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blu_ice

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1450 on: October 14, 2020, 09:38:57 PM »
Neil there are many ways to deal with intermittency many of which have been expressed here. You have not responded to them. The conversation goes stale when you do not engage it. Alcohol based geothermal could also be used to generate electricity. District heating with geothermal reduces electricity demand significantly In winter. Some batteries, some hydrogen, some hydro. The hydro potential alone could supply a major portion of demand. The main reoccurring theme I read for big projects in Poland is a lack of funding. Nuclear is expensive and the money would be better spent elsewhere.                                                                           
That’s a bit unfair. I’ve seen Neil respond with numbers while most here are making qualitative remarks only. There are ways to deal with intermittency, but none of them are free.

Low-temp geothermal is used for heat, not electricity. Heat is extracted by heat pumps meaning an increase in electricity consumption. This applies for both district and individual house heating. High-temp geothermal is available only in certain areas.

In fact we should expect electricity demand to go up when moving away from combustible carbon based fuels. I used to live in a building where exhaust air heat pumps were installed. Thanks to them we saved 50% of inbound district heat, but electricity consumption went up significantly. It was still a bargain as overall energy cost decreased by 30%. However utilities must take into account such changes in consumption patterns.


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1451 on: October 15, 2020, 11:18:22 AM »
“There are ways to deal with intermittency, but none of them are free.”
The car batteries are not free, but they are dual purpose.

“Low-temp geothermal”
I presume the alcohol (Methanol?) with it’s lower boiling point can produce “steam” at a lower temperature

“In fact we should expect electricity demand to go up when moving away from combustible carbon based fuels”
Yes, the grid / LN would have to be reinforced, mitigated by:
Distributed, not centralised generation – Solar, Wind, Electricity producing domestic boilers (Stirling engine)
Local storage. E.g. your car.
H2 down the gas grid
Marine turbines offshore each town
"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1452 on: October 15, 2020, 11:22:09 AM »
Neil there are many ways to deal with intermittency many of which have been expressed here. You have not responded to them. The conversation goes stale when you do not engage it. Alcohol based geothermal could also be used to generate electricity. District heating with geothermal reduces electricity demand significantly In winter. Some batteries, some hydrogen, some hydro. The hydro potential alone could supply a major portion of demand. The main reoccurring theme I read for big projects in Poland is a lack of funding. Nuclear is expensive and the money would be better spent elsewhere.                                                                           
That’s a bit unfair. I’ve seen Neil respond with numbers while most here are making qualitative remarks only. There are ways to deal with intermittency, but none of them are free.

Low-temp geothermal is used for heat, not electricity. Heat is extracted by heat pumps meaning an increase in electricity consumption. This applies for both district and individual house heating. High-temp geothermal is available only in certain areas.

In fact we should expect electricity demand to go up when moving away from combustible carbon based fuels. I used to live in a building where exhaust air heat pumps were installed. Thanks to them we saved 50% of inbound district heat, but electricity consumption went up significantly. It was still a bargain as overall energy cost decreased by 30%. However utilities must take into account such changes in consumption patterns.


Suppose you have enough money this year to convert 10% of your annual gigawatt hours of electricity to renewable energy with short term storage or does it make more sense to build 3.33% of your annual gigawatt hours of nuclear. The renewable energy will probably be online the next year and displacing fossil fuel costs the next year further CO2 reductions will happen then. If you build nuclear it could be a decade before money spent today provides electricity, displaces fossil fuel costs or reduces CO2. Plus Poland has a history of attempting big projects and running out of money part of the way through then abandoning the project.  This is the argument I don't hear any response too.

arguments are better when hard numbers are available but what I am suggesting is a complex solution with many components. Even a rough estimate would require a great deal of effort.


I made the false assumption[size=78%] [/size][/font]
 that in Poland coal was not used much for district heating but primarily for electricity and heating was electric. Switching from Coal district heating to geothermal will increase electrical consumption but far less than ground source heat pumps.
Low temperature geothermal sources are mostly used for district heating but they can produce electricity using lower flash point fluids such as alcohol. water is still used in the ground but a heat exchanger can be used to flash the alcohol into steam. The alcohol remains in a closed loop.
siemens offers a turnkey solution for converting a coal plant into midterm energy storage. They build a well insulated building and fill it full of lava rocks. surplus energy heats the rocks when they need electricity they spray water on the rocks which flashes to steam. The existing steam turbine converts it to electricity.[/size] Of course they are not free but neither is nuclear. [size=78%]




Sciguy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1453 on: October 15, 2020, 09:49:01 PM »
In the US, we're told that France has solved the long-term nuclear waste storage problem.  Turns out, no one has.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/The-Worlds-Growing-Nuclear-Waste-Dilemma.html

Quote
The World’s Growing Nuclear Waste Dilemma
By Haley Zaremba - Oct 15, 2020

Quote
Recently, different nuclear-powered countries around the world have been pursuing “final disposal sites” for their nuclear waste. This process consists of converting this radioactive waste into a kind of glass via a process known as vitrification. This glass will then be stored inside of stainless steel vessels that will be kept in a pool to maintain a cool temperature until they are finally transferred to their final resting place deep underground, where they will remain undisturbed until their amount of radioactivity has decreased to a level that they can be handled safely--a period of time anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 years.

o date, no country has brought one of these final disposal sites online, but a small handful are actually working on developing one. “Finland and Sweden have selected locations for construction and Finland is expected to start construction in the early 2020s,” reports the Japan Times. “France is still conducting underground surveys, while Switzerland, China, and Canada are analyzing boring samples. Belgium and Germany are at roughly the same stage as Japan.”

In Japan, however, as the Times article details, the site planning has been mired in controversy. Until nine years ago, nuclear energy represented a major part of Japan’s energy mix. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, however, Japan has largely soured on this form of power production, and citizens have become increasingly leery of the sector’s various risk factors. This discontent and distrust have recently come to a head in Hokkaido, where the Horonobe Underground Research Center, “which conducts research and development on disposal methods for high-level radioactive waste” is found, over the topic of choosing a location for Japan’s final disposal site.

The US went through all of the site surveys and actually settled on a site and began construction more than a decade ago.  Construction on that site was stopped due to political opposition, so the waste just sits in dry casks on top of concrete slabs.  The casks will need to be replaced in about a century, as they break down over time.

https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/dry-cask-storage.html


NeilT

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1454 on: October 16, 2020, 11:29:36 AM »
Slightly different viewpoint.

In the US, we're told that France has solved the long-term nuclear waste storage problem.  Turns out, no one has.

<sinp>

The US went through all of the site surveys and actually settled on a site and began construction more than a decade ago.  Construction on that site was stopped due to political opposition


And that is the position.  Nuclear Glass is the correct stable structure for long term storage.
Geological storage of the glass containers is the correct method of containing the glass until the threat expires.

The reason we are not actually doing it?

Political pressure.

Whether or not it wants to be admitted, the whole point is that environmental political pressure is stopping the storage of massive amounts of existing nuclear waste.

The reason for this is that if they allow the storage of this waste, the fear is that it will allow a Nuclear industry to explode because it will allow the cost of decommissioning to be quantified.

So long as that cost remains unknown, FUD can be applied to stop more Nuclear.

That's the reality and it cannot be explained away with "we don't know".   We DO know and have known for decades.  "We don't want" is where we are today.
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NevB

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1455 on: October 16, 2020, 01:53:58 PM »
What is the environmental cost of this ?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/16/japan-to-release-1m-tonnes-of-contaminated-fukushima-water-into-the-sea

How do we even begin to consider how to price a small increase in the background radiation level of the ocean ?

What is the ultimate fate of the destroyed reactor cores, is there any chance that they won't eventually end up in the ocean ?

Nuclear may be the most cost effective option there is in higher latitudes for replacing fossils until, if or when there is ever another accident. I wouldn't like to be responsible for finding the best solution.

kassy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1456 on: October 16, 2020, 02:46:00 PM »
Fukushima: Japan 'to release contaminated water into sea'

...

The release of more than a million tonnes of water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, would start in 2022 at the earliest, according to Japanese media outlets including national dailies the Nikkei and the Yomiuri Shimbun.

The water would be diluted inside the plant before release so it is 40 times less concentrated, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, with the whole process taking 30 years.

...

There has been growing urgency over what to do with the water as space to store the liquid - which includes groundwater and rain that seeps daily into the plant - is running out.

Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed using a complex filtration process. But one isotope, tritium, cannot be removed so the water has been stored in huge tanks which will fill up by 2022.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54566978

Tritium or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or 3H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

1m tonnes is also not that much compared to the ocean.

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NeilT

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1457 on: October 16, 2020, 03:29:20 PM »
Surprised they didn't try harder to get the Tritium out Kassy.  Value is about $30,000 per gram.

Tritium us used manufacturing (luminous watch hands being the most obvious), also, I read, in ocean tracking.

Not sure what the local impact would be?  Glowing sea bed?
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kassy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1458 on: October 16, 2020, 06:22:38 PM »
Probably that would mean  inventing new technology which would not make that much sense in the long run. The price is also probably for new tritium while this is a mix of all ages.

There is a current there so it gets diluted and swept away.

1m tonnes water is 1 x 10 to 9 litres
A 1000 liter cube.
A liter is 10x10x10 cm so that is a 100m cube going into the ocean.

It is also going in in little cubes, or probably rounder stuff over time but that just complicates things.

Now the ocean is huge and there is also a current there so the local impact is not really an issue if it is only tritium. It also has a half life of 12 years with what they release being a mix.

I don´t think there is a better solution to their problem but it is also another demonstration that nuclear is not the optimal solution.

Some data they did not mention:
The actual cost to filter out all the other radioactive elements and process or store them.

The running cost of the barriers in place.

And all other costs.

The problem here is not a bit of tritium diluted water even if the number is impressive compared to your bath.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1459 on: October 17, 2020, 01:03:53 AM »
tritium is an isotope of hydrogen their is plenty of tritium already in the ocean though at a much lower concentration. I am no physicist but isotopes are usually separated using cascading centrifuges. Which is expensive. I don't know if that is the best method here.


Quote
wiki
"Ontario Power Generation's "Tritium Removal Facility" processes up to 2,500 tonnes (2,500 long tons; 2,800 short tons) of heavy water a year, and it separates out about 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) of tritium, making it available for other uses."
It may be easier to remove tritium from seawater than from heavy water because the difference in density between regular hydrogen is greater than between deuterium and tritium. If it is about the same a dedicated processing facility of the same size would only clean 0.25% of the sea water per year.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1460 on: October 17, 2020, 01:09:13 AM »
.... The price is also probably for new tritium while this is a mix of all ages....
No such thing as new tritium when it decays it becomes something else. I think it becomes an isotope of helium but I am not sure.

vox_mundi

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1461 on: October 17, 2020, 01:23:19 AM »
It forms 3He used in neutron detectors. It's worth more than tritium.

Lot of demand for tritium in nuclear weapons to 'boost' the yield. Lithium deuteride also works
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1462 on: October 21, 2020, 09:54:54 PM »
Quote
Oil price.com
[/color]Poland Strikes $18 Billion Nuclear Power Deal With U.S.
[/color]The agreement closed this week stipulates that over the next 18 months, the parties will develop a program for the construction of the reactors and how they will be financed. Per plans, the first reactors should come online in 2033. The whole program could end up costing Warsaw some $40 billion, of which at least $18 billion would go towards acquiring U.S. nuclear technology, according to a U.S. government official.
[/color]Poland’s government plans to build between 6 and 9 GW of nuclear capacity by 2040, but it will also invest in renewable energy, planning between 8 and 11 GW in offshore wind power capacity.
I found this it makes the point. Poland spends at least 40 billion and the earliest nuclear plant comes online in 2033. They continue to build until 2040.
That is assuming no funding problems cost overuns or delays. That offshore wind could reasonably be built by the end of 2024 or 9-16 years earlier.

vox_mundi

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1463 on: October 22, 2020, 01:47:13 AM »
It Looks Like Russia’s Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Test Program Is Back In Business
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37191/it-looks-like-russias-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile-test-program-is-back-in-business

Recent satellite imagery suggests that Russia may be working to resume testing of its 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile program in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago above the Arctic Circle. This highly controversial missile, which is codenamed SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, has suffered a number of mishaps during development work in the past, including a deadly explosion last year.

... The first known test flight of the Burevestnik at Pankovo reportedly took place in November 2017 and U.S. intelligence sources claimed the missile had crashed in the Barents Sea. Duitsman and Lewis say that at least four Burevestnik tests took place between then and February 2018, but none were considered successful. The limited information to have emerged about the results of those four tests was discussed in more detail here.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23058/russia-is-hunting-for-its-crashed-nuclear-powered-cruise-missile-and-the-u-s-might-be-too

The missile reportedly uses a nuclear reactor to power its propulsion system, giving it theoretically unlimited range.



... In August 2019, what may have been efforts to raise a Burevestnik missile from the seabed near the Nyonoksa test site resulted in an explosion that killed five scientists and injured three more from Russia’s state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom and left a radioactive cloud over the city of Severodvinsk. The Russian Ministry of Defense attributed the accident to the explosion of what it called a liquid-propellant rocket engine and denied that any dangerous substances were released. Rosatom later admitted its employees had been working on an experimental “isotope power source” when it exploded.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29356/russia-admits-mysterious-missile-engine-explosion-involved-nuclear-isotope-power-source

It may not be entirely coincidental that renewed work at Pankovo comes as Russia and the United States are negotiating the future of the  New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) that is due to expire in February 2021.
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NeilT

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1464 on: October 22, 2020, 01:41:28 PM »
That offshore wind could reasonably be built by the end of 2024 or 9-16 years earlier.

OK now compare like with like.

Will they be able to deliver an offshore wind farm which runs 24x7 whether the wind blows or not.

No, they can't.

So Nuclear, for Poland, is energy security in a solution to the inherent energy risks in a renewable energy age.  They will continue to pay this money to assure their energy security until another viable solution, which does not require the reliance on power from another country, becomes available.  Once that is available I would fully expect them to cease Nuclear energy build.

Let's talk apples to apples.  Poland building Nuclear is nothing to do with how quickly and cheaply, you can put up Wind farms or the relative energy cost of average annual generation of wind energy.

It is what to do when the wind doesn't blow on a cold winters night, without having to be reliant on another country.

If anyone had been rolled over once by the Nazi's and a second time by the USSR, within a decade, they would think twice about trusting another country for their energy security.

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oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1465 on: October 22, 2020, 07:33:10 PM »
Instead of spending tens of billions on nuclear plants, spend far less on wind (and solar), put in an extra amount for grid batteries, and spend some change on keeping your coal plants mothballed rather than dismantle them. Then when the dreaded calm cloudy period comes AND WW3 is upon us so the interconnects stop working, use those coal plants for a week.
Achieving this solution will be much cheaper, much quicker, and will emit less CO2 overall.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1466 on: October 22, 2020, 07:37:59 PM »
Thanks, oren

I find it...curious...how so many can completely miss or ignore this blindingly obvious fact

(even as they choose to ignore the multiple other problems with this expensive and dangerous way to boil water)
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1467 on: October 22, 2020, 09:06:44 PM »
When is the last time a nuclear power plant ran for 10 years with only scheduled maintenance beaks?

Is Poland self-sufficient with nuclear power plant fuel?
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1468 on: October 22, 2020, 10:50:00 PM »
Quote
Will they be able to deliver an offshore wind farm which runs 24x7 whether the wind blows or not.No, they can't.

but they can build geothermal which runs 24x7. Poland has a history of grand ambitions for energy projects that they stop funding partway through. Getting little for money spent. They did it with hydro then geothermal. If it was about energy some of the hydro projects are still viable and the geothermal just needs cash. Improving geothermal would give them expertise as well.

At this point further discussion is mostly irrelevant because they have already committed to 18 billion dollars for the technology. Total cost about 40 billion if there are no cost overruns.

NeilT

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1469 on: October 22, 2020, 10:55:25 PM »
When is the last time a nuclear power plant ran for 10 years with only scheduled maintenance beaks?

Interestingly the UK make damned good reactors.

Just because pwr and boiling water reactors are crap does not mean all are.

Quote
As of 1 August, the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) achieved 895 days of continuous operation, having operated non-stop since 18 February 2014. The reactor - also referred to as Heysham 2 unit 8 - is scheduled to continue operating until 16 September, when it will be taken offline for a planned maintenance and inspection outage. Assuming the unit carries on operating until that time, it would have run continuously for 941 days.

The reactor, operated by EDF Energy, has generated 13.495 TWh of electricity so far during this continuous operation, taking its lifetime generation to 115.46 TWh.

AGRs - which are cooled with carbon dioxide, graphite-moderated and fuelled with enriched uranium - are designed to be refuelled without being shut down first. During the current run, 123 fuel channels have so far been refuelled.

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/British-reactor-takes-record-for-longest-continuou

As for fuel independence?  No, of course not, but fuel lasts 3 - 6 years in a reactor and only about half is burned, allowing reprocessing to create an in country resource of nuclear fuel.

Apart from the coal they already have, this is the only likely security they will have without coal.

As for keeping coal plants and using them?  I thought that was bad, really bad, so bad that every coal plant in the world had to be shut down no matter what the cost.

Now if I'd known that ist was OK to burn coal to avoid Nuclear, we could take a whole new track.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.  Just not in a form you were thinking of.

For instance the current German reliance on coal to avoid Nuclear, despite their growing wind and solar.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1470 on: October 22, 2020, 11:29:21 PM »
Nuclear and Coal in a renewable dominated system are not interchangeable.

No one would consider building sufficient nuclear to cover lulls in renewables that spends large periods of time offline.

A very different proposition to having gas or a biofuel converted coal stations on standby while storage increases to fill the gap.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1471 on: October 22, 2020, 11:35:52 PM »
Thanks, Neil.  I'm glad to hear that some reactors work as advertised.  The French may do pretty well on this front, given all their experience. 

I still worry about the '10,000 years of solitude' required for some waste.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1472 on: October 23, 2020, 12:16:30 AM »
He was saying if their is a time of no renewables and it is www3 ie can't buy power on the interchange then and only then could you burn coal.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1473 on: October 23, 2020, 12:32:58 AM »
The reactors I have heard of have a scheduled shut down once a year for refuel and repair


France is the only country that currently reprocesses their fuel. With the standard reactor it makes sense because it reduces radioactive lifetime of waste by a factor of 10 or more. It makes a difference when looking for a stable place to store it. I doubt it would make sense to build reprocessing facilities. You could store a decades worth of fuel if you were worried about it. I doubt that would be necessary.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1474 on: October 23, 2020, 09:56:44 AM »
Guys, I feel a strong anything but nuclear attitude here. Even fossil fuels are getting support  :o

3GW of nuclear capacity with 90% capacity factor generates the same amount of electricity than 6GW of wind power with 45% CF. Of these two, only nuclear can reliably produce power at peak demand. Availability has a value also! Scheduled maintenance breaks can be arranged to take place during low demand periods such as summer holidays and maintenance time can be split between reactor units. Wind power on the other hand can vary between 5 and 100 % in a few hours.

Wind and solar can be backed up with battery storage, hydro, fossil fuels and long range transmission lines. All these have a cost which need to be added on the total cost of the energy system. Again, availability has a value. Imported energy needs to be available and it is not guaranteed to be carbon neutral. In fact peak demand power is usually the most carbon intensive because that's when also the high marginal cost fossil plants are needed.

Wishful thinking doesn't change the laws of physics. We can argue about this ad infinitum or we can take a look at what happens in neighbouring Germany. Nuclear power was phased out and Germany is now locked into long term fossil fuel investments and high per capita emissions despite enormous investments in renewables. It's only a matter of perception whether German energy mix is coal and gas supported by renewables or vice versa.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1475 on: October 23, 2020, 10:15:40 AM »
He was saying if their is a time of no renewables and it is www3 ie can't buy power on the interchange then and only then could you burn coal.

You don't need WW3 to be denied energy in winter.  Just ask the Ukranians.
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NeilT

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1476 on: October 23, 2020, 10:18:35 AM »
Thanks, Neil.  I'm glad to hear that some reactors work as advertised.  The French may do pretty well on this front, given all their experience. 

I still worry about the '10,000 years of solitude' required for some waste.
(Apologies to Gabriel García Márquez.)

Tor, UK design, run by the EDF as a service now.  The UK built and ran them but after the Thatcher government and the move from government nationalised energy, management of those reactors was bought by EDF.

I also worry about the 10,000 years.  But I'm also aware that the solution, nuclear glass, was pioneered in the 80's but blocked by the environmental lobby ever since.

I've never said that Nuclear is the end game for everything, it is not.  That belongs to Fusion and I don't expect to see it in my lifetime.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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BeeKnees

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1477 on: October 23, 2020, 11:54:17 AM »
Guys, I feel a strong anything but nuclear attitude here. Even fossil fuels are getting support  :o
3GW of nuclear capacity with 90% capacity factor generates the same amount of electricity than 6GW of wind power with 45% CF.

I really feel this needs to be qualified.
Current nuclear power stations are big, resource intensive things.  If most of the time they are not required then it will be a very long time before the carbon required to build them is offset. 

A balance has to be struck, if you know that the gap when nuclear is used is going to close as storage from excess renewable power increases, then the maths needs to be done as to whether the nuclear plant will ever cover it's carbon footprint. 

Also if what you require is a large input of power for short periods rather than a moderate input of power over long periods then current nuclear power stations just cannot meet that demand.  It's no good having 3GW nuclear if for 20 days of the year you need 10GW and the rest of the time you need less than 1GW, you end up needing to burn FF to cover the gap when it would've been better to invest the cost of a nuclear reactor into a storage solution. 

It's very hard to see how Nuclear fits in other then by the method proposed by Gates etc, as a means of charging storage through generating hydrogen and molten salt so that it has the means of meeting demand spikes.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1478 on: October 23, 2020, 03:04:02 PM »
Wishful thinking doesn't change the laws of physics. We can argue about this ad infinitum or we can take a look at what happens in neighbouring Germany. Nuclear power was phased out and Germany is now locked into long term fossil fuel investments and high per capita emissions despite enormous investments in renewables

This is a half-truth. The FF industry is still very strong in Germany and constantly succeeds in getting the goverment to thwart or slow down further advancement of renewables, so that the build-up of capacity is much slower than would be possible. Wishful thinking would be to assume that this happens for rational motives and in the best interest of all. In reality, power and profits are at stake, as always.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1479 on: October 23, 2020, 06:32:39 PM »
Instead of spending tens of billions on nuclear plants, spend far less on wind (and solar), put in an extra amount for grid batteries, and spend some change on keeping your coal plants mothballed rather than dismantle them. Then when the dreaded calm cloudy period comes AND WW3 is upon us so the interconnects stop working, use those coal plants for a week.
Achieving this solution will be much cheaper, much quicker, and will emit less CO2 overall.

Indeed. This is so simple. And no it is not support for fossil fuels because it only runs when needed (hence it would be a different type of contract then current ones.

Also: Maybe, just maybe Poland is doing those half assed projects because of the large interest of the mining industry there?
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1480 on: October 23, 2020, 08:26:24 PM »
Guys, I feel a strong anything but nuclear attitude here. Even fossil fuels are getting support  :o

3GW of nuclear capacity with 90% capacity factor generates the same amount of electricity than 6GW of wind power with 45% CF. Of these two, only nuclear can reliably produce power at peak demand. Availability has a value also! Scheduled maintenance breaks can be arranged to take place during low demand periods such as summer holidays and maintenance time can be split between reactor units. Wind power on the other hand can vary between 5 and 100 % in a few hours.

Wind and solar can be backed up with battery storage, hydro, fossil fuels and long range transmission lines. All these have a cost which need to be added on the total cost of the energy system. Again, availability has a value. Imported energy needs to be available and it is not guaranteed to be carbon neutral. In fact peak demand power is usually the most carbon intensive because that's when also the high marginal cost fossil plants are needed.

Wishful thinking doesn't change the laws of physics. We can argue about this ad infinitum or we can take a look at what happens in neighbouring Germany. Nuclear power was phased out and Germany is now locked into long term fossil fuel investments and high per capita emissions despite enormous investments in renewables. It's only a matter of perception whether German energy mix is coal and gas supported by renewables or vice versa.

If existing nuclear reactors can operate safely, they should be allowed to do so until they reach the end of their useful life.  It's nearly carbon-free baseload electricity but it may need to be subsidized due to its high cost compared to every other form of electrical generation.  The waste can be stored on concrete slabs at the site when the reactor is decommission, so a few more dry cylinders stacked on the slab is preferable to the carbon emissions of a gas-fired power plant.

New nuclear makes no sense.  You can overbuild so much solar and wind with battery backup for the same amount of money, and even upgrade the grid interconnects, that the intermittency problems will be solved.  Throw in gas peaker plants for the lull periods until the overbuild and grid interconnects are complete or just go to geothermal for the 24 hour baseload instead.  It would still be cheaper than new nuclear plants.

And keep in mind that the entire 1.6 GW of a new APR 1000 reactor will be offline at the same time whenever it's down for refueling, maintenance or repairs, so you still need 1.6 GW of other capacity ready to fill in.  That's another expense that's often overlooked in nuclear generation.  And that 1.6 GW is currently being provided by gas peaker plants.


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1481 on: October 24, 2020, 04:20:28 AM »
He was saying if their is a time of no renewables and it is www3 ie can't buy power on the interchange then and only then could you burn coal.

You don't need WW3 to be denied energy in winter.  Just ask the Ukranians.
fair enough but his statement was not supporting coal that was a mischaracterization.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1482 on: October 24, 2020, 04:44:32 AM »
Too me the argument has changed substantially now that they signed a contract. Depending on the contractual terms a big chunk of money to build those plants is already spent. The financial arguments are much harder to make now. 18 of the 40 billion is for nuclear technology. At this point if I was Poland I would build it too. At least they have a plan to shut down the coal. At the same time they also committed to spending several billion on renewables. That should reduce emissions sooner rather than later.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1483 on: October 27, 2020, 05:17:33 PM »
On this day in 1962, 36-year-old Soviet submarine officer Vasily Arkhipov helped avoid nuclear war with the U.S. when he refused to authorize a strike against nearby U.S. warships at the peak of the Cuban missile crisis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov_(vice_admiral)

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1484 on: October 31, 2020, 12:52:53 PM »
New nuclear plant at Sizewell <UK> set for green light

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54754016

"Battery and other energy storage technologies are developing rapidly but are expensive."

I see less grid side storage and more consumer side - the spare capacity in the big batteries of our EVs

I also see tidal stream and hydro from the UK and Norway as the baseload providers.
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Iain

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1485 on: October 31, 2020, 01:00:44 PM »
Meantime, they are still working on the fusion problem:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50267017

"...researchers have developed a different form of Tokamak, that more resembles an apple core than a doughnut. Called a Spherical Tokamak, it has the advantage of being more compact, potentially allowing future power plants to be located in towns and cities."

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1486 on: November 18, 2020, 01:25:47 PM »
Rolls-Royce plans 16 <modular> mini-nuclear plants for UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54703204

Mixed feelings:
1/ Likely to be cost undercut by renewables + Storage
2/ More reactors, more chance of an accident with off-site consequences.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1487 on: November 18, 2020, 08:53:16 PM »
Quote
Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity - roughly enough to power Sheffield - and the hope is that, once the first few have been made, they will cost around £2bn each.

The consortium says the first of these modular plants could be up and running in 10 years, after that it will be able to build and install two a year.

By comparison, the much larger nuclear plant being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset is expect to cost some £22bn but will produce more than 3 gigawatts of electricity - over six times as much.

They do not seem cheaper especially if you factor in the usual extra costs.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1488 on: November 27, 2020, 10:29:55 PM »
But of course the new nuclear power plants won't have any of the problems of the old ones... will they?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/uks-nuclear-sites-costing-taxpayers-astronomical-sums-say-mps
UK’s nuclear sites costing taxpayers ‘astronomical sums’, say MPs

Public accounts committee says ignorance, incompetence and weak oversight to blame

Quote
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has a perpetual lack of knowledge about the state and location of waste on the 17 sites it is responsible for making safe, a powerful committee of MPs has found.

This results from decades of poor record keeping and weak government oversight, the MPs said. Combined with a “sorry saga” of incompetence and failure, this has left taxpayers footing the bill for “astronomical sums”, they said.

The NDA acknowledges that it still does not have full understanding of the condition of its sites, including 10 closed Magnox stations from Dungeness in Kent to Hunterston in Ayrshire, the MPs report said.

The NDA’s most recent estimate is that it will cost current and future generations of UK taxpayers £132bn to decommission the civil nuclear sites, with the work not being completed for another 120 year

Since 2017, the NDA’s upper estimate of the cost of the 12-15-year programme just to get the sites to the ”‘care and maintenance” stage of the decommissioning process has increased by £3.1bn to £8.7bn. “Our past experience suggests these costs may increase further,” said the MPs’ report.

The lack of knowledge of the sites was a significant factor in the failure of a 2014 contract the NDA signed with a private sector company to decommission the Magnox sites. The government was forced to take back the contract in 2018 and the botched tender has now cost taxpayers £140m, the MPs found.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, deputy chair of the public accounts committee (PAC), said: “Although progress has been made since our [2018] report, incredibly, the NDA still doesn’t know even where we’re currently at, in terms of the state and safety of the UK’s disused nuclear sites. Without that, and after the Magnox contracting disaster, it is hard to have confidence in future plans or estimates.”
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1489 on: December 17, 2020, 01:57:21 AM »
when fucking-up one planet, just isn't good enough ...

White House Paves Policy For Nuke-Powered Rockets & Reactors On Moon
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/12/white-house-paves-policy-for-nuke-powered-rockets-reactors-on-moon/

Space Policy Directive-6 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-national-strategy-space-nuclear-power-propulsion-space-policy-directive-6/



WASHINGTON: The Trump administration’s latest space policy sets ambitious goals for development of space nuclear power and propulsion (SNPP) systems for deep space operations — including demonstrating a fission reactor on the Moon to enable long-term stays by US astronauts.

Space Policy Directive-6 (SPD-6), issued today, “sets out goals, principles and a supporting roadmap to demonstrate US commitment to using Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion (SNPP) systems safely, effectively and responsibly. Space nuclear power and propulsion systems are fundamentally enabling technologies for creating a sustainable American presence on the Moon and deep space missions to Mars and beyond.”

... For example, DARPA is working on the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO), formerly known as “Reactor on a Rocket (ROAR).” DRACO “will develop and demonstrate a High-Assay LowEnriched Uranium (HALEU) nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system.”

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/darpa-doubles-dough-for-nuclear-powered-cislunar-rocket/

The new rocket would allow the US military to operate spacecraft in cislunar space, which DARPA’s budget documents call the “new high-ground” that is “in danger of being defined by the adversary.”

Senior Air Force and DoD officials are increasingly pushing the need for the United States to expand its military space activities to cislunar space to counter China — which has a robust civil lunar exploration program that many in the US national security community suspect is a cover for military ambitions.

NASA is working on similar nuclear thermal propulsion rockets using low-enriched uranium. ... NASA is looking at enrichment levels between 5 and 20 percent, closer to commercial reactors than to military systems.

Both Russia and Chinese also are working on nuclear propulsion for spacecraft. “The use of nuclear power in space is something that the international community does recognize as a very important and enabling capability. Of course we use it, the Russians use it, the Chinese use it. The Russians have announced plans, a preliminary design, for a very powerful space tug. So, among the major space countries this is definitely a topic of interest.”

... by 2030, SPD-6 envisions development of “advanced radioisotope power systems to enable survivable services and extended robotic exploration” on the Moon, Mars and beyond.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1490 on: December 17, 2020, 10:34:20 AM »
UK Nuclear generation set to have another big fall will only a fortnight to go.
https://infogram.com/british-electricity-since-2012-1g502y9z1okdpjd

Down from 65TWh to 47TWh in less than 5 years.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1491 on: December 31, 2020, 05:41:50 PM »
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/30/inviting-nuclear-disaster/

Quote
The NRC will be holding a webinar on January 21 to consider the extending of nuclear plant operating licenses to 100 years. As its announcement is headed: “PUBLIC MEETING ON DEVELOPMENT OF GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS TO SUPPORT LICENSE RENEWAL FOR 100 YEARS OF PLANT OPERATION.”

Quote
The report is titled “Criteria and Planning Guidance for Ex-Plant Harvesting to Support Subsequent License Renewal.”

It “was publicly posted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to its website in December 2017,” relates Gunter, “as well as to the websites of the Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information and the International Atomic Energy Commission’s International Nuclear Information System.”

But then Gunter attended a public meeting at the NRC’s headquarters in Rockville, Maryland on September 26, 2018 on operating license extensions “and I started asking questions citing the report” of the year before. The NRC officials there “were quite surprised.”

And the NRC “wiped all three websites of the report.”

“It is crazy,” declares Robert Alvarez

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1492 on: January 01, 2021, 01:42:51 AM »
O dear.

"Exceedingly high radiation levels found inside crippled reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant were labeled by nuclear regulators as an “extremely serious” challenge to the shutdown process and overall decommissioning of the site."

"a huge amount of radioactive materials apparently had attached to shield plugs of the containment vessels in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors."

"10 sieverts per hour, a lethal dose for anyone who spends even an hour in the vicinity,"

" would make it exceptionally difficult for workers to move the shield plugs"

"A shield plug, made of reinforced concrete, is circular in shape and measures about 12 meters in diameter ... a triple-layer structure, with each layer about 60 centimeters thick ... above the containment vessel like a lid "

" removal of nuclear fuel debris will be postponed to 2022 or later, rather than the initially scheduled 2021, due to a delay in the development of equipment to carry out the work."

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14071742

Too cheap to meter !

sidd


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1493 on: January 01, 2021, 02:41:55 PM »
O dear.

"Exceedingly high radiation levels found inside crippled reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant were labeled by nuclear regulators as an “extremely serious” challenge to the shutdown process and overall decommissioning of the site."

"a huge amount of radioactive materials apparently had attached to shield plugs of the containment vessels in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors."

"10 sieverts per hour, a lethal dose for anyone who spends even an hour in the vicinity,"

" would make it exceptionally difficult for workers to move the shield plugs"

"A shield plug, made of reinforced concrete, is circular in shape and measures about 12 meters in diameter ... a triple-layer structure, with each layer about 60 centimeters thick ... above the containment vessel like a lid "

" removal of nuclear fuel debris will be postponed to 2022 or later, rather than the initially scheduled 2021, due to a delay in the development of equipment to carry out the work."

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14071742

Too cheap to meter !

sidd

A significant amount of the contaminated debri will eventually end up in the ocean won't it ?

vox_mundi

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1494 on: January 01, 2021, 04:10:23 PM »
Fukushima: Japan 'to release contaminated water into sea'
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54566978

Japan is to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, media reports say.

Environmental and fishing groups oppose the idea but many scientists say the risk it would pose is low.

The release of more than a million tonnes of water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, would start in 2022 at the earliest, according to Japanese media outlets including national dailies the Nikkei and the Yomiuri Shimbun.

The water would be diluted inside the plant before release so it is 40 times less concentrated, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, with the whole process taking 30 years.

-----------------------------------------

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What’s a little fallout huh? Have a nice day!

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1495 on: January 02, 2021, 12:22:30 AM »
I often see proponents of nuclear power propose a world spanning buildout of reactors to decarbonize energy. And I am often tempted to pose them a smaller challerge first, so that they may show their competence.

It's quite simple: first clean up fukushima, and not just by dumping it into the pacific or waiting until sea rise swallows the site.

Then perhaps we may trust them to build thousands of new reactors. But if they cant even clean up their own shit, why should anybody believe that they can manage a hugely more complex task ?

sidd



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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1496 on: January 03, 2021, 12:11:52 PM »
Agreed,

Also complete the decommissioning of e.g. Sellafield and present the final cost breakdown,

Oh, and the small matter of a permanent safe storage site for the waste.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1497 on: January 04, 2021, 02:27:41 AM »
There's a buncha places need cleanup. Hanford for another.

The nuclear industry has been shitting all over the world for decades. (As of course have others, but this thread is about nuclear power ...)

sidd


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1498 on: January 04, 2021, 09:38:17 AM »
I am not a fan of nuclear power but many of the US cleanup issues are made impossible by anti-nuclear groups. I know a number of people who work cleaning up the Hanford nuclear site. They agree that 98% of the clean up would have been completed a decade or more ago. As with all clean up 100% is not achievable. The exact level to clean it up to is a balance between resources and how clean is good enough. The last little bit gets more and more expensive. That is a different argument I don't want to get into. The plan is to imbed the majority of the material there in glass. It does not solve where to store it but it does prevent future leaks. My point is at least Hanford in particular pollutes more and more and costs rise each year because anti nuclear people do not want even that action taken. Several tanks have leaked into the Colombia river so those assholes can make a stronger political point. Hanford is different than most other sites because the waste their is from a mixture of different sources including different military experiments bombs a nd reactors. To make matters worse much of it is a toxic brew even if it was not radioactive. The mix is very corrosive. High level waste from power stations is a relatively uniform mix of spent fuel. I am not upset the anti nuclear lobby is fighting against nuclear. I agree it is a problem. I am very pissed that they are making the problem worse. I don't support new nuclear but I do think we should continue to run those we have until the end of their useful life or we have displaced fossil fuels on the grid.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #1499 on: January 04, 2021, 11:02:53 AM »
In a risk assessment where Risk =  Probability x Consequence, storing nuclear waste has two problems:

The Consequence of a leak will always be very high

The timescale is so long – decades or centuries - so the Probability is difficult to ascertain, it’s beyond the foreseeable future.
"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton