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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

#251

Post by michaelt »

thecopy wrote: post #150
flgb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

The economics argument has to be understood in the larger political context.

Nuclear doesn't have a big support base. It's basically only supported by educated technocrats.

And those educated technocrats are already holding their nose, because they know big government projects are often late and over budget. And the designs that are intrinsically safe haven't been built before. And if there was a meltdown, the taxpayer would have to foot the bill. And nobody's going to want the plants built in their area. And a permanent waste repository has been a political football for longer than most of us have been alive.

At the same time, if you squint hard enough when you look at the figures, solar+wind+batteries look cheaper.

Squinting that way is pretty tempting if you were on the fence anyway.

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

#252

Post by modo_mario »

wumpus wrote: post #38
arcticbull wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This appears to be a "no, we didn't spend the same amount of money on solar and wind." Glad you don't care nuclear is more expensive! That's a winning argument.

Do you consider energy storage in the cost calculation?

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

#254

Post by shawnz »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #224
kevingadd wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

What makes you think that Australia wouldn't have egregious chains of human failure or bad planning? Pretty much every country with civilian nuclear energy had some big scandals or incidents around them[1]. Humans just can't be trusted to build a 100% safe process. [1] Just to name a few: Three Mile Island (US), Sellafield (UK), Brunsbüttel (DE), Saint-Laurent (FR)

Isn't human failure and bad planning an even bigger concern for the handling of the 1000000x larger amount of coal that nuclear could replace?

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

#255

Post by DennisP »

Tepix wrote: post #180
j16sdiz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TRISO fuel are encapsulated in very small balls with its own containment. Those balls are hardened and won't melt in operation. If those balls are removed from the reactor, it won't have the critical mass to maintain the reaction.

We had a TRISO fuel nuclear reactor in Germany, it had a lot of problems and was an expensive failure. Among other things the balls broke. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 or if you can read german: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300 with a lot of details.

The balls sound a lot tougher in the new design. From your wiki link:

> spherical fuel compacts each 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in diameter with particles of uranium-235 and thorium-232 fuel embedded in a graphite matrix

And from the article on Canada's reactor:

> The fuel inside of this vessel are solid kernels made from a mix of uranium, carbon, and oxygen, with each being roughly the size of a poppy seed. These kernels, which are covered in several ceramic coatings, are then encased in a diamond-like substance

That substance is silicon carbide: https://www.ans.org/news/article-2830/a-first-triso-fuel-mad...

Also, the wiki says "a fuel pebble became lodged in a fuel feed pipe to the reactor core." In the new design, there's "no on-site fuel storage, handling, or processing." If the fuel elements are just sitting there instead of getting moved around in pipes, there's little reason for them to break.

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

#256

Post by mathiasgredal »

Kliment wrote: post #146
ben_w wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing they need to be switched off at short notice because… I’m not sure, accidents? I’ve never actually seen a link backing this claim, and I’d be interested.

Nuclear plants need to be switched off for weeks/months at a time for the following reasons: - refueling (regularly done, highly plannable) - insufficient cooling water/ too warm cooling water (regular, seasonal, not very predictable short-term) - planned maintenance (often combined with refueling) - unplanned maintenance (accidents) Whenever these things happen, the entire reactor is producing no power. This is why…

Why don't coal and gas power plants also have cooling issues?

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

#257

Post by dale_glass »

arcticbull wrote: post #241
dale_glass wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that ceases to make any sense the second you have renewables cheaper than nuclear. Then renewables start cutting into that base load as well, whenever they can.

Depends on your goals. Cost isn't the be-all, i'd rather have three nuclear plants than a thousand square miles blotted out by panels, for instance.

Cost is extremely important, though. Energy costs propagate everywhere. Want to make some aluminium? That costs a lot of electricity. Want to serve some data? Got to power the servers with something.

If your electricity cost is too much, industry will move elsewhere.

If you try to subsidize it, that money will have to come out of somewhere.

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

#258

Post by pjc50 »

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 nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation.

Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years.

> Of course the coal companies won't like that.

This is a fairly important reason why it's not going to happen in Australia.

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

#259

Post by dale_glass »

DennisP wrote: post #238
dale_glass wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that ceases to make any sense the second you have renewables cheaper than nuclear. Then renewables start cutting into that base load as well, whenever they can.

That depends on how you set up your electricity market. Since these markets are necessarily designed from the top down, we can set the rules however we like.

You can, but why would you set up the market backwards?

The whole idea of base load was that nuclear is very cheap, but inflexible. So you optimize, generating as much as possible with nuclear, then filling in the variable bits with more expensive to run, but more flexible generation.

Cheap renewables have completely wrecked that model though.

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

#260

Post by flgb »

modo_mario wrote: post #246
flgb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nuclear is a more expensive sources of energy than our alternatives Not in the very long term. Upfront it's really expensive yeah. >(uranium ore is a small proportion of the cost stack, and Australia would still need to import nuclear fuel) A very small portion and isn't Australia a big exporter? Might as well set up refinement capabilities. >with very high levels of variable renewable energy where they have to be…

> What will be kept as backup for days with little production btw?

Australia is different to Germany. We get high solar output every day, even in winter, and while we do get some wind droughts, they are less long and widespread than in Europe. We don't need to 'back up' anything close to 100% of our renewable capacity, and we don't need 'back up' for very long durations.

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