Running ‘nukes’ in the red

[Andy AshParticipant @andyash24902]

I'm not an expert on Nuclear Physics, and this is probably a case of "Famous Last Words", so I'm knocking on a hardwood table to be double sure!

As I understand it the PWR reactors will be fine. The AGR reactors are showing problems with the graphite moderators cracking. I've seen some photographs on the internet in the past, but I can't judge if the cracks are bad or really bad. Obviously they would probably be much better better without them, but they're old ladies now!

All I know is that the worst thing for them is thermal cycling. I'm fairly sure that the main enemy for these reactors is "turning on and off again". This seems to be a common solution for many modern systems but not nuclear reactors, I'm sure.

Probably better flat out all the time, than constantly changing the power output.

[clogsParticipant @clogs]

does anyone know…..?

lets say overnight all gas supplies dried up……

we have enough power supply, wind Nuc etc…..just dreaming……

can the grid actually carry the load without melting…..?

plus,

I'm sure a lot of houses would have to be rewired if that were the case….

might also be a good excuse for household to have 3 phase…..what a boon that would be to our hobby……

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Probably better flat out all the time, than constantly changing the power output.

That is why nukes are Base Load generating stations. Thermal cycling of anything is less than ideal.

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

Its funny, really – power stations don't like being turned off and on too often, but computers (wonders of the age) often don't respond at all unless you turn them off and on again.

it must be because of the electricity, which seems to work best when used with points which are flat, brushes with no bristles, and current which relies on electrons moving backwards.

Cheers, Tim

[DiodeDickParticipant @diodedick]

The reason for running nukes at a steady load (not necessarily flat out) is a reactor physics consideration (which I am not qualified to speak on) not thermal cycling. Something to do with the reactor getting poisoned with short-lived daughter products, which is also the reason why it can be difficult to get them straight back on line, after an inadvertent trip.

The limitation with core life is if cracks in the graphite blocks that comprise the core spread too much, the deformation of the core may prevent the control rods dropping in to shut down, if required.

This limitation was known about, and referenced in the safety case, before approval for construction was given. The last 4 AGRs are/ were subject to very close examination of the core passages during shutdowns as a condition of the life-extensions granted by HMG.

I was sad to see the Longannet chimney come down. In 1970/1971 I used to run (well walk briskly) up it to sharpen my appetite for lunch. It helped with the Munro-bagging.The chimney that you saw was a wind-shield round 4 separate flues with a square spiral staircase (if that makes sense) around a goods lift up the middle.

Scotland has no coal-fired power stations left standing and an oil/gas industry at risk from the green lobby which presumably thinks that electricity comes from a sort of magic money tree.

Interesting times, but the nights are long and the weather can be inclement up here…

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by DiodeDick on 02/01/2022 22:46:38

​​​​​​…….. the green lobby which presumably thinks that electricity comes from a sort of magic money tree….. .

Don't be silly, it comes from the hydrogen mine.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by DiodeDick on 02/01/2022 22:46:38:

…

Scotland has no coal-fired power stations left standing and an oil/gas industry at risk from the green lobby which presumably thinks that electricity comes from a sort of magic money tree.

…

Blaming the Green Lobby is naive in my opinion. A major threat to the oil/gas industry is it relies on extracting a limited non-renewable resource. When it's gone it's gone. Oil is the first to run short – we've got about 20 years before shortages bite hard.

In the year I was born there was effectively an unlimited supply of fossil fuels in the world. Wonderful, because energy was cheap and no-one understood burning fossil carbon in huge quantities would cause a problem.

Today the game has changed. The 'unlimited supply' of my youth is running short. There are no magic oil wells!

Over the next 20 to 30 years, the cost of energy based on fossil fuels will rise sharply. Our children and grand-children face a first class energy crisis, and, whatever the answer is, it's not oil and gas.

Diminishing supply isn't the only problem. In the 19th century scientists realised that the earth's average surface temperature was higher than was explained by solar heating : the cause is Greenhouse Effect, where the atmosphere acts as blanket stopping heat radiating out into space. Natural greenhouse effect is a good thing and life on earth is adapted to it. Excessive blanketing would be catastrophic.

Concerns were raised in the 1950s that industry burning fossil fuels on a large-scale might alter climate. However, at that stage, it was thought:

• the amount of man-made Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases was too small to make a difference.
• most excess Carbon Dioxide would be absorbed by the sea.
• the cooling effect of dust produced by burning coal would counterbalance the heating effect of greenhouse gases

All three turned out to be wrong.

In 1988 the first positive link was made between climate change and human activity. Unfortunately, the link wasn't an easy to understand undeniable certainty, it was based on murky statistics with some risk the correlation was false. The uncertainty enabled the nay-sayers and vested interests to cast enough doubt on the science to carry on regardless.

Since then much more evidence has been collected and the theory developed. Events and measurements both strongly suggest that the science is correct and that climate change deniers are badly wrong. What's happening in the real world is as predicted by climate science, not the 'nothing to see here' anticipated by disbelievers.

My view is that fossil fuels were a great boon in their day, but there are now two urgent reasons for switching to alternatives. Denying the need to move on despite the evidence suggests a severe case of wishful thinking.

Dave

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Oil is the first to run short – we've got about 20 years before shortages bite hard.

A bit of a pessimsitic estimate Dave ? This :

**LINK**

suggests 56 years at 2016 production levels. And the need for oil won't end with a reduction in burning it – all the plastic insulation used in EVs & the needle coke derived graphite used in lithium batteries comes from oil, for example.

The limitation with core life is if cracks in the graphite blocks that comprise the core spread too much

More than just cracks in the graphite blocks – the block density decreases as well. But monitoring the deterioration has been going on for a while & the results are used to grant the life extensions. At work we manufacture graphite components with defined "features" and from various different grades / types of graphite & carbon used to calibrate the test equipment that is used to survey the reactor cores – some of the graphite we are supplied with has a very open texture & is also quite friable – difficult to measure after machining without changing the part with the measuring equipment.

Nigel B.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

I have no problem with the realisation that we cannot go on with energy from coal and gas and oil, but this headlong dash into electic everything just has not been thought through.

We have known for years electrical generation would need some power stations to be 'retired' and replaced and more to be built/added to increase capacity, but governments of all hues have ignored this, pretending it didn't exist or if it did, then there was no urgency to address the problem.

Fine, switch to electric by all means, but make provision so the transfer is smooth, well planned, maintains capacity, allows for increased capacity needs, is cost effective, maintains control within the country and not at the whim of foreign governments, and is affordable first.

It makes no sense either, when we are sitting on loads of NorthSea gas (and oil?) and shale gas, not to use thatwhich is readily available first while we transfer, get a bit of energy independance under us as a country, until we can proceed in an orderly fashion, but no, lets all bow down to the green lobby instead and freeze.

We are told that cars must all go electric, that oil and gas cannot heat our home any more, so again we must use more electric, but where is all this electric going to come from? And how is it going to reach our homes, the distribution system is also surely in need of upgrading to cope with the increased demand? And how is the average family on average incomes going to afford all this change? I for one cannot afford a new electric car or a heat pump and neither would I want noisy heat pump fans clattering along all the while.

We have seen during that past month the frailities of relying on renewables when the sun doesn't shine on endless grey days and the wind doesn't blow either, the effect it has on capacity to meet demand; thank God it wasn't freezing cold as well. The only good news at the moment is that Rolls Royce have got a contract for a load of small nuclear power generators to come on stream in the next few years, but in itself that will not be enough

I suppose someone somewhere knows what they are doing, but I'm not holding my breath!

Chris

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

I dread to think where this is all going to end🙁

Tony

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

As far as I can discover Rolls Royce have been awarded a contract for further design studies with a view to building one off in the early 2030s followed by quite a few more. In the meantime the government will assess whether RR are a suitable contractor, followed by safety analysis by NRA. I think we can call this kicking the can down the road. Calder Hall opened in 1956 and took a lot less than 10 years to design and build. It ran safely for many years. We know a lot more about it nowadays, although we'd be even better placed if we hadn't had a long hiatus since building the last station at Sizewell. Most of the designers of that will have retired. No doubt we have a crack team of specialists in Latin and Greek making the decisions.

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

Things have 'calmed down' a bit now but just put the record straight , a Google of ' £4000MWh '

should provide enough evidence of my belief that £4500MWh was paId at some point TP 1.

[john halfpennyParticipant @johnhalfpenny52803]

Hunterston B is coming off-line at the end of its life. What do you mean by 'calming down'? More silly interpretation of the dials on Gridwatch?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by J Hancock on 07/01/2022 16:09:05:

Things have 'calmed down' a bit now but just put the record straight , a Google of ' £4000MWh '

should provide enough evidence of my belief that £4500MWh was paId at some point TP 1.

Google not working for me I'm afraid. The closest answer appears to be this one, but it's about the Indian Government buying storage to balance temporary shortfalls in renewable energy.

Looking at Gridwatch a few minutes agoi, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from the dials about the source type of imports and exports. We don't know how they are generated. For example, at the moment the UK is exporting 0.3GW to Ireland. The energy comes from a mixture of renewables, nuclear, gas and biomass plus a little from the continent. All we can say is the energy going to Ireland is definitely not coal, solar, OCGT or oil because these are all 0% in the UK at the moment.

Dave

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

It's the end of the West of Scotlands industrial past on Friday with this shutdown

If you look at the picture the defunct nucular reactors are at the bottom and above those is the coal terminal for the Ravenscraig steelworks and any coal burning power stations which kept going at the top

I sailed past it all in the 90s with a pal and the whole site is as huge an industrial complex as anything you will ever see in the world, feeding power+coal+iron ore through to the steelworks and engineering concerns that fed the Clyde with steel and engineering plus for anywhere else in the world, there was also a big fabrication/construction yard

The media of course are far too obsessed with covid-cough to notice

Edited By Ady1 on 07/01/2022 17:23:37

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by john halfpenny on 07/01/2022 16:48:47:

Hunterston B is coming off-line at the end of its life. What do you mean by 'calming down'? More silly interpretation of the dials on Gridwatch?

It's actually because Torness unit one is offline for refuelling.

 

Lovelly place, I liked being up there, except when the wind blew so hard that my hard hat was blown off my head and bounced along the road faster than I could run for 100 yards!

Edited By Mark Rand on 07/01/2022 17:43:58

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

Sorry 'Mod' , I omitted the / , Google £4000/MWh then it is revealed.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

I note the UK is supplying 4 GW to the continent this morning. If that were at thousands of pounds per kWh, that would be useful. But it ain’t!! Poster needs to get real and stop trying to spread rubbish.

Starting threads which are blatantly ridiculous, just because they do not like nukes or electric vehicles (or any other topic) should be banned – as they are just there trying to push conspiracy theories. Nothing more.

I’m finished with trying to believe that this poster is just poorly informed. It is simply a subversion activity.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Invoke the "ignore member" facility and perhps then the poster will give up with no audience available.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

On a related note, I saw yesterday that Heysham 2 nuclear power station is due to close two years earlier than planned, in 2028. Having worked on the construction of it, this has made me feel very old all of a sudden…

Rob

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

If I don't find a post interesting I don't click on it to start with. Radical but effective.

[egaParticipant @ega]

Posted by Ady1 on 11/01/2022 10:06:48:

If I don't find a post interesting I don't click on it to start with. Radical but effective.

That is my own practice – not easy, though, when the thread title is uninformative.

Edited By ega on 11/01/2022 10:26:56

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

The consensus of opinion is that our electricity infrastructure needs to be upgraded in order to cope with the distribution of the extra electricity that will be needed when gas is no longer available and we all have to rely on heat pumps. Saw an interesting video put together by a heat pump installer who says that with the mix of type of housing stock that we have in this country heat pumps are not the magic answer that our leaders think that they will be. The output from heat pumps is at best 45 degrees and in most cases somewhat lower, so electricity will be used to heat up to an acceptable temperature, and unless the insulation of our houses is much improved we will find we struggle to heat our homes. In Scandinavia heat pumps work as an energy source domestically because their houses are far better insulated than U K houses, complete with triple glazing etc. About sixty years ago there was a change in the way we heat our houses, instead of just a coal fire in a downstairs room, central heating using gas was promoted, you could heat every room in your house using cheap fossil fuel, some of us remember the days before central heating with ice on the inside of bedroom windows and getting dressed downstairs in front of the coal fire before going to school. Using a heat pump to heat the whole house is going to be very expensive as electricity when heating houses works out at about three times more expensive than gas, we all know what is currently happening to gas and electricity prices, a large number of consumers are already being pushed into fuel poverty. Even with comprehensive insulation programmes to upgrade the thermal efficiency of present housing stock, which is very poor in relation to other countries, it is going to cost an eye watering amount of money, if the government step in and finance it we will all be paying higher taxes to fund it. Gas prices will be steadily driven up in order to push consumers into going for a heat pump option to meet the requirements of scaling back usage of gas. I can foresee that a lot of families will close off radiators in most rooms and just heat one or two rooms because they will not be able to afford to live the way we have become used to with cheap fossil fuels. The impact of going “all electric” will need serious improvement to the distribution infrastructure to cope with demand, heat pumps, electric vehicles etc. Renewables such as wind and solar will not be able to fill the supply need because of the variability of the weather, December was a very poor month for renewables output, the country will need to expand its generating capacity and this will inevitably have to be Nuclear, I can’t see us being ready to meet the expected increase because of the long lead times needed to plan a new nuclear facility, it seems as though there is nobody in charge and we are drifting aimlessly into a doomsday scenario where the country will be drastically short of power, on a number of days in winter we sail very close to the edge with little or no spare generating capacity should we succumb to a Beast from the East type weather occurrence. I have foreseen the coming rises in energy prices and have my south facing roof covered with PV panels and much to my wife’s disgust have 7.4 kWh of storage batteries in our conservatory, very pleased in the fact that during the summer months, when the sun shines, I have managed to cut our electric consumption, from the grid, to a third of what it used to be, unfortunately I can’t at the moment go off grid completely but if needs be I will work towards it, the rising price of electricity is a great incentive. Dave W

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

It all went downhill after nationalisation

Thing is, the British are scruffy and have always lived in dilapidated conditions with underinvested infrastructure, it's our genetic destiny to live like that

Go to somewhere like Austria and there's not a scrap of paper on the streets and the city centre is as sanitised as a dentists waiting room, it's their genetic destiny to live like that

[JAParticipant @ja]

England, Scotland and Wales have always lived behind the curve with poor infrastructure and disinterested investors. It amazes me that we remained nations let alone gave birth to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

The French always seemed to do it better, good roads, bigger canals, advanced industry in the 1700s, early maunfacture of cars and aeroplanes and so on. They get so far and then just lose interest (or become interested in politics).

JA

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