Atomic Power

[Thebobo]

The Ivanpah solar-power project that recently opened and is killing all the birds cost about $2.2 billion. It produces enough energy to power a whopping 140,000 homes.

That is $15,000 per home. At my current rates it would take 10 years to break even... not factoring in maintenance and labor costs. Wind farms have similar issues where the acreage needed is enough to have a negative environmental impact.

Our nuke plants are out dated but those wold cost a lot more to replace.

The solution is room temperature super conductivity.... which we will get about the same time we get fusion reactors.

So I guess its LED everything to save power.

About a dozen birds so far.

Up to a billion birds are killed annually by high-rises buildings.

http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/140207.html

 

[Darwin333]

I don't think anyone is running a breeder reactor today except for research and perhaps fuel reprocessing. Too much danger of a runaway reaction. Apparently though the thorium thermal breeders are thought to be fairly safe.

They actually built a thorium reactor back in the 60's. If anything "bad" happened they basically did nothing and it shut itself down. They don't have the huge pressure vessels that normal nuke plants have because they don't operate at the insane pressures normal nuke plants do. Best of all, if ALL power is lost it shuts itself down. No water or external cooling is required. Oh, its also insanely more abundant than uranium and we it is vastly more efficient to use which means a tiny fraction of the nuclear waste and virtually none of the really bad waste.

You might be asking yourself, if we had this tech in the 60's why didn't we develop it. The answer is simple, thorium reactors don't help us make bombs.

 

[norseamd]

You might be asking yourself, if we had this tech in the 60's why didn't we develop it. The answer is simple, thorium reactors don't help us make bombs.

that and i think they needed to make marine nuclear propulsion

 

[PowerEngineer]

Um, it's all those wonderfully defect-free (yet somehow usually medicated/therapisted) liberal brains that are afraid of nuclear plants. Tennessee is extremely conservative and we have nuclear power plants everywhere we can put them - and we aren't afraid of them at all.

At all? I think that is (or should be) a bit of a stretch. It's also noteworthy that the federal government through the Tennessee Valley Authority is responsible for building most of those nuclear plants. Not normally something associated with a conservative (tea party, small government) agenda.

Ding ding ding.

Not to mention that without the upgraded grid it is impossible to integrate any sort of distributed power generation. There are good arguments for large scale solar and wind farms but there are also very good arguments for using existing unused/wasted space and generating power right where it is needed.

Even if we do none of that, our grid is a patch job of antiquated 40 year old crap and needs to be replaced regardless. That is what the stimulus should have been spent on imo.

No dings. As I posted earlier, it takes more than the simultaneous loss of two power plants to cause a noticeable disturbance in the electrical system, much less a "massive blackout".

It certainly is possible to integrate distributed generation into the existing transmission system. It's mostly a problem of protection and metering on the distribution systems which have been traditionally designed as "one way" systems to serve load. The arguments for adding transmission system capacity are tied to integrating many large scale renewable (wind/solar)generating plants with unpredictable (undispatchable) outputs that are located in remote locations. The upgrades to so-called "smart grid" technologies are largely aimed at providing the ability to control loads (i.e. turn them on and off) in way that can at least partially offset fluctuations in renewable generation output.

The age of much of the transmission system means that we face some significant ongoing replacement and maintenance costs, but it will continue to be the vital piece of infrastructure into the future (as useful to us as the even more "antiquated" networks of railways and interstate highways).

 

[norseamd]

The age of much of the transmission system means that we face some significant ongoing replacement and maintenance costs, but it will continue to be the vital piece of infrastructure into the future (as useful to us as the even more "antiquated" networks of railways and interstate highways).

the grid needs to be upgraded but so does the rail. we need high speed rail. why are all the high speed rail trains for passengers? is there anything wrong with high speed cargo rail?

the overall state of american infrastructure is a d-

 

[werepossum]

those conservative minds have other brain defects like not worrying about how coal damages the environment or that other people do exist and have their own opinions on the environment. also i am sure that there are a lot of republican moms who will have nothing to do with guns or nuclear power. but they might not ever care about exploiting the poor.

so there are problems on both sides of politics

Agreed - but see to whom I was responding.

They actually built a thorium reactor back in the 60's. If anything "bad" happened they basically did nothing and it shut itself down. They don't have the huge pressure vessels that normal nuke plants have because they don't operate at the insane pressures normal nuke plants do. Best of all, if ALL power is lost it shuts itself down. No water or external cooling is required. Oh, its also insanely more abundant than uranium and we it is vastly more efficient to use which means a tiny fraction of the nuclear waste and virtually none of the really bad waste.

You might be asking yourself, if we had this tech in the 60's why didn't we develop it. The answer is simple, thorium reactors don't help us make bombs.

They'd be perfect for today's world of dismantling nukes though.

At all? I think that is (or should be) a bit of a stretch. It's also noteworthy that the federal government through the Tennessee Valley Authority is responsible for building most of those nuclear plants. Not normally something associated with a conservative (tea party, small government) agenda.

No dings. As I posted earlier, it takes more than the simultaneous loss of two power plants to cause a noticeable disturbance in the electrical system, much less a "massive blackout".

It certainly is possible to integrate distributed generation into the existing transmission system. It's mostly a problem of protection and metering on the distribution systems which have been traditionally designed as "one way" systems to serve load. The arguments for adding transmission system capacity are tied to integrating many large scale renewable (wind/solar)generating plants with unpredictable (undispatchable) outputs that are located in remote locations. The upgrades to so-called "smart grid" technologies are largely aimed at providing the ability to control loads (i.e. turn them on and off) in way that can at least partially offset fluctuations in renewable generation output.

The age of much of the transmission system means that we face some significant ongoing replacement and maintenance costs, but it will continue to be the vital piece of infrastructure into the future (as useful to us as the even more "antiquated" networks of railways and interstate highways).

Personally I have no problem with TVA building nuclear plants, although it's amazingly inefficient at it. I'd prefer to see companies like Duke Energy doing it, but the potential risk is so great that government must be intricately involved either way. And there is some argument that government entities are both less likely to cut corners for cost and more resistant to pressure from militant anti-nuke people. (Although TVA proves neither of these things. Except maybe the second, with the snail darter - which thankfully turned out to be fairly common given that government wiped out the known population and failed in both its relocations.)

I'm also a big supporter of distributed solar power production, but there are problems once it grows to be a big part of the equation. I don't think we need a complete smart grid to fix those, but we do need additional measuring capability.

As far as the unreliability of solar and wind, TVA does something smart for demand peaks. In low demand periods they use excess electricity to pump water to man-made mountaintop reservoirs; in high demand periods they use that water to generate extra electricity. Such can go a long way toward handling those periods of low production, although obviously we'll still need standby fossil fuel generation. But even at today's efficiencies, most detached homes could easily be energy-independent. What's missing a cheap and clean method of mass fabricating solar panels of good efficiency. Right now solar has no payback for most of the nation unless government takes money from someone else to pay part of the bill. We need cheap solar panels - preferably that can replace roofing.

 

[werepossum]

the grid needs to be upgraded but so does the rail. we need high speed rail. why are all the high speed rail trains for passengers? is there anything wrong with high speed cargo rail?

the overall state of american infrastructure is a d-

We just need to combine the two and provide a network of 100,000V rails. We'll have a brand new grid and our trains will freakin' fly!

 

[BoberFett]

fuel cells will make energy independence possible.

If we could get Duracell to just make more batteries, we wouldn't need power plants at all.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

It takes much more than simultaneous loss of two power plants to cause "massive blackouts", especially in the eastern interconnection.

Really??? I gather you don't remember the black out in 2003

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

Many types of thermal plants (particularly nuclear and combined cycle) also have trouble providing operating reserves. The biggest thing that hurts solar and wind power is the variable nature (and unpredictability) of their power output which requires other power plants to constantly offset their fluctuations. You pretty much need 100 MW of hydro/thermal generation backing up 100 MW of solar/wind to get 100 MW of firm (dependable) generation.

All the power plants I've worked at installing steam turbine generator sets throughout the US and Canada very seldom run at more than 75% loading per the controlling grid instructions. During normal operations including power swings these plants are directly (some remote controlled) told to raise or lower their loading and adjust voltage to assist maintaining the grid.

The same is true for the isochronous generators in a island mode setup. The operators will base load all the droop generators and partially load the isochronous (loadsharing if more than one) generators so they have room to either increase or decrease their loading to automatically/instantaneously maintain the island grid frequency.

See replies in bold above

 

[Darwin333]

Many types of thermal plants (particularly nuclear and combined cycle) also have trouble providing operating reserves. The biggest thing that hurts solar and wind power is the variable nature (and unpredictability) of their power output which requires other power plants to constantly offset their fluctuations. You pretty much need 100 MW of hydro/thermal generation backing up 100 MW of solar/wind to get 100 MW of firm (dependable) generation.

Which is why a new and updated grid is required for distributed power to work. As it is now that "backup" has to pretty much be online and able to provide power at a moments notice. With a new grid operators will be able to see power output from distributed generation in real time, combined with weather modeling/forecasting that we already they would be able to actually take plants offline and only bring them online when they forecast they will need them. Obviously a fairly significant buffer would have to be built in but all in all it would be vastly superior to what we have today.

 

[Darwin333]

that and i think they needed to make marine nuclear propulsion

I am not sure if that was even thought of at the time, at the time they were really worried about making bigger booms. I'll have to look into when they first thought of trying to stick nukes in boats.

 

[norseamd]

Personally I have no problem with TVA building nuclear plants, although it's amazingly inefficient at it. I'd prefer to see companies like Duke Energy doing it, but the potential risk is so great that government must be intricately involved either way. And there is some argument that government entities are both less likely to cut corners for cost and more resistant to pressure from militant anti-nuke people. (Although TVA proves neither of these things. Except maybe the second, with the snail darter - which thankfully turned out to be fairly common given that government wiped out the known population and failed in both its relocations.) I'm also a big supporter of distributed solar power production, but there are problems once it grows to be a big part of the equation. I don't think we need a complete smart grid to fix those, but we do need additional measuring capability. As far as the unreliability of solar and wind, TVA does something smart for demand peaks. In low demand periods they use excess electricity to pump water to man-made mountaintop reservoirs; in high demand periods they use that water to generate extra electricity. Such can go a long way toward handling those periods of low production, although obviously we'll still need standby fossil fuel generation. But even at today's efficiencies, most detached homes could easily be energy-independent. What's missing a cheap and clean method of mass fabricating solar panels of good efficiency. Right now solar has no payback for most of the nation unless government takes money from someone else to pay part of the bill. We need cheap solar panels - preferably that can replace roofing.

honestly i think a government should handle the energy supply of a country like brazil does. however our government is so corrupt and broken down i am not sure how they would handle building all the new nuclear reactors. effeciancy can make a huge difference and unlike other things seems to be actually being deployed fairly well at least comparativly.

not sure what to make of the mountaintop thing other than it might be very damaging to the environment if too many reseviors are made. china seems to be able to make a ton of solar panels cheaply. that is actually what is causing our solar companies to go out of business

 

[norseamd]

I am not sure if that was even thought of at the time, at the time they were really worried about making bigger booms. I'll have to look into when they first thought of trying to stick nukes in boats.

at the wikipedia article

naval test reactor - 1953

uss nautilus - 1955

 

[Darwin333]

At all? I think that is (or should be) a bit of a stretch. It's also noteworthy that the federal government through the Tennessee Valley Authority is responsible for building most of those nuclear plants. Not normally something associated with a conservative (tea party, small government) agenda.



No dings. As I posted earlier, it takes more than the simultaneous loss of two power plants to cause a noticeable disturbance in the electrical system, much less a "massive blackout".

Didn't something like a tree branch cause one of the biggest power outages in decades in the exact place you are talking about? And my point was about the grid being a 40 year old patch job, do you disagree with that? Is our grid, in your opinion, just dandy?

It certainly is possible to integrate distributed generation into the existing transmission system. It's mostly a problem of protection and metering on the distribution systems which have been traditionally designed as "one way" systems to serve load. The arguments for adding transmission system capacity are tied to integrating many large scale renewable (wind/solar)generating plants with unpredictable (undispatchable) outputs that are located in remote locations. The upgrades to so-called "smart grid" technologies are largely aimed at providing the ability to control loads (i.e. turn them on and off) in way that can at least partially offset fluctuations in renewable generation output.

I am in the solar indusrty and have been to dozens of conferences and spoken to dozens of experts in electrical transmission and they all disagree with you. If we put solar on every single rooftop in a given area the power companies wouldn't be able to see, in real time, the amount of power being produced. Without that information they can not adjust their peak load requirements (think that is the correct term). With that information, along with proper forecasting, they can accurately predict their needs.

The age of much of the transmission system means that we face some significant ongoing replacement and maintenance costs, but it will continue to be the vital piece of infrastructure into the future (as useful to us as the even more "antiquated" networks of railways and interstate highways).

Would you like to compare the amount of money that has been used to update the highway system, relative to the initial investment, versus the amount of money spent updating our grid and not just rebuilding it after some natural disaster tears it up.

 

[Darwin333]

at the wikipedia article

naval test reactor - 1953

uss nautilus - 1955

Wow, I didn't realize that. Is there any reason that a thorium reactor would not meet naval needs versus the reactors currently in use?

 

[Darwin333]

As far as the unreliability of solar and wind, TVA does something smart for demand peaks. In low demand periods they use excess electricity to pump water to man-made mountaintop reservoirs; in high demand periods they use that water to generate extra electricity. Such can go a long way toward handling those periods of low production, although obviously we'll still need standby fossil fuel generation. But even at today's efficiencies, most detached homes could easily be energy-independent. What's missing a cheap and clean method of mass fabricating solar panels of good efficiency. Right now solar has no payback for most of the nation unless government takes money from someone else to pay part of the bill. We need cheap solar panels - preferably that can replace roofing.

There are some niche solar products that "replace" roofing but far better, at least today, is solar that very easily integrates into the roofing such as "peel and stick" thin film that sticks directly to single ply roofing materials.

Personally, I think at least as serious of a conversation needs to be had about energy efficiency as well. The vast majority of roofs in this country are huge energy sinks. With flat roofs the most common roofs are well under 25% reflective after a year or two (if not initially). The most common flat roof system used in my general area is SBS modified asphaltic with a white granular cap sheet. It has a solar reflectivity after 3 years of 30 percent. For less than 10% on materials alone, labor stays roughly the same, a "CR" (cool roof) sheet with the only difference being the top coating the reflectivey triples.

The very minor cost increase pays for itself in a very short period of time yet it is usually the first thing cut when they start to value engineer a project. Heck single ply membranes like TPO and PVC have boasted similar SRIs for over a decade. Instead they use the old method of trying to soak up the heat with insulation.

Its rather tough to get a decent SRI out of a shingle and still have it be aesthetically pleasing but there are ways around that too. I personally put a 1/8" layer of insulation in my attic (stapled to the underside of the rafters), my attic doesn't get much above ambient and my energy bill dropped by over a third in the summer. Despite that the general rule of thumb is to let your attic get to 130-140 degrees and absorb the heat between it and the house.

Think I paid about $.30 a sf for the material. Pretty damn good investment but try to find it in any new construction around here.

 

[PowerEngineer]

It takes much more than simultaneous loss of two power plants to cause "massive blackouts", especially in the eastern interconnection.

Really??? I gather you don't remember the black out in 2003

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

Thank you for reminding me that this is P&N

You can retrieve the final report by the US-Canada Task Force through the following link:

http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/blackout.asp

The report identifies deficiencies in four areas that contributed to the initiation of the blackout. If you read the report, you will see that plant tripping isn't among them.

Many types of thermal plants (particularly nuclear and combined cycle) also have trouble providing operating reserves. The biggest thing that hurts solar and wind power is the variable nature (and unpredictability) of their power output which requires other power plants to constantly offset their fluctuations. You pretty much need 100 MW of hydro/thermal generation backing up 100 MW of solar/wind to get 100 MW of firm (dependable) generation.

All the power plants I've worked at installing steam turbine generator sets throughout the US and Canada very seldom run at more than 75% loading per the controlling grid instructions. During normal operations including power swings these plants are directly (some remote controlled) told to raise or lower their loading and adjust voltage to assist maintaining the grid.

The same is true for the isochronous generators in a island mode setup. The operators will base load all the droop generators and partially load the isochronous (loadsharing if more than one) generators so they have room to either increase or decrease their loading to automatically/instantaneously maintain the island grid frequency.

Many fossil-fueled steam driven generators run at or very close to their maximum outputs because it is the point at which they are most efficient (i.e. fewest BTUs required to generate a MWhr). There are also significant time delays (i.e. minutes) required to increase fuel delivery to the boilers to increase steam to finally increase power output. These two things limit their immediate (i.e. within a few seconds) response to automatic governor action (based on frequency deviation). In fact, some combustion turbine generators actually exacerbate the frequency deviation by responding in the wrong direction due to plant control systems keyed on exhaust temperature limits. This is enough of a concern to the industry that NERC is nearing completion of new reliability standards that will specify minimum levels of "frequency responsive reserves".

The kinds of output change requests you get via telephone or by telemetry from a central control center don't require action within seconds. The electrical system is stable (or has been restabilized by automatic actions like governor response) and we're just adjusting which generation needs to be run how hard.

I gather that your experience may be more with smaller, perhaps isolated, power systems. The scale of the eastern interconnection may be orders of magnitude greater than what you're used to. A 1000 MW generator loss is likely to result in less than a 0.05 HZ drop in frequency.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Didn't something like a tree branch cause one of the biggest power outages in decades in the exact place you are talking about? And my point was about the grid being a 40 year old patch job, do you disagree with that? Is our grid, in your opinion, just dandy?

You'll see I just posted a link to the final report on the 2003 Northeast Blackout that identifies shortcomings in keeping transmission right-of-ways cleared of vegetation as one of the causes. Transmission line conductors heat up (due to increased losses) as their loadings grow. This means they stretch and sag down closer to the ground. If you fail to keep the vegetation below the allowed height, then the sagging line may "flash over" to the vegetation (and trip out) before it reaches the maximum carrying capacity you designed it to have.

Maybe it was the word "crap" that actually caught my attention. It's fair to say that the transmission system has expanded over time in a piecemeal way as the demands on it have grown over decades. It's probably true that the results of gradual expansion over time has given us a transmission system that is not as finely designed as one we would build from scratch, but it's far better than what I think of when I hear the term "patch job". IMHO it's much closer to being "just dandy". :whiste:

I am in the solar indusrty and have been to dozens of conferences and spoken to dozens of experts in electrical transmission and they all disagree with you. If we put solar on every single rooftop in a given area the power companies wouldn't be able to see, in real time, the amount of power being produced. Without that information they can not adjust their peak load requirements (think that is the correct term). With that information, along with proper forecasting, they can accurately predict their needs.

What you're describing has really nothing to do with the transmission grid. As I acknowledged earlier, there needs to be work done on the distribution system (where distributed generation would obviously reside) in order to accommodate generation in addition to loads. I agree that distributed generation poses some challenges in sizing equipment, but then loads have been posing similar challenges all along. These aren't insurmountable.

I suspect that some of what you heard goes to the difficultly of predicting generation outputs for renewable resources (big and small). It boils down to accurately forecasting how much other generation needs to be available to serve the demands of a utility's customers. If the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow as expected, the utility might have pay high prices for the additional power. And if it turns out there's more sun and wind, then the utility might have to sell off power at low prices. This cost of integrating renewable generation is a huge concern.

Would you like to compare the amount of money that has been used to update the highway system, relative to the initial investment, versus the amount of money spent updating our grid and not just rebuilding it after some natural disaster tears it up.

I'm not in a position to compare investments being made in the grid and the highway system. "Updating" is an interesting word to think about. The basics of an AC electrical system haven't changed at all since Tesla. Improvements in technologies have helped make the transmission system more efficient, but really only on the fringes (monitoring and control, protection, metering, etc.). The towers, wires, transformers. etc. are all "old school" at heart.

 

[norseamd]

Wow, I didn't realize that. Is there any reason that a thorium reactor would not meet naval needs versus the reactors currently in use?

not the one to ask

 

[norseamd]

so what is a better use of the roof?

solar generation or green vegetation roof?

also the sides of the house can be used for both

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Thank you for reminding me that this is P&N

You can retrieve the final report by the US-Canada Task Force through the following link:

http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/blackout.asp

The report identifies deficiencies in four areas that contributed to the initiation of the blackout. If you read the report, you will see that plant tripping isn't among them.



Many fossil-fueled steam driven generators run at or very close to their maximum outputs because it is the point at which they are most efficient (i.e. fewest BTUs required to generate a MWhr). There are also significant time delays (i.e. minutes) required to increase fuel delivery to the boilers to increase steam to finally increase power output. These two things limit their immediate (i.e. within a few seconds) response to automatic governor action (based on frequency deviation). In fact, some combustion turbine generators actually exacerbate the frequency deviation by responding in the wrong direction due to plant control systems keyed on exhaust temperature limits. This is enough of a concern to the industry that NERC is nearing completion of new reliability standards that will specify minimum levels of "frequency responsive reserves".

The kinds of output change requests you get via telephone or by telemetry from a central control center don't require action within seconds. The electrical system is stable (or has been restabilized by automatic actions like governor response) and we're just adjusting which generation needs to be run how hard.

I gather that your experience may be more with smaller, perhaps isolated, power systems. The scale of the eastern interconnection may be orders of magnitude greater than what you're used to. A 1000 MW generator loss is likely to result in less than a 0.05 HZ drop in frequency.

I guess all the plants (over 200) I worked in over the past 23 years must have been the outliers rather than the norm. The plants that operated via fiber and satellite links must have been in my imagination and not real.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I guess all the plants (over 200) I worked in over the past 23 years must have been the outliers rather than the norm. The plants that operated via fiber and satellite links must have been in my imagination and not real.

I believe you're missing my point, which has to do with inherent limits on how fast (and how much) steam generating plants can react to requested changes in output regardless of the source of the request (e.g. governor action, operator input, or telemetered request). I don't doubt that you have seen plants with fiber and/or satellite communication links, but the existence and speed of these links is really beside the point.

The Energy Management System in utility control rooms that usually produce the desired generation request signals (through an AGC program) usually have update times of two seconds or longer. In recognition of thermal plant limitations, ramp rates are often limited of roughly 1% of nameplate rating per minute.

The bottom line is that steam plants have trouble responding with output changes to help minimize transmission system disturbances that play out in just a handful of seconds. They are better suited for making more gradual changes over minutes of time.