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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

#201

Post by jhgb »

orthecreedence wrote: post #183
adrianN wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world uses about 556.63 exajoules per year. Say your nuclear reactor produces 3GW. That's more than 5000 reactors to power the world. You can probably safely cut that in half because electricity is a better source of energy for transportation and heating that fossil fuels, but still. Do you think we can scale reactor production sufficiently to build thousands of reactors in two or three decades?

> Do you think we can scale reactor production sufficiently to build thousands of reactors in two or three decades? Humans can do some cool things when we decide to. And scaling solar isn't as easy as it sounds. What's the cost, in energy and fossil fuels, to mine the materials, build and ship not just the panels but also the massive batteries required for solar? Not to mention having to constantly replace them? That…

> Humans can do some cool things when we decide to. And scaling solar isn't as easy as it sounds.

Weirdly enough, we're already currently annually installing so much solar power (in terms of actual energy output, not just nameplate) that it equates the progress accomplished in the nuclear industry in the past fifteen years or so. In other words, the nuclear industry would have to accelerate by more than an order to magnitude just to catch up with today's solar power growth. But of course solar power growth itself increases by around 30% every year on average... To me that almost sounds like it's scaling nuclear power that isn't as easy as it sounds.

> but also the massive batteries required for solar

Yeah, there's no such thing as "massive batteries required for solar" in a proper high-renewable grid. Simulations show (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2018.07.004) that in a cost-optimal grid mix, pumped hydro is economically preferred over batteries.

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

#202

Post by jhgb »

panick21_ wrote: post #187
adrianN wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world uses about 556.63 exajoules per year. Say your nuclear reactor produces 3GW. That's more than 5000 reactors to power the world. You can probably safely cut that in half because electricity is a better source of energy for transportation and heating that fossil fuels, but still. Do you think we can scale reactor production sufficiently to build thousands of reactors in two or three decades?

Yes. 5000 reactors is not actually that much. Think about how many planes we produce. Imagine 5 Gigafactory each producing 100s reactor cores every year. That not really hard to imagine is it? Those would more likely be 500MW. So you need a few 10000+. The rest of a nuclear plant without water cooling is none nuclear and building a concrete hole, and a concrete bunker a whole bunch of electronics, pipes and the same…

For comparison, assuming a "business as usual" situation in the solar power industry, the electricity output of five thousand 3GWt nuclear units would be reached around 2040 (maybe 2035 if the long-term annual growth factor of 30% were to be maintained, but that's unlikely in the future).

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

#203

Post by acidburnNSA »

mtmmtm wrote: post #34

The article quotes a very old capacity-factor for wind-energy (30%). Today it is 60-64%. https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-wind... Also read this report regarding new types of nuclear power (a summary is that these new versions is probably a waste of money): https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/ucs-rpt-A...

Monthly averages vary between 20% and 45% in the USA. As the most windy sites are built on first, these numbers could fall in deep decarbonization plans that rely on building in areas that have less wind.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

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

#204

Post by NumberWangMan »

adrianN wrote: post #164
panick21_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The world uses about 556.63 exajoules per year. Say your nuclear reactor produces 3GW. That's more than 5000 reactors to power the world. You can probably safely cut that in half because electricity is a better source of energy for transportation and heating that fossil fuels, but still. Do you think we can scale reactor production sufficiently to build thousands of reactors in two or three decades?

Good question - note that the ThorCon project is not a nuclear power plant, but a factory for producing nuclear power plants (class NuclearPlantFactory? :) ). From their site:

"A single shipyard can produce 20 GW’s of ThorConIsle power per year. In terms of resource requirements, one gigawatt of ThorCon power is not a big deal. The scale up rate will not be limited by shipyard capacity, but by the rate at which the turbogenerators can be built."

So let's say 18000 GW (converting 556 exajoules/year and rounding up). Divide by 20 (GW per shipyard per year) to get 900 ThorCon-shipyard-years. If we say two decades to get it done, that's 45 shipyards, which seems doable? There are 285 active shipyards worldwide right now.

But anyway, like you said, we can maybe cut it in half, and not everything has to be powered by nuclear, just enough to replace fossil fuels.

On the other side, many areas of the world are energy poor and impoverished because of that. It would be great if we could use a lot of this energy to improve lives of people living in these areas, so we would probably want to build substantially more.

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

#205

Post by FerretFred »

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…

> a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology

This is certainly the case in the UK where the Government is rushing headlong into the Next Shiny (nuclear) Thing. In the meantime they inexplicably scrapped the Swansea Bay Tidal Power project! http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/swansea-bay/

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

#206

Post by pydry »

vkou wrote: post #192
ncmncm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.

> Money is fungible. Which is why wasting it in trying to shoehorn solar or wind which are completely unacceptable as baseload power sources is doomed to failure. If you think batteries[1] are a solution, you should go buy some batteries, and try to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage between daily oversupply (when energy is ~free) and undersupply (when energy is very, very expensive). You'll quickly d…

>Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs.

We can build plenty of pumped hydro before running out of space.

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

#207

Post by DennisP »

danans wrote: post #188
DennisP wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most projects, there's at most four hours of storage, just enough to shift peak daytime supply to peak evening demand. That's not the same as getting through the night, or having enough overcapacity to meet demand in cloudy winter weeks. Lazard puts the wholesale cost of solar PV plus four hours storage at $165 to $296/MWh: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

That graph actually shows the levelized cost of solar+storage capacity at $165-296/ kWh-year The levelized cost of solar + storage according to Lazards is even less: $85-158/MWh.

Oops, you're right, sorry. But that's still only four hours storage, and still higher than Thorcon's estimated cost for their reactor, which could actually supply power through the night and through all seasons regardless of weather conditions without extra cost.

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

#208

Post by cinntaile »

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.

All these experts must have retired in France. Half their reactors are out of order for planned and unplanned maintenance.

You would expect nuclear to get cheaper over time, but the opposite has happened. SMRs are betting on turning the tide by reducing the manufacturing cost but they will have to deal with larger operation costs so it is not yet clear that this will make economic sense. The bet size is smaller though, so investors will be more likely to give it a try.

> We could also eat up nuclear fuel waste and (hopefully) nuclear weapons material (as was done in the US with Soviet nukes).

You can do this, but does it make economic sense. That is the question and the answer to that right now is no.

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

#209

Post by ncmncm »

vkou wrote: post #192
ncmncm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.

> Money is fungible. Which is why wasting it in trying to shoehorn solar or wind which are completely unacceptable as baseload power sources is doomed to failure. If you think batteries[1] are a solution, you should go buy some batteries, and try to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage between daily oversupply (when energy is ~free) and undersupply (when energy is very, very expensive). You'll quickly d…

You are alluding to low "capacity factor", what we call duty cycle elsewhere: something called for in only part of a day or month, where you only get to charge for it during the time it is used, so has its fixed costs amortized over just that limited usage time.

Batteries can fare badly, here, because their cost scales with total storage capacity, though storing or delivering the power is free and round trip efficiency is high. They do well at leveling peaks, where they can respond faster than other media, and the total energy they must deliver is small. (Cf. Australia's Tesla system.)

Others, like pumped hydro, synthetic chemicals, liquified air, and compressed air, can fare better because tankage is cheap, and the pumps, catalyzers, and furnaces cost according to the rate that energy is to be banked or drawn down, not the total stored energy. Storage as an independent business would rely on transmission lines to be able to deliver power to utilities in the whole region and stay busy, and draw on the grid's excess to refill.

Pumped hydro and compressed air have good round-trip efficiency. Chemical systems, much less; that matters surprisingly little.

Transmission lines cost according to maximum power and distance, but are called for only when energy must be moved. Actually moving the energy is free; all the costs are independent of usage.

But a public utility that manages its own storage is not constrained by a storage business model: it builds as much generating capacity and storage as it needs to meet its needs almost all the time, and fills periods that exceed the sum of its momentary generating capacity and storage drawdown rate (until it is empty) buying power from the regional grid at spot price, refilling its storage when it can or price is low.

Capacity needs to be built out, and hasn't been, yet, because it takes time to do, hasn't been needed yet in most places, and its costs are still in free fall. Building out later gets you more for your money, and generating capacity is more immediately useful.

Synthetic chemical storage has the advantage that tankage is both cheap and portable, so you can work the catalyzers at all times except when storage is actually being drawn down, either filling local tankage or filling shippable tanks for sale. The market for it will never saturate.

A wrinkle for many storage media is that the equipment to bank and to draw down energy is not the same, is sized and costs by the power capacity in one direction, and one costs more than the other. For example, the catalyzer to produce hydrogen or ammonia is completely separate from the furnace or fuel cells needed to deliver power. Another wrinkle is that startup time and fixed cost to start up, in either direction, may be very different.

Running a grid with completely independent generation, storage, transmission, and delivery makes bad incentives, so needs regulation. But a public utility district can manage all of this internally, and mostly just sell power to end users and excess to the grid.

Everything works much better when there is plenty extra of intermittent generating capacity, so it is good that is very cheap.

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

#210

Post by DennisP »

ncmncm wrote: post #150
DennisP wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and building more storage raises the cost by quite a lot, as you can see by Lazard's cost figures for storage. Nuclear can easily be competitive in a grid not backed by natural gas, especially if MSR companies like Thorcon are successful in lowering nuclear costs.

Lazards's cost figures are backward-looking, so not representative. As I already pointed out. Yet, generation + even those figures is still cheaper than building nukes.

Lazard is the one widely cited by renewables advocates attempting to make their case. You're the first person I've seen claim that it overestimates renewable costs.

Can you point out where in the Lazard report it describes its methodology in a way that makes clear it doesn't reflect the cost of new renewable projects today? And reference a thorough study that shows lower-than-Lazard average costs for solar+storage today, not in some estimated future, and not with cherry-picked projects in ideal locations?

And if that cost includes sufficient collection and storage to get through a windless night, like nuclear can do, that would be nice too.

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