Nuclear Energy for Ireland?

I'm sorry - you're going to have to be very very specific about how France manage to only export watts of energy generated from hydraulic. That's just not how national grids typically work, and I'm not aware of anything special about France's grid which allows them to use "nuclear" energy internally and never export it.

We can get into the prior decades of export from their grid at a later point if needed.

The EPR's aren't a new design. They are an iterative development of the N4 which were a sixth generation French plant which were in turn developed from US designs.

That's fine if it's your opinion. It just contradicts the written report you linked :)

Nuclear waste isn't a real problem, that's why waiting to see and putting off doing anything is a solution, it's worked for as long as nuclear power has existed. The UAE waste management scheme is exactly that. It works and it doesn't harm people or the environment.

My solution I have already described a couple of times.

If you believe anthropogenic CO2 is a problem, who has the greater problem, Ireland with it's 190g per KWh of CO2 emissions from it's grid and no plan to eliminate it by 2050, or France, with it's 13g per KWh who could reduce it to 0 within an hour, but has some nuclear waste lying around that takes up space?

Ireland could have an effectively zero CO2 grid inside of 15 years if it had the will, basically meaning massively modifying the planning process and waking up to reality, and it would cost less than a quarter of the current crazy renewables based plan that is completely missing any rational storage element that can take 28 and 47% capacity factor tech and turn it in to zero CO2 energy 24/7/365. There is no plan for replacing gas, only a hope that something will turn up before 2050.

As for your fears about low level waste being dumped at sea, lol.

There is low level radiation almost everywhere - in aircraft cabins when you fly - wafting in through your air vents as you drive through a high radon area, zapped into your face after your dentist has scurried from the room or from the CT scanner after all the staff are safely in their bunker, or just pouring out of that massive unshieldid fusion ractor in the sky that is responsible for there being any life on Earth in the first place.

The only reason you have a brain capable of worrying about nothing is because of evolution, which is driven by mutatons caused by alterations to DNA, some of which is due to radiation and some from chemicals.

Was there not a problem with the radiation effects on the reactor?

Cracking was an unforeseen and pretty terminal effect.

The other slight problem is not only were things like damage to the structure of the pressure vessel not foreseen, but the production of elements and release into the environment of isotopes that life on planet earth has never had exposure to was not anticipated either.

I didn't ask for the strontium 90 in my skeleton and I know it does me no good at all.

So far the ability to keep radioactive materials along with plastics drugs and fire retardants from contaminating the entire planet seems to be around zero.

At least the human race has learned to live with sunlight and wind, and although maybe a risk assessment of the damage droughts, sunstroke, hurricanes and tornado's do would suggest a ban was in order, I have not heard of any moves in that direction so far :-)

There are solutions to nuclear waste; several. Even Ireland has offshore subteranian salt layers that are suitable, as do many places on Earth. In the Netherlands, they already store gases in salt caverns, as deep as 3.5 km beneath the surface, I believe. Turn your waste into synroc and place that in salt caverns as is done for gases. A permanent safe solution with at least 10 times longer safe storage than is necessary - on the scale of millions of years vs the 100k time scale said to be necessary for weapons grade plutonium. Nuclear waste storage/disposal is not an insoluble problem.

I find human risk perception, and how mind blowingly twisted and wrong it usually is, to be a fascinating but frustrating topic.

We have 8.1 billion humans on Earth now, we are incredibly bad at killing ourselves with all these anthropogenic hazards you mention, despite the best efforts of Chinese gain of function virologists to wipe us out with Covid and their more recent efforts to improv on it's lethality

Has the strontium 90 you dislike done you any harm? In terms of living with sunlight - it killed my brother at the ripe old age of 34.

You have obviously never worked in a nuclear power station.

The security is extreme to say the least. The UK has an armed nuclear police force and they are armed at all times.

You are living and working by a "dirty bomb" , a terrorists dream.

The last power station I worked in was well aware of the covert vulnerability, the security posters were full of little reminders of what to look for and report as suspicious.

The UK has an air force with significant firepower that can be scrambled if an unauthorised flight is detected also.

I mentioned same last year and a few shills scoffed at the need for military security. It's probably the biggest single blocker to a nuclear plant in the island.

OK it was in the Infrastructure forum not the Politics forum. Post from Julg 2023 below:

Yes indeed a 1:1 between renewables and nuclear was my point exactly. Both were equal contributors. Now that Olkiluoto 3 is online nuclear should be the greater contributor, if it can stay online. So long as we are dealing with a useful dataset, such a minimum 1 year, mature debate can take place.

I agree we dont have enough security of supply and that's why Moneypoint was fired up again. However unlike Finland, Sweden and France we are not part of a continental grid, which is a structural weakness acting against nuclear plant suitability for Ireland. Fair play to the Finns but they have a geographical advantage.

Find me a similarly sized country on an island (not literally you Charlie) with no military, no existing nuclear plants, no native nuclear industry, no nuclear fuel deposits, that has a single nuclear facility supply one third of their electricity - which is also run by clowns who can't plan a hospital and a Metro railway in their capital city. Then we can compare that island to ourselves.

Finland have Norway and Sweden as virtual spinning reserve and export customer. We don't. Finland had Russia as a supplier but that relationship is a little bit frosty now.

This also represents a further externality regarding Olkiluoto security. Is it a good idea to have several nuclear plants and a waste depository on the same island when your neighbour has hypersonic guided missiles and isn't afraid to use them. NATO is an obvious retort to that but the risk is still present and will cost the Finnish taxpayer via increased military spending.

Can Ireland even build a nuclear plant without paying for French or British defence?

The problem is terrorists if you have nuclear power.

The whole point is that Irelands defence isn't at the same level as the UK's, and although at less risk from, terrorism a Western nuclear power plant is still going to be quite tempting for someone trying to make a statement even if it only contaminates from afar those that stole their oil and murdered their fellows.

Irish defence freeloading?

Well Ireland has not invaded too many countries or redrawn any borders in lands it has slaughtered the natives in.

All the more reason to go toward natural available energy anyway. It isn't quite as exciting, but I recall a time when this house had a light in every room and one socket by the window,

We did quite well actually, not a duvet in the house and a hot water bottle for the exceptionally cold periods.

This has somewhat ran away from the point I was trying to make, that nuclear power is a geopolitically more reliable form of power for an island nation compared to energy sources imported by ship or via undersea cables. It's easier for a hostile nation to disrupt our shipping indirectly, ie the conflict in the Red Sea at the moment, or directly but covertly such as by submarine or "research ships". The defence aspect is that as a nation we're deaf, dumb, and blind without other nations doing the work for us.

I have never been in favour of relying on, being kind, authoritarian regimes like you have mentioned. It's foolish policy to be reliant on at best an adversary and in the interesting times we're currently experiencing, hostile powers.

Many democratic nations have nuclear power generation from France to Japan. We should be doing business with nations of similar values when it comes to such long term important projects.

I agree politics has played a significant role in closing or attempting to close many plants, with the russian invasion of Ukraine people are seeing how dumb those decisions were. People are prone to holding positions without informing themselves of the realities.

The point was, nuclear power generation is not only in the hands of authoritarian nations.