Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[JackFlorey]

You can talk all day long about human errors at Czernobyl plant but that accident showed how dangerous nuclear is.

It showed how dangerous one design of power plant (RBMK) was. If a reactor is not an RBMK then it has different (lower) risks.

I mean, the DeHaviland Comet was a dangerous airplane - it used to fall apart mid-air. But that doesn't mean that jet airliners are dangerous.

[sendler2112]

Jessica Wildfire: "The future isn’t going to be an apocalypse. It’s not going to be full of starships and robots, either. It’s going to feel a little dystopian. If we have even the slightest chance as a species, the future needs to be agrarian, even rustic, compared to how we’re living now. It might feel like we’re traveling backward in time."
"The future isn’t going to be a world where you want to fend for yourself. The economy isn’t going to experience a V-shaped recovery. Even couples in their 30s and 40s are going to start moving closer to their friends and relatives. They’ll be able to pool resources, and save money on things like childcare and senior care."
"It’s too late to reverse. We’re going to be living with the consequences of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions for the next several decades. If we’re smart, we can start making radical changes now to mitigate the fallout. That’s the best case scenario."
"The economy will go into shell shock. One industry will implode, sending ripples across others. We’re at the beginning of a very deep depression. It’ll transform the way we live for the next 100 years. Life is going to be austere. This won’t be a terrible thing, at least for the planet."
Without universal healthcare, hospitals and medical practices will start to fall apart. "
"You’ll probably buy a smaller home."
"You’ll probably be driving an electric car. You might be sharing a car with extended family and friends." "You’ll probably put solar panels on your house. If you have energy storage, then you’ll be able to use appliances even if the grid is down."
"You’ll probably start homesteading. Some people are already growing a little cautious of relying completely on commercial farms and grocery chains for their food. They’re trying to become more self-sufficient. Just think if you moved closer to friends and family, and you all started to homestead."
"You’ll probably start bartering. “Buy Nothing” groups have already spread across the country. People are exchanging goods and services directly. This will continue as homesteading goes mainstream."
"You’ll probably homeschool your kids."
"You probably won’t send your kids to college.
The average university is reeling from the pandemic."
"You’re going to become more self-sufficient."
"Our survival depends on it."
https://medium.com/discourse/heres-what ... 93692b2f3c

[ZeroEm]

I agree, nothing is unlimited. People, corporations, nations need to adjust to declining population, profits and energy use.

[Hillhater]

Jessica Wildfire: "The future .....yada,..yada,..yada..

Utter speculative bull5h1t...
With a surplus of Nuclear (or any. Other future energy source) , civilisation will continue to progress.
Fear mongering , and crazy green speculation of environmental disaster may make a few feel the need to crawl under a rock, live in a commune, or whatever they feel comfortable with, but the rest of us will carry on safe in the understanding of real science rather than believing IPCC/AGW Vodoo !

[Andsetinn]

What mostly scares me about Nuclear is that 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents happened because of human error, in spite of the best safeguards, and best training, available money could buy. Also check Windscale and Kyshtym. Us humans are not more intelligent now than we were back then.

[Hillhater]

...... Us humans are not more intelligent now than we were back then.

No, but we are wiser and have the advantage of those experiences to learn from and improve the safe operation of new plants.
But if it comes down to a choice between the risks from Nuclear power,.....or degeneration of civilised society to living in a mud hut as a hunter gatherer,.....
...i know which i would choose .

[Dauntless]

A surplus of nuclear is supposed to end at about twice what the world has now. Meanwhile those commune dwellers are the people convincing themselves they are entitled to enslave the world to have THEIR way. Kill whomever they have to, etc. So don't get too comfortable.

[Andsetinn]

No, but we are wiser and have the advantage of those experiences to learn from and improve the safe operation of new plants.
But if it comes down to a choice between the risks from Nuclear power,.....or degeneration of civilised society to living in a mud hut as a hunter gatherer,.....
...i know which i would choose .

Are we wiser? Judging by what? We're more technologically advanced, but wiser. I don't see evidence of that.
As for civilized society degenerating to living in mud huts if nuclear power is not harvested. Nahh, there are other and better options available. The most easily achievable is using less energy.

[Hillhater]

Are we wiser? Judging by what? We're more technologically advanced, but wiser. I don't see evidence of that.
As for civilized society degenerating to living in mud huts if nuclear power is not harvested. Nahh, there are other and better options available. The most easily achievable is using less energy.

Whilst i would agree that much of our social and political leaders and their advisors are not showing obvious signs of wisdom ,...the Nuclear industry is certainly much better educated and experienced in the technologies and operating proceedures.
If you think you know a better source of utility power you should make you fortune and reveal it, because there id little chance of the planet using less energy in the future, !
Half the world population currently has no access to electricty,..but they know of its potential, and will demand to have it eventually....one way or another.!

[JackFlorey]

What mostly scares me about Nuclear is that 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents happened because of human error, in spite of the best safeguards, and best training, available money could buy. Also check Windscale and Kyshtym. Us humans are not more intelligent now than we were back then.

Let's talk about Chernobyl.

That was a first generation design that had a positive void coefficient. In other words, if bubbles started to form due to too-high thermal output, then reactivity would INCREASE - leading to a guaranteed runaway thermal event. Plus which, the control rods were tipped with a moderator - which increased reactivity as they were inserted. It was an incredibly bad design. Imagine a car design that, under some conditions (say, overly aggressive braking) would accelerate harder and harder the harder you pressed on the brake. You could say "just have drivers avoid those conditions" - but you'd still see a lot more fatalities if that car was actually on the road.

Now let's talk about Three Mile Island.

They had a SCRAM due to a problem with the coolant polisher (mechanical failure #1). No biggie. Reactor shut down automatically. Pressure increased due to reactor decay heat, and the PORV vented excess pressure into a containment pond as designed. But the PORV did not close. (Mechanical failure #2.)

Operators noticed the event. They did not notice the backup sensor in the PORV outflow pipe indicating a very high temperature due to the venting coolant (human failure #1.) Had they noticed they could have closed the backup isolation valve. Still no biggie. The backup cooling water started flowing through the heat exchanger, keeping the core cool. Someone closed the valves that allowed that water to flow (human failure #2.) Still no biggie. The HPI system detected a low pressure/high temperature condition and started injecting water directly into the core to prevent overheating. Someone shut down the HPI system (human failure #3.)

At this point there were no remaining safety systems to prevent core overheat. The core overheated and part of it melted. Everything was contained within the containment.

It would be hard to imagine a more egregious series of failures. Two simultaneous mechanical failures and three consecutive human failures. And what happened was - a melted core and no significant release of radiation. If that's the worse case failure, then nuclear - specifically the Gen 2 design that includes all US reactors - is pretty dang safe.

[Hillhater]

A recent report from the IER showing the cost impact of intermittent technologies on US generating costs ..IE ,..” Imposed Cost” and the consequent comparison of LCOE costs for the major generation technologies....

Imposed cost occurs when a resource’s firm capacity contribution is less than its average energy contribution. A cost is imposed because dispatchable resource generation must decrease by the amount the lower-firm- capacity resource’s generation increases yet cannot retire at the same rate the low capacity value resource is added (because its capacity is still required to maintain the same level of reserve margin on the system

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch. ... Final-.pdf

They also have presented a data analysis that shows the effective “firm contribution” from each source for 2017.
...note , the 0.4% for solar includes Roof Top solar...

[Dauntless]

A recent report from the IER showing the cost impact of intermittent technologies on US generating costs ..IE ,..” Imposed Cost” and the consequent comparison of LCOE costs for the major generation technologies....

Imposed cost occurs when a resource’s firm capacity contribution is less than its average energy contribution. A cost is imposed because dispatchable resource generation must decrease by the amount the lower-firm- capacity resource’s generation increases yet cannot retire at the same rate the low capacity value resource is added (because its capacity is still required to maintain the same level of reserve margin on the system

That seems like legalese that really means something bad. Like big plans that turn into. . . .

[Andsetinn]

What mostly scares me about Nuclear is that 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents happened because of human error, in spite of the best safeguards, and best training, available money could buy. Also check Windscale and Kyshtym. Us humans are not more intelligent now than we were back then.

Let's talk about Chernobyl.

That was a first generation design that had a positive void coefficient. In other words, if bubbles started to form due to too-high thermal output, then reactivity would INCREASE - leading to a guaranteed runaway thermal event. Plus which, the control rods were tipped with a moderator - which increased reactivity as they were inserted. It was an incredibly bad design. Imagine a car design that, under some conditions (say, overly aggressive braking) would accelerate harder and harder the harder you pressed on the brake. You could say "just have drivers avoid those conditions" - but you'd still see a lot more fatalities if that car was actually on the road.

Now let's talk about Three Mile Island.

They had a SCRAM due to a problem with the coolant polisher (mechanical failure #1). No biggie. Reactor shut down automatically. Pressure increased due to reactor decay heat, and the PORV vented excess pressure into a containment pond as designed. But the PORV did not close. (Mechanical failure #2.)

Operators noticed the event. They did not notice the backup sensor in the PORV outflow pipe indicating a very high temperature due to the venting coolant (human failure #1.) Had they noticed they could have closed the backup isolation valve. Still no biggie. The backup cooling water started flowing through the heat exchanger, keeping the core cool. Someone closed the valves that allowed that water to flow (human failure #2.) Still no biggie. The HPI system detected a low pressure/high temperature condition and started injecting water directly into the core to prevent overheating. Someone shut down the HPI system (human failure #3.)

At this point there were no remaining safety systems to prevent core overheat. The core overheated and part of it melted. Everything was contained within the containment.

It would be hard to imagine a more egregious series of failures. Two simultaneous mechanical failures and three consecutive human failures. And what happened was - a melted core and no significant release of radiation. If that's the worse case failure, then nuclear - specifically the Gen 2 design that includes all US reactors - is pretty dang safe.

Chernobyl accident. "The accident started during a safety test" "an unexpected 10-hour delay meant that an unprepared operating shift was on duty" "A test procedure had been written, but the authors were not aware of the unusual RBMK-1000 reactor behaviour under the planned operating conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster "the authors were not aware" reads Human Error to me.
3 M I "They did not notice the backup sensor". This also reads Human error to me.
How many nuclear accidents do we need? How serious will the next one be?

[markz]

Chernobyl accident

Well its been 34 years since 1986 so technology sure has changed, safeguards sure have changed.
Humans, not so much.

[Hillhater]

Imposed cost occurs when a resource’s firm capacity contribution is less than its average energy contribution. A cost is imposed because dispatchable resource generation must decrease by the amount the lower-firm- capacity resource’s generation increases yet cannot retire at the same rate the low capacity value resource is added (because its capacity is still required to maintain the same level of reserve margin on the system

That seems like legalese that really means something bad. Like big plans that turn into. . . .
[/quote]
Yes, its a polite way of saying that wind and solar screw up the economic operation of other dispatchable generators. .
Which is blatantly obvious when you look at the power costs in areas where significant amounts have been integrated.

[sendler2112]

Richard Heinberg: "But the fossil-fuel era is heading toward its inevitable conclusion. Oil, gas, and coal companies harvest fossil fuels using the low-hanging fruit principle, After many decades of this, what’s left are largely low-grade resources that require extra effort to extract or process. In effect, the wealth-generating machine is starting to run low on fuel. Even assuming a serious effort to build out alternative (i.e., solar and wind) energy infrastructure over the next couple of decades, we are in for economic contraction—which is required in any case to prevent catastrophic climate change, resource depletion, and habitat destruction. Sadly, America’s political, economic, media, and scientific elites have utterly failed to alert the masses that the rest of this century will see economic shrinkage. Without planning and preparation, uncontrolled and chaotic collapse is more likely than controlled contraction—which, in the best instance, could yield a way of life that’s more localized, more equitable, and happier, at perhaps a 1950s US level of per capita consumption."
.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020 ... overnable/

[sendler2112]

"Ecologist Peter Turchin teamed up with colleagues to build a database of hundreds of societies over the past 10,000 years; then he looked for patterns. One that immediately leapt out was a periodicity of growth and decline based on economic inequality: elites always tended to capture more and more of society’s wealth, but that trend would typically reach a limit when the general populace became utterly impoverished. Then an “Age of Discord” would follow, when the government became destabilized and political violence increased. Turchin has been warning for almost a decade that the US is, by all the measures he studies, approaching such a crisis."
.
http://peterturchin.com/ages-of-discord/

[sendler2112]

Tim Watkins: "The harsh reality is that despite the Herculean deployment of wind turbines, solar panels and biofuel plants over the last three decades, fossil fuels still provide more than 86 percent of the energy that powers the global economy. Indeed, strip away hydroelectric power – since there are limited additional valleys left to dam – and remaining renewable energy accounts for just four percent of our consumption; most of it in the form of electricity which is more or less useless to our most critical (heavy) transport, agricultural and industrial needs
This is the immoral and unpalatable (and thus glossed over in establishment media) aspect of the proposed green new deal – it amounts to a final imperial resource grab in which a handful of developed states use what remains of the value of their currencies to secure the last of planet Earth’s resources in one final economic blowout that will last right up until the first of the irreplaceable wind turbines and solar panels begin to breakdown."
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020 ... -new-deal/

[JackFlorey]

Chernobyl accident. "The accident started during a safety test" "an unexpected 10-hour delay meant that an unprepared operating shift was on duty" "A test procedure had been written, but the authors were not aware of the unusual RBMK-1000 reactor behaviour under the planned operating conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster "the authors were not aware" reads Human Error to me.

Right. And had that exact same human error occurred in a BWR or PWR (i.e. every single reactor in the US and most of the world) nothing would have happened. The lesson here is not "nuclear is dangerous." The lesson here is "RBMK's are dangerous."

"They did not notice the backup sensor". This also reads Human error to me.
How many nuclear accidents do we need? How serious will the next one be?

Probably as bad as Three Mile Island where - no radiation was released. If that's what we can expect, then even if we have one Three Mile Island a year (zero deaths) we will be FAR FAR better off replacing coal plants with nuclear power plants, since coal results in 13,000 deaths a year.

So which would you prefer? Zero deaths a year or 13,000 deaths a year?

[nicobie]

I always thought that Chernobyl would be the perfect place to store the worlds radioactive waste. Gotta put it someplace...

[Dauntless]

[sendler2112]

That was good right up to the point of saying: " in Germany, electricity price is 50% less than Poland". Germany and Denmark have the highest priced electricity in the world at $0.38/ kWh and electricitymap.org is currently showing 475g Carbon/ kWh for Germany. Poland is listed as $0.19. Right next door in Carbon heavy Netherlands electricity is $0.17. France is listed at $0.21/ kWh and 95g/ kWh.
.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263 ... countries/
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https://www.electricitymap.org/map
.

Carbon pricing is a good idea but must somehow be done at a world governance level (along with many other actions such as consumption taxes on Phosphorous, Copper, ect. and progressive income taxes) so there is no race to the bottom. And then returned equally to all persons as a dividend on a debit card each month so as not to be a regressive tax on the working class poor. An excellent draft legislation for a Carbon tax exists in the USA House for 20 years but never makes it out of committee.
.
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy ... idend-act/
.

[Hillhater]

this is like some absurd combination of the Emperors New Clothes,..crossed with the Lemming tale wth the minions believing in something the cannot see and following like lemmings to oblivion !
Only When suitable influential minds finally realise that Carbon is not the problem, will society be able to progress , rarher than self destruct due to false information.[*]

[Dauntless]

They'll always get something wrong, though you figure they didn't even bother to check prices as they put this together.

Carbon pricing isn't some sort of "Answer," simple minded people want to believe there's just some simple solution to complex problems and gather up their security blanket and thumb. The first problem is that GOVERNMENT gets to collect the carbon tax, guaranteeing that they will say "Oooooh, money to spend." And they'll go out and have a soma holiday with it. There would have to be an NGO handling it and the government doesn't get to touch it.

And there's no way you can have a big enough carbon tax to impact the decisions to reduce the carbon. You put people out of work, you drive down the carbon tax itself by limiting production, just all around self destructive.

Suitable influential minds will never impact conferences where the emotional and irrational are allowed seats at the table. Carbon is "A" problem, not "THE" problem. Of course there are people here that will become hysterical at the mention of that. Right. . . ?

[markz]

Meanwhile all the 3rd world ****holes are polluting, China's polluting and dumping yet we got to pay a carbon tax.

carbon tax