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Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

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Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#121

Post by misterprime »

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…

A sub-$4 monthly fee seems like a decent choice to significantly increase the energy supply in your region. I'd like to see the numbers on the average monthly cost of electricity usage for homes in Georgia (separate from the various fees), along with an analysis of how many years will be necessary to recover the additional fees associated with these new reactors. Perhaps this was already done and posted online, but I don't have the confidence to go looking for it.

Here in California we seem to be shutting down nuclear plants while energy demand grows.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#122

Post by DrThunder »

jeffbee wrote: post #115
DrThunder wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. You might want to look up where that cobalt for batteries comes from as well and how much recycling actually gets done.

LiFePO4 batteries need no cobalt. You do not need fancy batteries for stationary services. Grid-scale storage batteries can be as big, heavy, dumb, and cheap as you like. You don't even need lithium really.

Cool. Would you like to let us know where all the other materials are mined from and how environmentally friendly that is? I suggest you look up nickel mining.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#123

Post by bryanlarsen »

DrThunder wrote: post #113
bryanlarsen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries, if recycled, have less environmental impact than the massive amounts of concrete used in a nuclear facility.

Absolutely not. You might want to look up where that cobalt for batteries comes from as well and how much recycling actually gets done.

In 2023 stationary storage batteries don't use cobalt.

Stationary storage batteries are expected to last 25 years. Given that we've only been doing stationary storage batteries for about 5 years, it's not really surprising that they aren't being recycled.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#124

Post by OrwellianChild »

Lazare wrote: post #117
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.

A lot of it seems to come down to very, very agreesive regulation. Eg, plant designs got approved, work started, then the regulators came back and said "actually, you need to make some major changes to the design", so everything paused and some completed work was torn up, new designs were made, approved (slowly), and then work restarted from scratch. Then it happened again. And again. The changes weren't bad per se;…

Really excellent context - thank you for sharing all this detail and citation!

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#125

Post by bryanlarsen »

DrThunder wrote: post #122
jeffbee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiFePO4 batteries need no cobalt. You do not need fancy batteries for stationary services. Grid-scale storage batteries can be as big, heavy, dumb, and cheap as you like. You don't even need lithium really.

Cool. Would you like to let us know where all the other materials are mined from and how environmentally friendly that is? I suggest you look up nickel mining.

LiFePO4 batteries don't use nickel either.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#126

Post by kennend3 »

alexfromapex wrote: post #69

Why are regulators allowing fission reactors, especially in a time of global turmoil, aren’t these easy targets for adversaries?

Instead of asking sensationalist questions designed to create fear...why not look into it?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S173857331...

The studies have already been done, crashing a jet into a nuclear power plant wont do much.

I'm more familiar with Canada's designs and the walls are several M thick of reinforced concrete. Not exactly material known for being easy to break into.

This is from the power plant close by me :

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.8122465,-79.0744714,3a,48.2y,...

warning that you may be shot for entering has a tendency of keeping people away

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#127

Post by Manuel_D »

Gwypaas wrote: post #118
Manuel_D wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What facts are the French missing? The point is that building 48 reactors of the same design (like in the Messmer plan) is cheaper on a per-unit basis than building 2 reactors of a new design. The learnings from the first few builds inform subsequent iterations, and these learnings decay over time as plants haven't been built in decades. I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Nuclear waste disposal is not a huge…

They had reduced costs within each generation but the costs between generations increased wildly. They never saw any kinds of economics of scale. Have a look at Figure 25 here and add Flamanville 3 waaaay beyond the end of the scale at $12 000/kWe https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-07... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pl...

You just described an economy of scale: costs within generations went down. The more plants in the same generation the lower the cost.

Flamanville is the first EPR France has built, and this it's not leveraging the intra-generational learnings.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#128

Post by Gwypaas »

Manuel_D wrote: post #127
Gwypaas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had reduced costs within each generation but the costs between generations increased wildly. They never saw any kinds of economics of scale. Have a look at Figure 25 here and add Flamanville 3 waaaay beyond the end of the scale at $12 000/kWe https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-07... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pl...

You just described an economy of scale: costs within generations went down. The more plants in the same generation the lower the cost. Flamanville is the first EPR France has built, and this it's not leveraging the intra-generational learnings.

Take the 20% cost reduction the last two generations lead to. That would change Flamanville 3 from exorbitantly expensive to exorbitantly expensive.

The French nuclear program as a whole has had a huge negative learning curve. The more they've built and learned the more expensive they have become. Sure you can brush of 20% with a lot of money down the drain, but that does not make it in any way economical.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#129

Post by cbmuser »

Gwypaas wrote: post #60
belorn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, decarbonize the grid the way France did it. Don’t follow Germany’s example.

It’s that simple.

Re: Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms

#130

Post by pleistocene »

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…

The unique advantage of nuclear is not its price, it’s that it produces a lot of energy in any environment without polluting the air or contributing to climate change
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