Nuclear - future for Ireland?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122418187#Comment_122418187

Nah charlie, you may think you're some sort of original thinker bringing "new information" to the "debate" when in fact you're just regurgitating half-understood climate-change denialist nonsense that we've heard a million times before.

Not only that but you do so with long rambling, repetitive and tiring gish-gallop type missives.

You never respond to any basic facts which demonstrate the mistakes in your thinking but seem to expect that others should spend time rebutting a bunch of numbers you've pulled out of your arse.

You're "not even wrong", you don't even understand or refuse to understand the conversation.

You're being done a kindness here - it's to stop you wasting any more of your time when your "work" is being ignored.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122418375#Comment_122418375

Spoofer.

You have been running away and hiding everytime I mentioned to you that I have been a long time waiting for your figures for this offshore/hydrogen wind plan where you claimed my verifiable figures were incorrect.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122419553#Comment_122419553

Repeating yourself in long tedious posts is not winning the argument and Its convincing no one that we will change course and go nuclear. Your firmly losing the argument because no one is stupid enough to imagine nuclear is a good idea for Ireland and there is no money been diverted from renewables to pursue your fantasy.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122418479#Comment_122418479

I do not know why you are telling me about Drax. I have been posting for years that Drax is a complete con job and have posted the stats that showed it as such. The theory of burning wood being carbon neutral did not come from those favouring nuclear, it came from greens and the E.U.

Useful for the E.U. that generates 60% of its "green" energy from biomass when it comes to reaching a target of reducing emission by 55% from their 1990 level by 2030, not so much for Ireland where we didn`t use wood burning for electricity generation. Well…. not until recently where we are now running to catch up with a generating plant in Offaly now burning wood imported from above all places Brazil, and another opening in Killala in Mayo to be supplied with 200,000 tons of wood annually shipped to Killybegs in Donegal and then transported by road to Killala.The road round trip alone is 330 kms. If you are somehow looking to nuclear to blame for the farce of wood burning classified as a carbon neutral energy source, then you are looking in the wrong direction.

Currently our demand is around 6 GW with renewables providing around 2 GW and fossil fuels the remaining 4 GW. THe projected demand for 2050 is 14 GW, this 37 GW plan will only generate under 8 GW for consumption. That would leave us short by 4 GW same as we are now. So in reality we would just be running to stand still as far as emissions are concerned. To get to renewables covering 100% by 2050, under this present plan, would require an additional spend of 50% which would bring the total cost to around €400 Bn with further eye-watering capital spends every 20 odd years.

For a population of 5 million that is not simply lunacy, it`s financial hari-kari. And it`s not as if we are going to have bargain price electricity either. The strike price from the last ORESS offering, with all things considered, is even higher than the "most expensive power plant ever built" and from the latest strike prices awarded to Orsted and Equinor at 80% higher than those they originally agreed on, then that strike price is not going to get any cheaper.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122420637#Comment_122420637

Yes Drax is a con job. And goes through so much virgin forest that it's not all that renewable.

But it answers the question of how much extra dead money would need to be spent if we choose to wait years and years for nuclear power to arrive.

The more you look at nuclear the worse it gets.

I still can't get my head around the fact that even though nuclear power plant costs escalated from €3Bn (each) to €45Bn (for two) it's still less than the future spend to cover the missing power on a plant that was supposed to be powering Christmas dinners back in 2017. And that is just one of the subsides that nuclear gets.

No one knows what the price of solar will be in 2050.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122419595#Comment_122419595

At the end of the day as with everything else money talks not magical money tree thinking.

But then with still not a single figure from you to show my figure are incorrect you know that otherwise you would have posted them.

Shoog

Indeed money talks which is why nuclear is never coming to Ireland.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122421876#Comment_122421876

Well at least we agree on that, but it`s not just Drax alone that makes it a con job. It`s the classification by the E.U. of the exercise as being carbon neutral that is the biggest con. With 60% of the E.U. energy coming from biomass, bookkeeping wise it looks good for those countries who are major users of this source. For those that are not they could quite conceivable end up buying carbon credits from those that are who are using this source.

The Irish Green Party may be slow learners, as evident by the whole LNG debacle where in the end they had to do an about turn, but even then in a hamfisted manner and Eamon Ryan still hand sitting on the it, but there is no excuse for importing wood for electricity generation in plants in Offaly and Mayo.

Domestically solar panels have their uses, but we are not exactly living on the Equator so I would have serious doubts about it filling the 4GW gap in the 2050 37GW plan. The capacity factor for Ireland during Winter is at best around 6%. To generate 4GW from solar would require an installed nameplate capacity of at least 65GW or X65 times the number of solar panels supplying the grid at present. That would again have to be added to the cost of the 37GW plan, and with what we have seen with offshore and wind turbine costs overall, which again like wind turbines would require further massive capital investments on a rolling 25 year basis.

I would not have any great hope in solar panels becoming cheaper. The Chinese might keep the price the same as currently, but they would be using coal to do so, which would make purchasing them from China questionable at the very least.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122423114#Comment_122423114

Indeed money does talk, but for you it`s a subject you have shown repeatedly how determined you are to avoid talking about.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122424601#Comment_122424601

Since the Chinese went into solar in a big way in 2006 the learning curve is almost 40%. That's how much real costs fall each time global output doubles.

Here's a copy of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV) detailing the technologies that will deliver upcoming cost reductions.

For wind IIRC it's 7% not freefall but sill decreasing faster than inflation. On the other hand nuclear costs increase over time , the measured learning curve is negative.

Shoog

Where are the private investors for nuclear ?

silverharp

I see the Chinese fully tested a Gen 4 pebble bed reactor , well done them! , they have an incentive to throw resources at it

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122426333#Comment_122426333

From a quick read through of that ITRPV report, they must have written it in very cramped conditions. Unless I missed it, while putting it together they skipped around the very large elephant in the room. China.

China now produces over 80% of world solar panels and controls 93% of polysilicon production. Their polysilicon production and refining is concentrated in the Xinjiang Uyghua Autonomous Region (XUAR) and is the most intense energy step in solar panel manufacturing. 77% of the power in the region is from coal.

The XUAR is also home to concentration camps housing 1 million people being used as slave labour. In 2021 The Bureau of International Labour Affairs (ILAB) added Polysilicon as being produced by forced labour in China.

China are the most dominant manufacturers of solar panels worldwide by a long way, and have achieved that by using cheap energy (coal), and slave labour. Manufacturers with such a dominant position over competitors do not lower prices. They do not need too and are more likely to raise them. Whatever the price, if you are going to use solar to plug that 4 GW gap in the 2050 plan, adding 64 GW of istalled capacity is not going to be cheap and will just add to the already massive cost of that plan with all the knock-on effects for the consummer via the strike price.

I would have thought the E.U. would have learned from Germany`s encouragement of Putin`s gas, but it appears not as they have rowed back on any proposals to curb China`s dominance on solar panel supply to the E.U. and like Putin`s gas are again leaving the E.U. open to being held as a hostage to fortune.

I do not know if you could even regard offshore wind generation in terms of inflation. It has created an inflation bubble all of its own, very much like tulips in the 17th century, with recent prices showing an 80% increase in a year.