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First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

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Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#311

Post by Retric »

Manuel_D wrote: post #301
Retric wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raw lithium is a small fraction of the cost of battery, using recent costs your looking at ~4% of total battery price from low purity lithium. People focus on it because of the name rather than nickel-cobalt-manganese or whatever the specific chemistry actually used. They also confuse mining costs with manufacturing costs when looking at ultra pure lithium ready for use in batteries but that’s like conflating the cos…

Cathode material is half the cost of a lithium battery. Manufacturing is only 24%. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-a...

“The cathode material determines the capacity and power of a battery, typically composed of lithium and other battery metals.”

Also, the cost of a battery cell isn’t the cost of a battery pack, let alone the cost of all the associated equipment, land, installation, etc needed for grid scale batteries which is what matters here.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#312

Post by Retric »

Manuel_D wrote: post #302
Retric wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind + solar + hydro can go well past 50% without any batteries. Batteries are getting ever less expensive and production just keeps ramping up even faster. We really don’t need any major breakthroughs beyond economies of scale to see sub 7c/kWh rates 24/7/365. People are already deploying 50% battery backed solar because it’s cost competitive vs both base load and peaking power.

Hydroelectricity alone can produce 100% of some countries electricity, but other countries can't produce any [1]. Hydropower is geographically limited, in that you need the right combination of a river and a valley to build a dam. You can't just scale out hydroelectric power. No country produces the majority of its electricity from wind and solar. Australia produces the 15% and 13% of its electricity from solar and w…

> No country produces the majority of its electricity from wind and solar.

Yet, but infrastructure lasts far longer than the recent dip in prices which favors renewable energy. As to battery costs that article specifically mentions expectations of near term drop in prices, these are long term trends not specific annual guarantees. Solar prices have occasionally increased due to supply shortages even in the middle of vast longer term price drops.

Also, countries electric grids aren’t independent outside of a few islands.

Globally Hydropower is ~16% of global electricity generation and quite flexible. A country with 100% hydropower generation can easily add wind and solar panels and then export flexible and cheap hydroelectric energy. In fact if you look at countries running over 50% of hydroelectric power they tend to export quite a bit.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#313

Post by pfdietz »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #248
HackOfAllTrades wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong answer. > How can costs be reduced? Stop building nuclear reactors.

But you're delusional if you think wind/solar are a serious alternative to fossil fuels. Nuclear energy actually is.

No, he's not delusional, but you are deeply ignorant of the current state of knowledge.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

"The main conclusion of most of these studies is that 100% renewables is feasible worldwide at low cost."

"Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels."

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#314

Post by Retric »

Manuel_D wrote: post #215
dv_dt wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other comment chains have explained the storage scale you claim is needed, isn't a great estimate. Energy conservation is probably a better payback than either nuclear or renewables and better resilience for people infrastructure. For example, better insulation reduces energy costs in both cold winters and heat waves, and reduces the impact if there are grid/source failures by any technology. It also doesn't have a b…

The estimate of 12 hours of storage was one of the more optimistic ones. It's not just day/night cycles there's also weather that results in long term fluctuations in output. Some of the estimates call for weeks of storage. Energy conservation is likely not going to be feasible as more and more transportation gets electrified, as gas heating is replaced with electric, and industrial processes like smelting are decarb…

Estimates for weeks of storage are made by people who don’t understand the fundamental cost optimization going on.

More production costs X which reduces the need for batteries by Y, as long as X > Y you build more production even if most of it’s output is unnecessary. Also 16% of global electricity comes from hydroelectric generation, we really don’t need that many batteries.

Actual optimized energy storage is on the order of 2 to 6 hours total globally ~30 years from now depending on how much prices drop. With larger numbers representing lower battery prices. In the shorter term it’s a tiny fraction of that.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#315

Post by pfdietz »

coldpie wrote: post #308
Retric wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you find unconvincing? Just comparing grid storage needs vs EV’s suggests battery production capacity isn’t going to be an issue so it simplifies to cost across say 20+ years. There’s a lot of very simplistic analysis that makes things seem vastly worse but you don’t need crazy assumptions for things to look reasonable. Basically the more sources of energy you can add to the mix the cheaper things bec…

> What exactly do you find unconvincing? Most of the estimates I've seen for storage requirements for current electricity usage are not optimistic[1]. When you add in the huge amount of energy used for heating, which is currently not electric, it gets even worse. I'd like to see an analysis of how much generation and storage is required to handle Minnesota's natural gas usage[2], with a reasonable guarantee that powe…

The person you are quoting in [1] is a chronic bad faith actor. Examine his arguments with great skepticism. The argument he is making there is obviously wrong -- he's implying (without justification) that battery production cannot be greatly expanded, and ignores non-battery storage.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#316

Post by Retric »

arh68 wrote: post #116
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

2 units, both 1,100 MW each. So 2 cents / kWh.

The second unit isn’t online and the total overrun is more than 17 billion.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#317

Post by Retric »

adrr wrote: post #191
Retric wrote: post #4

“seven years late and $17 billion over budget. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity” Ignoring interest for those 7 years and all other costs just the overage is insane. 17 billion / ( 1,100,000 kW * 90% capacity factor * 24 hour * 365 days * 50 years) = 4 cents per kWh. Add interest etc and someone lost an incredible amount of money on this project.

Still cheaper than commercial solar or wind.

If by cheaper you mean 5x more expensive…

That 17 billion isn’t total construction cost it’s how far they went over budget so far. They still need to pay the initial estimate + ongoing operating costs + decommissioning costs.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#318

Post by coldpie »

pfdietz wrote: post #315
coldpie wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly do you find unconvincing? Most of the estimates I've seen for storage requirements for current electricity usage are not optimistic[1]. When you add in the huge amount of energy used for heating, which is currently not electric, it gets even worse. I'd like to see an analysis of how much generation and storage is required to handle Minnesota's natural gas usage[2], with a reasonable guarantee that powe…

The person you are quoting in [1] is a chronic bad faith actor. Examine his arguments with great skepticism. The argument he is making there is obviously wrong -- he's implying (without justification) that battery production cannot be greatly expanded, and ignores non-battery storage.

I don't agree with that characterization, but regardless, that was just a handy link. There's plenty of well-justified skepticism regarding storage out there. Either way, I'd love to see the analysis I suggested. If it's that clear-cut, surely it's not too hard for someone better informed than me to put together the numbers.

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#319

Post by rationalist »

azinman2 wrote: post #268
reducesuffering wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, what if that labor went into nuclear construction instead? How many 6 figure construction jobs is many multi-billion $ nuclear plants?

What percent of coal miners do you think could make that transition?

It seems like you're implying that many of them cannot make the transition. Why do you think they cannot?

Re: First new US nuclear reactor in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia

#320

Post by rationalist »

HackOfAllTrades wrote: post #240
chroma wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima shows that even early nuclear reactors are incredibly safe. You take an aging plant based on an outdated design, construct it in an unsafe location, then hit it with the fifth-largest earthquake ever recorded, then hit it with a 20 foot high tsunami, and then it explodes ... and what were the casualties? One worker and maybe 50 early deaths due to cancers. A typical coal power plant kills more people every…

"If we judged other forms of power generation the way we judge nuclear, we simply wouldn't have electricity." Yes, of course. I can only imagine the deaths and destruction that tsunami would have caused if it were a wind or solar plant. /SARCASM you idiot!

I recall seeing some statistics that the death per kilowatt ratio of different means of energy production is higher for all other forms of electricity than nuclear.

No need for name-calling here.

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