Nuclear - future for Ireland?

So what you are saying is that you wouldn't have bought into something that was foreign controlled if you had known.

With nuclear there are far fewer suppliers. It took until two years ago for the Finns to get non-Russian fuel for their old reactors.

Nuclear will produce exactly ZERO power here over the next 20 years.

Therefore the cost difference between our current path and going nuclear for the next 20 years consists entirely of the additional costs of nuclear. No savings whatsoever. Just extra costs.

Nuclear can't compete with today's costs simply because it's not here.

It won't be able to compete with today's renewables in 20 years time because they will already have been paid for.

It won't be able to compete with new renewables in 20 years time. Because of constant improvements and growth.

Nuclear has no growth and no significant new tech. Thermal efficiency hasn't changed , fuel usage has in theory gone down ~ 13% in twice that number of years but since fuel is soooo cheap it doesn't really affect the bottom line. Safety regulations have exploded and compliance is a lot more costly than in the past.

https://vdma.eu/en/international-technology-roadmap-photovoltaic you can download the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic for 2025.

It explains how and where and when the cost savings in PV will come from over the next 10 years , bigger cheaper more efficient panels using less raw materials. As it's for crystalline silicon-based technology there are other technologies too.

The current learning rate is calculated to be 25.8% using all historic price data points from 1976 to 2024.

However, considering only the data points from 2006 - 2024, the learning rate is 40.7% (Page 75)

Solar is insane. Since 2006 each time global output doubles the price falls 40% , which is how much the planned new French plants have already increased even though they won't start construction for years.

The onus is on you to provide a better plan that doesn't increase emissions and your plan has to keeps the lights on.

We have to increase electrical output for things like electric cars and heat pumps so we can't do nothing.

Waiting for 20+ years for nuclear is doing nothing. And it means we would have to fall back to using fossil fuel (or pay for renewables too, in which case there's no need for nuclear.)

Presumably the goal for everyone here proposing nuclear without explaining how we keep the lights on until it could possibly arrive is fossil fuel through the back door. Remember 40% abandonment rate outside Asia by the countries that had 84% of the worlds reactors. The other 60% were at least 2.5 times the bait and switch price AND they were on average a decade late AND they weren't reliable having months offline after grid connection. AND we have to do better than they d

They did not increase nuclear output.

EDF made that money by selling renewable power and the 30TWh reduced domestic demand in recent years. It is not a nuclear success story.

cf 92.3 TWh of exports vs 174.9TWh from ( renewables and the 30TWh drop in domestic consumption.) ( 62.4TWh hydro 49.6TWh wind 32.9TWh solar )

The other way you could have got 90TWh is if there hadn't been a 60TWh drop in nuclear output since early 2000's and the 30TWh drop in domestic consumption. But you didn't. Because it is not a nuclear success story.

Dec 2025 forecasts French reactor operator EDF has confirmed its nuclear production targets for 2026 and 2027 in a range of 350 TWh to 370 TWh … For 2028, the operator of France's 57 reactors set a range of 345 TWh to 375 TWh. … 2025 output is on track to exceed 370 TWh for the first time since 2019 - sounds good but in 2005 France produced 430TWh.

Also Flammanville-3 goes off line for a year in September. If it was fully commissioned it would be averaging 14TWh a year except like all the other EPR's. But they don't. 10TWh is a more likely figure.

Numbers:

Nuclear output peaked in the early 2000's , when it was 60 TWh higher than now.

Demand started dropping from a smidgen under 480TWh to 450TWh in recent years. 30TWh available.

Nuclear is supposedly a long term power source isn't it so stop cherry picking.

France was supposed to have 430TWh in 2015 (and onwards too) except they seem to have forgotten how to build nuclear power plants.

Go back a little further and you can see the bigger picture.

2005 430 TWh - this is when France decided to build a new plant to be commissioned in 2012

2015 416.8 TWh - the new plant should have provided 14TWh so output should have been 430TWh with other plants to follow.

2025 373 TWh - a drop of 57TWh is not a nuclear success story.

2022 279 TWh - not even two thirds of 2005's output. And that's average over a full year, IIRC it was down to 50% some of the time. The Irish grid would have had to burn massive amounts of fossil fuel. France burnt 48.9TWh even though it was able to import from the neighbours.

https://analysesetdonnees.rte-france.com/en/electricity-review-keyfindings Low availability in 2021 because of delays in maintenance. Only then in 2022 do they discover the stress corrosion.

Having eleventy% of power from nuclear protected France from energy price fluctuations. - Oh wait it didn't.