Nuclear needs over ten years to be built

[billi]

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL6E7NL2DI20111221

-Finland's Olkiluoto 3 reactor delayed to Aug '14

Similar capacity  was built  with PV in Europe in one year ( 2010  )  

[smegal]

http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL6E7NL2DI20111221

-Finland's Olkiluoto 3 reactor delayed to Aug '14

Similar capacity  was built  with PV in Europe in one year ( 2010  )  

Take one moment to consider capacity factors before making such ridiculous statements!

[clockmanFR]

I look forward to the builders Health and Safety Audit document! 

[billi]

Take one moment to consider capacity factors before making such ridiculous statements!

Why ?  13 GW  PV  was built in Europe 2010

the  Olkiluoto 3 nuclear unit will have  1,600 megawatt

and the Olkiluoto 1+2  units allready running with their 1720 Megawatt   produce per year  14,268 GW·h


13 GW  PV  should produce 13000 GWh   per year   ( if we take 1000 kwh  per installed KWp)
                         produce  20000 Gwh per year     ( if installed in North Afrikas desert   )

And the desert  Sahara  has a size of       9 million  km2   as big as USA or 26 times Germany


1 GW PV  is about 17 km2   and produces about 1600 GWH  per year  over there

So the area  over there covered with PV   to replace whole Europes Nuclear plants   will look like a birds poo on a soccerfield

Billi

[dimengineer]

Interestingly, I was looking at a write up of a solar installation in the desert. What it said was that the mirros needed washing daily - as there was a couple of % loss every day due to dust. If I can find the reference I'll post it.

Something that nags at me is this ide that we can just use vast amounts of the african desert for our electricity - have we asked them?

[smegal]

Interestingly, I was looking at a write up of a solar installation in the desert. What it said was that the mirros needed washing daily - as there was a couple of % loss every day due to dust. If I can find the reference I'll post it.

Something that nags at me is this ide that we can just use vast amounts of the african desert for our electricity - have we asked them?

I'm pretty sure that any nation would love to gain an income off desert.

[rondurrans]

smegal was the above a 'ridiculous statement'? 

[M]

Interestingly, I was looking at a write up of a solar installation in the desert. What it said was that the mirros needed washing daily - as there was a couple of % loss every day due to dust. If I can find the reference I'll post it.

Something that nags at me is this ide that we can just use vast amounts of the african desert for our electricity - have we asked them?

I was wondering the same, but came up with the following scenario / sales pitch. A country, eg GB offers to build the whole 'power station' and pay all costs, then export said power. But first it offers a percentage, perhaps 10% to the country as a thank you, or rent or whatever you would call it when writing it off as a tax loss!

If I was Tunisia or Libya etc and GB offered me some free electricity for the use of some poor quality or unused land (obviously all parties would want to utilise cheap land) then I'd jump at it.

Mart.

[billi]

If I was Tunisia or Libya etc and GB offered me some free electricity for the use of some poor quality or unused land (obviously all parties would want to utilise cheap land) then I'd jump at it.

Its not only about the desert  , Spain, Portugal, Greece     ... have similar yields

But the main thing is in my opinion , that each country forgets /overthinks  about its own selfish energy supply , and develop an European Plan /network


Thats why we need a strong Grid in Europe , where electricity can be shifted  fast  , instead of leaving  it to a handfull ,only cash orientated, Nuclear companies   to  try hard in each country to get a foot in the door   and their plan seem to work  on some National ground  



Billi

[dhaslam]

The North African countries will build their own systems.  Morocco are already making a start but mainly for their own use initially to  complement wind and hydro.   

http://rhein.blogactiv.eu/2010/11/05/solar-power-generation-in-the-mediterranean-slowly-taking-shape/

The big development will come when the oil producing countries start to invest.   Cost per unit seems to be an issue still but the  oil producing countries could  have backup boilers  for their solar powerstations that  might make the  combined source viable.   

[billi]

smegal was the above a 'ridiculous statement'?  onpatrol

still waiting .....,  

[wookey]

Read the desertec reports for how this is all intended to work. There is a lot of co-operation going on there between north african universities in Morocco and Tunisia and Egypt with German power companies via Desertec: http://www.desertec.org/en/global-mission/focus-region-eu-mena/

But yes the mirror-washing is a problem. It means you can build a plant in Andlucia because the mountains there produce plenty of groundwater, so Andasol 1+2+3 are there. They use similar amounts of water to growing wheat on the same area of land as the panels take. So if the area is too dry to grow wheat then it's too dry for a CSP plant (of parabolic mirror and water cooling design at least). I understand that fresnel lens plants need less water. There is a 1.4MW PE1 pilot http://www.fundaciongasnaturalfenosa.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Actividades/Seminarios/MURCIA%20220909/2-%20Martin%20Selig%20Novatec-BioSol-gasnatural.pdf which uses fresnel collectors and dry robots for cleaning. That design is a lot more suitable for siting in really dry places.

You can site the plantby the sea to get water, then use evaporative cooling as that's cheaper than air-cooling. This provides you with monstrous amounts of distilled water, a small part of which can be used for mirror-cleaning (the rest for drinking). I assume that direct sea water washing would be a bad plan due to salt deposits on the mirrors.

If you want power as well as water then you need a more complex CHP design.

Lots of details on water generation here: http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/projects/AQUA-CSP_Flyer.pdf and more info including a spreadsheet: http://www.dlr.de/tt/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-3525/5497_read-6611/

So it's all soluble. Everything about CSP is really cool IMHO, and building lots more of it is a good plan.

[billi]

[zeus]

Take one moment to consider capacity factors before making such ridiculous statements!

Why ?  13 GW  PV  was built in Europe 2010

the  Olkiluoto 3 nuclear unit will have  1,600 megawatt

and the Olkiluoto 1+2  units allready running with their 1720 Megawatt   produce per year  14,268 GW·h


13 GW  PV  should produce 13000 GWh   per year   ( if we take 1000 kwh  per installed KWp)
                         produce  20000 Gwh per year     ( if installed in North Afrikas desert   )

And the desert  Sahara  has a size of       9 million  km2   as big as USA or 26 times Germany


1 GW PV  is about 17 km2   and produces about 1600 GWH  per year  over there

So the area  over there covered with PV   to replace whole Europes Nuclear plants   will look like a birds poo on a soccerfield

Billi

I think that the point was that for a true comparison you shouldn't directly compare a single nuclear plant in one country with pv for one entire continent .... your figures of 13GW=13000GWh/year (@1000kWh/kWp) for pv do stack up with nuclear 1.6GW=(1.6x24x365)=14000GWh/year, but really fail to address the twin problems which Finland in particular would have regarding pv, namely extremely low sun angles combined with very long dark periods. Maybe it would be more realistic to compare the nuclear reactors being built over the whole of Europe, or for the whole world and then see how many years of pv installation effort at 2010 levels would be required to match, and just as importantly, the industrial effort to manufacture the generating capacity and the civil engineering effort to store and deliver the energy .... (nuclear generation capacity - planned & under construction .... http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html

 

[billi]

I think that the point was that for a true comparison you shouldn't directly compare a single nuclear plant in one country with pv for one entire continent .

Why not ?  Or does a nuclear accident knows any borders , nor does uranium mining , and waste disposal