urbanSTL

Peabody is back in the black:

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 9d611.html

Coal was king in this Illinois town for generations. A young mayor is betting on solar.
https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article2 ... rylink=cpy

Third major coal producer since May has filed for bankruptcy (not in STL). Peabody and Arch both seem to be hanging in there, though. Tough business, I guess.  

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/pres ... 19841.html

If one looks at the saturation of coal in the market in the late nineteenth century, where it powered virtually everything on virtually every level, and then the slow march of other energy sources into once unassailable coal markets across the scope of the twentieth and I think the trend is obvious. Coal is slow, it has a relatively low energy density, it's dirty in every describable way, it requires a large and absurdly complicated system of associated structures, and increasingly scarce and expensive trades and crafts (from boilermakers to miners.) I think it will be well within our lifetimes when coal is an energy source only in museums. (Much as wind power was during the bulk of the twentieth century.) Which leaves me somewhat curious how museums will power their coal fired gadgets when the last mine closes. (Maybe some kind of vegetable oil impregnated charcoal.)

Or maybe there will be a living coal mine museum. (Not impossible. Or even necessarily a bad idea. Trickier than most, maybe, but probably not impossible.)

Let's face it, folks; nuclear is the future. Does STL have any players in the nuclear game? 

Oooh . . . Ameren, Mallinckrodt. (Though these days it's mostly or entirely medicine. But they basically developed the gas centrifuge enrichment process, if I understand the story correctly.) At one time Nooter made a lot of reactor vessels. In another sense the folks that did remediation up at Weldon Spring. (Chicagoland apparently believes they have the only publcily accessible nuclear waste site. Because the world revolves around Chicago, of course. I almost wish that were literally true every once in a while.) Whoever is putting out the garbage fire at Coldwater Creek.

All kidding aside, yes, we do. It's not as deep or as well developed as I would like. And it's not well known. But it's there. And it's not just restricted to DoE tests on unsuspecting victims and their baby teeth.

The trouble is no one has built a nuclear plant in the US in probably forty years. Not much to manufacture. When it was last done Nooter was pretty heavily involved, and a little digging indicates the new version of the company, Nooter Erikson, is still here, albeit primarily making heat recovery steam generators for gas tired turbine plants. Which I believe is basically a way to make the gas turbine more thermally efficient by recapturing waste heat. If I recall correctly, and I'm no engineer so take this with a grain of salt, a coal fired steam turbine plant has a thermal efficiency of over 30%. (Nuclear plants are probably in that same neighborhood since they use a similar closed loop steam turbine system, just with a different heat source.) Internal combustion engines, by contrast are lucky to get ten percent. And steam turbines? Woe doggie! Just pump the heat out the back, thanks. So it's probably those HRSGs that make gas turbine plants cost competitive with coal. They're probably still somewhat less thermally efficient, but if the fuel is cheaper and they're more nimble for start/stop purposes they'll come out well ahead. (And the same basic tech applies to other fuels as well.) So . . . Nooter Erikson is helping to put Peabody out of business already. And they're still making boilers. So if someone decides to go nuclear again they'll probably be right there in the line to submit bids. Which is another way of saying we're in the nuclear industry already. There just . . . isn't one right now.

Of course I'm all in favor of more diverse stuff in St. Louis, but it's nice to know Nooter isn't gone even if the big red sign disappeared from the riverfront. (I miss the neon line along the river, I confess.)

If you support Ameren's nuclear game, keep in mind that twice in the past 10 years Jefferson City chose to protect other utilities and block Callaway's expansion. Write to your representative in Jeff and tell them to work with Ameren and the Callaway Plant instead of protecting coal. 

framer wrote: Let's face it, folks; nuclear is the future. Does STL have any players in the nuclear game? 

Don't buy it framer.  Solar hands down is the future just for the fact that the shear amount of energy from the sun rays hitting the earths surface on any given day dwarfs the amount world energy generated by man for the year.  Only a matter of time before solar and storage technology along with distribution changes make all other energy sources economically obsolete, especially those out of the ground including uranium, is my take on the future.   It would happen sooner if current energy and utilities lobby so hard to protect their industries.  Heck, I don't have the numbers but believe Illinois and New Jersey already force rate payers to pay more to keep nuke plans operating in their respective states.  

US generates more electricity from renewables than coal for first time ever
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... coal-power
Renewable energy is booming. $1trillion dollar of private investment until 2030.
https://fortune.com/2019/07/02/renewabl ... um=ios_app
Los Angeles seeks record setting solar power price under 2¢/kWh
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/06/28/ ... C2%A2-kwh/
Nuclear Power, Once Seen as Impervious to Climate Change, Threatened by Heat Waves
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-ne ... heat-waves

Nuclear engineers are working on an entirely new class of reactors. Safer, cheaper, more efficient, etc. They are not commercially viable right now, but I believe that's the future of large-scale electricity production. 

^I think my more important point is that I want to see St. Louis business diverse and flexible. Fusion has long served as sort of holy grail for the knights of the nuclear table. If there's any future in that, I expect Nooter will find a way, and I'd like to see our engineers, physicists, and chemists play a part. But I'd say the same for solar. And wind, geothermal, and heavy duty super-colliding super buttons. (But not hydro, oddly. That we can mostly bury with coal.)

"STL-Based Arch Outlines ‘Exit Strategy’ to Stop Selling Coal for Electricity"

https://www.constructforstl.org/stl-bas ... ectricity/

^I'd love to see them "pivot" to an actual growth sector if they can do it. Metalurgical coal might be strong now, but I wonder if it will stay that way? Would be wonderful to see a traditional energy company throw all in on a new energy source. The demand for coal may be going down, but the demand for energy isn't.

With Ameren making this big push for renewables lately I hope that some STL companies are trying to get in on that $$$

The future is nuclear. The next generation of reactors is just around the corner, and even fusion is within sight. Like Trololzilla said above, when it happens, it will immediately make most other forms of power generation obsolete. 

I think this is where energy engineering and supply companies should be investing their resources. 

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2020

The future is nuclear. The next generation of reactors is just around the corner, and even fusion is within sight. Like Trololzilla said above, when it happens, it will immediately make most other forms of power generation obsolete. 

I think this is where energy engineering and supply companies should be investing their resources. 

I get nuclear as a replacement for coal or natural gas - as a consistent, dependable base load source. But it still requires fuel and a byproduct that is a major hassle and expense to handle and manage. I think renewables combined with improved storage technology and grid infrastructure will have a greater market share of the future than nuclear. Renewables are already over 17%, but it's not hard to see them providing 3x that and therefore a majority or generation.

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2020

The future is nuclear. The next generation of reactors is just around the corner, and even fusion is within sight. Like Trololzilla said above, when it happens, it will immediately make most other forms of power generation obsolete. 

I think this is where energy engineering and supply companies should be investing their resources. 

The drawings for our next generation reactors in the US have been sitting on the shelves collecting dust for two decades. 

I believe S. Korea is building fourth-generation plants right now, and planning the fifth.

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Oct 30, 2020

wabash wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2020

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2020

The future is nuclear. The next generation of reactors is just around the corner, and even fusion is within sight. Like Trololzilla said above, when it happens, it will immediately make most other forms of power generation obsolete. 

I think this is where energy engineering and supply companies should be investing their resources. 

I get nuclear as a replacement for coal or natural gas - as a consistent, dependable base load source. But it still requires fuel and a byproduct that is a major hassle and expense to handle and manage. I think renewables combined with improved storage technology and grid infrastructure will have a greater market share of the future than nuclear. Renewables are already over 17%, but it's not hard to see them providing 3x that and therefore a majority or generation.

How much of your 17% renewable energy claim is hydroelectric and geothermal?

Wind 8.2%, hydroelectric 6.6%, solar 2.1% =  16.9%. Geothermal and biomass would take it to around 18%.