This has not been without public opposition. Huge swathes of fertile farmland, lakes and hillsides have been covered by a silver screen of solar panels and gigantic “windmill” turbines much to the dismay of country folk who consider that their homely habitat is being destroyed to provide a mammoth battery for city dwellers.
However, although governance may give itself a pat on the back for achieving a partial green fulfillment, the maximum feed to the national grid of 80% is only attainable when climatic support is at full strength i.e. the sun is shining, wind strength is 40 to 90 kmh and rain is plentiful. At night and at times of cloud cover, drought and extreme weather, such as the recent spate of storms, the solar panels do not function, turbines are locked and the water in dams is conserved for irrigation and potable water.
Due to these structural limitations, production can then plummet towards zero and the grid must be supported by an input from storage batteries, imports of energy from countries of the EU and accessory power from fossil fuels such as natural gas which has the facility of permitting CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) in underground storage.
If the demographic projection of population increase is sustained, the increase in demand for electricity will be more than proportionate. Also, the intended installation in Portuguese territory of industrial buildings to meet the prodigious needs of data centres and other denizens of the digital era will make it undesirable if not impossible for the present system to be expanded.
The alternative to a return to burning natural gas and coal wood or oil is to embark now upon a nuclear programme.
To prevent prospective periods of prolonged or even complete loss of power, Pedro Sampaio Santos, a former Secretary of State for Science and Innovation and director of the EU Commission for energy technology defends the building of four conventional power plants as being the minimum to meet Portuguese needs for a constant of supplemental power over the next decade.
Understandably, his solution provokes public fears grounded in the memory of the Chornobyl and Fukushima disasters. Other critics point to the disadvantage that such factories need five to ten years to complete a process of complex planning to achieve a safe but expensive construction in waterside locations.
However, a workable solution on the horizon is to use the SMR (small modular reactor) prototypes, of which have been developed, for example, by Rolls-Royce and NuScale Power. Globally, China leads the field of experimentation with the ACP100 ( Linglong One) and HTR-PM reactors, but Russia is not far behind and has even included a floating SMR in its programme. In Argentina, the CAREM model is working, while in Canada and the USA, similar microreactors are planned for specific military and industrial locations where a reliable, constant supply of energy is essential in the digital era.
Author: Energy Encyclopedia ;
Once these trials and regulatory processes have been successfully completed, SMRs will enter a production line which will enable quick construction by using pre-fabricated units. These, if ordered in multiples, will enable up-front costs to fall. Even so, it is estimated that SMRs will cost at least twice as much as the installation of renewables. This must be balanced against a forecast depreciation span of eighty years, whereas renewables could be around thirty years, provided that extreme weather conditions do not worsen.
Traditional nuclear plants with their greater density can produce energy at 50 to 100 euros per MWh whereas SMRs are higher at 70 to 120 euros. By comparison, renewables of wind plus solar without storage are only 25 to 50 euros and natural gas is around 60 euros per MWh but a stable price is difficult to agree due to geopolitical conflict
Maintenance costs are not high, and both renewables and SMRs can cope with the manufacture of blue hydrogen, but the heat generated by SMRs can be used efficiently for industries such as the proposed factories for the processing of minerals.
The only certain thing in the present fractured world of energy applications is that the demands of Sines and other concentrations will outstrip supply by 2030 if an adequate supplement is not installed.
To avoid great inconvenience to the populace and the writing of essays such as this in longhand and by candlelight, let us hope that governance will heed the words of Dr. Pedro Sampaio Santos.
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