Well new mexico governor decided to make electricity unaffordable

[SageBrush]

^^ funny.
That study has already been debunked.

 

[GRA]

Please feel free to provide cites which show that. Personally, I have no problem with most of its conclusions. I just happen to think it's worth doing even when it raises electricity costs, given the costs of externalities, but by all means we should do it as cost-effectively as possible, given the huge amount of money it will take regardless. For me, that means we dump coal first while keeping existing nukes operating for baseload, while we continue to develop/build all the transmission/storage etc. infrastructure needed to integrate a growing share of VR. At some point we hope that storage will become cheap enough to allow seasonal storage, when we'll be able to go 100% off fossil fuels (assuming that new nukes remain a non-starter politically).

 

[LeftieBiker]

For me, that means we dump coal first while keeping existing nukes operating for baseload while we continue to develop/build all the transmission/storage etc. infrastructure needed to integrate VR.

I'd amend that to "existing nuclear plants that have not already passed their original life expectancy." There are too many plants that are now the equivalent of 105 year old air traffic controllers. They are disasters not just waiting to happen, but likely to happen.

 

[GRA]

For me, that means we dump coal first while keeping existing nukes operating for baseload while we continue to develop/build all the transmission/storage etc. infrastructure needed to integrate VR.

I'd amend that to "existing nuclear plants that have not already passed their original life expectancy." There are too many plants that are now the equivalent of 105 year old air traffic controllers. They are disasters not just waiting to happen, but likely to happen.

Sure, they should be able to be re-certified for longer, with safety upgrades as needed. Of course, sometimes that's judged too expensive by the operator, e.g. San Onofre.

 

[SageBrush]

Please feel free to provide cites which show that.

It's been a couple of days so the news has fallen off the radar but I'll post when I dig it up.

From memory the most obvious (to my eyes) criticism of the study is that it stopped collecting data in 2016. PV and wind have been on a rapid cost cutting race and a snapshot in time is thus extremely misleading. It is simply true that when prices fall as technology matures, scales up, and becomes streamlined, the initial production is more expensive than later. However, and this is key, the later, cheaper prices cannot exist if the initial production never happened.

So a fair accounting of costs is an integral of the entire system, not a snapshot in the early phases of the price curve. The authors would have to show that the RPS programs did not drive price cutting but that is not their conclusion -- just the opposite, as the carbon reductions in the RPS states show. If the study showed anything at all (I'm skeptical,) it is that the laggards saved some money by letting someone else foot the cost of early adoption at the cost of unaccounted for externalities, absent local green jobs, and flight of money

Second, the authors are adding the costs of plant closure as a renewable cost. This is debatable from the get go but it is most problematic because a large fraction of those costs that are related to clean-up and site remediation will happen regardless, just sooner rather than later.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Sure, they should be able to be re-certified for longer, with safety upgrades as needed.

The problem is that plants with serious issues like deteriorated containment shells still get recertified:

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/27/...tion-called-a-peril-at-13-nuclear-plants.html

The fact that the process of re-certification is primarily political, and only secondarily scientific, is why I don't trust it.

 

[Oilpan4]

Last time my base rate changed was august 31, 2015.

 

[Oilpan4]

Sure, they should be able to be re-certified for longer, with safety upgrades as needed.

The problem is that plants with serious issues like deteriorated containment shells still get recertified:

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/27/...tion-called-a-peril-at-13-nuclear-plants.html

The fact that the process of re-certification is primarily political, and only secondarily scientific, is why I don't trust it.

I would like to read that but I'm getting an error.
Edit: I found it.

A few PWR have been decommissioned for cracking. I remember maine Yankee nuclear power station closed largely due to cracks in the steam likes coming out of the reactor core. It was speculated that hydrogen embrittlement in welds, thermal shock during initial commissioning, possibly neutron embrittlement where the causes.
All they have to do is collect all the designs on PWR units that failed and don't build them like that. PWR units that have ran for 40 years with no problems, reuse those design details.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I think that neutron bombardment weakening steel is fairly well understood. IIRC, the Yankee plant was re-certified despite this once, and then not re-certified a second time

 

[GRA]

Sure, they should be able to be re-certified for longer, with safety upgrades as needed.

The problem is that plants with serious issues like deteriorated containment shells still get recertified:

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/27/...tion-called-a-peril-at-13-nuclear-plants.html

The fact that the process of re-certification is primarily political, and only secondarily scientific, is why I don't trust it.

The decision not to build new nukes is also primarily political rather than scientific, based on the public's perception of relative risk rather than the actual relative risk. Not that I'm a fan of fission, but absent some other means of providing zero-emission electricity in the quantity required when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine for prolonged periods, I think it's the least worst option we've got at the moment to achieve 100% non-fossil fueled electricity. We don't have enough hydro and most of the good sites have been developed already (in the U.S.), even if hydro didn't have its own major environmental effects. Geothermal is site limited and the resource amount is inadequate, tidal resources ditto even when they're cost-competitive, wave is immature and limited, OTEC remain Sci-fi and is also not available in the necessary amount, and bio-mass is even more limited by real-world constraints.

 

[LeftieBiker]

As long as fission power is allowed, cheaper methods will prevail over safer methods.

 

[GRA]

As long as fission power is allowed, cheaper methods will prevail over safer methods.

Sure. The question is what's the relative safety of having nuclear electricity versus not having electricity, if those are the available options?

 

[LeftieBiker]

As long as fission power is allowed, cheaper methods will prevail over safer methods.

Sure. The question is what's the relative safety of having nuclear electricity versus not having electricity, if those are the available options?

Now there's a false dichotomy if ever I read one! How about rationed or more expensive electric power, vs having to move to another region and still getting cancer 10 years later...? How about requiring using PV, wind and battery banks in all new, and all refurbished housing, and paying for it from current nuclear power and oil subsidies, and the military we use to keep the oil flowing? The problem with the current Brink that we are poised on is that most people don't see the precipice two steps away, and so want cheap electricity provided by free enterprise. That time is passing.

Before the usual responses about people living with no electricity, I propose a minimum guaranteed allotment of free or cheap power for all (or for low incomes) with people who choose to use more paying much more. EVs could be exempted, with conditions...

 

[GRA]

As long as fission power is allowed, cheaper methods will prevail over safer methods.

Sure. The question is what's the relative safety of having nuclear electricity versus not having electricity, if those are the available options?

Now there's a false dichotomy if ever I read one! How about rationed or more expensive electric power, vs having to move to another region and still getting cancer 10 years later...? How about requiring using PV, wind and battery banks in all new, and all refurbished housing, and paying for it from current nuclear power and oil subsidies, and the military we use to keep the oil flowing? The problem with the current Brink that we are poised on is that most people don't see the precipice two steps away, and so want cheap electricity provided by free enterprise. That time is passing.

I'm all for switching as much as we can as soon as we can, but it's not a realistic option at the moment to provide everything in the manner you suggest, for both cost and scale as well as political reasons.

 

[SageBrush]

As long as fission power is allowed, cheaper methods will prevail over safer methods.

Sure. The question is what's the relative safety of having nuclear electricity versus not having electricity, if those are the available options?

They are not.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I'm all for switching as much as we can as soon as we can, but it's not a realistic option at the moment to provide everything in the manner you suggest, for both cost and scale as well as political reasons.

We can be realistic about the political and psychological factors, in which case we pretty much have to concede that we are doomed. Game Over as of about 20 years ago. If we are going to suggest that we can possibly save ourselves, then we have to drop "realistic" in favor of "possible." Any middle ground approach just pushes the Crash out a very few more years. Or not...

 

[Oilpan4]

I was reading an article yesterday talking about how the mining sector is key for building renewable power.
Apparently renewables use a lot of steel, concrete, glass, aluminum, copper.
Of that 2 of those use a lot of natural gas, 2 need a lot of electricity. 1 needs coal and the other coal helps.

 

[WetEV]

I was reading an article yesterday talking about how the mining sector is key for building renewable power.
Apparently renewables use a lot of steel, concrete, glass, aluminum, copper.
Of that 2 of those use a lot of natural gas, 2 need a lot of electricity. 1 needs coal and the other coal helps.

It takes energy to make things that make energy.

How much energy is invested? For what return of energy?

EROEI or Energy Return on Energy Invested. The higher the better

Photovoltaic is a about 10-30.

Wind is about 20-50.

All of these processes can use mostly or only electricity. Steel needs a source of carbon, as steel is iron with carbon added.

The alternative is an ELE.

 

[Oilpan4]

I never said the energy return on those things was bad.
The only renewable energy related thing I can think of with a horrible return is batteries.

Mining companies are expecting to do well under renewable energy mandates.

 

[LeftieBiker]

The only renewable energy related thing I can think of with a horrible return is batteries.

There are batteries that have very long lifespans and low production costs. They can't be used in EVs because of their low energy density and thus large size and weight. They can be used by utilities and even homes. So far the incentive to use them hasn't been large enough.