Ireland needs to invest in a modern Nuclear Power Plant?

No

I recently came across an engineer talking about nuclear and the waste etc. Impression I got is that nuclear is no where near as bad as the greens made out. I feel like the greens have a very narrow focus on the environmental issues facing us. Carbon bad, wind good. Carbon is far from the only problem our environment is facing. We are poisoning the planet and using up too many resources.

I think that the Irish public are so poisoned against nuclear that it will never happen here.

norway are working on creating it from water - but agreed - vast quantities of clean electricity is required which isn possible atm. at the same time, is dumping nuclear waste in oceans etc the right way to go? Nuclear might reduce some pollution but it just creates a new kind

It's subsidized, that's why they can sell it at that.

I've no problem with nuclear, i think if people want a low to zero carbon future energy it's an important part.

It would break the State here though to invest in it, there are good reasons why private capital mostly avoids nuclear, Why it is totalitarian regimes that are dominant in the sector.

As a strategic asset for Energy may be the EU should have a certain amount, put it on the never never of ECB stimulus.

We should certainly buy energy from nuclear plants, even support one that's already existing.

it's not that they are poisoned against it, it's that they know the money can be better spent elsewhere on technologies more modern, efficient and reliable then nuclear ever can be.

essentially it's an outdated expensive technology.

How long does it take to build one?

8 to 10 years? So multiply that by 2.5 because it's Ireland, then multiple the cost by pie squared.

If we signed off on in today, it would be at least mid 2030 before it was constructed, it's outdated and expensive now imagine what it will be then.

By 2030-40 large scale battery storage will be the solution to the wind not blowing or the sun not shining.

We should invest money into putting solar on every public building that is suitable, there must be 1000s of square miles of farm sheds and barns to do similar.

It shouldn't be subsided either by grants. As that is just a false economy.

That last argument is a fallacy, you don't make the wrong decision because the right decision takes too long to implement

That's only if you think the rights decision is nuclear.

Anyway as with everything else it will come to cost. Energy at double the price will be a tough sell.

As for security, there is only a handful countries that produce the Uranium required and most of them are basket cases. All though we could say the same about lithium.

yes, it is outdated technology looking for a big problem in ireland's case that ultimately it would not solve for us as it would create many more.

it would not pass a business case as we would need at least 3 reactors at 40 billion each to construct and the billions of subsidy, and even if we could keep 2 on the go at any one time, one powering and the other acting as a working back up rather then a slightly dormant back up, there would not be enough demand for energy to export and even if there was it would not be at a viable/economic rate to pay back the costs.

it's not carbon free either, it just expells it in a different way.

it's time was in the 50s, 60s at a stretch, after that you can forget it as the costs just don't stack up.

It's pronounced 'nuclear'...

Used to be in favour of nuclear for Ireland but wouldnt be anymore due to the eyewatering costs. The French and German state broadcasters just a released a co-produced documentary on their nuclear industries there a few weeks ago, watched it last night and the stuff in it is a real eye opener. Things like barely half of all of Frances nuclear power plants are currently operating due to concrete cracking in them, others were designed for 30 years and theyve pushed it out to 40 years and soon 50 years, its into dangerous territory and the original designers are warning about it but not being listened to. Then their flagship new generation plant at Flamaville in Brittany has been a nightmare of a project, was supposed to cost 3.3bn and be operational by 2009 and its still not operational till 2023 and the cost has almost quadrupled to 12 billion. They have 800 welders in there right now fixing every single weld in the entire structure because it wasnt done to spec in the first place, yet people hold France up as experts in nuclear and if Ireland ever did go nuclear it would be their company we'd likely be buying it from.

They showed another decommissioned plant in northern Germany, again problems with the concrete. They thought it would take 5-7 years to decommmission and about 800m euros, the current bill is now 6.3bn and counting becasue they have to painstakingly remove everything off the walls millimeter by millimeter for fear of disturbing radioactivity becasue the building is soaked in it. The engineers there said they will easily be at it for at for a further decade and maybe even beyond that, you could hear how forlorn their voices were talking about working on a never ending job day in day out will progress taking forever.

And then there was the storage facilities for spend waste, the French had to tunnel 500m underground and build a laboratory and huge storage pods. Before they even do that they have to put the spent rods in gigantic underground swimming pools, the rods are taking 7 years just to cool down and they are fast running out of space with all the waste coming towards them. These facilities are full of scientists and engineers and will have to be run for hundreds of years, its iike signing massive a blank cheque that goes on forever.

In any case the Celtic Interconnector from France to Ireland is going ahead and AFAIK construction will begin next year. So by 2026 we will be able to buy French nuclear power through that. Im not sure how many megawatts it is but they should double it and just buy nuclear energy from there. That way we dont have the inevitable time and cost over runs of building at least two nuclear plants, none of the decommissioning costs plus we avoid spending billions storing the waste for hundred of years. All of that is worth paying a premium for IMO. At the end of the day Ireland is never going to be a manufacturing powerhouse the way France and Germany are, nuclear might make sense for them but I cant see any way it does for us.

anyway this is the doc, its an interesting watch. Isnt biased one way or the other, it just lays out the history and present of France and Germanys nuclear industries

Most countries in mainland europe are net importers of electricity - as of this year, that includes France.

The idea that Ireland can rely on interconnectors to provide our energy needs is unfounded. It is a decision that will leave us in dire straights in the next decade. The best time to build a nuclear plant was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.

And you see significant oppertunity for Hydro in Ireland ?/ Multiple green lobby groups calling for closure on Ardnacrusha due to impact on fish,,

And thats why public policy here is towards renewables, we can get away from the environmental costs of fossil fuels but also avoid the costs of nuclear and storing that waste for hundreds of years and putting the risks of doing so on future generations. Its a huge undertaking. Fossil fuels will provide part of the mix during transition but once that is complete we can end up being a net exporter of energy from wind alone.

Depends on what you call 'dear'. At less than half the cost of offshore wind, I'd call them reasonably priced.

In South Korea, the Shin Kori 1 reactor took 4 years and 2 months to build being commissioned in Aug 2010. the Shin Kori 2 reactor took them about 4 and a half years to build, being commissioned in Jan 2012. Then they slowed down a bit with SK 3 taking almost 8 years and SK 4 taking almost 10 years.

The south Koreans took 10 years to build the UAEs Barakeh nuclear power plant.

While nuclear plants can take longer to build, they more than make up for that in terms of longevity, which is currently estimated at about 60 years. An offshore wind farm would have gone through three complete sets of turbines in that time, which is partly why they cost 5 times more than nuclear over 60 years.

No it hasn't. The maths is quite clear and simple. You are alleging something to be true, that isn't.

Look at Europe - OSW is the most expensive form of energy.

Capital Costs

And so on, and so on.

Find the cost of building a windfarm off the Irish coast - go on, find it.

If it made financial sense then the waste and time frame would be readily overcome.

It will have to be a State led, financed and Guaranteed because you get private capital to back it, numbers don't add up.

There is not a single thing wrong with nuclear bar the insanity of the economics.

May be in our lifetime new plants will come that make it financially viable.

it is clear off shore wind is cheap compared to nuclear, has a low pay back time and is cheap and easy to deploy and all of the available evidence backs this and the costs are falling while nuclear's are increasing.

nuclear also will require other energy forms to back it up anyway so realistically there is just no business or any other case for it in ireland as its easier cheaper and more reliable to just go with the other energy sources we would be using anyway to back it up, and use them at scale.