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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

#631

Post by pas »

_ph_ wrote: post #600
pas wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

On nuclear construction cost increases, from Crowley and Griffith 1982, “US construction cost rise threatens nuclear option” (via @whatisnuclear):

""" Ironically, some of the decisions that have been made in the name of improving safety margins for low probability events, may have reduced the safety margins for high probability events. The UE&C piping study uncovered numerous areas where the tolerances requested in the piping design documents might be appropriate for a machine shop oriented manufacturing operation, but are totally unrealistic for field construction. """

via https://rootsofprogress.org/links-digest-2023-12-15

The whole quote is worth reading/skimming.

More importantly this zero risk approach has to be considered relative to all the other risks arising from building other types of power plants.

https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

(and of course a bit more on the problems with the process at the NRC https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/waiting-on-the-nuclear-regu... )

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

#632

Post by adrianN »

willis936 wrote: post #271
bumby wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more layers of abstraction needlessly added I think you're betraying your bias here with the added term "needlessly". There is some (maybe even most) bureaucracy that is inefficiently applied, for sure. But it is meant to address some risk. Maybe it's a risk that you (personally) don't care about, or aren't even cognizant of, and that's when it becomes easy to declare it "needless." We should be looking to streamli…

You're betraying your bias by insinuating I suggested throwing out risk mitigation. I advocated for streamlined risk mitigation by highlighting the risk of unnecessary complexity.

Now you only need to get expert consensus on which parts of the complexity are unnecessary.

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

#633

Post by mpweiher »

danhor wrote: post #624
mpweiher wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is one of the 22 signatories of the COP28 pledge to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. With the failure of Germany's Energiewende, countries have drastically re-evaluated their nuclear stances. France just did an about-face and cancelled their plans to drastically reduce nuclear capacity or even get out of nuclear entirely. Instead they are now investing into a nuclear renaissance. Poland is getting into nuclear…

Pretty much all relevant ceuntries also pleged to triple renewable capacity in 8 years, which seems mostly doable, while with the typical (western) construction timelines for nuclear they would have to pretty much start tendering the new plants now, while currently mostly only vague promises exist. China, which the country building the most nuclear right now, is falling behind its own plans and downscaling its nuclea…

I've heard rumors that you can do both at the same time.

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

#634

Post by defrost »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #618
defrost wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a slew of studies mentioned in your link, not all aligned with some "official" policy of suppression - and they amount in total to tentative evidence of maybe something. Statistically it's inconclusive whether slight increases in some zones from a bit below average to a bit above average cancer rates is linked to TMI or to stress and|or increased screening. What is certain, beyond a doubt, is that within the…

Are you suggesting that a death due to an explosion at a plant owned by "PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel" counts against batteries, because some of them use nickel, but not nuclear plants, which pretty much require nickel-containing stainless steel for its anti-corrosion properties?

No.

I'm stating that to date all mining and processing of resources involves deaths, multilations, long term disease, etc.

I'm asserting that to date the cumulative deaths from the nuclear power industry do not yet equal the deaths from a single Bhopal disaster (pesticide processing, half a million people exposed, many dead).

I'm putting forward as a simple fact that as wind, solar, batteries, etc continue to scale up from the small sliver of total global energy they currently are to ideally matching the current percentage of coal there will need to be a substantial increase in the tonnages of nickel, copper, lithium, and more that are mined, concentrated, processed and extracted and that comes with substantial increases in the wastes associated with these industries and the known risks to human life.

I would suggest that anybody making a human risk argument on any single portion of the energy industry look broadly at the risks across the board.

It's perfectly fine to chest beat about safety, I'm for it.

It's callously indifferent to only give a damn about a few deaths in a sector not approved while ignoring those in sectors liked.

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

#635

Post by [deleted] »

_ph_ wrote: post #568
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before the carbon industry start the smear campaign against nuclear. The environmental Greens had a lot to do with the smear. Even recently, they were the ones who pushed for the shutdown of German nuclear power which ended up increasing German CO2 output.

No need for pushing as the coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP had decided to shut down the reactors in Germany and had set the date.

[deleted]

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

#636

Post by adrianN »

mpweiher wrote: post #332
danans wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that there are many cheaper viable alternatives to the firm power that nuclear provides, including renewables+batteries ($60/MWh and dropping) and enhanced geothermal ($80/MWh and dropping). Heck, even natural gas combined-cycle + carbon capture/storage is cheaper on an LCOE basis (~$60/MWh) than nuclear ($180/MWh and rising) [1]. It would be great if nuclear could be cost competitive for equivalent…

Oh good grief, not that Lazard "study" again. They took the cost to build Vogtle, which is one of the most or even the most expensive outlier in terms of time/cost overruns of all time, and decided to make that the baseline for "the cost of nuclear power". When the average time to build a nuclear reactor in the world has consistently been around 7.5 years. For the last 50 years, and also for the ones that came online…

Which new nuclear would you suggest instead? Hinkley C will cost about $160/MWh, right in the range given by Lazard.

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

#637

Post by dmd »

doubleg72 wrote: post #482
dmd wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be stunned if it took 47 days.

But only lasts half that..

??? I think you’re thinking of US roads, which are generally shoddily constructed and poorly maintained compared to chinese ones.

No, what you meant to say was “and only 47 people died constructing it!”

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

#638

Post by xorcist »

Manuel_D wrote: post #344
xorcist wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ammonia?

Ammonia also requires hydrogen as an input. Ammonia is essentially a storage mechanism for hydrogen, eliminating the need for cryogenic or compressed storage. Basically, you need to find a carbon-neutral alternative to the Haber process [1] to produce ammonia as fuel. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

In the context of hydrogen storage, was it not obvious what "ammonia" refers to?

We do not need an alternative to the Haber process, the idea is to use electrolysis to produce hydrogen from sea water. There is room for improvement in the process but the technology is old and well understood.

There are other ways to store hydrogen, and it's far from certain ammonia will win out in the marketplace, but there are no serious alternatives to hydrogen as an energy carrier in the long term for this application. Everything else is just impractical and even more expensive.

Just like flight fuel, it has seen little change because it is quite heavily subsidized in its current form. The day we collectively stop and start taxing it like other fuels, the market will change overnight.

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

#639

Post by mpweiher »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #457
mpweiher wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is one of the 22 signatories of the COP28 pledge to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. With the failure of Germany's Energiewende, countries have drastically re-evaluated their nuclear stances. France just did an about-face and cancelled their plans to drastically reduce nuclear capacity or even get out of nuclear entirely. Instead they are now investing into a nuclear renaissance. Poland is getting into nuclear…

It’s hard to see how these non-binding pledges mean anything. France, in particular, already generates ~75% of their electricity with nuclear. They’re really going to triple that and generate 225% of their current generation? The US is going to go from a small handful of planned reactors to hundreds? Where is the money for this coming from?

Most of these countries are implementing policies.

France had a law to slowly phase out nuclear and switch to renewables. They've rescinded that law and instead passed legislation to build more nuclear plants, and make building those plants easier, putting into action Macron's call for a "nuclear renaissance". Also extending the life of existing plants.

Japan, site of the second worst nuclear accident, had all, then most of its reactors shuttered (after political pressure). They are now reactivating more and more of them, have rescinded the policy to get out of nuclear and instead are planning to build more plants.

Poland is getting into nuclear power in big way. They currently don't have any and have just approved building 24 small reactors at six sites. I think they're also in talks with the US's Westinghouse to build more.

Ukraine, site of the worst accident in history, continues to operate its plants, and is talking with Rolls-Royce to convert some of their coal plants to nuclear. Rolls-Royce wants to build these reactors in a factory (economies of scale!) and ship them to sites. There are a lot of coal power plants that either already are decommissioned or soon will be. So quite the market for mass-produced reactors.

The US just approved the first new kind of nuclear reactor in 50 years, a molten fluoride salt-cooled reactor. China just gave an operation license for their first molten salt reactor (completed ahead of time), and their pebble bed reactor started delivering electricity to the grid this year.

etc.

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

#640

Post by chaseha »

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…

Well said sir
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