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

[myksav]

Here's a point. We have a growing unemployment problem, particularly in the sector that has been hit hardest, the construction sector. Here's an idea that would significantly reduce our imports of fossil fuel for power generation and would need a large workforce to construct.
Two problems, one solution.

Of course, we could pooh-pooh the idea and throw it out. Who needs the employment or the energy? Yerrah, we're grand, sure haven't we got plenty of generators as it is.

[wexfordman]

I got into a very interesting debate with a guy over electricity usage etc, and he was saying that in addition to generation, the second biggest impact we can have to reduce our energy demands is to reduce our "spikes" He said that we have power stations in ireland built to cater for peak demand (i.e us all putting the kettle on during the adds in coronation st), but if we could look to level the usage to a more constanat level rather than skpikes and peaks, we could actually reduce our overall power production. Really interesting guy, knew his stuff big time.

He reckons smart electricity metering wherby off peak hours are variable based on day to day useage in your local area can facilitate this, but it needs a change in how we use our electricity. Smart meters and smart devices that are able to tell when the next low demand period is, and schedule themselves to activate during these periods etc was what he was talking about.

Interesting if you looked at this in combination with pumped stroage ideas like this one, how overall you could affect the system,

[wexfordman]

Slightly off-topic -
The first reservoir to be built should be one to service the greater Dublin area. It may have to be built many miles from Dublin but the idea that Dublin can drain the Shannon, when its water runs out in less than 10 years time, is fanciful. It will meet with massive local opposition as well as being shot down from Europe.

Is the idea to use saltwater from the sea, therefore not really suitable as a resevoir ?

I wonder though, if the idea of getting water from the shannon to dublin did ever go ahead (or one similar), would they be able to combine it with a pumped stroage solution also ?

ASo, which bit of Dublin is proposed to be flooded

[Finbar10]

Downloaded and listened to the podcast http://www.rte.ie/podcasts
/2009/pc/pod-v-070509-17m50s-twpk.mp3 from the Pat Kenny show.
The one main new idea being proposed here is the use of
glacial U-shaped valleys to store the water. This would substantially reduce
the cost of constructing water reservoirs. One just needs to put a big dam
on the lower end (the other three sides being supplied by nature). These
reservoirs could likely also be very big, miles long, with substantial depth, and
at decent elevations as well. This perhaps might still work. As someone
mentioned previously there's the issue of salt water contaminating the water
table. They say they have solutions to this. Perhaps if the surrounding rock
is geologically suitable that might ameliorate the problem. In the interview
they say they have identified 50 such potential valleys, but that only a
handful would actually be needed. The devil will be definitely in the details as to
whether this can work.

[cactusflower]

It isn't whether they will function, but whether there is enough water when needed. The water only gets where it is needed from an excess of electricity produced by the proposed wind farms. The windfarms only produce the excess electricity when the wind is blowing at the right speed across enough of the country at the same time as demand isn't too high.

Goes to show how crazy and wasteful Denmark's policy is. The best analogy I can think of is cooking too much food for your family each day and proposing that the most cost efficient solution to the problem is buying a few dogs to eat the remains.

Gekko - I don't think you're listening. The problem of windfarms is, as you say, you have to have a steady supply, but wind fluctuates. The idea of this Spirit of Ireland thing is that when it's windy the excess wind energy will pump the water up, and that in periods of slack wind the water will be released and gravity will generate electricity:- it will balance out to a steady supply. At the moment the ESB is constantly saying that they can't use wind as they wouldn't be able to deal with the excess.

Denmark's idea is not crazy at all: we can't decide how much electricity will be produced at any specific time by wind: its weather-dependent. When there is excess wind energy over and above the need to supply the grid, the excess is used to charge up batteries for electric cars. Again, it allows them to produce more wind energy as they have something useful to do with the excess.

I think we should be looking at both the hydro idea and also using excess wind energy to power batteries. Why not have a free electric moped scheme in Dublin, like the free bike scheme in Paris?

[Geckko]

Here's a point. We have a growing unemployment problem, particularly in the sector that has been hit hardest, the construction sector. Here's an idea that would significantly reduce our imports of fossil fuel for power generation and would need a large workforce to construct.
Two problems, one solution.

Of course, we could pooh-pooh the idea and throw it out. Who needs the employment or the energy? Yerrah, we're grand, sure haven't we got plenty of generators as it is.

Go read up on "the broken window fallacy".

[orbit]

Just listened to the RTE 1 report. They sound genuine enough, but that doesn't mean they are right. They have to publish some details before anyone (serious) is going to take them seriously. In particular, some of the 50 locations, together with sizings of the dams, rough costings (a figure of 800 million was mentioned per site, which seems very low) of the dam, the generation and transmission works, the pipelines to the sea etc.

There was also a suggestion that this should be rushed through in 100 days or something. Serious, environmental impact studies would be needed, and they can't be rushed. But the idea deserves to be considered ...

[Geckko]

Gekko - I don't think you're listening. The problem of windfarms is, as you say, you have to have a steady supply, but wind fluctuates. The idea of this Spirit of Ireland thing is that when it's windy the excess wind energy will pump the water up, and that in periods of slack wind the water will be released and gravity will generate electricity:- it will balance out to a steady supply. At the moment the ESB is constantly saying that they can't use wind as they wouldn't be able to deal with the excess.

Denmark's idea is not crazy at all: we can't decide how much electricity will be produced at any specific time by wind: its weather-dependent. When there is excess wind energy over and above the need to supply the grid, the excess is used to charge up batteries for electric cars. Again, it allows them to produce more wind energy as they have something useful to do with the excess.

I think we should be looking at both the hydro idea and also using excess wind energy to power batteries. Why not have a free electric moped scheme in Dublin, like the free bike scheme in Paris?

No, I don't think you are listening. Nor are you reading.

Wind generation is just too expensive. Layering on a storage facility of such scale mititgates against one of the reasons why wind power is too expensive, but not all and not without layer additonal cost on top.

The energy regulator themselves found that it is not a viable economic alternative under preseent technology.

If you want to double you electricity bills, then fine. But count me out.

If this made any sense, they would be doing it, not pleading for soft money, government assitance etc. It ranks up there with that ludicrous CIF lobbied infrastructure scheme.

This nation has to get over this gombeenism.

[silvamuppet]

Of course, we could pooh-pooh the idea and throw it out. Who needs the employment or the energy? Yerrah, we're grand, sure haven't we got plenty of generators as it is.

The idea , or rather the hope behind the idea is great.
It ticks all the right boxes in theory.

In practice though they have come at this not too unlike Steorn did.
So a very healthy dose of skepticism is needed.

Until we see a major politician championing it and some reasonable name from the engineering world endorsing the idea then it remains in the realm of steorn like PR.

All i've seen so far is a punter on radio claiming lots of stuff and a website with NOTHING specific (not even proper contact details). THe 'team' of professionals gives nothing away either.

Don't get me wrong. I would love this idea to be legit and followed through on.
At the same time we shouldn't be getting all misty eyed and hopeful when we've been shown nothing concrete!!

[Geckko]

The idea , or rather the hope behind the idea is great.
It ticks all the right boxes in theory.

In practice though they have come at this not too unlike Steorn did.
So a very healthy dose of skepticism is needed.

Until we see a major politician championing it and some reasonable name from the engineering world endorsing the idea then it remains in the realm of steorn like PR.

All i've seen so far is a punter on radio claiming lots of stuff and a website with NOTHING specific (not even proper contact details). THe 'team' of professionals gives nothing away either.

Don't get me wrong. I would love this idea to be legit and followed through on.
At the same time we shouldn't be getting all misty eyed and hopeful when we've been shown nothing concrete!!

But we have ample experience around the world to show what the cost of providing elecricity via windfarms is. It is prohibitively expensive to get reliable electricity supply via that technology.

An engineer will tick the engineering boxes, but that is only a small part of the story.