Does “Fuel On Hand” Make Coal and Nuclear Power Plants More Valuable?
July 21, 2017 3:19 AM Subscribe
Does “fuel on hand,” stored onsite in substantial amounts, make fueled power stations somehow more resilient and valuable than other generators? It’s a good question with more claims than analysis, but historical experience may suggest useful insights. (Rocky Mountain Institute)
Ask the French how reliable nuclear is when the rivers run low and the cooling capacity of the plant declines.
posted by ocschwar at 6:03 AM on July 21, 2017
posted by ocschwar at 6:03 AM on July 21, 2017
Apropos, I'm putting together an essay series on how the GOP war on science has escalated to an all out war on engineering, from three angles:
1. the GOP's anti-urbanist policies are directly against the interests of young engineers starting out in their careers (TLDR: a job is not for life, so young engineers have to go live in reach of several potential employers, hence the migration of the young into the cities, which the GOP is hampering),
2. the anti-intellectualism of the GOP's platform, rhetoric and political theater, which is designed to to set up and Us and a Them, is increasingly putting engineers as a Them (TLDR: engineers have to learn from foreigners, especially those wacky Dutch, and sometimes the attacks are explicit, like Maine's governor slandering a university about how they operate their wind turbine),
3. The GOP's platform is increasingly at odds with the domain knowledge of several fields of engineering. Computer engineering versus the crypto wars and voting machines. Civil engineering versus the GOP's obsession with suburban sprawl. Electrical engineering versus Trump and his love for coal. Examples are piling up.
posted by ocschwar at 6:13 AM on July 21, 2017 [18 favorites]
1. the GOP's anti-urbanist policies are directly against the interests of young engineers starting out in their careers (TLDR: a job is not for life, so young engineers have to go live in reach of several potential employers, hence the migration of the young into the cities, which the GOP is hampering),
2. the anti-intellectualism of the GOP's platform, rhetoric and political theater, which is designed to to set up and Us and a Them, is increasingly putting engineers as a Them (TLDR: engineers have to learn from foreigners, especially those wacky Dutch, and sometimes the attacks are explicit, like Maine's governor slandering a university about how they operate their wind turbine),
3. The GOP's platform is increasingly at odds with the domain knowledge of several fields of engineering. Computer engineering versus the crypto wars and voting machines. Civil engineering versus the GOP's obsession with suburban sprawl. Electrical engineering versus Trump and his love for coal. Examples are piling up.
posted by ocschwar at 6:13 AM on July 21, 2017 [18 favorites]
Grid failures, not generator shortfalls, cause roughly 98–99% of U.S. power failures.
posted by klanawa at 1:11 PM on July 21, 2017
posted by klanawa at 1:11 PM on July 21, 2017
Suicide squirrels.
Rabid racoons.
And idiots with pickup trucks.
Those are the top 3.
posted by ocschwar at 2:36 PM on July 21, 2017
Rabid racoons.
And idiots with pickup trucks.
Those are the top 3.
posted by ocschwar at 2:36 PM on July 21, 2017
Here's a few random things to consider about the future of coal and nuclear energy -
- Currently, both coal and nuclear are not cost-competitive relative to natural gas, solar and wind
- Nuclear generating plants require days to achieve full capacity (Pumped Hydro Storage can dispatch in under one minute)
- Energy Storage technologies are increasingly enabling deeper penetration of renewable sources as well as providing grid support and resiliency
- Texas's wind development was not a result of open markets or Perry's policies (sic), but instead because the System Operator (ERCOT) is essentially an island, unlke the rest of the Continental US
- The US transmission grid is increasingly providing ever greater resilience by enabling greater power transfers across greater distances
- "Grid Failures" are relatively uncommon relatively to Distribution (local) disruptions, which is irrelevant to a discussion about generation choices
Just my opinion, but coal and nuclear are on the brink of collapse and, if their externalities are considered, are clearly losers despite any supposed resiliency benefits - in fact, their true uniqueness lies in the fact that the create permanent pollution (mercury and spent nuclear fuels) as a "gift" for all future generations.
posted by onesidys at 6:38 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
- Currently, both coal and nuclear are not cost-competitive relative to natural gas, solar and wind
- Nuclear generating plants require days to achieve full capacity (Pumped Hydro Storage can dispatch in under one minute)
- Energy Storage technologies are increasingly enabling deeper penetration of renewable sources as well as providing grid support and resiliency
- Texas's wind development was not a result of open markets or Perry's policies (sic), but instead because the System Operator (ERCOT) is essentially an island, unlke the rest of the Continental US
- The US transmission grid is increasingly providing ever greater resilience by enabling greater power transfers across greater distances
- "Grid Failures" are relatively uncommon relatively to Distribution (local) disruptions, which is irrelevant to a discussion about generation choices
Just my opinion, but coal and nuclear are on the brink of collapse and, if their externalities are considered, are clearly losers despite any supposed resiliency benefits - in fact, their true uniqueness lies in the fact that the create permanent pollution (mercury and spent nuclear fuels) as a "gift" for all future generations.
posted by onesidys at 6:38 PM on July 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
The concept of "fuel on hand" in the power industry came from the 1960s and 1970s when coal miners had strikes all the time as well as the teamsters who trucked the coal and railroads who moved it by train. In the day of the big unions they could shut down entire industries with their violence and threatening means to push for what they wanted. The only logical way to keep the power on was to keep a 2 to 3 month supply of coal on hand. This allowed the power plants to continue operating for a reasonable period of time. It also amounted to a bug capital cost because they could not deduct it nor could they earn income off of it until it was used. For many plants this could represent $50 -100 million when the cost of coal was higher.
posted by SuperMagnetMan at 8:08 AM on July 24, 2017
posted by SuperMagnetMan at 8:08 AM on July 24, 2017
So it seems that when used in the original sense of a stockpile of fuel held onsite at the consuming plant, fuel on hand is a mitigation for one of a coal-fired plant's predictable failure modes.
Assuming that every coal or nuclear plant actually has such a stockpile ready to hand - and that coal and nuclear should therefore be counted as technologies that improve grid resilience - seems a little optimistic, even for the notoriously optimistic coal and nuclear lobbies.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 PM on July 25, 2017
Assuming that every coal or nuclear plant actually has such a stockpile ready to hand - and that coal and nuclear should therefore be counted as technologies that improve grid resilience - seems a little optimistic, even for the notoriously optimistic coal and nuclear lobbies.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 PM on July 25, 2017
« Older “...keep them playing – and paying.” | Big Pacific Behind The Scenes Filming Pufferfish... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by chavenet at 5:22 AM on July 21, 2017