About the additional coal capacity coming online in China: I have thoughts!
So much of china has historically had no, or very limited, access to large scale power grid. The grid is the biggest infrastructure piece. What is the cost of all the miles of grid compared to the cost of the coal plants? I think china is building a grid.
They are powering it with coal now because they can and it is cheap.
But! I would bet a round of drinks that the steam side of the coal generation plant is sized and common so that, as soon as they decide they are ready, they can pull out the coal fire steam generator and drop in one of their scaled up nuclear plants. They are testing their molten salt reactor, how far away is the Chinese nuclear regulator from approving it for civilian use? Say 5 years? There are no pressure vessels associated with that technology. The construction logistics are easy. It uses novel metals but they already have access to those and have the manufacturing experience working with them.
As soon as the regulator signs off on the safety of the reactor, china is the only country in the world that could immediately move to replace the coal plants with nuclear at a rate of 10s per year.
They could Decarbonisation in a decade. Embarrass the west and turn around to all the belt and road allies and material providers in Africa and offer them the reactors on lease for a favorable price.
Somewhere previous I had found mention that their HTGR was sized so two reactors would match the steam input (flow, P & T) to a single standardized coal plant steam turbine....
It probably makes sense to only build one of those at each, keep the coal, use the nuclear for the more steady demanded bottom half of the cycle, and keep the coal for peaking at low CF%.
But they are about the only place with both the age and scale of coal fleet for this to make sense. Maybe India as well?
Love the show!
About the additional coal capacity coming online in China: I have thoughts!
So much of china has historically had no, or very limited, access to large scale power grid. The grid is the biggest infrastructure piece. What is the cost of all the miles of grid compared to the cost of the coal plants? I think china is building a grid.
They are powering it with coal now because they can and it is cheap.
But! I would bet a round of drinks that the steam side of the coal generation plant is sized and common so that, as soon as they decide they are ready, they can pull out the coal fire steam generator and drop in one of their scaled up nuclear plants. They are testing their molten salt reactor, how far away is the Chinese nuclear regulator from approving it for civilian use? Say 5 years? There are no pressure vessels associated with that technology. The construction logistics are easy. It uses novel metals but they already have access to those and have the manufacturing experience working with them.
As soon as the regulator signs off on the safety of the reactor, china is the only country in the world that could immediately move to replace the coal plants with nuclear at a rate of 10s per year.
They could Decarbonisation in a decade. Embarrass the west and turn around to all the belt and road allies and material providers in Africa and offer them the reactors on lease for a favorable price.
China is building a Grid!
Somewhere previous I had found mention that their HTGR was sized so two reactors would match the steam input (flow, P & T) to a single standardized coal plant steam turbine....
It probably makes sense to only build one of those at each, keep the coal, use the nuclear for the more steady demanded bottom half of the cycle, and keep the coal for peaking at low CF%.
But they are about the only place with both the age and scale of coal fleet for this to make sense. Maybe India as well?