Fianna Fáil to support move to legalise nuclear energy

Good.

Now move it along rather than wait 3-5 years talking about it

Huge protests back in the day when they wanted to build a nuke plant in Carnsore in Wexford.

I think Bikers still gather there every summer.

Ministers chasing headlines… FFHQ smokescreens for MM debacles

This is gonna be interesting considering FFG infrastructure track record.

It costs tens of billions to build a reactor. Requires a massive amount of land.

We have no dedicated learning paths in Ireland to study nuclear reactor/ engineering, just broder physics degrees. So who’s going to work there?

We’ll need more land for deep ass pools for spent fuel storage / concrete steel silos underground.

We’ll need to import fuel as we don’t have a process to mine and refine Uranium, yet. There was a ban on mining it in the early 00s.

No wonder the state is hording that surplus of funds year on year with this change.

Good. 

Completely ridiculous to have it banned when we already use nuclear power from the UK and will use French nuclear power from next year

This is most likely a move to allow for research and small-scale reactors in a limited sense. Constructing a full reactor still doesn’t make a lot of sense for us and our size.

It’s probably also being done to prevent any future legal challenges to the use of nuclear power from interconnectors and other sources.

There will never be a nuke plant in Ireland for an insane amount of reasons, let’s look at a few

Redundancy

You don’t build a single reactor, you build a minimum of 2 as 1 is always down for maintenance, refueling, etc

Location

Nuke plants need a massive water supply so you’re looking at locations either along the coast somewhere or one of the major rivers, in our case your likely talking about the Shannon.

Support

You won’t find a community anywhere which will welcome a nuke plant and you will find fewer politicians to welcome it to their constituency

Cost

Think the price of the Metrolink……if you’re lucky and that’s just to build it. The cost means it’s also the most expensive generator on the grid and would only serve to increase the unit cost of electricity higher.

Expertise

We don’t have it which means we are asking the French or English to build it. Even with all their vast knowledge on the topic they have literal fusterclucks in the form of Flamville and Hinckley Point where the delays are measured in decades and the overruns are measured in billions

Waste

The one thing that so many people overlook. The costs, again, associated with the long term safe storage are nuts and again, best of luck finding a suitable and acceptable location. The US, with its many decades of experience have still not been able to move beyond simply storing it in casks at most of the plants

Decommissioning

Again the costs of this are bonkers and you’re talking about a multi decade process to deal with the toxic waste.

Finally, just a note about SMR’s, they face all of the above issues and for all the kite flying about them being cheaper due to being able to build them at a higher qty, this has not borne out by the evidence to date.

For all those who want to point to the likes of France and say “hey look at how cheap their power is” you have to realize that the French govt have basically had to cover all costs for EDF and are using a bonkers amount of tax money to keep the sector alive. So while the unit price might be cheaper, in reality it’s still being paid for by the tax base. There is also no end to that support, unlike with the likes of the RESS auctions, where the promised unit price is for a set period only, typically 15 years, after which they are subject to normal market conditions

So yeah, won’t happen

I’m 51.

I doubt I’ll see a NPP in Ireland in my lifetime.

Unfortunately.

I suspect they’re only doing this because nuclear is the trendy thing amongst centrist and centre right think tanks and policy wonks, and FF seem incapable of developing their own ideas.

Which is a shame because the idea should be explored, SMR plants seem to be a viable area now.

Embarrassing nonsense as usual.

“It is understood Deputy O’Connor told his colleagues that his proposal was not a vote to build a nuclear power station, but rather a vote to remove a blindfold and to allow Ireland assess all serious options.”

This has a smell of looking out for vested interests rather than looking to reduce the electric bills for people off of it.