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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

#591

Post by kragen »

doikor wrote: post #567
kragen wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

grid-scale storage becomes more profitable when your primary energy production is more intermittent. current pv is something like 10× cheaper than nuclear before you factor in intermittency, and that opens up a huge market for grid-scale storage that didn't exist in the 01970s. pumped hydro was replaced by dispatchable gas, but gas is more expensive now, and batteries are cheaper

> current pv is something like 10× cheaper than nuclear Maybe in nameplate numbers but not actual production in places like Sweden. Especially during the time the consumption is the highest (winter). The whole country is further north then the northern most point in US (excluding Alaska). But in the places most of humanity lives (including pretty much all of US) solar works quite well just not once you go far enough…

agreed, in places like sweden pv is pretty limited. even the netherlands, the uk, and germany have remarkably little sun; pv capacity factors in all three countries are around 10%

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

#592

Post by fooker »

margalabargala wrote: post #121
internetter wrote: post #55

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. 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…

> 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]…

One kg of Uranium is significantly easier to transport compared to the solar energy obtained in a corner of Arizona or Utah though.

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

#593

Post by hef19898 »

c0pium wrote: post #520
dmix wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the old man yells at sky reaction but it's just a short video... A snapshot of information which directly references with overlayed text a citation to the study he's discussing. Not much different than most HN comments which 90% of the time are only one or two sentences.

None of this is true. Highly upvoted hn comments (the ones people read) bring receipts. This is just someone’s low effort opinion. For what it’s worth, the cost to extract uranium from seawater is actually a very complicated subject. It is generally cited that the cost is approximately 2x the mining cost, but that’s based on estimates for seawater extraction. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280745206_Cost_Es…

Well, at the very least give a short summary of what you are linking to.

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

#594

Post by _ph_ »

doikor wrote: post #579
credit_guy wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power plants are currently too expensive to not be used at 100% all the time (except when you need to perform maintenance). Some nuclear power plants are designed to be able to load follow, but in practice they don't do it. Batteries will never be cheap enough to allow for seasonal storage. They are good for day-to-night storage. For seasonal fluctuations, the best you can do is natural gas. If we convert all…

> Nuclear power plants are currently too expensive to not be used at 100% all the time (except when you need to perform maintenance). France has been load following with their nuclear plants for decades. They have to as they have so much of it. The reactors in Germany also did/do the same. The reactors in Finland also started to do that too during this summer as we are having more and more wind (and a new 1600MW nucl…

France has a lot of water power which helps with balancing the grid and Germany never had more than 30% of nuclear in the mix, so basically little load following was required. Also, both countries, as most industry nations, tried hard to shape the consumption to be constant over time. Like extra cheap electricity in the night which lead to heating systems which would electrically heat up over night and dispense the heat during the day. Also, the European grid helps a lot with balancing, electricity is constantly traded and exchanged between the countries.

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

#595

Post by nicoburns »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #548
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hundreds of billions in subsidies would be required to once again, for the nth time since the 1950s prove that nuclear is truly dead outside of luxury niche applications like submarines? Today renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels which in turn are cheaper than than nuclear. Through pure economic terms the world is steaming towards a new cheaper energy equilibrium based on renewable energy. We are current…

Its pretty clear whats going to happen. Energy companies will provide the absolute minimum redundancies and will make formidable profits most years. Every 10-15 years there will be some catastrophic blackout due to unlikely weather events and everybody will scream murder. The energy companies will swear to do better and maybe some toothless regulations will be legislated. The politicians will be happy to be bought of…

In countries with private energy generation perhaps. Energy production is at least partially nationalised (or at least heavily regulated) in a lot of the world, which puts those places in a much stronger position to plan for such events.

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

#596

Post by _ph_ »

hackerlight wrote: post #201
WillPostForFood wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind is negatively correlated with solar Yes, but not strongly. It is definitely a problem, as seen in Texas on cold mornings where solar isn't getting much light, winds are still, and people need heat.

Right, and that's why it's infeasible to get 100% from renewables without storage, but we're not going for 100%, we're going for 80-90%. The objective is to address climate change, and to do that we need to minimize the area under the curve of emissions from now onwards. Renewables in my view is more effective at achieving this objective (with the added bonus of being cheaper).

While in the long term we do have to achieve net 100%, the mid-term goal which is absolutely achievable with the current state of the marked is indeed 90%. While working towards that we can start to see which technology emerges to cover the last 10%. And probably there isn't a miracle technology needed, just plain improvements in the storage sector and a good mix of several approaches.

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

#597

Post by _ph_ »

gretch wrote: post #82

I see a lot of the arguments from all sides on “the future is X, it cannot be Y!” To me, this is a false dichotomy. In my opinion energy is one of the most important pillars of society. It is so important that it must be hedged. I don’t think we can afford to put all of eggs in 1 basket, no matter how confident we are in a single basket. I support all forms of sustainable energy advancement and research. We need more…

Yes, we need a mix of technologies. But at the current state of things, nuclear shouldn't be something to invest into. Yes, existing reactors should be used for their full life time, but there is far too much speaking against building new ones.

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

#598

Post by TomK32 »

lawn wrote: post #556
erngkejr wrote: post #54

I was a nuclear engineer for eight years and I left the industry because I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Every time someone says "nuclear is the only practical solution for climate change, it's not possible to build solar or wind fast enough or cheaply enough", you can point them to this press release. All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of…

> All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry. We need a mix of low-carbon energy sources, where nuclear is an important piece (otherwise we'll have to resort to oil/gas/coal).

> > All the nuclear supporters I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry.

> All the solar and wind proponents I know deal heavily in magical thinking, completely ignoring the factual reality of the industry.

Now that we have established that both sides are into magical thinking, how about just reducing energy consumption?

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

#599

Post by Enk1du »

jansan wrote: post #555
therealdrag0 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how castles and cathedrals often were. But ofc after seeing public works built quickly and efficiently it’s a tragedy when they’re not.

One example is St. Barbara's Church in Kutná Hora (Czech Republic). Construction began in 1305, and it was finished in 1905: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Barbara%27s_Church,_Kutn%C...

That makes Gaudí's Sagrada Família look timely in comparison. Started in 1882, the final, final completion date was set back to 2040 due to the pandemic (Covid was mentioned. I imagine 1919 may have also contributed)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

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

#600

Post by _ph_ »

pas wrote: post #586
_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.

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 pre…

If you claim the safety requirements were overzealous, do you have any data to substantiate your claim?
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