10 ms·

Not following, which 1 reliable power system do you mean?

__pache__ 4y ago
Any. Solar/Wind, for example, are not reliable. Nuclear, for example, is reliable. Instead of having Solar/Wind with batteries and all this nonsense, along with Nuclear for its stability, just skip the nonsense and go straight to Nuclear. Solar/Wind are terrible...
- derriz 4y ago
  You can no more rely on nuclear or coal generation for your electricity without back-up than you can on wind or solar. A nuclear plant in the US is off-line for 29 days a year on average according to the EIA. So you still need back-up for your "reliable" nuclear, unless you want people using candles for nearly a month a year. All generation technologies are intermittent - they're just intermittent in different ways.
  - __pache__ 4y ago
    What is your argument...? Are you admitting "being intermittent is bad," while ignoring Solar is intermittent like 70% of the time vs 10% of the time for Nuclear? ...great argument? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37252 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37252 doesn't seem like you interpreted this correctly, seems bad faith for sure. > A scheduled shutdown of a nuclear power plant is generally timed to coincide with the plant’s refueling cycle. Nuclear power plants typically refuel every 18 to 24 months, often during the fall and spring when electricity demand is lower. It's shut down every ~2 years, not "every year." > _During the past six years, average refueling outages have become shorter, decreasing from an average of 46 days in 2012 to 34 days in 2018._ They're getting better and better. So adjust the above 10% downtime number I gave, Nuclear is down ~3-5% of the time it sounds like. With improvements, this can probably get down to 1%. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh EDIT: not to mention this is an implementation problem. You can have multiple small reactors that never need maintenance where you just hot swap an old reactor for a new one. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-... The anti-science crowd is nuts on this stuff.. it's not _that hard..._
    - derriz 4y ago
      I though my argument was clear - that you need back-up for nuclear power also? You accuse me of bad faith for quoting a number which includes both unscheduled and scheduled shutdowns by comparing with a number which only include the latter. And I don't even understand where this is supposed to be going because even if plants never had unscheduled stoppages, you'd still need back-up. But anyway, I find your tone overly aggressive. So it's unlikely that any discussion will be productive.
      - goodpoint 4y ago
        Don't feed the trolls.
      - __pache__ 4y ago
        > I though my argument was clear - that you need back-up for nuclear power also? Right, but who said otherwise? Your arguing against a straw man that doesn't exist, no one said: you never have to do maintenance on Nuclear. Clearly Nuclear is 100x more reliable than Solar/Wind, easily. > you'd still need back-up. who said otherwise......... who are you arguing against? not making sense... this isn't relevant to what I'm saying.. > But anyway, I find your tone overly aggressive. So it's unlikely that any discussion will be productive. fair enough! would appreciate you admitting you grossly misinterpreted the stats on the nuclear data you gave. seems bad faith. have a good one
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAvailabilityFactor.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAva...
  - samatman 4y ago
    You're comparing scheduled maintenance in a 90+% uptime system with intermittent, unpredictable, correlated, continuous fluctuations in power, with capacity factors in the 10-30$ range of nameplate capacity. I have a great solution for nuke plant downtime, this is going to blow your mind, wait for it: for every 14 plants worth of power, built, drumroll please.... 15 plants! Then maintain them on a schedule.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Solar/wind/batteries/hydrogen > nuclear The way you back up your $10/W nuclear plant is with $0.50/W simple cycle turbines, which can burn hydrogen. Or maybe $1/W combined cycle, if you want to do seasonal storage.
      - flockonus 4y ago
        Not true, for new nuclear (LFTR / TMSR) at least it isn't. They are safe and reliable, also their output don't allow for building weapons.. it's about as good as it gets.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Lol. Yes, bring up concepts where we don't even have the demonstrated materials, never mind operating demonstration units, and claim they will be cheap. This is totally credible! /s
      - __pache__ 4y ago
        hydrogen power plants ?
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Yes. Of course the hydrogen needs to be made and stored, but storage of hydrogen underground is very cheap, about $1/kWh of storage capacity, two orders of magnitude lower than batteries.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  There are roughly 40 million kgs of accessible, usable fissile material (U235 and Pu239) on Earth. Each kg produces 30-80TJ with maybe another 20 if you spend even more money to scavenge the last little bit via reprocessing. Newer reactors hold about 6 years of fuel and cycle some of it every couple of years. World energy consumption is approximately 550EJ. How are you proposing to fuel your reactors more than once?
  - hardolaf 4y ago
    This number is based on existing mines (active and inactive) only. There's a lot more fissile material available than just the 40 Gg of usable fissile material. And that's assuming we only use U-235 and Pu-239. We also have viable LWR designs for Th-232 and are in the process of creating the first 5 Th-232 SMR test reactors at grid-scale right now.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      > This number is based on existing mines (active and inactive) only. There's a lot more fissile material available than just the 40 Gg of usable fissile material. And that's assuming we only use U-235 and Pu-239. That's all known and inferred accessible reserves. Not current mines. There are about 8-10 million tonnes of natural Uranium which has 0.5% extractable U235 (a bit more if you're willing to pay 10x as much for enrichment). There might be another big, high yield mine in Canada somewhere, but you probably want to check before putting down all our chips on it. U238 is not fissile. > We also have viable LWR designs for Th-232 and are in the process of creating the first 5 Th-232 SMR test reactors at grid-scale right now. So a technology that hasn't made it to the test bench, has no evidence as to its longevity or economics, probably requires more Beryllium than exists, and requires at least twice as much fissile material as is available for startup to breed fissile material from fertile thorium is your solution? One where the only proxy for how the extraction step might work is MOX reprocessed fuel which is more expensive than renewables on its own and releases more radiation under normal operation than Fukushima and TMI combined? Why are you suggesting diverting funds from a technology that works to build a completely different technology from your solution that destroys precious fissile material it needs to scale quickly then? Even in the most optimistic scenarios it will take decades to breed up a fresh load of U233 to double your fleet, and you will have to throw away all your multi billion dollar PWRs. Why not keep doing the thing that's provably working. That way if you solve the whole breeder thing then it will only take a few generations to breed enough fuel rather than hundreds.

Any. Solar/Wind, for example, are not reliable. Nuclear, for example, is reliable. Instead of having Solar/Wind with batteries and all this nonsense, along with Nuclear for its stability, just skip the nonsense and go straight to Nuclear. Solar/Wind are terrible...

derriz 4y ago
You can no more rely on nuclear or coal generation for your electricity without back-up than you can on wind or solar. A nuclear plant in the US is off-line for 29 days a year on average according to the EIA. So you still need back-up for your "reliable" nuclear, unless you want people using candles for nearly a month a year. All generation technologies are intermittent - they're just intermittent in different ways.
- __pache__ 4y ago
  What is your argument...? Are you admitting "being intermittent is bad," while ignoring Solar is intermittent like 70% of the time vs 10% of the time for Nuclear? ...great argument? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37252 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37252 doesn't seem like you interpreted this correctly, seems bad faith for sure. > A scheduled shutdown of a nuclear power plant is generally timed to coincide with the plant’s refueling cycle. Nuclear power plants typically refuel every 18 to 24 months, often during the fall and spring when electricity demand is lower. It's shut down every ~2 years, not "every year." > _During the past six years, average refueling outages have become shorter, decreasing from an average of 46 days in 2012 to 34 days in 2018._ They're getting better and better. So adjust the above 10% downtime number I gave, Nuclear is down ~3-5% of the time it sounds like. With improvements, this can probably get down to 1%. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh EDIT: not to mention this is an implementation problem. You can have multiple small reactors that never need maintenance where you just hot swap an old reactor for a new one. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-... The anti-science crowd is nuts on this stuff.. it's not _that hard..._
  - derriz 4y ago
    I though my argument was clear - that you need back-up for nuclear power also? You accuse me of bad faith for quoting a number which includes both unscheduled and scheduled shutdowns by comparing with a number which only include the latter. And I don't even understand where this is supposed to be going because even if plants never had unscheduled stoppages, you'd still need back-up. But anyway, I find your tone overly aggressive. So it's unlikely that any discussion will be productive.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      Don't feed the trolls.
    - __pache__ 4y ago
      > I though my argument was clear - that you need back-up for nuclear power also? Right, but who said otherwise? Your arguing against a straw man that doesn't exist, no one said: you never have to do maintenance on Nuclear. Clearly Nuclear is 100x more reliable than Solar/Wind, easily. > you'd still need back-up. who said otherwise......... who are you arguing against? not making sense... this isn't relevant to what I'm saying.. > But anyway, I find your tone overly aggressive. So it's unlikely that any discussion will be productive. fair enough! would appreciate you admitting you grossly misinterpreted the stats on the nuclear data you gave. seems bad faith. have a good one
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAvailabilityFactor.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergyAva...
- samatman 4y ago
  You're comparing scheduled maintenance in a 90+% uptime system with intermittent, unpredictable, correlated, continuous fluctuations in power, with capacity factors in the 10-30$ range of nameplate capacity. I have a great solution for nuke plant downtime, this is going to blow your mind, wait for it: for every 14 plants worth of power, built, drumroll please.... 15 plants! Then maintain them on a schedule.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Solar/wind/batteries/hydrogen > nuclear The way you back up your $10/W nuclear plant is with $0.50/W simple cycle turbines, which can burn hydrogen. Or maybe $1/W combined cycle, if you want to do seasonal storage.
    - flockonus 4y ago
      Not true, for new nuclear (LFTR / TMSR) at least it isn't. They are safe and reliable, also their output don't allow for building weapons.. it's about as good as it gets.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Lol. Yes, bring up concepts where we don't even have the demonstrated materials, never mind operating demonstration units, and claim they will be cheap. This is totally credible! /s
    - __pache__ 4y ago
      hydrogen power plants ?
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Yes. Of course the hydrogen needs to be made and stored, but storage of hydrogen underground is very cheap, about $1/kWh of storage capacity, two orders of magnitude lower than batteries.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
There are roughly 40 million kgs of accessible, usable fissile material (U235 and Pu239) on Earth. Each kg produces 30-80TJ with maybe another 20 if you spend even more money to scavenge the last little bit via reprocessing. Newer reactors hold about 6 years of fuel and cycle some of it every couple of years. World energy consumption is approximately 550EJ. How are you proposing to fuel your reactors more than once?
- hardolaf 4y ago
  This number is based on existing mines (active and inactive) only. There's a lot more fissile material available than just the 40 Gg of usable fissile material. And that's assuming we only use U-235 and Pu-239. We also have viable LWR designs for Th-232 and are in the process of creating the first 5 Th-232 SMR test reactors at grid-scale right now.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > This number is based on existing mines (active and inactive) only. There's a lot more fissile material available than just the 40 Gg of usable fissile material. And that's assuming we only use U-235 and Pu-239. That's all known and inferred accessible reserves. Not current mines. There are about 8-10 million tonnes of natural Uranium which has 0.5% extractable U235 (a bit more if you're willing to pay 10x as much for enrichment). There might be another big, high yield mine in Canada somewhere, but you probably want to check before putting down all our chips on it. U238 is not fissile. > We also have viable LWR designs for Th-232 and are in the process of creating the first 5 Th-232 SMR test reactors at grid-scale right now. So a technology that hasn't made it to the test bench, has no evidence as to its longevity or economics, probably requires more Beryllium than exists, and requires at least twice as much fissile material as is available for startup to breed fissile material from fertile thorium is your solution? One where the only proxy for how the extraction step might work is MOX reprocessed fuel which is more expensive than renewables on its own and releases more radiation under normal operation than Fukushima and TMI combined? Why are you suggesting diverting funds from a technology that works to build a completely different technology from your solution that destroys precious fissile material it needs to scale quickly then? Even in the most optimistic scenarios it will take decades to breed up a fresh load of U233 to double your fleet, and you will have to throw away all your multi billion dollar PWRs. Why not keep doing the thing that's provably working. That way if you solve the whole breeder thing then it will only take a few generations to breed enough fuel rather than hundreds.