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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

#521

Post by Manuel_D »

rndgermandude wrote: post #447
Manuel_D wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted, the cost for solar and wind fail to account for the cost of storage to accommodate their intermittency. If your country has hydroelectric dams, then that works. But for the rest that don't have the right geography for hydro, they burn fossil fuels. Nuclear provides a path for decarbonization. Solar and wind do not, until a massive breakthrough in energy storage is invented. And nobody knows when that will ha…

We don't need massive breakthroughs in energy storage. And the goal is overall carbon-neutral, not carbon-zero. And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal. The latter might become a very important part of the mix, as it would be relatively easy to securely and relatively cheaply deploy a lot of small scale heat pump power plants, requiring fewer massive power line installations, with the added…

> And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal.

These are geographically dependent. You can't build the where you need them.

> As for storage, one way to "store" energy is hydrogen, which we can then burn as needed. We can probably get the efficiency of that to 70% (for hydrogen-burning larger-scale power plants).

Large scale electrolysis remains unproven. This goes in the "scientific breakthrough required" bucket.

> Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is another existing option, with an efficiency of about 70-80%

Also geographically dependent. You basically need an alpine lake handy to build pumped storage.

Carbon sequestration at anything close to relevant scales also has never been done.

> The deployment and logistics is a general problem of electrification, even with nuclear. People want to plug in their EVs near where they live, and want heat in their homes, so you either need additional power lines or (smaller scale) power plants close to people and industry, either way.

No, this isn't a problem with nuclear. Most energy demand is in cities. And since nuclear plants are not geographically dependent, you can build them near places with lots of energy demand. As opposed to renewables which might need to be built very far away in places with large solar or wind potential.

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

#522

Post by Manuel_D »

ncmncm wrote: post #428
Manuel_D wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are they? Who is building grid-scale power to gas storage?

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

#523

Post by Manuel_D »

natmaka wrote: post #478
Manuel_D wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But remember, not all forms of green energy generation are equal. Wind and solar need some dispatchable source as a backup. Hydro works, if you have it. But it's geographically limited. Gas is the typical backup source, but that emits carbon. Nuclear, as it stands, is the only solution to decarbonizing the energy grid for much of the world. Until some breakthrough in energy storage transpires, or fusion become…

Even nuclear needs fossil-fuel backup, as building enough reactors to cope with peak demand would be way, way too expensive. Even a massively-nuclearized France produces 7% to 12% of its gridpower thanks to fossil-fuel plants. French official historical data: https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/editi...

Nuclear plants can modulate power by more aggressively cooling the reactor. They don't do this because it's effectively wasting nuclear energy, but it can be done.

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

#524

Post by rndgermandude »

lazide wrote: post #512
rndgermandude wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need massive breakthroughs in energy storage. And the goal is overall carbon-neutral, not carbon-zero. And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal. The latter might become a very important part of the mix, as it would be relatively easy to securely and relatively cheaply deploy a lot of small scale heat pump power plants, requiring fewer massive power line installations, with the added…

It will require massive capex spend. All the storage technologies are complicated too, so add a lot of maintenance. Decarbonization is maaaybe 1/4 of the way there, but folks seem to like to spin it as 90%.

I am not saying we're almost there, just that we do not necessarily need break-though new tech.

You're absolutely right that we will need to spend a lot of money and time if you seriously want to achieve to become globally carbon-neutral. However, going nuclear wouldn't be necessarily cheaper or quicker, either.

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

#525

Post by lazide »

rndgermandude wrote: post #524
lazide wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will require massive capex spend. All the storage technologies are complicated too, so add a lot of maintenance. Decarbonization is maaaybe 1/4 of the way there, but folks seem to like to spin it as 90%.

I am not saying we're almost there, just that we do not necessarily need break-though new tech. You're absolutely right that we will need to spend a lot of money and time if you seriously want to achieve to become globally carbon-neutral. However, going nuclear wouldn't be necessarily cheaper or quicker, either.

Agreed. Though be aware, that puts the decarbonizing countries at a massive disadvantage to those who aren’t decarbonizing, as every action they take (from heating to transport) becomes more directly expensive.

Which makes a war of conquest or destruction by countries not doing so much easier to win.

Edit: Also, with interest rates likely to go up due to inflation/central bank action, that CapEx may soon be impossible to bear without some equivalent to a wartime economy anyway. A lot of the renewables have been helped by essentially free money.

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

#526

Post by danuker »

Sharlin wrote: post #259
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...

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…

What kind of coefficients of performance are there in Finland, for heat pumps? And what kind of heat pumps are there? Are air-sourced pumps any use in the Finnish climate?

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

#527

Post by R0b0t1 »

natmaka wrote: post #481
R0b0t1 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power's "biggest problem" has been solved for decades. You can put everything in giant metal canisters and sink it into bedrock. It's vastly more expensive than doing nothing, but now that politicians are going to be held accountable for their fuckups they'll allocate the money. And even after all that it's still far less expensive than remediating coal output.

Each and every time someone claims that we can perfectly predict bedrock future for hundreds of thousands years to come I have to remind us that plate tectonics only was admitted by geophysicists during the 1960's. Hoping to know enough and for sure about all this is... a hope. Stating that we know what our descendants will need/do in a so distant future is even more funny.

That's why you put it in an inches thick metal case and drop it down low. What, you think they just didn't consider that?

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

#528

Post by afterburner »

throw0101a wrote: post #361
afterburner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corners get cut on refurbishment, for political reasons, and the facility continues to degrade while their life is too far extended. Fukushima had this issue.

The problem at Fukushima Daiichi was not refurbishment problems: it was the fact that the emergency batteries and generators were in the basement and accessible from the sea-facing side of the structure. Fukushima Daini did not have those problems, and thus not much drama happened at it: * https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-flood-dama... * https://hbr.org/2014/07/how-the-other-fukushima-plant-surviv...…

Well, if they knew the location was a risk, instead of extending its life, they could have shut it down. But they chose to extend it.

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

#529

Post by afterburner »

dantheman wrote: post #330
afterburner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corners get cut on refurbishment, for political reasons, and the facility continues to degrade while their life is too far extended. Fukushima had this issue.

... hit by a tidal wave.

Well, if they knew the location was a risk, instead of extending its life, they could have shut it down. But they chose to extend it.

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

#530

Post by rndgermandude »

Manuel_D wrote: post #521
rndgermandude wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need massive breakthroughs in energy storage. And the goal is overall carbon-neutral, not carbon-zero. And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal. The latter might become a very important part of the mix, as it would be relatively easy to securely and relatively cheaply deploy a lot of small scale heat pump power plants, requiring fewer massive power line installations, with the added…

> And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal. These are geographically dependent. You can't build the where you need them. > As for storage, one way to "store" energy is hydrogen, which we can then burn as needed. We can probably get the efficiency of that to 70% (for hydrogen-burning larger-scale power plants). Large scale electrolysis remains unproven. This goes in the "scientific breakthroug…

Geo-thermal is a little bit geographically dependent, but by far not as much as you make it sound. Hydro is indeed very geo-dependent, no contest there.

Large-scale electrolysis is not unproven. E.g. Air Liquide operates a 20MW plant producing 3000t/annum near Quebec already[0]. Other projects in development aim for 200MW facilities. Granted, that isn't yet massive scale, just about 99,000 MWh/annum of usable energy (about 33kWh/kg for hydrogen), and the smallest US nuclear plant is theoretically capable of 5,098,320 Mwh/annum or around 50 times more. But large scale enough to act as a proof of concept in my opinion.

Pumped storage is a bit geo-dependent, but you do not need an alpine lake, you need an empty space somewhat higher up where you can pump some water, preferably without loosing too much water due to evaporation and other factors, and some water, preferably fresh water to avoid corrosion as much as possible, maybe desalinated. But if need be salt water and an artificial hill will do.

As for the deployment and logistics of nuclear, it is certainly a problem. Our current grids, independent from the form of electricity generation, are usually not designed to handle the growing demand that electrification probably will create. You can see what happens when the demand somewhat suddenly rises (and the EV introduction is still somewhat "sudden" in the time scales grid operators and infrastructure planners usually consider) e.g. in Kazakhstan when the Chinese bitcoin miners moved there[1]. Furthermore, planning, building and testing new nuclear plants is a massive capital expenditure even without technology research, as well as a political hot topic in a lot of places (and even in nuclear-friendly regions I'd bet that NIMBYs would form real quick once a location for a new plant gets discussed).

Last thing I read by the way is that the EU gets about 20% of the Uranium it uses to fuel existing nuclear plants from Russia (at least until now), with another ~20% coming from Kazakhstan[2], which is somewhat closely allied to (and for sure scared of) Russia. Another ~20% come from Niger, a country not exactly renowned for being a politically stable and human-rights respecting nation. Maybe the EU can source elsewhere, even if the demand increases as potentially more nuclear within the EU goes online, but it surely has a rather problematic political dimension attached aside from general nuclear politics such a nuclear proliferation. And it's not just the EU which needs to switch to electrification, either. Where will Africa or Latin America or Asia get their nuclear tech and nuclear fuel?

Nuclear, like oil, creates international political dependencies in a lot of places, while most renewables would not necessarily do the same.

[0] https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insigh...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-25/kazakhsta...

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

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