Generation Professionals Group
The Generation Professionals Group is for utility professionals who work in biomass, coal, gas/oil, hydro, natural gas, or nuclear power generation fields.
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Georgia Power Company Vogtle Units 3 & 4 Aerial
If carbon dioxide is the problem, nuclear power must be part of the solution. Georgia Power Company is to be commended for leading our nation toward a balanced energy portfolio.
Georgia Power Company Vogtle Units 3 & 4 Aerial
Milestone alert: Vogtle Unit 3 plant systems have successfully reached normal operating pressure and temperature during hot functional testing.
Discussions
Matt/Michael
Here's my take on the lessons learned...
First of all let's look at the last decade of electricity generation in GA. Georgia has done a great job of reducing coal usage primarily thru increased NG with a small amount of solar added over the last few years.
The two new reactors will add about 20 TWh more of nuclear generation. This should enable Georgia to close its remaining coal. This is definitely a lesson learned - even if it was expensive. Back in 2013 when construction started on these reactors nuclear was the best choice so I don't have any problem with the cost of this project.
However, going forward solar will be the choice for Georgia and will replace most of the NG generation. Although total solar generation in Georgia was only 4TWh in 2020 - soon it will easily match/surpass the 20 TWh that the two new reactors will provide. This will be done at a fraction of the cost of Vogtle and with almost no risk to Georgia Power.
So the major lesson learned will be - Solar is cheaper and less risky when developing future projects to further lower CO2 in Georgia.
Here is an example of some of the new solar coming in GA over next few years.
Georgia energy regulators have authorized Georgia Power Co. to move forward with plans to buy 970 megawatts of solar power from five other utilities.
The company plans to have about 5,400 megawatts of renewable energy resources in its portfolio by the end of 2025, accounting for about 22% of its power generation mix.
Hey Bob
I certainly hope that they complete those two Vogtle reactors and replace the remaining coal generation in Georgia. The coal generation in GA is under 20TWh/year so those two reactors should accomplish that.
But you don't seem to like my statement that solar will be the choice for replacing the remaining 60 TWh of NG generation in GA. You said:
You continue to repeat this mantra, Joe, but it will never happen until the sun shines at night. As far as I know, that profound astronomical event isn't in the cards, nor has the Energizer Bunny invented an affordable battery that can power an electrical grid.
Let's do some napkin math. First, let's assume conservatively that solar can only replace 20TWh of remaining NG because it doesn't "shine at night". Of course, in the real world NG in GA spikes during the day and drops drastically at night but we'll ignore that.
So that leaves us with 40 TWh of NG that needs to be stored in "Energizer bunnies". How much would that be on average - per day?
40,000,000 MWh /365 = 109,589 MWh/day
That's a lot of "energizer bunnies" - how much would that cost? Using Tesla's current pricing of $278,000/MWh we would get
109,589 x $278,000 = $30,465,753,425
In other words all that storage would cost a little over $30B at today's prices. Huh? That's kinda weird - how much did those two reactors at Vogtle cost?
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