Nuclear is the most bang for the buck. Solar and wind aren’t very efficient just from a capacity standpoint. Solar only harnesses 20 percent of the sunlight.
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View attachment 23981
OT: Oil in the US. A true discussion, don’t do political ********.
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The 3 biggest issues I could see with current nuclear fission reactors are:
How much uranium can you extract and how quickly? Answers vary, but it's not easy to mine.
What do you do with all of the spent fuel... Aka radioactive waste?
And the big one. Where do you put the nuclear reactor sites?
I have seen this all the time with fracking in Texas. Drill baby drill... Just not anywhere near my house. Nobody wants a nuclear power plant near their property either. Not sure what that range is where people won't care 50 miles? I don't care how pro nuclear you are, you aren't going to be happy to see your property value drop.
It's not a problem in West Texas or New Mexico, but I think we would need to add 500+ nuclear power plants to go completely off fossil fuels. That's a lot of property values that would be affected.
Good news is nuclear fusion is really making strides. A worst case fallout would be contained within the reactor itself and radioactive waste would be minimal with the ability to recycle it within 100 years. Lots of people seem to think fusion reactors will be our primary source of power in the second half of the century. If that's the case, it's almost hard to justify current nuclear on a very big scale.
How much uranium can you extract and how quickly? Answers vary, but it's not easy to mine.
What do you do with all of the spent fuel... Aka radioactive waste?
And the big one. Where do you put the nuclear reactor sites?
I have seen this all the time with fracking in Texas. Drill baby drill... Just not anywhere near my house. Nobody wants a nuclear power plant near their property either. Not sure what that range is where people won't care 50 miles? I don't care how pro nuclear you are, you aren't going to be happy to see your property value drop.
It's not a problem in West Texas or New Mexico, but I think we would need to add 500+ nuclear power plants to go completely off fossil fuels. That's a lot of property values that would be affected.
Good news is nuclear fusion is really making strides. A worst case fallout would be contained within the reactor itself and radioactive waste would be minimal with the ability to recycle it within 100 years. Lots of people seem to think fusion reactors will be our primary source of power in the second half of the century. If that's the case, it's almost hard to justify current nuclear on a very big scale.
Yep. We shouldn't penalize any possible energy source
No
Too many people on this planet and too much of a tangled political web. We need as many options as possible - preferably getting to cleaner and renewable.
That said, I am perfectly fine with subsidizing/investing in new clean tech or replacement tech. But I don't believe in penalizing the processes and infrastructure that we function on today. If new tech can't replace the tried and true, there's a reason for that. Let it happen naturally over time. We will get there, we just can't let the status quo and "change overnight" extremes to lead the process.
No
Too many people on this planet and too much of a tangled political web. We need as many options as possible - preferably getting to cleaner and renewable.
That said, I am perfectly fine with subsidizing/investing in new clean tech or replacement tech. But I don't believe in penalizing the processes and infrastructure that we function on today. If new tech can't replace the tried and true, there's a reason for that. Let it happen naturally over time. We will get there, we just can't let the status quo and "change overnight" extremes to lead the process.
Because they have become next to impossible to build. Some of that is regulatory, some of that is lack of companies manufacturing reactors.
The Plant Vogtle expansion here in Georgia has been a disaster. Approved in 2009 with an estimated cost of $14 billion. It was supposed to be operational in 2016. Costs are already over $30 billion and it might be complete in 2023. It bankrupted the original contractor, and likely would have caused major financial stress for the Southern Company - but our idiot Public Service Commission keeps allowing them to up the electric rates to offset costs.
I know it has become common to refer to the horizontal wells as "fracking" wells, but that is a bit of a misnomer. Hydraulic fracturing of wells, especially gas wells, has been around for 70 or 80 years. What opened up drilling in the shale formations around the country was when some very bright engineers figured out how to drill vertically down to about a 1/4 mile above the shale and then very slowly turn the bit (and drill string) until they could drill horizontally through the center of the shale. Then you can frack the shale sufficiently to get a decent return.
If we really and truly want to go this electric vehicle route, electric generation has to increase substantially and right now nuclear is the quick solution. Hopefully one day we can have fusion energy.
When you wake up to a 5.8 shaking your 100 year old house, this becomes real.
Not a fun thing to experience and makes you question the whole fracking/wastewater injection process. But OK and much of TX is sparsely populated, so it can work without too much damage. After awhile, you just get used to it. Still makes you question the process.
This video always made my jaw drop:
Not a fun thing to experience and makes you question the whole fracking/wastewater injection process. But OK and much of TX is sparsely populated, so it can work without too much damage. After awhile, you just get used to it. Still makes you question the process.
This video always made my jaw drop:
I'm not sure nuclear is the quick solution, at least in reality. (It could be.) A cursory google search tells me there are only 2 currently under construction in US, and new ones would cost 5-10 billion. It looks to me like solar and wind are gonna be the horse we ride for better or worse. Biomass/biofuel should be factoring in WAY more (which if memory serves we've discussed before).
I'm still not sold that batteries as they exist now are the way to go.
We definitely need to power our vehicles with something other than fossil fuels at some point. Lithium batteries are a good temporary way to do that, but like you said, there's an electric generation bottleneck (also some of which generated by fossil fuels we are trying to avoid). Then you have the rare element part of it and all the supply chain/politics that go into that. Doesn't seem sustainable over the long run without a big swing in battery tech - and surely that is in the works as well.
I still wish that hydrogen fuel cell tech would have panned out. Seems like a better battery system if we could ever figure out an efficient way of farming the hydrogen out of sea water. Hydrogen in, generate electricity, water out. Repeat.
We definitely need to power our vehicles with something other than fossil fuels at some point. Lithium batteries are a good temporary way to do that, but like you said, there's an electric generation bottleneck (also some of which generated by fossil fuels we are trying to avoid). Then you have the rare element part of it and all the supply chain/politics that go into that. Doesn't seem sustainable over the long run without a big swing in battery tech - and surely that is in the works as well.
I still wish that hydrogen fuel cell tech would have panned out. Seems like a better battery system if we could ever figure out an efficient way of farming the hydrogen out of sea water. Hydrogen in, generate electricity, water out. Repeat.
Nuclear takes a shitpot full of water, which highly limits where they can be located.
It's not quite that simple. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. But the biggest disadvantage to ethanol in my book is it used 40% of our corn crops, increasing food costs for everyone.
https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain
https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain
Agree but we basically don't have a shipbuilding or shipping industry anymore. We can build warships. Until we can rectify that the Jones Act needs to be suspended. It snarls a lot of things and really hurts us in some. Go back and search the WSJ. They have written a lot about it over the years.
The thing that almost never gets mentioned with EVs is the local power grids. There probably aren't many if any residential neighborhoods in the country that could handle every house charging 2 or more EVs every night.
The issue you bring up is the issue that is constantly at the forefront of challenges to overcome during EV expansion discussions.
I'm ready for 3/4 ton hybrids
Somebody needs to get on that. I want the utility and "economy" of 3/4 ton gasser hybrid - I'll plug it in if I have to as well.
I tow enough to rationalize a 3/4 ton, but not enough for a diesel. Give me the hybrid gasser so I can break 20mpg around town with the option to tow 10k lbs safely over long distances. Battery isn't likely going to let me do that any time in the decade. I'm not recharging every 100 miles. Not gonna do it.
Somebody needs to get on that. I want the utility and "economy" of 3/4 ton gasser hybrid - I'll plug it in if I have to as well.
I tow enough to rationalize a 3/4 ton, but not enough for a diesel. Give me the hybrid gasser so I can break 20mpg around town with the option to tow 10k lbs safely over long distances. Battery isn't likely going to let me do that any time in the decade. I'm not recharging every 100 miles. Not gonna do it.
At $110 a barrel right now. How high is it going?
And at this rate, would it really matter now if the West shut Russia out completely?
Sometimes you just gotta blow it all up and patch it up later or just start all over.
And at this rate, would it really matter now if the West shut Russia out completely?
Sometimes you just gotta blow it all up and patch it up later or just start all over.
Who do you think is lobbying to keep the Jones Act restrictions in place if we don't have shipbuilders?
There definitely seems to be something screwed up though. If there is transportation that will literally just not happen with US ships (which there obviously is), it seems like there could be some accommodation for that is politically acceptable. We obviously do a lot of brownwater shipping with US ships. Is it just the shipping up and down the coasts that are uneconomical for US vessels? Or is there a lot of that too, just way less than there would be because it's cheaper to export and import with foreign made ships?
People don’t want nuclear facilities in their community. I’m sure the public is wrong regarding the risk factors, but it makes it tough to bring them online when people on both sides of the isle are nervous.
We went 20 years without bringing a single facility online in the US (96 - 16).
We went 20 years without bringing a single facility online in the US (96 - 16).
That graph doesn't have anything to do with bang for the buck. It's just how much a given type of source provided compared to how much it in theory could have provided. Nuclear is pretty much always economic to run (once you build it), so it pretty much runs full out except for maintenance and repairs. Solar and wind are basically the same way but in addition to maintenance and repairs, you have time where the wind isn't blowing/sun isn't shining. As we put in more wind and solar in more marginal places, that capacity factor will be pushed down by being in more marginal locations while (hopefully) being increased by better tech (although solar has already gone into a lot of marginal or worse places, so capacity factors may move up based on location and better tech still).
I think right now bang for the buck is natural gas. It's relatively cheap to build a combined cycle, gas is (or was until recently) pretty cheap, and you don't have the same lifecycle maintenance and decommissioning concerns. The big advantage of nuclear is that you are more or less shielded from volatile energy markets and of course it seems somewhat wasteful to be using natural gas to create electricity.
ETA: ****. Should have read your post twice. You were not implying that the graph was bang for the buck.
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The biggest disadvantage may also a pretty big advantage. We have a ton of productive agricultural land devoted to wasteful activity, but if we ever had a catastrophe (say an extended ground war in the breadbasket of europe as crazy as that sounds), we could really with the flip of a switch stop wasting a **** ton of food and have it available to avoid famine. On the flipside, we couldn't ramp up food production that quickly if we weren't basically mandating that people use a large portion of our food stock in gas tanks. The federal government would probably have to make some payments to politically connected ethanol producers for the politics to work out, but if we really did see food prices skyrocketing becasue of war or whatever disaster (and not just because of ****** monetary and fiscal policy), we would be able to more or less immediately negate any food supply shock around the world. I know there are still some logistics and it's not exactly simple to take corn grown in the US and utilized that to offset a supply shock half way around the world, but I'd think we could/would actually figure it out if if we were facing something bad enough.
Question for DCD, we've all seen the advance of EV's, even now w/ pick up trucks, w/ reasonable ranges. The new Chevy EV looks bad ***. And I see companies making pledges to go Carbon free by so and so date, question is, have farming implements explored electrical power as a means of powering what you need. I know, growing up on a small farm myself that gas/diesel is king.
Second question for anyone, I could agree w/ electric 100% except for one thing, I haven't seen where the spent batteries are going to be used, recycled, etc. All I've read is there is no real answer. Seems to me we're
trading some air/noise pollution for much more dangerous solid waste pollution.
Second question for anyone, I could agree w/ electric 100% except for one thing, I haven't seen where the spent batteries are going to be used, recycled, etc. All I've read is there is no real answer. Seems to me we're
trading some air/noise pollution for much more dangerous solid waste pollution.
Let me rephrase, compared to the total volume of ship building and shipping we don't have much of it. The Jones act is pure protection for uncompetitive US firms. There is also an element of preserving at least a little shipping and ship building here. It does result in some strange things, Russian oil on the West Coast and Hawaii being one of them.
But that has to be something specific to what Southern Comapny is doing, right? Are they trying a new technology or reactor design?
France can still build reactors. Are our regulatory requirements so insane compared to France's that it triples the cost of a new reactor being built in thte US compared to France? Surely (hopefully) not, right?
I think people would ***** about any reactor being put within 50 miles of their home, but once it was built, you wouldn't see much impact to property values for areas where you are far enough away to not be able to see the cooling tower, or where there is an obstruction stopping you from seeing it, maybe more like 10-15 miles away. .
And they don't want the waste either. Several different waste disposal areas have been shut down or cut back due to local opposition.
Speaking of wind, looks like the satellite array that interfaces with Germany's
cache of 5000+ wind turbines was taken offline by an unknown source. Fortunately the turbines have a default mode when they can't ping the satellites that enables the grid to keep operating.
[url]https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/satellite-outage-knocks-out-control-enercon-wind-turbines-2022-02-28/
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cache of 5000+ wind turbines was taken offline by an unknown source. Fortunately the turbines have a default mode when they can't ping the satellites that enables the grid to keep operating.
[url]https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/satellite-outage-knocks-out-control-enercon-wind-turbines-2022-02-28/
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Well ****, maybe I'm wrong and that's what's happened to Jackson property prices.**
I looked it up and apparently the rule of thumb was within ~12 miles is the ballpark estimate of what would need to be evacuated and within 50 miles people might need to take efforts to mitigate exposure. But after Fukishima, the US gov't put out a recommendation to evacuate for any US nationals within 50 miles. It appears that even the 12 mile recommendation is conservative and the 50 mile recommendation is ludicrous (at least based on Fukishima), although that is based on a pretty superficial look at it.
I live in Madison and the distance dosen't bother me as much as the direction. Just about due SW. About 8 months of the year we get some pretty good wind from that direction. I've never worried about it but if there was a big accident I promise my antenna would be up. LOL
People don’t want anything near them but want everything at their disposal.
Case in point: This is a pretty fascinating read.
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/new...EhFDL_-6igPoI0PNyZgk9_5Vxr2KQntRH_d1G-cO8&s=r
Case in point: This is a pretty fascinating read.
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/new...EhFDL_-6igPoI0PNyZgk9_5Vxr2KQntRH_d1G-cO8&s=r
The Wall Street Journal has written in support of outsourcing industry for multinational corporate profits (at the cost of weakening US strategic capacity)? You don't say. Shocking.
Pretty much, but we're still talking about hundreds of companies that still compete among themselves for US business.
What's the alternative? Let US shipping be dominated by Chinese firms? Ok, boomer.
The chances of leakage to groundwater are basically zero. They are being overblown by lobbyists and competing industry funded activists
What nuclear advocated typically do not seem to know is this. You need two types of power to run a modern grid. Baseline power and on demand power. Nuclear is really good at providing baseline power. You turn it on, set it to 98% and let it go. Solar and wind only generate when they want to. Not good for on demand power. So you need something that will generate when you want it to and just as much as you need it to. Hydroelectric is good. Unless there is a severe drought. So the only thing left that will be there when you need it is steam. Geothermal is only viable in some places. Leaving you with combustion for heat. Most of the country is moving away from coal and to gas. But that's just the USA and other wealthy nations.
^^Doesn't realize 92% of the things in his home are made in China.** Only about 3% of US consumed crude actually comes from Russia. Some answers are below in a WSJ article. Prolly behind a paywall. So I will paste the meaty stuff...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-does-the-u-s-still-buy-russian-oil-11646151935
If the U.S. exports millions of barrels a day from the Gulf Coast, why does it import Russia oil?
The Jones Act, passed a century ago, has effectively limited the size of vessels that are allowed to transport goods between U.S. ports. That has left oil buyers on the West Coast and East Coast effectively unable to get supplies shipped out of the Gulf Coast.
The Gulf Coast, where oil companies shipped out about 3 million barrels a day in December, is connected by pipelines to the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and Cushing, Okla., the nation’s oil storage hub.
It isn’t profitable for companies to ship oil from that region to the U.S. East and West Coasts by such small ships, so refiners along those coasts, lacking pipeline connections from the Permian and Cushing, mostly import it from overseas.
This stupid *** Jones act is a problem (apologies to Taco.) It's protectionist horseshit for 3 shipyards and kills us. We'd be better off subsidizing the bastards and buying the big tankers from elsewhere.
https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/2021/09/myth-the-jones-act-protects-american-jobs/
Why do U.S. refineries need different varieties of crude?
The U.S. buys Russian oil in part to feed refineries that need different grades of crude with a higher sulfur content to make fuel at top capacities. U.S. refineries were designed decades ago to use heavier grades of crude, often with higher levels of sulfur, when domestic supplies were lower.
In recent years, Russian crude has filled some of the gap around the world left behind by sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, which crippled the flow of that type and similar types of oil from those two countries to refiners in the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.
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