Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Markcheese

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0416/1377262-finland-reactor/

I2 years late in production , a few years late in commissioning , hopefully not to many problems ahead ...

But even without major delays, best case is it's coming in around 10 billion a reactor, ( including financing ) , no idea if that includes a fund to decommission?

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/gF9kkB0UWYQ

its a bit long , and the first half was mainly about Germany falling out of love with nuclear .. from about 8 mins in ot starts talking about the french nuclear journey - and time-scales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120791011#Comment_120791011

Saw that, jesus the French got seriously lucky with the damaged collant pipe, 27mm and a 23mm crack found, 4mm from a serious incident. When they did further inspections on other plants they found the same or similar issues all over the network.

Talk about a close one and this is from the supposed experts in it

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484425#Comment_120484425

Well, it seems to have been worth the wait, from a CO2 perspective, as Finland now has similar CO2/kwh statistics to France and Sweden.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FI

As to Ireland, we could use a fundamental re-appraisal of our energy policy, as our energy costs are now the sixth-highest in the world.

https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/

Thanks Greens 👍️👍️ BTW you will notice that the only countries with more expensive electricity than Ireland are also those that have pursued similar policies to ourselves, like Germany, Denmark, Austria and Italy.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120792564#Comment_120792564

How accurate is that map? How can lignite-powered Serbia have a CO2 intensity (47) 2.5 times less than nuclear-powered Slovenia (121) ?

And then I panned a bit and I thought that the US was pretty bad.

...until I panned a bit more and I saw how absolutely shít was the lucky country.

SeanW

Electricity Maps tries to be accurate on a "Live" basis, and it measures what a country is using at any given time as well as the carbon intensity of any imports to the country.

As of this moment, according to EM, Serbia has a CO2 intensity of 156g/kwh because it is extensively using hydro resources (which it may not be doing al the time, in which case, its rate would be higher). Meanwhile Slovenia has current CO2 intensity of 69g/kwh because as you say of its nuclear reactors plus its own hydro resources.

But I think it's really damning how countries like Ireland, Germany etc have been following green policies for decades and have little to show for it besides stupidly high energy bills.

Markcheese

Right - so the renewable aspect of my esb bill, is funded by the pso levey , that covers any subsidy to renewable providers -

Well my last bill had a large pso refund on it ,

Also while the state has been pushiing wind power for decades , its probably only the last 5 to 10 years that wind has become a significant part of our electricity generation mix -

And those few early generators are coming to the end of their subvention ,

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484425#Comment_120484425

Ireland and Finland have roughly the same population, but Finland uses close to 2.5 times the electricity we do annually.

For that €10 billion their Olkiluoto 3 reactor will provide 14% of their requirements, which would be roughly 35% of ours and is expected to be in operation for 60 years.

Compare that to how much 35% of the cost of our planned 30GW offshore + hydrogen, that nobody seems able to put a price on, but I would be surprised if it is anything less €200 billion in total. That would mean 35% would cost €70 billion, with the offshore turbines having less than half the lifespan of Finland`s latest reactor and Finland`s latest reactor looks like a very good deal at €10 billion.

Ramasun

Nuclear energy is not a viable option in Ireland because most people don't want it. That's the end of it.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793949#Comment_120793949

That could in part be because they are, and have been, lied to comprehensively.

You can can change Irish opinion through the simple mechanism of making direct out of pocket cost highly noticeable.

Before the last time the Greens were in power, petrol powered cars were the most popular. Now it's hard to find a petrol powered car because Gormley bamboozled the country into thinking diesels were less polluting, but it wasn't any greenie nonsense that persuaded people to change their opinions and behaviours, it was financial pain. Through government taxes and charges he made it more financially painful to drive petrol powered vehicles, so irrespective of people's opinions and preferences, everyone changed to driving diesels.

Without such government lies and interference, petrol powered cars are naturally cheaper because they cost less to manufacture and sell and the cost of the fuel is naturally lower because for every barrel of oil you refine, you get far more petrol from it than diesel.

What people 'want' can be changed by altering the cost.

Let's say every household is given 3 options for the electricity they pay for:

1 would be electricity from a massive solar array with giant batteries or hydrogen storage that costs them €1 per Kwh.

2 would be from wind farms and a smaller storage system and would cost €0.67 per KW

3 would be from nuclear power plants at €0.34 per KW

My bet is that only 2-3% of Irish people would volunteer to pay the premium to avoid sullying their consciences with buying electricity from the nuclear power plants you say they don't want.

If Irish people knew the real costs and it was made obvious to them how much each option was going to cost them, they would be demanding the construction of nuclear power plants ASAP.

Those are actually the real price differences between the 3 sources of power in terms of scale, and the real cost of power from them if they each had to provide power 24/7/365. Of course that is highly simplified and lacks the cost of the storage issue with solar and wind and ignores back up generatortion for nuclear.

If you take the capital costs of solar, wind and nuclear and adjust those costs by the discrepancies between their capacity factors, Solar costs €9.27b per GW, UK offshore wind costs €6.17b per GW, and the contracted price for Poland's nuclear power plants is €3.19b per GW.

Ramasun

It doesn't matter because.... Sellafield.

Nuclear power is toxic not because anyone in Ireland has mismanaged it's use but Sellafield is the end of the conversation for at least another generation.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793949#Comment_120793949

In October 2021 The Good Information Project/Ireland Thinks surveyed 1,200 people asking the question "Should Ireland build a nuclear power station to increase energy supplies"

43% said Yes, 43% said No, with the remainder undecided. The demorgrapic group most in favour of a nuclear power plant were those 18 - 24 years old with 60% saying Yes.

Ramasun

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794868#Comment_120794868

You'd get similar results if you asked if we should build a third terminal at Dublin airport. Most people haven't thought about it but once the objections start coming in it's dead in the water.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794901#Comment_120794901

I would very much doubt that is the case. If it was then I`m sure all the companies and political parties that pay large sums for opinion poll surveys would have twigged long ago they were wasting their money.

You may be correct that some people really haven`t thought much about it, but then they would make uo the 14% "Don`t Knows". The really interesting result of that survey is the answer of the 18 - 24 year old group. That age group is the most exercised in the climate change debate and the age group that the Irish Green Party got proportionately most of their voted from in the last general election and 60% of them answered "Yes"

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794846#Comment_120794846

As I said - 'lied to comprehensively.' Working at Sellafield actually makes you healthier and live longer:

On average the workers suffered a mortality from all causes that was 2% less than that of the general population of England and Wales and 9% less than that of the population of Cumberland (the area in which the plant is sited). Their mortality from cancers of all kinds was 5% less than that of England and Wales and 3% less than that of Cumberland. In the five years after their first employment Sellafield workers had an overall mortality that was 70% of that of England and Wales

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1341635/

Presented with the cost differences, only 2-3% would actually give a stuff about Sellafield. The added health benefits would be a bonus I'm sure few would object to. If you believe in epidemiology, the Greens have killed thousands of Irish people by mandating diesel pollution - but don't tell the people that, distract them with Sellafield and nuclear boogymen.

People who have said the Irish populace will never accept X,Y or Z have been proven to be wrong on almost every occasion, like same sex marriage and abortion. When the populace voted the wrong way on joining the EU, that was fixed with a bit of re-education.

There are no sacred cows, not divorce, same sex marriages, abortion, no doubt neutrality, and nuclear. I think people who 'claim' you can't do something because the people don't wan't it, don't actually have a clue as to what the public think or want and are just projecting their own preferences and hope people fall for it and don't get around to actually balloting the populace and finding out they are wrong.

I would bet a pile on most people taking 60% cheaper electricity over their concerns for the non-issue of sellafield.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794868#Comment_120794868

I'm pretty sure it would be 100% against once it comes time to choosing a site.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120796266#Comment_120796266

Not when you have a policy of free electricity for locals, like they have in France and have mooted for the UK. There would be intense lobying begging for NPPs to be built locally.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120796266#Comment_120796266

No more than the same for a wind or solar farm. As we have seen the greens haven`t been slow in becoming nimby`s when any are touted for their neighbourhoods.

Give every household free electricity for the lifetime of the plant within a certain radius and you could even have communities in competition.

For the rest of the country, tell them exactly how much this wind + solar + hydrogen plan is going to cost and I`m pretty sure when they compare it to what Finland is getting for €10 billion those in favor would be even higher.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120796388#Comment_120796388

First of all it wasn't €10Bn it was €11Bn.

More importantly it was only supposed to be €3Bn. That's €8Bn for nothing.

More importantly still it was 12 years late so the real cost would have to include 12 years of replacing the missing electrical production. That's billions more for nothing.

Also they had to take it offline to fix shortly after it came on line.

Anyone proposing nuclear for Ireland needs to say how they'll provide low carbon power until a plant is fully operational. And how that solution AND nuclear can both financed.

Here's a clue : Wind in Finland produced the same amount of power last year as the nuclear plant should produce in a full year. 70% of the wind came online last year.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797273#Comment_120797273

The poster I was replying to said €10 Bn, but are you not being rather penny pinching for someone who favor an offshore wind + hydrogen plan that nobody seems to be able to put a cost too.

As I said I would be surprised if it is anything less than €200 Bn. and that for a plan where the offshore terminals will have to be gutted or scrapped at least twice during the lifetime of a nuclear plant. And that €200 Bn desn`t include the cost of onshore or solar.

The Olkiluoto 3 Finnish plant will provide 14% of their electricity requirements, roughly the equivalent of 1/3 of our requirements. So even after all the delays etc. it costing €11 is still the equivalent of €33 Bn for a plant that would operate for up to 60 years, compared to a €200Bn plan that doesn`t even take into account that the turbines will have to be either gutted or replaced at least twice within the lifespan of a nuclear plant.

When you look at those figures, then whether the Finnish plant cost €10 or €11 Bn is a bit penny pinchingly insignificant.

A rather strange assertion that anyone proposing nuclear for Ireland will need to say how it will be financed, when they favor a wind + hydrogen plan they, or apparently anyone else, cannot put a price on.

Wind power in Finland last year accounted for 16.5% of their electricity. 2021 it was 10%. This year nuclear is expected to provide 43%.

Here`s a hint for you. Year on year Europe`s. top electricity exporting countries have been those with nuclear power plants

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797273#Comment_120797273

Admittedly I pay more attention to facts and data than I do to gaslighting and hyperbole. Finlands' energy prices are a fraction of ours, as is their (supposedly all-important) CO2/kwh figures. The data don't lie. The same is true of other countries such as France, Sweden, Switzerland, Ontario Canada etc. My links prove both beyond doubt. Also, specifically in the case of Finland, prior to the opening of their most recent nuclear reactor, their CO2/kwh figures were generally between 100g and 200g, which even then was better than anything Ireland could manage. But now, their figures are comparable to France, i.e. among the lowest.

So it's not difficult to suspect that your "billions and billions for nothing" claim (I'm paraphrasing here) is a bit of an exaggeration.

Because the only countries that have worse energy costs than Ireland are other Western European countries with similar policies to ourselves. It used to be that our energy costs were the worst in the world barring small island nations like Jamaica, but now we've blown right past them and left them in the dust.

The questions that you claim advocates of nuclear in Ireland need to answer (how it's to be financed, what power will be used in the meantime), don't seem to have been a problem for most other European countries. Instead, I suggest that it is for YOU (and anyone else proposing that we continue with your insane policies) to explain:

1. How we got into this mess?
2. How your policies are going to fix it, given that they were probably the root cause?

bk

Finland has a major advantage that we don’t have, they are part of the mainland Europe wide grid, so if their reactor goes offline they can just import from their neighbours.

We don’t have that luxury, being an island, we have our own grid and aren’t part of the European grid. Yes we have an interconnector to the UK and will to France in future, but those are DC, so quiet different to the AC connects across Europe, despite the interconnectors we still won’t be part of the European grid.

BTW no one included the cost of building a Nuclear Waste repository and managing that site for the next 100,000 years. Sweden has put their planned one on pause as the cost had risen to €20 Billion just to build it, never mind the management costs!

Busman Paddy Lasty

Finland is a great example for renewables and these contribute to their CO2 intensity figures. Praising nuclear for their low CO2 is not correct.

Hydro and wind equalled nuclear production last year. They import 15% of their energy and as they are part of the Scandinavian synchronised grid the vast majority of that would be Norweigan hydro, although coule be on the books as Swedish imports.

If two-thirds of the 15% imports are zero carbon Finland are 45% zero carbon from native renewables and imports combined. 75% with nuclear included.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120799833#Comment_120799833

Finland has 5 reactors so the chances of them all going off line at the same time is unlikely. We have close to 50% of our electricity being supplied by gas and with 9 new gas fired plants to be added that percentage will rise further. With Corrib coming close to depletion, with Irish Green`s determined to block LNG, then shortly close to 100% of that gas will be imported through the Moffat pipelines via a country that is no longer a member of the E.U. When it comes to energy security we are in a much worse position than Finland.

With the cost of this offshore + hydrogen alone of at least €200 Bn for 100% supply compared to €33 Bn for same based on Finland`s Olkiluoto 3 reactor, we could build a nuclear waste repositoy for €20 Bn and still be quids in, and I doubt the managements costs would be greater than the cost of gutting or replacing those offshore turbines every 20 -25 years at the outmost.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800013#Comment_120800013

Which Finland are we talking about here? The country that actually exists, or some green fairy tale? Because Finland's low CO2 figures due in significant degree to their intensive use of nuclear energy. The data could not possibly be any clearer. Oh and by the way, their energy costs are also considerably lower than ours.

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800266#Comment_120800266

Same Finland. 2022 figures for the whole year not a useless snapshot.

I'm pro nuclear by the way but digging up snapshots on either side of the argument is a waste of time.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120799833#Comment_120799833

The nuclear waste boogyman is one of the weirdest things. Nuclear power plants have been in existence for 65 years and yet this supposedly hazardous waste has never been dealt with, It just sits around accumulating with a lot of hand wringing about how will it be stored safely. I'ts been stored relatively safely for most of that 65 years.

If someone gave me the job of dealing with NW, I'd build a big Synroc plant, find a nice 100-300 million year old salt layer a few km down, drill into it and disolve a large cavern using hot water, as they do for storing hydrogen and NG, and then just lower all the synroc slugs down into it.

Synroc is as permanently stable as the rocks uranium is originally obtained from and would laugh off 100,000 years and is estimated to be stable for millions of years. The salt deposits will probably outlive humanity by a wide margin.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803047#Comment_120803047

Nuclear waste is an easy problem to solve until someone tries to actually solve it

Then reality hits

Sam Russell

Coal pits had a small problem with slag heaps - until Aberfan.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800013#Comment_120800013

I do not see why not.

Nuclear produced the same carbon neutral electricity as wind, hydro and solar combined last year and is to increase its generation share by 14% this year.

That will leave it the number 1 carbon neutral generator by a fair distance compared to any of the other three, as well as negating the need for that 15% of imported energy.