America is plagued by short-term thinking, particularly regarding our electric grid. If we are going to be serious about energy security, energy access, and climate change, we need to make our electric grid weather-resilient, not weather-dependent. That will require thinking long-term. It will require embracing fission. It will require us to consider our nuclear power plants as the crowning achievements of our society. It will require us to see them, as Emmet Penney does, as “industrial cathedrals.”
Energy IS Civilization.
Why we are not removing outdated regulations and building latest generation distributed nuclear is beyond me.
We have yet to try everything else. But we will get it right, sometime in the future.
{see Winston Churchill}
Life expectation studies suggest I will check out before that happens.
John, I am surrounded on all sides by people with years and years of nuclear construction and operations expertise. Here in America, no one is breaking down our doors to gain access to all that wealth of nuclear experience. Maybe a Nuclear Renaissance 2.0 will happen in a decade or two, maybe not. But it is what it is.
Beta,
Can you please elaborate on why nuclear is in social stagnation?
It is easy to study nuclear power aspects of safety, economics, engineering, science etc. Yet few among us do this, seeming to prefer to close ears eyes and minds. I thought for years that the green fear campaign had succeeded as the dominant anti, but lately I have been wondering if some problem that is real and important has emerged but I have not caught up with it.
Geoff S
John, I hear you, I’m 81 and had great expectations that I would witness NuScale modular reactors going online before my demise. That one is in the waste backet together with the 100 shares of NuScale (NYSE: SMR) that I purchased not as an investment but as a way of showing support. Disappointing. The only small thread of hope is The Donald will provide a way to get the US back in position to build “cathedrals” instead of Biden’s offshore turbines (monuments to human stupidity).
Yes, Old George. Energy is our social construct. We can’t live without it, and making it more expensive creates a lot of suffering. That suffering should lead to political will.
Anyway, I’m a long term American thinker. I turn my electric blanket on an hour before I go to bed.
A couple of good quilts will keep you warm… as they did for hundreds of years before your electric blanket. They will also allow you to be more Independent.
It may be ultimately simpler and more effective to repeal and rewrite The Clean Air Act and all other basic environmental laws as a way to eliminate the layers of regulations based on current laws. Given the malign influence of Carter era executive orders, very little can be built without very, expensive delays.
Repeal of the subsidy programs for “renewables”, including mandatory purchase and priority purchase rules are also needed.
‘Repeal of the subsidy programs for “renewables”, That one step will solve almost all of our problems. (re: energy)
And in Australia the CSIRO says nuclear is too expensive. Assumptions used – Wind and solar 100% efficiency and 25 year and 30 year lifespan respectively, Nuclear 30% efficiency and 30 year lifespan.
https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Consultdraft_20231219-FINAL.pdf
And the battery costs are implausible.
I have read the report, and nowhere does it say wind and solar are 100% efficient,as that is obviously incorrect. (e.g. solar is about 20%, but that may be raised to about 30% with perovskites that are going into production in a few months)
That nuclear is the most expensive form of electricity is uncontroversial. It is always dependent on govt. regulation and subsidy to compete with other sources of electricity, the sole exception being some offshore wind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
Your attention is drawn to page 78 | CSIRO Australia’s National Science Agency
Apx Table B.9 Data assumptions for LCOE calculations
Under “Constant”.
Yes, it certainly appears to suggest 100% efficiency. However, what it refers to is what it produces, per it’s rated capacity, in ideal conditions. But yes, it certainly seems to suggest 100%, but the calculations elsewhere do not suggest that, so my apologies.
I know of no solar that is 100% efficient as compared to its rated capacity, which is nameplate capacity.
I think you look for capacity factor, you can see it in the ninth column on page 79.
Which is not the rated capacity or the label efficiency. Why would nuclear be <s>30%</s> 35% efficiency?
Probably a reference to <b><i>Termodynamic Efficiency</i></b> which is a function of the temperatures and pressures involved in the energy conversion (heat to electrical) process.
For safety reasons, nukes operate at lower temperatures and pressures then a typical coal- or natural gas-fired steam plant.
So, that 1000 MWe (MW-electric) nuke might be rated 3000 MEt (thermal). What about those “missing” 2000 MW? Heat loss into the atmosphere and/or a nearby body of water.
Hope that helps.
Thermodynamic
“thAn a typical” lol
Please see above, yes, solar is at best about 20% efficiency, in terms of turning sunlight into energy, nor does it refer to capacity factor, but that is not what the table in P78 refers to.Many contracts around the world have been signed on the basis of <4c per kw/h for solar.
I suppose, it depends on how one wishes to define efficiency.
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, for the year ended July 2023 in the UK.
About 20% of our total electric installed capacity is based on solar, and its nameplate capacity is c 13GW. However, it only provided 1.3GW, which is about 5% of total UK demand.
But when it comes to ‘bang for the buck’ (pun intended), You can’t beat Nuclear, 8% of our total supply is nuclear based, capable of 5GW. And it delivered on average 4.5GW, which was bout 16% of our total demand.
Strange, The nuclear power plant SOLD the electricity of the NPP for $0.03/kWh [less than any other commercial or municipal purchaser] to the Ethanol plant next to the NPP and to the nearby Air Force Base and made a profit. Then the shut down the NPP to ride the GREEN WAVE and create outages, blackouts and force customers on utility controlled curtailing of delivery for 15 minuets per hour during peak loads. Never happened while they had the NPP running. Enjoy the frequent outages coming to you as you utility increases their dependence on Unreliables.
Lazard makes abundantly clear that because of the requirement for “firming” (solar and wind gap filling) that LCOE is a false metric comparing non-dispatchable to dispatchable generation sources.
Did you not read the IEA link, or did you misunderstand it?
Copy: Figure 1 illustrates the limitations of using LCOE alone. In AEO2022, solar LCOE, on average, is lower than natural gas-fired combined-cycle (CC) LCOE in 2027. However, more CC generating capacity is installed than solar PV between 2025 and 2027. We project more CC capacity to be installed than solar PV capacity because the relative value of adding CC to the system is greater than for solar PV, which LCOE does not capture.
Comment: Small scale modular reactors will be half or less the cost of legacy mega-scale nuclear once the factories are up and running and popping out hundreds of one NRC design fits all, cookie cutter identical, semi-trailer delivered modulars are being assembled and commissioned in two years.
That 30% number is based upon the THERMAL Efficiency. PERIOD The NRC approves and Licenses the output of that 30% Thermal efficiency and sets in concrete the 100% capacity number based upon the reactor capacity and the Turbine Generator Name Plate Maximum Rated Power. The Utilities sell that 100% power close to and often above 95% of the 365 days in a year 24 hours a day [usually close to 22 0r 23 months in a row. sometimes almost 30 months].
However, Wind turbines are sold to the Utility on Name Plate Maximum Capacity and the Utilities then sell the Public on this capacity and predict the (mythical) low cost of the generated power based upon generating electricity at this name plate capacity and NEVER speak of the FACT that Wind and Solar NEVER provide anywhere close to 100% of the Name Plate Capacity for more than a few hours per 24 hour day, and never more than 15 hours a day for a few months in a year a year a few weeks at a time. That is where the 25 – 30% Capacity factor for Unreliables come from. It takes five times as many Wind Turbines to generate the rated name plate capacity the Utility tells the public that a wind farm will generate over a years time – Batteries or No batteries. [Same for solar farms.]
Very nice.
You can’t make fission economical in the long term of the tiniest bit of radiation exposure over any short time is newsworthy (when we have been measuring the effects of radiations on organisms for around a century).
The same people will run to be first in line to get a shoot of a new untested drug with FOUR new, badly known bio-technologies.
Yes, we’re witnessing the latest iteration of “The Madness Of Crowds”.
(Maybe that’s why the price of popcorn is rising so fast?)
Whether one gets a “shoot” or a “shot”… there is a chance that EITHER may cause death.