Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Maybe, maybe not ,

Yes ,there'd be legal and planning challenges, and site selection, and follow through would be a swine ,

Repealing the law banning nuclear could be relatively minor ,

If it went like the proposed apple data centres in athenry , it'd actually be pretty quick , even protests might not be that bad , its possible that the selection, design and planning permission could be done in 10 or so years ,

But thats 2 full government terms..

So a lot would depend on a current gov and likely any likey opposition parties being onside - 2 terms of spending a billion or 2 a year , and nothing visable built - and 2 terms of risking your finance deal with Westinghouse or edf led banks collapsing - or interest rates skyrocketing making the whole project uneconomic -

The public are fickle - say nat gas prices drop for a few years , and we've brought in a turkish company to build the thing - (cos the rural area its being built in doesn't have thousand of spare builder's and engineers) and then the economy tanks , and population rail against it ( think children's hospital X 10 )

because it requires gas backup

That expensive co2 producing thing?

The data center in Athenry was a different kettle of fish. A thing no one really wanted owned by an evil rich corporation that probably pays less tax than your average paye worker.

A nuclear plant at a time when energy costs are through the roof, meaning we would be less dependent on foreign oil price fluctuations.

As for the imported Turkish workers local businesses would be delighted because they buy stuff.

Not overnight, no.

It has for the countries that have a decent percentage in their generation mix where they are at the low end of E.U. charges compared to those with renewables at the opposite end.

It sure as hell won’t make it more expensive and we already are the most expensive in Europe

Betting the house on just nuclear , or just wind or just gas is risky at best ..

It'd likely be a way of hedging,

The next thing would be how many reactors would be needed to make it an economic proposition ? Because of a need for reserve and redundancy ,

Obviously the same batteries and pumped hydro, that are needed for renewables can be used as short term "spinning reserve" but that'd likely have to be one reactors worth of electricity so 1.3 plus gw .. and able to supply for a couple of hours till gas generators spool up ..

I assume that couldnt be the same batteries being used for peaking ?

I don`t know what point you are makeing A nuclear plant will generate as much today as it did 40 years ago.

If it`s for recently built nuclear plants Finland has the third cheapest electricity in the E.U. due to its OL3 going online in 2023 with spot price for electricity falling by two thirds compared to the previous year. Imports have fallen from over 15% in 2022 to virtually nothing and the cost of electricity to their domestic consumers is €0.115 per kWh. ~ a quarter of ours for a country with the same population.

Oh , i agree that we'd be bonkers to bet the house on offshore wind , and the hydrogen idea so far doesnt add up at all,

But equally we'd be kind of crazy to do the same with nuclear .. not because of the straight costs , because of the unknows in 20 year plus developments - while being locked into paying a set current price + index linking for a further 40 more ..

And, for Ireland there'd be substantial grid costs

, plus reserve costs -spinning and just back up ),

And significant peaking costs

for on and offshore wind ,solar AND nuclear

The only real way that nuclear would get cheaper over time for at least the 40 years of the cfd would be if the strike price was index linked to US interest rates - and then european rates go way up in comparison..

I can imagine the athenry data centre legal crap, or the m28 motorway legal bull , and the bellanaboy gas plant protests ect all being very minor in comparison to a nuclear power station being built anywhere in Ireland

The capital cost of nuclear is a once off. For renewables, which are operating within their own inflation bubble, it would take 3X capital costs for the same lifespan with no way of knowing what they would be.

I don`t get this idea that somehow a 40 or even 60 year strike price index link is worse than three or more that would be linked too, in all probability, two further higher capital costs for renewables. For a 40 or 60 year index linked strike price you would be paying the same in year 1 as you would be paying in year 60 in real money terms. It gives certainty, especially for companies considering investing, whereas for renewables it would be a lottery.

The substantial grid costs would be for renewables. Nuclear is, and would continue to work for our grid.

Nuclear provides base load. Renewables do not, so you would need a base load provider. This 37GW plan would not even cater for our 2050 requirements, so I don`t see how backup or peaking would be any less than for nuclear. Especially where nuclear can load follow and ramp up or down quickly as require.

Poland`s strike price for 40 years - they wanted to have it for 60 but the E.U. for reasons known only to them insisted on 40 - is projected to be the same as their present strike price for wind due to the deal they are getting on credit. Even without that deal, governments get better credit terms than private companies. States owning their nuclear show that rather than the excess profit provided by the marginal pricing policy, they can and are using it to lower costs to the consumer. Renewables just trouser it and walk off. They are not even prepared to put some of it against the cost of grid upgrades that would be required to carry their generation.

Modern nuclear has a design life of 60 years and can be extended for 20 or 40 years more.

Onshore is vastly different to offshore as I have posted before as regards "repowering". Even for onshore "repowering" is scraping the turbines, bases and access roads with larger turbines being installed at a new capital cost and a new strike price.

a 2.8GW plant needs an equally big Plant for N+1

some counties even operate a N+2 policy which allows for 1 plant to be down for maintenance and still

Provide redundancy

Just the slight problem of needing gas for the major of the time they do nothing

Only a slight problem

Now since I answered loads of your questions perhaps you care to give us a cost and timeline