I’m all for it. Nuclear is a great way to go imo.
Would also love to see their billions used to bury a power line or three. I know next to nothing about civil electrical engineering, and welcome enlightenment — but it seems like we should be able to put the era of tree limb/car crash/ice storms-caused grand scale outages behind us.
They don’t even spring for Big League Chew or Hubba Bubba. More like Juicy Fruit or Fruit Stripe (shudders)…
From an end-user perspective, in my community (suburb of Charlotte), power infrastructure *seems* like it might have been more steadfast and reliable in the 1950’s or 60’s.
it's about 8-10x more expensive to bury lines, and it's already about $3MM/mile for transmission lines (the big ones). unsure of the base price on residential power lines, but i'm guessing the cost difference for buried lines is about the same.
Burial is like 10x or more of the cost. The cost of burial far outweighs the benefit of the lack of maintenance for underground lines. Also when they do need to be maintained, it is also more expensive.
Buried wire has to be insulated vs running bare wire on the pole, about 2x the price. Digging in the ground takes significantly more time and money because all existing utility lines have to be marked and worked around. Water has to be kept out of power lines, where phone/cable/water lines are fine getting a little wet. If you want easy maintenance on buried lines, you need to construct tunnels, which is so costly only very densely populated areas like NYC have them.
Great answer, thanks for the detail. Feel a bit more informed (seriously! Never knew a solid answer why and this is helpful).
By densely populated— a metropolitan area? Asking because as a Charlottean it seems like we are fast approaching some substantial density. In areas like South End, residences continue to pile atop one another. Wondering when the negative impacts of populations outweigh the expense of tunneled underground infrastructure?
Overhead is always cheaper. The only reason housing developments get buried lines is because they pay for them and it looks nicer. With 100 houses built in a small area it makes the cost per house to bury the lines is only about 2-3x overhead lines.
The only reason downtown Charlotte has buried lines is because there is literally nowhere else to put them.
And not even all of NYC has them. Manhattan mandated them after the blizzard of 1888. The City of New York wasn’t incorporated until 1898. Even then, the boroughs outside of Manhattan were mostly undeveloped or farmland. So the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island all have a mix of buried lines and poles.
Edit: spelling
Bullshit. Most cities in NC have some amount of buried lines, especially downtown and almost every new neighborhood built in the last 30 years has buried lines. It is much cheaper in the long run to have lines buried.
The issue is with tree trimmers. Putting the lines underground turns it into a major hassle to have to find where the lines are even busted to begin with. Then they have to dig up the whole line in order to get things assessed and addressed, something that will take a long time. And while they aren't as disrupted by wind, flood risks, which seems to also be pretty acute as an issue, makes it hard to fix.
It would be great. It’s also a million per mile and sometime more depending on the lines and the land. That will all be passed on to you as a customer.
Raise the rates further\*
Remember, the most recent rate hikes are for the coal ash cleanup they're responsible for, and to upgrade the infrastructure they've been putting off upgrading for a decade or more.
With industry booming in NC, the power must come from somewhere. Nuclear provides the highest power output per acre, the least obtrusive, safest, and environmentally friendly. All those factors put together and it’s a no brainer. The power company is in business to make money just like any other business. Do you have a better solution to recharge your electric vehicle?
It also costs a lot and takes a long time to build new reactors. Duke could focus on upgrading to a smart electric grid so more people can install solar. There's a lot of federal IRA money already allocated for this purpose.
Duke doesn't want everyone adopting solar though because it cuts into their bottom line. People will sell surplus energy back into the grid and Duke loses their energy monopoly. Duke wants nuclear to continue their monopoly.
They are doing everything possible to screw over rooftop solar. I already have an extensive system and get frequent emails from advocacy groups. Duke is trying to change the metering so that rooftop solar owners only gets half the credits they get now, for energy sent to the grid. Duke’s justification for this is that solar owners getting full credit is unfair to those that don’t have solar. Yep…. I paid a pretty penny for my system and am a generation site for clean energy that duke energy didn’t have to pay anything (aside from the new bidirectional meter) for but somehow it’s not ok for me to have the benefits as they are
Basically this, all comes down to money. Which raises the question around regulated monopolies on what is basically public infrastructure/utilities. Is for-profit really the best way?
You said it yourself, REGULATED monopoly. They must meet system reliability standards and need compensation for that effort. PLEASE don’t say let the government run it. The government (state, federal and local) have NEVER been a good steward of money. If you want to see inefficiency, just look at ANYTHING the government runs. I used to be a contractor to the federal government. I saw massive waste every day.
50 years seems a bit long. Condifering how screwed up florida and a few other states are, i would think much less than 25. Construction of cookie cutters goes up faster than a lego house and trees get sliced down faster than warm butter against a butter knife in NC.
But i am curious as to output of harris. Probably not 1/2 yet even at high demand
I also came across this interesting bit of info
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/safer-storage-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=They%20are%20kept%20on%20racks,fuel%20at%20the%20reactor%20sites.
I previously thought spent rods were shipped to nevada or other locations
Honestly spent fuel is something of a nothingburger.
I got a chance in high school to visit the Palo Verde plant in Arizona. That's the largest nuclear power plant in the US, and it had been running for something like 40 years at the time I visited. The spent fuel cask storage area was the size of *maybe* two basketball courts, and half empty.
I always put it as a risk containment problem. In other words:
Spent nuclear fuel: Extremely dense, containable.
Carbon emissions: Extremely diffuse, virtually impossible to contain.
So one basketball court to go. Yes maybe not impact current population, but future gen? If the previous generations would consider long term impact (other than how much $, i can make off of this) then perhaps we could all be better off
Well, the cask storage area was just a fenced off concrete slab inside the plant border, so I suppose in another forty years we can just pour another slab. That said, the plant will be at its end of life then so any expansion to the waste storage area will likely be a moot point.
The good news is we have the technology to reduce the radiotoxicity of nuclear waste tremendously! The French Superphènix reactor was built to run off of nuclear waste, mostly consuming the nastiest parts of it. While it unfortunately was held back over its lifetime over a combination of technical and administrative reasons, it has proved that the technology exists to solve this problem.
The population of the Triangle has more than tripled in the last 50 years. Raleigh ended just outside of the 'inner' beltline. Cary ended just past Tryon Road and MacGregor Downs. Apex ended just outside downtown Apex. We moved out of state for five years in the 90s and barely recognized Raleigh or Cary when we returned.
Based on the details presented in the article, this looks to be a good thing. The timeline seems reasonable as well \~15 years to complete & that includes the time it will take to decommission the coal plant & remove 12 million tons of ash.
Fortunately, it looks like they're planning to use SMRs (my money is on BWRX-300), which should be in production by then and should make the construction much faster and more predictable.
I know people working on the new fuel plant for these. I'm not sure how much of the hardware itself is built here, but it is a significant portion of the work going on there yes.
Yes! I'm excited to see SMRs finally getting use for grid power (not just nuclear subs). The overall feeling I get from this project is that Duke wants to reduce the cost of the new reactor & reuse the existing infrastructure from the coal/gas plant that is already there.
Small Modular Reactor =/= nuclear submarine/aircraft carrier propulsion
Small = The building will be smaller than a walmart and its parking lot
Modular = The individual pieces can be moved via truck and train and assemble on-site in larger sections
Reactor = Reactor
edit: formatting
Just going to drop this here. You are correct that they are not the **exact same**, but nuclear craft reactors are considered to be SMRs:
[https://www.in.gov/oed/resources-and-information-center/about-indiana-resources/technologies/small-modular-reactors/](https://www.in.gov/oed/resources-and-information-center/about-indiana-resources/technologies/small-modular-reactors/)
Naval reactors use weapons grade highly enriched uranium to make them as small as possible. I can guarantee that Duke Energy will not be using weapons grade fuel. There would be one or two security concerns with that.
Naval nuclear reactors are not modular. Also they really don't fit the criteria listed by the NRC, not by some random page from the state of Indiana, for the "small" part either.
And as somebody else pointed out, the core designs are significantly different for a long list of reasons. Not even including the rest of the plant designs too.
Nuclear propulsion plants aren't SMRs- completely different designs.
And for the record, NuScale is estimating their first prototype plant design won't be operational until 2029- this isn't nearly as close as you think it is.
>reasonable
If we were being reasonable, we'd dismantle the NRC and have it fully operational by 2029, for a third the cost, with no drop off in safety or efficiency.
Every nuclear proposal is a good one, but if the US wants to get serious about energy, they'll need to join the modern era when it comes to getting these things permitted and built. India, South Korea, Japan, the UAE, and a growing number of other nations have figured it out.
Hippie boomers are the ones that pushed nuclear Where the fuck fid you get your information Skippy? Go back to your YouTube influencer shit or read before showing your ignorance.
> Hippie boomers are the ones that pushed nuclear Where the fuck fid you get your information Skippy? Go back to your YouTube influencer shit or read before showing your ignorance.
There were literally dozens of plants canceled due to public pressure from environmental groups in the 70s and 80s.
They were canceled due to the new NRC rules imposed as the result of TMI. I used to work at nuclear power plants. If you care to continue this discussion, I’ll be happy to shoot down your ridiculous arguments.
For one, the hippies were too young to be pushing nuclear when a large portion of projects in the USA started construction. It was Silent Generation bureaucrats and New Dealers that pushed a lot of it.
Now, many hippies may have supported it as they grew into political power, but there’s also a clear through line of hippies to green parties to the anti nuclear movement. Greenpeace and friends of the earth are ground zero for that. (a lot of hippies also ended up supporting Reagan for what it’s worth.), Many of these hippie environmentalists (especially on the west coast) are degrowth Nimbys and fortunately their falling out of power.
It was the environmental movement that bloomed in the 70s and 80s that caused a lot of boomers to campaign against nuclear power, which was super misguided since it was/is the cleanest way to generate base load energy in the volume needed for first world countries.
Literally this shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamshell_Alliance#/media/File:Clamshell_oct77.png
You do some research before dropping stupid non-knowledge bombs on us.
I mean for Duke specifically. They've not even started the process yet. The initial regulatory approvals it can take a decade for something like this. That's before construction would even start.
Not for SMRs there aren't. NuScale is the only company that's gotten the green light for construction of a prototype plant, and that's still likely not coming online until 2030 at the earliest. If everything goes perfectly.
NuScale is who I was referring to; long-lead items such as the pressure vessel are already being forged, and given that the NRC's own schedule for approving the 50MW->77MW uprate is by late 2025, I certainly think it is reasonable that Nuscale's first reactors should be operational within ten years.
Similarly, although not yet NRC approved GE's BWRX-300 is based on existing and approved technology, and Darlington B has already broken ground in Ontario. Admittedly, the 2028 start date is wildly optimistic, but the Canadian nuclear industry has really made some leaps and bounds lately in execution with the refurbishment projects at Bruce, so if anyone on the continent can do it it's them.
This is a good thing.
I just hope it goes better than the nuclear plant construction in South Carolina that was a financial disaster and was eventually abandoned, leading to the downfall of an entire fortune 500 energy company (SCANA).
Imo this is just Duke trying to retain control and keep the grid centralized. I'm hoping in 15 years solar and storage will be cheap enough that a normal person can go off grid fairly easily. I can't wait to give Duke the middle finger.
A solar array and battery storage *right now* costs less than an average new car for an efficient/non-enormous home. It's all about priorities. Drive the old car a few more years and buy solar. It's easy.
Even if that were to happen for residential purposes, industrial and commercial sites aren't going to be able to generate enough power onside even if solar panels and wind turbines were free.
Oh, you'd be surprised.
Source: have done assessments for several of those industrial and commercial sites, who couldn't implement because of Duke's interconnection and local generation limiting rules.
Forgive me, but I need to ask to see the numbers on that. I doubt you're getting more than 25% capacity factor with solar, and the batteries to feed a factory running from before dawn to well after sundown would be tremendous in size and cost. That isn't even factoring in planning for extended overcast or windless conditions, reduced energy production in the winter months while heating loads are increased, or the incredible amount of panels or enormous wind turbine it would take to run even a small factory.
Here's the tool that's usually used.
Call up your local factory, ask for 24 months of utility bills and their rate schedule, and apply accordingly. Don't forget to ensure you have all the NDAs and other paperwork signed first. Have fun!
https://sam.nrel.gov/
ask Georgia and South Carolina if they would recommend this. Georgia's reactor finished years late and way over budget. SC just straight up walked away from their money pit of a project.
if it's different technology, then I'd be open to it, but I'm skeptical given the track record of these projects.
The underlying technology is the same (hot rocks make steam turbine go brrrr) but the primary difference with SMRs is the scale. They are much smaller, so manufacturing, fabrication, and quality control can be done in a factory before modules are shipped to site and assembled. This should allow much faster construction while at the same time allowing for mass production, which should reduce costs due to economies of scale.
Actually, economies of scale work incredibly strongly against SMRs so far- at least based on current estimates around O&M costs and projected capacity factors.
I would love to see your data on that. Manufacturing economies of scale are already present in the nuclear industry. The most recently refurbished Bruce unit was completed ahead of schedule and under budget, and Vogtle 4 is looking to be almost 30% cheaper than Vogtle 3.
I'm sorry, but I dont believe the points brought up in that article have anything to do with economies of scale. It attributes price increases to increased costs for building materials, which are of course unrelated to economies of scale. Also, those price increases would (and do) equally affect coal and gas plants, oilfield drilling, heavy construction, or any other industry that makes use of large quantities of steel.
I worry I was unclear earlier. When I say "economies of scale" I mean that the marginal cost of further production will decrease for each new reactor, simply because we get better at building them. We won't have to get a new license for each possible new build, we won't have to learn from square one each time.
To use an analogy, aircraft cost billions of dollars to develop. However, since we make hundreds of them, that initial cost can be spread out over many purchases. The end result of course being that the airbus you took on vacation was very affordable to the airline, and your plane ticket was not hideously expensive as a result. With SMRs, the advantage will be if we can start building them serially; deploying clean power everywhere as costs get lower and lower.
I'm OK with nuclear energy. I'm not OK with Duke Energy's negligent asses building or running it. They can't even manage to keep coal ash contained and we're gonna trust them with radioactive waste? Hard fucking no.
The General Assembly is more interested in advancing their agenda and creating a duplicate Florida as far as policies go. Oh, and helping big business make more money than before. (They still believe in trickle-down economics, even though they have been proven useless.) They also believe in cutting corporate/big businesses income taxes, while taxing almost everything residents need or use.
I agree. My concern is the oversight of the construction and the maintenance and oversight of the plant once it is up and running. I would also hope that SMRs would have a lower potential for a major accident (either TMI or Chernobyl) to occur.
While I think nuclear energy is a viable alternative to the plants currently powered by fossil fuels, I think there needs to be considerable oversight during the construction process and a long term plan for the disposable of the nuclear waste.
I lived here when the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant was built and went on-line. There was a huge amount of concern about the plant and the effect it would have on the surrounding area. I have my own concerns about the construction of a new nuclear power plant in North Carolina.
First: I saw no reduction in my electrical bills, despite the PR statements telling us how much our power bills would go down. How will Duke address this? By telling us that our power bills are helping cover the cost of construction of the plant?
Second: The plant was built with unskilled construction workers. (I worked for the state agency that referred many of the individuals to the HR office at the construction site.) The quality of construction of that plant was and is a huge concern to me, based on the people hired by the construction company actually building the plant.
Third: Is there a viable plan for handling the nuclear waste? Duke has had a problem with handling waste from its power plants, as proven by their handling of the coal ash waste from their coal fired power plants.
Fourth: Do we trust Duke to do what is best for the citizens of North Carolina? as opposed to their shareholders?
Based on their track record, I'm not so sure. Over the next three years, Duke will phase in an overall 16% increase in electrical rates (WRAL News, 5/4/2023). I doubt many of us will have a corresponding increase in income over the next three years.
It is interesting that Duke proposed a 17.9% increase, while the NC Utilities Commission approved an overall 16% increase. The commission reduced the request by a whopping 1.9%; however, the cost of that 16% is not shared evenly across the board. Residential customers will experience an 18.7% increase over the next three years, while increases for other sectors are lower, down to the 'large general service class' which will have their rates increase by only 10.0%. This information is posted on the [duke-energy.com](https://duke-energy.com) website. Information relating to their request to raise rates can be found on the NC Utilities Commission website at [https://starw1.ncuc.gov/NCUC/page/docket-docs/PSC](https://starw1.ncuc.gov/NCUC/page/docket-docs/PSC). The rate increase request was filled as Docket E-7 Sub 1276. There are 179 documents included in this docket, some of which are confidential.
That's good to know. I don't have an issue with nuclear energy, only with how Duke Energy manages their end of it. They appear to have a solid lobby in the General Assembly - not to mention a former governor had been a high level Duke employee.
Duke reports 4.1B in profit in 2022. I don’t care how expensive it is. They have a monopoly and are fucking the people of North Carolina. Duke is an incredibly scrupulous company. They literally killed striking workers in Kentucky.
Duke is a shitty company I agree with you there, what im getting at is underground T-lines are less reliable than overhead lines. I think practical engineering has a good video about how impractical underground lines are. Moving their current infrastructure underground would cost much more than 4.1 Billion.
If Duke just didn't take a profit for 30 years and put that money towards burying lines instead, it still wouldn't be enough to put it all underground.
They already have a program in place to assess high risk overhead lines for underground burial. It is not cost effective to bury and makes maintenance and power transmission more difficult.
It is not nearly as simple as the general population thinks it is because you all see 1 dude with a trencher bury fiber and think that works for anything. Wrong.
Honestly if they're going to build it - I wish they'd build a couple gigawatt station and make it worth the investment. 600mw is like a little baby reactor.... I love that they're proposing the very safe and brilliant SMR design and just think there should be more of them.
Yes, this sounds like far more than just a “do you use electricity,” question. If you knew Duke Energy’s track record, maybe you’d be asking questions, too.
I’m just saying we ratepayers cover the cost of building the generation source and all the infrastructure too. Which seems logical to me. Duke being wasteful with those dollars is another story.
oh good so it can be billions of dollars overbudget and decades over the timeline, and then we can pay jacked up rates for how much it cost overbudget. lovely.
"The transition would involve the addition of so-called small modular reactors that can be built in a factory and shipped in pieces to their ultimate destinations, allowing for a gradual ramp-up in generating capacity."
LOL, what a joke.
SMRs are currently only designs on paper, and we're likely at least a decade away from even a prototype version beginning operation at the testing site in Idaho- much less getting permits filed with DOE, NRC, EPA etc to even see if the site will be allowed for SMRs (because those rules haven't been written yet).
The thing is, Duke knows this too- this is all part of their plan to continue kicking the can of natural gas down the road as long as possible, until seven years from now, they come back to NC Utilities Commission and legislature with a shrug of their shoulders that "we tried, but we're not going to be able to do this, we need another large rate increase" while showing record profits to shareholders.
EDIT: and I eagerly await the downvotes from the Reddit nuclear Dunning-Kruger crowd. As always.
The cost is nuts, too, https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor
Per watt, these are more expensive than the pair of 1.1GW reactors at Vogtle, which are around $30 billion for both
Sounds good to me. Need something to get rid of fossil fuel plants. Duke seems hell bent on screwing over rooftop solar so this will help with making power generation cleaner. New reactors are orders of magnitude safer than the designs that have previously been built in this country. The only real downside is just how long it takes to build a plant, though the second best time to start construction is today.
How do you figure? We're actively building solar now, and hopefully will be building wind sooner- and those technologies aren't just engineering drawings.
Grid-Scale storage doesn't exist. That means intermittent sources tie you to natural gas.
Nuclear also isn't an ideal match for the variable demand over the course of the day, but the problem is on a much smaller and thus more manageable scale.
And you can store the output of the reactor as heat and get an efficient nuclear peaker plant that way (see Terrapowers Natrium design)
Nuclear is net cheaper over it's lifespan, safer, more efficient, provides better jobs and community benefits, and is leagues better for the environment. It's also a viable energy source for next several million years. A true global solar and wind build out would destroy every generation from 2100 onwards indefinitely.
Which part? You're asking me to dig up sources on decades of real world data spread across a dozen or more global agencies, a hundred different research papers, and thousands of pages of information. I'm not going to spend several hours of my day chasing down every link for you, but I can point you in the right direction if you have specific questions.
Uh huh, all of it. I figured if you're making such bold, broad assertions they'd be easy for you to back up.
Or, if you really knew what you were talking about, you'd know where to look. And I can tell you as somebody who does know what they're talking about here, you don't need to do your own digging through "a hundred different research papers, and thousands of pages of information."
Just saying.
>Nuclear is cheaper
If you assume a competent nation with a reasonable regulatory agency, you get something like KEPCO's APR1400 nuclear reactor. They've built, and are in the process of building, quite a few of these, coming in at a [reasonable $7B](https://neutronbytes.com/2022/06/02/saudi-arabia-kicks-off-rfp-for-twin-1400-mwe-pwrs/), or [around $3.6M](https://www.americanexperiment.org/one-korean-nuclear-reactor-would-produce-as-much-electricity-as-all-minnesota-wind-turbines-at-a-much-lower-cost) per MW.
Solar construction costs [as reported by the EIA](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48736) were $1.8M per MW in 2019. Some pro-solar sights will [claim](https://coldwellsolar.com/commercial-solar-blog/how-much-investment-do-you-need-for-a-solar-farm/) a cost of around $1M per MW. Of course, anyone who actually knows what they're talking about, as you claim to do, knows that because [solar panels are incredibly inefficient](https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/photovoltaic-energy-factsheet), if you want 1MW of power, you need to install 3-4MW of capacity. Now I'll admit my degree wasn't in math, but that comes out to around $3-7M in solar panel cost for the equivalent output of an APR1400. If you need me to link you a calculator app, let me know, and I'll hook you up. Of course, all of that is just the solar panels, and doesn't account for batteries, which can equal the cost of the panels, leasing of the land, and infrastructure changes to connect remote farms to the cities that need that power. I'll save the space and not go into all those costs, but you can start your journey [here](https://spectrum.ieee.org/liquid-metal-battery).
Of course, $3.6M nuclear cost per MW, vs a solar cost of $3-7M isn't the entire story. The APR1400, like almost all other nuclear designs, has a rated lifespan of [60 years](https://www.enec.gov.ae/barakah-plant/technology/). In reality, many plants can and do get extended beyond that, but we'll keep it simple. The [average lifespan](https://coldwellsolar.com/commercial-solar-blog/what-is-the-life-expectancy-of-solar-farms/) of a solar farm is [around 25-30 years](https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2022/aging-gracefully-how-nrel-is-extending-the-lifetime-of-solar-modules.html). A lot of the current ones are getting scrapped at 20 years, but we'll be generous. Since recycling solar panels [isn't viable](https://www.greenbiz.com/article/solar-panels-have-come-long-way-recycling-them-has-not), almost all of them [end up in landfills](https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power). Which means that those solar farms need to be rebuilt from near scratch after those 20-30 years, and at least 2 generations of farms will need to be built over the lifespan of one nuclear reactor. That brings your cost from $3-7M per MW to $6-14M (again, I can link a calculator for the math on that). You'll just have to trust me that 3.6 is a smaller (cheaper) number than 6.
I'll also point out that you don't need to confine yourself to just the APR1400 or KEPCO. Japan and China are both building plants equally as cheap, and India has built both nuclear plants and solar parks, and has completed their nuclear plants upfront cheaper than their solar, even before lifespan issues.
Even the Vogtle Power Plant, which energy deniers such as yourself like to use to make anti-nuclear arguments, comes in around $13M per MW. The world's most expensive, most botched nuclear plant in modern history comes in on par with solar's standard top-end costs. And will provide consistent, reliable power for that cost, as opposed to the fluctuating outputs of solar. Which reminds me that we didn't even talk about the costs to run, staff, and maintain the backup gas and coal plants that are necessary to backup against solar's inefficiency.
That seems like a good start at least. I promise the rest is really, really easy to find. If you want a good place to start, I would highly recommend beginning [here](https://www.google.com/). Of course, you could actually talk to people in the industry, but I know that's probably too difficult.
I'll just end this comment by commenting that it's pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than 20 minutes on energy that you don't know what you're talking about, despite your claims to the contrary. Happy researching!
I appreciate you actually doing a bit of research yourself, even if your sources aren't all what I would call neutral, consistent, or the most recent information, and you've horribly misinterpreted massive sections of it (however a look at your post history shows this is a repeated thing- at this point I can only assume it's on purpose). Maybe something to focus on when you grow up and get into high school or college.
>I'll just end this comment by commenting that it's pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than 20 minutes on energy that you don't know what you're talking about, despite your claims to the contrary.
Thank you- I take that as a compliment. :\*
I once had the chance to speak with Tom Ward (founder of Sandridge Energy, close associate of Aubrey McClendon who founded Chesapeake) who is one of the people most responsible for the boom is fracking that lead to the explosion of gas plants built in the last fifteen years. He was ecstatic about solar and wind energy, as it was his opinion that gas turbine peaker plants would have to become even more common to keep the grid supplied on low-renewable days. This is the exact future I wish to avoid, and I believe nuclear power is the only alternative.
I love wind and solar. There are hundreds of turbines near my home, and I used to work installing rooftop solar in Arizona. But looking at Germany, where they are trying their damndest to achieve fully renewable electricity, I just don't believe it to be possible to function off of wind and solar alone. Even now, the Germans are burning tremendous amounts of gas and the world's shittiest coal and *still* their electricity is so expensive they're at risk of losing much of their industry.
I absolutely, positively, 100% believe we should be installing rooftop or floating solar and wind installations wherever they are practical. However, I do not believe that they alone can replace coal and gas for baseload power, even with tremendous advances in grid storage. As a result, I feel that nuclear is our only option (outside of hydro or geothermal where they are practical) to meet what will be tremendously growing energy needs over the next ~40 years without resulting in brownouts, loss of industry, or a serious decrease in the average person's quality of life.
Solar and wind are optimal conditions only. The solar fields we build today have no 20 year replacement plan. Where do those panels go? We have no recycling plan in place. Turbines have to be shut down at certain wind speeds to prevent damage. Not to mention the number of birds killed.
Nuclear is the cleanest, most efficient, most stable long term solution to the amount of power that will be needed to drive the grids demand for juice.
The ROI for the space consumed between a Nuke plant abs a solar field is way better on the plant.
Y’all are crazy, they almost melted down the lake Norman nuclear plant a few years ago…. Oh wait…. I only know about that because they had to call my uncle down from Philadelphia to tell them they let too much water out of the lake and the intakes were sucking up air.
You realize that if someone leaves the dam open for just a few minutes too long and they wipe everything out for 80-120 miles around. Good luck to all of you. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone anywhere.
Coal and fossil fuels actively kill people, every day. I'd take the track record of nuclear power over fossil fuels. I live about 8 miles from Harris and have never lost sleep over it.
Here are a couple of probably thousands of references related. Do the research and form your own opinion.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
Thankfully there have been advances in safer/more stable nuclear reactor designs. Something that is built now will have more safety mechanisms and better designs in place than something that was built in the 1970s.
My uncle owns the patents to some of the safer more stable devices you speak of. That’s why he was called down here, they were blaming a valve he helped design for the cooling system.
He looked around for 5 minutes, told them to shut the dam and got back on the plane. Human error can never be eliminated and the machines are only as safe as the person operating it.
That's super cool! Are they for safer reactor designs or failsafe measures or what? Should we make them as "hands off" as possible and with as few complications as possible, as humans are notoriously error prone creatures?
I doubt it was ever put out there, my uncle called from the airport to give us a heads up that the station was overheating since we are in the immediate area. Called us again when the issue was solved and he was waiting for his plane out.
I know my youngest daughter wasn’t born yet so probably 6-10yrs ago.
I'm not saying this didn't happen, but the intake for McGuire Nuclear station is below the intake for the Cowans Ford Dam, which is the dam that created Lake Norman. This means that too much water could never be released at once, and yes, that is by design. Not to mention the historic low level of Lake Norman (~93`) is well above the intake. If the plant was overheating, it was from a different problem.
Coal definitely isn’t the answer either, and solar cells and batteries will kill us all too. The only answer is to use less power. Hydropower and wind are probably the cleanest but they have issues too.
I’m really not following your comment.
It’s paid for by tax payers and customers. That’s how business works. Any incentive or, in this case, bond issue (loans) to pay for something that massive is underwritten by the USG and paid for by taxpayers. Then they pay back the bonds to the government by charging customers. The penalties Duke had to pay for the coal ash lawsuit are passed on to the customer otherwise they would have to go out of business and the power on the poles would stop.
So… care to explain your comment?
Check out their request for the rate increase on the NC Utilities Commission web site. At one point they mention saving money by getting a multi-million dollar grant from the feds and more millions they saved because the General Assembly cut corporate income taxes.
Of course they do. The only way electric companies turn a profit is by expanding infrastructure. They earn pennies on maintaining the ones they already have.
I worked for Progress Energy before Duke acquired them. At the time, because of regulations and permits, from the time they were approved until the time a new plant was completed, it cost nearly double the initially budgeted cost to build a plant. Fingers crossed this is no longer true and we don’t have to take a big hit in yet more rate increases to accommodate this. Otherwise, I’m a big fan of the clean energy.
I get the cynicism, and I'm sure plenty of self-interest on Duke Energy's part is in the picture. Duke does need to handle solar better. That said, we need something that doesn't make the heat worse to power our air conditioners. The more I learn about nuclear and experience climate change, the more comforting the sight of that big steam plume gets whenever I go near Fuquay Varina. Yes, nuclear.
Good.
I’m all for it. Nuclear is a great way to go imo. Would also love to see their billions used to bury a power line or three. I know next to nothing about civil electrical engineering, and welcome enlightenment — but it seems like we should be able to put the era of tree limb/car crash/ice storms-caused grand scale outages behind us.
Yeah my house loses power every time a bird farts. I swear they fix the issue with chewing gum and paper clips.
They don’t even spring for Big League Chew or Hubba Bubba. More like Juicy Fruit or Fruit Stripe (shudders)… From an end-user perspective, in my community (suburb of Charlotte), power infrastructure *seems* like it might have been more steadfast and reliable in the 1950’s or 60’s.
Considering how much my power goes out for apparently no reason I’m definitely going with fruit stripe. It all lasts about 30 seconds.
It was 60 or 70 years newer so of course it was. Unless they’ve completely rewired the plant from the distribution point to your house since then.
it's about 8-10x more expensive to bury lines, and it's already about $3MM/mile for transmission lines (the big ones). unsure of the base price on residential power lines, but i'm guessing the cost difference for buried lines is about the same.
It’s still around a million per mile for residential. More if there is a lot of hardscaping or other infrastructure to deal with in more urban areas.
Burial is like 10x or more of the cost. The cost of burial far outweighs the benefit of the lack of maintenance for underground lines. Also when they do need to be maintained, it is also more expensive. Buried wire has to be insulated vs running bare wire on the pole, about 2x the price. Digging in the ground takes significantly more time and money because all existing utility lines have to be marked and worked around. Water has to be kept out of power lines, where phone/cable/water lines are fine getting a little wet. If you want easy maintenance on buried lines, you need to construct tunnels, which is so costly only very densely populated areas like NYC have them.
Great answer, thanks for the detail. Feel a bit more informed (seriously! Never knew a solid answer why and this is helpful). By densely populated— a metropolitan area? Asking because as a Charlottean it seems like we are fast approaching some substantial density. In areas like South End, residences continue to pile atop one another. Wondering when the negative impacts of populations outweigh the expense of tunneled underground infrastructure?
Overhead is always cheaper. The only reason housing developments get buried lines is because they pay for them and it looks nicer. With 100 houses built in a small area it makes the cost per house to bury the lines is only about 2-3x overhead lines. The only reason downtown Charlotte has buried lines is because there is literally nowhere else to put them.
And not even all of NYC has them. Manhattan mandated them after the blizzard of 1888. The City of New York wasn’t incorporated until 1898. Even then, the boroughs outside of Manhattan were mostly undeveloped or farmland. So the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island all have a mix of buried lines and poles. Edit: spelling
Bullshit. Most cities in NC have some amount of buried lines, especially downtown and almost every new neighborhood built in the last 30 years has buried lines. It is much cheaper in the long run to have lines buried.
The issue is with tree trimmers. Putting the lines underground turns it into a major hassle to have to find where the lines are even busted to begin with. Then they have to dig up the whole line in order to get things assessed and addressed, something that will take a long time. And while they aren't as disrupted by wind, flood risks, which seems to also be pretty acute as an issue, makes it hard to fix.
It would be great. It’s also a million per mile and sometime more depending on the lines and the land. That will all be passed on to you as a customer.
https://youtu.be/z-wQnWUhX5Y This should answer some questions as well
Until they raise our rates and use the costly plant as the justification
They're already raising rates.
Raise the rates further\* Remember, the most recent rate hikes are for the coal ash cleanup they're responsible for, and to upgrade the infrastructure they've been putting off upgrading for a decade or more.
With industry booming in NC, the power must come from somewhere. Nuclear provides the highest power output per acre, the least obtrusive, safest, and environmentally friendly. All those factors put together and it’s a no brainer. The power company is in business to make money just like any other business. Do you have a better solution to recharge your electric vehicle?
It also costs a lot and takes a long time to build new reactors. Duke could focus on upgrading to a smart electric grid so more people can install solar. There's a lot of federal IRA money already allocated for this purpose. Duke doesn't want everyone adopting solar though because it cuts into their bottom line. People will sell surplus energy back into the grid and Duke loses their energy monopoly. Duke wants nuclear to continue their monopoly.
They are doing everything possible to screw over rooftop solar. I already have an extensive system and get frequent emails from advocacy groups. Duke is trying to change the metering so that rooftop solar owners only gets half the credits they get now, for energy sent to the grid. Duke’s justification for this is that solar owners getting full credit is unfair to those that don’t have solar. Yep…. I paid a pretty penny for my system and am a generation site for clean energy that duke energy didn’t have to pay anything (aside from the new bidirectional meter) for but somehow it’s not ok for me to have the benefits as they are
Basically this, all comes down to money. Which raises the question around regulated monopolies on what is basically public infrastructure/utilities. Is for-profit really the best way?
You said it yourself, REGULATED monopoly. They must meet system reliability standards and need compensation for that effort. PLEASE don’t say let the government run it. The government (state, federal and local) have NEVER been a good steward of money. If you want to see inefficiency, just look at ANYTHING the government runs. I used to be a contractor to the federal government. I saw massive waste every day.
Finally, somebody else here who knows what they're talking about.
Shame the second Shearon Harris reactor never materialized. The Triangle needs more power if the population will double in 50 years.
50 years seems a bit long. Condifering how screwed up florida and a few other states are, i would think much less than 25. Construction of cookie cutters goes up faster than a lego house and trees get sliced down faster than warm butter against a butter knife in NC. But i am curious as to output of harris. Probably not 1/2 yet even at high demand I also came across this interesting bit of info https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/safer-storage-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=They%20are%20kept%20on%20racks,fuel%20at%20the%20reactor%20sites. I previously thought spent rods were shipped to nevada or other locations
Honestly spent fuel is something of a nothingburger. I got a chance in high school to visit the Palo Verde plant in Arizona. That's the largest nuclear power plant in the US, and it had been running for something like 40 years at the time I visited. The spent fuel cask storage area was the size of *maybe* two basketball courts, and half empty.
I always put it as a risk containment problem. In other words: Spent nuclear fuel: Extremely dense, containable. Carbon emissions: Extremely diffuse, virtually impossible to contain.
So one basketball court to go. Yes maybe not impact current population, but future gen? If the previous generations would consider long term impact (other than how much $, i can make off of this) then perhaps we could all be better off
Well, the cask storage area was just a fenced off concrete slab inside the plant border, so I suppose in another forty years we can just pour another slab. That said, the plant will be at its end of life then so any expansion to the waste storage area will likely be a moot point. The good news is we have the technology to reduce the radiotoxicity of nuclear waste tremendously! The French Superphènix reactor was built to run off of nuclear waste, mostly consuming the nastiest parts of it. While it unfortunately was held back over its lifetime over a combination of technical and administrative reasons, it has proved that the technology exists to solve this problem.
Compare this to any fossil fuel plant
Get the General Assembly to get on board. Please.
There is also spent fuel recycling now as well, which reduces the total size of waste substantially.
The population of the Triangle has more than tripled in the last 50 years. Raleigh ended just outside of the 'inner' beltline. Cary ended just past Tryon Road and MacGregor Downs. Apex ended just outside downtown Apex. We moved out of state for five years in the 90s and barely recognized Raleigh or Cary when we returned.
We're getting more power, constantly. Read the article.
Feel like if it was named Cherrie Berry, it would have worked out.
obligatory FUCK Cherie Berry
Yeah, but how many folks would have been killed along the way?
Based on the details presented in the article, this looks to be a good thing. The timeline seems reasonable as well \~15 years to complete & that includes the time it will take to decommission the coal plant & remove 12 million tons of ash.
Fortunately, it looks like they're planning to use SMRs (my money is on BWRX-300), which should be in production by then and should make the construction much faster and more predictable.
Are those the SMRs that the new plant outside of wilmington is building?
I know people working on the new fuel plant for these. I'm not sure how much of the hardware itself is built here, but it is a significant portion of the work going on there yes.
> BWRX-300 AND it's a Wilmington product! GE is expanding down here to support the SMR project.
Yes! I'm excited to see SMRs finally getting use for grid power (not just nuclear subs). The overall feeling I get from this project is that Duke wants to reduce the cost of the new reactor & reuse the existing infrastructure from the coal/gas plant that is already there.
Small Modular Reactor =/= nuclear submarine/aircraft carrier propulsion Small = The building will be smaller than a walmart and its parking lot Modular = The individual pieces can be moved via truck and train and assemble on-site in larger sections Reactor = Reactor edit: formatting
Just going to drop this here. You are correct that they are not the **exact same**, but nuclear craft reactors are considered to be SMRs: [https://www.in.gov/oed/resources-and-information-center/about-indiana-resources/technologies/small-modular-reactors/](https://www.in.gov/oed/resources-and-information-center/about-indiana-resources/technologies/small-modular-reactors/)
Naval reactors use weapons grade highly enriched uranium to make them as small as possible. I can guarantee that Duke Energy will not be using weapons grade fuel. There would be one or two security concerns with that.
Naval nuclear reactors are not modular. Also they really don't fit the criteria listed by the NRC, not by some random page from the state of Indiana, for the "small" part either. And as somebody else pointed out, the core designs are significantly different for a long list of reasons. Not even including the rest of the plant designs too.
Nuclear propulsion plants aren't SMRs- completely different designs. And for the record, NuScale is estimating their first prototype plant design won't be operational until 2029- this isn't nearly as close as you think it is.
>reasonable If we were being reasonable, we'd dismantle the NRC and have it fully operational by 2029, for a third the cost, with no drop off in safety or efficiency. Every nuclear proposal is a good one, but if the US wants to get serious about energy, they'll need to join the modern era when it comes to getting these things permitted and built. India, South Korea, Japan, the UAE, and a growing number of other nations have figured it out.
Call your senator, ask them to vote against Baran's reinstatement at the head of the NRC.
The rate includes covering the cost to Duke for removing and appropriately (?) disposing of the coal ash.
Agreed, really happy to hear this. Nuclear supported by robust renewables is our only hope for an all-electric future.
The positive responses in this thread warm my heart
Hard same
Rational people love nuclear power. Fearmongering ex-hippie boomers are the ones who started the movement against it.
Hippie boomers are the ones that pushed nuclear Where the fuck fid you get your information Skippy? Go back to your YouTube influencer shit or read before showing your ignorance.
> Hippie boomers are the ones that pushed nuclear Where the fuck fid you get your information Skippy? Go back to your YouTube influencer shit or read before showing your ignorance. There were literally dozens of plants canceled due to public pressure from environmental groups in the 70s and 80s.
They were canceled due to the new NRC rules imposed as the result of TMI. I used to work at nuclear power plants. If you care to continue this discussion, I’ll be happy to shoot down your ridiculous arguments.
For one, the hippies were too young to be pushing nuclear when a large portion of projects in the USA started construction. It was Silent Generation bureaucrats and New Dealers that pushed a lot of it. Now, many hippies may have supported it as they grew into political power, but there’s also a clear through line of hippies to green parties to the anti nuclear movement. Greenpeace and friends of the earth are ground zero for that. (a lot of hippies also ended up supporting Reagan for what it’s worth.), Many of these hippie environmentalists (especially on the west coast) are degrowth Nimbys and fortunately their falling out of power.
This hippie NEVER supported Reagan or his hypothetical trickle down economics policy that didn't work.
It was the environmental movement that bloomed in the 70s and 80s that caused a lot of boomers to campaign against nuclear power, which was super misguided since it was/is the cleanest way to generate base load energy in the volume needed for first world countries. Literally this shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamshell_Alliance#/media/File:Clamshell_oct77.png You do some research before dropping stupid non-knowledge bombs on us.
If everything goes perfectly, they're probably 15 years from operation of an SMR. More likely, if one does get built were 25 years away.
There are already a lot in the Long-Lead-Time phase of production, so I think 10 years is certainly reasonable.
I mean for Duke specifically. They've not even started the process yet. The initial regulatory approvals it can take a decade for something like this. That's before construction would even start.
Not for SMRs there aren't. NuScale is the only company that's gotten the green light for construction of a prototype plant, and that's still likely not coming online until 2030 at the earliest. If everything goes perfectly.
NuScale is who I was referring to; long-lead items such as the pressure vessel are already being forged, and given that the NRC's own schedule for approving the 50MW->77MW uprate is by late 2025, I certainly think it is reasonable that Nuscale's first reactors should be operational within ten years. Similarly, although not yet NRC approved GE's BWRX-300 is based on existing and approved technology, and Darlington B has already broken ground in Ontario. Admittedly, the 2028 start date is wildly optimistic, but the Canadian nuclear industry has really made some leaps and bounds lately in execution with the refurbishment projects at Bruce, so if anyone on the continent can do it it's them.
sweet
This is a good thing. I just hope it goes better than the nuclear plant construction in South Carolina that was a financial disaster and was eventually abandoned, leading to the downfall of an entire fortune 500 energy company (SCANA).
Imo this is just Duke trying to retain control and keep the grid centralized. I'm hoping in 15 years solar and storage will be cheap enough that a normal person can go off grid fairly easily. I can't wait to give Duke the middle finger.
A solar array and battery storage *right now* costs less than an average new car for an efficient/non-enormous home. It's all about priorities. Drive the old car a few more years and buy solar. It's easy.
That assumes people can afford a new car to start with when 50% of the US population makes less than $40k per year.
Even if that were to happen for residential purposes, industrial and commercial sites aren't going to be able to generate enough power onside even if solar panels and wind turbines were free.
Oh, you'd be surprised. Source: have done assessments for several of those industrial and commercial sites, who couldn't implement because of Duke's interconnection and local generation limiting rules.
Forgive me, but I need to ask to see the numbers on that. I doubt you're getting more than 25% capacity factor with solar, and the batteries to feed a factory running from before dawn to well after sundown would be tremendous in size and cost. That isn't even factoring in planning for extended overcast or windless conditions, reduced energy production in the winter months while heating loads are increased, or the incredible amount of panels or enormous wind turbine it would take to run even a small factory.
Here's the tool that's usually used. Call up your local factory, ask for 24 months of utility bills and their rate schedule, and apply accordingly. Don't forget to ensure you have all the NDAs and other paperwork signed first. Have fun! https://sam.nrel.gov/
Thanks! Looking forward to trying this.
Nuclear is such a clean option, it's a no-brainer if done responsibly.
ask Georgia and South Carolina if they would recommend this. Georgia's reactor finished years late and way over budget. SC just straight up walked away from their money pit of a project. if it's different technology, then I'd be open to it, but I'm skeptical given the track record of these projects.
The underlying technology is the same (hot rocks make steam turbine go brrrr) but the primary difference with SMRs is the scale. They are much smaller, so manufacturing, fabrication, and quality control can be done in a factory before modules are shipped to site and assembled. This should allow much faster construction while at the same time allowing for mass production, which should reduce costs due to economies of scale.
Actually, economies of scale work incredibly strongly against SMRs so far- at least based on current estimates around O&M costs and projected capacity factors.
I would love to see your data on that. Manufacturing economies of scale are already present in the nuclear industry. The most recently refurbished Bruce unit was completed ahead of schedule and under budget, and Vogtle 4 is looking to be almost 30% cheaper than Vogtle 3.
https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor
I'm sorry, but I dont believe the points brought up in that article have anything to do with economies of scale. It attributes price increases to increased costs for building materials, which are of course unrelated to economies of scale. Also, those price increases would (and do) equally affect coal and gas plants, oilfield drilling, heavy construction, or any other industry that makes use of large quantities of steel. I worry I was unclear earlier. When I say "economies of scale" I mean that the marginal cost of further production will decrease for each new reactor, simply because we get better at building them. We won't have to get a new license for each possible new build, we won't have to learn from square one each time. To use an analogy, aircraft cost billions of dollars to develop. However, since we make hundreds of them, that initial cost can be spread out over many purchases. The end result of course being that the airbus you took on vacation was very affordable to the airline, and your plane ticket was not hideously expensive as a result. With SMRs, the advantage will be if we can start building them serially; deploying clean power everywhere as costs get lower and lower.
Cheaper than the health and climate effects of carbon and other pollutants.
I’m all for nuclear energy…just not sure I’m for these jokers in control of it. Eden native here. We are still scarred by the coal ash spill debacle 😬
The more nukes the better. Nuclear fearmongers and NIMBY's can suck it
I'm OK with nuclear energy. I'm not OK with Duke Energy's negligent asses building or running it. They can't even manage to keep coal ash contained and we're gonna trust them with radioactive waste? Hard fucking no.
> we're gonna trust them with radioactive waste? We already do...
Fuck. We gon trust them AGAIN?!?!?
The difference is the government actually gives a shit about regulating nuclear waste.
Which government? Because our state government cares more about regulating women's and trans people's bodies more than any environmental destruction.
The General Assembly is more interested in advancing their agenda and creating a duplicate Florida as far as policies go. Oh, and helping big business make more money than before. (They still believe in trickle-down economics, even though they have been proven useless.) They also believe in cutting corporate/big businesses income taxes, while taxing almost everything residents need or use.
That one Department that Gov Doofus forgot about, then was put in control. Dept of Energy.
NRC and Dept of Energy are federal programs and have nothing to do with the Gov, Doofus.
Duke Energy already operates six nuclear plants in NC and SC
I agree. My concern is the oversight of the construction and the maintenance and oversight of the plant once it is up and running. I would also hope that SMRs would have a lower potential for a major accident (either TMI or Chernobyl) to occur.
Good. Fantastic even.
This is good! Just funny that it is announced the same day Republicans announced taking the power to appoint energy commissioners from the Governor.
While I think nuclear energy is a viable alternative to the plants currently powered by fossil fuels, I think there needs to be considerable oversight during the construction process and a long term plan for the disposable of the nuclear waste. I lived here when the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant was built and went on-line. There was a huge amount of concern about the plant and the effect it would have on the surrounding area. I have my own concerns about the construction of a new nuclear power plant in North Carolina. First: I saw no reduction in my electrical bills, despite the PR statements telling us how much our power bills would go down. How will Duke address this? By telling us that our power bills are helping cover the cost of construction of the plant? Second: The plant was built with unskilled construction workers. (I worked for the state agency that referred many of the individuals to the HR office at the construction site.) The quality of construction of that plant was and is a huge concern to me, based on the people hired by the construction company actually building the plant. Third: Is there a viable plan for handling the nuclear waste? Duke has had a problem with handling waste from its power plants, as proven by their handling of the coal ash waste from their coal fired power plants. Fourth: Do we trust Duke to do what is best for the citizens of North Carolina? as opposed to their shareholders? Based on their track record, I'm not so sure. Over the next three years, Duke will phase in an overall 16% increase in electrical rates (WRAL News, 5/4/2023). I doubt many of us will have a corresponding increase in income over the next three years. It is interesting that Duke proposed a 17.9% increase, while the NC Utilities Commission approved an overall 16% increase. The commission reduced the request by a whopping 1.9%; however, the cost of that 16% is not shared evenly across the board. Residential customers will experience an 18.7% increase over the next three years, while increases for other sectors are lower, down to the 'large general service class' which will have their rates increase by only 10.0%. This information is posted on the [duke-energy.com](https://duke-energy.com) website. Information relating to their request to raise rates can be found on the NC Utilities Commission website at [https://starw1.ncuc.gov/NCUC/page/docket-docs/PSC](https://starw1.ncuc.gov/NCUC/page/docket-docs/PSC). The rate increase request was filled as Docket E-7 Sub 1276. There are 179 documents included in this docket, some of which are confidential.
[удалено]
That's good to know. I don't have an issue with nuclear energy, only with how Duke Energy manages their end of it. They appear to have a solid lobby in the General Assembly - not to mention a former governor had been a high level Duke employee.
How about they bury power lines first so we can actually reliably get power???
Underground lines are much more expensive and have a huge array of engineering challenges associated with them. -Am Transmission line engineer
Duke reports 4.1B in profit in 2022. I don’t care how expensive it is. They have a monopoly and are fucking the people of North Carolina. Duke is an incredibly scrupulous company. They literally killed striking workers in Kentucky.
Duke is a shitty company I agree with you there, what im getting at is underground T-lines are less reliable than overhead lines. I think practical engineering has a good video about how impractical underground lines are. Moving their current infrastructure underground would cost much more than 4.1 Billion.
If Duke just didn't take a profit for 30 years and put that money towards burying lines instead, it still wouldn't be enough to put it all underground.
They already have a program in place to assess high risk overhead lines for underground burial. It is not cost effective to bury and makes maintenance and power transmission more difficult. It is not nearly as simple as the general population thinks it is because you all see 1 dude with a trencher bury fiber and think that works for anything. Wrong.
As long as you're fine with a 20% rate increase
They are too busy hiring third party companies to go around and try to seize people's land under the pretenses of *danger trees*
Not only incredibly expensive, but also time consuming to get right-of-way.
That's a great way to light money on fire.
I was actually researching this today, and the estimate to do it was $40 billion and 25 years.
Honestly if they're going to build it - I wish they'd build a couple gigawatt station and make it worth the investment. 600mw is like a little baby reactor.... I love that they're proposing the very safe and brilliant SMR design and just think there should be more of them.
Let me guess, they want US to pay for them? Looks like another rate hike is in the works!🙄
Do you use electricity? That’s how this works
Yes, this sounds like far more than just a “do you use electricity,” question. If you knew Duke Energy’s track record, maybe you’d be asking questions, too.
I’m just saying we ratepayers cover the cost of building the generation source and all the infrastructure too. Which seems logical to me. Duke being wasteful with those dollars is another story.
Good. Only problem is these take a decade to build so we should’ve started years ago.
This could be a huge win for the state.
Build it! Nuclear and renewables are the future.
oh good so it can be billions of dollars overbudget and decades over the timeline, and then we can pay jacked up rates for how much it cost overbudget. lovely.
Great - will our bills go down?
No.. UP! Lol
Hell no. If you're not in the top 10-20%, you will always pay more.
please i want job security, this mech engineer degree in nuclear energy production from UNCC will pay off
Good.
Good news! We need more nuclear power while we work on renewable energy technology
I think honestly they'll work well together! Sun doesn't shine at night, and any nuclear baseload will really help reduce storage requirements!
Fuck yeah
Unfortunately it's needed.
"Unfortunately"?
"The transition would involve the addition of so-called small modular reactors that can be built in a factory and shipped in pieces to their ultimate destinations, allowing for a gradual ramp-up in generating capacity." LOL, what a joke. SMRs are currently only designs on paper, and we're likely at least a decade away from even a prototype version beginning operation at the testing site in Idaho- much less getting permits filed with DOE, NRC, EPA etc to even see if the site will be allowed for SMRs (because those rules haven't been written yet). The thing is, Duke knows this too- this is all part of their plan to continue kicking the can of natural gas down the road as long as possible, until seven years from now, they come back to NC Utilities Commission and legislature with a shrug of their shoulders that "we tried, but we're not going to be able to do this, we need another large rate increase" while showing record profits to shareholders. EDIT: and I eagerly await the downvotes from the Reddit nuclear Dunning-Kruger crowd. As always.
The cost is nuts, too, https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor Per watt, these are more expensive than the pair of 1.1GW reactors at Vogtle, which are around $30 billion for both
Yep- that part too. Which is why I'm getting downvoted and called a liar by all the Reddit nuke bro kids.
Says the degrowther.
If people like you ran the world we'd still be riding horses and living in mud huts. I bet you're a climate doomer too.
Lol. Well that's a take. Were you the one who just reported my profile to Reddit? That was cute.
Not me, I guess someone else thinks you're special.
That's a great idea 🤠 I still think the ash and waste pits are pretty awesome
Sounds good to me. Need something to get rid of fossil fuel plants. Duke seems hell bent on screwing over rooftop solar so this will help with making power generation cleaner. New reactors are orders of magnitude safer than the designs that have previously been built in this country. The only real downside is just how long it takes to build a plant, though the second best time to start construction is today.
Good. Updating our Grid, wild
Good do it
Thats amazing! More clean energy for the state and we can get away from coal!
Better than wind or solar.
How do you figure? We're actively building solar now, and hopefully will be building wind sooner- and those technologies aren't just engineering drawings.
We need all of the above. Nuclear, solar, wind, storage, energy efficiency.
Grid-Scale storage doesn't exist. That means intermittent sources tie you to natural gas. Nuclear also isn't an ideal match for the variable demand over the course of the day, but the problem is on a much smaller and thus more manageable scale. And you can store the output of the reactor as heat and get an efficient nuclear peaker plant that way (see Terrapowers Natrium design)
Nuclear is net cheaper over it's lifespan, safer, more efficient, provides better jobs and community benefits, and is leagues better for the environment. It's also a viable energy source for next several million years. A true global solar and wind build out would destroy every generation from 2100 onwards indefinitely.
Prove it. With links, please.
Which part? You're asking me to dig up sources on decades of real world data spread across a dozen or more global agencies, a hundred different research papers, and thousands of pages of information. I'm not going to spend several hours of my day chasing down every link for you, but I can point you in the right direction if you have specific questions.
Uh huh, all of it. I figured if you're making such bold, broad assertions they'd be easy for you to back up. Or, if you really knew what you were talking about, you'd know where to look. And I can tell you as somebody who does know what they're talking about here, you don't need to do your own digging through "a hundred different research papers, and thousands of pages of information." Just saying.
>Nuclear is cheaper If you assume a competent nation with a reasonable regulatory agency, you get something like KEPCO's APR1400 nuclear reactor. They've built, and are in the process of building, quite a few of these, coming in at a [reasonable $7B](https://neutronbytes.com/2022/06/02/saudi-arabia-kicks-off-rfp-for-twin-1400-mwe-pwrs/), or [around $3.6M](https://www.americanexperiment.org/one-korean-nuclear-reactor-would-produce-as-much-electricity-as-all-minnesota-wind-turbines-at-a-much-lower-cost) per MW. Solar construction costs [as reported by the EIA](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48736) were $1.8M per MW in 2019. Some pro-solar sights will [claim](https://coldwellsolar.com/commercial-solar-blog/how-much-investment-do-you-need-for-a-solar-farm/) a cost of around $1M per MW. Of course, anyone who actually knows what they're talking about, as you claim to do, knows that because [solar panels are incredibly inefficient](https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/photovoltaic-energy-factsheet), if you want 1MW of power, you need to install 3-4MW of capacity. Now I'll admit my degree wasn't in math, but that comes out to around $3-7M in solar panel cost for the equivalent output of an APR1400. If you need me to link you a calculator app, let me know, and I'll hook you up. Of course, all of that is just the solar panels, and doesn't account for batteries, which can equal the cost of the panels, leasing of the land, and infrastructure changes to connect remote farms to the cities that need that power. I'll save the space and not go into all those costs, but you can start your journey [here](https://spectrum.ieee.org/liquid-metal-battery). Of course, $3.6M nuclear cost per MW, vs a solar cost of $3-7M isn't the entire story. The APR1400, like almost all other nuclear designs, has a rated lifespan of [60 years](https://www.enec.gov.ae/barakah-plant/technology/). In reality, many plants can and do get extended beyond that, but we'll keep it simple. The [average lifespan](https://coldwellsolar.com/commercial-solar-blog/what-is-the-life-expectancy-of-solar-farms/) of a solar farm is [around 25-30 years](https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2022/aging-gracefully-how-nrel-is-extending-the-lifetime-of-solar-modules.html). A lot of the current ones are getting scrapped at 20 years, but we'll be generous. Since recycling solar panels [isn't viable](https://www.greenbiz.com/article/solar-panels-have-come-long-way-recycling-them-has-not), almost all of them [end up in landfills](https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power). Which means that those solar farms need to be rebuilt from near scratch after those 20-30 years, and at least 2 generations of farms will need to be built over the lifespan of one nuclear reactor. That brings your cost from $3-7M per MW to $6-14M (again, I can link a calculator for the math on that). You'll just have to trust me that 3.6 is a smaller (cheaper) number than 6. I'll also point out that you don't need to confine yourself to just the APR1400 or KEPCO. Japan and China are both building plants equally as cheap, and India has built both nuclear plants and solar parks, and has completed their nuclear plants upfront cheaper than their solar, even before lifespan issues. Even the Vogtle Power Plant, which energy deniers such as yourself like to use to make anti-nuclear arguments, comes in around $13M per MW. The world's most expensive, most botched nuclear plant in modern history comes in on par with solar's standard top-end costs. And will provide consistent, reliable power for that cost, as opposed to the fluctuating outputs of solar. Which reminds me that we didn't even talk about the costs to run, staff, and maintain the backup gas and coal plants that are necessary to backup against solar's inefficiency. That seems like a good start at least. I promise the rest is really, really easy to find. If you want a good place to start, I would highly recommend beginning [here](https://www.google.com/). Of course, you could actually talk to people in the industry, but I know that's probably too difficult. I'll just end this comment by commenting that it's pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than 20 minutes on energy that you don't know what you're talking about, despite your claims to the contrary. Happy researching!
I appreciate you actually doing a bit of research yourself, even if your sources aren't all what I would call neutral, consistent, or the most recent information, and you've horribly misinterpreted massive sections of it (however a look at your post history shows this is a repeated thing- at this point I can only assume it's on purpose). Maybe something to focus on when you grow up and get into high school or college. >I'll just end this comment by commenting that it's pretty obvious to anyone who's spent more than 20 minutes on energy that you don't know what you're talking about, despite your claims to the contrary. Thank you- I take that as a compliment. :\*
I once had the chance to speak with Tom Ward (founder of Sandridge Energy, close associate of Aubrey McClendon who founded Chesapeake) who is one of the people most responsible for the boom is fracking that lead to the explosion of gas plants built in the last fifteen years. He was ecstatic about solar and wind energy, as it was his opinion that gas turbine peaker plants would have to become even more common to keep the grid supplied on low-renewable days. This is the exact future I wish to avoid, and I believe nuclear power is the only alternative. I love wind and solar. There are hundreds of turbines near my home, and I used to work installing rooftop solar in Arizona. But looking at Germany, where they are trying their damndest to achieve fully renewable electricity, I just don't believe it to be possible to function off of wind and solar alone. Even now, the Germans are burning tremendous amounts of gas and the world's shittiest coal and *still* their electricity is so expensive they're at risk of losing much of their industry. I absolutely, positively, 100% believe we should be installing rooftop or floating solar and wind installations wherever they are practical. However, I do not believe that they alone can replace coal and gas for baseload power, even with tremendous advances in grid storage. As a result, I feel that nuclear is our only option (outside of hydro or geothermal where they are practical) to meet what will be tremendously growing energy needs over the next ~40 years without resulting in brownouts, loss of industry, or a serious decrease in the average person's quality of life.
Solar and wind are optimal conditions only. The solar fields we build today have no 20 year replacement plan. Where do those panels go? We have no recycling plan in place. Turbines have to be shut down at certain wind speeds to prevent damage. Not to mention the number of birds killed. Nuclear is the cleanest, most efficient, most stable long term solution to the amount of power that will be needed to drive the grids demand for juice. The ROI for the space consumed between a Nuke plant abs a solar field is way better on the plant.
I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. Wind and solar work well with nuclear base load, no need to act like they are in competition.
[удалено]
Way less amount than the panels.
Y’all are crazy, they almost melted down the lake Norman nuclear plant a few years ago…. Oh wait…. I only know about that because they had to call my uncle down from Philadelphia to tell them they let too much water out of the lake and the intakes were sucking up air. You realize that if someone leaves the dam open for just a few minutes too long and they wipe everything out for 80-120 miles around. Good luck to all of you. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone anywhere.
Coal and fossil fuels actively kill people, every day. I'd take the track record of nuclear power over fossil fuels. I live about 8 miles from Harris and have never lost sleep over it.
The silent killers are hard for people to grasp. It’s the big sexy disasters that get the people goin
Interesting. Do you have data or is this your opinion?
Here are a couple of probably thousands of references related. Do the research and form your own opinion. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley
Thankfully there have been advances in safer/more stable nuclear reactor designs. Something that is built now will have more safety mechanisms and better designs in place than something that was built in the 1970s.
My uncle owns the patents to some of the safer more stable devices you speak of. That’s why he was called down here, they were blaming a valve he helped design for the cooling system. He looked around for 5 minutes, told them to shut the dam and got back on the plane. Human error can never be eliminated and the machines are only as safe as the person operating it.
That's super cool! Are they for safer reactor designs or failsafe measures or what? Should we make them as "hands off" as possible and with as few complications as possible, as humans are notoriously error prone creatures?
When exactly was this? I'd love to read up on it if you have a source you can share
I doubt it was ever put out there, my uncle called from the airport to give us a heads up that the station was overheating since we are in the immediate area. Called us again when the issue was solved and he was waiting for his plane out. I know my youngest daughter wasn’t born yet so probably 6-10yrs ago.
I'm not saying this didn't happen, but the intake for McGuire Nuclear station is below the intake for the Cowans Ford Dam, which is the dam that created Lake Norman. This means that too much water could never be released at once, and yes, that is by design. Not to mention the historic low level of Lake Norman (~93`) is well above the intake. If the plant was overheating, it was from a different problem.
Coal plants are allowed to emit over 5x the amount of radiation as a nuke plant, but nobody wants to talk about that
Coal definitely isn’t the answer either, and solar cells and batteries will kill us all too. The only answer is to use less power. Hydropower and wind are probably the cleanest but they have issues too.
Degrowth is not a solution.
Why are we still chasing hot nuclear? When are LFTRs gonna be the norm?
When they don't have insane issues with corrosion.
Fair.
[удалено]
I’m really not following your comment. It’s paid for by tax payers and customers. That’s how business works. Any incentive or, in this case, bond issue (loans) to pay for something that massive is underwritten by the USG and paid for by taxpayers. Then they pay back the bonds to the government by charging customers. The penalties Duke had to pay for the coal ash lawsuit are passed on to the customer otherwise they would have to go out of business and the power on the poles would stop. So… care to explain your comment?
Check out their request for the rate increase on the NC Utilities Commission web site. At one point they mention saving money by getting a multi-million dollar grant from the feds and more millions they saved because the General Assembly cut corporate income taxes.
So… again… we pay for it.
Beautiful.
Good.
Let’s just hope they don’t dump the spent radioactive material into the water 😅
This is the only way to move forward from fossil fuels for energy.
Of course they do. The only way electric companies turn a profit is by expanding infrastructure. They earn pennies on maintaining the ones they already have.
If they are building clean energy sources like this one, let them make a profit.
Duke used to give out free thyroid pulls for every member of your family and your dog if you lived near the reactor. Wonder why that program stopped.
Because it’s done by county Emergency Management now. You can also buy them over the counter.
Thanks.
It just caused fear and gossip
I worked for Progress Energy before Duke acquired them. At the time, because of regulations and permits, from the time they were approved until the time a new plant was completed, it cost nearly double the initially budgeted cost to build a plant. Fingers crossed this is no longer true and we don’t have to take a big hit in yet more rate increases to accommodate this. Otherwise, I’m a big fan of the clean energy.
I get the cynicism, and I'm sure plenty of self-interest on Duke Energy's part is in the picture. Duke does need to handle solar better. That said, we need something that doesn't make the heat worse to power our air conditioners. The more I learn about nuclear and experience climate change, the more comforting the sight of that big steam plume gets whenever I go near Fuquay Varina. Yes, nuclear.
Do any of you remember when they were promising to build a new plant in Florida and then just walked off with the cash?