Should Ireland go Nuclear?

A quick thing on fukashima - it wasn't the earth quake that directly caused the disaster - it was the tidal wave - they'd planned for a bigger tidal wave than struck the sea wall - they just hadn't planned for level of the land the sea wall was on to drop by over meter , allowing the tidal wave to knock out the sets (3 I think) , ofback up generators - than ran the cooing water pumps ... They had planned for many levels of eventuality - but missed that -i doubt many other nuclear utilities are/were as well prepared as the japanese - there's always an unexpected eventuality -and just the disruption and cost of any clean up is huge -

"Deaths from PV solar-rooftop and IWT energy generation are about 16 and 4 times the deaths of nuclear energy generation, respectively, according to the World Health Organization. "

"Energy Source              Death Rate (deaths per TWh) OLD

Coal – world average               161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China                       278
Coal – USA                         15
Oil                                36  (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas                         4  (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass                    12
Peat                               12
Solar (rooftop)                     0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind                                0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro                               0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao)    1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear                             0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Incessant anti nuclear fear mongering and hand wringing. Many times more people die as a result of rooftop solar or windfarm accidents, but you are blathering on about tidal waves in Europe. The shuttering of nuclear power plants in Germany is estimated to be killing people, due to the necessity to shift to other power sources.

I think I'll go slap on some SPF 30 sunscreen, even though it's very dull outside, I'm sitting indoors, the wind's howling, there's no sun, but there's lots of intnese bright spring sunshine in Australia, so I don't want to be getting skin cancer.

Next you will be calling for all flights to and from Ireland to be cancelled permanenntly because there have been plane crashes in which people wer killed, never mind it's the safest form of transport statistically, think of the accidents; the horror!

Those motality stats are also mirrored in this Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

I'll take that.

CO2 and temperature increase rapidly just prior to the onset of every glaciation event that has comprised the current Ice Age we have been in for the past 3 million years. These glaciation events occur with a repeating regularity. Given that regularity, the start of the next glaciation event is either slightly late, or due about now.

The north Atlantic conveyor - an ocean current that takes heat from the tropics and dumps it in Europe, keeping it warm in winter and the polar bears away - seems to be a trigger for the start of past glaciation events. It's Europe's central heating - turn it off and you soon find yourself under a 2km thick ice sheet.

This current has been slowing for at least a thousand years, but this slowing has recently accelerated, starting probably 150 years ago. People are worried it is about to stop.

Since CO2 and temperature are rising, and the timing coincides with what would be expected from historical data, and the Atlantic conveyor appears to be about to stop, I personally think the current climate change is natural and just means the transition to the next glaciation event has started.

So while I agree the climate appears to be changing, I disagree about the 'why'.

Inter glacials have had variable lengths, from about 10,000 to 30,000 years. We are at about 12,000.

Maybe we should go to the climate change forum with this!!!

The state of the climate is directly affected by the amount of ice in the northern hemisphere.

This is directly explained by the milankovich cycles, namely distance to sun at a given time, tilt towards/ away from the sun and earths precession (its wobble).

as I said previously the cycles of the three above are combined and that data tells us we should be in a mild ice age, but we are warming.

This is because of humans releasing CO2 and methane into the atmosphere.

I thought there was a cl

Electricity in france in 2020 retailed at 12.92 cents. I am with Airtricity and am paying 17.47 before VAT, so the usual horsesh​it. Germany retired their nukes and their consumer bills have increased substantially. The cost of renewables does not include the cost of infrastructure and spending required to match the sustained performance of other sources, like nuclear. While they are spinning and generating, wind turbines are low cost and fabulous, but they can stop turning for weeks on end.

The hypocrisy at play is just gob smacking. Nuclear is expensive and terrible and shouldn't be considered, but please would you hurry up with multiple fat interconnectors to france so we can suck off the nuclear teat instead of burn gas.

If you honestly think the world needs to seriously reduce CO2 emissions, then it shouldn't matter if nuclear has a high initial cost and looks to be expensive or difficult. Existing nuclear has prevented gigatons of CO2 being produced, far more than any other source except hydro.

Multiple governments have recently announced they will be inroducing new nuclear capacity. The cost will come down due to economies of scale, just as with wind turbines.

But seen as we are connecting to France we can just import their nuclear for our needs, and vice versa export our wind.

That way we gain inter connectivity between grids, gain the use of clean nuclear (ignoring the waste for a min) and don’t have to pay to build a nuclear plant, maintain it, protect it, deal with its waste

When wind blows export to mainland Europe via France and hopefully in the near future store some of that excess wind in green hydrogen.

Best of both worlds with the added bonus of creating a hydrogen industry to fill up HGV’s and tanker ships etc

Many countries have a good health system. Many countries have lower taxes. Many countries have a decent climate. Many countries are run with a modicum of morality. Many countries have reasonable insurance costs. Many countries have a reasonably efficient civil service. Many countries can build a childrens hospital for a reasonable cost.

Ireland isn't one of them.

How's the economies of scale thing worked with nuclear in the past ? Say for example with France ? Maybe the stations they built in the 70's 80's when they were well used to building stations - to pretty much a standard design -

Honestly if nuclear was so great and so attainable why are the french reducing their reliance on it ?

The announcement was because they have an anti-nuke greenie as energy minister. Macron has very recently announced other ideas that include building an SMR by the end of the decade. So what you say France is doing isn't what they say they are doing.

"French president Emmanuel Macron said that by 2030 France must be a leader in carbon-free power production with one small modular reactor in operation and nuclear plants used to produce clean hydrogen through electrolysis...

Setting out some of the plan’s targets, Mr Macron said France would build a small modular reactor as well as two “megafactories” for the production of green hydrogen – all by the end of the decade." https://www.nucnet.org/news/macron-announces-plans-for-first-smr-and-green-hydrogen-from-nuclear-plants-by-2030-10-2-2021

They very clearly have not made up their mind on nuclear, so your statement seems false:

"French President Emmanuel Macron will probably say by the end of the year whether he supports the construction of new nuclear plants as part of the country’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, Ecology Minister Barbara Pompili said.

Building new reactors alongside additional solar and wind power capacity is the cheapest way to achieve that target, the French grid operator said in a report Monday. Electricity demand is expected to rise as governments crack down on fossil fuels to fight global warming.  

“The president will probably express his preference and his orientation on the scenarios before the end of the year,” Pompili told reporters in Paris Tuesday. Still, there wouldn’t be a final decision before next April’s presidential elections, she said." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/macron-will-probably-announce-nuclear-power-strategy-by-year-end