Last Energy Signs Deal Worth $19 Billion For Nuclear Plants In Europe (bloomberg.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Last Energy Inc., a startup developing advanced, smaller nuclear power plants, completed four deals worth $18.9 billion to build 34 reactors in Europe. The Washington-based company expects to install the first of its 20-megawatt systems as soon as 2025, Chief Executive Officer Bret Kugelmass said in an interview Monday. Last is building its first system in Texas, but is still seeking approval from regulators in Poland and the UK, where it closed the Europe deals.
Last is part of a wave of companies seeking to install smaller reactors that could be manufactured in factories and assembled on-site. The approach is expected to make them faster and cheaper to build than conventional nuclear plants, but the technology is still untested. Kugelmass said the agreements validate the strategy and show growing demand for nuclear energy. "It's huge for us, and it's a milestone for the whole industry," he said.
Last plans to build and operate the plants, and the $18.9 billion value of the deals represents the revenue it anticipates over the course of power-purchase agreements that stretch as long as 24 years. The company must arrange financing for the estimated $100 million it will need for each system. The customers include a data-center operator and a hydrogen producer in the UK and an industrial zone in Poland. It announced last year agreements to build 12 systems for two additional customers in Poland. While the lack of regulatory approval is a key barrier, Last Energy's small design means that engineering and safety issues will be simpler than with larger reactors, said Jessica Lovering, executive director of Good Energy Collective, a pro-nuclear research group.
Last is part of a wave of companies seeking to install smaller reactors that could be manufactured in factories and assembled on-site. The approach is expected to make them faster and cheaper to build than conventional nuclear plants, but the technology is still untested. Kugelmass said the agreements validate the strategy and show growing demand for nuclear energy. "It's huge for us, and it's a milestone for the whole industry," he said.
Last plans to build and operate the plants, and the $18.9 billion value of the deals represents the revenue it anticipates over the course of power-purchase agreements that stretch as long as 24 years. The company must arrange financing for the estimated $100 million it will need for each system. The customers include a data-center operator and a hydrogen producer in the UK and an industrial zone in Poland. It announced last year agreements to build 12 systems for two additional customers in Poland. While the lack of regulatory approval is a key barrier, Last Energy's small design means that engineering and safety issues will be simpler than with larger reactors, said Jessica Lovering, executive director of Good Energy Collective, a pro-nuclear research group.
Cheaper? (Score:2)
These "cheaper" plants put power generation capital costs at around $28,000/kW, whereas conventional nuclear runs [statista.com] between $7,800 - $12,800/kW.
Hardly cheaper.
Re:Cheaper? (Score:4, Informative)
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kW is a unit of power, not energy.
It's standard practice to state capital costs per unit of power capacity rather than energy production.
This opens the door to fudgery such as using a solar farm's peak capacity at noon on a cloudless day, rather than averaging over 24 hours.
What time frame are your costs per kW specified over?
The life of the plant, typically about 40 years.
These are capital costs, not operating costs.
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Yeah, if. You may have notet the "but the technology is still untested" regarding that aspect in the article. Anybody can fantasize about something being easy to do.
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Economy of scale on the reactors is only a small part of the cost. They need fuel, which means they need a fuel supply chain and spent fuel storage. They need site security, they need cooling water, they need monitoring, they need a containment building.
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And more importantly, access to electricity.
Nuclear plants require a constant source of power - even if they are shut down, they will be a negative source of electricity consuming power from the grid. And that power has to be stable power - so they need grid
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Nuclear plants require a constant source of power - even if they are shut down,
No, please read before making such broad comments. One of the important things about these new SMRs is their ability to use passive cooling.
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That's a good point. All forms of generation that use synchronous spinning generators need external power to start, and in nuclear's case it needs it for safety as well.
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Economics of scale makes no real sense in our days anyway.
I mean: arguing about economics of scale(s).
Example: you want to build a laptop with an Apple M2 processor.
What do you need? Perhaps half a kilo gram of dirt and a few grams of "rare ingredients".
Both cost: nothing. I'm pretty sure a few shovels of dirt from my garden have enough materials to produce a couple or M2's.
What costs money is: having the damn production line/assembly line to make a single one. You have to invest some billions, to make a si
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These are not cheaper. That small nuclear is a lot more expensive has been known for more than half a century. It is the evry reasons nuclear power stations are so large: To bring the massively too high cost down somewhat. This is basically the last attempt to make the failed idea of using nuclear power work after all. And it will fail as well.
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I did a double take when I saw the numbers. 34 x 20MW is only 680MW, the size of a medium traditional reactor. And they want $18.9 billion for that, which is expensive even by nuclear standards.
TFA is paywalled, but it appears that this is an agreement in principle, pending regulatory approval. The reactors will be small, so small that it's hard to see why anyone would bother with one when they could just pull 20MW from the grid. Invest in renewable generation if they want to lower costs and offset their em
Smaller reactors doesn't solve the waste issue (Score:1)
Have they figured out what they're going to do with the radioactive spent fuel, or is that another bridge they'll cross when they get to it? Most reactors in the US store their spent fuel on-site [nrc.gov], because we still haven't come up with a better way of dealing with it. Having to deal with the waste has always been the elephant in the room with nuclear fission.
This is why nuclear only works when you've got subsidies to help foot the bill and ignore the costs of dealing with the long-term issues they create.
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Renewable still relies on fossil fuel for backup, that can't last.
For it to be a Net Zero solution (planned 3 decades from now) a lot of costly problems have to be solved. Spatial diversity won't solve a Polar Vortex over the US or a Dunkelflaute over much of Europe.
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Not universally true and will not last. Also, not all renewables need backup in the first place. Incidentally, nuclear also has real reliability issues, just look at the mess France is currently in.
As to the Dunkelflaute, the risk and extend of these is overblown by people that are irrationally opposed to renewables. If you have one of these over "much of Europe", that means it is part of a massive catastrophe like a major meteor hitting. And then you have other problems.
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https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
Through an interconnected EU-11 power system, the mean frequency of Dunkelaute drops from 3–9% for the individual countries to
approximately 3.5% for the combined region
The level of overprovisioning necessary to power through a Dunkelflaute is going to be quite high.
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Again: the term "Dunkelflaute" doe snot exist.
So using it for stupid arguments makes you look completely: stupid.
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Incidentally, nuclear also has real reliability issues, just look at the mess France is currently in.
Spoken like someone with no actual knowledge of the "issue" at hand. IE: stress corrosion cracking on a quad-redunded backup system, detected during a routine inspection made especially to detect this kind of things. They even have a list of the 350 solders to check (which is a small number compared to the number of plants, and the amount of plumbing there is), which might be impacted by that, because every little thing is logged during construction and maintenance.
I actually feel pretty safe knowing we hav
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Your link shows that those statistics are for dunkleflaute occurring over 11 countries bordering the North Sea and Baltic Sea, not "over Europe". That's not to say you can ignore dunklflaute when planning electricity production and distribution, just that it's not as bleak as you imply.
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I didn't mean to sound bleak, I was just correcting gweihir who was saying: "If you have one of these over "much of Europe", that means it is part of a massive catastrophe like a major meteor hitting. "
If you take a look at the list of countries included in this study, you will see that they consist of the countries that are expected to contribute a major part of the wind-related electricity generation (offshore/onshore). Does it mean we can't use solar/wind? Of course not, but the problem can't be dismisse
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There never was a "Dunkleflaute" over Europe. What ever you think the term means.
France did not export any reasonable amount of energy the recent 2 years.
Because: depending on time you pick, over 50% of the nukes where down.
No idea about what you think the reasons where or are. Hint: an empty river because of global warming has nothing to do with a repair ... lol.
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There never was a "Dunkleflaute" over Europe. What ever you think the term means.
First, there is a known definition for the term Dunkelflaute. Look it up, I can't do all your homework for you.
There are regular Dunkelflaute events happening, most often over northern Europe. Like this study based on 11 countries of Northern Europe shows [tudelft.nl]. Please, go tell those climate researchers that they have been imagining things.
The fact that I already linked you this study, and you didn't even bother to read it, shows the low level of knowledge you have, and the kind of person you are.
France did not export any reasonable amount of energy the recent 2 years.
Standard disinfo
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First, there is a known definition for the term Dunkelflaute.
No, there is not.
It is a /. term, and that is all.
There was no shutdown of nuclear plant last summer because of empty rivers..
Yes there were. Dumbass.
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First, there is a known definition for the term Dunkelflaute.
No, there is not.
Ok, so you are down to the level of climate denier. Good job.
Yes there were. Dumbass.
No there was not. There were shutdowns because of heat and regulations related to differential water temperature for open-loop plants (not just nuclear, any plant that uses river water to produce steam, like gas for instance).
"Unite Behind the Science", Greta Thunberg
Cringe to have that as your signature, given your posting history.
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No there was not. There were shutdowns because of heat and regulations related to differential water temperature for open-loop plants (not just nuclear, any plant that uses river water to produce steam, like gas for instance).
Erm, do you have a mental problem?
That is exactly what I said.
You denied it first now you confirm it.
Make up your mind.
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This is a running gag. You can't even remember what you wrote? You said there were shutdowns because of empty rivers. No, there were not. A few plants (those using go-through cooling systems) were taken offline because the heat of the water coming out of the plant was outside of regulatory requirements. Those regulatory requirements where by the way changed so that those plants could be legally restarted.
At no point were there shutdowns because the rivers were, supposedly, empty.
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Europe does not have "Dunkleflautes", that term is a /. invention.
A polar vortex over the US should be a real problem.
After all: it gives you megatons of wind and endless solar power.
Or are you talking about a short blizzard, then you only have wind ...
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Does not matter if you think they need a fossile fuel plant at back up.
Nor does it matter if they really in fact *need*(?) one.
What matters is: Germany is producing 50% of its electricity by renewables
That matters. That is all that matters. And in a few years it will be 100%.
And we still will be one of the biggest exporters of electricity in Europe.
Re:Smaller reactors doesn't solve the waste issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Have they figured out what they're going to do with the radioactive spent fuel, or is that another bridge they'll cross when they get to it?
This is a solved problem. Any problems with dealing with radioactive waste are political ones. Political problems can be solved with a single election. The politicians that claim there is a problem with radioactive waste are the people creating the problem.
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Political problems can be solved with a single election.
They cannot. Elections do not address individual problems. For that you need a political party willing to address single issues. E.g. we just went through an election here. There was a party that heavily advertised their pro nuclear stance. Great isn't it! They were also racist fuckwits who proposed breaching the UNHCR rules and wanted to halt all development of solar and wind.
Well sorry nuclear, but a sane party got my vote, it's a shame there were none who are also pro nuclear.
That's politics. That's befo
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Any problems with dealing with radioactive waste are political ones. Political problems can be made disastrous with a single war.
FTFY
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Have they figured out what they're going to do with the radioactive spent fuel,
No, they have nothing. The usual mode of the nuclear assholes: Leave that crap for the next generation to clean up.
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Have they figured out what they're going to do with the radioactive spent fuel,
No, they have nothing. The usual mode of the nuclear assholes: Leave that crap for the next generation to clean up.
Please remind me what is the decay rate of the shit YOU are putting in rivers while mining for the stuff needed for "green" energy? Heavy metals and so on? Oh, right, it doesn't decay, it'll stay with us for ever. Yeah, that makes it so much better than nuclear waste.
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compared to NuScale? (Score:2)
Are they ahead of NuScale? They are claiming 2025 versus ~2030.
Here's the company website, the design looks interesting. Have they built a working prototype?
https://www.lastenergy.com/tec... [lastenergy.com]
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The article says "but the technology is still untested". That means they are probably at least 20 years from anything that works reliably and with the usual massive delays in anything nuclear power more like 30 or 40 years. As is customary in the nuclear industry, they are lying about that.
Re:compared to NuScale? (Score:5, Informative)
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This kind of ad-hominem is a concession. You can no longer refute our arguments, so you try to pre-emtively attack us instead.
It's also why nuclear power is failing. Instead of addressing the issues, the nuclear industry just wants to ignore them.
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Just to nitpick: he did do not an ad hominem.
But is kind of funny, he got modded +5 INFORMATIVE.
Lol, what information did he give: oh, he hates angel'o'sphere and some other guys: just lol.
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If you gave a question regarding nuclear energy, I'm pretty confident I can answer it to you.
On the other hand: usually I ask the questions and grade the student regarding to the quality of his answers.
Any questions?
Deal? (Score:2)
As far as I can see he was just referring to the letter of intent a year ago, that's not really a deal. If they had actually closed a funded deal there would be some press release.
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They will not get funded deals in any real volume before they have a first plant actually running, at full power and reliably, for a year or longer. This tech can still completely fail. And given that nuclear tech is orders of magnitude harder than all alternatives, it probably will.
Re:Deal? (Score:5, Informative)
This tech can still completely fail. And given that nuclear tech is orders of magnitude harder than all alternatives, it probably will.
We had working nuclear power plants in the 1950s. The USS Nautilus had its construction contract awarded in 1951, was built in 1952, then was commissioned as a US Navy vessel in 1954. Nuclear power was largely theoretical a decade or so prior to Nautilus reaching the North Pole while submerged under the ice. When did we get practical solar power? 1970s? Do we even have practical solar power today?
We had working windmills pumping water, grinding flour, and so much else for a very long time, and certainly used to produce electricity for a long time. Hydro power is another technology that has served us well. The problem is these are dilute energy sources. It takes a lot of land for the power we can get from these sources. They are easy in that we understand quite well how to make them work at low cost, but what is hard is to make it do things like power submarines.
As well as being dilute we find renewable energy to be intermittent. Nuclear power is an inherent store of energy, just like coal and petroleum are stores of energy so is uranium and thorium. What is easier to store? Coal, uranium, wind, or sunlight? Storing water behind a dam is rather trivial, we've been doing that for a long time, so I expect hydroelectric dams to live on as a vital piece of our energy infrastructure. You want to tell me that nuclear power is "orders of magnitude" more difficult to manage as an energy source than alternatives? It's certainly more difficult than a lot of alternatives, but given that we have seen working examples of nuclear power for 70 years or so now it would seem that it's not "orders of magnitude" more difficult. Not any more at least.
The USS Nautilus went from theory to a record breaking prototype in something like five years. From that came even more successful examples of nuclear power. But someone thinking up something with a similar power output of that highly successful submarine is doomed to fail? I believe you want it to fail for some reason. Are your stock holdings in alternative energy not doing well? I'm sure spreading more FUD is going to help. That is until someone proves it is all FUD.
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You have no clue what you are talking about. There are a _lot_ of failed nuclear concept that looked perfectly fine on paper. In fact, most new reactor designs have failed. And the requirements for this one are massively higher and more complicated, which is not in any way increasing its success probabilities.
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The problem is that small nuclear reactors don't solve most of the problems that make traditional nuclear reactors uneconomical. You still need to get the fuel, and then store it when it's used, and most SMR designs go through more fuel too. You still need cooling systems, a large source of water, pumps, monitoring systems, site security...
Tell me more about the hydrogen production (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently there's a deal to use these nuclear reactors for hydrogen production. What process is this going to use? If it is electrolysis then that would be disappointing. There's dozens, or hundreds, of known methods to produce hydrogen and plenty of which are more efficient than using electricity when there's a fission reactor producing heat.
Next question, what is the expected market for this hydrogen? I could see this used to make fertilizers, because the current processes give fertilizers a bad name. Use "green" hydrogen (or is it "red" hydrogen because it comes from nuclear?) and complaints of CO2 emissions disappear. Would this be used to synthesized fuels? That solves a CO2 emissions problem too, and for nations with limited sources of petroleum that could be very important. Another use is to make "green" iron and steel. Perhaps it will be liquefied for the growing space exploration market.
Just don't use the hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles. Elon Musk likes to call them "fool cells", and it is a foolish idea. If there is an insistence on using hydrogen as a fuel in cars or other ground vehicles then just burn it in an internal combustion engine. If in a plane then use a jet engine. Don't complicate things with "fool cells".
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There's dozens, or hundreds, of known methods to produce hydrogen and plenty of which are more efficient than using electricity when there's a fission reactor producing heat.
There are precisely two processes that are proven at scale in any cost effective way. One of those processes (Steam Methane Reforming) isn't green. The premise of green hydrogen is to produce it in a way that generates no emissions. Sure if you have a fission reaction then you can experiment with generating hydrogen directly, but as a direct process that has not even been through a pilot plant stage, whereas electrolysis is about 75% efficient and has been proven at scale.
Next question, what is the expected market for this hydrogen?
Dream big. They are in Europe. Tran
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This is the attitude that gets our world where we are. I say explore ALL energy types. Not just think about them, but make functioning devices/generation plants, etc. Better yet, have private industry develop and pay for them cause they want to be first. Don't discourage any angle. What might be found is one tech is better than others for different applications.
Why would Elon Musk call it fool cells? Maybe cause it competes directly with his technology? Just maybe. Also, let's not praise all this ba
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Why would Elon Musk call it fool cells? Maybe cause it competes directly with his technology?
Maybe it is because he understands thermodynamics.
Go look at the development of the jet engine, I'll get to how this relates to fuel cells shortly. In the development of piston engines for aircraft there was a need to put in turbochargers when operating at high altitudes, and perhaps with higher performance engines though this may have come later. Turbochargers use the hot gases of the engine exhaust to run a turbine, and that turbine runs the compressor. Then at some point the engineers discovered that
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You proved my point exactly. Don't limit our thought or options by what you think atm. Elon Mush was poo poo'd saying you couldn't make an electric car work on mass. Looks like it works now.
Toyota has had a Fuel Cell car out there for a number of years. Maybe there will be new ideas on this. Only one way to find out, and that is to try.
If we block our mind off with what we think we know now, we will never know more in the future. Heck, private companies are paying for it, so we all should be cheering
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You proved my point exactly.
If you believe that then I wonder if you understood what I wrote.
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Maybe it is because he understands thermodynamics.
[...] I'll get to how this relates to fuel cells shortly.
Thermodynamics has nothing to do with fuel cells.
Hm, I lost track somewhere. Where actually did you try to explain to us what thermo dynamic law influences fuel cells?
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You lost me somewhere at the line where you think hydrogene is used for fertilizers ...
Here is a periodic table for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As an exercise for you before you go to sleep next night, I want you to mark every element that could be considered to be a fertilizer. Hint: Gold, Platinum and ... ta ta: Hydrogene - are not amoung them. Good luck.
Another hint: the element Gold does not start with a G - in that table.
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You are joking, right? NH3, ammonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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No, I'm not joking: dumbass.
* NH3 does not exist. It is NH4
* NH4 is not an element, it is a molecule
* The plants want the N, not the 4 atoms or 2 molecules of H
The N is the fertilizer, not the H.
Dumbass.
"but the technology is still untested"... (Score:2)
Yeah, because that does never go wrong with nuclear. Nuclear tech is only vastly over budget, massively delayed and hugely unreliable for tested technology...
Well, at least these fuckers have the lying down that pervades the nuclear energy sector.
Siri, remind me in 2025 (Score:2)
To see how many of these are actually operational.
Would love to be wrong but suspect that is too optimistic a timeline.
20MW is so little energy (Score:2)
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20MW (power not energy) is equivalent to roughly 500 gallons of diesel per hour.
So yes it is very small, comparable to the smallest naval reactors.
Those big haul trucks used in mines can consume 1MW continuously!
But if you are talking about regular highway trucks, your post makes little sense. One rapid-charger will serve many trucks.
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This is a miniature reactor suitable for one ship, a small community, or a mine site.
Your example is on the grid, so WTF is your point, aside from the bleeding obvious?
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Oh, come on.
If you want to make a stupid argument, then a least think about it a few mins.
For your starting point of thinking: do you really think all those trucks charge at the same time?
That would be a kind of waste. How would the nuclear plant sell all its surplus energy during the time when no truck is charging? Yeah, sad sad sad ...
Meanwhile in the US (Score:2)
We're still arguing about what color to paint the wheel that we haven't invented yet. (Obligatory Douglas Adams reference)