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First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

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Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#221

Post by est31 »

internetter wrote: post #55
MichaelNolan wrote: post #14

If I was a betting man, I would put money down that Vogtle 4 is the last nuclear reactor that gets built in the US. Solar and batteries are just too cheap for nuclear to compete. The world will be installing a terawatt of solar capacity per year soon. *excluding research or military reactors of course.

One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3 U235) in a day. I'll take this bet. Edit: Tried to edit the edit but somehow deleted the rest of the edit. It was something to the tune of how a big problem with renewables is the fact that peak solar production does not match peak ene…

> One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy.

That's missing the huge and expensive nuclear power plant around that kilogram of uranium.

If you don't account for the conversion device (for which solar is cheaper per GJ than nuclear power plants), then light is a much better medium: assuming 15% efficiency, which is a conservative estimate, solar panels can convert one kilogram of solar light (remember e=mc^2) into 13.5 terajoules of electricity.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+kg+*+c%5E2+*+15%25+in...

The sun bombards our planet with around 61 metric tons of light per day:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2+*+pi+*+radius+of+eart...

Where the 6 kwh/m^2 come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Irradiance_on...

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#222

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

kragen wrote: post #188
konschubert wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use hydrogen (or Ammonia) for long term storage. It's one of the few use cases where hydrogen makes sense.

for long-term storage it might be better to convert the hydrogen to something more easily storable, such as propane or octane, or to make a different electrolytic product such as aluminum

Ammonia is another interesting storage fuel option.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#223

Post by Toutouxc »

edm0nd wrote: post #182
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear might not be able to compete in the U.S. and Europe, but that’s largely because of a ridiculous regulatory regime and has very little to do with the actual tech.

We can thank the hippies of the 60s and 70s for all their anti-nuclear silliness for making the nuclear industry heavily over regulated.

There was also the Soviet nuclear fireworks project in the 80s that didn’t help much.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#224

Post by Symmetry »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #98
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.

That’s not automatically true. As the price continues to drop even over building renewables can be cheaper than other options. Nuclear is very expensive so there’s a lot of wiggle room.

The price of solar panels is likely to fall to ever lower levels but the labor involved in installing them and the land they use up are much more likely to be the binding constraints in the future. Though we do have the twin strategies of building out the power grid to put solar generation in high availability areas and shifting electrical consumption to times of sunlight as mitigation.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#225

Post by Manuel_D »

epistasis wrote: post #135
nradov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but so far in the US we still don't have any really large battery storage facilities connected to the grid. These will be necessary if want to have reliable base load capacity without building more nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. The largest battery storage facility being built right now only has 2165 MWh of capacity, which is a drop in the bucket relative to demand. https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/pro…

There's little reason to build massive batteries at one spot, unless you are repurposing an only transmission line. Instead, a good chunk of grid storage is getting deployed right at the generation site of solar (and some wind), which allows more efficient use of that transmission line. Instead, we should be looking for large amounts of total install. However, this still won't happen much until it's actually needed b…

The tech is not here. The scale of grid storage required to fulfill just diurnal storage - let alone days or weeks to offset seasonal variation - is far beyond what batteries can provide. To put this in perspective, the US alone uses 12 TWh of electricity per day. The world uses 60 TWh per day. Both of these figures are going to increase, as poorer countries develop and want amenities like air conditioning. Also, as transportation and industrial processes are electrified. By comparison, global battery production is around 500 GWh per year. Yes, this will increase. But most of that production is going to electronics and EVs, not grid storage.

This is why proponents of a primarily wind + solar grid assume that hydrogen, ammonia, compressed air, giant concrete weights, or something else will make energy storage nearly free. Delivering the required storage scale with existing technologies isn't feasible, so people just assume that some other heretofore unproven technology will be orders of magnitude better.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#226

Post by kragen »

credit_guy wrote: post #198
klipklop wrote: post #63

Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks. I didn’t run the math but I’m guessing it’s not feasible to build a battery pack large enough to ride out winter in some areas. The SF Bay Area, sure, but I suspect blackouts will be common in solar+battery only areas. A preferred solution would be a mix of both with nuclear handling disruptions due…

Nuclear power plants are currently too expensive to not be used at 100% all the time (except when you need to perform maintenance). Some nuclear power plants are designed to be able to load follow, but in practice they don't do it. Batteries will never be cheap enough to allow for seasonal storage. They are good for day-to-night storage. For seasonal fluctuations, the best you can do is natural gas. If we convert all…

i agree with almost everything in your cogent and well-informed comment, with only two exceptions:

- forests can only increase in biomass up to some relatively low limit; you may be correct that in the usa they currently absorb more than gas plants emit, but that is not a sustainable situation, unless you start cutting them down and sequestering the carbon

- you can get pretty far covering seasonal fluctuations with simple overprovisioning

also i think you're not taking into account the likely advent of mass production of synfuel

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#227

Post by datameta »

est31 wrote: post #221
internetter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3 U235) in a day. I'll take this bet. Edit: Tried to edit the edit but somehow deleted the rest of the edit. It was something to the tune of how a big problem with renewables is the fact that peak solar production does not match peak ene…

> One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. That's missing the huge and expensive nuclear power plant around that kilogram of uranium. If you don't account for the conversion device (for which solar is cheaper per GJ than nuclear power plants), then light is a much better medium: assuming 15% efficiency, which is a conservative estimate, solar panels can convert on…

Hey thanks for adding links to formulas. Great use of wolfram alpha imo.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#228

Post by cm2187 »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #216
loeg wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "1W" of solar generation and 1W of nuclear generation are not interchangeable. There is a subtle sleight of hand in GP's argument.

That is what capacity factor captures.

No it doesn't. Whether Solar has a 10% or 25% average load doesn't matter, you need to build something else to deal with needing power at night.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#229

Post by beanjuiceII »

MichaelNolan wrote: post #14

If I was a betting man, I would put money down that Vogtle 4 is the last nuclear reactor that gets built in the US. Solar and batteries are just too cheap for nuclear to compete. The world will be installing a terawatt of solar capacity per year soon. *excluding research or military reactors of course.

I'd bet you will be very wrong

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#230

Post by tzs »

internetter wrote: post #145
margalabargala wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3 U235) in a day. Does the US have more 50cm^3 sized blocks of U235, or more square kilometers of land with low land values and high annual insolation? There's an estimated 6 million tonnes of mineable uranium reserves in the world [0]…

I want to make clear that I am not arguing against solar. My belief is that nuclear is an important piece of a much larger puzzle. Wind is not reliable, and for solar to match the figures you provided, we would need to figure out storage, so lets diversify our portfolio :)

> Wind is not reliable

Surface wind is not reliable. I've seen proposals to put turbines on large kites or gliders tethered to the ground. There's pretty much always strong winds over most of the United States somewhere between the surface and 10000 feet.

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