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Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

bloomberg.com

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Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#571

Post by sandos »

Gwypaas wrote: post #161
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I'll bite. What type of utility scale storage isn't a battery ? The answer is, of course: any energy storage setup is a battery[1]. A more generous interpretation of your comment is that you meant won't be chemical batteries . In which case, I'll bite: what then? 1. Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time[1] to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy product…

Sweden generates 40% of the current power generation from hydro. Adapt that to be more flexible than baseload and Sweden has amazing capabilities to run an entire renewable grid mainly based on wind with a minimal amount of chemical short-term storage. There are few countries with better opportunities for renewables than Sweden.

We are in a good place, but our hydro is basically maxed out and can not support a future (with higher consumption) no-wind scenario during winter since it does not have enough power for that alone.

Nuclear power is a good idea, but so is wind for Sweden. We already have a lot of wind but high pressure areas with little wind do exist, even in winter. Nuclear looks kind of good from that point of view, but I strongly feel that Sweden is way too small of an actor to buy reactors on her own, and should actually co-order reactors with other countries, getting the costs down (maybe not even costs, but risks. There have been a lots of bankrupted players in nuclear lately).

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#572

Post by orthecreedence »

LightG wrote: post #155
orthecreedence wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's to stop adversaries holding countries to ransom using their nucealer facilities? Nothing, unless you yourself have leverage. Every resource or dependency is a potential weakness. The idea is to be able to say "ok, if you bomb our fission plant, we'll shut off your fresh water supply." It's all a huge game of chess.

But doesn't chess rely on two half-decent actors sitting down across a table from each other? Clearly some actors are willing to throw the board across the room In which case, why are 'we' considering creating that weakness? I understand there is a strong wave behind nuclear right now, but it does feel like we're just creating the instruments of another, different, mess.

> But doesn't chess rely on two half-decent actors sitting down across a table from each other?

No? People play "chess" all the time without sitting down at a board. You're twisting the metaphor.

> Clearly some actors are willing to throw the board across the room

And like I said, there would be consequences for that.

> In which case, why are 'we' considering creating that weakness?

Having a large body of fresh water is a weakness. Maybe we should send it all away to another country...?

> I understand there is a strong wave behind nuclear right now, but it does feel like we're just creating the instruments of another, different, mess.

The mess has already been created. It's called an enormous population of 8 billion people. How do you produce all the things they need without destroying the planet? There are more existential issues at hand than "well, nuclear is a perfect energy source, but people who don't like us might hurt our energy production so we should just do ..."

Do what instead? Any power source can be attacked. I don't even get your position here. The only way to mitigate attack is complete distribution. Solar is great for that, but unfortunately unbelievably underpowered to drive the entire productive system. If you want a happy medium, then smaller, modular nuclear reactors would be the way to go.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#573

Post by ben_w »

HyperSane wrote: post #325
ncmncm wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even after you take capacity factor into account.

And the cost of the backup power for when wind and solar don't generate enough?

Yes.

The most expensive serious storage solution is LiIon, and even that's merely the same cost (or at least, the bell curves of their prices mostly overlap) as an equivalent nuclear reactor.

(I'm deliberately ignoring any claims about future battery costs; while I'm expecting them to come down, they don't need to in order to make this argument).

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#574

Post by ben_w »

jskrablin wrote: post #421
ncmncm wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody depends on Russia for renewable energy.

Backup generation for renewables is usually gas powered. And you need the backup because renewable energy is not exactly a stable source of energy.

Currently yes, but hydrogen is so easy to make from electricity that it predates sensible electrical generation methods by 43 years.

We didn't bother making hydrogen in large quantities because there was no point when we already had a convenient supply of a flammable gas, not because it's even remotely difficult.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#575

Post by legulere »

DynamicStatic wrote: post #566
legulere wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different from nuclear? Half of France's power plants are offline. That's not reliable at all. Building new nuclear power plants also takes too long. We're talking about Sweden that has high amounts of hydro power available for storage.

France didn't maintain their nuclear plants during COVID-19 and as a result suffer the consequences now (or rather all of Europe). Furthermore the heat has only made for less than half percent of lost production.

There were problems already before. See those articles from 2016 for example: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/29/french-n...

https://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-pl...

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#576

Post by ben_w »

belorn wrote: post #203
Gwypaas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not contradicting himself. You have to remember the awful efficiency of thermal engines. Primary energy demand will decrease because you do not lose 70% of the energy by simply cooling it like in steam turbine used by nuclear power plants or car engines. On the other hand, electricity usage will increase because you have now replaced your 30-40% efficient engines with 90+% efficient engines, but from a differen…

Since we should keep the oil in the ground that current thermal engines uses, the energy input will be from a different source when we change from burning oil to electrical engines. The primary energy input should be from the wind, sun, elevated water, nuclear bonds and geothermal. The change from 30-40% efficient engines to 90+% efficient engines is if we burn the oil in a power plant. It is an improvement, but not…

You basically can't get 90% efficiency from burning oil in a power plant. E = 1 - Cold/Hot, where cold ≈ 300 K and hot ≈ 1300 K (gasoline-air fire), giving theoretical maximum efficiency of 77%. In practice much lower, what I've seen is just over 60% even in the best combined cycle power plants.

If you use some really high temperature chemistry, you can get to 5260 K from dicyanoacetylene in oxygen, which is 95%, but not gasoline. And dicyanoacetylene is a bit explody.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#577

Post by hnlmorg »

fyvhbhn wrote: post #463
hnlmorg wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is running 24/7 then it does so because the oil plant is profitable. Not out of necessity. This feels like your splitting hairs because the root cause is ultimately the same: if it wasn’t necessary then it wouldn’t be profitable.

Roding rain forests is profitable, but not necessary. Logical fallacy

I didn't say "all things that are profitable are necessary" nor that "profitability" and "necessity" were synonyms. What I said was that the root cause of what makes this particular power plant profitable is the same root cause that makes it necessary.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#578

Post by HyperSane »

ben_w wrote: post #573
HyperSane wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the cost of the backup power for when wind and solar don't generate enough?

Yes. The most expensive serious storage solution is LiIon, and even that's merely the same cost (or at least, the bell curves of their prices mostly overlap) as an equivalent nuclear reactor. (I'm deliberately ignoring any claims about future battery costs; while I'm expecting them to come down, they don't need to in order to make this argument).

"and even that's merely the same cost (or at least, the bell curves of their prices mostly overlap) as an equivalent nuclear reactor."

citation needed.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#579

Post by ben_w »

HyperSane wrote: post #578
ben_w wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The most expensive serious storage solution is LiIon, and even that's merely the same cost (or at least, the bell curves of their prices mostly overlap) as an equivalent nuclear reactor. (I'm deliberately ignoring any claims about future battery costs; while I'm expecting them to come down, they don't need to in order to make this argument).

"and even that's merely the same cost (or at least, the bell curves of their prices mostly overlap) as an equivalent nuclear reactor." citation needed.

• PV utility scale with battery, Germany, €55-€100/MWh, (2021): https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/cost-o...

• LCOE for nuclear, analysis based on new nuclear worldwide but priced in Euros, €67-€82/MWh, (2020): https://energy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-10/final_repor... page 40-41

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#580

Post by Slava_Propanei »

f_allwein wrote: post #72
NKosmatos wrote: post #55

The only green solution to our current energy problem is more nuclear power plants. We have to stop relying on coal, wood, oil, gas and the rest of the “dirty” materials.

Except nuclear is expensive and takes decades to build, runs on non renewable materials (a good percentage of which come from Russia), leaves waste that is deadly for 100.000s of years, and promising new technologies will need decades to reach maturity. Now why is it so great compared to, say, solar or geothermal?

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