Energy infrastructure

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117769851#Comment_117769851

Schellenberger's strawman arguments have been widely discredited.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/review-bad-science-and-bad-arguments-abound-in-apocalypse-never/

marno21

Germany has been shutting down nuclear plants in recent years, driven by the Green Party, and in response has been increasingly burning lignite/coal to make up the difference.

It isn’t surprising that their emissions from electricity generation are going up.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770468#Comment_117770468

Der Fraunhofer respectfully disagrees with you.

The number of TwH generated by Lignite and Coal has been decreasing in recent years

All new capacity is in Renewables.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770468#Comment_117770468

Why is this claim repeated over and over? If I was a conspiracy nut, I'd suspect a covert disinformation campaign on the part of the dying nuclear industry given the facts are so easy to check.

In the 10 years prior to 2020, Germany cut 75TWh of nuclear electricity production but cut far more hard coal/lignite production - 130TWh.

Despite huge decline in carbon free nuclear generation, German emissions per KWh generated has halved in the last 30 years. Of course such a decline doesn't happen in a simple straight line - it's a noisy line given the vagaries of wind production and the effects of demand following but the downward trend is absolutely clear if you zoom out.

Selectively picking a particular starting point and end point on a noisy signal is a completely disingenuous trick - famously used by climate change deniers for years to "prove" that the world wasn't getting warmer at all, which nearly everyone now accepts is bollox.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770545#Comment_117770545

"Capacity" and actual "output" are 2 very different things - something the cheerleaders for big wind don't seem to understand🙄

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117771768#Comment_117771768

Is the Nordstream pipeline a "conspiracy" too?? The fact that Germany is committed to building it in the face of fierce opposition from the US/NATO doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their massive expensive solar/wind grid scale experiment??

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774346#Comment_117774346

The 3 TWhr of storage that the ESB are proposing says otherwise.

The problem with nuclear isn't the uptime it's the 'unpredictability' of extended downtime.

You can't predict when a nuclear plant will go offline for an extended period because of transformer fires, jellyfish, politics, design flaws, corrosion, fake parts, floods, lack of cooling water, lack of backup power or other events which have happened to multiple plants in multiple countries but which the nuclear industry doesn't appear to have a viable contingency plan for.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770378#Comment_117770378

I see nothing in that waffle to contradict any of the figures in the link I posted

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774365#Comment_117774365

On costs and emmissions the French Nuclear industry is a far more impressive beast than the grid scale mess Germany has created with its wind/solar experiment. ESBs "proposal" is just that - a "proposal" that is untested anywhere else. New York city is "proposing" a massive Battery storage facility on the site of an old gas power station. The costs are eye watering yet it will only provide a mere 30minutes of peak demand assuming it ever get to be fully charged!!.

Banana Republic 1

https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-inquiry/id932499233?i=1000531766544

..

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774352#Comment_117774352

You're not making a lot of sense here, Birdnuts?

marno21: "Germany has been burning more and more coal because they cut nuclear"

gjim: "No - Germany has cut twice as much coal production as they have nuclear in the last 10 years"

you: "What about Nordstream!, Eh? Eh?"

I mean I don't mind discussing the Nordstream 2 (I don't think it's a good idea) but I've no idea why you'd quote the previous exchange in bringing it up?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774390#Comment_117774390

So do you think the green hydrogen proposal by esb won’t work or what?

is it for the birds?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774390#Comment_117774390

Grid scale batteries are no longer vague proposals, they're either being constructed or operational - like the Moss Landing facility in California - which provides more capacity and comparable storage to Turlough Hill and has been connected to the grid since January. Things are happening at an incredible rate, so analysis from even a year ago is basically stale in today's electricity markets.

The current problem is that the industry cannot build such batteries quick enough to keep up with demand. The finances already mean there is a queue of private companies all over the world with approved proposals to to build grid-scale batteries as the business case is clear - as of 2021, it's now more profitable to charge and discharge li-ion batteries than burn NG for demand following. There's nothing "eye watering" about the costs - a plethora of private companies have the capital and are willing to use it because the financial return is there.

And the darling of the nuclear proponents, France, is slowly backing away from nuclear. 9 reactors are planned to close before 2035 - and the nuclear contribution to electricity is expected to drop by over a third in that time. They've been constantly deferring a decision on building any new reactors given the the most recent addition, Flammanville 3, has been a complete debacle (as has pretty much every nuclear project in the west this millennium).

Construction of Flammanville 3 began in 2007 due to go online in 2012 and it's yet to deliver a watt of electricity and is nearly SIX TIMES over-budget. Costs have risen from EUR 3.3B to 19.1B - for a mere 1.5GW capacity. The same money would buy 20GW of on-shore wind capacity and have it delivering power in a year. And you describe this as an example of "impressive costs"? And this is just the headline aspects - read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant for the full gory details.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774968#Comment_117774968

Agree with everything you say, but in the last paragraph, wouldn't a fairer cost comparison be for offshore (more reliable wind?) AND the cost of a 72 GWh battery backup to cover for a 2 day calm worst case scenario?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117775436#Comment_117775436

Yeah I agree - as "options", they're not really comparable operationally.

I just wanted to point out how ludicrous it is to claim generating electricity using nuclear fission is "cheap".

If the French manage to screw up building a nuclear plant to that extent (6 times over budget and 15 years and counting for construction - versus the 5 year planned), what hope has the rest of the world?

The Finns are in the same boat with their Olkiluoto extension - 3 times over budget and 15 years (and counting) late.

The American V.C. Summer nuclear project was abandoned 3 years ago 40% complete and $9B down the drain (bankrupting Westinghouse in the process, and landing household consumers with 18% addition to their electricity bills for a plant that will never deliver a watt) and question marks over Vogtle 3 and 4 - which if every completed will be first new US nuclear plants in 3 decades - latest estimates $27B (now that's "eyewatering") and 7 years late (and counting).

And there are people arguing that Ireland - a country with ZERO nuclear expertise - should consider nuclear to get to carbon neutrality? You'd want to be mad.

Nuclear will never be built in Ireland as any attempt will die in the efforts to answer these questions

• What locality do you put it in without insane objections?
• What is the long term (multi-millennia) plan for the storage of the waste that will be both secure and not risk impacting the water table?
• Where will the waste storage location be?
• How will the waste be transported and what route will it take where that route won't be blocked by objectors not wanting the material to pass through their area?
• Same as above for the unspent fuel.
• How do you justify the spend on it when it's LCOE is way worse than alternatives?

bk

"Agree with everything you say, but in the last paragraph, wouldn't a fairer cost comparison be for offshore (more reliable wind?) AND the cost of a 72 GWh battery backup to cover for a 2 day calm worst case scenario?"

I thought the same, but I knew gjim was keeping it simple just for an example. If we had €20 billion to spend, we would likely spend it on a combination of onshore wind + offshore + battery storage + hydrogen + international inter-connectors + internal grid improvements. And we would probably have money left over to fund smart meters + EV charging network + home insulation grants, EV grants, etc.

To put some numbers to this, our maximum peak demand (all island) is 6,878 MW

• The Celtic Interconnector will give us 700MW and cost 1 billion. We could build 14,000 MW of interconnectors for 20bn
• There is a proposal to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind for 6.5bn. So about 9,000 MW for 20bn
• In Australia, they are building a 1,200 MW battery storage facility for $2.4 bn

With 20bn we would have no problems reaching close to 100% renewables. The current plan is to build 5,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030, that will cost about 10bn, + another billion for the Celtic Interconnector. So 11bn, that would leave you plenty spare out of 20bn for battery and hydrogen facilities.

And BTW keep in mind this 20bn we are talking about is for just one new 1,600 MW EPR reactor in France, which is in a pre-exisitng Nuclear power plant with other older reactors, so much of the surrounding facility, security, etc. is already in place. If we were to build a Nuclear plant, we wouldn't have any of that and would have to start from scratch, building a site, support facility, security, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if you were talking about closer to 30bn for Ireland!

What the French did in the 80's with Nuclear power was amazing and in general I'm a supporter of Nuclear energy where practical, but it is hard to argue that the pricing of new nuclear reactors has gone insane today and that there is no way we could justify such an expense here in Ireland, even if you ignored all the other issues of such a large plant in such a small grid and our lack of experience. The economics of it simply don't make sense any more.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774968#Comment_117774968

Turlough Hill is a Mickey mouse effort in comparison to the needs of a modern economy - you might as well be proposing we go back to using candles🙄

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117776226#Comment_117776226

I doubt it would be anything but a fraction of the toxic waste currently being produced via the production of rare earth metals for the likes of wind turbines, batteries etc. But I guess the wind groupies here aren't too bothered when its poor people in the likes of the Congo, Rural China that are on the receiving end.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774588#Comment_117774588

I deal with realities pal - like this from my earlier link concerning German energy production in the first 6 months of this year "German emissions from electricity generation increased in the first half of 2021 by one-quarter, or 21 million tons, according to German think tank Agora Energiewende. Gas-fired power plants increased 15%, coal power plants by 36%, and hard coal power plants by 44%. "

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117778842#Comment_117778842

Rare earth metals used in the refining of oil also

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117778842#Comment_117778842

What rare earth metals are used in wind turbines?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117779007#Comment_117779007

Ah I see. Rare earth materials are used in PMG’s (permanent magnet generators).

pmg’s are used instead of direct drive turbines as they generate more power and require less maintenance. An important consideration in off shore turbines.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117778842#Comment_117778842

Stunning whataboutery logic, you've convinced me, let's build a reactor in every county!

Peregrine

Additional confirmation on Whitegate and Huntstown:

A number of sources have confirmed to the Irish Examiner that shipping dates for the parts to carry out essential repairs on both stations have been received which would allow them be online before peak demand is reached.

An EirGrid spokesperson said that the additional plan would have been difficult to achieve, but the reopening of the two plants made emergency generation less necessary.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40362656.html

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117779834#Comment_117779834

Hysteria much?? I think you need to engage with reality rather than comic book stuff concern Nuclear power and the realities of running a functioning low carbon grid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117783328#Comment_117783328

You want a dose of reality when thinking about nuclear power on the island of Ireland? Answer these

• What locality do you put it in without insane objections?
• What is the long term (multi-millennia) plan for the storage of the waste that will be both secure and not risk impacting the water table?
• Where will the waste storage location be?
• How will the waste be transported and what route will it take where that route won't be blocked by objectors not wanting the material to pass through their area?
• Same as above for the unspent fuel.
• How do you justify the spend on it when it's LCOE is way worse than alternatives?

dubhthach

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/08/05/multi-day-iron-air-batteries-reach-commercialization/

Multi-day iron-air batteries reach commercialization

US-based startup Form Energy has secured $200 million Series D funding for the development of what is being called a breakthrough in energy storage.

....

Boston startup Form Energy developed technology to address this need, revealing recently the chemistry behind their iron-air batteries. The company said its iron-air batteries can store renewables-sourced electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with conventional power plants. At full-scale production, Form Energy said the modules would deliver electricity at a tenth of the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

....

$200 million in Series D funding has been secured for the project, led by $25 million from ArcelorMittal’s XCarb innovation fund. ArcelorMittal will non-exclusively supply the iron materials for the battery system production, and Form Energy said it intends to source its iron domestically, manufacturing the batteries near where the iron was sourced.

...

The company’s first project is a 1 MW / 150 MWh pilot installation with Minnesota-based utility Great River Energy, located near the American Iron Range. Form Energy said it expects to have the facility deployed at a Great River Energy power plant by 2023.

Iron-Air batteries could be a game changer if they can be commercialized. I see there's an article about this on WSJ which is more cautious:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/startup-claims-breakthrough-in-long-duration-batteries-11626946330

Obviously Iron is alot more common than Lithuim, I imagine the tech wouldn't be the most compact but that's fine for Grid-scale usage. I would say that the key take away is that there's ongoing work with serious funding going into it ($200m is nice seed funding) to find alternatives to Lithuim which could solve issues such as price and the time that battery can discharge for. Flow Batteries are another major research angle in this regard.

Apogee

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/shannon-lng-to-seek-approval-to-build-650m-gas-plant-in-kerry-1.4654412

Ballylongford will cost Shannon LNG €650 million. Its key elements are a 600 mega watt (mw) gas-fired electricity generator, an LNG terminal and batteries to store up 120mw of power.

A terminal will import natural gas that has been cooled to -160 degrees Celsius to cut its volume for shipping.

A floating plant will reheat this to return it to gas, from where it will be supplied to the power plant and national supply network.

bob mcbob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117778842#Comment_117778842

While I agree that there is toxic waste from rare earth elements, this is nothing like nuclear waste that is highly toxic for thousands of years. Currently in the UK there is 750K cubic metres of high radio active material that has to be dealt with. Unsurprisingly not many communities want this stored near them.

As it is illegal under international law to export this nuclear waste, perhaps you can identify the best location in Ireland where this can be stored.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/23/nuclear-storage-plans-for-north-of-england-stir-up-local-opposition?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other