"New" nuke reaches criticality last month

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
One of the problems with the Forbes article is the cost and how they are determined. In Illinois the actual producer does not directly sell the electricity. While Exelon (owner of the nukes) does produce power and sells it in the northern part of the state, they first sell it wholesale then buy it back again from Ameren which is the transmitter of the power.

My electrical coop does not produce any power. They buy it from the generator who is also a national coop power provider.

Here is my electrical use for 2015, notice how the cost are broke down.

Yes, your system is definitely quite different from ours. Our prices, which are the rate the Generator/Provider (OPG, Bruce Power....etc) sells to the utility is set by the regulating board (Ontario Power Authority IIRC). They then dictate the rate that we, the ratepayers, pay to our Utility, which covers their costs and makes profit for the government. Our local Utility has 5 (IIRC) hydro electric dams and a 10MW solar farm as part of their own generating capacity, but it has no effect on what the ratepayers pay (our local capacity) because they do not set the rates, even if we were able to generate all our own capacity locally. What DOES differ is a separate charge that appears on your bill in the form of a delivery charge, which is something HydroONE (the largest provider in the province) dings their ratepayers for, but those of us still using a local utility (PUI in my case) are often insulated from. So while I pay the same rates as a HydroONE customer, my bills are much smaller due to the lack of the delivery charge.

The delivery charge and the increase in the rates in recent years are the direct result of provincial subsidies to green energy companies and providers like HydroONE (and my local utility) to encourage the roll-out of things like wind and solar. Energy from those sources is then subsidized again; those sources are paid significantly more for their power than traditional sources. This can be as high as 17-18 cents a KWh.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
I read the article. It is propaganda. The tax credit runs out in 10 years here in the US for new windfarms. Coal is dead and so is nuclear if they don't get a way to fix the waste problem.

The problem with those numbers is they do not include all the cost from cradle to grave. Coal is finding out that the ash they have stored and need to get rid of will cost 100s 0f millions and the same for the nuclear plants. The two in Illinois that are getting shut down, Clinton and Quad Cities and lost $100M a year each for the last 8 years. This is the second time Clinton has been shut down due to unprofitably since it was built in 1987. It never has turned a profit.

And one needs to ask where would the nuclear industry be if it were not for Federal subsidies and outright paid for development before raising the subsidy question?


OK, cradle to grave...wind is 25% capacity factor, as it's not blowing all the time, solar...well that's obvious.

Take a coal or a nuke, at 95% reliability, 80% capacity factor, which is pretty close to the mark (I measure and report these figures, and have managed plant asset lifecycles).

1,000MW of either can be expected to produce on the average day 18,240MWh of energy...energy that can be delivered 24/7, as and when required.

Take the wind/solar, and the 25% capacity factor (assume 100% reliability, as being multiple tiny entities, failure of one tower/panel here or there is meaningless in the scheme), and you need 3,000MW of nameplate capacity to deliver the same amount of energy in 24 hour...so as is oft pointed out, they are cheaper to build, but you need three times as many of them to harvest the same amount of electricity.

At the moment, they are merely disruptive technologies that push the coal and nukes around when the wind is blowing and the sun shining...but when "Coal and Nukes are Dead", and these renewables are the sole source, it's simply a fact that you will need that many.

THEY will need to work out, and include in their life cycles the means to control frequency and power factor, and the like which these (now) simple systems don't provide.

Now that you've got your 3,000MW of renewables, generating on a sporadic basis, you need to store it...even assuming a flat daily load profile, you need to find a means of putting 13,680MWh of those renewable MWh in storage for when the wind and sun aren't there.

Smart Grids keep coming out...Tesla holds 310MJ, while a MWh is 3,600MJ...need 160,000 Teslas, with their full charge/discharge capability allocated purely to the 3,000MW of renewables...just to replace a 1,000MW Coal/Nuke.

There's clearly a lifecycle issue that's not being addressed, isn't there ?

 

[SHOZ]

You are forgetting the Natural Gas generators.

 

[Shannow]

If you are going to replace one fossil fuel with another, then what's the point ?

Why would you waste Natural gas (great for distributed heating and transport) to burn in stationary applications over coal then ?

 

[SHOZ]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
If you are going to replace one fossil fuel with another, then what's the point ?

Why would you waste Natural gas (great for distributed heating and transport) to burn in stationary applications over coal then ?
Nat Gas is much lower in CO2 emissions, doesn't require major mountain top mining and leaves behind no ash nor the other heavy metal pollutants. It's not even close. And the new Nat Gas plants are approaching 70-80% efficiency. Something coal can never come close too. Nukes by the way are only about 6% efficient as far as getting the thermal value from the fuel.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Nukes by the way are only about 6% efficient as far as getting the thermal value from the fuel.



Speaking of nukes, here's the synopsis of the flexibility with respect to different fuel cycles for a current CANDU design the EC6, which is an improved version of the CANDU 6. There are a number of these operating currently:

Originally Posted By: SNC

The CANDU reactor design is suitable for burning a number of alternative nuclear fuels. The EC6 reactor retains the ability to adopt various fuel cycle options, including:

- Natural uranium equivalent fuel is produced by mixing in predetermined proportions of recycled uranium from commercial light water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plants (U-235 content ranging from 0.8 to 1%) with depleted uranium to obtain a blend that is neutronically equivalent to CANDU NU fuel.

- Recovered uranium (RU) (~0.9% enriched) fuel from reprocessed LWR fuel can be used in CANDU without re-enrichment, offering access to a potentially economical supply of low enriched uranium fuel at the optimal enrichment level. The enrichment level is dictated primarily by the limit placed on fuel discharge burnup.

- A thorium cycle or CANDU/Fast Breeder Reactor system. Long-term energy security can be assured through either of these. The Fast Breeder reactor would operate as a "fuel factory" to provide fissile material to power a number of lower-cost, high-efficiency EC6 reactors. A fast breeder reactor is a reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes.

- A high burnup mixed oxide (MOX) fuel that could utilize plutonium from conventional reprocessing or more advanced reprocessing options (such as co-processing). MOX fuel contains plutonium blended with natural uranium, depleted uranium, or recovered uranium from reprocessing plant.

Thorium offers a low-uranium-consumption fuel cycle option for the EC6 reactor. It is three to four times more abundant than uranium in the earth’s crust and is commercially exploitable. As the world's most neutron-efficient power reactor, the EC6 reactor is uniquely suited for burning thorium. A thorium-fuelled EC6 plant would be attractive to countries with abundant thorium reserves but with little or no uranium, and can assist in addressing their need for energy self-reliance.

Thorium Oxide (ThO2) also has attractive physical and chemical properties: its thermal conductivity and melting temperature is higher than that of UO2. As a consequence, fuel-operating temperatures will be lower than those of UO2, and fission-gas release from the fuel is expected to be lower than for UO2 operating at similar ratings. ThO2 is chemically very stable, and it does not oxidize, a benefit for normal operation, postulated accidents, and in waste management.

Candu Energy Inc. maintains a thorium fuel cycle program with more than 40 years of history, incorporating reactor physics and core design; fuel design and fabrication; irradiation and demonstration; reprocessing; cycle optimization; and commercial deployment options.


On their website, they make this point, which is the same point I made earlier:

Quote:
The CANDU 6 reactor offers a combination of proven and superior, state-of-the-art technology. It was designed specifically for electricity production, unlike other major reactor types that evolved from other uses. This focused development is one of the reasons that CANDU has such high fuel efficiency. Candu is proud of the excellent performance of its domestic and international fleet of CANDU 6 reactors.


I can't find the exact efficiency rating for the CANDU at this moment, but I would wager on it being higher than the 6% figure you've cited.

 

[SHOZ]

Sorry Overkill. I'm talking current US technology.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Sorry Overkill. I'm talking US technology.


Oh yes, I am aware

I just figured I'd mention some alternative information about the general topic of nukes, as the CANDU family is used all over the world and as you can see, it is extremely flexible!

 

[SHOZ]

DOE plan targets 200 GW of nuclear capacity by mid-century

Quote:

Acknowledging that meeting environmental goals will require nuclear generation, and that new technologies can take decades to mature, the U.S. Department of Energy has laid out a vision for the development of advanced reactors and targets 200 GW of nuclear capacity by mid-century, Forbes reports.

DOE's "Vision and Strategy for the Development and Deployment of Advanced Reactors," calls for at least two advanced reactor concepts to be developed, have reached
technical maturity and completed licensing reviews, by 2030.

The draft plan was released last month, though Forbes points out is has gone largely unreported. On the funding side, DOE last week announced $82 million in funding to support advanced nuclear energy research, with 93 projects in 28 states receiving awards.

 

[OVERKILL]

We have current, 1200MW reactors, available through SNC/CANDU. If you guys would just consider adopting those.....

Eight of those (the size of our Bruce install) would yield 9,600MW of high reliability, flexible generation, and would be cost effective, since the product is already developed.

 

[SHOZ]

Nuclear waste is the big bug a boo. Not much sense in building new ones when they are closing existing ones.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Nuclear waste is the big bug a boo. Not much sense in building new ones when they are closing existing ones.


Yes, which is why this post of mine is relevant:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4134401/Re:_"New"_nu#Post4134401

This is what you can do with a CANDU, which is also why it makes far more sense than developing your own "new" reactor which likely won't have that capability.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
And the new Nat Gas plants are approaching 70-80% efficiency. Something coal can never come close too.


Rightyoh, now you need to start providing sources for your "Facts".

You've put enough stuff out there, but this is one that you really need to back...75% will do...where, and with what technology ?

GE, only the other week announced a world record of just over 62%
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...y_f#Post4132427

Where is your next 15% ?

And in less than a month...

47% Nett is the top end of coal (90%+ with waste heat converted to district heating where appropriate).

Your statements regarding coal, efficiency, ash and nuclear waste appear to have been influenced by information sources with an agenda, and a myopic view of what's CURRENTLY practices in the US, versus what's being done globally.

If you are in favour of emergent technologies in wind, solar, and gas, then you HAVE to be open to current states of the art in coal and nuclear, including ash utilisation (it can be used to massively offset the CO2 generation in manufacturing cement for example - (Note 1)), and nuclear fuel reprocessing extends both the life of reserves and reduces the amount to store.

Note 1 - by declaring ash "hazardous waste", which a group with an agenda has forced, you are eliminating any of the number of useful technologies that can be facilitated by using it as a raw material.

On the ash stuff, I've got a little bit of knowledge, having project managed the conversion of an open cut mine, through the regulatory approvals and design process, groundwater modelling, environmental management...then done my darndest to avoid filling it, 200KT p.a. going into the cement market, initiating trials (e.g. road base and others), that are coming to fruition.

Every one of those reducing the amount of raw material that needs to be mined/quarried to make your footpaths and roads.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Sorry Overkill. I'm talking current US technology.


6% ???

really...again, please provide sources, as a Power Station engineer, I couldn't grasp of how you could turn so much energy into so little. At 6%, a 1,000MW station would have to remove 15,666MW of waste heat through the cooling towers...TMI would need cooling towers over 1,000 feet in diameter and similar in height to move that, and would have evaporated 98Mg per day per tower.

Clearly nonsensical...

Again, your number sound to have been sourced from someone with an agenda...here's the actual numbers

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_01.html

Heat rate is how many BTUs energy go in to get a KWh (3412BTU) out.
Coal - H.R. 10428 - 32.7% fleet average
Gas - H.R. 7909 - 43% (half way to 80% LOL).
Nuke - H.R. 10459 - 32.6% ...matches the size of their cooling towers LOL.

Again, where did you get 6% from ?

 

[OVERKILL]

I THINK the 6% figure is based on the use of the rods (that's how I took it, the efficiency of extracting the energy from the fuel), as there is massively more left in them after they are "used up" in a traditional reactor. That's why I posted to the link to the information on CANDU's for reprocessing and reusing that fuel, then using with breeders to use it some more, to get far more out of the rods than what is extracted via a typical US-style plant.

 

[Shannow]

Ahhhh...there's a way of measuring everything to make something appear worse, isn't there ?

That's only stupid regulatory process, not a deficiency in nuclear as a whole...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/10/01/why-doesnt-u-s-recycle-nuclear-fuel/#48e780027db4

 

[OVERKILL]

BTW, this is a very interesting statistic:

Quote:
Because nuclear fission is a very efficient source of energy, nuclear reactors require very little fuel. A single 20-gram uranium fuel pellet can produce the same amount of energy as 400 kilograms of coal, 410 litres of oil, or 350 cubic metres of natural gas.

 

[SHOZ]

How Gas Turbine Power Plants Work

http://energy.gov/fe/how-gas-turbine-power-plants-work

Quote:
One of the major achievements of the Department of Energy's advanced turbine program was to break through previous limitations on turbine temperatures, using a combination of innovative cooling technologies and advanced materials. The advanced turbines that emerged from the Department's research program were able to boost turbine inlet temperatures to as high as 2600 degrees F - nearly 300 degrees hotter than in previous turbines, and achieve efficiencies as high as 60 percent.

Another way to boost efficiency is to install a recuperator or heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) to recover energy from the turbine's exhaust. A recuperator captures waste heat in the turbine exhaust system to preheat the compressor discharge air before it enters the combustion chamber. A HRSG generates steam by capturing heat from the turbine exhaust. These boilers are also known as heat recovery steam generators. High-pressure steam from these boilers can be used to generate additional electric power with steam turbines, a configuration called a combined cycle.

A simple cycle gas turbine can achieve energy conversion efficiencies ranging between 20 and 35 percent. With the higher temperatures achieved in the Department of Energy's turbine program, future hydrogen and syngas fired gas turbine combined cycle plants are likely to achieve efficiencies of 60 percent or more. When waste heat is captured from these systems for heating or industrial purposes, the overall energy cycle efficiency could approach 80 percent.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
BTW, this is a very interesting statistic:
Quote:
Because nuclear fission is a very efficient source of energy, nuclear reactors require very little fuel. A single 20-gram uranium fuel pellet can produce the same amount of energy as 400 kilograms of coal, 410 litres of oil, or 350 cubic metres of natural gas.


Well you've got E=mc^2 on your side. The energy in matter is truly stupendous.

Consider the amount of matter converted to energy in the Little Boy bomb (and yes, I know that term isn't exactly true since it's not really converted). That was less than a gram and destroyed a city.

To me what's even more amazing is that "E" is agnostic and applies to any matter, not just uranium or plutonium. Some elements are easier to extract the energy of course but nevertheless the amount is the same. A gram of grass clippings, cockroaches or U-235 has the same energy content.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: SHOZ
A simple cycle gas turbine can achieve energy conversion efficiencies ranging between 20 and 35 percent. With the higher temperatures achieved in the Department of Energy's turbine program, future hydrogen and syngas fired gas turbine combined cycle plants are likely to achieve efficiencies of 60 percent or more. When waste heat is captured from these systems for heating or industrial purposes, the overall energy cycle efficiency could approach 80 percent.


You make my point again...and either don't get what you are saying or don't want to get it.

60s are where CCGTs are....that's the plant that is typically installed.

The 80 that you quoted as coming are only with waste heat district heating, which I'm not sure is going to go in anywhere in the US.

BUT as soon as you play the district heating card, you can apply it to anything.
http://cornerstonemag.net/setting-the-benchmark-the-worlds-most-efficient-coal-fired-power-plants/

Quote:
The HP and IP steam paths are combined in a common HP/IP module. Steam is passed back to the boiler for reheating before it continues through the IP and LP turbine modules. With the double-reheat cycle and cold seawater for cooling, Unit 3 boasts a net electrical efficiency of 47% (LHV basis). The asymmetric double-flow IP steam path (steam is received in the center of the cylinder and discharges at the ends) is configured to suit district heating requirements. Extracted steam is passed through two heat exchangers where water from the Aalborg city grid is heated to 80–90°C. This dual use allows Unit 3 to utilize up to 91% of the energy content in the bituminous coals it burns.


Cherry picking, I would thumb my nose and say that coal can be 91% efficient...BUT you can only make your customer's houses so warm, so it's sister units are stuck at their thermal efficiency...

Just like the majority of the CCGTs that will be built actually.