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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

#581

Post by geysersam »

huytersd wrote: post #552
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

Meanwhile India is building 8 reactors right now with 10 more planned over the next decade. China is actively building 23 right now.

That's incredibly impressive. Since it takes approximately 6 years to build a reactor in China that amounts to about 4 reactors per year.

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

#582

Post by cinntaile »

radicalbyte wrote: post #578
_ph_ wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only sensible reaction to such an incident to check your designs for faults and review all reactors under construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to continue with the construction and which changes would be required.

Coal cause more cancer and pumps a huge amount of radioactive material into the sky but I've not seen anyone closing coal power stations to stop that. The fear of nuclear power is just one of those irrational fears..

The long term plan is to shut down all coal plants. In the US alone coal usage has more than halved since 2008.

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

#583

Post by _ph_ »

mpweiher wrote: post #554
angiosperm wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, evidently I missed the news that after 20 years of Energiewende, Germany has the 2nd most expensive AND the 2nd dirtiest electricity in Europe and that the old plan of "we'll use wind and solar when the wind blows and the sun shines, and when they do not " really worked out perfectly, particularly when the miracle turned out to be "Russian gas" and exploded in our face, causing us to have to buy up essentially…

I am from Germany, and I am just replying for the record: You are just repeating right wing propaganda, which tries to paint black pictures about a policy they helped implementing. But the truth is, the current government was able to avoid a gas shortage after Russia had cut off deliveries to Germany and that was the only possible problematic point in the winter of 22. By now we have enough capacity to import LNG to avoid shortages while the Energiewende has take up speed again. It hasn't failed at all, but the previous government had tried the best to make it fail. But coal usage in Germany has still been on a historic low in 23.

Oh, and the grid in France managed to keep up only because Germany was propping it up as too many old nuclear reactors had to be taken off grid. Which caused a small uptake in German coal production. But in 23 the downward trend continued.

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

#584

Post by defrost »

DeathArrow wrote: post #580
zo1 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. Why shouldn't I be able to have oodles of energy at the flick of a switch? Why is it bad that people had more than 100 years of using energy at a reasonable price point? Why do you think it's good for the energy to become more expensive or not to be available at all…

As you're asking, the bulk of the world's population survives with a much lower energy per capita usage than, say, a median US citizen.

For the high energy consumers it's more a perceived need than an actual need.

Further, energy availability appears to work akin to road availability; if you build a six lane highway traffic expands to fill it.

The obvious reason for wanting lower global energy use at this particular point in time is reduce the still increasing by products of energy production, greenhouse gases.

Once the climate parameters return to safer values energy production without those side effects can expand .. while we look at addressing the unwanted toxic by products of our new sources of energy - less greenhouse gases, more acids and waste associated with nickel, copper, lithium, et al.

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

#585

Post by _ph_ »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #529
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

But if you still need to support the complete gas, hydro.... infrastructure for those few months when wind/solar/battery is not enough, how cheap are those renewables then really?

Gas plants have their main cost in running them. So if they only fill the gaps, their cost is reduced too. But yes, they are not to be considered "profitable" but rather as part of the infrastructure like powerlines. But as solar and wind costs only a fraction of gas when running, this is a good trade off.

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

#586

Post by pas »

_ph_ wrote: post #558
Fatnino wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only sensible reaction to such an incident to check your designs for faults and review all reactors under construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to continue with the construction and which changes would be required.

In effect they did through overzealous safety requirements (which made it more expensive compared to other forms of electricity generation)

this regulatory inconsistency is mostly irrational, because it's clear through other policies that society values safety much less in other policies (eg. driving, all the emissions from other sources, gun safety, etc)

of course regulations are not perfect mirrors of society's preferences, but it's close enough. (and of course society doesn't "has to be" consistent, but I would say a pretty vocal minority, perhaps even the majority wishes it to be so)

.

.

that said, yes, if the world would order 1000+ nuclear power plants, all standardized, then we could have it cheaper, because then it would make sense to invest in automation, and maybe modular small reactors can already get enough traction. but since we are not ordering that many and even AP1000 is just a brand not really a standard, there's practically no economies of scale

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

#587

Post by _ph_ »

klipklop wrote: post #63

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…

Solar+battery isn't sufficient in all places indeed. But those places are usually great for wind. With solar+battery+wind+other renewables+grid, the solution becomes rather easy. Toss in some gas until the battery capacities have grown enough. But nuclear is the worst thing to put into this mix due to its nature.

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

#588

Post by phatfish »

adastra22 wrote: post #499
jeromegv wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an extremely poor example. It’s a multi phase project and for many years government didn’t provide any funding as it was not a priority. It’s not like they were actively trying to build it for 47 years, they built multiple small parts of it through multiple phases but they were never trying to build the whole thing. It was just not anything important to complete.

The criticism still stands. It should not take 47 years from recognition that a road is needed to actually building it.

The irony of software engineers complaining about a project not being feature complete and on time.

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

#589

Post by philwelch »

_ph_ wrote: post #558
Fatnino wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one banned nuclear. But of course it is the only sensible reaction to such an incident to check your designs for faults and review all reactors under construction. And then decide whether it is prudent to continue with the construction and which changes would be required.

> No one banned nuclear.

Sometimes, when your employer wants to fire you but doesn’t want you to be able to file for unemployment or accuse them of firing you for some legally impermissible reason, they just make it so miserable to keep working there that you end up quitting. There is a legal term for this: “constructive dismissal”. I hope the implied analogy is obvious.

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

#590

Post by _ph_ »

saltminer wrote: post #443
alex_young wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One benefit of building excess capacity of renewables - free electricity to power your automobile. If we actually priced excess energy smartly people would charge their cars in the daytime and spend ~ 0 to drive most of the year.

Electricity demand isn't that simple, it's not like Sheetz dropping the price of gas to $1.776/gallon on the 4th of July and having to bag the pumps within the hour [0]. Electricity is quite interesting as a market because it's truly the logical endpoint of just-in-time manufacturing: the time between generation and consumption is measured not on the order of months, weeks, days, or even hours, but in milliseconds .…

With electric cars, demand is that simple. They can be hooked up to the grid and charge whenever the prices drop down to zero. This is already done. And then it is an individual decisions to either just use the charge to drive or even put part of it back into the grid or for you own home usage, when the grid prices are high. And more and more houses start to have battery storage.
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