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Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

reuters.com

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Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#181

Post by RhysU »

bloopernova wrote: post #88
jakewins wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. I don’t understand why wind solar is subject to absolutes devoid of probability - “what if the sun and wind stop simultaneously for 2 months?” We know the probability that the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing for N days, we can calculate it from historical data. You can absolutely build solar+wind+storage s…

Plus if it's not sunny/windy in one part of the country, it may well be very sunny or windy in other parts of the country. We have a whole freaking energy grid! This isn't aimed at you, but more at the people dismissing the utility of solar and wind power.

Geopolitics is largely determined by who controls energy resources. We've seen, over and over, how borders between energy producers and consumers are inevitably messy. Nuclear can be built most places. Sun and wind cannot.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#182

Post by wahern »

lm28469 wrote: post #177
jakewins wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. I don’t understand why wind solar is subject to absolutes devoid of probability - “what if the sun and wind stop simultaneously for 2 months?” We know the probability that the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing for N days, we can calculate it from historical data. You can absolutely build solar+wind+storage s…

The problem is that you need to plan for the absolute worst case, once in a century, scenario and size your batteries accordingly. Same reason why almost no one goes 100% solar at home deep in the south/north because you'd need 20x your needed capacity in batteries to account for that once in a decade bleak winter week

I don't mean to be cynical, but manifestly this isn't necessary. It's why widespread power outages remain a thing even in rich, highly industrialized countries. American Gulf Coast utilities don't spend astronomical sums on distribution infrastructure to ensure 100% uptime through hurricanes; entire regions end up going hours if not days without power on a regular basis. Likewise, Texas doesn't maintain enough generation and robust infrastructure to make it through every cold snap unscathed.

People say one thing--"we require 100% uptime"--but do another--"but I'm only willing to pay a fraction of the price it would take to achieve that, and then I'll complain bitterly during the inevitable power outages."

I'm all for nuclear, but let's be honest about how real-world infrastructure truly works. And, yes, I believe this means safety claims of Gen 4+ nuclear are off, just as they were for prior gen plants. Through motivated accounting people arrive at the numbers that are demanded, but knowingly or not the actual risk of an incident will be greater, as it manifestly always has been. At the same time our real risk tolerance is much greater than we claim, and this will eventually be born out in the power markets, whether through greater nuclear, less reliable power, or some other state of affairs.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#183

Post by croes »

atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

A nuclear power plant needs supervision, if it can run N days without but there is no supervision for N+1 days, we are in big trouble.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#184

Post by cesarb »

lm28469 wrote: post #177
jakewins wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. I don’t understand why wind solar is subject to absolutes devoid of probability - “what if the sun and wind stop simultaneously for 2 months?” We know the probability that the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing for N days, we can calculate it from historical data. You can absolutely build solar+wind+storage s…

The problem is that you need to plan for the absolute worst case, once in a century, scenario and size your batteries accordingly. Same reason why almost no one goes 100% solar at home deep in the south/north because you'd need 20x your needed capacity in batteries to account for that once in a decade bleak winter week

> you need to plan for the absolute worst case, once in a century, scenario and size your batteries accordingly.

For a once-in-a-century situation, you can have alternatives other than batteries. For instance, backup diesel generators; any extra CO2 emitted by them in that situation would be insignificant when spread over a hundred years. And once you're planning for once-in-a-century events, you need backup generators anyway, since you can have failures other than just cloudy windless weather.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#185

Post by bb88 »

atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

I realize this isn't the HN popular opinion, but nuclear power will be great once:

1. People are educated about true risk AND forget about Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. Or the need to have iodine pills if you live near one. ("If it's so safe, why do I need the iodine pills?")

2. Bad actors face actual prison time, not just corporate fines. Meanwhile, today, the bad actors still get bonuses.

(You can kinda blame this one on the simpsons, but I do want for Christmas this year a Simpsons Springfield Isotopes Hockey Jersey with the 3-eyed fish. https://jerseyninja.com/springfield-iceotopes-simpson-hockey...)

3. We grow a lot of crops in the desert in the US. We need a lot of water to do that. There's gigawatts of solar potential there. And the cost of one reactor is $35B US for 1GW. For solar/wind you could have 10GW for around $10B US and then there's $25B US for batteries.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#186

Post by throwaway48540 »

anticensor wrote: post #180
throwaway48540 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic system is not set in stone. If everyone is irrelevant to it, the economic system becomes irrelevant to everyone, and a parallel system gradually replaces it.

Sadly "earning a living" goes beyond economy, it is also deeply involved in societal and cultural values.

It really isn't. Just 100 years ago "earning a living" meant growing food themselves on fields behind the house for the majority of humans.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#187

Post by connicpu »

bfrog wrote: post #58

Presumably all the things that have gone wrong have been fixed? I can honestly say the micro reactors and pebble beds look far more fail safe than the typical PWR/BWR that must have power and a pump running as I understand things to prevent catastrophe.

The Three Mile Island incident happened in one reactor at this plant in 1979, but the plant kept operating its other reactors without any further incidents until they shut down in 2019 due to economic pressures (primarily the low price of natural gas).

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#188

Post by skeaker »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #92
burnte wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A corporation getting its way, irrespective of the democratic will of the people, or rather, those "insane NIMBYs". Corporatocracy truly is a beautiful thing. Generally a NIMBY is anti-progress and very selfish, putting themselves ahead of everyone. My dad was called to help resolve TMI during the meltdown and was part of the engineering design group the the Beaver Valley nuclear power station. People were complain…

>a NIMBY is anti-progress And what is "progress"? We both have ideas about what progress is. Are mine the same as yours?

In this context, progress would probably refer to moving to a power source that doesn't kill people or destroy the planet. I think that is generally pretty agreeable even if you want to get into a definitional argument.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#189

Post by BobaFloutist »

jakewins wrote: post #51
atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

> No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. I don’t understand why wind solar is subject to absolutes devoid of probability - “what if the sun and wind stop simultaneously for 2 months?” We know the probability that the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing for N days, we can calculate it from historical data. You can absolutely build solar+wind+storage s…

Somehow you never hear these people say "What if the nuclear fuel supply chain becomes compromised for an arbitrarily extended period."

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#190

Post by [deleted] »

atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

[deleted]
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