5 ms·

Ah the old "country's worth of electricity" comparison... Keep in mind that Ireland's entire electricity needs could be covered by a one nuclear power plant (3.

by mrb 3mo ago

Ah the old "country's worth of electricity" comparison... Keep in mind that Ireland's entire electricity needs could be covered by a one nuclear power plant (3.8 GW with 4 reactors). IOW, you could offload all Irish datacenters by connecting them to a single nuclear power reactor (~900 MW), a small building that has a footprint of under 50 x 50 meters for the reactor, and another of 100 x 50 meters for the generator.

testing22321 3mo ago
Sweet. Start building TODAY and it will be done in nothing less than 20 years for nothing less than $20 BILLION. What should they do in the meantime?
- hunterpayne 3mo ago
  Sure, $1B for the plant and $19B for the lawyers. Korea and China build them in 4 years for about $1B each. This is entirely self-inflicted by people who are completely scientifically illiterate.
  - testing22321 3mo ago
    No western country ever has. Average cost for the 28 China has under construction today is $7 BILLION
  - rsynnott 3mo ago
    > Korea and China build them in 4 years for about $1B each. China seems to do 7 years _build time_ at ~$3bn/GW. So you're probably looking at at least a decade project start to end. Also, they're primarily using a reactor that isn't licensed in Europe and won't be anytime soon. The only Chinese plant using a European-licensed reactor type (EPR) took a decade to build (still faster than European builds of the same reactor, but not what you'd call quick).
- mrb 3mo ago
  Or Ireland can import electricity from France TODAY as we export on average 10 GW continuously, and most of it is already generated by nuclear :-)
  - tialaramex 3mo ago
    If you were to look at a map you'd see that Ireland is on the other side of a bigger island. Sure enough France exports up to about 4GW to the UK, and the UK exports up to about 1GW to Ireland. Right now, it being the middle of the night here, France sends us about 2.5GW and we sent Ireland about 500 MW. Electricity being fungible by nature it doesn't really mean anything to say that's French electricity when it reaches Ireland, it could just as easily be British nuclear, or wind power from a Scottish wind farm, or any number of sources or any mix.
    - rsynnott 3mo ago
      > France sends us about 2.5GW and we sent Ireland about 500 MW. It's also a two-way flow; while UK<>Ireland transmission tends to net out to UK->Ireland, it's fairly variable; to a large extent whichever side currently has too much wind is the donor.
      - tialaramex 3mo ago
        I believe all of the modern UK interconnects are bi-directional. Most countries have cheaper power when our wind doesn't blow but can't get enough cheap wind power from us when it does. Current government plans don't seem to take this into account. 40GW of wind power doesn't seem like "basically enough" when you're doing 10GW exports. They did at least ban "rebidding" where you get permission to build a wind farm, but you think the price you agreed to isn't what you'd prefer so you just bid again next time like nothing happened. Some of the projects which low balled are now stuck, either build it as promised and collect a smaller profit than you'd hoped for or fuck off, no second chances
        rsynnott 3mo ago
- HDBaseT 3mo ago
  Better than kicking the can down the road. Energy is effectively always going to be needed. In 20 years time the same response will be spouted, it will make you wish you did something 20 years before when it was originally discussed.
  - testing22321 3mo ago
    Right now solar plus batteries is cheaper. It 20 years it will be vastly so
    - HDBaseT 3mo ago
      I'd also be happy with this too. Solar is great. I'm still not versed enough on the environmental impacts of batteries. There is a lot of battery tech advancements in the past decade.
gib444 3mo ago
You don't know about Sellafield, do you? Nor the law banning nuclear for electricity generation. Nor the attempt this year to reverse that law which got defeated. Ireland appears to not want nuclear ;)

by mrb 3mo ago

testing22321 3mo ago

Sweet. Start building TODAY and it will be done in nothing less than 20 years for nothing less than $20 BILLION. What should they do in the meantime?

hunterpayne 3mo ago
Sure, $1B for the plant and $19B for the lawyers. Korea and China build them in 4 years for about $1B each. This is entirely self-inflicted by people who are completely scientifically illiterate.
- testing22321 3mo ago
  No western country ever has. Average cost for the 28 China has under construction today is $7 BILLION
- rsynnott 3mo ago
  > Korea and China build them in 4 years for about $1B each. China seems to do 7 years _build time_ at ~$3bn/GW. So you're probably looking at at least a decade project start to end. Also, they're primarily using a reactor that isn't licensed in Europe and won't be anytime soon. The only Chinese plant using a European-licensed reactor type (EPR) took a decade to build (still faster than European builds of the same reactor, but not what you'd call quick).
mrb 3mo ago
Or Ireland can import electricity from France TODAY as we export on average 10 GW continuously, and most of it is already generated by nuclear :-)
- tialaramex 3mo ago
  If you were to look at a map you'd see that Ireland is on the other side of a bigger island. Sure enough France exports up to about 4GW to the UK, and the UK exports up to about 1GW to Ireland. Right now, it being the middle of the night here, France sends us about 2.5GW and we sent Ireland about 500 MW. Electricity being fungible by nature it doesn't really mean anything to say that's French electricity when it reaches Ireland, it could just as easily be British nuclear, or wind power from a Scottish wind farm, or any number of sources or any mix.
  - rsynnott 3mo ago
    > France sends us about 2.5GW and we sent Ireland about 500 MW. It's also a two-way flow; while UK<>Ireland transmission tends to net out to UK->Ireland, it's fairly variable; to a large extent whichever side currently has too much wind is the donor.
    - tialaramex 3mo ago
      I believe all of the modern UK interconnects are bi-directional. Most countries have cheaper power when our wind doesn't blow but can't get enough cheap wind power from us when it does. Current government plans don't seem to take this into account. 40GW of wind power doesn't seem like "basically enough" when you're doing 10GW exports. They did at least ban "rebidding" where you get permission to build a wind farm, but you think the price you agreed to isn't what you'd prefer so you just bid again next time like nothing happened. Some of the projects which low balled are now stuck, either build it as promised and collect a smaller profit than you'd hoped for or fuck off, no second chances
      - rsynnott 3mo ago
HDBaseT 3mo ago
Better than kicking the can down the road. Energy is effectively always going to be needed. In 20 years time the same response will be spouted, it will make you wish you did something 20 years before when it was originally discussed.
- testing22321 3mo ago
  Right now solar plus batteries is cheaper. It 20 years it will be vastly so
  - HDBaseT 3mo ago
    I'd also be happy with this too. Solar is great. I'm still not versed enough on the environmental impacts of batteries. There is a lot of battery tech advancements in the past decade.

gib444 3mo ago

You don't know about Sellafield, do you? Nor the law banning nuclear for electricity generation. Nor the attempt this year to reverse that law which got defeated. Ireland appears to not want nuclear ;)