Greta’s very corporate children’s crusade - Page 24 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

All general discussion about politics that doesn't belong in any of the other forums.

Moderator: PoFo Political Circus Mods

#15052552
Prosthetic Conscience wrote:$150 per MWh is the price they'd sell the energy at, I think. For example, Hinkley Point C has a strike price of £92.50/MWh in 2012 prices - which, after a little inflation, is about $140/MWh. At 4.2 billion MWh/year US electricity usage, that's $630 billion/year to pay for the electricity - running costs, and paying back the cost of building the reactors, over many years.
Exactly. The Lazard report actually gives a range of $115-195
Image

Current cost of building a nuclear power plant in the US is probably around $10bn although that could come down if there was a big drive and constant stream of projects

This year's world nuclear industry status report said this about the choices
Image
Last edited by BeesKnee5 on 04 Dec 2019 17:11, edited 1 time in total.
#15052553
JohnRawls wrote:
This seems more reasonable actually and explains the discrapepncy. Then what Bee said is a bit wrong and hard to compare to what I was saying before. If we do the math then average price per KWH is somewhere between 12 and 14 cents in US. So 14 * 1 000 / 100 = 140 Dollars. In the range you would expect.

Solar math:
Google says average cost per Watt install in US is between 3 and 4 dollars for solar. Lets do the same calculations. We take 3.5 as a baseline. 3500 USd Per KW and 3 500 000 per MW. 3 500 000 / (366*24)= 400 USD per MWH. 400 * 4 460 000 000 = 1.8 Trillion to make US fully solar renewable IF the placement was perfect. Basically if everyone was Texas/California. This does not take in to account batteries though which by this time should not be seperatable from solar panels because they simply don't work properly otherwise. How much is battery price? Google says that panels cost 10k-14k while batteries will cost you 5k to 7k usually. So that is 50% increase for the batteries. We are talking about housing level batteries so lets pretend they are the same for large industry (Which they are not). 1.8 Trillion + 50% = 2.7 Trillion. So if the whole US was Texas/California then you would need 2.7 Trillion USD to put all production to fully renewable solar. You can probably subtract some from that cost because some of the electricity is already produced by "pure" renewables. So lets say 2.5 Trillion.

Conclusion: Same as nuclear just not possible because of different sun levels north of Texas/California. Nuclear provides more stable output compared to Solar. Only manages to compete under best possible conditions.


Are you trying to compare domestic solar and batteries to nuclear?
There is a significant difference in price to large scale solar farms and storage. A solar farm is around $1 per watt.

The 2017 report estimated $1.5 - $2 trillion in interconnectors and batteries to enable areas with good levels of renewables to support areas with lower levels and to balance out solar / wind nationally. This would provide the infrastructure for wind and solar alone to provide 80% of US energy.
#15052554
BeesKnee5 wrote:Are you trying to compare domestic solar and batteries to nuclear?
There is a significant difference in price to large scale solar farms and storage. A solar farm is around $1 per watt.

The 2017 report estimated $1.5 - $2 trillion in interconnectors and batteries to enable areas with good levels of renewables to support areas with lower levels and to balance out solar / wind nationally. This would provide the infrastructure for wind and solar alone to provide 80% of US energy.


That is unrealistic and too cheap. If you compare previous calculations with this map then it becomes more clearer i guess.

Places like California, Texas etc get 3700+ KWH per m2. But a large chunk of US and Europe are not in that zone. Actually most of US and Europe are not in that zone and we get barely any sunlight over the year. Which increases the price by a lot. So 4000/500 = 8. So worst case scenario is 8 times increase... Most of the US seems to be in around 1400 while most of the EU is in 1000 Zone.

Image
#15052555
JohnRawls wrote:
That is unrealistic and too cheap. If you compare previous calculations with this map then it becomes more clearer i guess.

Places like California, Texas etc get 3700+ KWH per m2. But a large chunk of US and Europe are not in that zone. Actually most of US and Europe are not in that zone and we get barely any sunlight over the year. Which increases the price by a lot. So 4000/500 = 8. So worst case scenario is 8 times increase... Most of the US seems to be in around 1400 while most of the EU is in 1000 Zone.

Image


It's not unrealistic or too cheap, it is the current average rate according to the largest supplier of solar farms in the US.
The point here is that you install renewables where they are most effective and use interconnectors to share the power over the grid.

UK is in the process of building interconnectors to Norway and Iceland, the interconnectors to Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland enable access to wind and solar power over a wider system. The North sea power hub is going to make a huge change for Europe and the use of off shore wind to provide power to homes hundreds of miles away from source.
#15052556
BeesKnee5 wrote:It's not unrealistic or too cheap, it is the current average rate according to the largest builder of solar farms in the US.
The point here is that you install renewables where they are most effective and use interconnectors to share the power over the grid.

UK is in the process of building interconnectors to Norway and Iceland, the interconnectors to Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland enable access to wind and solar power over a wider system. The North sea power hub is going to make a huge change for Europe and the use of off shore wind to provide power to homes hundreds of miles away from source.


Don't you think that a company who deals in solar power installation has a bias towards advertising their product as much as possible even to the point of cheating. In the same way tobacco won't tell you that it causes cancer, mcdonalds that it gives you obesity and so on?

Also transportation is a nice concept and all but its much cheaper usually to produce energy in the same place that you consume it. Lets take a scenario when you transport energy from US east cost to US west coast and so on. Google says that for 160 km in high voltage transimission lines you can loose from 0.5 to 1.1%. Distance from US east coast to West coast is 3500 to 2500 miles or 5632 to 4023 KM. So by that logic you will loose 5632/160= 35.2*1.1 -> 38.72% or 19.36% to 27.7% or 13.85% of your electricity. Those are not good numbers. So from 40 to 14% of your electricity which kinda implies that you need to generate more electricity in the first place for this to work.
#15052558
JohnRawls wrote:
Don't you think that a company who deals in solar power installation has a bias towards advertising their product as much as possible even to the point of cheating. In the same way tobacco won't tell you that it causes cancer, mcdonalds that it gives you obesity and so on?

Also transportation is a nice concept and all but its much cheaper usually to produce energy in the same place that you consume it. Lets take a scenario when you transport energy from US east cost to US west coast and so on. Google says that for 160 km in high voltage transimission lines you can loose from 0.5 to 1.1%. Distance from US east coast to West coast is 3500 to 2500 miles or 5632 to 4023 KM. So by that logic you will loose 5632/160= 35.2*1.1 -> 38.72% or 19.36% to 27.7% or 13.85% of your electricity. Those are not good numbers. So from 40 to 14% of your electricity which kinda implies that you need to generate more electricity in the first place for this to work.


All companies have to be honest in their financial returns. This isn't advertising.

Why on earth would you be looking to transfer energy from one coast to another?
It simply doesn't work that way, Energy moves into neighbouring areas, allowing the energy in that area to meet demand and forward on excess to other areas that need it. It also fails to understand the nature of renewables, by their very nature you must be able to generate more than 100%, otherwise there is no benefit in storage. Renewables aren't cheaper in places where it's needed, they are cheaper where they are most efficient.
#15052560
BeesKnee5 wrote:All companies have to be honest in their financial returns. This isn't advertising.

Why on earth would you be looking to transfer energy from one coast to another?
It simply doesn't work that way, Energy moves into neighbouring areas, allowing the energy in that area to meet demand and forward on excess to other areas that need it. It also fails to understand the nature of renewables, by their very nature you must be able to generate more than 100%, otherwise there is no benefit in storage. Renewables aren't cheaper in places where it's needed, they are cheaper where they are most efficient.


It was a worst case scenario. Electricity will need to be moved around because of electricity production being concentrated in certain areas. Current loss to this is 5%. But electricity is mostly produced locally where its needed while with renewables it will not be possible to do as you state. You understand all this.

The argument started with nuclear being the most efficient way to go renewable. You haven't exactly explained how other renewables are more efficient. So i am not sure what your argument is right now. Is it possible that Solar and Wind can be as efficient or a bit more efficient than nuclear? Well yes, under specific best possible circumstances. Realistically though, it is not possible to produce it only in those places and move it not because its physically impossible but because the energy loss and battery construction prices will make this more inefficient compared to Nuclear which can produce locally in any place you build the nuclear power plant. Yes, power plants also have "requirements" for them to be built like some water, stable from earthquakes etc. Those places are ample in US and EU.
#15052564
JohnRawls wrote:
It was a worst case scenario. Electricity will need to be moved around because of electricity production being concentrated in certain areas. Current loss to this is 5%. But electricity is mostly produced locally where its needed while with renewables it will not be possible to do as you state. You understand all this.

The argument started with nuclear being the most efficient way to go renewable. You haven't exactly explained how other renewables are more efficient. So i am not sure what your argument is right now. Is it possible that Solar and Wind can be as efficient or a bit more efficient than nuclear? Well yes, under specific best possible circumstances. Realistically though, it is not possible to produce it only in those places and move it not because its physically impossible but because the energy loss and battery construction prices will make this more inefficient compared to Nuclear which can produce locally in any place you build the nuclear power plant. Yes, power plants also have "requirements" for them to be built like some water, stable from earthquakes etc. Those places are ample in US and EU.


Most of your comparisons to nuclear appear to be worst case scenario.

I have pointed out that solar and wind is a third to a quarter of the price of nuclear by MWh produced according to Lazard. What this is really about is cost efficiency or bang for your buck, on this Nuclear has lost the edge due to the falling price of storage.

This means you can add significantly more to the grid for a fraction of the price. As I have previously highlighted research done says requirement for solar and wind to reach 80% of US energy requirements is an infrastructure cost of $1tn, a battery storage cost of around $500Bn. How much to add connections for hundreds of nuclear power stations to the grid?

If you cost the requirement of solar and wind to meet this you still do not get to the costs of nuclear. Even adding a 10% transmission loss to energy not used locally you still don't come close to the current difference in energy price. Adding in storage you still have a margin of $50 MWh to play with and the price of batteries and renewables is still falling.

As for it being impossible, it's already happening in the European energy market and that's why coal utilisation rates are falling in eastern Europe. It's becoming cheaper to import from neighbouring countries than rely solely on native fossil fuels. The grid is becoming more connected and more reactive to demand, allowing more of the energy produced by renewables to be utilised rather than wasted as was happening only a few years ago.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I hold the figures produced by leading researchers in the industry in higher regard than your calculations.

I'm going to repost this to highlight why you were wrong to use residential solar as a comparison and how much cheaper utility scale solar is to nuclear..
Image
Last edited by BeesKnee5 on 04 Dec 2019 19:37, edited 3 times in total.
#15052565
JohnRawls wrote:Well, lets take a dream scenario when you replace all the energy production with nuclear which is cheapest option right now.

Basing such a huge multi-decade project on current technology is just stupid, like planning a quantum computer system to be built in 2030 based on Windows 10.

The sun pours more energy onto the earth's surface in two days than all the energy humanity has ever obtained from fossil fuels, and will continue to do so for billions of years (it pours nearly a billion times more than that out into interstellar space). The technology for utilizing it can only get better and cheaper. Likewise with energy storage technology. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are inherently being exhausted by use, so their cost will continue to climb. At some point those trends will cross, and fossil fuels will become obsolete except for certain applications like aviation and high-latitude heating. As there is self-evidently and indisputably no climate crisis or emergency requiring immediate action -- and, I predict, never will be as a result of human CO2 emissions -- and increased CO2 is significantly beneficial to plant growth and bioproductivity, the best choice is just to continue using fossil fuels until technological progress in solar or other options makes them obsolete. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions and peak oil will then be as irrelevant to our descendants as the shortage of whales to kill for their oil is to us today.

Diverting so much of our scarce resources into a crash program to replace the fossil fuel energy system -- when an order of magnitude smaller investment in something like AI development would pay returns orders of magnitude greater -- will look as idiotic to our descendants as a crash program to raise whales for their oil in the mid-19th century would look to us today. Take it to the bank.
#15052659
Just want to highlight something regarding Nuclear. As they age they become less efficient and require more maintenance. For wind and solar aging this means swapping out the faulty/ degraded parts with newer more efficient technology while the rest of the wind farm/solar farm continues to operate. For Nuclear it means shutting down the whole reactor and eventually a complete rebuild.

In the UK we are learning this lesson the hard way. We have 8 nuclear power stations. in 2012 they produced 66TWh, by 2019 they are only capable of producing 47.5TWh. Every time they go down for essential maintenance we are having to use gas and coal to fill the gap. 18.5TWh worth to support our failing Nuclear power stations.
The financials for replacing them looking horrendous, Hinckley C alone is now expected to cost £25bn to build and the electricity it produces will require the state to pay at least £50bn in subsidies over 35 years . That £50bn could provide double the amount of subsidy free offshore wind or refit 6 million homes with ground heat pumps and generate/ save far, far more fossil fuel energy than the nuclear plant ever could.
This year our wind power will exceed nuclear for the first time, renewables (excluding nuclear) producing 29% of our electricity, compared to 5% in 2012. Our total electrucity demand has also fallen by nearly 25% in that time from 318TWh to 245TWh.

Nuclear is simply too expensive to compete in today's market without massive state support. We are moving to a point of large scale utility renewables with storage coupled with small scale local renewables and storage. The result is going to be a more reliable electricity network that compensates on both the macro and micro scale. Nuclear is effectively replaced by virtual power plants consisting of many localised battery storage facilities.

The keys are, drawing in renewables over a wide enough area to smooth generation from the multiple sources, and storage to make excess power available when demand exceeds supply.
#15052831
JohnRawls wrote:Nuclear provides more stable output compared to Solar. Only manages to compete under best possible conditions.

I see you forgot to include all the environmental damage that comes from bombing the countries where all the uranium is located. Likewise, ignoring the destruction of the quality of life of people actually living in the uranium-possessing countries seem to be part of the cost-saving part of nuclear power.

Perhaps one of these countries can trade some of its raw materials for a nuke and blow us all up one day. Have you calculated that into the cost of nuclear power, or does your model not consider any value to human lives anywhere, except CEOs?

Google results for 'wars for african uranium'
#15052897
QatzelOk wrote:I see you forgot to include all the environmental damage that comes from bombing the countries where all the uranium is located. Likewise, ignoring the destruction of the quality of life of people actually living in the uranium-possessing countries seem to be part of the cost-saving part of nuclear power.

Perhaps one of these countries can trade some of its raw materials for a nuke and blow us all up one day. Have you calculated that into the cost of nuclear power, or does your model not consider any value to human lives anywhere, except CEOs?

Google results for 'wars for african uranium'


There is more than enough Uranium in the world to last us for 200 years at the least. If we use Gen3+ reactors that basically use the previous generations of generator Uranium then we can multiply that by 2x.(If not more, apparently it might be 10x but who knows) That is considering that we are barely tapping the global Uranium reserves which are primary reserves.

You need comparatively few mining and re-processing for Uranium. At least compared to any other form of energy production uncluding solar or wind. Solar produces a lot more waste and requires a lot more mining to be honest here. Lithium and other rare earths mined in mass would be far more problematic. You know that yourself. The difference is that we don't know how to fully dispose of radiation which again, is a solvable problem if there was a need for this. (Currently there isn't since all of our nuclear waste basically fits in several large storage facilities. US is building just 1 facility for all its waste that it produced in 80 years)

I just understood that if I said Solar then you would be complaining about lithium wars or any other rare earths involved :knife:
#15052902
JohnRawls wrote:
There is more than enough Uranium in the world to last us for 200 years at the least. If we use Gen3+ reactors that basically use the previous generations of generator Uranium then we can multiply that by 2x.(If not more, apparently it might be 10x but who knows) That is considering that we are barely tapping the global Uranium reserves which are primary reserves.

You need comparatively few mining and re-processing for Uranium. At least compared to any other form of energy production uncluding solar or wind. Solar produces a lot more waste and requires a lot more mining to be honest here. Lithium and other rare earths mined in mass would be far more problematic. You know that yourself. The difference is that we don't know how to fully dispose of radiation which again, is a solvable problem if there was a need for this. (Currently there isn't since all of our nuclear waste basically fits in several large storage facilities. US is building just 1 facility for all its waste that it produced in 80 years)

I just understood that if I said Solar then you would be complaining about lithium wars or any other rare earths involved :knife:


Solar panels don't use lithium, they are virtually all silicon with minute qualities of rate earth metals.

Besides, Lithium isnt rare earth, its a salt obtained by evaporation from brine from salt flats. It's also recyclable, meaning the next generation of storage will re use the the lithium from this one. Also beauties are only 2% lithium, the rest is nickel and graphite. Comparing it to spent radioactive fuel is just bizarre.

The biggest cost of nuclear is the huge CO2 footprint from the amount of concrete needed and the CO2 emitted extracting and refining the fuel.
Some estimate this to be more than burning gas.
http://www.energyagency.at/fileadmin/da ... e-engl.pdf
#15052916
BeesKnee5 wrote:Solar panels don't use lithium, they are virtually all silicon with minute qualities of rate earth metals.

Besides, Lithium isnt rare earth, its a salt obtained by evaporation from brine from salt flats. It's also recyclable, meaning the next generation of storage will re use the the lithium from this one. Also beauties are only 2% lithium, the rest is nickel and graphite. Comparing it to spent radioactive fuel is just bizarre.

The biggest cost of nuclear is the huge CO2 footprint from the amount of concrete needed and the CO2 emitted extracting and refining the fuel.
Some estimate this to be more than burning gas.
http://www.energyagency.at/fileadmin/da ... e-engl.pdf


This is nonesense regarding a nuclear plant producing more CO2 than gas or coal and oil :knife:

As for Solar, well the batteries do use it so....
#15052917
JohnRawls wrote:
This is nonesense regarding a nuclear plant producing more CO2 than gas or coal and oil :knife:

As for Solar, well the batteries do use it so....


Is it nonsense? The report is pretty clear about the how's and whys, it doesn't say it produces more CO2 than coal and oil. Refining low quality uranium is CO2 intensive. Cement is one of the biggest emitters of man made CO2.

Batteries use Lithium, the 25th most common element in the earth's crust. Not rare earth and recyclable. Sounds very sensible.
#15052918
BeesKnee5 wrote:Is it nonsense? The report is pretty clear about the how's and whys, it doesn't say it produces more CO2 than coal and oil. Refining low quality uranium is CO2 intensive. Cement is one of the biggest emitters of man made CO2.

Batteries use Lithium, the 25th most common element in the earth's crust. Not rare earth and recyclable. Sounds very sensible.


Uhhh, global cement production accounts for 8% of CO2 emissions. Nuclear Plant construction doesn't consume even 1% of global cement and would not consume more than 5% of global production. That is less than a half of a percent of all CO2 produced. Honestly that is nothing massive considering that it will go down severely once the main chunk of power plants is built.
#15052922
JohnRawls wrote:
Uhhh, global cement production accounts for 8% of CO2 emissions. Nuclear Plant construction doesn't consume even 1% of global cement and would not consume more than 5% of global production. That is less than a half of a percent of all CO2 produced. Honestly that is nothing massive considering that it will go down severely once the main chunk of power plants is built.


This still has to be factored in. An analysis of 103 nuclear power life-cycle studies found that nuclear power plants produce electricity with an average 66 g equivalent life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions per kWh, compared to renewable power generators, which produce electricity with 9-32g CO2 per kWh.
Image

That's based on production using the more concentrated uranium, as the previous paper points out when using the less optimum uranium that represents 40% of all known reserves then Nuclear rises to and can exceed the most efficient gas plants.

There is a bigger point here, your plan requires a decade of increased emissions to build power plants that will be producing zero electricity during that time. You have effectively kicked the can down the road and made the problem worse. Those nuclear plants then cost much more to the public than renewables when the electricity comes to market.
#15052924
BeesKnee5 wrote:This still has to be factored in. An analysis of 103 nuclear power life-cycle studies found that nuclear power plants produce electricity with an average 66 g equivalent life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions per kWh, compared to renewable power generators, which produce electricity with 9-32g CO2 per kWh.
Image

That's based on production using the more concentrated uranium, as the previous paper points out when using the less optimum uranium that represents 40% of all known reserves then Nuclear rises to and can exceed the most efficient gas plants.

There is a bigger point here, your plan requires a decade of increased emissions to build power plants that will be producing zero electricity during that time. You have effectively kicked the can down the road and made the problem worse. Those nuclear plants then cost much more to the public than renewables when the electricity comes to market.


My plan is implementable though and doesn't rely on unknown factors or untested concepts/technology. The Risks are known. The price can be calculated. With renewables its more complicated. Its decently known in that regard but not fully. I understand the downsides of nuclear and I am willing to accept them. I just find it more realistic in implementation department and the convincing people to do it department compared to "pure" renewables. Don't get me wrong, both options are not really popular right now so its an uphill battle.
#15052930
JohnRawls wrote:
My plan is implementable though and doesn't rely on unknown factors or untested concepts/technology. The Risks are known. The price can be calculated. With renewables its more complicated. Its decently known in that regard but not fully. I understand the downsides of nuclear and I am willing to accept them. I just find it more realistic in implementation department and the convincing people to do it department compared to "pure" renewables. Don't get me wrong, both options are not really popular right now so its an uphill battle.


If we add in untested concepts/technology like wave, tidal lagoons and the latest hydrolysis technology then Nuclear is even more shot imo.

Nothing I'm proposing is untested/unknown, there are places already implementing it, all be it too slowly . At this very moment, in the depths of winter the UK is 48% renewable plus 25% nuclear. A few hours ago the peak demand was been supported by 1 GW of storage, 7 years ago the best we could do was 5% renewables and no storage. it's not going to be long before there are periods when no fossil fuels are used. When it happens the excess will be stored or sold abroad. We don't have the space the US has but still we are now rolling out combined, wind, solar and storage farms.
https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/sco ... nd-ireland

What's been holding back batteries is mainly price and a shortage of cobalt ( which comes from dangerous places like DR Congo). However, the latest batteries have done away with cobalt and prices have fallen from $1100 kWh in 2010 to the latest Tesla battery being $110 kWh.

It may not sound like it but two years ago I was pro nuclear. Now batteries are on a par costwise, have instant benefits and are much, much easier to make and install than a comparable amount of nuclear. Existing nuclear is great for maintaining baseload but unsuited to smoothing demand and adapting to other sources being more variable.
#15053583
Greta Thunberg, the teen activist from Sweden who has urged immediate action to address a global climate crisis, was named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2019 on Wednesday. She is the youngest person to have ever received the accolade. The activist addressed the latest round of UN climate talks in Madrid Wednesday morning, bluntly criticizing world leaders for “negotiating loopholes” and using PR to make it appear they are achieving bold climate targets. (little wonder the big money boys hate her ….. they have hated the truth for centuries.)

Image

Another nominee for person of the year included Donald Trump...……. Greta whups America's #1 con man/blowhard :lol: :lol: :lol:
  • 1
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 37

@Tainari88 , @Godstud @Rich , @Verv , @Po[…]

Blah blah. If Russia uses nukes, the rest of the […]

World War II Day by Day

March 29, Friday Mackenzie King wins Canadian el[…]

Hmmm, it the Ukraine aid package is all over main[…]