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Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

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Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#61

Post by MostlyStable »

nradov wrote: post #50
theptip wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we don’t think global warming ends civilization, keeping existing plants running requires a lot of mental gymnastics to oppose. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to oppose new nuclear on cost grounds; solar/wind are really cheap now. But lots of people seem to oversimplify to “nuclear bad”.

I don't understand why people keep claiming that solar and wind are "cheap". That is only true at limited times on the spot market. The cost goes way up once you include enough storage and long-range transmission to maintain grid stability. It's like claiming that owning a car is cheap, without counting the cost of auto insurance.

It's also ignoring that we have chosen to make nuclear expensive. There are a variety of points on the cost-safety tradeoff curve. We have continuously chosen to push ourselves as far along that curve as we know how to reach, with us moving farther each time a new technology allows it. We have never stopped to ask "how does this amount of safety compare to other forms of power generation" or "how much additional safety are we getting for the cost to implement that safety".

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#62

Post by kagakuninja »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32
ihsw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be summed up into two key questions: is it necessary, and is it effective? One could argue it is necessary but it is undeniable that it is not effective -- nuclear power plants take decades to bring online and then they may never see break-even. Not only that but they require vast sums of water for the entire lifetime of the nuclear plant (which is fast becoming a scarcity, if not because of increased consumpt…

> nuclear power plants take decades to bring online This plant is already online. That’s what makes the debate interesting.

The plant is old and past its expected lifetime. As a result it will be more expensive to operate and less safe. It was planned for decommission, precisely because it is old.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#63

Post by pgeorgi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59
pgeorgi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany replaced its nuclear power plants with all kinds of things, predominantly renewables. The first NPP going offline under the "Atomausstieg" went offline in 2003. https://www.energie.de/et/news-detailansicht/nsctrl/detail/N... has a chart showing the energy sources for electricity production in Germany (up to 2021). During the period in which nuclear (Kernenergie) went down from ~160bn kWh (2003) to ~60bn kWh (…

Look at primary production of imported power. That’s where Germany’s coal is burnt.

Net exporter since 2003. Increasing renewables since 2003. If we go by cherry-picking what kind of power plant creates whose power, Germany is busy reducing everybody else's CO2 emissions, too.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#64

Post by cesarb »

nradov wrote: post #50
theptip wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we don’t think global warming ends civilization, keeping existing plants running requires a lot of mental gymnastics to oppose. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to oppose new nuclear on cost grounds; solar/wind are really cheap now. But lots of people seem to oversimplify to “nuclear bad”.

I don't understand why people keep claiming that solar and wind are "cheap". That is only true at limited times on the spot market. The cost goes way up once you include enough storage and long-range transmission to maintain grid stability. It's like claiming that owning a car is cheap, without counting the cost of auto insurance.

> I don't understand why people keep claiming that solar and wind are "cheap".

It's simple: they're looking at the incremental cost of adding one more solar panel string or one more wind turbine, compared to generating that same amount of power with the already existing power plant mix.

> The cost goes way up once you include enough storage and long-range transmission to maintain grid stability.

That cost exists only if you for some reason insist on 100% solar and wind. If you keep already existing power plants (including gas and hydro), the cost to maintain grid stability is much lower. This can easily be shown to be the case in practice: a large portion of the solar and wind power in the world was added to the grid without adding any extra storage or long-range transmission, reducing the fuel costs (or water usage) of existing power plants but not replacing them.

Having a 100% pure solar or 100% pure wind grid is an interesting thought experiment, to probe the limits of what's possible, but it's not very relevant in the real world except on remote areas where delivering fuel is expensive, connecting to a wider grid is not viable, and there's no hydraulic or geothermal alternative.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pgeorgi wrote: post #63
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at primary production of imported power. That’s where Germany’s coal is burnt.

Net exporter since 2003. Increasing renewables since 2003. If we go by cherry-picking what kind of power plant creates whose power, Germany is busy reducing everybody else's CO2 emissions, too.

> Net exporter since 2003. Increasing renewables since 2003. If we go by cherry-picking what kind of power plant creates whose power, Germany is busy reducing everybody else's CO2 emissions, too

Germany exports a lot of intermittent green power. It also imports a lot of dirty stable power. Neither of us is cherry picking, they're just different sides of the same coin.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#66

Post by seanmcdirmid »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #19
manp2 wrote: post #2

question, why aren't we building more nuclear power plant like china? isn't gen 4 reactor safer?

Because even in china they can't build nuclear as quickly (and likely as cheaply) as wind and solar. It's hugely different [0][1]. Over the last 10 years, they used 3.5x more energy (so not nameplate capacity, but actually generated energy) from solar and wind than they did from nuclear. Further, if you download the data [1] an look at the derivative you get an even more grim picture. Not only is wind and solar incre…

They can however, build nuclear plants wherever they want, which is why China is building them at all right now. They have plenty of renewable potential in the west, but it’s limited in the more populated east, and their transmission lines meant to carry power west to east over long distance are still limited in capacity.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#67

Post by seanmcdirmid »

krasin wrote: post #8
Gibbon1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries.

> California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries. I like all non-CO2 producing energy sources: nuclear, solar, wind, etc. For any given energy source, only a subset of territories can use it: solar needs sun (hello Alaska and Wyoming), nuclear needs strong governmental, engineering and public oversight, wind, like sun, is also not universally available. Specifically Califo…

Solar works really well in the Alaskan summer. Winters you have to figure something else out. Alaska has lots of hydro, which is really common in that region.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#68

Post by timmg »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48
timmg wrote: post #9

I really can't square this idea that "global warming will end civilization" if we don't reduce CO2 with not using nuclear power. (Even worse, shutting down existing, working plants.)

Maybe it's all the Republican and floating voters in California who've been told repeatedly by their trusted tribe members that climate change isn't a real problem that have moved onto the next thing on their list.

I mean, it's nice to blame Republicans. But they are more likely to support nuclear than the Dems. So...

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#69

Post by gotoeleven »

kagakuninja wrote: post #60
irae wrote: post #46

Year over year we see the same discussion: one side say we can’t get to environmental goals without a lot more nuclear. The other side says renewables will be enough if we just [insert trending unproven excuse]. Anyone watching it closely can tell the pro nuclear argument is being proven right over and over and renewables are aways “a few years away”. Why continue insisting on the same error over and over again, with…

The Bush administration gave out major incentives to get more power plants built, yet only a handful of projects were started. These projects ended up (like most nuclear projects) massively delayed and over budget. In the end, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin... Pro nuclear people keep acting like our lack of new nuclear power plants is due to fear or lac…

Why is my power bill in CA so high?

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#70

Post by ianburrell »

nradov wrote: post #53
ianburrell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could spend a trillion dollars on 50 nuclear reactors and increase the nuclear percentage to 30% (there are actually 92 nuclear reactors in US). Or we could spend a trillion dollars on 1TW of solar (400GW actual power). Or a mix of solar and wind, or solar and batteries for the off-peak usage. That is enough to wipe out coal. Enough to bankrupt nuclear power plants. Two trillion is probably enough to decarbonize e…

How much battery capacity would that require to maintain grid stability? How many years will it take to manufacture those batteries? Where will the raw materials be mined?

Solar tends to be better for grid stability since it has stable frequency and can dispatch quickly.

To deal with changes, like the evening peak, in the short-term we can keep using natural gas peaker plants. For longer term, we don't know if expensive batteries are solution. There are lots of groups working on storage, and it is possible that cheap batteries, pumped hydropower, something else, or all of the above will be the best solution. I think it isn't worth worrying about storage until we need it and know what to build.

Also, we don't need that much short-term storage, enough to deal with the evening peak and other daily variations. Long-term storage can be dealt with by overcapacity in renewables, which allows making fuels. The remaining calm, winter days can be dealt with generated fuels or natural gas.

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