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

[Akrasia]

I feel so strongly about educating people on this, I am willing to risk disdain and give another thought experiment.

Let's assume Akasia is correct and we would be better off if we buy locally produced goods. So we don;t buy that Chinese carrot, but from farmer O'Leary down in Cork.

Well, let's take that thinking further. I live in Leinster. Surely the Lesinster economy would benefit even more from me buying not from a Munster farmer, but one in Leinster, So I will buy from farmer Murphy in County Wexford instead.

But hang on. I live in County Dublin. surely I can make a further improvement in the County Dublin economy by buying my carrots from farmer Flanagan in Lucan.

But I live in D14, I should buy from a local grower and then the D14 economy will be even better again.

And so on. You see where this ends don't you. It implies that if you confine all output to your own household you will be better off. But off course that is nonsense. You don;t grow your own food, make your own clothes, build and service your own own car. You employ your limited productive resources to do what you are most productive at and then trade with others. Those imports into your household (Those bags of groceries for example) are a good thing that raise the standard of living in your household. So it is for the extra-large houshold that is the Irish economy. It is interesting to note that in real life, you still end up doing some things for your self (that is the beauty of the power of comparative, over absolute advantage) as you would for the naitonal economy.

So spread the word. Imports are good.

rubbish, I never said we should produce everything locally, I never said we should always buy everything locally, I said that if there is a slight different in price between an import and a domestically produced good, it is still better to buy the local product as it benefts the local economy.

Your 'thought experiment' as with most of your arguments rests on straw men and absurdities.

You completely ignore the opportunity cost element.. Ireland has untapped resources, we have hundreds of thousands of skilled workers on the dole, a dynamic glacial coast line with little or no development and the best potential for wind power (largely untapped) of anywhere in the world, and you're there rabbitting on about a man locked in a dungeon knitting his own underpants as though it was in any way relevent to this debate.

[Oppenheimer]

Some numbers here to add to your debate..... David MacKay: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Download

[Geckko]

rubbish, I never said we should produce everything locally, I never said we should always buy everything locally, I said that if there is a slight different in price between an import and a domestically produced good, it is still better to buy the local product as it benefts the local economy.

Your 'thought experiment' as with most of your arguments rests on straw men and absurdities.

You completely ignore the opportunity cost element.. Ireland has untapped resources, we have hundreds of thousands of skilled workers on the dole, a dynamic glacial coast line with little or no development and the best potential for wind power (largely untapped) of anywhere in the world, and you're there rabbitting on about a man locked in a dungeon knitting his own underpants as though it was in any way relevent to this debate.

You will fair better if you bring some facts, data or logic to a debate, rather than insults.

I have provided a layman's analogy for a well understood result in economics. It was to the extreme to illustrate the margin.

It is you who doesn't account for the opportunity cost. By overruling decisions by individuals to divert resources to a less efficient form of(domestic) production you suffer a net loss. It will take more resources to meet electricity demand under this 100% wind power plan, than it would to import coal, or oil for generation. This is because of the opportunity cost of buying/building the infrastructure and running and maintaining it per unit of output, relative to the equivalent current efficient fossil fuel based technology.

People know this, they have discovered this by trying to come up with profitable windfarm businesses. Guess what. They found they need to appeal to the government and the public for subsidies, cheap finance or whatever it is they want in terms of unrewarded financial support (in fact this is the biggest giveaway in this scam they haven't been open about what they want to be given to them).

[riven]

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.

That is rather naive especially considering that several companies in China are now reramping their facilities for ptype efficiencies of 19%-which are cheap to make. I would seriously suggest doing more research.

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.

Because nobody is willing to fund the high research costs. Wave is where wind was 20-30 years ago.

So that leaves wind turbines.

Hardly you forgot hydrogen economy, Royal Nedalco's and others aim for second generation biofuels in 2 years, the biomass and biogass industires, the hydrogen industry from biomass or water gas shift, clean fossil fuels etc etc.

My source indicates that practically everyone is heading down this route at the moment - i.e. away from fossil fuels.

Of course they are trying but they will not blindly jump in even easily: read shell and the London array for example.

However, it is totally impossible to generate all our energy needs from wind.

That is true. Turbines unless new mechanically strong materials become available cannot really increase massively in power-size. A strategy that focuses on ne energy source is futilem, oil could not even do that.

Fossil fuel power stations are incredibly expensive to build

Yes but in comparison to other power stations, not so expensive.

Wind turbines are pretty cheap from a construction point of view, while they have a shorter shelf life they require little maintenance.

But you need a hell of a lot of them negating the cheap aspect and I would suggest that wind turbines are far from little maintenance.

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.

The deal breaker for any green source. They could be useful but the issue is will the revenue generated be used correctly i.e. used to maintain and increase the efficiency of the green energy sources? That is what has to be leglislated for.

Re pumped storage. Remember the efficiency of this storage is les than 50%. That might jack the price uip too high for UK to buy.

[auser]

we have started a forum, with various topics split out at
spiritofireland.org • Index page

We will be continuing to update our technical data and our interactions with all political and non political stakeholders.
We will keep reviewing these forums and answering questions when we can but we cant keep posting on all of them. We started today to answer technical questions as they are posted, which also allows one central info point

thanks

Alan

[monodrone]

It is the sum of a number of factors that all interact together, including:

1. The cost of building a windmill (these things aren't cheap and don't llive forever)
2. The theoretical optimal output of a windmill (the engineering bit)
3. The proportion of theoretical output that is delivered (wind blows too hard, too soft or not at all)
4. The uncertainty of output delivery (means you need to build in extra capacity)

As research and development continues and economies of scale increase, the costs of building windmills are only going to drop. Increased R&D and use is also only going to improve the theoretical and actual outputs.

On the other hand, besides occasional fluctuations in markets, the fuel for running gas turbines is only going to increase in the future.

You also seem to have confused independence with isolationism.

[riven]

As research and development continues and economies of scale increase, the costs of building windmills are only going to drop. Increased R&D and use is also only going to improve the theoretical and actual outputs.

On the other hand, besides occasional fluctuations in markets, the fuel for running gas turbines is only going to increase in the future.

You also seem to have confused independence with isolationism.

Actually the cost of windmills have not dropped significantly in the last 5 years or at least thats what the guys in wind unit here tel me.

That is why there is a big push for offshore. These can be build bigger than on shore counterparts and see more mind thereby are cheaper.

[Ah Well]

Actually the cost of windmills have not dropped significantly in the last 5 years or at least thats what the guys in wind unit here tel me.

That is why there is a big push for offshore. These can be build bigger than on shore counterparts and see more mind thereby are cheaper.

Suit me if they were constructed off shore and somewhat out of sight rather than blighting the landscape onland. I just can't get to like these wind yokes stuck up on mountainsides all over the place

[myksav]

Suit me if they were constructed off shore and somewhat out of sight rather than blighting the landscape onland. I just can't get to like these wind yokes stuck up on mountainsides all over the place

Ah, aesthetics. Such a subjective subject.
I actually like the sight of wind turbines on the bald, boring hilltops.

With offshore turbines, there is a problem with maintenance, particularly off our west coast. What happens if a group of turbines (offshore) breaks down during winter with rough stormy weather and too life dangerous to attend to? The turbines would remain offline until the weather clears and calms enough to go out to them. This could be weeks with a loss of power to the grid and a longer period of purchasing power through the interconnector.

[Christel]

I don't see any reason why this project, allegedly proposed by experts, is taken seriously.
In fact it sounds like a wishful young scientists project that wouldn't get a prize.

Unless we are told exact technical and feasibility facts, and especially who the "experts" in this organisation are, and where exactly the reservoirs are ment to be, I don't trust it. It seems just successful marketing. Or is it a joke? Or an experiment intended to show how easily the people in this country can be led, or had?