Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Citation needed.

'Storage' is greenwashing hopium. Current world production capacity of electrolysers to make hydrogen with, is 1GW a year.

• It's a lot more than that, but more importantly a 1GW factory only costs 0.03 of a billion to make.

And as for nuclear needing 'backup', that's typically dishonest of you when you are championing renewables, given the availabilty factor for Korean made nuclear is somewhere around 95%.

• citation needed for the 95% as you aren't including stuff like the time they had to take a large portion of the Korean fleet offline because of the fake parts scandal

Let's build lots more wind turbines in Ireland, because nuclear needs backup 5% of the time - bulldust!

• Nuclear needs spinning reserve 100% of the time (technically only 75% for the first 15 seconds) As nukes are the largest individual generators they are the main beneficiaries of levies imposed on all suppliers, for nuclear it's not a levy it's a subsidy.

You really picked a great day to BS about nuclear needing backup.

Oddly enough the UK got 5GW from nuclear and 8.2GW from solar yesterday. Odd because the difference is a 3.2GW nuclear power station that was supposed to be up and running back in 2016. Doubling the UK's solar could be done sooner and cheaper than finishing Hinkley-C.

Hinkley-B reactor 2 is currently Moved to defueling phase. Will not return to power generation. There's a good chance that Hinkley-C won't even replace all the reactors that shut down before it is fully operational.

In Germany yesterday nuclear dropped from 4GW to 3.2GW during day light hours and back up to 4GW afterwards. Either solar is displacing nuclear or nuclear is just that unreliable ?

Dropping 800MW off our grid would be a major problem.

Since you CBA providing the fuel mix here it is : https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source

Today French nuclear was outputting a relatively steady 24GW which was only 50% of demand, during peak hours, in summer. France has a LOT of electric heating in winter which acts as a de-facto subsidy for nuclear.

Hydro peaked at 10GW

Solar got near 10GW

Imports also hit 10GW at the bottom in gray ( in summer when they should be exporting nuclear ?? )

Only 5GW of gas was needed thanks to the above.

Like the UK example earlier solar covered the peaking during the day.

Other views of the same data.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ note scales are different , has CSV if you want raw data.

Oh yeah, France has 64GW of nuclear across 56 plants so that 24GW average today represents less than 40% of capacity. Nuclear simply isn't a dependable power source.

Seriously 40% is an ok-ish figure for a Scottish wind farm in a good location.

We don't have the expertise or economies of scale that the UK has. The UK has been doing nuclear power since the 1950's. They need plutonium for nuclear weapons. They have a much higher population density so less wind or solar per capita. They would be a repeat customer as they'd order more stations than we would.

They decided to roll out multiple nuclear power plants in 2011. The first (and only) power plant will be fully operational by 2027? and the price is extortionate and still increasing.

So if you want nuclear you have to state clearly what will power the grid while waiting for nuclear, and it must meet 2030 targets. You'll then need to explain why expensive nuclear is needed if there is already a paid for alternative in place.

The storage tech exists and has existed for donkeys years. Many EU countries store about 30% of their annual natural gas usage. The UK closed down it's Rough facility, that would have stored our annual demand. In north east England the existing flows of hydrogen would be enough to power our grid. 1GW per annum hydrolyser factories cost in the order of a monthly Hinkley-C cost increase*. You can get hydrogen turbines but they aren't as big as the existing power turbines which Siemens and GE will have modify for hydrogen use by 2030, they can already run on high % of hydrogen so can phase in.

*what are the economics of stopping Hinkley-C and going for hydrogen instead ? Don't even need to store the stuff as the gas network could easily accommodate enough hydrogen to offset enough natural gas to produce 3.2GW of electricity.

The government has given the go-ahead for the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast.

The project, mainly funded by the French energy company EDF, is expected to cost in the region of £20bn. ... Negotiations with the government on raising funds for the project are continuing and a decision on the finances is expected in 2023 (note : it took SIX years to negotiate the price last time)

£20Bn is the price of the printer. It tells you nothing about how much the ink costs 106.12£/MWh

Or the hire purchase interest rate which mounts up over the years.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/yield-curves - this is the rate the UK government pays for loans compare it to the interest rate that will be asked for nuclear