4 ms·

Small nuclear reactors may be coming to Texas

pfdietz 3y ago
"A nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in Texas in decades because of cost and public fears of a major accident." No, the reason it hasn't been built is just cost. With natural gas being as cheap as it is, new nuclear construction wasn't even vaguely competitive. Public fear had nothing to do with it. A quote from 2018 from the then-President of Exelon, a guy named Crane: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US-nuclear-industry-fights-for-survivalA-glut-of https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US... > “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies. (Henry Hub natural gas is $1.71/MMBtu right now, and that's not even adjusted for inflation) ERCOT has a highly competitive electricity market. This is unlike the SE US, where utilities can force customers to pay above market rates for nuclear output.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Getting rid of the water is essential if nuclear is going to be competitive in the future. People seem to forget that we stopped building steam-turbine based nuclear power plants and steam-turbine based coal burning power plants at the same time and for the same reason. Reactor types such as the liquid metal fast reactor, high temperature gas cooled reactor and various kinds of molten salt reactor all operate at much higher temperatures than the light water reactor and can thus provide heat for entirely different applications (e.g. provide heat for a chemical factory or to make hydrogen thermochemically) and could possibly cut the cost of a electricity-generating reactor by replacing the huge heat exchangers (the "steam generators" of a PWR are much bigger than the reactor vessel but every bit as safety critical) and the huge steam turbines and the huge steam turbines with something an order of magnitude smaller like https://newatlas.com/energy/supercritical-co2-turbines/ https://newatlas.com/energy/supercritical-co2-turbines/ "No nukes" repeat endlessly that a fast reactor is necessarily more expensive than the LWR, and it will be if it has to have two heat exchangers (one huge and safety-critical) to prevent a sodium-water reaction from affecting the primary system. Couple such a reactor to a compact gas turbine using compact heat exchangers that benefit from higher temperatures and you can greatly lower the cost of the power conversion system and associated civil works and get sustainability (50x the power output from the same mined uranium), a better waste story (decays in 1000 years), and costs that can be competitive today.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Well, natural gas can get rid of water use also. Allam cycle turbines burn natural gas in CO2, using oxygen instead of air, overall efficiency similar to that of a combined cycle plant. As a result, they produce net liquid water and the CO2 comes off in a form ready for disposal, no CO2 separation needed. This is what that quote from the paper was talking about when Exelon was looking at CO2 sequestration.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      Rarity of water is a problem for nuclear. Note Palo Verde NPP in Arizona is "... the only large nuclear power plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water" because it runs on wastewater. China is certainly interested in HTGR and MSR as something that can be deployed in inland areas. It seems possible that some kind of combustion with carbon capture could work but it is one of those technologies (like the fast breeder) which gets talked about endlessly but so far has had very little real deployment. The dominant amine stripper systems on gas turbines than run on demand don't look as good as they do on coal burning power plants, but they've struggled. Oxy-fuel combustion and Chemical Looping Combustion look like they could run around some of those problems on paper but after all these years there seems to be one large carbon capture facility that is still running https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/great-plains https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati...
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        The Allam cycle seems to be getting some traction. The capital cost is only slightly above combined cycle, which is much cheaper than new nuclear per unit of power output. BTW, need for water isn't what killed nuclear, it was high capital cost.
        PaulHoule 3y ago
        Granted capital cost is the main problem, but it did affect what got built and what could get built if those capital cost problems were to be solved or if fossil fuel alternatives were no longer perceived as cheap.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  ERCOT has a highly competitive electricity market. This is unlike the SE US, where utilities can force customers to pay above market rates for nuclear output. Yes --- and therein lies the problem. There is a very good reason for "above market" rates. This is the only way utilities can afford to do proper maintenance and add reserve capacity and avoid perpetually operating on the verge of collapse --- unlike Texas where any utility attempting to spend resources on "reliability" is immediately priced out of the market. Some things are too important and essential to leave to the whims of the "free market" --- and the energy grid in Texas is the proof. It's ironic and telling that Texas government is now being literally forced to interfere and baby sit the "highly competitive electricity market" they created in order to keep the lights on. Corporations are being paid millions in tax payer money to shut down whenever the grid is about to collapse. It's takes a special kind of stupidity (ping Ted Cruz) to make this happen in a state overflowing with cheap energy of all kinds. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-bitcoin-miner-riot-31-million-energy-credits/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-bitcoin-min...
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > There is a very good reason for "above market" rates. Yes, regulatory capture. "Good" here does not mean what you think it means.
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      "Good" definitely doesn't include government capturing taxpayer money and using it to try and cover up fundamental leadership mistakes and incompetence while hiding it from the public. From the article referenced above: "...though we won’t know how much those companies have been paid until they make announcements of their own.'

"A nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in Texas in decades because of cost and public fears of a major accident." No, the reason it hasn't been built is just cost. With natural gas being as cheap as it is, new nuclear construction wasn't even vaguely competitive. Public fear had nothing to do with it. A quote from 2018 from the then-President of Exelon, a guy named Crane: https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US-nuclear-industry-fights-for-survivalA-glut-of https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US... > “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies. (Henry Hub natural gas is $1.71/MMBtu right now, and that's not even adjusted for inflation) ERCOT has a highly competitive electricity market. This is unlike the SE US, where utilities can force customers to pay above market rates for nuclear output.

PaulHoule 3y ago
Getting rid of the water is essential if nuclear is going to be competitive in the future. People seem to forget that we stopped building steam-turbine based nuclear power plants and steam-turbine based coal burning power plants at the same time and for the same reason. Reactor types such as the liquid metal fast reactor, high temperature gas cooled reactor and various kinds of molten salt reactor all operate at much higher temperatures than the light water reactor and can thus provide heat for entirely different applications (e.g. provide heat for a chemical factory or to make hydrogen thermochemically) and could possibly cut the cost of a electricity-generating reactor by replacing the huge heat exchangers (the "steam generators" of a PWR are much bigger than the reactor vessel but every bit as safety critical) and the huge steam turbines and the huge steam turbines with something an order of magnitude smaller like https://newatlas.com/energy/supercritical-co2-turbines/ https://newatlas.com/energy/supercritical-co2-turbines/ "No nukes" repeat endlessly that a fast reactor is necessarily more expensive than the LWR, and it will be if it has to have two heat exchangers (one huge and safety-critical) to prevent a sodium-water reaction from affecting the primary system. Couple such a reactor to a compact gas turbine using compact heat exchangers that benefit from higher temperatures and you can greatly lower the cost of the power conversion system and associated civil works and get sustainability (50x the power output from the same mined uranium), a better waste story (decays in 1000 years), and costs that can be competitive today.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Well, natural gas can get rid of water use also. Allam cycle turbines burn natural gas in CO2, using oxygen instead of air, overall efficiency similar to that of a combined cycle plant. As a result, they produce net liquid water and the CO2 comes off in a form ready for disposal, no CO2 separation needed. This is what that quote from the paper was talking about when Exelon was looking at CO2 sequestration.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Rarity of water is a problem for nuclear. Note Palo Verde NPP in Arizona is "... the only large nuclear power plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water" because it runs on wastewater. China is certainly interested in HTGR and MSR as something that can be deployed in inland areas. It seems possible that some kind of combustion with carbon capture could work but it is one of those technologies (like the fast breeder) which gets talked about endlessly but so far has had very little real deployment. The dominant amine stripper systems on gas turbines than run on demand don't look as good as they do on coal burning power plants, but they've struggled. Oxy-fuel combustion and Chemical Looping Combustion look like they could run around some of those problems on paper but after all these years there seems to be one large carbon capture facility that is still running https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/great-plains https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati...
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      The Allam cycle seems to be getting some traction. The capital cost is only slightly above combined cycle, which is much cheaper than new nuclear per unit of power output. BTW, need for water isn't what killed nuclear, it was high capital cost.
      - PaulHoule 3y ago
        Granted capital cost is the main problem, but it did affect what got built and what could get built if those capital cost problems were to be solved or if fossil fuel alternatives were no longer perceived as cheap.
jqpabc123 3y ago
ERCOT has a highly competitive electricity market. This is unlike the SE US, where utilities can force customers to pay above market rates for nuclear output. Yes --- and therein lies the problem. There is a very good reason for "above market" rates. This is the only way utilities can afford to do proper maintenance and add reserve capacity and avoid perpetually operating on the verge of collapse --- unlike Texas where any utility attempting to spend resources on "reliability" is immediately priced out of the market. Some things are too important and essential to leave to the whims of the "free market" --- and the energy grid in Texas is the proof. It's ironic and telling that Texas government is now being literally forced to interfere and baby sit the "highly competitive electricity market" they created in order to keep the lights on. Corporations are being paid millions in tax payer money to shut down whenever the grid is about to collapse. It's takes a special kind of stupidity (ping Ted Cruz) to make this happen in a state overflowing with cheap energy of all kinds. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-bitcoin-miner-riot-31-million-energy-credits/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-bitcoin-min...
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > There is a very good reason for "above market" rates. Yes, regulatory capture. "Good" here does not mean what you think it means.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    "Good" definitely doesn't include government capturing taxpayer money and using it to try and cover up fundamental leadership mistakes and incompetence while hiding it from the public. From the article referenced above: "...though we won’t know how much those companies have been paid until they make announcements of their own.'