Nuclear power

[CSFTN]

Another similar issue, this one with the Bellefonte mothballed plant in AL
The 9:01: MLGW weighs high risks, huge rewards of dropping TVA for Bellefonte

and a separate perspective:
Plan in Works to Finish Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama

 

[mspohr]

Two Federal Courts May Have Just Saved The Nuclear Power Industry

Looks like states are free to subsidize nuclear power... at the expense of consumers.
"The current market conditions are, quite literally, killing the nuclear power industry. With natural gas prices low and cheap renewable energy flooding the markets, it’s been virtually impossible for many nuclear power plants to compete."

 

[nwdiver]

Two Federal Courts May Have Just Saved The Nuclear Power Industry

Looks like states are free to subsidize nuclear power... at the expense of consumers.
"The current market conditions are, quite literally, killing the nuclear power industry. With natural gas prices low and cheap renewable energy flooding the markets, it’s been virtually impossible for many nuclear power plants to compete."

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing... it's essentially a carbon tax that is exclusively paid to a nuclear plant. It would imagine it can be avoided by purchasing solar or wind. So you can either pay ~$0.03/kWh + $0.0165/kWh for gas or coal OR... just buy wind or solar at ~$0.03/kWh....

The Act directed the Illinois Power Agency to create a subsidy program requiring generators that use coal or natural gas to buy zero-emissions credits (ZECs) from nuclear power plants connected to the regional grid. The price of each credit was set at $16.50 per megawatt-hour, a number Illinois derived from a federal working group’s calculation of the social cost of carbon emissions.​

 

[mspohr]

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing... it's essentially a carbon tax that is exclusively paid to a nuclear plant. It would imagine it can be avoided by purchasing solar or wind. So you can either pay ~$0.03/kWh + $0.0165/kWh for gas or coal OR... just buy wind or solar at ~$0.03/kWh....

The Act directed the Illinois Power Agency to create a subsidy program requiring generators that use coal or natural gas to buy zero-emissions credits (ZECs) from nuclear power plants connected to the regional grid. The price of each credit was set at $16.50 per megawatt-hour, a number Illinois derived from a federal working group’s calculation of the social cost of carbon emissions.​

As long as they tax just coal and NG, it sounds like a good idea. Make those more expensive to get people off of fossils.

 

[mspohr]

Looks like India is still rooting for thorium (because they have a lot of it):
Why India wants to turn its beaches into nuclear fuel
Last year Dutch scientists fired up the first new experimental thorium reactor in decades, start-ups are promoting the technology in the West and last year China pledged to spend $3.3bn to develop reactors that could eventually run on thorium.
Sounds complicated:
“Thorium is like wet wood,” says Ratan Kumar Sinha, who succeeded Banerjee as DAE secretary before leaving the post in 2015. He explains that wet wood is no good at starting a fire, but once it’s placed in a furnace burning dry wood, it can catch light. The first two stages of India’s strategy are therefore aimed at converting its abundant thorium reserves into fissile material.

First, conventional uranium-fuelled reactors produce plutonium as a by-product. The next stage combines this with more uranium in ‘fast breeder’ reactors that generate more plutonium than they use. That’s used to build more breeder reactors, and once the fleet is large enough they switch to converting thorium into U233. The final stage combines U233 with more thorium to kick-start self-sustaining ‘thermal breeder’ reactors that can be refuelled using raw thorium."

 

[SalisburySam]

I normally am optimistic about most things and an early adopter, but I believe adding nuclear power to the Model 3 is a non-starter. While the essentially unlimited power would be welcome and would extend the range to the lifetime of the tires, I see many market issues not easily overcome:

1- the multi-ton steel containment vessel will add considerable structural strength to the vehicle, as will the surrounding even larger and heavier reinforced concrete shell. But the added weight will reduce 0-60 times requiring Ludicrous mode for even Chill performance.

2- the initial $1billion cost, and 10-year multi-million dollar refueling costs may limit interested parties.

3- annual inspection and registration could take the vehicle off the streets for a month or so...probably not a driver desire.

4- about those tires...you'd need them in the size and quantity of the shuttle crawler vehicle, and most US highways would not permit them. HOV lanes present an additional obstacle.

5- the HVAC system to keep the cabin as well as the nuclear coolant at comfy temperatures could add several more tons of weight to the already burdened vehicle.

On the plus side, the charging port could now be used in reverse to connect to your home and power, oh say, the neighboring 5 states.

Interesting thread for sure, though I really think more work has to be done.

 

[derekt75]

I normally am optimistic about most things and an early adopter, but I believe adding nuclear power to the Model 3 is a non-starter. While the essentially unlimited power would be welcome and would extend the range to the lifetime of the tires, I see many market issues not easily overcome:
[...]

SalisburySam, your concerns are for nuclear fission.
My nuclear fusion idea is only 10 years out from commercialization and completely solves all of the issues you suggest. My idea also produces no dangerous radioactivity.
I just need 1 billion investors to send me $1 million each. but I'll give the first 10 investors an equal share in my profits for only $100k each. I guarantee if you send me $100k, you'll get at least as much useful net energy out of that than all of the other nuclear fusion efforts combined have produced so far. Don't miss out on being one of the first 10!
[This was intended as a joke. I'm not actually soliciting money.]

 

[mspohr]

Fusion in 2045 and commercial production exactly 57 years later. (This is not a joke ... But should be)

How far are we from nuclear fusion?  |  Peak Oil News and Message Boards

 

[nwdiver]

This documentary is ~14 years old. Not sure how I've missed it for so long. Pretty good reenactment of the Chernobyl disaster highlighting a lot of the contributing factors.

 

[mspohr]

This documentary is ~14 years old. Not sure how I've missed it for so long. Pretty good reenactment of the Chernobyl disaster highlighting a lot of the contributing factors.

Fascinating video. Thanks.

 

[Brando]

FRANCE - no one does atomic reactors better - many lessons to learn from the French. (corruption problems too)

The current President of France, Macron, used to be the Minister of Industry. He’s stated publicly that even he couldn’t find out how much the build-out actually cost, with the clear assertion that a bunch of actual costs were hidden.

“Nobody knows the total cost for nuclear energy,” he [Macron] said. “I was minister for industry and I could not tell you.”
...
Renewables are dirt cheap, with Lazard’s latest figures bringing them in at 3–6 times cheaper than new nuclear. (Amusingly, Lazard still labels wind and solar as ‘alternative energy‘.) Europe is a leading geography for wind and solar, so skilled trades and supply chains all exist. Europe’s grid has strengthened and expanded over the past 30 years, so the need for a country to go it alone has diminished substantially.

worth a read
Backstory: Macron To Close Multiple Nuclear Reactors, But Why Now? | CleanTechnica

 

[mspohr]

Another puff piece on new wonderful nuclear plant that's only 10 or twenty years away contains this unbelievable quote

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative wrote that within the electricity sector, nuclear energy would be the least expensive solution to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades.

This Bill Gates-Backed Company Is Developing a Possibly World-Changing Nuclear Reactor

 

[nwdiver]

Another puff piece on new wonderful nuclear plant that's only 10 or twenty years away contains this unbelievable quote

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative wrote that within the electricity sector, nuclear energy would be the least expensive solution to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades.

This Bill Gates-Backed Company Is Developing a Possibly World-Changing Nuclear Reactor

Interesting. Love to know how they solved... physics :/

 

[miimura]

Interesting. Love to know how they solved... physics :/

but... but... it's MIT!!

 

[mspohr]

Interesting. Love to know how they solved... physics :/

I read the MiT executive summary link and it's mostly nuclear industry. The usual stuff of lower cost by factory produced modules and less regulation. They also assign a high cost to CCS to show nuclear will be cheaper eventually.
Also they seem to think nuclear will be dispatchable.

...
While a variety of low- or zero-
carbon technologies can be employed in various
combinations, our analysis shows the potential
contribution nuclear can make as a dispatchable
low-carbon technology. Without that contribution,
the cost of achieving deep decarbonization targets
increases significantly (see Figure E.1, left column).
The least-cost portfolios include an important
share for nuclear, the magnitude of which
significantly grows as the cost of nuclear drops
(Figure E.1, right column).

 

[SmartElectric]

We have "dispatchable" Nuclear power here in Ontario.

Bruce Nuclear has a steam bypass ... heat in the form of steam from the reaction is vented directly instead of producing power. Sigh. Boiling water using nuclear fuel for no benefit.

Ontario is reviewing ways to store excess generation. We have an entire set of trial implementations of battery, flywheel and other systems deployed in the past few years.

Meanwhile the $20B refit of our aging reactors is underway. It will only increase Nuclear power costs from 6c/kWh to 9c...they get a 50% raise in production payments to help cover this extension of lifespan.

Waste is still not a solved issue. Proposals to store it in tunnels under the great lakes aren't popular ... ya think?!

 

[mspohr]

We have "dispatchable" Nuclear power here in Ontario.

Bruce Nuclear has a steam bypass ... heat in the form of steam from the reaction is vented directly instead of producing power. Sigh. Boiling water using nuclear fuel for no benefit.

Ontario is reviewing ways to store excess generation. We have an entire set of trial implementations of battery, flywheel and other systems deployed in the past few years.

Meanwhile the $20B refit of our aging reactors is underway. It will only increase Nuclear power costs from 6c/kWh to 9c...they get a 50% raise in production payments to help cover this extension of lifespan.

Waste is still not a solved issue. Proposals to store it in tunnels under the great lakes aren't popular ... ya think?!

So, instead of wasting 2/3 of the heat generated during normal operation... they waste more.

Wind and solar are less than 5 cents (US) so you're paying more.

 

[nwdiver]

Waste is still not a solved issue. Proposals to store it in tunnels under the great lakes aren't popular ... ya think?!

If you have a ~2GW nuclear plant you're dissipating ~4GW because physics. There's really no way to use even a fraction of that 4GW, it's just too much thermal energy. The irony is that most thermal plants don't even use their own waste heat to heat their own buildings. When you're only getting ~$30/MWh it's simply cheaper to use electricity

 

[SmartElectric]

Wind and solar are less than 5 cents (US) so you're paying more.

Not so in Ontario.
Those prices only started to be quoted near the end of the build out of renewables here.

The government decided an industrial support program similar to Germany feed in tariff. Prices were 17c for wind and 40c to 80c/kWh for solar.

Only the final few hundred MW deals had lower prices of 8.5c/kWh for wind and 13c for solar.

4GW of pricey solar and 7GW of pricey wind were built out.

We have way more power than we need. The 7GW of gas generation sits idle and gets payments to keep them running standby.

Of course the Nulcear refit will require gas generation to supply GW for many years, and then when nuclear is back in full production we'd better have a lot of EV's to suck up all that power!

 

[nwdiver]

I've often wondered why power is .11/kWh in France and they earn three billion euros a year selling electricity. Thanks!
Silly me with my .42/kWh natural gas power. I should be burning coal for economic reasons apparently.
Seriously, the only thing that makes solar worth it is our ultra high tariff schedules. If we could buy power for .11/kWh, solar would die in the US.

Because the French were smart. They nationalized and standardized their nuclear fleet. If the government is running things like the military economics doesn't matter as much.

Electricity from power plants that have already paid for themselves because they were built 40 years ago is also cheaper...