"Green" policies are destroying this country

A couple of link dumps from a physicist that I agree with. They're about policy, not physics.

By ‘small amount’ you mean ‘1.5 gigawatts nominal’ with another 900 MW on the way?

There is also interconnection with Norway.

I am surprised they did not tell you about the Synchronous Grid of Northern Europe when you were there?

Signal vs Noise

Was the increased in sales last year a reaction to the massive spike in energy costs, in which case those were supernormal sales, and a 14% fall is 'regression towards the mean' rather than a 'collapse' in sales as reported in that article

Correct. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Zealand is a massive grid, compared to Ireland. How much bigger would you say? 12 times bigger say?

Correct. Support during outages is exactly what you need when you have big nuclear units (which may suddenly trip) on your grid.

you can build a nuclear plant of any size if you want. The problem is that the economics an aren’t great for smaller plants. A 650 MW nuclear reactor is not going to have the economic benefits that have been breathlessly narrated in this thread. That’s why Poland and The Emiratis don’t build at that scale. If you look at the list of nuclear plants under construction there aren’t many under 1000 MW for the same reason.

There is also no nuclear plant in construction on any island smaller than Britain as far as I know.

Very interesting observation. Thank you.

Thank you for your observations about Taiwan. No nuclear under construction or planned there, is there?

Edit: Taiwan is actually planning 40 GW of wind for 2040 from what I understand.

Suppose it is a form of CCS, but CCS normally implies capturing the CO2 at the same place it is burned. My first reaction was to check whether the article was datestamped for 1st April.

If you were not so scared of even attempting to understand the costs required for this offshore hydrogen plan it is simple enough.

The original 30 GW offshore plan was to provide half of the generation for consumers, half for hydrogen. 30GW x 40% of offshore capacity = 12 GW, 6GW for our peak demand back then and 6 GW for hydrogen generation. That plan has now been upgraded because of our peak demand increasing since to 37GW offshore 37GW x 40% = 14.8 GW. 7.4GW for peak demand, 7.4GW for hydrogen.

If our peak consumption is to increase to 14 GW then hydrogen will again require the same, 14GW. A total generation from offshore of 28 GW. That 28GW would be provided from just 40% of the offshore nameplate capacity, so the total installed offshore nameplate capacity required would be 28 divided by 40 multiplied by 100. 70 GW.

It not ludicrous. It`s simple mathematics. What is ludicrous is the costs that would be required. But then you are just going to run away from that yet again.

Not only that, from what I understand that "guaranteed wholesale price" will have to be paid for everything they produce, no matter if we need it, use it, or not.

solar grant down by 300, ev charger grant down 50 %. must have all that green stuff sorted then.

Could you run us through the details of how demand from hydrogen electrolysis would double the practical price paid by the punters? All other things being equal, extra demand in the off peak will drive down the subsidy paid. All other things being equal, hydrogen will also mean that a smaller amount of price-supported wind would be required.

Both of the points below apply equally to solar, wind and nuclear.

be great to see your detailed modeling explaining this.

It is quite simple. We will have to pay for wind generated power whether we use it or not. "Excess" power which will have to be paid for will be used to create hydrogen but that process will not be free and will have to be paid too. That will have to be stored (on our expense again) to be used when needed - energy created will not be free but paid for by us again.

It does not matter how much of "price-supported wind" is required as we will have to pay for it even if we will not need it. What is being proposed here as a great way to store energy produced only to be used when needed is ultimately the opposite as we will have to pay for every step involved essentially doubling the price (if not even more than doubling).

Basically that is about it, but the end user will also be paying for everything associated with hydrogen production and I haven`t seen anything to say we would not be again paying for this hydrogen generated electricity when it is added to the grid.

Being generious, the price will be 50% more expensive than "The Hinkley dreadful deal". And that is without taking into account 28% of those proposed offshore terminals are floating platforms and will be much more expensive than fixed.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. Today, wind generators are getting paid for everything they produce. We've been regaled in the news about the two occasions in history when wind power exceeded demand (at two in the morning). In any event, providers currently get paid for curtailment. Coupled with priority dispatch for wind, you can build a wind farm today sure in the knowledge that you will get paid for every kWh produced. The investment thesis depends on this.

Some of us might cynically say that the State is being bilked for guaranteed high prices, but basically that is the level at which investors are prepared to invest. This year we've seen what happens when projected returns go down because of cost increases -- investors leave the market in droves. Anyway, the point here is that an investment decision at current prices is based on being able to bill for everything produced. There is no (investable) capacity that can be considered "spare", which goes against your contention that:

Now consider the situation where some percentage of wind power is going to current demand, and the rest is going to hydrogen production for conversion back to electricity when the wind isn't blowing. Presumably the percentage split depends on modelling which looks at the longest periods without wind that have to be catered for.

Ok, the round-trip conversion efficiency of electricity to hydrogen or ammonia and back is 20%. (You can find some better numbers, you can find some worse numbers. My point is not to argue a specific number, just to observe that the efficiency is poor). How much will those particular kWh of energy cost?

There are two ways to look at it. Either the energy that has to be roundtripped is five times more expensive. Or you just pay for all wind energy at the same price, regardless of how it will be used. It works out the same either way. To take a simplistic example: we have 6GW of continuous demand, for which we have to build 25GW of nameplate wind capacity. At 40% capacity factor that gets us 10GW on average, of which 5GW on average goes to immediate demand and 5GW goes to hydrogen. That latter 5GW generates our remaining 1GW of demand.

Whether you say that we pay for 10GW of capacity at €85/MWh, or 5GW at €85/MWh plus 1GW at €425/MWh, it works out the same. Either way you are satisfying 6GW of continuous demand and paying much more than if you weren't using unreliables. The actual figures depend on how much wind energy you have to roundtrip to hydrogen. The ESB projections that were the subject of a video posted on this thread seemed to imply about half and half.