4 ms·

> Nuclear and various fossil fuels create heat that boils water to generate steam that turns a turbine to generate power. This adds cost and complexity that you

> Nuclear and various fossil fuels create heat that boils water to generate steam that turns a turbine to generate power. This adds cost and complexity that you can never get away from. That part is almost negligible. A General Electric LM6000 turbine costs about $20 million and generates about 50 MW of electricity. That translates into $400 MM per GW. Solar comes to about the same price, but it has a capacity factor of only 30%, vs 98% for the GE LM6000 turbine.

ncmncm 4y ago
98% not counting periodic overhaul. Then, 80-90%. But you have to add the cost of the heat source. When that is a nuke, cost balloons out of sight. Geothermal is better, but drilling is still expensive; that might come down if microwave drills work out. But the cost of periodic steam turbine overhauls will be hard to bring down to match dusting off PV panels. Pressurized steam is just very corrosive stuff. That is why the mirror-array solar projects all failed. Steering thousand of mirrors, keeping them clean, and then driving a steam turbine just cannot match a static array of PV panels. The technology might have a place for supplying process heat, but it will be hard to match PV-powered fuel synthesis for cost and convenience.
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  > 98% not counting periodic overhaul. the reason for the null hypothesis is that if you had run one, you'd realize that solar has a 20 year periodic replacement, as compared to nuclear's 80 year periodic maintenance, so this argument (like all arguments) is against solar . > When that is a nuke, cost balloons out of sight. Not when compared to literally any other power source But if you hold it up in isolation, yeah, sure, it's expensive. Once every 50 years because of bad laws, you have to go in there and pay about a quarter what the plant was worth. And it'd still be cheaper if you had to do it every ten years, plus more reliable, and it wouldn't waste all the copper and rare earths, and it wouldn't leave you with China as the new Middle East. . > But the cost of periodic steam turbine overhauls will be hard to bring down to match dusting off PV panels. You don't dust PV panels off. That's daily cleaning. Maintenance for PV panels is replacing them every 12-23 years depending on what brand you bought. An honest discussion would really help. . > That is why the mirror-array solar projects all failed. No it's not. Also, the mirror-array solar projects do better than the PV ones, if you take the time to look it up. The reason the mirror-array solar projects failed is, like the PV projects, they bought into the myth of storage. . > but it will be hard to match PV-powered fuel synthesis for cost and convenience. This is the only good reason to use PV, and it's because the end product that's desired is a chemical battery Batteries are the only thing PV can fill, and gasoline is the only kind of battery anyone actually wants to buy In the meantime, the idea of using PV for this is absolutely absurd. It's 1/5 the price to do it on nuclear, and you know, it turns out that people are sensitive to the price of gasoline. If you do an actual comparison with actual numbers where all the solutions are checked for every claim, instead of just the one you want to make look a certain way, suddenly you realize why nobody's building this despite that all the parts are cheap and unregulated, and despite that the market demand is vast and well established. If this was true, instead of posting about it, you should be building a proof of concept, then applying for a bank loan, so that you can get rich saving the planet. Cheap off the shelf parts don't do world-saving things, in general, or else someone would have already done it. If you believe that you can do something the world's scientists and engineers are desperately struggling to do using stuff you can buy at WalMart, there's a very solid probability that you're missing some key pieces in the evaluation, and should look up one of the publicly available studies.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      > It is really remarkable how misinformed you are May I point you to this site's guidelines [1]? When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Anybody can be misinformed. There is one remedy. It would take a much longer post for me to correct everything, so I had to sample highlights.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  Here’s a study by the DoE that shows that the capital and operating cost of a steam turbine that generates 15MW is about $666 per kW. That would scale to $0.7 BN for a 1 GW plant, which is negligible for a nuclear power plant. The steam turbine is definitely not what keeps the nuclear power plants from being economical. [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/CHP-Steam%20Turbine.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/CHP-Stea...
  - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
    nuclear doesn't use cheap small turbines like that. the output is far too large and they're nowhere near efficient enough. a 1gw plant is currently about $7.5 billion, most of which isn't hardware but cost of capital, so the price you're claiming is 10% of total, which is hardly "negligable." Typical US buildout is 71% cost of capital, 15% equipment, 12% construction, 2% permitting, so, the number you're claiming would represent half of the entire plant equipment cost, which isn't correct nuclear plants typically use either two or three very different kinds of turbines, which are an order of magnitude different in price - msbs, lsbs, and maybe elsbs if the plant is big enough EDF's entire nuclear turbine business - they're one of the largest on earth - is only valued at 1.1 billion, which at your price is ... less than two turbines https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/edf-seeks-to-lower-price-of-ges-french-turbines-deal-source https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/edf-seeks-to-lower-price-of-...
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      I can't follow your argument. You seem to imply at the same time that my numbers are too small and too high. Which one is it? In any case, here's a separate reference to corroborate my numbers. It's a study by EIA ( US Energy Information Administration) published in 2020 [1] where they compare the capital costs of different power plants. One such power plant they consider is a nuclear plant with 2 AP1000 reactors with a total capacity of 2.2 GW. The conventional part of the power plant is listed at $1.4 BN (page 107), which comes at about $640 MM/GW, in line with the estimate from my previous comment. Their overall estimate for such a power plant is about $14 BN, which means the conventional part of the plant is about 10%. Of course, in the case of Vogtle 3/4 (which uses 2 AP1000 reactors), the overall cost is estimated at about $25 BN, due to various cost overruns. [1] https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...

ncmncm 4y ago

98% not counting periodic overhaul. Then, 80-90%. But you have to add the cost of the heat source. When that is a nuke, cost balloons out of sight. Geothermal is better, but drilling is still expensive; that might come down if microwave drills work out. But the cost of periodic steam turbine overhauls will be hard to bring down to match dusting off PV panels. Pressurized steam is just very corrosive stuff. That is why the mirror-array solar projects all failed. Steering thousand of mirrors, keeping them clean, and then driving a steam turbine just cannot match a static array of PV panels. The technology might have a place for supplying process heat, but it will be hard to match PV-powered fuel synthesis for cost and convenience.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago
> 98% not counting periodic overhaul. the reason for the null hypothesis is that if you had run one, you'd realize that solar has a 20 year periodic replacement, as compared to nuclear's 80 year periodic maintenance, so this argument (like all arguments) is against solar . > When that is a nuke, cost balloons out of sight. Not when compared to literally any other power source But if you hold it up in isolation, yeah, sure, it's expensive. Once every 50 years because of bad laws, you have to go in there and pay about a quarter what the plant was worth. And it'd still be cheaper if you had to do it every ten years, plus more reliable, and it wouldn't waste all the copper and rare earths, and it wouldn't leave you with China as the new Middle East. . > But the cost of periodic steam turbine overhauls will be hard to bring down to match dusting off PV panels. You don't dust PV panels off. That's daily cleaning. Maintenance for PV panels is replacing them every 12-23 years depending on what brand you bought. An honest discussion would really help. . > That is why the mirror-array solar projects all failed. No it's not. Also, the mirror-array solar projects do better than the PV ones, if you take the time to look it up. The reason the mirror-array solar projects failed is, like the PV projects, they bought into the myth of storage. . > but it will be hard to match PV-powered fuel synthesis for cost and convenience. This is the only good reason to use PV, and it's because the end product that's desired is a chemical battery Batteries are the only thing PV can fill, and gasoline is the only kind of battery anyone actually wants to buy In the meantime, the idea of using PV for this is absolutely absurd. It's 1/5 the price to do it on nuclear, and you know, it turns out that people are sensitive to the price of gasoline. If you do an actual comparison with actual numbers where all the solutions are checked for every claim, instead of just the one you want to make look a certain way, suddenly you realize why nobody's building this despite that all the parts are cheap and unregulated, and despite that the market demand is vast and well established. If this was true, instead of posting about it, you should be building a proof of concept, then applying for a bank loan, so that you can get rich saving the planet. Cheap off the shelf parts don't do world-saving things, in general, or else someone would have already done it. If you believe that you can do something the world's scientists and engineers are desperately struggling to do using stuff you can buy at WalMart, there's a very solid probability that you're missing some key pieces in the evaluation, and should look up one of the publicly available studies.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > It is really remarkable how misinformed you are May I point you to this site's guidelines [1]? When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Anybody can be misinformed. There is one remedy. It would take a much longer post for me to correct everything, so I had to sample highlights.
credit_guy 4y ago
Here’s a study by the DoE that shows that the capital and operating cost of a steam turbine that generates 15MW is about $666 per kW. That would scale to $0.7 BN for a 1 GW plant, which is negligible for a nuclear power plant. The steam turbine is definitely not what keeps the nuclear power plants from being economical. [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/CHP-Steam%20Turbine.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/CHP-Stea...
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  nuclear doesn't use cheap small turbines like that. the output is far too large and they're nowhere near efficient enough. a 1gw plant is currently about $7.5 billion, most of which isn't hardware but cost of capital, so the price you're claiming is 10% of total, which is hardly "negligable." Typical US buildout is 71% cost of capital, 15% equipment, 12% construction, 2% permitting, so, the number you're claiming would represent half of the entire plant equipment cost, which isn't correct nuclear plants typically use either two or three very different kinds of turbines, which are an order of magnitude different in price - msbs, lsbs, and maybe elsbs if the plant is big enough EDF's entire nuclear turbine business - they're one of the largest on earth - is only valued at 1.1 billion, which at your price is ... less than two turbines https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/edf-seeks-to-lower-price-of-ges-french-turbines-deal-source https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/edf-seeks-to-lower-price-of-...
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    I can't follow your argument. You seem to imply at the same time that my numbers are too small and too high. Which one is it? In any case, here's a separate reference to corroborate my numbers. It's a study by EIA ( US Energy Information Administration) published in 2020 [1] where they compare the capital costs of different power plants. One such power plant they consider is a nuclear plant with 2 AP1000 reactors with a total capacity of 2.2 GW. The conventional part of the power plant is listed at $1.4 BN (page 107), which comes at about $640 MM/GW, in line with the estimate from my previous comment. Their overall estimate for such a power plant is about $14 BN, which means the conventional part of the plant is about 10%. Of course, in the case of Vogtle 3/4 (which uses 2 AP1000 reactors), the overall cost is estimated at about $25 BN, due to various cost overruns. [1] https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...