The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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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.

If this really has the duty cycles as claimed, it could be a leading contender for energy storage.

https://newatlas.com/energy/natron-sodium-ion-battery-production/

Natron's sodium-ion batteries have an enormous cycle life, practical power density, excellent safety and super-fast charging, without using any lithium. Through a partnership with Clarios, they'll go into mass manufacture in Michigan next year.

Natron claims its design offers a strong volumetric power density in between that of lead-acid and lithium-ion, with super-fast charging enabling 0-99 charges in as little as eight minutes, and a monster lifespan over 50,000 cycles � between five and 25 times greater than lithium-ion competitors. They're also said to be extremely thermally stable, making them safe to transport, deploy and dispose of without risk of fire.

(I remain skeptical)

# ? May 10, 2022 18:45

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# ? May 9, 2024 18:56

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 3 days!

Infinite Karma posted:

I (used to) run a solar power company in California up until this year, I'm happy to offer advice without putting on a sales pitch.

East/west is fine for the most part in North America, south is the best but not by a huge percentage. It's really just north-facing arrays that suck.

In California where the cost of labor is relatively high, roughly $3/Watt to $3.25/W is what you can expect to pay, with a little more if you need electrical work on your main panel or re-roofing. In a place with much cheaper labor, you might be looking at $2.50/W-$2.75/W. There is probably no place you can get an 8kW array for $13k after you include the mounting system, inverters, plan design/permitting, and installation - that will cover the cost of the panels, and that's probably it. The biggest question mark in residential solar is what energy costs where you live. In California, Hawaii, and New York (and a little bit in Massachusetts and Florida) power costs a shitload, and solar is usually a no brainer. If you live in most other states, power is more heavily subsidized and solar doesn't make as much financial sense. Even though power costs are rising and won't be cheap forever, the costs of solar systems are also falling over time, and it probably makes more sense to wait if it's not currently a good investment.

For system sizing, a well designed system should produce between 1000 (at the very minimum) kWh and 1600 (for the most optimal roofs) kWh per nameplate watt. This is mostly based on the director your roof faces and potential shading obstructions like trees and chimneys. A 1200 - 1400 multiple is pretty fair. Any proposal is going to have that number on it calculated with hypergeometric distributions of shading analysis and irradiance levels over time, but I'd guess roughly 6000 kWh is a fair estimate for generation of the 4.56 kW system.

It's a lot harder to get actually scammed in the year 2022 than it used to be, because a lot of mandatory disclosure forms are required by the government to get a solar system permitted and signed off by the power company. Obviously you can pay cash for the system and it's easy to calculate the ROI from there. You can finance it, usually at a fixed rate like a mortgage, but you own it. I only worked in California, but it wasn't hard to structure a loan where the solar system costs the same or less than the current power bills, and pays for all the power you use. As power costs rise, the price you pay stays fixed, just like with rents vs. a mortgage.

You can also lease a system, which is almost identical in cost to a purchase - it's basically only useful versus a financed purchase if you don't have enough tax liability to take advantage of the tax rebates or if you're playing 11th dimensional chess on your finances. And the last option is something called a "power purchase agreement" where you do a complicated lease agreement that you don't directly pay for, but then agree to pay a prepaid price for the power your system generates (instead of the power company). In my opinion, a PPA is garbage for almost everybody, but I'm sure there are people who have realized cost savings using one.

Couple of pages ago, apologies.

How does metering work in California? If myself and my partner are at work most of the day, we're going to be using power most at night when we are not getting solar. I assume we're contributing to the grid during the day and it results in a negative bill that cancels out what we use at night, so our power bill becomes effectively zero, and once the solar rig is paid off it becomes ~free energy~.

Do I have that right?

It's not actually possible to get money back from the utility I assume.

# ? May 10, 2022 19:06

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Jaxyon posted:

Couple of pages ago, apologies.

How does metering work in California? If myself and my partner are at work most of the day, we're going to be using power most at night when we are not getting solar. I assume we're contributing to the grid during the day and it results in a negative bill that cancels out what we use at night, so our power bill becomes effectively zero, and once the solar rig is paid off it becomes ~free energy~.

Do I have that right?

It's not actually possible to get money back from the utility I assume.

I'm not 110% sure to be honest, and it definitely depends on the rate plan (time-of-use versus tiers) you're on and the utility provider you use. I'm absolutely sure that in California there is net metering, so you get credit for the power you generate during the day and then debit from what you generated during the night - the part I'm not sure of is whether the net metering is tracked by the dollars you generate (and if it's the same rates as you consume them at), or by the kWh you generate. But either way, yes, your generation works during the day, and credits you against the power you use at night. I'm on SDG&E, and I know they shifted their peak hours a couple of years ago to be from 4pm-9pm, which screws solar generation because you get paid less during the day for off-peak generation, and consume more at night when the sun isn't shining.

It's possible to get money back from the utility in a technical sense, but the utility has the inside track on this - you can only get approved for a system that their models say (given your past usage and estimated future usage) won't make more power than you use in a year, and no reputable solar company would even try and design a system that generates that much. If you somehow keep all your lights off all year and use less power, you will get a check from the utility.

BUT, the caveat is if you managed to legitimately get a system approved that net generates dollars, the utility is potentially able to revoke your NEM status and classify you as a wholesale electricity provider for your hubris, and pay you much less for your power (which would destroy the financial benefits of your solar array). They might have some kind of indemnity process to keep you on NEM if you waive your checks, I don't know, I don't get to hear about that stuff from the side of the business I'm on except for as fourth-hand cautionary tales.

# ? May 10, 2022 19:35

Aethernet: Jan 28, 2009; This is the Captain...

Our glorious political masters have, in their wisdom, decided to form an alliance with a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters right when the Federation has us at a tactical disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in the Feds firing on our vessels...

Damn you Huxley!; Grimey Drawer

His Divine Shadow posted:

This is the kind of crazy poo poo that's been happening in europe too, going from dirt cheap to expensive as hell. Even though the transfers are much better and things aren't as localized.

Prices jumping all over like this is simply a thing of intermittent power generation. Don't see a way around it anytime soon.

This is almost entirely about PUCT being inept at commissioning transmission and the ERCOT nodal pricing model not incentivising generation placement efficiently despite its advocates' claims. Compare volatility in the Texan market to wind heavy markets like the UK or Denmark; yes price volatility has increased compared to just running fossil fuels in the short run market, but nothing like the spikes Texas sees.

Texas is currently engaged in a decade long experiment to find out what happens if you bundle all your incentives into a single short run marginal cost signal. Spoiler: bad things.

# ? May 10, 2022 19:50

spf3million: Sep 27, 2007; hit 'em with the rhythm

Jaxyon posted:

Couple of pages ago, apologies.

How does metering work in California? If myself and my partner are at work most of the day, we're going to be using power most at night when we are not getting solar. I assume we're contributing to the grid during the day and it results in a negative bill that cancels out what we use at night, so our power bill becomes effectively zero, and once the solar rig is paid off it becomes ~free energy~.

Do I have that right?

It's not actually possible to get money back from the utility I assume.

I'm on PG&E and I believe it is net metering based on kWh. Power exported to the grid during the day cancels out power drawn at night. If you end the year with a net export, PG&E pays you some small nominal amount for the net amount you exported. I think it is like $0.02/kWh.

# ? May 11, 2022 01:20

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 3 days!

spf3million posted:

I'm on PG&E and I believe it is net metering based on kWh. Power exported to the grid during the day cancels out power drawn at night. If you end the year with a net export, PG&E pays you some small nominal amount for the net amount you exported. I think it is like $0.02/kWh.

I'm on LA DWP so I guess I'll look into it.

edit: found it but can't link directly to it cause their site sucks

quote:

1. Applicability
Net Energy Metering Rider is applicable to any customer who meets the following requirements:
a. Customer owns and operates a permanent solar or wind turbine electrical generating facility or a hybrid system with a capacity of not more than one megawatt that is located on the customer�s premises, and is not an emergency, standby, temporary, or mobile generating facility. The final determination of the applicability of this service rider for a generating facility resides solely with the Department.
b. The generating facility operates in parallel with the Department�s transmission and distribution facilities and is served under a published Rate Schedule.
c. The generating facility is intended to and does primarily offset part or all of the customer�s own electricity requirements.
d. Customer pays all costs associated with the Department�s interconnection of customer�s generation.
e. Customer with permanent solar or wind turbine electrical generating facilities or a hybrid system of greater than 10kW nameplate capacity has signed a Solar-Powered Customer Generation Interconnection Agreement provided by the Department.
Not applicable to any customer receiving Electric Service under Schedule CG-2 and CG-3.

2. Special Conditions
a. Net Energy Metering means measuring the difference between the electricity supplied from the electric grid and the electricity generated on the Customer�s premises and delivered back to the electric grid or net energy recorded at the Service Point.
b. Net Energy Metering shall be accomplished by measuring the flow of electricity in two directions. The Department provides the necessary metering; however, in the event a customer installation provides atypical metering requirements, the customer shall be responsible for the Department�s expense of purchasing and installing a meter that is able to measure electricity flow in two directions. If an additional meter or meters are installed, the net metering configuration shall yield a result identical to that of a single meter.
c. The Department at its expense may purchase and install additional meters to provide the information necessary to accurately credit or bill the customer or to collect generating system performance information for research purposes.
d. Customer may elect to purchase Green Power under Service Rider REO, Renewable Energy Option, for net energy supplied by the Department.

3. Billing
a. If the electricity (kWh) supplied by the Department is more than or equal to the electricity (kWh) generated by the customer over the billing period, the customer shall be billed for the net energy supplied under the customer�s currently applicable rate.
b. If the electricity (kWh) supplied by the Department is less than the electricity (kWh) generated by the customer over the billing period, all applicable monthly billing charges, except energy related charges or charges based upon kWh, shall apply. A credit for the energy received will be calculated using the applicable Rate Schedule energy pricing.
c. If, as a result of the bill calculation as set forth in Sections 3.a. or 3.b., above, the credit amount results in a credit balance, the Department will apply that balance to charges under each subsequent bill except Taxes and Minimum Charges until no further adjustment is due the customer. If a credit balance remains at the time when the customer terminates service, the balance will automatically be adjusted to zero and the customer shall be owed no further compensation for excess generation.
d. Credit balances will only be applied to the bill associated with the meter that measured the Excess Energy.

Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 17:53 on May 11, 2022

# ? May 11, 2022 05:58

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.

His Divine Shadow posted:

This is the kind of crazy poo poo that's been happening in europe too, going from dirt cheap to expensive as hell. Even though the transfers are much better and things aren't as localized.

Prices jumping all over like this is simply a thing of intermittent power generation. Don't see a way around it anytime soon.

I think I read an article about how Finland experienced this after Olkiluoto 3 went online. The transmission lines to Sweden don't have the capacity for as much electricity as we might want to sell, so this has capped the prices in Finland. But this may change again if we stop importing from Russia.

# ? May 11, 2022 07:58

Owling Howl: Jul 17, 2019

So what about those Power-to-X shenanigans the Australians and Europeans are contemplating.

https://hydrogenisland.dk/en

North Sea Hydrogen Island posted:

Artificial island
The island will be an artificial island, and serve as a hub for connection of surrounding offshore wind farms. The island will house large-scale hydrogen production facilities, and an operations and maintenance (O&M) harbour for servicing offshore wind farms

Offshore wind
The island will be connected to 10 gigawatts of offshore wind. The energy production will be enough to power approximately 10 million European households.

Power-to-X
Large-scale hydrogen production facilities will be established on the island, which will be able to convert renewable energy into green hydrogen via Power-to-X. At full capacity (10GW), the island is expected to produce around 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen, corresponding to roughly 7% of Europe's expected hydrogen demand in 2030.

Hydrogen pipe
A pipeline will be used to transport the green hydrogen to northwestern Europe (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium), where significant demand is expected.

https://asianrehub.com/

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub posted:

The Asian Renewable Energy Hub will generate 26,000 MW of renewable energy in Western Australia. Up to 3,000 MW of generation capacity will be dedicated to large energy users in the Pilbara region, which could include new and expanded mines and downstream mineral processing. The bulk of the energy will be used for large scale production of green hydrogen products for domestic and export markets.

From a 14,000-square kilometre initial land package, 6,500 square kilometres of land in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia were selected to accommodate 26,000 MW of wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels. Outstanding wind and solar resource and large project scale will result in competitively priced renewable energy with a high capacity factor.

I can't judge the financials of it but it does seem like we'll need projects like this if we're going to kick the fossil fuel habit. Hydrogen production costs from renewables seem quite high but maybe economies of scale can somewhat mitigate that.

# ? May 26, 2022 17:27

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

https://twitter.com/Dr_Keefer/status/1529770493380796416?s=20&t=h_m8Zzzm0pUWLttocgDbiA

https://twitter.com/SStapczynski/status/1529618484115963904?s=20&t=h_m8Zzzm0pUWLttocgDbiA

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:39 on May 26, 2022

# ? May 26, 2022 17:43

Orvin: Sep 9, 2006

Might want to keep your eyes open for Tuesday 5/31. PJM has declared a hot weather alert.

https://insidelines.pjm.com/pjm-issues-hot-weather-alert-for-may-31/

I went looking for a temperature map of the US for Tuesday to see how bad things were looking, and it looks like it could be getting a litt hot out there.

I also got another alert that I had never heard before that made me sit up and take notice. Not sure how public the alert is, and I can�t find anything on the public facing sites yet. But I would definitely keep an eye on the weather forecast for Tuesday if you live in the Eastern US. If the temp forecast goes up at all, things could be getting pretty spicy. Like dust off the emergency precedures spicy.

# ? May 27, 2022 22:06

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

I�m from Fort Lauderdale and I say :kingsley:

# ? May 27, 2022 22:16

aniviron: Sep 11, 2014

CommieGIR posted:

https://twitter.com/Dr_Keefer/status/1529770493380796416?s=20&t=h_m8Zzzm0pUWLttocgDbiA

God I hope SMRs pan out commercially. Feels like they're not coming online very fast.

# ? May 28, 2022 08:50

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.

aniviron posted:

God I hope SMRs pan out commercially. Feels like they're not coming online very fast.

They're not. The licensing process is slow, financing is slow, siting is slow. It's all slow.

The silver lining is that most SMR designs don't require massive foundries that have incredible backlogs and are dependent on functioning global trade and shipping. If orders come in, parts are small enough to be domestically manufactured and shipped via rail/truck. So if the will and capability to procure more arrives, the physical limitations that usually murder the cost effectiveness of larger nukes won't hinder SMRs

# ? May 28, 2022 18:21

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020; Can't post for 4 hours!

anybody working on 3d printing a nuke

# ? May 29, 2022 03:34

Beffer: Sep 25, 2007

MightyBigMinus posted:

anybody working on 3d printing a nuke

Congratulations. You're now on a watch list

# ? May 30, 2022 04:36

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

MightyBigMinus posted:

anybody working on 3d printing a nuke

reactors, yes

# ? May 30, 2022 05:42

Lurking Haro: Oct 27, 2009

MightyBigMinus posted:

anybody working on 3d printing a nuke

The uranium filament keeps melting on the spool.

# ? May 30, 2022 06:48

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

MightyBigMinus posted:

anybody working on 3d printing a nuke

Yes, Oak Ridge has been working on metal sintering 3D printing nuclear reactor components.

# ? May 30, 2022 13:49

Proud Christian Mom: Dec 20, 2006; READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD

CommieGIR posted:

Yes, Oak Ridge has been working on metal sintering 3D printing nuclear reactor components.

I Would Like To Know More

i a non getting sent to Gitmo way.

# ? May 30, 2022 16:36

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

Proud Christian Mom posted:

I Would Like To Know More

i a non getting sent to Gitmo way.

https://www.ornl.gov/news/3d-printed-nuclear-reactor-promises-faster-more-economical-path-nuclear-energy

# ? May 31, 2022 02:06

Monaghan: Dec 29, 2006

This is pretty neat.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/china-set-to-double-last-year-s-record-solar-panel-installations

# ? May 31, 2022 16:25

ShadowHawk: Jun 25, 2000; CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER

Monaghan posted:

This is pretty neat.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/china-set-to-double-last-year-s-record-solar-panel-installations

How do I get a sense of the scale here, percentage-wise? Is China still growing all it's energy generation methods, or are they actually phasing out coal and such now with solar replacements?

# ? Jun 2, 2022 06:32

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

ShadowHawk posted:

How do I get a sense of the scale here, percentage-wise? Is China still growing all it's energy generation methods, or are they actually phasing out coal and such now with solar replacements?

No they're still building coal plants pretty quickly.

# ? Jun 2, 2022 14:15

Morbus: May 18, 2004

VideoGameVet posted:

If this really has the duty cycles as claimed, it could be a leading contender for energy storage.

https://newatlas.com/energy/natron-sodium-ion-battery-production/

Natron's sodium-ion batteries have an enormous cycle life, practical power density, excellent safety and super-fast charging, without using any lithium. Through a partnership with Clarios, they'll go into mass manufacture in Michigan next year.

Natron claims its design offers a strong volumetric power density in between that of lead-acid and lithium-ion, with super-fast charging enabling 0-99 charges in as little as eight minutes, and a monster lifespan over 50,000 cycles � between five and 25 times greater than lithium-ion competitors. They're also said to be extremely thermally stable, making them safe to transport, deploy and dispose of without risk of fire.

(I remain skeptical)

I wouldn't be skeptical as the claims being made are well in line with previous experience and expectations for sodium ion batteries: compared to Li-ion you get excellent cycle endurance, somewhat lower cost per kWh and simpler material requirements, at the expense of weighing about twice as much for a given energy capacity and at least correspondingly lower power density.

Since energy per unit mass has been the absolutely critical driver for the expansion of Li-ion battery production & applications, it is not surprising that Na-ion technology has been a lower priority. It's really only until recently that large scale battery storage has become an important application, and it's not surprising to see Na-ion aiming for that space.

For stationary storage applications, things like sodium-sulfur are more mature and probably higher performance in many ways, but they have high operating temperatures and may be more complicated to operate. Whether Na-ion displaces them for grid storage will boil down to overall cost.

# ? Jun 3, 2022 22:36

ShadowHawk: Jun 25, 2000; CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

No they're still building coal plants pretty quickly.

They are doing a bit of replacing old plants with new ones though, I think? New plants are somewhat "better" in terms of air pollution and carbon at least.

# ? Jun 4, 2022 06:12

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

https://twitter.com/Dr_Keefer/status/1533106118679056385?s=20&t=8374o5MkCmYHhr1MDeSGLQ

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Jun 4, 2022 22:35

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

https://www.gtk.fi/en/current/a-bottom-up-insight-reveals-replacing-fossil-fuels-is-even-more-enormous-task-than-thought/

quote:

A Bottom-up Insight Reveals: Replacing Fossil Fuels is Even More Enormous Task Than Thought

Replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system, using renewable energy technologies, for the entire human population is even more enormous task than thought, reveals the report made by Associate Research Professor Simon Michaux from Geological Survey of Finland GTK. Required extra energy and materials may form a bottleneck even if we could reduce consumption and material needs via circular economy and regulation.

�We are observing a large increase of investments that would be sufficient to transform our industrial ecosystem fossil free in 2-3 decades. Moreover, this transition should also cope with the future energy and material needs emerging from overall population growth�, says Simon Michaux.

The open file report addresses the challenges around the ambitious task of phasing out fossil fuels (oil, gas, & coal) that are currently used in vehicle Internal Combustion Engine technology (ICE) and for electrical power generation.

This report has produced new numbers that are quite different to previous studies. This could be due in part to the difference in paradigm that defined these studies. A novel bottom-up approach (as opposed to the typical top-down approach) was used to make the calculations presented here. Previous studies have also tended to focus on estimated costs of production and CO2 footprint metrics, whereas the present report is based on the physical material requirements. All data, figures and diagrams have been created or reproduced from publicly available sources and are cited appropriately.

Small-scale solutions won�t scale-up to meet the global need
Many of the solutions discussed in the open literature might work quite well at a comparatively small-scale but cannot function when scaled-up to a global scope to mimic the size of the existing fossil fuel sourced system. Usually, the bottleneck making this happen is the quantity of minerals required, the manufacturing capacity, or simply the required time to roll out production. Most analysts examine only one part of the ecosystem or only one function in isolation, where what is really required is a holistic systems network engineering approach, that honors the inherent complexity. That approach has been presented here.

Key takeaways:
-Energy is the master resource
-The task to phase out fossil fuels is much larger than the current paradigm allows for
-Current planning for the phasing out of fossil fuels has significantly underestimated the size of the task
-Biofuel and Biomass are needed but cannot be scaled-up (Scenario D)
-Nuclear will be needed but cannot replace fossil fuel power generation (Scenario E) and
-Non-fossil fuel systems may not be effective enough to replace fossil fuel systems.
-We are required to address these challenges in a 20 � 50-year time frame.

The role of minerals in the transition away from fossil fuels, is critically important, yet misunderstood
To address the multiple large-scale tasks currently facing humanity, a reliable energy source that is available to most of the human population with an ERoEI ratio of something like 50:1 is required, which is higher than both existing fossil fuel systems and much higher than renewable energy systems. Without this, plans for future development will have to let go of many current assumptions relating to maintaining existing consumption patterns.

The role of minerals in the transition away from fossil fuels, is critically important, yet misunderstood. Due the nature of the challenge, geoscientists are required to take part in planning for the future.

More in the link, but it's a bigger hurdle than thought, and looks like the idea of renewables are gonna run into real bottlenecks simply based on the sheer amount of material required to build enough of them.

We're gonna have to embrace a low-energy future. One wonders how it will look.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 09:09

aniviron: Sep 11, 2014

I think we're much more likely to embrace a flooded future than a low-energy one.

I'm also a bit curious as to why that article considers that nuclear cannot replace fossil. If it's regarding transportation uses, sure; though electrifying automobiles and charging them with a fission grid would go a long way towards solving that. But equally no other generation source can replace fossil in planes and ships either.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 09:38

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

aniviron posted:

I think we're much more likely to embrace a flooded future than a low-energy one.

I'm also a bit curious as to why that article considers that nuclear cannot replace fossil. If it's regarding transportation uses, sure; though electrifying automobiles and charging them with a fission grid would go a long way towards solving that. But equally no other generation source can replace fossil in planes and ships either.

The report identifies a target annual capacity of 38,000 TWh required to replace all fossil fuel usage (power, heating, transportation). They present different scenarios where various generations of nuclear power plants are constructed at a rate of 25 per year. Their objection is that at that rate nuclear power would not be able to generate 38,000 TWh by 2040, and that fuel supplies would be used up in around 100-200 years.

However, I think they missed a fairly critical element there due to their focus on land-based mining and spent fuel storage, which is that breeders and saltwater extraction are widely seen as the future of the uranium industry. Simply using saltwater extraction is expected to supply global power needs for almost 4,000 years. Breeder reactors using mined uranium and thorium, as well as saltwater or erosion uranium, are capable of supplying global power needs for at least 4 billion years. And frankly I'm not sure why they missed that, since they mention both seawater extraction and breeder reactors in passing. They spent many, many pages going into minute detail about the mineral needs for individual reactor components and the long-term storage process and requirements for spent fuel assemblies, so they clearly had the opportunity to do so.

https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-longterm-sustainable.html

# ? Jun 9, 2022 12:23

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

aniviron posted:

I think we're much more likely to embrace a flooded future than a low-energy one.

I'm also a bit curious as to why that article considers that nuclear cannot replace fossil. If it's regarding transportation uses, sure; though electrifying automobiles and charging them with a fission grid would go a long way towards solving that. But equally no other generation source can replace fossil in planes and ships either.

You can read that guy's full article here:

Start at page 578 to see his model/reasoning/assumptions for Scenario E, the case where fossil fuels are replaced by nuclear:

https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf

Interestingly, he assumes that it only takes 5 years to build a nuclear power plant, which is more than a little optimistic.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 12:25

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Kaal posted:

saltwater extraction

Is this really economical? It seems like harvesting very dilute resources from seawater would be very slow unless you constructed extremely costly extremely gigantic plants to filter the seawater.

I am generally suspicious of his arguments based on current reserves of resource X + model of resource usage --> that we will run out resource X by date Y. Usually what happens is the technology improves and we become more efficient about using resource X and/or we find ways to find/extract more of it.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 12:36

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

silence_kit posted:

Is this really economical? It seems like harvesting very dilute resources from seawater would be very slow unless you constructed extremely costly extremely gigantic plants to filter the seawater.

I am generally suspicious of his arguments based on current reserves of resource X + model of resource usage --> that we will run out resource X by date Y. Usually what happens is the technology improves and we become more efficient about using resource X and/or we find ways to find/extract more of it.

Its becoming very economical, they've been doing a lot of research on easy ways to filter it. And regardless: Assuming seawater extraction was a non-starter, breeder reactors would easily make up the difference.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Jun 9, 2022

# ? Jun 9, 2022 12:47

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

silence_kit posted:

Is this really economical? It seems like harvesting very dilute resources from seawater would be very slow unless you constructed extremely costly extremely gigantic plants to filter the seawater.

They go into a variety of economic arguments about various types of uranium extraction, though they don't include saltwater, and it appears as viable as some of the others they do include. Regardless, they are using supposed uranium shortages as a basis for their argument that nuclear power is a dead end and should not be expanded - and I just don't think that is borne out at all. Saltwater extraction is very economical if the alternative is no fuel at all. The cost of fuel is a very small part of nuclear power.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 12:55

Wibla: Feb 16, 2011

Freeport LNG plant blast adds to strain on global supplies (reuters.com)

quote:

Analysts at data intelligence firm ICIS said in a tweet that 68% of Freeport LNG exports in the last three months went to the European Union and Britain.

Well, gently caress.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 13:11

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

I'm not sure the exact process but I can imagine saltwater extraction going hand in hand with the desalination that some are going to desperately need

# ? Jun 9, 2022 13:19

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Harold Fjord posted:

I'm not sure the exact process but I can imagine saltwater extraction going hand in hand with the desalination that some are going to desperately need

Yup, it would certainly make sense to do that at the same place. Desalination needs power, and nuclear power needs fuel and water. Seawater uranium harvesting uses absorbent materials to separate the desired elements. Desalination uses reverse osmosis to divide water from salt and other impurities. Combining these two processes is quite possible, and is actually fairly efficient. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has already been running some promising prototype studies where they harvest uranium from desalination brine.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.8b04673

Separately, there's been some good progress being made on developing hyper-absorbent materials that improve the efficiency of uranium harvesting. American and Japanese scientists have been working together on projects that could bring the cost of seawater uranium to under $85/kg - making it cheaper than existing mining techniques. Since seawater uranium concentration is constantly replenished by the Earth's crust, the technique makes nuclear power just as a renewable as solar or wind (that is to say, all of them use the sun's heat to function).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta07180c

# ? Jun 9, 2022 14:47

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

aniviron posted:

I think we're much more likely to embrace a flooded future than a low-energy one.

I'm also a bit curious as to why that article considers that nuclear cannot replace fossil. If it's regarding transportation uses, sure; though electrifying automobiles and charging them with a fission grid would go a long way towards solving that. But equally no other generation source can replace fossil in planes and ships either.

For cargo ships at least, they are getting bigger and bigger which shifts the economics to favor nuclear, just like aircraft carriers. There was a push towards nuclear cargo ships in the 60's-early 70's that died due to port NIMBYism. The ships were more expensive to operate, but much of that was due to poor economies of scale (few ships, and smaller compared to today).

# ? Jun 9, 2022 14:53

Wibla: Feb 16, 2011

cat botherer posted:

For cargo ships at least, they are getting bigger and bigger which shifts the economics to favor nuclear, just like aircraft carriers. There was a push towards nuclear cargo ships in the 60's-early 70's that died due to port NIMBYism. The ships were more expensive to operate, but much of that was due to poor economies of scale (few ships, and smaller compared to today).

We've gone over this a few times in the thread already, but I can see running big-rear end containerships using modern SMRs. It wouldn't be that hard to do either. The biggest issues are, as ever, NIMBY and the fear of nuclear proliferation.

# ? Jun 9, 2022 15:31

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

Kaal posted:

Their objection is that at that rate nuclear power would not be able to generate 38,000 TWh by 2040, and that fuel supplies would be used up in around 100-200 years.

Anyone who says "we only have 200 years of reserves" completely fails to understand even the concept of what reserves are.

quote:

However, I think they missed a fairly critical element there due to their focus on land-based mining and spent fuel storage, which is that breeders and saltwater extraction are widely seen as the future of the uranium industry. Simply using saltwater extraction is expected to supply global power needs for almost 4,000 years.

Yes.

silence_kit posted:

Is this really economical? It seems like harvesting very dilute resources from seawater would be very slow unless you constructed extremely costly extremely gigantic plants to filter the seawater.

Again, that is what "reserves" means: economically exploitable deposits. As the price of ore goes up, sources of ore that were previously *not* worth exploiting become so. Uranium from seawater becomes worth it at $400-1000/lb, depending on who you ask. So well over 10x the current price, but since fuel cost is basically a rounding error in the price per kilowatt-hour of the market rate of the electricity produced by it, that doesn't matter.

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jun 9, 2022

# ? Jun 9, 2022 15:37

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# ? May 9, 2024 18:56

FAT32 SHAMER: Aug 16, 2012

Don�t US navy ships and others run on nuclear power? I�m frankly surprised large cargo ships weren�t already also running on nukes just because they consume an insane amount of petrol or whatever oil based fuel per second

# ? Jun 9, 2022 21:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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