Not a lot of wind in the southeast. Tons in Texas and the Midwest though. Where is the most wind generation? Texas and and the Midwest.
Anyway back to the topic that started the thread. I saw this article a while back but didn’t seem relevant to post until now. Someone wondered what it would cost to replicate the Vogtle 3&4 plants with solar PV plus storage. It is a little hand-wavy but I think illustrates the scale.
You’d need not only to replicate the 2.4 GW of power, you’d have to factor in charging losses, plus a safety factor, plus extra capacity needed for the dark of winter, so the author concluded a solar PV plus battery system would have to be 10.55 GWdc. The author concludes that would cost $16 billion with no subsidies at today’s prices.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) authorized Southern Nuclear Operating Co. to begin fuel loading and operation at Vogtle Unit 3 in Georgia.
The unit is the first reactor to reach this stage under the NRC’s combined license process. The decision moves the 1,117 MW AP1000 generating unit out of NRC construction monitoring and into the regulatory body’s operating reactor oversight process.
From the original post in this thread, the recent earnings call presentation package had a timeline of events for Vogtle 3 (page 5).
That timeline showed four remaining ITAAC items (Inspections, Tests, Analyses and Acceptance Criteria). Those last items have now been worked off, so the NRC issued the 103(g) letter, which approves the operators to start loading fuel. In the timeline, the 103(g) acceptance was forecast for September. Getting it in early August means the timeline is still on schedule, and maybe moved up a few weeks. We shall see, but this is good news.
The Southeast is notable for its large area of low wind speeds. Then remember that available power goes with the cube of the wind speed, so even a small decrease in the speed results in large decrease in the power. — So what? There is slow wind in the south east. So what? I guess we should call off deflationary energy.
Slow wind makes the electricity produced more expensive. The fixed costs are fixed and in Georgia you would find yourself generating only 1/8 the power than if it were sited in central Illinois or Iowa.
Slow wind makes the electricity produced more expensive. The fixed costs are fixed and in Georgia you would find yourself generating only 1/8 the power than if it were sited in central Illinois or Iowa.
DB2
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But you are forgetting offshore wind!
April 14, 2021
Georgia could provide 112% of 2019 electricity usage with offshore wind alone. “We have an enormous renewable resource blowing just off our coastline that can help close the gap between us and a 100 percent renewable energy future,” said Jennette Gayer, director with Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center.
The Atlantic coast has the largest offshore wind potential of any region of the country. With 29,369 miles of coastline and a shallow continental shelf that allows for fixed turbines far from shore, there is a tremendous amount of area along the eastern U.S. that could produce energy.
Slow wind makes the electricity produced more expensive. The fixed costs are fixed and in Georgia you would find yourself generating only 1/8 the power than if it were sited in central Illinois or Iowa. — But you are forgetting offshore wind!
The LCOE (Levelized cost of energy) for offshore wind is twice as expensive as onshore wind. https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/offshore_wind
The winds off the Georgia coast are about the same average speed as central Illinois, making a wind project off Georgia twice as expensive.
The winds off the Georgia coast are about the same average speed as central Illinois, making a wind project off Georgia twice as expensive.
DB2,
I claim no expertise in this. No measurements etc.
What I claim is to see the imperative. Not the climate imperative, the economic imperative.
Is twice the cost prohibitive? Will the costs come down over time till they are not prohibitive?
Is the comparison to Illinois useful in the Georgia market? Yes we want more manufacturing power out of GA. For residential in GA offshore wind might be a good mix. Do you see that mix differently?
The LCOE (Levelized cost of energy) for offshore wind is twice as expensive as onshore wind. https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/offshore_wind
The winds off the Georgia coast are about the same average speed as central Illinois, making a wind project off Georgia twice as expensive.
DB2
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It sure is less expensive than Vogtle 3&4. Georgia PSC will love it. Georgia Power has already said it would add wind energy to support their drive to net zero carbon.
What I claim is to see the imperative. Not the climate imperative, the economic imperative.
That I don’t see. Could you explain?
Is twice the cost prohibitive?
It would certainly increase the cost of electricity to all consumers in the state. You might want to take that position, but I’m sure you would find many who disagree.
I believe you are asking honest questions and are looking for honest answers. The following is a little long, but the issues involved are not as simple as linking to a biased wikipedia article.
I appreciate the posts.
I agree that using the same economic life over technologies with very different lifespans seems to make little sense. And it wouldn’t be very difficult to expand the cost calculation for all technologies to the technology with the longest economic life.
However, if we look at costs calculated by EIA or Lazard (links below), even if we cut nuclear costs by 50% to account for a longer lifespan, I don’t think the average person would conclude that nuclear is compellingly more economical than solar. And then beyond explicit costs, there are the environmental risks of nuclear, including waste storage (https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pile…).
That’s my thought anyway, but perhaps I am missing something.
Regardless of what I think, as Vogtle 3 and 4 finally come online, we can see how the economics unfold.
I agree that using the same economic life over technologies with very different lifespans seems to make little sense. And it wouldn’t be very difficult to expand the cost calculation for all technologies to the technology with the longest economic life.
waterfell picks this one issue to debunk all LCOE estimate only because EIA did it in one table.
LCOE is a tool to organize all the known costs to design/build/operate the plant divided by the realistic power generation during life of the plant.
Lazard used different life spans and construction times based on experience on utility scale:
20 years life for wind turbines and construction time of 12 months
30 years life for solar PV and construction time of 9 months
40 years life for nuclear and 69 month construction (Vogtle 3&4 is over 140 months)
20 years life for combined cycle nat gas and 24 month construction