Hybrid Drive of ICR 22000 Fleet

cgcsb · 12-12-2018 3:57pm

bk wrote: »

Nuclear unfortunately is just not going to happen.

And small Nuclear doesn't really exist at the moment, but might in future.

France is pretty much a safe bet. They are 80% Nuclear and their most recent plans show that continuing for decades to come. They are under pressure to increase renewables, so swapping some of their Nuclear for our wind is very much in their favour.

The only way we will ever get close to renewables is by sharing the load across Europe and taking advantage of each others strengths.

It is a pity Scotland is in our way of doing an interconnector with Norway and their lovely hydro power.

RE: small nuclear, Moneypoint is designed for 915MW. There are many nuclear stations in the UK that have similar output. Dungness for example is about 500MW. A 1000MW station to replace moneypoint wouldn't be a massive oversupply especially given the expected growth in demand and of course our current high prices.

Given French politics, it's unlikely they'll switch off their nuclear to buy our renewables.

cgcsb · 12-12-2018 3:58pm

Markcheese wrote: »

Converting money point to biomass would probably mean, a brand new boiler, and different material handling equipment, to be installed in a station near the end of its life.. And it still couldn't produce the energy it does now, because of huge difference in energy density in wood versus coal... And most importantly where would all the biomass come from?

We'd have to import the high bulk, low energy fuel by diesel container ship essentially, from Cambodia or the USA.

bk · 12-12-2018 5:33pm

cgcsb wrote: »

RE: small nuclear, Moneypoint is designed for 915MW. There are many nuclear stations in the UK that have similar output. Dungness for example is about 500MW. A 1000MW station to replace moneypoint wouldn't be a massive oversupply especially given the expected growth in demand and of course our current high prices.

Dungness is an old, 60's design. Modern reactors are coming well over 1,000 MW per reactor. The latest reactor in Finland is 1,600MW

And that is just per reactor, you normally want two or three reactors per power station, so that one can be shutdown, for maintenance, refuelling, etc.

I don't think there are any 500MW or 250MW reactors been built anymore, they aren't efficient or economically worth it compared to the massive cost of the overall plant. It is why a lot of older, smaller reactors are being shutdown and replaced by much bigger reactors.

Modern PWR/BWR reactors have all gotten far to big for a country as small as Ireland. Maybe one of the new technologies like Pebble bed will suit us in future for smaller plants, but they aren't there yet.

cgcsb wrote: »

Given French politics, it's unlikely they'll switch off their nuclear to buy our renewables.

They are actually under a lot of political pressure at the moment to reduce Nuclear and be seen to be green. I agree, all very silly. But by buying Irish wind, they can be seen increasing their usage of wind, while not needing to close their plants. It is a slight of hand, but one that can suit us well.

loyatemu · 12-12-2018 10:47pm

bk wrote: »

They are actually under a lot of political pressure at the moment to reduce Nuclear and be seen to be green. I agree, all very silly. But by buying Irish wind, they can be seen increasing their usage of wind, while not needing to close their plants. It is a slight of hand, but one that can suit us well.

there's loads of wind turbines in France as well. Given the size of the country, an abundance of high ground and coastline I don't see why they would need to import wind power.

bk · 13-12-2018 3:33pm

loyatemu wrote: »

there's loads of wind turbines in France as well. Given the size of the country, an abundance of high ground and coastline I don't see why they would need to import wind power.

Basically they really, really don't want to shutdown their Nuclear plants. They know it is too important to their national security and independence.

However if they build increasing amounts of wind power, they know they will come under increasing political pressure to shut them down. So instead they'd prefer to keep them running, but export the power generated, while using wind (yes both their own and imported) to make it look like they are reducing their use of Nuclear.

I know it is a slight of hand and it is a really great position for them to be in. But they have to manage the public perception of Nuclear power carefully. Just look at the current yellow vest protests or the Green party in Germany stupidly getting Nuclear plants shutdown, with a resulting big increase in coal :rolleyes:

It is all almost like an accounting trick. UK and France can say, hey we are using less Nuclear, look at all this wind. The countries importing Nuclear like us can safely say they aren't using Nuclear, instead the imports are simply shown as power supplied by an "inteconnector". It helps to keep Nuclear going, while keeping it out of the public eye.

cgcsb · 13-12-2018 3:43pm

Not great for Ireland's energy security though. We're relying on imported and domestic gas that's going to run out and then we'll be relying on French policy makers to make good decisions for us regarding their nuclear assets. We should be taking steps to secure our future energy security. Only now is there serious talk of district heating in parts of Dublin to replace gas, there needs to be more proactive policies here

EdgeCase · 13-12-2018 5:43pm

The old AGR design in the UK is not at all indicative of what's available now. It's a very old and also very odd design that was only ever used in the UK and never found any export markets.

They're quite odd systems, were vastly more expensive than budgeted, took decades to deliver in some cases and never actually delivered their design output.

Modern designs are way, way bigger output as you have to get the economies of scale and also you need access to a lot of infrastructure around them to process fuel, provide complex support and all of that.

Then you've got to factor in the whole life cost which is enormous, particularly when you factor in decommissioning costs which can run into billions.

Also the likes of the EPR is proving to be similarly insanely over budget and late. Look at what's going on at the first two sites.

That's always the way with nuclear. They're not built very often, they're technically complex and often using obscure systems that have to be worked out as they go.
That's why they tend to end up hugely over budget and late.

Total life cost of nuclear always seems to make it less attractive.

Hybrid Drive of ICR 22000 Fleet

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