Using a PowerPlant in a nuclear power plant

I mean energy distribution (well, generation) plants that power at least a whole residence. I’m only interested in clean power fed to my home through a fairly low impedance line.
This, I guess, is better construed by having a dedicated generator for the residence.

If the mains feeds are right next to my house, I can just easily afford to have a pure silver dedicated lonötnu77!(?
*dedicated line

Phones still aren’t big and ergonomic enough to not be frustratingly grating to type on.

If your house is the only tap off a transformer you will be pretty good. It is best if the primary voltage is higher. My primary voltage is 14,400 volts here but 7200 volts and 3600 volts are also common here as you get deeper into the country or subdivision.
The local nuclear plant primary output voltage is 345,000. Just verified it today :grin:

Interesing numbers. What equation gives such relations (for 120V and 230V)?

It is kind of odd voltage. Might have something to do with the generator manufacturer. The next one down the road is 360,000 volts on the primary output. That makes more sense to us but the first step down transformer can be any ratio so they can get the 345,000 volts back to something divisible by 120/125 or 240/250 pretty easy.

Have you considered a system based on a switch mode power supply that is largely indifferent to mains voltage and noise. All that is needed is a little high frequency filtering.

I certainly haven’t… What would a good one cost?

That won’t be the generator output. The generator feeds a step up transformer that raises the voltage for transmission.

The step up transformer will be relatively close to the generator - if you ask the utility for their output voltage they’ll tell you the transmission voltage (and 360k makes sense).

My local nukes output 22500 volts from the generators and 500, 000 or 230,000 from the step up transformers (two different voltages to two different distribution networks). As you raise voltage you reduce current, therefore high voltage is best for transmission (fewer losses).

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I’ll specifically ask the gennie output voltage and see if my contact knows for sure.

Well, there are loads of them. The ones I owned are by Linn and Devialet, I also owned Primare but not their current SMPS, Bel Canto seem very well regarded and deal with noise inside their amplifiers, with separate 12v low noise supplies for ancillaries, probably any nCore amp with a Hypex power supply. Naim have been making external power supplies since the early 1990s and people spend more on the power supplies than the components themselves. My current Devialet has a universal power supply and the manufacturer advised me just to plug it in the wall with the supplied AudioQuest NRG cable, but I did not mention I live in a nuclear power plant. People use these devices with PSA Power Plants and conditioners and I’ve read of people using both. There are regenerators around that also have HF filters as well. What works best with what is one of the great mysteries of life, especially for resident technicians in nuclear power plants. I had a PSA regenerator, but I also have low THD and very stable 240v mains. When the SMPS unit arrived the regenerator ceased to make a difference (to my ears) so it went into storage. I then demo’d a power cable and then a conditioner from the same company it did make a difference so bought it. A while back I had some valve equipment and it seemed to benefit most from the regenerator, in fact the value amp manufacturer became a PS Audio dealer because of the benefit of regenerators to his stuff. Class D amplification seems to be fundamentally dependent on a good clean power supply and that’s why the aforementioned companies spent years developing proprietary power supplies, including things like surge protection. They become indifferent to the mains and so mains treatment becomes a non-issue. At least that’s the theory.

Is there such a class D solution large enough to power a whole house?

This audiophile left Finland 25 years ago and would recommend Norway instead :slight_smile:

Finland is actually building a nuclear power plant right now, a bit of an uncommon thing in Europe, but it’s built by a French company so the likelihood is that it will never become operational. It was supposed to become operational in 2009 and cost EUR 3Bn but the current estimate is that maybe it will become operational some time in 2022 and cost about EUR 11Bn. Job well done!

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Dare I suggest adding Veli-Matti Puumala to your To be Checked list?

Please do. Of course we have Essa-Pekka Salonen as principal conductor of the Philharmonia in London for over 10 years.

I have here a book of discussions between Salonen and Lauri Otonkoski from 1987. Not sure if it was ever translated from Finnish to anything. Should re-read it, haven’t opened it for a long time.

Did you manage to get tickets to see Jennifer Pike?

Tickets for Pike Saturday week, it will be live streamed, but we’ve just gone into a tighter lockdown. For a pandemic we seem to have heard more violinists than anything else in the last weeks - Podger, Mullova, Ibragimova several times, Tamsin Whaley-Cohen, Jack Leibeck tonight, Pike and Benedetti coming up soon. Some of the repertoire is a bit repetitive.

You may enjoy this:

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In the 70’s and 80’s I worked with the training simulators for the Swedish nuclear stations. The situation you describe was the only one for which they provided any acoustic simulation. From memory they used a custom built 18" subwoofer, It may not have matched the reality but it certainly made an impressive noise. Fortunately for those of us who worked in the rest of the building it was a training scenario which was seldom invoked!

Didn’t exactly expect this many replies on a topic about using regenerators in a nuclear power plant. But hey, didn’t know to expect that a poster here lives in one, either.
Great discussion. I’ll stay away from nuclear (at least in terms of distance) because of the mentioned hum.

It’s a bit more interesting that discussing the difference between a $10 and $1,000 ethernet cable (to which the answer is $990).

Plus I get to listen to the Kaisa Kulmala Trio. Who would have thought.