Deep Sea Turbine Delivers Endless Energy

This could be just a start as off the Eastern US coast lies the Gulf Stream which could power these units: Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.

For more than a decade, Japanese heavy machinery maker IHI Corp. has been developing a subsea turbine that harnesses the energy in deep ocean currents and converts it into a steady and reliable source of electricity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-05-30/japan-s-d…

Gee, steady reliable power 24/7 for 365 days a year and not petro or nuclear dependent.

OTFoolish

1 Like

This is an interesting experiment, but will face a lot of hurdles to becoming a commercial success. The prototype they’ve been testing only put out 100kw, while the initial commercial machine is going to be 2 MW … will need thousands of those to make much impact.

1 Like

Gee, steady reliable power 24/7 for 365 days a year and not petro or nuclear dependent.

Does the article mention costs?

DB2

Reminds one of wind turbines. You wonder if sea currents are more reliable or have intermittancy. Tide flow dependent?

The Gulf Stream for example could have huge potential. Probably many small units wired together. But who knows. A Titanic sized facility on the ocean bottom could be possible. Journey to the bottom of the sea all over again.

1 Like

As it was still in the testing phase they haven’t mentioned what the cost will be once it is scaled up. I doubt it will as expensive as nuclear to build or oil/gas to run.

OTFoolish

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-05-30/japan-s-d…

Gee, steady reliable power 24/7 for 365 days a year and not petro or nuclear dependent.
OTFoolish

The article says the capacity factor for these ocean turbines is between 50 and 70%. It doesn’t look like it is the 24/7 power that you would prefer. Also, marine ocean conditions are highly corrosive to many materials, particularly metals. The long term durability and reliability of these systems is a major question mark.

Nuclear power in the US has a capacity factor of 92%.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph…

  • Pete

Nuclear power in the US has a capacity factor of 92%.

And an expense factor of 200 to 300%. Has there ever been a Nuclear plant in the US that was built on time and on budget?

Plus the big issue of NUCLEAR WASTE. They have been promising a solution to the waste issue for 50+ years and nothing has been done to solve it. Right now the US is dotted with giant nuclear swimming pools for spent fuel rods that have no place to go.

OTFoolish

1 Like

Has there ever been a Nuclear plant in the US that was built on time and on budget?

The Surry plants in Virginia were built in 4 or 5 years. This is quite reasonable. Wikipedia says cost was under $2 billion (2007 dollars). Also quite reasonable.
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surry_Nuclear_Power_Plant

The Duane Arnold plant had about the same construction time and cost.
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Arnold_Energy_Center

Today, China builds large nuclear power plants on time, at what appears to be a reasonable cost. They keep ordering more new plants, so the costs can’t be too high.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-approves-c…

It should also be emphasized that construction cost is only part of the total cost associated with power plants. Also important are the fuel and operating costs, which are low for nuclear. Also, today’s nuclear plants are designed to last at least 60 years, so the construction cost can be amortized over a long time. Wind turbines and solar panels might last 20 or 25 years, and then will need to be replaced.


Plus the big issue of NUCLEAR WASTE. They have been promising a solution to the waste issue for 50+ years and nothing has been done to solve it.

The POLITICIANS of a certain party will not allow a solution. The Yucca Mountain project was well under way, but certain POLITICIANS decided to make it a political issue, so they killed it for no technical or scientific reason.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/10…

From the NY Times…
The Obama administration’s rushed efforts to shut down Yucca Mountain were strictly political and could set back the opening of a nuclear waste repository by more than 20 years, according to a new report by a federal watchdog.

Also…
The Obama administration did not provide a technical or scientific basis for shutting down the site and failed to plan or identify risks associated with its hasty closure, which could hinder the Energy Department if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or lawsuits prompt the agency to revive the project, the report said.


Right now the US is dotted with giant nuclear swimming pools for spent fuel rods that have no place to go.

Spent nuclear fuel only spends a few years in those “swimming pools”. It is usually then transferred into dry storage casks, which will last a long time.

Pictures at the following links…

https://www.nucleartourist.com/images/7_casks.jpg

https://twitter.com/ISPnuclear/status/1532373228492148747?cx…

  • Pete
3 Likes

The POLITICIANS of a certain party will not allow a solution. The Yucca Mountain project was well under way, but certain POLITICIANS decided to make it a political issue, so they killed it for no technical or scientific reason.

=======================================================

Yucca Mountain also had the following technical problems:

GEOLOGY and LOCATION: There are many unresolved scientific issues relative to the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site. These issues include hydrology, inadequacy of the proposed waste package, repository design and volcanism. The Yucca site is seismically and volcanically active, porous and incapable of geologically containing the waste. Yucca’s aquifer drains to the Amargosa Valley, one of Nevada’s most productive agricultural regions, is adjacent to a busy and growing Nellis Air Force Base, and is only 90 miles from our largest metropolitan area, Las Vegas.

https://ag.nv.gov/Hot_Topics/Issue/Yucca/#:~:text=These%20is….

Read the whole article for more technical problems.

Jaak

1 Like

The Surry reactors in Virginia and Duane Arnold reactor in Iowa were (1) small reactors and (2) built in the 1968-1975 years when regulations were less stringent. These two factors allowed the shorter construction times to be achieved.

Regarding costs your post only lists construction costs. The construction cost numbers should be increased by 20% to account for the engineering and licensing costs.

Jaak

1 Like

https://ag.nv.gov/Hot_Topics/Issue/Yucca/#:~:text=These%20is…
Yucca’s aquifer drains to the Amargosa Valley, one of Nevada’s most productive agricultural regions, is adjacent to a busy and growing Nellis Air Force Base, and is only 90 miles from our largest metropolitan area, Las Vegas.

They are really stretching the facts there to try to make a point. Yucca Mountain, and the Amargosa Valley they mention, are about 25 miles from Death Valley National Park. Death Valley gets its name for a reason. It is a very inhospitable place, with very hot summers and almost no rain. Same for Yucca Mountain. It is a big stretch to try to call the Amargosa Valley some kind of agricultural paradise.

Yucca Mountain is on the western edge of the Nevada Test Site. This is where the government tested its nuclear weapons from the early 1950s through about 1990. Around 1000 nuclear weapons tests were conducted there, both above ground and below.

If the Amargosa Valley farmers are really concerned about radioactivity, they might worry about the uncontained isotopes in the ground left over from those 1000 nuclear detonations. As it is, I’m sure those farmers’ crops are fine. (Whatever it is they grow in that desolate wasteland.). The spent nuclear fuel inside Yucca Mountain would be contained inside engineered containers, and would pose no threat.

Here is what the Federation of American Scientists say…

https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818052.pdf

Two key reasons for studying Yucca Mountain as a burial site for nuclear waste are its dry climate and deep water table. The first minimizes water that could seep through the repository, corroding waste canisters and carrying off radionuclides. The mountain averages only 15 centimeters of rain a year. Of this, about 95 percent evaporates quickly, and most of the rest is taken up by plants and lost via transpiration. Only 1 or 2 percent actually soaks into the ground and percolates downward.

The mountain’s low water table enables building a repository that is deep underground (300 meters) yet still in the unsaturated zone, well above the water table (another 240 to 300 meters lower). For waste radionuclides to pose a danger to the public, they will have to reach the water table and, through it, infiltrate the wells supplying water to Amargosa Valley. Several hundred meters of unsaturated rock beneath the repository pose a formidable barrier to this pathway. **In addition, groundwater in the region is trapped in a closed desert basin and does not flow into any rivers that reach the ocean.**

When the politicians clean up the residual radioactivity from those one thousand nuclear weapons tests, which were already conducted by the US government, then they might have an argument. Yucca Mountain is a good place to store spent nuclear fuel. There were some things about the design I would have done differently, but ultimately I think it would have worked.

  • Pete
2 Likes

They are really stretching the facts there to try to make a point. Yucca Mountain, and the Armargosa Valley they mention, are about 25 miles from Death Valley National Park. Death Valley gets its name for a reason. It is a very inhospitable place, with very hot summers and almost no rain. Same for Yucca Mountain. It is a big stretch to try to call the Amargosa Valley some kind of agricultural paradise.

================================================================

You sure do not know your own facts. Death Valley is on the west side of the 8,000 foot high Amargosa Mountain Range, and the Amargosa Valley is on the east side of the Amargosa Mountain Range. Death Valley is below sea level, while Amargosa Valley is about 2,600 foot elevation. And the Yucca Mountain site is east of Amargosa Valley. Yucca Mountain is at an elevation of over 6,000 feet.

Amargosa Valley has agriculture and several small towns.

Here is one of the many DOE and USGS evaluations of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1184/pdf/c1184.pdf

The USGS clearly calls out the seepage of water into the repository as an issue.

In Appendix A1:

In particular, paleoseismic data show that the 140,000- year seismic-moment-release rate for the faults in and around Yucca Mountain (Whitney, 1996) corresponds to an average of one M=6.4 earthquake per 10,000 years.

Jaak