Nuclear - future for Ireland?

I just thought I'd inject some reality back into this debate. According to Electricity Map, Germany (home of the Energiewende) is currently emitting 696g/kwh for the electricity it is using.

The Energiewende was first floated as energy policy for West Germany in 1980 and 42 years later, this is all they've accomplished. Because it turns out that the laws of physics and thermodynamics have not been altered since 1980 and you still need sunshine and wind for solar panels and windmills to produce power, and during a winter anti-cyclone, neither of these things happen to a great extent.

It does not matter how much money and natural resources you are willing to piss away in green hype, how much you are willing to industrialise the landscape (and with renewables, you'd need to do so on a scale unprecedented in human history), how many large birds (like eagles) and bats (i.e. driving them to extinction) you are willing to let windmills kill, renewables will always be unreliable. Full stop.

Western Europe needs to get serious about its energy situation. Until recently, we've been totally dependent on Vladimadolf Putler over in Moscow for just about everything, especially gas that was being used as a "transition fuel." I always knew this was a mistake and something we should not do over the long run, though sadly I had no idea how right I was until the 24th of February this year.

Part of that means recognising that our peak needs for energy are during winter, specifically winter anti-cyclones, and prioritising power supply types that actually work during such periods.

Fusion has always been and still remains 20 years away.

And how do you propose to do that?

as far as I can see, the only "biomass peakers" involve batteries or hydrogen generation at off peak times. Not really a peaking plant at all

Would this be the biomass taking land from food and wildlife and butchering ancient forests??

biogas cannot scale massively as it relies on large amounts of crops grown specifically for biogas. The land use is huge, especially at a time of increasing food insecurity worldwide.

Also the economics of using biogas plants as peakers isnt great either

As for hydrogen - you need excess power to generate the hydrogen (a lot of excess if its based on electrolysis), and then theres still the issues of stable storage and trying to get a "clean" burn. Much easier if its stored locally in dedicated storage surely as opposed to using the existing NG infrastructure as was suggested previously, but its a non-trivial problem.

Food isn't a problem, until you replace valuable tillage land with energy crops ..

Mescanthus growing didn't really work in Ireland , it grew alright , but it was hard to sell for bio-fuel,

In theory it's easy to harvest with existing equipment , in practice its harvested in winter ,and the ground can be very wet .

Willow is similar,

Using fertilizer,made from gas, to grow corn, to make bio-gas , to use instead of gas is , Inefficient, the overall round trip efficiency is questionable , if you can do it largely with waste products, the figures get a lot better

Not just Germany , it's done in many countries including the UK . there are commercial biodigesters here as well ,both north and south but it's more developed in the north , ( I don't think theres any commercial unit using specifically grown feedstock south of the border )

I'm not sure of the math in terms of energy efficiency for AD, but if it's using Maize as a feedstock and you include tilling- fertilizer,harvest ,transport,ensiling and , the running of the AD plant ,and then transporting of the digestate and spreading it's going to be close to energy neutral...

Waste (animal and crop ) can change the math fairly substantially , and crops other than maize ( like red clover ) can change the equation quickly ...but transport is the killer

Miscanthus is usually grown for bio-mass , and harvested when the leaves are dead , so in winter ,

It can be grown on poor ground in Ireland, but usually poor ground means wet ground , so increased cost to harvest

France making the sensible decision to dump the 50% target for nuclear and in fact are accelerating the procedures to build new plants.

A clearly sensible approach

https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/nucleaire/le-gouvernement-renonce-a-lobjectif-de-reduction-a-50-de-la-part-du-nucleaire-dans-la-production-delectricite-20230117_YTOTKZDPTFHNHISIORQKFMZ6PM/

The draft law says it's the accelerate new builds but that does not mean they won't keep existing ones longer .

Actually is it possible to split Germanys green push (energywiende ? ) into sections ?

A lot of their solar seemed to be on individual houses , heavily subsidized, it seems more a greenwash campaign/way of keeping your voter base happy ..

I assume they're more production focused now , ( rather than capacity focused)

It's seems as if the German energy policy was concocted in the Kremlin ,

Just outsource your energy supply to Russia , shut your nuclear , but more gas .. even their renewables policy was definitely suspect ,lots of big subsidies for small ,roof top solar , in a north European country. The public love the feel good factor and the payout , meanwhile buy more Gas ...

It'll be interesting to see how polands new nuclear scheme pans out - and costs out . And what's included ,or excluded from the headline figure , intrest rates being the big big one, grid costs ,

Oh and where the fuel comes from , can't see them getting it from Russia 😁, so north Africa (would the french be helpful if it makes Edf look bad ?) Canada ?

Yeah , we're not the same energy market that we were 20 years ago , all those data centres ect are running 24 / 7 ,

A pair of reactors wouldn't be unreasonable in the scale of things ,

Of course the spinning reserve for that would be a bitch , and wouldnt link in with wind at all ..

And where would you put it ? Moneypoint?

And even with no objections ect. It'd be 15 years minimum to get it built