I agree, we need more win and solar as quickly as possible. More solar and offshore wind in the Irish and Celtic Sea would have made a big difference to today's mix.
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.
Oh no, we had to burn gas today.
Instead of, we'll have to burn gas every day for the next 18,255 days if we chose nuclear.
Nuclear generates far more CO2 than renewables, because you have to burn gas when they can't satisfy demand, which is at peak times every day and all day every day in the colder months.
Also all day every day to provide spinning reserve.
And all day every day for the 20+ years waiting for the first reactor reactor at which point you might reduce the amount of gas gradually over years and years as more nuclear arrives.
The UK started this process in 2005. The power globally from solar installed from 2026 to 2028 will exceed nuclear's output. It's probable that solar installed in 2029-2030 will also exceed nuclear's output before the UK has their first new reactor working reliably.
In order to decarbonise we will have to generate more electricity in the future.
The choices of generators are renewables, fossil fuel or nuclear.
Since nuclear won't arrive anytime soon, delaying or reducing investment in renewables means more fossil fuel consumption and that means eye-watering fines too.
Nuclear in the UK last month's average 3.808 GW, Last year's average was 3.897 GW
Solar in the UK yesterday 24hr average 3.806 GW (average on Friday 24/4 was 4.91GW)
We are heading for an era where solar will dominate daylight hours for half the year which will undermine the prices baseload providers can earn.
That has to rank with 'nuclear is unreliable' as the biggest lie you have told.
French grid CO2 production in the last 24 hrs 14g per KWh. Irelands figure is 264g per KWh.
You got a roo loose in the top paddock.
Nuclear decarbonises electricity production more than any other technology.
This graph shows how much CO2 reduction each technology has when it replaces coal and gas. Nuclear is the standout winner, by a large margin.
Operating Nuclear.
I think even the Captain would be in favor of nuclear if a fully completed 3 reactor plant spontaneously appeared and began Operating tomorrow at Carnsore Point (I'd have some concernsaboutnobody having been trained to operate it but hey I'll take it.)
But that's not actually how the process of getting anything built in Ireland works.
"Nuclear decarbonises electricity production more than any other technology."
The UK, US, Spain, Germany and China all increased fossil fuel usage as they adopted nuclear. Only when gas arrived was coal displaced. India and China both reduced coal use last year however, the US increased by a similar amount.
Technologies that decarbonise more than Nuclear : roughly in order forecasts for 2026 based on last years growth
OCGT it uses 75% less carbon than the old coal it replaced. (not the full four times 6,822 TWh but a good bit )
Hydro 4,470 TWh
Energy efficient light vs. Incandescents which used to use ~14% of electricity, nuclear now produces just under 9%
Solar ~ 3,250 TWh in 2026 min ( same increase as last year rather than 27% a year)
Wind ~ 2,900 TWh in 2026 min ( same increase as last year rather than doubling every 7 years )
Nuclear ~ 2,900 TWh in 2026 max ( same increase as last year even though 2024 was only 7 TWh higher than 2006 )
Hard to know how much less CO2 globally the supercritical coal plants produce but if they saved enough emissions compared to old coal then it would be the sixth technology that has reduced CO2 emissions by more than nuclear. eg: A thermal efficiency of 49.37% saves a third of the emissions vs 33% for old coal.
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.
Can you let us know how much a Nuclear Power station in Ireland would cost?
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
Can you let us know the cost of the path the country is currently being pushed down by wind and gas lobby?
You never gave the cost for current approach of:
especially interested in figures for Poland you thrown around earlier in thread and then disappeared when challenged to backup your post with references @markodaly
Norway has more hydro storage than double the irish annual electricity consumption. In fact it has about half of Europe's hydro. What are you trying to say? That we should build mountains and reservoirs? I reckon that'll cost a few pennies more than nuclear.
and you think a nuclear plant could be delivered without delays.
How much would it cost ?
How long would it take to build including the planing process?
What do we do in the interim?
“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
When you build a nuclear Micro Modular Reactor and disconnect from the grid, then I will disconnect too.
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
I have seen this citation needed a few times to other posters as well from two here in particular. I would not look on it as a coincidence because they are the two posters in particular that whenever they have been asked as to what plan they favour and how much it will cost have refused to answer each and every time coming back with nothing other than more questions and attempts to distract.
What happened with your post to me off "I`ll come back to the rest of your talking points later. No doubt there are some nuggets there". And what is this, " No need to post again, simply link these posts for me to review ". Do you now judge yourself as some authoritative figure where post needs your approval ?
If you have a problem and believe that a post is incorrect, then it is up to you to show why it is incorrect. For someone who has obviously such a high regard of their own knowledge on the subject that should not be a problem now should it!
Why would you need a citation to show that your assumption that burning gas to generate electricity had 100% efficiency was idiotic. It`s called thermal efficiency loss and depending on how you burn it determines irs capacity factor. The gas we burned in 2025 was primarily in peaking plants, to compensate for periods of low performing renewables, and is about the lowest efficiency rate you can get from burning gas for generation.
Is it just another attempt at muddying the waters when you were wrong or is it that you are simply too lazy to even attempt to prove me wrong by doing your own research ?
And why would you need a citation to see that offshore wind contracts are for 20 years and that anything we have ever placed in the sea quickly becomes a bucket of rust ?
Your co-citations friend not long ago here was attempting to assure us that onshore wind turbines would generate for eons with nothing needed to keep they generating at full throttle other than a lick of paint. He even gave an example in Scotland. Problem was it was a fantasy and that wind farm had been completely demolished at the end of its contract life. As to what the sea can do to those turbines. Hywind offshore had to be towed to Norway just 7 years after it became operational for "heavy maintenance" that took 5 months to complete for its 5 turbines.
Professor James Carroll head of Wind Energy Engineering and his team at Strathclyde University in their 2016 report found that the average downtime days per year were 8 for offshore turbines compared to 3 for onshore due to accessibility constraints, logistical hurdles and severe weather inherent in maritime environments. A subsequent 2023 - 2026 report found the same, and as far as I recall, was also the findings of a University of Limerick team as well as others.
Nor sign either of any of those "nuggets" either when it comes to validating your nothing but guesswork on the wind capacity factor in the Irish Sea where you have been shown the capacity factors of offshore U.K. wind farms in the Irish Sea are not within a country mile of your 50%
Actually, rather than you looking for citations from others is it really not a case of citations needed from you when we see these exaggerated claims you make that are verifiable incorrect !
Still waiting on the plan you favour and it`s cost btw.
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.
peaking plants were not the main user of gas. Regular CCGT plants providing baseload used far more.
OCGT will still be required with Nuclear
manufactures are giving 30 years for offshore wind
V236-15.0 MW™
how much will nuclear cost?
how long before we could commission one?
what do we do in the interim ?
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…..
I installed solar 6 years ago because I was curious
So you installed solar 6 years ago, and I presume it has saved you money, but you are against all other renewables.. Rules for me, not for thee. As I said, you are playing a role, an actor.
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 ? .
no, I’m simply saying that the statement you made is incorrect and factually wrong. “The gas we burned in 2025 was primarily in peaking plants”. Is a false statement.
In your reply above you are changing your statement.
Do you know what a peaking plant is ? You seem to be use gas and peaking plants interchangeably.
The design life is 30 years. The service agreement includes major components for the life of the service agreement. 30 years is not to structural failure. There is a difference between. Warranty and service agreement. the IEC standards cover design life and life extension
Not many people would buy a turbine and not have a 20+ year service agreement in place.
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
are you actually replying to yourself now?
Fukushima blackout is a more interesting read….
Just over a minute that’s how long it took wind and solar to destroy the grid this time last year in Spain
Sweden is about to become an irradiated wasteland just like Japan, France, Finland, Korea, US, China etc etc
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/24/britain-in-talks-to-sell-rolls-royce-mini-nukes-to-sweden/
… and Spain itself, that their nuclear power plants didn’t meltdown when wind and solar brought down whole gird (and Irish continue to holiday there) should tell you something @ted1
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)
