[HN Gopher] ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power
___________________________________________________________________
ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power
Author : NumberWangMan
Score : 77 points
Date : 2022-04-10 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thorconpower.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thorconpower.com)
| megaman821 wrote:
| Next generation nuclear or fusion would be amazing, but looking
| how things stand today, I would bet on cheap and reliable grid-
| storage batteries coming first. Pairing renewables with cheap
| batteries solves energy for 80% of the world. Things like sodium-
| ion batteries look like they are getting close production, and
| don't contain hard-to-acquire materials.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Batteries are the most expensive storage alternative. They have
| advantages for load-leveling, but beyond a few minutes or, in
| smaller grids, hours, other media will turn out better. Bigger
| utilities will prefer pumped hydro for short-term storage,
| anywhere it is practical.
|
| Synthetic chemical fuels -- hydrogen and ammonia -- are
| compelling for longer-term storage, despite their currently low
| round-trip efficiency. These can be synthesized and then
| shipped where needed, and may be produced continually even
| after local tankage is full, to be sold on as fuel, industrial
| feedstock, and fertilizer, generating revenue. Then, there is
| no downside to massive overbuilding of generating capacity: all
| capacity generates revenue, up to market saturation.
|
| Places slower to build out renewables will find these new fuels
| much cheaper than oil and natural gas, and will easily convert
| to burning them.
|
| Their round-trip efficiency will only ever increase, with
| continual progress in catalysis, eventually favoring fuel cells
| over reuse of existing turbines.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Bigger utilities will prefer pumped hydro for short-term
| storage, anywhere it is practical.
|
| Is there any pumped hydro in flat land anywhere deployed on
| large scale?
|
| > Synthetic chemical fuels -- hydrogen and ammonia -- are
| compelling for longer-term storage, despite their currently
| low round-trip efficiency.
|
| Not really.
|
| > Then, there is no downside to massive overbuilding of
| generating capacity: all capacity generates revenue, up to
| market saturation.
|
| And then you need lots and lots of electrolysis that will all
| operate at low utility.
|
| I would be on batteries before I would on hydrogen.
| mcbishop wrote:
| Iron-air batteries are another potential low-cost option for
| long-duration storage (e.g. https://formenergy.com/technology/)
| ncmncm wrote:
| It will be interesting to see whether Form's iron-air
| batteries end up priced out of the market as storage cost
| continues plummeting with no bottom in sight. I have not seen
| round-trip efficiency figures for iron-air, so guess it must
| be low. (I welcome correction.)
|
| Transportability of synthetic liquid storage media will make
| them attractive even where still more expensive than
| alternatives. Their cost will continue on down, too.
|
| It surprises most people that low round-trip efficiency in a
| storage medium doesn't matter much anymore.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Flow batteries look interesting, but they have moving parts.
| That is probably fine for large utilities who can staff
| people to maintain these batteries. It is probably not fine
| for a small solar and battery install house or village.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I don't think Form is making flow batteries.
|
| Alternatively you can use liquid metal batteries, they can
| be placed anywhere and need nothing with very low chance of
| fire.
|
| https://ambri.com/
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| if big batteries are cheap, you don't need small ones. the
| reason small batteries are common now is that they are
| price competitive. if new batteries are developed that are
| cheap, but need large sizes, the cost of moving the power
| around is negligible.
| legulere wrote:
| Aren't the difficulties dealing with molten salt like corrosion
| leading to huge costs? If you are already dealing with molten
| salt, then why not use concentrated solar power?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Molten Salt has corrosion issues but they are nowhere near as
| extreme as people think they are.
|
| There are different methods and approaches taken by different
| companies. Moltex Energy is going with a traditional long
| running reactor core and basically puts bits of stuff into the
| salt that will corrode instead of the reactor vessel.
|
| Other companies like ThorCon or Terrestrial instead simply
| accept the corrosion and replace the core containment at a
| faster cycle.
|
| The expensive part of a nuclear plant in a molten salt reactor
| is not actually to core vessel because unlike with a PWR its
| not an gigantic pressure vessel that need to contain water that
| is ready to burst out. The reactor is working at atmospheric
| pressure.
|
| So in a PWR you have to deal with pressure, and also corrosion.
| In a MSR you got ride of the pressure (and thankfully the
| water).
| jf wrote:
| Previous discussion (with comments from a ThorCon employee):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863535
| barathr wrote:
| I understand the interest in baseload generation but don't see
| why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech
| concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and scaling
| it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of R&D but
| just basic manufacturing. It strikes me a lot of the nuclear
| focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool
| new technology.
|
| Ironically, with concentrated solar, going lower tech, even at
| the expense of efficiency, might decrease costs because the
| materials would amount to cheap mirrors/collectors and steel
| pipes. Saul Griffith's classic talk highlighted that there's
| probably no meaningful manufacturing limit to building
| concentrated solar with existing industrial infrastructure:
|
| https://longnow.org/seminars/02009/jan/16/climate-change-rec...
| Joeri wrote:
| Unless someone can demonstrate that nuclear projects are
| preventing solar and wind deployments, why not do both?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation
| displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on
| renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on
| nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both.
|
| Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings
| climate catastrophe nearer.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| I think I take issue with both of your assertions:
|
| A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the
| same dollar spent on nukes -- this project is going to
| provide CO2-free power at 3 cents / kWh. It's in the same
| ballpark, but also, nuclear's main competition is coal and
| gas, as they all provide baseline power. Solar with storage
| can do that, but adding storage drives the cost up.
|
| And you cannot spend the same dollar on both -- while this
| is true, I think the fallacy is that spending a dollar on
| nuclear power necessarily takes a dollar away from
| renewables. It's possible that this will sometimes be the
| case, but it also will clearly be taking a lot of dollars
| away from coal in places where practically speaking, the
| choice isn't coal vs renewable, it's coal vs nothing, so if
| you don't spend the dollar on nuclear, it WILL be spent on
| coal.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Capital markets compete an a level field.
| panick21_ wrote:
| One of the reasons why I favor nuclear is quite simple. And its
| not new technology. In fact, nuclear is the only green energy
| that ever has actually reliably powered an industrial nation.
|
| France did it in 70/80 with technology not more advanced then
| what is available in the 60s.
|
| They have not only proven that nuclear can do it, but also that
| nuclear scales amazingly well. There really is no technical
| question what so ever.
|
| Any nation that wants to have a green grid could go to South
| Korea for example and if you tell them that you would like 20
| or even 100 reactors and you are willing to pay, they would
| build you those reactors. Within 10 years you could likely
| finish 3-4 reactors a year.
|
| Nuclear economics analysis shows that if you actually have a
| real industry with lots of people experienced in such plants,
| they become much, much cheaper and far more predictable on
| timeline.
|
| Instead in the West every other nations has some unique plant
| design that they are only building once and its a totally new
| industrial project supported by an industry that barley exist
| anymore and had to shoestring since the 80s.
|
| And we are no longer in the 70s, so unlike France with some
| small amount of effort we could actually avoid using 60s
| technology. Doing, and building modern plants (see Terrestrial
| Energy, Moltex Energy, ThorCon) would not only solve the Green
| energy problem. We could also eat up nuclear fuel waste and
| (hopefully) nuclear weapons material (as was done in the US
| with Soviet nukes). We could also produce far more medical
| isotopes and nuclear batteries for space exploration (and other
| uses).
|
| We could also then use such plants to produce hydrogen (for
| chemical and industrial processes). Using highly efficient
| nuclear heat is a far better plan then electrolysis with
| renewables.
|
| These modern plants would as be so much smaller that they could
| be produced in a factory that could likely produce 100s such
| reactors in a year, just like we can with airplanes or rockets.
| You transport them to the a prepared location and drop them
| into a big nuclear concrete reinforced hole and put a bit steel
| lid on top.
|
| Nuclear is the lowest in land use, lowest in total resources
| mined, lowest in disruption to the environment and can be built
| pretty close to where people actually live, so its the lowest
| in required energy transmission as well. If you use modern
| nuclear its also doesn't use require water cooling anymore.
|
| So, nuclear, even if you use shitty old nuclear would work and
| is proven to work. Using modern nuclear would improve on that
| 10-100x.
|
| The only thing that prevented this from happening in the 70/80s
| is that coal was cheaper and the nuclear scare made politicians
| not interested in pushing it anyway. Today its totally clear
| that coal killed 100-1000x more people and we are actually
| willing to invest into clean energy.
| phs318u wrote:
| Wake me up when the nuclear industry starts calling for the
| repeal of the Price-Anderson Act.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear.
| ..
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I was a major LFTR/MSR supporter.
|
| But the emerging economics of solar/wind prevent any non-
| subsidized nuclear from being viable.
|
| Look at the solar/wind curves for the last decade. Yes, it is
| unlikely solar and wind will continue such a breakneck pace
| of improvement, but it doesn't matter. The point is that
| almost everyone will agree that solar and wind have not
| reached peak technology and economies of scale, and certainly
| battery storage has not either with forthcoming sodium ion
| and other approaches.
|
| No existing nuclear design can compete. Natural gas turbine
| is being passed by unsubsidized wind/solar right now per LCOE
| charts. Other/new nuclear designs are (let's be honest) 10
| years at a minimum before they come online. What price is
| being targeted by such a nuclear project?
|
| I believe these new designs should be researched (and liquid
| fuel thorium research should be allowed too) and so should
| fusion.
|
| I also believe that existing nuclear should probably be kept
| around for now for baseload and to keep the nuclear industry
| viable for the future.
|
| Hopefully in 10-20 years solar/wind will stabilize, and then
| modular MSR/Thorium reactors can have their day.
|
| I would love to be proven wrong, but essentially any nuclear
| plant has to look at the current wind/solar price, and target
| half of that (inflation adjusted) as a target competitive
| price. It's possible that won't be enough though.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Maybe with lots of investment and buy in we can do that in
| the West.
|
| However for emerging economies like India, Indonesia and
| many others I still think reliable nuclear power close to
| population centers is a far better plan.
|
| The actual investment required to get a modern MSR style
| (doesn't have to be thorium) is not actually that much.
|
| I would at least like to see nuclear get an actual shot at
| it.
|
| But I agree that after nuclear getting the short straw for
| 40+ years solar/wind are finally getting to the point where
| they might be an option.
| ncmncm wrote:
| If we cannot afford nukes, how can they? If we cannot
| make them reliable and safe, how can you expect them to?
|
| Foisting nukes off on poorer, badly governed countries
| does people living there no favors.
|
| Nukes are farther from viable than ever before.
| Subsidizing them has become indefensible.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Good questions. One of the founders of ThorCon wrote a
| book (link to review[1]) about why we can't afford
| nuclear power (among other things), and it's not really
| anything to do with the essential cost of building a
| plant, it's a lot of regulations that don't really make
| sense and don't make anyone safer. I don't want to over-
| simplify regulation into the common "more vs less" scale
| -- some regulations make sense and others don't and you
| have to consider each one individually, but I think
| Devanney makes a good argument that the nuclear
| regulatory environment in the USA is pretty non-sensical
| and has cause far more harm than good by pushing
| investment back onto fossil fuels.
|
| As for "if we cannot make them reliable and safe, how can
| you expect them to?" I think we can, and I think they
| can. There's a ton of detailed information about the
| ThorCon molten salt reactor designs and why they are
| safe, how they'd withstand e.g. a Fukushima-style event,
| etc.
|
| [1] https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-
| flop
| scythe wrote:
| >when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job
| done
|
| Consider West Virginia. (Just for example.) The Senator from
| there, buoyed by local public opinion, has been an obstacle to
| climate policy. A look at the state's economy will quickly
| debunk the idea that coal mining revenues alone drive this
| opposition.
|
| Instead, West Virginia, like other places where opposition to
| reform holds fast, has a large manufacturing sector predicated
| on the ready availability of cheap electricity. Herein lies the
| real dependence on coal. The mountainous topography makes the
| widespread deployment of solar panels infeasible, and the
| cloudy weather and high latitude aren't helping. Wind faces a
| similar issue. There are no deserts nearby.
|
| Nuclear power is attractive not only because it can support a
| transition to renewable energy[1], but because it can also be
| deployed readily to mitigate the economic fallout of carbon
| emissions reduction. And if the last ten years of political
| upheaval haven't demonstrated the importance of paying
| attention to the downsides when championing a policy that works
| well on average, well, I don't know what will.
|
| 1:
| http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/...
| ncmncm wrote:
| There is, in fact, no need for desert to site solar arrays.
|
| Reservoirs and pasture are places where siting solar is easy,
| and provides side benefits of higher operating efficiency and
| higher agricultural yield.
|
| Resistance to renewables is nowhere technical, and always
| political. Disinformation is one political tool.
| scythe wrote:
| >Reservoirs and pasture are places where siting solar is
| easy
|
| Reservoirs are deep, pastures are not relevant everywhere.
| Both approaches are essentially theoretical at this point
| due to the increased cost of construction vs. dedicated
| solar farms.
|
| >nowhere technical, and always political.
|
| You're forgetting "pragmatic". Lots of things are
| technically possible but not economically practical, at
| least not when you need them to be. Nuclear prevents
| disruption in the short-term; it is not _necessary_ in the
| very-long-term, but the markets can remain irrational
| longer than you or I can remain solvent.
|
| >Disinformation is one political tool.
|
| I know, you replied with it. I studied a bunch of dry
| economic data to write the gp comment. It's not disinfo to
| know where money comes from.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Reservoirs have a surface.
|
| It costs no more to site solar in pasture than in desert.
| It can be cheaper; you don't need to buy the land if it
| remains equally useful for its current use, and may be
| nearer market, so not need long distance transmission.
| Furthermore, lower operating temperature improves
| efficiency, and shade improves grass yield and lowers
| water demand.
|
| That biggest current projects are in desert is a sign of
| market immaturity.
| scythe wrote:
| >Reservoirs have a surface.
|
| Are you suggesting _floating_ solar panels? Surely you
| jest?
|
| >It costs no more to site solar in pasture than in
| desert. It can be cheaper; you don't need to buy the land
| if it remains equally useful for its current use
|
| You have to _stop using it_ during construction. That 's
| a cost. Nobody is actively using the desert. But more
| relevant to the original point, there are no areas of
| large, flat pasture in Appalachia.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech
| concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and
| scaling it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of
| R&D but just basic manufacturing.
|
| Solar is dependent on the time of day (as the sister comments
| pointed out) and also on weather. Plus, you need to get the
| energy from the desert to wherever it's needed - this is non-
| trivial for densely populated areas far from the equator. You
| also need to maintain the solar panels; sand can be quite bad
| for their efficiency. Lastly, the areas that do have the space
| and solar power might be politically unstable, which makes the
| massive investments needed to get this going quite risky.
|
| Real engineering has a good video about this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Which is why a lot of generating capacity is wind, not just
| solar.
|
| Which is why utilities are focusing on energy storage and
| grid improvements like upgrading transmission lines to HVDC
| to make it more practical to 'ship' excess wind/solar to
| regions that need it.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Disinformation is not welcome here
|
| There is absolutely no need for deserts, or for single-use
| solar farms anywhere. Solar coexists with roofs, parking
| lots, reservoirs and canals, and pasture, improving each.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| The grandparent explicitly asked why solar in the desert is
| not considered as a solution. Also, pointing out the actual
| flaws of a specific approach is not disinformation.
| tlb wrote:
| Please don't claim disinformation unless there's evidence
| of intentional deception, which doesn't appear to the case
| here. Instead, try to add to the discussion. For example,
| your claim raises the question of why many existing solar
| farms were built in deserts. Did something change since
| they were built?
| cinntaile wrote:
| They turn unproductive, cheap land into something more
| valuable. A second advantage is that it helps combat
| desertification. A downside is that the temperatures
| reduce the efficiency of the panels so you need to
| mitigate that.
| godelski wrote:
| Disinformation: spreading false information while knowing
| the information is false.
|
| Misinformation: spreading false information while believing
| the false information.
|
| We should be mindful how we use these terms. I believe that
| the parent to your comment fully believes what they are
| saying. If you wish to act in good faith just provide a few
| sources or comments to counter their claims and move on.
| Consider the context in which they are speaking (the op
| mentions building in deserts and sending electricity
| elsewhere, hence the counter). But do not attack them and
| call them a bad actor until benefit of the doubt is
| removed. We can't have a functioning community unless we
| operate under good faith conditions, even to bad actors.
|
| https://www.mediadefence.org/ereader/publications/introduct
| o...
| mdeeks wrote:
| My understanding is that one of the big problems is
| transmission. It reduces the cost competitiveness when you have
| to factor in running many more high voltage transmission lines
| across the US. You need them to get the power from the desert
| to city centers that have the bulk of demand. Building
| transmission lines in the US is apparently very hard because
| there is a lot of red tape and politics and NIMBY-ism (to be
| fair they are ugly).
|
| Nuclear can mostly be built near the centers of demand and
| reduce the need for elaborate new transmission.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Transmission is cheap.
|
| But there is absolutely no need to site solar in deserts. It
| can be local, anywhere, coexisting neatly with other land
| use.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| godelski wrote:
| > but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when
| low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done
|
| Because not every location has high solar irradiance[0] nor
| wind density[1].
|
| I'm not sure why comments (for and against nuclear/renewables)
| with energy ignore this factor. Wind, hydro, and solar aren't
| homogeneously distributed around the globe (let alone the US)
| nor through time. The conversations always devolve into "why do
| we need nuclear when there's so much sun" vs "baseloads."
|
| The truth is that you should be using whichever resource best
| matches your environment. If you can get away without nuclear,
| that's totally cool. If you can't, then nuclear is a far better
| option than coal or gas. That's about it, and I'm tired of
| pretending it isn't. Pro nuclear is supposed to mean that
| nuclear tech is on the table. It shouldn't mean "nuclear for
| everything" or "nuclear everywhere." Just use whatever works in
| your area and gives you the cheapest and most reliable power
| (under the constraint of zero operating emissions). Anything
| else is typically not meaningful discourse unless we're willing
| to dig way deep into the nuances and everyone involved has a
| decent amount of expertise on the subject (I'm guessing most of
| us don't). There's so many constraints that go into power
| systems (reliability, land usage, access, population density,
| resource access, diversification, etc) that are never discussed
| in these forums I just don't think we can meaningfully discuss
| except at the high abstract level and mostly appeal to experts.
| Which as far as I'm aware most experts say "nuclear is better
| than coal and gas. Let's do as much as we can with hydro, wind,
| and solar, and if that's not enough nuclear is the next best
| option."
|
| [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/solar/where-solar-is-
| fou...
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-
| is...
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > cheap mirrors/collectors and steel pipes
|
| The funny thing happened, solar panels got close to the same
| cost as a curved mirror.
| jupp0r wrote:
| To answer your question: the sun doesn't shine at night, that's
| why we can't do solar only (without enough energy storage to
| get us through the night).
| [deleted]
| ncmncm wrote:
| We will build out storage, and transmission lines, to "get us
| through the night".
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Now do the math on how much storage would be needed, and
| how much would it cost, then show your work. Investors have
| done exactly that, which is why large scale storage is not
| happening yet.
| jhgb wrote:
| No need to do the math: https://www.sciencedirect.com/sci
| ence/article/pii/S001429211...
|
| It's ultimately inevitable.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Storage cost is plummeting even faster than solar or wind
| cost ever did.
|
| A renewable dollar is still better spent today on
| generating capacity, and will be for several more years,
| most places. Waiting, you get more storage for your
| money, and you then already have overcapacity to charge
| it from.
|
| Until the share of renewables approaches enough to
| destabilize the power grid, building out renewable
| generating capacity displaces more carbon from entering
| the atmosphere, and so is a better use of capital.
|
| At the same time, decreasing load factor of nukes and
| fossil plants, as they become too expensive to win bids,
| will drive them offline in favor of much cheaper storage
| methods as fast as that comes online.
|
| The enormous industrial and export value of synthetic
| hydrogen and ammonia production, after local tankage is
| full, make them the compelling choice for long-term
| storage. Initially, those will be burned in gas turbines
| as they edge out natural gas, both locally and abroad,
| but improving fuel cells will finally displace turbines.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Storage cost is plummeting even faster than solar or
| wind cost ever did.
|
| About batteries, that's no longer true - lithium, nickel
| and cobalt prices have exploded in recent months.
| Furthermore they're impractical ( you need massive space,
| and then you have a giant fire hazard) and most
| importantly, needed elsewhere. EV adoption is already
| stifled by lack of sufficient supply of batteries, and
| heavy duty vehicles are let to be electrified. Replacing
| all cars, buses, trucks, etc. ( and apparently trains in
| the US because they can't be bothered to electrify like
| normal countries) with EV versions will require a lot of
| batteries. And of course they have a limited lifecycle,
| and need to be replaced. And speaking of lifecycle, a
| nuclear reactor has 2-3 times ( at least) the life of a
| solar panel or wind turbine.
|
| About hydrogen, green hydrogen in any quantities is only
| theoretical at the moment.
|
| IMHO the best way forward is to hedge bets and do
| everything - build nuclear power plants ( and ffs don't
| close existing ones that can continue to operate to
| replace them with gas "temporarily" like the dimwits in
| Belgium are doing), expand renewables, invest in
| different potential solutions for storage. Fuel cells
| will probably have a part to play in transportation too,
| e.g. in aviation. However getting rid of the _only_ low-
| CO2 baseload power source we have is shortsighted.
| scythe wrote:
| >they're impractical ( you need massive space
|
| This isn't even close to true. A lithium-ion battery can
| store roughly 1 megajoule per liter, which I'm going to
| use because it makes the math easier. (Other batteries
| are slightly less dense, but the correction factor is
| small). Total global energy consumption is around 1
| exajoule per day. That's a trillion liters to store a
| day's worth of energy, or one billion cubic meters.
| Assuming you can stack batteries ten meters high -- which
| seems doable -- a battery farm to store a day's worth of
| energy _for the whole world_ would take up about 100
| million square meters, or 100 square kilometers, slightly
| smaller than San Francisco. That 's less than the amount
| of space _currently_ taken up by solar or wind farms.
|
| Using zinc-bromine or other technologies will take up
| more space, but as you can see, a small reduction in
| energy density won't be that big of a deal.
| Joeri wrote:
| _and ffs don 't close existing ones that can continue to
| operate to replace them with gas "temporarily" like the
| dimwits in Belgium are doing_
|
| Actually, Belgium has decided to keep open the two plants
| that are easy to continue to operate (easy is relative,
| they will still require a billion euro in maintenance
| work). They're still closing the five that would require
| extensive multi-year downtime and costly renovation (like
| pouring new concrete) and replacing them with gas plants,
| but there's not any real alternative anyway as they would
| have to shut down for multiple years so new gas plants
| are unavoidable.
|
| An interesting fact is that a few years ago there was a
| constitutional court decision that prevented keeping the
| plants open on anything less than a five year timeline
| from the moment of deciding, unless there is a risk of
| blackouts. The only reason the plants will be able to
| stay open in 2025 is therefore because of Putin.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Everybody knows batteries are the most expensive storage.
| So, rising battery prices have no impact on utility-scale
| storage cost.
|
| A GW-scale electric ammonia synthesis plant is under
| construction in Norway. Hint, you don't built a GW-scale
| operation on unproven tech.
|
| We will need hundreds more of them.
|
| Every cent diverted to building nukes from building out
| renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I don't have to do the math. Solar+storage is being sold
| for 4 cents / kWh.
|
| https://www.8minute.com/solar-projects/
| DennisP wrote:
| For most projects, there's at most four hours of storage,
| just enough to shift peak daytime supply to peak evening
| demand. That's not the same as getting through the night,
| or having enough overcapacity to meet demand in cloudy
| winter weeks.
|
| Lazard puts the wholesale cost of solar PV plus four
| hours storage at $165 to $296/MWh:
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| ncmncm wrote:
| Until we have more renewable generating capacity online,
| four hours is plenty. As the share of power generation
| increases, building more storage is favored.
|
| It is generally a mistake to assume people controlling
| billion-dollar budgets have no idea what they are doing.
| mcronce wrote:
| In addition to not being the same as getting through the
| night, it's _far from_ the same as getting through
| several cloudy days in a row.
|
| Energy sources that work when they want to will never
| replace energy sources that work when you tell them to.
| Lobbying against nuclear is just lobbying for coal and
| gas.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I hope we will, the problem currently is that this is not
| competitive compared to just burning natural gas. This is
| because the externalities related to global warming are not
| accounted for when the market determines the price of gas.
| Electricity will be more expensive either way and this
| really hasn't sunk in yet. Were these costs accounted for,
| nuclear would be quite competitively priced, even with
| newer more modern reactors vs running the insecure ones
| from the 70s forever which is what we do now for the most
| part.
|
| That being said, there is great potential in batteries
| becoming much denser and cheaper.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > I hope we will, the problem currently is that this is
| not competitive compared to just burning natural gas.
|
| [Citation required]
|
| Grid-scale battery systems have fallen more than 70%
| since 2015.
|
| > nuclear would be quite competitively priced
|
| Nuclear is one of the most expensive and keeps getting
| more expensive; it's not competing against natural gas.
| It's competing against wind and solar, the two cheapest
| forms of generation. Solar is dropping ~10% per year...
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Grid-scale battery systems have fallen more than 70%
| since 2015.
|
| Grid-scale batteries are still tiny. Lithium batteries
| will not solve the grid problem anytime soon. Lithium
| (and co) will be strained to the max already.
|
| Every other technology has barley been deployed at all.
| And there is already a whole litter of energy storage
| startups that have died.
|
| > Nuclear is one of the most expensive and keeps getting
| more expensive
|
| In order to get more expensive we would actually have to
| build plant.
|
| But literally any series engineering analysis of modern
| GenIV plants show gigantic potential of cost improvement.
| And if we could actually build them in series production
| there is another order of magnitude of potential cost
| improvement.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Storage startups dying is a symptom of plummeting prices
| -- bad for them, good for us.
|
| There is little need, thus far, for storage, so little
| has been built. Right now, generating capacity is a
| better place to spend the money. Next year, the same
| storage will be much cheaper.
|
| By the time any nuke started could be finished, even if
| it would be competitive today, it would not when
| finished. So, it would be abandoned before completion.
| They would not return any of the money spent.
| DennisP wrote:
| Companies doing molten salt reactors, including Thorcon,
| think they can make nuclear dramatically cheaper. There
| are reasons to think they're correct. It seems like a
| good idea to let them try.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Grid-scale battery systems have fallen more than 70%
| since 2015.
|
| Then why are there _checks notes_ 0 deployments ? Battery
| costs are exploding currently due to the hikes in prices
| of lithium, nickel and cobalt. Battery demand outstrips
| supply by far, and batteries are needed elsewhere.
|
| > It's competing against wind and solar, the two cheapest
| forms of generation.
|
| They're complimentary, not competition. Solar+wind alone
| legulere wrote:
| With concentrated solar you can store the heat and generate
| power in the night.
| DennisP wrote:
| Yes but that costs quite a bit more than PV. Lazard puts it
| at $126 to $156/MWh.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
|
| That overlaps with Lazard's range for conventional nuclear.
| And there are lots of reasons to think molten salt reactors
| in general would be significantly cheaper. Thorcon thinks
| it can get their cost down to $30/MWh.
| noduerme wrote:
| From their Design page, under the "Overview" subheader:
|
| >> ThorCon is a molten salt fission reactor. Unlike all current
| nuclear reactors, the fuel is in liquid form. It can be moved
| around with a pump, and passively drained in the event of a
| casualty.
|
| Casualty? Huh?
| blunte wrote:
| The linked page says little about how they do what they do. Even
| the Design page doesn't explain how.
|
| This all appears to assume some knowledge of power generation or
| even their approach.
|
| Edit >> sorry! I read the hn linked page, and then I navigated to
| the design page. I did not also go to "home". Perhaps the hn link
| could be for the home page.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| It's nuclear power based on Thorium instead of Uranium
|
| The tale goes that DoD was researching both options during the
| Cold War? and eventually shut down the Thorium research due to
| the warfare potential of enriched uranium
|
| It's becoming more popular last 10 years or so, with books
| being written about it and private companies picking up the
| development of the technology
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Whoops! I accidentally linked to the wrong page. I'd be fine
| with a moderator updating it to point to the home page.
| extrapickles wrote:
| Its a molten salt thorium reactor.
|
| [0]: https://thorconpower.com/design/
| philipkglass wrote:
| _What is ThorCon? ThorCon is a molten salt fission reactor.
| Unlike all current nuclear reactors, the fuel is in liquid
| form. It can be moved around with a pump and passively drained.
| This 500 MW fission power plant is encapsulated in a hull,
| built in a shipyard, towed to a shallow water site, ballasted
| to the seabed._
|
| Link to design page: https://thorconpower.com/design/
|
| As with any promising new idea for energy production, we'll see
| what the actual costs are once (if) it enters commercial
| production. Many concepts that work perfectly in the lab fail
| to succeed industrially.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| The actual home page says: "ThorCon is a molten salt fission
| reactor. Unlike all current nuclear reactors, the fuel is in
| liquid form. It can be moved around with a pump and passively
| drained. This 500 MW fission power plant is encapsulated in a
| hull, built in a shipyard, towed to a shallow water site,
| ballasted to the seabed." and "ThorCon is a straightforward
| scale-up of the successful United States Oak Ridge National
| Laboratory Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE)."
| worik wrote:
| "Most people will automatically scoff at the claim that a nuclear
| power plant should cost less to build than a coal plant. It is
| received wisdom that nuclear plants are outrageously expensive.
| And most recent nuclear projects confirm that belief. But why"
|
| Because of the potential of catastrophic failure. Duh!
|
| That and these people are not counting the discounted cost, over
| 200,000 years, of storing their long term waste and maintaining
| the site.
|
| Nuclear power looks cheap if you completely discount the future -
| and you are unethical enough to make future generations pay for
| current consumption. (Ditto coal)
| panick21_ wrote:
| > That and these people are not counting the discounted cost,
| over 200,000 years
|
| This is not factually correct. In fact you can burn up the
| highly radioactive waste to only 200-300 years. But that fact
| often gets ignore by people trying to prevent all technology
| development so they can continue to be anti-nuclear.
|
| And even if we stick with that crazy 200k number, there would
| be many solution. Deep drilling is one that will surely be
| available in the next 100-200 years as it has applications
| other then nuclear disposal.
|
| If you have a rocket like Starship and launch it from a oil
| platform you can launch all the waste into deep space if you
| really want.
|
| Even if you don't do want to do that, advanced laser technology
| also has potential reduce that in the future.
|
| Its a problem that is not actually pressing, we can easily
| store waste without negative consequences for the next couple
| 100 years. It will hurt absolutely nobody in that time and will
| use basically no land and almost no resources.
|
| In 100-200 years we will have many more options what do with it
| then we have now. Or they will just continue to stand around
| doing nothing.
|
| Lets go to the worst possible scenario, total government
| collapse and anarchy. Ok, in such a situation people will have
| 1000x more 1000x bigger problems then a few tons of nuclear
| 'waste' standing around.
|
| Not to mention that this fuel contains amazing materials that
| have other applications. Lets call it 'waste' because we are
| dumb enough not to realize its a resource. Medical isotopes,
| nuclear batteries and many other amazing materials are in that
| 'waste'.
|
| > Because of the potential of catastrophic failure. Duh!
|
| Coal and gas infrastructure have lead to far more death in far
| more catastrophic failures.
|
| And even the worst possible failure you can come up with in the
| ThorCon design is hard to imagine how it could kill more then a
| few people.
|
| If you disagree please explain what kind of scenario you
| imagine where 10000s of people could die.
|
| > Nuclear power looks cheap if you completely discount the
| future
|
| And by 'future' here you mean your overly vivid imagination?
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| I think that the cost of maintaining a site over 200,000 years
| is a fair point. That said...is it better or worse than coal?
| Because practically speaking, that's what the choice is here,
| as far as I can tell. I'd love to say we can quickly convert
| the whole world to pure renewables, but it's very likely that
| we can cut our GHG emissions fastest using a mix of multiple
| approaches rather than ruling out the good in favor of the
| best.
|
| And note that when you consider costs of something that you
| have to make a payment on in perpetuity, we don't calculate
| that as an infinite cost[1]. To say that we'll have to
| safeguard this nuclear waste in, say year 100,000 of its
| lifetime, is a lot less of an ask, simply because we have no
| idea how advanced human technology will be then, maybe making
| the problem trivial, or whether humans will be completely gone,
| etc. I agree it's important to think about future generations
| and to have a very long term view, but the problem of nuclear
| waste seems much less urgent than the rapidly mounting costs of
| climate change. Even if we end up using nuclear for, say, 100
| years while we transition to completely sustainable, renewable
| energy, that would be a win over continuing to use fossil
| fuels. And I don't think it would even add that much to the
| existing burden of dealing with nuclear waste. Maybe in 200
| years we find a spot and put all the waste there with big
| warning signs etched in stone, and then the main cost is only
| one of ensuring that we main translations and records of the
| danger of the site as language evolves. Dealing with solid
| waste, however careful you need to be with it, seems much
| easier than trying to collect gases that have mixed into the
| atmosphere.
|
| [1]
| https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/fi...
| rob_c wrote:
| it's not like academics and advisors have been saying this for
| years...
|
| glad industry is catching on even if big govt(s) won't...
| tiku wrote:
| Why can't we store the gasses from burning fuel/coal, under high
| pressure, for generating power once more between two tanks for
| example?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Because of Maxwell's demon.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I think making a molten salt reactor work would be amazing. Doing
| so in a 3rd world country would be even better but it happening
| is really hard to see.
|
| I think more likely one of the companies working in Canada will
| get there first. Canada is the only international regulator of
| high standing who has a real strong program of trying to get such
| reactors actually certified.
|
| The US has woken up out of their deep, deep slumber in the last 5
| years but the DoE changing policy is basically like watching a
| glacier. They have done some good things and hopeful they
| continue to cooperate with Canada.
|
| One of the biggest things holding back nuclear is that each
| country has a totally unique regulatory framework. And no market
| (except maybe the US) is large enough to justify the investment.
|
| This is also a problem in other spaces but getting your
| electronics certified is a lot cheaper then spending potentially
| 100s of millions on a certification process.
|
| To make nuclear commercial really happen international regulatory
| agency should exist or the nuclear regulator should cross license
| each other.
|
| ThorCon gets around that by working with a company that almost
| doesn't (or didn't) have a regulatory agency or a regulatory
| framework and they are building them together. The government is
| building the regulator, the company the product.
|
| I wish them the very, very best. If they are successful it could
| do more then almost any other project. Its far more important
| then getting a little bit more wind energy into Germany.
| Indonesia is one of the biggest countries in the world and coal
| is their only viable option right now.
|
| Edit: This is great video to understand what ThorCon is actually
| doing:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZx7kwZo4hQ
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Apparently the International Atomic Energy Agency spends ~10%
| of its budget on creating and sharing safety standards [0].
|
| Unfortunately, its safety model flows through "and then allow
| nations to create their own standards."
|
| Ceding standards / regulation to an international-level
| organization for advanced reactors that meet some criteria
| (e.g. proliferation-resistant, under a certain power, fail-
| safe, minimal worst-case scenario) would do wonders for low-
| carbon energy transitioning.
|
| Imagine a micro-reactor that's deployable in any member
| country, because it's already been vetted and certified.
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Energy_...
| panick21_ wrote:
| What is the worst thing of all, the US, the one country who
| could actually maybe lead something like that maybe has the
| worst possible regulatory standard.
|
| The US literally hard coded PWR reactor standards into the
| regulatory framework. Doing anything else is essentially
| impossible outside a few niches. That is why a number of
| companies re-located to Canada.
|
| In the US you basically need to give them a design (100+
| million investment), lots of money (nobody knows how much)
| and an unspecified amount of time (great to tell an investor)
| and then they will tell you what you need to do so they would
| consider licensing the design. And then you would actually
| have to go threw that licensing process.
|
| And people are wondering why there are no GenIV designs.
|
| You can't even do a prove of concept reactor for less money
| to prove the design. SpaceX basically does that with NASA,
| they show tests rather then doing more paperwork. You can do
| a university style research reactor but that really not
| enough to prototype a serious commercial reactor. To do a
| prototype you would have to go threw the full process above,
| that is why most reactor companies go from design directly to
| product.
|
| The Western world should have been a nuclear society since
| the 80s.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Regulation is thus far saving us from most badly ill-
| advised nuke projects. Some sneak through, costing
| ratepayers in more politically corrupt places many
| $billions for, in the end, scrap concrete.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Regulation prevents all technical progress for 40+ years
| is a good thing.
|
| Its just mind-blowing that such a statement can be made
| on a site called 'Hacker News'.
|
| Lets promote fear of technology and use regulation from
| preventing new technology to replace deadly dirty coal
| for decades and decades. What an amazing plan anti-
| nuclear people have been pushing for the last 50 years.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It has saved us from being saddled today with many more
| of these ramshackle contraptions that would have cost a
| $billion each to take apart.
|
| I live near Indian Point, recently shuttered. I expect to
| be made to pay for dismantling it. I am glad I won't need
| to pay for several more.
|
| Money spent on nukes could have been spent bringing
| renewable costs down. We could have had solar and wind
| decades earlier. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the
| White House. Ronald Reagan stripped them off. And here we
| are.
| tromp wrote:
| > The fission island Cans requires 700 tons of very high quality
| graphite, and 800 tons of SUS 316 and 304.
|
| SUS is the typical Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS)
| designation for stainless steel grades. It stands for "steel use
| stainless."
| d--b wrote:
| Is everybody supposed to know it's a nuclear plant? It took 5
| minutes to figure the fuel...
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| My fault. I meant to link to the home page, but linked to the
| "economics" subsection instead.
|
| Here's the home: https://thorconpower.com/
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| It's very different from current nuclear plants, though.
| Thorium molten salt reactors can be designed so that even a
| complete meltdown results in a safe and contained shutdown.
| riffic wrote:
| this reads like a _too good to be true_ pitch, so I have to ask,
| _what 's the catch?_
|
| edit: these are breeder reactors? aren't there still waste and
| other concerns here?
| ocrow wrote:
| On the design page they describe this as a molten salt reactor
| with dissolved nuclear fuel. One of the principle difficulties
| designing this type of reactor is the choice of materials used
| to conduct the liquid fuel, which is very hot, caustic, and
| radioactive.
|
| Steel and aluminum are out, as they are both chemically
| reactive at those temperatures. Other materials such as nickel
| alloys or certain ceramics may be possible, but the
| radioactivity of the fuel tends to embrittle materials over
| time as atoms in the containing material are converted by
| exposure to the fuel's neutron emissions.
|
| The affected components include not just the reactor vessel,
| but also pipes, and in some MSR designs also pumps and heat
| exchangers. If those are subject to regular replacement, the
| used components are also low-grade nuclear waste and must be
| properly contained indefinitely.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
|
| The other main impediment is regulatory: since we've never had
| commercial reactors of this type we don't have a legal
| framework to license these types of reactors to be run (and
| eventually decommissioned) safely.
|
| At least, these are my novice understandings from some
| skeptical background reading. If someone with actual nuclear
| industry and/or research experience has a more detailed
| understanding, feel free to weigh in and correct me.
| ncmncm wrote:
| A quibble, pipe embrittlement is not mainly from
| transmutation, but from atoms knocked out of place in the
| crystal structure.
| DennisP wrote:
| One way that Thorcon deals with that is by replacing reactor
| cores every four years. Each module has two sealed "cans,"
| with only one operating at a time, while the other cools down
| and then is replaced.
|
| https://thorconpower.com/design/
|
| This seems realistic since Oak Ridge ran their experimental
| molten salt reactor for five years (though only equivalent to
| 1.5 years at full power). They used an nickel alloy called
| Hastelloy-N, didn't see much corruption or neutron
| embrittlement, and did later work on improving resistance to
| embrittlement.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its incredibly hard to build a nuclear reactor and its even
| more hard to get anybody to allow you to build one. And
| arguably even harder for somebody to give you the money to do
| either.
|
| Its not a breeder, they are going for the simplest possible
| design as far as I remember and that means its gone a burner.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| As far as it being harder to let anyone allow you to build
| one, and to get the money -- they've already got a thing
| going with the government of Indonesia. It's been in the
| works for years, and it seems like things are still
| progressing[1] fine.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azzp0i0BnQ8 [video]
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yes, I know. I wrote about it my other comment. You can
| find full presentations that they are giving to different
| officials.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Ah, ok, I misunderstood. What did you mean by "gone a
| burner"?
| panick21_ wrote:
| I wanted to say 'its going to be a burner type reactor
| rather then a breeder'.
| DennisP wrote:
| In nuclear reactors a "burner" is like a conventional
| reactor, with uranium fuel and slow neutrons, which
| mainly just fission the U235 (plus a bit of plutonium
| that shows up). It means you're fissioning about 1% of
| your uranium ore.
|
| A "breeder" can be one of two things:
|
| 1) Thorium fuel, slow neutrons. A neutron hits thorium,
| converts it to U233, then that fissions. Take a ton of
| thorium, fission all of it, get one gigawatt-year.
|
| 2) Uranium fuel, fast neutrons. The fast neutrons can
| fission U235, U238, plutonium, and other transuranics.
| Take a ton of uranium, fission all of it, get one
| gigawatt-year.
|
| Compared to burners, either type of breeder only requires
| 1% as much fuel, produces 1% as much waste, and the waste
| is mostly fission products with much shorter half-lives.
| Encase it in glass and bury it, and it'll be back to the
| radioactivity of the original ore in about 300 years,
| with most of the radioactivity going away in the first
| few decades.
| panick21_ wrote:
| You could have a Thorium fast breeder as well I think.
|
| I think a thermal breeder can actually be about 10x more
| efficient then any uranium fast burner can achieve.
|
| But once you do a fast breeder there is really no point
| in using Thorium at all. The only reason to use thorium
| is really thermal breeding.
|
| Also you can have both a thermal and a fast burner I'm
| pretty sure.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| There are definitely waste concerns. There are a number of
| other problems, though most have to do with getting up and
| running.
|
| Thorium is a by-product of rare-earth mineral mining. It is
| still radioactive, and it is also subject to all the regulatory
| red tape of handling any kind of radioactive material.
|
| Rare-earth mineral mining is extraordinarily destructive to the
| environment. When you read about rare-earth mineral mining, you
| should think "strip mining" because that is generally how it's
| done. China does it because they don't care at all about the
| environment, they care about cornering the market.
|
| Thorium reactors _still include uranium_ to make them work. It
| may take eight years to exhaust the fuel, but you still have a
| pile of spent radioactive material that needs to go somewhere,
| and no one has solved that problem satisfactorily, which is
| bigger than the NIMBY issue of where the reactor goes in the
| first place.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Would it be fair to say that it's not a problem that has
| really been solved because it's a relatively small and non
| urgent problem? The spent fuel isn't dangerous while it just
| sits there, and there isn't that much of it. My understanding
| is that most spent fuel just gets stored on site, because
| it's the easiest way. I guess my point is that having to deal
| with storing solid, static nuclear fuel seems like a pretty
| good problem to have, compared to having to somehow capture
| the billions of tons of CO2 that we've put into the
| atmosphere from burning fossil fuels for power.
|
| And I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact, but
| it's important to note that this thorium and uranium mining
| would be competing with coal mining.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Also note that coal power plants release many times more
| radiation in the environment than nuclear power does.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Yeah, I'm personally a proponent of these kinds of reactors
| over coal or traditional fission reactors. The post I was
| responding to was asking for devil's advocate instead of
| all rosy.
|
| I think the upside tradeoffs for this kind of nuclear power
| are preferable to going without.
| philipkglass wrote:
| The catch is that no units have actually been built yet and the
| things that work well in theory may not work well in practice.
| Take it with the same tempered optimism as a startup pitch for
| a great new battery or solar cell design.
| nolroz wrote:
| It may be interesting to note that a similar design was built
| and operated continuously back in 1964 for 4 years
| successfully. There's some material science that needs to be
| ironed out for commercialization, but it's a viable
| technology for sure, IMHO.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > There's some material science that needs to be ironed out
| for commercialization
|
| Worth noting that this is no small thing. Materials science
| is the limiting factor of all molten salt reactors, and has
| yet to be solved satisfactorily.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I like how Moltex asked "wait, why are we pumping all
| this fuel around in the first place?"
|
| https://youtu.be/7qJpVClxzVM?t=536
| philipkglass wrote:
| You're referring to the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment.
| That was a promising experiment, but the MSRE had thermal
| power output of 8 megawatts while the "can" in the Thorcon
| design is supposed to output 557 MWth -- 70 times more. The
| MSRE also operated for a total of 11555 hours full-power-
| output equivalent, about 1.3 years, whereas these reactor
| cans are supposed to run for 4 years at full power before
| replacement. There are reasons to believe that the
| _physics_ are fine, but there are a lot of things other
| than physics that can impair an energy technology 's
| journey from laboratory to industry. Still, I wish them
| luck.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-
| Salt_Reactor_Experiment...
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| I think the neat thing about this is that they're
| starting with a design that, even if something goes a bit
| screwy, is still safe. They're obviously doing their best
| to design it well, but also relying on actual tests to
| see how well it performs in practice, which is something
| that you can't really do with the nuclear regulatory
| environment in the USA, if I understand correctly.
|
| And part of this document[1] says "if it breaks, send it
| back". The design allows for replacing a faulty "can"
| entirely rather than trying to repair it.
|
| [1] https://thorconpower.com/docs/domsr20180119.pdf
| BMc2020 wrote:
| "Well, it turns out the fast breeder reactor made out of sticks
| was a bit of a fiasco."
|
| Peppa Porcine-Bacon, CEO of Threelittlepigs, LLC in a prepared
| statement.
| antattack wrote:
| I learned more about coal plant than the ThorCon itself. Was this
| published on April 1st :)
| DennisP wrote:
| My brother works at the Pentagon on the Navy budget, and found
| the "tale of two ships" to be spot on.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| It was a great side story to the story. Found it very close to
| large scale top-down controlled "anything".
| [deleted]
| ncmncm wrote:
| More nuke promotion.
|
| It doesn't matter how you spin nukes, they will always end up
| costing way, way more than renewables + storage. Diverting
| capital to nukes slows our response to global climatic
| catastrophe, perhaps enriching a few at the expense of the whole
| world.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| joss82 wrote:
| Citation very much needed here. This is nuke bashing.
| mtmmtm wrote:
| The article quotes a very old capacity-factor for wind-energy
| (30%). Today it is 60-64%.
| https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind...
| Also read this report regarding new types of nuclear power (a
| summary is that these new versions is probably a waste of money):
| https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/ucs-rpt-A...
| civilized wrote:
| I skimmed the summary of that UCS report and it seems very
| thorough and balanced. I would be interested in a rebuttal if
| an effective one is possible.
|
| I was especially encouraged to see that they didn't advocate
| the complete dismantling of nuclear, only focusing efforts on
| improving proven light water reactor designs.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| In the US in 2020, decommissioned nuclear generating capacity
| was replaced by six times as much wind and solar capacity. That
| only accounts for grid-scale capacity, not commercial projects
| like rooftop systems on large warehouses, or residential
| systems.
|
| That tells you all you need to know. The people who make money
| off selling electricity are buying wind and solar.
|
| Attention is focused on grid infrastructure improvements like
| HVDC, and battery storage systems. Battery systems are even
| being deployed privately; for example, it's a lot easier to
| locate an EV DC fast charging station if it sucks down a
| continuous ~20kW to charge its own power reservoir, than if it
| needs 300-400kW to directly charge two EVs at full speed.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 8 minute is selling solar + storage for 4cents/kWh. Nuclear can't
| compete with that.
|
| https://www.8minute.com/solar-projects/
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Doesn't the economics page on the ThorCon site say it'll
| produce at 3 cents / kWh?
|
| *edit -- I'm a bit confused about 8-minute. Do you know what
| kind of storage they use? Seems neat but the website is a bit
| sparse on details.
| waynecochran wrote:
| The fundamental flaw with wind power.
| Prosperous economies require reliable energy when needed, so
| power generation must be dispatchable on demand. Intermittent
| wind and solar source generators can temporarily supply low-cost
| electric power to the grid, but with a capacity factor of about
| 30%. This has created demand for redundant natural gas turbine
| generators to provide "back up" power when there is no wind or
| sun.
|
| The wind does not blow on demand and, currently in the Pacific
| Northwest, they store the wind energy in batteries! The
| neighboring hydroelectric dams can back up water when demand is
| low (e.g. at night) and increase flow when demand rises (e.g.
| during the day).
| spockz wrote:
| With a sufficiently high base load provided by renewables the
| short demand spikes can be served with plants with quicker
| reaction times like gas plants. With sufficiently high install
| base of wind and solar power the base can be high enough and
| the excess stored or things like aluminium plants retooled to
| use excess energy.
| panick21_ wrote:
| So poor countries must massively over-invest in renewables
| and when renewables are high they have absurdly to much
| energy they can't do anything with leading to negative
| prices.
|
| And then the need to build storage to capture some of that
| energy and also peaker plants to cover that.
|
| Given those countries are barley able to but up coal plants
| right now, and are massively lacking in the power
| infrastructure to wildly distribute wind/solar power that
| seems like an incredibly hard plan.
|
| If you can just get 1 working nuclear reactor design (even if
| its an old PWR) to the point where you can build and run it.
| Over then next 10-30 years you can just build them as fast as
| you can next to every large city and provide reliable power.
|
| > aluminium plants retooled to use excess energy.
|
| The problem with that is that if you are an aluminium plant
| you want to run at high utility. You don't want to
| continuously! Not turn it on and off 3 times a day. Those
| kinds of installations are hard enough to run with reliable
| power.
| spockz wrote:
| Why focus on poor countries? Exactly for the reasons you
| mention I see only developed countries do this.
|
| For the aluminium processing type plants issue, it appears
| steel plants and other heavy industry here in the
| Netherlands are investing in their own power/heat storage
| capabilities. Exactly so that they can operate on their own
| terms instead of the net having to develop a generic power
| storing solution.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Because no amount of changing the power mix in Europe
| will prevent climate change.
|
| Indonesia is gigantic has a huge population and will have
| a massive amount energy needs. If not nuclear this will
| be coal. And those plants have 50 year lifetime at least.
|
| The reality is that climate change will be decided in
| India, Indonesia and China more then anywhere else. If
| they can actually adopt nuclear and be a pro nuclear
| society they have the potential to have game changing
| impact.
|
| Indonesia in particular has gigantic amount of people
| living at the cost. So an approach where you do
| centralized building and then ship the plants to the
| population makes a lot of sense. And Indonesia by itself
| is big enough that its actually worth building such a
| model. They will need 100s of GWs of reactors if they
| want to reach Western standards of power consumption.
|
| > investing in their own power/heat storage capabilities
|
| Yes and that costs a lot of money. Europe is also in a
| Europe wide power net with lots of nuclear, coal and
| renewables. Doing that in such a system is much more
| doable then in Indonesia.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Indonesia will, like everywhere else, end up relying on
| overwhelmingly cheaper renewables. Nukes will turn out to
| be a very expensive detour. We can only hope, for the
| sake of these put-upon people, that they abandon the
| nukes before they spend too much on them.
|
| Storage and distribution of synthethic liquid fuels such
| as ammonia will probably be best adapted to Indonesian
| needs.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Well you should have told them because they are planning
| to build many more coal plants.
|
| And even the basic infrastructure of the grid that is
| absolutely required for renewables to be even remotely
| practical doesn't exist.
|
| Wasting gigantic amounts of energy to produce chemical
| fuel highly inefficiently with low utility plants, and
| then transporting them around to then burn them up again
| highly inefficiently is a terrible plan to power a
| country of 100s of millions of people.
| powcontech wrote:
| While dams certainly store energy I wonder how many actually
| have flexibility to change their output by 80% of rated
| capacity or more on the same timescales that wind and solar
| output can vary.
|
| I imagine there are a lot of environmental restrictions to keep
| the river flowing, avoid dewatering habitat for fish and
| otherwise impacting the ecosystem, and also supplying water to
| downstream users like farms and cities. Can't stop the river
| completely!
| hedora wrote:
| As I understand it, some hydro plants have a second, smaller
| reservoir downhill from the dam. It absorbs water from surge
| production, and even allows the water to be pumped back
| uphill.
| noselasd wrote:
| you can switch turbines on and off , leading water to a
| turbine or a bypass in minutes
| cinntaile wrote:
| Did you comment in the wrong thread? This has nothing to do
| with wind power, ThorCon uses a molten salt fission reactor.
| waynecochran wrote:
| My quote was directly from the article.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-04-10 23:01 UTC)