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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nearly all of Australia's population centres are on the coast, Alice Springs being the most notable exception with a population of around 25k. And most of Australia's population is loosely clustered on or near the east coast, which already has a somewhat interconnected power grid (emphasis on sort of).

I'm aware of the population distribution.

Only WA+NT are not connected to the national grid.

The problem with having a nuclear power plant on the coast where there's sufficient reliable water is that nobody wants one in their back yard.

(Yes there's parts of the WA/NT/QLD/SA coastlines where population drops to bugger all, but they're generally less suitable for all sorts of reasons)

Putting them inland where they're still near major interstate grid connections runs into the water problem again.

Which is a problem Canada doesn't have.

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

#92
post #90

> " 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity ... is enough energy to power 300,000 homes for one year. " This statement reflects the quality of the article. There is nothing very interesting about SMRs. They are much more expensive than equivalent renewables, so they will only be built by coercion of ratepayers who would be better served by the alternative.

> They are much more expensive than equivalent renewables,

This statement reflects the quality of the comment.

Renewables need significant storage to be directly comparable, cost-wise, to nuclear. There are no currently existing grid level storage solutions, same as SMRs, and both are invested in.

And you're missing a huge part of the equation - we're talking about Canada, the northern cold parts. Which renewables would run there ( maybe wind?) and which storage solution could be viable to withstand the cold and storms and what not?

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

#93
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…

> Vast swathes of uninhabited land ugh ffs : mabo was 30 yrs ago last month

Vast swaths of uninhabited land makes plenty of room for solar panels that will not threaten to poison anybody. Build out enough of them, and they can desalinate sea water to turn the whole continent green.

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

#94

My only question about nuclear is why is it okay to bury the nuclear waste? I can understand that it might be fine to bury small amounts in specific stores but if countries slowly adopt nuclear energy at scale then over time won’t we be burying a lot of waste that, correct me if I’m wrong, has to be stored for thousands of years? I don’t understand how this can be sustainable long term. I also think it’s maybe arroga…

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

Is a good starting point. There has been a lot of thought put into this.

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

#95
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…

If there's one country that does not need nuclear power it's Australia. Plenty of solar there and the sun comes out every day to the extent that in that part of the world it's a very reliable and predictable source of energy. All they need to do put down some panels and watch the meter do its thing for the next few decades.

Yes nuclear is cleaner than coal. But also way more expensive than everything else even before you consider that. Note how the article carefully dodges the cost topic. That's because it probably is quite a bit of money per mwh. Nobody installs nuclear because its cheap. There's always a secondary objective; usually military. Countries like being labeled "a nuclear power". It's not about the electricity. It's a label that comes at an extreme premium. The price of the energy they sell simply does not cover the cost of the plant over the lifetime.

The cheapest options in the market are solar and wind. Not by a little bit but by a wide and growing margin. That's just at current prices; they are widely predicted to continue dropping for a long time and there is very little consensus on where it will bottom out except perhaps nowhere close to current price levels. Cheap energy storage solutions are also becoming available and also dropping in price. Solar in Canada is not good enough to rely on exclusively. But wind is fine. Lots of coastal areas; lots of empty planes. Lots of wind.

Electrical cars won't be that big of an impact. They will actually have a balancing impact on the grid because they can be both sources and sinks of energy. They can absorb oversupply and supply back to the grid during peak hours. A single EV can keep a house hold going for several days. With millions of EVs on the road, a large percentage of them will be plugged in and either charging or ready to discharge at any time. Even using just a small percentage of that capacity means you can pretty much permanently turn off a bunch of gas peaker plants. 1 million cars supplying 1 kw of power for 1 hour would amount to about 1GW of capacity and 1GWH of power delivered. The same as running 3 of these fancy new nuclear plants for 1 hour. Charge them with a few solar panels and they pretty much become net producers rather than consumers of energy too.

The us drives about 3.2 trillion miles per year apparently. A good EV might get 4-5 miles per kwh. Lets call it 3.2 miles for the sake of easy numbers. So, that's 3.2 trillion kwh. Or 3.2 billion mwh. Or 3.2 million gwh, a common metric of the output of energy producers. The US generates about 4 trillion kwh per year. So switching overnight would cause some issues but also be a completely impossible scenario because the battery production volume wto make that happen simply does not exist to make that happen. Not even close. It will take decades to construct that. But gradually phasing in storage and renewable energy sources over say decades, would be plenty of time for the less than 2x increase in energy production. It's not an energy crisis but a healthy growth scenario for any energy company worthy of the name.

That's why the investment space around renewables is so hot right now. Nuclear, not so much. Risky investments, poor ROI (if not outright negative), long lead times to plants actually coming online, politics very uncertain, high chance of budget overruns, etc.

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

#96
post #92
post #90

> " 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity ... is enough energy to power 300,000 homes for one year. " This statement reflects the quality of the article. There is nothing very interesting about SMRs. They are much more expensive than equivalent renewables, so they will only be built by coercion of ratepayers who would be better served by the alternative.

> They are much more expensive than equivalent renewables, This statement reflects the quality of the comment. Renewables need significant storage to be directly comparable, cost-wise, to nuclear. There are no currently existing grid level storage solutions, same as SMRs, and both are invested in. And you're missing a huge part of the equation - we're talking about Canada, the northern cold parts. Which renewables wo…

Signicant storage is cheap and getting cheaper, much faster than wind or solar ever did. By the time we have built out enough renewables to benefit from storage, storage will be cheap enough to hardly notice.

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

#97
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…

You don't need to cover the entire desert. One or two percent are probably enough to meet Australia's primary energy demand.

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

#98
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes too long to build fission plants to replace coal in the short term; easy to spin up lots of wind/solar. We've also got a ridiculous amount of renewable potential. (I'm a candidate for the Fusion Party; we'd like to remove the ban on nuclear power in Australia because it would enable research)

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 :) we might surprise ourselves in a few years.

I agree with this.

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

#99

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?

This channel should have the answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8 TL;DW: Coal, gas lobbies.

hahaha. They're absolute gold!

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

#100
post #87

The background on Canada's plans for small modular reactors (of which this is just one of three projects) can be found here: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Canadian-provinc... Supposedly this is promoting clean energy and fighting climate change, but the details don't always match this rhetoric. In particular they're thinking they can use nuclear power to replace piped-in natural gas to mine the Alberta…

Solar/wind/storage is always a better option as long as the storage solution isn't replaced by burn fossil fuel, which like the tarsand oil detail, is the kind of detail that sadly pop up in practically all places where the solar/wind/storage solution is being promoted. The fossil fuel need to stay in the ground. I am fairly enthusiastic about both renewables and nuclear, but I am a bit pessimistic about storage. The…

There are dozens of storage methods that all work, the only remaining uncertainty being which will be cheapest, or otherwise most useful. Hydrogen and ammonia synthesis will not be cheapest, but will arguably be most useful.

It is strange that people proposing storage methods frequently seem unable to reason about cost, so propose absurdly expensive realizations of their ideas. What will end up deployed will be the most sensible alternatives.

We don't need to have storage built out until after we have enough renewable generating capacity for both peak load and to charge up the storage, at the same time. Until then, money is overwhelmingly better spent on the generating capacity. Given equipment to synthesize ammonia or hydrogen, we can then continue building out generating capacity, because all the hydrogen or ammonia produced after local storage is topped up can be sold for direct revenue.

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