The Wind Energy Delusion

dynamick

They are limiting the number of grants for electric cars to the first 1,000 vehicles at a cost of €5m. Previously the intention had been to grant aid 6,000 vehicles at a cost of €30m.
Whether 6,000 people would have bought electric cars is another question.

Sponge Bob

That ESRI paper was Verrrry odd to my mind. It appears to have been rush released in response to a particular request from an unknown quarter.

The fact that the Ballylongford LNG Terminal in North Kerry was completely discounted from the gas 'mix' was peculiar to say the least.

lucernarian

That LNG terminal website hasn't been updated in quite a while. Is there any progress with this terminal currently?

Am I right in saying that there is no proper LNG terminal on this island?

Sponge Bob

Yep, apart from a few Calor Kosangas tanks. I don't understand why ESRI did not wait for the Binding Capacity requests process for Shannon LNG shipments to complete...as in precisely today the 29th I believe.

ei.sdraob

good article here > http://joewheatley.net/bad-power/

putting a stake thru the heart of several claims we hear about wind power in Ireland

patgill

Interesting thread gent's.

Particularly in respect of the amount of ideology displayed.

Heorditas, I just love that Steorn of Ireland label :)

There were one or two opinions that the market will provide a short, medium and long term solution, maybe it will, perhaps it already is, what is certain is that the market can always be gamed by operators with deep pockets.

What is in no doubt is that the grid operators and institutional investors like wind to have storage alongside it, removing any need for feed in tariffs or priority dispatch in order to be profitable and thereby providing long term transparency and market certainty.

Dinorwig was built with taxpayers money (UK Grid) to balance nuclear, sold at a loss by Margaret Thatchers political ideology and is now rented back by the taxpayer (UK Grid) to balance nuclear, gas and renewables, switching between pumping and generating up to 100 times a day, it provides a balancing swing of 3GW in 100MW per second steps, which no thermal plant could ever hope to match in its designers wildest fantasy.
And it performs this service cheaper than any other technology in existence today or imagined in the future, yet its owners still manage to earn gross returns approaching £100 a year, the market loves it.

Every single time Ireland has put most of its eggs in the one basket it has resulted in disaster, from the potato famine to the celtic fools dependency on property.

A sensible energy policy would be to provide for Ireland's domestic needs from a diverse mix, with no ideology, and facilitate an export industry to develop provided it does not require subsidy.

treefan

don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment when our neighbours are proving the argument by making it a part of their integral energy mix:

http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/11/u-k-wind-farm-rising-in-record-speed/

Ireland's got the best wind resource in Europe. Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?

LaFlammeRouge

treefan wrote: »

don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment when our neighbours are proving the argument by making it a part of their integral energy mix:

http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/11/u-k-wind-farm-rising-in-record-speed/

Ireland's got the best wind resource in Europe. Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?

Jobs? There is no jobs in wind energy. Just handouts.


For example the company in your link:

ONE of the companies building a windfarm off the Furness coast is netting more cash from the government than any other in the UK.


INVESTMENT: Turbines erected for Walney 1 of Dong’s Walney Offshore Windfarms project Dong Energy, which is behind the Walney Windfarm, has a large stake in three offshore developments that will net the Danish firm more than £98m in subsidies. Dong also has a 50 per cent share in a 175-turbine farm at London Array.

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/energy-firm-tops-cash-subsidies-list-1.880542?referrerPath=news/

Wind companies can quote installed capacity all they want. It is pure fantasy. What will create jobs is cheap, reliable energy provided by gas. Not focking wind power.

dowlingm

One small point about The Register - they're great on IT but on other technologies they are a bit out there, they like to play up climate change denial related stories and are almost in Walter Mitty territory on matters military.

Wind has a lot of problems (and I've highlighted some on the SoI thread) but some of the opposition to it gets loopy in places too.

Carawaystick

treefan wrote: »

don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment
Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?

What do you suggest we do when the wind don't blow?
It is likely that there will be almost no wind for several days right around the time of the maximum annual demand for electricity, later this month. What do you suggest we do then?

All the installed wind power in the world is useless without any wind to blow it. A recent study over about 14 months in Britain showed the actual generation in Britain was about 25% of the installed capacity, where it had been assumed it was 33%.


Regarding Oil, No one touting electric cars has been able to quote the range of one in -10 degrees while heating the interior to +20 degrees; the energy density is just not there for batteries.

Sponge Bob

I don't think this project has its very own thread but it was refereced in this one.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gas-refinery-under-threat-as-suppliers-reject-charges-3210227.html

Sunday August 26 2012
TALKS will start next month to resolve a row about multimillion-euro charges imposed on energy suppliers, which have been blamed for jeopardising a planned gas refinery in Kerry.
The row centres on the Commission for Energy Regulation's (CER) ruling that gas providers should pay for the rising costs of two interconnectors linking Britain's and Ireland's gas supplies.
One firm, Shannon LNG, has said it won't be using the interconnector and shouldn't have to pay for it. The company, which is backed by the global corporation Hess LNG, plans to ship liquified gas by sea to Tarbert, where it will be processed for the domestic market in a €600m plant.

However!!

As Ireland starts producing gas -- from the Corrib gas field and suppliers like Shannon LNG -- the interconnectors will be used less and the cost of maintaining them will increase.

patgill

Interesting post Sponge Bob, which raises the following question.

Should Irish consumers be asked to subsidise gas interconnectors if they are used for exporting gas rather than importing gas ?

The regulator in its ruling on this matter seems to suggest that all users of the gas interconnectors should contribute to these costs irrespective of the direction of gas flow, these will be pass through costs for the gas companies and so consumers wallets will ultimately pay.

Will ideology change simply because we are discussing a different technology here ?

Sponge Bob

patgill wrote: »

The regulator in its ruling on this matter seems to suggest that all users of the gas interconnectors should contribute to these costs irrespective of the direction of gas flow, these will be pass through costs for the gas companies and so consumers wallets will ultimately pay.

Difference with electricity is that there would be no Bord Gáis ( nothing to sell in effect) had the 2 Gas interconnectors not been built 10 or more years ago.

Electricity interconnectors post date 'competition' unlike gas interconnectors.

Idbatterim

why is wood not used as a fuel in power plants as opposed to say coal etc?

Carawaystick

Idbatterim wrote: »

why is wood not used as a fuel in power plants as opposed to say coal etc?

I'd say cost, energy density, and the need to season it, would require large storage areas
There was talk of BnaM growing willow on their cut out bogs to supply a mix for the turf burning stations, dunno how that got on

There is probably not enough land suitable for growing wood to supply enough stations, northern latitudes have fairly slow growing softwoods, it was a bit warmer back when the vegetation that became coal was growing
Tropical woods contain a lot of the nutrients in the biomass, so harvesting them removes the fertility, so sustainable wood can't be harvested from there either

101sean

Biomass use is on the increase in the UK. Drax, which is the biggest coal station, is supposed to be changing over to it and rail wagons are being built to transport it. Not entirely sure what biomass comprises though?

Markcheese

Apparently drax is Converting 2 or 3 of it's 5 turbines to biomass.. Mostly imported forestry waste (what ever that is ), assume it means wood chipping an old growth forest somewhere.... It's on BBC news website .... Think it's a government subsidy thing too...

LeHbob

Fascinating reading through this thread 7 years after it was last commented on. Interesting to see how critical the topics raised are now compared to how they were viewed when this thread was last active.

luohaoran

Remarkable how little direction has been shown by government in this whole area. I've a lot of faith in Bruton to get things moving again though, he's had a meaningful impact in every department he's held for the last number of years. If he can just deliver micro generation feed in, we'll sort ourselves out.

One argument that I always felt was underdeveloped in any of these "new energy" threads is the impact of having the money we pay for our energy circulating "inside" the Irish economy rather than sent away to fossil fuel exporters.
You can tolerate a lot of extra cost and inefficiency if the money stays in Ireland. You'll get its value back through tax several times over as it circulates.
But oil/gas money is gone and stays gone. The net cost is actually multiples of the gross cost in this instance.

Never seen any attempt to factor that into the viability of Wind/wave/hydro/storage.

marno21

Links in the OP have gone dead. Here are the working ones

https://web.archive.org/web/20110310171827/http://iae.ie/site_media/pressroom/documents/2011/Feb/28/IAE_Energy_Report_Web_17.02.2011.pdf

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/ireland-s-big-hope-or-just-hot-air-1.582301

LeHbob

Years ago I thought the future would be colossal offshore wind farms of the western coast to supply Ireland and Europe that wouldn't impact the arable land and have more consistent wind. I still think it would be the best solution along with solar, PV and energy use reduction.

Markcheese

LeHbob wrote: »

Years ago I thought the future would be colossal offshore wind farms of the western coast to supply Ireland and Europe that wouldn't impact the arable land and have more consistent wind. I still think it would be the best solution along with solar, PV and energy use reduction.

Well the brits are really bringing down the cost of offshore wind... (not sure if that's sea bed condition dependant or not),

LeHbob

Markcheese wrote: »

Well the brits are really bringing down the cost of offshore wind... (not sure if that's sea bed condition dependant or not),

What are they doing that is bringing down the price?

Markcheese

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/11/biggest-offshore-windfarm-to-start-uk-supply-this-week

I think its scale that's driving this...

LeinsterDub

LeHbob wrote: »

What are they doing that is bringing down the price?

Mainly buying on a large scale it seems. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/energy-firms-plan-to-invest-billions-in-irish-sea-wind-projects-1.3871443

It looks like we are increasing scale too

Muahahaha

That is some huge windfarm project in the UK, 408sqm of sea covered in turbines. Anyone know how that might work for marine traffic, are they allowed to sail though the windfarm or would they have to avoid it?

Also when they measure turbines in MW does that refer to a MW generated per hour of sufficient wind? And what minimum kph of wind is needed to drive them at full efficiency?

Marcusm

Muahahaha wrote: »

That is some huge windfarm project in the UK, 408sqm of sea covered in turbines. Anyone know how that might work for marine traffic, are they allowed to sail though the windfarm or would they have to avoid it?

Also when they measure turbines in MW does that refer to a MW generated per hour of sufficient wind? And what minimum kph of wind is needed to drive them at full efficiency?

I think a lot of them are on sandbars so not deep enough for large ships anyway. If the floating/tethered one’s take off I imagine there would have to be some exclusion zone.

Pete_Cavan

Has there been any serious proposals to build wind farms on any of our uninhabited islands? Would seem like the easiest way to build off shore.

loyatemu

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Has there been any serious proposals to build wind farms on any of our uninhabited islands? Would seem like the easiest way to build off shore.

they're mostly pretty small, and some of the larger ones are in touristy areas which probably wouldn't get planning (e.g Great Blasket).

Markcheese

I suppose there'd be fairly serious cost in getting the wind turbine and its foundations onto an island (without a pier), then there's the fact that many islands are bird sanctuaries, so the foundation isn't great for nesting birds and the blade isn't great in the middle of a load of flying birds...

I assume there aren't that many sand banks and shallows off the west coast, (the wave height mightn't help either)