The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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Collateral Damage: Jun 13, 2009

As I said in the nuclear thread, the reason we keep hearing these "fusion soon!" stories is so energy companies can keep stringing people and politicians along towards our inevitable global warming demise while profiting off carbon credit trading.

Fusion is merely an excuse not to invest in fission.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 09:11

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 00:12

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

I don't know if it is that. I just think that both the researchers and the popular science reporters have an incentive to make the research project sound more technologically relevant than it actually is, because otherwise the project is less interesting to government funding agencies and the popular science news story is less interesting.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 10:17

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

silence_kit posted:

I don't know if it is that. I just think that both the researchers and the popular science reporters have an incentive to make the research project sound more technologically relevant than it actually is, because otherwise the project is less interesting to government funding agencies and the popular science news story is less interesting.

All Science is like this of course. No conspiracy theory needed.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:15

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

Collateral Damage posted:

As I said in the nuclear thread, the reason we keep hearing these "fusion soon!" stories is so energy companies can keep stringing people and politicians along towards our inevitable global warming demise while profiting off carbon credit trading.

Fusion is merely an excuse not to invest in fission.

Research into Fusion is still important, but yes, it shouldn't be our main focus as a power solution right now. Fission can do what we need just fine while Fusion gets its ducks in a row over the next century or so....

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:04

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

CommieGIR posted:

Research into Fusion is still important, but yes, it shouldn't be our main focus as a power solution right now. Fission can do what we need just fine while Fusion gets its ducks in a row over the next century or so....

Fission can do what we need for millions of years. Why worry about fusion at all?

(Not arguing that we shouldn't fund research, but there's no compelling need for fusion at all. There is no practical problem in search of the solutions that fusion offers.)

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:14

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

Phanatic posted:

Fission can do what we need for millions of years. Why worry about fusion at all?

(Not arguing that we shouldn't fund research, but there's no compelling need for fusion at all. There is no practical problem in search of the solutions that fusion offers.)

I don't disagree, but having that technology proven and in our belt would be an achievement worthwhile, regardless.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:17

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Isn�t fusion substantially safer?

Also can�t buzz through space on fission, at least not as well.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:22

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

Cingulate posted:

Isn�t fusion substantially safer?

Maybe?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/

You'd need to factor in deaths in, say, lithium extraction, deuterium production, etc.

Cingulate posted:

Also can�t buzz through space on fission, at least not as well.

The hell you can't! Motherfuckin' Orion! Or if you want some ultra-efficient engine, a fission-fragment drive has ridiculous specific impulse:

http://www.rbsp.info/rbs/PDF/aiaa05.pdf

"The fission fragment rocket could produce Isp of 10^6 seconds compared to 350�450 s for chemical rockets or 3000�10000 s for ion engines. Asa result, burnout velocities several thousand times those attainable today would be possible...A 10 year mission to the 550AU gravitational lens point would require only 180kg of nuclear fuel, and a350MW reactor power, well within the calculated thermal limit of 1GW. A 30 year trip to the Oort cloud at0.5 Ly is more strenuous, requiring a 5.6 GW reactor. And a 50 year trip to Alpha Centauri, 4 Ly distant,is probably not feasible, requiring a 208 GW reactor, and consuming 240 tons of fission fuel."

Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Oct 9, 2020

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:23

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

Cingulate posted:

Also can�t buzz through space on fission, at least not as well.

NERVA says hi, also nuclear powered Ion propulsion. You can totally buzz through space with Fission.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:26

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

You can't buzz through space on fission!

Nuclear salt-water rocket goes BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:29

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Ok project Orion was great. I imagine that�s how Firefly drives worked, cause it ... looks a bit like that in the first episode.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:29

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

Cingulate posted:

Ok project Orion was great. I imagine that�s how Firefly drives worked, cause it ... looks a bit like that in the first episode.

Ideally (and this is totally getting off topic) any Mars shuttle mission will involve something like NERVA engines or Xenon-Ion engines powered by a fission power reactor, because it gives you a huge margin of safety versus a normal bi-propellant rocket or even monopropellant thrusters as far as emergency maneuvers and a possible abort requiring orbital changes. Super high ISP, even if thrust is lower.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:33

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

CommieGIR posted:

Ideally (and this is totally getting off topic) any Mars shuttle mission will involve something like NERVA engines or Xenon-Ion engines powered by a fission power reactor, because it gives you a huge margin of safety versus a normal bi-propellant rocket or even monopropellant thrusters as far as emergency maneuvers and a possible abort requiring orbital changes. Super high ISP, even if thrust is lower.

Pretty sure this is technically energy generation!

# ? Oct 9, 2020 16:37

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

I don't know they're bothering with fusion, everyone knows cold fusion is the future

# ? Oct 9, 2020 18:36

PhazonLink: Jul 17, 2010

what about cloud machine learning AI blockcoin cold green agile [insert whatever new buzzword] fusion?

# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:37

CrypticTriptych: Oct 16, 2013

Phanatic posted:

Fission can do what we need for millions of years. Why worry about fusion at all?

(Not arguing that we shouldn't fund research, but there's no compelling need for fusion at all. There is no practical problem in search of the solutions that fusion offers.)

Rare nuclear accidents rendering small areas of the planet into places nobody wants to live for ten thousand years is something that stacks up over time.

However, I would not be surprised if fusion never has a time where it's the best grid-scale option, constantly losing out to fission and renewables, or even orbital solar or something in the longer term (2100+) if we wanted to dial up our energy consumption dramatically.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 00:00

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

CrypticTriptych posted:

Rare nuclear accidents rendering small areas of the planet into places nobody wants to live for ten thousand years is something that stacks up over time.

However, I would not be surprised if fusion never has a time where it's the best grid-scale option, constantly losing out to fission and renewables, or even orbital solar or something in the longer term (2100+) if we wanted to dial up our energy consumption dramatically.

Kansas already existed long before fission did

# ? Oct 10, 2020 04:47

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

CrypticTriptych posted:

Rare nuclear accidents rendering small areas of the planet into places nobody wants to live for ten thousand years is something that stacks up over time.

There are no such areas.

There are areas where governments do not allow people to live. The Fukushima exclusion zone, for example, has a radiation count that is lower than the background count of many areas of the surface of the planet where people live, work, and happily have kids and do not experience cancer rates any higher than the general population. There is no non-bullshit reason that people are excluded from living htere.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:19

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004; Can't post for 3 days!

If you want to start doing some serious statistics you might prove we should ever care about this, but if we're allowed to then compare it to the cost of not using nuclear, I doubt you'll succeed.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:47

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Analysis of the cause of the Californian blackouts this year is out:

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Preliminary-Root-Cause-Analysis-Rotating-Outages-August-2020.pdf

quote:

We have identified several factors that, in combination, led to the need for the CAISO to direct utilities in the CAISO footprint to trigger rotating outages. There was no single root cause of the outages, but rather, a series of factors that all contributed to the emergency. The report finds that:

1) The climate change-induced extreme heat storm across the western United States resulted in the demand for electricity exceeding the existing electricity resource planning targets. The existing resource planning processes are not designed to fully address an extreme heat storm like the one experienced in mid August.
2) In transitioning to a reliable, clean and affordable resource mix, resource planning targets have not kept pace to lead to sufficient resources that can be relied upon to meet demand in the early evening hours. This makes balancing demand and supply more challenging. These challenges were amplified by the extreme heat storm.
3) Some practices in the day-ahead energy market exacerbated the supply challenges under highly stressed conditions.

It's an interesting report and contains a number of elements I've harped on before, like the role in climate change in reducing availability of generation assets traditionally considered dispatchable like hydro or natural gas:

quote:

Extreme heat affects both the demand for and the supply of electricity in several ways. In terms of electricity demand, during normal summer weather conditions in California, high daytime temperatures are offset by cool and dry evening conditions. However, during extreme heat events when hot temperatures persist into the evening and overnight hours, air conditioners continue to run and drive up electricity demand beyond normal levels.

In terms of electricity supply, conventional thermal generation (such as natural gas) operates less efficiently in extreme heat. California also typically relies on imported power during peak demand times, but because the rest of the Western United States was also experiencing extreme heat, California could rely on fewer imports than usual.

Also due to the effects of heat and drought over time, the availability of hydroelectric power in California in 2020 was below normal. In addition, high clouds from a storm were covering parts of California during the same period, reducing available generation from all types of solar generation facilities. Further, throughout most of the day on both August 14 and 15, numerous fires were threatening the loss of major transmission lines.

After observing some of these trends earlier in the week, and seeing higher temperatures forecasted on August 12, the CAISO issued a restricted maintenance request for August 14 through 17. This was to caution generator and transmission operators to avoid actions that could jeopardize their resource availability. On August 13, the CAISO issued a Flex Alert for August 14, calling for voluntary energy conservation from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm.

Despite taking pre-emptive actions designed to maintain electric system reliability, the CAISO declared a Stage 3 Emergency at 6:38 pm on August 14 because reserves had fallen below the minimum requirements. The requirements are set by NERC and WECC and are approximately equal to 6% of load. In order to remain compliant with these mandatory reliability standards, the CAISO initiated rotating outages (also called loadshedding) for about an hour. This affected approximately 492,000 customers for a duration of 15 minutes to 150 minutes. The net demand peak (demand minus available solar and wind resources) occurred at 6:51 pm.

Similarly, on August 15, a Stage 3 Emergency requiring rotating outages was declared at 6:28 pm for 20 minutes, just after the net demand peak at 6:26 pm. This ultimately affected 321,000 customers for 8 minutes to 90 minutes.
...
The natural gas fleet collectively experienced 1,400 MW to 2,000 MW of forced outages (i.e., derating or lowering the resource�s available capacity) largely attributed to the extreme heat, and day-of outages. Additionally, almost 400 MW of planned outages had not been substituted.
...
through the month of August, a major transmission line in the Pacific Northwest upstream from the CAISO system was forced on outage due to weather and thus derated the California Oregon Intertie (COI). The derate reduced the CAISO�s transfer capability by approximately 650 MW and congested the usual import transmission paths across both COI and Nevada-Oregon Border (NOB).2 In other words, more imports were available than could be physically delivered based on the transfer capability and the total import level was less than the amount the CAISO typically receives.

Day-ahead planners also underestimated demand significantly:

quote:

Scheduling coordinators representing LSEs collectively under-scheduled their demand for energy by 3,386 MW and 3,434 MW below the actual peak demand for August 14 and 15, respectively, as shown in Figure ES.7. During the net demand peak time, the under-scheduling was 1,792 MW and 3,219 MW for August 14 and 15, respectively. The under-scheduling of load by scheduling coordinators had the detrimental effect of not setting up the energy market appropriately to reflect the actual need on the system and subsequently signaling that more exports were ultimately supportable from internal resources.

It was also crazy hot:

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:59

Collateral Damage: Jun 13, 2009

CommieGIR posted:

Research into Fusion is still important, but yes, it shouldn't be our main focus as a power solution right now. Fission can do what we need just fine while Fusion gets its ducks in a row over the next century or so....

Oh yeah, I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in fusion research. It's eventually going to be important, but we need to solve the climate crisis now, not "in 30 years maybe".

Fission is what we need to build right now, and fusion is what we might *eventually* replace that with once it's ready and we're hopefully no longer at risk of global extinction.

# ? Oct 12, 2020 15:59

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.

China just connected a 2.2 GW capacity solar farm to the grid. It took four months to build.

https://www.cnet.com/news/chinas-biggest-ever-solar-power-plant-goes-live/

China's biggest-ever solar power plant goes live

The world leader in solar power this week connected a 2.2GW plant to the grid. It's the second largest in the world.

The solar park has a capacity of 2.2GW. That makes it the second biggest in the world, narrowly trailing India's 2.245GW Bhadla solar park. Until now, China's biggest solar station was the Tengger Desert Solar Park, with a capacity of 1.54GW. For comparison, the US' biggest solar farm has a capacity of 579MW.

The power station also includes a storage component, as it includes a 202.86 MWh energy storage plant. Construction on the project was completed in September after just four months.

How does this compare to a 2.2 GW Fission plant in terms of time-to-grid?

# ? Oct 14, 2020 20:50

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

VideoGameVet posted:

China just connected a 2.2 GW capacity solar farm to the grid. It took four months to build.

https://www.cnet.com/news/chinas-biggest-ever-solar-power-plant-goes-live/

China's biggest-ever solar power plant goes live

The world leader in solar power this week connected a 2.2GW plant to the grid. It's the second largest in the world.

The solar park has a capacity of 2.2GW. That makes it the second biggest in the world, narrowly trailing India's 2.245GW Bhadla solar park. Until now, China's biggest solar station was the Tengger Desert Solar Park, with a capacity of 1.54GW. For comparison, the US' biggest solar farm has a capacity of 579MW.

The power station also includes a storage component, as it includes a 202.86 MWh energy storage plant. Construction on the project was completed in September after just four months.

How does this compare to a 2.2 GW Fission plant in terms of time-to-grid?

Fission plants basically run close to capacity around the clock, for instance Palo Verde has a 4 GW nameplate capacity and ran with a 93% average capacity factor for 2019. Due mostly to the sun, solar facilities tend to have capacity factors closer to 10-30%. Put another way, every 1 GW of nuclear power capacity is worth 3-9 GW of solar power capacity.

But it's still very good to have installed so much solar power capacity, and with 200 MWh of energy storage to boot!

e: By "time-to-grid" I assumed you were talking about time per day actually producing electricity, but maybe you meant construction time? Apparently the control system and transmission lines for this solar park were built in 10 months (the storage system was constructed in 4 months); it's unclear how long it took to manufacture and install the panels. China's Fangjiashan nuclear power plant, with 2.2 GW of capacity, was put into operation about 6 years after construction began.

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Oct 14, 2020

# ? Oct 14, 2020 21:32

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

VideoGameVet posted:

China just connected a 2.2 GW capacity solar farm to the grid. It took four months to build.

https://www.cnet.com/news/chinas-biggest-ever-solar-power-plant-goes-live/

China's biggest-ever solar power plant goes live

The world leader in solar power this week connected a 2.2GW plant to the grid. It's the second largest in the world.

The solar park has a capacity of 2.2GW. That makes it the second biggest in the world, narrowly trailing India's 2.245GW Bhadla solar park. Until now, China's biggest solar station was the Tengger Desert Solar Park, with a capacity of 1.54GW. For comparison, the US' biggest solar farm has a capacity of 579MW.

The power station also includes a storage component, as it includes a 202.86 MWh energy storage plant. Construction on the project was completed in September after just four months.

How does this compare to a 2.2 GW Fission plant in terms of time-to-grid?

This in incredibly awesome, combined with their planned and ongoing fission expansion, they are going to give Germany a run for their money.

# ? Oct 14, 2020 21:36

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Early permits for Vogtle's new reactors were approved back in 2009, it maybe 2022-2023 or later before they are fully online

# ? Oct 14, 2020 21:39

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.

VideoGameVet posted:

China just connected a 2.2 GW capacity solar farm to the grid. It took four months to build.

https://www.cnet.com/news/chinas-biggest-ever-solar-power-plant-goes-live/

China's biggest-ever solar power plant goes live

The world leader in solar power this week connected a 2.2GW plant to the grid. It's the second largest in the world.

The solar park has a capacity of 2.2GW. That makes it the second biggest in the world, narrowly trailing India's 2.245GW Bhadla solar park. Until now, China's biggest solar station was the Tengger Desert Solar Park, with a capacity of 1.54GW. For comparison, the US' biggest solar farm has a capacity of 579MW.

The power station also includes a storage component, as it includes a 202.86 MWh energy storage plant. Construction on the project was completed in September after just four months.

How does this compare to a 2.2 GW Fission plant in terms of time-to-grid?

My understanding is that this project was connecting a bunch of preexisting solar parks together into a single transmission hub. There's a press release by one of the inverter manufacturers that has said they built the whole thing in four months, which has then been spun into a bunch of excited articles in the english environmental press, but it's all based on the same source and I bet that's a translation issue. The area has been the center of Chinese solar farms for more than a decade. China began the 1.5 GW Tengger Solar Park in 2013, and it took them five years to complete it. Based on projects in China, India, and Egypt, I'd say that with solar technology beginning to mature, a 2 GW solar park takes about two to four years right now - largely dependent on land procurement delays. Currently it takes about five years for a 2 GW fission plant to get built in China - but that pace will certainly quicken as they move into mass production.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Oct 14, 2020

# ? Oct 14, 2020 21:49

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

Kaal posted:

Currently it takes about five years for a 2 GW fission plant to get built in China

hoooooorrrsssseeeee shiiiiiiiitttt

quote:

- but that pace will certainly quicken as they move into mass production.

compound horse poo poo

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Oct 14, 2020 22:12

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

MightyBigMinus posted:

hoooooorrrsssseeeee shiiiiiiiitttt

compound horse poo poo

But that poster is correct. As I pointed out earlier, Fangjiashan (2.2 GW) took 6 years from start of construction to commercial operationalization and that was over a decade ago. Fangchenggang (2 GW) was a little faster than that and is more recent. And that's commercial operation, construction finishes many months before that

# ? Oct 14, 2020 22:31

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Kaal posted:

My understanding is that this project was connecting a bunch of preexisting solar parks together into a single transmission hub. There's a press release by one of the inverter manufacturers that has said they built the whole thing in four months, which has then been spun into a bunch of excited articles in the english environmental press, but it's all based on the same source and I bet that's a translation issue. The area has been the center of Chinese solar farms for more than a decade. China began the 1.5 GW Tengger Solar Park in 2013, and it took them five years to complete it. Based on projects in China, India, and Egypt, I'd say that with solar technology beginning to mature, a 2 GW solar park takes about two to four years right now - largely dependent on land procurement delays. Currently it takes about five years for a 2 GW fission plant to get built in China - but that pace will certainly quicken as they move into mass production.

That's correct, I think the OP was just confused about what sungrow actually did. According to pv magazine, it was only the storage system that was deployed in 4 months, and the microgrid controller and high voltage transmission lines were built in 10 months. Sungrow didn't install any panels

# ? Oct 14, 2020 22:47

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

Ardennes posted:

Early permits for Vogtle's new reactors were approved back in 2009, it maybe 2022-2023 or later before they are fully online

Its still that much less Natural Gas and Coal plants in the area.

MightyBigMinus posted:

hoooooorrrsssseeeee shiiiiiiiitttt

compound horse poo poo

The man who accuses everyone he disagrees with of being unable to review their own prejudices is, ironically, still incapable of reviewing his own prejudices.
Unless you are actually going to come up with an argument rather than adding contrarian white noise, lurk more.

Some neat stuff going on worldwide in Nuclear:

https://twitter.com/W_Nuclear_News/status/1316410896596566016?s=20
Big advantage here: The spent fuel/waste is retrievable so that if new reactor tech comes along that allows us to burn it, or they decide to do reprocessing it, it can be retrieved from the vaults.

Also: We have incoming research for Pebble Bed and Metal Cooled Fast Spectrum Reactor tech:
https://twitter.com/OskaArcher/status/1316174380540391424?s=20

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Oct 14, 2020

# ? Oct 14, 2020 23:02

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

The whole point of saving the environment groups efforts towards nuclear has been to drag out permitting, construction, commissioning etc of on-lining nuclear power to make it more uneconomical and therefore not worth doing.

China has the same pressures but to a far lessor extant so it should not be surprising that their turnaround time is is closer to the technical time (as was experienced say during France's nuclear buildout) than the dragged out time the latest US or British efforts.

Also worth noting is that China actually has a reasonably mature nuclear construction industry at the moment (unlike UK, US, etc) and that also confers benefits.

# ? Oct 14, 2020 23:05

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

Electric Wrigglies posted:

The whole point of saving the environment groups efforts towards nuclear has been to drag out permitting, construction, commissioning etc of on-lining nuclear power to make it more uneconomical and therefore not worth doing.

China has the same pressures but to a far lessor extant so it should not be surprising that their turnaround time is is closer to the technical time (as was experienced say during France's nuclear buildout) than the dragged out time the latest US or British efforts.

Also worth noting is that China actually has a reasonably mature nuclear construction industry at the moment (unlike UK, US, etc) and that also confers benefits.

Votgle does has some massive corruption issues going on that needs to be addressed, but yeah a lot of the delays are related to court fights with environmental groups and other red tape they constantly have to cut through. Votgle 3 is well underway though and Votgle 4 isn't far behind.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Oct 14, 2020

# ? Oct 14, 2020 23:08

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

They also started building before the engineering was complete on the AP-1000 plants, which doesn't help anything. Theoretically future plants could be built a fair amount quicker after the lessons learned on the first plants. Even getting their combined operating license from the NRC was a process because no one had tried to permit a new nuclear plant in decades.

# ? Oct 14, 2020 23:57

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

CommieGIR posted:

Votgle does has some massive corruption issues going on that needs to be addressed, but yeah a lot of the delays are related to court fights with environmental groups and other red tape they constantly have to cut through. Votgle 3 is well underway though and Votgle 4 isn't far behind.

It wasn't environmental groups causing delays and cost overruns at Vogtle, it was the contractors:

Covering up til 2018: https://www.powermag.com/how-the-vogtle-nuclear-expansions-costs-escalated/

quote:

March 2009: Construction of the two AP1000 reactors, each 1.1 GW, is approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC). The PSC adopts a motion allowing Georgia Power to recover the cost of financing the plant during construction. Both entities will jointly develop mechanisms to provide shared risk protection to taxpayers from significant cost overruns. In addition, the Georgia Senate voted to allow the company to recover its financing costs during construction of the reactors, thereby saving customers about $300 million over time. The PSC agreement set Georgia Power�s portion of the certified cost of the new units at nearly $6.5 billion.

August 2009: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approves the ESP and limited work authorization (LWA) for the first-of-their-kind reactors.

February 2010: The DOE conditionally offers Southern Co. and partners a total $8.33 billion in loan guarantees.

June 2011: A PSC-hired independent construction monitor testifies that the project is two months behind schedule. A few months later, it falls to five months behind schedule.

February 2012: The NRC approves two COL licenses for Southern Nuclear, the first licenses ever approved for a nuclear plant using the one-step licensing process.

April 2012: NRC inspectors report that the rebar in the basemat for Unit 3 has been improperly installed. The NRC finally approves a proposal to compensate for the faulty rebar in October 2012, but it puts the project six months behind schedule.

November 2012: Construction contractors Westinghouse and The Shaw Group (bought in 2012 by Chicago Bridge and Iron [CB&I]) file suit against the utility partners seeking $900 million for construction design changes.

December 2012: The independent monitor reports that The Shaw Group �clearly lacked experience in the nuclear power industry and was not prepared for the rigor and attention to detail required to successfully manufacture nuclear components.� Between July 2012 and December 2012, the project contractors were forced to repair �welds on [reactor components] that were found to be the wrong type of weld.� The project is now a full year behind schedule.

February 2013: In a report to the PSC, Georgia Power requests approval for cost overruns totaling $737 million�increasing initial cost estimates of $14.3 billion to $15.5 billion(an 8.4% increase).

August 2013: The independent monitor reports that the construction contractor has �not demonstrated the ability to fabricate high-quality CA20 submodules at its Lake Charles, La., facility that meet the design requirements at a rate necessary to support the project schedule.�

February 2014: The DOE finalizes $6.5 billion of the loan guarantees for Georgia Power and OPC. The DOE issued the remaining $1.8 billion to MEAG Power.

October 2015: In a major shakeup of contractors involved in the Vogtle and V.C Summer projects, Westinghouse in October 2015 enters into an agreement with Fluor Corp., shifting the primary responsibility for construction to the global engineering firm.

December 2015: CB&I, which acquired the Stone and Webster nuclear construction business as part of its $3 billion acquisition of The Shaw Group in 2012, sells the unit to Westinghouse�even though it would incur a $1 billion loss from the transaction�because it provided a �complete end to responsibility or liability� for delays plaguing the Westinghouse AP1000 units. Westinghouse becomes the sole construction contractor. The acquisition helps resolve the legal dispute about who is responsible for costs relating to design changes. The settlement requires project owners to pay $754 million more for the reactors� construction.

March 2017: Crippled by financial setbacks stemming from the half-built AP1000 reactor projects in Georgia and South Carolina, Westinghouse files for bankruptcy protection.

July 2017: The bankruptcy court handling Westinghouse�s Chapter 11 filing approves a service agreement that makes Southern Nuclear the main contractor of the Vogtle project. The agreement to continue with the project hinges on additional approval from the DOE, which is partly financing the project through federal loan guarantees.

August 2017: The project partners file a recommendation to the PSC to continue construction of the project. They also announce they have contracted global engineering, construction, and project management firm Bechtel to manage daily construction efforts. Bechtel is to work under the direction of Southern Nuclear. Executives from Southern Co. earlier that month told investors on a second-quarter earnings call that costs to build the two Vogtle AP1000 units could range between $18.3 billion and $19.8 billion. But on August 31, the company said that based on new assessments, the total estimated capital cost forecast for 100% of the project is about $19 billion. According to Southern Co., the assessment suggests Unit 3 will be placed in service in November 2021, and Unit 4 in November 2022.

September 2017: The DOE provides the Vogtle owners $3.7 billion more in loan guarantees, which includes another $1.67 billion to Georgia Power, $1.6 billion to OPC, and $415 million to three subsidiaries of MEAG Power. The money is in addition to $8.3 billion already guaranteed.

December 21, 2017: The PSC supports Georgia Power�s request to continue construction at Vogtle, despite PSC analysts earlier in the month saying the project is �no longer economic.� The project�s total cost now stands at roughly $23 billion.

August 2018: Georgia Power announces that a capital and construction cost forecast for its share of the project have increased, based on a revised cost-to-complete estimate from Southern Nuclear. The project owners learn completion would require an additional $2.3 billion. A lawsuit filed against MEAG Power by the City of Jacksonville, Florida, and JEA, the city�s municipal power utility, which is under contract to purchase power from the Vogtle expansion, says, �Current cost-to-completion estimates exceed $27 billion, and that number is expected to increase.�

According to Georgia Power estimates, however, its share of the project only increases from $7.3 billion to $8.4 billion. Nonetheless, it chooses not to ask the PSC to approve cost increases �so soon after receiving the Georgia PSC�s approval of the capital forecast last year.� Current expectations are for Vogtle Unit 3 to come online in November 2021 and Unit 4 in November 2022.

And more recently:https://www.ajc.com/news/local/georgia-vogtle-nuclear-report-more-delays-extra-costs-flaws/mBxlgXiDcf0SIaTFr0cZXL/

quote:

Meanwhile, government staff and monitors wrote that they were �shocked� by an �astounding 80%� failure rate for new components installed at the site. The results meant the components, when tested, �did not initially function properly and required some corrective action(s) to function as designed.�

The regulatory staff and power industry experts serving as monitors were assigned by the Georgia Public Service Commission to provide independent analysis. They have been correct in predicting past delays and cost overruns that Georgia Power and parent Southern Company had not yet acknowledged.

Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson, in an emailed statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday, wrote that the company �continues to expect that we will achieve the in-service dates of November 2021 and November 2022 for Vogtle units 3 and 4, respectively. The project is continuing its strategy of utilizing an aggressive site work plan as a tool to help us achieve the November regulatory-approved dates.�

The latest forecast costs remain unchanged, Wilson wrote.

The company did not directly answer questions from the AJC about component failure rates or concerns raised by monitors about the company�s current strategy for the project.

Elected members of the PSC will ultimately decide how much of the project�s costs will be rolled into Georgia Power customers� bills.

Already, the Vogtle expansion is billions of dollars over its original budget and years behind its initial schedule. The two new reactors were supposed to be in commercial operation by the spring of 2016 and 2017.

The PSC�s public advocacy staff and monitors contend that unrealistically aggressive deadlines and the handling of the project in an especially piecemeal fashion have increased delays and generated �significantly higher cost due to the inherent inefficiencies.�

The schedule pressure and rush to turn components over for testing probably �has contributed to the abnormally high failure rate� of components, they said.

There is some good news, though, from the Vogtle Monitoring Group. It had earlier raised concerns that the schedule rush might compromise the safety of workers and of the plant itself. But the latest testimony is that the personnel safety record �has been more than acceptable, and � due largely to its disciplined approach to the conduct of operations � VMG is reasonably confident that when completed both Vogtle 3 & 4 will meet or exceed the already exceptional safety and operational performance� of Southern�s existing nuclear plants.

Georgia Power has described the Vogtle expansion as the largest construction project in state history. The project lined up billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits. It received support from both the Trump administration and the Obama administration, which backed nuclear as a carbon-free way to diversify the generation of electricity and limit destructive climate change.

But costs for nuclear construction soared, as critics warned they would, and prices fell for natural gas, which is used as a fuel at some plants that generate electricity. A project nearly identical to Vogtle was killed in South Carolina midstream. Other utilities around the nation shelved plans.

The Vogtle project, which Georgia Power led and has a nearly 50% stake in, has been beset by problems. It has faced quality issues, problems documenting work, delays in completing detailed plans and, eventually, a shortage of workers and the bankruptcy of an overwhelmed contractor. PSC staff now say that, in almost every scenario it considered, the Vogtle expansion will cost ratepayers more annually over the 60-year-life of the units than if carbon-emitting natural gas-burning units had been built instead.

Vogtle�s construction costs have yet to be rolled into the monthly bills of Georgia Power customers. But, for years, ratepayers have been paying in advance for the project�s financing costs and related Georgia Power profits, a measure allowed by the state legislature.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 00:26

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

Trabisnikof posted:

It wasn't environmental groups causing delays and cost overruns at Vogtle, it was the contractors:

Covering up til 2018: https://www.powermag.com/how-the-vogtle-nuclear-expansions-costs-escalated/

And more recently:https://www.ajc.com/news/local/georgia-vogtle-nuclear-report-more-delays-extra-costs-flaws/mBxlgXiDcf0SIaTFr0cZXL/

Yes, that too, but I want to highlight this specific sentence:

quote:

"the Vogtle expansion will cost ratepayers more annually over the 60-year-life of the units than if carbon-emitting natural gas-burning units had been built instead."

This is why Votgle NEEDS to be built: Because they are arguing it would've been better to build fracked/drilled Natural Gas plants, provided by an industry that has openly shown contempt for controlling their emissions and underreported them to the CDC.

Every single excuse is used to keep burning fossil fuels, so frankly at this point even with cost overruns I want it done because Natural Gas has to go the way coal is going.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 00:49

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

in that vein:

Airborne Radioactivity Increases Downwind of Fracking
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/13/airborne-radioactivity-increases-downwind-of-fracking-study-finds

the paper was in nature comms:

Unconventional oil and gas development and ambient particle radioactivity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18226-w

abstract posted:

Unconventional oil and natural gas development (UOGD) expanded extensively in the United States from the early 2000s. However, the influence of UOGD on the radioactivity of ambient particulate is not well understood. We collected the ambient particle radioactivity (PR) measurements of RadNet, a nationwide environmental radiation monitoring network. We obtained the information of over 1.5 million wells from the Enverus database. We investigated the association between the upwind UOGD well count and the downwind gross-beta radiation with adjustment for environmental factors governing the natural emission and transport of radioactivity. Our statistical analysis found that an additional 100 upwind UOGD wells within 20 km is associated with an increase of 0.024 mBq/m3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.020, 0.028 mBq/m3) in the gross-beta particle radiation downwind. Based on the published health analysis of PR, the widespread UOGD could induce adverse health effects to residents living close to UOGD by elevating PR.

New Study Casts Doubt On The Climate Benefits Of Natural Gas Power Plants
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/gas-bridge-fuel_n_5f7f74f0c5b664e5babb0ea8?ri18n=true

the paper was in AGU Advances; it's from last month so not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or not:

Committed Emissions of the U.S. Power Sector, 2000�2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...source=hs_email

abstract posted:

Annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the U.S. power sector decreased 24% from 2000 to 2018, while carbon intensity (CO2 per unit of electricity generated) declined by 34%. These reductions have been attributed in part to a shift from coal to natural gas, as gas‐fired plants emit roughly half the CO2 emissions as coal plants. To date, no analysis has looked at the coal‐to‐gas shift from the perspective of commitment accounting�the cumulative future CO2 emissions expected from power infrastructure. We estimate that between 2000 and 2018, committed emissions in the U.S. power sector decreased 12% (six GtCO2), from 49 to 43 GtCO2, assuming average generator lifetimes and capacity factors. Taking into consideration methane leakage during the life cycle of coal and gas plants, this decrease in committed emissions is further offset (e.g., assuming a 3% leakage rate, there is effectively no reduction at all). Thus, although annual emissions have fallen, cumulative future emissions will not be substantially lower unless existing coal and gas plants operate at significantly lower rates than they have historically. Moreover, our estimates of committed emissions for U.S. coal and gas plants finds steep reductions in plant use and/or early retirements are already needed for the country to meet its targets under the Paris climate agreement�even if no new fossil capacity is added.

# ? Oct 16, 2020 20:55

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

mediaphage posted:

in that vein:

Airborne Radioactivity Increases Downwind of Fracking
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/13/airborne-radioactivity-increases-downwind-of-fracking-study-finds

the paper was in nature comms:

Unconventional oil and gas development and ambient particle radioactivity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18226-w

New Study Casts Doubt On The Climate Benefits Of Natural Gas Power Plants
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/gas-bridge-fuel_n_5f7f74f0c5b664e5babb0ea8?ri18n=true

the paper was in AGU Advances; it's from last month so not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or not:

Committed Emissions of the U.S. Power Sector, 2000–2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...source=hs_email

yeah that's a lot of bad noise. It would have been nice if the green movement had some smarts and didn't oppose the nuclear industry in the 70's 80's when it had a chance of digging us out of this mess.

# ? Oct 16, 2020 21:11

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

mediaphage posted:

in that vein:

Airborne Radioactivity Increases Downwind of Fracking
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/13/airborne-radioactivity-increases-downwind-of-fracking-study-finds

the paper was in nature comms:

Unconventional oil and gas development and ambient particle radioactivity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18226-w

New Study Casts Doubt On The Climate Benefits Of Natural Gas Power Plants
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/gas-bridge-fuel_n_5f7f74f0c5b664e5babb0ea8?ri18n=true

the paper was in AGU Advances; it's from last month so not sure if it's been mentioned here yet or not:

Committed Emissions of the U.S. Power Sector, 2000�2018
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley...source=hs_email

Natural Gas is just the new clean coal. Even Japan is restarting some Nuclear plants to address shortfalls now:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...e-idUSKBN1Y10K7

# ? Oct 16, 2020 23:23

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.

Electric Wrigglies posted:

yeah that's a lot of bad noise. It would have been nice if the green movement had some smarts and didn't oppose the nuclear industry in the 70's 80's when it had a chance of digging us out of this mess.

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

# ? Oct 16, 2020 23:25

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 00:12

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

DOE Announced the winners for the Advanced Nuclear Reactor demonstrators:

https://twitter.com/LauraSHHolgate/status/1317233319633977349?s=20

# ? Oct 16, 2020 23:43

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