Nuclear power plants life extensions

[Moxi]

Lol I was going to point out the French situation regards state aid to an ailing company or companies Framatome and EDF, but then the EU big two seem very adept and twisting por ignoring what the rest of the block have to comply with German ICE vehicle anyone ?

Although I am no expert on this matter I would think that its not a subsidy if the power is charged as per the production costs ergo the government isnt paying to reduce the cost artificially. If we produce power at 5p/kWh and sell it to Silicon Wafers are us Ltd for 5.1p then thats not a subsidy is it ? its a countries economic advantage, otherwise the whole world would need to be levelled on wages etc to have a "level playing field.

All we need is lots of kit generating excess power so that the price is dirt cheap - you wont ever get a private invester to do that so you need state investment.

Moxi

[Mart]

They should make us Kings for a day. You can be King, I'll be your Prince Robin. Doubt we could F things up worse than Liz truss?

[Ken]

Yes but "that" storage is short term storage, and by storage you really mean a stack of batteries which will ride out a bit of peak demand for a few hours. No good for periods of a day or two let alone a week or two when renewables just are not producing the goods - which as I said in my last post happens more than some care to admit. Some get very excited when there is a new record for wind generation, but there is little or no comment when we get a week of low wind, unless there is a chance for a few to cash in on an Octopus saving session.

New nuclear could be load following if it was designed that way. Diverting "nuclear" money to build out even more renewables would, as I said before, in my opinion be short sighted. No good having 100 or even 200GW of wind if the wind isn't blowing. Besides I am not sure the industry has the capacity to scale up to build that sort of capacity in the short term.

Others on here, and elsewhere, have said we need everything including the kitchen sink, so New Nuclear (big stuff like Hinkley and hopefully Sizewell) as well as SMR's, More renewables, Wind and Solar and maybe tidal (though sceptical it would every be reliable and wouldn't have massive environmental effects) and wave (again sceptical anything could be built to survive long in a hostile marine environment). We are limited on places for more hydro and even pumped storage., so for now short term battery storage seems to be the best we have. In my view new nuclear does not stop or detract from investment in renewables, as you often say, as costs have fallen so much renewable generation can and does appear to stand own two feet.

We often quote figures such as " in February wind produced 31% of electricity demand". It is a true fact, but it gives the impression that if we had just over 3 times more wind generation, wind would generate 100%. It won't, not for a whole month or year. There will be days when it will and there will be excess to be used to stored in some (as yet to be properly determined form) and there will be days, possibly up to a week or two when we would be lucky if it generated 20%. Most wind farm load-duration curves show that 20% of the time they generate 10% or less of their rated output.

Wind is great, I ran a wind turbine for 5 years and meticulously recorded its output, I had battery storage with it, so I have a feel for what it can, can't do. It's a great plan A, but we need to invest in a Plan B as well. (and probably an plan C, D and E).
[/quote]

Spot on, and then you are only considering leccy production, what about total energy !

What we get back to as always is the difference between zero CO2 and NET zero CO2. I believe zero CO2 to be impossible for the reasons given but Net zero CO2 does not exclude us using some gas etc. I would be quite happy to see gas etc used for the calm periods particularly if that means geting rid of ICE cars.

As we get to large volumes of RE there will indeed be times when we have large volumes of surplus leccy available and it is probably what we do with that is the answer.

[nowty]

Sounds like we need a fuel based variable output power station for the lean RE periods. Like we have now, but that fuel could be greened a bit, biofuel, biomass or green H2, etc.

Might it be possible to have a dual fuel power station, where you have a relatively small tank of green fuel to get you through most periods of low RE and fall back on carbon fuels if the period is rare but especially long.

[Mart]

Sounds like we need a fuel based variable output power station for the lean RE periods. Like we have now, but that fuel could be greened a bit, biofuel, biomass or green H2, etc.

Might it be possible to have a dual fuel power station, where you have a relatively small tank of green fuel to get you through most periods of low RE and fall back on carbon fuels if the period is rare but especially long.

Yep. Nuclear can't load follow, even those capable of it, such as HPC, since that simply makes its generation far more expensive again (might as well have RE and storage, for less cost).

Obviously bio-mass, and bio-gas can demand follow, and will have some storage, possibly huge amounts in the case of bio-mass, but it's looking ever and ever more un-green.

That leaves us (currently) with CAES and H2, where there is simply no problem with scale. However, whether they are economical is another question. Smaller levels of H2 storage already exist in the UK. I think a Scottish Island (or two) have it, where transmission and batteries can be exceeded at times, which is exactly what H2 will be good at. There are a couple of small CAES storage schemes being built out, but not (I think) in the UK. These are just trial projects.

Assuming H2 is 50% efficient at storage, based on 5-10% losses in electrolysis, and 60% efficient in a CCGT, or Fuel Cell, then that's pretty good. Even assuming (falsely) that nuclear doesn't share any storage needs, the doubling of RE costs, in this instance, would still be cheaper.*

As Ken points out, this isn't really an issue today, certainly not whilst aiming for net zero. We just want as much low carbon generation, displacing FF generation, as quickly as possible, as we head towards 2030(ish). Gas can fill in the holes, as its overall percentage falls. After that, ideally, something like green H2 could displace FF gas in its role as demand follower / hole filler.

Sounds so easy in theory.

I think the National Grid once said that we will need about 20GW of storage (ultimately), but I assume that's on top of the interconnectors, which are also heading for 20GW at the end of this decade. As to the energy requirements, I don't recall seeing a figure, only the 500GWh for intraday, which itself may just be a place holder, but seems reasonable. personal guess for longer/larger term storage would be around 10TWh of output, so about 20TWh of H2 (for instance), but I'm just spitballing. [Correction, thinking about for 2050(ish) 20TWh may be too low, not sure. Let's assume 3x current average demand, as it'll be in winter when the problem is greatest (~3TWh per day), with a 50% shorfall over 14 days, that's 21TWh, and maybe 30TWh just to be safe?]

[Late edit - In case anyone is interested I've found some Gov info in the UK Parliament Post, Dec 2022, looking at LDES (long duration energy storage). The suggsted inter day storage is smaller than I expected, but explained (I think) in the fianl paragraph I've copied.

Longer Duration Energy Storage

Scale of storage requirements
Fossil fuels (particularly natural gas) are currently used in the UK as a store for most types of energy over all timescales. Low-carbon electricity storage plays a relatively minor role on the GB electricity grid at present: in 2021 there was 28 GWh, just 0.01% of total electricity demand. Government, National Grid and academics agree that future levels of low-carbon electricity storage will need to increase significantly to reduce reliance on storing and using natural gas to produce electricity. An estimate suggests the following ranges of LDES capacity might be required to replace the use of natural gas for power system balancing:

• Medium duration storage: 3-4 TWh capacity for inter-day applications.

• Long duration storage: 10s of TWh capacity for seasonal applications and ~100
TWh for multi-year applications.

Substantial electrification of the heat sector would also transfer much of the heat demand, currently met largely by natural gas, onto the electricity system. This may create the need for even more electricity storage capacity.

close edit]





Be nice to see the Government spend some money on CAES or H2 to see if it's viable. They are investing in Rolls Royce SMR's.



*Edit - For fun, thought I'd guestimate costs of RE generation, but would have to add on the costs of operating the strorage, which I don't know. So let's say 80% of demand is met by generation, intraday storage, economic overbuild and interconnectors, leaving 20% from longer term storage (average over a year).

That would require 140% generation from (for instance) offshore wind, to give us 40% extra, resulting in 20% after losses.

So offshore wind contracts, the latest are still showing as £37.35/MWh, but I suspect that's before the inflationary uplift from the 2012 baseline(?), so around £48/MWh.

£48 x 140% = £67/MWh, v's the HPC price of ~£114/MWh.

[Note, prices before April uplift, which will be significant, but won't alter the ratio.]

[Mart]

Be nice to see the Government spend some money on CAES or H2 to see if it's viable. They are investing in Rolls Royce SMR's.

Sorry to reply to myself, but somethings been nagging me, so I did some Googling and found at least one article on UK funding for CAES research. CAES has the potential for higher round trip efficiency than H2, possibly 70%, and like H2, potential for 100's of TWh's of UK storage. CAES may also be cheaper to operate, but I'm not sure. [And of course different to LAES, which is perhaps, like flow-batts, a storage that might sit between short term battery storage, and longer term storage like CAES.]

Off-shore energy storage project wins UK Government backing

[marshman]

Yep. Nuclear can't load follow, even those capable of it, such as HPC, since that simply makes its generation far more expensive again (might as well have RE and storage, for less cost).

Really???

https://snetp.eu/wp-content/uploads/202 ... plants.pdf

Just because the few we have left don't generally because as you imply of costs, doesn't mean they can't. According to the above linked document the French and remaining German plants can and do.

[Swwils]

Modern reactors often load follow twice a day and can ramp 5% of nameplate capacity per minute when they do.

[Mart]

Yep. Nuclear can't load follow, even those capable of it, such as HPC, since that simply makes its generation far more expensive again (might as well have RE and storage, for less cost).

Really???

https://snetp.eu/wp-content/uploads/202 ... plants.pdf

Just because the few we have left don't generally because as you imply of costs, doesn't mean they can't. According to the above linked document the French and remaining German plants can and do.

Hiya, and yep, that's exactly what I've explained many times, and you have in fact simply repeated what I said, whilst implying it's wrong. I said they can, but it's uneconomical, and you've said they don't because of costs, but doesn't mean they can't. I don't understand how we differ, the statements seem near identical?

Even nuclear reactors that can load follow, can't load follow economically, since their costs don't reduce, so the cost per MWh of generation just goes up. This is of course exactly the same for RE, where curtailment adds costs, but at least the RE generation is cheaper.*

I have no problem with anyone saying that modern reactors can be ramped down, but unlike gas or coal, there aren't cost savings, so it's important to look at the big picture. Better to build and curtail wind at £48/MWh, than nuclear at £114/MWh, shirley?

As Dan posted many years ago, on another forum, the contract docs for HPC, which can ramp down (to 40% I believe) state that they don't plan to operate it that way.

And I did say this to you directly a few days ago:

It can't demand follow as claimed (economically), in fact as Dan provided many years ago, the HPC contract docs state that it won't be operated that way.

*I hope you find this funny, as I'm genuinely trying to have a good faith discussion - but when we have RE excess, it's pointed out that curtailment is a waste/loss, and/or that storage is needed. But when nuclear would result in excess, folk talk about it ramping down, or 'demand following', which is the exact same as curtailling RE.

[Mart]

Hiya Ken, I was about to say that that was my understanding too ...... then you disappeared, hope it's not an alien abduction.