Nuclear - future for Ireland?

More f*cking nonsense comparisons with Germany and France.

France can go to a high % grid nuclear generation because they are a portion of a pan European grid. How many times are these idiot comments going to surface? The 32 counties are a small island ffs. Tiny compared to the continent.

Well, Germany has the same advantages, and its energy costs are twice those of France and is an order of magnitude more CO2 intensive. Should we continue to follow their lead?

So ... should we continue to follow Energiewende policies seeing what a dismal failure it's been in Germany?

South Carolina's energy costs have much more to do with being directly connected to the US Eastern electricity grid than any local generating choices.

And those low prices come at a cost of some pretty lousy reliability figures...The USA is in no way an example of how to run an energy system (even when you exclude the comically awful Texas grid).

We are an isolated island grid, so all our import and export had to happen via expensive DC interconnects.

A lot to unpack here, Firstly, as someone who has spent time in the US, I find the claims about their grid being unreliable to be somewhat strange. I suggest you both look at the data again. The average electricity price according to global data, is 18 cents US per kw/h. But that's just the average. South Carolina, which was given as an example of nuclear boondoggles and scandal, is about 4 or 5 cents under that at 13.61. But California, which has done the most of any US state to follow "woke" policies in all areas including energy, has the highest costs of any state in the Lower 48, at 29.58, which is more than double that of South Carolina and about 11 cents over the US average.

And Californians aren't getting very much for it, as many of their wildfires are caused by ancient and ill-maintained electrical infrastructure. Perhaps Californians just need to pay more ... 🙄

Meanwhile, France has none of these problems.

As for Snowy 2.0, the revised estimate of $12bn is just that - an estimate. Like the original estimate of $2bn. No idea if it will actually come anyway close to that as they still haven't done the necessary ground investigation AFAIK, and at any rate, they still have to get their TBMs out of the mud they're stuck in.

But let's be generous and assume that the debacle in South Carolina referenced in Capt'ns post really is all bad and it raised SCs energy costs from say 12 cents a kw/h to 13.61. I'd still love to have that problem over ours.

Without knowing where you live it’s hard to make any comparison at all, but I’m willing to bet you’re not in a built-up area.

Blah, blah France blah blah unreliable blah blah. Same as it ever was..

The other thing that is the same is that French nuclear is currently providing 60% of their needs and their CO2 output is the highest it's been all day at 34g per kw, more than double what it was a few hours ago, wheras in anti-nuclear green Ireland, it' 270g per Kw.

Renewables are incredibly reliable in not providing energy, but you and others never phrase it that way. Solar is reliably unreliable 90% of the time, and onshore wind is reliably unreliable with an averge 75% unavailability factor.

If the blue line were nuclear, you would be doing your little unreliable nuclear song and dance routine at full voice, but it's not nuclear, it's wind, and it's really, really unreliable:

This sounds like a neighbour of yours is overloading their electricity supply; that's less of a grid fault, and more of a too-cheap-to-pay-for-a-three-phase-connection fault. Legally, it can be very difficult to get customers like this to stop abusing their supply. A relative has a similar situation: they know exactly who it is, but have had no luck in getting action taken against them.

Regarding the reliability of grids, according to tweedledum, in Ireland "I have had 35 power disruptions this year so far." and according to tweedledee "as someone who has spent time in the US, I find the claims about their grid being unreliable to be somewhat strange." You spent time in the US? - let me bow my head and twist my cap in deference to your incredibly unique world experience.

So case closed I guess. A couple of unverified anecdotes with no supporting data or facts. US with nuclear has more reliable electricity than Ireland because the latter doesn't have nuclear.

Let this be a lesson to all. This is the kind of anti-scientific brain rot that can set in from years of denying climate change in various ways while living in a dream/fantasy that your contrariness represents superior insight and knowledge instead of facing the obvious - you're just an anti-scientific crank. And unfortunately you lack the imagination to even be original in your crankdom - having just bought all your "contrarian" ideas from American "culture war" crackpots of the conspiratorial right wing variety. But dammit you're invested!!! You've spent hours, days, weeks of your lives to peddle anti-scientific nonsense to an audience that spend most of their time rolling their eyes. But every now an again, another crank will give you a thumbs up and it makes all that effort worth while.

Anyway, back on track. Yes grid reliability is carefully measured and tracked. SAIDI (system average interruption duration index) is one of the most common metrics. Here's a report on from the US EIA's: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54639 - on average a US customer lost electricity for 7 HOURS in 2021. How about Ireland? In 2020, the worst year in a decade, it was 48 minutes (in 2019 it was under 20 minutes). Or Germany? 10.73 MINUTES. Which is less than half what it was a decade ago when they had more nuclear power.

Wow. Tweedledum and Tweedle-dee? That's really mature. And I don't recall any of us claiming that: "US with nuclear has more reliable electricity than Ireland because the latter doesn't have nuclear."

Neither of us ever made the bolded claim! But hey, you sure showed that strawman what for 😁

The claim about the US grid was not backed with data at the time it was made, hence I regarded it as strange given my experience. As to the data you provided, they clearly show that the majority of downtime is caused by extreme events, such as hurricanes, snowstorms and wildfires. Things that aren't really a problem in Ireland. The average downtime not caused by these events is around or under 2 hours average per year. Even including disasters, most states have on average less than 2 incidents per year at a total duration of 5 hours or less. That's not great but it's not horrifying.