The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

VideoGameVet posted:

The US Nuclear industry is its own worse enemy. We should have this run by the Navy and/or followed France�s example.

US Navy done its thing essentially without a budget - alright spending multiple billions on construction and upkeep for a smallish (<100 MW) reactor good for 13 voyages (say for a SSN) before it is time to spend another billion or so for decommissioning but that's not gonna compete with solar, wind or especially coal in the 80's*. France is a lot more interesting a question but I think energy self-sufficiency pushed France to over-ride the heeby jeebies that were around at that time before the anti-nuclear movement took hold worldwide.

*Cost for a few dozen reactors is mere money and insignificant societal change, to convert an entire power system to nuclear with US Navy methods and overheads of the 80's would have required WWII British empire Indian famine levels of input.

# ? Oct 17, 2020 01:06

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# ? May 9, 2024 05:07

Dameius: Apr 3, 2006

I can't imagine anyone was suggesting you take the reactor designs that are meant for a ship and use that for grid. More that you take the technical expertise in both fabrication and management and use it to deploy reactors appropriate for the task.

# ? Oct 17, 2020 01:22

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

I am not suggesting to use smallish reactors either, but if you spend billions on each of the series production 10's of MW reactor with low availability (relative to civilian powerstation standards) even without land usage issues or non-stop interference from production and commissioning from NIMBY types and far cheaper labor for operation, how do you think they would have gone with the civilian scale problems and constraints.

Essentially the USN didn't have to worry about budget or availability - belt and braces approach to problems, manual everything with harsh/unreasonable working conditions which is fine for navy boats and carriers, not sustainable for multi-decade civilian grid generation.

# ? Oct 17, 2020 02:36

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

The USN reactors were also designed for operation inside of a warship which is why servicing them is such an extensive thing. There's a lot of ship between the reactors and the exterior and opening them up for refueling is quite the task.

Oh and immediate proximity to the things the reactors would be powering.

# ? Oct 17, 2020 05:49

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Yeah, basically both the USN and France during the 1970s really isn't comparable to the entire US in 2020 for the above and many other reasons. It isn't that building a large number of reactors isn't physically impossible (a bit tough considering the retraining it would take), but it would require a type of state investment and planning that the US government really isn't organized for any more.

The PRC is a different case.

# ? Oct 18, 2020 03:35

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

VideoGameVet posted:

The US Nuclear industry is its own worse enemy. We should have this run by the Navy and/or followed France’s example.

We did basically follow the navy model. There's a reason half the operators are former navy nukes.

We have a lot of problems, usually tethered to too much or not enough oversight/regulation. Gen2 was a wild west period where every plant was unique and every company developed it's own procedures. Owner/Operator ethics varied in the "Jesus Christ we let THIS group of assholes run a nuclear power plant" spectrum, cause profits are always king.

# ? Oct 18, 2020 14:01

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

https://twitter.com/whatisnuclear/status/1317862373642760196?s=20

# ? Oct 18, 2020 19:43

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

Lazard's updated 2020 LCOE numbers just got published.

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020

unsubsidized onshore wind is starting to get cheaper than *continued operation of existing nuclear*, building new isn't even close

# ? Oct 20, 2020 01:48

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

wind and solar are getting much cheaper than gas

# ? Oct 20, 2020 01:56

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Dameius posted:

I can't imagine anyone was suggesting you take the reactor designs that are meant for a ship and use that for grid. More that you take the technical expertise in both fabrication and management and use it to deploy reactors appropriate for the task.

I�m not. I�m calling for better management

# ? Oct 20, 2020 03:28

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

MightyBigMinus posted:

wind and solar are getting much cheaper than gas

But it doesn't matter because they cannot replace Gas. Germany has proven that time and again.

# ? Oct 20, 2020 03:38

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

This is so hilarious and sad,

French government blocks U.S. LNG deal as too dirty

quote:

The French government stepped in to force a domestic company to delay signing a potential $7 billion deal with a U.S. liquefied natural gas company last month over concerns that its U.S. shale gas was too dirty, two people familiar with the situation told POLITICO.

The incident was first reported by a French news site but independently confirmed to POLITICO by two people with direct knowledge. The delay highlights a growing concern among some U.S. natural gas exporters that the regulatory rollbacks pushed by the Trump administration, especially those easing Obama-era limits on the potent greenhouse gas methane, plus the industry's overall failure to rein in emissions, are making it more difficult to sell their product overseas as a cleaner alternative to oil or coal.

The French trading firm Engie had been poised to sign the $7 billion, 20-year contract to buy LNG to be delivered from NextDecade�s planned Rio Grande export facility in Brownsville, Texas, one person with knowledge of the discussions said. That deal would be a boon for NextDecade, which has been trying to line up customers to take at least 11 million tons of LNG a year before it makes a final decision to build the plant.

The French government, which is a part owner of Engie, stepped in to tell Engie�s board of directors to delay, if not outright cancel, any deal because of concerns that U.S. natural gas producers emit too much methane at the West Texas oil and gas fields that will supply gas to the NextDecade plant, said Lorette Philippot, head of private finance campaigns for French environmental group Les Amis de la Terre, a French affiliate of the green group Friends of the Earth that met with French government officials to oppose the deal.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

# ? Oct 23, 2020 22:19

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

I would be shocked if that's the real reason for the French government's intervention

# ? Oct 23, 2020 22:50

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Gabriel S. posted:

This is so hilarious and sad,

French government blocks U.S. LNG deal as too dirty

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Its also 100% correct. US Natural Gas industry has fought tooth and nail against emissions regs and got caught openly underreporting their methane emissions to the EPA.

So France is correct. Maybe its US LNG shooting themselves in the foot by not taking emissions and climate change seriously.

Natural Gas is a fossil fuel and should not be included as a "transition energy" that it will NEVER be.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 00:15

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

MomJeans420 posted:

I would be shocked if that's the real reason for the French government's intervention

This even a better cherry on top,

Texas Tackles Its Gas Problem With Whataboutism

quote:

Yes, it�s good the state�s flaring intensity is lower than in some other places (including, the report notes, North Dakota; I see what you did there, Texas). However, �those other kids done worse� stopped being a useful get-out for me roughly around the time I could formulate the sentence.

Notably, the report singles out higher flaring intensity in Iran and Iraq. �We�re doing better than that country we�ve sanctioned for four decades and that other country we invaded (and which now barely functions as a country)� seems a curious line of reasoning. While such thinking lets pretty much any regulator simply throw their hands up, why would Texas take its lead from such places? Even the commission�s argument that more-intensive countries would replace lost Texan barrels is questionable in the near term: Saudi Arabia, which ranks lower on intensity, holds the vast majority of spare production capacity.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 00:26

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

CommieGIR posted:

Its also 100% correct. US Natural Gas industry has fought tooth and nail against emissions regs and got caught openly underreporting their methane emissions to the EPA.

So France is correct. Maybe its US LNG shooting themselves in the foot by not taking emissions and climate change seriously.

Natural Gas is a fossil fuel and should not be included as a "transition energy" that it will NEVER be.

The Oil and Gas Industry isn't some homogenous group. Even the oil majors cringed at Trump removing environmental regulations.

And it is a transitioning energy source. Think of it this way, the world used coal for hundreds of years as the dominate source energy and was eventually taken over by oil and gas. Now, we need to transitions towards renewables.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 01:27

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

i'm fine with considering it a transition source as long as we consider the transition largely over and now it's time to reduce it.

incidentally, i still haven't seen people come up with solutions for ng heating; i assume it's just going to be to subsidize electricity for heat in the winter but it's something on my mind because electric heat here is terribly pricey

# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:26

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Cooking and heating will all eventually move to electric.

I think the transition largely is over but pinpointing that especially when you still have coal power or things like unexpected demand in California over the summer makes determining that point incredibly difficult. My take, I think we about a decade or two left unless we can pump out even more renewables that are competitive.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:31

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Gabriel S. posted:

Cooking and heating will all eventually move to electric.

I think the transition largely is over but pinpointing that especially when you still have coal power or things like unexpected demand in California over the summer makes determining that point incredibly difficult. My take, I think we about a decade or two left unless we can pump out even more renewables that are competitive.

yes, it'll all eventually move to electric, that's obvious. cooking i'm not too worried about because there are already reasonable solutions available.

but just waving your hands about something that's honestly going to be a big issue in more northern climes by saying oh it'll just be electric some day is a boring response. i legit think this will be something in some places that even people who are otherwise against fossil fuels will be struggling with.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:34

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

mediaphage posted:

yes, it'll all eventually move to electric, that's obvious. cooking i'm not too worried about because there are already reasonable solutions available.

but just waving your hands about something that's honestly going to be a big issue in more northern climes by saying oh it'll just be electric some day is a boring response. i legit think this will be something in some places that even people who are otherwise against fossil fuels will be struggling with.

I mean, state and local governments are already banning gas line hookups and mandating electric. Yes, it is expensive and we need to find a way to reduce costs and/or provide subsidies.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:44

PhazonLink: Jul 17, 2010

the gov should ban all electric tops except induction.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:54

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Gabriel S. posted:

I mean, state and local governments are already banning gas line hookups and mandating electric.

Which ones?

# ? Oct 24, 2020 06:25

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

Phanatic posted:

Which ones?

California / my county bans new gas lines run for stovetops etc.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 06:33

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Air source heat pumps are also pretty affordable now and with some of the newer refrigerant gasses work down to Sub-Zero temperatures.

Really cold places like Minnesota however would still need ground source heat pumps to get effective and energy efficient winter heating. Those are pretty expensive as they require space and the cost for drilling a deep well hole.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 08:04

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

California / my county bans new gas lines run for stovetops etc.

Do you live in Berkeley lol?

# ? Oct 24, 2020 17:44

Saukkis: May 16, 2003; Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.

Nitrousoxide posted:

Air source heat pumps are also pretty affordable now and with some of the newer refrigerant gasses work down to Sub-Zero temperatures.

Really cold places like Minnesota however would still need ground source heat pumps to get effective and energy efficient winter heating. Those are pretty expensive as they require space and the cost for drilling a deep well hole.

I assume you are talking about fahrenheits, since modern air heat pumps can still operate at -30�C. In one test I found from last year the heat pumps produced about 2.5kW of heat at -30�C with a COP around 1.5. This is pretty good for 1500� devices. Combine an air-water heat pump with water floor heating in a well insulated house and there aren't many places in the world where it couldn't be a practical heating solution.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:28

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

MomJeans420 posted:

Do you live in Berkeley lol?

Nah i live in Northern california. we had a massive 2017 fire with thousands of home burned including mine so lawns and gas stoves are basically non existent in thousands of houses now.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:33

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Nah i live in Northern california. we had a massive 2017 fire with thousands of home burned including mine so lawns and gas stoves are basically non existent in thousands of houses now.

Go figure that a bunch of wildfires get started due to PG&E's shoddy maintenance on their electrical lines and the California response to this is something that requires more electricity, not less.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:41

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

Phanatic posted:

Go figure that a bunch of wildfires get started due to PG&E's shoddy maintenance on their electrical lines and the California response to this is something that requires more electricity, not less.

hahaha i didnt think about that actually. Yes california basically used your insurance money to make PGE more money.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:42

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Phanatic posted:

Go figure that a bunch of wildfires get started due to PG&E's shoddy maintenance on their electrical lines and the California response to this is something that requires more electricity, not less.

Nationalizing PG&E is the rational solution.

So it will never happen.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:53

Raenir Salazar: Nov 5, 2010; College Slice

Over in a different thread it was suggested that even if the tech became viable, nuclear fusion will never find an economic niche when it's competing with renewable and nuclear powers.

What do people think about this argument?

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:53

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Over in a different thread it was suggested that even if the tech became viable, nuclear fusion will never find an economic niche when it's competing with renewable and nuclear powers.

What do people think about this argument?

It�s hard to compare against something that won�t be ready for decades. In other words no one has a clue what a practical fusion reactor will cost.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:56

Crazycryodude: Aug 15, 2015; Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?

Fission is just some hot rocks stuffed in a can and it's already a massive pain in the rear end, fusion (the kinds that are even remotely feasible for industrial-scale power generation anyways) is even harder to control and produces even more/hotter waste that can't be reprocessed like spent fission fuel. Fusion power is a silly sci-fi trope that's always 50 years away, there's scientific value in doing research anyways and maybe 100 years from now it will actually be a viable power source but that day is not going to be in our lifetimes so there's really nothing to compare.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:58

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Crazycryodude posted:

produces even more/hotter waste.

What?

# ? Oct 24, 2020 19:58

Deteriorata: Feb 6, 2005

Raenir Salazar posted:

Over in a different thread it was suggested that even if the tech became viable, nuclear fusion will never find an economic niche when it's competing with renewable and nuclear powers.

What do people think about this argument?

That seems likely to me. The expense of fusion (and fission) is not in the cost of the fuel but in recovering the capital cost of the physical plant. I have my doubts that fusion plants will be cheap to build or maintain.

Letting the Sun do the fusion and collecting the photons from it seems much easier and cheaper.

We'll have to have functioning fusion power first, though, before we can have an actual answer.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:00

Crazycryodude: Aug 15, 2015; Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?

Phanatic posted:

What?

The reactor cladding would get screaming hot and have to be replaced frequently from all the extra neutrons unless you come up with even more sci-fi handwavy bullshit and somehow figure out industrially useful aneutronic fusion power.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:00

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Crazycryodude posted:

Fission is just some hot rocks stuffed in a can and it's already a massive pain in the rear end, fusion (the kinds that are even remotely feasible for industrial-scale power generation anyways) is even harder to control and produces even more/hotter waste that can't be reprocessed like spent fission fuel. Fusion power is a silly sci-fi trope that's always 50 years away, there's scientific value in doing research anyways and maybe 100 years from now it will actually be a viable power source but that day is not going to be in our lifetimes so there's really nothing to compare.

I used to do bike rides with the local Sierra Club (San Diego) before COVID and one of the cyclists recently retired from General Atomics where he spent most of his career working on fusion.

He would agree with this assessment.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:02

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Fusion will be feasible someday (50 years from now most likely), but Fission is here, now, and able to at least help address the issue more than Natural Gas could ever hope to do given its history of bullshit.

Solar and Wind have parts to play too, but lets be honest, Solar's footprint has massive issues environmentally:

https://twitter.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/1305560832663670785?s=20

And Germany's experiment has borne some fruit Renewables wise, but is too dependent upon Natural Gas being a "clean solution", and its not paying off.

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:05

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Crazycryodude posted:

The reactor cladding would get screaming hot and have to be replaced frequently from all the extra neutrons unless you come up with even more sci-fi handwavy bullshit and somehow figure out industrially useful aneutronic fusion power.

Yes, it'd get neutron-activated. The RVs and control rods etc of fission reactors also get neutron-activated. That stuff's considered low-level waste by the NRC and is nowhere near as big a disposal concern as the transuranics and fission fragments in spent fuel. A fusion plant would generate way less high-level waste and would generate amounts of low-level waste comparable to fission plants.

The bigger issue is that all that neutron bombardment does really lovely things to all known materials that are otherwise suitable for building a reactor vessel intended to contain an umpteen-million-degree plasma.

quote:

Solar's footprint has massive issues environmentally:

No, it really doesn't, because you need to compare it to alternatives and not to some hypothetical state of perfection. Here's the population density of the US, I'm pretty sure we have the space:

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Oct 24, 2020

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:11

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# ? May 9, 2024 05:07

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Phanatic posted:

No, it really doesn't, because you need to compare it to alternatives and not to some hypothetical state of perfection. Here's the population density of the US, I'm pretty sure we have the space:

Yes, it does. Because you have to take whatever the current generation is and basically quadruple the numbers:

CommieGIR posted:

https://twitter.com/whatisnuclear/status/1317862373642760196?s=20

And even then, it usually ends up being backed by Natural gas.

https://twitter.com/AgBioWorld/status/1319799015723225091?s=20

Yeah, that land wasn't needed by any, say, plants or wildlife. Just cover it up.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Oct 24, 2020

# ? Oct 24, 2020 20:47

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