[HN Gopher] Britain to start approval process for Rolls-Royce mi...
___________________________________________________________________
Britain to start approval process for Rolls-Royce mini nuclear
reactor
Author : leephillips
Score : 298 points
Date : 2022-03-07 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| qwertox wrote:
| So let's assume 10 of these got deployed, and then one of them
| develops a problem. No explosion, just something which could
| evolve into a serious issue if not taken care of within a couple
| of months.
|
| This would mean that all the 9 other reactors would have to be
| shut down until the root cause has been fixed, due to
| regulations.
|
| That is 10 million homes which will require a relatively quick
| alternative source of energy, for around one year.
|
| Is this a problem? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.
|
| But for some reason this would appear to increase the probability
| of failures of the overall deployed MW capacity by all these
| systems together.
| 7952 wrote:
| Power grids are designed to have lots of redundancy and tend to
| have more capacity than is actually needed. It is perfectly
| normal for large generators to be offline. It might increase
| prices, but the grid should be designed to cope.
| blibble wrote:
| reactors share a design at present
|
| has this sort of co-ordinated shutdown ever happened before in
| the history of the nuclear industry?
|
| because I don't think it has
| olau wrote:
| Yes, of course it has. I'm certainly not an expert, but the
| plants are operating on a set of risk calculations based on
| assumptions about their designs. If one of the safety
| assumptions are challenged, you have to shut the reactors
| down and address it.
|
| Now, I'm sure you can find instances where this was not done.
| But if you just vaguely follow nuclear news around the world,
| nuclear power plants do indeed have correlated shutdowns. The
| most widely reported one in the past decade probably started
| with the accident at the Fukushima power plant. But there are
| many examples of smaller ones.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Sizewell c is 3200mw. So if that goes offline you have
| effectively 7 RR reactors offline.
|
| This is why design, commissioning and testing of nuclear power
| plants is so crucial
| pjc50 wrote:
| > due to regulations
|
| [citation needed]: which regulations of which country?
|
| The French nuclear fleet has a problem with cracks, but they've
| only shut down the affected reactors.
| https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/France-Cl...
|
| Heck, they kept one of the Chernobyl units online for years
| after the other one blew up, because they needed the power.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It will be safe, quick, clean, cheap and efficient. They just
| need 500bn to build the first part of the first one, 50 years to
| plan it, a huge liability cover and unlimited cleanup support.
| olivermarks wrote:
| I'm a big fan of this project. Once they actually get going it
| will be possible to get costs down, as has happened with actual
| EV and battery production, rather than R&D theory and
| experiments.
|
| Until it all becomes reality the costings will initially be high
| and then practical knowledge and economies of scale will bring
| them down fast.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS
|
| > The dream of small nuclear reactors did not die with the 1960s.
| In the 1980s, the nuclear industry was reeling from high cost and
| schedule overruns in reactor construction that had begun in the
| previous decade. And so, proponents of nuclear power circled back
| to the idea of going small.
|
| > A 1983 paper in the journal by analyst Joe Egan offered his
| vision of small, prefabricated reactors. "A novel, factory-based
| approach to manufacturing reactors under 400-MWe size may
| alleviate many of the pragmatic constraints on nuclear business,"
| he wrote, suggesting that "prefabrication and standardization of
| major plant components could lower dollar-per-kilowatt capital
| costs to levels now boasted by 1,000-MW models." Such factory
| assembly could further reduce costs, he wrote, by reducing
| regulation, shortening construction times, and avoiding quality
| issues with components.
|
| > "The reactors, once assembled on barges (or even railroad cars,
| in one case), would be floated across oceans, up rivers, or be
| carted cross-country to operating sites," Egan added. "There,
| purchasers would anchor the plants and simply 'turn the key' for
| 200-400 MWe of instant power."
|
| > This vision never materialized. No turnkey reactors were carted
| cross-country or floated up rivers. Then, as earlier, they were
| deemed too expensive. Sadly, the nuclear industry continues to
| practice selective remembrance and to push ideas that haven't
| worked. Once again, we see history repeating itself in today's
| claims for small reactors--that the demand will be large, that
| they will be cheap and quick to construct.
|
| > But nothing in the history of small nuclear reactors suggests
| that they would be more economical than full-size ones. In fact,
| the record is pretty clear: Without exception, small reactors
| cost too much for the little electricity they produced, the
| result of both their low output and their poor performance. In
| the end, as an analyst for General Electric pronounced in 1966,
| "Nuclear power is a big-plant business: it is most competitive in
| the large plant sizes." And if large nuclear reactors are not
| competitive, it is unlikely that small reactors will do any
| better. Worse, attempts to make them cheaper might end up
| exacerbating nuclear power's other problems: production of long-
| lived radioactive waste, linkage with nuclear weapons, and the
| occasional catastrophic accident
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc...
|
| I wonder if this is simply a bid to keep a nuclear industry in
| Britain for the naval reactors and as a planting ground for
| people going into nuclear weapons research?
| Qub3d wrote:
| https://archive.ph/O5EFA
| daviddumenil wrote:
| The GDA process for for the Chinese-developed reactor planned for
| the UK [1] took four and a half years [2]
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradwell_B_nuclear_power_stati...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One
| bjourne wrote:
| A Swedish professor Janne Wallenius recently got a government
| grant of 100 msek for building the same thing. But his smr is
| lead-cooled and supposedly much safer than a pwr reactor which
| can overheat. The advantages are supposedly the same as with
| Rolls-Royce's reactor; low construction-costs due to standardized
| design. In a recent interview he stated that his design could be
| ready for mass-production in the mid 2030's.
| Melatonic wrote:
| So can we assemble one of these on the moon already?
| LightG wrote:
| Let's multiply the geographic spread of nuclear waste, multiply
| and spread thinly the amount of security needed to protect these
| sites, and fall into a government story after the disaster of
| Brexit.
|
| A tip for international readers, the UK is currently captured by
| the worst government in a generation and it is inherently
| untrustworthy.
|
| Spraying $546m at a "profile-lifting" project is nothing to a
| government that will waste billions at the behest of Tory donors
| without a second thought.
|
| I'll classify this under "R&D puff piece that will likely amount
| to nothing, or a loss", like nearly everything else the current
| UK government has done.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Ok so it's not a car, but it does remind me of the ones in
| "Fallout" and the real life concept car:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
| Jenz wrote:
| It's unclear to me, exactly how they intend to use these.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Am I the only one who thought about Mr. Fusion?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Nah it's the other one that needed fuel from Libyans.
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| Who else saw the title and thought that the cars were going to
| have nuclear reactors for their fuel?
| livinglist wrote:
| I was thinking about that as well....
| roschdal wrote:
| Imagine the horrors when the Russians sets these reactors on fire
| :-O
|
| *why the downvotes? Security is a fatal flaw with nuclear energy.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I just tried to buy iodine tablets in Prague and they were
| already sold out, with an unknown restock date. [0]
|
| Nuclear power is a very complex issue. However, from a security
| point of view, putting dirty bomb ingredients around your
| country is not a genius move in a less than peaceful world.
|
| [0] Pharmacist told me that my best bet at this point was a
| supplement product made from seaweed. She stressed it was not
| medical grade. That might be in stock later in the week.
|
| note: but also, we are advised here on HN to not talk about
| getting downvoted. You get extra downvotes for that.
| somethoughts wrote:
| I'd be curious to why this isn't an issue as well? I'd be
| really interested in a cogent description of how this isn't a
| concern.
|
| Taking out a small reactor from the air or some sort of inside
| job would be an obvious first target. The excuse would likely
| be similar to the one used in the current conflict that
| happened last week - "We just need to take it out to take
| critical 'infrastructure' offline." I think what makes it less
| worrisome is that the current aggressor has a lot to lose
| economically and also wants to occupy the area long term - so
| they were mostly operating in a safe manner. But if you had a
| group that had less to lose and had no intent on long term
| occupation - they could just go the destruction route.
|
| I could also see how it could easily lead to one upsmanship to
| real nuclear weaponry as it plays out in click heavy media news
| reporting - "Well they started us down the path by blowing up
| the nuclear reactor - so we'll need to counter that with some
| nuclear weapons..."
|
| So the real concern is about escalation in the event of
| conflict where decisions are made under duress and the
| public/politicians are not familiar with the details of nuclear
| energy safety and thus can easily be swayed.
| blibble wrote:
| at the point the russians are attacking UK nuclear reactors
| we're already in a hot nuclear war
| somethoughts wrote:
| The issue that would concern me is more that once these
| technologies are developed by private companies, the
| companies will want to recoup the R&D costs by selling the
| technology oversees.
|
| At that point, the "small reactor" industry will become
| entrenched enough to have a lobbying arm - who will make
| sure the license to export include all short term prospects
| - including ones in less than savory geopolitical issues.
| appletrotter wrote:
| So, I listened to a conversation between a nuclear engineer and
| a few other engineers and some soldiers the other night on
| twitter spaces.
|
| The thing the nuclear engineer kept hammering home is that the
| biggest risk realistically is damage to the equipment, as in it
| would suck to lose the reactor but no one's going to get hurt
| if no one's on site.
|
| The type of shelling that was going on, just fundamentally
| wasn't the kind to cause a serious event.
|
| Worst case scenario, if Russia is actively trying to cause an
| incident, is they drop a large bomb on it.
|
| This would still be nothing at all like Chernobyl.
|
| Because of the fundamental differences in design, this would be
| an event on the scale of Three Mile Island.
|
| They didn't even stop using the other reactor at Three Mile
| Island.
|
| Honestly the biggest thing, even, is that if the Ukranians were
| to shut down the reactors, the potential for this immediately
| drops.
|
| Dropping the control rods immediately 'poisons' the material.
| It takes weeks to get the reactor back to full power.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| They didn't stop using the other three reactors at Chernobyl
| either, at least not right away. They are all in
| decommissioning now.
| caffeine wrote:
| I think you could have phrased it more constructively, but your
| question is valid - does it make sense to build nuclear given
| we may be entering a period of prolonged warfare?
|
| Most fossil fuel facilities are equally vulnerable to
| destruction, and a blown up coal or natural gas facility would
| probably pollute to a similar degree.
|
| Modern nuclear facilities are also designed not to pollute in
| the event of destruction.
|
| Finally, the pollution from the normal operation of a fossil
| fuel facility would probably kill similar numbers to the
| pollution of a destroyed nuclear facility.
|
| Finally I would say that war demands a lot of energy - we
| should be focusing on expedience at the moment.
| userbinator wrote:
| _and a blown up coal or natural gas facility would probably
| pollute to a similar degree._
|
| Not even close. Radioactive decay can continue for centuries
| and is difficult to contain. Burnt fossil fuels are burnt and
| that's it. No need to build a containment or maintain an
| exclusion zone.
| isomel wrote:
| Did you know that coal ashes is also a bit radioactive?
| Contrary to the fuel of a nuclear power plant which is very
| radioactive but well contained, these ashes are just spread
| in the atmosphere during normal operation.
| consumer451 wrote:
| We, at least I, was not thinking about normal operation.
| This is about events like the shelling of the largest
| nuclear plant in Europe. There are others which the
| Kremlin will attempt to take with force as well. I was
| unable to purchase iodine tablets as they were out of
| stock already.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60613438
| blibble wrote:
| at the point they're shelling the UK: we're way past a reactor
| exploding being the #1 problem
| schaefer wrote:
| I know, you're just joking about current events, but still...
|
| It would be nice if we could mention nuclear power projects
| without instantly brandishing fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
|
| after all, some studies attribute deaths from fossil fuel as
| high as 1 in 5 premature deaths!
|
| [1] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-
| kills...
| avs733 wrote:
| Obligatory...not the car brand
|
| This is the aerospace/power/transportation rolls royce:
| https://www.rolls-royce.com/
|
| This is the car brand: https://www.rolls-
| roycemotorcars.com/en_US/home.html
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| The car brand is a BMW subsidiary.
| kitd wrote:
| More pertinently, it's the brand that produces the nuclear
| power plants on Britain's submarine fleet:
|
| https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/defence/su...
| mywittyname wrote:
| RR is the British equivalent of GE.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Or Mitsubishi.
| sandGorgon wrote:
| anyone know what is the difference between what Rolls Royce is
| building and Terrapower ?
|
| It seemed there's widespread criticism of Terrapower's modular
| nuclear reactor
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-pour-cold-water-on-bill-gat...
| Ergo19 wrote:
| Sodium-cooled reactors do not have much of a track record, and
| what there is fairly negative.
|
| https://harpers.org/archive/2022/01/spent-fuel-the-risky-res...
| yodelshady wrote:
| $500 M feels like the sweet spot for me actually. It's enough you
| can actually do something useful, unlike say "fusion never", but
| it's no so much as to be unauditable. If RR can't produce some
| goods with that amount (and, institutionally, they have the
| technical competence), you can ask why.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I'm interested in the "modular" aspect here. It's not so clear
| what this means, but my must hopeful take is:
|
| - core technology can be switched (pop in a thorium core when
| it's available, leaving all the cooling, turbines and electrical
| as is)
|
| - better maintenance, swap out parts with short downtimes
|
| - interoperability, add a cooling system from another
| manufacturer like TeraPower or even a Chinese or Russian firm
| (after this war nonsense ends). If we're going to counter climate
| change with nuclear it must be a global effort.
|
| - easier, safer decommissioning. No need to carefully demolish 5
| acre concrete bunker sites, just tow away old parts for disposal
| at a safe place.
|
| Anyone know what "modular" really means in this context?
| sephamorr wrote:
| I think the biggest contributor is shrinking the size of the
| engineering effort. The cost scaling curve for large
| infrastructure projects is often not beneficial - the idea is
| that a (50%) smaller reactor requires substantially smaller
| containment, on-site development, etc, which should reduce
| costs by far more than 50%. More parts can be build in a
| factory rather than on-site, and higher unit volumes can
| support a learning curve.
| gendal wrote:
| None of the above. AFAIK, 'modular' here is shorthand for
| '(mostly) assembled on site from modules made in factories'.
| The idea is that if you can transform nuclear build-out from a
| civil engineering problem into a manufacturing problem you can
| massively lower costs if/when you reach some level of scale.
| thinkyfish wrote:
| I think it just means that the whole reactor itself IS a
| module, can be removed, put on a truck, repaired, upgraded, and
| replaced as needed. Here is a Wikipedia link that has a picture
| of one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power
| dazbradbury wrote:
| Are the various "small" nuclear reactor projects seen as a way to
| tide over the gap until fusion (which has a similar number of
| startups and organisations working on it) takes over? Or a bet
| that fusion won't be feasible in the end? Or are they seen as
| filling different gaps and co-existing longer term?
| nicoburns wrote:
| Fusion isn't proven yet, so government can't really plan for
| it. Even if it does arrive, nobody knows when that might be. It
| could easily be in 100 years for all we know. Small nuclear
| reactors are seen as a way to get the benefits of fission at
| lower cost.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| There's not really that level of central planning going on here
| (and IMO that's a good thing).
| loeg wrote:
| Neither? Fusion is not feasible right now, and we need power
| now. It doesn't really matter whether fusion eventually becomes
| viable. Fission is fine for the long term; fusion would also be
| fine, if it eventually worked.
| toast0 wrote:
| I think all of these projects are coming together primarily to
| replace the existing nuclear plants. As the older plants reach
| the end of their operational life, there's still a desire for
| fission power; building a new plant with the old designs
| doesn't work for a lot of reasons, so hopefully new designs
| that take into account 40-60 years of operational,
| construction, and regulatory experience will make it possible
| to fill the void. I'm sure all the teams are also hoping to
| broaden the market for fission power too; if they can show the
| ability to build reactors in reasonable timelines and with
| reasonable budgets and operability, it could happen. If not,
| these are likely to be the last generation of fission plants
| (aside from naval applications)
| moffkalast wrote:
| It's always been a problem that the current way we do
| reactors involves lots of one-off designs, with gigantic
| powerplants that require too much red tape to get finished in
| a reasonable time frame.
|
| Now instead of that have a small modular core that is
| certified to high heaven and can be mass produced. It would
| cut down maintenance, deployment, construction, everything. I
| truly think this is a fantastic way towards a net zero
| future.
| aeontech wrote:
| I think small reactors are proven to be feasible now, and can
| be producing energy in short term.
|
| Fusion is a longer-term bet - it's probably coming, but there's
| no certainty on the timeline.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Even if fusion is feasible, it will not solve the problems
| people keep hoping it will.
|
| 1. Proliferation. A thorium reactor already has no
| proliferation risks
|
| 2. Costs. LOL. At least 2000 years to recoup the R&D, and then
| OpEx still exists
|
| 3. Fuel availability. Thorium. Reactor.
|
| 4. Waste. Where do you think all those neutrons will go? The
| container. which will slowly become radioactive as you
| transmute it thus... IT will also become brittle and need
| replacement. It is ... nuclear waste. Radioactive and in need
| of storage. Also: a thorium reactor can use existing nuclear
| waste to for a while it'll REDUCE amount of waste we have to
| deal with
|
| The one and only thing fusion does have going for it: at least
| _IN THEORY_ it might be possible to do on a space ship by
| collecting interstellar gas. Not much heavy isotopes there but
| plenty oh H and some He
| philipkglass wrote:
| Thorium reactors still have proliferation risks. See this
| explanation written by physicist and HN commenter
| acidburnNSA:
|
| https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth3
| soperj wrote:
| There's already a reactor that can do this (CANDU reactor),
| and has been operational for decades, no research required.
| That there is little new investment in building them tells me
| that no one really cares about reducing the amount of nuclear
| waste, and that it's all very political.
| retrac wrote:
| Yep. Ontario's power reactors can (and have!) run on plain
| uranium, partially depleted uranium "waste" from American
| power reactors, and my favourite: a mix of depleted uranium
| and ex-Soviet warhead plutonium [1]. A thorium breeding
| cycle is also possible, in theory with CANDU and it's
| actually being done with India's heavy water pressurized
| reactors using thorium, which are an indirect derivative.
|
| [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/russian-plutonium-one-
| step-cl...
| zucker42 wrote:
| Metaculus indicates that the first fusion plant may not be
| online until the 2040s[1]. We shouldn't be not building lower
| carbon energy infrastructure now with the idea that fusion will
| save us.
|
| [1] https://www.metaculus.com/questions/363/will-a-fusion-
| based-...
| brandmeyer wrote:
| None of the above. Smaller nuclear reactor projects are an
| effort to reduce the capital requirements to get started. There
| are inherent economies of scale in the physics which promote
| building larger reactors. Military propulsion reactors are <
| 1/10 the size of commercial power reactors today, and they are
| safe enough that we operate them with enlistees. But they are
| far too expensive for commercial operation.
| sh4rks wrote:
| I feel stupid for thinking these would be used to power car
| engines.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Rolls Royce hasn't produced cars in years. They sold their
| brand and factory to BMW. They're a jet engine manufacturer
| though.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Along with being one of the big 3 turbine manufacturers, they
| also do a lot of military and marine stuff. This nuclear tech
| fits their business as the Vanguard submarines are powered by
| RR reactors.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard-class_submarine
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_PWR
| WithinReason wrote:
| Like in Fallout? One can dream...
| orangepurple wrote:
| Or infinite batteries in A Roadside Picnic
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ford Nucleon
| jollybean wrote:
| Thank you Putin for helping us to move away from fossil fuels.
| folli wrote:
| Nuclear power can be considered a fossil fuel, as it relies on
| non-renewable metals for fusion.
| azornathogron wrote:
| The term "fossil fuel" is not (and never has been) a synonym
| for "non-renewable".
|
| Nuclear power is non-renewable, but it is not a fossil fuel.
| isomel wrote:
| 1. A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material. The
| fuel used for nuclear doesn't fit that description.
|
| 2. We're talking about fission, not fusion
|
| 3. We have enough of these non-renewable metals for a very
| long time.
| zeruch wrote:
| I still haven't seen a canonical bit of (non lobbyist funded) ROI
| that shows that same dollar investment isn't better spent on
| alternate means (varies by nation of course but by and large some
| combo of renewables for most geos seems a better bet, and less of
| an environmental AND security risk).
| whiddershins wrote:
| Almost all renewable calculations elide the storage cost.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| Imagine I have a load that varies between 10kW +\\- 50% and
| an intermittent generator that outputs 1kW at maximum and
| sometimes zero. I don't have any need for storage so why
| would I have to calculate any storage cost? This is basically
| the situation the US grid is in as a whole today. If you want
| higher renewable usage with fewer fossil backups then you may
| need to price storage but that isn't where we are today.
| 7952 wrote:
| Storage is far easier though if the input power is cheap.
| Cost per MW is strongly correlated with cost per MWh.
| moffkalast wrote:
| And that solar is the most expensive way of producing power
| per kWh and would go nowhere if not subsidized to the moon
| and back.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Unsubsidized on-shore wind and solar is the by far cheapest
| sources of energy today. They are down at the marginal cost
| of existing, paid of, traditional power plants. That is
| where the current explosion in renewable growth is coming
| from. It is simply a more efficient use of capital to close
| down your existing nuclear plant and build new renewables
| instead.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| dpierce9 wrote:
| That just isn't true. Solar is among the cheapest per watt
| to build [0] and produces very cheap electricity [1] even
| if you remove subsidies. It isn't a perfect technology but
| that is beside the point. Further, every other technology
| for producing electricity has subsidies: wind (similar tax
| benes), nuclear (the gov acts as the insurer of last resort
| in a catastrophe, unpriced externality of waste heat), coal
| (unpriced externalities for carbon, soot, heavy metals,
| waste heat), natural gas (unpriced externalities for
| carbon, waste heat for combined cycle), hydro has all sorts
| of hard to price externalities and they are usually built
| with the help of the government (financing, dislocating
| people, rights of way, building new shipping lanes, etc).
|
| [0] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_
| 8.2.p...
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_genera
| tion....
| baq wrote:
| dollar cost is not as important as the time it takes to get to
| first watt, since the only reasonable alternative to fission
| base load generators is fusion... if you can build these in 12
| months instead of 12 years, you'll find yourself unable to meet
| demand.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Everyone keeps talking about fusion, am I out of the loop or
| something? It's not a proven tech, why is it being brought
| up?
| parineum wrote:
| You may not have seen it but Rolls-Royce is a company looking
| to make money building these things. You can assume they have
| done this research.
| zeruch wrote:
| RR deciding to lobby in the UK for business where they have
| few competitors (versus in renewables where their competitive
| landscape is considerable and growing by the quarter) doesn't
| seem like an ROI I buy into, much as Phillip Morris'
| "scientific research" into the effects of smoking on lung
| cancer didn't seem altogether self-serving.
| mateo1 wrote:
| Their reasearch: "If we lobby really hard, get someone's
| political career tied to the success of our project and sink
| enough public funds into this so backing out is no longer
| considered an option, we'll make tons of money. p=0.05 btw"
| kitd wrote:
| Their research includes producing the nuclear power plants
| on the UK's submarines btw:
|
| https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-
| services/defence/su...
| parineum wrote:
| Why wouldn't you lobby to get public funds _and_ do
| something that can actually sell mass market?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I think these projects are less about making money directly.
| Mostly these projects are only profitable/feasible with the
| help of lots of government funding. I assume they have
| secured some of that.
|
| The reason that the British government is interested in
| subsidizing nuclear is that they want to maintain their
| nuclear capability and want to stay credible as a nuclear
| power. That, and the French are also investing. Either way,
| that makes it interesting for the likes of Rolls Royce to get
| involved. There's government money to be had. And maybe Rolls
| Royce stumbles on something useful; like a cost reduction
| that makes nuclear a bit less expensive. I wouldn't count on
| that happening quickly though or in any amounts that really
| matter.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Look, the end goal is "too cheap to meter", whether it is
| public transit or electricity generation. And that is not
| profitable.
|
| The goal is to make something smaller enough that one can make
| it enough times to make the production process more efficient.
| Then they export them to every fucking country and make money
| _one off_. And then no more global warming world peace or
| whatever.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Considering nuclear is by far the most expensive source of
| energy that seems like dream based on unicorns and fuzzy warm
| feelings. In reality, nuclear is as dead as coal due to the
| steam based thermodynamic cycle.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| isomel wrote:
| Your link show the opposite of what you claim. According to
| the main graph. Nuclear generation is not more expensive
| than other sources.
|
| Also the costs at the output of the generator is one thing,
| but what counts is actually the cost of the useful power
| used. And renewables puts a lot of extra cost on the grid.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| You mean this graph?
|
| https://www.lazard.com/media/451885/grphx_lcoe-07.png
|
| The right side has one magical word in the title:
| "marginal".
|
| New built renewables have a lower cost than your paid off
| traditional plants. In other words, to get a more
| efficient capital allocation you would close your
| existing nuclear plant and build new renewables. That is
| where we are today.
|
| In the same fashion nuclear puts a lot of cost on the
| grid since you need to plan for the largest producer
| cutting out at any time. That can be phased out with
| renewables.
|
| Battery storage is also starting catch on due to lowered
| costs. For 2022 10 GW is planned to be added to the US
| grid.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51518
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| My problem with this is that the costs of doing storage
| for 100% are a lot more hypothetical than the costs of
| doing 100% Nuclear. If something addresses that problem
| head on, fine. But most stuff seems to just do optomistic
| extrapolations from today's current storage experiments.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Why hypothetical? The famously least regulated grid of
| all is heading straight into battery based storage
| without a subsidy in sight. Nothing hypothetical about
| it.
|
| > "Battery storage. In the next two years, power plant
| developers and operators expect to add 10 GW of battery
| storage capacity; more than 60% of this capacity will be
| paired with solar facilities. In 2021, 3.1 GW of battery
| storage capacity was added in the United States, a 200%
| increase. Declining costs for battery storage
| applications, along with favorable economics when
| deployed with renewable energy (predominantly wind and
| solar PV), have driven the expansion of battery storage."
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51518
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Sure, there are other options. But they each have their
| downsides:
|
| * Natural gas supplemented by renewables like solar and wind is
| cheaper, but it's still emitting carbon (plus fostering
| dependency on natural gas exporters like Russia).
|
| * Hydroelectricity and geothermal are excellent carbon-free and
| controllable energy sources. But they are geographically
| dependent. If you don't have a river flowing through a dam-able
| valley, or access to a seismic fault line you're not going to
| be building any of these.
|
| * Renewables plus storage can hypothetically delivery cheaper
| power. But storage at anywhere near the required capacities
| remain hypothetical. The few solutions that do seem to deliver
| good storage costs are geographically limited, like
| hydroelectric reservoirs.
|
| Nuclear remains the only non-intermittent, geographically
| independent source of carbon-free energy.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Hydro isn't carbon free. It takes a lot of cement to build a
| hydro dam. Even earth damns need to have their central and
| powerhouse structures made of cement.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Hydro emits less carbon per unit of electricity than solar
| [1]. And drastically less than the renewables + natural gas
| mix that's used in practice to accommodate renewables'
| intermittency.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-
| cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis...
| olau wrote:
| The reason storage for renewables is still hypothetical has
| to do with the fact that the storage has not really been
| required yet because people are still willing to burn stuff.
|
| Also, when you offer nuclear as an option, you need to
| remember that nuclear can't do the job without storage either
| - unless you're willing to pay out of your nose for something
| that sits idle most of the time.
|
| Also, in your incomplete list, you're missing biomass,
| biogas, thermal-electric storage, thermal storage (in the UK,
| a lot of the energy required could be stored and used as
| heat) and grid interconnections.
|
| Thermal and thermal-electric are still not widely deployed.
| But biomass and biogas are.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Also, when you offer nuclear as an option, you need to
| remember that nuclear can't do the job without storage
| either - unless you're willing to pay out of your nose for
| something that sits idle most of the time.
|
| The disparity between peak electricity consumption and
| minimum electricity consumption is not so great as most
| people make it out to be [1], and base load still accounts
| for the majority of electricity demand.
|
| Furthermore, nuclear plants can module their electrical
| output by more aggressively cooling the reactor. Your claim
| that nuclear requires storage is demonstrably false: France
| operates a grid over 70% nuclear (over 80% at its peak)
| without energy storage.
|
| > biomass, biogas, thermal-electric storage, thermal
| storage
|
| What do you mean by biomass and biogas? Burning wood and
| capturing methane from landfills has been done, but not on
| a relevant scale.
|
| Thermal and thermal electric storage remain in the
| prototyping stage. If they prove to be cheap and scalable
| then great. But that's still in the world of hypotheticals,
| it may or may not pan out.
|
| 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
| roenxi wrote:
| These moves should probably be considered in context of the UK's
| collapsed/collapsing ability to produce energy [0]. These stats
| are a bit laggy, but it looks like they're being choked out of
| any sort of industrial relevance to anything.
|
| It is hard for me to imagine how that doesn't translate into a
| crisis of living standards. Either they're directly losing the
| ability to secure people comfortable lives, or they are losing
| the ability to export valuable products and becoming more
| vulnerable to foreign pressure. They literally can't have goods
| and services without energy.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom#O... -
| the table here is a jaw dropper, looks like they are
| deindustrialising.
| sgt101 wrote:
| It's worth noting that the UK has now started developing very
| large scale off shore wind systems. You are right though -
| there has been massive deindustrialization and especially a
| shift from processing of raw material into intermediate forms.
| For example steel manufacturing in the UK is only for
| specialist products.
| hkt wrote:
| Offshore wind has been growing quickly for 20 years.
| Deindustrialisation started in the 80s. None of this is new,
| really.
| bpye wrote:
| The U.K. is primarily a services based economy, I think it is
| conceivable that the economy can grow whilst energy consumption
| decreases if you're seeing a transition from manufacturing and
| heavy industry to commercial and services.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| And in a wartime era in a world that is de-globalizing, how
| does that strategy play out for a country?
| encoderer wrote:
| Rolling blackouts.
| params wrote:
| You could swap UK with Sweden and your comment would be just as
| relevant. Ok, it's a bit of harsh when applied to us, I'm not
| sure if we are choked out, but the energy crisis is real and
| high-energy industries are halting and forced to stop their
| expansion or even shrink their operations.
|
| Another aspect is that energy and gas went from being
| affordable to a _luxury_ , that's right, a growing chunk of
| swedes will have to cut back on their use of electricity (how
| would that even work). The prices on electricity have gone up
| 400% in ONE year, gas prices have gone up about 200%. Wages
| have halted since forever if you account for inflation.
|
| I'm realizing the terrifying pace of this just now when writing
| it out, it's just unfolding in front of our eyes, we are in for
| one hell of a ride..
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "that's right, a growing chunk of swedes will have to cut
| back on their use of electricity"
|
| This is really something that would have been unthinkable a
| mere 5 years ago. Sweden, one of the richest nations of
| Earth, having to be careful about electricity prices.
| orf wrote:
| Household energy usage has decreased a lot, especially with the
| push for more efficient household appliances, lighting and
| better insulation.
|
| During this time some power-hungry industry has closed, and we
| shuttered basically all of our coal power plants.
| loudthing wrote:
| "Britain last year backed a $546 million funding round at the
| company to develop the country's first small modular nuclear
| reactor (SMR), part of its drive to reach net zero carbon
| emissions and promote new technology with export potential."
|
| Cool. Although I foresee exporting this technology will be
| difficult as far as fuel and waste supply chain goes. Having the
| possibility of multiple new, smaller countries receive nuclear
| power makes moving fuel and waste across multiple borders more
| difficult. Also, protecting the technology so it doesn't fall
| into the wrong hands becomes more difficult as well (assuming
| these things can enrich uranium).
|
| "Each mini plant can power around one million homes...".
|
| This is where I did a spit take. I was really underestimating the
| capacity for these "mini" reactors. Being able to power so many
| homes (and being more centralized than I thought) means these
| reactors would still require huge infrastructure investment in
| order to spread the power.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| > This is where I did a spit take. I was really underestimating
| the capacity for these "mini" reactors.
|
| Yeah, "mini" seems like it would be an order of magnitude less
| than the existing nuclear reactors. But the 470 MW mini reactor
| is just on the low side of current operational reactors which
| are in the 400 - 1200 MW range:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| That's not even midi in my book.
| fortysixdegrees wrote:
| Really, they top out at 1200MW and not 1210MW?! Come on now
| moralestapia wrote:
| More specs:
|
| Land footprint: ~2 football pitches [1]
|
| Cost: ~2.4 billion USD [2]
|
| 1:https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-
| reactor...
|
| 2:https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-
| secu....
| philipkglass wrote:
| The second article says "The target cost for each station
| is GBP1.8 billion (USD2.4 billion) by the time five have
| been built, with further savings possible."
|
| This indicates that cost per station could be significantly
| higher before 5 of them have been built. It's reasonable to
| believe that doggedly continuing to build more of them will
| bring costs down eventually, but if early units have high
| costs (or worse, if build progress falls behind schedule)
| then it could be difficult to maintain support for building
| more of them.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| at PS120(current price is PS240) per mwhr that's still
| PS430 million a year income. With a 60 year lifespan,
| naively 5-8 years to profitability.
|
| The main risk to nuclear plant building is overuns of the
| reactor and problems with commissioning. If all your
| doing is hooking up pipes to heat exchangers then that
| simplifies significantly the building of a plant.
| jhgb wrote:
| > at PS120(current price is PS240)
|
| PS120/MWh is a rather terrible price. That's basically
| Hinkley Point C level rate, which is something many grid
| operators would never accept. So much for "export
| potential"?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| A high price, but it's for non-intermittent,
| geographically independent carbon-free generation.
| Nothing else offers that capability. Hydro and geothermal
| are great, but not geographically independent. Renewables
| are cheaper, but are intermittent and still
| geographically dependent. To fairly compare them to
| nuclear you have to take in the cost of storage, which is
| immense unless you are lucky to have an alpine lake next
| door.
| Joeri wrote:
| I think you may have to recheck those facts.
|
| All power sources are intermittent, and nuclear is no
| exception. Nuclear power plants go offline unexpectedly
| all the time. Every energy grid needs a mix of sources to
| deal with intermittent production, preferably ones that
| are controllable and can follow loads.
|
| Nuclear power is not quick to follow loads. This makes it
| good for base load, somewhat able to do load following,
| and unable to handle peak loads. Currently peak loads are
| handled using fossil fuel plants. Even if a country
| embraces nuclear power wholesale they will still have to
| invest in storage as well if they want a green energy
| grid, to be able to fully handle peaks. Hydro (dam)
| storage is not what is being looked at in most places
| because of cost and climate impact (concrete), the
| current plans involve a mix of batteries and hydrogen.
|
| And finally, current nuclear power depends on uranium,
| and many countries have to import that, so it's not quite
| geographically independent. There are approaches for
| nuclear power technologies that reduce the need for
| uranium, but all attempts to build those and run them at
| reasonable cost have failed.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| No, nuclear plants go offline very rarely. The have the
| highest capacity factor of any source [1]. And more
| importantly, this downtime is scheduled. Where's your
| source for your claim that "nuclear power plants go
| offline unexpectedly all the time"?
|
| Nuclear power can be modulated by more aggressively
| cooling reactors. France has been able to operate a grid
| over 70% nuclear (over 80% at its peak) without issue, so
| these concerns about nuclear's inability to match
| shifting loads are demonstrably false.
|
| Nuclear plants are geographically independent. Sure,
| uranium has to be shipped. But that's the point: uranium
| fuel _can_ be shipped. Rivers and valleys cannot be put
| in shipping containers and moved to where they 're
| needed. Geothermal vents cannot either.
|
| 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183680/us-average-
| capaci...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| You're damn right its shit.
|
| Hinkley was bollocks because the strike price was that
| high. If we don't agree to stupid strike prices (ie PS60
| per mwh) then its not a disaster. Even at PS60
| profitability is inside 12 years.
|
| Unless we start building generation capacity, then the
| wholesale price will go up as time goes on. Or as new
| renewable come on line, we'll get even more price
| fluctuations.
|
| it doesn't take many of these to even out pricing.
| pydry wrote:
| If the strike price wasnt that high it never would have
| been financed.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I could imagine they already have contracts in place,
| even at a higher price tag. It's Rolls-Royce after all,
| also, they mention they have some MoUs in place.
|
| (This is not based on any facts, it's just a moonshot) If
| they manage to drive cost down to 1/10th of that, while
| actually delivering and showing their design is safe
| (which I think it is), this could be a global energy game
| changer.
|
| The world's total energy consumption from "dirty" sources
| is ~140,000TWh, one of these SMRs could plausibly produce
| 3TWh/year, so about ~45k would be needed to match our
| current energy demands. The world is not going to switch
| to 100% of these, obviously, but nonetheless their market
| is HUGE (trillions!).
| nicoburns wrote:
| I imagine given that the whole point of these small units
| is batch manufacturing that several would be ordered
| together.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Also that building multiple facilities at once will
| streamline regulations and building codes.
|
| What killed the large nuclear reactors was the need for
| so many "one-off" design changes to accommodate safety
| regulations, which would vary by site. This means that
| economies of scale are lost when compared to gas power
| stations, because every nuclear reactor was essentially
| unique.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| There were plenty of repeated design that started during
| the 1960s and 70s. Accordingly, costs were considerably
| lower, often in the range 1 to 2 billion USD per GW.
| mywittyname wrote:
| After this period, costs to build nuclear power plants
| skyrocketed. When the reasons behind these escalating
| costs were studied in depth, it was found to be due to
| the fact that plants lack standardization across the
| board, leading to ballooning engineering and labor costs
| as designs are reworked in site-specific ways:
|
| > Overall, a common theme emerging from this analysis is
| the lack of anticipation in engineering models of the
| cost-increasing contributions of soft technology external
| to standard reactor hardware, in response to changing
| regulations and other factors such as variable project-
| specific conditions. Prospective modeling shows the
| potentially transformative effect of rethinking
| engineering design to adapt to these factors, for example
| through reduced commodity usage and the automation of
| some construction processes.
|
| https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30458-X
| ?_r...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| That actually seems reasonable for the cost of a power
| station.
|
| The problem recently is that privatized energy operators
| have a hard time securing financing in the orders of tens
| of billions. Wind, solar and gas may have higher per-unit
| costs but you can actually build one for under a billion
| dollars, and in the case of rooftop solar we are talking
| tens of thousands of dollars, and it is a lot easier to
| secure loans of that size. Tens of billions of dollars is
| basically reserved for the bond markets and state actors.
| AdamN wrote:
| There's also the lifecycle cost of the fuel and the power
| station itself to account for. This is higher for nuclear
| than for solar/wind.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Are these going to produce 470MW?!
|
| A 1MW wind turbine costs ~$4M and is competitive with
| oil/gas.
|
| At $2.4Bn - anything above 400+ megawatts sounds like a great
| deal - since you don't have to worry about the wind blowing
| or the sun shining.
|
| If these can produce 470MW at that price - what has been the
| hold up?!
| dijit wrote:
| 1) People are skittish on Nuclear because of the perceived
| danger.
|
| 2) We still can't solve the waste problem, the best we have
| is putting it underground in Finland.
|
| I disagree with these opinions, since the waste is
| minuscule for the amount of power generated. (1 cubic
| centimeter of uranium per million homes per day or so) and
| coal is killing more than nuclear ever will.. but, hey ho.
| diordiderot wrote:
| The French seem to have solved the waste problem.
|
| And either way, at least it's less urgent than the
| climate one
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Coal is a bit of a red herring in the UK as we don't burn
| much of it anymore.
| infinityio wrote:
| To be fair, even oil and gas are orders of magnitude more
| dangerous than nuclear per unit energy
| topspin wrote:
| "This is where I did a spit take."
|
| That's understandable. 470 MW is not "small." It's over 50% of
| the size of conventional PWRs. Also 470 MW is probably not
| sufficient for "one million homes." It might be sufficient for
| one million small efficiency apartments, assuming they are well
| built, equipped with modern appliances and not over occupied.
| But a conventional detached residential structure is 1 KW+.
| That's without charging any electric vehicles.
|
| Marketing exaggerations aside, good to see at least some
| innovation in nuclear design. The design anticipates factory
| built reactor vessels, which is a fundamental improvement.
| IanCal wrote:
| Not in the UK. While there's peaks, we don't average
| 24kwh/day, that would be enormous. Even looking at detached
| houses, it's less than half of that.
| gjvc wrote:
| This is an excellent summary from 2020
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37M7ffjro3I -- what's
| notable is how much gas (as in ethane, propane, and butane)
| is used in place of coal.
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| > It might be sufficient for one million small efficiency
| apartments, assuming they are well built, equipped with
| modern appliances and not over occupied
|
| So I live in a small, not especially energy-efficient
| Victorian-era London apartment with my partner, without fancy
| appliances. The boiler is gas-powered but the cooker is
| electric. And last month we averaged about 6-7 KwH/day, and
| this was working from home 90% of the time.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Having many small reactors all over the place has been done,
| and yes poses the problems when people who don't know what they
| even are find them and try to scrap them
| https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0931jtk/the-nuclear-lighthou...
| leephillips wrote:
| > infrastructure investment in order to spread the power.
|
| What infrastructure do you have in mind? Are you thinking of
| places without an existing power grid?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > This is where I did a spit take. I was really underestimating
| the capacity for these "mini" reactors. Being able to power so
| many homes (and being more centralized than I thought) means
| these reactors would still require huge infrastructure
| investment in order to spread the power.
|
| This is not only untrue, it is the opposite of true.
| Centralized power sources mean you can build generation
| facility close to places with energy demand (usually population
| centers).
|
| People keep touting decentralized grids as some sort of
| advantage over centralized grids. It's the complete opposite. A
| decentralized grid needs more transmission infrastructure to
| connect large areas often far away from where energy is
| actually consumed. Renewable projects are often blocked because
| transmission infrastructure can't support them, e.g. [1].
|
| 1. https://www.vox.com/videos/22685707/climate-change-clean-
| ene...
| ajross wrote:
| > $546 million funding round
|
| This is where nuclear just loses me. The first number I pulled
| up on Google says that this is what you would pay to build,
| site and install 400 MW of wind capacity. The reactor when
| eventually built (at much greater cost, of course) is only
| going to produce 470 MW. You'd need to get a second reactor
| installed just to break even for _one round of R & D funding_.
| It just doesn't work.
|
| I'm all for nuclear power in principle. I'm broadly opposed to
| tearing down existing capacity. But I'm absolutely horrified at
| the degree to which people want to throw money at this
| boondoggle. There is low hanging fruit all over the renewables
| market. Can we please pick it first before chasing radioactive
| unicorns?
| floren wrote:
| How much area do you have to cover with turbines to get
| 400MW? This may be a figure of interest to, say, a small
| island nation.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > a small island nation.
|
| That is to say, an island with extensive scope for offshore
| wind.
|
| The real question for a well-populated island nation is how
| much area do you have to write off if a nuclear reactor
| suffers from a major accident (or attack)?
|
| For reference, the Fukushima exclusion zone was 311.5
| square miles, and Chernobyl's was 1,600 square miles.
|
| https://www.britannica.com/story/nuclear-exclusion-zones
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > The real question for a well-populated island nation is
| how much area do you have to write off if a nuclear
| reactor suffers from a major accident (or attack)?
|
| I always roll my eyes at this line of reasoning. First,
| the number of nuclear incidents of that scope can be
| counted on one hand, and at least the Fukushima one was a
| result of poor planning. Second, that analysis never
| accounts for the externalities incurred by continuing to
| use fossil fuel Peaker plants, the externalities of
| etching solar panels and creating batteries, etc. Yes,
| nuclear power accidents can be very bad if we do a bad
| job of engineering the plan, and our other forms of
| energy production have major externalities even if we do
| a very good job.
| dash2 wrote:
| I kind of wonder if Putin's rationale for starting a fire
| at that Ukraine plant was "let's show them nuclear power
| can be risky... if some bad guy starts firing at it".
| floren wrote:
| My first thought when I heard about Russia shelling the
| nuke plants: "ah, that's a good way to make sure Europe
| will keep buying Russia gas..."
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Ah now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. 400MW of wind power
| is actually about 120MW of actual power when you take into
| account the capacity factor typically 30% in the UK. While
| it's true that nuclear plants also have a capacity factor due
| to down time and refueling it's >90%.
|
| You also can't just arbitrarily increase the amount of wind
| generation and hope the grid copes. There need to be major
| structural changes to cope with the intermittency of power.
| ajross wrote:
| See... this is again the rathole that leads to boondoggle
| spending. I'm not saying "buy wind only" as all the
| commenters immediately interpreted. I'm pointing out that
| this (hypothetical!) reactor is, even now, even in the
| development stage, _already_ as expensive (plus or minus an
| order of magnitude) as readily deployed solutions already
| available in the market.
|
| Be real. It's not going to catch up financially. It will
| never catch up financially. Nuclear will be what we start
| deploying only when we're working on the last 20% of
| capacity and trying to wind down the old fossil fuel
| generators (which will themselves be increasingly expensive
| as they become peaker plants).
|
| Nuclear will never appeal to market producers of energy.
| It's just too expensive. Which is why we need to throw
| public funds at it instead. And if we're going to throw
| public funds at the problem, let's start with the low
| hanging fruit. The UK should be putting that money
| somewhere else, not here.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Keep fighting the fight. Your comment is correct despite
| starting to get grayed out. I always sense shenanigans on
| nuclear posts on the internet.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Nuclear will be what we start deploying only when we're
| working on the last 20% of capacity and trying to wind
| down the old fossil fuel generators > Nuclear will never
| appeal to market producers of energy. It's just too
| expensive.
|
| It seems to me that these two sentences contradict. The
| first implies that Nuclear will be appealing for 20% of
| the energy market, which is still a _huge_ market.
| ajross wrote:
| If it was appealing, private industry would be
| _investing_. What I 'm saying is that the only time
| nuclear makes sense is when you're trying to back-fill
| the last 20% (or whatever) of capacity that can't easily
| be born by other renewable sources. That doesn't make
| that 20% magically profitable, it's a gap that needs to
| be filled (likely by public investment).
| gwbrooks wrote:
| :::Helion's $500m funding round has entered the chat:::
| scrollaway wrote:
| It does catch up, of course it does. It takes some time,
| but there is ROI, and it's not even that far in time.
| It's just that you have to spend more time in debt.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw
| ajross wrote:
| > It does catch up, of course it does. It takes some time
|
| It's had 70 years!
| scrollaway wrote:
| ... goalposts, much? Watch the video, it takes far less
| than 70 years for a nuclear power plant to go ROI-
| positive.
|
| Hi, I'm French, I know a thing or two about how valuable
| the ROI on Nuclear is.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I'm getting confused. GP is saying 90% of 470MW (nuclear)
| versus 30% of 400MW (wind) for the same price, and you
| are saying that's too expensive?
|
| Or did you leave a number out of your comment and 400MW
| of wind is only 50M, one-tenth the price.
| ivalm wrote:
| No, the grant, before any reactor, is equivalent to 400
| MW (later adjusted down by capacity factor). The nuclear
| reactor itself is vastly more expensive ($2.4B after the
| 5th unit). So each reactor is closer to 1500MW of wind
| (again if we take 30% then 450MW more in line with the
| reactor) and that's optimistic (because early nuke
| estimates tend to underestimate cost). So the real reason
| for nuclear is that it provides consistent output and
| thus has lower requirements on the grid.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Have people looked at combining gas generation and wind
| power, would being able to generate gas when there was too
| much electricity change the capacity factor equation?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| We don't have anything near that scale in power-to-gas.
| And even if we _did_ have, power-to-hydrogen still is at
| only 60-70% efficency.
| dahfizz wrote:
| What is the efficiency of hydrogen-to-power? Or, the
| round trip efficiency of using hydrogen as storage?
| bjourne wrote:
| About 60-70%. Possibly it could be improved with better
| electrolysis techniques or large-scale facilities. Some
| Swedish companies are pushing for that solution:
| https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/a-fossil-free-future/
| For now it's only for the steel industry but could in
| theory be used for other parts of the grid too.
| 7952 wrote:
| That efficiency could be good enough if you can buy the
| energy cheap and sell high.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is, the _only_ place where you can make that
| worth the while is by building out solar in Northern
| Africa. Unfortunately, the countries in that region are a
| combination of failed states, governed by dictators,
| under threat of war or terrorism or pissed off after
| hundreds of years of Western colonial powers coming in,
| taking natural resources and leaving no meaningful income
| and perspectives to the locals.
|
| There's no easy solution for _a single one_ of these
| problems, much less for all of them.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also knowing the usual imperialist power games played
| there even if we would with huge cost stabilise the area,
| an other power coming in destabilizing it again is quite
| a big risk...
| 7952 wrote:
| No it could work in other places. You buy 1 unit of
| energy for PS50 per unit. And then sell at PS150 per
| unit, or PS90 for your remaining 0.6 units. The profit is
| from the price difference. You make money from arbitrage.
| And this is the kind of price difference you would expect
| in a grid with lots of intermittent sources. And the
| cheaper the source commodity becomes the less efficiency
| really matters.
| yodelshady wrote:
| I'm not currently aware of any wind turbines in the UK
| being powered down due to lack of demand, so the 30%
| capacity factor is exclusively due to lack of supply,
| i.e. no wind to turn the turbines.
|
| It's definitely worth looking at with another 3x wind
| capacity or so.
| pydry wrote:
| We should probably be building more pumped water storage
| now in anticipation of wind cracking 100% of demand.
|
| There's coire glas being built already but we'll need
| more, and it takes about 2x as long to build as a wind
| farm does.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The latest ~15 MW off-shore monsters are up to capacity
| factors of 60-64% now.
|
| https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/offshore-
| wind...
|
| https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW
| yodelshady wrote:
| I... put politely, don't understand how manufacturers can
| make that claim, it depends on exogenous factors. That
| said, you're right, the newest turbines are impressive
| structures and more consistent at their job.
|
| Also that said, andy_ppp is right, or will be soon. If
| you want to make a dent in our fossil fuel needs on a
| cold windless day, you'll have giant globs of excess
| energy on warm windy days, that is simply orders of
| magnitude more than any practically-costed battery can
| store. At that point, who cares if electrolysis is only
| 30% efficient?
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Your margins care, since those are a factor of
| installation cost, marginal cost and energy lost due to
| round trip efficiency.
|
| That 70% loss defines the lowest possible price
| difference between buy cheap power and sell expensive.
| Therefore any other smart consumer or storage has that
| margin to work against, to compete you out of the market.
| This is why batteries can work, in some cases. But it is
| a pure inefficiency that will find a minimum equilibrium.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Wind farm theoretical maximum is not equivalent to sustained
| continual power generation.
| krona wrote:
| These SMRs have a 60 year lifespan[1]. The lifespan of a wind
| turbine is optimistically 25 years for offshore (I don't know
| whether your stat refers to off/onshore wind.)
|
| [1] https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/net-
| zero/decarbonisin...
| jhgb wrote:
| Even if the SMR itself were to have a 60 year lifespan,
| you'll find that the steam turbines attached to it are not
| really better than the wind turbines. Comparing an SMR with
| a complete wind turbine is like comparing apples and apple
| trees.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > 400 MW of wind capacity
|
| Isn't that 400 MW when it's windy vs 470 MW all day long?
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Is that a peak or sustained 400 MW of wind power?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| > You'd need to get a second reactor installed just to break
| even for one round of R & D funding. It just doesn't work.
|
| They aren't planning to make one or two, they want to make
| dozens of them.
| kmlx wrote:
| > 400 MW of wind capacity
|
| these 400MW are not the same as the ones provided by nuclear.
| that's the difference.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Wind costs a lot more when you add in the storage tech
| required to power your citizens homes on non-windy days.
| simion314 wrote:
| We don't have storage because batteries are super expensive
| and are not clean. The good part is that we can work on more
| then one problem at a time, like we can install solar panels
| on homes, install wind turbines on windy areas and we could
| also build safe and cheap nuclear power station to fill the
| rest.
| 7952 wrote:
| Britain has around 1.4GW of battery storage installed and
| around 20GW in planning. They are easy to install and mass
| producible.
| fuddle wrote:
| Surely the costs can be reduced once the mini nuclear reactor
| technology is used more widely?
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| All I read about are nuclear reactors getting more and more
| expensive to where they aren't even feasible when they are
| completed. Why would these escape that?
|
| > Among the surprising findings in the study, which covered
| 50 years of U.S. nuclear power plant construction data, was
| that, contrary to expectations, building subsequent plants
| based on an existing design actually costs more, not less,
| than building the initial plant.
| _dain_ wrote:
| >Why would these escape that?
|
| Because they're smaller and faster to build.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The regulations changed a loonoverleg that time period as
| the tech evolved, so old designed needed expensive
| modifications and recertifications to meet new standards
| which would often get released during construction.
|
| Being able to build modular reactors in a factory would
| change that.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| As it stands wind and solar can't power 100% due to them
| being unavailable at times. Not to mention the insane amount
| of land and storage capacity required. Nuclear is ideally
| suited for the last 30% or so that'll continue to be some
| form of steady state power generation required to augment
| renewables.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > difficult as far as fuel and waste supply chain goes
|
| Sellafield was one of the biggest waste processors around,
| taking fuel from all around the world. So I don't see if being
| that big of a problem. well not impossible, there are
| reasonably well established processes for this.
| blibble wrote:
| > Being able to power so many homes (and being more centralized
| than I thought) means these reactors would still require huge
| infrastructure investment in order to spread the power.
|
| would it? they'd plug directly into the super-grid, presumably
| in locations that are currently undergoing decommissioning
|
| and then you could slowly replace CCGTs with them
|
| after that point if you need more energy you'd have to upgrade
| the grid
| russdill wrote:
| Ideally, it would be nice to drop it in as a replacement for
| an existing plant. However, it may be that the grid cannot
| sustain the existing plant being shut down without new
| capacity already in place and there's the more problematic
| issue of location. There's plenty of gas peaker plants in
| locations where people would not accept a nuclear plant, such
| as in the middle of cities.
| blibble wrote:
| > However, it may be that the grid cannot sustain the
| existing plant being shut down without new capacity already
| in place
|
| it already handles this whenever a station trips
|
| I think the grid is far more resilient than you give it
| credit for
|
| > There's plenty of gas peaker plants in locations where
| people would not accept a nuclear plant, such as in the
| middle of cities.
|
| the UK will shortly have a dozen former nuclear power
| station sites ready for a couple of new reactors
|
| it's not an immediate problem for this project
|
| (did you know there used to be not one but two nuclear
| reactors right in the middle of London? one in a 17th
| century building)
| russdill wrote:
| We're not talking about a plant being down for a few
| hours, it'd be a few months for the existing plant to be
| decommissioned and the new plant to be installed,
| assuming the existing footprint does not allow the two
| plants to exist side by side
|
| But yes, many existing nuclear sites may be an ideal
| location if available.
| 7952 wrote:
| The grid is designed to deal with the loss of a power
| station like this. In fact it does all the time as
| generators go offline for maintenance etc.
|
| Also, the land requirements for this are really modest.
| Our legacy power station sites are pretty big. The old
| coal stations needed a lot of space for coal. The nuclear
| sites tend to be built in rural areas surrounded by
| countryside. There are also quite a few that were built
| on massive WWII airfields and have huge areas. Finding
| land will not be a problem.
|
| My guess is that the biggest issue will be finding a site
| with suitable geology (for the hole) and access for
| heavy/wide vehicles.
| hirundo wrote:
| > these reactors would still require huge infrastructure
| investment in order to spread the power.
|
| Nah, I've done it in Factorio, a single wire can handle the
| full output of multiple reactors.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Pretty sure there's several mods that make that not-true
| anymore :)
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