Well said @AndyBoBandy. An Taoiseach was spot on when he said wind is Ireland's oil nearly a year ago. Not much has happened since though unfortunately.
Yep.
Being in the power generation industry myself (we do mostly everything including wind, hydro, fossil, nuclear etc…), it would be very nice if we went down the nuclear route, but it would be very very very very expensive, and given Irelands track record with capitol projects, it would end up costing even more than the very very very high initial price we thought we’d be paying.
Wind is our oil, and if we got our arse in gear we could be a net exporter of electricity, relying on inter connectors & quick start CCGT plants for peaks that wind can’t cover…. We should also look at more pumped hydro storage (they are the batteries), and perhaps green hydrogen from excess wind generation to support a hydrogen led transport system (rail/haulage/public transport).
Yeah but we need special handling and storage, and because we don't have that we'd need to pay another country to deal with our nuclear waste. Given the political sensitivity of this, it would likely be very expensive
Like I said, leave it to the French and the British and just invest into interconnectors so we can buy energy when needed and sell wind energy when we have excess
Seems a much better solution for Ireland IMO
The generation of electricity from a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station, which would supply the needs of more than a million people, produces only three cubic metres of vitrified high-level waste per year, if the used fuel is recycled. In comparison, a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power station produces approximately 300,000 tonnes of ash and more than 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, every year.
No waste issue for Ireland, a few cubic meters
Play to what resources we have would be my opinion
Wind, solar, pumped hydro, biogas for peak power and biomass for winter heating
We don't have uranium, any spent fuel or radioactive waste disposal facilities or any expertise in nuclear
Leave it to the countries that know what they're doing and just buy energy when we need it
We don't need a broad mix. We need a broad mix in the greater Europe as a whole, not in Ireland. Ireland can do tonnes of cheap wind, Spain and north Africa can do PV, Norway can do hydro / gas and France can do nuclear, all interconnected. That's only short to medium term though, longer term all countries can cope fine and the cheapest (and cleanest) way will be just PV + wind + batteries
The point is the UK are diversifying their energy supply whereas we seem to be going with wind, then import nuclear while pretending not to be using nuclear.
We need a broad mix but if you mention nuclear all the usual answers get bandied about.
A $14 billion ferry seems a tad expensive 😉
Not to mention the disposal costs when it's finished service
And tbh there's more successful nuclear plants than Hinkley Point C. So far the only people who'd call that a success are all the construction firms and consultants who've made billions while the plant has produced not a single watt
Plenty of nuclear powered aircraft carriers out there so nuclear powered ferries or container ships is surely possible?
Hinkley C is closer to Dublin than Belmullet yet there is a wierd phobia about mentioning a nuclear power station in Ireland.
The Brits are going mad building them at the moment while we dither with unreliable wind.
Absolutely true, I imagine the only way green hydrogen works is if it's subsidised while grey hydrogen is taxed
If the target users are only a small number of industries then at least the production can be very close to the point of use. At least for shipping, airports are not necessarily near water sources
However, the requirement is for purified fresh water and Dublin Bay water is anything but. And desalination and purification isn't without it's problems either
There will always be the economics at play. Even if we can get renewable energy unlimited, that is not free to produce and transport. Electrolysis is going to produce H2 with an efficiency of around 70%, meaning a quarter of the electric energy is lost just to produce H2. Then depending on the type of propulsion you're working with some average of 50% efficiency to convert the H2 into mechanical energy (i.e. movement). This makes the whole process electric -> chemical->mechanical at least twice more expensive assuming an efficiency of 70 -80 % electric ->mechanical. It is hard to believe that a commercial entity will go for that at scale.
but lets put some numbers in
Renewable electricity-powered hydrogen, or green hydrogen, has a zero-carbon footprint, but this comes at a price.
As of 2021, the fuel costs about $5 per kilogram in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Department, compared to $1.50/kg for gray hydrogen, which is produced without carbon capture.
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/blue-hydrogen-runs-significant-risk-of-becoming-stranded-asset-8211-advisory-firm-71222790
The big danger is that the hydrogen will never be green as it has to compete with the other hydrogen production methods which are high polluters. I don't take into account the costs of transport and distribute H2. Currently 96% of H2 is gray, read pollutes, the rest is there just to muddle the waters, to give us something to speak of.
That's the problem with it as well, if you're using a load of excess energy then suddenly it isn't excess anymore and you've created demand, and the price goes up as a result
Like I said, it's a self limiting industry
Thought you meant a nuclear powered ferry for a minute, might be a tad extreme 😂
Yeah I remember watching a video about green hydrogen and the issue is that for it to be economical they need electricity prices to be really low
So it works when you have lots of excess renewables, but as soon as you scale up then it's no longer excess and the prices go up
Bizarrely green hydrogen is a self limiting industry, make too much and it becomes expensive
I agree that batteries are the future, but like I said these ferries can be in service for decades and in the short term I'd prefer to see hydrogen being used instead of LNG or Diesel
At the very least you won't have to look at the blast of smoke coming from the exhaust stack when the ferry is starting up
Maybe there's a better stopgap solution, hybrid drives or biogas might be the answer in the short term. The main issue with biogas that I could see is that there's plenty of demand elsewhere as well
Nuclear
Another bit of economic theory to consider. Norway has a lot of wind energy and also a large natural gas export industry
is that not the essence of the whole thing?
In places with really plentiful wind or solar energy (so Irl/ Scotland/ Norway and the likes for wind, sunny barren countries for solar) that you create hydrogen from excess energy that you cannot use at that moment
Nobody is producing vast quanties of energy that they currently cant use but this could (should) be the case in the future
Maybe, maybe not
They didn't say in the article that they would be using green hydrogen, so I would guess that at least some of it is coming from natural gas
There's also the mention of up to 15% of power from biofuels, so presumably at least some diesel power is onboard, maybe as backup power
However, one handy thing about hydrogen is that you should be able to swap out fossil produced hydrogen for green hydrogen without any modifications
Does it make more sense to use your natural gas resources to make hydrogen for a domestic market, or export the hydrogen for a profit and use the money gained to invest in wind energy and green hydrogen production?
I honestly don't know which is the case, but it's an interesting question to ponder
in fairness that ferry in Norway is offering these carrying capacities ....
599 passengers, 120 cars 12 trucks
which is tiny, miniscule, compared to Ulyses on the Dublin Hollyhead run:
1,938 passengers 1,342 cars 241 trucks
WB yeats is a tad smaller. Stena adventurer a tad smaller again, but still multiples of the Norwegian ferry.
You'd need dozens of those Norwegian ferries to replace the 3 largest vessels to Hollyhead.
Was going to post something similar. Hydrogen is dirtier than fossil fuel. Until we start making it with huge excess renewables, that we have no other use for. And even then there are loads of issues.
Battery electric is the way to go for any transport, with the only exception I can think of being long haul shipping.
I haven't watched the video yet (I'm out walking 😁) but I know hydrogen has some big issues, mainly around production
I think the Idea of hydrogen cars is well and truly dead, and hydrogen trucks or hydrogen home heating are circling the drain
But there are some areas the current battery technology just doesn't seem to be able to cover, aviation and shipping being the main ones
I think eventually battery technology will take over there as well. But since ferries can operate for 20-30 years before replacement then for now it's probably better to just green hydrogen than build more fossil ferries which could be still around in 2050
EDIT: Okay video watched, very informative and well researched and definitely a few more considerations than just the source of hydrogen
I still think it makes sense for planes and ships, for now...
It's interesting to think that 20 years ago we were talking about hydrogen cars being the future and battery powered cars would never manage more than 50km. Now the tables have turned almost completely and hydrogen is being squeezed out of many markets
Like I said, the technology for long range battery powered ships and aircraft will come some day, but even the most optimistic timelines out that around 2030. In the meantime there's a whole lot of ships and aircraft that will be built and it's possible that hydrogen will be the stopgap to make them greener
Just wondering where Norway will get the hydrogen for these ships? Would it from their natural gas by any chance?
if you got 20 minutes it's well worth watching, any of her videos are tbh.
More boat news
It doesn't really say it in the article, but the routes are between 35 and 109km through open seas
So, same distance from Dublin to Holyhead more or less is now totally emissions free
Get on with it Irish Ferries! I want to drive to Europe or UK without burning a single drop of diesel
Long read
Goldman Sachs Equity Research
30 January 2023 | 11:33PM JST
The Ecosystem of Electric Vehicles
From the FT
At the end of January, Goldman Sachs published a big sprawling 95 page (virtual) brick titled The Ecosystem of Electric Vehicles, looking at the entire value chain of companies in the space, from car manufacturers to component makers and infrastructure providers.
The big problem with being number 1 is the only way is down
Kodak was also the best selling company in the world for all stuff photo. With almost zero competition. Then a few years later they were gone. It's the complacency that kills. Not the quality within the company. The "Sure aren't we still selling loads of cars in some of our markets? We know things are changing, we will adapt at some stage"
I dunno if there is still time to change direction. Their pace of change has been so slow it might not be good enough. Laden with debts as well and a balance sheet full of assets like ICE production plants, which will need to be written off over a much shorter period of time than anticipated.
Despite reducing sales yoy, its still comfortably the biggest car manufacturer in the world by sales in 2022, 10.8m in sales compared to next biggest VW with 8.3m in sales. So while it needs to get the finger out on EVs it will be a while yet before it disappears from the motoring landscape.
The World's Top 3 Automakers By Sales In 2022 (Toyota No.1) (carlogos.org)
Are they still not the best selling car brand in Ireland?
Still enough time to change direction I'd say.
And iirc, the new guy said they were going to electrify Lexus first, and I suppose see how that goes, and then Toyota later.
So, "self-charging" marketing is going to be around for a long time yet!
I was in Rome last weekend for the rugby. Did a fair bit of driving around (brother in law lives there) and walked around 25 Kms in the 3 days that we were there.
In total I saw 3 model 3 's, a polestar, 2 ID4's and 1 fiat 500E.
Italians aren't exactly embracing the EV movement.
