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Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

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Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#101

Post by fbdab103 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #67

> Nuclear. Start-up of the fourth reactor (1.1 GW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant I checked the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... > Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing wor…

What specifically is so expensive about the reactors? Having played the simulator[0] and now being an expert in running a nuclear power plant, the idea is "simple". Seemingly not much more complex than any other steam/heat power plant, so how do the costs run so high? Are the tolerances on everything turned to 11 to minimize chance of errors? Triple-checking all work?

As a point of comparison, the Large Hadron collider had a $9 billion budget, and that required a 27 kilometer circle to be dug.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38515435

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#102

Post by hef19898 »

rudolph9 wrote: post #31
Animats wrote: post #13

"The Gemini solar facility in Nevada plans to begin operating in 2024. With a planned photovoltaic capacity of 690 megawatts (MW) and battery storage of 380 MW, it is expected to be the largest solar project in the United States when fully operational." That's about 60% of the capacity of one unit at Vogtle nuclear power station, and Vogtle has four units. Also, adding the solar capacity to the battery capacity to ge…

It seems like this thread has sparked a lot nuclear vs solar debate, but both have the potential to be net zero energy sources and most fault tolerant grids are powered by a multitude of sources. We should be aggressively building solar, wind, battery, and nuclear along with anything else that can reasonably be part of a net zero supply chain that produces electricity in the not too distant. They all have different t…

We are building solar and wind aggressively. The problem with nuclear power is, nobody manages to build it aggressively or even at enough scale to make a meaningfull impact.

What we should do, is keeping existing nuclear plants running as long as economically and safely possible. Emphasis on economically and safely, because those two points meant that the German reactors did run as long as possible, they even got an extension granted from a Green minister.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#103

Post by adrianN »

littlestymaar wrote: post #99
hinkley wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much solar/wind/battery capacity can 34B USD buy!? According to How Big Things Get Done, at least 30B worth. Nuclear plants have some of the worst cost and time overruns for large projects, wind and solar some of the lowest (beaten only by roads). And his theory as to why this happens, is that wind, solar, and roads are self-similar. Building the first 10% directly informs you on how to build the next 10%. Ever…

> And how many nuclear reactors does one worker build in their lifetime? 2? 4? That's not a lot of opportunity for process improvement. France built 58 over 20 years, that's how you make it economical. India says they want to do one a year IIRC, which is probably good enough too.

French nuclear power is still not particularly economical and they didn’t build as many plants as originally planned because of it, nor do they plan to build a sufficient number of new plants to sustain current capacity over the next decades. France justifies the expense with their nuclear bomb program that benefits from a strong civilian nuclear industry.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#104

Post by Maakuth »

hef19898 wrote: post #89
Maakuth wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course those capacity factors hide one important bit, the dispatchability. While the capacity factor is the same in this list for wind and hydro, the wind and solar generation are naturally capped by nature. When demand exceeds the natural availability of these, you need to dispatch some extra generation. Hydro and natural gas are well suited for this, coal can do it even if dirtily. Nuclear generation could be ma…

Take a close look at the title again, second word after "solar", you have to pass by "and" to get there.

I guess I earned the snark for not mentioning the batteries.

Weirdly the news item doesn't tell what sort of energy storage capacity these battery installation have, only the peak power output of 14.3 GW for this year's addition. While that is certainly a gigantic addition no matter what the energy capacity of these battery installations is going to be, running the whole grid on batteries over the periods of low renewable generation is going to require still orders of magnitude more batteries. I suppose there's enough lithium in the ground for this, but elastic demand and dispatchable generation are probably going to be part of the equation for economical reasons.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#105

Post by Retric »

throwaway87651 wrote: post #83
Retric wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US nuclear averages below 0.9, individual plants can break 0.93 for a single year, but long term maintenance and refueling cycles lower the average. Ex: 95.73% (2017) 80.25% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Valley_Nuclear_Power_St... 94.43% (2017) 75.20% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_Nuclear_Generating_S... 96.04% (2017) 78.07% (lifetime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browns_Ferry_…

Nuclear had much lower capacity factors in the past, which brings the lifetime capacity factor down. But the relevant point is that the capacity factor of nuclear plants running today is >90%

US Nuclear had a capacity factor of 86.1% as recently as 2012, it just varies through time and over a 40+ year lifetime you don’t have outstanding results every single year. So sure you can argue 71.1% in 1997 no longer applies, but it was almost exactly the same fleet of reactors in use back then.

Yet the person I was replying to said “about 93%” when averaging over 93% has been achieved exactly once in 2019. That kind of nonsense is actively harmful when people hear something and then later realize it’s simply incorrect.

Effective advocacy requires accuracy including technology specific issues and how to mitigate them.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#106

Post by fbdab103 »

hackermatic wrote: post #63

I'm surprised that wind is such a small part of the US's projected future energy mix. Does anyone know why? Wind power works overnight, it leaves a lot more usable land than solar does, and there's a lot more capacity to be exploited. It's strange even considering the political backlash against wind power in some areas.

My knee jerk thought is that you have to work significantly harder to secure land for windmills. They have to be distributed such that you require huge tracts of land and/or to secure rights to install a tower on someone else's property. Each of those towers then need additional transmission lines.

While solar might generate less energy per unit area, it is at least condensed so that you could get away with buying a plot and fully exploit the area. You can add additional (unconnected) plots as cheap land becomes available.

I could also see the advantage that solar has quite limited opex after installation. A fleet of windmills may require significantly more resources to keep operating after years of service.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#107

Post by TomK32 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #99
hinkley wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much solar/wind/battery capacity can 34B USD buy!? According to How Big Things Get Done, at least 30B worth. Nuclear plants have some of the worst cost and time overruns for large projects, wind and solar some of the lowest (beaten only by roads). And his theory as to why this happens, is that wind, solar, and roads are self-similar. Building the first 10% directly informs you on how to build the next 10%. Ever…

> And how many nuclear reactors does one worker build in their lifetime? 2? 4? That's not a lot of opportunity for process improvement. France built 58 over 20 years, that's how you make it economical. India says they want to do one a year IIRC, which is probably good enough too.

Wikipedia writes: "As of early September 2022, 32 of France's 56 nuclear reactors were shut down due to maintenance or technical problems" and "In 2022, Europe's driest summer in 500 years had serious consequences for power plant cooling systems, as the drought reduced the amount of river water available for cooling."

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#108

Post by foota »

hef19898 wrote: post #100
foota wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With such a small difference, the burden of proof in this case is probably on the person arguing that it is a big difference, since you'd generally expect a roughly linear relationship between these. In fact, I think I'd suspect that downtime is less relevant for nuclear, since I believe most of it will be schedulable, as opposed to renewables where downtime is random and based on conditions. Since it's schedulable,…

You actually have no idea about electricity transmission. For long term problems, look no further than France. Short term, look up how electricity generation, transmission, markets and grid stability are linked. Wikipedia is a good start. Followed by studies about 100% renewable grids, those explain why baseload is much less of an issue than people think. And too much inflexible capacity, aka baseload, can actually b…

While I'm not a practicing economist, I have a bachelor's degree in economics and took multiple classes on the economics of electricity markets.

While all of those are certainly relevant if you're comparing nuclear and other sources of power, I fail to see how that's relevant to the question of whether there's a significant difference between 80 and 95% capacity factor over a year.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#109

Post by looofooo0 »

TomK32 wrote: post #107
littlestymaar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And how many nuclear reactors does one worker build in their lifetime? 2? 4? That's not a lot of opportunity for process improvement. France built 58 over 20 years, that's how you make it economical. India says they want to do one a year IIRC, which is probably good enough too.

Wikipedia writes: "As of early September 2022, 32 of France's 56 nuclear reactors were shut down due to maintenance or technical problems" and "In 2022, Europe's driest summer in 500 years had serious consequences for power plant cooling systems, as the drought reduced the amount of river water available for cooling."

What has this to do with building? Summer gets you cheap PV battery electric energy anyhow. Lack of cooling towers etc. gives you trouble....

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#110

Post by hef19898 »

foota wrote: post #108
hef19898 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually have no idea about electricity transmission. For long term problems, look no further than France. Short term, look up how electricity generation, transmission, markets and grid stability are linked. Wikipedia is a good start. Followed by studies about 100% renewable grids, those explain why baseload is much less of an issue than people think. And too much inflexible capacity, aka baseload, can actually b…

While I'm not a practicing economist, I have a bachelor's degree in economics and took multiple classes on the economics of electricity markets. While all of those are certainly relevant if you're comparing nuclear and other sources of power, I fail to see how that's relevant to the question of whether there's a significant difference between 80 and 95% capacity factor over a year.

Now imagine you are working in controlling at a power plant operator, and your yearly generated output is 5% lower that whatever plan has before. What do you think would happen?

- investors, management and board saying "no biggy, 5% is not relevant"

- something else

Companies are doing restructuring and mass lay-offs to save less than 5% on bottom line costs, they are incredibly happy when the top line grows by 5% and worried, if not in crisis mode, if the top line declines by 5%. And for the financing part of a new power plant, those 5% are the difference between the investment being a good or a bad one...

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