The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

These are all fair comments that I have little disagreement with, but I feel are short termist. Nuclear has been the too expensive option for decades, but the only way it's going to get cheaper is to actually commit to it. The climate problem isn't going to be solved in the next decade alone and we may find the remaining emissions harder to eliminate after we have moderately cleaned up the grid with wind and solar. We must invest in nuclear today if we want it to be cheap in 20 years time.

I get the sense that the ship has sailed for large nuclear. I think everybody is just waiting on SMRs so that they a have lighter capital commitment option going forward.

Big nuclear is probably going to be mostly something for the Chinese, Indians and Russians.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Even worse for nuclear advocates, the absolutely insane cost overruns at Vogtle (US) and Hinkley (UK) could doom any real interest in new large nuclear pretty much permanently in the West.

Massive overruns and outright cancellations signal to me that the industry doesn't quite know what it's doing (and of course isn't helped by misguided public outcry).

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I get the sense that the ship has sailed for large nuclear. I think everybody is just waiting on SMRs so that they a have lighter capital commitment option going forward.

Big nuclear is probably going to be mostly something for the Chinese, Indians and Russians.

But the same problems apply. Building one SMR is going to be about the same expense as building a large reactor, the savings only come once you mass produce them with economies of scale. And that requires commitments and risk acceptance that probably can't come from the private sector in the near future.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I didn't say they were replacing baseload. I was referring to gas peakers. Not suggesting nuclear baseload was being replaced.

That said, looking at any replacement in a 1:1 proposal for a given site is an amateur approach. Nobody is suggesting replacing a 500 MW reactor with a 500 MW/2000 MWh battery. It's usually some combination of renewables, combined cycle natural gas, storage (batteries, pumped hydro, etc) and reserve (hydro).

Moreover, as I've repeatedly said, the idea that we need to tell utilities what type of generation to build is bizarre. The carbon tax prices the GHG. Just let them model what works and build accordingly. The only public investment I will ever advocate for, are interties, both to improve resiliency and to allow for expanded power markets and competition.

Utilities in most of Canada and most of the world are owned by governments. Any power generating decision is a political decision.

Except Russia, most of the large coal emitters (China India, Germany, US, Russia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Poland) do not have a lot of hydro options.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's also interconnections. It's unbelievable to me that Ontario still doesn't have substantial interties with Quebec. Ditto Alberta with BC. And Saskatchewan with Manitoba. We're a country with abundant hydro. We don't need nearly the amount of batteries as others.

Ontario has the largest intertie capacity of any region adjacent to Quebec, save NL with Churchill Falls.

I think SMRs are something that warrants R&D investment. Small communities and remote sites not connected to the grid, or having power demands beyond what can easily be served by the grid typically rely on diesel generators for power right now. While they might also use wind & solar, their variability is a much more significant problem for those sites. SMRs also raise the possibility of spreading base load capacity about more, lowering the requirements for high-voltage transmission and improving overall grid resiliency and efficiency.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yep. There's this weird idea that I see in online discussions that environuts are holding back nuclear. Yet, zero evidence of this in real life. At least in North America. Utilities just aren't interested. Why tie up billions in capital for years with no return when renewables and batteries let them scale as necessary?

Even worse for nuclear advocates, the absolutely insane cost overruns at Vogtle (US) and Hinkley (UK) could doom any real interest in new large nuclear pretty much permanently in the West.

Nuclear in the US wasn’t killed by renewables, it was killed by fracking.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

But the same problems apply. Building one SMR is going to be about the same expense as building a large reactor, the savings only come once you mass produce them with economies of scale.

Not quite. People forget that SMRs aren't totally new technology. SMRs have been powering aircraft carriers and submarines for decades now. So this is more evolution than revolution. To that end, the feds are estimating $200-350M for 20 MW first-of-a-kind units, with costs going down as production is scaled up. Gates backed NuScale is ultimately aiming for US$3600/kW.

That's expensive to be sure (and more expensive per Watt). But far less capital intensive than large plants in discrete commitments. Most importantly, build time is 2-3 years, with a fraction of that on-site. Lower capital commitments, faster commissioning, smaller footprint and less maintenance will make these things much more attractive to utilities than traditional large reactors.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Nuclear in the US wasn’t killed by renewables, it was killed by fracking.

Nobody ever said nuclear in the US was killed by renewables.

What I said was that it's hard to make a case to add more when renewables are cheap. And yes, ccng most definitely helps too.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

How exactly would KXL have helped relieve supply pressure in 2021?

Not so much Biden to blame, rather Obama, as the line would have been in-service now for a couple of years, which would have helped them now in 2021, in some capacity anyway.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And why is this in the climate thread?

I think this can directly relate to the climate thread. These spiking prices should motivate the American consumer to live with less carbon intensive footprint, the exact reason why our Libs instituted a carbon price. Not to mention, the spiking gas prices in the US doesn’t yet even equal that which Canada is paying with the carbon price included. Yet Biden, who is dead set on transitioning his auto industry to electric, is now pleading with once sworn enemies to produce more oil to help the common American. It just seems outright backwards to Biden’s agenda. The spiking prices, driven by the free market, is something one would think Biden would welcome with open arms, but it’s obviously completely opposite. Imagine, a free market that doesn’t require an additional tax, that would naturally motivate the consumer to more efficient means of travel. Anyway, it does show the outright dependence society has on the product, especially the US.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by jamincan

Ontario has the largest intertie capacity of any region adjacent to Quebec, save NL with Churchill Falls.

We're also a large province. We don't have nearly enough for HQ to be able to bid substantially in our market.

Originally Posted by jamincan

I think SMRs are something that warrants R&D investment.

You say this as though everybody and their dog isn't pouring money into SMR R&D to try and get to the jackpot at the end of the rainbow.

Realistically, only 2-3 designs will win the global market. So the race has been on to develop these things for years.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

Not so much Biden to blame, rather Obama, as the line would have been in-service now for a couple of years, which would have helped them now in 2021, in some capacity anyway.

What about the orange guy?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Utilities in most of Canada and most of the world are owned by governments. Any power generating decision is a political decision.

Doesn't really change a thing. Why would anybody not want utilities to build the cheapest form of power available?

Ontario's green boondoggle should have taught us that telling the power sector what to build is a bad idea. Price the pollution. And they will build according to what makes engineering and economic sense.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

What about the orange guy?

Some folks seem to have developed complete amnesia about the period between 2017 and 2021.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

What about the orange guy?

While Mr. Orange himself resurrected the project, unfortunately many of the same regulatory environmental reviews that were once completed had to be redone. Not to mention the court cases that held up the project in that time (ie. south Dakota, Nebraska, etc.)… unfortunately, while the project received the executive order from Mr. Orange, that doesn’t means shovels could be in the ground the very next day, month, or even year. Don’t forget that that project was essentially cancelled, and had to be resurrected by the Company itself as well. It’s not something that could have been simply picked up where left off.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Some folks seem to have developed complete amnesia about the period between 2017 and 2021.

And some folks obviously don’t know what goes into building a massive $15 billion project that traveres multiple jurisdictions with multiple regulatory requirements. That been under review of 4 different US administrations since first proposed.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Doesn't really change a thing. Why would anybody not want utilities to build the cheapest form of power available?

Ontario's green boondoggle should have taught us that telling the power sector what to build is a bad idea. Price the pollution. And they will build according to what makes engineering and economic sense.

I'd say nuclear (and hydro) is one area where the free market doesn't work that well. There are too many important considerations and stake holders.

Maybe once a few have been built and all the regulations are in place, with a supply chain of reactors rolling, then private entities could get involved. But it's going to need government support to get it to that point.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

That been under review of 4 different US administrations since first proposed.

And yet you singled out the one that was 4 years ago.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And yet you singled out the one that was 4 years ago.

Yup, that’s correct, the one that first killed the project. Not the one before that the project was submitted under, not the one that resurrected it, not the one that killed it again. The one that first killed the project.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I'd say nuclear (and hydro) is one area where the free market doesn't work that well. There are too many important considerations and stake holders.

I think this has largely been the case because of the cost, size and timelines of traditional nuclear and hydro.

Think of an SMR like run-of-the-river hydro. Private sector manages those more easily.

I have no doubts the first few will be controversial. But they'll be mostly public sector utilities purchasing them anyway. So they'll get pushed through. And as confidence builds and costs come down, smaller utilities will eventually jump in.

Personally, I think utilities won't view these things the same way. The cheapest total solution is to model 100% renewables. And then trade off batteries and SMR in sort of a managed peak baseload concept. Sort of why these things are being thought of as "nuclear batteries".

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Doesn't really change a thing. Why would anybody not want utilities to build the cheapest form of power available?

Ontario's green boondoggle should have taught us that telling the power sector what to build is a bad idea. Price the pollution. And they will build according to what makes engineering and economic sense.

I think there are some places where state-owned enterprises are operated efficiently or governments stay out of their management decisions (Singapore comes to mind). I think it is rare though, and even rarer in the electricity sector. Politicians and bureaucrats get delusions of grandeur, or they get convinced by advisors or political pressure to do stupid things.