Great work!
2,990 karma · joined November 21, 2008
"1. No need for ocean bed fixation hardware. 2. Ultimately lower tons of steel & cement per MW (not true now, but coming). 3. Much lower EPC costs. Build in port, tow to destination. (No jack-up ships.) 3. Lower O&M (tow back to port) 4. Better wind resource, meaning higher AEP per year (amortizing capex over more MWH). 5. Better wind resource also means higher capacity factor -> increased value, slower value deflation.
* In 2020, the global weighted-average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from new capacity additions of onshore wind declined by 13%, compared to 2019.
* Over the same period, the LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and that of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.
Source: https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-...
* Costs for electricity from utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) fell 85% between 2010 and 2020.
* In 2020, the global weighted-average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from new capacity additions of onshore wind declined by 13%, compared to 2019.
* Over the same period, the LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and that of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.
* 800 GW of existing coal-fired capacity has operating costs higher than new utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind, including USD 0.005/kWh for integration costs. Replacing these coal-fired plants would cut annual system costs by USD 32 billion per year and reduce annual CO2 emissions by around 3 Gigatonnes of CO2.
Yes solar is insanely cheap today, but it will be much cheaper in a few years. And capacity factors are 30%+ for single-axis trackers in sunny places: https://emp.lbl.gov/pv-capacity-factors
https://ethaniverson.com/2020/04/08/riffs-second-set/ https://ethaniverson.com/reds-bells/
The hope is to deploy 880MW of electricity a year, starting in 2030—call it 9GW in the 2030s. Meanwhile we are adding (50GW * ~0.50 capacity factor) ~= 25GW of wind capacity every year. By the time these new systems are planned to deliver their first GW in 2030, we'll have 500GW (nameplate) of wind delivering between 50 and 500GW round the clock, augmented with utility-scale storage that currently runs about $200M/GWh and will be at least 2x cheaper by 2030. [2], [3]
Then there is geothermal, and solar plus li-ion storage (or better), and solar/wind augmented with hydrogen electrolysis. I'm glad we're developing new nuclear power, I really am. But the competitive landscape it faces is daunting.
[1] https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update/t... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/05/victo... [3] https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victoria-to-buil...
"Munro said his team is now investigating the prevalence and causes of such problems, noting it is unclear whether they are down to the virus itself, the immune system response, stress, or even treatments for Covid – or whether it could simply be that hearing problems become apparent in a noisy hospital where individuals wear masks."
Walney is a new nameplate 588MW offshore wind farm; it will average close to the same delivered energy and cost $3B.[1]
If Terrapower can actually deliver at roughly those costs, they might make a real contribution to our energy future.
The "economics" essay underplays two important issues and elides a third. First, learning curves. You are reluctant to let go of "economies of scale", for which you seem to place, ahem, a thumb on the scale against "economies of mass production". What you miss is the dynamic nature of learning. If you produce two reactors of size X/2 rather than 1 reactor of size X, you get twice as much learning, and that learning compounds. C.f. wind turbines.
Second, nuclear has many more serious competitors than it used to. Geothermal and various storage technologies produce market-friendly energy at gigawatt scale, and capital is being deployed to improve them as fast as it can be absorbed.
Third (and related): all economies are political economies, and nuclear has the worst politics of any technology. To their enormous credit, nuclear advocates are finally taking this issue seriously, but they have so much work to do.
Unfortunately, these three issues feed into each other. The happy case—the one I'm rooting for—is that a 5-10 megawatt technology gets so much capital behind it that costs are brought down to "vaguely competitive with offshore wind", and that it becomes an important option with gigawatts deployed annually starting around 2030. Unfortunately, by that point we're going to have GWh-storage paired with solar that is either 1/10th that cost or twice as efficient as currently, or both. The path for nuclear is narrow and treacherous.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/say-hello-to-th...