Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

Post by xiphias2 » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:30 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #60

Godel_unicode wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is vastly misunderstood in the (artificial) renewables vs nuclear conversation. We keep building effectively one-off complex machines, and then flushing all that knowledge down the drain by saying it cost too much and took too long. Like yes, the first one always takes longer and costs more...

The difference is that nuclear is the only one where the first one’s cost is measured in the the tens of billions. Nuclear is just too big for a privatized energy market’s participants.

Post by kuhewa » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

liketochill wrote: post #328

bluejekyll wrote: post #321

What's surprising is the length of time of this project. It was started in 2000, and just completed. That's 23 years of development. These nuclear projects appear to take a significant amount of time. By comparison, this wind turbine project near my parents was approved in 2016 and completed in 2018, providing 78 megawatts of power. Yes that's significantly less than the 1.6 gigawatts of this Finnish power plant. But…

Without including storage and overbuilding of solar and wind to provide the same capacity factor as nuclear it is not a fair comparison, so it doesn’t point out how uneconomical this nuclear project is. The attractiveness of 1.6 GW of nuclear power is that it is carbon free, statistically the safest, it is firm energy that can be depended upon 24x7x365, and fuel costs are so trivial nobody even brings them up. All of…

Post by Ekaros » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #294

Sharlin wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (Finland) are probably not going to move towards electric heating to any significant degree. Currently direct (resistive) electric is already the most common means of heating in single-family homes and other low-density residential buildings. Heat pumps are fortunately becoming popular especially in new development, and with them a significant reduction of electricity use compared to direct electric. For condos an…

Geothermal boreholes are suddenly much more practical than anybody had guessed, with laser drilling. Its operating cost will necessarily be quite a bit more than solar, but it works in the Arctic winter, 24x7, and provides cogen heat.

Post by codebje » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

krallja wrote: post #220

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the other way round?

It’s a question of temperature difference. Cooling a house from 40° to 20° uses approximately the same energy as heating it from 0° to 20°. But it gets much colder than 0° C in Finland, while it is very rare to have temperatures above 45° C anywhere in the world.

Post by dghlsakjg » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:55 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #140

sandworm101 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more than 14%. It looks like this plant, all three reactors together, might eventually cover a third of Finland's needs. But those are 2020 numbers. Increased electrification, especially EVs and moves away from gas, will probably reduce that percentage. In that context, the third reactor is only incrementally more powerful than those already running at the facility. "The Olkiluoto plant consists of two boiling…

If those EVs are mainly charging at night, where does the extra peak load come from? Or is this just a case of not being able to shut off as much NG/Hydro generation at night (since nuclear can’t really be turned on and off at will)?