EPA sort out the sh1te going into Dublin bay first please

brucky

Reading articles yesterday on banning open fires and how terrible they are for society and the individuals using them. I am sick of this nanny state ideology. I wish the EPA would do something about the consistent raw sewage that spills into Dublin bay on a regular basis. This is a national disgrace you cannot even swim in the area now. Why so much attention is focused on open fires is beyond me.

listermint

You know when we are talking about environmental issues it's not just.. one thing... Right.

It's a collection of things .

.like when your car gets serviced they don't just change a spark plug and send you on your way .

boombang

Both those problems seem pretty important to me.

Separately, I don't see how the first is an example of the nanny state at all. Addressing private choices that lead to collective public harms is not nanny statism.

kirving

The general public are far more likely to do their bit for the environment, if the government are doing theirs, I believe is what the OP is getting at.

Obviously the government can't fix everything overnight, but very difficult for some to get on board when we hear of boil water notices for literally years, petrol being more expensive than diesel despite known environmental issues, and removal of VRT breaks on PHEV's.

The government in general are doing good work on the environmental front in general, but these things are thorns in peoples side that undermine the overall message of why smokey fuel needs to be minimised.

I grew up near the M50 pretty much, and now work in a town in Ireland. There are some days the air quality is noticeably far worse in the town due to smokey fuel.

ted1

You mean a project like this ?

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com/the-project/project-update/

And this ?

https://www.water.ie/projects-plans/ringsend/

ted1

ted1 wrote: »

You mean a project like this ?

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com/the-project/project-update/

Yes that one.... The one people dont want built

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/proceedings-begin-against-clonshaugh-waste-water-facility-plan-1.4298545

brucky

As Kevin has eluded to its about getting the buy in from the public. I think it’s a national disgrace that you cannot swim or let your children play in the sand of the strand in Dublin. Smokey coal is already banned, and it’s low hanging fruit imho. To seriously tackle the water pollution in Dublin bay would involve taking on, and prosecuting another state agency. The capital projects in the links supplied above will be outstripped before they are even finished as they don’t have sufficient capacity, nor any capacity to meet future demand.

magicbastarder

the talk about a total smoky fuel ban seems to have been prompted by threats of legal action should they extend the smoky coal ban nationwide; IIRC two of the three companies mentioned are based outside the state too. so the 'compromise' was to suggest a ban on all smoky fuels.

it's not a simple issue though; stoves create less smoke than open fires, dry wood is far less smoky than wet ****ty softwood you'd sometimes see for sale in petrol station forecourts, but there's no real way to distinguish them in terms of a workable ban.
coal and turf are fossil fuels, but wood is not, but they're mainly interested in particulate matter rather than CO2 with the mooted ban, which i think is short sighted.

i have a load of cherry wood drying outside at the moment. it was from a diseased tree taken down a year ago and it'll probably be next year before it's burned, in my stove.

our primary heat source in the house is GFCH and we supplement that with the stove, so we're definitely burning less gas (a fossil fuel) as a result; but if i was not allowed burn the cherry, our fossil fuel consumption would rise and the CO2 from the wood would still enter the atmosphere over the next few years anyway, as it rotted.

Irish Steve

Just once, it would be nice if Ryan and his cohorts were to appear on national TV with a workable and viable carrot, rather than for ever beating us with a stick of yet more restrictions, limits, carbon taxes and all the other stuff that they keep on trotting out, yet they seem incapable of offering anything sensible in terms of an upgrade, with appropriate incentives to the people who use these things, so that they can see a way forward rather than dreading the future.

There's a plan to spend multiple millions upgrading social housing to get them to a B2 BER standard, which is a good idea, but why is it taking so long to come up with similar schemes and funding for the massive number of private houses that need the same upgrade in order to reduce their energy consumption.

Maybe the real issue is that they don't actually have a viable plan for the massive infrastructure that will have to be installed to make these changes possible, the use of oil for heating is going to have to go, and longer term, so is gas heating, and longer term, so will gas cooking, so that leaves electricity. Wonderful, as long as the massive upgrades needed to ensure security of supply are in place, the electricity generation systems are upgraded to ensure they are not carbon based, and ways to store power to cover periods of peak demand, and shortage of supply due to no wind or sunshine, or even (as happened this week in Texas) there are massive weather events that overwhelm the capacity and security of the generation and distribution system.

I don't want to even think about the consequences for many households if they have no heat, no cooking capability, no light, and possibly no running water as a result of an electricity outage, and if that were to last more than (say) 24 hours, even things like food in freezers is at risk, and in 10 years time, even getting to work may be problematic if the car can't be recharged overnight.

These are real issues that can and do happen, and may happen more frequently with the weather extremes that are becoming more frequent with the passage of time, and extended failures of power systems could well be significantly life threatening for a large number of people if acceptable back up systems are not in place to mitigate the problems of failures. I have seen nothing to suggest that the people in politics that are suggesting the changes have given any serious thought to how these issues will be addressed, let alone funded.

Rigor Mortis

The plan to retrofit public housing is smart. Firstly, it does not require buy in. It will pump prime that industry and allow contractors to hire staff in the knowledge that the work is there. It will bring down the cost.

Where i have an issue is that the retrofit programme (including private) is going to take way longer than Government is admitting. The targets wont be reached in the private sector, because a. people are very nervous about cost and disrupption, and b. the industry isnt resourced to do it and wont be for some time.

The Government should have maintained grant incentives for gas boilers to get people off oil. With a life of 15 years per boiler it would have encouraged a lot of people to switch.