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

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

#281

Post by zdragnar »

wolverine876 wrote: post #176
ethbr1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that to happen in the US, (1) we need to focus on more numerous, smaller modular reactors, (2) the NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it (and more funding if there's an actual lack of resources), and (3) specific project requirements need to be frozen before construction (no more up-requiring mid-construction). Modular reactors are the solution to not having enough capital or a long enough…

> NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it That's going to be tough: What happens if the day comes and they don't yet know? They can't just approve it, so just deny it?

The government should cover the losses of the investors.

Various agencies are constantly missing FOIA deadlines, and often the only way to get them to actually do the jobs they are legally required to do is to sue them in court, asking for both the information and to have court costs covered.

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

#282

Post by Georgelemental »

wolverine876 wrote: post #196
rjbwork wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that we don't build the damn things anymore, so each one is bespoke and expensive. Ideally we'd keep building them and develop the expertise and make it a more repeatable scalable process. I worry instead that the lesson taken from this will be "nuclear is too expensive and ineffective".

> Problem is that we don't build the damn things anymore, so each one is bespoke and expensive. When we built them more often, weren't they bespoke and expensive?

No, they were much cheaper in the 70s and 80s!

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

#283

Post by XorNot »

kevincox wrote: post #218
cableshaft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the linked article, we get how much power it generates 1,114 MW (or 1.114 Gigawatts), how long it took to build that reactor (started in 2009, so 14 years), and how much it cost (planned $14 billion, final $30 billion): > The new 1,114 megawatt (MW) Unit 3 reactor > Construction at the two new reactor sites began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) a…

It is quite hard to compare $60-70 for year-round super stable power to $30-60 for bursty power. That being said, unless there is a huge regulatory shift it seems like nuclear won't get much cheaper and solar and wind will continue to do so, so comparing those numbers will get easier to compare as the costs spread further.

Which is all irrelevant, because neither is dispatchable: you get what you get when they're able to produce it.

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

#284

Post by cheschire »

cesarb wrote: post #254
simonw wrote: post #147

This caught my eye: "Prior to Vogtle Unit 3, the last nuclear reactor to start in the United States was Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee. Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in 2016." More on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Plant#Unit_2

> Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in 2016. That seems to be common with nuclear power plants. The latest one near where I live (Angra 3) has been under construction since 1984, and it should be complete in a few more years if it doesn't pause again; construction of the previous one (Angra 2), according to Wikipedia, started in 1976…

Well the Three Mile Island accident was in 1979, so I imagine that created a lot of resistance to continued construction across the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

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

#285

Post by jodrellblank »

ggm wrote: post #174
cool_dude85 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is baseload and is the exact opposite of "instantly fired up". Best tech for that is gas or battery.

There is a line of reasoning that baseload is a billing and profit construction, an artifice of the needs of coal-fired and nuclear power. There is nothing innately wrong with over building renewable and storage, and a transmission network. It's an argument about economics, not physics.

Can you realistically overbuild solar and wind in a way that works in winter? Here's Terence Eden in the UK, and his graph of rooftop solar[1] showing peak around 400kWh/month in summer and trough around 50kWh/month in darkest December - that's a difference of ~8x which might be possible...

But that's averaged over the month, what about a run of December days with heavy cloud cover, misty foggy atmosphere, still air, maybe some Icelandic volcano soot in the atmosphere, what's the worst we'd have to plan for, and how much overprovisioning would that take?

[1] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/solar-update/

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

#286

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kragen wrote: post #213
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not automatically true It very obviously is. Solar power (and wind) are constrained by the planet’s insolation. Even assuming perfect efficiency, we start approaching diminishing returns based on power input within a century. Now assume imperfect efficiency and resource constraints, and you see that cliff approach within decades. This is fine. It’s the law of diminishing marginal returns. It’s why a diversity of so…

your projection that human world marketed energy consumption will increase by a factor of 1000× within a century may be correct, but it is far outside the range of mainstream predictions, and far faster than current growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consum... shows total energy supply (excluding agriculture) growing from 8700 million toe in 01990 to 14500 million toe in 02021, a 67% increas…

> projection that human world marketed energy consumption will increase by a factor of 1000× within a century may be correct

We currently produce about 2% [1] of the Earth’s insolation, or 6% of that which hits land. So you’re talking factors of 16 to 50, which at 2% growth means 140 years to the former. Again, assuming perfect efficiency and no clouds, et cetera.

If we assume 50% efficiency (still with no clouds) and covering half of all the Earth’s land in solar panels, we have about 70 years. It’s ludicrous to assume we won’t see diminishing marginal returns in a quarter of that time.

[1] 26 936 TWh [a] / (340 W/sqm [b] x 510mm sqkm x 1000 x 365 days x 24 hours)

[a] https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-2026113/v1/1dff0a...

[b] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget

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

#287

Post by loeg »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #215
cm2187 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of solar in isolation is meaningless. You need to factor in the cost of dealing with its intermittency, i.e. no power at night, variable power during daylight.

That is what capacity factor captures.

It really doesn't. What we care about to avoid blackouts is something like the minimum output, rather than the average.

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

#288

Post by jeffbee »

UberFly wrote: post #23
MichaelNolan wrote: post #14

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.

I would take that bet. Nuclear tech will also continue to improve.

I love the improvement implied by "continue to improve" in the face of all evidence that shows fission is a uniquely impractical source of energy that has done nothing but get more and more expensive.

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

#289

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Manuel_D wrote: post #225
epistasis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's little reason to build massive batteries at one spot, unless you are repurposing an only transmission line. Instead, a good chunk of grid storage is getting deployed right at the generation site of solar (and some wind), which allows more efficient use of that transmission line. Instead, we should be looking for large amounts of total install. However, this still won't happen much until it's actually needed b…

The tech is not here. The scale of grid storage required to fulfill just diurnal storage - let alone days or weeks to offset seasonal variation - is far beyond what batteries can provide. To put this in perspective, the US alone uses 12 TWh of electricity per day. The world uses 60 TWh per day. Both of these figures are going to increase, as poorer countries develop and want amenities like air conditioning. Also, as…

The point of the various 100% solar, wind, battery projections that exist is that no new tech is needed.

Things won't be 100% Solar, Wind, Battery because other minor techs like nuclear, hydro, tidal, biomass or whatever already exist to some degree and can be part of the system. But current solar, wind and battery tech is enough, we just need to build it. The first 80% is the easy bit, with the greates payback, so there's no need to wait around.

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

#290

Post by Manuel_D »

hef19898 wrote: post #268
Manuel_D wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm talking about carbon-free propulsion options. Batteries don't have the energy capacity required for long distance shipping, and their weight is a big issue for ships. 300 mile range is fine for an EV, it's not for a ship.

That's what IRENA worked out in the frame of the initiative to decarbonise ocean shipping by 2050 when it comes to fuel: >> In the short term, advanced biofuels will play a key role in the reduction of CO2 emissions. In the medium and long-term, green hydrogen-based fuels are set to be the backbone for the sector’s decarbonisation.

Present biomass energy doesn't have remotely close to scale required to decarbonize ocean transportation. I'm sure the "advanced" part of advanced biomass assumes some mega-algae or something else that is far more productive than existing biomass, but if that technology hasn't been developed yet then you might as well just say nuclear fusion is the solution.

Hydrogen is currently produced via steam reformation [1], which emits carbon dioxide. Electrolysis is less efficient and corrosion of electrodes inhibits scale.

Nuclear maritime propulsion is far more mature than any of the alternatives. Submarines and warships have been using it for over half a century. Could a technological breakthrough create a better alternative? Maybe, but we can't move ships with potential technologies until said technologies make the transition from "potential" to "real".

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming

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