Guest essay by John Popovich
In the 1950s we were assured by the best scientific minds and the U.S. President that nuclear electricity would be of such low cost that it would not make sense to meter it. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty granted every country the right to enrich and the nuclear haves promised the nuclear havenots that they would help them develop nuclear electricity to increase their economic well being. It may not be clear what went wrong but it is still very difficult to determine the economics of nuclear electricity and this is in part because the fuel is provided by governments and the price may not be indicative of its cost and because of the hazard and closure costs.
The U.S. government tried to get private industry to process nuclear fuel but had a difficult time finding takers. Union Carbide made an offer that required government guarantees and big upfront cash. Maybe Union Carbide knew something about nuclear fuel processing cost since they were operating a government nuclear fuel processing plant in Tennessee which happened to be the biggest electricity user in the U.S. Other concerns about nuclear electricity cost include the fact that much of the nuclear fuel available today is a result of a scaling back in nuclear weapons by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and of course the processing waste and the plant closure cost.
Bill Gates and other smart people are funding research on backyard nuclear power plants. Backyard nukes sound interesting and have a long history. In the late 1940s and early 1950s nuclear power was seen to be an attractive source even at very small scale, including for automobiles and aircraft (NB36, XB70). The world’s most esteemed nuclear physicists pronounced the practicability of nuclear reactors for these purposes, and the U.S. government gave encouragement and big dollars to these efforts. Oil companies were assured this was going to happen and were eager to participate. General Atomics was Gulf and Shell spending big on “Atoms for Peace” and hiring the best scientific minds to insure success.
After the small scale nuke bubble collapsed, nuclear industrial parks became all the rage and it was deemed that big electric users such as aluminum and fertilizer makers would colocate with nuclear power plants and this would result in great cost reductions which would improve our economic well being. It’s not clear what happened.
The Rasmussen report was used to insure us that a Three Mile Island type incident would only happen every 500,000 reactor years. Then there was Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Nuclear power plants use heat from fission to produce steam to operate turbogenerators for electricity production. The 4MeV neutrons produced by fission are rough on materials and greatly increase the plant cost relative to other heat sources. Imagine dealing with the 14Mev neutrons from fusion.
Solar electricity from photovoltaics is said to be free once you pay for the system but the overall cost is greater than the grid supplied cost of fossil fuel generated electricity and this means that to get an equivalent usable amount of electrical energy from photovoltaics more fossil fuel energy is expended in the manufacture, installation, operation, and maintenance and as a consequence more pollutants are generated and our standard of living is reduced.
Photovoltaics are produced with low cost Asian labor and coal fired electricity and installed on the homes of the wealthy in the West, where the wealthy buy the politicians (the poor can’t afford to) who force the utilities to purchase the electricity from the photovoltaic arrays at high rates and pass the costs on to taxpayers and ratepayers, who are the victims of this scheme. It’s a Rolex on the roof with the blessing of sanctimony.
Germany is of course the most egregious offender in that the amount of annual solar radiation in Germany is so low, it really is “Put this where the sun don’t shine” .
Germany tries to create a pretty picture of their energy policy and has largely succeeded in fooling the public and pleasing the Greens. German electric costs have soared and are now more than twice U.S. electric cost and rising fast. The only help is that they are burning more coal. The ruler of Germany may have to please the Greens, buts it’s a fool’s play and will result in great economic harm.
Intermittent/inconsistent energy sources such as solar and wind do not allow a reduction in the number or size of power plants and in fact there is a requirement for rapid response power plants which are much costlier and much less efficient and because they are often idled they have longer payback periods. Solar and wind electric systems also produce shock loads on utility grids which are costly to accommodate. No one wants to be without electricity when the sun is blocked by a cloud.
If photovoltaic electricity were less costly than grid supplied electricity, photovoltaics would be used to make photovoltaics.
Much is forgotten and must be repeated. In the 1970s there was a Solarex Solar Breeder project and it got big government funding and a large number of adherents. Politicians loved the term “Solar Breeder” and were clueless about the economics.
In the 1970s there was a large power tower project in Barstow California called “Solar One”, and after several years it was revealed that the value of the electricity produced was less than the cost of cleaning the mirrors. How could smart people have deemed this a good way to generate electricity? In addition to sand accumulation, the windblown sand caused scratching of the mirrors glass surfaces and necessitated periodic replacement.
Siemens promoted photovoltaics in the late 19th century when they were 1% efficient and steam power plants were 3% efficient. Today photovoltaics are 20% efficient and combined cycle power plants are 60% efficient. Since the grid was much less prevalent in the late 19th century, photovoltaics might have represented a better investment in many areas.
Smart people in government agencies in the 1970s and 1980s funded solar water heaters that cost more in electricity to run the pumps and controls than the potential savings in water heating costs and these people never seemed to have the time or interest to study the situation. The initial cost of these solar water heating systems could be more than 100 times the annual “potential” savings. In Southern California the average home spent ~$80.00/year on natural gas for water heating and the solar water heating systems might save half of this or ~$40.00/year. The government rebate for solar could be $5500.00 for the maximum allowed system cost ($11,000.00) and of course smart people learned to get the maximum rebate on all systems. The active systems required costly maintenance and rarely operated more than a few years.
Smart people in the U.S. government decided to fund corn to ethanol with a cost to the economy of hundreds of billions of dollars. U.S. corn and cellulose to ethanol conversion plants consume large amounts of low cost natural gas and coal fired electricity to produce a fuel for which the federal government generates a market thru mandates.
If corn to ethanol made sense, ethanol would be used to fuel the process.
U.S. government energy experts knew when oil was $2/barrel and synfuels were $8/barrel that synfuels would make economic sense when oil cost $8/barrel and when oil got to $8/barrel they funded synfuels and were surprised that synfuels cost $32/barrel but they were never able to grasp the fact that it required 4 barrels of oil equivalent energy to manufacture a barrel of synfuels with 1 barrel of oil equivalent energy. The significance of this still cannot be grasped. It may be that the current energy secretary can grasp the situation but the purchase of corn state votes is deemed of greater importance. Nothing has to be real; it only has to be sold.
There is a studied unwillingness to see cost as the important metric-money is just a trading unit of energy.
If photovoltaic electricity was less costly than grid supplied electricity, photovoltaics would be used to make photovoltaics.
If corn to ethanol made sense, ethanol would be used to fuel the process.
If cellulose to ethanol made sense, cellulose would be used to fuel the process.
When you try to close the loop things become more obvious. Closing the loop is what might in the vernacular be called a “bullshit detector”. These schemes are adult analogs of the childhood idea of the motor powering the generator powering the motor in that they result in additional energy consumption rather that additional energy production, the difference is that they occur at great economic cost to society. These schemes often exploit price disparities in fuels and require huge subsidies and a studied ignorance to prevail.
It’s somehow very difficult to grasp the fact that a dollar is just a trading unit of energy and productivity is simply a measure of the ratio of human energy expended to useful energy returned.
I believe solar energy can and will be used to provide food, fuel, heat, and fresh water at costs much lower than present solutions, but I believe that this will primarily be accomplished by exploiting biological processes. Farmers have learned to use solar energy profitably; we can learn something from them.
Current photovoltaic systems are often the most economical choice when the cost to connect to the grid is high. Many applications have low power requirements and high grid connection cost. In these instances photovoltaic systems are competing on capital cost. To force taxpayers and ratepayers to support photovoltaic systems in grid connected locations is to waste money and energy. If taxpayer or ratepayer funds are to be used to support solar energy, they should be used where it is most effective and not as currently used. Governments could encourage the development of self-sufficient homes and businesses. We need to develop comprehensive solutions for grid independence. Storage is the “Hard Problem” and rulers are more apt to spend money where they can get votes.
Edison pictured a world with very localized power production where the reject heat from electric power production could be used and in fact Pearl Street, his first installation utilized what today we call combined heat and power (CHP). Independent residences could also benefit from the direct current (DC) provided by photovoltaics, rather than the alternating current (AC) supplied by the grid. The arguments for AC in Edison’s time were that it was easier to change the voltage to current ratio via inductors and long travel distances would be more economical at high voltage to current ratios (not a concern for grid independence or short travel distance), AC did not have to be polarized: now AC circuits have to be polarized, grounded and include ground fault circuit interrupters, and AC motors were more efficient: brushless DC motors now offer very high efficiency and much higher power density. Additional benefits of DC power production include: fundamentally reduced electrocution hazard and lower voltages can be used, many appliances now use DC and must convert grid supplied AC to DC where cost and efficiency of the convertors are significant issues, and there is also a wide range of 12 VDC products available due to its use in automobiles, motor homes, and boats.
It would be nice to think that there is careful study of the economics of energy conversion but it’s not clear where the evidence for that resides, instead there is ample evidence of the lack of careful study. An example that got worldwide attention and considerable funding was Google’s “Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal” Initiative (RE<C) and their focus on power towers. Maybe it was studiously forgotten that Solar One, the giant power tower at Barstow CA was found to cost more for mirror cleaning than the value of electricity delivered and yet Google promised to make electricity cheaper than coal in 5 years time and were a big funder in the Ivanpah power tower. Renewable Energy World picked the Ivanpah power tower as its “Project of the Year”. One has to wonder about the economic viability of the other candidates.
The diffuse nature of solar radiation requires that the cost per unit area for any system, including a 100% efficient system must be low.
Academics can be hired to measure all of the energy inputs and outputs and studiously miss the forest for the trees. Terms such as EROI are diversions to make less economic schemes seem more economic. It must be realized that cost is the measure of energy. If a solar energy system results in delivered electricity costs twice as much as a hydrocarbon energy system, it uses twice as much hydrocarbon energy to manufacture, install and operate and therefore is responsible for twice as much pollution. It’s a concept that hard to grasp by those whose income depends on pushing the idea that the expensive energy is cleaner rather than much dirtier.
Productivity is a measure of energy expended to useful energy returned. Money is just a means to effect this transaction. It’s easy to imagine animals hunting or tricking or stealing to get the most energetic foods while minimizing the energy expended. Biologists have documented this in studies of animal energetics e.g. “Bumblebee Economics” by Bernd Heinrich. The life of the bee and of the hive depend on it. It is more difficult to see ourselves in this light, and yet we can imagine that a farmer must get more energy from a crop than the energy invested in the crop and the salesman must consider how much energy he is willing to expend to gain a sale. It’s easy to see when we buy energy more directly at the gas station, it’s more difficult to see when the transaction is less direct but the same phenomena exist. The value of money and of goods and services are manipulated to gain as much energy as possible for the least expenditure of energy.
It seems that the right knows that “alternative energy” isn’t profitable and the left doesn’t realize that it has to be, otherwise more energy is required than returned.
Politicians everywhere have discovered that they can get votes by promising a green energy future. What’s important is votes and they are apt be out of office before the shit hits the fan.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Not “or better”. Nuclear is much safer than other forms of generation in deaths/unit energy from radiation related accidents, 50 directly or indirectly from an uncontained Stalin Era plutonium plant accident, that’s it. If you doubt this read the relevant updated UNSCEAR report (last one 2012?).
“Siemens promoted photovoltaics in the late 19th century” Really? I am curious about the Siemens19th Century PV technology, unaware this existed in Victorian times..
Wjhy are people debating their opinions on LCOE when facts exist? As well as the safest, most sustainable and zero CO2 emitting enrgy source Nuclear is the CHEAPEST elelctrical energy per KWh on all the fully costed IEA studies @ur momisugly 3 different IIRs, including coal and gas.. Free summary here: https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2015/7279-proj-costs-electricity-2015-es.pdf
But these are only the hard science facts, easier to believe in whatever science denial you like the sound of that can’t do anything it claims in fact. People are very strange, not much progress from the MOche, inspite of al that scienific progress and education, the average human is still pig ignornat, lazy minded on facts, fearful and superstitious. And so easy to defraud with snake oil remedies for that must make the problems they claim to solve worse in science fact, including CO2 emissions versus preferring clean gas replacing coal and nuclear replacing both, so insiders and the rich can make a fast buck by law at everyone else’s expense. Government at work..
Wow! This has to be the worst guest essay I’ve ever seen on this site. Is John still in high school? I ask because I’ve read much better essays by mediocre high school students. Just a few examples:
“In the 1950s we were assured by the best scientific minds and the U.S. President that nuclear electricity would be of such low cost that it would not make sense to meter it.”
No … the “too cheap to meter” nonsense was an offhand comment made in a speech by Lewis Strauss, a career bureaucrat who was neither a scientist nor a U.S. President. Only die-hard anti-nukes have ever bothered to mention it since the 1950’s.
“… but it is still very difficult to determine the economics of nuclear electricity and this is in part because the fuel is provided by governments.”
Uh … say what?!! The fuel today is provided by private sector corporations.
“The U.S. government tried to get private industry … Union Carbide made an offer that required government guarantees and big upfront cash. Maybe Union Carbide knew something about nuclear fuel processing cost since they were operating a government nuclear fuel processing plant in Tennessee which happened to be the biggest electricity user in the U.S.”
Union Carbide has never been involved in making fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The Y-12 facility that you refer to is a Manhattan-Project-era facility whose only purpose was to produce material for weapons.
“Other concerns about nuclear electricity cost include the fact that much of the nuclear fuel available today is a result of a scaling back in nuclear weapons by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and of course the processing waste and the plant closure cost.”
Er … Today? The Megatons to Megawatts Program ended in 2013. Once again, John is cluelessly parroting out-of-date, inaccurate information.
“Bill Gates and other smart people are funding research on backyard nuclear power plants.”
The company being funded by Bill Gates has plans to build a PROTOTYPE nuclear reactor that will produce about 600 megawatts of electricity. That’s not something that will fit in your typical “backyard” — in fact, it’s about 10% larger than the average coal plant running in the US today and much larger than your typical natural gas plant.
And the nonsense goes on and on. There’s too much stupid stuff for me to waste time debunking it all. Anthony, I’m embarrassed for you for agreeing to publish this crap.
Please keep debunking.. you are adding useful information.
Since you asked for more, I’ll continue with this nugget:
“The Rasmussen report was used to insure us that a Three Mile Island type incident would only happen every 500,000 reactor years. Then there was Chernobyl and Fukushima.”
The “Rasmussen Report” (which is the nickname for report WASH-1400) is now considered grossly obsolete. It was pioneering for its time (1975) in that it was one of the early applications of the technique of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). Nevertheless, it’s methods were criticized, even at the time, and it is simply unfair to criticize the report for not predicting Chernobyl, since it did not consider the reactor designs being used by the Soviet Union.
Just as nobody wears leisure suits, listens to 8-tracks, or runs calculations on mainframe computers that read a deck of cards today, nobody takes WASH-1400 seriously. If you want to see the state-of-the-art in PRA analysis, then you should look at the “State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses” (SOARCA) report, which was published in 2012 and is available on the internet from the US government as document number NUREG/CR-7110.
That the author doesn’t even mention this report indicates to me that he is just recycling old garbage that he dredged up from who knows where — probably on a Greenpeace or Union of “Concerned Scientists” website.
Don’t stop there. ” 4 MeV neutrons are rough on materials” ? Which? The reactor vessels at essentially all operating nukes in US sees thermal neutrons and are good for 60 years, even those fabricated in late 1960s. Dominion considered re-licensing the vessels at Surry 1,2 for 80 yrs. Modern vessels are even better against neutron embrittlement. Other materials are less limiting or can be routinely replaced at the end of service life. Fusion is a different story.
Perverse incentives is what it is called, has happened many times in many places and many ways, it usually ends eventually.
Very good piece John. You covered most of the bases.
Bill Gates has also promised a billion dollars for a new, clean, cheap form of energy production. I think there is one on the horizon although many here disagree and will likely use this as an excuse for the usual ad hominems.
Rossi’s QuarkX LENR reactor and LP’s SunCell are both scheduled for demos this Summer, with believable calorimetry. Not long to wait. Time will tell who is right.
NEW YORK/PARIS Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative with heads of state on Monday, the opening day of the U.N. climate change summit in Paris …
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/27/us-climatechange-summit-technology-idUSKBN0TG1PC20151127
Seehttp://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/uk-should-be-generating-research-into-world-changing-cold-fusion-system-1-4400376
“The 4MeV neutrons produced by fission are rough on materials and greatly increase the plant cost relative to other heat sources. Imagine dealing with the 14Mev neutrons from fusion.”
——
Would someone care to do the long division for a civilian. Not just the numbers, but the explanation. This is a genuine question and not a snark. Thanks.
I am nothing of an expert, but the energy of subatomic particles is measured in electron volts (eV), so a 14 eV particle would have more energy than a 4eV similar particle.
Thanks, but I’m a civilian. Your explanation really doesn’t help. How about the version for the inquisitive 12th grader who got middling grades in science classes but ranks in the top 1% in verbal skills and general reasoning?
I think maybe what the original post was saying was the reactions in a fission reactor tend to damage the structure of the reactor, and the more energetic reactions in a fusion reactor should damage the structure even more.It is analogous to trying to deal with something at 1400 Kelvin degrees v 4900K==>3.5 times as much energy.
Tom, that much I understood. I was hoping for some elaboration in English.
Years ago — 14 to be exact — I met a nuclear guy on the QE2 while going from New York to England. For whatever reason, or lack thereof, we got to talking about fusion. He told me that it was a complete non-starter because fusion is so intensely radioactive that nothing can contain the reactor.
I’ve always hoped I’d find a discussion of this issue that I, a non-scientist but not a dummy, could understand.
Re Fusion. Fusion in machines has been a fact at JET since 1991. Plenty of videos on the site but I like this one. Enjoy
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnztdkrevmke1q3/JETPlasma.mpeg?dl=0
I suggest you Google this rather than accept on received opinion from a bloke on a boat w/o checking his published info first? First off it is the fusion plasma that needs to be contained in the Torroidal magnetic field, and has been for decades, 13 years before you met your “expert”. This was not a real scientist you spoke to. He clearly made it up in defiance of the proven science. The radiation is actually not a problem, and what fusion seeks to create a lot of. It is a neutron flux that comes from the fusion of a few grams of charged Tritium and Deuterium gas nucleii contained in the Torroidal magnetic field of the device, “containment” of the neutrons is not the plan, they are uncharged and need to be free to be captured by a surronding Lithium jacket to produce power, or, alternatively the jacket can contain waste to be transmuted into safer isotopes, or spent fuel to be transmuted into new fuel for fission reactors, whatever. That is not yet done and a job for the Torus after ITER, a long way away still. ITER won’t have the originally planned Lithium jacket.
JET created a contained fusion at Culham on 9th Novemer 1991, at 100 Milion degrees, and has done so thousands of times since. They do public visits at three levels of technological understanding. I was inside it when the wall lining was being changed from carbon to Beryllium tungsten – in 2008? – as a lining material test for ITER in France, currently under construction and ten times bigger. Check that out.
What your man said was simply assertive nonsense. However It may well be fission is a better way to produce the energy we need when fossil is exhausted as a commodity source of intense controllable enrgy, and is quite sustainable for the life of the human race, but fusion is an avenue to pursue for few generations more, certainly as a powered source of plentiful fast neutrons for transmutation that is not a function of reactor criticalaity, as it is with fast fission.
The materials technology at fusion temperatures and neutron fluxes is far harder than the nuclear science, BTW. We are dealing with containing a plasma 10 time hotter than the heart of the Sun, where every element up to Iron is made. Need a Super Nova to make the heavy stuff and a star creation to scoop it up. We can conatin fusion plasmas, , but its tough and still limited to pulses of a few seconds, up to 20s from memory. No reason why you can’t heat Lithum with pulses of fusion and integrate the heat , though…. all this is online on the EFDA and other sites. Culham has a Facbook page. Man made fusion on Earth has been real proven science for 15 years.
To produce energy in a steam turbine they plan to capture the fast neutron energy in a jacket of Lithium which will be colled with a primary cooling circuit of ??? – in the version after ITER. ITER will be close to production scale but won’t be able to capture neutrons or put power on the grid. They will try to reach “ignition”, more power out that in, as I understand it.
Meanwhile fast fission may make Fusion less attractive as it runs at more reasonable temperature levels and burns the heavy actinides that thermal neutron fission doesn’t, so using much more of the fuel and leaving mainly short lived fission waste. This ends the problem of storing the longer lived actinides from thermal fission spent fuel, which isn’t really waste, except to Americans. In more rational and advanced cutures the actinides and much smaller half life and less radiologically hazaradous fission waste in the spent fuel are separated – for re-use as renewable fuel and safe disposal respectively – the waste placed in naturally radioactive rock as vitrified rock itself, and soon no more radioactive than the natural rock containing it. I hope that helps a bit. Seems the bloke on the boat and the bloke down the pub both need the same level of independent validation ;-).
Seeing is believing… a JET Fusion Plasma pulse. The 100 Million degrees is the dark stuff in the middle, none of the main plasma is visible, the stuff at the edges is not where its happening, kinda impressive. Lots of those 14 MeV neutrons flying through everyhting. These are several MegaWatt pulses running for up to 20 seconds., from 1 gramme of gas. More energy in than out, so the kit around the Tokamak is pretty impressive too. Worth a visit. Here’s a pic from my last visit for the core chamber scale. Lots of less close up pics on EFDA site.
?dl=0
BTW this started in the Cold War when a team from the UK Zeta project (false alarm on Mormon cold fusion level, but advanced) were invited by the Soviets who wanted to know whether the Tokamak they had designed to contain a fusion plasma would work as adverised, a secretly despatched team was welcomed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences with full disclosure when the CCCP and the West were at Military loggerheads. The UK first fired up a rather basic JET in 1984 after the Queen opened it, I visited then, still have the brochure, it was first running at 10 Million degrees with resistive heating in the plasma alone, the first fusion pulse was on my birthday in 1991, with a shed load more energy injection and Deuterium/Tritium gas, 7 years later. Can’t make it up………. the spunds must be from somewhere, but the Plasma is silent, in a deep vaccuum. Enjoy:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnztdkrevmke1q3/JETPlasma.mpeg?dl=0
brianrlcatt April 16, 2017, 6:21 am: “Re Fusion. Fusion in machines has been a fact at …”
Can I one-up that, or maybe this is more on a par with it – fusion-like temps produced at ambient room “pressure” without the muss and fuss of Tokamak:
https://youtu.be/nIDmFJXrkx4?t=179
May I try, as others seem ot to have satisfied you or explained well. I also communicate energy reality to “laymen”, the ones who prefer facts to greenwash. and tutor maths and physics to University entrance in retirement. I am a professional physicist (first degree) and engineer, with experience as a design engineer and also in radiation physics before tetch business, as distinct from yer usual “experts”. Not brilliant but recognised as competent and experienced by my Institutes. A jobbing expert who has worked in radiation physics. Hope that adds cred. You can also find my evidence on energy in the Library of the Houses of Parliament.
Because energy at atomic level is so tiny, the unit of charge on the electron was picked on to create an atomic unit of energy, the electron Volt. Not a lot, but there are many electrons, and other particles. Lots of noughts.
The difference, put simply, means their (sort of kinetic) energy is 14/4 times greater in Fusion than in fission, if you believe these numbers. The fission one is wrong for commercial reactors, and 4Mev at the high end for fast fission reactors, that are the next gen future and the Russians already have in production operation but the US does not, and is greenly backward about.
The maximum fission neutron energy is less that 1MeV for a commercial thermal neutron generation reactor, BWR, PWR, AGR, etc, , and to have themselved a fission interaction neutrons need to SLOW DOWN, to thermal Neuton energies of 0.025eV, just wandering about like a gas at that temperature, molecule wise. That’s why the moderator is there – to slow them down enough so they can have themselves a fission. So most neutrons are slowed to thermal level before interacting with anything other than the fuel encapsulation and moderator material. And never have a 4 MeV energy.
A fast fission reactor may reach this neutron energy, but there are no long term production examples to understand the effects on materials of 24/7 operation. So the step to fusion for materials technology is apparently far greater – but not really…. as I expand on below, this is meant to be a summary intro..
Link on neutron energies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_temperature
The 14MeV figure for fusion is correct. The materials that can deal with this without rapid degradation in more strenuous than research enviroments are in development, See section 4 of link for a rough idea of the problem solving process.
http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/33/029/33029033.pdfhttp://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/33/029/33029033.pdf
****** BUT – What fo do the units actually mean?
One electron volt is a very small unit of atomic energy, at the at sub atomic level. It’s NOT a voltage, it’s the energy acquired when the charge on an electron (the e) is accelerated by a potential of 1Volt the V.
So, 1.6×10^-12 Coulombs x 1Volt = 1.6X10^-12 Joules. Or not a lot of energy. This is an energy unit at the Quantum level, it can repreent the differences in energy between electrons in different orbits and converts to wavelengths of atomic spectra by Planks constant h, so that Energy in eV = hf, where the frequency f is the lights colour, in the visible range and beyond. Lots of very large positive and negative exponents involved. But still basic High School physics.
So 27KeV in an old style TV tube, 150KeV in an X-Ray Tube, etc., It’s the applied voltage times e the charge on an electron. OK?
Looked at from another perspective…….
This is the same energy as you learnt at High School in conventional physics, given by Energy = Current X time X Voltage in Joules = Watt seconds. Note current X time it is flowing is charge in Coulombs, so charge times votage is also joules. VIT has the unit of Joules.
1 Watt second = 1 joule = 1.6X10^12 eV.
1.6 Milion, Million eV. Does that help? Actually, this is part of High School science……
INTERACTION/CROSS SECTION: Now it gets interesting and more serious nuclear physics, it’s been 46 years but I will give it a go. A neutron is not charged so can move through matter with little interaction, as an atom is mostly space, think solar system only smaller, and te neutron has no charge, unlike an electron or nucleus, to interact with. In fact the cross section is HIGH for very SLOW thermal neutrons and U-235. With construction materials the neutron energy is not as important as far as damage is concerned as the cross section for capture of the material they pass through, which varies with neutron energy AND material. So materials tech is important, but not insurmountable, hence the Berylium/titanium lining now tested in JET for ITER. And the other stuff in the link. Temperatures are another problem. And cleanliness of the lining in the space level vacuum, where contamination can severely impacy performance. Why the graphite first uised is been changed for Beryllium/tungsten, it adsorbed fusion products and raw material over time which desorbed inconveniently during 100 Milion degree pulses, as I understand it.
In case it helps, this creation of special units of energy happens at the other extreme of power delivery, where we uses GWh or KWh, which is a shitload of Joules, technically speaking.
1 KWh is 1,000 Watts (e.g. 250 Volts times 4 Amps ) for 3,600 seconds, so 3.6 Million Joules. etc. You will find the US uses the unit of Thousands of Kilowatt hours when assessing risk, for example (GWh in science fact), and Billion when they should use Giga, Trillion when its Terra, etc. – which explains why they also mixed the units and missed Mars. Always check units are global standard or American Texas Petrochemical, y’all.! Barrels of oil are another enrgy unit BBLs of Texas Light, etc.. Can’t make it up, it’s been done.
Hope that helps. The only correct information you appear to have received is the energy of a Fusion Neutron, the implications are incorrect, and perhaps loosely grasped hearsay? Was your man a physicist or simply management? Engineers can afford the QE2? I never could. even after the MBA, etc. Jealous. Hope that helps. PS You can Google all this yourself, Hyperphysics is good on the basic science, and my qualifications for credibility. CEng, CPhys, MBA.
1/. It was fusion energy that was to be too cheap to meter.
2/. Nature herself runs the market. If there are no rabbits, foxes died out. If there is no produce, socialist parasites die out too.
Those who can do and then get criticized for it. If making electricity was left to the likes of John Popoffhismouth you would be sitting in the dark in your cave.
The US Navy and US commercial power has a perfect safety record, no one has been hurt by radiation. About 20% of our electricity comes nukes with a 90% capacity factor for the last 25 years.
Part of the reason for our sucess is self criticism. We critic what we did well and what we could do better and share the information.
“The government went for the High Pressure Water Cooled reactor for two reasons. They already had built them for submarines and aircraft carriers, and they produced plutoniumcrotozedfor bombs that is fairly easy to extract chemically from spent fuel and can be converted into reactor fuel.”
Which goverment? This might surprise some critics but the US does not dictate to the world although we are often followed.
Light water (moderated) reactors were selected because the compact reactor design would fit in the hull of ships and inside containment buildings.
LWR are not used to make bombs. Graphite moderated reactors are an example of weapons reactor.
LWR operate at a much lower pressure than fossil plants. The higher the steam pressure the higher the thermal efficiency of the steam turbine. This is very important for the economics of fossil plants.
LWR are further classified as pressurized and boiling water. A BWR produces saturated steam in the reactor vessel. PWR produce steam in a separate vessel called a steam generator.
There’s a lot to be said for an LWR experience base of more than 60 years. Precise understanding of criticality control both inside and outside of the reactor (CIPS anyone?) Deep, hard won understanding of materials issues (PWSCC, IGSCC, FAC neuron embrittlement, etc.). To date, don’t have any of this for molten salt. As well as a deep human resouce base – nuclear navy, INPO, WANO, NRC, etc.(don’t underestimate this aspect).
Can’t imagine a licensed design for thorium reactor in less than 30 or 40 years. If someone with knowledge on the issue has other ideas, chime in.
I would say 30 or 40 years is conservative based on my recent US experience with new LWR designs.
This does not rule out it being done in a country with lax regulation but those countries depend on the US or EU to approve designs.
Perfect point, Robert. Fast fission is the next step, 100 times the actinide burn can’t be bad. No less real waste though, as distinct from spent fuel, as the same number of fissions are required for the same energy. Already on the way in Russia and elsewhere. Ball droped for political reasons by Carter admonistration, who also misunderstood the technologies because they were called “fast breeder reactors” All reactors breed. It depends what is bred and if that is for commercial or military purposes., etc.
We had a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant all read to start operations, when Carter pulled the plug.
To set an example. Which no one followed.
Nuclear fuel isn’t really “spent” around 95% recoverable energy remains, but daughter products that are chain-reaction poisons build up, and need to be removed.
In a Molten Salt Reactor design, the reprocessing is part of the fuel loop. So MSRs, once started up, can be fed “spent” nuclear fuel and burn it up. Deploy the MSRs on an existing nuclear power facility, and there are no transportation issues.
The nuclear power industry has been bedeviled by political issues, because of nuclear weapons proliferation concerns and Soviet propaganda actions (our anti-nuke movement are all puppets).
One of a best shart essay i ve read about “free” energy…what is lacking is on what shoulder is the burden of failure, because, it is not free, but some are making money with it.
and i and not sure what you said abour nuclear energy is right…but i love so much ” if photovoltaic electricity was less costly than grid supplied electricity, photovoltaics would be used to make photovoltaics.”
If corn to ethanol made sense, ethanol would be used to fuel the process.” that i forgive approximations..
“the amount of annual solar radiation in Germany is so low, it really is “Put this where the sun don’t shine” .”
and yet the Germans regularly get a third of their weekday daytime electricity from solar power for 6 months a year.
http://www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-germany.html
German coal use is not increasing.
[Griff, you really ought to learn to do research before making claims.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/719ea15e-68fa-11e5-a57f-21b88f7d973f
Coal still rules.
-Anthony]
Germany gets roughly 8% of their total energy from renewables. Their emissions plateaued in 2009 and have been flat ever since. Total renewables has 30% of Germany’s electric market, which makes statements like “and yet the Germans regularly get a third of their weekday daytime electricity from solar power for 6 months a year” very disingenuous.
You need to start consider what the word “regularly” means. It’s a vague & flexible target which only serves to illustrate the desperate inconsistency of solar, since they “regularly” get zero percent of their electricity from solar at night. In other words, to be effective, they need storage for this daytime only source of electricity.
Of that 30% electricity, less than 6% of their total electricity usage comes from solar and less than 1.5% of their total energy usage (including transportation) comes from solar.
The price of electricity in Germany has risen by 80% since 2007. Bear in mind that emissions stopped dropping in Germany in 2009, so you have to ask what they are getting for this investment. The answer is a reduction in nuclear power — if you are anti-nuclear, that’s great. But, if you are against carbon dioxide emissions, why would you care?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140321133218-322580126-german-energy-policy-is-failing-the-poor-while-being-a-poor-way-to-help-the-climate
John,
This comment is spot on:-
I read this a few years ago:-
“If a business is not profitable then it is not sustainable.”
The examples you give can all be categorised as parasitic businesses.
Tasmania has a great network of hydro power stations which are government owned and weren’t connected to any other part of Australia. Life was good with the assets mostly paid for and the price of electricity relatively low. Then, some rocket scientist in the Government decided that the price of hydro power in Tasmania should be ‘market’ driven (this was mid 1990’s) and somewhat related to the dam levels. (even though the government had no control on the filling of the dams). Invariably the price of power crept up – because the state government was topping up the coffers to pay for who knows what hare brained scheme or social experiment. At some point, bought about by the lure of selling ‘green’ energy to the mainland, a very large extension cord was plugged into Tasmania from Victoria. We now have the situation where Tasmanian residents are paying up to $0.27/kwh for green energy which used to be the only form of energy in Tasmania.
That is, a state where all of the energy was renewable and cheap is now paying more for it because the state government can sell it on the ‘market’ because it is ‘green’. The irony of it all is that people in Tasmania are installing solar power on properties BECAUSE of the cost of green power!
John wrote: “Intermittent/inconsistent energy sources such as solar and wind do not allow a reduction in the number or size of power plants …”
Agreed. But what fraction of the cost of electricity from fossil fuel is due to the cost of fuel and what fraction the due to the capital cost of building a plant and staffing it so that it is available when needed. For natural gas, 75% of the cost can be fuel (assuming 10% discount rate for capital). So when plentiful, intermittent renewable electricity causes a natural gas plant to be shut down, 75% of the cost is saved and 25% should be added to the cost of the wind or solar. If one believes that emitting CO2 has negative externalities, then subtract those costs also. One could summarize this information in an equation, where ICR = increased cost of renewable, CR = cost of renewable, CG = cost of gas, and SCC = social cost of carbon (with all terms expressed in $/kWh.
ICR = CR + 25% CG – SSC
For electricity from coal, about 1/3 of the cost (CC) is fuel.
ICR = CR + 67% CC – SSC
John continued: “…and in fact there is a requirement for rapid response power plants which are much costlier and much less efficient and because they are often idled they have longer payback periods.”
Agreed, but I accounted for the cost of idle time above. What does “less efficient” really amount to? How much more does electricity cost from a plant running at 50% of optimum output rather than 100%? The reference below suggests that 90% of maximum efficiency at 50% of optimal output is possible for CC-Gas.
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-119/issue-9/features/improving-the-flexibility-and-efficiency-of-gas-turbine-based-distributed-power-plants.html
John finished with: “Solar and wind electric systems also produce shock loads on utility grids which are costly to accommodate. No one wants to be without electricity when the sun is blocked by a cloud.”
Agreed. More spinning reserve will be needed. Even worse, grids with larger amounts of “asynchronous” renewable energy are increasingly unstable.
“The reference below suggests ….”
No Frank it suggest nothing. It is an interesting article about very small power plants.
“John finished with…”
Frank you do know that John made up 90% of his essay? That is how liars operate. Mix in 10% truth and then say whatever fits your agenda.
Just a factoid and observation or two. S. Australia wastes a lot of time debating what is often straightfoward joined up energy science denial, overall an utterly dysfunctional triumph of politics for avoidably regressive subsidy profit/gain from energy supply, justified by green belief preferred to the established facts of energy generation – on the grid. The climate is not changed much, reasons below.
Off the grid in S.Australia? Use solar PV, expensive storage, pay up and leave those on the grid alone – oh, and keep the diesel gene fuelled up in case the sun don’t shine and batteries go flat. But don’t expect other people on the grid to pay for it in subsidie. Finally, its 8/7 output really doesn’t do much for climate change as advertised versus cheaper 24/7 low CO2 gas CCGT or zero carbon Nuclear.
Lots of facts on cost. Beacause I see so much unqualified opinion on this, here are the IEA 2015 actual costs. Nuclear stil cheapest, but the margins are determined by interest rates. ALL costs are included in LCOE.
nb: Renewables offseting clean CCGT plant’s 1/3 of the time or so don’t save very much CO2 (CCGT is 40% the CO2/KWh compared to coal). No opinion required. Just the facts. By all means demolish old unscrubbed toxin emitting coal, but replace it with what works best on the energy science to power a 24/7 grid, CCGT and nuclear in most cases, and, again, use solar for midday a/c offset, but not subsidised.
If gas or nuclear are cheaper, use them for the aircon too, not solar. Why wouldn’t you? How hard can this arithmatic be?
Seems Oz voters, and some Americans in sunnier climes, supposedly educated to 16 in science, are too selfish/greedy/lazy minded or simply not interested in figuring these facts out when bribed with easy money subsidies that impoverish others. And, as far as the grid supply security goes, more renewables with unpredictable intermittency must make electricity supply increasingly dependent on expensive interconnect without capable 24/7 fossil or zero carbon nuclear “back up” available on these grid “Islands” to 100% of capacity. etc. Good luck with that. Pre-broken non-solution on the engineering facts for easy profit on the legislative fact.
S.Austalia is only 12TWh pa or so, mostly empty with loadsa wasteland to experiment with, and coal at the surface, also a long way from the real world, so good luck with whatever nonsenses you want to subsidise. It’s actually a great place to test CCS coal that can maybe deliver zero carbon energy at low fuel coast. How much research going on into that? Not a lot? No quick ‘n easy subsidies for “clean coal” from green deceit.
Energy supply is well proven established engineering, it isn’t based on unprovable ever climate science models. Anyone with science O Level can do the physics of the joined up grid, and the CO2 effects. Answer? Renewables are mostly a politcal fraud whose profits are enabled and guaranteed by easy subsidies enforced by law for what can’t deliver it’s claims, mostly. Except money into the subsidy trough from over pricing. Only way such enrgy science denial can be enforced. The markets would finish it in no time, even if CO2 emissions were still part of the consideration, but on their engineering facts, not political asssertions.
FACTS ON THERMAL SOLAR: Solar thermal is very different, and works exremely well, even in temperate countries, because its low’ish grade heat all through, as with CHP schemes, all you need for water heating but not other uses, hot water is not generally a real time demand. As with Hydro, the natural energy is integrated over relatively long periods compared to short periods of use later. The heat energy is captured and stored directly in water which is also the high thermal capacity heat sink, all at under 100 degrees C. This saves the waste of a lot of pure electrical energy in heating. A terrible use of refined enrgy, that is better used for things pure energy is required to power on demand, after it has incurred the costs and waste of being inefficiently refined from primary fuel – most efficient is CCGT gas at 60%. Again gas is better used directly for heating at 90% plus in condensing boilers. .
Expensively generated electrical energy must be used when generated. or converted into other enrgy forms, such as chemical or gravitational potential energy for later reconversion, massively innefficiently. As any fool knows.
Solar in S.Australia/near desert colonies that are almost off the grid, or a grid Isand, is sort of OK, but w/o subsidies. I would submit that even in these climates, w/o subsidies, and taken 24/7 ratyher than spot supply, the electricity is cheaper to generate with nuclear or clean low CO2 gas CCGT generation. As the IEA figures above also show.
The Tasmanian story of interconnection is simply a corrupt political stitch up, as we have here in the UK, if people took their green tinted glasses off. Obviously adequate hydro like Norway or Paraguay is ideal. ot enough for most larger countries. The question is how ro handle prolonged droubt or breakdown. The reason government interfere is legalised extortion – money for their lobbyists and themselves after office, stealth taxation, etc. Tasmania doesn’t need an intercconnect. It does need some backup in case of drought. But why an underwater cable, the most expensively daft way to do this, dependent on a surplus at the other end. (Answer, because the situation is used to profit lobbyists, politicians and permanent official insiders, not Tasmania’s energy supply). Note who gets what jobs after office…Follow the money, forget the environment.
FACT: A simple CCGT power station is cheaper, and can gap fill when required very flexibly and cost effectively (coal firing is messy and requires docks and railways not a simple pipeline, and coal takes significant efficiency hence cost hit if not run 24/7).
The cost of an undersea interconnect is about the same as the CAPEX for a new CCGT power station of the same capacity, not the same at all as a land based power line – high voltage/salt water, ships and achors and fishing vessels, etc.e and less than easy to repair, the same for the cable and plug as a whole real power station. c.USD 1B per GWh. Check it out if you doubt it. Just build a quick ‘n easy CCGT power station and strategic gas reserve. Low cost, clean and low CO2 when its used. Secure, and available unsubsidised over its life. Job done.
So why do you REALLY need a cable interconnect again? Not only do the cable layers make a lot of money, but also the mainland generators from the over priced by law electricity whose subsidies can now flow into their coffers as a nice llittle earner for them, and indirectly for the insiders who forced it on Tasmania. You can’t make this shit up, that’s the job of politicains and officials for their lobbyists, by law.
And if If you want serious science denial in energy in action, go to Southern Australia that has a grid supply death wish, as above. Fortunately there is hardly anyone there and their 12TWh pa energy consumption is irrelevant on a global scale, in fact Oz is effectively an off grid country and Asia’s coal mine – whose science denial in energy generation and increasingly zealous reversion to the historic weak, intermittent and expensively inadeqaute energy sources of 3rd World economies proceeds apace – as the Great Barriet reef is used to excuse the fraud on renewable energy and other unnatural acts with energy science.
Fortunately this doesn’t affect the serious developed world – that can’t deny the science and survive economically, so good luck with that, mate! Your on your own, with your politicians and assorted troughers. Like it or not, Tony Abbott understood the facts of this.
FINAL FACT: It’s not even about climate change. If you do the maths of optimally mixing the various modalities on the grid, and if CO2 is a contributory cause of AGW, then the promotion of over subsidised renewables must be making net O2 emissions from grid generation expensively and avoidably worse than the better alternaitves of gas and nuclear replacing coal, in most developed countries it is being done, for a fast buck in its name. Nuclear seems the ideal solution for Oz. Plenty of remote places and Uranium, to extract, process, store, dspose of spent fuel and waste, and transmute the fuel and spent fuel, as well as place nuclear power stations with “no worries” , which are anyway the safest generation modality by far. And wholly sustainable wherever the Uranium comes from (the sea if necessary).
PS Nuclear waste is not the unfissioned actinide part of spent fuel. Waste is only the fission products, and even then some have valuable uses, Like Tc-99. . Yes, you can fission actinides until most are gone in new reactor technologies, but they were never waste, and are stored recoverably for this purpose by most civilised countries. Fast fission appears the best first step to burning the actnides in spent fuel, already in production use in Russia. That will leave a lot more but shorter lived fission waste. You can’t “Burn waste”, it doesn’t fission, but you can transmute some into other faster decaying isotopes or stable elements in a fast neutron machine, fission or fusion. TBD. More here. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx
The only problems with doing this in a manner we control, is politicians who don’t understand energy or nuclear energy and would rather avoid it ………… until lobbyists, banks, permanent civil servants and ministers can figure out how to enrich themselves by law from it. I suspect that will mean another regressive intervention on track record, grasping avoidable failure from the jaws of success for personal short term profit with both greedy hands. I may be wrong, but the track record is 100% this way. Maybe that’s 110% 😉
“FACTS ON THERMAL SOLAR: Solar thermal is very different, and works exremely well, even in temperate countries, ….”
Really Brian! Then you can show wide spread world wide adoption. Things that ‘work’ very are readily adopted and become the standard (e.g, gas and electric hot water heaters).
Two basic engineering problems. You have to match the available heat collection to demand to achieve a reasonable payback period. Second you need a staff maintenance person with spare time.
I hear bristlecones have extraordinary properties. One or two can heat or cool an entire hemisphere…
There’s a whole lotta dumb in this post … where to begin?
The cost of nuclear fuel is minimal, and it has been produced commercially on a large scale for decades, both in Europe and more recently here in the United States (new production plants have come on line in recent years). Most of the cost of nuclear plants is wrapped up in safety systems and certification costs. Even so, the levelized cost of nuclear (i.e., full cost accounting including waste disposal) is about the same or a little less than coal and natural gas are today. Nuclear produces no air emissions (other than water vapor from cooling towers). And it’s extremely reliable and dispatchable, more so than any other source.
As for the silly, “if PV were good we’d use PV to make PV”, that’s like one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read on the internet, and that’s saying something!
By that reasoning, we’d instantly drop coal because nobody uses coal-fired mining equipment to dig coal, or coal-fired trains to haul coal. Similarly, nobody uses natural gas fired drilling machines to drill for natural gas, and transport of NG is not by, well, NG, but by pipeline which is pressurized by gas turbines that are powered by god knows what – nuclear, hydro, coal, wind, PV, NG, diesel gen sets, whatever is available to produce the trons.
The cost of PV is already well below that of any other source but wind – based on utility power purchase agreements, the current pricing of PV power is on the order of $50 per MWhr and dropping fast, compared to around $95-100 per MWhr for gas, coal, and nuclear. Wind power is about half that, at around $24/MWhr, but it is less reliable than solar in many parts of the earth (but very reliable where wind power is produced the most in the USA, specifically West Texas – believe me it is windy as hell there all the time).
By the way, when did wattsupwiththat.com become a source of shilling and hackery on behalf of coal? Seems that all of the grossly-misleading and snarky posts here concerning energy production are written solely for the purpose of dissing everything but coal, and trying (extremely unsuccessfully) to pretend against all evidence and common sense that coal is somehow the fuel of the future, when it’s clearly on a path to near zero. In the last decade we’ve already seen massive decreases in coal demand due to massive reductions in the number of coal plants world wide, not just in the USA.
[You are entitled to your opinion, even if it is wrong. There’s no “shilling” going on here, no pay to play for articles or anything like that…but we are reporting the current status, the political change of the winds, and commenting about it. Like it or not, coal has a place in our energy supply both in the US and in the world.
Perhaps you should go to China and accuse the leadership there of being “shills” for having coal plants that make up the majority of their electricity generation.
Let us know how that goes. – Anthony Watts]
Right on, Anthony. Everyone should know that China brought 500 standard 600 MWe supercritical coal units online in 3000 days between 2005 and 2013. A new unit every six days for eight years. To me, this is beyond comprehension and represents the greatest engineering feat in human history. Why did they do this (you might ask)? Not because coal is clean but because it is cheap. The heavy lifting of 800 milllion peasants out of abject poverty might offer some hint as to the endeavor.
You are conveniently ignoring trends which are all going down for coal. Have been for more than a decade. And yes, shilling does not require payment from coal producers – shilling is defined as:
“an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others.”
Pretending that coal is the energy source of the future is indeed shilling. You can deny that all you like. But being for coal has zilch to do with being an AGW skeptic, which is a matter of science, not of propping up a particular extractive industry.
Stick to science, and your website can have some credibility. Being a coal hawker discredits the rest of what is actual science based.
“The cost of PV is already well below that of any other source but wind – based on utility power purchase agreements,…”
Cost are not based on ppa.
Costs are based on including all the costs. Who knew!
Cost per MWh are based on actual costs divided by actual production. Who knew!
Since telling the truth is so easy, you have to wonder why the solar PV industry never does?
Uhhh …. PPA ARE the costs as paid by the utilities who are the wholesale energy buyers on behalf of end user customers. Wholesale energy producers do not sell power at a loss if they expect to remain in business.
Duane, where does the solar power cost fit into the demands for electricity at night? If you calculate the cost based on full sunshine for X hours per day, even if you’re silly and say the sun shines 12 hours a day, you’ve at best got power for half a day. PV is nothing but a demand offsetting item during sunny days. Any other time, it represents unused capacity, i.e. unused sunk cost. While there may be a place for PV in the energy supply line, it’s never going to be a reliable base load supplier. It’s only useful role is as a peak demand assist in sunny areas of the world or as an onsite supply with batteries in off grid locations. If one of the myriad “nagical” battery technologies ever comes to fruition, then the calculus might change, but currently, it’s a Green SJW signaling tool in most installations.
Nice article but I am not keen on the DC aspect.
DC generation is done by AC alternators followed by rectification, no savings there.
Utility DC transmission is only cost effect for long distances, typically greater that 500km.
Brushless DC motors are 3 phase AC motors with electronic commutation.
Delivering low voltage DC to houses would be a nightmare.
If it were to originate from Solar Pv, then the voltage will be varying, how will your electrical devices cope?
Can you charge your phone from a usb connection running at 2.5V? No.
To power my 6kW electrical shower, at 230V AC it draws 26 amps.
At 12V DC it would draw 500A, my house cables would need upgrading significantly and those of the neighboring area.
” If it were to originate from Solar Pv, then the voltage will be varying” This is not true. PV cells do not vary the voltage, the current they deliver depends on the amount of light hitting the cell. Most silicon based cells output about 0.5V each, in both dim light and bright sunshine. A 12-volt solar panel will put out 12 volts on a cloudy day with minimal current, and the same panel will put out 12 volts in direct sun shine, but at maximum rated current.
PS, using electricity to heat water for a shower is a waste. A more cost effective solution is to use a solar powered hot water system.
BS!
It cost about 25 cents to take a very long hot shower at 10c/kwh. I measured it.
So Michael, tell me about your ‘cost effective’ thermal hot water systyem and I will tell you about mine.
Solar hot water system – 160 litre capacity around $600. 3.2kW PV system $7,700.
Thank you Gerald.
Retired Kit P with 4 3×6 foot panels, and my 100-watt pump, I can heat the 50 gallon hot water storage tank to 120 degrees F in less than four hours. That’s about 1/2 of a kilowatt hour, which by your pricing would cost me about a $0.05 So I pay $0.20 less than you for a nice hot shower.
How hot is the tank in the morning, when you actually take your shower?
It’s well insulated, and after two cloudy days the tank temp will drop from it’s peak at 160 to about 120. Still hot enough to scald. When it hits about 90, the electric heating element will kick in.
Oh, and I forgot, who says the DC delivered to your house has to be 12 volts? What if they used the existing wires and provided DC at 240 volts? In that way you shower would only need 25 amps, and I believe you wouldn’t need to changed the breakers in your panel. (You can increase the voltage solar panels put out by connecting them in series)
The problem with DC comes when you are trying to break an arc. With AC, arcs break automatically 120 times a second. With DC you need to redesign the breakers so that they elements are pulled further apart in order to break the arc mechanically.
The other problem with DC is that the voltage has to be 240V from the distribution point all the way to your house.
With AC you can leave the voltage high until just before it is delivered to your house. This means transmission losses are greatly reduced.
This is the reason why AC won out over DC initially.
Hmm, OK re Uranium costs, still small if extracted from seawater, the “forever option”, at $200/lb for Yellowcake. Will reduce by a factor of 100 with fast fission due to higher actinide burn up, so are then vanishingly small. All CAPEX, almost zero OPEX, like broadband, as one economist pointed out.
BUT it then seems your cost figures hear are simply made up or unrepresentative for whatever reason, spot – or include a subsidy offset? Nothing is that cheap on LCOE for new build. I repost the IEA 2015 LCOE energy cost per modality at 3 interest rates, all in. I’d recommend that than a set of unreferenced localised assertions. It’s also in line with most projections based on global deals from respected bodies and consutant engineering firms. Just sayin’
https://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/ElecCost2015SUM.pdf
As this shows, Nuclear is cheapest LCOE for new build. Solar PV is more expensive. For the UK and much of Norther Europe it is also absolutely pointless. VERY low duty cycle in Winter, when the UK is at 75degrees to the Sun at midday, a VERY weak energy source, and not there when needed. as Sir David MacKay FRS, DECC’s Chief Scientist 2008-2014, pointed out to all before he died, solar is pointless for us, and renewables an undeliverable delusion overall, on the hard energy physics.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-renewables-powering-uk-is-an-appalling-delusion-david-mackay?CMP=share_btn_fb
Anything nuclear is scary when any accident can made a whole region “inhabitable” for a long you can convince the people who come “to help you”, which is, a long time. Depends on how many scary “scientific” studies you can provide to “prove” the horrible dangers of such trivial additional ambiant radiation.
Nobody wants to have his home declared “contaminated” or “dangerous”, even if by dangerous spirits.
Which makes the nuclear option scary, over designed and inefficient.
Software can in theory be perfect, a big steel piece, probably not.
Since your scenario can’t happen, it’s not a worry.
Exclusion zones are created by politicians for political reason.
With the exception of about 1/2 a mile or so around the reactor itself, people could return to Chernobyl already.
There was never a need for the Fukishima exclusion zone in the first place.
Long thread, but just to address one point: The CANDU reactor design obviates the need for (expensive) fuel enrichment; it uses natural uranium. The design also facilitates fuel element replacement during operation. Once you have “used” fuel, you have plutonium-enriched uranium that can be replaced in the reactor once the fission poisons have been extracted.
But enrichment is not expensive.
Notice the ratio of CANDU reactors to 4% enriched LWRs.
CANDU’s use Heavy Water, which is expensive. If it was a great design, it would of won on merit.
There is one perfect way to get green energy.
1. Build coal power stations
2. Paint them green
3. Be Germany 🇩🇪
😉
“The reference below suggests ….”
No Frank it suggest nothing. It is an interesting article about very small power plants.
“John finished with…”
Frank you do know that John made up 90% of his essay? That is how liars operate. Mix in 10% truth and then say whatever fits your agenda.
This post can be deleted as it was posted earlier. I may have browser issues.
I recently watched “The Big Short” on a plane ✈️ journey to San Francisco. This is a powerful and personal exposee of deep corruption in the financial industry and the lead-up to the 2008 crash. An equivalent movie needs to be made about the green energy scam. It could be called “The Big Greenout” or “Selling Sunshine ☀️ ” or something similar.
Re all the pro-nuclear commenters on this thread: here’s your chance to show the world how to do it right.
From the NRC news site for April, 2017, this item 17-016 (see link) is excerpted below
“NRC and DOE to Hold Third Advanced Reactor Workshop”
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1710/ML17101A488.pdf
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy are continuing their joint
workshop series on innovative reactor technologies, April 25-26, in Bethesda, Md.
“We are encouraging interested parties to continue discussing the most efficient and effective path forward to safely develop and deploy advanced reactors in the United States,” said Vonna Ordaz, acting director of the NRC’s Office of New Reactors. “We expect to discuss topics such as modeling and testing innovative technologies, as well as how vendors might approach getting their designs approved for U.S. use.”
“The NRC defines advanced reactors as those technologies using something other than water to cool the reactor core. The NRC is currently discussing one such advanced design with a vendor considering applying for design certification. The NRC remains available for early-stage discussion with other potential advanced reactor vendors.”
(my comments) Perhaps this time, some creative nuclear designer will find a way to make nuclear power safe, cheap, and reliable. It is instructive to remember that if all power plants were nuclear-powered, the changing loads on the grid require that the plants run at approximately 50 to 60 percent on an annual average basis. Minimum loads occur at night in the Spring and Fall seasons, and typically reach approximately one-third to one-fourth of maximum or peak load. Peak load typically occurs in mid-afternoon on a late Summer day. However, some grids have peak loads in the Winter as heating demands are greatest.
An all-nuclear grid requires that electricity sales price from nuclear be doubled, at least, to pay for the unused capacity.
A nuclear-powered grid will charge at least 50 cents per kWh.
France notwithstanding; their nuclear plants were nationalized and sales price was subsidized, set by the government with zero view to recovering the costs to build or operate. see link below to a discussion on France and nuclear power.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part.html
“Following France in Nuclear is Not the Way to Go,” April 14, 2014.
Twisted logic, warped facts and intentionally altered reality, I give you Roger Sowell.
We have been down this ‘road’ before …