The Economist article The looming electricity crunch: Dark days ahead | The Economist predicts power blackouts in a few years. This could impact Ireland if we become increasingly reliant for power on Britain through the electricity interconnector to the North and the one being built to Wales.

Quote:

"National Grid reckons that compensating for that uncertainty of supply [on a calm day] will require a huge amount of over-engineering: 25GW of wind power,it reckons,would be worth only around 5GW of fossil fuel generation."

This statistic proves that Green wind power is a total delusion,unless there are places in Ireland where the wind is guaranteed at demand peak hours, such as the Trade Winds at the Canary Islands.

One possible solution to energy security: As old British nuclear power plants are decommissioned,the ESB should enter joint ventures with UK power producers for new nuclear plants. Some degree of subsidy should be offered by the Irish government to ensure profitability,in return for guaranteed security of supply.

You need to check the SoI thread. They reckon they have a solution to the intermittent nature of wind power. The Brits have a new nuclear station planned for North Wales, coincidentally close to the interconnector, though I'm sure that's pure accident.

Has anyone costed that solution of pumping water into dams created from natural reservoirs on the West of Ireland? It's pie in the sky without costing.

Will the Spirit of ireland plan go ahead I ask myself? The planning laws in this state are difficult enough to bypass if you want to put up as much as a conservatory.

I have to laugh at how if there is something nuclear being built it always has to be on the West coast of Wales or Scotland. Utter contempt to their neighbours. They wouldn't build one near their scandinavian coast in the North east of Scotland. Heven forbid they build one in England

Pie in the sky? Don't worry - Nuclear's buggered. No private firm will invest in it.

70% of active nuclear power plants are in England.

Nuclear power in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As you will see, lots of them are on the East coast. However, it is sparsely populated relative to the West.

Of course they never build nuclear power stations in England, except for
Berkeley, Gloucestershire 2 x 276MW, de-commissioned
Bradwell, Essex (Generation ceased in 2002, defuelled by September 2005)
Calder Hall, Sellafield, Cumbria - 4 x 50MWe (Generation started in 1956 and ceased in 2003)
Dungeness A, Kent 2 x 223MW. BNG owned Magnox station (Entered decommissioning January 2007)
Dungeness B, Kent 2 x 550 MW(e). British Energy owned AGR
Hartlepool, Hartlepool 2 x 600MW(e). British Energy owned AGR
Heysham nuclear power stations, Lancashire - 4 x 600 MW(e)
Hinkley Point A, Somerset (Ceased operations in 2000, defuelled by September 2005)
Hinkley Point B, Somerset 2 x 570MW(e). British Energy owned AGR
Oldbury, Gloucestershire - 2 x 435MW. (Generation due to cease end of 2008, temporarily suspended by fire in May 2007 [11], generation resumed August 2007 [12])
Sizewell A, Suffolk BNFL owned Magnox station (Entered decommissioning January 2007)
Sizewell B, Suffolk 1 x 1195MWe. British Energy PWR
Winfrith, Dorchester, Dorset – SGHWR (ceased operation in 1990)

(from Wikipedia)

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Vive le Québec libre ! Ag beathú na dtochardán ón mbliain 2007.

Alarmist nonsense. The world is awash with oil and gas as evidenced by the collapse in price of both(particualry in gas). The price of oil is being kept artificially high by speculators and should be under $50(according to an expert on Bloomberg - indeed he said there could be a "devastating" glut with prices collapsing to $20 depending what happens with demand in the US over the next year, and most projections are for a continued increase in already overflowing stockpiles as demand remains extremely sluggish).

New oil/gas pipelines like the Baltic interconnector and the Nambucco pipeline will bypass trouble spots and allow European consumers access to the vast gas/oil fields of the Caspian region as well as Siberia. There are also plans to pipe majour finds in North Africa directly into Europe. In any case it looks like Britain at least is going "nuclear"

How will it do that without government subsidy? Nuclear is not economic.

No idea but I suspect they have budget costs at this stage. Until they get the technical specs sorted, costs are usually taken to be +/- 30%. They say they will have a proposal in September at which stage, the debate can become meaningful.