ERCOT Urging For Energy Conservation

[Captainant 28538]

1 hour ago, troph said:

It’s undeniable that we have to use nuclear to get off carbon based fuels. We need nuclear on every continent, every country, every electricity provider.  If we had the political will we could within 10-15 years eliminate carbon based electricity production completely. Then eliminate the ICE and we are on our way to saving the planet. Sure it produces other risks and investing at a massive clip in solar and wind is hugely important. Investing in other green technologies too. It would be great to eliminate nuclear for future generations but we need to save the planet first. Then improve safety for energy production second.  

The good news is that small modular reactors - SMRs - are starting to be built, including a pilot project here in Texas! Theyre passively safe and designed to be manufactured and delivered to the site as a sealed unit that don't need servicing or refueling for its lifecycle 

[Biff Tannen 46165]

Just now, Captainant said:

The good news is that small modular reactors - SMRs - are starting to be built, including a pilot project here in Texas! Theyre passively safe and designed to be manufactured and delivered to the site as a sealed unit that don't need servicing or refueling for its lifecycle 

I am a shareholder for one of these companies just because it sounds so awesome.

[Brisketexan 106894]

The good news is that small modular reactors - SMRs - are starting to be built, including a pilot project here in Texas! Theyre passively safe and designed to be manufactured and delivered to the site as a sealed unit that don't need servicing or refueling for its lifecycle 

I have high, high hopes for SMRs.
Also, the Green Party (and greenies everywhere) need to mature and realize AND admit that 1) their opposition to nuclear energy would and did inevitably lead to continuing carbon-based energy, causing catastrophic global damage, and 2) there are now safer nuclear alternatives, so GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
Again, we have good friends in Germany, and she was JOYOUS about public pressure getting to shut down one of their remaining nuclear plants. All I could wonder was “where in the hell are you going to get your energy from now?”

[Armybrat 41404]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Again, we have good friends in Germany, and she was JOYOUS about public pressure getting to shut down one of their remaining nuclear plants. All I could wonder was “where in the hell are you going to get your energy from now?”

Well, her government’s preferred source didn’t work out so good, did it?

 

[Nathan Jessep 147]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

Well, her government’s preferred source didn’t work out so good, did it?

 

Can you imagine tying your energy security to an authoritarian adversary? 

 

 

Yikes

[Biff Tannen 46165]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:24 AM, Brisketexan said:

2) there are now safer nuclear alternatives, so GET THE FUCK OVER I

This is what I don't get.  People act like it's still the 70s and 80s and technology hasn't DRASTICALLY improved.  I have to imagine the odds of meltdown are miniscule these days (not counting shit like earthquakes in Japan I guess).

[Boss Hogg 808]

24 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

This is what I don't get.  People act like it's still the 70s and 80s and technology hasn't DRASTICALLY improved.  I have to imagine the odds of meltdown are miniscule these days (not counting shit like earthquakes in Japan I guess).

What do you not get about people picking ideology over what’s right? Happens to people all over the spectrum depending on the policy issue. 

[Captainant 28538]

6 hours ago, Boss Hogg said:

What do you not get about people picking ideology over what’s right? Happens to people all over the spectrum depending on the policy issue. 

Weird #bothsides but ok

[Dahobbs 18320]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:04 PM, Boss Hogg said:

I’m just tiptoeing into this thread but it seems like the disagreement between these two posters is messaging.  They want the same thing. One wants to tell it like it is, full story. The other leads with a manufactured metric that excludes a bunch of stuff. Then when called out on it, says oh I count it over here see.

Nah man. It is more like I think Quarterback Rating it is a useful, but incomplete metric for comparing QB play. @axiom of foundation thinks it is a useless metric because it does not consider strength of schedule, strength of line and WR play, or play calling. For some reason he also feels inclined to declare that I know nothing about football. LCOE is similar. It provides a set metric to compare the overall cost of producing electricity at the facility level, but doesn't provide any information about the cost of incorporating facilities into a specific electric grid. In order to figure that latter cost, you have to expand beyond the facility and consider a variety of outside factors that will vary between different grids and overtime, like how the electric grid in question is configured, what percentage of the grid renewables currently account for, and what your goal state is.  You definitely want that information, but you also (should) want the more basic and direct comparison that doesn't include a bunch of factors not directly tied to facilities. 

Quote

It is kind of like adjusted earnings vs GAAP EPS. 

Kind of. Adjusted earnings and GAAP can both be useful or misleading if used on their own, it just depends on the specific context.

The truth is that converting the grid in the United States to a high percentage of renewables will be very expensive. Some of those costs are going to in the nature of one-time capital costs, like needed upgrades to transmission in order to accommodate more distributed generation. Other costs will be ongoing, e.g., energy storage costs and the need to overbuild capacity. A truly honest analysis would also take into account benefits of a renewable grid, mainly reduction in carbon footprint (and reduction in the costs associated with climate change), but also including the resiliency and stability benefits of fully converted grid (e.g., quicker reactions to changes in voltage/load, distributed generation preventing single points of failure, and better interconnects allowing compensation for regional outages), and including a reduction in ongoing costs once everything is setup. 

By the way, a good part of the reason why essentially all of Texas' planned new generation is intermittent renewable is because the Texas energy market doesn't have a mechanism to directly account for needed backup capacity. See @Brisketexan constant call for a capacity market in Texas. We run lean by design. And running lean why relying on an increasing amount of intermittent energy isn't the best idea. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Dahobbs

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Captainant said:

Weird #bothsides but ok

Not sure why that’s weird considering it’s your side with the strongest nuke opposition. 

[Captainant 28538]

3 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Not sure why that’s weird considering it’s your side with the strongest nuke opposition. 

I don't oppose nuke reactors so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You trying to CR this thread or something?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/392831/americans-divided-nuclear-energy.aspx

The polling also shows women oppose nukes as much as """my side""" - is it women's fault everywhere we don't have more nuclear reactors? Fuck outta here. 

 

I'm excited to see the developments with SMRs, I've been following their development and have posted a few updates over the years. Stoked for the pilot plant to open in Texas. 

[Brisketexan 106894]

9 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Not sure why that’s weird considering it’s your side with the strongest nuke opposition. 

 

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

I don't oppose nuke reactors so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You trying to CR this thread or something?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/392831/americans-divided-nuclear-energy.aspx

The polling also shows women oppose nukes as much as """my side""" - is it women's fault everywhere we don't have more nuclear reactors? Fuck outta here. 

 

I'm excited to see the developments with SMRs, I've been following their development and have posted a few updates over the years. Stoked for the pilot plant to open in Texas. 

Porterhouse is right (for now) -- the biggest chunk of opposition to nuclear power is on the left side of the aisle.

But no worries...if we ever get past that, and the left comes around on nuclear power, you can bet your bottom dollar that the O&G and coal industries will suddenly find an evangelical belief that nuclear energy is very, very bad, and we shouldn't look to it as a major power source.  Right now, they don't have to expend any effort on that front because useful idiots on the left are doing the heavy lifting for them.  But if that ever changes, look for the attitude among right-leaning voters to do a massive about-face due to O&G and coal interests flooding the Fox News ecosystem with information about how nuclear energy is funded by Soros or some shit.

[utee94 16086]

25 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You trying to CR this thread or something?

Oh come on man, this thread has been cloaked all the way from Page 1 to...

20 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Porterhouse is right (for now) -- the biggest chunk of opposition to nuclear power is on the left side of the aisle.

But no worries...if we ever get past that, and the left comes around on nuclear power, you can bet your bottom dollar that the O&G and coal industries will suddenly find an evangelical belief that nuclear energy is very, very bad, and we shouldn't look to it as a major power source.  Right now, they don't have to expend any effort on that front because useful idiots on the left are doing the heavy lifting for them.  But if that ever changes, look for the attitude among right-leaning voters to do a massive about-face due to O&G and coal interests flooding the Fox News ecosystem with information about how nuclear energy is funded by Soros or some shit.

... the most recent post.

[Brisketexan 106894]

5 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Oh come on man, this thread has been cloaked all the way from Page 1 to...

... the most recent post.

You cannot talk about the design of the ERCOT market without talking about the WHYs of how it is designed/not designed, and those are almost entirely political.  ERCOT's role as the ISO of our "deregulated" market was an entirely political creation.  The reasons for any changes happening (or not) will be political as well.

What have been dealing with are (by and large) not technical or engineering failures.  They are policy failures.  We can't run away from that truth.

[YGIFS 19458]

This page is reading like an Onion headline, "'Energy is Apolitical', claims oversight board of exclusively political appointments." 

[utee94 16086]

5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You cannot talk about the design of the ERCOT market without talking about the WHYs of how it is designed/not designed, and those are almost entirely political.  ERCOT's role as the ISO of our "deregulated" market was an entirely political creation.  The reasons for any changes happening (or not) will be political as well.

What have been dealing with are (by and large) not technical or engineering failures.  They are policy failures.  We can't run away from that truth.

That's the point I'm making.

This thread belongs in CR.  Always has.

Edited September 5, 2023 by utee94

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Porterhouse is right (for now) -- the biggest chunk of opposition to nuclear power is on the left side of the aisle.

But no worries...if we ever get past that, and the left comes around on nuclear power, you can bet your bottom dollar that the O&G and coal industries will suddenly find an evangelical belief that nuclear energy is very, very bad, and we shouldn't look to it as a major power source.  Right now, they don't have to expend any effort on that front because useful idiots on the left are doing the heavy lifting for them.  But if that ever changes, look for the attitude among right-leaning voters to do a massive about-face due to O&G and coal interests flooding the Fox News ecosystem with information about how nuclear energy is funded by Soros or some shit.

Totally agree. But nuclear is viable. Renewables by and large are not. However, they’re about to be a lot more viable because hydrocarbons are going higher. Much higher. 

[Brisketexan 106894]

3 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Totally agree. But nuclear is viable. Renewables by and large are not. However, they’re about to be a lot more viable because hydrocarbons are going higher. Much higher. 

Renewables are plenty viable...as a mix....in a market with adequate transmission (limiting congestion) and with a capacity market function.  If someone sat down and designed a fucking market with the intent of it functioning to 1) provide reliable PUBLIC UTILITY service (remember, Texas decided that electricity really wasn't a public utility), 2) in a way that leans into reducing pollution and carbon emissions 3) at a reasonable cost (perhaps with more immediate/direct costs in the near-term than a fully fossil fuel design, but much lower costs when weighing in externalities), we could have a decent market.

But we won't.

Because the Texas utility market is not designed to deliver reliable electric power.

It is designed to produce profits for the donor class.

[Armybrat 41404]

6 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Totally agree. But nuclear is viable. Renewables by and large are not. However, they’re about to be a lot more viable because hydrocarbons are going higher. Much higher. 

Yep, and CLS is drilling a bunch of wells in our mineral spacing as we dither here.

[FartingMonk 3619]

On 8/25/2023 at 12:57 PM, YGIFS said:

 

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

I don't oppose nuke reactors so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You trying to CR this thread or something?

https://news.gallup.com/poll/392831/americans-divided-nuclear-energy.aspx

The polling also shows women oppose nukes as much as """my side""" - is it women's fault everywhere we don't have more nuclear reactors? Fuck outta here. 

 

I'm excited to see the developments with SMRs, I've been following their development and have posted a few updates over the years. Stoked for the pilot plant to open in Texas. 

. 

 

[Brisketexan 106894]

Oh, and also back to the nuclear energy polling... the cognitive dissonance is amazing.

When breaking down opinions on nuclear energy based on how the respondents feel about climate change, the group with the LOWEST support for nuclear power (34%) is ALSO the group that "worries a great deal" about climate change.  FFS, the surest path to having sufficient energy WITHOUT spewing climate-harming emissions is to ramp up nuclear power.

"I oppose dirty power, but I also oppose clean power" is a really stupid position.

[FartingMonk 3619]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Porterhouse is right (for now) -- the biggest chunk of opposition to nuclear power is on the left side of the aisle.

But no worries...if we ever get past that, and the left comes around on nuclear power, you can bet your bottom dollar that the O&G and coal industries will suddenly find an evangelical belief that nuclear energy is very, very bad, and we shouldn't look to it as a major power source.  Right now, they don't have to expend any effort on that front because useful idiots on the left are doing the heavy lifting for them.  But if that ever changes, look for the attitude among right-leaning voters to do a massive about-face due to O&G and coal interests flooding the Fox News ecosystem with information about how nuclear energy is funded by Soros or some shit.

If you are taking about the Seadrift SMR.  I can tell you it will be DOA before it even breaks ground

[Brisketexan 106894]

Just now, FartingMonk said:

If you are taking about the Seadrift SMR.  I can tell you it will be DOA before it even breaks ground

I believe you....because this timeline....but, got any specifics on the why, and who will make it happen?

[FartingMonk 3619]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, and also back to the nuclear energy polling... the cognitive dissonance is amazing.

When breaking down opinions on nuclear energy based on how the respondents feel about climate change, the group with the LOWEST support for nuclear power (34%) is ALSO the group that "worries a great deal" about climate change.  FFS, the surest path to having sufficient energy WITHOUT spewing climate-harming emissions is to ramp up nuclear power.

"I oppose dirty power, but I also oppose clean power" is a really stupid position.

It's the entire demographic out at burning man right now 

[Samson's Wig 3230]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, and also back to the nuclear energy polling... the cognitive dissonance is amazing.

When breaking down opinions on nuclear energy based on how the respondents feel about climate change, the group with the LOWEST support for nuclear power (34%) is ALSO the group that "worries a great deal" about climate change.  FFS, the surest path to having sufficient energy WITHOUT spewing climate-harming emissions is to ramp up nuclear power.

"I oppose dirty power, but I also oppose clean power" is a really stupid position.

Sounds like the minions for every special interest group of all time, for whatever cause.

[FartingMonk 3619]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I believe you....because this timeline....but, got any specifics on the why, and who will make it happen?

The why is gonna be there isn't anyone to manufacture the critical parts.  The who is because the opposition groups have the playbook to delay and eventually shut it down.  The NIMBY folks know once the delays start happening by filing injunction after injunction the investors see this as a money pit and back out.  It's a tried and true move.  All it takes is one lawyer and a willing environmental group

[Beau Vine 55864]

19 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

It's the entire demographic out at burning man right now 

Sweet, so ebola's going to solve the "problem?"

[Captainant 28538]

53 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

The why is gonna be there isn't anyone to manufacture the critical parts.  The who is because the opposition groups have the playbook to delay and eventually shut it down.  The NIMBY folks know once the delays start happening by filing injunction after injunction the investors see this as a money pit and back out.  It's a tried and true move.  All it takes is one lawyer and a willing environmental group

The whole point of the SMR project is that nothing is built on site, it's just a deployable and passively safe reactor. Seadrift is the site of the manufacturing plan it'll power, not the manufacturing site.

Also a neato feature of SMRs (at least the Xe-100 planned for Seadrift) - they're far more throttleable than traditional reactors thanks to the particle-based fuel rather than the traditional rod-based fuel.

[FartingMonk 3619]

13 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The whole point of the SMR project is that nothing is built on site, it's just a deployable and passively safe reactor. Seadrift is the site of the manufacturing plan it'll power, not the manufacturing site.

Also a neato feature of SMRs (at least the Xe-100 planned for Seadrift) - they're far more throttleable than traditional reactors thanks to the particle-based fuel rather than the traditional rod-based fuel.

You sound like a sales brochure.  Now what about the secondary side?

[FartingMonk 3619]

14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The whole point of the SMR project is that nothing is built on site, it's just a deployable and passively safe reactor. Seadrift is the site of the manufacturing plan it'll power, not the manufacturing site.

Also a neato feature of SMRs (at least the Xe-100 planned for Seadrift) - they're far more throttleable than traditional reactors thanks to the particle-based fuel rather than the traditional rod-based fuel.

The PWRs although they were sizes of trash cans I worked on.  It was pretty easy to throttle power.  You just increased or decreased steam demand by turning a giant wheel

[FartingMonk 3619]

You're making it sound like they just drop a SMR in a crate and it's ready to go.  It's way more involved than that.  I love nuclear power.  I just think you're being too optimistic 

[Brisketexan 106894]

3 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

You're making it sound like they just drop a SMR in a crate and it's ready to go.  It's way more involved than that.  I love nuclear power.  I just think you're being too optimistic 

I mean, we probably shouldn't order our SMRs off of Wish.com.....

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Renewables are plenty viable...as a mix....in a market with adequate transmission (limiting congestion) and with a capacity market function.  If someone sat down and designed a fucking market with the intent of it functioning to 1) provide reliable PUBLIC UTILITY service (remember, Texas decided that electricity really wasn't a public utility), 2) in a way that leans into reducing pollution and carbon emissions 3) at a reasonable cost (perhaps with more immediate/direct costs in the near-term than a fully fossil fuel design, but much lower costs when weighing in externalities), we could have a decent market.

But we won't.

Because the Texas utility market is not designed to deliver reliable electric power.

It is designed to produce profits for the donor class.

Nothing is as cheap as nuclear or nat gas. It doesn’t matter how many more bullshit charts that obfuscate true cost that Dahobbs posts. 

[Captainant 28538]

10 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

You sound like a sales brochure.  Now what about the secondary side?

 

8 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

The PWRs although they were sizes of trash cans I worked on.  It was pretty easy to throttle power.  You just increased or decreased steam demand by turning a giant wheel

 

3 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

You're making it sound like they just drop a SMR in a crate and it's ready to go.  It's way more involved than that.  I love nuclear power.  I just think you're being too optimistic 

Just an enthusiastic nerd that has been following SMRs for some time - I'm in the middle of rereading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" again after watching Oppenheimer. It sounds like you have actual industry experience so I defer to your expertise (I'm just a tech dude, not an atom splitter), but "put it in a crate and let passive safety handle the rest with minimal management" is the envisioned end state of SMR's. 

Also it bears repeating - our typical PWR reactor design is fuckin OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD and has not been revisited for some time. Many of the innovations (to us civilians at least) of SMR's like the "bed" of fuel that flows through the core rather than a static rod that can't be accessed without disassembly, and the lower stable operating power will make nuclear power way more accessible than it has been previously

[Brisketexan 106894]

5 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Nothing is as cheap as nuclear or nat gas. It doesn’t matter how many more bullshit charts that obfuscate true cost that Dahobbs posts. 

Direct costs?  Sure.  Additional/external costs?  As in, disposal of spent fuel (and monitoring thereof for a long-ass time), and the overall external costs of continued carbon emissions?  Not so much.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Direct costs?  Sure.  Additional/external costs?  As in, disposal of spent fuel (and monitoring thereof for a long-ass time), and the overall external costs of continued carbon emissions?  Not so much.

Disposal of spent fuel?

Carbon emissions of nat gas production and burning is extremely low. 

[InkaUtexas 26884]

My AC went out last night, so doing my part. 

[Brisketexan 106894]

Just now, Porterhouse said:

Disposal of spent fuel?

Carbon emissions of nat gas production and burning is extremely low. 

Relative to coal?  Yes, absolutely.  We're going to need fossil fuel power in our mix, and it should absolutely be natural gas power.  But it's not like natural gas only emits 10% as much carbon as coal -- it's more like 50%.  And 50% of a shitload of carbon is still a lot of carbon.

The less fossil fuel we burn in our power generation mix, the better it is for the climate and atmosphere going forward.  Natural gas is the least bad option to bridge things for a good many years to come.  But renewables (including nuclear) are better.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Relative to coal?  Yes, absolutely.  We're going to need fossil fuel power in our mix, and it should absolutely be natural gas power.  But it's not like natural gas only emits 10% as much carbon as coal -- it's more like 50%.  And 50% of a shitload of carbon is still a lot of carbon.

The less fossil fuel we burn in our power generation mix, the better it is for the climate and atmosphere going forward.  Natural gas is the least bad option to bridge things for a good many years to come.  But renewables (including nuclear) are better.

Your percentage of 50% of coal is WAY too aggressive.

From a cost perspective this is simply false. With the exception of nuclear. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Porterhouse

[Brisketexan 106894]

2 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

From a cost perspective this is simply false. With the exception of nuclear. 

Are you figuring in only direct costs, or the externalities of carbon emissions?  That's important.  Seriously.

[Biff Tannen 46165]

I think you guys really might convince him this time.  Keep going.

[tokamak 6687]

I thought the big problem with nuclear was not necessarily political opposition, but just basic economics? Per Wikipedia, Vogtle 3&4 is up to $34bn. That's just a staggering amount of money for a utility to spend.

[Post Oak 20565]

SMRs don't require the same financial obligation or time frames to be up and running. Plus they are scalable. 

I've read they can be up in running in 30-36 months, but I don't know if that's accurate.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Are you figuring in only direct costs, or the externalities of carbon emissions?  That's important.  Seriously.

Emissions from nat gas are 1) not nearly as much as you purport; and 2) MUCH less important than avoiding energy poverty, and continued cheap source of electric generation. 

[Dahobbs 18320]

15 minutes ago, tokamak said:

I thought the big problem with nuclear was not necessarily political opposition, but just basic economics? Per Wikipedia, Vogtle 3&4 is up to $34bn. That's just a staggering amount of money for a utility to spend.

It is. But a lot of that cost is because of political opposition. 

[Dahobbs 18320]

3 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Emissions from nat gas are 1) not nearly as much as you purport; and 2) MUCH less important than avoiding energy poverty, and continued cheap source of electric generation. 

https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php

~50% per BTU. 

[Brisketexan 106894]

6 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

Emissions from nat gas are 1) not nearly as much as you purport; and 2) MUCH less important than avoiding energy poverty, and continued cheap source of electric generation. 

I ain't purporting shit.  I'm citing actual numbers.

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million Btus generated:

Bituminous coal (the cleaner variety of coal):  205.7

Natural gas: 117

To save you the math, natural gas emits 56.8% as much carbon as coal (again, I cited the cleaner variety, as that and subbituminous are what most all US generation has gone to -- it's all PRB coal now, damn near).  I'm glad it's materially less, but touting natural gas as being so low emission as to not matter is flat-out false.  117 tons of CO2 is 117 tons of CO2.  It would be better if those 117 tons of CO2 were not emitted.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Brisketexan

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I ain't purporting shit.  I'm citing actual numbers.

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million Btus generated:

Bituminous coal (the cleaner variety of coal):  205.7

Natural gas: 117

To save you the math, natural gas emits 56.8% as much carbon as coal (again, I cited the cleaner variety, as that and subbituminous are what most all US generation has gone to -- it's all PRB coal now, damn near).  I'm glad it's materially less, but touting natural gas as being so low emission as to not matter is flat-out false.  117 tons of CO2 is 117 tons of CO2.  It would be better if those 117 tons of CO2 were not emitted.

What is % of relatively clean coal to relatively dirty coal

[FartingMonk 3619]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

 

 

Just an enthusiastic nerd that has been following SMRs for some time - I'm in the middle of rereading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" again after watching Oppenheimer. It sounds like you have actual industry experience so I defer to your expertise (I'm just a tech dude, not an atom splitter), but "put it in a crate and let passive safety handle the rest with minimal management" is the envisioned end state of SMR's. 

Also it bears repeating - our typical PWR reactor design is fuckin OOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDD and has not been revisited for some time. Many of the innovations (to us civilians at least) of SMR's like the "bed" of fuel that flows through the core rather than a static rod that can't be accessed without disassembly, and the lower stable operating power will make nuclear power way more accessible than it has been previously

I haven't read in depth about core design on SMRs yet, but at the end of the day it's just a hot rock that makes water into steam and that steam makes a turbine spin making electricity 

[Brisketexan 106894]

3 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

What is % of relatively clean coal to relatively dirty coal

Doesn't much matter, as there isn't much anthracite being burned in the US these days.  So, comparing to the menu of the reasonably available generation options, I gave you the numbers.