It didn't take long for the media to run a hit piece on Chris Wright, who President-elect Donald Trump nominated as his Secretary of Energy. Wright, the founder and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, a fracking company, was nominated earlier this week; see NEW: Trump Taps Fracking Exec As Next Energy Secretary. Today, Reuters is on the move with a story headlined: Trump energy pick wrote ESG report hailing oil, gas, downplaying climate worry.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the energy department believes fossil fuels are the key to ending world poverty which, he says, is a greater problem than climate change's "distant" threat, according to a report he penned as CEO of oilfield services company Liberty Energy.

In a corporate report released in February called 'Bettering Human Lives,' Chris Wright said that the energy transition has not begun and that climate change, while a challenge, is not the greatest threat to humans.

Poverty is a bigger threat that can be alleviated with access to hydrocarbons, said Wright, who started a foundation aimed at expanding propane cook stoves in developing countries. //

Wright wrote "the wealthy world has gone beyond over-optimism surrounding the breadth and scalability of a narrow slice of alternative energy and, unfortunately, has rushed head-long into outright obstruction of hydrocarbon infrastructure and production." //

Wright places the welfare of people and communities above scientific grift. He supports what works and is critical of what doesn't and can't work...looking at you, wind and solar. He understands that energy production is inextricably linked to our freedom and prosperity. This bill of indictment against Wright should be read into the Congressional Record ...

david says:
January 20, 2015 at 1:50 PM

There’s a big difference in what we’re told about climate change versus the effects of radiation.

Decades ago people subjected test animals to “large” amounts of radiation, and extrapolated their results to “small” amounts of radiation. The assumption was that as the amount of radiation decreased, then so did the effects of the radiation linearly. This implies that even at low doses of radiation there would be some damage. (ie. 1/10th the radiation = 1/10th the damage, 1/100th the radiation = 1/100th the damage..)

However, that’s not how science works. They had an hypothesis, but where were the experiments to prove it true?

Eventually it was found that the LNT model didn’t hold to be true. The expected cancers from Chernobyl didn’t match what was expected. Different parts of the world have different background levels of radiation, yet those changes don’t seem to correspond with the LNT hypothesis. There were accident where people were subjected to radiation, yet once again no correlation with cancer rates as suggested by the LNT hypothesis; in fact, in such cases it sometimes appeared that low doses of radiation could decrease cancer rates.

The LNT hypothesis is dead, or at least it should be. But there are people who benefit from keeping it alive, and rather than going back to the labs to try to figure out the proper relationship between radiation at low levels, and genetic damage, they try to muddy the waters.

Climate change might have its fear-mongers, much like the supporters of the LNT hypothesis do, but it has yet to be proven wrong. We know that greenhouse gases do affect the Earth’s climate, though to what degree our meddling will affect it is open to some debate, as is how harshly those changes will affect us humans. But, since the Earth isn’t a frozen wasteland, we “know” that greenhouse gases do affect the climate.

In short:
———-

Low doses of radiation:
-> has fear mongers
-> those fear mongers have been proven wrong.
-> end of story, (or it should be.)

Climate Change:
-> has fear mongers, and also
-> has those who benefit from denying it.
-> greenhouse gases affect climate, else the Earth would be a lot colder.
-> end of story, including how bad it will be, is yet to be written.

Given we don’t know the full story, we should research, and act, because the worse case scenario is disaster for us human. Replacing coal with nuclear is a no brainer. If there is room for some small release of greenhouse gases by us humans, it won’t include the use of coal to generate electricity. That’s one of the lower-hanging branches that we should be eliminating now.

Wayne SW says:
January 13, 2015 at 11:09 PM

Well, you identified a major part of the problem. Those wind farms don’t harvest wind so much as they harvest subsidies. And governments are the ones who put those subsidies in place. In my state (Ohio), the state government is mulling removing the state portion of those subsidies, and the unreliable energy lobbyists are raising holy hell. They say they won’t proceed with any new projects without those subsidies. That right there tells me how they are making their money. And of course they also lobby for high-priced PPAs, while you have travelling anti-nuclear activists decrying PPAs for any company with nuclear plants (they say it shows the nukes need “subsidies”).

Brian Mays says:
January 12, 2015 at 8:05 PM

“The question arises: Were the decisions concerning this enormous funding for global warming research taken out of genuine concern that the climate is allegedly changing as a result of CO2 industrial emissions, or do some other undisclosed ideas stand behind this money, IPCC activity, Kyoto, and all the gruesome catastrophic propaganda the world is now exposed to? If this concern is genuine, then why do we not see a storm of enthusiastic environmentalists and United Nations officials demanding to replace all fossil-fuel plants with nuclear plants, which have zero emission of greenhouse gases, are environmentally friendly, more economical, and much safer for plant workers and much safer for the general population than other sources of energy?”

– Zbigniew Jaworowski

On day one of Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency, he canceled the Keystone Pipeline. Since then, he’s waged a war on drilling and energy and has tried to shove a green agenda down our throats. It’s one of the many reasons a Democrat won’t be in the White House come January.

On Thursday, he made a strange but somewhat conciliatory speech where he promised a smooth transition of power to President-elect Donald Trump.

Yet it was only hours before he made a move to defy the GOP nominee and former president INCOMING PRESIDENT and further limited drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. //

But in 2017, Trump signed a tax bill mandating at least two lease sales in the refuge’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain by the end of 2024. //

Trump reinstated the drilling program in a 2017 tax cut law enacted by congressional Republicans. Even so, no drilling has occurred in the refuge. //

USGS estimates there’s somewhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of oil in the coastal plain. Those are huge numbers. For comparison, Alaska’s second biggest oil field, Kuparuk, holds about 2.5 billion barrels.

Meanwhile, several studies have found that cleaner, clearer air due to falling pollution from China and lower sulfur marine fuels made only a small contribution to last year’s temperatures. One study, submitted to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found that declining pollution could raise global temperatures by 0.03°C over the next 20 years, with the strongest effect not occurring until later this decade. It’s not nothing, says study co-author Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at Scripps, but far too little to explain last year. Taken together, says Mika Rantanen, a climate scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the results are “a good reminder that it was indeed El Niño that was the major player.” //

None of the data justifies making energy more expensive. None of the data justify covering thousands of square miles of open ground, including vital wildlife habitat, with windmills and solar panels.

Forget what Kamala Harris is saying. Look at who she's hiring — in this case, someone who is an unrepentant climate scold, a fanatical anti-child, anti-energy, anti-modern lifestyle (except for herself, we feel sure) lunatic. //

Key campaign workers like this frequently go on to take related positions in the staff of election winners when they assume office. There can be little doubt that a Harris administration would include Camila Thorndike, almost certainly in some position having to do with energy and climate policy. She would be pushing policies that would make energy more expensive, and in so doing make everything more expensive; she would be pushing policies that would damage, if not destroy, our modern technological lifestyle.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft dive into costly deals that aren't generating anything yet. //

Nuclear power contracts signed by hyperscalers show they're desperate for reliable "clean and green" energy sources to feed their ever-expanding datacenter footprints, however, investment bank Jefferies warns that these tech giants are likely to end up paying over the odds to get it.

johnwalker 13 Jan

nagle:
Two islands with four chargers each can charge eight cars. Charging stations may be able to replace gas stations on the same real estate.

Current standards for electric vehicle charging stations have the following maximum power delivery:

• SAE J1772 DC Level 2 — 400 kW
• IEC 61851-1 — 80 kW
• Tesla NACS — 250 kW
  (Again, these are maxima under the standards: many installed charging stations are lower power. A typical Tesla V2 Supercharger provides 120 kW.)

Plans for future higher power charging standards include the Megawatt Charging System 1 (MCS) with a rating of 3.75 megawatts (3000 amperes at 1250 volt DC).

Let’s compare this to a gasoline pump. A typical filling station pump in the developed world delivers around 50 litres per minute (38 l/min in Safetyland), and gasoline has an energy content of around 7500 kcal/litre depending on its formulation (around 5000 kcal/litre for pure ethanol and 8600 for #2 diesel). Plugging these into Units Calculator, we get:

 (50 litres/minute) * (7500 kcal / litre) = 26.15 megawatt

so even the proposed MCS (which is primarily intended for large commercial vehicles and buses) delivers only around 1/7 the power of a gasoline pump.

Now, even getting installation of five megawatt electrical service is a pretty big thing in most places (that is the consumption of a very large office building), so it looks like building out an infrastructure which will allow electrical vehicle charging times competitive with gasoline filling will require very substantial upgrades to the power grid and local distribution facilities.

Three things could produce an African Renaissance: liberty, capitalism, and energy. The Western world can't do much about the first two; that's something the people of the various nations of Africa will have to work out for themselves. The one thing the West could help with is energy development. But American and European climate scolds seem determined to prevent any energy development. It is, in effect, a re-colonizing of Africa.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/17/climate-colonialisms-stranglehold-on-africas-energy-starved/

In 2024, it is unconscionable that over 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 28% of healthcare facilities have reliable electricity. More than 900 million people cook with traditional biomass like wood and animal dung, inhaling toxic fumes that claim over 600,000 African lives each year. Clean water remains a luxury for vast swaths of the population.

Atterus
Ars Tribunus Militum
6y
1,830
Wednesday at 1:02 PM
#8
Gee... it seems like nuclear can actually provide a ton of clean power for high demand applications.... maybe we can, i dunno, build larger ones for general load? Had that been done before? Derp?

Oh, and the crazy costs are always government red tape and activists almost requiring a plant to be built three times with nutty reqs as regs are arbitrarily changed repeatedly and facilities are fined for stuff the govt is supposed to handle (Yucca). Always lots of pointing out the "uneconomical" costs and totally ignoring other advanced nations are reliant on it and seem to have solved the base load issue...

One of those was laughing at Russias/OPECs death grip on energy costs, btw. Oh, also found a ton of the animosity against nuclear is fanned by hostile revanchist nations afraid of everyone cutting them loose. Again, gee, imagine China pushing solar! Imagine Russia pushing wind and solar! Both suppressing nuclear abroad while pursuing it themselves. Wowsers! Whodathunk? (The nuclear sector for the past 40 years)

If other nations can be powered largely by nuclear, so can we. Any other argument is hypocrisy for sustainability and pandering to lobbyists afraid their "green" stock or fossil stocks will crater as a result. Interesting as soon as nuclear gains headway, the lobbyists do everything they can to stall it...

For the record, we need a mix, but nuclear IS the solution overall. It's goofy seeing real world examples work for cost and people get all sticker shocked at govt inflated prices but are okay blowing trillions on pipe dreams... that still don't match nuclear...

Edit: correction, reference to Russias pushing for Europe to adopt solar and wind power pre Ukraine war to control their reactions when base load couldn't be met with those sources and control them via gas prices as a result, for a while.

Electrical engineers must learn to navigate industry codes and standards while designing battery energy storage systems (BESS)

In 2022, Florida was third in the nation, after California and Texas, in total solar power generating capacity, and solar energy accounted for more than 5% of Florida’s total net generation. About four-fifths of the state’s solar generation came from utility-scale (1 megawatt or larger) facilities. //

The Lake Placid Solar Power Plant is located in Highlands County, Fla., and suffered damage during Hurricane Milton. The facility opened in December 2019 and is 45 megawatts, which is enough to power more than 12,000 homes at peak production. //

The frequency of major storms and the costs associated with repair from them must be an essential part of any calculation when deciding if a new power facility is right for the region. It appears that green energy activists aren’t providing this data, but rather their visions of would should be based on their beliefs.

Theology is no way to power a civilization. //

rebelgirl in reply to CommoChief. | October 15, 2024 at 8:26 am
My son is a commercial electrician who works on residential and commercial solar installations. He says he would never have it.
They install the panels on roofs where no one takes into account the problems involved with reaching the source of a potential attic fire. //

Joe-dallas in reply to CommoChief. | October 15, 2024 at 5:01 pm
Correct – the capacity factor for solar during summer is around 35%
The capacity factor in the winter is around 6%

The texas freeze fiasco of Feb 2021,
Solar was producing around 12% capacity factor across the entire nation and a DROP of 60% – 70% wind production across the entire NORTH AMERICAN Continent for 7 DAYS

New Google agreement could boost development of small modular reactors—if they work.

He even takes the step that I rarely see from even the most reasonable of “reasonable” nuclear critics and concedes that “nuclear still has important uses — in particular, where land and sunlight are scarce.” He concedes so much that I’m not always entirely sure what it is we’re disagreeing about.

But a big part of the difference, I think, is probably that Noah lives in California and hangs out with a lot of tech/engineering types for whom all the points about nuclear that he’s conceded are conventional wisdom, and he’s annoyed that a lot of these people have an image of solar (and especially batteries) that’s stuck in the 1980s, rather than seeing these as dynamic, forward-thinking economic sectors. I live in DC, and I hang out with lots of people who work in or adjacent to Democratic Party politics. And among the people I know, the conventional wisdom is toward much too much complacency about the current state of renewables. Many people think that because photovoltaic panels are now cheap, all the problems are solved and the big issue is that you need to say you’re pro-fracking to win Pennsylvania, and they’re looking for linguistics gurus to help them defeat fossil fuel propaganda.

I think that this is all wrong, that the world will remain much more dependent on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future than a lot of progressives want to admit, that there are a bunch of difficult and outstanding problems that need to be solved, and that nuclear policy may provide important solutions to some of those problems. There is, of course, no way of knowing exactly what the future of any technology may hold. But I think nuclear fission remains extremely promising if — and it’s a big if — we change Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules to allow for more innovation.

Following a major earthquake, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a nuclear accident beginning on 11 March 2011. All three cores largely melted in the first three days.

In 1971, the AEC proposed a radically new regulatory philosophy requiring all nuclear plants be designed to hold all radioactive emissions to levels such that "exposures were as low as practicable". In other words, there is no limit. And the criteria is not whether the benefit of further reduction outweighs the cost. The criteria is: can you afford the reduction?

This was such a departure from standard regulation that, despite their desperation to get plants on line, it did produce push back from industry. But after considerable debate the policy was formally adopted in 1975 with the wording changed slightly to "as low as reasonably achievable" or ALARA.

In practice, As Low As Reasonably Achievable is interpreted by the regulators to mandate any regulation that allows nuclear to remain competitive with alternate sources of power.

On Tuesday, Google announced that it had made a power purchase agreement for electricity generated by a small modular nuclear reactor design that hasn't even received regulatory approval yet. Today, it's Amazon's turn. The company's Amazon Web Services (AWS) group has announced three different investments, including one targeting a different startup that has its own design for small, modular nuclear reactors—one that has not yet received regulatory approval.

Unlike Google's deal, which is a commitment to purchase power should the reactors ever be completed, Amazon will lay out some money upfront as part of the agreements. We'll take a look at the deals and technology that Amazon is backing before analyzing why companies are taking a risk on unproven technologies. //

X-energy's technology is based on small, self-contained fuel pellets called TRISO particles for TRi-structural ISOtropic. These contain both the uranium fuel and a graphite moderator and are surrounded by a ceramic shell. They're structured so that there isn't sufficient uranium present to generate temperatures that can damage the ceramic, ensuring that the nuclear fuel will always remain contained.

The design is meant to run at high temperatures and extract heat from the reactor using helium, which is used to boil water and generate electricity. Each reactor can produce 80 megawatts of electricity, and the reactors are designed to work efficiently as a set of four, creating a 320 MW power plant. As of yet, however, there are no working examples of this reactor, and the design hasn't been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. //

SetsChaos Smack-Fu Master, in training
28d
4
I'm excited at the prospect of having new nuclear energy in the US. There's been a huge NIMBY push since at least TMI that's seen a lot of regression in the field, despite the science clearly showing advantages for nukes as a base load power source. As much as I want LLM and AI to go the way of NFTs, I am happy to see something revive nuclear.

SMRs are a step in the right modernization direction, but it'd be really cool to get some thorium mixed in here, too. //

Unimportant Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
5y
154
I am optimistic about the nuclear renaissance but I am concerned about labor shortages in the supply chain and among operators.

The premier modular reactor operator, the U.S. Navy, faces a critical shortage of skilled shipyard workers. Repair backlogs can run into year. New construction isn't meeting its goals. Subcontractors that make low volumes of critical parts are affected as much if not more.

It didn't use to be this way but capacity was cut back over the years after the Cold War. Shipyards were closed.

There's a public-private nonprofit entity receiving millions to recruit workers:
buildsubmarines.com

Join the Team Building the Next Generation of U.S. Naval Submarines
Take the first step to join our mission of constructing advanced U.S. Naval submarines. Discover numerous career opportunities across various disciplines and make your mark in this new era of manufacturing.

They have a comprehensive job board with jobs across the supply chain. They're advertising nationally.

New reactors will need the same people. //

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit on September 16, 2024 to Abilene Christian University (ACU) to build a molten salt research reactor. This marked the first university research reactor approval in 30 years. It is the first liquid fuel reactor ever approved for construction by the NRC and only the second advanced reactor approved since the NRC was created in 1974.

Aside: The first advanced reactor construction permit was issued to Kairos for its Hermes in December 2023. End Aside

Natura Resources is the technology supplier for the important new facility. Andrew Harmon, Natura Resources Vice President of Operations and Business Development visited the Atomic Show to fill in some of the backstory about the project origins, the decision to pursue a research reactor as a step towards their ultimate goal of supplying a large number of factory-produced 100 MWe molten salt reactors, some of the major successes and challenges along the way and the level of community support that the project has attracted.

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) are jointly setting up a highly efficient 800 megawatts advance ultra supercritical (AUSC) thermal power plant. //

India’s current arsenal of thermal power plants operate at an average of 32 per cent efficiency. The AUSC technology can ramp this up to 46 per cent efficiency. In the past few decades, Indian coal fleet has gone through rapid changes in terms of technology, with the first supercritical plant launched in 2010 at Mundra Adani Plant. Following this, a total of 72 supercritical and 20 ultra supercritical units have come into operation. //

State-of-the-art ultra supercritical technology heats steam temperature at around 600 degrees Celsius and 300 Bar pressure with an optimal efficiency of 42 per cent. Increasing steam parameters is one of the best ways to achieve results in increasing efficiency.

The AUSC technology will increase the steam temperature to 710-720°C at 300 Bar pressure and achieve efficiency upwards of 46 per cent. This will decrease the coal usage and emission intensity per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.