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In Defense of Electricity Markets

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Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#121

Post by dukeyukey »

throwaway50182 wrote: post #120
dukeyukey wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was made pro-nuclear under pressure from France. But even before then, the only countries with more nuclear power than the EU (that aren't also in the EU) are Ukraine (which is on the European grid), Switzerland (also on the European grid), Armenia and South Korea. Europe's revealed preferences makes it the most pro-nuclear region in the world, by far.

Wut? Their anti-nuclear policy reveals them as pro-nuclear? What new nuclear was built during the last 2 decades, before they had to change the anti-nuclear policy? The population is pro-nuclear, sure. But the policy was set by the anti-nuclear supporters of the green deal and we had to wait for many years until reality forced them to accept nuclear.

Again, the energy policy of Europe has resulted in them having more nuclear than anywhere else in the world, besides South Korea. Everything you say about Europe as a whole being anti-nuclear is more applicable to almost every other country globally. Because Europe has more nuclear than basically everywhere else.

> What new nuclear was built during the last 2 decades

More than the US, believe it or not. Between new reactors in Finland, France, and Slovakia, around 3,700 MWe versus the US at around 2,200 MWe from reactors in Tennessee and Georgia.

I'm not saying energy policy has been good in EUrope over the last 2 decades, but it's not been uniquely worse than the rest of the Western world.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#122

Post by dukeyukey »

thedrbrian wrote: post #111
dukeyukey wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Europe" is not a country. France finished it's nuclear build-out decades ago. It's still got issues, but the matter is sorted. The UK is adding scads of wind power every day. Ditto for Spain, only with solar. Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland have mix of hydro, nuclear, and renewables. Yes, Germany is screwing the pooch on this one. Most places east of Germany isn't doing much better. But their failure is the…

>The UK is adding scads of wind power every day. Yeah about that wind https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/08/what-wen... Surely if the generation is so cheap why won't anyone commit to more turbines?

It says right there in the article - costs went up for turbines operators, and the government didn't change the amount they'd pay. It's hard to miss.

Worth seeing contracts for onshore wind went fast though.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#123

Post by throwaway50182 »

dukeyukey wrote: post #121
throwaway50182 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut? Their anti-nuclear policy reveals them as pro-nuclear? What new nuclear was built during the last 2 decades, before they had to change the anti-nuclear policy? The population is pro-nuclear, sure. But the policy was set by the anti-nuclear supporters of the green deal and we had to wait for many years until reality forced them to accept nuclear.

Again, the energy policy of Europe has resulted in them having more nuclear than anywhere else in the world, besides South Korea. Everything you say about Europe as a whole being anti-nuclear is more applicable to almost every other country globally. Because Europe has more nuclear than basically everywhere else. > What new nuclear was built during the last 2 decades More than the US, believe it or not. Between new r…

I don't care about the rest of the world. The rest of the world can do whatever. My state doesn't have natural gas or oil, nor a lot of sunshine or wind, nor a lot of rivers.

I care about my taxes (and I don't mean EU subsidies here) going to solar baron's pocket instead of nuclear reactors.

The few projects you listed - you seriously think that's enough? I don't. We can see in practice that all the money spent on solar and wind led us to over dependence on fossil fuels, not their abolishment, and now we have to spend another absurd amount of money on storage to solve that.

It's a failed anti-nuclear policy that's thankfully reversed now but that doesn't change history. I really don't care about the US, or frankly, Slovakia and France. I care about my own home.

BTW, it's funny that all the projects you listed were started way before the green deal. IMHO you just confirmed what I said.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#124

Post by olau »

cyberax wrote: post #56
tuukkah wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean there's no way out? Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels, some are making good progress, in some the progress has recently stalled, some haven't really started yet... Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production).

> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…

I've read several studies that say that you're wrong. You need to get your information from other places than nuclear trade organizations.

The reason storage hasn't been yet been addressed much is simply that the demand is not there yet. But as one example, you can produce biogas and use the existing gas infrastructure.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#125

Post by cyberax »

tuukkah wrote: post #76
oceanofsolaris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that heating should be electrified … but it’s important to note that this makes the Dunkelflaute problem more serious, not less. Because now your inflexible base-load has increased. And while spreading generation over a wider area helps, it rapidly reaches limits (unless your power grid extends close to the equator).

It makes it less serious in the north where shortage of electricity would mean freezing indoor temperatures. Heat pumps have reduced the amount of electricity needed (compared to direct electric heating) for heating a house and thus the amount of imports/storage needed. Also, if the heat pumps are a part of a district heating system, a heat storage solution can be included in the system. In a country where heating is…

Germany is complicated, because they mostly use gas for heating, not electricity. So switching to heatpumps will require more generation. And for now this means new natural gas plants.

This is not _too_ bad in itself, using gas for generation and then powering heat pumps is more efficient than burning gas for heating. But the capital requirements for new power plants will cement Germany's dependence on fossil fuels for at least another 2 decades.

It's a mess.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#126

Post by cyberax »

olau wrote: post #124
cyberax wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some European countries have already stopped using fossil fuels Yes, the ones that have classic hydro. > Cheap electricity is going to be important for national economies and there are no countries that couldn't build cheap wind and solar (and/or cables to import neighbours' excess renewables production). Solar and wind ARE NOT cheap if you actually want them to be reliable. They are about 5x-10x more expensive tha…

I've read several studies that say that you're wrong. You need to get your information from other places than nuclear trade organizations. The reason storage hasn't been yet been addressed much is simply that the demand is not there yet. But as one example, you can produce biogas and use the existing gas infrastructure.

> I've read several studies that say that you're wrong.

Well? Where's the plan then? The ones I've seen require taking a very stiff dose of crack and meth to make them believable.

> The reason storage hasn't been yet been addressed much is simply that the demand is not there yet.

Well, yeah. Europe has no capacity market, so cheap low-quality solar/wind is a good way to get return on investments. And wintertime generation is supported by fossil fuels that are still too cheap.

> But as one example, you can produce biogas and use the existing gas infrastructure.

"Biogas" can support only a tiny amount of consumption. Power-to-gas (methane produced from water and captured CO2) is an option, but the round-trip efficiency is poor and costs are too high.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#127

Post by cyberax »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #102
cyberax wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last design plans I saw one could fit within a single city block, buried under ground with only 1 story exposed. This is a completely unrealistic plan, designed to lure investors. An SMR meltdown will produce enough radioactive contamination to make a small city unlivable, at least for a while. So you'll need a full containment building. You'll need emergency generators, coolant pumps, etc. Then you have a ques…

There are designs for modular reactors that are inherently safe. Using subcritical reactors and a particle beam. See Aker Solutions: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureaker-s-ads-uses-... Haven't seen any news from them recently though.

They are not "inherently safe". Reactors that produce power (in large quantities) are dangerous because fission products are radioactive, and they produce energy even after the chain reaction stops. So once cooling is lost, these fission products can melt through the reactor vessel and escape the confinement.

Also, accelerator-driven reactors are just bonkers. They make no freaking sense for power generation. They are being investigated because they can produce very energetic neutrons, in quantities that are large enough to transmute some long-lived nuclear waste.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#128

Post by cyberax »

cinntaile wrote: post #66
cyberax wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rosatom is exporting nuclear power plants within budget and (mostly) on time. It's simply a question of expertise and experience. The US and Europe have ignored nuclear power for so long, that most expertise was lost long ago. And each new nuclear power plant becomes a unique snowflake.

Nobody in the western world is going to buy Russian power plants any time soon.

Of course. Russia needs to be isolated.

I'm just saying that it's _possible_ to construct reactors within reasonable timeframes. Russia and China can do that, so can other countries.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#129

Post by pstuart »

Animats wrote: post #15
pstuart wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have yet to see, as they've yet to truly enter the market. So far, the record's not been good for large plants -- they tend to go way over budget and schedule. Case in point: Vogtle.

NuScale's price has already gone 60%-70% over budget, and they haven't even built anything yet.[1] [1] https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Are-Sm...

The factors cited were inflation and higher interest rates, which are going to be universally applicable.

Cost overruns at Vogtle and others had inflation as a partial factor but the bigger issues, per the DOE:

"Work began with incomplete designs and managers repeatedly failed to realistically schedule tasks. Experienced workers were in short supply and defective work often had to be redone. Workers quit for other jobs and the COVID-19 pandemic led to high absenteeism."

So a pass on Covid impact but the rest is the result of building a huge bespoke power plant. SMRs change all of that to units of mass production.

I'm sure there's still issues to solve there but if nuclear has a future competing against low cost renewables then that SMRs seem to be the only way forward.

Re: In Defense of Electricity Markets

#130

Post by mschaef »

londons_explore wrote: post #110
Animats wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PJM does have pricing for reliability. The first California deregulated electricity market had an auction every half hour and all pricing was spot. This caused blackouts and the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric, even though it was what PG&E had lobbied for. Today, most markets (at least PJM and CAISO) have a "day ahead" auction, and a current auction to fine-tune. Most of the market is in the day-ahead auction.…

> I've read that the overall effect of electricity deregulation is that prices are slightly lower, and reliability is down. One interesting option is the option to let customers choose where they want to be on the reliability vs price scale. Typically, in times of crisis due to undersupply, an electricity network cuts off customers (blackouts). However, this needent happen at the district/region level. It could just…

> One interesting option is the option to let customers choose where they want to be on the reliability vs price scale. ... > t could just as easily be implemented by your own electricity meter - effectively a breaker which opens when it detects crisis.

What you're really talking about is demand response. It's been around a while in both commercial and residential settings.

It doesn't really address reliability to the extent that reliability depends on investments in distribution, transmission, generation, fuel to the generators, etc. If those aren't there, it doesn't matter if the user has opted into reliable (non-interruptable) power, because the power won't reliably be at the meter to begin with.

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