Should Ireland go Nuclear?

GerardKeating

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118109963#Comment_118109963

Can offshore wind farms also include some wave powered generation ??

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118116859#Comment_118116859

Not sure at what stage of development wave power is at? It’s been in the pipeline for years though.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117557#Comment_118117557

Wave power is not viable. Several large scale trials of the technology have been run and were unsuccessful in the long run. To my knowledge most of the companies involved have since been wound down.

People love to say wind & tidal power, solve all our problems, but rarely look into the specifics of the technology - results from wave & tidal are not great. Tidal is better, but is constrained by geography and tide times - in Ireland theres a handful of locations suitable for tidal, and these would only generate around 50% of the time.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117601#Comment_118117601

Why did wave generation turn out to be non viable?

I would have thought the consistent nature of waves would have given it an edge.

Probably something to with salt water vs metal though.

jimwallace197

I'd be in favor of going Nuclear. I think Mayo would be the perfect place for it, even if there was a meltdown, wouldn't change the place or people too much anyways.

Arguments regarding cost, we are in serious debt as it is, I dont think a bit more on top of that is going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. In relation to the military, we should have some sort of a proper air force anyway for security purposes so why not kill two birds with the one stone. Its embarrassing still having to rely on Britain.

Posters have already made good posts regarding tidal & wind, its not consistent enough or strong enough for us to properly rely on it. We should be aiming to make ourselves completely self sufficient & a major energy exporter.

Some cuts in our public expenditure (mainly the huge wastage in the HSE) would go along way to paying for it.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118116705#Comment_118116705

Solar does not work at night and doesn't work well enough during the 36% af daytime annually in Ireland where there is cloud cover. Just yesterday on boards I saw a thread by solar panel enthusists repoting on their monthly output. One said their daily record was something like 23kw but that the minimum was 1.7kw!!

A solar panel in europe can only generate 10% as much as if it were located in the Sahara. The reason there are no large scale solar farms in Ireland is because those proposing them won't build them without a long term guaranteed subsidy from taxpayers pockets, because it's blindingly obvious solar is not a commercialy viable proposition in a country with so little actual sunshine. Solar clowns often say 'but even when it's cloudy they still generate electricity'. You never hear them also say that the amount generated is only 5% as much as if it were sunny.

The Germans even have a special word for windless nights where renewables don't generate anything: Dunkelflaute. Solar is for sunny countries, not Ireland.

The claimed low-cost of electricity generated from renewables is risible, it doesn't include the cost of storage, like batteries, or gas peaker plants needed to achieve an over-all 24/7/365 stable power supply.

The UK has as much wind as Ireland, but they have just announced that the path to net zero emissions will be nuclear, including SMRs.

The cost of nuclear power will inevitably decline considerably as more capacity is built. The bespoke one-off facillities of recent times have been expensive because they are either experiments that ran into technical difficulties (France), or were one-offs, but mostly because of delays and legal challenges anti-nuke bed wetters, planning and overall continuous government interference that drove up the costs.

Only hydro power has done more to reduce carbon emissions over the last 50 years than nuclear: not solar, not wind - nuclear.

"Nuclear power is a low-carbon energy source that has avoided about 74Gt of CO2 emissions over this period, nearly two years’ worth of total global energy-related emissions" https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1097572

Ireland's pie in the sky eco dreamers who think you can reach zero emissions without nuclear know better than all the scientists and engineers advising several world governments:

"A number of countries - such as Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States - have explicitly stated that nuclear power will play an important role in reducing their national emissions in the future."

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118114708#Comment_118114708

AMS Kongress 2021 | Batterie-Forscher Maximilian Fichtner: Die Batterie ist die Zukunft! - YouTube

You'll need to turn on subtitles and not have attention deficit disorder to appreciate why Hydrogen as an energy storage solution is lunacy.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117790#Comment_118117790

More likely because marine organisms have a near 100% win ratio over man, and have done so for thousands of years. Waves are just like any other renewable, they are not consistent and are entirely weather dependent.

There is a very considerable maintainance cost associated with anything submerged in the sea and which has moving parts. 'Look guys, a new home - whoopee!'

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118907#Comment_118118907

I'll be honest I struggled through that

I'll 100% agree that hydrogen makes zero sense for private vehicles, none whatsoever. In terms of transport, where it is likely to work and work well is in shipping and very heavy equipment.

That and power generation where its creation will be done along the same lines as pumped hydro i.e. when theres excess/cheap power, you use it, when there's excess demand, you consume the stored energy

jimwallace197

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118802#Comment_118118802

Which energy sources should we be using in order of preference in your opinion? Top 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119191#Comment_118119191

I got you cnocbui 😉

1. Nuclear
2. Nuclear
3. Nuclear
4. Nuclear
5. Nuclear

cnocbui

That's a hard one as I think the next period of glaciation is upon us and we all might as well be arguing over the seating arrangemts of dolls at a mock tea party, while sitting on train tracks as a 2km long ore train approaches, with the driver busy with his phone . But if AGW is real; nuclear, wind and gas backup. Most of Europe wants' interconnectors to France, including us precisely because they have such a high proprtion of reliable nuclear generation capacity.

https://app.electricitymap.org/map

Every single time I have looked at that map, France is this ecologically responsible big green blob, with outward pointing green arrows pointing to other brown or beige countries.

jimwallace197

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119355#Comment_118119355

No more for tidal?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119355#Comment_118119355

When u say the next period of glacial ion is upon us, what do you mean?

according to the Milankovitch cycles we should be in a mild ice age now, but we are not, due to the excess (human caused) methane and carbon in the atmosphere.

cnocbui

I am not a fan of intermittent power sources. Tidal is unproven, intermittent and suitable for very few places on Earth. You would be better off building a dam across the mouth of Killary harbour with turbines in it and use excess wind power to fill it and flood vast swathes of farmland behind it. Personally I think pumped storage usually amounts to ecological vandalism and am not in favour.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119266#Comment_118119266

Your relentless opposition to the most practical and proven way to achieve zero CO2 emissions is noted. Multiple countries support my view, so it looks like I am not alone.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119578#Comment_118119578

Your relentless opposition to the most practical and proven way to achieve zero CO2 emissions is noted. Multiple countries support my view, so it looks like I am not alone.

Chill, I was just poking a bit of fun at your relentless support for one of the most dangerous and least cost effective forms of energy production

Besides, the thread is about Ireland going nuclear, which it won't.

Yes I'll acknowledge that energy production from nuclear is low carbon, but that is literally the only thing it has going to for it. It has a serious waste problem for which there are few solutions in an Irish context. You keep bringing up Antrim while ignoring that its in a different country and the politicians of that country are never going to accept nuclear waste from south of the border. No to mention the fact that transporting nuke waste through an area with paramilitaries is probably not the smartest move.

bk

"Arguments regarding cost, we are in serious debt as it is, I dont think a bit more on top of that is going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things."

That doesn't make much sense. Why spend 40 to 50BN for just 3200MW of power, when we can get almost double that amount of power generation from Offshore Wind + interconnectors for just 10BN!

With the 30 to 40Bn you have saved, you could then build a dozen metro lines across the cities of Ireland, thus revolutionising public transport (and greatly reducing transport emissions). Or you could spend it on highly insulating every home in Ireland, thus greatly reducing emissions from home heating.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119513#Comment_118119513

The sharp rapid rises and peaks in Co2 and temperature on that graph indicate the start of past glaciation events. The rightmost indicate the present. There is a very clear periodicity at play, and to my eyes, we look overdue a bit but not so late as to be in the middle.

The other thing that characterises the onset of a glaciation period is the Atlantic conveyor current stops, which it looks like it may be in the process of doing at the moment.

"Two studies, published in the journal Nature, use different approaches to show that the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” (AMOC) is in a weaker state now than it has been for decades – and possibly even centuries."

https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantic-conveyor-belt-has-slowed-15-per-cent-since-mid-twentieth-century

Of course there is the usual attempt at attribution to mans CO2 output, but it started it's current accelerated decline 150 years ago"

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ocean-conveyor-belt-foretold-abrupt.html

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118116742#Comment_118116742

The other driving force behind Carnsore and Turlough Hill thing was so ESB International could gain experience to sell consultancy world wide. Even then it was a loss leader.

Carnsore was towards the small end of the scale of 1970's reactors at 650MW for £350m. Today's reactors are much bigger and a lot more expensive. Efficiency hasn't gone up much even though other thermal generators are made huge gains.

The newer smaller nuclear plants don't exist for civil use. Just lots of CGI and shills.

The military have used hundreds of small modular reactors since the 1950's but no one has produced a civil version in all that time because they use enriched fuels. Note : Western naval reactors are generally safe because they don't do nuclear on the cheap , unlike civil operators.

Rolls Royce upped their plans to 470MW and are waiting for £2 billion in development money and orders for 16 units - they won't get out of bed for less than £30 billion. Besides it's just a smaller version of existing reactors rather than new tech. Also remember when a certain company nearly went bust and was given the Rover car company so they could sell it on for a profit ?

Capt'n Midnight

The mantra from the nuclear power industry is "this time it'll be different" when the previous fúckups get mentioned. All you have to do is look at the UK's project to have six nuclear power plants up and running before they phase out the current ones. It's kinda important since by 2030, all but one of Britain’s 15 currently operational nuclear facilities are to be taken offline, equating to a 35% reduction in the country’s total power.

Hinkley Point C - delays and insane cost overruns AND a guaranteed 35 year index linked market for it's power which is twice the wholesale market price. (Lifetime cost ~ £100Bn) and the UK will be in hoc to the Chinese.

Sizewell C - no permissions

Bradwell B - no costs, no permissions

Moorside (ye olde Calder Hall/Sellafield/Windscale site) - After negotiations to sell it to Korean firm Kepco broke down, the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba closed its UK nuclear business NuGeneration Limited.

Wylfa Newydd and Oldbury-on-Severn - Hitachi announced it was officially pulling the plug on its UK nuclear programme until further notice.

Ten years down the road only one out of six UK plants is actually under construction and the original timescales and budgets have proven to be pure fantasies.

jimwallace197

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119869#Comment_118119869

So you believe the climate change, global warming agenda is a load of bollocks? back to coal & oil so:)

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119720#Comment_118119720

On the RTE they were saying that there's enough farm and industrial buildings in the country to place 3,000MW of solar panels. What will be the cost of solar in 5 years time ? Feed in tariffs would be the main limitation. While the capacity factor is low it means less fossil fuel during our long summer days.

And pulls the rug out from the economics of nuclear power stations that need to sell power all the time.

Rule of thumb : we don't get nuclear power through interconnectors because nuclear is used for base load. Or at worst it would be a lot less than we'd export back. France intends to secure 34 GW of solar, onshore wind and hydroelectric generation capacity by 2026 on top of having 25,705 MW of hydro and now get's a third of its electricity from renewables.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118115684#Comment_118115684

It's not cheap though. As things currently stand, building a nuclear plant is one of the dearest sources of electricity.

There may be strategic national reasons why to build Nuclear in many countries but you can't say it is an effective use of money.

If it wasn't so expensive I'd have no problem with it.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119935#Comment_118119935

Can I have a lawyer present before anwering that?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119869#Comment_118119869

So are you saying humans have not and are not contributing to climate change?

jimwallace197

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120184#Comment_118120184

Thats exactly what he's saying & I'd agree with him

gjim

I'm moving my reply from the "energy infrastructure" thread to here where I think it's more appropriate.

"The mean construction time for nuclear reactors between 2001 and 2005 and in 2017 was 4.75 years. https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/"

Hmm - can't view the source or even the graph.

But I'm not sure why you'd need "statistics" at all since nuclear power is such a niche. As I said earlier, this is a sunset industry - so it's not too difficult to list every single new reaction that has gone into operations in the last 30 years in the USA and Europe.

The list paints a bleak picture of the nuclear industry's ability to actually deliver. But there is no way you can look at these verifiable numbers and conclude that the average time was anywhere close to 5 years.

Here's a list of every reactor in the USA that started operations in the last 30 years:

• Comanche Peak 2 - started construction in 1974, operations in 1993
• Watts Barr 2 - started construction in 1973 (construction suspended 1985 to 1992). started operations in 1996,
• Watts Barr 1 - started construction in 1973 (construction suspended 1985 to 2007). started operations in 2016,

Yes that it - 3.5GW added in 30 years (for comparison 29GW of wind and solar was added in a single year - 2020 - in the USA) - nuclear is dead in the US.

But that's not all the nuclear construction happening over the last 3 decade in the US:

• VC Summer - units 2 and 3. construction started in 2013. site abandoned completely in 2017 having spend $9B
• Vogtle - units 3 and 4. construction started in 2013. delayed, costs have doubled - currently hoped to be in operation by 2023.
• Bellefonte - 4 units - started construction in 1975, construction halted in 1988. Site finally abandoned in 2016 and sold off after a few false hopes of restarting construction.

Maybe Europe is better?

• Kozloduy 5 (Bulgaria). started construction 1982. started operations 1993.
• Temelín 1 and 2 (Czechia). started construction 1987. started operations 2002/2003.
• Chivaux 1 and 2 (France). started construction 1988/1992. operational 2002
• Chooz 1 and 2, (France). started construction 1984. operational in 2000
• Golfech 1 and 2 (France). started 1982/1983. operational 1991/1994.
• Cattenom 1 and 2 (France). started 1982/1983. operational 1991/1992
• Cernavodă 1 and 2 (Romania). started 1982/1983. operational 1996/2007
• Mochovce 1 and 2 (Slovakia). started 1983. operational 1998/2000.
• Sizewell B (UK). started 1988. operational 1995.

Yes - that's the record of every single nuclear reactor that's gone into production in either the USA or Europe in the last 30 years. "Fast delivery" certainly isn't a selling point of nuclear power.

gjim

So we've two conspicuously pro-nuclear commenters who seemingly don't actually believe that CO2 emissions are causing global warming.

Fairly impressive being able to avoid suffering cognitive dissonance when you apparently earnestly promote nuclear as a way of reducing CO2 emissions while simultaneously not believing that CO2 emissions are actually a problem.

jimwallace197

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120461#Comment_118120461

many reasons why nuclear energy is a better option even if you dont believe in in the global warming/climate change agenda. We as a country will get fined if we don't reduce the Co2 emissions. Fossil fuels are finite and running out at a rapid rate. Fossil fuels are dirty & taint the scenery of an area. We rely on tourism more than your average country. The list goes on. Both points of view can be mutually exclusive

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120523#Comment_118120523

Nuclear is a fossil fuel industry though