Shannon LNG terminal plans rejected by ABP

https://www.thejournal.ie/energy-security-review-electricity-6173704-Sep2023/

Indeed, just as you wanted to see! Have you no idea of what our competitor economies are doing? You a true disciple of the Ryan School of Economics, No wind + No back-up plan= magical supplyof power Shur it'll be grand!

What part of 'we will build' do you not understand? These facilities take a decade or so to get off the ground. One of the two facilities mentioned in Kerry has been on the drawingboard for years because it is located at the proposed LNG plant (now refused)

Leaving aside the shortage and escalated cost of mining Lithium, what environmental harm is going to be done in mining the required to build these batteries? Are you aware that the insurance indusrty already has serious concerns about the volatility/ fire hazard of Lithium batteries and cover is becoming increasingly costly?

What are the Green's proposals for handling the waste associated with disposing the spent windmill blades (many of which are soon due for replacement)?

Let's stop the 'will build' waffle and comeout with some practicalities. Ireland is being left far behind in powere security.

Ah yes, here we go again, the great 'Aiming for....!" That's the BS line fed to and swallowed by idiots. Aiming for a Childrens Hospital, Aiming for a sensible National Maternity Hospital, Aiming for a Metro North, etc., blah, blah.

The really sad thing is that I am a 'green' at heart, I have spent a lifetime in risk management and I see climate change on a daily basis . The issue is the complete failure of Ryan and his coterie of advisors to open their eyes to the realities of business life and an economy that is on the edge. The Irish Greens have achieved nothing other than to push people away from a sensible approach and to polarise them. Cycle lanes don't count.

FYI

The downside / risk of outages is clear and has been enumerated earlier. It also - I expect - will be detailed when Ryan allows the Review be published. Of course LNG at Tarbert is less expensive. For starters, Tarbert was being built by private equity, not the taxpayer. Also, it was to be a lot more than just a LNG site. Look up New Fortress Energy, the people Ryan has continuously refused to meet, and see what they have achieved in other partnerships around the world. Can you imagine a Minister in any government anywhere refusing to meet an investor? Even if only to say “No, we don’t want you”? It’s basic courtesy and economic sense. Then, for e.g., look at NFE’s recent developments and what is happening elsewhere  https://www.portofrotterdam.com/en/logistics/cargo/lng/lng-partnerships

No, Eamon and his ideologues would rather ignore what other European countries are achieving. His ego and views are bordering on the fanatical. What really pi$$es me off is that he is saying the incoming LNG will be fracked, which is not fully true, and when some of the current interconnector gas also is fracked. Similarly, the Irish Greens refuse to even look at SMR’s, which most countries now regard as a gamechanger for 2030> and will play a very meaningful role. Our Greens have pandered totally to the wind energy brigade (totally unsightly) and ignored tidal power, a source that would ‘fit’ with the beauty of this country and work efficiently, albeit at a slightly higher cost. (Don't even start on solar! - looked out the window recently?)

Ireland needs a standby fuel source for now, not some dreamy plan for 2030 or 2050.  It also needs a government with a backbone and a population that gets off the couch and looks critically at what the Green Party is waffling on about. I'm not holding my breath.

The risk of an outage on three pipelines for more than three days is vanishingly small to the point of being imaginary. It isn’t ‘clear’ at all.

What are you on about? No military power is using a SMR, none have been promised for delivery, so your comment is laughable. I wrote " the Irish Greens refuse to even look at SMR’s, which most countries now regard as a gamechanger for 2030> and will play a very meaningful role".

There are no commercial SMRs in operation anywhere - there are a few in test at various universities,mainly in the US and Canada and some in China. It is generally accepted that SMRs will become commercially available after c2030 and yes they will be expensive but considerably cheaper than existing N Plants.

there are these things called nuclear submarines, they use small reactors to power them and have been doing so for decades, hence my mention of military use.

however, there is no comparison to high expensivity reactors for military application that power a ship, and commercially viable small reactors which will need to power a lot more and be a fraction of the cost.

there is no commercially viable, civilian use SMR available that is cheap and effective, there won't be either.

if any do come available in the 2030s (they have been promising them for decades) they will be of very high expensivity and that is why the greens are rightly staying away from them, as are the other parties.

we have more important things to spend money on and there are ultra-cheap options available that are more effective then high expensivity nuclear ever will be in any form.

Go back to what I said – the Greens have refused to consider an important development in power generation- SMRs – that is the point and not their effectiveness. Secondly, I said it is generally accepted that SMRs will not be available before 2030 (I wrote 2030>). These are a big topic internationally and a tiny percentage of the electorate is stopping discussion.

@endof Comparing the reactor unit of a nuclear-powered ship with a SMR shows a complete lack of understanding of SMRs/topic/nuclear power. The processes and operation of a traditional plant to a SMR are like comparing a Model T to a Tesla.

@antoineol Yes, that is correct. Big no longer is better, and SMR developments to date are proving that.

SMR developments haven’t proved anything yet, except that developing an economic SMR is very difficult.

No one knows what year an economic SMR will be available to order.

at this stage the whole thing is a very slow-moving hype cycle.

Do you think Ireland should invest hundreds of millions of euros in research and development for this technology?

What does ‘coming down the track globally’ even mean? Sure, some people are ‘suggesting’ 2030 but no one knows whether there will be anything economically attractive available then. By no means does the entire nuclear industry think that SMRs are the inevitable direction for the industry.

If it is so certain as you describe then why wouldn’t the government put in money?

What is the point in a government minister meeting these groups if he absolutely isn’t going to put in cash to join a consortium? Do you think these people are travelling the world to meet government ministers to get moral support?

Anyway you still haven’t explained what risk from outages that the LNG terminal would mitigate.

This is fanatical anti-Englishism, since we are now calling people fanatics. Would the British be foolish enough to stop us shipping gas to Ireland through one of their LNG terminals? Would they cut off Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man too? If there really were a global gas shortage so acute that results in Britain running out of gas and grabbing our gas, what good would an LNG terminal do us? Why would the LNG shipper or gas producer prioritize Ireland?

if ‘something’ happened to an undersea pipeline we could thank our lucky stars that there are two other pipelines to fall back on. We also have oil reserves to rely on, and in the future we will have gas storage in one form or other. We also have renewables, so we just need less gas and oil than would otherwise be required.

Is that writer you link to really linked to Ireland? Are they even linked to the nuclear or energy industry?

The nuclear industry believes nothing of the sort. It may hope, but it doesn’t believe. SMRs fly in the face of everything we know about nuclear economics and safety. That is not to say it won’t work but it is good enough reason to have major doubts. For example: https://www.energymonitor.ai/power/small-modular-reactors-smrs-what-is-taking-so-long/?cf-view

if ireland expressed serious interest in an SMR they most certainly would be asked for cash. The whole SMR industry is, for now, based on government subsidies.

So you are confident that we could expect to get priority access to the first successful SMR technology in 2030 or thereabouts even though we aren’t put any money into the development? Because we’re Irish and everybody likes us?