1st New Nuclear plant in 30 years

[JoshPlumSE]

Here is an AP article on the first new nuclear plant built from scratch in the US over the last 30 years.

https://apnews.com/article/georgia-power-nuclear-reactor-vogtle-9555e3f9169f2d58161056feaa81a425

It cost roughly 35 Billion dollars to build. One unit is now in operation and produces about 1200 MegaWatts of power, with a 2nd unit of the same size to follow shortly.

For curiosities sake let's look at the cost per MW 35 Billion / 2400 MW = 14.6 million per Mega Watt of power provided. Not cheap. Though we can probably assume the total life cycle of this plant is in the 50+ year range.

How much does this compare to solar panels? It's hard to find data on this. Most of the sites that talk about this are trying to promote how affordable they are. So, it is likely ONLY the cost of the panels themselves, not the cost of construction and such. Therefore, for the sake of comparison I will look at the recently completed project at my home. Total cost about 55k (about half of which was the solar portion of the project). My house has a MAIMUM output of about 50 kWatt hours. So, we'll call this $27k / 2kW = 13.5 k / kw = 13.5 million per Mega Watt.

That's actually pretty comparable. Maybe I shouldn't be pushing nuclear and complaining about the inefficiencies of spending government money supporting residential solar as much?

Let's also take a look at the cost of construction of the Ivanpah solar plant (which does NOT use solar panels, but uses solar to generate steam).
Ivanpah had a total construction cost of roughly 2.5 Billion and a maximum total output of about 400 MW.

So, that would be 2500 / 400 = 6.25 million per Mega Watt. Wow! That's actually a pretty amazing comparison.

We can probably do the same thing for various wind farms and such.

This is the type of thing that I wanted to do in order to judge what the most efficient way of reducing our carbon output for our power needs. Granted, we'd have to look at total lifecycle costs and lifecycle CO2 emissions as well.

 

[Pud]

How long do PV cells last?

Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[TugboatEng]

20-30 years is the currently accepted lifetime assumption. Some big questions, is that the L10 or L50 life? Do they stop working or degrade over time? What amount of degradation can occur before the panel is considered failed? What is the quantity of lost generation in Wh by the end of life of the panel?

At least with nuclear, the performance is generally predictable over the planned life. How much do fuel costs vary? Is there scarcity at times?

 

[JoshPlumSE]

The expectation is that they'll last 25 or more years. The decrease in effectiveness as they age though. IIRC, I believe our warranty says that they won't decrease by more than 20 or 25% during that time or they'll be replaced.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Some additional thoughts:
a) I'm surprised at how well the Ivanpah facility looks using this simple comparison. I know that this won't work everywhere because it requires somewhere with a lot of sunny days. But, I think the government should consider replicating similar plants in southwest (Arizona, Nevada and such).

b) Maintenance costs are rarely considered for solar panels, because that cost lies on the homeowner. Maintenance is mostly making sure they're clean so that they can be most efficient.

c) Similar to solar panels, Ivanpah requires that the mirrors (which reflect the sunlight to generate the heat) must also be clean. Not sure how much the maintenance costs would compare to solar panels or nuclear. But, it is almost certainly less than wind power which requires a lot of maintenance (I believe).

d) The big drawback of solar relative to nuclear is that it only works when the sun is shining. My roof doesn't appear to produce any power between 6pm and 6am and that's for now (during the summer) when daylight lasts the longest. My guess is that in the middle of winter that will be more like 5pm to 7am where it's not producing power.

e) The Ivanpah plant, on the other hand, can generate its steam using conventional fossil fuels during these hours. So, that addresses this off peak demand issue pretty effectively.

 

[GregLocock]

I've got a few 30 year old panels that the tree of death didn't smash and they seem to have degraded very little in that time. Modern ones of course may be less robust.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[JoshPlumSE]

I've got a few 30 year old panels that the tree of death didn't smash and they seem to have degraded very little in that time. Modern ones of course may be less robust.

Thanks. I remember doing some research a while back (like 20 years!) and finding out that the PV cells had an effective life of 20 years after which their power generation ability was like 30% or so of the original. Obviously, the cells that I was reading about were a generation older than what you are talking about. I also read that the current generation of panels (at that time 20 years ago) were expected to perform much much better at that time. I remained skeptical. That would have been a lot of money to invest in an unproved (in my eyes) technology.

I'm not sure what changed my mind this past year when we decided to get roof top solar. Probably a combination of:
a) We had to replace our roof anyway (which was half the total cost of the project).
b) Our AC / Electric bill had started to go way up. Thanks in part to having a wife who was going through Chemo treatment that was home all day during a hot summer last year and desperately needed the AC to feel even remotely human.
c) Better historical data than I had seen 20 years ago. Lots of even newer generation panels in what appears to be a very competitive industry.
d) Threats by the electric company (and the state) to dramatically increase electric costs to the consumer.
e) Very favorable loans and a big tax rebate (something like $13k) to subsidize the project.
f) Being convinced that solar actually ADDS value to my home when a few decades ago it would have made my home LESS valuable.

 

[GregLocock]

My on grid house got rooftop solar about 5 years back. It is of course heavily subsidised by me (tax payer) and people who don't have rooftop solar. It has easily paid for itself, as for the last 3 years I was getting a rebate of 20c /kWh into the grid. Sadly no longer, but it still means I can run reverse cycle heating in my house and everything else for $100 a month even in winter, and in summer my bill will be in credit.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[SwinnyGG]

This is the type of thing that I wanted to do in order to judge what the most efficient way of reducing our carbon output for our power needs

At grid scale, solar is way, way cheaper. $1/W is a reasonable rough approximation. $1 million/MW. That cost does not include the land - so depending on exactly where you are, additional costs can be minimal or they can be huge.

Average density for a grid scale solar farm is roughly 7 acres per MW.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

At grid scale, solar is way, way cheaper

'

I'm not sure that's really true. For what it's worth, the Ivanpah facility is more like an "at grid scale" solar power plant. At it was the 6 million per MW cost that I mentioned. Of course, it's got the same issue that you mentioned in that the "cost of land" is a potential issue. It's built in the middle of the mojave desert where land is cheap and I don't think they even had to pay for the land.

Regardless, it is certainly reasonable to suggest it is only feasible to build "grid scale" solar plants in the middle of the desert where the sun shines a lot for a good portion of the year and land is unusually cheap. So, we should be building these solar plants 45 minutes out of town for Phoenix, Vegas (though they get a lot of their power from the hoover dam), and places like them.... Basically southern Nevada and New Mexico, as well as Arizona and eastern SoCal maybe even central california (though that land might be better suited for farming).

 

[btrueblood]

Not sure how easy it was to hook up Ivanpah to the grid? Is your $1/Watt cost inclusive of grid tie-in Swinny?

The bigger issue in my mind, is that neither solar or wind can satisfy base loads, or provide 24/7 supply quality...to get reliability and stable power we need nukes, or some really really big storage devices.

 

[SwinnyGG]

I'm not sure that's really true.

I should've clarified - $1/MW is for photoelectric installations. Solar Thermal plants are much higher cost/W. Your quoted $6 million/MW is a roughly typical value.

There's WAY more control infrastructure in a thermal solar plant than a photoelectric installation, plus all of the steam generation equipment at MW scale. It's much more involved.

Not sure how easy it was to hook up Ivanpah to the grid? Is your $1/Watt cost inclusive of grid tie-in Swinny?

Rough $1/W includes the installation and switchgear to the edge of the plant property. IE, if you need to run miles of HVDC carrier that's not captured.

I'd argue that's a sensible basis of comparison if you're comparing different technologies on general terms. If you had a specific location to evaluate you'd be able to get a better idea of what the off-plant costs would be.

I do not know offhand if the Ivanpah budget number of around $2 billion includes 100% of the costs to extend and tie in the grid. Because it was privately developed, I would expect the utility customers of the plant would share in extension and tie in costs, but I don't know that for sure, it's conjecture based on what is typical for the MW scale solar installations I've dealt with in the past.

 

[GregLocock]

One of the reasons Oz is having problems with its foolishly 'planned' transition to Net Zero is that the transmission lines to get wind power from where it is windy to where it is needed are vastly expensive. They are also ugly, and tend to need to go through farmland and national parks, which generates local opposition. Sensibly, investors won't fund renewable installations unless the transmission lines exist.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[hokie66]

Land value is increasingly a problem for large scale solar installations. Japan is gradually reclaiming farmland which had been used as fields of solar panels. Food supply in a relatively small country with large population changes the dynamics.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Oz? Mining company?

 

[hokie66]

"Oz" is vernacular for Australia.

 

[GregLocock]

Meanwhile Wyoming is going from coal to nuclear. They are siting SMRs at existing coal powered generators, which reduces the cost by 35% compared with a green field site. And in an about turn, the Oztralian Liberals have made overturning the stupid nuclear ban a policy to take to the next election. Which I expect they'll lose, but here's hoping.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[Tmoose]

"The Ivanpah plant, on the other hand, can generate its steam using conventional fossil fuels during these hours. So, that addresses this off peak demand issue pretty effectively.'

I think the fossil fuel capabilities are all from package boilers at ground level with pretty limited capacity. Really just to warm things up for start up every morning and take some of the thermal sting out of daily start ups.
365 thermal cycles per year instead of one or a couple every year is tough on equipment.
Some solar plants have unexpectedly thermally overstressed their refractory so instead of lasting 20 years massive chunks start falling off in the first year.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I think the fossil fuel capabilities are all from package boilers at ground level with pretty limited capacity. Really just to warm things up for start up every morning and take some of the thermal sting out of daily start ups.

I believe that was the original INTENT, but my understanding is that it's been used for more than that. It's at a dramatically reduced capacity, of course. But, if you're in the desert, then the off peak hours are the ones where the sun isn't shining.