The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Trabisnikof posted:

The future of the AP1000 is not looking good.

The future of the whole industry in the West is looking real bad.

World Nuclear News posted:

European Commission approves Areva restructuring plan

17 January 2017

The European Commission has approved the restructuring of France's Areva group, ruling that the French government's plan to grant a capital injection of �4.5 billion ($4.8 billion) into Areva does not breech European Union (EU) state aid rules.

France notified the commission in April last year of the planned restructuring of Areva, which is 86.5% state-owned, in a bid to restore the group's competitiveness. The plan will see Areva divest its nuclear reactor business, focusing its activities instead on its nuclear fuel cycle business. The government intends to inject �4.5 billion of public capital to help the company bear the costs of the restructuring.
...
In a statement issued 10 January, the commission said its investigation had shown that Areva's withdrawal from the nuclear reactor business would allow the group to focus on a clear and profitable business in the nuclear fuel cycle, as demonstrated by the financial projections of the newly created group. "The complete divestiture of Areva's reactor business will significantly reduce the group's activities in the nuclear sector and thereby limit the distortions of competition brought about by the state support. A competitive Areva will also contribute to ensuring Europe's security of uranium supply," it said.

The commission found that Areva will finance a "significant part" of the restructuring costs with proceeds from planned asset sales, including the divestiture of its reactor business to EDF. The contribution is subject to a review under EU merger control rules. It is also subject to a "positive result" of tests ordered by the French nuclear regulator, the Autorit� de S�ret� Nucl�aire, on the Areva-supplied reactor vessel at Flamanville unit 3. As the restructuring aid may not be paid until then, the commission said it has also approved a loan of �3.3 billion from the French state to Areva, which would bridge Areva's liquidity needs until the capital injection can take place.

Margrethe Vestager, European commissioner responsible for competition policy, said the decision paved the way for a "viable future" for Areva based on a sustainable restructuring plan. "The plan strikes the right balance between improving the group's competitiveness and limiting distortions of competition created by the public financing," she said.

In November, Areva and EDF signed a contract for the sale of Areva NP's reactor business. EDF is to take exclusive control of the new entity, valued at �2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) and referred to as 'New NP'. The creation of a new entity focused on mining, the front-end and the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle was announced by Areva in February. The process for transferring nuclear fuel cycle activities to the new entity, known as NewCo, formally began in August 2016.

Not only is the French state giving a massive bailout to cover earlier losses of the reactor business, they are also taking over future losses by transferring it to the 100% state owned EDF. There is zero money in the reactor-building business as it stands. I believe at this point the only companies in the West that offers to build new commercial power reactors are EDF and GE-Hitachi.

Pretty much the only countries making a serious investment in nukes are China and India, and they strongly prefer using domestic suppliers.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 12:56

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 10:08

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

White Rock posted:

Hey, popping in to ask, whats the consensus on peak oil in this thread? I've been a skeptic believer of the theory for years, (that is, a time will come where oil production does not meet consumption and that time will be less than great ), but recent events of increase in fracking and tar sands has led me to question that. Are renewable rolling out fast enough to prevent a oil crash? What about a potential oil crash + financial meltdown, can we adapt?

Looking for independent sources. All sources I've been able to find are either from oil companies saying "PEAK OIL IS A LIE, <3 OIL FOREVER" or doomsday blogs which go "OIL IS GONNA PEAK, SOCIETY WILL COLLAPSE; BUY GOLD AND COLLOIDAL SILVER FROM MY WEBSITE".

Not a lot nuance.

There will probably be a short-term supply crunch soon due to underinvestment 2015-2017, but there is no reason to panic. Notably, the Saudis and the Russians have continued to invest, so we're not going have all the wells in the world going dry at once. The NA fracking industry has seen the biggest decline, but it can be spun up pretty fast when prices rise. The oil industry has been a boom-and-bust rollercoaster since day one.

The reality is that we have to stop drilling to mitigate catastrophic climate change (a far more probable doomsday scenario) before we run out of places to drill.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 13:22

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Rime posted:

Can't wait for the UAE to pull an India and figure out some way to cook the fuel up to weapons grade. I'm sure this'll end wonderfully.

If they wanted that they could just buy some from Pakistan, I�m sure.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2020 09:43

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

There"s been a lot of talk about sodium-ion batteries lately. Indian mega conglomerate Reliance acquired English company Faradion in January with the intent to start mass production in India soon. I don't know enough to say how realistic this, but Na-ion does have the advantage of requiring less exotic materials. Salt and carbon instead of lithium and cobalt. Also less toxic and flammable.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 03:13

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Let's see how long that lasts. Olkiluoto-3 has been down for like 5 of the 9 months since it began trial production.

Coming back on the 15th! For sure this time! Not like all the other times...

Grey Area fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Mar 9, 2023

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 15:39

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Some things become markers of tribal identity rather than considered policies. If you recon yourself a Green you "have to" oppose nuclear power and be a NIMBY about onshore wind.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2023 13:05

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

PhazonLink posted:

its funny how the actually people in Fukushima*, other places in Japan* near/nearer, or South Korea* , actual stake holders that live with da supa death atoms have a warmer relation to nuclear than German other countries that I assume are in the middle of their tectonic plates or are landlocked countries. so relatively resistant to earthquakes or super waves.

Nuclear power isn't exactly doing great in Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_plants_in_Japan

Many of the reactors that were taken offline in 2011 still haven't restarted.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2023 20:00

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Yes, if the backup power plants were working this would be much less bad. The fact that three of the backups failed when needed show that it may be necessary for the regulator to verify that backups are actually available.

These plants are only running a few days/year, so there isn't much incentive for owners to maintain them.

I don't really understand why the links to Sweden are not maxed out (I believe it's 1200 MW to SE1 and 1500 MW to SE2 or something like that,) given the price disparity. You can see that the Estonian price is balanced.

Times are in CET, this is Svenska Kraftn�t's overview at https://www.svk.se/en/national-grid/the-control-room/

Grey Area fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jan 5, 2024

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 15:43

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 10:08

Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

The magnitude of methane leaks are understated by pretty much everyone involved in the gas industry.

There was a recent report on the use of LNG for marine propulsion, for example:

https://theicct.org/pr-real-world-methane-emissions-from-lng-fueled-ships-are-higher-than-current-regulations-assume-new-study-finds-jan24/ posted:

Real-world methane slip measured in the plumes of 18 ships using the most common type of LNG marine engine (LPDF 4-stroke) averaged 6.4%, whereas EU regulations currently assume 3.1% methane slip and the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) assumes 3.5%.

This study demonstrates the importance of collecting and analyzing real-world data. Regulators need to use the best available data to develop effective climate policies. If methane slip assumptions remain too low, shipowners will be able to use LNG in high-methane-slip engines longer, effectively getting an unfair advantage over lower-emitting fuels and engines. This is contrary to the goals of rapidly decarbonizing the shipping sector to align with the Paris Agreement and counterproductive to reducing global methane emissions this decade, as called for in the Global Methane Pledge.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2024 14:01

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