Would you support a windfarm in your area?

redlough

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120292697#Comment_120292697

Burning turf is the worst option available

Also bog can act as a natural CO2 sink so should be left to try and regenerate

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40851512.html

Furze99

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120282849#Comment_120282849

It's not just the concrete bases and turbines themselves. These are large industrial construction projects and substantial roads need to be put in in order to deliver and erect the components and to service them subsequently - huge trailers need to be pulled in. Given that most inland sites are on hills, major destruction of the environment involved.

Galway Wind Park is a classic example - biggest industrial construction project of it's time a few years back. Built on areas on blanket bog, the very landscape that other Green policy wants to protect. To construct this project, massive amounts of blanket bog needed to be stripped to get to bedrock. For the turbines themselves and the roads. Huge borrow pits were dug in which to dump all this excavated peat.

It's environmental vandalism on a wide scale, promoted in part by a political party that once espoused the idea of protecting the environment. Where did they lose their way??

ednwireland

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293038#Comment_120293038

don't forget the miles and miles of gravel roads (which as a mountain biker is fantastic). actually act as drainage channels for upland bogs.

Markcheese

Yes

Like most things , the devils in the detail , there are locations where wind turbines shouldnt be located , because they're too damaging ,but like everything else there's a balance - some bogland isn't suitable ,some of it is of very limited value because of generations of extraction or drainage , some can be put back better than before ,

A lot of people don't want to see them from anywhere , the recent blocking of turbines near gougane Barra because they'd be visible from the park struck me as gross nimbyism, fine if there had a genuine environmental reason..

Water John

Yes

Derrybrien is owned by the ESB, not a private developer. The slide was the result of Galway CC putting an unreasonable finish deadline.

Nowadays, there is no 'rushed development' in any infrastructure in Ireland. Quite the opposite in fact. Some of those offshore windfarms not yet built have been 20 years in the pipeline.

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120283076#Comment_120283076

So are you against windfarms because they use concrete. How come you don't use the same argument with other power plants? they use building materials too. they're not made out of wood. So the whole concrete thing seems like a bit of a red herring.

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293093#Comment_120293093

Bogs don't really regenerate. Sphagnum grows really slowly. Places where we had raised bogs that were drained/destroyed are actually the perfect place to have windfarm. They're generally large flat spaces and the existing ecosystem was destroyed.

xxyyzz

Yes

I keep hearing from the naysayers that it is just urban dwellers who are for them but I live almost exactly 500m from these turbines and to be honest apart from a slight swishing noise which you can hear if you open a window on a windy day like today, I don't even notice they are there. This being the internet, I'm sure there are those who'll tell me that I'm wrong.

https://vimeo.com/802712837

Marcos

Even Greta Thunberg is protesting against them.

So it's not black and white.

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120294551#Comment_120294551

Indeed, as you say, its not black and white, which is why I'm wondering why you choose to leave out why she was protesting.

Was your aim to make it seem like she objects to all wind farms or something because her protest is not against the wind farms, its against govt inaction after the govt lost a case about the wind farms. The fate of the wind farms in question has already been determined

The area in question, the indigenous Sami people went to court to get wind farms shut down that interfered with historical hunting practices due to their location. The case went to the Supreme Court, who sided with the Sami people. That was in Oct 2021. The Norwegian govt have yet to do anything along the lines of shutting down the wind farm. The Sami people have waited over 500 days for the govt to do something and got tired of waiting, hence the protest.

Gretas comment on the issue ""Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action. That can't happen at the expense of some people. Then it is not climate justice," she said in an interview with news agency Reuters."

A perfectly reasonable reason to protest. Govt inaction after they've lost a case should never be excused

MegamanBoo

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293656#Comment_120293656

Actually I'm broadly in favour, I incorrectly voted no to say they're right near me already.

My concern is just that they're done right.

Yes there's concrete in power plants already but that might last 100 years and then be replaced.

With these afaik there's a pattern already of just abandoning at end of life.

Markus Antonius

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293093#Comment_120293093

Turf is worst option and bog should be left to regenerate? Perfect example of the green hypocrisy..

Here is an aerial view of one section of the 40+ turbines constructed in the boglands in my area:

Can you point out the section where the turf burners have been cutting for the last 30 years?

Here's a closeup showing how much of the peatland they have to drain and dig out:

And here an image from the ground showing your beloved boglands turned into a building site:

Try stepping outside your housing estate for 2 minutes and see who really is nature's biggest threat...

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296020#Comment_120296020

I'm not sure an area that has been stripped, drained and turned over to managed forestry can be classified as bog in any sense of the word.

Don't get me wrong, I fully, 100% support rewetting and restoration but there is no bog left at that site, any bog that may have existed has been destroyed long ago.

The same has happened to bog all over the country but a lot more of it has ended up as farm land or forests.

There are active projects rewetting bogs in various areas of the country, with the target of 80k hectares by 2030

Birdnuts

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293812#Comment_120293812

Thats totally untrue - do some research on the likes of Boora, Blackditch BNM bogs that are now wonderfull wetland habitats for many species

Birdnuts

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120293656#Comment_120293656

Power plants are generally built in or near industrial areas, not sprawled over hundreds of square kms of mountainsides, bogs etc, so your comparison is nonsense. Also these powerplants don't require anything like the level of back up power that windfarms do(the current output of windfarms on the Eirgrid Dashboard proving that very clearly)

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296348#Comment_120296348

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296352#Comment_120296352

I did my research when I was in college and had to study bogs.

Peat forms at a rate of about 1mm per year, in the right conditions. We can't regrow bogs. Once they're gone, they're gone. It takes hundreds of thousands of years for that ecosystem to develop. Took a few decades for us to destroy.

Boora isn't a bog It's a barren areas that's being rehabilitated in some ways. Boora for example is being turned into a wildlife park and a lot of agricultural land. It's never going to be a raised bog ever again. That is gone for ever.

The first thing that BnM did was drain bogs. They often did this and left it for years and never cut turf. Boora is an example of that. What happens is that the water table is lowered and the top layer, where the sphagnum grows dies. The longer it's drained, the worse the damage is. Sphagnum is replaced by plants like heather. It can be reversed if the damage isn't too bad, but there comes a stage where it just can't. And if the bog has been cut, especially by artificial means, it's fecked. And there's loads of that in Ireland. There's huge open wastelands where feck all grows. I've stood on them and it's just depressing looking at the damage we did. Once again, once a bog is destroyed, it's gone.

Powerplants aren't built in industrial areas. Maybe you're thinking of substations? Fossil fuels produce large amounts of smoke. They're not popped onto the edge of towns. They might be near towns but they're a few miles out. The only one I can think of that's close to a town is in Dublin bay and that was put as far away from people as possible when it was built.

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120295772#Comment_120295772

That makes perfect sense. In Ireland we have a habit of not thinking ahead, like when we destroyed the bogs in the first place.

redlough

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296020#Comment_120296020

I live in the countryside. You really need to stop accusing everyone of living in an estate or in a city.

Turf is the worst option for burning the create electricity.

Cutting bogs to burns is what has destroyed bogs in Ireland.

How is the old poll going?

redlough

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296454#Comment_120296454

Sorry this is off topic, but the project to rewater bogs etc would that potentially regenerate some of the bogs?

I know people have done massive damage to bogs and even worse that they are aware of the damage and still want to continue.

Furze99

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296020#Comment_120296020

If that's Galway Wind Park - I concur as I came across it during the construction phase. Massive project, some of which seemed to be areas of forest and elsewhere on open lands. Passed a compound with machinery parked up, like what you'd see in one of those large mining districts abroad.

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296687#Comment_120296687

Some. It depends how much damage is done. The bogs that have been drained and harvested are lost forever. I've visited some and it's just a wasteland. It's very hard for other plants to live there and it takes awork to get it into a stage where a different ecosystem can take over.

The key to bogs is the sphagnum moss. It covers everything. And turf is essentially made from it. Over millennia it grows and covers the area. It soaks up water like mad. And it turns the ground water acidic which is great because it grows in wet acidic conditions. Overtime it's essentially moss growing on dead soggy acidic moss.

Once the land is drained, all the moss dies. And all the conditions that it can grow in goes. So the longer the drainage, the dryer it gets and the more the habitat breaks down. And other species like heather take over. I remember my first field trip to a bog and asking my professor what could be done to restore the bog, that we were standing on and which was being cut, and the answer was "Nothing".

When they rewater bogs, it all depends on how extensive the damage is. If it was drained and left for years then it can't be recovered. Everything about the bog that made it a bog is gone. It can be re-watered but the original ecosystem will never recover. What they do when they rewater it is create a new wetland ecosystem that other plants and animals can live in.

I grew up in a house that burned turf. I used to turn sods during the summer. But when I learned about the damage we're doing, I was horrified. All that ecosystem being destroyed. It's like burning down a rain forest. Natural undrained raised bogs are completely different to the bogs where turf is cut. The ground is so full of water that when you jump up and down you create actual waves in the ground. You can do it and see other people nearby going up and down on the waves you create :)

Here's a good page about it. You can see how many we've destroyed by looking at what is left cor conservation.

http://www.ipcc.ie/a-to-z-peatlands/raised-bogs/

And from here (My bold) https://ireland.representation.ec.europa.eu/projects/eu-funded-project-helps-restore-irelands-raised-bogs_en

It is estimated that a 15cm thick layer of peat contains more carbon per hectare than a tropical forest. Peat covers over 20% of the landscape in Ireland and is estimated to store over 1,000 million tonnes of carbon. Carbon capture is essential to life on earth.

Over 200 years ago, there were over 800,000 acres of intact raised bogs across the Irish midlands. However, since then, they have been exploited as a source of cheap fuel which depleted the areas. Approximately 8% is deemed suitable for restoration/conservation today and less than 1% is said to be active, living bog (still capable of growing).

xxyyzz

Yes

Ye are all wrong, according to these loopers turf is a crop for harvesting https://www.facebook.com/BarroughterAndClonmoylanBogsActionGroup

The comments section is good for a laugh if you are into alternate realities.

Furze99

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120297068#Comment_120297068

The large proportion of raised bogs have been destroyed by the industrial mining of Bord na Móna over several decades, us ourselves - the state. But we still have extensive blanket bogs in parts of the west. A lot of this was cut for fuel over previous centuries and stripped too. But still extensive areas surviving on uplands. It's these blanket bogs that are under threat of government policy and Green agendas - for planting with trees and also for industrial wind farms since uplands are prime locations for the latter.

Will we allow our blanket bogs now to be sacrificed by the state?

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120297155#Comment_120297155

Maybe. maybe not.

I'll explain why I'm saying that.

large parts of blanket bogs have already been damaged or destroyed. They would make prime locations for windfarms. There's already access roads. There impact of putting up turbines would be limited. If the bog is damaged then it should be assessed. There may be times when it's better overall for the environment to place a windfarm. maybe it might be just too hard to restore and it can be converted to other uses like natural forestry for example.

Every effort should be made to maintain pristine blanket bogs. That includes banning all turf cutting. That includes all agriculture too. And any forestry that involves sitka or crap like that. If it's damaged and can be recovered then the same applies. Do you agree with that?

Grayson

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120297139#Comment_120297139

I got into an argument with someone like that on twitter. they said turf was eco friendly since it grows back. I pointed out the it was 1mm a year and they said that no, you can see bogs growing it's that fast

tom1ie

Yes

I voted yes as I want our energy mix to be as renewable as possible- however it is quite clear that prices will not get any/much cheaper due to the wind generation being owned by private companies.

Private companies will always put profit for shareholders ahead of customers.

Markus Antonius

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120296677#Comment_120296677

Can you show me what a destroyed bog looks like?

redlough

Yes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120298771#Comment_120298771

Do be honest I have no idea why you are asking that question

Anyway the bigger question here is what has the biggest impact on the environment

If the damage done in the pictures you provided above to allow the installation of Wind Turbines to provide clean energy for 20 years +

Or 20 years of digging up bogs and then burning the turf in a power station.

Which do you think has a bigger impact on the environment?

bmc58

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120241238#Comment_120241238

After the way Aer Tricity have made millions off us Irish in the past year with their prices I'm gone sour on these windmils.

Markus Antonius

No

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120298847#Comment_120298847

I've shown you clear evidence of windfarms destroying swathes of bogland.

You make a statement like this:

Cutting bogs to burns is what has destroyed bogs in Ireland.

Why wouldn't I ask you what a destroyed bog looks like?

Bizarre that you would expect me not to.