nuclear

Macha

pljudge321 wrote: »

I've done cost benefit analysis of domestic PV installations before for a college assignment and it came out as pretty dire.

A CBA is based on cost assumptions, which is separate to what I'm talking about. PV works well and well become more cost-competitive as the technology matures and prices fall.

On the other hand, the costs of nuclear are only going up. Unless countries like France are willing to invest in R&D in the new technologies, their costs will remain astronomical.

djpbarry

pljudge321 wrote: »

Just because one investment is a poor one doesn't make another slightly less poor investment a good one.

I'm not suggesting that it does. Personally, based on the evidence I've seen thus far, PV solar is probably not something that makes sense on a large scale in Ireland at this point in time. As you say, the return on investment just isn't quite there at the moment.

However, bear in mind that certain posters on this thread are arguing that nuclear represents a good investment relative to technologies such as PV solar and it is in that context that I posed the question.

SeanW

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What is the break even time for nuclear , including paying for finance ?
It's like a mortgage except you are don't make any payments in the first 10 years because you are waiting for the plant to be finished. (each year delay would add say 7% or whatever the cost of financing a loan is to the overall cost)

you can see why once a nuclear plant is running there is a huge temptation to keep it running.

Wow, now there's a revalation, people buy things and don't decommission them without good reason - no one would even have guessed that!

I really should be thankful that the 1st owner of what is now my car (who probably paid IR£20,000 for it back in the day) succumbed to the "huge temptation to keep it running" and didn't scrap it arbitrarily after 50,000 miles, or 100,000 for that matter.

an awful lot of hydro stations are built in underground cathedrals

Solair wrote:

There's never been political support for them. This has been tried before and resulted in some of the biggest protests ever seen at Carnsore point and basically launched what was to become the Green Party.

Very true - Irish people are unduly frightened of nuclear energy. However, it is my view that the decision to say no to nuclear power is a strategic and environmental error, and I consider it my (partial) responsibility to question the anti-nuclear logic that has lead to this.

Thanks to the Carnsore Point protesters, Ireland was condemned to 40+ years of almost absolute dependence on thermal-fired electricity.

pljudge321 wrote:

Just regarding the feasibility of integrating a nuclear plant into the Irish grid. I imagine it would be very difficult to integrate an inflexible 1GW+ plant into our relatively small system, especially with the level of wind we have. You would have to provide enough spinning reserve to cover its loss which would be quite difficult and we would have to have enough back up generation to cover it during outages. The network would also need a bit more re-enforcing would could instantly add another billion or so onto the capital cost.

Ignoring all of the environmental arguments for or against, we don't really have the scale to justify the use of nuclear and we would still be entirely dependent on imported fuel and imported technology too.

The concerns about scale of justified, but my preference would be for a number of small reactors, perhaps local small nuclear, like a 50MW version of the Toshiba 4S.

As to the matter of "imported fuel" ... how would that differ from the current situation re: fossil fuels, and solar panels for that matter (all imported from Germany and China)
Furthermore, we may have uranium in Donegal but former minister for the environment Eamon Ryan scotched two licenses for exploration when he came into power.

So for a Green Party supported to come here now and say "We'd have to import fuel" ... there is a name for that kind of argument.
"Starve the horse, then kill it because it can't pull"

Capt'n Midnight

In all likely hood half the cost of a nuclear power station will be servicing the debt BEFORE you start earning anything.

take 7% over 10 years.
1.07^10 = 1.96

And that's before delays and cost overruns.


By comparison a technology with a payback time of 10 years would cost you nothing at that point.

Solar in Ireland is crazy.

but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorNed

580-kilometre (360 mi) long HVDC submarine power cable
....
Budgeted at €550 million, and completed at a cost of €600m,[2] the NorNed cable is a bipolar HVDC link with a voltage of ±450 kV and a capacity of 700 MW.
...
After two months of operation, the cable generated revenues of approximately € 50 million

Distance between Ireland and Morocco is 2400 Km.

So a 1GW cable to there would be 4x distance and 1.4 times the capacity
the €600m would scale up to €3.428 Billion
Add another two billion for 2GW of solar panels
and another Billion pumped storage.

you won't have any change out of €8 Billion.
which is about the same as you'd need to build a 1 GW nuke including end of life (maybe)

Of course it's ridiculous, but it shows that PV for Ireland could be considered at todays prices. If you factor in being able to sell the power to Moroco , Portugal and Spain and the UK through branches off the interconnector, and charge for them to share power with each other through it , the economics start to look less crazy. The mad thing about it is that NorNed was expected to make €64 million revenue a year, which would scale up to €91m a year. So the cable alone would take 40 years to pay for itself, same as a nuclear power plant.

( Of course we could export wind energy back down the cable too. )



In the real world we already have 1GW connections with the UK so we don't need a 1GW reactor.

We don't need a cable to Morocco, we just need a cable to the UK or perhaps France, and their interconnections would do the rest. We could sell PV into Spain / Portugal and use the revenue from that to pay the UK or France. Again crazy, but the back of the envelope suggests it could be done for less than Nuclear, AND it could be done in a fraction of the time.

Capt'n Midnight

pljudge321 wrote: »

Just because one investment is a poor one doesn't make another slightly less poor investment a good one. There are other areas in this country where the money could make a far greater impact in a far more cost optimal manner.

Insulating properties that use electrical heating, appartments and businesses.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Insulating properties that use electrical heating, appartments and businesses.

Case in point.

SeanW

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Insulating properties that use electrical heating, appartments and businesses.

I don't think anyone is arguing that this is not a good idea.

noddyone2

Dead right. France gets 80% of it's power from nuclear, doesn't seem to be doing much harm there. Those wind turbines are : unsightly, sited in our loveliest areas, a blot on the landscape, developer-led, noisy, harmful to birds, inefficient. We're being fed lies about this renewable energy stuff.

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

The concerns about scale of justified, but my preference would be for a number of small reactors, perhaps local small nuclear, like a 50MW version of the Toshiba 4S.

But they’re still not in commercial use? The design has yet to be approved.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In all likely hood half the cost of a nuclear power station will be servicing the debt BEFORE you start earning anything.

take 7% over 10 years.
1.07^10 = 1.96

And that's before delays and cost overruns.


By comparison a technology with a payback time of 10 years would cost you nothing at that point.

Solar in Ireland is crazy.

but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorNed

Distance between Ireland and Morocco is 2400 Km.

So a 1GW cable to there would be 4x distance and 1.4 times the capacity
the €600m would scale up to €3.428 Billion
Add another two billion for 2GW of solar panels
and another Billion pumped storage.

you won't have any change out of €8 Billion.
which is about the same as you'd need to build a 1 GW nuke including end of life (maybe)

Of course it's ridiculous, but it shows that PV for Ireland could be considered at todays prices. If you factor in being able to sell the power to Moroco , Portugal and Spain and the UK through branches off the interconnector, and charge for them to share power with each other through it , the economics start to look less crazy. The mad thing about it is that NorNed was expected to make €64 million revenue a year, which would scale up to €91m a year. So the cable alone would take 40 years to pay for itself, same as a nuclear power plant.

( Of course we could export wind energy back down the cable too. )



In the real world we already have 1GW connections with the UK so we don't need a 1GW reactor.

We don't need a cable to Morocco, we just need a cable to the UK or perhaps France, and their interconnections would do the rest. We could sell PV into Spain / Portugal and use the revenue from that to pay the UK or France. Again crazy, but the back of the envelope suggests it could be done for less than Nuclear, AND it could be done in a fraction of the time.

You're numbers are a bit off here, you'd need to double the number of solar cells to get a capacity factor approaching 1 GW and you haven't taken land, inverter, equipment or pv capital costs into the equation at all.

SeanW

djpbarry wrote: »

But they’re still not in commercial use? The design has yet to be approved.

True, but as Solair points out there is zero political support for nuclear power in Ireland. By the time that changes if ever, I suspect this or other small-nuclear technologies will have become mature, if not obsolete.

Capt'n Midnight

pljudge321 wrote: »

You're numbers are a bit off here, you'd need to double the number of solar cells to get a capacity factor approaching 1 GW and you haven't taken land, inverter, equipment or pv capital costs into the equation at all.

€2 billion for 2GW - will cover a lot of the PV costs.
How much is desert land in Morocco worth these days ?
I've lumped a billion in to cater for pumped storage, and nuclear power plants don't run full capacity either.
inverter costs are more than covered as the NorNed cable has two of these and I'm budgeting 4 times as much.


Like I said back of an envelope, and you haven't pointed out that nuclear is way cheaper ?

It's a thought experiment - "lets do something we know is crazy and see does nuclear stack up against it"

Capt'n Midnight

djpbarry wrote: »

But they’re still not in commercial use? The design has yet to be approved.

10MW for phase 1 and no price on it.

At 10MW it's for a niche market.
you'd need 500 of them to meet peak demand with no reserve capacity.

even the 50MW version if it ever got made would mean at least 100 of them

They are only for use in areas where fossil fuel is very expensive because of transport costs. And even then they are a solution in search of a problem.

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

€2 billion for 2GW - will cover a lot of the PV costs.
How much is desert land in Morocco worth these days ?
I've lumped a billion in to cater for pumped storage, and nuclear power plants don't run full capacity either.
inverter costs are more than covered as the NorNed cable has two of these and I'm budgeting 4 times as much.


Like I said back of an envelope, and you haven't pointed out that nuclear is way cheaper ?

It's a thought experiment - "lets do something we know is crazy and see does nuclear stack up against it"

I'm not arguing nuclear is cheaper, though it probably would be then this plan.

You can't hook up a bunch of PV panels to a 500 kV converter station, they operate at a far lower voltage than this so you would have to invert the output of the farm to AC, step it up through a trafo and then connect to the HVDC converter.

Also to provide 2 GW of transmission capacity you would need to use current source converters rather than voltage source converters. These require a strong grid at the sending and receiving ends to commutate the valves so the local grid in morocco would probably need reinforcing. That or a bunch of STATCOMS.

Jester252

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

€2 billion for 2GW - will cover a lot of the PV costs.
How much is desert land in Morocco worth these days ?
I've lumped a billion in to cater for pumped storage, and nuclear power plants don't run full capacity either.
inverter costs are more than covered as the NorNed cable has two of these and I'm budgeting 4 times as much.


Like I said back of an envelope, and you haven't pointed out that nuclear is way cheaper ?

It's a thought experiment - "lets do something we know is crazy and see does nuclear stack up against it"

What about energy security? and you can't cover up the desert land in Morocco.

Capt'n Midnight

It's a thought experiment - "lets do something we know is crazy and see does nuclear stack up against it"

pljudge321

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's a thought experiment - "lets do something we know is crazy and see does nuclear stack up against it"

:pac: I think I just enjoy picking holes in things.

Markcheese

noddyone2 wrote: »

Dead right. France gets 80% of it's power from nuclear, doesn't seem to be doing much harm there. Those wind turbines are : unsightly, sited in our loveliest areas, a blot on the landscape, developer-led, noisy, harmful to birds, inefficient. We're being fed lies about this renewable energy stuff.

You mean " your opinion" they are all those things.... There are 2 on the hill behind my house less than .5km away. I think they look great, they're not noisy even up close. Most birds (not all ) are fine with them. ( cars,houses, intensive ag are much worse for birds) they're anything but inefficient... Can't say I know if they're cost effective or not... I'll be honest you come across a bit of a nimby begrudgers but that's just my opinion.....

Capt'n Midnight

pljudge321 wrote: »

:pac: I think I just enjoy picking holes in things.

Put your hands where we can see them and stand away from the reactor ....

Markcheese

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

pljudge321 wrote: »

:pac: I think I just enjoy picking holes in things.

Put your hands where we can see them and stand away from the reactor ....

Boom Boom.

Jester252

Markcheese wrote: »

noddyone2 wrote: »

Dead right. France gets 80% of it's power from nuclear, doesn't seem to be doing much harm there. Those wind turbines are : unsightly, sited in our loveliest areas, a blot on the landscape, developer-led, noisy, harmful to birds, inefficient. We're being fed lies about this renewable energy stuff.

You mean " your opinion" they are all those things.... There are 2 on the hill behind my house less than .5km away. I think they look great, they're not noisy even up close. Most birds (not all ) are fine with them. ( cars,houses, intensive ag are much worse for birds) they're anything but inefficient... Can't say I know if they're cost effective or not... I'll be honest you come across a bit of a nimby begrudgers but that's just my opinion.....

That is one of the things that pisses me off about renewables. People have a very wierd NIMBY towards them and most of the reasons are untrue

pljudge321

Jester252 wrote: »

That is one of the things that pisses me off about renewables. People have a very wierd NIMBY towards them and most of the reasons are untrue

Irish people seem to be like that in general.

Franticfrank

Pfff, we aren't the only ones. The French and Germans are just as NIMBY as the Irish. The Germans are even kicking up a fuss because the Polish want to build a new nuclear plant near their border. I think Ireland is ideal for green energy, we don't have the population nor the money to warrant building a nuclear plant and if I am correct, nuclear energy is banned by our constitution.

Jester252

Franticfrank wrote: »

Pfff, we aren't the only ones. The French and Germans are just as NIMBY as the Irish. The Germans are even kicking up a fuss because the Polish want to build a new nuclear plant near their border. I think Ireland is ideal for green energy, we don't have the population nor the money to warrant building a nuclear plant and if I am correct, nuclear energy is banned by our constitution.

well they goes the plans for the interconnector

SeanW

pljudge321 wrote: »

Irish people seem to be like that in general.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - you can't just put a wind farm on top of a scenic mountain range and expect that everyone is going to think they look beautiful.

Franticfrank wrote: »

Pfff, we aren't the only ones. The French and Germans are just as NIMBY as the Irish. The Germans are even kicking up a fuss because the Polish want to build a new nuclear plant near their border.

Yes, I can imagine the Polish really care what the Germans think of their nuclear programme, especially given the probability that Germany will be drawing energy from it, sooner or later.

I think Ireland is ideal for green energy, we don't have the population nor the money to warrant building a nuclear plant and if I am correct, nuclear energy is banned by our constitution.

Not constitutional - nuclear electricity generation was formally banned in Ireland under the 1999 Electricity Regulation Act.

pljudge321

SeanW wrote: »

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - you can't just put a wind farm on top of a scenic mountain range and expect that everyone is going to think they look beautiful.

True. Its the same with power lines which are a necessary and vital part of the countries infrastructure but are opposed at every turn and field, often by environmentalists who somehow manage to simultaneously be pro-wind and anti the lines needed to actually utilise it.

Solair

To be honest, I think the visual impact / tourism impact of a large nuclear facility are far worse than wind turbines.

If you'd a large nuclear installation it will look ugly on the coast and it will rightly or wrongly, put a lot of tourists and anglers off going anywhere near it.

You still have a big industrial complex, often large cooling towers, huge power lines, and all of that stuff going in and out of a nuclear facility.

pljudge321

Solair wrote: »

To be honest, I think the visual impact / tourism impact of a large nuclear facility are far worse than wind turbines.

If you'd a large nuclear installation it will look ugly on the coast and it will rightly or wrongly, put a lot of tourists and anglers off going anywhere near it.

You still have a big industrial complex, often large cooling towers, huge power lines, and all of that stuff going in and out of a nuclear facility.

That's true with any power station though. Look at the blot on the landscape that is Moneypoint. There is that added fear element with a nuclear plant though which does have the effect you've described.



Saying that I don't think having nukes has really dented France or Switzerland's tourism sector all that much.

Gbear

Solair wrote: »

To be honest, I think the visual impact / tourism impact of a large nuclear facility are far worse than wind turbines.

If you'd a large nuclear installation it will look ugly on the coast and it will rightly or wrongly, put a lot of tourists and anglers off going anywhere near it.

You still have a big industrial complex, often large cooling towers, huge power lines, and all of that stuff going in and out of a nuclear facility.

It's not really relevant. You don't need hundreds of nuclear plants.

The problem with wind (in this instance) isn't that you need to build windmills - it's that they've low energy density and you need to build alot of them.

SeanW

Solair wrote: »

To be honest, I think the visual impact / tourism impact of a large nuclear facility are far worse than wind turbines.

If you'd a large nuclear installation it will look ugly on the coast and it will rightly or wrongly, put a lot of tourists and anglers off going anywhere near it.

You still have a big industrial complex, often large cooling towers, huge power lines, and all of that stuff going in and out of a nuclear facility.

You're just clutching at straws here: you're assuming that we don't know where the tourists go and would put a nuclear reactor in the most idyllic touristey spot possible.

Nuclear power is a lot less location-sensitive than wind: any coastline or river will do, much the same as any thermal power generation station.

And as to "stuff going in and out" I am more than happy to take up this point.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that coal fired power requires a lot more visible inputs/outputs when the fuel quantities requried are so many orders of magnitude smaller for nuclear power.

Or look at it this way:

No contest really.