Nuclear Power

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

or another nuke, you can backup up nukes with nukes; you can't backup wind generators with wind generators.

What if your backup nuke is affected by the same problems because it's on the same site ? (Guess how France was planning to power cooling fro offline reactors :rolleyes:)


And what are the odds of 6 of 23 reactors having unplanned outages at the same time ??


Or if your backup nukes are also off line because of fake parts (Korea) http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-nuclear-korea-idUSBRE8AQ0FN20121127

Revelations that fake certificates were supplied by eight firms forced the shutdown of two of the country's 23 reactors this month, raising the risk of winter power shortages.

A third reactor was subjected to an extended maintenance period after microscopic cracks were found in tunnels that guide control rods. Nuclear normally accounts for a third of South Korea's power supplies.

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said further investigation had uncovered 919 parts of 53 items supplied by two new firms with forged quality documents. Most had been fitted in six reactors -- five of which were already affected by the earlier revelations.

"We see it as possible for now to change the parts without shutting more reactors down," a commission spokeswoman told Reuters by telephone.

Six reactors are offline now, according to government data.

I seem to recall something similar happening in the US too.


Also arguing about semantics
You can't use use nukes to provide peak demand, so usage of them needs to be backed up by fossil fuel

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

So CM, from your posts, it seems we're back to your apparent preference for burning fossil fuels until a major break through occurs in power generation.

fossil fuels are a fact of life until there is a breakthrough, they are needed to match supply and demand

breakthroughs won't come from nuclear, unless they get some 1960's technology working after half a century of failure

changing from coal to gas has probably reduced emissions more than the adoption of nuclear

the breakthrough will happen through gradual improvements in renewables / demand reduction / load balancing , like I keep pointing out we are getting more energy from renewables than coal. It's like horses were still used for a long time after the invention of the internal combustion engine.


there is a small chance that there will be a new renewable technology that will change the energy game , there are certainly no shortage of candidates , it's really a matter of economics. Unlike nuclear renewables has benefited from a steady drip drip of improvements

Shenshen

I will be in favour of it once the process of nuclear fusion has been improved to such a level as to be economically viable for energy production.

I am not in favour of nuclear fission, for various reasons. Accidents can and do happen, even in the safest environment. And many nuclear plants are not exactly the safest environments.
The waste generated during the nuclear fission process is dangerous, and will remain dangerous for millenia. No matter where we decide to store it, there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will not cause massive harm to future generations.

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

One simple solution is to de-rate wind , if you only take 90% of wind energy then a 10% dip won't affect you.

Yes gusts of wind affect output, but the effect averages out across a single wind farm. An entire country just isn't affected on that time scale, and besides we are linked to the UK and through them to Western Europe. You can also put anemometers around wind farms to give advance notice of of wind changes

Have a look at the eirgrid site sometime, it gives 15 minute wind predictions 4 days in advance so the amount of spinning reserve needed is known well in advance

wind energy can be used to spin the turbines of a pumped storage facility in air. this takes 1% of the turbine output - but hey it's free wind energy :pac:
the reason to do this is that it reduces the time to spin up to maximum output from a little over a minute to 6-10 seconds


We have 4 days notice of wind and falls offs can be responded to in 10 seconds

Another post of waffle:

The problem is that wind can dip from full output to no output.

Stop trying to pretend that it's the 'gusting' of the wind that's the problem; it's the overall wind speeds that matter and they can come and go right across Europe at the same time as per the Poyry study: http://www.poyry.com/media/media_2.h...301471113.html
From it's summary:
"This heavy reinforcement of interconnection doesn’t appear to offset the need for very much backup plant, however. This surprising observation comes from the fact that weather systems – in particular high pressure ‘cold and calm’ periods in winter – can extend for 1000 miles, so that periods of low wind generation are often correlated across Europe."

And it's the accuracy of the wind predictions that are an issue.


Looking at your last two posts, you've said nothing new and are going over the same ground - it still seems we're back to your apparent preference for burning fossil fuels until a major break through occurs in power generation.

Capt'n Midnight

Shenshen wrote: »

The waste generated during the nuclear fission process is dangerous, and will remain dangerous for millenia. No matter where we decide to store it, there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will not cause massive harm to future generations.

If you dig down into the house of commons report I posted earlier there is a bit where they claim the waste repository will be 300-1,000m underground and one of the committee then mentioned that there were plans for a 1,400m deep mine in his area.

It's to be hoped that anyone with technology to go that deep in the distant future will be capable of recognising a waste dump if they hit it.

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Norway don't store the surplus. They just don't use the energy already stored. It's a subtle difference.


Electricity in Western Europe ebbs and flows across borders. French Nuclear at night, Danish wind when it's windy, Norwegian Hydro when demand is high. None of them can be considered in isolation because they are all interconnected.

How is French nuclear connected to Norwegian hydro?

old hippy

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Just saw on the news there that there is a power outage at the fukashima plant and the reactors arent being cooled until the problem is fixed, it is thought that it will be okay but has to fixed within the next 4 days!.................................................................................................................................................................. time is ticking! Nuclear power is perfectly safe and the best we can hope for!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21840080

There is no immediate threat of a radiation release. But if fresh cooling water is not restored within the deadlines, it is possible that the water in the ponds could start to boil.
That would lead to a loss of water and eventually to the exposure of the spent fuel rods to air. If that were to happen, reports the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo, it would be a very serious situation and could lead to a release of radiation.

Curly Judge

No

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

erm .... space is kinda bid dude....we dont even need to leave it i n our solar system ....could send it as a preemptive strike on some aliens or toss it in a sun/star

Although a great believer in scientific progress I can't see this getting off the blocks, at least until Arthur C. Clarke's Space Elevator becomes a reality.
If we are going to dump nuclear waste in space, [and I think it's unnecessary] then the Sun, which is a giant controlled nuclear explosion anyway, would probably be the place to let it off.
Problem is, that because of planetary dynamics, sending stuff to planets sunward of Earth is costly in fuel terms.
It would probably be necessary to send it in the opposite direction, towards Mars or Jupiter, and use the slingshot effect of these planets to swing it in towards the Sun.
I think?

Shenshen

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If you dig down into the house of commons report I posted earlier there is a bit where they claim the waste repository will be 300-1,000m underground and one of the committee then mentioned that there were plans for a 1,400m deep mine in his area.

It's to be hoped that anyone with technology to go that deep in the distant future will be capable of recognising a waste dump if they hit it.

Heh, I hadn't read it, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.
The time frames we're talking about when storing nuclear waste, we have to not only take human actions into account but actual tectonics as well.
It's not entirely inconceivable that some of the barrels we bury underground at the moment will surface again through tectonic shifts well before the waste they contain has dropped to safe levels of radiation.

Politicians tend to be very short-sighted at the best of times, you'd be forgiven to assume that they expect the world to end anyway within the next election period or so. So for these people to make decisions on such frankly unimaginable time scales is rather frightening.

Shenshen

Curly Judge wrote: »

Although a great believer in scientific progress I can't see this getting off the blocks, at least until Arthur C. Clarke's Space Elevator becomes a reality.
If we are going to dump nuclear waste in space, [and I think it's unnecessary] then the Sun, which is a giant controlled nuclear explosion anyway, would probably be the place to let it off.
Problem is, that because of planetary dynamics, sending stuff to planets sunward of Earth is costly in fuel terms.
It would probably be necessary to send it in the opposite direction, towards Mars or Jupiter, and use the slingshot effect of these planets to swing it in towards the Sun.
I think?

I think hurling it off towards Jupiter in particular will cause its own problems, as it would need to pass the asteroid belt unscathed, first going towards Jupiter and then returning towards the sun.

Considering that we currently find it prohibitively expensive to send anything but small probes that far from earth, I cannot see us spending the billions it would take to transport a few tons of material away from earth...

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

it's the overall wind speeds that matter and they can come and go right across Europe at the same time as per the Poyry study: http://www.poyry.com/media/media_2.h...301471113.html
From it's summary:
"This heavy reinforcement of interconnection doesn’t appear to offset the need for very much backup plant, however. This surprising observation comes from the fact that weather systems – in particular high pressure ‘cold and calm’ periods in winter – can extend for 1000 miles, so that periods of low wind generation are often correlated across Europe."

And it's the accuracy of the wind predictions that are an issue.

I'm tired of pointing out that we have a lot of spare capacity here so loosing wind isn't an issue until we have masses more of t.


How much fossil fuel plant do we need on line to cover for drops in wind ?
The forecast is for 1.45GW of wind from 9am to 6pm on Thursday - because wind is sooooo unpredictable :pac:

The rule is that there must be backup to cater for the largest possible fault, ie. a power station going off line. Demand on Thursday from 9 to 6 is going to be around 3.5GW so a lot of fossil fuel plants will be on line. So there will be backup to cater for up to 915MW going off line (depending on which plants are used) This far exceeds the 88.5MW of the largest wind farm. It covers loosing 2/3rds of the wind power countrywide with no warning - an event that would need some sort of Mad Scientist death ray.


Is this the Poyry report you mean ?
http://www.eirgrid.com/media/Low%20Carbon%20Generation%20Options%20for%20the%20All%20Island%20Market%20(2).pdf

for our analysis in this report we use €3,000/kW)

€3000/KW ? - the UK figure is €5,000
Figure 10 , page 20 they are using a lifetime cost for nuclear of ~€80/MWh The UK figure is €116/MWh
In fairness the UK figures came out after that report was done, but they change the economics of Nuclear drastically.

They propose schemes with up to 80% renewables. The difference being how to cater for times when there will be less wind.


NB. the UK price is a loss leader price as EDF want to sell more, in the UK maximum public liability is 1% of the project cost, in the UK cabinet ministers resign if they screw up and go to prison for trying to evade penalty points, and the UK have been running nuclear power plants since the 1950's. We don't have these advantages.

Looking at your last two posts, you've said nothing new and are going over the same ground - it still seems we're back to your apparent preference for burning fossil fuels until a major break through occurs in power generation.

As opposed to "what happens if the wind drops, OMG we're all going to die!"
or
"you can't have wind without constantly burning fossil fuel, coal is dirty" :rolleyes:


You need to distinguish between desire and acceptance.

I don't want fossil fuel plants adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere but I accept it continue while we wean ourselves off it.

And if it is possible to liberate methane hydrates by carbon dioxide storage or to reuse the carbon dioxide in greenhouses then gas isn't that all that bad during the change over.



Changing existing coal to gas would reduce emissions by more than doubling nuclear power, even if you could find enough uranium at €130/kg to keep them all running for the rest of the design lives.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

How is French nuclear connected to Norwegian hydro?

Both Germany and the Netherlands have interconnectors to Norway. The UK are looking it to tapping that hydro too.

UK and Germany have direct links to France.

Like I said electricity ebbs and flows across borders in Western Europe.


http://www.icis.com/heren/articles/2013/02/18/9642089/power/edem/tests-for-flow-based-european-electricity-market-integration-start-february,-nwe-coupling-from-april.html

The NWE project will couple the Day-ahead markets for the CWE countries of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany, along with the Nordic countries and the UK.

The project testing will also include Portugal and Spain from the South Western European region, as they are well advanced - making sure these countries can be included in the NWE project shortly after it goes live.
...
The project requires cooperation between four electricity exchanges and 13 grid operators across Europe, covering 20 borders. The algorithm originated with the CWE market coupling project, but has been further developed to take into account regional disparities.

spankmemunkey

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Both Germany and the Netherlands have interconnectors to Norway. The UK are looking it to tapping that hydro too.

UK and Germany have direct links to France.

Like I said electricity ebbs and flows across borders in Western Europe.


http://www.icis.com/heren/articles/2013/02/18/9642089/power/edem/tests-for-flow-based-european-electricity-market-integration-start-february,-nwe-coupling-from-april.html[/QUOTE]

Germany are on a huge renewables drive at the moment, They have huge amounts of Solar Fields in Africa, They have hit snags but they are keep on going! Merkel has said that she wants to close down all nuclear power plants and source all other alternatives to nuclear power!

Curly Judge

No

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Both Germany and the Netherlands have interconnectors to Norway. The UK are looking it to tapping that hydro too.

UK and Germany have direct links to France.

Like I said electricity ebbs and flows across borders in Western Europe.


http://www.icis.com/heren/articles/2013/02/18/9642089/power/edem/tests-for-flow-based-european-electricity-market-integration-start-february,-nwe-coupling-from-april.html[/QUOTE]

Germany are on a huge renewables drive at the moment, They have huge amounts of Solar Fields in Africa, They have hit snags but they are keep on going! Merkel has said that she wants to close down all nuclear power plants and source all other alternatives to nuclear power!

Meanwhile....back at the ranch!
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Second_new_US_reactor_under_way_1503131.html

Hitchens

The first of a planned new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK has been given approval.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey told MPs in the Commons that he was granting planning consent for French energy giant EDF to construct Hinkley Point C in Somerset.
The proposed £14bn power plant would be capable of powering five million homes.
Mr Davey said the project was "of crucial national importance" but environmental groups reacted angrily.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21839684

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Is this the Poyry report you mean ?
http://www.eirgrid.com/media/Low%20Carbon%20Generation%20Options%20for%20the%20All%20Island%20Market%20%282%29.pdf

Apologies, I should have checked the link, no this one page 9:
http://www.poyry.co.uk/sites/www.poyry.uk/files/NEWSISv1_0.pdf
"This heavy reinforcement of interconnection doesn’t appear to offset the need for very much backup plant, however. This surprising observation comes from the fact that weather systems – in particular high pressure ‘cold and calm’ periods in winter – can extend for 1000 miles, so that periods of low wind generation are often correlated across Europe."

It was published after the Poyry study you linked to.


However the link you provided is certainly worth a read even if only the 'Executive Summary' on page 1
'A look into the Future' 1.2 on page 3
'Concluding Remarks' on page 49.

"While wind power is a growing force around Europe, the intermittent output of windfarms is challenging the nature of power systems everywhere." In our experience, while many have speculated on the likely patterns of the wind, properly understanding how the impact of wind on the rest of the system requires detailed quantitative models – and ones that are able to include the inevitable interaction with the electricity system in Great Britain."

"Many countries’ approach to decarbonisation includes a growing nuclear component.
Although nuclear power stations are not currently a legal option in Ireland, we believe that due consideration of them as an option is worthwhile."

Really need to read at least the sections suggested if not all of it to put it all in perspective.

Capt'n Midnight

My laptop says I should plug in or "find an alternative power source".

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

My laptop says I should plug in or "find an alternative power source".

"Storage, by itself, is insufficient to manage intermittent renewable generation
because of its power and energy capacity constraints but it can make a contribution towards managing intermittency as part of a portfolio with interconnection and flexible generation. There are also capital cost, environmental and technical issues that need to be examined further to develop this concept."

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

As for costs, look at the anticipated cost of £160 billion in subsidies alone for wind turbines in the UK http://www.ref.org.uk/presentations/259-cheltenham-science-festival-wind-power-debate
"7. To drive investment to meet our targets we will have to subsidise the renewable electricity to the tune of about £8 billion a year in 2020, and for next twenty years. A modest target for renewable heat in the UK will cost £2 billion in subsidies. These sums would be unaffordable in good times, and are completely so in the present situation. No wonder that the Treasury is seeking to lift this burden from domestic households and businesses."

the previous point was this

6. Think about the costs, and lets think locally. In between 2002 and 2011 the UK consumer shelled out £7.3 billion in income support for renewable electricity alone, and the annual cost is currently about £1.5 billion a year and climbing rapidly.

It's an opinion piece, because I can't figure out why when we know wind subsidies are falling (cf., Barcleys bank doing a investors prospectus for dash for wind while it still commands a premium price ) that the future subsidy per year will be greater than all the subsidies of the last decade.

If you have any evidence to support his claim I'd be interested in hearing it.

Also , and this is a key point, it's only a subsidy when the price is above the market price.

Do we know if EDF got their 10p a unit ?

Tomk1

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

My laptop says I should plug in or "find an alternative power source".

My laptop baterry doesn't even work

Capt'n Midnight

Tomk1 wrote: »

My laptop baterry doesn't even work

Update on fake parts.

I've already posted about Nice Korea having to take 6 nuclear plants off line this winter ( and Korea has real winters) because of fake parts. Given the public image of nuclear you'd think that those running nuclear plants would be taking pains to avoid repeating the mistakes of others.

It was an eye-opener for two reasons, one because I hadn't anticipated this mode of system wide failure and two because it's actually happened before - so just smacks of yet more incompetence and/ or simply not learning from previous events and/or penny pinching by the nuclear industry. 1988 http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1988/Bogus-Valve-Parts-Found-At-Nuclear-Plants/id-6992cc144cbb0d86d2d575c5be11425b

Bogus steam valve parts have been found at a nuclear power plant in Michigan, marking the third type of counterfeit equipment uncovered in the industry in the last two years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was told Tuesday.
...
Consumers Power discovered the faulty parts when a repaired valve leaked, Grimes said. ''Some of the parts they had procured turned out to be misrepresented and counterfeit,'' and an investigation by the manufacturer, Masoneilan-Dresser Co., concluded ''there appeared to be a counterfeit market,'' he said.
...
A large nuclear plant may have as many as 40,000 valves of all kinds, 10 times as many as a coal plant of the same power rating.

2008 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000101/posts

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a notice Monday reminding reactor license applicants and nuclear power plant operators to prevent counterfeit parts from posing a safety concern. The notice cites two counterfeit valves at the Hatch facility near Baxley, Ga., of which NRC learned in November 2007, and one of these was installed as a cooling water pump discharge stop check valve on Hatch Unit 2. Catawba, a facility in Rock Hill, S.C., removed four circuit breakers from its stock after checking and being unable to confirm their authenticity,

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

The problem is that wind can dip from full output to no output.

Eirgrid have years of wind power data.
(there are some bits missing)

Show me the dip - remember a weather front doesn't move far in 15 minutes.
Show me the dip wasn't predicted ( they store the wind predictions too)
Show me the dip was bigger than the reserve capacity needed to cater for the failure of the largest generation source

Again so what if we have no wind for weeks in winter (the worst case) because we have a lot of spare capacity, stuff like demand shedding is also an option. And finally the blackouts caused by Enron & Co. show that we'll survive.

It's a case of how much you are willing to spend on energy security vs. the odds of getting no wind for an extended period.

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I can't figure out why when we know wind subsidies are falling (cf., Barcleys bank doing a investors prospectus for dash for wind while it still commands a premium price ) that the future subsidy per year will be greater than all the subsidies of the last decade.

If you have any evidence to support his claim I'd be interested in hearing it.

Also , and this is a key point, it's only a subsidy when the price is above the market price.

As it says, "to meet our targets" i.e. if installed wind capacity is increased to meet our targets, these are the costs.

"9. But wind requires heavy income support subsidy, 50% of the income of an onshore wind farm is subsidy, 66% of an offshore site. They’re just not ready. Wind also requires indirect subsidy in the sense that somebody else has to pay for the additional grid management costs that it imposes, for network expansion, and the provision of conventional support capacity to meet errors in the wind forecast and to guarantee security of supply on a cold, windless, winter afternoon.

10. The net result is extremely expensive emissions savings. Even at a generous estimate onshore wind costs about £90 of subsidy per tonne of CO2. Offshore wind is even worse, £180 a tonne, in comparison to EU ETS costs at under €10/tCO2. When system costs are taken into account these wind costs, already absurd, can only rise.

11. £90 a tonne is not in any sense a viable climate change policy, it’s a vanity project, and unsurprisingly it has failed at the international level, and is now failing in a Europe that can no longer afford such gestures."

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's a case of how much you are willing to spend on energy security vs. the odds of getting no wind for an extended period.

Exactly and it's the fact that wind turbines are additional generators therefore requiring additional costs to existing systems rather than being substitute generators that displace other system costs that is pretty naff.

Plus as per above
"Wind also requires indirect subsidy in the sense that somebody else has to pay for the additional grid management costs that it imposes, for network expansion, and the provision of conventional support capacity to meet errors in the wind forecast and to guarantee security of supply on a cold, windless, winter afternoon."

Capt'n Midnight

As for Cyber Security..

How likely is the stuff in Die Hard 4 ? If you have an industrial control system on the internet you can expect it to get probed on the first day. They are even attacking from Laos ! page 2

A recent study by InfraCritical discovered that 500,000 SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) networks were susceptible to attack, highlighting the wide-scale vulnerability of systems that control the operations of power and water plants, among other critical facilities. According to recent research conducted by ICS-CERT, 171 unique vulnerabilities affecting 55 different ICS vendors were found last year alone (PDF).
...
According to Tofino Security, there is a one in 12 chance that any patch will affect the safety or reliability of a control system, and there is a 60 per cent failure rate in patches fixing the reported vulnerability in control system products. In addition, patches often require staff with special skills to be present. In many cases, such experts are often not certified for access to safety regulated industrial sites.

Known vulnerabilities have been hidden from plant operators [/

Legal threats have silenced security warnings at a recent systems-control conference.
...
"In addition, attendees said they were alarmed to learn that because the government has kept a technique it discovered for attacking electricity generation equipment secret for five years, potential targets had not realized they were vulnerable and therefore did not buy hardware needed to protect themselves."
...
In 2007, an experimental test of Aurora demonstrated how physical damage to a power plant could be triggered by a cyber attack

Malware attack on control systems at nuclear facilities have caused physical damage. This stuff is not theoretical, it has already happened.



one researcher took control of 420,000 devices world wide and then used them to probe other stuff. Of course they weren't the only one.

"While everybody is talking about high-class exploits and cyberwar, four simple stupid default telnet passwords can give you access to hundreds of thousands of consumer as well as tens of thousands of industrial devices all over the world," the unnamed researcher stated in the report.
...
But it soon found it was getting competition from a malicious botnet dubbed Aidra and the researcher adapted the binary to block this competitor where possible, but estimates it still has around 30,000 endpoints.

This stuff is not theoretical, it has already happened.




At least the industry has belatedly realised that hacking is a problem and needs to talk about it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/19/iaea_nuke_hack_defence_meeting/

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

"Wind also requires indirect subsidy in the sense that somebody else has to pay for the additional grid management costs that it imposes, for network expansion, and the provision of conventional support capacity to meet errors in the wind forecast and to guarantee security of supply on a cold, windless, winter afternoon."

Both costs are near zero since they are being done regardless.

We will be getting smart meters, Eirgrid is upgrading the network, more control systems are automated.

How many times do I have to tell you that we have lots of spare capacity and have to run it to cover a fossil fuel plant going off line as that has a far larger impact than loosing any wind farm.



UK investing £1Bn in carbon capture - not good news for nuclear
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/preferred-bidders-announced-in-uk-s-1bn-ccs-competition

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121217150421/http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_086/pn12_086.aspx

Support for onshore wind from 2013-17 will be reduced by 10% to 0.9ROCs, as consulted on in Autumn 2011. This level is guaranteed until at least 2014 but could change after then if there is a significant change in generation costs.
...
Rates of support for offshore wind will reduce as the cost of the technology comes down during the decade;
...
By 2017, this package could deliver as much as 79 TWh of renewable electricity per annum in the UK - nearly three-quarters (74%) of the way towards the 108TWh of electricity needed to meet the UK’s 2020 renewable energy target.

Capt'n Midnight

Construction of the first new nuclear reactors since the 1990s ... still depends on a deal being struck between the Government and energy giant EDF over the price the company will get for electricity generated.

And it's likely there will still be the EU competition investigation if the price is £100/MWh

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Meanwhile....back at the ranch!
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Second_new_US_reactor_under_way_1503131.html

How did they screw up concrete ?

So how many years delay ?

Site preparation for two new reactors at Vogtle began in mid-2009, with a licence to build and operate them following in February 2012. But project leader Georgia Power encountered problems that forced it to amend its licence and use a different concrete mix. This licensing issue was resolved at the end of February but the delay pushed back start-up dates for the two new units to late 2017 and late 2018.

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Curly Judge wrote: »

How did they screw up concrete ?

So how many years delay ?

If a cat had kittens in the mop room of a nuclear power station, you people would log it as a major incident.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

If a cat had kittens in the mop room of a nuclear power station, you people would log it as a major incident.

Fast breeder catastrophe :eek:

Officials deny this will affect the ability to deal with leakages.

Cluster of newborns with ability to see in the dark dismissed as not statistically valid.

Capt'n Midnight

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

If you lot had left the bloody cat alone you wouldn't have to worry about the rat!

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

you couldn't make it up

A rat may have caused this week's power outage at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant, says the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

In other breaking news: Swallow poos on high pylon at Bruce A in Ontario.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

In other breaking news: Swallow poos on high pylon at Bruce A in Ontario.

Thank goodness it wasn't Bruce Banner

Capt'n Midnight

I'm constantly surprised at finding out about yet more repeated failures at nuclear power plants.

This post is mostly about recent outages in US Nuclear stations caused by transformer failures.


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-21/nuclear-output-falls-a-9th-day-on-byron-2-plant-shutdown

U.S. nuclear-power generation dropped for a ninth day, the longest such streak since October 2010, as Exelon Corp. (EXC) unexpectedly shut the 1,136-megawatt Byron 2 reactor in Illinois.
...
Byron 2, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) west of Chicago, shut after a loss of generator cooling water caused a manual reactor trip, an event report filed with the NRC showed. The unit had been operating at full capacity.

2012 Last year, an electrical insulator failed and fell off a metal structure, interrupting power to Unit 2 and causing the reactor to automatically shut down. The problem was fixed and the plant resumed operations the next week. Operators returned Byron Generating Station Unit 1 to full power Sunday following the unit’s 18th refueling outage.

Earlier history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nuclear_Generating_Station
Ground water contamination , various fines , failed insulators / startup transformer problems


Transformer problems are common enough it seems
https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0933/sec3/107r3.html

Jan 2013 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/u-s-nuclear-generation-falls-on-texas-reactor-transformer-fire.html

Unit 2 of the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station declared an unusual event, the lowest-level emergency category, “due to a main transformer fire” at 4:40 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the commission’s event notification report today. The reactor tripped offline following the loss of power, it said.

Nov 2012 - Nuclear industry culture again
http://www.nucpros.com/content/james-fitzpatrick-nuclear-power-plant-ler-transformer-installation-error-causes-loss-site-po

This is an interesting event. The same cause for a loss of Off-Site Power at another nuclear unit cost that station a White Finding, inadequate oversight of contractors.
...
The root cause was determined to be not following the work order instructions as written. A contributing cause was an incorrect design drawing.

July 2012 Limerick shutdown affects mid-Atlantic power supply

One of two reactors was shut down at 8:39 after an electrical problem caused by an explosion in a transformer cut power to a turbine cooling system, officials said.
...
Under normal conditions, he said it takes about a day to get a restarted reactor back to full power.

Feb 2012 NY nuke plant offline for transformer repairs

In November 2010, an explosion in a transformer caused a 17-day shutdown of Indian Point 2, the other reactor at the site in Buchanan, about 35 miles from Manhattan.

June 2009 Electrical explosion shuts down transformer at Davis-Besse nuclear power plant
Other stuff at that plant - including corrosion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-Besse_Nuclear_Power_Station

Feb and April 2009 Oyster Creek nuclear plant offline after transformer failure

The transformer that failed on April 25 was a 30-year-old replacement that the nuclear plant's owner, Exelon, brought in during February to replace another transformer that caught fire on Feb. 2, he said.

In 2011 Hurricane Irene took out a transformer at a nuclear power plant
Shít happens. Though in an Irish context the large size of nuclear reactors relative to our system demand shows why they wouldn't be feasible here.


Meanwhile in Canada - unplanned outage of 3 years
http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2013-03-18/article-3202447/Refuelling-problem-prompts-power-reduction-at-Point-Lepreau-nuclear-reactor/1

Energy production from Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear power plant has been reduced to 35 per cent because of problems refuelling the reactor.
...
The reactor has been online since November following an overhaul that began in 2008.

The original $1.4 billion project to refit the plant cost an extra $1 billion and took three years longer than expected.

Curly Judge

No

Although the South Africans have dropped the ball on the pebble bed reactor,
the Chinese are forging ahead with this technology.
It's a pity that the west are allowing themselves to drop behind and we must now look to the Koreans and the Chinese for advancement in this field.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/#.UUxxRhyjcuN

Although China intends to become self-sufficient in most aspects of the fuel cycle, it relies increasingly on imported uranium as well as conversion, enrichment and fabrication services from other countries.

China has stated it intends to become self-sufficient not just in nuclear power plant capacity, but also in the production of fuel for those plants. However, the country still relies on foreign suppliers for all stages of the fuel cycle, from uranium mining through fabrication and reprocessing. As China rapidly increases the number of new reactors, it has also initiated a number of domestic projects, often in cooperation with foreign suppliers, to meet its nuclear fuel needs.

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

Although the South Africans have dropped the ball on the pebble bed reactor,
the Chinese are forging ahead with this technology.
It's a pity that the west are allowing themselves to drop behind and we must now look to the Koreans and the Chinese for advancement in this field.

What advancements ?

The Germans had a full scale 300MW pebble bed reactor (with added Thorium) working 30 years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 and it was based on their earlier 1960 AVR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor. ( problems include dust from pebbles grinding against each other and pebbles jamming where the reactor narrowed )

The Canadians have been running Heavy Water CANDU reactors since 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEEP , which can run on natural uranium, and by all accounts on nuclear waste , warheads and thorium (you don't need molten salt reactors for that trick). Seriously we could have been burning thorium back in '46 if it was as easy as people like to believe, even using it to extend uranium would have cut costs (The CANDU design means you can refuel on-line so thorium could be added one fuel rod at a time for research )


If they weren't economic or reliable back then I can't see how they will be now, excepting of course that operation in China / India probably mean lower regulatory costs.



Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi a place with no shortage of cheap gas they are using solar to pre heat water to 300 degrees and then gas to bring it up to 500 degrees. This means they are getting more than twice as much energy out of the gas they use or reducing carbon emissions by half etc.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/19/shams_largest_solar_collector/



This is the sort of stuff Nuclear is up against and re-inventing 1960s technology just isn't going to get you ahead of the curve unless you have some new magic to add.

Nuclear boils down to the fact that if you have enough fissionable material in one place it gets hot enough and you can use reactor geometry, fuel placement & type, reflectors , moderators and control rods to achieve control over how quickly it heats up. What's new ?

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What advancements ?

The Germans had a full scale 300MW pebble bed reactor (with added Thorium) working 30 years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300 and it was based on their earlier 1960 AVR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor. ( problems include dust from pebbles grinding against each other and pebbles jamming where the reactor narrowed )

The Canadians have been running Heavy Water CANDU reactors since 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZEEP , which can run on natural uranium, and by all accounts on nuclear waste , warheads and thorium (you don't need molten salt reactors for that trick). Seriously we could have been burning thorium back in '46 if it was as easy as people like to believe, even using it to extend uranium would have cut costs (The CANDU design means you can refuel on-line so thorium could be added one fuel rod at a time for research )


If they weren't economic or reliable back then I can't see how they will be now, excepting of course that operation in China / India probably mean lower regulatory costs.



Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi a place with no shortage of cheap gas they are using solar to pre heat water to 300 degrees and then gas to bring it up to 500 degrees. This means they are getting more than twice as much energy out of the gas they use or reducing carbon emissions by half etc.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/19/shams_largest_solar_collector/



This is the sort of stuff Nuclear is up against and re-inventing 1960s technology just isn't going to get you ahead of the curve unless you have some new magic to add.

Nuclear boils down to the fact that if you have enough fissionable material in one place it gets hot enough and you can use reactor geometry, fuel placement & type, reflectors , moderators and control rods to achieve control over how quickly it heats up. What's new ?

China is pumping money into all sorts of energy technology, including your beloved wind and solar.
I'm quite prepared to accept the outcome of their experiments.
Are you?

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

China is pumping money into all sorts of energy technology, including your beloved wind and solar.
I'm quite prepared to accept the outcome of their experiments.
Are you?

Difference is solar and wind work and their costs are dropping

I'm not prepared to accept some of the downsides of China. That city where EU E Waste is "recycled" , the scandals of melamine in baby food, just the whole health and safety being much lower than here. The scandal over the trains. Yes they can do marvellous stuff but a lot of stuff has gone pear shaped over there.


Anyway back to software attacks. http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/22/scada-hackers-infrastructure-tech-security-cx_ag_0822hack.html
10 years ago a US nuclear plant was affected.

Extortion is more than an economic problem; racketeers could easily trigger an accident while trying to demonstrate control over a facility, says Marcus Ranum, chief security officer for Tenable Security. "To spin a pump or move a valve, you don't have to be a petroleum engineer," he says. "Then again, you could spin the wrong pump and blow something up."

Not every SCADA sabotage scenario is so hypothetical. In 2000, Vitek Boden, a 48-year-old man fired from his job at a sewage-treatment plant in Australia, remotely accessed his former workplace's computers and poured toxic sludge into parks and rivers; he hoped the plant would re-hire him to solve the leakage problem.

In January 2003, computers infected with the Slammer worm shut down safety display systems at the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio, though the plant was already shut down at the time. Seven months later, another computer virus was widely suspected by security researchers of leading to a power loss at a plant providing electricity to parts of New York State, despite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's argument that no evidence of virus-involvement was found.

SCADA systems' lack of security features is a symptom of their age; most were developed at a time when critical infrastructure systems weren't connected to the Internet and needed no intrusion prevention. Some have a 20-year life span, making them obsolete for years after they're installed. And many of the companies that develop SCADA software make installing security patches difficult or, fearing that patches will hamper the software's operation, don't offer customer support for patched systems

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/finland_scada_vulnerabilities/

Security researchers in Finland have turned up thousands of unsecured Internet-facing SCADA systems in that country, using the Shodan search engine.

The researchers, from Aalto University, ran their test in January, and found 2,915 exposed systems running functions from building automation to transport and water supply. Those responses were out of a total of 185,000 Finnish IP addresses that responded to an HTTP request.

maringo

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

fullgas

maringo wrote: »

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

Police forces in Cumbria and Greater Manchester are investigating an incident which took place close to the Sellafield site on Monday, May 2.

The Sellafield facilities remained operational throughout, although traffic flow in and around the site was affected for a short time.

Those temporary restrictions have been lifted and the site’s operations continue unaffected.

What was the point in posting the above link??

The "incident" happened in May 2011! The incident wasn't even at the Sellafield plant and was probably a traffic collision or something.

maringo

fullgas wrote: »

What was the point in posting the above link??

The "incident" happened in May 2011! The incident wasn't even at the Sellafield plant and was probably a traffic collision or something.

Sorry, posted wrong link here is latest

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/sellafield

Capt'n Midnight

maringo wrote: »

http://www.sellafieldsites.com/2011/05/sellafield-ltds-response-to-security-incident/

If you are going to post incidents do it properly

Here are some of this month's SNAFU's from the US , lots of dogy parts
http://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/



https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130321en.html
At 1951 CDT on March 20, 2013, Byron Unit 2 Reactor was manually tripped due to the loss of all Generator Stator Cooling Water

https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130320en.html
BROWNS FERRY
MANUAL REACTOR SCRAM DUE TO LOWERING CONDENSER VACUUM
"At 0402 [CDT] on 03/19/2013, the Unit 1 reactor was manually scrammed due to lowering main condenser vacuum




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130315en.html
WOLF CREEK
At 0149 CDT on 3/13/2013, Wolf Creek declared an Unusual Event due to inoperability of both on-site emergency diesel generators




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130312en.html
PART 21 REPORT - DEFECTIVE RAW MATERIAL USED TO MANUFACTURE VALVE STEMS ...
The two customers (Wolf Creek Nuclear Plant and Callaway Nuclear Plant) that received the affected parts have been notified of this issue




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130308en.html
WATERFORD
AUTOMATIC REACTOR TRIP DUE TO LOW STEAM GENERATOR LEVEL

SUSQUEHANNA
HIGH PRESSURE COOLANT INJECTION DECLARED INOPERABLE
This event results in the loss of an entire safety function

CLINTON
AUTOMATIC REACTOR SCRAM ON GENERATOR TRIP/TURBINE TRIP




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130307en.html
SUSQUEHANNA (yes again)
HIGH PRESSURE COOLANT INJECTION DECLARED INOPERABLE
This event results in the loss of an entire safety function




https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2013/20130305en.html
FORT CALHOUN
"It has been determined that the mechanical seals used in two Low Pressure Safety Injection Pumps and three Containment Spray Pumps are made of a material that may not maintain the designed integrity of the systems under certain accident conditions.





https://forms.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event
/2013/20130304en.html
DIABLO CANYON
EMERGENCY BUS INADVERTENTLY DE-ENERGIZED WITH UNIT DEFUELED


Flowserve has been working with the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant to investigate the failure of a Size 10, Class 900 Anchor/Darling motor-operated double-disc gate valve

The following facilities in the United States may be affected:

ANO 1, Browns Ferry, Brunswick, Callaway, Catawba, Clinton, Columbia, Cook, Cooper, Crystal River, Dresden, Diablo Canyon, Duane Arnold, Fitzpatrick, Fort Calhoun, Grand Gulf, Hatch, Indian Point, Kewaunee, LaSalle, Limerick, Maine Yankee, Millstone, Monticello, Nine Mile, North Anna, Oconee, Oyster Creek, Peach Bottom, Perry, Pilgrim, Prairie Island, Quad Cities, River Bend, Robinson, San Onofre, St. Lucie, Surry, Three Mile Island 2, Waterford, VC Summer, Vermont Yankee, Wolf Creek.




PART 21 - DUAL ALARM MODULES THAT MAY CONTAIN FAULTY DIODES IN SINGLE STATE RELAYS

Affected Facilities:

Beaver Valley
Farley
Ginna
Indian Point 2/3
Kewaunee
North Anna
Prairie Island
Surry
Turkey Point




24 HOUR NOTIFICATION OF INOPERABLE SCRAM DISCHARGE VOLUME VALVE BASED ON NRC BULLETIN 80-14



WOLF CREEK an Unusual Event due to inoperability of both on-site emergency diesel generators (again)

Capt'n Midnight

Fukushima - animal taking out electricity ?
yes it's happened before and no one seems to have leant that lesson

http://www.monroenews.com/news/2013/mar/12/fermi-shutdowns-last-year-trigger-extra-inspection/

The most recent unplanned shutdown occurred in November when a hydrogen gas leak developed in the cooling system of the plant’s main electrical generator and operators shut down the reactor. The plant was idled for nearly two months.

In September, a bird flew into an electrical substation and knocked out power to the Fermi site, prompting an automatic shutdown. In late June, one of two big pumps that feed cooling water to the reactor disintegrated, prompting an automatic shutdown.

....
Fermi 2 is a 1,100 megawatt reactor that can supply about 15 percent of DTE’s generating capacity in southeast Michigan but has been limited to 68 percent of power for months because of the damage to the feedwater pump last June.

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 11:00 AM
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2013-02-27/vogtle-unit-2-reactor-idled-after-coolant-pump-issue

Plant Vogtle’s Unit 2 nuclear power reactor was offline after excess leakage was detected in a coolant pump.

Once again optimism triumphs over experience
http://www.wickedlocal.com/kingston/topstories/x2082708250/Pilgrim-scram-valve-fails-again

PLYMOUTH —

The second “event” at Pilgrim in as many weeks – the failure of a “scram discharge valve” – is also the second time this particular valve has failed in the last two months.

The scram discharge volume valve – referred to in the event releases as CV-302-22B – failed Feb. 18,
...

That report specifically stated that the valves in question have only a “one in a million” chance of interfering with a reactor shut down.

But the UCS said the Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Alabama must have hit the lottery, because in 1980 a plugged scram discharge valve prevented plant operators from successfully removing all of its control rods, three times, before the reactor staff was able to complete a planned shut down of their reactor.

Forget about the safety / waste issue for a moment.

I trust at this stage people understand that nuclear reactors are subject to unplanned outages and can't be relied upon for continuous power. Dodgy parts are widespread.

Update on Canada - just to be clear on how outages screw up economics.
Point Lepreau nuclear refuelling problem costs up to $600,000 daily:





Look up the cost of Heavy Water, compare it to the average Indian wage and then marvel at how much of it was wasted though poor control. (when used in a reactor you get some radio active tritium in it)

Chloe Pink

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

spankmemunkey

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

Can i just ask you a personal question? do you have kids?

Curly Judge

No

spankmemunkey wrote: »

Can i just ask you a personal question? do you have kids?

Why do you ask such a stupid question?

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Crikey CM - all these incidents and still nuclear rates high on the safety record compared with other forms of generation.

"They have to be lucky all the time - we only have to be lucky once."
Martin McGuinness


This is what cost NASA a shuttle. The normalisation of exception events. It's a culture. If you have lots of near misses you can either modify your behaviour and environment OR you can carry on through regardless because you optimistically think you are lucky.

One of the themes of my posts is that a lot of these "one of , unpredictable" events have happened to other plants in the past and are neither one of nor unpredictable.



Corrosion is a major problem with some reactor configurations. It's one of the reasons I've very sceptical that existing reactors types can become more efficient , things like the Arrhenius_equation predict faster corrosion at higher temperatures. There is a consistent underestimating of the rates of corrosion across the industry. It's the old theme of not learning from the mistakes of others.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/how-we-almost-blew-ohio

workers discovered that boric acid deposits had gnawed a rusty, "pineapple-sized" hole almost clear through the six-inch-thick steel cap bolted to the top of the reactor. Had the corrosion gone a third of an inch deeper, through the steel cladding inside the reactor vessel, radioactive steam would have flooded the reactor's containment dome, and Davis-Besse might have become the next Three Mile Island.
...
the Davis-Besse scare highlights a history of regulatory neglect that harkens back to the agency's founding—the NRC was born in 1974 from the ruins of the booster-driven Atomic Energy Commission. The UCS has tallied 47 incidents since 1979 in which the commission failed to adequately address safety issues until the problems forced plant shutdowns. In some cases, the UCS reports, "the NRC allowed reactors with known safety problems to continue operating for months, sometimes years, without requiring owners to fix the problems."

Curly Judge

No

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

"They have to be lucky all the time - we only have to be lucky once."
Martin McGuinness


This is what cost NASA a shuttle. The normalisation of exception events. It's a culture. If you have lots of near misses you can either modify your behaviour and environment OR you can carry on through regardless because you optimistically think you are lucky.

One of the themes of my posts is that a lot of these "one of , unpredictable" events have happened to other plants in the past and are neither one of nor unpredictable.



Corrosion is a major problem with some reactor configurations. It's one of the reasons I've very sceptical that existing reactors types can become more efficient , things like the Arrhenius_equation predict faster corrosion at higher temperatures. There is a consistent underestimating of the rates of corrosion across the industry. It's the old theme of not learning from the mistakes of others.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/04/how-we-almost-blew-ohio

From the same source: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/pro-nuclear-power-environmental-movement?page=2
People following this thread could do worse than read the two page report above.
In addition to the report I would also recommend that you read down through the letters relating to it at the end of the article.
Salem Witch Hunt type, foaming at the mouth, "how dare you propose your filthy nuclear", "we are the way the truth and the light" bigotry and intolerance.
And still, despite all the shouting, no answer to the intermittentcy problem!

Capt'n Midnight

Curly Judge wrote: »

From the same source:
...
Salem Witch Hunt type, foaming at the mouth, "how dare you propose your filthy nuclear", "we are the way the truth and the light" bigotry and intolerance.
And still, despite all the shouting, no answer to the intermittentcy problem!

So I quote some facts from an article written by Judith Lewis five years ago about a specific event

and your response is to compare it to a recent general opinion piece by Keith Kloor.


A much better response would have been to show that the incident I mentioned didn't happen. Or that corrosion isn't a widespread problem in nuclear power plants that costs billions.



As for intermittentcy I think I've shown that reactors can go offline without warning.

It doesn't matter if it's because the backups or valves have failed, or because of a computer virus or transformer malfunction or an animal getting caught in a relay or if the relays/breakers/valves have to be changed because they were counterfeit or the upgrades/refurbishing/refuelling is taking twice as long as planned for or if it's a political decision. It doesn't matter because at the end of the day the reactor is offline. (and can't be restarted till tomorrow)

The world average uptime for nuclear reactors is about 80% , and yes a lot of the downtime is for planned maintenance but there is a huge chunk of unplanned downtime. And if we were unlucky it there could be several years of downtime with little or no advanced notice.

Loosing a few weeks of wind to freak weather isn't nice. But it isn't a problem if we have backup. And we do, 6709.480MW Total Installed non-wind. Peak demand ever was just over 5GW, so not a problem for the foreseeable future


Beyond that options include demand reduction. Smart meters will also help. We have interconnectors.


You can't have it both ways. You arguing that rare events like extended periods of no wind at peak annual demand are a problem, and at the same time arguing that more common events like nukes having unscheduled downtime aren't a problem.


Other news
Norway are starting to commercialise osmotic power. It's like having an extra 120m drop on our rivers. Ardnacrusha gets 86MW from 28.5m - this could in theory get an additional 350MW and we wouldn't even need to depopulate Limerick.

It hasn't been commercialised yet. Flow rates from rivers vary through the year. But it's a technology that could provide continuous power without relying on a single point of failure. Bonus since most cities are built at rivers mouths you save on distribution losses too.