"Green" policies are destroying this country

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 6:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052898#Comment_120052898

No one is arguing against it. It’s just that nobody (including you) has come up with a workable nuclear solution they we can order today using today’s technologies thet is suitable for Ireland’s isolated grid.

You keep asserting that wind is really expensive and then you refer to figures which prove the exact opposite of what you claim, ie that the LCOE for wind is comparable in cost and usually cheaper than nuclear.

Because of the way our international commitments are structured, because of the cap-and-trade and because of volatility in fossil fuel prices it is not really an option to not do anything and hope that an appropriate nuclear technology comes along in the late 2020s.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 6:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052917#Comment_120052917

Alright let’s just say you are denying the existence of climate change. You don’t believe the best available scientific knowledge on which the Paris Agreement is based

Can you accept that language?

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 6:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052991#Comment_120052991

This is a great though problematic idea for Poland. They are in a completely different situation from us.

You haven’t provided any example of a comparable isolated grid with a 1.4 GW nuclear station.

I notice how you still haven’t provided your figures and calculations for Finnish interconnection.

ps200306 · 01-01-2023 6:42pm

Where does the Paris Agreement commit us to bankrupting the country through unworkable policies?

SeanW · 01-01-2023 6:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052463#Comment_120052463

This is literally insane. In the middle ages death in child birth and early childhood was off the scale, so much so that children were often not named before they were a few months old. If one was lucky enough to survive their birth and early childhood, they would be even luckier to live to 50. The link of access to energy with development and quality of life is irrefutable.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=average+lifespan+in+the+middle+ages&t=h_&ia=web

I can't speak for anyone else, but I prefer to read about the Middle Ages and early Renaissance in history books, I don't want to live through them.

Wanderer78 · 01-01-2023 7:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052932#Comment_120052932

...so we can safely do this, and in a controlled manner!

Pa ElGrande · 01-01-2023 7:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052992#Comment_120052992

From whatever point in history you stand, climate change is a fact. Climate change as broadcast by the media and activists is more correctly described as catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, this remains an unproven hypothesis. The climate models are predicting a global disaster, the empirical evidence disagrees and there are all the failed predictions of disaster made over the course of 50 years by scientists and activists that undermine their credibility and that of their colleagues when trying to predict the future.

Climate sensitivity refers to the warming produced by a doubling of CO2 levels. Scientists involved in the research can't even agree among themselves what the sensitivity of Earths temperature to CO2 is. When they can't solve a fundamental problem like that, the claims of consensus must be relegated to the realms of politics and religion.

The Paris agreement is no such thing, it is an agreement to disagree and you should compare what India and China signed up for, compared with the EU block.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 7:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053293#Comment_120053293

You linked to a page about some (not all) Finnish interconnection and then miscalculated the capacity. You deleted your post, apparently when you realized how foolish your calculations were.

The grids of Ireland and Finland are not comparable at all. District heating is another of your tangents.

There are detailed plans to get us to 2030 with wind. After that it depends how the technology develops. Same as with nuclear (except there are no plans or even workable options for nuclear between now and 2030).

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 7:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053327#Comment_120053327

A good place to start is https://www.marei.ie/webinar-our-zero-e-mission-future/

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 8:19pm

It depends on inflation, commodity prices and how much future technologies which haven’t been fully invented yet end up costing. Similar to the situation with nuclear SMRs.

if a fabulous SMR hits the market in 2032 and delivers power for 80 euros/MWh then a lot of the above largely goes away for example. Similarly if H2 electrolysis takes a quantum leap everything gets much easier. Something else might come from left of field (like heat storage, or fusion which you have referred to) but we don’t know yet.

It’s not much good in having a discussion with you about this because you only want to talk about capital costs. But there’s a lot more to this than capital costs.

I only got involved in this thread because of the nonsense you were spouting about how easy and cheap nuclear power is to be honest. It would not be easy. It definitely would not be cheap.

Pa ElGrande · 01-01-2023 8:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053115#Comment_120053115

. . .so much so that children were often not named before they were a few months old

That was even true here in Ireland up until about late 1940s, early 1950s, infant mortality was quite high compared with today. They used to give each child born the same name until one survived beyond a year old.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 8:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053442#Comment_120053442

Did you read the MAReI stuff?

conventional nuclear works but it is expensive, risky and not suitable for Ireland.

For a person who a few weeks ago was adding kilovolts to megawatts you are very confident in your conclusions and demands for certainty.

you are talking about this page? The graph with wind costs Year by year?

https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2022/index

JRant · 01-01-2023 8:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052917#Comment_120052917

As a general rule, if someone references "the science" it's a sure fire way of identifying someone coming from a belief system rather than an imperial evidence approach. One of the fundamental cornerstones of science is creating a falsifiable, repeatable hypothesis. We do not have that in any of the climate science I've seen. Relying on satellite data, which covers a huge area for each data point, new weather stations with some questionable locations and very sensitive equipment, and computer modeling that relies on the correct inputs being put in. The fact remains we haven't a notion what increasing CO2 actually does to the environment beyond some "consensus" that nobody can actually nail down with hard imperical data.

I'm not naive enough to think we aren't having some impact on the planet. However, there are no simple solutions like the Net Zero crowd push like a mantra. There are only trade-offs and we need to be very bloody careful that the cure doesn't kill the patient here.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 8:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053533#Comment_120053533

Why are you asking me for all this? What does it have to do with me? Like I say your figures for nuclear are all daft and depend on things like adding kilovolts to megawatts.

I don’t know much about your wind modeling forecasts but at first face they look pretty daft too and bear no resemblance to how wind is actually financed and paid for in the market today. So I have no interest in discussing the wind issue further with you.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 9:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053557#Comment_120053557

So like the other poster you also reject the best available scientific knowledge upon which the Paris agreement is based?

And you equally reject the terms of that Treaty? You are entitled to do that but it is still legally binding on Ireland and the EU regardless. If we don’t reduce emissions our industry and householders will face punitive bills for emissions allowances as the years progress.

JRant · 01-01-2023 9:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053688#Comment_120053688

The scientific consensus hasn't produced any falsifiable repeatable evidence for this doomsday scenario.

No, I don't think we should have signed up to the Paris agreement and like Japan and many other countries we should have given them the middle finger because it doesn't work for the citizens of this country. It's really that simple for me.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 9:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053745#Comment_120053745

As I remember it you demonstrated you knew even less about Finland and Finland’s grid than you do about electrical engineering generally. You then deleted your post containing the most blatant errors.

You proposed building a power station which the IAEA guidance warns would be far too big demonstrating that you have never read even the most basic information about locating a nuclear plant.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 9:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053738#Comment_120053738

175 signatory countries of the Paris agreement (including Japan) disagree with you about the best available scientific knowledge. Still you are entitled to your view.

Your beliefs about the science do t change the fact that we have obligations in international and EU law and if we don’t reduce emissions, we will have to pay.

if countries don’t adapt they will also fade penalties through border taxes and similar measures.

JRant · 01-01-2023 9:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053796#Comment_120053796

Well Japan basically told them to do one at COP26. My perdition is that the fines will be put on ice as long as Germany are still burning anything they can get their hands on. It's amazing how flexible EU law is depending on the offending party.

We also have every right to set our own laws in this country. Something that hasn't been fully stripped away by Europe just yet. Anyway, 2030 is a long time in politics so it will be interesting to see the political landscape then.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 10:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053829#Comment_120053829

We have agreed to deal with our Paris obligations in conjunction with the other countries of the EU. Opting out if the emissions cap / emissions trading system is not an option for us.

it’s not a matter of fines. It’s a matter of the market cost of carbon.

JRant · 01-01-2023 10:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053856#Comment_120053856

There's always options or do you think politics stays still?

Remember, it's the EU insisting on a crazy marginal pricing policy that means any possible benefits of renewable energy are not passed on to the consumer. As a result we've the worst of both worlds. We've basically built two separate generation systems on a small island nation with large standing charges being paid by every single customer to pay for all this additional transmission infrastructure yet we don't get any of the supposed benefits of this cheap wind energy that we keep hearing about.

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 10:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053883#Comment_120053883

You have said this thing about marginal prices a number of times built it is not actually true in practice for regular consumers. Renewable schemes since 2020 are subject to a CfD which means that in practice the benefits of cheap renewables are passed back to customers through the PSO charge.

The effect you are referring to is confined to the wholesale market. In the retail market something quite different is happening. Vertically integrated energy companies are passing on the benefits of wind revenues from pre-2020 schemes through retail prices which are lower than wholesale prices.

JRant · 01-01-2023 10:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053918#Comment_120053918

The PSO makes up a tiny amount of a monthly bill. In October the CRU set a negative annual PSO charge of €89 for the first time ever. Thankfully this is completely swallowed up by the carbon tax which is set to €90 of the coming year.

We've had significant reductions in the wholesale price since summers end yet electricity bills are still on the up with huge increases in the past 12 months.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-01-2023 10:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053425#Comment_120053425

80 euros/MWh is still too high.

£48/KWh is the asking price for 3.6GW for at least 20 hours a day with a lead time of 6 years.

Capital costs are £18Bn (but paid for by investors rather than the state) for a pair of 1.8GW interconnectors, 7GW wind, 3.5GW solar and 20GWh storage (5GW).

https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/

antoinolachtnai · 01-01-2023 10:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053991#Comment_120053991

A flat carbon tax of €90 on electricity? What is this now?

the wholesale electricity price looked pretty punishing to me over the last four weeks. The capacity market option strike price is €650/MWh for January (calculated on basis of fossil fuel prices for November) so I don’t know how prices can be low like you say

Anyway I thought we were talking about the unfairness of marginal pricing. But off we go in another tangent.

mcsean2163 · 01-01-2023 11:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120052682#Comment_120052682

That would be my interpretation. Something that provides baseline power and is operational 92% of the year. Three such stations could run all year and have scheduled downtime during summer. That would be very reliable IMHO.

Wind power is very unpredictable and unreliable.

paddyisreal · 01-01-2023 11:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120051246#Comment_120051246

Lmao, had to work today to provide for my kids so apologies for the late response. So you reckon you love/care your kids more then the rest of us because you burn less fossil fuels ......maybe you could incarcerate anyone who thinks differently than you and your Ilk. You lot are getting closer to chairman Mao everyday.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-01-2023 11:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120054076#Comment_120054076

We don't need baseload. Today our grid only needs 25% synchronous power, soon that will be just 5% which will include biomass, hydro, CHP, waste to energy etc.

Weather is predictable over a week or so ahead, more than enough time to have the dispatachable plant ready. And thanks to interconnectors we can use different winds harvested over a wider area or the same winds harvested in different places at different times.

For Solar you can get country wide cloud coverage every 15 minutes https://www.met.ie/latest-reports/satellites/europe-infrared-radar

Nuclear power is nowhere near as reliable as people claim.

It's not rare to have multiple nuclear power plants down at the same time. German nuclear plants should have been producing 12GW like clockwork, with specific dips in summer. instead you get this. Multiple times with half or even 2/3rd's of the power gone and they had a lot more than three plants back then.

France had 56 reactors and lost half of the for most of last year. Japan has 80% offline since 2011. Finland's new reactor was connected to the grid last March. And it will be March at the earliest before it's fully commissioned as it had to be taken offline after less than 30 days at full power.