Nuclear - future for Ireland?

18 TWh that’s how much gas was burned last year 2025 because there was no renewables to fill the demand just like most of this week so far since our 8-9GW of wind and solar doesn’t like to work much

“The Ireland/France Interconnector 700MW was €1.6 Billion”

The Celtic interconnector is not complete nor live so yet again you are posting factually wrong information “As of April 2026, the project is on track to begin full operation within the year.” Thats after being delayed for years past original completion date

You max that out every hour of every day paying for and importing French nuclear power and you still only fill in 5-6TWh of that gas hole, it may come as a shock to someone who didn’t know we had an all island grid but inter-connectors don’t generate electricity they just move it, but you are not gonna max it out as that means on windy days wind generators don’t get paid. So you are back to needing tons of storage!

I noticed you keep avoiding doing any math about battery or hydro storage for the required amount while always demanding figures which I keep providing, so far the conversation is very one sided despite your bizzare rudeness

Perhaps building several interconnectors and outsourcing production to nuclear France is the answer, wouldn’t that be funny

“Poland bought 14GWh for €1 Billion”

source for this? And rest of your post? The amounts and figures for Poland from December (approved by eu last month) through 2030 are quite different than your claim

… if the wind is blowing, and when the wind is blowing there’s already plenty of wind on land, you are back to needing storage when renewables are taking a nap

We didn’t burn that 18TWh of gas for laugh, we had no choice as the 8-9GW of renewables were vacationing

Did you find em figures for Poland? Or just keep posting more lies and wrong figures

… if the wind is blowing, and when the wind is blowing there’s already plenty of wind on land, you are back to needing storage when renewables are taking a nap

You do realise that offshore wind is stronger than onshore, right? Around 20-40% more wind, right? You do know this, right? Because if you did, you wouldn't have asked the above question.

Great - this will really make us feel good about our Data centre policies won't it…. just got to find lots more gas to keep the Greenwashing of this nonsense going🙄

Exactly. Korea is improving, their work practices and health & safety wouldn't be up to European standards. There staff might earn on par with German workers but work 70 hours per week.

And of course the scandal that saw Korean people jailed and their international reputation ruined.

Other than than those minor details that would make building their design in Ireland double the cost of in their native Korea, they're alright.

Still double offshore wind and 8-9x solar when it comes to capacity factors

You can’t be dismissing wind and solar capacity factors out of one side of your mouth while trying to dismiss nuclear out of the other side which as per your own figures does much much better

Have you found them figures you invented for Poland for storage? Because I’m looking at completely different article with different figures of Polish government website for storage through 2030

Ill give you the link, once you show me the business case and costs for providing Nuclear in Ireland.

you can have (pick random large number of wind) 100GW of wind in this country on land and offshore and still produce next to zero on a “breezy” day or week

With this shite again. Stop peddling disinformation and fake news.

Go look at Eirgrid smart dashboard for this week I even posted screenshots to highlight the issues, today is very interesting, we should be getting 100% from wind as conditions are ideal and we are not, I suspect eirgird (whom removed the predicted wind production line from their reports) screwed up their predictions for today or there is some sort of cartel like agreement by producers bidding on the auction to keep prices high by burning gas when there is no need

did you find them figures for storage in Poland you have invented and do not match real world reporting by Polish government

I’ve no issues with rooftop solar, I literally have it on my own roof, by all means put it on every roof in the country if people want to spend their own money (the grants are a scam tho, as installers just increase their fees but that amount)! on the other hand I have a major issue with agricultural fields being taken out of food production and converted to industrial parks for solar and storage estates full of metal, plastic, high fences and flammable container batteries where you had green fields before

I first hand understand what 10% capacity over a year (heavily dependent on daytime, cloud cover and month of year) without storage entails which is why I keep nudging you to do some basic math, but for bizzare reason you keep being rude and not debating in good faith

So adding more wind won’t reduce the amount of gas needed, thanks for confirmation

cc @markodaly

Add the cost of synchronous condensers to the cost of 37GW offshore + 10GW onshore wind and solar + ??? Storage + ??? Interconnectors + ??? Hydrogen + ??? Gas burned until above are ready by 2050 on current trajectory we are being taken down

If it’s not windy right across the island as often happens then how does adding more wind help? Your peaks can get higher (if not artificially limited) but troughs don’t lift at all

Still requiring gas or uber expensive storage

If you have a 3L diesel engine it would still be as much stuck on the side of the road as 2L engine if there is no diesel in the tank

Terrible day for offshore wind in Ireland

Synchronous condensers do not generate electricity, they consume it. The only way you will get a guaranteed supply of electricity from wind generation is by installing enough capacity to cover for when wind is as low as 6% capacity for those long extended periods.

We presently have 5 GW installed onshore wind, 1.3GW of solar farms installed capacity and ~240MW of hydro. All three are supplying at most 1.75 GW. Our projected peak demand is for ~15.5 GW by 2050. To reach that 15.5 GWs would require a further 13.75 GW generation from offshore wind. The installed capacity required to ensure it covers for those prolonged periods of little or no wind is not just financially unfeasible it`s insane.