I'm talking about TWR technology. Yes, I should have been clearer; there is no chance of a meltdown and associated explosion but there is always the chance of other issues. should have said that it is intrinsically safer though it is true to say that there is zero chance of a catastrophic meltdown. It uses existing nuclear waste as a fuel source so the net effect is no CO2 and less nuclear waste.
Nuclear Power
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VonHohenzollern
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Yo, so this page shows the flow of electricity around the EU. As we can see with historic data we need to get tied into the EU supergrid. While the idea of one nuclear plant to sort Ireland seems great it's like having 1 supplier of a key ingredient for your business, a massive weakpoint for failure. The french have been struggling all year with corrosion in their plants which is wreaking the EU grid just as bad as the lack of Natural Gas. Plus we would need to regulate and implement an entire industry with a very single powerful actor that controls the whole baseload grid, this could be a very asymmetric relationship and may lead to poor regulations.
I think getting the celtic interconnector will be a gamechanger and we should be integrating ourselves into every grid as much as possible to capitalise on wind and import other energy sources. We should look at a wide array of baseload production including; anerobic digestion, hydrogen storage, tidal, burning of wood waste and maybe micro nuclear production. A strong combination of all three could easily supply the baseload for when the wind isint blowing, while ensuring our grid is resilient to a shock in any of the systems.
However, some use of micro-nuclear plants that are being developed could have an essential role also in the baseload. I just feel like putting all the money on a large nuclear project that is reliant on importing fuels from either north Africa or Australia is not the best option.
I think getting the celtic interconnector will be a gamechanger and we should be integrating ourselves into every grid as much as possible to capitalise on wind and import other energy sources. We should look at a wide array of baseload production including; anerobic digestion, hydrogen storage, tidal, burning of wood waste and maybe micro nuclear production. A strong combination of all three could easily supply the baseload for when the wind isint blowing, while ensuring our grid is resilient to a shock in any of the systems.
However, some use of micro-nuclear plants that are being developed could have an essential role also in the baseload. I just feel like putting all the money on a large nuclear project that is reliant on importing fuels from either north Africa or Australia is not the best option.
I agree that integrating ourselves into the mainland's energy grid is essential. It is only after that that building nuclear stations makes sense.
I'm not a fan of Hydrogen, it's just not energy dense enough. Burning stuff isn't the future.
The potential for generating power through anaerobic digestion is huge. Each household in Ireland produces around a ton of food waste a year. That should be enough to power that home for the year. The problem is gathering the waste and getting it to the anaerobic digester.
I agree completely. It would be a terrible idea. That's why we should wait until the TWR technology is on stream. Small nuclear is also worth looking at but the fuel source and waste issues are significant.
Blackrock1
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I take it you aren't familiar with the rapidly evolving battery storage technologies out there. Thats the long term answer to flattening out renewable production.
David McSavage has a very funny skit of that on his show a decade ago. It showed the ESB rowing into a French beech with a giant 3 pin plug and cable, Mcsavage in Napoleon pose, all patriotic music playing in the background. Then he strides onto the beech pulling the cable from the boat only to reach the French continental 2 pin socket and being unable to connect onto the French socket.
Was hilarious but alot of truth aswell seeing that we are still not connected well over a decade later
Not really, other than the prospect of Lithium-metal batteries and the breakthrough that the problem with the formation of dendrites in those battery types seems to be fixable.
I'm looking at energy supply in work at the moment. I'm getting 87kW of Solar in and I'm looking at Industrial battery storage as an alternative to having Generators on site for back-up so I've done a bit of research but nothing in depth.
I do know that if this country a move to 100% electric vehicles will necessitate a more than 100% increase in our generation capacity. I don't see how we can do that using renewables. Given the need for 40% extra capacity that's a serious amount of battery storage.
Ireland's total consumption is 25.68 billion kW hours a year. The biggest battery storage system in the world at the moment is the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California. It has a capacity of 1,600,000 Kw hours. With everyone running as EV we'd need around 50,000,000,000 kW hours. Batteries aren't going to help.
Blackrock1
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Batteries arent going to help, i disagree, they will become a major factor on our grid over the coming decade once eirgrid get their ass in gear and make the revenue stack viable.
How will they help?
How many do we need?
Where will we put them?
Lithium-Ion battery systems are by far the most common for large scale storage. How do we overcome the risks associated with them such as safety as they age, reuse/recycling of them and actual state of health determination? As they degrade they can overheat and burn and, as the smoke defective cells generate is combustible, they can explode.
Other technologies are being developed but they are a long way off and have many of the same problems and, crucially, batteries don't generate power, they just store it.
Blackrock1
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there is a raft of information out there, educate yourself
Grid-scale battery storage development
Over 2.5GW of grid-scale battery storage is in development in Ireland, with six projects currently operational in the country, four of which were added in 2021. […]
www.energyireland.ie
And im sure the risks will be managed just fine, we have run coal and gas plants for decades so im sure managing to run a battery storage dacility safely wont be beyond the realms of possibility.
Of course batteries dont generate power, but they do allow for more efficient use of renewables which is the whole point.
I'm aware of that stuff. It doesn't answer my questions. I haven't read anything that does.there is a raft of information out there, educate yourself
Grid-scale battery storage development
Over 2.5GW of grid-scale battery storage is in development in Ireland, with six projects currently operational in the country, four of which were added in 2021. […]
It certainly isn't beyond the realms of possibility but we need to tie it down better than that. The lifespan and the environmental costs of production and disposal are also unclear.
They allow for the more efficient use of power generated from any source but our problem is lack of generation capacity and that's going to get far worse as we move away from ICE vehicles. Even if we had enough batteries to level out our demand, and that would be hundreds of acres of batteries, we still won't be producing enough power.
Blackrock1
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there are GWs of renenewable projects being developed, what we need is improved grid infastructure, supply wont be the constraint grid capacity is.
Yes, but we need far more than they will ever provide.
I agree 100% on that. Our grid infrastructure is dreadful, but according to Eirgrid they'll have that sorted out within the next decade without causing an increase in electricity prices. As with most products making the stuff is more of a problem than transporting it.
Do you mean that supply won't be a constraint or that grid infrastructure will be more of a constraint than supply?
Blackrock1
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grid infastructure is what is limiting supply at the moment, greater access to grid will allow more renewable projects to be built out, battery tech will improve the efficiency of this generation, we should get to a point where 70/80% of supply is renewable with a few start of the art ccgts to support in the background in the next 15 years.
The grid infrastructure is already limiting renewables in places. A number of wind farms have to stop turbines at times as the connections can't take the load, and there have been other projects stopped in planning due to the lack of connections being available.
fidelcastro
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I dont see how the turnover of Apple computer & reported by a complex accounting exercise to Cork has any reflection of the wealth of the Free State, which reflects how much income/wealth is available for taxation purposes and allows the state to embark on a nuclear power plant expense.
The GNI of the Free State is c.290Billion, ~same as GNP of Suomi , so ~ same wealth & population, both countries 100yrs independent. Suomi has 5 reactor sites around the country since the 1970's and a new 1600MW new plant is going on-line this winter. Needless to say we have much higher Gov debt, while for Suomi they live beside the world worst neighbours, the terrorist Russian state. So not all rosy over there.
In Suomi, there is almost free childcare, free public health for all, true free education until third-level, and little homelessness. .These are all of the liabilities the Free state hasnt quite got round to or accomplished in 100yrs, and I think they should take priority over further indebtness to fund a minimum c.20Billion power plant, when the French nuclear dominated grid looks as an infinite current source since we are not even the size of Paris. All we have to do is connect/plan/construct as many DC connections as necessary and let the French pay for the clean up for the next 1000 yrs, and supply excess wind power as req'd to them.
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fidelcastro
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Location of turbines off the Arklow banks would have been the logical answer, where the Elec demand (Dublin) is, and as a child knows the wind blows at a higher velocity at see than over land. Additionally E=1/2 mv2, so a factor of 2x in wind velocity translates to a 4x increase in energy, so small differences matter.
But once again , as a nation we have fannied around for 20yrs admiring the few turbines which were installed off Arklow , rather than getting on with the job as per Scotland & Englands vast installation of offshore in the meantime.
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but "battery tech" will never get to the position of being able to store days and days of electricity, that is restricted by the laws of physics and the inability to store large amounts of electricity as electric energy. The battery storage facilty at poolbeg can only supply 2 hours power at full load, (admitted by the ESB on a report about energy security) it really is just a way to smooth out the variabilty of renewables when the wind is blowing but cannot step in when the wind is not blowing for days.
During the whole of August during the drought there was virtually no wind power for the whole month, where was the power then coming from ?
of course from the conventional power stations that are getting old and are not being renewed with new generating capacity quickly enough.
The peat power stations were originally supposed to continue generating until 2025 but were closed down prematurely not by Eirgrid or BnM but by An Bord Planeala the organisation now under scrutiny due to corruption and dubious decisions and planning decisions in other areas.
We need to get real and stop making silly decisions and remove the bureacracy that is hampering effective energy planning
Blackrock1
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i wonder if it incredibly warm and there isnt much wind blowing, what form of renewable would be producing lots of energy in that scenario .....
Don't believe there is any, that's why nuclear energy needs to be part of the solution. Electricity by its nature cannot be stored in huge quantities even though it can be generated in large quantities it basically needs to be consumed in real time.
Even when Electricity is generated by nature it cannot exist in a stored state for very long it needs to discharge as lightning. For example you would never see a charged storm cloud hanging around for days after a storm it always discharges quickly. When nature stores up electric energy it is in the form of a vast rain cloud not something that can easily be replicated artificially
Blackrock1
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solar Joe, the answer is solar, so the wind doesn't blow hopefully your solar can bridge the gap. And we all have loads of devices that store energy for days and weeks on end so i don't follow your analogy.
We are very unlikely to ever have nuclear in ireland nor do we really need it if we properly plan out our grid capacity, renewable projects and have a few flexible ccgts as well.