The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

I posted this in the other thread about nuclear power however I think it's more applicable here.

How does a distributed energy grid with only small allowances for localized generation deal with installations that require their own localized generation. Examples bring;
Hospitals, government and military facilities, integral communication facilities. It would seem that for applications like this scalable generation like LFTR would be the war bet.

How about ultra remote locations? Here's an extreme example: McMurdo uses 8 millions gallons of oil a year. However there are numbers of other examples where running high cost lines will simply be too cost inefficient compared to localized generation.

Also worth mentioning are things like the global shipping industry, which according to Wikipedia accounts for around 4% of global climate effecting emissions.

It seems that if we can predominately use renewables for general grid generation, we should. However it seems that there are a number of industries and uses that simply cannot rely on 100% renewables (*at the moment or in the near to mid future).

# ¿ Sep 6, 2012 03:54

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:41

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Pros:
Very clean
Popular with Green voters
Cons:
Probably at least 4x as expensive as nuclear.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 12:19

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Frogmanv2 posted:

All the major parties are against nuclear power generation. There is a staggering amount of NIMBYism, and we had the brits and the yanks testing bombs in the outback in the 50s.

Plus, there is no need for it here. I used to be a massive nuclear power supporter, but have since changed my views. I would still prefer nuclear power over coal.

Yeah, there's no 'need' for it here if we spend 4x the money (compared the nuclear) replacing our coal fired power generation with solar/wind.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2012 03:46

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I'm having trouble seeing this. If you've got links to any discussion on this I'd appreciate it, because the best price I can see for nuclear plants is 9 billion AU for a 1.6 GW plant.

For our projected 2020 demand of roughly 900 GWh/day (going off the BZE report's projected demand, it's all the same if we're talking the same numbers), or 36.9 GW, that's roughly 212 billion dollars in nuclear plants, and assuming uranium stays at 130 US/kg, that's nearly a billion dollars a year in fuel costs, as well.

The cost of the BZE plan is 370 billion over ten years. Given the legislative and safety issues with nuclear (not in terms of plants blowing up, just in terms of mining, transport and storage), how destructive uranium mining can be (Australia has issues with most of its uranium mines being located in or around areas owned by the native Australians) and the fact that we'd be strapping ourselves to yet another non-renewable resource that we'd have to get over in another hundred years or so, it seems like biting the bullet and splashing out for true renewables would be the best course of action here?

Short of nuclear fusion, of course, which is still totally only twenty years away, just like it has been for the last fifty.

BZE's plan has been critiqued multiple times in this thread and these criticisms haven't been responded to.

Please don't skip all of these posts and just go back to framing the costs of nuclear at the highest level (China is building plants for 2 billions and the new Westinghouse APM1000 is about 6 billion) and solar thermal / wind at the most optimistic possible estimate.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 03:58

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Hobo Erotica posted:

Which critiques do you feel haven't been responded to? I'll do my best to go over it in the next few days.

I'm at work currently, so I'll try and take a look when I get home and compile them.

Off the top of my head though;

Projected cost of solar thermal plants vs real world figures, such as those for the plant in Spain (which were marginally higher per GW than those in the BZE plan).

Estimates of availability of wind power generating capacity. Specifically how BZE have used our current generation capacity per turbine and multiplied it to get their figures needed to meet their 40% generation goal. This completely ignores the fact that these turbines already occupy the best positions and further wind turbines will be less economically viable as each will produce less and potentially cost more (depending on location).

This interrelates to the problems other posters have mentioned above, like how BZE and proponents of 100% renewables in this thread have used very generous and optimistic assumptions relating to a downward pressure on costs due to mass production for renewables, but refuse to do the same for nuclear power.

The applicability of similar plans to any other nation on the planet considering that the plan has modeled for Australia, which outside of the Sahara, is the best location in the world for solar thermal.

The different standards regarding how long different power sources have to be modeled for. Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't BZE only done two years modelling for their plan? Shouldn't a plan for the future energy infrastructure be modeled for a significantly longer time? For instance, if we see a rise in global temperature leading to higher precipitation levels and more cloud cover, lower energy intakes from solar thermal will be a significant problem. Even aside from global warming, significant random occurrences of cloud cover combine with low wind could be disasterous. Two years is completely insufficient.

I've currently got a few projects on the go and will likely to be working 100% of my hours at home the next few days, does someone care to elaborate on these and the other criticisms please?

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 08:19

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I thought this was due to the larger scale of construction for the plants proposed by the BZE plan? CST does well off economies of scale.

Please elaborate on how economics of scale manage to reduce the price of steel, concrete and mirrors by a significant margin. Specifically relate this to the cost of the Spanish solar thermal plant against the cost BZE proposes per GW.

quote:

We have nowhere near enough wind generators currently to even vaguely pretend that "all the best spots are taken." The BZE plan has also situated the proposed wind sites at places that have been modelled to have high availability of wind resources.

Perhaps all the best spots is an overstatement. It does however show that BZE is modelling based on all locations for its wind turbines being at least as good as the current locations, which is simply not true.

quote:

Considering the relative ease of CST construction compared to nuclear plant construction, both in an engineering sense and a legislative sense, CST's got way further to drop than nuclear. The BZE report also uses estimates for the drop in cost of CST from Sargent and Lundy, who are primarily a nuclear energy consulting firm and unlikely to be massaging the CST numbers.

You quoted 9 billion dollars earlier this page in regards to a nuclear power plant. China is building 6 AP1000 plants for 12.7 billion dollars. Granted, these are only 1.1GW plants. That said, we can redo your calculation and the costs are closer to 70 billion rather than your original 210 billion. If economics of scale can apply to solar thermal, they can apply to nuclear too.

quote:

I was speaking solely about Australia. I am not anti-nuclear by any means, and it may well be the better choice for other countries that aren't bathed in sunlight.

In any case, I am not anti-nuclear. I agree that the best choice for most countries would probably be a significant mix of the two technologies. I do think the assumptions for how easy it would be to switch over to a full nuclear grid are optimistic at best. Especially in Australia which, as has been mentioned, is overwhelmingly anti-nuclear, as well as not having a well-developed network of nuclear physicists.

Australia also already has the capability of producing all the materials necessary for CST without changing our manufacturing industry in any major way, unlike the materials for nuclear reactors. It seems like for the time and effort it would take to convince Australians to go nuclear we'd be better off going renewable, especially if we're looking at zero carbon by 2020.

The much higher cost of BZE's plan (by those rough figures, 5 times more expensive) will eventually dictate that Australia adopts nuclear power, like it or not.

Also there is no way we will be zero carbon by 2020, aside from buying offset credits from everywhere. To be a truly carbon neutral nation will take much, much longer.

I think that solar thermal, wind and other renewables should plan a part in any plan for moving away from fossil fuels, its folly to rule any out already though.

I'll respond in more detail regarding BZE's climate modelling at a later date.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 12:29

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I don't see how, considering the sites are based on wind resource data?

It is based on wind resource at proposed sites, however they have calculated based on the average amount generated per $ at current wind sites in Australia. This leads to problems as current sites are optimally placed, where further generating capacity in these or other sites is highly unlikely to reach the same level of cost efficiency (because of what I mentioned before regarding the best spots bring the ones currently in use).

Quantum Mechanic posted:

And the USA is building two for 14 billion.

Until I can get some info on the disparity of the AP1000 costs, I'm not really buying this.

And those plants in the US are much more expensive due to the costs of regulatory approval for the reactor design, where further plants in the US will be increasingly cheaper as one of the largest costs for construction (design approval) is negated.

And even then, that's 2 plants for 7 billion each, which is 2 billion less than your figure. You are cherry picking data to suit your position.

Even if we say that AP1000's will be more like 4 billion each (a mid point between the two), that's still only 150 billion. Which is 220 billion cheaper than the best case solution with BZE's plan.

I'll try and find some time to talk about the climate modeling and solar thermal efficiency later today.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2012 23:05

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

7 billion for 1.1 GW. I quoted 9 billion for 1.6. That's actually MORE expensive than my original figure.

No, nuclear does not benefit from the same economies of scale as CST because CST is a distributed system. Increasing the size of CST fields and changing how the heliostats interact with a larger array of towers can improve the cost per GW of a CST plant, where a nuclear plant is more limited in terms of what you have to build and engineer. Nuclear requires expertise and heavy manufacturing that CST simply does not.

You're also comparing a technology with a near sixty-year pedigree to one that's been operational for less than thirty, with a massive disparity in public research money and investment. You're acting like nuclear is unplumbed technology with massive efficiency advances just waiting to happen.

You are still ignoring the 2 billion per plant cost in China.

And that heavy manufacturing and engineering becomes easier and cheaper as more are produced. Especially with a static reactor design like the AP1000. Economics of scale absolutely do apply to nuclear power in this case.

Also the approval bourdon for the AP1000 approval on the US has been shared across the cost of the first few plants. As more plants are produced expect prices for plants to drop.

Also if you look at proposed Gen IV designs you will see that there are major efficiency gains to be had, as even though the field is 60 years old we are still using rudimentary technology.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2012 04:13

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

I really don't think Australia is as anti-nuclear as you think it is. Everyone I seem to talk to is either apathetic about the issue or supports nuclear power. Maybe I don't know enough rabid greenies.

And no one is saying ignore renewables, just that a mixed solution is going to provide the most cost effective and reliable solution.

Edit: This isn't an either / or position. This is a let's build everything possible that isn't fossil fuels as quickly as possible and we may, by the skin of our balls, avoid irreversible global catastrophe.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2012 11:57

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Office Thug posted:

Current worst-case nuclear plant construction, riddled with cost overruns and delays, versus current best case large-scale solar construction, with heightened momentum from the flood of cheap solar panels from the Chinese market. Who do you think wins? It's still nuclear, by a huge margin.

The authors took a lot of flak for their findings, being accused of cherry-picking and so on. So they later responded with another article explaining how they got their numbers and why they picked the German solar program and the Finnish EPR for comparison: http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/michael-shellenberger-and-ted-nordhaus/no-solar-way-around-it/ The two articles are worth reading.

Quantum Mechanic or Hobo Erotica care to respond to this?

# ¿ Aug 6, 2013 02:08

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Hobo Erotica posted:

It's funny that in the AusPol thread, everyone constantly posts the meme 'THE GREENS WILL NEVER FORM GOVERNMENT BECAUSE NO ONE VOTES FOR THE GREENS'. At the same time, you all post in the power gen thread about how nuclear power will never happen in Australia because people don't like nuclear power.

Cognitive dissonance much?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 13:12

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

The Greens Forming Government in Australia is never going to happen in Australia because a) Australians hate the Greens, b) Australia doesn't have the scientific or engineering to understand why the Greens policies are actually better than the 'common sense' solutions of the middle right, and c) thanks to various geopolitical realities regarding the United States we won't ever elect a Left-wing government while we import a majority of Right-wing culture from the US

See how interchangeable your arguments here are?

I'm all for a video being made supporting and educating the BZE plan for renewable energy in Australia, I'm just sick of the counter-productive attitude so many people here have regarding nuclear power. It's like they don't want to talk about it because they think it will poison the well.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 03:04

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Tokamak posted:

Because it will. I don't know if your Australian or not, but even the mining of Uranium is a contentious issue. Some people don't even like the fact we operate a research/industrial reactor. People barely give a poo poo about the detrimental impacts of coal. We had a coal mine fire recently that caused toxic smoke to pass over population centres for a month. It had readily observable health impacts, yet no order was given to evacuate those towns, and the government made every effort to make it appear like it was no big deal.

I've lived in Brisbane for 20 years+ and now Melbourne for 2 years+. I don't see any sort of the entrenched hostility that is constantly referred to by people like QM or Hobo. Might have something to do with the fact that they are constantly surrounded by Greens who are extremely anti-nuclear.

I've said it before in this thread and the AusPol thread, we need a mixture of energy technologies. Sure, push them separately, however, sitting there and saying 'nuclear power will never have any public support to generate the political will to implement it in Australia' is facetious and clearly falls into the same category of those who don't vote for the Greens because they are a minor party. The parallels are clear, but if you can't see that by yourself no one is ever going to be able to make you. At this point we should be pushing every and any alternate technology to fossil fuels, including things like BZE's renewable plan, and including nuclear power.

P.S. I know about 10x the amount of people who think, if elected, the Greens would literally destroy Australia and have us living in caves in a matter of years than those who oppose nuclear power.

P.P.S. I vote Greens. Just hate the anti-nuclear idiots that run most of the party. Still not enough to get me to vote for anyone else though...

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 09:11

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Polling generally shows 40-60% oppose nuclear power in Australia. Support hovers at about 20-30%.

e: in the interests of full disclosure, it was getting slightly better in the last few years. Then Fukushima happened. Support dropped like a stone.

If the argument against nuclear power was "We don't support nuclear power because we're never going to build nuclear in Australia because we don't support nuclear power..." you might have a point.

Support for the Greens polls at about 10 - 14% (to be very generous). If we want to talk about political realities, that would seem to indicate it would be easier to change public opinion towards voting for nuclear power than for the Green majority in the lower house.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 04:51

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Keep moving those goalposts, you shining star.

I'm not the one carrying the goalposts faster than Andrew Bolt.

EDIT: Your argument is literally 'nuclear power isn't feasible in Australia because it's a political reality that nuclear power isn't feasible in Australia'.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 05:41

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Frogmanv2 posted:

Nuclear power has major problems in Australia, because we tend to build cities in the same places that make good sites. You need huge amounts of fresh water, something we don't have in abundance in the southern half. Either that or you have them way up north and have to deal with huge transmission distances.

Anywhere you do it you will need to get approval by traditional owners and they have every right to be sceptical about any promises made to them about safety and cleanup, given how utterly hosed over they have been at every opportunity.

Not really, you can use salt water if you build them near the coast, or alternatively you can place them in the same location as existing coal-fired plants (which use huge amounts of water) and access the same water supply. Also there is the option of using non-water based cooling systems.

And the traditional land owners would be fine with using multiple orders of magnitude more land for biofuels, solar plants and wind farms?

This video was posted last page but it really should be posted again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J06Vhlw52o

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 05:52

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

No, actually, there's quite a few reasons it isn't feasible in Australia which I've listed many times, the political attitude of Australians towards it being merely the first hurdle in the way of introducing it into Australia. A political attitude that, mind you, you insisted didn't exist and that I must just surround myself with anti-nuclear Greenies.

I mean Jesus, if there was a plan for Australia's climate future that involved, as a non-negotiable first step in a path of obstacles, the election of a majority of Greens to Federal Parliament, I'd consider that pretty much in the realm of fantasy as well. I don't think your gotcha about polling numbers is quite the gotcha you believe it to be.

If you want to discuss the hurdles to implementation in Australia, then we should. Perhaps instead of you brick-walling at 'it's not possible because people don't want it'.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 05:58

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Trabisnikof posted:

Australia is kinda outside my bounds, but hasn't it gone backwards on global warming policy recently? Also, don't they have a ton of coal and other cheap dirtier fuels?

Correct on both accounts. We have a bunch of invalids running the country and have the worlds dirtiest coal fired power plant. Absolutely anything happening here towards lowering emissions is currently a pipe-dream at best.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 06:02

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Ball's in your court, mate, I've already posted them before. Hell, you've already responded to them before. Badly.

Thanks for being both the arbiter and participant in the debate.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 09:13

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

http://media.bze.org.au/ZCA-Stationary_Energy_Synopsis_20June10.pdf
https://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-australia-2020

You can view my post history, I'm actually very pro-nuclear and believe it is going to form a core component of any non-fossil fuel energy mix in a carbon neutral world.

However, to say renewables can't do poo poo is WRONG, so SHUT THE gently caress UP.

Linked above is a plan for Australia* (however, I'm sure an equally possible plan could be developed for the US without much difficulty) for a completely renewable baseload. And a hell of a lot more research has gone into it than your un-sourced lovely opinions.

*I am aware Australia is an order of magnitude more sunny than the US. This is not relevant. Do not bring it up.

EDIT: Instead of arguing about why renewables are useless or can't do poo poo, why don't you discuss the current regulatory climate in the US towards Nuclear power? Or how about why there is still a limited up-take in renewables in your country?

blacksun fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Apr 30, 2015

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 00:39

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

b0lt posted:

Please go on and tell me how renewables won't do poo poo in the U.S. and can't be used for baseload. I'll be waiting here.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 00:56

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Phanatic posted:

http://www.afr.com/business/energy/south-australia-intervenes-in-electricity-market-as-prices-hit-14000mwh-20160714-gq5sac

This is complete bullshit from the fossil-fuel sector http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/wind-solar-removed-major-price-spikes-south-australia-48504 https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/07/22/558133/

The cost overruns are be blamed on the high mix of wind in South Australia, but it's simply not true.

blacksun fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Aug 14, 2016

# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 05:21

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

BattleMoose posted:

The rebuttal article (the one you are linking) simply claims that there are no spikes in the electricity price in South Australia.

Someone's flat out lying. And honestly I am not sure who it is. Who is the correct authority to state about the price peaks of electricity in South Australia?

The first article I linked (there are two) actually has a graph of historical price surges. Murdoch's rag is 100% lying.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2016 22:29

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

BattleMoose posted:

Yeah but it wasn't referenced, just like murdochs claims. I might be being pedantic but if I cannot check the references of claims being made, the claims are rejected.

This took me less then 2 minutes to Google. If you actually wanted to find out, you could have in less than the time it took you to write the post.

https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/high-price-events-a-history/

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 13:36

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

In recent times it appears that this thread has swung back towards the 'renewables can't replace baseload'.

In light of this, I wanted to get some of the active members comments on this detailed plan for moving Australia to 100% renewables without traditional baseload generators http://media.bze.org.au/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Report_v1.pdf.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 06:21

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

hobbesmaster posted:

It appears to rely on concentrating solar power at large scale to work as a base load and for nebulous efficiency gains to reduce the amount of power needed.

In reality concentrated solar has a ton of teething problems and efficiency improvements so far tend to slow the increase in power consumption, not reduce power consumption.

Can you provide further details regarding your criticism of their ability of make the efficiency gains the plan requires?

One of the condensed talking points of the plan is that it could be executed at a cost of $8 AUD per household, per week. Even at double this, with increased costs of CSP and lower efficiency gains, this still seems like an achievable outcome.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 06:50

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

hobbesmaster posted:

Do you think the things starting on page 13 (pdf page 35) will actually happen?

Do you think people are actually going to start building hundreds of nuclear power plants?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 07:12

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:41

blacksun: Mar 16, 2006; I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.

Trabisnikof posted:

But I doubt any one scenario model will be accurate, however this seems like a technically feasible way to achieve the goals. And it doesn't just deal with the electric grid, but the entire energy economy, something often ignored in proposals.

I suspected this might have been of interest.

The studies BZE have done supply modeling of how a distributed grid could deal with intermittency issues inherent in renewable generation based on weather patterns and expected generation capacity of geographical areas.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 10:45

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