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

#951

Post by c0llision » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:35 AM 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…

>Natural gas is neither renewable nor emission-free when burning

Yes you are correct, in fact I actually addressed that in the later part of my comment

>From 2030 onwards the focus will be on decarbonising the remaining ~20% of electricity generation that is gas. How that will be done will depend mostly on how the technology matures in the meantime, but it will likely be replacing natural gas with hydrogen and biogas. Another option could be carbon capture. Or batteries if there is some technological breakthrough and the price of stored energy drops way below it's current 200euro/MWh price.

When picking fruit from a tree, It's usually best to start at the lower branches.

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

#952

Post by c0llision » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:38 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #947

pydry wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let say a natural gas power plant has a life time expectancy of 20 years. If we say that in 20 years we can abandon natural gas with nuclear, then lets put that as a deadline for when the last natural gas power plant will be demolished. We need to stop building new natural gas power plants and existing ones need to have a planned obsolescence so that investors know when their investment will no longer be worth anythi…

gas power plant != natural gas power plant. Green hydrogen gas generated from excess renewables and biogas exist, and can often be used in existing power plants. Though they are expensive right now, we've no idea how the technology may evolve in the next few years.

In Ireland they are actually building natural gas power plants with the assumption they will be stop operation as little as 5 years and only used for emergency purposes from then on. This is because they are using OCGT gas turbines which were invented for use in 3rd world countries and are much cheaper than conventional CCGT gas turbines.

Also don't forget that nuclear power plants have to go offline for maintenance like everything else, and I'm not sure it will ever be financially viable to have redundant nuclear power plants. France recently had to take 50% of their power plants offline for a few months to fix cracks and Japan had to take all of them offline for a few years after Fukushima. Thats why it's necessary to have emergency backup power plants and right now these are typically gas.

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

#953

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

c0llision wrote: post #951

andsoitis wrote: post #837

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. 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…

>Natural gas is neither renewable nor emission-free when burning Yes you are correct, in fact I actually addressed that in the later part of my comment >From 2030 onwards the focus will be on decarbonising the remaining ~20% of electricity generation that is gas. How that will be done will depend mostly on how the technology matures in the meantime, but it will likely be replacing natural gas with hydrogen and biogas…

> When picking fruit from a tree, It's usually best to start at the lower branches.

No, when picking fruit its best to pick it in the order it ripens, and as it does so, irrespective of position on the tree.

It is generally easier and requires less special equipment to pick fruit from the lower branches, hence the metaphorical description of simple tasks as low-hanging fruit. The metaphor (while it may also indicate optimal ordering for some other tasks) is not about optimal ordering for picking fruit from a tree.

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

#954

Post by evilos » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:29 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #915

evilos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we know we can build nuclear plants quickly because we've done it before. It is physically possible. China and Korea can still do it today. If you just mean the bureaucracy is impossible to defeat, it would just take political will. Which we are seeing more and more of recently. The first of a kind build is always slow.

"If we did it before, we can do it now" is not anything close to a valid argument.

Depends on what you mean by "we". China is doing it as we speak.

Also, "it's been done before" is a much better argument than "we think we can make these massive and untested changes to our society because my studies say so" like I see constantly from solar/wind maximalists on demand response, mass v2g, hyper connected grid, underground hydrogen battery etc, etc.

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

#955

Post by evilos » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:49 AM UTC

fennecfoxy wrote: post #856

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…

Not only that but the cost to decommission one is absurdly high and I've read in previous articles that this cost isn't even a consideration at all when building a reactor. Like it's just completely unplanned for and often paid into by the taxpayer.

This is false for the US (and UK as the other commenter pointed out).

> In the USA, utilities are collecting 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning. They must then report regularly to the NRC on the status of their decommissioning funds. About two-thirds of the total estimated cost of decommissioning all US nuclear power reactors has already been collected, leaving a liability of about $9 billion to be covered over the remaining operating lives of about 100 reactors (on the basis of an average of $320 million per unit). NRC data for the end of 2018 indicated that there was a combined total of $64.7 billion held in the decommissioning trust funds covering the 119 operational and retired US nuclear power reactors.

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

#956

Post by ETH_start » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:52 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #885

ETH_start wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On what basis do you assume it's bullshit? This is a very emotional/irrational reaction to a study.

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

#957

Post by mlsu » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 4:18 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #786

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,…

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…

Yes, certainly I agree. Solar is the best option, for the first 60-70% penetration. I am, like most in this thread, very optimistic about solar. We are nowhere near that level of penetration in most regions. But after that 60-70%, adding more capacity just doesn't move the needle. Once you hit 100% for the day in solar, a spare panel doesn't help your nighttime situation.

So then what. You could overbuild solar, build distribution, build battery banks. I'm not wild about that. Mining for batteries is nasty business and we need all of the Lion we can get for electric mobility. Distribution? It's alright, but you run into problems -- like, what do you do when the sun goes down on the west coast? What do you do when a line goes down? Your system is larger, more centralized, more vulnerable.

Nuclear under the current regulatory regime is clearly a nonstarter. But the capex of nuclear is almost entirely artificial. Something much closer to "too cheap to meter" could be a reality. All it takes is a cultural willingness.

By the way, nuclear having an extraordinary capex makes it even tougher to compete with solar in the mix. Because your capacity factor goes way down if you are only generating at night. This is why we build oil and gas plants -- they're cheap. What we need is for nuclear to favorably compete with oil and gas. It does not need to compete with solar.

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

#958

Post by katbyte » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 5:25 AM UTC

billytetrud wrote: post #945

katbyte wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goverment power company here (bc Canada) is one of the best run in the world, with some of the cheapest rates (10c cad) and has been a public utility for over 60 years despite a previous conservative Goverment saddling it with 16 billion of extra costs due to grift Norway also does great with its nationalized O&G Nationalize industries can be fantastic with the public benefiting directly rather then a few select…

Pointing to the best run government power company says nothing about the average government run power company. And I don't know why you think cheap rates for a government power company are particularly special. The rates are subsidized by your taxes. What's the real cost? I bet its hard to even find out. > a previous conservative Goverment saddling it with 16 billion of extra costs due to grift Oh really? A governmen…

lol no. BC Hydro is profitable and is not subsidized by taxes, usually turning a profit for the province. it did this for decades until the previous government decided to privatize power production and surprise surprise that saddled the crown corp with a ton of extra costs where if it had built out the capacity itself and not funnelled money to private companies who were doners.

in canada every province with private electricity company is being reamed with high energy prices. every province with a government run power company is not. the same seems to apply in the EU/UK.

nationalized companies run from amazing too crap but every time infrastructure or natural monopolies is privatized the consumer/citizen looses out. EVERY TIME. from parking in Chicago to PG&E in cali to the 409 in ontario - privatization never works out and to prevent abuse regulation is always imposed.

turns out when you grant a for profit company a monoply they take advantage. every time without fail.

so we have on one hand nationalized companies ranging from bad to great for society to private companies always being bad doing everything possible to extract money.

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

#959

Post by katbyte » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 5:26 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #944

katbyte wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand waving the cost there both financially and environmentally as well a “well we assume things will work out” - there will need to be battery storage in the 100s of gigawatt hours and it needs to be cheap reliable and durable What if they don’t? There’s no assurances there will be magic battery tech There is a reason China India Russia and others are still building nuclear plants

We don’t need magic battery tech. Current PV + Batteries can already 24/7 power cheaper than nuclear. It’s only vs fossil fuels where batteries have trouble. China is building nuclear because they are building everything, but they are effectively building 3x as much solar and 7x as much wind because nuclear just costs more than any other option. From 2020-2022 China increased generation power by: 51,600 GWh/year Nucl…

umm that doesn't explain why they are building nuclear - could it be because they realize they need the ability to produce power at night and when the wind isn't blowing?

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

#960

Post by lmm » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #899

lmm wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables kill orders of magnitude more people (just look at how many die from falling when installing wind turbines, it's not pretty) and render orders of magnitude more land uninhabitable. We have ludicrous double standards when it comes to safety.

I think these are baldfaced lies, especially the first claim. Justify, please.

First google result: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... . (Most renewable production is still hydro, so yes, it really is over 10x more deaths from renewables).