Stellantis Stock Collapses As Jeep Maker Takes $26 Billion Hit In Latest EV Pivot

[woodworker]

Constellation is working with Microsoft to restart TMI just for data center power.

Yes smart move by MS in locking up a source of power, the reopening is partly financed by a $1 B loan from the US doe, apparently MS isn't waiting around for Mr Gates to prove out his reactor proof of concept underway in WY where a former coal power plant is being converted to nuclear power, if successful plans are to build several more in WV. Apparently the push to rely on "beautiful clean coal" has petered out, at least for now
[/QUOTE]
That’s interesting.

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[GhostStrykre]

IIRC gates found some wunderkind who figured out how to run a nuclear reactor on nuclear waste.
http://www.iaea.org/bulletin/when-nuclear-waste-is-an-asset-not-a-burden

Maybe it wasn’t someone associated with gates. I just remember seeing it discussed years ago.

I’m not smart enough to know if nuclear is the world’s savior that its advocates say that it is, but it certainly DOES seem to be better the non-nuclear power generation practices.

nuclear + next generation battery tech (solid state and beyond) will lead to a future where I can absolutely see mass EV adoption. I gotta wonder if most of the domestic carmakers will be slow to respond because of the financial black eye they got this round.

 

[woodworker]

IIRC gates found some wunderkind who figured out how to run a nuclear reactor on nuclear waste.
http://www.iaea.org/bulletin/when-nuclear-waste-is-an-asset-not-a-burden

Maybe it wasn’t someone associated with gates. I just remember seeing it discussed years ago.

I’m not smart enough to know if nuclear is the world’s savior that its advocates say that it is, but it certainly DOES seem to be better the non-nuclear power generation practices.

nuclear + next generation battery tech (solid state and beyond) will lead to a future where I can absolutely see mass EV adoption. I gotta wonder if most of the domestic carmakers will be slow to respond because of the financial black eye they got this round.

Just my opinion here having worked in house at a nuclear power station for 32 years and consulting for five or so as a contractor, it is a great power source WHEN PROPERLY MAINTAINED AND OPERATED. The station I was at went from a shutdown about every 90 days or so to setting records for breaker to breaker runs in the 500 to 600 day range. It went from being nearly one of the dirtiest high dose stations to setting industry records for cleanliness, lowest dose, personal, and nuclear safety. I had the chance to work with some of the best most professional people in the industry in my time there as well. Will it be the permanent power source for the future? Only time will tell. The solar and wind turbines to me are like little add ons you do to your truck to get more power or make it look better. When you compare the real estate for a nuke station that puts out 1800 megawatts (800 acres), to the amount of real estate required for wind and/or solar to put out an equivalent amount, well, it comes up to thousands of acres. I think this county I live in has dedicated somewhere in the 15,000 acre range for solar. I’ll leave it at that. Coal is dirty having worked at a few of those as well but great strides have been made to aid in cleaning up the stack omissions there as well. Pumped storage is, well, pumped storage. It helps through the day but takes near as much at night as it produces through the day to “recharge” the water levels, kinda like recharging a battery. I won’t even get into storage batteries.
So with all that said, and the growing power demands in the not to distant future, I’m not sure there is any “one” perfect power source to feed the need. They are all good and they all have their drawbacks because as we know, NOTHING IS FOR FREE.
All comments accepted.

 

[dtech]

Ok, France get 75% of electricity from nuclear, US 20% . In the US nuclear energy has it's share of accidents but possible more damaging are the extensive cost overruns, Westinghouse went bankrupt from recent massive cost overruns and I remember their nuclear biz sometime in the last century involved in bribery, and payoffs to hide unsafe construction .

 

[Grumpaw]

Ok, France get 75% of electricity from nuclear, US 20% . In the US nuclear energy has it's share of accidents but possible more damaging are the extensive cost overruns, Westinghouse went bankrupt from recent massive cost overruns and I remember their nuclear biz sometime in the last century involved in bribery, and payoffs to hide unsafe construction .

In the end, all the nuke accidents will actually save money.....we will all glow in the dark, thus saving on electricity for lighting.......

 

[woodworker]

Ok, France get 75% of electricity from nuclear, US 20% . In the US nuclear energy has it's share of accidents but possible more damaging are the extensive cost overruns, Westinghouse went bankrupt from recent massive cost overruns and I remember their nuclear biz sometime in the last century involved in bribery, and payoffs to hide unsafe construction .

Yep, had plenty of go arounds with we sting who use….

 

[woodworker]

Ok, France get 75% of electricity from nuclear, US 20% . In the US nuclear energy has it's share of accidents but possible more damaging are the extensive cost overruns, Westinghouse went bankrupt from recent massive cost overruns and I remember their nuclear biz sometime in the last century involved in bribery, and payoffs to hide unsafe construction .

Hence my comment when properly maintained and operated.

 

[TruckBox]

The 4* EV's they developed over the last few years to sell under 10 badges - they decided they're not going to sell.


*I don't actually know how many products they developed, but they're all cancelled regardless.

True. Good thing they've canceled them. They still can't even get electrics to work in ICE cars.... except for DRM.

 

[Cmar]

I'm not sure why net metering is going away, or not utilized to begin with. With everything computerized, how much expense is there to net metering? In CT, I'd need 6k banked to feel good about getting through winter.
Some states even have goals to reach a % of alternative sources by a certain date. I know VT does. And while homeowners production is a drop in the bucket, they can still claim it in their totals.
As far as subsidies, It would have only extended my breakeven point by a couple more years if I didn't receive. In VT, not enough sun for the breakeven point to be short enough for me to invest again.

And while homeowners production is a drop in the bucket,

Wow that's interesting over here rooftop solar currently contributes about 14% of total power generation.
And during summer with rooftops going full bore, and counting in wind and battery backups, South Australia has at times actually produced more than 100% of it's needs and exported green power to the adjoining state Victoria which is still heavily reliant on coal and gas. (South Australia has a hot dry summer climate similar to southern California).
They also had a forward thinking government at one stage who had calculated that it was actually cheaper to GIVE home batteries to thousands of customers with rooftop solar than to build a new peak hour traditional power station. The only caveat was that the homeowners could use them for free, but in times of grid need, the grid would be given priority over their local use. ( They would have to then pull their power from the grid like normal uses at the going rate)

 

[Cmar]

Much of it comes down to lack of a comprehensive engery plan , to me it's extremely wasteful to have spent many billions in public and private investments in clean energy then change course, arguably it was much too much too soon. I'm still shocked though that Texas leads the way in wind power - somewhat proof that some forms of clean energy can be competitive with other energy sources. And there is a ww surplus of oil and gas - and I've been watching for a repeal of one of the costliest forms of subsidized energy - ethanol. Don't hear a thing because the agricultural lobby is powerful and as it turns out most corn is grown in red states. Rising utility rates tied to massive AI and digital currencies will fuel continued growth in solar and wind. I've even see suggestions that data centers will need to be constructed in outer space - and if you think that space launches aren't heavily subsidizied - think again.

When touring the UK a couple of years ago we were interested to hear that Google maintains a massive data centre in Ireland because the the almost perpetually cool climate means a reduced cooling bill.

 

[mtsoxfan]

And while homeowners production is a drop in the bucket,

Wow that's interesting over here rooftop solar currently contributes about 14% of total power generation.
And during summer with rooftops going full bore, and counting in wind and battery backups, South Australia has at times actually produced more than 100% of it's needs and exported green power to the adjoining state Victoria which is still heavily reliant on coal and gas. (South Australia has a hot dry summer climate similar to southern California).
They also had a forward thinking government at one stage who had calculated that it was actually cheaper to GIVE home batteries to thousands of customers with rooftop solar than to build a new peak hour traditional power station. The only caveat was that the homeowners could use them for free, but in times of grid need, the grid would be given priority over their local use. ( They would have to then pull their power from the grid like normal uses at the going rate)

There are other countries that rely on renewables more than the US. Spain come to mind. Does Australia subsidize in any way? I'm not sure how other countries do it, socialism comes to mind. There are other ways as well i'd imagine.

 

[Cmar]

Just my opinion here having worked in house at a nuclear power station for 32 years and consulting for five or so as a contractor, it is a great power source WHEN PROPERLY MAINTAINED AND OPERATED. The station I was at went from a shutdown about every 90 days or so to setting records for breaker to breaker runs in the 500 to 600 day range. It went from being nearly one of the dirtiest high dose stations to setting industry records for cleanliness, lowest dose, personal, and nuclear safety. I had the chance to work with some of the best most professional people in the industry in my time there as well. Will it be the permanent power source for the future? Only time will tell. The solar and wind turbines to me are like little add ons you do to your truck to get more power or make it look better. When you compare the real estate for a nuke station that puts out 1800 megawatts (800 acres), to the amount of real estate required for wind and/or solar to put out an equivalent amount, well, it comes up to thousands of acres. I think this county I live in has dedicated somewhere in the 15,000 acre range for solar. I’ll leave it at that. Coal is dirty having worked at a few of those as well but great strides have been made to aid in cleaning up the stack omissions there as well. Pumped storage is, well, pumped storage. It helps through the day but takes near as much at night as it produces through the day to “recharge” the water levels, kinda like recharging a battery. I won’t even get into storage batteries.
So with all that said, and the growing power demands in the not to distant future, I’m not sure there is any “one” perfect power source to feed the need. They are all good and they all have their drawbacks because as we know, NOTHING IS FOR FREE.
All comments accepted.

It's interesting too how things change with time, there is a very large dam not far from us, when it was built back in the late 1970's someone with a bit of foresight noted that the local topography was ideal for an associated pumped hydro plant. So a secondary dam was raised near the top of the mountains which contain the main dam and it was built at the same time although commissioned a couple of years later. The idea back then was that excess off peak (coal generated) power would be used to pump the water up to be released during peak demand. Which back then, meant basically night rate when the stations had to run at a certain level regardless of demand. They still use it, but now it primarily pumps up water during the day during excess rooftop solar production. That power is then used in the evening when solar production drops off.

 

[Cmar]

There are other countries that rely on renewables more than the US. Spain come to mind. Does Australia subsidize in any way? I'm not sure how other countries do it, socialism comes to mind. There are other ways as well i'd imagine.

Yes it is subsidized, our 5.0Kw rooftop install we put in nearly 10 years ago was probably ~ 30% paid for by the federal govt. The rest had paid for itself in power savings in about 3 years. The govt was actually staggered by the response and in a few years Australia had progressed to the highest level of rooftop solar ownership in the world. They subsequently had to scale it back but as energy prices skyrocketed over covid and the war in Europe (we use natural gas a lot for power generation and the companies could sell it for more in Europe) there has been a continued uptake even though the benefit isn't as good as it once was.
It's reached the point that traditional coal power stations - even relatively new ones have been either written off by the power companies, or converted into gas off peak stations because during the day there is so much cheap solar produced that they cannot make money from them

The govt has now realised that, and there is now a subsidy for installing battery storage- we are considering it.

In Australia although private companies manage distribution, the power assets (generators and poles and wire) remain in public hands for the most part although some are leased to private generators.

I'm interested in seeing the issues with roof top solar in the US in the threads here. We don't have that problem in the most cases, because we build our houses differently to what you do. We just don't use plywood and tar paper for roofs like I see in the US everywhere. Over here roofs are built with load bearing truss, batten,and frame, or rafter, batten, and frame (for cathedral ceilings) with either concrete or terracotta tile, or colour bond (powder coated galvanised iron) roof material. This means it's relatively easy to add rooftop solar as the roofs have lives of 50 years or more and are plenty strong enough to hold up the weight. We have rooftop solar hot water as well, although I did get an extra truss put in when we built the house to help hold up the 400 odd kilos of water, tank and panels.

 

[Cmar]

Just my opinion here having worked in house at a nuclear power station for 32 years and consulting for five or so as a contractor, it is a great power source WHEN PROPERLY MAINTAINED AND OPERATED. The station I was at went from a shutdown about every 90 days or so to setting records for breaker to breaker runs in the 500 to 600 day range. It went from being nearly one of the dirtiest high dose stations to setting industry records for cleanliness, lowest dose, personal, and nuclear safety. I had the chance to work with some of the best most professional people in the industry in my time there as well. Will it be the permanent power source for the future? Only time will tell. The solar and wind turbines to me are like little add ons you do to your truck to get more power or make it look better. When you compare the real estate for a nuke station that puts out 1800 megawatts (800 acres), to the amount of real estate required for wind and/or solar to put out an equivalent amount, well, it comes up to thousands of acres. I think this county I live in has dedicated somewhere in the 15,000 acre range for solar. I’ll leave it at that. Coal is dirty having worked at a few of those as well but great strides have been made to aid in cleaning up the stack omissions there as well. Pumped storage is, well, pumped storage. It helps through the day but takes near as much at night as it produces through the day to “recharge” the water levels, kinda like recharging a battery. I won’t even get into storage batteries.
So with all that said, and the growing power demands in the not to distant future, I’m not sure there is any “one” perfect power source to feed the need. They are all good and they all have their drawbacks because as we know, NOTHING IS FOR FREE.
All comments accepted.

As someone who has worked in the industry, I'd be interested in your views on whether nuclear power is actually cost effective in the totality. ie not just how cheap the power is when a station is running well, but if you look at the total cost to build, run, waste disposal, and decommissioning and clean up, are they actually cost effective in the long term? Or do they ultimately use more energy than they produce.

 

[Cmar]

Yes it is subsidized, our 5.0Kw rooftop install we put in nearly 10 years ago was probably ~ 30% paid for by the federal govt. The rest had paid for itself in power savings in about 3 years. The govt was actually staggered by the response and in a few years Australia had progressed to the highest level of rooftop solar ownership in the world. They subsequently had to scale it back but as energy prices skyrocketed over covid and the war in Europe (we use natural gas a lot for power generation and the companies could sell it for more in Europe) there has been a continued uptake even though the benefit isn't as good as it once was.
It's reached the point that traditional coal power stations - even relatively new ones have been either written off by the power companies, or converted into gas off peak stations because during the day there is so much cheap solar produced that they cannot make money from them

The govt has now realised that, and there is now a subsidy for installing battery storage- we are considering it.

In Australia although private companies manage distribution, the power assets (generators and poles and wire) remain in public hands for the most part although some are leased to private generators.

I'm interested in seeing the issues with roof top solar in the US in the threads here. We don't have that problem in the most cases, because we build our houses differently to what you do. We just don't use plywood and tar paper for roofs like I see in the US everywhere. Over here roofs are built with load bearing truss, batten,and frame, or rafter, batten, and frame (for cathedral ceilings) with either concrete or terracotta tile, or colour bond (powder coated galvanised iron) roof material. This means it's relatively easy to add rooftop solar as the roofs have lives of 50 years or more and are plenty strong enough to hold up the weight. We have rooftop solar hot water as well, although I did get an extra truss put in when we built the house to help hold up the 400 odd kilos of water, tank and panels.

An interesting thing is that because Australia is in fact 2 hours GMT across ie Perth is GMT+8 and Brisbane GMT+10 if all the states were interconnected fully - the East coast is, and Victoria is connected to South Australia, we just need to link in the west from SA to WA, in theory we could add an extra 2 hours of solar production for everybody and even out demand.

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