The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

QuarkJets posted:

That can't be right though, oil barrel prices have been in that range for years. Today it's $86/barrel. American oil companies would be going nuts with oil shale development if oil shale were that profitable at this price range

You are right, I skimmed through the article too quickly and got my phrasing wrong. Shale breaks even not when market price is that much; rather a barrel of shale costs that much to produce so crude needs to cost that or more before shale can start becoming profitable.

# ? Oct 27, 2012 04:01

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# ? May 9, 2024 23:55

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Apparently the IEA now projects the U.S. to pass Saudi Arabia as the world's largest producer of oil in 2017, and be self sufficient by 2035.

The former seems much more likely than the later given how it's projecting much less further into the future. Good for the U.S. in the short term, bad in the long run as it's likely to retard or development of renewables.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/12/us-biggest-oil-producer

# ? Nov 13, 2012 09:33

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

QuarkJets posted:

(in the sense that it has been hashed out a million times and renewables never come close to being as economical)

I'm having trouble seeing this. If you've got links to any discussion on this I'd appreciate it, because the best price I can see for nuclear plants is 9 billion AU for a 1.6 GW plant.

For our projected 2020 demand of roughly 900 GWh/day (going off the BZE report's projected demand, it's all the same if we're talking the same numbers), or 36.9 GW, that's roughly 212 billion dollars in nuclear plants, and assuming uranium stays at 130 US/kg, that's nearly a billion dollars a year in fuel costs, as well.

The cost of the BZE plan is 370 billion over ten years. Given the legislative and safety issues with nuclear (not in terms of plants blowing up, just in terms of mining, transport and storage), how destructive uranium mining can be (Australia has issues with most of its uranium mines being located in or around areas owned by the native Australians) and the fact that we'd be strapping ourselves to yet another non-renewable resource that we'd have to get over in another hundred years or so, it seems like biting the bullet and splashing out for true renewables would be the best course of action here?

Short of nuclear fusion, of course, which is still totally only twenty years away, just like it has been for the last fifty.

# ? Nov 13, 2012 13:16

Rent-A-Cop: Oct 15, 2004; I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

Quantum Mechanic posted:

the fact that we'd be strapping ourselves to yet another non-renewable resource that we'd have to get over in another hundred years or so, it seems like biting the bullet and splashing out for true renewables would be the best course of action here?

Uranium supply isn't renewable but it is for all practical purposes unlimited.

# ? Nov 13, 2012 17:35

Doom Rooster: Sep 3, 2008; Pillbug

Yeah, I remember in the Nuclear thread someone posted a study which stated that accounting for increased energy consumption, we would be out of "easily accessible" Uranium in about 1000 years(without reprocessing, which would add a huge increase in efficiency). Thorium is another possible option, and is drastically more available than Uranium is, so nuclear energy could carry us a good, 20,000 years conservatively estimating?

# ? Nov 13, 2012 17:52

Office Thug: Jan 17, 2008; Luke Cage just shut you down!

Doom Rooster posted:

Yeah, I remember in the Nuclear thread someone posted a study which stated that accounting for increased energy consumption, we would be out of "easily accessible" Uranium in about 1000 years(without reprocessing, which would add a huge increase in efficiency). Thorium is another possible option, and is drastically more available than Uranium is, so nuclear energy could carry us a good, 20,000 years conservatively estimating?

We might run out of cheap uranium-235, which makes up 0.7% of natural uranium and is the primary fissile fuel we burn right now. We are not going to run out of cheap uranium-238 (99.3%) or thorium-232 (100%), period. Uranium can be extracted from sea-water at a very low price, and thorium can be extracted from granite and other rocks for next to nothing. It's all doable because nuclear produces an enormous amount of energy from very little. Extracting even a single gram of fuel from a tonne of rock yields several times more energy than burning a tonne of coal, and for thorium that process is cheap and catalytic.

# ? Nov 13, 2012 18:13

Sylink: Apr 17, 2004

I did a thought experiment calculation once using specific heats and other retard poo poo that its actually efficient to build a nuclear reactor or two and use the energy to melt granite and extract uranium from it to build more reactors.

In my mind I had a conveyor belt going from the Rocky mountains to a sarlaac pit powered by a nuclear reactor that spat out magical uranium beans.

# ? Nov 13, 2012 18:22

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

Here's a pretty big report from the WWF / Ecofys, about going 100% renewable globally by 2050.

I've barely had time to even skim it, but thought I'd offer it up in here for others to go over.

250 pages, the first 90 of which are pretty picture type things, then goes into more figures graphs and tables:

http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/the_energy_report_lowres_111110.pdf

And the website section:
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions/renewable_energy/

Also sorry I haven't been maintaining the thread, works been very consuming and there's only so many sustainability things you can get your head around at once.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 01:50

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I'm having trouble seeing this. If you've got links to any discussion on this I'd appreciate it, because the best price I can see for nuclear plants is 9 billion AU for a 1.6 GW plant.

For our projected 2020 demand of roughly 900 GWh/day (going off the BZE report's projected demand, it's all the same if we're talking the same numbers), or 36.9 GW, that's roughly 212 billion dollars in nuclear plants, and assuming uranium stays at 130 US/kg, that's nearly a billion dollars a year in fuel costs, as well.

The cost of the BZE plan is 370 billion over ten years. Given the legislative and safety issues with nuclear (not in terms of plants blowing up, just in terms of mining, transport and storage), how destructive uranium mining can be (Australia has issues with most of its uranium mines being located in or around areas owned by the native Australians) and the fact that we'd be strapping ourselves to yet another non-renewable resource that we'd have to get over in another hundred years or so, it seems like biting the bullet and splashing out for true renewables would be the best course of action here?

Short of nuclear fusion, of course, which is still totally only twenty years away, just like it has been for the last fifty.

The trick is that by using the extremely generous assumptions of the "plan", the cost of Nuclear is actually around 2b for GW.
Or, by using real-world data for the "plan", it's cost roughly triples.

It's one or the other, you can't use one set of assumptions for one plan and change them for the alternatives. This has been explored multiple times in this thread, i believe.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 03:15

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I'm having trouble seeing this. If you've got links to any discussion on this I'd appreciate it, because the best price I can see for nuclear plants is 9 billion AU for a 1.6 GW plant.

For our projected 2020 demand of roughly 900 GWh/day (going off the BZE report's projected demand, it's all the same if we're talking the same numbers), or 36.9 GW, that's roughly 212 billion dollars in nuclear plants, and assuming uranium stays at 130 US/kg, that's nearly a billion dollars a year in fuel costs, as well.

The cost of the BZE plan is 370 billion over ten years. Given the legislative and safety issues with nuclear (not in terms of plants blowing up, just in terms of mining, transport and storage), how destructive uranium mining can be (Australia has issues with most of its uranium mines being located in or around areas owned by the native Australians) and the fact that we'd be strapping ourselves to yet another non-renewable resource that we'd have to get over in another hundred years or so, it seems like biting the bullet and splashing out for true renewables would be the best course of action here?

Short of nuclear fusion, of course, which is still totally only twenty years away, just like it has been for the last fifty.

BZE's plan has been critiqued multiple times in this thread and these criticisms haven't been responded to.

Please don't skip all of these posts and just go back to framing the costs of nuclear at the highest level (China is building plants for 2 billions and the new Westinghouse APM1000 is about 6 billion) and solar thermal / wind at the most optimistic possible estimate.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 03:58

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

blacksun posted:

BZE's plan has been critiqued multiple times in this thread and these criticisms haven't been responded to.

Which critiques do you feel haven't been responded to? I'll do my best to go over it in the next few days.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 04:08

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Hobo Erotica posted:

Which critiques do you feel haven't been responded to? I'll do my best to go over it in the next few days.

I'm at work currently, so I'll try and take a look when I get home and compile them.

Off the top of my head though;

Projected cost of solar thermal plants vs real world figures, such as those for the plant in Spain (which were marginally higher per GW than those in the BZE plan).

Estimates of availability of wind power generating capacity. Specifically how BZE have used our current generation capacity per turbine and multiplied it to get their figures needed to meet their 40% generation goal. This completely ignores the fact that these turbines already occupy the best positions and further wind turbines will be less economically viable as each will produce less and potentially cost more (depending on location).

This interrelates to the problems other posters have mentioned above, like how BZE and proponents of 100% renewables in this thread have used very generous and optimistic assumptions relating to a downward pressure on costs due to mass production for renewables, but refuse to do the same for nuclear power.

The applicability of similar plans to any other nation on the planet considering that the plan has modeled for Australia, which outside of the Sahara, is the best location in the world for solar thermal.

The different standards regarding how long different power sources have to be modeled for. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't BZE only done two years modelling for their plan? Shouldn't a plan for the future energy infrastructure be modeled for a significantly longer time? For instance, if we see a rise in global temperature leading to higher precipitation levels and more cloud cover, lower energy intakes from solar thermal will be a significant problem. Even aside from global warming, significant random occurrences of cloud cover combine with low wind could be disasterous. Two years is completely insufficient.

I've currently got a few projects on the go and will likely to be working 100% of my hours at home the next few days, does someone care to elaborate on these and the other criticisms please?

# ? Nov 14, 2012 08:19

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

blacksun posted:

I'm at work currently, so I'll try and take a look when I get home and compile them.

Off the top of my head though;

Projected cost of solar thermal plants vs real world figures, such as those for the plant in Spain (which were marginally higher per GW than those in the BZE plan).

I thought this was due to the larger scale of construction for the plants proposed by the BZE plan? CST does well off economies of scale.

blacksun posted:

Estimates of availability of wind power generating capacity. Specifically how BZE have used our current generation capacity per turbine and multiplied it to get their figures needed to meet their 40% generation goal. This completely ignores the fact that these turbines already occupy the best positions and further wind turbines will be less economically viable as each will produce less and potentially cost more (depending on location).

We have nowhere near enough wind generators currently to even vaguely pretend that "all the best spots are taken." The BZE plan has also situated the proposed wind sites at places that have been modelled to have high availability of wind resources.

blacksun posted:

This interrelates to the problems other posters have mentioned above, like how BZE and proponents of 100% renewables in this thread have used very generous and optimistic assumptions relating to a downward pressure on costs due to mass production for renewables, but refuse to do the same for nuclear power.

Considering the relative ease of CST construction compared to nuclear plant construction, both in an engineering sense and a legislative sense, CST's got way further to drop than nuclear. The BZE report also uses estimates for the drop in cost of CST from Sargent and Lundy, who are primarily a nuclear energy consulting firm and unlikely to be massaging the CST numbers.

blacksun posted:

The applicability of similar plans to any other nation on the planet considering that the plan has modeled for Australia, which outside of the Sahara, is the best location in the world for solar thermal.

I was speaking solely about Australia. I am not anti-nuclear by any means, and it may well be the better choice for other countries that aren't bathed in sunlight.

blacksun posted:

The different standards regarding how long different power sources have to be modeled for. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't BZE only done two years modelling for their plan? Shouldn't a plan for the future energy infrastructure be modeled for a significantly longer time? For instance, if we see a rise in global temperature leading to higher precipitation levels and more cloud cover, lower energy intakes from solar thermal will be a significant problem. Even aside from global warming, significant random occurrences of cloud cover combine with low wind could be disasterous. Two years is completely insufficient.

I'm not sure what modelling you're talking about here. Weather pattern modelling? The BZE report takes into account the possibility of extended events of both low cloud-cover and low wind output, which could be predicted ahead of time.

Additionally the projected effects of global warming on the subtropical regions of most of Australia would be lower precipitation, not higher, as far as I'm aware.

Aureon, I have no idea what assumptions you're talking about in your post.

In any case, I am not anti-nuclear. I agree that the best choice for most countries would probably be a significant mix of the two technologies. I do think the assumptions for how easy it would be to switch over to a full nuclear grid are optimistic at best. Especially in Australia which, as has been mentioned, is overwhelmingly anti-nuclear, as well as not having a well-developed network of nuclear physicists.

Australia also already has the capability of producing all the materials necessary for CST without changing our manufacturing industry in any major way, unlike the materials for nuclear reactors. It seems like for the time and effort it would take to convince Australians to go nuclear we'd be better off going renewable, especially if we're looking at zero carbon by 2020.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 10:50

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I thought this was due to the larger scale of construction for the plants proposed by the BZE plan? CST does well off economies of scale.

Please elaborate on how economics of scale manage to reduce the price of steel, concrete and mirrors by a significant margin. Specifically relate this to the cost of the Spanish solar thermal plant against the cost BZE proposes per GW.

quote:

We have nowhere near enough wind generators currently to even vaguely pretend that "all the best spots are taken." The BZE plan has also situated the proposed wind sites at places that have been modelled to have high availability of wind resources.

Perhaps all the best spots is an overstatement. It does however show that BZE is modelling based on all locations for its wind turbines being at least as good as the current locations, which is simply not true.

quote:

Considering the relative ease of CST construction compared to nuclear plant construction, both in an engineering sense and a legislative sense, CST's got way further to drop than nuclear. The BZE report also uses estimates for the drop in cost of CST from Sargent and Lundy, who are primarily a nuclear energy consulting firm and unlikely to be massaging the CST numbers.

You quoted 9 billion dollars earlier this page in regards to a nuclear power plant. China is building 6 AP1000 plants for 12.7 billion dollars. Granted, these are only 1.1GW plants. That said, we can redo your calculation and the costs are closer to 70 billion rather than your original 210 billion. If economics of scale can apply to solar thermal, they can apply to nuclear too.

quote:

I was speaking solely about Australia. I am not anti-nuclear by any means, and it may well be the better choice for other countries that aren't bathed in sunlight.

In any case, I am not anti-nuclear. I agree that the best choice for most countries would probably be a significant mix of the two technologies. I do think the assumptions for how easy it would be to switch over to a full nuclear grid are optimistic at best. Especially in Australia which, as has been mentioned, is overwhelmingly anti-nuclear, as well as not having a well-developed network of nuclear physicists.

Australia also already has the capability of producing all the materials necessary for CST without changing our manufacturing industry in any major way, unlike the materials for nuclear reactors. It seems like for the time and effort it would take to convince Australians to go nuclear we'd be better off going renewable, especially if we're looking at zero carbon by 2020.

The much higher cost of BZE's plan (by those rough figures, 5 times more expensive) will eventually dictate that Australia adopts nuclear power, like it or not.

Also there is no way we will be zero carbon by 2020, aside from buying offset credits from everywhere. To be a truly carbon neutral nation will take much, much longer.

I think that solar thermal, wind and other renewables should plan a part in any plan for moving away from fossil fuels, its folly to rule any out already though.

I'll respond in more detail regarding BZE's climate modelling at a later date.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 12:29

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

blacksun posted:

Please elaborate on how economics of scale manage to reduce the price of steel, concrete and mirrors by a significant margin. Specifically relate this to the cost of the Spanish solar thermal plant against the cost BZE proposes per GW.

The cost of the solar plants is modelled on the Tonopah Crescent Dunes project, not Gemasolar, roughly US$9 /W.
A big part of it is the efficiency of the plant. CST isn't a set ratio of mirror to tower, and it's certainly not a set ratio of mirror to molten salt. Bigger mirror fields, larger storage tanks, setting up arrays of towers all linked to multiple turbines. The trouble with larger mirror fields is that you end up wasting heat during the hottest days, unless of course you have some sort of infrastructure to make use of the waste heat such as driving other industrial processes or producing portable energy like methane from atmospheric CO2. CO2 to methane is shockingly inefficient, but if you have stacks and stacks of wasted heat, it's an attractive option.

blacksun posted:

Perhaps all the best spots is an overstatement. It does however show that BZE is modelling based on all locations for its wind turbines being at least as good as the current locations, which is simply not true.

I don't see how, considering the sites are based on wind resource data?

blacksun posted:

You quoted 9 billion dollars earlier this page in regards to a nuclear power plant. China is building 6 AP1000 plants for 12.7 billion dollars. Granted, these are only 1.1GW plants. That said, we can redo your calculation and the costs are closer to 70 billion rather than your original 210 billion. If economics of scale can apply to solar thermal, they can apply to nuclear too.

And the USA is building two for 14 billion.

blacksun posted:

The much higher cost of BZE's plan (by those rough figures, 5 times more expensive) will eventually dictate that Australia adopts nuclear power, like it or not.

Until I can get some info on the disparity of the AP1000 costs, I'm not really buying this.

blacksun posted:

Also there is no way we will be zero carbon by 2020, aside from buying offset credits from everywhere. To be a truly carbon neutral nation will take much, much longer.

It's 100% possible, albeit highly unlikely.

blacksun posted:

I think that solar thermal, wind and other renewables should plan a part in any plan for moving away from fossil fuels, its folly to rule any out already though.

I'm not ruling out nuclear. I am skeptical of whether or not nuclear would be an option for Australia before it's too late, carbon-wise.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 13:18

GulMadred: Oct 20, 2005; I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I'm not sure what modelling you're talking about here. Weather pattern modelling?

He's referring to the grid modeling (page 80 of the PDF). They've analyzed two years of historical insolation and turbine output, to show that the proposed grid would have been sufficient to meet Australia's energy demand (plus 40% for the hypothetical electric-car switchover).

A longer-baseline model would tend to include more unusual events (e.g. loss of insolation due to volcanic haze) which would force the designers to increase the nameplate capacity of the system and/or improve their backups (conserved hydro and biomass-firing).

# ? Nov 14, 2012 22:37

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I don't see how, considering the sites are based on wind resource data?

It is based on wind resource at proposed sites, however they have calculated based on the average amount generated per $ at current wind sites in Australia. This leads to problems as current sites are optimally placed, where further generating capacity in these or other sites is highly unlikely to reach the same level of cost efficiency (because of what I mentioned before regarding the best spots bring the ones currently in use).

Quantum Mechanic posted:

And the USA is building two for 14 billion.

Until I can get some info on the disparity of the AP1000 costs, I'm not really buying this.

And those plants in the US are much more expensive due to the costs of regulatory approval for the reactor design, where further plants in the US will be increasingly cheaper as one of the largest costs for construction (design approval) is negated.

And even then, that's 2 plants for 7 billion each, which is 2 billion less than your figure. You are cherry picking data to suit your position.

Even if we say that AP1000's will be more like 4 billion each (a mid point between the two), that's still only 150 billion. Which is 220 billion cheaper than the best case solution with BZE's plan.

I'll try and find some time to talk about the climate modeling and solar thermal efficiency later today.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 23:05

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I thought this was due to the larger scale of construction for the plants proposed by the BZE plan? CST does well off economies of scale.

And magically Nuclear does not?
Same assumptions for all sources, or the comparison is invalid.
That's the (biggest) point that hasn't been answered.

# ? Nov 14, 2012 23:12

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

blacksun posted:

And even then, that's 2 plants for 7 billion each, which is 2 billion less than your figure. You are cherry picking data to suit your position.

7 billion for 1.1 GW. I quoted 9 billion for 1.6. That's actually MORE expensive than my original figure.

Aureon posted:

And magically Nuclear does not?
Same assumptions for all sources, or the comparison is invalid.
That's the (biggest) point that hasn't been answered.

No, nuclear does not benefit from the same economies of scale as CST because CST is a distributed system. Increasing the size of CST fields and changing how the heliostats interact with a larger array of towers can improve the cost per GW of a CST plant, where a nuclear plant is more limited in terms of what you have to build and engineer. Nuclear requires expertise and heavy manufacturing that CST simply does not.

You're also comparing a technology with a near sixty-year pedigree to one that's been operational for less than thirty, with a massive disparity in public research money and investment. You're acting like nuclear is unplumbed technology with massive efficiency advances just waiting to happen.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 01:05

Happiness Commando: Feb 1, 2002; $$ joy at gunpoint $$

blacksun posted:

And those plants in the US are much more expensive due to the costs of regulatory approval for the reactor design, where further plants in the US will be increasingly cheaper as one of the largest costs for construction (design approval) is negated.

I thought NRC changed their licensing policy so that all AP-1000s can be constructed on the approval of the standardized design? Shouldn't all AP-1000s be similarly cheap?

# ? Nov 15, 2012 02:21

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

I'll get back to the rest when I can, probably early next week to be honest, (although QM has done a decent job already), but

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Increasing the size of CST fields and changing how the heliostats interact with a larger array of towers can improve the cost per GW of a CST plant

Can I ask what are you getting at here exactly? Heliostats can shine on different towers, depending on the sun conditions?

# ? Nov 15, 2012 02:32

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

Also the CSG industry is taking a bit of beating this week in NSW:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/methane-leaking-from-coal-seam-gas-field-testing-shows-20121114-29c9m.html

# ? Nov 15, 2012 02:34

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Hobo Erotica posted:

Can I ask what are you getting at here exactly? Heliostats can shine on different towers, depending on the sun conditions?

Yes, essentially. That, or different towers can be tuned to supply different loads to spread out the power generation, leading to less waste. It doesn't improve the maximum theoretical output (since there is a limit to how hot a single tower can get, dependent obviously on improved engineering techniques and salt mixtures) but it improves the average output.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 03:26

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Yes, essentially. That, or different towers can be tuned to supply different loads to spread out the power generation, leading to less waste. It doesn't improve the maximum theoretical output (since there is a limit to how hot a single tower can get, dependent obviously on improved engineering techniques and salt mixtures) but it improves the average output.

The Spain plants, however, are already divided in subplants.
This wouldn't really make sense if further scale gains could be gained?

e: Anyway, even if assumptions are correct, you cannot use real-world numbers for Nuclear and theoretical numbers for Solar. Either one, or the other. Then we can tweak, but the starting point has to be on equal conditions.

Aureon fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Nov 15, 2012

# ? Nov 15, 2012 03:41

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

7 billion for 1.1 GW. I quoted 9 billion for 1.6. That's actually MORE expensive than my original figure.

No, nuclear does not benefit from the same economies of scale as CST because CST is a distributed system. Increasing the size of CST fields and changing how the heliostats interact with a larger array of towers can improve the cost per GW of a CST plant, where a nuclear plant is more limited in terms of what you have to build and engineer. Nuclear requires expertise and heavy manufacturing that CST simply does not.

You're also comparing a technology with a near sixty-year pedigree to one that's been operational for less than thirty, with a massive disparity in public research money and investment. You're acting like nuclear is unplumbed technology with massive efficiency advances just waiting to happen.

You are still ignoring the 2 billion per plant cost in China.

And that heavy manufacturing and engineering becomes easier and cheaper as more are produced. Especially with a static reactor design like the AP1000. Economics of scale absolutely do apply to nuclear power in this case.

Also the approval bourdon for the AP1000 approval on the US has been shared across the cost of the first few plants. As more plants are produced expect prices for plants to drop.

Also if you look at proposed Gen IV designs you will see that there are major efficiency gains to be had, as even though the field is 60 years old we are still using rudimentary technology.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 04:13

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Also most countries do not have 70%+ of their land area that's utterly deserted the way Australia does. Many countries have vast areas with few people, but there's usually farms and such in the lightly populated area that you can't just build solar facilities over.

Look at all this empty empty land:

The lightest pink areas are equivalent densities to the white areas on this map of the US

The white range is 0 to 0.38 persons per square kilometer, the yellow is 0.38 to 1.54.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 04:33

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

blacksun posted:

You are still ignoring the 2 billion per plant cost in China.

I too am fully prepared to scrap our labour laws until we can construct plants for the cost of Chinese labour, and into the bargain bend the laws of physics to make transport of massive nuclear reactor parts negligible.

I don't think the realities of reactor construction in China and in Australia are anywhere near comparable, as the increased cost in the US shows.

blacksun posted:

And that heavy manufacturing and engineering becomes easier and cheaper as more are produced. Especially with a static reactor design like the AP1000. Economics of scale absolutely do apply to nuclear power in this case.

Last I checked global demand for these parts is still outpacing the ability of the relevent engineering firms to supply them.

blacksun posted:

Also the approval bourdon for the AP1000 approval on the US has been shared across the cost of the first few plants. As more plants are produced expect prices for plants to drop.

Also if you look at proposed Gen IV designs you will see that there are major efficiency gains to be had, as even though the field is 60 years old we are still using rudimentary technology.

Can you show the stats? I'd accept stats from the same modelling firm as the one that produced the projected cost falls of the CST plants which, remember, were from a a primarily nuclear firm and certainly not interested in massaging numbers to make solar look better.

Install Gentoo posted:

Also most countries do not have 70%+ of their land area that's utterly deserted the way Australia does. Many countries have vast areas with few people, but there's usually farms and such in the lightly populated area that you can't just build solar facilities over.

Which is why I'm talking about Australia and an Australian renewables plan. You're painting me as anti-nuclear, and I'm not. I fully agree that for a lot of countries, nuclear is at least going to be have to part of their mix of energy.

I am, though, somewhat opposed to tearing up and poisoning large swathes of our country for uranium mines when have so much in the way of untapped solar resource. I'm not running around screaming about the idea of nuke plants blowing up but even someone wholly one-hundred-percent convinced about the safety of nuclear can't possibly say with a straight face that uranium mining is much better than coal mining.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 05:06

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Which is why I'm talking about Australia and an Australian renewables plan. You're painting me as anti-nuclear, and I'm not. I fully agree that for a lot of countries, nuclear is at least going to be have to part of their mix of energy.

I am, though, somewhat opposed to tearing up and poisoning large swathes of our country for uranium mines when have so much in the way of untapped solar resource. I'm not running around screaming about the idea of nuke plants blowing up but even someone wholly one-hundred-percent convinced about the safety of nuclear can't possibly say with a straight face that uranium mining is much better than coal mining.

I didn't paint you as anything?

Uranium mining is much better than coal mining because you do a lot less of it to get the same energy. There I said it with a straight face which was incredibly easy because it's true.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 05:48

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

Install Gentoo posted:

Uranium mining is much better than coal mining because you do a lot less of it to get the same energy. There I said it with a straight face which was incredibly easy because it's true.

It's not really as simple as that.. from speaking to the communities affected, Uranium mining does things to the local environment that coal mining doesn't. Uranium has a higher energy content per tonne than coal of course, but you still have to mine substantial amounts of ore to get to the good stuff. And you still need all the infrastructure (roads, ports, mines etc). It probably is still
better, but it's not as straight forward as you made out.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Yes, essentially. That, or different towers can be tuned to supply different loads to spread out the power generation, leading to less waste. It doesn't improve the maximum theoretical output (since there is a limit to how hot a single tower can get, dependent obviously on improved engineering techniques and salt mixtures) but it improves the average output.

Huh. I never knew that, or even thought it would be possible. I was under the impression the mirrors were specifically placed and aligned to be aimed at one specific tower. Have you got a link or something?

# ? Nov 15, 2012 06:01

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Hobo Erotica posted:

It's not really as simple as that.. from speaking to the communities affected, Uranium mining does things to the local environment that coal mining doesn't. Uranium has a higher energy content per tonne than coal of course, but you still have to mine substantial amounts of ore to get to the good stuff. And you still need all the infrastructure (roads, ports, mines etc). It probably is still
better, but it's not as straight forward as you made out.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the results of uranium mining have ever done this to a town and it's local environment:

_{_{2008: TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill}}

_{_{1966: Aberfan coal ash spill}}
And there's been quite a few more.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 06:12

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

Yeah fair point. Uranium/nuclear has its problems too of course, and my point was more to say that just cos it's got a high energy content doesn't mean it's immune to the problems of mining. I did say it's probably better than coal though.

In other news, Greenpeace just released a global wind power outlook report. Main claim is that it could supply 12% of global energy demand by 2020. Again, have barely had time to skim it, but posting it here if anyone wants to go over it:

http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/climate-energy/2012/global-wind-report-beijing/

# ? Nov 15, 2012 06:49

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Hobo Erotica posted:

Huh. I never knew that, or even thought it would be possible. I was under the impression the mirrors were specifically placed and aligned to be aimed at one specific tower. Have you got a link or something?

BZE report, page 53. Installations greater than 220 MW use multiple towers in parallel. I might be wrong about mirrors being used for more than one tower (that was something I heard at a BZE meeting) but multiple towers in parallel can diffuse the light from larger mirror fields more effective.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 11:05

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

quote:

The Spain plants, however, are already divided in subplants.
This wouldn't really make sense if further scale gains could be gained?

Address, if you please. I'd really like to thread further about those gains - i just assumed multiple towers were just needed for the distance.

On page 52 of the BZE report: claims 80% load for Solar - does it ever, ever rain in Australia? The table doesn't really make any sense.

quote:

BZE report, page 53. Installations greater than 220 MW use multiple towers in parallel. I might be wrong about mirrors being used for more than one tower (that was something I heard at a BZE meeting) but multiple towers in parallel can diffuse the light from larger mirror fields more effective.

On page 53, it goes to explain that it would split the whole thing, because any field bigger wouldn't have the tower receive a decent quantity of light.
This is a case for smaller subplants (mirrors being nearer to towers) not the other way round.
From there(And the appendix 3):

quote:

The 220 MW tower described by Sargent & Lundy with 17 hours of storage is approaching the optical limits of a single mirror field to reflect sunlight onto a single tower�at the outer heliostats the reflected light is too diffuse to heat the
solar receiver on top of the tower. However, to construct a larger power plant, for example 2,200 MW, a series of 10 modules of 220 MW power towers.

Page 54 provides us with a cost estimate: in 2012, the estimate is 8c/KWh.
I am not aware of any CST plan running at less than the Spain ones, which run at 27c/KWh. Unless evidence can be provided for real-world running plants at around 8c/KWh, i'd say it's safe to discard those "estimates".
The appendix 2 and 3 reiterate the same graphs, and the same points. Years have passed since those predictions, and they've been found wanting.

Also, i would point out that the project requires a quantity of land that's bigger than the exclusion zone from Chernobyl.
Substantially, having an exclusion zone of 20km around a Nuclear Plant with 4 reactors (producing 4GW) would use less land than the project requires for the 3.5GW of CST, by a substantial margin. (the 'circle' for solar would be over 65km)
This may sit well with Australia, but wouldn't really with basically anywhere else in the world, except the Sahara perhaps.

Hobo Erotica posted:

Yeah fair point. Uranium/nuclear has its problems too of course, and my point was more to say that just cos it's got a high energy content doesn't mean it's immune to the problems of mining. I did say it's probably better than coal though.

The quantities of the ores needed are hardly comparable.
Lifted from the Nuclear thread:

Office Thug posted:

Would you rather mine and burn a tonne of coal that yields 24,000 megajoules + pollutants, or a tonne of rock that yields 620,000 to 980,000 megajoules of energy + a few grams of waste? When you can use the total 1.8 to 2.7 ppm of uranium and 6 to 9.6 ppm of thorium which are present in most rock, you start dealing with energy yields that completely surpass those of any other fuel or process, barring fusion. That 1 tonne of rock should also yield 1.5 to 2.5 grams of waste that needs to be isolated for 300 years, less if you take out the strontium-90 for use in RTGs and other things.

Extracting either uranium or thorium from rock involves pulverizing the stuff and leaching the metals out using hydrochloric acid: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0009254183900207. That's with today's technology. To demonstrate an idea of how much this type of process costs, a team of engineers at Oakridge did the same thing in the 60s (only interested in the thorium, mind) and found that it cost $3.95 to $5.35 per ton of granite processed. Their yields were very sensitive to the types of granite they were working with, you can look at their tables on pages 9 and 10: http://www.ornl.gov/info/reports/1963/3445600230925.pdf

Fuel is not the problem. Building the reactors that can use the fuel is the single biggest problem with nuclear right now. You need to get all the way from R&D to getting approval for an experimental reactor, to up-scaling, then to getting a prototype commercial up and running, and finally building similar systems where they need to be. Each step incurs tremendous delays and costs from regulations, unless you're in India or China for some reason.

quote:

In other news, Greenpeace just released a global wind power outlook report. Main claim is that it could supply 12% of global energy demand by 2020. Again, have barely had time to skim it, but posting it here if anyone wants to go over it:

http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/climate-energy/2012/global-wind-report-beijing/

Greenpeace is not a reliable source on anything remotely related to energy.
They are the ones that claimed over 2m deaths from Chernobyl, who encouraged turning off Nuclear in Germany to replace it with Coal, and so on.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 14:06

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Aureon posted:

Address, if you please. I'd really like to thread further about those gains - i just assumed multiple towers were just needed for the distance.

It's partially the distance, but if you have multiple CST towers they can spread the salt load a lot more effectively. Essentially, it wastes less heat.

Aureon posted:

On page 52 of the BZE report: claims 80% load for Solar - does it ever, ever rain in Australia? The table doesn't really make any sense.

We've had one of the wettest years in recent memory and I'm still not allowed to water my lawn between 10 and 4, and I don't live out in the desert where the plants are planned. You tell me.

Gemasolar and Valles both run at a little bit under 70% capacity factor. The BZE plan both assumes Australia is sunnier (which it is) and that we'd be building plants with more molten salt storage.

Aureon posted:

Page 54 provides us with a cost estimate: in 2012, the estimate is 8c/KWh.
I am not aware of any CST plan running at less than the Spain ones, which run at 27c/KWh. Unless evidence can be provided for real-world running plants at around 8c/KWh, i'd say it's safe to discard those "estimates".
The appendix 2 and 3 reiterate the same graphs, and the same points. Years have passed since those predictions, and they've been found wanting.

You're looking at Andesol and PS10. Gemasolar and Valle are both newer plants with better tech. However, I can't find any record of their running costs /kWh except in the BZE and NREL reports. I can, however, find records of the projected running costs of the new plants in Nevada, which match the BZE projections.

Aureon posted:

Also, i would point out that the project requires a quantity of land that's bigger than the exclusion zone from Chernobyl.
Substantially, having an exclusion zone of 20km around a Nuclear Plant with 4 reactors (producing 4GW) would use less land than the project requires for the 3.5GW of CST, by a substantial margin. (the 'circle' for solar would be over 65km)
This may sit well with Australia, but wouldn't really with basically anywhere else in the world, except the Sahara perhaps.

It's good that I'm only talking about Australia then, as I've reiterated about three times. We have so much land that's literally utterly useless except for how much sun falls on it.

I will admit I was wrong about uranium mining being not significantly better than coal mining. It's still awful, destructive poo poo and has a pretty chequered past in Australia, especially considering that most of the uranium mines are underneath land subject to native title, and the relevant Aboriginal tribes are not particularly keen to get out of the way so we can rip it to shreds for nuclear fuel.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 14:52

Flaky: Feb 14, 2011; Can't post for 3 years!

http://www.themonthly.com.au/clean-energy-future-gilding-parkinson-sandiford-6907

Haven't looked all the way through but seems interesting.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 15:33

Office Thug: Jan 17, 2008; Luke Cage just shut you down!

Hobo Erotica posted:

Yeah fair point. Uranium/nuclear has its problems too of course, and my point was more to say that just cos it's got a high energy content doesn't mean it's immune to the problems of mining. I did say it's probably better than coal though.

Uranium is miles better than coal, no question. Here's a post I made in the nuclear thread:

Office Thug posted:

There's some good figures here for the amounts involved in uranium fuel fabrication: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf03.html

To operate a typical 1000 MWe reactor for a year,
code:
Mining 			Anything from 20,000 to 400,000 tonnes of uranium ore
Milling 		230 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (which contains 195 tonnes of uranium)
Conversion 		288 tonnes uranium hexafluoride, UF6 (with 195 tU)
Enrichment 		35 tonnes enriched UF6 (containing 24 t enriched U) � balance is 'tails'
Fuel fabrication 	27 tonnes UO2 (with 24 t enriched U)
Reactor operation 	8760 million kWh (8.76 TWh) of electricity at full output,
			hence 22.3 tonnes of natural U per TWh
Used fuel 		27 tonnes containing 240 kg transuranics 
			(mainly plutonium), 23 t uranium (0.8% U-235), 1100 kg fission products.
In comparison, you need a bit more than 4 million tonnes of coal to power a 1000 MWe coal plant for a year. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States)

We're talking about mining on a scale ten times bigger for coal than what you get in the worst cases for uranium, down to a factor of 200 when the richest uranium ore deposits are concerned.

We also can't rule out Gen 4 reactors that support fuel breeding cycles, such as thorium and plutonium reactors. They use the far more common fertile isotopes found in nature as a feedstock to producing energy, rather than using ultra-rare fissile isotopes like uranium-235. As far as concentrated uranium deposits are concerned, we can easily expect a further reduction in mining by a factor of over 200, as we'll be moving from something that needs to be enriched to 4-5% from 0.7% natural concentration (U-235), to something that is 99.3% (U-238) and which requires no enrichment.

In contrast, we could get thorium from pretty much anywhere cheaply and with less mining/drilling involved than what we find in coal and oil. This post has some figures based on limited calculations: http://energyfromthorium.com/cubic-meter/

And this study details the cost of thorium and uranium recovery rates from granite and at what costs: http://www.ornl.gov/info/reports/1963/3445600230925.pdf

Thorium is ridiculously easy to leach out of things, whether intentional or not. The rare earth industry actually has a problem with thorium because it precipitates readily in the first couple steps of rare earth extraction. Although thorium is only slightly radioactive, it's still considered nuclear waste in the west. China has mountains of thorium that they're stockpiling for when they eventually finish developing their pebble-bed molten-salt cooled thorium reactor, followed by their liquid fluoride thorium reactor.

# ? Nov 15, 2012 16:14

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

For a 20mw (12 net) plant, the Gemasolar had a 5mil subsidy and a 80m loan: That makes the cost a strict minimum of 85m. More uncertain sources put the cost at around 420m. (http://theenergycollective.com/nathan-wilson/58791/20mw-gemasolar-plant-elegant-pricey)
That means 1gw is a 7-38b build cost. That's around five times nuclear, with lower running costs, but a much higher land use and a much shorter life.
And random uncertainity.
Five times fits the bill of the usual 27c/KWh.
Combined cost average lowers from 33/W to 26/W, so that'd be "only" four times nuclear.

Aureon fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Nov 15, 2012

# ? Nov 15, 2012 16:22

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Aureon posted:

For a 20mw (12 net) plant, the Gemasolar had a 5mil subsidy and a 80m loan: That makes the cost a strict minimum of 85m. More uncertain sources put the cost at around 420m. (http://theenergycollective.com/nathan-wilson/58791/20mw-gemasolar-plant-elegant-pricey)
That means 1gw is a 7-38b build cost. That's around five times nuclear, with lower running costs, but a much higher land use and a much shorter life.
And random uncertainity.
Five times fits the bill of the usual 27c/KWh.
Combined cost average lowers from 33/W to 26/W, so that'd be "only" four times nuclear.

Torresol put the financing cost at 260 million from what I can see, not 420. The 420 figure is from the Daily Mail, and frankly I wouldn't trust that tabloid rag to count its fingers twice and get the same answer.

You're also ignoring that there are plants currently under construction and on target for the sort of costs that the BZE report is using, like the Crescent Dunes plant at Tonopah. Given that I've been presented with "China is building" and "the US is building" as evidence for nuclear plant costs, I think using under-construction solar plants is fair as well.

# ? Nov 16, 2012 02:24

Aureon: Jul 11, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Torresol put the financing cost at 260 million from what I can see, not 420. The 420 figure is from the Daily Mail, and frankly I wouldn't trust that tabloid rag to count its fingers twice and get the same answer.

You're also ignoring that there are plants currently under construction and on target for the sort of costs that the BZE report is using, like the Crescent Dunes plant at Tonopah. Given that I've been presented with "China is building" and "the US is building" as evidence for nuclear plant costs, I think using under-construction solar plants is fair as well.

As you want to use: Either "Is building/planning" for both, or "has been done" for both. Make the comparison on even terms - That's what i've been saying.
So, it's 3-4c for Nuclear and 12-22 for Solar, or 7-8c for Nuclear and 27-42 for Solar. Choose one type, and do not go "8 nuclear, since that's real world, but 12 solar, since we're planning that!"

for the exact number: Yeah, i specified the source wasn't trusted. Please link were torresol puts their costs though, could be needed in the future.

# ? Nov 16, 2012 02:44

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# ? May 9, 2024 23:55

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Aureon posted:

As you want to use: Either "Is building/planning" for both, or "has been done" for both. Make the comparison on even terms - That's what i've been saying.
So, it's 3-4c for Nuclear and 12-22 for Solar, or 7-8c for Nuclear and 27-42 for Solar. Choose one type, and do not go "8 nuclear, since that's real world, but 12 solar, since we're planning that!"

for the exact number: Yeah, i specified the source wasn't trusted. Please link were torresol puts their costs though, could be needed in the future.

I was comparing the capital cost of the plants per GW based on under construction plants - the AP1000s mentioned above. The 3-4c figure as far as I am concerned is not applicable to countries that, you know, pay their workers a fair living wage. I'm sure China could construct solar plants for billions less as well.

The 260 million figure is quoted on quite a few websites. From what I can see the Daily Mail quoted the figure as 260 million pounds sterling, rather than 260 million USD.

# ? Nov 16, 2012 04:19

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