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About LinkBacksHere you go with this "self sufficiency" drivel again.Originally Posted by Akrasia
It doesn't matter where it comes from. Use whatever is cheaper and you come out ahead.
Here you go with this "self sufficiency" drivel again.
It doesn't matter where it comes from. Use whatever is cheaper and you come out ahead.
So - if energy supplies are cut off, what will you do then?
Do you understand the question?
I hear contrasting viewpoints on this, but I don't know enough to give you an argument! I'll need to do some research first and this wind thingy comes first.
'You' might come out ahead, but the environment doesn't. 'You' might come out ahead, but the low lying populations don't. This is like 'there's no I in team, but there is me'
Unless of course you believe that all this global warming is just nonsense.
If you do, then from your perspective, you are making a valid argument.
Things have moved on a bit since Turlough Hill folks. The Germans put together a more powerful system for a cool half billion in 2003, and it doesn't need the enhanced elevation either.
You are completely clueless. For the cost of 5 to 7 years energy imports we could build enough wind farms on readily accessable sites to power the entire country, including enough reservoir systems to supply power if the wind ever stops blowing along the entire north Atlantic for more than a day.
HVDC, doesn't matter how far away the generators are.
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So I had my first meeting with an ESB employee last night, and between a few drinks and other things found the following out. Bear in mind that my memory sucks and so it's possible that what I'm stating as facts could well possibly be misinterpretations.
Let's start with the easy one, nuclear power. Apparently we can't have nuclear power in Ireland. It's in the constitution...twice (to be sure, to be sure). So if we are ever going to have nuclear power, it'll have to be through a referendum
and I don't see much chance of that happening. My source did say not to rule it out if energy bills rose to silly amounts, but don't hold your breath.
Incidentally, he also said that at one time a nuclear power plant was mooted in NI. Again, this won't happen down to how rather cheesed off the ROI government and people will be, as well as the obvious threat of terrorism.
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.
Wave energy is interesting and he'd like to know more. Unfortunately, no-one seems to be making any particularly strong case for it at the moment. I'm not sure why that is, hopefully I'll learn more from talking to the engineer.
So that leaves wind turbines. My source indicates that practically everyone is heading down this route at the moment - i.e. away from fossil fuels. It's where all the smart money is going, he personally thinks the Spirit of Ireland idea to be very practical. Not smart, because they are not advocating anything new, as in pump generated back-up, just in the manner that they are going about it. He's all keen on the construction job perspective too, which I know will be a black mark against him for some of you.
However, it is totally impossible to generate all our energy needs from wind. You'll never have enough capacity because it's a natural resource and suffers from fluctuations (unlike tidal energy). Therefore you will always have to have an alternative energy source. Most discussions here have been about the turbines not blowing over a short period of time, but you may remember that we occasionally get long hot summers here where a high pressure centre plonks over us generating sod all energy.
Yes , yes I know it's only once a decade, but from an energy management perspective, once is too much. It would cripple the economy.
So now we get to the interesting part, and that's where the inter-connectors come in. We buy and sell energy to the UK (and by extension the continent). I knew there was a connector between Ireland and Scotland, but apparently there is one already between us and Wales (?). And of course we've just got the go ahead from the EU to build this massive one between Wales and Ireland (makes 2?)
Ireland and the UK swap energy all the time. The stuff from Scotland is mostly from wind turbines and the stuff from Wales is fossil fuels and nuclear in origin.
A synopsis for us would be to create a Spirit type network with a pumped source back up for peak hours and unfavourable weather conditions. In extremis, we would use the inter-connectors to buy energy from the UK. Obviously, in extremis, this is likely to be very expensive as their own wind farms will also be down.
With favourable conditions, we export our energy back to the UK and this somewhat offsets the extremis costs. UK energy at the moment is very expensive, the Labour party have decreed that any power station past its sell by date is to be mothballed and replaced (read very expensive), a lot of these replacements are likely to be nuclear.
So the UK is going down the road of a nuclear/wind format with fossil fuel stations being phased out over time as energy sources die off. Same with France, except geographically they can't rely too much on wind.
My source informs me that the best solution is for the UK to build a humongous nuclear station in say, Stranraer, and attach a mega connector to it, just for us!
Right, I have to go to the airport now, so I'll chuck in some 'facts'
Did you know that peat generation is the most inefficient of all resources? And that the one we have is solely in case our external supplies are cut off?
Fossil fuel power stations are incredible expensive to build, as they get older they get very expensive to maintain. They do however, employ a lot of people, more as they get older.
Wind turbines are pretty cheap from a construction point of view, while they have a shorter shelf life they require little maintenance. Therefore, even taking into account construction of sea-water reservoirs, switching over to wind turbines is likely to result in large job losses in the ESB.
Carbon credits are the critical difference in costs between fossil and natural energy resources. Depending on what protocols are put in place over the next few decades, the savings on carbon credits would make converting to wind as a primary resource a large money saver for the country.
Wind is one of the worst resources as your energy banker. Nuclear is best, followed by fossil fuels. Wind comes last because of it's unpredictability.
Wind blows stronger at night time (?), therefore you generate more energy when it's at a cheaper rate. At peak time, this is when you use your most expensive resources, therefore it's when energy is at its most expensive.
You'll still need to run off your pumped storage at peak time, regardless of weather forecasts. Because not running your pumped storage at peak time destroys your profit/loss economy. So no-one is going to leave these reservoirs full if a large high pressure is due to sit on this country for a month or two.
Right, that's about all I can remember, there was a very interesting discussion about how companies sell energy to each other, how the energy market works, how contracts for differences work, but thta's for another time.
Hopefully I'll get talking to the ESB engineer later this week and find out if the Spirit proposal is practical from his perspective. But from what my mate was saying, it's feasible from a supply perspective as long as we have full support and back-up from inter-connectors.
Not checking back to edit this post as v busy, so apologies for grammar/typos
bollox, utter nonsense, nobody is saying we should 'impose' independence, its not like they're proposing to ban the importation of fossil fuels. The proposals are that we develop our own energy generation industry with view to becoming net energy exporters. There is absolutely no imperative that we should not have energy independence, and there is absolutely no benefit to ireland in importing energy if we can generate it for the same cost or lower at home. (its not like we have a relative advantage in producing some other much more valuable resource)
Your 'logic' is pathetic. You appear to be adamant that Ireland should not attempt to develop a domestic industry because of your ideological hatred of all things 'green'.
You really really need to go back to school and look up the fundamentals of international trade.
Actual morality is doing what is right regardless of what you're told. Religious morality is doing what you're told, regardless of if it's right.
because they can't have a launch and bamboozle everyone with the minutia details of electromagnetic resistance and methods of sealing onshore resevoirs...
They present the concept, generate interest and then discuss the technical aspects, and it appears that is exactly what they have done (considering the website has been updated over the weekend and there are much more technical specifications there now than before)
Actual morality is doing what is right regardless of what you're told. Religious morality is doing what you're told, regardless of if it's right.
id be wary - that looks like celia larkin's picture on the front page
If you have two carrots for sale, one comes from farmer joe down the road and is sold in a local family run shop, and the other comes from a farm in china and is sold in tesco.
the first costs €1.20 the second costs €1.
Under your logic it is always 'best' to buy the cheaper carrot, but thats only on an individualist basis, the individual is 20 cents better off, but from a public policy basis, it can be much better to buy the more expensive carrot if the money stays in the local economy rather than expatriated as profits by a multinational and exported to pay for imported carrots.
International trade theory tells us we should produce goods unless it distracts us from producing a product that we are relatively more efficient at producing.
(ie we should not use resources, farming at 5% profit if the same resources could be used for tourism at 30% profit) but where there is no absolute advantage in any product, the country should focus instead on producing the things at which it has a 'comparative advantage'.
Actual morality is doing what is right regardless of what you're told. Religious morality is doing what you're told, regardless of if it's right.
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