Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Voltron]

currently, there are newer reactor designs, but none have been approved for full scale use, and every commercial plant currently in use, even if safe in operation, still have no good plan for what to do with the incredibly dangerous spent fuel created.

Anyway, my point was when someone seems confused why nuclear is risky, there are plenty of real world examples that demonstrate the clear risks of it in it's current state.

I agree with this, even though i grew up 10 miles away from a nuclear plant BUILT ON A FAULTLINE and had a lot of time to think about what that meant.

If governance and safety changed in the nuclear power sphere, then i think those new reactor designs are worth trying. Could be something to them.

But that nice free Pacific cooling water... I'm sure it'll be fine

 

[neptronix]

Nice shots, i've never had the opportunity to boat out there... lucky you


In other news, Terrapower is about to build their first new design reactor in Wyoming.
Nuscale is also edging in on an opportunity to run a pilot reactor.

Should be interesting to see how these two companies fare in reality.

 

[Voltron]

It was my first time... So when you mentioned that area it was a funny coincidence. 3 months ago I wouldn't have had those.

Supposedly decommissioning that site in 2025, seems like a good spot for some wind or wave energy capture as the transmission lines already run to there.

 

[TheBeastie]

Here are some links to the Bill Gates connected Natrium reactor demonstration project at a retiring coal plant in the US state of Wyoming.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Pilot-Natrium-plant-to-be-built-in-Wyoming
Copy and pasted highlights...

• will feature a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor combined with a molten salt energy storage system that can boost the system's output to 500 MWe for more than five-and-a-half hours when needed.

• TerraPower says Natrium's novel architecture simplifies previous reactor types. Non-nuclear mechanical, electrical and other equipment will be housed in separate structures, reducing complexity and cost.

• The design is intended to permit significant cost savings by allowing major portions of the plant to be built to industrial standards. Improvements use fewer equipment interfaces and reduce the amount of nuclear-grade concrete by 80% compared to large reactors. Natrium reactors are designed to provide firm, flexible power that seamlessly integrates into power grids with high penetrations of renewables.

Really looks like an interesting design, using molten salt will be interesting, the Bill Gates Terrapower company has been doing materials testing for about 10years AFAIK to see what best handles various nuclear materials and storing molten salt etc.
The idea of substantially separating the most specific nuclear part of the nuclear power plant to the other part seems like a good idea which is part of why they are using molten salt pipes/storage, apparently, you can store and pipe molten salt kilometers away for industrial use or heating water for turbines and helping/supercharging the splitting water process for hydrogen etc, and no the molten salt piped away isn't radioactive as all the pipes are separated.
https://www.terrapower.com/our-work/natriumpower/
https://natriumpower.com/

https://youtu.be/i8C7YLPClAA
[youtube]i8C7YLPClAA[/youtube]

 

[neptronix]

^-- nice post!

Yeah the sodium cooling and the cost reductions open up a lot more applications.
Say what you want about Bill Gates but i think his company is very serious about this, and this might be a mass scale solution for places where other reactors could never work.

 

[Hillhater]

Gates came late to the Natrium MSR party, after wasting much time and money on his pet “Wave” reactor before realising he had backed the wrong horse.
So yes, be thankful he has brought his money and influence to a more likely winner now !

 

[TheBeastie]

So on the topic of hydrogen and solar together, hydrogen fuel-cell drones continue to enter the market, and it appears a frequently requested use for drones is inspecting solar farms and having more flight time.

What I like about 4th gen nuclear designs is some (even most) include technology features for the possibilty on helping split water for hydrogen production, as I have said in the past a canister of hydrogen is the ultimate battery for lightweight energy storage as all those hydrogen atoms in the canister hold an electron charge.
So essentially it can be thought of as a canister of electrons with no separators/electrolytes/metals and other toxic crap, can you possibly beat that for a battery?

As shown in this FC drone video at this point you can see them using some kind of thermal camera to detect hot spots/dead spots on the solar farm to find damaged solar panels etc.
https://youtu.be/0GhIgjcV8Ao?t=94

[youtube]0GhIgjcV8Ao[/youtube]

According to this guy even a small 2MW solar farm drone inspection would normally take about 3 regular lithium battery pack replacements to get the job done, so a fuel-cell drone that can do it in one go makes more sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruiNNeREQtI

So as shown with the previous Doosan drone where they flew it a remarkable 43miles from island to island to show how it can be used for emergency medical package transport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Yo4eaJ8o4 , Doosan now are showing off VTOL hydrogen fuel cell drones for even longer range flight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBLgfkW4I1A
[youtube]mBLgfkW4I1A[/youtube]
^At the end of the video they have some specs...
100km/h "cruise speed"
330minute flight time with 3.5kg payload.

So 5.5hour flight time at 100km/h cruise speed would be a distance of ~550kilometers which is just remarkable combined with a 3.5kg payload. Even if it's just a guestimation of what it can do it still makes sense since it has VTOL efficiency for long-range flight compared to their proven/documented 43mile flight of a regular fuel-cell hexacopter drone as shown before.

We can go back to our 13-year-old "Thread for new battery breakthrough PR releases" and see all the INCREDIBLY convincing promises were total crap and never eventuated, and even if solid-state lithium ever comes I dubious it will be flying things around at distances of 550km, prove me wrong I beg you! :lol:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57256

This video shows a basic demo of the controller etc of an intelligent Energy FC drone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_FRA63uihw

Really seems like FC drones have moved off from demos to selling and videos on how to maintain them.
Yes, it's still just for the industrial market because of price but it still makes a lot of sense.
For example, Victoria police and search rescue crews seem to constantly have their guys flying around regular drones, the law enforcement people are probably on around a $100k salary so the cost of a drone is completely insignificant compared to the money paid for constantly swapping batteries or even failing to get the job done properly due to the 30min max flying time of regular drones.

 

[goatman]

swarms of kamikaze AI drones powered by hydrogen that hunt humans on their own

https://gizmodo.com/flying-killer-robot-hunted-down-a-human-target-without-1847001471

i think we need to start a " portable 3d printed emp anti-drone conceal/carry personal self defense doo-dad" build thread

 

[Hillhater]

Fuel cell drone..
Big improvement in duration and range shows the benefit of wing lift over thrust lift.

^At the end of the video they have some specs...
100km/h "cruise speed"
330minute flight time with 3.5kg payload.
MTOW,..31 kg

So 5.5hour flight time at 100km/h cruise speed would be a distance of ~550kilometers which is just remarkable combined with a 3.5kg payload

And guessing max 1-2 kW ??
So how does this scale up ?
For a 100kg payload, would it need to be 100/3.5. = 29x 31.. ==900kg drone ?
And what power, fuel cell size, hydrogen capacity required.....all x 29 ??
And would it still have a 550 km range with a 100 km/h cruise speed ?
Or are the results somewhat different ?

 

[Hillhater]

A different approach to one of the key problems with Solar..
Concentrated PV Solar with Thermal recovery and long term energy storage.
https://raygen.com/technology
Basically uses mirrors to concentrate solar energy onto a compact “Ultra PV” reciever to produce both electrical power and thermal energy in a heat exchanger.
That thermal energy (hot water) can then be stored at <100C for long periods and then used as a heat source to generate more electricity (overnight ?) using an Organic Rankine Cycle engine.
The storage system is based on established hot water energy storage technology as used in Europe, and Rankine powered generation tech as used in Geothermal plants.
The company have a 1MW demonstration plant running and are currently building a 4 MW commercial installation in Australia.

 

[Voltron]

Guilty pleas in $10 billion S.C. nuclear fraud case that never made electricity......

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.newsobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article252009438.html

"In several court hearings, prosecutors have described the lies told by SCANA executives not as crimes of greed but crimes of hubris and an abuse of public trust — an inability to tell the truth and admit publicly that such a huge project that was supposed to showcase a major commitment to nuclear energy with Westinghouse nuclear reactors had turned into such an abject failure"

 

[jonescg]

So that's another consortium trying to build a solar concentrator turbine in Australia now.
https://arena.gov.au/blog/raygen-solar-thermal-plant-to-be-built-in-victoria/

The problem with concentrated solar thermal is the cost and footprint of the plant is enormous compared to the energy generated.
I'm a big fan of renewable energy (as if you didn't already know) but concentrated solar thermal is pretty inefficient.

The same sized solar PV farm with battery for 17 hours storage (as depicted in the Raygen description) would cost about the same, and be way more reliable.

4 MW peak PV = $1.2 million. 50 MWh of battery = $24 million. All the ancillaries and inverters, maybe another $1 million? Let's round it up and call it $27 million.

Yet they need $42 million to get started?

 

[JackFlorey]

Yeah the sodium cooling and the cost reductions open up a lot more applications.

Agreed, it's got potential. But handling molten salt is something of a new field; it's going to take a lot of hands-on experience to get it to the point where it's safe enough to use.

 

[Hillhater]

The same sized solar PV farm with battery for 17 hours storage (as depicted in the Raygen description) would cost about the same, and be way more reliable.

4 MW peak PV = $1.2 million. 50 MWh of battery = $24 million. All the ancillaries and inverters, maybe another $1 million? Let's round it up and call it $27 million.

Yet they need $42 million to get started?

Didnt Aeon just pay $71 m for the 64MWh addition to the Hornsdale battery facility ?
That would suggest a 50MWh pack would cost at least $55m ?
https://arena.gov.au/projects/hornsdale-power-reserve-upgrade/
And isnt PV generally costed at us$1/W installed ? https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-of-cost-declines-for-pv-systems.html
Rounding that up means about Au $60m .
The 4 MW Raygen system is quoted at Au $6.0 m !
https://arena.gov.au/blog/raygen-solar-energy-storage-technology-victoria/
The $42m Is reported to include development and expansion of production facilities for future 100+ MW systems.
But yes, the hot water storage + chiller and heat engine/generator for recovery , does sound complex and prone to efficiency losses.

 

[jonescg]

I'd assumed $500/kWh for batteries, given there was probably a learning rate since Hornsdale went in at about $900/kWh. But batteries aren't dropping in price quite like we'd hoped - demand is still sky high. Unsubsidised solar is typically about $300/kW but installations in remote places would add up.

Still, if you want largely trouble-free run-time, avoiding high temperatures and pressures is a wise move.

 

[Hillhater]

Did you check the links ?
Battery cost was $1,100/ Kwh in 2020
Pv installed cost was $1.0 / W in 2020
And here is a recent Tesla Commercial Invoice for a 230 kWh Powerpack quoting us$172,707 ..or us$744/kWh. ..(Au$990/kWh) , Ex factory , without delivery, installation , site costs, etc.
https://electrek.co/2020/03/31/tesla-powerpack-price-commercial-solar/
So infact Teslas prices have not changed since the 2016/17 Hornsdale install which cost us$90m for 129MWh ...(us$700/kWh) installed. ( economy of scale savings ?)

 

[jonescg]

And Tesla powerwalls are only getting more expensive. Competing with cars is probably the main driver.
I'm surprised the installed costs are that high, for PV especially. They only need labourers to get them up. Batteries need trained techs at least.

 

[Hillhater]

And Tesla powerwalls are only getting more expensive. Competing with cars is probably the main driver.....

Yes, supply/ demand is always a cost driver.
It is likely worse since the change to the 21700 cell for the M3/MY and the storage modules.
Not all the previous 18650 sources have changed format, so supplies of the 21700 will be limited currently.
Ironic for Tesla who originally selected the 18650 partly because of the surplus manufacturing capacity available.
Do Tesla have anything commercially using the new 46800 cell yet ?...it seems to have gone very quiet ?
EDIT.....
Update..

“Tesla announced that Megapack will be using LFP cathode batteries, similar to the entry-level Made-in-China Model 3/Ys. This is significant, as Tesla ramps up their grid-scale energy storage product without drawing further on an already supply-constrained nickel-based battery production capacity used in 2170s,” the analyst wrote.

So, are the utility Megapacks now filled with Chinese made CATL LFP cells as Tesla use in their Chinese M3s ?

 

[Chalo]

And Tesla powerwalls are only getting more expensive. Competing with cars is probably the main driver.

That's a stupid use for new lithium ion cells anyway. Stationary household power storage is a better match for used batteries that have aged out of their first application, and lithium iron phosphate. If we don't conserve these mineral resources as best we can, we will surely make things difficult for ourselves.

 

[Ianhill]

If our use of oil is any measure of a track record with resources then theres not much hope for using it in a gauged fashion.

 

[Hillhater]

Lithium battery storage on a utility scale is a dumb idea all round.
They are just a crutch for ineffective Wind & Solar generation, and can never even fully fulfil that roll during weather extremes.
Their cost and life expectancy is a joke considering they do not generate any power, and effectively are a consumer of energy.
Grid power should be continuous, reliable, controllable, and long lasting.
We managed that well for the past 100 years, but now, some bunch of get rich quick con artists believe they know better.!
Get more Nuclear working before the entire energy system goes to crap !

 

[Chalo]

Grid power should be continuous, reliable, controllable, and long lasting.
We managed that well for the past 100 years,

But at what cost?

Seems like one of the costs of doing things the old way, with pollution-intensive fuels, has been monkeywrenching the climate so that the old ways are no longer adequate.

During February's winter storm power disaster here in Texas, it was natural gas power plants that failed the hardest.

 

[JackFlorey]

Their cost and life expectancy is a joke considering they do not generate any power, and effectively are a consumer of energy.

So are transmission lines. So are transformers. Gonna get rid of them too?

Grid power should be continuous, reliable, controllable, and long lasting.

I agree. Unfortunately, thermal power plants are tripping off line due to the heat nowadays - and it's just going to get hotter. (Unless, of course, we stop burning fossil fuels.)

We managed that well for the past 100 years

100 years ago power reliability in the US was abysmal. Power outages were the rule, not the exception. Most people did not have power; only cities had power, and often not for long periods of time.

Fun fact - in 1921, very few farms/rural communities had power. Sears sold two kinds of appliances - 120VAC appliances for cities, and 32VDC appliances for rural communities and farms. If you lived on a farm you bought some storage batteries and a Delco 32V generator. In 1922 Jacobs opened their doors, and started selling 32V wind turbines for farms. Jacobs alone sold tens of thousands of them. Farms relied on wind for both water pumping for irrigation and cattle and for electric power.

Then some get rich quick con artists from the government came along and took millions in tax money to send them socialist power!

 

[Hillhater]

During February's winter storm power disaster here in Texas, it was natural gas power plants that failed the hardest.

Maybe you only got one side of the story..
Bad management from ERCOT. They knew what would happen in that cold event,...from previous experience in 2011.
But they didnt prepare. Wind and solar were always going to fail, and too much reliance on Gas, which was not properly configured for cold operation
They should have coal instead !
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-deep-freeze-caused-texas-to-lose-power/

 

[Hillhater]

Their cost and life expectancy is a joke considering they do not generate any power, and effectively are a consumer of energy.

So are transmission lines. So are transformers. Gonna get rid of them too?..

For best reliability and efficiency,...eliminate those components that are NOT ESSENTIAL. !

Grid power should be continuous, reliable, controllable, and long lasting.

I agree. Unfortunately, thermal power plants are tripping off line due to the heat nowadays - and it's just going to get hotter. (Unless, of course, we stop burning fossil fuels.)

Odd ?.. since there have been hotter periods in the past without major issues ? What has changed ?

. Farms relied on wind for both water pumping for irrigation and cattle and for electric power.
Then some get rich quick con artists from the government came along and took millions in tax money to send them socialist power!

Did anyone force them to use grid power ?, ..or did they choose to opt for its reliability, 24/7 availability, lower cost, no maintenance, etc etc ?
And yes, i lived that farm life as a child, and I remember when we changed from our old “wet cell” lighting power system to “mains supply” .. what a improvement in our life style and opportunities it gave us !
No body who lived that way “off grid” would want to return, unless forced to.
There are practical applications for batteries, but propping up a grid supply is not one of them !