In an earlier piece we discussed the tradeoff between nuclear power's cost and plant radiation release frequency, and how the NRC's valuation of the two dimensions is quite different from society's.
And if nuclear was at 66% CF for electrical use, it could easily be run extra to run electrolysers for non-electrical hydrogen use, like for fertilizer or steel…
I wonder what it would look like for nuclear with thermal storage?
Basically it’s a ‘battery’ but with both energy capacity and power capacity costs between LiON and H2. Say $750/kW discharge, and $50/kWh. It gets ‘free’ charge capacity up to the relevant reactor nameplate power. And it gives an option to give an essentially free upgrade to an OCGT to CCGT efficiency with the constraint that the thermal storage output and the ‘extra’ gas output are shared.
In your scenario here with very low but synchronous gas turbine demand, it’s probably better to assume liquid fuel stored onsite, rather than pipeline gas…
If we had should-cost nuclear, all sorts of tweaks are possible. But we don't and we won't unless we radically change the way we regulate nuclear power.
If we had should-cost nuclear, the goal then becomes making nuclear as cheap as possible, not to push the last bit of fossil out of electricity, but to make electricity cheap enough to make real inroads into non-grid markets. That's where all the CO2 will be. Making electricity more expensive to get rid of the last bit of grid fossil is not the way to go.
ThorCon looked at the economics of both stored thermal a la Natrium and H2 from unused nuclear capacity and in both cases came away unimpressed. If we had should-cost nuclear,
it's cheaper to make the H2 from dedicated 24/7 nuclear.
Agree completely if fossil is serving both peaking and as backup for unplanned outages -- a very good idea -- then the fossil must be dual fuel with oil stored on site. More on this in an upcoming piece.
My wording is nearly impenetrable but it is correct. The slopes at the green circle (16K/kW) and at the purple circle (8K/kW) are the same and the green circle is to the right and below the purple. Unfortunately, the graphic is a mess. Since each "curve" is make up from only six points, (each point takes about 10 compute hours on my machine) you cant really see the slopes. To make matters worse, a lot of the points fell on top of each other.
Very disappointing because the graph makes some important points.
Agree completely. With should-cost nuclear all sorts of things become possible. If all we have is expensive nuclear, nothing much is possible.
We are adding 200 MW solar to our 600 MW gas-and-coal plant in Cochise County AZ, plus OCGT to back up the solar. Assuming our demand histogram has the same shape as Germany, with a long tail on the high end, it looks to me that covering that last 1% of the peak demand may be unnecessarily expensive. If we can get 50% of our customers to install smart meters, and volunteer for rolling blackouts. Instead of covering that last 1% in with expensive generators, why not 2% loss of service for the 50% of customers who would like a discount on their regular bill?
I wonder how this would play out in your model. Of course, the big unknowns are how many would volunteer, and what would be the discount. I would accept a 2% loss of service for a 10% discount.
2% when? That peak will almost certainly occur in a severe dunkelflauten (like Uri). Your all electric house gets cut off. Pipes freeze. Old people freeze. Might work in Arizona, but probably not in Canada.
Another point about that very low capacity factor fossil. The GKG Grid model has no knowledge of unplanned outages. That extra gas is partial insurance against unplanned outages.
2% loss at the most inconvenient times, but only for ten minutes. Then if the extreme peak demand goes on more than 500 minutes, I get another 10 minute total loss of power. That will be acceptable at my home, but not at my wife's clinic. We have a diesel generator for that event, a generator which we already need to deal with the occasional power outage from tree branches, etc.
Dunkelflauten is a different problem, and I agree with you smart meters won't help when the loss of power is much more than 1% of the peak demand. We need those OCGT generators to back up every watt of our planned 200 MW solar farm.
I may have misunderstood your histogram for Germany, or maybe that few hours of extreme peak demand was something not typical of other grids. In Cochise County AZ (https://www.azgt.coop) we have 10% more capacity that what we expect the peak to be. I can't complain about the cost at 11.7 c/kWh retail.
And if nuclear was at 66% CF for electrical use, it could easily be run extra to run electrolysers for non-electrical hydrogen use, like for fertilizer or steel…
I wonder what it would look like for nuclear with thermal storage?
Basically it’s a ‘battery’ but with both energy capacity and power capacity costs between LiON and H2. Say $750/kW discharge, and $50/kWh. It gets ‘free’ charge capacity up to the relevant reactor nameplate power. And it gives an option to give an essentially free upgrade to an OCGT to CCGT efficiency with the constraint that the thermal storage output and the ‘extra’ gas output are shared.
In your scenario here with very low but synchronous gas turbine demand, it’s probably better to assume liquid fuel stored onsite, rather than pipeline gas…
Jesse,
If we had should-cost nuclear, all sorts of tweaks are possible. But we don't and we won't unless we radically change the way we regulate nuclear power.
If we had should-cost nuclear, the goal then becomes making nuclear as cheap as possible, not to push the last bit of fossil out of electricity, but to make electricity cheap enough to make real inroads into non-grid markets. That's where all the CO2 will be. Making electricity more expensive to get rid of the last bit of grid fossil is not the way to go.
ThorCon looked at the economics of both stored thermal a la Natrium and H2 from unused nuclear capacity and in both cases came away unimpressed. If we had should-cost nuclear,
it's cheaper to make the H2 from dedicated 24/7 nuclear.
Agree completely if fossil is serving both peaking and as backup for unplanned outages -- a very good idea -- then the fossil must be dual fuel with oil stored on site. More on this in an upcoming piece.
"Put another way, the $200/ton CO2 slope on the $16000/kW CAPEX curve is well to the right and below the $200/ton CO2 slope on the $8000/kW."
Shouldn't that read: *above* the $200/ton CO2 slope on the $8000/kW? ... Or are you thinking in terms of the more negative $16000/kW slope?
In any case, an interesting way of viewing grid carbon intensity. Now all we need is some of that nuclear low Should-Cost!
Ike,
My wording is nearly impenetrable but it is correct. The slopes at the green circle (16K/kW) and at the purple circle (8K/kW) are the same and the green circle is to the right and below the purple. Unfortunately, the graphic is a mess. Since each "curve" is make up from only six points, (each point takes about 10 compute hours on my machine) you cant really see the slopes. To make matters worse, a lot of the points fell on top of each other.
Very disappointing because the graph makes some important points.
Agree completely. With should-cost nuclear all sorts of things become possible. If all we have is expensive nuclear, nothing much is possible.
We are adding 200 MW solar to our 600 MW gas-and-coal plant in Cochise County AZ, plus OCGT to back up the solar. Assuming our demand histogram has the same shape as Germany, with a long tail on the high end, it looks to me that covering that last 1% of the peak demand may be unnecessarily expensive. If we can get 50% of our customers to install smart meters, and volunteer for rolling blackouts. Instead of covering that last 1% in with expensive generators, why not 2% loss of service for the 50% of customers who would like a discount on their regular bill?
I wonder how this would play out in your model. Of course, the big unknowns are how many would volunteer, and what would be the discount. I would accept a 2% loss of service for a 10% discount.
David,
2% when? That peak will almost certainly occur in a severe dunkelflauten (like Uri). Your all electric house gets cut off. Pipes freeze. Old people freeze. Might work in Arizona, but probably not in Canada.
Another point about that very low capacity factor fossil. The GKG Grid model has no knowledge of unplanned outages. That extra gas is partial insurance against unplanned outages.
2% loss at the most inconvenient times, but only for ten minutes. Then if the extreme peak demand goes on more than 500 minutes, I get another 10 minute total loss of power. That will be acceptable at my home, but not at my wife's clinic. We have a diesel generator for that event, a generator which we already need to deal with the occasional power outage from tree branches, etc.
Dunkelflauten is a different problem, and I agree with you smart meters won't help when the loss of power is much more than 1% of the peak demand. We need those OCGT generators to back up every watt of our planned 200 MW solar farm.
I may have misunderstood your histogram for Germany, or maybe that few hours of extreme peak demand was something not typical of other grids. In Cochise County AZ (https://www.azgt.coop) we have 10% more capacity that what we expect the peak to be. I can't complain about the cost at 11.7 c/kWh retail.