Nuclear - future for Ireland?

There are so many 'don't gets' with greenies. They seem to be willing to accept massive habitat destruction and infringement if it's for their cause. Hydro and wind farms are ecologically awful.

Industrial accidents involving ammonia have probably resulted in more deaths than nuclear energy production, but they'll happily advocate for Ammonia as if it's clean and safe. The round trip efficiency for this deadly susbstance is terrible...:

...and yet it's seen as a viable energy storage medium. I think it's fantastic for fertiliser production and near totally useless for energy storage given the apalling round trip efficiency. The real problem is the big lie of cheap renewable energy that is the underpinning for all this hydrogen and ammonia delusion.

Two of the most sceptical appraisals of H2 and NH3 for energy storage I have seen have come from chemical engineers, one of whom was a professor.

Ammonia is terrific for fish kills.

It`s not just that it`s a cause with greenies nowadays, it`s more like a religious doctrine that has to be adhered to rigidly where any questions get answered with nothing more than the "We are all doomed if you do not do what we say". To me there is o great difference between their doctrine and that line from the Qur`an that has been causing problems since the day it was written. "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God" with greens looking on themselves as the new Muhammad. They even have their own radicalised "warriors" in Extinction Rebellion and this latest crop running around vandalising property and defacing works of art.

Their ever growing problem is that for other religious doctrines spending vast amounts of money was not going to get you to the promised land, but for this one that is the primary requirement. They started out on this crusade, particularly here, that Germany was the shining light to follow and that renewables, especially onshore wind was the answer. Few had any problem with that, who doesn`t want clean renewable energy. Anybody who asked as to the financial cost was hand-waved away with, investors will pay and it`s for the good of your children and children`s children. Many were satisfied with that, but there was never any explanation a too how much it was going to cost those children who would ultimately end up paying the bill.

The wheels started coming off the tracks last year when people began to wake to the realisation that this doctrine had a lot of holes. Wind was shown for the unreliable intermittent source it is, and with all the shutting down of our conventional plants, we had all our eggs in the wind and gas basket with us having no secure gas supply or storage and the greens doing their damnedest to keep it that way. That resulted in a major tweak being required and offshore wind becomes the next great white hope. But there was still a bit of a problem as people had woke up to wind being unreliable, so along comes the next hopium solution, green hydrogen production and storage. Thanks to our neighbours who are a bit more open on the financial costings, hand-waving away questions on costs is now a bit more difficult. We now know just how financially unviable the construction costs for just the offshore part alone is, and for the hydrogen part it seems God only knows as green either do not, or the do and realise it is so bonkers that they would be laughed out of it. Not that it has stopped the hand-waving from them when it is pointed out that if they do want to save the planet with zero emissions, then compared to their plan there is no financially viable way of achieving that other than nuclear.

As it is this doctrine is not even running to stand still despite all the money thrown at it. Demand is outstripping what renewables are providing. Throw in the greens hoped for take up of heat pumps and E.V`s alone and that gap is going to widen further with fossil fuels having to fill that gap If this green doctrine is genuinely concerned with cutting emissions, then that is not the way to do it, and this growing desperate attempts to hand-wave away nuclear isn`t either.

I`m not sure which country you are referring to when you say "Do you want same truths" but it is not Ireland.

Last year while our demand increased by 4.3% our percentage of electricity from renewable dropped by 17%. Down from 42% to 35%. To make up for that shortfall the percentages generated from oil and coal tripled. Coal up to 14% and oil to 7.5%. You are correct though in that we do not generate any electricity from nuclear. It is very much opposed by the Irish Green Party and many of their supporters. Even though they have no problem with us importing it when we need it as long as somebody else is doing the heavy lifting.

I`m not sure exactly how many nuclear power plants are under construction presently but it seems to be around 50 .From that with Egypt, Belarus, Bangladesh Turkey and the UAE all building their first, Poland looking to build three, Estonia looking to build their first, Sweden to increase their numbers and Japan getting back into nuclear, I would not see it as an industry in disarray.

Just on your mention of France this Summer importing electricity where previously they were consistently the largest exporters in Europe due to nuclear, I recently read an article on that which is somewhere between funny and bizarre. Germany`s Economy Minister and a green party member, was bemoaning that they would have to keep their nuclear plants operational until at least April 2023 because French nuclear looked unlikely to be able to provide Germany`s needs otherwise. Even that icon of greens, Greta Thunberg, thinks Germany are a bit daft when it comes to nuclear.

Part of the problem in Europe for those hard nosed Wall St. types with nuclear has been the E.U. taxonomy policy, but at least the E.U. now realising that on the basis of needs must, that has been scrapped, much to the displeasure of green.

I would see myself more like those hard nosed Wall St.types concerning nuclear than some follower of nuclear like religious doctrine, (whatever that is), in that like them I see any investment needing first and foremost to be financially viable, and this offshore and associated uncosted hydrogen plan does not even come close. Based on the U.K. average price for offshore, the capital expenditure for just our offshore section of the plan is €83 Billion. If you want me to go the route of some on nuclear costs I can show you were that figure would be €120 Billion. As too the onshore hydrogen part of the plan, even if it would work, either nobody knows the cost or they are keeping very quite about it. That kind of money weighted against even the favourite arguement on Hinkley just simply does not make any financial sense.

This Westinghouse suing stuff is old hat and wont hinder Polands NPP from being built:

https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newswestinghouse-and-khnp-may-both-build-npps-in-poland-10144809

I really do not see what delays in construction of nuclear plants, a legal tiff between to constructors or repair work being carried out to nuclear plants has to do with a financially viable energy source.

Your own prime example here has been Hinkley which has gone through delays and cost overruns, yet this E.S.B. offshore plan still doesn`t come within a country mile when compared to Hinkley. And that is without anybody giving a construction time for this plan including the onshore hydrogen components of it or what they will cost.

The largest exporter year on year in Europe has been France by way of nuclear. This year Sweden who generate 30% of their electricity via nuclear replaced France. Just on your mention of Sweden`s unplanned outage. Sweden presently have 6 reactors and are considering increasing that number. One presently offline for month`s will equate to a drop in output of 5% for those months. Here we saw renewable output drop by 7% for the year, so renewables are not in a position to throw stones at Swedish nuclear. Especially when that reactor is back on line it will again be operating in the 90%+ range of its capacity while renewables capacity will be dependent on literally how the wind is blowing.

France experienced difficulties this year, mainly due to aging plants with France being between two stools on shutting them down due to German pressure within the E.U. for all countries to do as they were doing and shut plants, but of late I see that France`s share of electrical supply via nuclear is back to 70% and rather than follow the German example are now going to build new nuclear plants. A rather amusing or bizarre footnote to that is the German Economics Minister and Green Party member recently blaming France for the mess they have gotten themselves into from shutting their nuclear plants, because France looks unlikely to be able to supply Germany with electricity this Winter.

For Poland, cnocbui has documented what happened there. A legal tiff between two companies that like all such tiffs will be sorted, even though South Korea do not appear to be too worried about it and it hasn`t resulted in Poland changing their minds on building. Even taking the most expensive of the three quotes it would still be a lot more financially viable than the E.S.B. plan.

Japan are also back refitting their plants and have a new one under construction. Once there refit program is complete I would not be surprised that they like EDF, Korean Power and even Westinghouse will be bidding for contracts. China too where imo a lot of the reasons for excluding China is either a bit paranoid or just anti nuclear for the sake of it.

Regardless of any of the above, the simple fact is that the E.S.B. plan is completely and totally financially unviable and if greens really are interested in achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 then presently there is no viable alternative other than nuclear.

Does this mean you have finally seen the light Charlie?

For all it`s problem and the construction company going bankrupt in the middle of construction Vogtle 3&4 will go on line next year for a total cost of 30 Bn. for 2.23 GW. 13.45 Bn. per GW.

The E.S.B. plan would provide around 6 - 7 GW for domestic consumption. Best case based on U.K. average offshore construction costs 83 Bn. Based on Hornsea1 120 Bn. At Vogtle`s 13.45 per GW the E.S.B. plan would cost 87.5 Bn. Marginally higher than the best case and much worse than Hornsea1 and for both of those the associated hydrogen costs are not included. Even at the Vogtle price the E.S.B. plan does not make financial sense.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Hinkley, it`s that even with delays and budget overruns it that it still makes much more financial sense than the E.S.B. plan.

When it comes to China building here it would be more to do with our choice than the Chinese not building, but from the recent contract to build Poland`s first nuclear plants given to Westinghouse, the U.S. government seem eager to see more nuclear plants built in Europe. "We welcome the decision by the Government of Poland to select Westinghouse as it`s technology partner for the construction of three U.S. designed nuclear reactors.This agreement will ensure a decades-long strategic energy partnership between the United States and Poland and is a watershed moment in advancing European energy security." Antony J Blinken. Secretary of State. November 2. 2022.

France had years and years of German jibes and German influenced pressure from within the E.U. to follow Germany and scrap nuclear. France may look a bit foolish now for allowing that to influence their upkeep of their plants, but not near a foolish as the German`s look for scrapping theirs. But at least, like the oil crisis,that prompted France to go nuclear originally, they have also learned from this latest one, unlike the German`s, and are now planning on building more nuclear plants.

Japan, much the same. Shut down their programme due to an earthquake and tsunami, but are now working on re-opening plants and ave announced this year that they intend to develop and build next generation nuclear power plants.

When it comes to doing nuclear on the cheap, compared to the E.S.B. plan it`s not something we would have to worry about. We could build two of your worst case example of Hinkley, gold plate them and we would still be financially better off than with the E.S.B. plan.

So using pricing for a NPP that doesn't exist - again - and which has been criticised for incomprehensibly being the most expensive NPP build ever. Do you sell used cars in RL?

Nuclear power, using the actual real pricing of a recently completed reactor that wasn't a disaster even before construction started, and compared with an actual, recently completed offshore wind farm off Scotland, gives you an actual price differential of 100% - that being offshore wind costing roughly double that of a nuclear power, and that is before even considering the substantial cost of a hydogen based energy storage system that needs to be added on top.

I am not concerned about OS wind being a third cheaper because it isn't, it's double the cost.

You are not getting FOUR TIMES AS MUCH ENERGY FOR A 50% LOWER UPFRONT COMMITMENT.

With the ESB plan what you would be getting for an upfront commitment of €83 Bn. plus the cost of hydrogen, is 6.3 GW for domestic use,and 6.3 GW for hydrogen production due to wind being intermittent and unreliable with an offshore capacity of less than half that of nuclear, where you would be paying double the strike price for the domestic supply. Who else is going to pay for the 6.3 GW hydrogen costs other than the domestic consumer ?

2 Hinkley`s (and there are way more cheaper options than Hinkley) would supply that 6.4 GW for domestic use for 60 Bn. 23 Bn. less than the offshore construction price alone for the ESB plan with no need for the cost of hydrogen production or storage.

I assume they're anti-nuclear to start , but it makes an interesting read , and the stats on life span and intrest costs are kind of eye opening

Plus you've got to add in the billions that refurbishments costs , and then the ridiculous de-,commissioning cost .

But the biggest killer is intrest rates , if someone else pays the intrest ( like a state) then it's all fine ,

But if its gonna take 35 years of production to get to break even ..and by 30 you're already spending extra billions ,and wondering wether that's worth it ..

Intrest rates are critical to any infrastructure project , the long build time and ridiculous long pay back time for nuclear make it even more so