Japan won't let go of ice engine

Could you just imagine the inefficiency, ICE is what 40% efficient at best, maybe less with hydrogen ? then imagine all the energy needed to produce this hydrogen to be burned at an efficiency of 40% at best ?

I suppose batteries wouldn't be needed eliminating the need for more rare earth minerals and chemicals but I do like the fact I can charge with cheap electricity or best yet free work charging. Since I got the new VW id3 I've spend maybe 10 Euros to do nearly 4000 kms.

Via electrolysis it takes around 50-55 Kwh of electricity to produce 1 Kg of hydrogen, then it takes more energy to liquify this for transport use down to around -253 degrees, you definitely don't want to come in contact with this stuff.

The unfortunate thing is People's opinions of Nuclear in Ireland, all People can think about is Chernobyl!

It takes years to build a Nuke plant, it will take years to debate whether we should have Nuclear in Ireland, it's really sad because we could be so much more energy dependent than we are today.

Of course, energy won't be cheaper just because of Nuke power, the companies that run them will surely see to that but where are we going to source our energy when the rest of the planet will need huge amounts of their own energy going forward ?

But of course, COVID and Climate change, keep talking about this daily on every single news bulletin 24x7 and on advertisements, keeps the Government free from blame and the public unaware, or keep their minds off of other issues like housing and cost of living, rising energy costs, lack of proper public transport, list goes on.

Nuclear is one of the safest industries out there, a lot changed since 1986, certainly reactor tech. These reactors in Chernobyl were faulty anyway and supposedly measures were taken to mitigate the issues present in the ones in Chernobyl because there are still reactors of this type still in use today, one would surely hope they've been made safe.

The Irish Government wouldn't be running it at all, they wouldn't be capable in the slightest, it would be private companies and we, the taxpayer would subsidise it.

Some environmentalists are pro Nuclear now because they're under the impression it's the only way to save the earth and other Greens are against Nuclear power because they believe that due to the time to construct so many plants that we would pass the threshold for eternal doom and so they promote Wind and solar PV because they can be installed much easier but I stand by my argument that the energy required to replace Fossil fuels and dump it on the grid requires power that only Nuclear can generate.

I think our own Government and all so called environmentalists greatly underestimate the amount of TWH's of electricity we will need to replace fossil fuels and that's only for a very small Island.

Nuclear is expensive but I'm not even sure it can be calculated the amount of energy that is in Oil/Diesel/Gas/Petrol and to put all this including home heating on the grid, it's a mind boggling calculation and while Nuclear is expensive a plant can last 50 years.

A 1 Gw Nuclear plant, well, lets look at some figures, any by all means correct my maths, it's not my strongest point for sure.

An average wind turbine is 2.5 Mw give or take. 2.5 into 1000 = 400 turbines for 1 Gw of power until the wind doesn't blow. Now if I remember correctly we have almost hit 5 Gw peak on the grid ? currently ?

now lets say we have 100,000 diesel cars, and they all switch to electric, average consumption would be around 18 Kwh/100 Kms or 5.55 Kms per Kwh of electricity.

If those cars are to drive 15,000 Kms a year they would require 2,700 Kwh of electricity times 100,000 = 270,200,000 TWH of electricity extra on the grid in a year. Now is that GWH or TWR at this point ? it's a hell of a lot and has to come from somewhere. I mean an absolute mind boggling amount of electricity.

This doesn't even tip the surface, that's only 100,000 cars not including the total fleet of cars/trucks/vans, imagine the amount of energy a truck needs ? this is where I believe the future will be for Hydrogen, HGV but it takes a huge amount of energy to produce hydrogen and when demand drops at night we could produce our own hydrogen by Nuclear at night, though probably there wouldn't be much drop in energy at night any more if so many vehicles are plugged in charging.

This doesn't include the heating of homes and businesses though gas boilers could be replaced with hydrogen, they are or were testing this I think in Scotland sending hydrogen down domestic gas pipes with modified boilers in the homes, again, generating hydrogen takes a lot of energy.

I don't think our economy can afford not to go with the Nuclear option in the long term as the cost of not going Nuclear would be too great, I think if the green loonies think it's too late for Nuclear to save the earth which is a load of cock and bull if we leave it a lot longer it will certainly be too late for Ireland's economy of there is a big move to electric, we're dreaming if we think we can just dump our energy on the European mainland and suck their electrons because they'll all have exactly the same issues as we will if they can't find a proper alternative to fossil fuels!

Our own Government are not interested, they're there for the short term, for the pension and are letting so called medical professionals run/ruin the country and they will get on the bandwagon gladly because it steers away from other serious issues, same with climate change, Ryan has spend 1.5 million or something or will spend it on climate awareness campaigns to bombard people with climate change nonsense for the next god knows how long on radio and tv, the new religion, again, talking about it but not doing anything about it if they believe it but whether we believe in a climate crisis or not we will in the future have a very serious energy crisis. We also have a public transport crisis that's continuing to get ignored because the Government don't want to do anything, their only answer is that "it's only through taxation will people change" what a load of nonsense, give people the proper alternatives before you saddle them with extortionate amounts of tax which they already are and think that even more and more tax is the only solution without actually making the Governement do anything.

I'm not sure how feasible Off shore is in Atlantic waters ? How many wind Turbines can we litter the Island with though either land or off shore, they are ugly but especially so is Solar Fields, I've seen them in Germany, big ones and looking at black fields is really unpleasant.

+ renewables are unpredictable, Every roof top in Ireland could have solar PV before we destroy the country side turning green fields black, that's an awful lot of Kwh that can potentially go to the grid but there is no feed in tariff, ridiculous, so there is no incentive for me to put solar pv on my roof because dumping excess energy does not appeal to me because dumping energy is wasting energy that I don't need to use in the first place. And I read recently where those homes that share a transformer can only have 1 home export energy but that's funny because any home can connect the energy to the grid so how come only 1 home can actually get paid for the energy ?

In Germany my outlaws have 14 Kwp of solar PV on the roof and 3 phase to the house, in Ireland we're handicapped as usual with single phase and poxy 5.5 Kw limit for exporting to the grid but more effort should be made to allow someone close to a 3 phase supply to be able to connect cheap and export as much as they wish. There's a 10 Kva line over the bottom part of my garden, this could be easily tapped into but the expensive would be entirely on me and wouldn't be worth it unless I had a lot of solar to put on the grid but I have the space for 20-30 Kw/p and more, there's no reason it can't go straight to a new transformer on the pole and on to the grid except cost and probably lack of interest by the ESB.

While more renewable energy is good and quicker to add to the grid they need to be adding at least 400 2.5 Mw of turbines to make 1 GW and that's 1 GW peak at full production on a windy day is that sustainable long term ? how many can we keep putting up ? not to mention the amount of solar pv needed ?

I think at some point we will realise that renewables will not work long term to replace fossil fuels but by that time what will it cost the economy and the taxpayer especially if we have to continue to rely on foreign fossil fuels ?

No I meant "electrics" as in electric cars will become a lot cheaper.

Cost of electricity rising "astronomically" ? not sure, businesses and households have to use electricity if electricity is to power everything can't get too expensive.

Chances are if we don't do everything now to ensure our energy independence in the future we'll probably struggle to keep the lights on and costs down. I don't think anyone is counting the many extra TWHrs worth of electricity we're actually going to need the more heating and transport, business in general moves to electricity.