Nuclear - future for Ireland?

From arguments I've seen on boards before, only certain types of gas power plant are flexible enough to deal with rapid changes in output from other generation types, such as renewables, and for that reason, gas should be considered a "transition fuel."

If my understanding of those arguments is correct, then increased reliance on weather-dependent renewables makes a grid inherently more reliant on gas, not less.

And considering that Europe's vulnerabilities in gas supplies are beyond horrifying, that doesn't sound like a very good idea - unless of course there's some easy/secure access to vast quantities of gas that I am missing …

The Nuclear Power Plants which don't yet exist?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-first-nuclear-plant-seen-starting-operations-2040-minister-says-2024-05-07/

Worth noting that they are likely a decade ahead of us in terms of required legislation and planning, and still they are 15 years away from operation.

Not necessarily - without the destabilising factor of intermittent, weather dependent renewables, we could theoretically use other sources, including (in the worst case scenario) coal. To say the least, I would not be thrilled about that, but if the choice is between funding Putin's war on Eastern Europe with gas imports from Russia or burning coal (and it may come to that), I would choose the latter - every single time.

That's why I focus so heavily on Ireland's gas reliance and that of Europe more generally, as I consider it possible that a variety of mis-steps have led us to this point. To that end, I have 3 questions that the people historically promoting gas here do not like to answer:

1. Is there any plan specifically to reduce reliance on gas?
2. Does the current plan to increase the build out of weather dependent renewables create a specific need for gas?
3. If the answer to the above is Yes, then where is that gas to come from, in the current geo-political environment?

I don't disagree with that. I am saying Nuclear won't have produced a Kw of energy in that time even if we decided to make the moves today! I've said this several times now. We cannot go from having Nuclear power banned in this country to a full scale operational plant in the space of 25 years. If Poland cannot achieve that, a country which already has had Nuclear energy historically, we will not manage that.

The thing is, I've had exactly this debate in 2006, albeit with smaller numbers of years. Those arguing that it would take too long to build a nuclear plant back then never considered that we would still need vast quantities of low carbon energy 20 years later. And I suspect the same arguments will be trotted out against nuclear in 2046.

In retrospect, the best time to start building a nuclear plant was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Do you call halving carbon emissions a failure?

where we would be burning more gas than now

If we were waiting on Nuclear to be built, we would be 100% burning much more gas in that world, than if we press on with renewables.

I think Point 1 is debatable, but the data would call Point 2 above into question, you can live track Ireland's electricity sector on ElectricityMap and it's clear that Ireland is in among the worst - if not THE worst - in terms of reliance on gas in Europe. The stats are beyond horrifying. Basically any time the wind is not blowing, we start burning gas like it's going out of style. See my E.M. map screenshot from a few days back:

That's a problem in and of itself and is doubly worrying considering statements from other posters historically about a tie-up between renewables and gas, by those championing it as a "transition fuel." I, for one, am not satisfied that we have sufficient safe access to the stuff, not satisfied that there's anything good at the end of the proverbial rainbow of this transition, and very strongly opposed to anything that makes us more reliant on gas, now or ever. At least in the absence of proponents of continuing with renewables (and gas) explaining where the gas will come from.

Are we just choosing to ignore the "in this country" component

We will not have a Nuclear plant complete by 2050 at this point; certainly not one large enough to produce enough energy to meet that goal.

Again I refer you to the comment I have above. If you care about maximising emissions reduction between now and 2050, then renewables is the only way. We likely will have spent billions on a nuclear plant in that period with no nuclear energy production.

Now if you don't care about carbon emissions during that period because you're happy to wait for the NPP, that is a slightly more defensible position.

However denying that reverting all our cash towards nuclear instead of renewables will lead to increase in dependency on Gas is just denying reality.

What were they supposed to have reduced emissions to? Emissions have halved, is that not successful? We had some of the dirtiest electricity during the boom.

I guess the easiest way of dealing with thid is a straightforward question.

1. If we stop investing in renewables today, and start spending that money on Nuclear, will gas usage go up or down