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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

#201

Post by raytube »

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…

The vast swathes of unused land now won't necessarily be the case in the future.

Incorporating solar into housing, like roof tiles seems like a no brainer. Energy stores like reservoirs, or flywheel tech or something else could help plug gaps.

Then there is the whole question of energy needs. Zero energy housing. And micro generation could help.

In the UK our housing and agriculture sector, uses a huge amount of energy for not a lot of gain. Given a modern country and opportunity learn from others' mistakes.

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

#202

Post by raytube »

davedx wrote: post #170
neuronic wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIMBYs are jsut as much of a problem with nuclear because you need to run the generated electricity through power lines that may need to be constructed. Whose land are they running through?

Yup this has been a huge problem in Germany. Increasing transmission capacity between north Germany where all the wind resources are and south where the industry is has been fraught with obstacles by NIMBY's who don't like the power lines.

At least overhead lines are honest. I find the buried infrastructure harder to level in my brain.

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

#203

Post by LatteLazy »

ttul wrote: post #2

To the extent that nuclear power plants emit waste heat, you can use this waste heat to counteract the frigid temperatures found in the Canadian hinterland, displacing the need for natural gas and oil heating of industrial processes.

Which is great if you don't mind living a few 100m from a live nuclear plant, and you have a massive backup heat supply when the plant is closed for maintenance...

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

#204

Post by Sinidir »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #169
ncmncm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen fueled cars could be substantially more energy-efficient than battery-electric cars, but it doesn't matter much, because energy is very quickly getting cheaper, so the point where it simply doesn't matter.

They cannot be even half as efficient - the process of electrolysis is only 40% efficient, then hydrogen must be compressed to insane pressure (which can require up to 20% of the enrgy contained withing) and transporting across the country. Only like 25% of energy you started with ever arrives to the fuel station

Its actually around 70-80% efficient depending on method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water#Efficien...

Not that this changes the picture of hydrogen powered personal vehicles. Still the only viable option for grid level seasonal storage.

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

#205

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

adrian_b wrote: post #183
crashingintoyou wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Australia would still need to import nuclear fuel No they wouldn't. To quote https://globalroadtechnology.com/uranium-mining-australia-hi... > Australia is home to 31% of the world’s recoverable uranium. Australian uranium is exported and consists about one-quarter of its energy exports. Australia uses no nuclear power and depends on coal. The uranium mining industry is a billion dollar industry in Australian dolla…

I assume that the previous poster meant that Australia does not have a 235U-enrichment plant. If that is true, Australia would have to export natural uranium and import back uranium enriched in 235U, unless they would choose to build a reactor with heavy-water, which can use natural uranium as a fuel.

What preventing Australia from building an enrichment plant?

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

#206

Post by yodelshady »

flgb wrote: post #131
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…

Reasons why Australia doesn't and won't have nuclear: 1. Nuclear is a more expensive sources of energy than our alternatives (uranium ore is a small proportion of the cost stack, and Australia would still need to import nuclear fuel) 2. Nuclear isn't commercially viable in energy markets with very high levels of variable renewable energy where they have to be economically curtailed on an almost daily basis (our coal…

2. sounds an awful lot like "renewables are not a viable form of energy and require gas". One gas replacement - nuclear - needs no backup. The other - renewables - needs backup of a scale that exists only on paper.

I've asked time and again for costed *TWh-scale* storage, the proposals are never forthcoming. Because, on first principles, they're far too high and unlikely to ever decrease. Ask actual investors - which I have - in private, and they'll admit it.

Almost nowhere are renewables outcompeting nuclear. What is outcompeting is greenwashed gas.

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

#207

Post by kevingadd »

pydry wrote: post #161
thecopy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never understand the economics argument. Either climate change and global warming are serious issues, and then slightly more expensive electricity should not matter - or they are not serious issues and we can keep burning coal and oil.

If a form of carbon free energy costs 3x as much as carbon free alternatives, takes 3x as long to build and occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it? The additional pumped storage needs of solar and wind are more than offset by their vastly lower cost. If nuclear power could compete on a level playing field it'd be great but it sucks up subsidies like nothing else and puts the taxpa…

"occasionally goes boom requiring an $800 billion clean up bill why build it?" is an absurd way to describe the small number of incidents we've had in the past - they can all be attributed to egregious chains of human errors and/or bad planning. To quote:

But some 18 years before the 2011 disaster, new scientific knowledge had emerged about the likelihood of a large earthquake and resulting major tsunami of some 15.7 metres at the Daiichi site. However, this had not yet led to any major action by either the plant operator, Tepco, or government regulators, notably the Nuclear & Industrial Safety Agency (NISA). Discussion was ongoing, but action minimal. The tsunami countermeasures could also have been reviewed in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines which required taking into account high tsunami levels, but NISA continued to allow the Fukushima plant to operate without sufficient countermeasures such as moving the backup generators up the hill, sealing the lower part of the buildings, and having some back-up for seawater pumps, despite clear warnings.

We already know that the Chernobyl incident was due to even more egregious human error and poor planning.

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

#208

Post by jamincan »

mjevans wrote: post #151
mnw21cam wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If you're going to be heating all those houses with electricity, instead of gas, coal, or wood, then you'll likely need much more than 1kW per home. Especially when winter hits -30C.

It would be nice if much of the waste heat could be expelled in ways more similar to Iceland's geothermal solutions.

The Bruce Nuclear plant in Ontario had an industrial development adjacent to it to take advantage of steam from the plant, but I don't think it ever really went anywhere and they demolished the infrastructure related to it in the early 2000s.

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

#209

Post by jamincan »

ncmncm wrote: post #103
jseutter wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. This design seems quite similar to the pebble bed reactor idea in that it relies on the fissile material being encased in a graphite mixture (stubby cylinders instead of spheres) as well as heat transfer using helium instead of water. The pebble bed reactors seemed to have stability issues created by graphite rubbing off of the spheres as the pebbles we loaded in the top and removed from the bottom. This…

Nukes can never turn out to be cheap power. It is always, always, always heavily subsidized by taxation, thus sometimes masking true cost. It is fortunate that extracting tar sands produces very expensive oil. As demand for oil drops, cost for oil from tar sands will be unable to match prices offered.

Nuclear technology has never really matured to be industry-led, and is quite obviously heavily subsidized now; surely it's not inevitably always going to be that way though. At one time, the wisdom re: solar power was that PVs were simply far too expensive to be used for large-scale power, and yet, here we are now.

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

#210

Post by jamincan »

robonerd wrote: post #61
ars wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, and that has been done in the past. It comes at the cost of lower power production, though.

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

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