Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Markcheese

The thing to include is intrest rates ... Obviously a state will borrow money cheaper than a company , but not for free..

And if you're going to compare an all a

inclusive price like an Irish wind turbine or for instance hinkley c , with a brochure price you'll get very large difference...

The way national debts work it may never be paid off , but will continue to be paid for ..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720850#Comment_119720850

You keep talking about not having a flexible grid yet renewables need the most flexibility of all to accommodate? Makes no sense.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813789#Comment_119813789

Your argument is "renewables good, nuclear bad" and you use all sorts of mental gymnastics and motivated reasoning to "prove" it. There are whole weeks where our wind is "offline" and it's not just a temporary maintenance issue.

I'm agnostic on how we power ourselves, as long as it generates as little greenhouse gases as possible. Wind and solar are great, and we should continue to build out our wind capacity to multiples of our needs, but currently, nuclear has a big role to play as there is precious little else to provide a stable zero carbon base load. Batteries don't cut it, and the alternatives all produce mountains of CO2. Other stuff like wave power or fusion are a pipe dream currently.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119833209#Comment_119833209

I thought the objective was to reduce CO2 emissions? Currently only 7% of our power is coming from wind. Our CO2 emissions are 349g CO2 per kWh. In France it's 65g - only 18% of Ireland's.

Interest payments are not going to make much of a dent in the difference in cost between a wholly renewables powered grid and a nuclear one.

Check out the ESB's insane plan and try and contemplate the possible costs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwxc31zhL8Y

I can't do it, my brain melts at the numbers - 7 times current world total production of electrolysers. - 10,000 Turlough hills - daily heat demand 7 times current grid electricity demand - 21 TWh of energy storage required - an additional 66 TWH of renewables.

It is stark raving mad. It is not affordable. Just take one item - the 30 GW of offshore wind. Current costs are I believe, represented by Hornsea One - 1.2 GW has cost $5 Billion - about $4.2 billion per GW - with a capacity factor of 47.3%.

That's a staggering $126 billion just for that element of the plan and doesn't even touch on the cost of the hydrogen part.

Now take that Polish nuclear deal - you could generate the equivalent output of 30 GW of OSW, with 12 GW of nuclear, because it has double the capacity factor and you don't need the 2.5 multiplier for your hydrogen generation margin, so that's $56.4 billion vs $126 - and of course you don't need the hydrogen storage component at all - however many billions that alone would cost.

I don't think interest payments on a NPP would even scratch the surface of what the hydrogen part of the plan would cost, which would be wholly borne by the ESB.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119832707#Comment_119832707

This is what's being done

https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?Seq_Code=173292

To pay for this

https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/westinghouse-to-be-sold-for-7-9-billion/

(at one stage the UK govt owned Westinghouse, it's been resold that often)

Until that court case is over you may forget about Korean reactors in the EU.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119833403#Comment_119833403

Nuclear has niches. Submarine and Ice-Breaker power. Producing radioisotopes for medicine (but that's done by a 0.045GW HFR in the Netherlands) Economic power generation isn't one of it's niches. Solar is restricted to places inside Saturn's orbit that get decent sunlight.

One of the Big Lies from nuclear is that it's reliable baseload. We don't need baseload. And nuclear isn't reliable enough to justify a premium price.

EDF have revised their forecast down again, French nuclear will have a capacity factor of 50% this year. Hywind, an offshore wind farm in Scotland has a higher capacity factor.

When the synchronous compensators are rolled out our guaranteed demand for baseload will fall to 5%. That's nowhere near enough to feed a nuclear power plant, besides hydro , CHP , biomass etc could supply the 5%. Yes we'd need storage and interconnectors, but nuclear would too.

Totally agree that batteries won't handle more than a few hours and we really only have enough of them to allow other generators to be started.

Storing 3TWh of hydrogen in existing gas wells is an option that's way cheaper than batteries or pumped storage. Way faster and less risk financially and politically.

Fusion is the technology of the future. Always was. Always will be. I can remember seeing some research on neutron? accelerators to induce fission but the costs were within 20% of renewables so that's not even worth considering given the lead times and risks and falling costs of renewables.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119834181#Comment_119834181

How will we produce this hydrogen? Electrolysis from our 300 % wind capacity? And remember hydrogen is extremely difficult to store because the molecules are so small they leak easily.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119834181#Comment_119834181

Fusion is at least as viable a concept as all these yet to materialize floating wind turbines and Hydrogen hubs

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119835700#Comment_119835700

I can remember reading about how wonderful fusion was going to be in 20 years time, in the early 70's.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119835596#Comment_119835596

It's one option but yes.

Hydrogen is leaky and causes embrittlement in hard steels. Town gas was ~50% hydrogen which is what was used here before natural gas.

The stuff can be stored in disused gas fields for hundreds of millions of years. If we hadn't removed the Kinsale platform recently then it would have been a relatively cheap and quick conversion.

Costs will drop but today it's about £1.5/watt to build electrolysers etc. for 2026 for the Felixstowe project. And if you only use hydrogen for peaking you can spend more time making it than using it. This would reduce the costs to a fraction of what might be expected at first glance.

No one is predicting nuclear up and running here by 2026.

Here's the timeline from 2005-2016 for Hinkley-C. Hinkey-C won't be up and running by 2026.

Why did we remove the Kinsale platform? Why are we so short sighted in Ireland?

Capt'n Midnight

Nice article here on how various nuclear power companies pulled out of projects - https://www.regulation.org.uk/archive-energy-nuclear.html

Since it was written

• Hunterstown B, Hinkley Point B and Dungensss B were all closed ahead of schedule.
• Hartleypool and Heysham 1 to close in March 2024. (less than 18 months away) (Heysham 1 reactor 2 is Offline for boiler tube leak repair)
• Heysham 2 and Torness to close in 2028 not in 2030. (Hayshem 2 reactor 7 is Offline for inspection outage)

Of the original 6 new plants only 3 have any movement.

• Hinkley-C is 10 years late
• The government are now denying that plans for Sizewell-C have been scrapped.
• Bradwell-B if it goes ahead would be two Chinese PWRs. (The Chinese already own UK steelworks)

Still in the 5-7 years prep stages. Only then can you start the "Average 7.5 years construction time" waffle which uses stats from earlier rollouts.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842025#Comment_119842025

These delays are entirely due to bureaucracy. The Chinese have no such delays, in fact many of their plants are opened ahead of schedule and within budget.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842099#Comment_119842099

Why do you want us to be at the mercy of the Chinese or Russians ?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842099#Comment_119842099

Delays are due to bureaucracy democracy

The chinese have no such delays because they can forcibly take land and relocate people when they need to build infrastructure

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119835596#Comment_119835596

Hydrogen can be stored in underground reserves like Capt Midnight said, but I think it will be stored as Ammonia, which can be easily stored and transported, and doesn't have the leaking problem that Hydrogen has while transporting it from a storage location to where it's needed.

It would add to the round trip costs but given that we would only need Hydrogen/ammonia to cover the rare events when there are long periods of inadequate wind and solar and nuclear, then it's acceptable

Burning Ammonia directly has high NO emissions which is not ideal, but again, someone needs to do the calculations about the benefits of burning ammonia, or cracking it back to H2 and burning the Hydrogen.

We have 30 years to figure this stuff out. But the main thing is to build up our renewable and storage infrastructure to harvest the low hanging fruit and reduce Fossil fuel dependence by 90% asap, while we can work on the final 10% later on.

Nuclear's role, is to keep operating for as long as possible the existing plants, Finish the plants that are past the point of no return, and keep researching the potential of SMRs or Thorium, or Fusion or whatever, but the fact is, Nuclear cannot be the baseload fuel for the global economy. There isn't enough fuel, and it would take so long to deploy the tech that by the time we've even rolling out phase 1, we're already looking at more than 2-4c of warming.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842525#Comment_119842525

Over provision of renewables means far less storage needed. And the excess can produce storable fuel for use elsewhere too.

Hydrogen for grid scale.

Ammonia or other hydrogen carriers for transport. Methanol is a near replacement for petrol and way less toxic than ammonia. Indycar used it from 1965 until they switched to ethanol because methanol fires were invisible in bright sunlight.

The NO emissions are related to temperature. Diluting the feed with inert water/steam would be one way. Or using the pure oxygen from hydrolysis so there's less or no nitrogen. Or capturing the emissions or using catalytic converters at the power plant. It's a red herring in that there are numerous solutions. Like using the latest turbines with low NO2 emissions.

Renewables have a shorter timeframe if we can hit our 2030 targets then we'll have a breathing space to research other power sources.

I wouldn't worry about Thorium. Development in Canada started in 1946. The Americans and Germans have had full scale power plants, the Chinese bought the German tech and have one small reactor after 15 years. Thorium needs to be pump primed, you have to breed the fuel first so there's a long lead time even if it works. It's a technology we've been doing on an industrial scale since 1944 and still haven't got right. Like Plutonium, Thorium is a way to stretch Uranium, not replace it.

Fusion is the technology of the future. Always was, always will be. The UK has committed multiples of the international spend of fusion research on one delayed nuclear power plant.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842701#Comment_119842701

Yeah, and 'over producing' isn't the same as over producing our Peak demand, it's over producing our average demand, because in a world where we can store energy, the concept of Peak demand stops making sense. If we need 3x energy demand to make renewables work, it's 3x 2gw, not 3x 6gw, because we already have excess generation capacity that sits there doing nothing until3 million households all boil the kettle during the half time break in the world cup semi-final

Now we'll need to over produce routinely because we're going to electrify heating and transport, so we'll need maybe 15gw of renewables installed to be self sufficient, with a lot of storage. Most of that storage will be inside EV batteries, lots of it will be within domestic Batteries, lots more in Industrial and and commercial batteries, and the final gap will be filled by BESS providing grid servicing on utility scale.

And on top of that, there are other storage solutions, like Thermal storage (in Hot water tanks and Storage heaters) and pumped hydro

And this is before we have anything approaching next gen tech, the likes of Fusion, SMR nuclear, Geothermal using next gen drilling tech etc

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842467#Comment_119842467

Thats what they had to do to build the 3 gorges hydroelectric dam.

More than 158 people have died or gone missing, 3.67 million residents have been displaced and 54.8 million people have been affected, causing a devastating 144 billion yuan ($20.5 billion) in economic losses.

Sizewell in the UK is on a 245 acre site and there are two NPP located in that area and there is a town only 2km from it and farmland even closer.

Amongst the best builders of NPPs these days are the south Koreans. They have built many NPPs in 5 years or less, and they are a democracy, as are Japan, who have built reactors in 3 years.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842774#Comment_119842774

Why don't you watch the ESB video which lays out what we'll need to achieve zero via renewables? Then you won't have to make wildly inaccurate guesses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwxc31zhL8Y

An additional 30 GW of renewables are needed, not 15. And that EV battery idea is a complete nonsense. People are not going to allow their EV batteries to be used for Grid storage due to the constant cycling degradation it would cause. In that video, you will note that last year there was a 6 week lull in the wind which no ammount of EV batteries can fill. Not to mention no one is going to want to find their EV battery has less than needed to get them where they need or want to go because it's been syphoned.

We can't do pumped hydro, we don't have the geography, and it's one of the most environmentally damaging things you can do.

Renewables cost more than double what nuclear power costs without factoring in the cost of staorage. With storage it's probably going to be tripple, but no one knows as no country has done it so the true costs are just wild guesses.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844496#Comment_119844496

I don`t get this "we cannot let the Chinese build a nuclear plant" from the same people who at the same time are pushing solar panels and all manner of greens tech produced by China. Complete and utter hypocrisy imo.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844682#Comment_119844682

There are so many 'don't gets' with greenies. They seem to be willing to accept massive habitat destruction and infringement if it's for their cause. Hydro and wind farms are ecologically awful.

Industrial accidents involving ammonia have probably resulted in more deaths than nuclear energy production, but they'll happily advocate for Ammonia as if it's clean and safe. The round trip efficiency for this deadly susbstance is terrible...:

In the future implementation of ammonia in energy trade and storage, a key aspect is the round-trip energy efficiency - taking into consideration the energy required to synthesise ammonia from excess renewable energy and its delivery on demand. Currently, the round-trip efficiency of liquid ammonia is 11-19%, which is similar to the values of liquid hydrogen of 9-22%10.

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/h2-and-nh3-the-perfect-marriage-in-a-carbon-free-society/

...and yet it's seen as a viable energy storage medium. I think it's fantastic for fertiliser production and near totally useless for energy storage given the apalling round trip efficiency. The real problem is the big lie of cheap renewable energy that is the underpinning for all this hydrogen and ammonia delusion.

Two of the most sceptical appraisals of H2 and NH3 for energy storage I have seen have come from chemical engineers, one of whom was a professor.

Ammonia is terrific for fish kills.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844682#Comment_119844682

Logically they are very different.

While solar panels maybe built in China, once they arrive in Ireland they are installed and run by local people for decades with zero involvement from the Chinese. They could only threaten future Solar panel production and purchases, not currently installed ones.

Nuclear reactors on the other hand need pretty much constant maintenance and parts and we would need foreign expertise to actually run them and maintain them as we have non of our own. If you bought a Chinese reactor, you would need Chinese people helping to run it.

Even the UK has backed out of working with the Chinese on new Nuclear power planets on national security concerns.

Also there is the issue of where we get the Uranium from, most of the European Nuclear reactors get it from Russia!

If your concern is security of supply and being independent of foreign interference, buying from China would be highly foolish.

And BTW, yes, I'd prefer if we pulled all manufacturing back from China. Strides are being made in terms of microprocessors, we do actually build some solar panels here in Europe, it would be good to see that scaled up instead of China. Fortunately wind turbines are mostly made here in Europe already. We will also have to watch out for Battery systems and technology around hydrogen, though Japan seems to be leading that.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844496#Comment_119844496

If it takes the Japanese 3 years to build a reactor, how long would it take to bring online the 50 that weren't damaged ?

A nuclear plant isn't for Christmas, it has to be built for the future. Anything else is cutting corners.

11 years later 80% of undamaged Japanese reactors aren't back on line because they simply weren't built properly.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844682#Comment_119844682

If you buy a solar panel from China you'll get power from it for up to 40 years with near zero maintenance. If they stop selling you can buy German or Canadian panels, lots of choice. And cancelling an order for the next batch of solar panels is a lot easier than cancelling a half build nuclear plant.

If you are buying GW's you could probably ask the silicon is produced in Norway so the main energy inputs are renewables too.

You can't mix and match nuclear fuel rods or spare parts.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-nuclear-idUSBRE99905O20131010

South Korea has indicted 100 people, including a top former state utility official, of corruption in a scandal over fake safety certifications for parts in its nuclear reactors ... South Korea’s tightly closed nuclear industry has been criticized for breeding a culture of secrecy that led to corrupt practices among officials involved in safety certification.

Officials indicated they would bring back the reactors that had been suspended for inspection and replacement of parts, rather than phasing them out and cutting dependence on nuclear power,

Westinghouse are currently suing KHNP in Poland over intellectual property. That's inside the EU so precedents.

Makes you wonder if there are any more surprises.

Note Poland is a heavy user of coal. Nuclear allows more cheap domestic coal to be used instead of importing foreign gas within a limited carbon budget. It's a consideration.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844871#Comment_119844871

It`s not just that it`s a cause with greenies nowadays, it`s more like a religious doctrine that has to be adhered to rigidly where any questions get answered with nothing more than the "We are all doomed if you do not do what we say". To me there is o great difference between their doctrine and that line from the Qur`an that has been causing problems since the day it was written. "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God" with greens looking on themselves as the new Muhammad. They even have their own radicalised "warriors" in Extinction Rebellion and this latest crop running around vandalising property and defacing works of art.

Their ever growing problem is that for other religious doctrines spending vast amounts of money was not going to get you to the promised land, but for this one that is the primary requirement. They started out on this crusade, particularly here, that Germany was the shining light to follow and that renewables, especially onshore wind was the answer. Few had any problem with that, who doesn`t want clean renewable energy. Anybody who asked as to the financial cost was hand-waved away with, investors will pay and it`s for the good of your children and children`s children. Many were satisfied with that, but there was never any explanation a too how much it was going to cost those children who would ultimately end up paying the bill.

The wheels started coming off the tracks last year when people began to wake to the realisation that this doctrine had a lot of holes. Wind was shown for the unreliable intermittent source it is, and with all the shutting down of our conventional plants, we had all our eggs in the wind and gas basket with us having no secure gas supply or storage and the greens doing their damnedest to keep it that way. That resulted in a major tweak being required and offshore wind becomes the next great white hope. But there was still a bit of a problem as people had woke up to wind being unreliable, so along comes the next hopium solution, green hydrogen production and storage. Thanks to our neighbours who are a bit more open on the financial costings, hand-waving away questions on costs is now a bit more difficult. We now know just how financially unviable the construction costs for just the offshore part alone is, and for the hydrogen part it seems God only knows as green either do not, or the do and realise it is so bonkers that they would be laughed out of it. Not that it has stopped the hand-waving from them when it is pointed out that if they do want to save the planet with zero emissions, then compared to their plan there is no financially viable way of achieving that other than nuclear.

As it is this doctrine is not even running to stand still despite all the money thrown at it. Demand is outstripping what renewables are providing. Throw in the greens hoped for take up of heat pumps and E.V`s alone and that gap is going to widen further with fossil fuels having to fill that gap If this green doctrine is genuinely concerned with cutting emissions, then that is not the way to do it, and this growing desperate attempts to hand-wave away nuclear isn`t either.

bk

“it`s more like a religious doctrine”

Funnily enough I feel the same way about many (though not all) nuclear proponents.

For some, Nuclear seems to be a new age magical doohickey, a new age religion doctrine, that will just magically fix all our problems.

There seems to be little understanding among these people that it is a pretty complicated and expensive technology, that has many difficult challenges. They seem to lack an understanding of how grids work, the backups and redundancies required. The pros and cons of it and other technologies. The history of the Nuclear industry and how we got here.

Do you want some truths? Last year renewables generated 40% of our electricity, Nuclear close to 0%.

In the past year, we added 700MW of new renewable electricity, zero Nuclear was built.

I mean that is the reality, renewables are delivering for Ireland, Nuclear certainly isn’t. And the Nuclear industry is pretty much in disarray!

And you are correct, we saw this Summer show us some truths, we saw Nuclear fail us badly. At a time when we were desperate to wean ourselves off Russian gas, we had France with over half of their Nuclear plants offline! Desperately importing all the electricity they could from their neighbours to keep the lights on, ironically lots of it renewables.

And it isn’t “greenies” who are driving renewables, it is hard nosed Wall Street types investing vast sums of money in renewables. They don’t care about the environment, they only care if it works and returns them an investment. It should tell you a lot that they invest so heavily in renewables, but most won’t touch Nuclear with a ten foot poll.

Look I genuinely want to see Nuclear industry be part of the solution. But you have to be realistic about it and the challenges it faces. It will need to play along and support renewables. Calling people who are building out renewables “greenies” and claiming they are on some religious doctrine, is frankly nonsense. It shows a pretty poor understanding of what is happening in the energy and investment markets.

I feel that some folks who just blindly support Nuclear like this, really do it more harm then good.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119849645#Comment_119849645

I`m not sure which country you are referring to when you say "Do you want same truths" but it is not Ireland.

Last year while our demand increased by 4.3% our percentage of electricity from renewable dropped by 17%. Down from 42% to 35%. To make up for that shortfall the percentages generated from oil and coal tripled. Coal up to 14% and oil to 7.5%. You are correct though in that we do not generate any electricity from nuclear. It is very much opposed by the Irish Green Party and many of their supporters. Even though they have no problem with us importing it when we need it as long as somebody else is doing the heavy lifting.

I`m not sure exactly how many nuclear power plants are under construction presently but it seems to be around 50 .From that with Egypt, Belarus, Bangladesh Turkey and the UAE all building their first, Poland looking to build three, Estonia looking to build their first, Sweden to increase their numbers and Japan getting back into nuclear, I would not see it as an industry in disarray.

Just on your mention of France this Summer importing electricity where previously they were consistently the largest exporters in Europe due to nuclear, I recently read an article on that which is somewhere between funny and bizarre. Germany`s Economy Minister and a green party member, was bemoaning that they would have to keep their nuclear plants operational until at least April 2023 because French nuclear looked unlikely to be able to provide Germany`s needs otherwise. Even that icon of greens, Greta Thunberg, thinks Germany are a bit daft when it comes to nuclear.

Part of the problem in Europe for those hard nosed Wall St. types with nuclear has been the E.U. taxonomy policy, but at least the E.U. now realising that on the basis of needs must, that has been scrapped, much to the displeasure of green.

I would see myself more like those hard nosed Wall St.types concerning nuclear than some follower of nuclear like religious doctrine, (whatever that is), in that like them I see any investment needing first and foremost to be financially viable, and this offshore and associated uncosted hydrogen plan does not even come close. Based on the U.K. average price for offshore, the capital expenditure for just our offshore section of the plan is €83 Billion. If you want me to go the route of some on nuclear costs I can show you were that figure would be €120 Billion. As too the onshore hydrogen part of the plan, even if it would work, either nobody knows the cost or they are keeping very quite about it. That kind of money weighted against even the favourite arguement on Hinkley just simply does not make any financial sense.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119851298#Comment_119851298

I`m not sure exactly how many nuclear power plants are under construction presently but it seems to be around 50 .From that with Egypt, Belarus, Bangladesh Turkey and the UAE all building their first, Poland looking to build three, Estonia looking to build their first, Sweden to increase their numbers and Japan getting back into nuclear, I would not see it as an industry in disarray.

Excluding China it's all disarray and they aren't building abroad yet. And I would not recommend we leave something as important as keeping the lights on to their mercy.

Just skip to page 20 here https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2022-hr.pdf 12MB

Interactive maps you can hover over on the original page https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html#tab=iso;

I'd say 56 are under construction of which 26 are behind schedule. Of the 30 on schedule 19 are in China, 2 in India (with 6 others delayed) and the others are Russian projects abroad that only started after long delays such as 8 years in Turkey. At home Russia took an average of 18 years to complete reactors that were grid connected in the last 10 years. Interest rates are now 10%. That's makes financing delays painful.

Of the 793 reactors that started construction only a little over half, 409 are operating.

While 206 closed for various reasons there were also 93 reactors were abandoned after construction began. That's a high overhead for ZERO power.

Poland was looking at three options. EDF too expensive and now the recently bought out Westinghouse are suing Korean Power.

Sweden has an unplanned outage that will last months. So may have second thoughts.

Japan had 50 undamaged reactors after 2011. Only 10 were deemed fit to reopen, only 7 are running. They have ONE reactor under construction, Started in 2007. 2025 is the current forecast.

cnocbui

This Westinghouse suing stuff is old hat and wont hinder Polands NPP from being built:

Earlier, competition between Westinghouse and KHNP for the main contract had become contentious. KHNP had reportedly offered to build six APR1400 reactors with a capacity of 8.4GWe for $26.7 billion. The Westinghouse offer was $31.3 billion for six AP1000 reactors with a total capacity of 6.7GWe, while EDF’s bid for its EPR technology was for $33-48.5 billion for four to six reactors. Polish media reported that KHNP had also proposed post-construction technology transfer to Poland and media speculation was that the contract would go to KHNP.

This prompted Westinghouse on 21 October to file a lawsuit against KHNP and Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) in a US federal court to block them from selling reactors to Poland. Westinghouse said KHNP’s reactor design included intellectual property licensed by Westinghouse and required permission from Westinghouse before being transferred to Poland or any other countries considering deploying the APR1400 reactor. However, KHNP said it had gained competence in the design, production and construction of NPPs in order to finally develop its own, independent technology. "Korean nuclear technology is independent of Westinghouse technology and can be exported without restrictions and without the consent of the US," it noted.

The decision to choose Westinghouse for the main contract is generally seen by Polish media as a political decision affirming Poland’s increasingly close ties to Washington. "US partnership on this project is advantageous for us all: we can address the climate crisis, strengthen European energy security, and deepen the US-Poland strategic relationship," US Vice President Kamala Harris said in a tweet.

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newswestinghouse-and-khnp-may-both-build-npps-in-poland-10144809

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119842416#Comment_119842416

We're already at the mercy of the Chinese (solar panels) and the Russians, Iranians, Venezuelans and other dictators for (gas and oil) because of Green policies. We know that it is possible to electrify an entire country quickly with nuclear plants because the French did exactly that in the mid-to-late 20th century and we should also be actively exploring ALL territories in Western Europe for the oil and gas that we do need. But Green policy is that we do neither.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119851713#Comment_119851713

I really do not see what delays in construction of nuclear plants, a legal tiff between to constructors or repair work being carried out to nuclear plants has to do with a financially viable energy source.

Your own prime example here has been Hinkley which has gone through delays and cost overruns, yet this E.S.B. offshore plan still doesn`t come within a country mile when compared to Hinkley. And that is without anybody giving a construction time for this plan including the onshore hydrogen components of it or what they will cost.

The largest exporter year on year in Europe has been France by way of nuclear. This year Sweden who generate 30% of their electricity via nuclear replaced France. Just on your mention of Sweden`s unplanned outage. Sweden presently have 6 reactors and are considering increasing that number. One presently offline for month`s will equate to a drop in output of 5% for those months. Here we saw renewable output drop by 7% for the year, so renewables are not in a position to throw stones at Swedish nuclear. Especially when that reactor is back on line it will again be operating in the 90%+ range of its capacity while renewables capacity will be dependent on literally how the wind is blowing.

France experienced difficulties this year, mainly due to aging plants with France being between two stools on shutting them down due to German pressure within the E.U. for all countries to do as they were doing and shut plants, but of late I see that France`s share of electrical supply via nuclear is back to 70% and rather than follow the German example are now going to build new nuclear plants. A rather amusing or bizarre footnote to that is the German Economics Minister and Green Party member recently blaming France for the mess they have gotten themselves into from shutting their nuclear plants, because France looks unlikely to be able to supply Germany with electricity this Winter.

For Poland, cnocbui has documented what happened there. A legal tiff between two companies that like all such tiffs will be sorted, even though South Korea do not appear to be too worried about it and it hasn`t resulted in Poland changing their minds on building. Even taking the most expensive of the three quotes it would still be a lot more financially viable than the E.S.B. plan.

Japan are also back refitting their plants and have a new one under construction. Once there refit program is complete I would not be surprised that they like EDF, Korean Power and even Westinghouse will be bidding for contracts. China too where imo a lot of the reasons for excluding China is either a bit paranoid or just anti nuclear for the sake of it.

Regardless of any of the above, the simple fact is that the E.S.B. plan is completely and totally financially unviable and if greens really are interested in achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 then presently there is no viable alternative other than nuclear.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862152#Comment_119862152

The ESB plan would produce 3-4 times the power of a nuclear plant, sooner and cost at least a third less.

If instead of the the 30GW ESB plan we installed just 5.2GW more of onshore wind then for the last month wind would have provided most of our power (green) with a surplus (bright green). The red areas are where storage, imports or other generators were needed. In summer most of the red area would be filled in by solar.

The red areas would represent the remains of traditional baseload which we won't need anymore , and that's the only thing nuclear could do.

NB. if reactors have 90% uptime then a plant with two reactors will produce full power 80% of the time and half power 20% of the time.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862152#Comment_119862152

Hinkley has gone through delays and cost overruns. But so has every other nuclear power plant being built abroad by anyone except the Russians who we won't be buying from anytime soon. (Chinese and Indians aren't exporting.) Given how similar we are to the UK Hinkley is a lesson to be learnt. (also over 80% of the planned UK new nuclear plants haven't gone ahead)

The big cost with nuclear is financing. Delays are expensive.

Vogtle is Westinghouse's latest project. They went into chapter 11 bankruptcy, got $8.3 government loan guarantees and then another $3.7bn in government loan guarantees. (the company was sold for less). The reactors will now cost twice what they cost in 2010.

France has proved that nuclear isn't to be relied on for baseload unless you spend time and money on maintenance. No excuses they had years and years of warning. 50% offline.

Japan proved that nuclear isn't to be relied on for baseload unless you build the plants properly. No excuses they have had 11 years to get the plants up to the spec they should have been build to. 80% offline.

Texas having a nuclear plant go off line because it wasn't built to federal specs is a laugh. Blaming wind just proved how bad it was.

It all proves you can't do nuclear on the cheap. And since nuclear isn't economic the temptation will always be there to reduce costs.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863331#Comment_119863331

The E.S.B. plan will not produce 3-4 times the power of a nuclear plant and cost at least a third less.

The E.S.B.30 GW offshore plan would only see half of that going to electricity domestic supply and the other half to hydrogen. Taking the U.K. average rolling capacity for offshore that would mean domestic supply would be 6 - 7 GW. The E.S.B. plan, based on the average construction cost of U.K. offshore is €83 Bn. Based on Hornsea1 €120 Bn.

Hinkley, even with all it`s delays (Covid being a major one) will deliver 3.2 GW for €30 Bn. that is €60 Bn for 6-7 GW. Based on the offers Poland received, EDF would cost €33 Bn for 6.6 GW, Westinghouse the same and Korean Power €26.7 Bn. Even the most expensive of those, Hinkley, is €23 Bn. cheaper than the lowest estimate for just the offshore part of the E.S.B. plan. And that doesn`t include the onshore cost of hydrogen production and storage, or even if it would work.

Wind is intermittent and undependable. Installing 5.2 GW onshore last month would not changed that, and even last month it would not have been enough for our needs and would still require imports (most likely nuclear generated) or gas, coal and oil. I presume the storage is in relation to hydrogen which the production off would also eat up electricity.

I do not know where you intend putting these onshore farms that would deliver this 5.2 GW. According to the SEAI two years ago we had 4.2 GW of installed capacity for ALL renewables, so it would take a hell of a lot more turbines to produce 5.2 GW when all the best sites have already been taken.

For your reactors having 90% uptime that half power would only apply if both reactors are off line at the same time.Otherwise it`s 10% and with us having 4.2 GW installed capacity from renewables two years ago you would expect it to at least cover that.

So not only will the E.S.B. plan not produce 3-4 times that of nuclear for a third of the price, it does not even stack up against nuclear for just the construction cost of the offshore section of the plan.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864184#Comment_119864184

So not only will the E.S.B. plan produce 3-4 times that of nuclear for a third of the price

Does this mean you have finally seen the light Charlie?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864305#Comment_119864305

Thanks for that. Corrected, although I don`t believe there is much doubt as to how I see the E.S.B. plan. Financially unviable and economic suicide.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863428#Comment_119863428

For all it`s problem and the construction company going bankrupt in the middle of construction Vogtle 3&4 will go on line next year for a total cost of 30 Bn. for 2.23 GW. 13.45 Bn. per GW.

The E.S.B. plan would provide around 6 - 7 GW for domestic consumption. Best case based on U.K. average offshore construction costs 83 Bn. Based on Hornsea1 120 Bn. At Vogtle`s 13.45 per GW the E.S.B. plan would cost 87.5 Bn. Marginally higher than the best case and much worse than Hornsea1 and for both of those the associated hydrogen costs are not included. Even at the Vogtle price the E.S.B. plan does not make financial sense.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Hinkley, it`s that even with delays and budget overruns it that it still makes much more financial sense than the E.S.B. plan.

When it comes to China building here it would be more to do with our choice than the Chinese not building, but from the recent contract to build Poland`s first nuclear plants given to Westinghouse, the U.S. government seem eager to see more nuclear plants built in Europe. "We welcome the decision by the Government of Poland to select Westinghouse as it`s technology partner for the construction of three U.S. designed nuclear reactors.This agreement will ensure a decades-long strategic energy partnership between the United States and Poland and is a watershed moment in advancing European energy security." Antony J Blinken. Secretary of State. November 2. 2022.

France had years and years of German jibes and German influenced pressure from within the E.U. to follow Germany and scrap nuclear. France may look a bit foolish now for allowing that to influence their upkeep of their plants, but not near a foolish as the German`s look for scrapping theirs. But at least, like the oil crisis,that prompted France to go nuclear originally, they have also learned from this latest one, unlike the German`s, and are now planning on building more nuclear plants.

Japan, much the same. Shut down their programme due to an earthquake and tsunami, but are now working on re-opening plants and ave announced this year that they intend to develop and build next generation nuclear power plants.

When it comes to doing nuclear on the cheap, compared to the E.S.B. plan it`s not something we would have to worry about. We could build two of your worst case example of Hinkley, gold plate them and we would still be financially better off than with the E.S.B. plan.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863331#Comment_119863331

Show the basis for your claims of a third less cost please.

There are a lot of problems with the French nuclear industry and it looks like the decline of it is going to continue but may be slowed if the French government keeps pumping billions of taxpayers money into it

https://youtu.be/pz9r7jZgUFg

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864184#Comment_119864184

Remember we are using your figures for wind, so it's ignoring that wind is getting cheaper in real terms and also ignoring cheaper alternatives like onshore wind.

UK offshore windfarms average 42.2% The ESB's 30 GW would produce 12.6GW. That would be 4 Hinkley-C's. But only if the reactors could hit a magical 98.4% capacity factor ( eg : It would take 32 year of continuous operation to get a 98.4% uptime if you include the six months between initial fuel loading and full commercial operation. )

As nuclear is only used for baseload there is no spare power. In the ESB scheme there is 50% spare power used for hydrogen for all uses. It could displace 7% of the energy of natural gas on the grid. Or for fertilizer etc. Or to decarbonise cement production. Even with a 40% round trip you get an average of 2.4GW which allows multiples of that when peaking is needed.

Hinkley has a guaranteed index linked income stream for 35 years from commercial operation. That's it's unavoidable cost.

Wind and Solar here have a 10 year strike price. As I've explained before, a project delayed here by 3 years will only receive ONE SEVENTH the income stream of Hinkley before it has to compete on price. It's an order of magnitude of difference. And yes while I agree the price for renewables here is double what it is in the UK it means it should come down.

From https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119858138/#Comment_119858138 and https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119171147/#Comment_119171147 most of these especially on the East coast are on shallow sandbanks.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119865257#Comment_119865257

Hinkley-C has a strike price of £92.50/MWh in 2012units so is £119.18 in Sept 2022 = €138.38

Assuming 90% =0.9 capacity factor then the unavoidable minimum cost is got by simply multiplying the hours by the costs.

(138.38 * 3200 *24 *365.25 * 35 * .90 = 122274339264 = €122Bn )

The strike price is guaranteed for 35 years so until 2062 at the earliest. Which means LCOE is completely irrelevant until then.

Note : It might be £3/MWh cheaper if Sizewell is approved, or it might be up to €6.9 /MWh dearer if capacity factor was 95%

€83Bn was given by charlie14 as today's price for 30GW offshore wind. I would expect it to be substantially cheaper by 2030.

I have no idea why you are worried about it costing only a third less since 30GW of offshore wind will produce FOUR time as much electricity as a 3.2GW plant.

FOUR TIMES AS MUCH ENERGY FOR A 50% LOWER UPFRONT COMMITMENT. And you start getting the energy sooner, and you can walk away from the deal after 10 years instead of 35+ years, and refurbishment and decommissioning are way cheaper.

Capt'n Midnight

The current status of the UK's reactors. Out of 18 that should be working hard this winter, only 7 are. That's less than 40% (if you do by GW it's worse)

7 on Nominal full load. ( 3 of these will close forever within 18 months time )

1 Operating at reduced load to conserve fuel

1 Offline for inspection outage forecast Nov 28

1 Offline for boiler tube leak repair forecast 18 Nov

6 Early end of life. EDF are looking for £23.5Bn to clean up 7 AGR's. The NAO reckons taxpayers will have to pay even more.

2 New over 10 years late. A DRAX worth of coal is being burnt to replace this missing capacity.

Nuclear isn't reliable. The next generation is taking too long to build. And it's roadkill in the face of falling renewable and storage costs.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119867477#Comment_119867477

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

So using pricing for a NPP that doesn't exist - again - and which has been criticised for incomprehensibly being the most expensive NPP build ever. Do you sell used cars in RL?

Nuclear power, using the actual real pricing of a recently completed reactor that wasn't a disaster even before construction started, and compared with an actual, recently completed offshore wind farm off Scotland, gives you an actual price differential of 100% - that being offshore wind costing roughly double that of a nuclear power, and that is before even considering the substantial cost of a hydogen based energy storage system that needs to be added on top.

I am not concerned about OS wind being a third cheaper because it isn't, it's double the cost.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119867128#Comment_119867128

We are not using "my figures for wind". I am using the U.K. average rolling capacity for offshore wind and the U.K. average offshore construction cost of 1 Gigawatt, plus the actual construction cost of offshore for Hornsea 1 constructed in 2019.

The ESB`s 30 GW would produce 12.6 GW but only half of that, 6.3 GW, is for domestic use. The other half is for hydrogen production to compensate for the intermittent and unreliability of wind. So that is not 4 Hinkley-C`s, it is 2 Hinkley-C`s as there would be no need for the other 2 because with the mid 90% of nuclear capacity there would be no need for for the other 2. So even using Hinkley with all it`s problems and a long delay due to Covid, two reactors would cost 60 Bn compared to the ESB cost of €83 Bn. (based on the U.K. average offshore construction cost) or €120 Bn. (based on Hornsea 1 construction cost), and both those amounts are just for the offshore construction for the ESB plan. The onshore production and storage costs for hydrogen would be many Billions more.

So even taking the U.K. average construction cost, and ignoring the hydrogen part the ESB plan would cost €23 Bn. more. But why would we build 2 Hinkley`s. Poland has just signed an agreement with Westinghouse for 6 AP1000 reactors providing 6.7 GW for €31.5 Bn, half the price 2 Hinkleys would cost, and over €50 Bn. less than the ESB plan. Korean Power`s bid was for 6 APR1400 reactors supplying 8.7 GW for €26.7 Bn. and EDF`s bid was for 4 reactors supplying 6.6 GW for €33 Bn. or 6 supplying 9.9 GW for €48.5 Bn.

Tailor any of those to suit our needs and all of them are streets ahead of the ESB plan construction costs, and no need for the unknown Billions hydrogen would cost on top. If you are worried about spare power or producing hydrogen for other than storage throw in another reactor and compared to the ESB plan we would still be streets ahead financially, or just use the 4.2 GW capacity from renewables we currently have.

Hinkley has a contract for difference of €81 Bn at today`s prices to supply electricity for 35 years. While we would be spending €83 Bn best case on offshore construction, plus unknown Billions on hydrogen construction costs, and still have to pay for electricity at twice whatever the strike price would be, even at the high price for Hinkley, the U.K. will have recouped that cost and received 35 years of electricity for the same cost. For the next 25 years while we are paying for the a refit of offshore turbines, and at that stage at least one total replacement of all offshore turbines, Hinkley will still be humming away at 90%+ capacity.

There is nothing to indicate here that wind strike prices will come down. The latest for onshore was 33% higher than just 2 years ago and is now the same as U.K. nuclear. Expecting offshore to be lower is pie in the sky. Especially where the ESB plan would result in us paying double whatever the strike price might be.

The ESB plan is so financially unviable when compared to nuclear that it is off the scale by any metric.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119867477#Comment_119867477

You are not getting FOUR TIMES AS MUCH ENERGY FOR A 50% LOWER UPFRONT COMMITMENT.

With the ESB plan what you would be getting for an upfront commitment of €83 Bn. plus the cost of hydrogen, is 6.3 GW for domestic use,and 6.3 GW for hydrogen production due to wind being intermittent and unreliable with an offshore capacity of less than half that of nuclear, where you would be paying double the strike price for the domestic supply. Who else is going to pay for the 6.3 GW hydrogen costs other than the domestic consumer ?

2 Hinkley`s (and there are way more cheaper options than Hinkley) would supply that 6.4 GW for domestic use for 60 Bn. 23 Bn. less than the offshore construction price alone for the ESB plan with no need for the cost of hydrogen production or storage.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119867710#Comment_119867710

It does exist. There's a big hold in Somerset that they've chucked yet another £3Bn into it so far this year.

The missing 3.2GW is coming from coal plants that could have been shut down in 2017.

Yes Hinkley-C is expensive. It's also the cheapest UK nuclear power station this century. The build cost is similar to the ones in France, Finland and the US. The ONLY outlier with Hinkley-C is the LCOE and the information is publicly available.

The UK reckon they could save about £30Bn or a quarter of the cost or whatever by not using contracts for difference. But then gas shot up and interest rates soared and since it takes SIX times (nuclear fanboy figures) as much financial commitment as renewables I can't see how even saving 50% on the cost makes it look any less insanely expensive for such a fickle power source.

Please provide us with the actual real pricing. No the bait and switch price, not the half completed price.

And then explain why the UK or anyone in Western Europe or the US isn't buying at that price.

You will then have to handwave the corruption and delays and quality issues that will come back to bite like they have done on previous generations, and the decommissioning costs and other hidden costs.

Compared to nuclear storage is cheap. If we only had the Corrib Field and what the Dutch have stored today, we'd have enough gas to keep us going until 2026. And besides nuclear is inflexible and less useful than a chocolate teapot for daily or seasonal demand variation.

(Ireland used 58.7 TWh of gas in 2020. vs The Netherlands' natural gas storage was 127.38 TWh in October, Corrib providing 30% of demand)

Markcheese

https://www.energyintel.com/00000180-f7a8-d67b-a3cd-f7faad650000

I assume they're anti-nuclear to start , but it makes an interesting read , and the stats on life span and intrest costs are kind of eye opening

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945002#Comment_119945002

Q: In his recent Q&A, MIT’s Professor Shirvan asserted that “we know historic nuclear power plants can operate safely to 80 years” and that in operating costs, or once their capital costs are paid off, they become competitive “with any source of electricity.” Do you think that’s possible now, and if not now, could it be possible for a new reactor in another 20 years for a reactor built today?

A: The world’s two longest-running power reactors, Beznau-1 in Switzerland and Nine Mile Point-1 in the US, are only in their 53rd year, so 80 is speculative. NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] just suspended prior perfunctory license extensions from 60 years to 80 and will re-examine "aging management programs." In 2022, would you count on a 1942 car, however expertly maintained and refurbished? Can a reactor even run reliably and economically for 60 years? A chronic control rod drive seal leak closed Palisades 11 days early at age 51. The 40 US units closed by mid-2021 — 30% of total nuclear grid connections — averaged 22 years, and only eight had reached 40; the six closed in 2016–20 averaged 46 but were licensed for 60; and many if not most operating reactors cost more to run than they can earn in competitive markets.

Holy frikkin crap, I knew it was bad for early closures but I didn't realise how bad

Markcheese

Plus you've got to add in the billions that refurbishments costs , and then the ridiculous de-,commissioning cost .

But the biggest killer is intrest rates , if someone else pays the intrest ( like a state) then it's all fine ,

But if its gonna take 35 years of production to get to break even ..and by 30 you're already spending extra billions ,and wondering wether that's worth it ..

Intrest rates are critical to any infrastructure project , the long build time and ridiculous long pay back time for nuclear make it even more so