Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Today's fantastic renewables performance.

Renewables generate far more CO2 than nuclear, because you have to burn gas when they can't satisfy demand; they also cost more. There is no affordable grid scale storage technology that could be used to make them match the low CO2 output of nuclear. As per my solar cost vs nuclear proof, even if there were a free no cost storage solution, renewables would still be more expensive than nuclear.

France has for the last few years had an effectively net zero grid. No country relying on renewables can match that. Ireland is way, way behind in achieving the 2050 net zero requirement, which it won't manage because the required affordable storage tech does not exist. France has already met and exceeded the 2050 net zero requirement, because it uses nuclear energy which doesn't require the burning of gas or a storage tech that doesn't exist.

Norway waves "Hello". It has no nuclear power and produces approx 99% of its electricity from renewables.

France has for the last few years had an effectively net zero grid. No country relying on renewables can match that.

To those marketing solar as solution to Irelands electricity problems (too dirty and too expensive) why don’t you put your money where your mouth is (I tried and was disappointed) and slap solar on your roof and a battery … and then proceed to disconnect from the grid.

You will learn first hand about capacity factors

speaking of connectivity to grids, Celtic inter-connector delayed for years more

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41835056.html

“what do in interim?”

Burn gas of course? There are gas peaker plants being built and existing plants converted that will be around 50 years from now still burning gas, utilities obviously don’t think renewables and bess “ass storage” alone will cut it or they wouldn’t be building new ones of these

https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/147321/residents-voice-anger-at-proposed-athenry-peaker-plant

Or Build more “ass battery storage” in existing industrial areas

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0427/1570507-offaly-wind-farm/

^ above completely bought out by Amazon for their ai datacenters in the funny “green” washing dance government forces companies to do

so your plan is double the amount of gas we are burning? Doubling our cO2 output. For an infinite amount of time because you can’t answer how long it would take to build a nuclear plant.

No one has said wind , solar and batteries are the only answer

But end and solar have reduced our gas usage by 40%

Peaker plants are only designed to run for max of 200 hours a day

Nuclear will require redundancy and peaking plants if not then it’s scaled wrong and not operating efficiently

Norway generates 90% of their electricity from hydro. We would wave "Hello" back except our hydro at ~3% doesn`t have the strength.

But maybe Norway is waving "Hello" because of the volume of their gas we are burning in peaking plants due to unreliable wind and solar.

Whatever the reason, better to be waved "Hello" than given the two fingers which they are giving Denmark for robbing their generation when wind in Denmark decides to have a little sleep, and Germany doing likewise due to them shutting their nuclear plants during an energy crisis off which they played a major part in creating.

i advocate for both renewables and nuclear, but realise, most irish citizens may never truly accept nuclear as a part of the solution, im also a part of probably a very large proportion of the population that may never be able to afford to install renewables on my property, so…..

My post was in reference to post #3352 where the poster claimed that the 42.8% of electricity generated by gas in 2025 was from 16,264 GWh of gas, and nowhere near the 25.2 TWh as I had pointed out.

February - April 2026 the Minister for Climate Energy and the Environment and official provided formal replies in the Dail that the figure was 25.2 TWh. So are you saying the poster was correct that the gas used to generate electricity in 2025 was 16.264 TWh and that myself, the Minister and numerous Dail officials were incorrect and the real figure was not 25.2TWh, a figure over 50% higher than the poster claimed it to be ?

We may or may not have to use some gas in our generation using nuclear, but it would be a drop n the ocean compared to what we are now using even while importing 14.6% of our electricity attempting to shield the reality of that 42.8% of gas we use. France uses ~5% gas, Sweden ~1.2% and Finland 3.5%

Manufacturers as we have seen from many examples will, like some here, give the first figure that comes to mind when attempting to sell their wares, but how many turbine manufacturers give 30 year guarantees or warranties ?

Offshore turbine warranties for major components like generators and gearboxes is generally just 5 years. When manufacturers talk about 30 years they are talking about the time period before structural fatigue failure.

I have posted here on the economic costs of wind v nuclear, solar v nuclear and all the add-ons renewables would require to power the grid from green hydrogen, to battery and all other storage systems that would be required and their costs. I am still waiting for you and others here who, it appears from their posts are experts on all things nuclear, yet somehow cannot even state what plan it is they favour let alone give a cost for it.

Why is that. Is it because they actually realize that doing so would show just how financially insane the cost would be that even laughable would not come close ? .

Solar and wind did bring down Spanish grid

Root cause pages are fascinating study in how wind and solar led to “voltage fluctuations” which tipped their grid over

Just over a minute that’s how long it took wind and solar to destroy the grid this time last year in Spain

Again with personal attacks

There is as a difference between small scale solar on roofs (I repeatedly said I support that) and large scale conversion of thousands of acres of agricultural land

By all means install rooftop solar, I think it would teach people and invaluable lesson in just how variable and unreliable solar is

That you are unable to read, comprehend and debate while repeatedly trying to be abusive towards posters points at a lack of education and debating ability and is frankly a bit sad, I don’t get angry at the path this country is being dragged down, I just keep pointing out the sheer stupidity and expense of the current approach being taken which is not even leading to reduction of co2 to zero but greater and greater dependence on foreign gas that comes via a single pipeline

Just because I for example support nuclear doesn’t mean I would support for example putting a plant in national park like Killarney lakes far from main demand centers and grid infrastructure in Dublin/Belfast in same manner just because I think converting green fields into industrial estate is daft doesn’t mean I’m against rooftop solar (rooftop first is already policy in Italy and Netherlands)