Nuclear - future for Ireland?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385977#Comment_119385977

What is it with greens where all the builds they want will have no problem with planning or being completed on the exact date they give while making exaggerated guesses on any other alternatives ?

I gave a very conservative estimate of the cost of both on and off shore wind turbines of 40 Billion where interests rates as low as 2% and depreciation will cost 2.6 billion a year and that is not even including maintenance. You won`t get much bigger than that.... but unfortunately you more than likely will as off shore turbines are unlikely to last for 25 years and the maintenance costs will not be cheap either. So far other than a lot of bluster I have seen nobody come up with the final cost or a timeline for these off shore turbines as too a completion date. But then in the ideological green universe none of that matters..... unless it`s for something that doesn`t suit the ideology agenda.

If nuclear is such a waste of time and money compared to wind, then it has not put the U.K. off building more, or the French or a host of other countries either. It really is amazing that all these countries can not see what our homegrown greens can.

Why do you think those countries are building nuclear plants, with many more having recently expanded or are intending to expand their capacity ?

A look at my earlier post in relation to Germany and the colossal money they have invested for both on and off shore and their returns from that compared to France and their returns might help. It`s not difficult to see why France are planning to add more nuclear plants rather than doing like Germany going with unreliable wind now really is it ?

gjim

"I gave a very conservative estimate of the cost of both on and off shore wind turbines of 40 Billion where interests rates as low as 2% and depreciation will cost 2.6 billion a year and that is not even including maintenance. You won`t get much bigger than that.... but unfortunately you more than likely will as off shore turbines are unlikely to last for 25 years and the maintenance costs will not be cheap either. So far other than a lot of bluster I have seen nobody come up with the final cost or a timeline for these off shore turbines as too a completion date. But then in the ideological green universe none of that matters..... unless it`s for something that doesn`t suit the ideology agenda."

Doing all these sums just shows that you don't understand how new generation capacity is costed or financed in Ireland or in any liberalised electricity market. It's like you've missed out on the last 20 or 30 years since the structure of European and US markets has changed completely.

"If nuclear is such a waste of time and money compared to wind, then it has not put the U.K. off building more, or the French or a host of other countries either. It really is amazing that all these countries can not see what our homegrown greens can."

Your list is actually tiny in terms of the scale of global generation capacity and in terms of end-of-life reactor closures. Net global growth in nuclear power capacity is more or less zero or slightly negative - global capacity in 2021 was 389GW - in 2016 it was 390GW.

Meanwhile in 2020 - in a SINGLE year, 260GW of renewable capacity (wind and solar) was added globally. Versus 0.5GW of nuclear.

And this has nothing to do with Irish greens, it's a global trend replicated across countries with vastly different political leanings and is driven simply by financial concerns and supported by improved grid management engineering and techniques.

Nuclear's golden period was in the 1980s. Since 1990, only 70GW net capacity has been added globally in 3 decades. This is a growth rate of about 0.6% per year. During this period, global electricity consumption has grown by about 3% a year.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386560#Comment_119386560

Your numbers peaked my curiosity so I did some digging and you're spot on with your assessment

The divide is growing rapidly too

Sam Russell

I would like clarification.

Since wind and solar is intermittent, does installed capacity take tis into account?

In other words, wind installed power might be 10GW but is unlikely to achieve anything like that on average over a year.

Again, solar is not available at night, and is not very good in winter compared to summer, and not so good with cloud cover than in bright sunshine.

gjim

Actually yes DaCor, probably better to use energy rather than power to show the trends for nuclear electricity.

As an aside, the historical graph for nuclear would be a lot worse if it wasn't for China - where decisions on technology investment are made centrally by bureaucratic decree instead of being driven by market forces like they are in the liberalised markets of the US and Europe.

The entire "uptick" between 2010 and 2020 can be attributed to a Chinese political decision.

Interesting to note that until the mid 1990s, renewables and nuclear provided roughly the same amount of energy globally. These days, renewable energy dwarfs nuclear by about a factor of 3. And this gap is going to grow given the respective rates of global capacity additions each year.

Wind alone alone is likely to surpass nuclear in terms of energy generated in the next 2 years. This is from a standing start of almost zero in 2000 - giving nuclear 50 years headstart. And solar PV energy generated is only lagging wind by 4 years.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386560#Comment_119386560

Just more bluster without about nuclear and still nothing on how much these off-shore turbines will cost or how long it will be before they are completed when strangely greens seem to know exactly how much a nuclear plant would cost and how long it would take to build.

As I said, my estimate on cost of what it would cost was very conservatively based on what Germany has spent to date and what we have seen on the unreliability of wind generation. Very conservative when you consider how much lower Germany`s input from wind is compared to ours, but nevertheless, even at that low estimate or how you finance it the depreciation alone, even accepting that those turbines will have the same lifetime as those on-shore of 25 years (something I greatly doubt) straight line depreciation year on year for their lifetime on 40 Billion is 1.6 billion a year. With interest rates rising being extremely generous on interest at 2%. that adds a further 1 Billion a year. That is now a total of 2.6 Billion a year, and as I said, none of that includes maintenance costs.

If you see that as incorrect, then along with how much those turbines will cost, (and still leave us at the mercy of intermittent unreliable wind), how long it will take to have them in place, how much depreciation will be year on year, the yearly interest charge on borrowed money, and the yearly maintenance costs, then rather than all this vagueness show me your figures.

The very awkward elephant in the room for greens on nuclear is the eye watering money spent by Germany on wind for a return of 20.1% electricity generated compared to France with 70% from nuclear, and France having 54% less per capita CO2 emissions than Germany.

Speaking of costs, is there any updated info on the costs of dealing with nuke waste over a multi-millennial timeframe?

Can't be cheap whatever it is

Markcheese

Offshore wind depends on the type , fixed or floating , the depth of water they're operating in , and then access to the grid -

Best indication of costs would be the UK schemes ,but their development costs tend to be lower than ours , (but thats across the board .. so would affect nuclear too ,)

https://www.edie.net/uk-government-halves-offshore-wind-cost-forecasts/

That's just the first thing from a Google search ..

An offshore wind project would typically take 6 to 10 years from start of planning to comissioning , again UK figure from a Google search ...

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386772#Comment_119386772

Instillation capacity is the maximum output of electricity that a generator can produce. The average capacity is what it produced.

In Ireland (the latest I could find) for 2015 on-shore wind generation average capacity for the year was 32.3%. Cnocbui recently posted the average capacity for U.K off-shore turbines of 42.2%.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386934#Comment_119386934

Why are you repeating this cost of wind calculation to me? You're not even wrong.

It's completely irrelevant in todays markets - it might have been vaguely relevant 20 or 30 years ago before electricity generation was liberalised - capacity is now added using public competitive auction by private investors on the basis of a guarantee in terms of cost per MWh for a given period (up to a maximum of 16 years under RESS1). These prices are published and are well known.

It's like you're insisting on arguing about which of Tescos or Dunnes have the best value milk on the basis of studying their accounts, head-count, property values, supply chains, finances, discount rates. None of it matters - you just look at the price per pint they show on their shelves.

These numbers are available to you if you want - specific numbers for example for on-shore wind in Ireland are published in the auction results while global aggregates and averages are published by research houses in the form of metics like LCOE and LACE. In other words, you don't have to make up these numbers or make assumptions when the actual and real data is readily available if you're prepared to look. I'm wondering if that's your problem - the actual and real data for the cost of a MWh of nuclear electricity are dreadful - which is why it's a dying industry.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386772#Comment_119386772

Yeah - in my first response I used max power - lazily known as "capacity" to compare the global growth of nuclear 0.5GW in 2020 vs 260GW of renewables.

But to determine the actual value of these additions in terms of providing energy you need to multiply them by the respective capacity factors. The capacity factor for nuclear is high - say over 80% - while that for renewables is generally much lower - around 35% for on-shore wind for example. So in terms of actual energy produced, 1GW of nuclear will provide the same amount of energy to the grid in a year as 2.3GW of on-shore wind.

DaCor's graphs are clearer as they measure actual energy, not some theoretical maximum power output. So you don't need to do the mental capacity factor adjustment to compare the actual impact of the respective generation facilities in terms of energy delivered into the grid.

But you can also see that even multiplying the 0.5GW of 2020 additional nuclear "capacity" by an overly-generous factor of 3 to balance the differences in capacity factors, still means that the NEW renewable capacity added in 2020 will deliver over 150 times as much electricity than the new nuclear in a typical year.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119383931#Comment_119383931

Stats from the horses mouth https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source

Right now France is burning gas and importing electricity because the old nuclear plants aren't reliable and the new nuclear plants are over a decade late.

56 nuclear plants with 64GW total output. Peak today was 23.6GW which is 36.875% which is 3.5% (ie a little) over a third of installed capacity. If 5 have maintenance then there should still be 91% online and France shouldn't be importing like they've been doing consistently for weeks now Today isn't so bad as they have a bit of wind but still had a peak of 8GW of imports today.

Nuclear is reliable in theory, or if you look at long averages or if you cherry pick. But it is not a reliable source. Plants can drop off the grid without warning or scheduled outage can drag on and on.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387331#Comment_119387331

Installed capacity is the total capacity capable from a generating source. The average generating capacity is the actual capacity of an energy generating source over a given time, normally a year. Nuclear beats wind, solar and hydro up a stick on average generation capacity because none of those are a reliable source. We saw that here and all over Europe last year where France`s nuclear generation was just 2% lower than 2020. Our renewable generated electricity was 7% lower. Down from 42% to 35% due to wind generation being 15.8% lower and hydro 19.6%. Source SEAI 2022 interim report.

Frances nuclear electricity generation has been over 70% for the last 31 years only dropping to 69% last year.

Did you actually look at that link you posted ?

08.00 nuclear was supplying 60%. 12.00, 50%, 17.00, 50% and at 23.30 57%. For high peak times with plants off line for maintenance that is still high percentages, and much greater than our percentages from renewables I imagine at those times.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386335#Comment_119386335

If nuclear is such a waste of time and money compared to wind, then it has not put the U.K. off building more, or the French or a host of other countries either. It really is amazing that all these countries can not see what our homegrown greens can.

Back in the 1980's there were hundreds of reactors under construction. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl scared off a lot of people. Your table shows numbers under construction are at 2010 levels and many started a decade ago.

From https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html

Nuclear power provides 10.1% of global electricity. Incandescent bulbs used to use 14% of global electricity. In the grand scheme of things the switch to energy efficient lighting contributed to security of supply more than nuclear.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387312#Comment_119387312

You were doubting my estimates of the cost of these off-shore wind farms of how much they will cost to put in place and how long it will take to bring us, along with those we already have on-shore, to get to this magical 100% from an intermittent unreliable source, yet when asked for your own figures you are again running around the place seemingly attempting to avoid answering.

If you don`t know then fair enough say so. If you do then post them. It`s simple enough either way.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119384515#Comment_119384515

French Nuclear will be playing a big role in keeping the lights on here when that interconnector to France gets built

Markcheese

https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/producing-a-climate-friendly-energy/nuclear-energy/edf-unique-expertise-in-nuclear-power-creation/management-of-radioactive-waste#:~:text=Built%20on%20the%20boundary%20between,environment%2C%20embedded%20in%20impermeable%20claystone.

It's expected to open in 2035 .. I assume the plan after building is to seal it up and feic off , a bit like the Finnish one ,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository

I think the estimated cost of the Finnish one is 3 5 billion euros , so in the scale of nuclear small change ..

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387560#Comment_119387560

The other way is true too , Irish offshore wind is capped at around 7 or 8 hundred mw , which is about the level the inter- connector can handle ,

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387523#Comment_119387523

You need to check what I posted. It does not show "many started a decade ago". The construction starting dates are from this year, 2022 up until 2027.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388034#Comment_119388034

So completion dates will be around 2045-2050?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387560#Comment_119387560

Yeah, strange that nuclear for greens is the Devils dandruff but whatever magic that is in these interconnectors, same as LNG once, you run nuclear through an interconnector it comes out the other side clean as a whistle. Magic yokes those interconnectors.

That interconnector will not be in operation until 2027, and as things look now with the shortage in Europe due to so many countries following Germany on Putin`s gas, I would not bet the house on a lot flowing through it even by 2027. Especially not when we would most need it during peak times or during a severe Winter. In the meantime it might be an idea to do something about our own energy security, but the Irish Green Party, due to hypocritical ideology are determined to block that any way they can.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119387551#Comment_119387551

It's like you're just not reading any of the replies at all. You don't need to do "estimates", I don't need to do "estimates", nobody need to argue about which "estimates" are better than others.

The ACTUAL numbers are out there, if you are actually interested in the subject. Nobody gives a fiddler's about "estimates", what's matters are the prices we can ACTUALLY OBSERVE in the real markets.

For example, the most recent auction in the UK established a price for offshore wind for £37.35 per MWh guaranteed for 15 years. In contrast electricity from Hinckley C will cost £106 per MWh indexed linked (rising with inflation) for 35 years. This is the REALITY of current day electricity generation technology and prices.

These numbers are simple, basic, verifiable facts. You're "estimates" have none of these properties, and so are worthless as a basis in a debate on the costs of different forms of electricity generation technology.

josip

I often wonder, "how did the UK get to this point, where billions of pounds have been sunk into a project that seems less and less appealing with every year that passes?"

This Guardian article from a few years ago attempts to answer that.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388062#Comment_119388062

In the green fantasy world perhaps, but in the real world.

But seeing as you have ignored that already on another thread I do not expect much different here.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388332#Comment_119388332

Short answer. While hand waving away the cost or time required to reach a point of 100% self sufficiency from an intermittent unreliable energy source like wind, you have no idea on either. Fair enough, but you could have saved us both the time and effort just acknowledging that when first asked.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388439#Comment_119388439

Holy crap that article certainly is an eye-opener

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386934#Comment_119386934

The actual costs of offshore wind projects is near impossible to find. This can't be by accident.

After considerable time spent scouring many links, I finally did find a costing for the newly commissioned East Anglia One wind farm, that likely someone let slip: https://www.scottishpowerrenewables.com/pages/east_anglia_one.aspx

£2.5 Bn for 714 MW of capacity. That works out to be £3.5 Bn per GW.

If the Barakh nuclear plant in the UAE, with a capacty of 5380 MW, were constructed at UK Offshore wind costs, represented by the recently commissioned EAO, then it would have cost £18.84 Bn to build. Wikipedia has the cost at £20.33 Bn, but I have seen a civil engineering site state it is £26.66 Bn. This higher figure appears to include the cost of 30 years worth of fuel and operation.

But hang on, EAO only has a capacity factor of 47% - with that 'only' being exceptional in offshore wind terms. Nuclear in South Korea using mostly the same APR1400 reactor models as Barakh, has a Capacity factor of almost exactly double that of EAO - 96.4% - So what say we plug that missing 47% with the cost of the gas required to generate 2528 MW, per hour, for 60 years - the lifespan of Barakh. That's a lot of gas and CO2 from a supposedly clean windfarm who's true costs are ultimately way higher than nuclear.

Or to be simpler, we could just pretend that having two 5380 MW offshore wind farms and a magic wand, we could make the wind blow at the second farm, the other 47% of the time the wind isn't blowing at the first - this gives you an offshore wind powered grid, with almost the same capacity factor as generating that same amount of power with a korean design/built nuclear power plant - the slight snag being it's cost you £37.6 Bn to build - 2*18.84 - compared to £20.33/26.66 Bn - whichever costing is the fairer to pick.

Offshore wind costs more to build than nuclear, factoring the 100% difference in capacity factors. Obviously the magic wand doesn't exist but it's a fair way to guage the real cost. If you don't like that reasoning, by all means get back to me with your research on the cost of the 60 years worth of gas burning.

Oh yes, the 60 years bit. I haven't even touched on the far shorter lifespans of offshore wind infrastructure vs nuclear, even though doing so would increase the comparative cost of offshore wind even further.

Guess what, the IEA agree that offshore costs more than nuclear:

https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020

Their estimate for the cost 1MWH of nuclear in Europe is $71 and for offshore wind, $90.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390452#Comment_119390452

You have the whackiest way of doing sums lol, its honestly funny

"Comparing apples to oranges" doesn't even come close to describing how whacky your methods are

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390504#Comment_119390504

Would you have link to dump for that?

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119388034#Comment_119388034

Here's the source for the image you posted https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx at the bottom of the table it clearly says

† Latest announced/estimated year of grid connection.

Note: units where construction is currently suspended are omitted from the above Table.

Last reactor on the list is the second Hinkley C one, listed as 2028. The UK started the project to build the plants in 2011. Hitachi bought out the company that won the bid for 6 of them in 2012 - have a read of the article if you want a long list of nuclear power companies that haven't delivered much since, mostly because they are no longer in the business of nuclear power.