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What makes this a 4th generation reactor? The underlying technology? The fact that it's modular?
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Dec 7, 2023 17:15
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 07:27 |
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Dante80 posted:40% of US electricity is now emissions-free Natural gas fills some gaps that are difficult to cover with renewables, at least until storage starts being built at scale. I'll use Texas as my example, since that's where I'm from. Texas has equal or greater renewable capacity than any other state in the US. We faced record heat this past summer, and solar and wind both performed very well. The problem, as always, is when the sun isn't shining and there's no wind. Fortunately that's not a common occurrence, but it does occur. Similarly, NG can be spun up very rapidly if necessary. It's expensive to do so, but it can fill in for peak demand and surges. Ideally we'd be firing up new nuclear to provide a stable baseline, but for reasons that have been pointed out, it's politically unpopular, and economically disastrous. Until someone comes up with a truly modular reactor that can be built and deployed rapidly (and is politically feasible), we're going to need some combination of excess capacity and a lot of storage to cover the gaps when generation slows.
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Dec 30, 2023 15:01
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GABA ghoul posted:German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity. suck my woke dick posted:Yes, German farmland is a green-tinted toxic wasteland that's about as ecologically valuable as a parking lot. It will not be missed, and major farmland zones can be paved over as far as I care. Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.
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Feb 14, 2024 14:04
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cat botherer posted:Yeah, large-scale stationary hydrogen storage isn't nearly as problematic. Combined-cycle natural gas plants could also be converted, which would reduce costs a whole lot. The key issue it seems is relatively low round-trip efficiency. Electrolysis tops out at 80%, and then you've got maybe 60-70% for CC generation, so under 50%. That's still potentially compelling due to the problems and expense of of Li-ion batteries. However, with the recent success of much cheaper sodium-ion batteries in China, that advantage might erode. Someone may have asked this previously and I missed it, but can you expand on this? I feel like I've been hearing about great new battery technology that's just around the corner for the past 10 years - is this real, or is it more vaporware?
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Mar 20, 2024 15:33
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