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Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#331

Post by vinniejames »

hajile wrote: post #303
arcticbull wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... with some maintaining it is dangerous and expensive Expensive, probably. Dangerous? Not according to the data. Lowest deaths per terawatt-hour of any energy source including solar. Yes, even if you count Chernobyl, Fukushima (where 6 folks died) and Three Mile Island (nobody died) [1] [1] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...

I've actually wondered if we could find enough suicidal idiots maintain the growing number of wind farms. Finding climbers for static towers is already hard enough. Death rates of cell tower climbers are 10x that of normal construction workers (cell tower climbers have the highest death of all construction jobs). Of all those deaths investigated by OSHA, almost 40% involved no rules violations -- speaking of that, on…

How about building drones to do some of this work, or even to carry people up to do the job in a safer way?

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#332

Post by wazoox »

fsh wrote: post #318
wazoox wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically renewables produce 15-20% of the time (30 to 40% for offshore wind). Let's be generous and start with 30% of the time. You need storage to provide 70% of the demand. So for every GWh or required power, you need 700MWh of storage. The famed Tesla Mega battery is a puny 129MWh... You must account for the fact that there could be no sun or no wind for several days, therefore be able to store incredible amounts…

Your calculation does not make much sense (GWh isn't even a unit of power). One would have to look at actual power production and consumption curves in order to estimate the required storage capacity. Battery storage is still very exotic, pretty much the entire capacity is provided by hydro nowadays. Current-gen solar panels average about 30 W/m² over the year in Japan's latitude and climate. So a solar park the size…

GWh is the most relevant unit: the quantity of energy we need around the year. GW of nominal output is relevant for nuclear or fire-based power that can produce 24h/24 365d/year, but completely irrelevant for wind and solar that provide power only part time.

A 1GW solar plant outs 1GW once every sunny day, at noon. The rest of the day, it produces less, and nothing at all 12 hours a day. A 1GW solar plant roughly produces 3GWh a day. OTOH, a 1GW nuclear plant produces on a yearly average 800MWh every hour, every day and night. So at the end of the year your 1GW solar plant produced a grand total of 1100GWh, while your 1GW nuclear (or coal-fired, or gas-fired) power plant produced 7000GWh.

Plus your solar panel will provide energy mostly around noon, need it or not. While the nuclear (or gas, or coal) plant will provide power exactly when you need it.

Wind is even worse than solar, because production yield isn't even particularly predictable. So when wind blows, electricity goes into the grid without any consideration for the need for it. That's why its price drops to negative at times: because we don't need it. That's not because wind is wonderfully efficient or something. It's because building wind farms is a fantastic misallocation of resources. We're literally spending money for electricity worth almost nothing, and it won't ever recoup its costs.

That's why Germany, after having dumped 300 billions euros on wind farms in 20 years, stop building them altogether in 2018. At some point some accountant did the math.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#333

Post by kakwa_ »

m0zg wrote: post #323
jhayward wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. France is retiring plants and has a nominal plan to retire 30% of their nuclear generating capacity in the next decade. There is one plant being built at Flammanville. It is 11 years over schedule and 400% over budget, and still not certain that those will be the final numbers.

That's because the international elites that are really running France have decided that it'd be easier to just shift pollution to China and make their money there. There's no sane argument against nuclear today, particularly if you believe in climate change. And yes, you can make anything cost 400% as much, just pile on more regulation and NIMBY-ism, and you'll get there eventually, that's not news.

Well, no.

The Flamanville 3 EPR nuclear reactor is a mess (and I've seen it first hand, working on one of its subsystem a few years ago). The regulations bodies, aka the ASN (Agence de Surete Nucleaire) played its role, and uncovered various issues, most worrying, defects in the reactor vessel itself (and also there was some attempt by the manufacturer to hide these defects). And it's only one of a long chain, the were others like concrete being poured without/insufficient rebar or improper composition, various welding issues on pipes or machinery. And each time, it was not some minor mishaps requiring a quick fix but a major mistake requiring undoing what was done, redoing it properly and causing months of delays.

Basically, this is an Engineering and Project Management failure. On this kind of giant projects, logistic, coordination and management is key, the design is also key (system of systems, interfaces between systems etc) and it failed spectacularly here.

From the political side, despite some calls to just stop the construction from minor parties, the commitment from the politicians to see it built has remained strong all along. And there was also a deep commitment from the French state to the Nuclear industry, with the government bailing out Areva just a few years ago.

The Finish one is not better off, with the same kind of delays. The Chinese ones are in production (after significant delays) but 1) They learn from the mistakes of the first twos 2) They have probably better experience in large projects given the past construction boom in China 3) Some issues were probably put under the carpet as the Chinese government is not exactly renowned for its openness.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#334

Post by xorfish »

chrisco255 wrote: post #324
xorfish wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your point is exactly my point? The technology isn't a problem. Superconductors wouldn't solve anything. It is a political problem.

You can't run Europe on a single 1000km line running out of the Sahara over the Mediterranean. Period. Not only would a sea cable need to follow the surface of the bottom of the ocean (therefore the line would be much longer), it would experience significant power loss as it gets stepped down from higher voltages as it distributes across Europe. It's not technically feasible at all. You would lose anywhere from 20-50…

You would probably start with one cable and increase it over time.

HVDC cabels are already routinely build undersea. There is a 700km long cable under construction between the UK and Noreway. The longest HVDC connection is over 2000km long in Brazil.

Superconductors have a maximum current, if you go above that current, the superconductor will gain resistance and the heat will destroy it. So you would still use high voltage transmission.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#335

Post by fsh »

wazoox wrote: post #332
fsh wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your calculation does not make much sense (GWh isn't even a unit of power). One would have to look at actual power production and consumption curves in order to estimate the required storage capacity. Battery storage is still very exotic, pretty much the entire capacity is provided by hydro nowadays. Current-gen solar panels average about 30 W/m² over the year in Japan's latitude and climate. So a solar park the size…

GWh is the most relevant unit: the quantity of energy we need around the year. GW of nominal output is relevant for nuclear or fire-based power that can produce 24h/24 365d/year, but completely irrelevant for wind and solar that provide power only part time. A 1GW solar plant outs 1GW once every sunny day, at noon. The rest of the day, it produces less, and nothing at all 12 hours a day. A 1GW solar plant roughly pro…

It is completely obvious that renewables require significantly more storage capacity than other power sources. However, a lot of experts seem to believe that this is not nearly as big of an issue as you are implying.

As for wind energy, you are completely wrong. In 2019 25% of Germany's electricity was generated by wind (compared to 13% nuclear). This has significantly reduced the fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

The main reason for halting construction is that conservative politicians have passed idiotic NIMBY regulations that now make it very difficult to build new on-shore wind farms. Somehow they even managed to convince a signify fraction of the population that wind turbines are somehow dangerous (probably the same fraction that believes in electro-smog).

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#336

Post by chantelles »

big_chungus wrote: post #273
WhompingWindows wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "probably" expensive; it's undeniably very expensive, which is why it's a non-starter in most of the world. Look at South Carolina's fiasco with nuclear...the only country doing nuclear is China, which is known for massive infrastructure spending.

Horror story from a friend who worked in China as a consultant on the power grid back in the mid-aughts. Basically the guy who was leading construction on the plants was working with another who was to supply the concrete for the walls. Problem was, the concrete guy was behind on his "five year plan", so plant guy didn't have enough concrete. Plant guy still has to meet _his_ targets, so he just builds the plants wit…

Horror story from my stepfather at Bruce Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario Canada: At least twice a year there was a "secret leak" where he had to come home early but no media was alerted and they had to hire racialized folks from the city to go in and make repairs. He also stole reactor sealer to seal our basement from spring leaks and our basement leaked. And on and on. Canada has very loose safety standards and cuts lots of corners.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#337

Post by arcticbull »

chantelles wrote: post #336
big_chungus wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horror story from a friend who worked in China as a consultant on the power grid back in the mid-aughts. Basically the guy who was leading construction on the plants was working with another who was to supply the concrete for the walls. Problem was, the concrete guy was behind on his "five year plan", so plant guy didn't have enough concrete. Plant guy still has to meet _his_ targets, so he just builds the plants wit…

Horror story from my stepfather at Bruce Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario Canada: At least twice a year there was a "secret leak" where he had to come home early but no media was alerted and they had to hire racialized folks from the city to go in and make repairs. He also stole reactor sealer to seal our basement from spring leaks and our basement leaked. And on and on. Canada has very loose safety standards and cuts…

> At least twice a year there was a "secret leak" where he had to come home early but no media was alerted...

Uh, [citation needed].

> ... they had to hire racialized folks from the city to go in and make repairs...

Racialized... folks?

> He also stole reactor sealer to seal our basement from spring leaks and our basement leaked.

That might be because, and I'm speculating here, your basement isn't a reactor. I've heard that a sealant for a specific kind of material may not work on literally any other kind of material.

> Canada has very loose safety standards and cuts lots of corners.

That's just pretty objectively false.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#338

Post by wazoox »

fsh wrote: post #335
wazoox wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GWh is the most relevant unit: the quantity of energy we need around the year. GW of nominal output is relevant for nuclear or fire-based power that can produce 24h/24 365d/year, but completely irrelevant for wind and solar that provide power only part time. A 1GW solar plant outs 1GW once every sunny day, at noon. The rest of the day, it produces less, and nothing at all 12 hours a day. A 1GW solar plant roughly pro…

It is completely obvious that renewables require significantly more storage capacity than other power sources. However, a lot of experts seem to believe that this is not nearly as big of an issue as you are implying. As for wind energy, you are completely wrong. In 2019 25% of Germany's electricity was generated by wind (compared to 13% nuclear). This has significantly reduced the fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emis…

If Germany had invested 300 billions in nuclear instead of wind, they would have 0 emissions electric power right now.

It makes relative sense in Germany because they still rely a lot on coal for power generation. If they hadn't stopped nuclear power in its tracks, they would have achieved a much bigger reduction of their emissions, too.

If you take the example of Spain you can easily see that they fired up 1GW of gas plant for every GW of wind farm. Because some days there isn't any wind. You can't lower your emissions to zero with wind and solar.

Europe has very little room left for hydro storage. Most dams that could be built have been built long ago. That drastically limit the efficiency of more wind and more solar power. Nuclear, on the other hand, doesn't need much backup. In fact in France it needs less than 2% of backup (EDF has the know-how to modulate power very accurately to match consumption entirely on nuclear power) so it would already be possible to do 0 emission with 95% nuclear and 5% hydro and nothing else.

Oh, look what I've found: https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-poweran...

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#339

Post by kragen »

Accujack wrote: post #300
lhopki01 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terrorist attack that is going to take out 1000s of square kilometres of solar panels? Surely they'd just attack a city if they had that amount of firepower? Or in the more likely case that they don't it's easier to attack power transmission than generation.

Assuming there are that many panels, it is in fact quite easy for any industrialized country to design a weapon that can destroy a square mile of panels or more with a single warhead. They're thin sheets of silicon covered in glass.

A square mile is 2.6 square km. You are replying to someone who said it would be hard to destroy thousands of square km of panels. It would seem that your reply, that "it is…easy…to…destroy a square mile of panels or more with a single warhead", is not to the point.

However, by coincidence, your position is right, for two reasons:

1. Single nuclear warheads routinely have blast radii of tens of km rather than, as you suggest, hundreds of meters. So in fact a single warhead can indeed destroy thousands of square km.

2. 1000km² of solar panels would be 1000 GWp; at a low-cost module price of €0.19/W (the average for 2019) that's €190 billion. Currently solar plants are not built that large, nor nearly so.

Re: Rolls-Royce plans mini nuclear reactors by 2029

#340

Post by fsh »

wazoox wrote: post #338
fsh wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely obvious that renewables require significantly more storage capacity than other power sources. However, a lot of experts seem to believe that this is not nearly as big of an issue as you are implying. As for wind energy, you are completely wrong. In 2019 25% of Germany's electricity was generated by wind (compared to 13% nuclear). This has significantly reduced the fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emis…

If Germany had invested 300 billions in nuclear instead of wind, they would have 0 emissions electric power right now. It makes relative sense in Germany because they still rely a lot on coal for power generation. If they hadn't stopped nuclear power in its tracks, they would have achieved a much bigger reduction of their emissions, too. If you take the example of Spain you can easily see that they fired up 1GW of ga…

I don't see any credible source for the "300 billion" claim. The official statistics list 168 billion since 2000 for all renewables combined: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/36306/umfrage...

On the other hand, nuclear power has been subsidized with about 200 billion as well without ever producing more than one third of the electricity output: https://foes.de/pdf/2010_FOES_Foerderungen_Atomenergie_1950-...

The other elephant in the room is that nuclear energy relies on having cheap sources of Uranium available. This works fine for the almost negligible amount of nuclear energy being generated today. Scaling this up to a significant fraction of the world energy consumption would require usage of breeder reactors which nobody has been able to get to work at the required industrial scales.

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