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

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

#71

Post by hkt »

arcticbull wrote: post #51
wumpus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this work with solar panels and wind turbines? I know that fossil fuel plants have a lot of waste heat that enables cogeneration, but I've never heard of that with solar or wind.

Solar panels are super thermally inefficient generally speaking, collecting about 20% of the energy that hits the panel. They are dark, and this leaves a lot of heat available for the gathering. You can get solar systems that heat water as well, especially in rooftop solar. This also cools the panels down and makes them more efficient. Not much, but measurably. Something like this. [1] Of course, in the winter in Can…

Actually, wind turbines do produce heat but we generally let it dissipate. It may be that it is not really usable, but wind turbines that only produce heat are a thing historically:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/02/heat-your-house-with...

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

#72

Post by natmaka »

arcticbull wrote: post #59
notmars wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... maybe?

Hydro is tough for a lot of reasons. It's pretty ecologically devastating, flooding large regions and turning fish into mulch. It can also produce as much climate impact as a fossil fuel plant - or more - largely due to methane and CO2 emissions from the newly flooded land. [1] I'm not 100% sure where the Quebec hydro mix actually lands due to the significant variability on a plant-by-plant basis, and I don't know if…

There are rules (releasing water...) and equipment aiming at reducing harm to aquatic life, even worst cases (migratory fishes). https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/habitat-conservation...

"the rate of emissions per unit of electric generation from hydropower (excluding tropical reservoirs) is much lower than for fossil fuel technologies." Source: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1209/ML12090A850.pdf

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

#73

Post by PeterisP »

voidfunc wrote: post #27
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?

Don't nuclear plants need vast amounts of water? Australia's kinda lacking that in the middle of the country.

The middle of the country has no need for large quantities of power as almost nobody lives there - almost all Australians live on the coasts near to water.

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

#74

Post by tfigment »

onethought wrote: post #66
dev_tty01 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ge…

There is very high demand from 6-10 pm and lesser in morning when solar is not available or very diminished. Also solar still needs cleaning all of those panels. Solar requires rare earths and that is surprisingly toxic manufacturing/refining process. Distribution and transmission is also not as easy as just building everything in Africa and sending it elsewhere. We need a mix of systems in practice.

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

#75

Post by rich_sasha »

lultimouomo wrote: post #64
arcticbull wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Canada has a lot of mining industry, and presumably not in Ontario, perhaps it uses more energy than people?

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

#76

Post by paranoidrobot »

s0rce wrote: post #21
foolfoolz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Canada has them. Pretty much the same situation

Apart from the whole vastly-differing-amounts-of-water thing.

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

#77

Post by paranoidrobot »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #34
foolfoolz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Australia has abundant uranium, dry geologically stable uninhabited space, bauxite, iron ore, and thermal and coking coal. Australia really should have developed large steel and aluminum industries powered by coal and uranium, rather than shipping all the raw materials out with no value add.

> Australia really should have developed large steel and aluminum industries powered by coal

We did.

BHP had massive steelworks in Newcastle and Wollongong (~150KM north and south of Sydney), aside from others.

BHP found it was cheaper to do it in other countries where environmental, safety and labour laws weren't such as hassle to deal with (aka: Paying a living wage, avoid killing your workers, and limiting the impact you had on the surrounding population).

Newcastle also had a massive Aluminium smelter - but again, cheaper to do it overseas.

It's a repeating pattern.

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

#78

Post by natmaka »

stormbrew wrote: post #39
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%

This is a little deceptive I think. Electricity only makes up about 17% of canada's energy use, with 75% or so of our total energy demand coming from carbon sources[1]. We mostly use natural gas for heating, while in many other places in the world it's more likely electricity is gonna be used for indoor climate control (AC, heat pumps, even resistive heating).

Yes, as electricity only globally provides at best about 25% of final energy all this is misleading when it comes to the 'big picture'.

Usage profiles are indeed pertinent: Australians probably don't need dissipate energy in order for heating as Canadians do, but even this perspective isn't easy to grasp: heating thanks to gridpower is a thing in some nations without really cold seasons, France being one.

However the subject here is a gridpower-producing nuclear reactor, this IMHO sets a perimeter.

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

#79

Post by natmaka »

onethought wrote: post #62
foolfoolz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

We can transmit electricity over long distances thanks to (U)HVDC and it is more and more applied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

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

#80

Post by paranoidrobot »

ggm wrote: post #23
jp0d wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in a way it's good that we didn't do that in the sixties. Nuclear reactors are a lot more advanced and safer these days. Probably never too late to get onto it.

You haven't been in the arguments about "why nuclear makes no sense now" much have you? the post-60s time to deploy skyrocketed, in lawsuits. By now, its a 20+ year fight to do anything with nuclear, even on federally owned land. in 20 years, the argument runs that either its too late, or the cost of PV/Wind has dropped to make it irrelevant. The problem space we're in now is multi-dimensional. Purely on economic and…

> the cost of PV/Wind has dropped to make it irrelevant

The cost of PV and Wind (with Storage included) is already vastly lower than any commercially available Nuclear Power design.

They're also a whole lot easier to deploy and maintain, don't come with all the risks involved in current Nuclear Power designs.

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