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Activists who embrace nuclear power

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Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#211

Post by sudosysgen »

smallnamespace wrote: post #192
slfnflctd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm, just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly cheaper than coal This completely ignores scenarios of extended cloud cover, cold temperatures and low wind (somewhat like we just saw in Texas) where properly winterized baseline power would be the only way to keep everything up the whole way through. Barring future unknown tech, we will always ne…

If your grid covers a large region and you have sufficient transmission, then somewhere , there is excess electricity from wind/solar that you can bring in. Remember, we're talking about a world where building renewables to 4x peak demand would be actually economical. This works on the same principle as an insurance market: it's likely that even at 4x capacity, your local solar farm has a few cloudy days. It's highly…

This is a dangerous and wrong assumption. Weather events can have high area. What do you do if a hurricane comes at the same time as high cloud cover?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#212

Post by jessaustin »

mannerheim wrote: post #194
jessaustin wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bald eagles, if that's what you mean, are a "least concern" species. That makes sense, because while in my neighborhood we never saw them several decades ago, now I see them multiple times a month. The other day I saw a family of four perched in a dead tree. Somehow they've overcome the dual menace of housecats and wind generation. Now that we've scaled back on DDT, the bald eagle is fine.

Bald eagles and golden eagles are still protected species - unless, of course, you're running a wind farm, in which case you're exempt from these sorts of regulations.[0] 0: https://apnews.com/article/b8dd6050c702467e8be4b1272a3adc87

At that link, we learn that the industry is prohibited from killing 4200 a year, which number would have a negligible effect on the population and of which number the industry has only ever killed a tiny fraction. Far more eagles die from automobile impact than from wind generation. Eagles are flying coyotes. So long as we aren't actively poisoning them, we can coexist just fine.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#213

Post by lrem »

epistasis wrote: post #8

Articles like this miss the main point and instead focus on culture war material. There are plenty of sites that would happily accept more nuclear being built, but all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of nuclear. It's no longer cost competitive, and places like China that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best" approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear. The issues aren't safety, waste, a…

> Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm, just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly cheaper than coal.

How much would attaching two weeks of storage, which is how long panels around here have been under 20cm of snow twice this winter, cost?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#214

Post by sudosysgen »

philipkglass wrote: post #174
iso8859-1 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best" approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear. They have brought 15 GW online the last 5 years, and they have another 15 GW under construction. How is that pulling back? https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

It's still the country building the most new nuclear power, but it's also reducing ambitions from just a few years ago. From your own link: The 13th Five-Year Plan formalized in March 2016 included the following nuclear projects and aims: ... Reach target of 58 GWe nuclear operational by end of 2020, plus 30 GWe under construction then. China actually has 47.5 GWe operational now. See table "Operable nuclear power re…

A large part of that is actually due to civilian opposition after Fukushima that led local governments to attempt to get others to build nuclear.

The really long term Chinese goals are ~80% nuclear still.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#215

Post by cygx »

runsWphotons wrote: post #199
cygx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still have no data that indicates wind and/or solar can displace coal/gas as energy sources. Germany, 2010: Coal+Oil+Gas 55% Nuclear 25% Wind+Solar+Hydro 13% Germany, 2020: Coal+Oil+Gas 36% Nuclear 12% Wind+Solar+Hydro 41% Source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

These numbers can be looked at two ways. Germany actually failed in its efforts to get off the coal so far, I think. Just from these numbers you could as easily be making his point as yours.

Germany actually failed in its efforts to get off the coal so far

There was no way to 'fail' such efforts, because until last year, there was no actual roadmap for getting rid of coal.

Instead, there were CO2 reduction goals. We were going to miss the mark for 2020 (40% reduction compared to 1990), but thanks to Covid, we've actually met the target...

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#216

Post by epistasis »

sudosysgen wrote: post #211
smallnamespace wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your grid covers a large region and you have sufficient transmission, then somewhere , there is excess electricity from wind/solar that you can bring in. Remember, we're talking about a world where building renewables to 4x peak demand would be actually economical. This works on the same principle as an insurance market: it's likely that even at 4x capacity, your local solar farm has a few cloudy days. It's highly…

This is a dangerous and wrong assumption. Weather events can have high area. What do you do if a hurricane comes at the same time as high cloud cover?

You plan for the worst case, same as we do now.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#217

Post by mannerheim »

jessaustin wrote: post #212
mannerheim wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bald eagles and golden eagles are still protected species - unless, of course, you're running a wind farm, in which case you're exempt from these sorts of regulations.[0] 0: https://apnews.com/article/b8dd6050c702467e8be4b1272a3adc87

At that link, we learn that the industry is prohibited from killing 4200 a year, which number would have a negligible effect on the population and of which number the industry has only ever killed a tiny fraction. Far more eagles die from automobile impact than from wind generation. Eagles are flying coyotes. So long as we aren't actively poisoning them, we can coexist just fine.

There are fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs of golden eagle in the U.S. But perhaps killing 20% of the population annually would have a negligible effect.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#218

Post by ip26 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #180
epistasis wrote: post #8

Articles like this miss the main point and instead focus on culture war material. There are plenty of sites that would happily accept more nuclear being built, but all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of nuclear. It's no longer cost competitive, and places like China that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best" approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear. The issues aren't safety, waste, a…

> Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm, just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly cheaper than coal This completely ignores scenarios of extended cloud cover, cold temperatures and low wind (somewhat like we just saw in Texas) where properly winterized baseline power would be the only way to keep everything up the whole way through. Barring future unknown tech, we will always ne…

Will we actually need five nines out of renewables any time soon? We have the option of hanging on to old fossil fuel plants as emergency power for many decades to come. Peaker plants already perform a similar sort of role.

Our CO2 goals won’t be compromised by running emergency power off fossil fuel once every decade or two.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#219

Post by epistasis »

jfubxyb wrote: post #208
epistasis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were in Texas last week, I would have loved to have a home solar system with a battery that let me island from the grid. This is definitely practical and happening even at today's high prices. In a decade, ERCOT will look nothing like it does today. It will have massive amounts of solar and storage, and even more wind. This is replacing gas plants as they age out.

A buddy of mine has solar panels. During the storm they got covered in ice and snow, and generated about 180 watt hours in a 24 hour period

This is not a typical experience, from what I've heard. But for exceptional cases, in addition to fixed storage in our homes, we should be able to use our EV batteries for items of exceptional need, as they typically can handle 3-4 days worth of energy needs.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#220

Post by andrewflnr »

runsWphotons wrote: post #191
gdubs wrote: post #175

I read Stewart Brand's 'Whole Earth Discipline' about five years ago, and came away pretty convinced by his pro-nuclear arguments. The price situation has definitely changed dramatically in the last few years, with solar dropping remarkably. So some of it may be worth revisiting. But that said, something else has happened in the last five years that has made me a bit ... cautious about being decisive on nuclear. And…

I suppose you could see it the other way. A nuclear plant in everyone's backyard might be incentive to put competent people in charge?

I don't think people would be more inventivized in a practical sense than they already are.
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