China starts up world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor
China starts up world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor
China has started commercial operations at a new generation nuclear reactor that is the first of its kind in the world, state media said on Wednesday.
Notify me if they can keep it running economically and without hidden costs.
Have others been uneconomical?
It was usually old-style (insecure) and expensive, covered with hidden funding, or new tech (somewhat secure) and even more expensive.
Depends. Right now it isnt really that impressive. Bit questionable to build new nuclear power imho.
Just given that other power sources are so much cheaper.
Then there is also the controversy of explicit and implicit subsidies. For instance here: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_summary.pdf
a report that shows historically the subsidies were enormous. Right now it seems a bit tricky to estimate - but I haven't read the report in detail.
Edit: sorry wanted to answer @qooqie
Cheaper because it’s being subsidised and supported by gas peaker plants. If renewables had to deliver guaranteed capacity (and not just “yeah, I might deliver some power and some point and when I do, you better be able to receive it”) the real price would show. As it happens, grid operators can accept it because we’ve still got a grid full of steerable generation (mainly gas and nuclear) that they can turn off. Once it’s renewables all the way down, what are we going to do on the many periods where we don’t have wind for days? Storage?! Puhlese, the scale of the requirement is a magnitude higher than we could ever hope to store.
In the end, renewables will be shitloads cheaper if we maintain some steerable demand. I’d rather that be nuclear.
It’s best if we don’t think like a fanboy - but instead have a realistic debate about the price of integration nuclear at high penetration. The total mix price will be a lot cheaper if we maintain 20% steerable.
The science is pretty clear on this.
Off shore wind hehe
Nuclear was never "really" that cheap.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BEIJING, Dec 6 (Reuters) - (This Dec. 6 story has been corrected to change the timing and reason for NuScale's plant termination in paragraph 5)
China has started commercial operations at a new generation nuclear reactor that is the first of its kind in the world, state media said on Wednesday.
Compared with previous reactors, the fourth generation Shidaowan plant in China's northern Shandong province is designed to use fuel more efficiently and improve its economics, safety and environmental footprint as China turns to nuclear power to try to meet carbon emissions goals.
Xinhua news agency also said the 200 megawatt (MW) high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor (HTGCR) plant developed jointly by state-run utility Huaneng, Tsinghua University and China National Nuclear Corporation, uses a modular design.
Proponents say they can operate in remote locations and power traditionally hard-to-abate heavy industry sectors, but critics say they are too expensive.
China has also not signed a pledge by 20 countries at the COP28 climate conference taking place in Dubai to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050.
The original article contains 266 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 35%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
What's "4th generation"? Is it a whole new process or did they just make the previous stuff more efficient?