Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Would you please stop with the nonsense. It`s tedious and takes up time where I have much better for doing with it.

There are 24 hours in a day. 72GW divided by 24 is 3GW. not 6GW. If the average demand was 6GW your €10.5 Bn. batteries would be flat after 12 hours.

In winter for those long extended periods when wind is doing little to nothing where solar eventually wakes up and sleep walks around with a capacity factor of 5% or less for a few hours before going back to sleep, it is adding little to nothing either.

First day of that extended period to provide an average of 3GW per hour over that day would require a capital investment of €10.5Bn to store 72GW. 72GW divided by 24 hours is an average of 3GW per hour.

End of the first 24 hours of that extended period your €10.5Bn batteries are drained, and nothing much of anything from wind or solar to recharge them. So day 2 would require another set of €10.5Bn batteries. Day 3 the same. Day 4 etc….

For just 3 days the capital cost of batteries to provide an average demand of 3GW would be €31.5Bn. For and average demand of 6GW, a capital cost of €63Bn.

Try actually reading posts and at least making an attempt to understand them before replying.

And what is so difficult to understand that if your average hourly usage is 3GW then in a 24 hour day you will use 72GW. It`s not rocket science. It`s basic simple mathematics 3 x24 = 72. If you cannot understand that then look up the definition of average.

I didn`t suggest anything about how much battery storage you would get for €10Bn. I told you you would get €10.5 Bn worth that supplying an average of 3 GW per hour would be flat after 24 hours. I also told you that when it comes to those long extended periods in winter when we have little to no wind, and solar, when it is awake, with its 5% capacity factor would be providing even less. So for day two if you do not have another set of €10.5 Bn batteries you are sitting in the dark. Ditto for day 3, day 4 or for however many days that extended period lasts.

Energy to fuel, which I presume is burning hydrogen to fill the gap in demand when renewables are unable too seeing as what this plan you favor is, is not cheaper than nuclear. The strike price of hydrogen alone is twice that of the most expensive nuclear you could find, and the cost to generate the electricity in the first place to provide it would double the strike price on its own.

Batteries and hydrogen are airy fairy green fantasies that they somehow got the idea could be paid for with monopoly money.

I just took a look at the Dublin Array and I would also be very skeptical that it won`t become another Sceirde Rocks.

It was awarded a strike price of €86.05 per MWh in 2023 with an estimated cost of €1.5 BN. Early 2025 that estimate had increased to over €2 Bn. An increase of ~40% in two years.

The earliest date for it supplying anything is now 2030 where it would be supplying at it`s 2023 strike price of €86.05 per MWh where the strike price has already risen to €98.72 by 2025.

Whatever margin of profit they were estimating to have in 2023, it is going to be a lot less in 2030. If at all.

Other countries have managed to overcome opposition. This constant appeal to Irish exceptionalism - the embarrasing kind - is tiresome.

Offer free lecy to the locals and communities will be demanding you build it in their back yard. In some places, the availabilty of stable high paying skilled work, would be enough.

WTF are you on about? There are 300 wind farms in Ireland. Locals don't get offered discounts on their lecy, nor do they get jobs so the approach hasn't been implimented or tried anywhere. All locals get are noisy eyesores. If opposition is growing it might be because there are 300 wind farms.

NP is the exact opposite of wind and solar in terms of visual and acoustic amenety and the amount of land it takes up.

Why don't you just drop this, 'I'm not opposed to nuclear power' I just like playing devils advocate at every opportunity, duplicity.

I’m all for nuclear if it would make financial sense, but does Ireland have its own source of uranium and if we do would our theoretical nuclear plant enrich the uranium to the 2-3% of U235 required?

How much energy would this enrichment use?

Also what would we do with the nuclear waste?

How would we secure the plant from lets say a terrorist attack?

Don’t disagree with anything your saying cnocbui, except the whole buying ready made uranium.
Does that not just make us dependent on other countries for raw fuel yet again?

Yes it does, but with a refuelling cycle of 18 months, to years, there is scope and leeway to seek alternative sources while continuing to generate power. It's not like gas, where an Orc tanker or sub breaking the pipeline to the UK would cause instant chaos. You can't have a Straits of Hormuz type of event.