Grid power discussion (solar, wind, nuclear, etc.)

[The Empire of Pretantia]

You left out Hydro power which using modern verticle shaft turbines are less damaging to the environment and one of my favourite options.

I'm persoally a fan of Small scale Solar + Battery systems

- Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island are best considered anomalies
- Decommissioning is being ignored here

I know Nuclear has a lot of things in its favour however the two things you list here are the very reasons why I dont like it. Three melt down incidents in less than 50 years isn't an anomaly its a pattern and decommissioning is a issues right up there with micro-plastic

Three meltdowns in less than fifty years is as anomalous as you can get.

[The Fifth Federation]

Nuclear because we want that fallout tech, anyways because we don't need sunlight or wind.

[UniversalCommons]

Energy efficiency is as important as power production. More efficient heating, lighting, and air conditioning as well as better power distribution technology-- better software to manage how electricity flows into the grid, smart metering, and continuous power generation for factories so they don't need to restart.

[Major-Tom]

I'm an unrepentant fan of Nuclear, honest to god, it is objectively one of the best sources of power at our disposal that is actually most effective at climate change mitigation while keeping overall costs (per capita) relatively* low.

[Rojava Free State]

So I touched on it earlier but here is my proposal for the power source that will gain America it's energy independence.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7xVg7yh7a9/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7xVxGJhgPL/

[The Liberated Territories]

I prefer an "all of the above" approach where market selection would choose the most efficient source of energy. Although I think nuclear power in the long run will win, there is just so much going for it.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I prefer an "all of the above" approach where market selection would choose the most efficient source of energy. Although I think nuclear power in the long run will win, there is just so much going for it.

Such market purity is not possible in real life. The consumers of power know the plant is there, and they have fears and expectations which are not market rational.

Actually scratch that, the consumers know where the plant is going to be and they stop it being built at all.

An innovative solution explored by the Russians (and no others I know of) is to build nuclear ships that of course don't need planning permission. I expect this will work really well, not because ships are inherently safe places to have reactors, but because they're mobile. Facing high power prices, or post-disaster lack of power at all, people will be much more amenable to nuclear if it just moors a bit offshore and starts pumping cheap power.

Micro reactors that can move on trucks or trains might do well too. Unlike building a new gas, coal or fixed nuclear plant (in fact even unlike renewables) the choice can be implemented in days or weeks. Makes it much more palatable when power is in undersupply or is overpriced.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Energy efficiency is as important as power production. More efficient heating, lighting, and air conditioning as well as better power distribution technology-- better software to manage how electricity flows into the grid, smart metering, and continuous power generation for factories so they don't need to restart.

I read somewhere that voluntary power conservation has done more to cut emissions than all the build-out of renewables. And it's not even necessarily motivated by save-the-planet, it's just self interest when it was pointed out that waste of power is waste of money.

[UniversalCommons]

There are designs for reactors that are much safer, smaller, and more efficient. The most recent design is the traveling wave reactor which Bill Gates supports.

It is not just energy efficiency that is a problem, it is also outdated transmission. Superconducting transmission has a lot less power loss. The grid needs to be updated with microgrids that can feed into the grid. A major problem with renewable energy is that a lot of it is collected at once on sunny or windy days, or seasons when the rivers are running strong. If the grid is updated to allow the small owner to sell energy back to the grid, it would encourage much more use of renewables. Renewables are distributed over much wider areas than single source energy systems. The power grid is not designed to sell back or put renewables back into it. It would take a lot of money to rebuild the grid as a smart grid.

[Crockerland]

Fukushima does not disprove that nuclear is the least resource intensive.

Not conclusively, but it does give us more reason than before to doubt the pro-nuclear side, who acted like Chernobyl was just a "Russia" problem and not a "human nature tends not to admit when it's doing something dangerous" problem. It leaves behind the question of what else they could be lying about.

In the same way that Facebook posts about vaccines giving children autism give you more reason to doubt the pro-vaccine side.

Some people will grasp at any straw they can to push anti-science bullshit.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Did you not see the video showing how to attach reflective foil to other, more rigid materials? Or did I link to the wrong one?



Not conclusively, but it does give us more reason than before to doubt the pro-nuclear side, who acted like Chernobyl was just a "Russia" problem and not a "human nature tends not to admit when it's doing something dangerous" problem. It leaves behind the question of what else they could be lying about.



Again, partly because we've already stacked the deck against nuclear and rightfully so. In Canada it's mostly hydroelectric dams, and when those break, dealing with the floods will be reasonably straightforward because we evolved to comprehend the nature of water... at least the gist of it. We did not evolve to comprehend the nature of nuclear energy.



Again, if they thought the issue with Chernobyl was "Russia," and Fukushima discredited it, how do we know the claim that the issue was reactor design isn't also false?

Umm reflective foil is made from metal. You are going to use massive amounts of land.
Also 61% of Ontario’s power is nuclear. Works great.

Simply repeating ”but Fukushima” (which in the grand scheme of things was not that devastating anyways) does not change anything.

Yes a reactor with a positive void coefficient, insufficient containment structure when struck by an absurdly huge tsunami will have problems. Okay.

So we do not repeat that.

Simple fact is nuclear produces the most power with the least resources used, and in fact, eve including Fukushima and Chernobyl has a extremely low death print. It has the lowest environmental footprint and lowest death print of the recorded sources.

Where are the deaths from solar power?

You also neglect to mention thermal-solar at sea.

[Novus America]

Umm reflective foil is made from metal. You are going to use massive amounts of land.
Also 61% of Ontario’s power is nuclear. Works great.

Simply repeating ”but Fukushima” (which in the grand scheme of things was not that devastating anyways) does not change anything.

Yes a reactor with a positive void coefficient, insufficient containment structure when struck by an absurdly huge tsunami will have problems. Okay.

So we do not repeat that.

Simple fact is nuclear produces the most power with the least resources used, and in fact, eve including Fukushima and Chernobyl has a extremely low death print. It has the lowest environmental footprint and lowest death print of the recorded sources.

Where are the deaths from solar power?

You also neglect to mention thermal-solar at sea.

Here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes ... -paid/amp/
Now they do specify concentrated solar but it includes the numbers for rooftop.

When has thermal solar at see ever been used viably? The sea would quickly destroy any reflector.
And the sea is still a delicate environment used for other purposes. Nuclear reactors at sea would still use up less space.

And that does not solve the material usage problems.
An absurd amount of space and materials still has to go into building it.

[VoVoDoCo]

You left out Hydro power which using modern verticle shaft turbines are less damaging to the environment and one of my favourite options.

I'm persoally a fan of Small scale Solar + Battery systems

- Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island are best considered anomalies
- Decommissioning is being ignored here

I know Nuclear has a lot of things in its favour however the two things you list here are the very reasons why I dont like it. Three melt down incidents in less than 50 years isn't an anomaly its a pattern and decommissioning is a issues right up there with micro-plastic

Chernobyl and three-mile are very dated. Our technology has increased a lot since then. Fukushima didn’t even kill anybody.

[VoVoDoCo]

And on top of that, Fukushima was caused by a tsunami damage. In the past century, Japan has only been hit by like a dozen if I’m not mistaken. They were able to withstand large seismic activity, but the cooling protocol was disrupted by the tsunami. So even if we didn’t tsunami proof or nuclear reactors, the chances of incidents are still infinitesimally small.

That being said, we have been developing new technologies to make them tsunami proof.

[Novus America]

You left out Hydro power which using modern verticle shaft turbines are less damaging to the environment and one of my favourite options.

I'm persoally a fan of Small scale Solar + Battery systems



I know Nuclear has a lot of things in its favour however the two things you list here are the very reasons why I dont like it. Three melt down incidents in less than 50 years isn't an anomaly its a pattern and decommissioning is a issues right up there with micro-plastic

Chernobyl and three-mile are very dated. Our technology has increased a lot since then. Fukushima didn’t even kill anybody.

Three mile island did not kill anyone, or do any real harm outside the containment structure. All you really need is a good containment structure. Something all US reactors require, and that Chernobyl and Fukushima did not have. Fukushima was also an old design that would not be built today.

And passive relief valves to vent excessive pressure like France requires can be used too.
Or you just a have a negative void coefficient and melt down is literally impossible.

And even including Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear is still safer per kilowatt than the other main sources.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Now they do specify concentrated solar but it includes the numbers for rooftop.

Rooftop solar is photovoltaic, not thermal. I believe I've already mentioned my reasons for considering thermal superior to photovoltaic?

When has thermal solar at see ever been used viably?

We haven't given it a chance.

The sea would quickly destroy any reflector.

How so?

And the sea is still a delicate environment used for other purposes. Nuclear reactors at sea would still use up less space.

And then blow up where no one outisde the nuclear industry could see it until the radiation was already downstream.

And that does not solve the material usage problems.

No, it doesn't.

But do you have any idea how much tinfoil Americans simply throw away? Donating it to such a program would vastly help with this.

An absurd amount of space and materials still has to go into building it.

There's all kinds of unused space out there. Do you know human settlement constitutes a small fraction of land in particular, let alone the Earth in general?

[Novus America]

Now they do specify concentrated solar but it includes the numbers for rooftop.

Rooftop solar is photovoltaic, not thermal. I believe I've already mentioned my reasons for considering thermal superior to photovoltaic?

When has thermal solar at see ever been used viably?

We haven't given it a chance.

The sea would quickly destroy any reflector.

How so?

And the sea is still a delicate environment used for other purposes. Nuclear reactors at sea would still use up less space.

And then blow up where no one outisde the nuclear industry could see it until the radiation was already downstream.

And that does not solve the material usage problems.

No, it doesn't.

But do you have any idea how much tinfoil Americans simply throw away? Donating it to such a program would vastly help with this.

An absurd amount of space and materials still has to go into building it.

There's all kinds of unused space out there. Do you know human settlement constitutes a small fraction of land in particular, let alone the Earth in general?

We never tried it because it is not practical.
You would have to build absurdly huge barges, deal with the fact the ocean moves, that seawater and salt ruins smooth surfaces, etc.
Until you can show it is viable, you cannot show it is viable.

“Unused” space, even if you are not using it for human development still has use. Environmental conservation is a thing, which requires efficient use of resources to avoid excessive footprint from mining, etc.

And you admit you cannot solve the material usage problem.

But I can, or at least mitigate it as much as possible by using the source that generates the most electricity for the least amount of land and materials used.

[Greed and Death]

Nuclear: heats water through nuclear reactions and uses the resultant steam to drive generators
Cost (2018): $90.1 per MW/h
Cost trend: -23% over 9 years

Pros
- Extremely low Opex
- Fuel is cheap
- High energy density
- Does not rely on time of day or weather
- Clean

Cons
- Sky high Capex (and regulation isn't the cause according to nuclear plant builders (Source))
- Expensive as a result (power companies are going to want to recoup their investment after all)
- Takes a very long time to build
- Seems unable to be built anywhere near on time or on budget currently (source)

Other info
- Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island are best considered anomalies
- Decommissioning is being ignored here
- Due to the high capex, are generally run at or near 100% at all times to get the most bang for their buck


So NSG, what is your opinion as to the best power sources now and in the future?

I can not speak for everywhere but in the US nuclear plants are required to have a portion of their per kilowatt hour cost go to a fund to cover decommissioning. It is kind of an issue because the funds tend to be over funded as the costs to decommission drop from the time the plant goes active due to automation and other technology increases.

[Australian rePublic]

You forgot to add coal to your OP

[UniversalCommons]

Wind power is far cheaper than nuclear power to build out. Hydroelectric is as well. A lot of the new data centers being built are being built near continuous hydroelectric sources. I imagine once wave power stabilizes, the big data centers will be built near the ocean. Both ocean and hydroelectric power are not intermittent. They have been around a long time. If hydroelectric is done as run of the river or distributed power it is also very clean.

The amount of permits and safety requirements for nuclear as well as waste storage requirements very quickly makes it expensive to start. Coal power is dying because wind is essentially cheaper to start, it does not have problems with permits.

The real limit of renewable energy is battery technology. This will change. As batteries become cheaper and have more storage, the price of wind energy goes down and energy becomes easier to transport. Thus we have an oil or coal plant in a windy region where it is cheaper to simply put up wind turbines and the coal and oil plant dies.

Or we have a large river with a large amount of distributed hydroelectric. The plant has new multi-megawatt battery carrier trucks powered by something like sugar batteries. Electricity from the plant becomes easier to transport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_battery

In the future the oil plant becomes captive. It can only sell the plant for the land value not the equipment value. Dropping battery and wind prices are pushing it out of the market. The owners ask for subsidies to stay in business and eventually, they sell the land and close the plant, because they are no longer competitive.

The people who work in the area are in trouble because in order to get subsidies, the owners have to claim that they will become profitable and keep jobs in the area even if it is no longer true.

[Heloin]

You forgot to add coal to your OP

No they didn't. Besides even if they did there is basically no way to defend coal power anymore aside from being ludicrously cheap at the expense of being shit in just about ever other way.

[Grenartia]

Nuclear Gang represent!

[Grenartia]

Chernobyl and three-mile are very dated. Our technology has increased a lot since then. Fukushima didn’t even kill anybody.

Three mile island did not kill anyone, or do any real harm outside the containment structure. All you really need is a good containment structure. Something all US reactors require, and that Chernobyl and Fukushima did not have. Fukushima was also an old design that would not be built today.

And passive relief valves to vent excessive pressure like France requires can be used too.
Or you just a have a negative void coefficient and melt down is literally impossible.

And even including Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear is still safer per kilowatt than the other main sources.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd rather live next door to a nuclear plant than even 50 miles downwind from a coal plant or oil refinery.

Ideally, though, we'd be using Pebble Bed Reactors. Higher temperature (and thus, more efficient), impossible to meltdown, no radioactive gases to worry about, passively safe, simpler (and thus, probably cheaper than traditional reactors), and can use Thorium.

[Greed and Death]

Wind power is far cheaper than nuclear power to build out. Hydroelectric is as well. A lot of the new data centers being built are being built near continuous hydroelectric sources. I imagine once wave power stabilizes, the big data centers will be built near the ocean. Both ocean and hydroelectric power are not intermittent. They have been around a long time. If hydroelectric is done as run of the river or distributed power it is also very clean.

The amount of permits and safety requirements for nuclear as well as waste storage requirements very quickly makes it expensive to start. Coal power is dying because wind is essentially cheaper to start, it does not have problems with permits.

The real limit of renewable energy is battery technology. This will change. As batteries become cheaper and have more storage, the price of wind energy goes down and energy becomes easier to transport. Thus we have an oil or coal plant in a windy region where it is cheaper to simply put up wind turbines and the coal and oil plant dies.

Or we have a large river with a large amount of distributed hydroelectric. The plant has new multi-megawatt battery carrier trucks powered by something like sugar batteries. Electricity from the plant becomes easier to transport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_battery

In the future the oil plant becomes captive. It can only sell the plant for the land value not the equipment value. Dropping battery and wind prices are pushing it out of the market. The owners ask for subsidies to stay in business and eventually, they sell the land and close the plant, because they are no longer competitive.

The people who work in the area are in trouble because in order to get subsidies, the owners have to claim that they will become profitable and keep jobs in the area even if it is no longer true.

Nuclear does have a higher start up cost but once the loans are paid off in 10-20 years the plant makes money far more money than solar or wind.

Since we are talking about cost updating the grid to support dealing with intermittency of solar and wind far exceed nuclear power plant cost, it would be the largest infrastructure program in the US to date and make world war II look inexpensive. Smart grid and battery infrastructure do not come cheap. Another problem is the theoretical maximum of batteries. The energy densities even under perfect (ie unachievable) conditions fall well short of current fossil fuels.
https://thebulletin.org/2009/01/the-lim ... echnology/ You would almost certainly need batteries the size of cities to deal with worse case inttermittancy issues, and that would create a risk as batteries are unstable ( they need to be as you need something that can go from high to low energy state with ease).

You will need nuclear to make carbon neutral energy.

[Grenartia]

Wind power is far cheaper than nuclear power to build out. Hydroelectric is as well. A lot of the new data centers being built are being built near continuous hydroelectric sources. I imagine once wave power stabilizes, the big data centers will be built near the ocean. Both ocean and hydroelectric power are not intermittent. They have been around a long time. If hydroelectric is done as run of the river or distributed power it is also very clean.

The amount of permits and safety requirements for nuclear as well as waste storage requirements very quickly makes it expensive to start. Coal power is dying because wind is essentially cheaper to start, it does not have problems with permits.

The real limit of renewable energy is battery technology. This will change. As batteries become cheaper and have more storage, the price of wind energy goes down and energy becomes easier to transport. Thus we have an oil or coal plant in a windy region where it is cheaper to simply put up wind turbines and the coal and oil plant dies.

Or we have a large river with a large amount of distributed hydroelectric. The plant has new multi-megawatt battery carrier trucks powered by something like sugar batteries. Electricity from the plant becomes easier to transport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_battery

In the future the oil plant becomes captive. It can only sell the plant for the land value not the equipment value. Dropping battery and wind prices are pushing it out of the market. The owners ask for subsidies to stay in business and eventually, they sell the land and close the plant, because they are no longer competitive.

The people who work in the area are in trouble because in order to get subsidies, the owners have to claim that they will become profitable and keep jobs in the area even if it is no longer true.

Nuclear does have a higher start up cost but once the loans are paid off in 10-20 years the plant makes money far more money than solar or wind.

Since we are talking about cost updating the grid to support dealing with intermittency of solar and wind far exceed nuclear power plant cost, it would be the largest infrastructure program in the US to date and make world war II look inexpensive. Smart grid and battery infrastructure do not come cheap. Another problem is the theoretical maximum of batteries. The energy densities even under perfect (ie unachievable) conditions fall well short of current fossil fuels.
https://thebulletin.org/2009/01/the-lim ... echnology/ You would almost certainly need batteries the size of cities to deal with worse case inttermittancy issues, and that would create a risk as batteries are unstable ( they need to be as you need something that can go from high to low energy state with ease).

You will need nuclear to make carbon neutral energy.

Furthermore, nuclear, unlike wind, solar, and hydro, does not fundamentally rely on the cooperation of a changing climate. It is by its very nature, climate-independent.