Energy infrastructure

Markcheese · 30-10-2021 4:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118091157#Comment_118091157

Is this level of outage unusual ? internationally ? Some of it could be older stations , but a lot is also the newer gas turbines - great island is only 6 or 7 years old for eg . The 425 mw generator at aghada is 10 or so y

Capt'n Midnight · 30-10-2021 10:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118082700#Comment_118082700

$101/KW in the foreseeable future. How capital intensive is that ?

Round it up to €100/KW and let's pretend that the input surplus electricity is free, for argument's sake.

If you were able to sell the output electricity (only 40% due to efficiency) back at Hinkley C's strike price then it would take 100 days of inputs to produce enough gas to break even. (assuming using existing gas turbines and neglecting storage costs, transport costs would be minimised by co-location.

Even now we use 1GW less electricity in winter, 1GW less at night so plenty of grid capacity under utilised most of the year. And there's the wind that can't be accepted by the grid over a year it all adds up. And gas could be stored under Islandmagee or Kinsale gas field or under Dublin Bay.

Hydrogen numbers : "If I have renewable power, convert it to hydrogen and re-electrify it, with a total cycle efficiency of less than 40%, it obviously only makes sense if you’re using hydrogen as long-term storage and compensation for variable renewables,” says Erik Zindel, Siemens Energy’s vice-president of hydrogen generation sales.

cnocbui · 01-11-2021 5:45pm

Quite a day for energy infrastructure news and opinions. Bloomberg have an exposé on how dirt Russian gas is, making a mockery of the EU trying to go clean: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/russia-europe-gas-pipeline-climate-impact-2021/?srnd=premium-europe

"Europe has backed itself into a corner, because it isn’t investing enough money into the clean energy that will allow it to cut its dependence on natural gas, according to Jonathan Stern, distinguished research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“Reducing reliance on imported natural gas is part of Europe’s transition away from fossil fuels and it needs to be investing tens of billions of euros in clean energy every year for several decades,”

I came across an article that likens anti Nuclear leftie renewables fan boys to anti-vaxxers.

That rings some bells.

"COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is dismissed as “anti-science”. Actually, it falls into two categories. Some people fear COVID-19 vaccines specifically but not other vaccines. Respectful, patient communication and transparent, fact-based information can and does change their minds. Others refuse vaccines generally based on falsities, superstition and/or ideology, uninterested in scientific evidence.

Opposition to nuclear energy also falls into two categories. Some opponents are rational and pro-science, like Michael Shellenberger (a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment” and expert reviewer of the IPCC’s Assessment Report) and Zion Lights (a former Extinction Rebellion spokesperson). Both now support nuclear energy after looking properly at the scientific facts and the reality of moving away from fossil fuels.

Most of the green-left who oppose nuclear energy are like the conspiracy theory anti-vaxxers. They say the world faces apocalyptic destruction from global warming but oppose an energy source that provides non-weather-dependent, abundant energy indefinitely and with zero emissions.

Most people simply won’t accept continuing in (or returning to) pre-industrial impoverishment as the price for net zero.

We cannot get to net zero without nuclear energy. The International Energy Association believes nuclear generation needs to double by 2050 to reach net zero goals. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change envisages a six-fold increase in nuclear energy by 2050 for its “middle-of-the-road” scenario alone." https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/the-road-to-net-zero-passes-through-nuclear-power-20211031-p594sc

Talk about talking sense. Greta Thunberg is opposed to nuclear power, so you know it makes sense.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-11-2021 5:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118102964#Comment_118102964

So how would we get to net zero with nuclear energy ? It only provides uneconomic baseload. It can't do peak loads.

Storage and backup systems also benefit renewables but they are much cheaper.

01-11-2021 6:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118102964#Comment_118102964

“Reducing reliance on imported natural gas is part of Europe’s transition away from fossil fuels and it needs to be investing tens of billions of euros in clean energy every year for several decades,”

Yeah, we know

The rest of the post is not worth responding to

Sam Russell · 01-11-2021 8:01pm

I heard on the farmer programme on Radio 1 on Saturday that for a cow put in calf today, its progeny will not be ready for market before 2024, and probably early 2025. So already, we are too late to influence herd numbers by 2025 without a culling regime, and realistically by 2030. Our only hope is better husbandry.

Neclear power stations take a decade to build, and have always been late. So, there will not be one on Ireland before 2050, as it would take two decades to plan it and get it accepted. We will have to stick with wind and batteries.

Metrolink has been planned for decades and currently is not expected to open before 2030. So the grrenest project in the history of the state (after Ard na Crusha) will not be ready to make a difference by 2030, when we are supposed to have reduced CO2 by 30%.

If only we could harness and generate electricity from all the hot air being expelled by all the COP26 ology.

gjim · 01-11-2021 9:37pm

Cnocbui, aren't there plenty of culture war themed fora where you can post rambling straw-man pieces swinging at lefties, "renewables fan boys", Gretta Thunberg, greens and and anti-vaxxers - you might even find people to agree with you?

It gets tiresome here where I'd rather just check the thread for news on developments in the energy industry with an Irish focus.

cnocbui · 02-11-2021 3:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118104049#Comment_118104049

Well if you can point to the bit of the Boards charter which designates threads as echo chambers on the declaration of certain people, such as yourself, I might do that, but I'm afraid you are just going to have to suffer opinions that may diverge from your own until then.

timmyntc · 02-11-2021 3:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118103632#Comment_118103632

All we have to do is make fuel and electricity so prohibitively expensive that most people will cut their usage massively.

cnocbui · 02-11-2021 3:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118107515#Comment_118107515

That should get rid of most of the remaining oldies who stubbornly refused to die from Covid.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/361382/20-000-pensioners-died-from-the-cold-last-winter

cnocbui · 02-11-2021 4:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118103632#Comment_118103632

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/

If there was a genuine climate 'emergency' governments would exempt applicable infrastructure from the usual planning requirements and delays. Perhaps it's not actually an emergency.

Show me the proven wind battery combo that can match a nuclear power plant for a couple of weeks of windlessness, at the same cost and with no subsidies.

02-11-2021 4:41pm

Speaking of nuclear

https://youtu.be/uU3kLBo_ruo

02-11-2021 4:54pm

"If governments were serious about global warming they'd create an known extra problem the will last longer than humans will be on the planet and spend multiples of the money necessary to achieve the same results without creating those issues." That seems to be the only argument in favour of nuclear.

cnocbui · 02-11-2021 6:14pm

Nuclear waste disposal is a purely political problem. In the 1970's, Australian government scientists working for the CSIRO, developed a nuclear waste disposal technology called Synroc. Nuclear waste of all levels of activity, including plutonium, are powdered, mixed with other ingredients and than heat and pressure are applied, turning the waste into a ceramic/glass. This stuff is stable over geological time periods, in the same way other rocks like granite are.

There is a plant in Oz that takes medical nuclear waste and turns it into Synroc. The technology has been adopted elsewhere:

"In April 2008, the Battelle Energy Alliance signed a contract with ANSTO to demonstrate the benefits of Synroc in processing waste managed by Batelle as part of its contract to manage the Idaho National Laboratory. [7]

Synroc was chosen in April 2005 for a multimillion-dollar "demonstration" contract to eliminate 5 t (5.5 short tons) of plutonium-contaminated waste at British Nuclear Fuel's Sellafield plant, on the northwest coast of England."

Picture a can of soup. A chunk of Synroc of that size could incorporate all the nuclear waste generated in prooducing the electricity used by a person for their entire lifetime.

Do you remember that hydrogen storage solution - the one where you drill a few bore holes a few km deep into a salt deposit, pump hot water down and disolve away the salt in a given area to produce a large cavern into which you can pump the hydrogen and store it under pressure?

Those salt deposits are impermiable to pretty much anything, including a molecule as small as hydrogen. They have been stable for 270 million years in many cases, the Carrickfergus salt deposit is only 220 million years.

Put your Synroc waste into such salt depoists, severl km underground, back fill with concrete, salt, or whatever, and that would be good enough for me. Frankly, I don't care if those wastes would pollute the sun when it turns into a red giant a few billion years after mankind became extinct.

Mankind is only 3 million years extant. If panty wetters are worried about nuclear waste hundreds of millions of years in the future, then I think they should be ignored.

Markcheese · 02-11-2021 9:35pm

So you've the waste issue sorted - now it's just the 15 to 20 year lead in time -

The 20 to 25 billion euro upfront bill per pair of reactors ,

and the equally large bill for gigawats of energy storage to account for off peak energy ..

What do we do till 2040 odd ?

Sam Russell · 02-11-2021 9:46pm

Mod: I have opened a new thread for nuclear. 'Should Ireland go Nuclear'

Might be a better place for discussing nuclear.

Markcheese · 03-11-2021 6:26am

Anyone know much about anaerobic digestion ,,,?

I always thought it was a bit of a scam/ zero sum gain , but it seems to be large scale in Holland and denmark - the gas is going to be dearer than natural gas ... For the same thing ...

Rigor Mortis · 03-11-2021 7:20am

The gas is dearer to produce than nat gas in the same way that wind energy was dearer to produce than gas was before subsidies encouraged that market. Biogas is before subsidy a more cost effective source than biomass, however the focus of govt policy has been on biomass to date. There is a further advantage with AD that you can essentially replace fossil fuel based fertilizers with a biodigestate. In a full life cycle, this can significantly alter the numbers on emissions. If you are interested, Devenish produced a report on AD that demonstrated a 25% reduction in GHG on beef farms by using AD and switching gas production to a multi - sward model.

Markcheese · 03-11-2021 8:17am

It could tie in nicely with methane reductions in several ways - any farm slurry used won't be directly releasing methane ,

if there's large quantities of land being used to grow feedstock for a digester then obviously that's not going to have cows on it ...

Any domestic food waste or other organic waste could easily be added into the mix- as could sewage sludge ,

Down side would be a lot ,a lot ,a lot of capital ...

And a fair bit of diesel use both in harvesting feedstock and transport...both ways ..

Rigor Mortis · 03-11-2021 11:16am

You don't need a lot of land, you just need to use it more efficiently.

The numbers on emissions saving are more than enough to manage the diesel on transport.

Sam Russell · 03-11-2021 11:59am

Do not dismiss the possible use of biogas to power those transport vehicles that currently use diesel. Adding green hydrogen could improve their performance.

03-11-2021 3:12pm

Russia is throwing another tantrum and disrupting gas supplies

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1515866/Vladimir-putin-Russia-news-gas-Europe-stop-deliveries

The sooner Europe moves to 0% fossil fuels, the more secure it will be

cnocbui · 03-11-2021 4:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118112889#Comment_118112889

I agree. An interconnector is like a gas pipe, though, so better not upset the guy at the other end. I doubt there would be any juice currently flowing from France on a hypothetical interconnector between there and Australia, due to Macron throwing a wobbly over the cancelled sub contract. Isn't France currently threatening to cut electricity supplies to the channel islands over some fish?

If we just make sure we always do what the UK and France tell us to, we should be fine. Energy security via interconnector - can I have a second helping please? Yum!

josip · 03-11-2021 4:16pm

The French and the British will always be at loggerheads so as long as we have interconnectors to both at least one will be co-operative 🙂

03-11-2021 4:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113384#Comment_118113384

You do love your bizarre hypotheticals

Apogee · 04-11-2021 12:06am

From tomorrow's Examiner

04-11-2021 12:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118115896#Comment_118115896

Ooff, that's a blow. They were an ideal partner given their decades of experience with off-shore mining platforms and the engineering and technology behind those.

Per that article, I really do hope we see that legislation enacted asap as it's holding everything up

Apogee · 04-11-2021 2:30pm

The perennial problem with infrastructure in Ireland - a planning system that is not properly resourced and foot-dragging on necessary legislation. Two things for which governments have direct responsibility and control.

04-11-2021 9:56pm

The Climate Action Plan has been published and is available for review here

Regarding energy generation, I've screenshotted the main sections below. For a full read look at pages 92-100 in the main document linked above which has a lot more of the finer details relevant to the bits below

Geuze · 04-11-2021 10:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118117972#Comment_118117972

Can anybody give me more information on the planning and legal problems?

First, is PP required for an off-shore windfarm?

Second, why is legislation needed at all?

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/1104/1257943-wind-energy-ireland-welcomes-climate-action-plan/

"There are questions about the capacity of our administrative institutions when it comes to creating a regulatory regime which can support offshore renewable energy projects, and the revised National Development Plan," he said.

"It is fifteen years since the Arklow bank project ran aground, and the Oireachtas has spent almost nine years trying and failing to create legislation to permit offshore wind projects.

"We have known what we need to do for a long time, but we actually need to do it," Mr Talbot said.

He said our planning system needs reform.

"It must be resourced sufficiently so that it can deliver quality decisions fairly," he said.

Mr Talbot also said progress must be made on offshore renewable energy legislation.

"We have some of the best wind energy resources available on the globe, but our legal regime is holding us back," he said.

Energy infrastructure

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