This is being spurred by AI.

Here is what Google is doing
Reuters - Google to buy power for AI

So, Google announces they are building a bunch of nuke plants, so Abbott is now going to tag along.

Remember, Abbot won the wind award for totally ****ing up the grid with tons of wind/solar crap that doesn't work. 25% of our power from **** that doesn't work. We get power warnings when it's hot, cold, and 70 degrees.

So, we need power and so we we do the $10 billion Texas Energy Fund to build a bunch of gas plants? Well, now he's on to Nuclear. LMAO.

He's gone from wind (when it was trendy), to gas, now to nuclear. Dude doesn't know WTF he's doing when it relates to power.

Generation, especially nuke, is great. We have to address the transmission system in conjunction to building more generation. We are in a bigger bind with transmission than generation right now.

harge57 said:

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Finally some common sense energy sources, but how many years before new nuclear will be online? 10 years?

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My response was going to be "About 10 years too late on this." I am glad it's finally being considered, at least.

AgGrad99 said:

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javajaws said:

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Build extra and sell it to the other states!

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Amen.

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Texas is a separate power grid from the other two east/west grids in the US that are not in sync with each other. There are methods to transport power across unsynced grids, but it's expensive.

JB!98 said:

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Generation, especially nuke, is great. We have to address the transmission system in conjunction to building more generation. We are in a bigger bind with transmission than generation right now.

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Twenty 100MW plants distributed across the grid and/or dedicated to local AI data centers (which will drive a lot of this), instead of one 2 gigawatt in the middle of nowhere will reduce the need for too much long haul transmission systems.

AgBQ-00 said:

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Having a diverse and highly capable and adaptable grid helps to secure against plant outages, maintenance issues, and weather issues. As seen in icemaggeddon, the nat gas facilities can be frozen and overwhelmed. Wind and solar are nice for add-on capacity in normal conditions but they don't work for adverse conditions.

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Not sure I approve of the proliferation of wind generators in the Texas Panhandle. It's already windy enough.

eeinoilandgas said:

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AgGrad99 said:

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javajaws said:

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Build extra and sell it to the other states!

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Amen.

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Texas is a separate power grid from the other two east/west grids in the US that are not in sync with each other. There are methods to transport power across unsynced grids, but it's expensive.

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No way do we need to sell it. We need to take it and power desalination plants so we can all have enough water.

We should be going all in on gas and nuclear, while drawing down the Coal Plants, but using their cheap energy as much as possible over the short term by getting rid of bs regulations. Let them mine out everything they are permitted for and let them burn for cheap as other stuff comes online

Nuclear is nice, but what is the plan for smoothing out the demand spikes? Are these next-gen reactors able to ramp up production on a shorter time span than previous generations?

TacosaurusRex said:

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eeinoilandgas said:

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AgGrad99 said:

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javajaws said:

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Build extra and sell it to the other states!

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Amen.

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Texas is a separate power grid from the other two east/west grids in the US that are not in sync with each other. There are methods to transport power across unsynced grids, but it's expensive.

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No way do we need to sell it, we need to take it and power desalination plants so we can all have enough water.

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Now we're cookin....

States with the most robust and growth conscious grids will be the launching point for AI and data based industries of the future.

We need to consider this NOW rather than 25 years from now and we play catchup.

About fkn time.

Stmichael said:

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Nuclear is nice, but what is the plan for smoothing out the demand spikes? Are these next-gen reactors able to ramp up production on a shorter time span than previous generations?

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The plan is natural gas peakers and energy storage. Texas already has over 5 gigawatts of battery storage. It's fine if nuclear fulfills the role of steady base load.

harge57 said:

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Finally some common sense energy sources, but how many years before new nuclear will be online? 10 years?

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I doubt that a company could get through the regulatory hurdles in 10 years. That's the work that needs to be done before any earth is moved at the plant location.

Think about all the money that would be deployed to see that this never happens!

Lots of energy companies rooting against nuclear at every turn.

fossil fuels, wind, solar...lot of headwind to overcome.

Build nukes, sell gas. That's my Texas energy billboard slogan.

I am playing around with maps of existing water pipelines that interconnect lakes and connecting those to 3 proposed nuclear powered destalinization plants. There would be 3 seperate systems governed by the river authorities (Trinity, Brazos, Sabine, Colorado, etc) .

Excess power, of which there would be a lot, would be sent to general grid - producing far more than what is needed, and allowing Texas to export excess into neighboring grids that cover edges of Texas.

I am not an engineer but am well read on drought cycles, water management, and have a fundamental understanding of the energy shortfall in Texas relative to growth.

I hope to have this completed and will share here on F16 one day for everyone to tell me how stupid I am.

Rapier108 said:

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Time to add two reactors at Comanche Peak and two at the STP for starters.

Either the Mitsubishi APWR+ (was planned for Comanche Peak but later canceled), the AP1000 (already in use at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia), the ABWR (was planned for the STP, but canceled) or the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor.

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Adding to existing sites should hasten the process considerably.

Nuclear

Nanomachines son said:

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I am 100% convinced we need to push every avenue for power. Make our grid antifragile so that it has numerous different means to produce power. We're going to need orders of magnitude more power soon and we'll need everything we have.

Don't stop building one thing just because you are building something else.

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Nah, wind and solar are crap on a large scale. Nuclear is superior in every way. Natural gas is good, obviously, and we should use all the coal and lignite we can, but the energy density and "cleanness" of nuclear makes it the most efficient, most powerful source of energy there is.

I'm certain Trump has recently stated his intentions to vastly increase base load generation across the US, and bring us back to energy reliability.

With Elon fully on board and R's controlling the Houses, I'm gonna assume we'll see some massive changes to the nuclear permitting process. There is no time like the present. Get it done Mr President.

I would shoot for 300 mw units strategically placed in the Ercot grid with existing transmission capabilities and shift every damn dime of renewable credits to a nuclear program for the extra incentive - to get it done ASAP.

Bassmaster said:

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Is the DOE ever going to begin picking up spent nuclear fuel? That problem needs to be solved too.

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Honestly, just send it up into space I feel like. New business plan for Musk

The Thorium dream.

cypress-ag said:

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We need DOE to get out of the way of progress and lets build more nuclear but lets also build new refineries to expand our production of oil and gas products! It is the government that drives up the cost of everything.

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The DOE does a great deal more than just putting regulations in place. Keep in mind that monitoring the fuel, transport, storage, disposal etc. of everything nuclear is part of it. I'm all for nuclear asap (just not in my immediate back yard ) but I also want to make sure its being monitored by responsible folks for many reasons, including defense and security. Had a close relative who was over the Los Alamos labs operations a couple of decades ago (former Navy and employed by DOE) and the enormity of what they handle is crazy. Managing nuclear reactors needs a bit more nuanced management and security than say natural gas (which Texas obviously has some uggrades to implement).

SHOC by Strive

American Hardwood said:

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Eliminatus said:

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There is no other way forward with our given technology at this time and our power usage as a nation. We need to go nuclear and it should have been done at least a decade ago.

I will say, anecdotally, that I don't see much anymore about saving power measures in the home. Things like turning off lights and unplugging things not in constant use, etc. Those were things that we were even reminded about in school when I was growing up. It was damn near mainstream from what I can recall. Is that still a thing and I am just not seeing it now? I guess it's just morphed into buying power efficient products?

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My wife has an irrational need to turn on lights inside and outside the house and then leave. Kids are horrible about it too. The amount of time I spend turning off lights....

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I was like. But when we switched to LED's the math just didn't justify the effort. Even a big LED light only burns 13 watts so you can leave it on for 3 weeks for less than a dollar.

True. But for me it's the principle. Why turn a bunch of lights on during the day and why leave them on when you leave? I can afford the extra electricity; it's the irrationality of it that bothers me most.

ETA:

For example, we left town for one night on Saturday last weekend around noon. We were going to leave older two teenage girls home alone for the night. My wife insisted that she turn on the backyard lights which consisted of several strings of those cheap exposed bulb incandescent lights as we were leaving in the middle of the day. Mind you this is right after complaining to me about the number of burned-out bulbs on those strings. I pointed out to het that the girls know where the light switch is and are perfectly capable of turning on the lights when it gets dark. Did that matter? Hell no. The lights went on at noon and we left.

BluHorseShu said:

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cypress-ag said:

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We need DOE to get out of the way of progress and lets build more nuclear but lets also build new refineries to expand our production of oil and gas products! It is the government that drives up the cost of everything.

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The DOE does a great deal more than just putting regulations in place. Keep in mind that monitoring the fuel, transport, storage, disposal etc. of everything nuclear is part of it. I'm all for nuclear asap (just not in my immediate back yard ) but I also want to make sure its being monitored by responsible folks for many reasons, including defense and security. Had a close relative who was over the Los Alamos labs operations a couple of decades ago (former Navy and employed by DOE) and the enormity of what they handle is crazy. Managing nuclear reactors needs a bit more nuanced management and security than say natural gas (which Texas obviously has some uggrades to implement).

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Hopefully they will get more serious about their friggin job and spend less time picking out dresses and stealing luggage.

Seriously, get some better people involved and fast-track this life changing resource.

Eliminatus said:

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There is no other way forward with our given technology at this time and our power usage as a nation. We need to go nuclear and it should have been done at least a decade ago.

I will say, anecdotally, that I don't see much anymore about saving power measures in the home. Things like turning off lights and unplugging things not in constant use, etc. Those were things that we were even reminded about in school when I was growing up. It was damn near mainstream from what I can recall. Is that still a thing and I am just not seeing it now? I guess it's just morphed into buying power efficient products?

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Thats from an era when those things actually made a difference. Not turning out your light is miniscule compared to the modern power needs of industry, business, computing, an telecommunications. It extra doesnt matter when considering that the LED light that is left on is using a fraction of the power than an incandescent bulb once did.

That said, we still do get preached at about our largest power consumption in our homes, which is controlled by the thermostat.

American Hardwood said:

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True. But for me it's the principle. Why turn a bunch of lights on during the day and why leave them on when you leave? I can afford the extra electricity; it's the irrationality of it that bothers me most.

ETA:

For example, we left town for one night on Saturday last weekend around noon. We were going to leave older two teenage girls home alone for the night. My wife insisted that she turn on the backyard lights which consisted of several strings of those cheap exposed bulb incandescent lights as we were leaving in the middle of the day. Mind you this is right after complaining to me about the number of burned-out bulbs on those strings. I pointed out to het that the girls know where the light switch is and are perfectly capable of turning on the lights when it gets dark. Did that matter? Hell no. The lights went on at noon and we left.

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I now have smart switches for most of those annoyances.

I did have an occupancy sensor in my kid's bathroom until we had to change it out during a remodel. It was terrific.

I am not going to install any "smart" devices that hookup to the internet in any form or fashion. Sorry, I don't need spying devices in the home any more than I already do. Besides, a smart device that turns off the lights isn't going to change my wife's irrational tendencies. She would hate a system like that, and it would be a waste of money after she has me disable the system after a week,

Build units 3 & 4 in Bay City and get rid of this solar crap.

Population is declining, here and worldwide. You've got half the nation - the mentally ill half - all in on abortion and celebrating not having children.

I'm ok with nuclear power, just not sure it's an imminent need. If you believe in manmade climate change, then I guess this is right up your alley.