All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected • Hacker News Board

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#141

Post by cycomanic » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

apendleton wrote: post #79

arrrg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

> Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide that. That's true of current nuclear, but it's not an intrinsic property of nuclear power. Proposed plants that use molten salt as a working fluid, for example, give you the option to run the plant all the time, but at any given time either use the heat in the molten salt for po…

Well you are just proposing to use molten salt as energy storage, but if we have efficient storage we don't need nuclear because we can charge the storage much cheaper and environmentally friendlier using renewables.

As a side note, every time someone points out the shortcomings of nuclear power plants (not easily adjustable, huge investment costs/expensive, storage ...) there's the replies about, "but those new future plants that we are researching will solve all this". We don't know if reality will actually deliver on those promises (nuclear has quite a history of broken promises), especially if we are talking about acting fast.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#142

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 8:58 AM UTC

unsung wrote: post #125

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you can't predict solar or wind days ahead in the same way you can't predict rain, days ahead. There are "weather forecasts", not cloud reading. Second. Even if you knew two days ahead about wind speed fluctuations that lasted for 10 to 20 minutes. What, then? You can't inform the population there will be 10 minute outages, in advance, or ask them to turn off appliances for exactly 10 minutes, in advance. Sola…

On a technical note, the first point is not really true. Using atmospheric models like WRF get you pretty good irradiance forecasts that are roughly proportional to PV output. I (very briefly) worked with a group doing just that for power companies in the southwest, and it was pretty decent out to 5 days or so. It eventually got picked up into another program [1] that would contract out to big PV installations. [0] h…

[deleted]

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#143

Post by _3u10 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

nbraem wrote: post #117

malthuswaswrong wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is totally economically viable. It's not viable in the current regulatorily climate. Investing $1 billion in a nuclear plant that will return profits for 80 years is an easy financial decision. Investing $1 billion in a nuclear plant that will be shut down by moonbats every 4 years when the next batch of princess unicorns is voted into office is not economically viable.

That is, if you leave the storage cost of the nuclear waste for the next 100.000 years out of your business model.

There’s very little storage cost as the fuel can be burned til there is nothing radioactive left.

Nuclear doesn’t produce radioactive materials it reduces radioactivity. If you mix the spent fuel from a heavy water reactor back into the ore, it’s radioactivity will have been reduced.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#144

Post by yosito » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

I'm working for a non-profit that is heavily involved in COP, because I care about the planet and preserving the environment as much as possible for future generations. This news is very disheartening for me, because there is no way that humanity achieves a sustainable energy future without either nuclear or catastrophic declines in human population. Inside both my organization and other climate organizations, it seems that humanistic science and innovation are being rapidly replaced by a humanity-hating religion that cares more about virtue signaling than actual environmental outcomes.

If anyone knows of any innovative, outcome driven organizations or startups working on sustainable energy, including nuclear, that are hiring, feel free to share.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#145

Post by apendleton » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #141

apendleton wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide that. That's true of current nuclear, but it's not an intrinsic property of nuclear power. Proposed plants that use molten salt as a working fluid, for example, give you the option to run the plant all the time, but at any given time either use the heat in the molten salt for po…

Well you are just proposing to use molten salt as energy storage, but if we have efficient storage we don't need nuclear because we can charge the storage much cheaper and environmentally friendlier using renewables. As a side note, every time someone points out the shortcomings of nuclear power plants (not easily adjustable, huge investment costs/expensive, storage ...) there's the replies about, "but those new futu…

Yes, this is energy storage, but a big tank to put salt in has the potential to be considerably cheaper than lithium ion cells.

To your second point: all technologies have the property that we can't know for sure if they'll deliver on their promises without trying them, and the very reason we don't know in the case of nuclear is because opponents of nuclear power undermine attempts to try out novel architectures, pointing to limitations in current technologies as justification.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#146

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#147

Post by catlikesshrimp » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #129

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is with "The winter is coming" vibe? Your comment is too vague for me to understand.

Did you not read about the European energy crisis? Here, let me help you out: https://search.brave.com/search?q=european+energy+crisis&sou...

I suppose it is my fault for asking about less vagueness.

Who is asking for trillions? Who is flying out of a window?

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#148

Post by apendleton » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

VyperCard wrote: post #128

apendleton wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide that. That's true of current nuclear, but it's not an intrinsic property of nuclear power. Proposed plants that use molten salt as a working fluid, for example, give you the option to run the plant all the time, but at any given time either use the heat in the molten salt for po…

We could just store the surplus renewables in molten salt and don‘t need nuclear for anything.

If what we have is electricity, turning it into heat to turn it back into electricity again is very inefficient. If what we have is heat and we're going to turn it into electricity anyway, storing it as heat for now and turning it into electricity later is much better, and comparatively trivial to do. That somewhat limits the applications, though, with concentrated solar being the only obvious renewable one. Solar PV and wind don't generate electricity from heat.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#149

Post by glogla » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #127

glogla wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share what is your storage solution that will be needed to make renewables without coal and gas practical? Where can I see storage handling gigawatthours to terawatthours in the real world? Or are you relying on some magical technology we don't have?

I have read in theglobeandmail forums comments from some people who think that building battery parks is a great idea, and that it is a huge oversight that solar + batteries aren't pushed as the final solution to all energy needs in Canada. And they seem as sincere as they are earnest. It is very hard to argue with that logic. Where do we start? Just saying batteries are really expensive doesn't reach people who want…

I mean batteries might work! My problems with that approach is that:

1) Batteries are in everything. If we want to go from fossil fuels to renewables + batteries, at the same time as we go from ICE cars to BEVs, that's going to be a lot of batteries. Does the world have enough raw materials and batteries to do that?

Back of the envelope: My country consumes 77 TWh yearly or about 212 GWh per day (assuming it is evenly distributed). To cover day-to-night cycle, would we need 100 to 150 GWh of batteries? That's a lot of batteries (seem like yearly production of whole world but I can't find good source) and 10 % of our GDP in current battery prices.

2) If we're saying "renewables are cheaper", are we really adding the cost of storage?

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#150

Post by cycomanic » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #32

arrrg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

> baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Why not? Unless you're ok with not having reliable baseline power at all.

For that we should look at what baseline is. Ideally all our power sources would adjust instantaneously to demand. In reality that is not possible. Traditionally, power plants which can be run constantly at fixed output (i.e. coal plants, nuclear power plants), have been cheaper to operate, so we used those for "baseline" power and more expensive adjustable plants (e.g. gas turbines) to follow the load.

However, the new reality is that wind/solar are cheaper than the old baseline plants. Now wind/solar do not supply us a with a constant power like those old baseline plants, but instead with variable supply as well. So we still need fast adjustable sources (or storage), which now even out both variable supply and demand. By over provisioning (and net interconnectivity) we can reduce the need for adjustable sources. Essentially if you have enough renewable sources to cover the high demands at low wind/sun you can always turn off the sources when you overshoot and because they are cheap it is economical unfeasible.