5 ms·

You don't eliminate the paradoxes. You substitute new ones. The question with nuclear power plants is, what do you do when the consumption is below what is prod

You don't eliminate the paradoxes. You substitute new ones. The question with nuclear power plants is, what do you do when the consumption is below what is produced? You need to find a power sink. In days past, utility companies gave away nighttime lighting such as streetlights, security lights, etc., because it was way to sell electricity that otherwise would be wasted. The downside is we now have a massive light pollution problem. A better answer is to deploy more storage technology, such as better and distributed batteries, in communities. In addition to sucking up the excess power from the solar wind, it also makes local grids more resilient because the power is held near where it is needed and not dependent on a centralized power plant.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/grants/neighbourhood-batteries https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/grants/neighbourhood-batteries
mpweiher 2y ago
1. You use nuclear power plants for base load. Which they can provide, unlike renewables. 2. Nuclear power plants can load-follow. Unlike renewables.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  There is no base load to provide for a nuclear plant if the marginal cost of electricity is close to zero whenever wind/sun is on. Building nuclear plants to then operate them in load following mode is just stupid. If the things can't even compete economically when you build them at pre-existing sites and run them at >90% capacity factor, how would you ever justify building new ones as basically glorified peakers plants, that run barely half the time!? Why would anyone pay for that?
  - mpweiher 2y ago
    That turns out to not be the case. First, the fact that there absolutely is base load is completely independent of how you supply that load. Now you can try to supply it with intermittent renewables, but you will fail, and you will fail with huge costs. "While the LFSCOE-95 are only slightly lower than the LFSCOE for dispatchable technologies, they are about 50% lower for intermittent sources, which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... Also, the cost of intermittent renewables isn't zero. The price becomes zero and even negative (and that makes it clear that it's the price, not the cost, because cost can't go negative like that), because the electricity becomes worthless or downright harmful. Cost is going to continue to go up as you require ever more overcapacity that cannibalizes itself more and more. And it cannibalizes itself even more than it cannibalizes reliable suppliers. Anyway: just look at what the vast majority of industrial nations are doing. They are combining nuclear for reliable and controllable base-load with intermittent renewables for variable load. Or look at the DOE's "liftoff" documents: nuclear lowers the cost of decarbonization. https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LIFTOFF_DOE_Advanced-Nuclear_Updated-2.5.25.pdf https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LIFTOF...
    - myrmidon 2y ago
      You are barely touching on my point, which is that availability of cheap intermittent sources is really bad for nuclear power economics. Yes going "full solar" or "full wind" is expensive, but thats a strawman; the "obvious" solution in my view is a bunch of storage capacity, a lot of gas turbines (in GW, but run at very low capacity factor) and a sprinkle of better grid connectivity on top. Let the market figure out the best ratio (thats what it is best at). > Anyway: just look at what the vast majority of industrial nations are doing. They are combining nuclear for reliable and controllable base-load with intermittent renewables for variable load. My perspective is almost everyone who tried nuclear recently basically failed except China (think Olkiluoto, Vogtle, Flamanville, Hinkley C), and in China its ~5% of the grid, they lately install literally 5 times as much renewable power per year (which is already assuming a 20% capacity factor, so extremely conservative estimate) and no trend reversal in sight. PS: That liftoff document is comically biased: That page 1 comparison table contains a proxy for "dispatchability" where nuclear is ahead of gas, a column for "direct heat application" where nuclear is ahead of geothermal (and coal/gas), and the maintenance/operating costs are "concentrated local economic benefits" instead. Admittedly had to chuckle at that.
      - mpweiher 2y ago
        Actually, I fully addressed that point: intermittent sources are not bad for nuclear, they are bad for everyone and everything, including other intermittent sources, because of their intermittency. This is a problem of the intermittent sources, not of the sources they interfere with. Economically, they only get to be bad for nuclear power economics if you put silly laws in place that unreasonably favor the intermittents. There is nothing inherent about this. The fix is easy: don't put silly laws in place. If you have them, remove them. Pretty much the entire world is doing nuclear + (intermittent) renewables. Are you seriously claiming that all of them haven't figured out the economics of this? Your "perspective" on new build nuclear is noted, but it does not have much perspective. Myopic would be more accurate. All the projects you mention except one were EPRs. The EPR that its manufacturer discontinued, because it was too difficult to build. Hmm... All of these projects were FOAK builds, aka "prototypes". FOAK builds are well known to be more difficult to build than regular NOAK builds. Because they are prototypes. With the Vogtles, they started building before some of the plans were fully finished and it turned out those plans weren't actually buildable. Ooops. This is obviously not going the happen on the 2nd build. Because you now have something that actually was built, so it is very obviously buildable. Furthermore, all of these reactors were (or are being) built in countries that had not built nuclear reactors for some time and thus had little to no institutional knowledge, skilled personnel, or experience. And no, these projects did not "fail". Finnland is very satisfied with its new reactor, which has already lowered electricity prices and achieved 88% capacity factor in its first year. (Although IMHO it is a bit too large for such a small country). The EPR as a design has failed. China, for example, has also built two of them, and decided against building more units of the type, opting instead to standardize on a variant of the Westinghouse AP-1000 and a home-grown type, the Hualong One. Again, EDF itself has also discontinued the model, opting instead for the vastly simplified EPR2 for future builds. The Vogtles are now producing electricity. The prices had to be raised in Georgia to pay for these problematic builds. To now just below 15 cents / kWh. Which is still less than half of the price of electricity in California at over 30 cents / kWh. (See: https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates ) Note: the worst-run nuclear projects are still better than the best renewable projects. And the Vogtles went so "badly" that they are now looking to finish the VC Summer plant that was abandoned (two more AP-1000s). Poland is also building AP-1000s, as is Ukraine. And yes, China now does a pretty good job of building. Because they have experience. Their first two AP-1000 reactors also took around 10 years, not that much better than the Vogtles. But now they have learned how to do it and are building their adapted and up-rated CAP-1400 in 5 years for $3.5 billion. Same modern, passively safe reactors. And the red-tape is apparently worse than in the West. And of course, when Germany was still actually building reactors, it built them in the same sort of time-frame, for similar amount of money. The clue is to build a proven design, build a bunch of them and overlap the builds. We know how to build nuclear reactors quickly and cheaply. We just have to start doing it again. And no, the liftoff document is quite accurate. "Comically biased" just means that Reality™ does not conform to your prejudices.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/grants/neighbourhood-batteries https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/grants/neighbourhood-batteries

mpweiher 2y ago

1. You use nuclear power plants for base load. Which they can provide, unlike renewables. 2. Nuclear power plants can load-follow. Unlike renewables.

myrmidon 2y ago
There is no base load to provide for a nuclear plant if the marginal cost of electricity is close to zero whenever wind/sun is on. Building nuclear plants to then operate them in load following mode is just stupid. If the things can't even compete economically when you build them at pre-existing sites and run them at >90% capacity factor, how would you ever justify building new ones as basically glorified peakers plants, that run barely half the time!? Why would anyone pay for that?
- mpweiher 2y ago
  That turns out to not be the case. First, the fact that there absolutely is base load is completely independent of how you supply that load. Now you can try to supply it with intermittent renewables, but you will fail, and you will fail with huge costs. "While the LFSCOE-95 are only slightly lower than the LFSCOE for dispatchable technologies, they are about 50% lower for intermittent sources, which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... Also, the cost of intermittent renewables isn't zero. The price becomes zero and even negative (and that makes it clear that it's the price, not the cost, because cost can't go negative like that), because the electricity becomes worthless or downright harmful. Cost is going to continue to go up as you require ever more overcapacity that cannibalizes itself more and more. And it cannibalizes itself even more than it cannibalizes reliable suppliers. Anyway: just look at what the vast majority of industrial nations are doing. They are combining nuclear for reliable and controllable base-load with intermittent renewables for variable load. Or look at the DOE's "liftoff" documents: nuclear lowers the cost of decarbonization. https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LIFTOFF_DOE_Advanced-Nuclear_Updated-2.5.25.pdf https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LIFTOF...
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    You are barely touching on my point, which is that availability of cheap intermittent sources is really bad for nuclear power economics. Yes going "full solar" or "full wind" is expensive, but thats a strawman; the "obvious" solution in my view is a bunch of storage capacity, a lot of gas turbines (in GW, but run at very low capacity factor) and a sprinkle of better grid connectivity on top. Let the market figure out the best ratio (thats what it is best at). > Anyway: just look at what the vast majority of industrial nations are doing. They are combining nuclear for reliable and controllable base-load with intermittent renewables for variable load. My perspective is almost everyone who tried nuclear recently basically failed except China (think Olkiluoto, Vogtle, Flamanville, Hinkley C), and in China its ~5% of the grid, they lately install literally 5 times as much renewable power per year (which is already assuming a 20% capacity factor, so extremely conservative estimate) and no trend reversal in sight. PS: That liftoff document is comically biased: That page 1 comparison table contains a proxy for "dispatchability" where nuclear is ahead of gas, a column for "direct heat application" where nuclear is ahead of geothermal (and coal/gas), and the maintenance/operating costs are "concentrated local economic benefits" instead. Admittedly had to chuckle at that.
    - mpweiher 2y ago
      Actually, I fully addressed that point: intermittent sources are not bad for nuclear, they are bad for everyone and everything, including other intermittent sources, because of their intermittency. This is a problem of the intermittent sources, not of the sources they interfere with. Economically, they only get to be bad for nuclear power economics if you put silly laws in place that unreasonably favor the intermittents. There is nothing inherent about this. The fix is easy: don't put silly laws in place. If you have them, remove them. Pretty much the entire world is doing nuclear + (intermittent) renewables. Are you seriously claiming that all of them haven't figured out the economics of this? Your "perspective" on new build nuclear is noted, but it does not have much perspective. Myopic would be more accurate. All the projects you mention except one were EPRs. The EPR that its manufacturer discontinued, because it was too difficult to build. Hmm... All of these projects were FOAK builds, aka "prototypes". FOAK builds are well known to be more difficult to build than regular NOAK builds. Because they are prototypes. With the Vogtles, they started building before some of the plans were fully finished and it turned out those plans weren't actually buildable. Ooops. This is obviously not going the happen on the 2nd build. Because you now have something that actually was built, so it is very obviously buildable. Furthermore, all of these reactors were (or are being) built in countries that had not built nuclear reactors for some time and thus had little to no institutional knowledge, skilled personnel, or experience. And no, these projects did not "fail". Finnland is very satisfied with its new reactor, which has already lowered electricity prices and achieved 88% capacity factor in its first year. (Although IMHO it is a bit too large for such a small country). The EPR as a design has failed. China, for example, has also built two of them, and decided against building more units of the type, opting instead to standardize on a variant of the Westinghouse AP-1000 and a home-grown type, the Hualong One. Again, EDF itself has also discontinued the model, opting instead for the vastly simplified EPR2 for future builds. The Vogtles are now producing electricity. The prices had to be raised in Georgia to pay for these problematic builds. To now just below 15 cents / kWh. Which is still less than half of the price of electricity in California at over 30 cents / kWh. (See: https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates ) Note: the worst-run nuclear projects are still better than the best renewable projects. And the Vogtles went so "badly" that they are now looking to finish the VC Summer plant that was abandoned (two more AP-1000s). Poland is also building AP-1000s, as is Ukraine. And yes, China now does a pretty good job of building. Because they have experience. Their first two AP-1000 reactors also took around 10 years, not that much better than the Vogtles. But now they have learned how to do it and are building their adapted and up-rated CAP-1400 in 5 years for $3.5 billion. Same modern, passively safe reactors. And the red-tape is apparently worse than in the West. And of course, when Germany was still actually building reactors, it built them in the same sort of time-frame, for similar amount of money. The clue is to build a proven design, build a bunch of them and overlap the builds. We know how to build nuclear reactors quickly and cheaply. We just have to start doing it again. And no, the liftoff document is quite accurate. "Comically biased" just means that Reality™ does not conform to your prejudices.