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First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

eia.gov

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Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.

Not necessarily.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cost premium has always existed. https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices

Good point. Could it be that Georgia already generates a lot of power from its existing nuclear reactors, and has been doing that for a few decades?

I mean, all that data is also from when California and New York both had operational reactors.

In 2013, CA generated 17 out of 200 GW from nuclear. GA generated 32/120 GW. NY generated 44/136GW. So at least in the case of New York, it generated more power from nuclear as a percentage than GA, and had higher electricity prices, so there doesn't seem to be a correlation. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/

It probably has more to do with the fact that electricity is deregulated in CA and NY, where implementations were infamously botched: https://truenergy.com/deregulated-energy-states/

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#93

Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks. I didn’t run the math but I’m guessing it’s not feasible to build a battery pack large enough to ride out winter in some areas. The SF Bay Area, sure, but I suspect blackouts will be common in solar+battery only areas. A preferred solution would be a mix of both with nuclear handling disruptions due…

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

When nuclear takes off in China but not the USA, we'll figure it out. But not until then.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was tried, nuclear reactors on civilian ships, and found to be a stupid idea. Too expensive and no real benefit over ship engines. By the way, tha vast majority of military ships and boats are not nuclear powered.

> was tried, nuclear reactors on civilian ships, and found to be a stupid idea We only did a demo ship, which was combination cargo and passenger. The principal cost was being rejected from ports for their lacking acceptance procedures, a first-mover cost. Nuclear shipping has never been “found to be a stupid idea.” It was simply never explored.

It was, up to the point the only German nuclear powered vessel was a cargo ship. It was tried in the heyday of nuclear power, and didn't go anywhere. So yes, civilian nuclear ships have been tried and found to be expensive, not feasible and a dead end, or, if you use different words, stupid.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.

That sounds like a kneejerk response. Got a source for it? It's not like we didn't know about it all the time, yet the large solar systems were built.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.

Unlike nuclear, which is too expensive when you don't overbuild it, and becomes simply stupidly expensive if you contemplate overbuilding it.

Overbuilding nuclear is so preposterous that nuclear fans just pretend you magically don't need to, to prevent their fragile dream from being crushed by reality, and let them continue to steer at renewables and all the problems they face as every nation on earth builds then out at massive scale.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are not for riding out winter, they're for evening out the daily load. You have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation, as well as make long-distance interconnects. Pumped hydro is also extremely interesting for obvious reasons. Nuclear as it exists today is not cost competitive. But that's mostly an artificial problem caused by regulation. Can we solve that without sacrificing safety? Can we…

> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.

That’s not automatically true. As the price continues to drop even over building renewables can be cheaper than other options. Nuclear is very expensive so there’s a lot of wiggle room.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#99

If I was a betting man, I would put money down that Vogtle 4 is the last nuclear reactor that gets built in the US. Solar and batteries are just too cheap for nuclear to compete. The world will be installing a terawatt of solar capacity per year soon. *excluding research or military reactors of course.

One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3 U235) in a day. I'll take this bet. Edit: Tried to edit the edit but somehow deleted the rest of the edit. It was something to the tune of how a big problem with renewables is the fact that peak solar production does not match peak ene…

Not unreasonable, but I would point out two options (not the only):

1) "Water batteries" - highly efficient (far more than the 'chemical' you are apparently referring to) & responsive

2) Methods for using 'renewables' to produce &/ support production of chemical fuels - with the added draw / potential goal of 'closing' the 'carbon cycle'

As to #2, one of the ideals that has been kicked around for decades is to do something like: use 'renewables' to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into something like butanol, for example.

Now, last I was up-to-date on any of this sort of work (~10+ years ago), the economics were not favorable. Certain types of commodity chemical production with 'biological basis' (another type of renewable, typically) had much more favorable properties economically. And, indeed, you do see, for example, (thermo)plastic products made from chemicals like "PLA" increasingly. But, the "biofuels" concept is / was much more challenging, especially as "fracking" technology made great leaps etc.

Nuclear has its pros and cons - blanket disavowal is fatuous. Nevertheless, there are substantially more options, systems, technologies, etc. in development and production than are often discussed in too many of the pro-nuke(s) / no nuke(s) 'sniping' chains that have been prevalent in society & on the internet since I was a wee tyke myself.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#100

The article is dated Dec 26, 2023 but the linked announcement from Georgia Power is dated July 31, 2023.

Yes, it's old news. It's not solar/wind so it's not a priority for EIA et al.

More recent news in nuclear power is commercial operation of a high temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor in China. Their first HTR-PM reactor went online a couple weeks ago[1].

[1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-HTR-PM-D...

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