The value of resilience

[nwdiver]

I guess I do hate money because I would vote for nuclear energy in a heartbeat.

That's just weird. Think of all the problems we could solve instead of burning $$$ on nuclear boondoggles. We lost $30B on Vogtle. That would buy ~30GW of wind or solar. That's A LOT of clean energy. If it even gets completed Vogtle will produce ~16TWh/yr. 30GW of renewables would produce ~80TWh/yr. I would chose to produce 80 over 16 because numbers.

If you hate $$$ why not spend on something that can do more good?

[SunEagle]

That's what gas turbines are for. You don't spend $15/w on a nuclear plant and leave it sitting until needed. You spend $1/w on gas turbines for that.

The only reason to add nuclear into the mix is if you hate money.... do you hate money?

I guess I do hate money because I would vote for nuclear energy in a heartbeat.

[nwdiver]

All I am saying is to at least add nuclear into the mix so you can keep the lights on so most people. Either that or start to learn to make candles again..

That's what gas turbines are for. You don't spend $15/w on a nuclear plant and leave it sitting until needed. You spend $1/w on gas turbines for that.

The only reason to add nuclear into the mix is if you hate money.... do you hate money?

[SunEagle]

Lower efficiency matters a lot more when you have to pay for the fuel AND pay to get rid of the waste heat. My solar panels are only ~20% efficient but I'm not paying for the photons and I don't have to build $700M cooling towers to get rid of the 80% that isn't harvested.

Nuclear 'worked'. Past tense. It simply cannot compete with solar and wind that cost <$20/MWh; And renewables are STILL getting cheaper! $5/MWh is probably achievable by 2030. The best most Thermal Plants can hope to achieve is ~$30/MWh. And that's operating costs. Even if the heat is free and building a nuclear plant costs nothing wind and solar are STILL cheaper. It's crazy.

My point is simple. Until someone discovers a way to go from fission => electricity with needing to go liquid => gas => liquid... nuclear power isn't worth a second thought.

Maybe and maybe not.

If you depend only on higher efficient energy there may come a time when your lights go out due to lack of source power.

All I am saying is to at least add nuclear into the mix so you can keep the lights on so most people. Either that or start to learn to make candles again..

[nwdiver]

Somewhat lower efficiency numbers are not the only factor of what can be made to work. Just look at
what a teensy fraction of the suns radiation hits the earth, and what a small fraction of that industry
manages to collect. Nuke has already been shown to work, I see using it as a safety and pollution
problem, and suspect we can solve those with thorium. Bruce Roe

Lower efficiency matters a lot more when you have to pay for the fuel AND pay to get rid of the waste heat. My solar panels are only ~20% efficient but I'm not paying for the photons and I don't have to build $700M cooling towers to get rid of the 80% that isn't harvested.

Nuclear 'worked'. Past tense. It simply cannot compete with solar and wind that cost <$20/MWh; And renewables are STILL getting cheaper! $5/MWh is probably achievable by 2030. The best most Thermal Plants can hope to achieve is ~$30/MWh. And that's operating costs. Even if the heat is free and building a nuclear plant costs nothing wind and solar are STILL cheaper. It's crazy.

My point is simple. Until someone discovers a way to go from fission => electricity with needing to go liquid => gas => liquid... nuclear power isn't worth a second thought.

[bcroe]

That's my point. Thermal Nuclear power isn't economically viable because of the laws of physics. If it's not
economically viable it's not worth pursuing. Nuclear power is only worth considering if it's non-thermal....
which as far as I know no one has discovered.

I guess solving that problem presents an opportunity to become the richest person on earth. Another is
figuring out how to make gasoline from electricity. Apparently some people who want the lights to work
all the time thought nuke power was worth considering, the 4GW plant down the road has been doing it
for 4 decades.

Somewhat lower efficiency numbers are not the only factor of what can be made to work. Just look at
what a teensy fraction of the suns radiation hits the earth, and what a small fraction of that industry
manages to collect. Nuke has already been shown to work, I see using it as a safety and pollution
problem, and suspect we can solve those with thorium. Bruce Roe

[nwdiver]

Seems like the state of California needs to get really serious about
limiting this problem.

Global CO2 emissions are 40B tons. CA is 0.4B tons/yr. Even if they went to zero that's ~1% of the problem. We need more fools fuel addicts globally to kick their pathetic addiction.

[bcroe]

. I feel bad for those people that are affected by the smoke and fires. It is much more
likely than ash from a volcano. I just hope people are stay safe and find any way to get electrical power.

It is a sad situation, no end in site. Seems like the state of California needs to get really serious about
limiting this problem. I know not the answer, but in the past earthquake damage has been controlled.
After the 19th century fires of London (and Chicago locally) the core city was rebuild to standards limiting
the spread of fires. That is why the Germans could never torch London, Hamburg was not so fortunate.

Here in the Wild West the drought ended, in a week or so we got 4 inches, 1.5 inches, today 2 so far. Guess
there is no way to get some of that to the left coast. My PV solar manages to make power even in the rain,
but Tues was so dark my motion det light were on. If there is smoke, it is still too cloudy to tell. Bruce Roe

[nwdiver]

It's a limit, not an achievable cycle.

That's my point. Thermal Nuclear power isn't economically viable because of the laws of physics. If it's not economically viable it's not worth pursuing. Nuclear power is only worth considering if it's non-thermal.... which as far as I know no one has discovered.

[J.P.M.]

The closest thing is RTGs which at least don't need to use the carnot cycle but the best ones still need to dissipate ~1w of heat for every 1w of useful electricity and they're even MORE expensive than thermal plants.

Maybe thermodynamics has been reinvented and I missed it, but the way I learned it, no heat engine in existence operates on the Carnot cycle.

It's a limit, not an achievable cycle.

As for RTGs, I won't hold my breath for the Seebeck effect in any of the currently known manifestations to get efficient enough to become practical for large scale terrestrial applications.

[SunEagle]

Well, I don't know about volcanos, but I am in the North bay area, and today, the sky is so dark from the ash cloud that my 6 kW solar array output is 300W at mid day !!

And I just drove down a few miles south and it is even worth, street lights are on at noon, and any solar there would be a Zero period...

I feel bad for those people that are affected by the smoke and fires. It is much more likely than ash from a volcano. I just hope people are stay safe and find any way to get electrical power.

[scrambler]

Well, I don't know about volcanos, but I am in the North bay area, and today, the sky is so dark from the ash cloud that my 6 kW solar array output is 300W at mid day !!

And I just drove down a few miles south and it is even worth, street lights are on at noon, and any solar there would be a Zero period...

[nwdiver]

Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) may be good bridge technology. They fit into a distributed energy model. It helps that they have figured out how to design natural circulation systems that dont need power to shut down the reactor. I just do not think there is an appetite out there to build another conventional nuclear power plant in the US. Plant Vogtle in Georgia may be the last since its projected to come in at double its cost and many years behind schedule. I have a relative that went down there for a one year gig several years ago and he still on the job. He may not retire there but will end up with a big piggy bank to take a few years off to decide on what he wants to do next.

SMRs will only work if they're not thermal. All current designs are thermal. I don't think a non-thermal nuclear design exists. The closest thing is RTGs which at least don't need to use the carnot cycle but the best ones still need to dissipate ~1w of heat for every 1w of useful electricity and they're even MORE expensive than thermal plants.

Vogtle is now >3x more than it was initially projected to be and ~4 years behind schedule. Nuclear is just outrageously uncompetitive. A kWh from a new nuclear plant now costs >5x more than a kWh from a wind turbine or solar farm. And that's including the fact that nuclear is 'always' generating. You can send $15B on 1GW of nuclear and generate 8TWh/yr OR... OR $15B on ~15GW of renewables and generate ~40TWh/yr. If you need 1GW of firm capacity then Spend $14B on renewables and $1B on a 1GW gas turbine. No matter how you slice it thermal power plants no longer make any economic sense. None.

[peakbagger]

Yup, Carnot rained on the the party for thermal power plants long ago.

Small Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) may be good bridge technology. They fit into a distributed energy model. It helps that they have figured out how to design natural circulation systems that dont need power to shut down the reactor. I just do not think there is an appetite out there to build another conventional nuclear power plant in the US. Plant Vogtle in Georgia may be the last since its projected to come in at double its cost and many years behind schedule. I have a relative that went down there for a one year gig several years ago and he still on the job. He may not retire there but will end up with a big piggy bank to take a few years off to decide on what he wants to do next.

[nwdiver]

Its time to dust off nuclear energy and give it another try.

Only after we figure out how to make electricity from fission without using thermal energy as an intermediate step. That's what makes nuclear cost ~5x more per kWh and ~15x more per kW vs solar PV or wind. And that gap is widening. So long as nuclear is thermal it's a non-starter. Just like solar thermal.