4 ms·

3.5MW per turbine is quite modest. GE have a 14MW model - possibly onshore vs offshore is the difference? Also, $11bn for the whole 3.5GW project isn’t bad com

by jl6 3y ago

3.5MW per turbine is quite modest. GE have a 14MW model - possibly onshore vs offshore is the difference? Also, $11bn for the whole 3.5GW project isn’t bad compared to $34bn for 2.2GW of new nuclear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... (3.5GW of wind nameplate capacity being ~1.2GW at the typical onshore capacity factor of 35%) You could buy a lot of storage for the difference.

seec 3y ago
The thing is you could run the nuclear stations at almost full tilt pretty much all the time while your wind turbines park will output as you noted about 35% of their theoretical capacity. So, it's cheaper but its output is also almost half of the nuclear plus the intermittent issue. Even if we consider that you "saved" $23bn, that would buy about 58 Megapack XL from Tesla, at around 4 MWh a piece. So, in the end, you would only be able to pay for 230 MWh, or 0.23 GWh. You are still very far from the excess 1GW available at any time that the nuclear station would give you. The way I see it, the economics would need to increase at least 5 folds before it can be thought of as a "solution" and that's before considering the longevity and logistics of those systems. It is extremely likely that they won't last as long and will be even more of a pain in the ass to manage in the very long term, but that's something greenwashing would rather keep under the radar. Then we will have to deal with stuff like this: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-turbine-blades-dump/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-t... I was actually looking for an impressive picture of an unused wind farm I read about a bit ago (unrelated, on an urbex site) that didn't make sense to run economically but was just sitting there... Considering all their foreseeable long-term problems, most of the "green" solutions look like more trouble than they are worth. But the only other answer is to force people to consume less or kill 2/3 of humans on the planet so I guess we will keep on the lies...
varjag 3y ago
Offshore stuff is just bigger: the sweet spot is different due to substantial fixed cost of wind park installation. But for perspective, two decades ago when we had our earliest deliveries to wind power sector, 1.3MW turbines were state of the art for offshore.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Vogtle notoriously suffered from cost overruns and was complicated by Westinghouse going through bankruptcy during the construction. It's not obvious that this is a representative example and "1" is not a statistically valid sample size. It was also the first US plant brought online in 40 years, which required a lot of lessons to be learned for the first time in a generation, as would not be the case for future construction. And you're comparing the ultimate cost of the completed reactor to the estimated cost of the wind project -- the estimated cost of Vogtle was $14B, and now SunZia is getting sued for whatever it is this time. The US makes it unreasonably expensive to build anything. And even then, by the time you account for capacity factor, short-term storage and long-term storage, even with all the cost overruns, the cost of Vogtle was the same order of magnitude as the estimated cost of a wind project that would supply the same amount of power. I honestly don't understand why people think these things are particularly in competition with each other. If we're going to stop burning carbon, we're going to electrify transportation, and that is where most of the storage batteries are going to go for the foreseeable future. And then we're going to have to increase the amount of generating capacity to charge all of those batteries. But that's great -- they're batteries so we can charge them with new renewables without having to worry about intermittency. Except that means we just allocated the bulk of our production capacity for both storage and renewable generation to electrifying transportation, and we still need to stop burning carbon for the existing baseload power generation. Hence nuclear.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  Keep in mind that about half the cost is the transmission line. [1] Vogtle closely matches nuclear costs in Europe so trying to frame it as a special snowflake we will never repeat does not add up. Until proven otherwise it is what nuclear construction is expected to cost in advanced economies. Bent Flyvbjerg has studied megaprojects. Looking at those the most likely to come in on time and budget are solar pv and wind projects. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have nuclear energy only beaten by the Olympics and nuclear waste storage in terms of cost over runs and delays. The HVDC line adds risk but we have gotten quite experienced at building those globally. The equivalency in risk you try to construct does not exist. https://patternenergy.com/pattern-energy-closes-11-billion-financing-of-largest-clean-energy-infrastructure-project-in-u-s-history/ https://patternenergy.com/pattern-energy-closes-11-billion-f...
SoftTalker 3y ago
> You could buy a lot of storage for the difference. Theoretically yes, but is it actually available?
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  California built 4.2 GW of storage in 2023. With a typical 4 hour storage rate that is 16 GWh being cycled daily. There are now times in the California grid where the second largest producer is batteries.

by jl6 3y ago

seec 3y ago

The thing is you could run the nuclear stations at almost full tilt pretty much all the time while your wind turbines park will output as you noted about 35% of their theoretical capacity. So, it's cheaper but its output is also almost half of the nuclear plus the intermittent issue. Even if we consider that you "saved" $23bn, that would buy about 58 Megapack XL from Tesla, at around 4 MWh a piece. So, in the end, you would only be able to pay for 230 MWh, or 0.23 GWh. You are still very far from the excess 1GW available at any time that the nuclear station would give you. The way I see it, the economics would need to increase at least 5 folds before it can be thought of as a "solution" and that's before considering the longevity and logistics of those systems. It is extremely likely that they won't last as long and will be even more of a pain in the ass to manage in the very long term, but that's something greenwashing would rather keep under the radar. Then we will have to deal with stuff like this: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-turbine-blades-dump/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-t... I was actually looking for an impressive picture of an unused wind farm I read about a bit ago (unrelated, on an urbex site) that didn't make sense to run economically but was just sitting there... Considering all their foreseeable long-term problems, most of the "green" solutions look like more trouble than they are worth. But the only other answer is to force people to consume less or kill 2/3 of humans on the planet so I guess we will keep on the lies...

varjag 3y ago

Offshore stuff is just bigger: the sweet spot is different due to substantial fixed cost of wind park installation. But for perspective, two decades ago when we had our earliest deliveries to wind power sector, 1.3MW turbines were state of the art for offshore.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Vogtle notoriously suffered from cost overruns and was complicated by Westinghouse going through bankruptcy during the construction. It's not obvious that this is a representative example and "1" is not a statistically valid sample size. It was also the first US plant brought online in 40 years, which required a lot of lessons to be learned for the first time in a generation, as would not be the case for future construction. And you're comparing the ultimate cost of the completed reactor to the estimated cost of the wind project -- the estimated cost of Vogtle was $14B, and now SunZia is getting sued for whatever it is this time. The US makes it unreasonably expensive to build anything. And even then, by the time you account for capacity factor, short-term storage and long-term storage, even with all the cost overruns, the cost of Vogtle was the same order of magnitude as the estimated cost of a wind project that would supply the same amount of power. I honestly don't understand why people think these things are particularly in competition with each other. If we're going to stop burning carbon, we're going to electrify transportation, and that is where most of the storage batteries are going to go for the foreseeable future. And then we're going to have to increase the amount of generating capacity to charge all of those batteries. But that's great -- they're batteries so we can charge them with new renewables without having to worry about intermittency. Except that means we just allocated the bulk of our production capacity for both storage and renewable generation to electrifying transportation, and we still need to stop burning carbon for the existing baseload power generation. Hence nuclear.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Keep in mind that about half the cost is the transmission line. [1] Vogtle closely matches nuclear costs in Europe so trying to frame it as a special snowflake we will never repeat does not add up. Until proven otherwise it is what nuclear construction is expected to cost in advanced economies. Bent Flyvbjerg has studied megaprojects. Looking at those the most likely to come in on time and budget are solar pv and wind projects. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have nuclear energy only beaten by the Olympics and nuclear waste storage in terms of cost over runs and delays. The HVDC line adds risk but we have gotten quite experienced at building those globally. The equivalency in risk you try to construct does not exist. https://patternenergy.com/pattern-energy-closes-11-billion-financing-of-largest-clean-energy-infrastructure-project-in-u-s-history/ https://patternenergy.com/pattern-energy-closes-11-billion-f...

SoftTalker 3y ago

> You could buy a lot of storage for the difference. Theoretically yes, but is it actually available?

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
California built 4.2 GW of storage in 2023. With a typical 4 hour storage rate that is 16 GWh being cycled daily. There are now times in the California grid where the second largest producer is batteries.