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Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#601

Post by californical »

WalterBright wrote: post #565
californical wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there are options like pumped water, compressed air, spinning disc. No idea how feasible they are at scale, but I can imagine a world where physical storage like that could be lower maintenance & cost in the long-term compared to chemical batteries. Even if less efficient, you can get enormous potential storage from pumped water with relatively simple machines compared to massive battery farms.

I know a fellow who is running a startup that moves a (very) heavy weight up a hill, and going back down it provides power. He says it is something like 90% efficient at energy recovery, whereas pumped water is far less due to friction in the pipes. He also said the inertia of a falling weight is enormous, and would help stabilize the grid.

This is a genius idea, especially because it could be done anywhere with a hill, which makes it a lot more geographically accessible (since most places have hills)

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#602

Post by ncmncm »

bell-cot wrote: post #516
ncmncm wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all resemble a historic disaster, more or less. Renewables don't, though.

Ah, no . The (numerous) historic disasters which most renewables resemble are those where civilizations implicitly assumed that the current climate - patterns of wind, rain, temperature, etc. - would continue indefinitely. Then... SH*T , the climate changed, often over rather large areas, and the civilization(s) which had conveniently assumed that that couldn't happen suffered or failed. (If you're not familiar with…

Moving goalposts, much?

The environs of Hoover Dam are exactly as safe today as 10,000 years ago, and will reliably be as safe 10,000 years in the future provided no nukes blow up upwind or upstream.

Solar panels floating on the Hoover Dam reservoir will happily produce as much power as the dam at full tilt, with enough left over to pump water back up to it for overnight use, reduce evaporation enough that water drought will be substantially less problematic, and provide power for desalination besides.

Floating, water-chilled panels will last at least 50 years, by which time they will likely not be needed anymore.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#603

Post by pfdietz »

smaddox wrote: post #488
nine_k wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, reprocessing "nuclear waste" from nuclear power stations yields a lot of pretty good fuel for "fast breeder" reactors [1]. This also mostly solves the problem of storing the highly active nuclear waste: you may need like 5% of the current storage capacity if you burn the current "nuclear waste" stockpiles. Yes, the process involves production of Pu-239, which is weapon-grade and may raise proliferation concerns…

> Yes, the process involves production of Pu-239, which is weapon-grade and may raise proliferation concerns. Not if you use Thorium breeder reactors.

If you didn't include 238U in your thorium breeder, the 233U that comes out will be usable in weapons (at least until enough of the 232U decays to present a gamma hazard.) And if you DO include 238U, you get plutonium.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#604

Post by ncmncm »

Manuel_D wrote: post #522
ncmncm wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can insist until you are blue in the face that these are all untried and exotic, but you will be wrong throughout. And you know you are wrong as you say it. If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. You only wish they were exotic b…

> If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. Yes, for purposes different from energy storage. The massive amounts of ammonia synthesized through the Haber process for fertilizer production does nothing to demonstrate ammonia's viability…

No post body was provided.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#605

Post by ncmncm »

Manuel_D wrote: post #590
pfdietz wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're changing the subject now. You were criticizing these for lack of maturity, not for being uneconomical. My point is that your criticism that they aren't mature is misplaced, since the component technologies are all well established. Of course, it could be LN2 or LAir storage doesn't compete.

No, my criticism of the lack of maturity of cryogenic air energy storage is still correct. The fact that it shares some components with air separation does not change the fact that cryogenic air storage is not mature technology. Similar deal with ammonia energy storage. We've got plenty of experience with synthesizing ammonia for fertilizer production. We've got very little, if any, experience using synthesized ammon…

I.e., you cannot identify any single stage of any of these extremely familiar industrial processes that would make it unsuitable for energy storage or retrieval, so instead invoke ghosts of fear and doubt.

Do you imagine the ammonia knows why it is being synthesized, and would balk at being synthesized and tanked for energy storage or fuel? Do you imagine it will object to being burnt in a combined-cycle turbine?

Your credibility is at zero.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#606

Post by bob29 »

lelag wrote: post #399
dane-pgp wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A modern metallurgy industry using coal to make steal Nuclear reactors also require steel (and a chemical industry and cement) but fortunately that doesn't require coal: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/19/green-steel-...

Sure but that wasn't the point. The point is that those that claim that we can replace fossils fuel entirely by wind and solar based on the current price of wind and solar production produced by an industry doped with fossil fuels at every stage are deluding themselves.

It's precisely the point for ALL primary energy sources.

everything is built with the current fossil fuel powered industry. cement, steel, uranium mining and enrichment all is subsidized by the fossil fuel doped industry. Same with wind and solar.

The fact that nuclear power costs more than fossil fuel power is really a reflection that its whole supply chain is consuming more fossil fuel energy than its producing. it is not the magical bullet you think it is.

furthermore, as certain installations of solar and wind are actually producing power cheaper than fossil fuels, its contributing to a trajectory where the % fossil fuels in industry can actually diminish.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#608

Post by ncmncm »

lelag wrote: post #399
dane-pgp wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A modern metallurgy industry using coal to make steal Nuclear reactors also require steel (and a chemical industry and cement) but fortunately that doesn't require coal: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/19/green-steel-...

Sure but that wasn't the point. The point is that those that claim that we can replace fossils fuel entirely by wind and solar based on the current price of wind and solar production produced by an industry doped with fossil fuels at every stage are deluding themselves.

No post body was provided.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#609

Post by epistasis »

smohare wrote: post #498
photochemsyn wrote: post #12

Funny article in that it doesn't discuss lifecycle costs. A side-by-side comparison of the cost of grids powered by nuclear power plant relative to those powered by wind/solar/storage is what I'd expect to see from a 'paper of record' like the NYTimes. Except in some specific cases (Finland, other Arctic regions with long periods of low sunlight) I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of w…

You’re completely ignoring infrastructure. No serious debate of a green future precludes nuclear in the next 30–50 years.

But conversely, no serious debate about nuclear would include new nuclear within 20 years. There's no way that nuclear can scale and contribute in any meaningful way before then.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#610

Post by ncmncm »

trashtester wrote: post #321
adrianN wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a third of France's primary power consumption comes from nuclear. That's a long way to go to carbon neutrality.

In other words, France needs to hurry up and double if not triple their nuclear capacity, so they can switch to electric cars and heating. Somewhere to the north-east of Strasbourg would be ideal, not only for the abundant water supply, but also because the location is ideal for export to places in Europe that have not invested enough in stable sources of energy, lately. And if France plans to import power when the w…

The more nukes they build, the farther behind the rest of the world they will get.

The rest of the world will be building out renewables, and getting much more power for each euro than France will. France will have more expensive power than everyone else in exact proportion to their nuke construction.

Ultimately, the French will buy their power from outside, because the nukes will be unable to deliver at a matching price, and the plants will be mothballed. French taxpayers will be the poorer.

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