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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#11

Post by rjsw »

pstuart wrote: post #6
epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

I'm pro renewables but Asimov made an impact on how nuclear is the power of the future and it would be nice to have it in our portfolio. The only likelihood of nuclear power succeeding would be to containerize the reactors to ensure build quality, keep costs down, and to address scaling. A quick search hit this company that appears to be promoting this very thing: http://www.holosgen.com/

Rolls-Royce is working on small modular reactors.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#12

Post by epistasis »

nabla9 wrote: post #9
LanguageGamer wrote: post #4

Somewhat tangential, but wikipedia has good article on the cost of different energy sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source The cost of nuclear energy has been flat for decades, but the cost of sources like solar has been plummeting. Nuclear doesn't have much of change without some technological break through.

Nuclear and renewables are not 1:1 match or comparison. Nuclear provides steady source of electricity 24/7. If you want same from renewable, you must add the cost of energy storage and the cost of overcapacity.

Same for nuclear though, a steady source of power is not a good fit for our energy use. You have to start building thermal or battery storage, or do specialized more-expensive designs that can operate at variable power, or get customers to shift their load.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#13

Post by throwaway0a5e »

epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

And the root of this is essentially politics keeping competent people from getting interested in nuclear.

We can't do nuclear properly because society tells all the smart engineers and financiers that they should be doing other things.

A lot of "boring things" suffer from this problem.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#14

Post by Gravityloss »

pstuart wrote: post #6
epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

I'm pro renewables but Asimov made an impact on how nuclear is the power of the future and it would be nice to have it in our portfolio. The only likelihood of nuclear power succeeding would be to containerize the reactors to ensure build quality, keep costs down, and to address scaling. A quick search hit this company that appears to be promoting this very thing: http://www.holosgen.com/

There's a large amount of companies working on small modular reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#15

Post by CydeWeys »

epistasis wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro renewables but Asimov made an impact on how nuclear is the power of the future and it would be nice to have it in our portfolio. The only likelihood of nuclear power succeeding would be to containerize the reactors to ensure build quality, keep costs down, and to address scaling. A quick search hit this company that appears to be promoting this very thing: http://www.holosgen.com/

I think you are right, that the power of science fiction has clouded people's judgement of what the future will really be like. Today, I don't think we can consider nuclear a good or modern energy system when compared to something like solar or wind. Nuclear is used as a heat source to boil water and power a turbine, and throws away half of its thermal energy as waste. disposing of that waste heat is becoming so diff…

Good point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw with Fukushima, and all of that hot water being released wreaks havoc with riparian/marine ecosystems. Nuclear has downsides beyond the most obvious one, that of the risk of fallout.

> I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power.

Heh, it's even worse off-planet. If you think dumping the waste heat is hard when you have access to an atmosphere/large bodies of water, wait until you try it when you don't!! ;)

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#16

Post by epistasis »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #13
epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

And the root of this is essentially politics keeping competent people from getting interested in nuclear. We can't do nuclear properly because society tells all the smart engineers and financiers that they should be doing other things. A lot of "boring things" suffer from this problem.

I don't think that's true. We had the same construction problems in the 70s when we wouldn't have had such a shortage. There are tons of super smart people working on nuclear startups right now, with big funding.

It's all bad management, bad execution, and bad promises. And since few of any around the world have been able to keep construction promises recently, it may just be part of the natural variability of the construction process. And 2-3x variability is not a desirable trait for $10B projects, where most of the lifetime cost is in the upfront construction.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#17

Post by api »

CydeWeys wrote: post #5
epistasis wrote: post #3

This article is more than three years old, but the story hasn't changed much. VC Summer was abandoned, leaving utility customers with massive bills. Vogtle soldiers on, but seems to be unlikely to finish. Nucleae's problems are not the politics, the problem is that basic competency in design and construction logistics have been lost. Plans get delivered to construction that are "unconstructable," but construction sol…

Yup. For all the people boosting nuclear power, the reality on the ground seems to be that it just does not work anymore. It's way too expensive and never gets done, and this problem is global, not just in the US; see e.g. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... At some point the results have to speak for themselves, and solar/wind plus battery storage is actually working and being built. That…

Nuclear is superior in some ways, but battery and renewable is small, can be incrementally built, simple, safe, and is experiencing exponential cost reductions due to mass production scaling.

It reminds me of TSMC leapfrogging Intel because of mobile volume or PCs vs custom Unix workstations.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#18

Post by xenspidey »

epistasis wrote: post #12
nabla9 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear and renewables are not 1:1 match or comparison. Nuclear provides steady source of electricity 24/7. If you want same from renewable, you must add the cost of energy storage and the cost of overcapacity.

Same for nuclear though, a steady source of power is not a good fit for our energy use. You have to start building thermal or battery storage, or do specialized more-expensive designs that can operate at variable power, or get customers to shift their load.

Just make hydrogen during off-peak hours and get the hydrogen powered vehicles up and running.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power (2017)

#19

Post by nashalo_nighly »

epistasis wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro renewables but Asimov made an impact on how nuclear is the power of the future and it would be nice to have it in our portfolio. The only likelihood of nuclear power succeeding would be to containerize the reactors to ensure build quality, keep costs down, and to address scaling. A quick search hit this company that appears to be promoting this very thing: http://www.holosgen.com/

I think you are right, that the power of science fiction has clouded people's judgement of what the future will really be like. Today, I don't think we can consider nuclear a good or modern energy system when compared to something like solar or wind. Nuclear is used as a heat source to boil water and power a turbine, and throws away half of its thermal energy as waste. disposing of that waste heat is becoming so diff…

Solar and wind are still not good at providing a baseline load, especially in winter where the power consumption is higher. France slows down some reactors during heat waves due to environmental regulations not allowing power plants to heat the river past a certain threshold, not because disposing excess heat is inherently difficult.
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