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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

#981

Post by pfdietz »

billytetrud wrote: post #979
pfdietz wrote: post #969

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure why you think that Exelon didn't consider regulatory risk as one of the things that made it not make sense for them. It was certainly a large factor. Who cares? That putative issue would be beating a dead horse. If it didn't make sense economically anyway, why worry about that? > The idea that existing nuclear power plants are losing money because they aren't operationally competitive with oil and gas…

Sounds like you're ignoring my whole post. I guess this conversation is over then.

I'm ignoring your fantasizing, your wishful woulda-coulda-shoulda, and instead paying attention to what things actually cost. So, yes, the conversation is over.

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

#982

Post by pfdietz »

Retric wrote: post #895
tjoff wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar has had exponential growth for 40 years. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/... ( https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christ... ) How do you compare storage to that? What storage btw? Because all we have kind of suck for the grid usecase. So there is of course a ton of research for better suited batteries. But we haven't even started production on those. Are you not un…

We already have enough battery manufacturing capacity to build hours worth of grid storage over the next 5 years and more is coming online at double digit growth rates. What’s missing is the demand for grid batteries which is still relatively low. Right now California only wastes ~5% of its solar output per year but most days don’t have a surplus. That’s not enough capacity for nighttime storage to be worth it, you n…

> We already have enough battery manufacturing capacity

It's amusing going back to HN threads from a few years ago and see people arguing that batteries are ruled out because we don't have enough battery building capacity.

I'm not sure what could lead a person to believe that new factories cannot be built.

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

#983

Post by credit_guy »

pfdietz wrote: post #968
credit_guy wrote: post #965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a counterfactual, your statement is by definition opinion, not fact.

One can look at the cost of the alternatives and see I'm speaking the truth. Also, demand didn't increase as much as the (likely fraudulent) projections used to justify Vogtle 3/4. All the "nuclear renaissance" nuclear builds aside from Vogtle 3/4 were cancelled because the utilities realized the alternatives were much better economically. V. C. Summer was cancelled after dropping $9B on it. Even with that sunk cost,…

Ok, so let's talk facts.

Fact 1. People in Georgia pay about 1.7 cent per kwh less than the national average ($0.110 vs $0.127 [1])

Fact 2. People in Georgia paid about 1 cent per kwh less than the national average 20 years ago ($0.077 vs $0.087, [2])

Are you disputing these facts?

[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

[2] https://ballotpedia.org/Historical_state_electricity_prices

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

#984

Post by ETH_start »

pfdietz wrote: post #970
ETH_start wrote: post #956

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what basis do you assume it's bullshit? This is a very emotional/irrational reaction to a study.

It's in gross disagreement with figures and modeling I've seen elsewhere.

Can I see the other figures/models?

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

#985

Post by ametrau »

hef19898 wrote: post #435
apatheticonion wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, I wonder if there are numbers on running costs. I'm certain nuclear running costs would dwarf solar - I think solar just needs fresh water, cleaning and hardware maintenance (replacing inverters, and such). Would be interesting to work the running costs into the "$ per realized W" calculation. I'd also like to see how battery-backed solar compares. I assume the objective would be to solve the intermitten…

Had to dig in my comments, but there you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38303819 Self citing: Better not use biased opinion pieces, when there numbers from government sources (US, but eho cares): LCOE (total, incl. CAPEX, in USD per MWh): coal 82.6, combined cycle 39.9, advanced nuclear 81.7, geothermal 37.6, biomass 90.1, onshore wind 40, offshore wind (that one was a surprise, since offshore wind should b…

Does the solar figure include the batteries?

It is very sad that nuclear is actually cheaper than coal.

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

#986

Post by 8bitsrule »

pydry wrote: post #883
andsoitis wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the idea that renewables have to be paired with large amounts of energy storage is not correct. In Ireland dispatchable power is used when wind is low. Natural gas, hydroelectric, HVDC, pumped storage. Natural gas is neither renewable nor emission-free when burning, albeit less than burning coal, for instance. About 117 pounds of CO2 are produced per million British thermal units (MMBtu) equivalent of natur…

We cant switch overnight. It takes about 1/10 or 1/20th the amount of time and 1/5th the cost to build equivalent solar production. It's better to start with that and let pumped storage, batteries and hydrogen play catch up than pay 5x more and wait 10-20x longer for equivalent levels of nuclear power production. Right now we use so much natural gas that a GWh of solar or nuclear produced energy is essentially just a…

>Storage and demand shaping infrastructure will catch up

Storage in particular could be MUCH cheaper. (And still be centralized to conserve public-utility oversight and dangers from all those saboteurs out there somewhere.)

Battery storage is VERY expensive and hard on the environment. I continue to see little attention being paid to merely simple gravity storage.

Yes, traditional large-scale pumped hydro exists (usually using expensive turbines to pump water uphill, like the plants used in the UK for decades to get past tea-time. There are many more in the U.S.) They're usually expensive (good for getting tax-payer dollars into constructor pockets) ... time-consuming as well ... and need a hill for a reservoir and a water-source. (Of course we have -all the time in the world- right?)

But on a large scale, electricity can also be stored much more simply and economically by moving VERY heavy weights uphill ... or lifting VERY heavy weights out of a hole. Already existing and proven steel cables can lift 'barrels' containing hundreds or thousands of tons of (very cheap) rocks. Construction times and $/MW cost savings over high-tech 'solutions'? might be 10-1000 times lower.

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

#987

Post by iraqmtpizza »

pfdietz wrote: post #879
formercoder wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t we make it cheaper and easier to build nuclear plants?

The generic problem is that nuclear plants have to be big to amortize fixed costs (like personnel to operate and guard them), but if they're big they have lots of parts and more connections between parts, so to make them sufficiently reliable they need expensive careful construction. The more welds a NPP has, the more reliable each individual weld must be. In contrast, something like a solar field, while it has lots…

32 independent reactors at one site would not require 32x personnel and the welds would not have to be 32x as reliable

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

#988

Post by PickledJesus »

pfdietz wrote: post #969
billytetrud wrote: post #946

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think that Exelon didn't consider regulatory risk as one of the things that made it not make sense for them. It was certainly a large factor. The idea that existing nuclear power plants are losing money because they aren't operationally competitive with oil and gas does not square with the facts. The total cost of running a nuclear plant is 30% less than oil and gas per kilowatt-hour. And if all…

> I'm not sure why you think that Exelon didn't consider regulatory risk as one of the things that made it not make sense for them. It was certainly a large factor. Who cares? That putative issue would be beating a dead horse. If it didn't make sense economically anyway, why worry about that? > The idea that existing nuclear power plants are losing money because they aren't operationally competitive with oil and gas…

Because the regulatory environment is different in different countries, and can be changed with political will? The US is particularly expensive: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/infrastructure-costs-nuclear-e... but it doesn't have to remain that way.

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

#989

Post by acchow »

tills13 wrote: post #697
acchow wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also a Generation II reactor (like the Chernobyl and Fukushima reactors)

Is this supposed to scare people? I'm not sure I understand the point you're making.

The point is that the era of dangerous reactors is over. Everything from here on out is MUCH safer.

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

#990

Post by lmm »

pfdietz wrote: post #967
lmm wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First google result: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... . (Most renewable production is still hydro, so yes, it really is over 10x more deaths from renewables).

You explicitly said wind turbines, which your own reference shows are not "orders of magnitude" more dangerous. Thanks for destroying your own claim.

I said "Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people" and I was right. My post is right there, lol, ironic that you wanted to talk about "baldfaced lies".
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