Britain's future power shortage could spill over on Ireland

[Civic_critic2]

After reading a bit further I've come across a site which claims that in Ireland we use 22 TWh per annum or 22,000 GWh. Taking the best estimate above of 50% efficiency panels ranged in twos the full length of the 220km of the Cork-Dublin line, that means that that line alone could provide 8% of our national annual electricity needs if we take an average of 8 hours of sunshine per day. Back of a beermat calculations and no doubt issues of instantaneous power generation requirements and storage complicate the issue but nevertheless it shows that solutions to the anxieties that are currently being whipped up are coming into sight.

[Dios]

Most people in Ireland have very little clue about nanotechnology if they've even heard of it at all.

Thats a bit of a half assed statement. Very few people anywhere would focus on something like that until it accumulates a few serious industrial notches. Right now it has lots of theorised applications, some nifty lab work and a few minor upgrades to existing tech, but no CNT electrical grid for a long time to come, if ever, given that it may be highly carcinogenic.

Insolation levels in Ireland are comparable to Germany where solar is considered viable.

Germany also considers wind farms viable in areas that most other countries wouldn't spend money. Not to mention that Germany has a continental climate, which we don't.

Take the Dublin-Cork railway line, it's about 220km long. Say a 1 square metre panel all along the length of that line, that's 220,000 square metres of solar panel. Quite modest in fact, Germany is currently installing 1 million square metres of solar panels annually.

Lets not forget 220km of yet to be invented CNT electrical grid at €1500 per gram.

Anyway, the annual average insolation across Ireland is around 2.5 kw/h, or 2500 watts per hour.

Heh. It might be for about a third of a year, although to be honest I doubt it. Time for you to start linking to articles to back yourself up here. And don't link to articles about Germany then claim Ireland is the same.

Let us take a conservative estimate and imagine our solar panels are 30% efficient. So 220,000 x 2500 x 0.3 = 165MW capacity.

The average conversion efficiency of readily available solar panels ~15%. So on average 1 square meter of solar panels nets (1000*.15) or about 150 watts per square meter. And you need to triple the number and hence cost of your solar panels since there is only around 6 hours of useable sunlight in the day.

And after all is said and done, you still haven't begun to look at distribution, which conservatively will double your costs to install, making the 20 year lifespan of the solar cells pay for themselves in 40 years.

If the above is accurate

Its not, so the rest can be discarded. I'm very much in favour of renewables, but the right tool for the job. Some places will do best out of solar, some out of wind, others geothermal and for the rest well it might just be nuclear, which is not renewable but can be made very clean.

After reading a bit further I've come across a site which claims that in Ireland we use 22 TWh per annum or 22,000 GWh.

You're all over the place with your units here to be honest. The entire solution you've proposed uses technology that does not exist and may never be invented, or if it is it won't be cheap for another century, and might be workable in another country entirely. Its just blind evangelism.

[cactusflower]

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"

We have no business depending on resources that are without exception politically fraught and an enviromental burden on their locality.

Ireland is one of the best wind and wave locations and whether of not Spirit of Ireland is viable (which I doubt), it seems to be strategically obvious that we should become an energy exporter in the medium term, not an importer.
Wind and wave technologies are improving in efficiency all the time, as are storage mechanisms. Denmark has 50,000 battery charging stations for cars under construction, to use excess wind energy.

Every drop of oil we use means money going out of this country.

[cactusflower]

After reading a bit further I've come across a site which claims that in Ireland we use 22 TWh per annum or 22,000 GWh. Taking the best estimate above of 50% efficiency panels ranged in twos the full length of the 220km of the Cork-Dublin line, that means that that line alone could provide 8% of our national annual electricity needs if we take an average of 8 hours of sunshine per day. Back of a beermat calculations and no doubt issues of instantaneous power generation requirements and storage complicate the issue but nevertheless it shows that solutions to the anxieties that are currently being whipped up are coming into sight.

There's no doubt that we could become energy independent through a combination of means. The questions are timing, cost and political will.

[Dios]

whether of not Spirit of Ireland is viable (which I doubt)

Ah don't pay any heed to the few anoraks that dog the heels of SoI around these parts. These same people have no idea that fossil fuels receive almost double the subsidies of wind in the EU, and will forget you told them that a thread page later. Despite which they'll spend weeks and months waving around worthless statistics about wind subsidies as if it meant something.

File the detractors under Libertarians/Cael.

[sparkey321]

Ah don't pay any heed to the few anoraks that dog the heels of SoI around these parts. These same people have no idea that fossil fuels receive almost double the subsidies of wind in the EU, and will forget you told them that a thread page later. Despite which they'll spend weeks and months waving around worthless statistics about wind subsidies as if it meant something.

File the detractors under Libertarians/Cael.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


facts dont seem to bother you do they ?

[Dios]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


facts dont seem to bother you do they ?

No, facts don't bother me at all. Tedious rhetoric and groundless dogma, that gets up my nose.

Kudos on the rapid reaction by the way, knees everywhere are in awe.

[Civic_critic2]

I see I was wrong to engage with this Dios fella, I thought he was interested in science whereas he's just another hypersensitive bickerer. I trust the less flighty appreciate the numbers I've supplied and the realities of developments in this area for our energy future.

[fiannafailure]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


facts dont seem to bother you do they ?

Sparkey
What about the facts that you don't want to deal with, I quoted you a figure of €700 million last week as a the figure for gas subsidy in Ireland, and your only comment is to say that in some perverse way that this a subsidy for wind, this is paid to the owners of gas power stations, not to wind farms. You have yet to reply to the queries I posted on the future availability of gas at reasonable prices.

You might notice that I no longer reply defensively to your comments on wind, this is because the research is all coming together at S of I, and I am very confident that a very respectable business case will be presented in mid September.

Civic_critic
Solar will possibly play a role in our energy future, printed solar voltaics do show promise, allthough the area needed will be big, your idea about the rail lines could be a reason to change from diesel electric to electric trains and that would save quite a bit of fossil fuel imports. The answer to our future energy needs will be to use as much of our own resources as possible, using every technology that is available. In that way we become a net exporter of energy and all the good things that entails for our economy. Please do not be under the illusion that Spirit of Ireland is simply concerned with wind energy, that is merely the tool to be used to build a renewable energy industry in Ireland, once there is an industry with sufficient resources at our disposal, S of I intend to use them to develop traction in all other renewable technologies.

[fiannafailure]

There's no doubt that we could become energy independent through a combination of means. The questions are timing, cost and political will.

Cactusflower, your analysis is correct except that you left out one vital ingredient, native talent in these technologies. Open Hydro for example is a leading exporter of patented wave energy technology, C&F in Galway is likewise a leading exporter of mid size wind turbines with arecent patent for swithced alternator technology that will have a worldwide application in improving wind efficiency.

Fact is that fossil fuel is a finite resource, although we have built a nice comfortable standard of living based on its easily and cheaply released energy over the past century, the days of cheap fossil fuel is over.
To keep our standard of living we must now develop other methods of energy production and the sooner we start the better, in theoil crises of the 70s , some very good work was done on solar panels, this work was dropped when the oil started flowing again at reasonable prices, if that work had continued, we would not have such a problem now. In energy as in all other consumables price is everything and fossil fuels have now had their day.