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Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #600 on: April 11, 2018, 09:30:49 PM »
We need to cease using the term "baseload".  When we say baseload that drives our thinking toward previous century technologies.

Instead we need to be talking about the least expensive way to supply demand with low carbon energy.  Baseload is simply the lowest demand point of the year, nothing more.  Substitute "minimum demand".


Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #601 on: April 11, 2018, 10:04:03 PM »
We need to cease using the term "baseload".  When we say baseload that drives our thinking toward previous century technologies.

Instead we need to be talking about the least expensive way to supply demand with low carbon energy.  Baseload is simply the lowest demand point of the year, nothing more.  Substitute "minimum demand".

Or perhaps the new “baseload“ varies by day, and equals available stored energy + forecast solar and wind generation for the next 24 hours?
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #602 on: April 11, 2018, 10:15:02 PM »
That's the expect next day demand.

We need to be thinking along the lines of "How do we deliver supply to meet demand between 3am and 4 am  (or 3:0001 and 3:0002 am).

That leads us to look to find the least expensive supply, lock it in, and look for any additional demand to be covered.  It also will get us thinking about "Can we shift some demand out of these hours/time blocks that are more expensive to supply and to a less expensive time?".

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #603 on: April 12, 2018, 05:12:21 AM »
"each minute for the next minute"

spot market blocks are by hour.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #604 on: April 12, 2018, 06:15:26 AM »
"Maybe where you live they are"

I have heard of half hour blocks being proposed, but not yet implemented but i have never heard of a spot electric market in minute intervals anywhere in the world. A citation would be nice.

sidd


Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #605 on: April 12, 2018, 07:00:19 AM »
Quote
The real-time market system dispatches power plants every 15 and 5 minutes, although under certain grid conditions the ISO can dispatch for a single 1-minute interval.

http://www.caiso.com/market/Pages/MarketProcesses.aspx

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #606 on: April 12, 2018, 07:04:19 AM »
Quote
I'm trying to politely point out you don't know what you're talking about today nor into the future.

1) The past does not automatically predetermine the future.
2) That a Ford Explorer 4WD (?) was designed dangerously with their tires and suspension does not mean all other 4WDs have the same issues.
3)  Your knowledge is clearly not up to date.
4) Your comments are surely based purtely on the US - a generally dysfunctional model not only in regard Nuclear - it does not follow all other nations are as incompetent nor as dishonest as the US and the way it's businesses operate are. Enron was a US Company following US Regualtions and monitored by US regulators.
5) Other nations are not like the US.
 

OK, Thomas, educate me.

Where in the Western Hemisphere is the cost of nuclear electricity dropped?  (Don't try to answer the question with Chinese overnight cost.) 

What makes you think that Gen-future nuclear will be able to close the very large price gap between nuclear and wind/solar enough to get nuclear back into the game?

tombond

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #607 on: April 12, 2018, 07:10:38 AM »
The United Arab Emiratis (UAE) invested A$26 billion to build 4 Korean nuclear reactors totalling 5.6GW by 2020.  With a capacity factor of 90% these reactors will generate 44TWh of low carbon electricity annually for 60 years.

 http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-arab-emirates.aspx

Australia spent A$57 billion installing 7GW of solar and 4GW of wind and with capacity factors of just 17% and 33% respectively will supply just 23TWh annually.
 
http://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-wind-solar-investment-hits-record-high-as-neg-threatens-to-push-it-off-a-cliff-39836/
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australia-has-potential-to-be-wind-world-leader-20171212-p4yxmj.html

http://pv-map.apvi.org.au/analyses

https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-my-solar-cells-produce/

So in round terms Australia spent twice as much as the UAE, to generate half as much low carbon electricity.

As wind and sun is unreliable, most of our electricity is still supplied by coal giving CO2 emissions near 800g/kWh, one of the highest in the world.
 
France has just completed 30 years of continuous low carbon electricity generation after replacing fossil fuels with nuclear and reducing emissions by 80%, from 500g/kWh in 1971 to 100g/kWh in 1987. 
In 2017 French emissions were 74g/kWh, one of the lowest in the world.

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/16058-drax-cms-production/documents/Report_PDF---Q3-2017.pdf

http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/chiffres-cles-en

oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #608 on: April 12, 2018, 07:16:00 AM »
tombond, a couple of major bugs in your comment:
For UAE you are talking about future spending, while with Australia you are talking about past prices. Big difference, as solar and wind prices are plummeting as I'm sure you know.
For nuclear, maintenance cost is very high, compared to solar and wind. Somehow your calculation only takes the upfront cost into account.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #609 on: April 12, 2018, 07:23:17 AM »
Thanks for the CAISO ref. I take it 5 minute market  is from the spinning reserve(these days thats batteries too!)  block ? PJM doesnt trust spinning reserve except on the hour i dont think. ERCOT might.

sidd

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #610 on: April 12, 2018, 07:28:30 AM »
The UAE uses extremely cheap labor from Bangladesh and Pakistan.  They use cheap engineers from other countries.  We can't match those labor costs in Europe and the US.

Capacity factor is only one part of the cost of generated electricity. 

         The cost of electricity = total cost / total electricity produced.

Nuclear does have a higher CF (90%) than wind (mid 40% and increasing and solar (30% for single-axis tracking) but the installed cost of nuclear is several times higher per watt.

The non-subsidized cost of onshore wind in the US is now under $0.03/kWh.  The non-subsidized cost of PV solar in sunny places is dropping to $0.04/kWh.  If Vogtle came online today the cost of electricity would be higher than $0.13/kWh. 

If Hinkley Point came online today the contracted price would be above $0.13/kWh and would rise over the next 35 years along with inflation.

Both Vogtle and Hinkley Point prices are subsidized.

France now spends about $0.08/kWh to maintain its paid off reactors.

We have yet to see a reactor last 50 years.  Keeping one online for 60 years is speculative but even if we could there would be a very expensive 30 year amortization period to finish before we reached the point where the cost of the electricity would be based on only operating costs.  And opex costs for paid off reactors are higher than paid off costs for wind and solar.

We should expect new wind farms to last at least 30 years (solar longer).  If we got only 30 years from a wind farm we'd be looking at 20 years at less than 3 cents and 10 years at less than 1 cent.  That averages to just over 2 cents per kWh.  At the end of 30 years replace the hardware and get another 30 years of cheap electricity.

30 years of 13 cents or more and 30 years of 1 cent = 7 cents per kWh.  At least twice the cost of wind.

I will deal with the intermediacy of wind and solar in a new post later this week.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #611 on: April 12, 2018, 07:34:08 AM »
Thanks for the CAISO ref. I take it 5 minute market  is from the spinning reserve(these days thats batteries too!)  block ? PJM doesnt trust spinning reserve except on the hour i dont think. ERCOT might.

sidd

In the NREL study of providing 80% or 90% of US electricity with wind and solar they suggested that moving away from one hour sale blocks would greatly assist wind and solar penetration.  Hour blocks were established in the days of doing stuff manually.  We could sell in partial second blocks if desired due to today's information processing ability.

We're starting to see modest amounts of storage included in new wind and solar farms to allow those farms to sell blocks of electricity and have no problem delivering.  Without storage farms sometimes had to purchase expensive power from the grid in order to complete delivery.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #612 on: April 12, 2018, 08:57:46 AM »
How old are you, Thomas?

Neven

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #613 on: April 12, 2018, 10:03:32 AM »
Thomas, I would like to ask you to change your tone, and reduce the kind of comments posted below, as they come across as arrogant and condescending, which is toxic for a forum. And that goes for the political threads as well. A bit of sarcasm or frustration is fine, a barrage of implications that other people are stupid/uninformed isn't.

There are thousands of experts in this field who are already doing the thinking based on their massively high degree of knowledge over above your own and everyone else here (?).

"We" don't need to think of anything.

(...)

I'm suggesting your ideas here are a decade behind the times. Highly qualified experts in this field are already on the job.

(...)

I'm trying to politely point out you don't know what you're talking about today nor into the future.

(...)

I suggested before - politely - that you need to go do some research Bob. That remains the case. Your choice. I am not going to argue nor spoon feed people who do not want to be helped.

(...)

Suddenly it appears I knew more than others did. No surprise to me. I had already done the work to educate myself better about the facts. Glad to be a motivating factor for others to do the same.   ;D

But it is not a 'competition' when everyone can come out a winner! There are no medals for being First when it comes to True Knowledge. OK?

(...)

Please stop exaggerating and providing incorrect information about this subject. Please do some up-to-date research on it instead.

(...)

I just did.

I suggest you run with that and see where it takes you.
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oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #614 on: April 12, 2018, 01:29:26 PM »
Thank you Neven.

Neven

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #615 on: April 12, 2018, 02:24:19 PM »
I'm just saying that even though you cannot have complete control over how people interpret your words, there are certain things you can do to prevent the worst interpretations. Your exchange with Bob Wallace had a bit of a condescending tone, that was both unnecessary and unproductive.

That's all, no big deal. I appreciate your presence very much, as diversity is good for everyone involved.
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Neven

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #616 on: April 12, 2018, 02:30:36 PM »
To get back on-topic again: It's been a long time since I looked into GenIV nuclear, about 10 years or so, when I concluded that it was the only acceptable form of nuclear. I remembered that I really liked the aspect of scalability, ie that smaller, mobile modules could be built for residential areas, etc (I believe Toshiba was working on that). Can someone give me a brief update on how far has the technology progressed since then?

And likewise for Bob Wallace's question: How will Gen-future nuclear be able to close the very large price gap between nuclear and wind/solar enough to get nuclear back into the game?
The enemy is within
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numerobis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #617 on: April 12, 2018, 02:50:41 PM »
Thomas: google “Hinckley power price” and google helpfully quote for you:
Quote
EDF has negotiated a guaranteed fixed price – a "strike price"– for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices),[24][72] which will be adjusted (linked to inflation) during the construction period and over the subsequent 35 years tariff period

And there you find the $0.13/kWh that Bob cited. Depends on exchange rates of course.

Hinkley and Vogtle are two gen-3 plants currently under construction. It’s surprising you wouldn’t recognize their names given your advanced nuclear power education. They’ve been in the news a lot over their massive cost overruns.

A few other places are building gen-3 reactors (China, Korea, likely others). They’re also facing overruns. US regulators are not to blame for this worldwide consilience of cost overruns; the US government just isn’t that powerful.

Refurbishing gen-2 reactors has been equally prone to cost overruns, and those are supposed to be well understood. There’s something hard about construction project management when it comes to nuclear versus gas, wind, and solar. The latest huge coal-fired plants have the same problem, and so do subways and hospitals and so on. I’m suspicious it’s just that humans generally suck at budgeting for large construction projects, where everything needs to work together. Solar and wind even when large are much more modular: one idiot can only screw up so much.

The designs for gen-4 were just around the corner 10-15 years ago (I was involved in a DOE funding proposal that was supposed to help, back in grad school) but it seems they remain there still. There’s a few prototypes operational. Mostly fast breeders, but China is lighting up a pebble bed this year or next as well.

Cost estimates for the designs once they’re in deployment (“nth of a kind” cost) start at on par with today’s solar+battery bids, and go up from there, depending on the design. Again, that’s if all goes perfectly well. So in a decade or more after building prototype plants and developing supply chains and learning from experience, we could start construction on plants that will cost about what solar and battery do today.
http://energyforhumanity.org/en/resources/reports-en/study-finds-advanced-reactors-will-have-competitive-costs/

Meanwhile, solar and battery both are getting cheaper fast, along with wind (which is cheaper than solar).

So, best of luck to those gen-4 designs.

gerontocrat

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #618 on: April 12, 2018, 03:22:20 PM »
Back in the 50's and 60's when the UK nuclear energy programme really got going we were promised that the electricity from nuclear power would be so cheap that it would not be worthwhile to charge for it. Heavy sigh.

Back in July 2016 this was in the Financial Times:-
Subsidy for Hinkley nuclear power station quintuples to £30bn
Estimate of government support rises five times


Things have got worse since then.

All because EDF get a guaranteed price proofed against inflation.
The consumer gets stuffed because this guaranteed price means that EDF is protected against  the recent falling cost of wholesale electricity (which could be falling even faster if this crappy Government of ours hadn't stiffed the solar power and onshore wind industry). And of course no benefit to the consumer at all from all the technological improvements in solar, wind, and batteries over the next 40 years.

Add to that on a regular basis we are fed the shambolic shambles that is the EDF building Hinkley C design power stations in Finland and in their own back garden - France.

Nor have we forgotten Chernobyl and Fukushima.

And our Government is currently trying to bribe local communities to accept a place to dump all the nuclear crap accumulated over the last 60 years. Latest estimate £12 billion (USD 15 billion) to dig a big hole in the ground in a geologically safe (?) place.

So no wonder we are leery of it. No real need for it so why do it?

UPDATE FROM THE TIMES JUST ONE YEAR LATER
Hinkley Point cost could soar to £50bn
Emily Gosden, Energy Editor
July 19 2017, 12:01am,
The Times


Quote
Building work at the Hinkley Point C site in Somerset. The project may end up costing more than eight times higher than the original £6 billion estimate.

The storm surrounding the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant was set to break out anew today after it emerged last night that the cost to consumers could mushroom to £50 billion.

The new official estimate is more than eight times higher than the £6 billion that the National Audit Office estimated the plant would cost consumers when ministers first struck a subsidy deal to support it in 2013.

The spark that ignited the explosion in the estimate is a decline in electricity prices, which in turn have hugely inflated the subsidies that the project is expected to require.

20 billion quid (28 billion iron men) down the tubes in one year. And our Government tells us that they are the ones keeping our economy safe and strong.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2018, 03:32:44 PM by gerontocrat »
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Sciguy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #619 on: April 12, 2018, 06:51:16 PM »
To get back on-topic again: It's been a long time since I looked into GenIV nuclear, about 10 years or so, when I concluded that it was the only acceptable form of nuclear. I remembered that I really liked the aspect of scalability, ie that smaller, mobile modules could be built for residential areas, etc (I believe Toshiba was working on that). Can someone give me a brief update on how far has the technology progressed since then?

And likewise for Bob Wallace's question: How will Gen-future nuclear be able to close the very large price gap between nuclear and wind/solar enough to get nuclear back into the game?

Gen IV nuclear is still in the developmental stage.  In the US, deployment is still 10 to 15 years away: 
Quote
Accordingly, the Department has provided substantial support to the development of light water-cooled SMRs, which are under licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and will likely be deployed in the next 10-15 years.

ref: https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors

There is also a Generation IV International Forum (GIF) looking at six different potential Gen IV reactor types.  In December 2017, the GIF stated:

Quote
At least four of the systems have significant operating experience already in most respects of their design, which provides a good basis for further R&D and is likely to mean that they can be in commercial operation before 2030.

More info here: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/generation-iv-nuclear-reactors.aspx

Given the rapid decrease in prices for solar, wind and batteries, I doubt that Gen IV reactors will be deployed before they become priced out of the market.

oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #620 on: April 12, 2018, 07:37:57 PM »
Thomas, does any of these links discuss cost estimates? Upfront and maintenance.

Sciguy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #621 on: April 12, 2018, 08:18:45 PM »
NuScale Power is hoping to have a set of 12 50 MW SMRs operational in Utah 2026.  They need additional investors though.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-10/first-small-scale-nuclear-reactor-may-be-just-eight-years-away

Quote
NuScale Power LLC, which is leading global efforts to build a so-called small modular reactor, is seeking as much as $120 million in equity investment to accelerate design of a matching power generator. The company has already spent more than $700 million, and has “hundreds of millions of dollars more to spend,” Chief Financial Officer Jay Surina said in an interview on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in New York.

“We could use another investor or two,” he said. Backed by Fluor Corp., NuScale is casting a wide net that includes “deep-pocketed individual investors,” Surina said, noting it’s “too early yet for private equity.”

Sciguy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #622 on: April 12, 2018, 08:23:55 PM »
There are also people who think SMRs wont be commercially viable:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/interest-in-small-modular-nuclear-grows#gs.6semL=g

Quote
In the December 2017 edition of the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute Bulletin, for example, Canadian academic Professor M.V. Ramana provided a detailed argument for why SMRs could never be a viable technology.

Nuclear plants in general require high levels of capital, he noted, and high construction costs mean the electricity they provide ends up being more expensive than coal, gas and, more recently, wind andsolar 

SMRs may be able to overcome the first problem, said Ramana, who is a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.

But SMRs could end up with even higher energy costs because the smaller reactors can't take advantage of economies of scale unless they're manufactured “by the thousands, even under very optimistic assumptions about rates of learning.”

Experience indicates such rates of learning may be rare in the nuclear industry. In France and the U.S., according to Ramana, reactor construction costs have historically risen rather than falling.

Also, mass production would need the industry to settle on a single SMR design. As of 2016 there were 48 listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Finally, said Ramana, for all the interest in SMRs, no country has yet got behind the technology enough for it to be commercialized. This likely indicates demand for the reactors is not as solid as proponents imagine.

Sciguy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #623 on: April 12, 2018, 08:38:38 PM »
In the article I linked to above, it linked to a more detailed report available here:  http://esi.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/esi-bulletins/esibulletinvol10-issue-6-(1).pdf?sfvrsn=2)

The report has about two pages on the recent past failures to commercialize SMRs.  Here are the relevant paragraphs:

Quote
There is a further hurdle to be overcome before these large numbers of SMRs can be built. For a company to invest in a factory to manufacture reactors, it would have to be confident that there is a market for them. This has not been the case and hence no company has invested large sums of its own money to commercialise SMRs. An example is the Westinghouse Electric Company, which worked on two SMR designs, and tried to get funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). When it failed in that effort, Westinghouse stopped working on SMRs and decided to focus its efforts on marketing the AP1000 reactor and the decommissioning business. Explaining this decision, Danny Roderick, then president and CEO of Westinghouse, announced: “The problem I have with SMRs is not the technology, it’s not the deployment -- it’s that there’s no customers... The worst thing to do is get ahead of the market”.4

Given this state of affairs, it should not be surprising that no SMR has been commercialised. Timelines have been routinely set back. In 2001, for example, a DOE report on prevalent SMR designs concluded that “the most technically mature small modular reactor (SMR) designs and concepts have the potential to be economical and could be made available for deployment before the end of the decade, provided that certain technical and licensing issues are addressed”. Nothing of that sort happened; there is no SMR design available for deployment in the United States so far.

Similar delays have been experienced in other countries too. In Russia, the first SMR that is expected to be deployed is the KLT-40S, which is based on the design of reactors used in the small fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers that Russia has operated for decades. This programme, too, has been delayed by more than a decade and the estimated costs have ballooned.5

South Korea even licensed an SMR for construction in 2012 but no utility has been interested in constructing one, most likely because of the realisation that the reactor is too expensive on a per-unit generating-capacity basis. Even the World Nuclear Association stated: “KAERI planned to build a 90 MWe demonstration plant to operate from 2017, but this is not practical or economic in South Korea” (my emphasis). Likewise, China’s plans for constructing a series of High Temperature Reactors (HTR-PM) appear to have been cancelled, in part because the cost of generating electricity at these is significantly higher than the generation cost at standard-sized light water reactors.

The final paragraph in that article states:

Quote
Meanwhile, other sources of electricity supply, in particular combinations of renewables and storage technologies such as batteries, are fast becoming cheaper. It is likely that they will become cheap enough to produce reliable and affordable electricity, even for these remote and small communities never mind larger, grid-connected areas, well before SMRs are deployable, let alone economically competitive.

TerryM

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #624 on: April 12, 2018, 10:00:18 PM »
All of this is far above my pay grade.
A few thoughts with no links.  :-[


I believe Canada has a few reactors that have, or had been running for many decades, possibly in excess of 60 years?


I've heard of Ontario paying exorbitant prices for very short period electrical surpluses. It may have been by the minute, possibly by the second, but certainly not by the hour.


The reactors I drive by near Toronto don't have "pressure domes", yet they're close to millions of people. Is this because of safer technology being used, or an example of very careless regulatory bodies?


Terry

Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #625 on: April 13, 2018, 12:50:09 AM »

...
The reactors I drive by near Toronto don't have "pressure domes", yet they're close to millions of people. Is this because of safer technology being used, or an example of very careless regulatory bodies?


Terry

Maybe the containment domes are hidden inside a nice square building, so everyone driving by isn’t thinking, “I wish I didn’t live so close to a nuclear reactor.”  ;)
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

ghoti

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #626 on: April 13, 2018, 01:19:14 AM »
Quote
I believe Canada has a few reactors that have, or had been running for many decades, possibly in excess of 60 years?
Canadian reactors actually have had terribly short lives before having to be shutdown for refurbishment. Candu refurbishment seems to take tons of money and many years. I think the Bruce reactors took 18 years of refurbishment. Point Lepreau needed 4 years of refurbishment after running for about 10 years and needed refurbishment again in less than 10 years.

The newer reactors in Ontario have a better record - they require major refurbishment at closer to 30 years of age. The Darlington refurbishment is planned to run from 2016-2026.

Funny how capacity factors for nukes never count the many years of shutdown they need for maintenance.

oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #627 on: April 13, 2018, 02:15:32 AM »
The final paragraph in that article states:
Quote
Meanwhile, other sources of electricity supply, in particular combinations of renewables and storage technologies such as batteries, are fast becoming cheaper. It is likely that they will become cheap enough to produce reliable and affordable electricity, even for these remote and small communities never mind larger, grid-connected areas, well before SMRs are deployable, let alone economically competitive.
Beyond technological hurdles, which I assume are eventually solvable, I think this is THE issue - by 2026 (assuming all goes according to plan), this is not going to be competitive in any way with renewables. That huge reactor 150 million km away has got the market cornered.

TerryM

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #628 on: April 13, 2018, 02:16:12 AM »
Thanks
As I mentioned earlier, not a subject I have much familiarity with. I had thought that the reactor(s) that Harper shut down, the ones that were supplying radio isotopes, had been running for a very long time.
As a relatively new Canadian,despite my childhood here, I wasn't aware of the "refurbishment" issue at all.
Terry

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #629 on: April 13, 2018, 06:56:23 AM »
Quote
1) Nuclear does have a higher CF (90%) than wind (mid 40% and increasing and solar (30% for single-axis tracking) but the installed cost of nuclear is several times higher per watt.

Where? When? Got substantive refs?

2) If Vogtle came online today the cost of electricity would be higher than $0.13/kWh.  If Hinkley Point came online today the contracted price would be above $0.13/kWh and would rise over the next 35 years along with inflation.

Where and when do these IFs exist? Got substantive refs and proof these assertions are correct? No one is building Gen II reactors anymore. Superseded engineering and tech is not and cannot be relevant to any modern day discussion about Nuclear. It's a distraction from reality imho.

3) France now spends about $0.08/kWh to maintain its paid off reactors.

Got substantive refs?


4) We have yet to see a reactor last 50 years.

Fukushima reactors came online in 1971. @40 years the Tsunami destroyed them. If not for that they would have been running until ~2030 making it 59 years.

Beznau 1 is the first commercial nuclear power reactor in Switzerland. Operational since 1969 to today. That makes it 49 years in constant operation.

Modern Gen IV reactors will also operate for 50+ with no radioactive safety or meltdown issues or the need for extensive radioactive storage of waste. They also use a fraction of radioactive fuels than what existing Gen II+, Gen III or Gen III+ reactors do. That's another lifelong cost reduction. 

Gen IV reactors are in fact able to destroy (make totally safe) both weapons grade and old nuclear reactor grade radioactive fuel waste and related materials. 

Please stop exaggerating and providing incorrect information about this subject. Please do some up-to-date research on it instead.

1. CFs and installed cost

US onshore wind farms brought online post 2013 have CFs averaging in the low 40%.



The average CF for solar in 2016 was 27.2%.  The average includes fixed mount and single-axis tracking.  (EIA)

"LBNL finds that the addition of tracking systems boost capacity factors by 3-5% percentage points, which put the average capacity factor for projects in California using tracking coming in above 30%."

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/09/20/trackers-dominate-u-s-utility-scale-solar-wcharts/

Wind Onshore 
 $1.53 Installed Cost/Watt
 DOE 2016 Wind Technologies Market Report

PV Solar
$1.00 Installed Cost/Watt
$1.07 With Tracking
U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmark: Q3 2017
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68925.pdf


CCNG
$0.97 Installed Cost/Watt
U.S. EIA
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26532


Nuclear
$6.94 Installed Cost/Watt based on Vogtle previous current cost estimate of $15.5 billion for 2,234 MW.  That price has now risen to about $9.31 billion in 2014 dollars due to further timeline overruns so now about $18.6 billion = $8.33 Installed Cost

2. Hinkley Point strike price - someone else has already answered that. 

If started today Hinkley would cost 13.3 cents per kWh.  If we average 3% inflation for the next 35 years the cost would rise to 36.3 per kWh.  An average cost of 23 cents per kWh.

US wind PPAs are being signed for a fixed price of under 2 cents per kWh for a 20 to 25 year span.  No inflation.


3. Operating cost for France's nuclear plants

“Production costs from the existing fleet are heading higher over the medium-term,” France’s Cour des Comptes said in a report to parliament published today.

The report, which updates findings in a January 2012 report, said that in 2012 the Court calculated the cost of production of the current fleet for 2010, which amounted to EUR 49.5 per megawatt-hour.

Using the same method for the year 2013 the cost was EUR 59.8/MWh, an increase of 20.6 percent over three years.

http://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2014/05/27/france-s-state-auditor-says-edf-s-nuclear-costs-are-increasing


 EUR 59.8 = $81.37/MWh  $0.082/kWh  About $0.08/kWh

4.  Lifespan of nuclear reactors.

My statement was that no reactor has yet operated 50 years.  Beznau 1 and Oyster Creek will turn 49 this year.  Oyster Creek will close down at the end of this year prior to its 50th birthday.

Whether the Fukushima reactors would have made it to age 60 is speculation. 

Generation IV reactors are ideas.  There are no constructed and operational GenIV reactors.  Those of us who have lived longer than commercial nuclear have watched nuclear promise new designs which would solve nuclear's problem.  (Which is why I asked - you seemed to have the "enthusiasm" of youth but not the historical knowledge.)

The pebble bed reactor was suppose to eliminate the possibility of meltdowns but Germany came close to melting one. 

The AP1000 was the design breakthrough which would allow modular production in factories and onsite assembly.  The AP1000 has been a spectacular failure in South Carolina, Georgia and China.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #630 on: April 13, 2018, 07:01:09 AM »
"Germany came close to melting one.  "

Didn't one catch fire ? that was my first thought aboute graphite, you have to be very sure that air dont get in.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #631 on: April 13, 2018, 07:13:41 AM »
Quote
I'll be waiting patiently for the multiple studies and academic research to keep coming out on the longer term maintenance costs and the maximum life-cycle of already installed wind and solar farms before assuming it's not an issue in the near future.

In the US we are now in the process (almost completed) of replacing our first wind farm, Altamont Pass, turbines with modern higher hub height turbines after 30 years of service.  It should be safe to assume that modern turbines will last a decade or two longer as engineers will have had 30 years to improve design.  Advances in sensor technology makes it possible to spot emerging problems before they create any serious damage which would drive up operating costs.  Lidar allows turbines to detect upcoming large shifts in wind speed and to adjust the blade angle before strong gusts can put strain on blades and mounts.

Currently opex for wind farms runs about $0.01/kWh.

Our oldest solar array is now about 40 years old.  At age 35 each of the panels was checked.  Average output was 96% of what the panels outputted when new.

That's probably high for panels in general.  The NREL states that panels manufactured after 2000 should lose between 0.1% and 0.5% per year with higher losses in areas with lots of wind/snow loading and/or high UV levels.

A panel losing 0.5% per year should still be outputting 75% at age 50. 

A panel losing 0.1% per year should still be outputting 95% at age 50.

Opex for solar farms is under $0.01/kWh.

Wind and solar are cheap to install.  They have significant lifespans.  And they have low operating costs.  That's the challenge for nuclear energy, to close that very large cost gap.  If nuclear cannot cut its cost by 75% or so then there is no rational future for nuclear energy.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #632 on: April 13, 2018, 08:41:44 AM »
Thomas, do you realize the enormous cost span between nuclear and renewables?  Do you really think there's a way to cut the cost of nuclear energy by 75%?

And we cannot build reactors in Europe and the US for what they can be built in China. 

Average wage for an engineer in China = $15,065 per year.
Average wage for an engineer in Korea = $43,009 per year.
Average wage for an engineer in the US = $88,699 per year,

Average wage for a construction worker in China = $7,944.
Average wage for a construction worker in Korea = $25,856.
Average wage for a construction worker in the US = $35,750

If China could build reactors inexpensively in the West then they would have bid for the Hinkley Point job.  China is partnering with France for those very expensive reactors.

And don't confuse overnight costs with installed costs.  The largest factor driving the cost of nuclear energy so high is the cost of capital financing during construction.

A reactor built 20 years ago is not a GenIV reactor.  It's a 10MW research project which seems to have been so unimpressive that no one else has built something similar during the ensuing 20 years.  (I made absolutely no claim about the AP1000 being a GenIV.  It is not.)





Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #633 on: April 13, 2018, 09:22:04 AM »
Thomas, if nuclear can cut its cost very significantly then it can get back in the game.  But based on today's costs of nuclear and renewables there's no economic reason to build any more reactors.

If you think there's some sort of a GenIV reactor coming that might close that gap, fine.  But we can not afford to wait to see if that is the case.  We must move now, and move faster, to replace fossil fuels with low carbon energy.

If a GenIV idea does pan out then nuclear could get back in the game but that's likely to be ten to twenty years from now.  The first producer of low cost electricity would have to be built and run some number of years to make sure that it was safe to build more.  First versions of pretty much anything take longer to complete.  It's that 'unknown unknown' thing....

Neven

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #634 on: April 13, 2018, 10:32:30 AM »
Based on today's costs of nuclear and renewables there's no economic reason to build any more reactors.

Could there be reasons other than economic to keep developing and building them? I don't know, things like spaceships to Mars. What's Elon Musk's take, if he has any?

edit: All I could find from Musk, was some talk about being in favour of nuclear in general, but more about fusion than GenIV specifically. Nothing about how nuclear might be useful for space travel/colonisation, but I didn't watch everything.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2018, 12:12:03 PM by Neven »
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oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #635 on: April 13, 2018, 11:16:08 AM »
Except for the 10MW one in China been running for ~20 years.   

...the already approved building of multiple new GenIV HTR Nuclear Reactors from the IAEA down that are 100% safe meltdown proof reactors,  capable of electricity supply, of efficient low cost hydrogen production for transport etc, low cost sustainable power for desal plants 24/7, and nuclear waste processing of nuclear waste, and modular designed manufactured in China and put together like a Lego set anywhere in the world - including regions where PWR old school reactors are unsafe - eg Fukushima.

Within months the first full scale HTR-PM will be fired up and connected to the grid before the end of 2018 if all goes well. On time (except for Fukushima caused delays by the IAEA/China Govt Regulators), and on budget (pretty much).

Last I looked they're building 6 for under $16 billion - and that's with them being the first of their kind ever - which naturally incurs extra costs and careful slow paced planning - that will not apply to the ones they have already sold to the Saudis and other nations - and the next 40-50 planned to be operating by 2035ish (?).
As the Wikipedia page on Gen IV reactors does not list the 10MW one in China, nor those 6 that are under construction, nor the HTR-PM (is this Gen IV?) to be fired up in 2018, would you kindly post specific links describing these projects?
I should also note, that as the discussion around carbon-free energy generation is first and foremost economical (once safety issues are solved), your case will be much strengthened by cost estimates of installation and maintenance of Gen IV.

This is what wiki has to say:
Quote
Generation IV reactors (Gen IV) are a set of nuclear reactor designs currently being researched for commercial applications by the Generation IV International Forum, with Technology readiness levels varying between the level requiring a demonstration, to economical competitive implementation. They are motivated by a variety of goals including improved safety, sustainability, efficiency, and cost.

The most developed Gen IV reactor design, the sodium fast reactor, has received the greatest share of funding over the years, with the principle Gen IV aspect of the design, relating in largest part to the development of a sustainable closed fuel cycle for the reactor. Amongst nuclear engineers the molten-salt reactor, the least developed and funded technology, is considered as potentially having the greatest inherent safety of the six models. While the hydrogen economy, the use of hydrogen to produce Carbon-neutral fuels, is deemed as strengthening the economic case for the two most efficient models, the high temperature reactor designs.

The majority of the 6 designs are generally not expected to be available for commercial construction until 2020–30. Presently the majority of reactors in operation around the world are considered second generation reactor systems, as the vast majority of the first generation systems were retired some time ago, and there are only a dozen or so Generation III reactors in operation as of 2014. Generation V reactors refer to reactors that are purely theoretical and are therefore not yet considered feasible in the short term, resulting in limited R&D funding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

numerobis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #636 on: April 13, 2018, 03:10:14 PM »
oren: the HTR-PM is indeed a gen-4 design. I posted some recent cost estimates upthread for the various designs.

Terry: the Canadian electricity-generating reactors are a different design than in the US. The CANDU design is a supposedly safer design, but it’s also more expensive than the already expensive PWR design that’s more common around the world.

Chalk River was not an electric power plant, its purpose was medical isotopes and research (other reactors at the site were power plants, but not this one). Harper didn’t shut it down — quite the opposite! He fired the head of the nuclear regulatory agency because she refused to let it restart, over safety concerns. He also didn’t allocate money to fix it either, or build a replacement (nor did his predecessors or successor). It apparently shut down for good only a few days ago.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #637 on: April 13, 2018, 03:45:13 PM »
The NRU at Chalk River was supposed to be replaced with newly designed Maple 1 and Maple 2 reactors. They were built by around 2000 but turned out to be unsafe to run - the design apparently didn't run in real life they way it had been modeled to in theory.

To me that's a reminder that next gen theoretically cheap and safe designs might not turn out either cheap nor safe once they are built.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #638 on: April 13, 2018, 05:31:43 PM »
Based on today's costs of nuclear and renewables there's no economic reason to build any more reactors.

Could there be reasons other than economic to keep developing and building them? I don't know, things like spaceships to Mars. What's Elon Musk's take, if he has any?

edit: All I could find from Musk, was some talk about being in favour of nuclear in general, but more about fusion than GenIV specifically. Nothing about how nuclear might be useful for space travel/colonisation, but I didn't watch everything.

There might be a need for one reactor designed to create isotopes for medical use.  I'm really not up to speed on this need but seem to understand that the reactor currently in use for that purpose may be reaching the end of its life.  Someone who knows something might step in here.

There might be some place in the world where renewables won't be the affordable solution but I've seen no one suggest where that might be.  The Solutions Project has found adequate renewable resources for the countries they've surveyed, which is most of the world's countries.

Colonies on another planet, perhaps.  One would have to compare lift costs for solar and storage vs. the weight of a small reactor.

For most of the world I don't think an economic case can be made for nuclear.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #639 on: April 13, 2018, 05:41:13 PM »
When the Chalk River reactor went had a partial meltdown President Jimmy Carter was one of the "jumpers" who was lowered into the reactor to work on stabilizing the reaction. 

At the time he was a US Navy officer working on the nuclear propulsion design for the Sea Wolf.  He, and members of his crew were sent down to the reactor "for seconds", each tasked to remove one or a few bolts before they were extracted.  He peed a radioactive stream for six months.


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #640 on: April 13, 2018, 06:54:18 PM »
Quote
I believe Canada has a few reactors that have, or had been running for many decades, possibly in excess of 60 years?
Canadian reactors actually have had terribly short lives before having to be shutdown for refurbishment. Candu refurbishment seems to take tons of money and many years. I think the Bruce reactors took 18 years of refurbishment. Point Lepreau needed 4 years of refurbishment after running for about 10 years and needed refurbishment again in less than 10 years.

The newer reactors in Ontario have a better record - they require major refurbishment at closer to 30 years of age. The Darlington refurbishment is planned to run from 2016-2026.

Funny how capacity factors for nukes never count the many years of shutdown they need for maintenance.

I don't know about the Candu reactors, but US reactors average 90% capacity factors because they only refuel once every two years and schedule the major maintenance during the refueling shutdown.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/05/11/when-should-a-nuclear-power-plant-be-refueled/#161525c93d95

Quote

An outage usually takes only 40 days, so once every two years means the plant operates just under 100% of the time – 98% in the case of this nuclear plant. When Columbia Generating Station starts up again at the end of June it will produce even more electricity, more efficiently and more reliably.

...

There are many other reasons to shut down a power plant - for maintenance, repair and replacing components - but if everything is running perfectly, you can do all of those things during the occasional refueling outage.

During the outage, more accurate ultrasonic instruments will be installed for measuring the water flow through the reactor core, producing more electricity and saving water. A new Power Range Neutron Monitoring system will be installed for better fuel use, replacing analog circuit controls with more reliable and redundant digital controls. In addition, three new 175-ton power transformers will be installed.

The benefits of these improvements will allow for a more efficient use of nuclear fuel, an increase in the overall efficiency of reactor operations, and increased equipment reliability.

A refueling outage is also very good for all the other businesses in the area. For this refueling, 1,500 new out-of-town workers will descend upon the plant to supplement the 1,100 permanent Energy Northwest employees, something that local businesses look forward to with every outage (NEI).

The outage will replace 248 of the plant’s 764 nuclear fuel assemblies (see figure). Fuel is replaced after being in the core for six years, so every two years a third of the fuel is replaced and the other two thirds are moved around to make for even burning.

Many smaller maintenance projects will occur at the same time - 13,000 separate tasks in only six weeks. Sawatzke says, “The team has worked hard and we are well prepared and ready to execute.”

If the past is any clue to the future, this outage will go smoothly and on schedule, returning this super-efficient power plant to operation in time for the Fourth of July.



Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #641 on: April 13, 2018, 07:10:10 PM »
Capacity factor is not impacted by when the reactor shuts down for maintenance and refueling.  Routine maintenance and refueling is scheduled during low demand seasons because that is when the grid can easiestly go without that reactor's input.  Between scheduled shutdowns and breakdowns US reactors are offline about 10% of the time.

Nuclear has a high CF in the US because nuclear takes so long to turn off and back on.  And because most US reactors are not designed to load follow.

Hydro is very quick to cycle on/off.  If there's too much generation the hydro is the first source likely to be curtailed.  Next is natural gas.  A CCNG plant can shut down very rapidly and the turbine portion can be running full speed from a cold start in less than 15 minutes.  Coal plants can cycle off and back on in a few hours.  Nuclear reactors take days to cycle.

The availability factor for nuclear, coal, and natural gas plants is roughly the same.  But rather than having a CF between 50% and 60% like coal and CCNG, nuclear has a CF of about 90% simply because it isn't asked to leave an oversupplied grid.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #642 on: April 13, 2018, 08:17:48 PM »
Big steam equipment really hates cycling. Maintenance budget and lifetime get blown to hell.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #643 on: April 13, 2018, 08:18:26 PM »
Big steam equipment really hates cycling. Maintenance budget and lifetime get blown to hell.

sidd

Thermal stresses.

numerobis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #644 on: April 13, 2018, 08:55:11 PM »
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/whats-next-for-south-carolinas-embattled-utilities/520838/

The sorry story of the two utilities that were building VC Summer, the nuclear plant in SC that was canceled. Now, various stakeholders are trying to not be the stuckee. Seems likely — almost inevitable — there’ll be large corporate bankruptcies. The alternative is lots of personal bankruptcies from people paying electric rates that cover the cost of power plants built but never started.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #645 on: April 13, 2018, 09:05:26 PM »
A utility exec i know made a telling point: You would think that with these inherently failsafe next generation reactor design, we can get rid of Price-Anderson type protections for them, right ? He went on to point out that, oddly enuf, that's a non-starter with the nuke evangelistas.

looks like the bean counters don't believe their own glossy powerpoint presentations.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #646 on: April 13, 2018, 09:17:43 PM »
Price-Anderson protects nuclear plant owners from economic disasters.  It lets them provide very modest amounts of insurance coverage and put the most of the cost of a major disaster on taxpayers.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #647 on: April 14, 2018, 03:13:26 AM »
Based on today's costs of nuclear and renewables there's no economic reason to build any more reactors.

Could there be reasons other than economic to keep developing and building them? I don't know, things like spaceships to Mars. What's Elon Musk's take, if he has any?

edit: All I could find from Musk, was some talk about being in favour of nuclear in general, but more about fusion than GenIV specifically. Nothing about how nuclear might be useful for space travel/colonisation, but I didn't watch everything.

There may be a need for nuclear to supply power in space.  However...

In this brief video clip, Musk says that he’s not against earthbound nuclear power, in general... but, in the same amount of land as a nuclear plant requires, you often can generate more power with solar.



People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #648 on: April 14, 2018, 03:25:53 AM »
It is imperative that we cease using fossil fuels and move to low carbon energy sources.  For electricity that means all nuclear energy, all renewable energy, or a combination of the two.  I have carried out a little study to see, at least at a basic level, what it might cost to create an all nuclear grid for CAISO (California Independent System Operator) members.  The combined four electricity grids in California.

I used 2017 California demand data that is available on the web.   I have similar demand data for ERCOT and will do a similar analysis on that data at a later date.  Obviously one year of data for one set of grids does not fit all.  But it should offer some insight into what would be required on a larger level.  For every grid there is a daily variation in demand and all grids operate with seasonal differences throughout the year.

This is ‘stage one’ of a 100% nuclear grid for California based on 2017 hourly loads and all current cars and light trucks becoming battery powered. 

Some basics about the model...

      1) “Reactors” are 1135 MW reactors such as the AP1000.  It is assumed the reactors would be able to load follow to some extent

      2)  Nuclear cost used is Lazard’s 2017 unsubsidized LCOE for new nuclear which ranges from $0.095 to $0.135/kWh.

      3) Cost of detailed load matching (integration costs) are not included.  Something such as batteries would be needed to match supply and demand on a finer grain level than reactors are capable of doing.

      4) The cost of backup for unscheduled reactor failure is not included.

Upon running the model it was found that it would take somewhere between 30 and 35 1135 MW reactors to produce enough electricity to supply hourly load without storage or other sources of electricity. 

That is 100% penetration and would mean that roughly 25% to 35% of the electricity produced would be unneeded (curtailed).  The cost of generating would be $0.18 to $0.20/kWh (plus backup and integration costs).



If all CA cars and light trucks were battery powered increasing the number of reactors to somewhere in the 40 to 45 count range all light vehicles could be charged each day, replacing the electricity used for that day’s driving. 



 The cost of electricity would be in the $0.16/kWh to $0.18/kWh range.  But that would be the cost of generation which is even less than the wholesale cost of electricity as it includes no cost for transmission or owner profit..  California’s retail rate for electricity is $0.15/kWh (Jan 2018).

It’s possible that adding some storage could decrease the number of reactors.  I’ll model that in later.  But with the Lazard median cost for PuHS being $0.175/kWh I can’t see storage helping.  It would take much less expensive storage. 

It’s also possible that selling some of the curtailed electricity for other uses such as desalinization would lower the cost but that would probably be more than offset by the costs not included.

Not included in the model is the cost of integrating large amount of nuclear onto the grid.  We can assume newly built reactors would be able to load follow to some extent but some amount of more flexible supply (probably batteries) would be needed for the second to second flexibility needed to maintain frequency and voltage control.

Plus there is the issue of reactors unexpectedly dropping off the grid.  I don’t have enough data to make a definitive  statement on the number of backup reactors which would be needed but some data on which to base a guess. 

Over a six month span beginning in September 2017, 17 of 98 or 17% of all US reactors dropped offline for reasons other than scheduled refueling and maintenance.  A greater than 30% failure rate on an annual basis.  The number of shutdowns may have been higher.  Sometimes it’s been months after the shutdown that I stumble over the news.

Some number of extra reactors would need to be running at reduced loads, ready to take up if one of the fleet dropped out.  And the reserve would need to be generous because sometimes one or more reactors can go offline for extended periods.  If a reactor is lost like, for example, Three Mile Island there needs to be a reserve reactor for permanent replacement.  We wouldn’t be able to wait five to ten years for a replacement to be constructed.

If we decided that we needed 40 reactors and 8 more for backup that would mean an increase of 20% in the cost of electricity.

In January 2018 the retail cost of electricity in California was $0.15/kWh.   Even at $0.16 for nuclear adding in $0.05 for distribution would drive the retail cost well over $0.20/kWh and have a significant impact on the economy.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 12:26:26 AM by Bob Wallace »

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #649 on: April 14, 2018, 03:46:28 AM »
I've had no one look at the work behind the study posted above.  If anyone would like to look through the spreadsheets I set up I'll be glad to share the links.

Errors could have been made.