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Utopia Talk / Politics / nuclear continued
Seb
Member
Sat Jan 25 19:14:26
Sam:

Firstly, I'm not sure the French can hire US nuclear engineers.

Secondly, naval reactors are exactly what I'm talking about. Small and modular, 250MW - the opposite of 1GW+ reactors three industry is pushing.

They are also nothing like the French reactors of the 80s.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 02:25:20
They also have high operating costs. Demarinizing the systems would be the equivalent of completely new designs.

To answer the question. The US has about 65 naval nuclear reactors and adds about 1 a year gross.

It is niche use of nuclear power.






Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 04:27:46
Jergul:

About the sustainable rate. De-militarisation actually isn't that big a design leap. It does require redesign of the core (lower the enrichment requirements for the fuel traded off against moderation and reduced life).

This is effectively what Rolls-Royce are doing for their stab at small modular reactors.

It's far from daft as their is a production line, skills etc and if they got an order for a civil plant, they could be delivering first MWs much faster than an epr, and then keep adding units
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 04:48:26
Seb
Demarinization. It is a complete system redesign.

It amounts to simply saying - hey we can hire people from the military industrial complex.

Russia is making a proper stab at it by embracing the maritime and simply putting their icebreaker reactors onto barges and calling them power plants.

But the ice-breaker powerplants already have refueling regimes adapted to the civilian maritime market (low enrichment and 7 year cycles).
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 04:52:55
10% of global energy use is for sea transport (if memory serves). Low cost fuel is being phased out. Revisiting nuclear powered super large transports might be timely.

The civilian nuclear fleet current consists of 1 ship in commerical operation.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 06:43:35
I said de-militarisation because the UK (which are derivatives of) the US PWRs used in subs are already operated on land for testing. The key issue is they run on much higher enrichment.

But other than that it's not so much an issue - certainly the tertiary coolant loop will be very different as it's not sitting in a giant heat sink.

But even substantial redesign of components in this case isn't like building a new design from scratch if you can keep commonality of the overall architecture and design system (though if course it adds overheads)

But the key point is you have a steady order book, stable supply chain and the possibility of learning curves.

Looking in more depth at the Rolls Royce offering, they've clearly done a more extensive redesign than I thought, and at a targeted £50-60 /kWh price after five plants, that's still not amazing but at these smaller scales the value at risk makes it a much more digestible bet.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 10:06:44
"Secondly, naval reactors are exactly what I'm talking about. Small and modular, 250MW - the opposite of 1GW+ reactors three industry is pushing.

They are also nothing like the French reactors of the 80s. "

Weak and irrelevant excuses. Nuclear can be made cheap and effective with 80s tech. It certainly can do that now. Minor design changes are irrelevant.

On the flip side, no one has yet to drive more than a small fraction of a grid with wind. And even that is expensive. Especially when you get low iq sebs involved.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 10:09:44
You put a lot of effort into defending obviously retarded positions seb. A sign of poor mental function.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 10:36:08
Minor design differences were the critical point between AGRs being vastly more costly than the French design, so it's simply not true. The thing that prevented life extension of the AGRs was the particular alloy used in some pipes.

It's like talking to a child.

Modern plants have their projected prices based on the design and certification costs amortised over a 4 or 5 units and a 30-50 year projected lifespan.

You can reduce operating parameters to those more like the French 80's design, and plan for breakeven in 30 years - but the lifespan of the plant would still be forecast at around 40, rather than 60 years. You wouldn't know if it was going to last 60 years until around year 30, and even then life extension normally goes in 20 year chunks.

The only way you'd possibly be able to argue that the life extension of the plants built in the 80's is if you could show absolutely congruently that the 80's plants are identical to the ones you are building now - and for the reasons I have said, you can't.

It may well be that these modern analogues could and will be extended. But good luck finding a financier and auditors that will agree to take a punt on that, or engineers willing to endorse that.

That is just how the real world works Sam.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 10:36:53
Essentially you'd be building a new plant design, even if it is a design updated with modern materials and components. There's no way around that.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 11:23:28
Like global warming, you see minor differences as impossible show stoppers.

But then turn around and want to make a massive change elsewhere because of that minor difference.

I suspect this is because you have been wrong so many times that you have developed a desperate aversion to admitting you are wrong... your mind desperately searches for excuses, no matter how illogical, to avoid admitting to your original mistake.

This is very unhealthy. You should fix yourself.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 14:15:33
Sammy
Seb is saying

1. Nuclear energy is expanding too slowly
2. Because reasons
3. This resolves reasons
4. I want to do this

He is explaining why expansion is slow, not defending the slow expansion.

Seb
Baseline electicity is probably worth the ballpark you are quoting (though you meant pence, not pounds). The problem is pricing is fucked up.

The problem of course is that larger plants are inherently more efficient. What happens to a national small scale system that is underbid by a global company will to build plants with the same risk as your national small scale stuff, but with greater potential profit margins (ei willing to accept 45 p instead of 60)?
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:06:24
Sam:

I'm finding it impossible to even parse the nonsense you've just posted as a coherent thought.

Nothing I'm saying is a projection to the future. It's the goddamned past 25 years of the industry. You can shoot the messenger if you like, but there it is.

Why not earn 100bn and underwrite a fleet of your attempt to redesign the French reactors from the 80's.

We can find out if you lost your shirt in thirty years or so.

In the meantime, nuclear new build is priced at between $70 and $100+ MW/h, much more than north European off shore wind - and that's just a fact.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:07:43
jergul:

I meant MWh ;-) If I meant pence it would be 5-6 pence.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:14:55
Yes, larger plants are more efficient, which is great from an engineering point of view.

But it ignores the commercial point of view. See this is why I got out of fusion. You have a bunch of state employed (or implicitly state backed, albeit at arms length) engineers that have not pressure at all to think in terms of cash flow, financing costs, electricity price volatility etc.

Before around 1980, with <500MW plants, this was absolutely fine: we had a culture of state ownership of power industry, and the costs associated with 500MW plants meant that you could secure the finance ministries backing for building a few pilot plants then scaling out.

In the post liberalisation world, the added efficiency of 1000MW plants makes the bet just far too big for anything but countries with enormous budgets, low debt and extreme appetite for taking on risk. It's no surprise the new reactors are mostly in Asia. This kind of project is incompatible with most of the western worlds set up.

Hence the death cycle the industry is in.

Will SMRs be underbid by a global company? Only when there are global companies that have secured local certification and are willing to take on the risk. Otherwise you have Chinese companies wanting to build mega plants, but unless they are going to take on the risk and finance costs, an SMR design would likely win out.

And the requirements for 2GW capacity in a single unit would go away. It would never arise because every time 500MW demand for baseload capacity appeared, the SMRs would get in there first.



Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:15:38
Fusion has all of these problems on stilts by the way.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:18:25

"Why not earn 100bn and underwrite a fleet of your attempt to redesign the French reactors from the 80's. "

Because natural gas is cheaper.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:24:45
It's not though is it - as you've pointed out, French nuclear produced electricity is, right now, cheaper than natural gas.

In a minute you are going to respond by pointing out that electricity from a new nuclear plant costs more right now than one from an old one, and I will sigh, face palm, and say why have you been arguing with me that point for what feels like two weeks.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:27:21
"much more than north European off shore wind - and that's just a fact. "

It is unlikely you could build offshore wind for less than 70$ per mwh.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:29:23
"French nuclear produced electricity is, right now, cheaper than natural gas. "

And natural gas is cheaper than wind and you said nuclear is more expensive than wind.

Lol confused seb is confused.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 15:39:36
Seb
They will win out only within the framework of national protectionism that allows smaller national plants to charge a premium on electricity production compared to what global competitors otherwise offer.

Risk is relative. Downscaling to to downscale issues with undercapitalization, but accepting a productivity loss would sum up your last argument.

An alternate route is to secure sufficient capitalization.

1000 MW - 1500 MW is a likely sweetspot between productivity and mass production for a global actor. I would expect future nuclear power reactors to be in that range predominantly.

There is always niche use of course, but that is a different argument.

Sammy
NG will probably not be cheaper for electricity generationin most market places in the future. But the problem reverts back to how to renumerate power plants producing premium value electricity (NG has its place when used for heating, or as a reserve to deal with electricity spikes and keep pressure up when stored as LNG. But how to renumerate powerplants dealing with peak demand exclusively?)
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 15:41:28
Nuclear power becomes very cheap once capital cost payments are finished. That takes 30-50 years under current financing schemes.
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 15:42:59
"NG will probably not be cheaper for electricity generationin most market places in the future. "

Then at that time it will be replaced by fission or fusion. Possibly by solar in some places.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 15:47:01
A bit muddy.

My last point is that NG plants ok for ensuring electricity security if hydro is insufficient. They can ramp up at decent speeds.

They are otherwise niche use that can contribute effectively only if the thermal portion of production is fully utilized.

The reason NG works now is because CO2 emission costs have not been priced in at all or fully (depending on where you are).
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 16:02:22
Coal will fail first of course. NG will follow once wind is competative including storage costs.

Nuclear power? That depends on what access global giants have in various domestic markets.

Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 16:48:02
Sam, I already posted a link that shows the price of UK offshore wind is around 40 per kWh.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 16:51:38
In a modern grid, intermittent renewables can function as baseload if generation is widely spread by type and geography (wind and solar in many different places within an integrated grid).

But that is true up only up to a point. RL data demonstrates 50% renewable energy supply in the ultra reliable Eastern Germany grid system.

The envelope can probably be pushed further - perhaps as high as 70%, but the remaining 30% of consumption will need baseline production in the form of hydro, biothermal, nuclear, or natural gas.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 16:54:43
"The global weighted average LCOE for offshore wind in 2018 was USD0.127/kWh"

http://www...-Generations-Costs-in-2018.pdf

Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 16:55:17
"And natural gas is cheaper than wind and you said nuclear is more expensive than wind."

Oh my God how can you be this stupid. French nuclear power comes from machines built in the 70s and 80s. It is cheap because those machines lasted twice as long as expected.

New build nuclear power is $70-$100/MWh.
For the reasons I explained. At length.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 16:57:51
Goddamn autocorrect $40 / MWh
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 17:01:07
As much as 70% of costs are capital costs sammy. I checked after I last posted about it. A debt-free nuclear power has a license to print money.

Debt free, like say French plants built in the 1980s.
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 17:08:39
And the only reason they are debt free is because they unexpectedly lasted twice as long as they were designed to.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 17:08:43
http://www...Economics_Report_2017.pdf.aspx

Chapter 4 page 16+
Seb
Member
Sun Jan 26 17:12:20
Fusion is about 80-90% capex. You see why I packed it in.
jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 17:48:01
"If implemented with relatively low concentrations, less than 5%–15% hydrogen by volume, this strategy of storing and delivering renewable energy to markets appears to be viable without significantly increasing risks associated with utilization of the gas blend in end-use devices (such as household appliances), overall public safety, or the durability and integrity of the existing natural gas pipeline network"

Heh, my 5% jergulmath estimate was within target.

This is actually quite significant for countries that use NG for heating in addition to electricity generation. A 10% green H2 contribution increases windmill efficiency and lowers greenhouse emission fractionally for ng heating and ng electricity production.

One of the many tiny steps towards net carbon neutrality.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/51995.pdf
Sam Adams
Member
Sun Jan 26 18:04:33
"It is cheap because those machines lasted twice as long as expected."

So what you are saying is that nuclear is cheap. All nuke plants last a long time.

Lolpwnt.

"New build nuclear power is $70-$100/MWh. "

And jergul just posted a link showing offshore wind was 127 per mwh.

Lolpwnt.

You are never right seb.

Our wind farms were 40 per megawatt hour installed, +25 to manage, 65 total, but those were onshore and in 2009 dollars.

Given the retardation out of england and sebs, theres not the slightest chance in hell of you pulling off 40$ per offshore wind mwh lcoe.

Perhaps you are confusing capacity with production, forgetting to multiply by capacity factor.

jergul
large member
Sun Jan 26 21:22:46
Heh, it turns out power to gas is actually a thing.

2 H20 -> H2 + 2 02
3 H2 + CO2 -> CH4 + H2O

CO2 can economically be taken out of seawater
The end product amounts to a form of desalination
CH4 can be sent by pipeline.

NG
10% H2 + 90% CH4 is the most econimical mix.

This is not a carbon capture method as the CO2 will be released again. With caveats that I typed out, then deleted. It is however carbon neutral.

It is a way to increase a wind farm's capacity factor (limited not only by wind availability, but also by transmission capacity and demand) by creating demand nearby.

Psuedo-storage and transport of electricity in a different form in other words.
Seb
Member
Mon Jan 27 00:52:16
Sam:

BNFLs AGRs didn't. Not all nuclear power plants last twice as long as their design lives. And the nuclear new build designs have a lifespan of 50-60 years built in, so they'd need to have much longer lifespan to repeat the French success.

http://www...renewables-a9113876.html%3famp

The cost of power from offshore wind has plummeted 30 per cent in two years with a raft of 12 new energy projects coming in at a record low price of between £39.65 and £41.61 per megawatt hour, the government revealed on Friday.

That's around $50 compared to the strike price for Hinkley C of $120 per MWh.

2009 was over a decade ago Sam. The benefits of a learning curve when you build a lot of small, modular units and grow a large workforce in operation. Costs come down.

Join the dots yet?
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 03:52:03
"with the LCOEs in Germany and the UK falling to USD 0.125/kWh and USD 0.139/kWh for projects commissioned in 2018, respectively"

jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 04:32:12
http://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019

==============

Nuclear is recked in the UK. There should never be a new plant built.

The big issue remains storage. Intermittent electricity means an expanded peak demand concept. Peak is relative to production and grid capacity. It give two variables: interday variations in demand + interday variations in electricity production.

50% of the time, when demand peaks, intermittent power will be on ebb.

This can be fixed various ways.

1. Get more electric vehicles on the road. For two reasons. One is that they are suitable for demand response mechanisms. Don't charge your car during demand peaks. Secondly, retired lithium batteries can have a 2nd life storing electricity. But you need first hand for 7-10 years before you can have 2nd hand. You also need a huge volume to make a difference.

2. Figure out how intermittent power can produce Natural Gas at scale. This may be specific to countries like the UK where 80% of households are connected to the gas network. It means infrastructure that can store and transport electricity converted to natural gas.

3. Figure out how to subsidize natural gas, existing nuclear, and hydro power in a way that reserves their production to generally cover peak only (conditions where intermittent green electricity cannot meet demand). That will be in the ballpark of 30% of UKs electricity needs.

4. blah blah, modernize and update grid always.

I feel like dropping a mike.
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 04:47:34
lol, amazingly, the global giant dominating UK wind production turns out to be Denmark, though in multinational form. I really did laugh out loud.

Vesta and Siemens have seriously strong connections to that country.
Seb
Member
Mon Jan 27 05:47:10
Jergul:

You didn't know re Denmark and wind?

jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 05:55:10
Of course I knew of Denmark and wind. The 2009 Siemens buy-up does throw off intuitition somewhat.

Small, early adaptors need not become the global behomoths that trends indicate will dominate the production of electricity generation capacity in various fields.

Denmark is actually still very dominant, despite new ownership splits
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 06:38:51
http://ass...12626/Press_Notice_June_19.pdf

International interconnectors combined with cap and trade will kill off NG electricity production (why not use Norwegian hydro resevoirs to meet peak demand?).

NG used for heating purposes is damned efficient @75-95% depending on where you draw the system boundary

The UK is locked into that. Carbon neutral NG production is really the only logical outcome.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 09:46:50
"BNFLs AGRs didn't. "

Lol well the uk is full of tards.

"between £39.65 and £41.61 per megawatt hour, the government revealed on Friday. "


Rofl no.
Seb
Member
Mon Jan 27 10:34:09
Jergul:

I meant the whole story of how we came to be dependent on the Danish concept. It's an interesting story.

Sam:
Then why did the French buy BNFLs concept and turn it into the EPR, if it's been designed by tards?

"ROFL no", cogent, salient and informed as ever.

I think it's quite clear now you don't know what your talking about.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 11:07:13
Offshore wind costs about $125 per megawatt hour in most places.

But im sure seb and his uk tards managed to cut that price by more than 50% in a few years.

Lol *pats seb on the head* im sure you did.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 11:16:39
http://www...g=AOvVaw0mbkdBtw0PrTRCfy38DrJd

Most recent UK offshore winds are >100 dollars per mwh.


Lol retard seb.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 11:17:33
http://www.../article/pii/S0301421518308504
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 11:20:57
Sammy
Leveled costs are only meaningful without subsidy. If the UK already subsidised windmill construction so the projects have low debt to no debt, then the price the government is citing is reasonably what you might expect wind could be sold for.

What I actually think happened is that addional capacity on 12 projects came online. Marginal operating costs for the new capacity could easily be within that pricerange.

The government already having subsidised all infrastructure that connects windmill projects to the grid.

Its the convervative government, so expect that they have muddied the numbers.

The leveled costs for 90% of projects is between 68 and 170 per mwh. Link provided earlier.
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 11:24:05
Seb
No, I am not aware of the clinical details. I will check it out.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 11:26:55
Sure jergul, but a fair measurement includes the subsidy cost.
jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 15:01:30
So 5 was interconnectivity.
6 is heatpumps (reverse type for summer AC)

COP X Capacity Factor wind = greater than 1.

Equals competative to NG for heating.

In a demand response system, people could save money using heatpumps at off-peak times, then using NG for peak use.

It seems complex, but all of the points are actionable policy decisions far less complex than say getting a nuclear power plant up and running.
Seb
Member
Mon Jan 27 16:25:14
Sam:

Then the cost of new build nuclear is substantially higher for the same reason, as the figures cited in both cases are the strike prices agreed wth the govt.

Citing an obscure paper with a novel approach to get a number for one tech isn't helpful if the goal is assessing relative prices. You should use a consistent method for both, which I have done.
Seb
Member
Mon Jan 27 16:33:36
Jergul:

Typical Sam approach here though: Google for a source, however obscure, to support his objective. Cling to it as a drunk man clings to a lamp post: not for illumination but support.

As you say, it's the marginal cost of additional capacity that matters in terms of guiding investment decisions. If the grid connectors are paid for, they are paid for.

jergul
large member
Mon Jan 27 17:01:03
Seb
You still due that fuel allotment thingy for the elderly? You should install heatpump (+AC) instead.

Savings to the NHS alone would likely cover the costs (and could even be quantified. hospital days per 100k oldies with state installed AC/HP. Hospital days per 100k oldies qualifying for fuel assistance, but not yet with AC/HP).
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 17:04:40
"You should use a consistent method for both, which I have done."

Sure you have seb. Except the subsidies. Oh wait you forgot about those. Pats seb on the head.
Sam Adams
Member
Mon Jan 27 23:06:40
"6 is heatpumps"

Heat pumps are pretty cool, but struggle badly as temps drop below 5C. Still it is often worth it.
jergul
large member
Tue Jan 28 00:26:26
Sammy
Inclusion in my nice list of things to do is primarily tempering peak demand by lowering top points and increasing baseline electricity use (peak demand is a defined relative to baseline, so manipulating both sides of electricity demand is important).

Flattening the sinus curve so to speak.

There is some loss of COP at lower temperatures, but new designs have largely resolved the issue (You know where I live, right).

Summer climate control is actually quite important both to avoid medical distress in vulnerable populations, but also to increase electricity demand when solar production is high.

The total combination makes for a powerful policy argument.

Systematic deployment of reversible heat pumps would increase the viability of green energy and lower CO emissions in the UK.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 03:07:39
Sam, the way the UK subsidises energy is through a gaurantee low price. For wind, it is currently £40/MWh for nuclear, it's £92 /MWh (and EDF still won't build the plant).

Both prices include the subsidy. What you are saying is that previous subsidies for getting the infrastructure in place should count.

Ok, fine, but then doesn't that mean we should take into account he the huge subsidy that nuclear gets from govt insurer of last resort, fuel cycle investments and development, and waste storage? Because none of that is fully priced into that £90 figure?

Unlike the wind infra, not all of those are sunk costs.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 07:51:03
Yes seb, you went from 100 per megawatt hour 2 years ago to 40 now without subsidies. Yes im sure you did.

Pats seb on the head again.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 07:52:04
Also why are you confusing min price with actual price?
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 09:38:54
Sam:

"Yes seb, you went from 100 per megawatt hour 2 years ago to 40 now without subsidies."

The first rounds of subsidy included much of the fixed infrastructure cost and setting up the service management capability. Scaling that thereafter is cheap. But it's a sunk cost so makes no sense to apply it hereafter because you don't need to pay it again.

Just like there's no point trying to factor the prior investment costs of developing the UK's uranium stockpile and fuel cycle into the costs of Hinkley C. It's been paid for and a sunk cost.

The only relevant point is the marginal costs associated with additional units. To get people to build turbines, we need to offer £40 per MWh and they'll build them. But if we offer Electricity de France £92 per MWh, they still won't build the plant.

"Also why are you confusing min price with actual price?"

Lol. Idiot. Think about it. Price and cost are different things... What do you think the internal rate of return needs to be to justify an investment, and what role do you think the govt guaranteed price floor plays.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 09:40:43
It's becoming painfully clear Sam has no understanding of economics or business.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 10:22:31
"But it's a sunk cost so makes no sense to apply it hereafter because you don't need to pay it again."

Ah yes, ignore the subsidy.

Lol retard.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 11:33:39
You ignore the subsidised capital costs of the French reactors. State funded at zero borrowing cost.

Also, I'm not ignoring it. It's factored into previous projects. It would be weird to double count it.

We can come back in fifty years and look at the cost then for capital costs written off 30 years previously.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 11:56:41
Another way of putting it, each new wing turbine reduces the cost of the older turbines, if you wish to allocate subsidised infrastructure and market priming evenly.

We will not know the price of wind for decades.

In the mean time, in determining investment decisions, it would be bizarre indeed to say "we price wind to include the subsidies that he already been allocated, paid and written off". It's the marginal cost that matters. There is even a name for this lunacy: sunk cost fallacy
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 12:12:33
"We will not know the price of wind for decades. "

Such a wise investment strategy! Its erratic, its uncontrollable, its in salt water so maintaining them will be horrendous and they will be replaced often, and we dont even know the price!

Lol what a fucking clown.
jergul
large member
Tue Jan 28 14:20:07
Sammy
Its the same for nuclear. You do not know the true price until the final reactor has been in operation for 30 years.

The most important unknown variable is the discount rate. 1, 3, 5, 7, or 10%. Who knows, but the impact on the true cost of producing nuclear power is stunning.

The salt water argument does not make much sense. We know how to build and operate stuff in salt water.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 14:22:05
"We know how to build and operate stuff in salt water. "

Ya we do. And its more expensive.
jergul
large member
Tue Jan 28 15:06:51
More expensive per mwh (which is the only measure that counts)?

We don't know yet. Siemens just started using two converted role-on-roll-off vessels to streamline windmill deployment (with a telescopic roof and brackets to hold tons of blades. You get the picture).

Off-shore wind is still an immature industry with lots of room for productivity increases.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 16:02:24
Sam:

We've got quite a lot of experience keeping offshore platforms going in the North sea.

Bottom line: even the higher rates offered for earlier offshore wind power to get them to kick start the industry were less than the strike price that still can't get the French to build an EPR at Hinkley point.

I've explained why: the value at risk for wind investors was less, and they knew they'd benefit from scale, reduced unit pricing and learning curves.

Meanwhile, EDF continues to worry if it signs on the dotted line, it will go bankrupt before they can finish the plant.
Seb
Member
Tue Jan 28 16:04:12
Jergul:

Offshore wind may be relatively immature, but the North sea oil industry has significant skills overlap. That being where we get most of our gas.
jergul
large member
Tue Jan 28 16:41:45
Seb
I realize that. "We know how to build and operate stuff in salt water"

But it has a different logistics flow with lots of room for productivity gain.

Basically, the risks are known and covered. But stuff is still being done in a cumbersome way because it is all new.

Siemens recently got its first dedicated supply vessels to use the oil and gas analogy. We cannot even imagine doing oil and gas with general purpose cargo freighters like they did at the start. That is sort of still where off shore windmills are.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 18:35:30
"still can't get the French to build an EPR at Hinkley point."

Well ya. Why would they want to deal with your backwards bureaucratic clusterfuck of a country?

Also seb wonders why something is expensive when you try to build just 1 of it.

Lol tardation.

"Off-shore wind is still an immature industry with lots of room for productivity increases."

Not really jergul. With a decade or so of full tilt production and 10s of thousands of turbines built... it is now mature. The time derivative of wind both on and offshore is the same as natural gas now. Or cars. Or airplanes. Its a mature product, dictated by the same slow pace of heavy industrial improvement as anything else.

If you are looking for rapid productivity increases, look to solar.
jergul
large member
Tue Jan 28 23:26:56
Sammy
I think we are speaking of different things. Current design technology is fully mature. The logistics around deployment is not.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 23:33:11
Indeed. But you dont get big improvements from logistical tweaks.

Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 23:39:26
Physically, wind is at a major disadvantage from the get go. Your energy density sucks and you need to be well off the ground: requiring without possible substitute expensive structures. AND repairs become terribly expensive.

And least with solar... which is also very low density... you hardly need to spend any money on structural mass and repairs are much easier.
Sam Adams
Member
Tue Jan 28 23:50:44
Wind and solar are both attempting to draw from environmental flows of similar power density.

So you might as well choose the one that isnt 100 meters up and spinning.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 00:12:16
Sammy
The technologies are complimentary. Remember what I said earlier. Wind and solar can simulate baseload if widely dispersed by type and geography.

We have already examined the leveled cost of electricity production per kwh. It includes the things you mentioned.

The energy sources are free. Natural gas is not free (but is highly subsidised through tax incentives and infrastructure commitments).

Down-time is expensive in the same way poor deployment logistics is. The capital costs are running and no revenue is being generated.

Fast deployment is key to cost control.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 00:17:51
It is really important to remember that electricity has value in consistency. Its almost useless if only available in amounts far outstripping demand intermittently, but not available otherwise.

Brown-outs and rolling black-outs are hugely costly to economies.

That is the great weakness of green energy. My 6 points rotate around this fundamental fact.

But sure, lets go for 7.

7. If solar, then also wind.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 00:21:04
Costly to a point were small diesel generators at 30% efficiency using consumer diesel suddenly make a whole lot of sense. I would not even dare guess the leveled costs of that kind of electricity.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 00:27:33
Thank you google.

450-650 USD mwh for small diesel and petrol generators. I would have actually guessed 500.
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 03:55:03
Sam:

The UK is far less bureaucratic than France. It's ranked 6 in the world on the best countries to do business in index. The US is seventh.

Bureaucracy isn't the issue. All the permits are in place and they are being offered a guaranteed price of electricity twice the wholesale price for 30 years.

The reason their board can't approve it is that they don't think they can actually build the thing on time, to budget, and in a way that meets their forecast opex. Even with more subsidy than the wind industry got per MWh previously.

How many EPRs are edf building anywhere?

Theres the plant in Finland: 12 years late, over twice the planned cost.

Then you have Flamenville - 4 times over budget, 10 years late.

Then you have the Taishan plants in China. 4 years late, following several incidents of components cracking. No data available on budget overturns. But these two reactors are at least in commercial operation. Hooray.
Sam Adams
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:20:06
"Wind and solar can simulate baseload if widely dispersed by type and geography. "

Not really jergul. Your "widely" would have to be nearly planetwide for that to work. Wintertime high pressure systems can be the size of continents. And then you have long nights with no wind.

Yes seb, your bureaucratic fusterclucking and whining has harmed the nuclear industry quite badly.

Congrats seb, you have resulted in far more co2 than exxon ever could.
Sam Adams
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:30:44
"450-650 USD mwh for small diesel and petrol generators. I would have actually guessed 500. "

Sounds about right. We will all be using those in a decade when social justice sebs fuck up the power grid and drive humanity backwards with their retarded ideas and collosal wastes of money.
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:37:25
Sam, do you think it is perhaps a little incredible, even for you, to ascribe to me causality for the cluster fuck the industry has got itself into?


I've been telling you for three threads now how and why the nuclear industry has shot itself in the foot due to strategic decisions made when I was in diapers and doubled down on consistently; and that I left the next great hope for nuclear power because it was replicating the same flawed strategy.

You've denied these consistently, hyping nuclear, and then finally been forced to accept the truth: the plants the industry have designed are all too big, too complex and too risky to finance and build given the available and affordable skills in the workforce and the level of maturity in the industry and supply chain.

You keep babbling about the French reactors, but as is abundantly clear, they don't have the ability to build those either.

And your response to this is, rather than to accept you have learned something useful, to petulantly blame the messanger.

It's a bit sad really. Who are you trying to fool? Yourself?
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:41:16
"bUiLd NeW pLaNtS tHeY iS cHeAp LiKe FrAnCe nOt SuBsIdY bAd LiKe wInD I kNo NuMbEr rEaL gOoD"
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:41:51
Sam, and why he's only allowed to talk to the grown ups in his business and they make the decisions.
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 09:45:49
Also, calls to reduce safety margins in nuclear regulations would carry a lot more weight of Fukushima hadn't shown that every single containment system designed to restrict a meltdown to the reactor building had comprehensively and catastrophically failed.

Sure, the sitting of the control systems were dumb, but even given that the meltdown wasn't supposed to be able to escape the containment vessel or outer shell of the containment building. That's what they are for.

And Sam says the solution is to lower "bureaucratic standards" and adopt the Russian approach: don't bother with containment structures, and just insist reactors can't fail.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 10:32:51
Sammy
Its been done (Eastern part of Germany). The practical limit now in a very robust grid system is green meeting 50% of baseline.

I did not mean to suggest solar and wind could be all baseline, but rather that a widely distributed and varied system would have a decent minimum output. Minimum output = contribution to baseline.

Its all about flattening the sinus curve.
Sam Adams
Member
Wed Jan 29 11:34:47
Jergul, the minimum output on a calm winter night is 0. Over 1000s of miles a few times per winter. Ive seen the entirety of the US flatlined. Our 10gw of windfarms, from seattle to boston and across the plains, trickling along at a few dozen mw, not even enough to keep their own lights and monitoring gear alive, while our solar farms all read exactly 0.

Without gigantic fucking storage, it will not be an option for base load.

Agreeing of course that blackouts are never an option for first world grids.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 11:54:28
Sammy
Its not a problem if minimum output overlaps with minimum demand. Wind and solar can never be the only baseline producers.

Nighttime consumption is very low. Also factor in off-shore wind mills into the mix.
Sam Adams
Member
Wed Jan 29 12:32:51
"Nighttime consumption is very low."

Not the evening hours. The beginning of night is usually peak demand.
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 16:15:59
Pump or tidal storage, hydro etc.

Not at all insurmountable.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 16:27:39
Seb
We were talking about what fraction of a sufficiently diverse combination of solar and on/off-shore wind could simulate baseline supply.

Sammy is suggesting that number is 0. I think it is much higher.

Its given that reserve production and storage is needed in any grid system. The question is merely from what baseline as that is important for dimensioning.
Seb
Member
Wed Jan 29 16:40:51
Yup, I was following.

I'm agreeing a that a few hours of compensating for some fraction of base load is not that hard to engineer at all. Continent wide cold still nights are not that common.

Nuclear has it's place - if the industry gets it act together we can maintain and slightly increase nuclear's share of power generation. And maybe if it is sensible, it will displace others.

But in terms of getting to net zero, sufficient prioritisation given, I think it is economically and technical achievable in 20-30 years (particularly if carbon capture is allowed) - and rather than changes in standards of living it is more likely to manifest in shifts in profitability between industrial sectors.

Sammy does at least get that solar scales well.

jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 17:27:49
Seb
There is no way a diversified off-shore system will ever give 0 power.

For the UK, net 0 has to involve synthetic, carbon neutral, natural gas. Taking H2 production a step further to use the distribution network already in place.

It dovetails neatly with green energy's tendency to overproduce at times.

More nuclear reactors in the UK is not a good idea. Better to spend the money elsewhere. If the industry reinvents itself, then good. Reconsider then.

I have 7 points for better spent if memory serves :).
Sam Adams
Member
Wed Jan 29 18:02:22
"Continent wide cold still nights are not that common. "

Common enough. You cant make a first world grid without massive storage.
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 29 18:05:33
Common as in never if you include off-shore locations.
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