Great British Nuclear to boost UK energy security, reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel imports and deliver government priority to grow the economy

Get those construction contacts signed!

  • @lntl@lemmy.mlOP
    -3•2 years ago

    Storage? Like battery storage? Lead? Lithium? Go on, tell me more.

    Or will we flood river valleys? What are you thinking?

      • @lntl@lemmy.mlOP
        -2•2 years ago

        I took graduate level courses in storage with these technologies at scale. Neat that this knowledge is useful again.

        Pumped and compressed require specific geologic formations. Most of the sites for pumped have already been developed in NA. There’s room for growth for compressed, but compressed also suffers from losses when the air that’s pumped into the crust cools. Hopefully, there are undeveloped compressed sites near regions with energy demands.

        Flywheels are a neat idea and still just that: an idea. It’s yet to been demonstrated they can reliably do more than grid frequency moderation. The reason it’s not very attractive to investors is that we don’t have materials to match the energy density of other technologies.

        Green hydrogen is also just an idea at the present. Nobody’s pursues this because of losses incurred generating hydrogen from water. I want this one to work!

        Finally, batteries. Do you think there are enough metals on the planet to build enough batteries for current and future demand?

          • @PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
            -1•2 years ago

            It’s not. We HAVE to have baseline power generation. Today that comes by either burning fossil fuels, or nuclear, with hydro/geo etc making up a trivial percentage. Only oil industry propaganda conflates nuclear with solar/wind.

          • @lntl@lemmy.mlOP
            0•2 years ago

            Yes, nuclear is the only one that’s sufficiently developed, with a supply chain that’s sufficiently developed, that’s ready for deployment right now.

            The others could get there some day, and I hope they do, but we cannot wait for that.

              • @lntl@lemmy.mlOP
                0•2 years ago

                I think we’re misunderstanding. Nukes, like wind and solar, are made out of concrete and steel which have developed supply chains. It’s the storage part that is not developed for renewables.

                  • @lntl@lemmy.mlOP
                    0•2 years ago

                    Nuclear plants are built like every other building is built: construction. “Construction” is what happens after the “supply chain” delivers the material. It assembles the materials into the thing. They’re related and different concepts.