Thread by @VibrantCE

🚨 #NewStudyAlert 🚨 #energytwitter

Today we release a new report: "Role of Electricity Produced by Advanced Nuclear Technologies in Decarbonizing the U.S Energy System". Below lies a thread (🧵🪡)

We deployed WIS:dom-P w/ augmentation to include: #endogenous learning, blended adv. #nuclear tech., yearly investment periods, @NREL #electrification, pilot projects, new #weather & load #datasets.

Two pathways were analyzed. First, "nominal", was where advanced nuclear had a lower first-of-a-kind (FOAK) cost & no delays due to permitting, labor, supply chains. The second pathway, "constrained", had a higher FOAK and there were delays in permitting, labor and supply chains.

The "nominal" scenario installs 51 GW adv. nuclear by 2035, while "constrained" only managed 12 GW. This gap extends to 277 GW by 2050. This cumulative installations impacts the capital costs for the next MW of installed capacity via the endogenous learning.

The "constrained" pathway must make up for the lack of adv. nuclear capacity; and does it with wind, solar, storage, and fossil fuels. In fact, the additional capacity required to replace the 277 GW of adv. nuclear is 1,300 GW (more than all the capacity on the grid today in US)

All that capacity costs consumers money to the tune of nearly $450 billion through 2050. This makes it harder for the other sectors in the economy to electrify and decarbonize.

The "nominal" scenario provides over 40% of its electricity via nuclear (advanced & legacy) while the "constrained" only manages 13%. The remaining generation gap is made up by variable resources and storage to balance them.

In addition, the fossil fuel back-up generation is increased in the "constrained" scenario by 50 GW. This could be replaced by storage or other generation capacity, but at a higher price. Note that the storage only needs 5 hours for the "nominal" and 8 hours for the "constrained"

The installation rate of generation technologies increases dramatically for the "constrained" pathway to replace adv. nuclear. This will require considerable supply chain expansion.

The advanced nuclear is sited at existing and then retired power plants that are suitable for conversion. These allow for easier access to critical components for interconnection to the grid.

The pathways both achieve 60% reductions in economy-wide emissions and 95% reduction in power grid emissions. These are accompanied with reductions in criteria pollutants that will increase health for local residents.

The siting within WIS:dom-P deploys generation, transmission, DERs, and storage in a trade-off between cost of generation and requirement to make profit. This co-optimization leads to cooperation and competition between sites and resources across the footprint.

To achieve this there will need to be a vast expansion in nuclear jobs as the deployments occur and these will replace the coal and natural gas jobs that are lost.

Much more is in the report: vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…,

Press release: vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…

& data is available too: vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…

vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…

Credit to @NEI for funding the study. As always, we welcome constructive comments and feedback.

Finally, we are searching for new job postings. If you are interested please apply!

vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…

vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…

vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/upl…