Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Spoofer.

You have been running away and hiding everytime I mentioned to you that I have been a long time waiting for your figures for this offshore/hydrogen wind plan where you claimed my verifiable figures were incorrect.

I do not know why you are telling me about Drax. I have been posting for years that Drax is a complete con job and have posted the stats that showed it as such. The theory of burning wood being carbon neutral did not come from those favouring nuclear, it came from greens and the E.U.

Useful for the E.U. that generates 60% of its "green" energy from biomass when it comes to reaching a target of reducing emission by 55% from their 1990 level by 2030, not so much for Ireland where we didn`t use wood burning for electricity generation. Well…. not until recently where we are now running to catch up with a generating plant in Offaly now burning wood imported from above all places Brazil, and another opening in Killala in Mayo to be supplied with 200,000 tons of wood annually shipped to Killybegs in Donegal and then transported by road to Killala.The road round trip alone is 330 kms. If you are somehow looking to nuclear to blame for the farce of wood burning classified as a carbon neutral energy source, then you are looking in the wrong direction.

Currently our demand is around 6 GW with renewables providing around 2 GW and fossil fuels the remaining 4 GW. THe projected demand for 2050 is 14 GW, this 37 GW plan will only generate under 8 GW for consumption. That would leave us short by 4 GW same as we are now. So in reality we would just be running to stand still as far as emissions are concerned. To get to renewables covering 100% by 2050, under this present plan, would require an additional spend of 50% which would bring the total cost to around €400 Bn with further eye-watering capital spends every 20 odd years.

For a population of 5 million that is not simply lunacy, it`s financial hari-kari. And it`s not as if we are going to have bargain price electricity either. The strike price from the last ORESS offering, with all things considered, is even higher than the "most expensive power plant ever built" and from the latest strike prices awarded to Orsted and Equinor at 80% higher than those they originally agreed on, then that strike price is not going to get any cheaper.

At the end of the day as with everything else money talks not magical money tree thinking.

But then with still not a single figure from you to show my figure are incorrect you know that otherwise you would have posted them.

Well at least we agree on that, but it`s not just Drax alone that makes it a con job. It`s the classification by the E.U. of the exercise as being carbon neutral that is the biggest con. With 60% of the E.U. energy coming from biomass, bookkeeping wise it looks good for those countries who are major users of this source. For those that are not they could quite conceivable end up buying carbon credits from those that are who are using this source.

The Irish Green Party may be slow learners, as evident by the whole LNG debacle where in the end they had to do an about turn, but even then in a hamfisted manner and Eamon Ryan still hand sitting on the it, but there is no excuse for importing wood for electricity generation in plants in Offaly and Mayo.

Domestically solar panels have their uses, but we are not exactly living on the Equator so I would have serious doubts about it filling the 4GW gap in the 2050 37GW plan. The capacity factor for Ireland during Winter is at best around 6%. To generate 4GW from solar would require an installed nameplate capacity of at least 65GW or X65 times the number of solar panels supplying the grid at present. That would again have to be added to the cost of the 37GW plan, and with what we have seen with offshore and wind turbine costs overall, which again like wind turbines would require further massive capital investments on a rolling 25 year basis.

I would not have any great hope in solar panels becoming cheaper. The Chinese might keep the price the same as currently, but they would be using coal to do so, which would make purchasing them from China questionable at the very least.

I see the Chinese fully tested a Gen 4 pebble bed reactor , well done them! , they have an incentive to throw resources at it

they published that they has run a meltdown test (ie it didnt) last year which worked and I think its been online since the end of last year. if I remember the stats the Chinese want to tipple their energy output by 2050 of which nuclear will be a fifth and they produce at a much lower cost and dropping compared to the US but that 4th gen should be competitive with renewables. The Challenge for the US will be to keep up

Interesting, I think for the US their regs make it hard and more expensive to do anything, the big play seems to be the demand "AI" will put on existing energy capacity so it will become a race to expand capacity their capacity v China , Europe is out of the game and will just regulate everything to death

Do you have a source about that AI stuff?

Never heard of it put like that, I'd be interested to read more about it.

Cheers, appreciate you sharing that

We're still going to need a stupid amount of electricity. Remember, the emerging guidance is for as much electrification as possible. Trains, buses, private cars, home heating. You name it. And our population continues to grow due to inward migration - so all these people will need electric versions of all these things. So we should expect to require massively more clean electricity than today - and plan for that in good time.

The BBC have an article today about the renewed interest in nuclear power.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr764nr873o

Unsurprisingly, they remain on the fence and everything in the article has already been covered here in greater depth.