[HN Gopher] First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in ...
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First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation
Author : ano-ther
Score : 836 points
Date : 2023-12-27 19:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eia.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eia.gov)
| ano-ther wrote:
| See also:
|
| "Georgia nuclear rebirth arrives 7 years late, $17B over cost"
| https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-power-plant-vogtl...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
| apengwin wrote:
| A good start!
| briandear wrote:
| If we're worried about cost overruns, then perhaps cancel the
| California high speed rail boondoggle. That project could buy
| several nuclear reactors.
| api wrote:
| I have a very strong impression that the perpetual money pits
| of California (rail, the amount spent on homelessness without
| progress, etc.) aren't bugs but features... for someone. That
| money is going into someone's pocket.
| icelancer wrote:
| As usual it's some from Column A and B. Hard to tell
| sometimes what is graft and what is incompetence.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| A little of A, B, and C.
|
| A) Idealistic voters with little interest in detail or
| execution.
|
| B) Hard working state employees executing in an
| ineffective way because they are working on over
| constrained problems with conflicting and sometime
| impossible goals.
|
| C) A number of opportunists that take advantage of poor
| rulemaking and bureaucratic disorganization.
|
| For what it is worth, I dont think corruption is a major
| driver of problems, but bad policy detached from the
| practical considerations.
|
| One simple example is SF parks maintenance:
|
| The city wants to keep invasive species out, so it has
| staff to remove them. The city also believes in livable
| wages, so the workers make >100K. Residents dont like
| pesticides, so the workers must hand weed. Hand weeding
| doesnt work, so the City periodically also pays outside
| consultants to come in and take care of the invasives
| (with pesticides and low paid workers).
| mlrtime wrote:
| >The city wants to keep invasive species out...
|
| These small examples are extremely frustrating as a tax
| payer. What is the solution to these examples, or does
| one just try to ignore it as a price of living in that
| society?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Frustrating indeed. I don't think there is a quick fix to
| create a political culture among voters and
| representatives that cares about fiscal responsibility.
|
| One consideration is having a broader tax base so that
| voters have more skin in the game.
|
| For example, taxes in Houston are less progressive than
| SF, but SF city budget per resident is more than 500%
| that of Huston.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Our electeds simply don't care what anything costs, and as
| a result we have (probably) the worst cost disease on the
| planet.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _electeds simply don 't care what anything costs_
|
| California has a referendum system. That so few
| referendums focus on cutting costs says something about
| its voters' priorities.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Sure does! That's why I used "electeds" rather than
| "representatives", to make really clear the connection.
|
| On the other hand, the state is losing population on an
| absolute basis (and relatively even more so against a
| backdrop of national growth). So some folks are voting
| with their feet. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I'm
| free enough to do the same.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why I used "electeds" rather than "representatives",
| to make really clear the connection_
|
| I'm arguing the opposite. The voters have the tools to
| oppose the state government's size. That they don't use
| them signals support in broad terms.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I'd agree with you with the caveat that such public
| support is mediated by regulatory capture on all sides
| and from all quarters: outside the government by industry
| and lobbyists, within the government by elected
| officials, and adjacent to/despite the government by a
| public apathetic to such issues and/or voting against its
| own shared/collective interests in favor of individual
| interests. Participation in local and state politics even
| in California is not common beyond voting, which is a low
| bar to clear. Much of media messaging in the area of
| referendums is focused on niche issues and special
| interests, and serves to highlight and promote those
| issues to convert NIMBYs to YIMBYs or vice-versa on those
| specific narrow issues. Agreement in broad terms like you
| mention is hard to achieve due to the difficulty in
| drafting referendum legislation texts such that they will
| withstand a challenge by the state attorney general as
| well as state Supreme Court, as well as having the
| resulting referendum achieve enough signatures to make it
| on the ballot and have enough recognition and support by
| voters to actually pass and become law.
|
| One key difference that I do like about the CA referendum
| process is that laws passed by referendum in California
| are equal to the state constitution and require 2/3
| supermajority in state congress to modify or change, just
| like the state constitution itself. This avoids many
| attempts by legislature to foil or spoil the will of the
| voters' referendums, in contrast to other state
| referendum processes which are only considered a law
| passed by other means and are usually able to be modified
| by simple majority.
| solarpunk wrote:
| Probably best to diversify infrastructure investment
| across... multiple projects.
| danans wrote:
| The difference is that there are many cheaper viable
| alternatives to the firm power that nuclear provides,
| including renewables+batteries ($60/MWh and dropping) and
| enhanced geothermal ($80/MWh and dropping). Heck, even
| natural gas combined-cycle + carbon capture/storage is
| cheaper on an LCOE basis (~$60/MWh) than nuclear ($180/MWh
| and rising) [1]. It would be great if nuclear could be cost
| competitive for equivalently firm power, but its costs are
| increasing, not decreasing.
|
| In contrast, the only real alternative to air travel for high
| speed transportation between Northern and Southern CA is high
| speed rail. The "Hyperloop" has been exposed (charitably) as
| a failure, and personal vehicle travel (even electrified) is
| not an equivalent to HSR in a state as big as CA.
|
| None of that is to say that the CA HSR project has been well
| planned/executed or that the costs have been well estimated.
| But that doesn't obviate the need for high speed ground
| transport in the state.
|
| 1. https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-
| april... (pages 2 and 31)
| mpweiher wrote:
| Oh good grief, not that Lazard "study" again.
|
| They took the cost to build Vogtle, which is one of the
| most or even the most expensive outlier in terms of
| time/cost overruns of all time, and decided to make that
| the baseline for "the cost of nuclear power".
|
| When the average time to build a nuclear reactor in the
| world has consistently been around 7.5 years. For the last
| 50 years, and also for the ones that came online in 2022,
| lest you think these were just the bygone good old days.
|
| https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-
| constructi...
| adrianN wrote:
| Which new nuclear would you suggest instead? Hinkley C
| will cost about $160/MWh, right in the range given by
| Lazard.
| mpweiher wrote:
| I would suggest we look at overall stats instead of
| isolated examples.
|
| Time to construct a nuclear plant takes on average 7.5
| years, a number that hasn't really budged in the last 50
| years.
|
| https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-
| constructi...
|
| And since financing (i.e. interest) is the primary cost
| of nuclear (~50%), time is money.
|
| Hinkley and Flamanville are examples of the EPR, a brand
| new reactor type that is both at the start of its
| learning curve, always problematic, and also apparently a
| design that is particularly difficult to build. And both
| Europe and the US haven't really built any nuclear plants
| for quite a long time, so the know-how to build them is
| just not there. Oh, and the regulators sometimes change
| regulations after parts of the plants have been built so
| they have to tear down what they have built and start
| again.
|
| These are obviously all solvable problems, and mostly
| solvable by just building more. The problem is that we
| didn't build enough. Just build more.
| adrianN wrote:
| Construction time is misleading. It takes a few days to a
| couple of weeks to build a wind turbine, but at least in
| Germany a wind turbine construction project takes more
| than five years.
|
| So what better estimate would you suggest? What nuclear
| power plants where built in the last decade or so, for
| how much do they sell their power? How big will their
| decomissioning costs be per MWh?
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Construction time is misleading.
|
| Please support your claim.
|
| We were talking about cost, and cost is directly
| proportional to construction time because financing
| (interest) is the primary cost of nuclear power plant
| construction.
| adrianN wrote:
| It'sa lot harder to find investors for a project that
| takes 20+ years from planning to first income than for a
| project that takes seven and a half years.
|
| I'm still waiting for better cost estimates than what
| Lazard gives.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Simple:
|
| Take the Vogtle-3 time, divide by average time to
| construct a nuclear reactor.
|
| Apply factor to Lazard "estimate".
| hef19898 wrote:
| If it is so simple, can you do that math for us?
| adrianN wrote:
| Even going by that ridiculously oversimplified
| calculation, and taking best-case numbers 0.75*$141 (10
| years from first concrete poured to grid connection vs
| your 7.5 years average) is still barely competitive with
| worst-case Wind+Storage and more expensive than solar as
| Lazard estimates. And those are proven numbers from real
| projects not some pie in the sky guesstimates.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Your numbers don't add up.
|
| Vogtle was only delayed by 25%, 2.5 years? I thought it
| was such a disaster and this proved nuclear doesn't work?
|
| Now it's all good?
|
| This says the delay was 7 years:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-power-plant-
| vogtl...
|
| Oh, and the plant will still be cost effective,
| apparently, even with those delays.
|
| Oh, and the solar numbers include sufficient batter
| storage? I saw something about 4h for half the capacity
| on some of the graphs. Most didn't explain at all.
| natmaka wrote:
| Mean project cost over-runs: Nuclear power 120% Oil and
| gas 34% Mining 27% Fossil thermal power 16% Wind 13%
| Energy transmission 8% Solar 1%
|
| https://www.enr.com/articles/55774-oxford-professors-
| latest-...
| rjbwork wrote:
| Problem is that we don't build the damn things anymore, so each
| one is bespoke and expensive. Ideally we'd keep building them
| and develop the expertise and make it a more repeatable
| scalable process.
|
| I worry instead that the lesson taken from this will be
| "nuclear is too expensive and ineffective".
| bordercases wrote:
| Both Ukraine and the Red Sea collapsing has produced ads for
| uranium mining in Saskatchewan, Canada. These kinds of ads
| don't run without government support; since public opinion is
| often extremely uninformed, I expect the pivot to nuclear to
| happen with or without pundits vocalizing their views.
| corethree wrote:
| We don't really build anything anymore. The "expertise" has
| transferred to Asia. Anything we build we'll build worse,
| slower and more expensive.
|
| Except for airplanes that's one of the few things we still do
| better.
|
| My overall point is I highly doubt nuclear powerplants will
| be built here in any major way. Will it happen in Asia? Far
| more likely.
| bordercases wrote:
| According to my sources, Hong Kong has an engineer
| shortage. They still want the je ne-sais quoi quality of
| North American trained engineers.
| corethree wrote:
| I would say Hong Kong doesn't illustrate the overall
| story.
| mayama wrote:
| To be specific it's airplane engines, 5th gen turbofan
| engines. China started building COMAC airplanes too,
| probably with questionable maintenance and serviceability
| story, that they can push with govt airlines. They are
| still having trouble with modern turbofan engines though.
| corethree wrote:
| One airplane isn't a full story. The US and Europe still
| lead the way here.
|
| I believe engines are from Rolls Royce which is European.
| bumby wrote:
| "Machinery" (not including airplanes) is still one of the
| largest exports of the US. The list [1] of exports by size
| is:
|
| Mineral fuels including oil: US$378.6 billion
|
| Machinery including computers: $229.6 billion
|
| Electrical machinery, equipment: $197.7 billion
|
| Vehicles: $134.9 billion
|
| Aircraft, spacecraft: $102.8 billion
|
| Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $99.1 billion
|
| Gems, precious metals: $92.5 billion
|
| Pharmaceuticals: $83.5 billion
|
| So the top 3 "non-aircraft" machinery categories are still
| exported at 5x the amount of aerospace. It seems like
| people [2] are still interested in the stuff the US
| manufactures.
|
| [1] https://www.worldstopexports.com/united-states-
| top-10-export...
|
| [2] https://www.usitc.gov/research_and_analysis/tradeshifts
| /2020...
| corethree wrote:
| Yes but Asia dominates the "building" category overall by
| a massive margin.
|
| It's just true.
|
| Pharmaceuticals, medical and gems are off topic.
|
| I'm sure there's other small niches the US dominates in.
| But overall what I said is the objective truth no matter
| how much you desire it to be not true.
|
| If Asia doesn't dominate a niche yet they are
| aggressively on track to dominate in the near future.
| bumby wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what you mean by "building"? It's a
| nebulous term. If you mean building infrastructure,
| that's true, but also partly because the US invested
| heavily in the same type of infrastructure a generation
| or two prior. I would disagree with the pharmaceuticals
| because that is a manufacturing-intensive industry.
|
| Throwing out gems (because that probably isn't a good
| case, like you said), it still amounts to over $1.2
| trillion in exports. I'm sure other countries would love
| that kind of "niche" business.
| corethree wrote:
| Gems isn't good also because it's mostly aesthetic. No
| intrinsic utility other then being rare and pretty. You
| won't actually "improve" society with gems. It's hard to
| distill this in technical terms but I hope you're able to
| understand without the need to get pedantic.
|
| Gemstones therefore are more of a reflection of countries
| with the ability to purchase the gemstones as an import
| and less of a reflection of the country actually
| exporting the gemstones. Right? If a country exports a
| huge amount of gemstones it means a lot of external
| countries have an abundance of economic output such that
| they can purchase frivolous goods that ultimately don't
| contribute much to the economy. North Korea doesn't
| purchase gemstones but maybe a rich country would. And
| the place where diamonds are mined are mostly from some
| poor countries in Africa.
|
| >Can you elaborate on what you mean by "building"? It's a
| nebulous term.
|
| Manufacturing and infrastructure I believe are the two
| words that cover it best off the top of my head but it's
| unnecessary to specify this to the level of pedantic
| detail you're going for here. I think those two terms are
| clear enough.
|
| I think we both know, in general the direction China/Asia
| is going and where they're completely dominating the US.
| It's at a general tipping point now. Where one can say
| they're better than the US overall in the general area of
| infrastructure/manufacturing. Manufacturing is pretty
| broad and general and that's the right word to use
| because broadly and generally Asia is just ahead of the
| US in this matter.
|
| The problem with these things is that even though it's
| obvious people still like to debate pedantic details in
| some vain attempt to use the pedantic details to obscure
| the obvious truth or even shift the advantage in the
| favor of the US. Why else would you bring up gemstones
| and pharmaceuticals?
|
| I don't think I need to elaborate as you requested. You
| know what I'm talking about and deep down you most likely
| agree. The trouble here is less about getting at the most
| accurate truth and more about the inability to accept the
| truth.
| tim333 wrote:
| I know what you mean but it's not that clear cut.
| Rockets? USA. Phones? Assembled in Asia but running iOS
| or Android. Electric cars? Tesla's still ahead. A lot of
| the move to China was a choice to have them do the work
| because they quoted cheaper, which is not irreversible.
| corethree wrote:
| It is clear. First of all you brought up Elon. That guy
| is an anomaly. If it wasn't for him both industries he's
| responsible for pushing forward would have been viciously
| surpassed ages ago.
|
| Additionally byd will be surpassing Tesla soon. It's
| projected to in less than a year.
|
| As for phones, the entire stack is owned by Asia.
| Software is the only thing we have left and most of it is
| open source.
|
| Pretty clear cut from your examples. But also clear cut
| from common sense.
|
| I suggest you find other examples to help detract from
| the obvious generality. Look into Tiny niches like
| precision and highly advanced bespoke manufacturing where
| the US still holds a shakey lead. These areas may help
| you construct an argument that looks effective but
| obviously isn't.
| bumby wrote:
| It's a little strange that you dug your heels in on the
| gemstones because I was trying to be gracious and
| steelmanning your point by conceding that portion. But
| since you brought it up again, I'll explain why I think
| it's wrong. Gems are not just "mostly aesthetic". 80% or
| so of diamonds are used in industrial purposes, ie
| manufacturing. So if you concede that manufacturing is a
| good measure, by extension so are gems. The same holds
| for many other gems. E.g., rubies are used in lasers,
| continuous measuring machines (which are heavily used in
| aerospace) etc. Even if that wasn't the case, your take
| is overly utilitarian IMO. Under your logic, any type of
| art (movies, music, visual art) are worthless as exports
| because they are more aesthetic than functional. I don't
| think I want to live in a society that de-prioritizes art
| to that degree.
|
| The rest of your post seems like a deflection because you
| can't seem to adequately illuminate your point. Asking
| for clarification is not being pedantic any more than
| hiding behind ambiguous terms makes for a convincing
| argument. I'm not, for one, saying the US manufactures
| more than Asia. But I'm also not in agreement that it's
| languishing, save for a single industry like aerospace.
| If you look at the actual data, there is still a fairly
| robust manufacturing base in America, especially for a
| service-oriented economy. You wrote a lot of words but
| didn't contribute much to the argument other than another
| vague diatribe when asked for a finer point, and that's
| often indicative of not having a thorough understanding.
| corethree wrote:
| >It's a little strange that you dug your heels in on the
| gemstones because I was trying to be gracious and
| steelmanning your point by conceding that portion.
|
| It's False gracious-ism lol. You obviously believe you
| can win the argument without that so you gave it up. It
| was a deceptive gesture. Anyway. I'm not in this to win.
| I'm in it because I, in totality believe I'm right. So
| what does it matter if I use gemstones given that you
| already conceded that point? And like I said it was a
| false concession. You pretended to concede that point and
| I correctly responded as if you didn't concede.
|
| >The rest of your post seems like a deflection because
| you can't seem to adequately illuminate your point.
|
| I can't adequately illuminate my point. I concede to
| that. The statement "Asia is superior to the US in
| manufacturing and infrastructure" is a statement with so
| many fuzzy words I can't satisfy your pedantry. What is
| "manufacturing"? What is "superiority"? What is "Asia"?
| Am I referring to North Korea?
|
| There is no study, no science on the face of this earth
| that can prove either side of this debate correct.
|
| The most we can do is throw a bunch of random facts and
| tidbits at each other and never ultimately agree. Take
| your side foray into gemstones... Does diamonds represent
| all of gemstones? Also what about the proportional value
| of artificial diamonds vs. Mined diamonds? What about the
| amount of value involved in beauty vs. Manufacturing? You
| failed to acknowledge here that diamonds used in
| manufacturing are mostly manufactured themselves. How
| much of manufacturing does gemstones represent? We could
| dive deep into this useless pedantic branch of the debate
| and ultimately go nowhere.
|
| But despite all of this, we both know what gemstones
| usually refers to a mined rock for beauty purposes. That
| was the industry referred to through the colloquial usage
| of the term gemstones. But there's an underlying strategy
| here where you can subtly switch definitions and use the
| pedantic definition without the other party realizing it.
| Anyway let's move off of gemstones like you originally
| conceded.
|
| I value the human ability to know things and communicate
| vague and general concepts and things without fuzzy
| boundaries without the need to reference data or
| research. If you don't have the intellectual ability to
| do this then the only logical conclusion for you is to
| not even engage in this debate or any debate for that
| matter because no definitive conclusion is possible for
| most things of this nature.
|
| I also concede that despite all of this fuzziness you are
| smart enough to know what I'm talking about and deep down
| you know I'm right.
|
| Call it diatribe or whatever you want. The outcome of
| this conversation had a predictable end of going to a
| pedantic nowhere. I just took it to a different end here.
|
| >If you look at the actual data, there is still a fairly
| robust manufacturing base in America, especially for a
| service-oriented economy.
|
| So? You can make this statement and the following can
| still be true: Asia is far superior to the US when it
| comes to manufacturing and infrastructure.
|
| Additionally the following statement can still be true:
| the past several decades American manufacturing and
| infrastructure has been in decline.
|
| And this as well: America does not have the will or the
| manufacturing capability to replace it's energy
| infrastructure with nuclear.
|
| Do we need to get into a overly detailed debate about
| this or is it just self evident that these statements are
| true? I think it's self evident. Again it's not really
| matter of truth, but more about accepting the truth.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| China is a paper tiger. It is amazing the credit the
| media gives them, but no surprise given the medias
| purpose is to create narratives rather than put light on
| truth. If China were as dominant as the media alleges
| Taiwan would have been invaded decades ago. The reality
| is big mighty China has one aircraft carrier that entered
| service just 5 years ago, and another one that is a
| renovated old soviet carrier. The vast bulk of their air
| force is a half century behind ours. Most other
| industries are similarly toothless when you dig into how
| they are actually comprised beyond their raw numbers.
| corethree wrote:
| I'm not talking about China alone. I'm talking about
| Asia. Which is China + Taiwan + Korea + Japan +
| Singapore, plus every major asian country.
|
| Additionally the rivalry between the US and China is off
| topic I'm not talking about that.
|
| My statement is, Asia is superior to the US in terms of
| Manufacturing/infrastructure. I can add more to that as
| well. In terms of ICs, Asia also dominates. The US is
| behind Asia on all three of these fronts. As a general
| statement this is still true. You didn't invalidate
| anything with your off topic comment here.
|
| That being said, the united states is the dominant
| spender in terms of defense. They are number one on this
| front and in terms of technology. I don't think the world
| has ever seen a military industrial complex as massive
| and as advanced as the one the US has built. What you say
| here is true and it's major. It's not included in
| "manufacturing" but it's intimately connected and thus
| worth mentioning.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I sometimes imagine how cool it would be if some of the
| worlds biggest billionaires got together and just did some
| crazy mega project and didn't care about profits.
|
| This nuclear plant cost ~$34 billion USD. What if Bill Gates,
| Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, and a few others just got together
| and built 10 or so nuclear power plants? I wonder if that
| could actually bring down the price to build them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Money, at that scale at least, is pretty good at
| calculating business cases. And the money is on renewables,
| especially solar. And the solar Wp cost for modules is,
| with some special cause exceptions, following Moores law.
| Nuclear not so much, all those plants have is delays and
| cost over-runs.
| mk89 wrote:
| I heard or read somewhere that in China they had the same
| issue - like in every mega project, there are deadlines and
| ... well it doesn't really fare well. So the issue is real.
| Joeri wrote:
| MIT found that reusing a design made plants more expensive to
| build, not less, because of costly on-site last minute design
| changes.
|
| Taking your point more charitably, it is indeed the lack of a
| sustainable nuclear energy industry that routinely builds
| plants that causes costs to skyrocket. There is a chicken and
| egg situation: nuclear projects don't get funded because
| they're too expensive, so there is no chance to develop
| expertise in how to build them cheaply, which causes the few
| that get greenlit to be built by rookie teams that make
| rookie mistakes that cause costs to skyrocket.
|
| The MIT study into the causes of cost overruns:
| https://news.mit.edu/2020/reasons-nuclear-overruns-1118
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| > costly on-site last minute design changes
|
| I clicked through to the actual study ( https://www.cell.co
| m/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30458-X?_r... ) and I
| couldn't find a single sentence mentioning on-site last-
| minute design changes. I searched for "change" and tabbed
| through all of the results. The closest thing was mention
| of Westinghouse changing construction standards halfway
| through an ongoing project, which required many changes to
| the project design. But, that's one project.
|
| So my question is: Is it possible that the MIT News Office
| can't understand MIT journal articles?
| bpfrh wrote:
| "Our results point to a gap between expected and realized
| costs stemming from low resilience to time- and site-
| dependent construction conditions."
|
| Couldn't that be paraphrased to "last minute changes"?
| magicalhippo wrote:
| From the article's own summary: _Our results point to a
| gap between expected and realized costs stemming from low
| resilience to time- and site-dependent construction
| conditions._
|
| Guess that's where they took it from.
|
| Skimming the paper it seems a large part of the issue is
| that it's difficult to mass produce something which needs
| to be integrated into a variable environment, and
| attempting to do so is detrimental compared to custom
| solutions.
|
| This seems to mirror what I've found in the software
| world, where a custom integration is often much cheaper
| and easier to maintain than trying to manhandle some
| generic library/software to do what's needed.
| mixdup wrote:
| There's got to be some middle ground between every
| reactor in the country being absolutely bespoke and on
| the other hand trying to build them in a factory like
| modular housing.
|
| IIRC one of the big differences/problems is that every
| one of them have completely different control rooms and
| control systems. To the point that you cannot train on
| one reactor and walk into another and operate it. If we
| at least standardized that side of things, the cost of
| operations would surely come down
|
| I also question (and happy to be enlightened about) how
| much the local project needs some massive change. That a
| pipe might need to be a few hundred yards longer to reach
| the river surely isn't so consequential that you can't
| reuse designs
|
| These things are built on huge sites that could be
| completely leveled and turned into identical square clean
| pieces of dirt with massive empty land around them How
| much variation can there possibly be that can't be
| handled outside of the critical reactor design area
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Yeah, I can't shake the feeling it should be possible to
| mass produce most of the difficult bits, and then have a
| per-site specific foundation of sorts.
|
| Then again, perhaps it is one of those things where you
| actually need to make a few of 'em to gain experience.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| How many hundreds of billions in subsidies would be
| required to once again, for the nth time since the 1950s
| prove that nuclear is truly dead outside of luxury niche
| applications like submarines?
|
| Today renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels which in
| turn are cheaper than than nuclear. Through pure economic
| terms the world is steaming towards a new cheaper energy
| equilibrium based on renewable energy.
|
| We are currently in the chaotic transitioning phase but
| that will of course shake out. Sprinkling some luxury
| nuclear in top will have miniscule effect.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Its pretty clear whats going to happen. Energy companies
| will provide the absolute minimum redundancies and will
| make formidable profits most years. Every 10-15 years
| there will be some catastrophic blackout due to unlikely
| weather events and everybody will scream murder. The
| energy companies will swear to do better and maybe some
| toothless regulations will be legislated. The politicians
| will be happy to be bought off by those companies since
| the next event will be most likely after they have left
| office, so its free money.
|
| Rince repeat.
| nicoburns wrote:
| In countries with private energy generation perhaps.
| Energy production is at least partially nationalised (or
| at least heavily regulated) in a lot of the world, which
| puts those places in a much stronger position to plan for
| such events.
| marcusverus wrote:
| The nice thing about nationalized companies is that
| they're happy to spend your money on things you don't
| want! Given the choice, folks would rather pay $0.18/kWh
| for energy production (the average US rate) with 99.9%
| uptime than $0.30-0.40/kWh (the average Western European
| rate), even if that came with 99.99% uptime.
| tim333 wrote:
| >Every 10-15 years there will be some catastrophic
| blackout due to unlikely weather events
|
| We seem to get by fairly well without those in most
| places. There are various solutions.
|
| I think it's more likely the current exponential
| improvements in renewables increase such that we have to
| come up with new uses for the excess power.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Problem is that we don't build the damn things anymore, so
| each one is bespoke and expensive.
|
| When we built them more often, weren't they bespoke and
| expensive?
| Georgelemental wrote:
| No, they were much cheaper in the 70s and 80s!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's not what I understand, but I don't have numbers.
| Do you happen to know where we can find some?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| From another thread:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-
| Construction-C...
| angiosperm wrote:
| Right, nuke costs have only ever increased. For reasons.
|
| Solar and wind costs have only ever decreased. For
| reasons.
| juped wrote:
| You're not saying what you think you're saying with those
| facts.
| angiosperm wrote:
| The value proposition for renewables left nukes far
| behind a long time ago. Nukes have no prospect of
| narrowing the gap even if they could be built and
| operated more cheaply, of which in any case no plausible
| signs are evident.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Nuclear works 24/7/365. Renewables don't. That's the
| value proposition. (And nuclear does operate more cheaply
| in China and South Korea)
| natmaka wrote:
| Because from the end of WW2 up to at least the 90s
| civilian nuclear was supported, often indirectly, by
| military programs (nuclear weapons). In France the Court
| of audit could not even assess it.
| Krasnol wrote:
| The French never stopped building them all over the world and
| they still are over budget and overdue.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Maybe if they can continue the momentum and learn from this
| project, the next reactors will be cheaper?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Yes it will, but experience from South Korea says it won't be
| cheap enough to matter. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30380897.
| perihelions wrote:
| And also:
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/pr/top-westinghouse-nuclear-...
| ( _" Top Westinghouse Nuclear Executive Charged with
| Conspiracy, Fraud in 16-Count Federal Indictment"_)
|
| That's the failed project OP blithely elided over as:
|
| - _" Two other Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were planned for a
| nuclear power plant in South Carolina, but construction was
| halted in 2017."_
|
| I'm really, really strongly in favor of nuclear fission power;
| but the American attempts this decade, and this company in
| particular, have been a grotesque failure. We _really_ seem to
| have forgotten how to build things.
| applied_heat wrote:
| Elon to the rescue ?
| dexwiz wrote:
| Sure, let his companies blow up a few to learn how to build
| them. /s
|
| Rockets and cars are one thing. But that risk equation
| doesn't work for nuclear.
| applied_heat wrote:
| He has shook up and revitalized two industries and proven
| his ability to execute and get people motivated to do
| significant work with physics and manufacturing and
| project management that are complex. It doesn't seem that
| far fetched to me and aligns with his sustainable energy
| focus but downvoters seem to disagree!
| grecy wrote:
| Based on everything he has said to date, he would just
| cover a few square km with solar. In that one talk he
| said building enough solar to power the entire world is
| similar in effort to all the cars that have ever been
| built. So we can certainly do it.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Also doesn't he already own a solar company? Tesla is
| already a battery company. They do sell industrial cells.
| But I hear they have a bad track record of not delivering
| to spec.
| unleaded wrote:
| He paid other people to shake up and revitalize two
| industries with his dad's minecraft money and probably
| told them "why don't you do it this way" a few times
| lawn wrote:
| This is always the case when you build large one-off projects.
|
| If you continue to build reactors non-stop you'll learn how to
| make the process more efficient and be able to make better
| estimates.
|
| Surely we software developers should appreciate how hard making
| accurate estimates is? And this isn't a 2 week sprint we're
| talking about, but a gigantic engineering project.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| But are we going to build reactors non-stop? Is there either
| private-sector funding for this, or government subsidies to
| make it happen?
| FredPret wrote:
| Yes, of course.
|
| Power demand increases. Technology improves. Installed
| capacity ages out.
|
| There will always be a need to build new plants, might as
| well lean into it and be proactive.
| afterburner wrote:
| Unless the technology becomes obsolete. There are other
| ways to generate power.
| FredPret wrote:
| > Technology improves
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I found this list which shows "under construction",
| "planned" and "proposed". It does not look like the US is
| planning to build a lot of reactors. https://world-
| nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...
| mpweiher wrote:
| The US is one of the 22 signatories of the COP28 pledge
| to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.
|
| With the failure of Germany's Energiewende, countries
| have drastically re-evaluated their nuclear stances.
|
| France just did an about-face and cancelled their plans
| to drastically reduce nuclear capacity or even get out of
| nuclear entirely. Instead they are now investing into a
| nuclear renaissance.
|
| Poland is getting into nuclear power big time, they are
| buying reactors from South Korea (and possibly also the
| US).
|
| The Finnish Green Party has recently come out to endorse
| nuclear power.
|
| Japan, who was also getting out of nuclear power after
| Fukushima has also made an about face and is now going to
| reactivate more plants and even build new ones.
|
| etc.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| It's hard to see how these non-binding pledges mean
| anything. France, in particular, already generates ~75%
| of their electricity with nuclear. They're really going
| to triple that and generate 225% of their current
| generation? The US is going to go from a small handful of
| planned reactors to hundreds? Where is the money for this
| coming from?
| mpweiher wrote:
| Most of these countries are implementing policies.
|
| France had a law to slowly phase out nuclear and switch
| to renewables. They've rescinded that law and instead
| passed legislation to build more nuclear plants, and make
| building those plants easier, putting into action
| Macron's call for a "nuclear renaissance". Also extending
| the life of existing plants.
|
| Japan, site of the second worst nuclear accident, had
| all, then most of its reactors shuttered (after political
| pressure). They are now reactivating more and more of
| them, have rescinded the policy to get out of nuclear and
| instead are planning to build more plants.
|
| Poland is getting into nuclear power in big way. They
| currently don't have any and have just approved building
| 24 small reactors at six sites. I think they're also in
| talks with the US's Westinghouse to build more.
|
| Ukraine, site of the worst accident in history, continues
| to operate its plants, and is talking with Rolls-Royce to
| convert some of their coal plants to nuclear. Rolls-Royce
| wants to build these reactors in a factory (economies of
| scale!) and ship them to sites. There are a _lot_ of coal
| power plants that either already are decommissioned or
| soon will be. So quite the market for mass-produced
| reactors.
|
| The US just approved the first new kind of nuclear
| reactor in 50 years, a molten fluoride salt-cooled
| reactor. China just gave an operation license for their
| first molten salt reactor (completed ahead of time), and
| their pebble bed reactor started delivering electricity
| to the grid this year.
|
| etc.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| France has a fleet of 56 reactors, about 14 of which are
| scheduled to be decommissioned in the 2030s or before.
| They currently plan to build 6 more reactors and
| "possibly" another 8 by 2050, which seems more like
| maintenance than expansion. By contrast, France
| constructed all of its current 56 reactors over a 15-year
| period, and the current plans do not look remotely
| comparable to that effort.
|
| Japan generated 30% of its electricity from nuclear
| before 2011, and is now aspirationally hoping to generate
| 20% by 2030 when considering decommissioned reactors and
| restarts.
|
| Poland has two planned reactors with construction
| targeted to begin in 2026 and a couple of additional
| proposed reactors. There are some plans to deploy SMRs in
| Poland, but the reactors aren't even in the design stage
| yet and I can't determine how many GW these small
| reactors will actually produce in total. I also can't
| figure out where Rolls Royce is in the product cycle,
| except that they're still somewhere in the design stage.
| Any deployments in Ukraine seem likely to be decades out.
|
| The Hermes molten salt reactor looks pretty great, but it
| won't generate electricity and the Hermes 2 project will
| also be a 28MW test reactor. I'm very bullish on this
| sort of research, including the SMR stuff, since --
| unlike the 1970s-era plants being built, it at least has
| the potential to take off. But it's all very much at the
| research and design stage: actual commercial production
| may be decades out. Who knows where battery storage tech
| will be in two decades.
| mpweiher wrote:
| As part of the very recent switch back to nuclear, the
| lifetime of France's existing reactors will be extended.
|
| > Poland has two planned reactors
|
| Incorrect.
|
| "Poland has given the green light for the construction of
| 24 new small modular reactor (SMR) units across six
| sites"
|
| https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-
| energy/poland...
|
| Anyway, nobody claimed that this was in advanced stages,
| how could it be?
|
| Just two years ago, pretty much everybody was getting out
| of nuclear, some more quickly, some more slowly, but the
| direction had been consistent for the last two decades or
| so. Then Ukraine happened, and the house of card that was
| the German Energiewende, built on a solid foundation of
| cheap Russian gas, collapsed.
|
| Not sure how quickly you expect turnarounds in energy
| policy to happen, but let's just sat that the
| Energiewende was made officially announced in the 1990s.
| And look how far we've gotten.
|
| I personally find the development in the last year, year
| and a half remarkable quick.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Lifetime extensions do not result in additional capacity.
|
| Regarding the Energiewende, the initial plan from the
| SPD-Green government was decent. It was then revised,
| before being rushed in again by a CDU/CSU-FDP government
| after Fukushima. By the way, no new reactors were planned
| during that time anyway.
|
| And please, do everyone a favour, look up the numbers of
| reactors under construction, reactors planned and
| proposed, the number of planned shut downs, the
| corresponding capacities and _then_ compare those to the
| nameplate capacity of other sources going online.
|
| And yes, I know the load factor for solar and wind is
| lower. But what these numbers tell you is, that the money
| does not go nuclear, not even close.
|
| And all that is before we talk _actual_ costs,
| construction times and delays.
| mpweiher wrote:
| "out 14 of which are scheduled to be decommissioned in
| the 2030s or before. "
|
| That was the start of the post I replied to.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Lets put it in a formula:
|
| - comparison of net additional capacities: total name
| plate capacity of new NPPs being build + total nameplate
| capacity of new NPPs planned and proposed - nameplate
| capacity going offline vs. new solar + wind capacity
| being installed, do that on a yearly basis intil, say,
| 2035
|
| Run the math, provide sources for the numbers, come back
| and share the result and your interpretation of it. Takes
| about max. an hour if you don't where to look for input
| data yet, much less if you do already.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Why should I do that?
|
| The policy shift was announced was announced December 2nd
| of this year. So 26 days ago.
|
| And your counter is "so where are all the new nuclear
| plants, I don't see them".
|
| Seriously?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Glad we agree that so far there was no nuclear build out,
| anywhere!
|
| Edit: COP28 agreed on triplong renewable capacity to 11
| TW by 2030. If we consider pledges for future NPPs, I
| think it is just fair to do the same when it comes to
| renewables, right?
| mpweiher wrote:
| Also incorrect.
|
| There was quite a bit of nuclear built. For example
| France nuclearized its electricity grid.
|
| In the last 20 years, policy shifted away from nuclear
| and there was very little built.
|
| This hasn't been in dispute in the least bit.
|
| Just now we have witnessed a policy shift by most
| countries where nuclear is or was relevant back towards
| nuclear.
|
| To argue that this policy shift hasn't happened because
| we didn't see its effects in the last 20 years seems
| weird, unless there was some important time travel news I
| missed.
|
| To argue that the policy shift hasn't happened because we
| haven't seen new nuclear plants pop up since the few
| weeks or months since the shifts happened and were
| announced is also...odd.
|
| And you seem to be under this impression that for nuclear
| to be built up, renewables must somehow be reduced.
|
| This is simply not the case.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There was no real build out since the, what, 80s? And no
| projection I have found hinted at one in the future. If
| those policy changes are supossed to any effect by 2035,
| those new NPPs would have to be at least in planning
| stage by now, which they are not.
|
| Unless you assume all those future reactors are magically
| planned, approved, built and connected at a fraction of
| the time all others are. In which case, please specify
| how exactly that is aupposed to happen. Otherwise, all
| you have is claims, unfounded ones at that, and
| pipedreams.
| mpweiher wrote:
| The projections you read are the ones that precede the
| current policy shift.
|
| > If those policy changes are supossed to any effect by
| 2035
|
| They are not. 2050 is the target date for tripling.
|
| > those new NPPs would have to be at least in planning
| stage by now, which they are not
|
| A lot of the policy changes just happened this year. Some
| announcements were made this _month_. OK, no new plants
| were built in the last 3 weeks. You win.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| How long are these lifetime extensions? A solid 20 year
| extension still has them closing by ~2050s which is about
| how far the construction plans I listed go.
| danhor wrote:
| Pretty much all relevant ceuntries also pleged to triple
| renewable capacity in 8 years, which seems mostly doable,
| while with the typical (western) construction timelines
| for nuclear they would have to pretty much start
| tendering the new plants now, while currently mostly only
| vague promises exist.
|
| China, which the country building the most nuclear right
| now, is falling behind its own plans and downscaling its
| nuclear ambitions in favour of renewables.
| mpweiher wrote:
| I've heard rumors that you can do both at the same time.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I heard facts that people don't so.
| mpweiher wrote:
| You heard wrong.
| hef19898 wrote:
| So, all the statistics about installed capacity of NPPs,
| wind, solar, hydro, coal and so on are wrong? Because
| those numbers show everywhere renewables outpace nuclear
| by orders of magnitude, including China.
| mpweiher wrote:
| No. Your conclusion is wrong.
|
| Renewables being installed does not imply nuclear not
| being installed.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Nuclear is getting installed for sure. Just orders of
| magnitude less than renewables, and it is more expebsive.
| And the vast majority of new NPPs replace those being
| shut down, meaning the new net nuclear capacity is much
| less than the new NPPs total capacity. This shows cleary,
| if you were willing to look at the numbers, in which
| direction the funding goes.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Nuclear is getting installed for sure
|
| 1. To my "I've head rumors that you can do both" you
| replied "I heard facts that people don't so."
|
| Glad we are now agreed that your comment was not true,
| and mine was true. Doing "more" of one does not imply one
| is not doing the other at all.
|
| 2. It's not "orders of magnitude less" once you account
| for capacity factors.
|
| And once again: the nuclear under-investment of the last
| few decades is well known, and so that is what we are
| seeing in the stats now. The policy shifts just started
| happening at earliest a year ago, most this year. While
| nuclear doesn't take nearly as long as anti-nuclear
| advocates claim, it also doesn't happen in a few months
| either.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Let's see then:
|
| PV load factor for utility scale solar was 16%. China
| installed 230 GW, Europe 75 GW and the US 40 GW -> 55 GW
| incl. load factor and excluding the rest of the world
|
| Wind:
|
| Let's use 40% as a load factor, which seems reasonable.
| Globally, around 100 GW added -> net 40 GW
|
| NPP grid connections in 2022 (if you have 2023 numbers,
| please share them): 8.3 GW, with a load factor of aeound
| 80% for 2022 -> 6.6 GW. At the same 2.2 GW, around 1.8 GW
| of NPPs were shut down, resulting a net gain of 4.8 GW.
|
| In total we have 90 GW of wind solar vs. not even 7 GW of
| nuclear. Excluding load factors we have 440 GW of wind
| and solar vs. 8.3 GW of nuclear _globally_. In the
| western world, those numbers fall even more towards wind
| and solar.
|
| And looking at estimates until 2035, these numbers are
| looking even worse for nuclear.
|
| So no, countries are not doing both, countries,
| especially in Asia, are very, very slowly adding new NPPs
| while overall net added nuclear capacity is negligible
| and barely replacing shut down reactors.
|
| In other words, one year worth of new NPPs is added every
| two weeks using wind and solar.
|
| Feel free to argue those numbers...
| mpweiher wrote:
| X > Y does not imply Y does not exist.
|
| And you are using nameplate capacity again (after a brief
| nod to reality)
| hef19898 wrote:
| All my numbers above are including load factors... And I
| never said nuclear projects don't exist, only that their
| net added capacity is negligible compared to wind and
| solar. And that those _historical_ numbers show us that
| the investment money is mainly going into wind and solar
| instead of nuclear, and did for years now.
|
| You could accept these facts as reality, which would make
| this whole discussion a lot less frustrating... Or at
| least engage with the _numbers_ , which you didn't
| neither...
| mpweiher wrote:
| > All my numbers above are including load factors...
|
| Nope.
|
| >>> Excluding load factors we have 440 GW of wind and
| solar vs. 8.3 GW
|
| > I never said nuclear projects don't exist
|
| Yes you did.
|
| >>> I've heard rumors that you can do both at the same
| time.
|
| >> I heard facts that people don't so.
|
| > only that their net added capacity is negligible
| compared to wind and solar.
|
| Nope, see above. But they are also not negligible.
|
| > ...and did for years now.
|
| And I've told you a number of times now that the
| historical under-investment in nuclear the last few
| decades or so is a well-known fact that in no way
| contradicts the fact that policy has now changed.
|
| Linearly projecting a past trend into the future is ...
| unwise. Particularly if there has been a major policy
| shift. Which there has.
|
| Arguing that the policy shift that just happened hasn't
| happened because it had no effect in the past is even
| less wise.
| epistasis wrote:
| These were not one-off reactors, it's just that the first
| ones went so poorly that everything else was cancelled. There
| were four that were started at roughly the same time. There
| were many other sites getting order ready.
|
| Westinghouse used a new regulatory process that had been
| created specifically at the request of industry to speed the
| design and build of AP1000s. Despite this, Westinghouse did
| not deliver constructible designs, and the contractor
| soldiered on with on site modifications. Westinghouse screwed
| up so bad that they nearly bankrupted Toshiba, their owner.
|
| So we have two failed holes in the ground at Summer in South
| Carolina, something like a $10B monument to corruption, with
| utility execs going to jail for their fraudulent reports.
|
| All the other sites that were eyeing AP1000s to replace aging
| reactors have now backed out. The disaster was too big. What
| exec wants to go to jail for a nuclear reactor? What exec
| wants to lose their job for greenlighting what has a not-
| insignificant chance of bankrupting the entire utility.
|
| Nuclear is too risky, but public perception is off, it's not
| running reactors that have the risk, it's the financial risk
| to anybody who wants to build one.
| lawn wrote:
| So you're saying that instead of learning from a single
| project we made the same mistakes four times at once?
| epistasis wrote:
| We learned that the economics were so poor that all
| future projects stopped their plans.
|
| There were supposed to be advantages to building four at
| once, in that there would be some economy of scale. The
| AP1000 were also supppsed to be somewhat "modular" to
| avoid on site custom builds. None of this worked out as
| planned.
|
| If we wanted nuclear to be a part of the energy
| transition, we didn't need two new reactors every decade
| or even four, we needed something like 5-20 per year.
| However, the experience of building the AP1000 has soured
| the market.
|
| If we are going to build more nuclear, now is the time
| because we have the most knowledable workforce right now,
| but the benefit of building nuclear looks so small in
| comparison to the cost and the risks that it seems
| unlikely.
|
| Major major support from the government is needed (and
| it's there from DoE's Loan Programs Office, run by a huge
| nuclear fan), but you also need utilities who want to
| place orders. And that second part is hard to create.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Surely much of the crippling cost is due to hostile lawfare and
| regulation.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Damn, if only we didn't have to build them safely we could
| make them so cheaply.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| We build planes safely, but those same parts are 3x the
| cost. Safety isn't the reason why it's more expensive.
| willis936 wrote:
| Safety and bureaucracy are orthogonal. Bureaucracy is a
| slowing force, which is sold as being correlated with
| safety. The more layers of abstraction needlessly added,
| the more likely there will be systems engineering failures.
| bumby wrote:
| > _more layers of abstraction needlessly added_
|
| I think you're betraying your bias here with the added
| term "needlessly". There is some (maybe even most)
| bureaucracy that is inefficiently applied, for sure. But
| it is meant to address some risk. Maybe it's a risk that
| you (personally) don't care about, or aren't even
| cognizant of, and that's when it becomes easy to declare
| it "needless." We should be looking to streamline our
| risk mitigation and align it with risks that the public
| cares about, not throw it out altogether.
| willis936 wrote:
| You're betraying your bias by insinuating I suggested
| throwing out risk mitigation. I advocated for streamlined
| risk mitigation by highlighting the risk of unnecessary
| complexity.
| bumby wrote:
| Maybe you can point me to where you advocated for risk
| mitigation. Because you seemed to imply bureaucracy is
| sold as risk-mitigation under the mistaken assumption
| that it correlates with safety. Did I read it incorrectly
| and you are actually saying there is a truly positive
| correlation between safety and bureaucracy? Or maybe you
| have an opinion on what we should replace the current
| version with?
| adrianN wrote:
| Now you only need to get expert consensus on which parts
| of the complexity are unnecessary.
| bumby wrote:
| That sounds an awful lot like industry standards and
| codes, which are often eschewed as the very bureaucracy
| the OP was railing against.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| A true expert can streamline their industry every time.
| Simply because most people who make decisions on process
| are not experts in the relevant field, but expert
| administrators who often lazily apply existing policies
| to new concepts that they never got the training to
| understand or put into context.
|
| Just look at any institutional review board: the breadth
| their expertise is always smaller than the relevant
| topics they will have to rule upon at the institution,
| and often that leads to a certain level of consternation,
| misplaced understanding of risk, and overall higher
| levels of inefficiency.
| adrianN wrote:
| I have worked in a highly regulated industry before. I
| found the regulations that concerned me (safety critical
| software) to be quite good and rather too lax than too
| strict. I would be surprised if you could streamline
| nuclear power plant regulations by a lot without using
| losing safety.
| djur wrote:
| OK, so then we just need to figure out how to identify a
| true expert and we're off to the races.
| the8472 wrote:
| They are subject to a regulatory ratchet that almost
| guarantees that you won't make a profit. I.e. if a new
| safety measure becomes "economically feasible" because you
| increased cost efficiency somewhere else then regulators
| would adjust their calculations in the future and make
| additional requirements because they would now be feasible.
| This can even lead to requirements changing during the
| construction time of a plant and require expensive
| retrofits.
|
| https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-
| regulation-...
| lmm wrote:
| Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people (just look
| at how many die from falling when installing wind turbines,
| it's not pretty) and render orders of magnitude more land
| uninhabitable. We have ludicrous double standards when it
| comes to safety.
| UberFly wrote:
| This is the case for all public works projects. The red-tape
| overhead is crazy. Regulation is necessary but the
| bureaucratic maze that has to be negotiated is a huge
| problem. I worked on a public rail system and the down-time
| waiting for permission on everything was draining.
| Joeri wrote:
| Regulation is actually not a large driver for nuclear project
| cost overruns according to this MIT study:
| https://news.mit.edu/2020/reasons-nuclear-overruns-1118
| kragen wrote:
| if that were the case, the prc, the us navy, and the russian
| navy would be mostly or completely nuclear-powered
| credit_guy wrote:
| Somehow all the articles criticizing Vogtle keep mentioning the
| cost overruns, the additional cost to consumers, but don't
| mention that in Georgia people pay less than the national
| average price per kWh (11 cents vs 12.7) while sunny
| California, for example pays about twice the average (24.3
| cents per kWh). In my state, NY, where 2 reactors were
| decommissioned in 2020 and 2021, the average price is 22 cents
| per kWh.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This cost premium has always existed.
| https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices
| credit_guy wrote:
| Good point. Could it be that Georgia already generates a
| lot of power from its existing nuclear reactors, and has
| been doing that for a few decades?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, all that data is also from when California and
| New York both had operational reactors.
|
| In 2013, CA generated 17 out of 200 GW from nuclear. GA
| generated 32/120 GW. NY generated 44/136GW. So at least
| in the case of New York, it generated more power from
| nuclear as a percentage than GA, and had higher
| electricity prices, so there doesn't seem to be a
| correlation. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/
|
| It probably has more to do with the fact that electricity
| is deregulated in CA and NY, where implementations were
| infamously botched: https://truenergy.com/deregulated-
| energy-states/
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| This is how your link describes deregulation in
| California:
|
| "very limited and is conducted by a lottery system called
| DirectAcccess"
|
| There was a semi-deregulation in 1996, but it was largely
| rolled back in 2001. So any price data post data 2001
| should be bucketed in regulated.
| sarchertech wrote:
| What's interesting about those numbers is that Georgia
| generates much more power per person than California or
| New York. Georgia has a population of 10 million.
| California is at 40 Million and New York 20 million.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Georgia has some of the largest coal plants in the
| country. The power company (Georgia Power, part of
| Southern Company) was allowed to pre-bill customers for
| the costs of the new plant well over a decade in advance.
| If you lived in Georgia before the new units came online,
| you paid to have them built but received no benefit from
| them. Investors in Southern Company received unwarranted
| protection from the consequences of poor project
| implementation and cost overruns on the back of the
| utility's customers.
| bumby wrote:
| Your same source has information on the relative
| proportion of generation [1]. Nuclear is at about 26.5%,
| while coal is about half that
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=GA
| DrBazza wrote:
| It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used to
| bash nuclear. And 100% from the perspective of human beings.
|
| To put it into context, nuclear
|
| * total human deaths due to nuclear since its inception is in
| the low thousands at worst, for the entire industry.
|
| * total animal deaths due to nuclear since its inception is
| minimal, in fact, for example, wildlife around Chernobyl has
| flourished
|
| * damage to the environment is minimal
|
| * waste is tiny by volume, zero CO2, and can be buried deeply
| where no human will ever get to it.
|
| Versus fossil fuels:
|
| * has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of humans
|
| * has killed millions if not hundreds of millions of animals
| through climate change, oil spillage, fires and so on
|
| * has destroyed thousands of square miles of land for open cast
| mining, oil slicks, and so on
|
| * waste dumps thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
| every day plus other byproducts
|
| So, what's the actual monetary cost of the usage of fossil
| fuels? How much money needs to be spent to mitigate climate
| change? Or figuring out how to de-extinct species? Or restoring
| habitats after cleaning up oil slicks? Or attempting to the put
| the land 'right' after open cast mining?
|
| How much money are we going to spend on figuring out 'energy
| storage' for green power, when nuclear power is _already
| stored_ in the uranium, in a tiny volume?
|
| In fact how much money could we have saved by going long on
| nuclear in the 60s and 70s, had it not been for ill-educated,
| and ill-informed campaigns by CND and Greenpeace, for example?
| And how much better would the environment be right now?
| pmayrgundter wrote:
| The actuarial account for fossil fuels is important, but I've
| come across this set of summary items many times and it
| ignores the positive effects of CO2, which have been
| substantial. This is a great benefit for many ecosystems and
| also improves crop yields, to your monetary cost point.
|
| The overall phenomenon is well documented, so I'll give just
| one highly credible account: "The greening [over the last 35
| years] represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees
| equivalent in area to two times the continental United
| States... Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization
| explains 70 percent of the greening effect" - NASA Apr 2016,
| https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-
| green...
|
| I'm not wanting to rehash the climate debate, nor am I
| implying how much it offsets negatives and would grant all of
| your points otherwise. I do think it's wise to do whatever we
| can to move towards cleaner carbon burning to remove toxic
| and particulate emissions, and limiting CO2 emissions as
| well, but also within fair economic tradeoffs. I also support
| developing nuclear, fission and fusion.
| natmaka wrote:
| It isn't about "nuclear vs. fossil fuels" but about "nuclear
| and/or renewables?".
|
| The amount of damage/victims linked to nuclear is a matter of
| debate, and a final count will only be possible after its
| very last hot waste will be cold.
|
| Case in point (Chernobyl):
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-
| around...
|
| https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-
| environmen...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the.
| ..
|
| Energy storage: vehicles batteries are a game changer (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid ). Grid backup
| will also use existing hydro along with turbo-alternators
| burning green-hydrogen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrog
| en_economy#Energy_system... ).
| DrBazza wrote:
| How many batteries do we need to store the equivalent
| energy in 1kg of uranium or thorium? And how much mining is
| required obtain those materials and how much energy is
| required to refine those chemicals or elements? And repeat
| for the millions of solar panels and wind turbines. And
| shipping them around the world in diesel powered boats?
| tills13 wrote:
| It's not as much mining as you'd think -- it's not
| comparable to nuclear, sure, but I was surprised to
| learn, for example, the enormous difference between a
| fully decarbonized future vs. carbon present in terms of
| mining / extraction volume.
| philwelch wrote:
| Renewable energy isn't free of fatalities either. Rooftop
| solar, wind, and hydro all have higher fatality rates per
| kWh than nuclear energy:
| https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/07/2020-fatalities-for-
| us...
| bondarchuk wrote:
| > _in fact, for example, wildlife around Chernobyl has
| flourished_
|
| This can't be serious...
| altairTF wrote:
| Why not? Take a look at this
|
| https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/out-of-
| th...
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-are-worse-
| rad...
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Well, I believe the factual content of what you said, I'm
| just surprised you'd seriously use this as an argument in
| favour of nuclear power, because the fact that wildlife
| thrived is so intimately connected with the fact that a
| nuclear meltdown happened.
| grecy wrote:
| Is it the kind of wildlife we want to be reproducing?
|
| Is it the kind of wildlife you want as a pet?
|
| Is it the kind of wildlife you want to eat?
|
| No, this is not actually a good thing.
| djur wrote:
| By definition you don't want wildlife as a pet. Is there
| a reason you think this is the "wrong" type of wildlife?
| kagakuninja wrote:
| Chernobyl is an example of what Bruce Sterling calls an
| "involuntary wildlife preserve". He didn't claim that was a
| good thing, of course...
| mixdup wrote:
| >It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used
| to bash nuclear.
|
| We certainly still need to get a handle on the cost of
| deploying nuclear because it is not sustainable the way we do
| it today
|
| In 2022 Georgia Power got 23% of its power from nuclear, 1.9
| gigawatts of capacity.
|
| Since construction started, Georgia Power customers have been
| paying the construction costs (about 6%) and now that
| construction is complete the rest of the costs are now being
| added to customer bills. These are surcharges _in addition
| to_ the actual cost of fuel and operations at the plant, so
| they 're going to be paying per kWh as well.
|
| At the same time Southern Company (parent of Georgia Power)
| shareholders are now receiving profits from the operations of
| Vogtle 3 while capital costs are recovered--IE they are not
| paying for the asset that they will own
|
| This 10% increase in customer bills will result in the
| nuclear percentage as pat of GPC's mix increasing just a few
| percent. It would still be lower than either Gas/Oil or Coal
| as of 2022's numbers (in 2023 I believe it will be higher
| than coal, but that is because GPC is replacing coal with gas
| at a rapid rate)
|
| If you replaced all fossil fuels with nuclear at the same
| cost structure, power bills in Georgia would increase many
| fold
|
| I'm completely on board with nuclear, but we have to
| absolutely and totally rethink the designs we build, how we
| manage the projects, who owns them (private vs. public) and
| more
| missedthecue wrote:
| the fact that oil spills sometimes happen doesn't seem to be
| any better of an argument than the one that nuclear meltdowns
| sometimes happen.
|
| Nuclear fanboys need to accept the fact that so long as
| nuclear always costs multiples more than literally anything
| else, these things won't get built, no matter how carbon-
| clean and healthy they are.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This power plant and related Westinghouse bankruptcy were major
| contributors to Toshiba's problems and sale recently discussed
| here.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67757333.amp
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38706547
| MichaelNolan wrote:
| If I was a betting man, I would put money down that Vogtle 4 is
| the last nuclear reactor that gets built in the US. Solar and
| batteries are just too cheap for nuclear to compete. The world
| will be installing a terawatt of solar capacity per year soon.
|
| *excluding research or military reactors of course.
| UberFly wrote:
| I would take that bet. Nuclear tech will also continue to
| improve.
| stetrain wrote:
| Nuclear does not seem to be on the mass production curve that
| solar and batteries are.
|
| Even if you could design a reactor that itself can be mass
| produced at that scale, you still need to do the same with
| selecting and getting environmental and public safety
| approval for installation sites and production,
| transportation, and disposal of the fuel and waste.
|
| I'm not against nuclear from a technological perspective, but
| I just don't see it being economically competitive with
| effectively printable devices like solar and batteries given
| the current direction of the cost curves on each.
| the8472 wrote:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-nuclear-
| po...
| stetrain wrote:
| How do costs compare? What's the site approval process
| like in China vs the US?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Compare this graph with more than nuclear, and notice how
| lagging nuclear is compared to any other renewable.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-
| consumption
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Nuclear might not be able to compete in the U.S. and
| Europe, but that's largely because of a ridiculous
| regulatory regime and has very little to do with the actual
| tech.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| People love to say it, but is there evidence? I've never
| seen it - which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but that
| this claim needs it.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Nuclear was much cheaper in the 1970s and early 80s:
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-
| Construction-C...
|
| This wasn't just due to regulatory influence, it was also
| due to economies of scale. But the two are related, more
| regulation results in fewer builds. Fewer builds reduces
| economies of scale and thus increases costs. Which
| results in even fewer nuclear builds, and so on.
| angiosperm wrote:
| In other words, nuke cost has only ever increased,
| however much was built.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| On a per-MW basis nuclear power dropped in cost during
| the 1950s. See the small blue dots round the late 1950s
| and early 60s? Compare that with the cluster of red dots.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Early, low-hanging fruit?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| That, and larger plants. Things like concrete containment
| vessels have costs relative to the surface area of a
| hemisphere, while power output scales with the volume.
| But the big driver was economies of scale. Building
| multiple copies of the same or similar design means you
| can have longer production runs of steam generators,
| pressure vessels, turbines, etc.
| angiosperm wrote:
| I.e., cost has risen monotonically since the 1950s.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Incorrect, it fell from the 1950s through the 1960s.
| angiosperm wrote:
| I.e., cost has risen monotonically since the '60s. Costs
| were all over the map in the 50s.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Thanks for the paper. Quick summary (of a quick read):
| Most research has studied US and France; this paper adds
| other countries. Costs have greatly increased in US and
| France, but not always in other countries. They've
| decreased recently in South Korea.
|
| > (economies of scale)
|
| Why do you blame economies of scale? The paper doesn't
| say that, afaict.
|
| Also they say, "increased environmental and safety
| regulation ... may have led to cost increases", which
| does not sound conclusive.
|
| Also, I think we really need to be talking about lifetime
| cost, including construction, operation, and
| decommissioning. In many things, spending more up front
| reduces later costs.
| edm0nd wrote:
| We can thank the hippies of the 60s and 70s for all their
| anti-nuclear silliness for making the nuclear industry
| heavily over regulated.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| There was also the Soviet nuclear fireworks project in
| the 80s that didn't help much.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And then it took until the 90s to have an actual imopact
| on policy. It always puzzles how people get even the most
| basic timelines wrong.
| _ph_ wrote:
| You have to to be honest. They were able to push for
| stronger regulations not because politics mainly listens
| to hippies. Stronger regulations were prudent considering
| the safety levels of the earlier reactor design. Without
| those regulations, many more cheap, but less safe
| reactors might have been built. Of which more had gone
| bad over years.
|
| So yes, if you will, thank the hippies for preventing
| several nuclear incidents.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| China has installed more renewable energy than the rest
| of the world put together last year. I'm pretty sure we
| can rule out any "ridiculous regulatory regime" issues
| there.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| They're also building a lot of nuclear:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-
| nuclear-po...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| China is barely building nuclear anymore. China added
| more wind and solar the past nine months than all of its
| nuclear reactors under construction will provide. Yes,
| that includes capacity factor.
| https://twitter.com/yo_ean/status/1718633487454904718
| pydry wrote:
| A moderate civilian nuclear supply chain and skills base
| helps keep a lid on the maintenance and construction of
| nuclear submarines, carriers and nuclear bombs.
| willy_k wrote:
| If you're going to try to determine how China is
| approaching nuclear power, it's probably more useful to
| look at data related to that [0], instead of drawing
| conclusions from tangential data.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| The point I was making is that China isn't inclined to do
| things just to appease some regulatory requirement. They
| are also building an incredible amount of Coal power.
| willy_k wrote:
| Ah, I think there's a misunderstanding of the parent
| comment. They aren't necessarily saying that the problem
| is pro-renewable regulation, just that there are heavy
| (safety) barriers for nuclear.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Yeah, the safety standards for nuclear reactors
| exaggerate the dangers compared to the alternatives that
| are suitable for base load generation
| pydry wrote:
| The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act
| exists _precisely_ because sophisticated private insurers
| run a mile from fully insuring against these dangers.
|
| Until the subsidy is repealed and taxpayers stops
| insuring it, the industry's frequent claims of its own
| safety ring kind of hollow.
|
| It's particularly galling to see them cynically demand
| that safety regulations be watered down to bring down
| costs while the act still exists. Imagine if we made
| taxpayers responsible for cleaning up oil spills.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| > Imagine if we made taxpayers responsible for cleaning
| up oil spills.
|
| We are. Then we try to go after the companies but it all
| depends on their corporate structure and in what
| legislature.
|
| - For a ship not exceeding 5,000 gross tonnage, liability
| is limited to 4.51 million SDR (US$5.78 million)
|
| - For a ship 5,000 to 140,000 gross tonnage: liability is
| limited to 4.51 million SDR plus 631 SDR for each
| additional gross tonne over 5,000
|
| - For a ship over 140,000 gross tonnage: liability is
| limited to 89.77 million SDR (US$119.39 million)
|
| https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/Internatio
| nal...
|
| In the past we have accepted this socialized cost as a
| requirement for a world fueled by fossil fuels, which of
| course will change as we transition away.
| throwjnkjk wrote:
| Slave labor is always cheap. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolg
| ov/files/ILAB/images/storyboar...
| XorNot wrote:
| Batteries are nowhere near able to meet any energy storage
| demands of the grid.
|
| The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery
| installations always get quoted in units of power - GW -
| and _not_ units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually
| use?
|
| (The answer is: because they're terrible for it. Batteries
| hold about 3x they're rated power value as energy - which
| means the 10 GW or whatever someone quotes is good for
| about 3 hours at that output. Great for grid stability,
| expensive and useless for long term storage).
| cesarb wrote:
| > The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery
| installations always get quoted in units of power - GW -
| and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually
| use?
|
| For the same reason gas power plants and hydroelectric
| power plants are quoted in MW units, and not on the size
| of their fuel tanks or reservoir volume (converted to MWh
| as appropriate): it's the most important number for
| balancing the grid. If you have 90 GW of power demand on
| the grid at a given moment, you need 90 GW of power
| generation on the grid at that same moment (simplifying a
| bit, since transmission constraints mean you also need
| some of that power generation to be at specific places).
| XorNot wrote:
| Thus answering the challenge: _they 're not storage_.
| They're grid stabilization utilities. Because no one
| expects to run them for more then 30 minutes to an hour
| while they bring dispatchable generation online.
|
| Which means they're irrelevant to the idea of grid scale
| energy storage, because they don't meaningfully store
| anything.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Last year you said they couldn't even meet enough demand
| for the grid. Now it is 30 minutes to an hour. Next year
| it will be hours.
|
| How does it feel when the Overton windows moves while
| nuclear is stuck in the past?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
| XorNot wrote:
| Because as we all know, the grid is supplied by exactly 1
| powerplant, with one energy source, at all times. /s
| mpweiher wrote:
| The insane thing is that it is so efficient that it doesn't
| need to be on that mass production curve to be competitive.
| It is competitive even in the somewhat insane way we build
| it now.
|
| However, we have a number of companies working on building
| reactors in factories. Rolls-Royce for example is talking
| to Ukraine to upgrade some of their old (not sure if
| already decommissioned) coal plants to nuclear with small,
| factory-built nuclear reactors.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| For that to happen in the US, (1) we need to focus on more
| numerous, smaller modular reactors, (2) the NRC needs
| certification timeliness requirements forced on it (and more
| funding if there's an actual lack of resources), and (3)
| specific project requirements need to be frozen _before_
| construction (no more up-requiring mid-construction).
|
| Modular reactors are the solution to not having enough
| capital or a long enough timeframe to launch and fund
| megaprojects at a pace that creates economies of scale
| anymore, which is exactly the US problem.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on
| it
|
| That's going to be tough: What happens if the day comes and
| they don't yet know? They can't just approve it, so just
| deny it?
| zdragnar wrote:
| The government should cover the losses of the investors.
|
| Various agencies are constantly missing FOIA deadlines,
| and often the only way to get them to actually do the
| jobs they are legally required to do is to sue them in
| court, asking for both the information and to have court
| costs covered.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Even if you could pass that legislation, which seems very
| unlikely, that doesn't solve the problem. The employees
| of the regulators aren't personally liable, and in many
| respects don't individually control the schedule. The
| investors also cause delays - and would now have an
| incentive to do that - and in many cases the/an investor
| is the government. Also, good luck explaining to
| taxpayers the $10 billion payout.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Right, the employees would have to be liable to their
| bosses. Their bosses would have to be answering up the
| chain, to congress and the president.
|
| Presumably, for a regulatory agency to be held to a
| deadline, they would need to outline up front (or with
| reasonable notice) all of the things they would need to
| know and the inspections they would have to make. Those
| time tables would have to be defined early on.
|
| This is where the idea breaks down. How
| does a regulator devise a fixed schedule to regulate a
| novel technology? How do you hold government
| employees accountable without upsetting powerful
| interests like politicians and unions, or get staffing
| funded properly on demand? How do you even
| get the government to hold itself accountable on
| something like this when the DOD can't even *complete a
| clean audit*?
|
| We'll probably just keep winging it, badly.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > We'll probably just keep winging it, badly.
|
| I'm not sure we are 'winging it' at all, or doing badly.
| It may just be an irreduceable problem.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Nuclear has only ever gotten more cost inefficient. What
| makes you think that will change?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Nuclear was cheaper when more of it was built [1].
| Economies of scale make things cheaper. A production run of
| 40 steam generators is a lot cheaper than 4 steam
| generators.
|
| Proponents of a primarily solar + wind grid are betting on
| a breakthrough in energy storage. If that breakthrough does
| not transpire, we'll either have to give up on stopping
| carbon emissions or use nuclear power.
|
| 1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-
| Construction-C...
| sounds wrote:
| Converting atmospheric CO2 into fuels could contribute to
| this effort. But bacterial and plant-based fuel
| production may still be more economical and produce fewer
| overall emissions than even a solar array and a carbon
| capture plant.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Converting atmospheric CO2 into hydrocarbon fuels
| requires hydrogen as an input, so it'd probably be easier
| to just store the hydrogen directly. Right now, almost
| all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation [1]
| which emits CO2. Electrolysis is inefficient and
| corrosion of electrodes makes it expensive and hard to
| scale. Capturing atmospheric CO2 is similarly difficult.
| Carbon Dioxide is at very low concentrations in the
| atmosphere so it takes a really long time to sequester
| meaningful amounts of it. Similar issue with biomass: it
| produces energy very slowly and doesn't have the scale
| required.
|
| There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid
| assume that compressed air, synthetic ammonia, giant
| flywheels, or something else will provide storage for
| orders of magnitude cheaper than batteries: because
| existing storage systems aren't capable of meeting the
| storage demands of intermittent generation. Will one of
| these systems deliver a storage breakthrough? Maybe. But
| it's not wise to bet the future of your electrical grid
| on a technological breakthrough that hasn't happened yet.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
| jeffbee wrote:
| I love the improvement implied by "continue to improve" in
| the face of all evidence that shows fission is a uniquely
| impractical source of energy that has done nothing but get
| more and more expensive.
| grecy wrote:
| So the first nuke power reactor went live in 1951.
|
| In the 72 years since then, in what meaningful ways has
| "Nuclear tech" improved?
|
| It's not cheaper to build.
|
| It's not cheaper to operate.
|
| It's not cheaper to dispose of the waste.
|
| It's not cheaper to decommission.
|
| It's not faster to build.
|
| ?
| gustavus wrote:
| It seems to me that having a couple of nuclear reactors as base
| load spread throughout the country would be more useful than
| having a massive spread out battery & solar infrastructure.
|
| I mean as an example many companies, especially PG&E can't
| maintain adequate powerlines, who is banking on the fact that
| they'll do an even better job when we quintuple the amount of
| infrastructure and they have to develop a whole new domain of
| expertise based in battery technology.
|
| Not to mention even the supposedly clean, solar and batteries,
| still have an enormous amount of carbon emissions involved in
| their supply chain, and need to be replaced on a fairly regular
| basis.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Grid level solar has batteries installed on site. The site
| acts as a power generator that sells energy to PG&E, they
| don't manage it themselves.
|
| If anything a solar field requires much less operation
| expertise and staff to manage than a nuclear power plant. And
| when it goes bad, it might leech some acid and heavy metals
| into the soil over years, not leave a 10k year radioactive
| exclusion zone.
| Retric wrote:
| Nuclear is extremely dependent on long distance power
| transmission. Nobody wants a reactor in the middle of a city,
| and 1-5 GW of power needs to be sent long distances before
| it's used.
|
| Solar on the other hand scales down to 50MW instillations
| just fine so you can put it near substations etc. Huge solar
| parks make sense in locations with lots of sunlight and cheap
| land, but they aren't the only option just a trade off in
| terms of transmission costs vs generation costs.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Chicago is mostly on nuclear and the reactor is quite close
| to the city, just over the Indiana border.
| Retric wrote:
| Closest is Braidwood which is ~60 miles from downtown.
|
| NYC has large power plants in Manhattan (East River 1, 2,
| 6, and 7), Queens (650MW Astoria Energy II power
| station), and Brooklyn (Narrows 1-1 to 2-8) plus a few
| more.
| dexwiz wrote:
| There are no active nuclear power plants in Indiana. It
| had two planned plants that were cancelled in the 80s.
| Purdue has a very small power plant for research.
| cco wrote:
| Would you prefer PG&E defer critical maintenance on a field
| of solar panels or a nuclear plant?
|
| That question dovetails into nuclear's biggest hurdle; the
| risk for catastrophe is high, both in reality and especially
| politically, so regulation is high, and thus the cost to
| build, operate, and decommission is immense.
| colmmacc wrote:
| Nuclear power seems like a good option for non-military boats
| too, like container ships and oil tankers. It's already a very
| well proven maritime technology.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That was tried, nuclear reactors on civilian ships, and found
| to be a stupid idea. Too expensive and no real benefit over
| ship engines. By the way, tha vast majority of military ships
| and boats are not nuclear powered.
| davkan wrote:
| Aside from the environmental benefit right? Don't lots of
| large ships burn cheaper fuel higher in pollutants when on
| unregulated wafers?
| api wrote:
| Ships and planes together account for single digit
| percentages of global fossil fuel use and emissions.
|
| It's almost all cars, trucks, and electric power, so
| those are the things it makes the most sense to worry
| about as opposed to things that are much harder to
| decarbonize and account for less emissions.
| davkan wrote:
| Is ship pollution really that negligible?[0] To be clear
| though the entire world is dependent on trans ocean
| shipping, it cannot be kneecapped for environmental
| purposes, but that doesn't mean it's not a relevant part
| of the issue.
|
| [0] https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2023...
| hef19898 wrote:
| So? The industry, shipping, agreed on standards and a
| plan to reduce CO2 emissions. And if you think nuclear
| power plants on civilian cargo vessels are a good
| idea,consider the following:
|
| - costs for a single ship reactor (shipping is
| _extremely_ price and cost sensitive)
|
| - time, and lost revenue (a ship not carrying cargo is
| only costing money, see above) for refuelling
|
| - piracy and terrorism (I am not really convinced risking
| having some pirate group somewhere capture nuclear
| reactor is a good idea)
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Also, shipping doesn't have a reputation for operating in
| the bright sunshine of law and regulation, with expert
| leadership and engineering. We're not talking about the
| US Navy building and operating nuclear submarines, led by
| Navy officers, who have gone through extensive training,
| have years of experience, a culture of competency, etc.
| davkan wrote:
| Just pointing out a benefit when it was said there was
| none, I agree with all your points here.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Or just the attacks by the Houthi in the Red Sea the past
| month.
|
| Imagine one target being nuclear powered.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _was tried, nuclear reactors on civilian ships, and found
| to be a stupid idea_
|
| We only did a demo ship, which was combination cargo and
| passenger. The principal cost was being rejected from ports
| for their lacking acceptance procedures, a first-mover
| cost. Nuclear shipping has never been "found to be a stupid
| idea." It was simply never explored.
| hef19898 wrote:
| It was, up to the point the only German nuclear powered
| vessel was a cargo ship. It was tried in the heyday of
| nuclear power, and didn't go anywhere. So yes, civilian
| nuclear ships have been tried and found to be expensive,
| not feasible and a dead end, or, if you use different
| words, stupid.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the only German nuclear powered vessel was a cargo
| ship_
|
| I was referring to the NS Savannah [1]. Put her engine
| and crew requirements on a modern supertanker and you
| have an economically viable, environmentally friendly
| ship.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
| hef19898 wrote:
| The only nation that has experience with civilian,
| nuclear powered vessels today is Russia with its fleet of
| icebreakers. And let's be realistic, military maritime
| reactor tech will never see use in civilian vessels, same
| as military jet engines, those purely developed for
| milotary purposes, don't see civilian use neither.
|
| And the latest Russian buold programm delivered:
|
| - Artika, laid down in 2013 and delivered in 2017, entry
| into service delayed from 2019 to 2020 and again to 2021
| due damages during trials
|
| - Sibir was laid down in 2015 and delivered operationally
| in 2022
|
| - Ural was laid down in 2016 and entered service in 2022
|
| - Yakutia was laid down in 2020, planned entry into
| service is 2024
|
| - Chukotka was laid down end of 2020, planned entry into
| service is 2026
|
| Source: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
| library/non-power-...
|
| That's it for civilian nuclear vessels. Meanwhile, in
| 2022 (a slow year apparently), 182 tankers, 350 container
| vessels and 69 car transporters were ordered. I didn't
| find actual deliveries after cursory search.
|
| Source: https://insights.clarksons.net/2022-shipbuilding-
| review/
|
| As for the small, mass producable reactors needed for
| civilian use:
|
| "At the moment, several technology providers are dealing
| with manufacturing of prototypes, the development
| processes of which are at different levels of maturity,
| envisaging more or less a decade before completing proof
| of concepts."
|
| Source: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/maritime-
| industry-exp...
|
| The first source also has this to say about NS Savannah
| and the Herman Otto Hahn:
|
| Development of nuclear merchant ships began in the 1950s
| but on the whole has not been commercially successful.
| The 22,000 tonne US-built NS Savannah, was commissioned
| in 1962 and decommissioned eight years later. The reactor
| used 4.2% and 4.6% enriched uranium. It was a technical
| success, but not economically viable. It had a 74 MWt
| reactor delivering 16.4 MW to the propeller, but the
| reactor was uprated to 80 MWt in 1964. The German-built
| 15,000 tonne Otto Hahn cargo ship and research facility
| sailed some 650,000 nautical miles on 126 voyages in 10
| years without any technical problems. It had a 36 MWt
| reactor delivering 8 MW to the propeller. However, it
| proved too expensive to operate and in 1982 it was
| converted to diesel.
|
| Meanwhile, the US Navy has nuclear subs and aircraft
| carriers, but all other nuclear surface vessels have been
| retired.
|
| In short, we are at least ten years away from a suitable
| proof of concept reactor design (tue NS Savannah one
| already showed to be not economical), let alone from
| having an _industrial base_ to build hundreds of those
| each and every year.
|
| And therein lies the big problem with nuclear power: it
| is too expensive and takes too much time to be of any
| good short term. And if we managed to find a solution
| short term, and in a lot of cases we already have
| technical solitions that are deployed, we don't need
| nuclear mid to long term anymore.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What counts as 'explored'? Full production? A demo ship
| is a signal of exploration.
| DerSaidin wrote:
| What are other options for ships if fossil fuels were
| phased out?
|
| Big batteries?
| https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-28/making-
| waves-e...
|
| Hydrogen fuel? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-
| powered_ship
|
| Yeah, those options seem simpler.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Sustainable fuels. It's the solution long haul aviation
| is coalescing around.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Synthetic fuel has a lot of difficulties. One, it
| requires hydrogen as an input which is typically produced
| through steam reformation [1], a process that emits CO2.
| Electrolysis is less efficient and hard to scale as
| equipment is subject to intense corrosion.
|
| Second, CO2 is at very low concentrations in the
| atmosphere. Direct atmospheric carbon sequestration is
| expensive and slow. The biggest startup in the synthetic
| fuel business is behind schedule and is struggling to
| solve these two main challenges [2].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
|
| 2. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/25/1050899/pr
| omethe...
| xorcist wrote:
| Ammonia?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Ammonia also requires hydrogen as an input. Ammonia is
| essentially a storage mechanism for hydrogen, eliminating
| the need for cryogenic or compressed storage. Basically,
| you need to find a carbon-neutral alternative to the
| Haber process [1] to produce ammonia as fuel.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
| hef19898 wrote:
| Which we have already. And that wouod be a great solution
| to the problem of storing electricity / energy. And it
| could even use, partially, existing gas infrastructure.
| Green hydrogen absolutey is a thing, bow we just need to
| deploy it at scale.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| No, almost all of our ammonia is produced via the Haber
| process which emits carbon dioxide. Less than a tenth of
| one percent of our hydrogen is produced via green
| hydrogen:
|
| > As of 2021, green hydrogen accounted for less than
| 0.04% of total hydrogen production. Its cost relative to
| hydrogen derived from fossil fuels is the main reason
| green hydrogen is in less demand. For example, hydrogen
| produced by electrolysis powered by solar power was about
| 25 times more expensive than that derived from
| hydrocarbons in 2018.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen
| hef19898 wrote:
| I said we mist roll it out at scale, didn't I? The tech
| is there, and it works, now we have to build it.
|
| You know, like Musk did with EVs and charging networks.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| And as per the article, it's 25 times more expensive than
| existing hydrogen sources.
|
| By comparison, the economics nuclear powered ships are
| not that much worse than conventional propulsion: https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nucle...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Of course not. The right mix is important.
|
| But honestly, I reached the point where I claim the same
| "just build it" approach the pro-nuclear crowd is using
| regardless of data and facta. Especially since I know
| from a project I was involved in before COVID hit, that
| green hydrogen produced PV is absolutely feasible and
| commercially viable. To do so at tue scale needed
| requires political action and subsidies, and the tech has
| still a lot of room for improvement. I say this is good
| news.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Especially since I know from a project I was involved
| in before COVID hit, that green hydrogen produced PV is
| absolutely feasible and commercially viable.
|
| It'd be really great to link to that project and actually
| demonstrate this claim of commercial viability. We have
| at least one demonstration of a nuclear powered merchant
| ship operating over the span of a decade. Can we say the
| same for a green-fuel powered vessel?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Regarding a ship running on LNG:
|
| https://www.ship-technology.com/projects/viking-energy-
| cargo...
|
| The same vessel will be launched early next year with an
| ammonia fuel cell.
|
| LNG can be produced using green energy, the actual engine
| doesn't care how the fuel was produced.
|
| Regarding the green hydrogen project: it was a proposed
| pilot production site to produce green hydrogen. And the
| business case was actually positive. No idea where that
| project is now, tuey needed EU funding and that was hard
| to come by during Covid. And after, I stopped being a
| freelance consultant.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Ships running off natural gas are nothing new. LNG
| carriers have been propelled by natural gas for decades.
| The real challenge is producing carbon-neutral natural
| gas, which your link says nothing about.
|
| Synthetic natural gas has all the same problems as green
| hydrogen, with the added challenge of sequestering carbon
| from the atmosphere. It's only been cheaply produced
| using byproduct CO2 from industrial processes. Which
| isn't actually carbon-neutral, it's just using CO2 that
| would have been released into the atmosphere anyway.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There you go:
|
| https://www.valves-community.com/en/cryogenic-air-
| gases/synt...
|
| But honestly, why am I doing your internet searches for
| you? And why don't you know any of this already?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| That plant is not sequestering atmospheric carbon
| dioxide. It's using waste carbon dioxide from a nearby
| biomass plant. This is far less challenging than removing
| CO2 from the atmosphere.
|
| But unfortunately this method does not scale. The amount
| of fuel produced would be limited by the amount of carbon
| sequestered by plants. You'd be cutting down forests
| faster than they replenish if you tried to fuel cargo
| ships with this method.
|
| > And why don't you know any of this already?
|
| I do, and unlike you I understand how existing power to
| gas prototypes are using biomass or industrial byproduct
| CO2 rather than direct atmospheric sequesteration. This
| is sidestepping the most challenging part of producing
| synthetic hydrocarbons on a large scale.
|
| Prometheus Fuels are the main player in attempting to
| solve direct atmospheric sequesteration of carbon
| dioxide. But they've still not delivered on that
| objective.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And the last small scale nuclear reactor project,
| NuScale, was completely cancelled. So the amount of power
| produced by this reactor type seems rather limited,
| trending to zero even. And guess what, we need snall
| reactors to power ships, reactors we don't have (no,
| those half dozen Russian ones don't count).
|
| See how this game can be olqyed in both directions?
| Difference being, all the real money, and industry, is
| going for green fuels and not nuclear power when it comes
| to ships. I tend to believe those people.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| NuScale wasn't building maritime propulsion.
|
| Again, how many ships have been powered by green fuels?
| How many have been powered nuclear reactors? One of those
| is infinitely larger than the other. One of these
| technologies has over half a century of real world usage.
|
| Comparing white papers about synthetic fuels with the
| cost history of actual nuclear powered ships that were
| built and operated for a decade or longer is comparing
| apples to oranges.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You just don't get it, do you? There is no readily
| available reactor tech suitable for commercial maritime
| use at the moment, none.
|
| We do have technology so to produce green fuel for ships,
| and the whole shipping industry, from carriers to
| builders, is pursuing that in their goal of carbon
| neutral in 2050.
|
| Of course there is still the possibility of those people
| being oart of a grand anti-nuclear conspiracy. Or they
| analyzed the tech and costs and came to an informed
| solution, one that is now global policy. You pick.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > There is no readily available reactor tech suitable for
| commercial maritime use at the moment, none.
|
| You realize there's a nuclear powered cargo ship in
| operation _right now_ :
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
|
| This technology not only exists, it's being used
| presently. And that's on top of the other three nuclear
| cargo ships that were previously built. We still have
| those proven designs.
|
| > We do have technology so to produce green fuel for
| ships, and the whole shipping industry,
|
| We do not. Existing synthetic gas plants are not
| capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. They are either using
| biomass or industrial byproduct CO2. The former of which
| does not scale, the latter is not truly carbon free it's
| just using carbon that would have been released into the
| atmosphere anyway. Neither is a pathway to producing
| green fuels at scale. Startups are pursuing atmospheric
| carbon sequestration, but it's proven elusive so far.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Solutions for green hydrogen generation from sea water do
| exist, and are even competitive depending on volume
| produced. _One_ (!) nuclear powered cargo vessel, built
| as a specialized ship for fleet support in the Russian
| arctic seaa and capable of going through 1.5 meters of
| ice (thus requiring the power output of a nuclear power
| plant, same reason Russian icebreakers use NPPs) and bein
| used for supply missions to the Russian naval base in
| Murmansk, doesn 't really count.
|
| Again, those other cargo ships, NS Savannah, Otto Hahn
| and the Japanese one, were all economical failures, the
| Japanese one was even a technological failure. That makes
| a grand total of around 7 civilian maritime NPPs in
| operation, all Russian, with less than one built per
| year. Global shipping needs hundreds of those, at cost
| point competitive with alternatives to be viable. That
| tech, or capacity to build those numbers, simply doesn't
| exist. heck, that is even mentioned as a direct quote in
| the Reuters article that is being paraded around.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| They were economic failures relative to fossil fuel
| powered ships - not relative to green fuels powered
| ships.
|
| Again, if you're going to say that civilian nuclear
| maritime propulsion doesn't exist, because there have
| only been 7 such ships built by four different countries
| then green fuels powered cargo ships don't exist either.
| Again, how many cargo ships have been powered by green
| fuels? How many have operated for more than a decade?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Oh dear god, I just lost a considerable amount of brain
| cells...
|
| A couple of questions, answer those or just, pardon my
| French, shut up:
|
| How do you think all those hundreds of nuclear ship
| reactors will be built yearly?
|
| Have you heard of NOx catalysts?
|
| Are you aware of the possibility to generate hydrogen
| through electrolysis?
|
| Hoe do you square the fact that _litterally nobody in the
| shipping industries_ is making the case for nuclrar
| powered cargo vessels?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Hoe [sic] do you square the fact that litterally [sic]
| nobody in the shipping industries is making the case for
| nuclrar [sic] powered cargo vessels?
|
| Literally nobody, huh? https://maritime-
| executive.com/article/abs-completes-groundb...
| hef19898 wrote:
| One study that didn't make it into shippings
| decarbonization initiative...
|
| Any "brilliant" thoughts on zhe other questions? Or the
| fact that your articke ends with pointing out nuclear
| propulsion was considered promising in the 50s and was a
| dead end ultimately?
|
| If you want to play the game of digging up studies that
| didn't go anywhere, I need some time so. Just from top of
| my head:
|
| flying wing passanger aircraft, _that_ was something!
| Even Airbus launched studies into it, and man was it
| promising!
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Green fuel ships exist now. They're still in the early
| stages but plenty of big names in the business are
| putting their weight behind then.
|
| Plenty of "normal" ships are already hybrid electric like
| trains, so swapping out the diesel generator isn't
| particularly a science project and doesn't affect the
| already electric propellors.
|
| You mostly need a financial incentive to burn clean
| methanol, ammonia or whatever. That's the hard part.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| List some examples of cargo ships powered by green fuels
| that are presently in operation. Not small prototype
| ships, but green fuel powered ships comparable in
| capacity to the NS Savannah and other nuclear powered
| civilian ships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_m
| arine_propulsion#Ci...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The first Maersk Methanol powered cargo ship just rolled
| off the production line:
|
| https://www.marinelink.com/news/maersks-first-teu-
| methanolfu...
|
| And all the ships they've ordered since 2021 can run on
| methanol:
|
| https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2023/12/07/maersk-
| to-de...
| hef19898 wrote:
| What does Maersk know about shipping or ship building,
| those bloody amateurs? /s
| defrost wrote:
| Liquified Gas can be produced using green energy,
| _Natural_ gas _was_ produced via "green energy" a very
| very very long time ago.
|
| There are several green gas projects under way - capital
| plants take time - eg. the Gibson Island project won't be
| online and producing until 2026.
|
| https://fortescue.com/what-we-do/our-projects/gibson-
| island
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Synthetic methane is limited by the sources of carbon
| dioxide. Existing prototypes use either biomass or
| industrial byproducts for concentrated CO2. This is not
| available at scale. Biomass does not grow fast enough to
| sequester enough carbon.
|
| Prometheus Fuels is the main player trying to do direct
| atmospheric sequesteration. But they've not succeeded
| yet.
| defrost wrote:
| Interesting but tangential to Gibson Island and other
| Fortescue Future projects as they're not attempting to
| sequester carbon or use biomass.
|
| Andrew Forrest [1] has laid out plans to dramatically
| increase global green hydrogen production on the back of
| western australia's mining of close to a billion tonnes
| of iron ore per year (ie. experience of industry at large
| scale).
|
| https://fortescue.com/what-we-do/green-energy-
| research/green...
|
| The aim is to do whatever required to directly fuel
| existing mining truck fleets and bulk carriers.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/h1Y22iC90Xo?t=331
| g8oz wrote:
| Yes and while it may be early days for green hydrogen, it
| once was for solar and wind as well. And as it did with
| solar the European Union is leading the way in developing
| policy frameworks that will grow the industry.
|
| https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-systems-
| integratio...
| KMag wrote:
| The Haber process only produces CO2 if you consider the
| steam reformation to generate the feed hydrogen to be
| part of the Haber process. Technically, the Haber process
| itself is carbon-neutral, it's just that the hydrogen
| feedstock is almost never carbon neutral at the current
| time.
| xorcist wrote:
| In the context of hydrogen storage, was it not obvious
| what "ammonia" refers to?
|
| We do not need an alternative to the Haber process, the
| idea is to use electrolysis to produce hydrogen from sea
| water. There is room for improvement in the process but
| the technology is old and well understood.
|
| There are other ways to store hydrogen, and it's far from
| certain ammonia will win out in the marketplace, but
| there are no serious alternatives to hydrogen as an
| energy carrier in the long term for this application.
| Everything else is just impractical and even more
| expensive.
|
| Just like flight fuel, it has seen little change because
| it is quite heavily subsidized in its current form. The
| day we collectively stop and start taxing it like other
| fuels, the market will change overnight.
| p1mrx wrote:
| We need to massively scale up green hydrogen production
| under basically any scenario where climate change is
| avoided. Hydrogen is an input for many industrial and
| agricultural processes.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Biofuels do not require hydrogen or atmospheric CO2
| capture, well beyond growing plants.
|
| Also something I learned recently is that the idea that
| biofuels are a no go because they compete with food is a
| simplistic deflection. Looking at Brazil as an example
| the biofuel crops like sugarcane and groundnuts are grown
| in marginal land in the south that wasn't being used for
| agriculture. The main driver of Amazonian deforestation
| is cattle ranching.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Biofuels produced by growing plants is limited by the
| available biomass. Brazil powers it's automobiles with
| biofuel, but not ships. And more importantly, Brazil is a
| huge country with massive amounts of arable land.
| seany wrote:
| Isn't this "technically accurate", but also misleading? The
| list of ships (1) isn't that long, and almost all of them
| had random other issues that made using them as a 1:1
| comparison not really that useful.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion#
| Civi...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The NS Savannah [1] was indeed a marketing stunt. But in
| the 1960s climate change wasn't really an issue. If you
| have to ship bulk cargo across the Pacific, nuclear is
| largely your only option. Hydrogen is another potential
| choice, but you'd need a carbon neutral way of producing
| that option. Electrolysis isn't efficient, and steam
| reformation emits carbon dioxide.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
| hef19898 wrote:
| Given that we ship cargo in incredible amounts across
| _all_ oceans, ranging from liquids, bulk to containers
| and cars everyday with zero nuclear-powered carho
| vessels, calling nuclear your only option is odd.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| In case it wasn't clear, I'm talking about carbon-free
| propulsion options. Batteries don't have the energy
| capacity required for long distance shipping, and their
| weight is a big issue for ships. 300 mile range is fine
| for an EV, it's not for a ship.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That's what IRENA worked out in the frame of the
| initiative to decarbonise ocean shipping by 2050 when it
| comes to fuel:
|
| >> In the short term, advanced biofuels will play a key
| role in the reduction of CO2 emissions. In the medium and
| long-term, green hydrogen-based fuels are set to be the
| backbone for the sector's decarbonisation.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Present biomass energy doesn't have remotely close to
| scale required to decarbonize ocean transportation. I'm
| sure the "advanced" part of advanced biomass assumes some
| mega-algae or something else that is far more productive
| than existing biomass, but if that technology hasn't been
| developed yet then you might as well just say nuclear
| fusion is the solution.
|
| Hydrogen is currently produced via steam reformation [1],
| which emits carbon dioxide. Electrolysis is less
| efficient and corrosion of electrodes inhibits scale.
|
| Nuclear maritime propulsion is far more mature than any
| of the alternatives. Submarines and warships have been
| using it for over half a century. Could a technological
| breakthrough create a better alternative? Maybe, but we
| can't move ships with _potential_ technologies until said
| technologies make the transition from "potential" to
| "real".
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
| hef19898 wrote:
| Then go and get funding for it! Because apparently you
| know better than anyone else who was involved in defining
| this strategy. And given many, to domain experts, just
| hairbrained ideas get, or used to get, VC funding, it
| should be easy, right? And a tremendous market, just
| imagine what a hyper-unicorn one can build by having the
| monopoly on power the cargo vessels of the future!
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Venture capitalists expect most of their bets to fail.
| It's very possible that none of their synthetic fuel
| startups will succeed. It is not at all reasonable to
| _assume_ that a technological breakthrough will transpire
| just because venture capitalists are funding it.
| Otherwise, we should just sit back and let nuclear fusion
| solve climate change. _Surely_ you don 't think you know
| better than the VCs funding fusion, right?
|
| And for what it's worth, some shipbuilders are exploring
| nuclear cargo ships:
| https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/maritime-industry-
| exp...
| hef19898 wrote:
| The important bit is about the timeline: At least ten
| yeara to proof of concept.
|
| There is no industrial base dor this at the moment. And
| then there is the IRENA commission, tasked with
| developing a strategy to decarbonize shipping, and they
| went with green fuel instead of nuclear. And that
| commission included ship builders, operators and other
| domain experts.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The International Renewable Energy Agency's [1] _job_ is
| to advocate for more widespread adoption of wind and
| solar. Nuclear power threatens that objective. This is
| about as naive as trusting fossil fuel companies ' paid-
| for scientists on climate change.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Renewable_
| Energy...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Than take it from those folks:
|
| https://cms.globalmaritimeforum.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/...
|
| -> page 9 refernces the hydrogen and amonium based fuels
|
| That was developed in the frame of this:
|
| https://unctad.org/news/transport-newsletter-article-
| no-108-...
|
| The IRENA page provided said information in an easier to
| digest form so.
|
| The only source talking about nuclear reactors for
| civilian shipping was that Reuters article. Personally,
| I'd take exhaustive reports and internationally accepted
| strategies above some statement made towards Reuters.
| ponector wrote:
| You can create a fuel with solar energy and use it in the
| ship's engine. Hydrogen or whatever will be available.
|
| But heavy oil is much cheaper and will be used forever
| untill gasoline/diesel cars/trucks will pass away.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Heavy oil ships are already being banned from numerous
| ports. That will only accelerate. Shipbuilders are
| gearing up to build anhydrous ammonia fueled
| replacements.
|
| Anhydrous ammonia will be produced at massive scale in
| tropical synthesis facilities for delivery worldwide.
| This is why long-term storage is not considered
| important.
| ponector wrote:
| Not ships are banned, but usage of heavy fuel. That means
| the last few hundred miles ship goes using diesel. But in
| international waters any kind of fuel could be used.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And that is about to change as well.
| codersfocus wrote:
| There needs to be nuclear powered "oiler ships" that stay
| out at sea indefinitely and recharge passing by electric
| ships.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Great idea. Now, either apply to YC with it or convince
| the shipping industry to revise their decarbonisation
| startegy by going full nuclear with nuclear charging
| vessels.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Batteries don't have the required energy density to make
| electric transoceanic possible travel. They're also heavy
| and would drastically reduce the cargo capacity of ships.
| It'd be more effective to just put the nuclear reactors
| on the cargo ships. Nuclear maritime propulsion is much
| more mature than long-distance electric propulsion
| (diesel subs have used electricity, but only over short
| distances).
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not sure if two weeks and 2,800 km submerged count as
| short distance:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_212A_submarine
|
| The reason why those systems aren't deployed to civilian
| surface ships is easy: cost.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| New York City to Lisbon is 5,400 kilometers. So no, 2,800
| km is not even far enough to cross the Atlantic let alone
| the Pacific.
|
| That submarine also does not use batteries for energy
| storage, it uses hydrogen gas (almost certainly produced
| via steam reformation).
| hef19898 wrote:
| That sub cals uses fuel cells, because WW2 is over for
| quite a while and technology advanced.
|
| But no, 2,800 km isn't short. Not feasible for commercial
| ise, sure, but then no submarine technology is
| commercially feasible. It is too specialized.
|
| Hence, green fuel as the preferred, and most realistic,
| option to decarbonize shipping.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Green fuel has proven exceptionally difficult to
| manufacture, and companies promising to produce it are
| running far behind schedule: https://www.technologyreview
| .com/2022/04/25/1050899/promethe...
|
| > ...no submarine technology is commercially feasible. It
| is too specialized.
|
| Except that's demonstrably false. Many (most?) subs use
| nuclear propulsion, and there are civilian ships that use
| nuclear propulsion. The NS Savannah was operated
| successfully for a decade [1], and several Russian ice
| breakers for even longer than that.
|
| The fact that organization with the explicit goal of
| lobbying for renewables [2] prefers green fuel does not
| make it the optimal choice. It's the optimal choice to
| advance that group's goal of promoting green fuel,
| because nuclear power at scale is a competition risk for
| wind and solar
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Renewable_
| Energy...
| hef19898 wrote:
| NS Savannah (one has to wonder why nobody mentions the
| German Otto Hahn, but whatever), was decomissioned for
| economical reasons. Heck, the only nuclear powered
| vessels the US Navy has are carriers and subs, even the
| lastest British carriers aren't nuclear powered anymore.
|
| All in all, besides the niche need of the Russians for
| nuclear powered icebreakers, there were three civilian
| nuclear ships: NS Savannah (economical failure), Otto
| Hahn (likewise and retrofitted with a diesel engine) and
| the Japanese one (forgot the name, but that was both a
| technological and economical disaster).
|
| And that is ignoring the fact that naval nuclear reactors
| are among the most well guarded secrets a nation has,
| none of that tech will ever see civilian use for that
| alone (the current generation thaz is, the reactors used
| in the three vessels mentioned showed already to be
| unfeasible for commercial use).
|
| Edit: Nuclear power is nowhere near to be a risk for wind
| and solar, wind alone adds multiple NPPs worth of
| capacity to the grid every month while the added net
| nuclear capacity is basically negligible for decades now.
| Nuclear is not, and won't be, built at scale in the next
| decades. Only potential exceptions are India (good,
| otherwise they would build coal plants) and China (purely
| political, and at the same time Chine is building even
| solar and wind power than nuclear).
| Manuel_D wrote:
| There's also the Sevmorput:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
|
| Even just one example is an infinitely larger fleet of
| nuclear powered cargo ships than green-fuel powered cargo
| ships.
|
| Nuclear maritime propulsion isn't exactly a mystery. The
| basic operating principle of both pressurized water
| reactors and lead cooled reactors are known. All of the
| West's main geopolitical rivals (Russia, China) already
| have nuclear powered submarines - I'm not sure how you
| think technology for nuclear powered cargo ships are
| going tip the balance militarily.
| hef19898 wrote:
| This is pointless. The reason _no nation on earth_ will
| green ligjt the use of it military maritime reactor tech
| for commercial use simple: this tech is secret and nobody
| wants the knowledge of said tech fall into opposition
| hands. ITAR is childs play in comparison.
|
| This means, new reactor tech needs to be developed from
| basically scratch. And no, the mere handful of Russian
| icebreakers, and that one cargo ship which is half an
| icebreaker, don't count. Not if we talk about thousand of
| commercial vessels in operation.
|
| One last question: Do you think we are faster to develop
| and build the tech and infrastructure for green fuels
| (which are needed everywhere from ships to planes) or to
| develop and build the industrial base to produce hundreds
| of small scale maritime nuclear reactors (for we don't
| even have the reactor tech yet)?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Hundreds of maritime nuclear reactors are _already_ in
| operation. And the technology has already been deployed
| to civilian ships by four different countries. Your
| statement that no nation will greenlight maritime nuclear
| propulsion for civilian use is just factually incorrect.
| Countries _did_ approve the use of nuclear maritime
| propulsion in ships. You even listed three examples
| yourself - you disproved your own claim.
|
| Nuclear maritime propulsion is _demonstrably_ closer to
| production than synthetic fuels. The former has been used
| in hundreds of warships and four cargo ships over the
| span of half a century. The latter is currently only
| produced using concentrated CO2 from biomass or other
| industrial byproducts (which is not something available
| at scale), and are not used for maritime propulsion.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Why is it that, that people always underestimate the
| technical complexities of thise things.
|
| a) military nuclear technology will never see civilian
| use, claiming otherwise is beyond naive and ignorant
|
| b) civilian nuclear powered vessels have been tried and
| deemed uneconomical (no, one specialized cargo ship
| requiring the power from a nuclear reactor to break
| through 1.5 m of ice doesn't count...)
|
| - so far a grand total of 600 maritime reactors (see
| point one for the military part) in history have been
| built globally, 400 or so of which are still in
| operation, in order to decarbonize global shipping that
| is close to the number of reactors needed _yearly_ , and
| not even the military providers have the capacity to
| build that many (e.g. the Russians built, what, six of
| those since 2014!)
|
| You keep hand-waving all of that away...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Again, we have four different countries that built
| civilian nuclear powered cargo ships. I don't doubt that
| designing maritime nuclear power for these ships was
| challenging. But _it has already been done_. The
| technology already does exist. The NS Savannah, Otto
| Hahn, and the Mutsu all used low enriched uranium in
| their reactors (as opposed to the highly enriched uranium
| used in military reactors). That 's the main challenge in
| adapting nuclear power to civilian use, and it's _already
| been solved_.
|
| By comparison, how many green fuel powered cargo ships
| have been in operation for over a decade? If hundreds of
| nuclear powered vessels operated for over half a century
| is too immature, then green fuel powered ships are even
| less mature that nuclear maritime propulsion.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You have now idea how ship propulsion systems work, do
| you?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The reason why I said "green fuel" as opposed to
| artificial natural gas is because hydrogen and ammonia
| are also potential examples of green fuel, in addition to
| artificial hydrocarbons.
|
| Again, how many ships have been operated with green fuel?
| There are LNG powered ships, but none using LMG produced
| in a carbon free manner. As stated above, producing
| artificial hydrocarbons remains out of our capabilities.
| Existing power to gas prototypes are really just
| converting biomass to methane and that method is limited
| by biomass availability . There are smaller prototypes
| for hydrogen powered ships, but nowhere near the size of
| the NS Savannah and they haven't been operated for nearly
| as long. And I can find no examples of an ammonia powered
| ship.
|
| Again, how many examples of green fuel powered cargo
| ships in commercial operation can you give? Not fossil
| fuel powered ships that can _theoretically_ run off green
| fuel if we hand wave away the challenge of producing
| artificial methane. But ships _actually_ using green fuel
| in the same vein that the NS Savannah actually used
| civilian nuclear maritime propulsion?
| hef19898 wrote:
| See, comment like that tell me you have no idea how a
| ship engine, or engines in general work. The problem to
| be solved is not the ships propulsion system, what
| stupidly keep repeating with nuclear reactors, but the
| source of the fuel for those engines we already have
| (developing new engines is happening day in day out, and
| that development will simply optimize for ammonia or
| hydrogen based fuels). A question which has almost zero
| to do with the question you so desperately want to have
| answered as some kind of, what, childish got ya?
|
| I get it, you area NS Savannah and nuclear fanboy,
| reality so simply doesn't agree with you, nor do the
| relevant industries.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > developing new engines is happening day in day out, and
| that development will simply optimize for ammonia or
| hydrogen based fuels.
|
| Meanwhile, we _already have_ decades of operational
| experience with civilian nuclear maritime propulsion. It
| 's objectively more mature technology than green fuel.
|
| And for the record, I do indeed know hydrogen powered
| combustion engines work. Perhaps you're unaware that by
| virtue of hydrogen's much hotter combustion temperatures,
| it's hard to avoid producing nitrogen oxides (a
| greenhouse gas) as a byproduct in hydrogen combustion
| engines [1]. Hydrogen fuel cells are an alternative, but
| those have less power to volume ratios and have never
| been deployed at the scales required for nuclear maritime
| propulsion. Not only that, containing and plumbing all
| this liquid hydrogen is a challenge, too. There's more
| complexity than you think to make a hydrogen engine that
| doesn't emit greenhouse gases.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_internal_comb
| ustion...
| hef19898 wrote:
| You just refuse to get it, don't you? We way more
| experience eunning everything from gas turbines to ship
| engines than we have running civilian nuclear powered
| ships, I hope I don't have to explain how many non-
| nuclear powered ahip we have, do I?
|
| We also have more experience using biogas to be burned in
| combustion engines and turbines of any sort, as we do
| creating said biogas.
|
| We also way more experience in creating sythetic fuels,
| _and_ using electrolysis to create hydrogen out of sea
| water (green hydrogen).
|
| Those are all solved problems, and thisbis not my
| opinion, as opossed to you, but facts confirmed by the
| very industries involved in ship building and shipping.
|
| Really pointless to discuss with ignorant tech
| illiterates like you.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > I hope I don't have to explain how many non-nuclear
| powered ahip [sic] we have, do I?
|
| And again, how many of those are using hydrogen, ammonia,
| or synthetic methane?
|
| > We also way more experience in creating sythetic fuels,
| and using electrolysis to create hydrogen out of sea
| water (green hydrogen).
|
| Absolutely not. Almost all synthetic fuels is using
| biomass as an input, which does not scale. And only tiny,
| _tiny_ fraction of hydrogen is produced in a carbon
| neutral manner. Less than 0.05%:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen
|
| Again, if these are solved problem, show me the fleet of
| ships powered by hydrogen, ammonia, or synthetic methane.
| mpweiher wrote:
| I love the double standard!
|
| Nuclear technology: if it isn't exactly the same thing we
| need, no matter how close, it doesn't exist.
|
| Hydrogen etc.: we have a rough analogy and no real way of
| getting from there to here, therefore it is proven
| technology.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| I recently got this excellent 1964 film showing the NS
| Savannah digitized from 16mm film in the National Archives
| vault. Very glorious.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8W2Xpz2hA
| internetter wrote:
| One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce
| about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar
| panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3
| U235) in a day. I'll take this bet.
|
| Edit: Tried to edit the edit but somehow deleted the rest of
| the edit. It was something to the tune of how a big problem
| with renewables is the fact that peak solar production does not
| match peak energy consumption, and storage is very difficult,
| so realistically we'll need a wide variety of energy options to
| fully transition to renewables. Nuclear is reliable and to some
| degree adjustable, helping to alleviate the storage issue.
| Basically, it's my opinion that nuclear works well with other
| renewable sources, and a full renewable transition will
| certainly involve more of it.
| echelon wrote:
| We need two things:
|
| - More energy
|
| - Energy diversification
|
| That includes nuclear, solar, and even more fossil fuels as
| we wean ourselves off of them.
|
| Writing off _any_ form of energy is ideological, not
| practical.
| internetter wrote:
| Agreed minus the fossil fuels bit. It's my belief we should
| not further scale that infrastructure.
| adonovan wrote:
| Perhaps I fail to understand, but doesn't this comparison
| depend on a number of parameters such as the total reactor
| fuel load and enrichment, the burn rate, the cost of nuclear
| fuel, the cost of solar PV, the lifetimes of each system, and
| the relative process efficiencies (notably the cost of
| decommissioning nuclear)?
|
| Otherwise you might as well say a teaspoon (or whatever) of
| water has as much potential fusion energy as 1 Kg U235 at a
| fraction of the price. ;-)
| internetter wrote:
| Yes, the amount of estimations I made to get to that number
| is absurd, and very much "best case" with no regard for
| inefficiencies (both nuclear and solar systems are
| currently leaving lots on the table).
| credit_guy wrote:
| Small nitpick: one teaspoon of water has much less
| potential fusion energy than 1 kg of U235, and actually
| much much less than 1g of U235, even allowing for fusion
| technology that does not exist and will not exist in 50
| years.
|
| Here's why.
|
| The Sun transforms hydrogen into helium. But that's a
| fairly complex chain and nobody in the industry or academia
| is trying to replicate that.
|
| When people talk about fusion, here's [1] the reactions
| they are considering.
|
| The best yielding fusion reaction is deuterium-tritium and
| deuterium-helium3 [1]. Tritium and helium-3 virtually don't
| occur naturally on Earth, and deuterium is very rare, at
| about 0.02% of the hydrogen. A teaspoon of water contains
| about 0.5 grams of hydrogen, and out of that about 0.0001
| grams of deuterium. Let's say that someone magically brings
| the necessary tritium or helium-3. How does that compare
| with 1 gram of U235?
|
| The fission of 1 nucleus of U235 yields about 190 MeV of
| energy. 1 MeV is one megaelectronvolt, and is a unit of
| energy. It does not matter how it translates into joules or
| watt-hours. It is the unit used when talking about fission
| and fusion. So, 235 nucleons produce 190 MeV, which is
| about 0.8 MeV per nucleon.
|
| The two reactions mentioned involve 5 nucleons and yield
| about 18 MeV, which means 3.6 MeV per nucleon or 4.5 times
| more per nucleon than U235.
|
| So, even if all the hydrogen in the one teaspoon of water
| was Deuterium and Tritium, in the correct ratios to do the
| fusion, we'd get only 4.5 times more energy than from one
| gram of U235. In reality, from one teaspoon of water we'd
| extract a very tiny amount of deuterium that's usable, and
| we'd need to breed Tritium or Helium-3 separately. By the
| way, separating deuterium from water is a very expensive
| process. The Nazis tried to do it during WW2, and they were
| doing it in Norway. Once the British special forces
| destroyed the plant, the Nazis could not restart the heavy
| water production, and their atomic project basically
| stopped then and there.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#Criteria_a
| nd_ca...
| wongarsu wrote:
| The US doesn't lack space. But investors like a quick return
| on investment; meanwhile nuclear reactors only make sense if
| you bet on high electricity prices for the next ~70 years.
| The time a nuclear plant spends on construction and
| decommissioning is about the same as the total lifetime of a
| solar installation.
| smegger001 wrote:
| How about recognizing that externalities of letting
| corporations do whats best for their own short term profits
| are costly to society, and that having safe cheap constant
| power is a social good that makes having government run
| nuclear power be a good idea. how about we not let the same
| people that have spent the last 50 years knowingly destroy
| the environment and hide their culpability be the ones to
| make the decision.
|
| how about we as a society finally fulfill the promise of
| power to cheap to meter that we were told back in nuclears
| golden age before the carbon industry start the smear
| campaign against nuclear.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > before the carbon industry start the smear campaign
| against nuclear.
|
| The environmental Greens had a lot to do with the smear.
| Even recently, they were the ones who pushed for the
| shutdown of German nuclear power which ended up
| increasing German CO2 output.
| ikt wrote:
| > which ended up increasing German CO2 output.
|
| That's temporary, soon that will go back down again
| _ph_ wrote:
| No need for pushing as the coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP
| had decided to shut down the reactors in Germany and had
| set the date.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That's true. And it was Green ministers that pushed to
| keep the last German NPPS running longer, as long as
| possible. It was also the Greens who sent the first
| German troops abroad under NATO mandates, so one can say
| tge reputation of the Greens is not always matched by
| their actions. They are very easy scape goats so.
| otherme123 wrote:
| Nuclear has a lot of externalities (residues, security,
| financing... usually paid and supported by others). You
| talk about nuclear like it was a small enterprise, when
| it's the very definition of "greedy corporation".
|
| It's funny-and-sad to see the old behemoth of nuclear
| power begging for government support as they last chance
| to be alive.
| smegger001 wrote:
| On the contary i dont think businesses big or small
| should do it I think the government should do it as a
| public good. Free carbonless energy for the people.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| Not unreasonable, but I would point out two options (not the
| only):
|
| 1) "Water batteries" - highly efficient (far more than the
| 'chemical' you are apparently referring to) & responsive
|
| 2) Methods for using 'renewables' to produce &/ support
| production of chemical fuels - with the added draw /
| potential goal of 'closing' the 'carbon cycle'
|
| As to #2, one of the ideals that has been kicked around for
| decades is to do something like: use 'renewables' to
| sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into
| something like butanol, for example.
|
| Now, last I was up-to-date on any of this sort of work (~10+
| years ago), the economics were not favorable. Certain types
| of commodity chemical production with 'biological basis'
| (another type of renewable, typically) had much more
| favorable properties economically. And, indeed, you do see,
| for example, (thermo)plastic products made from chemicals
| like "PLA" increasingly. But, the "biofuels" concept is / was
| much more challenging, especially as "fracking" technology
| made great leaps etc.
|
| Nuclear has its pros and cons - blanket disavowal is fatuous.
| Nevertheless, there are substantially more options, systems,
| technologies, etc. in development and _production_ than are
| often discussed in too many of the pro-nuke(s) / no nuke(s)
| 'sniping' chains that have been prevalent in society & on the
| internet since I was a wee tyke myself.
| internetter wrote:
| > use 'renewables' to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and
| convert it into something like butanol, for example.
|
| are you referring to P2X? I think P2X is an awesome
| solution for existing infrastructure, but it's obviously
| not particularly efficient. I am excited about pumped
| storage as well, but my fear there is we'll run out of
| sites, and obviously the 80% efficiency is still not ideal.
|
| By no means am I arguing nuclear is a one size fits all
| solution.
| concordDance wrote:
| > 1) "Water batteries" - highly efficient (far more than
| the 'chemical' you are apparently referring to) &
| responsive
|
| "Highly efficient" is very vague.
|
| What matters here are the numbers:
|
| W/$
|
| J/$
|
| % round trip losses
|
| % losses per hour
|
| Number of cycles before replacement needed
|
| Response time
|
| Do you have them?
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Nuclear is baseload and is the exact opposite of "instantly
| fired up". Best tech for that is gas or battery.
| tonyhb wrote:
| Cant control rods can be lifted or inserted to meet demand?
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| There's typically a range of operation, so you can adjust
| a hundred MW but you can't drop to 0 or spin up from
| standstill without a time consuming process.
|
| Edit: also, the economics are such that you rarely want
| to drop load from a nuclear plant unless it's offline or
| for system reasons. The fuel cost is negligible so you'd
| rather turn off your gas plant or lower the coal plant
| and save on those fuels.
| belorn wrote:
| That assume we still allow coal, oil or gas power plant
| to exist in the power grid. We should probably not assume
| that to be the case, especially after the temperatures
| rises to a break point and some of the major climate
| change crisis occurs.
| xorcist wrote:
| None of the commercially available (Western) reactor
| designs today are fast load followers, so you are
| dependent on having gas or hydro when you project for new
| nuclear power plants. That's one part of the reason why
| this stuff is politically charged.
|
| From what I understand it's not a theoretical constraint,
| but mostly a lack of enough commercial interest for any
| other design. But it is what it is.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _Cant control rods can be lifted or inserted to meet
| demand?_
|
| Thermally it is difficult to dial a reactor up and down.
| Generally the way nuclear power is modified is by not-
| sending the steam to generators through a by-pass and
| quenching their heat in some fashion.
|
| So thermal generation stays at 100% (or whatever), but
| electrical generation output can be dropped.
| mpweiher wrote:
| They can, though it depends a little on the plant design.
|
| It just doesn't make any sense to use reliable nuclear as
| the "backup" to unreliable renewables.
|
| Because this "backup" is already CO2 free. It is also
| reliable. And cheap to run. So just run it all the time
| (nuclear tends to have >90% capacity factor).
|
| You then simply don't need the "primary".
| delroth wrote:
| Usually you'd vary the concentration of boric acid being
| injected in the reactor's core instead, since that
| doesn't involve wear and tear on safety-critical elements
| of the reactor.
|
| Nuclear reactors absolutely can vary their output to
| match demand, this is what France has been doing for 50+
| years (and what Germany was doing before switching back
| to coal). It's not as reactive as coal/gas, but you can
| still vary within 30-100% of output power at a speed of
| 5% change per minute. Way more than enough to react to
| 1-day-ahead forecasted supply/demand, and way more than
| enough to react minute-by-minute if you've got a tiny bit
| of storage to stabilize the grid's frequency (e.g. pumped
| hydro).
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| It is a hugely complicated system where reactors which
| are earlier in their fuel cycle ramp more leaving the
| later ones to run at 100% around the clock.
|
| Ramping once is easy. Ramping continuously through the
| entire fuel cycle requires a meticulously planned fleet.
| _ph_ wrote:
| France is balancing their reactors with a massive amount
| of water power, so they are not doing it alone on the
| reactor side. But I think France is indeed one of the
| countries with the highest relative amount of nuclear in
| the grid. Germany went never over 30% nuclear in the mix,
| so demand matching was way less of a problem. But also,
| both countries tried to make demand mostly constant like
| with pushing inefficient heating systems which would
| consume electricity at night.
|
| This is very far off from working well together with a
| mostly renewable grid, where renewables can cover 100% of
| the load on most days, but there are larger gaps to be
| quickly filled.
| angiosperm wrote:
| A nuke operated at 50% of capacity costs the same as one
| operating at 100%. Thus, power from it at 50% costs twice
| as much per kWh. But nukes are already not competitive
| even at 100%, and get less so with each passing day.
| ggm wrote:
| There is a line of reasoning that baseload is a billing and
| profit construction, an artifice of the needs of coal-fired
| and nuclear power.
|
| There is nothing innately wrong with over building
| renewable and storage, and a transmission network.
|
| It's an argument about economics, not physics.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Can you realistically overbuild solar and wind in a way
| that works in winter? Here's Terence Eden in the UK, and
| his graph of rooftop solar[1] showing peak around
| 400kWh/month in summer and trough around 50kWh/month in
| darkest December - that's a difference of ~8x which might
| be possible...
|
| But that's averaged over the month, what about a run of
| December days with heavy cloud cover, misty foggy
| atmosphere, still air, maybe some Icelandic volcano soot
| in the atmosphere, what's the worst we'd have to plan
| for, and how much overprovisioning would that take?
|
| [1] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/solar-update/
| edent wrote:
| FWIW I have updated stats at
| https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/04/3-years-of-domestic-
| solar-s...
|
| They're also published as open data.
|
| The dark and dreary days tend to be the ones with the
| most wind power. The tides around our coast are in
| constant motion.
|
| But, the big challenge is still storage. Domestic solar
| panels provide 100% of our yearly electricity use. At the
| moment I can only store 4.8kWh of excess.
|
| So we need to over provision and over store - hopefully
| both at the same time.
| ggm wrote:
| Same author:
| https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/12/electricity-thats-too-
| cheap...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Wind is anticorrelated to sun and stronger in the north.
|
| https://globalwindatlas.info/en
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| In the UK, given it's northern latitude and great wind
| resources, you'd be best overbuilding mostly wind.
|
| Here's a worked example based on real weather data that
| suggests a wind capacity of double peak demand and
| converting about 8% of all demand with power-to-X would
| be the the low cost option.
|
| https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-
| energy...
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| That's absolutely true, but the economic argument still
| carries weight. How many acres of land, how many rare
| earth minerals, etc. are required to produce the load
| profile you need with batteries and renewables vs
| including baseload flat generation from nuclear? This is
| still an economic question but very relevant.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Literally no "rare earth minerals" are used in production
| of solar or batteries. Exactly zero.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically
| produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer
| of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as
| 50cm^3 U235) in a day.
|
| Does the US have more 50cm^3 sized blocks of U235, or more
| square kilometers of land with low land values and high
| annual insolation?
|
| There's an estimated 6 million tonnes of mineable uranium
| reserves in the world [0]. Of which 0.72% is U-235, so we
| have a worldwide reserve of 43200 tonnes, or 43.2 million Kg
| U-235.
|
| Arizona is about 300k square kilometers. If we covered an
| area 10% the size of Arizona in solar panels, then they would
| have produced more energy than all the world's known U-235 in
| just four years. And would continue producing after those
| four years are up.
|
| [0] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-
| fuel-c...
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > If we covered an area 10% the size of Arizona in solar
| panels
|
| And what are the various Friends of Rare Bugs and Small
| Furry Animals groups doing in the meantime?
|
| I joke, but even I would balk at the environmental impact
| of that. Certainly it's going to be greater than any
| equivalent nuclear installation.
|
| > Of which 0.72% is U-235
|
| Fortunately we're not limited to U-235. With breeder
| reactors, there's enough nuclear fuel to run human
| civilization for billions-with-a-b of years.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Cover 4,000 square miles of the USA in surface car
| parks[1] and that's freedom. Suggest covering 11,000
| square miles of desert in solar panels which don't stop
| land being used for grazing or crop growing or insects or
| wildlife, and that's environmental distruction that
| "even" you would balk at.
|
| [1] https://www.archdaily.com/976069/when-5-percent-of-
| the-unite...
| internetter wrote:
| Speaking of parking lots, it's not a terrible idea (and
| it's already been done before) to put solar panels above
| parking lots
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| False dichotomy.
|
| The people who will be screaming about covering the
| desert with solar panels are _exactly_ the same people
| who scream about covering the land with car parks.
|
| Exactly.
|
| The only energy source radical environmentalists like is
| one that exists only in a fantasy. As soon as it starts
| being built, it becomes evil.
|
| Note that they're already up in arms about windmills
| killing birds.
|
| Also, covering the desert is _definitely_ going to change
| the local environment. At a minimum, every joule that
| goes into the power transmission lines is a joule that
| will not be available for use by the desert ecosystem.
| angiosperm wrote:
| The desert ecosystem wastes almost all of its incoming
| joules. The most valuable commodity in a desert is
| _shade_.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| If you were a cactus you'd no doubt disagree.
| angiosperm wrote:
| And you have discussed this with a cactus? Or are you
| still just making things up?
| internetter wrote:
| I want to make clear that I am not arguing against solar.
| My belief is that nuclear is an important piece of a much
| larger puzzle. Wind is not reliable, and for solar to match
| the figures you provided, we would need to figure out
| storage, so lets diversify our portfolio :)
| tzs wrote:
| > Wind is not reliable
|
| Surface wind is not reliable. I've seen proposals to put
| turbines on large kites or gliders tethered to the
| ground. There's pretty much always strong winds over most
| of the United States somewhere between the surface and
| 10000 feet.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Hmm what to do with the torque from the windmill though.
| Perhaps it could have counter rotating propellers to
| cancel it out. Otherwise it would entangle itself in the
| anchoring cable.
|
| Also, a failure scenario would mean tonnes of windmill
| crashing down from high altitude. Hmmmmm
| tzs wrote:
| > Also, a failure scenario would mean tonnes of windmill
| crashing down from high altitude. Hmmmm
|
| 10000 feet is less than 2 miles. Even in high winds it
| wouldn't get more than a a couple or miles or so before
| hitting the ground.
|
| There are plenty of places in the US where you could fly
| where it would be centered over a 6 mile diameter circle
| that contains no people or valuable buildings except for
| people and buildings that are part of the power facility.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Figuring out storage is hard if you think in terms of
| Lithium Ion grid-scale batteries, or mountains for pumped
| hydro, but[1] puts forward the idea of synthetic natural
| gas generated by solar panels. That can be pumped into
| existing national gas grids, existing gas storage, and
| sent into existing gas power stations to generate power
| in quiet times. The article says that solar power has
| dropped from $100/Watt in 1976 to $0.50/Watt by 2016, and
| that instead of slowing down as the low hanging fruit has
| been picked, that process is speeding up since 2011 when
| Solar started to become cheaper than other forms of power
| generation, which changed the feedback loops and is
| bringing in much more demand which brings more
| investment, research and production, than before when it
| was an expensive little-used alternative.
|
| This is a linked graph of solar growth compared to
| International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook
| predictions: https://rameznaam.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/05/IEA-Solar-G...
|
| In each of 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
| 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, the IEA predicted deployment of
| solar would stop accelerating (line going up) and steady
| off into consistant growth (flatline on that graph).
| Every year they have been very quickly wrong, and the
| 2019 predition of flatline is so wrong that by 2021
| actual production of 190GW was WAYYYY off the top of that
| chart. At this rate we may not need to figure out storage
| nearly as much as we think.
|
| > " _What people have missed is that reaching cost parity
| on fuel synthesis will unlock huge new demand centers
| [and trigger an acceleration in demand
| /investment/research/cost decline of solar created
| synthetic fuels]._"
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32197012
| (article rather than comments)
| Gare wrote:
| Sure, if it pans out. I'm all for syngas if it can be
| produced somewhat efficiently at scale. But right now
| lithium batteries and hydro are proven technologies that
| can be utilized. That's the difference.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| If the story I link below is real, synthetic propane
| could become the standard for energy storage. Extremely
| efficient production from electricity and direct fuel
| cells convert it back even more efficiently. Hank Hill
| would be so proud.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37218727
| datameta wrote:
| Compression of air in underground cavities
|
| > Hydrostor, which is based in Toronto, is one of several
| startups working on fixing those problems. The company
| says it's figured out a way to capture and reuse the heat
| generated when air is compressed, eliminating the need to
| burn gas. It's also figured out a way to make the
| mechanics work in areas where caverns must be dug out of
| hard rock, rather than salt. <
|
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-01-12
| /th...
| zo1 wrote:
| The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to get
| of the opinion that this entire call or worry about
| "storage" when it comes to solar is a giant distraction.
|
| This first thing we need to do is align the costs and
| incentives. What I mean by that is simply allow the
| market, or government, to dictate the real cost of
| providing electricity at night. If there are no solar
| panels (nighttime), and whatever grid-scale batteries are
| available cost 1$/kwh then so be it, charge that amount
| to the consumer. People will learn to forego "bathing" in
| electricity at night endlessly. For decades we've been
| spoiled with ridiculous "energy on a tap" that just gives
| us oodles at the flick of a switch, and we just need to
| take that away.
|
| As a side-effect of this whole "switching off the endless
| tap", micro-grids are the future. Small communities with
| mini-grid-scale batteries and sharing of electricity will
| take over this stupid "national synchronized grid" idea
| that has gimped our ability to be agile wrt local energy
| generation.
| Gare wrote:
| Well, for one I (and I presume many other people) would
| not vote for a platform with such an extremist position.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Yes, imagine there was a governor whose position is "at
| night, everyone will be limited to no more than 100W."
| The best-case scenario for the governor would be that
| they're recalled quickly.
| zo1 wrote:
| It would be more like "at night (or when there is little
| solar), you pay progressively more for your electricity."
| A lot of places do that already, you just do it to a
| slightly-palatable level instead of to the true cost.
| Partly because of, as you guys point out it's politically
| nonviable, but also partly because it's electricity from
| cheap coal as opposed to green solar + super expensive
| batteries.
| smegger001 wrote:
| "People will learn to forego "bathing" in electricity at
| night endlessly. For decades we've been spoiled with
| ridiculous "energy on a tap" that just gives us oodles at
| the flick of a switch, and we just need to take that
| away."
|
| I take it you live somewhere warm in the winter. We are
| already looking at removing other heating options like
| propane and natural gas furnaces, coal and oil heating is
| mostly phased out, and burning wood isn't great for the
| environment either. So electrical heating is necessary
| anywhere where its normal to freeze for several months.
| Telling people to stop bathing in electricity at night
| when that what keeps them alive is bullshit.
|
| "micro-grids are the future. Small communities with mini-
| grid-scale batteries and sharing of electricity will take
| over this stupid "national synchronized grid" idea that
| has gimped our ability to be agile wrt local energy
| generation."
|
| Why don't you ask Texas residents how not being part of
| the national synchronized grid worked out for them 2
| years ago?
| zo1 wrote:
| > "Telling people to stop bathing in electricity at night
| when that what keeps them alive is bullshit."
|
| I never said anything of the sort. You're taking a really
| bad-faith and extreme straw-man of what I said, and I
| refuse to participate.
| avar wrote:
| It's normal in many very cold places to entirely switch
| off your heating overnight.
|
| You heat your home up during the day and evening, and as
| you retire for the night it's switched off. With
| sufficient insulation and warm bedding you don't need
| active heating overnight.
|
| So it's absolutely compatible with an electric supply
| that's heavily biased towards the daytime.
| zo1 wrote:
| As an example, it may start becoming more economical to
| include heat-batteries (I forget the name) in house
| construction such that they retain heat and radiate it to
| maintain a not freezing ambient temperature inside a
| house. That, along with insulation, and some rather
| moderate changes to behaviour, could entirely eliminate
| the need for electricity-use during night time hours. We
| don't know what ingenious and wonderful things people may
| do when the real-cost of electricity at night is exposed
| to them.
| gustavus wrote:
| Ya that's a level of unmitigated bull** where I live
| there is usually several days out of the year where the
| temperature is -40 (doesn't matter the units at that
| temperature it's the same) and massive wind chill.
| There's not really a reasonable way to heat a houseduring
| the day and have it remain warm with tempratures like
| that without major changes to the way houses are built.
|
| This seems like the quintessential example of some Cali
| tech bro nor understanding that there is anyone outside
| of their little bubble and assui everyone just lives like
| them.
| defrost wrote:
| Perhaps a Cali tech bro, maybe a standard scandanavian in
| a passive energy house with tight seals, good insulation,
| triple glazing, large solar heated hot water tank to hold
| thermal energy during the night, etc.
|
| There are people outside everbodies particular bubbles.
| zo1 wrote:
| What percentage of the world's population lives at a
| place that goes to -40C ever in the year? That's like
| 0.000001% of the world's population (didn't confirm,
| thumb sucking).
|
| I think you need to admit, "bro", that you're far from a
| standard case and that maybe you should suck it up and
| move to a more hospitable spot instead of forcing the
| rest of us to subsidize your extreme lifestyle choice at
| the expense of our environment which we "all" apparently
| care so much about.
|
| At least I'm suggesting insulation, and alternative
| methods of heating as opposed to just saying we should
| chug gigawatts so your butt could be warm at -40C
| outside.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| The cold places are usually extreme latitudes.
|
| I live around 60 latitude and here during the winter it
| might not be even that cold (tho it can be -20 or -30C).
|
| It's that the amount of sunshine hours and the angle it
| shines at means that for about 3 months the PV production
| is essentially zero.
|
| This is during the time the demand is highest.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Storing heat for a few hours can be done pretty easily
| and cheaply though. Indeed many houses already have
| technologies like water tanks and storage heaters that do
| this.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| The future is the macro-grid: use electricity in northern
| hemisphere while it's summer in the southern hemisphere.
|
| Pardon me, but there's zero future for the micro grids.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >For decades we've been spoiled with ridiculous "energy
| on a tap" that just gives us oodles at the flick of a
| switch, and we just need to take that away.
|
| Why shouldn't I be able to have oodles of energy at the
| flick of a switch?
|
| Why is it bad that people had more than 100 years of
| using energy at a reasonable price point? Why do you
| think it's good for the energy to become more expensive
| or not to be available at all?
|
| We do need energy for everything.
| defrost wrote:
| As you're asking, the bulk of the world's population
| survives with a much lower energy per capita usage than,
| say, a median US citizen.
|
| For the high energy consumers it's more a _perceived_
| need than an _actual_ need.
|
| Further, energy availability appears to work akin to road
| availability; if you build a six lane highway traffic
| expands to fill it.
|
| The _obvious_ reason for wanting lower global energy use
| at this particular point in time is reduce the still
| increasing by products of energy production, greenhouse
| gases.
|
| Once the climate parameters return to safer values energy
| production without _those side effects_ can expand ..
| while we look at addressing the unwanted toxic by
| products of our new sources of energy - less greenhouse
| gases, more acids and waste associated with nickel,
| copper, lithium, et al.
| danans wrote:
| > Wind is not reliable
|
| I think what you mean is that wind alone is not baseload,
| not that it is unreliable. It is quite reliable in that
| its availability is predictable such that it can be
| coordinated with storage to create virtual baseload.
| Therefore its failure modes are relatively mild in
| impact.
|
| In contrast, large centralized plants (whether combustion
| or nuclear) have far more consequential failure modes -
| for example, losing 1GW of power with little notice, as
| can happen with these plants, is usually a grid emergency
| event.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Nuclear would be the worst technology for filling
| temporary gaps in the production of renewables. The
| ramping speed of nuclear reactors is limited, and they
| cannot be throttled below 40% output without shutting
| them down entirely for quite some time. On top of that,
| the main expense of nuclear reactors is building and
| maintaining them, so throttling a reactor is not reducing
| the costs. You really want to run a nuclear reactor with
| a high load.
| champtar wrote:
| French NPP can vary their power output 80% up or down in
| 30 min (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_pilota
| ble_d%27%C3...)
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| It's worth noting that the dichotomy you set up isn't quite
| right. The land use for solar and wind isn't an
| exclusionary zone. The area around a wind turbine can be
| used same as before (most often as farmland) without a
| negative impact on its productivity.
|
| And the same is true for solar. In fact, a growing number
| of agro-voltaic projects are seeing a net positive on crop
| yields from solar panels due to the increased shading and
| decreased temperatures.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Is it possible for solar panels to be semi-transparent so
| crops can still thrive underneath?
| philipkglass wrote:
| Yes it is: https://www.pv-
| magazine.com/2021/07/02/transparent-solar-pan...
|
| _"Combining two usage modes based on Insolight's optical
| micro-tracking technology, these modules focus light on
| high-efficiency solar cells," Insolight said in a press
| release. "When aligned, the optical system can generate
| energy (E-MODE), but it is also possible to unalign it to
| 'leak' the light (MLT-MODE). The solar modules therefore
| act like a 'smart' shade adjusting the amount of light
| they let through."
|
| This makes it possible to optimize the photosynthesis of
| plants during the seasons and reduce the negative impact
| of high summer heat on the yields and quality of
| agricultural products, while recovering the rest of the
| light in the form of electricity. Starting from July, the
| panels will be tested for four years on a 165-square-
| meter surface area. They will replace protective plastic
| tunnels on strawberries and raspberries.
|
| "Dynamically adjusting the light transmitted to the
| plants paves the way for increased protection from
| climate variations and possible increases in crop yields
| thanks to the matching of the light to the needs of the
| plants and the lowering of the temperature during heat
| waves via the shading effect," said Bastien Christ, head
| of the berries and medicinal plants group at Agroscope._
|
| A similar project using different module technology:
| https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/10/31/baywa-re-starts-
| build...
| jiggawatts wrote:
| That's not needed, just have gaps between the panels so
| they provide partial shade. Many food crops can't
| tolerate "full sun" well, and will grow perfectly fine
| even with partial illumination.
| dralley wrote:
| The logistics of trying to plant, maintain and harvest
| crops underneath a bunch of solar panels while also
| needing to deal with the subsequent issues of uneven
| runoff of water from rain make it seem impractical. Just
| cover parking lots, malls and supermarkets with them, we
| have plenty of those, and they're closer to where the
| electricity is needed than agricultural land.
| gridspy wrote:
| We absolutely should cover those, but there is a lot of
| farmland. There may not be enough "mall-land"
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Well, when i see solar panels atop every mall and
| commercial building, when every home has a solar roof,
| then i'll entertain chopping down wilderness or
| sacrificing farmland to the cause. I still see plent of
| bare rooftop to address first.
| verve_rat wrote:
| Well good job it's not your decision to make then.
|
| If the economic benefits of adding solar to their farm
| outweighs the costs then farmers will start adding them
| to farms.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Literally nobody proposes "sacrificing" farmland.
| jubjubbird wrote:
| I'm looking at a legal agreement on my desk to lease 120
| acres of productive eastern Nebraska farmland to build a
| commercial scale solar project. The land would be taken
| out of production ("sacrificed") for the 50 year lease,
| with payments about twice what the land leases for for
| agriculture (soybeans).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is very common. Farming is hard, margins slim at best.
| And farmers are given great leeway in how they may make
| money from land. Regulation is lax. Many fields have been
| turned from the production of food to the production of
| electricity, while countless factory rooftops sit covered
| only in tar and asphalt.
| adrianN wrote:
| As soon as we stop using farmland to grow energy crops
| when the same area could give us 20x the energy using
| solar panels.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| The home roofs are going to be done off the more
| expensive solar installations ($/kW) that we can build
| because they're so small.
|
| It's also fascinating how quickly the Nirvana fallacy
| shows up when it's time to talk about renewables.
| Supposedly chopping down forests for solar (which isn't
| the main way of getting land) or the farmers choosing to
| put something on their land is top of mind. But chop
| those forests to make something else, or have the farmers
| grow super subsidized corn and there isn't a peep.
| angiosperm wrote:
| You can make up whatever you like, saying "seems". Facts
| are better.
|
| The fact is that agrivoltaics has been very successful,
| for reasons you probably would not guess in a wholesale
| void of facts. Looking up the facts, you could actually
| learn something.
| mbgerring wrote:
| Regardless of your opinion on this subject, agrivoltaics
| projects are being installed today at an increasing rate,
| and they're going well, from what I've read. It's not
| some theoretical proposal, it's happening now. It's
| likely that solar panels will be installed both in
| parking lots and over farmland.
| cpill wrote:
| I was thinking of you set the solar up high, to create a
| diet of canopy, then you might be able to grow a rain
| forest under it which doesn't like direct sunlight and
| would allow animal habitat...?
| 1659447091 wrote:
| This reminded me of a solar project at a US airport [0].
| They placed solar panels to make a covered parking lot. I
| think it was part of a larger plan to use panels for
| cover and/or over some of the vast spaces that the
| airport covers
|
| "Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) and Austin
| Energy celebrate the completion of a new solar panel
| array constructed on the AUS campus that will produce 1.8
| megawatts of locally-generated, renewable energy. ...
| With 6,642 solar panels spanning across a distance that
| is equal size to two football fields, the array on the
| top floor of the airport's Blue Garage is the largest on-
| site renewable energy installation on the AUS campus. The
| panels offer shaded parking for Blue Garage customers and
| will generate enough solar energy to power up to 160
| homes per year."
|
| [0] https://www.austintexas.gov/news/austin-bergstrom-
| internatio...
| evilos wrote:
| I remember reading some article that said we could offset
| all of human emissions by painting Vermont stark white or
| something along those lines.
|
| Covering a desert in solar panels seems like the exact
| opposite of that plan.
| margalabargala wrote:
| If you ignore all other variables, then of course the
| situation looks like what one variable would make it do.
|
| Would covering a desert in solar panels cause more
| thermal solar absorption in that area than would
| otherwise happen? Yes.
|
| But if we're optimizing for "offsetting the heating
| effect of human GHG emissions", then installing 4.5TW of
| solar (about 4x what has been installed worldwide to
| date) would have a much more positive effect.
|
| The world currently has 1.1TW of solar installed,
| producing about 6% of all electricity. So our new
| installation would be on its own capable of supplying 25%
| of global electricity usage. The corresponding drop in
| GHG emissions from the shutdown of coal, gas, and oil
| power plants would far outweigh the fact that part of the
| desert has been turned black.
| evilos wrote:
| Has this actually been quantified? Earth's albedo is a
| critical factor in the portion of the sun's energy that
| is rejected into space, just as GHG incidence in the
| atmosphere is.
|
| In theory, darkening a portion of the Earth with high
| albedo (snow, sand) is worse than darkening a portion of
| the Earth with low albedo (roads, roofs, forest). Then it
| should be better to use a greener area for solar panels
| so long as the capacity factors would be similar.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Millions of square kilometers of the arctic are being
| "darkened" by loss of sea ice. Nothing humans can do can
| approach even a tiny fraction of that.
| evilos wrote:
| Many people would argue that humans did cause this loss
| of sea ice.
|
| Also I don't see how that justifies adding to the effect?
| Especially if we don't know can't compute the trade off?
| I'm sure someone has done that work but my it didn't
| immediately jump out at me during a cursory search.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Just the uncertainty in the ice cover prediction is
| orders of magnitude larger than any effect from adding
| any plausible amount of solar panels.
|
| Inventing BS problems does not contribute to the
| discussion. Please stick to facts.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| There is way way more uranium than that. It is surprisingly
| common. And harvesting it from seawater opens up a supply
| that dwarfs any mining concept.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment
|
| >> Uranium is a naturally occurring element found in low
| levels _within all rock, soil, and water_. This is the
| highest-numbered element to be found naturally in
| significant quantities on earth. According to the United
| Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
| Radiation the normal concentration of uranium in soil is
| 300 mg /kg to 11.7 mg/kg. ... It is considered to be more
| plentiful than antimony, beryllium, cadmium, gold, mercury,
| silver, or tungsten and _is about as abundant as tin_ ,
| arsenic or molybdenum.
|
| How uranium ore becomes fuel rods: (Actually a rather
| simple process imho.)
|
| https://youtu.be/9x7DozCqLxU
|
| https://youtu.be/c7ehyxRBMbw
| keep_reading wrote:
| Nuclear is renewable for the same reason geothermal is
| renewable, and you can get uranium out of seawater for
| the same price as mining it
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@nuclearsciencelover/video/7092135
| 813...
| rajamaka wrote:
| Why do people bother mining it?
| mpweiher wrote:
| Because mining it is relatively cheap. So cheap, in fact,
| that it is economical to throw away >95% of the fuel
| rather than try to burn it all or recycle it.
|
| Fuel costs are 10% of the cost of nuclear electricity.
| The vast majority is financing.
| danans wrote:
| > The vast majority is financing.
|
| The financing for nuclear is expensive primarily because:
|
| 1) The costs of construction are so high - so huge
| amounts of financing needed.
|
| 2) The amount of time before investors see any ROI is
| very long.
|
| A long time ago, when electricity markets were fully
| monopolized end to end, the long-term ROI on nuclear and
| other generating assets was guaranteed by the government,
| and the financial risk was borne by society.
|
| Now, electricity markets have been liberalized (at least
| at the generation level). Simultaneously, far less
| capital-intensive generation technologies have been
| created (renewables, combined-cycle gas, and increasingly
| storage). These technologies provide an earlier ROI for
| risk-averse capitalists.
| bborud wrote:
| And as Bent Flyvbjerg mentions in "How Big Things Get
| Done", projects that last for a very long time are all
| but guaranteed to encounter one or more black swan events
| and/or recessions.
|
| Bent makes a sensible argument for SMR reactor technology
| in that book too.
| stephenr wrote:
| > you can get uranium out of seawater for the same price
| as mining it
|
| > Why do people bother mining it?
|
| > Because mining it is relatively cheap.
|
| Something does not add up here.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Mining exists and is cheap enough that there is no
| incentive to invest in something new, even if it might
| just as good. Particularly because "just as good" is
| rarely a good reason for changing and investing, it would
| have to be significantly better.
|
| (Though I have no real opinion on whether seawater
| extraction really is just as good...somewhat dubios)
| defrost wrote:
| FWiW the latest in a long line of seawater extraction
| papers is (2020):
|
| https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0
| ta0...
|
| https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C
|
| which has the weasel phrases uranium
| production costs could be reduced to $80.70-86.25 per kg
| of uranium with this fiber, which is similar to the
| uranium spot price of $86.68 per kg of uranium
|
| and suggests the possibility of
| economically producing nuclear fuel from the ocean.
|
| Not to disrespect their work, _many_ small scale lab
| tests confidently assert that costs _could_ be reduced
| and _might possibly_ be economic.
|
| The fine print is that so far no pilot plants exist and
| no estimates on the capital plant costs for industrial
| scale extraction to achieve the _possible_ unit
| throughput prices as yet exist.
|
| This may yet happen.
|
| There may also be a slip between paper and industrial
| plant at scale.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > This may yet happen.
|
| Yeah. But probably not for a long time as Uranium from
| present sources is cheap (enough) and plentiful (enough)
| and if that should ever get more expensive we can start
| looking at the huge stockpiles of 95% unspent fuel that
| we call "nuclear waste". Burning that would (a) give us a
| lot of electricity and (b) reduce the radioactivity of
| whatever is left dramatically.
| stephenr wrote:
| To be clear: I'm not arguing for one or the other, I'm
| pointing out that one of the above statements doesn't
| align with the other.
|
| If the other costs are equal (remember I said _if_ ) then
| extracting it from seawater would undoubtedly be easier
| overall simply because of abundance, and the non-
| destructive nature of collecting it would mean there's no
| issue with environmental challenges due to the
| destructive nature of mining.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Not really. If the costs are _equal_ , then there is no
| point in investing in a new technology, new plants etc.
| that don't provide a competitive advantage.
|
| What's the startup question again?
|
| What about your new product is 10x better than the
| incumbent?
|
| Not sure too many VCs have advised companies as follows:
| "Hey your new product is exactly as good as the
| incumbent, you have an absolute winner on your hands
| here. Where do we need to send the check?"
| stephenr wrote:
| > What about your new product is 10x better than the
| incumbent?
|
| Well let's just ignore the idea that mining megacorps
| operate in any way like a startup does. At the top of the
| uranium mining food chain, even a 1% reduction in costs
| (or increase in extraction) would be add around $13M a
| year to their revenue, so fuck it lets play
| hypoethetical.
|
| If someone came along and said "hey we have a startup
| that's exactly as profitable as YouTube, but there's
| essentially no risk of people protesting our business and
| using ad-blockers to deprive us of revenue" the VC
| vultures would be on that shit like a fat kid on cake.
|
| As I said before: seawater is ubiquitous and for the
| purposes of human scale, essentially limitless
| everywhere, unlike mined uranium which to be cost
| effective, is only mined in certain areas where the
| return is higher.
| mpweiher wrote:
| 1. Not lower cost, same cost. Maybe.
|
| 2. Who said anything about no risk?
| hef19898 wrote:
| So we moved from using Twitter as a source to TikTok? We
| live in dark times...
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| You can also get the same information from here, which
| has an extensive reference section at the bottom.
| Disclosure: I wrote it.
|
| https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html
| hef19898 wrote:
| Nice work. Do you know of any studies looking at the cost
| of powering the world that way? And the time need to
| transition?
| dmix wrote:
| I get the old man yells at sky reaction but it's just a
| short video... A snapshot of information which directly
| references with overlayed text a citation to the study
| he's discussing.
|
| Not much different than most HN comments which 90% of the
| time are only one or two sentences.
| c0pium wrote:
| None of this is true. Highly upvoted hn comments (the
| ones people read) bring receipts. This is just someone's
| low effort opinion.
|
| For what it's worth, the cost to extract uranium from
| seawater is actually a very complicated subject. It is
| generally cited that the cost is approximately 2x the
| mining cost, but that's based on estimates for seawater
| extraction.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280745206_Cost_E
| sti...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, at the very least give a short summary of what you
| are linking to.
| c0pium wrote:
| TikTok is not credible. You can't click the links or
| easily verify the conclusions. It's the ultimate in trust
| me bro science.
| burnerburnito wrote:
| >"or more square kilometers of land [...]"
|
| Technically you need to factor in the fact that a nuclear
| plant can be built relatively near the places where its
| power will be consumed; some mass of solar power in Nevada
| is highly inefficient for powering New York or Virginia,
| even if you built HVDC lines to cut down on total line
| losses, so you'll need to pick land tracts reasonably near
| battery banks that would in turn be near cities.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Inventing imaginary problems does not contribute to the
| discussion. Please use facts.
| stephenr wrote:
| Just as well New York and Virginia have oodles of open
| ocean right at their doorstep to run multi-gigawatt wind
| farms I guess huh?
| fastball wrote:
| Wind isn't reliable.
| gustavus wrote:
| Yeah and all those people on the other side of the
| Appalachians can just take a hike, why do they need power
| anyway. They brought the problem on their selves with
| their dirty coal mining habits time for them to pay the
| price.
| stephenr wrote:
| The comment I replied to talked about getting power from
| Nevada to New York. I'm not American so I had to look at
| a map but it seems like the other side of the
| Appalachians from New York is... Ohio?
|
| Is there something about Ohio that means they have no
| atmospheric wind nor natural sunlight?
| thelastgallon wrote:
| 40 million acres are used to grow corn for ethanol. This is
| 162,000 square kilometers. This can produce 3.24 exajoules
| of energy.
|
| Also, solar panels don't need any land. There are so many
| places we can install solar without 'consuming' land. They
| can be roofs, floating on tops of lakes and reservoirs with
| the added benefit of preventing evaporation, agrivoltaics
| combined with farmland, vertical panels, superfund sites,
| deserts, along the highways, etc.
| rainsford wrote:
| For all the concern about land use for renewables, it
| really feels like subsidized ethanol has got to be the
| most wasteful use of energy investment dollars in terms
| of farmland used and every other possible metric. It's
| very interesting to think about using that money and land
| for other energy generation uses.
| rcxdude wrote:
| yes, biofuel is a colossally bad idea and it should have
| been obvious to everyone involved right from the start.
| mlrtime wrote:
| One counter point is that these fields can easily be
| turned into crops to feed the citizens of the country in
| an emergency. Solar panels not so much. Also, there was
| already infrastructure in place to easily maintain this
| energy source.
|
| Not saying this is a reason to keep the subsidies, but
| I'm sure it made sense at the time.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The thing about mineral reserves is that they only make
| sense when you add the price-point to the number.
|
| There is enough Uranium on the planet for a few centuries.
| Make it a few millennia if you breed it, and lots and lots
| of millennia if you expand your reactors to use other
| fuels. But most of it is way more expensive to get than
| what we use today... what actually makes very little
| difference for the final costs.
| fooker wrote:
| One kg of Uranium is significantly easier to transport
| compared to the solar energy obtained in a corner of
| Arizona or Utah though.
| kortilla wrote:
| And what happens when it gets dark? Solar is cheap, storage
| is not.
| duped wrote:
| The uranium can produce power when it's dark outside, unlike
| the solar panels. I wouldn't bet against clean energy that
| can produce on demand. We'll always need it from somewhere.
| est31 wrote:
| > One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically
| produce about 20 terajoules of energy.
|
| That's missing the huge and expensive nuclear power plant
| around that kilogram of uranium.
|
| If you don't account for the conversion device (for which
| solar is cheaper per GJ than nuclear power plants), then
| light is a much better medium: assuming 15% efficiency, which
| is a conservative estimate, solar panels can convert one
| kilogram of solar light (remember e=mc^2) into 13.5
| terajoules of electricity.
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+kg+*+c%5E2+*+15%25+in.
| ..
|
| The sun bombards our planet with around 61 metric tons of
| light per day:
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2+*+pi+*+radius+of+eart.
| ..
|
| Where the 6 kwh/m^2 come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| Solar_irradiance#Irradiance_on...
| datameta wrote:
| Hey thanks for adding links to formulas. Great use of
| wolfram alpha imo.
| apatheticonion wrote:
| I'm curious how the numbers stack up of completed plants -
| but I am not very good at math and don't have a great
| understanding of electricity units, especially at the grid
| scale and big numbers.
|
| Any chance you could help compare the construction cost of
| this nuclear plant to another recently constructed solar or
| wind farm measured against... I guess capacity?
|
| Given the intermittent nature of solar/wind, does capacity
| even make sense to compare in a context without supporting
| batteries?
|
| I'll give it a shot but I am probably super wrong.
|
| ** Nuclear:
|
| I'll use the plant from the article https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
|
| Construction costs 18b USD (does that include loans?)
|
| Nameplate capacity of 2302MW
|
| Used capacity is 91% so 2094MW
|
| $18b / nameplate capacity = $7.8 USD per rated W
|
| $18b / used capacity = $8.60 per realized W
|
| ** Solar (excluding batteries):
|
| I picked a relatively large, recent, US based solar farm
| from the list of plants in wikipedia
|
| Agua Caliente Solar Project (2016)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agua_Caliente_Solar_Project
|
| Construction costs 1.8b USD
|
| Nameplate capacity of 290 MW
|
| Used capacity is 28% so 81 MW
|
| $1.8b / nameplate capacity = $6.2 USD per rated W
|
| $1.8b / used capacity = $22 USD per realized W (that can't
| be right?)
|
| ** Note:
|
| I don't know if my math is right, I don't know if the costs
| factor in loans, also the nameplate capacity for the
| nuclear plant is MWe and the solar plant is MWac so I am
| unsure how that works out.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| Using Solar Star as another datapoint [1]. 579 MWac x
| 32.8% capacity factor [?] 190.
|
| I found mention of a bond issuance and someone purchasing
| the project here [2]. If it's $1b, then it's $5.26. If
| $2b then $10.53.
|
| So they're in the same ballpark. But one type of plant
| runs 20-30 years and the other for 50-80 years @ 90%
| capacity factor. The CANDU reactors are especially cool
| in that they can use natural uranium and refueled without
| a shutdown [3].
|
| --- [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star [2]
| - https://www.sustainablebusiness.com/2013/06/1-billion-
| bond-o... [3] -
| https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/On-
| line_refueling_of...
| hef19898 wrote:
| One thing you didn't include: Opex, a solar farm is
| pretty low maintenance and requires zero fuel. A NPP is
| the opposite.
| apatheticonion wrote:
| That's fair, I wonder if there are numbers on running
| costs.
|
| I'm certain nuclear running costs would dwarf solar - I
| think solar just needs fresh water, cleaning and hardware
| maintenance (replacing inverters, and such).
|
| Would be interesting to work the running costs into the
| "$ per realized W" calculation.
|
| I'd also like to see how battery-backed solar compares. I
| assume the objective would be to solve the intermittency
| issue, but I am hopeful it would increase the capacity
| factor as well.
|
| Another thing that's interesting to consider is multi-
| purpose energy utilization you get with nuclear - like
| desalination and hydrogen generation - though the latter
| is uneconomical because hydrogen produced from fossil
| fuels is much cheaper.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Had to dig in my comments, but there you go:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38303819
|
| Self citing:
|
| Better not use biased opinion pieces, when there numbers
| from government sources (US, but eho cares):
|
| LCOE (total, incl. CAPEX, in USD per MWh):
|
| coal 82.6, combined cycle 39.9, advanced nuclear 81.7,
| geothermal 37.6, biomass 90.1, onshore wind 40, offshore
| wind (that one was a surprise, since offshore wind should
| be quite cheap, mainly driven by capital cost of 104 USD
| per MWh) 105, solar 33.8, solar hybrid 49 and hydro 64.
|
| Variable cost (same as above):
|
| coal 23.7, combined cycle 27.7, adv. nuclear 10.3,
| geothermal 1.2, biomass 30, onshore wind 0, offshore wind
| 0, solar 0, solar hybrid 0, hydro 4.1
|
| All number from here:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generati
| on...., page 9.
| est31 wrote:
| > I picked a relatively large, recent, US based solar
| farm from the list of plants in wikipedia
|
| > Agua Caliente Solar Project (2016)
|
| Note that solar being cheaper than nuclear is a more
| recent phenomenon than 2016. The solar panel prices went
| from $0.63 to $0.26 in the time span between 2016 and
| 2022.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-
| prices?time=2002...
|
| A better example is Spotsylvania Solar/Highlander Solar:
| https://www.sheppardmullin.com/assets/htmldocuments/PFI%2
| 020...
|
| Construction costs: $905m USD
|
| Nameplate capacity: 618 MW
|
| I couldn't find used capacity factors but Yuma is one of
| the sunniest counties in the USA while Spotsylvania
| county is further north and also has less sunny days.
| With an assumed capacity factor of 18%, one gets 111 MW.
|
| $905m / nameplate capacity = $1.48 USD per rated W
|
| $905m / used capacity = $8.24 USD per realized W
| xbmcuser wrote:
| This year alone prices for solar panels have dropped by
| 30-40%. The biggest reason for prices not dropping for
| solar farms/large scale solar at the moment is that the
| supply of other equipment needed like transformers etc
| can't meet the demand with delivery times having reached
| 2+ years. So the prices for solar will likely drop
| another 40%-50% in the next 2-3 years at least in the
| rest of the world maybe not in the US because of trade
| wars/restrictions.
| mixdup wrote:
| >That's missing the huge and expensive nuclear power plant
| around that kilogram of uranium.
|
| Whereas I think you are missing the huge and expensive
| battery array for solar to be useful outside of peak times?
| And the fact that the best sites for solar are far away
| from the transmission network?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| But remember that a square kilometer of solar panels needs
| maybe ten square kilometers of actual land. Anywhere other
| than at the equator, the panels need to be spaced far enough
| apart not to shadow each other. On a north-facing slop they
| would be even more spaced out. Do that in two dimensions, so
| they can track the sun, and keeping one square meter of
| panels perpendicular to the sun requires a suprisingly large
| footprint.
|
| And trees. Clearcutting forests to make room for a solar
| panels just seems wrong, a Captain Planet style of evil.
| There are all sorts of places where the terrain just isnt
| suited.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Good thing that cube of uranium doesn't need any extra
| space around it! We can just line them all up next to each
| other. Criticality accident? What's that?
|
| Clear cutting forest to put in solar isn't likely to be
| cost-efficient. There's plenty of shitty desert and
| mountainside land available.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It's not 10x. The optimal ground coverage ratio in the
| South even for tracking panels is like 30%: https://www.sci
| encedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X2...
|
| Most of the US isn't wooded. I don't think a significant
| number of projects propose clear-cutting to build solar
| farms. I don't know where that came from.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Try where i am, the pacific northwest. Its all mountains
| and trees. Large solar farms are always tricky, even
| residential rooftop solar often runs into issues with
| trees.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| If only it were possible to transmit electricity from one
| place to another...
|
| Seriously, while a lot has been written about the need to
| update the grid and install more long distance
| transmission lines to support renewables, even with the
| current grid it makes much more sense to install wind and
| solar in locations where it is more efficient and then
| transmit the electricity elsewhere. In Texas, most of the
| wind farms are in West Texas hundreds of miles away from
| Houston, for example.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| This might be a controversial opinion: In many cases, it
| might be reasonable to clear cut 10 sq km for solar
| power. Pacific Northwest is enormous. There is plenty of
| undeveloped land that can be used for solar power. To be
| clear: I am not suggesting "cut down all of the tree for
| solar". I am saying: Choose 1/5/10 sq km plots, clear cut
| them, and install solar power. Ten to one hundred of
| these in the region would have minimal environmental
| impact, but very large impact to reduce use of
| hydrocarbons for electricity production.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Then you probably shouldn't build large solar farms.
| Leaves still a huge amount of area open on top of roofs,
| parking lots, streets which could be used for solar
| without cutting down a single tree. Though it somehow
| didn't prevent those roads and houses to be build :p And
| while I don't like cutting down trees, just fire
| protection - and that gets an even larger topic in the
| future - should tell you to cut down trees directly
| around houses, so rooftop solar should be possible in
| most places.
|
| But the thing is: the pacific northwest should be ideal
| for wind power. So that would be the main emphasis. And
| then build a high power line to Nevada. Which delivers
| solar to the northwest and in the nights wind power to
| Nevada.
|
| Germany already has a 1.4GW powerline to Norway
| operational, where we network the grid to optimize
| renewable utilization.
| angiosperm wrote:
| _Nobody_ builds solar farms on "north-facing slopes".
| _Nobody_ is making solar panels "track the sun". _Nobody
| even proposes_ "clearcutting forests" for solar farms.
| Trolling is in strict violation of site guidelines.
| Lendal wrote:
| Well, actually Florida (FPL) along I-10 is right now
| constructing new solar farms where there used to be
| forests. I'm not sure if what they did with the trees
| constitutes "clear cutting" but the solar panels are
| there now, and the trees are not. I've driven the route
| for many years. It was all forested.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Do you know if those forests were professionally managed
| for paper production? It might be private land, and it
| very likely legal.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Nobody is making solar panels "track the sun".
|
| It's very common for utility-scale solar to use single-
| axis trackers (the panels move from pointing east to
| pointing west through the day), unlike small-scale solar
| which usually has fixed panels (normally pointing south
| or north depending on which hemisphere you're on). The
| gain from single-axis trackers is high enough and their
| cost is low enough (a single geared motor can move a
| whole row of panels) to make it cost-effective.
|
| (I haven't, so far, seen any large photovoltaic solar
| power plant which uses two-axis trackers to _really_
| track the sun; but thermal solar power plants with a
| central tower need these two-axis trackers to aim each
| mirror at the correct angle.)
| _ph_ wrote:
| I think trackers are a thing of the past. The cost of
| solar panels has sunken so low, they come essentially for
| free in installations. A tracker would be way to
| expensive. Here in Germany, people even start covering
| north-facing roofs with solar, and of course even walls
| and fences, if they are roughly in the right direction.
| spinach wrote:
| I'm not sure about the other things but sun tracking tech
| for solar panels has been around for a long time and it's
| trivially easy to find through a search, such as [1].
|
| "But there are also other ways to boost the energy
| production of solar panels - such as by tilting them to
| follow the Sun's path in the sky, similar to the way
| young sunflowers follow the sun from east to west during
| the day. Tracking technology, which is already in use on
| some land based solar arrays, helps increase the overall
| electricity production, as the panels constantly adjust
| to face the Sun."
|
| 1) www.bbc.com/future/article/20221116-the-floating-
| solar-panels-that-track-the-sun
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Trackers are necessary if someone is doing math based on
| panels perpendicular to the sun. Of course they are rare,
| but are needed when doing the conversion. Whether the
| tracked pannel cast shadow, or more panels recieve less-
| than-direct sunlight, the math is the same.
| angiosperm wrote:
| And it is all irrelevant. There is an absolute
| overabundance of pasture land, so spacing panels out so
| the grass can grow between and under causes no
| difficulty.
| shwouchk wrote:
| One interesting point that I think is often missed, is that
| solar and wind produce energy roughly at an anticadence to
| each other and so storage is of significantly less of a
| requirement than one might imagine.
| ericd wrote:
| Can we not overbuild solar and wind such that the troughs are
| nearly good enough, combined with high voltage cross-regional
| transmission lines, and limited storage for buffer? Solar
| panels are absurdly cheap, and the world has a lot of
| equatorial desert.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Yes, we can, and will do. Solar is so cheap that 4x
| overbuild is still cheaper than nukes, and cost is still
| plummeting.
| asylteltine wrote:
| Nuclear is the way forward. It's a damn shame hippies stopped
| us from leveraging it. We literally wouldn't have climate
| change if we kept increasing nuclear power plants in the 70s.
| It's just a no brainer. Solar and wind are great but the
| amount of power they generate may as well be 0 compared to
| nuclear.
| Faaak wrote:
| > We literally wouldn't have climate change if we kept
| increasing nuclear power plants in the 70s
|
| I highly doubt this
| asylteltine wrote:
| Methane and coal is the largest driver of climate change
| simplyluke wrote:
| > Solar and wind are great but the amount of power they
| generate may as well be 0 compared to nuclear.
|
| This is very untrue both measured in absolute numbers, and
| in cost/kwh. Nuclear is 2x solar and wind, both of which
| are decreasing in cost rapidly YoY.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/194327/estimated-
| leveliz...
| ken47 wrote:
| You're comparing a one-time-use resource in U235 vs. the land
| required for a solar plant, which will last indefinitely for
| all intents and purposes. Adding the "in a day" constraint is
| quite misleading in your comment when that is not the long-
| term limiting factor.
|
| Let's not forget that the externalities of nuclear power are
| generally much more costly than solar / wind.
| nojvek wrote:
| We need to move away from coal as soon as we can. Coal is
| worst CO2 pollutant and not that energy dense.
|
| Move to a mixture of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear
| - whatever makes sense.
|
| When the last coal powered plant is shut off in US, we should
| celebrate that as a day off for everyone.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Have you seen the Lazard lcoe numbers? Nukes are 6x more
| expensive than wind solar.
|
| And wind and especially solar have more economies of scale
| and materials research to make them even cheaper.
|
| This comes from a LFTR fanboy. Boy howdy do I wish economical
| nuclear existed. But 6x as expensive? That ain't all red
| tape.
|
| I think of course that LFTR has a path to cheaper nuclear
| with breeding and near waste elimination, full fuel use,
| safety, and scalability. But I don't think it will ever beat
| solar, especially once mature multifunction silicon
| perovskite cells or something like that and salt water
| batteries develop.
|
| I hope to be proven wrong.nyclest power is so cool.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Too cheap for "American nuclear" to compete.
|
| Chinese nuclear can compete just fine.
| epistasis wrote:
| Chinese nuclear is not competing very well. There's a
| minuscule amount of it planned, only like 50GW over the
| coming decades. This is not even a drop in the bucket
| compared to what China are doing with batteries, wind, and
| solar.
| gambiting wrote:
| It's 50GW more than anyone else though. There are some
| nuclear projects in US/UK but I'll eat my hat if they
| actually get built at all.
| mpweiher wrote:
| That's currently changing.
|
| The catastrophe of Germany's "Energiewende" has made a
| lot of countries re-evaluate their nuclear strategy,
| culminating in the COP28 nuclear pledge.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Evidently you missed the news that it turned out to be no
| catastrophe at all, but just a lot of hand-wringing and
| pearl-clutching over a clearly hoped-for catastrophe.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Yeah, evidently I missed the news that after 20 years of
| Energiewende, Germany has the 2nd most expensive AND the
| 2nd dirtiest electricity in Europe and that the old plan
| of "we'll use wind and solar when the wind blows and the
| sun shines, and when they do not <a miracle occurs>"
| really worked out perfectly, particularly when the
| miracle turned out to be "Russian gas" and exploded in
| our face, causing us to have to buy up essentially all
| the gas available on the open market at horrible expense
| after Russia started blackmailing us.
|
| Note that "buying up all the gas on the open market" is
| not a strategy that too many countries can follow at
| once, hence other countries started to look elsewhere.
| For example, Japan, who were going to exit nuclear, and
| are now turning more and more of their old plants back on
| and have announced they will be building more (!), very
| specifically to replace reliance on LNG shipments.
|
| And yeah, we got really, really lucky with the mild
| winter of 2022. Apparently not too many other countries
| think that "luck" is sound energy policy, but YMMV. Also
| slightly unpopular in the world is our tried and true
| method of "we'll lower emissions by pushing our economy
| into recession due to high energy costs". And the
| constitutional court also took a dim view of trying to
| hide all the extra costs off the main budget, so the real
| costs are only now starting to emerge. The farmer demos
| were probably just the start of the unrest when the pain
| gets passed onto the population. A population that
| already now thinks the getting out of nuclear was a
| mistake:
|
| "Sechs von zehn Befragten (59 Prozent) im aktuellen
| DeutschlandTrend fur das ARD-Morgenmagazin halten die
| Entscheidung der Politik fur falsch,"
|
| https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutsch
| lan...
|
| Meanwhile, the coalition that is pushing this through
| against the voters is now down to 32% in the polls.
|
| But you're right, I really should have followed the news
| more!
|
| _The Tragedy of Germany's Energy Experiment_
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opinion/nuclear-power-
| ger...
|
| _Germany's Energiewende: A Disaster In The Making_
|
| https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/germanys-
| energiewende-a...
|
| _Germany's Energy Disaster 20 Years Later_
|
| https://www.americanexperiment.org/germanys-energy-
| disaster-...
|
| _Germany's Energy Crisis Dispels Several Myths_
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2022/08/31/germ
| any...
|
| "Much of its problem is self-inflicted and demonstrates
| the perils of populist but irrational energy policy."
|
| You are right, I really should follow the news more!
| _ph_ wrote:
| I am from Germany, and I am just replying for the record:
| You are just repeating right wing propaganda, which tries
| to paint black pictures about a policy they helped
| implementing. But the truth is, the current government
| was able to avoid a gas shortage after Russia had cut off
| deliveries to Germany and that was the only possible
| problematic point in the winter of 22. By now we have
| enough capacity to import LNG to avoid shortages while
| the Energiewende has take up speed again. It hasn't
| failed at all, but the previous government had tried the
| best to make it fail. But coal usage in Germany has still
| been on a historic low in 23.
|
| Oh, and the grid in France managed to keep up only
| because Germany was propping it up as too many old
| nuclear reactors had to be taken off grid. Which caused a
| small uptake in German coal production. But in 23 the
| downward trend continued.
| mpweiher wrote:
| I am also from Germany.
|
| The fact that the left ( _my_ side, I have never voted
| for an even moderate right party in my life) won 't let
| go of this purely ideologically driven energy policy that
| is proving disastrous and that 59% of the population (and
| rising) oppose maybe one of the reasons the current
| ruling coalition has fallen to 32% in the polls (those
| numbers match surprisingly well), and there is starting
| to be unrest in the streets.
|
| For example the most recent demonstrations by farmers.
| They are supposed to pay billions of Euros extra for the
| Diesel fuel for their tractors because the constitutional
| court declared all the off-books vehicles the government
| tried to use to hide the subsidies for the energy crisis
| illegal. And so the government now has to actually
| account for all that money, and is scrambling to find
| places to cut in the budget. All the <a miracle occurs>
| little white lies are coming out. It's not pretty.
|
| And the failed energy policy is also one of the primary
| reasons the really, really awful far right parties like
| the AfD have doubled from ~10% last election to 20% in
| current polls. That was one of the catastrophic results
| of this catastrophic energy policy that I didn't mention
| before, because I am not that interested in party
| politics.
|
| "Die in weiten Teilen rechtsextreme AfD erzielt vor allem
| in Regionen gute Wahlergebnisse, in denen die Industrie
| wegen der Klimapolitik vor Umbruchen steht."
|
| https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/klimazie
| le-...
|
| The vast majority of AfD voters (75% according to stats I
| have seen) do not vote for the AfD because they are
| Nazis. They hold their noses at the awful ideology, but
| don't see an alternative to some of the awful policies
| being enacted.
|
| And I am 100% in agreement with you that the moderate
| right like the CDU are just as much to blame as the
| current government. They had the chance to stop the
| madness, but instead they made a populistic calculation
| that keeping this irrational energy policy would keep
| them in power a little longer. Pathetic. Particularly
| pathetic because they knew it was wrong, whereas the
| Greens apparently believe their BS.
|
| Now the CDU/CSU seems to be turning around (also
| pathetically) to be more pro-nuclear, conveniently
| "forgetting" that it was them that passed the current
| laws mandating getting out of nuclear, but at least they
| are providing an alternative to the current failed
| policies that isn't the AfD. Lesser of three evils, I
| guess.
|
| Our catastrophic energy policy also contributed to the
| war in Ukraine, because Putin (incorrectly, it turned
| out, partly because Habeck did am _amazing_ job of crisis
| management) assumed he could blackmail us into not
| supporting Ukraine.
|
| You denounce what I write as "right wing propaganda",
| without being able to list a single thing about it that
| is wrong. Because it is not wrong. What I write is
| correct. When the only political parties telling the
| truth about an important subject are the far right, we
| are in serious trouble as a democracy. Serious, serious
| trouble.
|
| I don't want the AfD. Please stop the madness that is
| bringing them to power.
|
| I have already debunked the narrative about French
| reactors in '22 in detail elsewhere, here's the summary:
|
| "The shutdowns for the inspections and maintenance were
| planned. Not for a single plant, for a lot of plants. The
| inspections found a problem. The shutdowns were extended
| so they could be fixed, in the original plants and in
| other plants that might also be affected.
|
| The shutdowns, the inspections and the maintenance were
| planned.
|
| What they found was obviously not planned. If you could
| plan for what you find during an inspection, you wouldn't
| need an inspection. That's why you inspect."
|
| France was able to plan their inspections and routine
| maintenance for the summer, because nuclear can be
| planned, the capacity factor is generally >90%. Have you
| tried planning a storm? The capacity factor for
| wind/solar is <15%.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Well, if you are serious, lets start with reasonable
| discussions, not with propaganda. It isn't the politics
| of the current government which is a disaster, it was
| that of the previous ones. They killed nuclear, they
| curbed the switch to renewables and indeed, NS1 and NS2
| were clearly built by Russia to allow the war in Ukraine.
| It was bizarre that German politics of that time agreed
| to that.
|
| By the way, the farmers don't have to pay billions, it is
| several hundreds of millions. And this came also only
| because of the stupid "Schuldenbremse", which is a great
| way to ruin a country. Guess who is responsible of that.
|
| And what you say about the French reactors doesn't
| invalidate what I wrote. They had to be taken down longer
| than planned, creating shortages. On top of that the
| fact, that in hot years, they just cannot run them fully
| through the summer due to lack of cooling. As summers
| will get hotter, France will have to quickly come up with
| some solutions.
|
| I don't want the AfD to gain any power too, but the
| solution against that isn't telling more lies. It is
| telling less lies. But too many parties think it is a
| recipe for success to finger-point at the greens and tell
| propaganda which helps the AfD. And towards those 75% you
| claim which don't want to vote for Nazis, well, the bad
| news is, they do.
|
| The thing is, all democratic parties have to perform
| better. But as long they prefer petty fights instead of
| working on solving the problems we have, the non-
| democratic parties are on a rise.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > not with propaganda.
|
| If you are serious, how about not labeling facts you
| don't like as "propaganda"? Just sayin'.
|
| "Es stehe eine "Steuererhohung in Hohe von einer
| Milliarde Euro" fur die Landwirtschaft im Raum."
|
| https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/landwi
| rts...
|
| The French chose to take their reactors offline for
| maintenance. _chose_. And of course they are in a worse
| state than they should be because of decades-long
| underinvestment, including not building new ones. They
| need to build new ones to avoid these problems.
| Fortunately, that 's what they are doing now.
|
| _Macron calls for nuclear 'renaissance' to end the
| France's reliance on fossil fuels_
|
| https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/11/macron-calls-
| for-n...
|
| > but the solution against that isn't telling more lies.
|
| Absolutely. Lies like claiming the Energiewende is a
| roaring success when the fact that it is not is clear to
| the entire world, including 59% of the German population.
| 2nd most expensive electricity, 2nd dirtiest electricity
| in the EU. After 20 years, not even halfway done, with no
| real idea how to accomplish the other half apart from <a
| miracle occurs>. When the French accomplished their CO2
| free electrification in 20 years. And then dropped the
| ball by underinvesting.
|
| And they also saved money by building some plants near
| rivers without cooling towers, which most thermal plants
| need and virtually all thermal plants in Germany, for
| example, have. This is just not a problem, we know how to
| build plants with cooling towers.
|
| Again, the German anti-nuclear-bubble likes to make a big
| deal about some French problems as somehow being a
| problem with nuclear-in-principle and thus nobody should
| invest in nuclear. When they are exactly the opposite:
| problems with _underinvestment_ in nuclear, particularly
| over the last 20 years or so, where virtually no new
| plants were built. The solution is to, once again, invest
| more in nuclear.
|
| > And towards those 75% you claim which don't want to
| vote for Nazis, well, the bad news is, they do.
|
| You misconstrue what I wrote: large parts of the left
| denounce AfD _voters_ as Nazis, and thus as people whose
| concerns do not matter. Just like you do. But that 's not
| correct, 75% of AfD voters are not close to being Nazis
| and do not support the party's ideology. They are people
| who are not being listened to. And your solution is not
| to listen to them, because they are Nazis. Good luck with
| that, I am sure that will win them over to our side.
|
| > The thing is, all democratic parties have to perform
| better.
|
| Yes. For example drop policies that are clearly,
| obviously and painfully not working. As for example a
| "populist but irrational energy policy." (quote from the
| Forbes article below) And not denounce those who spell
| out the facts of this as nazis and the facts they present
| as right wing propaganda. Just a suggestion.
|
| Once again, "populist and irrational energy policy".
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2022/08/31/germ
| any...
|
| Written by Michael Lynch. Are you going to denounce him
| as a Nazi, too? And the serious analysis he did as "right
| wing propaganda"?
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/
|
| "Distinguished Fellow at the Energy Policy Research
| Foundation and President of Strategic Energy and Economic
| Research. I spent nearly 30 years at MIT as a student and
| then researcher at the Energy Laboratory and Center for
| International Studies. I then spent several years at what
| is now IHS Global Insight and was chief energy
| economist."
|
| And of course, all the countries that are turning back to
| nuclear: Japan, Poland, France, Sweden, Finland, etc. All
| Nazis?
| _ph_ wrote:
| You wrote "billions". The one billion comes from the
| representative of the farmer. So my hundreds of millions
| is probably closest to the truth. But that has nothing to
| do with nuclear.
|
| And the French took the reactors down because of required
| maintenance, part of it was unexpected after the found
| problems. But the main point is: they were down and
| France required imports to keep the grid up. You don't
| even comment on the cooling problems.
|
| They "are" not building new ones. They fail to finish
| Flammaville so far. The president talks about plans, but
| until they become at least a construction project, don't
| talk about "are building". And even then, it would take
| like 20 years to finish those.
|
| And once again, you are not even responding to my
| arguments about the Energiewende. You treat it as a
| failure while it is ongoing. Why it was delayed, I
| explained, but you ignore that. Are you really trying to
| tell me, that you are not an AfD supporter with your
| style and trail of argumentation.
|
| And I simply stated, those people who vote for Nazis are
| voting for Nazis and there is no way around stating that.
|
| I am not sure, why you claim I call anyone who supports
| nucler a Nazi, that was only said on those who vote for
| Nazis. I don't know who Michel Lynch votes for. His
| writing though has quite a few inaccuracies and I dispute
| some of his conclusions. But that is a factual
| difference.
|
| And of course, your final sentence is absolutely polemic.
| I have not said anything in the direction. Why are you
| suggesting that?
|
| By the way, your statement, that they are "turning back
| to nuclear" is quite inaccurate too. But the discussion
| so far hasn't been a very constructive one, so little
| reason to elaborate on that further that Finland did
| finish one reactor recently and at the same time
| cancelled the project tho bild another one...
| mpweiher wrote:
| > You don't even comment on the cooling problems
|
| Hmm...
|
| "And they also saved money by building some plants near
| rivers without cooling towers, which most thermal plants
| need and virtually all thermal plants in Germany, for
| example, have. This is just not a problem, we know how to
| build plants with cooling towers."
|
| From the post you replied to. Cooling is a non-issue.
| Under-investment in nuclear is an issue.
|
| > I am not sure, why you claim I call anyone who supports
| nucler a Nazi
|
| I can tell you why: because you denounced my factual post
| as "right wing propaganda", and me, by extension, a right
| wing propagandist. And that was essentially your entire
| reaction.
|
| "Facts? Who cares, you are a nazi."
|
| And of course the French aren't building the new
| reactors, _yet_. Their turnaround away from their
| mistaken anti-nuclear policy only happened in March _this
| year_.
|
| > The president talks about plans
|
| No, the president talks about government policy. And that
| government policy has been voted into law. March 2023.
|
| > By the way, your statement, that they are "turning back
| to nuclear" is quite inaccurate too
|
| How so?
|
| > Finland
|
| "In June 2019, the government announced a new energy
| policy with the objective of achieving carbon neutrality
| by 2035. The policy would see a complete phase-out of
| coal power by May 2029. In addition to the commissioning
| of two nuclear power reactors, the policy is supportive
| of operating lifetime extensions for existing reactors."
|
| Hmm...
|
| > cancelled the project tho bild another one...
|
| You mean they cancelled their plans to build a reactor
| with Russia's Rossatom?
|
| Now what might the reason for this be? Can't possibly
| have anything to do with, dunno, Russia? Always the
| disingenuous arguments.
|
| And of course the new nuclear reactor they just turned on
| is already providing 40% of Finland's electricity.
|
| How many more of those do you reckon' they need?
| _ph_ wrote:
| Oh, I missed that one line in a rather busy post. If you
| claim that cooling is a non-issue, you are lying. Some
| had to reduce power and also the maximum allowed river
| temperatures had to be adjusted. (https://www.handelsblat
| t.com/politik/international/energie-t...)
|
| I never called you a Nazi. Why misrepresent the facts? I
| only stated that your text reads like some right wing
| propaganda. Which it does. And not every right-wing
| person is a Nazi.
|
| And wrt. to Finland I was talking about Block 4 of
| Olkiluoto. Block 3 went online this year. And yes, it
| delivers a significant part of the grid in Finland, which
| already has caused issues. Because Block 3 had to be
| pulled of the net several times - which immediately
| removes a large fraction of the grid power in an instant.
| That is why they currently keep a nearby coal power plant
| in hot standby to ensure grid stability.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > If you claim that cooling is a non-issue, you are
| lying.
|
| No I am not. And please stop it with the personal
| attacks.
|
| It is non-issue for _nuclear_. Because. We. Know. How.
| To. Build. Cooling. Towers.
|
| If you cheap out and don't build a cooling tower, heat
| can become an issue.
|
| If you build a car with an insufficient radiator, heat
| can also become an issue.
|
| This is not an issue with cars in general, this is an
| issue with having a radiator that is too small. Because
| we know how to build cars that have large enough
| radiators.
|
| And no, you did not write that what I wrote "reads like"
| right wing propaganda. You wrote that I was "repeating
| right wing propaganda". Ergo a right wing propagandist,
| ergo a nazi. Or someone who _reads_ and _listens_ to
| right wing propaganda and repeats it. Which is probably
| worse, because stupid and still a nazi.
|
| Wrt. Finland: they hadn't even decided what type of
| reactor to build for Block 4, and due to the "special
| operation" those plans are now being given new priority,
| but not urgency (not needed yet).
|
| And, if I read you correctly, you consider a power plant
| delivering lots of power a problem. Whatever. For a
| country that size, I personally also would have chosen a
| larger number of smaller reactors rather than one huge
| one. But that's their choice.
| angiosperm wrote:
| When you find you need to lie to make your case, you
| reveal you have no case.
| mpweiher wrote:
| So don't lie then.
|
| I didn't.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You know the proverb about Nazis: You are either a good
| person and smart, then you cannot be a Nazi, or you can
| be smart and a Nazi, then you cannot be a good person, or
| a good person and a Nazi, then cannot be smart.
|
| If you vote for the AfD, you know full well what ideology
| they stand for. Very best case, you are tacitely
| supportive, but more likely to be firmly in the AfD camp.
| Or just manipulated, and that's why propaganda is the
| right word to use.
|
| And yes, a ton of the anti-renewables / pro-nuclear
| talking points in Germany are actually just that: right
| wing propaganda.
| mpweiher wrote:
| "China has 55 plants with 57GW in operation, 22 under
| construction with 24 GW and more than 70 planned with
| 88GW."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
|
| So the current plans are for roughly tripling installed
| capacity.
| lamontcg wrote:
| China built out 180-230 GW of solar last year. They
| deployed more in one year than the total installed base
| of nuclear that China is expected to have by 2030.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Nameplate capacity. Divide by 6 to get _average_
| capacity. And then you need something to cover the
| variance at the low end, which tends to be zero.
|
| Preferably something that's also CO2 free.
|
| Ideas?
| hef19898 wrote:
| A lot, but none you ever wanted to listen to so far. Fact
| is, even China isn't massivley investing in NPPs, but
| rather wind and solar. I'll risk a guess and say that
| they have a plan to cope with a grid in a highly
| industrialized environment that trends more and more
| towards renewables.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Oh, non-intermittent CO2 free energy sources that we have
| now and can just build?
|
| In the quantities required?
|
| Why are we building out solar and wind then, this is so
| much better!
|
| All ears!
| hef19898 wrote:
| All ears? Really? Ok, the solution lies in the grid and
| demand flexibility, combined storage, mainly batteries,
| and keeping existing NPPs running as long as possible to
| allow the above to catch up.
|
| Feel free to google all of that, because I am tired of
| trying to explain that to people by now, sorry...
| mpweiher wrote:
| So it doesn't actually exist.
|
| Thanks for clearing that up.
|
| And the old tired mechanism of "we have some very rough
| ideas of technologies that might come together if
| developed, together with some techniques that have never
| really been tried and where it is unclear whether the
| market will accept them". This is obviously a done deal.
|
| On the other hand we have: "there are these power plants
| we know how to build, because we have already built quite
| a lot of them. all we need to do is build more of them."
| That is insane crazy talk that could never possibly work.
|
| And even better: "various countries have just committed
| to doing this, some have enacted laws, some have ordered
| plants, etc. All have changed policy". -> I cannot see
| the results RIGHT NOW, so it doesn't exist.
| epistasis wrote:
| 50GW, 88GW, it's all small potatoes compared to the
| hundreds of GW of annual additions for other
| technologies.
|
| If nuclear could compete, China would be building the
| hell out of it, and selling it internationally. Getting
| other countries to use your nuclear supply chain for
| their electrical infrastructure is such a huge
| geopolitical win that if it were possible, it would be
| one of the key political and economic strategies of
| China.
|
| If China, one of the few countries with a mastery of
| large construction projects, can't make nuclear cheap,
| what hope do more advanced economies have with their
| higher labor costs?
| mpweiher wrote:
| Those "hundreds" are nameplate capacities. For wind/solar
| you need to divide them by factor of 6 to even get to
| actual _average_ production, as the capacity factor of
| wind /solar is below 15%, whereas for nuclear plants it
| is greater than 90%.
|
| And of course average is not good enough for an electric
| grid, the variance is highly relevant. As my statistics
| professor used to quiet: if your left leg is standing in
| liquid nitrogen and your right leg is standing in boiling
| oil, you are enjoying a perfectly comfortable mean
| temperature.
|
| Variance matters. A lot. In an electric grid, you need to
| be able to cover minimum requirements even when solar and
| wind are having a bad day or night.
|
| China got their solar industry financed by German
| subsidies, and they have plentiful deserts with lots of
| sunshine. The Gobi desert is the place on earth with the
| most sunshine hours, apparently more than the Sahara(!).
| It would be insane for them to not take advantage of that
| to reduce their use of coal, now at what, 65%?
|
| But they also apparently think that safe, reliable and
| cheap nuclear energy is an important part of their energy
| mix, otherwise they wouldn't be planning on tripling
| their generating capacity, would they now?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > The new 1,114 megawatt (MW) Unit 3 reactor joins two existing
| reactors
|
| It's indeed not a lot. At a great cost. That kind of is the
| point. Nuclear is very costly.
|
| Solar, wind, battery storage, and other cheap alternatives are
| indeed being rolled out at a plural orders of magnitude larger
| scale.
| mcint wrote:
| Nuclear is costly _now_*. It wasn't getting built, for years.
| There is so much energy to be had from that, and cost
| learning curves can come down. France's ("small") modular
| reactors, SMR, they even aim to sell internationally, in
| their 2030 plan, are a model. To China no less.
|
| China also builds nuclear reactors, and we can't fall behind
| them. I cannot abide an SMR gap.
| grecy wrote:
| > _China also builds nuclear reactors, and we can 't fall
| behind them_
|
| I, uh, have some uncomfortable news for you.
|
| China are currently building 22 nuclear reactors [1]
|
| China installed 230GW of solar and wind in 2023 [2]
|
| China has over 40,000kms of High Speed Rail, and continues
| to expand [3]
|
| By _any_ measure, you 're falling way behind them.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/30/china-is-
| building...
|
| [2] https://www.asiafinancial.com/china-seen-
| installing-230-gw-o...
|
| [3] https://www.statista.com/topics/7534/high-speed-rail-
| in-chin...
| neither_color wrote:
| Last I checked they're also outcompeting everyone in new
| coal plants
| https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-
| building-...
| grecy wrote:
| If I'm up against you in a beer drinking contest and I
| drink more beer AND more whisky than you... I still win
| the beer drinking contest.
| fastball wrote:
| Complete non-sequitur. OP said "China is building
| nuclear", not "China is building more nuclear than
| wind/solar".
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Their capacity factors are getting ever lower and at the
| same time they added more renewables than the growth for
| the electricity grid.
|
| In other words, their CO2 emissions are set for
| structural decline simply by the amount of renewables
| being built. China is way ahead of the west.
|
| https://theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-
| carbon-e...
| doikor wrote:
| Some parts of the west already did that years ago in
| electricity production. For example carbon free
| electricity production shares in France (88%), Sweden
| (98%), Finland (90%), etc.
|
| Though there is still a lot of work to do to go fully CO2
| neutral due to cars, trucks, ships, planes, fertiliser
| production, etc.
| neither_color wrote:
| My concern is that, since it's harmful to the planet and
| they're on track to be the largest economy, their
| absolute coal output is more relevant to the rest of the
| world than what percentage of its respective GDP it is. I
| don't necessarily blame them since their main priority is
| their own growth, but we're relying on their good will in
| 2030 without any way to enforce reduction if they change
| their mind.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > 230GW of solar and wind in 2023
|
| Nameplate capacity. For actual average output, divide by
| 6.
|
| And it doesn't even deliver that 1/6th consistently, so
| you unless you want blackouts you also need an
| alternative that delivers power reliably.
| nradov wrote:
| Perhaps, but so far in the US we still don't have any really
| large battery storage facilities connected to the grid. These
| will be necessary if want to have reliable base load capacity
| without building more nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. The
| largest battery storage facility being built right now only has
| 2165 MWh of capacity, which is a drop in the bucket relative to
| demand.
|
| https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/edwards-sanborn-so...
|
| Battery prices keep falling, but the supply chain is still
| constrained and there are huge expenses involved in building
| storage facilities that go beyond the cost of the cells. Other
| storage systems such as pumped hydroelectric or electrolyzed
| hydrogen may play a role but aren't cheap either.
| epistasis wrote:
| There's little reason to build massive batteries at one spot,
| unless you are repurposing an only transmission line.
|
| Instead, a good chunk of grid storage is getting deployed
| right at the generation site of solar (and some wind), which
| allows more efficient use of that transmission line.
|
| Instead, we should be looking for large amounts of total
| install. However, this still won't happen much until it's
| actually needed by the grid, which starts to happen at much
| higher amounts of renewable generation than most states are
| using.
|
| The tech is there, it's being deployed at massive scale where
| needed, and it's dropping in cost as fast or faster than
| predicted.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The tech is not here. The scale of grid storage required to
| fulfill just diurnal storage - let alone days or weeks to
| offset seasonal variation - is far beyond what batteries
| can provide. To put this in perspective, the US _alone_
| uses 12 TWh of electricity per day. The world uses 60 TWh
| per day. Both of these figures are going to increase, as
| poorer countries develop and want amenities like air
| conditioning. Also, as transportation and industrial
| processes are electrified. By comparison, global battery
| production is around 500 GWh per year. Yes, this will
| increase. But most of that production is going to
| electronics and EVs, not grid storage.
|
| This is why proponents of a primarily wind + solar grid
| assume that hydrogen, ammonia, compressed air, giant
| concrete weights, or something else will make energy
| storage nearly free. Delivering the required storage scale
| with existing technologies isn't feasible, so people just
| assume that some other heretofore unproven technology will
| be orders of magnitude better.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The point of the various 100% solar, wind, battery
| projections that exist is that no new tech is needed.
|
| Things won't be 100% Solar, Wind, Battery because other
| minor techs like nuclear, hydro, tidal, biomass or
| whatever already exist to some degree and can be part of
| the system. But current solar, wind and battery tech is
| enough, we just need to build it. The first 80% is the
| easy bit, with the greates payback, so there's no need to
| wait around.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Batteries cannot feasibly achieve the scale required to
| even out diurnal, let alone seasonal, fluctuations. The
| amount of batteries produced is nowhere near enough to
| satisfy demands for grid storage, and it'd massively set
| back electric vehicle adoption. Even as battery
| production ramps up, it's mostly going to go the EVs.
| Furthermore, electricity demand is going to go up too as
| people move from gas heating to electric heating and
| combustion vehicles are replaced with EVs.
|
| "No new tech is needed" is a pointless statement if it
| can't reach the required scale. You might as well say
| "just build more dams". We don't need any more wind or
| solar. Just build dams everywhere.
| epistasis wrote:
| This sort of argument does not pay attention to numeracy
| or the existing plans for battery production within the
| 2020s.
|
| We can't build more dams because there really is a hard
| limit on the geographical sites. With batteries, we
| already have commitments for factories to build 1TWh/year
| within the US alone by 2030. Worldwide production will be
| several times that.
|
| Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10 hours
| that's only 4TWh. With batteries lasting 20 years, only
| need 200GWh/year of production to fill that diurnal need.
|
| Batteries are cheap and scaling at a scale that we
| couldn't dream of scaling our construction capacity. Our
| limited construction capacity should be reserved for high
| speed rail, subways, and housing in urban centers.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Battery production will increase, yes, but so will
| electricity demand as transportation, heating, and
| industrial processes are electrified. Right now
| electricity use is only 37% of total energy use [1].
|
| > Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10
| hours that's only 4TWh
|
| Again, it's 12 hours for diurnal storage not 8 hours.
| More than 12 hours during the winter, actually. And
| diurnal storage isn't the only type of storage that's
| necessary. Factor in storage to even out seasonal
| fluctuations and you're looking at days maybe even weeks
| of energy storage. And again, 500 GW is going to turn
| into 1,300 GW as the rest of our energy use is
| electrified.
|
| Batteries don't last 20 years, not even close. Diurnal
| storage is going to be cycled daily. A typical lithium
| ion cell lasts 300-500 charge cycles [2]. You can prolong
| this by limiting depth of discharge but this has the side
| effect of reducing the usable capacity. Let's be generous
| and assume 2,000 cycles that's only 5 and a half years.
|
| 200 GWh per year is still a massive amount of batteries.
| We're talking about over a third of _global_ battery
| production to provide 8 hours of storage for just _one_
| country. And again, in reality we need more than 8 hours
| of storage and batteries don 't last nearly as long as
| you claim.
|
| There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid
| assume that compressed air, hydrogen, or something else
| will account for the majority of storage: batteries
| aren't available in sufficient quantity, and deploying
| grid storage at any significant scale will severely
| reduce availability of batteries for EVs.
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States
|
| 2. https://au.renogy.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-
| know-about....
| epistasis wrote:
| In a decade of following plans for 100% renewable grids,
| compressed air has never made it as a conceivable
| solution. Similarly hydrogen almost never gets on the
| list, and it's only there assuming some sort of currently
| non-existent tech advances far in excess of what is ever
| allowed to batteries. And yet, batteries make the list on
| all these plans!
|
| As for your link, this is just flat out misinformation
| for grid batteries. Might apply to phones:
|
| > How Many Cycles Can You Get Out Of A Lithium-Ion
| Battery?
|
| >A Lithium-Ion battery's average life span is 2 to 3
| years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever comes first.
| As we put it, a charging cycle is a duration of
| utilization when the battery is fully charged, completely
| drained, and wholly recharged.
|
| Industrial grid storage is rated to daily discharge for
| more than 10 years, with warranties typically around
| 12-14 years and expected life far afterward. 5000-10,000
| cycles is more realistic.
|
| Every five years, battery production capacity is growing
| 10x, prices drop dramatically. What is this limit? What
| is the reason it's suddenly going to stop? There's no
| answer other that I can see other than "I thought this 10
| years ago so it's probably true too."
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Industrial grid storage is rated to daily discharge for
| more than 10 years, with warranties typically around
| 12-14 years and expected life far afterward. 5000-10,000
| cycles is more realistic.
|
| I'd be very, _very_ interested in these lithium ion
| batteries that have a life span of 10,000 cycles. The
| only way this would be achieved is with a very small
| depth of discharge, which severely reduces usable
| storage. I at least provided a link to back up my claims,
| yet you accuse me of spreading misinformation despite not
| doing anything at all to back up yours. Alternative
| chemistries like lithium iron phosphate achieve 3,000 -
| 5,000 cycles [1] at 80% depth of discharge. They last
| 5-10 years, not 14 [2]. But that 's a new batter
| chemistry with smaller share of the battery market than
| typical lithium ion, and they also have smaller
| capacities than lithium ion and lower max power output.
|
| Batteries are already being bottlenecked by input
| materials. Manufacturing accounts for only a quarter of a
| battery's cost [3]. Scaling out batteries is already
| becoming a problem of resource extraction. Even if the
| manufacturing cost is optimized to zero, the cost of
| inputs are still there.
|
| The cost of a new car went from a quarter of a million
| dollars in 1900 to $25,000 in 1920. Would it be
| reasonable to observe that the cost of a car was falling
| by a quarter every two decades and predict that a new car
| would cost $6,250 in 1940, $1,500 in 1960, and $100 by
| 2000? Why would this scaling stop? What's the limit? Why
| didn't cars keep dropping in price?
|
| 1. https://ecotreelithium.co.uk/news/how-long-does-
| lifepo4-batt....
|
| 2. https://ecotreelithium.co.uk/news/how-long-does-
| lifepo4-batt....
|
| 3. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-
| cost-of-a...
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| But if you still need to support the complete gas,
| hydro.... infrastructure for those few months when
| wind/solar/battery is not enough, how cheap are those
| renewables then really?
| _ph_ wrote:
| Gas plants have their main cost in running them. So if
| they only fill the gaps, their cost is reduced too. But
| yes, they are not to be considered "profitable" but
| rather as part of the infrastructure like powerlines. But
| as solar and wind costs only a fraction of gas when
| running, this is a good trade off.
| epistasis wrote:
| The numbers in your post do not march your claim of the
| text not being there. Scaling production of existing tech
| 10-100x, or even 1000x, will surely result in new
| discovery too, but it we only need a few orders of
| magnitude increase in production, that's proof that the
| tech is there.
|
| Compare this to nuclear. Let's increase our production
| levels 100x. Where does that leave us, assuming that it
| was magically economically acceptable to electricity
| customers to pay higher prices than necessary. 15 years
| for 2.2GW is about 150MW/year. 100x would be 15GW/year.
| That's nowhere close to being where we need for a full
| energy transition in the US.
|
| Nuclear, if it figures out its huge problems with
| construction, will be a small player to help with climate
| change. But in the year 2023, we know the big players:
| solar, wind, and batteries. There's no more time for
| anybody else to scale to catch up. Nobody else has a tech
| that can compete with such fast dropping costs. The
| numbers and pace of change are hard to compete with.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Compare this to nuclear. Let's increase our production
| levels 100x.
|
| Nuclear power already produces 10% of the world's
| electricity [1]. A 100x increase leaves the world with 10
| times as much electricity as is needed, all coming from a
| decarbonized energy source.
|
| Wind and solar are cheap because we don't currently have
| to even out their intermittency. Take away peaker plants
| and then intermittent sources become way more
| challenging. Solar produces energy in a sinusoidal
| pattern daily, requiring at least 12 hours of storage for
| truly non-intermittent solar plants. It also fluctuates
| over the course of the year due to weather and
| inclination of the Earth [2]. Wind power similarly sees
| fluctuations over the course of the year [3].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation#M
| ethods...
|
| 2. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Estimated-
| normalized-mon...
|
| 3. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53637.pdf
| epistasis wrote:
| A 100x increase would get us back to what we were
| building half a century ago. Current nuclear production
| has been nonexistent, which is why this one reactor is
| such big news.
| amateuring wrote:
| loll sure
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| I'd bet you will be very wrong
| seb1204 wrote:
| I think you are wrong for the reason parent stated. Safety
| and regulations for nuclear are just too high to be
| competitive with modular solar that can scale and has no
| nuclear waste issue that is still unsolved.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Batteries haven't gotten cheap; unless we get some crazy
| breakthrough total wind and solar power production will
| probably peak within the next 20 years.
| angiosperm wrote:
| We already had the crazy breakthrough, which is why solar and
| wind production are on an exponential growth curve.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| You don't even "need" crazy battery breakthroughs - you can
| just build more wind and solar than you need + enough
| transmission infrastructure so you can deliver it to where
| it's needed. Of course batteries are getting cheaper
| regardless.
| avalys wrote:
| A little bit silly to compare the price of solar and batteries,
| which has been driven down due to extensive government subsidy,
| tax incentives, and massive economies of scale over the past
| few decades (including production in China), to the current
| estimated cost of nuclear plants that we have almost no
| experience building anymore.
|
| If we embarked on a sustained plan to invest in nuclear the way
| we have in solar and wind, nuclear's all-in cost would be far
| cheaper. I guarantee it.
| dalyons wrote:
| And I "guarantee" the opposite. Nuclear is fundamentally
| massive complicated technology that just wouldn't benefit
| from cost reductions due to manufacturing scale in the same
| degree. Solar is so so simple in comparison, that's why it's
| gotten so cheap and will continue to get cheaper. Maybe after
| 10 years of massively scaled nuke production we get costs
| down 2-4x . That would be nice but solar is down 30x and
| still dropping.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Exactly. Furthermore, it's not like we can go back 40 years
| and make stronger investments in nuclear from back then.
| The need to decarbonize is so massive _right now_ that it
| doesn 't make sense to invest a ton in technology that will
| only be "ready" in 2055. By that time renewables (and the
| storage infrastructure that will be required) will have an
| insurmountable lead unless large scale fusion becomes
| viable.
| mdorazio wrote:
| No. The US has subsidized the hell out of nuclear
| historically [1] and also in recent years [2]. Without
| subsidies, commercial nuclear development would never have
| happened in the first place and we would be shutting down
| plants faster than we already are because of economics. This
| also excludes all the VC money that has flowed into nuclear
| startups.
|
| [1] https://www.gao.gov/products/emd-79-52
|
| [2] https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-
| establishes-6-billion-pr...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| You are probably right, but only in the short term. Long term,
| there will be the political will for projects that require
| 10-100x our current power production, and nuclear will look
| attractive again. Alternatively, the renewables curve may
| flatten before we are fully decarbonized simply because the
| maintenance and materials don't scale well. Nuclear is
| expensive up front, but maintenance requires far fewer (albeit
| more specialized) personnel and way less material per kwh.
| angiosperm wrote:
| When people want 10-100x our current power production, they
| will build 10-100x solar and wind, because they are
| _massively_ cheaper. Nukes have only ever got more expensive.
|
| Nukes might make sense on the moon.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Ignores context, diminishing returns, the lack of viable
| storage options at that scale (or even the current one).
| Gonna still put my money on the proven tech for 10-100x
| projects - its a social choice to make it expensive.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Right now little is spent on storage because dollars are
| overwhelmingly better spent building out generating
| capacity, even in places where noontime generation
| exceeds demand. When there is a strict excess of
| renewable generation, it will be time to begin building
| out storage. We have myriad viable storage options. Costs
| for storage are still falling fast.
| redandblack wrote:
| adding this story as well =
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/26/solar-panel-prices-down...
| hinkley wrote:
| Moreso, solar and wind are too predictable. How Big Things Get
| Done ranks them up with road construction as top projects that
| barely go over budget. If you expect to spend $100 million on
| solar or wind, then it's probably going to cost <$110 million.
| Meanwhile other projects could go 2, 3, 7x over budget, time or
| money or both.
|
| Someone who builds a solar array will be able to go directly to
| build another, not have to lick their wounds and repair their
| reputation or business.
| lopis wrote:
| Another big advantage of solar, and wind to some extent, is
| that is distributed. It provides resilience to the network.
| Nuclear produces a lot of power, sure, but it's one big fat
| single point of failure.
| defrost wrote:
| If you complete that thought to include both space _and_
| time, solar is present _only_ during daylight whereas nuclear
| is distributed evenly right around the clock.
|
| It's less either|or, more swings|roundabouts.
|
| A pure solar solution _requires_ (on the order of) 2x excess
| daylight production and 10 hours of offset storage to buffer
| against the night (and compensate for energy transfer
| (daylight power - > storage -> night time power) losses).
|
| Solar is _great_ , sure, but there's a _long_ way to go to
| replace the energy production of fossil fuels, that comes
| with a _lot_ of reqource mining and waste.
|
| Somewhere in the middle is an optimal solution with much
| solar and wind, a little bit of nuclear OR gas fired OR
| <somethig steady> and a whole lot of varied storage (battery
| + gravity + thermal + green gases).
| akira2501 wrote:
| The grid is not a network. It's a large single frequency
| balanced power distribution machine. It is, in and of itself,
| _the_ single point of failure, and there are significant
| tradeoffs in having lots of small capacity generators vs.
| small amounts of large capacity generators connected to it.
|
| There's this cry for absolutism in this thread that's just
| absurd, on both sides. You want a wide multiplicity of power
| generation plant sizes and technologies, for what should be,
| at this point in history, solidly obvious reasons.
|
| So, you want lots of Nuclear _and_ Solar. Seeing the two as
| competing shows just how monopolized our energy markets truly
| are.
| angiosperm wrote:
| They are competing because each dollar is spent _either_ on
| solar and wind or on something else. That dollar spent on
| solar or wind gets you much more power than any
| alternative. The advantage increases every year.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Are batteries really too cheap for nuclear to compete?
| cyberax wrote:
| > If I was a betting man, I would put money down that Vogtle 4
| is the last nuclear reactor that gets built in the US. Solar
| and batteries are just too cheap for nuclear to compete.
|
| On the contrary, solar and wind are _waaaaaay_ too expensive if
| you actually want your generation to be reliable. Just ask
| Texas.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I don't know how many times this needs to be said: solar and
| wind and batteries can't provide consistent enough power,
| either for current or the growing energy needs, of the US or
| the world. Alternative power sources are _required_ to maintain
| energy sufficiency into the future. Period. Ask any company
| that builds green energy if you don 't believe me.
|
| What's more ridiculous than this oversight is the idea that the
| cost of wind, solar, or batteries is somehow never going to go
| up. News flash: all advanced industrial processes that depend
| on a global supply chain are subject to price fluctuations.
| pydry wrote:
| >I don't know how many times this needs to be said
|
| Zero. Few people are unaware that the sun doesnt shine at
| night. It never needed repeating.
|
| What theyre less educated about is that pumped storage,
| hydrogen, batteries, solar/wind anticorrelation and demand
| shaping are, together, more than capable of accomodating
| renewable intermittency.
|
| What's _most_ ridiculous is that even the _most_ expensive
| form of viable power storage (hydrogen) is _still_ cheaper
| when paired with solar or wind than nuclear power is alone.
| This isnt to say that we should go all in on hydrogen /solar,
| just that nuclear power's cost is _unconscionably_ high.
|
| Indeed, if it werent for the nuclear military's reliance on
| civilian supply chains and skills it would never get built
| and the 'environmentalist nuclear' PR offensive of the last
| ~8 years that resonated with so many people wouldnt have
| happened.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| The energy sector is still private. If green were cheaper,
| and more reliable, and gave a good return, it would be
| getting a bigger investment. But it's not, because it's
| not. Maybe in theoretical-perfect-future-world it's
| cheaper, but not today.
| fifilura wrote:
| This is because the producers are not paying (enough) for
| the waste they create.
|
| Emissions or nuclear waste.
|
| Seems like natural they would?
| adrianN wrote:
| The growth of renewables is still on a nice exponential
| curve. We build solar literally add fast as we can scale
| production.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I work for an energy company that builds renewables. No
| we do not. I mean Jesus that's ridiculous. There's
| literally not capital for that, and the debt would be
| astronomical, to say nothing of legal, land access,
| problems with construction, contacts. But besides that
| there's different kinds of solar, and all kinds of
| specific issues with it, battery capacity being just one.
| Wind is a bigger opportunity and more commonly pursued,
| but has even more problems.
|
| Making up shit just because you want it to be true isn't
| helping anybody.
| adrianN wrote:
| Lack of capital is one of the limiting factors of scaling
| production...
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I agree with the spirit of your post, but I would say 10s of GW
| per year, instead of 1 TW per year. Currently, the US is adding
| about 10 GW of new solar capacity per year. Source:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000-_Clean_power_install...
| MichaelNolan wrote:
| The 1TW prediction was for the whole world. I'd expect the US
| to settle somewhere in the high 10s to low 100s by 2030. The
| US added 23GW in 2023, and is expected to add 37GW in 2024.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/pdf/steo_full.pdf
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > Georgia Power expects another similar-sized fourth reactor,
| Vogtle Unit 4, to begin operation sometime between November 2023
| and March 2024.
|
| The timelines here are so crazy that they accidentally a whole
| year.
| evilos wrote:
| That's a 5 month range chief.
| mburns wrote:
| The dates are correct. They expect it to be operational in Q1
| of this coming year.
|
| https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Vogtle-4-start-u...
| OliverJones wrote:
| It would be great to get a straightforward assessment of the
| improvements in reactor tech in this new plant. "Passive safety
| features" sound pretty good to my untrained ear. But how much of
| this is marketing bullshytt?
| p1mrx wrote:
| AP1000 has a water tank above the reactor, and can cool itself
| for 72 hours without electrical power or human action. This
| design probably would've prevented the Fukushima meltdowns.
|
| Ideally, reactors should be designed to transition all the way
| to air cooling without any help. The high temperature designs
| (e.g. TRISO and molten salt) should be able to do this, if we
| ever build them.
|
| After Fukushima, the FLEX program was created to protect
| existing US reactors from a similar scenario:
| https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...
| stetrain wrote:
| The article is dated Dec 26, 2023 but the linked announcement
| from Georgia Power is dated July 31, 2023.
| topspin wrote:
| Yes, it's old news. It's not solar/wind so it's not a priority
| for EIA et al.
|
| More recent news in nuclear power is commercial operation of a
| high temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor in China. Their
| first HTR-PM reactor went online a couple weeks ago[1].
|
| [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-HTR-
| PM-D...
| evilos wrote:
| We paid the first-of-a-kind costs, we should reap the Nth-of-a-
| kind rewards. Replace all the coal capacity with AP1000s.
| philipkglass wrote:
| There's no Federal agency that can decree that sort of policy.
| Coal generator retirement happens on a state-by-state or even
| business-by-business basis.
|
| Some states are going to cling to coal power past its
| economically rational lifespan because important parts of state
| politics are linked to coal businesses. States where coal
| retires for economic reasons will go for least-cost replacement
| (a blend of solar, wind, and natural gas). States where
| environmental concerns trump cost concerns have little if any
| coal generating capacity left to replace at this point.
| evilos wrote:
| There is potential in the federally owned TVA which has
| around 35 GW in its portfolio. Also Georgia has a lot of coal
| and is the state with these new NPPs.
|
| Plus the federal government doesn't need to mandate it. It
| can simply incentivize these plants to be built like it did
| with Solar/Wind.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| I have head that molten salt is much safer but also more
| expensive. Would there be a reason not to go with molten salt?
| evilos wrote:
| It will likely take a minimum of ten years to get a non light
| water reactor certified by the NRC. And that is very
| optimistic. Then you have to build the first of a kind plant
| which is always more expensive and takes longer. Then you
| have to get good at operating these new kinds of plants.
|
| It's true that MSR and Breeder reactors have lots of
| potential benefits over traditional LWRs but the truth is,
| LWRs are more than good enough for right now and we literally
| can't build enough of them if even if we tried.
|
| You wouldn't want to power all of human society off of LWRs
| simply because they only access ~5% of the energy in the
| fuel. But we're so far away from that being a constraint.
| Build LWRs today and keep developing Breeder/MSR tech.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| FYI, an MSR got green lit recently:
| https://fortune.com/2023/12/13/nuclear-reactor-approval-
| molt...
| evilos wrote:
| Yes while that is great news, it's a demonstration
| reactor. An commercial operating license is a far greater
| hurdle.
| mpweiher wrote:
| And a Chinese molten salt reactor was finished a couple
| of years ago and just got its operating license this
| year.
| api wrote:
| MSRs look nice on paper but we don't have any experience
| building them. It would take a gigantic up front investment
| to work out the real world issues and commercialize a
| technology that has a lot of novel aspects like handling
| radioactive molten salt.
|
| Meanwhile that same money would buy loads more power in
| solar/wind and batteries, which are proven technologies that
| are getting progressively cheaper.
|
| An alternate timeline where we do MSRs in the 1950s and phase
| out coal by 1990 would have been possible but we didn't do
| that and there are better alternatives now.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| It looks like people recently got permission in the United
| States to build an MSR:
| https://fortune.com/2023/12/13/nuclear-reactor-approval-
| molt...
|
| I have not seen any evidence that solar+wind will provide a
| proper base load of electricity, and it looks like MSR and
| its variants will give people the electricity they need.
| api wrote:
| Solar and wind require storage. Nuclear needs batteries
| too because nuclear reactors are very slow to throttle
| and not good at load following.
|
| Every non fossil source except hydro requires a large
| build out of grid scale storage.
| evilos wrote:
| While nuclear plants do pair well with storage (many
| pumped hydro storage stations were built to pair with
| nuclear plants), the idea that they cannot load follow is
| a myth. It is simply more economical for them to run at
| full load since fuel cost is a very small portion of
| nuclear operating expenses.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/tB3x48U
| sanxiyn wrote:
| "In 1989, Korea began construction on their first domestically
| developed OPR-1000 design... Twelve reactors of this standard
| design began construction between 1989 and 2008, and their
| costs declined in a stable manner... representing a 13% cost
| decline (1% annualized)." (Lovering 2016)
|
| The problem is, even after reaping this cost decline, totaling
| 50%, nuclear power is still noncompetitive in South Korea. They
| were built for energy independence after oil shock, not for
| cheap electricity.
| evilos wrote:
| Same source as you (Lovering 2016), the Koreans built several
| 1 GW plants for an overnight cost of 2 Billion USD per plant
| or less in many cases. A seriously impressive feat. The graph
| seems to show a far greater cost decline than 13%.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/J90HtWm.png
|
| The Koreans just recently ousted an administration that was
| overtly hostile to nuclear energy and had declared a phase
| out. Now they are planning on increasing the share of nuclear
| electricity to 35%. https://www.world-nuclear-
| news.org/Articles/South-Korea-incr...
| erngkejr wrote:
| I was a nuclear engineer for eight years and I left the industry
| because I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Every time someone
| says "nuclear is the only practical solution for climate change,
| it's not possible to build solar or wind fast enough or cheaply
| enough", you can point them to this press release. All the
| nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking,
| completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Could you elaborate? Having read the press release I'm not sure
| what you mean
| cableshaft wrote:
| From the linked article, we get how much power it generates
| 1,114 MW (or 1.114 Gigawatts), how long it took to build that
| reactor (started in 2009, so 14 years), and how much it cost
| (planned $14 billion, final $30 billion):
|
| > The new 1,114 megawatt (MW) Unit 3 reactor
|
| > Construction at the two new reactor sites began in 2009.
| Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial
| operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project
| ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns.
| The total cost of the project is now estimated at more than
| $30 billion.
|
| Meanwhile:
|
| "Utility-scale solar capacity in the U.S. electric power
| sector increased from 61 gigawatts (GW) in 2021 to 71 GW in
| 2022, according to data from our Electricity Power Monthly.
| Wind capacity grew from 133 GW in 2021 to 141 GW in 2022."[1]
|
| So solar increased 10 Gigawatts last year and wind grew 8
| Gigawatts. About 18x that one nuclear reactor we've managed
| to complete since 2016. In a single year.
|
| Also wind and solar is cheaper than the cost of nuclear
| energy now:
|
| "Nuclear energy is generally more expensive than wind and
| solar energy. The IEA report estimates the cost of
| electricity from new nuclear plants to be between $60 and $70
| per MWh (megawatt-hour), while the cost of electricity from
| onshore wind and solar PV is estimated to be between $30 and
| $60 per MWh."[2]
|
| So wind and solar is faster and cheaper. The only main
| benefit is a nuclear plant can still keep generating power in
| inclement weather (which is still important, but doesn't make
| it cheaper or faster than wind and solar).
|
| [1]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55960
|
| [2]: https://medium.com/@liam.m.obrien/nuclear-vs-wind-and-
| solar-...
| selimnairb wrote:
| > So solar increased 10 Gigawatts last year and wind grew 8
| Gigawatts. About 18x that one nuclear reactor we've managed
| to complete since 2016. In a single year.
|
| Nuclear capacity factors are over 90% [1]. Wind is around
| 30%, solar around 25%, so it's really ~5 GW (solar and wind
| capacity added), vs. ~1 GW nuclear fission added (and we're
| not trying that hard to build more nuclear plants).
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/data-and-
| statist...
| kevincox wrote:
| It is quite hard to compare $60-70 for year-round super
| stable power to $30-60 for bursty power.
|
| That being said, unless there is a huge regulatory shift it
| seems like nuclear won't get much cheaper and solar and
| wind will continue to do so, so comparing those numbers
| will get easier to compare as the costs spread further.
| XorNot wrote:
| Which is all irrelevant, because neither is dispatchable:
| you get what you get when they're able to produce it.
| evilos wrote:
| I mean, we know we can build nuclear plants quickly because
| we've done it before. It is physically possible. China and
| Korea can still do it today.
|
| If you just mean the bureaucracy is impossible to defeat, it
| would just take political will. Which we are seeing more and
| more of recently. The first of a kind build is always slow.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I hear a lot of magical thinking about wind and solar too, with
| some magical pixie dust solving the intermittence problem but
| nothing practical being built at scale.
| lawn wrote:
| > All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical
| thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the
| industry.
|
| All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in
| magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of
| the industry.
|
| We need a mix of low-carbon energy sources, where nuclear is an
| important piece (otherwise we'll have to resort to
| oil/gas/coal).
| TomK32 wrote:
| > > All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical
| thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the
| industry.
|
| > All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in
| magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of
| the industry.
|
| Now that we have established that both sides are into magical
| thinking, how about just reducing energy consumption?
| lawn wrote:
| Hah. That's a third type of magical thinking
| (unfortunately).
| klipklop wrote:
| Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future do
| not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks.
|
| I didn't run the math but I'm guessing it's not feasible to build
| a battery pack large enough to ride out winter in some areas. The
| SF Bay Area, sure, but I suspect blackouts will be common in
| solar+battery only areas.
|
| A preferred solution would be a mix of both with nuclear handling
| disruptions due to weather.
|
| One technology for power generation should not "win". Employing a
| variety of power generation methods will give you the most stable
| power grid.
| slashdev wrote:
| Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening
| out the daily load.
|
| You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation,
| as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is
| also extremely interesting for obvious reasons.
|
| Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's
| mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve
| that without sacrificing safety? Can we even solve it at all?
| Bloated regulatory agencies seem to have infiltrated and
| poisoned every aspect of society with no relief in sight.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation_
|
| At which point it ceases to be as cheap.
| loandbehold wrote:
| Not necessarily.
| viraptor wrote:
| That sounds like a kneejerk response. Got a source for it?
| It's not like we didn't know about it all the time, yet the
| large solar systems were built.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _sounds like a kneejerk response. Got a source for it_
|
| If you have 120% solar capacity in the summer so you have
| 100% in the winter, that's obviously going to be more
| expensive than just building 100%. This is basic
| utilisation.
|
| Also, diminishing returns: the most-productive spots for
| solar will be built out first.
| viraptor wrote:
| That wasn't your claim. You said it stops being cheap -
| does it? Compared to alternatives?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _You said it stops being cheap - does it? Compared to
| alternatives?_
|
| "As cheap." Solar will keep getting cheaper until
| saturation, then overshoot while it gets a bit more
| expensive. The equilibrium will shift from time to time
| as technology advances. But there are fundamental limits,
| and power demand is only going to grow.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| As the seasonality of power becomes more and more
| pronounced, it'll make more and more sense to make
| seasonal loads. Cheap to build but electrically expensive
| to operate manufacturing processes that take advantage of
| borderline free power in the summer months that don't
| have much capex to amortize in the winters.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Depends on the latitude and weather patterns. For
| instance you might need 25 (or much more) higher capacity
| to generate as much power in December as you would in May
| in most of Northern Europe (that should be pretty obvious
| though).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Unlike nuclear, which is too expensive when you don't
| overbuild it, and becomes simply stupidly expensive if you
| contemplate overbuilding it.
|
| Overbuilding nuclear is so preposterous that nuclear fans
| just pretend you magically don't need to, to prevent their
| fragile dream from being crushed by reality, and let them
| continue to steer at renewables and all the problems they
| face as every nation on earth builds then out at massive
| scale.
| kragen wrote:
| you don't need to overbuild nuclear; nuclear plants
| commonly have a capacity factor of over 80%
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| The grid has wild differences between day and night. Who
| cares if you can run at 100% when no one wants the power
| because everyone is asleep?
| kragen wrote:
| negative lmps have long been a result of baseload plants
| exceeding demand at night; widespread deployment of pv
| has turned that on its head, because now it's
| midafternoon when prices go negative, but also in a sense
| exacerbated it. consequently, expect rapid development of
| grid-scale storage: pumped hydro and massive li-ion, of
| course, but also maybe centrifugal trompe isothermal air
| compression, sodium-ion batteries, or high-temperature
| liquid-metal batteries
| Kon5ole wrote:
| Finland recently lost 14% of it's national electricity
| generation for days due to a turbine failure. This is of
| course a huge problem.
|
| Having 14% of the nations electricity transported from
| just 1 location is another problem all by itself even
| when it works.
|
| Last year half the reactors in France were offline at one
| point:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-
| power-fr...
|
| I don't think nuclear should be overprovisioned, but it
| illustrates that nuclear also needs a plan B just like
| wind and solar does. IMO Plan B should be synthesized gas
| that has been generated when electricity was cheap due to
| overproduction or directly from cheap sources such as
| Solar.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Why Finland built a single huge reactor, so single point
| of failure, is a bit puzzling.
|
| France has not invested in its nuclear fleet in ages, and
| deferred maintenance during COVID, so a lot more plants
| were in maintenance than usual. Fortunately they planned
| this for the summer, when energy consumption is low and
| renewable output high. Unfortunately the inspections
| found more than they were expecting, as inspections are
| wont to do at times. Otherwise you wouldn't need them.
|
| Fortunately, there's a European electricity grid, and so
| for one year out of the last thirty or forty, France was
| a net importer of electricity rather than an exporter. In
| 2023 they're an exporter again.
|
| And they are now in the process of correcting the
| underinvestment.
| Tommstein wrote:
| > Unlike nuclear, which is too expensive when you don't
| overbuild it, and becomes simply stupidly expensive if
| you contemplate overbuilding it.
|
| > Overbuilding nuclear is so preposterous that nuclear
| fans just pretend you magically don't need to, to prevent
| their fragile dream from being crushed by reality, and
| let them continue to steer at renewables and all the
| problems they face as every nation on earth builds then
| out at massive scale.
|
| Why would you need to overbuild nuclear power plants?
| Other than planning for future growth, but I don't think
| that's what people generally mean by overbuilding, it's
| more like avoiding "it's been cloudy/windless for a few
| weeks now so back to the 1800s it is."
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| The grid has wild differences between day and night. Who
| cares if you can run at 100% when no one wants the power
| because everyone is asleep?
| Tommstein wrote:
| There was no mention of night, but thanks for pointing
| out yet another reason why solar needs to be overbuilt
| while nuclear doesn't.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| That's not automatically true. As the price continues to
| drop even over building renewables can be cheaper than
| other options. Nuclear is very expensive so there's a lot
| of wiggle room.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| I find it hard to imagine solar could ever be cheaper
| than nuclear during winter in Northern Europe.
| hef19898 wrote:
| No need to imagine, because it is. At least if you
| believe electricity market prices reflect reality.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| What is?
|
| > At least if you believe electricity market prices
| reflect reality
|
| I don't see how is this relevant if we're talking
| specifically about solar.
|
| Above ~53deg solar production during December is ~20 (to
| way more than that farther you go north) lower than in
| December.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And still, PV generated electricity during these periods
| is priced cheaper on the spot market than nuclear. Funny,
| right? It is almost as if the parties investing billions
| and making billions selling and buying electricity
| figured out the financials behind all that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yeah, PV and gas are the cheapest new power to build
| today.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| That's tangential and doesn't change the fact that solar
| barely produces anything during winter if you go far
| enough north (and you don't have any way to store the
| produced power for at least 4-5months).
| hef19898 wrote:
| The answer to that is simple: powerlines, wind, hydro...
| No idea why people think solar has to be local, wind
| requires powerlines and nuclear for some reason isn't
| neither...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _answer to that is simple: powerlines, wind, hydro_
|
| Wind is still intermittent. Transmission and hydro
| expensive. The point still stands that marginal new power
| will become much more expensive before solar reaches
| anywhere close to sole source.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Who said anything about solar being single source??? And
| everything is expensive, the question is wether or not it
| is profitable. And politics aside, the financials have
| decided a long time ago on wind, solar and, sadly enough
| due to criminally underprized CO2 certificates, coal. New
| NPPs just barely replace capacity going offline, is
| always late and always above budget. And even if we
| ignore the net added capacity of new nuclear plants, the
| gross capacity being built pales in comparison to wind
| and solar.
|
| Pushing nuclear power, for other than military or
| political reasons, is riding a dead horse.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Gas not so much, at least not in Europe. There the
| ranking (cheap to expensive) is: Solar and wind, coal,
| oil, nuclear and gas (roughly). Coal is that cheap
| because CO2 certificates are way underpriced.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > And still, PV generated electricity during these
| periods is priced cheaper on the spot market than
| nuclear.
|
| I still don't understand what you're trying to say. It's
| priced at what the market is willing to pay regardless of
| the source. How is this relevant?
|
| The variable costs for solar are insignificant so of
| course you're going to keep the panels turned on and sell
| the power.
|
| In Northern Europe you can only make money from solar
| during summer/spring. If you had to overprovision by
| 10-30 times there is no way it would be financially
| viable (energy prices would be close to 0 during peaks
| and you would still barely produce any power during most
| of winter) without some sort of long term "storage"
| (maybe hydrogen or something)
| hef19898 wrote:
| Electricity is priced, at least last time I checked the
| European ones, at generating cost (variable cost
| excluding fix costs). Guess what forms of electricity
| generation have basically zero variable costs? Wind and
| solar. And guess what, those utility scale projects are
| calculated based on these conditions, and still
| profitable, even in winter.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Yes and? Nuclear power would also be very cheap if you
| could build power plants for free. You can't just ignore
| fixed costs.
|
| > And guess what
|
| That investment decisions don't work like that? That
| people/companies expect to make a profit?
|
| > Electricity is priced, at least last time I checked the
| European ones, at generating cost
|
| Electricity is priced at what the market is willing to
| bear.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The European electricity market, the Germany is connected
| to, prices electricity (or priced last time I checked,
| there might have been changes), like this (over
| symplified, so please read up the details yourself):
|
| - generators provide capacity and nominate that capacity
| for future and as reserve capacity, the former is being
| priced using futures traded at an exchange, the latter is
| paid for by grid opertors to maintain grid stabilizyt -
| consumers, the ones large enough to trade on the
| exchange, nominate consumption the same way, if they are
| able to take up load or shed load on short notice, they
| are paid for that the same way peaker plants mentioned
| above are paid for
|
| - the balance between demand and supply for each period,
| day ahead for example, defines the exchange price (which
| results, sometimes, in negative prices and allows for
| speculation)
|
| - producers get to produce as long as their variable
| production cost is below the exchange price in that
| period (CAPEX used to be excluded from that), that
| usually means that wind, solar and hydro get to deliver
| first, followed by coal, oil and nuclear with gas usually
| being to expensive for anything else other than peaker
| plants
|
| So, this market is pricing electricity based on variable
| cost. Operators are including these market prices in
| their calculations, and that means that the majority of
| the build capacity is wind, solar and coal (and yes,
| brand new gas plants have never gone online because
| shutting them down before hand was cheaper).
|
| TL/DR: Exchanges, aka the market, ignores fix costs while
| opertors don't.
|
| Honestly, if you fail to understand that crucial market
| mechanism (for Europe with its integrated grid, the US is
| different) try to get aroind that first, it explains an
| aweful lot of how electricty production capacity is
| built. By the way, this market prevented outages very
| reliably.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Electricity markets do not reflect the cost of
| production.
|
| They reflect the value of the electricity to consumers.
|
| When prices drop to zero, that is because the electricity
| is useless.
|
| When prices drop below zero, that is because the
| electricity is worse than useless.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| It's easy if you add electrolysers to your imagination.
| :)
|
| There are solar plants that deliver electricity for
| around 2 cents per kwh and the price is dropping.
| Hydrogen can be generated from electricity at 80%
| efficiency, and gas can be converted back to electricity
| at 40% efficiency. This gives about 6-7 cents per kwh for
| solar even after conversion to a 24/365 stable baseload
| energy source.
|
| This is cheaper than nuclear and works fine everywhere,
| even in northern europe.
|
| (If you actually place the solar panels in northern
| europe as well - which you don't need to - most of the
| gas will be produced during summertime when the sun is up
| 18+ hours per day).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not automatically true_
|
| It very obviously is. Solar power (and wind) are
| constrained by the planet's insolation. Even assuming
| perfect efficiency, we start approaching diminishing
| returns _based on power input_ within a century.
|
| Now assume imperfect efficiency and resource constraints,
| and you see that cliff approach within decades. This is
| fine. It's the law of diminishing marginal returns. It's
| why a diversity of sources almost always beats
| monosourcing.
| kragen wrote:
| your projection that human world marketed energy
| consumption will increase by a factor of 1000x within a
| century may be correct, but it is far outside the range
| of mainstream predictions, and far faster than current
| growth
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_con
| sum... shows total energy supply (excluding agriculture)
| growing from 8700 million toe in 01990 to 14500 million
| toe in 02021, a 67% increase, or 1.66% per year.
| extrapolating that until 02123 we get only a factor of
| 5.4x growth, not the 1000x you're predicting
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _projection that human world marketed energy
| consumption will increase by a factor of 1000x within a
| century may be correct_
|
| We currently produce about 2% [1] of the Earth's
| insolation, or 6% of that which hits land. So you're
| talking factors of 16 to 50, which at 2% growth means 140
| years to the former. Again, assuming perfect efficiency
| and no clouds, _et cetera_.
|
| If we assume 50% efficiency (still with no clouds) and
| covering half of all the Earth's land in solar panels, we
| have about 70 years. It's ludicrous to assume we won't
| see diminishing marginal returns in a quarter of that
| time.
|
| [1] _26 936 TWh [a] / (340 W/sqm [b] x 510mm sqkm x 1000
| x 365 days x 24 hours)_
|
| [a] https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-2026113/v1
| /1dff0a...
|
| [b]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget
| kragen wrote:
| 14500 million toe per year is 19 terawatts, roughly world
| marketed energy consumption; 1000 watts per m2 (nominal
| solar constant below the atmosphere) times 1.28 x 1014 m2
| (area of a circle with radius 6371km) is 128000
| terawatts. 19 is 0.015% of 128000, not 2%. so why do your
| calculations differ? let's see
|
| possibly by '510mm sqkm' you mean 510 million square
| kilometers, as opposed to, say, 510 millimeter square
| kilometers (which would work out to 510'000 m3). 510
| million square kilometers is a good value for the surface
| area of earth (4 _pr_ 2 [?] 510066 km2) and 340 watts per
| square meter is a reasonable estimate for 24-hour mean
| insolation, disregarding clouds. but 340 watts per square
| meter times 510 million square kilometers gives 173000
| terawatts, higher than my estimate. in terawatt hours per
| year, that's 1.52 billion terawatt hours per year, which
| is definitely a lot more than 50 times 26936 terawatt
| hours
|
| i think maybe your error there is that you were trying to
| convert from square kilometers to square meters by
| multiplying by 1000. but actually a square kilometer
| contains a million square meters, not a thousand. so you
| ended up calculating about 2% instead of about 0.002%,
| which is what your inputs give if calculated correctly
|
| using the units(1) program from unix is a good way to
| avoid errors like this; in this case you can do the
| calculation as follows: You have: 26936
| TWh / (340W/m^2 * 4 pi earthradius^2 * 1 year)
| You want: % * 0.0017718851
| / 564.37068
|
| however, you also made a smaller error in the opposite
| direction. the 26936 terawatt hours per year figure is
| only a small fraction of the total energy supply; as the
| paper you linked explains:
|
| > _Considering electrical energy, while 6,131 TWh of
| energy was produced in 1973, 26,936 TWh of electrical
| energy was produced in 2019 (IEA, 2021c)._
|
| that's only about 3 terawatts, not 19, because it
| excludes virtually the entire transport sector, coal
| consumption by steel mills, climate-control heat and
| process heat provided directly by fossil fuels,
| inefficiencies in the electrical generation process, etc.
| using the correct figure of 19 terawatts, we derive that
| world marketed energy consumption is currently 0.01% of
| global terrestrial insolation, including light that hits
| clouds and oceans but not including light absorbed or
| reflected by the atmosphere
|
| growing energy consumption by this factor of 6700 at
| 1.66% per year would take 535 years, but in fact now that
| pv has dropped the cost of energy so dramatically, i
| expect energy production growth to speed up. also
| presumably there will be power-production satellites in
| solar orbit within decades, permitting progress past
| kardashev type 1
|
| hope this helps!
| defrost wrote:
| 510 _million_ square kilometers is a good value for the
| surface area of earth (4pr2 [?] 510,064,000 km2)
|
| (using R = 6,371 km a figure between the equatorial and
| polar radius of the ellipsoid)
| kragen wrote:
| thank you, i have corrected the error
| defrost wrote:
| No drama, we've all done it: https://old.reddit.com/r/doc
| torwho/comments/86q7i/we_all_mak...
|
| :)
| kragen wrote:
| no drama but much gratitude
| Symmetry wrote:
| The price of solar panels is likely to fall to ever lower
| levels but the labor involved in installing them and the
| land they use up are much more likely to be the binding
| constraints in the future. Though we do have the twin
| strategies of building out the power grid to put solar
| generation in high availability areas and shifting
| electrical consumption to times of sunlight as
| mitigation.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, of course. If you take the first answer to the GP,
| that is a bit outdated, it's as expensive as 1/4 of the
| nuclear costs.
| jdewerd wrote:
| When nuclear takes off in China but not the USA, we'll figure
| it out. But not until then.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Why hasn't nuclear taken off in China?
|
| I keep hearing that it's not cost effective anymore, to
| slow etc. but if it's actually mostly regulation that's
| hindering the built out (regardless of the risks) shouldn't
| China with their impressive portfolio of warpspeed
| megaprojects have been an ideal example of scaling the next
| generation of this tech?
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| China is building nuclear reactors faster than any other
| country.
|
| At the moment, they have 21 new reactors under
| construction.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Interesting. 21 doesn't seem like much compared to the
| 300+ there's been in US, 330 in China, 170 in EU etc,
| until you see theres zero retired units in china compared
| to large amounts in the rest of the world.
|
| Still though. 21 seems to indicate they are actually
| betting on something else.
|
| https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-nuclear-
| powe...
| resolutebat wrote:
| China is betting on all the things at once: they're the
| world leader in building out new solar, new wind, new
| nuclear and new coal power simultaneously.
| tzs wrote:
| They also say they are going to approve 6 to 8 more per
| year indefinitely.
| aurelwu wrote:
| 21 reactors under construction even with a short build
| time of 7 years is just 3 finished per year, and with
| China having ~15x the population of Germany that would
| amount to 0,2 reactors finishing per year in Germany.
| Multiplied with 1,4 GW that would add ~0,3 GW capacity
| resulting in about 2,5 TWh additional electricity
| generated per year which is 0,5% of annual current german
| demand. Do that for 20 years and you'd be at 10% of
| current electricity demand or about 5-7% of the demand in
| 20 years from now - or in other words micro-optimisation.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > 21 reactors under construction even with a short build
| time of 7 years is just 3 finished per year
|
| Only if you start building them and then stop. If you
| keep building them at that rate, after 7 years it becomes
| 21 coming on line every year, not 3.
| mpweiher wrote:
| While they are currently building 22, they have a further
| more than 70 planned.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
| kragen wrote:
| prc is hedging their bets by building some new reactors,
| but it's not competitive with pv and wind (which they are
| building far more of), even at the dismal capacity
| factors they've achieved so far for reasons I'm unclear
| on (possibly a shortage of hvdc transmission capacity)
| hackyhacky wrote:
| If there's any area to not skimp on safety regulations, I'd
| say nuclear is it. I think the alleged blight of
| "overregulation" has become a conservative mantra but without
| much basis in fact.
|
| Or maybe I'm wrong. You seem to know a lot about nuclear
| regulation. Can you tell us a specific, unnecessary
| burdensome regulatory rule that you feel is holding back
| progress?
| slashdev wrote:
| What world do you live in that you don't see the burdensome
| regulation everywhere. Don't know anyone with a business?
| Never investigated how zoning works? Never filed taxes?
| Never used the healthcare system?
| hackyhacky wrote:
| I've used all of these services and they all have
| problems. I can't say that those problems are due to
| "excessive regulation." In the case of healthcare, for
| example, most of the problems come from insurance
| companies who allegedly operate in the free market. I am
| strongly in favor of business, zoning, and environmental
| regulations because they provide valuable function.
|
| Moreover, none of that is relevant to nuclear regulation.
| I asked for a specific example of an overly burdensome
| and unnecessary regulatory rule.
| zizee wrote:
| Using services is not the same as operating those
| services. I think if you could see the true costs that
| all the regulations bring, you might change your mind.
| And if you're happy to pay these costs you're most likely
| wealthy enough to be able to bear them.
|
| Healthcare companies operate in an environment that is
| very much not a free market. For these companies, the
| regulatory burden is welcome as it is a high barrier to
| entry for new players. Read up on regulatory capture.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
| hackyhacky wrote:
| I'm aware of regulatory capture, thanks. You have not
| convinced me that this case applies sufficiently to the
| nuclear sector (which is after all the topic of
| conversation), where it has been claimed that unnecessary
| safety regulations are holding back progress.
|
| As for other industries: sure, some regulations are put
| in place by the industry itself to preserve the status
| quo. And other regulations absolutely benefit society,
| even if they impose a cost to the industry. It's
| important to separate these two cases. What terrifies me
| is the lack of nuance in the conservative talking points
| about "reducing regulation," implying that _all_
| regulations are unnecessary obstacles that serve no valid
| purpose. If you want to reduce regulations, okay: tell me
| specific regulations that you feel cost more than they
| are worth to society. Don 't just lecture me in general
| about, "Hey, regulatory capture is a thing." Those
| blanket arguments are unpersuasive and are often
| propagated by industry players seeking to free themselves
| of costly regulations, regardless of their value to
| society.
|
| If we're talking about the US specifically, I can tell
| you that business and environmental regulations are
| vastly lighter than other Western nations. In if we
| compare the US regulatory framework to non-Western
| nations, we find that there is a tangible cost to lighter
| regulatory load, in terms of corruption, fraud,
| pollution, labor rights abuse.
| zizee wrote:
| I'm really just responding to your original statement of:
|
| > I think the alleged blight of "overregulation" has
| become a conservative mantra but without much basis in
| fact.
|
| Perhaps you were specifically referring to the case of
| Nuclear power, but it didn't seem that way. Especially
| when you mentioned Insurance companies being the problem
| in the medical industry, as if they somehow exist in
| their current form independently from the regulatory
| environment they have helped to craft.
|
| I have no real opinion on where nuclear is overburdened
| by regulation.
| zizee wrote:
| Too late to edit, but I wanted to add:
|
| > What terrifies me is the lack of nuance in the
| conservative talking points about "reducing regulation,"
|
| I think this is really an issue of all issues in society
| today. Emphatic soundbites resonate with people, nuanced
| discussion does not. I'd think all politicians do this,
| and it's most notable when they're making statements
| about things we personally disagree on. If it's something
| we agree on, we happy to forgive and we "know" that the
| statement's lack of nuance is ok, because we don't want
| the message to be watered down.
|
| Personally, I think there are many regulations that are
| good and well thought out, and many that are not.
| Industry typically does not bear the costs, they are
| passed on to the consumer. Sometimes this is good.
| Externalities should be priced in. Sometimes this is not
| so good, when you have a regulation for every edge case.
|
| I'm not going to get into a debate on specific
| regulations. But if you don't believe there exists a lot
| of dumb regulations, just Google "weird regulations".
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Not building out nuclear has an huge opportunity cost:
| fossil fuel plants kill people every day from pollution.
| Excessive nuclear safety regulations cost more lives than
| they save by slowing the transition away from fossil fuels.
|
| (Example: the Vogtle plants were delayed in part because
| the NRC decided, after having previously approved the
| design of the plant, to change its mind and require that
| the plant be able to withstand a jetliner impact.
| https://www.ans.org/news/article-1646/root-cause-of-
| vogtle-a... )
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > Excessive nuclear safety regulations cost more lives
| than they save by slowing the transition away from fossil
| fuels.
|
| Maybe. It seems premature to reach that judgment. It
| depends how many lives regulations would save by
| hypothetically preventing nuclear catastrophe.
|
| I agree with you about the problems of fossil fuel use.
| Nevertheless, I think those health dangers are more
| palatable to politicians and the general public because
| they are gradual and dispersed, and therefore ignorable;
| whereas even a single, mild nuclear incident would
| produce massive negative press.
| konschubert wrote:
| You can also use hydrogen (or Ammonia) for long term storage.
| It's one of the few use cases where hydrogen makes sense.
| kragen wrote:
| for long-term storage it might be better to convert the
| hydrogen to something more easily storable, such as propane
| or octane, or to make a different electrolytic product such
| as aluminum
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Ammonia is another interesting storage fuel option.
| kragen wrote:
| yes, that's mentioned in the comment i was replying to,
| but while it's appealing in some ways, i feel that it is
| not as appealing as the options i mentioned for reasons
| of accident hazard, noxious combustion products, lower
| density, and risk of corrosion
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal
| variation
|
| Not at all feasible with solar throughout much of Europe. Of
| course wind is a much better option there.
| belorn wrote:
| Pumped hydro used to exist here in Sweden during the 1970s.
| They were phased out because they are not cost competitive.
| They built nuclear power plants instead because those were
| cost competitive at that time.
|
| It would be funny if the cost has switched between pumped
| hydro and nuclear, but I suspect they haven't. What really
| pushed out both were cheap natural gas and oil. Even now, new
| gas powered plants are being planned to be built within the
| next 5 years. I don't see a solutions to this without new
| regulation putting a clamp on the fossil fuels.
|
| The one hope I have for pumped hydro is that our current
| hydropower fleet are outdated and far outside of minimum
| environmental standards. Combined they have managed to drive
| species to the brink of extinction, basically being large
| meat grinders for migrating fish. The solution of catching
| the offspring and fly them to Sweden to be implanted back
| into lakes is a terrible solution that have little to no
| scientific support. With the required investments into
| modernization, reverse hydro might not be too expensive to
| include, assuming again that the economics of the concept
| start to make sense.
| kragen wrote:
| grid-scale storage becomes more profitable when your
| primary energy production is more intermittent. current pv
| is something like 10x cheaper than nuclear before you
| factor in intermittency, and that opens up a huge market
| for grid-scale storage that didn't exist in the 01970s.
| pumped hydro was replaced by dispatchable gas, but gas is
| more expensive now, and batteries are cheaper
| jakeinspace wrote:
| If, as seems likely, solar and wind come to totally
| dominate all new energy construction, then it seems like
| state/provincial and federal governments will need to
| either legally mandate / highly incentivize the
| construction of new baseload by utilities, or build those
| plants themselves. We have the TVA but as much as I hope,
| I don't think we're getting a bunch more federally owned
| and operated power companies in the US.
| kragen wrote:
| the us may not be very relevant here
|
| what are you going to construct the new baseload from?
| nothing comes close to the cheapness of pv and wind.
| grid-scale energy storage, in the form of batteries, is
| already too cheap for coal and nuclear to compete with it
| on that basis, and it's just going to get cheaper as we
| climb down the learning curve
| doikor wrote:
| > current pv is something like 10x cheaper than nuclear
|
| Maybe in nameplate numbers but not actual production in
| places like Sweden. Especially during the time the
| consumption is the highest (winter). The whole country is
| further north then the northern most point in US
| (excluding Alaska).
|
| But in the places most of humanity lives (including
| pretty much all of US) solar works quite well just not
| once you go far enough north/south.
|
| If you want to go renewables in a place like Sweden you
| go wind+hydro. Hydro is mostly built out already so that
| leaves wind.
| kragen wrote:
| agreed, in places like sweden pv is pretty limited. even
| the netherlands, the uk, and germany have remarkably
| little sun; pv capacity factors in all three countries
| are around 10%
| cplusplusfellow wrote:
| > Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive.
|
| At the risk of stating the obvious, this notion entirely
| depends upon your definition of costs, and the definition of
| what is competitive. It's vastly more costly to society to
| have unreliable power (e.g., blackouts, brownouts, or weeks
| on end of lowered usage restrictions) than it is to have
| slightly more expensive electricity.
|
| There is no rich country in the world with expensive energy.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Yes, I always want to scream "what about the quality of the
| power?" when people make claims about cost-competitiveness.
| Electricity is a commodity on the surface, but, as with
| many technologies, depending on the use case, differences
| in the qualities of the underlying source matter a great
| deal. Reduction of all costs to currency can be a damaging
| abstraction to impose on systems that inherently involve
| trade-offs between qualities.
| alex_young wrote:
| One benefit of building excess capacity of renewables - free
| electricity to power your automobile. If we actually priced
| excess energy smartly people would charge their cars in the
| daytime and spend ~ 0 to drive most of the year.
| saltminer wrote:
| Electricity demand isn't that simple, it's not like Sheetz
| dropping the price of gas to $1.776/gallon on the 4th of
| July and having to bag the pumps within the hour [0].
|
| Electricity is quite interesting as a market because it's
| truly the logical endpoint of just-in-time manufacturing:
| the time between generation and consumption is measured not
| on the order of months, weeks, days, or even hours, but in
| _milliseconds_. It travels at 300,000 km per second
| /186,000 miles per second [1], which is incomprehensibly
| fast (it's fast enough to cross the widest span of the
| continental US, 4,799 km/2,892 miles, over 60 times in a
| single second).
|
| As such, in order to maintain 50/60 Hz at nominal voltages
| and amperages (and that frequency is _very_ important - in
| a 60 Hz system, 59.4 Hz is "we have 5 minutes before the
| entire grid blows up and plunges us into a 3+ month
| blackout" level bad [2]), utility companies aren't in the
| power generation business so much as they are in the
| predictions business. They have to take everything into
| account, from the weather to consumer purchasing habits, to
| determine exactly how much power needs to be generated at
| any given moment or the whole grid will collapse. That wide
| area synchronous grids like the UCTE (continental Europe)
| and Eastern Interconnection (eastern US) are able to
| operate is a testament to human ingenuity, as these really
| are quite fragile machines.
|
| All this to say that you can't just "make power free when
| there's excess and people will magically use it up". Even
| if we can reliably predict excesses, people won't really be
| able to take advantage of it unless their schedule lends
| itself to it (e.g. being able to plug their car into a
| charger at work that only turns on when there's an excess),
| but even then, when done on a large scale, this only makes
| the predictions even harder for utility companies to plan
| around (think: thundering herd problem but on a national
| scale). At a macro level, it just doesn't work.
|
| [0]: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/business/sheetz-july-
| fourth-g...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity?use
| skin=v...
|
| [2]:
| https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-
| envi...
| alex_young wrote:
| Curtailment from solar is a real thing that happens
| predictably: https://pv-magazine-
| usa.com/2023/10/31/california-is-curtail...
| _ph_ wrote:
| With electric cars, demand is that simple. They can be
| hooked up to the grid and charge whenever the prices drop
| down to zero. This is already done. And then it is an
| individual decisions to either just use the charge to
| drive or even put part of it back into the grid or for
| you own home usage, when the grid prices are high. And
| more and more houses start to have battery storage.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > an artificial problem caused by regulation
|
| Maybe it's a real problem caused by the physical realities of
| nuclear. Calling regulation an artificial cost is like
| calling sewage treatment an artificial cost of water.
|
| > Bloated regulatory agencies seem to have infiltrated and
| poisoned every aspect of society with no relief in sight.
|
| It's often repeated, including by a certain political
| grouping, but never established IME. Unregulated markets,
| such as cryptocurrency, privacy, etc. seem to cause most of
| the problems. The FAA, etc. do well IME. They fail when
| undermined by a political class that benefits from fraud (the
| same trying to prevent the IRS from collecting legitimate
| taxes.)
| theLiminator wrote:
| > Maybe it's a real problem caused by the physical
| realities of nuclear. Calling regulation an artificial cost
| is like calling sewage treatment an artificial cost of
| water.
|
| That's just plain wrong. I don't know whether regulations
| in this case are bloat or not, but you're basically saying
| that regulations are never bloated, which is abjectly
| false.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Perhaps respond to the actual claim and not a
| strawperson.
| aftbit wrote:
| >Unregulated markets, such as cryptocurrency, privacy, etc.
| seem to cause most of the problems.
|
| Can you expand on this a bit? This feels a bit like a cause
| and effect confusion to me. Perhaps the unregulated markets
| are just where the "problematic" behavior moves, as it has
| been excluded from the regulated markets? Also, what does
| privacy have to do with this?
| cm2187 wrote:
| You can't solve the variability of wind by overbuilding.
| Output can go down to <5% for more than a week several times
| a year. So the only way is storage. On a massive scale. Or
| having another source that makes sense to modulate. LNG is
| one (though carbon based).
| Symmetry wrote:
| It's not that the agencies regulating nuclear are bloated but
| that they're given a mandate that nuclear must be as safe as
| possible rather than being held to some finite standard of
| safety.
| CivBase wrote:
| > Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But
| that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation.
|
| Is it regulation or a lack of scale? The US has launched 2
| reactors in the last 2.5 decades. I'm guessing there was a
| lot of stuff - materials, processes, documentation, etc -
| developed from scratch specifically for those plants. It
| might get cheaper if we can start re-using that stuff.
| hedora wrote:
| Even in the SF Bay Area, there were widespread power outages
| coupled with extended storms/clouds last spring.
|
| Lots of solar + battery systems got propane generator upgrades
| this year.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The people saying that might live far from the equator, where
| wind power helps balance solar in winter but people in general
| live fairly near it and energy intensive industry will migrate
| in that direction to follow the cheap power.
| malfist wrote:
| Power is easily transmitted and losses are minimal. There's no
| reason to think you need local solar power generation in a
| cloudy region.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Grid connection is a real problem. Solar power in US waits
| years for grid connection.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/outdated-us-energy-grid-
| tons...
| mpweiher wrote:
| Running long-distance power lines is one of the few things
| that is more difficult and takes longer to build (currently)
| than a nuclear power station.
| conjecTech wrote:
| Nuclear is already about 20% of US electricity generation. I
| don't think many people are suggesting taking that offline.
| When people are talking about being all solar, wind and storage
| they are talking about _new_ generation. So the eventual
| solution would still be a mix of all of those.
| chockablock wrote:
| You don't need to 'ride out winter'; there's a sweet spot
| around 100-hour storage where you can unlock a huge amount of
| grid resiliency and decarbonization (you can keep as many
| dispatchable gas plants sitting nearly-always-idle to address
| risk of any freak long-tail events.)
|
| https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "the people saying solar and battery only future"
|
| I think I never, ever heard or read anyone saying this, and I
| think I follow/participate in the debates, before it was cool
| and everywhere.
|
| Renewable people rather sound like this:
|
| "Employing a variety of power generation methods will give you
| the most stable power grid."
|
| Where of course quite many "green" people don't want nuclear at
| all in the mix. Rather more of long distance energy transport
| (HVDC). And otherwise any option that works and does not
| pollute, or pollutes less.
|
| (And personally I am not antinuclear as long as the alternative
| are fossil fuels, so they should be used as a transition
| technology and long term rather reserved for other application,
| like powering things in space and remote important sites)
| LargeTomato wrote:
| I'd love to know what you're reading and who you're talking
| to. I regularly and often speak to and read comments by
| people who insist on a solar+battery only future. I'd like to
| be a part of the communities you're describing.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Can you show me one example of someone who insist on that?
|
| And I mean literal and globally, not people who say this in
| the context of being in a sunny desert.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future
| do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks.
|
| This isn't a big problem. Wind is negatively correlated with
| solar, and electricity can be sent across long distances
| (intra- or inter-country) with minimal loss, and overbuilding
| eliminates a lot of the variability issues. Variability across
| geographies and across modes cancels out.
|
| Nuclear is pretty good, but solar and wind is simply better.
| Way cheaper and quicker to implement, less resistance from
| NIMBYs who have an irrational fear of leaks, less valid
| concerns of enabling nuclear weapons proliferation, less
| technical know-how requirement. It's the most brain-dead
| obvious calculus if you know the actual facts, costs and trade-
| offs.
|
| And time is of the essence. Eliminating 80-90% of emissions in
| 4 years (with only solar and wind and without batteries, yes
| this is possible whilst being cheaper than nuclear) means less
| emissions than eliminating 100% of emissions in 20 years with
| nuclear.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _Wind is negatively correlated with solar_
|
| Yes, but not strongly. It is definitely a problem, as seen in
| Texas on cold mornings where solar isn't getting much light,
| winds are still, and people need heat.
| hackerlight wrote:
| Right, and that's why it's infeasible to get 100% from
| renewables without storage, but we're not going for 100%,
| we're going for 80-90%. The objective is to address climate
| change, and to do that we need to minimize the area under
| the curve of emissions from now onwards. Renewables in my
| view is more effective at achieving this objective (with
| the added bonus of being cheaper).
| _ph_ wrote:
| While in the long term we do have to achieve net 100%,
| the mid-term goal which is absolutely achievable with the
| current state of the marked is indeed 90%. While working
| towards that we can start to see which technology emerges
| to cover the last 10%. And probably there isn't a miracle
| technology needed, just plain improvements in the storage
| sector and a good mix of several approaches.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| > Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future
| do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks.
|
| Or we've researched it and understand the basics of solar
| technology.
|
| In sunny California solar has a capacity factor of around 25%.
| In Germany, which is prone to many cloudy days this drops to
| around 10%. So yes cloudy days have an impact but do not
| entirely eliminate solar from contention and certainly don't
| require enough battery capacity to last all winter.
|
| In terms of capital costs solar is around $1 per watt while
| nuclear is around $10. Combined cycle gas plants are roughly
| the same as solar. It takes a bit more than a year to build a
| solar farm, while a new nuclear plant you're looking at a
| decade. ROI on solar is on the scale of 1 to 2 years. Nuclear
| will be shockingly lucky to have even started construction in
| that period.
|
| When we look at the levelized, unsubsidized cost of energy
| (https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-
| april...) we get a range of $24 to $96 per MWh for utility
| scale solar, while nuclear is $141 to $221 and combined cycle
| gas plants at $39 to $101.
|
| And the trend lines strongly favor solar + storage.
|
| Is it any wonder investors are reluctant to fund nuclear
| projects? For the same amount financed I can build 10x the
| capacity, have half the marginal cost of production, and see
| nothing but upside in 2 years.
|
| Places like Singapore that lack land suitable for utility scale
| solar will need to look to other solutions including nuclear.
| For the rest of us the decision is not difficult.
|
| Seems to me you are unaware of basic facts of the matter while
| you make naive criticisms of solar investment due to a personal
| affinity for nuclear technology.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I think you might want to fix that link address. :)
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Thanks. The way pdf downloads changed in recent versions of
| Chrome keeps tripping me up. So annoying.
| Gare wrote:
| You both raise good points. Yes solar is getting cheaper but
| economical and environmentally friendly long term storage
| (order of several days or even a month worth of energy for a
| hundred million people) is far from a solved problem.
|
| > In sunny California solar has as capacity factor of around
| 25%. In Germany, which is prone to many cloudy days this
| drops to around 10%. So yes cloudy days have an impact but do
| not entirely eliminate solar from contention and certainly
| don't require enough battery capacity to last all winter.
|
| In Croatia yearly capacity factor is around 15%, but the
| problem is it varies wildly throughout the year. In summer we
| get up to 300 hours of sunlight per month, in winter less
| than 50. So yes, on paper the capacity might be enough, but
| one needs to have the ability to store the massive amount of
| energy inter-seasonally.
| loeg wrote:
| > In summer we get up to 300 hours of sunlight per month,
| in winter less than 50. So yes, on paper the capacity might
| be enough, but one needs to have the ability to store the
| massive amount of energy inter-seasonally.
|
| Or overbuild by a factor of 6x or whatever relative to
| summer loads, which is probably less expensive than long
| term battery storage.
| Gare wrote:
| There can still be periods of several weeks with very
| little sunlight. And energy demands will be massive if we
| switch all heating to heat pumps instead of natural gas
| which we mostly now use.
|
| What actually helps us during winter is hydro and wind
| power. And Krsko nuclear power plant.
| loeg wrote:
| Yeah, that factor may be significantly higher than 6x
| depending on locale.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Cost of solar in isolation is meaningless. You need to factor
| in the cost of dealing with its intermittency, i.e. no power
| at night, variable power during daylight.
| loeg wrote:
| Yeah, "1W" of solar generation and 1W of nuclear generation
| are not interchangeable. There is a subtle sleight of hand
| in GP's argument.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| That is what capacity factor captures.
| cm2187 wrote:
| No it doesn't. Whether Solar has a 10% or 25% average
| load doesn't matter, you need to build something else to
| deal with needing power at night.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| That is what capacity factor captures.
| loeg wrote:
| It really doesn't. What we care about to avoid blackouts
| is something like the minimum output, rather than the
| average.
| concordDance wrote:
| This is a good quality post except for the dig in the last
| paragraph.
|
| I would, however, be curious if you can run the numbers for
| the UK or Germany. How much solar and battery would you need
| to be able to have no brownouts during winter?
|
| Trying some very rough numbers myself:
|
| Currently Germany seems to use around 3.3 trillion kwh[1] of
| energy per year. Likely around 300 billion kwh for December.
|
| Having a look, the solar irradiance in the sunnier parts of
| Germany in December seems to be around 20-30 kwh/m^2.[2]
|
| Cheap PV solar is generally around 30% efficient and 1.5m^2
| costs around PS91 retail[3].
|
| So the order of magnitude solar cost needed for Germany in
| December to not need more than a week's storage is probably
| around EUR2 trillion. Amortised over 20 years that's EUR200
| billion per year...
|
| This doesnt take into account many things like installation
| and maintenance and the reduced prices from not buying
| retail, but it still seems pretty doable, though noticeably
| higher than current spend of around EUR100 billion/year.
| (Which is also roughly what you'd get with French style
| nuclear)
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany
|
| [2] https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/solarenergy/maps_global
| rad...
|
| [3] https://shop4electrical.co.uk/panels/9905-ja-solar-
| jam54s30-...
| cm2187 wrote:
| It doesn't make any sense to use nuclear as a standby source of
| power. Nuclear costs pretty much the same whether you use it or
| not, so it doesn't make any sense to build it and leave it off.
|
| So if you build a nuclear power plant, save yourself the cost
| of whatever else you wanted to use as a primary source.
| credit_guy wrote:
| Nuclear power plants are currently too expensive to not be used
| at 100% all the time (except when you need to perform
| maintenance). Some nuclear power plants are designed to be able
| to load follow, but in practice they don't do it.
|
| Batteries will never be cheap enough to allow for seasonal
| storage. They are good for day-to-night storage. For seasonal
| fluctuations, the best you can do is natural gas. If we convert
| all our energy to solar, wind, hydro, and natural gas for
| peaker plants, we'd be comfortably net negative. In fact, right
| now in the US the CO2 absorption by forests is equal to all the
| emissions produced by the natural gas power plants (which are
| mostly used full time, not in peaker mode). Of course, the US
| produces a lot of emissions from transportation and industry.
| But they can be electrified in time, and the coal power plants
| can be eliminated, and the natural gas plants kept as peaker
| plants only.
|
| The path to net zero, or net negative, does not strictly
| speaking need nuclear energy.
|
| I personally am a huge fan of nuclear, but I acknowledge that
| it is not really needed to fight climate change.
| kragen wrote:
| i agree with almost everything in your cogent and well-
| informed comment, with only two exceptions:
|
| - forests can only increase in biomass up to some relatively
| low limit; you may be correct that in the usa they currently
| absorb more than gas plants emit, but that is not a
| sustainable situation, unless you start cutting them down and
| sequestering the carbon
|
| - you can get pretty far covering seasonal fluctuations with
| simple overprovisioning
|
| also i think you're not taking into account the likely advent
| of mass production of synfuel
| credit_guy wrote:
| > unless you start cutting them down and sequestering the
| carbon
|
| We actually do that all the time: we cut down trees and
| make houses. Here's a number from the US Forest Service [1]
| that as of 2009 the US was using 187 million m3 of solid
| wood products.
|
| > you can get pretty far covering seasonal fluctuations
| with simple overprovisioning
|
| Fully agree.
|
| > likely advent of mass production of synfuel
|
| I'm extremely pessimistic about that. The best hope is for
| hydrogen, but even that looks all but hopeless to me, if
| you don't count "blue hydrogen".
|
| [1] https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/33882
| kragen wrote:
| 187 million m3 of solid wood products is on the order of
| 187 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is an
| insignificantly small number in this context
|
| currently we need to sequester 950 gigatonnes of carbon
| dioxide, or about 300 gigatonnes of carbon, to get back
| to pre-industrial levels. this number increases by 40
| gigatonnes carbon dioxide or 13 gigatonnes carbon per
| year
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s
| _at...
|
| so roughly we need to sequester 1500 times as much carbon
| dioxide as the us forest service number, every year. so
| if the usa builds enough wood housing and other buildings
| for 450 billion people next year, and another 450 billion
| people the year after that, and so on indefinitely, that
| would compensate for current carbon emissions
|
| but this is not a plausible plan
|
| by contrast, direct air capture followed by injection
| into the crust where carbonatation of olivine and similar
| minerals sequesters the carbon is a plausible plan, but
| one that will require a lot of energy
|
| why are you extremely pessimistic about mass production
| of synfuel? fischer-tropsch produced 25% of germany's
| wartime automotive fuel, though of course that was
| starting from coal rather than carbon dioxide: https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...
| credit_guy wrote:
| I don't think like that, and nobody thinks like that.
|
| The first target before we think about getting back to
| preindustrial levels, is to get to net zero by 2050. If
| you start measuring things against a goal that's too
| distant in the future, you just give up.
|
| Ok, if we talk net zero, then the what does it take the
| US to do that? The US is not the entire globe. Currently
| the US emits about 6.34 gigatons of CO2-equivalent and
| absorbs about 754 megatons for a net of 5.59 gigatons
| CO2e [1]. The emissions from natural gas power generation
| are at 743 megatons [2]. If we could eliminate all other
| emissions except for the ones from the natural gas power
| plants, we'd already be slightly net negative. If we
| could keep the existing natural gas power plants, but run
| them only as peaker plants, we'd be well into negative
| territory.
|
| You are saying that 754 megatons is not sustainable
| without some program of carbon sequestration. I pointed
| out that 14 years ago the US consumed 187 million m3 of
| solid wood, which is of the order of 187 megatons of CO2
| sequestration. Or about 25% of the annual CO2 absorption
| by all the US forests and grasslands. To me that sounds
| like a pretty huge rotation speed, and certainly
| sustainable in the long run.
|
| > by contrast, direct air capture followed by injection
| into the crust where carbonatation of olivine and similar
| minerals sequesters the carbon is a plausible plan
|
| It's a plausible plan, but that's about it. The facts on
| the ground are that we don't do it for some reason. Most
| likely there are some serious obstacles. Which ones, I
| don't know. But I know that lots of things that look
| plausible on paper don't look so good in practice.
|
| The same with synfuels. Where are they? Yes, there are
| startups, I know about the HN startup Prometheus. But for
| the time being, it's all pie in the sky. How much synfuel
| is being produced now? The wikipedia page [3] does not
| seem to be very up to date, which is a bad sign in
| itself, it means nothing of note has happened lately. But
| they quote a worldwide capacity of 240000 barrels per
| day. You can compare that with the crude oil production
| of 80 million bpd. And of course, that worldwide capacity
| of 240k bpd is mostly high carbon intensity. The low
| carbon intensity fraction of that is probably negligible.
|
| The fact that Germany used the Fischer-Tropsch process in
| WW2 is not that relevant. Yes, it shows the technology
| exists, but it doesn't show it is economical in the
| current market conditions. And something that's not
| profitable is not getting built. And once it gets built,
| you always need to ask yourself, how long will it take us
| to go from where we are to where we want to be. How long
| does it take you to go from 1000 bpd to 100000000 bpd? Is
| it years, decades, or centuries? Do we see the current
| growth rate to allow us to create even some optimistic
| predictions that we'll get to some meaningful number in a
| few decades? If not, then there's no reason to be
| optimist.
|
| [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-
| greenhouse-gas...
|
| [2] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=77&t=11
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel_commerci
| alizati...
| kragen wrote:
| > _The first target before we think about getting back to
| preindustrial levels, is to get to net zero by 2050._
|
| yes, getting to net zero is what my calculations of 13
| gigatonnes of carbon per year are based on. i didn't base
| any calculations on the 950 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide
| to get back to preindustrial levels
|
| however, a crucial point that i was missing was that your
| 187 million m3 was _annual_ consumption of solid wood
| products; you just said 'as of 2009 the US was using 187
| million m3 of solid wood products', with no denominator.
| but on checking out the usda link, it says
|
| > _In 2006, an estimated 6.8 billion ft3 (187.5 million
| m3) of solid wood products were consumed in the United
| States, down slightly from 2005 but more than twice the
| consumption in 1950._
|
| that is, 188 million m3 of solid wood was consumed _per
| year_ ; that's not the total amount sequestered in the
| existing housing stock for 300 million people, which is
| how i interpreted your comment
|
| a crucial question missing here is how long the relevant
| carbon stays sequestered for; if the houses get
| demolished ten years later and the wood rots, we've made
| the problem worse rather than better. but maybe it all
| ends up in landfills and stays there for centuries, in
| which case it's making a quite significant contribution
| to direct air capture of carbon dioxide from natural gas
| plants, not an insignificantly small one as i had said
|
| (still, i don't think it'll be competitive with point-
| source capture from the gas peaker flue. some form of
| direct air capture is probably necessary for the mobile
| emissions sources that will run off synfuel and for
| drawing down the existing excess atmospheric carbon, but
| it can't compete with point-source capture where
| applicable)
|
| > _The facts on the ground are that we don 't do [direct
| air capture and mineral carbonatation sequestration] for
| some reason. Most likely there are some serious
| obstacles. Which ones, I don't know._
|
| you're in luck! i do know, and i can tell you:
|
| 1. there's currently no global incentive structure to do
| this. the carbon-offset market is currently mostly paying
| people to not burn fossil fuels they were threatening to
| burn, chop down trees they were threatening to chop down,
| or paying people to plant trees which might possibly
| sequester the paid-for amount of carbon if they somehow
| live to maturity and then happen to get chopped down and
| buried. this depresses the price of carbon offsets to the
| point where you can't make money sequestering carbon. for
| the first time last year at cop27 we got a global
| diplomatic agreement to set up a global carbon trading
| system, but governments will probably continue to fuck it
| up for decades, because it's a global prisoner's dilemma
| problem
|
| 2. specifically with respect to direct air capture (as
| opposed to ccs in general), point-source capture is
| immensely cheaper because the flue gas is 80000+ ppm
| carbon dioxide instead of 450 ppm, it's just hot. so, at
| scale, flue-gas capture will precede direct air capture
| by quite a long time, though there are lots of promising
| dac experiments which will eventually be crucial to
| reversing climate change. some of them involve planting
| forests, cutting them down, burning the wood, and using
| point-source capture approaches on the flue gases.
|
| 3. direct air capture requires a lot of energy, like
| about 10% of current world marketed energy consumption,
| and energy is still expensive, because pv panels have
| only been cheap for five years now, so most of world
| marketed energy consumption still is not pv. even point-
| source capture requires very significant investment. as
| pv displaces thermal power plants, electric motors
| displace internal combustion engines, and the much
| cheaper synfuels replace fossil fuels for the remaining
| heat engines, we'll see a dramatic boom in world energy
| consumption unlike anything in the last 200 years,
| stimulated by dropping prices. this will make carbon
| dioxide sequestration significantly more affordable,
| which greatly eases the prisoner's-dilemma problem
|
| 4. mineral carbonatation experiments are still in the
| pilot-plant stages; there's no question that it solves
| the problem (chemical weathering has been well understood
| for decades), but the question is, what's the cheapest
| safe way to do it
|
| > _The same with synfuels. (...) it shows the technology
| exists, but it doesn 't show it is economical in the
| current market conditions._
|
| i would go further: synfuels are _clearly not economical_
| in current market conditions. they are currently too
| expensive to compete with fossil fuels, because there isn
| 't yet enough pv installed to meet energy demand, so you
| still have to pay fossil-fuel prices for your pv
| megawatt-hours. that's going to change over the next
| decade. as pv grows to dominate the energy ecosystem,
| energy prices will continue to drop, and as the most
| accessible deposits of fossil fuels are gradually
| exhausted, fossil-fuel prices will continue to rise, so
| synfuels will become the cheapest option for heat engines
|
| there's a certain amount of risky innovation between here
| and there: how fast will energy prices drop? this depends
| on the details of how world war iii unfolds. how much
| demand for liquid fuels will remain? what's the most
| efficient way to harness intermittent pv power for
| process plants like fischer-tropsch? which process will
| turn out to be the most profitable? will ai discover
| radical new processes?
|
| but it's clear why synfuels aren't competitive today, and
| it's clear we're headed for synfuels replacing fossil
| fuels, in decades, not years or centuries
|
| > _I don 't think like that, and nobody thinks like
| that._
|
| some of us do, and that's why humans can now speak with
| those not present without making a sound, why they can
| fly through the sky like birds, and why human life
| expectancy at birth is 73 years now instead of 24. join
| us and we can solve these problems sooner
| buryat wrote:
| use the not-needed energy on carbon capture
| mpweiher wrote:
| It's not that they're too expensive to load follow, it's that
| it makes no sense for them to load follow.
|
| If the "backup" is reliable, inexpensive, CO2 free energy,
| why on earth do I need an unreliable, also CO2 free "primary"
| source?
| doikor wrote:
| > Nuclear power plants are currently too expensive to not be
| used at 100% all the time (except when you need to perform
| maintenance).
|
| France has been load following with their nuclear plants for
| decades. They have to as they have so much of it. The
| reactors in Germany also did/do the same.
|
| The reactors in Finland also started to do that too during
| this summer as we are having more and more wind (and a new
| 1600MW nuclear reactor) and a huge chunk is sold on the spot
| market (so if nobody bought your nuclear power you are not
| allowed to send it to the grid). Basically leaving ramping
| down your production as the only choice.
| _ph_ wrote:
| France has a lot of water power which helps with balancing
| the grid and Germany never had more than 30% of nuclear in
| the mix, so basically little load following was required.
| Also, both countries, as most industry nations, tried hard
| to shape the consumption to be constant over time. Like
| extra cheap electricity in the night which lead to heating
| systems which would electrically heat up over night and
| dispense the heat during the day. Also, the European grid
| helps a lot with balancing, electricity is constantly
| traded and exchanged between the countries.
| beders wrote:
| There are whole countries who have built stable grids with
| wind, water, solar and battery alone.
|
| Financially building nuclear power plants make absolutely no
| sense.
| lkbm wrote:
| I think solar+battery usually also involves overbuilding the
| solar capacity by a lot and running some HVDC lines. A mix with
| nuclear and wind seems smart to me, but I wouldn't be shocked
| if some cloudy places successfully manage solar+batteries in
| combination with HVDC and/or having some easily-curtailed
| industries in the area.
| sunshinesnacks wrote:
| The good news is that it's very possible to "run the math," and
| people run power generation capacity expansion models and
| production cost/dispatch models to look at these things. And
| then 15-25 years of solar irradiance and other weather data, at
| hourly resolution or shorter intervals, is available for most
| of the world.
|
| Maybe the general public extrapolates from their own
| experience, but grid planners and researchers do much more than
| that.
| samstave wrote:
| There should be a "roof-tile" mandated on every single
| structure built which captures weather information for every
| single structure. And that structure should be able to be read
| by any device which states in a standard format the sunlight
| avg per N, rainfall avg per N and temp. (air quality adds cost,
| but should also be there (staring at Purple's horrific pricing)
|
| Edit to add: "Whether Information"
|
| Big Brother: _" was @dang there?"_
|
| Smart-Tile (as played by Marissa Tomai: _" Look, my coverage is
| limited. I can tell you weather... weather... but I can't
| whether this or whether that. you'll have ta pay"_
| _ph_ wrote:
| Solar+battery isn't sufficient in all places indeed. But those
| places are usually great for wind. With
| solar+battery+wind+other renewables+grid, the solution becomes
| rather easy. Toss in some gas until the battery capacities have
| grown enough. But nuclear is the worst thing to put into this
| mix due to its nature.
| tills13 wrote:
| Yeah and solar and wind are perfect for baseline load but you
| need something that can react to demand changes like how NG or
| Coal production can by simply burning more / less fuel.
|
| There are clever ways to store / "shed" excess capacity for the
| inverse but it'd still be better to be able to adjust capacity
| in real time.
| aftbit wrote:
| Dunkelflaute (dark and calm) is indeed a real problem for a
| renewable-only future. If you want to maintain current
| reliability statistics with solar/wind only, you need to
| overbuild both storage and generation to such an extreme level
| that it might not be cost competitive in the end. You'll end up
| building your entire grid for the 100 year dunkelflaute event
| even though 90%+ of it will be idle most of the time, or you'll
| keep a bunch of gas plants idling to pick up the load in that
| case.
|
| Really we need to crack better storage. Improvements in
| hydrogen electrolysis or direct air to fuel could do it, but
| there are non-trivial technology hurdles there as well.
|
| I'm holding out hope for deep sea geothermal ala Peter Watts'
| Behemoth. Perhaps we can exploit the temperature difference
| between geothermal vents and the surrounding water to get
| stable and green base-load power.
| baby wrote:
| Interestingly a year after fusion worked
| p1mrx wrote:
| Fusion has worked since 1952, just not in power plants.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| It has worked since over 13 billion BC, just not on Earth.
| baby wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/nuclear-fusion-
| energ...
| p1mrx wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike
| a_saidi wrote:
| Now copy exactly hopefully at much reduced costs
| gretch wrote:
| I see a lot of the arguments from all sides on "the future is X,
| it cannot be Y!"
|
| To me, this is a false dichotomy.
|
| In my opinion energy is one of the most important pillars of
| society. It is so important that it must be hedged.
|
| I don't think we can afford to put all of eggs in 1 basket, no
| matter how confident we are in a single basket.
|
| I support all forms of sustainable energy advancement and
| research.
|
| We need more nuclear plants AND more solar/wind. And probably
| also geothermal, and tidal, and other things I don't even
| personally know about.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Yes, we need a mix of technologies. But at the current state of
| things, nuclear shouldn't be something to invest into. Yes,
| existing reactors should be used for their full life time, but
| there is far too much speaking against building new ones.
| chaseha wrote:
| Well said sir
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| Oh yeah baby. I love to see it.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Goodonya! Meanwhile we're still waiting for our infamous EPRs
| over here. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
|
| > _The first EPR unit to start construction, at Olkiluoto in
| Finland, originally intended to be commissioned in 2009, started
| commercial operation in 2023, a delay of fourteen years.[3] The
| second EPR unit to start construction, at Flamanville in France,
| is also facing a decade-long delay in its commissioning (from
| 2013 to 2024).[4] Two units at Hinkley Point in the United
| Kingdom received final approval in September 2016; the first unit
| is expected to begin operating in 2027.[5][6]_
| amateuring wrote:
| kudos. we need moaaar of these
| simonw wrote:
| This caught my eye: "Prior to Vogtle Unit 3, the last nuclear
| reactor to start in the United States was Watts Bar Unit 2 in
| Tennessee. Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was
| suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came
| online in 2016."
|
| More on that here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Plant#Unit_2
| arcfour wrote:
| Jeez. Imagine walking into a construction site from 2 decades
| ago.
| HankB99 wrote:
| Makes me wonder how much effort went into mothballing partial
| construction and then unwinding all of that to get it going
| again. Seems like it would have cost a lot.
| lallysingh wrote:
| You don't have to worry about disposing of any copper pipe!
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Check out Satsop, Washington:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNP-3_and_WNP-5
| saltminer wrote:
| The A-35 (a highway in Quebec) has been under construction
| since 1966. When finished, it will be 34 miles/55 km long.
|
| Two decades isn't very long for an infrastructure project,
| which is unfortunate since long-term planning benefits
| greatly from political stability, and many areas are seeing
| large shifts for the worse in that regard.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Two decades ought be a very long time for an infrastructure
| project. I guarantee you China and India aren't taking 47
| years to build a 55 km highway.
| dmd wrote:
| I would be stunned if it took 47 days.
| doubleg72 wrote:
| But only lasts half that..
| dmd wrote:
| ??? I think you're thinking of US roads, which are
| generally shoddily constructed and poorly maintained
| compared to chinese ones.
|
| No, what you meant to say was "and only 47 people died
| constructing it!"
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| China has had more than 150 modern bridges collapse. Some
| of them collapsed in less than a year. China is not
| building or maintaining bridges any better than the US.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268466718_Statis
| tic...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-19365886
| adastra22 wrote:
| Montreal roads are famously bad.
| jeromegv wrote:
| It's an extremely poor example. It's a multi phase
| project and for many years government didn't provide any
| funding as it was not a priority. It's not like they were
| actively trying to build it for 47 years, they built
| multiple small parts of it through multiple phases but
| they were never trying to build the whole thing. It was
| just not anything important to complete.
| adastra22 wrote:
| The criticism still stands. It should not take 47 years
| from recognition that a road is needed to actually
| building it.
| KMag wrote:
| What if sections will be needed now, and it's easy enough
| to make a plan to eventually connect all of the parts as
| needed? Get the zoning work done to prevent anything over
| 2 stories tall being built over the planned route, and
| then build the various sections as needed/as budget is
| available. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I can
| see smart, modular, as-needed infrastructure projects
| being drawn out over decades like this.
| phatfish wrote:
| The irony of software engineers complaining about a
| project not being feature complete and on time.
| adastra22 wrote:
| When a project that should take 5 months takes 500
| months, this isn't a case of the pot calling the kettle
| black.
| m4rtink wrote:
| The Brno main post office building here in the Czech
| Republic has been built as a modular structure that can be
| moved and reassembled once the new main railway station is
| completed.
|
| That was in 1937 - the new main railway station does not
| exist yet (though it looks like it might actually be built
| this time) and post even moved out of the historic building
| last year. :P
| riffic wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juragua_Nuclear_Power_Plant
|
| an abandoned nuclear station in Cuba
| 0xDEADFED5 wrote:
| shared earlier this year, a blog post about a clandestine
| visit in 2014:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35672840
| polski-g wrote:
| Many churches in England took 100 years to build
| missedthecue wrote:
| A lot of the reason for the lengthy construction times in
| cathedrals and churches was the amount of hand-skilled
| craftsmanship associated with marble, wood, and stone
| carving and artistry.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended
| in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in
| 2016.
|
| That seems to be common with nuclear power plants. The latest
| one near where I live (Angra 3) has been under construction
| since 1984, and it should be complete in a few more years if it
| doesn't pause again; construction of the previous one (Angra
| 2), according to Wikipedia, started in 1976 and came online in
| 2001.
| cheschire wrote:
| Well the Three Mile Island accident was in 1979, so I imagine
| that created a lot of resistance to continued construction
| across the country.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Three Mile Island was a partial meltdown. It wasn't just a
| fender bender.
| Fatnino wrote:
| And the safety systems worked so everything was (mostly)
| contained and no one got hurt.
|
| Like a car crash where the seat belts and airbags lead to
| no injuries.
|
| And then all driving was banned.
| somenameforme wrote:
| The official numbers around radiation exposure from Three
| Mile Island claim minimal radiation exposure, yet studies
| have found numerous contradictory effects including 64%
| increased rates of cancer, > 50% increase in young infant
| mortality, and various other ill effects. [1] Studies
| have not been able to prove a _causal_ link, but that 's
| largely because they take, as an assumption, the
| correctness of the official numbers, making it
| essentially impossible to reject the null hypothesis or,
| in other words, prove a causal link.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_acc
| ident_hea...
| defrost wrote:
| There's a slew of studies mentioned in your link, not all
| aligned with some "official" policy of suppression - and
| they amount in total to tentative evidence of maybe
| something.
|
| Statistically it's inconclusive whether slight increases
| in some zones from a bit below average to a bit above
| average cancer rates is linked to TMI or to stress and|or
| increased screening.
|
| What is certain, beyond a doubt, is that within the last
| week an explosion at a nickel plant in Indonesia left at
| least 13 dead and 46 injured.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/24/explosion-
| at-a...
|
| That's an example of the generally unreported and ongoing
| human cost of battery technology.
|
| Note Well: I'm not pro nuclear OR anti battery - I am
| pragmatic about the real consequences of resource mining
| and extraction having been part of exploration geophysics
| and global resource mapping for several decades.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Are you suggesting that a death due to an explosion at a
| plant owned by "PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel"
| counts against batteries, because some of them use
| nickel, but not nuclear plants, which pretty much require
| nickel-containing stainless steel for its anti-corrosion
| properties?
| defrost wrote:
| No.
|
| I'm stating that to date _all_ mining and processing of
| resources involves deaths, multilations, long term
| disease, etc.
|
| I'm asserting that to date the cumulative deaths from the
| nuclear power industry do not yet equal the deaths from a
| single Bhopal disaster (pesticide processing, half a
| million people exposed, many dead).
|
| I'm putting forward as a simple fact that as wind, solar,
| batteries, etc continue to scale up from the small sliver
| of total global energy they currently are to ideally
| matching the current percentage of coal there will need
| to be a substantial increase in the tonnages of nickel,
| copper, lithium, and more that are mined, concentrated,
| processed and extracted and that comes with substantial
| increases in the wastes associated with these industries
| and the known risks to human life.
|
| I would suggest that anybody making a human risk argument
| on any single portion of the energy industry look broadly
| at the risks across the board.
|
| It's perfectly fine to chest beat about safety, I'm for
| it.
|
| It's callously indifferent to only give a damn about a
| few deaths in a sector not approved while ignoring those
| in sectors liked.
| katbyte wrote:
| Until we stop building and burning coal for power
| "radiation" is not an excuse because coal power puts off
| far more radiation then TMI ever did even with a partial
| meltdown
| _ph_ wrote:
| No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only
| sensible reaction to such an incident to check your
| designs for faults and review all reactors under
| construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to
| continue with the construction and which changes would be
| required.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Coal cause more cancer and pumps a huge amount of
| radioactive material into the sky but I've not seen
| anyone closing coal power stations to stop that. The fear
| of nuclear power is just one of those irrational fears..
| cinntaile wrote:
| The long term plan is to shut down all coal plants. In
| the US alone coal usage has more than halved since 2008.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Of course people want to close coal power stations too.
| One might argue about the relative timing, but the goal
| is to get rid of nuclear and coal. And while a safely
| operating nuclear plant is actually pretty low on
| radiation, we unfortunately had severe incidents which
| released a lot of radiation. Here in Bavaria, the forests
| are still contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster. Wild
| boar meat still has to be checked for radiation and a lot
| of it destroyed as not fit for consumption. Never mind
| the meat which probably gets eaten unchecked.
| goodpoint wrote:
| This is pure whataboutism.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Silent downvotes, nice. The amount of nuclear shilling
| here...
| Fatnino wrote:
| So is bitching about nuclear while ignoring the much
| worse coal.
| edgyquant wrote:
| No one is ignoring coal lmao
| pas wrote:
| In effect they did through overzealous safety
| requirements (which made it more expensive compared to
| other forms of electricity generation)
|
| this regulatory inconsistency is mostly irrational,
| because it's clear through other policies that society
| values safety much less in other policies (eg. driving,
| all the emissions from other sources, gun safety, etc)
|
| of course regulations are not perfect mirrors of
| society's preferences, but it's close enough. (and of
| course society doesn't "has to be" consistent, but I
| would say a pretty vocal minority, perhaps even the
| majority wishes it to be so)
|
| .
|
| .
|
| that said, yes, if the world would order 1000+ nuclear
| power plants, all standardized, then we could have it
| cheaper, because then it would make sense to invest in
| automation, and maybe modular small reactors can already
| get enough traction. but since we are not ordering that
| many and even AP1000 is just a brand not really a
| standard, there's practically no economies of scale
| _ph_ wrote:
| If you claim the safety requirements were overzealous, do
| you have any data to substantiate your claim?
| pas wrote:
| On nuclear construction cost increases, from Crowley and
| Griffith 1982, "US construction cost rise threatens
| nuclear option" (via @whatisnuclear):
|
| """ Ironically, some of the decisions that have been made
| in the name of improving safety margins for low
| probability events, may have reduced the safety margins
| for high probability events. The UE&C piping study
| uncovered numerous areas where the tolerances requested
| in the piping design documents might be appropriate for a
| machine shop oriented manufacturing operation, but are
| totally unrealistic for field construction. """
|
| via https://rootsofprogress.org/links-digest-2023-12-15
|
| The whole quote is worth reading/skimming.
|
| More importantly this zero risk approach has to be
| considered relative to all the other risks arising from
| building other types of power plants.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
|
| (and of course a bit more on the problems with the
| process at the NRC
| https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/waiting-on-the-nuclear-
| regu... )
| goodpoint wrote:
| And yet... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_
| power_accident...
| Fatnino wrote:
| Is there a similar list for coal plants?
|
| Also, skimming the list of USA incidents, there are a
| great deal of bullshit "incidents" in recent times. Most
| related to natural machanical breakdowns in non
| radioactive systems due to everything being operated
| decades past its expiration date. Wouldn't be happening
| if new NPPs had been built to replace these ancient
| designs.
| pas wrote:
| And thus!
|
| This is how a good culture of safety looks like. Treat
| small stuff seriously to prevent the big bad things.
| Similarly with aviation, and with medicine, etc.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Considering the potential damage, nuclear is right up
| there with aviation, medical and life science when it
| comes to safety standards. Because each and every
| incident can be traced back to ignoring whatever safety
| standards and practices where applicable at the time
| these accidents happened.
|
| Someone would have to pay for those 1000 NPPs, and in the
| current market conditions no one is willing to, because
| the ROI isn't there. Even you said so, there is no NPP
| standard in place to begin with, so before those 1000
| plants are ordered, this standard design has to defined,
| agreed upon and developed first. And that takes how long
| in your opinion?
| pas wrote:
| Yes, and the safety conscious approach is great, and
| aviation and medicine are a pretty good examples, they
| can be safe and cheap at the same time. (Notwithstanding
| the usual [and rightful!] grumbling about the FDA, and
| the Boeing/FAA MCAS fuckup.)
|
| The ROI is not there because other forms of electricity
| generation didn't have to pay for most of their
| externalities[1], and people don't give a damn about
| actual safety profile, or mid-long term overall costs,
| it's simply the usual sentimentalism-theater.
|
| > Oh think of the nuclear waste, oh think of the poor
| little spent fuel rods leaking into our puppies' drinking
| water, oh think of all the horrible unspeakable tragedies
| we will get when every Monday Chernobyl repeats but
| worse, Fridays are for Fukushimas, and the rest of the
| weekdays are for all the usual GreenPeace-made-up
| dangers. But of course instead currently, of course, we
| enjoy the peaceful and prosperous energy abundance
| granted to us by ... _checks notes_ ... the same geniuses
| who delivered the just one-more-lane will solve the
| traffic jams for sure hit comedy series, the single-
| family house exclusive rated 10 /10 absolute heavens on
| Earth[2], healthcare as an investment [3], but muh guns
| [4], and so on.
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
|
| [2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Largo,+FL,+USA/@27.
| 9213946... whatever the hell is going on here :o
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38773426 private
| equity takeover is amazing for hospitals(' profitabilty)
|
| [4] https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2017/special-
| report/u... muh guns and muh freedum to leave guns in
| not-even-locked cars to get stolen
| hef19898 wrote:
| What are you even talking about? and what have guns to do
| with any of that? Or Greenpeace? After all, it is a well
| known fact that NPPs are uninsureable, always have been.
| Because insurance compabies are _extremely_ good at
| running risk-premium-profit models, and those all tell
| the same thing: don 't offer insurance for NPPs above
| very small amounts that are nowhere near enough to cover
| a serious accident.
| pas wrote:
| I'm talking about the usual failure of policy-through-
| populism. Nuclear energy is in the same category as those
| I mentioned.
|
| Uninsurable at what price? If NPPs work without
| insurance, maybe it's irrelevant anyway. (Especially
| since private parties hardly can just run their own NPPs,
| and states already run them or allow them to be run
| without insurance.)
|
| That said I don't know whether residents near NPPs have a
| higher preimum because of the plant. Or even whether they
| can get policies from insurers. But if they can, then
| insurance already does underwrite some of the costs of
| potential accidents.)
| aftbit wrote:
| >Because each and every incident can be traced back to
| ignoring whatever safety standards and practices where
| applicable at the time these accidents happened.
|
| No they absolutely cannot. Many incidents happened due to
| yet unimagined failures. For example, KLM Flight 867,
| which lost all four engines due to a common mode failure
| (flying through ash clouds). The plane landed safely and
| safety standards were updated to provide guidance on
| avoiding, detecting, and reacting to ash ingestion.
|
| TMI was a similar situation. At that point, nobody had
| really considered human factors engineering for nuclear
| plants. Nobody considered the risk of having a lamp that
| indicated that a valve had been asked to close instead of
| that it actually was closed.
|
| One major challenge that aviation has handled better than
| nuclear and much better than chemical production is
| ensuring that issues get reported promptly and treated
| seriously. Aviation calls it "just culture", where
| mistakes and accidents are treated with retraining and
| lenience, but covering up issues is treated very harshly.
| This is absolutely necessary, otherwise you end up with
| major communications issues like we saw with MetEd during
| TMI or Tepco during Fukishima.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I ment nuclear accidents and disasters, both Chernobyl
| and Fukushima can be traced back to ignoring safety rules
| and regulations.
| aftbit wrote:
| Ah I see. Let me write up a few thoughts about the "big
| 3" nuclear accidents.
|
| Chernobyl was a very poor design, with a positive void
| coefficient of reactivity (i.e. temperature goes up,
| steam goes up, reactivity goes up, leading to runaway
| feedback) and no containment building. It was operated in
| a very poor manner as well, which was the principle cause
| of the failure. Some sources[1] claim that this poor
| design and unsafe operating conditions were well known to
| plant management and Soviet leadership, and were covered
| up in the name of Progress and production pressures.
| There was even a very similar accident that occurred
| during a very similar test in Leningrad in 1975, albeit
| with less extreme consequences, which was fully covered
| up, even from plant operators at other RBMK reactors.[2]
|
| Fukushima was a pretty well designed and operated
| reactor, but the design basis did not consider the risk
| of a large tsunami, rather instead focusing on typhoons.
| Ironically, they actually removed a larger "natural sea
| wall" (i.e. a cliff) that would have protected the
| plant.[3] The big lesson learned here is to have
| prepositioned stocks of generators, batteries,
| replacement parts, etc close enough to the plant to be
| supplied promptly as needed, but far enough away to
| hopefully be excluded from any local disasters, aka the
| FLEX program.[4]
|
| On the other hand, TMI was an accident in which the
| operators made the wrong call, primarily because they had
| been trained to be concerned about one specific danger
| ("going solid" and bursting the pressurizer, requiring
| less water injection), but really they were facing a
| totally different one (small break loss of cooling,
| requiring more high pressure water injection).[5]
| Interestingly, a very similar accident happened at Davis
| Besse in Ohio only a few years before, but without any
| major consequences, as the operations team recognized the
| mistake and resolved it, but these lessons learned were
| not well communicated to operators of other plants. This
| failure and others like it led to the establishment of
| WANO (international) and INPO (USA) which are
| organizations intended to help operators share
| experiences with each other in a timely and safe
| manner.[6][7]
|
| 1: https://www.reuters.com/world/unsealed-soviet-
| archives-revea...
|
| 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad_Nuclear_Power_
| Plant
|
| 3: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-
| News/Tepco-Rem...
|
| 4: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1524/ML15244B006.pdf
|
| 5: https://www.ans.org/news/article-1556/tmi-operators-
| did-what...
|
| 6: https://www.wano.info/services/overview-of-
| services-(1)
|
| 7: https://www.inpo.info/history
| midasuni wrote:
| Potential damage is one thing, but for actual deaths coal
| is 1000 times more deadly per TWh than nuclear, so surely
| coal requires far more rigourous safety standards
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-
| energy-p...
| hef19898 wrote:
| It would never occur to me to defend coal...
| cinntaile wrote:
| You need to look at the potential consequences of an
| accident to determine how rigorous the safety standards
| should be. A metric such as deaths/TWh cannot answer that
| question and therefore should not be used to guide the
| answer.
| philwelch wrote:
| > No one banned nuclear.
|
| Sometimes, when your employer wants to fire you but
| doesn't want you to be able to file for unemployment or
| accuse them of firing you for some legally impermissible
| reason, they just make it so miserable to keep working
| there that you end up quitting. There is a legal term for
| this: "constructive dismissal". I hope the implied
| analogy is obvious.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Yes. But it proves nothing.
| xw3089 wrote:
| Maybe not no one
|
| https://berkeley.municipal.codes/BMC/12.90.050
| jeffbee wrote:
| The funny thing is these effing boomers still protest
| against nuclear power at the end of University Avenue
| every month, as if this was somehow a relevant concern in
| 2023.
| aftbit wrote:
| I remember when I lived there, they had to get a special
| exemption to use self-checkout machines made by 3M in the
| Berkeley library. I don't remember why 3M ended up on the
| bad boy list, probably something related to nuclear
| weapons though.
| jeffbee wrote:
| "The Peace and Justice Commission finds that it would
| violate the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act (NFBA) to approve a
| waiver of the law and contract with 3M Corporation for
| maintenance of the Library's RFID system."
|
| "Pursuant to B.M.C. Section 12.90.070, the City of
| Berkeley shall grant no contract to any person or
| business, which knowingly engages in work for nuclear
| weapons."
| aftbit wrote:
| Thank you for the quotes. Can you provide the source too?
| Google search returns only this page for quoted searches
| for this text.
| cjpearson wrote:
| "Accident" is the official terminology, not an attempt to
| downplay the severity.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Here is the best summary I can post quickly. Sorry for
| the source.
|
| After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken
| pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979,
| emergency cooling pumps automatically went into
| operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have
| prevented the development of a larger crisis. However,
| human operators in the control room misread confusing and
| contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water
| system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat
| from the fission process was still being released. By
| early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees,
| just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown
| scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts
| across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially
| great number of people.
|
| As the plant operators struggled to understand what had
| happened, the contaminated water was releasing
| radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation
| levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were
| dangerous, and the core cooked further as the
| contaminated water was contained and precautions were
| taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m.,
| word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The
| plant's parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed
| the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been
| detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors
| detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as
| a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania
| Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an
| evacuation.
|
| Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they
| needed to get water moving through the core again and
| restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and
| pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come
| within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More
| than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had
| not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was
| escaping. The crisis was apparently over.
|
| https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuclear-
| accident...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I can't even imagine how you'd get the parts, and they probably
| can't change the plans either. Ok so I decided to look into it
| a bit more, and here are some interesting details from
| documents on the nrc.gov and EIA.gov:
|
| Here's some context for what was happening in 1985, from the
| eia:
|
| >"As a consequence of the identification of a large number of
| deficiencies shortly before the WBN Unit 1 license was expected
| to be issued, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sent a
| letter to TVA [...]. In response to this letter, TVA developed
| a Nuclear Performance Plan (NPP) to address corporate and site-
| specific issues, establishing programs to address a wide
| variety of material, design, and programmatic deficiencies. WBN
| Unit 2 construction was suspended at about that time, with
| major structures in place and equipment such as reactor coolant
| system piping installed."
|
| And while most of the documentation was very terse and spoke
| more about specific regulatory requirements that I don't
| understand, this is pretty interesting:
|
| (From the nrc.gov)
|
| >"The NRC staff reviewed TVA's refurbishment program and found
| the following: (1) TVA was refurbishing or replacing most
| active components and instruments; (2) TVA had determined the
| potential degradation mechanism for each category of
| components, along with any contributing environmental factors;
| (3) the acceptance criteria were developed from the licensing
| basis, design specifications, and vendor specifications; (4)
| the proposed inspections and testing included in the program
| could be expected to identify degradation; and (5)
| refurbishment activities would be in accordance with applicable
| vendor and design specifications or requirements."
|
| That sounds like a massive, massive amount of work. It explains
| why it took longer even if the reactor was apparently 60%
| completed.
|
| (From the eia) :
|
| >"That time, a study found Unit 2 to be effectively 60%
| complete with $1.7 billion invested. The study said the plant
| could be finished in five years at an additional cost of $2.5
| billion"
| zeristor wrote:
| TVA - Not the Time Variance Authority I take it?
|
| I was wondering how that was powered.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Tennessee Valley Authority -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority
| danans wrote:
| Which I believe was the inspiration for the Time Variance
| Authority in the Loki TV Series.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I get it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley
| _Authority#/me...
| zeristor wrote:
| A Quora link going into a bit more detail:
|
| https://www.quora.com/Is-the-TVA-in-Loki-somehow-related-
| to-...
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Tangent, but I find it illustrative that ChatGPT's answer
| is strictly true but doesn't actually answer the
| question.
| necheffa wrote:
| > I can't even imagine how you'd get the parts, and they
| probably can't change the plans either.
|
| One of the bullets on the box is that the AP1000 uses a
| fairly standardized design, unlike many prior designs which
| were mostly a patchwork of one-off designs. The AP1000 still
| being "in production" means parts are available.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > I can't even imagine how you'd get the parts
|
| I have no idea, but I would assume most parts are custom
| machined to spec. If that's true, you'd just need to find
| machine shops capable of making the parts.
| mcmoor wrote:
| Heh imagine finally finishing work that your father had started
| before you're born.
| trothamel wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No..
| ..
|
| was under construction from 1970. I believe it's had 3
| generations working on it.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| This is how castles and cathedrals often were. But ofc after
| seeing public works built quickly and efficiently it's a
| tragedy when they're not.
| jansan wrote:
| One example is St. Barbara's Church in Kutna Hora (Czech
| Republic). Construction began in 1305, and it was finished
| in 1905:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Barbara%27s_Church,_Kutn%
| C...
| Enk1du wrote:
| That makes Gaudi's Sagrada Familia look timely in
| comparison. Started in 1882, the final, final completion
| date was set back to 2040 due to the pandemic (Covid was
| mentioned. I imagine 1919 may have also contributed)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
| jeffbee wrote:
| There must have been engineers who worked their entire
| careers on GE's "next gen" reactor or whatever they call it,
| and retired without seeing one built.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Construction on WNP 3 & 5 began in 1977 in Elma, WA by
| Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, AKA "Whoops!").
| The plant is partially finished, and every decade or someone
| tries to get work started again. There is a business park at
| the base of the cooling tower, which reportedly held an
| overstock.com call center for a while. During Dieselgate,
| Volkswagen used the facility to house 10s of thousands of
| recalled vehicles. The tower is often used as a filming
| location, including adult films.
| acchow wrote:
| It is also a Generation II reactor (like the Chernobyl and
| Fukushima reactors)
| tills13 wrote:
| Is this supposed to scare people? I'm not sure I understand
| the point you're making.
| huytersd wrote:
| Meanwhile India is building 8 reactors right now with 10 more
| planned over the next decade. China is actively building 23
| right now.
| geysersam wrote:
| That's incredibly impressive. Since it takes approximately 6
| years to build a reactor in China that amounts to about 4
| reactors per year.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And total caoacity of zhose pales in comparison to wind,
| solar coal being built at the same time. Funny, the numbers
| are all there, all you have to do is comparing them to
| realize nuclear is far from growing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| And it keeps getting more expensive.
|
| People are calling for small, modular and repeatable
| nuclear reactors that could theoretically get cheaper
| with scale.
|
| You know what is is actually small, modular and
| repeatable and getting cheaper with scale? Solar panels
| and wind turbines.
| huytersd wrote:
| It's not nothing though. For the 8 nuclear plants the
| combined output will be 7GWe. That can power 50 million+
| homes. That's like a fifth of the population.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Russia has 4 domestically under construction and about 17
| actively under construction internationally. They are
| planning something like 29 more by 2050, though the jury is
| out on whether those will actually ever get completed.
|
| But it is very nice that RosAtom seems to be one of the most
| competently run Russian Gov agencies.
| renewiltord wrote:
| NRC missed one, eh? That's the thing with regulatory commissions,
| once you put them in you're never getting the thing done.
|
| But we should always remember, regulations are written in blood.
|
| But this is the classic technique of how to slow down something.
| Infiltrate by agreeing, and then kill it with committee. At least
| one W3C anti-ad group is currently hamstrung with this technique.
|
| It's pretty good. And the best part is that the suckers you're
| exploiting will argue for you after a point because they'd have
| to justify why they couldn't get something done otherwise.
| techscruggs wrote:
| This is a win for the environment and for human rights. A lot of
| people on here are talking about how solar and wind are better
| alternatives. The problem with that is that they typically need
| to be stored in batteries made of cobalt. The vast majority of
| cobalt mines exist in the Congo where modern day slavery exists
| to extract it. This affects everything from your Tesla to your
| iPhone.
| edent wrote:
| Good thing uranium doesn't need mining! And it is only found in
| countries with strong human rights records!
| mpweiher wrote:
| Largest reserves are in Australia.
|
| Canada also has quite a bit.
| dkobia wrote:
| As exciting as this should be, the soaring cost overruns on this
| project means we Georgians have been left holding the bag.
| There's now a "Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery" line item on
| my bill, so electricity costs more rather than less.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| "Cost overruns" is underselling it - according to what I can
| find online it seems like the cost nearly doubled from 14B to
| 27B.
|
| I've never seen a public/private setup like this actually yield
| benefit for the consumer.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Arguably, the benefit is "less coal and CO2 in your family's
| lungs".
|
| The military doesn't make you money, it makes you safe. The
| post office doesn't make you money, it ensures communication
| and logistics. Roads don't make you money, they undergird the
| economy.
|
| Nuclear power doesn't save you money on your power bill. It
| establishes energy independence for our country and clean
| power for our atmosphere.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| You don't need private enterprise to be involved to obtain
| those things though, is my point.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The military and road construction is loaded with public
| private partnerships, contractors.
| Bubbadoo99 wrote:
| Unfortunately, this more the rule than the exception. Same
| thing happened on Long Island, NY with Lilco's Shoreham reactor
| that took years to build (construction was riddled with all
| sorts of problems, theft, etc.)and when finally finished,
| people realized if something went wrong, the narrow, 128 mile
| island would be impossible to evacuate. After completion, it
| was never put online and despite the mass incompetence, no one
| was fired. In fact, management bonuses were as big as ever.
| Rate payers on LI are still paying for this debacle 40 years
| later thanks to then Gov. Mario Cuomo. LI utilities, like many
| utilities, are so poorly managed.
| louwrentius wrote:
| Try and imagine how much solar/wind and grid-scale energy
| storage that money could have bought ...
|
| I don't think nuclear power is the future. In my country, 7% of
| the time electricity prices are like 1 cent or even negative.
| Try to run your nuclear reactor at a profit in this
| environment.
| elcritch wrote:
| How much were the solar and wind propped up by baseline
| fossil fuels that are cheap because they don't include
| externalities in their cost?
| exabrial wrote:
| In my mind, the only allowable carbon offset should be an
| investment fund for new nuclear reactors.
|
| A truly unlimited energy source with solve everything from
| poverty to wars over oil.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| What is the lcoe?
| happytiger wrote:
| I really want nuclear reactors and clean energy but I'm keenly
| aware that we are rushing headlong and with pathetic levels of
| self-control into AI.
|
| A global environment filled with nuclear reactors and AIs
| operating only in the lower interests of individual nation states
| is a risk I haven't seen much discussion about, but it's not a
| _great_ scenario.
|
| There is a distinct possibility that no security system design
| will be impervious to AGI: a weird-to-consider existential risk.
| tills13 wrote:
| It's fine to think about this scenario but I hate that people
| take this train of thought, dig their feet in, and block ANY
| progress forward based on "what ifs"
|
| What if AGI + nuclear is our key to unlocking infinite
| potential? At least, to me, that's a more likely scenario than
| the Hollywood-inspired robots-enslave-the-human-race trope.
| apexalpha wrote:
| 1.1GW for 30 BILLION dollars? Jeez, that's an insane amount of
| money for this little power.
|
| Probably pretty high cost per kWh, too, which has to be
| guaranteed by the government I guess.
|
| For comparison in my country they built a 1,6GW off-shore
| windfarm in 2 years with 0 government subsidy.
|
| I understand that a nuclear plant provides power 24/7, so it's
| not an entirely fair comparison. But the cost of nuclear power is
| just insane compared to wind and PV.
|
| It's just setting up your country for higher energy cost than
| needed for the next 40 years, while the government takes all the
| risk.
| klysm wrote:
| It's hard to compare given the intermittency, but I do agree
| the cost is a bit absurd. It's painful because it doesn't have
| to be this way but we've cornered ourselves via regulation into
| bad designs
| iwallace wrote:
| I like to compare this to Site C in British Columbia
| https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-
| bc/projects/site_c.html#:~.... If you are lucky enough to be
| blessed with remote untapped rivers that can be dammed in
| somewhat unpopulated mountain valleys (that's another story
| again), it seems to be far cheaper and safer. I would imagine
| that Nuclear power's main issue is first and foremost cost. If
| you could pull off completely safe nuclear power, it just winds
| up costing too dang much.
| rareitem wrote:
| Pretend I'm country's government A. Am I incentivized to make
| sure that country B doesn't get access to nuclear energy, since
| that is the precursor to a nuclear program? Therefore, I have to
| make sure that nuclear energy stays unpopular
| tills13 wrote:
| Please correct me if I'm wrong but a) it's not possible to
| convert spent nuclear fuel into nuclear weapons (or am I
| misunderstanding your point?) and b) I'm pretty sure you can
| just Google how to make a nuclear bomb at this point so what
| are you really protecting against.
| flr001 wrote:
| did the end of cold war killed nuclear reactor constructions?
| merpnderp wrote:
| Weird how it's take the US decades to do what Japan used to do in
| three years.
| swader999 wrote:
| How many more until net zero?
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