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Cont: Global warming discussion V

 
wobs said:
Baseload supply is the part of the grid that is always in demand. We have always had this issue, and nuclear fits this role well. Ramping up/down is another type of supply, and again, we have always had this, as there has always been variable supply issues.
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The idea behind base load is that you used coal powered plants for most of your needs because it's cheep. Because coal plants need to run full out you used more expensive gas and petroleum plants to make up for variations in demand though the day&year.

The key concept isn't "stable production" it's using your lowest cost energy sources first. The incremental cost of wind&solar is zero, so that's what you are going to use first. The incremental cost of nuclear is almost zero. Producing at full capacity doesn't cost you any more than it does to produce at partial capacity.


Unless you want to massively overbuild generating capacity you need storage and near line capacity. Hydroelectric power can provide some of this. Moving to electric cars with smart charging systems could add a LOT of storage to the grid. Better transmissions systems to exchange electricity and smooth out peaks in demand and generation capacity help as well. Hydrogen could be viable at some point as well. In the near term, however, allocating some of our carbon budget to natural gas powered generating stations isn't unreasonable.
 
wobs said:
Did you miss the bit where I said "I would rather do away with fossil fuels of course"

My point is that we need nuclear power to take the baseload supply as its not economic to rely on wind & solar. I even posted a ref to a study supporting this claim.

If we're trying to get off fossil fuels, we need to do so in a way we can afford.
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If we used Nuclear to replace 35% of fossil fuels we'd burn though all our proved reserves of fissile Uranium in under 2 decades. If we tried to use Nuclear to replace 100% of fossil fuels we run out before we even finished building the required number of nuclear power plants. That isn't even addressing the impossibility of building the ~40 000 reactors needed, let along monitoring them and keeping them running safely in less secure parts of the world.

Nuclear simply not viable replacement for fossil fuels using current technology. It can play a partial role, and has room to expand beyond it's current role, but it's taking a back seat to wind and solar for good reasons.
 
wobs said:
If you make enough money per year, you'll pay back the investment in a few years (7 years in my experience, but that was a few years ago). However, if you need to switch it off for prolonged periods, you're not getting any payback. With a grid with many times as many wind turbines than the demand needs (because you'd need so much excess capacity), that investment could never payback.

If you say "oh, but we'll get paid to switch it off, so it will payback anyway". Well fine, but society has to pay for that. Its still really expensive for society when you scale it up to a national grid scale operation.
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It costs you nothing to keep generating power, so why would you ever shut it off? At least with shutting down your nuclear plant there could be some small savings in fuel costs.

The problem here is that you are relying on "research" that has fundamentally skewed some basic concepts in order to try and make Nuclear look more attractive. Taking generating capacity offline due to over capacity does impact it's costs and economic viability, but the notion that it must always be wind\solar and never Nuclear that get taken offline when you have too much capacity is wrong. There is NO good reason why the costs of overcapacity should all be paid for by renewables.
 
lomiller said:
If we used Nuclear to replace 35% of fossil fuels we'd burn though all our proved reserves of fissile Uranium in under 2 decades. If we tried to use Nuclear to replace 100% of fossil fuels we run out before we even finished building the required number of nuclear power plants. That isn't even addressing the impossibility of building the ~40 000 reactors needed, let along monitoring them and keeping them running safely in less secure parts of the world.

Nuclear simply not viable replacement for fossil fuels using current technology. It can play a partial role, and has room to expand beyond it's current role, but it's taking a back seat to wind and solar for good reasons.
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Perhaps we need to start charging people more for energy. Increase energy taxes. Not everyone can have America's and Britain's amazing 1st World standard of living. Sorry.
 
Hercules56 said:
Perhaps we need to start charging people more for energy. Increase energy taxes.
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Prices that include all associated costs are essential for a free market to work. If you have costs, like climate change, being paid by people not directly part of the transaction, you don't really have a free market.



Hercules56 said:
Not everyone can have America's and Britain's amazing 1st World standard of living. Sorry.
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Basic concepts of freedom national sovereignty and basic fairness say you can't stop them.

We have to create international standards that are valid and fair for everyone. If we try and create a special status for rich western nations not only will if fail miserably, it will likely result in our destruction when that tyranny is eventually put down.
 
Hercules56 said:
Perhaps we need to start charging people more for energy. Increase energy taxes. Not everyone can have America's and Britain's amazing 1st World standard of living. Sorry.
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So you want the developed nations of the world to charge the poorer ones a tax on their energy usage, much of which is used to make goods they send to us? :boggled:

And what gives us the right to do so?
 
Originally Posted by lomiller View Post
If we used Nuclear to replace 35% of fossil fuels we'd burn though all our proved reserves of fissile Uranium in under 2 decades.
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Not if we use the 95% stored in the holding ponds in a breeder reactor.
400 years worth.
But not cost competitive SMNRs have a role tho;
 
lobosrul5 said:
So you want the developed nations of the world to charge the poorer ones a tax on their energy usage, much of which is used to make goods they send to us? :boggled:

And what gives us the right to do so?
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No I'm saying we cannot achieve middle class US-style quality of life for all people of the world, AND stop climate change. We have to sacrifice one.
 
macdoc said:
Not if we use the 95% stored in the holding ponds in a breeder reactor.
400 years worth.
But not cost competitive SMNRs have a role tho;
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Even with breeder reactors you are not getting that much out of the fuel. More importantly commercial breeder reactors that can do this don't exist, and are not currently on IAEA roadmaps.

In all likelihood it would be at least 2040's before we can even start building MSR breeder reactors and it will take decades more to produce them in large enough numbers to make a difference. If we haven't already de-carbonized by then we are already too late.

Note that CANDU reactors can breed their own fuel from Thorium, but their use of heavy water is extensive enough that we can't build them in anywhere near the numbers required, plus they tend to be more expensive so there hasn't been much uptake. There are also promises to build smaller MSR reactors, but the fact that the theory behind them is 60 years old and there are still no full sized commercial reactors suggests commercializing the tech isn't as easy as it sounds.
 
They did and can
France is the only country in the world ever to operate a commercial scale (1,200 MWe) sodium cooled, plutonium fuelled fast breeder reactor, the Superphénix at Creys-Malville. However, the French fast breeder reactor program turned out to be too costly and could never compete with light water reactor technology.
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New Breeder Reactor May Yield More Than Electricity In China

Pushing away Changbiao Island could appear insignificant and small from the shores of China’s Fujian province. It is not at all. The China National Nuclear Corp. is constructing two fast-neutron nuclear breeder reactors there; the first one is expected to be connected to the grid in 2023, and the second one in 2026
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powerinfotoday.com/nuclear-energy/new-breeder-reactor-may-yield-more-than-electricity-in-china/

US, Japan work together on fast reactor fuel safety
17 January 2023
A research programme into the safety of fast reactor fuel that has been suspended since the 1990s will resume with tests due to begin at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) next month.
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https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US,-Japan-work-together-on-fast-reactor-fuel-safet
 
Planigale said:
The problem is the fantasy that renewables are zero carbon, and have no environmental impact.
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Only in your mind. In the real world we are well aware that no technology has zero impact.

The carbon cost of some renewables e.g. off sure wind which require a lot of concrete and maintenace.
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Give us the numbers, or your statement is meaningless.

macdoc said:
The tech is there for a low carbon industrial civilization - political will is missing.
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That's true. And to clarify, the 'political' will that's missing is ours, not politicians. That is changing though, as people are now literally feeling the heat. I think this year will be the turning point.
 
macdoc said:
They did and can
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"too costly and could never compete"
"insignificant and small... two fast-neutron nuclear breeder reactors"
"tests due to begin..."

I have no problem with nuclear power plants being built provided they are cost effective - we need everything we can get. However in the past they have been plagued with delays and cost overruns, and there is no indication that the future will be much different. Nuclear power has a contribution to make, but it won't save us. Even the nuclear industry itself says that (and they should know).

The way things are going with battery technology, by the time we get enough new nuclear plants online to meet base load requirements, renewables + storage may have made them unnecessary.
 
Nuclear power is an important low-emission source of electricity, providing about 10% of global electricity generation.
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we cannot dismiss current nuclear tech as it's too critical.

Nuclear power by country - Wikipedia
The United States is the largest producer of nuclear power,
while France has the largest share of electricity generated by nuclear power, at about 70%.
China has the fastest growing nuclear power programme with 16 new reactors under construction, followed by India, which has 8 under construction.
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Japan announced its plans to restart as many nuclear power plants as possible in December 2022, walking back its pledge to phase out atomic power, according to media reports. Currently, 10 nuclear reactors have resumed operation while 17 are in the pipeline in Japan.Mar 19, 2023
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https://itif.org/publications/2023/04/17/climate-tech-to-watch-green-ammonia/

It will be even more important as green hydrogen and green ammonia unfolds allowing full utilization of all power sources.
 
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Planigale said:
The problem is the fantasy that renewables are zero carbon, and have no environmental impact. The carbon cost of some renewables e.g. off sure wind which require a lot of concrete and maintenace. There carbon cost may be predominantly one off but is not zero.
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As if nuclear and fossil fuels don't! It's funny how all kinds of production costs and maintenance become important whenever we're talking renewables and not fossil fuel or nuclear.

Planigale said:
Recycling of renewables is problematic, there are problems (!) dealing with the blades of wind turbines other than burying them. Solar cells are costly (!) to recycle with a significant carbon cost. That is not to say we should not invest in them, but decommisioning costs are usually not included in the economics, in contrast to nuclear power where the decommisioning costs are often used to argue against it.
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So unfair, isn't it?! Could it be because the decommissioning costs of nuclear are substantial - unlike the costs of "dealing with the blades of wind turbines"? (And a safe way of 'decommissioning radioactive waste' has never really been found.)
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
I have no problem with nuclear power plants being built provided they are cost effective - we need everything we can get.
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Why is cost effectiveness a concern in this context? Or are you thinking of another kind of costs than I think you are?
Let Big Oil pay for the costs! They caused the problem and paid politicians to repeat their lies.
 
Hercules56 said:
No I'm saying we cannot achieve middle class US-style quality of life for all people of the world, AND stop climate change. We have to sacrifice one.
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I think you are trying to scare the middle class into accepting Big Oil's lies.
As I have mentioned several times already, consumption (middle-class US life style) is not the problem. In fact, it should be shared with the working classes. CO2 emission is not caused by consumption as such. It's caused by fossil-fuel-based production and consumption.

Pretending that we are all too blame because of our voracious appetite for consumer goods is Big Oil's attempt to blame ordinary people for its own crimes. There is no reason why ordinary people should be unable to continue to consume when production and consumption are based on wind and solar.

And there is no reason why the rest of the world shouldn't become able to get its fair share of that. Unlike the fossil-fuel-based USA, large parts of the rest of the world haven't contributed much CO2 to the atmosphere - except through breathing, which is based almost exclusively on renewables. Industrialized nations should help them with solar and wind to compensate for banning their minuscule cooking fires.
 
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