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Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm
mdsolar writes Pilgrim Power Plant in Plymouth was taken offline in anticipation of the weekend snowstorm. According to a statement from Entergy, the owner of Pilgrim, the plant was taken off line in preparation of "a potential loss of offsite power or the grid's inability to accept the power Pilgrim generates." This is the second time this season the plant has been shut down due to storm conditions. On January 27 the facility was taken offline after the two main power transmission lines were knocked out by blizzard conditions. Although the transmission lines were restored within a few days, the plant remained offline until February 7 at which time it was reconnected to the grid.
An emergency measure when done after the fact.
He probably wouldn't post something about a 'renewable' going offline, based on his posting history.
That plant is not known for being run well.
More likely, they wanted to shut it down to cover their asses in case something bad happened, e.g. storm surge. Not a bad idea, considering.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Right...
We could have a replay of this event as the Boston area is dealing with a similar weekend storm this week too.
The "national gird" is set up so they can handle the loss of a plant or two (or maybe even three) without disruption, it just causes the online plants to spin up stronger. If your power company is claiming to be National Grid, they're indicating that they're sometimes using power from outside the area they serve.
However, in this case, the customers don't lose power because the generation isn't there. Customers would lose power because the grid fails. Entergy has power from other sources or purchasing agreements to make up for this temporarily.
Similarly, it is unsafe (and illegal, technically) to run your nuclear powerplant with no access to the grid. If you have a coal plant that gets disconnected from the grid, you'd shut it down too with no way to generate revenue from burning additional fuel.
Devil's advocate to your misguided devil's advocate...The problem is the electrical grid not the source.
Sounds like this is a "preventative measure".
Normally there is some time between neutron capture and actual nuclear fission (I have heard a figure of 15 minutes). This means that even if the control rods are slammed in when the power transmission lines were cut the previous heat load would still be generated for a period of time. Often this means resorting to drastic measures to reduce the neutron flux to zero ASAP (certain salts are added to cooling loops which achieve this but requires a good flush to get rid of).
Controlled shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of hours"
Emergency shutdown means the reactor can be restarted in "a couple of weeks"
Burnt once, twice shy...
...that it didn't melt down. We get it, MD, you don't like nuclear power.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I guess your reading skills are not up to snuff. It did NOT take 11 days to repair the transmission lines. You even quoted it - "Although the transmission lines were restored within a few days".
I went through the ice storm of 98 - a month with no power. 25 people died of hypothermia.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
... my goddamn solar system goes offline every goddamn day for HOURS AND HOURS, and always during the coldest part of these frigid winter days...
Local power lines routed through trees. High tension lines on rotting wooden towers. Welcome to the People's Republic of Massachusetts, where the buses are always on time, the subways never stop running, and town-owned sections of the sidewalk are always the first to be shovelled.
Probably someone suffering from cabin fever because it's -21, or -32 with the wind chill up here. Canadian winters absolutely suck. Heck, even Poland and Germany are above freezing today.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Nuclear plants of the design mentioned in the article must legally have offsite power to continue operation. As soon as offsite power is lost, the plant is required to shutdown. An emergency shutdown is more paperwork than a planned shutdown such as this.
The reason for this is that in an accident scenario, you would like to rely on offsite power to run your emergency coolant pumps for this particular design.
Newer reactor designs don't have this issue, but this is a pretty economic decision considering an emergency shutdown if/when the offsite power does eventually trip. The grid seems pretty unreliable based on past experience, as the article even notes.
How does using FF stop bad weather from taking out transmission lines?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Nuclear power plants generate net positive energy(or they wouldn't be power plants at all); but they still have numerous systems(from relatively important sensors, control systems, pumps, etc. down to boring stuff like the bathroom lights) that need to be powered to work properly. They do have backup generators on site; but, for reasons of safety(and because it's hard to sell the output of a plant that isn't connected to the grid) you aren't supposed to run them when they have been disconnected or are expected to be disconnected.
Nuclear plants are a trifle more dramatic, because shutting them down isn't just a matter of not shovelling more coal into the furnace; but it's my understanding that no power plant types are really supposed to be run off grid. Even a perfectly well behaved design is still a waste of money if the power can't reach customers, and nobody likes depending on backup power to keep every electric device in the facility online.
They might well need to review the qualify of the grid connection, if only because an idling nuclear reactor is a punchy opportunity cost; but there isn't much reason to leave it on. (Unless you managed to get the NRC drunk and obtain approval for a madcap scheme to convert the reactor to a snow-melter for the duration of the storm. We really are starting to run out of places to put the stuff, and a nuclear reactor would be very well qualified for melting duties.)
What i cant understand is cycling down a nuclear facility because you're worried about power supplied from external source
Does the phrase "fail safe" ring any bells?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
to bad MB wanted to much to melt the snow.
I've seen a wide variety of broken components in even well run thermal power plants (I've never worked with nukes but anything after the water is heated is pretty similar). I've seen even more on the way to breaking and getting cut out before they can fail.
So to sum up I don't think there's much to take away from a single outage - if all you've got is outage times you'd have to get statistical with more info before a sensible judgement.
A month and a serious death toll, that does indeed suck. I'd wonder why they didn't truck in a pile of the container sized generators or a similar disaster plan as done by utilities after hurricanes.
That certainly was a fun experience. I use the term "fun" loosely.
One of the trees in the front yard exploded. The trunk just... blew. Wood shards everywhere. Not to mention all the transformer lightshows to rival a 4th of July celebration!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
France seems to handle their plants fine. And wind power and solar power have capacity factors so low than it won't work for grid generation without excess generation capacity and storage to begin with.
Both the top news you posted here and your second link in the parent post are about transmission grid failures. Not nuclear power plant failures. As for graceful powering up and down it can be done. France for example has nuclear power plants with load-following mode. The US doesn't bother with this because the faction of power generated with nuclear is low enough that it isn't worth doing the retrofits. As for the heat sink being too hot you would have the same problem with any other thermal power plant which uses a cooling tower. Coal, natural gas, whatever. It isn't a nuclear power specific problem either. It's a thermal power plant issue.
Pilgrim's capacity factor, even on a bad year, kills anything solar could ever dream of. Pilgrim is at the bottom of an elite group of plants that perform best in the power industry. Its all relative.
My power (western Ontario) was out for a 10 day srtech last winter. The one before that, 7 days. I, and everyone in my neighborhood, keep a generator.
The People salute you for your commonwealth's stewardship, comrade!
Relative terms can be missleading. The slowest cheetah is still much faster than the fastest turtle. While it may be among the worst nuclear plants it is still extremely reliable. From the article you referenced
Pilgrim performed at nearly 97 percent capacity in 2014
What's funny mdsolar is that your last 6 posts (and counting) have been to *this* story, and every single one (except one) is rated a 0, or -1, 1/2 of them are identied as "troll".
The one exception post... the one I just replied to.
Hahaha. Sounds like you got exactly what you deserve for your ignorance.
Maybe if they put Power lines underground they wouldn't come down every time there is a storm, which seems to be twice a week in New England
Maybe taking advantage of the shutdown to do a bit of inspection and maintainance turned up something that took a while to fix.
Entergy's Pilgrim plant has been consistently ranked by the NRC as one of the worst in the country.
It's much more likely that Entergy took advantage of the shutdown to fix things they should have taken care of a long time ago, but refused to deal with, because the plant could be unprofitable in the near future and they're trying to milk as much profit out of it as possible. It'll all show up in some NRC filing(s) sooner or later.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
France has to shut down nuclear power plants every few years when there is a heat wave in Europe. Google is your friend.
The problem with load-following is economics. Nuclear power is already uneconomical. Load-following does not help.
'Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.
A plant has no capacity factor. It has a 'load utilization' measured in hours, where 100% is ~8600 (the amount of hours in a year).
But thanx for spreading your ignorance.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That is not funny, but sad reality of the /. modding 'community'.
I guess he will challenge the modding and if the supervisors figure it was abuse, the modders get deprived of their ability to mod, for ever.
Hahaha. Sounds like you got exactly what you deserve for your ignorance. :) (I doubt anyone will ever do that on your idiotic posts, though)
I guess the ignorant guy is you. Click on him and check his posting history
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'd wonder why they didn't truck in a pile of the container sized generators or a similar disaster plan as done by utilities after hurricanes. ... wow, in hindsight there is always money and resources (somewhat) but you can never be prepared?
Because it is 'the states'. They have no 'they' there. The only 'heroes' doing anything 'active' (proactive even) are the fire fighters.
Look at the (non) evacuation of New Orleans. Hu? You could use a school bus to evacuate people? No, that is not in the competence of the majour to 'confiscate' school busses and/or to press drivers into service to rescue people.
Where do you believe emergency generators would/should come from to deploy in every town/area after such a blizzard event?
It is so typical USA. Never being prepared for anything, because that involves 'government', and it seems everything is so corrupt in the USA it would never work even if you where prepared. But as soon as something happens the President is telling everyone how he is fixing that actual crisis
Not even in a run down country like Greece stuff like this would ever happen.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Another area where they don't need them at the moment - just like the firefighting gear. I get your point that FEMA or whatever does not have their shit together like the fire fighters who even share their stuff between countries in the off season.
It isn't a nuclear power specific problem either. It's a thermal power plant issue.
Ofc it is! Since when can a coal plant melt down?
Your wind/solar nitpicking is idiocy. Who cares about 'capacity' factors as long as a plant yields energy when it is needed or is planned for?
Actually, no one in the industry uses that term. It is only used by marketing droids after fanboys like you made it popular in the internet. The term used by power companies is load utilization, and it is not measured in % ... up to you to figure. Google might (or might not) be your friend.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Good post. I'm tempted to quote it to libertarians as an example of why their small government/I've got mine bullshit is insane, but that would end up sending loonies in your direction.
"Nuclear plan takes reasonable - or possibly even excessive - precaution." Eek. My skirts are all aflutter ...
Capacity factor = equivalent hours generating at rated capacity during a given year divided by the number of hours in the year. It is a very common measure for electrical generating plant performance and reliability. If you had simply done a web search you would not have looked so stupid in your response.
'Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.
I know you have a massive anti-nuclear streak, but lets be real here. Solar couldnt cope with the storm either, gets awful generation during winter especially at latitutes where these types of storms are common due to insolation, and cant provide base load.
Nuclear on the other hand has caused-- past, present, and anticipated future-- FAR fewer deaths than hydro or coal. Heres a question for you: Do you protest as vigorously when a new hydro plant opens? Because a single dam event around 20 years ago killed ~triple the number of people expected to die from Chernobyl, and well over double the number of people who have died or are expected to die from nuclear since its inception till now.
A plant has no capacity factor.
From the Energy Information Administration:
Capacity factor is a measure of how often an electric generator runs for a specific period of time. It indicates how much electricity a generator actually produces relative to the maximum it could produce at continuous full power operation during the same period.
For example, if a one megawatt generator produced 5,000 megawatthours the entire year, its capacity factor would be 0.57 or 57%
In fact they provide capacity factor information for various technologies if you so desire.
Im really not sure where you get your information but it seems terribly off.
Er, math check. There are 8760 hours in a year. 8784 in a leap year.
Commiseration with mdsolar. There are a whole lot of really clueless assholes with axes to grind moderating on slashdot.
To be fair, let's also point out that it is a huge headache shutting down a nuclear plant for any reason, and every shutdown adds a little bit of a chance for a disaster. That contributes to bad decisions.
Could you please stop sending it down here? How about we send a lot of 110 F, 100% humidity air up there next summer?
Yeah, but that's like hating Verizon or Monsanto.
He may be on the wrong side of the nuclear debate, but the only people that like Entergy are Entergy execs.
If such a thing happened in Canada
Don't worry, we can still send Jimmy Carter up there again to help you guys out with ur nukes, eh.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Here in Finland, the best private investment in terms of ROI are nuclear reactors at Loviisa, followed by nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto
Source? I was under the impression Olkiluoto #3 was a colossal failure and 300% over budget. Oh yes, from wikipedia,
"Unit 3, an EPR reactor, is still under construction, but various problems with workmanship and supervision have created costly delays which have been the subject of an inquiry by the Finnish nuclear regulator Säteilyturvakeskus (STUK).[1] In December 2012, Areva estimated that the full cost of building the reactor will be about €8.5 billion, or almost three times the delivery price of €3 billion.[2][3] A license for a fourth reactor to be built at the site was granted by the Finnish parliament in July 2010,[4][5][6] but discontinued by the government in September 2014. TVO has the option to reapply for the license in the future.[7]"
Are you claiming at 300% over budget it has the among the best ROI? I mean even in Finland you could build out solar energy with a better ROI than a $10/WAC nuclear plant (or gas, oil, wood, steam, wind, biomass) nothing costs this much except a nuclear boondoogle.
Generators from all over north america were trucked in. Unfortunately, that takes time, especially when you're trying to make up for the loss of 16,000 megawatts of transmission capacity from James Bay (almost 10 Pilgrim nukes) and further losses from other sources.
They also took diesel-electric locomotives off their tracks and drove them on the streets to where they could be hooked up to the mains. That's enough juice for a small town.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
All nice and good, but this took place in Canada. The continent was scoured for generators - anything available was shipped in - but that takes time, especially when I saw city roads that had to be scraped free of more than a foot of ice with a bulldozer, and 15,000 troops helped out.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
No thanks - being at 45 degrees latitude it gets HOT in the summer (especially in traffic), and being a big island in the St. Laurence, very humid.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Out of curiosity, what deaths have hydro caused?
You know, I'm not sure "we thought things were less bad than they were because we didn't even have a proper assessment process" isn't exactly a positive note in their favour.
To be fair, the comparison you are doing here is:
This story: "two main power transmission lines were knocked out"
1998 ice storm: "over 1,000 transmission towers collapsed"
This is not apples to apples...
Or rather, it is comparing a basket of apples to an orchard of apples...
A month and a serious death toll, that does indeed suck. I'd wonder why they didn't truck in a pile of the container sized generators or a similar disaster plan as done by utilities after hurricanes.
Actually they did. Even moreso, citizens who had their power restored early then donated or lent their own generators to areas that needed them. I actually recall a at least one person being upset because their generator was never returned. Also while they say the 25 deaths were "primarily" hyptothermia, some of the deaths were caused by CO/CO2 poisoning and fires because people brought their barbeques inside to heat the home.
Same applies to any large plant. Spinning down and spinning up turbine unit alone can take a day.
But it's worth it because of just how economical these large units are due to economy of size.
I know that you think you're being a smartass, but you should really look up what the terms used actually mean, rather than what you think they mean.
Then you won't like like a dumbass to others.
Olkiluoto #3 is, as the name implies, the THIRD unit. Other two are the most profitable endeavours ever, after two units at Loviisa.
I can't find you the source right away, however this was a part of investigative story made by YLE, our state broadcaster. They were doing an analysis of profitability of investments, I believe as a part of their story on which of our traditional industries are competitive and which are not, and then they hit the fact that there were four extreme outliers in their statistics which were extremely profitable. Loviisa unit 1, Loviisa unit 2, Olkiluoto unit 1 and Olkiluoto unit 2.
Olkiluoto unit 3 is the experimental new reactor Areva was selected to build, and they failed at it. It's fairly obvious to even a casual observer that I could not have been talking about Olkiluoto unit 3 because it's not operating yet - as a result it can post no revenue.
Olkiluoto #3 is, as the name implies, the THIRD unit. Other two are the most profitable endeavours ever, after two units at Loviisa.
I can't find you the source right away, however this was a part of investigative story made by YLE, our state broadcaster. They were doing an analysis of profitability of investments, I believe as a part of their story on which of our traditional industries are competitive and which are not, and then they hit the fact that there were four extreme outliers in their statistics which were extremely profitable. Loviisa unit 1, Loviisa unit 2, Olkiluoto unit 1 and Olkiluoto unit 2.
Maybe this is true - but is rather irrelevant. I don't doubt that some nuclear power plant built at sometime somewhere was/is profitable. Those plants have been build at a time where electricity market was highly regulated in Finland. The price of electricity is determined by the least efficient plant (in terms of marginal cost) which is needed to satisfy demand. In the past, and without much competition this may have been a rather expensive source of power. Nuclear power plants only needed to be cheaper than this plant to be a good investment. Nowadays, this is unlikely to be true even in Finland.
Olkiluoto unit 3 is the experimental new reactor Areva was selected to build, and they failed at it. It's fairly obvious to even a casual observer that I could not have been talking about Olkiluoto unit 3 because it's not operating yet - as a result it can post no revenue.
But I guess it eats all profts from the other plants.
Actually, the grandparent is partially correct - he's describing what is called slow fission, and it's what makes fission reactors practical. Though to be fair, you're partially correct as well - you're describing fast fission (prompt criticality) which is what makes nuclear bombs possible. The difference between the two lies in the engineering, I.E. the presence of a moderator, the amount and type of nuclear materiel present, etc..., etc...
What makes you both partially correct is that there isn't a delay in fission, but a delay in neutron release.
Decay heat in reactors comes partially from these delayed neutrons, partially from the fission of daughter products. (Right after shutdown, the former predominates, over time they cross over until the latter predominates.)
No. Under normal operating conditions, about 7% comes from various delayed sources - but when the reactor is shut down, the neutrons creating those sources are essentially shut down as well. Thus, over time the amount of energy released from those sources falls off over time (reaching .02% of normal operating power within a week) as the delayed neutrons are exhausted and short half life fission products decay.
Actually the price of electricity in Finland is among the lowest in Europe. This is one of the chief reasons how our system works. You see, we have a lot of traditionally extremely energy-intensive industry related to forestry (i.e. paper, carton and cellulose production), metalworks (both smelting and advanced machining such as shipbuilding) and so on. As a result, one of the primary goals of the entire country's energy policy is to ensure that electricity would be as cheap as possible.
This kind of forward planning is what allows for those record profits. Not electricity prices, that are very cheap in Finland by European standards to the point that it was one of the chief reasons why most of the heavy industry stays in the country, and why modern energy intensive industries like heavy datacenters (i.e. Google) find Finland so interesting for their European operations.
Some other things you should understand before arguing on the topic of "eating profits".
1. Loviisa site is owned by a different power company, Fortum. Olkiluoto is owned by TVO. The third planned nuclear plant site is by a third company, Fennovoima at Pyhäjoki.
2. Financing in modern world is done through credit rather than through running profits.
3. Areva has actually agreed to fixed price delivery. Which is why Areva has done huge write downs for the plant. Most of the losses related to Olkiluoto 3 that TVO, the company that runs Olkiluoto site come from having no ability to produce power as planned and having to source energy elsewhere. Luckily we have solid interconnects with Russia (mainly Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant), Estonia (Narva's shale rock plant) and Sweden (Hydro across northern Sweden) to pick up the slack when needed.
4. Nuclear industry is considered so profitable here in Finland that third site by a separate company is in advanced planned stages. Fennovoima has selected a Rosatom reactor for a Pyhäjoki site just recently. To give you an understanding of how far decision making is on this, our government had anti-nuclear Green party as one of the smaller parties within it, and it ended up resigning from government when other parties, including much of opposition parties voted to proceed with the granting of necessary permits.
Yes, I know? And? Was my quickshot out of my mind: 8600 hours to unprecise for you? ... or well, actually not, but I'm out of practice.
At my age I unfortunately need a calculator to calc 24*365 precisely in my mind
So thanks for pointing out the obvious :D
But now I see the nice decreasing line of numbers: 876 ... I guess I can memorize that. Astonishing that I never noticed that as I'm working in that business since decades.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
As I said before, this is a relatively new "factor" brought in during the AGW discussion.
As I also pointed out, (in various posts) the energy industry is not using this "metric" as it is pointless for any decisions.
The problem basically is that laymen believe you can simply set up two "57% capacity factor" plants and then you have up to 114% power available. Obviously you can have as many PV solar plants as you want and have no solar power at night.
No idea why a .gov site suddenly uses that term, too. Likely because the editors are laymen :D In the energy company I work for, no one is using it (and no database contains a field with that name, or a different name with that meaning).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No, it is not a common measure at all.
It is a measure that came up the recent ten years in the AGW discussions especially in the USA.
I work in the power industry. That term is not used at all by any power company in Europe I'm aware of.
Reason: it is meaningless for every operation a power company does.
The term got invented by "anti renewable" protagonists who want to have a nice easy number to squash down on.
However it is spreading now, I admit even GE uses it now (wrongly ofc) in its marketing brochures for wind turbines.
If you had simply done a web search you would not have looked so stupid in your response. :D Easy to figure that I'm right.
I suggest that to you
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Don't know why terms like liberals and libertarians etc. show up all the time.
I doubt anyone outside of the USA has an idea what americans do mean with that :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Don't be ignorant. Its been used long before Global Warming was even talked about. We used it in the 80s and 90s.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/...
I see. You didn't get it when you learned themodynamics. A heat pump needs a cold reservoir to work. Much like a car needs a radiator. It doesn't matter if the car is gasoline or diesel powered. If the radiator isn't working and providing cooling for the engine either you shut down the engine or you melt the engine. Simple as that. If it was a coal power plant you would have to shut it down as well if the cooling water became too hot. Unless you want to wreck the power plant. There are alternative cooling systems to cooling towers but they are inefficient so they are not used in large scale thermal power plants. Also as you should remember from when you learned the Carnot cycle the higher the temperature you run an heat engine the more efficient it gets. So high efficiency thermal power plants, regardless of how they generate the heat, will always operate as close to the limits of the materials as they can.
Are you claiming that wind or solar have more availability than nuclear power? Try generating solar power in the night time or wind power when there is either no wind or too much wind (which forcibly shuts down windmills to prevent break down). Anyone with two brain cells knows renewables like solar and wind have less availability than nuclear power.
Yeah. The costs were higher because it was a prototype nuclear power plant. Besides a lot of people back then doubted Areva's construction cost estimates. Among the third generation nuclear power plants they are the most complex. The Westinghouse APs in China seem to be building more or less on schedule though. I think there was like 1-2 year delay at most.
As they get used to manufacturing these kinds of power plants the construction time and cost goes down.
I believe the biggest problem was identified as the fact that for Areva, this was actually the first project they managed on their own. Before that, another french state energy company did the top level management and coordination and Areva was more of an executor than manager.
Areva lacked know-how in this area, and that is where the biggest problem with the project lied.
You have the reading comprehension of used wad of chewing gum.
Absolutely incorrect - xenon accumulates in the reactor (to a level determined by a variety of complex factors) and poisons the reaction even during steady state operations, and this must be accounted for in the design of the reactor. (As I said, for an example of this, look up the first run of the Hanford plutonium production reactors - which were completely shut down by xenon poisoning.) Xenon does not magically appear or magically start absorbing neutrons just because power has been reduced or the reactor has been shut down.
I never claimed that xenon did not accumulate in all reactors currently in use - I merely pointed out that the behavior of civilian reactors with regards to xenon poisoning is the result of a deliberate design choice and operating philosophies, not a law of nature. Again, consider the difference in behavior between the first run of the Hanford plants and a modern plant.
No, you very obviously do not know what you're talking about.
I see.
You never figured how a coal plant actually works. I suggest to visit one. They have guided tours.
No idea why you jump to wind and solar in the end of your post. I know like anybody else that solar works to 100% during daytime and to 0% at night time. What exactly is your point? (That is for PV)
I also know that wind plants don't produce electric energy when there is no wind, silly! Again, what is your point?
Thanx for pointing out the obvious, must have been important to you. You where not allowed to talk much as a child, I assume? Pitty! But time to get over it. Now you can talk, are allowed to tell long stories etc. So perhaps try to tell us something that matters. Thanx for the short introduction into Carnot again. There are so many people here on /. who get that guy wrong. Btw, very small correction: the heat is not that relevant. It is the heat difference.
So you want to claim, a coal plant can melt down like a nuclear plant, if it is not cooled, I mean you still want to claim that? Silly boy ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I never claimed otherwise. Are you really so fucking stupid that you think I am making that claim?
This is so fucked up and backwards I don't even know where to begin...
I'm done replying to you as you very obviously have no reading comprehension and no clue what you're talking about.
I don't see a date on your link :)
Anyway, the term is irrelevant for plant owners/operators. No one uses it in the energy company I worked for, and I never saw it in any european publication.
And I really doubt it was used in the 80s or 90s in the USA.
Care to explain a situation where it makes sense using 'capacity factors', except calculation the ROI of a wind mill?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Here is an article written in 1995 that uses capacity factor, and if you used a little effort you could find more, I found this in one quick google. It is a standard term, and a useful measure. You can find it defined in IEEE and other standards, and has been used for quite a long time.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hep...
You can choose to "doubt", but that would be willful ignorance.
Capacity Factor is quite useful in determining ROI for a windmill. If you know the average capacity factor, you know how much electricity the windmill would likely produce in a year, and therefore how much $$ you would make on power sales in a year.
No one uses it in the energy company I worked for,
You know everything everybody at your company used? Impressive. OK, tell me what performance measures your asset management group did use then.
That "metric" is provided by every national agency that studies / regulates energy. I linked you directly to a .gov address, which indicates that it comes from a US federal agency.
Im also not interested in what the "industry" says, Im interested in the facts as compiled by reputable agencies. The facts show that solar is a great supplement, and that nuclear is the most cost effective and scalable energy source if you want "carbon neutral". If you dont, it falls back to coal and natural gas.
The problem basically is that laymen believe you can simply set up two "57% capacity factor" plants and then you have up to 114% power available.
I dont know of anyone who thinks that. Capacity factor simply means you may have a 1GW nuclear plant-- that is, at peak it can generate 1GW (what its rated at)-- but over the course of the year it may generate an average of 700MW/h for every hour of the year. This would represent a 0.70 capacity factor.
If you have 2 0.57 capacity factor plants, you will get 114% of the capacity of one plant, or 0.57 of the two combined.
No idea why a .gov site suddenly uses that term, too.
Ive been having these discussions for years, and linking to the same wikipedia articles for years which use that term. Some quick googling indicates that its been tracked since at least the 90s for at least coal power. Theres a good article on it here.
As I said before: this term is first of all an american term and secondly a NEW term since the AGW discussion came up.
Capacity Factor is quite useful in determining ROI for a windmill. If you know the average capacity factor, you know how much electricity the windmill would likely produce in a year, and therefore how much $$ you would make on power sales in a year.
... I guess you don't know how to figure CPs correctly, does not matter.
Yes, laymen believe that.
Care to explain how you figure the capacity factor of a wind mill? And after you have figured it, why don't you use the raw data, that lead you to that figure instead of the CF? Wow
Figuring an ROI is the only thing you can do with a CF, but it is much more easy and straight forward to actually use the expected power generated instead.
Does not make any sense to figure my windmill with 10MW yield will produce 40GWh per year and that is .... erm, let me check, if it was 100% it would be 87,6 GWh, so lets divide it wow, it is 45%.
So and now to figure how much energy I will produce I have to take the yield of the plant per year and multiply it with the CF, which is 87,6 GWh * 45% which is 40GWh.
Wow, surprisingly after I know that my plant will produce 40GWh, I for fuck sake don't need the CF for anything anymore!!! It is a useless number!
But well, I guess that was to easy ... and please spare me the idea that a wind plant has a CF of less than 45%. Baltic I and Baltic II, two wind parks in the Baltic sea, run by my ex employer have a CF of 250%. Wow, contradicts your 'knowledge' doesn't it?
Anyway, no one uses CFs in real life, as I said before they only pop up in web articles mainly written by laymen.
If you built a windmill at a place where it has not a CF of 100% you must have good reasons for that ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes I do.
As I was the main "architect" in an reengineering project where all data bases got "unified" and a glossary about all terms used in the energy business was established.
OK, tell me what performance measures your asset management group did use then.
No idea. That does not belong to the energy production department :D nor to energy sales.
Also your question is pretty vague, performance of what?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
My point is that the metric is
1) useless.
2) rather new
3) not really relevant for power companies
Power companies don't measure a power plant with a CF. A CF does not help you in any way to plan how much power you want to generate tomorrow with your fleet of plants. It does not help you in any way to plan the plants in question for the rest of the year, their maintenance etc.
The only conclusion you could draw from long term CFs is by comparing two plants of same technology and figuring one is more down than the other ... but even that you do by a term called "load utilization".
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Its clear you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. I am done.
So, you have no clue that asset management uses, but claim to know that you would have heard of performance measures such as capacity factor.
You don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Just stop and quit making a fool of yourself. You probably don't even know what asset management folks do.
That's not how it happens, that's not how any of this happens...
Come and help me pay off my mortgage - small donations preferable! http://www.paymymortgage.com.au
I know what I'm talking about, pfft.
I worked over ten years in that area. And likely will be agin in future :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Capacity factor is not a performance measure.
So far you did not tell me what kind of performance measure you are interested in.
There is/are no asset management folks ... but we have janitors and dispatchers :D if that is what you mean.
There are three main things counted for power plants:
o power produced (raw production and own usage)
o fuel used
o cost
This is visualized in a kind of spread sheet with 25 columns
First column is the power plant (block) name, the rest ore numbered from 1 to 24 for each hour of the day.
Obviously you have a row for every plant. And a sum.
Every hour can be displayed as four quarter hour values. If the value did not change it is obviously the same every 1/4 hour.
So, there is obviously no capacity factor involved ...
The exact same view is used to plan my schedule for tomorrow, with the difference that the sums are already filled and I adjust my fleet of plants in a cost effective way to get the required sum.
If you want to know that stuff I suggest to work a year or two in the industry and stop insulting people that actually did that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You can't even use CF properly after I showed you the definition.
Capacity factor is not a performance measure.
Add that to the list of ignorant, stupid things you post here. That is exactly what CF is, a performance measure.
And with that, you confirm that you are not only ignorant in the energy area, but also most likely making fraudulent claims regarding your experience. At the very least, it explains why you no longer work in the industry.
The definition is simple. Maximum production (capability) divided by actual production.
Thank you. As I pointed out, and you seem to reject to follow my argumentation, so you don't grasp it, no one in the industry uses that metric. The metric we use is either "load utilization" or: the actual produced power. Percentages are irrelevant.
I suggest strongly to check what a "load profile" or a "load curve" is. As the demand on the grid is changing over day, a plant that "technically" has a CF of 95% or more, can't yield 95% of its rated capacity all day because it has to follow actual demand. That is true for minimum 50% of all plants a power company has in use. So: having any numbers like your beloved CF are irrelevant for planning my tomorrows plant schedule ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sure, if you don't want to listen. That is your problem.
I gave you now enough examples: WHY CF CAN NOT BE A PERFORMANCE MEASURE, and you keep ignoring it.
Good luck in your career, and I sincerely hope you once work in the power industry and then you figure: oh my gosh, Angelo was right!
At the very least, it explains why you no longer work in the industry.
... wow, another super simple explanation why things are not as you think they are. :D
How idiotic are you? I'm a free lancer
Good luck in your career! You need it. Jumping to simple conclusions is not very helpful in an high tech environment
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Any one that says "100% Capacity Factor" in the context you used it in is just plain ignorant to how it is used to start with. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
It is quite easy to adjust for load demand, if needed, why you didn't realize that is quite amazing given your claimed expertise.
You continue to embarrass yourself. Even if I showed you how it is clearly defined as a performance measure, you would deny what I present, or make some weaselly excuse, so why should I even bother?
Of course it is easy to adjust to load demand.
But according to your logic it corrects the CF downwards.
So a coal plant that is load following (as in: not a base load plant) will have a CF of less than 50%. (Because it will be 8h down over night and then vary over 16h between 50% and 90%)
The same coal plant used as base load plant will have a CF of 90%.
So, the CF is meaningless ... or how do you explain that the exact same plant has a different CF depending for what I use it? (And I really don't want to know what CFs are listed in your magical list of american coal plants :D )
is just plain ignorant to how it is used to start with
Still your mistake that you don't grasp: CF is not used at all in the power industry. Hence there is no ignorance involved on my part, but plenty of it on your part. The annoying thing however is that you did not read what I posted or somehow rejected it and did not try to understand it.
Again, if you missed it: to plan my schedule for my power plants tomorrow, I use the ACTUAL power they will generate. Per hour! Because the projected demand tomorrow will change: per hour. I don't use a projected "name plate" value and multiply that with a CF. Why? Because I NEED the concrete number of MW a plant will produce at 10:00 at 11:00 at 12:00 etc. I don't CARE if that is done by a plant that has a CF of 50% or 95% ... CFs never ever show up in any planning or settlement calculations.
If you believe otherwise, why don't you show one? You believed that in Asset Management you need it, can't be so hard to find a spread sheet showing that you are right! Actually, as you are not right, you won't find any ... but you could try to see that I'm right :D
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You just don't understand the concept, because it is a well established performance measure.
And, you don't even seem to understand how to predict performance. The best single thing to predict performance is????
I'll give you a hint... its two words.
No one is predicting performance.
Only you want to do that.
I have a coal plant yielding 1GW (4 blocks with 250MW each).
I want to use that tomorrow to produce 800MW between 8:00h in the morning and 20:00h in the evening.
What exactly do you want me to predict? I simply give the plant operator a schedule to power up the plant so that it is at a 800MW level in time (8:00) and power it down after 20:00.
There is no magical CF involved.
If the plant dispatcher has the authority to trade at the energy market he has 20% of the plant capacity left over for trading.
It is as simple as that. Good luck in your continuous ranting. Insulting other /. posters does not really make you look bright, so good luck in that, too.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I new you could not answer the question, a question that even a young inexperienced professional could answer. I'll ask again, and even clarify where it shouldn't have been needed, but no matter because you'll avoid answering, I'm sure.
....
The best single thing to predict performance, of any kind, is????
The answer you seek is not there, get over it and face that you have no clue about energy production. :)
No idea why you insist anyone would use a CF for 'predictions' when the owner of the plant exactly knows 'whith out predictions' how much power the plant is producing.
But thanx for not even trying to understand the simple concept
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Let me answer it for you;
"Past Performance"
and performance measures, like CF and others, are quite useful in that regard, and for other uses as well. Case Closed.
Power companies don't measure a power plant with a CF. A CF does not help you in any way to plan how much power you want to generate tomorrow with your fleet of plants.
Capacity factor is a compiled statistic from past data. It is useful for determining the performance of a particular form of energy, and for predicting future output. If for the past 20 years your 20MW solar farm has gotten a 0.2 capacity factor, its a pretty safe bet that you're going to generate somewhere in the range of ~4MWh every hour of the year.
Plants arent "rated" in capacity factor because it isnt a static piece of datum. If you have 5 nuclear plant shutdowns over the year, that will impact that year's capacity factor.
You're essentialy arguing that statistics like the GDP are worthless because theyre not a hard, fixed number. But compiled statistics like the GDP measure past performance and are a good measure of relative strength of a country; in the same way, capacity factor combined with "cost per mwh" and "average plant size" are very helpful for understanding what scale of generation we are talking about. If I tell you that a 1GW nuclear plant was just built, that really doesnt help you determine how much power it will likely produce unless I also tell you that nuclear plants in the area generally hit 0.65 capacity factor.
The reason people bring it up with solar is because solar averages an extremely low 0.2 capacity factor. So when someone mentions that a 10MW solar farm was built for ~1/100th the cost of a 1GW nuclear plant, it sounds really viable (equal cost per MWh)-- until you realize that the solar farm will generate, on average, 1/3rd the power of the nuclear plant because solar has an inherently lower capacity factor.
No, I'm arguing that a CF is worthless.
As it is not helpful in any way to plan power generation for a big power company that has more than a single plant.
I gave enough examples for that in my other posts.
If I tell you that a 1GW nuclear plant was just built, that really doesnt help you determine how much power it will likely produce unless I also tell you that nuclear plants in the area generally hit 0.65 capacity factor. ... obviously I then have a nearly 95% CF. Or I can run it as a load following plant, that varies its out put from 40% over night to 95%. Then my CF is about 55%.
E.g. that is nonsense. As I as the plant owner have full control (besides accidents) how much power I want to create with it. I can run it as a base load plant at 95% for 5 years
The reason people bring it up with solar is because solar averages an extremely low 0.2 capacity factor.
Absolutely irrelevant. No one is using that number, not even one who is building a new plant. It is only "helpfull" (I doubt that)/ "interesting" (perhaps) for laymen to get an idea how much they need to invest if they want to have a solar plant with a certain yield.
I as a power plant owner are absolutely not interested in that number. What I want to know is the MW (not the CF) the plant will produce tomorrow at a certain point in time, considering the weather report for tomorrow.
And when I'm running the plant tomorrow, I want the yield in MW life forecasted (that is called a prognosis) using various weather services that give me an hourly updated localized fore cast for that plant. My software actually transforms such forecasts directly into MW yields, using the properties of the plant (like orientation, declination, max yield etc.).
The only thing a dispatcher of a fleet of plants is interested in are actual MW/GW yields. No one who actually is working with power plants is using a CF (well, no one might be exaggerated, in the USA many people do dumb things all the time, no idea if there are power companies that indeed find using a CF useful)
1/3rd the power of the nuclear plant because solar has an inherently lower capacity factor.
Irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. The main difference between a solar plant (regardless if PV or thermal) is: it is not dispatchable. If anyone uses a CF for serious comparison he makes a mistake.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Past performance, as I explained to you, is measured in actual MW yields, actual fuel spends, actual water levels, actual money spent and actual money earned etc.
There is no CF involved as the CF can not be used for anything meaningful a power plant owner is doing with his plant.
Yes, case closed. As I explained the mechanics and economics how plants are operated now several times. If you have problems grasping my explanations, perhaps I'm not good in translating my knowledge into english, then ask questions.
Reiterating over your misconceptions makes them not true.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
'Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.
I proved this to be a statement of ignorance. You then felt compelled to backpedal and shift the discussion to other performance measures. There are many performance measures, and they have their uses. They are tools. You don't say "a wrench is useless because it can't drive a screw". But that is they type of argumentative logic you are trying to pass off, and that is why I largely ignore it. I know perfectly well there are a variety of performance measures and tools. You can pine away at them all day, and I can add more.
But, back to the whole point of your original contention, it was simply ignorant, case closed.
I proved this to be a statement of ignorance :D
No, you did not prove anything, except perhaps that I'm right.
You then felt compelled to backpedal and shift the discussion to other performance measures.
That is wrong. You asked about performance measures. Need me to link your inquiry?
and that is why I largely ignore it.
I guessed that. That is the reason you don't learn
The original point was: CF is not used in the power industry (my stand point).
CF is used in the power industry (your standpoint).
I explained why it is useless in the power industry.
You gave fluffy comments why it should be used as it looks so interesting for you on paper.
I carefully explained how you plan a day ahead with your plant, and you easy can extend that to a month ahead (longer timeframes for planning rarely exist). Obviously a CF is not helpful in both scenarios. So even you should easily conclude that no one is using a not helpful metric.
I repeat: the metric showed up a few years ago, as you gave reference probably around 1995, it is mainly used to ditch the usefulness of renewable plants as on paper a 20% CF of a solar (PV) plant looks really bad in comparison to a 95% nuclear plant. Neglecting the fact that the first plant is designed to produce power when it is needed (mid day) and the second one is designed to run for years at the same level.
So: tomorrow I need 1GW extra around noon. Do I power up the nuclear plant from 95% to 104% to get that? No, because that is only 111MW and not a GW. Do I power up the solar plant? No, it powers up itself. I actually power down the nuclear plant to 85% and get the rest of the energy from my solar plant.
Which CF was helpful in that decision? None obviously. To figure how much power I feed into the grid tomorrow at noon, I need to know how much power both plants in question produce tomorrow at noon. There is no CF available to calculate that.
So again: in my daily business decisions a metric like CF is irrelevant, hence no one is even attempting to calculate it.
The only point where you are right is the calculation of ROI for a planned Solar or Wind plant. But then again: as soon as you have the prognosed amount of power, why would anyone in his sane mind calculate a CF from that? It is a self fulfilling formula: "max yield" (nameplate yield per year) / "yield according to weather conditions (per year)" -> CF. Now I get something like 40%. or 20%, who cares. Now to do a prognosis of the yield for next year I do a multiplication: "max yield" * CF. Wow: surprisingly the result is exactly the same I got in the division above as a divisor. (*facepalm*) WTF should I calculate a damn CF, when I have the prognosis of the yield for next year as a hard number?
All plant planing works with hard numbers like that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.
It is not a performance measure.
Capacity Factor is a standard industry measure that has been used for quite some time. Here is an ANSI/IEEE standard from way back in 1987 which clearly defines Capacity Factor under Performance Indexes. You cannot deny this unless you are an utter fool.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1688...
Unfortunately, you will still deny it, and continue with your willful ignorance. For that reason I will no longer read any of your replies, but I might just keep reminding you of your ignorant contention.
Thanx for linking the PDF. So I stand corrected that there is an american standard that defines the term. Nevertheless my claim that the term is not used in planning for power production stands.
The pdf defines Gross Capacity Factor and Net Capacity Factor, I'm indeed surprised about that. Note: "Net capacity factor calculated using this equation can be negative during a period when the unit is shutdown. Formeaningful pooling of data on several units, net capacity factor can be deïned to be zero when the unit is shutdown." From the PDF. So, obviously that factor varies over time and is hence as - I mentioned, if I may point out, useless for any practical planning purpose.
Nevertheless: the PDF is from 1998 not from 1987, based on older versions from 1980, who knows if there was a "capcacity factor " mentioned at that time. Furthermore except for "defining" the two terms, the terms are not further used, so it is unclear what the purpose is.
Anyway, regarding the term and its usefulness, or lack there of I give you a simple problem to solve.
I have two power plants, a PV solar plant, which I call S, and a dispatch able plant, does not matter if it is coal or any other variable source, which I call D. Both have a maximum yield of 1GW.
Tomorrow from 9:00 AM till 04:00PM (16:00) I'm supposed to feed exactly 1GW into the grid.
Note, local noon is 12:30, so it is easy to figure when solar has its peak production. Please tell me how much power I feed in each hour from each plant. We simply assume we have a clear sky and perfect conditions for the solar plant.
You can assume what ever CFs you feel convenient. I would ofc stick to (your) the previous introduced CFs like 0.2 for S and 0.85 for D ... if that helps you :D ... or was it 0.65 you mentioned for D?
Example:
....
08:00 | 09:00 | 10:00 11:00
Total: 1GW | 1GW | 1GW
S: xMW | yGW | zGW
D: XGW | YGW | ZGW
Should be a no brainer that no CF will help you in filling that table.
Anyway if you find an example how american plant operators actually use the term CF then I would give you points.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Two of your ignorant quotes;
Capacity' factor is a word that is only used in the climate denier scene and recently by marketing droids.
It is not a performance measure.
Capacity Factor is a standard industry measure that has been used for quite some time. Here is an ANSI/IEEE standard from way back in 1987 which clearly defines Capacity Factor under Performance Indexes. You cannot deny this unless you are an utter fool.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1688...
Unfortunately, you will still deny it, and continue with your willful ignorance. For that reason I will no longer read any of your replies, but I might just keep reminding you of your ignorant contention.
Actually the price of electricity in Finland is among the lowest in Europe. This is one of the chief reasons how our system works. You see, we have a lot of traditionally extremely energy-intensive industry related to forestry (i.e. paper, carton and cellulose production), metalworks (both smelting and advanced machining such as shipbuilding) and so on. As a result, one of the primary goals of the entire country's energy policy is to ensure that electricity would be as cheap as possible. This kind of forward planning is what allows for those record profits. Not electricity prices, that are very cheap in Finland by European standards to the point that it was one of the chief reasons why most of the heavy industry stays in the country, and why modern energy intensive industries like heavy datacenters (i.e. Google) find Finland so interesting for their European operations.
The thing is: Cheap electricity prices make nuclear (and everything else) less economical. So the question still is why should nuclear plants be more profitable in Finland than elsewhere. Weren't the current plants not build by a government-owned power company (Imatran Voima Oy) which was then privatized later? Considering this, I assume that the existing nuclear plants in Finland were probably not really economical, but if nobody does an audit of how much this government-owned power company actually has spent when building these plants this will never become apparent. Looking at old press articles about how Loviisa started out has a hybrid of Sowijet and Western technology and needed costly repairs and changes, I somehow doubt that it was so economical as claimed.
Some other things you should understand before arguing on the topic of "eating profits".
....
Ok. But my point was that you should not sectively pick the successful projects while ignoring the cost of the failures when discussing the overall economics of nuclear. If the French tax payers pick up the bill for that disaster this is certainly good new for Fins, but does not really make nuclear more economical in the overall scheme of things.
1. Because even with cheap electricity prices, they are still very profitable. This is really not that hard to comprehend. Lower operating costs per unit of electricity produced = more profit.
2. Except that it's not "French tax payers" but "Areva". And Areva is in fact a multinational corporation, not a French government subsidiary even though approximately 90% of ownership is in French state's hands.
Their main problems right now are German decision to phase out nuclear power, reduction of nuclear design and building contracts due to Fukushima accident as well as Olkiluoto 3 problems. This has caused French government to increase capitalisation of the company.