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First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

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Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#171

Post by Manuel_D »

dv_dt wrote: post #146
Manuel_D wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloud cover reduces solar production by 10-25%. If you need 10x overproduction, plus storage it's not cheaper than nuclear. That's not even counting factors like axial tilt (during winter the Earth is rotated away form the sun, reducing incoming light per M^2 of land), and the transmission infrastructure required to accommodate the decentralized nature of solar and wind [1] (which nuclear conveniently avoids since it…

Fossil fuel companies are those mustache-twirling profit optimization villains, and there is demonstrated evidence that they have run a decades long campaign against any form of energy that is not fossil fuel... 10-25% short fall doesn't require 10x over capacity, it requires a mix of overcapacity + storage + energy conservation measures.

The energy storage at relevant scale is nowhere near feasible as other comment chains explain. "Energy conservation" is just an admission that these sources can't generate enough energy.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#172

Post by pfdietz »

d_sem wrote: post #155
chroma wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima shows that even early nuclear reactors are incredibly safe. You take an aging plant based on an outdated design, construct it in an unsafe location, then hit it with the fifth-largest earthquake ever recorded, then hit it with a 20 foot high tsunami, and then it explodes ... and what were the casualties? One worker and maybe 50 early deaths due to cancers. A typical coal power plant kills more people every…

People often fail to compare the opportunity cost of alternative methods to nuclear power. At that time the alternative to nuclear was coal power plants. Radioactive carbon isotopes have harmed many times more people than Nuclear.

Coal contains no significant radioactive carbon. All the radioisotopes of carbon have half life many orders of magnitude smaller than the age of coal deposits.

Coal contains other radioactive elements, though. However, the quantity of these is still usually less than the quantity that needs to be mined to power a light water reactor.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#173

Post by kibwen »

zamalek wrote: post #140
KerrAvon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint just because someone has to go against the pro-nuclear orthodoxy here: economy of scale won't fix nuclear power. You will never get the cost (or risk) down far enough with existing technology, and none of the advanced technologies have panned out so far. And large scale renewables + battery storage are good enough.

> or risk That really casts doubt on your assertions. Nuclear carries significantly fewer risks than coal (which operates in the nuclear failure state all the time).

Nobody's arguing in favor of building more coal plants. The fact that nuclear is better than coal is irrelevant to the discussion of what new plants to build.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#174

Post by kibwen »

dyno12345 wrote: post #90
glimshe wrote: post #21

One project in 30 years doesn't benefit from economies of scale. Nuclear is the only hope we have to make up for the gaps in generation for solar and wind. Solar and Wind should be used whenever possible, but they are not 100% of our solution mix, even if they are the majority. If we want to mitigate the impact of climate change, we need to invest in decreasing Nuclear costs and building many more plants in the US.

The US Navy seems to be able to do it

The navy uses nuclear reactors for tactical reasons, not economic reasons. Nuclear-powered ships are significantly more expensive.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#175

Post by DennisP »

pfdietz wrote: post #172
d_sem wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often fail to compare the opportunity cost of alternative methods to nuclear power. At that time the alternative to nuclear was coal power plants. Radioactive carbon isotopes have harmed many times more people than Nuclear.

Coal contains no significant radioactive carbon. All the radioisotopes of carbon have half life many orders of magnitude smaller than the age of coal deposits. Coal contains other radioactive elements, though. However, the quantity of these is still usually less than the quantity that needs to be mined to power a light water reactor.

Yes but the nuclear fuel is carefully contained during and after use. Not so much for coal.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#176

Post by khuey »

pfdietz wrote: post #172
d_sem wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often fail to compare the opportunity cost of alternative methods to nuclear power. At that time the alternative to nuclear was coal power plants. Radioactive carbon isotopes have harmed many times more people than Nuclear.

Coal contains no significant radioactive carbon. All the radioisotopes of carbon have half life many orders of magnitude smaller than the age of coal deposits. Coal contains other radioactive elements, though. However, the quantity of these is still usually less than the quantity that needs to be mined to power a light water reactor.

The quantity of radioactivity mined is of little relevance. It's the quantity of radioactivity emitted to the environment that matters.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#177

Post by nicoburns »

Manuel_D wrote: post #82
bryanlarsen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a trivial amount of storage for a trivial amount of money. Do the math, don't hand wave. The Eland project provides 24 hour power with only 4hr of storage. That's the demand curve in action.

> It's a trivial amount of storage for a trivial amount of money. Do the math, don't hand wave. Sure thing! Right now we have an annual battery production rate of 500 GWh globally [1]. If we're going to use global battery production figures, we need to use global electricity consumption, which is about 70 TWh per day [2]. How much storage we'll need varies, depending on the mix of solar and wind. Estimates I can find…

> Production of batteries may grow in the future,

To me it seems reasonable to assume that not only will battery consumption grow, it will grow exponentially (over the medium term - say the next 10 - 50 years). Rationale:

- There is high demand

- The production process is well established technology that can be easily replicated

- There are no obvious limits to growth in the medium term (In the short-term there are resource constraints as mines are opened).

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#178

Post by jychang »

cauch wrote: post #167
chroma wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima shows that even early nuclear reactors are incredibly safe. You take an aging plant based on an outdated design, construct it in an unsafe location, then hit it with the fifth-largest earthquake ever recorded, then hit it with a 20 foot high tsunami, and then it explodes ... and what were the casualties? One worker and maybe 50 early deaths due to cancers. A typical coal power plant kills more people every…

The number of nuclear plants is so small that any example is statistically anecdotical. Yes, Fukushima did not kill much. Is it because the nuclear is in itself super safe, or is it because we were lucky? We would need ~100 Fukushima before even having a rough estimation. I think risk cannot be counted as "number of deaths", but as "capacity of losing control". Cars and cows kill a lot of humans. Yet, their risks are…

Nuclear plants produce 68% of the energy in France. If that’s not statistically relevant, doubling the number wouldn’t be statistically relevant either.

For that matter, even in the USA, nuclear power produces about 10% of all electricity. Multiply that by 10 and that’s the entire population as a sample.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#179

Post by nicoburns »

Manuel_D wrote: post #117
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet their on-peak times in the summer ends at 7pm: > Shift some of your summer energy usage away from the on-peak time periods (2-7 p.m., Monday–Friday, June–September, excluding holidays).

Demand shifting is just a long winded way of saying, "we can't generate enough electricity, you just need to stop using power at certain times of day." And it's easier said than done. Residential demand shifting, and some forms of industry (e.g. arc furnaces) can shift demand. But others cannot: the pumps powering your sewage system needs to work all day around. Same with data centers, and plenty of other industries.

Right, but we don't need to shift all demand for it to have a big impact on the amount of storage required. Any demand shifted is energy that doesn't need to be stored.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#180

Post by epistasis »

chroma wrote: post #50

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established in 1975. Since then, no plant license that was initially submitted to the NRC has started operations. Plant Vogtle was approved by the Atomic Energy Commission (the predecessor to the NRC). Their license was grandfathered in. Building this reactor required a new reactor license (not plant license). Shortly after the reactor design was approved and construction started…

If the NRC is the problem, then why do we see identical cost overruns and schedule delays for France, Finland, and the UK?

I don't think we can blame the NRC for this. There's something deeper.

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