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Well if the first containment shell could rust why not the second? Repeat ad nauseam. Arghy posted:There just has to be more then just ignorance behind anti nuclear lobbying and if there is a malicious intent its entirely likely. Anti-nuclear will just go down in history as something kids learn about in school and ask to their teachers "what the hell were they thinking"?
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Jan 14, 2014 13:31
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QuarkJets posted:May I see where you're getting your numbers from? I have never seen Wind or Hydro providing a lower GW/hour except in tables that explicitly include government subsidies, which shouldn't count Why shouldn't they count?
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Jan 14, 2014 13:40
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VideoTapir posted:Why shouldn't they count? Because then coal would be the cheapest of all.
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Jan 14, 2014 15:01
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Kaal posted:By the by, that solution is actually extant in the form of the AP1000 nuclear power plant. China has adopted it as its official inland design standard, and is intending on building 100 of them over the next five years. The US is similarly adopting it as a go-to design. The AP1000 represents a bright new future for nuclear power, even if that bright future only happens in Guangdong Province. Right now I'm working on qualifying parts of a nuclear plant versus natural hazard phenomena. The safety margin is incredible. I'm dealing with a place that's never had greater than an EF-2 within 150 miles (no EF-5 tornado had ever struck within 1000 miles of this plant) yet I still need to plan as though a tornado with 230 mph winds is throwing 4000 lb cars through the air at the plant like ragdolls. (It used to be 360 mph, but science actually helped lower it with reg guide 1.76. For reference, the Moore tornado maxed at 210 mph). (again, the highest windspeed this area had ever recorded was about 88 mph. So naturally our design windspeed is 176, and we plan on a tornado that's roughly 1 in a trillion per year in a deterministic worst-case fashion.)
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Jan 14, 2014 15:31
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Pander posted:Right now I'm working on qualifying parts of a nuclear plant versus natural hazard phenomena. The safety margin is incredible. I'm dealing with a place that's never had greater than an EF-2 within 150 miles (no EF-5 tornado had ever struck within 1000 miles of this plant) yet I still need to plan as though a tornado with 230 mph winds is throwing 4000 lb cars through the air at the plant like ragdolls. something something fukushima  At least as long as prehistoric piece of crap nuclear power plants exist, there will be ever-tightening regulation because obviously all nuclear plants are the same.
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Jan 14, 2014 17:04
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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QuarkJets posted:May I see where you're getting your numbers from? I have never seen Wind or Hydro providing a lower GW/hour except in tables that explicitly include government subsidies, which shouldn't count the EIA's levelized cost of electricity for new generation? http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Remember, that nuclear gets free loans and that the capital costs are the largest factor of nuclear's cost. Also levelized numbers assume that there will be 0% cost overrun and 0% delays, something no nuclear project in the west has achieved in the half century as far as I'm aware. Also from the EIA numbers, showing they don't include tax credits. quote:Note: These results do not include targeted tax credits such as the production or investment tax credit available for some technologies, which could significantly affect the levelized cost estimate. For example,new solar thermal and PV plants are eligible to receive a 30 percent investment tax credit on capital expenditures if placed in service before the end of 2016, and 10 percent thereafter. New wind, geothermal, biomass, hydroelectric, and landfill gas plants are eligible to receive either: (1) a $22 per MWh ($11 per MWh for technologies other than wind, geothermal and closed-loop biomass) inflation-adjusted production tax credit over the plant's first ten years of service or (2) a 30 percent investment tax credit, if placed in service before the end of 2013, or (2012, for wind only). Can anyone provide a source for how nuclear deregulation would actually work in a way that provided a cost savings without increasing systemic risk? Just fiating that "no regulations == experimental reactor designs become production designs", doesn't really count. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 18:00
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Trabisnikof posted:Can anyone provide a source for how nuclear deregulation would actually work in a way that provided a cost savings without increasing systemic risk? Just fiating that "no regulations == experimental reactor designs become production designs", doesn't really count. Don't build 100 different reactor designs as one-off pieces that each require an elaborate licensing process. License a small number of designs, survey a large number of potential sites for suitability, plop down the same reactor type at every site. e: small modular reactor designs should help for that, just plop down more of them next to each other if you need a big generating capacity. e2: making them small should also make it easier to have them certified as safe, since you can protect a small structure from, say, earthquakes more easily than the lumbering Gen II hulks everyone has standing around. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 18:18
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blowfish posted:Don't build 100 different reactor designs as one-off pieces that each require an elaborate licensing process. I know that's the theory that everyone discusses on here, but there are 3 big issues I see with that (unsupported by research claim): 1. We've tried the mass produced reactor before, the GE BWR Type 1 (and pretty much most designs after it) were supposed to be exactly that. I'm pretty sure the Atomic Energy Commission wasn't exactly over-regulating things in 1955. The issue isn't regulation the issue is Nuclear is complicated to engineer to safety. 2. That still doesn't provide any proof that you can reduce regulations and actually maintain systemic safety. America has an amazingly safe nuclear industry because it is well regulated. 3. We're now discussing completely a theoretical topic: theoretical new production reactor designs and theoretical new regulating environments. Meanwhile, our problems are real. Sure Nuclear might be amazing if X,Y, or Z were different, but we don't live in that world.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:30
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Trabisnikof posted:I know that's the theory that everyone discusses on here, but there are 3 big issues I see with that (unsupported by research claim): 1.) and 3.) AP-1000 reactors in China. They may just be slightly better Gen III 1000MWe hulks, but at least they're standardised. Russia is also building 18+3 kinda standardised reactors (18 Gen III things and 3 fast reactors to try their hand at burning waste  )2.) France. Their regulation has been "upgraded" to the US standard in response to Fukushima and general anti-nuke hysteria, but in the decades before, French nuke plants haven't turned the country into a radioactive wasteland. e: the Russians have approved bulding 18x VVER-1200 Gen III reactors and three fast reactors of various types. Also they're actually doing the sensible thing and taking old piece of crap reactors off the grid to replace them with new ones instead of extending the operating life of 40 year old wrecks. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 18:32
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blowfish posted:1.) and 3.) AP-1000 reactors in China. They may just be slightly better Gen III 1000MWe hulks, but at least they're standardised. You mean a reactor design that is already allowed in the US? So what nuclear regulations do you think the Chinese do better than the US, if the design you'd prefer is already available in the US? Also I don't think France is the pillar of low-costs that it seems. Sure you can blame the recent cost rises on Fukushima...except they started before Fukushima and closer to when EDF was privatized. Meanwhile, turbines that can be ordered today are still cheaper on a per KWh basis, even in France.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:53
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Trabisnikof posted:You mean a reactor design that is already allowed in the US? So what nuclear regulations do you think the Chinese do better than the US, if the design you'd prefer is already available in the US? The US requires a lot of what amounts to relicensing if you want to build an AP1000 at a new site, instead of just going "we know what the AP1000 is built for, does this place look geologically stable enough?" quote:Also I don't think France is the pillar of low-costs that it seems. Sure you can blame the recent cost rises on Fukushima...except they started before Fukushima and closer to when EDF was privatized. Yeah, privatisation sucks. However, France is now starting to require similar regulatory crap as the US. Still, French electricity is cheaper than German electricity for some reason and we're both Central(-ish) EU countries. It would be much better to really thoroughly test the EPR and then send geologists/safety people to survey each proposed site (even if that somehow ends up costing millions per site, it's a drop in the bucket for a nuclear power plant's build cost). A significant factor in cost overruns is the fact that halting the construction costs hundreds of millions per year, and nuclear power plant construction in the West is a prime target for litigation and takes breaks all the time even after the thing has been properly licensed. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 18:59
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blowfish posted:The US requires a lot of what amounts to relicensing if you want to build an AP1000 at a new site, instead of just going "we know what the AP1000 is built for, does this place look geologically stable enough?" The issues are more complex than that. For example, France's most recent plant was stopped within a month of starting construction because they didn't have process controls in place for their concrete mixing. That's something that's in the AP1000 plan, and has nothing to do with the geology. But requires regulation and oversight. I'm really curious what kinds of specific regulatory processes you think are needlessly driving up costs? Sure the NIMBYs could potentially prevent a lot of new plants from getting licensed or built. But NRC public hearings aren't the reason the 4 AP100 reactors being built right now in the US are more expensive per KWh than wind or hydro.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:08
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Trabisnikof posted:The issues are more complex than that. For example, France's most recent plant was stopped within a month of starting construction because they didn't have process controls in place for their concrete mixing. That's something that's in the AP1000 plan, and has nothing to do with the geology. But requires regulation and oversight. I'm really curious what kinds of specific regulatory processes you think are needlessly driving up costs? I actually have to retract part of what I said: the US has expedited its approval process. The currently under-build AP1000s, which is 4 out of 5 currently in build, only needed site-specific stuff checked for approval. At the moment, the most uncertainty about new US nukes is from cheap gas plants (which are less horrible than coal, but still bad).
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Jan 14, 2014 19:16
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Trabisnikof posted:the EIA's levelized cost of electricity for new generation? Just as an FYI, the EIA is extremely clear that you should not be comparing their estimate levelized cost between wind turbines and nuclear power, because wind turbines are non-dispatchable and therefore you're comparing apples and oranges. That's why they separated dispatchable and non-dispatchable technologies in the first place. If that's what you're basing your arguments on, then it's much shakier ground than what you've been presenting. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 19:29
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Kaal posted:Just as an FYI, the EIA is extremely clear that you should not be comparing their estimate levelized cost between wind turbines and nuclear power, because wind turbines are non-dispatchable and therefore you're comparing apples and oranges. That's why they separated dispatchable and non-dispatchable technologies in the first place. So basically it is the raw number of what investment per kWh out you pay, not including the fact that you need to deal with unplanned intermittency.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:32
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blowfish posted:So basically it is the raw number of what investment per kWh out you pay, not including the fact that you need to deal with unplanned intermittency. It is including the capacity factor. It doesn't include unplanned intermittency, which yes is more of an issue with Wind than Nuclear but is actually an issue for both. Edit: The EIA's caveat is yes, no one is deciding between building a nuclear plant or a wind farm. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 19:42
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Trabisnikof posted:It is including the capacity factor. It doesn't include unplanned intermittency, which yes is more of an issue with Wind than Nuclear but is actually an issue for both. EIA posted:In the tables in this discussion, the levelized cost for each technology is evaluated based on the capacity factor indicated, which generally corresponds to the high end of its likely utilization range. Simple combustion turbines (conventional or advanced technology) that are typically used for peak load duty cycles are evaluated at a 30-percent capacity factor. The duty cycle for intermittent renewable resources, wind and solar, is not operator controlled, but dependent on the weather or solar cycle (that is, sunrise/sunset) and so will not necessarily correspond to operator dispatched duty cycles. As a result, their levelized costs are not directly comparable to those for other technologies (even where the average annual capacity factor may be similar) and therefore are shown in separate sections within each of the tables. The capacity factors shown for solar, wind, and hydroelectric resources in Table 1 are simple averages of the capacity factor for the marginal site in each region. These capacity factors can vary significantly by region and can represent resources that may or may not get built in EIA capacity projections. These capacity factors should not be interpreted as representing EIA's estimate or projection of the gross generating potential of resources actually projected to be built. I don't think that you can get far away from the fact that you're using their data in ways that they specifically tell you not to do because it doesn't work. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 19:51
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Trabisnikof posted:Actually sorry to double post, but since you just linked the Data browser for the entire UK grid, I can't actually find anywhere that it breaks out solar generation. So I'm not arguing that PV works at night, but just curious where on that site does it break out solar usage? I can't seem to even find anywhere that breaks out solar generation on an hour by hour basis for the UK grid. Embedded generation is counted as decreased demand for power stations up to 50 MW. At that point you need to start to pay attention to dispatch profiles, and have to have operational metering in place so that National Grid can see what you're generating and send instructions to change your generation pattern close to real time. Solar isn't listed on the data feed, because there is no solar capacity to speak of. The site is only tested/designed to work in IE/Firefox. Getting it into a state where it's Chrome-compatible would cost money, and the industry collectively decided that the cost/benefit wasn't there.
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Jan 14, 2014 19:57
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blowfish posted:Currently, hydro is being expanded even into biodiversity hotspots like the Balkan alluvial forests where it'll gently caress up the entire ecosystem. At least pumped storage has the advantage of just needing a body of water next to any hill (but we will find a way to put the largest pumped storage facility in the country on top of some exceedingly valuable habitats, I'm sure). Generally speaking, if you want to construct any significant amount of pumped storage capacity, you're going to gently caress up the surrounding terrain just like with dam construction. The size of the reservoir you would need for even a relatively small amount of storage given a reasonable height difference is just ridiculous. Gravity is so loving weak that it's difficult to store a lot of potential energy just by moving stuff around in a gravity well.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:09
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VideoTapir posted:Why shouldn't they count? Because you could create the same subsidies for nuclear. Trabisnikof posted:the EIA's levelized cost of electricity for new generation? You didn't mention this: EIA Report posted:In the tables in this discussion, the levelized cost for each technology is evaluated based on the capacity factor indicated, which generally corresponds to the high end of its likely utilization range. Simple combustion turbines (conventional or advanced technology) that are typically used for peak load duty cycles are evaluated at a 30-percent capacity factor. The duty cycle for intermittent renewable resources, wind and solar, is not operator controlled, but dependent on the weather or solar cycle (that is, sunrise/sunset) and so will not necessarily correspond to operator dispatched duty cycles. As a result, their levelized costs are not directly comparable to those for other technologies (even where the average annual capacity factor may be similar) and therefore are shown in separate sections within each of the tables. In other words, if you were to move to a pure hydro and wind power system then you'd need to start implementing a lot of energy storage mechanisms that would significantly increase your levelized cost. As a form of intermittent power production they are cheaper in general, though the report says right there that the levelized costs are not directly comparable between nuclear and wind/hydro. Also left out of the estimate for wind is the fact that cost/GW increases as you build more wind farms and expand your existing ones. It's not clear from this report how that would effect the long-term average cost of wind if we started going full-bore on building more wind turbines QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 20:09
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QuarkJets posted:You didn't mention this: I get the issues with levelized cost, its just the best cost metric we really have. Would you prefer to use capital costs or variable costs or what? We'd likely only have to increase installed capacity by <50% to support 90% renewables, not that huge of a margin when you think about how dramatic a shift that would be. Also, why are wind turbines the only technology ever that gets more expensive as you make more of them (other than maybe nuclear)? But somehow steam turbines, gas turbines and water turbines all get cheaper when you make more of them. Edit: the reason we don't have a better metric rather than levelized cost is because geography (and thus the grid) matters so much. Since the price of electricity is different in different places on a 5 minute or 15 minute window (e.g. the price in Texas and Arkansas for a 5 minute window could be vastly different), it can be incredibly hard to calculate the cost and value of intermittent power supplies. Sometimes levelizing can make the power source look better (like it does do for most Wind) and sometimes it can make it look worse (like it does for Solar). Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 20:23
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Trabisnikof posted:I get the issues with levelized cost, its just the best cost metric we really have. Would you prefer to use capital costs or variable costs or what? We'd likely only have to increase installed capacity by <50% to support 90% renewables, not that huge of a margin when you think about how dramatic a shift that would be. Wind turbines require a lot of infrastructure per turbine, like the tower and fiberglass blades, while the other turbines just need a pipeline of whatever they use and a large hall? Other than that I'd say Supply and Demand.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:37
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Lurking Haro posted:Wind turbines require a lot of infrastructure per turbine, like the tower and fiberglass blades, while the other turbines just need a pipeline of whatever they use and a large hall? Wait so a tower and blades (which btw other turbines need expensive blades too) is somehow more infrastructure than an entire nuclear plant, a dam or a gas transmission line? You've also never heard of economies of scale I gather...since that's why as more people buy more of a thing, the price goes down as producers are able to produce at greater efficiency.
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Jan 14, 2014 20:42
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Trabisnikof posted:Wait so a tower and blades (which btw other turbines need expensive blades too) is somehow more infrastructure than an entire nuclear plant, a dam or a gas transmission line? You asked for turbines, not whole plants. -e- If more people want wind turbines, prices won't drop even with reduces costs in production. Tower and blade construction are also quite hard to automate anymore. Lurking Haro fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 20:44
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Trabisnikof posted:Wait so a tower and blades (which btw other turbines need expensive blades too) is somehow more infrastructure than an entire nuclear plant, a dam or a gas transmission line? Such locations involve minimal topographic interference, a consistent wind, and geographic proximity to population centers and power-grid tie-ins. As these locations get quickly taken, the cost increases as construction will occur on less favorable terrain. Building on rocky/uneven terrain is more challenging than flat terrain. Getting weaker wind reduces cost effectiveness. Building more transmission lines and transformers reduces efficiency and increases costs. A benefit of the behemoth nuclear plants is that they come equipped with some incredible transmission/switching yards. Wind farms are built in Illinois (despite a rather poor wind profile) simply because it's so easy to feed the generation directly into the grid thanks to the adjacent nuclear plants. Building comparable windfarms in remote locations with better wind would be less cost-effective, and the more you build the more expensive it'd be to feed into a relevant grid. "nth of a kind" does apply to wind (as it does for nuclear). It's just that nuclear has a relatively small footprint and few environmental restrictions in terms of construction (they're built in all climates and environments!). If you build 200, the 200th will be pretty cheap still. For wind though, while they'll be cheaper to build with mass production, the fact that they each require a certain amount of open space, good wind, access to a grid, and solid installation (you don't want a wobbly tower. that is when bad things happen) means that later ones (after extensive building) will almost certainly cost more to install than the first. Pander fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 21:11
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Pander posted:"nth of a kind" does apply to wind (as it does for nuclear). It's just that nuclear has a relatively small footprint and few environmental restrictions in terms of construction (they're built in all climates and environments!). If you build 200, the 200th will be pretty cheap still. For wind though, while they'll be cheaper to build with mass production, the fact that they each require a certain amount of open space, good wind, access to a grid, and solid installation (you don't want a wobbly tower. that is when bad things happen) means that later ones (after extensive building) will almost certainly cost more to install than the first. The amount of resources needed to build x MWe of capacity is quite a bit higher for renewables (as is their footprint, as in literally space taken up) so that going to an all or mostly renewable grid carries with it the risk of substantial environmental damage just from taking up space. Case in point, the plans for hydropower in the biodiversity hotspot of the Balkan alluvial forests (alluvial forests get hosed consistently around any sort of dam and there's extensive restoration projects in Central Europe because of that).
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Jan 14, 2014 21:39
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blowfish posted:The amount of resources needed to build x MWe of capacity is quite a bit higher for renewables (as is their footprint, as in literally space taken up) so that going to an all or mostly renewable grid carries with it the risk of substantial environmental damage just from taking up space. Case in point, the plans for hydropower in the biodiversity hotspot of the Balkan alluvial forests (alluvial forests get hosed consistently around any sort of dam and there's extensive restoration projects in Central Europe because of that). And that's why its hard to get new dams built in the developed world. Determining how much land a wind turbine occupies is really nebulous. Is it only the tower, anything under the blades, the space around it you can still ranch but can't build another turbine? Concentrating solar has a better footprint than dams do per GWh, so that's kinda the worst example. Pander posted:The cost of wind goes up because the choicest locations for wind power tend to be the low-hanging fruit taken early. This gets back to the incredibly geographic nature of energy production. For the US at least, there is more than enough well sited wind for wind to become a sizable portion of our energy needs without worrying about running out of sites. The issues with transmission lines, has more to do with the regulatory environment rather than cost (it is difficult for anyone to get new lines built). Also, because of the geographic differences across the nation, the wind blows in different places at different times which will reduce the capacity over-engineering required. Likewise, solar of all kinds really helps with our peak because of A/C demand making up such a large chunk of peak demand.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:32
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http://www.nrel.gov/gis/pdfs/windsmodel4pub1-1-9base200904enh.pdf I disagree with your assertion about the quality/location of wind resources. The bulk of the USA's wind resources are located far from relevant population centers. The remnants tend to be located on major mountain chains (California, Appalachias) or bodies of water (which are much more expensive to construct and face greater challenges than land-based wind power). A great deal of central IL is covered in wind power, yet it's a drop in the bucket compared to nuclear, and it resides in land that's otherwise better suited for agriculture. There's not much growth left in IL, and it's the wind-friendliest state east of the Mississippi. Wind is nice, but the US trying to go all deutschland energiewinde would be suicidal.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:39
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Pander posted:Wind is nice, but the US trying to go all deutschland energiewinde would be suicidal. Are you implying we're somehow not doing badly ourselves  German renewables are at an all-time high, but so are German electricity prices and even our CO2 emissions are rising again (go coal, it's cheaper than gas so utilities really want to have less gas and go back to coal  )
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Jan 14, 2014 22:50
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Germany is a perfect example on how to not handle energy policy. It's been entirely political/emotional based policy. It's all about the optics and sound-bites of "green" this and that rather than the actual hard economic and scientific/engineering choices involved in a sensible green energy policy. Just blanket ban nuclear, tell everyone solar and wind will solve all problems, and then end up having to expand coal power and import from nuclear neighbours to "pay" for the feel-good green policies.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:55
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blowfish posted:Are you implying we're somehow not doing badly ourselves That's kinda what gets me. Nuclear and wind are at each others throats due to competition for grants, subsidies, and positioning as the face of the "new clean energy" initiative that HAS to happen to have any chance of stopping global warming. Nuclear's argument is that you really only need nuclear for energy generation. It's cost is harder to project due to regulation, but it's insanely consistent zero-carbon energy. Wind/Solar argue based on idealistic grounds (no radioactive waste), but have historically relied on subsidies for cost-effectiveness, and generally require very sunny projections and assumptions to actually offset carbon-based energy sources. I feel like there's a sensible path of nuclear-first as a carbon-baseload-replacer with an focus on R&D for the combination of renewable + storage to especially assist remote and peak generation in the future. But I don't really see it pushed much.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:58
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Pander posted:http://www.nrel.gov/gis/pdfs/windsmodel4pub1-1-9base200904enh.pdf If you only look at the 50 meter map, sure. But check out the full wind resource assessment: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/resource_assessment.html quote:A technical wind resource assessment completed by the Wind Program in 2009 estimated that the land-based wind energy potential for the contiguous United States is 10,500 gigawatt (GW) capacity at 80-meters (m) and 12,000 GW capacity at 100-m heights, assuming a capacity factor of at least 30% If your argument is it is easier to site new nuclear power plants close to major cities in the US...you see how silly that sounds in reality. Did you know that many wind farms have agriculture going on below them? Wind and agriculture go pretty well together.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:02
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Baronjutter posted:It's been entirely political/emotional based policy. It's all about the optics and sound-bites of "green" this and that rather than the actual hard economic and scientific/engineering choices involved in a sensible environmental policy. That statement can be expanded and stays true for the most part
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Jan 14, 2014 23:06
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^That statement is true for all Policy ^Pander posted:That's kinda what gets me. See in my mind its more a difference between fueled and fuel-less energy. Sure nuclear has a zero net carbon output per KWh, but carbon isn't our only environmental concern. While nuclear fuel is a great fuel as far as fuel is concerned, the fuel cycle will always have inherent costs. Plus, decommissioning costs are pretty much universally over-budget, sometimes by 10x. Which can often doom the value of a plant to society. Couple that with the reality that nuclear is consistent and inflexible. Nuclear plants (and coal) can't shut down in the middle of the night and then power back up for the day. In a grid with a lot of nuclear, it becomes less cost effective for renewables to operate. Its less about nuclear versus wind, but the classic model of the grid (base load/intermediate/peakers) versus a changing model of the grid (intermittent and dispatched intermediates and peakers with decreasing base load). And if we are interested the most realistic way to reduce carbon emissions from electricity the fastest, the answer pretty much is natural gas to replace coal plants. Since that can actually happen, and is. Then whatever future tech (small nuclear, OTEC, wind, solar) is best to replace the natural gas since we can continue to use the natural gas plants in a more peaker role as we increase our zero carbon per KWh generation capacity. We can replace inflexible grid components with flexible ones and that to me is a very important consideration. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 23:13
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Baronjutter posted:Germany is a perfect example on how to not handle energy policy. It's been entirely political/emotional based policy. It's all about the optics and sound-bites of "green" this and that rather than the actual hard economic and scientific/engineering choices involved in a sensible green energy policy. Just blanket ban nuclear, tell everyone solar and wind will solve all problems, and then end up having to expand coal power and import from nuclear neighbours to "pay" for the feel-good green policies. Do you (or anyone here) know of a good, detailed report or article about this?
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Jan 14, 2014 23:26
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GrumpyDoctor posted:Do you (or anyone here) know of a good, detailed report or article about this? I think someone posted this a while back in this thread: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/04/should-other-nations-follow-germanys-lead-on-promoting-solar-power/
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Jan 14, 2014 23:34
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Trabisnikof posted:^That statement is true for all Policy quote:Couple that with the reality that nuclear is consistent and inflexible. Nuclear plants (and coal) can't shut down in the middle of the night and then power back up for the day. In a grid with a lot of nuclear, it becomes less cost effective for renewables to operate. quote:Its less about nuclear versus wind, but the classic model of the grid (base load/intermediate/peakers) versus a changing model of the grid (intermittent and dispatched intermediates and peakers with decreasing base load). quote:And if we are interested the most realistic way to reduce carbon emissions from electricity the fastest, the answer pretty much is natural gas to replace coal plants. Since that can actually happen, and is. Then whatever future tech (small nuclear, OTEC, wind, solar) is best to replace the natural gas since we can continue to use the natural gas plants in a more peaker role as we increase our zero carbon per KWh generation capacity. quote:We can replace inflexible grid components with flexible ones and that to me is a very important consideration.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:39
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So, before we go through the loop let me just summarize: 1. I point out the huge water and environmental impact of Uranium mining & that nuclear proponents should understand the concept of "regulating an industry to safety" in regards to fracing. 2. Thorium & PU breeders are put forward as the "answer" to the impacts of uranium mining 3. I point out that those are not currently viable technology and its a false comparison between the potential future of nuclear and the past of fracing (Green completions will be required nationwide soon). 4. Someone links a puff piece about some "new reactor design" that will have none of nuclear's downside (this time we got it guys!) and if only there were no regulations, we could have nuclear reactors everywhere! 5. I point out the inherent contradiction between arguing for reduced nuclear regulations and decrying fracing as "too hard and complicated" to be able to be regulated safely. 6. Someone points out some environmental impact of fracing (have you even seen Gasland???). 7. Goto 1. Unless someone has done a life cycle analysis comparing the 2 (that includes remediation for both and plant decommissioning for both), I just honestly don't know which has worse non-carbon environmental impacts. And thanks to fracing, natural gas is cheap enough that is replacing coal plants, right now. Which is a real decrease in carbon emissions.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:56
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If we're going to criticize nuclear for "mining" don't forget all the materials mined to make wind or solar. You think a massive steel tower doesn't need mining? Nuclear needs a tiny tiny amount of fuel mined to keep going, it's also made of steel and concrete which needs mining, just like wind. I actually wonder if you take the "amount of mining" needed to build and supply a nuclear plant divided by its lifetime energy output and compare the same for wind, which one would be the most environmentally friendly from a mining perspective. It's all about understanding the scale of the problems.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:31
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Baronjutter posted:If we're going to criticize nuclear for "mining" don't forget all the materials mined to make wind or solar. You think a massive steel tower doesn't need mining? I forgot to include that one! There is a huge difference between mining required for capital and mining required for fuel. Each light water reactor requires at least 200 tons of ore a year, for example. (http://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/nuclear-fuel-cycle-summary-report.pdf) Plus, do you really think a nuclear plant doesn't use a lot of steel? Or that their generators don't have magnets in them? The amount of concrete in a nuclear plant actually has a meaningful impact on the carbon footprint of a nuclear plant.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:35
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