Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Where to begin

• One only needs a few hundred tons available from a wide range of stable and democratic countries compared to millions of tons of steel, aluminium, copper, plastics and rare earths almost all now coming from China as there is no European industry left as such
• No once you have solar and wind you are not independent (just take a visit to eirgird dashboard right now and see what out 9GW of renewables are doing as I type this) you have now become dependent on China for replacements every two decades (less for batteries) and mideast for gas to backup renewables
• I do hope more people get home solar like I done six years ago, only for them to learn first hand what 10% capacity factor entails in reality
• Those people protesting can’t just switch to electric trucks and tractors, those literally don’t exist and our electricity is already the most expensive in world precisely due to the hole renewables have gotten us into

That’s not how economics works

if only HGV and tractors and other heavy machinery are left using hydrocarbons let’s say with 90% drop in demand you now have situations where it’s no longer profitable to run the only refinery on this island for example, increasing foreign dependence

Renewables make a country dependent on gas, they do not make a country energy independent.

That’s not how the real world operates

The state can’t do that as it would fall foul of EU anti state subsidy rules

Tangentially: we used to have cheap electricity when state ran it all, just wasn’t very clean as nuclear wasn’t chosen

8th of February. It's not uncommen, I have lot's more.

"A reactors worth of batteries"

The UAE are constructing a solar + battery project to provde 1 GW for 3.5 hours. Assuming it's on budget, it will be 3 times the cost of the UAEs nuclear reactors, and that's in a country near the equator with a very high solar capacity factor.

Predictably intermittent means nothing, it doesn' free you from the reality of your LNG transiting the Straits of Hormuz or the US having a huge cold weather event interupting exports of LNG, such as happened recenty.

If you need 5 reactors, you build 6. They are cheaper than either OSW or solar. The extra reactor can be your backup spinning reserve. In your system, you can either export that power, a good little earner for France, or more likely, use that power to generate hydrogen to decarbonise transport that can't be electrified. These are legitimate uses of power that are not critical, so in the case of one of your beloved SCRAMs - a once every 2 years event for a reactor - you just stop making hydrogen and remove that load from the grid.

France has such nuclear over capacity, with their total capacity exceeding demand. If they stop exporting their zero CO2 power to make hydrogen, which it's occurred to me they likely will before 2050, the rest of the EU fudging their numbers via imports are stuffed.

Is that why we have the most expensive electricity in the world and still produce 6-7x the co2 of France

Probably at least a 20:1 difference in frequency. The US SCRAM frequency per reactor averages once every 2 years.

Speaking of denial. The current topic is renewables freeing a country from fossil fuels. 45% renewables means 55% fossil fuel use, which is fossil fuel dependency, something France is free of in terms of it's nuclear powered grid

People and companies don’t pay wholesale prices

And zero

That’s the number of days in any year ever Ireland released less CO2 than nuclear France

I have many screenshots of an interactive map of Finland exporting 1 GW after OL3 going online. Could have easily said OMG BilLiOnS wAsTeD oN nUcUlAr AnD dEy GiVe aWaY tO eStOniA 4 nUtt1N