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We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

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Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#211

Post by epistasis »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #190
epistasis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty big shift of the initial question, but it's an important shift! If you look in the "most free" markets for energy in the US, where there is the most possibility for independent companies to come in and provide generation and other energy resources, we are looking at ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the north. In these free markets, we are seeing huuuge amounts of storage resources in the interconnection pipe…

What do you mean by 17GW of storage in the pipeline? I'm not seeing this in your sources. Watts isn't a measurement of storage, storage is measured in watt-hours. To put the mismatch between available storage and required storage in perspective, the US consumes 11.5TWh of electricity daily on average. We have ~25GWh of storage currently. Most of that is in hydroelectric storage, which is geographically limited. Less…

ERCOT puts their panning pipeline out in the open; I'm relying on an ERCOT expert that said this as a summary of the August 2020 XLS raw data [1]. About 950 MW is as far along to have an interconnection agreement.

Grids think of energy sources primarily in terms of power, not in terms of energy, so that's the number that gets reported to ERCOT. Grid ops dispatch W, not Wh. We may never know the exact GWh for these planned projects, but since it's likely nearly all lithium ion tech, we can expect 1-4 GWh per GW for each project, and probably an average between 2-3GWh/GW overall.

Going from less than a GWh storage currently in the entire US, to probably 20x that planned for Texas alone in the near future shows just how scalable battery tech is and how quickly it is advancing. This switch is unprecedented, and is going to catch a ton of energy folks by complete surprise. People aren't used to things changing so quickly when it comes to electrical grids. The next decade is going to be a wild ride and I can't wait to see the grid drop carbon-based generation faster than nearly anyone is imagining. Next, we need to decarbonize industry.

[1] http://mis.ercot.com/misdownload/servlets/mirDownload?mimic_...

PS: I originally replied to a "manfredo" and your username is "Manfredo_", which seems like a remarkable coincidence. Given the prevalence of paid astroturfing on these subjects, it would be good to clarify if this is just a coincidence, or if you have two accounts, or what else might be going on! Given our past discussions I'm sure your an honest commentator but it would probably help people that don't recognize your username.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#212

Post by pfdietz »

DennisP wrote: post #203
pfdietz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear would be utterly terrible for filling in the last part of a renewable-dominated grid. As in, ludicrously expensive, compared to other non-nuclear, non-fossil alternatives. The article you point to talks about "firm, low carbon sources". This kind of source for this last bit would be something like hydrogen, not nuclear. A nuclear reactor operating at 10% capacity factor to "fill in" for renewables would be pr…

They specifically cited nuclear. I don't think operating it at 10% capacity factor is what they mean.

They very carefully didn't mention hydrogen at all. They compared nuclear vs. renewables + batteries. It's almost as if they were setting up renewables to fail. Imagine that, in a study where half the authors are from the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Yes, if you had nuclear, you'd operate it at high capacity factor. That isn't nuclear filling in for renewables, that's using nuclear instead of renewables. It's really mostly one or the other.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#213

Post by Manfredo_1 »

wwweston wrote: post #67
OneGuy123 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article makes some good points but forgets this: our knowledge increases constantly. So today's reactors might not be able to scale well, but the more we build the better we are at it.

That's a good counter for some of the points, although there's limits to how much you can count on it. It's less comforting for others, like the limited amount of uranium available and diminishing returns on how to get it.

Uranium seawater extraction vastly increases the accessible amount of uranium: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s...

It's about an order of magnitude more expensive than mining uranium. But the cost of fuel extraction is negligible in the context of the rest of nuclear's cost.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#214

Post by specialist »

FFS. As Saint Jobs taught us "Real artists ship."

We needed nuclear. And everything else. Two decades ago.

Now must do anything and everything to get to zero carbon as fast as possible. Not tomorrow. Not a decade from now. Today. Now.

If we went all in for nukes, ignoring all the financial and technical and policy downsides, what's the soonest it'd go live? A decade?

Too late.

So while we build out wind, solar, storage... And while we rebuild our grid... We should also triple down on nukes. Dump money into every feasible and semifeasible and farfetched variation. And hope that in a decade some of those bets pay off. (I especially wish traveling wave reactors can work.)

Meanwhile, per disagree and then commit, get with the program. All this narcissism of small differences makes the concern trolls part of the problem. If nukes are your thing, knock yourself out. And praise all the complimentary efforts. Because we need all of it, as soon as possible.

Source: Saul Griffith

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#215

Post by deevolution »

“Two terawatts of photovoltaic would require installing 100 square meters of 15- percent- efficient solar cells every second, second after second, for the next 25 years. (That’s about 1,200 square miles of solar cells a year, times 25 equals 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic cells.) Two terawatts of solar thermal? If it’s 30 percent efficient all told, we’ll need 50 square meters of highly reflective mirrors every second. (Some 600 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of biofuels? Something like 4 Olympic swimming pools of genetically engineered algae, installed every second. (About 61,000 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of wind? That’s a 300- foot- diameter wind turbine every 5 minutes. (Install 105,000 turbines a year in good wind locations, times 25.) Two terawatts of geothermal? Build three 100- megawatt steam turbines every day— 1,095 a year, times 25. Three terawatts of new nuclear? That’s a 3- reactor, 3- gigawatt plant every week— 52 a year, times 25.” Add it up, and when you’re done, you’ve got an area about the size of America—“ Call it Renewistan,” says Griffith— covered with stuff dedicated to generating humanity’s energy.[1]

The green new deal is just political theater in order for the democratic party to get more money. You're deluding yourself if you think a political party is single handedly capable of solving climate change. As much as I want something like the green new deal to work, it probably won't even make a dent in the grand scheme of things unless they go full nuclear.

[1] Stewart brand whole earth discipline

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#216

Post by kristopolous »

pdonis wrote: post #196
kristopolous wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's at least a few orders of magnitude away from ever plausibly getting there. For all intents and purposes, such a concern is imaginary. And even then, one doesn't preclude the other. Retrofitting power distribution to have less energy loss, buildings with better insulation, more efficient logistics networks for food delivery, these are green new deal issues. None of that is anti-nuclear - they simply aren't relate…

> By "sucks up all the resources" you'd have to have all humans efforting to do things like this that nothing can be allocated to anything else. Nonsense. Please apply some intelligence and common sense. We're not talking about shutting down all other activities and only doing Green New Deal stuff. We're talking about the limited amount of resources that can be redirected by various choices of government policy. Give…

How so? Nuclear requires certain types of expertise and I'd hope, certain certifications for construction.

Also, historically, they've each been multi-year ventures.

These are likely different humans and different companies than people doing urban gardening projects and rooftop solar.

I honestly don't see the conflict here. I don't know too much about nuclear construction and maintenance but I'd imagine it takes years of specialized training and experience to be competent. If that's true, I can't imagine someone sliding from say, retrofitting insulation to older apartment buildings to nuclear in any reasonable time. I think we have to conclude they're as different as any other sophisticated skills; you're still starting at zero if you want to switch.

The GNDs problem has been the same since Jill Stein was talking about it in 2012 - it's too grandiose for a society and time that has rejected grand visions.

We would need to fix our systemic cultural inability to be able to subscribe to a collective imaginary before a GND is broadly entertained.

However, you crack and divide GND as separate goals, such as increasing the usefulness and efficiency of mass urban transit, most people are on board. And each of these concrete goals doesn't preclude Exelon and GE from building nuclear power plants.

Once you reframe the GND as simply a basketcase of low hanging fruit of city and neighborhood level projects, then we get into nuclear's real issue in this conversation - It is the biggest project of the bunch.

Ignoring possible futures and going with historical pasts, nuclear plants are what are called "megaprojects" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaproject) and that's their main Achilles heel for our times. Americans at least, have stopped believing in them. They think "big = broken disaster". Some american may even feel obligated to respond to this, "But it's true" and then my point will be made.

The GND proponents could finally understand marketing and branding and successfully reposition their project to our collective appetites as a collection of small bite-sized community projects but nuclear cannot do this.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#217

Post by cambalache »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #134
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

> my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Spot on. People often ignore the political problems of nuclear power: - Centralization of control encourages corruption and the hiding of incidents - Power stations make excellent targets in case of war. The bigger they are, the bigger the impact - Nuclear power stations a…

We already have something 10000000X worse: Nuclear Weapons, that cat is out of the bag. So either we dismantle all nuclear arsenals in the world or we stop giving the "potential socio-political inestability"as a reason to not building more nuclear plants.

You are stopping the butcher to use big knives for fear he may go insane in the future and kill some customers with them, when millions of weapons are highly available.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#218

Post by pdonis »

kristopolous wrote: post #216
pdonis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "sucks up all the resources" you'd have to have all humans efforting to do things like this that nothing can be allocated to anything else. Nonsense. Please apply some intelligence and common sense. We're not talking about shutting down all other activities and only doing Green New Deal stuff. We're talking about the limited amount of resources that can be redirected by various choices of government policy. Give…

How so? Nuclear requires certain types of expertise and I'd hope, certain certifications for construction. Also, historically, they've each been multi-year ventures. These are likely different humans and different companies than people doing urban gardening projects and rooftop solar. I honestly don't see the conflict here. I don't know too much about nuclear construction and maintenance but I'd imagine it takes year…

> These are likely different humans and different companies than people doing urban gardening projects and rooftop solar.

Humans can decide to enter different fields; more can choose to enter one field and fewer can choose to enter another. New companies can be started and old ones can go out of business. Resources are fungible; there isn't a fixed pool of resources that are suitable for nuclear but not for renewables, or the reverse.

What determines where those resources get allocated are economic incentives. If the government puts its thumb on the scale and gives lots of incentives for renewables and lots of disincentives for nuclear--which is exactly what the US government has been doing for decades, and what the Green New Deal would mean doing even more of--then resources will be available for renewables but not for nuclear.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#219

Post by adventured »

jackcviers3 wrote: post #148

In light if how the U.S. is handling the pandemic, your concern is extremely valid.

Going by your premise, the following countries are never allowed to build nuclear:

China, Spain, Italy, France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, India, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and probably a dozen others.

Russia was throwing doctors off of buildings to murder them to keep them quiet about Covid.

The US still hasn't caught up to Britain's extreme Covid mortality rate, despite doing everything possible wrong. The US is just barely ahead of Italy and is still trailing Spain and Belgium.

The present outbreak in the Netherlands is about 40%-50% worse than it ever got in the US. The present outbreak in Belgium is well over twice as bad as it ever got in the US.

Not only did France have a horrific and hyper deadly outbreak previously, now they're displaying remarkable incompetence in allowing a record-shattering outbreak that is so bad the US would need about 140,000 daily cases to match it (and their outbreak is still getting worse). That's just under twice as bad as the situation in the US ever got.

So France is never allowed to go near nuclear again, right? I forget how this virtue signaling America-bad thing works.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#220

Post by visarga »

natch wrote: post #197

Problem with nuclear deals is that the technology solutions are so centralized they put control in the hands of big government and big corporations. And take control out of the hands of individuals. Which means people are no longer free to decide for themselves where their energy dollars will be spent. Who can afford to put solar panels on their home, when they are footing the bill through taxes for huge projects typ…

That just means we need small nuclear reactors.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-small-n...

Solar and wind are much more demanding regarding space and greenhouse effects related to manufacturing and installation.

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