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ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

thorconpower.com

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Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#131

Post by ncmncm »

panick21_ wrote: post #111
ncmncm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation is thus far saving us from most badly ill-advised nuke projects. Some sneak through, costing ratepayers in more politically corrupt places many $billions for, in the end, scrap concrete.

Regulation prevents all technical progress for 40+ years is a good thing. Its just mind-blowing that such a statement can be made on a site called 'Hacker News'. Lets promote fear of technology and use regulation from preventing new technology to replace deadly dirty coal for decades and decades. What an amazing plan anti-nuclear people have been pushing for the last 50 years.

It has saved us from being saddled today with many more of these leaky ramshackle contraptions that would have cost a $billion each to take apart.

I live near Indian Point, recently shuttered for leaks. I expect to be made to pay for dismantling it. I am glad I won't need to pay for several more.

Money spent on nukes could have been spent bringing renewable costs down. We could have had solar and wind decades earlier. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House. Ronald Reagan stripped them off. And here we are.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#132

Post by ncmncm »

DennisP wrote: post #101
legulere wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With concentrated solar you can store the heat and generate power in the night.

Yes but that costs quite a bit more than PV. Lazard puts it at $126 to $156/MWh. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... That overlaps with Lazard's range for conventional nuclear. And there are lots of reasons to think molten salt reactors in general would be significantly cheaper. Thorcon thinks it can get their cost down to $30/MWh.

Lazard's figures are for the cost of storage already built, not for the cost of the storage that will be built, a much lower figure.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#133

Post by ncmncm »

scythe wrote: post #130
ncmncm wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reservoirs have a surface. It costs no more to site solar in pasture than in desert. It can be cheaper; you don't need to buy the land if it remains equally useful for its current use, and may be nearer market, so not need long distance transmission. Furthermore, lower operating temperature improves efficiency, and shade improves grass yield and lowers water demand. That biggest current projects are in desert is a si…

>Reservoirs have a surface. Are you suggesting floating solar panels? Surely you jest? >It costs no more to site solar in pasture than in desert. It can be cheaper; you don't need to buy the land if it remains equally useful for its current use You have to stop using it during construction. That's a cost. Nobody is actively using the desert. But more relevant to the original point, there are no areas of large, flat p…

Floating solar panel installations are already in use. They operate at much higher conversion efficiency than desert panels, and reduce biofouling in the reservoir.

You don't need flat ground for solar. A south-facing slope is strictly better.

You are really reaching for objections now: It is universal practice to rotate herds between pastures. You would build in a pasture that livestock are not in this week. You might even build in winter when they are inside.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#134

Post by imtringued »

ncmncm wrote: post #128
NumberWangMan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I take issue with both of your assertions: A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes -- this project is going to provide CO2-free power at 3 cents / kWh. It's in the same ballpark, but also, nuclear's main competition is coal and gas, as they all provide baseline power. Solar with storage can do that, but adding storage drives the cost up. And you cannot spend the sa…

Capital markets compete on a level field.

The vast majority of nuclear power plants weren't funded privately.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#135

Post by imtringued »

panick21_ wrote: post #72
barathr wrote: post #42

I understand the interest in baseload generation but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and scaling it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of R&D but just basic manufacturing. It strikes me a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology. Ironically, with concentrated solar…

One of the reasons why I favor nuclear is quite simple. And its not new technology. In fact, nuclear is the only green energy that ever has actually reliably powered an industrial nation. France did it in 70/80 with technology not more advanced then what is available in the 60s. They have not only proven that nuclear can do it, but also that nuclear scales amazingly well. There really is no technical question what so…

>Nuclear economics analysis shows that if you actually have a real industry with lots of people experienced in such plants, they become much, much cheaper and far more predictable on timeline.

Yeah and then the nuclear advocates build monolithic plants that last 50 years, exactly enough time for all the people involved to retire and not pass on their knowledge.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#136

Post by imtringued »

NumberWangMan wrote: post #126
ncmncm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cannot afford nukes, how can they? If we cannot make them reliable and safe, how can you expect them to? Foisting nukes off on poorer, badly governed countries does people living there no favors. Nukes are farther from viable than ever before. Subsidizing them has become indefensible.

Good questions. One of the founders of ThorCon wrote a book (link to review[1]) about why we can't afford nuclear power (among other things), and it's not really anything to do with the essential cost of building a plant, it's a lot of regulations that don't really make sense and don't make anyone safer. I don't want to over-simplify regulation into the common "more vs less" scale -- some regulations make sense and o…

The easiest solution to getting rid of the crufty old regulations would be by shutting down all obsolete nuclear power plant designs and building new ones. Considering the financial cost of a single nuclear meltdown, upgrading your entire fleet is basically free. That upgrade will save you a trillion dollars in clean up costs.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#137

Post by ncmncm »

panick21_ wrote: post #112
ncmncm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are the most expensive storage alternative. They have advantages for load-leveling, but beyond a few minutes or, in smaller grids, hours, other media will turn out better. Bigger utilities will prefer pumped hydro for short-term storage, anywhere it is practical. Synthetic chemical fuels -- hydrogen and ammonia -- are compelling for longer-term storage, despite their currently low round-trip efficiency. The…

> Bigger utilities will prefer pumped hydro for short-term storage, anywhere it is practical. Is there any pumped hydro in flat land anywhere deployed on large scale? > Synthetic chemical fuels -- hydrogen and ammonia -- are compelling for longer-term storage, despite their currently low round-trip efficiency. Not really. > Then, there is no downside to massive overbuilding of generating capacity: all capacity genera…

I see that you missed the point about selling on chemical production after local tankage is full. A full battery is just full. A full tank can be shipped out and an empty dropped in. Tankage is much cheaper than batteries.

Electrolysers will be idle only when you are drawing down from tanks.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#138

Post by ncmncm »

NumberWangMan wrote: post #97
bryanlarsen wrote: post #89

8 minute is selling solar + storage for 4cents/kWh. Nuclear can't compete with that. https://www.8minute.com/solar-projects/

Doesn't the economics page on the ThorCon site say it'll produce at 3 cents / kWh? *edit -- I'm a bit confused about 8-minute. Do you know what kind of storage they use? Seems neat but the website is a bit sparse on details.

8-Minute are probably using batteries for load-leveling.

ThorCon would have to promise that. We have no way to know if they can deliver on it.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#139

Post by imtringued »

worik wrote: post #54

"Most people will automatically scoff at the claim that a nuclear power plant should cost less to build than a coal plant. It is received wisdom that nuclear plants are outrageously expensive. And most recent nuclear projects confirm that belief. But why" Because of the potential of catastrophic failure. Duh! That and these people are not counting the discounted cost, over 200,000 years, of storing their long term wa…

The concentration of nuclear fuels isn't that high in the ground. If one were to dilute nuclear waste down to natural levels the fact that it lasts thousands of years shouldn't be a problem.

However, what I usually see are proposals to put all the waste in the same spot, with a concentration as high as possible. This is justified by the fact that the storage site is a special location with unique geographical features.

I agree though that people aren't accounting for the full cost. Japan ran a nuclear reactor that was older than the one in Chernobyl. Now their clean up costs exceed the costs of shutting all nuclear power plants down and replacing them with new designs assuming each reactor will cost $30 billion and there are no learning effects that reduce the cost of additional units.

If you were generous with the learning rate, Japan could have donated a dozen nuclear power plants to other countries on top of rebuilding its entire nuclear power plant fleet.

Re: ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power

#140

Post by ncmncm »

panick21_ wrote: post #119
ncmncm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indonesia will, like everywhere else, end up relying on overwhelmingly cheaper renewables. Nukes will turn out to be a very expensive detour. We can only hope, for the sake of these put-upon people, that they abandon the nukes before they spend too much on them. Storage and distribution of synthethic liquid fuels such as ammonia will probably be best adapted to Indonesian needs.

Well you should have told them because they are planning to build many more coal plants. And even the basic infrastructure of the grid that is absolutely required for renewables to be even remotely practical doesn't exist. Wasting gigantic amounts of energy to produce chemical fuel highly inefficiently with low utility plants, and then transporting them around to then burn them up again highly inefficiently is a terr…

They will regret building coal plants as the cost of renewables plummets past coal. Then, they will need to convert their coal plants to burn hydrogen or ammonia, or retire them in favor of better methods, after this expensive detour. But the builders of coal plants will have done fine.

"Waste" is a curious concept applied to something with zero marginal cost. If not used to synthesize fuel, the insolation would have been wasted. Instead, it synthesizes useful fuel, that also fuels the ship taking it where it is needed.

Indonesia will be able to build their own solar farms and synthesizers, and end up exporting their excess in the temperate countries' winter, provided they can escape the grip of the oligarchists.

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