Should Ireland go nuclear?

[The High King]

It's not though.

Hydrogen is not an energy source. You keep comparing it to nuclear but it's not equivalent. I would say you need both to properly go net zero.

I would say a legacy of an overheated planet is a lot worse than the odd bit of nuclear waste in hard to access regions that you can really only get at with a substantial bit of concerted effort.

Scale of zero carbon generation is the biggest challenge here. There has been good progress on decarbonisation of the existing electricity supply. Ireland was up to 29% in 2020 https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/electricity/. Long way to go but progress is decent.

But that, as a rule of thumb, is only about a third of the job. You then have transport, heating and general industrial use. Those are waaaay off being fully decarbonise.

Current levels of renewables in Ireland are about 1/9 the way there. It's worth noting at this point that the more renewables you have on your electricity supply, the more difficult it is to manage the load. And Ireland has excellent wind generation potential.


You can get about 33KWh/kg of recoverable energy from hydrogen. That 60,000 kg from that plant in the Netherlands translates to 2GWh of energy storage. At peak demand that would supply all of Ireland's current electricity demands for 24 minutes.

To get to Net Zero, we need to triple that peak demand and make it more resilient as we are completely and utterly fucked if it goes down for even a day, literally nothing will work.

And then there's the solar panel waste...



Nuclear waste isn't half as dangerous as it has been made out to be. And it is way more scalable with proven technologies that get us to where we need to get to massively faster than renewables.

How is hydrogen not an energy source?
No one said we are there yet but it's in the pipeline(pardon the pun).
The future is off shore wind farms on a massive scale and not just 1 hydrogen plant but 1 for each wind farm.
We already have an unlimited energy source we haven't really tapped. It's an energy source that's green and absolutely massive. Enough to supply all our energy needs and all the hydrogen plants we can make.

We're starting to hit the profit margin where producing it makes economic sense. Time to get on the crest instead of the wake.

 

[How bad boy]

One interesting

How is hydrogen not an energy source?
No one said we are there yet but it's in the pipeline(pardon the pun).
The future is off shore wind farms on a massive scale and not just 1 hydrogen plant but 1 for each wind farm.
We already have an unlimited energy source we haven't really tapped. It's an energy source that's green and absolutely massive. Enough to supply all our energy needs and all the hydrogen plants we can make.

We're starting to hit the profit margin where producing it makes economic sense. Time to get on the crest instead of the wake.

It's not an energy source, it's energy storage, the same as batteries, pumped hydro, compressed air, etc...


You need an energy source for creating the hydrogen in the first place, you think wind is the solution for Ireland, I think a combination of wind and nuclear would be significantly better.

I am doing some in depth stuff on this for work at the moment, the scaling challenges of wind are next on the research list, but there is good research existing that shows its much more limited for the UK at least. I've not seen details of limits or potential for Ireland

 

[Drucker]

Dedicated large-scale floating offshore wind to hydrogen: Assessing design variables in proposed typologies

To achieve the Net-Zero Emissions goal by 2050, a major upscale in green hydrogen needs to be achieved; this will also facilitate use of renewable ele…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[The High King]

Dedicated large-scale floating offshore wind to hydrogen: Assessing design variables in proposed typologies

To achieve the Net-Zero Emissions goal by 2050, a major upscale in green hydrogen needs to be achieved; this will also facilitate use of renewable ele…

www.sciencedirect.com

Very interesting, thanks for posting this.

One interesting

It's not an energy source, it's energy storage, the same as batteries, pumped hydro, compressed air, etc...


You need an energy source for creating the hydrogen in the first place, you think wind is the solution for Ireland, I think a combination of wind and nuclear would be significantly better.

I am doing some in depth stuff on this for work at the moment, the scaling challenges of wind are next on the research list, but there is good research existing that shows its much more limited for the UK at least. I've not seen details of limits or potential for Ireland

I'm not sure what you mean by this?

 

[How bad boy]

Very interesting, thanks for posting this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this?

1. Finding enough economically viable sites. I don't believe there's decent ways of getting windmills working beyond the continental shelf today (open to correction on that). Ireland has a huge continental shelf, about 300km, but it's still finite and not really of enormous amounts of help for the rest of Europe with a way of exporting vast amounts of energy. Hydrogen export may be a huge business in Ireland yet.
2. Mitigating short term variability, wind drops or increases quickly, the grid operator has to be able to respond by bringing other capacity online or shedding generation. A massive problem once it's the main source of energy for literally everything.
3. Seasonal variability, consistently overproducing for some times of the year and constantly struggling to meet demand at others.


None of that is priced into the current price of wind

 

[The High King]

1. Finding enough economically viable sites. I don't believe there's decent ways of getting windmills working beyond the continental shelf today (open to correction on that). Ireland has a huge continental shelf, about 300km, but it's still finite and not really of enormous amounts of help for the rest of Europe with a way of exporting vast amounts of energy. Hydrogen export may be a huge business in Ireland yet.
2. Mitigating short term variability, wind drops or increases quickly, the grid operator has to be able to respond by bringing other capacity online or shedding generation. A massive problem once it's the main source of energy for literally everything.
3. Seasonal variability, consistently overproducing for some times of the year and constantly struggling to meet demand at others.


None of that is priced into the current price of wind

1. “Ireland, quite simply, has one of the best offshore renewable energy resources anywhere in the world. We have a sea area of approximately 900,000 km2 which at over 10 times the size of our landmass, is one of the largest seabed territories in Europe. We also have some of the highest wind resource you’ll find anywhere on the globe.

“The long-term potential is in the region of 75 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power to be realised on the west coast.”
https://www.energyireland.ie/tapping-into-irelands-offshore-wind-potential-calls-for-change/

2. Which is why hydrogen production will be so important. Every day the turbines turn is a day you produce surplus hydrogen. Surplus hydrogen that can be used on calm days to generate electricity.

3. Won't we be connected eventually to a European grid? Surplus energy is sold to Europe and in times of deficit we import from Europe. https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interconnector/the-project/
A cross Europe policy with each country playing to it strengths to generate electricity. Summertime a peak period for solar generation and winter for wind. Also there are already existing nuclear plants in France.
France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy. Not wanting to be naïve or anything but surely that is the plan rather then all nations hiding in a Develara style energy protectionist bubble?

 

[How bad boy]

1. “Ireland, quite simply, has one of the best offshore renewable energy resources anywhere in the world. We have a sea area of approximately 900,000 km2 which at over 10 times the size of our landmass, is one of the largest seabed territories in Europe. We also have some of the highest wind resource you’ll find anywhere on the globe.

“The long-term potential is in the region of 75 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power to be realised on the west coast.”
https://www.energyireland.ie/tapping-into-irelands-offshore-wind-potential-calls-for-change/

2. Which is why hydrogen production will be so important. Every day the turbines turn is a day you produce surplus hydrogen. Surplus hydrogen that can be used on calm days to generate electricity.

3. Won't we be connected eventually to a European grid? Surplus energy is sold to Europe and in times of deficit we import from Europe. https://www.eirgridgroup.com/the-grid/projects/celtic-interconnector/the-project/
A cross Europe policy with each country playing to it strengths to generate electricity. Summertime a peak period for solar generation and winter for wind. Also there are already existing nuclear plants in France.
France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy. Not wanting to be naïve or anything but surely that is the plan rather then all nations hiding in a Develara style energy protectionist bubble?

"If built, the Celtic Interconnector will bring many benefits for Ireland, France and the EU. It will:

allow 700 MW (megawatts) of electricity to move between the countries. (This is equal to supplying power to around 450,000 homes.),"

Long way to go before you can export that 75 GW. And a long way to go before hydrogen is commercially ready for Ireland.

I don't disagree that Ireland has huge wind potential.

 

[The High King]

"If built, the Celtic Interconnector will bring many benefits for Ireland, France and the EU. It will:

allow 700 MW (megawatts) of electricity to move between the countries. (This is equal to supplying power to around 450,000 homes.),"

Long way to go before you can export that 75 GW. And a long way to go before hydrogen is commercially ready for Ireland.

I don't disagree that Ireland has huge wind potential.

Which is where hydrogen production comes in. I disagree that it is a long way to go before hydrogen is commercially ready for Ireland.
https://eih2.ie/
From little acorns grow big trees. When you have that kind of surplus of energy hydrogen production becomes economically viable and hydrogen is going to be big across a myriad of sectors nationally and internationally.
The interconnector will help with shortfalls, also we will have two more interconnectors already off the island which carry a combined 1000 MW

 

[poulgorm]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62677534

HBB is very dismissive of the problems associated with the safe storage of nuclear waste.

I don't think he is right. Read the link. One of many such links that you can read, from reputable sources.

Also, when the cost of nuclear power stations is discussed, invariably the only costs referred are the construction and operational costs. The cost of dismantling nuclear power stations, along with the cost of the almost indefinite storage of some of the radioactive waste produced, makes nuclear prohibitive.

The UK is spending billions every year dismantling old nuclear stations. These costs are funded by taxation - they are not added onto the electricity bill.

It is very simplistic to dismiss all criticism of nuclear power by referring to long haired hippies who believe that nuclear stations pose a massive health risk to us all - they don't, when properly run & maintained. I think they all are, at this stage. But the true economics of them is highly questionable.

 

[How bad boy]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62677534

HBB is very dismissive of the problems associated with the safe storage of nuclear waste.

I don't think he is right. Read the link. One of many such links that you can read, from reputable sources.

Also, when the cost of nuclear power stations is discussed, invariably the only costs referred are the construction and operational costs. The cost of dismantling nuclear power stations, along with the cost of the almost indefinite storage of some of the radioactive waste produced, makes nuclear prohibitive.

The UK is spending billions every year dismantling old nuclear stations. These costs are funded by taxation - they are not added onto the electricity bill.

It is very simplistic to dismiss all criticism of nuclear power by referring to long haired hippies who believe that nuclear stations pose a massive health risk to us all - they don't, when properly run & maintained. I think they all are, at this stage. But the true economics of them is highly questionable.

I don't. I believe it's well meaning concerns by people who don't understand the problem.

From that article

"It is both highly lethal and entirely safe.
Lethal, because this material is intensely radioactive; safe, because it sits beneath 8m of water, a very effective barrier against radiation."