Climate change and the citizens assembly

Gerrup Outta Dat!

The citizens assembly have met to discuss what measures to take to reduce climate change. They suggested, among other things, increase bus lanes, increase carbon tax and try to discourage private vehicles. I was very surprised that they were bold enough to mention cattle farmers (that will get shot down and stomped out, no doubt).

• My suggestions would be to remove driving lanes and introduce bus lanes (where applicable) and rigorously enforce this with cameras.
• Try to introduce electric buses and gradually replace the fleet.
• Deny planning permission for new car parks and apartment complexes unless they provide electric car charging points.
• Make hybrid cars a max of €50 motor tax per year and electric cars free.
• If a company provides a certain number of charging points, make the expense tax deductible.
• Reduce public transport fares to encourage usage
• People who have their private vehicles filled to their legal capacity may use bus lanes.
• New motorways must have a segregated cycle lane to the left of the hard shoulder separated by a fortress for safety.
• Move away from fossil fuels for electricity and start using wind, tidal and nuclear

I don't know why Irish people shit their knickers when people mention nuclear. It is a clean and relatively safe form of fuel.

(I won't go into my uni-level physics), but in a nutshell, nuclear fission involves creating an isotope, the isotope is unstable, so it sheds its extra weight along with some heat, this extra weight shed by the isotope creates another isotope and the process continues. This generates enormous heat, which boils water which drives a turbine. The big stacks emit nothing but steam!

Fossil fuel electricity is the exact same process, except the heat is produced by burning fossil fuels, this chimney emits all sorts of smoke and crap.

Nuclear power plants emit roughly a briefcase of waste in a year. A person who uses electricity produced by a nuclear power plant will be responsible for only a coke can of waste in their entire life.

Before anyone mentions Japan, when do we get earthquakes / tsunamis here? France produces something like 80% of its electricity by nuclear fission.

Would you like to see nuclear power in Ireland?

punisher5112

From what I seen on the news basically get Vaseline by the truck load as we are going to royally screwed over so bad.

More tax, tax, tax, tax,tax oh and some more tax oh and any other increases they can think of.

Ireland isn't going to stop anything we are so small its just a stitch up.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

The citizens assembly have met to discuss what measures to take to reduce climate change. They suggested, among other things, increase bus lanes, increase carbon tax and try to discourage private vehicles. I was very surprised that they were bold enough to mention cattle farmers (that will get shot down and stomped out, no doubt).

• My suggestions would be to remove driving lanes and introduce bus lanes (where applicable) and rigorously enforce this with cameras.
• Try to introduce electric buses and gradually replace the fleet.
• Deny planning permission for new car parks and apartment complexes unless they provide electric car charging points.
• Make hybrid cars a max of €50 motor tax per year and electric cars free.
• If a company provides a certain number of charging points, make the expense tax deductible.
• Reduce public transport fares to encourage usage
• People who have their private vehicles filled to their legal capacity may use bus lanes.
• New motorways must have a segregated cycle lane to the left of the hard shoulder separated by a fortress for safety.
• Move away from fossil fuels for electricity and start using wind, tidal and nuclear

I don't know why Irish people shit their knickers when people mention nuclear. It is a clean and relatively safe form of fuel.

(I won't go into my uni-level physics), but in a nutshell, nuclear fission involves creating an isotope, the isotope is unstable, so it sheds its extra weight along with some heat, this extra weight shed by the isotope creates another isotope and the process continues. This generates enormous heat, which boils water which drives a turbine. The big stacks emit nothing but steam!

Fossil fuel electricity is the exact same process, except the heat is produced by burning fossil fuels, this chimney emits all sorts of smoke and crap.

Nuclear power plants emit roughly a briefcase of waste in a year. A person who uses electricity produced by a nuclear power plant will be responsible for only a coke can of waste in their entire life.

Before anyone mentions Japan, when do we get earthquakes / tsunamis here? France produces something like 80% of its electricity by nuclear fission.

Would you like to see nuclear power in Ireland?

While I'm not disagreeing with you, there is no way the average punter is going to go for that when they see how much it'll cost. Far cheaper to beleive that climate change is a hoax.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I've long advocated nuclear power for Ireland but the practicalities demand that the generating station be in Britain or France, because of waste management requirements and fuel issues. That however would leave us with problems regarding energy security. I don't think wind, solar etc. will do the trick for us.

All the Dublin bus (and any other urban buses) should be electric at this stage. ESB has a few electric vehicles in their fleet but range still seems to be an issue for them.

Ten of Swords

Time to dust off the old plans for the Carnsore Point Nuclear Power Plant in Wexford.

Hopefully this time we will be spared a Christy Moore song!

Gerrup Outta Dat!

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Rayna Handsome Pecan wrote: »

I've long advocated nuclear power for Ireland but the practicalities demand that the generating station be in Britain or France, because of waste management requirements and fuel issues. That however would leave us with problems regarding energy security. I don't think wind, solar etc. will do the trick for us.

All the Dublin bus (and any other urban buses) should be electric at this stage. ESB has a few electric vehicles in their fleet but range still seems to be an issue for them.

So for once we agree with each other on something :P :pac: Would it not be feasible to buy our energy from our neighbours via the pipeline?

Why exactly do you think that it wouldn't be feasible here and what concerns do you have about waste management?

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

Some of those ideas look like they were dreamt up by the local primary school kids who just blurted out the first happy thought that came to them.

machiavellianme

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

Time to dust off the old plans for the Carnsore Point Nuclear Power Plant in Wexford.

Hopefully this time we will be spared a Christy Moore song!

As long as we get a second Turlough Hill to go with it.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

So for once we agree with each other on something :P :pac: Would it not be feasible to buy our energy from our neighbours via the pipeline?

Why exactly do you think that it wouldn't be feasible here and what concerns do you have about waste management?

Buying our energy from abroad leave us at the mercy of conditions abroad (think Brexit for example). Every government was as much control over the security of supply as possible when it comes to energy. I don't think even the general public would be happy to think all our energy is being bought from the UK. It would also have a massive impact on our balance of trade.

ESB CEOs have often said that Ireland's nuclear plants would be such small scale as to render the fixed costs of dealing with nuclear waste too prohibitive.


I still think with some imaginative thinking it should be able to make it feasible.

Just not beside my house

Dr Crayfish

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

don't we import most of our gas anyway?

Greybottle

No - The Irish government and unions are not to be trusted.

I work in renewable energy. I've often been asked about nuclear, my answer is always the same:

Pick a spot in Ireland. Get the Minister to point at the field and say "We're going to build a nuclear power station right here". Then get him to point at another field and say "We're going to build a facility to dump all our nuclear waste right here".

Stand back and watch the clusterfcuk unfold.


In real terms nuclear is not cheap when you take construction, running, waste disposal and decommissioning into account. It produces very little high level waste but a lot of low level waste that still has to be disposed of properly. Where that will be is anybody's guess. They cost billions to build, most of that money would leave these shores and would require somebody to buy excess overproduction off of us. We would also need to source the fuel and when it starts to get into short supply then we'll be at the end of the queue for it.

For Ireland a far more sensible solution is a network of smart grids powered by community energy initiatives. Scotland are getting there, Wales are following, so should we. It keeps investment, jobs and money in local communities and is far more sustainable in the long term that nuclear power.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

don't we import most of our gas anyway?

Absolutely, but we hold a certain number of months supply in reserve at all times in case of supply issues outside our control and we can buy in an open competitive market

Dr Crayfish

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Rayna Handsome Pecan wrote: »

Absolutely, but we hold a certain number of months supply in reserve at all times in case of supply issues outside our control and we can buy in an open competitive market

Do we not have tonnes of gas in our own territory though?

tomwaterford

If something went wrong with a nuclear plant in ireland I wouldn't trust any irish politians to come out and tell the truth of how bad it was until they looked after themselves first

archer22

Don't know about nuclear power in Ireland...think we would end up hearing "lessons have been learned...going forward".

(after the country has been turned into a Chernobyl style focking wasteland)

CrabRevolution

No - The Irish government and unions are not to be trusted.

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

Do we not have tonnes of gas in our own territory though?

We've far less than people make out. There have been a paltry number of successful finds of gas or oil off our shores, never mind finds which are economical to exploit.

We've 2 operational fields, and one of those (Kinsale) is coming to the end of it's use.

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

Rayna Handsome Pecan wrote: »

Buying our energy from abroad leave us at the mercy of conditions abroad (think Brexit for example). Every government was as much control over the security of supply as possible when it comes to energy. I don't think even the general public would be happy to think all our energy is being bought from the UK. It would also have a massive impact on our balance of trade.

ESB CEOs have often said that Ireland's nuclear plants would be such small scale as to render the fixed costs of dealing with nuclear waste too prohibitive.


I still think with some imaginative thinking it should be able to make it feasible.

Just not beside my house

Locating a generating plant in the UK or France still leaves you open to the mercy of conditions abroad. Particularly in the UK. Jeremy Corbyn would have the entire power system nationalised overnight if he was PM. And that would include any owned or paid for by us.

SEPT 23 1989

once we don't build it or regulate it I'm all for it

server down

Rayna Handsome Pecan wrote: »

I've long advocated nuclear power for Ireland but the practicalities demand that the generating station be in Britain or France, because of waste management requirements and fuel issues. That however would leave us with problems regarding energy security. I don't think wind, solar etc. will do the trick for us.

All the Dublin bus (and any other urban buses) should be electric at this stage. ESB has a few electric vehicles in their fleet but range still seems to be an issue for them.

We could be a major exporter of wind power. Needs political will and less nimbyism.

Ubbquittious

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Convince the Chinese to put out their coal seam fires and continue as usual.

Chinese coal seam fires cause far more climate change than Ireland can ever dream of causing and nobody benefits from them

Grayson

Thorium in the future might be an option, once the technology gets sorted. Until then though wind, wave and even solar can contribute.

server down

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Convince the Chinese to put out their coal seam fires and continue as usual.

Chinese coal seam fires cause far more climate change than Ireland can ever dream of causing and nobody benefits from them

In fact they are trying to make that clean, and investing in clean technology at a fair rate.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Biggest lickspittle on boardz wrote: »

Locating a generating plant in the UK or France still leaves you open to the mercy of conditions abroad. Particularly in the UK. Jeremy Corbyn would have the entire power system nationalised overnight if he was PM. And that would include any owned or paid for by us.

That's exactly the point they were making.

server down

The SEAI says we can become an exporter of wind power by 2030.

https://www.seai.ie/resources/publications/Wind_Energy_Roadmap_2011-2050.pdf

Ubbquittious

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

server down wrote: »

In fact they are trying to make that clean, and investing in clean technology at a fair rate.

Still it's only the very odd one they have actually managed to extinguish

Ubbquittious

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

server down wrote: »

The SEAI says we can become an exporter of wind power by 2030.

https://www.seai.ie/resources/publications/Wind_Energy_Roadmap_2011-2050.pdf

Those lads are in bed with the big windfarm owners and are putting all their eggs in the same basket. A jiggawatt or 2 of installed solar power would do a much better job

They'd want to hurry on and stop making it awkward for people to install domestic solar panels as well

server down

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Those lads are in bed with the big windfarm owners and are putting all their eggs in the same basket. A jiggawatt or 2 of installed solar power would do a much better job

They'd want to hurry on and stop making it awkward for people to install domestic solar panels as well

The report talks about moving primarilty to off shore production in the main in future, so the existing "big wind farm owners" will eventually lose out. I believe we should use our advantage in this area to export electricity.

As for solar, yeh that works better in Ireland than people think.

Which reminds me, the poll should have an option. I would support nuclear power if there was a need, but there isnt.

Cina

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Convince the Chinese to put out their coal seam fires and continue as usual.

Chinese coal seam fires cause far more climate change than Ireland can ever dream of causing and nobody benefits from them

this is the worst attitude you can have with climate change. Saying other countries with 300x the population we have are worse and should fix it instead of us sets a terrible example. Every country should be doing their part, big or small.

Ultimately Ireland is a wealthy nation, with a perfect land-size and population to implement many of these measures and we should be looking to set an example to other countries and not sit on our butts.

Ubbquittious

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Cina wrote: »

this is the worst attitude you can have with climate change. Saying other countries with 300x the population we have are worse and should fix it instead of us sets a terrible example. Every country should be doing their part, big or small.

Ultimately Ireland is a wealthy nation, with a perfect land-size and population to implement many of these measures and we should be looking to set an example to other countries and not sit on our butts.

There are worse attitudes you can have for example bothering everyone with extra taxes and banning their ways of life in the name of climate change while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room that is China

Cina

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There are worse attitudes you can have for example bothering everyone with extra taxes and banning their ways of life in the name of climate change while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room that is China

our current way of life is not sustainable for the future of humanity, and the sooner people accept that, the better.

it's either change our way of life or have no life at all.

server down

Cina wrote: »

our current way of life is not sustainable for the future of humanity, and the sooner people accept that, the better.

it's either change our way of life or have no life at all.

Or maintain our way of life with renewable technologies.

Cina

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

server down wrote: »

Or maintain our way of life with renewable technologies.

it's still not enough.

A prime example is methane and pollution from agriculture and food consumption, we would basically need to all become vegan to fix this.

Christy42

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There are worse attitudes you can have for example bothering everyone with extra taxes and banning their ways of life in the name of climate change while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room that is China

Essentially this is a problem that needs work from all nations big and small to work together for the sake of future generations.

I am not holding my breath that this is going to end well. Too many views like the above but I will be damned if it reaches the point were my excuse to future generations was to point at the other kid in the room and shout they didn't try so I didn't bother trying either. It just seems shameful to not even try.

mikhail

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There are worse attitudes you can have for example bothering everyone with extra taxes and banning their ways of life in the name of climate change while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room that is China

Why does everyone mention China in this context? India's numbers are consistently worse, and don't show the downward trend of China's.

Cina

Yes - but only a small one located in a very isolated area.

mikhail wrote: »

Why does everyone mention China in this context? India's numbers are consistently worse, and don't show the downward trend of China's.

and yet Indian people have only 1/22 the carbon footprint of the average American.

How can we expect a country as poor as India to try tackle climate change when the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth is doing nothing.

This is a problem that the wealthier countries (us included) need to tackle so that the poorer ones can then do it.

For all of China's problems, they are doing a hell of a lot more to try and combat climate change and pollution in their country right now than the likes of the USA are.

_Brian

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

The citizens assembly have met to discuss what measures to take to reduce climate change. They suggested, among other things, increase bus lanes, increase carbon tax and try to discourage private vehicles. I was very surprised that they were bold enough to mention cattle farmers (that will get shot down and stomped out, no doubt).

• My suggestions would be to remove driving lanes and introduce bus lanes (where applicable) and rigorously enforce this with cameras.
• Try to introduce electric buses and gradually replace the fleet.
• Deny planning permission for new car parks and apartment complexes unless they provide electric car charging points.
• Make hybrid cars a max of €50 motor tax per year and electric cars free.
• If a company provides a certain number of charging points, make the expense tax deductible.
• Reduce public transport fares to encourage usage
• People who have their private vehicles filled to their legal capacity may use bus lanes.
• New motorways must have a segregated cycle lane to the left of the hard shoulder separated by a fortress for safety.
• Move away from fossil fuels for electricity and start using wind, tidal and nuclear

I don't know why Irish people shit their knickers when people mention nuclear. It is a clean and relatively safe form of fuel.

(I won't go into my uni-level physics), but in a nutshell, nuclear fission involves creating an isotope, the isotope is unstable, so it sheds its extra weight along with some heat, this extra weight shed by the isotope creates another isotope and the process continues. This generates enormous heat, which boils water which drives a turbine. The big stacks emit nothing but steam!

Fossil fuel electricity is the exact same process, except the heat is produced by burning fossil fuels, this chimney emits all sorts of smoke and crap.

Nuclear power plants emit roughly a briefcase of waste in a year. A person who uses electricity produced by a nuclear power plant will be responsible for only a coke can of waste in their entire life.

Before anyone mentions Japan, when do we get earthquakes / tsunamis here? France produces something like 80% of its electricity by nuclear fission.

Would you like to see nuclear power in Ireland?

Surely there should be research on how to extract these gasses from the atmosphere ??

Carbon taxes on farmers producing food ?? While I can buy a plane seat for €10/20 to places in Europe?? That makes no sense. Plus any decrease in beef production here will be supplemented by an increase in places like Brazil where they will chop down pristine rainforest to produce more cheap n nasty beef with zero traceability.

How about a boycott on goods from countries like Brazil who are chasing a deforestation process to produce cheap produce to dump into Europe when its not needed at all.

Groups like Teagasc are working plans to increase Agri produce to match growing populations yet something like 35% of all food produced is wasted before consumption. More and more emphasis on utilisation of current food rather than producing excess foods, of which much will inevitably be wasted.

There is lots that can be done without taxing people out of existence.

server down

_Brian wrote: »

Surely there should be research on how to extract these gasses from the atmosphere ??

Carbon taxes on farmers producing food ?? While I can buy a plane seat for €10/20 to places in Europe?? That makes no sense. Plus any decrease in beef production here will be supplemented by an increase in places like Brazil where they will chop down pristine rainforest to produce more cheap n nasty beef with zero traceability.

How about a boycott on goods from countries like Brazil who are chasing a deforestation process to produce cheap produce to dump into Europe when its not needed at all.

Groups like Teagasc are working plans to increase Agri produce to match growing populations yet something like 35% of all food produced is wasted before consumption. More and more emphasis on utilisation of current food rather than producing excess foods, of which much will inevitably be wasted.

There is lots that can be done without taxing people out of existence.

we could use green energy to extract gasses from the atmosphere but it is a bit chicken and egg at the moment.