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>The status of nuclear SMR has not changed. Following extensive consultation with the Australian electricity industry, report findings do not see any prospect of domestic projects this decade, given the technology’s commercial immaturity and high cost. Similar to Germany's assessment.
I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land, leaving behind a trail of solar panels. Installation costs are a big part of current solar farms, and a big part of that is the labour to assemble frames, do up all the bolts, connect all the wires, etc. If we could make a single truck drive along at 0.5 mph leaving a trail of installed panels, it would really make installation far cheaper…
Cabling in a solar farm is also a big part of the costs. If inverters were designed to output higher voltages - eg. a direct-to-10 kV output, then cables could be far thinner and cheaper. 3 phase silicone cable thinner than your baby finger rated for 20kV at just 20 amps could be run along (and carry all the energy from) a length of panels over a kilometer long. Such a design generally isn't used today because you ha…
Setting aside regulation and panel certification, is this really purely a safety issue?
Also, is it possible to convert the panel string 1KV DC output to 20KV DC? Are you familiar with this area?
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This, along with wind turbine bird death thing, is one of the more bizarre objections Ive heard emanating from the carbon + nuclear public relations lobbies. There isnt a shortage of up. The geography to make it work isnt rare: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potenti...
Geography plus water plus land usage concerns make it rare. The western US has plenty of sites identified but little water to spare. There is one pumped hydro storage project in process in the entire USA and it is being challenged on environmental concerns. If we are going to make pumped hydro work these issues do need to be acknowledged.
Pretty much the only place without suitable geography in the US for pumped storage is Florida.
In Europe hydropower in the alps is already being used as a giant battery.
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Did you read down to the 4th paragraph? It absolutely does. I'd be curious to know if it also includes a "true" nuclear catastrophe insurance price or (as is more common) if theyre assuming the taxpayer will fund 99.5% of a Fukushima-type $800 billion cleanup bill like in US/Europe.
They're specifically signalling an interest in Small Nuclear Power Reactors [1] which are less accident prone, deferring cost analysis until Dec 2024 [2], and looking for more of a global uptake to bring costs down [3] [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://www.iaea.org/projects/crp/i12007 [3] "Achieving the lower end of the nuclear SMR range requires that SMR is deployed glob…
If those small reactors are cheap and the industry agrees to assume full liability for whatever goes wrong Id be impressed but I could see nuclear fusion taking off before that ever happens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cabling in a solar farm is also a big part of the costs. If inverters were designed to output higher voltages - eg. a direct-to-10 kV output, then cables could be far thinner and cheaper. 3 phase silicone cable thinner than your baby finger rated for 20kV at just 20 amps could be run along (and carry all the energy from) a length of panels over a kilometer long. Such a design generally isn't used today because you ha…
But that means the 20kV runs through all the panels? Setting aside regulation and panel certification, is this really purely a safety issue? Also, is it possible to convert the panel string 1KV DC output to 20KV DC? Are you familiar with this area?
The question is is it cheaper to do so, considering your silicon devices will be more expensive (specifically the diodes on the output stage), but you'll save tens of cents of copper in the wiring per panel.
I haven't done enough research to say for sure, but I strongly suspect it's cheaper.