143
Solar energy now overlaps in cost with nuclear fuel alone for "cheap" modular reactors
(energy-utilities.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
143 points (95.0% liked)
Green Energy
2194 readers
109 users here now
everything about energy production
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't have a nuclear reactor on my roof so whatever weird situation with transmission you are imagining is definitely wrong. Nor can I grow fruit under a nuclear reactor with higher yield and less water. Same goes for land use when you look at the low energy density of new uranium mines (inkai produces about 10-60W/m^2 depending on whether you draw the borders at the region it poisons and makes useless, the whole fenced off strike or the actively mined region). "Hey we can push the harm to the imperial periphery and make our energy supply dependent on putin" isn't a selling point.
Solar doesn't randomly break with no warning for several weeks on average once a year on top of having to be offline for three months every two years. It's intermittent, but fairly predictable.
There's no indication anywhere that nuclear can achieve more than about a 75% grid penetration (which is what VRE alone with negligible storage does) nor that it synergises at all. Inflexible unreliable power limited supply doesn't help flexible intermittent supply, you need dispatch for both.
Nuclear is also completely unable to deliver more than about 10% of the needed total energy. There's not enough recoverable U235 anywhere.
It's an irrelevant rounding error by every metric except cost and the amount of oxygen the shills suck out of the room.
It's not that solar is better, it's that nuclear is not a useful addition by any metric. One of the frequently used arguments to delay decarbonisation is that the nuclear reactor which will arrive later will be so much better, so don't build renewables now. If it's still optimal to build solar over about 60% of the world even if the mythical SMR delivers on the same promise new designs always make (and never meet), then there's no reason to wait.
Did you use chat gpt or something because almost all of what you said made no sense in the context of this discussion. I, like most people, don't have a solar panel on my roof and nor is it practical to have one. If large cities are to have enough electricity for all of their energy needs, massive solar farms will be needed. I live in Ontario, Canada, a large area with a relatively small population. In a study looking at what is needed to meet future electricity demand, if we only used renewables, around 2-5% of the area would need to be covered by solar or wind. This sounds small but it is a huge amount of land and would be extremely resource intensive. Much of it would need to be far away from where the demand actually is leading to losses in transmission. Farming under solar panels is also laughable because it would render the farming itself impractical or the solar itself much more expensive because it would need to be on a massive raised platform. I am not sure what you are referring to with mines but Canada has one of the largest uranium reserves located in somewhat remote locations. This does not lead to transmission losses, only costs to transport the uranium ore.
Canadian CANDU reactor units can be online for more than a year thanks to their online refueling capabilities. Intermittent is still intermittent which is why solar needs a way to either store energy or it cannot be the only solution (it isn't).
I am not sure what you mean by grid penetration but CANDU reactors have an average capacity factor of more than 80% which is significantly higher than the less than 25% for solar.
Also, Ontario is currently generating more than 50% of its electricity from nuclear so it can certainly meet more than 10% of the demand if it is suitable for the region.
Where are they delaying decarbonization for the sake of waiting for nuclear? As far as I know, many places are building wind and solar and nothing is stopping them. I am not trying to argue that solar is bad or worse than nuclear. I just think it should be realistically considered alongside of nuclear and any other carbon neutral energy source.
Grid penetration isn't capacity factor. Learn to read.
Also look up one of the thousands of agrivoltaics projects where it improves yield and reduces water.
And Canada. Canada is precisely where "plans" for new nuclear are being used as an excuse to delay wind (even temporarily banning it).
Did you really tell me to learn to read when you clearly did not read that I am not sure what grid penetration is. Funny. The reason I do not know is because the term is used differently depending on the context so unless you explain what you mean, there is no way for me to know for sure, unlike capacity factor which is used more widely.
I'm sure there are agrivoltaic projects and I am sure they are great. My point is that they will have many challenges to be widely adopted because it will add significant costs to either the farming or the solar installation which is certainly a downside that shouldn't be overlooked.
Canada isn't delaying wind because of nuclear. The cancellation of wind projects in Ontario was long before there were any new-nuclear plans, many of which were announced very recently. It had more to do with the limited value and high cost of the wind projects at the time. I do believe that now it is much more suitable and Ontario should invest more into wind and solar projects because they offer tremendous value. However they are. Not the only solution to the ongoing energy crisis. Also, as an aside, other than decarbonization initiatives, Canada does control the energy market on a federal level but at a provincial level.
In a place like Saudi Arabia, solar is fantastic and should make up a sizable portion of installed capacity. However, it should still be backed by a mix to improve grid reliability and this is true for many other places also. The prospect of advanced nuclear reactors should not and as far as I know does not hold back the advancement of renewables.
That sure was a lot of words for "I haven't looked at Alberta lately".
Also the agrivoltaic cost pearl clutching is deranged. "What if it costs a third as much as what I'm proposing like already built projects at the same latitude with worse solar resource."
Alberta has no nuclear and no plans for nuclear. If they cancelled any wind projects it only speaks to how deep their oil sand dreams are. Your mention of Alberta is completely irrelevant.
What kind of word spaghetti is "agrivoltaic pearl clutching"? You also quoted something that I didn't even say. Are you ok my friend? As I have said, the idea of it is fine and can work at smaller scales. However, a typical farm requires the use tractors which need clearance. So if the plan is to build solar above, they must be raised high and spread apart to not interfere with the tractor. This can certainly be done but it requires engineering and has additional construction costs when compared to conventional solar farms. In this way it can certainly be debated if the benefit of using solar with farming is outweighed but the additional costs to the solar installation and operational costs of maneuvering the tractor around the supports.
The premium you're placing on avoiding covering 1m^2 with a solar panel that produces a time-averaged 40W at $20/W is about $800
An overhead agrivoltaic system costs about $800k/ha at ~30% coverage (about double the price per watt of single axis or 3x fixed tilt) or $80/m^2 and increases yields by 10-300% if used on crops that benefit or in situations where water is scarce ir heatwaves are likely (hmm, wonder if that will be relevant). Cover 10m and you've saved 1m^2 ti 6m^2 of farmland for $800
So if it's worth spending public money to avoid the former, then it's worth doing the latter even without the electricity.
It also produces >2x as much electricity.
So which is it. Are you too stupid to comprehend basic arithmetic, or do you not actually care about land use, cost and enguneering challenges?
Your article states the "For agrivoltaic systems installed at a high distance from the ground, which is necessary to let the agricultural machinery operate under the solar panels, the costs are even higher compared to conventional solar plants."
This was my entire point regarding agrivoltaic systems. This additional cost needs to be compared to the benefit of installing the system. This could also depend on many other factors such as the price of land and water availability. I have not seen a cost comparison and I am doubtful it will actually benefit the systems widespread use at this time.
You say that for €800, 1m² - 6m² of may be saved. In Germany, where this is being done, the price of farmland in the most expensive region is €63/m² with other regions being much cheaper. If you are able to understand basic arithmetic, you can clearly see that even in the best case scenario, this is not a good value proposition for farmers at the moment. This could change and it could become more valuable if the cost of land and electricity increase, and if the agrivoltaic system costs decrease, but not now.
Oh. So bad faith and stupidity.
I do not understand what you mean.
https://smractionplan.ca/content/alberta
Are you being bad faith or are to too stupid to use a search engine?
This is not a plan for any nuclear builds, this is just them signing on that maybe they will build some SMRs. Would you also suggest PEI is seriously planing a nuclear build?
No. They are not.
They are using the suggestion that they might to delay decarbonization.
Glad you finally figured it out.
Again, this is missing the point. Alberta does not care at all to decarbonize and signing this could help them build off grid SMRs down the road in remote areas to power oil and gas machinery. PEI signed it because it may be a one and done solution for them to decarbonize. These are not concrete plans but they are also not signing it without some reason it could benefit them.