Energy Policy-Why Not Nuclear Power for TnT?

[MG Man]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

[Blaze d Chalice]

I don't see the problem.

Nuclear power can help Trinidad.

And on the other hand, if something goes wrong, it will wipe out all Trini pests.

Win-win situation really.

[16 cycles]

[Redman]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

[Blaze d Chalice]

The greasy lagoon ramlal and labasse quami will go and try to steal parts from the plant, to make a temporary bed frame for their flat mattress or to make a roof that wouldn't leak, and before you know it, the thing will malfunction and kill everybody because they thief some important parts.

[adnj]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

There is no valid argument that I can see for using fission as a power source on such a tiny island.

Trinidad has zero Thorium reserves which makes fuel purchase a requirement. Trinidad has a 40%-60% average cloud cover and an average wind speed of 11.5 mph to 15 mph. Both of which put it above the threshold for solar and wind power. Any island can using wave generation of electricity.

[PariaMan]

Have a dusk to dawn solar

Stays on bright whole night

[Blaze d Chalice]

So much breeze in trinidad.
All up Toco, Manzan, Mayaro, Los Iros etc.

I remember as you buss the corner on the shore by Los Iros (left side) was just nonstop hard breeze.
And not a windmill/turbine in sight.

"I hear" as you put up your own, and getting your own electricity, is problems.
Just like digging your own well for water.

[MG Man]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

revisit Manning's railway network and create safe, reliable, clean transit hubs, and put levies on cars entering the capital city, so people are forced to give up the love affair with cars

[maj. tom]

in the year 2266

[adnj]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

revisit Manning's railway network and create safe, reliable, clean transit hubs, and put levies on cars entering the capital city, so people are forced to give up the love affair with cars

Refrigerant management, onshore electrical turbines and food waste reduction are the top three areas for climate change control.

Family planning is on that list also.

[URL]https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-best-ways-to-combat-climate-change/
[/URL]

[Redman]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

revisit Manning's railway network and create safe, reliable, clean transit hubs, and put levies on cars entering the capital city, so people are forced to give up the love affair with cars

Coming off carbon emitting electricity generation would achieve Paris requirements.

Using NG to power the elec gen for the train leaves us right where we are.
Except for the investment cost-time and displacement.
Transport is contributes 7% of the Carbon Emissions

http://www.planning.gov.tt/sites/defaul ... _Final.pdf

In the context of the carbon emissions....the cost benefit is not there.

[Redman]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

There is no valid argument that I can see for using fission as a power source on such a tiny island.

Trinidad has zero Thorium reserves which makes fuel purchase a requirement. Trinidad has a 40%-60% average cloud cover and an average wind speed of 11.5 mph to 15 mph. Both of which put it above the threshold for solar and wind power. Any island can using wave generation of electricity.

While this isnt about THorium reactors per se-but the need for us to re look the 2019 Tech of Nuclear Energy production with an open mind....

The plants are a 500MW plus-we use 9M MW per year.

Thorium is abundantly available, being part of the earths crust..might very well be locally available.
And there are deposits world wide.
Supply of feed stock is not an issue.

Oh- we have been moving quantities of radio active materials around the island for years as part of the Oil/Gas sector.

Wind and Solar can be part of the solution but 100% renewable isnt practical today.
Both are variable-and are based on availability of sum/wind....An average of 11 means 0 and 22mph are possible.

During the periods of insufficient wind/sun we need another source of elec gen-today that means we have the plants that exist take up the slack.

So you run 2 systems in order to reliably supply the same demand. While this is absorbable when W/S is on the margin when we get up to 20+ we begin losing the cost savings and it will become losses as the % of W/S increases.

The Land space required for Solar is an issue-adnj-how much land space would we need?
Given that we would need to re locate transmission lines etc.
Current life span of solar panels is 15-20 years-but efficiency starts to degrade long before.

Wave-well we would need to relocate the grid to have the generation/power management plants close to where the waves are.

Waves/currents are on the Eastern/Northern coast while the electricity is needed more on the West coast.
Provocative for Tobago.


If we would replace our elec gen with a zero emission fuel-we would be 2x the Paris requirement

[matr1x]

Nuclear is extremely expensive to build and maintain. Wind is retarded. Solar is much more practical.

[Redman]

Do some research-see the reality.

[carluva]

While your arguments for nuclear have spotted internet researched bases with nothing based on a national level, it is very hard to justify nuclear power in a country when there is a surplus of power generation and with her low electricity prices.

If either or both of these were not the case, maybe there could be a case for alternative power sources of which nuclear can be considered.

So to answer your question, "why not nuclear". Firstly, as long as we have cheap, plentiful power, nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric etc. will never be viable in this country. The business cases for these in our current economy will never be viably profitable to any business entity.

Secondly, in a country with zero experience and expertise in nuclear, local resources are unavailable and the expat cost to run a facility, for a long enough time for locals to become educated and competent in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering, will even add more restrictions to NPV, IRT, ROI, BCR or any other metric you can throw at it.

In short, it is unprofitable!

Thirdly, the risk profile of such a plant will have to be evaluated and any means to mitigate the unique risks in our country (size of plant, potential damage radius, unstability of government, unions, etc.) will require astromical costs and measures.

Fourthly, I am pretty sure that a nuclear plant will have to be sanctioned by the IAEA, and who knows given the other three points if they will sanction the same.

[adnj]

Do some research-see the reality.

Thorium is abundant but not economically recoverable currently in TTO.

WRT to electrical grid, you will be hard pressed to see a neighborhood accept a nuclear reactor in my experience. But due to the small distances covered, electrical grid update is not much of an issue in TTO.

Onshore wind is currently very economical when compared to all other sources of electrical generation. Also, economies of scale are driving down current costs.

Current PV tech does not require large expanses of land with a distributed system. Let the homeowner install PV on the roof to lower transmission burden on the grid while simultaneously lower the temperature of the structure with roof installed units. Current costs on PV are dropping, also.

More greenhouse gases are released by transportation than electrical generation. In lieu of requiring a mega project with binary results, phase in improvements with an incentivised rollout of improvements. Small scale wind farms, residential PV, point-of-use electricity storage, selling excess electricity to the grid, electric private vehicles, CNG/LNG heavy vehicles and ships, are doable now (and are being done) without an Apollo moon landing project plan.

Thorium in high concentration is readily available in China, India and the USA. Those nations would greatly benefit from implementation. Trinidad, on the other hand, would be required to purchase fuel. With renewables, there are no fuel costs.

I cannot see a 100 year benefit for Trinidad for following the same direction.

[Redman]

Yep The Us Energy Information Agency is a poor source of information.

Surplus power generation isnt the issue-the fact that we are 100% NAT GAS fired is.

Our Energy COST the same as everywhere in the world.
The fact that it is subsidized by GORTT is what makes it cheap.
OUR loss is the economic value that is forgone by directing NG and/or Electricity to subsidized users.

Low NG Reserves vs our usage mean we need to start moving to get alternatively fueled Generation capacity in place.

Having surplus capacity is useless with out fuel to generate.
This is obvious

[carluva]

And your information for low reserves for power generation comes from where exactly?

[Dizzy28]

build plant, everything run smooth
Kamla win election, BOOM, Lall McLall opens up Lall's Nuclear and Grass Cutting Consulting Emporium and gets contract to run things
Let your imagination fill in the rest

Well we need to meet the Paris accords-15% reduction in Carbon Emissions.

How else are we to do this?

Withdraw from the Paris Accords!!!

[Redman]

Proven reserves are about 10-11 tcf.
Vs a production quantity of 1. something

Risked figures take it up to 20 on the reserves.

All of this is on the internet.

Minister of energy says 14 years---Which prolly means less.



@Dizzy-ROFL-only Tanty Kams could blon up

[carluva]

Good to know. Mind you that may not necessarily be the reality. still no basis for anything other than NG CC power generation.

[Redman]

Do some research-see the reality.

Thorium is abundant but not economically recoverable currently in TTO.

WRT to electrical grid, you will be hard pressed to see a neighborhood accept a nuclear reactor in my experience.

Actually people are doing the reverse-as they correct their views as research and development continue in the Advanced Nuclear field

But due to the small distances covered, electrical grid update is not much of an issue in TTO.

Is our Grid smart enough to adapt to this?

Onshore wind is currently very economical when compared to all other sources of electrical generation. Also, economies of scale are driving down current costs.

So is Advanced nuclear-without the wide variability in the supply.

Current PV tech does not require large expanses of land with a distributed system. Let the homeowner install PV on the roof to lower transmission burden on the grid while simultaneously lower the temperature of the structure with roof installed units. Current costs on PV are dropping, also.

I had a conversation with a friend who is building his house-his very informed estimate was over 250K TTD for the whole set up and a 25+ year payback-incidentally the payback is longer than the life expectancy of the Solar Panels.So it sounds sexy-but whether its viable/practical is another story...Unless we remove subsidies the ROI is way low.
Centralized Solar is cheaper than distributed...and Advanced Nuc compares favorably with it.

More greenhouse gases are released by transportation than electrical generation. In lieu of requiring a mega project with binary results, phase in improvements with an incentivized rollout of improvements. Small scale wind farms, residential PV, point-of-use electricity storage, selling excess electricity to the grid, electric private vehicles, CNG/LNG heavy vehicles and ships, are doable now (and are being done) without an Apollo moon landing project plan.

In TnT- Elec Gen is 19% of our emissions,transport 7% Industry 74%
Given the state of play-conversion to EV is a great way only IF we change how we Generate Electricity-which is the point-EV would still be using dirty source energy if we continue using Hydro carbons.

Thorium in high concentration is readily available in China, India and the USA. Those nations would greatly benefit from implementation. Trinidad, on the other hand, would be required to purchase fuel. With renewables, there are no fuel costs.

By current estimates we have enough Uranium/Thorium to power the world for 1000s of years-And we might very well be able to self supply.

With renewable s there are loss of efficiency and replacement of moving parts-they are not a silver bullet.

I cannot see a 100 year benefit for Trinidad for following the same direction.

The point is to get the discussion going and confronting the facts-not our feelings,beliefs or preferences.
I think the answer is combined Wind/Solar Nuclear-but based on hard irrefutable facts-data which is now coming to the front

Today UNRISKED NG reserves are about 43 tcf.
At today usage thats less than 30 years.

If we are to get max value from NG we would need to redirect from subsidized usage and obtain full market value.

We need to get off the govt tit

[De Dragon]

Much fuss was had when the smelter was floated, what reaction do you think a nuclear reactor would cause? I hear you with the safety, and all, but with oversupply on the grid, no matter how attractive nuclear is, the cost to design, build and operate would make it uneconomical and thus the dilemma of cost vs environment will arise.

[Redman]

Much fuss was had when the smelter was floated, what reaction do you think a nuclear reactor would cause?

We need to make decisions on facts and not politics.
What reaction would electricity supply short falls cause?
Today we have less than 15 years of PROVEN RESERVES at todays usage level.
We dealing with policy level discussion to the seemingly inevitable migration away from NG as a primary source of energy.

I hear you with the safety, and all, but with oversupply on the grid, no matter how attractive nuclear is,

The Generation capacity is not the issue nor is supply.
We have committed to Paris and in general we all agree we need to cut emissions...100% of our energy comes from NG-The migration to Wind/Solar is great in the early stages-but factually 100% W/S/Wave is highly impractical-Non dispatchable requires TnT to ugrade the grid,add storage and lose significant land space.These are just facts-you need back up or storage for when the wind,sun and weather are too low/ too high

the cost to design, build and operate would make it uneconomical and thus the dilemma of cost vs environment will arise.

Wrong-and I had this same POV-
Total cost of advanced Nuclear is VERY competitive with ALL other Fuel Types- including Wind Wave and Solar-and safer

Spend some time tooling around-Terrestrial is one of about 20 companies that are pushing the technology towards modular cost effective use of 4G Nuc.

https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/category/in-the-news/

[matr1x]

This issue is not power generation but power propagation across faulty and old infrastructure.

[adnj]

Do some research-see the reality.

Thorium is abundant but not economically recoverable currently in TTO.

WRT to electrical grid, you will be hard pressed to see a neighborhood accept a nuclear reactor in my experience.

Actually people are doing the reverse-as they correct their views as research and development continue in the Advanced Nuclear field

But due to the small distances covered, electrical grid update is not much of an issue in TTO.

Is our Grid smart enough to adapt to this?

Onshore wind is currently very economical when compared to all other sources of electrical generation. Also, economies of scale are driving down current costs.

So is Advanced nuclear-without the wide variability in the supply.

Current PV tech does not require large expanses of land with a distributed system. Let the homeowner install PV on the roof to lower transmission burden on the grid while simultaneously lower the temperature of the structure with roof installed units. Current costs on PV are dropping, also.

I had a conversation with a friend who is building his house-his very informed estimate was over 250K TTD for the whole set up and a 25+ year payback-incidentally the payback is longer than the life expectancy of the Solar Panels.So it sounds sexy-but whether its viable/practical is another story...Unless we remove subsidies the ROI is way low.
Centralized Solar is cheaper than distributed...and Advanced Nuc compares favorably with it.

More greenhouse gases are released by transportation than electrical generation. In lieu of requiring a mega project with binary results, phase in improvements with an incentivized rollout of improvements. Small scale wind farms, residential PV, point-of-use electricity storage, selling excess electricity to the grid, electric private vehicles, CNG/LNG heavy vehicles and ships, are doable now (and are being done) without an Apollo moon landing project plan.

In TnT- Elec Gen is 19% of our emissions,transport 7% Industry 74%
Given the state of play-conversion to EV is a great way only IF we change how we Generate Electricity-which is the point-EV would still be using dirty source energy if we continue using Hydro carbons.

Thorium in high concentration is readily available in China, India and the USA. Those nations would greatly benefit from implementation. Trinidad, on the other hand, would be required to purchase fuel. With renewables, there are no fuel costs.

By current estimates we have enough Uranium/Thorium to power the world for 1000s of years-And we might very well be able to self supply.

With renewable s there are loss of efficiency and replacement of moving parts-they are not a silver bullet.

I cannot see a 100 year benefit for Trinidad for following the same direction.

The point is to get the discussion going and confronting the facts-not our feelings,beliefs or preferences.
I think the answer is combined Wind/Solar Nuclear-but based on hard irrefutable facts-data which is now coming to the front

Today UNRISKED NG reserves are about 43 tcf.
At today usage thats less than 30 years.

If we are to get max value from NG we would need to redirect from subsidized usage and obtain full market value.

We need to get off the govt tit

Your figures regarding CO2e percentages look familiar. I was referencing the typical warm climate developing nation electricity production numbers vs transportation fossil fuel consumption. If we accept your numbers as accurate, they include heat production, also.

Regarding PV: typical payback is 8 to 10 years, with no incentives, worldwide. Subsidized electrical rates and high Duty+VAT charges tip the scales toward lengthening the payback period.

[Redman]

http://www.planning.gov.tt/sites/defaul ... _Final.pdf

-Numbers from Here


That guys numbers would be retail and include the shipping and install in Sando...but given what he does-the numbers would be an accurate all in cost

[rspann]

Plans for water, traffic and crime are more important right now. If we haven't got that right after almost 60 years , you think they could implement this? This would only be another cash cow and feeding frenzy for whichever gov't in power.

[Redman]

As opposed to any other cash cow they could think up that would be useless?

Advance Nuc plants will not be commercially available for 5-10 years

GORTT has to assess how us being 100% NG fired Elec Gen is

1)Impacting the Emission commitments we have made-and whatever responsibility we have in that regard
2) The value we receive from what is a depleting non renewable resource-Do we continue to subsidies it for elec- for All to use? Sell it outright and get more $$ per molecule.Redirect it to new industry/manufacturing to value downstream?
3)unrisked we barely have 20 years of NG reserves. That is no length of time in terms of Energy policy and having to migrate from NG-if that is the case.

If we leave it to party hacks on a 5 year shift -we will get the same kinda ballzing up that we have on the CNG move we doing it cuz it sounded good 10 years ago-but we take so long to do it we have not gotten the benefit-but we spending money-regardless of the PIP.
For Example:-I would appreciate your comment on the chart)
Why was this info not published?-but we see people down crying what is a sensible policy