Nuclear engineer dismisses claim that modular reactors could be viable soon
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Zero naval reactor accidents.
Finally forced to retire after refusing to agree to pay General Dynamics Electric Boat $634 million for mistakes they made in submarine construction.
... yeah, what an asshole.
Replace 'reactors' with any sufficiently complex system and you'll find this resonates incredibly strongly even today.
Design, fabrication, and testing took 18 months. And he wasn't the only engineer working on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_47LWFAG6g
Roughly - why would you spend a dollar on a long term return risky nuclear venture when you could spend it on something certain and get a result tomorrow? Doubly so in a hot sunny country like Australia.
Look at his record - doctors voted him the “worst Minister for Health in Australian History” when he was in that position. Later in Home Affairs as minister there was massive grift (massive, corrupt looking contracts to dodgy companies to run detention camps) and internal staff surveys in the public service consistently rated his department as the worst managed across the whole Government…
He does not has any record of good policy or any kind of effective executive management.
Are these the standards we're building to, now?
For example here is Dutton just a few days ago using the old trope that taking action on climate change would destroy the economy https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2024/jun/12/...
He revealed sites where he wants to build with zero effort getting approval or buy in from the owners or even the state.
Stop wasting time pretending this is a serious policy
[1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/AU?wind=false&solar=fal... ("ElectricityMaps: Australia")
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40727619 ("HN: Global PV installations may hit 660 GW in 2024")
[3] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?wind=false&solar=fal... ("ElectricityMaps: Germany")
[4] https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/energy/resources/oth... ("Australia receives an average of 58 million PJ of solar radiation per year, approximately 10,000 times larger than its total energy consumption. However, Australia's current use of solar energy is low with solar energy accounting for only about 0.1 per cent of Australia's total primary energy consumption.")
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-co... | https://archive.today/2owbd ("Australia’s rapid shift from coal-fired power to cleaner alternatives is underwriting a boom in battery projects able to store solar and wind energy. The country has at least 250 planned battery developments with a potential capacity of almost 130,000 megawatt-hours, a pipeline that’s second only to China, data compiled by BloombergNEF show. While Australia still relies on coal for more than half of its electricity generation, many major plants are set to close in the next decade.")
I would also see as requirements: It must be cost effective, it must be scalable in several dimensions: fast to plan and approve, fast to build, able to be build in massive numbers, able to be financed in large numbers, able to be operated in large numbers, able to cool in large numbers, able to operate in a secure environment, ...
They are not built to be cost-efficient. The Navy doesn't really care about cost per MWh, they're after other metrics.
The civilian energy sector is the opposite: we can afford to cut a few clients once in a while, but we can't afford to overspend.
As far as I know, pumps are used to exchange seawater directly with the surrounding environment - hoses are used to this effect in dry dock.
I am told there are proprietary secrets used to control the electrolysis output gas mixture and coolant temp mixture so as to not increase detectability.
SMRs are technically fairly straightforward, but they need to be able to built and operated cheaply enough to produce power cheaper than existing large nuclear plants to be economically viable, given the price of competing power sources in most grids. And that’s not on the horizon at this point. Everything points to them producing more expensive power.
But with the climate emergency and its potential tipping points being a decade away, we should immediately fix the problem with clean tech that already works.
Classical nuclear reactors are great, scalable, proven and clean. They just have bad public image from PR disasters of the past. We don't have time for fancy rebrands like SMRs, MSRs, fusion, and other stuff that could take half a century
https://app.electricitymaps.com
France is the only one, has been 70% nuke for decades, and has competitive electrity prices
By passing the true costs to the tax payer and the next generations.
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/bessere-standortfakto...
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/sweden-reject...
https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/10/03/3-trillion-is-f...
While the Government rises subsidies to keep electricity bills down?
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/04/21/france...
"Increases in electricity bills have been less sharp in France thanks to government subsidies, at 4% in 2022 and 15% this year – at a projected cost of €45 billion in 2023."
Industries are leaving Germany because of the electricity bills you tried to defend. Nearby countries don't want to connect to Germany because of unstable electricity bills that can affect citizens (Sweeden). Stay on topic.
What are "unstable electricity bills" ? Changing market prices are the reality in many markets. The European reality is clear: more connection between local energy markets creates a larger EU market and this allows to trade electricity based on demand and supply in a very large market.
Germany already exchanges electricity with Sweden via Denmark. Do you have other examples? Germany directly exchanges electricity with lots of other countries already.
Renewable energy from Wind and Solar is growing in many places in Europe. That's not a special German thing, it's just that Germany started earlier.
EU: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/renewable-energ...
"EU Member States need to massively ramp up their renewable power capacity in the coming years. This increase in renewables from variable sources, such as wind and solar, will also increase the need for ‘flexibility’ in the EU electricity system."
"The share of renewables in Europe is expected to keep growing. However, meeting the new target of 42.5% for 2030 will demand more than doubling the rates of renewables deployment seen over the past decade, and requires a deep transformation of the European energy system."
A graph of the EU development is here:
https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/16410231/embed?auto=1
Compare with Germany:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p...
What you think is a German problem, is a reality and a trend in Europe.
A deep transition to renewable energy is also world-wide the only viable way to a cleaner electricity production.
Sweden could be in a good position, since it and surrounding countries have lots of capacity for wind generated electricity and hydro based electricity generation/storage.
https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data?market_area=DE-LU&au...
Today Germany a peak of 2300€/MWh at 6-7, and a negative of -0.05€ at 12-13.
> Changing market prices are the reality in many markets.
For a market to be competitive, it must also be predictable. If energy costs vary drastically—€1000/MWh one day and €0 the next—it poses a severe challenge for companies. Such unpredictability discourages investment and may cause industries to relocate.
Imagine an energy-intensive company unable to operate profitably due to volatile energy prices. Paid employees ready to work might have to wait because high energy costs could lead to financial losses.
> The European reality is clear: more connection between local energy markets creates a larger EU market and this allows to trade electricity based on demand and supply in a very large market.
However, this interconnectedness does not solve the problem. If Germany's electricity prices soar, they might rely on cheaper Swedish electricity, potentially saturating Sweden's supply and raising costs for Swedes. This scenario recently played out, prompting the Swedish government to halt plans for a new power cable to Germany.
Which is exactly what happened: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/swedish-government-s...
The consequences are counterproductive. Germany's unstable energy market negatively impacts its citizens and neighboring countries. Rather than increased connectivity, the opposite approach might be more beneficial.
> "EU Member States need to massively ramp up their renewable power capacity in the coming years. This increase in renewables from variable sources, such as wind and solar, will also increase the need for ‘flexibility’ in the EU electricity system."
These issues have persisted in Germany for a decade and continue to worsen. The need for "flexibility" in the EU electricity system seems more like wishful thinking than a practical solution.
> Renewable energy from Wind and Solar is growing in many places in Europe. That's not a special German thing, it's just that Germany started earlier.
This point seems unrelated to the discussion at hand. Are you being paid to promote renewables? Many parts of your argument sound like poorly crafted commercials.
> What you think is a German problem, is a reality and a trend in Europe.
Yes, it's a problem closely linked to renewables, and other countries are following suit.
> A deep transition to renewable energy is also world-wide the only viable way to a cleaner electricity production.
While the transition to renewable energy is essential, it is not without its challenges. Recognizing the limitations of renewables is crucial for anyone genuinely committed to this goal.
> Sweden could be in a good position, since it and surrounding countries have lots of capacity for wind generated electricity and hydro based electricity generation/storage.
The article is clear. Sweden's Energy Minister Ebba Busch stated, "We can't connect southern Sweden, which has a large deficit in electricity production, with Germany, where the electricity market today does not function efficiently. That would risk leading to higher prices and a more unstable electricity market in Sweden."
> https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data?market_area=DE-LU&au... Today Germany a peak of 2300€/MWh at 6-7, and a negative of -0.05€ at 12-13.
That's a price, not a bill. It's an auction. Electricity is traded there.
>> Changing market prices are the reality in many markets.
> For a market to be competitive, it must also be predictable. If energy costs vary drastically—€1000/MWh one day and €0 the next—it poses a severe challenge for companies. Such unpredictability discourages investment and may cause industries to relocate.
That's nonsense. "Markets" don't need to be predictable. There are lots of markets, where predictability plays a minor role. There are also renewable energy forecasts, just like there are weather forecasts.
In the future we will have much much more electricity capacity from renewable. Lots of business will then take advantage of that.
That's a completely new market.
> Imagine an energy-intensive company unable to operate profitably due to volatile energy prices.
energy intensive companies have long-term electricity contracts. Additionally many of these companies can steer their demand.
> Paid employees ready to work might have to wait because high energy costs could lead to financial losses.
What?
>However, this interconnectedness does not solve the problem. If Germany's electricity prices soar, they might rely on cheaper Swedish electricity, potentially saturating Sweden's supply and raising costs for Swedes. This scenario recently played out, prompting the Swedish government to halt plans for a new power cable to Germany.
That's all yesterday thinking. Germany is not only connected to Sweden (which it is indirectly) and countries/companies can regulate the export of electricity.
> The consequences are counterproductive. Germany's unstable energy market negatively impacts its citizens and neighboring countries. Rather than increased connectivity, the opposite approach might be more beneficial.
Sure not. It's the fear of modern technology.
> While the transition to renewable energy is essential, it is not without its challenges. Recognizing the limitations of renewables is crucial for anyone genuinely committed to this goal.
Sure there are challenges. Challenges are everywhere. We here in Europe, for example have the challenge to get rid of the energy dependence from Russia, which has served Europe (and Germany) with gas, oil and nuclear (fuel production, technology, fuel reprocessing, ...). Russia has used its energy industry to blackmail Europe. That's a challenge.
But you assume "limitations" of renewable energy which simply are not there or only temporary. For a lot of these "limitations" we will see solutions, like large interconnected grids, demand steering, usage of over-capacity in fuel production, large batteries, ...
We have seen this "limitation" thinking decades ago, when the German electricity industry (mostly coal and nuclear) claimed that renewable energy could only provide a few percent energy share. The grid would be unstable. The reality: the German grid is still super reliable and we approach 60% electricity from renewable energy - in a country with very little hydro capacity.
> Are you being paid to promote renewables? Many parts of your argument sound like poorly crafted commercials.
I had the same impression of your (in my opinion naive) nuclear talking points.
Hackernews (ran by a venture capital firm Y Combinator) is best for people who can extrapolate trends into the future. Energy policy is a field of long term industry trends. Changes can take decades. Currently we see that nuclear changes very slowly if at all, renewable still accelerates.
Don't bet the future on a stagnating energy technology.
And how do you think the cost in the bill is determined?
> That's nonsense. "Markets" don't need to be predictable. There are lots of markets, where predictability plays a minor role. There are also renewable energy forecasts, just like there are weather forecasts.
Knowing that there won't be much sun tomorrow doesn't cause prices to drop. It simply confirms that they will be very high.
Which is exactly what the day-ahead market does.
> In the future we will have much much more electricity capacity from renewable. Lots of business will then take advantage of that.
We live in the present, not in the future. And for it not to be a problem in the future, someone in the present has to think about it. It's a problem in the present.
You're basically putting this problem off indefinitely, you don't care that it exists, you don't care to solve it.
> That's a completely new market.
Which does not exist outside of your dreams...
> energy intensive companies have long-term electricity contracts. Additionally many of these companies can steer their demand.
Not always.
That said, someone must must pay anyways. And if you have a fixed rate and the variable rate goes up, somebody loses a lot of money. It happens like that in every market.
It also happened post-covid with fixed-rate mortgages.
> That's all yesterday thinking. Germany is not only connected to Sweden (which it is indirectly) and countries/companies can regulate the export of electricity.
All beautiful. The fact remains that the Swedes don't want more connections because of German network problems. That they have past connections says nothing about the current and future state of Germany. And the statements speak for themselves, it's a disaster.
> Sure not. It's the fear of modern technology.
Empty words.
> But you assume "limitations" of renewable energy which simply are not there or only temporary. For a lot of these "limitations" we will see solutions, like large interconnected grids, demand steering, usage of over-capacity in fuel production, large batteries, ...
A lot of whishful thinking. You hope in solutions. But now we have problems, its a fact.
> We have seen this "limitation" thinking decades ago, when the German electricity industry (mostly coal and nuclear) claimed that renewable energy could only provide a few percent energy share. The grid would be unstable. The reality: the German grid is still super reliable and we approach 60% electricity from renewable energy - in a country with very little hydro capacity.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/higher-german-grid-fees... Nothing is free.
It's increidible how all the problems I show you are not problems. The only thing that's important is the future and that they will be solved.
No one will solve them unless we first accept their existence. All you do is deny them, or minimize them, postponing them to future non-solutions.
A cost of a bill is determined by the AMOUNT a buyer buys from a certain seller at a certain PRICE, plus the extra costs (like taxes, fees, ...).
...
There is no "hidden true cost", lifecycle cost analysis has been done including research and public financing. The data is public, everyone can check it.
That's why EDF wants money from the british tax payer for the construction of nuclear power plant?
EDF also wants higher electricity prices, the French government doesn't:
https://www.ft.com/content/eaee5a3d-ba76-40ba-8300-082f58657...
" In particular, a looming overhaul of the way nuclear power prices are regulated in France has created fractures as EDF seeks higher prices to bring in much-needed capital, while the state wants to contain energy costs for households and businesses as much as possible, the people added.
“For Rémont, electricity prices need to be sufficiently high so that the group can invest, and the government needs to have prices that are acceptable to consumers,” another person said.
At its core, the debate around EDF is an existential one — whether its executives can and should run the group as a normal company despite it being state-owned. "
If you're interested in reading a 432-page long cost analysis, have fun.
[1]: https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/EzPublish/themat...
In the meantime, most of the french nuclear industry has been taken over by the government to prevent its financial collapse.
For example this article from 2022 paints a much worse picture on why EDF can't increase prices to cover the costs: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/why-french-plan-take...
The amount of storage is set to increase substantially this year.
"Developers plan to add 6,813 MW of battery power storage capacity in CAISO's domain this year, dominated by four-hour lithium-ion resources, roughly double their additions in 2023"
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...
https://cleantechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Califor...
There is some interesting data about CAISO batteries, but this graph is not it.
[1]:https://www.caiso.com/documents/californiaisopeakloadhistory...
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
My understanding of the graphs is they show April for each year.
The first graph of the article shows batteries peak 2.5 G higher than 2023, which is far from explaining the flattening of gas use. The "battery shifting load" and "Load not including battery charging" graphs tend to show that the big difference from 2023 is to ease the morning ramp down, which is good progress, but much more incremental than what's advertised by the graph you're showing.
However it's still 9% of the current MW capacity. We'll see how it ages and it costs in the long run. Most of the pilotable energy sources in the state remain nuke, hydro & fossil fuels.
However it's still 9% of the current MW capacity. We'll see how it ages and it costs in the long run. Most of the pilotable energy sources in the state remain nuke, hydro & fossil fuels. Safety issues, notably fires, notably in Australia's grid are still an issue.
It's highly dependent on the kind of landscape you have though. Great for places like Switzerland, much harder to find a suitable place for it in Texas or Australia.
(Of course you can build pumped hydroelectric storage anywhere, it's just cheaper in some places.)
Hills or mountains make it significantly more feasible. Check the locations of most hydroelectric plants.
(By the same token, Sahara might be an ideal place to locate large solar power installations to feed the entire Eurasia, were it not for the transmission.)
And look at the map, they seem quite widespread.
In other words there's no way we can ramp down fast enough to prevent another degree of warming. We are already past the point of no (practical) return.
Obviously that doesn't mean we give up, 2 degs of warming is better than 3. But we're long (long) past the point where we can pretend we can "avoid the oncoming train".
So get used to more extreme events every year. Hotter hot, wetter wet, drier dry. More energy in the atmosphere means more energetic weather.
If we can pretend it's not happening then we don't need to change. And those making the most money from the harmful behaviors are leading the charge.
Although that's tautologically true, please be aware that "accumulated cyclone energy" (i.e. storm energy) is a tracked metric and hasn't moved since records began 50 years ago:
https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch...
In practice the climate is quite complex and datasets often don't neatly fall into line with each other. If you want to argue that there's a problem with energetic weather some other metric would be needed. Watch out though for economic indexes that don't control for population growth or apply deflators correctly.
It's not just a question of major storms though. It's a question of general day to day weather.
Hot months are hotter, wet months are wetter, cold spells are colder. Every year is bringing "...est on record" everywhere you look.
Everyday weather is like a pendulum- and the pendulum is swinging just a bit further with each swing.
But you don't need to get bogged down by the science. You don't even need the numbers. If you're prepared to acknowledge it at all, it's evident simply by looking outside.
> But it serves a purpose.
Purpose? What purpose? Honestly, this stuff really gets my goat. I'm not sure if you're aware of this but around half of the US population doesn't agree that climate changes are driven primarily by humans [1], and over time the proportion of people saying climate change is a serious problem have gone down, not up. This is despite absolutely saturation level messaging by every part society that's allowed to speak.
Despite being confined to obscure blogs climate skeptics appear to be winning, and they're doing it through a simple formula:
1. Take a claim made by journalists/politicians/academics/the UN/whatever.
2. Present documentary evidence that the claim is wrong. Sometimes a graph from a government website, sometimes data from a paper, sometimes historical evidence or data they collected themselves.
3. Say it isn't a mistake but rather deliberate lies told in aid of a specific social agenda.
So when you say the weather is getting more energetic, I show you it's not getting more energetic, and you accept that you were wrong but say "It serves a purpose", what you're doing is illustrating and to some extent confirming all the worst conspiracy theories of the skeptics. You're saying it's OK to say untrue things about the climate if it's in aid of some (unarticulated) other goal.
> Every year is bringing "...est on record" everywhere you look.
Given that you just made a claim about storm energy that isn't correct, presumably found in those places that you look, one should consider the possibility that claims we hear about records might also be gross oversimplifications told to serve a purpose.
[1] https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/EPIC-factsheet...
To be fair, I didn't say anything about storm energy, I made a comment about energetic weather. In the sense that the weather is "more". Hotter hots, colder colds and so on. So more energetic in the "less placid" sense.
And sure, lots of US folks are happy to deny climate change because it suits them. The majority of climate deniers are not doing it because they disbelieve the science, they deny it because their life-style would need to change if they accepted it was real.
In other words they rationalise backwards - start with the outcome they desire (I'm not to blame, I don't need to change) and then find a path to that outcome.
Or to put it another way, you cannot rationally argue a person out of a place they didn't rationally get into.
Which goes back to my original point. I don't think most (rich nations) people want to change, and so we're well past the point of no return. The earth will be a different place for my children and grandchildren. The time for convincing people that this is a problem has come and gone.
At a local level, where carbon emissions actually happen, there's a wide variety of support for varying technologies depending on where you're at. Sometimes this is an existing technology and sometimes it might be a new technology. Solar wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for moonshot projects just a few decades ago.
A small college in Texas was able to build and run a Thorium reactor, so it can't be that far out of reach for a small country : https://youtu.be/kCrrrmh-eMo?si=NChlWACDXajKm9hr
A research reactor does not have to produce electricity at anything close to an economic price, just as the fusion reactors.
A Thorium reactor might work, and might be built in some future, and it might even not come super over budget or over time like more or less every fission reactor we've built. In the meantime, wind/solar/batteries are being continuously delivered on time, on budget, are getting continuously cheaper, and are available today.
* How many 2MW molten salt reactors like the built and being tested TMSR-LF1 reactor would Australia need to meet that figure? What would be the cost and time to construct that number in parallel?
* There's a 10MW version planned - what's the cost | timeline | number for those?
* Eventually there might be a ~ 300MW version built and tested .. what's the timeline on that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMSR-LF1
The CSIRO GenCost report seems to think the costs of batteries + renewables will be far less overall and more immediately available in Australia as we scale them out .. rather than waiting decades and still having to fudge about in the meantime .. thoughts?
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Gen...
Annual energy production of one 2 MW reactor: 2 MW * 8760 hours/year = 17,520 MWh/year = 17.52 GWh/year.
Number of reactors required: 265,000 GWh/year / 17.52 GWh/year = ~15,130 reactors.
This is of course a silly computation for scaling a research grade molten salt reactor. 300+ MW reactors knocks things down to a few dozen.
Now, how about if we apply this same requirement to solar power? How many solar panels will we need to get the same power gain?
Total energy required: 265,000 GWh/year = 265,000,000 MWh/year = 265,000,000,000 kWh/year. Number of panels needed: 265,000,000,000 kWh/year / 584 kWh/year per panel ≈ 453,767,123 panels.
I know Chinese panels are cheap and all, but the notion that Australia will maintain a network of 450M panels is silly, and this is just to replace what we have now, not what is needed in the future.
And I have seen no convincing argument for why this would be even remotely true.
As a counter argument, consider how poorly such predictions have done in the past (i.e. early 2023) [0]. For over a decade the IEA has been saying the same thing, and for every year in that decade they have been wrong, comically wrong.
So if you want to make your argument, you'll have to explain why the literally exponential curve is going to not just flatten, but go to zero.
[0]: https://stacker.news/items/581737 (original image from https://www.economist.com/interactive/essay/2024/06/20/solar...)
But the required security alone, to prevent the spread of material to all kind of terrorist organisations or rougue states, will likely not make them a economical alternative.
The problem is that it's likely that tariffs will be raised on cheap solar imports from China so either way, nuclear or solar, there will be no cheap electricity for Australians.
In my view, either a corrupt nuclear firm syphons off a bunch of public money, or another bunch of money will be wasted trying to get Australian solar manufacturing competitive with China. Sadly not wasting a bunch of money is not an option. That's the problem with the government funded ventures, trying and failing makes more money than trying and succeeding.
At least they're not pushing clean coal anymore.
Likely to be viable a lot sooner in countries that already have a nuclear industry.