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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

#381

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #353
mminer237 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If only it were possible to transmit electricity from one place to another...

Seriously, while a lot has been written about the need to update the grid and install more long distance transmission lines to support renewables, even with the current grid it makes much more sense to install wind and solar in locations where it is more efficient and then transmit the electricity elsewhere. In Texas, most of the wind farms are in West Texas hundreds of miles away from Houston, for example.

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

#382

Post by kragen »

credit_guy wrote: post #313
kragen wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i agree with almost everything in your cogent and well-informed comment, with only two exceptions: - forests can only increase in biomass up to some relatively low limit; you may be correct that in the usa they currently absorb more than gas plants emit, but that is not a sustainable situation, unless you start cutting them down and sequestering the carbon - you can get pretty far covering seasonal fluctuations with…

> unless you start cutting them down and sequestering the carbon We actually do that all the time: we cut down trees and make houses. Here's a number from the US Forest Service [1] that as of 2009 the US was using 187 million m3 of solid wood products. > you can get pretty far covering seasonal fluctuations with simple overprovisioning Fully agree. > likely advent of mass production of synfuel I'm extremely pessimist…

187 million m³ of solid wood products is on the order of 187 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is an insignificantly small number in this context

currently we need to sequester 950 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, or about 300 gigatonnes of carbon, to get back to pre-industrial levels. this number increases by 40 gigatonnes carbon dioxide or 13 gigatonnes carbon per year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_at...

so roughly we need to sequester 1500 times as much carbon dioxide as the us forest service number, every year. so if the usa builds enough wood housing and other buildings for 450 billion people next year, and another 450 billion people the year after that, and so on indefinitely, that would compensate for current carbon emissions

but this is not a plausible plan

by contrast, direct air capture followed by injection into the crust where carbonatation of olivine and similar minerals sequesters the carbon is a plausible plan, but one that will require a lot of energy

why are you extremely pessimistic about mass production of synfuel? fischer-tropsch produced 25% of germany's wartime automotive fuel, though of course that was starting from coal rather than carbon dioxide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...

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

#383

Post by defrost »

kragen wrote: post #378
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) a…

14500 million toe per year is 19 terawatts, roughly world marketed energy consumption; 1000 watts per m² (nominal solar constant below the atmosphere) times 1.28 × 10¹⁴ m² (area of a circle with radius 6371km) is 128000 terawatts. 19 is 0.015% of 128000, not 2%. so why do your calculations differ? let's see possibly by '510mm sqkm' you mean 510 million square kilometers, as opposed to, say, 510 millimeter square kilo…

510 million square kilometers is a good value for the surface area of earth (4πr² ≈ 510,064,000 km²)

(using R = 6,371 km a figure between the equatorial and polar radius of the ellipsoid)

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

#384

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #285
ggm wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Wind is anticorrelated to sun and stronger in the north.

https://globalwindatlas.info/en

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

#385

Post by verve_rat »

sandworm101 wrote: post #350
gridspy wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We absolutely should cover those, but there is a lot of farmland. There may not be enough "mall-land"

Well, when i see solar panels atop every mall and commercial building, when every home has a solar roof, then i'll entertain chopping down wilderness or sacrificing farmland to the cause. I still see plent of bare rooftop to address first.

Well good job it's not your decision to make then.

If the economic benefits of adding solar to their farm outweighs the costs then farmers will start adding them to farms.

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

#386

Post by zo1 »

internetter wrote: post #145
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 want to make clear that I am not arguing against solar. My belief is that nuclear is an important piece of a much larger puzzle. Wind is not reliable, and for solar to match the figures you provided, we would need to figure out storage, so lets diversify our portfolio :)

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to get of the opinion that this entire call or worry about "storage" when it comes to solar is a giant distraction.

This first thing we need to do is align the costs and incentives. What I mean by that is simply allow the market, or government, to dictate the real cost of providing electricity at night. If there are no solar panels (nighttime), and whatever grid-scale batteries are available cost 1$/kwh then so be it, charge that amount to the consumer. People will learn to forego "bathing" in electricity at night endlessly. For decades we've been spoiled with ridiculous "energy on a tap" that just gives us oodles at the flick of a switch, and we just need to take that away.

As a side-effect of this whole "switching off the endless tap", micro-grids are the future. Small communities with mini-grid-scale batteries and sharing of electricity will take over this stupid "national synchronized grid" idea that has gimped our ability to be agile wrt local energy generation.

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

#387

Post by elcritch »

louwrentius wrote: post #375
dkobia wrote: post #369

As exciting as this should be, the soaring cost overruns on this project means we Georgians have been left holding the bag. There’s now a “Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery” line item on my bill, so electricity costs more rather than less.

Try and imagine how much solar/wind and grid-scale energy storage that money could have bought … I don’t think nuclear power is the future. In my country, 7% of the time electricity prices are like 1 cent or even negative. Try to run your nuclear reactor at a profit in this environment.

How much were the solar and wind propped up by baseline fossil fuels that are cheap because they don’t include externalities in their cost?

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

#388

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

delroth wrote: post #364
tonyhb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cant control rods can be lifted or inserted to meet demand?

Usually you'd vary the concentration of boric acid being injected in the reactor's core instead, since that doesn't involve wear and tear on safety-critical elements of the reactor. Nuclear reactors absolutely can vary their output to match demand, this is what France has been doing for 50+ years (and what Germany was doing before switching back to coal). It's not as reactive as coal/gas, but you can still vary withi…

It is a hugely complicated system where reactors which are earlier in their fuel cycle ramp more leaving the later ones to run at 100% around the clock.

Ramping once is easy. Ramping continuously through the entire fuel cycle requires a meticulously planned fleet.

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

#389

Post by Gare »

jodrellblank wrote: post #251
internetter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to make clear that I am not arguing against solar. My belief is that nuclear is an important piece of a much larger puzzle. Wind is not reliable, and for solar to match the figures you provided, we would need to figure out storage, so lets diversify our portfolio :)

Figuring out storage is hard if you think in terms of Lithium Ion grid-scale batteries, or mountains for pumped hydro, but[1] puts forward the idea of synthetic natural gas generated by solar panels. That can be pumped into existing national gas grids, existing gas storage, and sent into existing gas power stations to generate power in quiet times. The article says that solar power has dropped from $100/Watt in 1976…

Sure, if it pans out. I'm all for syngas if it can be produced somewhat efficiently at scale. But right now lithium batteries and hydro are proven technologies that can be utilized. That's the difference.

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

#390

Post by Gare »

zo1 wrote: post #386
internetter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to make clear that I am not arguing against solar. My belief is that nuclear is an important piece of a much larger puzzle. Wind is not reliable, and for solar to match the figures you provided, we would need to figure out storage, so lets diversify our portfolio :)

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to get of the opinion that this entire call or worry about "storage" when it comes to solar is a giant distraction. This first thing we need to do is align the costs and incentives. What I mean by that is simply allow the market, or government, to dictate the real cost of providing electricity at night. If there are no solar panels (nighttime), and whatever grid-scale…

Well, for one I (and I presume many other people) would not vote for a platform with such an extremist position.
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