Spiritofireland.org - suggests energy independence in five years and much more

[myksav]

Why the desalinating of saltwater in SoI's proposal?

[Heorditas]

At what cost?

Lower costs than we're currently experiencing.

[fiannafailure]

Why the desalinating of saltwater in SoI's proposal?

myksav

S of I have no plans to expensively desalinate water, store it for a few days and give it back to the sea.
Why would we, seawater is not a toxic substance in the normal sense of the word and there are a lot of applications that presently use seawater with no problems. There are even some small natural saltwater lakes in Ireland and huge ones in other parts of the world.

riven
I am not on my home computer at the moment and so I cannot give you the link on the salinity battery, will do so when soon.
Spain and Portugal are building pretty big pumped storage reservoirs at the moment.

I am in a part of the country with damn all broadband at the moment and its like being back in the stone age.

[orbit]

The idea for the membrane that size is just not possible (its part of my field of expertise). Desalination before the dam is the only possibility.

Yeah. I think I caused some confusion by using the word membrane. I just meant some kind of movable plastic barrier, which would keep the seawater and the already desalinated water separate. You'd need a separate desalination plant to actually do the work once off, and on a small scale thereafter. I'm not claiming that the idea makes any sense. It probably doesn't, if the real cost of lining the upper reservoir, turn out to be only €50 million, as Pat suggests.

[deiseguy]

Lower costs than we're currently experiencing.

You genuinely believe that gas and therefore electricity are going to be cheaper going forward? On what basis?

[wombat]

We have a serious short term problem with our electricity in that we are totally at the mercy of outside suppliers. Corrib will lessen our dependency but it will not have a major impact on cost, assuming that reduced transport costs are passed on and that it is mostly used to generate electricity (not the best use). SoI are proposing a short term solution based on a combination of existing technologies. Our current policy is to allow anyone to build windmills anywhere, we'll worry about the grid later, we'll come up with some sort of a lash up in the meantime. I'm like the Kerryman, I wouldn't start from here but that's where we are and SoI is the quickest route to where we need to get to.

[Heorditas]

You genuinely believe that gas and therefore electricity are going to be cheaper going forward? On what basis?

LNG has caused the price to collapse this year.
Newer technologies are now being used to extract gas.
Wholesale kWh prices for 2010 for large energy users are in some cases 50% cheaper than last year.

[wombat]

LNG has caused the price to collapse this year.
Newer technologies are now being used to extract gas.
Wholesale kWh prices for 2010 for large energy users are in some cases 50% cheaper than last year.

Oil & gas prices are down because of the recession. If you look at the trend in oil prices, you will see that they rise, supplies increase / recession causes them to fall, demand increases and prices increase. The important part is that they don't fall back to $20/barrel.

[myksav]

myksav

S of I have no plans to expensively desalinate water, store it for a few days and give it back to the sea.
Why would we, seawater is not a toxic substance in the normal sense of the word and there are a lot of applications that presently use seawater with no problems. There are even some small natural saltwater lakes in Ireland and huge ones in other parts of the world.
riven
I am not on my home computer at the moment and so I cannot give you the link on the salinity battery, will do so when soon.
Spain and Portugal are building pretty big pumped storage reservoirs at the moment.

I am in a part of the country with damn all broadband at the moment and its like being back in the stone age.

I know SoI isn't planning desalination, I've read the proposal. I was asking riven but didn't quote him.

I know of one salt water lake in Ireland, that's Lough Ine in west cork. Didn't know there were others.
I recall some proposal to use the connection between the lough and the sea for turbine generators but it was blocked because it's legally a sea lane and can't be developed for power generation. That was about 20+ years ago.

[joel]

We have a serious short term problem with our electricity in that we are totally at the mercy of outside suppliers. Corrib will lessen our dependency but it will not have a major impact on cost, assuming that reduced transport costs are passed on and that it is mostly used to generate electricity (not the best use). SoI are proposing a short term solution based on a combination of existing technologies. Our current policy is to allow anyone to build windmills anywhere, we'll worry about the grid later, we'll come up with some sort of a lash up in the meantime. I'm like the Kerryman, I wouldn't start from here but that's where we are and SoI is the quickest route to where we need to get to.

Well, that has been the philosophy - Don't Plan. Let the Market take care of it, like it takes care of the floods.

Surely there is a Market opportunity here, no?