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

[Heorditas]

however I am very determined that they will not be a ro****************************************** to developing our renewables.

Why do you think they will be?
If renewables are the way forward, energy companies will adopt them.
There's no vested interests at work, primarily because we import the vast majority of our fossil fuels anyway.
If there's money to be made......

[soubresauts]

Slightly off topic, but I want to make one point about LNG that hasn't been mentioned here -- to add to all the useful info above. LNG cannot be stored for more than a few months. It must then be re-gasified, and sent down the pipes to be burned, if you cannot store it (and most places cannot store it).

That pushes down the price of gas when there's a glut, as we have now. The owners of those LNG tankers are desperate to sell the stuff.

Oil, in contrast, is easy to store.

And, of course, electricity is not so easy to store. Back on topic.

[Grattan]

sparkey321 wrote in reply to me (#1109):
"Are you serious.
Car batteries as demand levelers ???
Turlough hill as a demand leveler ?"
I didn't say they would be 'demand levellers'. Turlough Hill already helps supply-demand matching; I said batteries 'possibly' to help out on this task, though thevoice makes a good point (for the short term at least) about cycling reducing battery life-span. R&D potential there. Charge interruption is at least a tool for demand management, even if we don't take the next step, and use the batteries to feed power back onto the grid.
And no riven (#1110), what I said is not ludicrous, thank you very much. My visit to Turlough Hill illustrated that it is very effective at supply-demand matching (along with other ancillary services) today. As an engineer, I find it curious that you think my reply was ok on a 'high non-technical level' - thanks a lot!
Honestly orbit (#1111) stringing membranes across bays in today's world would never be accepted - ask the Dutch why they built Neeltje Jans (www.neeltjejans.nl); nor is it necessary anyway.
Finbar (#1112) - the use of fast breeders requires reprocessing of the spent fuel, and the energy required coupled with the waste being actively secured for a million years (30,000 human generations) rules this out as totally non-sustainable, as I said before. Also remember that the French Superphenix fast breeder contained a few TONNES of weapon usable Plutonium (a few kg per weapon) cooled by highly flammable molten Sodium, which explodes on contact with its cooling water - please!? At least the French and Japanese seem to have parked that mad idea. I have been unable to imagine anything MORE unsustainable than nuclear, either energy-wise, environmentally or economically. The Uranium Institute (as I recall) reckoned some years ago that only 70 years of economically viable Uranium reserves were left, and if we grow output, that reduces. All very well to talk about Uranium all over the planet - say in sea-water or maybe even Granite, but the cost is prohibitive and implicitly effects viability; why otherwise would the UI say such a thing? And at a certain point the energy required to extract it exceeds the energy output, so then it is a complete non-starter. In any case, ALL nuclear sources are effectively finite, and a lot more so than our Sun.
I am still waiting for the link from SoI on that 'Spanish incident' which suggests that high renewable generation effectively killed 27 people!! (#1125) Surely a rather risky argument?

[riven]

sparkey321 wrote in reply to me (#1109):

And no riven (#1110), what I said is not ludicrous, thank you very much. My visit to Turlough Hill illustrated that it is very effective at supply-demand matching (along with other ancillary services) today. As an engineer, I find it curious that you think my reply was ok on a 'high non-technical level' - thanks a lot!

Your reply speaks for itself Thill can only supply a couple hundred MW for 6 hours and extending that into the realms of meeting demand for weeks of no wind is not possible. If you are an engineer you know that you cannot base a large scale project on such a small demo that is not even used for the same purpose.

[Grattan]

Your reply speaks for itself Thill can only supply a couple hundred MW for 6 hours and extending that into the realms of meeting demand for weeks of no wind is not possible. If you are an engineer you know that you cannot base a large scale project on such a small demo that is not even used for the same purpose.

Riven, if you actually bothered to read what I wrote:
"a mix of some biomass from trees and grasses, biogas from wastes - and we are not short of either - Turlough Hill, interconnection, demand reduction and possibly car batteries, will keep the lights on even when there's no wind."
you will see that I suggested that Turlough Hill would be PART of the response to wind variability, not that it would BE the response. In fact, I am a mechanical engineer, and understand perfectly well that it has a quite limited overall energy capacity, thank you.
Kindly don't waste everybody's time by putting words in my mouth, just to get a reaction. I would suggest instead that you make some useful positive contribution if that is within your gift.

[riven]

Riven, if you actually bothered to read what I wrote:
"a mix of some biomass from trees and grasses, biogas from wastes - and we are not short of either - Turlough Hill, interconnection, demand reduction and possibly car batteries, will keep the lights on even when there's no wind."
you will see that I suggested that Turlough Hill would be PART of the response to wind variability, not that it would BE the response. In fact, I am a mechanical engineer, and understand perfectly well that it has a quite limited overall energy capacity, thank you.
Kindly don't waste everybody's time by putting words in my mouth, just to get a reaction. I would suggest instead that you make some useful positive contribution if that is within your gift.

I did and referred to it earlier; read my posts.

Car batteries will not be used to keep the lights on nor will turlough hill. Indeed turlough hill has never been used as a storage device fro when the primary network fails simply a load flattener. The whole point for the high level discussion is that you are identifying that multiple solutions are required to solve the storage issue but have only identified 3 so far and not discussed the implications of these three as I have done for SoI proposed storage/variable mitigation plan.

I am not putting words in your mouth and have made valuable contributions to this thread; start by identifying what you want ot talk about and how it relates to SoI and overall consequences (high level discussion) and then start plugging in numbers.

[fiannafailure]

I did and referred to it earlier; read my posts.

Car batteries will not be used to keep the lights on nor will turlough hill. Indeed turlough hill has never been used as a storage device fro when the primary network fails simply a load flattener. The whole point for the high level discussion is that you are identifying that multiple solutions are required to solve the storage issue but have only identified 3 so far and not discussed the implications of these three as I have done for SoI proposed storage/variable mitigation plan.

I am not putting words in your mouth and have made valuable contributions to this thread; start by identifying what you want ot talk about and how it relates to SoI and overall consequences (high level discussion) and then start plugging in numbers.

riven

Thats a good post.

[fiannafailure]

Grattan
I would really like to a read your considered opinion on the medium and long term outlook for Irelands energy needs, to include economic revitalisation.

Energy cannot be considered in isolation.

[Mouroux]

Are our short-sighted government capable of properly researching this, and implementing it if the claims are true?

'researching' the matter of energy production and consumption as it relates to a false consensus on man-made global warming? Just look at the recent Climategate scandal. Scientists have been exposed for cooking the science, and corrupting the peer-review process.

Ref:
BBC’s paleo-news site finally runs a real scoop story on Climategate’s Michael Mann – Telegraph Blogs
Science, facts, fraud, and "Climategate"
How to Forge a Consensus - WSJ.com
Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax – Telegraph Blogs
PhillyBurbs.com: Let the "Climategate" denials begin

Personally I will admit to being a bit of a cynic -is it really so shocking to find out that scientists and green politicians can be bought, manipulated, bribed and that they are capable of bullying, abusive and underhanded behaviour? Are we really so shocked to find out (or rather to have it pointed out, again) that the 'green agenda' is just a politically embued and corrupted environmentalism?

This is great -now we can start calling these environmentalists Climategate deniers!

[wombat]

'researching' the matter of energy production and consumption as it relates to a false consensus on man-made global warming?

Even if man made global warming was a myth, we still have a problem with oil and gas becoming more expensive. Ireland needs a short term (10 to 20 years) way of producing electricity which does not depend on importing Natural Gas.