Energy Politics And Russia

Kama

"No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe and the events of August have shown the critical importance of diversifying our energy supply...And with states such as Russia increasingly using their energy resources as policy tools it is apparent that the security grounds for this shift are stronger as well."

Gordon Brown

"The Mission has been Accomplished: the discussion is no longer about our failing energy policies (or rather, the lack thereof), or about our leaders' incompetence, but about the Enemy which wants to hurt us and against which We Must Stand Firm (Behind our Beloved and Fearless Leaders)."

Jerome a Paris, The Oil Drum.

“Outrage is not a policy. Worry is not a policy. Indignation is not a policy. Even though outrage, worry and indignation are all appropriate in this situation, they shouldn’t be mistaken for policy and they shouldn’t be mistaken for strategy.”

Strobe Talbott, Brookings Institute.


With a resurgent Russia in Georgia apparently retaking key infrastructural points, and a delayed epiphany having occurred in relation to our dependence on natural gas and liquid fuel flows, energy security seems to be back on the agenda. Russia's capacity to use 'the energy weapon', either directly to punish, or in softer form through implicit threat, is on a lot of peoples minds.

'Turning off the taps' as a form of economic warfare or as reciprocal sanctions, given the dependence of European (and especially Irish) power generation on natural gas for power generation (esp. peak demand) would be damaging to Western European economies, but also to the Russian State, which is highly dependent on the revenues of the industry. Its a threat, but not one without significant costs. Like many threats, if used, it loses a lot of its efficacy.

Current European natural gas supply is about 50% indigenous, and roughly 25% Russian in origin. The Russians send near-all their production to Europe, while Europe takes a quarter of its supply from Russia. If anything, the dependence is an asymmetric one: Russia cutting the taps would be a painful hit for Europe; Europe stopping its own taps and payments would be disastrous for the entire Russian economy and their oligarchic elites.

An 'advantage' for the Western political leaders of the 'energy threat', keying into a nostalgic Cold War II discourse, is its placing of blame and responsibility somewhere other than themselves (everyone loves a scapegoat), and distraction of attention from the 'threat' being a direct consequence of our own energy policies, or rather our lack thereof.

Increasing gas dependence followed naturally from a liberalised energy market, for reasons such as ease of varying output for peak demand, and lower plant financing costs. The capacity for a 'threat' is one entirely of our own construction, from the market-based policies we have which favour gas generation; Russia is under no inherent responsibility to supply us energy, other than on an agreed contractual basis; we have no 'right' to their gas. Thus interdependence freely entered into becomes interpreted as a threat.

There has been a surfeit of condemnations of Russian action in South Ossetia, ringing condemnations and near-unison of outrage against Russia...and little else. Such condemnation is cheap, plays well to the choir, but achieves little that is productive in any way, besides a rise in domestic jingoism and anti-Russian sentiment. Soapboxing, grandstanding, and some combative rhetoric, with little by way of content or policy; as Strobe Talbott noted, outrage is not a policy. What we need is a policy.

Any suggestions?

mike65

Use less energy, wear a jumper in the winter? Develop gas and oil resources closer to home? Wind and wave power? Invade Russia?

Some, none or all of the above may help.

Mike.

ejmaztec

mike65 wrote: »

Use less energy, wear a jumper in the winter? Develop gas and oil resources closer to home? Wind and wave power? Invade Russia?

Some, none or all of the above may help.

Mike.

Wear a jumper (crucial) and invade Russia. After failed attempts by Napolean and Hitler, it's got to be third time lucky.

Kama

*invests heavily in the military-industrial-warm-apparel complex in an attempt to become a war profiteer*

SeanW

*pokes mike65* you forgot about nuclear energy as an alternative to Russia's gas.
I've decided to continue a discussion between myself and RedPlanet here, as it was off topic in the other thread, but the mistakes of our continuing reliance on the Russians for our energy supplies increasingly show themselves to be a foreign relations hamstring and a threat to our soveirgnty.

RedPlanet wrote: »

Tut tut SeanW, you're logic is similiar to George Bush's.
If you're not with us, your against us.
Do show me where i've advocated fossil fuels.
Actually, you know already that it is a waste of time because i haven't.

Never explicity - you are too clever that, but implicitly you do it all the time. After all, the Carnsore Point hippies didn't advocate burning peat, coal and natural gas back in the 1970s when the government planned to deal with the oil crisis by going nuclear, but in all fairness, what else did they expect to happen? Does anyone know? Renewables were practically non-existant at that time, and they're only marginally better now! What could they, and their modern counterparts, POSSIBLY have been thinking?

And as for those Germans I like to post articles about, I'm sure Sigmar Gabriel and by extension Angela Merkel don't like coal either, but they realise that with their inane stance it's the only logical choice.

It would seem that the Germans have identified their national security problems years ago. Hence

Der Spiegel wrote:

Energy security is another argument Gabriel and his colleagues like to invoke: Germany must not become dependent on Russian natural gas, they say.

being one of the reasons Germany is going a coal-fired plant building spree of within a few orders of magnitude of that of China.

Likewise, RedPlanet tells us that he opposes nuclear power but doesn't support the use use of coal and gas either, and presumably writes this with a straight face. Well, I can scarely maintain one while reading it.

In any case it's only a matter of time before Russia starts selling its gas and oil to the Chinese anyway, as there are 1.3 billion of them and they're getting wealthier very quickly.

For so many reasons, it's high time to consider building an energy supply that doesn't involve a 3000km+ pipeline from various countries that really aren't our best buddies.

mike65

and Nuclear power of course, sorry!. Oh and ambient superconductors (one day, one day).

Mike

Kama

Don't forget ultracapacitors, Mike! Though replicator tech is what I lust for...

I've decided to continue a discussion between myself and RedPlanet here

As per my Evil Plan!

Sean, I sympathise with your position more than I used, but I do think you systematically under-estimate the potential for renewable development. However, in terms of energy security nuclear does have definite benefits; but as we've agreed before, utterly unacceptable domestically. (We're fine with free-riding someone elses nuclear generation tho ><)

What could they, and their modern counterparts, POSSIBLY have been thinking?

Eh, don't think first-off that you can place the blame for our gas dependence all on the left-environmentalist hippy brigade, there are practical, economic, and environmental arguments against nuclear other than irrational fear, but I do cede the point that an anti-nuclear policy does implicitly back fossil fuel generation, and agree that talking about emission reduction while splurging on coal is a tad hypocritical. We can rehash the nuclear argument if ya really want, suffice to say I view it as an option, but a highly unpopular one.

it's high time to consider building an energy supply that doesn't involve a 3000km+ pipeline from various countries that really aren't our best buddies.

Amen, Brother! Although imo the threat of a political 'cut' is over-rated, in security terms we are at the end of a very long queue for gas, and economically it seems likely that prices will trend upward, with definite effects on our balance of payments etc. Short-term, 'wooly jumpers' of efficiency increases could go a long way; whether efficiency gains and tech advance generally allow a 'business as usual' type scenario (I tentatively put your nuclear-perfect state here Sean), or whether the more pessimistic-bearish 'peak oil/gas/whatever' position is closer to reality remains to be seen.

SkepticOne

Kama wrote: »

Don't forget ultracapacitors, Mike! Though replicator tech is what I lust for...

Everyone seems to forget that Ireland has Steorn technology.

blackgold>>

How about dublin freezes it's ass off, and the rest of the country uses the west of irelands gas ?

serfboard

SeanW wrote: »

Never explicity - you are too clever that, but implicitly you do it all the time. After all, the Carnsore Point hippies didn't advocate burning peat, coal and natural gas back in the 1970s when the government planned to deal with the oil crisis by going nuclear, but in all fairness, what else did they expect to happen? Does anyone know? Renewables were practically non-existant at that time, and they're only marginally better now! What could they, and their modern counterparts, POSSIBLY have been thinking?

I know someone who was involved in a renewable energy company at that time (and who actually held a demo at Carnsore Point). They went out of business because the electricity market was not liberalised at that time. At least now we have Airtricity, and the ESB themselves have become very late converts to the renewable cause.

Incidentally, Airtricity have 12 windfarms in operation, 3 in construction, and 6 in development. By the time they finish, they will be providing 640 MW, a not inconsiderable amount of electricity. "Wind power today, in an average wind year, generates the equivalent of over 20% of Denmark’s electricity use and 25–30% of that in three German Länder, and on windy days with light loads, over 100% of the load in certain regions, particularly in West Denmark, North Germany, and northern Spain". Given the fact that "Ireland is one of the best locations in Europe for wind power as it is situated on the Western edge of Europe and is exposed to high winds from the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea" there is no reason why, on windy days with light loads, we also could not be generating 100% of the load from wind.

Combine that with demand-reduction measures like more energy efficient homes (and solar panels on every house) and we will reduce the amount of gas that we buy from Russia.

bk

serfboard wrote: »

ndex.xml"]"Wind power today, in an average wind year, generates the equivalent of over 20% of Denmark’s electricity use and 25–30% of that in three German Länder, and on windy days with light loads, over 100% of the load in certain regions, particularly in West Denmark, North Germany, and northern Spain".

I've a question for you, since Denmark has 20% of it's electricity from Wind, how many coal and gas powered power plants have they closed?

I'll tell you, zero.

The reality is that while they can produce up to 20% of power, that is only the max when all the wind is blowing, obviously when the wind stop blowing, it stops generating power and they end up having to have an equal amount of coal and gas capacity on standby for when the wind stops blowing!!!

The reality is that most of Denmarks wind power gets exported to Germany so that Germany can offset some of their carbon credits.

While wind power is nice, it isn't a real large scale solution. Renewables like wind will make up part of our future energy needs, but it will either be:

1) some wind, lots of coal
2) some wind, lots of nuclear

We need to make this hard decision.

sink

bk wrote: »

While wind power is nice, it isn't a real large scale solution. Renewables like wind will make up part of our future energy needs, but it will either be:

1) some wind, lots of coal
2) some wind, lots of nuclear

We need to make this hard decision.

Or

Best solution in my opinion

3) some wind, some wave, some solar, energy efficient housing & transport topped up with nuclear power

Kama

Most folks tend to agree a mixed basket is best; some would rather not have the nuclear hot potato in said basket. The wind-gen counter-argument about intermittency imo is more of a technical problem that's being worked on; its a storage/battery issue rather than a knockdown rebuttal to the wind example, and we do have a geographic comparative advantage in wind, as has been said. Nuclear also needs redundancy-backup generation from what can see...but its hard to get non-partisan information on nuclear, or at least I've found that to be the case.

Wave is still an infant tech, lots of potential but short-term pragmatically kinda out; solar, solar-thermal and wind a youngish mature. Its likely they'll improve in efficiency but are doable now.

1) some wind, lots of coal
2) some wind, lots of nuclear

We need to make this hard decision.

Hard to disagree with this, in the short-to-medium. I'm all for increasing the proportion of renewables past the 'some' point, but short term...ehm...Orbo! >.<

A concern with nuclear on a policy level (non-chernobyl-chernobyl-risk-arguments) would be in medium-to-long. Nuclear is a significant commitment to the long haul, full life-cycle development, as against a fossil-fuel interim strategy while bootstrapping a transition to a larger renewable share, which has the advantage of A: not being politically impossible and B: would be working with what we already have on the ground. That or I'm shilling for Big Coal again, like usual ^_^

SeanW

That or I'm shilling for Big Coal again, like usual ^_^

I wouldn't worry, shilling for Big Coal is, despite his rather feeble and logically insolvent protestations to the contrary, RedPlanet's job.

If you are genuinely open minded about the question of nuclear energy (and the need for it in a society mortally addicted to fossil fuels) then I actually encourage you to ask the hard questions.

In my case, once the "omg horrible scary evil looking take out a country with radiation things" (I am an ex-anti nuke myself) red tinted glasses were taken off, I had to ask precisely these kinds of questions to evaluate the merits/disadvantages of nuclear energy vis-a-vis the alternative fossil fuels and renewables.

I found that realistically, there are only two major challenges left with nuclear energy:
1) To ensure nuclear safety, you must first have a reasonably coherent, competent government. The eventual nuclear programme will have to be overseen by a strong, powerful nuclear regulator, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the U.S.
Last time you needed a loaf of bread, you didn't have to queue up for two weeks outside a warehouse, or to visit someone in hospital, you didn't have to bribe the nurse with 3 packs of Marlboro first, but you would have had to do so in the former Soviet Union.
So I think we're OK there. Might not be such a good idea in Nigeria though, for example.
2) Nuclear waste.
I will grant you this: It is an issue. But not a showstopper. You can reduce the level of nuclear waste created by reprocessing spent fuels and using the most efficient reactor types, such as the EPR.
Research is ongoing into other solutions, such as Atomic Transmutation of Waste, which if it works will change long lived waste atoms into ones that are more fiercely radioactive, but neutralise over a much shorter timeframe, like 200 years.
In Finland, they have already begun using a permanent final resting place for their spent fuels, deep below the ground in a geologically secure area. The Americans are likewise planning a similar facility in Yucca Mountain.
Techniques such as Vitrification already exist to isolate and protect the environment from stored radioactive waste, the problems are mainly physical and political.
In any case, the amount of nuclear high level waste created to supply one person with nuclear electricity over a normal lifetime is about this size:
(Source)

So while neither I nor anyone else can say that the waste problem is 100% solved, when you look at the alternatives to nuclear power, one is forced to conclude that it is good enough.

You mentioned about nuclear also needing a redundancy backup, but that is different to renewables need for backup.
With for example, wind turbines, every MW needs to be backed up by fossil fuelled plant on standby so that when the wind drops, the lights stay on. If we had 10,000 MW of wind, we'd need 10,000 MW of gas and coal plant running on standby.

With nuclear, as with any reliable generator system, the grid requires only enough standby generation that if any single plant goes down, or if demand suddenly surges, that there is a redundancy margin to kick in.
That's why for Ireland I would advocate small reactor designs such as Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (generally no more than 125MW in one go) or the CANDU (generally never more than 600MW) as opposed to things like the EPR (1.6GW) as you correctly say the backup requirements of that would be insane.

My point about renewabes is that their intermittancy is not a minor technological challenge: it's a show stopper. No country except Iceland has ever managed to run entirely off renewable electricity. They need to be backup MW for MW and every country has had to make the choice: do we want nuclear, or fossil fuels. Every country save Iceland has had to face the question head on.

serfboard wrote:

I know someone who was involved in a renewable energy company at that time (and who actually held a demo at Carnsore Point).

There's a difference between having a company, and having a solution. Renewables were not a solution (in isolation) then, they are not now, and save some super cheap super durable energy storage technology, never will be.

Now we look at the problems of fossil fuels. Coal makes up 39% of world power generation, contributing to a total of 65% by all fossil fuels. Nuclear is very much the underdog.

The geopolitical problems of dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and gas are now well known, so there's no need to dwell on those, hence we must ask about the environmental cost. Coal kills. Coal is by far the worst of the dirty trio, it's combustions spills a toxic witches brew of CO2, arsenic, mercury, heavy metal compounds, acid rain forming compounds like Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides, and finally radiotoxins.
Norway alone spends NOK100,000,000 on treating it's lakes and rivers with alkaline lime solution annually, this is essential to keep the Norwegian aquatic ecosystem alive.
As for radiotoxins, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory believes that:

Coal is the worst CO2 emitter, just behind Peat, with hard coal causing about 800g CO2 per kw/h and brown coal (a.k.a German Gold causing a whopping 1.2-1.3 kg per kw/h, rivalling only Irelands expensive and destructive peat fired operations. The World Nuclear Association asserts that:

If the electricity produced worldwide by nuclear reactors were generated instead by burning coal, an additional 2600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere each year. This can be compared with the target of a 5% reduction (600 million tonnes per year) in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2010, as agreed in 1997 at Kyoto just for the developed countries.

This of course, is not in the same league as nuclear power, where the power plants emit no pollutants of any kind, and where the industry actually attempts to take care of its wastes as opposed to simply dumping them into the air for you and I to breathe and get sick with.

It is for these reasons that I was forced to conclude that any residual issues with nuclear energy do not stack up against the suicidal issues posed by continuing unmitigated reliance on fossil fuels.

RedPlanet

SeanW wrote: »

I wouldn't worry, shilling for Big Coal is, despite his rather feeble and logically insolvent protestations to the contrary, RedPlanet's job.

Once upon a time in my lifetime i had a car and commuted to work everyday. After suffering some automotive breakdowns I even gave serious consideration to owning 2 cars, one for backup just in case.
However i changed my attitude toward living and moved back into the city.
That was about 7 years ago and now i don't own a car and have made it a lifetime goal not to own one. Today i am careful about what products I buy, even rejecting some on the basis of how much packaging they contain.
I don't travel overseas, i wear jumpers in the winter and keep the bills down. I do this not because i can't afford those other things, today i earn more money than i did when i was considering owning 2 cars. But rather because i don't particularly subscribe to the wasteful western lifestyle my neighbours choose.
So go ahead and think smuggly of yourself SeanW, as you scorn those that oppose your nuclear point of view, but it's not me that's sitting down in a car everyday, spewing pollutants into the air such as:
* Carbon monoxide
* Nitrogen dioxide
* Sulphur dioxide
* Benzene
* Formaldehyde
* Polycyclic hydrocarbons
* Lead
* Tiny suspended particles

No, it's you.

SeanW

Rather than deal with the problems with your stance, you have decided to accuse me of being a Motorist-Sympathiser. Fair enough, I'll bite.

I have repeatedly stated on these forums that I do not think any single plan or solution will solve our environmental and political problems. I have repeatedly gone on record as looking for a multi-pronged strategy of renewable energy sources, nuclear power, a good biofuel strategy and reasonable conservation measures including better building standards, public transport, a clampdown on wasteful energy use such as incandescent lightbulbs, SUVs that never leave city streets, etc.

I am a full, paid up member of Rail Users Ireland, and I campaigned for the inclusion of the DART Underground / Interconnector in Transport 21 (which back in 2005 was nothing more than an obscure engineering term, now in T21 actually has a hope in hell of happening), because I think that project has the potential to make life a lot easier for a lot of people with public transport, while alleviating traffic/pollution and other problems.

That means that I believe in things like public transport, and I have put my money (and time) where my mouth is.
How about you?

But yet because I made a few posts in C&T opposing blanket punishments to motorists and CIE Park N Ride stealth taxes, you automatically assume I'm a daily driver and some kind of AA stooge. You're wrong on both counts FYI.

I also oppose people who pick on motorists for atmosphere abuse, yet advocate the same with power generation, like the German SPD as an example I have illustrated. I think its hypocritcal in the extreme and that they and their ilk need to be kept on a tight leash.

But at least the Germans know better than to leave their electricity supply in the hands of the Kremlin. We on the other hand, will soon be faced with the need to kiss some militant ex-KGB strongman's azz big time just to keep the lights on, while, yes I agree, being dependent on a bunch of murderous, stone age, Islamofascist dictatorships in the Middle East for filthly, toxic petroleum products for transportation is an even worse idea.

For that reason, I support research into alternatives that could solve both problems, like (algae) biodiesel, plug-in hybrids, the Chevy Volt, this prototype seawater powered car, etc. Some of these things are in one form or another, already a reality for some motorists in some form (like drivers fuelling diesel cars with biodiesel and veggie oil, others who modify their hybrids to take a battery charge from an electrical outlet)

But, like Kama said, if we are to wrest our soveirgnt back from the people who don't really like us, and stop trashing the environment, then what's needed is a coherent plan, a sensible policy, with realistic elements, not some leader speaking empty rhetoric about how so-and-so must not be allowed to do X, Y and Z, or somoene posting on an Internet forum boasting about how they live like Gaian monks and wondering why the rest of us horrible evil Western people want to have a decent standard of living.

Sesshoumaru

I'd just like to add I would support a multifaceted approach to energy supply as well. You can't have only renewables like wind and solar. You need something dependable on standby that can take up the slack when the wind isn't blowing. Just like you need a car/motorbike on standby because you can't depend on public transport alone in this country I feel some of the hippies that post on Boards have a hidden agenda, they would love to return to a simpler time where everyone was a subsistence farmer. Well I'm sorry most of us don't want to give up our modern technology just yet! Close the likes of Moneypoint and lets start thinking Nuclear. SeanW has already gone into great details on the health costs of coal and fossil fuel powered stations in general. I'd broadly agree with pretty much everything he has outlined in his posts on energy supply and conservation.

genericgoon

If only it was politically viable to begin introducing an interconnected, globalised energy grid.

mumhaabu

I believe in Ireland we should become more energy self sufficient by developing our Peat based bogs further and increase our Windfarms also we should increase forestation and use it for biomass but this all must be done by the private sector without government subvention except in the Case of Bord Na Mona. We should also immediately withdraw from Kyoto and scrap all environmental treaties we have subscribed to.Global Warming does not exsist and saving money is more important than allowing the eco-facsists to tax us further.

genericgoon

mumhaabu wrote: »

I believe in Ireland we should become more energy self sufficient by developing our Peat based bogs further and increase our Windfarms also we should increase forestation and use it for biomass but this all must be done by the private sector without government subvention except in the Case of Bord Na Mona. We should also immediately withdraw from Kyoto and scrap all environmental treaties we have subscribed to.Global Warming does not exsist and saving money is more important than allowing the eco-facsists to tax us further.

Whether human-accelerated Climate Change is real or not, the destructive effects of burning peat are. Peat is just one step down from coal in the environmentally unfriendly league. So can we put one of these stations beside your house?

Not to mention you'd be destroying large swathes of a unique ecosystem. Of course who cares about that?

Kama

While I don't agree on all points re nuclear with SeanW, he has a coherent case for nuclear in a mixed basket, and ad hominem attacks, like outrage, are not a policy. This shouldn't be about who is more ethical than who; whatever our diagreements, we are pretty much in this together, like it or lump it. Regardless how Gaian one is, we need power generation, and conventional fuels seem likely to trend more expensive, have pretty proven health and environmental issues, and imo there's a risk of supply disruption in a few scenarios. So there's a security and an economic argument for having, if not independence, greater resilience.

In terms of nuclear dangers vs coal dangers he's made a pretty clear factual case; the main problem is the extreme political distaste for a nuclear policy. There are secondary economic and practical arguments against (we don't have Finlands geologic advantage in waste storage for example) but the political one seems the 'show-stopper', whether this is due to faulty popular risk assessment or not. Whether the plant is next to your house seems a nimbyist response; seems part of the reason the diffuse damage from coal is so acceptable is its spread over everyones house; seems costs are ok as long as they are externalised onto someone else? >.<

In my more nuclear moments, I think its a tech that the private sector seems a little unsuited for, bit of an argument for it to be a natural monopoly, and the upfront costs are such a large part of the nuclear bill that access to cheap financing for the strategic good of energy seems pretty strong. Note that the most successful nuclear models like EDF have heavy state involvement.

I believe in Ireland we should become more energy self sufficient ... this all must be done by the private sector without government subvention

I'm a bit curious how we can become more self-sufficient without any government action or intervention of any kind? Esentially this would just mean we go for whatever is cheapest to do, which is why we have high gas dependence to begin with. The market isn't neutral, it seems to select more for what has lower financing costs, as against a higher upfront cost; what makes sense differs with what your time horizons are. Possibly if externalities from coal were correctly priced I'd agree with you more, but most folks would also regard this as 'intervention', as you seem to in reference to Kyoto. To influence energy supply/use for any other outcome than what is occurring 'naturally', eg fossil fuel dependence, you are going to have to interfere in the market somehow as far as I can see...

maniac101

Kama wrote: »

In my more nuclear moments, I think its a tech that the private sector seems a little unsuited for, bit of an argument for it to be a natural monopoly, and the upfront costs are such a large part of the nuclear bill that access to cheap financing for the strategic good of energy seems pretty strong. Note that the most successful nuclear models like EDF have heavy state involvement.

I agree. If the Irish government were to clear the way for the development of a nuclear power plant in Ireland, probably no-one would want to build one here anyway. Not alone the upfront costs, but also the costs of waste disposal and the decomissioning costs would make it unattractive to any investor in the medium term. More significantly in Ireland, nuclear would have to compete with state-supported wind power. By 2020 we'll have in excess of 4000MW on installed wind capacity. Given that wind power has priority on the grid, this would give us an unpredictable supply fluctuation 4000MW, depending on weather conditions. It's neither technically nor economically feasible for a nuclear power plant to adjust its output to a daily supply fluctuation of that size, In this scenario it's far more feasible to adjust to the daily load curve using electricity generated overseas (nuclear or otherwise) and imported across interconnectors. An Irish solution to a uniquely Irish problem, if you like.

SeanW

whether this is due to faulty popular risk assessment or not.

From both first, and second hand experience I believe it to be. I used to be in the anti-nuke camp, so I know all about the Green(peace) lies, spin, half truths, scaremongering on a scale that would make George Bush and the Neo-cons look like hippie peaceniks, as well as our local urban legends, like the Downs Sydrome babies in Dundalk, a legend which still lives on in some quarters despite a study having shown that half of the women involved weren't even in Dundalk at the time of the Windscale fire. Glow-in-the-dark fish caught in the Irish Sea etc, I've heard 'em all.
I would like to say that nonsense like this is a minority view (I should know better than to feed trolls ) in the public discourse, but alas I cannot.

That's why I hold any self-confessed anti-nukes on these boards under such a powerful spotlight. Given how much of the debate around nuclear power is based on lies, myths and scaremongering, IMHO, it's up to those of us who actually care about the environment, and Ireland/Europes soveirgnty, to research the situation and options, and to provide leadership on this issue. For this reason, I usually demand anyone holding firm anti-nuclear views to provide a damning, uncontestable case for not going nuclear. So far, the responses have been somewhat underwhelming.

@Kama: No doubt you have done some research of your own which is good, and I agree with you to a point that a hypothetical nuclear programme for Ireland would have problems, likewise that nuclear power isn't a perfect solution, but then again nothing is - in any sector, not just energy. My case is that when you look at the alternatives, that picture is rather dim, so we use the best option on the table. That is, IMO, the nuclear option.

@Maniac101: it can be truthfully said that things are going to interesting on the grid when all those unstable wind farms are brought on-line. However, it isn't that hard for nuclear plants AFAIK to moderate their output to match demand on-the-fly and I've read speculation that the emerging Pebble Bed Reactors will be tuned to deal with peak-load demands.
However I must admit my knowledge of this area is limited.

Still, there is a possibility that these problems will cancel each other out, by the time Ireland is mature enough (if ever) to rationally analyse the case for nuclear energy, PB(M)Rs appropriate to our market conditions will probably be a mature technology.

Kama

Without being antagonistic, I'll take the hippy/green argument up.

Not knocking what you've put forward, I've actually found your environmental cost comparisons between coal and nuclear both enlightening and a robust position. I don't have as firm anti-nuclear views as some, so I won't give a 'damning uncontestable case', just a comparative one. Trying to appraise rather than damn, so I'm steering off from fear-based topics, populist arguments, or nimbyist approaches.

One is capital intensivity, and state support. The upfront costs of nuclear are so high, even if downstream power is cheaper, that as a private venture its problematic; even in private development, the insurance bill is typically picked up by the state. Partially a time horizon/return problem; the payback on nuclear from a economic point of view is loooong, which is why imo its more suited to state-strategic than market-venture approaches. Arguments on what the actual cost/watt is seem to hinge on where you draw the lines on costs like decommissioning, waste, and so on. I don't feel qualified to judge on the finer points of cost-benefit, but there's a range of views, little consensus, a lot of industry-partisan or environmental-partisan back-and-forth as far as can see. Looking at the recent new build in Finland, there have been definite problems, with the contractor trying to squirm out of contractually-agreed cost caps in response to ballooning cost, and the regulator citing persistent non-compliance by TVO/Areva.

Related to capital intensivity would be step functions and implementation scaling; getting over the investment 'hump' of a nuclear transformation needs a *big* push now, with a large benefit down the line, with partial efforts providing no benefit; a half-built reactor is a liability with no plus. Rolling out lots of small bits of renewable-local infrastructure is quicker to do than to build a giant station, and has a more immediate return; roll out on an 'organic' (hee-hee-hippy) market basis. Faster delivery, lower overall risk. Assuming we have limited resources, we would need to place most of our collective bet on nuclear to go down that route, with consequences of inflexibility, crowding out alternates, and possibly undermining energy efficiency; for this, a *very* strong case imo needs to be made.

An ancillary economic argument would be that pushing renewable development could create products and expertise that would be help our economy; in the nuclear scenario, due to the lack of local expertise for building and running the industry, it'd be the converse. We aren't in a position to ever be world-leading, or even have much of an advantage in nuclear, while we could in alternates such as wind and wave-tidal.

Another sustainababble-hippy 'ideological' argument is in planning terms; all good hippies know that decentralised is better than centralised, and nuclear is a fairly centralized tech. Being flip about it as a position, but its not entirely nonsense in economic or infrastructural terms.

Decentralized energy production nearer to its point of use has increased efficiency due to less loss from distance; less in the Irish case than in others, due us being tiny), and low-scale co-generation heat recovery has significant efficiency gains. You also have more system resilience, which is relevant to the redundancy/backup argument. Having a distributed network of microgrids spreads the outage risk, whereas a more centralized load on a few nuclear nodes needs a larger backup. In both nuclear and 'alternate' you need spinning reserve capacity due to intermittence; anyone got comparatives on uptime for mixed-renewable vs nuclear-heavy?

This is especially relevant if you are thinking about terrorist threats, which is a convenient stick to beat nuclear with, if that was the object. Again, possibly bad risk assessment; but the problem with nuclear from a risk assessment point of view, is even if the chance of a catastrophic is vanishingly low, the damage is absurdly high. Which is part of why its uninsurable on a conventional level.


Well, like said, not a knockdown, but that wasn't the object. More trying to show there's a little more than poorly-articulated fear-mongering to the anti-nuclear case, or standard distrust of the industry.

SeanW

Without being antagonistic, I'll take the hippy/green argument up.

Well, you didn't start it with "51 years after the devastating fire at Sellafield/Windscale" "22 years after the Chernobyl Accident" or "This is Annya from Belarus. Please think of her when those evil nuclear PR agents spread lies."

So you're off to a relatively good start.

even in private development, the insurance bill is typically picked up by the state

True, but there is a public cost associated with the emissions from traditional thermal-fired operations and there is a political and national security cost associated with using natural gas as dealt with elsewhere. I.E. we're going to have to kiss the Kremlin's backside to keep the lights on and the heaters heating. Which given the Russian's backslide towards Stalinism, I don't think we should be doing.
Granted, it's not as stupid as paying Islamofascist lunatics for even filthier petroleum oil for transport.

These costs do not directly appear as red ink on anyone's accounts, but they're there and to my knowledge they exceed anything given to the nuclear industry.

As for the rest of your post, most of the points you raised can be dealt with, (In Ireland's case at least) by tending towards small-nuclear installations, such as the Toshiba 4S nuclear battery (10 MegaWatts each) and the Pebble Bed (Modular) Reactors. (Never more than 125MW per unit, and usually less).

with partial efforts providing no benefit; a half-built reactor is a liability with no plus

True, if we decided to build a single EPR
and ran out of money half way through, we wouldn't have 800MW of clean power genration, we'd have a lump of concrete and machinery stuck in the ground doing nothing.
BUT, if we started a programme of distributed Toshiba 4S/PBRs, then ran out of money half way through, assuming each installation was built in sequence, we would have approximately half the power generation capability we intended to at the start and a minimum of half-built worksites.

Rolling out lots of small bits of renewable-local infrastructure is quicker to do than to build a giant station, and has a more immediate return ... crowding out alternates, and possibly undermining energy efficiency; for this, a *very* strong case imo needs to be made.

How about this: when the weather doesn't co-operate, your small bits of local-renewable infrastructure delivers nothing. At which point you have to go back to your baseline providers *anyway* (and said providers have to keep their plants on standby for this contingency) so it inescapably comes back to which you prefer for that purpose.

Check out Eirgrid stats to see graphs of current wind plant output and power demand. If our grid depended on renewables, it would be frighteningly unstable. Baseline/controllable power plants are not an option, they're a necessity.

Another sustainababble-hippy 'ideological' argument is in planning terms; all good hippies know that decentralised is better than centralised, and nuclear is a fairly centralized tech.

Again, remove the big, massive EPR style power plant from your picture and replace it with
a nationwide distribution of PBRs and Toshiba batteries. Decentralised power FTW!

Decentralized energy production nearer to its point of use has increased efficiency due to less loss from distance

See above.

This is especially relevant if you are thinking about terrorist threats, which is a convenient stick to beat nuclear with, if that was the object.

If terrorism is an elevated concern, you could deal with that problem quite simply by using the Toshiba 4S
- the specifications of that design place the reactor in a sealed concrete container 30m underground, with only a small control room on the surface.
Such an installation would be very easy to protect.

Kama

Oddly enough, your link seemed to show wind production tracking quite well with demand, though it was provisional and estimated.

I'm told (hearsay! hearsay! cough cough) that intermittency is more of a technical issue in power storage and distributing between a variety of location and type sources, than the knockdown you phrase it as. Instability increases with dependence on a few source locations; part of the argument for the decentralised microgrid-microgen approach is that by being distributed you increase overall systemic resilience.

Thanks for the nuclear info anyway, will look into the plant models you outlined...

genericgoon

Its just a shame that a larger number of smaller nuclear plants will never happen politically. You can just imagine the amount of money and concessions that will be needed to convince just one area to take on a nuclear plant. Multiply that (the fact that these plants seem to safe,I'll trust what Sean's said along with Google, will be ignored of course by the general public) and you'd need fully commited and brave politicians to approve that. So any day now eh.

(Of course that ignores the fact they'll never do it anyways. Just watch them sit on their hands for the next decade)

Kama

you'd need fully commited and brave politicians to approve that.

Yup, and you'd need for whatever pols were in Opposition not to use the 'nukular' stick to beat said Noble Leaders with, for cheap populist victory. Which also seems a little unlikely. But to take the argument on its strengths I'm willing to bracket off this knockdown; otherwise its likely to be a repetitive argument on 'nuclear is right' 'no we don't want it' lines. No funs.

Thanks for the link on Toshiba micro-nuke plants btw, hadn't come across before. While this def reduces step problem for infrastructure, without a *huge* cultural change I imagine it would be even less palatable than a larger station. The super-heated sodium seems the riskiest feature, don't know enough to comment.

I'd also note that this is still essentially being tested, hence its position in a remote (primarily indigenous) region of Alaska, and its being given gratis as a promo-test by the industry. Also the cost/watt listed excludes entriely building and decommissioning costs, which afaik are the bulk of total front-loaded cost of nuclear power.

Are the Japanese giving away any more of these?