Ireland needs to invest in a modern Nuclear Power Plant?

Capt'n Midnight · 05-10-2022 1:05am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702286#Comment_119702286

Looks like this one @ 17:00 and refers to 2050 providing electricity AND using it for heating AND transport. (Replacing both gas and oil , and fertilizer production and exporting etc. etc.) the longer timeframe and greater scope explains the order of magnitude more renewables.

Very simply it's us meeting our 2030 target and then keeping on adding renewables at the same rate for another 20 years.

https://www.engineersireland.ie/Resources/Engineers-TV/esb-energy-storage-and-hydrogen-for-net-zero-carbon

21TWh storage is half the Rough Gas Storage Facility, so yes would need to be higher pressure and/or larger volume to accommodate hydrogen. But only about 50% larger as has a third the energy density of methane. Or using more storage facilities.

The outputs are 106TWh so 12GW on average so 8GW won't be anywhere near enough you'd need at least twice that = 16GW. Renewables will be falling in price by 5-7% at each global capacity doubling from economies of scale.

At £92.50/MWh and an average output at 90% of maximum capacity, Hinkley C will earn £81bn over 35 years

That was in 2016 and build costs have shot up, there's been years of delays during which imported fuel was burnt and the price has now reached £118.59/MWh (August '22) by the magic of CPI. The earning in today's money are £103.84Bn for 3.2GW that can fall off the grid without warning. (by my reckoning that means 16GW of nuclear would need to be supported by earnings of £519Bn , not counting any other grid costs)

€85Bn for wind looks cheap by comparison, even if you add a scaremongering 1c maintenance and €10-20% refurbish costs at 20 years

cnocbui · 05-10-2022 1:26am

Hinkley hasn't been built. I used a recently built plant for the costing. We have nothing further to discuss.

Oh, and since you think that maintainance cost is BS I cherry picked or made up:

https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/operation-and-maintenance-costs-of-wind-generated-power.html

I believe the maintainace costs are also mentioned in the ESB video. You can't win this one or spin in it into not existing.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-10-2022 6:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119702736#Comment_119702736

The link you posted refers to 1997-2001 for 0.6MW turbines. Ancient history. And at 0.7c way under your earlier figures.

The fact that Hinkley hasn't been built proves that nuclear has no role in our 2030 requirements. There will be further delays and cost increases as sure as night follows day.

Over a period of 35 years wind will cost €85Bn to install (your figures) + 1c per unit maintenance to run (your figures, for a small turbine from 20 years ago) + max €17bn for mid life refurb (20% if they replace all the gubbins) In reality I expect the costs to be a lot lower.

Nuclear will cost £519Bn over the same period. Index linked guarantee means there is no way to reduce that cost.

Tony EH · 05-10-2022 11:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119659468#Comment_119659468

So in 25 years we'll have our first nuclear reactor.

And in 26 our first nuclear disaster.

xxxxxxl · 05-10-2022 11:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707005#Comment_119707005

cool maybe my bad but not sure if it would pass either. fission splitting Fusion combining. Would the legal person argue a difference. And would TD's understand the difference or a lay person.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 2:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119706971#Comment_119706971

In that case we should play around with thousands of tons of hydrogen instead, right? Because that's far safer for a nation of clumsy, technical incompetents to be messing with.

xxxxxxl · 06-10-2022 3:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119707184#Comment_119707184

I'm a blow in as stated on other threads. I have not come across any other nation this cynical in their own abilities. You would swear the entire electricity grid is duct taped. Yes Ireland has huge issues with overspending. We all know this but stuff built tends to work. As far as i know Irish Engineers are sought far and wide for their expertise. Mind boggles sometimes me looking in. 🤔

Bass Reeves · 06-10-2022 9:50am

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/1005/1327373-shortfall-in-electricity-supply-has-worsened-eirgrid/

And while Nero fiddled Rome burned

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 2:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119705702#Comment_119705702

If you use actual figures for offshore wind projects that have recently been completed, like East Anglia One (2020), off Scotland. and actual figures for NPPs that have actualy been completed, like Barakah in the UAE, then 30 GW of offshore wind will cost:

£105 Billion

Compared to 15 GW of nuclear costing:

£51.46 Billion

Since a Korean built NPP will have capacity factor at least double that of OSW, you only need half the capacity.

Then there is the life expectancy difference where East Anglia one will last 27 years while Barakah will last 60. So that yawning chasm of of £53.54 difference in cost becomes £107 Billion over 60 years.

Of course one thing is missing from this massive cost difference based on actual, recently completed projects, not your steaming pile of made up horse shit, and that is the intermittency of wind means it's not suitable as a provider of base load power, so if you want to compare it to a constantly reliable base load source like nuclear, you need an additional layer of costs for energy storage, which the ESB is aiming mostly at hydrogen, but they say the storage requirement is so vast, in order to meet a 6 week wind lull - which is documented in the video, that they will need to use every storage tech there is - the sound of desperation in the video is palpable.

So in addition to that massive cost difference, you have to add the cost of multiple storage technologies like H2, compressed air and flywheels and very expensive batteries.

Nobody knows what that gnarly mess of multiple systems will cost, but it will add billions to the cost difference.

Of course you need backup for the 3.5% downtime with a Korean built NPP, so if you assume you build 8 GW of gas turbine power plants from scratch (current demand on the Irish grid is 5 GW) then that will cost £5.97 Billion for the most gold plated system imaginable, bringing the cost difference down to £101 Billion.

Hinkley is not a yardstick for anything. There are 437 nuclear reactors world wide, Hinkly is as much of a UK disaster as Brexit and it hasn't been built. It's projected costs would make it the most expensive NPP ever built. Only a knuckle dragging idiot would seek to emulate that mess.

The South Koreans have built nuclear reactors in 4.5 years, the longest they have taken is 10 years, which is how long it took them to build all four reactors at Barrakah NPP - it took 8 years to build the first one before it was switched on.

Your lying nonsense about £519Bn costs and other people's 25 years to build is just epic dishonesty.

end of the road · 06-10-2022 3:00pm

whatever way we look at it, renewables cost a fraction of the cost of nuclear by all cost metrics and they back each other up.

not a chance will that reactor that is claimed will last 60 years, actually last 60 years because of the variables involved. 40 years maybe at a stretch but more likely 30 in reality.

and we are talking about countries with different construction standards compared to the west, + often unreliable designs that aren't proven in service yet, hay even the french are having that specific issue.

forget about it, nuclear is not viable for ireland and will never pass any bcr.

TheWonderLlama · 06-10-2022 3:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119701398#Comment_119701398

Dunno man,

i think i'd prefer my new nuclear plants to be built by people who were not found to have faked safety tests on critical parts of the machinery. Maybe thats just me, though.

How is it a scare tactic to point out something that has actually happened? Its a fact.

You were the one suggesting the South koreans as the gold standard of plant builders. I'm just saying they might not be all that.

Nuclear is not a runner for a country of this size.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 4:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119709215#Comment_119709215

Slovenia and Croatia have a combined population of 6m and they have a small shared nuclear power plant.

It's a scare tactic because the problem was addressed and fixed and it happened years ago and there isn't the slightest indication that it's a problem now.

The UAE have just had SK build 4 nuclear reactors for them and the UK may well follow suit. Egypt just signed a contract to have SK build part of itt's NPP. And now the UK:

U.K. in Talks With South Korea to Build Nuclear Power Plants

It seems other countries do not share your concerns. VW falsified emissions data for diesels yet here we are with lots of people still happy to buy and drive filthy diesels.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 4:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119709161#Comment_119709161

Whatever way you look at it, you trot out claims about comparative costs without a single figure or link to back them up. Renewables do not back each other up, that is lie. Last year there was a 6 week period with essentially no wind in Ireland. It sure wasn't backed up by solar - gas, coal, oil and peat are what backed up renewables.

The Swiss Beznau nuclear poper plant was built in 1969 and is still running. That's 53, years, since you seem to have a problem with figures. Your '40 years at a stretch' just became 53 - duh!. More BS from you.

Technology in many areas has improved in the last half century, so anything built now will have that advantage, so 60 years should be easily achievable. By the same token, I can as easily claim that 27 years for EAO is BS because the normaly accepted figure is 20.

The French are having a corrosion problem after 30+ years of continual zero CO2 energy output. That's like saying my 2005 Honda is unreliable because after 16 years, it had to have the front shocks replaced by a garage - that being the only time in 16 years it's ever been in a garage.

Can you explain why the new president of the Irish Institution of Engineers said Nuclear should be looked at as an option and that there should be a debate about it?

Would that be because engineers don't have as much of a clue as you? Are you more qualified, if so, how?

end of the road · 06-10-2022 6:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119709471#Comment_119709471

vw is a proven, reliable car maker, so why the diesel scandle was a serious issue and rightly dealt with, it's not a comparison to nuclear which is proven to not be reliable dispite the costs.

end of the road · 06-10-2022 6:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119709590#Comment_119709590

renewables will eventually back each other up when implemented at scale at a fraction of the cost, the costs being shown to you in the infrastructure threads which i linked to in one of my posts for the delictation of the members of the urrent affairs forum.

the swiss plant was life extended at great cost, it was supposed to last only 35 years.

nuclear's costs are increasing and the reliability isn't improving, the construction methods are but even then it's small scale in reality.

the president of the irish institution of engineers is expressing a viewpoint, from an engineering point of view as they love big projects, that's their job after all to like big and bold.

nuclear isn't going to happen, the debate has been had and people don't want it near them as a best case, and as a worst case the cost is out of control and could be better spent on alternatives that would be a fraction of the cost and give us more output.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-10-2022 6:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119708973#Comment_119708973

I'm using the figures from Hinkley-C because the UK is very similar to us except they've been in the market for 6-8 power plants since 2010 and have decades of experience with nuclear power and have a much larger grid that can cope with one nuclear plant going offline.

Let's completely ignore the capital cost of Hinkley-C and the costs of subsiding it on the grid and just look at how much they will charge for the electricity.

It's a 3.2GW reactor with a forecast uptime of 90% so 2,880MW average. It's got a guaranteed strike price and guaranteed demand for 35 years at £92.50 per MWh. There's 8766 hours in an average year. NB the strike price is Consumer Price Index linked from 2012. (If a second power plant is built there's a £3 volume discount).0

the

2880*8766*35*92.5 = 81734184000

2880MW*8766hours/year*35years*£92.5/MWhours = £81,734,184,000 in 2012 = £104,785,804.51 in August 2022

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator for CPI rates.

One hundred billion pounds gets you a lot of renewables.

ONE of the storage facilities in the UK was able to hold our annual demand of gas. They shut it down to save £75 million a year when it would take 40 years of such savings to pay for Hinkley-C's cost increases in the first half of this year. Other European countries like Italy and Germany can store 30% of their annual gas demand.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 7:02pm

Hinkly C doesn't have a cost because it hasn't been built, so its incomparable to anything. Your endless nonsense has run out of steam.

Not only have the ESB floated their vision of what's needed for renewables to deliver net zero CO2, but they have demonstrated it's not achievable in anything like the time scale current plans call for but the numbers are so vast, the cost of it all is clearly going to be preposterous and well beyond this countries means to afford.

The head of the Irish institute of engineers has said we need to look at nuclear and now William Reville, emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC has come out saying the same thing.

All we need is a few more loud voices and the government are going to have to deep six this renewables sham/scam.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 7:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710075#Comment_119710075

You lie.

Nuclear Power is the Most Reliable Energy Source and It's Not Even Close

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close

end of the road · 06-10-2022 7:07pm

no government is going to look at nuclear unless the costs come down by 3 quarters at least and the reliability improves hugely.

renewables aren't a scam as they are proven to work, are proven to be cheap and reliable while nuclear on the other hand is a technology from a different era that was being passed by by newer technologies from not long after it's conception.

as i said, regardless of loud voices, it won't be happening because it makes no sense in any form by any metrics for ireland.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-10-2022 7:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119709590#Comment_119709590

I keep telling you. There is no nuclear tech. It's all been done before specially by highly motivated people during the cold war. The Russians are still flying to the ISS using a rocket based on a 1957 missile. If progress was universal as you suggest it should have been retired in the early 1970's. Nuclear has had 70 years at scale and in the last 40 years we've been offered next generation rectors which will use 15% less fuel but at an insane capital cost.

The Swiss had another plant that they built in a cave. That cave is now sealed.

The French reactors being given a life extension is like the DOE passing most of the taxis when they have leaky radiators and then wondering why all the taxis are off the road when their engines are overheating.

Aside you can pass the NCT with both of your shocks gone, as long as there isn't an imbalance. You can then get them done later during normal servicing.

This isn't like that. It's more like if your engine overheats and seizes up and you'll be stuck at the side of the road then and there and your 2005 Honda will be beyond economic repair. At best you'd have to drive very slowly until you get the radiator sorted. And there's a limited supply of mechanics and radiators. And you are bleeding money because your taxi isn't earning.

cnocbui · 06-10-2022 7:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710214#Comment_119710214

I wasn't talking about nuclear specific tech, but just tech in general, in particular material sciences and advances in corrosion control and alloys. Stuff such as this: https://phys.org/news/2021-12-nuclear-shadow-corrosion-lab-paving.html

Your belief that material science hasn't progressed in 50 years is typical.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-10-2022 7:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710287#Comment_119710287

Solutions to a 55-year-old problem in boiling water reactors—which represent a third of nuclear power reactors in the United States—are on the way now that the problem has been emulated with ion beams.

A 55 year old problem and there's no solution yet ? Even if there is a technical solution is found it may not be possible to retrofit existing reactors or it may be too expensive or limit thermal efficiency in new ones.

Or they may well find that there isn't a solution other than limiting operational hours. That's how the aircraft industry has been handling metal fatigue since the mid 1950's.

Corrosion costs several % of global GDP, it's not a trivial problem.

Bass Reeves · 06-10-2022 8:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710075#Comment_119710075

No VW is not a proven reliable car. It's a marquee brand that is popular with certain drivers. But they are far from reliable. They give a good bit of trouble and ate expensive to repair.

Like Nuclear you know f@@kall about cars either.

joseywhales · 06-10-2022 8:26pm

Am I to believe that wind turbines are a more advanced technology than controlled nuclear fission? Just because it was developed decades ago doesn't mean it's less advanced. It's like contending that the Uber app is more advanced than stem cell research.

end of the road · 06-10-2022 8:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710476#Comment_119710476

of course i do, i wouldn't be posting if i didn't.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-10-2022 11:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119710532#Comment_119710532

All the low hanging fruit in nuclear was picked decades ago. The best CCGT power stations can get twice as much electricity per thermal Watt as an average nuclear plant can. Output temperatures and hence nuclear efficiency are limited by phase changes in the fuel, temperatures at which cladding reacts with CO2 , usage of two heat exchangers etc. Nuclear can't benefit from a lot of new materials because of the bath of radiation destroys materials, no plastics and limits on what you can put in alloys.

Wind and nuclear can benefit from bigger is better, but larger nuclear reactors can't be built faster. And no one is saying small modular turbines can compete with the latest ones. Doubling the height of a turbine means it can collect wind from 4 times the area, and most of that wind will be faster too. (The limit is air gets thinner higher up, but a while to go yet) Doubling the volume of a reactor only doubles the power.

Wind turbines are still benefiting from installers learning new tricks to speed things up, whereas nuclear is still mired in delays.

If you optimise wind turbines so they don't block their neighbours - the system achieved a 1.2 percent increase in energy output at all wind speeds, and a 3 percent increase at speeds between 6 and 8 meters per second - and it can be applied to existing wind farms.

knipex · 27-10-2022 10:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119697945#Comment_119697945

Did the state commission, build or project manage those apartments ??

Are they public infrastructure ??

Overheal · 28-10-2022 1:34am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119711143#Comment_119711143

Doubling the height of a turbine means it can collect wind from 4 times the area, and most of that wind will be faster too. (The limit is air gets thinner higher up, but a while to go yet) Doubling the volume of a reactor only doubles the power.

Wind turbines are still benefiting from installers learning new tricks to speed things up, whereas nuclear is still mired in delays.

If you optimise wind turbines so they don't block their neighbours - the system achieved a 1.2 percent increase in energy output at all wind speeds, and a 3 percent increase at speeds between 6 and 8 meters per second - and it can be applied to existing wind farms.

Oh my yes I've had to contemplate writing an optimization alg. for wind turbine placement. There's a folder of literature in here somewhere all about heights and drag and turbulence shared between turbines.

Another thing about maximum size not just from material or mechanical engineering concerns is the windstream changes, for a very large blade the bottom tips windspeeds could be appreciably lower than the highest point against the turbine and then trouble can brew.

xxxxxxl · 28-10-2022 1:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119802730#Comment_119802730

Ofc High wind speed or even sustained lower speed can pressure the materials into failure. One of the big issues Greens don't know about or don't mention in Blade wear. Now I know a solution has been kind of found using a replaceable material on the blade edges. But that's clearly not carbon efficient.