Just buy your wife some really fancy jewelry and she'll let you.
California slashes residential solar feed-in rates
- Thread starter OVERKILL
- Start date
Just buy your wife some really fancy jewelry and she'll let you.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
To put some perspective on things, we went from a flat rate of around $0.045/kWh to TOU rates with the peak tier being $0.217/kWh and the "cheap" rate being $0.105/kWh. For folks that heated with baseboard, their bills skyrocketed. A 2,200kWh hydro bill went from $99 with a minimal delivery charge, to $330+ plus a considerable delivery charge. In a very short period of time, we tripled what we paid for electricity, this understandably produced considerable outrage.
People in Quebec, where everything is still vertically integrated, pay around $0.065/kWh currently, IIRC.
Our rates went back down, and should go down further once the GEA contracts start expiring in a couple of years. Current rates are $0.074/0.102/0.151.
Forget 600, how about starting with 20 and go from there. Plus there's no way to even build hundreds of reactor cores even some what fast.
Here's the deal. The current fleet of approx 200 reactors supplies 1/3 of US total capacity so when people suggest that "nuclear is the answer" I'm providing an idea of what that actually means rather than what they think it means. Maybe the actual number of additional reactors is 300 but they're really big generators.
On an aside I don't know if you're aware but the most recent nuclear project which was just completed went 7 yrs over schedule and $17B over budget (2x the projected cost).
I'll check in one sunny day per month to see how bad it gets. Also, I'd like to check at what day of the year they struggle to achieve " nameplate" production.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
The US currently operates 92 (or 95 depending on your source) nuclear reactors, where did you get 200 from?
https://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactors/index.html
Nuclear was roughly 19%, so we could fudge that and say it's 1/5th the US total generation. This represents 95GW of capacity, which, at 93% CF, would produce ~774TWh.
The US generated 4,243TWh in 2022, of that, hydro produced 6.2%, so ~263TWh. Assuming no wind and solar (which would be silly, the solar can be useful, lol), we'd need 3,980TWh of generation from nuclear, which is 433 Vogtle sized units.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Any day it's overcast usually. The wildfire smoke really tempered the output of our solar here in Ontario.
I was just going off memory. In any case it's a very large number that would have to be built to "Just go nuclear".
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Totally doable though, the existing hundred or so units (some now decommissioned), the majority were built within a 20 or 30 year window. France's Messmer plan, which had the advantage of central planning and a common design, rolled out 56 units over ~20 years. Ontario did the same thing, we built 20 units in 20 years, and that's a single Canadian province.
The big issue would be having enough skilled trades to actually build the facilities, that's something the West is struggling with, and even here in Ontario, ensuring we have enough tradespeople for our new build is difficult with the ongoing refurbishments putting a big strain on the resources of that sector.
This is true of just about everything. Money is power. The old saying, "The first million is the hardest" is really, really true.
I am impressed by people who can post kWh rates. I have no idea what mine are.
Over budget? No. Require completion of contract on terms of contract at contracted amount. Done properly. Take all the time you want, within 1.2 times projected completion time, Any longer and penalties will ensue. Stop allowing them to just print money.
Interesting...every business card sized piece of lant under the nuke would need about 7 square yards of wind to match the annual power output (ignore variablity and schedulability)...so if you wonder where the nukes would go, you answer where the wind would go with...everywhere...
I believe the one mentioned above is the new one in GA. The original contractor - Westinghouse - declared bankruptcy - so no one could force them to do anything - and they had been feeding them money to begin with to try to keep them afloat to finish the project. That was part of - but not the only reason it was so far over budget.
Westinghouse was also working on one in South Carolina - which we ultimately scrapped. Our issues were much bigger - primarily our government voted to let our public Utility be the General contractor - which ultimately bankrupted them. Now we have Dominion. Anyone that tells you the government is not out to screw you apparently does not live in South Carolina.
My limited understanding is that a lot of the issues were all the roadblocks thrown up by anti nuclear power groups and the same government that is pushing the green agenda.
Solar works great in sunny areas during the daylight hours.
Not so well on a hot summer evening when there is no solar output and everyone has the AC blasting and the EV charging.
Why would anyone expect any utility to pay a large rate for solar power during the day, when the grid doesn't need the output while expecting their utility to provide reliable power during the hours of darkness?
Nuclear is the only low carbon option for most of our country.
If the French can generate 72% of their electric power needs using nuclear, then why can't we?
Are the French that much better at engineering and execution than we are?
Not so well on a hot summer evening when there is no solar output and everyone has the AC blasting and the EV charging.
Why would anyone expect any utility to pay a large rate for solar power during the day, when the grid doesn't need the output while expecting their utility to provide reliable power during the hours of darkness?
Nuclear is the only low carbon option for most of our country.
If the French can generate 72% of their electric power needs using nuclear, then why can't we?
Are the French that much better at engineering and execution than we are?
The average French reactor is 37 years old. There working on extending their useable life to 80 years. So they will need to build a lot more again soon. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/ar...fe-of-french-nuclear-reactors_6014297_7.html#
The reason they have many for their size is they lacked the coal and other fossil fuels so they invested heavily in them after WW2. Energy security was important to them since they were invaded twice in a generation.
There having the exact same problem as we are building any more. There latest one is 4X over budget and 2X behind schedule.
https://ieefa.org/articles/european...tor in Normandy,expected to occur until 2024.
I insulated the crap outta our home and close the very expensive Costco thermal curtains. House stays pretty cool in the Los Gatos heat.
Everyone screams about production production production. What about a little prevention? I invested in insulation and live cheaper than most people. And no one called CA energy costs cheap.
Everyone screams about production production production. What about a little prevention? I invested in insulation and live cheaper than most people. And no one called CA energy costs cheap.
But isn't it worth it to not strip mine the entire planet for steel and concrete to have power that works at night.
Plus nuclear isn't the answer. It can only make 50 to 70% of power because nuclear doesn't like to vary it's power output and they don't turn off and turn back on so easy. When they trn off they have to stay off for 24 to 48 hours. So really nuclear is only around half to about 2/3 of the answer.
JHZR2
Staff member
Why would anyone in a cold climate with a “legacy” home heat with electric baseboard?!? To me that’s the bigger issue. I recall my parents going through this in the early 80s when they built their mountain home. They went dual fuel coal/oil hydronic.
I know that’s a little OT to this thread, but your example just surprises me because I can’t see how it would have ever been a consideration other than very limited space heating considerations up there.
Of course we have the analogous fluctuations in heating oil and gas prices these days too.
There's a similar delusion with Coal, that they "have" to run baseload, and dump energy.
Nukes can follow load...37-93% load in the attached link...Coal can be very flexible too (ask me how I know)....
Only reason that you NEED GT like ins and outs on a daily basis is if you have too much non schedulable power in the grid at (say lunchtime), and it has to push schedulable energy out, or there's not enough pumped hydro (or less useful storage) to soak up the excess...
https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/18663/henriksson.pdf
Many homes were built with baseboard / no forced air. Depending on construction, retrofit can be a large capital expense. Yes, likely would pay for itself over time, but someone has to find the money to begin with. Easier said than done for a lot of people, which are usually the same people struggling to pay the electric bill.
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