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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

#241

Post by himinlomax »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #107
himinlomax wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?” Something close to that happens almost every year in Europe. Last year there was nearly 3 weeks in winter where there was very little wind across the continent (<20% capacity production on all wind farms), and obviously little to no solar (high latitudes).

Spain isn't part of Europe? It's sunny in the winter.

90% of European solar farms are not in Spain.

Also, Spain only has a ~2 GW connection to France to sell their solar power to the rest of Europe.

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

#242

Post by greenthrow »

edmundsauto wrote: post #237
greenthrow wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get out of here with this lie. Before the disaster, nuclear proponents cited Fukushima as an example of how safe modern nuclear was.

I think everyone knew the Mark I boiling water reactors designed in the 1960s was not a “safe by default” design. Open to receipts if folks with some understanding of nuclear designs were on record before that touting its safety.

"Citation needed" is the lamest response. I am not your personal Google assistant. Nuclear proponents just like you cited Fukushima as a hallmark of reliability to "disprove" its dangers to me. There were articles highlighting it. These are obviously hard to find now with the digital rot of the last decade. Sorry I didn't print out copies to hand out to you many years later.

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

#243

Post by brookst »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #160
brookst wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the actual investor is Constellation, which has operated the plant for decades. Microsoft is just committing to buy power. Are you suggesting Constellation will be surprised at the hidden costs?

It's hard to say without knowing the details of the contract. I highly doubt Constellation put themselves in a position to be vulnerable to cost overruns. Or perhaps they see the deal as a shiny pendant they can dangle in front of dumb PE money when they want to cash out in the future. Trust me, cynicism is well warranted with these ancient plants.

All of the articles say the deal is Microsoft agreeing to buy power for 20 years. It's possible that's wrong/incomplete, but it would be weird. Constellation's stock rose 20%, so the market at least thinks they'll make decent money on it.

And it may be an "ancient plant" but it was operational 5 years ago, under Constellation's management.

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

KerrAvon wrote: post #225
nradov wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work very well for the Western North America. After sunset there is nowhere to obtain much solar or wind power. We're not going to build a transmission cable to Hawaii.

the wind doesn't stop blowing after sunset, and grid-scale batteries are a thing

[deleted]

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

#245

Post by [deleted] »

fergonco wrote: post #19
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

More nuclear is a good thing. FAANG nuclear is even better, because they will be be ready and equipped to push back the insane NIMBY crowd(s) and also don't need to be worried about getting reelected.

How are nimby crowds insane? Accidents may happen. And did happen in the past in that same place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

[deleted]

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

#246

Post by anigbrowl »

Ukv wrote: post #229
anigbrowl wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you have a devastating earthquake that wrecks renewable power sources in an area. Bad part is you're out of power for a good while. But the second-order risks are very low - maybe some people are killed by falling wind turbines or solar panels, but there isn't any equivalent of radioactive contamination making the place uninhabitable for years.

Banqiao Dam failure alone flooded over 12,000 square kilometers, killing ~30k directly then ~100k more from water contamination and famine. Even solar still requires various minerals the extraction and processing of which has environmental impact - like tailing ponds of toxic substances that frequently leak, particularly from earthquakes and extreme weather. But to be clear, the human and environmental impact of sola…

I specifically made my comment about wind and solar. I am not a big fan of large scale hydro for just this reason, as well as the impact on aquatic ecosystems.

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

#247

Post by bryanlarsen »

greenthrow wrote: post #214
burningChrome wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't we do both? This is what happened to Germany. They tried going 100% renewables and then had Russia take up the slack for the rest of what they needed. Then they realized they had a massive shortfall and then was leaning far too much on Russia to take up the slack. As someone else pointed out, geopolitics always weighs heavy in energy production. Just like in Germany's case where they relied too heavy on Russia…

Germany did not make a real effort at truly going 100% renewable. There are other European countries doing it for real and having wild success.

No real effort? >50% of Germany's power came from renewables in 2023. That sounds like a massive effort to me.

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

#248

Post by bryanlarsen »

nradov wrote: post #231
KerrAvon wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the wind doesn't stop blowing after sunset, and grid-scale batteries are a thing

The wind slows down a lot after sunset in most of North America. Grid scale batteries aren't really a thing yet. Someday maybe, but it's going to take many years to provision enough to handle the nighttime base load on the west coast.

You've got that backwards. The wind is stronger at night in most of North America.

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-69f8723dccb62f0572daf...

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

#249

Post by bryanlarsen »

christina97 wrote: post #91
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…

It’s literally just that having a solar+wind grid that can survive 3 days of bad weather costs 6x as much as a grid that can survive normal day to day.

The number I heard was 8x. Solar is about 50 cents / kW, a "24 hour" solar grid is about $4/kW. But that's still about half the price of a natural gas grid and 1/5th the cost of nuclear.

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

#250

Post by dalyons »

Yawrehto wrote: post #206

Something that isn't discussed enough is that nuclear power is extremely safe. According to Our World In Data ( https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy ), it produces the fewest emissions per gigawatt -- solar and wind both have substantial overhead -- and the second-fewest deaths, after solar, of coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, hydropower, wind, solar, and coal. The misguided perception nuclear is more…

It’s not cheap at all? Today it’s the most expensive mainstream power generation method.
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