6 ms·

Last time I worked the numbers on nuclear vs storage, I came up with… for the same amount of money and for the same amount of generation capacity, battery stora

Last time I worked the numbers on nuclear vs storage, I came up with… for the same amount of money and for the same amount of generation capacity, battery storage could provide about 4 hours of electricity before needing to recharge while nuclear could provide about 24 months without needing to shut down for a few days for a fuel change. Pumped hydro storage was better, if you have the water resources and elevation change nearby. Lots of places don’t.

fifilura 3y ago
Water magazines and elevation change is required for pumped storage. But why not build that together will already existing hydro plants? The magazines will be full at times, but when they are not, it should be possible to just pump the water back up again and thereby store excess wind and solar power. I live in Sweden, and yeah, flooding large amounts of new land will be impossible by now. The indigenous (Sami) people will say no and file lawsuits. And rightly so, they just didn't had that option 100 years ago. But there is an abundance of existing magazines that can be used this way. They are full around November but after that they start to drain.
- ralphhughes 3y ago
  Your comment makes a lot more sense if I swap magazines => reservoirs, is that the word you meant?
  - fifilura 3y ago
    Sorry, yes. Swenglish.
guepe 3y ago
I’m interested in details. Nuclear is very expensive and not going down, while batteries are. So with your analysis, it could be possible to estimate how low batteries have to go before meeting nuclear… It could be irrealistic but let’s see !
- tonyarkles 3y ago
  On the nuclear side I was looking at a GE BWRX-300 (SMR) because my province is currently looking at building a few of them. Specs: 300MWe, nominally $1B first-of-a-kind build cost and $675M next-of-a-kind build cost. Runtime between fuel changes is 18-24 months. -- On the battery side I was looking at the Tesla Megapack 2 XL, since our neighbouring province has a bit of capacity installed. Specs: 979kW output per pack, 3.9MWh capacity. For 300MW output capacity we need 306 units => $425M. The total capacity from fully-charged to fully-discharged is 1193MWh. Total time from full-charge to full-discharge: 3.9h. In the middle of winter we have 8h of daylight and 16h of night/twilight. To provide 300MW overnight on a calm day we need 4.02x the storage capacity (16h runtime/3.9h discharge). That gives us 1231 units for a total cost of $1.7B. -- Yes, the nuclear plant will be more expensive to run (trained staff, security, disposal, etc). On the other hand, the $1.7B cost doesn't include any of the devices that would actually be charging the battery packs either. We do often get cloudy days and calm days here as well. Saturday, for example, we actually had pretty good wind performance but negligible solar performance: https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1762085119576125812/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1762085119576125812.... A week ago we had both dark and calm: https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1760635567136452664/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1760635567136452664.... These plots are summed across the entire grid in our province, so the commonly stated "well it's never calm everywhere" isn't really valid.
  - guepe 3y ago
    That’s interesting. The quotes for the nuclear power plant are really low though. France, which has a lot of knowledge and trained workforce for nuclear, is slowly building a reactor of 1.2gwe for like 20B euros. If you use those numbers… it looks very different. And that’s at least not idealistic price since it’s they are completing the construction.
    - tonyarkles 3y ago
      Yeah, I'm really curious to see how the SMR thing shakes out over time. It does make sense to me that the costs between large bespoke reactors and smaller modular reactors would not necessarily be a linear scaling by MWe. Another factor that affects the price significantly is whether or not the reactor is being built at an existing site that is already licensed or whether it's a scratch-build at a new site. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/813938# https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/8... talks about the Shin Kori 3 and 4 reactors (brought online in 2016 and 2019) costing $6.4B USD for the pair (after a 32% cost overrun), if I'm reading correctly. Those ones are 1416MW and 1418MW, or $2258/kW which is right in line with GE's estimate of a next-of-a-kind SMR build (spec sheet says $2250/kW)

fifilura 3y ago

Water magazines and elevation change is required for pumped storage. But why not build that together will already existing hydro plants? The magazines will be full at times, but when they are not, it should be possible to just pump the water back up again and thereby store excess wind and solar power. I live in Sweden, and yeah, flooding large amounts of new land will be impossible by now. The indigenous (Sami) people will say no and file lawsuits. And rightly so, they just didn't had that option 100 years ago. But there is an abundance of existing magazines that can be used this way. They are full around November but after that they start to drain.

ralphhughes 3y ago
Your comment makes a lot more sense if I swap magazines => reservoirs, is that the word you meant?
- fifilura 3y ago
  Sorry, yes. Swenglish.

guepe 3y ago

I’m interested in details. Nuclear is very expensive and not going down, while batteries are. So with your analysis, it could be possible to estimate how low batteries have to go before meeting nuclear… It could be irrealistic but let’s see !

tonyarkles 3y ago
On the nuclear side I was looking at a GE BWRX-300 (SMR) because my province is currently looking at building a few of them. Specs: 300MWe, nominally $1B first-of-a-kind build cost and $675M next-of-a-kind build cost. Runtime between fuel changes is 18-24 months. -- On the battery side I was looking at the Tesla Megapack 2 XL, since our neighbouring province has a bit of capacity installed. Specs: 979kW output per pack, 3.9MWh capacity. For 300MW output capacity we need 306 units => $425M. The total capacity from fully-charged to fully-discharged is 1193MWh. Total time from full-charge to full-discharge: 3.9h. In the middle of winter we have 8h of daylight and 16h of night/twilight. To provide 300MW overnight on a calm day we need 4.02x the storage capacity (16h runtime/3.9h discharge). That gives us 1231 units for a total cost of $1.7B. -- Yes, the nuclear plant will be more expensive to run (trained staff, security, disposal, etc). On the other hand, the $1.7B cost doesn't include any of the devices that would actually be charging the battery packs either. We do often get cloudy days and calm days here as well. Saturday, for example, we actually had pretty good wind performance but negligible solar performance: https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1762085119576125812/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1762085119576125812.... A week ago we had both dark and calm: https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1760635567136452664/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SkElectricity/status/1760635567136452664.... These plots are summed across the entire grid in our province, so the commonly stated "well it's never calm everywhere" isn't really valid.
- guepe 3y ago
  That’s interesting. The quotes for the nuclear power plant are really low though. France, which has a lot of knowledge and trained workforce for nuclear, is slowly building a reactor of 1.2gwe for like 20B euros. If you use those numbers… it looks very different. And that’s at least not idealistic price since it’s they are completing the construction.
  - tonyarkles 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm really curious to see how the SMR thing shakes out over time. It does make sense to me that the costs between large bespoke reactors and smaller modular reactors would not necessarily be a linear scaling by MWe. Another factor that affects the price significantly is whether or not the reactor is being built at an existing site that is already licensed or whether it's a scratch-build at a new site. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/813938# https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/8... talks about the Shin Kori 3 and 4 reactors (brought online in 2016 and 2019) costing $6.4B USD for the pair (after a 32% cost overrun), if I'm reading correctly. Those ones are 1416MW and 1418MW, or $2258/kW which is right in line with GE's estimate of a next-of-a-kind SMR build (spec sheet says $2250/kW)