Nuclear - future for Ireland?

Thorium cycle reactors were sidelined because they couldn't be used to offset the cost of making weapons-grade fissile material.

If the goal had been solely to provide electrical power from nuclear fission, then Thorium was the best candidate: it produces reaction temperatures comparable to coal or oil (Uranium will just about boil water, which is why Uranium plants have to be so enormous), it won't melt down and the waste products have sort half-lives. However, you can't make a bomb out of any part of the Thorium cycle, so in the 1950s, it wasn't of use.

I and other have been asking for quite a while now off anyone favouring this 37GW offshore/hydrogen 2050 plan, (that will not even come close to providing Eirgrid`s predicted needs for Ireland in 2050), how much it would cost and not a single one, and that includes Eamon Ryan, can give an answer.

So where are you getting this, "no project is ever commenced without an agreed budget cost" Last year four wind farms were awarded contracts under this project so by your assertion then the budget cost of this project must be know, so what is it ?

In the world of greens there is this belief that everything they favour will will come in on time and at the agreed contract price. Recent events have show that to be very far from reality. 60% - 70% increase in the cost of offshore resulted in wind companies worldwide pulling out of contracts until they were guaranteed higher prices. The two most recent of these re-negotiated contracts were with Orsted and Equinor for their Empire Wind and Sunshine Wind offshore fixed wind farms in the U.S. The original strike price for both was $83.30 per MWh. New strike price price $150.15 per MWh, an increase of over 80%. Offshore wind projects in the U.S. also receive $50 per MWh in tax benefits, so that leaves both those wind projects with a capacity factor less than half that of nuclear and a life span of one third having a strike price higher than the highest strike price those here oppossed to nuclear keep shouting about as to why nuclear is soooo much more expensive than offshore wind. And these strike prices are for fixed turbines, not the much more expensive floating variety that make up 25% of their preferred option.

I have no idea what metric yiu are using to claim that compared to offshore nuclear that would provide over 30% of our current needs for €11 billion is not good value, but it`s not economics.

Eirgrid predictions for 2050 is our demand rising by 250%. Based on a nuclear power plant that cost €11 billion even while being years late and over budget that was years late would provide 100% of our 2050 needs for roughly €85 bllion. Compare that to a wind/hydrogen plan that not only would not provide for our 2050 requirements for the capital cost of the offshore section alone would cost in the region of €200 billion with additional capital costs every 20 odd years compared to a one off covering 60 years for nuclear, then wind/hydrogen make no economic sense.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/nuclear-awakening-a-decade-or-two-late-says-aer-20240716-p5ju8q A bit of realism from the Australian energy regulator - a lead time of at least 25years for any nuclear power for Auz. Entirely comparable to the situation in Ireland. To little to late.

This whole framing of the cost issue by the nuclear fluffers just demonstrates their complete miscomprehension of how modern electricity markets work in Europe - particularly since the 1996 directive and the follow-up in 2007. Like their firm belief that generation technology stopped advancing sometime in the 1970s, nothing that has happened in the electricity markets in last 40-50 years is comprehensible to them. That's why they'll bang on about "base-load" - a completely obsolete concept, they won't understand the economic reasons why the average size of steam based generation facility (coal and nuclear) were forced to expand into to the 1GW+ range to compete, why gas turbines are different/smaller and subsequently killed off growth in steam/thermal, or why the world has now switched to renewables and batteries with 90% of global investment into electricity generation going into renewables last year. Similarly the idea that generation capacity is nearly all built and financed privately these days is befuddling. Some of these companies make big profits, some have gone bust. Not a single one anywhere in the entire world has considered building a nuclear plant.

Would you mind clearing up one thing Charlie? Are you - like every other proponent of nuclear in this thread - also skeptical about AGW?

Fantasy compared to what, a plan that those who support it cannot even put a figure on that will with all the hydrogen add-ons will be in the region of at least €250 Billion, with further unknown capital costs every 20 years for a population of 5 million that will not even meet the Eirgrid projection of our requirements ?

That`s a rather strange statement "When the trend reverses, and nuclear shows a downward price slope, then we could look at it." The trend right now is wind costs rising by 60% - 70% with the two recent Osted and Equinor strike prices in the U.S. both increased by over 80%. To follow your logic then isn`t it time to look at the trend for wind ? And why look at it favourable for nuclear at €3, or €5 -8 Bn. when the example of Olkiluoto 3 sized plant, built at a cost of €11 Bn. even with time and budget over-runs, would provide our projected needs for 2050 for roughly €80 Bn. compared to a 37 GW plan which would cost at least x3 times that and would still not meet our 2050 projected needs ?

As I said earlier, whatever opponents may have towards nuclear it`s certainly not based on economics.

I wasn`t looking for all the individual cost of offshore wind farms or the associated hydrogen. I was asking for the overall cost of the 37GW plan. There is nothing commercially sensitive in that, and as nobody other than the consummer is going to end up carrying the can for that cost then is it not information that the consummer should be entitled to have ? Or is it simply the case, that like supporters of this plan here, we are looking at an open cheque book based on an ideology that nobody, the relavant Minister included, has even a clue as to the can consummers will end up carrying in electricity prices and the resulting harm to our economy due to those electricity prices.

... and the answer to why no nuclear supplier is willing to offer their services under the same DFBO (Design, Finance, Build, Operate) model as the windfarms is..?

Alternatively LMAO at someone who has so much knowledge on nuclear costs yet cannot even give an estimate for a 37GW plan they favour would cost that would not even meet the projected needs who keeps rattling on about increased construction costs and Hinkley while seemingly oblivious that costs for offshore have gone through the roof to the extent that now strike prices for just fixed turbines with a lifespan one third of nuclear and a capacity factor less than half are higher than Hinkley.

You also appear to have missed the quite recent prices for nuclear in Poland that has no history of nuclear power plant construction, or that Finland really do not need to add another nuclear plant, or much of anything else for that matter, as due to OL3 they became self sufficient for the first time or that their nuclear waste repository cost €3.5 Bn. You would barely get an offshore wind turbine for that price nowadays.

If a 16% share for wind and solar in China is not impressive, then the 4.6% share for nuclear is significantly less impressive - despite a decent head-start. Isn't this thread supposed to be about nuclear?

In 2023, China added 216GW of solar and 76GW of wind and 47GW of coal. Wind additions are growing 66% a year while the ABSOLUTE amount of solar is nearly doubling each year. This isn't a game that "coal" can win. So far this year 180 GW of utility-scale solar and 159 GW of wind power is already under construction in China. By the end of this year, they are on target to have over 1,300GW of wind and solar. The absolute amount of solar and wind in China is growing by over 30% a year - care to guess what the comparable rate of growth is for coal or nuclear?

Same massive growth rates are seen globally, with renewables counting for 86% of ALL global electricity capacity additions in 2023. That is, over 510GW of solar and wind capacity was added in 2023. Nearly all of the rest was natural gas.

You're just making stuff up claiming Ireland is putting all its eggs in a wind/hydrogen basket. We already have 1.2GW of solar, 1.5GW of batteries and the celtic interconnector is under construction. We are also replacing dirty and inefficient steam-based generation with gas turbines. In fact there are no eggs or baskets if you understood how electricity markets work.

But you've avoided my main question Charlie. Do you believe that AGW is a hoax?

Or maybe they're too busy trying to get Olkiluoto 3 actually working? It's been plagued with issues even after 14 years of delays during construction.

Last November, it suddenly shutdown due to a malfunctioning temperature probe.

First shutdown for annual maintenance was supposed to finish April 8 but the 5 weeks quickly turned into 10 because of "various issues" - https://montelnews.com/news/d092dae5-9475-45a5-9f00-d8e777154f80/tvo-blames-olkiluoto-3-outage-on-series-of-technical-issues

I like how it's casually mentioned that the maintenance requires 1,100 external professionals (on top of the regular work-force) - I can only imagine the daily rates being paid. 1,100 external consultant engineers required for the maintenance of a 1.6GW reactor. Not cheap I am guessing.

In June, a turbine problem brought it down. Reading the comments here https://yle.fi/a/74-20091975 - seems general admiration for Olkiluoto 3 expressed by some here is not universally shared by the Finns themselves.

The EPR has been a disaster.

The plan favour by you and others here is for 37GW of offshore wind/hydrogen for a projected demand of 14GW, so how is that not practically all our egs in one basket, even though it will not provide the projected demand ?

Rather than accusing people of making things up on generation perhaps you should look at the reality of generation. That 1.2GW of solar during Winter when our demand is high has a capacity factor of around 5 - 6%, 0.06GW. Batteries do not generate electricity and neither will the Celtic interconnector which is only capable of importing 700MW if the supply is there when we need it and will be from nuclear generation if it is. Generation by gas turbines is not going to get you to carbon neutral either.

On China I have already provided you with the data from Ember, a green think tank, that show despite all the addition of wind and solar by China in 2023 it did not even keep pace with demand which rose by 6.9%. It only covered 46% of the increased demand with coal providing the other 54%. Wind and solar did nothing to lower China`s emissions in 2023. In fact their emissions grew by 5.9%. 6 times the global increase. In 2022 China added 19.5GW of coal burning plants and in 2023 began construction of a further additional 70GW of coal burning plants, (with a much higher capacity factor than wind or solar), on top of 1089GW they already have from coal (Source EIA), with their importation of coal in 2023 rising by 61.8% to an all time high.

Nuclear in China may be coming from a low base, but unlike here they are not putting all their eggs in the one basket. 2020 China had 49 NPPs and announced it would add a further 150 by 2035 of which 23 are now under construction. of those completed the construction time has been between 5.5 - 7 years. According to a Reuters report citing Xinhua, the official state news agency of China the number of NPPs will futher increase to provide China with around 20% of its requirements by 2060.

By AGW I assume you are again talking batteries, the latest great white hope. Again, batteries do not generate anything, they are storage and the fact that they are now being talked about here does show much faith in this 37GW plan doing what it was supposed to do as well as it being yet again another uncosted addition on top. Batteries have there place but to look upon them as a solution to wind generation dropping to 6% and less, as we have seen for extended periods when our demand was at it`s highest, is just more magical thinking imho.

Finland has signed an agreement with the U.S. to provide nuclear fuel, so if Russia decides to not supply then they are covered.

Uranium is not as rare as some may belief, and there was a map posted on these tgreads showing some high concentrations in Ireland. At least for Northern Ireland they can explore for uranium, here other than for whatever weird reason in Eamon Ryan`s head we can only look for gold or silver.