5 ms·

we need 200.

by nazgulnarsil 17y ago

we need 200.

dantheman 17y ago
2 is a step in the right direction though.. when the last plant built, in the 70s?
orangecat 17y ago
400 would allow us to get off coal completely. That would be a stimulus package I'd support.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  Each power station usually has multiple units, each unit usually runs at about 2-2.5 GW for a large scale reactor. 400 stations with 2 units apiece would generate 1.75TW assuming about 10% were offlined for maintenance at any one time. Existing nuclear plants already generate a good chunk of power, non-coal sources exist as well. Currently California's peak energy needs in the summer months tends to be only 50GW or so. That's roughly one sixth of the population of the US. Even if you assume the nation needs 500GW total, that's nowhere near 1.75TW. In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers? My numbers show about 75 generating stations with 2 reactors each supplying the power needs for the entire US. This assumes no offlining and only 300GW needed but also calculates based on each reactor supplying 2GW when most of the ones we have in the US supply over that. (Note: Calculated from a US-centric point of view because the parent post was talking about a theoretical stimulus package and so I'm trying to work the numbers on what my particular nation would need to move its entire energy infrastructure to new nuclear plants.) (Note the second: It's possible my numbers aren't taking into account tranmission losses, would someone who knows more about power infrastructure than me fill me in on this? I got my 50GW peak summer usage number from the California independent system operator, does that number already factor in transmission losses?)
  - mattheww 17y ago
    We used 3.8 TW-hrs in 2005 (which translates to average 434 GW usage, so 500GW is probably a bit low for peak). DOE (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf) projects usage of 5.3 TW-hours in 2035, which translates to about 605 GW average. We probably need 1+ TW capacity in the US to handle peak usage.
  - orangecat 17y ago
    In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers? From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Sta...), the US has 104 reactors which produced 19.6% of the electricity we used in 2008.
    - jff 17y ago
      Ah, but all of those 104 reactors are at least 30 years old--if modern reactors aren't significantly more efficient, I'll be sorely disappointed.
      - sketerpot 17y ago
        Even the old technology has been getting more efficient. Those reactors have been producing ever-increasing amounts of electricity for those past 30 years as they upgraded the systems and figured out how to reduce downtime.
  - sketerpot 17y ago
    A few minor corrections: When the BBC talks about "two new power stations" what they mean is "two new AP1000 reactors being added to an existing site". So this is actually a single power plant. But I find it more productive to talk about reactors anyway. Second, the largest reactors today are about 1.6 GW. The reactors being built here are 1.1 GW AP1000s. That affects your numbers.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Agreed, but if these 2 plants are built with high publicity and everyone sees no problem for several years then the fear of nuclear will decrease. It's been over 30 years since a new reactor was built in the US, the public opinion is mostly that it's extremely dangerous citing a handful of incidents from thousands of reactors because nuclear has been demonized. What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from [coal] plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined. Then there's the massive amounts of smog produced from coal plants that seriously hamper longevity and are directly linked to millions of deaths globally of the elderly and infants, not to mention it likely causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in ordinary healthy people who've contracted a survivable case of pneumonia. Nuclear power is necessary as a matter of life or death in western countries, and countries around the world.
  - miked 17y ago
    What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants Did you mean coal plants?
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    >more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined. you mean coal plants i presume?
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      Yes, thank you for catching that, made the edit.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Total US power consumption is about 790 GW. An AP1000 reactor is about 1.1 GW. A typical installation like this one has two reactors. Therefore it would take about 360 of these power plants to provide all the US's electrical needs. To just replace coal, build 150 of these 2.2 GW power plants. I'm taking these numbers from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Electricity_Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ele...

we need 200.

dantheman 17y ago

2 is a step in the right direction though.. when the last plant built, in the 70s?

orangecat 17y ago

400 would allow us to get off coal completely. That would be a stimulus package I'd support.

djcapelis 17y ago
Each power station usually has multiple units, each unit usually runs at about 2-2.5 GW for a large scale reactor. 400 stations with 2 units apiece would generate 1.75TW assuming about 10% were offlined for maintenance at any one time. Existing nuclear plants already generate a good chunk of power, non-coal sources exist as well. Currently California's peak energy needs in the summer months tends to be only 50GW or so. That's roughly one sixth of the population of the US. Even if you assume the nation needs 500GW total, that's nowhere near 1.75TW. In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers? My numbers show about 75 generating stations with 2 reactors each supplying the power needs for the entire US. This assumes no offlining and only 300GW needed but also calculates based on each reactor supplying 2GW when most of the ones we have in the US supply over that. (Note: Calculated from a US-centric point of view because the parent post was talking about a theoretical stimulus package and so I'm trying to work the numbers on what my particular nation would need to move its entire energy infrastructure to new nuclear plants.) (Note the second: It's possible my numbers aren't taking into account tranmission losses, would someone who knows more about power infrastructure than me fill me in on this? I got my 50GW peak summer usage number from the California independent system operator, does that number already factor in transmission losses?)
- mattheww 17y ago
  We used 3.8 TW-hrs in 2005 (which translates to average 434 GW usage, so 500GW is probably a bit low for peak). DOE (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf) projects usage of 5.3 TW-hours in 2035, which translates to about 605 GW average. We probably need 1+ TW capacity in the US to handle peak usage.
- orangecat 17y ago
  In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers? From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Sta...), the US has 104 reactors which produced 19.6% of the electricity we used in 2008.
  - jff 17y ago
    Ah, but all of those 104 reactors are at least 30 years old--if modern reactors aren't significantly more efficient, I'll be sorely disappointed.
    - sketerpot 17y ago
      Even the old technology has been getting more efficient. Those reactors have been producing ever-increasing amounts of electricity for those past 30 years as they upgraded the systems and figured out how to reduce downtime.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  A few minor corrections: When the BBC talks about "two new power stations" what they mean is "two new AP1000 reactors being added to an existing site". So this is actually a single power plant. But I find it more productive to talk about reactors anyway. Second, the largest reactors today are about 1.6 GW. The reactors being built here are 1.1 GW AP1000s. That affects your numbers.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Agreed, but if these 2 plants are built with high publicity and everyone sees no problem for several years then the fear of nuclear will decrease. It's been over 30 years since a new reactor was built in the US, the public opinion is mostly that it's extremely dangerous citing a handful of incidents from thousands of reactors because nuclear has been demonized. What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from [coal] plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined. Then there's the massive amounts of smog produced from coal plants that seriously hamper longevity and are directly linked to millions of deaths globally of the elderly and infants, not to mention it likely causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in ordinary healthy people who've contracted a survivable case of pneumonia. Nuclear power is necessary as a matter of life or death in western countries, and countries around the world.
- miked 17y ago
  What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants Did you mean coal plants?
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  >more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined. you mean coal plants i presume?
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Yes, thank you for catching that, made the edit.
sketerpot 17y ago
Total US power consumption is about 790 GW. An AP1000 reactor is about 1.1 GW. A typical installation like this one has two reactors. Therefore it would take about 360 of these power plants to provide all the US's electrical needs. To just replace coal, build 150 of these 2.2 GW power plants. I'm taking these numbers from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Electricity_Production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ele...