Nuclear power in Ireland

Ubbquittious

Over the coming years the Greens intend to draft in a load of foreign BigBoys and investor corps to lash up a load of wind turbines in the sea and a few solar farms while of course holding on to the trusty reliable gas powerplants that have been built in recent years


Whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.


Eventually the trusty gas powerplants will need to be got rid of as they still emit copious amounts of evil co2. So what to replace it with? Nucular seems the obvious answer to me


They could plonk a few compact reactors out on the Blaskets or Inishark and run a cable out to them. There's new fancy reactors that pose far less danger than the RMBK type the Rooskies were fond of and the Fukushima one. There are other sparsely populated places that would suit if the uninhabited islands prove too awkward.

mickdw

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Over the coming years the Greens intend to draft in a load of foreign BigBoys and investor corps to lash up a load of wind turbines in the sea and a few solar farms while of course holding on to the trusty reliable gas powerplants that have been built in recent years


Whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.


Eventually the trusty gas powerplants will need to be got rid of as they still emit copious amounts of evil co2. So what to replace it with? Nucular seems the obvious answer to me


They could plonk a few compact reactors out on the Blaskets or Inishark and run a cable out to them. There's new fancy reactors that pose far less danger than the RMBK type the Rooskies were fond of and the Fukushima one. There are other sparsely populated places that would suit if the uninhabited islands prove too awkward.

I guess you dont live in any of the suggested places but i suppose at the same time you would have no issue living right beside a nuclear plant?

joebloggs32

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Over the coming years the Greens intend to draft in a load of foreign BigBoys and investor corps to lash up a load of wind turbines in the sea and a few solar farms while of course holding on to the trusty reliable gas powerplants that have been built in recent years


Whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.


Eventually the trusty gas powerplants will need to be got rid of as they still emit copious amounts of evil co2. So what to replace it with? Nucular seems the obvious answer to me


They could plonk a few compact reactors out on the Blaskets or Inishark and run a cable out to them. There's new fancy reactors that pose far less danger than the RMBK type the Rooskies were fond of and the Fukushima one. There are other sparsely populated places that would suit if the uninhabited islands prove too awkward.

There's a place in Mayo that would be ideal for it......Rossport

nullzero

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Over the coming years the Greens intend to draft in a load of foreign BigBoys and investor corps to lash up a load of wind turbines in the sea and a few solar farms while of course holding on to the trusty reliable gas powerplants that have been built in recent years


Whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.


Eventually the trusty gas powerplants will need to be got rid of as they still emit copious amounts of evil co2. So what to replace it with? Nucular seems the obvious answer to me


They could plonk a few compact reactors out on the Blaskets or Inishark and run a cable out to them. There's new fancy reactors that pose far less danger than the RMBK type the Rooskies were fond of and the Fukushima one. There are other sparsely populated places that would suit if the uninhabited islands prove too awkward.

You're suggesting that a nuclear power plant be built within the jurisdiction of the Healy Rae's?

Sharpyshoot

nullzero wrote: »

You're suggesting that a nuclear power plant be built within the jurisdiction of the Healy Rae's?

They sell copious amounts of Guinness in their pub that they don’t want anyone to know they own.

punisher5112

Never happen... May well tap into the UK though... Possible through the north

Ubbquittious

mickdw wrote: »

I guess you dont live in any of the suggested places but i suppose at the same time you would have no issue living right beside a nuclear plant?

No I don't live on an uninhabited island. If I did the island would be inhabited wouldn't it?


Generally nobody lives right beside a nuclear plant. There's an exclusion zone with just grass and barbed wire and a little access road with a hut containing a guard who is bored out of his skull. Around that there is a bigger area kept clear but not as heavily patrolled. Some few people will have to up sticks to make room for the exclusion zone if an inhabited area is used

Dr Turk Turkelton

Nucular, it's pronounced nucular...

bnt

Since the prevailing winds are from the West, any nuclear power plan would likely be on the East coast and provide power to Dublin. The Brits would be thrilled to bits about that.

The OP’s understanding of nuclear power plant operations seems to be informed by watching bits of pieces of the Chernobyl TV dramatisation, along with some pure fiction when it comes to suitable locations.

Bearing that in mind I think It best to let the Greens get on with their wind powered generation agenda. As a shower of lunatics they at least know what’s involved in turning bluster into energy.

OP, stock up on tinfoil for your hats, iodine tablets for your thyroid and top up your supply of AA batteries or get a wind up torch while you’re at it.

bnt

bnt wrote: »

Since the prevailing winds are from the West, any nuclear power plan would likely be on the East coast and provide power to Dublin. The Brits would be thrilled to bits about that.

We could embrace irony and call it ‘Windscale 2 - Have no fear’.

JJayoo

Look at the bs involved in building the children's hospital....now imagine them trying to build a nuclear power plant.

mickdw

Ubbquittious wrote: »

No I don't live on an uninhabited island. If I did the island would be inhabited wouldn't it?


Generally nobody lives right beside a nuclear plant. There's an exclusion zone with just grass and barbed wire and a little access road with a hut containing a guard who is bored out of his skull. Around that there is a bigger area kept clear but not as heavily patrolled. Some few people will have to up sticks to make room for the exclusion zone if an inhabited area is used

You did refer to other sparsely populated areas.
You could have been resident in such an area but somehow i get the feeling that you think sticking a plant out west somewhere will be grand as long as its as far as possible from you.

Atlantic Dawn

What I don't like is our nuclear free policy yet we are happy to import nuclear power from UK and France.

Could you imagine Ireland throwing up a Nuclear Power Plant.

The cost would make the new children's hospital look like a bag of jellies.

micosoft

All these smaller Nuclear reactors are completely unproven and I'm unconvinced that a country with no history or expertise in building nuclear should be the one to trial it let alone the difficulty of where we store spent fuel and waste on a small Island.

In any case - Nuclear reactors are the wrong solution for backing up wind.

Open cycle gas plants that are cheap enough to build that they they can operate for the 10% of the time the wind does not blow and peaking capacity. Thats what we are building.

If we want to use Nuclear it's very simple. We buy it in from France.

micosoft

Deleted User wrote: »

Could you imagine Ireland throwing up a Nuclear Power Plant.

The cost would make the new children's hospital look like a bag of jellies.

Indeed. And nobody with sense would throw up one nuclear reactor. You need to build a fleet to make it economical like France. Also it's not like you bring the lads from Poolbeg over either - you'll need to setup a nuclear institute in one of the Universities and all the other stuff. We could build 50 childrens hospital with the cost of introducing domestic Nuclear. If the ESB were ever to own a Nuclear plant it would be based in Wales.

micosoft

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

What I don't like is our nuclear free policy yet we are happy to import nuclear power from UK and France.

Actually leaving aside a lot of the nonsense from the usual brigade the policy makes absolute sense purely from an economic point of view. Irelands generation capacity should focus on wind like Norway on hydro and France on Nuclear. Each focused on the best and most economical way of generating electricity.

Reading bill gates How to avoid a climate disaster.

He thinks we can get to zero emissions by 2050 but it has to have nuclear. He’s investing in it himself.

micosoft

micosoft wrote: »

Indeed. And nobody with sense would throw up one nuclear reactor. You need to build a fleet to make it economical like France. Also it's not like you bring the lads from Poolbeg over either - you'll need to setup a nuclear institute in one of the Universities and all the other stuff. We could build 50 childrens hospital with the cost of introducing domestic Nuclear. If the ESB were ever to own a Nuclear plant it would be based in Wales.

Thats exporting the supposed danger. We are relying on the French to be sane about nuclear power while we can use that as base energy. And is the French supply on its own good enough for a Europe with the intermittent nature of carbon free electricity?

NeuralNetwork

There’s absolutely no political or public support for a project like that and as a technology, a lot of European countries that have fleets of nuclear plants are moving away from it.

The lifetime costs of the technology have also tended to be far, far higher than anticipated due to decommissioning costs that were very rarely factored in and recent projects have been extremely over budget. look at the EPR projects.

Flamenville in France : estimate €3.3 bn currently €12.4 billion and could reach over €19 bn!!

We’re interconnected to the U.K. and we will be adding a connection to France in a few years.

Could I suggest Carnsore Point for such a power station?

Sierra Oscar

Deleted User wrote: »

Reading bill gates How to avoid a climate disaster.

He thinks we can get to zero emissions by 2050 but it has to have nuclear. He’s investing in himself.

I'm not surprised. The Generation IV reactors which are at an advanced design stage are far more economical than current reactors, far safer and have far less spent fuel to process. We will be hearing a lot about sodium-cooled fast reactors in the coming decades. TerraPower, which is owned and managed by Bill Gates, is spearheading the development of such reactors.

They will be a game changer in terms of helping to achieve the level of carbon reduction needed to turn the tide on climate change. However we won't see them rolled out until 2030 onwards.

Naturally Ireland won't be anywhere close to having the foresight to get on board with this, we'll still be burning fossil fuels until it's no longer economically viable to do so and then we will be paying an absolute fortune in importing nuclear power. Renewable energy in terms of wind and solar will get us so far, but nuclear will be required to provide the bulk of electricity requirements as fossil fuels become unavailable for production in the decades ahead.

Sharpyshoot

JJayoo wrote: »

Look at the bs involved in building the children's hospital....now imagine them trying to build a nuclear power plant.

Simon dodged a bullet there.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Could you imagine Ireland throwing up a Nuclear Power Plant.

The cost would make the new children's hospital look like a bag of jellies.

The electricity generation market is deregulated. It would be built by the ESB, or by another player in the market.

micosoft

Deleted User wrote: »

Thats exporting the supposed danger. We are relying on the French to be sane about nuclear power while we can use that as base energy. And is the French supply on its own good enough for a Europe with the intermittent nature of carbon free electricity?

It's about having a portfolio of energy sources, maximising efficiency by specialising. The French have developed serious expertise over decades and built a fleet of 56 plants. They even have a TGV train setup to respond to a Nuclear incident. EDF is one of the most renowned energy companies in the world - not sure where the "reliability" concern arises here? ESB and EDF have partnered for decades. French will rely on Irish exports of Wind. You may not have noticed but Europe is a large continent. Wind will be blowing somewhere - hence need for supergrid.

http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/interconnection

The French have proven to be an exceptionally safe operator of Nuclear energy. So exporting the risk to the safest operator out there rather than creating new risk by building unproven technologies in a country which has no expertise, infrastructure or history with Nuclear energy would seem sensible to me.

As I pointed out - Gas fired plants are best for when you want intermittent backup power - peaking and unusually low wind output (usually overstated). Gas is not the worst carbon source. Nuclear is a baseload source - it would replace Moneypoint which is our baseload plant (coal).

Deseras

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima sent an unprecedented amount of radiation into the Pacific. But, before then, atomic bomb tests and radioactive waste were contaminating the sea — the effects are still being felt today.
Almost 1.2 million liters (320,000 gallons) of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is to be released into the ocean. That's on the recommendation of the government's advisory panel some nine years after the nuclear disaster on Japan's east coast. The contaminated water has since been used to cool the destroyed reactor blocks to prevent further nuclear meltdowns. It is currently being stored in large tanks, but those are expected to be full by 2022.Radiation levels in the sea off Fukushima were millions of times higher than the government's limit of 100 becquerels. And still today, radioactive substances can be detected off the coast of Japan and in other parts of the Pacific. They've even been measured off the US west coast A single becquerel that gets into our body is enough to damage a cell that will eventually become a cancer cell,LIVE TV
TOP STORIES
ENVIRONMENT
Fukushima: How the ocean became a dumping ground for radioactive waste
11.03.2020

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima sent an unprecedented amount of radiation into the Pacific. But, before then, atomic bomb tests and radioactive waste were contaminating the sea — the effects are still being felt today.
Almost 1.2 million liters (320,000 gallons) of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is to be released into the ocean. That's on the recommendation of the government's advisory panel some nine years after the nuclear disaster on Japan's east coast. The contaminated water has since been used to cool the destroyed reactor blocks to prevent further nuclear meltdowns. It is currently being stored in large tanks, but those are expected to be full by 2022.

Exactly how the water should be dealt with has become highly controversial in Japan, not least because the nuclear disaster caused extreme contamination off the coast of Fukushima. At the time, radioactive water flowed "directly into the sea, in quantities we have never seen before in the marine world," Sabine Charmasson from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) tells DW.

Radiation levels in the sea off Fukushima were millions of times higher than the government's limit of 100 becquerels. And still today, radioactive substances can be detected off the coast of Japan and in other parts of the Pacific. They've even been measured in very small quantities off the US west coast in concentrations "well below the harmful levels set by the World Health Organization," according to Vincent Rossi, an oceanographer at France's Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (MIO).

Read more - What happens to nuclear waste from power plants?


The contaminated water in these storage tanks at Fukushima could be released into the sea as of 2022

People observing a minute of silence for the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami
But that doesn't mean there's no risk, says Horst Hamm of the Nuclear Free Future Foundation. "A single becquerel that gets into our body is enough to damage a cell that will eventually become a cancer cell," he says.

A study from the European Parliament reached a similar conclusion. The research found that "even the smallest possible dose, a photon passing through a cell nucleus, carries a cancer risk. Although this risk is extremely small, it is still a risk."

And that risk is growing. Radioactive pollution in the ocean has been increasing globally — and not just since the disaster at Fukushima.

Atomic bomb tests

In 1946, the US became the first country to test an atomic bomb in a marine area, in the Pacific Bikini Atoll. Over the next few decades, more than 250 further nuclear weapons tests were carried out on the high seas. Most of them (193) were conducted by France in French Polynesia, and by the US (42), primarily in the Marshall Islands and the Central Pacific.


But the ocean wasn't just being used as a training ground for nuclear war. Until the early 1990s, it was also a gigantic dump for radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.

From 1946 to 1993, more than 200,000 tons of waste, some of it highly radioactive, was dumped in the world's oceans, mainly in metal drums, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Several nuclear submarines, including nuclear ammunition, were also sunk during this time.

Is the ocean a perfect storage site?

The lion's share of dumped nuclear waste came from Britain and the Soviet Union, figures from the IAEA show. By 1991, the US had dropped more than 90,000 barrels and at least 190,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste in the North Atlantic and Pacific. Other countries including Belgium, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands also disposed of tons of radioactive waste in the North Atlantic in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

"Under the motto, 'out of sight, out of mind,' the dumping of nuclear waste was the easiest way to get rid of it," says Horst Hamm.

To this day, around 90% of the radiation from discarded barrels comes from those in the North Atlantic, most of which lie north of Russia or off the coast of Western Europe.

"The barrels are everywhere," says ecologist Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace France. He was present in 2000 when the environmental organization used submarines to dive for dumped drums a few hundred meters off the coast of northern France, at a depth of 60 meters (196 feet).

"We were surprised how close they were to the coast," Rousselet says. "They are rusty and leaking, with the radiation clearly elevated."Germany also implicated

In 1967, Germany also dumped 480 barrels off the coast of Portugal, according to the IAEA. Responding to a 2012 request for information from the Greens about the condition of those barrels, the German government wrote: "The barrels were not designed to ensure the permanent containment of radionuclides on the sea floor. Therefore, it must be assumed that they are at least partially no longer intact."

Germany and France don't want to salvage the barrels. And even Greenpeace activist Yannick Rousselet says he sees "no safe way to lift the rusted barrels" to the surface. That means nuclear waste will likely continue to contaminate the ocean floor for decades to come.

For Horst Hamm, the long-term consequences are clear. The radiation will be "absorbed by the marine animals surrounding it. They will eventually end up caught in fishing nets, and come back to our plates," he says.

Larbre34

Won't happen here. As market, it doesn't warrant it.

Denmark is at 80% renewable generation, supplemented by some coal, gas and oil. Thats what we need to head towards, a high level of renewables, backed up with gas and heavy fuel oil stations for another few decades.

In the meantime, individual homes and businesses will improve their own reduction in consumption and local level self sufficiency. All those big data centres will need to design in their own generation capacity, they cannot be a high priority off the national grid.

Rodin

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Over the coming years the Greens intend to draft in a load of foreign BigBoys and investor corps to lash up a load of wind turbines in the sea and a few solar farms while of course holding on to the trusty reliable gas powerplants that have been built in recent years


Whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.


Eventually the trusty gas powerplants will need to be got rid of as they still emit copious amounts of evil co2. So what to replace it with? Nucular seems the obvious answer to me


They could plonk a few compact reactors out on the Blaskets or Inishark and run a cable out to them. There's new fancy reactors that pose far less danger than the RMBK type the Rooskies were fond of and the Fukushima one. There are other sparsely populated places that would suit if the uninhabited islands prove too awkward.

Need to put a reactor in the midlands. There's nothing else of value there and they need the jobs.

micosoft

Larbre34 wrote: »

Won't happen here. As market, it doesn't warrant it.

Denmark is at 80% renewable generation, supplemented by some coal, gas and oil. Thats what we need to head towards, a high level of renewables, backed up with gas and heavy fuel oil stations for another few decades.

In the meantime, individual homes and businesses will improve their own reduction in consumption and local level self sufficiency. All those big data centres will need to design in their own generation capacity, they cannot be a high priority off the national grid.

One understated issue is balanced energy demand. The shift to electric cars that mostly charge at night is very helpful in balancing load but the potential for car batteries to "lend" power to the grid during peak hours could be interesting.

Larbre34

Larbre34 wrote: »

Won't happen here. As market, it doesn't warrant it.

Denmark is at 80% renewable generation, supplemented by some coal, gas and oil. Thats what we need to head towards, a high level of renewables, backed up with gas and heavy fuel oil stations for another few decades.

In the meantime, individual homes and businesses will improve their own reduction in consumption and local level self sufficiency. All those big data centres will need to design in their own generation capacity, they cannot be a high priority off the national grid.

Distributed generation as well. Lot of nimbys about to come out of the woodwork.

Ubbquittious

JayZeus wrote: »

The OP’s understanding of nuclear power plant operations seems to be informed by watching bits of pieces of the Chernobyl TV dramatisation, along with some pure fiction when it comes to suitable locations.

Bearing that in mind I think It best to let the Greens get on with their wind powered generation agenda. As a shower of lunatics they at least know what’s involved in turning bluster into energy.

OP, stock up on tinfoil for your hats, iodine tablets for your thyroid and top up your supply of AA batteries or get a wind up torch while you’re at it.

I really don't know where you're getting all the conspiracy nonsense from

tom1ie

We already have nuclear power in Ireland via the interconnectors.

touts

Have you seen the handful of chancers who win all the government construction contracts in this country. Do you seriously want a Nuclear Power plant built by them?

GrumpyMe

Deleted User wrote: »

Could I suggest Carnsore Point for such a power station?

But just wait until the lock down is over. It would be great to renew old friendships at a Christy Moore concert as we "Get to the Point again!"

AndrewJRenko

touts wrote: »

Have you seen the handful of chancers who win all the government construction contracts in this country. Do you seriously want a Nuclear Power plant built by them?

Are you referring to the same 'chancers' who win Government contracts all over Europe, including nuclear stations?

https://www.kier.co.uk/sectors/nuclear/

NeuralNetwork

You realise in Ireland we deliver plenty of projects at and below budget and ahead of schedule? Also that Irish contractors and design / build engineering companies operate successfully all over Europe and around the world & that ESB itself is one of those?

Like almost every country on Earth, you’ve a few outliers that go way over budget like the NCH here.

However, don’t let that stop an only in Ireland, oh misery me!

The nuclear industry is absolutely full of massively over budget and late projects delivered by world leading consortia of contractors and that has largely been its history since the dawn of the industry.

Chernobyl is a terrible example to use as RMBK is a highly compromised design that was dual purpose, built with an aim of producing weapons grade plutonium as part of a civilian power reactor. That resulted in an extremely unusual and dangerous design that could fail in a dangerous way. The result was in effect a runaway reaction and a steam explosion and then open core fire caused by a ludicrously dangerous design concept that relies on avoiding a particular configuration to avert disaster. The design is not allowed anywhere outside Russia these days and the remaining plants have been extensively modified with systems to overcome the issue. The design didn’t even have a containment structure in the event of the main pressure vessel failing. It was coupled with a culture that slapped down any criticism or whistleblowing, so when it went wrong it went spectacularly wrong. It’s not a scenario every likely to occur outside that context.

Fukushima was a natural disaster. You might have to question the logic of placing nuclear plants on the coast in an area prone to fairly frequent (in the sense of once a century or so) devastating tsunamis, to the point that it coined the word tsunami.

However, it’s an industry that’s promised a lot in terms of cost but often hasn’t delivered - massively over budget builds and enormous legacy costs when it comes to decommissioning.

The majority of the big nuclear focused countries developed the technical expertise and supply chains on the back of enormous state intervention, in many of the bigger users: the U.K., France, the USSR & modern Russia, the USA and then China and India , closely linked to nuclear weapon technical expertise and also nuclear submarine technology.

Purely civil programmes spun up in Canada (CANDU), several European countries mostly under the EURATOM framework (so some crossover into French & British military tech) and in Japan.

However, for somewhere like Ireland it would mean buying into a technology that would be extremely expensive at the outset and with high ongoing costs for decades into the future in terms of disposing of or storing waste, which would leave us totally dependent on U.K. or French reprocessing. Then you’d have a massive political issue trying to even get it off the ground and there’s almost zero nuclear expertise locally, so you’d be building an industry from scratch and relying almost entirely on outside consultants.

We’ve also got a lack of scale that would leave a few questions although you could compare us to Finland which has several nuclear plants.

I think though, being realistic, Ireland’s energy future is in being a world leading wind power producer with strong interconnection and growing ability to store energy. We’ll likely have gas in the mix for a long time to come, but the offset in renewables will be enormous and we’ll see more wind power going into transport, space heating etc that will reduce our CO2 footprint in other areas.

Other than as imports via interconnection, I would say nuclear power is not part of our energy future.

Capt'n Midnight

micosoft wrote: »

All these smaller Nuclear reactors are completely unproven and I'm unconvinced that a country with no history or expertise in building nuclear should be the one to trial it let alone the difficulty of where we store spent fuel and waste on a small Island.

In any case - Nuclear reactors are the wrong solution for backing up wind.

Nuclear can't backup anything because you have to have them at full power for as long as possible to break even. Anything less than 80% average and you might as well not bother.

In fact because they are typically the biggest generators on a grid they determine how much spinning reserve is required. And all operators pay for the spinning reserve subsidy to nuclear. If operators had to pay for spinning reserve to cover their single biggest point of failure than I'd guess that in the UK nuclear would have to pay for half of the spinning reserve there.

AndyBoBandy

The problem is our consumption is far too low to warrant nuclear generation in Ireland.

What I mean by that is nuclear reactors drive large Steam Turbines.... you are talking about 700MW turbines, of which 1 single unit would be about 15% of total consumption in Ireland. So if 1 of those turbines (and you’d have/need at least 4 of them to make it viable) shut down for any reason, you’ve suddenly lost 15% of your generation capacity, and at least 2 CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) plants would immediately need to fire up to make up for the shortfall in generating capacity.

In the U.K/France, that same 700MW unit would be around 1-2% of what they consume, so the grid could cope a lot better with one of those units tripping and going into forced outage... as there’s so much additional generating capacity available make up the shortfall...

Basically the steam turbines that make nuclear energy viable are so large, that for a country like Ireland, losing one of those units to a trip would be far too much for the grid to cope with.

Capt'n Midnight

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

I'm not surprised. The Generation IV reactors which are at an advanced design stage are far more economical than current reactors, far safer and have far less spent fuel to process. We will be hearing a lot about sodium-cooled fast reactors in the coming decades.

This time it's different ?

It's the same old promises, sprinkled with glitter. Just don't step in one.


The Japanese have been on the sodium-cooled fast reactor wild goose chase since they built their first one in 1977.

They spent $20Bn on the Monju power plant and reprocessing stuff.
More than has been spent on the multinational ITER fission project.

It provided power to the grid. For ONE hour.


The Americans, Russians, British and French have also had a go at reactors with a breeding ratio higher than one. Indian with lots of Thorium are in the game now. No one is expecting any progress leading to full scale rollout anytime soon.


But yes we'll hear LOTS about them. Because monorail salesmen is a full time career.

Nuclear is almost always way over budget and years late. If you add in the % of failed projects it's very hard to believe any of the promises especially when they all boil down to "this time it's different"

the purple tin

There is the security aspect to consider too. A nuclear facility is a major target for terrorism.

tom1ie

We don’t need to build a nuclear power station we already have nuclear power in Ireland via the interconnectors.

Peregrine

I have no ideological opposition to nuclear power but I think it's interesting how people who advocate for nuclear power in Ireland either don't actually know much about nuclear power and electricity grids or they're betting big on technology that's still unproven.

Peregrine

Peregrine wrote: »

I have no ideological opposition to nuclear power but I think it's interesting how people who advocate for nuclear power in Ireland either don't actually know much about nuclear power and electricity grids or they're betting big on technology that's still unproven.

That’s a generalised ad hominem. Can you be more specific?

touts

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Are you referring to the same 'chancers' who win Government contracts all over Europe, including nuclear stations?

https://www.kier.co.uk/sectors/nuclear/

No. I'm referring to the well known chancers who win most large government contracts in Ireland by putting in an impossibly low bid to win the contract and then upping the price every time it rains. Don't want to name them because they are famously litigious but safe to say this Kier group has no chance of actually winning a multi billion contract in Ireland against them. Experience doesn't matter. Just low bids and knowing the right people.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

That’s a generalised ad hominem. Can you be more specific?

LOL

Follow the money.

What PROVEN advantages are there to Nuclear / It's almost always late and over budget. It is a sink hole.

Please list the nuclear plants in countries with proper health and safety that were on-time and on budget. Then comment on the lessons not learnt.

Larbre34

Theres always a few jokers with the, 'sure build one in Longford, it won't be missed', but if any NPG was built in Ireland it would have to be by the coast for cooling purposes, we don't have the inland water bodies or rivers to deal with the heat dissipation without severe environmental impact. Its why the station was planned for Carnsore point back in the late 70s. The same basic issue still remains.

So that reduces the scope of locations, before you even begin to address cost. If we did need one, I'd put it on Clogherhead, wave our bare ass back at Sellafield.

Ubbquittious

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

You realise in Ireland we deliver plenty of projects at and below budget and ahead of schedule? Also that Irish contractors and design / build engineering companies operate successfully all over Europe and around the world & that ESB itself is one of those?

Like almost every country on Earth, you’ve a few outliers that go way over budget like the NCH here.

However, don’t let that stop an only in Ireland, oh misery me!

The nuclear industry is absolutely full of massively over budget and late projects delivered by world leading consortia of contractors and that has largely been its history since the dawn of the industry.

Chernobyl is a terrible example to use as RMBK is a highly compromised design that was dual purpose, built with an aim of producing weapons grade plutonium as part of a civilian power reactor. That resulted in an extremely unusual and dangerous design that could fail in a dangerous way. The result was in effect a runaway reaction and a steam explosion and then open core fire caused by a ludicrously dangerous design concept that relies on avoiding a particular configuration to avert disaster. The design is not allowed anywhere outside Russia these days and the remaining plants have been extensively modified with systems to overcome the issue. The design didn’t even have a containment structure in the event of the main pressure vessel failing. It was coupled with a culture that slapped down any criticism or whistleblowing, so when it went wrong it went spectacularly wrong. It’s not a scenario every likely to occur outside that context.

Fukushima was a natural disaster. You might have to question the logic of placing nuclear plants on the coast in an area prone to fairly frequent (in the sense of once a century or so) devastating tsunamis, to the point that it coined the word tsunami.

However, it’s an industry that’s promised a lot in terms of cost but often hasn’t delivered - massively over budget builds and enormous legacy costs when it comes to decommissioning.

The majority of the big nuclear focused countries developed the technical expertise and supply chains on the back of enormous state intervention, in many of the bigger users: the U.K., France, the USSR & modern Russia, the USA and then China and India , closely linked to nuclear weapon technical expertise and also nuclear submarine technology.

Purely civil programmes spun up in Canada (CANDU), several European countries mostly under the EURATOM framework (so some crossover into French & British military tech) and in Japan.

However, for somewhere like Ireland it would mean buying into a technology that would be extremely expensive at the outset and with high ongoing costs for decades into the future in terms of disposing of or storing waste, which would leave us totally dependent on U.K. or French reprocessing. Then you’d have a massive political issue trying to even get it off the ground and there’s almost zero nuclear expertise locally, so you’d be building an industry from scratch and relying almost entirely on outside consultants.

We’ve also got a lack of scale that would leave a few questions although you could compare us to Finland which has several nuclear plants.

I think though, being realistic, Ireland’s energy future is in being a world leading wind power producer with strong interconnection and growing ability to store energy. We’ll likely have gas in the mix for a long time to come, but the offset in renewables will be enormous and we’ll see more wind power going into transport, space heating etc that will reduce our CO2 footprint in other areas.

Other than as imports via interconnection, I would say nuclear power is not part of our energy future.

There are loads of smaller reactors being developed. We could get a fistful of them and it wouldn't matter if one went down and we could give the gas the heave-ho once they're running. They need only be a few 100MW each. The supermassive plants are obviously expensive in this day and age with the health and safety and nimbyism.


Tis gas :pac: I find that within a few years of nuclear power being discovered they started building powerplants relatively quickly. Now for a modern nuke plant to get off the ground they first spend 20 years humming and hawing and making various consultancy firms rich.



People don't seem too worried that the solar panels we're importing all seem to come from China, wind turbines are all foreign made so I doubt anyone will have qualms with importing a tiny bit of nuclear fuel

Atlantic Dawn

We should be building at a minimum a LNG terminal so we are not dependant on Russian gas that we are at the arse end of a long pipeline for.

KungPao

All for NP. But if we build it ourselves (we'd probably have Dermot Bannon on it), Ireland, UK and much of western Europe would be a lifeless waste land within a year.

Capt'n Midnight

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There are loads of smaller reactors being developed. We could get a fistful of them and it wouldn't matter if one went down and we could give the gas the heave-ho once they're running. They need only be a few 100MW each. The supermassive plants are obviously expensive in this day and age with the health and safety and nimbyism.

How many times do I have to point out that hundreds of Small Modular Reactors have been in everyday use since since 1955 and that the only reason they aren't in use everywhere is that nuclear can't be done on the cheap.

Anyone born then would be able to retire now. That's how long this myth has been going on.