5 ms·

Great, because we could really use some modern nuclear power plants here. We do not have the natural resources to provide power base with wind/solar alone and i

by bfrog 3y ago

Great, because we could really use some modern nuclear power plants here. We do not have the natural resources to provide power base with wind/solar alone and in all likelihood even with large storage banks it would be very hard to compete with what amounts to an atomic battery in nuclear fuel rods.

mschuster91 3y ago
> We do not have the natural resources to provide power base with wind/solar alone Well, that's what you have a national grid for. China for example has links that go way more than 2.000km - that's more than enough distance to transfer power in times of low wind or whatever around.
- dsauerbrun 3y ago
  I'm not an electrical engineer but it sounds implausible for power to be transferred that far without losing a bunch of it in the process, unless you have massive cables.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    HVDC loses 3% in 1000 km, depending on the value of "HV".
  - bb88 3y ago
    Maybe take some EE courses then? They're not that hard... From EE101: P=V * I. But power transmission losses are I^2 * R. So one way to transmit large amounts of power with low losses is to, well, turn the voltage up and use a lower current. And with lower current, you can use smaller cables. And in fact, that's what we do. That's why your power lines to your house are thousands of volts and the transformer hanging on the pole will convert it into 220V (but with higher current to run your hair dryer, say).
  - SECProto 3y ago
    > I'm not an electrical engineer but it sounds implausible for power to be transferred that far without losing a bunch of it in the process, unless you have massive cables. Read up about Hydro Quebec. They generate gigawatts in Northern Quebec and export large amounts to New England. HVDC is pretty efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec's_electricity_transmission_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec's_electricit...
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    The cables don't need to be massive, but the voltage has to be because the power loss is related to the current flowing - so the Chinese just raised the voltage to 1 million volts instead of the usual 220/380 kV, and used DC instead of AC to get rid of reactive power and skin effect issues. Their longest line transfers 12 gigawatts of power over almost 3.300km distance - that's not that much that remains to cover the distance from the US East to West coast! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...
    - sophacles 3y ago
      The large long distance AC transmission lines are 765KV. They step that down various substations as lines branch off to feed smaller and smaller areas until you get to the distribution network. If you draw the map of lines with proportional thickness for various voltage levels it looks vaguely fractal, like an old tree.
- gosub100 3y ago
  China is investing heavily in nuclear power. I believe they are even trying the new modern designs (cannot remember the name, but it's the latest generation that the US doesn't have because of over-regulation). Why would they go so large on nuclear if they are the capital of production for solar panels?
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Illinois has service with both MISO and PJM grids [1]. They're going to be pulling power over HVDC from wind in the central US [2]. NuScale wasn't cost competitive [3], so while nuclear approval is nice (because it is silly to prohibit it from being built if safely and responsibly operated), renewables, batteries, transmission, and demand response is cheaper (collectively) [4] [5] [6]. [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO?wind=false... [2] https://soogreen.com/project-overview/ https://soogreen.com/project-overview/ [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38199061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38199061 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 [5] https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf [6] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/us-can-get-to-100percent-clean-energy-without-nuclear-power-stanford-professor-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/us-can-get-to-100percent-cle...

by bfrog 3y ago

mschuster91 3y ago

> We do not have the natural resources to provide power base with wind/solar alone Well, that's what you have a national grid for. China for example has links that go way more than 2.000km - that's more than enough distance to transfer power in times of low wind or whatever around.

dsauerbrun 3y ago
I'm not an electrical engineer but it sounds implausible for power to be transferred that far without losing a bunch of it in the process, unless you have massive cables.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  HVDC loses 3% in 1000 km, depending on the value of "HV".
- bb88 3y ago
  Maybe take some EE courses then? They're not that hard... From EE101: P=V * I. But power transmission losses are I^2 * R. So one way to transmit large amounts of power with low losses is to, well, turn the voltage up and use a lower current. And with lower current, you can use smaller cables. And in fact, that's what we do. That's why your power lines to your house are thousands of volts and the transformer hanging on the pole will convert it into 220V (but with higher current to run your hair dryer, say).
- SECProto 3y ago
  > I'm not an electrical engineer but it sounds implausible for power to be transferred that far without losing a bunch of it in the process, unless you have massive cables. Read up about Hydro Quebec. They generate gigawatts in Northern Quebec and export large amounts to New England. HVDC is pretty efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec's_electricity_transmission_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec's_electricit...
- mschuster91 3y ago
  The cables don't need to be massive, but the voltage has to be because the power loss is related to the current flowing - so the Chinese just raised the voltage to 1 million volts instead of the usual 220/380 kV, and used DC instead of AC to get rid of reactive power and skin effect issues. Their longest line transfers 12 gigawatts of power over almost 3.300km distance - that's not that much that remains to cover the distance from the US East to West coast! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...
  - sophacles 3y ago
    The large long distance AC transmission lines are 765KV. They step that down various substations as lines branch off to feed smaller and smaller areas until you get to the distribution network. If you draw the map of lines with proportional thickness for various voltage levels it looks vaguely fractal, like an old tree.
gosub100 3y ago
China is investing heavily in nuclear power. I believe they are even trying the new modern designs (cannot remember the name, but it's the latest generation that the US doesn't have because of over-regulation). Why would they go so large on nuclear if they are the capital of production for solar panels?

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Illinois has service with both MISO and PJM grids [1]. They're going to be pulling power over HVDC from wind in the central US [2]. NuScale wasn't cost competitive [3], so while nuclear approval is nice (because it is silly to prohibit it from being built if safely and responsibly operated), renewables, batteries, transmission, and demand response is cheaper (collectively) [4] [5] [6]. [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO?wind=false&solar=false https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-MIDW-MISO?wind=false... [2] https://soogreen.com/project-overview/ https://soogreen.com/project-overview/ [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38199061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38199061 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 [5] https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf [6] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/us-can-get-to-100percent-clean-energy-without-nuclear-power-stanford-professor-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/us-can-get-to-100percent-cle...