Rising steel prices, interest rates could push NuScale Utah project to $100/MWh(utilitydive.com)
utilitydive.com
Rising steel prices, interest rates could push NuScale Utah project to $100/MWh
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nuscale-nuclear-reactor-smr-uamps-rising-steel-prices-interest-rates/636619/
76 comments
With solar and wind being so competitive on price (both per MW and MWh) I don't understand why there's not more of it.
Wouldn't investors build massive amount and undercut other plants? Is it simply because the capital costs are already sunk, and the running costs are still competitive?
$100 for this is really bad, other energy sources are 1/3 of this. To me this spells the end of this project.
Wouldn't investors build massive amount and undercut other plants? Is it simply because the capital costs are already sunk, and the running costs are still competitive?
$100 for this is really bad, other energy sources are 1/3 of this. To me this spells the end of this project.
> With solar and wind being so competitive on price (both per MW and MWh) I don't understand why there's not more of it.
You need to be a bit more patient. solar / wind have been growing double digit percentages (from the top of my head something like 20-30%) p.a. now for some time. Just to compare, iPhone had never two consecutive full production years that would have had triple digit growth. And arguably increasing production capacity for energy infrastructure is more difficult than for a phone. So the 20-30% p.a. growth is likely the best we can have, and I'd argue even that is explosive. Given current growth rates, majority of electricity production should be solar/wind within the next decade or so.
You need to be a bit more patient. solar / wind have been growing double digit percentages (from the top of my head something like 20-30%) p.a. now for some time. Just to compare, iPhone had never two consecutive full production years that would have had triple digit growth. And arguably increasing production capacity for energy infrastructure is more difficult than for a phone. So the 20-30% p.a. growth is likely the best we can have, and I'd argue even that is explosive. Given current growth rates, majority of electricity production should be solar/wind within the next decade or so.
California appears to building the solar equivalent of a 1GW nuke per year with no end in sight. Total electricity currently from solar is 26%. Likely to increase to 40% in five years. Lest one think that's just California being hippy dippy, Texas is on a similar trajectory.
If we stopped buying all those phones, we might need less of those solar panels.
It’s amazing to think how much power usage must be controlled by Apple. Any power saving they achieve on iOS has a hundreds of millions of units in the wild.
It’s amazing to think how much power usage must be controlled by Apple. Any power saving they achieve on iOS has a hundreds of millions of units in the wild.
...there's a decent amount of embodied carbon, but a phone uses about the same amount of energy you get from a 30cm solar panel, or about two kg of fossil fuel over a very very optimistic lifetime. Nothing it does when it's on will really alter its total lifetime emissions in any meaningful way.
My point wasn’t that an individual phone will do make much of a difference, it’s that a saving made by Apple and pushed out to phones has a multiplier that approaches a billion.
Saving a few percent on 1 watt is a few tens of megawatts tops.
You'd save orders of magnitude more by not forcing them into the trash heap with repair-hostile design, extreme fragility in the name of thinness that noone asks for and everyone immediately gets rid of with a case, and forced obsolescence via software updates
You'd save orders of magnitude more by not forcing them into the trash heap with repair-hostile design, extreme fragility in the name of thinness that noone asks for and everyone immediately gets rid of with a case, and forced obsolescence via software updates
Multiplying a tiny number by a big number is still a tiny number.
The power used by every iPhone in the world is like %0.001 of power used.
That saving made by Apple is just to pretend to look good - it doesn't actually make any difference.
The power used by every iPhone in the world is like %0.001 of power used.
That saving made by Apple is just to pretend to look good - it doesn't actually make any difference.
Renewables are limited in some areas by hostile legislation and in other areas by reaching saturation for non-dispatchable energy.
There's also a paradoxical cost risk created by such rapid improvements because faster deployment and plummeting prices can mean projects started after yours could finish sooner and cheaper.
In spite of this, PV is selling out as fast as it can be made, wind is being built as fast as it can be permitted, and demand is so high that prices decreases have slowed in spite of manufactuing continuing to get more efficient.
Batteries are a bit of a bottleneck (flow batteries are lagging a bit, but getting there), but sodium ion is here next year and lithium capacity is increasing at record pace.
Policy is kinda lacking in most areas for building out the necessary non-battery storage, but off river and blue field pumped hydro is picking up, and china is advancing the state of the art on concentrating solar (which is dispatchable over ~12-36 hours) and compressed air storage. Europe is also starting to build out thermal storage (which is dirt cheap in the most literal sense because it's made out of the sand that is worthless for other purposes).
There's also a paradoxical cost risk created by such rapid improvements because faster deployment and plummeting prices can mean projects started after yours could finish sooner and cheaper.
In spite of this, PV is selling out as fast as it can be made, wind is being built as fast as it can be permitted, and demand is so high that prices decreases have slowed in spite of manufactuing continuing to get more efficient.
Batteries are a bit of a bottleneck (flow batteries are lagging a bit, but getting there), but sodium ion is here next year and lithium capacity is increasing at record pace.
Policy is kinda lacking in most areas for building out the necessary non-battery storage, but off river and blue field pumped hydro is picking up, and china is advancing the state of the art on concentrating solar (which is dispatchable over ~12-36 hours) and compressed air storage. Europe is also starting to build out thermal storage (which is dirt cheap in the most literal sense because it's made out of the sand that is worthless for other purposes).
That 150 wh/kg sodium ion going into mass production is going to be a revolution.
Dispatchable energy sir.
There are very few locations where renewables have high enough penetration for dispatchability to be the slightest concern for new additions.
In locations with lots of renewables already, new projects are including storage, cost-effectively, which turns non-disparchable power into dispatchable.
I think it's pretty clear that $58/MWh was never going to be achieved, and as with most nuclear projects, reality is 1.5x-3x of what the boosters promise. But even $58/MWh is not cheap enough to match the bids seen for dispatchable renewables+storage.
In locations with lots of renewables already, new projects are including storage, cost-effectively, which turns non-disparchable power into dispatchable.
I think it's pretty clear that $58/MWh was never going to be achieved, and as with most nuclear projects, reality is 1.5x-3x of what the boosters promise. But even $58/MWh is not cheap enough to match the bids seen for dispatchable renewables+storage.
> new projects are including storage, cost-effectively, which turns non-disparchable power into dispatchable.
Such as? Most storage facilities are targeting a few hundred megawatts of storage, usually enough for a few hours of power but not enough to even out a full night.
Such as? Most storage facilities are targeting a few hundred megawatts of storage, usually enough for a few hours of power but not enough to even out a full night.
Because the storage is targeting the evening part of the duck curve, and there's no need for night time generation right now.
As the market changes and it becomes profitable to supply power at night, more batteries are trivially added. But while we still have so many fossil sources for the lull in demand at night, energy prices are at their lowest during the night.
As more fossil generation is replaced with renewables, more storage will be added.
As the market changes and it becomes profitable to supply power at night, more batteries are trivially added. But while we still have so many fossil sources for the lull in demand at night, energy prices are at their lowest during the night.
As more fossil generation is replaced with renewables, more storage will be added.
Adding battery storage is going to be anything but trivial. Existing global battery production amounts to 10-15 minutes of electricity use. And this is assuming a total elimination of EV production while storage is built out.
What a weird thing to say, comparing existing production captaincy to what could be... Existing SMR production is what, exactly?
Batteries have a clear scaling path, plenty of materials, and are growing 10x at a predictable rate.
Scaling batteries is utterly trivial compared to the challenges facing SMRs.
The historical record is right there for everyone to see. Batteries are a serious industry, at a serious scale, with serious engineering and real timelines and improvements. The entire nuclear industry are charlatans and lightweights compared to what's happened in batteries and renewables. Which is a shame, because nuclear could have had a chance, perhaps.
Batteries have a clear scaling path, plenty of materials, and are growing 10x at a predictable rate.
Scaling batteries is utterly trivial compared to the challenges facing SMRs.
The historical record is right there for everyone to see. Batteries are a serious industry, at a serious scale, with serious engineering and real timelines and improvements. The entire nuclear industry are charlatans and lightweights compared to what's happened in batteries and renewables. Which is a shame, because nuclear could have had a chance, perhaps.
We don't need small modular reactors, we have much more experience building larger PWRs - and regulation effectively mandates it the way that each plant needs to pay more than a third of a billion dollars in fees to get certified. Had nuclear production continued at the same pace it did during the 1960s and 70s in the US, we'd have had a completely decarbonized grid by now. And that's exactly what happened in France: they continued building nuclear reactors and reduced fossil fuels to essentially zero. Compare that with Germany, renewables' posterchild, that still uses combustibles for most of its energy production - wind and solar is only 30% of its energy mix.
Scaling batteries is the opposite of trivial. I don' think you comprehend the mismatch between our battery supply and what grid storage demands. The US consumes about 500 GWh of of electricity every hour. This is more than the cumulative global battery production in all of 2021 [1]. And the cost of batteries has stopped shrinking and started rising [2]. The reality is that we'll be hard-pressed just to keep battery production growing fast enough to satisfy EVs. Lithium battery production will probably double or triple, but that's still not enough to make grid storage feasible.
How many countries have provisioned a day's worth of electricity storage? Half a day? An hour? For all the talk about nuclear power being charlatans and lightweights, no country at al has produced the majority of its electricity from intermittent sources. But nuclear has [3]. Pretty good for a bunch of charlatans!
1. https://www.interactanalysis.com/lithium-ion-battery-market-....
2. https://www.ft.com/content/31870961-dee4-4b79-8dca-47e78d29b...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
Scaling batteries is the opposite of trivial. I don' think you comprehend the mismatch between our battery supply and what grid storage demands. The US consumes about 500 GWh of of electricity every hour. This is more than the cumulative global battery production in all of 2021 [1]. And the cost of batteries has stopped shrinking and started rising [2]. The reality is that we'll be hard-pressed just to keep battery production growing fast enough to satisfy EVs. Lithium battery production will probably double or triple, but that's still not enough to make grid storage feasible.
How many countries have provisioned a day's worth of electricity storage? Half a day? An hour? For all the talk about nuclear power being charlatans and lightweights, no country at al has produced the majority of its electricity from intermittent sources. But nuclear has [3]. Pretty good for a bunch of charlatans!
1. https://www.interactanalysis.com/lithium-ion-battery-market-....
2. https://www.ft.com/content/31870961-dee4-4b79-8dca-47e78d29b...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
Snowy 2 stores 350 GWh. Fengning stores 40 GWh.
One more snowy 2 (or equivalent) and Australia can get to ~97% solar+wind+pumped storage powered.
The only reason existing pumped storage sites used to target a few hundred MWh was because they were historically used for regulating the grid, not providing large scale storage.
The geography to do this is plentiful too, as multiple studies have confirmed.
One more snowy 2 (or equivalent) and Australia can get to ~97% solar+wind+pumped storage powered.
The only reason existing pumped storage sites used to target a few hundred MWh was because they were historically used for regulating the grid, not providing large scale storage.
The geography to do this is plentiful too, as multiple studies have confirmed.
Snowy 2's actual storage capacity is estimated to be ~40 GWh https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora...
The paper they're quoting doesn't actually say that and it's double counting some parts of the system that are already accounted for in the 350GWh figure. Try again.
There's no double counting. The estimate of 350 GWh ignored the fact that the lower reservoir of Snowy 2 is smaller than the upper reservoir.
In case you're unfamiliar with how pumped hydro works: There's an upper reservoir and a lower reservoir. To charge the system, water from the lower reservoir is pumped into the upper reservoir, and to withdraw energy the water is passed to the lower reservoir driving a turbine.
In Snowy 2, the upper reservoir is large enough to accommodate 350 GWh of energy. But the lower reservoir is not, and actually attempting to actually use that much storage would cause the closed loop system to lose water and permanently reduce the storage capacity unless additional water is added. If I have a 100 liter bucket up top and a 10 liter bucket down below. If I fill up the 100 liter bucket to the brim I could drain 100 liters once, but then I'd lose 90 liters and only have enough water to fill it back up to 10 liters. So does it have a capacity of 100 liters? In a pedantic sense, yes, but in practice you only have 10 liters of usable capacity.
Pumped hydro storage requires very specific geography to function, so deceptive messaging is often required to convince people of its efficacy.
In case you're unfamiliar with how pumped hydro works: There's an upper reservoir and a lower reservoir. To charge the system, water from the lower reservoir is pumped into the upper reservoir, and to withdraw energy the water is passed to the lower reservoir driving a turbine.
In Snowy 2, the upper reservoir is large enough to accommodate 350 GWh of energy. But the lower reservoir is not, and actually attempting to actually use that much storage would cause the closed loop system to lose water and permanently reduce the storage capacity unless additional water is added. If I have a 100 liter bucket up top and a 10 liter bucket down below. If I fill up the 100 liter bucket to the brim I could drain 100 liters once, but then I'd lose 90 liters and only have enough water to fill it back up to 10 liters. So does it have a capacity of 100 liters? In a pedantic sense, yes, but in practice you only have 10 liters of usable capacity.
Pumped hydro storage requires very specific geography to function, so deceptive messaging is often required to convince people of its efficacy.
I'm quite aware of how it works, but I guess it was too much to expect a good faith response. That 200GWh that is 'lost' is dispatchable energy that recharges after a few months, after it is dispatched, about ~240GWh can be cycled and another 100GWh can be dispatched. The 40GWh is only a limit in precisely those cases where the dispatchable energy isn't being utilised
The 240 and 40 are also a lowball because parts of the losses were already accounted for at the beginning. That part is the double count.
The 240 and 40 are also a lowball because parts of the losses were already accounted for at the beginning. That part is the double count.
When you say you have 350 GWh of storage, people expect to be able to draw 350 GWh and then store 350 GWh without waiting several months for the reservoir to fill back up. There is nothing bad-faith about pointing out how deceptive it is to say a facility has 350 GWh of storage when in reality the practical storage capacity is much smaller than that.
Also, you insist that there's an error in this analysis - "double counting" - yet you neglect to actually explain what was wrong with it. This [1] is the report that arrived at the 40 GWh figure.
> Whilst Talbingo’s level could be reduced to provide ‘space’ for Snowy 2.0 Tantangara water, this would reduce the energy storage and efficiency of Tumut 3. As Tumut 3 has 60 GWh of storage when Talbingo is full, any reduction in Talbingo water levels would reduce that capacity, which can be delivered at 1,800 MW for up to 33 hours. A reduction would also (marginally) reduce the efficiency of Tumut 3. Another reason to keep Talbingo close to full is that a call on Snowy 2.0 to generate for 7 days would normally be most unlikely. Also, Tumut 3 can very quickly generate and create space in Talbingo for Snowy 2.0 water, though this still means discharging water to Blowering, beyond whatever spare capacity there was in Jounama at the time. So, if the current operational arrangement remains largely intact, the available capacity for Snowy 2.0 before water is lost to Blowering would be approximately 28 GL. This volume equates to a recyclable energy storage capacity for Snowy 2.0 of about 40 GWh (28/239x350) – i.e. 20 hours at 2,000 MW.
If more than 40 GWh of storage were used, Snowy 2 would reduce the capacity of other hydro electric plants. It's the estimate of 350 GWh that relied on double counting, not the 40 GWh figure. If this analysis is wrong, then actually explain what's wrong with it instead of just insisting that it's double counting.
1. https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRest...
Also, you insist that there's an error in this analysis - "double counting" - yet you neglect to actually explain what was wrong with it. This [1] is the report that arrived at the 40 GWh figure.
> Whilst Talbingo’s level could be reduced to provide ‘space’ for Snowy 2.0 Tantangara water, this would reduce the energy storage and efficiency of Tumut 3. As Tumut 3 has 60 GWh of storage when Talbingo is full, any reduction in Talbingo water levels would reduce that capacity, which can be delivered at 1,800 MW for up to 33 hours. A reduction would also (marginally) reduce the efficiency of Tumut 3. Another reason to keep Talbingo close to full is that a call on Snowy 2.0 to generate for 7 days would normally be most unlikely. Also, Tumut 3 can very quickly generate and create space in Talbingo for Snowy 2.0 water, though this still means discharging water to Blowering, beyond whatever spare capacity there was in Jounama at the time. So, if the current operational arrangement remains largely intact, the available capacity for Snowy 2.0 before water is lost to Blowering would be approximately 28 GL. This volume equates to a recyclable energy storage capacity for Snowy 2.0 of about 40 GWh (28/239x350) – i.e. 20 hours at 2,000 MW.
If more than 40 GWh of storage were used, Snowy 2 would reduce the capacity of other hydro electric plants. It's the estimate of 350 GWh that relied on double counting, not the 40 GWh figure. If this analysis is wrong, then actually explain what's wrong with it instead of just insisting that it's double counting.
1. https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRest...
Gitchya. Going with the bad faith version. Could have said so more succinctly.
Are you actually going to explain what's wrong with the analysis that points out how cyclic capacity is much lower than 350 GWh? Or are you just going to accuse people of bad faith when asked to defend your claims?
And, consider that the new projects won't be online for 5-10 years, during which time year-on-year improvements to cost of solar and wind will likely continue to decline 5-15% per year.
Nuclear projects are turtles chasing rabbits at this point, and the rabbit has head start.
Nuclear projects are turtles chasing rabbits at this point, and the rabbit has head start.
Except where the part where the rabbit start saturating markets during peak production. Then further progress starts to crawl as less and less of the actual generation capacity is usable. At least not until a breakthrough makes energy storage feasible.
The only countries that have successfully moved all or nearly-all of their electricity to decarbonized sources have done so primarily with dispatchable sources: hydroelectricity (E.g. Norway, Brazil, Albania, Uruguay) and with a mix of nuclear power filling in where hydro isn't enough (France, Sweden, Switzerland). All of those countries generate a single digit percentage of their electricity from fossil fuels. Nobody has decarbonized primarily through a source of decarboinzed energy source besides hydroelectricity or nuclear power.* Unless there's a storage breakthrough on the horizon, we'll still need to derive a significant chunk of our electricity generation from dispatchable sources.
* One minor counterexample is geothermal power, but like hydro it's geographically dependent.
The only countries that have successfully moved all or nearly-all of their electricity to decarbonized sources have done so primarily with dispatchable sources: hydroelectricity (E.g. Norway, Brazil, Albania, Uruguay) and with a mix of nuclear power filling in where hydro isn't enough (France, Sweden, Switzerland). All of those countries generate a single digit percentage of their electricity from fossil fuels. Nobody has decarbonized primarily through a source of decarboinzed energy source besides hydroelectricity or nuclear power.* Unless there's a storage breakthrough on the horizon, we'll still need to derive a significant chunk of our electricity generation from dispatchable sources.
* One minor counterexample is geothermal power, but like hydro it's geographically dependent.
Solar can be installed on roofs. Costs go up, but resiliency goes way up and less grid complexity and transport is needed, and it solves the "holy crap how will we charge all these consumer EVs".
The EV(s) can function as some of the battery backup, especially since most EVs will be about 80% overprovisioned for everyday driving. Tesla is already doing it in California.
Storage breakthrough: sodium ion goes into mass production at 140-160wh/kg by CATL next year. In addition to being usable for the 200-300 mile EV, that will mean cheap grid batteries.
But this obsession with dispatchability at scale shows that there is too much focus on grid-scale solar and storage and centralized control. Yes the upfront costs are cheaper, but grid solar should be hand in hand with a VERY aggressive home/business solar+storage subsidy.
It's dumb that a natural disaster knocks out power for the entire area because transmission lines go down. With distributed solar and storage, that wouldn't be nearly as bad. Old guard electric can't wrap their heads around a country where every roof has solar doing most / all / surplus power generation.
The EV(s) can function as some of the battery backup, especially since most EVs will be about 80% overprovisioned for everyday driving. Tesla is already doing it in California.
Storage breakthrough: sodium ion goes into mass production at 140-160wh/kg by CATL next year. In addition to being usable for the 200-300 mile EV, that will mean cheap grid batteries.
But this obsession with dispatchability at scale shows that there is too much focus on grid-scale solar and storage and centralized control. Yes the upfront costs are cheaper, but grid solar should be hand in hand with a VERY aggressive home/business solar+storage subsidy.
It's dumb that a natural disaster knocks out power for the entire area because transmission lines go down. With distributed solar and storage, that wouldn't be nearly as bad. Old guard electric can't wrap their heads around a country where every roof has solar doing most / all / surplus power generation.
> Solar can be installed on roofs. Costs go up, but resiliency goes way up and less grid complexity and transport is needed, and it solves the "holy crap how will we charge all these consumer EVs".
Resiliency how? It makes the grid more fragile since cloudy days make for big energy shortages. It also doesn't solve EV charging. Plenty of people charge their EVs at night because they drive during the day. They also want to charge their EVs regardless of weather.
> Storage breakthrough: sodium ion goes into mass production at 140-160wh/kg by CATL next year.
Define "mass" production. For context, the world uses 60 TWh of electricity per day, or about 2,500 GWh of electricity per hour.
The concern with dispatchability is entirely reasonable because energy needs to be supplied when it's in demand, and storage isn't anywhere near the required scale. You can't just hand-wave this away by encouraging homes and businesses to buy storage.
> It's dumb that a natural disaster knocks out power for the entire area because transmission lines go down. With distributed solar and storage, that wouldn't be nearly as bad. Old guard electric can't wrap their heads around a country where every roof has solar doing most / all / surplus power generation.
Quite the contrary. Decentralized power generation actually means more transmission lines to transport energy long distances from the places where it gets generated to the places where energy is in demand. https://www.vox.com/videos/22685707/climate-change-clean-ene...
Resiliency how? It makes the grid more fragile since cloudy days make for big energy shortages. It also doesn't solve EV charging. Plenty of people charge their EVs at night because they drive during the day. They also want to charge their EVs regardless of weather.
> Storage breakthrough: sodium ion goes into mass production at 140-160wh/kg by CATL next year.
Define "mass" production. For context, the world uses 60 TWh of electricity per day, or about 2,500 GWh of electricity per hour.
The concern with dispatchability is entirely reasonable because energy needs to be supplied when it's in demand, and storage isn't anywhere near the required scale. You can't just hand-wave this away by encouraging homes and businesses to buy storage.
> It's dumb that a natural disaster knocks out power for the entire area because transmission lines go down. With distributed solar and storage, that wouldn't be nearly as bad. Old guard electric can't wrap their heads around a country where every roof has solar doing most / all / surplus power generation.
Quite the contrary. Decentralized power generation actually means more transmission lines to transport energy long distances from the places where it gets generated to the places where energy is in demand. https://www.vox.com/videos/22685707/climate-change-clean-ene...
> Then further progress starts to crawl as less and less of the actual generation capacity is usable. At least not until a breakthrough makes energy storage feasible.
That happened. It's called off river or blue field pumped hydro and sodium batteries.
That happened. It's called off river or blue field pumped hydro and sodium batteries.
> It's called off river or blue field pumped hydro
This isn't built in sufficient quantities, and hasn't seen significant growth in decades.
> and sodium batteries.
This hasn't even been commercialized at all yet, let alone at grid scale.
This isn't built in sufficient quantities, and hasn't seen significant growth in decades.
> and sodium batteries.
This hasn't even been commercialized at all yet, let alone at grid scale.
Well, which technology passes this high-vault bar? Surely not one that is flat and possibly shrinking and is operating at a scale that is similar to that of grid storage and also needs storage to meet variable demand?
None: there is no feasible method of grid storage at the moment. Hence why dispatch-able sources of clean energy are necessary
So which dispatchable sources can match the scale of energy generation at which renewables saturate the grid then?
I explained this in the first comment to which you responded [1]. Hydroelectricity is by far the most effective source of energy generation, although it has the distinct disadvantage of being geographically limited. Nuclear power is the most effective dispatchable source after that. Every country that has decarbonized their electricity grid has done so primary through a combination of hydroelectricity and nuclear power. No developed country has deployed a majority wind and solar grid, ever.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33636418
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33636418
A nuclear reactor requires about 0.5-1 tonnes of fissile material per GW per year and 3 to 6 years up front. Where is it supposed to come from?
Nuclear was a great solution back in the 90s and early 00s. Not effective now - the cost in both time and money means it’s not worthwhile.
conventional nuclear isn't dispatchable
ramp times are measured not in hours but in days
ramp times are measured not in hours but in days
Incorrect. NuScale appears to be designed to be dispatchable - for example here is a simulated load-following curve during a day: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-of-NuScale-modul...
From: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295114246_Integrati...
From: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295114246_Integrati...
The NuScale plant incorporates unique features that enhance its ability to load follow, either due to changes in electricity demand or variable generation by renewable sources on the grid. This is accomplished through a combination of the small unit capacity of a NuScale module (50 MWe gross) and a multi-module approach to the plant design. This design strategy provides a uniquely scalable plant and gives the plant owner considerable flexibility in both the build-out of the plant and also its operation, including for load-following. The key power management options of the NuScale plant for load-following operations, designated NuFollow™, include the following:
• Taking one or more modules offline for extended periods of low grid demand or sustained wind output,
• Maneuvering reactor power for one or more modules during intermediate periods to compensate for hourly changes in demand or wind generation, or
• Bypassing the module’s steam turbine directly to the condenser for rapid responses to load or wind generation variations.
If you're paying $80/MWh for captial and fixed O&M and $20/MWh for fuel and variable O&M, then you're still payiny 80% for the energy you don't produce.
At that point it's effectively just curtailment.
At that point it's effectively just curtailment.
And with wind and solar, you need storage, which costs a lot and similarly is is not used most of the time.
That said, in New Zealand the story is different, because we have some very large battery banks called hydropower lakes. However when our batteries run dry, the country has a bad time.
Currently storage is over 3TWh[1] and in 2020 NZ hydro generated 24TWh[2].
[1] https://www.energylink.co.nz/publications/hydro-watch
[2] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zealand
That said, in New Zealand the story is different, because we have some very large battery banks called hydropower lakes. However when our batteries run dry, the country has a bad time.
Currently storage is over 3TWh[1] and in 2020 NZ hydro generated 24TWh[2].
[1] https://www.energylink.co.nz/publications/hydro-watch
[2] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zealand
Storage is needed every night with solar.
That was the parents opening sentence.
Their point is interesting. If you already have hydro and add solar or wind, can you pump back into the lakes during periods of excess, and use the hydro at night?
Their point is interesting. If you already have hydro and add solar or wind, can you pump back into the lakes during periods of excess, and use the hydro at night?
Yeah this is a thing. If you have enough hydro you can just turn it off entirely when the renewables are going and have a 50/50 mix.
If not, it's called pumped hydro storage (or most precisely it's blie field on river pumped hydro if it's already dammed and on a river). You need to trap the water somewhere so you don't have to pump it too far. This involves building a lower reservoir and adding pumps or modifying the turbines to be two way.
If not, it's called pumped hydro storage (or most precisely it's blie field on river pumped hydro if it's already dammed and on a river). You need to trap the water somewhere so you don't have to pump it too far. This involves building a lower reservoir and adding pumps or modifying the turbines to be two way.
The opening sentence was “is is not used most of the time”
thank you for the update, this does seem to be a real difference between nuscale and conventional nuclear
Completely false
Modern LWR reactors ramp at around 5% per minute.
France & Germany use them for Load following https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant#Nuc...
Conventional nuclear is vastly more dispatchable than other fuel types
Modern LWR reactors ramp at around 5% per minute.
France & Germany use them for Load following https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant#Nuc...
Conventional nuclear is vastly more dispatchable than other fuel types
Physically they can ramp down to 50% but generation is pretty much a sunk cost at that point so it makes the bad economics even worse. That would mean that you are paying of the order of $240/MWh instead of $120/MWh.
For comparison solar/wind are about $30-40. Levelizing with pumped storage pushes that up to $60-$70.
IIRC France and Germany almost exclusively use gas for load following. Even at current prices it's vastly cheaper than using a NPP to do it.
For comparison solar/wind are about $30-40. Levelizing with pumped storage pushes that up to $60-$70.
IIRC France and Germany almost exclusively use gas for load following. Even at current prices it's vastly cheaper than using a NPP to do it.
When capex costs more than other technologies plus storage, and it reduces your neutron economy and thus the life of your fuel it's just curtailment with extra steps.
Not sure if nuscale is wanting to do it in the short term, but many of the SMR concepts include a thermal storage component.
This helps build industry experience with molten salts and would allow it to be actually dispatchable (rather than paying for energy in the form of capex and fixed O&M and then just not producing it)
This helps build industry experience with molten salts and would allow it to be actually dispatchable (rather than paying for energy in the form of capex and fixed O&M and then just not producing it)
I don't get this. If the price per mwh has basically doubled. The price of steel must have taken a huge jump.
Except if I try and get a price https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel
There seems to be a recent doubling, but the price is back down.
So I guess these are just general cost overuns?
Except if I try and get a price https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel
There seems to be a recent doubling, but the price is back down.
So I guess these are just general cost overuns?
The entire point of moving towards the more expensive form factor of SMRs was to avoid cost overruns, and maybe even get some cost decreases in the future.
I maintain hope that some of the other SMR attempts will not have the same ballooning costs problem of every single nuclear project that inspired them, but it's a hold based on the need for the tech, not a hope that could be backed with a rational reasoning. I fear that the entire nuclear industry is filled with charlatans, and nobody who isn't a charlatan would ever get funding to start working on a new reactor.
I maintain hope that some of the other SMR attempts will not have the same ballooning costs problem of every single nuclear project that inspired them, but it's a hold based on the need for the tech, not a hope that could be backed with a rational reasoning. I fear that the entire nuclear industry is filled with charlatans, and nobody who isn't a charlatan would ever get funding to start working on a new reactor.
Luckily there has been an ever growing torrent of successful demos, new technologies and projects coming in on time and on budget (or before and below) from the renewable sector. There are still some missing pieces, and more policy support is needed; but more and more it's looking like completing the puzzle is possible without the charlatans, and it may even happen before 2 degrees.
Maybe try decommissioning some of the old reactors that are beyond their safe lifetime and use the steel from them. Much of that steel cannot be used for conventional projects because it poses a radiation hazard. That should devalue it.
https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-material-scrap-metal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_scrap_metal
https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-material-scrap-metal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_scrap_metal
And how would you rework that radioactive metal into a new high-precision containment vessel and piping?
The added faff of dealing with irradiated materials will surely be orders of magnitude more expensive then the price increase in raw clean steel.
All of your machinery will be contaminated, really bad for the fabricators, installers, maintainers.
The added faff of dealing with irradiated materials will surely be orders of magnitude more expensive then the price increase in raw clean steel.
All of your machinery will be contaminated, really bad for the fabricators, installers, maintainers.
Interesting idea. Though I doubt working with(slightly?) radioactive steel during construction makes things cheaper.
It cannot be used conventionally for a reason, it needs special handling I suppose.
There's a sliding scale of special handling, and of how unsuitable it is for other things, though. It's interesting to ponder whether there might be a sweet spot of "too radioactive to be reused as warehouse beams" but "foundry workers making a new reactor vessel out of it would only need minimal protection for the few days they'd be around it".
Interesting concept. It reduces decomissioning costs and building costs.
Would the extra handling precautions cost more than you saved though?
Would the extra handling precautions cost more than you saved though?
"That should devalue it."
Only if the other party wants to sell.
Only if the other party wants to sell.
Reactors from nuclear subs might be a good place to start. Now we bury them for a period of at least 600 years. And there is plenty more from conventional nuclear power stations.
https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/disposal-site-for-nucle...
https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/disposal-site-for-nucle...
Dumb question, but wouldn't rising steel prices and interest rates affect any large construction project? How are the prices of new construction of other energy sources affected by this?
At a guess, new wind would be affected about the same because it uses about the same amount of steel as a traditional large reactor (although you can and some projects do use other materials like concrete). Chromium prices would only effect the nuclear plants.
PV has a completely different supply chain. Steel quantities for a racking system like PEG https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/11/14/peg-racking-system-su... are minimal. The limitation is polysilicon (which it is riding fairly hard right now, but production is being increased rapidly). Silver is the only critical resource, but metallization improvements are keeping the inputs required flat in spite of mid 20s percent growth.
PV has a completely different supply chain. Steel quantities for a racking system like PEG https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/11/14/peg-racking-system-su... are minimal. The limitation is polysilicon (which it is riding fairly hard right now, but production is being increased rapidly). Silver is the only critical resource, but metallization improvements are keeping the inputs required flat in spite of mid 20s percent growth.
Yeah, probably:
> Webb said prices are rising for all energy projects. At their October meeting, Hurricane City Power Board members discussed other project price increases and whether $100/MWh would still be a good price for energy from the CFPP. Board Chair Mac Hall said he would be willing to pay the increased cost because of the guaranteed dispatchable power it would provide.
> Webb said prices are rising for all energy projects. At their October meeting, Hurricane City Power Board members discussed other project price increases and whether $100/MWh would still be a good price for energy from the CFPP. Board Chair Mac Hall said he would be willing to pay the increased cost because of the guaranteed dispatchable power it would provide.
The interest rates I can understand. But how are rising steel prices going to change estimates? I'd expect the cost of the steel to be less than one percent of the budget. Is this way off? Or are they just looking for excuses?
What’s your prior for the cost of steel being only one percent of a major commercial construction project like this?
Steel usage is on the order of 100,000t for a GW of nuclear reactor and a decent chunk is rebar rather than low alloy stainless. If we take it on the high end, that's about $200 million. Double it for finance costs and you're around half a billion. Stainless and heavy fabrication costs more, but that's not 'steel costs' per se.
Over its lifetime a NPP including fuel and upkeep is on the order of 20 billion/GW.
Might call it 5-10% at a stretch. Certainly not enough to double it. And if nuscale reactors are claiming to be much cheaper and less resource intensive then they're either lying about the steel costs being the cause, lying about hidden subsidies, or lying about using an order of magnitude more steel. Either way you probably don't want scam artists in charge of enriched uranium.
Over its lifetime a NPP including fuel and upkeep is on the order of 20 billion/GW.
Might call it 5-10% at a stretch. Certainly not enough to double it. And if nuscale reactors are claiming to be much cheaper and less resource intensive then they're either lying about the steel costs being the cause, lying about hidden subsidies, or lying about using an order of magnitude more steel. Either way you probably don't want scam artists in charge of enriched uranium.
This is why we need to move away from pressurized water based reactors. Most of this material is in the shielding needed because the system is designed around keeping water at several hundred atmospheres pressure. Operating at atmospheric should dramatically reduce materials costs going forward (but still needs substantial research investment to get going and regulators that aren't so stuck in their ways)
Why do construction projects not buy steel futures?
Probably hubris. If you are forecasting such a big expense then yeah, you should probably hedge the upside risk with futures contracts.
Perhaps there's no mechanism for a government project to do this without being exposed to becoming a speculative endeavour.
It's called a forward (which is basically any vanilla contract for delivery).
They shouldn't be trading financial instruments, but they should contract with a supplier for the tonnage needed, and that supplier then turns around and manages their risk, possibly with futures.
This is all smoke though. The project would be way over budget, and input costs are being blamed.
They shouldn't be trading financial instruments, but they should contract with a supplier for the tonnage needed, and that supplier then turns around and manages their risk, possibly with futures.
This is all smoke though. The project would be way over budget, and input costs are being blamed.
Haha, lines up with my intuition about government.
Thanks for that piece of terminology and explanation.
Thanks for that piece of terminology and explanation.
Can't build structures out of paper derivatives.
You have to transport the steel from the contract delivery point but the steel is real, not paper.
No cardboard derivatives. No paper, no string. No sellotape.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
> Hughes explained to the Hurricane City Power Board that the new cost projections take into account approximately 30% in savings through the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes billions in tax credits to support clean energy projects. Otherwise, the project cost could be $120/MWh, he said.
And they don't say it explicitly, but I think it gets worse than that. It wouldn't be unusual for new technology, especially nuclear technology, to offer things at a below market price. It's basically a demo.
> The Department of Energy in 2020 approved a multi-year cost share award of about $1.4 billion to help demonstrate NuScale reactors at Idaho National Laboratory.