Is it time to go nuclear?

unkel

knipex wrote: »

So they work in the dark now ??

It's not a misconception, it's a fact.. It was dark at 8am this morning when I walked into work and it was dark at 4:30 when I walked out..

You being willfully obtuse? Poster asked if solar panels worked in Ireland even though we don't have that much sun. I tried to explain that solar panels don't need sun to work, just daylight.

Capt'n Midnight

jbkenn wrote: »

Really?, have to wonder how France survives, given that the majority of it's power is generated by nuclear, currently 63.61%
Source https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=FR

They have 63GW of Nuclear.

But it's backed up by 25 GW of Hydro and there's 10GW of interconnectors to the neighbours. And Govt policy is to reduce nuclear to 50%

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmenvaud/584/584iii.pdf

In the UK, the inflexibility of nuclear plant has largely driven the need to ensure adequate “off peak”
load, with the extensive and expensive infrastructure of “white” meters and electricity storage heaters. The
cost and losses associated with this inflexible infrastructure is rarely factored in to the costs of nuclear
electricity generation.

It's a huge hidden subsidy. Similar story in France for the use of cheap electrical heating.

antoinolachtnai

The problem with these analyses of the different types of power sources is that if you followed them to their natural conclusion, no one would ever build anything except gas plants. That would clearly not be a good place to be.

NIMAN

Knowing Ireland, a plant would be costed initially at e6 billion, and end up costing 30billion.

SlowBlowin

NIMAN wrote: »

Knowing Ireland, a plant would be costed initially at e6 billion, and end up costing 30billion.

I think thats a pretty close estimate.

cnocbui

unkel wrote: »

You being willfully obtuse? Poster asked if solar panels worked in Ireland even though we don't have that much sun. I tried to explain that solar panels don't need sun to work, just daylight.

You are just as guilty of that accusation. A light bulb that's producing 1/10,000th of it's rated output due to a voltage drop is 'working' but really it isn't.

Solar panels in this country don't produce a meaningful or useful output in winter. They might 'work', but if you need an entire football fields area of panels to boil a kettle, they aren't working.

They work well and are semi useful in Australia, but not here with about half the hours of direct sunlight per year.

To quote from met.ie:

December is the dullest month, with an average daily sunshine ranging from about 1 hour in the north to almost 2 hours in the extreme southeast. Over the year as a whole, most areas get an average of between 3 1/4 and 3 3/4 hours of sunshine each day.

pffft!

Solar will become useful if grid-scale battery systems ever become economically viable and competitive, but I'm not holding my breath.

SlowBlowin

cnocbui wrote: »

Solar panels in this country don't produce a meaningful or useful output in winter. They might 'work', but if you need an entire football fields area of panels to boil a kettle, they aren't working.

OK so I read your post, then checked the output from my panels in the field on this winters day to stay close to your analogy.

The screen shot shows your post over the output from that array, which is currently 250 watts. Notice the panels cover only the goal in your hypothetical football field.

Now say your kettle is 2.5 kw, and takes 3 minutes to boil.

That means just those panels are producing enough to boil a kettle every 30 minutes. I actually have 3 of those arrays around the place.

Now that might not work for you, but I do indeed boil my kettle off those panels in the winter in Ireland.

In my opinion they are working.

power.jpg
panels.jpg

cnocbui

SlowBlowin wrote: »

OK so I read your post, then checked the output from my panels in the field on this winters day to stay close to your analogy.

The screen shot shows your post over the output from that array, which is currently 250 watts. Notice the panels cover only the goal in your hypothetical football field.

Now say your kettle is 2.5 kw, and takes 3 minutes to boil.

That means just those panels are producing enough to boil a kettle every 30 minutes. I actually have 3 of those arrays around the place.

Now that might not work for you, but I do indeed boil my kettle off those panels in the winter in Ireland.

In my opinion they are working.

power.jpg
panels.jpg

Thank's, for making my point for me.

unkel

cnocbui wrote: »

You are just as guilty of that accusation. A light bulb that's producing 1/10,000th of it's rated output due to a voltage drop is 'working' but really it isn't.

Solar panels in this country don't produce a meaningful or useful output in winter.

No I'm not. I never said PV panels work 24/7. And obviously they produce a lot less in winter than in summer

In full sunshine my array produces 3.7kW around the mid day hours in summer, but not much more than 1.5kW in winter. That's relatively high as PV panels are the most efficient if they are really cold (that's the main reason PV in Ireland works quite well). In summer we have about 17 day light hours, in winter only half that. So of course, PV is very limited in winter. But still quite meaningful.

SlowBlowin

cnocbui wrote: »

Thank's, for making my point for me.

No worries I am glad that you conceed that this post of yours:

"Solar panels in this country don't produce a meaningful or useful output in winter. They might 'work', but if you need an entire football fields area of panels to boil a kettle, they aren't working."

Is 100% wrong as showed.

knipex

Birdnuts wrote:

That article is over 20 years old!! and currently the French have the cheapest and lowest carbon energy system in the EU - which will soon be keeping the lights on here during cold and calm winter nights like this via the new interconnector coming ashore in Cork by 2025

The cabon content of French electricity is on the increase as they increase renewables as they have built single cycle gas turbines to back them up..

knipex

SlowBlowin wrote:

That means just those panels are producing enough to boil a kettle every 30 minutes. I actually have 3 of those arrays .

Now that might not work for you, but I do indeed boil my kettle off those panels in the winter in Ireland.

Err that makes no sense.. a 3kw kettle requires (in round figures) 12amps of power to run.

Your array required 30 minutes to generate a similar amount of power as would be consumed by the kettle.

You would need to store that power, and then send out that power to be consumed in 1/10th the time it took to produce..

SlowBlowin

knipex wrote: »

Err that makes no sense.. a 3kw kettle requires (in round figures) 12amps of power to run.

Your array required 30 minutes to generate a similar amount of power as would be consumed by the kettle.

You would need to store that power, and then send out that power to be consumed in 1/10th the time it took to produce..

Stored in battery, and then inverted to the kettle.

Thats how batteries work, they can release the energy rapidly if required, the speed that the power goes into the battery has nothing to do with how fast you can get it out.

Posters can tell me all they want, but I've boiled the kettle 3 or 4 times today, as well as run the lights and the computer I am typing this on, and that all been from my solar. You can tell me that wont work, but as I have done it, I am unlikely to believe you.

YFlyer

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Stored in battery, and then inverted to the kettle.

Thats how batteries work, they can release the energy rapidly if required, the speed that the power goes into the battery has nothing to do with how fast you can get it out.

Posters can tell me all they want, but I've boiled the kettle 3 or 4 times today, as well as run the lights and the computer I am typing this on, and that all been from my solar. You can tell me that wont work, but as I have done it, I am unlikely to believe you.

Nice setup you have there.

Would you have extra appliances running off the solar panels during the summer?

unkel

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Posters can tell me all they want, but I've boiled the kettle 3 or 4 times today

I think the posters didn't realise you have a big ass battery

SlowBlowin

YFlyer wrote: »

Nice setup you have there.

Would you have extra appliances running off the solar panels during the summer?

Yes, I have a big surplus in summer.

8 Years ago it was used to power 2 big litecoin mining rigs, with 4 x 4096 core graphics cards per rig. They heated the whole place and produced great value.

In winter I dont have a surplus, but now in summer all surplus goes to extra pollytunnel lighting and heat.

Hydro comes online next year, if I can get my arse off the sofa.

Edit: 4500 Ah of battery helps.

Capt'n Midnight

NIMAN wrote: »

Knowing Ireland, a plant would be costed initially at e6 billion, and end up costing 30billion.

LOL because it's true.


And not because it's Ireland.

The UK have been building nuclear power plants since the 1950's and they still can't get it right.


The two EPR's at Hinkley C will cost

In 2008, the UK Government forecast that the cost of two EPRs would be £4 billion, and EDF claimed first power from Hinkley Point C would be in late 2017. However, by then, the estimated cost was had gone up fivefold to between £19.6 billion and £20.3 billion and one must add on the interest during construction which will probably be £10 billion, to arrive at the total cost of the project of approximately £30 billion. Completion is now not expected until 2025 to 2027, so the project is approximately ten years late.

The interest compared to the market rate suggest a high risk project.

Notice how it went from In 2008, the UK Government forecast that the cost of two EPRs would be £4 billion, vs. to now where for just one EPR weld repairs to cost 1.5 billion euros

The above costs do NOT include the indexed linked strike price of Twice the market rate which could cost consumers another £50bn over the lifetime of Hinkley C.



Look at how the UK's new nuclear program is going. It was supposed to be six or eight plants. Most were abandoned because the foreign companies doing the new plants backed out. They are now relying on Chinese money and French technology for Hinkley C. EDF are tottering on bankruptcy (like the other other contenders in the UK new build field) and China needs EDF because of the plants being built in China.


The EPR at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland was to have cost €3.2 billion and produce power in 2009. It's now looking like March 2021 "With a total cost estimate of at least 8.5 billion euros, it has been described as the second-most expensive building in human history, behind a hotel complex in Mecca

Capt'n Midnight

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem with these analyses of the different types of power sources is that if you followed them to their natural conclusion, no one would ever build anything except gas plants. That would clearly not be a good place to be.

Except ANY analysis would not show that.

Gas costs money. Wind and solar can undercut gas a lot of the time.

Compared to coal, CCGT can deliver power with a fraction of the CO2 emissions. Since nuclear can only provide base load it can only replace base load coal. Nuclear can't save any CO2 emissions from peaking plant. More efficient gas plants can and renewables can totally reduce peak emission, when it's windy or sunny.

Pumped storage matches will with nuclear or renewables.


The niche for gas is ramping up output to load balance. So matches nuclear or renewables.

Specially designed French nuclear plants can ramp down at weekends. If they've had a new fuel load that is. Other than that nuclear is a one trick pony of near constant base load only.

Markcheese

Edf are tottering on the edge of bankrupcy,and are way behind and over budget on projects in Finland and France ,. (but that's just the French ,what do they know about nuclear ),
Westinghouse in the USA went bust a few years ago,
The Japanese are out ,
The Germans are out ,
The Brits are trying to get anyone but themselves to build and pay for hinkly point ,

So that leaves the Russians (and former Soviet Bloc),the Chinese and the Indians still building ....

unkel

Estimated cost to tax payer (in US) to clean up nuclear waste jumped by over $100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion dollars) to half a trillion dollars this year

Linky


Don't know about you guys, but this particular tax payer has no appetite to pay for that sort of cleanup.

Dinarius

[/quote]pffft!

Solar will become useful if grid-scale battery systems ever become economically viable and competitive, but I'm not holding my breath.[/quote]

Doesn’t battery technology, however advanced, pose the problem of the use of irreplaceable precious metals in their manufacture? Or have they gotten round this problem now?

D.

SlowBlowin

Dinarius wrote: »

Solar will become useful if grid-scale battery systems ever become economically viable and competitive, but I'm not holding my breath.

Doesn’t battery technology, however advanced, pose the problem of the use of irreplaceable precious metals in their manufacture? Or have they gotten round this problem now?

D.

The whole metals in batteries is over hyped by the anti renewable energy people.

As an example, people complaining about this, who have been driving petrol/diesel cars for 20 years have probably already wasted a whole EV battery worth of Cobalt.

Cobalt is critical in refining petroleum, and the huge Cobalt catalysts they use have to be replaced very frequently, and up until recently scrapped. Historically far more Cobalt has been used by petrol cars than EVs, but no one mentioned it !

Lithium is quite common, and batteries have a good reason to be recycled, old diesel engines less so.

Battery technology is getting greener, especially for static batteries, where all carbon/harmless salt variants are very close.

greasepalm

I would be dead long before nuclear gets here via 5g to kill me.
Better ways to run a modern house in the future.

cnocbui

SlowBlowin wrote: »

The whole metals in batteries is over hyped by the anti renewable energy people.

As an example, people complaining about this, who have been driving petrol/diesel cars for 20 years have probably already wasted a whole EV battery worth of Cobalt.

Cobalt is critical in refining petroleum, and the huge Cobalt catalysts they use have to be replaced very frequently, and up until recently scrapped. Historically far more Cobalt has been used by petrol cars than EVs, but no one mentioned it !

Lithium is quite common, and batteries have a good reason to be recycled, old diesel engines less so.

Battery technology is getting greener, especially for static batteries, where all carbon/harmless salt variants are very close.

lithium batteries are not being recycled. Stating they 'can' be is far removed from the actual situation which is that they aren't recycled. A single Tesla that crashed and burned in Austria seems to have caused a significant problem in that no one seems to want to touch the remains. There is no lithium battery recycling industry. https://climatechangedispatch.com/wrecked-tesla-recycle-car/

Diesel engines are mostly made of cast iron and steel, for which there is a well established recycling industry. Approximately 90% of the iron and steel in ICE cars are recycled. https://www.worldautosteel.org/life-cycle-thinking/recycling/

Ah yes, the imminent new magic green technology that's almost here trope.

unkel

cnocbui wrote: »

There is no lithium battery recycling industry

There's no need (yet) as pretty much all EV batteries are scooped up before the cars are scrapped. They have serious value even if they have significant degradation. A single Tesla battery module from a Model S from 2012 that's written off is worth about USD1000 on eBay. The car has 16 of those modules!

Seriously overpriced if you ask me, but that is supply and demand for ya...

SlowBlowin

cnocbui wrote: »

lithium batteries are not being recycled. Stating they 'can' be is far removed from the actual situation which is that they aren't recycled. A single Tesla that crashed and burned in Austria seems to have caused a significant problem in that no one seems to want to touch the remains. There is no lithium battery recycling industry. https://climatechangedispatch.com/wrecked-tesla-recycle-car/

A very twisted reply.

Lithium batteries are removed and resold. There is a huge market for Lithium, if you don't believe me try going on eBay.

Car engines on the other hand, are true scrap, the go though a costly and energy intensive process to smash them to pieces then the metal frag is shipped to recycling plants, usually abroad.

Money and value drive the scrap industry, a ICE car is worth 150, a scrap EV battery is worth thousands.

greasepalm

Next you will hear of hundreds of electric cars been robbed for their batteries.

cnocbui

SlowBlowin wrote: »

A very twisted reply.

Lithium batteries are removed and resold. There is a huge market for Lithium, if you don't believe me try going on eBay.

Car engines on the other hand, are true scrap, the go though a costly and energy intensive process to smash them to pieces then the metal frag is shipped to recycling plants, usually abroad.

Money and value drive the scrap industry, a ICE car is worth 150, a scrap EV battery is worth thousands.

You talk of twisting; rather ironic. The engines of ice cars damaged in accidents are usually recovered and sold, same for many other parts. If the batteries in an EV are still in a good enough state to have high value when sold as used, the car they are from was likely damaged. So it's the same for both types of cars, still useful parts are recovered and re used.

Now tell me what happens to EV batteries at the true end of their life. That example I gave of the crashed Tesla seems to point to their not being a lithium recycling industry, which, by the way, if it existed, would consume energy. Li cells have a stainless steel casing, for example. Scrap ferrous and aluminium metals are largely recycled because the energy required to melt and recycle them is but a fraction of that required to smelt new metals. It's a good thing they are recycled, if you are worried about CO2.

Another twist is it's disingenuous to pretend the metals in a an EV won't need just as much energy to smelt for true end of life recycling. Given EV's weigh a lot more than ICE cars, they are going to see more energy expended to recycle. A Tesla 3 weighs about 400-550 Kg more than, say, my Civic, so will require more energy to smelt and EOL recycle.

SlowBlowin

cnocbui wrote: »

lithium batteries are not being recycled. Stating they 'can' be is far removed from the actual situation which is that they aren't recycled. A single Tesla that crashed and burned in Austria seems to have caused a significant problem in that no one seems to want to touch the remains. There is no lithium battery recycling industry. https://climatechangedispatch.com/wrecked-tesla-recycle-car/

I don't know where you get your information, or indeed how hard you investigate.

The most mature EV markets are the Nordic counties. Have a read of this:

https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1364968/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Pay attention to the section on crashed Teslas, as that seems to be your current argument.

SlowBlowin

cnocbui wrote: »

lithium batteries are not being recycled. Stating they 'can' be is far removed from the actual situation which is that they aren't recycled.

Here is a nice video on the non-existent and impossible Lithium Ion battery recycling industry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxCFDWMPu38

To be fair, I have heard this argument many times, its another fabricated argument repeated often without source checking. Its the same type of argument as saying solar panels are useless after 20 years, again often repeated but rubbish with no scientific foundation.