5 ms·

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solutio

by smeej 2y ago

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from what she told me is that one of its biggest hurdles is that it can't adjust up and down for demand very well. If you want to meet peak demand, you end up massively overproducing the rest of the time. If you have the batteries available, by all means, store it, but if you don't, bitcoin mining rigs can very easily be turned on and off in whatever numbers you need to balance out the demand, or at least smooth it out enough that the nuclear production can handle the remaining fluctuation. It's a different problem, trying to match energy production that would prefer to be constant with demand that fluctuates, as opposed to trying to match fluctuating production with fluctuating demand, but I think of it almost like a "battery" that stores the "energy" as money rather than directly. Like, when the demand drops, earn whatever bitcoin you can with the miners so you can keep it cost effective to run nuclear and you're not having to turn to supplemental, higher cost, less clean energy sources in times of peak demand.

esalman 2y ago
Surely there are more useful avenues for harnessing excess energy than mining Bitcoins?
- ihsw 2y ago
  [dead]
- XorNot 2y ago
  I mean this is where pumped hydro would be pretty handy actually. Pumped hydro can't charge as fast as batteries, but can have enormous energy capacity. You could almost certainly tune a pumped hydro installation to absorb the ramp of a reactor cycling up and down, but you'd lose the risk of running dry due to renewable unpredictability.
  - esalman 2y ago
    This is exactly the type of solution we need. Redistribution of hydro and other resources can be an excellent use of excess energy.
  - maxerickson 2y ago
    Pumped storage can absorb power faster than any built battery array. It can't switch between storing and providing as quickly.
    - XorNot 2y ago
      Pumped hydro can store more energy then any battery array. You can size a battery, or pumped hydro, to any power level you like, but batteries by their nature scale differently: the faceplate capacity of a battery multiplied by 4 is also pretty much the energy storage. Whereas pumped hydro can store far more energy (limited by upper reservoir size) then any battery array, but you pay for it in the fact that if you have a 1 MW turbine system on it, and 100 MWh of storage, you still only have 1 MW of power capacity (and about 100 hours of storage). The problem is 100 hours of storage isn't much use if your grid needs more then that right now and it also can usually only be "charged" at about half that rate, so that 100 hours takes 200 hours to accumulate and that number is fixed - there's no surge capability - but if you're dealing with solar panels putting out on average 30% of their faceplate power, but obviously peaking at 100% frequently, you need to be able to store the peak to store it at all.
      - maxerickson 2y ago
        You said "Pumped hydro can't charge as fast as batteries". This simply isn't true, there are dozens of pumped storage plants that can store energy faster than any grid battery that has been constructed to date. If you meant that the typical battery reaches capacity faster, that's not really a feature, it's a limitation.
  - throwaway473825 2y ago
    Most places where pumped hydro is viable already have it. The growth potential is limited. Hydrogen is a more interesting option. Not necessarily for energy storage, but as a fuel for use cases where electricity can't be used (like fertilizer or methanol rather than cars or heating).
- tomrod 2y ago
  Many! Carbon pumps, reverse-turbines (technically jet engines), water pumps, etc.
- smeej 2y ago
  I don't know if there are as any that are as easy to acquire and set up without major infrastructure projects.
- samatman 2y ago
  This kind of question can only be definitively answered through market discovery. If you can come up with an economically productive use of intermittent excess electric power, which beats Bitcoin in profitability, you can make a truly enormous amount of money selling whatever value you're generating to the people who want it. Because it's a safe bet that excess intermittent electricity is going to be a growing resource over time.
tedivm 2y ago
This just isn't true. The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns.
- cool_dude85 2y ago
  Right, seems kind of silly to me as a utility guy. We have this nuclear plant that we don't want to use as baseload for some reason even though operating it is way cheaper than every other plant we have. Rather dump the electricity into mining bitcoin and expose the utility to those financial risks.
  - worik 2y ago
    > even though operating it is way cheaper than every other plant we have No. It is not. More expensive than anything else we can imagine
    - tomrod 2y ago
      Marginal versus average cost. Extremely low marginal cost (cost of the next unit to produce) but extraordinarily high average cost (includes capex). You typically make decisions for profit maximization on marginal cost.
      - adrianN 2y ago
        You can ignore capex if borrowed money is literally free, which historically happens very rarely.
        pyrale 2y ago
        You can safely ignore capex once the plant is built, though. Because nobody is going to give you the money back. And so, after the plant is built, the only relevant optimization parameter left is marginal cost.
  - smeej 2y ago
jefftk 2y ago
> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand Interesting that people are doing this! When I was thinking about this ~10y ago [1] the economics didn't work out because of how quickly the ASICs depreciated, but they've probably stopped getting better quickly by now? [1] https://www.jefftk.com/p/balancing-the-grid-with-bitcoin https://www.jefftk.com/p/balancing-the-grid-with-bitcoin
- CTDOCodebases 2y ago
  If you find that interesting there are also mining bitcoin with gas that normally just gets burnt off at oil wells, rubbish dumps etc.
  - infecto 2y ago
    I dislike bitcoin but this one definitely makes the most sense.
zzo38computer 2y ago
It is a interesting (but seems strange) solution, but my guess is there is probably a better way. I would think a better way would be to avoid producing power that is not needed (and to avoid needing so much power, if you can avoid it). However, if you cannot avoid producing power, then it is better to store it (like you suggest). Bitcoin seems a possibility, although there are probably other (better) things that can use power too. If you do not have batteries, I would think it would be better to add batteries (unless the batteries are too inefficient, I suppose; however, I do not actually know how much inefficient will be "too much inefficient"). Another possibility might be a combination of these things.
necheffa 2y ago
> one of its biggest hurdles is that it can't adjust up and down for demand very well This is a historic limitation. We have the technology to perform load follow with the legacy fleet. Most utilities just designed their fleets around the assumption that nuclear would be base load and therefore are less incentivized to operate their nuclear reactors this way.
- adrianN 2y ago
  No, it's an economic limitation. You can of course turn the output of a nuclear plant up and down, reasonably quickly. The problem is that nuclear power is mostly capex. If you throttle your plant to 30% output, it just means that you produce power at three times the price.
  - necheffa 2y ago
    > No, it's an economic limitation. I don't believe that I said it was not. Although, you should look at France as a special case. > You can of course turn the output of a nuclear plant up and down, reasonably quickly. Well, yes and no. Most contemporary reactor designs do have the physical capability to fluctuate between about 30%-100% power. But the ability to model such a core (accurately) has been a relatively recent thing, which has knock on effects for developing a core loading plan, doing a safety analysis, and performing monitoring/prediction. This was because most of these reactors were specifically built to satisfy base load requirements for their communities, there was no demand to develop the methodology initially. The whole economics reason came about much later when people started talking about actually developing said methodology. Its kind of a big deal because your AO bands are part of your licensing basis.
bsder 2y ago
> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful. Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift. Anything other than Shitcoin.
- adrianN 2y ago
  If you had enough storage you could just build more renewables and produce the power at lower cost.
  - bsder 2y ago
    Repeat after me: Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. If you have enough storage, you don't have to adapt your reactor second by second. You let the storage buffer out the peaks and valleys and you use the reactor to backfill the storage over the course of hours and days.
    - dubcanada 2y ago
      Hydro can do base load. Hydro is considered a renewable.
      - ac29 2y ago
        Geothermal as well
    - adrianN 2y ago
      If you read my comment carefully I argue that with enough storage to run a nuclear power plant optimally, you can also run renewables, but cheaper.
  - smeej 2y ago
    > you could just build more renewables I think your "just" is carrying a lot of weight here. Building more renewables requires buy-in from a LOT more people, like state and local government officials, never mind the actual construction of them, with all its cost overruns and boondoggling. It takes a long time. Setting up a bitcoin mining facility is comparatively a lot easier, especially when your goal isn't "mine the highest value at the lowest cost" (which would require the latest and greatest hardware, etc.), but rather "burn off this extra energy and make a non-zero amount of money off of it in the process."

by smeej 2y ago

esalman 2y ago

Surely there are more useful avenues for harnessing excess energy than mining Bitcoins?

ihsw 2y ago
[dead]
XorNot 2y ago
I mean this is where pumped hydro would be pretty handy actually. Pumped hydro can't charge as fast as batteries, but can have enormous energy capacity. You could almost certainly tune a pumped hydro installation to absorb the ramp of a reactor cycling up and down, but you'd lose the risk of running dry due to renewable unpredictability.
- esalman 2y ago
  This is exactly the type of solution we need. Redistribution of hydro and other resources can be an excellent use of excess energy.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Pumped storage can absorb power faster than any built battery array. It can't switch between storing and providing as quickly.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    Pumped hydro can store more energy then any battery array. You can size a battery, or pumped hydro, to any power level you like, but batteries by their nature scale differently: the faceplate capacity of a battery multiplied by 4 is also pretty much the energy storage. Whereas pumped hydro can store far more energy (limited by upper reservoir size) then any battery array, but you pay for it in the fact that if you have a 1 MW turbine system on it, and 100 MWh of storage, you still only have 1 MW of power capacity (and about 100 hours of storage). The problem is 100 hours of storage isn't much use if your grid needs more then that right now and it also can usually only be "charged" at about half that rate, so that 100 hours takes 200 hours to accumulate and that number is fixed - there's no surge capability - but if you're dealing with solar panels putting out on average 30% of their faceplate power, but obviously peaking at 100% frequently, you need to be able to store the peak to store it at all.
    - maxerickson 2y ago
      You said "Pumped hydro can't charge as fast as batteries". This simply isn't true, there are dozens of pumped storage plants that can store energy faster than any grid battery that has been constructed to date. If you meant that the typical battery reaches capacity faster, that's not really a feature, it's a limitation.
- throwaway473825 2y ago
  Most places where pumped hydro is viable already have it. The growth potential is limited. Hydrogen is a more interesting option. Not necessarily for energy storage, but as a fuel for use cases where electricity can't be used (like fertilizer or methanol rather than cars or heating).
tomrod 2y ago
Many! Carbon pumps, reverse-turbines (technically jet engines), water pumps, etc.
smeej 2y ago
I don't know if there are as any that are as easy to acquire and set up without major infrastructure projects.
samatman 2y ago
This kind of question can only be definitively answered through market discovery. If you can come up with an economically productive use of intermittent excess electric power, which beats Bitcoin in profitability, you can make a truly enormous amount of money selling whatever value you're generating to the people who want it. Because it's a safe bet that excess intermittent electricity is going to be a growing resource over time.

tedivm 2y ago

This just isn't true. The burden on nuclear is the extremely long construction time and massive cost overruns.

cool_dude85 2y ago
Right, seems kind of silly to me as a utility guy. We have this nuclear plant that we don't want to use as baseload for some reason even though operating it is way cheaper than every other plant we have. Rather dump the electricity into mining bitcoin and expose the utility to those financial risks.
- worik 2y ago
  > even though operating it is way cheaper than every other plant we have No. It is not. More expensive than anything else we can imagine
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Marginal versus average cost. Extremely low marginal cost (cost of the next unit to produce) but extraordinarily high average cost (includes capex). You typically make decisions for profit maximization on marginal cost.
    - adrianN 2y ago
      You can ignore capex if borrowed money is literally free, which historically happens very rarely.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        You can safely ignore capex once the plant is built, though. Because nobody is going to give you the money back. And so, after the plant is built, the only relevant optimization parameter left is marginal cost.
- smeej 2y ago

jefftk 2y ago

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand Interesting that people are doing this! When I was thinking about this ~10y ago [1] the economics didn't work out because of how quickly the ASICs depreciated, but they've probably stopped getting better quickly by now? [1] https://www.jefftk.com/p/balancing-the-grid-with-bitcoin https://www.jefftk.com/p/balancing-the-grid-with-bitcoin

CTDOCodebases 2y ago
If you find that interesting there are also mining bitcoin with gas that normally just gets burnt off at oil wells, rubbish dumps etc.
- infecto 2y ago
  I dislike bitcoin but this one definitely makes the most sense.

zzo38computer 2y ago

It is a interesting (but seems strange) solution, but my guess is there is probably a better way. I would think a better way would be to avoid producing power that is not needed (and to avoid needing so much power, if you can avoid it). However, if you cannot avoid producing power, then it is better to store it (like you suggest). Bitcoin seems a possibility, although there are probably other (better) things that can use power too. If you do not have batteries, I would think it would be better to add batteries (unless the batteries are too inefficient, I suppose; however, I do not actually know how much inefficient will be "too much inefficient"). Another possibility might be a combination of these things.

necheffa 2y ago

> one of its biggest hurdles is that it can't adjust up and down for demand very well This is a historic limitation. We have the technology to perform load follow with the legacy fleet. Most utilities just designed their fleets around the assumption that nuclear would be base load and therefore are less incentivized to operate their nuclear reactors this way.

adrianN 2y ago
No, it's an economic limitation. You can of course turn the output of a nuclear plant up and down, reasonably quickly. The problem is that nuclear power is mostly capex. If you throttle your plant to 30% output, it just means that you produce power at three times the price.
- necheffa 2y ago
  > No, it's an economic limitation. I don't believe that I said it was not. Although, you should look at France as a special case. > You can of course turn the output of a nuclear plant up and down, reasonably quickly. Well, yes and no. Most contemporary reactor designs do have the physical capability to fluctuate between about 30%-100% power. But the ability to model such a core (accurately) has been a relatively recent thing, which has knock on effects for developing a core loading plan, doing a safety analysis, and performing monitoring/prediction. This was because most of these reactors were specifically built to satisfy base load requirements for their communities, there was no demand to develop the methodology initially. The whole economics reason came about much later when people started talking about actually developing said methodology. Its kind of a big deal because your AO bands are part of your licensing basis.

bsder 2y ago

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful. Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift. Anything other than Shitcoin.

adrianN 2y ago
If you had enough storage you could just build more renewables and produce the power at lower cost.
- bsder 2y ago
  Repeat after me: Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. Renewables can't do base load. If you have enough storage, you don't have to adapt your reactor second by second. You let the storage buffer out the peaks and valleys and you use the reactor to backfill the storage over the course of hours and days.
  - dubcanada 2y ago
    Hydro can do base load. Hydro is considered a renewable.
    - ac29 2y ago
      Geothermal as well
  - adrianN 2y ago
    If you read my comment carefully I argue that with enough storage to run a nuclear power plant optimally, you can also run renewables, but cheaper.
- smeej 2y ago
  > you could just build more renewables I think your "just" is carrying a lot of weight here. Building more renewables requires buy-in from a LOT more people, like state and local government officials, never mind the actual construction of them, with all its cost overruns and boondoggling. It takes a long time. Setting up a bitcoin mining facility is comparatively a lot easier, especially when your goal isn't "mine the highest value at the lowest cost" (which would require the latest and greatest hardware, etc.), but rather "burn off this extra energy and make a non-zero amount of money off of it in the process."