Nuclear power in Ireland

s7ryf3925pivug · 04-05-2019 04:47AM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There's a 300MW project in he pipeline for NI.

And a similar sized pumped storage scheme using an old mine down in the Silvermines.

There's a research station in Galway bay , because the waves there are a third the size of out in the Atlantic.

But yeah, let's scrap all of the above and spend the next 15-20 years fighting the environmentalists and NIMBYS while funding a Nuke that won't be on time or on budget.

Seriously look at how long the Apple datacentre was held up by someone who lived a hundred miles away and AFAIK whose only interest was to blackmail them into using his site.

Tidal energy has the benefit over wind and solar that it is a reliable source, and therefore it actually could replace Moneypoint as things are now. our islandness means we could generate a similar or greater quantity than moneypoint can.

However I don't think it is being considered as a replacement. I read that the options being looked at are biomass and nuclear. Since nuclear is illegal and would be obstructed even if not then the biomass one is most likely. Biomass is carbon neutral if done right, but emits a lot of particulate, which has a major health impact.

Does anyone know why tidal power is not being looked at then? If not then perhaps it should be suggested?

freshpopcorn · 04-05-2019 06:26AM

Can I be safety inspector?

bob mcbob · 04-05-2019 01:05PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

ALL of the evidence says NO.

The Canadians were using thorium in the Zeep reactor in 1946/7 It's not new technology. The nuclear physics is very similar to that used to make plutonium during WWII.

The laws of physics haven't changed much since.

Also in the 70 years since.
No one has used molten salt reactors for anything other than research.
Multiple full size thorium reactors have been built and shut down. One power plant was converted to gas. And the US downblended all it's U233.
( submarine reactors aren't remotely commercial )

And no one's built a commercial plutonium breeder power reactor yet. And we've been building them since 1944. And they are easier than thorium because more neutrons.

Japan alone has spent more on it's breeder project than the world has spent on the ITER fusion research.

Nuclear is competing against renewables. Nuclear isn't getting cheaper , renewables are.

They aren't commercial yet.

Rolls-royce who make all the reactors for British submarines are working on commercialising the technology. These are called small modular reactors.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-programme-updates

orourkeda1977 · 04-05-2019 01:48PM

If we bare in mind that the Irish government have difficulty arranging broadband and children's hospitals, is nuclear power a good idea in Ireland?

If you forget the relative pros and cons of nuclear power for a moment, the number of obstacles that you would have to overcome would be monstrous. And that would be before you'd even start a project. Add to that the Ireland has no track record or expertise in the area then it becomes unfeasible from an economic standpoint.

We cant even build a data centre in Ireland without years of objections and litigation.

On this basis alone Nuclear power in this country in a non starter.

Beasty · 04-05-2019 02:02PM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I don't think there are any Irish builders in the business. Just get the contractors over from France. They built loads of them there, and none of them blew up yet that I heard of. Also "the French" so famous for protesting don't seem to have protested very much.

I'd do it for €1.9m (initial estimate)

Sure, what could go wrong. I did A-level physics

Hamsterchops · 04-05-2019 02:03PM

Apparently, a nuclear powered submarine would have enough power/output to cater for the entire countries electrical needs! I wonder can such a small reactor be bought from one of the Navies by the ESB?

dxhound2005 · 04-05-2019 02:11PM

orourkeda1977 wrote: »

I

We cant even build a data centre in Ireland without years of objections and litigation.

We can.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/more-than-1bn-in-irish-data-centre-investments-in-second-quarter-1.3576002

Franz Von Peppercorn · 04-05-2019 02:13PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

We can't compete with France.

Nuclear power rarely makes a profit. Its why its usually govt owned.

You have huge costs in comparison with renewals and fossil fuels.

Capital costs ,Cost overruns, Operating costs, Fuel costs, Waste disposal costs, Decommissioning, Proliferation and terrorism, Safety, security and accidents Insurance.

Surely most of these are the same as any other energy plant. Fuel costs would be less. Operating costs surely lower too. Decommissioning would be at an end of life project. Only insurance and security might have o copy’s higher costs.

Poor_old_gill · 04-05-2019 02:15PM

A correction on the opening post:

Moneypoint used to be the backbone of our energy infrastructure, however the extreme jump in Carbon price seen over the last 2 years has moved the 3 MP units out of merit and none of them are currently running economically.

The units will prob remain off for the entirety of the summer but might see some running come Nov/Dec once the gas capacity charges start to be increased for the winter period. Over the course of the last 12 months I would imagine that MP has accounted for less than 2% of total island generation as opposed to the 15-20% that it would have been accounting for 5 years ago.

dxhound2005 · 04-05-2019 02:16PM

Beasty wrote: »

I'd do it for €1.9m (initial estimate)

Sure, what could go wrong. I did A-level physics

Armed with that stupendous knowledge, what do you think is likely to go wrong with the French nuclear stations?

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

CrankyHaus · 04-05-2019 02:17PM

Ireland has an abundance of renewable energy sources: lots of wind, sea and space.

Ireland is so small that a nuclear plant would exceed our needs.

Ireland has a governing culture characterised by irresponsibility, long fingering and buck passing: which is Ill suited to safety critical, extreme severity of accident, nuclear power.

The estimated costs of nuclear power plants are never correct and always rise sharply : think Children's Hospital cost overruns only much more so.

France's decision to rely on nuclear power was a strategic one made in response to the 70s oil crisis and was proven by history to be unnecessary, as oil supply expanded and prices stabilised.

Poor_old_gill · 04-05-2019 02:19PM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

We can't compete with France.

Nuclear power rarely makes a profit. Its why its usually govt owned.

You have huge costs in comparison with renewals and fossil fuels.

Capital costs ,Cost overruns, Operating costs, Fuel costs, Waste disposal costs, Decommissioning, Proliferation and terrorism, Safety, security and accidents Insurance.

Added to this our Gove has no interest in investing anymore €€ in generating units. It is much more likely that the PGen section of ESB will be sold in the next 10 years than the Gov sanctioning investment in another thermal unit

04-05-2019 02:29PM

Miguel Hollow Bobcat wrote: »

{ Until something goes wrong }

There has only been one major death causing nuclear accident Chernobyl and even that doesn’t even come within multiple orders of magnitude of other power generation method accidents and overall across the decades the numbers killed by nuclear are tiny compared to pretty much every other generation method including the renewables such as wind.

4068ac1elhodqr · 04-05-2019 02:54PM

Annabelle Muscular Wrestler wrote: »

There has only been one major death causing nuclear accident

Is your metric of 'one major death', really very different to say 10's of thousands of increases in cancer related deaths, directly due to events surrounding the vicinities of Nag/Fuk/Cher and even Sellafeild?

As already mentioned Chernobyl was 10days from turning the entire European continent into wasteland for 500,000yrs. No other single incidence, since the Cuban crisis, posed close to such a threat to humanity.

Annabelle Muscular Wrestler wrote: »

Not at all, as a physicist....

Ah, but you would be: "First in the queue for a job" (as you already stated).

So, actually yes, a direct fiscal benefit would indeed be a factor and great self-incentive for you to push such a notion.

Beasty · 04-05-2019 03:29PM

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Apparently, a nuclear powered submarine would have enough power/output to cater for the entire countries electrical needs! I wonder can such a small reactor be bought from one of the Navies by the ESB?

Do the Army and Navy Store not stock them?

Capt'n Midnight · 04-05-2019 03:31PM

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Apparently, a nuclear powered submarine would have enough power/output to cater for the entire countries electrical needs! I wonder can such a small reactor be bought from one of the Navies by the ESB?

No, they are only about 300MW each , our installed capacity is 6 GW, so we'd need 20 of the things.

bob mcbob wrote: »

They aren't commercial yet.

Rolls-royce who make all the reactors for British submarines are working on commercialising the technology. These are called small modular reactors.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-programme-updates

They've had hundreds of such reactors in active service since 1955 so there is no question that they work. There's no shortage of statistics on safety and reliability (at least for those privy to military secrets) so presumably the only issue is cost.

And the "breakthrough" to commercialise them will happen any day now ?
That one's been doing the rounds since they started using them.

Capt'n Midnight · 04-05-2019 03:36PM

Beasty wrote: »

Do the Army and Navy Store not stock them?

If you want a second hand one check here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_naval_reactors#/media/File:Naval_Reactor_Compartment_Packages_in_Trench_94_at_Hanford,_WA.png

Capt'n Midnight · 04-05-2019 03:43PM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Armed with that stupendous knowledge, what do you think is likely to go wrong with the French nuclear stations?

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

The French are rolling back from 75% Nuclear power to 50%.

Like the UK many of their nuclear power stations are vulnerable to flooding. They've had to spend billions retro fitting safety features because the original plan was to have two reactors at each site and use the other reactor to supply cooling power , because you'd never have both reactors go off line at the same time :rolleyes:

Construction on the Flamanville 3 reactor started in 2007 and it should go on line any day now...

silverharp · 04-05-2019 03:51PM

4th generation nuclear is the way to go, smaller reactors, use nuclear waste as fuel, cant meltdown.

Twenty Grand · 04-05-2019 04:10PM

silverharp wrote: »

4th generation nuclear is the way to go, smaller reactors, use nuclear waste as fuel, cant meltdown.

And what research is that statement based on?

Small reactors were pitched 20 years ago. Have never happened.
Nuclear bucks the trend of technology getting cheaper. It's only getting more expensive while the cost of renewables plummets and efficiency increases.

TimeToShine · 04-05-2019 04:17PM

Nuclear is the way forward but trying to build one here at the moment would be a disaster. We can barely get a children's hospital built without going miles over budget, a nuclear plant would require a huge amount of very specialized, external knowledge and consultants from many different companies and countries - I wouldn't trust anybody here to be capable of co-ordinating that. Look at EDF being bailed out constantly by the state in France and Hinkley in the UK, if the British are having this much trouble we really would struggle.

Maybe in 15/20 years when the technology is "mainstream" our hand might be forced but as it stands we should let the big players work out the niggles and piggyback off that and ensure all planned interconnectors go ahead so we can benefit from this power in the interim.

Danzy · 04-05-2019 04:20PM

No problem with Nuclear power stations as they are bar the cost.

The electricity is cheap but the tax payer gets screwed in building, subsidy decommissioning and waste disposal.

Nuclear is not viable cost wise and that gap grows each year.

Market forces have killed it, except where political objectives mean cost does not matter.

orourkeda1977 · 04-05-2019 04:37PM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

We can.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/more-than-1bn-in-irish-data-centre-investments-in-second-quarter-1.3576002

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/anger-and-disappointment-as-apple-leaves-the-fields-of-athenry-1.3490382

ToddyDoody · 04-05-2019 04:40PM

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

riffmongous wrote: »

Give us some numbers

423800421679084225789906553228886328874223365878882215524533398875225886633.

No, I'm not liking the look of those numbers.

bob mcbob · 04-05-2019 05:17PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

No, they are only about 300MW each , our installed capacity is 6 GW, so we'd need 20 of the things.

They've had hundreds of such reactors in active service since 1955 so there is no question that they work. There's no shortage of statistics on safety and reliability (at least for those privy to military secrets) so presumably the only issue is cost.

And the "breakthrough" to commercialise them will happen any day now ?
That one's been doing the rounds since they started using them.

Yes it is not that the reactor works it is the different operating conditions that is the goal for a small civil reactor (SMR) and those for a nuclear sub.

SMRs could be used to power significant users of energy, such as large vessels or production facilities (e.g. water treatment/purification, or mines). Remote locations often have difficulty finding economically efficient, reliable energy sources. Small nuclear reactors have been considered as solutions to many energy problems in these hard-to-reach places.

Some of these are -
- staffing - if these are located in rural areas, the level of operational expertise is likely to be lower than on a submarine
- security - once again if rural, the threat associated with terrorists, etc stealing the material is much higher than on a submarine

04-05-2019 05:26PM

Miguel Hollow Bobcat wrote: »

Is your metric of 'one major death', really very different to say 10's of thousands of increases in cancer related deaths, directly due to events surrounding the vicinities of Nag/Fuk/Cher and even Sellafeild?

It’s too big of a debate for here but even the number of cancer deaths are not as high as would be portrayed. We have a very high chance of getting cancer, a very high release event like Chernobyl only marginally increases the risk of cancer on an individual level. Even among the liquidators who were exposed to far higher dosage rates than the general population and are estimated to have something like a 3% increase in cancer rates in this group. Across the general population it is estimated at something around 0.5%. In other words a mans baseline cancer risk increases from approximately 45% to 45.5%.

Miguel Hollow Bobcat wrote: »

As already mentioned Chernobyl was 10days from turning the entire European continent into wasteland for 500,000yrs. No other single incidence, since the Cuban crisis, posed close to such a threat to humanity.

Firstly Chernobyl is not a good yard stick to use as I mentioned earlier, it was a total basket case from a horrifically designed reactor, badly built and designed facility and staff that weren’t given the proper training etc etc. Then add in the way it was managed (both the plant and the disaster response) by the soviets and you end up a real mess.

The biggest danger of mass contamination during the accident was if there was a melt through the foundations of the plant and into the ground and ground water. This would still have had some pretty bad consequences but still would have been nowhere near rendering the entire contienent a wasteland. It turned out that even the risk of this “china syndrome” was not as high as was believed during the accident. Now that’s not to say that the things could have been worse than they turned out but talk of 10 days from rendering Europe uninhabited is highly exaggerated.

Miguel Hollow Bobcat wrote: »

Ah, but you would be: "First in the queue for a job" (as you already stated).

So, actually yes, a direct fiscal benefit would indeed be a factor and great self-incentive for you to push such a notion.

I have a job so it’s not because I need a job I would simply like to work there. But that’s only beside the point the fact is that short of fusion nuclear fission energy is the only answer to our future electricity needs and it’s nothing but a poorly though out knee jerk reaction pandering to the clueless masses that counties are phasing out nuclear power as they will just have to go back again in future and reintroduce it. It’s a clean, safe unlimited source of energy it would benefit in so many ways and the fact it’s expensive to build a plant shouldn’t really matter.

ted1 · 04-05-2019 06:33PM

Miguel Hollow Bobcat wrote: »

Chernobyl at one stage had only 10days before it would have rendered Ukraine, Europe & parts of Russ into wasteland, for 500,000yrs (or thereabouts).

Would rather take the chances with an the odd seagulls swerving into a lash of windfarm propellers off the coast.
Better yet, free(ish) energy by the way of cold fusion could be on the cards in a decade (or two).

Look up how Chernobyl happened and why.

Had a poorly maintained Aeroflot jet crashed Bach then would you rule out flying in a modern jet ?

Twenty Grand · 04-05-2019 06:43PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

No, I'm not liking the look of those numbers.

There's a lot of "shoulds" and "maybes" in this thread from people promoting nuclear.

I'll hold my hands up and say my knowledge is limited, but some people haven't a notion.

04-05-2019 07:14PM

ted1 wrote: »

Look up how Chernobyl happened and why.

Had a poorly maintained Aeroflot jet crashed Bach then would you rule out flying in a modern jet ?

There is a dramatised mini serious by HBO/Sky on the Chernobyl accident and aftermath starting this month. Really looking forward to it, be interesting to see what angle they go for with it.

theguzman · 04-05-2019 07:14PM

Irish people are too irresponsible and alcohol dependent to run a Nuclear Power Plant. The typical attitude of "shur it will be grand" just won't cut the mustard with Nuclear Energy. One accident would irradiate the entire island.

Nuclear power in Ireland

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