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

[sparkey321]

Sparkey you asked for one figure that will stand up from the original press release.

The cost of a seawater pumped storage unit, including civil engineering and 10 x 100MW turbines = less than €800 million. That has been verified by the two largest civil engineering companies in Ireland, SIAC and Sisks. Who have in turn consulted abroad where necessary.

And here is one statement that stands up, wind or wave energy plus pumped storage equals a more valuable resource and eliminates the need for spinning reserve to be installed alongside wind or wave, because the energy is now despatchable. It also performs the inertia and frequency stability requirements of the said spinning reserve.

And another statement and figure that stands up is that the current policy of speeding up the implementation of Grid 25 will only increase our dependence on gas and foreign electricity and that subsidy of €700 million for gas/wind will only increase without any lasting benefit to the country and will increase the cost of your electricity.

I am the major proponent of modified wind energy on this site

I am desperaty trying to lay my hands of a copy of the origonal release.... or even a cached copy of the front page of the origonal site but am depending on press stories.


How about saving 15 billion in fossil fuels over 5 years ?

How about 50 billion in exports ?

How about energy independence (or even electrical independence) in 5 years ?

This one in particular is a joke as even you have admitted in numerous posts that you will need imported off peak power to maintain supplies.


How about cutting electricity prices ?

[libertarian-right]

Have a look at how they do it in Denmark:

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/...lysis-wind.pdf

http://www.thomastelford.com/journal...N.158.2.66.pdf

While wind power accounts for almost 20% of the power generated in Denmark, it covers only 10–14% of the country's demand. Power in excess of immediate demand is exported to Germany, Norway, and Sweden. The latter two have considerable hydropower resources, which can rapidly reduce their generation whenever wind farms are generating surplus power, saving water for later. In effect, this is a cheap way for northern Europe to store wind power until it is needed – an opportunity which is not generally available for wind power generators.

[sparkey321]

Look at electricity prices in Denmark and what do you notice ?

[fiannafailure]

Sparkey I will get back to your earlier post and in particular address your price queries, but as regards Denmark, the price of electricity in Denmark is low before tax.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/38/2497351.pdf

As here the price paid on the bill seems to bear little relation to the cost of generation, and just like Ireland the portfolio mix in Denmark is Coal, Gas and Wind, they also make use of the hydro facilities in Scandanavia

[riven]

Sparkey you asked for one figure that will stand up from the original press release.

The cost of a seawater pumped storage unit, including civil engineering and 10 x 100MW turbines = less than €800 million. That has been verified by the two largest civil engineering companies in Ireland, SIAC and Sisks. Who have in turn consulted abroad where necessary.

To what level of detail? Has these companies offered any support to DOI publically? And if such an engineering design was psosible I would be suggesting to SoI to publish it as the figures would be non propriterary and it would raise some real publicity.

[fiannafailure]

To what level of detail? Has these companies offered any support to DOI publically? And if such an engineering design was psosible I would be suggesting to SoI to publish it as the figures would be non propriterary and it would raise some real publicity.

Riven, the plan is to do just that in a few weeks, Siac have presented alongside us to Engineers Ireland, we have done detailed planning for our first choice of site, however the design is modular and can simply be adapted to whichever site we actually begin with, there would of course be cost variations according to site specfics, however we have costed the most expensive one, so other sites will be cheaper. As regards our figures we have not published in detail, not because we wish to hold propriety rights to them, it is simply that we cannot publicly negotiate with very large suppliers, they demand discretion as you would no doubt agree, however, I believe we now have quotations that we are happy with on the hydro part of the project.
Many people have commentated, that this large a project can not be done in the timescale we set out, however we had a look at some larger projects from around the world, in order to study the methods and processes that would be necessary to complete this project on time and on budget, and the shining star of inspiration was the Hong Kong airport project of the late 90s, and after studying how that was done, we concluded that a different type of contract was used to enable the contractors and the project management to bring such a huge project to a successful conclusion. We now have a member of the legal team that drew up these contracts onboard, and guess what, he is an Irishman.

[Calina]

Sparkey I will begin every post with a self flagellation routine if you wish. I will state very humbly that the initial press release should have said electrical independence, as a matter of fact I will attach to my sig

but you are still being raped by the energy policy of this country.

S of I wish to fix the presently flawed wind regime in Ireland which has to be backed by gas power stations.

The original PR can be seen here.

In fact, the PR seems to me to be quite detached from the current reality. Either Spirit of Ireland actually recognises this - I see little evidence of that apart from your self flagellation offers incidentally - or it continues to lose a certain amount of credibility.

This is the issue - a lot of people may not believe Spirit of Ireland can deliver anything because there is such a disconnect from what appears to be on the table now and what was highlighted as possible. Not only that, if you questioned their figures at the time - figures which still remain to be confirmed - your issues were not really addressed; you got trashed for being negative.

None of this is awe inspiring to be honest.

[fiannafailure]

Calina
Lets take your the points in your link one by one.

7th May 2009 – A breakthrough national project is being launched today by the Spirit of Ireland Group. Broken into two phases - Step 1 promises Energy Independence for Ireland within 5 Years with a €10 billion stimulus to the economy. Step 2 will see energy exports from Ireland in years 6, 7 and 8 of €3 billion to €5 billion per year or up to €50 billion over the following 10 years. Both phases will seek to help secure Ireland’s financial future.

A national awareness campaign is running across the national print media today to inform the public and precipitate a national discussion in order to develop social consensus around this exciting opportunity with respect to Ireland’s future.

Over 90% of all the electricity we use is generated from imported, fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. We have no control over the fluctuating costs of imported fuel leaving us strategically naked and resulting in Ireland having the most expensive electricity in Europe. Over the past six months a team of very experienced Engineers, Academics, Architects, Geologists, Hydro Geologists, Environmental Engineers, Construction Experts, Consultants, Legal and Finance professionals have been working intensively on ideas proposed by Professor Igor Shvets of Trinity College. The results of this work have stunning implications for our country.

Those results will be published within weeks

The Problems with Wind
It is essential to deal with the challenges presented by wind energy:-
Its volatility as a fuel source – it is difficult to predict, intermittent and variable in strength.
Costs involved in harvesting the wind and connection to the power network.
Instabilities created in the power network and dispatching difficulties for network operators.
Lack of energy storage capabilities.

Nothing has changed here, the problems remain the same, and besides the often discussed volatility of the wind, an equally important problem is that the grid loses stability when a small number of large generating sets are replaced by numerous small ones, these effects are quite serious.

The Solution
Hydro Storage Reservoirs resolve these difficulties by storing excess wind energy and providing more generation capacity when required. The Turlough Hill facility is a well established example of this principle.

Professor Igor Shvets has identified suitable valleys on the West Coast, which are ideally shaped. Basic rock dams in a few valleys, will provide Hydro Storage Reservoirs at modest cost. Positioned close to the sea, water volume is not an issue. Japan’s J-Power had built a successful sea water storage facility in Okinawa over 10 years ago. Senior executives and engineers from Japan visited Ireland and confirmed the validity of this approach. Filling the reservoirs with wind energy and using it when needed means that the intermittency of the wind problem is resolved. International Consultants from Canada, the US and Norway contributed to other aspects of the design.

The solution is as strong as ever.

The basic plan proposes to:
· Locate wind farms in suitable areas to harvest energy
· Save the resulting energy in Hydro Storage Reservoirs
· Natural energy released from Hydro Storage Reservoirs is instantly dispatchable and is ideal for both domestic use and export
· Secure energy supplies and save up to €30 billion in hard cash over 10 years on fossil fuel imports

Nothing new here either

As well as harnessing excess energy for export, the project will create jobs on a local and national level and lead to huge investment in throughout the country. We will have a massive impact on carbon dioxide emmissions.

Two vital subjects, Jobs and our liability for carbon taxes

Social Consensus for a Secure Future
To build a secure future for Ireland, we will have to construct the Hydro Storage Reservoirs, Wind Farms and Collection Networks and connect these to the grid to supply Natural Energy countrywide. Social consensus in the construction of these facilities is essential. Every effort will be made to ensure this is done in an ecologically sensitive manner by using our most talented experts, architects, environmental and civil engineers. We need to achieve consensus and support from everyone to ensure a secure future for Ireland and a better global environment. Local communities play a key role in the success of this project. The principle will be to improve the economic standing and environment of the areas containing the Hydro Storage Reservoirs.

Again nothing new.

The Costs
To achieve energy independence and save €15 billion in fossil fuel imports over five years, the country will need to build two Hydro Storage Reservoirs at a cost of €800m each. Wind farms will be connected to these reservoirs via a collection network. The cost of adding a MW to the network is €1.3m. Graham O’Donnell, electrical engineer with 20 years International Power Grid experience and spokesperson with Professor Igor Shvets for ‘Spirit of Ireland’ is asking people to now consider the role that we can all play in improving the state of our nation, ‘We want to get people talking about this initiative and realising that there is much we can do to determine our future. We must decide, as a nation, if we want to take this route to prosperity. We can be the controllers of our country’s financial and environmental destiny. If people want to “have their say”, we want to hear them. The purpose of the national press campaign is to actively encourage the public to register their opinion at www.spiritofireland.org’.

Mr O’Donnell continues, ‘By harnessing our wind energy resource, we have the potential to become energy independent and self reliant as a nation. As a result, we will cut our carbon emissions, our energy bill and create jobs and wealth for the future good of the country. Our people, pension funds and Government can invest in and support this initiative. This has potential to be of huge economic benefit to our country’.
The Spirit of Ireland is our people using our talents working together for our country.
Let us begin.

So although S of I have been working on the specifics of the project, nothing has fundamentally changed

[sparkey321]

Calina

The Costs

To achieve energy independence and save €15 billion in fossil fuel imports over five years, the country will need to build two Hydro Storage Reservoirs at a cost of €800m each.

The cost of adding a MW to the network is €1.3m.

So although S of I have been working on the specifics of the project, nothing has fundamentally changed

2 reservoirs of 1GW each will provide energy independence ?

Even 2 reservoirs of 2GW each will not provide energy (or electrical if you prefer) independence.

By your own admission storage will be between 100 and 300 GW hours so between 100 and 300 hours and 1GW output and half that at 2GW out put.

That is nowhere near energy independence.

As for the cost of adding a MW of wind to the grid. Even accepting 1.3 million he seems to have forgotten (or ignored) the matter of load factor.

[fiannafailure]

Sparkey

2000 x 2MW + 500 x 6MW = 7GW Those 6 MW turbines will bw available in 18 months time.

7GW / 100 x 40 (the load factor available from the sites we want) backed up with 2 or 3 GW from the hydro units will go a long way towards electrical independence.

But we accept that we have to consider the capital tied up in existing plant, but yes if push came to shove the above configeration could do it.