|
Orvin posted:If they really are going to drill at a fossil power plant, it shouldn’t be to hard to get a wholesale power rates. There are a ton of decommissioned power plants out there where they keep the switchyard active, there is a lot of existing infrastructure that would have to be changed if they don't usually. Power availability and cost is nothing in the grand scheme. What matters is the condition of the turbine, generator, and GSU. It becomes a lot less appealing to retrofit an old plant when you need to throw $100 million to catch up on the deferred maintenance in fossil plants that have a shutdown date in the next few years.
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2022 20:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 04:37 |
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:Wind is clearly one of the better renewable techs that have been rolled out, it has pretty minimal environmental impact and safety stats not that far behind nuclear (and hopefully improve as institutional knowledge on installing the things improves) My experience with renewables only companies is they have no safety culture, you have to explain to them that you don't do it that way because a ton of people died doing that. They care more about the color of permanent marker on your LOTO tag than actually discharging and isolating equipment. I'm hoping with experience things improve but they have a long way to come to get anywhere close to the level at any nuclear plant I've seen.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2022 18:45
|
|
|
I'd imagine grid scale storage will be monitored extensively and will be made in such a way that cells or modules will be able to be swapped without too much work when they're degraded. Monitoring on substation battery banks is becoming common enough that I'd think it would be the default on anything grid scale. I still don't see storage making a meaningful impact anytime soon, this appears to be overlooked by the let's only build solar people.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2022 16:13
|
|
|
GABA ghoul posted:
The last few gas power plants I was at were built with the intention of being able to run on hydrogen or a hydrogen natural gas blend, there's current investment from large utilities in that technology. I'm not very familiar with the bulk power transmission system in Europe but in the States there would need to be a massive investment probably on the scale of building a bunch of new nuclear power plants. If that's going to happen the factories to build the extra equipment should have been built yesterday.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2022 18:00
|
|
|
I don't recall seeing this posted earlier. Amazon took all U.S. solar rooftops offline last year after flurry of fires, electrical explosions https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/amazon-took-solar-rooftops-offline-last-year-after-fires-explosions.html quote:Between April 2020 and June 2021, solar panels atop Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions at least six different times.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2022 15:38
|
|
|
Heck Yes! Loam! posted:it almost always comes down to someone not gauging a connection or wire properly, and the drat thing heats up enough to cause a fire. quote:either that or faulty or cheap components causing a short. My best personal story was the boss not willing to pay the concrete guys to wrap the equipment in plastic. New equipment was installed and he wasn't willing to pay for a backup to the lubrication system, after a power outage it was only a few hundred thousand in repairs. The backup system was installed but the alarm contacts weren't wired to the PLC because that would cost money, a few more 100k in repairs. And can't use the old equipment because it's saturated in concrete dust. Those were all problems an experienced electrician found and brought up before being dismissed, like a good electrician would also know when a conductor is undersized or the wrong. I suspect we will be seeing more stories like this based on the now hiring solar installers for $17/hr ads I've seen.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2022 18:28
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:Offshore wind for me is the most promising massive source of power on account of its much better supply reliability and out of site out of mind properties. I suspect a lot of the population will happily tolerate the higher fatality rate (I don't see building and maintaining wind at sea to ever become as safe as nuclear, especially when value adding a heap of dodgy construction companies using under-skilled labour gets in on the contracts) and higher costs over permitting nuclear. I'm not all that great on how scalable it is (North Sea is great, Great Barrier Reef and Great Southern Ocean not so much) but there is runs on the board in getting these farms built. mobby_6kl posted:It's a bit of a problem for landlocked countries though, at least until global warming makes them into coastal states I like your optimism as someone who lives a few hundred feet above sea level.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2022 12:34
|
|
|
The turbine for one of those cancelled reactors is installed at Ravenswood in NYC. Big bastard! E: Cancelled Allis Chalmers reactor specifically.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2022 18:22
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:Meanwhile coal plants just dumbing toxic poo poo wherever and it has no half-life. Theres plenty of radioactive particles emitted by coal plants. For reasons unknown this like all the emissions other than CO2 are mostly ignored.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2022 20:44
|
|
|
From what I can tell without knowing any of the details it seems like the issues with these new nuclear plants are issues with existing proven technology. Pumps and welding pipe together aren't anything too special other than the extremely high level of QC if it will be used/done for a nuclear plant. Are the operating temperatures or pressures of these newer safer designs that much more or is there some other detail I'm missing?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2022 18:33
|
|
|
They aren't exactly easy to build is the short answer. Steel, copper, oil, paper, and wood but specific grades and characteristics which often have one supplier worldwide. They're ordered for the application and assembled by hand (and cranes) and after assembly and processing there's a realistic chance it fails testing and needs rework. The remaining north American factories can get you a transformer in about 18 months if you order now and they like you.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2023 05:55
|
|
|
Charlz Guybon posted:Why can't the government enforce a standard build? Physics and legacy systems. Impedance is important, there are 3 different hv transmission voltages (765, 500, 345) in the US and a ton of different lv transmission voltages. Physical size and arrangement matter but mostly for the units connected to generators via bus or distribution class connected to switchgear. As mentioned storage is not the easiest thing. Most of the big stuff can be stored outside but control enclosures need to be powered to run heaters, transformers need to be oil filled, positive pressure needs to be maintained, big motors or generators need to be rolled over regularly. Edit: Phanatic posted:These things aren't installed by cheap labor, they're done by a crew of senior electrical engineers and integration engineers, overseen by senior engineers for the manufacturers of the transformer, You gave a better description of the issues but I'm going to have to disagree somewhat on that statement, I've seen a lot of green engineers doing the spec and design after all the experienced guys retired. Half the time the people assembling them are hacks and butchers too, keeps the work interesting I guess. There's a point where rail shipment is required but I've seen 300mva size go over the road before if it's not going cross country, I think the trailer had 18 axles. Still not exactly easy to ship this stuff. SpeedFreek fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jan 10, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
Based on your username I'm guessing I'm really close to you this week, strangely enough it's not working directly for your company this time. The greatest part of lean mfg is when there's only one supplier, worldwide, for critical components for a critical part of modern life. Edit: oldest nameplate I've seen in this town was 1938 for in service 138kv equipment.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2023 04:34
|
|
|
Pander posted:1000 MVA transformer??? Are you sure about that? It's kinda on the large side of things but it's possible to swap out in that kinda timeframe if you have everything organized right. At that size the cost of being down is many times the cost of around the clock labor. I'm guessing the 17 days clock started at the moment the breakers opened. The Nuscale website leaves a lot to be desired, I'm interested in how these things are going to be built and how fast.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2023 00:11
|
|
|
And if you were trying to build a coal plant you'd just pay off the regulators and bypass all the rules you'd need to follow. For example an alternative location must be selected, "eh, how about 20ft away from the planned location." It was approved and they took about 15 feet of land from me for the railroad tracks, didn't get anything for it because they expanded their easement.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2023 00:39
|
|
|
slorb posted:The ideal scenario is the company constructs the plant while signing medium to long term power supply contracts with customers who will hopefully pay extra for green energy and then sells the fully functional plant and supply contracts at a premium to institutional investors who want low risk returns over the decades long life of the plant. My experience with that is the plant is built with the worst parts they can get away with. The plant gets commissioned and there's zero preventative maintenance done until it's sold off. Hacks and band aid fixes get applied by the investment group's company before it's sold off again. I've seen this at several natural gas turbine/steam turbine power plants and I get to see it again at a wind farm now.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2023 12:39
|
|
|
Electric Wrigglies posted:Managing frequency and voltage across a grid us hugely complicated and generally called grid services when not inherently supplied by the properties of load or generators (in fact the value of inherent grid services might be separated and charged separately). A lot simpler with large spinning turbines because the inertia of the spinning mass mechanically resists a change in frequency that would normally result from a large increase or decrease in load. Inertia helps keep frequency stable, big generators have a lot of rotating mass. I was told that during the last big Texas freeze they got really close, relatively speaking, to 59hz before tripping their power plant offline.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2023 20:27
|
|
|
Jows posted:drat, so you can't use it in Florida? I was informed that wokeness and Biden is the reason that conduit and unistrut is so expensive. E. SpeedFreek fucked around with this message at 22:58 on May 6, 2023 |
|
#
¿
May 4, 2023 04:18
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:In reality we need such a huge amount of baseload, and so much of it is still supplied by fossil fuel plants running at full capacity, that it doesn't make any sense to pit nuclear against renewables like you're doing here This argument has always bothered me, we should be doing as much as possible to avoid burning stuff for power. Do both, not the current solution of peaker gas turbines to run all night. Also there is a difference between efficient, profitable, and very profitable.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:When someone says "impossible" in this sort of context they mean "someone would have to make investments that take more then 4 years to pay off". marchantia posted:This is replying to discussion bit up thread but wrt geothermal the Volts podcast had an interview 3/31 about it and I thought it was an interesting conversation. Not sure how David Roberts is regarded around here but I think he does good interviews and I learned a lot about current/future anticipated tech limitations and what people in the field are currently doing to ramp up production so figured I'd mention it. Thanks, something to listen to on my flight.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2023 21:46
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:I think the fact that the navy has had no problems building reactors suggests to me that if the government stepped in and had navy administrators and subject matter experts take control that could help speed things up, the point about transferring navy engineers is that they're an already trained pool of specialists who should have an easier time familiarizing themselves and retraining to civilian nuclear plants while new specialists are being trained in the pipeline. I know they are smaller reactors but they can pump out several per year, there is also a pretty good safety record there. What would they cost per unit if the requirements like being able to run silently were removed?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2023 15:25
|
|
|
I was more thinking there is evidence that it's possible to push out several smaller reactors per year. Probably not a lot of capacity to expand without investment.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2023 20:36
|
|
|
What does the stay puffed marshmallow man have to do with any of this?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2023 03:22
|
|
|
There's feed water pumps with some really big motors running them and all the other systems supporting a steam turbine but that consumes only a fraction of the electrical output.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2023 16:12
|
|
|
Dante80 posted:Can you think of another easy to understand symbol for boiling water/making steam? NotJustANumber99 posted:Heres the plan:
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2023 16:11
|
|
|
I'm assuming anything with moving parts is non viable for energy storage.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2023 17:09
|
|
|
Son of Rodney posted:This thread also thinks nuclear is somehow, magically, against all reality a solution to climate change, so I'm a bit wary about those bring ups. Also I've mentioned it before: base load generation does not equal fossil or nuclear generators, it only means theres a necessary minimum power requirement that needs to be fulfilled. Wind can be baseload, solar can be baseload, the issue is not falling under a minimum threshold. *There is CO2 generated from concrete production and they test the huge emergency diesel generators regularly.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2023 15:56
|
|
|
Dante80 posted:40% of US electricity is now emissions-free The plan at several of the new gas plants I've been to was to start blending in H2 to the gas mixture in the future, ideally the H2 would be generated with surplus renewable electricity. They never really explained the timeline on that but designed the plants to burn a mixture in the turbines.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2023 15:50
|
|
|
H2 seems like future tech without some kind of storage improvement. I would prefer the new plants built to be nuclear but whats getting built is replacing coal and that's better than carrying on as we have been.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2023 17:43
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:Sure renewables capital costs ARE cheaper but: It takes as long as building a nuclear plant to build new transmission lines in the US the way things are. The capacity to manufacture power transformers for example is not there and from experience it takes about 2 years to build a facility and about 2+ more to iron out the bugs in the equipment and product. There is one company in the US that can build 765kv transformers (after a 25 year gap) and only a few that can reliably build 345kv+, I can think of 4 in Europe and they're all booked out for years. I have no direct knowledge of the HVDC side of things but I cant imagine the capacity is there either for the buildout needed. Yes, I know this is not the Energy Transmission Megathread. The all in on renewables approach is kicking the can down the road and will keep combustion generation going longer than the parallel path of renewables plus nuclear. For example there are about 23 million US households on private wells that would get really pissed off if they had to start a generator to take a poo poo in the middle of the night. The actual in use solution for energy "storage" is backup generators, there is a major SE utility that has a group setting up backup generators for businesses for the expected power interruptions from a grid consisting of intermittent sources.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2024 18:43
|
|
|
Potato Salad posted:every once in awhile, I am reminded that Facebook is essentially a knife in our collective backs
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2024 15:17
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:The notion that the only pollutant in coal worth worrying about is CO2 is asinine. We don't warn pregnant woman against consuming fish due to mercury emissions from LNG. There is a lot more pollution that results from continued use of coal than just CO2, the coal dust, fly ash, groundwater pollution from the ash, everything else that goes up the stack with the CO2. I'm sure someone in this thread has detailed knowledge on the effects of mining the stuff. There are no good reasons to keep operating coal plants after the 1970s.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2024 17:35
|
|
|
Gucci Loafers posted:Even with the leaks, it is still far superior the continue use of coal. The Breakthrough Foundation has a ton of excellent reporting on this very subject and another fact of the matter is it is a solvable problem via regulations. *I remember them saying it would be impossible to build a gas turbine plant there at the time and the PR rep pulling numbers out of his rear end. Something about needing a 30" pipe at 1000psi to supply enough gas.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2024 15:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 04:37 |
|
|
Femtosecond posted:I'm deeply skeptical of any notion that LNG is worse than coal. Issue for me though is like how many years do you have to burn coal before pivoting to a nuclear plant before that's worse than more immediately switching to a gas plant, and operating that for the entire lifetime of the plant (50 years? more?). My local utility was building new coal plants in the last 20 to 30 years that are all being shut down now so shutting down a power plant before EOL is a thing. They insisted that building those plants would keep rates lower than if they built any other type of power plant and that's why I pay about double what they do in a neighboring state that is about 50% nuclear powered. Electric Wrigglies posted:I think it simply boils down to activists wanting everyone to swap to solar/wind now rather than going to gas first. The economics of wind and solar are unique too, if there was a buildup of nuclear power it would never become cheaper or more efficient to build with knowledge and experience like solar and wind power has.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2024 14:51
|
|