Conventional Nuclear (AKA Nuclear Fission) a thread for discussion of the pros / cons.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The accident was caused by a stuck valve and a poorly designed control panel.

    I meant those were the main problems. The proximate cause. There were other problems with the pressurizer level indicator, the radiation monitors, and even with the computer printer. The printer was slow. It could not keep up with the alarm messages. They had to periodically reset the computer, which erased the messages from RAM, and lost them. I am guessing this was a 1200 baud dot matrix printer, a minicomputer, and a poorly written program. If I had been the programmer I would have saved those messages to disk before trying to print them. I worked with minicomputers and slow printers back then. I knew their foibles.


    Printers in general are evil spirits. Nasty people are punished after death by reincarnation as computer printers.


    Its related to subs, not power stations - but a nuke's a nuke for a' that (as Rabbie Burns would have said.)


    'It's madness': Residents just learned nuclear waste from AUKUS subs would be stored locally
    The $368 billion AUKUS pact is promising to return submarine construction to Australia. But residents have just learned the deal also means nuclear waste will…
    www.abc.net.au

    "The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making" - Douglas Adams

    Sad 1
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    Nuclear becomes eligible for hydrogen tax credits under updated US rules
    Changes to the proposed final rules for US tax credits to support clean hydrogen production mean that existing nuclear power plants will now be eligible. ;
    world-nuclear-news.org


    Nuclear becomes eligible for hydrogen tax credits under updated US rules

    Monday, 6 January 2025


    "The Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit, established under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, aims to support the deployment of clean hydrogen produced from various pathways. But for hydrogen produced from electricity, the initial version of the rules published just a year ago proposed that only clean power generators that began operating within three years of the hydrogen facility entering service would be eligible - effectively eliminating most existing US clean energy generating capacity, including nuclear."

    "The final rules for the tax credit which have now been released by the US Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) "include significant changes and flexibilities that address several key issues to help grow the industry and move projects forward, while adhering to the law's emissions requirements for qualifying clean hydrogen'" the Treasury said. "With the inclusion of these changes, the final rules provide clarity, investment certainty, and flexibility, including for participants in projects planned as part of the US Department of Energy'’s Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs programme.""


    https://www.investors.com/news/hydrogen-tax-credit-sp-500-constellation-energy-amazon-vendor-soar/


    "The government's decision to allow nuclear power providers to qualify for the hydrogen tax credit sent numerous nuclear stocks higher."

    • New
    Quote from Shane D.

    effectively eliminating most existing US clean energy generating capacity, including nuclear."

    USA is a joke. Uranium fuel production, construction of the plant (nuke) and decommission results in a CO2 footprint of 50% compared to oil.


    Oh yesss current from the plug is green - no pollution.... How dumb must people be to believe such silly stories.

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    Quote from Wyttenbach

    USA is a joke. Uranium fuel production, construction of the plant (nuke) and decommission results in a CO2 footprint of 50% compared to oil.


    Oh yesss current from the plug is green - no pollution.... How dumb must people be to believe such silly stories.

    Not only that but it will end any new alternative energy programs. What idiot thought of combining nukes with hydrogen. Both have their own regulatory over site with different agendas, it will take years to work this out

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    Quote from Wyttenbach

    USA is a joke. Uranium fuel production, construction of the plant (nuke) and decommission results in a CO2 footprint of 50% compared to oil.

    Where did you get those numbers? They seem highly unlikely to me. Sources I have seen say the embedded energy of a nuclear plant is low, and it takes little energy to decommission it. That is, compared to the energy it generates over a lifetime. Embedded energy is described here:


    Solar, wind and nuclear have ‘amazingly low’ carbon footprints, study finds
    Building solar, wind or nuclear plants creates an insignificant carbon footprint compared with savings from avoiding fossil fuels, a new study suggests.
    www.carbonbrief.org

    Embodied energy

    The first stage of the work is to add up the energy needed to build power stations and to provide them with the fuel and other inputs they need to run. This is called “embodied energy use”. It is the inverse of “energy return on investment” (EROI).

    The study finds that electricity from fossil fuels, hydro and bioenergy has “significantly higher” embodied energy, compared to nuclear, wind and solar power.


    For example, the study finds that 11% of the energy generated by a coal-fired power station is offset by energy needed to build the plant and supply the fuel, as the chart below shows. This is equivalent to saying that one unit of energy invested in coal power yields nine units of electricity.


    Nuclear power is twice as good as coal, with the energy embedded in the power plant and fuel offsetting 5% of its output, equivalent to an EROI of 20:1. Wind and solar perform even better, at 2% and 4% respectively, equivalent to EROIs of 44:1 and 26:1.

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    Jed, here is an in-depth reference of the various forms of EROI. It's a very important issue with a lot of nuances and subtleties. Different forms mark their boundaries in different areas.


    Dynamic Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) and material requirements in scenarios of global transition to renewable energies
    A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fu…
    www.sciencedirect.com

    • New
    Quote from JedRothwell

    Where did you get those numbers? They seem highly unlikely to me. Sources I have seen say the embedded energy of a nuclear plant is low, and it takes little energy to decommission it.

    The first Swiss data (1970) told that the self consumption period is 4.6 years just for construction with live time of 40 years.

    15.--30% for uranium mining refining etc. is a standard figure. Decommission is much larger than construction and no hard data is currently known except that it will be > 4.6 years equivalent. But all depends on economic factors of scale that could go up for e.g. sharing a final storage for highly active fuel.

    So best case you will get 30..40% of CO2 content in nuke electricity.

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    Quote from Wyttenbach

    So best case you will get 30..40% of CO2 content in nuke electricity.

    CO2 mitigation estimates are tricky
    ..

    https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2023.1147016/pdf


    "As mentioned in Section 3, the estimated carbon emissions resulting from construction and operation are highly contradictory among the different studies, accounting for an average of 35% of the total carbon emissions of the nuclear fuel cycle, and these emissions are currently underestimated due to the limited input data and incomplete methodologies. Such uncertainty in the carbon emissions stemming from construction and operation could hinder the objective and comprehensive evaluation of the carbon emissions of the nuclear fuel cycle, impeding the accurate estimation of the emission mitigation capability of NPPs."


    If Switzerland does end up justifying a new nuclear plant. after revoking their post-Fukushima ban they might be able to factor in one positive aspect of a Fukushima style disaster ..

    plenty of vacant land for solar farms :)


    "Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, the scene of the world’s most recent nuclear disasters in 2011, will transform its now unusable agricultural land into wind and solar farms, as part of a $US2.7 billion renewable energy rebirth.

    Fukushima to be reborn as $2.7bn wind and solar power hub
    Twenty-one plants and new power grid to supply Tokyo metropolitan area
    asia.nikkei.com


    • New
    Quote from RobertBryant

    CO2 mitigation estimates are tricky
    ..

    https://www.frontiersin.org/jo…89/fenrg.2023.1147016/pdf


    "As mentioned in Section 3, the estimated carbon emissions resulting from construction and operation are highly contradictory among the different studies,

    I would say this is not so much contradictory, but rather, it depends on the type of nuclear reactor. See Fig. 1 in that document. HWR reactors produce a lot of CO2, over a wide range, from 10 up to ~65 g/kWh. LWR reactors produce 10 or 20 g/kWh.


    It depends on how many years you run the reactor. They keep extending the lives of most reactors, so the number will improve.

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    Quote

    Solar, wind and nuclear have ‘amazingly low’ carbon footprints, study finds Building solar, wind or nuclear plants creates an insignificant carbon footprint compared with savings from avoiding fossil fuels a new study suggests .

    This doesn't explain, why countries which highest portion of "renewables" in their energy portfolio also have highest prices of electricity for end customers. Yes, the wind/solar energy often comes dirty cheap or even with negative prices at energy markets - but is it really an advantage?


    Suppose you produce one ton of bread in time when everyone is overstuffed, so that you're forced to sell it very cheaply. The carbon footprint of such a bread would appear very low considering its end price - but in reality it's most expensive and energy demanding form of bread instead.

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    22 countries want to triple nuclear power. Is there enough uranium to go around?


    Unfortunately the nuclear plants make poor counterpart of "renewables" on grid as they cannot be switched on and off easily without risk of poisoning of reactors. This is also why for Germany still keeps its coal/gas plants for to balance the energy demand spikes. Even more substantial problem with nuclear energy is, there is simply not enough of uranium for everyone (see also here or here). The thorium energetic has its own serious drawbacks too. The return time of investments for nuclear plants is comparable to their life-time - so that they must get subsidized (by fossil fuel based economics indeed) in similar way (just in smaller extent) like the "renewables".

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    Quote

    So best case you will get 30..40% of CO2 content in nuke electricity.

    The price is the measure of energy expenditure for production of energy and the nuclear energy is most expensive one on the market, also with longest time of return of investments. One can not have something expensive and with low carbon footprint at the same moment, when 82% energy comes from coal (an this share didn't change last thirty years just because of hidden carbon footprint of carbon replacements).

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