Nuclear - future for Ireland?

josip · 21-10-2022 8:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119773456#Comment_119773456

Solar power is worse than useless in Ireland - our peak energy needs are during winter nights. That's directly inversely correlated with solar panel output. It doesn't matter how cheap you make the solar panels, they will never produce peak output during the coldest nights of winter.

At no time of year does our night time demand exceed our day time demand.

SeanW · 21-10-2022 4:54pm

The sun sets early in winter.

It should also be noted that there is going to be an enormous increase in the demand for electricity as the government wants all drivers to switch to electric, switch all the trains and buses to electricity. That will certainly reduce our demand for oil, but will radically increase our demand for electricity. The countdown for that has already begun.

bk · 21-10-2022 5:35pm

"As to the oft-quoted problem of the need to replace a reactors' output within 5 seconds of a SCRAM or something, it should be noted that the island of Ireland is not only a large power market with 7 million people plus associated industrial energy needs, but we also have interconnectors with the British mainland and another planned with France. We could easily share spinning reserve, in addition to other storage tools like our hydropower dams, and whatever energy storage should prove to be useful."

The thing though all of that also applies to wind power and that is sort of the point.

You can't just build a Nuclear plant and think all your problems are solved, the Nuke plant needs to be backed up by Gas/Interconnectors/Hydro/Hydrogen.

Of course the same is true for wind.

So the question isn't which is cheaper/easier/faster between Nuclear vs Wind. The question which is cheaper/easier/faster between Nuclear + Gas/Interconnectors/Hydro/Hydrogen versus Wind + Gas/Interconnectors/Hydro/Hydrogen.

The complaint against Wind or Solar is that it is variable and needs backups. But that is equally true for all forms of electricity generation, coal/gas/Nuclear, we have all seen those fail and need backups. Moneypoint being offline for almost a year, two gas plants being offline last year, over half of Frances Nuclear plants being offline this summer, etc.

You really need to look at it as an entire grid with lots of moving parts that work together and not a single technology.

So the question is, given that both technologies will need roughly the same amount of backup, will it be cheaper and easier to build out lots more Wind or Nuclear power?

And of course there is no way we could build even one Nuclear plant by 2030, so either way we need to use renewables to reach our 80% goal by 2030. So all of this talk is much of a muchness.

We could certainly potentially use Nuclear for the last 20% by 2050 and I think it will certainly worth watching the development of SMR's for that goal, but in the meantime we really need to focus on our 2030 goal and get working building out offshore wind, solar, interconnectors, etc.

I mean if we can't build some new Wind, then there is feck all chance of us ever building Nuclear.

Charles Babbage · 21-10-2022 7:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119773706#Comment_119773706

Maximum demand for this island was on 21 December 2010 at 17:30. There isn't a whole lot of sun at the winter equinox at 17:30 and it was bloody cold on that particular day being well below zero everywhere.

Using Athlone as a surrogate for the island, sunset is 16:14 or shortly afterwards for a fortnight at that time of year. Your solar panel is useless in the peak. Astronomical night includes the human "day" for the coldest part of the year.

Surrogate storage like producing green hydrogen may help, but nuclear could help produce that.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-10-2022 7:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119773456#Comment_119773456

Solar is seasonal here. Our peak demand in summer is during daylight hours so solar would offset a lot of other generators then.

But even in winter solar is useful. The UK was getting up to 2.4GW today compared to our demand of just over 5GW up to 4pm. And it was cloudy there today http://archive.met.ie/sat/euro-v.asp

The rules on our grid is that if the largest generator fails you have 5 seconds to match 75% of the demand. (and 10 more seconds to sort out the rest). Right now that can be done by ramping up the open cycle gas turbines to cater for one of the 300-330MW units in one of the thermal plants going offline. Turlough Hill can be turned on in about a minute (or 12 seconds if you were forewarned and have the turbines spinning in air). But anything bigger would be a problem.

Commercial nuclear reactor are about 1.5GW depending on what colour you choose. We've no way of picking up from that sort of monster falling off the grid without investing in extra infrastructure and running costs.

From the operational constraints you'll see that changes on the interconnectors are slow , limited to 10 MW/minute (Page 11)

Water desalination is not going to happen. It doesn't provide pure water, just water that isn't as salty. If you've ever been to the Aran Islands then brackish water isn't fun. Irish water will be pumping water to Dublin from the Shannon instead.

If you have hydrogen production then you could ramp up the gas turbines fully or partially fed from hydrogen, or fuel cells but I'm not sure if they can respond as fast.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-10-2022 7:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119773456#Comment_119773456

"And we know the cost was reasonable because nuclear reactor construction projects came in on time and to reasonable budgets as late as 1995 with Sizewell B in the UK."

Please read the article. 15 years to build, 35% over budget, electricity costs of £107/MWh vs the 63/MWh expected (in 2021 values so nothing to do with inflation).

First announced in 1969 as an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) based power station,[21][22] and then in 1974 as a steam-generating heavy water reactor (SGHWR), Sizewell B was eventually announced as a PWR power station in 1980

Then there was a public inquiry to 1987 and grid connection in 1995~ - so 15 years to build from the third announcement, and that's on a site which already had a nuclear power station.

The project cost was revised upwards three times to 135% of the original cost, ... A post-startup evaluation estimated generating cost were about 6p/kWh (2000 prices, which is equivalent to £107/MWh in 2021), ...much higher than the expected cost in 1995 of 3.5p/kWh (2000 prices, equivalent to £63/MWh in 2021)

And yes it's had it's history of sudden outages and extended outages and non-nuclear outages.

Footnote :

Westinghouse the company that built it is on sale (again) for $7.8Bn

~Grid connection 14 Feb 1995, commercial operation 22 sept 1995. Nuclear is slow.

Charles Babbage · 21-10-2022 9:04pm

Substantial hydrogen storage would be needed, to timeshift solar power from long July days to short ones in December and January.

Perhaps even houses should be wired differently. You could have a mini UPS to power anything where continuity of power is absolutely important. Things like freezers or heaters could be turned off for a minute while the grid got organised.

Sam Russell · 22-10-2022 11:15am

Well, houses could have a standby battery that could provide, say, 50% to 100% of a days consumption, together with solar panels.

This could be provided by an EV, if that vehicle could afford the supply - EVs tend to be sold on having enormous range that would rarely be needed day to day. They do not visit granny down the country that often - particularly in cold Novembers when ice and frost is rampant.

Nuclear electricity is unlikely to be installed in time for 2050 - if ever.

Capt'n Midnight · 22-10-2022 12:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119776995#Comment_119776995

Or treat solar as a seasonal resource. In summer we get up to 18 hours of daylight. Anything you get in winter is a freebie.

Storage is possible too , EU has gas storage for 25-30% of annual demand, though this year the storage is fuller than normal and demand should be reduced. We could use Kinsale (bad timing on the capping of the wells) or the Corrib fields so the infrastructure is mostly in place. Or salt domes under Dublin Bay or Island Magee up north. Putting hydrogen in would mean you'd get a mix of hydrogen and natural gas coming back out with the natural gas reducing over time. But that suits the turbines and is OK as it will allow us to reduce emission as we transition over to higher %'s of hydrogen. (You can get turbines that run on 100% hydrogen, GE and Siemens have promised they'll have their big power turbines running on 100% hydrogen by 2030, or you could store the oxygen released during hydrolysis to bake combustion easier and cleaner.)

Storing and transporting hydrogen as ammonia is trivial, CIE used to send train loads of the stuff from Arklow to Sligo via Dublin. Making the ammonia isn't due to the energy losses but that's not an issue if you have essentially free surplus energy. LCOE for solar is close to zero once the original install is paid for.

Markcheese · 22-10-2022 10:07pm

When do you magically get free energy ? To run an ammonia or hydrogen production system with a really poor round trip efficiency..

There's a finite amount of on-shore wind , it's not free , it's current costings ( in an Irish situation ) are based on having preferential access to the grid ..

And producing a hydrogen or ammonia plant isn't gonna be free , it'll need to run 24 / 7 , probably with a battery as a buffer which also isn't free ..

I assume part of the plan with the interconnectors is put spare electricity down them , (if there's a demand , )

And moving to electric cars , electric heating and smart meters is to spread demand so less night time gluts

Capt'n Midnight · 23-10-2022 12:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119781312#Comment_119781312

Not too long ago in the US a nuclear plant had to pay to export energy to the grid. Negative prices.

You install excess capacity. Very roughly 5GW of solar and add 5-10GW of wind (onshore if possible) to our existing 5GW. Doable in a lot less than 15 years. Board Na Mona have oodles of land to pick from. You then have surplus energy when all the usual demands have been filled. (A bit like nowadays when the grid can't accept more than 75% non-synch electricity, so there's lots of 'leccy going to waste)

Hydrolyser factories cost about £30m per GW per year output. Hydrogen plant is £150m for 100MW in the UK with economies of scale to follow. If you only need hydrogen on dark calm days then you can spend most of the year generating it so hydrolyser capacity can be a lot lower than the turbines that use it. Cheap as chips compared to the usual price overruns for nuclear, or paying for extra fossil fuel when nuclear is delayed or shut down early.

A smart grid would spread demand, but that means that more renewables can be used. Places with kilns might decide to fire the pottery on Wednesday if electricity is forecast to be cheaper. Better insulation means that if your house or hot-water can stay hot for X hours you can wait X hours to re-heat it or do it early if it's going to be cheaper now. But you need smart controls.

At present only 4% of consumers are on "smart" plans. So a long ways to go there.

For the last few Februaries we've been getting 50% of our electricity from wind. For nuclear to exceed that you'd need to install excess capacity which wouldn't be used in summer.

French nuclear is producing 25-26GW this week, this time last year it was up to 43GW.

It was sunnier in the UK than yesterday. Peak solar there was 3.91GW Peak demand here yesterday was 3.964GW so for a few hours even at this time of year we could have powered the country if we had enough solar. And every KWh means less fossil fuel.

Markcheese · 23-10-2022 10:23am

No generator is going to sell at negative prices for long,

Hell ,if they're not making an overall long-term profit they'll shut down .. so there isn't a dirt cheap source of energy ,

If three times peak demand of wind is installed , with the intention of using the excess cheaply , then either the normal electrical supply is going to be super expensive or the supplier isnt going to build the capacity,

cnocbui · 23-10-2022 11:49am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119781805#Comment_119781805

You don't give a toss about fossil fuels or CO2. As of right now, Ireland's grid is spewing 325g kwh of CO2. France's grid is trickling out 44g kwh, not because of useless solar or wind, but because their grid is currently running on 60% nuclear, and not only that, they are exporting 8 GW, which would be from nuclear. Our renewables powered grid is spewing 638% more CO2 than Frances, the one you endlessly deride and use as an example of nuclear unrelaibility. Even when they have a shattered leg, pinned with plates in two places and or on crutches, they are still running a 100m sprint in 2 seconds and nonchalently lighting up a Galloise while they are waiting for Ireland to wheeze it's way across the finish line, 10 seconds later. Imagine what it's like when all the reactors are running full steam?

So while you spew your chicken little nonsense about French reactors needing repairs after 30 years of runtime, Ireland is spewing CO2 as there is little wind and even less sunlight.

(Don't be fooled by that, wind power is only 12% of the power generated)

As for powering Ireland from solar, you are off with the fairies. How does your argument go - Bord Na Mona, lots of land - well I live in the midwest and it's dark and gloomy. Just look at our very own Boardsies daily PV generation thread: "3 of the last 4 days with less than 6kwh generated and today not going to be much better by the forecast."...."I have generate the guts of 0.00kWh so far here (Mayo) today. This is looking the worst since my May install."https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782171/#Comment_119782171

"so for a few hours even at this time of year we could have powered the country if we had enough solar." Will you ever stop with the utter nonsense? Maybe you should refer to actual Irish PV production, not the UK's?

Maybe a dark, gloomy, windless morning isn't the best time to go on with anti-nuclear, pro renewables nonsense.

cnocbui · 23-10-2022 12:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782224#Comment_119782224

Here's the plan: Massive excess capacity of ofshore wind will be installed. Say the strike price is €200 mWh. When it's windy, the excess will be used to generate hydrogen, which will be stored. Nobody knows what that infrastructure will cost, because no country has done it, but leaving that aside; what we do know is the H round trip efficiency is around 25%, so while we pay the investors €200 mWh for the electricity, we are effectively paying €350 for it - or to look at it another way, we are only getting 250 kWh after paying for a 1000 mWh.

We are a nation of financial geniuses, no doubt about it. What did that ESB person say - our storage capcaity requirement will be 10,000 turlough hill resevoirs worth, all paid for at a 75% premium.

The people planning and rooting for this future are, thick; stupid; imbeciles; morons; utter loons; eejits; brain dead. Or worse.

This makes Gormley's force everyone to drive eco-friendly diesels look like a great idea. Christ, Greens are thick.

Capt'n Midnight · 23-10-2022 1:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782518#Comment_119782518

Say the strike price is £40 MWh because that's higher than the recent prices for offshore in the UK.

Claiming 25% for H is pure FUD. Hydrolysis efficiency is 80%, CCGT is 60% so efficiency could be up to 48% (nearly double your figure) , but call it 40% as a handy rule of thumb for the real world.

It says a lot about the economics of nuclear that you have to up the price of renewables by four or five times and claim half the efficiency for storage. It's like you need an extra 0 to make nuclear competitive.

The UK was able to store Ireland's annual gas usage in the Rough Storage Facility that they closed down to save £75m a year. If you don't mind taking a hit on efficiency then storage is very, very cheap. Paying full price for surplus power is crazy. Only a fan of nuclear which needs massive subsidies in the face of renewables would be for it.

Here's France this week.

* nuclear isn't anywhere near the 40GW that's it's been at in other years. It's been under 50% of installed capacity since APRIL.

* Imports on weekdays with no wind. Exports on windy weekends.

* Note how solar times match peak daytime demand.

* EDF literally had to be bailed out by the French government as it's no longer commercially viable. So plans for the UK's second new nuclear plant look to be shelved.

bk · 24-10-2022 3:17pm

I’m not sure why this is so hard for people to understand. When the wind is blowing hard, there will be more supply then demand, which means extremely cheap spot prices. Producers of hydrogen will take advantage of these cheap prices to produce hydrogen and store it and then on windless days, when electricity prices are high, they will use the hydrogen to produce electricity and take advantage of the difference between the low generation price and high usage price.

This is almost exactly the same as how natural gas works in a normal year. Gas prices are normally very low during the summer due to low demand, companies who own gas storage facilities take advantage of those low prices to buy the cheap gas, store it in their facilities and then when winter comes, they sell it at a high price, when demand and thus gas prices are usually very high.

All we are basically doing is substituting hydrogen/ammonia for gas in this market.

Of course it may not just be hydrogen, it may also be interconnectors or hydro or pumped storage, etc. In the end it will simply come down to economics of the different competing technologies.

KildareP · 24-10-2022 3:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119787539#Comment_119787539

And who, exactly, is going to invest in a windfarm that will produce nothing ~50% of the time, only to be paid "extremely cheap spot prices" the other ~50% it does produce? Where do they get their ROI?

We've already seen numerous backers walk away from offshore wind on this island and that's with strike prices linked to gas...

Who will build hydrolysis plants that can only operate when there is excess wind?

Such plants could have been mothballed for 6+ weeks this summer alone when wind was down in the low % of demand, forget there being any excess...

Who will build hydrogen powered generating stations that only operate when there is no wind, and hopefully when there's enough hydrogen produced?

There's a reason why we've had no major generation stations built in recent years, why our current fossil-based baseload plants are becoming increasingly unreliable, and why Eirgrid are finding it so difficult to get those who commit to building new plant to actually deliver on it. Why would you build new plant - oil, gas or hydrogen - when you've no idea when and for how long it will operate or what the price of the fuel source used will be? Why would you overhaul existing plant when you don't know whether you should maintain long term operation on oil/gas or prepare for a short-to-medium term switch to hydrogen?

And then, the interconnector route - the solution that only works if you're willing to become tangled up in your own arguments:

If we cracked offshore wind, why would we need to import any power?

And if we need to import because we haven't cracked it, who is to say that the country at the other end of the interconnector will have anything to spare, presuming they've pursued the same strategy when it came to renewables?

Either the country at the other end of the interconnector has excess to give us, or excess to take from us...

Or, is it an indirect admission that you're happy to accept British or French fossil or nuclear derived electricity in case our own renewables-only policy doesn't work out?

bk · 24-10-2022 9:21pm

You are looking at this all wrong. It will be the companies who build the wind farms, who will also build the hydrogen facilities. The idea being that they will use their own cheap excess wind power to create their own hydrogen which they will store and sell later when the price is right (high demand).

This is already happening on a smaller scale with many new wind farm projects integrating battery storage systems into their projects. In fact their is a project right here in Shannon where they literally build the batteries into the base of the wind turbines.

This helps resolve the issue of wind power being curtailed when their is too much wind. It allows the wind farm to charge up the battery and sell it later at a higher price later. Moving to longer seasonal hydrogen production makes complete sense for wind farms as the technology develops.

As for your comments about interconnectors, honestly I can’t believe some people don’t understand how important and fundamental interconnectors and interconnection between neighbouring grids is!

If it wasn’t for The French connections with neighbouring grids and importing electricity, the lights would have gone out in France this summer, with over half their Nuclear power plants off line. The only way some small European countries can have large Nuclear power plants, is because they are directly connected to the European grid and if their Nuclear power plant was to go offline they use them as a backup to keep the lights on.

If we ever build a Nuclear power plant, we will absolutely need to use interconnectors as a backup for that too!

In the case of wind, interconnectors are actually how we will make money from it and become an energy exporter. We already export twice as much electricity as we import over our existing interconnector and we make money from that. As we will build out more wind and have more excess wind power, the ratio of exports to imports will become even wider.

And yes, I’ve no problem saying that yes sometimes we will be importing French Nuclear, in fact I think it is a great idea. I’m not anti nuclear at all, I’m very much in favour of Nuclear. I just recognise that there are issues with current Nuclear technologies being implemented here in a small disconnected island grid. And that we have a much cheaper and faster to build alternative with wind.

Capt'n Midnight · 24-10-2022 9:51pm

What's the solution for 80% reduction in emissions in just over 7 years if it takes twice that for nuclear to be fully operational here ?

France never got beyond 70% nuclear, and that was with half of Europe for import/export. How would we get to 80% with nuclear ?

Maths question if 26 out of 56 plants do down for six months what's the probability of 2 or 3 doing down at the same time ?

( Sizewell-B, Hinkley-C, Flamanville , Vogtle etc. for times in different centuries and continents, "This time it'll be different" )

Birdnuts · 25-10-2022 1:34am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119789071#Comment_119789071

Going on the German Grid it appears to be more coal to fill the gaps

https://www.ft.com/content/9d3c8af8-ae00-4dc5-9e85-579681450c9c

From the link above

"Germany is relying on highly polluting coal for almost a third of its electricity"

" Germany has been trying to reduce its reliance on coal, which releases almost twice as many emissions as gas and more than 60 times those of nuclear energy, according to estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Again highlighting the folly of energy policies based on wind powered nonsense!!

KildareP · 25-10-2022 11:44am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119788931#Comment_119788931

Well let's look at it this way.

You need to install enough wind generation capacity to at least meet your live demand on any given ordinary day.

Then, taking into account hydrogen round-trip efficiency is ~40%, you need a minimum of 2.5x your demand on top of your live demand to produce hydrogen for the same day another time when the wind isn't blowing - so now you need at least 3.5x your daily grid demand profile in installed capacity.

Then you need additional diversity on top to factor in wind blowing in different places at different times, planned outages, to keep hydrogen plants ticking over on tight days (you can't switch them on and off rapidly or at very short notice).

Then you need to build your new hydrogen plants to be able to produce your daily demand in hydrogen equivalent output in at least real-time.

Then you need to build the new transport and storage for that hydrogen which can't always be retrofitted within existing gas infrastructure.

You need to build the new power plants capable of utilising the hydrogen - the vast majority of our existing gas turbine plants are nearing end of useful life.

Then you need to build the standalone synchronisers to maintain the grid frequency and BESS to handle the instantaneous peaks and short-term demand.

Now factor in we plan to have 1mn EV's, 600k retrofit heatpumps, and close to 100k new homes in this country by 2030 and factor in all of this new, additional demand to the grid.

That's before you've even produced a single MWh of hydrogen for the promised "hydrogen economy" or exported any excess over an interconnector.

And who ultimately pays for all of the above? Me, you and everyone else who has an electricity grid connection in this country, through our standing charges, unit rates and subsidies such as the PSO (and before you point out, yes it is negative currently due to the massive profits being made by the wind generators being paid gas-equivalent prices but that won't be negative forever).

And what if it doesn't work? Because if we are going to bet the farm on this we are very much the global pioneers. It's a massive, high stake gamble to be placing our future energy needs solely and exclusively on renewables-only. If it works, sure, we could strike it rich with "Ireland's oil". If it doesn't, the consequences to our population, lifestyles and our economy will be utterly catastrophic. I'm not keen to make that much of a gamble.

(EDIT: Calc error)

KildareP · 25-10-2022 12:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119789071#Comment_119789071

I firmly believe we won't come within a country mile of hitting our 2030 targets. Not a chance. Nor will we be alone, looking at the continent where they're now burning anything they can get their hands on - coal, wood, unused Covid supplies. 2030 targets are a total write off.

Why?

They want 1mn EV's on the roads in place of ICE vehicles by then - not going to happen unless the supply chain issues change very significantly (lead time to delivery for most manufacturers is in excess of 1 year and prices for most family EV's are a good €15k to €20k above the equivalent ICE, nor is there a functioning second hand market for EV's) so people will continue to buy new petrol/diesel vehicles for many years to come.

They want 600k heat pumps to be retrofitted but in order to keep our grid powered as it is we're back shovelling massive quantities of coal into Moneypoint and planning for relatively inefficient open cycle turbine plants to meet peak demand. If powercuts become widespread then you can bet people will stick with their oil and gas boilers, or worse, go back to relying on burning solid fuels. While oil/gas or solid fuel back boilers typically won't work in a power cut either, they can restore your house to temperature within hours, versus the several days a heat pump can take after an extended shutdown.

The solution to our housing crisis is close to 100k new homes - all net additions to our energy consumption needs. That has to come from somewhere and at present that looks to be met through fossil fuelled means.

We can't seem to get anyone to commit to any significant building out of wind, on or off-shore.

There are no plans for plants to produce hydrogen at the scale required, nor the infrastructure or generation stations to produce electricity from it, to be operational by 2030.

France's predicament is for exactly the same reasons we face severe and acute shortages for years ahead with our fossil based plant - we've let our existing plant age under the vague guise renewables will somehow replace their output, we've not done any significant lifetime extension overhauls with a view to keep them operating for the next 20-30 years, we've had no real plans until recently to build any new forms of non-renewable plant, and now we're reaping similar consequences with plants requiring significantly increased maintenance and downtime, tripping offline without warning or facing early closure entirely and then scrambling to try and find replacement sources of baseload generation.

We need to be looking instead towards 2050, and if nuclear is to form part of that mix, the discussions and planning have to happen now and implement in good time.

The answer won't be 100% nuclear - no more than the answer will be 100% renewables. It has to be a mix of both. Pretending renewables can somehow deliver what nuclear somehow can't makes no practical or logical sense.

bk · 25-10-2022 12:17pm

I'm sorry, but again, EV's are great for wind power and can help allow to have more wind power on the grid!

EV's don't need to charge constantly, they can respond in realtime to how high demand in the grid is. When wind the is blowing and there is lots of extra capacity EV's can charge, when the wind stops (or solar, etc.) they can stop charging unless it is really needed. EV's work really nicely with wind, just like Battery storage ssystems are being added to wind farms, they make for an excellent combination.

KildareP · 25-10-2022 12:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119790745#Comment_119790745

1mn EV's doing the average mileage of just shy of 17,000km a year, at an efficiency of 15kWh/100KM is:

17000/100 = 170 x 15 = 2,550kWh a year per EV x 1,000,000 EV's = 2.5TWh of new, additional electrical energy demanded of the grid per year.

2.5TWh / 365 days = 6.986GWh per 24-hours of new grid demand for transport.

Average that between 0000-0600 and you need a minimum, sustained, new source of generation output of 1.164GW every single night of the year.

That's over a fifth of our current daytime demand or near 50% of our typical night-time lull that we now have to cater for, from scratch, on top of existing demand that needs to transition over to renewable.

Then factor in we need to have the equivalent hydrogen stock building up alongside - now we need 3.5x that, or the equivalent of 4GW of available capacity to both feed the demand and be creating the equivalent in hydrogen storage.

bk · 25-10-2022 12:31pm

"And who ultimately pays for all of the above? Me, you and everyone else who has an electricity grid connection in this country, through our standing charges, unit rates and subsidies such as the PSO (and before you point out, yes it is negative currently due to the massive profits being made by the wind generators being paid gas-equivalent prices but that won't be negative forever)."

Hold on a second, who is going to pay the 10's of Billions for your single Nuclear power plant? And who is going to pay the billions to build a nuclear waste repository?

There is nothing cheap about Nuclear.

And your Nuclear power plant needs a backup anyway, it needs to be backed up by a combination of either interconnectors, hydrogen or natural gas + CSS. The exact same technologies that will be needed to backup wind.

You can't magically build a Nuclear plant here in Ireland, without backups!

In the end it will all come down to economics, which is cheaper, Nuclear + interconnectors/hydrogen/CSS or Wind + interconnectors/hydrogen/CSS.

BTW in case you don't know, Hydrogen is expected to play a major part in Nuclear technology. Japan for instance is looking to build dual purpose Nuclear reactors that will produce both electricity and Hydrogen.

I find it rather ironic that you keep trying to rubbish both Hydrogen and interconnectors, when both technologies are actually rather fundamental to using Nuclear technology.

"We need to be looking instead towards 2050, and if nuclear is to form part of that mix, the discussions and planning have to happen now and implement in good time."

That seems rather premature. A lot can change in the next 30 years!

Hell we might crack Nuclear fusion or even cold fusion and this all becomes irrelevant.

Realistically if we are talking about Nuclear in Ireland, it won't be with large traditional Nuclear power plants, it will be with SMR's. Either way we will need to wait until 2030 to see how SMR's develop and it would be foolish not to look at how other technologies like Hydrogen are develping too and the economics of it all.

bk · 25-10-2022 12:36pm

"Average that between 0000-0600 and you need a minimum, sustained, new source of generation output of 1.164GW every single night of the year."

Handy enough that we are planning to add 15.5GW of extra renewables by 2030. Also 1.2GW of interconnectors will be built by then.

KildareP · 25-10-2022 12:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119790800#Comment_119790800

I'm not trying to rubbish hydrogen or interconnectors. Far from it. Hydrogen looks to be the way forward for aviation and marine to transition off carbon.

My problem is the same, tired, repeated contradictory points are made by numerous posters when it comes to renewables vs nuclear:

"Oh, nuclear, expensive!" but when asked how much wind + hydrogen production + storage + generation + interconnectors will cost? Radio silence. That's what gets me most.

"Oh, nuclear, it can't load balance! No use!" but when the equivalent is said of renewables "Well. hydrogen and BESS of course, duh!"

"Oh, nuclear, it's too big for our grid!" yet our grid power demand is set to increase significantly as we electrify absolutely everything possible.

"Nuclear still produces too much excess power that has to go somewhere" Yet, that isn't an issue with wind, interconnectors and hydrogen, because when it's wind powered it will somehow make us extremely rich but with nuclear it's a total disaster?

"Oh, nuclear, it needs backup!" and again, hydrogen and interconnectors are the "obvious" solution to backup wind, but somehow not for nuclear.

KildareP · 25-10-2022 12:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119790822#Comment_119790822

Which, in theory, will produce the equivalent of about 4.42GWh of usable energy for every 15.5GWh in operation if hydrogen backed (live demand + hydrogen at 40% RTE).

In reality, it will produce 15.5GWh at times and practically 0GWh at others and it's the "others" that will currently have to be backed up with coal, gas or imported power.

And that's if the backers don't pull out before it's delivered...

bk · 25-10-2022 12:52pm

"Oh, nuclear, expensive!" but when asked how much wind + hydrogen production + storage + generation + interconnectors will cost? Radio silence. That's what gets me most.

Please explain to me how those exact same technologies aren't required as a backup for a Nuclear power plant in a zero emissions environment?

How do you propose to backup your Nuclear power plant in 2050?

Pretty simple question.

bk · 25-10-2022 12:58pm

"In reality, it will produce 15.5GWh at times and practically 0GWh at others and it's the "others" that will currently have to be backed up with coal, gas or imported power."

Again, most EV's would stop charging at such a low wind time, start charging when the wind is backup at 15GW, great. For EV's that desperately need it when at low wind times, use Hydrogen that was previously produced when the wind was gonig at 15GW.

"And that's if the backers don't pull out before it's delivered..."

We are struggling to build offshore wind due to planning issues. If that is the case, do you honestly think we will ever build a Nuclear Plant!!

Nuclear - future for Ireland?

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