Originally Posted by Geckko

I feel so strongly about educating people on this, I am willing to risk disdain and give another thought experiment.

Let's assume Akasia is correct and we would be better off if we buy locally produced goods. So we don;t buy that Chinese carrot, but from farmer O'Leary down in Cork.

Well, let's take that thinking further. I live in Leinster. Surely the Lesinster economy would benefit even more from me buying not from a Munster farmer, but one in Leinster, So I will buy from farmer Murphy in County Wexford instead.

But hang on. I live in County Dublin. surely I can make a further improvement in the County Dublin economy by buying my carrots from farmer Flanagan in Lucan.

But I live in D14, I should buy from a local grower and then the D14 economy will be even better again.

And so on. You see where this ends don't you. It implies that if you confine all output to your own household you will be better off. But off course that is nonsense. You don;t grow your own food, make your own clothes, build and service your own own car. You employ your limited productive resources to do what you are most productive at and then trade with others. Those imports into your household (Those bags of groceries for example) are a good thing that raise the standard of living in your household. So it is for the extra-large houshold that is the Irish economy. It is interesting to note that in real life, you still end up doing some things for your self (that is the beauty of the power of comparative, over absolute advantage) as you would for the naitonal economy.

So spread the word. Imports are good.

Originally Posted by Akrasia

rubbish, I never said we should produce everything locally, I never said we should always buy everything locally, I said that if there is a slight different in price between an import and a domestically produced good, it is still better to buy the local product as it benefts the local economy.

Your 'thought experiment' as with most of your arguments rests on straw men and absurdities.

You completely ignore the opportunity cost element.. Ireland has untapped resources, we have hundreds of thousands of skilled workers on the dole, a dynamic glacial coast line with little or no development and the best potential for wind power (largely untapped) of anywhere in the world, and you're there rabbitting on about a man locked in a dungeon knitting his own underpants as though it was in any way relevent to this debate.

Originally Posted by Malbekh

Solar power, well just forget it. Apart from being expensive to install, the fragility of the system, and its longevity, even in the best of global warming wet dreams we won't ever be like California.

Originally Posted by Geckko

It is the sum of a number of factors that all interact together, including:

1. The cost of building a windmill (these things aren't cheap and don't llive forever)
2. The theoretical optimal output of a windmill (the engineering bit)
3. The proportion of theoretical output that is delivered (wind blows too hard, too soft or not at all)
4. The uncertainty of output delivery (means you need to build in extra capacity)

Originally Posted by monodrone

As research and development continues and economies of scale increase, the costs of building windmills are only going to drop. Increased R&D and use is also only going to improve the theoretical and actual outputs.

On the other hand, besides occasional fluctuations in markets, the fuel for running gas turbines is only going to increase in the future.

You also seem to have confused independence with isolationism.

Originally Posted by riven

Actually the cost of windmills have not dropped significantly in the last 5 years or at least thats what the guys in wind unit here tel me.

That is why there is a big push for offshore. These can be build bigger than on shore counterparts and see more mind thereby are cheaper.

Originally Posted by Ah Well

Suit me if they were constructed off shore and somewhat out of sight rather than blighting the landscape onland. I just can't get to like these wind yokes stuck up on mountainsides all over the place