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Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

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Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#71

Post by merpnderp »

selimthegrim wrote: post #58
merpnderp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We built profitable nuclear plants in the past. One might wonder how with mind bogglingly better designs and a much richer world, we can't afford to build them today. My money is that the blame lies between political reasons and that Nat-Gas is cheap, relatively clean, and wildly abundant energy source in N. America. Right now in N. America you'd be a fool to build anything but a mid-sized Nat-Gas generator which can…

Well that’s interesting, because University of Minnesota ran simulations with MISO that stated batteries and solar would outperform a gas peaker on that grid financially in the next few years. http://energytransition.umn.edu/modernizing-minnesotas-grid-...

My state's power companies all run solar and wind installations, and are incredibly heavily regulated, and all charge extra if you want power from them. Without a doubt wind and solar cost more in my southern state than Nat-Gas. Solar is a complete waste as other providers require contracts to stay available to pick up the slack on cloudy days, and that price is directly accountable against the solar energy making it far less competitive.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#72

Post by adventured »

melling wrote: post #45
pjc50 wrote: post #15

The incremental roll-out possible with solar, and the simpler project management, give it a huge advantage. The coal roll-out is alarming but as soon as it was pointed out that Vietnam has large coal reserves it was unsurprising. This is where the richer nations need to step up and find a way to pay to leave resources in the ground rather than extracting them. It's the cheapest form of "carbon capture".

Do you mean like the United States or Germany which are increasing or fighting a reduction in coal? https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-is-set-to-roll-back-restric...

You can say that as a headline, however the results on the ground are what actually matter: the US has massively reduced its coal use. Coal use is not climbing in the US and isn't going to no matter what the Trump Admin tries.

US energy generation from coal has gone from 52% in 1998 to 30% today (surpassed by natural gas). Nuclear is at 20% energy generation as a share. Coal will continue falling and drop below nuclear in the next 10-15 years, at which point non-hydro renewables will also have surpassed coal.

"US Coal Continues to Decline Under Trump"

http://mikerazar.com/chart-it/2018/01/30/uscoal2017/

"Coal industry mired in decline despite Trump pledges"

"New projections from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimate that Americans will be less dependent on coal, that coal production will fall, and that coal capacity in the nation’s power plants is likely to decline in coming years, according to an annual report released last month."

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/376522-coal-industry...

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#73

Post by ju-st »

rjmunro wrote: post #18

How are they going to balance supply from solar (which peaks at midday, and goes away entirely at night) with demand (which usually peaks in the evening)?

The newest trend is to orientate the PV panels east-west instead south. If you want to know more: http://www.rechargenews.com/solar/1182796/is-east-west-the-b...

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#74

Post by greglindahl »

adventured wrote: post #68
jabl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developing nations are generally poor compared to developed countries (duh). So they might not be able to afford energy sources with high upfront costs like nuclear, solar, or wind. If you ignore externalities, coal is likely the cheapest, unfortunately. This is exactly what DIDN'T happen with, say, telecom networks. Developing countries skipped directly to mobile telecom, allowing them to save a lot of money by avoi…

I agree with you that poorer developing nations will want to generally avoid high upfront costs to new energy (if they can). Doesn't building new coal plants present high upfront cost just the same?

Yes. A modern, efficient coal power plant has to be large and takes a while to build. Solar and wind can be built incrementally.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#75

Post by greglindahl »

adrianN wrote: post #62
WhompingWindows wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal jobs are this bizarre holy grail of right-wing politics in the USA and Germany. It really makes very little sense in a macro view, because renewables are cleaner for the local populace's air and water, and renewables add some 5X-10X more jobs than coal. Coal extraction and processing is increasingly automated, the ole' miner with his pick is a thing of the past - these jobs are stagnant or decreasing in numbers…

Coal jobs are usually available in areas with few alternatives. Whole regions depend on mining. It's hard to tell people that their whole city needs to change jobs when there are none available.

West Virginia has more renewable energy jobs than coal jobs.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#77

Post by ben_w »

corerius wrote: post #64
hannob wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coal jobs are this bizarre holy grail of right-wing politics in the USA and Germany. It's far more than a right-wing politics issue in Germany. The most dedicated supporters of coal are within the social democrats and even the left party has some vocal coal supporters in some areas.

Sssshhh. You'll ruin the narrative. It seems to me that the easiest way for a Germany to cut on energy needs is simply by having less people live there. I expect they would have been at negative population growth without shipping in a scad of people.

Well duh, the only other ways are “be more energy efficient” (hard because they’re already good at that) or “get everyone to do less” (I’d approve of that, but most people don’t seem to).

Likewise, the cost of less people living there (or in any defined region) is less taxpayers, less people making stuff, and less people supplying stuff.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#78

Post by ben_w »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #60
sonnyblarney wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is good as long as it has very stable , secure and responsible local governance. You can't have political instability, people cutting corners, lack of oversight, lack of security or lack of resources ... or you have problems. To me that's the problem with Nuclear. Following specific rules and conventions, some nations will be fine, but so many ... it's iffy. If Vietnam gets a couple plants, Burma, Laos, Cambo…

> Nuclear is good as long as it has very stable, secure and responsible local governance. ...and no terrorist attacks. And no war. And the governance remains stable and responsible for the next 100 years.

They’ve managed to not break even though they’ve been in counties which have been at war (Israel), experienced a military coup (Pakistan), disintegrated (USSR), and experienced terrorism (UK, USA), so none of that is strictly necessary.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#79

Post by strainer »

realreality wrote: post #47
Chathamization wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed a lot of nuclear advocates talking about climate change but having a poor grasp of the actual issues involved. The aim isn't the unrealistic goal of going to zero emissions, it's to cut emissions such that carbon ppm stays below 450 (or 350, if we had acted sooner). If you look at serious comprehensive plans to fight climate change, nuclear doesn't play a big role for a variety of reasons (time to build,…

The goal is zero emissions, as soon as possible. The IPCC assumes we’ll have to have negative emissions, into the indefinite future.

The goal is not a certain level of emissions, as you say - negative emissions would be desirable. A 50% reduction will be a great improvement, a 90% reduction will be almost as good as 100%. 110% even better...

Our task is to reduce emissions as fast as possible. But what is "possible" still entails economic, environmental and safety limitations and priorities.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#80

Post by ben_w »

merpnderp wrote: post #50
nottoberudebut wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and future generations will pay the price for using fossil fuels instead of nuclear IMO this is pretty short-sighted and ironic in itself - I really don't think future generations will be thankful that we left them huge chunks of radioactive waste. All the pro-nuclear folks seem to miss another important thing - uranium isn't growing on trees, the mining is probably as destructive as coal mining, and the worldwide…

We have plenty of uranium. For all intents and purposes, we have an infinite supply of uranium that would have minimal environmental impact to mine, at roughly 2x existing prices of ore mined from the ground. As for wastes, all the truly nasty stuff will be naturally decayed in a hundred years or so. And we have real solutions that we don't use for political reasons. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01…

I’ve seen wildly divergent estimates for how much uranium we have. Personally I’d rather use renewable and storage for the ground, and keep the atomic fuel for spacecraft just in case we can’t make lightweight fusion engines.
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