Three Mile Island to be restarted

[Thermal]

A situation like this?

This is a situation where a paying customer is offering to buy as much power, right now, as can be provided by a nuclear plant that is already built, is already ready to go, and has already paid off much of its startup costs (for better or worse), right now.

What would the aspiration to build a renewable energy source at some point in the future offer, in a situation like this?

Look at the accident at TMI-1. It's been 40 years and they ain't done the cleanup, which keeps plodding along for another 30 years. That's in addition to the mining and cores and all the other liabilities. Yes, it's a hell of a lot better than coal and oil, but this ain't exactly lean in the net.

I seriously did not expect renewables to be viable for grid production in my lifetime. Yet here we are. In the interests of solving a rather large global problem, I'm excited to see the tech moving forward, by brute force if necessary. That's how it became viable, by pushing even when it was cost prohibitive. The arguments about how Microsoft will save money fall a little flat for me, as a corporations bottom line does not rank particularly high on my reasons to advance alternative energy sources. I'm pretty sure Microsoft could be more innovative if they chose to. Not exactly a struggling startup and all that. But I'm not overly invested in this tangental line of argumentation, so I gots ta bow out.

 

[Ziggurat]

The arguments about how Microsoft will save money fall a little flat for me

I don't care if they save money. I don't think they will, because the cheapest power would probably be coal or oil. I think they're going to pay a premium to get something carbon free.

But that's what they want. And they're paying for it, so I don't really care what it costs. They probably do care about the cost, but they think it's worth the price, and I doubt they know less about the costs involved than you do.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft could be more innovative if they chose to.

You base this on nothing substantive. And why do they need to be innovative anyways? Isn't it enough that it's carbon free?

 

[Ziggurat]

Look at the accident at TMI-1. It's been 40 years and they ain't done the cleanup, which keeps plodding along for another 30 years

I don't think you understand what's involved in decommissioning a nuclear reactor, or what its current state is. These are decades long projects, and even in normal conditions, a lot of that time is used simply waiting for stuff to decay. TMI-2 has had basically all the fuel removed quite some time ago. And one of the reasons it isn't further along in the decommissioning is that they were originally planning to decommission it at the same time as TMI-1 in order to do it more efficiently. But waiting to fully decommission a reactor isn't really a problem. It doesn't harm the environment if the reactor is already in a stable state, which TMI-2 is. Waiting actually reduces radiological risks. You incur some costs in maintaining the facility, but there's already a fund set aside to cover that. Now that TMI-1's life has been extended, they're going to go ahead with decommissioning TMI-2 on its own, and that's a slow process, but so what? There's absolutely no need to rush any of it.

 

[theprestige]

I don't think you understand what's involved in decommissioning a nuclear reactor, or what its current state is. These are decades long projects, and even in normal conditions, a lot of that time is used simply waiting for stuff to decay. TMI-2 has had basically all the fuel removed quite some time ago. And one of the reasons it isn't further along in the decommissioning is that they were originally planning to decommission it at the same time as TMI-1 in order to do it more efficiently. But waiting to fully decommission a reactor isn't really a problem. It doesn't harm the environment if the reactor is already in a stable state, which TMI-2 is. Waiting actually reduces radiological risks. You incur some costs in maintaining the facility, but there's already a fund set aside to cover that. Now that TMI-1's life has been extended, they're going to go ahead with decommissioning TMI-2 on its own, and that's a slow process, but so what? There's absolutely no need to rush any of it.

Yeah but Microsoft should have innovated an Outlook rule that automagically decoms an unused reactor every time the company's power needs increase twofold.

It's simply anti-social of them to not invent a new form of energy that will revolutionize the computing industry, rather than simply buy energy from an existing plant of the old kind.

 

[Thermal]

I don't think you understand what's involved in decommissioning a nuclear reactor, or what its current state is.

I do, broadly, which is why I am aware of the time frame. TMI is not far from me, and even closer is Salem NJ, where they abruptly shut down for unscheduled "maintanance" a while back. The "maintenance" was accidently discovering that the thing was falling apart.

These are decades long projects, and even in normal conditions, a lot of that time is used simply waiting for stuff to decay. TMI-2 has had basically all the fuel removed quite some time ago.

Again, not as clean and "no big deal" a failure as it was portrayed. Tis a decades long mess, even contained. Not the cleanest of demo jobs on the best of days. No carbon emissions is great, no argument. Everything else about nuclear is a dirty gig.

Now that TMI-1's life has been extended, they're going to go ahead with decommissioning TMI-2 on its own, and that's a slow process, but so what? There's absolutely no need to rush any of it.

Right. Just leave it laying around, no problem. Oh, and it costs a billion to do the tear down, so yeah, pretty sure I can guess why there is no rush.

The OP said that TMIs owners hoped that this deal would "pave the way for new strategic partnerships". Apologies for such a hope sounding ominous to some of us.

Seriously though man, I'm really not that into this whole angle and only made what I thought was a passing comment. This particular argument is not particuarly interesting, so imma bounce.

 

[angrysoba]

Hey, one thing I did not know, because it flew under my radar, is that at the latest COP (28), there was a pledge to “triple nuclear energy by 2050”.


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/climate/cop28-nuclear-power.html

The United States and 21 other countries pledged on Saturday at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying the revival of nuclear power was critical for cutting carbon emissions to near zero in the coming decades.

Proponents of nuclear energy, which supplies 18 percent of electricity in the United States, say it is a clean, safe and reliable complement to wind and solar energy. But a significant hurdle is funding.

So there we go. Good news, in my opinion.

 

[Roboramma]

With what? Microsoft needs 24/7 reliable power, and solar and wind can't provide that. Gas and oil can, but they want to get away from that.

With batteries you can get solar to provide reliable power 24/7, but the price ends up much higher. That's not the price that's often quoted as being cost competitive with other power sources. However, that's not the end of the story because you don't just need 24/7 power, you need it 365 days/year, and there's this thing called winter. Storing the power you get during the day to be used at night (or potentially the power from yesterday to be used today because it's cloudy) might be feasible with batteries, but storing the power you get during the summer to be used in the winter just isn't. The only solution there is just to build out massive over capacity so that you produce enough power in the winter to meet your needs, but that's another huge rise in cost.

I'm a big fan of solar, but people who claim its in general competitive with coal now wrong. It's competitive on some marginal uses and as a supplement to other more stable sources of power, but the price needs to keep dropping significantly before it will replace coal/oil/natural gas/nuclear.

I do expect that the price will continue to fall, both as the price of batteries falls and as the price/watt of solar panels falls. One issue to be concerned with is that the price of the panels is starting to fall below the other costs of producing solar power (the price of the land, the infrastructure on the land like roads etc. to construct the site and connect it to the grid, the running/maintainence costs, etc.). Once those other costs overwhelm the costs of the panels, further price declines in the panels themselves matter much less for the other all price/watt to the consumer. However given the lower costs of the panels there are ways to optimize these sites for those other costs which should give room for further price drops. They were being built and designed in ways that made the most out of each (expensive) panel, but now that those are becoming cheap you can optimize for the cost of building, or the efficient use of space, or lower maintenance, rather than just getting the most out of each panel. There are significant gains possible there, so I do expect a bright future for solar power and investment in the technology now brings that future closer. But its certainly not the case that we should be rejecting other sources of power because we think that solar is just the obvious choice now. It's not.

There's also an issue of build time. It might be much faster to build more solar power than a new nuclear plant, but no one is talking about building a new nuclear plant, there's talking about using one that already exists. Given permitting requirements it will take years before a new solar facility is online and producing power, and in the meantime the new demand from Microsoft's data centers will mean higher energy prices for everyone; something that Thermal seems to be opposed to.

 

[Ziggurat]

Oh, and it costs a billion to do the tear down, so yeah, pretty sure I can guess why there is no rush.

You only need to tear TMI-1 down once, and you eventually need to tear it down regardless. So why not get more use out of it before you tear it down? Shutting it down now doesn't get you off the hook for tearing it down, and keeping it running doesn't mean you have to tear it down twice. Tear down costs may be an argument against building a nuclear reactor, but it's not an argument against keeping an existing reactor running.

 

[Thermal]

You only need to tear TMI-1 down once, and you eventually need to tear it down regardless. So why not get more use out of it before you tear it down? Shutting it down now doesn't get you off the hook for tearing it down, and keeping it running doesn't mean you have to tear it down twice. Tear down costs may be an argument against building a nuclear reactor, but it's not an argument against keeping an existing reactor running.

You might note that the teardown costs weren't put forth as an argument against keeping the reactor running. It was a note about the extreme cost and multi generational time frame.

You keep trying to drag me down this tangential sidequest that, as I said early on and repeated a few times, I have no interest in arguing. Nuclear power is by no means a net bad thing. It's suboptimal, considering uranium mining and spent core disposal and extreme construction and dismantling costs and expensive energy production, before we even get into the whoopsie daisey scenarios. My argument is that since renewables have tipped into viability and cost effectiveness, push the ever ******* bejeezus out of them, even when it is less than financially prudent. This seems a perfect case study. Microsoft just wants a lot of juice fast. This could be when government says "I'm sure you do, but that turkey plant over there is slotted for teardown. Half of it melted down because the design sucked, and the other half can't remotely compete with the cost of natural gas" (NG is the primary fuel competition out there, btw. Not coal or oil as repeatedly asserted by others).

My argument has not been against nuclear, or even this deal. It is that renewables should be shoved down the throat of each corporation that wants city sized power supplies. Move the technology forward as fast as we can and at every opportunity.

 

[wobs]

You might note that the teardown costs weren't put forth as an argument against keeping the reactor running. It was a note about the extreme cost and multi generational time frame.

You keep trying to drag me down this tangential sidequest that, as I said early on and repeated a few times, I have no interest in arguing. Nuclear power is by no means a net bad thing. It's suboptimal, considering uranium mining and spent core disposal and extreme construction and dismantling costs and expensive energy production, before we even get into the whoopsie daisey scenarios. My argument is that since renewables have tipped into viability and cost effectiveness, push the ever ******* bejeezus out of them, even when it is less than financially prudent. This seems a perfect case study. Microsoft just wants a lot of juice fast. This could be when government says "I'm sure you do, but that turkey plant over there is slotted for teardown. Half of it melted down because the design sucked, and the other half can't remotely compete with the cost of natural gas" (NG is the primary fuel competition out there, btw. Not coal or oil as repeatedly asserted by others).

My argument has not been against nuclear, or even this deal. It is that renewables should be shoved down the throat of each corporation that wants city sized power supplies. Move the technology forward as fast as we can and at every opportunity.

When you consider that a modern nuclear plant can run for 40-60years, a few billion to decommission isn't that much.

Despite what you claim, they are cheap to run as well, so its the building, fuel disposal and decommissioning that collectively is expensive. however, society is doing all of these things currently, and have many decades of research into them.
https://world-nuclear.org/informati...arly nuclear plants,to 60 year operating life.

As for renewables... see Roborama's post on costs. Also, it takes many years to build enough renewables as well. its been taking 8-10 years to build some wind farms in the UK owing to planning, and there is a DC convertor taking offshore wind power and converting it to AC a few miles from me, and they are still building it years after starting (article from 2021):
https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/new...news/what-huge-structure-a1079-taking-6267281

The whole project takes longer overall, and uses far more materials than nuclear, in things like steel, concrete, and fibre glass.

Every major energy source we have uses resources, and mining of minerals which has an impact.

 

[Ziggurat]

You keep trying to drag me down this tangential sidequest that, as I said early on and repeated a few times, I have no interest in arguing.

And yet, here you are.

My argument has not been against nuclear, or even this deal. It is that renewables should be shoved down the throat of each corporation that wants city sized power supplies. Move the technology forward as fast as we can and at every opportunity.

And this isn't really one of those opportunities. Server farms want 24/7, 365 steady power. Nuclear offers that. Solar and wind don't. Storage isn't up to the task of turning solar and wind into 24/7, 365 supplies yet, and won't be any time soon.

The supply has to suit the load, or it's not going to work. And not all loads suit solar and wind.

 

[Thermal]

And yet, here you are.

Yeah, well, there's that...

And this isn't really one of those opportunities. Server farms want 24/7, 365 steady power. Nuclear offers that. Solar and wind don't. Storage isn't up to the task of turning solar and wind into 24/7, 365 supplies yet, and won't be any time soon.

The supply has to suit the load, or it's not going to work. And not all loads suit solar and wind.

In the big picture, I know this, and that the MS/TMI deal is probably as good a solution as can be reasonably hoped for. I just really wish it wasn't the only 60 year old plant that half the reactors already catastrophically failed.

But ultimately, I'm just really, really excited about how fast renewables are gaining ground and want them shoved down the throats of everyone needing vast amounts of juice. I'll readily concede though that this is not a Doomsday Deal by any stretch. I mean, assuming the Pennsylvanians don't melt this one down too. Bastards can't even cross a street without pointlessly endangering muliltiple lives.

 

[theprestige]

But ultimately, I'm just really, really excited about how fast renewables are gaining ground and want them shoved down the throats of everyone needing vast amounts of juice.

If renewables have gained so much ground that they're now offering vast amounts of juice to everyone who wants it now... Then they wouldn't need to be shoved down anyone's throat. They could just offer vast amounts of juice at market rates, and companies would happily pay market rates for the juice they need when they need it. Why should Microsoft be forced to gag on the reality that the power they're ready and willing to pay for right now isn't actually available from renewables right now?

"Our power demands are going up considerably in the next couple years, as we go big on AI and its computation requirements. What do you have?"

"We've got an idle nuclear power plant we could bring back online right quick. But we're going to ask you to spend the next ten years building out vast amounts of renewables to meet your needs, at your own expense, instead. Sorry."

 

[Ziggurat]

Bastards can't even cross a street without pointlessly endangering muliltiple lives.

 

[theprestige]

I mean, assuming the Pennsylvanians don't melt this one down too.

They did operate it without a meltdown for forty-five years. Maybe your knee-jerk chauvinism is unwarranted?

 

[Thermal]

If renewables have gained so much ground that they're now offering vast amounts of juice to everyone who wants it now...

It's not that we're all the way there, yet. It's that we are right on the tipping point and moving forward at what I find to be a blazing speed. Again, I didn't think I'd see it happen in my lifetime.

..."What do you have?"

"We've got an idle nuclear power plant we could bring back online right quick.

"...It's right next door to the still smoldering ruin of the one that melted down, built by the same people generations ago, and it's already at the end of its life. Could you make that check out to cash?"

 

[Thermal]

They did operate it without a meltdown for forty-five years. Maybe your knee-jerk chauvinism is unwarranted?

It's not chauvinism. It's a mindless, howling hate for everything in that state excepting Pitt and Philly. And it's well-earned.

 

[Ziggurat]

It's not chauvinism. It's a mindless, howling hate for everything in that state excepting Pitt and Philly. And it's well-earned.

Wait... Pittsburg is in Pennsylvania? Who knew?

 

[theprestige]

It's not that we're all the way there, yet. It's that we are right on the tipping point and moving forward at what I find to be a blazing speed. Again, I didn't think I'd see it happen in my lifetime.



"...It's right next door to the still smoldering ruin of the one that melted down, built by the same people generations ago, and it's already at the end of its life. Could you make that check out to cash?"

It's not at the end of its life though.

 

[Thermal]

It's not at the end of its life though.

You can argue that point with the upthread poster who claimed reactors have a 40-60 year lifespan. Although in fairness, TMI-1 has been not operating for a decade of that time, most recently the last 5 years that it was deemed so worthless that it was slated to be knocked down at massive expense with... the one that already melted down. So, maybe more like late middle aged with a receding hairline and arthritis?