Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#51

Post by epistasis » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

xenspidey wrote: post #33

epistasis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for renewables, but the electrons are cheaper and easier to get on the grid!

Off-peak hours for solar is also when there is no sun, so no. Wind isn't constant either. We need a constant 24/7 source of uninterruptible energy.

Important to define the "peak" part of "off-peak" here. Is it peak production, peak differential between supply demand, etc.

Mid-day is off-peak for solar in many markets, and they curtail their output so that they don't oversupply. As there is more solar built, more and more will be curtailed.

Both nuclear and solar would need a hydrolysis system that was economical even if not run 24x7 in order to utilize their supply-demand mismatches. This is the biggest road block to hydrogen production with the GWh of "free" electricity that we could currently be generating in the spring in California, but currently just don't use.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#52

Post by dv_dt » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #42

zackees wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until this guy finds out France is nearly all nuclear and did it at 1/10th the cost of solar and wind. Are people not able to do an internet search for this stuff? All this data is right out there in the open.

It's a coping mechanism. They want to believe solar and wind will solve all the problems because it is comforting. Of course, it also totally ignores how renewables are enabled by peaker plants burning natural gas. And that renewables generate less electricity as a percentage of total usage now than in the 1950s. But somehow batteries are going to solve that problem. Of course, they haven't calculated how large the b…

Renewables + storage is already cheaper than many workloads where natural gas peaker plants applied for short runs. The prices for nat gas plants is basically mature, while renewables and storage are on a manufacturing S-curve cost decline.

Basically this means there will be expanding workloads where it makes no financial sense to use natural gas at all, let alone nuclear. It's a matter of when, and we should be accelerating financial threshold to fight the climate crisis.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#53

Post by throw0101a » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #40

throw0101a wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same for nuclear though, a steady source of power is not a good fit for our energy use. This is completely wrong. There is a certain level of electrical production that is needed 24/7: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load As the data for the province of Ontario (Canada) shows, nuclear plants are very good at this (click on "Supply"): * http://www.ieso.ca/power-data * http://www.ieso.ca/Power-Data/Supply-Overvi…

http://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publ... https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-baseload-power-is-doomed/

Looking at Ontario's numbers, I see no way in getting 11,000MW of renewal power to replace nuclear connected to the grid, regardless of how many interconnects are set up to other jurisdictions (especially the population is concentrated in the south, and so there's be a high concentration of connections).

Ontario has quite a few turbine farms itself, spread over a reasonable wide area, and even then variability is high:

* http://www.ieso.ca/localContent/map/default.htm

And given that weather systems travel west-to-east, any neighbours are going to have lulls at roughly the same time as Ontario.

Perhaps in other jurisdictions things can work out, but I see it as a non-starter here.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#54

Post by MockObject » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #15

epistasis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, that the power of science fiction has clouded people's judgement of what the future will really be like. Today, I don't think we can consider nuclear a good or modern energy system when compared to something like solar or wind. Nuclear is used as a heat source to boil water and power a turbine, and throws away half of its thermal energy as waste. disposing of that waste heat is becoming so diff…

Good point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw with Fukushima, and all of that hot water being released wreaks havoc with riparian/marine ecosystems. Nuclear has downsides beyond the most obvious one, that of the risk of fallout. > I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power. Heh, it's even wo…

How is there "waste heat" in a power plant that is designed to produce heat?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#55

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

zackees wrote: post #25

CydeWeys wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. For all the people boosting nuclear power, the reality on the ground seems to be that it just does not work anymore. It's way too expensive and never gets done, and this problem is global, not just in the US; see e.g. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... At some point the results have to speak for themselves, and solar/wind plus battery storage is actually working and being built. That…

I love how people here are trying to say that technology simply does not progress forward for nuclear, as it does for every other technolgy.

It's a factual, descriptive argument. Nuclear takes so long to build and is so expensive that it's not really being built anymore, and thus the progress isn't happening.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#56

Post by jeffreyrogers » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #52

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a coping mechanism. They want to believe solar and wind will solve all the problems because it is comforting. Of course, it also totally ignores how renewables are enabled by peaker plants burning natural gas. And that renewables generate less electricity as a percentage of total usage now than in the 1950s. But somehow batteries are going to solve that problem. Of course, they haven't calculated how large the b…

Renewables + storage is already cheaper than many workloads where natural gas peaker plants applied for short runs. The prices for nat gas plants is basically mature, while renewables and storage are on a manufacturing S-curve cost decline. Basically this means there will be expanding workloads where it makes no financial sense to use natural gas at all, let alone nuclear. It's a matter of when, and we should be acce…

I understand what you are saying, but extrapolate out further. If we have 50% renewables how many batteries will be required? It's a lot of batteries. These batteries require lots of material inputs (copper, lithium, lead, cobalt, etc., depending on the chemistry). I did the calculation a while ago and it convinced me that it is not possible to consume as much energy as we currently do and meet the need with battery storage.

Edit: You have to be able to handle the worst case. Which means you've maxed what you can get from non-renewables and you have a period where renewables are generating less than normal (e.g. low-wind and or cloudy for a few days). Right now, renewables work because you just fire up your peaker plants when you have no sun or wind, so you also don't need much storage. What happens when you need more storage? You have to build batteries (or pumped-water or whatever).

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#57

Post by brandmeyer » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

ramshanker wrote: post #45

brandmeyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost I don't think this is just a nuclear problem. This is a civil engineering problem more broadly. IMO, the exact same forces which make nuclear impractical now are also responsible for the horrific budget explosions and overruns in big projects all over the US.

I believe civil engineering part of nuclear reactor is it's easiest parts.

quod erat demonstrandum

Logistics isn't easy. Dirt isn't simple stuff, neither is waterway management, nor concrete. Hauling a giant steel pressure vessel from its point of manufacture to point of installation isn't easy, nor is its installation. Just because it looks simple to a layman doesn't make it simple.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#58

Post by irontinkerer » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

brandmeyer wrote: post #21

epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

> the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost I don't think this is just a nuclear problem. This is a civil engineering problem more broadly. IMO, the exact same forces which make nuclear impractical now are also responsible for the horrific budget explosions and overruns in big projects all over the US.

I am not really familiar with the space, so please pardon the stupid question..

Why can't we use an affordable safe/competent reactor design from 30-40 years ago, and stamp that out at scale, rather than building a "new" model that results in failure?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#59

Post by manigandham » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #46

manigandham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's expensive because it includes much more of the externalities in the price with much longer time-frames for ROI, as compared to other sources like coal or natural gas. Nuclear as a power source is fantastic. One of the biggest operators is the US Navy which has been running reactors in military vessels for decades without incident. The problem is politics, ignorance and lack of will to actually see it through, no…

> One of the biggest operators is the US Navy which has been running reactors in military vessels for decades without incident. AFAICT, none publicly acknowledged since a bunch in the 1970s, but that may mean less than it seems since the US government has a history of covering up nuclear incidents for decades (like a whole slew at the Hanford site from the 1940s-1980s that weren't acknowledged until the 1980s.)

Hanford was for nuclear production, not power generation, and was created during the early days of nuclear weapons research.

Modern reactors are in an entirely different league with an incredible safety record. [1] Considering how easy it is to detect nuclear failures and the consequences in a tightly-enclosed ship, it's unlikely that there are any serious incidents. It's clear that they're experience and technology is continuing to get better every year though.

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/12/23/americas-...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#60

Post by epistasis » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

MockObject wrote: post #54

CydeWeys wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw with Fukushima, and all of that hot water being released wreaks havoc with riparian/marine ecosystems. Nuclear has downsides beyond the most obvious one, that of the risk of fallout. > I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power. Heh, it's even wo…

How is there "waste heat" in a power plant that is designed to produce heat?

Thermodynamics!

> The efficiency of the Rankine cycle is limited on the cold side by the lower practical temperature of the working fluid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle

> The efficiency of even the best heat engines is low; usually below 50% and often far below. So the energy lost to the environment by heat engines is a major waste of energy resources. Since a large fraction of the fuels produced worldwide go to powering heat engines, perhaps up to half of the useful energy produced worldwide is wasted in engine inefficiency, although modern cogeneration, combined cycle and energy recycling schemes are beginning to use this heat for other purposes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency