What are your essential Irish Infrastructure projects, in order of need?

A Dublin outer orbital motorway will be become m50 number 2 (a car park) in no time..
. . . Dublin public transport, metro north, D. U., new luas lines.. BRTs and just more busses and bus lanes..
. . An orbital public transport system with bus/coach stations and park and rides as well.. So passengers can change mode and direction..
. . . Cork could do with the dunkettle interchange being done.. More buses and bus lanes, and park and rides but it's not stifled..
. . Limerick/ Cork needs serious upgrade but motorway may be over the top, as is a Cork to killarney motorway,
Galway just sound like a mess traffic wise..

Theres a whole list, but I'll throw an oddball one out there.

1. Proper helipads at every trauma center that can support S92s, no transferring by ambo.

I'd think a massive investment to break our reliance on fossil fuels would be the best thing we could do.

Maybe lot of offshore wind farms or tidal generators.

SeanW wrote: »

Some of these are going to be controversial but here goes:

1. Nuclear power: wind mills are too expensive, too destructive to the environment and to ecology, and too unreliable. Solar is a joke, the only weather Ireland gets consistently is cold and damp]

You don't need Spanish sunshine for Solar. Solar is getting cheaper and cheaper by the month

SeanW wrote: »

Some of these are going to be controversial but here goes:

1. Nuclear power: wind mills are too expensive, too destructive to the environment and to ecology, and too unreliable. Solar is a joke, the only weather Ireland gets consistently is cold and damp. Especially if we move towards electric cars, we're going to need lots of clean energy, and reliably. Repeal the 1999 energy laws, or sections relating to nuclear electricity and participate in research (including testing and deployment) of small fission reactors. Participate fully in international research into fusion power.

look at the eye-watering costs associated with Hinkley C, the new British nuclear station. £18b at face value, but possibly £30b in subsidised energy tariffs. How much other infrastructure could we build for that?

Coupled with the likely political opposition (think water charges x 100) and i don't think we'll be seeing any nuclear plants built here.

Solar is a completely viable option for Ireland. The cost of panels is falling constantly, along with efficiency rising. Couple that with the rising efficiency of solar storage and it's clearly the best option for the future. The idea that you need constant blue skies for it to work is false.

The Switch by Chris Goodall is a good read on the developments in the industry.

Conchir wrote: »

Solar is a completely viable option for Ireland. The cost of panels is falling constantly, along with efficiency rising. Couple that with the rising efficiency of solar storage and it's clearly the best option for the future. The idea that you need constant blue skies for it to work is false.

The Switch by Chris Goodall is a good read on the developments in the industry.

Ireland has a problem with system scale, with such a small number of generation sites we're very vulnerable to a single failure and thus dispatchable power is an issue.

Solar and Wind power are not dispatchable so most of what they generate has to redundantly generated by a coal/gas plant which is then creates waste.

Building large solar installations would be a poor choice, what we need is a scheme to really push householders to install panels along with solar thermal hot water systems.

Praetorian wrote: »

* Lots more cycle lanes

Please no, not yet. If you tell the councils to build cycle lanes they just paint streets ad nauseum without planning or space. Fix the current stock and have NTA draw up mandatory conditions first (such as proper on ramps not quater pipes).

trellheim wrote: »

1. Nuclear power

More expensive and troublesome than they are worth. By the time they were built renewable will have made them expensive white elephants

By the time they were built renewable will have made them expensive white elephants

Right .... you seriously believe we can meet our electricity demand from irish renewables ... we might get to 40% by 2020 if we're lucky and most of that is unpredictable Wind

Strip imported gas and coal out - 60%

Peat is not a sensible renewable - thats another 10% gone

Current stats has Wind at 19%

For national infrastructure 2xNuclears sensible option.

Unless you have some magic economics that says we dont have to import 60% of our power

Replace current toll on M50 with flat toll on entry at any point. It would discourage the smaller trips eg Ballymun to Finglas. Remove Ballymount Junction..

No way we get planning an build nuclear in 3 years. More likely you're looking at 2040\50 by that stage you're looking at 80% from renewalable

Using what magic do you plan to cover our electricity needs between now and a really unlikely goal ? I'm all in favour of renewables but actual sources are required that actually guarantees electricity when the wind does not blow.

Deedsie wrote: »

This is not an attack on the M20... just an alternative suggestion of how ?1billion infrastructure spending could be used in Munster.

I personally think that the ?1billion they are going to spend on the M20 could be better spent building a new Cork - Limerick rail line and upgrading the Nenagh line as the main Limerick - Dublin line.

The alternative to the M20 proposal could be done by upgrading the existing road with bypasses of Charleville, Buttevant, Mallow, and a motorway between Mallow & the Cork North Ring which would also have to be built of course. Also future proof the alignment so the M20 could be built one day when absolutely required.

Instead of just a vastly superior M20 motorway connection, the Munster region could have a safe and vastly improved N20, a proper Cork - Limerick rail line, a proper ring road around Cork & a motorway as far as Mallow, a much improved direct Limerick - Dublin rail connection improving connection between limerick and satellite towns for rail commuters.

We have to reduce our transport carbon emissions by 2025 or we will be fined ?75 million per year by the EU.

Is there any merit to the above suggestion?

No. The M20 is justifiable today, many times over, having lived in Cork for a time, the Dunkettle Roundabout upgrade is also justifiable today, as are likely the M28 and upgrades of some kind to many of the roads leading from Cork into the regions (N22, N25, N71 and so on).

There are top 3 projects that are, to mind, justifiable yesterday and should have been done 10 years ago - Dart Underground, Metro North and the M20.

Sam Russell wrote: »

Nuclear would still be imported unless you are getting us to have our own Selafield reprocessing plant.

Nuclear power stations are very expensive to build, to run, and to decommission. They are extremely expensive beyond belief if they explode have a small incident. The downside of such an incident is that an area the size of Munster becomes wasteland, and uninhabitable.

Why do they build the Nuclear power station in very remote places if they are so safe?

Because they are not safe!

Sam Russell wrote: »

Have you included the accidents in Japan, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Windscale (renamed Sellafield to try to forget about it)?

The cost of fixing Chernobyl is still racking up. They have just built a giant sarcophagus to entomb it, and had to put robots inside to try to clean it up, as the building will not last as long as the radioactive material inside.

Nuclear reactors are too large for Ireland - one is too big for us, and we would have to redo the grid to cope with one massive generator, because it will not be built on Bull Island, probable Bere Island, or even far out into the Atlantic Ocean.

I think it would be one infrastructure project that the parish pump guys will run a mile from.

So much mis-information I don't know where to start. First of all, reading some of these posts about how renewables are the future make me want to find a polyester dancing suit, some ridiculous platform shoes, a record player and some BeeGees and Boney M records and re-decorate my bathroom in brown wallpaper. Why? Because all this talk about renewables being the future was all the rage starting in at least the 1970s and was a big talking point for the "Build Moneypoint and lets burn coal!" protests in Carnsore Point in that decade. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. Solar in Ireland has one huge problem, one that will always be - Ireland's peak energy demand is in the winter. The lower the temperatures, the greater the demand. The second problem is electric cars, if there is a mass move away from petrol and diesel in cars, then people who have electric cars are going to want to be able to "fill them up" the same way as with petrol/diesel. i.e. anytime, anywhere. That means the total demand is going to increase, and very dramatically. There are not enough hilltops that can be carpet-bombed with these ugly, bird chomping, bat killing monstrosities referred to as "wind turbines" and there's no way that these will produce power when people need it (i.e. whether the wind is blowing or not) the cost of both building these things, building power lines out to them and backing them up with fossil fuels (which is the plan), is enough to:
1) Continue cook the planet with CO2 emissions, because fossil fuels won't be going anywhere.
2) Send entire species of bats and some birds to extinction (windmills are extremely harsh on avian wildlife)
3) Possibly cost enough financially to tear a nation asunder or at very least seriously damage its citizens quality of life.

As for uranium, there are 3 questions and you've managed to blur them in some weird way: 1) Where do you get it from? 2) how do you use it? 3) How much does it cost.
Uranium can be acquired from mines anywhere in the world, including Canada and Australia as Western type nations with large reserves, Russia has its sources in the 'stans. And there are some sources in Africa that may be available to either the African states themselves or to national importers as needed. As I will explain later, uranium could also come from seawater, which is accessible to almost all countries on Earth.
How do you use it? Most countries do not have reprocessing plants, notably the U.S. Only France and the UK use reprocessing ATM and some countries sub-contract their reprocessing to these. An Irish Sellafield would be both unnecessary and unjustifiable.
How much does it cost? Currently, uranium fuel prices account for about 5% of the cost of providing nuclear electricity. AKA f*** all. Seawater harvesting of uranium has improved to the point where is now an absolute cap of $300/kg on uranium fuel costs - and that cap is falling fast. See here.

As to your point about nuclear plants just unceremoniously exploding for no reason, this is a fantasy. The worst nuclear accidents in history have all had very clear causes and in many cases there were warnings well in advance of the danger.
The worst nuclear accident in history was without doubt the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union. Yet if one looks at the causes of this, it becomes clear that it was more of a Soviet accident at a nuclear plant than a nuclear accident. Literally, the level of incompetence, secrecy and slavish devotion to "following orders at any cost" was absolutely mind boggling. Oh, and, most Soviet reactors were military reactors that provided plutonium for nuclear weapons and electricity as a byproduct.
Firstly the design of Chernobyl-4 was never used outside the Soviet Union based on the obvious flaws in the RBMK reactor type. There were also a load of smaller design faults that were kept under Soviet secrecy - even from the operators. The plant was put into service before it was ready and before a key safety test had been carried out. That "safety test" ended up being left to an incredibly arrogant supervisor and a team of barely qualified electrical engineers on the night of April 25th 1986. One of the newbies made a mistake reducing the power levels too much and the efforts of the team to rectify the errors turned the badly designed reactor into a simmering nuclear volcano. But between design faults, a lack of warning from various sensors, contradictory instructions in the operators manual and State secrecy regarding the problems, the team in the control room had literally no idea of the danger until it was too late. The RBMK reactor design also did not permit Western style double-containment systems, this contributed to the ecological damage. The Soviets also had no plan for a nuclear accident and contributed to the danger afterwards by failing to evacuate Pripyat and other local towns in good time, and also by allowing May Day rallies to go ahead as planned in Kyiv (Kiev), when people should have been advised to stay indoors. The exclusion zone is also not a "wasteland" true there is little human activity there but by some accounts wildlife is flourishing in the area.
Fukushima was similarly explained by bad design. The Japanese Pacific coast had dozens of reactors along it like Fukushina-Daiichi, but the others were built and run by companies other than TEPCO and they in turn had their plants protected by higher sea-walls, different placement of backup batteries, diesel generators and so on. TEPCO had ignored numerous warnings of danger including from General Electric who supplied them with the reactors in areas such as the placement of diesel generators close to ground level. The Japanese nuclear regulator also has questions to answer IMHO for why they allowed TEPCO to run a plant so poorly equipped/design vis-a-vis other companies.

As to your point about nuclear being too large for Ireland, there is some truth to that, but only some. In the immediate term, the best approach is to build more interconnection (including redundant inter-connectors) with the UK and encourage them to go nuclear more heavily and sell to us - they have large scale in their markets and so could try to do what France did in the in the 1970s and 1980s and go totally nuclear, using Gen II reactors if necessary. Leaving the EU as they are, they can rescind the EU renewables directives and use nuclear energy to meet their climate targets if they wish. During this time, Ireland should as I suggested previously, participate in the development and testing of small scale reactors such as Pebble Bed reactors. Of course, these arguments about scale will become much less valid if there is mass-electrification of the transportation system - our power requirements WILL increase very dramatically if this occurs.

Your complaint about "redoing the grid to accommodate a reactor in the Atlantic Ocean" firstly nuclear plants are always built on land, not at sea. Secondly, your point about redoing the grid is exactly what is required for renewables because the best sites for things like windmills are nowhere near the areas of peak demand. The big problem with wind mills in Ireland is getting grid connections because the wind mills are so remote (a.k.a previously unspoiled). Germany is prepared to spend ?1,000,000,000,000 (i.e. one trillion euro) on grid expansion and other ongoing subsidies to cover its insane wind programme. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Trillion-Euro_cost_of_German_energy_transition-2002137.html

trellheim wrote: »

Using what magic do you plan to cover our electricity needs between now and a really unlikely goal ? I'm all in favour of renewables but actual sources are required that actually guarantees electricity when the wind does not blow.

When the wind doesn't blow, the sun isn't shining and the waves aren't waving? Backed up with traditional generation and improvements in storage will be enough to guarantee supply