Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Ozymandius2011 · 10-11-2025 12:00AM

Despite what I said earlier, Im concerned that nuclear power plants are increasingly becoming a target in wars, as we saw in Iran and Ukraine. Ukraine is saying in recent days Russia bombed electrical substations near nuclear plants. We dont want to risk that happening in Ireland in future.

Capt'n Midnight · 10-11-2025 12:07AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123976368#Comment_123976368

They are also potential targets for cyber attacks which increases the risk unplanned outages.

Or even major damage in the case of https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0624/1520026-iran-nuclear-power-stuxnet-cyberattack/

Canada seems to be the current target https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-canada-critical-infrastructure-attacks/

Capt'n Midnight · 10-11-2025 01:02AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123976359#Comment_123976359

As you well know the bulk of decarbonisation (80%) has to be done by 2030. Here IIRC the contracts are 15 years from the date it's due to start, so delays eat into that time. In fact anything due to start up in the next 5 years ie. by 2030 (80%) will be out of contract by the earliest possible time nuclear could show up here.

After 2030 it's about 1% a year year reduction. Nuclear won't be here for another 20 years at the earliest which means 2045 and by then 95% of the job will have already been done without nuclear. And there'll be stuff in the pipeline which will take up most of the 5%. And that is the best scenario for nuclear. Too little, too late.

For nuclear in the UK contracts are 35 years but they got extensions past the longstop date.

the target commissioning date for Reactor Two shall be 1 November 2025 (the
“Reactor Two Target Commissioning Date”);

"Longstop Date” means the date falling four (4) years after the last day of the Reactor
Two Target Commissioning Window,"

ie. 1st November 2029

See page 300 for termination clauses as once it was clear that deadline wasn't going to be met the UK could have walked away.

Instead The Longstop Date in the Hinkley Point C (HPC) contract, the point at which the Contract for Difference (CfD) may be terminated for non-completion, has moved from 1 November 2033 to 1 November 2036. So a plant that was originally supposed to supply power by Christmas 2017 could still be getting CfD pricing index linked until 2072.

( There was 5 years of bidding and haggling over the CfD from 2011 to 2016 - adding those 5 years to the timeline here would see nuclear arriving only after we'd already got to zero carbon. )

charlie14 · 10-11-2025 03:21AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123976442#Comment_123976442

Do you even understand what index linked means.

In 2072 the CDF for Hinkley would, being index linked, have the same value, spending power, call it whatever you like, as its €147 cfd today as it would be the same cfd contract as now as there would be no Capex with it having a 60 year lifespan so no application for a new cfd. Offshore wind on the other hand with it`s lifespan between now and 2072 would require 3 cfd`s to get it there. In case you missed it the Capex for offshore increased by 70% in the last 2 years. It makes financial sense to tie suppliers into index linked contracts unless you know - in this instance - the Capex cost is going to decrease, and with it having increased by 70% for offshore in just two years, lets face reality here, that is not going to happen.

The 2030 emission targets are even at this stage dead and buried. We are not going to get to a 23% reduction never mind the the 51% required, and getting to zero by 2050is pie in the sky. Especially not with the current renewables 2050 plan.

That plan is for an installed offshore capacity of 37 GW with a 50/50 split between generation for the consumer and generation for green hydrogen production. That 18.5 GW installed capacity would on a good day deliver 7.7 GW. Our present installed onshore wind is ~ 5GW which with a capacity factor of 28% would deliver 1.4 GW. Installed solar at 1.9GW would provide 0.2GW with hydro around the same. That is a total of 9.5 GW. Eirgrid`s projections are that by 2050 our demand will be ~15-16 GW. 5.5-6.5 GW short. And that projection, as far as I know, did not included any increased demand due to AI. So where are you going to find that 5.5 - 6.5 GW from renewables to achieve zero emissions by 2050 ?

Building more offshore is not an option - the 37GW isn`t even an option now as just for the turbines alone the present cost would be €455 Bn and leave the consumer paying 50% more than that Hinkley strike price before the cost of green hydrogen was added, which would leave the strike price over 4 times greater than Hinkley

Renewables have had their day and have achieved nothing for us other than leave us with the most expensive electricity in Europe after spending a fortune on them. Continuing with the same under the current plan would cost a minimum of €550 Bn. and leave us with the most expensive electricity on the planet and the same emissions we have now.

charlie14 · 11-11-2025 07:16PM

Apologies. Not that it makes that 37GW plan any way more financially viable. The cost of the turbines alone to generate that electricity that would still leaves us 5.5 - 6.5 GW short of our projected 2050 demand, would be~ €245 Bn. Plus the cost of green hydrogen production and all the add-ons of storage, distribution etc.

At the very least, €300 billion for a plan that we were told would supply our 2050 requirements for a third of that price.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-11-2025 08:44PM

There's two paths we can take.

A - We can continue to rollout renewables (mostly wind and solar but dispatchables too) and storage and interconnectors as we wean ourselves off fossil fuel.

B - We continue to rollout renewables etc. as in Option A and then (after all the legal battles) sign up for nuclear and then when construction of the plants actually starts we'd continue to rollout renewables etc. in exactly the same way for the next 10 years or so because we have to keep providing power. Basically any project that's certain to arrive before nuclear would continue in exactly the same way. (ie. at least 95% of them)

Then during the last few years of the construction of the nuclear power plant provided there's been no delays , we could consider reducing investments in those projects that would take longer to deliver than nuclear, but only in a way that we wouldn't be stuck if nuclear didn't deliver on time. So build out the infrastructure but don't order the batteries or turbines quite yet.

Nuclear can't deliver any power until we've done 95% of the decarbonisation. Given the failure rates of nuclear builds, and the delays and the backups and spinning reserve needed nuclear isn't the best way to do the other 5%.

charlie14 · 11-11-2025 10:30PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123981042#Comment_123981042

You know the figures. We are not going to be paying €300 Bn between now and 2050 on renewables for three reasons.

One: Doing so would bankrupt the country and wipe out our economy long before 2050

Two : Even if we did, it would still leave us short of our projected requirements by 5.5 - 6.5 GW and leaves us with more emissions than we have now and paying fines from 2030 for long after 2050

Three: Our domestic electricity charges are consistently in the top three most expensive in Europe. A strike price 7 times greater than the present is not only going to leave us with the most expensive in the world - where even if throwing away €300 Bn. had not already bankrupt the country and our economy - would do it anyway.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-11-2025 11:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123981312#Comment_123981312

How do we keep decarbonising and keep the lights on while waiting for nuclear ?

How do we replace 75% of the output of a reactor within 5 seconds to avoid cascade failure ?

riddlinrussell · 11-11-2025 11:34PM

Charlie what is your proposal for building 44 GW of nuclear plants in Ireland!? Accounting for outages/backup how many plants would that be?

That seems like... a lot of nuclear to build anywhere in 20 years, let alone a country that:

Has never built any nuclear
Has an infamously slow planning process
Seems to be lightly bricking itself over getting enough construction crews for the number of infrastructure projects its queued up over the next couple of years (all of which are, in the main relatively standard projects worldwide)

Charles Babbage · 12-11-2025 04:25PM

New mini reactors in Anglesey. It might be cost efficient to run another undersea cable from there to Dublin.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdegjd16lrlo

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2025 12:26AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123982923#Comment_123982923

£2.5Bn , 470MW , online in mid 2030's for the first one. (ie. call 2036 mid 2030's so it sound like late 2030's)

They claim they will drop down to £2Bn later. Even so it would be a long time before they start exporting them.

They don't exist yet and they will inevitably have teething trouble and then there will be delays and cost increases.

In 2017 they claimed build time of 5 years.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/customers/nuclear/smr-brochure-july-2017.pdf

"Take just 5 years from the start of construction to the generation of the first electricity.
Be up and running by 2028"

"UK SMR programme based on 7GWe in the UK and a conservative international export of 9GWe could deliver a total benefit to the UK economy of £188bn for the period 2015 to 2115, according to Rolls-Royce estimates, with the majority (£100bn) in the period 2030 to 2050."

Based on the brochure timeline from 8 years ago we are now looking at the earliest possible first reactor in ~2036 and the later ones from 2038 to 2058. Assuming the real world behaves exactly like the computer generated pictures.

Note : The increase from 440MW to 470MW has a whiff of Snake Oil / moving goalposts to make look more economic about it.

And the design hasn't been approved yet.

In July 2024, the regulators issued a Step 2 GDA statement and Rolls-Royce SMR entered Step 3 of the GDA process. (Generic Design Assessment)

“We will continue working with partner regulators as the project now progresses to more detailed scrutiny of the design in Step 3.”

josip · 13-11-2025 12:42AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123982923#Comment_123982923

I don't if I have the correct understanding but I've been told that it can be more efficient to export electricity over a DC interconnector usually to another country than relatively long distances locally over a domestic AC grid.

Anglesea is relatively sparsely populated as is North Wales apart from the coastline in the summer months. So a connector to Dublin mightn't be the maddest idea. It would be one-way traffic though.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2025 01:42AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123984092#Comment_123984092

Long distances undersea have to be DC as otherwise you'd loose a lot of the AC through capacitance. Like the 2.5GW ish one between Scotland and England which bypassed the NIMBYs and local interests.

If like Japan you have both 50Hz and 60Hz but can't use a transformer , same if you have to exchange between grids of the same frequency but not in phase , you have to use some kind of rotary converter, or AC to DC to AC.

DC allows you to use the maximum voltage all the time. eg: 240V AC peaks at 339V so you could use 339V DC on the same cables but need different switch gear and again AC to DC to AC.

Not sure why the 500MW East West interconnector didn't go undersea from Holyhead because there should have been enough capacity for the 1190MW planned for Wyfla back to England ( though it only ran at 940MW )

charlie14 · 13-11-2025 02:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123984068#Comment_123984068

I don`t see where you are getting the whiff of Snake Oil.

Even if the cost was £2.5 Bn. rather than £2 Bn. 1GW generated by a 440MW SMR would cost €6.77 Bn. By a 470MW €6.35 Bn. Either would still be a lot less than half the price of offshore.

There is also the consideration of the high capacity factor, a refuel time of 18 days and with them being able to be scaled to generate where the demand is, a major reduction in transmission lines

plodder · 13-11-2025 09:06AM

British Government gives go-ahead for Rolls Royce SMR at Wylfa in North Wales

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/business/uk-nuclear-power-plant.html?unlocked_article_code=1.008.87Nc.FpUEcWV4ib8w&smid=url-share

The Wales plant will consist of three units, known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, whose power output will add up to a little less than half that of one of the current generation of giant power stations.
:
some critics say the government is making a mistake by not building a larger plant at Wylfa that would generate more electricity and create more jobs. The nuclear industry considers Wylfa the most advantageous of potential British sites because of its bedrock location and easy access to deep water for cooling.

In a statement on Wednesday, Unite, a large trade union, said building the small modular plant at Wylfa was “a missed opportunity.”

riddlinrussell · 13-11-2025 09:44AM

Going through the figures, Charlie says the 37GW plan will leave us 5-6GW short, so we need 43GW of capacity by 2050.

That is 29 1.5GW nuclear reactors built here by 2050, or 92 SMRs if they prove out, how do you propose we build them all in that time frame?

gjim · 13-11-2025 12:17PM

Dude you're wasting your time asking Charlie a simple straightforward question like that. That's not how he rolls at all.

At best you'll get a barely disguised bunch of AI slop - often with glaring and obvious numerical mistakes. Which of course if you ask him about these mistakes, he will weasel, distract and evade. Alternatively you'll get told you don't know what you're talking about and grandiose claims that charlie knew all this stuff years ago 😂 and the rest of us are in catch-up.

charlie14 · 13-11-2025 02:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123984339#Comment_123984339

I was mystified for a while as to where you came up with that 43GW but I reckon it`s like the lad looking at a bull in a pen and saying to the farmer "That`s a good bull, great head on him" to which the farmer replied "If you`re looking for a good a good bull, you`re looking at the wrong end"

The Eirgrid projections for 2050 are 15-16GW by 2050. The present 37GW plan would leave us short 5.5 - 6.5GW of that. If we were to attempt to generate that, - lets call it 6GW - by 2050 from offshore wind with it`s capacity factor would require a further installed offshore capacity of 14.3GW. That would result in the total installed generation required being 51.3GW. At present costs for offshore alone, somewhere between €770Bn. and €820Bn. And that would be before all the extra add-ons for green hydrogen and the even higher electricity charges than the 37GW plan.

To deliver the projected 15 -16 GW for2050 - lets call it 16GW - you would not need 29 nuclear reactors. 11 EPR 1.6GW reactors would provide 16.5GW and 13 APR1400 reactors would deliver 16.75GW.

Neither would you need 92 SMRs. 36 SMR`s with an installed capacity would deliver 16GW, and we would not be building them. We would be buying them ready-made.

If they prove out, even with the cost not falling below £2.5Bn. each, to provide our projected demand would cost £90Bn. (€102Bn). A fraction of the €770 - €820Bn. that offshore would cost, Even less than €102Bn. on a like for like basis as it is for the total 16GW whereas for offshore I deducted the renewables we already have.

riddlinrussell · 13-11-2025 04:21PM

"The present 37GW plan would leave us short 5.5 - 6.5GW of that."

This above is where I got the 43GW figures from, apologies if that was erroneous.

Happy to accept your corrected figures:

Now let me repeat my question:

Going through the figures, Charlie says the 37GW plan will leave us 5-6GW short, so we need 16GW of capacity by 2050.

That is 11 1.6GW nuclear reactors built here by 2050, or 36 470MW SMRs if they prove out, how do you propose we build them all in that time frame?

To clarify given your response so far I didn't say fund, I mean plan and build

Ozymandius2011 · 13-11-2025 04:34PM

The British nuclear deterrent is a factor in their support for nuclear power. After the nuclear fuel is spent, it can be reprocessed at Sellafield and put into nuclear warheads

charlie14 · 13-11-2025 04:43PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123984702#Comment_123984702

You have posted these accusations here a number of times and each time you have been challenged on them, the same result. Nada, zilch, zero.

I have never claimed to be any kind of authority on nuclear power, but I do have an understanding of basic mathematics, which it appears is less than you have as you have spotted these "often with glaring and obvious numerical mistakes" of mine. So why have you not pointed them out each time you have posted this when challenged to do so?

Are you going to do it this time, or like every other time run away and hide ?

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2025 07:43PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123985445#Comment_123985445

They also need to breed fuel for the submarines.

We use about as much electricity as Birmingham. So if push came to shove GB would get the preferential treatment because they are a much bigger customer.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2025 07:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123984185#Comment_123984185

The cost was £2.5Bn in the 2017 brochure. It's probably safe to assume it would have increased by the same order as the other nuclear projects have since then. Especially since they were based on incremental changes to existing reactors vs. RR's clean slate design that is so far computer model and hasn't been prototyped yet.

Hint towards the cost : The government pledged 2.5 billion pounds for initial site work,

cnocbui · 13-11-2025 08:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123944839#Comment_123944839

I imagine the number of times I have to post this image is infinite, because you are utterly incapable of acknowledging or accepting facts:

The grey is French energy exports, the orange is Nuclear generation. France is capable of altering the output of it's reactors by a considerable percentage in a matter of hours. In just 5 hours on this random day, they increased their nuclear generation by 68%. They are are so obviously demand following, Stevie Wonder could see it.

My guess is that a lot the EU's ridiculous amount of street lighting is French nuclear powered.

Busman Paddy Lasty · 13-11-2025 09:03PM

Do they alter output like that all year round?

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2025 09:28PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123985970#Comment_123985970

https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source# with nuclear and fossil fuel hidden for the two weeks surrounding that cherry picked "normal" day from 18 months ago. It's renewables vs. exports. 5-10 May 2024

Same chart - but filled in to the +/- 10GW lines.

The straw colour at the top is how much of the renewable production fell below +10G W, and a fair bit of it could be filled in by the peaks above 10GW.

The straw colour at the bottom is where exports fell short of -10 GW. It's shows how on average French renewables produce more than France exports.

Note the pumped storage when solar is available. And the 3GW imports when nuclear dropped for reasons you still haven't explained.

gjim · 13-11-2025 10:48PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123985468#Comment_123985468

I dunno, where do you want to start? My last interaction with you involve challenging your claim that 60% of Europes renewable electricity is produced by biofuels and biomass. Which is wrong by about a factor of 10.

We never really resolved that one, did we?

I have to admit I was impressed with the sheer volume of word salad you spewed into this thread to avoid admitting this mistake - despite being questioned directly about this claim by multiple posters. Impressive effort and dedication to the cause of never admitting you've made a mistake anywhere.

By this, I mean I was impressed in the same way as I am with the neighbor's dog who is able to do a wobbly impression of walking on 2 legs for a few steps.

gjim · 13-11-2025 10:59PM

In just 5 hours on this random day, they increased their nuclear generation by 68%. They are are so obviously demand following, Stevie Wonder could see it.

That's not demand-following. That's load-following.

You should avoid using technical terms you don't understand. Makes you look stupid.

charlie14 · 13-11-2025 11:40PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123986533#Comment_123986533

I`m doing my best here attempting to understand why you keep accusing me of making these, in your words "glaring and obvious numerical mistakes" in relation to figures I have posted here in relation to our projected 2050 demand and the expense of achieving that level of supply, that when yet again asked to back up these accusations, it`s a story about a neighbours dog.

The only conclusion I can come to is that you have either taken a solemn vow not to make public these so called "glaring and obvious numerical mistakes - to who or why is even more of a mystery - or you really do not have the foggiest.

Of course you could always prove me wrong by posting your own figures, but we know that is not going to happen don`t we ?

Busman Paddy Lasty · 13-11-2025 11:54PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123986699#Comment_123986699

The post you quoted did include reference to your false claim about % of renewable energy derived from biomass/biofuels. So your following paragraph completely uncalled for:

"The only conclusion I can come to is that you have either taken a solemn vow not to make public these so called

"glaring and obvious numerical mistakes

- to who or why is even more of a mystery - or you really do not have the foggiest."

I recall another time you made a false claim about the price of electricity in Ireland. Stemming from an inability to read a graph.

Relax with insulting others when your posts clearly have problems with comprehension and basic maths.

Nuclear - future for Ireland?

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