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  #1  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2022, 7:42 AM
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Vancouver Power Grid Thread

Alright, now we can all argue in this one instead.

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Originally Posted by MIPS View Post
[mumbles something about nuclear energy on the coast/Fraser/Columbia]
[sound of screeching hippies and protest encampments intensifies]


Don't let the anti-nuclear crowd force BC and civilization as a whole into alternate green energy projects which cannot handle even half of the peak demand that Nuclear can handle at any given time. Aside from Chalk River experimental reactor incidents, Canada has a nearly bulletproof atomic energy and waste storage portfolio. Just because a bunch of hippies and their brainwashed Gen X's and Millennial children still cling to incidents more than 50 years old is not a reason we should continue to just ignore its viability.
You kinda answered your own rant: if something that's literally renewable had to wade through almost twenty years of protests and challenges, then something that isn't... is pretty much dead in the water. It's going to be a hard enough fight to stop the hippies from wasting time and money to cover the whole province in solar panels (because chasing the sun's table scraps is so much more efficient than making your own sun, but whatever).

Doesn't help that all our in-house CANDU expertise is retiring, and now we have to buy SMRs from the Americans instead.
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  #2  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2022, 3:39 PM
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Are hippies really blocking nuclear power? I think a lack of education about the relative safety of nuclear generation is wide-spread, even among smart, rational individuals who can typically weigh costs and benefits in their heads.

The other big thing blocking nuclear power aside from concerns about reactor meltdowns is NIMBYs (what else is new). Storing nuclear waste has always been a challenging task, and states in the US that are practically designed for it (New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah) have vehemently opposed any large-scale containment sites.
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  #3  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2022, 4:38 PM
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Nuclear mega-projects have been bungled in recent years, see South Carolina for an example. Billions for literally nothing.

Given Site C's status, are we really confident any place in Canada could pull of a mega Nuclear project?

SMRs maybe. I think Alberta is pushing these.
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Old Posted Feb 14, 2022, 5:46 PM
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If you really want to understand Nucular Power from an engineering professor, I highly reccomend watching the videos on Nuclear Power made by Professor David Ruzic (from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) a.k.a. Illinois EnergyProf.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...zLjW8-PN1HkNtL
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  #5  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 2:54 AM
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SMRs maybe. I think Alberta is pushing these.
Alberta and the rest of the Prairies, Saskatchewan, Ontario and NB, supported by the feds IIRC. I don't think anybody's considering more giant reactors.

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Originally Posted by FarmerHaight View Post
Are hippies really blocking nuclear power? I think a lack of education about the relative safety of nuclear generation is wide-spread, even among smart, rational individuals who can typically weigh costs and benefits in their heads.

The other big thing blocking nuclear power aside from concerns about reactor meltdowns is NIMBYs (what else is new). Storing nuclear waste has always been a challenging task, and states in the US that are practically designed for it (New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah) have vehemently opposed any large-scale containment sites.
It's not academia doing most of the lobbying, though - it's the Green Party, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, First Nations groups, and all the usual suspects.
Coincidentally, they were also against Site C. So no nuclear, no hydro, zero emissions and 100% electrification... guess the country's supposed to run on good intentions?

France has managed to recycle 96% of its used fuel into different fuels for other reactors. No doubt the other 4% is going to be a problem, but it's less of one than the Simpsons would have us believe; even lesser if thorium or fusion become a thing.

Last edited by Migrant_Coconut; Feb 15, 2022 at 3:50 AM.
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  #6  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 3:54 AM
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It's one of the things I've always stood on is that to date the worst atomic accidents we've seen in commercial power generating reactors beyond minor leaks, mechanical issues and incidents of mishandled materials all occurred on reactor designs that were old or were known to have issues, but risk analysis wasn't followed. Even for Fukushima which was the last major incident we had eleven years ago (and before that it was Chernobyl in 1986 and before that the SL-1 incident 25 years before that, and that wasn't a commercial reactor) began generating electricity in the 80's and wasn't of any modern "post-chernobyl" regulatory design, besides a few changes to bring it into compliance for existing reactors. Following Three Mile and Chernobyl atomic energy products became one of the most high security and regulated energy systems on the planet. If anything happened it was ammunition for the anti-nuclear crowd that this was something never to be used. Following Fukushima we saw entire countries decide to defuel and accelerate decommissioning of their atomic power stations and convert to considerably less ideal power generating solutions like solar or wind, but even reconsider the use of natural gas and coal to fill the void from removing so much generating capacity from the grid. Were their plants old? Mostly yes. Were they unsafe? No. The public suddenly had their opposition and it went from an asset to a liability with absolutely no scientific reason. It was the sudden mindset that if it happened there, it could happen here too, which is completely baseless and undermines decades of work.
Most opposition runs along with NIMBY and lobbied fearmongering about "what if" in ways that take incidents that happened decades ago and portray as still possible tomorrow. It's powerful because it uses your own mind as a weapon, even if the data being used to come up with what you are imagining is misrepresented or incorrect entirely.

Look at Three Mile Island. It was a total core meltdown due to operator error on a full-scale facility at operating levels. While it did destroy itself it validated the design of then-modern containment systems. The release of radioactivity was trace, the materials that were released have half-lives that have long since cycled many times over and forget direct deaths, there was no longing effects on the local population. Even a president decided to waltz through the plant, proving a point that if there was a problem, he wouldn't be there.
Yet when it happened it was played as a national calamity. People believed it would explode like something from the Nevada test site and millions would die from immediate effects. The damage was not physical. It was mental. With something so large and blown out of proportion it was a wrecking ball organizations like Greenpeace could use and there was nothing that could be disputed.
Nobody wants atomic power because it could be bad. That's it. It could be bad and as a result everything else is on the table, including prototype technologies that have been in development for decades which still barely prove their viability long term, or are as green as they imply. We've been trying to make Fusion work since the 40's.

Who here remembers the pilot project to generate electricity from the Burnaby trash incinerator? Who remembers how that went nowhere? Last I was out there the steam pipes still exit the west side of the site and run to a neighboring lot but they've long since been capped off.

I say hydroelectric is impractical in BC anymore because Site C took as long as it did to get through the approval process. Solar makes no sense on the coast at least and wind power might work but we still have not solved its little problem of it being an on-demand source.

Atomic power would be beautiful. Small footprint, high output and proven.
It would just take 20 years to get approved and another ten to complete, now that it's been lobbied to death that every and all parts of the approval and assembly bust be painstakingly cataloged, reviewed and monitored.
And this is BC. Even to build a bridge it takes a few years of public consultation.
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  #7  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 6:09 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MIPS View Post
Who here remembers the pilot project to generate electricity from the Burnaby trash incinerator? Who remembers how that went nowhere? Last I was out there the steam pipes still exit the west side of the site and run to a neighboring lot but they've long since been capped off.
It's still in operation, generating electricity to power 16,000 homes. It will soon be linked to River District to provide heat and hot water as well for around 18,000 homes, replacing the temporary gas powered system installed when development started 10 years ago.

The problems associated with nuclear power aren't limited to errors and accidents and earthquakes. There's also the energy that goes into uranium mining, the health risks to those working in those mines, and the long term and so far unsolved problems of safely handling, moving and storing radioactive waste. The true costs of the energy (when decommissioning and waste storage are factored in) are currently higher than contemporary solar and wind installations in many areas. The costs associated with Site C show future large-scale hydro projects aren't going to produce cheap electricity either, if the sunk costs are attributed to the power generated.

If you look at the extent of wind and other renewable systems in parallel latitudes in Europe, we've barely scratched the surface of what we might be able to generate. That's because up to now we've been fine with the amount of power we get from hydro, and we haven't seen demand increase, despite a growing population, because energy efficiency has improved to balance growth and demand. That could change over time, but so will the availability of new methods of storing electricity cheaply, and innovations in the grid to utilize more localized small-scale power. That might include some of the much smaller nuclear plants being developed in the US - assuming they can find a way to safely and economically deal with the waste, but that won't be any time soon. As it doesn't look like we'll need the power from Site C for any gas-related industries, that shouldn't be a problem for some years, even if all the car makers switch to EVs as it currently seems most will in the near future.
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Last edited by Changing City; Feb 15, 2022 at 6:33 AM.
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  #8  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 7:20 AM
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Problem with wind is that A) BC's best sites are in the middle of nowhere (meaning Site C levels of time and money on transmission lines), and B) it comes and goes (meaning Site C levels of time and money on thermal or cryogenic storage).

Offshore turbines could power Prince Rupert and most of the Island, they might provide some peak for the Lower Mainland, but baseload? No, Metro Vancouver itself will need something high-capacity and reliable - that's either hydro or SMRs.
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  #9  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 8:07 AM
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In somewhat related news: France to cut carbon emissions, Russian energy influence with 14 nuclear reactors

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France is planning to build up to 14 nuclear reactors in an attempt to shore up the country’s aging nuclear fleet while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions. And while the first reactors won’t open for years, the announcement could serve to undercut Russia’s attempts to keep Europe dependent on natural gas.

...

France is home to one of the world’s largest nuclear fleets—with 56 reactors, it’s second only to the US. Last year, nuclear power generated two-thirds of the country’s electricity, providing a striking contrast to neighboring Germany, which is on track to shut down its last nuclear power plant by the end of this year.

France began building nuclear power plants in earnest in the 1970s in response to the oil crisis, starting construction on nine reactors in 1975 alone. Not only did government policy help remake the French energy sector, but it also transformed the French economy by facilitating the development of the TGV, the all-electric, high-speed trains that have become a symbol of French engineering.

...
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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 8:43 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FarmerHaight View Post
Are hippies really blocking nuclear power? I think a lack of education about the relative safety of nuclear generation is wide-spread, even among smart, rational individuals who can typically weigh costs and benefits in their heads.

The other big thing blocking nuclear power aside from concerns about reactor meltdowns is NIMBYs (what else is new). Storing nuclear waste has always been a challenging task, and states in the US that are practically designed for it (New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah) have vehemently opposed any large-scale containment sites.
Long ago in a distant, distant time. Ok maybe not that long ago, it was the 1990s, I use to work in the nuclear industry with AECL.

In addition to the fact people are scared of nuclear. Some will say unfounded, the hippies will disagree, So we will set that issue aside, there is the fundamental problem of scale.

When I was in the industry we were working on a CANDU 3 (around 300 MWe), CANDU 6 (600 MWe) and CNAUD 9 (850 MWe) design. That CANDU 3 program was run out Saskatoon targeting that market. The problem was the reactor had the same number of valves, pumps etc.as a CANDU 6. It is like shrinking airplanes it just does not make economic sense and the program was shutdown.

Saskatchewan has always been very pro nuclear. The problem is what do you do with a 600 MWe reactor in a grid that has a total generating capacity of 2,500 MW? The answer is nothing. It is to big. NB had a CANDU 6 and mostly exported its power to the US. Hydro Quebec also had a CANDU 6, but it was never clear why. They have so much Hydro capacity that there was little need to get into nuclear. So these were mostly exported to other countries and there are a number of CANDU 6 in various parts of the world. These was based on modular design and tended to come in on or under budget. That happens when you build the same thing over and over again.

Ontario is large enough it needs lots of power. Darlington is basically 4 CANDU 9 reactors. These were way over budget, for two reasons, they were the first CANDU 9 and the province did not need the power and wanted to slow down construction and is so doing drive up financing costs.

Fast forward to today, and all these new rector designs are attempts to build small reactors. These smaller reactors start to make sense in markets like Saskatchewan.

In BC, the only place I could think of where one of these smaller modern nuclear reactor may make sense is Vancouver Island. However the local will not be pleased with the idea even being considered.
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  #11  
Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 8:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut View Post
......

France has managed to recycle 96% of its used fuel into different fuels for other reactors. No doubt the other 4% is going to be a problem, but it's less of one than the Simpsons would have us believe; even lesser if thorium or fusion become a thing.
One of the options on the table for decades has always been mox fuel in CANDU reactors. The CANDU reactor normally uses unenriched uranium. However it does not have to. It could use recycled fuel form US (and French) style PWR reactors. In the 90s there were experiments done at Chalk River to demonstrate that plutonium (from both the Russian and US weapons program) could be processed into fuel for CANDU reactors as a non-proliferation measure.

A CANDU is somewhat unique in that it has fueling robotics and can move fuel around in the core and refuel while under operation. That provides a lot more flexibility.
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Old Posted Feb 15, 2022, 4:17 PM
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Building nuclear in a fault zone is probably a non-starter.

Yes you can look at Fukushima and/or Chernobyl and say there were human errors, things we "never expected", and so on.

Fool me once, shame on you...

I think in a stable place like the prairies there's a potential for nuclear, and it should be considered if we're in a race to get carbon emissions down in the near term (and we are).

But it has to pencil out vs. other sources. It's baseload power for sure, but unlike hydro you can't "turn it off" when wind/solar and over producing. It still has to fit in the grid.
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  #13  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 12:17 AM
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SMRs are about 300 Mw per reactor. That's about 3x bigger than Canada's largest solar/wind farms and 1/4th of Site C, so AFAIK they'd scale pretty well.

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Originally Posted by WarrenC12 View Post
Building nuclear in a fault zone is probably a non-starter.

Yes you can look at Fukushima and/or Chernobyl and say there were human errors, things we "never expected", and so on.

Fool me once, shame on you...
Worth noting that the Onagawa reactor was just an hour's drive from Fukushima and even closer to the epicentre. Unlike Fukushima, the engineers overdesigned Onagawa beyond safety requirements, and it withstood the earthquake and tsunami just fine; they even used the gym as an evacuation shelter!

So the safety issues really just boil down to how much we're willing to spend on the plant - and thanks to previous disasters, the feds/province are legally required to spare no expense.
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 2:07 AM
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do people see it being easier to build hydro in BC or Nuclear? i dont see anyone preferring nuclear over hydro. even i dont, and i understand the technology and history vs most people.
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 2:44 AM
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do people see it being easier to build hydro in BC or Nuclear? i dont see anyone preferring nuclear over hydro. even i dont, and i understand the technology and history vs most people.
As long as you still have reasonable sites where Hydro can be developed you should do Hydro over nuclear.

Nuclear is more expensive, complex to build, license and operate. It makes more sense in places like Ontario.
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 4:21 AM
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As I've come to understand it, BC's got room for one more dam on the Peace River (Site E), then it's either nuclear or dams on the Fraser - both politically toxic. Wind is a decent peak load source, but we shouldn't rely on it for baseload.
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 5:19 AM
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As I've come to understand it, BC's got room for one more dam on the Peace River (Site E), then it's either nuclear or dams on the Fraser - both politically toxic. Wind is a decent peak load source, but we shouldn't rely on it for baseload.
Has Pumped Storage Hydropower every been explored in BC? Wouldn't a PSH that works in tandem with a wind operation be a viable option for baseload?
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 5:20 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut View Post
As I've come to understand it, BC's got room for one more dam on the Peace River (Site E), then it's either nuclear or dams on the Fraser - both politically toxic. Wind is a decent peak load source, but we shouldn't rely on it for baseload.
Then it is time to start getting people in BC use to the idea that Nuclear is not bad. We could start with a small research reactor at one of the universities.

The division of AECL that is the reactor OEM in Canada became part of SNC Lavalin. They could start on work to get their brand name not associated with political interference. Maybe try to get the naming rights to the a stadium of something. They the people with the skill to built Site E as well if they can past the brand issue.

A 300 MWe CANDU SMR is not a bad size to work with.
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Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 5:46 AM
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Has Pumped Storage Hydropower every been explored in BC? Wouldn't a PSH that works in tandem with a wind operation be a viable option for baseload?
There is (was?) a private proposal near Powell River using Powell Lake and two lakes on Goat Island.
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  #20  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2022, 6:21 AM
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Then it is time to start getting people in BC use to the idea that Nuclear is not bad. We could start with a small research reactor at one of the universities.

The division of AECL that is the reactor OEM in Canada became part of SNC Lavalin. They could start on work to get their brand name not associated with political interference. Maybe try to get the naming rights to the a stadium of something. They the people with the skill to built Site E as well if they can past the brand issue.

A 300 MWe CANDU SMR is not a bad size to work with.
SMR studies are already taking place in Canada, but not in BC. It's planned for Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick, with Alberta joining in. Various designs have already been submitted for approval. At this stage BC has no involvement, and BC Hydro see no short to medium term need to even consider a nuclear plant. There is apparently some potential to increase production from existing hydro locations, if it is needed.

This recent paper from UBC gives the background to why nuclear is falling internationally in the mix of power production, (mostly because of cost, but also concerns about waste and security of materials).

It specifically looks at SMRs, which are reactors designed to produce less than 300 Mw. They are not expected to produce energy any cheaper than existing large plants - in fact it will cost more. (The paper explains why in detail).

"The costs of nuclear energy, especially from SMRs, are prohibitively high and rising, whereas the costs of renewables are low and declining. More narrowly, renewables benefit from the almost zero marginal costs of solar and wind energy because they don’t incur any fueling costs and operator costs are minimal"

Technological innovation in battery design, large-scale storage, and co-generation of renewables (like the German Sinnpower module as one example) are happening far faster, on a much greater international scale, and offer far more localized solutions to any potential shortfall in electricity BC might face in the medium to long term.
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