Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Lets take a look at offshore wind.

Ireland. Corio Generation walk away from 450MW Sceirde Rocks contrac. Reason. Unviable.

U.K. Orsted walk away from 2.4 GW Honsea even after cfd price adjusted to reflect the 60% rise in offshore wind. Reason. Unviable.

Australia. Equinor walk away from 2.0 GW Novocastrian. Reason Reason. Unviable.

Australia. Equinor walkaway from 4.0 GW Eden and Illawarra. Reason. Unviable.

Australia. Equinor walkaway from 1.5 GW Bass Tasmania. Reason. Unviable.

Australia. Blue Energy walk away from 2.1 GW Gippsland Dawn. Reason. Unviable.

Australia. RWE walk away from 2.0 GW Kent offshore. Reason. Unviable.

Germany. Twice now for 2.5 GW offering. No bids.

France. 1.0 GW offering. No bids.

Netherlands. 2.0 GW offering reduced to 1.0 GW. No bids.

Denmark. Largest ever offering of a potential 10.0 GW. No bids.

Taiwan. The country that looks even more insane than Germany`s last government on nuclear after agreeing terms on a 1.0 GW offshore wind farm for $6.5 Bn. (€5.65 Bn.) which with their average offshore wind factor of 28% is €20.20 Bn per GW delivered, have now cancelled two other agreed contracts for two other offshore wind farm of 900 MW. They are seriously making the effort to outdo Ireland for the tin hat award on offshore.

None of the above includes all the Offshore Wind Farm operators that have pulled out of a host of countries in Europe and worldwide because of it being financially unviable.

Neither is that the full extent as to the trouble offshore is in. Especially in Denmark, the high profile wind generator in Europe. Along with receiving no bids for a potential 10 GW offering, they have been hit with the double whammy of losing the Norway teat that supplied them when renewables were doing little to nothing. The response to that from wind operators, similar to your Galloway wind farm example, has not been a lick of paint and a bit of sticking plaster to keep turbines at the end of their lifespan going. Nor has it been even the re-powering that is nothing other than dismantling and seeking new contracts for a completely new wind farm, It`s seeking extensions to their present contracts until those turbines literally fall apart.

In fairness to the Danes they did eventually recognise a renewables grid was not possible in their words, "without something else" and changed their law on nuclear in a parliamentary vote by a large majority.

Orsted ran away from a cfd for Horsea 4 of £58.87 per MWh because it was financially unviable. Their cfd for Hornsea 3 is £54.23 per MW/h so how is it financially viable to go ahead with Hornsea 3 for less per MW/h.

They would I presume have had to pay fines and penalties, plus the loss of whatever they had already invested in Hornsea 4. Their Hornsea 3 cfd was awarded years prior to Hornsea 4, so fines, penalties and the loss of what they had already invested would have been much greater. That left them financially between the devil and the deep blue sea for Hornsea 3.

Now I don`t know about you, but if I was ran Apollo Funds I would be asking serious questions if somebody invested in a project where a cfd of £58.87 per MWh was unviable as too why are we investing for a lesser cfd of £54.23 per MW/h. unless we are getting one hell of a write-down from a company that is in serious financial difficulties, looking to raise billions from shareholders and cutting its workforce by 25%.

219 MW of onshore wind with a capacity factor of 28% will deliver 61MW. In terms of our projected requirements and reaching the 2030 emissions targets describing it as the nearest thing to nothing would be overly generous. €100.63 per MW/h for solar that has a capacity factor of 11%, that would be supplying nothing for 17.5 hours of the days during mid-winter when our demand is at its highest is insane to look on as any kind of serious investment for our grid.

I have seen so many poof pieces from renewable companies as to how much they are saving us on electricity charges where I have only had to look at my own electricity bill to recognise them for what they are. One thing I have always found curious about them is how George Lee repeats them gushingly verbatim. George has a Master Degree from The London School of Economics, yet I have yet to hear him question them or make financial comparisons to any other source. But then when it comes to being well fed and watered when someone else is picking up the bill, you would be hard pressed to find many that would turn it down I imagine.

By definition intermittent is as far removed from dependable as you could get.

There is no guarantee that we would get nuclear from France when we would need it. There is a long line of countries that have been importing nuclear from France for years now so we would be at the end of that queue.

I would be interested to see your figures though on how much these renewables would be that would supply our grid for a millifraction of the cost. But then that is not going to happen is it ?

Nuclear would give you generation 24/7. Solar will not as no country has 24 hours of sunshine every day.

Eamon Ryan came out with some crazy statements in his time. One being that the total cost of the 37GW offshore wind/hydrogen plan would be €100Bn.

Another was that Europe was waiting with bated breath for all the generation we were going to send from floating turbines off the West coast, but daft and all as he was at times even he recognised solar here for what it is. An intermittent renewable with a capacity factor of 11% - less than half that in mid Winter when our demand is greatest - with his hope that one Summer day we would generate enough solar to run our grid. I presume he meant during daylight hours rather than 24 hours as a day, but it being Eamon it is hard to know.

Far as I recall he ear-marked that day as Summer 2050 which has now passed and was no nearer happening than when he said it.

As I said in my previous post I have no interest in running around rabbit holes after you on selective picky bad faith posts on capacity factors. If you cannot male your point using the generally accepted capacity factors that is your problem.

I find it weird tbh that someone proposing a 100% intermittent renewables grid keeps banging on about the unreliability of nuclear, and the absolute need for backup and spinning reserves who seems to believe that neither would be needed for his own proposed 100% renewables grid, but no matter.

You would imagine that all those countries would have learned what you know by this stage, but apparently not.

About the only thing that Democrats and Republicans House Members have agreed on in a decade is the need to increase their nuclear fleet. France are building 6 new plant and considering a further 8. Not surprising when you see the volumes of electricity they are exporting and profiting from. U.K. has just committed to Sizewell C, Ukraine in case you haven`t noticed are in a war with Russia at present, Even Greta Thunberg could not see the logic in Germany`s last government shutting down their plants, Plants the present government are considering re-opening, and Japan has 14 of those plants back up and running while working on doing the same for others. That does not take account of those that are either increasing their fleet, have opened their first or going to build their first.

You ever hear the story of the mother watching her son marching in a military parade telling anyone who would listen that they were all out of step except her own darling Johnny.

I have already pointed out to you that the title of this thread is "Nuclear - future for Ireland?" Far as I can see that is the question of how we get from where we are now to where we need to be by 2050 using whichever generation sources are the most viable and cost effective. In simple terms, what renewables, nuclear or a mixture of both, being added to the generation we now have in terms of the installed capacity required, their capacity factors and their costs. You are unwilling to do that on the basic of their generally accepted capacity factors, preferring to cherry pick those that suit your arguement. I have already told you that is a pointless exercise that as far as I am concerned is nothing much more than an attempt to muddy the waters, and as such, a game I have no interest in playing as it is a double edged sword meh. But seeing as you insist.

U.K. Offshore Capacity Factors 19/6/2022. Rolling 12 month capacity factors

Aberdeen 35.3%, Burbo Bank 26.2%, Barrow 30.8%, Beatrice 32.1%, Blyth 28%, Fife 12.7%, Gwynt-y-Mor 31.4%, Kentish Flats 28.3%, Moray East 26.3%, North Hoyle 27.3%, Ormond 25.1%, Teeside 31.7%, Trinton Knoll 25%, Trancy 31.7%.

There are more that do not come even close to the generally accepted 42% for offshore wind`s for a country geographically situated such as we are. As I said, being selectively picky on capacity factors is very much a double edged sword,

The rest of your post has been done to death here, but there were a few variants from your post . One being your "the actual average output from nuclear is under 80%.

Over 92 reactors the capacity factor was 90.96%. With the age profiles of those 92 reactors, not unreasonable to expect that from newly installed reactors the level would be at least 94%.

The other is the PRIS - last three years factors.

For last year French nuclear`s capacity factor is given as 74.2%. From that 74.2% French nuclear supplied 68% of their demand, earned them a profit from exports of over €5 Bn. while being under the obligation of the ARENH Mechanism of supplying 100 TWh (28% of their total generation) to their renewables competitors at a bargain basement price of €42/MWh to prevent them going bust. All of that generation with little or no emissions and the French electricity price to the consumer was still one third cheaper than ours.

Yeah, we really are blessed we are not France.

If France are not building 6 new plants then to follow your train of "logic" Ireland is not building offshore wind farms either.

Again another arguement based on sauce for the goose but none for the gander.

If you want to include inflation in the costs of nuclear as to what the present capital cost would be in 60 years times then you have to do the same for offshore wind which is currently twice that of nuclear and would require at least 3 further rounds of capital investment in that 60 years. Renewables are not going to win on that score either.

The combined installed capacity factor of the 6 new French reactor will be 9.6 GW. With even the average 92% capacity factor of the U.S. Gen 11 reactor of various ages that revised price of €67.4 Bn. will deliver electricity at €7.63 Bn per GW. U.K. offshore wind at a capacity factor of 42% would cost at least €15 Bn. to do the same.

Even in that alternate universe where inflation is applicable to nuclear but not renewables, at €80 Bn nuclear would deliver 1GW for €9.06 Bn compared to offshore wind costing €15 Bn for the same.

Still on about Hinkley, the most expensive nuclear you could find when its cfd is €147/MWh, whereas if we were to get the offer that Orsted ran away from for Hornsea under our current plan the strike price to the Irish consumer would be €194/MWh for the offshore generation alone. With green hydrogen included that would rise to €660/MWh based on the three granted U.K. cfds of £9.5 per Kg for green hydrogen. And that is before all the addition costs that would come from using hydrogen.

I have mentioned this to you before on a number of occasions, so I do not see why you are still referring to Drax in posts addressed to me. I have already made it clear that far as I am concerned Drax is indicative of the farce on many of the rules relating to emissions.