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China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

johnmenadue.com

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Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#61

Post by com2kid »

loeg wrote: post #52
com2kid wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, rooftop home solar doesn't make a ton of sense at this latitude and especially not adjacent to this much hydro power. I know people in Seattle who run their entire house off solar for 6-8 months on the year (important now that AC is increasingly needed around here...) and who don't fully deplete the credit they've saved up with the power company until January. Also only Seattle gets the majority of their energ…

> I know people in Seattle who run their entire house off solar for 6-8 months on the year (important now that AC is increasingly needed around here...) and who don't fully deplete their battery bank until January. So what? They've invested a large amount of capital in order to avoid low $0.13/kWh residential electricity rates that come from more or less entirely carbon-free sources (mostly hydro, some nuclear/wind).…

> So what? They've invested a large amount of capital in order to avoid low $0.13/kWh residential electricity rates that come from more or less entirely carbon-free sources

As per PSE (the power company for the Seattle Metro but outside of Seattle itself), only 23% of the energy sent to surrounding areas outside of Seattle city proper is from hydro. FWIW Nuclear is less than 1%. 46% is fossil fuels, natural gas and coal.

As for the payback period on solar installs, it made a lot of sense a few years ago when the state had incentives.

With the ability to bank credit, plenty of people around Seattle who have solar panels are only paying for electricity for 3 or so months of the year.

Is it a slam dunk? There is probably better ROI on an index fund, but it is not a money losing proposition by any means.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#62

Post by warcher »

hangonhn wrote: post #29
janalsncm wrote: post #9

It is telling that a country with basically none of the American barriers to nuclear (NiMBYism, slow construction) is also shifting focus to solar and wind. It’s just simpler. You can put up a solar panel tomorrow and start generating power. A solar panel is a self-contained prefab power generating unit. Even with all of the advancements in nuclear, we still don’t have anything like that.

I was going to say... if a country like China, with its massive engineering/building capacity and authoritarian "efficiency" cannot hit their nuclear construction targets, it is quite telling how difficult it must be in reality to build nuclear reactors in general. I am still very pro-nuclear but it seems PV + wind + battery storage are coming down in price much faster than people expected and it just makes sense to…

I think the unsaid story is all the coal plants that got built at “unsustainably low levels of utilization”. For whatever reason regional governors reallly liked building coal power plants, needed or not.

And if the only factor is cost, coal is the way to go. So so cheap if the pollution is somebody else’s problem.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pfdietz wrote: post #57
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We come out ahead rolling out renewables and storage as fast as possible, driving these technologies down their experience curves We don’t have storage technology to absorb a 2% year-long grid-wide output decrease [1]. That means overbuilding or, more practically, sticking with natural gas. If we aren’t building nuclear, then continuing to build gas plants is the right move. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/de…

Sure we do. It's e-fuels like hydrogen. Yes, the round trip efficiency sucks, but for year-long storage the cost of inefficiency is very low (compared to system capital cost), because there are so few charge-discharge cycles. A simple cycle gas turbine might be $0.6/W, vs. $10/W for a new nuclear power plant. So we can back up the grid with these turbines for a very small fraction of the cost of building nuclear powe…

> It's e-fuels like hydrogen. Yes, the round trip efficiency sucks, but for year-long storage the cost of inefficiency is very low

This is still pie in the sky technology. Particularly given the frequencies, magnitudes and durations we’re considering. At that point SMRs become topical.

> we can back up the grid with these turbines for a very small fraction of the cost of building nuclear power plants to power the grid

Absolutely. If we’re okay with gas being a core energy source for the foreseeable future, we shouldn’t build nuclear. (And for countries without safe access to gas, coal.)

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#64

Post by cinntaile »

bboygravity wrote: post #24
spacebanana7 wrote: post #10

It’s very difficult to estimate the true cost of nuclear power because so many resources are spent on safety features rather than the basic stuff essential to power generation. New construction cost per energy out can vary by 5x, even against the grain of expected purchasing power parity advantages: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-britain-is-building-...

It's also very difficult to estimate true cost of solar at a massive scale. Most/all solar panels that exist currently can not be recycled in a way that makes ecological or economical sense. Their operational lifetime is NOT "sustainable", nor is their economical lifetime. Then there's death's per kWh, required energy storage (with its own ecological and economical issues), mining, transportation, CO2 per kWh, etc et…

It's a bit contradictory to claim there is a clear winner while also mentioning it's a complex analysis where important details are easily missed. It reads more like a bias justification, since you don't provide that analysis or sources that do.

What do you mean when you say that solar panels are not sustainable in their economical lifetime?

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#65

Post by cinntaile »

sottol wrote: post #47
bboygravity wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also very difficult to estimate true cost of solar at a massive scale. Most/all solar panels that exist currently can not be recycled in a way that makes ecological or economical sense. Their operational lifetime is NOT "sustainable", nor is their economical lifetime. Then there's death's per kWh, required energy storage (with its own ecological and economical issues), mining, transportation, CO2 per kWh, etc et…

Can the same not be said of nuclear to a degree? My knowledge may be outdated but afaik proper, long-term nuclear waste storage is still an open question. Nuclear waste persists and remains dangerous for a long time and it's easy to forget and just burden future generations with it.

I think most jurisdictions have settled on or are settling on long-term underground storage. Usually in areas that are geologically stable, possibly between clay layers in case of leakage.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#66

Post by WalterBright »

dyauspitr wrote: post #39
WalterBright wrote: post #12

In the Pacific Northwest, I see rooftop solar panels half-covered with mildew. I wonder how that affects the power generation, and how often one would have to climb up on the roof to scrape them clean.

It’s like getting your gutters cleaned. You’re just going to have contractors that come by once or twice a year to clean out your panels.

More like getting the roof cleaned. It's pretty expensive to pay someone to dangle on your roof to clean it. Fortunately, it doesn't need to be done that often.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#67

Post by WalterBright »

com2kid wrote: post #61
loeg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know people in Seattle who run their entire house off solar for 6-8 months on the year (important now that AC is increasingly needed around here...) and who don't fully deplete their battery bank until January. So what? They've invested a large amount of capital in order to avoid low $0.13/kWh residential electricity rates that come from more or less entirely carbon-free sources (mostly hydro, some nuclear/wind).…

> So what? They've invested a large amount of capital in order to avoid low $0.13/kWh residential electricity rates that come from more or less entirely carbon-free sources As per PSE (the power company for the Seattle Metro but outside of Seattle itself), only 23% of the energy sent to surrounding areas outside of Seattle city proper is from hydro. FWIW Nuclear is less than 1%. 46% is fossil fuels, natural gas and c…

It's hard to see the ROI on rooftop solar, especially taking into account the cost of replacing the panels and the battery now and then. They're not lifetime purchases.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#68

Post by WalterBright »

ajross wrote: post #21
WalterBright wrote: post #12

In the Pacific Northwest, I see rooftop solar panels half-covered with mildew. I wonder how that affects the power generation, and how often one would have to climb up on the roof to scrape them clean.

The article is about industrial generation, not home solar which is largely a vanity thing still. Go look for mildew on a big solar farm on the other side of the Cascades. You'll need to dig through all the wind turbines and dams to find them though. The PNW has better choices than solar anyway.

Isn't there a dust problem east of the Cascades?

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#69

Post by dyauspitr »

h0l0cube wrote: post #50
dyauspitr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables plus nuclear should be the way of the future. Nuclear power when renewables are not available and some sort of storage (pumped hydro, heat in salt etc) when renewables are active.

Nuclear is great as a baseload, but as wind and solar reach overcapacity, peakers will be more useful to react to changes in weather. But by then, energy storage will be economical and scalable enough to obviate gas and coal for this purpose. Renewable takeover is a foregone conclusion at this point. That said, from a conservation point of view, nuclear is something I’m in favor of

It’s what I was trying to get across. Use nuclear where you would use a peaked plant and then direct the nuclear entry into storage when renewables are active.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#70

Post by pfdietz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
pfdietz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we do. It's e-fuels like hydrogen. Yes, the round trip efficiency sucks, but for year-long storage the cost of inefficiency is very low (compared to system capital cost), because there are so few charge-discharge cycles. A simple cycle gas turbine might be $0.6/W, vs. $10/W for a new nuclear power plant. So we can back up the grid with these turbines for a very small fraction of the cost of building nuclear powe…

> It's e-fuels like hydrogen. Yes, the round trip efficiency sucks, but for year-long storage the cost of inefficiency is very low This is still pie in the sky technology. Particularly given the frequencies, magnitudes and durations we’re considering. At that point SMRs become topical. > we can back up the grid with these turbines for a very small fraction of the cost of building nuclear power plants to power the gri…

> This is still pie in the sky technology.

4% of the hydrogen production in China is by electrolysis now. Electrolysers there are below $300/kW.

You object to this because it's not available, then you point to SMRs, which don't exist now except on slides. And given NuScale's recent disappointments one should not expect the rosy promises of their (or other) SMRs to come true or find much of a market.

> Absolutely. If we’re okay with gas being a core energy source for the foreseeable future, we shouldn’t build nuclear. (And for countries without safe access to gas, coal.)

The gas would be hydrogen. Hydrogen + batteries are nicely complementary and enable renewables to undercut new construction nuclear even for supplying baseload power.

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