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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#441

Post by ncmncm »

not_a_pet_rock wrote: post #390
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.

wind does not always blow nor can you always deploy a turbine and you clearly don't understand the ridiculous amount of space taken by the windmills to actually over provision. Technically if you were to over provision, yes that would work, but the problem is more that you cant even do it because of multiple different reasons. It's easier to understand when you realize that we don't have more hydro because most of th…

You can trot out these falsehoods as often as you like, but you will always be called on it.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#442

Post by JetSetWilly »

ben_w wrote: post #432
JetSetWilly wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Building an HVDC grid within Europe to allow local concentrations of renewable generation to be spread about more easily, and to further interlink the EU grid? That makes sense, sure.

However for the "renewables can be base load" requirement it is completely impractical because of simple back of the envelope calculations. Suddenly you need multiple TWs of wind generation capability in every spot where it might be windy when calm elsewhere, and you need enough transmission to get TWs of power out from any random location within the EU. This is pipe dream territory.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#443

Post by ncmncm »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #407
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…

If workable (obviously crucial point!), I like the idea of using renewables, e.g. offshore wind farms, to produce hydrogen. This would solve storage issues, vehicles could be refilled pretty much the way they are now, gas boilers could be swapped for hydrogen, no need for polluting batteries, no major upgrades of electric grid, etc.

Hydrogen, or ammonia. Ammonia is more practical for transport in tankage.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#444

Post by Gwypaas »

tomp wrote: post #416
Gwypaas wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why statistics scares you? The interesting thing is the correlation factors and then choose an uptime requirement. > South Australia is at the vanguard of the global energy transition, having transformed its energy system from 1% to over 60% renewable energy in just over 15 years. > By 2025/2026, the Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts this could rise to approximately 85%. > South Australia’s asp…

Wow you literally picked the sunniest driest place on Earth. Now do NYC or Germany. Long winters, rainy summers, lot’s of fun with solar!

China has a 12 GW 3,300 km (2,100 mi) HVDC transmission line in use for a couple of years now already. That covers South Australian climate to the polar circles.

That is of course on the extreme end, but as renewables and storage continue to drop in price the latitude of where it's easily possible will keep climbing towards the poles.

This is also why regions closer to the poles focuses on off-shore wind. It is the windiest regions and the windiest months are the winter months. Capacity factors of 60-64% are achieved with the latest 15 MW turbines.

Or maybe UK was completely incompetent in allocating 7 GW off-shore wind for £37.5/MWh in the latest CFD round finalized a couple of weeks ago?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-dif...

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#445

Post by ncmncm »

iso1631 wrote: post #414
pydry wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today. Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.

This is the problem with nuclear. It was the answer in the 1990s, but renewables have proven themselves. Now sure, if you could snap your fingers and build a new nuclear plant tomorrow, that would be great. But you can't. By the time a plant breaking ground today starts generating power, it will be too late to make sense.

And, if you could, it would still be massively more expensive. For the price you get many times as much renewable generation.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#446

Post by [deleted] »

joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#447

Post by ncmncm »

m2fkxy wrote: post #179
joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

> In conclusion, (...) nuclear reactors are simply not going to be built because they are not competitive What do you mean? 50+ reactors are under construction as we write [1], and almost twice as much are planned [2] (with even more proposed). Furthermore: > A nuclear reactor cannot be shipped Marine nuclear reactors (of which 200-ish are in active service) and Chukotka's floating nuclear power plants are notable co…

Plants planned or under construction will be cancelled anywhere they are not massively subsidized by government coercion of tax- or ratepayers, as energy prices continue downward. They will be recognized as unable to compete.

Existing plants will be mothballed as energy prices drop below the level needed to continue operating, again except where coerced.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#448

Post by ncmncm »

rattray wrote: post #214
m2fkxy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In conclusion, (...) nuclear reactors are simply not going to be built because they are not competitive What do you mean? 50+ reactors are under construction as we write [1], and almost twice as much are planned [2] (with even more proposed). Furthermore: > A nuclear reactor cannot be shipped Marine nuclear reactors (of which 200-ish are in active service) and Chukotka's floating nuclear power plants are notable co…

Can you share sources? I'm surprised that so many reactors are being built.

What matters is how many will be completed, not cancelled. That number is rather smaller.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#449

Post by pfdietz »

p_l wrote: post #415
pfdietz wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear isn't dispatchable. If it's not always running the cost/kWh escalates dramatically. Solar and wind with storage are somewhat dispatchable, because you can decide when to discharge the storage systems.

It's much more dispatchable than renewables, it's just cheaper to run it always at full capacity. Solar/wind/storage combination requires overbuilding in range of 15-25 times the nameplate capacity. Personally I'm of the opinion that we should have nuclear+renewables with less focus on storage and more on opportunistic production of, for example, green hydrogen - not for grid storage but for all other uses like steel…

Ah, so solar/wind is not dispatchable because it's more costly you claim, not because one can't actually do it?

You don't need 15-25x overbuilding. That is nonsense. Perhaps you're assuming no storage whatsoever, and are oversizing the renewables to deliver sufficient power instantaneously? What terrible and foolish engineering.

The round trip efficiency of power -> hydrogen -> power is maybe 40%, so if you sent the entire renewable output through hydrogen the overbuilding (in the sense of how much energy you'd have to produce / how much energy was delivered to the grid) would be 2.5. And of course you'd send only a bit of energy through hydrogen; most would be delivered either directly to the grid or through diurnal storage at higher round trip efficiency.

If I go to https://model.energy/, click on the US, and solve for 2030 cost assumptions and 2011 historical weather data, I find the renewable + storage system to provide a synthetic baseload output to the US involves 0.1% solar curtailment, 23.8% wind curtailment, and delivers nearly 3/4 of the renewable power directly to the grid. If I narrow it down to just, let's say, Texas, the wind curtailment goes up to 32.1%. All this is a far, far cry from 15-25x overbuilding.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#450

Post by ncmncm »

tomp wrote: post #418
Gwypaas wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If land use is the hill to die on a much better target is the beef industry. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore

Why? Cow pastures are nice to look at. Grass, trees, ponds. Land paved with solar panels? Not a nice view.

Solar is absolutely compatible with continued use as pasture.

Talk about land shortage is disingenuous concern trolling. There is absolutely no shortage of places to site solar.

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