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How to get new nuclear built faster

samdumitriu.com

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Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#41

Post by KptMarchewa »

iknowstuff wrote: post #32
realusername wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you don’t need to store 12h of solar. No you don't need 12h of storage but 3 to 4 months to sustain the attrocious winter production where the highest load actually is. And this is why the battery packs are uneconomical to smooth out renewables, it doesn't even get you 1% of the way with 5B.

Thankfully you can built 4GW of renewables for the price of 1GW of nuclear lol. Don’t need to store the energy, just build more generation capacity to offset lower winter production. Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too.

Cool, but you still get below 5% capacity factor on solar in Poland during the day, and guess what? There's night 16 hours a day.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#42

Post by KptMarchewa »

realusername wrote: post #38
iknowstuff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully you can built 4GW of renewables for the price of 1GW of nuclear lol. Don’t need to store the energy, just build more generation capacity to offset lower winter production. Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too.

"Just build more" would work better if the production wasn't so unbalanced. 70% of the production is done during 6 months and it's 3% in December and January. Being mere 4 times cheaper than nuclear (in the short term) isn't nearly enough to counterbalance that. If it would be 20 times cheaper it would start to make more sense for a winter load. > Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too. Wind…

Wind is better if you actually build offshore, which for some reason is very underinvested. We should have 100s of GWs in offshore power in Europe now. The fact that UK does not have even 100GW is a shame.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#43

Post by nocoiner »

marssaxman wrote: post #17
nocoiner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that really struck me recently was an article about the commencement of a massive solar and transmission project in the American Southwest. Total cost for the panels and the transmission lines to deliver the power was something like $11 billion for (I think) around 3 GW of nameplate capacity. Assuming you could site a new nuclear plant somewhat closer to an interconnection point, it seems to me like even mo…

> even if nuclear is twice as expensive than renewables plus transmission, that’s a reasonable price to pay for the base load generation capabilities and diversification of the overall energy mix. Who is going around investing in the overall energy mix, though? People with $10 billion to invest aren't thinking "how can I optimize the grid", they're thinking "how can I get the best return on my capital"; renewables of…

The costs of a reliable grid and sufficiently dispatchable electricity are gonna get paid one way or another if the grid customers expect that level of service.

There are lots of ways those costs can be allocated - from user fees in deregulated markets or from ratepayers in vertically integrated systems, and probably a million permutations in between - but those costs are there and someone’s gonna pay them.

A long-life highly available nuke plant at 3x the cost of nameplate renewable production doesn’t seem like much more than an immaterial cost difference at the end of the day.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#44

Post by credit_guy »

ok_dad wrote: post #3

I love all the nuclear articles here, it’s great to see the scary nuke plants become more mainstream. However, wake me up when they’re financially viable. I don’t expect that’ll be until we’re really in dire straits with the climate.

China has a nuclear reactor design that they like a lot, Hualong One [1]. So much so that they already built 3 in China, 2 in Pakistan, have 11 under construction, and just approved (one month ago) 4 more. The domestic building costs are not that easy to obtain, because it's China. But the export version is more transparent, for the simple reason that they charged Pakistan for it. The 2 reactors they built for them cost $9.5 BN (together), and they deliver 2.1 GW of electricity, with a capacity factor above 95% [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Nuclear_Power_Complex

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#45

Post by realusername »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #42
realusername wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just build more" would work better if the production wasn't so unbalanced. 70% of the production is done during 6 months and it's 3% in December and January. Being mere 4 times cheaper than nuclear (in the short term) isn't nearly enough to counterbalance that. If it would be 20 times cheaper it would start to make more sense for a winter load. > Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too. Wind…

Wind is better if you actually build offshore, which for some reason is very underinvested. We should have 100s of GWs in offshore power in Europe now. The fact that UK does not have even 100GW is a shame.

Yes, although as I understand it depends a lot of the sea bed and it's much harder in southern Europe compared to northern coasts.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#46

Post by preisschild »

iknowstuff wrote: post #32
realusername wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you don’t need to store 12h of solar. No you don't need 12h of storage but 3 to 4 months to sustain the attrocious winter production where the highest load actually is. And this is why the battery packs are uneconomical to smooth out renewables, it doesn't even get you 1% of the way with 5B.

Thankfully you can built 4GW of renewables for the price of 1GW of nuclear lol. Don’t need to store the energy, just build more generation capacity to offset lower winter production. Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too.

4GW of renewables are only available 20% of the time at most, while nuclear power plants are available more than 90% of the time.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#47

Post by KptMarchewa »

_w1tm wrote: post #37
Maxion wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you are, up here in Finland we have no solar in the winter when our power consumption peaks. Wind is unreliable and can be too low for over a week.

And every time some minor issue puts our biggest reactor offline the price of electricity spikes. Large nuclear reactors are huge single points of failure.

That's why you need to have more of them.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#48

Post by iknowstuff »

preisschild wrote: post #46
iknowstuff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully you can built 4GW of renewables for the price of 1GW of nuclear lol. Don’t need to store the energy, just build more generation capacity to offset lower winter production. Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too.

4GW of renewables are only available 20% of the time at most, while nuclear power plants are available more than 90% of the time.

I mean even taking the numbers pulled our of your ass, 4*0.2=0.8, vs nuclear 0.9, renewables are still worth it given their long term advantages

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#49

Post by iknowstuff »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #41
iknowstuff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully you can built 4GW of renewables for the price of 1GW of nuclear lol. Don’t need to store the energy, just build more generation capacity to offset lower winter production. Still cheaper, and getting cheaper. Don’t ignore wind power too.

Cool, but you still get below 5% capacity factor on solar in Poland during the day, and guess what? There's night 16 hours a day.

To calculate the energy produced by a 1 GW solar power plant during a winter month in Germany, we need to consider a few factors:

1. *Solar Insolation*: The average solar energy received per day in winter. 2. *Day Length*: Winter days are shorter, so there's less daylight for solar panels to operate. 3. *Panel Efficiency*: The efficiency of the solar panels in converting sunlight to electricity. 4. *Weather Conditions*: Overcast days are common in winter, which can reduce solar panel output.

Let's make some assumptions for a rough estimate:

- *Solar Insolation*: In Germany, the winter solar insolation is roughly 1.5 kWh/m²/day. - *Day Length*: We'll assume an average of 8 hours of effective daylight in winter. - *Panel Efficiency*: Modern solar panels are about 15-20% efficient. Let's use 18%. - *Weather Conditions*: We'll assume that overcast conditions reduce effective insolation by 25%.

Now, let's calculate:

1. The daily energy output (in kWh) = 1 GW * 8 hours * 18% efficiency * 75% weather factor. 2. Multiply this by the number of days in a month (30 days for simplicity).

A 1 GW solar power plant in Germany could produce approximately 32.4 million kWh (or 32.4 GWh) of energy during a typical 30-day winter month, considering the factors and assumptions outlined earlier.

Hit me up in 2040 when Poland’s first nuclear power plant finally opens a decade behind schedule snd costing the usual ~10x of the estimate.

Re: How to get new nuclear built faster

#50

Post by simne »

Unilateral recognition on Tech is totally different beast from Pharma.

This is because different nature of issues.

In Pharma, main issue testing, which is basically very human-intensive task, at the moment machines are not involved. And mostly talking on drugs, we trying hard to achieve "invisible" drugs, which have extremely narrow appearance (as in space as in time), so ideally, drug make it's action extremely short time, after which no effects appear.

So, ideal drug, does not have any side effects at all.

In Tech, difference, it almost whole side effects.

1. Building starts with choose good place - using lot of sources to gather info, and sources see this and react.

2. Continued with negotiations, with interested parties (persons and entities), and on so large and sophisticated project, need to make some parties allies.

3. Building itself, involve lot of parties. Some parties making profits, other demand compensations.

4. All buildings have limited productive lifetime, after which appear decommission and in ideal case, annihilation of building and return land to some "first use" state, now most people consider wild nature state.

Imagine world, where you must negotiate with ALL people on your street usage of anti-flu drugs, including all possible side effects and all following effects, like attending of gym, etc :)

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