How long will these generous subsidies you talk about last?

These companies are in it for the long haul and the subsidies are acting as risk alleviation in the early years. While you might take the hardshaw Alfred P Sloan approach, neither you or I or anyone knows for sure what will be viable in 30yrs time. Either way unsubsidised offshore wind will not be far off the mark as part of a wider integrated network.

One thing’s for definite and that is nihilism won’t be powering anything.

They are businesses taking advantage of generous subsidies and tariffs. It is free money from the consumer. What else do you expect them to do?

Take away the tariffs and none of this junk would be installed.

“Doubling it to 50 years gives €11.50/MWh just for decommissioning. Still makes REFIT look good or what am I missing??”

That £70bn figure contains about £30bn just for Sellafield plus you have all the issues with waste from the early sites. However it is what it is (or “we are where we are” !).

When you convert REFIT to MWh it works out at €140/MWh !

I did say a very rough calculation but since you pounced on me I actually checked my references and I mixed up the percentage of the market (19%) with the nuclear capacity (12GW) so that doesn’t improve the situation for you. I also just checked Sizewell ‘A’ lifetime load factor and it comes out at about 75% and Heysham 2 was 77% for 2009 - 8.32TWh with 1230MW capacity.

Doubling it to 50 years gives €11.50/MWh just for decommissioning. Still makes REFIT look good or what am I missing??

“Lets give it a 25yr lifespan and an 85% load factor.”

25 years ??? How convenient.

The old Sizewell A Plant operated for 40 years (1966-2006).
Dungeness A operated for 41 years (1965-2006)

Hinkley Point A 35 years (1965-2000) etc etc etc.
Hinkley Point B still in operation 34 years + (1976-present)

Sizewell B is targeting 60 years.

It really would be useful if those who believe that a 14c/kWh REFIT is good value for money would present the facts regarding alternatives in a truthful manner.

You’ve mentioned a few negative aspects of EROEI in relation to offshore wind but how about a few positive ones. The diameters of the blades are bigger leading to greater power densities and the fact that water is a great weight-carrying medium with no space restrictions means that turbines can be installed in a few quick steps. Don’t forget that waiting for weather windows does not really affect EROEI even though in reality it can be very expensive.

I don’t get your point about the east coast as the wind maps I’ve seen have favourable average velocities in this area.

The benefits of RE may be overhyped in some quarters but companies like Vattenfall and Iberdrola are no mugs and they are investing heavily in this area.

Structural strength, corrosion resistance and biofouling are big issues in the marine environment and Ireland should be embracing these challenges as part of a comprehensive r&d programme as innovations in these areas will have widespread applications across all marine sectors.

You can place all your bets on future cheap Chinese nuclear power but I think this is unlikely to be as cheap as you think it will be and will be dependent on its weakest link.

As a very rough illustrative example there is approx. 19GW of installed nuclear in the UK. Lets give it a 25yr lifespan and an 85% load factor. Total lifetime power produced (GWh) is 19 x 8760 x 0.85 x 25 = 3536850

At present the decommissioning costs for nuclear in the UK are about £70bn so dividing one by the other gives an approx. cost of €23 per MWh - just for decommissioning.

So what’s it to be then? What mix is going to work in 30yrs time? and how is its development curve going to take place?

Intermittency is an obvious factor in RE particularly when capacity in Ireland reaches the 3GW mark and the challenge will be to deal with this. I think the solution will be a certain amount of excess thermal capacity, combined with some pumped storage and demand management (including real-time pricing) as well as interconnectors. This is of course going to add to the cost but in a predictable way.

The EROEI calculations are important to consider but I would be surprised if the newer large wind turbines were not in the 20+ range in an Irish offshore setting.

Of course they need to be installed and maintained using fossil fuels but I don’t think anyone (except SOI) makes claims to having complete energy independence with renewables.

With regard to the public money spent on the sector a lot of this would be passing through the hands of Eirgrid in setting up the necessary transmission system so value for money is an important issue here.

Can’t the 14c/kWh just have a certain timespan and apply to a certain annual GWh threshold and if so what’s the big problem?

Biofuels is a separate topic and reference to toytown in the context of offshore wind is foolish

How much should you pay for a new car than turns itself on and off at random?

Common sense and Paul Joskow say very little.

Eamon Ryan says says 2-3 times the price of a ordinary reliable car. Gullible punters mistake this madness for visionary thinking.

Brian, you write:

The ref would be to the mandatory use of liquid transport fuel as part of the embedded energy cost of building out the turbine and transmission infrastructure and also as part of routine maintenance, repair and renewals. These cannot be done with electricity.

To that I would add the much-ignored issue of scaling up from toytown pilot projects to real world magnitudes. For example, it is not inconceivable that the increase in demand for fossil fuel inputs created by subsidized massive alternative energy projects will drag fossil fuel prices upwards to such an extent that the net outcome will be worse than useless. As in the case of bioethanol, I suspect that many AE projects may at best be described as fossil fuel energy sinks that do little more than give entropy a shot in the arm.

As David MacKay points out, it’s a question of ‘numbers, not adjectives’:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

And on wind generation, a plea by an oft-cited EU energy economist:
http://www.energypolicyblog.com/2010/10/16/don%E2%80%99t-levelize-wind-and-solar-energy/

It could well be an error but if true then the folks at Eirgrid will need to explain (good luck with that !).

When it comes to CER/DCENR/Eirgrid/SEAI providing numbers you’ll be in for a big surprise - plenty of spin - but no data.

The ref would be to the mandatory use of liquid transport fuel as part of the embedded energy cost of building out the turbine and transmission infrastructure and also as part of routine maintenance, repair and renewals. These cannot be done with electricity.

It may be possible to construct all the bits and pieces of the turbines using electricity (I doubt this, but just assume it for the moment). The parts have to be trucked to site and erected (after you dig the foundations and pour that concrete!).

Anyone not fully familiar with theOilDrum. You must read down through the many comments following an article. The techie bloggers will straighten out most errors and fill in any omissions. Sort of instant Peer Review feedback!

Brian P

Bemusing - how is this possible?

How can carbon intensity of production increase when wind generation increases as proportion of generation?

1120gCO2/kWh is very high, impossibly high when 95% coming from wind.

Simply must be an error….

Wriggle all you want but “flexible generation” is OCGT i.e. fossil fuels.

Glad you’re now reading up on the subject even if you find the Eirgrid url a little cumbersome to deal with.

Second, you’d do well to actually read what I wrote. You should also learn to read the links you point out to people. The rest of the sentence you “quoted” read as follows: “but it can make a contribution towards managing intermittency as part of a portfolio with interconnection and flexible generation.”

I’m shocked - there’s no one single solution to replace our current multi-solution energy infrastructure? Well colour me amazed. You’ll note that in my initial post I didn’t just say storage systems - which you might have noticed if you’d, like, read it. The future will have many solutions. Heck, if we could demonstrate an ability to run 19th century technology like railroads I’d even support nuclear.

Lastly, url shorteners. Look into them. Your link is both long and wordpress isn’t guessing it correctly. For people who want to read your pdf, it’s here: http://bit.ly/aHIVwW You might give it a read again as well.

Impressive .. ?

Our Carbon intensity http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/co2intensity/ shot up to 1120gCO2/kWh

Why is that ? System demand was 1179MW so according to Eirgrid wind supplied 95% of our demand but resulted in the most polluting generation.

Only in Ireland …

It does not amaze me that humoungous amounts spent on nuclear R&D have made it commercially viable and that miniscule amounts spent on renewable R&D have made it marginally competitive.

“There’s no reason why wind power must be backed up by fossil fuels. Hydro and pumped storage can handle peaks in generation and demand.”

Who told you that ? The Spirit of Ireland people ? How much will this back-up cost - is it “free” like the wind ???
Please read http://www.eirgrid.com/media/Low%20Carbon%20Generation%20Options%20for%20the%20All%20Island%20Market%20(2).pdf

It states
“Storage, by itself, is insufficient to manage intermittent renewable generation because of its power and energy capacity constraints”

Why does the Irish public just accept the green mantra ?

It never ceases to amaze me that people in the pro-wind lobby continually refer to other sources of backup such as large scale pumped storage or interconnectors but never actually read the published literature in these areas and never understand the constraints and limitations (or cost) of these technologies.

Unless I’m misreading the press release, there is no plan for the government to borrow money to invest in offshore wind, rather there is a plan to regulate to allow others to do so in the future.

Capital is expensive to the Irish state and Irish banks right now but not for those who invested $20bn last year in Ireland.

So the Danes are making money by exporting wind power equipment to Germany, but you argue this is somehow invalid because the Germans are losing money. It’s a very peculiar argument. Why should Denmark care whether their export customers are making money or not?

Your list of greenfield FDI is telling: the Poolbeg incinerator is top.

The issue, however, is credibility. The bond markets believe that Ireland may not get its act together. They now observe a senior Government Minister propose a plan that is hugely ambitious and expensive and, given the recent track record of offshore wind, doomed to fail.

Ireland is also ideal for data centres due to climate and location - a stable energy supply unaffected by fossil fuel price shocks could be a tempting source of investment.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14GrtyQWdOc1FTeolJ-VuTt9KCmG7rAWWaSRYa0WFraw/edit?authkey=CLXAtoEC#

@Prof Tol

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