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Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

reuters.com

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Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#71

Post by kaliqt »

akamaka wrote: post #66
atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop. Because nuclear power has high up front costs, its economics are increasingly eroded as more renewables and batteries are added to the grid. You’re totally correct that renewables and batteries…

That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output.

The only time it won't scale to meet output is if the price stays high, but if the nuclear energy is already on the grid and has elastic pricing, the rest will take care of itself.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#72

Post by weberer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #56
weberer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not restarting reactor 2. They're starting the one that shut down in 2019.

I think the GP knows that. That's why they said "out of action for half a decade".

Oh, I misread. Never mind then

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#73

Post by phil21 »

akamaka wrote: post #66
atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop. Because nuclear power has high up front costs, its economics are increasingly eroded as more renewables and batteries are added to the grid. You’re totally correct that renewables and batteries…

Easily solved via sane energy policy. Of course politics will likely make this impossible in the US.

In a rational environment you run your nuclear at 100% 24x7. The cost of the fuel is not material running at 10% vs. 100%. Letting parasitic intermittent power sources screw this up is simply financial engineering by largely bad actors. At least currently.

Then you use intermittent power sources to provide your peak loads during the day, and any excess you ideally start putting into storage - whatever that may be. If you have effectively free marginal power during certain peak times, I'm positive industry will find a way to turn that into money.

I still have hope sanity returns to the energy discussion, but it likely won't happen in the US during my lifetime. The cost of solar and wind is entirely politics - the storage cost is literally never considered when reading articles on the subject. The hidden costs are likely 10x or so what the marginal cost per kwh everyone loves to spew. Lots of folks getting massively rich off this disinformation so there is huge inertia behind ignoring it - even from very smart people that should absolutely know better after a few hours of reading on the subject. Just look at many of the posts here at HN.

The environmental costs of methane (natural gas) are simply not being considered. The methane leaks into the environment are underestimated by at least 10x if not much, much, more. Pivoting from nuclear and to natural gas has been an utter environmental disaster.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#74

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

akamaka wrote: post #66
atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop. Because nuclear power has high up front costs, its economics are increasingly eroded as more renewables and batteries are added to the grid. You’re totally correct that renewables and batteries…

And thank-you for making the point that utilities should be socialized and not a profit center.

EVERYBODY deserves clean water, electricity, housing and food.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#75

Post by akamaka »

kaliqt wrote: post #71
akamaka wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop. Because nuclear power has high up front costs, its economics are increasingly eroded as more renewables and batteries are added to the grid. You’re totally correct that renewables and batteries…

That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. The only time it won't scale to meet output is if the price stays high, but if the nuclear energy is already on the grid and has elastic pricing, the rest will take care of itself.

But the price of energy can be negative, so a new nuclear plant might never pay off its cost, even if it provides the public benefit of cheap electricity.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#77

Post by mc32 »

karaterobot wrote: post #25
mc32 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

I don't think insults are called for, but I directionally agree that protests against atomic power, largely based on needless fear and lack of understanding, caused the world a lot of damage. If we could compare the world we have today to the counterfactual where anti-nuclear protests hadn't stopped progress, I believe a lot of people would be ashamed of their actions. Some already are. But the net effect of the anti…

I am angry because if it had not been for her and the movement that rode on her coattails, we'd long have been weened substantially from fossil fuels and we'd be in a very different world today.

She caused this. She is not even owning it; though it can't be undone. She is responsible for more damage to the environment than GW Bush or Shell Oil. People don't realize the magnitude of the damage she inflicted.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#78

Post by Y-bar »

elil17 wrote: post #53
Y-bar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not the person you responded to, but have an honest question here since we are specifically talking about NIMBYism: How much less of NIMBY is there against coal power plants? For example are there examples of people rejecting NPP in their vicinity while accepting CPP?

How is that a valid comparison though? Fighting against a coal plant makes sense, fighting against a nuclear plant doesn't - that's the key difference.

The context of the discussion is Not In My Backyard-protests and blocking of plants. Are the people protesting one in their “backyard” not protesting the other?

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#79

Post by greenthrow »

atomic128 wrote: post #30

No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have N days of battery storage and the sun doesn't shine for N+1 days, you're in trouble. Nuclear fission is the answer. Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries. Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once built the plant can last 50 years (maybe 80 years, maybe more) and th…

This is nonsense. If you're going to cite arbitrary "N+1 days of bad weather" then I can cite "N+1 severe natural disasters" where the nuclear reactor is engineered to withstand N. And unlike the theoretical "disaster" due to extended bad weather taking renewables down, this has actually happened in recent memory with Fukushima. And this was a true disaster, not just a power outage.

Nuclear is not safe. Every time proponents say "new designs are safe" eventually a new disaster proves this lie. Then the nuclear proponents say "oh well that was an old design, new designs are safe!"

Nuclear is too expensive. Renewables even with storage are way cheaper! We can way over build renewables. We can distribute them, because "bad weather" is regional. All for much cheaper than nuclear.

Stop pushing this out-dated, unsafe and expensive technology. Its time has passed.

Re: Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal

#80

Post by quickthrowman »

akamaka wrote: post #75
kaliqt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. The only time it won't scale to meet output is if the price stays high, but if the nuclear energy is already on the grid and has elastic pricing, the rest will take care of itself.

But the price of energy can be negative, so a new nuclear plant might never pay off its cost, even if it provides the public benefit of cheap electricity.

Did you read the post you’re responding to?

> That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output.

If the price of electricity is negative, people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

> In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced.

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