Nuclear and Renewables

I've promised to discuss claims made about wind , solar, battery storage,etc, but I thought that I'd do another on Nuclear before moving on. I'm not an expert on this tech at all, but I'm definetely wanting to learn more when companies are promoting decentralized uses for it. I recently (today) saw new info on micro reactors. I checked the company website and here is some of that info.

It's not new tech, They are using a design tested by the guv many years ago. I don't know why it wasn't adopted. Maybe it wasn't cost effective back then. Maybe the guv is slow walking things so the many companies benefitting from the current business as usual model are not affected (probably not). :)

About the size of a ski lodge, with production rated at 15 megawatts. This is the smallest micro reactor that I've seen (I'm guessing they can be made a lot smaller). As a farmer, I would love a smaller scale one of these... In this case , an oil company is in talks to use these in remote locations.

Tracy is a good one to follow for info on the energy business. So who knows, maybe we'll see break throughs yet on this tech (even if 60 years late ) :). Sometimes the people who say things can't be done, get passed by people doing it.

Last of all, (and maybe most important) it appears this design can use used reactor fuel, and it doesn't produce high grade fuel that can be used for other things. I would think that might greatly simplify the regulatory process, but it still looks like several years before we'll know anything definite. Isn't 60 years enough? :)

edit- I should mention that I wrote an opinion piece years ago when the fukashima disaster happened in Japan (it probably can still be found online). It was pro distributed generation and not friendly to nuclear. If this micro scale nuclear design will really shut down safely in emegency situations,and can be done in a cost efective manner, I may need to update some past opinions.

Nuclear and Renewables

Is the Gov getting interested in microreators (I've had my terminology wrong calling them small modular) I hope so. Maybe the farm will be nuclear powered yet... :). See my previous posts on this subject. I was only being semi serious with these posts, but open minded.

Grid Security ? How Are We Doing?

Back in 2016, I posted this take on the condition of our electrical grid security. Not really my strong area of expertise, but I thought I'd take a stab at it. So several years later, how are we doing? Well....

This article that I found online seems to show little progress,a new threat was identified with the remote control of substations by countries who may not like us, though I think I noted risks involved in having our substations manufactured in other countries. So the problem was identified, executive order given to address the issue, then recinded by the current administration.

Also little progress on protection from solar storms, emp s, and low tech threats, though a surisingly "affordable" idea was mentioned for solar storm protection. Yet, no action...

So who are the groups oppsing progress here, Companies who profit from business as usual? maybe environmental groups who recieve funding from those companies ? Think tanks (who are funders?) ? I'll leave it to readers to draw your own conclusions, But I'd advise people to make plans to their homes and businesses to be able to generate their own electricity for extended periods. Yet another reason why I remain a fan of distributed electrical generation. Also please check my featured post on property tax shennanigans . The following photo is explained there.

Nuclear and Renewables

Nuclear proponents have been really touting that tech online lately. It would be nice to be able to stop events like this from happening.If a distributed - farm scale powerplant ever became available, it would be nice if it wouldn't turn the farm into a superfund site. :)

Nuclear and Renewables

My last post was a serious one,although the sarcasm was pretty heavy. I really don't expect the regulatory environment to allow distributed scale nuclear installations anytime soon. However, I'm guessing it wouldn't be impossible to scale down compments to distributed scale.Here's an example, though the scale is still quite large that touts its ability to supply electricity, district heating, desalination , etc. Kind of sounds like my swimming pool idea in the previous post. Here's another example - 1 megwatt At any rate, I feel that most of the new energy tech breakthroughs these days favor distributed applications. I'll be including some examples in upcoming posts. I've also promised to offer some critiques on other energy tech besides nuclear. They are upcoming as well, although you could start with my featured post, listing some amazing inconsistencies with MidAmerican energys reporting of wind property taxes. As I have mentioned before, Mid American,county officials, state regulators, etc are welcome to comment on that information and I'll include their comments here. In short, if anyone sees problems with my calulations or wants to assist in getting to the bottom of this issue. Please submit some info. In the meantime, the explanation for this photo is in my featured post as well.

I haven't sent this property tax information to the state ombusman office... and Iowa has a new elected attorney general. Maybe it's time to ask reach out there again. Thanks for stopping by.

Nuclear and Renewables

Yeah, nuclear is not really my expertise, but I thought that I might comment on all the online " debate" over whether the grid should be powered by nuclear, wind solar battery, fossil generation, or grid demand managaement,and what mix of these. Proponents of these positions are usually inflexible, and I frequently get the feeling that they omit facts in order try and make their case. I have questions... so let's start with Nuclear. One of the issues that I've heard with nuclear is that it is unable to ramp output up and down fast enough to respond to wind and solar variablity. That job ususally is done by natural gas generation. Not much info to be found on this subject, but I did find this post on thirdway.org saying no problem ! I found another one from Germany that wasn't so sure.

Next question What happens when things go wrong? As covered by this post on Twitter.

And what about those small nuclear reactors that I keep hearing about? proponents claim saftey issues and ramping issues can be addressed by these, But how small can they be ? Can i install one at the farm and and get electricity, and maybe free heat for the house and a pool? Just spit balling here. Could I sell any excess power to the grid for a fair price? If a sfety issue rose, it seems like it would be easier to remove a tiny reactor than a utility scale one. I'm well documented on my support of and belief in distributed energy. So here I'll mention Mr. Shellenburger, whose hard core endorsement of nuclear only seems to advocate for centralized nuclear generation. Really now, how small can these things be made? And it would be interesting if he would address my security concerns with an overcentralized grid (apologies if he has done that). And in the link above he also is dissappointed on dependence on imported energy. I truley don't understand stopping natural gas production in Europe either, until other options are ready.but as for german reluctance on using nuclear,I remember reading that Germany recieved some fallout from the chernobyldisater years ago. Hmmm, can't find it currently . Sorry about the snarky ness, but maybe these questions should be answered. Oh and I'll probably be devoting some time asking some questions to proponents of the demand management, wind - solar , Fossil folks as well. I know that not many people seem to read blogs anymore, So I'm probably at the "tldr" length so I'll call it a day. If you have any comments or useful info on my questions above I'll probably include them if you aren't bugging me about investment schemes...

Monopoly Utilities And Solar In Iowa

I wrote this post about MidAmericans effort to monopolize solar during last years state legislative session. Please check the other post. I mentioned that the surcharges the utility wanted to impose   were unfair to customers with solar, as customer owned solar provides a net benefit to the grid. I included information available online from the state municipal utility association that agreed with my position. Here's some more information from my REC newsletter that also supports my position.

 

 A distribution coop in northern Iowa mentions they buy wholesale electricity at 7 cents per KWH, and their solar array also offsets peak electric demand of 5 cents per KWH. That gets pretty close to most Iowa utilities retail rates. The information I posted previously was more detailed about the costs that utilities were avoiding, including calculating avoided peak demand from 2 to 3 PM at a much higher rate. The RECs generation arm may be able spread peak costs over their service territory, but I'm speculating . I still believe MidAmerican was full of it last year, and these utilities own information seems to back me up. Ample evidence that customer owned solar is offsetting peak demand liability for the utility. Yet, utilities in Iowa still assess demand charges to their customers who have solar 

So a group including solar trades associations, certain environmental groups, livestock groups, and probably some others have been negotiating with MidAmerican about this legislation, which stalled last year when a number of house Republicans wouldn't support the bill as written. The Iowa environmental council announced that a "deal" had been reach in their latest newsletter.

      Not much for details, but it looks to be solar only. Why are they excluding wind, anaerobic digesters,etc? It also looks like future customer owned solar will be treated differently than current ones. Current net metering Iowa law only applies to rate regulated utilities, so probably half of Iowa doesn't have net metering now. The agreement also states an intent to move to value of solar tariff.
I've been a proponent of fair electric pricing for non utility owned generation, but not a tariff just for one technology (solar). I see a lot of wind turbines installed by livestock barns and I'll bet many of them are not able to use net metering. Heck, what if a group of farmers want to build a wind project in the megawatt range?
Doesn't look like a good "deal" to me.

The legislature seems to have the ability to require all Iowa utilities to offer net metering.  A good friend wrote this work. He can contact me if he wants credit.

   
 With these legal precedents (I'm not aware that purpa has been gutted) Senator Joe Bolkcom drafted a bill to require net metering statewide. It was one of Gov. Chet Culver's campaign goals. Democrats couldn't get the bill out of a subcommittee, despite controlling house , senate, and governors office.
See why I occasionally question if MidAmerican has too much influence at the statehouse?
Here's the work sheet for the solar bill. Net metering in Iowa (for those who have it) has been increased to 1 megawatt, but you get the picture.

    

      

Opponents to the MidAmerican bill last year also took to using new messaging , saying MidAmerican shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the solar industry. There was no outcry when legislation was passed years ago that allowed MidAmerican to monopolize wind in Iowa, and I would imagine some of these same groups supported that legislation. By the way legislators, It's not too late to pass legislation for distributed wind not owned by utilities. 

  

Here.   

I served with Laura on the IEC board of directors. I resigned several years ago. Laura has a different take on the "deal"   

So , I can't get excited about this "deal" 

Cons-only written for one technology, and only one kind of distributed generation - behind the meter installations . What else was agreed to that the kids and grandkids above might not like?

Pros- not much, Iowa fell short when they passed net metering in the 80s. The "deal" falls short again. After the court cases mentioned above were reached, it seems that we could get better distributed generation laws in Iowa. 

This doesn't look like it makes any significant progress for distributed generation not owned by utilities.

I'll be keeping an eye on this.