hank
Gluon
Freefall cartoon (c) Stanley 2013 freefall.purrsia.com
Posts: 10
|
Post by hank on Dec 29, 2013 15:32:19 GMT 9.5
What I miss -- and I'd be grateful for a pointer if it's available somewhere: Plans to manage supplying cooldown power to all of continent's fission plants all at the same time for a year or two. It's doable -- given complete love match between all the possible backup power sources that could keep going while the utility grid, and the refineries, and most transport was being put back into operation, set up around each fission plant and wired together to keep cooling pumps running. What's the chance of that being needed? Oh, how about -- 12 percent. In a decade. Seems to me this is in the "unthinkable thoughts" category, the Cassandra file: -----excerpt follows------ Speaking at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California, earlier this month, space physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado in Boulder used data from a massive 2012 solar storm, which was captured by NASA’s space observatory STEREO-A, to warn policy-makers of the dangers of severe space weather. During the 2012 storm, the massive ejection of material sent billions of tonnes of solar particles into space, initially at speeds of more than 11 million kilometres per hour. In this case, the ejection occurred on the far side of the Sun. If the same event had occurred just a week later, the Sun's rotation would have meant that Earth would have been affected. Gibbs says that the ferocity of the event was comparable to that of the famous Carrington storm of 1859, during which night skies became so bright that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight and telegraph systems caught fire. There is a 12% chance of that kind of event occurring in the next decade, he adds. -----end excerpt------ Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2013.14432 www.nature.com/news/uk-bolsters-defences-against-crippling-solar-storms-1.14432
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Dec 30, 2013 7:11:59 GMT 9.5
A global blackout for multiple years would easily kill over a billion people in chaos and war.
I don't think the nuclear plants will kill even a thousand. I don't think that people will worry much about a few dozen Fukushima's going on because a bunch of plants can't bring in enough diesel fuel beyond a typical supply of a week or so. The more because there's no television morons to blurp out hysterical stories about it.
Still, the amount of diesel fuel beyond the onsite supply is modest, and the heavy rebar inside the diesel generator buildings/turbine buildings protects against EMP so they should all work.
A few liters of diesel fuel per hour would be sufficient to run some emergency injection pumps. So in a pinch, you bring in a single diesel car and its fuel tank can supply emergency makeup feed and bleed (boiloff) cooling for a few days. Or you manage a diesel truck and it will supply several months of such emergency injection.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Dec 30, 2013 20:28:54 GMT 9.5
The grids would be more at risk than the generators. A solar storm affects us primarily as a rapidly changing magnetic field. Any loop of conductor will develop an EMF around the circuit, in proportion to the area enclosed. That would explain the flashover that the 1800s telegraphers noted. I guess you could get a shock from an enclosing security fence when you break the circuit by opening the gate ! How fast the magnetic perturbation rises and falls will be significant too. I do know that in the past Canadian transformers have been blocked with a DC signal (DC compared to the normal AC) that shifted the magnetic field of the transformer core, so the Canadians will certainly have fixed that problem since and presumably the rest of world have learnt from it. Similarly, any long length of conductor will develop a current and PD relative to the less conducting ground beneath it. But any electrical system exposed like this would already have flashover features to protect against lightning, so its protection is already in place. Perhaps secondary conductors, such as a water pipe or telephone lines would become electrified. Presumably, a distributed generation system such as wind or solar, with its own private grid, would require expenditure on protective measures. However, as CyrilR points out, a nuclear reactor is already protected by its own cage of reinforcing rods in its containment structure. So in that regard at least, nuclear is cheaper.
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Dec 30, 2013 21:04:39 GMT 9.5
What is the maximum extent of damage for a solar storm? Does it affect the whole earth or only the portion of the earth pointed to the sun? If the latter, a global blackout would not be possible and recovery would be relatively rapid (other countries could send supplies/repairers).
If on the other hand a global blackout is possible, then it is clear we should do something about it; not because of nuclear plants, but because of the billion + possible death toll from chaos, famine (no fertilizer, no food distribution infrastructure), etc.
How plausible is this, really? If the chance is 12% per year, how come we've never had nation sized blackouts? Electricity grids have been commonplace for many decades now. Most likely the damage is a lot more local and limited on the surface than doomers would have us believe..
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Dec 31, 2013 16:59:46 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 1, 2014 7:28:13 GMT 9.5
Roger Clifton --- The concern is that of frying major transformers. There is no stockpile of replacements.
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Jan 1, 2014 22:12:50 GMT 9.5
Roger Clifton --- The concern is that of frying major transformers. There is no stockpile of replacements. So once again my question, how many times has this actually happened? Transformers have been around for a long time and there have been many solar storms. I can't find any major transformer failure in history.
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 2, 2014 7:34:23 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Jan 2, 2014 9:18:14 GMT 9.5
Thanks. So we have a 9 hour local grid blackout in only one country, as a historic event. Hardly the doom scenario of a 2 year blackout of the world. It seems also that regions at low latitudes are safe even in a large solar storm, and that the solar storm is a highly localized phenomenon in terms of damage (it hit New Zealand but not Tasmania/southern Australia).
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 2, 2014 10:18:17 GMT 9.5
cyrilr --- Carrington events are presumed to be rare. However, if one should occur current power grids are not adequately defended against serious, semi-permanent damage. Without much difficulty you can find reports from other countries of serious difficulties for extended times. Try South Africa. Long transmission lines are especially troublesome. Installation of more, quite substantially capable protective gear is probably prudent. Locally SEL makes such and is a world-wide vendor: www.selinc.com/I point out that FERC now expects utilities to begin stockpiling generic power transformers, just in case. So they take the treat seriously. I'll add that 12% risk in the next decade would require great support. I don't see it. Maybe 1%? But even that represents quite a blow to an unprepared economy which depends upon the power grid.
|
|
hank
Gluon
Freefall cartoon (c) Stanley 2013 freefall.purrsia.com
Posts: 10
|
Post by hank on Jan 6, 2014 10:54:25 GMT 9.5
People who've done the arithmetic and understand the risk: www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/roscoe-bartlett-congressman-off-the-grid-101720_full.html"After a solar storm knocked out power in Quebec for 12 hours in 1989, the Canadian government invested $1.2 billion in hardening its grid, but no similar actions have been taken in the United States." www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/06/study-new-york-dc-vulnerable-to-massive-solar-storms"A similar event today would cost between $600 billion and $2.6 trillion and could knock out the power grid between Washington and New York for up to two years, according to a June report by Lloyd’s, a British group that assesses risk for insurance companies." www.lloyds.com/the-market/tools-and-resources/research/exposure-management/emerging-risks/emerging-risk-reports/business/solar-storm"A little common sense. This will happen, and we’re not ready for it.” As noted, there was a Carrington-size solar flare event recently --luckily for us it was on the other side of the Sun and missed Earth. Do we feel lucky? Fission plants surrounded by enough sustainable tech -- continuously upgraded as the tech improves, a constantly maintained source of available power sufficient to run the cooling system to shutdown during a long grid outage -- are a no-brainer, seems to me. Only people who hate one or the other kind of power -- for whatever ideological reason -- could imagine we don't absolutely, completely, need both kinds, built together. For when they're needed -- when they're off the grid. While they're not needed, they're a test bed, a proving ground, a little extra chance to make a little money by maintaining the system against the day that nothing else works, and the fission piles absolutely have to be cooled down over months on local power sources. We ain't gonna do this with bicycle generators. Which will have likely failed, by the way. It's not rocket science. Do it like this: www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-book.htmlYes, it adds slightly to the short term cost of each fission plant. Yes, it avoids the cost of dealing with a loss of the grid for longer -- months longer -- than local diesel power is available. Yes, it significantly adds support to the need for sustainable power, funds improving it, and makes friends of competitors. Yes, we'd get to keep the fission plants and put them back on line as the grid was restored. What could go wrong?
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 7, 2014 7:14:56 GMT 9.5
hank --- One alternative, available in a few years, is to add a Nuscale 45 MWe NPP to each and every nuclear park. Then there is 45 MWe available locally for however long the actinide load lasts.
Other advantages will come to mind.
|
|
hank
Gluon
Freefall cartoon (c) Stanley 2013 freefall.purrsia.com
Posts: 10
|
Post by hank on Jan 7, 2014 7:47:03 GMT 9.5
> available in a few years
We can fervently hope.
I'd like to see a comparison of the costs for various ways to guarantee that cooldown power being available -- talking turkey on costs, as the topic says.
Thoughts: At the rate solar panel efficiency is increasing, last year's solar panels could be resold on the used home market, and next year's swapped into a large commercial array, constantly upgrading a system, maybe even turning a slight profit. The big deal in solar PV, I think, is real estate - capture the surface area for collectors, then keep improving the collectors.
Could a Nuscale 45 MWe NPP be run up from cold start in the time that diesel and battery power would be available, in a Carrington event worst case? Or would you have to keep them running (meaning have two, one to swap out when it needed to be recycled)?
Could a Nuscale 45 run at low enough output to have no attached load _except_ the cooldown system for a large fission operation (which might be variable, if say half a dozen piles in various states of operation were the load)?
I ask because I often see naive readers claim a fission plant can produce power to cool itself down -- not realizing that a generator has to have a load attached, and the big power plants can't make a _little_ electricity, they have to have the grid to accept their output, or shut down generation.
I'd guess (for some sites) a molten salt store with waste heat from a working fission plant could be kept available as a fast heat source for turbines to run a cooldown process -- again, in combination with other tech. For other sites, a pumped storage lake to spin the turbines.
I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of technologist, having seen everything breaks sometimes. _________ The future is always farther away than it appears; fusion power was 30 years away for the past fifty years. Last I heard it was 8-1/3 minutes away, but not getting any closer.
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 7, 2014 9:25:18 GMT 9.5
hank --- The Nuscale unit is small enough to start up with no electricity requirement whatsoever. At a mere 45 MWe it won't be long until it is producing power, not hours. Like all NPPs it can run, not efficiently, down to around 20% of maximum output. In any case, one can certainly replace the typical diesel generator with ample power to spare. www.nuscalepower.com/
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Jan 8, 2014 2:04:39 GMT 9.5
ESBWR needs a 9hp pump to pump water into its Isolation Condensor units. If that pump is available it can stay shut down indefinitely with no core damage issues.
Supporting a 9hp diesel generator is not beyond the means of a reasonably sized diesel store.
You could fuel it with 44 gallon drums.
You could use a larger mobile generating set to black start power stations one after another.
EDIT:
And as to not being able to island a power station.... why the hell don't you just have a huge resistor grid bank outside that can absorb the minimum sustainable output of the power station? Or just do what Bruce NPP did in a major blackout and dump steam from its steam generators while keeping the reactor spooled to 60% rated output?
If the main steam turbine set can't accept such a low load you can install a second turbine set that is sufficient to generate power for the station's own loads.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Jan 8, 2014 14:49:50 GMT 9.5
After the first five years, you will have a store of used fuel at site,still producing considerable heat. How about thermo-electric generation from this fuel?
|
|
hank
Gluon
Freefall cartoon (c) Stanley 2013 freefall.purrsia.com
Posts: 10
|
Post by hank on Jan 10, 2014 4:55:07 GMT 9.5
Folks, in the spirit of "talking turkey about costs" -- would you, please? I can't tell if the above responses are from nuclear engineers who have done the calculations for their suggestions -- if you are, please show your work. Show what the actual costs are. If the ideas are "hey this might work" please say so. My question is what the cost is to manage the identified risk. Take the assumption made by Lloyd's of London: www.lloyds.com/~/media/Lloyds/Reports/Emerging%20Risk%20Reports/Solar%20Storm%20Risk%20to%20the%20North%20American%20Electric%20Grid.pdf"It depends" as they say: "These risk factors can be combined for each EHV transformer and then summarised to estimate the relative risk by county. The scale of relative risk ranges over a factor of 1000 (Figure 4). This means that for some counties, the chance of an average transformer experiencing a damaging geomagnetically induced current is more than 1000 times that risk in the lowest risk county. The regions with the highest risk are along the corridor between Washington D.C. and New York City. Other high-risk regions are the Midwest and regions along the Gulf Coast."
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Jan 10, 2014 7:59:28 GMT 9.5
hank --- I'm an engineer, just not a nuclear one. However, I do have direct access to those highly knowledgeable regarding matters nuclear.
Adding an SMR such as the Nuscale unit to an existing nuclear park just to provide emergency cooling power would be quite expensive. Whether it is worth the risk reduction obtained others should decide. However, at the same time it would supply some peaking power to attempt to compete with the natgas guys. That should lower the LCOE somewhat.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Jan 10, 2014 17:26:34 GMT 9.5
Having a number of small reactors, heat removed by a salt and feeding a buffer pool of heated salt, could supply power to meet varying demand. It could also provide back up to variable sources like wind or solar. Renewables and nuclear need not always compete;they can also provide mutual support. Diesel (fossil fuel) powered generators are generally provided as assured power in all power stations.
|
|
|
Post by sod on Jan 13, 2014 6:40:02 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by Bas on Jan 13, 2014 18:43:25 GMT 9.5
If we take the Hinkley plant, the new price seems to be 9.6 billion €. (16 billion pound for 3,200 MW) ... Why did EdF demand a guarantee of double the current price, if production is that cheap? ( a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (in 2012 prices)) That guarantee of £92.50/MWh is only half of the story. It is for all electricity produced during 35 years (not the 20 years with as with solar). And that price is inflation corrected (not with renewable)! So with 2% inflation it will be £112 in 2023 (earliest start date), £143 in 2035 half way the guarantee period. Furthermore Government gives loan guarantee of £10billion. The ~8% rise in interest rates for these projects that banks require, show the value of the estimated risk which is now carried by tax-payers. So that guarantee subsidy has a value of £800million/year. A value of ~£20/MWh (assuming the loan is redeemed during the 35 years guarantee period). Furthermore Government takes the liability risks. Assume it is 10 times safer than current NPP's, that implies one disaster per 40K years per reactor. Considering major winds do not blow into the ocean but towards a.o. London, a damage of a trillion may easy occur. That implies an insurance premium of £250million/year. Together with decommissioning and waste subsidies that is ~£400million/year. Another add on of ~£10/MWh. So in 2023 the real costs of Hinckley are ~10+20+112 = £132/MWh going up with inflation. Germany: FiT solar now €99/MWh during 20yrs. Long term trend ~8%/year decrease. Fit wind now €88/MWh during 15yrs. Long term trend ~3%/year decrease (that decrease may end with ~20MW wind turbines, which the EU study showed to be the max. feasible with present technology) Considering this picture, it is hard to see that in the long range UK rate/tax payers are better off than the Germans.
|
|
|
Post by QuarkingMad on Jan 14, 2014 11:15:45 GMT 9.5
If we take the Hinkley plant, the new price seems to be 9.6 billion €. (16 billion pound for 3,200 MW) ... Why did EdF demand a guarantee of double the current price, if production is that cheap? ( a "strike price" – for electricity from Hinkley Point C of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (in 2012 prices)) That guarantee of £92.50/MWh is only half of the story. It is for all electricity produced during 35 years (not the 20 years with as with solar). And that price is inflation corrected (not with renewable)! So with 2% inflation it will be £112 in 2023 (earliest start date), £143 in 2035 half way the guarantee period. Furthermore Government gives loan guarantee of £10billion. The ~8% rise in interest rates for these projects that banks require, show the value of the estimated risk which is now carried by tax-payers. So that guarantee subsidy has a value of £800million/year. A value of ~£20/MWh (assuming the loan is redeemed during the 35 years guarantee period). Furthermore Government takes the liability risks. Assume it is 10 times safer than current NPP's, that implies one disaster per 40K years per reactor. Considering major winds do not blow into the ocean but towards a.o. London, a damage of a trillion may easy occur. That implies an insurance premium of £250million/year. Together with decommissioning and waste subsidies that is ~£400million/year. Another add on of ~£10/MWh. So in 2023 the real costs of Hinckley are ~10+20+112 = £132/MWh going up with inflation. Germany: FiT solar now €99/MWh during 20yrs. Long term trend ~8%/year decrease. Fit wind now €88/MWh during 15yrs. Long term trend ~3%/year decrease (that decrease may end with ~20MW wind turbines, which the EU study showed to be the max. feasible with present technology) Considering this picture, it is hard to see that in the long range UK rate/tax payers are better off than the Germans. They determined the strike prices for onshore and offshore wind the same time they did the Hinkley Nuclear strike price. Guess which was the cheaper of the three?
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Jan 14, 2014 22:34:26 GMT 9.5
Because that is the price they were able to extort from the Government. Renewables are even more expensive than that so they were able to bully the Government into accepting that ridiculously large price. Also how exactly do expect there to be a trillion pounds worth of damage from the reactors going bad? That is something like 10% of the combined value of all the real estate in the United Kingdom. Even Chernobyl couldn't cause that much damage.
|
|
|
Post by Bas on Jan 15, 2014 19:14:07 GMT 9.5
Renewables are even more expensive than that so they were able to bully the Government into accepting that ridiculously large price. Also how exactly do expect there to be a trillion pounds worth of damage from the reactors going bad? That is something like 10% of the combined value of all the real estate in the United Kingdom. Even Chernobyl couldn't cause that much damage. " Chernobyl" The major winds went to the thinly populated north. Still the damage is €200 - €500billion. With southern winds, Kiev (capital of Ukraine) would have been deserted. And the damage n times higher. In Fukushima the winds blew 99% of the time towards the ocean. Estimations are already €200billion, still growing. And the evacuated zone contains areas up to 80km away from Fukushima. " trillion pounds worth of damage" At Hinckley Point west winds prevail. Area not thinly populated. Just look at the exclusion zone of Chernobyl and put that on UK. Major radio-activity may even reach to London. But that would be bad luck, crippling UK for centuries, and create a damage >10trillion.
But one may assume that other towns are lost (exclusion zone), such as Bristol, Gloucester, etc. Together with the lost businesses, offices, factories, infra-structure no longer used, etc. a trillion is a fairly low estimation, it can easily become n times more.
"Renewables are more expensive" May be in the fantasy of UK government. In my previous post I showed that: - in 2023 the real costs of Hinckley are ~10+20+112 = £132/MWh going up further with inflation. That is £158/MWh in 2040 halfway the 35 year guarantee period (2% inflation). - FiT solar in Germany now €99/MWh (=£83/MWh) during 20yrs (then whole sale market price). Long term trend ~8%/year decrease. So in 2023 ~£36/MWh. Going down towards towards £10-20/MWh levels according to experts (present yield of ~16% will rise towards >40%, the Dutch solar car that won the N-S Australian race had some of those panels). - Fit wind now €88/MWh (=£74/MWh) during 15yrs (then whole sale market price). Long term trend ~3%/year decrease. That is £55/MWh in 2023. We have to add the cost of storage and grid expansion (also some savings with solar on the roof; and the grid costs are also subsidized for Hinckley Point C). German scenario studies, estimate that those are ~£10/MWh (they spent ~€200million on those). So at the start of Hinckley Point C the costs are ~£132/MWh, going up further with inflation. While then (solar+wind+storage) cost ~£65/MWh, going down. Btw. While Germany with less wind than UK, has ~30GW onshore wind turbines and only ~1GW offshore due to the high costs of offshore, UK choose to install almost only offshore. So the costs of the new NPP show more favorable. Similar with the high UK solar FiT's in UK. I expect that those will be decreased as soon as Hinckley Point C has all licenses and cannot be stopped anymore. Especially if one consider that German government does not dare to make predictions for the FiT for more than a year ahead, as they were repeatedly surprised by the cost price decrease of solar which caused an explosion of new installations. In 2011 and 2012 ~7-8GW/a, which caused grid issues as grid upgrades did not go faster (the 'scenario' normal rate is ~2.5GW/a). You also see lot of solar panels in the north of Germany, which has a latitude halfway UK. Furthermore UK has lot more coast. And the sun shines significant more at the coast. So there is little reason that UK FiT for solar should be much higher. While the FiT for wind should be much lower as UK has far more wind. If UK needs more pumped storage, Norway's state owned utility Statkraft, is eager to help. They have huge amounts of unused mountain lakes for that. Statkraft buys electricity at low prices and sell when prices are higher. Note that they are eager now as the Germans hardly need any of their pumped storage (even the pumped storage facilities within Germany make losses; new installation stopped). And electricity-to-fuel/gas pilot plants are springing up (BMW has a 2MW plant producing car fuel). Furthermore Germany started with battery subsidies for roof-top solar households, expecting/hoping a similar decrease of battery costs as with solar, filling in the second target of the Energiewende; democratize electricity (first target: nuclear off).
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Jan 15, 2014 23:00:00 GMT 9.5
At 5 million pounds a megawatt, they should not have accepted the offer. Chinese or Indian reactors cost less than half that. May be the Russians too. They should accept the Prism offer and once assured that fast reactors can work, get the Russian bids for fast reactors too. They could also build one of the successful ones under licence.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Jan 16, 2014 13:45:49 GMT 9.5
Jagdish - check me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a buyer would get into trouble with the IP (patents etc) if building such nukes outside of India and China. The most likely production reactors, the Indian PHWR contains Candu design elements and China's CAP1400 includes AP1000. However, I do agree that we need someone to build and prove a S-PRISM or similar fast neutron reactor. An emergency rollout of nukes requires a start-up charge of fuel in each. Although the world has a shortage of slow neutron fuel (enriched 235) facilities, there is a surfeit of fast neutron fuel (stockpiled 239/240 etc), so we may need a proven fast neutron design for the first mass production runs. We need all the bottlenecks solved by the time the starter's gun goes off.
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Jan 16, 2014 15:48:53 GMT 9.5
UK, as also France and Russia built their nuclear power plants when the US treated all thing nuclear as their own property. At least the Russians have their VVER which they are building the world over. A tried and tested VVER-1000 would be safer and cost-effective as compared to the EPR. A fast reactor is also important for en-cashing the UK's investment in plutonium. If an economical reactor fuel processing system is developed, the UK is set for energy security for a long time. The Russian method is more likely to be cost-effective.
|
|
|
Post by edireland on Jan 17, 2014 13:58:45 GMT 9.5
Renewables are even more expensive than that so they were able to bully the Government into accepting that ridiculously large price. Also how exactly do expect there to be a trillion pounds worth of damage from the reactors going bad? That is something like 10% of the combined value of all the real estate in the United Kingdom. Even Chernobyl couldn't cause that much damage. " Chernobyl" The major winds went to the thinly populated north. Still the damage is €200 - €500billion. What damage? There has been no 500 billion euro cleanup programme and there never will be? The cost of the Chernobyl Radiation damage in Britain was restrictions on the production of lamb that was only sustained by subsidies anyway so it could be argued that it saved us money. Is this one of these cost estimates that is engineered to produce enormous figures that have no basis in reality, like the one about the cost of road transport in the UK actually being tens of billions of pounds a year even though cost on roads is a tenth of that? In Fukushima the winds blew 99% of the time towards the ocean. Estimations are already €200billion, still growing. Estimates for Fukushima Cleanup are sort of impossible to derive independently and always will be, since most of the areas that will 'nee'd cleanup were covered by Tsunami debris at the time of the accident. And the evacuated zone contains areas up to 80km away from Fukushima. And yet the total area actually inside the evacuation zone is small and is growing smaller all the time despite the fact there has been no two hundred billion euro cleanup programme. " trillion pounds worth of damage" At Hinckley Point west winds prevail. Area not thinly populated. Just look at the exclusion zone of Chernobyl and put that on UK. Major radio-activity may even reach to London. But that would be bad luck, crippling UK for centuries, and create a damage >10trillion.So it can cause damage greater than the value of all fixed assets in the United Kingdom? How exactly is that going to happen? Will all of London be burned down and all inhabitants simultaneously commit suicide out of fear of the horrific deaths that supposedly await them from radaition? REmember that the lower permeability of cityscapes will in fact reduce costs since radioisotope infilitration into the soil will be drastically reduced as it will run directly over easily cleaned concrete, glass and steel into the groundwater systems and hence into the North Sea. Additionally the zone of Alienation from Chernobyl contains some 2600 square kilometres, which is something less than twice the area of Greater London meaning very little of the area around the plant would actually have to be evacuated in order for even a great majority of London to be inside an exclusion zone. But one may assume that other towns are lost (exclusion zone), such as Bristol, Gloucester, etc. As someone who is familiar with the Geography of the United Kingdom, it would be very difficult for radiation clouds to cause significant damage to Gloucester or Bristol as even the latter is over 40km from the plant, which would put it outside of the bulk of the plume and unlikely to require massive evacuations, especially if Potassium Iodide tablets or solution drops are made available to the populace and they shelter in place. Even superimposing the radiation cloud distribution from Fukushima on Hinkley Point in the orientation most favourable to produce casualties they would be exposed to less than 100mSv in almost all cases. While this is high for general population it is unlikely to cause significant increases in cancer risks. Here is a handy image with dose rates in mSv/yr Together with the lost businesses, offices, factories, infra-structure no longer used, etc. a trillion is a fairly low estimation, it can easily become n times more. Considering the combined value of all real estate in the United Kingdom is about £9.5tn, it is hard to believe that a trillion could possibly be a low estimate since you would end up discussing the complete evacuation of most of the country's land area to cause such excessive damage and that is never going to happen even if we had multiple Chernobyl level accidents. " Renewables are more expensive" May be in the fantasy of UK government. In my previous post I showed that: - in 2023 the real costs of Hinckley are ~10+20+112 = £132/MWh going up further with inflation. That is £158/MWh in 2040 halfway the 35 year guarantee period (2% inflation). - FiT solar in Germany now €99/MWh (=£83/MWh) during 20yrs (then whole sale market price). Long term trend ~8%/year decrease. So in 2023 ~£36/MWh. Going down towards towards £10-20/MWh levels according to experts (present yield of ~16% will rise towards >40%, the Dutch solar car that won the N-S Australian race had some of those panels). - Fit wind now €88/MWh (=£74/MWh) during 15yrs (then whole sale market price). Long term trend ~3%/year decrease. That is £55/MWh in 2023. You do realise how FiTs and Strike prices work right? A strike price is agreed with the operator when the generator begins operation and then this price holds for the entire contract, only changing through its uprating with inflation. The current strike price for wind is ~£110/MWh and thus any wind installations that are committed to construction will expect this strike price to be held throughout the agreement period. You can't use the projected price of wind and solar power 35 years from now to attack nuclear power. We have to add the cost of storage and grid expansion (also some savings with solar on the roof; and the grid costs are also subsidized for Hinckley Point C). German scenario studies, estimate that those are ~£10/MWh (they spent ~€200million on those). Grid Expansion costs at Hinkley Point are marginal since there is already a 400kV Grid Supply Point on site from Hinkley Point A and B with installed connection capacity being something 1500MWe from those previous reactors (since they did operate simultaneously) - it will however need expanding to take the full ~3000MWe. This is going to be rather cheaper than an enormous new infrastructure distributed everywhere. So at the start of Hinckley Point C the costs are ~£132/MWh, going up further with inflation. While then (solar+wind+storage) cost ~£65/MWh, going down. And for the record Rooftop Solar is going to be near useless in the UK for reasons I have previous outlined and will not peak shave in the slightest, but even so I will have to take the time to point out that it is not going to be cheaper. Household scale Rooftop Solar currently recieves a FiT of £149.50/MWh plus the export tarrif of a further £42/MWh taking us to £191.50, or twice the nuclear strike rpice. Large scale solars subsidy comes out something in the region of £110/MWh and will be almost useless since it will produce almost all its power during high summer when our demand is at rock bottom. It will produce very little of its electricity (on order of a few percent) during the winter when we actually need it, and even then it will almost all be at the wrong time of day. Once you add storage this number will be going up. And while in the long term it will be going down the rate of descent has been dropping drastically, I remember when FiT was first introduced it dropped by £100/MWh in the first year and it obviously hasn't continued to do that since otherwise Solar would be paying a charge several times the grid price of electricity by now. Btw. While Germany with less wind than UK, has ~30GW onshore wind turbines and only ~1GW offshore due to the high costs of offshore, Yes, Offshore is more expensive, but the United Kingdom is surprisingly small when you consider the sites suitable for turbine installation. If you run the numbers for a mostly on shore wind power system in the UK you end up with so many turbines that the average number visible from any point in the United Kingdom will be in the high double figures. Try getting that past the populace who enjoy their bucolic view of the 'Great British Countryside'. UK choose to install almost only offshore. So the costs of the new NPP show more favorable. You try finding the positions for thousands of hundred+ metre superturbines of the type that are now dominating commercial wind installations. The optimal spacings alone will make the array cover a rather large part of the UK. Similar with the high UK solar FiT's in UK. I expect that those will be decreased as soon as Hinckley Point C has all licenses and cannot be stopped anymore. Somehow I doubt it considering that the Solar FiT has been attacked for being too low already and that the number of new installations of solar panels has gone off a cliff. Also noone has explained to me how these solar panels will produce useful power in January, or during the peak periods in Januray, which occur during the hours of darkness. You also see lot of solar panels in the north of Germany, which has a latitude halfway UK. Furthermore UK has lot more coast. And the sun shines significant more at the coast. So there is little reason that UK FiT for solar should be much higher. While the FiT for wind should be much lower as UK has far more wind. Having more wind does not necessarily make it cheaper to collect, the turbines have come across major opposition on the grounds that the onshore installations are so huge that they are considered to have major negative effects on the countryside, plus the documented instances of rare birds being killed by bird strikes on the turbines. The fact remains that solar installations have dropped drastically since the last batch of FiT cuts does not bode well for the future of Solar in the UK. If UK needs more pumped storage, Norway's state owned utility Statkraft, is eager to help. They have huge amounts of unused mountain lakes for that. That would require us to suborn ourselves to a foreign power, they would have the ability to crash our electricity grid on a whim. And if something bad happens and europe is begging for whatever stored electricity is available thanks to Russia tightening its squeeze on the gas feeds into Europe as part of its dealings with the Ukraine or similar, I would rather not be in an auction with the entirity of EUrope bidding for power. Note that they are eager now as the Germans hardly need any of their pumped storage (even the pumped storage facilities within Germany make losses; new installation stopped). And electricity-to-fuel/gas pilot plants are springing up (BMW has a 2MW plant producing car fuel). That plant is never going to make any money, as I have said before it is purely an energy experiment subsidised by a state research grant. Furthermore Germany started with battery subsidies for roof-top solar households, expecting/hoping a similar decrease of battery costs as with solar, filling in the second target of the Energiewende; democratize electricity (first target: nuclear off). There is no need to embrace distributed generation to 'democractise' electricity generation. All you have to do is nationalise the system. But that is socialist and is thus a forbidden idea in the glorious new future where corporations rule. And if the costs of this transistion are so slight as you suggest, why on earth would heavy industry have lobbied so hard to escape paying for it? And why are electricity prices in Germany some of the highest in Europe and still climbing?
|
|
|
Post by jagdish on Jan 17, 2014 17:46:50 GMT 9.5
Nuclear and renewables are like apples and oranges. The nuclear energy, like coal or natural gas, is meant to feed the grid. The renewables are more suited to distributed generation. The UK are going for new costly EPR @ $8,000,000 a MW. They should compare it with their old AGR. They could use their Pu investment in fast reactors like the Prism offer and in Th-Pu fuel for the AGR. The used thorium fuel could be processed simply and thorium and U-233 extracted as volatile chlorides.
|
|
hank
Gluon
Freefall cartoon (c) Stanley 2013 freefall.purrsia.com
Posts: 10
|
Post by hank on Jan 19, 2014 2:15:32 GMT 9.5
Hat tip to David Brin for: nextbigfuture.com/2013/12/roadmap-to-supercritical-co2-turbines.html"SANDIA roadmap for making 10 MW supercritical turbines commercially ready by 2020, using highly compressed CO2 as the working fluid. Combine this with molten salt cooling systems and fission power systems might shrink by a factor of 100 in volume and mass." And we need to be building these super-ultra-meta-hypercritical turbines -- developing the materials capable of sustained operation at high temperature and pressure -- because we'll need them if we ever get usable heat from a fusion reactor operating closer, and smaller, than the one 8-1/2 minutes away.
|
|