone with a pulse that electric cars are
| ramping up and will displace the current fleet, and equally
| obvious that that operating model (plug in your car at night)
| will increase base load requirements.
|
| It strikes me that transitioning to electric cars could
| become less viable the more we rely on renewables+batteries,
| as grid scale battery storage could hugely exacerbate
| shortages of battery materials.
|
| Though on the other hand grid batteries would also spur more
| research into battery tech which could change the game for
| both grid & mobile batteries.
|
| It seems like a huge gamble commiting to grid storage in the
| hopes of big innovations down the road instead of doubling
| down on baseload nuclear.
| mlindner wrote:
| > The problem with nuclear is an example of why deregulation
| was stupid.
|
| There was never a deregulation that happened. In fact
| deregulation is what's needed to revive nuclear power.
| Competition in the power market is illegal in most states.
| vkou wrote:
| Nuclear power hasn't been deregulated, but grid generation
| and planning for the large part has.
|
| As a result of that deregulation, the grid is often
| optimizing for cost, instead of reliability, which can lead
| to problems. Saving 5% on your power bill is great, but
| it's less great if the consequence is, say, not having any
| power one week of the year.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I can tell you in New York, utilities were compelled to
| divest from power production. Your state may vary.
|
| Similar to the charter school scam, the scrappy upstarts
| bonded out lots of debt to buy up power plants and
| subsequently became a powerful lobby to keep their cartel
| tight.
|
| Some of the remaining municipal energy co-op utilities were
| exempted from deregulation, and all of them have lower cost
| structures.
|
| I know Massachusetts is a similar story, not sure about
| others.
| dantheman wrote:
| What is the charter school scam? Kids actually learning
| to read and do math? Giving parents a choice?
| handol wrote:
| Take the money from public education and fund vouchers.
| Those vouchers aren't going to get you into the good
| private school, you'll need money on top of the voucher
| for that. They get you in the school that prepares your
| for life in prison. https://time.com/101440/new-orleans-
| charter-schools-shouldnt...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This is in stark contrast to the charter schools in NYC
| which are far better than all but the best regular public
| schools.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Floating tax exempt bonds, skimming the cream with
| building construction/rehab and fees, and then using the
| different vehicles to monetize building deprecation. Then
| you hire young and dumb teachers as cheaply as possible
| and keep costs down with turnover.
|
| Most of them are structured like real estate syndicates.
| It's basically like building a strip mall or franchise
| hotel, except you have a captive customer and can leave
| the local taxpayer holding the bag. The educational
| mission is mostly a secondary concern. There are
| exceptions.
| briffle wrote:
| I think the residents of texas that had no power for days,
| or $15k residential bills would disagree with you. In fact,
| my co-worker in MN had their natural gas rates go up a very
| noticable jump this year due to losses the company had in
| texas (and having to buy gas at super inflated peak rates
| when many texas pumping stations had to power down, since
| they weren't winterized to save some money.)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what nuclear regulations were lifted
| and how that contributed to the Texas power outage? This
| isn't rhetorical, I'm genuinely curious.
| godelski wrote:
| The parent you are responding to is talking about
| deregulation in a different context and with a different
| purpose. Regulation and deregulation are both broad terms
| and talking about one does not requisite jumping to a
| different topic. Doing so just means we'll fight all day
| because you can find examples on both sides where they
| had disastrous effects. We need to be more nuanced than
| this. I'll also argue that the parent should be more
| specific to avoid these types of responses too.
| kube-system wrote:
| 18 states isn't a majority but it's more than "never
| happened"
| trcarney wrote:
| >Nuclear is the opposite of variable, as it can't be turned up
| or down quickly.
|
| As far as electrical output is concerned, nuclear power is just
| as variable as any other turbine based power generation system.
| Just divert the steam away from the turbines and you are no
| longer making electricity. Therefore, through creative
| plumbing, you could easily adjust the amount of power generated
| by controlling how much steam is going to the turbine. The
| issue is that while you are diverting steam, you are wasting
| money by running the reactor.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I wonder if someone made a machine that did carbon removal
| whose only inputs is power AND there was a bounty paid to
| remove carbon if you could install them onsite at power
| plants to deal with this
| 2ion wrote:
| As power autarky and energy stability is a major backbone of
| economic and defense capabilities a mere billion here or there
| should be absolutely worth it. You need an energy source mix in
| the end, and this is part of that.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Wouldn't this mean pairing with wind/solar is a natural fit? I
| don't really see a big issue if we could have a holistic plan.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| It's a big headache and one of the most annoying things about
| armchair energy planners who think solar can solve everything.
| It should surprise nobody that energy planning is very
| difficult.
| inthegreenwoods wrote:
| rosndo wrote:
| Wait, are you saying that people were lying in all those
| cryptocurrency threads when they told us that "excess
| electricity" doesn't exist?
|
| Shocking.
| patrickwalton wrote:
| Not just storage, but transmission. From what I understand were
| far from a plant on the east coast being able to fill needs on
| the West. Interstate and international transmission lines would
| solve a lot of problems easier than more storage.
| duped wrote:
| We already have pretty good long distance transmission lines
| (HVDC lines are commonly used today in both remote areas and
| in undersea lines, there's even a 53 mile long line from SF
| to Pittsburgh under the Bay). But there's always going to be
| some point at which it's more economical to build up local
| power generation along distances. We really don't want to be
| pumping gigawatts over fire prone areas, for example.
|
| We are going to need to figure out how to handle more intense
| seasonal weather in the south east US. Florida has already
| done a decent job hardening their transmission lines and
| making sure their grids can stand up to cat 5 storms (the way
| they weathered Irma was incredible, compared to Maria in
| Puerto Rico just weeks later) but transmission lines are
| easier to replace than generators.
| rr808 wrote:
| Its also an accounting misunderstanding. Nuclear power has huge
| fixed costs and negligible variable costs. If a station costs
| $1B/yr that's 3mil/day to keep running. If network power is
| cheap today and the plant will only make 2mil it is making a
| loss only if you distribute the fixed across evenly, its
| contribution margin still makes it worthwhile to run on those
| days as you aren't saving much money by turning it off.
| p1mrx wrote:
| There are cases where electricity prices go negative, and
| nuclear plants must pay to put power on the grid:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_pricing#Electricity
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Let's design system that disincentivizes reliability and be
| surprised that reliable systems aren't probitable. Amazing.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Why can't they just discharge surplus electricity into the
| ground or something?
| toqy wrote:
| Just turn on the crypto mining rigs when the price is
| wrong
| jliptzin wrote:
| Or that
| YawningAngel wrote:
| You can't "just" put 1GW of power into the ground, that
| energy is conserved and is still going to do something
| (quite a lot of somethings, in fact)
| jliptzin wrote:
| Even if it's dispersed over a wide area deep underground?
| tyho wrote:
| Eh, you could dissipate it by boiling ~20M^3 water per
| second. That's about the same as this river: https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/River_Teme#/media/File:Ludlow_...
| tedivm wrote:
| Smaller plants combined with energy storage seems like it
| would help here. When prices go negative store the extra
| energy until prices also go back up.
| dragontamer wrote:
| If energy storage solutions were sufficient, there
| wouldn't be any negative priced energy!
|
| Obviously, everyone who can store energy maxes out their
| battery banks during these times of negative-cost energy.
| The reason why prices are negative is because the sum of
| market participants still has a shortage of storage.
|
| We have a shortage of storage because the amount of
| energy our grid uses is on a behemoth scale, barely
| comprehensible. Dozens-of-GW-hr pumped hydro stations
| fill up their storage to the brim on a constant basis.
| tedivm wrote:
| Energy storage has gotten a lot better in the last few
| years, just as solar and other things have. Most of the
| plants in the US are decades old.
|
| That said, I'm not saying it'll completely solve the
| problem- just increase efficiency and reduce the problem.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| If you can make it work you'll be a very rich person,
| tedivm. I encourage you to aggressively pursue this
| opportunity.
| [deleted]
| qqqwerty wrote:
| Energy storage is expensive. Nuclear is expensive. Solar
| and wind are cheap. If we are going to need energy
| storage regardless (we will), then why not combine it
| with the cheapest sources rather than the most expensive?
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > If we are going to need energy storage regardless (we
| will)
|
| Why? Couldn't we just go all in on nuclear?
| philipkglass wrote:
| A couple of reasons:
|
| - You'll need to manufacture terawatt hours of batteries
| anyway to replace all the internal combustion cars on the
| road, regardless of whether you charge those cars with
| nuclear electricity or renewable electricity.
|
| - Nuclear power plants make for _very_ expensive peak
| generating resources. They 're only affordable for
| covering the minimum ("baseload") demand that is always
| there on the electrical grid.
|
| Consider demand on California's CAISO grid. On a hot
| summer day like 2019-08-15 air conditioning pushes the
| peak demand over 44 gigawatts. On the same day, the early
| predawn load is 20 gigawatts lower at 24 gigawatts. And
| on a cool day like 2022-02-06, the minimum demand is down
| to 16 gigawatts while the whole day average is well below
| 23. You can use the date picker to look at "Demand trend"
| for different days here:
|
| http://www.caiso.com/todaysoutlook/pages/index.html
|
| Only ~16 gigawatts of generating output will definitely
| get consumed all the time, but you still need to plan for
| those hot days that need 44+ gigawatts. It's
| theoretically possible to build 50 GW of reactors and use
| the full capacity for just a few hours a year, but that's
| very expensive. It's much more economical to have only 16
| GW of reactors and use other electricity sources to meet
| higher demand, but that's bad for the climate when "other
| sources" includes fossil fueled power plants like it
| currently does. Nuclear plus storage would be a much more
| affordable way to decarbonize than using 100% nuclear
| without storage, and it would be cleaner than using
| fossil fuel peakers.
| godelski wrote:
| There's another factor in the equation that you're not
| considering. "How much battery storage". The equation is
| finding an optima on a(cost of nuclear) + b(cost of
| renewables) + c(cost of storage). Restricting the
| equation to just aN + c_NS vs bR + c_RS is rather absurd
| (only something laypeople do and not something people in
| the energy community do). But in that case we can easily
| see that c_N << c_R, since nuclear provides a baseline
| storage. This brings us back to using the systems to
| complement one another (aN + bR + cS). After all, the
| goal is to get zero emission energy at the cheapest
| value, not energy at the cheapest value.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| I did consider it, I work in the energy industry after
| all. But even your equation over simplifies things
| considerably. Things like cost over time (batteries are
| likely to get much cheaper in the future, whereas solar
| and nuclear are not likely to decrease much), and
| deployment characteristics (much easier/cheaper for the
| grid to add small incremental solar+wind+storage
| deployments over time then to add large individual
| nuclear deployments once or twice a decade)
|
| I am fully supportive of using whatever technology that
| gets us to a zero carbon grid as quickly as possible. And
| right now the most advanced research in this area is
| suggesting that renewables + storage is our best bet.
| caoilte wrote:
| You make a good point about nuclear potentially requiring
| less storage since it (in theory) provides a constant
| power. Unfortunately, whilst nuclear power tends to be
| constant while it is on, it still goes down a lot either
| for servicing (planned or unplanned) or because of lack
| of cooling water (a problem that's going to get much
| worse due to climate change). Worse when there is a lack
| of cooling water it tends to affect lots of nuclear
| plants simultaneously (eg France).
|
| So in total, Nuclear is just as reliant on grid inter-
| connectors as solar/wind to perform optimally.
|
| The difference is that solar/wind are sooooo much cheaper
| you can now build solar/wind/interconnectors/storage and
| still come in cheaper than nuclear. No country in the
| world ever figured out how to build out nuclear power
| efficiently and in the last ten years the decline in
| solar/wind/storage costs has been astronomical.
|
| That's why Nuclear is going nowhere. If we were to give
| storage plants subsidies at a level with what nuclear
| receives, there wouldn't even be a discussion about this.
| rr808 wrote:
| > Solar and wind are cheap
|
| They're cheap on sunny windy days. On a cold frosty night
| solar and wind are very expensive.
| jppittma wrote:
| They said blockchain/NFTs were a solution in search of a
| problem, and I think I've found that problem.
| wefarrell wrote:
| The article addresses that:
|
| "The high operating and maintenance costs of running a
| reactor can make them uneconomical in some markets"
|
| And "sometimes they operate at a loss"
|
| They're specifically talking about operational costs and
| excluding upfront costs.
| ghouse wrote:
| In the US, most of the pumped hydro energy storage was built
| during the nuclear build out (because of the operating
| characteristics you note above). While chemical energy storage
| is growing quickly in the US, pumped hydro energy storage
| remains dominant.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Pumped hydro is great, but we are in a situation where most
| obvious pumped-hydro stations have been already turned into
| pumped-hydro. The remaining areas have political / water
| issues, or insufficient geography.
|
| Chemical storage doesn't seem like it'd operate anywhere
| close to pump-hydro scale, but chemical storage will be a
| component of frequency-regulation, and maybe anything
| involving 30-minutes or less of storage. This is still
| useful, but pumped hydro is so much bigger than all other
| forms, that its hard to imagine an adequate replacement
| moving forward.
|
| CAES looks promising. Still smaller than pumped hydro, but
| there's more geography that works with it.
| pfdietz wrote:
| You commit a common error. While on-river hydro (including
| pumped) is rather limited, the potential resource for off-
| river pumped hydro is enormous.
|
| http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Globally there's about 9,000 gigawatt hours of pumped
| hydro, annually we produce about 1388.85 TWh worth of
| Ammonia (mostly for fertilizer) so chemical storage of
| electrical energy as green hydrogen/ammonia has a fairly
| clear growth path.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Nuclear is the opposite of variable, as it can't be turned up
| or down quickly.
|
| It's not as clear cut. Cold start up and shut down of nuclear
| reactors take time, but there's lot of in between and nuclear
| still has quite a lot of flexibility: for instance, you can
| quickly modulate the power output down to 50% without special
| considerations (you can also go lower, but then it starts using
| the uranium quicker[1]), or you can even go off while staying
| hot and in pressure, which means only the fission divergence
| needs to be redone, this is usually done during the week-end.
|
| And keep in mind that modern (= high yield) fossil plants also
| have limited flexibility: a supercritical coal plant takes a
| lot of time to warm up, and so does a CCGT.
|
| [1]: or more precisely, since the power is controlled by top-
| down control rods, you end up burning uranium in the bottom
| more than in the top, which means replacing the fuel earlier.
| dragontamer wrote:
| IIRC, newer nuclear designs use the control rods to control the
| speed of the reaction, as opposed to purely being a safety
| measure.
| polski-g wrote:
| Those are called "load-follow" designs. Not "newer designs".
| They are almost as old as the discovery of fission itself.
|
| American nuclear submarines use them, as does France's power
| generating reactors.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Interesting. I was under the impression that the control rods
| were always used to regulate the reaction. How were they used
| chiefly as a safety measure? Similarly what was used for
| controlling the rate of reaction when the primary purpose of
| the rods were purely for safety?
| dragontamer wrote:
| I don't know the details.
|
| What I do know is that the older reactors weren't really
| the type that could "spin up" or "spin down". Control rods
| always existed on nuclear power plants, even the oldest
| designs.
|
| -------
|
| In any case: "Connecting" those rods up to a computer so
| that the reaction can get hotter or run cooler would be the
| basis for variable power output.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| I'm not an expert but my general understanding is that
| neutron poisoning is the big issue. Most reactors are
| designed around a careful balance of operating
| temperature and radiation field to mitigate neutron
| poisoning by the fuel, and operating outside of that
| balance will cause the problem to become progressively
| worse until the reaction is no longer self sustaining. So
| reactors have a "design power" and they can operate
| outside of that design power only for limited periods of
| time, while transitioning in and out of operation.
| Operating outside of the design power for too long causes
| thermal output to get lower and lower until the reactor
| just needs to be shut down while the operators wait out
| the half-life of the short-lived fuel products that cause
| poisoning, and then they can start it up again. I think
| this can be weeks so it's carefully avoided.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You are right about the (mostly Xenon-induced) neutron
| poisoning being a important design factor, but there's
| still quite a lot of margin you can use to modulate power
| (reducing boric acid concentration in water is the key
| factor here, so it will works better when the fuel has
| been renewed recently than just before you need to
| refuel).
| Lascaille wrote:
| >would be the basis for variable power output.
|
| This has been done literally forever. Why do you think
| nuclear plants run at 100% capacity 24/7?
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Why do you think nuclear plants run at 100% capacity
| 24/7?
|
| The primary reason would be economic. Fuel costs IIRC are
| really low but capital-expenses (especially safety
| engineering / politics / convincing the people nearby
| that the plant is safe) is so costly.
|
| When you have cheap-fuel but expensive machines, it makes
| sense to run closer to 100%. If you have expensive fuel
| but cheap machines (ex: Gas turbines), it makes sense to
| run in a "peaker" fashion.
|
| -----
|
| That being said: I've heard that older nuclear plants are
| "baseload" designs, in that they _CANNOT_ turn off or
| feasibly regulate their power output.
|
| I mean, they obviously "can" turn off, they all have
| control rods for safety. But they're clearly not using
| them to regulate the power output.
| Lascaille wrote:
| >But they're clearly not using them to regulate the power
| output.
|
| No, you heard wrong. They're often the last or second to
| last type of plant that's called upon to alter supply to
| match demand, but they don't run 100% 24/7.
| cinntaile wrote:
| They want to run them nearly 100% 24/7 for economic
| reasons though. Also what is the effect of regulating
| with control rods on the fuel, does it have an impact on
| how often the fuel needs to be changed?
| Lascaille wrote:
| >does it have an impact on how often the fuel needs to be
| changed
|
| Yes, fissonable elements in the fuel are consumed in a
| manner that's proportional to output. So if you run at
| 25% output your fuel needs to be changed (example) every
| 4 years, if you run at 100% output your fuel needs to be
| changed every year.
|
| But it is not 100% proportional, for example, 15% of the
| plant's output is required simply to run the plant's
| accessories. So it is advantageous to run at 100% output
| if you can.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I recall reading that the fuel is 1/3 of the operating
| expenses, but I could be misremembering.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| About 28% as of 2018[1], but there have been some
| advancements since then. Half of that cost is enrichment
| and fabrication, and disposal is a factor too. It costs a
| lot less to fuel nuclear plants than coal plants, but
| maintenance is more costly for nuclear. Pricing in
| externalities or requiring scrubbers makes coal FAR more
| expensive. Natural gas is really cheap right now so that
| is largely what is undercutting Nuclear for base load
| power. It's worth noting that historically natural gas
| production/use has been far more dangerous than nuclear
| and far less scrutinized by regulators.
|
| [1]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/wang-k2/
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Most nuclear power plants in the US fleet are not
| variable-output for design reasons. Mostly, both the
| reactor (see my other comment about neutron poisoning)
| and turbines are designed for safe operation at a fixed
| output and cannot operate at "partial" power for extended
| periods (in the turbines I think the problem is vibration
| and how it interacts with the bearing designs). A lot of
| this basically comes from these reactors having been
| designed without the benefit of computer modeling
| (everything had to be hand-calculated around a specific
| target output), newer designs based on computational
| modeling and optimization techniques achieve much larger
| safe/sustainable power ranges. Unfortunately we have very
| few reactors of modern design in the US.
| Lascaille wrote:
| I can hear the confusion in your writing and am thinking
| the same thing as you. The comment you're replying to seems
| almost artificial. The words refer to nuclear power but
| there's no sense of any understanding behind them.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Well, I'm a programmer and will openly admit it! I have
| zero training in nuclear power!
| onenukecourse wrote:
| Disclaimer - I only took one reactor course 17 years ago.
|
| The rods soak up neutrons. the reactor is designed so that
| its power would increase if the rods weren't there. The
| rods are what keeps the k == 1 (basically how the neutrons
| change in time. K == 1 is no change).
|
| So don't think of the rods as a throttle valve in your car,
| i.e. this throttle angle corresponds to this much torque
| and therefore power. The rods are best thought of as
| controlling the rate of change of reactor power.
|
| This is why the reactor is built so that the neutrons
| increase when fully withdrawn - because you have to start
| it! If the reactor is being started, the rods are withdrawn
| until the power wanted is achieved. Then the rods are
| lowered.
|
| Note this is a far more complicated problem; this is a very
| serious operation because at the very start, except for
| your neutron starter, you only have "prompt" neutrons that
| can very quickly cause an increase of power. Once the
| reactor has stabilized the "nuclear waste" inside it
| releases non-prompt neutrons that are part of the neutron
| budget and are easier to control.
|
| So, while waste in the reactor is being accumulated and
| while the fuel burns up, the position of the rods to
| achieve stable power changes! Furthermore these changes are
| different in different parts of the reactor so each rod is
| individually changed (actually I think there are two sets
| of rods, not all of them are individually actuated)
| retzkek wrote:
| I have a degree in Nuclear engineering, although I
| haven't been practicing in a while. Your explanation is
| accurate and well described.
|
| > actually I think there are two sets of rods, not all of
| them are individually actuated
|
| commercial reactors have 5-10 "banks" arranged
| symmetrically, although only a subset of those are
| typically used during power operations [1], so you
| weren't far off. Rods are rarely controlled individually,
| the only case that comes to mind is for identifying and
| then limiting the reactivity in a "leaker" fuel bundle
| (one where the cladding has been breached by a foreign
| object, so it is leaching contamination into the coolant
| - this is undesirable but expected).
|
| [1]: edit for more information: PWRs and BWRs differ
| substantially here:
|
| PWRs primarily use boric acid in the coolant to limit
| reactivity at the beginning of a fuel cycle, which is
| diluted out over the course of the cycle. One bank of
| rods is used for fine reactivity control. This gives them
| a generally even power distribution across the reactor.
|
| BWRs primarily use their control rods, so start the fuel
| cycle with substantially more inserted. A significant
| part of designing the fuel layout for a cycle is also
| designing the control rod patterns to be used over the
| cycle, to control excess reactivity while maximizing fuel
| use. Power distribution across the reactor can vary
| wildly, so it's a much more challenging engineering
| problem.
|
| I just remembered I actually have a detailed
| visualization illustrating (modeled) power distribution
| in a BWR. You can easily see where control rods are
| inserted and how that has shifted the power around.
| https://www.kmr.me/posts/coremap/#content
| namdnay wrote:
| Yes, it's used heavily in France (with nuclear >70% of
| production it's a necessity there)
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I'm not a nuclear reactor engineer etc, though it was my
| understanding that control rods in nuclear reactor have
| always been used to moderate the reaction to control power
| output, as well as being a critical safety component.
|
| See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_rod
| steelstraw wrote:
| They could store it in the form of digital energy (Bitcoin).
| With that you're able to capture what would otherwise be wasted
| energy.
|
| "The gas, which would otherwise have been burned off, is
| instead routed to a bitcoin processor.
|
| For years, oil and gas companies have struggled with the
| problem of what to do when they accidentally hit a natural gas
| formation while drilling for oil. Whereas oil can easily be
| trucked out to a remote destination, gas delivery requires a
| pipeline. If a drilling site is right next to a pipeline, they
| chuck the gas in and take whatever cash the buyer on the other
| end is willing to pay that day. But if it's 20 miles from a
| pipeline, drillers often burn it off, or flare it. That is why
| you will typically see flames rising from oil fields.
|
| The process reduces CO2-equivalent emissions by about 63%
| compared to continued flaring.."
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/conocophillips-is-selling-ex...
| popol12 wrote:
| And how do you convert back bitcoin into electricity ? How do
| you turn money into energy ? Can the FED print some money to
| fill back the empty oil fields ?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm not advocating for "use excess energy to mine bitcoin",
| but you don't need to convert it back into energy--the
| theoretical nuclear plant is calibrated so its power output
| is equal to the max power demand and any excess due to
| lower-than-max demand is channeled to bitcoin mining.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Pay poor people to turn cranks on magnets. Efficiency
| losses of only 99.9% /s
| joshuaissac wrote:
| This is a good use of bitcoin.
|
| A better solution would be to interconnect the electricity
| grid with neighbouring grids. With sufficient size, time-
| dependent peaks and troughs would be smoothed out.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| That is unlikely to work unles you're transmitting far
| enough to enter different timezones.
| gruez wrote:
| >>the fact that the plants cannot easily be shut down and
| restarted means that they sometimes operate at a loss when
| there is ample supply on the market
|
| >This is an interesting economic quirk I hadn't thought about.
|
| this "quirk" should be a non-issue with a functioning energy
| market. if renewables are flooding the market with cheap
| electricity, but only during the day, and there's a massive
| deficit during the night, then the deficit would cause prices
| to go up and make the remaining generating capacity (natural
| gas, nuclear) more profitable.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> but only during the day, and there 's a massive deficit
| during the night_
|
| Only if you assume the demand stays constant, but it doesn't;
| Demand is usually the highest when PV output is also the
| highest, the middle of the day when everybody is at work,
| using all kinds of electricity drawing machines.
| terite wrote:
| > Demand is usually the highest when PV output is also the
| highest
|
| In California, demand peaks are around 6-8pm, well past the
| peak of solar production. This disparity has a name, the
| "Duck Curve". You can view the near real-time power demand
| on the CAISO[1] website. Your region may have a similar way
| to see live demand.
|
| [1] http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx
| skrbjc wrote:
| Not really, the peak is around 6PM when people get home
| from work, turn on all their lights, tvs, appliances, etc.
| This will change as well with the push to fully electrify
| residential homes, which would mean very heavy electricity
| usage in the evening for heating, electric stoves for
| cooking, electric dryers, and electric cars being plugged
| in.
|
| https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf483/node/534
| peter422 wrote:
| It also would heavily advantage power plants that could
| turn on and off quickly to only produce power when the cost
| of that power is high.
|
| Especially if these plants produced a lot of pollution that
| was also not accounted for.
| infinityio wrote:
| Based upon the UK's National Grid Data
| (https://grid.iamkate.com/) I would disagree with you - It
| seems that peak demand lies at about 6PM, and solar peaks
| about 11:30AM - This leads to a significant increase in
| fossil fuel consumption around this time
| freeflight wrote:
| The UK is a curious example to use for this, afaik a big
| part of that "peak demand" is people starting up their
| electric tea kettles in a phenomenon known as TV pickup
| [0]
|
| For contrast, here are the stats for Germany [1] and the
| consumption peaks during the day contrast very well with
| the night consumption.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup
|
| [1] https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-
| electric...
| morning_gelato wrote:
| > Demand is usually the highest when PV output is also the
| highest
|
| Not quite, the mismatch in timing between solar generation
| and energy demand has been called the "duck curve" [1][2].
| Peak demand is normally in the evening when people are done
| with work [3].
|
| [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-
| curve-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
|
| [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| Precisely!
|
| Look at ~2001/02 -- ENRON...
|
| My energy bill went from $100/mo to over $1,000/mo for NO
| REASON..
|
| My power was shut off in february because my regular energy
| bill literally went up 10X during that period (no change in
| use) -- and I was ~25 and it was the first downturn, and
| while I owned my house - I had to borrow money from parents
| to pay the fucking power bill due to enron shenanigans...
| (san jose ca, so not even super cold/winter conditions)
|
| --
|
| Look at fuel prices right now - same fuckery about today:
| When the war started and fuel went to $90/barrel - the gas
| pump first time ever went to $3/gallon...
|
| Look at fuel prices today $92/barrel --
|
| $5.19 at the pump.
|
| Yeah - FN BS.
| [deleted]
| beambot wrote:
| And then when you try to go self-sufficient with EV, PV, &
| Batteries, the state of California attempts to pass
| legislation to tax your PV array. Goofy.
| gruez wrote:
| I haven't done much research about enron so I'm not going
| to comment on it, but your remark about "same fuckery about
| today" does not seem to check out. If you plot out spot
| crude and gasoline prices[1], you'll see they track pretty
| closely starting from when records began (1990s). Also, if
| you dump out the data and calculate the ratio of gas prices
| to crude prices (after converting 42 gal = 1bbl), you see
| it remains pretty steady across the years. For the latest
| available data the ratio was 1.267, and the average for all
| available data is 1.222. That's higher, but definitely not
| in line with the numbers you claim.
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_spt_s1_d.htm
| samstave wrote:
| Read this about 2001 enron BS:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301_California_
| ele...
|
| 20X increase in energy costs at that time
|
| ---
|
| ELI5:
|
| While you're speaking that SPOT crude remains
| relativistic constant/regular over time, may you please
| explain if this is true, what the cost increases at the
| pump are directly related to?
|
| When I began driving, the spot price tracking you mention
| was the same, but the pump price was $.99/gallon for
| gas...
|
| So, I admit I do not have an understanding of the reasons
| behind the price at the pump, but shouldn't that price
| match the same graph?
|
| If not, please ELI5 how it now apparently costs 5X the
| cost to deliver gas to the pump?
|
| Shouldnt any company be seeking economies at scale and
| more efficient everything - especially in OIL/GAS where
| they are really reliant on compute for the future success
| of their industry and the power of compute is 10,000X
| more powerful today than in 1990?
|
| Yet - the pump always goes up...
|
| (I'll go ahead and you're going to excuse it as "the cost
| of doing business/expenses have gone up)
|
| If true, then why isn't toilet paper $50/roll? Trees are
| not going to replenish themselves at the same rate as our
| consumption... so shouldn't toilet paper be super
| expensive?
|
| What is your opinion on the following video on the
| origins of oil and the origin of the term "Fossil Fuel"
| coined by Rockefeller:
|
| https://youtu.be/vdSjyvIHVLw
| gruez wrote:
| >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301_California
| _ele...
|
| 1. your own article lists multiple non-eron related
| reasons for the crisis
|
| 2. AFAIK energy markets are the norm. state regulators
| might regulate the rates that retail customers pay, but
| the utilities are buying the electricity from the free
| market. Therefore the supply/demand dynamic when it comes
| to prices should already be factored in, which was why I
| was confused it was initially brought up.
|
| >While you're speaking that SPOT crude remains
| relativistic constant/regular over time, may you please
| explain if this is true, what the cost increases at the
| pump are directly related to?
|
| helpful page from eia.gov:
| https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
|
| >When I began driving, the spot price tracking you
| mention was the same, but the pump price was $.99/gallon
| for gas...
|
| obvious question: were you in the same state? taxes are
| baked into the gas price, so if you moved from texas to
| california, it wouldn't be surprising that your gas price
| went up for no reason.
|
| >So, I admit I do not have an understanding of the
| reasons behind the price at the pump, but shouldn't that
| price match the same graph?
|
| I went a step further and compared crude oil prices to
| _retail_ gas prices (available from
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm),
| and found that the ratio hovers at around 2, with that
| ratio being _higher_ in the 80s /90s than today. While
| there's some fluctuation, it's nowhere close to the
| amounts implied by your anecdotes. Speaking of which, I
| find your anecdotes impossible to substantiate. Which
| state did you live in? When was "the war"?
|
| >If true, then why isn't toilet paper $50/roll? Trees are
| not going to replenish themselves at the same rate as our
| consumption...
|
| I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion from,
| but pulpwood trees are effectively farmed. The growth
| cycles are longer than something like corn, but they're
| still planted/replenished at approximately the same rate
| they're cut. The deforestation stories you hear are
| largely from developing countries cutting down forest for
| development purposes.
| bogomipz wrote:
| I agree. And I think that framing it as quirk(not by the OP
| but by the gentleman in the article) is disingenuous and
| being used to push for what just looks like more subsidies
| for private energy companies. It's hard to read the following
| and not feel a bit rankled.
|
| >"Matt Crozat, senior director of policy development for the
| Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), said the industry is
| "encouraged" by the creation of the credit program, but is
| still pushing for more permanent economic support."
|
| The Nuclear Energy Institute looks like it's an just industry
| trade group that likely retains some powerful lobbyists.
| 6figurelenins wrote:
| > what just looks like more subsidies for private energy
| companies
|
| I don't think there's a future where "energy policy" (a
| euphemism for subsidies/lobbying/permitting) ceases to
| exist.
|
| If nuclear power is the least-worst of the industry trade
| groups, it should count for something.
|
| However, it might behoove us to consider the wisdom in
| allowing the whims of "energy policy" to vaporize twenty-
| year, $10 billion infrastructure projects.
| martinald wrote:
| The problem isn't even shifting daytime generation to night;
| that is somewhat doable with energy storage. In Europe at
| least (and I assume much of the rest of the world) the
| problem is shifting summer production to winter.
|
| UK demand in winter is nearly 2x higher than summer (and will
| grow even more with switching gas heating to heat pumps), at
| the same time solar output is ~10% of that at summer. Wind
| energy is higher but is unpredictable and in very cold snaps
| (when demand is greatest) tends to result in very low wind
| output.
|
| This problem is the biggest one to solve (and not sure how
| solvable it is). In essence it's possible to smooth out daily
| output with renewables, but annual output is very difficult.
| You are talking TWhs of storage requirement.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Hydrogen solves that problem. The round trip efficiency is
| poor, but for seasonal storage efficiency doesn't matter
| very much.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| We have lots of "solutions" (e.g., conventional
| batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, etc), the critical
| question is _cost_. Where are the proven economical,
| grid-scale deployments of hydrogen storage? Last I
| checked, they were in their infancy, so while I 'm
| rooting for it, characterizing hydrogen as a solution is
| facile.
| pfdietz wrote:
| There exist underground hydrogen storage caverns already.
| One was referenced elsewhere in the comments (supplying
| hydrogen to industrial users in the gulf states.) So, the
| technology exists. The major block for green hydrogen
| storage was the cost of electrolysers, but that is
| crashing now as well: China is selling alkaline
| electrolysers for under $300/kW. The hydrogen would be
| used in combined cycle plants. Hydrogen-burning
| combustion turbines have been available for 30 years.
|
| You might be misled by the apparent absence of
| installations for hydrogen grid storage, but understand
| that as long as natural gas is being used, it makes
| little sense to use hydrogen instead. That doesn't mean
| hydrogen can't work, it just means that natural gas
| (without CO2 charges) is for the moment cheaper.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm aware of some storage caverns and have no doubts that
| the _technology works_ , but everything I'm aware of
| suggests it's experimental with respect to the economics.
| caoilte wrote:
| We don't need to switch summer production to winter if we
| keep improving grid inter-connectors. We will still need a
| lot more storage though. And insulation.
| holoduke wrote:
| For basically every big factory it is not easy to stop and
| startup again. For example for a large metal melt factory it
| would take a year to shutoff and another year to startup. For
| large oil production facilities it takes at least one year to
| halt operations. That's why they have these huge silos. Thosr
| factories are build with constant production in mind. Same
| thing for container ship logistics. A complex system that can
| take years to startup. Currently visible everywhere.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Having broadly-deployable (i.e. few geographic
| limitations), toggle-able, economically-productive ways to
| burn power that are carbon neutral or negative is the real
| solution.
|
| There's no reason prices should ever be negative... except
| for a lack of power sinks. If there were intermittent
| hydrogen production facilities, or direct air capture of
| carbon + a carbon market that rewarded that, the
| intermittency accounting quirk would correct itself.
| DennisP wrote:
| Those are probably good ideas but they're still not
| necessarily the cheapest options. They'll have capital
| costs to pay off over time like anything else, and if
| they only run half the time then the capital cost is
| doubled for the amount of output you get.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| > direct air capture of carbon + a carbon market that
| rewarded that
|
| That could be nice. Maybe if the DOE money helped with
| capital to build a direct air carbon capture system. Then
| the nuclear plants can sell credits to oil/gas based
| energy companies similar to how like Tesla sells its
| credits to other car manufacturers.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Nuclear power plants are not "carbon free." They have
| significant operational needs (indirect emissions), making them
| of the most expensive sources of electricity available today,
| and by some estimates their indirect carbon footprint is
| enormous. Think about how many people have to be involved in
| their operation, versus the operation of a solar farm.
|
| People like to make noise about the impact of mining the
| materials needed for solar. Well, what about the impact of
| mining and refining uranium?
|
| Their cost of construction per GW is not competitive with wind
| and solar - it's typically thousands of euros per kw. Whereas
| wind and solar can go from construction to energy production
| (and carbon paypback) on a timescale of months, nukes take
| years to build.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| > People like to make noise about the impact of mining the
| materials needed for solar. Well, what about the impact of
| mining and refining uranium?
|
| While I agree with you in general, the amount of uranium
| needed to run a power plant should be orders of magnitude
| smaller than is necessary to build and equivalent solar farm
| morning_gelato wrote:
| > Nuclear power plants are not "carbon free." They have
| significant operational needs (indirect emissions), making
| them of the most expensive sources of electricity available
| today, and by some estimates their indirect carbon footprint
| is enormous
|
| The United Nations Economic Commission For Europe released a
| report in 2021 on the life cycle emissions (including
| construction, operation, and decommissioning) of various
| power generation options and found nuclear to be the lowest
| overall at 5.5 gCO2eq/kWh [1].
|
| [1] https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/LCA-2.pdf
| infinityio wrote:
| Estimates of nuclear put the carbon footprint between
| 15-50gCO2/KWh, compared to about 450gCO2/KWh for gas
|
| Both uranium mining and renewables mining have issues - I'm
| not going to debate or compare them because I don't know
| enough about the topic but due to the energy density of
| uranium I wouldn't be surprised if nuclear was better overall
|
| Cost is the real issue - the cost and timescales of nuclear
| reactors are massive issues, and they are significantly worse
| short-term investments than wind and solar.
|
| However, energy storage is not a solved problem, so until it
| is nuclear is not competing with wind and solar - it is
| competing with gas and coal, to which it has advantages in
| almost every category (excluding cost)
| myrmidon wrote:
| > Nuclear power [...] indirect carbon footprint is enormous
|
| Do you have sources for this? I completely concur that
| nuclear energy is too expensive, problematic and by now much
| too late to help with the climate crisis, but from what I
| found it is quite competitive with wind and solar in total
| CO2 emissions per kwh of energy (the numbers I found were all
| between 5 and 25 gram Co2/kwh for these three, compared to
| >500 for any fossil alternative).
|
| This makes sense to me since turbines and panels also need to
| be manufactured, transported and installed, after all...
| scratcheee wrote:
| I agree they must be taken into account, but the obvious
| counter is to take the cost of energy storage into account
| for solar/wind, which currently weakens its position
| significantly.
|
| Long term that cost will go down, but it's always going to
| make the calculation much less simple than it seems at first
| glance, solar might be the cheapest form of power at the
| moment, but it's not the cheapest single source to run an
| electricity grid by a wide margin.
| Karunamon wrote:
| How much of that economic cost is tied up in regulations and
| NIMBYism?
|
| > _Well, what about the impact of mining and refining
| uranium?_
|
| I'd be willing to wager significant money that on a MW for MW
| basis, the environmental impact is higher for solar just due
| to the energy density alone.
| skrbjc wrote:
| Interestingly, there is work being done to extract uranium
| from seawater, which while more expensive that mining at the
| moment, is starting to prove to be economically viable for
| certain reactors.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Seawater_recove.
| ..
| caoilte wrote:
| I see research from 2012 showing it's 10x the price of
| current methods but maybe the price could come down and
| then.... the usual nothing useful that ever comes of
| Nuclear research.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| It's a bit more nuanced than that. Nuclear plants can alter
| their output by more aggressively cooling the reactor. This
| wastes heat, but can be used to curb electrical output in a
| pinch. But it doesn't reduce operating costs like running a gas
| plant for reduced hours. The overwhelming majority of nuclear
| power's cost lies in construction, and reducing output doesn't
| result in any savings.
| api wrote:
| A fully nuclear grid would require some battery storage for
| this reason. Large nuclear plants aren't that great at load
| leveling.
| godelski wrote:
| To be honest, a full anything grid would be a terrible idea.
| There's not a one size fits all energy solution. Different
| regions have different demands. They have different
| advantages and disadvantages. We also don't want to put all
| our eggs in one basket for energy security reasons.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| There are some geographical exceptions - Norway literally
| does not need anything else other than hydro.
| StillBored wrote:
| Hu, a fully nuclear grid would be built to support the
| highest demand, and plants would be giving energy away when
| there is a surplus (or actually what would probably happen is
| that people would design plants that can economically load
| follow). So, that surplus could go into various liquid
| fuel's, or whatever.
|
| Its something I've said before, you overbuild nukes, and use
| the excess capacity for water desalination, jet fuel
| production, CO2 recapture, or any other energy intensive
| process which creates a product that can be easily stored.
|
| Nuclear energy is basically free once you have built the
| plant.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| A fully nuclear grid probably wouldn't make sense. France has
| a 60-70% nuclear electricity grid and manages just fine. Some
| of their reactors use grey rods which can be inserted into
| the core which have less effect than the normal control rods
| but don't distort the shape of the reaction as much as a
| partially inserted rod.
| caoilte wrote:
| France has all sorts of problems and their grid would break
| regularly if they couldn't import energy during the Summer
| when their cooling water sources get too hot and they have
| to shut down all their reactors.
| revax wrote:
| More specifically, the water become too hot to be
| released in a river without impacting the bio-
| environment, not all plants have this issue.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| With a capacity factor of about 70% [1]. Compared to for
| example the US at 93.7%. That difference of 23% has to be
| taken out over the top of the already high cost of nuclear,
| which as we can see here still lose money at the higher
| level.
|
| [1]: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
| library/country-pr...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Nuclear reactions can be modulated quickly, they just aren't
| designed to and are prevented from doing so due to red tape.
| It's economically tricky because the fixed costs of a nuclear
| plant mean you don't want to underutilize it _now_ , but you
| can make them variable.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm of the impression that molten salt reactors address this by
| storing thermal energy in the molten salt for later use?
| leishman wrote:
| Bitcoin mining ftw
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Establishing a modest carbon tax and reinvestment by DOE (or even
| a new department of clean energy) would produce billions of
| dollars every year for clean nuclear and wind/solar. Yet we keep
| doing the same old thing and expecting a different result. We
| don't need bandaids, we need a plan.
| tomohawk wrote:
| If it moves, tax it.
|
| If it keeps on moving, regulate it.
|
| If it stops moving, subsidize it.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| "The only one currently under construction - the Vogtle plant in
| Georgia - is years behind schedule and roughly $14 billion over
| the original budget." How does this happen, it is incredible to
| me how government contracts are allowed to overrun like this,
| where is the punishment for the original bidder. Same question
| applies to things like the F-35, the whole contract bidding
| process to government entities appears to be a grift.
| dvh wrote:
| If we just assume the over-budget of $14 billion that would
| give us 13 GW of solar, and nuclear fanboys still thinks
| nuclear is viable option? And the nuclear plant is only 2.3GW.
| Seriously nuclear has to die, it is ridiculously expensive even
| in the best case scenario, it's a no brainer.
| heartbeats wrote:
| "13 GW of solar" is going to have a way lower capacity
| factor, as well as a shorter life-span.
|
| At the very least, you should compare life-cycle $/MWh, not
| $/GW.
| philipkglass wrote:
| The Energy Information Administration regularly produces
| forecasts for levelized cost of electricity ($/MWh). You
| can see the present forecast here, which makes projections
| for plants entering service in 2026 (see table 1b):
|
| https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation
| ....
|
| Looking at the older report from 2018, we can see costs for
| plants entering service in 2022:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20181227232223/https://www.eia.
| g...
|
| In 2018 the LCOE for new nuclear built in 2022 was
| estimated at $92.60/MWh while that from solar PV was
| estimated at $63.20 (before tax credits) or $49.90 (after
| tax credits).
|
| The newer report with projections for 2026 shows that both
| nuclear and solar PV get tax credits, and at that time the
| nuclear tax credit is actually larger. The after-tax LCOE
| is $30.43 for solar PV and $70.59 for nuclear.
|
| The earliest report in this series was from 2016. The
| AP1000 reactors currently under construction in the US
| started building before 2016, back when solar was
| considerably more expensive. The decision to build new
| AP1000 reactors was economically rational given the then-
| current costs of solar and the then-projected costs of new
| reactors. The reactor projects went tremendously over
| budget and utility scale PV costs subsequently plummeted,
| so building new reactors in South Carolina _today_ would be
| a much more dubious choice, but I don 't fault the
| decisions made back then.
|
| In 2020 in the United States, utility scale solar PV had a
| capacity factor of 24% while nuclear power had a 92%
| capacity factor:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.p
| h...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Not to mention the amount of land required to generate that
| much power.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| You have the sibling Virgil C. Summer [1]. That led to the
| Nukegate scandal [2] and executives landing prison sentences
| instead of golden parachutes.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_C._Summer_Nuclear_Gener...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Multiply every large project in the USA's budget by 3 and you
| won't get surprised anymore
| MattGaiser wrote:
| A lot of it is bad government specs. So the government lacks a
| good idea of what it needs in advance, but buys something
| anyway. Then any change costs extra money.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's just regular anti-government FUD. In those specific
| cases, Westinghouse shat the bed so much it cost Toshiba,
| which acquired them, billions and almost bankruptcy (
| Westinghouse did go bust).
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The punishment is that one of the principals, Westinghouse
| Electric Company, has declared bankruptcy and 2 of the
| construction contractors, Chicago Bridge & Iron Company and
| Fluor, have been kicked out of the project.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Thats great news at least
| Krasnol wrote:
| Yeah there is always some excuse when there is just another
| overdue and over budget nuclear power plant under
| construction...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Unfortunately, it's often the case that the executives who
| made the bad decisions of these companies escape with golden
| parachutes while the employees lose their jobs.
| ftth_finland wrote:
| You can have reliable power or cheap power.
|
| The problem with current regulation is that power is treated like
| a fungible commodity when it is not.
|
| Base load should be priced separately from peak and intermittent
| generation.
| [deleted]
| beauzero wrote:
| Interesting side note. There is a new reactor coming online in
| the next year or two close to Savannah, GA (Plant Vogtle)...which
| has resulted in the air quality of Carroll County, GA getting
| much cleaner. Yates and Wansley have burned through coal
| stockpiles, one is now moth balled, the other is on nat gas and
| will be fully decommissioned when Vogtle 3? comes on line. Vogtle
| 3-4 https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle.html
| LatteLazy wrote:
| scrollaway wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't break the site guidelines like this, regardless
| of how strongly you feel about energy sources. You can make
| your substantive points without name calling, swipes, and
| personal attacks.
|
| We've had to ask you this many times already. Would you mind
| re-reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| and sticking to the rules?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29450803 (Dec 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28460058 (Sept 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28460037 (Sept 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28459953 (Sept 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26930219 (April 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26930134 (April 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26930099 (April 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339251 (Dec 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339221 (Dec 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658166 (March 2020)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18500396 (Nov 2018)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17822860 (Aug 2018)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17812247 (Aug 2018)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938294 (Dec 2017)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13517109 (Jan 2017)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13436656 (Jan 2017)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410709 (April 2016)
| zdragnar wrote:
| As opposed to what exactly? Solar and wind have for years lived
| entirely by the largess of the federal government and chinese
| government's investments.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Solar and wind have crashed down aggressive experience
| curves.
|
| Nuclear hasn't. This alone condemns nuclear in the face of
| its constantly improving competitors.
| laverya wrote:
| Nuclear hasn't, but WHY is very interesting. And the answer
| seems to be because there's a DOE regulation that says that
| the risk of death from nuclear power must be "As Low As
| Reasonably Achievable". In practice, this means that if
| nuclear power is cheaper than the alternatives, then you
| could be spending more on safety for the same price as its
| alternatives (never mind that nuclear is already safer than
| the alternatives), and so the price of nuclear goes up. And
| since this feedback loop is regulator-powered, there's a
| chance for them to go too far in the direction of
| "expensive safety" and make nuclear economically
| unreasonable and never recover. Which it did.
|
| https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop is
| a pretty interesting article.
| pfdietz wrote:
| In fact, the NRC uses a cost/life of $9M when evaluating
| if new nuclear safety equipment is needed. ALARA includes
| "R" for "reasonably".
| laverya wrote:
| > NRC uses a cost/life of $9M when evaluating if new
| nuclear safety equipment is needed.
|
| How much cost has been added to nuclear projects due to
| additional safety requirements? I think it's plausible to
| say "over 9 billion", as an extremely conservative
| estimate. Would you object to this? (That's the cost
| overrun for just one reactor, for context)
|
| If so, that means that those additional safety
| regulations have reduced nuclear deaths in the US by at
| least 1000 deaths.
|
| This does not seem plausible to me, as the worst case for
| a meltdown in the US with 70s-era designs is not
| "Chernobyl style uncontained accident" but instead
| something rather close to Fukushima or 3 Mile Island,
| _purely due to containment structures_. Given how many
| people died from radiation in the wake of Fukushima
| (literally _one_ - and less than 100 estimated in the
| counterfactual scenario where there was no evacuation)
| and 3-Mile Island (zero confirmed), I think it 's
| reasonable to say that there is _no way_ for the NRC 's
| regulations to have prevented even 1000 deaths over the
| past 50 years.
| junon wrote:
| This comment breaks the guidelines, found at the bottom of this
| page.
|
| > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yes, amazing how things are more expensive when your
| competition can emit unlimited carbon without paying anything
| for the externalities.
|
| Or when you're stuck running on 1960s technology because
| nothing new has been built in 60 years.
| briffle wrote:
| I would love to see them fund (and drastically cut back the
| red tape) for some of the newer reactor designs that are
| looking very promising, like Nuscale Power. I know they are
| working on new plant in Idaho, seems like it should be sped
| up. (currently looking at 2029 and 2030)
| kingkawn wrote:
| All that pesky red tape preventing so called 'disasters'
| from ending so called 'habitability of the planet'
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Every nuclear reactor on earth could simultaneously go
| critical and melt down and it would still be a tiny blip
| on the habitability of the planet as compared to the
| impact of global warming.
| djohnston wrote:
| Which is killing more people per year, nuclear or coal?
| Nuclear or gas? Nuclear or oil?
| lesuorac wrote:
| So your argument is that we should remove safety
| requirements for Nuclear until it kills as many per year
| as other energy sources?
|
| Crazy requirements like being able to survive a 1-10000
| earthquake and etc seem overly cumbersome until it
| happens. Sure a giant oil spill is not great but you were
| allowed to go to the Gulf of Mexico post-spill(s) and not
| so much for Chernobyl. So the DOE should keep its red
| tape so it can keep its (better than the military, see
| Spain) record with nuclear power.
| briffle wrote:
| at what point did I talk about removing safety
| requirements?
|
| I said to reduce red tape. Things like peforming multiple
| regulatory approvals at the same time. (do you really
| need to wait for the environment review to finish before
| you start the reactor safety review?) Or pre-approve
| reactor designs, so they don't all have to be redone from
| scratch for every new reactor.
|
| There is a TON of ways to speed up approvals in a way
| that don't comprimise safety.. but that was a great
| strawman agrument!
| cellis wrote:
| Somewhat disingenuous, you should take into account
| nuclear black swans which could easily make a whole state
| uninhabitable forever. That said, what I've read ( not
| much, haha ) about newer nuclear thorium tech seems to
| indicate this argument does not have a future...
| djohnston wrote:
| I don't think it's disingenuous at all. The reality is
| more people are dying every day from pollution caused by
| fossil fuels than all nuclear power plant accidents
| combined.
|
| The fact that pollution doesn't make a big boom pushes
| our animal instinct to focus on nuclear as dangerous but
| it's not even close.
| caoilte wrote:
| The funniest thing is that climate change is now
| unavoidable and will make nuclear meltdowns even more
| likely because of the extreme weather events it will
| trigger. Now seems like the worst possible moment to
| remove safety restrictions...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is a ridiculous stretch.
| lippel82 wrote:
| They're advocating for "drastically cutting the red
| tape", which could certainly influence one side of these
| inequalities quite strongly.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Why even compare to fossil fuels? That is simply
| disingenuous to make it look good by choosing irrelevant
| opponents.
|
| Compare nuclear to wind and solar and try to find any
| case it makes sense in.
| kurthr wrote:
| I'm a big supporter of solar power, but in 60 years most
| installs will be garbage. Not only will the cells themselves
| be much lower efficiency, but the conversion electronics is
| also failure prone over the 20-30 year timespan. I'm waiting
| for the breathless reporting of the "Solar Garbage Disaster",
| and other non-News.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Even if the efficiency of solar goes to 25% in 100 years,
| there's no reason why you couldn't still use them.
| loeg wrote:
| At some point, it's not a cost efficient use of land.
| Other, more valuable users of the land will buy it and
| junk the panels.
| caoilte wrote:
| a lot of land can be dual use (eg reservoirs / building
| roofs) or is of negligable value for anything else
| (desert)
| endisneigh wrote:
| Solar panels can be on top of things tho
| kurthr wrote:
| Yes, but as I mentioned the high power support
| electronics won't last that long. Unless you want to use
| them as shelter, they are unlikely to be functional.
|
| As far as efficiency I roughly agree. There's likely to
| be a 15-20% drop per 20 years so I think they'll still be
| 8-10% conversion efficient assuming they are clean and
| unbroken.
| kjksf wrote:
| The competition is not just coal and gas but also solar /
| wind.
|
| Solar and wind is the cheapest energy. Then gas, then coal
| then nuclear.
|
| Yes, we should (and will, the trend makes it inevitable)
| replace coal and gas with solar and wind.
|
| We should also replace the most expensive (nuclear) energy
| with cheap and clean solar and wind.
|
| We're not grading on a curve here. It doesn't matter WHY
| nuclear is most expensive energy, it matters that it is and
| we have technology that is both cheaper and cleaner to
| replace it.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Solar and wind are only the cheapest because we have dumped
| massive amounts of subsidies into them, and continue to do
| so at greater levels than nuclear.
|
| No matter how much money we throw at them, though, they
| produce zero when the sun isnt shining or the wind isnt
| blowing.
|
| Factor in the cost of batteries, and aside from a few
| exceptional locations, they aren't all that cheap anymore.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >It doesn't matter WHY nuclear is most expensive energy, it
| matters that it is and we have technology that is both
| cheaper and cleaner to replace it.
|
| That is a absurd thing to say. If the reason is "because we
| intentionally made it that way" then of course it matters
| because we can address that reason with the (nearly free)
| stroke of a pen.
| sofixa wrote:
| Unless grid scale storage is free, which it isn't ( and
| more to the point, it isn't technically possible with what
| we currently have), your equation is off.
| xvector wrote:
| Pretty sad that the solar lobby is trying to destroy the
| credibility of nuclear. I hope we one day see a resurgence of
| nuclear, the drama and fear around it really shouldn't exist in
| 2022.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Solar is safe, cheap fusion at a distance. Nuclear is
| expensive, continually mismanaged local fission. Batteries are
| short duration fusion buffers. Batteries will be needed for EVs
| as well, so cost will continue to decline as manufacturing
| learning and capacity scales up. Enough sunlight hits the Earth
| every 30 minutes to power humanity's energy needs for a year.
|
| Keep existing nuclear plants running for as long as safely
| possible, for sure, but stop throwing good money after bad with
| new generators. Build batteries (including pumped hydro where
| able), renewables, and transmission. Throw in some demand
| response or load shifting for loads that can tolerate being
| scheduled around renewables production (Google does this for
| compute using ElectricityMap.org, and Nest does demand response
| in aggregate as a revenue source, when utilities send a signal
| to shed AC load temporarily on peak consumption days versus
| firing up gas peakers).
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
|
| Edit: (HN throttling, can't reply)
|
| @mrits: Telling people what they want doesn't work. If they
| want cars (they do), you sell them EVs. You use your margin to
| build out a global EV charging network and battery factories. I
| don't live in traffic, that's a choice for others to make. The
| world is full of space batteries can be installed out of the
| way to meet net zero goals. There is no such thing as an ideal
| world, just nudges of consumers towards more positive macro
| outcomes.
| holoduke wrote:
| Nuclear has the potential to become very cheap. Much cheaper
| than solar. The only reason why it's currently more expensive
| is because of technology. But huge advancements are made
| every year. Give another 10 years and it will be much much
| cheaper. Currently a lot of country investing a lot in new
| nuclear plants.
| polski-g wrote:
| Technology isn't the reason nuclear is expensive.
| Regulation is.
| N1H1L wrote:
| Why won't battery backed solar+wind be cheaper then too?
| It's already cheaper, and massive advancements are being
| made there too.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Nuclear science came into industrial scale in America and
| there has never been a fucked-up American accident. The
| accidents there have been have been minuscule and nobody
| should lose their shit over them. The ought to be understood
| as valuable part of the learning process of exactly how much
| safety must be made part of the design. Binary searching how
| much safety is truly best involves small accidents. Safety is
| expensive! Safety takes effort every instant!
|
| Safety costs must be balanced against other considerations,
| but the biggest and most important is _profit_. There has to
| be a profit, it can be for the taxpayer, or the energy
| consumer, or the government, or the investors--hopefully some
| for all.
|
| Profit is essential, you have to reap two seeds from planting
| one.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > there has never been a fucked-up American accident.
|
| What are you smoking? This is blatantly false. We've
| absolutely had meltdowns, and come very damn close to real
| disaster (as in - evacuating a 20 mile radius including
| some 600,000 people close)
| [deleted]
| freeflight wrote:
| _> there has never been a fucked-up American accident_
|
| That really depends on your definition of "fucked-up", but
| there is a long list of nuclear accidents in the US [0],
| among the more "fucked-up" ones were attempts to dispose of
| nearly a ton of left-over fissile material in mere
| landfills [1] and then ultimately losing track of them.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_accidents
| _in_t...
|
| [1] https://thebulletin.org/2014/05/thorium-the-wonder-
| fuel-that...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Most of the problems are from nuclear weapons production
| not civilian reactors.
|
| And if you look at the list of causalities its very small
| amount.
| [deleted]
| monetus wrote:
| Hanford (in Washington) always sticks in my mind as the
| most fucked up. Oak ridge has had problems, three mile
| island too of course, but the reactions were commensurately
| paranoid. Hanford seems to be incapable of not occasionally
| poisoning people.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Hanford is definitely the worst, but that's because of
| its origins as the world's first plutonium production
| site (first reactor criticality in 1944). Unlike
| commercial reactors it _had_ to chemically reprocess
| irradiated fuel because the whole point was extracting
| plutonium. They were running experiments at industrial
| scale as they sought better methods for plutonium (and
| later, uranium-233) extraction. It ran under extreme
| secrecy in its earlier years, meaning that even by the
| generally lax standards of pre-EPA chemical facilities it
| had little environmental /safety oversight.
|
| Hanford only ever had one reactor that produced
| electricity, the N reactor, and that wasn't built until
| 1963:
|
| https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/NReactor
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Of course there's a worst one, there has to be. Well
| Hanford didn't principally produce energy, so much as
| just plutonium, so really its mission was weapon
| production. So now we're changing the subject a bit, no
| longer is it about electricity, but defense.
|
| So we can address that immediately: without the Hanford
| site, Japan would not have surrendered without an
| invasion of the home islands. Maybe not even then. It was
| the "new and cruel bomb," as the Emperor of Japan
| described it while citing it as the reason for surrender
| in his speech. That "new and cruel" bomb meant an
| alternative to reenacting the Battle of Iwo Jima (which I
| would describe as "fucked up" for both sides without
| question) a thousand times. Battles to the last
| cartridge. Forgetting completely about the lives of
| Allied and Axis soldiers, you realize the death toll that
| would have on the civilians of Japan? They were on the
| hook for all kinds of atrocities all over Asia and the
| Pacific, in the context of total war they pissed off the
| rest of the world way too hard for the Allies to declare
| a truce. Just in Korea alone, the stories are
| just...let's not talk about that, let's stick to what is
| fucked up within nuclear science.
|
| Japanese were subscribed to the idea that their genocide
| was preferable to surrender. So that's why the bomb, and
| by extension the Hanford site, were so important. In
| practice the nukes in Japan explosives second, fireworks
| first. Napalm was a much better explosive for the money,
| in terms of the destruction it could produce. The really
| bad bombings in WWII were in Tokyo and Dresden, a hundred
| thousand dead per bombing, a new climactic event called a
| "Firestorm," terrible burns, pavement getting goopy, high
| winds--I claim those bombings were worse. But they
| weren't as flamboyant as a star.
| foobar2021 wrote:
| For context, the Hanford reactor was built during ww2;
| around the same age as the presidential candidates from
| the 2020 USA election.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Hard-core/irrational environmentalists hate pumped hydro and
| really any large hydro projects.
|
| Some of this likely stems from a massive gaffe some years ago
| when California regulators demanded a certain percentage of
| state generation come from environmentally-friendly sources.
| PG&E laughed because it already had the largest hydroelectric
| portfolio in the US and didn't have to change anything.
| Democrat leadership, angry because they didn't find a way to
| punish the largest utility in the state, promptly
| recategorized large hydro as Very Naughty.
|
| Does hydro have an environmental cost? Sure, so does
| everything. Is it a great way to generate and store
| electricity? Yes. Does that matter to lawmakers? No.
| mrits wrote:
| So your ideal world is filled with batteries and traffic?
| qqqwerty wrote:
| You are literally making this comment on an article about how
| the nuclear industry needs a massive taxpayer funded bailout to
| stay cost competitive.
|
| The "evil solar lobby" has been saying for quite some time that
| solar is much cheaper than nuclear and therefore should play a
| large role in the post carbon grid. This article seems to
| reinforce their claims. Do you have a rebuttal, or are you just
| trying to be contrarian because it makes you feel good?
| xyzzyz wrote:
| In 2011-2016 period, renewable energy received roughly 30
| times the amount of government subsidy that nuclear energy
| had.
|
| https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources.
| ..
|
| The "massive taxpayer funded bailout" the nuclear industry
| wants is order of magnitude below what solar/wind/hydro get
| all the time. No wonder nuclear finds it hard to compete,
| when government subsidizes its competitors to the tune of
| hundreds of billions of dollars.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| Did you read the report or did you just read the headline?
| Your source is a report created by the nuclear energy
| lobby. This is quite literally the most biased source
| available. And even then, literally from their own data it
| shows that in 2015, of the total federal incentives
| dispersed, renewables got 16% vs 8% for nuclear. That
| hardly feels like "30 times the amount".
|
| And this doesn't even account for the fact that
| "Renewables" is a bucket that consists of multiple
| technology types including solar, wind, biomass and
| storage. So if those were actually broken out into
| individual categories nuclear would be the biggest receiver
| of incentives of the bunch.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| And digging even further. The biggest "incentive" that
| renewables received was in the "Tax Policy" category.
| This money is likely the tax incentives that are
| available to newly built projects. This money is not a
| government transfer, but rather a tax credit that a
| project developer users AFTER successfully building a
| project. These types of incentives are available to
| nuclear developers, but funnily enough, they received 0
| in 2015. Considering these incentives are available to
| developers of both technology types, I think it is unfair
| to use them when comparing federal subsidies (after all,
| if the nuclear industry could actually build a power
| plant, they would also get this incentive).
|
| However, when you look at the R&D column, which is a
| direct transfer of cash from the government to industry.
| Nuclear received over 2.5 times as much as renewables
| (85B vs 32B). This is even more of a travesty considering
| "Renewables" is a bucket of multiple technology types. So
| oddly enough, if I was to take away one thing from this
| report, it looks like we are not investing nearly enough
| in renewables R&D. Also, why is coal getting 43B, that
| sucks.
| godelski wrote:
| It's anti nuclear round two. I hope we don't make the same
| mistake again. Last time organizations like green peace and
| sierra Nevada club took money from gas and oil to smear
| nuclear. The shame is because nuclear provides 50% of the US's
| zero carbon energy, despite only being 20% of production. So
| even if you believe we can do it without nuclear you should
| clearly want to keep these alive until that number is much
| smaller.
| projektfu wrote:
| Do you have a reference about Greenpeace taking money from
| fossil fuels companies? I would be very interested to read it
| but I could not find anything in my search.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The problem nuclear has is that if you build something that can
| last literally half a century and more, the operational
| environment has changed so much.
|
| People consider 'nuclear' to be nuclear built many decades ago
| with technology principles from even a few decades earlier.
|
| Building something that has such long term aspirations is
| inherently problematic.
|
| At the same time, if you turn them off, how much of the
| replacement will be fossil?
|
| If you actually had a carbon price, would they still not be
| competitive?
|
| Nuclear is truly in a sad state. And those reactors if turned
| down can't easily be replaced with any next generation designs
| because they don't exist as a practical product right now.
|
| I think in 100 years people will laugh at as saying things like
| 'They had all the technology needed back then, why did they use
| it so badly'? I think that future will be nuclear fission
| powered, and not sun and solar powered.
| downrightmike wrote:
| They really need to pick a utilization level and then just send
| everything to batteries. Massive generation linked with instant
| availability to smooth out the peaks and furrows. Really at
| this point, every power generation site needs batteries.
| panick21_ wrote:
| For traditional nuclear that probably true. The energy market
| doesn't reward stable. You really want to peak when
| wind/solar are gone or usage is high.
|
| Next generation has two approaches, some try to be very
| adaptable, scaling up and down quickly. Its not like nuclear
| isn't capable of that if you have the right reactor. But of
| course you would prefer to run at 100% most of the time.
|
| Other companies basically use a solar salt coolant loop as a
| heat sink and battery. Basically reusing the technology from
| Concentrated Solar Plants.
|
| Moltex Energy for example basically expect basically a
| default 1h battery and then depending on the costumer and
| where you deploy it you can have a larger battery and a
| bigger turbine. You should be able to basically mix and match
| the size of your heat battery and your turbine.
|
| I could also imagine something like Form Energy Iron
| batteries just sitting right next to a nuclear plant and
| simply charging those and saving energy in the form as
| electricity instead of in heat.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "I think that future will be nuclear fission powered, and not
| sun and solar powered. "
|
| Every life on earth, was always sun powered. I doubt that
| fundamentally changes.
|
| "They had all the technology needed back then, why did they use
| it so badly'?"
|
| But I agree to that. The technology is there.
|
| Did you know, that you can make batteries in bulk with no rare
| elements, with just iron, copper and saltwater?
|
| And also, that you can transport electricity over long
| distances and that we have abundance of sunny desserts?
|
| (and many more concepts of solar power generating, than just
| solar panels)
|
| But sure, alternativly we can also build thousands of nuclear
| reactors, that contaminate their environment for a long time if
| they fail badly. I mean, fission is an quite awesome
| technology, which at some point of progress probably can
| handled safely under normal circumstances. But just because of
| unsolved human social dynamics alone (aka terrorism), it is
| maybe not very wise to scale them up and spread them
| everywhere.
|
| But whether solar or nuclear - the main problems that remain,
| are that in most parts of the world, it is still way cheaper to
| just burn coal and oil.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Isn't this what loans are for?
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