The future of energy generation and storage

SirRumpole said:

Nope. Which is why we need hydro and gas peakers.

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Well, they could just keep building more battery sites.
The footprint for that storage is not huge, no where near the scale of the solar panel farm that might supply it.
And if they attached a large enough synchronous condenser, could actually supply some stability as well.
There is no reason why the builders could not add a number of floors to the site and make it a gigawatt site on the same footprint.
Its only money.
Mick

Well the U.K has finally acknowledged what we have been saying in this thread for years, solar/wind just ain't going to cut it and nuclear has to be developed, especially SMR's.
Obviously the Russia gas issue has brought the whole energy issue to a head, so at least something good has come out of it, the echo chamber of the loonies who are so anti common sense has been popped.
The U.K Govt is going to pump $38 billion into developing SMR's by 2030, Rolls Royce is looking like the front runner, with Hitachi also up there in the development stakes.
Cost is really a secondary issue, when the choice is electricity 24/7 or electricity when it's available on a rationing basis, even the loonies wouldn't accept that.


Britain on Tuesday opened a competition to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and is aiming to see them operating in the country by the early 2030's, according to energy security minister Grant Shapps.

Britain is seeking increase its nuclear power capacity to 24 gigawatts (GW) by 2050 as part of efforts to meet climate targets and boost energy security. That would meet around a quarter of projected electricity demand, compared with 14% today.
Large new nuclear projects with high upfront costs have struggled to attract financing and the government hopes some older plants could be replaced by a fleet of SMRs which can be made in factories, with lower costs and faster construction.

From Tuesday, companies can register their interest in the government's SMR competition. The new Great British Nuclear body, also launched on Tuesday, will select technologies that have met the criteria later this year.
Shapps said Rolls-Royce has a well advanced program but it is important to make sure the right technologies are chosen.

Other SMR developers include GE Hitachi, Nuscale and X-energy and Westinghouse.

Shapps said the competition could unlock up to 20 billion pounds of funding but said there was no commitment for that amount to be spent.

London | The British government is ready to trowel more than £20 billion ($38 billion) of taxpayers’ money into turbocharging the country’s nuclear industry, as the daunting task of decarbonising the UK’s energy sector looms ever larger.

With offshore wind and solar unlikely to ensure Britain has uninterrupted baseload power, the official goal is to get 24 gigawatts of nuclear energy onstream by 2050 – up to a quarter of British power demand, up from 15 per cent now.

But hefty new gigawatt-scale nuclear power stations are struggling to get off the ground, so the government’s hopes are increasingly pinned on an early lift-off for small modular reactors (SMRs).

“The energy issue we’ve had in Europe in these past two years has been a bit of a reality check. Before that, we had a combination of wishful thinking and wilful ignorance about how we are going to decarbonise,” says Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain’s Nuclear Industry Association.

He says that although successive Downing Street administrations have all understood Britain’s flagging nuclear industry needs fresh legs, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is now gripped with urgency. And it has clocked the key catalysing role of taxpayers and public policy.
“The lesson from anywhere in the world where nuclear power has been deployed is that unless the state is actively involved in encouraging it to happen, it doesn’t happen,” Greatrex says.

“It is public policy that has driven it, basically because the infrastructure is so big and capital-intensive.”

The government recently unfurled a £170 million investment into hurrying up work on the embryonic but enormous Sizewell C, a 3.2-gigawatt nuclear reactor to be built by the mid-2030s. This came on top of £700 million in earlier subsidies.

But the real action must of necessity be elsewhere. Construction of the next big new nuclear reactor, the 3.2-gigawatt Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset, has been subject to seemingly endless delays and cost blowouts. And of the five creaky old mega-reactors now operating, all but one will be shut in the next five years.
So, the focus is squarely on SMRs, which in theory can be rolled out more cheaply and snappily; and also on advanced modular reactors (AMRs), which use exotic new tech or methods that are still either largely on the drawing board or even just a glint in some scientist’s eye.

At the front of the SMR pack is Rolls-Royce, leading a consortium that has already received £210 million in government grants. It has beefed up its SMR workforce to about 600 people.

Its reactor, based on the pressurised water reactor (PWR) in Britain’s nuclear submarines, is already being evaluated by the safety regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Alastair Evans, director of corporate affairs at . The -Royce SMR, reckons its design is “at least 18 months ahead of any competitor in the UK”.

“Rolls-Royce has been a nuclear reactor plant designer since the start of the UK nuclear submarine program in the 1950s,” he says. The PWR design “has been used in over 200 reactors around the world … using proven and commercially available technology to deliver a fully integrated, factory-built nuclear power plant.”

GE Hitachi is Rolls-Royce’s main rival. Media reports say it already has a BWRX-300 under construction and regulatory review in Canada, a.nd its model is under consideration in the US. The company claims to be the only contender with a realistic shot of getting an SMR operational by 2030.
The lucky winners will get access to the government’s subsidy scheme, which could be worth £20 billion if that’s what it takes.

It’s unclear exactly what form this largesse will assume. It could use the “regulated asset base” model, where investors are given a guaranteed minimum return, funded by a levy on consumer energy bills.

Another model might involve “strike prices”: a guaranteed price per unit, to smooth out the risks and uncertainty involved in committing so much capital upfront.

mullokintyre said:

Well, they could just keep building more battery sites.

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I'll leave it to the experts to confirm or deny, but what's the life of batteries ? 20 years maybe.

Hydro, centuries unless there is a major disaster.

SirRumpole said:

I'll leave it to the experts to confirm or deny, but what's the life of batteries ? 20 years maybe.

Hydro, centuries unless there is a major disaster.

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For storage batteries will never cut it for a large system for a whole lot of reasons IMHO, smaller systems they could have a place if home installs were ramped up but big batteries forget it.

Gas which was long touted as the interim energy source would be the only one that's viable short term that fits into the current networks and site foot prints, hydro, nuclear of any sort are 10 to 40 year time frames if you are lucky and good luck getting community approvals.

As SP has said that could change if the lights go out.

Ultimately all this comes down to maths.

Not ideology. Not "I believe". Just maths.

Now at the fine detail level that's seriously complicated maths yes but at the basic level it's just good old addition and subtraction really. Use multiplication too if you want to take some shortcuts but there's nothing here, at the broad conceptual level, that wasn't taught in high school on the maths side.

Does the Torrens Island battery work? Well yes it does, it does what it's designed to do and in practice there'd be a slight erring on the positive side by the equipment manufacturers there so as to keep them safe legally. It's officially 250 MW / 250 MWh - in practice it would be marginally above that.

So is there a role for a 1 hour battery in the system? In short yes there is, the absolute extreme of the peak demand is relatively short such that having a short duration supply source with which to supply it isn't a problem.

Here's the past 7 days in SA and you can see AGL's new battery being used "in anger" this morning in blue.

Yellow = solar. Green = Wind. Orange = gas. Purple = from Victoria. Below zero line = export SA to Vic plus battery charging.



So a battery like that can meet peak demand for a short period yes, and this morning it contributed to doing that in both SA and Vic.

But now let's look at that same chart without the gas and interchange with Victoria:



It's the same data there just with the fossil fuels and hydro (Vic and ultimately Tas + NSW via Vic) taken out.

No way are batteries at this point capable of smoothing that out economically. And especially not when, as per charts I've posted previously, the lull in wind + solar lasts a few days not just overnight.

For that the options are basically either hydro or something that burns. The problem there being economic.

Torrens Island battery = 250 MW / 250 MWh for $180 million

Snowy 2.0 = 2040 MW / 350,000 MWh for ~$10 billion

On a peak power basis Snowy 2.0 costs 6.8 times as much as the Torrens Island battery.

On an energy storage basis Torrens Island battery costs 25 times as much as SH2.

Hence batteries do have a role for short duration peak power but not for bulk energy storage. If SH2 were built using batteries then it would cost $252 billion and have a 20 year lifespan. A good way to send the country broke.

So there's a place for batteries but ultimately we're not moving away from some combination of hydro + combustion to provide the bulk energy firming. Anyone who says otherwise, is most likely a politician.

Regarding the lifespan of batteries, a look at the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the SA Big Battery) commissioned in two stages, being 2017 and 2020.

First stage was 129 MWh storage capacity when commissioned in December 2017. It's now rated at 117 MWh. A loss of 9.3%

Second stage was 64.5 MWh storage capacity when commissioned in March 2020. It's now rated at 61.3 MWh. So a loss of 4.96%

So the inescapable decline is underway, it's clearly there in the figures.

Versus hydro where in theory siltation can be a problem but not in practice if well managed. As even two former Greens leaders recently acknowledged, after sending a submersible down to the bottom of a lake, Tasmania's hydro dams aren't silting up.

mullokintyre said:

Well, they could just keep building more battery sites.
The footprint for that storage is not huge, no where near the scale of the solar panel farm that might supply it.
And if they attached a large enough synchronous condenser, could actually supply some stability as well.
There is no reason why the builders could not add a number of floors to the site and make it a gigawatt site on the same footprint.
Its only money.
Mick

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I've been extrapolating the cost of this battery ($180m ish?) out to support about 10m dwellings for 8hrs a night/day when RE doesn't work and the $ cost is pretty high. Will also need replacement every couple of decades at best. The overall cost is probably enough to build 8-10 nuclear plants that would provide 24/7 clean energy and a 40-60 year life span. SMRs might be cheaper and more cost effective. Batteries will become more efficient and powerful as well I guess, but I think #BlackOutBowen needs to do some more analysis of cost benefits of nuclear v RE and also ask himself what is emissions free reliable energy, that will save the planet and provide energy security, actually worth.

Good work @Smurf1976 above. I didn't read that before putting my basic summary up above. Sort of fits in.

SMR's are definitely what W.A needs eventually, once the manufacturing has been streamlined the cost should be far more competitive than large scale GW nuclear plants, which will only ever be feasible in very large grid systems like Europe, China and the U.S.
Interesting times ahead in the next 10 years IMO, the subs should break the ice on Australia's reluctance to nuclear and the advent of SMR's fits nicely into our firming requirements given that renewable penetration will be high.
Now all we need is the politicians to pull their heads in and give the technical people the stage, as if that would ever happen.

sptrawler said:

SMR's are definitely what W.A needs eventually, once the manufacturing has been streamlined the cost should be far more competitive than large scale GW nuclear plants, which will only ever be feasible in very large grid systems like Europe, China and the U.S.
Interesting times ahead in the next 10 years IMO, the subs should break the ice on Australia's reluctance to nuclear and the advent of SMR's fits nicely into our firming requirements given that renewable penetration will be high.
Now all we need is the politicians to pull their heads in and give the technical people the stage, as if that would ever happen.

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Yes, no doubt we need some sort of nuclear industry to process the submarines spent fuel and it may be the excuse needed to get into SMR's, but it seems Labor has ruled out that possibility.

It would be interesting to see the cost benefit analysis of SMR power though, it's a lot more expensive than dumping stuff in the ground, and we can't even get a decision on the location of a low grade waste dump.

SirRumpole said:

Yes, no doubt we need some sort of nuclear industry to process the submarines spent fuel and it may be the excuse needed to get into SMR's, but it seems Labor has ruled out that possibility.

It would be interesting to see the cost benefit analysis of SMR power though, it's a lot more expensive than dumping stuff in the ground, and we can't even get a decision on the location of a low grade waste dump.

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Sweden recently announced it was going to build 10 new rectors, but got into trouble.
From The Guardian

Environmental experts have criticised the Swedish government’s plan to build at least 10 nuclear reactors in the next 20 years, more than doubling the current number, saying it will be too expensive and will come too late to meet energy needs.

The climate minister, Romina Pourmokhtari, announced on Wednesday that in order to meet its climate goals Sweden needed to double electricity production in the next two decades.


The plan for 10 new reactors would mark a dramatic change from the country’s current capacity for nuclear power, with six reactors in operation in Forsmark, Oskarshamn and Ringhals accounting for about 30% of its electricity production.

Lars J Nilsson, a professor at Lund University and a member of the European climate advisory board, said he disputed the government’s claim that the new reactors were needed and dismissed the move as “symbolic”.

“You cannot certainly say that we need 10 new reactors. Right now the expansion of electricity production in Sweden is through wind power,” he told the Guardian. “I don’t expect any new nuclear power in Sweden, unless the government provides quite far-reaching guarantees similar to what you have at Hinkley Point [in the UK].

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I find it a tad ironic that the plan is criticised by Environmental Experts as being too expensive.
The environmental experts join our own Environmental Expert , Alan Finkel as saying that the figures just don't add up.
Perhaps they should talk to the French.
France generated 65% of its energy needs from Nuclear power in 2021.

from PBS

France's decision to launch a large nuclear program dates back to 1973 and the events in the Middle East that they refer to as the "oil shock." The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources. It has no oil, no gas and her coal resources are very poor and virtually exhausted.



French policy makers saw only one way for France to achieve energy independence: nuclear energy, a source of energy so compact that a few pounds of fissionable uranium is all the fuel needed to run a big city for a year. Plans were drawn up to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. Over the next 15 years France installed 56 nuclear reactors, satisfying its power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries.

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The oil shock of the 70's galvanised the French, and in the next 15 years built 56 new rectors, something that would be impossible in OZ.
Its unlikely we could build one in 15 years.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

Sweden recently announced it was going to build 10 new rectors, but got into trouble.
From The Guardian

I find it a tad ironic that the plan is criticised by Environmental Experts as being too expensive.
The environmental experts join our own Environmental Expert , Alan Finkel as saying that the figures just don't add up.
Perhaps they should talk to the French.
France generated 65% of its energy needs from Nuclear power in 2021.
View attachment 161301
from PBS





The oil shock of the 70's galvanised the French, and in the next 15 years built 56 new rectors, something that would be impossible in OZ.
Its unlikely we could build one in 15 years.
Mick

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I think there are other economic forces. The smaller modular reactors being developed, first by Bill Gates but now with other partners will change everything. Wouldn't be surprised if Australia ended up getting some. These 10 years to build ultra expensive nuclear reactors are becoming dinosaur tech.

Some more figures to illustrate. Note that all times are SA local time.

At 13:50 on Monday VRE (Variable Renewable Energy - wind and solar) were supplying 122.4% of demand in SA with the surplus sent interstate. After that, it started to fall.

At 15:20 VRE dipped below 100%. It was down below 50% at 17:05, down to 25% at 17:40 and below 10% at 19:30. Nothing radical happened there, just weather.

So what quantities of energy have filled the gap? So far the answer is:

Gas = 23,554 MWh

From Victoria = 16,678 MWh

Diesel = 6 MWh

So 40,238 MWh or 161 times the capacity of the Torrens Island battery. And counting since the wind hasn't picked up yet.

So batteries aren't the solution for long term firming of VRE despite having a short duration role.

Fossil fuels can do it.

Hydro can do it. Mostly located interstate in SA's case but technically it's doable, there's no technical barrier to interstate transmission and the economics, whilst not brilliant, are doable.

Hydrogen maybe. Not there yet but it'll likely happen.

Nuclear at present not really economic but plausibly that could change. That one remains to be seen.

Take your pick.

mullokintyre said:

Sweden recently announced it was going to build 10 new rectors, but got into trouble.
From The Guardian

I find it a tad ironic that the plan is criticised by Environmental Experts as being too expensive.
The environmental experts join our own Environmental Expert , Alan Finkel as saying that the figures just don't add up.
Perhaps they should talk to the French.
France generated 65% of its energy needs from Nuclear power in 2021.
View attachment 161301
from PBS





The oil shock of the 70's galvanised the French, and in the next 15 years built 56 new rectors, something that would be impossible in OZ.
Its unlikely we could build one in 15 years.
Mick

Click to expand...

And note the declining numbers and do % of electricity was bowing to the demands of the Greens there and from the EU under German watermelon politicians pressure...

Smurf1976 said:

Some more figures to illustrate. Note that all times are SA local time.

At 13:50 on Monday VRE (Variable Renewable Energy - wind and solar) were supplying 122.4% of demand in SA with the surplus sent interstate. After that, it started to fall.

At 15:20 VRE dipped below 100%. It was down below 50% at 17:05, down to 25% at 17:40 and below 10% at 19:30. Nothing radical happened there, just weather.

So what quantities of energy have filled the gap? So far the answer is:

Gas = 23,554 MWh

From Victoria = 16,678 MWh

Diesel = 6 MWh

So 40,238 MWh or 161 times the capacity of the Torrens Island battery. And counting since the wind hasn't picked up yet.

So batteries aren't the solution for long term firming of VRE despite having a short duration role.

Fossil fuels can do it.

Hydro can do it. Mostly located interstate in SA's case but technically it's doable, there's no technical barrier to interstate transmission and the economics, whilst not brilliant, are doable.

Hydrogen maybe. Not there yet but it'll likely happen.

Nuclear at present not really economic but plausibly that could change. That one remains to be seen.

Take your pick.

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And we have plenty of gas in Australia, coal too...if we do not sell it all...

The only way nuclear is going to get up in the future is if the Coalition run with it as a key policy position (which it looks like they will) and they win a majority of support in both houses. That is going to be a very difficult task unless Labor and LNP win seats back from the Greens and Teals.

Perhaps it's the election after next when a shift will occur once it's clear energy reliability and security become paramount and the cost/benefits are more clearly articulated that the people will accept some gas must remain for firming and/or nuclear as a key piece of the energy mix.

Within this time frame China will have probably attacked Taiwan which might throw all plans out the window and we go into survival mode.

Sean K said:

The only way nuclear is going to get up in the future is if the Coalition run with it as a key policy position (which it looks like they will) and they win a majority of support in both houses. That is going to be a very difficult task unless Labor and LNP win seats back from the Greens and Teals.

Perhaps it's the election after next when a shift will occur once it's clear energy reliability and security become paramount and the cost/benefits are more clearly articulated that the people will accept some gas must remain for firming and/or nuclear as a key piece of the energy mix.

Within this time frame China will have probably attacked Taiwan which might throw all plans out the window and we go into survival mode.

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It's going to be difficult for those against nuclear to argue against it, when we have nine reactors floating in Sydney harbour, plus Lucas Heights.

It all sounds great and honorable, until it sounds stupid, there was a King Canute in the U.K that tried holding back the inevitable.

sptrawler said:

It's going to be difficult for those against nuclear to argue against it, when we have nine reactors floating in Sydney harbour, plus Lucas Heights.

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It's perverse, but Labor seem to think Lucas Heights and the boats are OK but even putting an SMR up for discussion is not.

Sean K said:

It's perverse, but Labor seem to think Lucas Heights and the boats are OK but even putting an SMR up for discussion is not.

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I just think they are being pragmatic and looking toward the next election, there is no point having a fight until it is needed, especially when it could cost them office.
Also if the train wreck of the electricity system continues, there may not even be a need for a fight, SMR's aren't ready yet and we don't need them yet and the renewable play has to run until its limitations become obvious to the masses.
By then we will have a couple of U.S subs stationed here and the SMR's will be available hopefully.
Albo's big issue is not being a one term Government, the voice has caused him a scare, he wont want any more happening he didn't win by a lot.


The Keating government won the 1993 election with a primary vote of 44.9 per cent. Union membership was then at 41 per cent. Last year under Albanese, the Labor Party took office with 32.6 per cent of the primary vote and just 12.5 per cent of workers belonging to unions.

sptrawler said:

I just think they are being pragmatic and looking toward the next election, there is no point having a fight until it is needed, especially when it could cost them office.
Also if the train wreck of the electricity system continues, there may not even be a need for a fight, SMR's aren't ready yet and we don't need them yet and the renewable play has to run until its limitations become obvious to the masses.
By then we will have a couple of U.S subs stationed here and the SMR's will be available hopefully.
Albo's big issue is not being a one term Government, the voice has caused him a scare, he wont want any more happening he didn't win by a lot.

In trying to create a legacy for Labor, Albanese risks not doing enough for the rest of us

Is it possible to be supremely ambitious while having limited ambitions? Anthony Albanese believes it is.

www.smh.com.au

The Keating government won the 1993 election with a primary vote of 44.9 per cent. Union membership was then at 41 per cent. Last year under Albanese, the Labor Party took office with 32.6 per cent of the primary vote and just 12.5 per cent of workers belonging to unions.

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It's going to be tough for both major parties with the Greens and Teals getting in the way. The Labor-Green (alliance?) is already splintering and Albo can't afford to be too arrogant if he wants to get things done. The Greens can just sit back and laugh, they have nothing to lose.