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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

#271

Post by incrudible »

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…

> what if the sun and wind stop simultaneously for 2 months

Forget about two months, the cost to battery store just for two or three days is enormous. At the same time, it does not happen often enough to justify the cost over just using natural gas as a backup, so that is how it is done.

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

#272

Post by oezi »

phil21 wrote: post #95
V__ wrote: post #65

> Constellation, which plans to spend about $1.6 billion to restart the plant, is awaiting permits and expects the facility to come online by 2028 [and] would provide Microsoft with 835 megawatts of energy. I don't quite understand how this makes sense financially for Microsoft. A 1 GW offshore wind farm costs about 1 billion [1]. The Gemini Solar + Battery Storage Project in Nevada is about 1.1 billion (690 MW + 380…

How many MWH does that battery array store? MW is a useless number for energy storage. HN should know better. Edit: The article linked states: > Roughly, one could assume that the energy storage portion of the project – 1.4 GWh worth So, at the 690GW (which is unrealistic) nameplate capacity of the solar field, they are installing roughly 120 minutes worth of energy storage to back it. This is actually a better numbe…

Battery arrays aren't primarily rated for their storage capacity but for their ability to provide/consume power.

At the moment the goal of battery storage additions to solar plants is to soften their peak power production and broaden the time they provide power to extend to the morning and dinner time.

690 MW.

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

#273

Post by atombender »

Can someone explain why it's going to take so long to fully decommission TMI-2, the old reactor?

Reading the commission report, they have about $733m in the decommissioning fund, while decommissioning is projected to cost $1B. Active demolition projected to start 2046, completed in 2052. They've started some work on debris demoval, but it looks they're going to take a break 2030-2046 to let the fund accrue (at expected 2% real RoR) enough to get the fund to $1B.

Isn't that insane? So from 2030-2046, it will just sit there "mothballed" with a minimum spent on security and so on, just for the fund to gain value?

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

#274

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

trenchgun wrote: post #259
bloopernova wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We have a whole freaking energy grid! You actually don't. Not one fit for that purpose, at least without significant investment, permitting hurdles, delays etc etc.

Yeah, the grid is the part of this that doesn't get discussed enough.

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

#275

Post by rgmerk »

mpweiher wrote: post #140
rgmerk wrote: post #16

Hmmm. 50 years old and out of action for half a decade. That’s going to require a lot of work to persuade the NRC it’s safe to operate. Given how difficult it’s proven to build new nuclear around the world, what are the odds of this recommissioning being on time and budget?

It turns out that nuclear is easy to build around the world. Average construction times have been more or less constant the last five decades and are currently at 6.5 years (trend: slightly falling). Median (typical) time is lower. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

And this particular refurbishment is in one of the countries with serious cost and schedule overruns for its nuclear build, and a country and specifically a region that is bad at physical infrastructure.

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

#276

Post by mpweiher »

rgmerk wrote: post #275
mpweiher wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that nuclear is easy to build around the world. Average construction times have been more or less constant the last five decades and are currently at 6.5 years (trend: slightly falling). Median (typical) time is lower. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

And this particular refurbishment is in one of the countries with serious cost and schedule overruns for its nuclear build, and a country and specifically a region that is bad at physical infrastructure.

This is a country that simply hasn't built nuclear for ages. And the only one (two reactors) it did build was a brand new design (FOAK - First of a Kind). With COVID happening.

Like everything, this gets better with practice.

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

#277

Post by mpweiher »

RandomLensman wrote: post #224
mpweiher wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. That was a one-time occurrence, due to (a) inspections being deferred during COVID and (b) France's long time catastrophic underinvestment in their nuclear fleet. Until March 2023, there was a law in France that made it illegal to increase nuclear capacity in absolute terms and mandated reduction to under 50% in relative terms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=isgu-VrD0oM But again, a one-time event,…

One time or not, need to be able to deal with it, as need to be able deal with the possibility of underinvestment etc. - especially if fleets get much bigger.

1. They were able to deal with it. And had even more options to deal with it.

2. A one time event has little to no effect on overall capacity factors.

3. Underinvestment is very easy to deal with: invest adequately.

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

#278

Post by mpweiher »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #258
bryanlarsen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There was definitely a period where the "renewables are too expensive" propaganda was winning and right wing German parties were successful in slowing renewables, particularly offshore wind rollout in Germany. This will have cost them Billions, similar to the British right wing effectively banning onshore wind in Emgland at roughly the same time. Both nations have done well with renewables, but could have done better…

Renewables are too expensive.

Especially once you take systems costs into account, which you must, but renewable fanbois never do.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...

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

#279

Post by mpweiher »

piva00 wrote: post #197
RhysU wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Nuclear can be built most places. Nukes require lots of cooling, needing access to large amounts of water from water bodies, that's definitely not "most places" by definition.

Nuclear power plants have been and are bing built in deserts, so no, this is not a hard requirement, just a "nice to have".

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

#280

Post by mpweiher »

pjc50 wrote: post #149
closewith wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a false dichotomy, because no-one's (at least no-one reasonable and in good faith) is suggesting shifting the grid entirely to nuclear. Instead, a diverse set of generation sources is ideal, including solar, wind, nuclear and hydro.

Dunno, all the nuclear advocates seem to contrast it with wind/solar, which are also much cheaper and quicker capital investments.

Nope, virtually all nuclear advocates call for combined renewable/nuclear grids.

Nuclear and reliable renewables for base load, intermittent renewables for intermittent load where and when it matches.

Wind/solar are not cheaper. Per kWh they are more expensive. Thanks to China, they are a lower and smaller-grained capital investment.

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