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Energy

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Energy

#131

Post by donttrustatoms »

beat wrote: post #84
DennisP wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gigawatt-scale nuclear reactors take a long time. Ycombinator is investing in factory-produced reactors that fit in a truck. There are quite a few other companies working on small factory-produced reactors. Solar with batteries is a lot more expensive than solar alone. Solar is doing well right now with natural gas backup, but a lot of us would like to avoid fossil entirely. Solar with nuclear backup might be a great…

So how small a reactor? And what sort of cost, what sort of setup time, what sort of safety constraints (ie, current reactors are generally water-cooled and need access to large bodies of water)? It's possible to trim the cost of reactors from the billions to the millions, maybe, but how many millions? Certainly, solar with batteries is a lot more expensive - but to my point, startup cost is low. Latency, or bandwidt…

You're exactly right, and that's what we designed for with UPower. I would have written the exact same thing when we began talking about doing something in nuclear 5 years ago.

Too many reactors are designed without the market or financing in mind.

We decided on the simplest possible reactor optimized to a size useful to a market in dire need- just MW scale.

It has no pumps, no water in the reactor, and builds upon a legacy of data so that there will be minimal fuel and materials qualification, which adds up very quickly in both time and money.

Why hasn't it been done before? The key, as you bring up, is in manufacturing, simplicity, a relatively new and hugely growing microgrid market that didn't exist much before, and a business model that doesn't require the customer to buy the unit as opposed to power purchase.

Re: Energy

#132

Post by donttrustatoms »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #125
mikeyouse wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think there are huge issues with nuclear that need to be solved but nothing Sam said was controversial; Cost: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm -- on an LCOE basis, Advanced Nuclear is cheaper than everything but natural gas and that's entirely due to CapEx costs to build new plants -- which are what the modular nuclear companies that Sam's joining are working on fixing. Density: htt…

So, comparing the report in your link for cost, Solar PV capital cost is a bit more expensive than "Advanced Nuclear" capital cost. However, the ongoing maintenance costs for solar PV are less than 50% of the ongoing maintenance costs for Advanced Nuclear. In fact, the additional (over Solar PV), annual maintenance costs for Advanced Nuclear are about 17% of the entire capital costs. After just a few years, Solar PV…

That makes sense given those numbers tabulated, but the real question is cost of solar plus backup or storage. One means nothing without the other in terms of both cost and carbon.

Above I illustrated my calculations on just one hour of battery backup for US grid with lithium ion- would require 10x annual global production of lithium. Generally cost of battery backup looks like 35c/kWh and has limitations on duration so it must come back to fossils.

Solar makes a lot of sense if backup/storage/smoothing weren't needed since pv has gone down in cost. It still makes a lot of sense in many off grid applications, and for instance in my home we have solar concentrator lights and I would love to have solar water pre-heaters in the summer. But for on grid the capital requirements are much more complicated than generally illustrated, and ultimately the environmental impacts are greater than apparent at first glance.

Re: Energy

#133

Post by thesteamboat »

beat wrote: post #22
Eleutheria wrote: post #18

Distributed generation is where we should invest. Energy independence for the individual. Individual solar panels and batteries, personal windmills, personal reactors, etc. Imagine all the savings in infrastructure for energy transportation and reinvestment in other sectors. Imagine all the possibilities if people could switch their energy generation model as simple as buying a new product and installing it at home.…

Decentralization solves a lot of other problems as well - it's less vulnerable to accidental or intentional failure, it requires much less skill and expense to implement and operate, etc. Solar has the advantage that it cannot be weaponized even in nonsense theory, greatly relaxing export regulation. This makes it a viable solution for developing countries and remote areas, not just the handful of nations with the we…

> Decentralization [...] requires much less skill and expense to implement and operate, etc.

This isn't true because decentralization is easier, it's true because technologies which this isn't true of (require large capital expenditures or high degrees of expertise) can't be given to everyone and their mother.

By saying we're doing decentralized X we're moving the problem of requisite operating skill to the designers who must make their systems simple enough for laypeople. Likewise factories and engineers must find economies of scale in production of units which are distinct from the efficiencies we currently realize building relative few, much larger generators.

In short, while decentralization solves some of these problems, it also presupposes the solution of others. It may be a worthy goal, but there are challenges to get there.

Re: Energy

#134

Post by someguy488fu348 »

beat wrote: post #22
Eleutheria wrote: post #18

Distributed generation is where we should invest. Energy independence for the individual. Individual solar panels and batteries, personal windmills, personal reactors, etc. Imagine all the savings in infrastructure for energy transportation and reinvestment in other sectors. Imagine all the possibilities if people could switch their energy generation model as simple as buying a new product and installing it at home.…

Decentralization solves a lot of other problems as well - it's less vulnerable to accidental or intentional failure, it requires much less skill and expense to implement and operate, etc. Solar has the advantage that it cannot be weaponized even in nonsense theory, greatly relaxing export regulation. This makes it a viable solution for developing countries and remote areas, not just the handful of nations with the we…

Solar may have been weaponized as early as 214 BCE.

Re: Energy

#135

Post by [deleted] »

rndmind wrote: post #96
beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

Solar is indirectly fusion power.

[deleted]

Re: Energy

#136

Post by jfoutz »

beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

Rather than batteries, i think pumping water up a hill will be a lot cheaper. use the water to drive a generator. massive daily over production to fill the nightly (or much longer) reserve.

Re: Energy

#137

Post by smil »

DennisP wrote: post #109
beat wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how small a reactor? And what sort of cost, what sort of setup time, what sort of safety constraints (ie, current reactors are generally water-cooled and need access to large bodies of water)? It's possible to trim the cost of reactors from the billions to the millions, maybe, but how many millions? Certainly, solar with batteries is a lot more expensive - but to my point, startup cost is low. Latency, or bandwidt…

Startup cost for solar is not all that amazingly cheap per watt, and if you include batteries it's probably more than nuclear. UPower's design doesn't require a large body of water: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/startup-d... For setup you deliver it with a truck and bury it. Other modular nuclear designs are a bit bigger but still in the range of small natural gas plants, which are competing quit…

Wouldn't trust a Silicon Valley startup to care about our properly execute for "safety." This is a pump and dump, making a quick buck.

Re: Energy

#138

Post by gordon_freeman »

beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

The similar thing I have heard Elon Musk saying in some interview that it's just a myth that people have to think we will never able to generate enough energy out of solar-panels compared to the nuclear reactors. He said that the amount of land one needs to build a massive nuclear plant and then other things to maintain it and considering the 10-50 miles area enveloped to plant where it is dangerous to live. If you use the same amount of land to place solar-panels then the energy produced by solar will overtake that of from nuclear plants.

Re: Energy

#139

Post by taf2 »

jfoutz wrote: post #136
beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

Rather than batteries, i think pumping water up a hill will be a lot cheaper. use the water to drive a generator. massive daily over production to fill the nightly (or much longer) reserve.

I like this idea a lot the only downside is it expands the land area and possibly increases complexity - but I think for major power planets it's a great option just not for the home installations.

Re: Energy

#140

Post by flgb »

beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

I suspect they will continue to trounce fission and fusion for a long time, at least until there is some some technical innovation in transmission and distribution.

Transmission and distributed generation accounts for half the cost of electricity. The question for our electricity future is distributed versus centralized generation, and distributed will probably win.

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