Live data from Hacker News

First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

arstechnica.com

91–100 of 332 posts

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#91
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it's already done today; for instance, in Brazil these high power transmission lines transport wind power from the northeast region (which has lots of wind due to favorable geography) to the southeast region (where most of the electricity consumption is). The total distance is on the order of 2000 km. (A fun fact: many of these high power transmission lines were originally to send power from the hydroelectri…

Genuinely curious - why is wind power being cancelled in the North East because it isn't cost competitive, if it's so easy to do? https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-orsted-cancellation...

Because the Jones Act of 1920 prevents use of the existing European installation ships so they have to start from scratch in uncompetitive American shipyards.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/04/03/t...

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/rust-buckets-how-jones-...

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#92
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this 90% solution is that the more renewables are added, the more natural gas capacity is required to cover the capacity. Good problem for the natural gas industry. Going clean with nuclear isn’t cheap right now, and it shouldn’t be. It wasn’t at the start of renewables when solar was expensive. Cheap, reliable, clean; pick two.

> The problem with this 90% solution is that the more renewables are added, the more natural gas capacity is required to cover the capacity. That can be the case only if the demand also increases. If the demand stays the same, adding more wind and solar can only decrease how much the natural gas power plants are used, and the required capacity (that is, how much they can produce at full power) either stays the same o…

or if existing plants shut down, for example coal and nuclear plants

they are in fact shutting down in many cases because they can't compete with renewables, and the result is that more grid-scale storage or peaker capacity (or demand response!) is needed

but this is a good kind of problem to have, if you replace 900 megawatts (produced) of coal with 400 megawatts (produced, not nameplate) of solar and 500 megawatts of gas, you've still cut carbon emissions by two thirds, and lowered electricity prices at the same time

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#93
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - why is wind power being cancelled in the North East because it isn't cost competitive, if it's so easy to do? https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-orsted-cancellation...

Because the Jones Act of 1920 prevents use of the existing European installation ships so they have to start from scratch in uncompetitive American shipyards. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/04/03/t... https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/rust-buckets-how-jones-...

this is just one of many factors, and one that was understood by oersted when they originally started the project; the article mentions others that are more relevant

in particular, you should expect to see many, many cancelled projects across the entire economy with the interest rate hikes the usa put in place

obviously none of this is relevant to brazil

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#94
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>water electrolysis ... 80% efficient It's only to get hydrogen, also there is cost to make it liquid, to store it (it's neither trivial nor cheap) and to extract energy from it in fuel cells. >i don't know how efficient carbon dioxide reduction is If we want to capture carbon from atmosphere and turn it back into hydrocarbon fuel like gas or diesel, thus achieving net zero emissions, that process is still "nightmari…

i'm surprised to see you still haven't posted any numbers or cited any sources

" We can expect 48% of the energy from renewable electricity to be lost in conversion to liquid fuels, using the average value for drop-in diesel technologies from our previous economic modeling work. To compound the problem, according to various studies 70% of the energy in those fuels will be lost when they are combusted in internal combustion engines, for a total efficiency of 16% for the e-fuels pathway. Therefore, the vast majority of the energy from the sun or wind is lost. In contrast, the majority of energy used by electric vehicles actually goes to powering the wheels, losing only 10% in charging and 20% by the motor and for a total efficiency of 72%."

https://theicct.org/e-fuels-wont-save-the-internal-combustio...

There is lots of (paywalled) proper economic analysis of current methods of Electrofuel generation from atmospheric carbon, the summary is that the current processes cost multiple times more than similar fossil fuels, with the main cost factor being the cost of electrolyzed hydrogen per kg, and captured atmospheric carbon cost per kg, and all of that comes down to the cost of the energy consumed during the process.

https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2021/11/18/how-much-wi...

Edit: other than any research, the main indicator (for me) is that nobody hasn't yet offered renewables based liquid hydrogen or atmospheric carbon Electrofuel at nearly viable prices for today's world. If the technology was energy efficient, these fuels would be flooding the market already even at 2x the price, but the cost of producing these is currently 5x or higher. That's why the first target for such fuels is commercial aviation and sea transportation where the cost of fuel can be absorbed less painfully.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#95
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm surprised to see you still haven't posted any numbers or cited any sources

" We can expect 48% of the energy from renewable electricity to be lost in conversion to liquid fuels, using the average value for drop-in diesel technologies from our previous economic modeling work. To compound the problem, according to various studies 70% of the energy in those fuels will be lost when they are combusted in internal combustion engines, for a total efficiency of 16% for the e-fuels pathway. Therefor…

52% efficiency sounds fantastic; the other 70% loss is equally present when you're burning fossil fuels in the same engines. of course it is very relevant to the electric vehicle comparison, but not to replacing fossil fuels in peaker plants or airplanes, which is the topic at hand

and it's fantastic news that the main cost factor is the cost of the energy input, rather than, for example, defouling or catalyst replacement. because once the electric grid is mostly renewable and intermittent, so that energy is free in the daytime, synthetic fuels will be immensely cheaper than they are now. perhaps by even more than 5x :)

initially the carbon dioxide won't come from atmospheric capture; carbon capture at the source is immensely cheaper. perhaps as the number of fossil-fuel and biomass point sources dwindles, atmospheric carbon capture will become competitive, but i suspect that it may

16% cycle efficiency might rule out liquid synfuels for grid-scale energy storage, but hydrogen should be closer to 50% (60% combined-cycle turbine times 80% electrolysis), or perhaps higher with fuel cells, and though that's much lower than batteries, it's still a viable alternative to nuclear if batteries don't work out due to shortages or whatever

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#96
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore the sibling comment, it is definitely possible, typically via HVDC transmission. With 3% losses per 1000km, HVDC transmission of variable renewable energy is absolutely part of our future energy systems. Wind is especially well suited to this - to a certain extent it's always windy SOMEWHERE whereas with solar you ain't generating any at night, no matter what.

> whereas with solar you ain't generating any at night, no matter what. Nitpicking: that's only the case for photovoltaics. Solar thermal can store the heat for a while, and keep generating even after the sun goes down.

solar thermal is dead tho

just like other thermal power plants, it's too expensive to compete with pv and wind

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#97

Ontario announced one GE Hitachi BWRX-300 in December 2022, and three more in July 2023: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-darlington-nu... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BWRX-300 This is in addition to a new large-scale plant: * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-new-nuclear-bu...

But why build them in Darlington, when there's a big grid that could make use of new CANDU reactors, for which most of the supply chain is from Canada and its higher energy output makes it more competitive?

BWRX-300 makes more sense in smaller communities.

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#98
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the major world powers dumped tons of money into researching light water fission, precisely because it is dual use technology for making weapons. What has not had billions of government dollars in finding were renewables.

Forced labor in solar-grade polysilicon production is effectively in the billions of dollars of government subsidies club. Let’s not kid ourselves.

hmm, i hadn't heard of this before

https://www.csis.org/analysis/addressing-forced-labor-concer...

> (...) there is mounting evidence that the polysilicon produced in Xinjiang, the first step in the supply chain for solar photovoltaics, possibly uses forced labor. (...)

> Another major problem is that there is limited visibility into the actual conditions under which polysilicon is produced. In part, this is because Xinjiang is inaccessible, so it is hard to get verifiable facts on the working conditions inside factories. Much of the incredible research that has brought this topic to the surface has involved inference and triangulation.

this was two years ago; is there more reliable information since then?

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#99

Nothing has changed since the early days. A helluva complicated and expensive way to boil water. "At present, atomic power presents an exceptionally costly and inconvenient means of obtaining energy … This is expensive power, not cheap power as the public has been led to believe." — C. G. Suits, Director of Research, General Electric, who was operating the Hanford reactors, 1951. ( Ref: Power from the Atom - An Appra…

Turkey is set to get 10% of its grid electricity from the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant [1] The build cost has been 22B (excluding loans) and it will have a capacity of 4456MW meaning it's $4.9/W. On average the cost per Watt for solar is 27 cents (excluding loans and costs for storage) [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkuyu_Nuclear_Power_Plant [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices EDIT: incorrect…

i just noticed that you're linking a page about panel prices

two problems

one, pv modules are typically about a third of the cost of a utility-scale solar farm; things like installation labor and power electronics are also part of the cost. so roughly we should expect solar projects to cost about 80 cents per peak watt based on that number

two, that page ends in 02021, but pv module prices have fallen by about a third to half since the beginning of this year https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis...

in particular solarserver's 'mainstream' category was about 25 euro-cents throughout 02021 and is now at 19, 24% lower, and the lowest it's ever been

it seems like the price-fixing cartel announced at the beginning of 02019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-gcl-i... has finally collapsed

solarserver's 'low-cost' category is at the staggeringly low price of 11 euro-cents per peak watt; if the other costs didn't change, that would lower the solar plant cost from 80 cents to 65 cents or so per peak watt, though in fact they tend to increase somewhat because of the larger area of solar cells required to reach the same wattage (that's why the mainstream pv modules are more expensive)

a third problem is the capacity factor, tho; nuke plants typically run at about 90% capacity, while solar farms run at closer to 20%, because of problems such as night. in very polar countries like germany it's 10%. so 70 cents per nameplate watt works out to more like 3.5 dollars per delivered watt

which is still cheaper than 4.9 (or 5.4 dollars per delivered watt assuming that 90% capacity factor) but not implausibly cheaper anymore

if solar farm builders can find ways to reduce the costs of solar farms proportionately to the vertiginous drop in module prices, which sounds implausible but has always been done successfully before, we should expect the price to drop to half that

Re: First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

#100
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - why is wind power being cancelled in the North East because it isn't cost competitive, if it's so easy to do? https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-orsted-cancellation...

you're confusing the northeast of brazil, which is what cesar was talking about, with the northeast of the usa these are not just in different countries but in vastly different climates in different hemispheres the exact page you linked in your comment literally answers your question: 'due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. ... H…

It’s strange because wind is supposedly overwhelmingly cheaper and better, yet even with tons of government subsidies and political will behind it, it still can’t be built. Wouldn’t something truly more cost effective be easy to build because it’s cheaper? Clearly something doesn’t add up.
Post reply on HN