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How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

blog.gridstatus.io

61–70 of 86 posts

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#61
post #3

Where does the 1500MW of heat the reactor is producing go, immediately after the generators are isolated from the grid?

It seems like you might really be asking about a meltdown scenario. The reaction can be slowed with control rods, which stops/minimizes the heat from being generated. The previously generated heat still needs to be handled, however (by evaporation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor A meltdown occurs when the reaction can't be slowed down through normal means because the safety systems fail. For example,…

> These failsafe systems are typically very reliable

From the RISKS archives:

"A fail-safe system fails by failing to fail safe."

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#63
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re correct that the system is statistical, and it’s planned accordingly. However, we cannot omit the fact that it’s the running turbine that responds faster to the unpredictable nature of the grid. The backbone of the grid, aka the baseline plants, are extremely responsive to unpredictable nature of the grid at a greater scale, with enough amount of safety margins to bring into service under unusual circumstances…

Which means nuclear is the worst companion imaginable. Since nuclear power needs to run at 100% 24/7 to only make an enormous loss. Dispatchable nuclear power to complement renewables has never made sense.

It's amazing how every comment you make is the most boring ideological propaganda

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are extremely expensive per megawatt, not very durable, require carefully controlled temperatures, and their manufacturer and recycling extract a tremendous cost from the environment. For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. However, there are other ways to store energy; unfortunately, most involve converting electricity to another form of energy such as pot…

> Batteries are extremely expensive per megawatt, not very durable, require carefully controlled temperatures, and their manufacturer and recycling extract a tremendous cost from the environment. For non-mobile usage, batteries shouldn't be seen as any kind of viable solution at scale. None of this is accurate. I encourage you to update your mental model with recent data. Citations below for your convenience. AMA, gl…

> global energy transition is my passion

Seeing what you write, it seems more like an obsession disguised to support your ideologies

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#65
post #62

I know Texas wants their independence & politics etc but its a bit silly not to have at least an emergency linkage to the bigger grids around to help catch falls like this. Even a fairly modest 500MW or whatever.

They have interconnects with Mexico. They relied on a 300MW interconnect during the 2011 winter storm outage.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#66
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means nuclear is the worst companion imaginable. Since nuclear power needs to run at 100% 24/7 to only make an enormous loss. Dispatchable nuclear power to complement renewables has never made sense.

It's amazing how every comment you make is the most boring ideological propaganda

Stating facts is “ideological propaganda”?

Work with the world, not against it.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#67
post #54

I helped write this! The data behind all the graphs in this post is here: https://www.gridstatus.io/dashboards/ercot-nuke-trip-july-20... If you like grid data, we have a lot more info for the entire country here: https://www.gridstatus.io/live

Those links are very informative. Can you elaborate on Ancillary Services Monitor and Energy Storage Resource Action dashboards? What’s the installed capacity that supported?

Also your original post link states event happened at 7:02 AM, your links here points to 8:05 AM. Can you explain this?

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#68
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how every comment you make is the most boring ideological propaganda

Stating facts is “ideological propaganda”? Work with the world, not against it.

These are lies you tell yourself and how you want people to see you. In a past discussion, you concluded by saying that those who support nuclear energy also support fossil fuels.

These are your ideological premises; you don't care about creating a better world, nor are you interested in facts and problems. You only care about your vision of things and making it prevail over others.

There's no need to know anything else to make any of your comments irrelevant. It's no coincidence that you are in every nuclear discussion, asserting how much you are against it.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how every comment you make is the most boring ideological propaganda

Stating facts is “ideological propaganda”? Work with the world, not against it.

Your comments are coming across as lacking nuance ("nuclear is the worst possible...", for example).

Nuclear has a place depending on how you weigh specific factors in your grid design. It's zero carbon. It's hideously expensive, particularly in capex. It's generally quite reliable and its availability is mostly uncorrelated with that of solar and wind. it's modestly dispatchable - you can scale down to 60% or so in many designs. (A little lower but let's be conservative).

If you place high weight on zero carbon, nuclear is an (expensive) way to get through the night. It can work pretty well in a grid mix if your grid is large enough that the loss of one nuclear plant isn't a really big chunk of your power supply (since, obviously, you want enough redundancy to handle a certain fraction of generation failures at peak load).

Are solar+wind+batteries on a much better trajectory? Yes. But batteries are not there _yet_ for 24x7, though I think we all hope they will be in the reasonably near future.

Re: How the electricity markets respond to a nuclear trip

#70
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stating facts is “ideological propaganda”? Work with the world, not against it.

Your comments are coming across as lacking nuance ("nuclear is the worst possible...", for example). Nuclear has a place depending on how you weigh specific factors in your grid design. It's zero carbon. It's hideously expensive, particularly in capex. It's generally quite reliable and its availability is mostly uncorrelated with that of solar and wind. it's modestly dispatchable - you can scale down to 60% or so in…

He does not care about these arguments, what matters is that there is no room for nuclear power.

In a past discussion I talked to him about how one of the important things to do was to diversify, as China has a lot of influence on the whole renewable sector (solar, batteries, etc.)

Needless to say, that's not a problem for him. For him to hope that batteries are the future is already a sure thing, without the slightest doubt.

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