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Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

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Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#51

Post by audunw »

giantg2 wrote: post #42
burlesona wrote: post #9

I feel like the fact that this plant coming online will raise the rates for Georgia electricity is basically the death-knell of nuclear power, at least in it's current form of large central power plants[1]. By comparison, solar and wind seem like classic "worse is better." They don't run all the time, but they're cheap and relatively simple, if you screw up a unit then you get no power from that one unit, but the nat…

'By comparison, solar and wind seem like classic "worse is better."' If we look at a long enough timeline, there really shouldn't be much change. The replacement of coal and gas plants would be with much cheaper renewable but also with higher cost nuclear. The average should land near the old price. What we observe is that the renewables have a head start compared to nuclear adoption so it seems like prices are highe…

Or the cost of renewables + energy storage + smarter flexible loads will just become lower than nuclear all-in-all.

Seems to me that, now that both transportation and grid management is pouring bucketloads of money into energy storage technology, they'll just continue to improve and come down.

I mean, just as some countries are hitting 50%+ of renewables, and the variability is becoming a significant challenge, we're also starting to see a lot of EVs entering the market. I've got a car charging in my garage right now that my electricity provider can start and stop charging based on electricity prices. I can easily delay charging for 2-3 days if need be.

Seems to me that everything is coming together for a fully renewable solution. And this is probably what smaller island nations and such will want to standardize on anyway. It'll be the default for most areas.

Not that I mind nuclear.. just not sure where it'll fit in in the future. Just used in some key industrial areas maybe?

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#52

Post by thomasjb »

vuln wrote: post #33
woeirua wrote: post #21

How much solar could they have built for the same price? Just doing some very rough calculations, they could have built enough panels to output several times as much peak power as they can with the nuclear reactors. Even including storage costs, they still could have probably built a system with more productive capacity than the nuclear reactors. This project is almost certainly the last conventional fission reactor…

Did you factor in land costs, preparing the land, lawsuits, etc in your rough calculations? How many acres would your calculation of solar panels cover?

It likely wasn't viable when the decision to choose to start building the plant was made.

Enough to put a nice roof over lots of carparks and roads perhaps.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#53

Post by giantg2 »

audunw wrote: post #51
giantg2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'By comparison, solar and wind seem like classic "worse is better."' If we look at a long enough timeline, there really shouldn't be much change. The replacement of coal and gas plants would be with much cheaper renewable but also with higher cost nuclear. The average should land near the old price. What we observe is that the renewables have a head start compared to nuclear adoption so it seems like prices are highe…

Or the cost of renewables + energy storage + smarter flexible loads will just become lower than nuclear all-in-all. Seems to me that, now that both transportation and grid management is pouring bucketloads of money into energy storage technology, they'll just continue to improve and come down. I mean, just as some countries are hitting 50%+ of renewables, and the variability is becoming a significant challenge, we're…

"Or the cost of renewables + energy storage + smarter flexible loads will just become lower than nuclear all-in-all."

May even in a generation or two. I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime though.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#55

Post by jlarocco »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #23
burlesona wrote: post #9

I feel like the fact that this plant coming online will raise the rates for Georgia electricity is basically the death-knell of nuclear power, at least in it's current form of large central power plants[1]. By comparison, solar and wind seem like classic "worse is better." They don't run all the time, but they're cheap and relatively simple, if you screw up a unit then you get no power from that one unit, but the nat…

Georgia Power customers have been paying extra for this plant for something like a decade. Rate payers absorbed much of the risk instead of investors in the company. This was pushed as a way to save on financing costs by getting the money from customers upfront but saving them more long term with lower rates. But it appears the customers, despite prepaying for the plant, aren't going to see those savings. The investo…

> The investors however were insulated from much of the cost overruns.

The American way.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#56

Post by icelancer »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #3

As much as I'd love more nuclear power on the grid, this project cost over double its initial bid and is actually raising rates for GA utility customers... I can't tell from the story whether "nuclear is hard" or if "contractors are idiots" here. Reactor was supposed to open in 2016 - it's very hard to cheer for a 7-year delay and a 140% cost overrun.

I doubt that much - if any - of the cost overruns and delays are related to the nuclear portion of this public works project. Governments and their contractors at all levels are not known for their ability to accurately forecast these things, and they're generally not incentivized to care during the work order, as they're not held accountable.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#57

Post by belorn »

jfengel wrote: post #32
coldpie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get around the fact that you need baseload and/or storage. Both are hard problems. Some locations have regional baseload solutions like hydroelectricity, but many don't. Nuclear is a solution that works anywhere, but like you say, it's expensive. Storage is similar: there are some regional solutions (pumped hydro), or a difficult and expensive general solution (chemical batteries). There's no single answer…

Gas peaker plants solve the problem, with no additional costs. We don't have to get carbon production to zero. If we run the gas plants even as much as 10% of the time for no-sun-no-wind-flat-batteries conditions, you've still cut 90% of carbon emissions. At that point it would be much cheaper to look elsewhere for more improvements. There's no need to invent a reason for massive new energy infrastructure. The gas pl…

Europe can not continue to rely on natural gas and fossil fuels for the next 20-30 years, nor will the climate goals be reached if power consumption and thus gas consumption are increased.

Gas peaker plants are also not cheap. People think they are cheap when looking at the theoretical cost, but having energy plants in stand-by mode costs a lot of money. Generally those are paid by either taxes or as part of the grid connection cost because governments will pay a lot of money to have grid stability. In theory we could remove those subsidizes and let the market pay to have grid stability, but no governments in Europe do this.

Europe also do not have any easy access to natural gas. The only country would be Norway. Being energy self-sufficient is important from a geopolitical perspective and I doubt anyone is unaware about the strong connection between current wars and fossil fuels. Nuclear fuel can be both mined and constructed in EU, the fuel is much less sensitive to geopolitical events, and the diversity in the nuclear fuel production chain is fairly good. Countries can much easier store up decades worth of fuel.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#58

Post by Krasnol »

ilyt wrote: post #28
Krasnol wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "loss of nuclear engineering capability" doesn't hold up when you see reactors build by the French having the same problems: overdue and over budget. The French never stopped building reactors all over the world. "Base generation" is an outdated concept. It can be replaced by storage and grid size for example.

I thought "overdue and over budget" is natural state of any big project

No, it's not.

But this generalization comes always up if someone wants to sell a project which they knew will be overdue and over budget.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#59

Post by ryan93 »

ElfinTrousers wrote: post #8

Seven years late and $20 billion over budget. Slow clap.

If solar and wind are better then thats what we should do. I wish though that even 1 of the many many trillions in debt we racked up went to nuclear plants. we could have had dozens of plants. prices would probably have gone done if there was a large supply chain and workforce after the first few plants

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#60

Post by Gwypaas »

belorn wrote: post #57
jfengel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas peaker plants solve the problem, with no additional costs. We don't have to get carbon production to zero. If we run the gas plants even as much as 10% of the time for no-sun-no-wind-flat-batteries conditions, you've still cut 90% of carbon emissions. At that point it would be much cheaper to look elsewhere for more improvements. There's no need to invent a reason for massive new energy infrastructure. The gas pl…

Europe can not continue to rely on natural gas and fossil fuels for the next 20-30 years, nor will the climate goals be reached if power consumption and thus gas consumption are increased. Gas peaker plants are also not cheap. People think they are cheap when looking at the theoretical cost, but having energy plants in stand-by mode costs a lot of money. Generally those are paid by either taxes or as part of the grid…

So you propose having nuclear plants in standby? Then I have a bridge to sell you.
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