WTH?
This is total madness, FIFTH price hike from Electric Ireland since the beginning of 2021. EI’s parent group - ESB - recorded €680m profit in 2021.
I genuinely do not know how any of us apart from the super-rich will survive this winter.
What is the government doing apart from sitting on their hands?
Not a single person has died from nuclear waste! I think you should reevaluate that view because many people have died of cancers from nuclear waste. Just because a threat is not addressed does not mean it is not a serious issue. There are tons of contaminated sites of all sorts that have never been addressed while full knowledge of the dangers were/are known. There are a few islands in the south pacific that will counter the points you have made here.
They haven't addressed nuclear waste even if there is a believed method it isn't used so the issue remains.
It's not a serious problem because all nuclear plants have been able to long-finger the issue, and in some cases that has been ongoing for half a century. Had it actually been a serious issue, it would have been dealt with rapidly.
The final solution for nuclear waste - of all activity levels from medical to plutonium - was invented by Australia's CSIRO in around 1978, in a process they call Synroc. It involves incorporating powdered nuclear waste in a synthetic rock of near identical chemical composition to natural rocks, some of which are 2.5 billion years extant without decomposition.
Water can not leach radioactive components out of Synroc, a process that was selected by Argone National laboratory in the US to deal with plutonium waste and in the UK at Sellafield. It's used in Australia for nuclear medical waste.
In many places on Earth, there are substantial thick layers of salt from ancient seas that dried up. These have been geologically stable for hundreds of millions of years, deep below the surface. This salt is so uniform in structure and free from faults, fissures, etc, that it is utterly impermeable to the point salt caverns are used to store hydrogen. If hydrogen molecules can't get out, a lump of solid Synroc certainly won't, either.
In the Netherlands, I believe they have created gas storage caverns in salt that are at a depth of some 3.6 km. So you drill boreholes down into the salt and lower your synroc slugs down and then backfill. Or possibly even cheaper, you use hot water to create a cavern, as is done for gas, allowing you to deposit a lot more waste down a single shaft. A slug of Synrock the size and shape of a can of soup could contain all of the nuclear waste created from geenerating all of the energy a single person uses in their lifetime.
I believe there is a US company that also came up with this borehole idea and is marketing it as a nuclear waste solution, though not even with the Synroc safety angle.
Nuclear waste easily and safely put away somewhere it is likely to be stable and isolated for at least many hundreds of millions of years, if not billions.
Not a single person has been killed by nuclear waste. How is it that people go into such hysterics over something that benign?
It's not a real technical problem, it's a political one.
Certainly, Bord Gais have the same opinion:
For sure it's a factor, but only part of the story I think.
I'd be interested to see how much the wholesale standing charges have increased - I would be surprised if (for example) Flogas is itself maintaining any of the nation's electricity infrastructure. It must be a charge passed on by ESB. I can't find figures on how wholesale standing charges have changed, but I've seen a number of reports that the standing charge for consumers has increased as much as the energy unit rates. Surely not all the costs of energy supply are rising as quickly as energy itself?
Bord Gais say above "You will note that the standing charge varies per supplier and is subject to the competitive pressures in the market". I think competition is stunted when consumers are tied to year-long contracts that allow full flexibility for the producer to increase prices, and little for the consumer to move to another provider.
Edited to add: It looks like changes to wholesale standing charges generally come into force in October each year. IF so, it's unlikely that the cost of supply is driving up prices. From the CRU factsheet:
"The CRU undertakes multi-year revenue reviews known as “Price Controls” or “Price Reviews” for EirGrid and ESB Networks in electricity, and GNI in gas. These revenue reviews consider the efficient costs of any essential development of the electricity or gas network infrastructure, as well as maintaining and operating these networks. On the basis of five-yearly revenue controls, the CRU approves the level of charges that the network operators may levy users including suppliers.
Changes to the approved charges generally come into effect on the 1st of October annually."
You do understand their running costs go up too as a result of increased energy prices? So standing charges rising is related to energy prices directly and indirectly
When did nuclear waste find a solution? It is a problem with many older storage facilities decaying
Very defeatist mindset, if people thought that way when the FG / Lab government brought in water charges we would still have water charges only for the large successful protests back 2014 and 2015 which forced a u turn on the water charges, if there had of being no protests back then; water charges would be another rising expense here now in the present cost of living crisis.
September 24th there is a national day of protest in Dublin organised by the cost of living just days before the budget, I will make it my business to attend that day .
Strange why the likes of Finland are spending several billion to solve their waste problem if, as you say, it's not a problem
I'd like to see the government ban these contracts that tie consumers to their provider for a year. It's fine if the price is set, but this "X% off our standard charge" lark means they have a captive market and can do what they want with prices.
What we see is providers leapfrogging eachother. The provider that has a good price today will be one of the most expensive tomorrow, and anybody who takes the cheap price today is stuck with them.
If people were free to move, competition might be better. Obviously that's not the root cause of the current high prices, but I'm not sure we're seeing real competition - e.g. the increases in standing charges, which are completely unrelated to energy prices.
Company up north have announced a serious increase in prices, over 34%…
several reasons as to why but the demand, every increasing heavy upscale in demand is one.
It’s predicted an increase in water charges will follow.
Nuclear wast is not a problem and never has been. It's blank ammunition you and your ilk like to fire off in frustrated rage when you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas and objections.
Nuclear waste coming to a townland near you, yay!
Oh wait, that'll never happen (for a long, , LONG, LONGGGG list of reasons)
The standard 11kg drum does not necessarily work out as cheaper than electric. Though the price of them hasn't risen as fast as electricity so they are probably fairly similar now. The last drum of gas I bought was 34 quid a few weeks ago
Well being a pensioner? We get help. Thankfully. I am not supporting price rises just that in reality there is nothing we can do about it. Making a protest is not going to achieve anything. We have to adapt? I use every little anyways; warm clothes etc,. heat one room in winter. And I cook with bottled gas etc.
Watch the prices continue to rise then until you can’t afford them.
Sounds great! I always saw electricity as more costly than electricty for cooking etc. And as Isaid, one E30 bottle lasts at least three months for all cooking, hot drinks, hot water bottles etc. So around E2.50 a week.
Why would any greenie want nuclear?
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Just bear in mind that curently a lot of France's nuclear capacity is offline for repairs after 30 years of zero CO2 service, and yet even in abject failure mode, they deliver.
I am very doubtful about the veracity of the Irish data, because it is supposed to be live, yet the Eirgrid dashboard shows a different picture, so it is probably far worse in reality if the French data is more accurate:
Protests will make no difference. Watching to see if the support for the vulnerable will be honoured and increased, else many more eg older folk at risk this winter.
I have something completely unobtainable today - a hob that has two gas rings and two induction zones. The gas comes from a bottle. I use the gas as little as possible because the induction is better to cook with than gas and is a lot cheaper, but when the power is out, or I am using a wok, the gas is the biz.
I am not against bottled gas, it's just that it is expensive. It is great for remote living, as I have experience of that also.
A question.
Due to past overcargning ( remote area and few meter readings) I am now well over E200 in credit.. so I will lose on that?
Put in about 2kw of solar this summer. Sorry already I didn't go the whole hog and put in 5 or 6kw
If enough did it in an organised way they won’t be cut off. If there are no protests then the cost will keep rising. Watch this space. Three big rises already this year.
At two loads a week, that's 7.1 years to just break even on the difference in cost, that's assuming you never hang washing outside on a line. I think your save money condenser dryer will die before you see a saving, if you do hang washing on a line occassionally.
Every cent you earn and every cent you save. They're coming for it all.
You will own nothing and you will be happy.
Electricity pricing is unregulated in Ireland.
The companies can pretty much charge what they like and the market ultimately dictates the end price for the consumer.
Bord Gáis to increase average electricity bill to increase by 34%, gas to go up by 39%
Lol, its a clown show.
Every bit that he gets paid has to come from the customers and it's unlikely that he is the only high paid staffer there. I'm not a fan of social media so no outlet for you to join, sorry to disappoint
am i right in saying that these hikes are approved by the government ? or did i hear that wrong ?
So if he was paid less, then, in some bizzare way known only to the members of Club Kneejerk, the global price of gas would reduce?
Your logic intrigues me and I would like to subscribe to whatever social media outlet you run. Please post the details here.
Yep... Time to think of ways to use less electricity? More constructive
Unfortunately, yes... They'll all say yes until they catch wind it's being built down the road from them and then we're into the long road of appeals.
Like datacentres - everyone wants what they provide but if they'd just feck off and use some other country's electricity grid, ta very much.
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