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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

#211

Post by pfdietz »

cauch wrote: post #189
jychang wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not at all the point. Imagine the following game: you throw three dices. If the three dices are not ending on 1, you win 1 dollar. If they are ending on three 1, you lose 100'000 dollars. If you throw the dice ten times, you will, with high probability, not have three 1 (the probability of appearing is 0.5% per throw). You will probably need to throw more then 10 times before loosing. But when loosing, you wil…

Note that powering the world (all uses of energy, not just the grid) with nuclear will require ~6000 3 GW(th) nuclear reactors, to provide the 18 TW of primary energy the world currently consumes. About two orders of magnitude more than France has. At the historical rate of world nuclear accidents this would yield > 1 meltdown a year.

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

#212

Post by Manuel_D »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #209
Manuel_D wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The peak still occurs in the evening around 8-9pm. The chart I linked shows a drop in net demand around midday, due to solar's contribution. But my point is the mismatch between peak electricity demand and solar production, which is the same regardless.

That's all from the grids perspective, they only count their own solar and wind. Here's an animated diagram that explicitly calls out BTM (behind-the-meter) solar: https://isonewswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/btm_forec...

Right, and you see where maximum demand is at 8pm (even before any solar was installed)? That peak isn't going down by provisioning more solar. Thanks for the gif, it explains exactly what I'm talking about.

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

#213

Post by smegger001 »

pfdietz wrote: post #210
DennisP wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The decay products of uranium are not well contained at uranium mines. They are in massive tailing piles, just as the radioactive elements in coal end up in ash. Less gets said about these mine-related radioactive elements because they are typically in other countries, often countries where the people have darker skins.

Yes the radioactive decay products of the naturally occurring ore already in the ground naturally are still in the tailings. But they were there already before. With the removal of the uranium the net radioactive material left would be lower the the initial levels though no?

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

#214

Post by Manuel_D »

Retric wrote: post #197
Manuel_D wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the demand curve is the opposite of what you claim: peak production happens during the night, at around 9 pm, not during the day. You'd need to supply more energy during periods of non-production, not less. You can't get away with 50% output at night, unless you have some other energy source picking up the slack. And remember, during the winter you're getting less than 12 hours of sunlight, maybe even less tha…

Again batteries smooth over instantaneous demand. If you really want to model things you need to consider the vast drop off between midnight and 5 am in which that steady state I talked about would be wasted. Batteries don’t really care about when the peak is just the total demand minus power production. And again steady state like nuclear looks terrible by comparison. Running summer numbers you see an extension in t…

And yet again: batteries are not available at a scale where they can even remotely smooth over demand. Even just provisioning 1 hour of storage for the USA requires 500 GWh of storage. A steady state like nuclear works just fine for the grid: it's only a problem for intermittent sources that are made redundant by a source of decarbonized energy that works 24/7. The disparity between peak and trough energy demand is not that great: it's typically 20-30%.

Pointing to one specific project is not relevant: we can't replicate this project to the point where demand is fulfilled because that would require an order of magnitude more batteries than are produced.

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

#215

Post by Manuel_D »

dv_dt wrote: post #199
Manuel_D wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Other comment chains have explained the storage scale you claim is needed, isn't a great estimate. Energy conservation is probably a better payback than either nuclear or renewables and better resilience for people infrastructure. For example, better insulation reduces energy costs in both cold winters and heat waves, and reduces the impact if there are grid/source failures by any technology. It also doesn't have a b…

The estimate of 12 hours of storage was one of the more optimistic ones. It's not just day/night cycles there's also weather that results in long term fluctuations in output. Some of the estimates call for weeks of storage.

Energy conservation is likely not going to be feasible as more and more transportation gets electrified, as gas heating is replaced with electric, and industrial processes like smelting are decarbonized. Conservation is indeed an admission of failure, because success involves accommodating the growing demand for electricity in the future. Remember, electricity production is only about a third of total energy consumption: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

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

#216

Post by Manuel_D »

nicoburns wrote: post #182
Manuel_D wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the demand curve is the opposite of what you claim: peak production happens during the night, at around 9 pm, not during the day. You'd need to supply more energy during periods of non-production, not less. You can't get away with 50% output at night, unless you have some other energy source picking up the slack. And remember, during the winter you're getting less than 12 hours of sunlight, maybe even less tha…

Energy use for heating can be quite easily reduced just by insulating houses (and installing more efficient heating equipment such as heat pumps). Do we have any idea what the cause of that 9pm spike is? That seems like a bizarre time to be the peak to me (I can't work out what the primary energy users would be at that time).

Replacing gas heating with heat pumps is going to increase, not reduce, electricity use.

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

#217

Post by StillBored »

epistasis wrote: post #204
StillBored wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar regulatory regimes started by the same groups of people, which work in similar ways? AKA think of every possible thing that could go wrong and mandates designs with have engineering margins far in excess of what the a reasonable analysis of the risks/etc would call for. We could do similar things to renewables by simply mandating that they have carbon free backup sources sufficient to guarantee four of five n…

So you think this is a realistic possibility for France, a nation that loves nuclear? Have any evidence of these regulations? What regulations can we change? I've looked and looked and never found somebody saying "these regulations are unnecessary" but it's trivial to find examples of management not taking the regulations seriously and then paying for it when they cut corners (basically all the welding for the AP1000…

If you look at the cost overruns in GA quite a number of people have come out and said that no one wants to criticize the NRC, seemingly because they can make your life hell.

And change orders, and the like were listed as one of the reasons for the overruns, how much of that do you think is some engineer who designed the plant waking up one day and deciding something needs to be changed, or is it a case of the NRC nitpicking everything, and just loading the whole process up with so much paperwork that everyone is frozen, and any little mistake in the paperwork ends up costing the project. Sure blame the plant mgmt for not having the correct paperwork and delaying the start by 6 months, but who is asking for that paperwork to begin with? A lot of it sounds like a game of gocha, create a problem so complex that its nearly unsolvable and most of the work isn't even welding pipes but putting a thousand people in the chain, everyone of which can stop the line at any time, largely with no repercussions.

Sure, contractors mess up, but most contracts are written so that its the contractor who pays for it, not the organization hiring the contractor. So, again, contractor messes up, comes up with a workable mitigation/rework plan, but you sit there for 6+ months arguing about whether its allowed.

I've seen first hand the mess of regulation related paperwork it takes to run a normal NG/etc plant, it takes teams to of people to review it every year and assure compliance. Layering the NRC/etc into this is how you end up spending insane amount of capital and producing nothing but paperwork (see nuscale) on a design that isn't particularly ground breaking in the face of existing plants. I can't even imagine how much it would take to certify something like a navy reactor in that kind of environment.

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

#218

Post by pfdietz »

XorNot wrote: post #147
pfdietz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The locations where pumped hydro could be used are extremely abundant. Remember, it doesn't have to be on a river. It can be out in a desert! Here's an example of a project being built in Nevada. Basin and Range geography, more vertical relief than you can shake a stick at. Look how small this thing is for the capacity! https://www.cityofelynv.gov/pdf/CityCouncil2021/cc1-28-21/Wh... https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage…

The problem with pumped-hydro is - and all storage based solutions is - how low can you let the storage get before it's an emergency? Electricity is a vital service: completely vital. Without it, modern civilization halts. It might be annoying being unable to make a cup of coffee, but municipal water and sewage need electricity to work. You go without power for a week, and the entire wastewater infrastructure will st…

You seem to be assuming pumped hydro is the only storage technology used.

This is a common problem in the anti-renewable arguments. You pick a particular design for an energy system, argue it doesn't work, then (wrongly) claim no renewable energy system can work. But to reach that conclusion, you have to show that no combination of elements can make a system that works.

It makes sense to have multiple storage technologies with different performance characteristics. You want efficient, if somewhat expensive, technologies for short term storage with large numbers of charge/discharge cycles. You want low capital cost systems for ultimate backup, even if those systems are not as efficient.

For example, one could back up the entire grid with combustion turbines burning an e-fuel like hydrogen. These are massively cheaper per unit of power output than nuclear. Because we are not using them very often, the low round trip efficiency doesn't matter much. You want guarantees this won't run out? Make the storage caverns larger. This is already what we do with natural gas -- we store a good chunk of seasonal demand and count this being sized large enough to not run out.

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

#219

Post by azinman2 »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #190
ImaCake wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal dust, sans radioactive stuff, and coal burning emissions also exact a terrible toll on respiratory health. A lot of people have died, or had much worse lives, thanks to the widespread use of coal.

Don’t leave out the coal miners. The history of oppressive companies, grueling work conditions, constant possibility of death through any number of horrible circumstances, and the lifelong damage of unprotected mining on the lungs has harmed generations of families should never be forgotten.

Meanwhile as a population they’re voting for people who want more coal mining. They are 6 figure jobs in a depressed economic area.

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

#220

Post by azinman2 »

jakewins wrote: post #40
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.

Nuclear is dope and we should build tons of it, but it ain’t our only hope; plenty of other alternatives to build at the same time. Eg hydro, overprovisioning solar or wind, transmission to remove local weather variations, coupling wind and solar, demand flexibility. Fervo just started its first full-scale new-gen geothermal plant, for instance; 24/7 firm power. You might like David Roberts interview with Tim Latimer…

Every serious analysis in green energy has never been able to make it work without nuclear.
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