Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#551

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #522

ncmncm wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is fortunate that you are not making decisions, then, for the people who are directing the use of billions of dollars invested in exactly the activities you insist do not work.

Are they? Who is building grid-scale power to gas storage?

The Brits are switching to store wind-generated hydrogen in undersea cavities where they now stockpile natural gas. A similar project is going on in Utah, and another in Texas. All three are utility-scale production systems, not pilot projects.

Other storage media being built out for full-scale production use include iron-air batteries, where (IIRC) $1.5B is going into factories, a liquified-air storage system in Chile ($0.5B), and synthetic ammonia in Norway. Nobody can track even a fraction of the utility-scale pumped-hydro projects under construction world-wide.

We will need hundreds times as much of these, and of others, in the end, which will all take decades to build out.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#552

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

kleene_op wrote: post #460

ncmncm wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage is a solved problem, and only needs to be built out. No such "breakthrough" is needed. Storage cost is falling much faster, even, than solar and wind generation. The only question today is whether to put a euro into solar or wind now, or into storage that will be much cheaper next year. Thus far, in most places, the former is still favored. More carbon tax can help move the choice the other way. As solar and…

I'll consider storage a solved problem when we actually have it. In the mean time, nuclear is a nice thing to invest in.

Each dollar put into building out nuclear instead of renewables + storage brings climate disaster closer. Money is fungible. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. A dollar spent on nukes yields enormously less than the same dollar spent on renewables, and the difference is only growing.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#553

Post by makomk » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #446

krzyk wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> boiling water reactors It amazes me that we are still using steam power (mostly 18th and 19t century discovery AFAIR) in such advanced systems.

What is so advanced about it? We’ve had pressurized water reactors since the 50s

Yeah, we're pretty close to the point where as much time has passed since pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors were invented as there was between their invention and the invention of the steam turbine.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#554

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

cplusplusfellow wrote: post #490

ncmncm wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will need to wait and see. It might end up cheaper to ship in ammonia synthesized from solar in the tropics. Most likely it will be a combination of several: normally, delivery by transmission line because cheapest, but with geothermal held ready for strategic backup, and stockpiled ammonia for load peaks. Shipping will get cheaper as fuel does, but is already astonishingly cheap.

In what way is shipping fuel expected to get cheaper? I’m not aware of any significant and serious efforts to replace ships with a green fuel, and they comprise a huge percentage of our emissions.

To remain competitive, shipping will need to re-tank to burn tropically synthesized (most likely) anhydrous ammonia, which will soon be cheaper even than bunker oil. Ships still burning oil will find increasingly fewer ports open to them.

The west-African coastal Sahara, coastal Peru/Bolivia, Baja California, Arabia/Sudan/Eritrea, Yemen/Oman/Pakistan, Socotra, and north-western Australia all look like good places to site solar-driven ammonia synthesis. I don't doubt that less geographically-favored sites will dominate instead.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#555

Post by Manuel_D » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #551

Manuel_D wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Who is building grid-scale power to gas storage?

The Brits are switching to store wind-generated hydrogen in undersea cavities where they now stockpile natural gas. A similar project is going on in Utah, and another in Texas. All three are utility-scale production systems, not pilot projects. Other storage media being built out for full-scale production use include iron-air batteries, where (IIRC) $1.5B is going into factories, a liquified-air storage system in Chi…

Coverage I'm reading about this project says it's not only a prototype, it's also a planned prototype. The prototype hasn't even been built yet: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55763356

You said it'd be stored in caves, so perhaps it's a different project. It'd be good to link to this project.

The Utah project looks like it's still trying to secure funding, and hasn't broken ground. https://power.mhi.com/regions/amer/news/20210511.html#:~:tex....

Similarly in Texas. The plans for this project were unveiled only a couple weeks ago: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/green-hydrogen-inte...

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#556

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

russnes wrote: post #483

maffydub wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we start digging into the core and allowing energy to escape faster, we would effectively speed it up, right? I don't think we're even digging through the crust - there'd still be the mantle (~100x thicker) before we got to the core. In numbers, I believe the deepest borehole is ~12km deep... and the Earth has a radius of >6000km. We're barely scratching the surface.

My concern is fundamentally whether or not we are siphoning energy out of the core faster than it would otherwise escape. Since the layers are directly connected, it doesn't sound like to me that you'd have to dig into the very core for that to happen. Of course at the current state of affairs the effects are miniscule, but it doesn't sound like a very good investment as something to potentially scale up in the futur…

Literally impossible to do. And, also, absolutely pointless to worry about.

In another century, if we don't blast ourselves back to the stone age first (increasingly likely), energy from hydrogen-boron fusion will dominate wherever solar is impractical, and the geothermal wells will become too expensive to continue operating. So, either way, the whole process is an imperceptible blip.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#557

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #555

ncmncm wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brits are switching to store wind-generated hydrogen in undersea cavities where they now stockpile natural gas. A similar project is going on in Utah, and another in Texas. All three are utility-scale production systems, not pilot projects. Other storage media being built out for full-scale production use include iron-air batteries, where (IIRC) $1.5B is going into factories, a liquified-air storage system in Chi…

Coverage I'm reading about this project says it's not only a prototype, it's also a planned prototype. The prototype hasn't even been built yet: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55763356 You said it'd be stored in caves, so perhaps it's a different project. It'd be good to link to this project. The Utah project looks like it's still trying to secure funding, and hasn't broken ground. https://power.mhi.com/regions/am…

To have built them, you first have to plan, fund, and then actually build them, all of which takes actual time.

Nobody announces billion-dollar physical construction projects for untested tech.

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#558

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #535

rndgermandude wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geo-thermal is a little bit geographically dependent, but by far not as much as you make it sound. Hydro is indeed very geo-dependent, no contest there. Large-scale electrolysis is not unproven. E.g. Air Liquide operates a 20MW plant producing 3000t/annum near Quebec already[0]. Other projects in development aim for 200MW facilities. Granted, that isn't yet massive scale, just about 99,000 MWh/annum of usable energy…

Geothermal is indeed geographically dependent. You need to be on a fault line, or otherwise have heated rocks near the surface. Most places do not have these conditions. The hydrolysis example you provided is tiny relative to the requirements of grid scale storage. To put this in perspective, the US alone uses 500 GWh of electricity every hour. And this will increase as electrification progresses, electricity only ac…

[deleted]

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#559

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 11:12 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #535

rndgermandude wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geo-thermal is a little bit geographically dependent, but by far not as much as you make it sound. Hydro is indeed very geo-dependent, no contest there. Large-scale electrolysis is not unproven. E.g. Air Liquide operates a 20MW plant producing 3000t/annum near Quebec already[0]. Other projects in development aim for 200MW facilities. Granted, that isn't yet massive scale, just about 99,000 MWh/annum of usable energy…

Geothermal is indeed geographically dependent. You need to be on a fault line, or otherwise have heated rocks near the surface. Most places do not have these conditions. The hydrolysis example you provided is tiny relative to the requirements of grid scale storage. To put this in perspective, the US alone uses 500 GWh of electricity every hour. And this will increase as electrification progresses, electricity only ac…

With laser drilling, geothermal is no longer geographically dependent.

That will, of course, still need to be developed to production. But it is a (large) incremental process improvement, not a whole different technology.

First you said hydrolysis was not practical at all. Today you say 200 MW facilities are not big enough. What will you say tomorrow? Why not admit it now?

Re: Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market

#560

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 11:21 PM UTC

rndgermandude wrote: post #530

Manuel_D wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And other than wind and solar, we also have hydro and geo-thermal. These are geographically dependent. You can't build the where you need them. > As for storage, one way to "store" energy is hydrogen, which we can then burn as needed. We can probably get the efficiency of that to 70% (for hydrogen-burning larger-scale power plants). Large scale electrolysis remains unproven. This goes in the "scientific breakthroug…

Geo-thermal is a little bit geographically dependent, but by far not as much as you make it sound. Hydro is indeed very geo-dependent, no contest there. Large-scale electrolysis is not unproven. E.g. Air Liquide operates a 20MW plant producing 3000t/annum near Quebec already[0]. Other projects in development aim for 200MW facilities. Granted, that isn't yet massive scale, just about 99,000 MWh/annum of usable energy…

There will be no artificial hills for pumped hydro. (Usually those are called "water towers" when used for municipal water storage under pressure.)

But deep subterranean cave and sub-ocean tanks for pumped hydro will be a thing. These make pumped hydro storage practical in radically more places than usually imagined. Combined with hill reservoirs, they multiply the storage capacity per unit mass of water.

A hilltop reservoir is, incidentally, an excellent place to site a solar array, which is cooled and more efficient by the water under it, and in turn radically reduces evaporative loss and biofouling in the reservoir.