Rolls Royce Plans 16 Mini-Nuclear Plants For UK (bbc.com) 213
A consortium led by Rolls Royce has announced plans to build up to 16 mini-nuclear plants in the UK. The BBC reports: It says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England over the next five years. The prime minister is understood to be poised to announce at least 200 million pounds for the project as part of a long-delayed green plan for economic recovery. Rolls argues that as well as producing low-carbon electricity, the concept could become a new export industry.
The company's UK "small modular reactor" (SMR) group includes the National Nuclear Laboratory and the building company Laing O'Rourke. The government says new nuclear is essential if the UK is to meet its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 -- where any carbon released is balanced out by an equivalent amount absorbed from the atmosphere. But there is a nuclear-sized hole opening up in the energy network. Six of the UK's seven nuclear reactor sites are due to go offline by 2030 and the remaining one, Sizewell B, is due to be decommissioned in 2035. Together they account for around 20% of the country's electricity.
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 2 billion pounds 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 22 billion pounds but will produce more than 3 gigawatts of electricity -- over six times as much.
The company's UK "small modular reactor" (SMR) group includes the National Nuclear Laboratory and the building company Laing O'Rourke. The government says new nuclear is essential if the UK is to meet its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 -- where any carbon released is balanced out by an equivalent amount absorbed from the atmosphere. But there is a nuclear-sized hole opening up in the energy network. Six of the UK's seven nuclear reactor sites are due to go offline by 2030 and the remaining one, Sizewell B, is due to be decommissioned in 2035. Together they account for around 20% of the country's electricity.
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 2 billion pounds 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 22 billion pounds but will produce more than 3 gigawatts of electricity -- over six times as much.
But nuclear power costs so much more!! (Score:5, Insightful)
From the fine article:
The price per unit of electricity may be higher than with wind or solar, said the clean energy consultant Michael Liebreich, but nuclear delivers power pretty much 24/7 and therefore can command a premium.
Indeed, nuclear power costs more than wind and solar but because it is far more reliable it can demand a higher price.
There's claims of wind and solar being cheaper than nuclear power, and I can imagine on paper that's indisputable. What happens though if there's a long lull in the wind? What of a long term cloudy period over your solar panels?
I'll have people bring up how nuclear power cannot match shifting demand thus making it less valuable. That's true. What happens though if nuclear power is paired with some electrical energy storage? You know, the same kind that's supposed to make wind and solar power more reliable? What happens is that nuclear power becomes even more valuable.
Then comes the mention of a nuclear power plant needing to shutdown for a week every year to do a refuel and inspection. Indeed, that does happen. What does not have to happen is all nuclear power reactors being shutdown at the same time. Do all solar power plants shut down at the same time? Unless you have a grid that spans halfway around the world then they do have to shutdown at the same time.
The UK recognizes the need for nuclear power to lower CO2 emissions, have a reliable electrical grid, and achieve greater energy independence. I expect other nations to come to this realization as well.
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I'll have people bring up how nuclear power cannot match shifting demand thus making it less valuable. That's true. What happens though if nuclear power is paired with some electrical energy storage? You know, the same kind that's supposed to make wind and solar power more reliable? What happens is that nuclear power becomes even more valuable.
You mean even more expensive, and even less able to compete with wind and solar?
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I'm not up enough on the economics to really know, but a mixed grid solution seems completely feasible and realistic to me as does needing to pay a bit more for the reliability option. I agree solar and storage look the best way forward in general, but nothing wrong with a spot of insurance.
Re: But nuclear power costs so much more!! (Score:2)
Re:But nuclear power costs so much more!! (Score:4, Insightful)
"What happens though if there's a long lull in the wind? What of a long term cloudy period over your solar panels?" still plugging this desperate claim? why not ask stupid questions "What if it gets so hot all the nuclear stations have to close down because they can longer cool themselves?" or "What if they can't get any water to all the nuclear stations due to drought etc and have to close down because they cannot cool themselves?"
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This is looking pretty suspicious now. Three energy stories in one day, blindseer posts a lengthy comment a minute after they go live supporting nuclear power. His posts are instantly modded +1. Just in time to start influencing people to lobby the new administration that seems likely to invest in renewables.
There's some pretty obvious shilling going on today. The only reasonable explanation for this is that blindseer submits the stories, prepares his comments in advance and then posts them the moment they
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The only reasonable explanation for this is that blindseer submits the stories, prepares his comments in advance and then posts them the moment they go live.
Or, it's possible that Blindseer suffers from insomnia and so spends far too much time surfing the internet instead of sleeping. It's possible that there's a lot of energy stories being posted to Slashdot because there's been a number of advancements, the industry is seeking attention during a hotly contested election, and therefore wants as much good PR as possible so as to be in the minds of newly elected politicians as they take office in January. It's possible that Blindseer sees nuclear power (as wel
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Well let's see. The one about liquid air storage is a dupe, *I* posted a story about it ages ago: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
The nuclear thing is just a press release and a relatively small spaff by the government, not really worth talking about since the first operational one is at least a decade away. The Occidental is the only relevant one and in that you are shilling for synthetic fossil fuels for some reason.
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This is basically welfare for Rolls Royce. The downturn in the aviation market has really hurt them, people aren't buying aircraft engines and aren't doing so much maintenance on mothballed aircraft.
The government can't simply give them money but they can funnel lucrative contracts and subsidies for "green" energy to them.
Do you just wait energy stories to be posted, madly hammering F5 all day, because somehow you always seem to get first post? You ask what would happen if nuclear was paired with storage, s
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What happens though if there's a long lull in the wind?
The article is about the UK.
Seriously? How stupid are you?
(*facepalm*)
(*shaehead*)
Re: But nuclear power costs so much more!! (Score:2)
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> because it is far more reliable it can demand a higher price
The exact opposite is true. And easily verified:
http://www.ieso.ca/Power-Data
This is for my home in Ontario, but I'm sure you can find a similar graph for your area. As you can see, that 24-hour power is worth zero cents/kWh. That's actually a good price, it often goes negative in spring and fall. In contrast, as you can see, the peak power is worth 20 cents.
> What happens though if nuclear power is paired with some electrical energy storag
Re: But nuclear power costs so much more!! (Score:2)
Well done UK (Score:2)
Math (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity -- 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 2 billion pounds 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 22 billion pounds but will produce more than 3 gigawatts of electricity -- over six times as much. they will cost around 2 billion pounds 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 22 billion pounds but will produce more than 3 gigawatts of electricity -- over six times as much.
So 6x the energy costs 11x as much and at 2B pounds/plant what is the ongoing costs. It seems that the cost is going to be a LOT more than existing solar/wind. It would be interesting to see how many batteries you could buy with 2B dollars + (solar+wind upgrades).
Also the wording implies that the first few 440M will be > 2B pounds.
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Rolls Royce desparately needs money. Their aircraft engine branch is losing billions due to the coronavirus and quite an amount of their 787 engines grounded with compressor and turbine blade cracks, with no fix in sight.
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If a company is losing billions doing nothing whilst the govt. is paying the large majority of peoples wage bills for furloughing then they must be doing something wrong.
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They still have to pay their people wages even if they do nothing. They also have to find a fix for their blade cracking problem and they have the ultrafan in development.
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Re:Math (Score:4, Informative)
It seems that the cost is going to be a LOT more than existing solar/wind. It would be interesting to see how many batteries you could buy with 2B dollars + (solar+wind upgrades).
Solar and wind + buffer does not make baseload. The idea that you can replace baseload entirely with wind, solar and batteries is laughable.
The largest battery in the world is in Australia. It is capable of powering all Australian households for 10 seconds. Just 10. Oh and that's only if you ignore industry consumers.
People who think we can replace baseload energy with battery farms are completely ignorant to the engineering challenges and material challenges that poses, regardless of how "cheap" you think solar and wind can be. I use the quotes because when you think about powering a nation overnight "cheap" is not the word you're going to be using to describe batteries.
There are baseload solar type systems such as Crescent Dunes which melt sodium and use heat recovery to work over night, but even plants like that only really work in places like Nevada and even then produce about 100MW which is a pittance compared to our needs, and that again represents some of the best tech that we have today.
I hope accountants stay out of this. The lights staying on will rely on base load power not being penny-pinched out of existence.
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The largest battery in the world is in Australia. It is capable of powering all Australian households for 10 seconds. Just 10. Oh and that's only if you ignore industry consumers
Depends how you define battery. There is more than one way to save up solar energy to use at night or wind energy when the wind isn't blowing.
The lithium-ion batteries used in Hornsdale Australia has a 150 MW capacity.
The Bath County pumped storage 'battery' has a 3003 MW capacity.
Your point still stands though. Even with all the batteries in the world, we currently don't have enough storage (or excess generation to charge those batteries) to reliably get us through the night or peaks on intermitt
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Correct, batteries for wind/solar are used mostly for smoothing the output to make it less variable in the short term (say 15 minute periods) and to rake in that sweet peaking contract cash.
For wind base load you just need lots and lots of windmills. Ideally offshore, nice and tall. Wind never stops blowing there, you can feather the blades when there is excess although ideally we should be using that energy to manufacture hydrogen etc.
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Solar and wind + buffer does not make baseload. The idea that you can replace baseload entirely with wind, solar and batteries is laughable.
The idea that you can't replace base load with wind is laughable. The batteries are only needed to fill peaks and troughs, they don't have to supply neighborhoods for long periods. Base load power is undesirable, it's the kind that can't follow load. This fetishization of base load is insensible.
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The idea that you can replace baseload entirely with wind, solar and batteries is laughable.
Germany has done that already.
Welcome to the ./ - crowd that does not know what "base load" actually means.
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Hinkley C is already over-budget, just like every other nuclear project in the UK ever. I'm sure they won't get down to £2bn per reactor because in the 75 year history of nuclear power in the UK it has never come in on budget or on estimate.
This is just welfare for Rolls Royce to make up for their losses on aviation. By the time the first one is running in 10 years it will be pointless anyway, even less competitive than it is today and quietly scrapped. Boris Johnson will be long gone, just anot
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just like every other nuclear project in the UK ever.
No. The Magnox reactors were delivered pretty much on time and within budget. Rolls-Royce has identified the main causes of later NPP projects being over budget: delays during the build caused by regulators changing their mind, because every build was unique. RR proposes a system that can be certified once and copies built everywhere.
All that's needed now is a government that won't hold a 3-year public enquiry for each new station.
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Almost all the Magnox reactors built in the UK went over budget during construction. Decommissioning costs are astronomical, with Sellafield being the worst example at around £32 billion estimated.
Eventually the government got fed up of running them and sold them off, but nobody wanted to buy. They ended up having to basically pay people to take them off their hands, covering decommissioning costs at taxpayer expense and throwing in various subsidies.
Re: Math (Score:2)
It's funny. Nations SHOULD have been prepared for covid because pandemics occur and it is a national security issue. Likewise, volcanoes DO erupt, and Iceland is loaded with them.
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That's 2 billion pounds, not dollars. Exchange rate: 1 GBP = 1.31 USD.
According to NREL cost projections [nrel.gov], the (total including installation?) cost of battery storage will drop to somewhere in the neighborhood of $125 to $300 per kWh by 2030. Assuming a mid-estimate of $210/kWh, 2 billion pounds = $2.62 billion which would buy 12476 MWh or 519 MW-days. So, provided that there is no need to store electr
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Oops, I forgot to mention that the 2 billion pound battery facility (519 MW-days), unlike the nuclear plant (440 MW), does not create any energy on its own, so in order to properly compare the cost of batteries vs the cost of nuclear, you must add the cost of the solar/wind plant that supplies power to the batteries. Once this is done (and I'm not sure what math to use here, given that not all the power from any given wind/solar plant will go into the batteries) it seems likely that wind/solar+batteries wi
I'm looking for something a bit smaller (Score:2)
Will a 20KW unit fit in the pantry?
Latest News! (Score:3)
McDonald's is joining the project with the help of their McPlant.
If it works we'll scale them up again! (Score:4, Insightful)
Back to the 50's to make the same mistakes all over again.
What mistakes? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean burning coal and shoving the fumes up a stack unfiltered that killed forests with acid rain and also emmitted roadactive particles in the coal for decades more than was needed because the hippies didn't like nuclear? Is that the mistake you mean?
France derives 75% - seventy five - of its electricity from nuclear and has done for decades because they ignored the long hairs in camper vans. Tell me last time there was any kind of serious incident there.
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Yes and France is fed up of nuclear. They decided to go all-in on it back when it was being promised that it would be too cheap to meter and was completely safe. Decades later it's turned out to be corporate welfare for the energy companies, leeching taxpayer money that they promised they wouldn't need by now.
France seems to keep making these bad decisions. They heavily promoted diesel cars on environmental grounds, before realizing they are actually terrible for emissions.
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They heavily promoted diesel cars on environmental grounds, before realizing they are actually terrible for emissions.
With DEF injection, diesel cars are better than gassers, as DEF essentially eliminates NOx, and gassers produce just as much soot as diesels do — but it's finer and thus more hazardous. It isn't the same kind of greasy, chunky soot that diesels put out, so it doesn't tend to show up on buildings in the city center, but that also means it's easier for cilia to remove the soot from your lungs. The PM2.5 soot produced by gassers is smaller than cilia, and thus very difficult for them to remove.
To be fair
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Decades later it's turned out to be corporate welfare for the energy companies ... by the state! :P At least about 70%. Oops.
That is not really true, as the nukes are owned
They heavily promoted diesel cars on environmental grounds, before realizing they are actually terrible for emissions.
Double true, as France has no strict car maintenance checks like Germany has. If your car is producing black smoke, no one cares.
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EDF owns all nuclear power stations in France. It was state owned until 2004, then it became an independent corporation in which the French government owns an 85% non-controlling stake.
In 2016 it was raided by investigators looking into anti-competitive practices, so it's very much a classic for-profit company these days.
Currently EDF plans to close 17 of France's nuclear plants this decade due to the government's policy to stop the corporate welfare it relies on. Instead it will invest in renewables and ho
Re: What mistakes? (Score:3)
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The reason electricity is France is cheap is because it's subsidised. When I say corporate welfare that's what I'm talking about - the government keeps electricity prices low using taxpayer money.
Germany has been a net exporter of electricity for 20 years: https://www.cleanenergywire.or... [cleanenergywire.org]
(scroll down about half way)
It's true that at some times it does import energy. But when it exports it causes problems for the French because it's cheaper than nuclear. That's why the French are so fed up with nuclear, the
kind of makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
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There are just too many problems with nuclear for it to compete with renewables.
- It's not zero emission, and the fuel needs to be mined and then stored and disposed of which all emits CO2 as well.
- It's too expensive and uncompetitive, even with heavy government subsidy, and the competition is rapidly getting even cheaper.
- Many countries simply can't use it, they either don't have the infrastructure and institutions to handle nuclear power or they aren't allowed to have it due to proliferation issues.
- In
Re: kind of makes sense (Score:2)
2) naval reactors are very different than civilian reactors. they are designed to provide lots more energy in as small of a volume/mass as possible. These reactors have to deal with going on their side or p
How can this make economic sense? (Score:3)
The most logical solution for the UK is to increase intertie capacity with Europe and invest in more energy storage locally. But oh well...
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The most logical solution for the UK is to increase intertie capacity with Europe
Funny you should mention that. The other day they announced the completion of a link between a Dutch and an English offshore wind farm. One of the Dutch energy experts pointed out the significance of this link, not just enabling us to sell wind power to the UK and them selling to us depending on demand, but also because “it gives us access to an energy market with a sizeable nuclear component”.
With coal and gas plants shutting down and more wind and solar being added, and few geological featur
Re:How can this make economic sense? (Score:4, Interesting)
We aren’t talking about solar energy (for Europe) that is seasonal and diurnal having a huge impact, the concern is a high-pressure system over northern Europe for a week. Europe (like the US) would benefit significantly with HVDC links to stablize the grid east-west and north-south, which should cover about 99% of the needs, and for the other 90 hours a year you use a dirty fuel that can be stored easily.
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the concern is a high-pressure system over northern Europe for a week.
And why would that be a concern?
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With coal and gas plants shutting down and more wind and solar being added, and few geological features suitable for energy storage of any size, weâ(TM)ll need to get our power from somewhere when thereâ(TM)s no wind or sun.
When is that?
Re: How can this make economic sense? (Score:2)
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How are people 100% sure of the solution to complex problems?
Are renewables + storage a viable part of the solution? Possibly. I think any country that doesn't put some money towards that is missing the boat.
Is small scale nuclear a viable part of the solution? Possibly. I think any country that doesn't put some money towards that is missing the boat.
And 2 Billion dollars is a nice chunk of change, it's not exactly breaking the bank here. That's dirt cheap as far as government spending is concerned. It's w
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Germany used to produce about 22% of its power with nukes.
Now it is around 10%.
Our baseload is in summer is around 40% and in winter close to 60%.
You can only have a CF of ~90% for a nuke if all your nuke capacity together is significantly below baseload.
KWe generation capacity cost (Score:2)
Using values referenced in the article for mini-nuclear power plants (values not verified)
2E9 GBP * 1.32 USD/GBP / ( 440 MWe * 1000 KWe / MWe ) = 6000 USD/KWe
Using values referenced in the comments for the Sheffield nuclear power plants (values not verified)
22E9 GBP * 1.32 USD/GBP / ( 3000 MWe * 1000 KWe / MWe ) = 9680 USD/KWe
These both seem in line with the capital cost for commercial power plants.
As posters have noted, nucle
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There are thermodynamic advantages to large power plants.
No, there are not.
The only metric that matters is the difference in temperature between the hot and the cold side.
Please read a book about it, or stop using that awful word: "thermodynamics", as you obviously do not know what it means.
Sheffield (Score:5, Funny)
"Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity -- roughly enough to power Sheffield"
We've only got one Sheffield, why do we need 16 power plants?
Re:Sheffield (Score:4, Funny)
"Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity -- roughly enough to power Sheffield"
We've only got one Sheffield, why do we need 16 power plants?
There's a secret government breeding program running in Sheffield, obviously. The future belongs to the West Riding!
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I'm pretty sure we have a Sheffield United and a Sheffield Wednesday.
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Because you have to think bigger! You actually really want to power all of Sheffieldshire, right?
How Does Modularity Factor? (Score:2)
The components would be broken down into a series of hundreds of these modules which would be made in a central factory and shipped by road to the site for assembly.
The objective is to tackle the biggest problem nuclear power faces: the exorbitant cost.
The reason it is so expensive is that the projects are huge and complex and have to meet very high safety standards.
And, because so few new nuclear power
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The reason it is so expensive is that the projects are huge and complex and have to meet very high safety standards.
And the traditional method of building nuclear plants is to assemble them on site and go through a design review and safety certification for each one. Modular plants get all of that done once for the factory site and then start manufacturing multiple units, all to the same certified design.
For example, what about ...
OK. Do it. But there are some very smart people who think that nuclear power can still be economically competitive.
For some value of 'mini' (Score:5, Informative)
440 MW is on the low end of current nuclear power plants (most are 600 MW and up), so I was wondering why they chose that size.
It turns out: at this power level, it's possible to build a reactor vessel that's small enough to be built in a factory [rolls-royce.com], then transported to the site as a complete unit. The vessel measures 16 x4 m, which is about the limit for road transport without too much disruption.
The standardized design removes much of the reason nuclear power is so expensive: in 'recent' reactor builds, there were massive delays because regulators kept changing the safety requirements during the build, requiring additional equipment to be added, which required modifying the buildings to make room, which required a redesign, leaving large numbers of construction personnel to twiddle their thumbs until the new design was approved etc,
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The emissions will be radioactive material that poisons everything around it for hundreds of thousands of years.
You are suffering from a superstition. Used fuel(aka nuclear waste) has harmed zero people in human history. Your opposition to nuclear energy is evil because it has resulted in 10's of millions of air pollution deaths.
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your opposition to nuclear energy is evil because it has resulted in 10's of millions of air pollution deaths.
Solar has been a better deal for that portion which it could serve since the 1970s. Storage has been a better deal for at least ten years, but probably more like 20 (since li-ion got reasonably cheap) or even 30+ (since the invention of the MPPT charger.) Wind has been a better deal since they thought of pitching the blades instead of having to depend on a brake.
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Solar has been a better deal for that portion which it could serve since the 1970s. Storage has been a better deal for at least ten years, but probably more like 20 (since li-ion got reasonably cheap) or even 30+ (since the invention of the MPPT charger.) Wind has been a better deal since they thought of pitching the blades instead of having to depend on a brake.
I'm just old enough to remember the "very special episodes" on TV with re-runs of The A-Team, Knight Rider, and other shows that had episodes focused on the need for alternative energy. One memorable instance of this was Micheal Knight entering an alternative energy car race where the ethanol running car was driven by a pair of moonshine hustling hillbillies. That's showing this problem has been in the popular culture since at least 1980.
This has been a problem that's been kicked down the road for 50 years. Why?
The reason why was the opposition to nuclear power having some success in equating nuclear power to nuclear weapons. An opposition and tactic that was adopted by the Democrat party. For 50 years we've seen no real movement on the replacement of fossil fuels with anything close to viable. That is until this year. Why?
The reason we see movement now is partly because of new battery technology, new windmills, and new solar panels. The biggest reason we will see some real movement on this is because we will soon see a large number of nuclear power plants reach an age where they will have to be shutdown. This means we will need not only to replace fossil fuels but also retired nuclear power. We simply cannot do that with windmills and solar panels. This forced the Democrats to support nuclear power, see the economy driven into the dirt, or see fossil fuel use grow like we've never seen before in history. Those are our three options today, pick one. The Democrats chose nuclear power.
It's just peachy if you believe some future technology will save us, that may open some other option in the future but for now it's only three options. It's economic decline, more fossil fuel use, or nuclear power.
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That's showing this problem has been in the popular culture since at least 1980.
It's not like there was an oil crisis [wikipedia.org] at that time or anything...
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Nuclear vrs renewables?
Well I will leave it to the gentle readers mind for that but here are a couple of simple web links to refute Mr Blind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://energypost.eu/renewabl... [energypost.eu]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
I could go on
Problem SOLVED! (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent! So, problem solved then. Nothing to worry about. You go ahead with driving the price of electricity down to where it is impossible for nuclear power to compete. I'll just sit on my hands while you save the world.
Now that you have shown all our energy and climate problems solved I don't want to hear anything more on the need for new carbon taxes or alternative energy subsidies.
Nothing to worry about here, everyone. Move along, nothing to see.
Or, this is all bullshit. This has the politicians
Re: Problem SOLVED! (Score:2)
All t
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> Wind/solar will save us except everybody skips the fact that these run at less than 33% of the time.
No one skips that.
> then blinder-ppl push H2 or using nat gas as the next magic.
As opposed to the "blinder-ppl" who think they can get nuclear built against a public that clearly rejects it at every turn?
You can complain all you want, but what, exactly, are you going to do to convince 7 billion people that they're all wrong and you're right and they should just stop being so stupid and blind?
When you
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> You go ahead with driving the price of electricity down to where it is impossible for nuclear power to compete.
We already did that.
> I'll just sit on my hands while you save the world.
Looks that way. I mean, it was 1903 that Puck printed: 'Things move along so rapidly nowadays that people saying: “It can’t be done,” are always being interrupted by somebody doing it.'
So get off your hands already.
> are moving ahead with building more nuclear power plants
This article clearly show
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Solar + wind + nuclear + storage will prove to be the winning combination, if economics has its way (which it always does). Grid-storage batteries are down 70% in price over the last few years, and this is barely getting started. Australia has saved millions on peaker plants by taking advantage of their Tesla battery facility, and they are currently rolling out a second facility that will dwarf the first.
Solar in particular is so good and cheap now that it's stupid NOT to do it, especially because it can li
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:5, Informative)
> It’s so sad you’re so deluded as to not notice that nobody wants nukes.
It's not even that, anything radioactive is, well, radioactive.
A while back I was writing an article on a LLNL project known as "LIFE". Originally this was going to use fusion neutrons to burn old reactor fuel in a multiplication cycle. Then, suddenly and for no recorded reason, they abandoned that design and went all-fusion.
I tracked down a couple of people that worked on it. They all said exactly the same thing: when they went to their industrial liaison group to introduce the design, 100% of the industry partners told them they would not touch a device with fissiles. Period.
Again, let me stress this: the power companies want exactly nothing to do with fissile materials of any shape or form for any use or role.
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Storage has been a better deal for at least ten years, but probably more like 20 (since li-ion got reasonably cheap)
Li-Ion isn't the solution for storage. The actual biggest battery in the world is still the 2016 Sodium-Sulphur battery in Buzen, Japan. Li-Ion is fantastic for portable power storage, however you need shit tons for grid storage and lithium is not a common element. Sodium and sulphur are very cheap and exceptionally abundant and the battery tech is well proven.
It's just not fashionable and d
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You may be right about other chemistries making more sense, but lithium is more common than lead. It's not like it's palladium or something.
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Not to mention all the other nuclear waste sitting around the world waiting to be another Fukushima if a disaster strikes them, which obviously can happen. As usual nuclear proponents are sitting at the very top of the Dunning-
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hanford is a remnant of the manhattan project. Weapons waste and used fuel are not the same thing. Claiming that they are the same thing is a lie. The fact is you are unable to provide a single example of used fuel harming anyone(and you will not be able to either)
As usual nuclear proponents are sitting at the very top of the Dunning-Krueger effect hill screaming about how smart they are.
That is clearly an example of psychological projection.
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Link [stanford.edu]
Link [politico.com]
Link [nbcnews.com]
Re: Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:3)
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The fact is you are unable to provide a single example of used fuel harming anyone(and you will not be able to either)
Sorry, you can actually google that shit yourself. It is not that hard.
You are only showing us here, what an idiot you are, good luck.
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Hanford waste is a different beast altogether. It's not just radioactive; that's half the problem it was (the cesium and strontium both have half lives around 30 years). [Disclaimer, I'm going to oversimplify some things to emphasize others] The problem is everything else that's mixed with it.
There's also too much bureaucracy that's preventing moving forward. Sure, there's technical limitations, but the strongest blockers I've seen are regulatory/beaurocratic. Like not being able to build more double-shel
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Don't forget the quantity: It is true that nuclear energy production does produce some pretty nasty high-level waste, but the quantity is tiny. In terms of total environmental impact, a container full of spent fuel is a lot easier to deal with than tens of thousands of tons of highly toxic coal ash.
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In terms of total environmental impact, a container full of spent fuel is a lot easier to deal with than tens of thousands of tons of highly toxic coal ash.
A container full of spilled wind and unused sunshine is even easier. Don't waste time with false dichotomies, that's what the fossil and nuclear fuel industries want.
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I already have investigated that. The impact is much lower than the competition, and is actually getting lower over time.
Things can be done to improve it even further, like mandating that windmill blades be easily recyclable. That should be a major goal for the next generation. Solar panels are already highly recyclable.
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Re: Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:2)
That coal ash is loaded with minerals and elements. Rather than simply try to ignore it, we should be processing it. We can actually separate these using nuke power ( for both thermal and electrical ).
Same with nuclear waste. Install small fast reactors at old nuke sites and use up most of what remains. During the time the reactor is generating electricity, it is also converting most of the waste to safe elements, while
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Used fuel(aka nuclear waste) has harmed zero people in human history.
In the words of Trump's laywers, the Kyshtym disaster has harmed a non-zero number of people.
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Re: Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:2)
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Probably because nuclear waste is sealed in containers and buried underground or dumped into the ocean.
So what? If it works it works. Fossil fuels and bio fuels kill 7 million people annually from air pollution alone. I would gladly have zero deaths than 7 million. You would rather those 7 million people die.
Someday humanity will pay the price for nuclear waste.
Nope. You are gripped in a superstition. I bet you think it is green and liquid too.
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Used fuel(aka nuclear waste) has harmed zero people in human history. And how exactly do you come to that brain dead idea?
It is not a brain dead idea. It is a fact.
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The emissions will be radioactive material that poisons everything around it for hundreds of thousands of years.
You do realize that this material is in the ground right now, don't you? Uranium isn't some artificial construct, it's a mineral that is scattered about in the dirt, dissolved in the water, and nearly certainly exists in your body right now.
You've heard the phrase, "a candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long", no? That applies to radioactive materials too. The shorter the half life the more dangerous it is to life around it. The longer the half life the safer it is. Something that is radioa
Re:Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Emissions will be radioactive poisons!!! (Score:2)
Just in America, We have over 100,000 tonnes of waste that will remain radioactive for 20,000+ years.
If we run it through fast reactors, in about 100 years, we will have 5000-20,000 tonnes of waste that will be safe in under 300 years, with the vast majority safe in under 50.
Seems like a no-brainer to all but the blinder-ppl.
300 years is a trifle (Score:2)
The quantities involved are also quite small, but the mysterious nature of teh ebil radiation terrifies the simple.
It takes a trivial amount of space and quite modest effort to store radioactives as they're currently stored, and there is no need to bury them or otherwise hide them when cask maintenance is easily done above ground.
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That data seems to be cached (a sane behavior for the front page of a site) - if inconsistent, I usually see more comments than the count.
Do you have your comment threshold slide slammed to -1, -1 so you can see every comment? The comment before you is a stupid shitpost/crapflood that usually gets kicked to -1 pretty quickly.