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

[droghedasouth]

Lots of Swiss and Austrian alpine valleys have hydro-electric dams, so you can't say that building a few pumped storage dams would wreck the countryside.

[DaveM]

I'm not saying that DS. My point is that this will not help in lowering the cost of energy.

Plus hydro-electric is a generation system. Pumped hydro only stores energy generated by some other means. Two very different things (apart from the valley flooding bit).

[myksav]

myksav/joel, it's not free and to be honest it's ridiculous to even attempt to portray it as such. Fuel is only one of the many costs that goes into the price of electricity. Depreciation of assets is another major cost and what they are suggesting here involves huge capital expenditure in terms of both the facilities themselves and the national grid. That's all going to feed into the price of a unit of electricity.

* If this were free what's stopping them from blasting ahead using private finance only and undercutting the likes of Moneypoint?

Did you not see the '...' about the word free; 'free'?
The source is actually free, ie the wind. The system to capture that power does cost to set up but maintenance costs are less than a fueled generator. At present, fuel generators are as state-of-the-art as can be got, wind turbines are still on a development curve.

* Inertia. Fear of the new. Nimby-ism. Plus the fact that this idea has only just been put into the public knowledge here recently.

Of course, we could just trundle along with the present systems, if you're interested in garuanteed increasing costs for fuels and costs to the consumer in the long run. There's also the point that materials will increase in cost in the future which would definitely make the idea totally unviable to start at a later date.

Why does it appear that the Irish are afraid to be a leader in tech like this? Is it an ingrained trait of being a follower?

[DaveM]

Did you not see the '...' about the word free; 'free'?
The source is actually free, ie the wind. The system to capture that power does cost to set up but maintenance costs are less than a fueled generator. At present, fuel generators are as state-of-the-art as can be got, wind turbines are still on a development curve.

* Inertia. Fear of the new. Nimby-ism. Plus the fact that this idea has only just been put into the public knowledge here recently.

Of course, we could just trundle along with the present systems, if you're interested in garuanteed increasing costs for fuels and costs to the consumer in the long run. There's also the point that materials will increase in cost in the future which would definitely make the idea totally unviable to start at a later date.

Why does it appear that the Irish are afraid to be a leader in tech like this? Is it an ingrained trait of being a follower?

myksav, if it's only at a development stage then why role it out on such a grand scale??? When these forms of technologies can provide cheap energy on the large scale then that is the time to invest heavily. At the moment the electricity they produce is more expensive than fossil fuel plants. When the economics add up then I'm all in favour. I have no ideological leaning towards any form of energy production apart from that which produces the cheapest available power. Remember that domestic and business consumers will have to pay for this electricity and we cannot afford to burden the economy with more expensive power arising from an ill-conceived project such as this.

[joel]

Did you not see the '...' about the word free; 'free'?
The source is actually free, ie the wind. The system to capture that power does cost to set up but maintenance costs are less than a fueled generator. At present, fuel generators are as state-of-the-art as can be got, wind turbines are still on a development curve.

* Inertia. Fear of the new. Nimby-ism. Plus the fact that this idea has only just been put into the public knowledge here recently.

Of course, we could just trundle along with the present systems, if you're interested in garuanteed increasing costs for fuels and costs to the consumer in the long run. There's also the point that materials will increase in cost in the future which would definitely make the idea totally unviable to start at a later date.

Why does it appear that the Irish are afraid to be a leader in tech like this? Is it an ingrained trait of being a follower?

See that a wind turbine plant has just opened in Athenry - this scheme is just the thing that will provide LOCAL jobs.

[droghedasouth]

I'm not saying that DS. My point is that this will not help in lowering the cost of energy.

Plus hydro-electric is a generation system. Pumped hydro only stores energy generated by some other means. Two very different things (apart from the valley flooding bit).

You are right in saying that it all about the capital costs as the running costs would be trivial.

But there are some excellent sites out there.
Just to the north of Glencolmcille, there seems to be a valley with an existing lake (Lough Adoochro ?) at 215 metres less than a mile from the sea.
Close by is another nice lake at 192 metres.

With that sort of height difference available, the capital costs start plummetting.

[DaveM]

You are right in saying that it all about the capital costs as the running costs would be trivial.

But there are some excellent sites out there.
Just to the north of Glencolmcille, there seems to be a valley with an existing lake at 240 metres very close to the sea.
With that sort of height difference available, the capital costs start plummetting.

DS, just to put this into perspective. Turlough Hill can generate 292MW when the flow is let down from the upper lake. It can maintain this output for about 5 hours before the upper lake is empty. For Turlough Hill that's fine as it is only designed to smooth off variation between supply and demand. However if we're talking about using PSH as a means of large scale energy storage then the upper lack needs to be far bigger (hence the proposal in this case to dam entire valleys).

The capital cost of building Turlough Hill today would be in and around the €1bn mark. And that gives only 292MW for 5 hours. I'm not saying the magnitude of the facility and the capital costs have a linear relationship but we're are talking huge sums. Also, how far is Glencolmcille from Dublin? Remember that's where the power is needed most so now we would also have to invest in transmission to get it there.

As an engineer the project really appeals to me. However the economics simply don't add up and we really can't afford to pay over the odds for energy given how uncompetitive we have become.

[joel]

DS, just to put this into perspective. Turlough Hill can generate 292MW when the flow is let down from the upper lake. It can maintain this output for about 5 hours before the upper lake is empty. For Turlough Hill that's fine as it is only designed to smooth off variation between supply and demand. However if we're talking about using PSH as a means of large scale energy storage then the upper lack needs to be far bigger (hence the proposal in this case to dam entire valleys).

The capital cost of building Turlough Hill today would be in and around the €1bn mark. And that gives only 292MW for 5 hours. I'm not saying the magnitude of the facility and the capital costs have a linear relationship but we're are talking huge sums. Also, how far is Glencolmcille from Dublin? Remember that's where the power is needed most so now we would also have to invest in transmission to get it there.

As an engineer the project really appeals to me. However the economics simply don't add up and we really can't afford to pay over the odds for energy given how uncompetitive we have become.

They were talking less than e2billion for the scheme - less than one Nuclear plant. That is because they will be using natural features.

[DaveM]

They were talking less than e2billion for the scheme - less than one Nuclear plant. That is because they will be using natural features.

Actually their website says €10 billion plus.

[droghedasouth]

DS, just to put this into perspective. Turlough Hill can generate 292MW when the flow is let down from the upper lake. It can maintain this output for about 5 hours before the upper lake is empty. For Turlough Hill that's fine as it is only designed to smooth off variation between supply and demand. However if we're talking about using PSH as a means of large scale energy storage then the upper lake needs to be far bigger (hence the proposal in this case to dam entire valleys).

The capital cost of building Turlough Hill today would be in and around the €1bn mark. And that gives only 292MW for 5 hours. I'm not saying the magnitude of the facility and the capital costs have a linear relationship but we're are talking huge sums. Also, how far is Glencolmcille from Dublin? Remember that's where the power is needed most so now we would also have to invest in transmission to get it there.

As an engineer the project really appeals to me. However the economics simply don't add up and we really can't afford to pay over the odds for energy given how uncompetitive we have become.

Height differences are similar, but a simple valley closing dam would hold typically 3-5 times more water than a similar length circular dam (like Turlough Hill Upper).

I am not necessarily saying that we should use this for all electrical needs, but it certainly makes sense to use it to supply peak electricity.

If it is economic to transmit power 185 km from North Wales in a submarine cable, it is certainly economic to use mostly existing overhead lines from Donegal.

I am only in favour of pursuing this as intuitively I can see that if the concept will work anywhere, it will work in Ireland.