Energy prices on the rise again-time for nuclear power?

[CGorman]

I've just come accross a few facts that actually make my above comments seem conservative!

• Eco Wind Power Ltd. have detailed plans for a [broken link removed] offshore wind farm (12-20km offshore).
• Hibernian Windpower have about 650MW of onshore power in development/planning permission granted - including a massive 220MW farm in Mayo.
• B9 Energy are investigating the possiblity of building a 250MW offshore development in Northern Ireland. Currently they have plans to build onshore farms capable of powering 138,250 homes; much of this has gained planning permission. Most of these are in N.I.
• DP Energy is currently planning/building two more wind farms in Ireland.
• Saorgus Energy has planning permission for 100MW in Ireland and is developing the Kish offshore farm, phase one of which involves 48MW of power.
• Wind Prospect has 30.6MW under construction in Ireland.
• Add in Airtricitys 200MW in planning

Thats 2,500MW of capacity (that I am aware of) that may be built over the next few years - obviously some projects will fall through, but even if half is built, thats a huge addition to capacity.

 

[CGorman]

Might I add, Denmarks, a country half the size of the island of Ireland, currently produces over 3,100MW of power from wind energy. So if we just replicated matched Denmarks current position we could have 6,200MW of power. In addition many of the turbines in Denmark are older, lessefficent models. We could easily match the 6,200MW with far fewer turbines!

 

[z107]

I can't believe people are seriously considering nuclear power plants as a viable option.

How many died as a result of those accidents? very few

No one knows how many people died (or will die) as a result of the accidents. A few people died from radiation sickness, or from explosions. Many more will die from cancer and who knows how many still births and deformities there will be.
Given the choice, I would rather not live on irradiated soil. Land that's going to be contaminated for thousands of years. We have a limited supply of land. Ever see a map of the hugh area of the globe that was affected from Chernobyl?

do you realise the levels of radiation your exposed to in your lifetime?

I have a fair idea. I've also heard the stats about airline crews getting more of a dose than your average nuclear plant worker, and about coffee beans being radioactive etc... I would not like to see my annual exposure sharply increasing overnight though!

Modern plants are very safe

Are they? - what makes you think that? - all the accidents and meltdowns that have happened over the last 50 years or so?

and the waste can be put back into the earth where it came from. My only concerns would be that the real cost is much greater than other energy sources.

can be put back into the earth, or actually is? Why are all these power stations hanging onto it then?

 

[CGorman]

I agree with umop3p!sdn on this.

Modern plants may be safe - i.e. no major incidents in western plants in the past few years - however, as I said before, all it takes is a single accident to completely destroy our country - that is too vast a risk to take.

Regarding waste - pumping it into the ground is not a long term sustainable solution. Imagine if mankind was 100% nuclear powered and stored all waste in the ground, after 50 years what would our planet be like? After 150 years, what would it be like? Landfills for conventional waste have proved to be a poor unsustainable solution for household waste - why would it be any different for nuclear waste?

 

[daveirl]

Might I add, Denmarks, a country half the size of the island of Ireland, currently produces over 3,100MW of power from wind energy. So if we just replicated matched Denmarks current position we could have 6,200MW of power. In addition many of the turbines in Denmark are older, lessefficent models. We could easily match the 6,200MW with far fewer turbines!

But you can't get 100% of your energy from wind. In fact the Danes only get around 20%. Besides the fact there will be days when there is no wind the simple fact is that the electricity generated by wind turbines currently is a bit crap. The signal itself isn't as clean as you'd want at all, i.e. it's not a clean 50Hz Sinusoid, this is fine when you keep your percentage of wind power down low enough because you can compensate with other more constant forms of energy but you can't generate 100% from wind energy.

This is something that is constantly missed by advocates of wind power.

Regarding waste - pumping it into the ground is not a long term sustainable solution. Imagine if mankind was 100% nuclear powered and stored all waste in the ground, after 50 years what would our planet be like? After 150 years, what would it be like? Landfills for conventional waste have proved to be a poor unsustainable solution for household waste - why would it be any different for nuclear waste?

Simple reason is that the 'landfills' required for nuclear waster are tiny. You don't end up with tonnes upon tonnes of nuclear waste per day/year, you end up with very little in comparison to the amount of energy created.

Questions for the No-Nuclear people:
1. How come you value the possible but incredibly unlikely deaths of people from Nuclear more than the lives of the hundreds of people dieing every year in mining fossil fuels.

2. How do you over come the fact that wind can't supply all our energy

 

[room305]

I would disagree. Turbine technology is improving very quickly, with the most powerful turbine currently available rated 6MW, and more typical turbines 1-2MW. In addition these can reach 40% capacity in Ireland compared to 20% in mainland Europe. So if it is commercially viable to erect these things in Austria (at 20% capacity); it must be (it is) very lucrative to build them in Ireland. Combine with more pumped storage schemes Ireland could easily generate enough power for the whole country.

I'm all for renewable energy but I still think we need to couple it with nuclear power to meet our energy needs. You cannot meet 100% of the grid's needs by wind power, not without fiendishly complicated and wasteful electricity storage schemes.

Also wind power isn't as clean as its proponents imagine. Noise and sight pollution are a side effect. We can build offshore banks but they are expensive and not very cost effective (hence why they haven't been completed). Given the incredibly delicate and finely balanced nature of weather, I often wonder if having several banks of wind turbines catching wind offshore will change the weather experienced here. That is just idle speculation however.

Tidal power has potential, not least because it is very reliable and predictable. As are solar power and biomass fuels. However, to generate 100% of our energy needs from these alone would be incredibly costly. I did some back of the envelope calculations before (which I will try and find later if needed) and factoring in some reasonable farmer subsidies, supplying the grid with renewable fuels would become cost effective when oil is around €150 a barrel (maybe not that far off). However, the sheer volume of arable land required would be prohibitive.

I think nuclear is required if we wish to remove our dependency on oil for electricity generation. With nuclear, electrifying the railway system would become feasible.

However, in the very short term, here are two things we should start doing:

- Buy our own oil rather than buying via Britain. For cheaper oil we could either look into generating electricity from heavy sour crude (of which there is a glut on the market and it trades at a much lower $55 a barrel) or sign a deal with a country like Norway. The stability of a fixed-price contract might suit both countries.

- Start using coal. Chemical scrubbing technology has improved significantly so this doesn't need to be as bad for the environment as you might initially think. The world has plenty of coal reserves and compared to oil it is very cheap. We could even buy our own coal mine to ensure stability of supply.

 

[Eurofan]

- Start using coal. Chemical scrubbing technology has improved significantly so this doesn't need to be as bad for the environment as you might initially think. The world has plenty of coal reserves and compared to oil it is very cheap. We could even buy our own coal mine to ensure stability of supply.

The advances in coal based technology is quite remarkable. Was only reading an article last night (Time?) along these lines where the known supplies of coal were termed 'superabundant' with in excess of 200 years worth easily available. Not only that but it is much more evenly spread around geographically.

 

[ivuernis]

For cheaper oil we could either look into generating electricity from heavy sour crude (of which there is a glut on the market and it trades at a much lower $55 a barrel)

It's only cheaper because there is a lack of refining capacity around the world for heavy sour. Whether heavy sour or light sweet it still needs to be refined.

- Start using coal.

We already do, MoneyPoint is coal powered.

The world has plenty of coal reserves and compared to oil it is very cheap.

Only at current production rates. Ramp it up to offset oil and gas depletion and it runs out in real terms before the end of the century.

"Clean Coal" has got to be the mother of all oxymorons.

 

[room305]

We already do, MoneyPoint is coal powered.

At 915MW it is a significant portion of our total capacity (about 24%) but we should look at expanding this.

Only at current production rates. Ramp it up to offset oil and gas depletion and it runs out in real terms before the end of the century.

Hence why I suggested we buy an actual coal mine. This way we can ensure the stability of supply and we'll be buying at a price that is cheap compared to oil or gas.

"Clean Coal" has got to be the mother of all oxymorons.

Not necessarily, General Electric have invested heavily in clean coal technology and it is not a decision they would take lightly. Trapping the CO2 is probably a more likely solution than sequestration but the technology is improving rapidly. Also, we will be replacing electricity generation from oil, so we do not need to reduce it to zero to be effective.

Oil generates about 1.6k lbs of CO2 per MW. Coal generates around 2.2k lbs per MW. With advances in scrubbing and trapping technology it is entirely feasible today to reduce coal CO2 output to on a par with that generated by oil.

 

[brian1]

Wind is great, but due to the nature of it it can only make up a small percentage of our overall energy generation. The highest percentage user of wind in the world is Denmark, yet they only use wind for 20% of their energy needs.

I've being trying to find out what percentage of wind mix we can use in Ireland, I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer yet, but I believe it is around 30%.

But then how do we cleanly and securely generate the other 70%?

Solar is out of the question.

We don't really have enough land to grow significant amounts of Biomass energy and it has other significant problems.

Tidal is a very fragile and unproven technology.

So I ask again where are we going to get the other 60 - 70% of our energy needs.

IMO We need Nuclear to fill in the rest of our energy needs after wind.

BTW here are some myths about Nuclear that are simply not true:

It is not expensive, it is slightly cheaper then fossil fuel costs last year (when fossil fuels were much cheaper) and is about half the cost of wind.

Modern plants are safe and don't release radiation. In fact a coal burning power plant like Money Point releases far more radioactive material then any Nuclear power planet.

Also over 1,200 people died in China alone last year from just mining coal. No one died from Nuclear power last year.

BBTW It is great that lots more wind power is coming to Ireland, however FYI 2,500MW of wind power will equate to only about 833MW of real power, this is due to the variance in wind power (wind stops blowing), wind power is only about 30% efficient.

BBBTW Wind power is significantly more expensive then fossil fuels or Nuclear, so expect your ESB bills to go way up, the more wind power we use.

 

[Howitzer]

2 words: European Supergrid.

 

[Zack]

I'm against nuclear power for the simple reason that it isn't a long term option. It's primary source of fuel, uranium is just like fossil fuels, a non renewable resource.Current estimates of global uranium reserves are somewhere around 80 - 125 yrs, at present nuclear power afaik, provides 16% of the globe's electricity requirements - about 7% of the globe's energy supply.Allow for a doubling of that capacity even to a modest 30% of global electricity requirements- see what that does to remaining viable reserves.
(Other identified reserves will require more energy to extract than they provide.)Couple all that with the difficulty and enormous expense of dealing with the waste and it seems like a less and less attractive long term option.

It's interesting that I have yet to hear the above argument touted by the anti nuclear brigade in any public forum.


(Btw, Someone mentioned fusion -well that technology is more than 5 or 10 yrs away - 50 to 100 yrs might be more accurate.).


Unless, and don't laugh!, maybe we (ie. the earth, or more than likely the US) can start harvesting Helium 3 isotopes off the moon - effectively limitless,clean nuclear fuel. It's estimated that the cost of an expedition to extract 1 tonH3, which occurs naturally in the Moon's regolith, would more than pay for itself in terms of the amount of energy ot would provide.

Z

 

[CGorman]

But you can't get 100% of your energy from wind. In fact the Danes only get around 20%. Besides the fact there will be days when there is no wind the simple fact is that the electricity generated by wind turbines currently is a bit crap.

But yes you can! Several pumped storage schemes like tourlough hill can rule out all the variable nature of wind! Whilst I agree it is unlikely that 100% wind will ever be achieved, it should be a very significant part of our energy sources - the rest could be met by tidal and solar.

Also, Denmark has a larger population and thus uses more electricity than us - there's an extra 1.5m people living there, so it is a remarkable feat that they can get 20% from wind with only half the land area as us. We should be able to do better.

Solar is out of the question.

Why do you say that? Solar panals on rooftops in Ireland can meet a significant part of our energy needs. As I said before, the Portuguese are a superb example of this.

wind power is only about 30% efficient.

The figure is actual 40% in the Northwest of Ireland. As I said before, the figure is just 20% in Germany, Austria etc. - yet it has proved to be a viable option in these places.

BTW: There's an article in todays Indo about an all-island ban on nuclear between Peter Hain and Dermot Ahern.

 

[CGorman]

2 words: European Supergrid.

Fully agree if we can figure out how to minmise energy loss accross great distances... Hydro from Sweden, Finland & Norway, Wind from the British Isles, and Central Europe, Solar from deserts of North Africa, Spain , Italy, France & Portugal and tidal/wave from wherever it proves to be most efficent! It's a beautiful dream. Perhaps 50 years might create a reality?... if only.

 

[ivuernis]

It's interesting that I have yet to hear the above argument [uranium reserves] touted by the anti nuclear brigade in any public forum.

The Green Party have used that argument before, I'm just not sure if it was the Greens in Ireland or the UK.

Unless, and don't laugh!, maybe we (ie. the earth, or more than likely the US) can start harvesting Helium 3 isotopes off the moon - effectively limitless,clean nuclear fuel. It's estimated that the cost of an expedition to extract 1 tonH3, which occurs naturally in the Moon's regolith, would more than pay for itself in terms of the amount of energy ot would provide.

I heard that one before... is it really just completely unattainable though? i mean it has to mined ON THE MOON and one ton is A LOT. How much moon rock have we managed to bring back? A few clumps?!?

 

[Howitzer]

Fully agree if we can figure out how to minmise energy loss accross great distances... Hydro from Sweden, Finland & Norway, Wind from the British Isles, and Central Europe, Solar from deserts of North Africa, Spain , Italy, France & Portugal and tidal/wave from wherever it proves to be most efficent! It's a beautiful dream. Perhaps 50 years might create a reality?... if only.

Err, do a google "European Supergrid". It's happening as we speak. I'd link some docs but they're all a kazillion Mb in size. Airtricity haven't been raising 100s of millions of euros recently just so that they can get Brendan O'Carroll for the Xmas party you know.

Re energy loss see "ABB DC transmission technology".

There's actually more than enough energy currently produced in Europe as a whole you just need a bit of lateral thinking. Nuclear, Wind, Oil, Coal. These will all be considered complementary in matter of years, not decades. East/west time zones also help.

 

[daveirl]

But yes you can! Several pumped storage schemes like tourlough hill can rule out all the variable nature of wind! Whilst I agree it is unlikely that 100% wind will ever be achieved, it should be a very significant part of our energy sources - the rest could be met by tidal and solar.

That only solves the storage problem it doesn't solve the problem that the electricity generated by wind is crap as I outlined previously. Also if you're anti-Nuclear how can you be pro-European-Supergrid since that just means you're taking someone else's nuclear power.

 

[Zack]

Ivuernis,

Think there are about 800Ibs of moon rock in various labs/museums around the world brought back from the 6 Apollo missions.
Space Shuttle - ( 1970's technology) could - if modified carry a ten ton payload from lunar orbit to the earth, but regardless of limitations of current technology, if the price is right it will, be done.

Apparently a Russian company - Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia - (manufacturer of launcher and space station components) state it is their aim to establish Helium3 mining operations on the moon before 2025. Whoever gets there first will be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.

Z

 

[autumnleaf]

Another factor to look at is reducing the demand:

- Transport: Improve public transport - yes it costs money in the short run but in the long run would save it. Tax cars at a rate that reflects their fuel use (perhaps hybrids could be exempt from tax altogether). Improve the cycle path network. Improve broadband connections to encourage telecommuting.

- Buildings: Offer grants for "green buildings" that use energy more efficiently. Create a standard such as the LEED in the US to rate such buildings. Look at international developments such as Vauban in Germany and Dongtan in China.

 

[ivuernis]

Think there are about 800Ibs of moon rock in various labs/museums around the world brought back from the 6 Apollo missions.

Yes, you're right, I just looked it up. Didn't realise there was that much.

Apparently a Russian company - Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia - (manufacturer of launcher and space station components) state it is their aim to establish Helium3 mining operations on the moon before 2025

Heard about them. I wonder was Bush's pledge to return to the moon anything to do with this?!?