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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#431

Post by ncmncm »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #372
raxxorraxor wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be batteries, it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Problem that those don't work aren't technical. There are often legislative in nature or the infrastructure for energy transportation is inadequate. We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems. The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of en…

> it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the EU we basically maxed out those years (decades?) ago. We won't be getting much more. (I mean, without actual mountains, your pump storage plant is going to be prohibitively expensive.) > The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of energy production True. In France, we had a very recent r…

We have maxed out only hydro power dams.

Pumped storage is not limited to hydro power dams. All you really need is a hill and water, although it costs less with a depression near the hilltop. No watershed needed.

Actually you do not need the hill. An underground cavity suffices.

And, there are numerous other cheap alternatives.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#432

Post by ben_w »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #429
ben_w wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is not unusual for eg. the entirety of North-western Europe to have a calm spell of little to no wind OK, but the EU grid is bigger than that, so the question should be "how common are weather patterns that combine low wind with low sun over the entire continent rather than just a quarter of it?" > Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century. If cars are elec…

Well, pretty common, as weather systems are typically continental in scale. Even if you built enough wind turbines to satisfy 10000% of EU demand within the EU (which is what you would need to have a shot at this kind of redundancy) the amount of huge HVDC interconnects you would need criss-crossing the continent make it completely impractical.

x100 over-capacity is at the level where an HVDC global power grid is easily cheaper.

Why do you regard HVDC within Europe as impractical? Sure it would take a while, but there's already a grid. This is certainly achievable in my lifetime even without any interesting new tech like better superconductors or automation.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#433

Post by ncmncm »

Joeri wrote: post #408
raxxorraxor wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be batteries, it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Problem that those don't work aren't technical. There are often legislative in nature or the infrastructure for energy transportation is inadequate. We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems. The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of en…

Pumped storage has a carbon impact because of the massive amounts of concrete involved. The EU is looking at hydrogen storage instead, with the idea being that the natural gas distribution and storage network will gradually shift over to hydrogen which is produced from surplus solar and wind. Ofcourse, you first need surplus solar and wind, and that's what the real problem is. There is still plenty of headroom to bui…

Pumped storage does not need concrete.

Ammonia will probably turn out more practical as a transportable storage medium. Hydrogen works stored underground.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#434

Post by tcfhgj »

p1mrx wrote: post #247
tcfhgj wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logical fallacy: Every storage technology is scaled up/down linearly in terms of cost from a daily to monthly or even higher cycle Another thing: Demand based power consumption

"Demand based consumption" is a fancy way to say shortage .

No, its not

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#436

Post by belorn »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #357
jokoon wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables are not baseload. If you add batteries to the mix, nuclear is better. Not to mention the quantity of power produced. Nuclear is expensive because it's long term investment. Renewables also cost more in resources (concrete, steel, copper), there are sourced charts about this. Renewables are better than coal and gaz, but not better than nuclear. There's nothing wrong with renewables, but it's not enough to o…

It doesn't have to be batteries, it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Problem that those don't work aren't technical. There are often legislative in nature or the infrastructure for energy transportation is inadequate. We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems. The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of en…

There isn't a single existing pump storage plant in the world that charge with renewables energy and resells it when demand is high. There exist a few proof of concepts, but the only commercial one that I know off do so by charging it from fossil fuel power plants. It act as a large subsidized grid stabilizer for when different fossil fuel power power down.

When there are articles about pumped storage plants the usual problems are not legislative or infrastructure. The biggest issue is that investors don't like to create overcapacity, which mean that there isn't a lot of available renewable energy to buy cheap in order to sell expensively later to recover the cost of storage. When overcapacity occur the enthusiasm for more capacity quickly drop. The secondary issues tend to be more physical in nature. Salt water is very problematic in any situation, so putting pumped storage plants near the ocean has many problems. If you use fresh water you compete with existing utilization, and most suitable locations for pumped storage already have existing hydroelectric power. Fresh water has often a very complex ecosystems and everything from nature to human depend on it.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#437

Post by ncmncm »

jokoon wrote: post #384
raxxorraxor wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be batteries, it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Problem that those don't work aren't technical. There are often legislative in nature or the infrastructure for energy transportation is inadequate. We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems. The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of en…

Uranium is easier to find than copper and other rare metals, because by weight, it can generate more power. There is uranium in sea water, and I bet it's efficient enough to filter that uranium.

Uranium is cheap-ish. Extracting power from it is extremely expensive, and not getting cheaper.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#438

Post by ncmncm »

ben_w wrote: post #405
onethought wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren’t they base load? If every country over provisioned renewables, then you have a transmission problem not a storage problem. The sun does always shine, the wind does always blow.

Cost and geopolitics. A worldwide grid is absolutely possible from a technical perspective even with boring non-superconducting aluminium and/or copper, it's just that the combined cross section needs to be in the order of 3m^2, which is 17 years of current global output of both metals combined and has a current cost of a few trillion USD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32198057 (That said, my old linked estima…

Aluminum is abundant. If we need more, we refine more; it mainly takes electrical power, which is getting cheaper all the time.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#439

Post by ncmncm »

blackoil wrote: post #428
onethought wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren’t they base load? If every country over provisioned renewables, then you have a transmission problem not a storage problem. The sun does always shine, the wind does always blow.

Not sure how much Europe would like to be dependent on Russia, Libya, Turkey ... for the energy requirements.

Europe has no need to depend on Russia, Libya, or Turkey for energy requirements, except in the immediate near term.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#440

Post by phyzome »

phyzome wrote: post #237
throw827474737 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Photovoltaics do not contribute to inertia. This is the Newtonian concept that ensures instantaneous voltage stability separate from any active demand/generation management functions. Wait what, Newton's inertia was about physical objects, not voltage stability? You talking base vs peak demand or what?

That voltage stability is electromagnetically coupled to huge chunks of spinning iron. That's your inertia. It buffers voltage spikes. Solar, and surprisingly enough wind as well, do not contribute to this stability. It's one of the big challenges we need to figure out.

Actually, this is something I'm not clear on: Why can't we just add free-spinning "generators" to the grid to contribute inertia?
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