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A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

theweathernetwork.com

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Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#61

Post by robonerd »

ars wrote: post #49
robonerd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pipe steam for a few miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating Though for industrial purposes (rather than just heating buildings) you'd probably have to be closer.

The waste heat from a power plant (any kind), is not hot enough to make steam, unless you deliberately make it less efficient. You can make hot water though.

What's to say that demand needs to be met with waste heat? Couldn't a plant tap off and sell some of the steam that would otherwise be sent to the turbines?

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#62

Post by onethought »

foolfoolz wrote: post #18
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit surprised that Australia has no nuclear plants while other countries along the Pacific Rim already do. Any idea why it hasn't happened? Domestic opposition or lack of need before now?

probably cause the entire continent of australia is about as big as the lower 48 states but has only a few more million people than the state of florida. the cities are far more spread out. the investment would be very high and only benefit on small area

If only we could transmit electricity over long distances.

You realise you're commenting on a post about Canada using Nuclear power, and all of the things you said about Australia also hold true for Canada?

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#63

Post by tempestn »

> SMRs are nuclear reactors that typically produce up to 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity, which is enough energy to power 300,000 homes for one year.

I suppose anyone who has some knowledge re electricity knows what they're trying to say here, and for anyone who doesn't it won't make much difference, but reading a sentence like this still hurts me a little.

MW (megawatts) are a measure of power, not energy. This means the "per year" part is meaningless. Also for what it's worth, 300MW for 300k homes is 1kW/home, which is a pretty old rule of thumb for average household power use. I believe the current average in Canada (and the US) is considerably higher But that's also just the average; the peak is much higher. 300MW is the peak output for the plant, so the true number of homes it could power is lower regardless, absent storage.

None of that to say the prospect isn't exciting! And I suppose the source here is the weather network, so perhaps they're a bit outside their area of expertise.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#64

Post by lultimouomo »

arcticbull wrote: post #28
natmaka wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is a very different case: electricity sources are 2/3 renewables, mainly hydro (~60%). Nuclear: ~15%

Canada is a big place. Depends on the area. Ontario, for instance, is almost 60% nuclear. [1] It has by far the lowest CO2 emissions per kWh in the country. Remember, Ontario is 40% of Canada's population. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...

Do people in Ontario use way less electricity than the rest of the country? If 40% of the people gets 60% of electricity from nuclear, I would expect the whole country to get at least 24% of electricity from nuclear.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#65

Post by eternauta3k »

Not sure if it's quite the same thing, but Argentina has been building a modular reactor for a while now. Doesn't look like it'll be ready anytime soon (probably financing problems).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAREM

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Nucleoelectrica-cont...

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#66

Post by onethought »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #57
wumpus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said: > If we'd started building reactors when we first said it'd take too long, we'd have all the reactors we need. Instead of saying it's going to take too long, let's just start :) ... and apparently you don't care that there was an alternative that would already be producing a lot of power? Because it doesn't matter how much money you think could have built reactors, the reactor-building community is screwed…

How does solar produce substantial power in northern and southern latitudes for several months of the year? How about at night? How about during long cloudy periods? Solar usually ends up with carbon based backup. It should be nuclear instead. For solar to really work, it will take massive energy storage capabilities. That is NOT ready to deploy. Until then, solar will only be a partial solution at best. Anyone who w…

Country the size of Australia could actually build sizeable solar assets across multiple timezones. The "backup problem" is a storage problem that could be solved more locally to the consumption. (houses with batteries, or suburbs, or cities, or states). The "night time" generation problem is a bit BS given electricity demand drops significantly at nigh in Australia, so the storage requirement is no where near the generation requirement.

Just some thoughts. Australia has enough unutilised land mass to generate the global power demand a couple of times over, North Africa also does... so you could build a solution that requires no storage at all.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#67

Post by eternauta3k »

Manuel_D wrote: post #8
BeeBoBub wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting idea for waste heat. Is the waste heat a nuclear power plant produces significant? My understanding is you want all your heat working to spin your turbine.

Yes, ideally all the energy released by the reactor would go into the turbine. But no engine is 100% efficient, and waste heat is inevitable. Waste heat is "free" energy in the sense that it would have otherwise not been harnessed for something useful.

Waste heat is not free to the degree that you're not cooling your cold side as efficiently. If "sending heat to homes" has the same thermal resistance as "just dissipate it", then sure.

However, I find it elegant that heat is directly used to heat homes, rather than turning it into low-entropy electricity just to turn it to heat again (which is inelegant, even with heat pumps).

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#68

Post by natmaka »

arcticbull wrote: post #28
natmaka wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is a very different case: electricity sources are 2/3 renewables, mainly hydro (~60%). Nuclear: ~15%

Canada is a big place. Depends on the area. Ontario, for instance, is almost 60% nuclear. [1] It has by far the lowest CO2 emissions per kWh in the country. Remember, Ontario is 40% of Canada's population. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...

As the comparison was set with Australia (as a whole nation), I considered Canada as such.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#69

Post by jseban »

arcticbull wrote: post #36
wumpus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you spend the same amount of money on solar/wind instead? How did that turn out?

Why would I want to cover the entire desert with solar panels instead of having one neat little tube shaped steam box? You know three nuclear power plants (spanning 19 reactors) in Ontario provide electricity for 9 million people? How many solar panels and wind turbines would you need to put in their place? A solar PV facility must have an installed capacity of 3,300 MW and 5,400 MW to match a 1,000-MW nuclear facili…

But solar has the benefit that it doesn't need to be centralised, people can cover their own roofs and have a battery to be self sufficient and now you don't even need a grid.

Re: A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028

#70

Post by worik »

prawn wrote: post #55
jp0d wrote: post #4

This is really exciting. I wish we had nuclear power here in Australia. I know I might get downvoted for this comment. But with advancement in technology and large amount nuclear fuel (Uranium deposit) available, it's a great choice. 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident. With technology like this, the risks are even lower. 2. It's lot cleaner than c…

I also thought we should've developed a nuclear waste industry here in South Australia. There was a 'citizen's jury' on the topic a while back but obviously public opinion swayed political action to rule it out. We have a lot of "unused" and stable land well away from population centres. I imagine transport from afar is an issue though.

Storing waste is too expensive to contemplate.

Wherever it is put the high level waste (not much in quantity but...) is deadly and a silent killer for over a hundred thousand years. This is geologically significant time period, and we can make bets, but have no guarantee of any place on Earth being stable on those time scales.

So it must be monitored.

For a hundred thousand years

That would be us making future generations pay for the cost of our current consumptions. I do not think they will think kindly of us.

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