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Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

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Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#101

Post by rbanffy »

leonidasrup wrote: post #81
rbanffy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear plants remain stupidly expensive and lack this feature. Combining nuclear with some secondary application that can run only at energy surplus times, such as desalination or pumped hydro, might help with the economics. Desalination and pumping desalinated seawater through long distances might actually be a nice idea to reduce desertification or to increase agricultural output.

Nuclear powered desalination was demonstrated using BN-350 reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor The question is always: costs. In the Middle East and North Africa dominating source of power for desalination is natural gas. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/energy-consum...

Cost of the energy input is less important if it uses the energy surplus the grid isn’t paying for.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#102

Post by leonidasrup »

bruce511 wrote: post #97
leonidasrup wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of your yearly electricity amount can you get from the installed solar panels? How much do you need get from electric grid, from non-solar power plants? Try to scale this to a whole country.

Currently I generate about 66% of my annual power requirements with solar alone. If I had even a small 10kw battery I'd be moving that closer to 80%. But demand for base load is irrelevant to my thesis. My point is that financially it makes no sense. So private capital aren't interested. [1] So that leaves govt. They could decide (especially in regulated markets) to ignore Financials and build it anyway. Which is gre…

You would still need and have to pay for an electric grid for the rest 20% of your electric demand. How much would it cost to go to 100% solar+battery?

Governments can't ignore Financials, because in the end all money is just a payment for human labor and physical materials needed to realize a project. Successful governments do invest in long term infrastructure, like highways, bridges, hydro dams, but they have pay for this project by taxes, or they can borrow money from private investors and pay the investors with future taxes.

See for example the financing of The Hoover Dam:

"Hoover Dam was built for a cost of $49 million (approximately $1 billion adjusted for inflation). The power plant and generators cost an additional $71 million, more than the cost of the dam itself. The sale of electrical power generated by the dam paid back its construction cost, with interest, by 1987."

https://hoover.archives.gov/hoovers/hoover-dam

There are many places (mostly sunny and dry places) in the world where solar+battery can supply large part of electricity demand for 100$/MWh. Is this cheap? Yes, if you compete with European electricity prices, not when you compete with Chinese electricity prices (88$ / MWh).

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-industrial-power-...

Will China invest in large amounts of battery storage, or will it rely on cheap coal power to complement solar power? They do invest a lot in hydro power, which can be seen as energy storage. India and Bangladesh are quite unhappy with this development.

https://www.abc.net.au/asia/china-plans-to-build-world-large...

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#103

Post by leonidasrup »

lukan wrote: post #90
wat10000 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I haven't dealt with radioactive substances beyond what's found in ordinary households. But I'm not a complete ignoramus as you imply. Have you at least done a search on how much non-radioactive waste there is? Spoiler, it is a much, much, much bigger number. I think this is another case where the relatively small number on the nuclear side makes it scarier because it's something you can actually conceive of. No,…

I apologize for my tone. But I live in a former soviet state area with lots of chemical and radioactive waste (uran mining). Also there once was a radioactive cloud over my childhood playground. And some first and second hand stories from miners, doctors, .. and I engage with the topic since many years. So yes, I was of the impression that you said radioactive waste is no big deal and I know that is not true. " But i…

Miners underground get exposed to a lot dust particles and radioactive radon gas (even miners in non-uranium mines, like underground coal mining). There is a lot of uranium underground, which over time decays to radon gas.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9940829/

Coal dust and crystalline silica dust from underground mining causes long term damage to lungs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_lung_disease

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

For uranium mining a lot more stricter radon monitoring and air ventilation has been implemented in recent decades.

Example of part uranium mining: https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/BfS/EN/2023/0915...

Current uranium mining: https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/orano-s-sites-a...

https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/fact-sheets/radon-...

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#104

Post by garbagewoman »

UltraSane wrote: post #96
jillesvangurp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive. Nuclear plants are very expensive to turn off and on. Nuclear plants leave you no choice but to leave them running 24x7, even when power that is an order of magnitude cheaper is available most of the time. Proponents call this base load. But technically it's just very expensive power that you can't turn off w…

"Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive." I love how anti-nuclear types argue against such a basic concept as base load just because it helps THEIR argument. Base load is simply the lowest wattage the grid needs in a time period and does vary a lot but NEVER goes to zero. Wind and solar are a very poor fit for this due to their variability. Batteri…

batteries are expensive? relative to what?

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#105

Post by UltraSane »

garbagewoman wrote: post #104
UltraSane wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive." I love how anti-nuclear types argue against such a basic concept as base load just because it helps THEIR argument. Base load is simply the lowest wattage the grid needs in a time period and does vary a lot but NEVER goes to zero. Wind and solar are a very poor fit for this due to their variability. Batteri…

batteries are expensive? relative to what?

To natural gas turbines

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#106

Post by thijson »

rbanffy wrote: post #78
jillesvangurp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive. Nuclear plants are very expensive to turn off and on. Nuclear plants leave you no choice but to leave them running 24x7, even when power that is an order of magnitude cheaper is available most of the time. Proponents call this base load. But technically it's just very expensive power that you can't turn off w…

> Nuclear plants remain stupidly expensive and lack this feature. Combining nuclear with some secondary application that can run only at energy surplus times, such as desalination or pumped hydro, might help with the economics. Desalination and pumping desalinated seawater through long distances might actually be a nice idea to reduce desertification or to increase agricultural output.

That would require an energy market with spot prices that incentivize the buildout.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#107

Post by mpweiher »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #76
sehansen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An already built nuclear plant is cheaper than building new solar and wind, which is what this article is about. It had already started operational tests at 5% capacity when it was shut down. And nuclear power doesn't inherently emit CO2 (or equivalents), which is what is meant by zero-carbon in this context.

The low end of costs for new build solar and wind in the US is nearly identical to the average running costs of fully deprecated nuclear plants in the US according to Lazard. Solar low end $38, Wind low end $37, Nuclear running cost average $34, Nuclear new build low end $141 Normally I'd say that renewables cost is likely to continue to fall over time, but with Trump in charge and putting his thumb on the scale that…

> according to Lazard. ... Nuclear new build low end

Here's what Lazard actually says:

“We do not, in this study, try to cost out new nuclear” (2:35)

“We think nuclear will be a big part of the future” (2:47)

“the costs of nuclear should go down “ (12:54)

“next five to 10 years the nuclear bar the one that's most likely to change the most in in terms of cost reduction” (14:06)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16HVh_Fx6LQ

And to claim this is the "low end" is a bald-faced lie.

They used a single nuclear power plant that was the most expensive nuclear power plant ever built in the US and one of the 3 most expensive in the world, ever. Of course, they note that this is the case, and that this is unrepresentative. Alas, all the anti-nuclear activists quoting Lazard are not this honest.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#108

Post by mpweiher »

defrost wrote: post #58
lnsru wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that educated people like HN users see very simple thing: 1 kW nuclear can be safely replaced with 20 kW well distributed renewables. While solar is dirt cheap wind isn’t. Especially offshore wind. And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear.

> And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear. If that's the case and the advantages are so sharp and clearly defined, ... Then why did Australia's latest CSIRO (National Science body) energy options for the nations future report* clearly state that nuclear was not an economically pragmatic choice compared to renewables? Any chance "Nuclear V. {X}" is a qualified comparison with edge cases and nuance? * https://…

Because the nuclear issue in Australia is highly politicized and the report is deeply flawed?

https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/the-flaws-in-c...

https://theconversation.com/known-unknowns-controversy-over-...

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#109

Post by mpweiher »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #61
lnsru wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that educated people like HN users see very simple thing: 1 kW nuclear can be safely replaced with 20 kW well distributed renewables. While solar is dirt cheap wind isn’t. Especially offshore wind. And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear.

Offshore wind is cheaper than coal in China now. Which also makes it much cheaper than nuclear in China. Onshore wind is only very slightly more expensive than solar in China too, most projects overlapping in cost ranges, both roughly half the cost of coal. This is reflected in their deployment numbers, which also feeds back into cost reductions.

> Offshore wind is cheaper than coal in China now. Which also makes it much cheaper than nuclear in China.

Citation needed.

China reportedly builds the CAP-1400, a localized and uprated version of the passively safe Westinghouse AP-1000, in 5 years and for around $3.5 billion.

Serial production of a known-good design with a savvy workforce rocks!

If those reported numbers are correct, which I cannot verify, they can profitably sell that electricy at 2 cents/kWh or below.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#110

Post by mpweiher »

leonidasrup wrote: post #82
bruce511 wrote: post #43

The overriding impression I get is that the whole facility is complicated. There are lots of processes in place, and lots of very trained people required to keep it all running. The size and complexity of the control rooms for example, but also the inevitable maintenance and inspection of all the piping etc. Even the details of the cleanup (checking each store foot, grinding surfaces etc.) I've recently been on a tra…

If you think nuclear facilities are complicate I would suggest to look into facilities used to manufacture polycrystalline silicon for solar panels, or facilities for manufacturing gas turbines used in gas power plants. Nuclear industry is running with very high quality standards, this requires very good training, good maintenance. In this aspects, nuclear industry is similar to aircraft industry. Solar panels are ch…

> The biggest source of electricity in Europe in the year 2025 was natural gas.

Closely followed by nuclear.

In the first half of 2026, nuclear was the #1 electricity source in Europe, by quite a margin.

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