Nuclear - future for Ireland?

28-12-2021 1:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381091#Comment_118381091

If you are going to reference something a study said, it's only fair that you link to the study so that it can be reviewed.

Otherwise anyone can make things up and say X study from Y said its 10 times cheaper to not use nuke plants

cnocbui · 28-12-2021 1:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381609#Comment_118381609

I have linked to that study at least 4 times previously in various threads. https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-energy-storage-would-have-to-cost-for-a-renewable-grid#toggle-gdpr

Expected battery costs by 2050: https://www.mining.com/scientists-predict-downward-trend-in-li-ion-battery-costs/

end of the road · 28-12-2021 2:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381091#Comment_118381091

nuclear is not 0 emitions, but quite hugely emitting in the form of waste that has to be stored for generations at huge cost.

the most expensive renewable is and always will be only a fraction of the cost of nuclear, which is the most expensive form of energy by hundreds of billions and even then it can only provide a bare bones amount and requires high levels of backup to support it.

start building nuclear now and you might get it in 20 years with huge cuts to other services to pay for it if you are lucky.

the public don't have a fear of nuclear now, they just see it for the ridiculous, poor value for money, waste of space money pit it is.

the most subsidized industry in the country currently is a fraction of the cost of bad value for money, waste emitting nuclear.

it's over, it's not happening in ireland, nobody with any sense wants to pay for it.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 2:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381731#Comment_118381731

Yes at present lithium is too expensive to use for extended grid level storage , but ...

A - prices have dropped 90% in the last 9 years and are still falling.

B - by (re)using existing pipes, pumps, gas wells and turbine tech we could store nine years worth of global lithium production as hydrogen in the old Kinsale gas field.

cnocbui · 28-12-2021 2:55pm

So what's the final cost per kw of this hydrogen coming out of the kinsale field, including the cost of dealing with the NOX?

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 3:05pm

Just a reminder that both the French and UK have kept their missile subs on patrol continuously while at times they've had problems keeping one attack sub in service. This tells me that small modular reactors work, if you are prepared to throw resources at them.

None of the seven Royal Navy subs were on active duty.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 3:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382000#Comment_118382000

Check out the USA's new laws on forced labour. Now tell me that the African yellow cake mines are a workers paradise.

Using iridium is an efficient way to electrolyse water, less efficient ways include every single lead acid battery ever made. Rare earths are not rare. Nor are they needed for wind turbines. It's just makes them more efficient.

The big bottleneck is the exhausting of high grade uranium ores. The know reserves of uranium are twice what's been extracted so far 6.1m vs 3m tonnes. (most of the weapons material has already been burnt up.) For nuclear go get back to 14% of electricity production (the same contribution that energy efficient lighting has made) would be a dead end because there wouldn't be uranium left for a further generation. And that's not counting demand for electric cars or heat pumps factor in those an there aren't enough uranium reserves to keep the lights on.

Nobody who supports nuclear can complain about large amounts of construction materials unless they point at hydro. And they can't certainly complain about processing ore reprocessing waste.

cnocbui · 28-12-2021 3:58pm

More anti-nuclear BS.

"an there aren't enough uranium reserves to keep the lights on."

"According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

Still waiting on that final costing of renewables and H2 storage and energy production.

end of the road · 28-12-2021 4:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382261#Comment_118382261

not anti-nuclear anything, just the facts showing why nuclear can't compete with modern efficient ultra-cheap renewables and other sources.

the costs you are looking for would be a fraction of what nuclear could ever be.

28-12-2021 4:41pm

My suspicion is we (and lots of others) won't meet the targets. The effort it worth making, but I don't think humanity is able to do long term strategy. In reality, short term, local and tangible drives political decision making.

Markcheese · 28-12-2021 5:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382261#Comment_118382261

You're not the only one - thing is though our 2030 electricity decarbonisation commitments don't rely on either hydrogen or nuclear .... There isn't time for either ...

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 5:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382261#Comment_118382261

So including the 'undiscovered' uranium there's 230 years at current usage, which is 10% of global electricity, or on a sliding scale to 100% of current electricity production, which ignores future demand for electric cars or heat pumps, that would be 23 years.

So your plan to be carbon neutral by 2050 is to build power plants that won't output any power before 2030 or after 2060 ? That's some serious can kicking.

PS. you can discover uranium by detecting gamma radiation from a low flying aircraft so all the low hanging fruit is long gone and nuclear power can't afford to get more expensive.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 5:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382472#Comment_118382472

Look at the graph. Using existing technology nuclear power could only power the world for 5.7 years on it's own.

Thorium means breeders with tighter neutron economy than plutonium and we've had multiple reactors breeding plutonium since 1944. Going to be commercialised any day now...

Seawater extraction takes energy and hydrocarbons so it's far from carbon neutral at present. Also far from economic. Even if you could recycle the extraction chemicals or plastics enough, then nuclear is still road kill compared to the future cost of renewables.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-12-2021 5:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382261#Comment_118382261

"Still waiting on that final costing of renewables and H2 storage and energy production"

Apart from the electrolysis gear O&M costs should be similar and capital costs are close to zero for most of the other equipment that is already in place.

I don't know the upgrade costs or even if the pipes need to be lined (not all steel is subject to hydrogen embrittlement) but it's standard process. Electrolysis costs - we’ll be at £500,000/MW at the 100MW level in the next three years,” but mostly the inefficiencies (assume 40% round trip) and surplus electricity at 2.5 times cheaper than peak electricity.

He points to recent solar projects in Portugal and the UAE that won long-term tenders at $11 and $14 per MWh, respectively. “So with electricity prices like that, you can immediately make green hydrogen at a lower cost [than blue or grey H2].”

28-12-2021 9:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118383301#Comment_118383301

4 questions regarding the Finnish solution for waste

1. What was the cost and how was it funded?

2. What's the total capacity?

3. Does it render the waste inert?

4. Will the same solution work in all the other countries stuck with thousands of tonnes of toxic nuke waste?

28-12-2021 10:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118298194#Comment_118298194

sure if they’re dumb enough to fly into a big spinning wheel they deserve to die in my opinion.

end of the road · 28-12-2021 11:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384040#Comment_118384040

yes, "might" have.

those are the 2 important words, as in they don't know if they have solved it yet or not, quite likely they haven't really but we will see.

SeanW · 29-12-2021 12:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384205#Comment_118384205

I'm not sure if this post is a wind-up or is representative of how mainstream environmentalists view the extreme harm they're causing to nature (among other major social and economic harms), but it should be noted that bats in particular don't just die of turbine strikes, they are also killed in significant numbers by barotrauma.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208007513

I have no idea why we (in the Western world generally) seem to want to follow Germany with it's cold-war era Energiewende, wasting hundreds of billions of euros trying to harness disparate, unreliable "fuels" while wasting enormous amounts of land and natural resources, all to generate small amounts of unreliable expensive electricity that is up to an order of magnitude dirtier than is necessary (see a recent snap from electricitymap.org), all when the supposedly central problem of climate change has been solved for decades as the French have shown.

I genuinely cannot see any reason for this.

29-12-2021 12:05am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118384606#Comment_118384606

It’s called it is what it is. Wildlife is killed on a regular enough basis due to man made activity and so on. We should sparsely use it as a metric to determine viability of something useful.

a few birds are killed be a windmill, so what? I’d wager many more are killed flying into windows, should we black them all out for the birds, bollocks to sunshine in the gaff.

SeanW · 29-12-2021 12:31am

Actually, yes, bird-safe glass is a thing:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bird+safe+glass&t=h_&ia=web

As well it should be, in my view. And as for "a few" well as far as eagles are concerned, even "a few birds" is a problem given that these birds are endangered and have slow breeding cycles, meaning they just can't take mass mortality as a species (unlike the small birds usually killed by housecats).

But it's most certainly not "a few" as far as bats are concerned - windmills cause more mass-mortality events than White Nose Syndrome, which is in itself an extinction-level threat.

https://stopthesethings.com/2017/03/07/inconvenient-truth-wind-turbines-are-the-largest-cause-of-bat-mortality/

And the worst part is that we're paying eye-watering amounts of money to do this and getting next to nothing - only small amounts of unreliable electricity - in return! Why? I just don't get it 😲

end of the road · 29-12-2021 1:01am

renewable energy is cheap and getting cheaper and hugely reliable as has already been shown in the thread by a multitude of sources.

the only expensive unreliable energy is nuclear, who's costs have been out of control for decades.

yes there probably could be better protections implemented as part of wind turbines to try and protect birds and bats, and that should happen but bird and bat deaths are not an argument against cheap reliable efficient modern clean energy.

29-12-2021 1:37am

Once again I read above the nonsense that grid-level batteries are somehow an incredibly distant possibility.

So once again I will do some simple sums for certain people's benefit.

Hinkley Point C is on track to cost £22 billion. Though if you're reading this post in the future you can probably multiply that by a whole number.

The UK government agreed an index-linked strike price. That was expected to cost £6.1 billion when agreed, then shot up to £29.7 billion and in 2015 the estimate was £50 billion. This will have fallen back a bit but the cheaper electricity gets, the more it costs the UK government to get it from Hinkley Point C.

So let's just take the £22 billion and we'll go with a low-ball other £22 billion (just because of inflation etc.) for the ongoing subsidies. That's £44 billion or €50 billion.

So let's say we had that kind of money lying around (pretty much did for the last while with interest-free loans available and we wasted that bloody chance. €20 billion borrowed over 30 years at 0.1% interest while we have 5%+ inflation would have been lovely) so what do we go?

We can say "OK, in 20 years time, hopefully we can start outputting overpriced power for everyone. It will cover half of our peak demand". Or, alternatively, take that €50 billion, works out at about €25k per household. Take that €25k and every single house in the country could be fitted with 3 Tesla powerwalls (at RRP, not even a bulk discount or some futuristic technology) and have 40kWh stored up in their house.

Now I'm not saying that we should be installing that much battery capacity, well, actually I think it's something we really should be heading towards as it will improve efficiency, cost and can head towards independence for energy.

On a slight side note, the fact that so much of what we use now is pretty low-power DC I wonder if there's gotta be a better way to wire houses. Aside from things with heating elements the majority of what most people use could be run off a kWh or 2 a day. I suppose things are too entrenched now though for that to change any time soon.

Sam Russell · 29-12-2021 9:58am

We have yet to build a metro in Dublin despite many many attempts, so infrastructure is not a strength for Ireland. What hope do we have of ever building a nuclear reactor?

The obvious location for it would be Moneypoint (an apt name if ever there was one) as it already has the necessary grid interconnections. It would take at least a decade before the first sod was turned, assuming it had Gov approval - which it has not, and at least another decade before the first Kw was generated. Of course, the cost would double before work started and double or triple again before generation started. Metrolink has gone from €3bn to €10bn and no start date yet, but the line is shortened to only go as far as the canal, so a tripple cost for a shorter project - welcome to Ireland.

Nuclear - just NO.

Sam Russell · 29-12-2021 10:01am

By the way, 10 am today, we are generating as much wind powered electricity as we ever have 79.06 % or 3,765 MW - forecast to be 4,362 MW peak - according to the Eirgrid dashboard.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-12-2021 12:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118383301#Comment_118383301

What existing technology ? No one has gotten a prototype breeder working well enough to deploy them.

Military subsidies for breeders to produce plutonium for weapons isn't the same as economic power generation.

Finland still doesn't have that storage yet despite all the documentaries we've seen. Operation of the repository is expected to begin in 2023. The total cost estimate is about €2.6 billion ($3.4 billion). Which isn't too far from what the new reactor was supposed to cost.

Finland's electricity is already 80% carbon free thanks mostly to renewables. Nuclear 32% , Renewables 46% (Biofuels & waste 19%, hydro 19%, wind 8%), coal 14% and natural gas 6%. Essentially the new reactor will be replacing coal.

In 2002 they decided to go nuclear. If they'd gone for more gas back then they'd have a lower carbon footprint until ~2040 based on the coal burnt to keep the lights on.

bk · 29-12-2021 1:02pm

On the cost of building a Nuclear waste facility like the Finnish one. Sweden is currently planning to build their own, exact same company who built the Finnish one is going to do the Swedish one. Same design, same technology as the Finnish one.

Current cost estimate for this new one is €15 Billion and rising!

Currently the Swedish government has put it on hold because of the rising costs (and it hasn’t even started construction yet!). And are instead thinking of continuing to just store the Nuclear waste in the cooling pools at their Nuclear power plants instead. Which of course is not a safe long term solution.

So you can add at least 15bn to the cost of us doing Nuclear here.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-01-2022 12:15pm

Hunterston B in Scotland is shutting down now (today noon) ahead of a extension to 2023.

This leaves one nuclear power plant in Scotland, Torness which is closing in 2028, two years ahead of it's extension. Reactor 1 is currently refuelling and should be back on line on Feb 4, unless there's a problem. Reactor 2 is scheduled to come off line in May so another chance to check the graphite then.

cnocbui · 07-01-2022 1:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118432578#Comment_118432578

And France are shutting an unussually high number of theirs for maintainance and will be skint for power themselves, so you can kiss the wind warrior cherished dream of sucking gobs of cheap nuclear power from France via interconnectors to make renewables here look practical.

Menawhile, the Netherlands has seen the writing on the wall and is going to build more reactors and delay decomissioning old ones. I expect major German businesses will soon start shutting shop and heading to foreign countries that have sensible energy policies where the electricity is cheaper. I'd say some time after the third large German conglomerate to make such an announcement, the government will suddenly wake up and restart all their nukes and plead on bended knee for them to stay with a promise to build more.

end of the road · 07-01-2022 2:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118433283#Comment_118433283

this is just clutching at straws and refusing to face the reality.

the fact is renewables have proven practical in ireland as well as cheap and not needing ridiculous levels of subsidy unlike nuclear which gobbles subsidy like it is going out of fashion as well as costing a ridiculous amount of money outside it.

germany has a sensible energy policy and will ultimately deliver cheap electricity without the high levels of subsidy that nuclear requires, even more subsidy if you want it to deliver cheap electricity because it can not deliver it economically.

the netherlands are only building reactors that were committed to years ago, they have already sunk costs in them such that it would be even more expensive to go back now then to keep going.

ultimately nuclear just can not compete with modern efficient cheap forms of energy, maybe it might get there in the next life but i wouldn't bank on it.

cnocbui · 07-01-2022 2:35pm

Lol. Wind and solar are the subsidised energy sources in Germany.

"The reduction is not surprising as the increasing spot price of electricity reduces the need for subsidies for renewables. The reduction is also meant to partly dampen the effect of rising prices.

The EEG-levy is meant to support the expansion of renewable energy in Germany and cover the difference between the market price and the market premium paid to electricity producers. The reduction will be financed with proceeds from the introduction of a carbon price.

The EEG-levy and federal subsidies next year will total EUR 20.1 billion, covering the difference between what the country's transmission system operators will need to pay for renewable enegy -- EUR 33.7 billion -- and the expected electricity exchange revenues of EUR 13.6 billion."

Wind is practical in Ireland, so long as you are happy with having CO2 emissions. If you want net zero, it unclear that . Solar is not and is utterly stupid, due to it generating nothing for half a year and only 18% of it's rated capacity for 60-70% of the other half due to cloud.

The reason so many investors are so keen on solar is the decades of tax payer funded pure profit from government subsidies. It's incredibly cheap to set up and then hugely profitable as it sucks off every consumers wallet in the country via taxes.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-01-2022 2:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118433283#Comment_118433283

The French reactors are not down for maintenance, it's unplanned repairs. And other reactors of the same type may also need to be taken offline.

Nuclear power can't be used to support wind because it can't load balance. Nuclear can be used to offset carbon emissions from coal but that only takes you to gas levels of carbon emission.

Until the Dutch government sign off on real money for new nuclear it's just wishful thinking. "Accordingly, the government said it would provide financial support to the goal of building new nuclear power plants. It outlined EUR50 million for this in 2023, EUR200 million in 2024 and EUR250 million in 2025."

Meanwhile here's where they plan to invest €15-20Bn in 11.5GW of offshore wind for 2030

cnocbui · 07-01-2022 3:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118433861#Comment_118433861

link please to Nuclear energy having the same CO2 output as gas.

In one breath you say the Dutch nuclear announcement means nothing till they spend money and in the next you are waving a plan to install more turbines as a counter argument.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-01-2022 4:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118434164#Comment_118434164

"Nuclear can be used to offset carbon emissions from coal but that only takes you to gas levels of carbon emission."

Using nuclear while keeping coal means your overall emissions are similar to replacing both by gas.

BTW Dutch spend on nuclear will be €5Bn but that's to 2030, on two reactors, with no startup date, out of a €35Bn spend on climate change measures. Nuclear is only 15% of the budget and besides five billion wouldn't even cover the average cost overrun per European EPR nevermind building a pair of those white elephants.

SeanW · 08-01-2022 4:00pm

French reactors seem fine to me:

https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR

France is still, as of now, producing electricity at the rate of 56g/kwh and exporting power to virtually all of their neighbours. 56g/kwh is far less than the carbon cost of electricity from gas. So far less, it's not even close.

As to the repeated claims that nuclear plants are expensive white elephants that can't be built on schedule, you'd need to explain how come previous reactor projects came in on time and on/near budget. Like Sizewell B in the UK, which cost only £1.5-2 billion (albeit in 1990 era money) and was built on schedule:

https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/sizewell-b

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sizewell_nuclear_power_stations

(Sizewell B may operate until 2055, which means it represents even better value for money)

end of the road · 08-01-2022 4:16pm

france heavily subsidizes nuclear.

those who buy electricity from them really pay for it (and to be fair quite rightly so)

bk · 08-01-2022 4:57pm

“As to the repeated claims that nuclear plants are expensive white elephants that can't be built on schedule, you'd need to explain how come previous reactor projects came in on time and on/near budget. Like Sizewell B in the UK, which cost only £1.5-2 billion (albeit in 1990 era money) and was built on schedule:”

Surely it is on you to explain why every new reactor built in Europe over the past 20 years have come in multiple times over budget and years if not decade late?

There is nothing cheap about building new nuclear reactors today.

I’ll tell you why, from accidents like TMI and Fukushima, plus many other more regular “minor incidents”, it was discovered that many of the older reactors were built in a relatively shoddy manner, with poor training and regulation.

As a result modern reactors have to be built to much more strenuous standards and regulations and that greatly increases the cost of construction and operation.

It is like saying, why have cars gotten so more expensive to build today, then they were in the 80’s, even far beyond inflation. It Ignores all the safety technology that goes into new cars like airbags, crumple zones, ABS, etc. and the much higher regulatory bar that modern cars have to meet. Moderns cars are much safer (and fuel efficient) then 80’s cars, but that has to be paid for. Likewise modern reactors have to be built to much higher safety standards (and rightfully so) and that costs money.

There are other issues too. TMI and Fukushima basically destroyed most of the Nuclear industry. Many companies involved went bust or left the industry to focus on other less risky and more profitable energy sectors. Investment from investors and banks basically dried up completely, it was just seen as too risky. As a result the only companies left are either state owned or heavily state subsidised and usually heavily involved in military Nuclear technology.

The few remaining companies basically mean their is now little or no competition left and they can basically charge what they want for any country desperate to keep building reactors. Pretty much the only western company left building reactors is EDF, now that Toshiba have pulled out of the industry.

To put it bluntly, the Nuclear industry has totally collapsed. Their is no truly private Nuclear industry left like there was in the 70’s, it is now basically kept on life support by heavy government subsidy or ownership.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-01-2022 8:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118439522#Comment_118439522

It's the middle of winter and out the 13 remaining reactors in the UK only FIVE are currently on "Nominal full load".

(Last updated: 07 Jan 2022 12.00 , Sizewell B has two generating units.)

Wishing or saying nuclear is reliable doesn't make it so.

EDF France doesn't do stats as clearly https://opendata.edf.fr/pages/welcome/ but they have a few more reactors offline than planned. It's affecting gas prices and their share price.

josip · 10-02-2022 11:27pm

Hurrah, the French will build more reactors:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/france-to-build-up-to-14-new-nuclear-reactors-by-2050-says-macron

So all we need to do is build another (bigger) interconnector to them and we're sorted.

We'll send them windy electrons when we have them to spare and they can send us back glow in the dark electrons when we don't.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-02-2022 12:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118613795#Comment_118613795

So the plan is to start building 6 of them in 2028 ? That's after the next election. Which is in April. Maybe he's flying a kite to see which way the wind is blowing ?

EDF is a French state owned company that's lost a chunk of share value because of ongoing nuclear outages and down €8bn because the French govt has limited price increases, maybe he's throwing them a bone ?

Note : I'm reminded that UK had the same plan back in 2011. Eight sites shortlisted for six powerplants. Only one is under construction.

The EPR France stated building in 2007 still isn't finished. Besides France will be retiring a lot of the existing reactors before 2050 so they ares still on target to reduce nuclear by a third

EDF estimate the cost of 6 EPR's to be €50Bn. In the real world EPR prices have gone from £3Bn to £12B per reactor and that's after lessons learnt during construction in Finland, France and China.

So no the numbers don't add up.

Markcheese · 11-02-2022 7:31am

They must be pretty confident that they've got the epr reactors pretty right at last . Either that or there's an election coming up..

Is it 6 reactors planned or 6 multi reactor plants

gjim · 11-02-2022 8:25am

This is a political show - Macron has an election coming up and needs a "story" to prevent being damaged by high energy prices.

Markcheese, the EPR is now unsellable given its track record. After the UK finish the 2 they've planned for Hinkley point, there will be a grand total of 4 such reactors in Europe. The two close to completion are coming in at between 3 and 6 times over-budget and a decade or more late. The other (Hinkley Point C) is years more off and the project is into year 8 already. For the rest of the world, there are 3 in China but these have been troublesome from the start and one of them has been down since last year to investigate fuel rod damage.

In fact the entire design is a bust from what we know publicly - but it also seems that just operating these plants at full power (not yet done in Europe) has revealed fundamental flaws - https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/safety-concerns-mount-over-damaged-fuel-rods-at-chinas-taishan-nuclear-plant/ - and even EDF have given up trying to flog it to others and have said that it needs a re-design.

Remember this design - the EPR - is the most modern design in the world - and was to be the "showcase" for the dying nuclear industry. In fact, it is the only modern design, having been in development since 1990. Macron has promised to support the development of EPR2, which I guess if it follows the path of the original, means we might have one up and running in Europe by 2060.

I guess the first point of order will be to come up with a better name than "EPR2" as you don't want the new reactor design to be tainted by association with the EPR which has turned out to be a complete turkey.

Capt'n Midnight · 11-02-2022 8:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614220#Comment_118614220

6 reactors "in the decades to come" Election is in two months time.

9.6GW if approved. They are adding 100GW of Solar and 40GW of offshore wind. "EDF’s share price is down 18% so far in 2022."

josip · 11-02-2022 9:11am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614313#Comment_118614313

What are the advantages of the unproven EPR design over the proven PWR reactors?

Why don't they just repeat what they know will work and avoid years of uncertainty?

Capt'n Midnight · 11-02-2022 9:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614467#Comment_118614467

The claim is that they are ~15% more fuel efficient than the previous generation. Something about safety features but they've already had to fix a lot of welds and debug fuel rod problems. So practice has already diverged from theory.

In comparison Solar power costs fell by 16% last year, according to the report, while the cost of onshore wind dropped 13% and offshore wind by 9%.

Sam Russell · 11-02-2022 10:06am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614606#Comment_118614606

Given that the capital cost of the reactor dwarfs the fuel cost, what difference does 15% reduction have on the running cost - particularly when the new design is proving to be more troublesome and less reliable?

Capt'n Midnight · 11-02-2022 10:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614727#Comment_118614727

You'd need to ask an accountant about interest rates and future values and oppertunity costs.

Add in the cost of the fossil fuel used to provide power during the predictable delays.

Investors know that solar or wind can be carbon neutral and debt free on the timescale it takes to build nuclear.

cnocbui · 11-02-2022 11:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118614606#Comment_118614606

In comparison, it doesn't matter what solar costs given it barely delivers anything useful. A cheap car that will only travel at 20% of the speed limit on 310 days of the year, isn't drivable from dusk till early morning, and which requires you to buy a good reliable car that you use every night most days, is bloody useless.

There is no workable plan for a zero CO2 24/7 grid - none. 2030 targets are your typical plan B Irish long finger approach to difficult problems - plan A being to sweep them under a big carpet and hope no one comments about the dirty great bumps and the smell of decaying flesh. 2030 is just a great green hope that someone else can make hydrogen workable, as it currently looks stupidly complicated, inefficient and costly. Batteries are a complete non starter cost wise and at least nobody is pretending otherwise, for a change.

For countries that don't have the geography and precipitation for hydro or convenient geothermal, nuclear is the only proven zero CO2 grid scale energy source, and in the US, it's only $2 per MW more expensive than solar when the sun is shining and not factoring in storage infrastructure or costs. The endless disinformation about high cost and the pretence that only Hinkley B and a French experiment, gone awry are the only relevant models is tiresome. They are carefully chosen because the quiet successes are an embarrassment when trying to spin an anti-nuclear stance. The Korean built reactors in the UAE have a projected operational life span off 60 years! This longevity and the relatively low fuel costs, means that the long term cost of nuclear energy is low, despite the seemingly high initial capital cost.

The endless claims of renewables being cheap are a lie, as they aren't measuring the total system cost of providing reliable power, 24/7/365, which is the real and honest criteria. NG will probably never be cheap again and it's certainly not CO2 free. Given the UAE example, we could have nuclear up and running by 2031 and have an almost zero CO2 grid, almost a decade ahead of schedule. If you are going to be so stupid as to declare a 'climate emergency' at least pretend you actually believe it.

end of the road · 11-02-2022 2:05pm

the fact is that when all costs are taken into account across all energy sources, nuclear is the most expensive by thousands of miles and is getting more expensive while renewables are getting cheaper and more efficient.

renewables backed up by gas is not a bad option and would still be cheaper even at gas prices then nuclear could ever be.

nuclear has had ample chances to deliver on cost and efficiency and has just not delivered and ireland can't afford to spend money on lemmons.

cnocbui · 11-02-2022 2:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118615240#Comment_118615240

Consider that €20 Billion in light of this:

"The Irish Academy of Engineering has estimated data centre expansion will require almost €9 billion in new energy infrastructure and add 13% at least to Ireland’s carbon emissions by 2030."

end of the road · 11-02-2022 2:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118616031#Comment_118616031

renewables backed up by gas will cover that at a fraction of the cost of the cheapest nuclear installation.

Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Comments

Note : I'm reminded that UK had the same plan back in 2011. Eight sites shortlisted for six powerplants. Only one is under construction.

The EPR France stated building in 2007 still isn't finished. Besides France will be retiring a lot of the existing reactors before 2050 so they ares still on target to reduce nuclear by a third

EDF estimate the cost of 6 EPR's to be €50Bn. In the real world EPR prices have gone from £3Bn to £12B per reactor and that's after lessons learnt during construction in Finland, France and China.

So no the numbers don't add up.