First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by pfdietz » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:11 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #249

pfdietz wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powering the world (all energy, not just the grid, and not just the grid in the US) with PWRs won't work, because we run out of cheap uranium too quickly. Breeding is needed for sustainable use of nuclear.

Incorrect, we have plenty of uranium both terrestrially and through seawater extraction: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... Sure seawater extraction is more expensive. But procuring raw uranium is a tiny fraction of nuclear's cost. You'll see statistics saying nuclear fuel is a significant cost, but most of that expense is from enrichment not extracting raw uranium.

Seawater extraction is even less plausible than breeders. The polyamidoxime fibers that article discusses do not have sufficiently long service lives. Also, if the uranium were to be burned in PWRs, the effective power per ocean area of uranium collectors would be much less than the effective power/area from photovoltaics.

Uranium is a small fraction of nuclear's cost at current uranium prices. But eventually that runs out, and the price of uranium would increase dramatically. This has always been the motivation for breeders.

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

#252

Post by jaredhallen » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:12 AM UTC

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…

Reading through the linked article, I don't think that's the way it's designed to be used. It can completely empty itself in 8 hours. That sounds like it's specifically designed to augment renewables at night and charge during the day, cycling every 24 hours.

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

#253

Post by pfdietz » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

_hypx wrote: post #247

pfdietz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generating green hydrogen with renewables and then burning it in combined cycle plants would be cheaper than Vogtle-level nuclear.

Maybe. The thing about nuclear reactors is that the fuel cost is nearly zero on account of how little of it you need. Even with reprocessing, it is still So having a stable source of cheap electricity that can be built in nearly any location is still a good idea. Even in a world with super cheap green hydrogen.

With nuclear you're burning your powerplant, essentially. That the fuel is comparatively cheap is irrelevant, since that's not what's dominating the cost of power.

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

#254

Post by Retric » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #216

nicoburns wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Replacing gas heating with solar thermal is even cheaper and doesn’t. Electric heat pumps are viable when electricity is cheap or demand is low and you want AC, the more they drive up electric costs the more alternatives become viable.

Net effect you tend to see them in areas where there’s a surplus of winter electricity which also tends to be places with minimal demand for heating like Virginia rather than Mane. 46% in South Carolina, 42% in North Carolina, 30% in Virginia etc: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1327164/share-of-househo...

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

#255

Post by cpleppert » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

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…

There are hundreds of nuclear power plants that have been in operation for decades. Most operating nuclear power plants run with dramatically higher uptimes than what they were originally conservatively designed to meet. Nuclear power plants are operating in an active war zone right now! Six reactors were the site of a military battle and ended up sustaining damage beyond anything foreseeable by the designers. Every one of them shut down successfully and at no point was there any evidence that there was ever a safety risk to the public unless a malevolent actor wanted to cause such an accident.

This body of evidence strongly supports the view that nuclear is not only safe but incredibly safe. We have incredible knowledge about how to run nuclear plants safely.

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

#256

Post by Manuel_D » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:17 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #251

Manuel_D wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, we have plenty of uranium both terrestrially and through seawater extraction: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... Sure seawater extraction is more expensive. But procuring raw uranium is a tiny fraction of nuclear's cost. You'll see statistics saying nuclear fuel is a significant cost, but most of that expense is from enrichment not extracting raw uranium.

Seawater extraction is even less plausible than breeders. The polyamidoxime fibers that article discusses do not have sufficiently long service lives. Also, if the uranium were to be burned in PWRs, the effective power per ocean area of uranium collectors would be much less than the effective power/area from photovoltaics. Uranium is a small fraction of nuclear's cost at current uranium prices. But eventually that ru…

Again, the energy density of uranium is such that even if seawater extraction remains expensive, it has negligible impact on nuclear power costs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_p...

> The cost of raw uranium contributes about $0.0015/kWh

Even if this increases by an order of magnitude, this is not significantly impacting the cost of nuclear power. Heck, even two orders of magnitude still amounts to ~1% increase in net cost per KWh.

RE your edit after I commented:

> Uranium is a small fraction of nuclear's cost at current uranium prices. But eventually that runs out, and the price of uranium would increase dramatically. This has always been the motivation for breeders.

Again, the cost of raw uranium extraction amounts to $0.0015/kWh in nuclear generation. A 100x cost increase will not amount to even a quarter of a cent per KWh. This is the power of fissile energy density: it's so energy dense that the cost of extraction is largely decoupled from the net cost of nuclear power.

By comparison, how would the price of lithium ion batteries be affected if the price of lithium carbonate increases by 100x? Half of a battery's cost comes from the cost of cathode material: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-a...

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

#257

Post by ethbr0 » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:20 AM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #127

ethbr0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It killed They blew up the dam because it was also a bridge and removing it allowed them to redeploy troops to the east.

I'm as far from russia apologist as can be - but they blew the bridge part few months earlier, in November. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxHLImMbnAw

They dented and rendered the road inoperable months earlier.

But the thing about dams is that they're over-engineered and massive. Even with high explosives it's difficult to demolish one. Hence why dam busting bombs were large (>4000 kg) and still required underwater detonation to boost their power [0].

It wasn't unreasonable for the Russians to expect Ukraine might be able to seize a bridgehead on the far side, rebuild an operable road over the dam, and then rush armor (and logistics) across it.

Much harder and more time consuming when there are no longer any load bearing remnants available.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise#The_attac...

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

#258

Post by _hypx » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #253

_hypx wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. The thing about nuclear reactors is that the fuel cost is nearly zero on account of how little of it you need. Even with reprocessing, it is still So having a stable source of cheap electricity that can be built in nearly any location is still a good idea. Even in a world with super cheap green hydrogen.

With nuclear you're burning your powerplant, essentially. That the fuel is comparatively cheap is irrelevant, since that's not what's dominating the cost of power.

That's what I said. It's the cost of the powerplant that drives nuclear's cost. But you can reduce that dramatically via mass production of power plants. It will be a cheap source of electricity if done right. And we don't want just one energy source for everything anyways.

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

#259

Post by jakewins » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:26 AM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #85

jakewins wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but PV+wind make our existing dams go much further - recall most of them operate as giant annual batteries, they refill in the rainy season once per year, then dispense that energy over the dry season. Adding PV means hydro can save much more of its water, just dispensing to “fill in the gaps”. This is already how the hydro in Norway and Sweden operates, you can see it daily if you look at the hourly power break…

> recall most of them operate as giant annual batteries, they refill in the rainy season once per year, then dispense that energy over the dry season That’s not quite how it works. Consider the biggest hydro project in US, the Columbia river, with its 14 dams. The system does fill up in the rainy season, but the crucial thing is that it’s not the dams that do fill up, but rather the whole watershed, meaning things li…

> Point is, we can’t just “save the water”.

The storage level at Lake Mead has an annual spread of ~100ft; the dam is currently at historic low capacity and could hold about twice its current level: https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/lakemead_line.pdf

Reservervoir dams certainly can store water and dispense it when appropriate.

Like I said, this is happening every day already, you can see it in the hourly data on wind/hydro generation share, and you can see it in the annual storage capacity data for Norwegian hydro.

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

#260

Post by Manuel_D » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #241

Manuel_D wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

We don’t need batteries on that scale any time soon. Let’s project out 25 years and we might need 3-5 hours of 100% grid electricity storage nationwide depending on your assumptions but that’s about it. It’s not like hydroelectricity is going away anytime soon and that’s extremely flexible not just in terms of time of day but also days of the week, and wind doesn’t care when the sun is shining, and solar can shift ea…

And on the flip side, some energy markets like New England see a minimal variation in energy demand throughout the day, less than 10%.

Provision enough generation to satisfy peak demand and spend the excess power doing things like carbon dioxide sequestration or desalination in places with limited drinking water. Too much energy is a vastly easier problem to solve than too little. And the great thing about nuclear is that it's no more expensive to run at 100% capacity than 50%.