Interconnectors: More Green Stupidity?

[Pat Gill]

No. From a purely environmental point of view, there is little case for Irleand to be producing electiricity for others due to its isolation and power losses. It would be more friendly for the importing country to produce its own.

riven,

The two most modern and efficient thermal power stations in Ireland are located in Cork harbour and are connected to the Irish grid via 110kv and new 220kv transmission lines. They together have an output of just under 1 GW and on the same campus is another 500MW of less efficient thermal plant, circa 20% of Irish generation capacity.

The major load centre is Dublin.

Transferring this energy to Dublin in particular and Ireland in general has far higher energy losses than transferring same energy to the UK via HVDC.

[Pat Gill]

Would withdrawing a few hundred yoyos from your current account and burning them cause disaster for you???

Is that a good enough reason to do it?

I would love to see the method of arriving at your figures

[riven]

riven,

The two most modern and efficient thermal power stations in Ireland are located in Cork harbour and are connected to the Irish grid via 110kv and new 220kv transmission lines. They together have an output of just under 1 GW and on the same campus is another 500MW of less efficient thermal plant, circa 20% of Irish generation capacity.

The major load centre is Dublin.

Transferring this energy to Dublin in particular and Ireland in general has far higher energy losses than transferring same energy to the UK via HVDC.

That is oversimplification and you know it. I guess Cork and its industry + its surronding towns (hell lets throw in Kerry and Waterford) runs on water then? 12.5% of Irelands population is located in Cork alone.

[Pat Gill]

As a business model, this is pure gombeenomics: guaranteed to lose money. But it is less well known that interconnection also exposes us to massive geophysical risk. Let me explain.




Solar storms bombard the earth with charged particles which cause the earth's magnetic field to fluctuate. From Faraday's law, this induces electrical currents, so-called "ground currents" around the earth.

Normally these are small and harmless currents. However, the installation of a highly conductive grid over large distance changes this. Larger currents are possible, which greatly increases the risk to our grid from solar storms.

Geomagnetically induced current - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Loss of the grid for even a few days could take a massive human and economic toll. The green "no-brainer" policy of extreme interconnection is expensive. But it is also dangerous and stupid.

A test of GIG's fears will occur this evening 21/1/12

A powerful flare erupted from the sun Thursday (Jan. 19), unleashing a plasma wave that may supercharge the northern lights for skywatchers in high latitudes this weekend.

The solar flare occurred at about 11:30 am EST (1600 GMT) and touched off a massive solar explosion — known as a coronal mass ejection — aimed at Earth, space weather experts and officials said. The charged particles from the sun explosion should reach Earth by Saturday night (Jan. 21

"Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours of Jan. 21st. High-latitude (and possibly middle-latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend," the skywatching website Spaceweather.com announced in an alert.

Solar Flare May Spark Weekend Northern Lights Show | Solar Flares & Northern Lights | Sun Storms & Space Weather | Space.com

[Man or Mouse]

From a purely vision point of view, can someone explain these Gormleybulbs to me? They remind me of Stalinist Eastern Europe with thir dull glow - if you could even call it a glow.

[Pat Gill]

From a purely vision point of view, can someone explain these Gormleybulbs to me? They remind me of Stalinist Eastern Europe with thir dull glow - if you could even call it a glow.

CFL bulbs are simply fluorescent tubes curled up. CFL's use electronics to excite the gas in the tube to make it fluoresce (give off light) rather the big and heavy inductance used in the normal fluorescent fitting.

Particularly in cheaper or badly designed CFL's it takes a long time for the electronics to upset the gas enough to fluoresce strongly, sometimes as long as 20mins.

There are decent LED bulbs now coming onto the market which are a lot better, more expensive but with a much longer life. Expect to pay about €12 for an LED equivelent to an old fashioned 75w incandescent, but it should last 5-7 years and the light is white and bright.

Ask for them in an electrical wholesaler rather than a hardware shop or supermarket as they are new to the market.

But maybe tonights geomagnetic storm will give new life to your CFL bulb.

[Pat Gill]

Seems the national grids across the world didn't notice that they were attacked by the largest solar storm for years last night.

[Dandahan4]

According to our friends in the "renewable" energy rackets, large amounts of electrical interconnection between Ireland and the UK are a "no brainer".

Their belief system goes something like this. Ireland has a "world class" wind resource. Therefore she should install huge amounts of wind capacity. When the wind is blowing Ireland can export the excess power to the UK. When it is not blowing, we can generate our own power (using gas) or import power (gas, coal, nuclear) from the UK. A large amount of interconnection (many GW) is essential, apparently.

As a business model, this is pure gombeenomics: guaranteed to lose money. But it is less well known that interconnection also exposes us to massive geophysical risk. Let me explain.




Solar storms bombard the earth with charged particles which cause the earth's magnetic field to fluctuate. From Faraday's law, this induces electrical currents, so-called "ground currents" around the earth.

Normally these are small and harmless currents. However, the installation of a highly conductive grid over large distance changes this. Larger currents are possible, which greatly increases the risk to our grid from solar storms.

Geomagnetically induced current - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Loss of the grid for even a few days could take a massive human and economic toll. The green "no-brainer" policy of extreme interconnection is expensive. But it is also dangerous and stupid.

China opens a new coal burning power station every week.

Extreme green fanaticism in little Ireland ( a grain of sand in the greater scheme...) would install part time electricity generators on every beautiful hill and mountain in our green and presently pleasant land.

Extreme greens will not debate any of their fantasy theories.

Carbon foot prints are one piece of BS which they preach on.

Every human born into this World creates and perpetuates multiple carbon foot prints.

Ask the next extreme green about the population explosion and what their contributions are?

[Pat Gill]

China opens a new coal burning power station every week.

Extreme green fanaticism in little Ireland ( a grain of sand in the greater scheme...) would install part time electricity generators on every beautiful hill and mountain in our green and presently pleasant land.

Extreme greens will not debate any of their fantasy theories.

Carbon foot prints are one piece of BS which they preach on.

Every human born into this World creates and perpetuates multiple carbon foot prints.

Ask the next extreme green about the population explosion and what their contributions are?

€6.3m spent of 730 thousand Viagra tablest in 2010

[sparkey321]

Sure. The NASA report is described here:

Severe Space Weather--Social and Economic Impacts - NASA Science



A small local grid ~ 100km in scale may be unaffected by a solar storm which generates huge currents a large grid ~ 1000km.

It is a fact that interconnection increases Ireland's vulnerability to geomagnetic ground currents.

No offence but you are talking absolute crap.

The high voltage grid out of Moneypoint would be many orders of magnitude larger than any interconnector.

An interconnector is insulated and buried under the sea and shielded from allot of the solar radiation so hence less vulnerable.

As Pat has said previously for long distance transmission HVDC is more suitable than HVAC