First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation • Hacker News Board

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#881

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

qwebfdzsh wrote: post #844

chris222 wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would require a radically new design that takes a lot of the cost out. You also have the spent fuel storage problem and the risk factors of a meltdown (however small) to tackle which are always working against you. Technology development in the Nuclear area is SLOW. Now compare to batteries. There are thousands of companies working on new technology development. It’s just a matter of brain power and capital workin…

Just starting build them at a much bigger scaled would probably result in significant decrease in costs on it's own. China, Korea and Russia somehow manage to build at much lower cost. > risk factors of a meltdown (however small) to tackle which are always working against you. Technology development in the Nuclear area is SLOW. True, then again these really aren't a big deal. Burning coal is about the same as having…

Yes, I'm sure governments are going to fork over a trillion dollars to demonstrate that this time, for sure, honest, nuclear costs will decline with experience. /s

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#882

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

mlsu wrote: post #776

flgb wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every power generation technology needs ‘backup capacity’ and energy storage. If your transmission line to your nuclear power station trips, you need reserve capacity elsewhere to serve the load. Gas and coal generation all need storage to run reliably. If you are going to be an armchair power system designer and you want to ‘gross up’ the cost of capacity and storage into the cost of renewable generation, then be co…

Solar is unique in that it reliably "trips" for extensive periods every day and seasonally. It is also unique in that it does not take fuel that can be stored. Solar cannot act as the backup to a nuclear power plant. Whereas a nuclear power plant can (and does) act as the backup to solar. I'm grossing up to make the point that after about 60-70% solar penetration, the circle cannot be squared without massive investme…

The usual dishonest argument nuclear advocates make is to assume batteries are used to get renewables to 100% of the grid. You are doing it there.

But batteries are not the ideal storage technology for all storage use cases. It turns out that e-fuels like hydrogen are much, MUCH better for some cases, like seasonal leveling, even though the round trip efficiency isn't great.

It will likely be the case that a 100% RE grid ends up being considerably cheaper than a nuclear powered grid.

Nuclear backing up solar is a completely stupid idea, btw. The economics don't work at all.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#883

Post by pydry » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #837

c0llision wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea that renewables have to be paired with large amounts of energy storage is not correct. In Ireland dispatchable power is used when wind is low. Natural gas, hydroelectric, HVDC, pumped storage. Lithium ion batteries are generally only used briefly while the gas power plant gets up to temperature because of their high cost. There are also HVDC interconnectors that allow excess wind to be exported to th…

> I think the idea that renewables have to be paired with large amounts of energy storage is not correct. In Ireland dispatchable power is used when wind is low. Natural gas, hydroelectric, HVDC, pumped storage. Natural gas is neither renewable nor emission-free when burning, albeit less than burning coal, for instance. About 117 pounds of CO2 are produced per million British thermal units (MMBtu) equivalent of natur…

We cant switch overnight.

It takes about 1/10 or 1/20th the amount of time and 1/5th the cost to build equivalent solar production. It's better to start with that and let pumped storage, batteries and hydrogen play catch up than pay 5x more and wait 10-20x longer for equivalent levels of nuclear power production.

Right now we use so much natural gas that a GWh of solar or nuclear produced energy is essentially just a GWh of natural gas that never gets burned.

That GWh can be produced in two years less consistently or twenty years more consistently. Which do you choose?

Id take two years. Storage and demand shaping infrastructure will catch up.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#884

Post by firesteelrain » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #864

mlsu wrote: post #772

Lots of disfavorable comparisons being made here between nuke and solar. Let's do some math. There is a total of around 10 GWh of deployed grid storage in the US. The US consumed about 4,000 TWh of electricity in 2022. (10GWh/ 4000TWh) * (31,536,000 seconds) == 78 seconds. So, net, there is about a minute and a half of energy storage across the entire grid. (Most, about 90%, is pumped hydro, not battery). Of course,…

If you looked at installed solar generation capacity 30 years ago then the situation would have looked hopeless too. But there has since been an exponential increase, driven by increases in both rate installation, and in our capacity to manufacture and install panels. And there is every reason to think that we at the start of similar curve with battery storage right now (batteries are currently manufactured at a rela…

We can’t wait 30 years. So we build for now

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#885

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #821

mlsu wrote: post #772

Lots of disfavorable comparisons being made here between nuke and solar. Let's do some math. There is a total of around 10 GWh of deployed grid storage in the US. The US consumed about 4,000 TWh of electricity in 2022. (10GWh/ 4000TWh) * (31,536,000 seconds) == 78 seconds. So, net, there is about a minute and a half of energy storage across the entire grid. (Most, about 90%, is pumped hydro, not battery). Of course,…

You hit the nail on the head. "True cost of using wind and solar to meet demand was $272 and $472 per MWh [pdf]" source: https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.ame...

This is utter bullshit. It probably used obsolete cost numbers and assumed batteries are the only storage mode used.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#886

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

cheschire wrote: post #284

cesarb wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in 2016. That seems to be common with nuclear power plants. The latest one near where I live (Angra 3) has been under construction since 1984, and it should be complete in a few more years if it doesn't pause again; construction of the previous one (Angra 2), according to Wikipedia, started in 1976…

Well the Three Mile Island accident was in 1979, so I imagine that created a lot of resistance to continued construction across the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

The first nuclear build out in the US was already in deep trouble before TMI. Nuclear costs were exploding, demand had stopped growing at the rates assumed for the nuclear plans (this helped drive WPPSS into bankruptcy), and with the passage of PURPA in 1978 grids were opened to non-utility suppliers.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#887

Post by pydry » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

internetter wrote: post #789

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nice thing about solar is it's very cheap, and as a grid provider you can just charge more for energy at night to disincentivize use when the sun is not shining. We do not actually need constant energy supply at all hours of the day and night and solar can cover a great deal of energy needs for very cheap. You can also deploy solar even on a large scale in very short time scales. Want to build nuclear? You start…

I don't think they were saying solar is useless, but you underestimate how difficult it is to change peak load. Well a good start is actually smart systems within homes, for instance to avoid heating said home when nobody is present, or timing loads like car charging and dishwashers to be on that beat. That's great, but it's been proven these smart systems are very hard to roll out, no matter how much you try to say…

>That's great, but it's been proven these smart systems are very hard to roll out, no matter how much you try to say it's cheaper

I thought the opposite was proven. E.g. When Germany produced a lot of variable output electricity they varied aluminum smelting rates accordingly. That was highly effective and not generally expected.

There's tons of low hanging fruit like that but if you listen to carbon or nuclear lobby propaganda theyre insistent that the only thing that can solve the problem is more lithium than exists in the entire world.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#888

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:33 PM UTC

huytersd wrote: post #552

simonw wrote: post #147

This caught my eye: "Prior to Vogtle Unit 3, the last nuclear reactor to start in the United States was Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee. Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in 2016." More on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Plant#Unit_2

Meanwhile India is building 8 reactors right now with 10 more planned over the next decade. China is actively building 23 right now.

Are they building or are they "building" (as in, talking and planning and not actually building.)

India is famous for talking about nuclear. Building it, not as much. India gets 2x as much energy from PV as it does from nuclear, and the PV is growing rapidly.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#889

Post by hylaride » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

qwebfdzsh wrote: post #840

mgoetzke wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is also quite a lot more expensive than people sometimes calculate here. It cost about 35 billion USD (total cost during build, no maintenance, no fuel) At current potential earning rates of eg. max 10ct/kWh (Georgia) and 1100 MW peak continuous operation it will take 36 years to make the money back. That is without just investing that 35 billion into something else or even adding maintenance and fuel cost wh…

> I dislike the potential for a meltdown of course no matter how 'unlikely' Why? A meltdown is really not a big deal at all. If we're fine with burning coal we should be perfectly with a having a meltdown or two every few years (even if we 100% ignored climate change the degree of damage caused by either of those is not that different)

People think "meltdown" means Chernobyl. For those who don't know, a nuclear meltdown means the fuel inside the reactor overheated, (possibly permanently) damaging the reactor. It's essentially happened at some level three times in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#Core_damage_e...

A meltdown essentially means an expensive remediation.

A Chernobyl style event in the west is extremely unlikely due to reactor design as well as the containment buildings. The closest western equivalent, Fukushima, did have a core meltdown. But the spread of radiation was actually caused by the spent fuel no longer able to be cooled, causing the rods to be exposed to air, which generated hydrogen, that then exploded. While a disaster, it wasn't Chernobyl style where the open reactor pumped out radiation continuously until it could be contained.

Re: First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

#890

Post by pydry » Fri, Dec 29, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #873

mlsu wrote: post #772

Lots of disfavorable comparisons being made here between nuke and solar. Let's do some math. There is a total of around 10 GWh of deployed grid storage in the US. The US consumed about 4,000 TWh of electricity in 2022. (10GWh/ 4000TWh) * (31,536,000 seconds) == 78 seconds. So, net, there is about a minute and a half of energy storage across the entire grid. (Most, about 90%, is pumped hydro, not battery). Of course,…

> Look at the price of a powerwall. That's for the energy needs of a residential home. What happens to your AWS bill if us-east-1 was to buy a powerwall? Let alone steel, chemical, paper, mineral processing industries. What would happen to our economy if capacity for every one of those was cut by 1/3rd (or more depending on local climate)? Never mind your power bill. Using powerwall as the price of stationary battery…

If they used snowy 2 instead of a powerwall the comparison would look way too favorable and it would invert the point.

Powerwalls are expensive even by battery standards.