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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

#461

Post by xbmcuser »

est31 wrote: post #424
apatheticonion wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how the numbers stack up of completed plants - but I am not very good at math and don't have a great understanding of electricity units, especially at the grid scale and big numbers. Any chance you could help compare the construction cost of this nuclear plant to another recently constructed solar or wind farm measured against... I guess capacity? Given the intermittent nature of solar/wind, does capacity…

> I picked a relatively large, recent, US based solar farm from the list of plants in wikipedia > Agua Caliente Solar Project (2016) Note that solar being cheaper than nuclear is a more recent phenomenon than 2016. The solar panel prices went from $0.63 to $0.26 in the time span between 2016 and 2022. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices?time=2002... A better example is Spotsylvania Solar/Highlander Sol…

This year alone prices for solar panels have dropped by 30-40%. The biggest reason for prices not dropping for solar farms/large scale solar at the moment is that the supply of other equipment needed like transformers etc can't meet the demand with delivery times having reached 2+ years. So the prices for solar will likely drop another 40%-50% in the next 2-3 years at least in the rest of the world maybe not in the US because of trade wars/restrictions.

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

#462

Post by angiosperm »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #314
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.

Batteries haven't gotten cheap; unless we get some crazy breakthrough total wind and solar power production will probably peak within the next 20 years.

We already had the crazy breakthrough, which is why solar and wind production are on an exponential growth curve.

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

#463

Post by angiosperm »

ponector wrote: post #366
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.

You can create a fuel with solar energy and use it in the ship's engine. Hydrogen or whatever will be available. But heavy oil is much cheaper and will be used forever untill gasoline/diesel cars/trucks will pass away.

Heavy oil ships are already being banned from numerous ports. That will only accelerate. Shipbuilders are gearing up to build anhydrous ammonia fueled replacements.

Anhydrous ammonia will be produced at massive scale in tropical synthesis facilities for delivery worldwide. This is why long-term storage is not considered important.

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

#464

Post by loeg »

Gare wrote: post #379
loeg wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In summer we get up to 300 hours of sunlight per month, in winter less than 50. So yes, on paper the capacity might be enough, but one needs to have the ability to store the massive amount of energy inter-seasonally. Or overbuild by a factor of 6x or whatever relative to summer loads, which is probably less expensive than long term battery storage.

There can still be periods of several weeks with very little sunlight. And energy demands will be massive if we switch all heating to heat pumps instead of natural gas which we mostly now use. What actually helps us during winter is hydro and wind power. And Krško nuclear power plant.

Yeah, that factor may be significantly higher than 6x depending on locale.

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

#465

Post by Manuel_D »

angiosperm wrote: post #459
Manuel_D wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear was much cheaper in the 1970s and early 80s: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C... This wasn't just due to regulatory influence, it was also due to economies of scale. But the two are related, more regulation results in fewer builds. Fewer builds reduces economies of scale and thus increases costs. Which results in even fewer nuclear builds, and so on.

In other words, nuke cost has only ever increased, however much was built.

On a per-MW basis nuclear power dropped in cost during the 1950s. See the small blue dots round the late 1950s and early 60s? Compare that with the cluster of red dots.

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

#466

Post by angiosperm »

akira2501 wrote: post #393
lopis wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The grid is not a network. It's a large single frequency balanced power distribution machine. It is, in and of itself, _the_ single point of failure, and there are significant tradeoffs in having lots of small capacity generators vs. small amounts of large capacity generators connected to it. There's this cry for absolutism in this thread that's just absurd, on both sides. You want a wide multiplicity of power genera…

They are competing because each dollar is spent either on solar and wind or on something else. That dollar spent on solar or wind gets you much more power than any alternative. The advantage increases every year.

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

#467

Post by angiosperm »

mpweiher wrote: post #329
gambiting wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 50GW more than anyone else though. There are some nuclear projects in US/UK but I'll eat my hat if they actually get built at all.

That's currently changing. The catastrophe of Germany's "Energiewende" has made a lot of countries re-evaluate their nuclear strategy, culminating in the COP28 nuclear pledge.

Evidently you missed the news that it turned out to be no catastrophe at all, but just a lot of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over a clearly hoped-for catastrophe.

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

#468

Post by riffic »

arcfour wrote: post #202
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

Jeez. Imagine walking into a construction site from 2 decades ago.

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

an abandoned nuclear station in Cuba

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

#469

Post by angiosperm »

Georgelemental wrote: post #282
wolverine876 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

Right, nuke costs have only ever increased. For reasons.

Solar and wind costs have only ever decreased. For reasons.

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

#470

Post by Fatnino »

Projectiboga wrote: post #368
cheschire wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Three Mile Island was a partial meltdown. It wasn't just a fender bender.

And the safety systems worked so everything was (mostly) contained and no one got hurt.

Like a car crash where the seat belts and airbags lead to no injuries.

And then all driving was banned.

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