Nuclear - future for Ireland?

No idea where you are getting that $20 billion (€17.17).

In April 2024 Jan Chadam, the commercial proxy for Poland`s power plant developer told an energy conference "Of course we do not have the final value of this project, but one can imagine it will be around PLN 150 Bn." That is €36 Bn. not the €17.17 you are claiming.

At €46 Bn that would still work out at €13 Bn per GW. That is €4.5 Bn - €5 Bn per GW cheaper than Hai Long or Revolution Wind offshore and a plant that would have 3 times the operating life of either.

Financially there really is no comparision

Did you miss that price per GW is ~ €5 Bn. cheaper than wind and will generate at a capacity factor three times that of wind and have a generation life of three times longer ?

Why do you keep mentioning Drax to me ? I have lost count of the number of times I told you I look on Drax as a complete con.

Following our present plan will cost €425 Bn. for the offshore alone. With hydrogen thrown in nothing much short of half a Trillion, and we would still be paying €7Bn - €8 Bn annually in fines up to and beyond 2050. We would have by a country mile the most expensive electricity on the planet and have to refinance the whole shambles every 20 -25 years and still need that "something else" for the grid to function.

For a population of 5 million odd that really is beyond insanity.

The average build stage is 7 years. Anything longer than that would be due to how long it would take us to get our asses in gear.

What you are advocating is a spend of half a Trillion euro for a plan that would not only not see us at net zero by 2050 but also have us paying €7 Bn - €8 Bn every year in fines on top of that, and leave us with a strike price for the consumer that would be at least double that of the most expensive nuclear you could find.

Are you so blinded by your hatred of nuclear or do you not have the first clue when it comes to finance that you cannot see how insane those figures are for a country with a population of 5 million.

Our economy would be wiped out long before 2050 following what you are advocating.

A recent article still seems to imply that Westinghouse are confident in a 2036 start.

The design of the nuclear reactor for Poland is ready! When will construction begin?

May 20, 2025
9:31 a.m.
The design of the AP1000 reactor, which will power Poland's first nuclear power plant, has been finalized. Westinghouse is freezing the documentation and completing the design phase without further modifications. This is an important step towards the start of construction in Lubiatowo-Kopalino.

Westinghouse has completed work on the AP1000 reactor design for Poland. As Lou Martinez Sancho, vice president of technology development, emphasizes: “The technology and complete documentation for the AP1000 reactor have undergone the licensing process in the US and have been verified. The design documentation is, as we say in the industry, ‘frozen’ and ready for implementation.”

The company notes that it will no longer modify the basic design or safety systems, which will reduce the risk associated with possible changes to the documentation.

Modular construction and digital documentation
The AP1000 design consists of 52 main modules that will be prefabricated and assembled on site. The design for Poland is completely digitized. Westinghouse only anticipates optimizations in the area of assembly, using artificial intelligence, among other things.

Construction of the first nuclear power plant will begin in Pomerania, in the Lubiatowo-Kopalino location. The investor will be Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ). The plan is to build three units, each with a capacity of 1,110 MW, and the first concrete will be poured in 2028. The first unit is scheduled to start operating in 2036.

So Westinghouse are planning for an 8 year construction time, which is the same as the average time KHNP has taken to build 7 reactors to date. I have no confidence Westinghouse will meet that schedule, but I would have confidence KHNP could, however they have withdrawn from the plan to build 2 reactors in Poland, likely due to licensing pressure from Westinghouse, which would also be why they had to pull out of the Netherlands bid. They do seem to have a licence allowing the Czech project to go ahead. Looks like Westinghouse have stitched up the EU market as far as foreign built reactors go, apart from Czechia.

The construction site as of June:

The big hype driving wind generation here was this supposed Klondike of wind off our West coast where floating wind farms would see turbines generating at capacity factors of 50% or more, which would generate a significant part of this 37 GW plan.

With the massive increase of 60% - 70% in costs for fixed offshore turbines leaving them financially unviable, the game was up for floating offshore platforms that would have added a further 50% to costs.

And that was before Eamon Ryan finally had to admit, that anybody who had even the slightest knowledge of our West coast had been telling him, that it was pie in the sky and floating platforms would end up as minced meat. Sceirde Rock proved how right those that said it were for even fixed turbines and with Corio Generation now having lost their €34.5m. bond, nobody is going to even look at building floating or even fixed turbines off our West coast.

Update on UK SMR projects, UK: US deal;

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/15/uk-us-nuclear-deal-starmer-trump

I have long held the view that renewables are not cheap

Your view about renewables is highly unconventional. Every single country in the world, under every different sort of political, social and economic conditions, whether centrally planned (China) or wild-west (like Texas) has switched nearly all electricity investment to renewables over the last 10 years or so.

These days, globally 9$ out of every 10$ spent on electricity generation goes on renewables - and it's been above 80% for many years now.

How about the simple question, if renewables are more expensive, why is everyone everywhere choosing to invest 90% of their money in renewables rather than cheaper alternatives?

I mean the reasons look very implausible when you try to list them out:

1. Hippies and tree huggers secretly run the world and are forcing renewables on everyone?
2. Investors like losing money and are attracted by more expensive sources of energy?
3. People everywhere are willing to put the environment above money (lol)?
4. The entire world is full of idiots but I, cnocbui, am one of the very very select group of non-idiots who can see the "real truth"?

I suspect, from your previous, it's really the last one.

I mean you'd previously convinced yourself that you're smarter than 98% of scientists who work on climate related subjects by rejecting the idea that human activity is affecting the climate or that that pouring 40 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year could cause more heat energy to be trapped in the atmosphere. After that leap, I guess it's not a big step to convince yourself that you're smarter than 99.99% of the general population.

It's just not so obvious to me. In fact it seems downright delusional.

I have been championing the consideration of nuclear for Ireland as a superior alternative to renewables, not because I happen to like nuclear energy. Since I am arguing a case of A vs B, B has to be mentioned and why I consider A to be superior to B.

Cataloguing the inherent limitations and problems with renewables is wholly consistent with arguing the case.

The paper I posted shows that renewables are far, far more costly than nuclear and that the LCOE costing model that is usually used when costing them is deeply flawed and completely inappropriate, as it leads to gross underestimates of their true costs, particularly in the context of Irelands insane energy policy.