Nuclear Power Plant near Dublin to get massive boost !

gallag

Ireland will be buying electric from this plant, and the latest gen of nuclear plant is the safest and cleanest way to make it.

positron

It's a shame parts of Irish society are against nuclear power projects. I wonder if it's the same that's against incinerators, and I wonder what their views are on how successful incineration is in Sweden. Anyway, it's amazing how a group with a skewed or single-sided view or partial knowledge ruins it for everyone.

Capt'n Midnight

Gbear wrote: »

It seems odd that you're seemingly environmentally minded but aren't terribly worried by the massively negative effect on the wildlife of the Severn estuary that the barrage would cause.

OMG
how will not building the barrage sort out the Badger cull and overfishing ?

The best wildlife reserves are places where the public don't go. Military reserves, toxic waste dumps, radioactive exclusion zones.

When the first UK settlers arrived in America the forests there were well tended and managed, not natural. The Dutch have reclaimed a lot of land, but perhaps as recently as 1,000 years ago the Fresian islands were the original coastline. 15,000 years ago there was little if any wildlife in this part of the world. And most of Hungry was a lake filled with now-extinct shellfish. Things change.

There will be winners and losers if the environment changes. But it's not like converting it to farmland where most of the wildlife looses. I have not looked into it but most of the "losers" are highly mobile and intelligent so even if they couldn't adapt it should be possible to provide food for them. For the migatory ones you'd have to look at other parts of their range to see if anything could be done elsewhere. For commercially important species, well their numbers are dictated by harvesting rate more than anything.

Also there will be winners.

For wildlife in teh Severn the best outcome for them would be for one of the existing nukes there to have a catastrophe.

smash

I for one, can not wait to grow a tail!

Capt'n Midnight

Lapin wrote: »

All the more reason to spend more than €10 billion upgrading it then.

Do you know how much the bill is for making existing EU nuclear power plants safe ?

Stuff that governments agreed to do in the 1990's.

When I say without incident I took it as read that others would assume I meant that in the context of major accidents resulting in local evacuations like the examples mentioned earlier - Chernobyl etc.

Look at the history of aircraft crashes caused by hardware failure. Many of them were preceded by small incidents. In the case of the DC10 nothing was done after someone was sucked out of a cargo bay door. (They were in a coffin , but still) When it happened again everybody died.

You know the old joke about someone who is falling from a building "I've just passed the 17th floor and so far things are OK". Even the Royal Navy have had problems with their nuclear subs. And they should have the budget to do it properly.


When they build the first production reactors there was a problem with xenon poisoning. It was very nearly a show stopper. What was the cause of this ? Hubris. General Groves had asked the original team to run the test reactor for an extended period. They didn't. The only reason they could get the reactors on line was because they had been massively over designed just like everything else in the Manhattan project.

Just to repeat that. The nuclear industry screwed up on basic assumptions back in 1943 because it thought it knew better. And I can't see that much has changed since. "Trust us it'll be fine" / "The new technology will work better" Rinse and repeat for 70 years.

If you take a trem like 'without incident' at its most literal meaning, then it is almost impossible to describe anywhere as such. Every working building has incidents of some description.

Fair point except the stuff I've pointed out looks like procedural failures.


Re this month's fuel problems , this plant has been in operation for four decades so what is it they haven't learnt yet ?

Capt'n Midnight

gallag wrote: »

Ireland will be buying electric from this plant, and the latest gen of nuclear plant is the safest and cleanest way to make it.

Let's pretend that you are right.

How do the economics work out ?

According to wikipedia the four existing power plants of that type have a downtime of about 30%

bluecode

Nuclear power will probably be the main source of energy in the future. Once the oil really runs out. Wind, wave and solar energy will never replace fossil fuels unless there is a quantum leap in technology. Wind energy in particular is a scandal. Everyone involved knows it's a scam. But there's huge money in it. Actually if you want to get rich and don't care how you do it. Don't bother with drug dealing, invest in wind farms.

France has a huge nuclear programme. You rarely hear of problems there.

There never will be a nuclear power station in Ireland which means that in future we will be dependant on other countries to keep us going.

Nothing new there then.

squod

We don't need nuclear. We already have gigawatts of potential energy stored in hilly lakey areas and the wind enough to pump the water back up when needed.

This isn't rocket science. Doesn't require any special skill and projects like wind pumped hydro won't melt your face off if they malfunction.

I don't get why more people aren't pushing for this.

Gbear

squod wrote: »

We don't need nuclear. We already have gigawatts of potential energy stored in hilly lakey areas and the wind enough to pump the water back up when needed.

This isn't rocket science. Doesn't require any special skill and projects like wind pumped hydro won't melt your face off if they malfunction.

I don't get why more people aren't pushing for this.

Because wind is a waste of time at the moment.

Given that the capacity factor of windmills is 20-30% We'd need to install about 20-30GW of it to cover our energy needs and we'd still be subject to blackouts when the wind dies or when it gets too strong.
Without high capacity and high efficiency storage on a massive scale or being backed up by fossil fuels (which renders the whole idea a bit pointless) wind is of no use to us.

Wind will almost certainly be confined to a minority stake in energy production, even in a small country like ours. It's fundamentally unreliable.

Maximus Alexander

Ellis Dee wrote: »

Just what we need in Ireland

Of course, our technology would be vastly better than anything the Soviets had.;)

Oh wait, it wasn't a technology failure; just human error.:eek:

Fine so. We don't do human error in Ireland.:)

Oh wait --- :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I see this argument all the time and it holds no water whatsoever. Bringing up one tragic incident to dismiss nuclear power, while ignoring the fact that the coal and oil power plants we use in Ireland are worse, just doesn't make sense.

Capt'n Midnight

bluecode wrote: »

Nuclear power will probably be the main source of energy in the future.

Please back that up with some facts.
There is ~80 years of cheap uranium left at current rates of usage. Nuclear power provides ~3% of the worlds energy needs. Payback time for reactor is measured in decades. Reactors worldwide don't even provide the difference between using incandescents and energy saving bulbs.

Once the oil really runs out. Wind, wave and solar energy will never replace fossil fuels unless there is a quantum leap in technology.

Solar is getting 7% cheaper every year. Wind is getting 14% cheaper each time installed capacity doubles. Many interesting developments in renewables have been demonstrated in the lab and are awaiting commercialisation. ( LED's 254Lm/Watt , solar panels at > 30% efficiency , panels that generate electricity from Infra red (40% of sunlight, printable panels using common materials - IBM reckon they could ramp up to 500GW per year ie. replacing the nuclear industry in ~9 months) Energy storage is the problem.

Build a cheaper battery than the 19th century Lead Acid (car battery) and renewables win.
Figure out a direct photolysis cell and renewables win.
Figure out a way to store energy cheaper and using less space than hydro and renewables win.

Nuclear energy can only provide a fraction of electricity needs unless you have cheap storage (or can export power to neighbours like France does). Nuclear advocates forget that these conditions favour renewables too.


Oil is not running out. Cheap oil is, but so is cheap uranium.
We've hundreds of years of hydrocarbons left, tar sands, fracking, coal and all can be converted into liquid fuel (at a cost)

France has a huge nuclear programme. You rarely hear of problems there.

In 1999 the seawall of a French nuclear plant was overwhelmed.In the pumping room for unit 1, one set of the two pairs of pumps in the Essential Service Water System failed due to flooding; had both sets failed then the safety of plant would have been endangered How many times do I have to point out that the Nuclear industry doesn't learn lessons from near misses ???
Fukushima would have been prevented if the nuclear industry had learnt out that a seawall needs to be at least as high as the water level indicated in historical records and that pumpings systems can fail.

To me it seems that the Nuclear industries approach to safety is something like "Add the biggest recorded flood to the highest tide and then subtract a meter to save costs !" And continue to do that after it's failed.

Nothing new there then.

Sums up the nuclear industry
Thorium cycle was made public in 1946. Still in development.
(IMHO that the pro Thorium people on boards rarely if ever mention that German pebble bed reactor speaks volumes about them having done any research on the subject apart from acting as sock puppets for the latest nuclear industry propaganda)

Burners never happened.

Only one 'commercial' breeder was built and you can argue whether it closed because of poor up time (8%), economics, or that the French military didn't need any more Plutonium because the cold war was over.
Bonus points for being offline for two years because of structural damage caused by ... wait for it ... heavy snowfall.

Capt'n Midnight

Gbear wrote: »

Because wind is a waste of time at the moment.

Given that the capacity factor of windmills is 20-30% We'd need to install about 20-30GW of it to cover our energy needs and we'd still be subject to blackouts when the wind dies or when it gets too strong.
Without high capacity and high efficiency storage on a massive scale or being backed up by fossil fuels (which renders the whole idea a bit pointless) wind is of no use to us.

Wind will almost certainly be confined to a minority stake in energy production, even in a small country like ours. It's fundamentally unreliable.

Our peak demand was 5090MW
we have 1000MW of interconnectors to the UK.
We've 292MW pumped storage
and 216 of Hydro
Estimates give a current installed CHP capacity (mostly gas-fired) of roughly 141 MW in Ireland (not
including the 161 MW centrally dispatched CHP plant operated by Aughinish Alumina)
38MW of biofuel
15MW Indaver Waste

So we can get 1863 MW without using fossil fuel electricity only power plants or wind
minimum demand was 1786 MW BTW.

(Edenderry could be ramped up to 118MW of biomass not counting the other peat stations. CHP uses fossil fuel for process energy and that won't change until electricity prices drop way below fossil fuel prices )

Tomk1

squod wrote: »

We don't need nuclear. We already have gigawatts of potential energy stored in hilly lakey areas and the wind enough to pump the water back up when needed.

I don't get why more people aren't pushing for this.

Well Airtricity's parent company seems to disagree with you.

In August 2009, Malcolm Wicks MP said in his review of energy security that modern nuclear power stations represent a proven, low carbon generation technology which could benefit security of energy supply by increasing the diversity of the fuel mix and reducing reliance on gas imports. He suggested that nuclear power should provide some 35%-40% of the country’s electricity after 2030.

During 2009, a consortium of GDF Suez SA, Iberdrola SA and SSE, in which SSE had a 25% stake, secured an option to purchase land for the development of new nuclear power generating plant adjacent to Sellafield in Cumbria, from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The intention of the consortium was to prepare detailed plans for developing new nuclear power generating plant at the site with a total capacity of up to 3.6GW, with the aim of being able to begin construction of the first new reactor around 2014. On this basis, the new power station would not be commissioned before 2020.

However in September 2011 SSE announced that it was ending its involvement in the NuGeneration Ltd joint venture. SSE continues to believe that nuclear will play a role in the UK’s energy mix going forward, but concluded that, for the time being, its resources are better deployed on business activities and technologies where it has the greatest knowledge and experience - renewable energy, gas-fired generation, including carbon capture and storage options, and alternative energy developments.

http://www.sse.com/EnergyPolicy/FutureEnergyNeeds/Generation/Nuclear/
hope quoting full text is ok, but tired of people being pro-wind but anti-nuc when the wind/eco generation companies support new-nuclear.

squod wrote: »

This isn't rocket science. Doesn't require any special skill.

BTW wind energy is prob more todo with rocket-science maths ie. aeronautical thermodynamics is fairly complexed math, it's not just a case of wind-vane, but the effects of the blades on the wind/air, pitch of blade, composite of the blades, stress/shear forces, nevermind the engineering.

turbines generate turbulence in the ground, which stirs up the atmosphere and raises the temperature. Wind turbines can modify the local climate by warming the atmosphere, according to a study that revealed an increase in temperature of 0.72 degrees over a region of Texas where four large wind farms have been built.

While converting the kinetic energy of wind into electricity, wind turbines modify exchanges between the ground and atmosphere, and affect the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the air, the authors of the study said.

http://theconversation.edu.au/wind-farms-lift-the-temperature-in-their-region-6724
Nuclear energy is basically the same as any heat exchange power generation plant, only the heat source is different.

squod wrote: »

projects like wind pumped hydro won't melt your face off if they malfunction.

I support wind energy and energy generation from the effect of the moons tidal force i.e. wave-energy which we're surrounded by, and 100% support new-nuclear.

I do not support coal plants which many so called eco-people seem to be content with when the sun's not shining and there's no wind, once it's not nuclear or new-nuclear, yet no real study has been done into the health effects of fossil fuel plants with toxins released into the air that I breath, nor how many have died world-wide due to the pollutants pumped out by dino-fossil-fuel plants. It took millions of years to store carbon, by means of the carbon-cycle, inside the earth out of the atmosphere.

Measure Twice

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Our peak demand was 5090MW
we have 1000MW of interconnectors to the UK.
We've 292MW pumped storage
and 216 of Hydro
Estimates give a current installed CHP capacity (mostly gas-fired) of roughly 141 MW in Ireland (not
including the 161 MW centrally dispatched CHP plant operated by Aughinish Alumina)
38MW of biofuel
15MW Indaver Waste

So we can get 1863 MW without using fossil fuel electricity only power plants or wind
minimum demand was 1786 MW BTW.

Capt'n, you lambast people for not providing factual information and then you mislead them with posts like the one above - what's going on here?

For instance: We most certainly do not "have 1000MW of interconnectors to the UK." Where did you get this idea?

Also, you make it look like the renewables you mention (1863 MW) could supply our minimum load. Some of the reasons this is untrue are

• your figure for minimum load is for the middle of summer - the minimum load in the middle of winter is much higher and that is when the electricity is most needed
• minimum load occurs in the middle of the night while the pumped storage is actually using energy at that point (to be able to supply during the day when it is needed more)
• similarly, most of the hydro plants are offline at the time of minimum load so they do not contribute to it.

Please try to stick to true facts in future and not neat soundbites that have no bearing on reality. You are serving nobody well, including yourself, by some of your contributions to this debate.

Capt'n Midnight

Measure Twice wrote: »

Capt'n, you lambast people for not providing factual information and then you mislead them with posts like the one above - what's going on here?

the post I was replying to was misleading.

For instance: We most certainly do not "have 1000MW of interconnectors to the UK." Where did you get this idea?

East-West interconnector is 500MW to Wales
And 500MW to Scotland
If I was being pedantic I'd have counted the NI link as over 1200MW
Link to Northern Ireland one 600MW and two 300MW

Also, you make it look like the renewables you mention (1863 MW) could supply our minimum load.

I think people have an idea what the word minimum means.

As a PR stunt yes.

If the forecast for wind was good, then we could use just Wind and those CHP plants that were going to be on anyway for a PR stunt too.

Saying that we need more power in winter is kinda obvious.


Someone saying we'd need 20-30GW of wind before we could could get rid of fossil fuel is disingenuous.


Let's look at summer peak demand
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/weeklypeakdemand/
3750MW would cover demand from week 16 to week 40 (nearly half the years)
1863 MW of non wind renewables could provide half that.
1700WM from NI and Wales ( in theory in summer )


So on paper, if we assume the full cooperation of the UK, and have no reserve and really go for it, we could run the country for six months a year on dispatchable renewables , imports and wind AND to be able to cover times when there was no wind.

Of course that isn't going to happen but it gives an idea of where we are heading.

Capt'n Midnight

update
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/30/hitachi_uk_nuclear_horizon/

This will specifically involve the construction of two to three 1,300MW plants at Horizon’s existing sites in Wylfa, Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire, with the first to be ready by 2025 at the latest.

opinion guy

Confab wrote: »

Oh for f*cks sake get some perspective.

:rolleyes:
Here is some perspective for you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20103259

Gbear wrote: »

It seems odd that you're seemingly environmentally minded but aren't terribly worried by the massively negative effect on the wildlife of the Severn estuary that the barrage would cause.

Wildlife around Fukishima ain't so great. Simple facts are - build Severn estuary - screw over some local wildlife. If it breaks - no difference.
Build nuclear plant - still screws over local wildlife. If it breaks - can screw over entire planets wildlife.

Nuclear power is a nice idea in theory, but evidence proves people, especially private industry, can't be trusted with it.

tuxy

opinion guy wrote: »

Wildlife around Fukishima ain't so great.

The thing is wildlife around Chernobyl is thriving.
There are no people around to damage their natural habitat.
People do far more damage to wildlife that radiation.

Chuck Stone

opinion guy wrote: »

Nuclear power is a nice idea in theory, but evidence proves people, especially private industry, can't be trusted with it.

Private industry wouldn't touch nuke power with a barge pole attached to a pole vault.

Private companies wouldn't be able to offset the risk, immense costs to construct, and eternal liability of nuke waste to the public the way governments do.

Only generations of the malleable tax-paying public could shoulder such a risk/cost.

opinion guy

tuxy wrote: »

The thing is wildlife around Chernobyl is thriving.
There are no people around to damage their natural habitat.
People do far more damage to wildlife that radiation.

.....so you are saying we should purposely irradiate ecologically sensitive areas ??? Damn. Folks don't get on tuxy's bad side!!!!:pac:

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Private industry wouldn't touch nuke power with a barge pole attached to a pole vault.

Private companies wouldn't be able to offset the risk, immense costs to construct, and eternal liability of nuke waste to the public the way governments do.

Only generations of the malleable tax-paying public could shoulder such a risk/cost.

But the nuclear industry is full of private enterprise. Making a fast buck off public subsidies.

Chuck Stone

opinion guy wrote: »

But the nuclear industry is full of private enterprise. Making a fast buck off public subsidies.

Yeah, like parasitic corporations feeding off the state.

mcmoustache

I think nuclear power is a brilliant idea but then when I think of my past co-workers over the years, the idea scares me.

Prick!

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

They are not as 'cheap' and 'clean' as they are made out to be. Nuclear power plants are often heavily subsidized.

Also (blatantly stolen from wikipedia):


&



So no thanks.

Wrong.

opinion guy

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Yeah, like parasitic corporations feeding off the state.

Not unlike the banks

Measure Twice

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Let's look at summer peak demand
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/weeklypeakdemand/
3750MW would cover demand from week 16 to week 40 (nearly half the years)
1863 MW of non wind renewables could provide half that.
1700WM from NI and Wales ( in theory in summer )


So on paper, if we assume the full cooperation of the UK, and have no reserve and really go for it, we could run the country for six months a year on dispatchable renewables , imports and wind AND to be able to cover times when there was no wind.

Of course that isn't going to happen but it gives an idea of where we are heading.

I can tell you know a lot about this topic. What I don't know is why you continue to outline scenarios that you admit are not going to happen - can you enlighten me? Why do you also lump in UK interconnection with the renewable generation? Imports from the UK are more likely to be from some of their more expensive plant (but still cheaper than our more expensive plant!) and hence will have a high Carbon footprint.

To provide a clean, affordable, safe and reliable electricity supply for all periods of the year will require a mix of renewable and other technologies.

Given the low energy density and/or the intermittency of most renewables, it is unlikely that we could affordably supply much more than 40% of our electricity within 20 years. The remaining 60% will need to be supplied somehow.

Coal and peat will be phased out as they are too dirty. Natural gas is about half as dirty but will supply some, but not all, of the remainder.

This leaves a big chunk of base load to be serviced by clean, dispatchable generators. Nuclear is currently illegal in Ireland, so the only option left is Carbon capture and storage plants (CCS). These are not yet available but are likely to be very large, very expensive and very controversial when they are available.

My belief is that small nuclear plants (about 200 MW each) will have to be considered in a few years time and it may very well be in our interest to go down that road. We should begin this process before we are committed to the CCS route, which may well result in unacceptably high electricity costs.

tuxy

opinion guy wrote: »

.....so you are saying we should purposely irradiate ecologically sensitive areas ??? Damn. Folks don't get on tuxy's bad side!!!!:pac:

It's the only way we can be sure that humans stay out and don't mess with the environment in those areas

recylingbin

No proper air force or air defence or army = no nuclear power stations.
Logic.

Measure Twice

recylingbin wrote: »

No proper air force or air defence or army = no nuclear power stations.
Logic.

How is that "logic" - you have provided no reasons?

Please give reasons (without hand-waving).

end of the road

positron wrote: »

It's a shame parts of Irish society are against nuclear power projects. I wonder if it's the same that's against incinerators, and I wonder what their views are on how successful incineration is in Sweden. Anyway, it's amazing how a group with a skewed or single-sided view or partial knowledge ruins it for everyone.

maybe they just don't want to live beside either an incinerator or a nuclear power plant, you might be okay with it and thats fine, i myself wouldn't be to be honest, in saying that surely theirs a non-residential area where an incinerator could be put if it really has to happen? incineration maybe successful in Sweden. but people do have genuine objections to both them and nuclear power plants that can't be ignored.

Measure Twice

end of the road wrote: »

maybe they just don't want to live beside either an incinerator or a nuclear power plant, you might be okay with it and thats fine, i myself wouldn't be to be honest, in saying that surely theirs a non-residential area where an incinerator could be put if it really has to happen? incineration maybe successful in Sweden. but people do have genuine objections to both them and nuclear power plants that can't be ignored.

Indeed. People have a right to object and to have those objections assessed. Then, society as a whole decides on the best solution for that society.

The solution may not be perfect but it should be the best, balanced, solution.

And the optimum solution should be determined using true facts and thorough, objective analysis taking all relevant factors into account.

But I agree with Positron that those with a "skewed or single-sided view or partial knowledge" shouldn't be able to exert undue influence on decision making that has wide-ranging impact on society as a whole.