No time to waste on going nuclear

[riven]

Anaerobic Digestion has been proved over many years and mostly in other European countries. It is used on a considerable amount of Irish municipal waste water treatment plants, and CHP is the result of this process.

The key is to get the technology working on a smaller scale, the main delays are planning, and the cost/kw back to grid, there are of course other logistics that need to be considered like feed-stock waste, but as landfills are now going being banned and closed there are plenty of waste streams Payback on cap-ex is circa 5-7 years. Rabobank are big supporters of AD and they have funded many smaller farm-based plants in Europe for the past 20 years.

Ireland needs to get its head out of the sand and look to all sorts of alternative energy sources, including wind-wave and AD.

AD means the producers of waste, actually get paid a gate fee/ton, instead of having to pay to have it taken away....

CHP power plants do not use anerobic digestion for power generation. CHP plant work on the basis that a heat engine that converts thermal energy to electrical energy, lose about half the electircal energy to waste heat. CHP plants recover this waste heat. Most CHP plants are used on gas turbines.

Power generation using anerobic digestion would come about by generating heat. This route has not been made sucessful for power generation. This is because the amount of heat generated per volume of material used is quite small. Further the types of waste that can be used for power generation are limited.

[eskerman]

CHP power plants do not use anerobic digestion for power generation. CHP plant work on the basis that a heat engine that converts thermal energy to electrical energy, lose about half the electircal energy to waste heat. CHP plants recover this waste heat. Most CHP plants are used on gas turbines.

Power generation using anerobic digestion would come about by generating heat. This route has not been made sucessful for power generation. This is because the amount of heat generated per volume of material used is quite small. Further the types of waste that can be used for power generation are limited.

I understand your point here but in many AD applications a methane gas is produced from digestion process, this is and can be used to drive gas-engines and gas boilers. This is more and more the future for independent operators like large agri/farm based or the food producers similar to the kerry/glanbia/golden vale of this world who are burning off very high levels of gas that is generated from on site digestion. Its all about costs to build these types of processes and get a reasonable pay-back period, mind you I dont think these types of industries will have much choice when the carbon tax hits harder, this is on the way now.

[wombat]

The much maligned Ringsend sewage plant gathers methane and burns it in a generating plant, I think they generate most of the power they use.

[Defeated Romanticist]

Someone told me once there was a load of coal under Dublin Bay. Could that solve our energy problems?

[riven]

I understand your point here but in many AD applications a methane gas is produced from digestion process, this is and can be used to drive gas-engines and gas boilers. This is more and more the future for independent operators like large agri/farm based or the food producers similar to the kerry/glanbia/golden vale of this world who are burning off very high levels of gas that is generated from on site digestion. Its all about costs to build these types of processes and get a reasonable pay-back period, mind you I dont think these types of industries will have much choice when the carbon tax hits harder, this is on the way now.

True but unfortunately the technology is not there yet or even close. The methane that is produced is mixed (usually 1:1) with carbon dioxide (ignoring other chemicals). To separate these components the only viable option is membrane technology. This tech. stream has yet to produce promising results on pilot scale. The real breakthrough is upscaling the electrolysis or similar tech of CO2.

[eskerman]

The much maligned Ringsend sewage plant gathers methane and burns it in a generating plant, I think they generate most of the power they use.

Ringsend WWTW has been sold to the public in a very maligned way. Its a white elephant and its cost Dublin taxpayers a serious amount of money compared with similar plants in UK and Europe. Plants like these that service circa 1million people plus are common and most of them work very well. The plant design in Ringsend is based on older technology, and this means the value of investment is much lower then modern plants. The ultra conservative older design means that the contractors who are actually requested to submit proposals under "design & construct" (and in some cases operate for 20 years) are not allowed to actually use better and more efficient ways to build these plants, and this is because the likes of DCC do not want to embrace new ideas which will clearly save taxpayers money in the longer terms.

The days of build it to last 50 years are well gone, but there are people sitting in these councils who live in the past and who will NOT embrace change.

Modern plants are designed to give at least 25 years of good reliable service, this reduces capital costs and allows a more advanced technology to be used when these plants get to the 20-25 year life service. It makes so much sense to design with limited life and allow new technology to flurish

Ringsend is a classic example of this type of narrow minded thinking and the public only hear or see snippets of the reality of what's going on..or in the case of Ringsend the odours that are news headlines..

Tip of an iceberg of whats going on with taxpayers money...all over the country

Many of the larger service european companies will price all public works high as they know how difficult it is to do business in Ireland...Politics...again

[TradCat]

If the government are afraid to tackle the economy where the hell would they get the bottle to build a nuclear power station?

[eskerman]

If the government are afraid to tackle the economy where the hell would they get the bottle to build a nuclear power station?

The other problem I see is that the government and its cronies cant afford to let other technology outsourced take control over them...that limits them with keeping their golden circle closed..I think you will find there are a lot of Euro companies who will not come back to Ireland to do business again or for a very long time due to the politics and game playing that goes on. The Nuclear option is another classic example of this.

I don't think we need to embrace this yet, until we have fully explored all other options available to us here in Ireland and there are many, but it means a full dismantling of the ESB in its entirety over the next decade, that monopoly is well past its sell-by date.

Nuclear is a "buy in" from many of the "specialists" who have taken it to another level, simple tendering process, you wont see many Irish companies on the tender lists I imagine....maybe an international management company on a fixed price to build one..keep the County Councils at some distance apart from local politics...and there will be plenty of that going on.

We are part Nuclear anyway with our connectors from UK, what we must do is become less dependent on the 90% fuel imports we currently have to run this place...pull that plug and we are all down the toilet...fast

[A_man_about_a_dog]

Seems the Iranians built one rather quickly.

See this thread....

It wasn't that quickly.... originally started by the Shah in the 1970's, it was then neglected after the Islamic Revolution and nothing happened until the Russians took over the project in 1995. So it's been almost 15 years since the Russians too over and they're only starting dummy tests now.

I bet the French would have much quicker.

[joel]

The other problem I see is that the government and its cronies cant afford to let other technology outsourced take control over them...that limits them with keeping their golden circle closed..I think you will find there are a lot of Euro companies who will not come back to Ireland to do business again or for a very long time due to the politics and game playing that goes on. The Nuclear option is another classic example of this.

I don't think we need to embrace this yet, until we have fully explored all other options available to us here in Ireland and there are many, but it means a full dismantling of the ESB in its entirety over the next decade, that monopoly is well past its sell-by date.

Nuclear is a "buy in" from many of the "specialists" who have taken it to another level, simple tendering process, you wont see many Irish companies on the tender lists I imagine....maybe an international management company on a fixed price to build one..keep the County Councils at some distance apart from local politics...and there will be plenty of that going on.

We are part Nuclear anyway with our connectors from UK, what we must do is become less dependent on the 90% fuel imports we currently have to run this place...pull that plug and we are all down the toilet...fast

Is there uranium in Ireland? If not, it will have to be imported.