Is it time to go nuclear?

mickuhaha · 15-03-2019 8:47am #1

The question of nuclear energy arises again because the coal burning station at Moneypoint, which provides our baseload electricity since 1985, approaches its end of life in 2025. It is possible that the Irish could accept that new nuclear plants are far safer and less damaging to the environment / people then the rest of the options available. We have our own stock pile in the hills of Donegal of plutonium. One nuclear plant could cover all the output of all the wind energy made in Ireland at the most optimal wind making times but constantly. It would make for cheap electricity and push us into hitting our CO2 targets with the EU.

Atlantic Dawn · 15-03-2019 8:49am

If privately operated and built yes.

fxotoole · 15-03-2019 8:50am

mickuhaha wrote: »

The question of nuclear energy arises again because the coal burning station at Moneypoint, which provides our baseload electricity since 1985, approaches its end of life in 2025. It is possible that the Irish could accept that new nuclear plants are far safer and less damaging to the environment / people then the rest of the options available. We have our own stock pile in the hills of Donegal of plutonium. One nuclear plant could cover all the output of all the wind energy made in Ireland at the most optimal wind making times but constantly. It would make for cheap electricity and push us into hitting our CO2 targets with the EU.

6 years is a very short time frame to develop all the infrastructure required to deal with the waste products, spent nuclear rods, etc as well as go out to tender, build and commission a nuclear plant

work · 15-03-2019 8:56am

The Irish are adverse in general. I completely agree it should be avoided at all costs just because of the waste material. There has been global accidents that prove it is not safe.
Let's just sort out green energy

NIMAN · 15-03-2019 8:58am

mickuhaha wrote: »

The question of nuclear energy arises again because the coal burning station at Moneypoint, which provides our baseload electricity since 1985, approaches its end of life in 2025. It is possible that the Irish could accept that new nuclear plants are far safer and less damaging to the environment / people then the rest of the options available. We have our own stock pile in the hills of Donegal of plutonium. One nuclear plant could cover all the output of all the wind energy made in Ireland at the most optimal wind making times but constantly. It would make for cheap electricity and push us into hitting our CO2 targets with the EU.

This is the one thing you can guarantee it wouldn't do.

It would cost tens of billions to build, and that cost has to be recouped.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 15-03-2019 8:59am

What is this “The Irish” nonsense. If you are Irish say “we”.

I don’t think we can get it built in time but nuclear should be part of the solution to global warming.

ted1 · 15-03-2019 10:33am

We should build a reactor and co locate it in Hinckley point with a subsea cable directly to our grid.

Costs will be reduced significantly.

Pussyhands · 15-03-2019 10:35am

Nuclear will never happen because of political reasons. It'll take 20 years to see the fruits of the labour and no politician will take the short term heat of massive investment for the long term gain.

Wanderer78 · 15-03-2019 10:36am

Atlantic Dawn wrote:

If privately operated and built yes.

Would the incentive structure of profiteering interfere with overall safety?

The public wouldn't go with this, so currently not a hope, but I personally think at some stage, we might have to

mickuhaha · 15-03-2019 2:01pm

The reactor waste would be about 90 tones of unrefined waste a year or there abouts for a 3000mw plant. That is about the same weight as 2/3 of the large wind turbines you see about the place. It could cost about 40 billion to build giving it room for a little over run, half that if done properly. The cost to build a 3000mw wind farm would come in at a half a billion. The difference is for wind that would be a max output a certain times of the year with out energy storage. The nuclear plant could run 24/7. The wind turbines is a high maintenance energy field where as a nuclear plant is not. Lifespan of wind turbine is 25 years and a nuclear plant upto 70. I would think that over all it would be cheaper and more reliable to build a nuclear plant rather than wind farm . EU won't let us build another coal plant. One nuclear plant or one wind turbine per 28 sq km of Ireland.

Markcheese · 15-03-2019 3:55pm

mickuhaha wrote: »

The reactor waste would be about 90 tones of unrefined waste a year or there abouts for a 3000mw plant. That is about the same weight as 2/3 of the large wind turbines you see about the place. It could cost about 40 billion to build giving it room for a little over run, half that if done properly. The cost to build a 3000mw wind farm would come in at a half a billion. The difference is for wind that would be a max output a certain times of the year with out energy storage. The nuclear plant could run 24/7. The wind turbines is a high maintenance energy field where as a nuclear plant is not. Lifespan of wind turbine is 25 years and a nuclear plant upto 70. I would think that over all it would be cheaper and more reliable to build a nuclear plant rather than wind farm . EU won't let us build another coal plant. One nuclear plant or one wind turbine per 28 sq km of Ireland.

Couple of points, you are correct when you say it could run 24 / 7, it might or it might not. When they run well they run well, but when they don't the shut downs last months or years...so you'll need at least 2 reactors, (Wether on one site or different sites)
2 to 3 wind turbines worth of waste a year, multiply by 40 to 70 years... And store it where? for how many thousand years?

Who exactly is going to build it (or them) ? And at what price,?
EDF aren't in a position to build another station at the moment, and if hinkley point goes wrong they're bust, and every other major nuclear company have pulled their UK projects, because the finances don't stack up..

And last, but not least, where would you put it..?
(think shell in Mayo, and apple in athlone, but multiply by 100.) its doable.. But longwinded, protracted and even more expensive.....

And ultimately being out priced by wind (on and off shore), and gas...

cgcsb · 15-03-2019 3:59pm

work wrote: »

The Irish are adverse in general. I completely agree it should be avoided at all costs just because of the waste material. There has been global accidents that prove it is not safe.
Let's just sort out green energy

New reactor types produce only tiny amounts of low risk material. There is no green technology available that can baseload except hydro and geothermal and we don't have the natural resources for that.

cgcsb · 15-03-2019 4:11pm

It will have to be part of the solution. Ironically Moneypoint coal plant was only built because the hippies prevented the construction of Carnsore point nuclear reactor. Moneypoint has done untold damage to the atmosphere, but it's what de hippies wanted.

In the next 20 years Ireland will see a lot more of:

-Apartments with electric heating and electric heat recovery pumps
-electricity hungry data centres
-a thirsty growing electric car fleet
-Electric trams and trains, including medium/high speed train services

We need to talk about how this is going to happen. At present we're investing mega bucks on an undersea cable that will allow us to import French nuclear energy when it's not too windy. That's fine other than the fact we'll be utterly at the mercy of French domestic energy policy and industrial action, let's hope they offer us a good price.

Putting nuclear off the table is tying our hands behind our backs. We need energy independence.

Macha · 15-03-2019 6:11pm

Nuclear doesn't contribute to energy independence. We have no indigenous nuclear industry so we would be reliant on a foreign country with foreign expertise and foreign technology to build and run the plant. We'd also be reliant on nuclear fuel from somewhere like Mali.

Right now the French EDF are building (ahem, trying to build) Hinkley Point C but as they are effectively bankrupt (but keep getting bailed out by the French state), the Chinese have stepped in and taken a large stake in the project.

But ignoring that plus the astronomical costs plus the long lead-in time, Ireland's grid is just too small for nuclear. And high shares of variable renewables and inflexible baseload do not go together very well from a market opereation perspective.

TheEngineer1 · 15-03-2019 10:45pm

While traditional high output reactors have massive initial capital costs, costs which Ireland certainly couldn't afford without massive private investment/ EU funding, I don't see why we couldn't build smaller fast breeder reactors based off models used in submarines and aircraft carriers.

These reactors like lead cooled or liquid sodium cooled models have a number of advantages compared to traditional thermal reactors:

The high operating temperatures and low pressures eliminate the risk of an explosion and also greatly reduce the quantities of radioactive waste produced.

They are capable of turning the useless Uranium 238 in fuel rods into fissile Plutonium 239.
While this would usually carry weapons proliferation risks, I don't think anyone would be afraid of Ireland developing bombs.

cgcsb · 15-03-2019 11:28pm

Macha wrote: »

Nuclear doesn't contribute to energy independence. We have no indigenous nuclear industry so we would be reliant on a foreign country with foreign expertise and foreign technology to build and run the plant. We'd also be reliant on nuclear fuel from somewhere like Mali.

Right now the French EDF are building (ahem, trying to build) Hinkley Point C but as they are effectively bankrupt (but keep getting bailed out by the French state), the Chinese have stepped in and taken a large stake in the project.

But ignoring that plus the astronomical costs plus the long lead-in time, Ireland's grid is just too small for nuclear. And high shares of variable renewables and inflexible baseload do not go together very well from a market opereation perspective.

Saying that we wouldn't have energy independence because of imported tech is nonsense. No country produces all of the components from scratch in energy generation. Even chinese wind turbines are based on stolen designs. Yes we'd be importing fuel like we already import coal and gas the difference being coal is killing us/ the plannet and gas is going to run out.

Markcheese · 16-03-2019 1:00am

TheEngineer1 wrote: »

While traditional high output reactors have massive initial capital costs, costs which Ireland certainly couldn't afford without massive private investment/ EU funding, I don't see why we couldn't build smaller fast breeder reactors based off models used in submarines and aircraft carriers.

These reactors like lead cooled or liquid sodium cooled models have a number of advantages compared to traditional thermal reactors:

The high operating temperatures and low pressures eliminate the risk of an explosion and also greatly reduce the quantities of radioactive waste produced.

They are capable of turning the useless Uranium 238 in fuel rods into fissile Plutonium 239.
While this would usually carry weapons proliferation risks, I don't think anyone would be afraid of Ireland developing bombs.

these reactors have been around for decades, and it's not just the US that's has them,
But for some reason they haven't really been used anywhere, but American aircraft carriers (can't remember Wether or not the French one is nuclear) and submarines... I assume there's a reason why nuclear proliferation is Considered a bad thing...

Macha · 16-03-2019 4:21am

There's been talk of smaller reactors for years. Still no sign of anything that will be market ready in the next 10 years.

The nuclear industry has one hell of a hype machine. Amazingly, nuclear is the only energy generation technology that is getting MORE expensive over time, not less.

Macha · 16-03-2019 4:28am

cgcsb wrote: »

Saying that we wouldn't have energy independence because of imported tech is nonsense. No country produces all of the components from scratch in energy generation. Even chinese wind turbines are based on stolen designs. Yes we'd be importing fuel like we already import coal and gas the difference being coal is killing us/ the plannet and gas is going to run out.

Take a look at the entire Hinkley Point C debate in the UK - both around French involvement and Chinese involvement
In the project. The UK Parliament is very concerned and it has interfered a lot with UK/French relations and stirred up a lot of worry about the broader trend of China buying up strategic energy assets in Europe, eg stakes in TSOs etc. This stuff is strategic national assets.

Not sure the point you're making on fuel imports, saying coal and gas are no better isn't a contradiction. The whole point is to replace them with renewables. Why do you think the French got involved in the Mali conflict a few years ago? They were protecting their uranium supply.

Then we can talk about the role of Rosatom in Eastern European countries and how that has created a nice amount of leverage for Putin in those places. Best example is Paks II in Hungary. All sorts of extremely dodgy dealing going on.

People don't seem to realise how closely the nuclear industry is linked to its supportive governments. EDF/Orano (as Areva is now called) are almost 90% owned by the French state. That is the ONLY reason they still exist financially. Same with Rosatom and Russia.

Westinghouse has filed for bankruptcy.. These projects are big and expensive. They ALWAYS take longer and cost more than promised and that even with the sort of government support (both policy and financial backing) that, quite frankly, the renewables industry doesn't need anymore even with the market still stacked against them.

yoke · 16-03-2019 4:39am

No, because we’d only be substituting imported oil for imported nuclear fuel. We don’t have massive quantities of fissile uranium here in this island, so why should we invest heavily in a technology that will make us dependent on countries that do?

This is all apart from the other obvious stuff like risk of irradiating the whole island in the event of a catastrophe, etc.

Ireland would probably benefit more if it put the same money into researching better ways to store energy (or refining battery technology) and coupling the better energy storage methods with our unpredictable energy sources such as wave farms or solar energy or something like that.
I’d say nuclear fission should be near the bottom of the list for a country like Ireland, we should only turn to that if everything else fails and we reach some sort of crisis

Anteayer · 16-03-2019 4:39am

TheEngineer1 wrote: »

While traditional high output reactors have massive initial capital costs, costs which Ireland certainly couldn't afford without massive private investment/ EU funding, I don't see why we couldn't build smaller fast breeder reactors based off models used in submarines and aircraft carriers.
.

Of course Ireland could afford them, we've built out massively expensive power projects over the decades and continue to do so. There's no need for EU funding for stuff like this. We're one of the wealthiest regions in the EU. We were prepared to build at least one pressurised water or boiling water plant in the 1970s under FAR less economic buoyancy than today. It's a big piece of infrastructure but we could do it easily enough, if we wanted to.

Whether Ireland builds them or not would be a political and practical decision.
One of the major downsides of nuclear is the lifecycle cost. Most of the British plants for example were many, many times over budget and the fuel cycle (reprocessing) and decommissioning costs have been astronomical.

Also looking towards the UK in the past there were plants were construction went on for decades. Dungeness B : started 1965 - commercial operation only began in 1983 and Hartlepool 1968 to 1989!! Even the last AGR, Torness took over 8 years.

If you look at the EDF/Areva EPR plants being built at the moment in France and Finland, they're also massively late and over budget. Meanwhile the UK's proposed new plants have all fallen through or are in a mess before they've even begun.

Overall, I think we're stuck with renewables and gas for the foreseeable future.

We could also probably do a huge tidal project in Cork Harbour which could double as a flood protection measure for the city. Offshore wind also absolutely should be happening.

mickuhaha · 16-03-2019 7:44am

whether we 'go Nuclear ' or not it happens that ireland has a number of promising Uranium prospects in Donegal (especially) Carlow and Galway and elsewhere in the south east

TheEngineer1 · 16-03-2019 5:13pm

Markcheese wrote: »

these reactors have been around for decades, and it's not just the US that's has them,
But for some reason they haven't really been used anywhere, but American aircraft carriers (can't remember Wether or not the French one is nuclear) and submarines... I assume there's a reason why nuclear proliferation is Considered a bad thing...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

Look at notable reactors. Japan, Germany, and France also use them but on a bigger scale than a ship model obviously.

Proliferation is a risk with rogue states such as North Korea/ Iran, but Plotoum 239 is also a really good nuclear fuel, and I don't think any country would have a problem with us building such a Reactor as we don't have weapons aspirations.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-03-2019 6:11pm

Macha wrote: »

Take a look at the entire Hinkley Point C debate in the UK

The UK planned 6 new nuclear plants. Hinkley C is the only one still going ahead. That alone should give pause for thought. EDF , Toshiba & Co. are all struggling. If the UK can't do it after 60 years in the business what chance do we have ?

And Hinkley C won't be cheap. Baseload electricity at twice the average grid price ? Guaranteed for longer than the life of most windfarms.

It won't be on time or on budget.

Here in Ireland the size of modern nuclear reactors rules them out.
Our setup just doesn't have the capacity to provide 1.6GW of spinning reserve. End of story.

Smaller 300MW reactors do exist, navies around the world have used hundreds of them since the 1950s. But they still haven't been commercialised.

All nuclear does is take money away from renewables. Both require spending on gas or hydro to load balance. Both require planning permission and pylons in remote areas.

Anteayer · 18-03-2019 6:29pm

Actually the output of most of the British AGR plants is very small by modern standards. As little as 849MW to 1195MW.

The French plants are far bigger output.

Capt'n Midnight · 18-03-2019 7:15pm

IIRC 5% of the ARG's output was used to power the gas pumps.

Which is why most reactors use liquids instead of gas to transfer the heat.

The AGR's also have problems with cracks in graphite. They are near the end of their lives. Most of them will be shut down in the next 5 years.

EPR's also have cracks. And failed welds. And they still haven't finished the first one yet.

Capt'n Midnight · 18-03-2019 7:38pm

TheEngineer1 wrote: »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

Look at notable reactors. Japan, Germany, and France also use them but on a bigger scale than a ship model obviously.

When you say Japan used them, strictly speaking that's correct.

Monju Nuclear Power Plant coat $12Bn but there's another $20Bn investment in reprocessing and other facilities needed to produce a breeding cycle.

Construction started in 1986. Decommissioning is expected to take until 2037 so lots more money.

It provided power to the grid for ONE HOUR.

The max output was 280MW
So 280,000 Units of electricity at $107,000 per unit.
which is about two million times the current market price

Anteayer · 19-03-2019 8:58am

It's an odd industry.
What worries me in Europe is that, other than France and Finland, a lot of the nuclear fleet is aging and not being replaced. The commercial realities of nuclear didn't live up to the 60s and 70s promises and the result is pretty ancient technology running way beyond the lifespan the designers had envisioned. You've a risk of plants that are going way past their best before date being life extended by regulators due to economic arguments stretching safety cases to their limits.

The British AGRs are too old and cracking. Belgium remaining two pressurised water plants are similarly on their last legs. You see this all over Europe and the US.

Hardly any new nuclear plants are being built in the West and I'm not really seeing a strategy to directly replace them.

The original industry seems to have been hugely reliant on state subsidies and the majority countries that have tended to pursue it most have historically (although perhaps not now) crossover between research for nuclear power and fundamental nuclear research that was originally based around weapons investment. That was certainly true of the US, France, UK, USSR/Russia and China.

Canada and Japan are exceptions and German and Swedish etc companies and actually most of Europe except France have given up on nuclear power. Big companies like Siemens and ABB no longer have nuclear power divisions. Meanwhile the French EDF / Areva / Franatom agencies are basically arms of the public sector and heavily protected due to France's large scale investment in nuclear power domestically.

I'd be very concerned that if you are to invest in nuclear power here it would be jumping into a dying technology that requires massive state funding and that funding would be going to subsidize the EDF in France or the operators of Sellafield. The economic and technical knowledge benefits to be Ireland would be fairly low.

I'm not really seeing current nuclear fission technology as very economically viable.

If a clean and stable technology were to emerge maybe based around a breakthrough in fusion and that were popular and available reliably off the shelf, then maybe we might have an argument for nuclear.

I think however current technology is struggling and you only have to look at the lack of new projects in Europe and the collapse of the British ones to see that.

Talk of Ireland hosting some weird new take on fission (molten metal, fast breeders or even new gas cooled systems) is absolute pie in the sky. We don't have the technical skills or industrial base to support it. You'd need large nuclear research institutes and all of that and really that's limited to a few countries and EU or multinational agencies that have been doing this stuff since the 1950s. Even the UK has lost most of the skillset needed for that as they haven't been doing large scale nuclear power research in decades. They would be struggling to even come up with the industrial facilities needed to produce the components these days. It would have to be bought in.

If Ireland did buy anything it would need to be standard, off the shelf technology and that would mean right now the latest generation PWR or BWR.

My view of it's I wouldn't touch current generation nuclear with a barge pole but I would monitor the pipeline for future developments. It's possible that some major breakthrough does eventually happen bringing about a solution to energy needs but I think current generation nuclear power technology is just not stacking up in terms of business case and it's loaded with huge ancillary costs and shutdown costs and major political issues.

We need to be looking at what we can do with renewables and things like tidal and energy storage.

Realistically though we are going to be stuck with fossil fuels, notably gas, for a long time to come for our base load.

the_syco · 19-03-2019 9:28am

work wrote: »

There has been global accidents that prove it is not safe.

Are you referring to the Three Mile Island incident?

Markcheese wrote: »

And last, but not least, where would you put it..?

East coast; it's already radiated. Also, very little chance of a big wave totaling it.

=-=

The sooner molten salt comes to all countries, the better. Can we build anymore hydroelectric dams? If not, we'll need to plant wind farms around Ireland with CPOs. It's either a fcuktonne of windfarms, or nuclear, IMO, and the former produces less waste to bury.

cgcsb · 19-03-2019 12:13pm

There definitely needs to be serious discussion about it and I don't think Irish politics is mature enough for such a discussion. Can you imagine the site selection process? We can't even close car through access in one small suburban street for metro without a political crisis.

The facts of the minute are:

-Electricity consumption is set to rocket
-Moneypoint is to close
-Effective grid storage doesn't exist yet in sufficient scale for us to be 100% renewable
-Connecting to French nuclear power effectively exports the decision for us, for a while

Certainly we need more renewables, if we can get 60% of consumption from renewables with present technology, then lets do it. More offshore wind, wave power, tidal systems all need investment. We need something more stable though and buying French nuclear, and letting them set the price, isn't a permanent fix.

Anteayer · 19-03-2019 1:57pm

Effective grid storage would probably be cheaper and more useful in the long run.

There is huge scope for tidal too, particularly if you used it for management of flooding in Cork Harbour and City. Instant large capacity grid connection too without any issues around complex planning and objection.

Also btw the UK interconnector is likely going to be useless for imports as British energy policy in recent decades has been abysmal and they're likely to be reaching supply crisis stage sooner than the media (which is totally focused on Brexit) think.

There's no discussion over there at the moment on energy.

Is it time to go nuclear?

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