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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

#691

Post by Paradigma11 »

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…

What I'd expect to see from wind/solar/storage proponents is studies/simulations how much of each you would need based on actual historical weather data.

It should be possible to say, given that power grid and this amount of solar, wind..... this would have happened in this region during that year.

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

#692

Post by ncmncm »

zdragnar wrote: post #501
sanderjd wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What will the rest be?

Kinetic (water gravity, flywheel) or thermal (molten salt baths which can be supplemented with solar thermal). None of these things exist at a large scale except for pumped hydro / water gravity, and that requires very convenient topography and geology to work. Generally, any non-chemical storage system is overpriced (too inefficient) or a maintenance disaster.

Pumped hydro is not kinetic.

Not much storage exists because it has not been built yet. It has not been built yet because we haven't the renewable generating capacity to charge it from yet. Thus, we are spending on renewable generating capacity first, and lately factories that will build storage systems.

Battery storage is the most expensive variety. Round-trip efficiency is not very important anymore. I.e., other concerns dominate now. Anyway, gravity storage efficiency has always been fine.

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

#693

Post by MagnumOpus »

sandos wrote: post #672
stormbrew wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like grid scale storage could "solve" this, in precisely the way it does for renewables (ie. Treat nuclear as a sun that shines 24/7 and build storage to allow you to generate a bit above the average and follow the actual usage curve with storage). That is, assuming that grid scale storage is in fact viable.

Yup, but didn't we already say that renewables are cheaper per kWh? So then with any storage renewables should still be the cheap bulk generation.

You said that, that doesn't mean it is true. And it probably isn't true north of 50 degrees of latitute where lots of the people who need energy live.

France's nuclear fleet has an all-in cost of 7c/kWh, which is roughly the same as the cost of solar or wind power in France, but without the need for storage or smart grids that doubles the cost of solar/wind. (For all this remember that France has about a third of the insolation of California or Arizona per year, or maybe half at best in some places.)

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

#694

Post by Paradigma11 »

cycomanic wrote: post #185
adrianN wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a common use of "unsolved at scale". We know how to do it, it just doesn't make economic sense right now. I mean, suppose you have hundreds of GW of storage of some form installed. You could just claim it's still not "solved at scale" because the global energy consumption is even higher.

Well nuclear proponents handwave away the massively higher costs, the still unsolved long term storage problem (it's been >70 years of nuclear power and there still does not exist a long term storage facility in the world), and insurance for the case of a disaster.

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

Operation will start next year.

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

#695

Post by ncmncm »

lelag wrote: post #678
ncmncm wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are silver bullets -- really, golden geese -- that are fixing it all, as fast as we spend to build them out. We could be building out much faster, if not for societal inertia and corrupt lobbying. Each dollar spent on nukes is a dollar not spent on radically more productive renewables. Thus, each diverted to nukes brings climate catastrophe nearer.

> Each dollar spent on nukes is a dollar not spent on radically more productive renewables. Thus, each diverted to nukes brings climate catastrophe nearer. Unfortunately, it seems we have a fundamental and irreconcilable disagreement on this point as I feel exactly the opposite. At least, I'm glad to live in a country where the government mostly share my view on the topic.

And, it is fortunate that what will actually be built and operated will be dictated more by actual costs.

Any nukes built will be mothballed long before their design life is over as they utterly fail to compete; except where their much more expensive output is forced on users by politics.

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

#696

Post by MagnumOpus »

pfdietz wrote: post #572
DennisP wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but "I think renewables will get cheaper faster than nuclear" is a very different claim than "renewables are way cheaper than nuclear right now."

It's a different claim. It's looking at trends rather than at a specific point. Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production (of the solar hardware). Solar is about 4% of global electricity production now, so scaling it to saturation (just for current electricity demand, which will grow as the world becomes richer and more electrification replaces fossil heat) would drop the c…

> Solar historically declines in cost by 24% for each cumulative doubling of production

This only worked while panels were the lion's share of the cost of a solar installation. These days, costs of real estate, installation and grid connection far exceed the cost of panels -- and those costs go up every year with labour costs rather than coming down.

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

#697

Post by ncmncm »

ben_w wrote: post #671
ncmncm wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chile does not drive massive energy projects. China is in the driver seat. I doubt it will end up built, but that will not be because it is impractical. It will be because local generation and storage will turn out to be cheaper and less vulnerable to geopolitical upset.

Last time I looked at this, antipodal HVDC was several (2? 3? Can't remember) orders of magnitude cheaper than batteries at the scale of continental electrical requirements; the limit is needing so much metal you become a dominant player in the world metal mining industry just for this project.

Batteries are the most expensive storage. A negligible fraction of utility storage will be batteries unless some new battery chemistry is very, very cheap.

Almost all current utility storage is gravity. That probably won't change.

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

#698

Post by ncmncm »

IMTDb wrote: post #690
ncmncm wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries will be a negligible fraction of utility storage, and lithium will be a negligible fraction of that. So, your concern trolling about battery materials is misplaced.

How will energy be stored then ? Where will the humongously large utility storage center located ? When does their construction start (and when are they scheduled for completion) and how are those going to be financed ?

Construction will pick up once there is enough renewable capacity to "charge" storage from. Storage that must be charged by burning NG would be stupid.

There is no need for a storage "center". Energy will be stored wherever convenient. Utilities will build out zero-opex storage so they can drop NG opex.

Many different storage technologies will be used. The cheapest ones will eventually be identified and used more. But anhydrous ammonia and hydrogen are certain despite being far from cheapest, because of other merits.

Right now the overwhelming majority of utility storage is pumped hydro, using existing hydro power reservoirs. I expect various gravity methods, including pumped hydro, to continue to dominate. New pumped hydro will not consume watersheds.

(But Energy Vault, NRGV, is strictly a scam.)

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

#699

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

ncmncm wrote: post #657
trashtester wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trends and fashions come and go. My daughter is wearing pants that look that the ones my mother wore some years before I was born. At that time, nuclear power was still popular. And now, perhaps, it is becoming so again. Indeed, the NYT article in the topic is discussing this very question.

Nukes get less competitive with each passing day. But that does not keep shills out of the NYT's pages. Fortunately actual investment does not follow shills.

Tell that to France, those losers still generate 70% of energy with nuclear plants, instead of following the lead of their German colleagues in denuclearizing their energy grid.

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

#700

Post by ncmncm »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #699
ncmncm wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes get less competitive with each passing day. But that does not keep shills out of the NYT's pages. Fortunately actual investment does not follow shills.

Tell that to France, those losers still generate 70% of energy with nuclear plants, instead of following the lead of their German colleagues in denuclearizing their energy grid.

Yet, France has no plans to build replacements for the large majority of plants soon to age out. What they will build is purely politically motivated. Those probably will not be completed, as they would be uncompetitive, but ratepayers might be forced to make them profitable by paying way more for power than their neighbors.

Germany elected to build out a great deal of wind generation capacity rather than refurbish a much smaller capacity of aged, ramshackle nukes. That has worked out extremely well, and they continue.

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