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The first two nuclear power stations in the UK were exactly that. Military facilities with a useful and politically convenient (in an international context) by-product of generating electricity.
The first two nuclear power stations in the UK were exactly that. Military facilities with a useful and politically convenient (in an international context) by-product of generating electricity.No but my understanding is making nuclear arms grade for weapons a spin off is fuel grade that can be used in reactors.
Spreading the cost is not something you do when you favor solar farms or batteries to be fully write off after 15y max, so the biased opinion like the pages above , but it is ok: we will ship crushed panels to India,as we do now, except we will probably the one filling our desert with craps in 15y seeing our current economic trajectory.If something is going to operate from (for example) 2035 to 2085 then it's entirely reasonable to spread the cost over that period. That's exactly what would be done with any form of generation, the cost is spread over its total life (or more precisely, it's spread over its total generated output).
Now I do agree there are problems and omissions, but if something lasts 5, 10, 50 or 100 years then of itself it's a normal thing to spread the cost over that time.
In saying that I'm inherently wary of arguments for using short lifespans simply because they bias toward gas and diesel. You'll never get a long lived asset such as hydro to stack up if someone decides it's to be written off financially after 20 years, but it's very different if it's run for a century or more.
Thanks for batteries...Extremely high demand in SA today with the temperature officially reaching 43.3 degrees in the Adelaide CBD with some suburbs recording up to 44.7 degrees.
Outside the metropolitan area parts of the state on the grid recorded up to 46.0 degrees, with some off-grid small towns recording up to 48.7 degrees.
Those are all proper BOM measurements.
Unsurprisingly that resulted in high electricity demand.
Including the estimated output of behind the meter generation, that is primarily rooftop solar, demand reached 3730MW at 17:30 whilst looking only at large scale centralised generation (including wind, solar, batteries, gas, etc) demand peaked at 3358MW at 19:45
The second figure is just short of the all time record high whilst the first, including rooftop solar in the data, is an all time high.
For the chart below:
Yellow = Solar
Green = Wind
Blue = Battery
Orange = Gas
Red = Diesel
Purple = from Victoria
View attachment 193133
Surely if all the costs are included, including recycling or disposal then you can come up with an effective comparison?Spreading the cost is not something you do when you favor solar farms or batteries to be fully write off after 15y max, so the biased opinion like the pages above , but it is ok: we will ship crushed panels to India,as we do now, except we will probably the one filling our desert with craps in 15y seeing our current economic trajectory.
yes, it is possible but none of the lobbies involved inc nuclear want the truth told, nor actually any real CO2 per kWH for the various options INCLUDING setup (transmission grid/losses and land cost), shipping, maintenance and end of life recycling [and battery or storage for solar/wind] to ensure 24/7 supply.Surely if all the costs are included, including recycling or disposal then you can come up with an effective comparison?
I agree. What's your solution?After , I do not believe Australia is economically and technologically able to use nuclear on scale...
preserve gas, burn gas;I agree. What's your solution?
open a big coal plant using good coal in qld, maybe one near Newcastle with a 50y lifetime
Start putting money in education for nuclear scientists and maybe develop a research thorium/fusion reactor to be ready when the time comes
The sons offgrid system failed in the hot spell a couple of weeks ago, they had to run on the gen set for two days, high temp issues.Thanks for batteries...
I was ironic vs the negligible impact batteries did makeThe sons offgrid system failed in the hot spell a couple of weeks ago, they had to run on the gen set for two days, high temp issues.
He is looking into extra cooling for the electronics.
AGL would be absolutely certain, they are getting paid to put in renewables and are probably also getting paid to run their coal plants, whereas nuclear would be owned and operated by the Government.AGL is absolutely certain that renewables, batteries and other firming is the best way to deal with energy transition.
There is excellent detail in the full story as well.
View attachment 193095
Yeah... Their most overriding issue was the fact that Nuclear power could never be ready in the time frame suggested by Petyer Dutton.AGL would be absolutely certain, they are getting paid to put in renewables and are probably also getting paid to run their coal plants, whereas nuclear would be owned and lperated by the Government.
So why wouldn't AGL want renewables?
It's a bit like the NBN, the telcos and media were very keen for the taxpayer to put it in, why wouldn't they be they can now charge to view.
Asking vested interests for their opinion doesn't always give an accurate view IMO.
The situation will become obvious in the next few years, it will become obvious whether renewables can or can't cut it.Yeah... Their most overriding issue was the fact that Nuclear power could never be ready in the time frame suggested by Petyer Dutton.
Their second issue was that keeping coal fired power stations operational until Nuclear Power was ready would prove very expensive and given the nature of aging plants being kept together with patch up solutions operational reliability would be a big issue.
Finally they had already seen the progress of solar/wind technology with battery backup. They knew the real figures of construction and output. They were a long way down the road sorting out engineering wrinkles .
And finally they had a handle of the cost and outcomes of renewable versus coal. It was no contest.
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It is also worth noting that AGL have a very active commercial presence in promoting solar panels, Home batteries, VPP (Virtual Power plant) systems and EV promotion, home charging and support.
So yes they have successfully moved from being a Coal fired power generator to a wider Renewable energy based provider.
It works. It's cost effective. It makes money. Customers like it.
Why would they ditch all this for a political Nuclear promise they are certain cannot be achieved in the proposed time frame and that would be far more expensive than current options ?
In a strict technical sense I can prove it's possible to do it with renewables.Time will tell, but no one really knows the answer yet, so it is all just speculation at the moment IMO.
With illimited budget, we could probably build a ladder to the Moon , or at least space.In a strict technical sense I can prove it's possible to do it with renewables.
The economics are more challenging but we can certainly estimate what they are. There's plenty of people who can estimate the cost of things.
The politics is where it gets difficult since that's not based on hard, rational things. About all that can be said is that at present no significant political party actually supports going 100% renewable, all want to keep some fossil fuels in practice with the only real difference being whether the admit it or not.
The idea of going fully renewable is at present really just an interesting academic exercise done by engineers and others looking for a challenge. Nobody seriously expects it to actually happen in practice, it's a purely academic exercise to contemplate how it could be done if society ever decides to do it.
The big problem is, the plebs think all that is required is putting in enough renewables to replace the current power stations and in reality that is the easy bit.In a strict technical sense I can prove it's possible to do it with renewables.
The economics are more challenging but we can certainly estimate what they are. There's plenty of people who can estimate the cost of things.
The politics is where it gets difficult since that's not based on hard, rational things. About all that can be said is that at present no significant political party actually supports going 100% renewable, all want to keep some fossil fuels in practice with the only real difference being whether the admit it or not.
The idea of going fully renewable is at present really just an interesting academic exercise done by engineers and others looking for a challenge. Nobody seriously expects it to actually happen in practice, it's a purely academic exercise to contemplate how it could be done if society ever decides to do it.
I'll argue the rational approach is to consider everything at the detail level.The real questions are :
#Can we fully go renewable energy only economically
#Does it has any overall environmental, or otherwise..benefit?
As you have noted, the political system has changed to the point where bi-partisanship is no longer possible and technical experts are no longer trusted, unless they happen to agree with a political party's views.I'll argue the rational approach is to consider everything at the detail level.
Eg building solar up to the point it can be directly used and saves fuel whilst still keeping conventional plant online is a very different thing to building it beyond that point.
Hydro schemes are bespoke in engineering and economics. Just because one doesn't stack up doesn't mean a different one wouldn't work.
Opportunities to shape the load profile in a sensible manner without consumer impacts.
Etc.
No engineer, or anyone else taking a rational approach, would take a blanket approach based on a single technology or similar. Instead they'd look at the detail of each option and see where it fits (if at all) and go from there.
That's exactly how we did it historically, a combination of systems not the exclusive reliance on anything in particular.
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