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A comment on US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design. Parent comment

Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Sunday July 31, 2022 @03:11PM (#32297905)
This is exactly the point I'm making: storing hydrogen for electricity storage has to be done through electrolysis, because steam reformation emits carbon dioxide. But we don't currently use electrolysis for our hydrogen production, because it's not cost competitive with steam reformation. It's not cost competitive with existing energy storage either.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by adrianN on Sunday July 31, 2022 @03:13PM (#32297930)
Dude, we use natural gas because that is cheap. Why is it cheap? Because we externalize the costs of climate change. By that argument we should ditch nuclear and burn lignite. It's a lot cheaper and proven technology.

Nobody claimed electrolysis is cheaper than using natural gas. Nobody even claimed that electrolysis is cheaper than batteries at small scales. The claim is that electrolysis is proven technology that is a lot simpler to scale that lithium batteries.

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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Sunday July 31, 2022 @03:33PM (#32298082)
I agree we should include the cost of climate change. That's why nuclear is cheaper than solar and wind: because solar and wind require either energy storage or fossil fuels. And since energy storage at grid scale does not exist, solar and wind contains the cost of climate change.

> The claim is that electrolysis is proven technology that is a lot simpler to scale that lithium batteries.

And my point is that this is false. Electrolysis is not proven technology at scale, almost all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation. No, it does not scale better than lithium ion batteries. If we try to build it at scale it'll make solar and wind more expensive than nuclear power.

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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by adrianN on Monday August 01, 2022 @12:15AM (#32302005)
You provide zero supporting arguments for your point. Megawatt electrolyzers exist today. They existed ten years ago. They don't use anything in large quantities of which supply is limited. You give no reason why we can't just build more of them.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Monday August 01, 2022 @12:16PM (#32308279)
A megawatt is basically nothing. Average load for electricity in the US is 500 GW. How much did that megawatt electrolyzed cost? Does it also include the cost of converting that hydrogen back into electricity? And remember this cost is on top of the cost of generating the stored energy in the first place.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by adrianN on Tuesday August 02, 2022 @12:31AM (#32315098)
You still didn't explain how "build more" is not an option, which is, you know, the original claim that we're debating in this comment chain.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Tuesday August 02, 2022 @11:20PM (#32327278)
But is it cheaper to build more electeolysis storage, and lots of overproduction in renewables? Well, until someone actually offers hydrogen storage commerically, there's no price. If it were cheap, we wouldn't be using steam reformation.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by adrianN on Wednesday August 03, 2022 @08:34AM (#32330841)
So at least now you accept that it does scale and it's just a matter of cost. Glad we could reach an agreement.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Wednesday August 03, 2022 @05:33PM (#32336882)
Maybe? So far titanium electrodes are the most promising solution, but titanium is a rather precious resource.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by pfdietz on Friday August 05, 2022 @07:20AM (#32354528)
Oh good grief. Titanium ore is literally dirt cheap. Titanium has been pricey because of how it's made from the ore, not because the ore is scarce. Titanium is the 9th most abundant element in the Earth's crust.
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Re:US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor de... by Manuel_D on Friday August 05, 2022 @03:05PM (#32360511)
The fact that it's scarce because it's so difficult and expensive to perform the chemical processes to isolate titanium doesn't chance the fact that it's scarce. Unless you have some novel way to drive down the cost titanium, building huge public projects using large amounts of titanium will remain infeasible.
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