Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#71

Post by natmaka »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #62
lmm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - at scheduled, predictable times. That matters.

Except when it’s unscheduled. For months on end. See for example Oskarshamn 3 in Sweden having a 7 month long unscheduled outage this year. Ringhals 4 had an 8 month unscheduled outage during the energy crisis.

A machine that operates continuously is a perfect machine, and no machine is perfect.

The greater the number and diversity of machines, as well as their geographical dispersion, the greater their availability.

In this respect, a mix of renewables (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc.) deployed on a continental scale, along with storage (batteries and V2(G|H), hydro, green hydrogen...) is unbeatable (total cost, availability, risk, etc.).

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#72

Post by egorfine »

tombert wrote: post #2

Maybe someone can elaborate on this, since I know basically nothing about chemistry or nuclear physics; isn't Three Mile Island still completely irradiated and unsafe for humans to inhabit?

TMI was never irradiated and unsafe for humans to inhabit.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#74

Post by lm28469 »

slaw wrote: post #70
lm28469 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75%+ of all batteries/panels/windmill blades are made in China. And if you decide to make them locally they'll be 5-10x more expensive and much less competitive because you don't have: - super low wages and borderline slave labor - easy and cheap access to rare earth - the CCP boosting your industries to flood the world

China has 26 nuclear reactors in construction. Worldwide there are 61. Let's not build nuclear reactors because China dominates industry.

Reading comprehension must not be your forte, or you're arguing in bad faith. American nuclear reactors aren't built with Chinese tech or by Chinese engineers as far as I can tell.

If you give up your sovereignty on topics like defence, energy or agriculture don't come crying in 20 years when you're someone else's bitch. Ask German's how it's going with the cheap russian gas lmao

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#75

Post by natmaka »

CivBase wrote: post #3

How much would it cost to build a new reactor with comparable power output?

There is less and less real willing ( project starting on the field) to do so because finance likes predictability ( https://x.com/SustainableTall/status/1619246745074139138 ) and competitors are booming ( see, for example, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices and https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#76

Post by slaw »

lm28469 wrote: post #74
slaw wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has 26 nuclear reactors in construction. Worldwide there are 61. Let's not build nuclear reactors because China dominates industry.

Reading comprehension must not be your forte, or you're arguing in bad faith. American nuclear reactors aren't built with Chinese tech or by Chinese engineers as far as I can tell. If you give up your sovereignty on topics like defence, energy or agriculture don't come crying in 20 years when you're someone else's bitch. Ask German's how it's going with the cheap russian gas lmao

US doesn't have any nuclear constructions. Those who built existing reactors retired or died long time ago.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#77

Post by bryanlarsen »

lm28469 wrote: post #68
roryirvine wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems excessively defeatist. Just because the USA squandered its early advantage in solar tech doesn't necessarily mean that it can never hope to regain a leading position. Running away from the challenge now will all but guarantee defeat in the long term, so it's probably the wrong strategic decision to make.

75%+ of all batteries/panels/windmill blades are made in China. And if you decide to make them locally they'll be 5-10x more expensive and much less competitive because you don't have: - super low wages and borderline slave labor - easy and cheap access to rare earth - the CCP boosting your industries to flood the world

None of those are the reasons that Chinese solar panels are cheap. They don't use rare earths. They don't use much labor.

They're cheap because they're made in massive "lights out" highly automated factories.

Access to cheap capital and automation. Those are supposed to be American strengths, and China is beating America at its own game.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#78

Post by lvspiff »

yellowapple wrote: post #61
DeathArrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the loan is cheaper than using their own money.

More critically: just because a company is worth $1 trillion doesn't mean it has anywhere close to $1 billion in cash at all, let alone able to be earmarked to a given project (at the presumed exclusion of other projects). Granted, a project like this probably doesn't strictly need all $1 billion all at once, but I'd argue it's better to get whatever necessary funding upfront instead of risking having sunk a partial…

They do have money earmarked for this…its just a line item though called “lobbying”

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#79

Post by _3u10 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #17
pseudalopex wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft committed to purchase the plant's capacity for 20 years. And US electricity demand grew very slowly from 2005 to 2020. It is growing rapidly now.

At around $110/MWh, according to the article. This is about 50% higher than what utility-scale PV or wind would cost. Guess they're using OpenAI accounting.

They probably want to operate their Datacenter at night or when the wind isn’t blowing.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#80

Post by pseudalopex »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #17
pseudalopex wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft committed to purchase the plant's capacity for 20 years. And US electricity demand grew very slowly from 2005 to 2020. It is growing rapidly now.

At around $110/MWh, according to the article. This is about 50% higher than what utility-scale PV or wind would cost. Guess they're using OpenAI accounting.

The article said Jefferies analysts estimated Microsoft might pay $110 to $115.

The article cited Lazard analysts' estimates to say this was more expensive than solar or wind. But Lazard's report said new build solar and storage could cost from $50 to $131. And new build wind and storage could cost $44 to $123.

Costs will rise over 20 years almost certainly.

And Microsoft had already large solar and wind power purchase agreements.[1] These could be affected by China's rare earth export controls scheduled to start next year. Hedging this position would be sensible.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/2024/09...

Post reply on HN