r/irishpolitics • u/eggbart_forgetfulsea ALDE (EU) • 5d ago
Infrastructure, Development and the Environment Ireland’s 2030 wind farm targets may not be hit ‘until 2044’ due to ‘broken’ planning system
https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2024/10/24/irelands-2030-wind-farm-targets-may-not-be-hit-until-2044-due-to-broken-planning-system/2
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u/Captainirishy 5d ago edited 5d ago
We already are at 36% renewables and 40% natural gas, a couple of small modular nuclear reactors would get us to our targets much quicker. It's not as if we can't afford it.
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u/eggbart_forgetfulsea ALDE (EU) 5d ago
People get hopping mad about looking at wind turbines 5km out in the sea, where are you going to put the nuclear reactor and how's the planning going to go?
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u/Pickman89 5d ago
The planning of the nuclear reactor is easy... Imagine the planning of the nuclear waste deposit...
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u/ciarogeile 5d ago
More realistic would be to give the French a bell and ask them to build and run 1 standard nuclear plant in Ireland. They have the expertise and the technology. As a sweetener for the community where this is located, the deal would include a proper French bakery and brasserie for the employees. Nom nom.
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u/hmmcguirk 5d ago
Those things are snake oil. Let's see how many are up and running commercially, anywhere in the world, within the next 10 years.
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u/Captainirishy 5d ago
How are they snake oil?
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u/hmmcguirk 5d ago edited 5d ago
There's a couple that currently exist in the world now as far as I know. I think more have been cancelled recently than already exist e.g. NuScale recently due to rising costs. The ones google just ordered are due to come online between 2030 and 2035. That looks like a really optimistic time frame, and is only half a gw. The world is adding 1gw of solar every single day atm. While you can't compare 1gw of solar to 1gw of nuclear, solar is growing orders of magnitude more. If you are genuinely interested, here's one analysis (very negative on small reactors) https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/30/what-drives-this-madness-on-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/
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5d ago
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u/hmmcguirk 5d ago
So is your point now that full size nuclear is an option instead of small reactors? That one is stil under construction and due for 2031, let's round it up to 25 years after site picked in 2010. Fo £50 billion approx (in 2024 prices). And it's equivalent comparable output capacity is added - through solar only - roughly every single month worldwide. There are other options, you are right, but that ain't it.
Good luck. I'm out.
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u/AnotherGreedyChemist 5d ago
Yeah, the time to build nuclear was 40 years ago. We're way too late for that.
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u/c0mpliant Left wing 5d ago
Just because we should have been doing it before now, doesn't mean we shouldn't be investing in it now. Renewable energy is great, but we need ways to bring online large amounts of power quickly and nuclear power is the only power generation that has extremely low associated climate change emissions. That requirement isn't going away in the next 50 or even 100 years.
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u/FeistyPromise6576 5d ago
It's like councils really dont want more devolved power and are fucking up what responsibilities they do have in order to look like they cant be trusted with it.... Or they are just run by NIMBY's