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

[sparkey321]

Apply that logic to the coal yards at Moneypoint, it didn't seem to put ESB off building that huge edifice

Dont know what this has to do with anything but I can bet you a seruious pile of cash that teh ESB coudl tell you long before site was broken how much per MW hour it was going to cost to produce electricity.

I can also bet that they had a nice little chart plotting the cost of coal against the output cost...

Sparkey
I wasn't aware that S of I had decided to go into the retail end of the business, but I have been talking to you for so long anything is possible, so take what, 10% to cover generation and misc. S of I propose to own some of the grid as a TAO so can give themselves a bit of a deal and sure if push comes to shove, luckily at this stage we are only talking, when the business plan is published, we can really have a go at each other

You see thats my point.
SOI are well able to supply figures, prices and costs. The only issue is when they are questioned on them and then suddenly their business model is not ready.

Then why the Fu*k are they giving presentations with cost figures etc ? Where are they getting those figures ? Pulling them out of fresh air ?

Sparkey,

Snake oil salesmen can never be afraid of looking foolish, when there are snipers hiding in the long grass, taking pot shots at targets of opportunity. I am resigned to not seeing my girlfriend or wife again, or at least until I could be bothered to put together a 10 or 20 page summary just for you. By the way the next scheduled presentation may be in jeopardy, as it has been so oversubscribed that a big enough venue is now being searched for, and it wasn't anybody from S of I who told me that, this snake oil business is great.

And please read the words that went with those figures. Wholesale off peak sales value.

Seeing as that does not really answer anything let me help you out a bit.

Firstly at €50 per MW hour (and lets just for the sake of argument say you get this price 24 \ 7).

From the SOI presentation Total secure output = 2,000MW
From you sales price per MW hour = €50
From primary school 365 days in a year (lets skip leap years here that one day in four years wont affect the overall figure)
Looking at my watch there are 24 hours in the day.

2000 MW output in one year produces 17,520,000 MW hours. (356 x 24 x 2000 simple math)
That equates to an annual revenue €876,000,000 or €876 million or €0.876 billion

Now look at your top figure of €70 and we get €1,226,400,000 or €1.2264 billion

With me so far ?

Now lets go back to the SOI presentation.

Total cost of investment €11.4 billion

return on investment is to be over 10 years.
Estimated maintenance costs ? No figure given
Return to investors ? "Decent return on Invest" so no figure given.
Interest payment ? No figure given
Admin, labour etc ? No figure given.

So we have no idea of the ongoing operating costs associated with this investment.

So if we just look at the initial capital payback less interest or return on investment over the 10 years it works out at.

€1.14 billion per year.

Now compare that to revenues at €50 per MW hour of €0.876 billion and we get a loss of €0.264 billion per year or €264 million before interest payments, operating costs or anything else for that matter.

Now compare that to revenues at €70 per MW hour of €1.2264 billion and we get a surplus of €86.4 million.

To put that into perspective.

Lets assume SOI get a decent interest rate or generous investors who are willing to invest for a 5% annual return. Lets also assume that they don't start charging interest until the day SOI start producing power so we don't have 5 years of interest payment rolled up and added to the total debt.

In year 1 the total interest payment would be .....€557 million

So that turns your loss at €50 per MW hour from €264 million to the grand total of €821 million (which is funnily enough not far off your total revenue figures for the year.)


And at €70 per MW hour your small surplus of €86.4 million to a loss of €470.6 million

And that is still before you add operating costs, insurance, maintenance etc.

So what your figures show is that to just cover the payback on your investment you would need revenues of approx 2 billion per annum which works out as close as dammit to €115 per MW hour before you add operating costs, maintenance or even a profit.

Now do you start to see the scale of the project ??????

Plus I am extremely confident that the budget of 11.4 billion will not be enough.

So €148 per MW hour is not actually that far off the true figure.........

Just to remind you of your earlier comment......

Sparkey,

Fianna Failure. I would appreciate some feedback on this. Am I missing something or are SOI budgets based on a price of €148 per GW hour ?

If they were I would be talking to you from the comfort of a straitjacket,

So how high would they have to go before we had to bring out that straight jacket ?

€100, €110, €115, €120, €130, How about €140 would that be low enough to avoid the straight jacket ?

[fiannafailure]

Dont know what this has to do with anything but I can bet you a seruious pile of cash that teh ESB coudl tell you long before site was broken how much per MW hour it was going to cost to produce electricity.

I can also bet that they had a nice little chart plotting the cost of coal against the output cost...



You see thats my point.
SOI are well able to supply figures, prices and costs. The only issue is when they are questioned on them and then suddenly their business model is not ready.

Then why the Fu*k are they giving presentations with cost figures etc ? Where are they getting those figures ? Pulling them out of fresh air ?




Seeing as that does not really answer anything let me help you out a bit.

Firstly at €50 per MW hour (and lets just for the sake of argument say you get this price 24 \ 7).

From the SOI presentation Total secure output = 2,000MW
From you sales price per MW hour = €50
From primary school 365 days in a year (lets skip leap years here that one day in four years wont affect the overall figure)
Looking at my watch there are 24 hours in the day.

2000 MW output in one year produces 17,520,000 MW hours. (356 x 24 x 2000 simple math)
That equates to an annual revenue €876,000,000 or €876 million or €0.876 billion

Now look at your top figure of €70 and we get €1,226,400,000 or €1.2264 billion

With me so far ?

Now lets go back to the SOI presentation.

Total cost of investment €11.4 billion

return on investment is to be over 10 years.
Estimated maintenance costs ? No figure given
Return to investors ? "Decent return on Invest" so no figure given.
Interest payment ? No figure given
Admin, labour etc ? No figure given.

So we have no idea of the ongoing operating costs associated with this investment.

So if we just look at the initial capital payback less interest or return on investment over the 10 years it works out at.

€1.14 billion per year.

Now compare that to revenues at €50 per MW hour of €0.876 billion and we get a loss of €0.264 billion per year or €264 million before interest payments, operating costs or anything else for that matter.

Now compare that to revenues at €70 per MW hour of €1.2264 billion and we get a surplus of €86.4 million.

To put that into perspective.

Lets assume SOI get a decent interest rate or generous investors who are willing to invest for a 5% annual return. Lets also assume that they don't start charging interest until the day SOI start producing power so we don't have 5 years of interest payment rolled up and added to the total debt.

In year 1 the total interest payment would be .....€557 million

So that turns your loss at €50 per MW hour from €264 million to the grand total of €821 million (which is funnily enough not far off your total revenue figures for the year.)


And at €70 per MW hour your small surplus of €86.4 million to a loss of €470.6 million

And that is still before you add operating costs, insurance, maintenance etc.

So what your figures show is that to just cover the payback on your investment you would need revenues of approx 2 billion per annum which works out as close as dammit to €115 per MW hour before you add operating costs, maintenance or even a profit.

Now do you start to see the scale of the project ??????

Plus I am extremely confident that the budget of 11.4 billion will not be enough.

So €148 per MW hour is not actually that far off the true figure.........

Just to remind you of your earlier comment......



So how high would they have to go before we had to bring out that straight jacket ?

€100, €110, €115, €120, €130, How about €140 would that be low enough to avoid the straight jacket ?

Oh Sparkey
you are great Gas, and I really look forward to our interaction after S of I move from the presentation of concept to the presentation of the business plan, I will have to get myself a second girlfriend along with the wife to relax me in the evenings and we might even try the strait jacket, I am told you should try anything, once at least.

I can tell you that the ESB did not disclose cost figures while they were still talking to vendors, I can also tell you that, S of I have had another idea after reading the new thread in this forum about the cows and are actively looking for investors in this new venture already, and have even commissioned special toilet rolls with the logo, don't waste your wind, the country needs it.

Sparkey, you have invested a lot of time in this project already, but I would suggest that your investment avenue is a little premature, attack the figures when they are published and until then perhaps, comment and attack or suggest on the other important issues, environment, employment, even the very idea or definition of energy independence. And I promise to give you an advance copy of the financial projections when they are ready.

[fiannafailure]

[

QUOTE=riven;1788585]You are having a laugh right; what part wopuld you consider difficult? SOI will be building the biggest turbine pump operation in the world for a saltwater application for one. Jesus. What part do you think is easy?

Are you seriously telling me that as an engineer, you cannot see that building a rock dam, using materials from the immediate area, including the short canal necessary in most of the preferred sites and with pen stock, powerhouse and associated plumbing, being constructed above ground, and perhaps covered at a later stage for aesthetic reasons, is beyond the capabilities of any decent size civil engineering company in Ireland. I would suggest they have been practising the skills required building motorways for the last decade.

And the SOI version is evne simplier? No it is much more complicated as it is maybe ten times bigger.

The turbines are already designed and in use elsewhere, maybe not as many, but that is not a task beyond credibility. Even for a snake oil salesman like myself.

So we have gone from profit valve for water to oil to cheaper engineering. Come on explain your original term clearly

If you need an explanation of the cheaper civil engineering effort required here, as opposed to building that plant I provided the link to previously, then you have not done your research.
As regards turning water into "oil", I would suggest a primary school child could see the analogy, and the irony.

[Dios]

On the basis of this I went to both wind energy journals (no surprise that SEI publications are non-existant in these, I only checked the highest rated ones) and to the SEI website. I then went looking for the figures and studies that backed up Mr. Brennan's claims.

So you went looking for reports for ten minutes and didn't find the one that backed up your point of view? Hmm.

since SEI reports did not taken into account availability and since they claim that a realistic target of 5000MW is attainable from wind, wind generated electricity would not be able to meet the quoted peak demand of just over 4900MW.

Furthermore another item that was neglected in the study is the transmission losses associated with transporting wind electricity to the plug.

Nobody takes availability into account, its too small, for the third and final time. If it bothers you that much, just build 1.5% more wind turbines and turn them on when others are down for maintenance. Most transmission losses occur at endpoint distribution, and this applies for every power generation type, so why should the rated losses for wind be any different to gas or coal?

Profit value of the water?

If anything using sea water or salt water will make the installation more expensive as the equipment will need to be chloride resistance. Normal or carbon steel (cheap) will be unsuitable due to its nickel content.

At least stainless steel 316L would be required though others are possible; all still more expensive than carbon steel.

So how is the salt water use going to end up in a profit?

Several PSH operations double as fish farms and triple as recreational facilities, if its any good to you.

[fiannafailure]

Dios
you forgot about the tourism and leisure opportunities and if an additional attraction is needed, we now have thanks to the lads in an adjacent thread a new tourist attraction for Ireland to moove the project forward.

[sparkey321]

Oh Sparkey
you are great Gas, and I really look forward to our interaction after S of I move from the presentation of concept to the presentation of the business plan, I will have to get myself a second girlfriend along with the wife to relax me in the evenings and we might even try the strait jacket, I am told you should try anything, once at least.

So you have no comment on the figures ?
Nothing about them you find objectionable ?
Do you accept that they are based on figures presented by SOI ?

I can tell you that the ESB did not disclose cost figures while they were still talking to vendors, I can also tell you that, S of I have had another idea after reading the new thread in this forum about the cows and are actively looking for investors in this new venture already, and have even commissioned special toilet rolls with the logo, don't waste your wind, the country needs it.

So again you have nothing to say.

And with the risk of making you look like a Muppet again. SOI have released costs ? They are explained in some detail on their presentation. Where do you think I got them ?

But no its easier to say nothing and maintain a smug attitude.

Argue the figures or admit you were wrong. Or is that two adult for you ?

Sparkey, you have invested a lot of time in this project already, but I would suggest that your investment avenue is a little premature, attack the figures when they are published and until then perhaps, comment and attack or suggest on the other important issues, environment, employment, even the very idea or definition of energy independence. And I promise to give you an advance copy of the financial projections when they are ready.

Not really. The most time I invested was spent watching the presentation. The actual calculations took perhaps 2 minutes and a couple of minutes to post them.

The figures have been published, they are on the presentation, they are on SOI website.

Even during the presentation it was claimed that the costings were pretty much finalised with some fluctuation on the reservoirs and grid costs depending on location but all in all pretty solid. Even a 25% move in either of these figures will have no significant effect on the figures above. They admitted they were a little short on expertise in economics to look at the macro economics. None of which would effect the above.

So would you care to comment now or have you any more excuses. I gave you loads of time to look at the figures, come back with alternatives or to even point out some exceptional circumstances that I missed.

I also posted the same figures on the SOI forum a number of days ago and again they have not been contradicted, no one has posted alternatives or even made a comment on them.

The simple fact is that as always when presented with a fact, figure or issue that you do not like you (or SOI for that matter) don't bother discussing it, debating it or even looking at alternatives you (and SOI) just ignore it, blame it the big bad vested interests that are out to get them and then continue on regardless.

[sparkey321]

Dios
you forgot about the tourism and leisure opportunities and if an additional attraction is needed, we now have thanks to the lads in an adjacent thread a new tourist attraction for Ireland to moove the project forward.

So building these saltwater lakes is going to provide a tourist and leisure attraction. I assume you mean boating, sailing, swimming etc.

You may find SOI will face significant competition in this area right next door in the "bottom lake"..

You may know it.. its called the Atlantic ocean and you will also find that it has existed for quite a bit longer than SOI and has been exploited for its leisure activities for quite a bit longer than SOI have been around.

[fiannafailure]

So building these saltwater lakes is going to provide a tourist and leisure attraction. I assume you mean boating, sailing, swimming etc.

You may find SOI will face significant competition in this area right next door in the "bottom lake"..

You may know it.. its called the Atlantic ocean and you will also find that it has existed for quite a bit longer than SOI and has been exploited for its leisure activities for quite a bit longer than SOI have been around.

I have indeed seen and been impressed by the Atlantic, in fact I will be spending a lot more time contemplating its majesty during the coming autumn.

Sparkey,
how can I comment on specific projections except in a general sense, until the sites are chosen and the government and people decide what level of energy independence is desired, only then can a business plan and financial projections be produced, my reference to moneypoint was meant to illustrate this. I personally remember the debate re moneypoint and right up until the site was chosen and equipment specified were anything other than conceptual figures produced, and there was even debate about the fuel that was to be used in that case, and the future trend in the price and availability of coal and oil was hotly debated, at least S of I are clear on that subject and the price and availability issues of the basic fuel are clear and stable, free and limitless. So until the parameters of the project are finalised I can only comment on or argue concepts and their practicalities, not specific financial projections. And every S of I presentation to date has been on that basis.

[sparkey321]

I have indeed seen and been impressed by the Atlantic, in fact I will be spending a lot more time contemplating its majesty during the coming autumn.

Sparkey,
how can I comment on specific projections except in a general sense, until the sites are chosen and the government and people decide what level of energy independence is desired, only then can a business plan and financial projections be produced, my reference to moneypoint was meant to illustrate this. I personally remember the debate re moneypoint and right up until the site was chosen and equipment specified were anything other than conceptual figures produced, and there was even debate about the fuel that was to be used in that case, and the future trend in the price and availability of coal and oil was hotly debated, at least S of I are clear on that subject and the price and availability issues of the basic fuel are clear and stable, free and limitless. So until the parameters of the project are finalised I can only comment on or argue concepts and their practicalities, not specific financial projections. And every S of I presentation to date has been on that basis.

The SOi proposal went to great pains to point to the observations I made above. In fact they made emphasised that most of the cost went to wind-farms which were a known price.

A small portion of the overall costs (less than 20%) were dependent on locations chosen (grid and reservoirs) and as such any adjustment on these will have minimal impact on the overall costing as presented.

In fact even getting this section for free will still result in electricity at over double current peak costs.

Realistically the only way that figure of 11.4 billion is going to move is up not down. Even you have to admit that significant savings on this figure is at best unlikely.

[riven]

[

Are you seriously telling me that as an engineer, you cannot see that building a rock dam, using materials from the immediate area, including the short canal necessary in most of the preferred sites and with pen stock, powerhouse and associated plumbing, being constructed above ground, and perhaps covered at a later stage for aesthetic reasons, is beyond the capabilities of any decent size civil engineering company in Ireland. I would suggest they have been practising the skills required building motorways for the last decade.

Yes I am the amount of material you are using would be huge on the scale of a small strip mine. And you would have to build the biggest PSH for salt water application by a long way as well. If it is so simple why is there only one in the world?

The turbines are already designed and in use elsewhere, maybe not as many, but that is not a task beyond credibility.

That is a more reasoned response. Not beyond technical means but a huge undertaking non the less.

If you need an explanation of the cheaper civil engineering effort required here, as opposed to building that plant I provided the link to previously, then you have not done your research.

I have and all current indications are that the cost of salt water applications are 3 times more expensive the river/lake based PSH. I have provided references from the very consultants involved in the Japanese project and others.

As regards turning water into "oil", I would suggest a primary school child could see the analogy, and the irony.

Wrong for two reasons. Most of Irelands oil is used for heating purposes (industrial and residential) and transport. SOI will not be replacing these. So no we will not be replacing oil with water.
Indeed you cannot now mount that arguement as the project will have to be build using oil and this payback will have to be considered before you can say we have turned water to oil. Another point it is a saving not a profit.

So you went looking for reports for ten minutes and didn't find the one that backed up your point of view? Hmm.

No I read the reports (some of which are over 100 pages). I have made an assertion, a theory if you like. In science you now have to disprove my assertion so chop chop be a good boy.

Nobody takes availability into account, its too small

Coal suffers from availability wiht a 2 week shutdown every 2 years. Wind suffers more.
Anyback back to wind. The largest energy research cnetre and build authority for wind energy in the netherlands would disagree. While the presentation I will link is for offshore, the figures are similar for onshore in terms of availability.
Energy research Centre of the Netherlands: Publications
So back up your point in saying that availability is insignificant. To say that availability is to say that maintenance is negligible which as your earlirer danish link proves is not.

Several PSH operations double as fish farms and triple as recreational facilities, if its any good to you.

And the value of these activities are? And I could equally argue that the vally is alreadfy recreational and that becuase scrub and grassland take up more C02 than water resevoirs that I am loosing money.