Nuclear - future for Ireland?

From a purely environmental impact point of view , building and decommisioning a nuclear power plant, are the big ticket items - thats The effort -energy -resources,

The fuel operating and maintenance theyre significant but no comparison, even storing the fuel rods is minor compared to decommisioning the reactor ,

So it makes sense, that once you've built ( and switched on ) a nuclear power station that its run for as long is safely and to an extent economically practical..

The germans deciding to not build more reactors - fair enough ..

But prematurely closing plants down was knee jerk - unless they knew they were unsafe ,

The Chernobyl disaster occurred as a result of scrimping on costs and operational mis-management. Does that sound like anyone we know?

Also, the Irish economy has a habit of going from boom to bust in a couple of short years. Currently the exchequor has more money than it knows what to do with, but that won't always be the case. When critical maintenance is required, and with nuclear that means expensive, and we happen to be in a dip, how will we fund it?

I'm not against nuclear. I just don't think Ireland is ready or capable of it.

Good thing no cement is used in the foundations of all those wind turbines... Or Chinese steel.

Safety standards are extremely high in Ireland. Whether it is car accidents or industrial accidents, you can see how rare they are when you compare Irish numbers to overseas. Chernobyl happened due to poor Soviet safety standards. If they were use a lot of wind power back then, youd see many deaths in wind too.

The alternative is Ireland becoming the world's one and only hydrogen economy. Something I don't see as plausible.

No, they are becoming hydrogen dilettantes in comparrison. Ireland's plan is hardcore: Renewables, a tiny amount of pumped storage, a couple eensy weensy batteries, many years worth of the entire world production of electrolysers, and a massive amount of hydrogen, because of the 6 weeks you will need to burn it when there's a dunkelflaute as long as the one a couple years ago.

That's the ESB's plan - hydrogen, and almost nothing but.

France is currently getting 70% of it's energy from nuclear and that isn't going to change, other than perhaps to increase as they have plans to build more.

Ireland is going all in on hydrogen in a way I am not aware of any other country doing.

Nuclear is the best way to make green hydrogen as it's a constant reliable supply and electrolysers work best with a constant supply, not being switched on and off to match renewables vagaries, so I'm not surprised at the plan to incorporate hydrogen production into SMR plants.

The UK seems to be toning down it's earlier hydrogen enthusiasm; not here, though.

One of the biggest problems with Hydrogen is it's huge round trip inefficiency when used for energy storage. It means that instead of spending €80 billion on offshore wind farms, you have to spend €120 billion, on top what all your hydrogen infrastructure costs.

I think the whole thing will implode financially at some point. This country has a renewables hydrogen one trick pony plan that is uncosted. The public have not been told what this is going to cost. How can you have such a critical national policy and yet no idea of what it's going to cost?

In Poland they tendered for the building of a couple of NPPs and US and Korean companies responded with prices. Their path to CO2 reduction is practical and based on technological certainty and is costed.

Hydrogen as it currently stands is a non runner, and it definitely wouldnt be for short term energy storage ,

Directly making Ammonia is possible , easier to store and transport , but not there yet in efficiency terms ,

It could be made with offpeak nuclear power , but the cost would likely be as prohibitive as using floating wind ..

New nuclear isnt cheap either ,

And if youre worried about inflation , going for 8 % per annum, for say 14 years ,

That 20 billion cost from 2022 , would be about 58.7 billion .

Pounds sterling.

John Fitzgerald is an economist , an old retired one now ,he talks alot of nonsense about economics. He is not an engineer or technologist, so what he says about nuclear power has zero relevance. Yes the government put him on the advisory Council but that says more about the government appointing incompetent people to state boards.

Do you find these figures up your ass. Its just been shown that Hinkley C is going to cost more than that by the end.

i think we can all honestly agree that the final cost when decommissioning (an honestly uncosted process since it has never been completed on any plants in service) and waste containment is factored in works out to double the initial cost estimates.

Like clean coal which is still sucking money into the void. I know for a fact that many of these promising technologies are been promoted by oil interests to slow down green roll out./ If we just wait for the new miracle technology it will all be grand.

You can always twist the argument by picking the most expensive nuclear construction project mismanagement failure in all of human history, which it is.

I could tell you that the two most recent South Korean Shin Uljin-1 and -2 APR-1400 reactors cost $3 billion each, or that 4 of the same reactors were just switched on in the UAE for $6 billion each or that Poland have contracted for several APR-1400's at $4.5 billion a pop, but any example that isn't Hinkley you don't want to hear about.

You also don't want to hear that their design life is 60 years, making them about 35% the cost of that which can't be mentioned, ultimately.