Replacing coal with nuclear - thermal re-power project

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Much of the rural northeast does not have natural gas service. Heating oil was dominant for decades, but propane continues to gain marketshare. We use a heat pump in the fall and spring, but it can’t even come close to shouldering the load when it is below 0F outside.
How old is the heat pump?
 
5 years old. To be clear, we installed it mainly for AC and planned to get supplemental heat from it in mild weather. It meets our expectations.
Heat Pump technology has come a long way in the last 5 years, I know someone with a 1/2 year old unit in NY who's 2 zone system keeps his house at set temp without aux gas heat down to -10F without much trouble.
 
Have lived half my life overseas since 1991 … Many countries and their people … I was being sarcastic with Snag …
Read your comments - how assuming can one get …
All good. It’s better to chat over this with a beer in our hand. I used to live in Texas but now in the Rockies of SE BC. I miss the gators, red ants and rattle snakes of Texas replaced by cold weather (-4 F today), wolves and grizzly bears. ;)
 
I also love the answer to this problem, batteries to store the "unused" energy for a later time.
Yes that is a great idea that would work, but the solution has multiple problems, namely cost and environmental impact of obtaining materials, creating the batteries, and disposal of batteries.
Mining coal or the material to make the batteries?
 
Heat pump do use less energy than burning NG as is, but it may be more expensive because of electricity cost being volatile and capacity limited. "no shortage of energy" is really a relative term as you have no shortage of natural gas and oil in Texas whereas you may need to liquify them in the middle of an offshore field and ship them to china. What does it mean when we have no shortage of energy when you do not consider the location.

At least in California I think we are generation capacity and grid limited, not energy source limited. Having too much at some time yet not at another is the biggest problem or we won't have duck curve. Comparing EV to modern hybrid really is comparing apple to orange, as both electricity and oil have volatile prices and have different benefits. $5 gas is real as is 60c/kwh here, as is $3 and 21c/kwh, how are you going to compare and say one is good for the next 10 years? In the ideal world Chevy Volt would be the right car for everyone, but of course it isn't cheap or sexy compare to a Tesla.

For simplicity I would think ice based commercial AC being a good way to shift some worst case grid around. It cost money to keep a box of ice with copper coil inside but IMO they should last a long time, eco friendly, and is future proof.
Have worked on office building and small manufacturer with a ice bank Trane system around 2000. Downfall of that type of system is they were using the same unit to make ice and run at a low capacity + ice during the day. Needed to run just to make enough ice 10 hours for the next day cooling needs. Unit had a problem building at nite was short of cooling. Office or factory needed to work longer hours couldn't make enough ice. Ice bank tanks were buried right outside the buildings size 8' dia x 12' long. Both systems were replaced less than 5 years.
 
Have worked on office building and small manufacturer with a ice bank Trane system around 2000. Downfall of that type of system is they were using the same unit to make ice and run at a low capacity + ice during the day. Needed to run just to make enough ice 10 hours for the next day cooling needs. Unit had a problem building at nite was short of cooling. Office or factory needed to work longer hours couldn't make enough ice. Ice bank tanks were buried right outside the buildings size 8' dia x 12' long. Both systems were replaced less than 5 years.
Sounds like they undersize the unit and to be safe, they need to size it so that even without the ice during day time, the AC should be powerful enough to run on its own. The system you guys yank out probably was sized to assume the system just enough to cover daytime cooling with the system running 247 or only at night.

A bigger system with a big ice tank would probably be expensive due to real estate needed for the system, along with the system and installation. ROI would be a problem if electricity off peak isn't that much cheaper than peak.
 
Figured I'd add post to this thread since it's the only one I could find which wasn't locked. The WSJ ran a good article today on the comeback of Nuclear power in the West. Apparently poor welds is one of the biggest challenges with units which have been built and/or are under construction. Existing labor force lost the skillset due to the age gap between new and existing units.

Nuclear Power Is Poised for a Comeback. The Problem Is Building the Reactors.​


'...
South Carolina utilities ordered two reactors for the V.C. Summer plant, while Georgia Power ordered two for the Vogtle plant. To keep costs down and improve quality, Westinghouse and its partner, Shaw Group Inc., decided to employ a new strategy in nuclear construction: forging pieces of the reactor at a factory, then assembling them at the plant site.

The manufacturing would be done at a Shaw factory in Lake Charles, La., amid the region’s booming oil-and-gas industry. Christopher Hartz, who was in charge of quality control at Shaw’s nuclear division, said many of the workers at the plant had no experience in nuclear welding and struggled to meet the industry’s exacting standards.

“The first module pieces they welded looked like pretzels,” Mr. Hartz said.

In 2010, Mr. Hartz led a team that included executives from V.C. Summer and Vogtle to audit the plant. They found that manufacturing quality had regressed and voted to stop work, he said. When Mr. Hartz told a manager at the plant, he said, the manager threw a letter opener at him and nearly struck him. Mr. Hartz resigned months later.

The forged pieces that the plant finally shipped to Vogtle were poorly made, regulators and union officials said...'
 
Figured I'd add post to this thread since it's the only one I could find which wasn't locked. The WSJ ran a good article today on the comeback of Nuclear power in the West. Apparently poor welds is one of the biggest challenges with units which have been built and/or are under construction. Existing labor force lost the skillset due to the age gap between new and existing units.

Nuclear Power Is Poised for a Comeback. The Problem Is Building the Reactors.​


'...
South Carolina utilities ordered two reactors for the V.C. Summer plant, while Georgia Power ordered two for the Vogtle plant. To keep costs down and improve quality, Westinghouse and its partner, Shaw Group Inc., decided to employ a new strategy in nuclear construction: forging pieces of the reactor at a factory, then assembling them at the plant site.

The manufacturing would be done at a Shaw factory in Lake Charles, La., amid the region’s booming oil-and-gas industry. Christopher Hartz, who was in charge of quality control at Shaw’s nuclear division, said many of the workers at the plant had no experience in nuclear welding and struggled to meet the industry’s exacting standards.

“The first module pieces they welded looked like pretzels,” Mr. Hartz said.

In 2010, Mr. Hartz led a team that included executives from V.C. Summer and Vogtle to audit the plant. They found that manufacturing quality had regressed and voted to stop work, he said. When Mr. Hartz told a manager at the plant, he said, the manager threw a letter opener at him and nearly struck him. Mr. Hartz resigned months later.

The forged pieces that the plant finally shipped to Vogtle were poorly made, regulators and union officials said...'
Yup, the West has lost its way on large infrastructure, this is just a symptom of underlying issues that are endemic in Western industry. We've outsourced so much, and over-regulated to the point of killing projects that by the time we actually got around to actually trying to build something, nobody knows how.
 
This might be controversial but, welding nuclear reactor parts in LA, seems like as good an idea as building planes in South Carolina. See how well that's working out for Boeing. QC issues galore (and workers just generally not giving a **** "good enough")... Maybe we should have China start building the reactor parts, clearly they are better at it than we are.
I suspect some of the military contractors still have the skill in the US, I'm not keen on the idea of giving up on being able to do it domestically and relying on a foreign power, let alone China.
 
LA and E Texas are home for some of the largest and most numerous refineries and chem plants. Both of which operate at high heat/high pressure environments.
And a ton of that steel is made, rolled and manufactured into finished pipe in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio.

I suspect some of the military contractors still have the skill in the US, I'm not keen on the idea of giving up on being able to do it domestically and relying on a foreign power, let alone China.
The China part was a sarcastic dig at those that think that just because something is made in the US means it must be quality, and that all workers in US plants have pride in their work. Clearly sounds like the workers at this particular factory did not.
 
something mentioned here before by myself and others - electricity certainly struggles to heat like gas does
gas is easy to get where I live - yet cheap developers build all electric homes … no way I’d buy one
You might not have a choice e one day...some places, they are not allowing gas to be used in new residential developments...
 
And a ton of that steel is made, rolled and manufactured into finished pipe in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio.


The China part was a sarcastic dig at those that think that just because something is made in the US means it must be quality, and that all workers in US plants have pride in their work. Clearly sounds like the workers at this particular factory did not.
Oh I'm sure but obviously when these gulf coast facilities which are predominantly comprised of piping are built or repaired they don't always rely on labor from the Midwest. I guess my point is that the decision to use pipefitters from Louisiana isn't such a stretch since it has the largest concentration of refineries and chemical plants in the US. Unfortunately it appears that the La facility didn't initially have the skillset.


BTW the WSJ article also mentions that there are similar problems in France and Finland with their new reactors which are years behind schedule and have significant cost overruns.
 
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A little off topic, but my weather app has “fake ads” and this one popped up, I thought you’d appreciate it. View attachment 61007
Huh, pardon me if I am commenting on a point that I am missing, truly only had my first sips of a HUGE coffee.
What is the fake ad? If its about the birds. a simple search in your favorite search engine will confirm it true.
However you never see photos in the media of all the dead birds that windmill workers see every day.
The number is correct, roughly 50,000 migrating birds a year are sliced and diced by the blades, if that was the oil industry, wow, it would be front page!
WIth that said, I read, whether true or not they have been designing the new blades to be more bird friendly, whether that is PR I dont know.

and again, excuse me if I am commenting on the wrong point in your post! *LOL*
(and I hate to be off topic but had to respond and rather keep it to nuclear)
 
Oh I'm sure but obviously when these gulf coast facilities which are predominantly comprised of piping are built or repaired they don't always rely on labor from the Midwest. I guess my point is that the decision to use pipefitters from Louisiana isn't such a stretch since it has the largest concentration of refineries and chemical plants in the US. Unfortunately it appears that the La facility didn't initially have the skillset.


BTW the WSJ article also mentions that there are similar problems in France and Finland with their new reactors which are years behind schedule and have significant cost overruns.
Oh no doubt, and this is why SMRs will be the way forward, since they can be largely built in a factory by a trained workforce dedicated to it, and robots. The last place I worked was similar to Nuclear plants in that they had very exacting standards for QC of construction (totally different industry however) and I more than once heard the contractors complaining about 'how strict the quality standards were. In my opinion, this just tells me that a lot of construction workers (not all) are used to "meh, it's good enough" and when you tell them that No, in fact it's NOT good enough, do it properly" they get angry that they can't be lazy and half *** their job. Then apply that to an entire facility where things must be built precisely to spec, and you get a recipe for situations like this.
 
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