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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

#351

Post by grecy »

neither_color wrote: post #303
grecy wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China also builds nuclear reactors, and we can't fall behind them I, uh, have some uncomfortable news for you. China are currently building 22 nuclear reactors [1] China installed 230GW of solar and wind in 2023 [2] China has over 40,000kms of High Speed Rail, and continues to expand [3] By any measure, you're falling way behind them. [1] https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/30/china-is-building... [2] https://w…

Last I checked they're also outcompeting everyone in new coal plants https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-...

If I'm up against you in a beer drinking contest and I drink more beer AND more whisky than you... I still win the beer drinking contest.

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

#352

Post by mcmoor »

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

Heh imagine finally finishing work that your father had started before you're born.

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

#353

Post by sandworm101 »

mminer237 wrote: post #349
sandworm101 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But remember that a square kilometer of solar panels needs maybe ten square kilometers of actual land. Anywhere other than at the equator, the panels need to be spaced far enough apart not to shadow each other. On a north-facing slop they would be even more spaced out. Do that in two dimensions, so they can track the sun, and keeping one square meter of panels perpendicular to the sun requires a suprisingly large foo…

It's not 10x. The optimal ground coverage ratio in the South even for tracking panels is like 30%: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X2... Most of the US isn't wooded. I don't think a significant number of projects propose clear-cutting to build solar farms. I don't know where that came from.

Try where i am, the pacific northwest. Its all mountains and trees. Large solar farms are always tricky, even residential rooftop solar often runs into issues with trees.

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

#354

Post by lopis »

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.

Another big advantage of solar, and wind to some extent, is that is distributed. It provides resilience to the network. Nuclear produces a lot of power, sure, but it's one big fat single point of failure.

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

#355

Post by margalabargala »

evilos wrote: post #184
margalabargala wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Does the US have more 50cm^3 sized blocks of U235, or more square kilometers of land with low land values and high annual insolation? There's an estimated 6 million tonnes of mineable uranium reserves in the world [0]…

I remember reading some article that said we could offset all of human emissions by painting Vermont stark white or something along those lines. Covering a desert in solar panels seems like the exact opposite of that plan.

If you ignore all other variables, then of course the situation looks like what one variable would make it do.

Would covering a desert in solar panels cause more thermal solar absorption in that area than would otherwise happen? Yes.

But if we're optimizing for "offsetting the heating effect of human GHG emissions", then installing 4.5TW of solar (about 4x what has been installed worldwide to date) would have a much more positive effect.

The world currently has 1.1TW of solar installed, producing about 6% of all electricity. So our new installation would be on its own capable of supplying 25% of global electricity usage. The corresponding drop in GHG emissions from the shutdown of coal, gas, and oil power plants would far outweigh the fact that part of the desert has been turned black.

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

#356

Post by cesarb »

XorNot wrote: post #241
stetrain wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear does not seem to be on the mass production curve that solar and batteries are. Even if you could design a reactor that itself can be mass produced at that scale, you still need to do the same with selecting and getting environmental and public safety approval for installation sites and production, transportation, and disposal of the fuel and waste. I'm not against nuclear from a technological perspective, but…

Batteries are nowhere near able to meet any energy storage demands of the grid. The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use? (The answer is: because they're terrible for it. Batteries hold about 3x they're rated power value as energy - which means the 10 GW or whatever someone quotes is good…

> The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use?

For the same reason gas power plants and hydroelectric power plants are quoted in MW units, and not on the size of their fuel tanks or reservoir volume (converted to MWh as appropriate): it's the most important number for balancing the grid. If you have 90 GW of power demand on the grid at a given moment, you need 90 GW of power generation on the grid at that same moment (simplifying a bit, since transmission constraints mean you also need some of that power generation to be at specific places).

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

#357

Post by ericd »

internetter wrote: post #55
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.

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…

Can we not overbuild solar and wind such that the troughs are nearly good enough, combined with high voltage cross-regional transmission lines, and limited storage for buffer? Solar panels are absurdly cheap, and the world has a lot of equatorial desert.

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

#358

Post by dalyons »

avalys wrote: post #328
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.

A little bit silly to compare the price of solar and batteries, which has been driven down due to extensive government subsidy, tax incentives, and massive economies of scale over the past few decades (including production in China), to the current estimated cost of nuclear plants that we have almost no experience building anymore. If we embarked on a sustained plan to invest in nuclear the way we have in solar and w…

And I “guarantee” the opposite. Nuclear is fundamentally massive complicated technology that just wouldn’t benefit from cost reductions due to manufacturing scale in the same degree. Solar is so so simple in comparison, that’s why it’s gotten so cheap and will continue to get cheaper. Maybe after 10 years of massively scaled nuke production we get costs down 2-4x . That would be nice but solar is down 30x and still dropping.

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

#359

Post by tzs »

wkat4242 wrote: post #340
tzs wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wind is not reliable Surface wind is not reliable. I've seen proposals to put turbines on large kites or gliders tethered to the ground. There's pretty much always strong winds over most of the United States somewhere between the surface and 10000 feet.

Hmm what to do with the torque from the windmill though. Perhaps it could have counter rotating propellers to cancel it out. Otherwise it would entangle itself in the anchoring cable. Also, a failure scenario would mean tonnes of windmill crashing down from high altitude. Hmmmmm

> Also, a failure scenario would mean tonnes of windmill crashing down from high altitude. Hmmmm

10000 feet is less than 2 miles. Even in high winds it wouldn't get more than a a couple or miles or so before hitting the ground.

There are plenty of places in the US where you could fly where it would be centered over a 6 mile diameter circle that contains no people or valuable buildings except for people and buildings that are part of the power facility.

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

#360

Post by defrost »

lopis wrote: post #354
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.

Another big advantage of solar, and wind to some extent, is that is distributed. It provides resilience to the network. Nuclear produces a lot of power, sure, but it's one big fat single point of failure.

If you complete that thought to include both space and time, solar is present only during daylight whereas nuclear is distributed evenly right around the clock.

It's less either|or, more swings|roundabouts.

A pure solar solution requires (on the order of) 2x excess daylight production and 10 hours of offset storage to buffer against the night (and compensate for energy transfer (daylight power -> storage -> night time power) losses).

Solar is great, sure, but there's a long way to go to replace the energy production of fossil fuels, that comes with a lot of reqource mining and waste.

Somewhere in the middle is an optimal solution with much solar and wind, a little bit of nuclear OR gas fired OR and a whole lot of varied storage (battery + gravity + thermal + green gases).

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