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While I like the idea of synthetic fuels. I think combining advanced nuclear power (producing both electricity energy and incredibly good thermal energy) with

by nickik 8y ago

While I like the idea of synthetic fuels. I think combining advanced nuclear power (producing both electricity energy and incredibly good thermal energy) with synthetic fuel (methanol) plants would be far better. The fact is that the amount of solar and wind you would have to install to cover all intermittent AND large parts of the fuel sector is mostly unrealistic. There is absolutely no scenario the cost of synthetic fuel in large quantities could beat extracted carbon based fuels.

nl 8y ago
Nuclear power can't compete at these prices, even with the new advanced plants. One day hopefully we'll get fusion, but until then nuclear is dead.
- nickik 8y ago
  The difference in terms of fusion and fission is not that large. In fact I would argue that any likely fussion plant would have the exact same capx problem that fission now has. If we can't get fission to work, fusion will not help us. Compared to carbon based fuel fission is 10^-12 more dense, while fusion is 10^-15. While that is a large change I don't think it matters when competing with wind. > even with the new advanced plants I disagree. Once we mass produce nuclear plants the price would be radically reduced, just like in any other mass produced object. The problem at the moment is nuclear is almost to dense and long running. Its hard getting the scale you need to do that. Specially if every single place you want to put a reactor you get sued 200x by Greenpeace and everybody else. Compare a nuclear reactor to a rocket engine. SpaceX produces rocket engines for incredibly cheap amounts and he produces 100s a year. A nuclear reactor does not need all that different materials or attention to detail. The problem with nuclear is the development cost and the regulatory hurdle. If you clear that then you have to find costumers enough to have mass production. That is why it has not happened and unlikely to on a large scale. However if nuclear reactors were produced like solar panels and you had global markets, nuclear would trounce solar in terms of price.
  - yazr 8y ago
    I wish i could be a fusion (and new nuclear) believer. But it is just so complicated. The free market is happy to produce 1M trucks a year. And 10M air conditioning units. And a gazillions flat screen TVs. How can you possibly compete as the free market works hard to produce just as many wind turbines and solar panels? IMHO ;)
    - philipkglass 8y ago
      The minimum commercially viable size of a power reactor is much larger than the size of a commercially viable wind turbine or PV module. A typical wind turbine today is rated for 2-4 megawatts peak output. A solar module is 0.2-0.4 kilowatts-peak. Commercial light water reactors under construction today are rated for more than 1000 megawatts. Even "small" reactors like NuScale is designing would generate 60 megawatts each. The large capacity and high capacity factor of nuclear reactors has some significant benefits: once they start operating, they can rapidly displace use of fossil fuels. But it also means that there are many fewer opportunities to iterate on designs. A single large solar project can use a million panels and be constructed over a few years. The millionth panel installed on the site can be significantly improved vs. the first. Most solar manufacturers are tuning module production lines near-continuously and formally introducing new models frequently. To generate the same amount of power with a nuclear reactor, it would take just a portion of a current Generation III reactor or maybe 2 small modular reactors. To the nearest whole number, there are 0-1 opportunities to upgrade equipment on the fly with a nuclear project vs. the dozens of opportunities with comparable-output utility scale renewable projects.
pjc50 8y ago
Nuclear is too late. Five years to get permits and five years to build? Perhaps that's optimistic. Hinkley Point C is taking fifteen from announcement to scheduled completion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... , and that's right next to its two nuclear siblings.
- nickik 8y ago
  The problem of the current industry are well understood and Hinkley is a perfect example. However I am talking about something broader then that. Even 5 years ago people would say 'nuclear is to late' solar and wind are gone solve us. This has been going on since the 1970 when environmentalist turned against nuclear. Solar and Wind are ALWAYS just around the corner and nuclear is 'not needed' somehow it still tiny. Nuclear to be effective will need some regulatory and government changes but my real point is that if the whole technical intelligence plus the environmentalist are solar/wind cheerleaders the carbon producers are the one laughing themselves to the bank.
  - Retric 8y ago
    The US and EU have been decommissioning a few older nuclear power plants early because just operating let alone building them is not cost effective. People talk about base load power like it's a good thing, but it's the opposite demand varies a lot over the day and you want to be able to ramp up and down quickly. You can do this with nuclear, but it pushes costs up even higher. There is some regional differences and areas with a lot of dispatchable hydro don't care nearly as much. Still nuclear needs to be under 6c/kwh to be viable as base load power or be able to ramp up and down with demand while staying fairly cheap and it can't do either when you look at total lifetime costs.
    - opo 8y ago
      Nuclear has become a political issue in the US, and these kinds of decisions can be political, not done for economic or safety reasons as one might have hoped. As an example, the California Public Utilities Commission, decided to shut down Diablo Canyon even though PG&E says in regards to the Diablo Canyon power plant: >...At 2.78 cents per kilowatt-hour, DCPP’s average production costs are lower than all other forms of electricity, but are higher than the national average of 2.19 cents per kilowatt-hour for nuclear power (Doesn't bother PG&E, the CPUC will let them increase the rates.) https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/systemworks/dcpp/PGE_Economic_Impact_Report_Final.pdf https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/syst...

by nickik 8y ago

nl 8y ago

Nuclear power can't compete at these prices, even with the new advanced plants. One day hopefully we'll get fusion, but until then nuclear is dead.

nickik 8y ago
The difference in terms of fusion and fission is not that large. In fact I would argue that any likely fussion plant would have the exact same capx problem that fission now has. If we can't get fission to work, fusion will not help us. Compared to carbon based fuel fission is 10^-12 more dense, while fusion is 10^-15. While that is a large change I don't think it matters when competing with wind. > even with the new advanced plants I disagree. Once we mass produce nuclear plants the price would be radically reduced, just like in any other mass produced object. The problem at the moment is nuclear is almost to dense and long running. Its hard getting the scale you need to do that. Specially if every single place you want to put a reactor you get sued 200x by Greenpeace and everybody else. Compare a nuclear reactor to a rocket engine. SpaceX produces rocket engines for incredibly cheap amounts and he produces 100s a year. A nuclear reactor does not need all that different materials or attention to detail. The problem with nuclear is the development cost and the regulatory hurdle. If you clear that then you have to find costumers enough to have mass production. That is why it has not happened and unlikely to on a large scale. However if nuclear reactors were produced like solar panels and you had global markets, nuclear would trounce solar in terms of price.
- yazr 8y ago
  I wish i could be a fusion (and new nuclear) believer. But it is just so complicated. The free market is happy to produce 1M trucks a year. And 10M air conditioning units. And a gazillions flat screen TVs. How can you possibly compete as the free market works hard to produce just as many wind turbines and solar panels? IMHO ;)
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    The minimum commercially viable size of a power reactor is much larger than the size of a commercially viable wind turbine or PV module. A typical wind turbine today is rated for 2-4 megawatts peak output. A solar module is 0.2-0.4 kilowatts-peak. Commercial light water reactors under construction today are rated for more than 1000 megawatts. Even "small" reactors like NuScale is designing would generate 60 megawatts each. The large capacity and high capacity factor of nuclear reactors has some significant benefits: once they start operating, they can rapidly displace use of fossil fuels. But it also means that there are many fewer opportunities to iterate on designs. A single large solar project can use a million panels and be constructed over a few years. The millionth panel installed on the site can be significantly improved vs. the first. Most solar manufacturers are tuning module production lines near-continuously and formally introducing new models frequently. To generate the same amount of power with a nuclear reactor, it would take just a portion of a current Generation III reactor or maybe 2 small modular reactors. To the nearest whole number, there are 0-1 opportunities to upgrade equipment on the fly with a nuclear project vs. the dozens of opportunities with comparable-output utility scale renewable projects.

pjc50 8y ago

Nuclear is too late. Five years to get permits and five years to build? Perhaps that's optimistic. Hinkley Point C is taking fifteen from announcement to scheduled completion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... , and that's right next to its two nuclear siblings.

nickik 8y ago
The problem of the current industry are well understood and Hinkley is a perfect example. However I am talking about something broader then that. Even 5 years ago people would say 'nuclear is to late' solar and wind are gone solve us. This has been going on since the 1970 when environmentalist turned against nuclear. Solar and Wind are ALWAYS just around the corner and nuclear is 'not needed' somehow it still tiny. Nuclear to be effective will need some regulatory and government changes but my real point is that if the whole technical intelligence plus the environmentalist are solar/wind cheerleaders the carbon producers are the one laughing themselves to the bank.
- Retric 8y ago
  The US and EU have been decommissioning a few older nuclear power plants early because just operating let alone building them is not cost effective. People talk about base load power like it's a good thing, but it's the opposite demand varies a lot over the day and you want to be able to ramp up and down quickly. You can do this with nuclear, but it pushes costs up even higher. There is some regional differences and areas with a lot of dispatchable hydro don't care nearly as much. Still nuclear needs to be under 6c/kwh to be viable as base load power or be able to ramp up and down with demand while staying fairly cheap and it can't do either when you look at total lifetime costs.
  - opo 8y ago
    Nuclear has become a political issue in the US, and these kinds of decisions can be political, not done for economic or safety reasons as one might have hoped. As an example, the California Public Utilities Commission, decided to shut down Diablo Canyon even though PG&E says in regards to the Diablo Canyon power plant: >...At 2.78 cents per kilowatt-hour, DCPP’s average production costs are lower than all other forms of electricity, but are higher than the national average of 2.19 cents per kilowatt-hour for nuclear power (Doesn't bother PG&E, the CPUC will let them increase the rates.) https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/systemworks/dcpp/PGE_Economic_Impact_Report_Final.pdf https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/syst...