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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

#421

Post by jpgvm »

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…

I think you overestimate how expensive these reactors will be. Also they are part of a mix naturally. China has such vast energy needs they are still building coal, LNG, solar and nuclear all alongside each other.

My current feeling is that if they stick to their plan and build these smaller 600MW reactors that can mostly be built in factories and assembled on-site it's going to be a vastly different economic proposition than existing "big nuclear" that has been attempted in the West.

Of course there is no way to know exactly how it plays out but the inputs look good.

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

#422

Post by sharkster711 »

pfdietz wrote: post #323
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My point was that when you calculate the cost/kWh from a nuclear plant, if you then are going to operate than plant only 50% (say) of the time you could otherwise do so, the cost/kWh from that plant goes way up, because those high fixed costs are now amortized over only half the output. Note that even some of the OPERATING costs of a nuclear plant are fixed. You still need about as many staff to run the plant even if…

I'd guess a lot of the operating cost of nuclear plants is just the cost to break even - that's repaying infrastructure loans etc

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

#423

Post by yawaramin »

lostlogin wrote: post #26
yawaramin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think would be the cost of depending on Russia for energy?

The benefit is that it’s likely quite cheap. Can you really not think of a downside?

Can you think of a downside that's not fear-mongering?

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

#424

Post by robertlagrant »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #349
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

Why do EVs mostly be charged at night? We have electricity run to almost everywhere there is a road, and every building that we spend any significant amount of time in. We can charge at work or on the street during the day. Basically anywhere a car is stationary. With the right incentives and infrastructure we can shift electric vehicle charging to daytime, or whenever there is excess generating ability coming from t…

> Why do EVs mostly be charged at night?

Because most people don't drive at night.

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

#425

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

jacquesm wrote: post #306
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…

The price of gas has had an enormous effect on the waiting times for solar panel and heatpump installations here in Western Europe, how is this in Finland right now?

Right now it's too cold, but I imagine things will start rolling when the snow melts in a couple of months.

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

#426

Post by russnes »

sharkster711 wrote: post #419
russnes wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dec…

I see. 42 million megawatts is 42,000 gigawatts. A quick google search tells me that typical power output of a nuclear power plant is around 1 gigawatt.

So a single nuclear power plant would be roughly equivalent to 0.002% of earths geothermal energy radiation. It doesn't sound like much, but for something as crucial as the earth's magnetic field, I wouldn't want to reduce it one bit.

I guess if the heat is radiated into space anyways and we simply capture that it doesn't speed up the core's energy loss, but if we start digging into the core and allowing energy to escape faster, we would effectively speed it up, right?

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

#427

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

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.

Shipping from thevoutside of the European Union isn't really relevant after our eastern neighbor decided to invade Ukraine.

We were originally planning to ditch domestic peat as fuel, in favor of Russian biofuel, but that's off the table now, and peat will probably be used extensively for a few years until alternatives are in place.

Energy independence is what we aim for at the moment. Carbon neutral is still something we aim for in the long run, but not being relianton Russian energy is the primary goal for the next few years.

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

#428

Post by ncmncm »

Manuel_D wrote: post #401
ncmncm wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not lithium batteries. Even suggesting it demonstrates you are not serious. And, obviously hydrogen will not continue to be made from hydrocarbons. It will instead be feedstock for synthesizing hydrocarbons. Carbon would need to be extracted from air, or at least from exhaust, to get carbon credits.

What you're describing is a combination of electrolysis and the Sabatier process [1]. And as I explain before there are major obstacles to actually converting electricity to methane at scale. It needs a source of carbon, and extraction of carbon from the air or exhaust is not feasible. Furthermore, massive electrolysis of hydrogen is also not something we have been able to do. Almost all hydrogen is produced through…

It is fortunate that you are not making decisions, then, for the people who are directing the use of billions of dollars invested in exactly the activities you insist do not work.

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

#429

Post by xkgt »

thehappypm wrote: post #325
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the other way round?

Nope, it’s all about the temperature differential. Using a heat pump like an air conditioner is the same efficiency either direction. Usually when you’re talking about heat it’s going from (say) 20F to 70F, with AC it’s more like 90F to 70F. With heat you might even need to do like 0F to 65. AC max might be 115 to 75 which is still substantially less.

How about building design? I know in colder climates buildings are designed to retain heat. Are buildings in warmer climates designed with similar heat insulation in mind? I think traditional architectures are designed for convective cooling but that doesn't play well with air-conditioning. Not too mention the modern designs obsessed with glass which I think traps heat. Good and efficient for cold climates, not so much for the hot ones.

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

#430

Post by krzyk »

sandworm101 wrote: post #84
rdsubhas wrote: post #27

What I find incredible is: Once this fully ramps up, this one power plant is expected to satisfy 14% of the entire country's electricity needs. 7 of these could power an entire country, 24/7.

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…

> boiling water reactors

It amazes me that we are still using steam power (mostly 18th and 19t century discovery AFAIR) in such advanced systems.

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