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Post by Barry Brook on May 18, 2012 11:51:09 GMT 9.5
A new guest post by Martin Nicholson has been published on BraveNewClimate. Link here: bravenewclimate.com/power-makers-challenge-p2It introduces his new book, and includes an overview of low-carbon energy options for future energy supply. Part 2 covers Fission Energy (Martin's suggested term for nuclear). This BNC Discussion Forum thread is for the comments related to this BNC post.
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Post by singletonengineer on May 18, 2012 12:10:30 GMT 9.5
Martin, the relative proportions of concrete and steel used for construction of solar thermal and nuclear power stations is changing.
Recent personal experience with construction of a ST plant in NSW, Australia, was interesting. No concrete foundations under the arrays - only efficient steel ground anchors shaped like screws. It has a very light structure with many, many legs. Compared with previous similar plant, I would guess 99% less concrete and 50% less steel. The manufacturer and installation contractor was Novatec, a German manufacturer with more than 50% Australian ownership.
That said, the concrete and steel resource needed for nuclear plant still compares very well against ST of comparable energy sent out capacity.
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Post by singletonengineer on May 18, 2012 12:17:25 GMT 9.5
Here's a link to Novatec Solar's web site, although the site is somewhat out of date. Construction activities are now complete and commissioning well advanced, though the completed project was not running regularly when I last visited, a week back. There was no opportunity to discover detailed status of commissioning and operation of this plant, in part because my visit to site was not connected with this particular project. However, informal advice received was to the effect that construction and commissioning had proceeded normally and that final completion is imminent.
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Post by Martin Nicholson on May 18, 2012 16:08:54 GMT 9.5
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Post by David B. Benson on May 19, 2012 12:37:05 GMT 9.5
According to www.world-nuclear.org/the world now has 14852 reactor-years of experience in producing civil nuclear power.
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Post by podargus on May 21, 2012 5:01:38 GMT 9.5
This article is a good basic primer on the advantages of nuclear energy however I have an issue with Martin's view that gas peaking generation is needed.
As fuel cost is not a major part of nuclear then it should be practical to build enough capacity to cover peak loads with an additional safety factor. Load following as far as possible can be used for periods of lesser demand. Industries which are heavy power users but are able to reduce their usage at short notice can be offered reduced tarriffs if they are willing to shut down at times of extreme demand. In the last resort,just consign excess generation to spinning reserve. All of these methods of matching generation to demand are used at present with coal fired plants.
Gas (NG not CSG) is a far too valuable resource to be burnt for electricity generation. CSG is better left in ground at present because of environmental problems in the extraction process.
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Post by Martin Nicholson on May 21, 2012 8:14:17 GMT 9.5
Thanks for the updated figure David. I started my research for this book back in 2009 so any constantly changing value (like reactor years) will always be out of date. Better to understate than overstate.
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Post by Martin Nicholson on May 21, 2012 8:40:58 GMT 9.5
Podargus the problem with relying on large thermal plants to supply all the load is they cannot be started quickly from cold. The network operators make the best estimate they can for the anticipated load 24 hours ahead. They then ensure they have sufficient operating capacity and spinning and standing reserved scheduled to meet that anticipated load variation plus a margin. But they cannot always get it right. The weather man predicts a cooler day than nature delivers. A transmission line fails isolating some generating capacity. This is when the standing reserve (not connected to the network but can be connected within minutes) is needed. If a network has sufficient available hydro, which makes excellent standing reserve, then open cycle gas turbines are not needed. I suspect that just relying on additional spinning reserve or demand management (both of which have to be paid for whether used or not) might be much more costly than scheduling standing OCGT or diesel to cover for such emergencies. The last resort of unplanned load shedding is probably the most expensive.
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Post by anonposter on May 21, 2012 14:04:49 GMT 9.5
Homogeneous reactors can load follow well enough that they could function as spinning reserve being idled at operating temperature (but without much load being drawn from them) and ready to come online almost instantly.
The fact that the cost of running nuclear power plants isn't much more than the cost of not running them does mean that you could just leave a bunch of them running at low power ready to ramp up if needed.
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Post by harrywr2 on May 23, 2012 0:07:26 GMT 9.5
The fact that the cost of running nuclear power plants isn't much more than the cost of not running them does mean that you could just leave a bunch of them running at low power ready to ramp up if needed. The fact that making the 'mortgage payment' is the biggest financial challenge for a nuclear plant operator means they need to run them full out as close to 24x7 as possible otherwise they can't make the mortgage payment.
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Post by anonposter on May 23, 2012 0:17:16 GMT 9.5
The fact that making the 'mortgage payment' is the biggest financial challenge for a nuclear plant operator means they need to run them full out as close to 24x7 as possible otherwise they can't make the mortgage payment. Older fully paid off reactors don't have a mortgage payment (by the time at which using nukes for load following becomes necessary there likely will be older, fully paid off reactors which don't have a mortgage payment).
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Post by jagdish on Jun 10, 2012 22:08:55 GMT 9.5
To reduce the 'Mortgage Payments' or capital cost, following design features should be optimized:- 1. Reduce pressures, at least in the reactor, by using high boiling materials for heat transfer. Sodium is in use but is very fire prone. Non-combustible materials with good corrosion resistance containers will have to be developed. 2. Breeder cycles have to be developed so that all the uranium or thorium can be used as fuel. 3. Liquid fuels should be used to avoid fabrication costs and also to enable removal of volatile neutron poisons from fission products.
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Post by Jeff Walther on Aug 11, 2012 7:53:01 GMT 9.5
Homogeneous reactors can load follow well enough that they could function as spinning reserve being idled at operating temperature (but without much load being drawn from them) and ready to come online almost instantly. Why idle them when the heat could be doing useful work. Set them up next to an industrial park or other application and choose one which can forgo its heat source on short notice. Anywhere near the sea coasts, desalination would seem to be an excellent choice. Run the peaking load nuclear units as desalination plants when their contribution to electricity generation is not needed. I'm not sure what to do further inland. Of course, by the time society comes to its senses (hope that happens some day) we'll have built a bunch of useless high capacity power lines to carry wind power to the extremities of our nations. So maybe you can just site *all* the peaking power nuclear electricity generation near the coast with an associated desalination plant, and run the electricity out on the power lines that were built for the wind farms after folks realize what an expensive mistake that was.
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Post by anonposter on Aug 11, 2012 9:46:23 GMT 9.5
Homogeneous reactors can load follow well enough that they could function as spinning reserve being idled at operating temperature (but without much load being drawn from them) and ready to come online almost instantly. Why idle them when the heat could be doing useful work. If you can find a way to get useful work from that heat then why not, but having the option to idle them isn't something I'd say no to (and there probably will be some places where you will need to idle them). Set them up next to an industrial park or other application and choose one which can forgo its heat source on short notice. I suspect you'd find that most industrial processes don't like having their heat source randomly disappear (though running something with sufficiently low capital costs using heat from what would be intermediate load power plants might make sense). Anywhere near the sea coasts, desalination would seem to be an excellent choice. Run the peaking load nuclear units as desalination plants when their contribution to electricity generation is not needed. I'm not sure what to do further inland. That population tends to be coastal does help here, there probably is less you can do further inland though. Synthetic fuels would also be a possibility anywhere that has a decent source of water Of course, by the time society comes to its senses (hope that happens some day) It eventually will, the countries which put their money into nuclear will do better than the ones which waste money on renewables thereby out-competing them (and also becoming the places which get copied). As long as there are many countries technological determinism will hold. we'll have built a bunch of useless high capacity power lines to carry wind power to the extremities of our nations. So maybe you can just site *all* the peaking power nuclear electricity generation near the coast with an associated desalination plant, and run the electricity out on the power lines that were built for the wind farms after folks realize what an expensive mistake that was. Except that the lines for the wind farms don't really go from the coast to where there is demand, instead they go from sparsely populated windy areas to areas of high demand so they'll probably end up useless once the subsidies for wind stop.
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Post by Roger Clifton on Aug 11, 2012 15:47:52 GMT 9.5
@jeff Walther " maybe... site... nuclear electricity generation near the coast ... and run the electricity out on the power lines"
Instead of each power station on the coast, with trunk powerlines running inland, why not instead lay one saltwater pipeline from the coast to the power station, inland? (And with one hypersaline pipeline alongside, going back.)
Populations unsettled by increasing rate of climatic disasters near the coast are quite likely to resettle inland anyway.
If the generator is nuclear, it does not have to be sited on a railway line for coal, or a gas pipeline. Its thus-localised grid does not even have to be part of a national grid. Nuclear does however need lots of cooling, but that could be air cooling instead of water. Or radiative cooling, from hot water pipes.
Nuclear exhaust heat is especially good for desalination. So why not site the nuclear power station where potable water is needed as well as electricity?
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