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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why are your only considerations concentrated solar farms and wind farms? What about hydro power, geothermal, and scattered solar installations?

Why do your numbers assume we would be building everything at once nationwide?

Why don't you include the costs of building and running the equivalent coal plants?

It seems your comment boils down to "if we limit ourselves to implementing the most expensive options for renewables and do it on an accelerated timeframe, it's going to cost more than if we didn't do anything." Not a very helpful analysis.

[–] SpookySnek@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you take a look at the comment that I was replying to, you will have your answer for the first question.

Because it was the scenario I chose. You are more than welcome to submit your own analysis with your own scenario and eventual limitations etc.

I didn't include coal plants because we weren't talking about coal plants. You are more than welcome to submit your own rundown including coal plants.

Solar is not one of the "most expensive" forms of renewable.

If you didn't find the analysis helpful, you are once again, more than welcome to submit your own. The analysis is very helpful in the context of the comment I replied too.

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If you take a look at the comment that I was replying to, you will have your answer for the first question

I didn't include coal plants because we weren't talking about coal plants.

So I should just ignore the first paragraph of your comment, where you introduce your own context for the rest of the comment and mention replacing coal, oil, and nuclear plants?

Let's play around with the thought of powering all of America with renewables. America’s coal, gas, petroleum and nuclear plants generate a combined baseload power of 405 GWavg, or “gigawatts average.” (Remember, a gigawatt is a thousand megawatts.) Let’s replace all of them with a 50 / 50 mix of onshore wind and CSP (solar)

The person you replied to suggested a solar panel array. You stated you wanted to "play around with the thought of powering all of America with renewables" but then excluded all forms of renewables from your analysis except for two very specific options.

Solar is not one of the "most expensive" forms of renewable.

Who said it was? I said you chose the most expensive way of implementing it with concentrated solar power, a giant array of mirrors that focus light into a central tower. What about regular solar panel installations that don't require a gigantic central facility hundreds of miles from population centers?

Your analysis reads like pure misinformation intent on leading people to believe our only two choices are to stick with coal, oil, and nuclear or pay multiples of our nation's GDP and use several years worth of resources like steel in order to go the "renewable" route.

It'd be like me "playing around with the thought of powering all of America with renewables" and suggesting our only course of action with renewables is putting a giant dome over Hawaii to harness geothermal power from the active volcanoes and then running multiple 10ft thick cables 2,500 miles across the Pacific in order to feed the mainland at a cost of 200 trillion dollars and a 100 year supply of copper. It's an absurd and misleading proposal.

[–] SpookySnek@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Now I am actually honestly not sure if you are actually being serious or if you are trying to troll.

"It’d be like me “playing around with the thought of powering all of America with renewables” and suggesting our only course of action with renewables is putting a giant dome over Hawaii to harness geothermal power from the active volcanoes and then running multiple 10ft thick cables 2,500 miles across the Pacific in order to feed the mainland at a cost of 200 trillion dollars and a 100 year supply of copper. It’s an absurd and misleading proposal."

Have you been smoking crack perhaps?

Yes I could have clarified that I was discussing solar but I thought the context of the conversation was enough. But sure, "renewables" was bad formulation on my part.

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It would probably be unironically cheaper to power Hawaii by running an underwater DC high voltage cable from California to the island, then what they are currently doing.

I mean, if Japan can connect all of their islands with DCHV, and the UK can run a DCHV line from Morocco under the Atlantic, Hawaii wouldn’t be that expensive. There are thousands of miles of underwater DCHV lines around the world. We have one that runs from Washington to Southern California, which is ~1,000 miles.