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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#501

Post by credit_guy »

pfdietz wrote: post #254
credit_guy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we have other options that we didn't have 20 years ago. We do, but those options are not enough. If they were, the Democrats in Washington would not have turned pro-nuclear. They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sense (or at least not in the next 30 years). Nuclear reactor construction is current…

> You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Hydrogen can do that.

I agree with you that Hydrogen can do that. Or that at least it stands a chance.

Both nuclear and Hydrogen are unproven at this point, for the scale we need. Europe has chosen to bet it all on Hydrogen. Although, in the last one year France decided to get back in the game of building nuclear. I see no talk of Hydrogen in the US.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#502

Post by kuhewa »

ekianjo wrote: post #485
kuhewa wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ukraine does not quality as "a large scale conflict" in any measure. That is incorrect. Large scale != global or world war. It's a moot point though.

Large scale involves more than two countries focusing on a single region, typically. Otherwise words have absolutely no meaning anymore.

No, that isn't correct. Still it's a moot point. Feel free to either change my example from Ukraine to a hypothetical larger area if you care, or change large to regional scale — regardless 'if there is military action that could affect nuclear plants it will involve nuclear weapons and kill us anyway' is a poor argument.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#503

Post by ben_w »

ncmncm wrote: post #496
ben_w wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I don't mean to imply it's not possible or anything even close to that, merely that it's something that will take a while rather than be ready this decade. I'm kinda leaning towards expecting batteries (specifically batteries and not storage in general) to be the first way a continental power grid gets to 100% renewable, even though I prefer the aesthetic of a global grid. But I don't have any skin in the game,…

Batteries will always be the expensive choice of storage. There will be a certain amount of it anyway. But utilities, for bulk storage, will favor cheaper alternatives.

Perhaps it will be the expensive choice, but I expect batteries produced for cars to be moved to grid storage when any given vehicle's capacity drops below the level useful for transport, and the combined capacity of the reused batteries of a fully-electric-car-nation, even with those batteries in a worn state, will suffice for grid storage.

My guess is this transition will take 15-20 years to complete, but I have low certainty on that.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#504

Post by belorn »

pydry wrote: post #477
belorn wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is free to make their decisions. With a global ban on fossil fuels in the European grid countries should choose for themselves if they want to build multiple cheaper renewables or build more expensive nuclear. Voters will then say theirs. Countries can always trade with each other so that which ever strategy end up as a winner will spread to the others. Everything is a win-win scenario as long fossil fuels…

I think a lot of governments are keen for this not to happen. For nuclear powers, a civilian nuclear industry is a strategic asset that sharply brings down the cost of maintaining nuclear weapons/subs/carriers. This is partly through skills exchange and partly due to the presence of a shared industrial ecosystem. For certain non nuclear powers (sweden, iran, south korea) an overpriced civvie nuclear industry is kind…

Well again, countries can choose between the non-fossil fuel options. I strongly doubt that nuclear powers will effect the choice in any major way. The biggest factor will be price.

Either renewable + storage will be cheaper, renewables + nuclear power, or renewables and dependency on trade, or renewable + nuclear + storage + trade.

Yes, governments are keen for this not to happen. Gas, oil and coal is still much cheaper than any of the alternatives listed above. Energy prices in Europe as can be seen here (https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/energy-prices), are crazy high. It is expected to climb further as gas and oil prices continue to rise. Governments will step in and subsidize whatever they can to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the grid.

Gas, oil and coal still need to stay in the ground. The green movement could easily stop being fragmented by joining behind that statement, but for some it is more important to be anti-nuclear than keeping gas, oil and coal from being burned. They can continue to be anti-nuclear for as much I care as long they don't advocate to keep gas, oil and coal power plants operational. Thus we need a law that sets a specific date when gas, oil and coal is no longer allowed in the grid.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#505

Post by ncmncm »

MisterMower wrote: post #225
brutusborn wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources for utility scale batteries with reasonable cost? The biggest I know of are in Australia and are extremely expensive, and provide such little reserve they are basically a rounding error.

Not to mention they employ batteries fabricated with toxic chemicals. It’s going to be tragic watching folks try to figure out how to safely dispose of these batteries 20 years from now. Not to mention the carbon that will be emitted to make them in the first place.

Concern trolling not welcome here.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#506

Post by ncmncm »

champtar wrote: post #276
KennyBlanken wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% correct. Not only have nuclear costs not improved in the three quarters of a century it has existed, it's only gotten more expensive while wind and solar have plunged, dramatically, in costs. In the US, nuclear capacity is being replaced by wind and solar at six times the rate it's being "lost"; the hysterics you read here on HN and reddit are just that. And the rate of solar and wind deployment is skyrocketing.…

> They take many hours to adjust power levels. FYI, France nuclear reactor can vary power level 80% in 30min https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suivi_de_charge ('Les réacteurs sont déjà capables de faire varier leur puissance de 80 % à la hausse ou à la baisse en l’espace de trente minutes')

When operated at 20%, cost per kWh is 5x.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#507

Post by p_l »

pfdietz wrote: post #498
p_l wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You use Texas (or whole of USA). Which is considerably more southern than most of Europe, and definitely more southern than Poland. IIRC Texas is also much more flat, which benefits availability of wind power. The 15-25x numbers I get from model.energy, in fact - lowest I get is 15x assuming way too optimistic ideas about availability of salt caverns in Poland, 25x is with mainly battery power, the numbers for no sto…

Poland has huge salt formations, so I spit on your "optimism" slur. OF COURSE it's much higher if you turn off hydrogen and try to use batteries and curtailment to deal with high seasonality environments. This is Dumb Engineering. Don't do that. You multiply the cost in Poland by more than a factor of 2 when you turn off hydrogen. Poland, as I've said elsewhere in these comments, is also close to the worst place in t…

The salt formations we have aren't necessarily accessible for those purposes. I would not mind being wrong though.

As for overbuilding including capacity factor - the size of renewable powerplant tends to be reported in nameplate capacity, not the adjusted for capacity factor, so I'm just trying to keep within common units. And I'm all for building more renewables anyway, I'm just against building fossil backup for them. Which means also not greenwashing things by "we will add storage in the future". We need it now, not in some murky future.

There are many places that are "bad for renewables" - that doesn't mean people who live there have to be forcefully resettled or removed to support religious combination of laissez-faire with german green philosophy.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#508

Post by ncmncm »

raverbashing wrote: post #350
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…

While I agree with the issue of costs, nuclear reactors being slow to build and having to be built on site is a technological problem, not a fundamental limitation Why can't we have nuclear sub technology for civilian use?

If it would have been competitive, it would be there already. It ain't, never was.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#509

Post by belorn »

ncmncm wrote: post #495
belorn wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

k, I will bite. Give me a source for a pumped storage facility that buy wind or solar when overproduction causes the prices to be low, and then sells it when the price is high. How much do they pay on average, how much at the point of sale, and how is the ROI per kw/h. All the existing pumped storage facilities that I know of do not generate their profit from buying low and selling high. They generate profits by prov…

Obviously , until you have enough renewable generating capacity to charge your storage, you are not selling stored energy: you sold what you generated. It is extremely disingenuous, not to say dishonest, to make up scenarios based on status quo when there is still very little renewable generation capacity.

I find equally disingenuous and dishonest to talk about pumped storage for renewables when they do not exist as a viable economical model.

If you want to blame the lack of renewable generation capacity then feel free to do so. Pumped storage could in theory, in the future, when the time is right, be cost effective. We don't know. We are not there yet. Its a financial model to be to be tested when and if we get there.

For now the financial model for existing pumped storage do not care about the purchasing price or selling price, or what kind of power it is being charged with.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#510

Post by ncmncm »

devonkim wrote: post #152
kuhewa wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close are they to commercial implementation

The small nuclear reactor designs by NuScale are commercially viable and are going to be approved by the nuclear regulatory commission rather soon. Thorium isn’t as important as the small and modular aspects. Also Gen IV and breeder reactors are basically perfectly viable commercially if it was held to the same kind of scrutiny as most other power sources whether it’s coal or solar. But politically it’s not viable wh…

NuScale is extremely heavily subsidized, both in development (50%) and initial deployments (100%), by US taxpayers.

It is absolutely uncompetitive, without.

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