Tag Archives: baseload

Nuclear reactor percent power from NRC data

Do nuclear reactors really deliver dependable baseload capacity?
I hear industry execs say 99.99% uptime.
The real average from seven years of NRC data for 104 reactors is 88.13%.


Vogtle 1
According to Power Reactor Status Reports
posted online by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
here are the actual percent power percentages over time
for the 104 listed nuclear power reactors.
The timeframe is 31 March 2006 through today, 21 May 2013.
(The NRC data appears to go back to 1999, but seven years
is a good sample to start with.)
The computation for each reactor is the sum of the uptime
percentages for each day divided by the number of days.
The total uptime is the sum of the reactor uptimes divided
by the number of reactors.
Here’s the list, sorted two ways:

Continue reading →

Your jaw will drop with astonishment at how fast solar power will beat every other energy source –a stock trader



A stock trader looked for causes of solar stock price rises
and considered the effects of solar PV price drops,
and realized solar power is going to
beat every other energy source so fast that it
“will make your jaw drop with astonishment.”

Michael Sankowski wrote for Business Insider 3 May 2013,

Solar Is Going To Change The World Much Faster Than Anyone Expects,

6% year is a fantastic rate of decreases, but 20% is simply
astonishing. 20% is an impressive number, but putting it into
context will make your jaw drop with astonishment.

My calculations show that if solar maintains 5 more years at current
23% rates per year price drops, solar power will be cheaper than
using existing coal plants. That’s right — it will be cheaper
to build new solar plants than to use existing coal plants. It
sounds absolutely crazy.

First he discovers the effects of no fuel for solar in Continue reading →

Solar could burn utility business model


Exhibit 2
Utilities say that like it’s a bad thing.
The same utilities that

left millions without power in the U.S.

repeatedly last

year, and that

gouge ratepayers for 10% or more profits.
Moore’s Law continues

to drive solar costs down and installations up,
with increasingly more each like compound interest.
Utilties need to adapt or get out of the way.

Last November Moody’s reported that solar and wind were eroding
credit for coal and gas power plants, and were already having

‘a profound negative impact’ on the competitiveness of thermal generation companies.
That was in Europe.
David Roberts wrote for Grist yesterday,

Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities,

The thing to remember is that it is in a utility’s financial
interest to generate (or buy) and deliver as much power as possible.
The higher the demand, the higher the investments, the higher the
utility shareholder profits. In short, all things being equal,
utilities want to sell more power. (All things are occasionally not
equal, but we’ll leave those complications aside for now.)

And they want to produce that power

from big baseload power stations
for their economy of scale while the monopoly power utilities
get guaranteed profits, not to mention huge ratepayer and loan-guaranteed

boondoggles like the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
(Electric Member Cooperatives are somewhat different.)

Now, into this cozy business model enters cheap distributed solar
PV, which eats away at it like acid.

Continue reading →

Hatch 1 nuclear reactor down to 40% power Sunday: why?

Why is Plant Hatch Unit 1 running at well below capacity?


Saturday 19 Jan 2013 that nuclear plant was

at 100%, according to the NRC,
yet Sunday it was down to 45%, then 40% Monday and 64% today.
What's going on at Hatch 1?
And what happened to nuclear supposedly being 24/7?

There's no

event report
about this from the NRC;
the last item the NRC has on Hatch 1 seems to be
from 2003.
Southern Company provides

no information on this event.
Another source (Platts, 4 January 2013)
says Hatch 2 (and Vogtle 2) are to refuel in the first half of this year,
among

Fifty-six US nuclear units to shut for refueling in 2013.
But Hatch 1 is not on that list,
and a similar Hatch 1 brownout happened 5 and 6 January:

Continue reading →

San Onofre nuke might restart: why not solar and wind instead?

Southern California Edison bet on big baseload nuclear, and
has been out two units for eight months and counting.
Big baseload turns quickly from 24/7 to 0/7.
Tentative plans are forming for a restart, which will take
many more months, if ever.
Wouldn’t distributed solar and wind be quicker and smarter?
In Georgia, as well as California?

Michael R. Blood wrote for AP yesterday,

Troubled Calif. nuke plant aims to restart reactor,

The company announced plans to repair and restart one of two damaged


reactors, Unit 2, at reduced power to hopefully halt vibration that
has caused excessive wear to scores of tubes that carry radioactive
water. The outlook for its heavily damaged sister, Unit 3, appears
grim and no decision on its future is expected until at least next
summer.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to take months to
review the plan, and there is no timetable to restart the plant.

There are a few signs that the eventual outcome is dawning on some utility people.

Plans are already taking shape that envision lower output from San
Onofre at least into 2013.

“Whenever you lose generation, it has implications,” said San Diego
Gas & Electric spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp.

Well, yeah, and losing big blocks of power is one of the implications
of depending on a few big baseload plants in the first place.
Distributed

solar
and

wind wouldn’t have this problem.

-jsq

Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years

Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear,
coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years.
What’s he scared of?

Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday,

Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,


Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers in Georgia Trend, November 2011
“Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,”
Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be
2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive
that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an
intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of
the time.”

One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is
air conditioning, which is why

Roger Duncan of Austin Energy in 2003

Austin Energy flipped in one year
from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop
rebate program in the country.
Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost
about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.
And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,
which
left millions without power in the U.S. in June
and

hundreds of millions without power in India in July.

Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted;
as recently as

November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,

Continue reading →

Nuclear plant shut for two weeks in Connecticut due to heat

Ever heard of solar panels or windmills shutting down due to heat?
Me, neither.
Nuclear plants, yes, such as Millstone unit 2 in Connecticut,
closed for two weeks.

AP wrote today,

Conn. nuclear plant unit reopens with cooler water

Connecticut's nuclear power plant has returned to full service


nearly two weeks after one of its two units was forced to shut down
because seawater used to cool it down was too warm.


Millstone Power Station spokesman Ken Holt said Monday that Unit 2
returned to 100 percent power Saturday. It shuttered Aug. 12 after
record heat in July contributed to overheated water from Long Island
Sound.

Water is used to cool key components of the plant and is discharged
back into the sound. The water's temperature was averaging 1.7
degrees above the 75-degree limit.

The temperature has since dropped to 72 degrees, Holt said.

"The water temperature cooled sufficiently to support operations and
that, combined with the weather forecast, has given us the
confidence to restart," he said.

Wait, wasn't the whole point of big distributed baseload power plants
supposed to be reliable dependable power?

Millstone provides half of all power in Connecticut and 12 percent
in New England.

Some scientists believe the partial Millstone shutdown was the first
involving a nuclear plant pulling water from an open body of water.
A few nuclear plants that draw water from inland sources have
powered down because of excessively warm water.

Time to think again!
Distributed solar and wind power doesn't have this problem,
and a smart grid can get their power where it's needed.

-jsq

57% of Colorado electricity from wind on 15 April 2012

Steve Hargreaves wrote for CNN Money 6 August 2012, Wind power hits 57% mark in Colorado

During the early morning hours of April 15, with a steady breeze blowing down Colorado's Front Range, the state's biggest utility set a U.S. record — nearly 57% of the electricity being generated was coming from wind power.

As dawn came and the 1.4 million customers in Xcel Energy's service district began turning on the lights, toasters and other appliances, the utility's coal and natural gas-fired power plants ramped up production and brought wind's contribution back closer to its 2012 average of 17%.

The article also included the usual power company quibble:

"A lot of utilities don't want to contract large amounts of wind because it's volatile," said Amy Grace, a wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "Anything over 25%, and utilities get nervous."

They neglected to mention that the traditional rigid grid connecting big baseload power plants failed for millions of Americans in June and failed for 600 million Indians in July. More renewable energy distributed through a smart grid would help prevent that.

In any case, 17% is a significant percentage to start with.

-jsq

India baseload power grid failure

Last month the U.S. grid failed due to heat wave demand, this month, it’s India’s grid. There are several common features: coal, baseload, outdated grid, and distributed renewable energy through a smart grid as the solution.

SFGate quoting NY Times, yesterday, India grid failure causes power blackout,

The Ministry of Power was investigating the cause, but officials suggested that part of the problem was probably excessive demand during the torrid summer.

Same as in the U.S. grid failure. Except India did it bigger, according to the Economic Times of India today,

The blackout which has left 600 million people without electricity in one of the world’s most widespread power failures.

Yet officials are in denial, according to the SFGate story:

“This is a one-off situation,” said Ajai Nirula, the chief operating officer of North Delhi Power Limited, which distributes power to nearly 1.2 million people in the region. “Everyone was surprised.”

Well, they shouldn’t be, if they were watching what happened in the U.S. And India gets most of its electricity from coal, whose CO2 emissions contribute to climate change, producing ever-hotter summers. Just like in the U.S.

The story includes a clue to the solution:

Continue reading →

Heat shuts baseload nuclear plants

Baseload nuclear plants can’t take the heat! Meanwhile, zero stories of solar plants shutting down due to heat. Quite the opposite: more sun, more solar power!

Scott DiSavino wrote for Reuters 18 July 2012, Four U.S. power reactors shut & NYC sweats during heat wave,

Several nuclear plants on the U.S. East Coast shut down by early Wednesday and New York’s Consolidated Edison power company reduced the voltage in parts of Manhattan as the obsessive heat wave stressed the region’s power system.

Despite the shutdown of four giant nuclear reactors in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina, the power systems delivered the juice needed by the regions’ homes and businesses to keep air conditioners humming on the projected last day of a brutal heat wave.

Then there’s this excuse:

Although the heat makes it more difficult to use the warmer river water to cool power plants and can stress power lines due to high usage, the reactors did not necessarily shut due to the heat.

They shut down due to faulty sensors, leaks, or unknown causes, and that’s somehow better?

Meanwhile, solar just keeps generating. I’ve never heard of a wind plant shutting down due to heat, either.

Remind me again, why is Georgia Power’s and Southern Company’s bet-the-farm risk on new nukes at Plant Vogtle a good idea? Wasn’t it supposed to be about dependable power?

-jsq

PS: Owed to Mandy Hancock.