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> I could never understand why we didn't build these for civilian use (cost I figured) If Nuscale can hit their LCOE goal of $65/mWh by 2030, they will still b
by danans 4y ago
> I could never understand why we didn't build these for civilian use (cost I figured)
If Nuscale can hit their LCOE goal of $65/mWh by 2030, they will still be 2-3x the LCOE of Solar+storage today [1] (which will only get cheaper).
In the long term both technologies will play an important role, but the zero carbon technology we can deploy at scale today is the technology we need today.
1. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
- scythe 4y agoIt appears that the LCOE for utility-scale solar which you're referencing here, community and rooftop both being significantly more expensive, is based on existing installations. But existing installations would have used the cheapest available land, and the cheapest available land tends to be in short supply. Solar installations on a significantly larger scale would have to use less ideal land (less accessible, more rugged, more expensive) and would incur associated cost increases. Solar is like a huge orange tree where we have been mostly picking from the lower branches — there are more than enough oranges on the tree for everyone, but you can't expect them all to be as easy as the low-hanging fruit. However, I am optimistic about storage, particularly since zinc-bromine seems poised to break into the market, with excellent resource availability. Zinc production is about 13 Mt/yr [1], and the battery offers about 67 Wh/kg, with ~1/3 the weight in zinc, so 200 Wh/(kg Zn), so potential production is over 1 TWh/year before running into availability problems. There are also about half a billion tonnes of bromine in the Dead Sea alone [2]. (Since this is my third Zn-Br post, I'll add that I don't currently have investments in them, but I'm considering it.) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc#Production 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromine#Occurrence_and_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromine#Occurrence_and_product...
- pfdietz 4y agoThere is an enormous amount of cheap land, globally. Any land that is cheap enough for farming is cheap enough for PV, and land that isn't even adequate for farming tends to be even cheaper than that.
- scythe 4y agoApparently, my use of the phrase "cheap land" was misleading. The acquisition price is one thing. But then you have site suitability, regional suitability, site access (running powerlines/roads), and construction labor availability. Any of these can drive up costs. Desert sands are soft and blow around, rocky hillsides are difficult to maneuver equipment on, forests have to be cleared, et cetera.
- ncmncm 4y agoCheap land is cheap specifically because there is a very great deal of it. But it is a stupid place to site solar, anyway: there are much better places, already in use, that may continue in that use, but with added solar revenue. The overwhelming bulk of utility scale storage will not be in batteries. They cost too much per kWh stored. Bulk storage will be in media where incremental kWh are cheapest. Think tankage.
- scythe 4y ago>The overwhelming bulk of utility scale storage will not be in batteries. They cost too much per kWh stored. Bulk storage will be in media where incremental kWh are cheapest. One side of this comparison has cost estimates, the other one is vaporware. You need a certain generation capacity for hydrogen (or whatever) measured in watts, not watt-hours; these plants require maintenance and operation costs likely much higher than batteries. With battery costs approaching $100/kWh, many TWh of storage are attainable. I'm assuming that nuclear will be a significant part of the energy supply, so I would not expect it to be necessary to, for example, store six months' worth of energy for the winter.
- ncmncm 4y agoNukes will soon be unable to find buyers for their power at a price they can offer, most of the time, so will be unable to collect enough revenue to continue operating, anywhere they are not propped up from money coerced by taxation. Cheap storage will displace them.
- Swenrekcah 4y agoNuclear uses far less resources and land area than both wind and solar plus storage. So sure, it costs some more money but it costs less actual real stuff. Furthermore, it is not feasible to power individual personal vehicles or homes with nuclear reactors, so using nuclear for the grid frees up those resources that can be used for other stuff, for that stuff.
- Ma8ee 4y agoYou do know that you can exchange money for “actual real stuff”, including natural resources and land? So that why we cite costs in “money”.
- Swenrekcah 4y agoWe cite costs in money because it’s useful. But you can’t eat money and you can’t build from it. You need actual stuff and land to do so. That is limited in a way that the money supply isn’t. Case in point, the currently ongoing global supply shortage.
- Ma8ee 4y agoUh? Try reading my comment again. That the federal reserve in principle could print unlimited money is irrelevant here.
- wizofaus 4y agoI would think the point is that if nuclear costs more money, it's suggestive that it doesn't really use less resources than other options that cost less. Of course, that's not entirely true, as some of the costs for nuclear are insurance, which isn't priced particularly rationally, and of course, for human expertise, but that's arguably a far more scarce resource as are land and raw building materials - i.e. if you're using highly-skilled human brain power to design/build/run nuclear power plants, it prevents us from using that brain power to do other potentially more productive things (which might include coming up with better solutions for our environmental challenges). To be clear - I'm quite supportive of more nuclear power, but certainly not because it uses less land or resources.
- Manuel_D 4y agoThere's no viable way to build storage at the scale required to run a wind and solar grid. Even building just 1 hour of electricity storage amounts to 2,500 GWh. The entire world's annual output of battery storage is somewhere between 300 and 400 GWh. Any attempt at grid scale storage would lead to shortages driving up prices. Similar bottlenecks occur with pumped hydroelectricity. To build it economically you not only need an alpine lake handy, it also needs to be close to transportation infrastructure. As those sites are developed, we'd turn to more and more remote sites.
- pfdietz 4y agoPointing to one or two current storage technologies as evidence that the problem is fundamentally unsolvable is quite a logical leap. Can we apply the same reasoning and conclude that because existing nuclear reactors are inadequate, no possible future nuclear reactors can be adequate? Why does pumped hydro have to be close to transportation infrastructure, btw? Can one not build roads or rail lines?
- Manuel_D 4y agoThe point is that no existing storage system is sufficient and thus solar and wind is really solar, wind, and fossil fuels. And nuclear power is indeed sufficient. They can indeed modulate power output, and we have the capacity to build them at the required scale. Some countries already have, like France. > Why does pumped hydro have to be close to transportation infrastructure, btw? Can one not build roads or rail lines? You can, but the more remote the build site the more expensive it becomes.
- pfdietz 4y agoCurrent nuclear technology isn't sufficient either. A world powered by nuclear burner reactors runs out of uranium very quickly. Breeder reactors or seawater uranium extraction would be needed, and neither of these are "existing" in the sense you're using for storage.
- 4y ago
- gmkiv 4y agoThe link you provide seems to say that the cost of wholesale PV + storage is $85-$158 (bottom figure, line 3). Am I misreading that? I’ve noticed that many solar+storage installations these days are 4-hour storage, so not sufficient for baseload. I think the number would be higher if we were shooting for baseload from our storage.
- Tuna-Fish 4y agoThis site is using a benchmark of 4 hours for storage. This is sufficient for California, but not really anywhere else. Here in Finland, it would be literally 3 orders of magnitude too low. This, er, has an impact on cost.
- danans 4y ago> This is sufficient for California, but not really anywhere else. Here in Finland, it would be literally 3 orders of magnitude too low. Yes, but compared to California (and all the other very sunny parts of the US and the world where huge populations live), from an energy consumption perspective, tiny Finland doesn't really matter much. Or put another way, it matters far more to the future of the climate to decarbonize energy production in California than Finland. That said, companies in Finland have been developing some neat grid scale heat storage batteries lately, so there is an opportunity for them to have a big technological impact that way.
- SECProto 4y agoYep. SMR is a much better drop-in replacement for fossil sources than renewables (generally stable/controllable output, dense locating so no expansion/upgrading of grid required unlike solar and wind, and can provide large winter outputs in more northerly climes where solar efficiency fades in the winter).
- marcosdumay 4y agoWait, am I reading it correctly that your reference is saying that the cost of fuel and operation of a nuclear reactor alone are already around the same value as the total costs for PV solar? I didn't expect that.
- dv_dt 4y agoIt's the same as the most expensive residential rooftop solar. Nuclear is about 8-10x the total cost vs utility scale solar projects.
- adrianN 4y agoJust the turbine part of any power plant that converts heat to electricity is expensive enough that it has problems competing with PV in sunny locations (if you only include a little bit of storage in your calculations)
- marcosdumay 4y agoWhat I got is that if you had a perfectly fine already working nuclear plant, completely paid off, it's about as profitable to abandon it and build a solar plant as it is to run it.
- parkingrift 4y agoThese “levelized” costs are always comically inept. - Assumes solar installation in a sunny climate. It’s an order of magnitude difference in potential solar output between San Diego and NYC. - Underestimates battery requirements by multiple orders of magnitude. Again, because it has comically inept assumptions. - We literally cannot deploy solar at scale today. We do not have anywhere near the battery production necessary for utility scale deployment. We would need to double our worldwide battery manufacturing ability, double it again, double it again, and then double it one more time. - Massive demand for solar and battery, combined with finite production capacity, would lead to dramatic increase in prices. TLDR the other energy technologies can actually be deployed at estimated prices. Solar cannot be deployed at scale globally. At all. Period.
- carderne 4y agoThe line you’re presumably referencing is for four hours of storage. That’s nowhere near enough to sensibly compare with a nuclear plant.