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The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

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Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#141

Post by Turing_Machine »

dragonwriter wrote: post #135
Turing_Machine wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I wonder why the tech community has this infatuation with nuclear power." Because it works .

> Because it works. Not cost effectively, which is why even with existing protections from generally-applicable liability standaeds the industry demands greater direct subsidies and/or liability shields and without them has no interest in building new plants.

"industry demands greater direct subsidies"

Can you provide some examples of grid-scale solar or wind projects that don't get massive government subsidies?

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#142

Post by Turing_Machine »

philipkglass wrote: post #134
Turing_Machine wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years." A nuclear power plant can crank out 5 gigawatts. There aren't any solar or wind plants of that capacity that were constructed in any amount of time, much less three years.

A utility scale solar farm can go from first concrete pouring to selling electricity in one year. And you can build a lot of farms in one year in parallel. For example, last year the United States installed ~10 GW of utility scale PV, mostly in farms under 200 MW each. Based on EIA data, in 2016 the capacity factor of US nuclear power was 92.5%. Utility scale PV was 27.2% and wind was 34.7%: https://www.eia.gov/elect…

"For example, last year the United States installed ~10 GW of utility scale PV"

So if a nuclear plant has 92% capacity factor, and a solar plant has 27%, that means a 5 GW nuclear plant would require about 17 GW of solar to replace it. In other words, there was less than 2/3 of a nuke's capacity of solar installations last year. Total. For the entire country.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#143

Post by Turing_Machine »

Tade0 wrote: post #139
Turing_Machine wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years." A nuclear power plant can crank out 5 gigawatts. There aren't any solar or wind plants of that capacity that were constructed in any amount of time, much less three years.

Last year China added 23GW of wind power. Adjusted for the capacity factor that's over 5.75GW. Sure, it's not one plant, but quite possibly most of that capacity wasn't commissioned until 2013. Better still, they're just getting started with this. The beauty of this power source is that it scales great - instead of erecting one 7MW turbine you can do that with any number of them, limited only by your budget. Meanwhil…

"Nuclear won't win, because it's expensive and doesn't scale well."

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

I see several nuclear plants on that list, but not one solar or wind plant.

I think perhaps claims about the latter being "less expensive" and "scaling well" should wait until they've actually been economically operated at scale.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#144

Post by [deleted] »

Tade0 wrote: post #139
Turing_Machine wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years." A nuclear power plant can crank out 5 gigawatts. There aren't any solar or wind plants of that capacity that were constructed in any amount of time, much less three years.

Last year China added 23GW of wind power. Adjusted for the capacity factor that's over 5.75GW. Sure, it's not one plant, but quite possibly most of that capacity wasn't commissioned until 2013. Better still, they're just getting started with this. The beauty of this power source is that it scales great - instead of erecting one 7MW turbine you can do that with any number of them, limited only by your budget. Meanwhil…

[deleted]

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#145

Post by philipkglass »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #142
philipkglass wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A utility scale solar farm can go from first concrete pouring to selling electricity in one year. And you can build a lot of farms in one year in parallel. For example, last year the United States installed ~10 GW of utility scale PV, mostly in farms under 200 MW each. Based on EIA data, in 2016 the capacity factor of US nuclear power was 92.5%. Utility scale PV was 27.2% and wind was 34.7%: https://www.eia.gov/elect…

"For example, last year the United States installed ~10 GW of utility scale PV" So if a nuclear plant has 92% capacity factor, and a solar plant has 27%, that means a 5 GW nuclear plant would require about 17 GW of solar to replace it. In other words, there was less than 2/3 of a nuke's capacity of solar installations last year. Total. For the entire country.

"A nuke's capacity" -- not quite. There are only a handful of nuclear plants running with net capacity over 5000 MW. The largest nuclear plant in the US is Palo Verde: 3942 MW from 3 reactors. The sole reactor to enter operation in the US last year, Watts Bar 2, generates 1165 MW net: https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.a...

So multiplying capacities and capacity factors, for 2016 we get:

2016 nuclear: 0.925 * 1165 = 1078 MW

2016 utility PV: 0.272 * 10000 = 2720 MW

2016 utility wind: 0.347 * 8200 = 2845 MW

Last year's large scale wind and solar installations would be expected to produce as much electricity, annually, as 5 reactors like Watts Bar 2. Watts Bar 2 is pretty typical as far as capacity goes. The four new AP1000 reactors under construction in the US are each 1117 MW net, for example.

I personally hope that the US continues to build enough reactors to regain and maintain the institutional competence that was lost after the last wave of builds ended in the 1980s. Nuclear power has an excellent safety record, no air pollution, and is easier to manage at high penetration levels than wind/PV. But when I'm crunching the numbers I estimate that renewables will grow faster in North America for the foreseeable future; renewable projects scale down better, are cheaper per MWh generated even adjusting for capacity factor [1], and are much faster to go from first concrete pouring to first revenue.

[1] Cheaper per MWh than observed real-world prices for reactors currently under construction. Some older reactors can produce electricity at significantly lower costs.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#146

Post by jgamman »

Mendenhall wrote: post #48
sfifs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you misunderstood what marginal cost means. It is the cost of generating one additional unit of power on an already​ existing infrastructure. It takes expense to mine an additional ton of coal, transport it to a power plant, burn it and convert it into electricity even after the underlying infrastructure is setup. It doesn't for solar and wind.

That falls under "rhetoric" the author takes a small unit of time "when sun is shining and wind is blowing" to then use the word "free". Thats cherry picking to the extreme and rhetoric 101. It is used to paint a picture that does not really exist. What happens to solar and wind when its night and the wind is still? By cherry picking and creating a scene which doesnt truly exist it paints a false picture of the effic…

i used to work on the trading desk of an energy company that had hydro resources. the bid for hydro to clear the stack was always something like $0.10 ie, essentially free. Note: the clearing price was _always_ set by the last generating units offer price which tends to be coal/gas (here in NZ). If there was no clearing price, the offer price of hydro/solar/geothermal would go up to something like the Wighted Average Cost of Capital but there would competitive pressure from the other players to keep a lid on it. to a first order approx. in a _really_ complex industry/market it is absolutely OK to say installed wind/solar/hydro is free to run.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#147

Post by toomuchtodo »

yessql wrote: post #103
alex_stoddard wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data on national scale, like the eia stuff you link to, is vital to understanding and debate. What I realize I don't understand is the meaning of "Generation at Utility Scale Facilities" in the header of the table. What does this exclude and how meaningful is the exclusion? According to the table, net generation at utility scale has decreased 10% over the last decade. How much of that is driven by non-utility scale g…

Commercial and Residential solar are excluded. Those might add up to half a percent or so. The other 9.5% is probably due to energy efficiency.

Residential solar is hard to pin down because it's "behind the meter"; it doesn't look like generation, it looks like demand reduction.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#148

Post by _delirium »

Animats wrote: post #71

Well over 40% of US electricity is still from coal. Despite all the hype, renewables other than hydroelectric are only 3% in the US. What's driving energy prices is cheap natural gas. Natural gas is cheap to extract and can be extracted fast. But after a while, it's all gone. Britain's North Sea Gas boom is over.[1] Gas fields also drop off faster than oil fields. The cheap natural gas boom won't last forever. It's c…

For the U.S., I think the cost overruns of nuclear have been a bigger problem than change of public opinion due to Fukushima. If Westinghouse's four new units at the Summer (South Carolina) and Vogtle (Georgia) plants had come in on time and on budget, there would be states and regions willing to build more nuclear, even if it remained unpopular in many parts of the country. But the extent of the construction problems there and Westinghouse's subsequent bankruptcy are going to discourage any new construction and financing for a while.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#149

Post by opo »

crdoconnor wrote: post #115
opo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...But you are absolutely right that its entirely due to natgas and that will maybe last us a decade or two but certainly not three. Citation? Unfortunately it looks like there are large proven reserves of natural gas: >...The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that as of January 1, 2014, there were about 2,474 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resources of dry natural gas in the Uni…

"Yea, nuclear has so far been the safest form of base load power we have ever used. Unfortunately anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than other sources of power." I thought it was telling that the only world leader who reacted to Fukushima by mandating the end of nuclear…

>...I thought it was telling that the only world leader who reacted to Fukushima by mandating the end of nuclear power wasn't a hippy but a physicist.

Are you trying to argue that keeping coal plants and shutting down nuclear plants is a good idea?

From a previous comment someone made, here are the death totals for generating power:

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (Wind 150 (2% global electricity)

Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

>...I don't see the problem being that nuclear can't be made safe.

Actually you are wrong - NOTHING can be made 100% safe. Anyone who promises you something is 100% safe is simply a liar. Walking down the sidewalk has risk, much less walking down a street. When making choices the only thing you can do is choose the safer alternative. Planes are safer for a long trip than driving a car, but how many people are afraid to fly vs afraid to drive? Nuclear has has a very good safety record compared to the alternatives (utility solar farms might end up lower, but all others are much higher) but to the people who fear nuclear power, I know the numbers don't really matter - much as the person who is afraid of flying doesn't care it is safer.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#150

Post by snowwindwaves »

ska wrote: post #118
danmaz74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but usually hydro is excluded because it's "old renewable" and most potential sources have already been developed.

Due to silting, most hydro isn't really renewable either iiuc. It's just looks that way for long enough that we tend to talk about it that way.

Reservoirs filling with silt may reduce storage which would turn the dam in to a run of river plant. Less control over when the electricity is made. Also reservoirs could be dredged out to allow the silt to continue its way downstream.
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