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The problem is multi-fold. 1) A good size chunk of California is seismically active, which is generally a bad idea for nuclear power plant placement. 2) Nucle
by mdorazio 7y ago
The problem is multi-fold.
1) A good size chunk of California is seismically active, which is generally a bad idea for nuclear power plant placement.
2) Nuclear power plants require large water sources nearby for cooling. Large chunks of California where power is actually needed are essentially deserts without lakes or reservoirs that can be easily used for this without environmental concerns. You could place them on the coast, but this brings its own set of environmental problems and potential dangers.
3) Nuclear power plants are not quick to build. We're talking 5+ years to get one up and running, even in the ridiculously optimistic estimates from industry proponents. So you need to make the case that in 5 years when one is running it will be better than if we had built more solar + wind + battery over the same period of time (a solar farm can be constructed in a few months, battery storage can be installed in weeks).
4) Nuclear waste is not a solved problem, no matter what proponents tell you. The solution right now is to just kind of keep it hanging around mostly secured locations and hope for the best. Long-term storage proposals have still not gone anywhere, so you're basically just hoping that nothing terrible happens until there's political and financial will to do something about it.
5) Power requirements per capita have been mostly flat or dropping for years in the US, and this is expected to accelerate as homeowners continue to install their own supplemental power systems. Building more gigawatt-scale nuclear power plants is a huge investment with a questionable ROI given this fact.
To me, nuclear power is a solution whose time has likely already passed. It just doesn't make much sense to install more baseload power via nuclear these days when we have non-coal alternatives available and dropping power requirements overall. Continued pushes for efficiency improvements, green buildings, residential solar+battery installs, and grid-scale renewable installs are cheaper, faster, and have less risks.
- davidf18 7y agoYucca Mountain is for long-term storage. Unfortunately, the Obama administration stopped delayed development for political reasons (what were they thinking? We can't store nuclear waste at power plants -- there must be long term storage). I think Trump administration is working to continue Yucca Mountain.
- rconti 7y ago2. Power is already shipped across the state and to neighboring states. I'm not familiar with the capabilities to carry X amount of power between Y and Z regions, but, in the main, this is not a major issue, unless you're speaking of a specific limitation I'm not aware of. 5. Power requirements per capita in CA are dropping, full stop. I don't think homeowners installing their own supplemental power systems come into this (much). The power generated on my roof is still power I consume, and it's accounted for that way. Frankly, rooftop solar is a big arbitrage scheme rather than anything like self-sufficiency. Even most home solar+battery systems can't work in a grid disconnect scenario.
- mdorazio 7y agoThe article is referring to why CA might want to go nuclear, not why neighboring states might want to do so. My points reflect that specifically. Also, power transmission across 500+ miles to get it from a neighboring state with nuclear-suitable sites is not insignificant (typically in the range of 1-2% per 100mi). What data are you basing your second point off of? All the stats I've ever seen are using electricity sales to estimate their per-capita numbers. For example, [1]. Rooftop solar would be accounted for only as a general dip in sales, not as a specific reduction in per-capita consumption if that makes sense (we might be saying the same thing). This quote from [1] is relevant here: "Rapid growth in the adoption of small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in states such as Hawaii and California has contributed to the recent decline in some states’ retail electricity sales. Small-scale solar PV systems, often installed on residential rooftops, offset the amount of electricity that consumers need to buy from the electric grid. In 2016, residential distributed PV generation was equivalent to 15% of electricity consumption in the residential sector in Hawaii, 6% in California, and 3% in Arizona." That 6% number for CA has grown in the last 3 years as well and continues to do so. It's a bigger offset than most people think. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32212 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32212
- rconti 7y agoRight, but you said "Large chunks of California where power is actually needed are essentially deserts.." My point was that power can be shipped, in-state, just as easily (more easily?) than it can be shipped from out of state. Here's a source that discusses maximum power demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California I'm not sure to what extent solar offsets this, but it's worth noting that it was in 2006, before solar was nearly as popular as it is now. Your source discusses power sales, where, I think you're right, rooftop generation would be netted out. In realtime demand, I think the only cancellation would be the realtime net of production vs consumption. The all-time peak of around 2pm would be a time with lots of solar generation, to your point, so solar during peak times would cancel out some observed demand. Also it sounds like they did a lot of work to time-shift power usage, rather than outright decrease it.