Nuclear power (from Hydrogen vs Battery)

[nwdiver]

That's one of the few critical reasons I believe that nuclear must play an important role in ridding us of fossil fuels.

Well... here's hoping that we win the galactic lottery to build a nuclear powered future....

'Till then I'm afraid all we can afford is A LOT of wind, solar, demand response and storage It's not as 'sexy' as nuclear power but there's absolutely no reason it won't work.

 

[macpacheco]

Well... here's hoping that we win the galactic lottery to build a nuclear powered future....

'Till then I'm afraid all we can afford is A LOT of wind, solar, demand response and storage It's not as 'sexy' as nuclear power but there's absolutely no reason it won't work.

Nuclear isn't sexy at all. In fact its the opposite of sexy.
Its about facts and logic.
Germany shutdown a bunch of nuclear reactors are now they're producing MORE CO2 than before, because they're burning MORE Coal than before.
Not only bad for the environment, but very bad for geopolitical reasons (huge increase in gas imports from Russia).

If Diablo Canyon gets shutdown, California emissions go UP.

The problem with nuclear cost is politics, anti nuclear activist infected NRC, il informed population, prejudice and lack of logic. Its just as wrong as the anti VAX crowd.

Meanwhile, you haven't addressed the solution to affordable process heat.

Nuclear doesn't have to be expensive.
For instance see South Korea. They built a bunch of reactors on budget and on schedule. Then comes an irresponsible new President that decides to simply halt construction and increase natural gas imports to try to obtain good will with Russia and China. The high cost of current USA nuclear projects is the result of political interference, irrational NRC regulation (fueled by $$$ from fossil fuel interests).

Most big anti nuclear groups are not grass roots. They are paid by fossil fuel interests and masqueraded as grass roots.

Nuclear is where it is because the vast majority of people don't base their opinions on facts, but on feelings. And so do YOU.

I don't think you should reply. Just agree to disagree silently. I made a TINY mention to nuclear and you had to go off topic. Your post should be considered off topic, and yours and my post removed from this thread.

 

[nwdiver]

Nuclear isn't sexy at all. In fact its the opposite of sexy.
Its about facts and logic.
Germany shutdown a bunch of nuclear reactors are now they're producing MORE CO2 than before, because they're burning MORE Coal than before.
Not only bad for the environment, but very bad for geopolitical reasons (huge increase in gas imports from Russia).

If Diablo Canyon gets shutdown, California emissions go UP.

The problem with nuclear cost is politics, anti nuclear activist infected NRC, il informed population, prejudice and lack of logic. Its just as wrong as the anti VAX crowd.

Meanwhile, you haven't addressed the solution to affordable process heat.

Nuclear doesn't have to be expensive.
For instance see South Korea. They built a bunch of reactors on budget and on schedule. Then comes an irresponsible new President that decides to simply halt construction and increase natural gas imports to try to obtain good will with Russia and China. The high cost of current USA nuclear projects is the result of political interference, irrational NRC regulation (fueled by $$$ from fossil fuel interests).

Most big anti nuclear groups are not grass roots. They are paid by fossil fuel interests and masqueraded as grass roots.

Nuclear is where it is because the vast majority of people don't base their opinions on facts, but on feelings. And so do YOU.

I don't think you should reply. Just agree to disagree silently. I made a TINY mention to nuclear and you had to go off topic. Your post should be considered off topic, and yours and my post removed from this thread.

Economics matters... I'm tired of people chasing after a fantasy at the expense of real solutions. I worked in the nuclear industry for ~15 years. I can tell you from 1st hand experience that the industry is as infested with AGW deniers as the fossil fuel industry. Leaders in the nuclear industry have no intention of displacing coal or gas.... their only goal is subsisting at the current levels of generation. Nuclear is clean energy FUD as much as Hydrogen.... and that's being generous.

A less generous and more realistic appraisal is that nuclear has evolved into a scam. A way to bilk rate payers for decades... Imagine how much wind and solar could have been built for the >$30B we burned on the Vogtle and Summer projects....

Odd you would use Korea as an example... as I mentioned before... they forged documents and used substandard parts.

Nuclear and Coal enemies? They look pretty chummy to me.... Nuclear works A LOT better with coal than it does with wind or solar.

 

[macpacheco]

Economics matters... I'm tired of people chasing after a fantasy at the expense of real solutions. I worked in the nuclear industry for ~15 years. I can tell you from 1st hand experience that the industry is as infested with AGW deniers as the fossil fuel industry. Leaders in the nuclear industry have no intention of displacing coal or gas.... their only goal is subsisting at the current levels of generation. Nuclear is clean energy FUD as much as Hydrogen.... and that's being generous.

A less generous and more realistic appraisal is that nuclear has evolved into a scam. A way to bilk rate payers for decades... Imagine how much wind and solar could have been built for the >$30B we burned on the Vogtle and Summer projects....

Odd you would use Korea as an example... as I mentioned before... they forged documents and used substandard parts.

Nuclear and Coal enemies? They look pretty chummy to me.... Nuclear works A LOT better with coal than it does with wind or solar.

View attachment 261264

Germany has increased its CO2 emissions over the last 2 years. Solar and Wind is NOT a panacea. Nuclear might be muchhhh better. Stop with the insanity. Your insanity.
Its the attitude you and many others have about nuclear that are impeding serious innovative nuclear investment. Who will lend billions of USD to a nuclear startup if they can't be SURE that the NRC will certify a good design in X time and that the people won't be against installing those reactors. You are the problem. Nuclear power itself isn't.

 

[nwdiver]

Germany has increased its CO2 emissions over the last 2 years. Solar and Wind is NOT a panacea. Nuclear might be muchhhh better. Stop with the insanity. Your insanity.

The definition of insanity is doing to same thing but expecting different results. Nuclear has been a bigger and bigger albatross for the past ~40 years. The county is littered with $Billion$ boondoggles from Satsop in WA to VC Summer to Vogtle.

Solar and Wind work. You are right... they alone are not a 'panacea'. Solar, Wind, Demand Response and Storage ARE. No reason they can't work. In the end Hydrogen is the effectively infinite battery that will snuff out fossil fuels. Solar and Wind will provide the energy. Our society has been using stored energy for >100 years... pretty sure we can find a way to store it for a few weeks...

CO2 is flat in Germany despite more renewables because they're transitioning away from nuclear. You can't switch from one form of generation to another overnight.

What evidence will convince you that fission is a lost cause? How many more failed and over budget projects will it take? If someone find a way to build nuclear for ~$2/w I'll concede that nuclear has a chance.

Its the attitude you and many others have about nuclear that are impeding serious innovative nuclear investment.

???? Westinghouse had $BILLIONS$ for the development of the AP1000.... they squandered it. WPPSS collected $BILLIONS$ in bonds for nuclear plants.... they still failed. You can't just throw money at broken technology and expect it to work. Lack of Investment isn't the problem, fission is fundamentally flawed as a cost effective source of electricity but we keep throwing money at it that could be better invested in something that WORKS. Instead of wasting >$40B on the 2 surviving (so far) plants in the SE that will generate ~16TWh/yr we could have built ~30GW of wind that would have generated >100TWh/yr. We don't have the time or money to waste on this nonsense.

 

[W84M3]

Solar and Wind is NOT a panacea. .

It is. (add hydro)

Nuclear is getting priced out and the percentage keeps dropping in Germany (8% of total energy mix). First hard coal & brown coal get eliminated because start-up costs are lower than nuclear.

There have been several times in 2017 where the energy price became negative because supply >>>> demand and they even switched off a nuclear plant.

e.g. 3 weeks ago:

 

[macpacheco]

Nwdiver, can you learn that we have already debated this a dozen times on the right thread and we never changed each others opinions, so why do you have to force the issue on the WRONG thread ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I don't see any good out of debating this another time. You made your points, I made mine. I would just be repeating myself, just like your more than willing to. Please STOP !
If you disagree, go read all of my posts on the nuclear discussion thread, and you can re-post all of your answers, and I won't even bother to read them, like I haven't (and won't) read your last post.
COAL is the problem. Go fight COAL.
This thread is about H2 and fuel cells. Stick to topic.

 

[nwdiver]

Nwdiver, can you learn that we have already debated this a dozen times on the right thread and we never changed each others opinions,

You mentioned the 'n' word...

I would have hoped that the ~36, 37, 38 and 39th financial failures would have snuffed out support for fission.... the total spent on nuclear plants that were never finished in the US alone is well over $100B. That's not counting money wasted on projects never started or projects that finished WELL over budget. Funny you should mention insanity... 'cause the fact we keep trying after all this is completely bonkers.

I've stated very clearly what would change my mind... what would change yours?

It's not 100% off topic. The only quasi-rational argument for nuclear is that it's impossible to store enough energy to compensate for the intermittency of solar and wind. H2 kills that argument. Seems rather daft to support both.

 

[jkn]

It is. (add hydro)

Nuclear is getting priced out and the percentage keeps dropping in Germany (8% of total energy mix). First hard coal & brown coal get eliminated because start-up costs are lower than nuclear.

There have been several times in 2017 where the energy price became negative because supply >>>> demand and they even switched off a nuclear plant.

e.g. 3 weeks ago:

View attachment 261553

View attachment 261551
View attachment 261552

First graph is interesting. If I read it correctly, gas usage peaks match solar power peaks. Next down is oil peak power. Currently solar does not increase required peak power from other sources. What is situation in summer?

If 100% of power were produced by solar, then cost of storage should be added to cost of solar power. Germany is far from that.

I would rather see decreasing fossil fuel usage than decreasing nuclear.

 

[W84M3]

First graph is interesting. If I read it correctly, gas usage peaks match solar power peaks. Next down is oil peak power. Currently solar does not increase required peak power from other sources. What is situation in summer?

If 100% of power were produced by solar, then cost of storage should be added to cost of solar power. Germany is far from that.

I would rather see decreasing fossil fuel usage than decreasing nuclear.

It is production, not usage.

Yes, decrease of fossil fuel production & usage is even better than decrease of nuclear. Fossil fuel has lower start-up costs which in this case is good because they will switch them off when overproducing.

Germany has become a net exporter of electricity because the additions of wind & solar are oversupplying the market. As long as Germany can sell these to neighbouring countries for higher than marginal costs, the fossil fuel & nuclear plants will run.

But as can be seen, the quickly-increasing deployed capacity of solar & wind is making this situation very temporary. Soon the grid will become really unstable and the plants will be shut down for longer periods.

And, as you said, then battery storage comes into play.

 

[jkn]

It is production, not usage.

Yes, decrease of fossil fuel production & usage is even better than decrease of nuclear. Fossil fuel has lower start-up costs which in this case is good because they will switch them off when overproducing.

Germany has become a net exporter of electricity because the additions of wind & solar are oversupplying the market. As long as Germany can sell these to neighbouring countries for higher than marginal costs, the fossil fuel & nuclear plants will run.

But as can be seen, the quickly-increasing deployed capacity of solar & wind is making this situation very temporary. Soon the grid will become really unstable and the plants will be shut down for longer periods.

And, as you said, then battery storage comes into play.

When gas and oil is burned, usage == production.

 

[JRP3]

Building new renewables is now cheaper than just running old coal and nuclear plants.

New study reaches a stunning conclusion about the cost of solar and wind energy

 

[jkn]

New study reaches a stunning conclusion about the cost of solar and wind energy

Interesting article. Average price does not tell everything. Electricity is most expensive during peak usage hours. Solar production roughly matches that peak. So it can make profit with higher production costs than nuclear.

Battery prices are falling, but we are very far away from storing enough solar energy for night. Here we need storage for winter. For that hydrogen, perhaps combined with something else could be winner.

Currently we don't need to add storage costs into cost of solar, but this will change when we have enough solar.

Nuclear is not dead yet:
Integrated Molten Salt Reactor passes pre-licensing milestone

Why molten salt reactors are interesting:

Current reactors use water as coolant. For electricity production temperature must be high ~400 C. So pressure of steam is very high. Thin pipe can easily hold high pressure, but wall thickness must increase with diameter to maintain strength. Nuclear reactor is very large. High pressure makes it expensive and dangerous. It also takes lot of energy to pump cooling water into high pressure. In Fukushima water produced hydrogen, which caused explosions. Molten salt can be very hot in atmospheric pressure.

Molten salt reactor can be designed to automatically shut down and cool itself without any energy source or operator action (not even computer).

Perhaps molten salt reactors could be used to burn safely and economically away all long term nuclear waste.

 

[mspohr]

Interesting article. Average price does not tell everything. Electricity is most expensive during peak usage hours. Solar production roughly matches that peak. So it can make profit with higher production costs than nuclear.

Battery prices are falling, but we are very far away from storing enough solar energy for night. Here we need storage for winter. For that hydrogen, perhaps combined with something else could be winner.

Currently we don't need to add storage costs into cost of solar, but this will change when we have enough solar.

Nuclear is not dead yet:
Integrated Molten Salt Reactor passes pre-licensing milestone

Why molten salt reactors are interesting:

Current reactors use water as coolant. For electricity production temperature must be high ~400 C. So pressure of steam is very high. Thin pipe can easily hold high pressure, but wall thickness must increase with diameter to maintain strength. Nuclear reactor is very large. High pressure makes it expensive and dangerous. It also takes lot of energy to pump cooling water into high pressure. In Fukushima water produced hydrogen, which caused explosions. Molten salt can be very hot in atmospheric pressure.

Molten salt reactor can be designed to automatically shut down and cool itself without any energy source or operator action (not even computer).

Perhaps molten salt reactors could be used to burn safely and economically away all long term nuclear waste.

Current bids for battery storage of solar add about 1 or 2 cents per kWh to the cost... cheap.

Molten salt operates at lower pressure but high temperature. Having reactive salt at high temperature is problematic for all of the materials in contact.

 

[arg]

Current bids for battery storage of solar add about 1 or 2 cents per kWh to the cost... cheap.

These perspectives vary radically depending where in the world you are thinking about.

If you have a spare bit of desert relatively near to the equator, then solar and a bit of battery solves all your problems - the demand peak is for air conditioning which aligns with high output from solar and the sun shines almost every day so only an hour or two of battery storage associated with each panel is enough.

If you live in a more northern lattitude, then your big power demand is after dark in winter, and even in summer you don't have the advantage of a big power demand aligned with max output from the panels. In mid winter the power generated by a solar farm is a tiny fraction of what it generates in summer, so to generate all the energy you need any time close to when it's needed you would need to vastly over-size the solar farm and have it going to waste in the summer - the idea that solar prices get close to fossil prices goes completely out of the window in that scenario.

So solar+battery isn't the solution for more northerly locations. Possibly wind+battery+a little solar gets you most of the way there, but there's still the problem of periods during the winter when there's low wind for many days at a time and battery storage for that duration is too expensive (certainly with lithium batteries). So you need either season-scale storage, very long cable routes to put your solar on someone else's desert closer to the equator, or more radical measures on demand. Just possibly Hydrogen has a role to play in the season-scale storage, competing against flow batteries and other solutions.

Still, if you happen to have chosen Hydrogen as your season-scale storage, that's not a reason to go putting it in cars: the extra inefficiency of the transport, compression etc. makes it a loser again.

 

[WannabeOwner]

If you live in a more northern latitude

I think us Europeans think of New York as having cold winters and that is must be "North".
and that Americans think that Europe is similar to USA.

London, UK is farther north than Calgary
Paris, France is (pretty much) on the 49th parallel
New York and Madrid, Spain, are about the same latitude

Comparison map:

and the Southern hemisphere equivalent:

Maps from Buzzfeed

In mid winter the power generated by a solar farm is a tiny fraction of what it generates in summer,

I tend to think that UK has only 10% [of Summer insolation] in Winter but I looked some figures up, including if panels are statically angled optimal for the year

Insolation kWh/m2/day figures for mid-Summer / mid-Winter onto a horizontal surface and statically angled (optimised for the year)

London: 4.86 / 0.60 12% - @38 degrees 4.20 / 1.05 25%

New York: 6.04 / 1.72 28% - @49 degrees 5.28 / 3.08 58%

Houston: 5.79 / 2.58 45% - @60 degrees 5.20 / 3.51 67%

 

[nwdiver]

Nuclear is not dead yet:
Integrated Molten Salt Reactor passes pre-licensing milestone

Cool. So maybe we'll be able to use nuclear to start making meaningful progress toward tackling climate change in ~20-30 years. Thank god for the solar, wind, demand response and storage tech we have ready to deploy TODAY.

 

[jkn]

Cool. So maybe we'll be able to use nuclear to start making meaningful progress toward tackling climate change in ~20-30 years. Thank god for the solar, wind, demand response and storage tech we have ready to deploy TODAY.

We don't have large scale storage system. Cobalt might soon limit production of Li-ion batteries for EVs. I remind that I live in area without solar energy this time of year. We need storage for half year.

It would be very good news, if we could stop burning all fossil fuels in 30 years.

Replacing nuclear with fossil fuels is greatest crime against nature and future generations.

Climate change is so serious problem that all possible solutions must be investigated.

 

[FutureShock]

I think us Europeans think of New York as having cold winters and that is must be "North".
and that Americans think that Europe is similar to USA.

London, UK is farther north than Calgary
Paris, France is (pretty much) on the 49th parallel
New York and Madrid, Spain, are about the same latitude

Yes, Europe has that nice, warm North Atlantic current.

Really changes everything for them, temperature-wise.

.

 

[FutureShock]

We don't have large scale storage system. Cobalt might soon limit production of Li-ion batteries for EVs. I remind that I live in area without solar energy this time of year. We need storage for half year.

It would be very good news, if we could stop burning all fossil fuels in 30 years.

Replacing nuclear with fossil fuels is greatest crime against nature and future generations.

Climate change is so serious problem that all possible solutions must be investigated.

Well, yeah. I think ALL the zero-carbon sources of energy (wind, solar, 'new' nuclear) need to be pushed and championed.

It's kinda sad when we're facing such a huge problem as global warming, and the 'good guys' are busy fragging on each other while Big Fossil Fuel and the Koch Bros. sit back and laugh.

To be fair, though, nuclear has a sh**ty reputation due to the sh**ty and unsafe design of older reactors, such as Fukushima and Three Mile Island (don't even mention Chernobyl, that was an even more primitive reactor).

LOTS of ppl don't seem to understand that nuclear reactor design is very different from generation to generation, and that they CAN be made to be safe, i.e. designed in such a way that their default state is to shut down, rather than to melt down, even if the operators do NOTHING in a crisis.

See Thorium-based designs, see MSRs (molten-salt reactors), see even gravity-feed and condensation cooling (which won't auto shut down, but will give you plenty of time to deal with any crisis if you lose the grid/water pumps).

Oh, and let's stop siteing reactors near earthquake and tsunami-zones, yes? Holy crap on a cracker.

More and more environmentalists do seem to be coming around on nuclear, though, rightly seeing it as part of the solution in an age where we're looking at several degrees of temperature rise by the end of the century. And while Big Oil and Gas fights tooth and nail with their very considerable financial resources and political power to slow any and all progress.

IOW, good guys, don't frag each other. Eyes on the prize.


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