Alternative to nuclear electric power generation

[Brat]

Geothermal power generation using drilling procedures used in oil and gas industry. Take a look at Fervo Energy and if you have time listen to the conference video posted on https://fervoenergy.com/technology/. Among their sponsors are Stanford, Princeton, Rice universities, USGS, Sandia, DEVON and Google.

Power generation without nuclear waste. It will be a couple years before these plants can be constructed at scale.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

"Nuclear"

 

[Brat]

Spell checker..

 

[Gumby]

I wonder about these plants' dispatchability - that is, can they be quickly throttled up to meet increased grid demand? My guess is that they will be better for baseload.

 

[audreyh1]

Nucellular, that sounds interesting!

 

[OldShooter]

Geothermal power generation using drilling procedures used in oil and gas industry. Take a look at Fervo Energy and if you have time listen to the conference video posted on https://fervoenergy.com/technology/. Among their sponsors are Stanford, Princeton, Rice universities, USGS, Sandia, DEVON and Google.

Power generation without nuclear waste. It will be a couple years before these plants can be constructed at scale.

"A couple of years?" Yes, probably. Geothermal is old stuff. Our neighbor put in home geothermal heat maybe 25 years ago. Iceland is also a big user. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland)

I didn't see anything in the Fervo link that looked particularly special. Obviously, given the age of the concept, the engineering and scaling is not easy. Good to know that people are working on it.

 

[ERD50]

I wonder about these plants' dispatchability - that is, can they be quickly throttled up to meet increased grid demand? My guess is that they will be better for baseload.

You guessed correctly (though clearly, with your background, I'm sure it was an 'educated guess').

From a paper linked to that site:

https://publications.mygeoenergynow.org/grc/1034444.pdf#new_tab

GRC Transactions, Vol. 45, 2021
In-Reservoir Energy Storage for Flexible Operation of Geothermal Systems

ABSTRACT
Geothermal power plants are almost exclusively operated as "baseload" power, generating at their maximum rated output at all times. However, as variable renewable energy sources see greater deployment in energy markets, baseload is becoming increasingly less competitive relative to flexible, dispatchable generation. Herein, we employ reservoir simulations and optimization modeling to investigate the potential for EGS power plants to adapt to this new market paradigm by providing flexible generation and energy storage services. A novel geothermal system design is considered whereby energy is stored as pressure within an engineered geothermal reservoir...

But nuclear is baseload power as well, so looking at this as an addition/alternative to nuclear is reasonable. Being able to throttle it would be a plus.

-ERD50

 

[Masquernom]

The big tech working for them now is horizontal drilling and fracing.

 

[OldShooter]

The big tech working for them now is horizontal drilling and fracing.

Not special.

 

[skipro33]

I worked for the local electric company here in Sacramento. We had both a nuke plant and geothermal. Of the two, the dirtiest was the geo. We hauled a dozen full rail cars of sulfur every day, 365 days a year out of that place via scrubbers. The acidic fumes were so corrosive, we had to wear special PPE when we entered the front gate, 3 miles from the plant itself. This was on Cobb Mountain, nearest town is Middletown, California. We eventually sold it off, having lost huge amounts of money in that setup.
Anyone who has visited Yellowstone knows the sulfur stink of geo energy. You would also know that nothing grows in the plume of the fumes. It's not friendly...

 

[ERD50]

I worked for the local electric company here in Sacramento. We had both a nuke plant and geothermal. Of the two, the dirtiest was the geo. We hauled a dozen full rail cars of sulfur every day, 365 days a year out of that place via scrubbers. The acidic fumes were so corrosive, we had to wear special PPE when we entered the front gate, 3 miles from the plant itself. This was on Cobb Mountain, nearest town is Middletown, California. We eventually sold it off, having lost huge amounts of money in that setup.
Anyone who has visited Yellowstone knows the sulfur stink of geo energy. You would also know that nothing grows in the plume of the fumes. It's not friendly...

Interesting, I would have thought the circulating water/steam was closed loop, no escaping sulfur fumes? Or were the fumes from some other part of the process?

-ERD50

 

[aja8888]

I worked for the local electric company here in Sacramento. We had both a nuke plant and geothermal. Of the two, the dirtiest was the geo. We hauled a dozen full rail cars of sulfur every day, 365 days a year out of that place via scrubbers. The acidic fumes were so corrosive, we had to wear special PPE when we entered the front gate, 3 miles from the plant itself. This was on Cobb Mountain, nearest town is Middletown, California. We eventually sold it off, having lost huge amounts of money in that setup.
Anyone who has visited Yellowstone knows the sulfur stink of geo energy. You would also know that nothing grows in the plume of the fumes. It's not friendly...

I did an engineering project at the big Geo plant near the Salton Sea in Cali (East of San Diego over the mountains) several years ago. From what I recall, fairly expensive power and not much of it. Nice operation, though!

 

[skipro33]

Interesting, I would have thought the circulating water/steam was closed loop, no escaping sulfur fumes? Or were the fumes from some other part of the process?

-ERD50

We tried injecting the sulfur back into the well, but the power loss to do so was even more expensive than hauling it away, making the process not worth the cost. And remember: SMUD, the electric company out of Sacramento, is a public municipality, non-profit. I can't imagine a private utility ever dabbing into geothermal without huge government offsets to make it even worth the effort. Even with all the scrubbing, the rotten egg odor was quite pervasive and I'm sure the surrounding area was unable to be developed for anything else. That made the site remote, add that it's located on a mountain top AND California with all it's fires and it was a real pain. We had a few wildland fires that burned right up to the fences. Everything was affected by the corrosive fumes, so much that employee parking caused their cars to rot. We were provided vans for offsite parking. Sounds o.k. unless you have a dr. appt or other issues to leave site to manage.
The absolute best generation is hydro. Clean, renewable and, while not a 'green' energy, certainly offers other benefits for states like water starved California both in it's capacity to store water for summer and prevent floods during the short winter rain periods.

 

[ERD50]

We tried injecting the sulfur back into the well, but the power loss to do so was even more expensive than hauling it away, making the process not worth the cost. And remember: SMUD, the electric company out of Sacramento, is a public municipality, non-profit. I can't imagine a private utility ever dabbing into geothermal without huge government offsets to make it even worth the effort. Even with all the scrubbing, the rotten egg odor was quite pervasive and I'm sure the surrounding area was unable to be developed for anything else. That made the site remote, add that it's located on a mountain top AND California with all it's fires and it was a real pain. We had a few wildland fires that burned right up to the fences. Everything was affected by the corrosive fumes, so much that employee parking caused their cars to rot. We were provided vans for offsite parking. Sounds o.k. unless you have a dr. appt or other issues to leave site to manage.
The absolute best generation is hydro. Clean, renewable and, while not a 'green' energy, certainly offers other benefits for states like water starved California both in it's capacity to store water for summer and prevent floods during the short winter rain periods.

Interesting. This source (and a few like it) gives the impression that everything goes back into the ground.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-repo...-markets-and-resources/types-geothermal-power

But wiki at least seems to say in some cases, there is exhaust?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

emphasis mine...

Any leftover water and condensed steam may be injected back into the reservoir, making this a potentially sustainable resource.

But I can see where releasing to the atmosphere could be a lower pressure than trying to get it back into the ground, leading to the efficiency hit you describe.

-ERD50

 

[WhenIsItTime]

I think alternatives are good to look at. I think nuclear gets a bad wrap.

All of the waste that the U.S. nuclear industry has created since the 1950s takes up relatively little space, and it’s all safely contained. The energy density of nuclear fuel means that nuclear plants produce immense amounts of energy with little byproduct. In fact, the entire amount of waste created in the United States would fill one football field, 10 yards deep. By comparison, a single coal plant generates as much waste by volume in one hour as nuclear power has during its entire history.

Here’s another way to think about it. Imagine you are holding a hockey puck. In that puck is everything you need to power your home, feed you, transport you, power your vacations, produce your clothing and provide heat for your entire life. It also contains all the byproducts and waste you would generate by doing so. It may seem unbelievable, but that is the total amount of nuclear fuel you need to power your entire life.

More nuclear would go a long ways to power all the electric vehicles coming online.

 

[skipro33]

Interesting. This source (and a few like it) gives the impression that everything goes back into the ground.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-repo...-markets-and-resources/types-geothermal-power

But wiki at least seems to say in some cases, there is exhaust?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

emphasis mine...


But I can see where releasing to the atmosphere could be a lower pressure than trying to get it back into the ground, leading to the efficiency hit you describe.

-ERD50

Here's the plant I worked on. I was a telecom tech, communications: any voice or data between any two places was my task. Microwave, fiber, 2-way, etc. I went there only a few days a month as it didn't warrant a full time position. We sold the place to Calpine under a deal that they sell it back to us for cheap for a number of years. Something like that. SMUD said it was too dirty and too dangerous to take on the liability and could not find insurance to underwrite.

https://www.calpine.com/operations/power-operations/our-fleet/california/cobb-creek

I found this old document on line that might cover some of the issues back when we built the place in the 80's.
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1197102/m2/1/high_res_d/6821943.pdf

Since the plant was designed for 25 years lifespan, it's well past that and perhaps it's all moot now, they've solved the issues from back then.

 

[pb4uski]

Our local cooperative electric utility in Vermont generates almost 75% of it's power using methane from a landfill. The capture the methane, filter and clean it and then use it to run big Caterpillar generators. I don't know why any landfill reasonably near to transmission lines isn't used to generate electricity.

Thoughts?

 

[marko]

I worked for the local electric company here in Sacramento. We had both a nuke plant and geothermal. Of the two, the dirtiest was the geo. We hauled a dozen full rail cars of sulfur every day, 365 days a year out of that place via scrubbers. .

I'd like to know where those rail cars were going. Where are they dumping that nasty stuff?

 

[Gumby]

I'd like to know where those rail cars were going. Where are they dumping that nasty stuff?

Sulfur has many uses. It is most commonly used to produce sulfuric acid, the most common applications of which are in fertilizers, particularly superphosphates, ammonium phosphate and ammonium sulfates. About 20% is used in chemical industry for production of detergents, synthetic resins, dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, petroleum catalysts, insecticides and antifreeze, as well as in various processes such as oil well acidicizing, aluminium reduction, paper sizing, and water treatment. About 6% of uses are related to pigments and include paints, enamels, printing inks, coated fabrics and paper, while the rest is dispersed into a multitude of applications such as production of explosives, cellophane, acetate and viscose textiles, lubricants, non-ferrous metals, and batteries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid

 

[aja8888]

Our local cooperative electric utility in Vermont generates almost 75% of it's power using methane from a landfill. The capture the methane, filter and clean it and then use it to run big Caterpillar generators. I don't know why any landfill reasonably near to transmission lines isn't used to generate electricity.

Thoughts?

New landfills are, by regulation, designed with a bottom liner (may be clay or synthetic), a leachate collections system for liquids capture, and a methane gas collection system (piping, etc). Then they can be used for gas collection after a time.

Old landfills may not have been built with the proper collection systems and won't produce much collectable methane even if gas wells are drilled late in the life of the landfill. The gas comes from organics rotting like food garbage, dead animals, etc. and all this takes a while to get going.

 

[CardsFan]

Sulfur has many uses. It is most commonly used to produce sulfuric acid, the most common applications of which are in fertilizers, particularly superphosphates, ammonium phosphate and ammonium sulfates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid

Quite correct. In my past life I worked for a company that designed sulfuric acid plants. The vast majority was for the fertilizer industry.

On a related note, the process of burning sulfur to make acid, and the subsequent chemical reactions, are very endothermic. The energy can be recovered to generate steam to run the plant, with excess being used to generate power.

Clean energy! Well, at least carbon-free.

 

[Ronstar]

I think alternatives are good to look at. I think nuclear gets a bad wrap.

All of the waste that the U.S. nuclear industry has created since the 1950s takes up relatively little space, and it’s all safely contained. The energy density of nuclear fuel means that nuclear plants produce immense amounts of energy with little byproduct. In fact, the entire amount of waste created in the United States would fill one football field, 10 yards deep. By comparison, a single coal plant generates as much waste by volume in one hour as nuclear power has during its entire history.

Here’s another way to think about it. Imagine you are holding a hockey puck. In that puck is everything you need to power your home, feed you, transport you, power your vacations, produce your clothing and provide heat for your entire life. It also contains all the byproducts and waste you would generate by doing so. It may seem unbelievable, but that is the total amount of nuclear fuel you need to power your entire life.

More nuclear would go a long ways to power all the electric vehicles coming online.

I agree - more nuclear. We live in northern Illinois close to 3 nuclear power plants. Very reliable, and far cleaner than coal.

I surveyed the Dresden nuclear plant's spent fuel facility in the mid 70's. It wasn't near capacity, but we measured and provided plans for optimizing the space. I don't ever remember seeing or hearing any problems with safety in storing or transporting spent fuel.

 

[JoeWras]

Although closed loop geothermal exists, mostly for the home, it isn't as easy as open, especially on a massive scale.

We just have to look at nuclear. We must.

I'll admit I'm probably going to be tone deaf on the GW issue until the GW alarmists at least consider nuclear again. Their complete disregard of nuclear exposes that there is a larger agenda. My opinion.

 

[Zathras]

Although closed loop geothermal exists, mostly for the home, it isn't as easy as open, especially on a massive scale.

We just have to look at nuclear. We must.

I'll admit I'm probably going to be tone deaf on the GW issue until the GW alarmists at least consider nuclear again. Their complete disregard of nuclear exposes that there is a larger agenda. My opinion.

Most do. Please don’t think that people concerned about global warming all think the same way about every topic.
For me, I find the next gen reactors used in Europe far superior to US reactors. We need to move to better reactors, not fewer.

 

[Gumby]

Although closed loop geothermal exists, mostly for the home, it isn't as easy as open, especially on a massive scale.

We just have to look at nuclear. We must.

I'll admit I'm probably going to be tone deaf on the GW issue until the GW alarmists at least consider nuclear again. Their complete disregard of nuclear exposes that there is a larger agenda. My opinion.

It has not escaped my attention that a number of the current climate activists were the same people protesting outside my nuclear generation plant in the 80s and blocking the road while I was trying to get to work. But I don't think there is some hidden agenda. Just poorly informed, illogical and emotionally driven people.

Do I think the earth is warming? Yes, we can measure it. Do I think it is anthropogenic? Most likely it is. Do we need to set our hair on fire over the issue? No. We can't ignore it, but I think we can move forward with a measured, multipronged approach that is sound from a scientific and engineering standpoint, without crashing the world economy.

And I would say to many of the currently young activists - change your major to engineering, get a degree and help work on the solution instead of performatively protesting in the street.