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

reuters.com

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

#411

Post by Maakuth »

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)?

There's a lot of cross-border transmission capacity, so excess capacity is exported without an issue.

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

#412

Post by rhn_mk1 »

Ekaros wrote: post #233
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone having nuclear weapons would make world much more peaceful and safer place. That's the happy path. The failure path with an unhinged dictator causing global destruction also gets much more likely.

Then again the so called "rational" actors would be less likely do bad things. Just imagine how much better place world would be if in response to drone strike by Obama or Biden the NYC or Washington DC was hit by nuclear weapon. That would surely put end to those antics.

If you think the near-certainty of getting wiped out entirely at some point is the right price for avoiding wars, then sure. I'm not sure most people share that preference.

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

#413

Post by rhn_mk1 »

tuukkah wrote: post #234
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will solve the climate crisis in the time frame it takes to build a nuclear reactor. If you start building now, you get part of the solution in the future.

Finland is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2035. Do you suggest that if we start planning now, we can rely on having new nuclear plants operational in 13 years? Also note that we wouldn't be buying them from Russia because of the current war, and China would be risky in the same way. There's a current project where the only offer was from Russia and that one is being suspended indefinitely right now.

Going carbon-neutral might have been the right answer 20 years ago. To avoid 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, we need to go carbon-negative today.

Even if we reach 0 in 13 years, the road to flipping the magnitude will be long, and I estimate longer than the time to build a reactor.

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

#414

Post by Maakuth »

ck2 wrote: post #410
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…

What's their waste disposal plan? Apparently the way the USA does it is a nightmare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

This is the company doing the disposal, they start the disposal operations in a few years: https://www.posiva.fi/en/index.html

The method is Swedish, they seem to have good pictures of it here: https://www.skb.com/future-projects/the-spent-fuel-repositor...

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

#415

Post by russnes »

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.

probably a stupid question, but is it a possibility that geothermal energy (if adopted to a great extent) could take away from the earths core energy and reduce the magnetic field?

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

#416

Post by russnes »

pfdietz wrote: post #192
at_compile_time wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrification goes beyond cars. Think of how much fuel they need for heat in Finland. Electrification means replacing that fuel with electricity. And many reactors are able to modulate their output, either by absorbing neutrons to slow the chain reaction, or by letting steam bypass the turbines. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-ways-nuclear-more-flexi...

Nuclear reactors could modulate their output, but they would take a grievous economic hit if they do so, because most of their costs are fixed, independent of the power setting.

they could mine bitcoin during low demand

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

#417

Post by arnaudsm »

pfdietz wrote: post #213
arnaudsm wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source regarding your pricing claim? Renewables are usually cheaper per W, but way more expensive in real world usage (battery storage + full life cycle costs)

See for yourself: https://model.energy/ The area around Finland and Eastern Europe is one of the worst in the world for renewables, though.

Awesome simulation tool, but why is nuclear power absent from the simulation?

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

#418

Post by unrealhoang »

ncmncm wrote: post #396
jpgvm wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pebble bed reactors are pretty much useless for making weapons grade material. The design was built with non-proliferation in mind. If they wanted to do that they would have just built more of their LWR design. What do you mean there isn't enough fuel? Not enough pellets/pebbles? Well ofcourse.. there is only 2 operational reactors right now... not enough uranium? Yeah no. There is way more than enough uranium to…

Xi is old. Will the next dictator share Xi's enthusiasm for high-cost power when the rest of the world is on low-cost power? Any organization as big as the Chinese gov't makes lots of plans, and changes them as conditions change. It is one thing to be prepared to build a lot of nukes, entirely another to start building them, and entirely a third to finish them. The last will depend on conditions in the world, and of…

> when the rest of the world is on low-cost power?

And regret about it? The French are in much better position compared to the German with that low-cost power enthusiasm yet still heavily dependent on burning fossil.

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

#419

Post by sharkster711 »

russnes wrote: post #415
ncmncm wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

probably a stupid question, but is it a possibility that geothermal energy (if adopted to a great extent) could take away from the earths core energy and reduce the magnetic field?

From https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/baseload/can-geothermal...

Some 42 million megawatts of energy reach the surface continually and are radiated into space as the earth cools from its initial molten state more than 4 billion years ago. No feasible amount of geothermal development could make even a small dent in this process. Furthermore, the earth’s heat budget is continually replenished by the radioactive decay of naturally occurring elements, and almost all of the energy associated with each decay event is converted to heat. Plus, the heat content of the geothermal reservoir rocks is continually replenished by conduction of heat from the earth’s deeper interior.

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

#420

Post by throw7576521 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #282
pfdietz wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if I have batteries, why should I charge them with expensive nuclear energy when I can charge them with cheap renewables? The nuclear plant will be forced to compete with those renewables for this market, which will limit what it can earn with the otherwise curtailed output. This is not as bad as losing it entirely, or even paying for someone to take it, but it's still going to be a net negative for the plant'…

Nuclear has very high capital costs but fuel and operating costs (sans financing and insurance) are relatively cheap. Nuclear energy isn’t expensive if the plant is already built, so if you had to choose and the costs were already sunk, it wouldn’t matter. I guess your point is whether to build the plants in the first place rather than going with other renewables. Since hydro is pretty much tapped out, I guess that w…

> sans financing and insurance if the plant is already built isn’t expensive

?? What renewable isnt given that?

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