Nuclear - future for Ireland?

If you look through my posts I posted same link days ago, do keep up.

As for your personal attack on me (there seems to be a pattern of that from the greens) the manufacturer claimed the panels were European but I later found out the Eastern European factory (now bankrupt) just repackaged Chinese panels they imported to avoid tariffs

The inverter was Chinese I didn’t find out until looked more deeply into the app which can connect/control it over the internet

6 years ago China wasn’t openly threatening the EU, they are now

it’s traitorous to continue to push their agenda as Chinese elites clearly don’t have our or the planets interests in mind

• we were told renewables would make us co2 free, they haven’t
• We were promised cheap electricity, it’s the opposite
• We were promised self sufficiency, we ended up with reliance on China and gas producers
• We were promised jobs, where are they, if anything Europes de-industrialisation has now intensified with auto manufacturing next on chopping block

Lies lies and more lies

My god Bored , you were promised a lot weren't you , i've been around a while ,and interested in the energy , renewables and nuclear, i remember lots of idle chatter about all of the above, but i don't remember a single industry expert making those promises..

. Renewables cant be Co² free ,neither can nuclear , everything we do make or do has an effect, they're both better than coal , oil and gas ..

. Renewables have a cost, not just to make and install the turbine or panel , but a development cost , the longer and slower the process the dearer this is , same goes for nuclear - incidentally are renewables dearer than gas - could be good,could be bad - too early to tell .. same with nuclear - costwise could be good , could be bad - too early to tell .

.on self sufficiency once they're in and operating , theyre in for 20 to 25 years , and a refurb gets them another 25 , youre not fully dependent on the vagueuries of the Russians or the gulf . And again like nuclear,

.jobs ? Apart from building the things , i don't really see where ,

Maybe we should have talked to a chinese,korean or turkish company to do a build and operate a nuclear power station contract ( as the uk did with edf- to build on the site of an existing nuclear power station )- 20 plus years ago -

it might be through planning by now -and ready to start construction,

or it might be a roaring success ,

Or it could be something that makes the children's hospital look like an example of excellent planning,project management and delivery ..

Good luck getting planning permission for a nuclear power station in Ireland. Apple tried to get planning for a data centre in Galway (as far as I remember) and gave up after three years of planning objections and delays.

To be fair, as much as I despise the NIMBY culture in this country, I wouldn't want a nuclear power plant near my house either.

You have hundreds of communities up and down the country objecting to Eiffel Tower sized turbines and now agricultural to industrial conversion of thousands of acres of land due to solar and batteries

Likes of FF have taken notice as the writing is on the wall for them, they are stuck between handing over 28bn to EU overlords or using that to build a single 50 hectare nuclear plant which impact one (hopefully Dublin where the mentalists live) community compared to electoral obliteration they face in critical rural constituencies up and down the country who are all up in arms about wind, solar and gas plants to back them up, Galway East alone has half a dozen of these

Politically nuclear now starting to look much more palatable hence the recent moves in Dail, the alternative (ha pun) is obliteration like the Greens got

I wouldn’t be suprised if we see a Italian /Dutch style ban on agricultural land use for solar too with a roofs first policy

With all of the objections to onshore wind generation, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the obvious answer would be offshore wind generation, but oh no, the NIMBYs will even object to that. (see the cancelled wind farm off Co. Clare or the ongoing battle over planning for the wind farm off the coast of South Co Dublin).

If they can't get an offshore wind farm through the planning process, they've no hope of getting a nuclear power plant through.

I seen that one

whoever thought it’s a good idea to put 1000ft high turbines 5km from shore in some of the most touristy areas of country (whose whole selling point is the wild Atlantic way) in one of the roughest seas is insane

The problem is that if you put em in Irish Sea they also be seen due to their height

Outside the Irish Sea the seas are much rougher and deeper so if you go out far enough where they don’t impact anyone you can’t bottom attach turbines and then you have to use floating offshore turbines that are insanely expensive

150 to 250 $ MWh for floating offshore

https://energy-solutions.co/articles/sub/offshore-wind-economics-2026

In fairness the poster is not far out on what we were being told and it was more than a bit of idle chatter. It was coming from the Green Party who had their hands on the state levers who designed this policy we are now following which was based on floating wind farms off our west coast with high capacity factors which we now know was a myth.The Irish Academy Of Engineering have been warning from the outset of the danger of over relying on intermittent wind and on our energy security.

If you consider those countries that have nuclear in their generation mix it would strongly suggest that nuclear would get you closer to having no gas than renewables. France 3%, Sweden and Finland both ~1%

Both renewables and nuclear have a cost but for costs to be viewed realistically their relative lifespans and their capacity factors as to what they would generate have to be taken into account.

Extending the lifespan of a nuclear plant is relatively inexpensive.Your not going to get an extra 25 years after 20 years of operation from an offshore turbine. The cost involved, along with the increased cost for full wrap annual warranty after 20 years, would not make economic sense for a company. Even onshore companies are replacing turbines after 20 years where conditions are a lot less harsh than at sea.

Like yourself I would take the jobs creation with a large pinch of salt.

In hindsight we should have built nuclear in the past, but the fact that we did not I do not see as a reason for not doing so now.

It’s the argument wind and solar people make “oh noez we will handover billions to our lords” (hence me using sarcasm tags constantly) unless we spend 200 billion+ on the current path

Whatever this figure ends up being, it would bring down a government of even a cent is sent away

Imho more reasons for a plant to go into Dublin port, you can offer free district heating for half the city (like Finland) and heated outdoor swimming pools like Iceland does

Since the subject of carbon credits came up

I could almost guarantee that any attempt at such legislation in Ireland would be appealed to the European courts.

The best we can hope for is a 23% reduction rather than the 51% by 2030. And that was before Sceirde Rocks went tits up, so it`s not as if renewables have done much in that regard. Nor will they do anything much to get us to zero emissions by 2050. Following the current plan we would be burning more gas in 2050 than we are now.

The countries we will be buying credits from are those that achieved the 2030 target. Practically all of which will have done so by burning wood as an energy source. We could join the "lets pretend that burning wood is carbon neutral" club and ship wood half way around the world and then transport it for hundreds of kilometers by road to be burned. Happy days with no need to buy credits.

Not suggesting for a second that it is something I am in favour off, but it is just one of the idiocies in this whole carbon credits and zero emissions directive.

I doubt it. I did not mean that environmental and planning considerations would be ignored, just that the civil service involvement would be bypassed. I'd probably outsource these matters to an offshore private enterprise consultancy.

A coal plant produces plenty of radiation

”Research shows the maximum radiation dose to someone living near a coal plant is roughly 0.18 { mSv/yr} (millisieverts per year) to their bones.  

• Nuclear Plants: Because nuclear plants are designed to contain their fuel and capture almost all emissions, the dose to a neighbor is usually around 0.03 to 0.06 mSv/yr

• Context: For perspective, the average person receives about 3.1 mSv/yr from natural background radiation (like the sun and soil). 

”

I was wrong tho mixing up radioactivity with toxicity, the radioactivity from coal is due to thorium and uranium in coal and not mercury

The mercury that goes up the chimney from burning coal is “merely” toxic, no biggie /s

We had no issues for decades burning coal down moneypoint and spreading radioactive and toxic ash across the country, hell Dubliners are even proud of them smokestacks from that oil plant down poolbeg