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Post by cyrilr on Apr 7, 2013 19:49:58 GMT 9.5
The pinguin guy's statements are not absurd. Storage is a massive problem in both cost and scaleability. physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/The fact that Sod calls such statements absurd shows he or she is utterly clueless about the numbers behind storage. Both in materials and dollars, it is absurd beyond reckoning, even with zero cost PV. The notion of zero cost PV is also absurd because PV is non-productive. It produces power 10-15% of the time. In my country we get an average of 9%. This will always be more expensive than coal or gas conventional powerplants. Sod is not qualified to talk about these subjects, and embarrases him or herself with posted studies which prove the point that hydrogen storage (all costs considered) is very expensive. I don't think I should waste any more time trying to convert religious folks like Sod to science and facts. If you believe above all else that nuclear is evil and dangerous and solar is divine and all that's good in the world, we cannot have a good discussion.
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Post by edireland on Apr 7, 2013 21:08:25 GMT 9.5
Even cryogenic hydrogen has a specific gravity of about 0.08.
Storage is a nightmare.
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Post by cyrilr on Apr 8, 2013 0:16:36 GMT 9.5
Even cryogenic hydrogen has a specific gravity of about 0.08. Storage is a nightmare. I think the idea with central station energy storage is to store hydrogen in underground salt domes and the like, under pressure. This should be cheap, though it has never been demonstrated to work - H2 is a Houdini molecule that diffuses through even very dense materials quite easily. Underground reservoirs always have some porosity, and many minerals can be hydrided, so losses to the ground could be large. But if it works then at least for central station application where suitable geology is present, the storage problem appears reasonable.
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Post by edireland on Apr 8, 2013 0:59:07 GMT 9.5
I am not convinced by storing hydrogen for the purposes of generating electricity.
I would think it would be better to use generated hydrogen for various industrial processes and then simply run the electrolysers to soak up any excess generation capacity available.
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Post by cyrilr on Apr 8, 2013 1:15:37 GMT 9.5
I am not convinced by storing hydrogen for the purposes of generating electricity. I would think it would be better to use generated hydrogen for various industrial processes and then simply run the electrolysers to soak up any excess generation capacity available. I'm not convinced either. It is mostly a renewables enthusiast fantasy. Unfortunately most renewables people aren't too familiar with engineering and the business side of things. Hydrogen equipment is very expensive when you add it all up. I doubt even using electrolysers for intermittent off-peak electricity absorption will make sense economically. The equipment costs a lot to buy, maintain and staff, and the energy losses are big (which can be considered a further operational cost). No one will go to all that trouble with the industrial equipment and then run it 20% of the time. Not happening when you can just get cheap fossil and run the equipment 80-90% of the time. Realistically hydrogen will continue to come from natural gas, and won't be used for energy storage, but for making chemicals. Electrolysers can't compete with that, even with 2 cent per kWh electricity.
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Post by sod on Apr 8, 2013 2:51:07 GMT 9.5
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Post by edireland on Apr 8, 2013 5:14:45 GMT 9.5
I'm not convinced either. It is mostly a renewables enthusiast fantasy. Unfortunately most renewables people aren't too familiar with engineering and the business side of things. Hydrogen equipment is very expensive when you add it all up. I doubt even using electrolysers for intermittent off-peak electricity absorption will make sense economically. The equipment costs a lot to buy, maintain and staff, and the energy losses are big (which can be considered a further operational cost). No one will go to all that trouble with the industrial equipment and then run it 20% of the time. Not happening when you can just get cheap fossil and run the equipment 80-90% of the time. Realistically hydrogen will continue to come from natural gas, and won't be used for energy storage, but for making chemicals. Electrolysers can't compete with that, even with 2 cent per kWh electricity. Remember: the peak load would be at something on order of 10% of the time. Almost 90% of the time the peak generating capacity will be free. Solid state Ammonia Synthesis is another example of a process that could be used to soak up power. Additionally there has been some very good work on low capital cost non-membrane electrolysers (using KOH) that trade off somewhat reduced efficiency for very low capital cost. Since the electricity is very cheap this marginally reduced efficiency is not a real problem.
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Post by cyrilr on Apr 8, 2013 5:56:37 GMT 9.5
Wow, 360 kW out of a total of 500000000 kW. Gee whiz i guess I was wrong. The problem is already solved 0.000072%. First you have solar electricity that is more expensive than fossil electricity, then you convert that with great energy loss and cost to hydrogen, in a pilot plant of infinitesimal small size, then you send the hydrogen into the gas grid, where it used to generate electricity again. Rube Goldberg would be proud. You are clueless about cost and efficiency Sod. Like I said you should stop bringing up ideas that prove you're unqualified to discuss. Read my reference about the nation sized battery to get a rough idea of scale.
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Post by sod on Apr 8, 2013 6:47:09 GMT 9.5
Wow, 360 kW out of a total of 500000000 kW. Gee whiz i guess I was wrong. The problem is already solved 0.000072%. First you have solar electricity that is more expensive than fossil electricity, then you convert that with great energy loss and cost to hydrogen, in a pilot plant of infinitesimal small size, then you send the hydrogen into the gas grid, where it used to generate electricity again. Rube Goldberg would be proud. You are clueless about cost and efficiency Sod. Like I said you should stop bringing up ideas that prove you're unqualified to discuss. Read my reference about the nation sized battery to get a rough idea of scale. Rome wasn t built in a day. This is the start. Anon made a claim, about no storage if solar panels were free. I did point out the obvious solution in such a situation. Several people brought up storage as a problem. But storage is no problem at all, as the hydrogen can be simply added to the gas grid. so the last remaining problematic point is the cost. But this will change massively over time. This is also my biggest problem with the paper by palmer, which we are supposed to discuss here. (he does not talk about hydrogen at all, but assumes massive battery storage) With the increase of wind and solar power, there will be massive pressure to improve storage. Prices will change very very fast under such conditions. and it also isn t all about prices. people want storage, to get power independent. people will feel great about charging their car with their own solar panels (even though from an pure economic view a petrol car and the gas station would be cheaper). People want to get rid of the dependence on oil, coal and gas from dubious countries or extraction methods.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 8, 2013 7:22:54 GMT 9.5
I'm not convinced either. It is mostly a renewables enthusiast fantasy. Unfortunately most renewables people aren't too familiar with engineering and the business side of things. Or basic science for that matter. Hydrogen equipment is very expensive when you add it all up. I doubt even using electrolysers for intermittent off-peak electricity absorption will make sense economically. The equipment costs a lot to buy, maintain and staff, and the energy losses are big (which can be considered a further operational cost). No one will go to all that trouble with the industrial equipment and then run it 20% of the time. Not happening when you can just get cheap fossil and run the equipment 80-90% of the time. Realistically hydrogen will continue to come from natural gas, and won't be used for energy storage, but for making chemicals. Electrolysers can't compete with that, even with 2 cent per kWh electricity. Before we figured out how to get the sulphur out of natural gas hydrogen was produced on a large scale (for fertiliser manufacture) by hydroelectricity so if steam reforming of methane were unacceptable we could make what we need for food production and the chemical industry. Rome wasn t built in a day. Working overunity devices weren't built in a day either. Oh wait, they were never built. We don't need a start that may if we wait a few decades and get lucky be useful, we need a solution yesterday. Anon made a claim, about no storage if solar panels were free. I did point out the obvious solution in such a situation. You pointed to something extremely dubious. Even an optimistic assessment is that it'd take at least a decade of intensive R&D before we'd be able to confidently say it'd work and even then it may not be viable. Several people brought up storage as a problem. But storage is no problem at all, as the hydrogen can be simply added to the gas grid. No one has come up a scheme to store energy on that scale that we can confidently say will work. so the last remaining problematic point is the cost. But this will change massively over time. Hydrogen has a low density, it has to be stored somewhere and that somewhere will need a lot of insulation, it's also notorious for leaking. This is also my biggest problem with the paper by palmer, which we are supposed to discuss here. (he does not talk about hydrogen at all, but assumes massive battery storage) Because battery storage is the closest thing we've got to something that could scale to a whole country. With the increase of wind and solar power, there will be massive pressure to improve storage. Prices will change very very fast under such conditions. Just because you put pressure on something to improve doesn't mean it will or that it'll improve enough for what you want it to do. It'd be like trying to train someone in a wheelchair to win a marathon (against normal people), sure you might be able to train them to clumsily walk around with crutches, but they'll never win a race. and it also isn t all about prices. people want storage, to get power independent. people will feel great about charging their car with their own solar panels (even though from an pure economic view a petrol car and the gas station would be cheaper). Only a small subset of people would pay extra to feel good about that. People want to get rid of the dependence on oil, coal and gas from dubious countries or extraction methods. When people really want to get rid of energy dependence they build nuclear reactors, not bird blenders and shiny bits of silicon, it's people who care more about having good intentions than doing good and those who don't want fossil fuels out of business who build the renewable junk.
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Post by quokka on Apr 9, 2013 1:19:34 GMT 9.5
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Post by never again on Apr 9, 2013 4:48:41 GMT 9.5
you did not understand it. a fast growing industry will always be like that. It would be the same, if nuclear would be growing fast. simple example: assume a increase by 1/3 and a payback time of 3 years. every year, the new generations adds the time that the passing year erased...
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Post by trag on Apr 9, 2013 5:06:57 GMT 9.5
sorry, but you can not simply ignore my points. Actually, I can. I've spent months here reading your posts, and every point you've ever made has been wrong. Every bit of support you've marshalled has been discredited. There is no reason for me to continue reading your posts. It is a waste of time. I look forward to the day when the public realizes that this is true of all your ilk.
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Post by trag on Apr 9, 2013 5:13:10 GMT 9.5
I don't think I should waste any more time trying to convert religious folks like Sod to science and facts. If you believe above all else that nuclear is evil and dangerous and solar is divine and all that's good in the world, we cannot have a good discussion. The thing that makes such folks a sink hole of time and resources is the possibility of lurkers. If one does not wish any lurkers to go away with the impression that the unreliables fanatics have a point, then the points must be refuted in public. The refutation is not for the benefit of the fanatic, but for the benefit of any third party reading the discussion. And that's the horrible thing, from an economic point of view. It is like information vandalism. They come along and spray paint their unfounded conclusions, essentially for free, and it requires valuable time and thought to repair the vandalism, by carefully refuting each of their points with information backed up by reliable sources. Unreliables advocates == information vandals. Heh.
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Post by sod on Apr 9, 2013 6:11:05 GMT 9.5
Actually, I can. I've spent months here reading your posts, and every point you've ever made has been wrong. Every bit of support you've marshalled has been discredited. There is no reason for me to continue reading your posts. It is a waste of time. I look forward to the day when the public realizes that this is true of all your ilk. Why don t you tell me what is wrong in the posts i wrote on this topic? Why don t you tell me, what is wrong with the article that we are supposed to discuss here? because on page 5 it says that 5% of solar power can be easily integrated into the grid. Why don t you tell me, what if not solar PV caused the massive drop in SA peak demand?!? reneweconomy.com.au/2013/how-rooftop-solar-is-reshaping-energy-market-in-s-australia-18272/sa_2008_td_time_of_day_average
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Post by anonposter on Apr 9, 2013 6:23:20 GMT 9.5
Why don t you tell me what is wrong in the posts i wrote on this topic? Because it's already been done.
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Post by sod on Apr 10, 2013 1:52:37 GMT 9.5
Just because you put pressure on something to improve doesn't mean it will or that it'll improve enough for what you want it to do. You do not understand the mechanism. this is economic pressure and it is building over years. The palmer paper (and most of you) do not take this into account. Even a few hours of negative pricing can rise a massive interest in storing capabilities. the daytime "load" can double the capacity of storage, together with a night time load (for example from nuclear). this is the avantgarde. you have to add together, the groups that you were forced to admit to benefit from PV solar. and together they form a big group, that will change the way power is produced. you are utterly wrong. Nuclear is just another dependence, from the few places that supply uranium and from big power companies. many people do not want that dependency. you do not get it. nuclear is not always the answer. it is not the answer to daytime peaks. it is not the answer to growing use of air conditioning. it is not the answer to independence from big power companies. Anon, you have not used a single link in this discussion. so all we have, is your word. and you also have not told use, what is causing the dramatic reduction of peak demand that real data (you know, facts!) shows! reneweconomy.com.au/2013/how-rooftop-solar-is-reshaping-energy-market-in-s-australia-18272/sa_2008_td_time_of_day_average
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Post by anonposter on Apr 10, 2013 2:21:59 GMT 9.5
You do not understand the mechanism. this is economic pressure and it is building over years. The palmer paper (and most of you) do not take this into account. Economics has to take a backseat to physics, if it isn't possible to get the improvement you need then it doesn't matter how much economic pressure there is it just won't happen. Even a few hours of negative pricing can rise a massive interest in storing capabilities. Don't subsidise renewable energy and negative pricing will largely disappear. Ah, right, the chattering classes who've made such a mess of things. you have to add together, the groups that you were forced to admit to benefit from PV solar. The major beneficiary of PV solar is the fossil fuel industry. and together they form a big group, that will change the way power is produced. The fossil fuel industry already dominates electricity production. you are utterly wrong. Nuclear is just another dependence, from the few places that supply uranium and from big power companies. many people do not want that dependency. Never mind that you can buy enough fuel to last a nuclear power plant its entire life and store it on site before it even reaches first criticality, how's that for energy security? Never mind that the countries that have lots of Uranium are friendly ones like Australia and Canada or that you need so little fuel that the energy industry doesn't bother counting Uranium as an energy import. I should also note that France has enough Uranium reserves in the country to last them a good couple of decades, but instead of doing domestic Uranium mining they buy from Canada and Australia because their reserves cost more to mine (but it'd still be a lot cheaper than what Germany is doing) but if they were ever to be completely cut off from trade they could still produce electricity. you do not get it. nuclear is not always the answer. True, cars and planes won't be able to have a reactor and sites that are good for hydro and geothermal may also end up better than nuclear. As well as that solar can be useful in space or for low power at remote sites. it is not the answer to daytime peaks. it is not the answer to growing use of air conditioning. It comes a lot closer than ground based solar. it is not the answer to independence from big power companies. A sufficiently small SMR would make a pretty nice home power setup.
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Post by edireland on Apr 10, 2013 2:34:19 GMT 9.5
Nuclear power is a dependency?
I might as well say solar power is just another dependency..... on sand.
Uranium is available anywhere.
Even with today's inefficient LWRs seawater extraction of uranium will be viable, as it will eventually allow uranium production anywhere with a coastline at a price approximately double the current market value. (Japanese research in this field is already well advanced)
Doubling the market value of uranium will have effectively no effect on the production price of nuclear electricity.
And this is before we assume fast reactors, at which point granite has an energy value ten times that of coal.
EDIT:
And solar is not the answer to dependency on "big power companies".... since large solar power plants are less non-viable than the small installations people often pretend a solar rollout would lead to.
Even at today's $660/kg seawater extraction price that comes out at an added cost of roughly 1.2 US cents/kWh. So its not really a deal breaker.
The only solution to "big power companies" is the nationalisation of the electricity supply, but that is a position on which I am in the minority on this board.
EDIT #2:
You could also easily store enough natural uranium to run a power plant for nearly a decade at little cost at the current uranium price of only ~$100/kg. A $16.2m gets you 160t of natural uranium which enriches to something like a years worth of ESBWR fuel. That is enough fuel to produce something like ~$1.4bn dollars.
So $972m could buy 9600t of natural uranium, which would be enough fuel to run the reactor for its entire projected 60 year lifespan.
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Post by quokka on Apr 10, 2013 10:31:50 GMT 9.5
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Post by quokka on Apr 10, 2013 11:01:39 GMT 9.5
The continued narrative of PV offering deliverance from "big energy companies" has it's downsides. The German Greens have always had it in for "big energy companies", possibly because they were operators of nuclear power plants. There was certain amount of dancing on the grave of nuclear when RWE and E.on pulled out of new nuclear build in the UK citing lack of money partly due to shutdown of NPPs in Germany. I read with some sense of irony a recent news story about German "big energy companies" scaling back on plans for German off shore wind, citing lack of money as the reason: www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-04/merkel-losing-allies-in-700-billion-shift-to-renewable-energy.htmlBe careful what you wish for. Like edireland, I'd prefer nationalization or public ownership in some form, but I'm not religious about it. Whatever works. In the real world, only "big energy companies" or the state have access to the kind of capital needed. The notion of an energy transition driven by gazillions of "small shopkeepers" of energy production is delusional.
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Post by Roger Clifton on Apr 10, 2013 17:59:55 GMT 9.5
uranium from seawater cost ... $300/pound with current technology On the basis that the production of 1 GW of electricity fissions 1000 kg/a of uranium, the fissioning of that 454 g of uranium would produce 4 GWh. That $300/lb would amount to 75 microdollars per kWh, so nuclear electricity is not limited by the price of its resource.* Did somebody say that uranium is ultimately a finite resource? Taking any number of bucketfulls out of the Pacific Ocean won't make much difference, so you could say uranium is endlessly renewable. However, rather than use this 1900s word "renewable", we should say that uranium is a sustainable source of energy. Because the atmosphere is already full of waste CO2 and methane, one can hardly say that an intermittent source backed up with hydrocarbon is sustainable. That would include wind-plus-gas, solar-plus-gas, geothermal-plus-gas and so on. (*Slow neutron reactors are several hundred times less efficient than the ideal fast ones, but even then the cost of the raw material is in millidollars per kWh.)
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Post by Graham Palmer on Apr 10, 2013 22:15:40 GMT 9.5
Why don't you tell me, what if not solar PV caused the massive drop in SA peak demand?!? I already answered this question at Reply #9 on Apr 2, 2013, 10:04am But I'll repeat it here: The AEMO news article from Giles’ article states that falling industrial and mining demand, along with the uptake of renewables, has reduced energy demand - it doesn’t quantify the reduction in annual peak demand due to solar nor indicate that it has been significant. To reiterate, falling demand and off-shoring of energy intensive industry, along with a business and residential response to rising energy costs is reducing both energy usage and peak demand. Giles refers to Sandiford’s article, and I quote from Sandiford “With solar PV biting into the daytime demand but barely shaving peak demand, the unit cost of distribution will inevitably rise.” The point of Sandiford’s article (which I cite in the paper) is that PV is reducing the spot price, which will have long term consequences, which I discuss in the paper. Furthermore, although Giles article perhaps doesn't make it clear, the graphs you are referring to are averages of the peaks, not the actual annual peak. I discuss this in my paper in relation to Victoria - see table 2, yes, PV does reduce the peak on SOME days, sometimes by a lot, sometimes by next to nothing, and if you averaged this you would see the average being lowered. But what matters is the annual peak demand. The community will not tolerate blackouts sometimes because sometimes the PV doesn't match properly with demand, and the community and industry will not voluntarily shift their demand to the middle of the day to co-incide with sunny periods. And of course, every region will exhibit its own behavour. Forget about the SA graphs, read the paper and the citations.
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Post by cyrilr on Apr 10, 2013 22:59:42 GMT 9.5
uranium from seawater cost ... $300/pound with current technology On the basis that the production of 1 GW of electricity fissions 1000 kg/a of uranium, the fissioning of that 454 g of uranium would produce 4 GWh. That amounts to 75 micro dollars per kWh, so nuclear electricity is not limited by the price of its resource.. Fissioning 1000 kg of uranium requires a lot more mined or seawater derived uranium than 1000 kg. There are two isotopes of uranium in natural uranium, turns out the one we need with today's light water reactors is only 0.7%, the U235. We'll need about 150-200 tonnes of uranium for 1 ton fissioned inside the reactor. So more like 1.1 - 1.5 cent/kWh.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 11, 2013 3:24:03 GMT 9.5
On the basis that the production of 1 GW of electricity fissions 1000 kg/a of uranium, the fissioning of that 454 g of uranium would produce 4 GWh. That amounts to 75 micro dollars per kWh, so nuclear electricity is not limited by the price of its resource.. Fissioning 1000 kg of uranium requires a lot more mined or seawater derived uranium than 1000 kg. There are two isotopes of uranium in natural uranium, turns out the one we need with today's light water reactors is only 0.7%, the U235. We'll need about 150-200 tonnes of uranium for 1 ton fissioned inside the reactor. So more like 1.1 - 1.5 cent/kWh. One word: Breeders.
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Post by David Walters on Apr 11, 2013 6:23:29 GMT 9.5
Going back to the issue on one kind of power for the grid (such as hydro) is, as Cyril noted, possible by the serendipity of geography at best. We should add some other countries, large producers (and some smaller ones as well).
Let us look at Brazil: 84% of power was from hydro, 3.5% from gas, 4% from biomass, just over 5% from coal and oil, and 3% (12.4 million kWh) from nuclear. This is HUGE. But most of they hydro is produced 1500 to 2400 miles from its source and, it's hydro in tropical regions is extremely susceptible to climate change. Brazil, smartly, is building nuclear plants to "anchor" the grid. The western based hydro will be balanced by some nuclear on the east coast of Brazil.
Venezuela, which gets 70% of its energy from hydro, had to cut back due to climate change which reduced reservoirs, and thus head pressure, and thus energy from the gravity of the water.
Norway, of course, gets 99% of it's generation from hydro. Nice. Good for them. I'm all for it. Like Iceland's geothermal energy they simply don't need anything else. Again, good.
So we have to exclude these countries and look at what all countries are doing, which is in fact mixing- and - matching generation. S. Korea is going from 29% nuclear for their grid to 49%. But they are increasing wind and coal and gas as well. Maybe not so good.
But Sod is correct in one area: nuclear would be great matched with unreliable renewable energy (though, to be honest, I question now whether wind is actually a truly sustainable energy given the massive amounts of rare-earth magnets they consume).
The only reason people believe nuclear can't load following is financial, not technical. Financing a section of a reactors output in the same manner as a GT peaker would allow the reactor to load follow and "sell their availability" to the sys-op. I think it will become easier when the smaller, faster load changing SMRs come on line and only get easier along the way (that a nuclear plant can follow load is proven and practiced in France, that it can do this all day long is another question).
I would gladly see nuclear have 100% of baseload generation (by this I mean the minimum 365 day load point at the low for the early morning) and "give" renewables everything above that and see what happens. Gladly. This would mean about a 50% capacity for nuclear and 40% to be made up of renewables.
David
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Post by edireland on Apr 11, 2013 8:50:27 GMT 9.5
Fuel costs for reactors are currently so low compared to total operating costs that you could just keep a light water reactor at full power and dump any steam that can't be consumed by the grid coupled turbogenerators to the condenser.
But I still think industrial processes that can rapidly trip out from 100% load to near 0% load will make "peaking power" meaningless.
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Post by anonposter on Apr 11, 2013 10:20:46 GMT 9.5
But Sod is correct in one area: nuclear would be great matched with unreliable renewable energy The best I would say there is that it'd be an improvement over having only the unreliable renewable energy, I think a combination of nuclear and wind or solar could be improved by ditching the wind or solar (probably why the renewable energy industry isn't interested in using nuclear for backup, they know that it'd make what they sell superfluous). (though, to be honest, I question now whether wind is actually a truly sustainable energy given the massive amounts of rare-earth magnets they consume). You could make the generators without rare-earths if you had to, they just wouldn't be as good. I would gladly see nuclear have 100% of baseload generation (by this I mean the minimum 365 day load point at the low for the early morning) and "give" renewables everything above that and see what happens. Gladly. This would mean about a 50% capacity for nuclear and 40% to be made up of renewables. With the exception of Norway and countries like it I doubt 40% renewables would be better than running your nuclear reactors at half load overnight. But I still think industrial processes that can rapidly trip out from 100% load to near 0% load will make "peaking power" meaningless. Main problem here would be capital expense, if the equipment is expensive then it'll probably make more sense to run it all the time so that kind of load would require high energy use but cheap equipment.
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Post by Roger Clifton on Apr 11, 2013 12:10:24 GMT 9.5
Today's light water reactors ... need about 150-200 tonnes of (natural) uranium for 1 ton fissioned inside the reactor. So more like 1.1 - 1.5 cent/kWh. I think we agree ... using 200 t of natural uranium @$300 per gigawatt annum => 200 t *2240 lb/t * 300 $/t div_by 8766 h/a = 15 k$/GWh = 15 m$/kWh for the raw material. That is, 1.5 c/kWh as you said. But uranium is much cheaper (currently 110 $/kg metal) and likely to stay well below because uranium is more plentiful on land than in (more alkaline) seawater. Isn't the cost of LWR fuel, other than raw material, dominated by enrichment and manufacture? Even there, enrichment stands to get cheaper with the introduction of the Silex process. Correspondingly the main cost of plutonium fuel for fast reactors would have to be the cost of recycling irradiated fuel. Does anyone know relative cost estimates for U-enrichment versus reprocessing of IFR fuel to IFR fuel? It raises the possibility that operators of fast neutron reactors would consider it cheaper to enrich uranium and off-load the once-used fuel. Desirable to U-miners, but avoidably wasteful.
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 11, 2013 13:44:49 GMT 9.5
Not precisely but I estimate 4--6 mils/kWh equivalent.
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