Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#121

Post by olau » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #113

baq wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think he missed the exponential growth in renewables. deciding to productize a new (in the market) nuclear reactor made much more sense a decade ago than it makes now.

I’d like to see a plan, any plan at all, to power northern US cities with renewables. Specifically places like NYC, Boston, and Chicago. In the winter months there is 9 hours of overcast daylight. There isn’t any room to build a solar farm. There isn’t any room to build a wind farm unless it’s in the water. Hell I’d like to see a realistic plan to power DFW with renewables.

Don't die in the next 20 years, and you're going to see it for yourself:

https://news.energysage.com/states-with-100-renewable-target...

It's not really that hard. Build a lot of wind turbines (more than 100% coverage), reinforce the grid and add some storage.

Offshore wind turbines is a thing. The tech is still somewhat in its infancy, but the costs are coming down.

For a high bound regarding storage, take hydrogen, otherwise whatever cheaper will be in production when you get to it. There are several academic studies of this.

It's not rocket science, just lots of incremental engineering and economics of scale.

If your point is that cities don't have space to provide their own power, yes, you're right, just as they don't have space to grow their own food.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#122

Post by belorn » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

jabl wrote: post #104

belorn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To read the summery: "The intermittency of other sources such as wind and solar photovoltaic can be addressed by interconnecting power plants which are widely geographically distributed, and by coupling them with peak-load plants such as gas turbines fueled by biofuels or natural gas which can quickly be switched on to fill in gaps of low wind or solar production." So we can burn the fossil fuel natural gas or a simi…

> As I like to say in this kind of threads, lets ban the act of burning fossil fuels for power. That's most likely too drastic, leading to a massive immediate economic crash. That being said, what could be done is to start a massive society-wide decarbonization program (think WWII style industrial mobilization), which would start with a few years of building up industrial capacity, followed by a ban on building any n…

> That's most likely too drastic, leading to a massive immediate economic crash.

I have heard this argument before but not much evidence to support it. There was identical arguments here where I live when they decided to phase out nuclear, and in fairness to the politicians back then, it did not cause an immediate economic crash. Just stopping the production of new plants and letting existing plants operate until they reach their expected operation life time span works pretty well. The energy markets adapts and there are instead an renewed interest to invest as people know that in the future there will be a vacant spot in the market when those plants get decommissioned. Some even argued that it caused stability in the energy market.

The major problem right now is that for the last 10 years, for every extra 1 WGh of new renewable being consumed the fossil based energy also expand by 10 WGh. Looking at world politics and right now there is a lot of focus on expanding fossil fuel extracting and exporting, especially for natural gas. In the EU there are military right now being mobilized because of interest to drill for more natural gas. Investment into new fossil fuel infrastructure has not slowed down but is rather picking up speed.

Massive society-wide decarbonization program where we turn existing fossil fuel plant into carbonfree alternatives are needed, but we should stop people from furthering investing into fossil fuels when there exist a purpose serving alternative. I don't see any good reason to wait.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#123

Post by belorn » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #106

belorn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To read the summery: "The intermittency of other sources such as wind and solar photovoltaic can be addressed by interconnecting power plants which are widely geographically distributed, and by coupling them with peak-load plants such as gas turbines fueled by biofuels or natural gas which can quickly be switched on to fill in gaps of low wind or solar production." So we can burn the fossil fuel natural gas or a simi…

This article is 9 years old. No nuclear plant would have been build in that time, no significant development in this technology happened but the development of renewable energy sources and batteries has progressed rapidly. We've witnessed Elon Musk's battery farm, ideas like floatovoltaics, Building-integrated photovoltaics, stuff around hydrogen storage, etc. There are also grids like in Europe where even when there…

> there is always a dam in the Alps or Scandinavia

Speaking as someone from Sweden, we have already reached maximum exploitation of rivers for hydropower, and it is barely managing to maintain the grid in the winter when the wind is laying low. Expanding it more is not seen as an option, and when the few nuclear plants that is still operational goes offline there are claims that we will need to start import fossil fueled energy during some days of the year.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#124

Post by Rebelgecko » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #120

Rebelgecko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bummer. Even though the capacity is still in the same neighborhood as the reactor, the cost is greater because you either need a ton of storage capacity or some nonrenewable backups. I think that's the problem we ran into here in California. As we've decommissioned nuclear and natty plants we've replaced much of that capacity with wind and solar. Then you end up in the situation we had a week ago: power cons…

Apparently no: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/27/no-renewables-did-not-c... Real grids are much more complicated than you'd think. Regarding costs of various plants, usually you calculate it as an average per kWh, which is still not quite right as dispatchable is worth more than non-dispatchable. (And yes, you can have renewable dispatchable.) If you compare those figures across technologies and locations, tread c…

I don't really know what to make of that article from cleantechnica. It says that renewables weren't the issue. But the head of the CA grid also said that "If the wind hadn’t run out, we would have been OK"[1]. Maybe this is wrong, but the way I interpret that is "When a fossil fuel plant conked out, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. But the reason that a single power plant failure led to blackouts is a heavy dependence on renewables without adequate storage or backups".

[1]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article2451155...

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#125

Post by emteycz » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #67

oblio wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small adjustment: a bit more than 200 years. The Brits burned down Washington in 1812.

It's also fascinating what intervened: "Less than a day after the attack began, a sudden, very heavy thunderstorm—possibly a hurricane—put out the fires. It also spun off a tornado that passed through the center of the capital, setting down on Constitution Avenue and lifting two cannons before dropping them several yards away. Following the storm, the British returned to their ships, many of which required repairs du…

It's also not that unlikely. Similar thing happened in Poland.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#126

Post by jabl » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #122

jabl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I like to say in this kind of threads, lets ban the act of burning fossil fuels for power. That's most likely too drastic, leading to a massive immediate economic crash. That being said, what could be done is to start a massive society-wide decarbonization program (think WWII style industrial mobilization), which would start with a few years of building up industrial capacity, followed by a ban on building any n…

> That's most likely too drastic, leading to a massive immediate economic crash. I have heard this argument before but not much evidence to support it. There was identical arguments here where I live when they decided to phase out nuclear, and in fairness to the politicians back then, it did not cause an immediate economic crash. Just stopping the production of new plants and letting existing plants operate until the…

Seems we're in violent agreement then. I misunderstood your point to mean an immediate ban on burning any fossil fuel.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#127

Post by sunstone » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #82

Lorin wrote: post #10

I remember Bill being involved in nuclear for a long time. Hope something of general use comes to fruition in our lifetime.

i think he missed the exponential growth in renewables. deciding to productize a new (in the market) nuclear reactor made much more sense a decade ago than it makes now.

Yes, and now with autos driving battery costs downhill the window for general nuclear as "power backup" is closing quickly if not already slammed shut. In 10 more years they might be able to pivot to a niche market. Ships maybe, portables on barges for emergencies. It would be nice to see something come of this technology.

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#128

Post by missedthecue » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

sien wrote: post #99

de_watcher wrote: post #49

He's swimming in money and connections, why don't he try to solve fusion? Yes, we have ITER going, but it's not really built efficiently: exact same parts are manufactured on the opposite sides of the world.

He is. Gates has invested in Commonwealth Fusion Systems. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Bill-G... Geoff Bezos has as well. As do Y Combinator. There has been quite a growth in private Fusion funding in the past few years: https://www.cleantech.com/fusion-energy-innovation-accelerat...

Geoff

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#129

Post by epistasis » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

watersb wrote: post #14

FWIW, today's front page feature article in the local (Los Alamos) newspaper reports on municipal government progress on a 12 gigawatt, modular nuclear plant. (Warning: this site, like all local newspaper sites, is utterly packed with advertising.) https://ladailypost.com/carbon-free-power-project-advances-t... New Mexico derives a huge percentage of state tax revenue from natural gas from the Permian basin (southeas…

There's a small typo in your post, it should be 12MW, not GW. A 12 GW reactor would be quite huge!

Re: Bill Gates' nuclear venture plans reactor to complement solar, wind power boom

#130

Post by epistasis » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

spenrose wrote: post #8

345MW for "$1B", which is presumably the delivered cost. Add another $1B for running, insurance, and decommissioning (or show me real numbers). Walney is a new nameplate 588MW offshore wind farm; it will average close to the same delivered energy and cost $3B.[1] If Terrapower can actually deliver at roughly those costs, they might make a real contribution to our energy future. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotlan…

If Terrapower can hit those costs, it would be completely revolutionary for nuclear. It's a huuuuuge change from current costs.

Meanwhile off shore wind (which is typically steadier than onshore), continues to fall In cost at a fairly quick pace.

There's a recent Dogger Bank contract for 3.6GW at $9B [1], which is about $2500/kW compared to $5200kW for the Walney project you link, and $2900 for Terrapower's plans. Of course, a wind kW of capacity is not equivalent to a kW of nuclear, but with another 10 years of development I wonder just how cheap offshore wind will be if in 5-10 years it has already fallen by 50% in cost.

[1] https://www.renewablesnow.com/news/sse-equinor-eye-fid-for-3...