81–88 of 88 posts
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A simple problem if you're willing to pump that water uphill while the sun is shining.
""Simple"" if you have the topography/natural resources to build it in the first place, ie not that simple
This seems to think that there are 100x as many topogrophical options as are required under pessimistic circumstances.
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One of them being in China and the other being in UK would probably explain the costs by itself.
You mean that labour is cheap in China? I've no idea whether it's representative, but I know a construction project where the labour costs were 12% of the final bill. That Hinkley Point project mentioned spends about $8m per day, how much does a construction worker cost per day in that area?
5 days' worth of nuclear power plant's output's worth of storage is 384 GWh. Assuming coire glas prices, $1.3 billion*384/30 maxes out at $16.6 billion or roughly half a hinkley.
That also gives max output of 19.5GW that is fully dispatchable as compared to 3.2GW which comes out whether you need it or not (& must still be paired with storage/gas to match demand).
Lowering the power rating will lower the cost of the pumped storage.
Wind energy is currently about 1/3 the price of nuclear, so assuming 5-6 day lulls it still comes out break-even at the very least.
Until you consider insuring against $800 billion fukushima style clean up costs. If we properly accounted for the cost incurred by insuring against this risk we'd never build another nuclear plant ever again.
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Because constructing nuclear power plants and mining uranium don't have toxic carbon byproducts? What are the toxic byproducts you are talking about specifically? > The toxic fission byproduct is tiny and goes underground in the middle of the desert and disrupts zero people's lives. Haha, if it were that easy. Nuclear waste can be radioactive up to 1 million years. Can you give me an example of a successful long-term…
> Nuclear waste can be radioactive up to 1 million years. You do understand that "long half-life" = "less radioactive", by definition?
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Yes we do want to trade that. The toxic carbon byproduct goes into the air and causes massive disruption to the lives of billions of people. The toxic fission byproduct is tiny and goes underground in the middle of the desert and disrupts zero people's lives.
Because constructing nuclear power plants and mining uranium don't have toxic carbon byproducts? What are the toxic byproducts you are talking about specifically? > The toxic fission byproduct is tiny and goes underground in the middle of the desert and disrupts zero people's lives. Haha, if it were that easy. Nuclear waste can be radioactive up to 1 million years. Can you give me an example of a successful long-term…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
""Simple"" if you have the topography/natural resources to build it in the first place, ie not that simple
http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ This seems to think that there are 100x as many topogrophical options as are required under pessimistic circumstances.
It should be done everywhere it can be done cheaply but it's still no viable alternative
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> Nuclear waste can be radioactive up to 1 million years. You do understand that "long half-life" = "less radioactive", by definition?
Sure, but Plutonium and Uranium have a very long radio toxicity time span still: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#/media/File:Spen...
It gradually approaches the ore level over time, which again makes sense, as the fission products are going to build back up.
The point here is that the uranium is going to decay no matter what you do, whether in the controlled environment of a reactor with some attention paid to proper disposal, or in the completely uncontrolled environment of the original ore bed, where it's quite possibly going straight into the water table.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ This seems to think that there are 100x as many topogrophical options as are required under pessimistic circumstances.
Sucks to be in Europe I guess, which is where I'm based. It should be done everywhere it can be done cheaply but it's still no viable alternative
I'm guessing that the big problem today is that there isn't a large price difference between night and day. I'm sure you can find an old mine with enough land to build a ground-level water reservoir above it, but you can't buy nearly free solar power at noon and sell expensive power at night.
Once there's enough solar/wind power generation capability to cover its needs on average days, there'll be cheap power to be had for anyone who who can use power only when the sun is shining brightly or the wind blowing strongly. At that point the economics of these schemes may make sense, and it may be worth someone's while to try to solve the practical/legal problems.
