Nuclear - future for Ireland?

I don't see this narrative reflected in the actual numbers:

The contribution of gas to the mix is more or less at the level it was 15 or 20 years ago?

Wind and solar have displaced legacy steam-based generation: lignite, hard coal and nuclear - not natural gas.

In the past, I had argued they should have tried extending the life of some of their nuclear plants but having read a bit more about the state of their fleet, I think it would have been marginal at best. Unlike France, they had a mix of designs both BWRs and PWRs and even oddballs like HTGRs (another thorium fail - 16 years of construction, 2 years of commercial operation - still costing money to clean up the site). The commercial world of civilian nuclear has basically abandoned everything except PWRs. Never mind that refurbing a BWR is a nightmare as the entire secondary side (the "steam-engine") is exposed to radioactivity unlike with PWR - which doomed the likes of Gundremmingen. Of the remaining PWRs, maybe Elmsland could have been life-extended? I dunno, each time I looked into individual cases, there seemed like reasonable reasons to NOT life-extend - many which had relatively poor safety records.

You have a short memory if you are asking about French nuclear in 2022 and 2023. Your confident prediction was that French nuclear generation would not be much higher than the mid 40% percentile for both years as far as I recall. Also around the same time you were very assertive on the capital costs of offshore wind droppin were you not?

You should know by now I do not post data based on nothing other than my opinion.

Reuters :

France on track to smash clean electricity export record in 2025.

"France has boosted electricity exports by 500% during the first quarter of 2024 from the same period in 2023 and is forecast to lift net exports to a new record for rhe full year according to data from EnergyCharts and LSEG.

As Europe`s largest net exporter of electricity, and one of the largest European clean power producers, France is a crucial supplier of low-carbon electricity throughout the continent.

For 2024 as a whole LSEG forecasts total French electricity net trade to amount to 133.6 TWh, up from 58.5 TWh in 2023"

Should you consider doing another of your Comical Ali posts ignoring the big elephant in the room that if France was not generating the large volume of electricity they are then they would have nothing to export and for extended periods a lot of the lights would go out in Europe, (as well as Sweden and Norway being bled dry of their own supplies), perhaps it would be an idea to take a look at this data.

Of the 5 major net exporters of electricity in 2023, (in dark green), other than Norway who are blessed with high generation from hydro, (where it is now questionable with them not being members of the E.U. how generous they will be with exports or on what terms), the other 4 generate a high percentage of their electricity from nuclear.

Attempting to write off one as coincidence would be a difficult sell, but all four!

The "nuclear power is illegal" is minor really , a dail act made it illegal and a dail act can make it legal again..

The British gov can't really object to us going nuclear - they have or have had nuclear all round their coast ,

The mega projects is a kind of yes - kinda no - if they tried doing it children's hospital style with no real in-house experience, and a committee with lots of interests over the whole thing then it'd be a disaster.. if it's done by an outside expert contractors bringing in staff, think the balincolig bypass 20 odd years ago - built by Gama with Turkish staff who lived on site .. then it can work ..

The funding could be done - depending on the model , we were funding peat harvesting and then power generation for decades .. EDF reckons that the new "Rab" model COULD shave 10s of billions of the cost of a power station . But that's dependant on the bloody things working,and being built as planned ,

Don't need the nuclear military,

New interconnectors give us some level of connection to see European grids ,

1 - You change the law! WTF is wrong with Irish people who think legislation is forever set in stone and can never be altered! Can someone please explain this Irish idiocy, it's beyond peculiar?

2 - the planning system is unusable and unfit for purpose when it comes to critical infrastructure, so as with 1 - you change the legislation or introduce legislation that absolves nationally critical infrastructure from the entire planning sh​it show. Even the renewables industry in this country is whinging about the planning system.

3 - Nimbyism regarding nuclear has been solved in other countries, it's really not hard, you just offer free electricity for life to those within x radius of the NPP, You would have communities competing with one another to have NPPs sited near them. If you look at surveys of householders near NPPs in other countries, they are very positive, or at least the ones I have looked at are.

4 - Irrelevant

5 - Irrelevant - Canada, Poland, Japan, S Korea, Sweden, etc, etc, don't have nuclear weapons either.

6 - We don't need to, the S korean APR-1400 are a clear choice as to what should be built, and there is a track record of them being built in reasonable time frames at reasonable costs, both in Korea and the UAE - the reported price offered to Poland for the two they are buying was spot on vis a vis historical prices of completed reactors. Poland were offered 6 at a really good price, since they are only taking 2 at this point, the price went up a bit but is still way cheaper than renewables.

7 - This massive cost nonsense is beyond old - The OL3 reactor in Finland - virtually the same as the dramatically delayed and over budget Flamenville reactor just commissioned - was 6 times the original estimated cost, and it's still cheaper than utility scale solar in Ireland! and would be cheaper than any OSW here, if any ever get's built, which I have my doubts about.

8 - So what? They have NPPs and are 'upwind' of the continent - if ever there was a non-argument…

9 - Irrelevant

10 - 'We' wouldn't be doing it, a Korean company with a current proven skill-set and track record would be building them, just as they did in the UAE, have done and are doing in S Korea, and are on course to do in Poland.

So why aren't the poles starting with the Korean apr 1400s ? , especially considering the close ties recently between Poland and S.korea ..

Ol3 in Finland has effectively been paid for by EDF , who are underwritten by the french Gov ..

Then they went to CFD for Hinckley C, ( which is supposed to be the first of many in UK ),that hasn't really worked either - french Gov on the hook again..

So now they've moved to RAB , basically being paid year by year for development , which is a big deal when it's billions and a 15 year lead in

Yeah it's a complete mystery 🙄

Their reputation is shot since the scandals of the 2012 and 2013. 100 people charged for bribery and corruption, 2000 faked quality control documents, 7000 parts without certification, multiple reactor and plant shutdowns over a number of years to investigate sub-standard parts and quality issues, certification fraud, and the like.

Funny enough, people prefer things to be done by the book when it comes to building nuclear plants.

They haven't secured an international customer since all this came to light although they've been working furiously to convince every one they've cleaned up their act and there's talk the Czechs might sign a deal next year or the year after. If they do, it will have been 16 years between international customers.

I don`t believe there is much of a mystery behind that decision. The U.S. government put their weight behind the Westinghouse bid and threw in some goodies to sweeten the deal as afair.

Prime Minister Morawiecki when announcing the decision. "A strong alliance guarantees the success of our joint initiatives. After talks with Vice-President Kamala Harris and Secretary Granholm (U.S. Energy Secretary) we confirm our nuclear energy project will use the reliable, safe technology of Westinghouse"

I don`t see how you fund a nuclear plant making much difference. The consumer will end up paying no matter what system you use. If we stick to this offshore plan, the offshore capital costs alone, would be at least twice as much per GW as Hinkley C, the most expensive nuclear plant those opposed to nuclear can find.

It's not funding either.

The UAE deal with KEPCO was completely opaque, naturally, but reports are the Korean government put together $10B of the funding to get the construction going.

Why is it seeming so very difficult to accept that the uncovering of criminal (yes there were actual convictions) corruption and falsification of safety reports, falsified certification and procurement of unauthorized parts could have anything to do with why there haven't been queues of potential customers for Korean nuclear?

In 2010 the Korean government announced they were going to do a "France" and go all-in on nuclear with a plan for 60% of the countries electricity to be supplied by nuclear power by 2035. That was until the scandal was uncovered in 2012, and the plan was publicly killed directly as a result of the scandal.

So when the Korean government publicly backed away from KEPCO's nuclear offering… wtf would any international potential customer consider it?

Likelyhood is that they have cleaned-up their act since - it was either that or just shut up shop. Sending a bunch of people to jail, hopefully has sent a strong message. But let's see if they remain competitive while playing by the rules.

That pulling out of agreed contract prices seems to be a feature of the Irish system,

There were several gas generators didn't build contracted generation capacity in the recent past - and in a situation that leaves the grid tight on supply that ups the base price paid - not the price for renewables though.. they're fixed ..

But don't forget there's a 15 year lead in with nuclear , to get the electricity at a reasonable cost you need to be paying in stages as construction continues - so you're billions in before finding out if the thing works properly..

If you were building a house and builder A gave you a price over twice that of builder B, with you knowing that builder A,s house would require further major capital investment during half the lifespan of builder B,s would you even consider builder A,s quote ?

You realize that the competition in the market is determined by price of electricity supplied, right? Not capital or construction cost? Not maintenance cost, not fuel cost, not salary bills, not decommissioning cost, not financing cost, not insurance costs, not anything EXCEPT the cost of a MWh supplied.

Energy markets are REALLY really simple - even down to the market for energy to run your car.

If petrol costs 1.79/l in Circle-K and 1.95/l in Evergreens, then Circle-K is CHEAPER. It doesn't matter if, in your head, you've convinced yourself, that Evergreens "must have" spent way more building their forecourt.

Petrol: price/litre, natural gas: price/MMBtu, electricity: price/MWh, crude oil: price/barrel, etc. etc. NONE compete on the basis of what capital the supplier sunk into their business.

Ok - we've now established beyond any doubt that you clearly have no clue whatsoever about how prices work. I was naive in giving you the benefit of the doubt.

The Theory of Price has been studied for hundreds of years. It's so beyond debate and so uncontentious that it's understood by students doing leaving cert economics. Clearly a level of understanding beyond your capabilities.

Prices are determined by where supply meets demand. Prices are NOT in the least affected by how much a supplier (or purchaser for that matter) have sunk into setting up their business.

This is so basic, it feels like I need to talk down to you as if you were a child.

Vendor A spends 100 billion building their electricity production facility, vendor B spends 1 billion quid doing theirs. They both arrive in the market offering to sell 1MWh of energy. You're trying to argue that an independent purchaser in this market is going to be influenced by who has sunk more capital into their facilities. Are you completely daft? Hint: the purchaser will simply look at the price per MWh being demanded by A and B and make their decision on that basis.

There are no auctions to construct electricity generation facilities. There are auctions to SUPPLY energy in the form of electricity. This is why prices are settled in terms of prices for units of electrical energy - MWh.

But you keep banging on about power - I suspect that you don't even understand the difference between power and energy? Prove me wrong.

Probably too much to ask that you have a bit of manner and cut out your condecending nonsense. But no matter.

Have you been living off planet for the last few years or do you not know that we are not seeking to buy of the least expensive provider ? We are signing contracts with generation companies for offshore wind that is now, not only more expensive than nuclear per MWh., we are also guaranteeing them we will pay for whatever they generate even if we neither want or need it.

Your "There are no auctions to construct electricity generating facilities" is so inane it doen`t merit a response, but I`ll give you a hint to think about on that.

Why has the auction strike price for offshore wind suddenly increased by 60%.

I have already posted the strike price cost per MWh for wind, (based on our proposed 37 GW offshore proposed plan), and for nuclear based on Hinkley ("the dreadful deal behind the world`s most expensive power plant".)

But seeing as you missed it, here you go.

The U.K. cfd for offshore wind is currently €100 per MWh after the recent jump in costs. If the same increases follow for our current round of auction then our strike price will be ~ €120 per MWh. But lets say for these costs we do get a highly unlikely strike price of €100 per MWh similar to the U.K.

Our plan is for 50% of generation for the consumer with the other 50% for hydrogen production for the hydrogen to be used when wind has dropped off and is unable to fulfill consumer demand. Nobody other than the consumer is going to be paying for the electricity generated for hydrogen production. So that leaves, at the current U.K. offshore cfd price, effectively the strike price here to the consumer of €200 per MWh. The current cfd price of Hinkley is €156.77. 25% cheaper than the lowest strike price we are likely to get.

You then have the hydrogen strike price on top depending on how much we actually use, which is difficult to quantify, but with 50% of generation going to it the expectations must be that it is going to be considerable, but however much it would be the cost will be considerable. The cfd price for green hydrogen in the U.K. is €16.10 per Kg. €16,100 per Tonne which will provide 33 MWh of electricity. Freezing and storage will reduce that to 29 MWh and there will be a further 1% loss daily due to evaporation. In total with the strike price of hydrogen added, even if offshore was the U.K. €100 per MWh, the strike price for the consumer here would be around 50% more expensive than Hinkley.

Along with the storage and distribution being a nightmare the loses in converting electricity to hydrogen are huge at over 50%

It would require 9,000 litres of water using 50MWh for electrolysis plus 9MWh for desalinisation leaving just 33MWh of hydrogen which when liquified and stored would end up as 29MWh with a further 1% lost to evaporation for each day stored.

The latest cfd U.K price for floating is €237.39 per MWh.