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Energy infrastructure

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,808 ✭✭✭Apogee




  • Registered Users Posts: 846 ✭✭✭DumbBrunette


    Another big windfarm gets planning in Mayo. Not as big as Oweninny but over 100MW.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,989 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    I have noticed a large increase in importing via the interconnectors, currently 17.9% of generation. Over the last month, the max import has been used on significant periods, presumably to reduce carbon footprint.

    There is obviously a change in policy. Why is there no public discourse on this?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 975 ✭✭✭medoc


    Probably because if it’s carbon somewhere else it doesn’t hurt the environment like Irish carbon does. We can claim to have reduced carbon emissions when in reality there’s a good chance they were emitted in a UK power station.

    A bit like importing peat briquette replacements from Latvia and Germany and closing our own, or bringing in moss peat from those same countries as well. Or Brazil expanding beef farming in the rain forest while we have to cut our herd here.

    Carbon is carbon. If it’s bad here it’s bad everywhere.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,989 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    It just goes to show that green-washing is alive and well.

    If we burn oil or gas, the carbon is ours. However, if we produce milk or beef consumed elsewhere, the carbon is ours.

    There is a disconnect somewhere.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 23,163 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    No, emissions from beef are attributed to the country that they are generated in. So beef produced here, the emissions are ours, if we consume them here or export them. There are no emissions from beef imported (other then transport) as those emissions go on the ledger of the country that raised that beef.

    It works exactly the same way for interconnectors. If we import over the interconnector there are no emissions from it, because the emissions are accounted for in the UK, it goes their ledger so to speak.

    You have asked this question multiple times and it has been answered multiple times. There is no conspiracy here, it is simple supply and demand and pricing!

    Electricity supply companies will buy electricity from the interconnector if it is cheaper then other local sources or vice versa, simple as that.

    Carbon taxes do play an indirect part, in that the carbon tax on say coal generation might make it more expensive then importing thus we import.

    And before you say it, yes the UK has carbon taxes on their generators too, which also plays into how much that electricity on the interconnector costs too.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,275 ✭✭✭✭josip




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭MightyMunster


    We were exporting multiples of the amount of peat we were importing. Was it 100:1 or something like that from what I remember



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭Consonata


    100*not very much is still quite small. I think the numbers being dealt with wrt Peat export is quite quite small. It's not exactly a booming market.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 975 ✭✭✭medoc


    Back in the day we didn’t really import peat at all. There was no need. We exported some briquettes but a very very small % of production total (excluding the exports to Northern Ireland). We had a big export for horticultural peat especially in the bulk areas for professional growers world wide. The point I was making is that we stopped our production of milled peat for fuel, horticulture and electricity generation and now we are importing those products. The small size of these imports relative to the old domestic production is not the issue. It’s that peat is still extracted elsewhere, the carbon released elsewhere plus the associated carbon with transport. I’m not against the stopping of the Irish peat production by the way. The re-wetting of the peat lands in the midlands is a good thing for the environment for sure.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,242 ✭✭✭gjim


    Importing electricity from the UK is absolutely better for the environment than the alternative - which is burning coal, gas or oil in Ireland - when renewables cannot meet demand. The former is, on average, 65% renewable while the latter is obviously 0% re-newable.

    There's nothing nefarious going on here. At certain times, importing from the UK is both cheaper and greener than producing in Ireland. This isn't like shipping potatoes from New Zealand - electrons are clean and easy to move, once you've a pair of conductors between the two endpoints.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,146 ✭✭✭Paddico


    That makes perfect sense to me.

    Apply carbon figures at source or have I missed something here?



  • Registered Users Posts: 990 ✭✭✭_Puma_


    Amazon putting limits on eu-west-1 services due to electricity capacity supply problems at their Dublin datacenters.

    The interconnectors with Britain are on high load and paying an absolute premium for importing currently.

    Going to hammer domestic consumer prices in the long run.

    In the US based regions AWS have started putting these things in beside nuclear power plants.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    The government needs to ban any more data centres, with a particular focus on ones that are AI centric. This country will miss it's 2030 CO2 targets, and will cop large EU fines, just as things stand. The power requirements for AI are so large as to be out of the question for them to establish here, though they will likely try for the same cheap cooling reasons all the other data centres are here for. Let Denmark have them.

    “If you were to integrate large language models, GPT-style models into
    search engines, it’s going to cost five times as much environmentally as
    standard search,” said Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI
    Now Institute, a research group focused on the social impacts of AI. At
    current growth rates, some new AI servers could soon gobble up more than 85 terawatt hours of electricity each year, researchers have estimated — more than some small nations’ annual energy consumption.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/nuclear-power-oklo-sam-altman-ai-energy-rcna139094



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,073 ✭✭✭BKtje


    Will the opportunity cost of losing these datacenters (jobs, taxes, reputation etc) cost more than the fines and/or the cost of building up the grid? That's what needs to be examined rather than just banning any more data centers.

    Once that is done the relevant decisions regarding the grid can be made. It needs to happen quickly though or the whole economy becomes hostage to a pending decision.

    If in the long term the economy is better off with the data centers even with the short term cost and pain of building the infra then that needs to be done. Long term planning is more important than short term elections imo.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    Data centres employ feck all people and should be told to feck off. One of the objections to the proposed Apple DC in Athenry was based on how few permanent jobs would be created, touted as being 150, which is next to nothing for a beheamoth estimated to end up consuming 12% of the grid.

    In 2015, the year Apple’s plans for Athenry were first announced, data
    centres accounted for about 5 per cent of all electricity consumed in
    Ireland. By the time the proposal was shelved in 2018, that consumption
    rate increased to 8 per cent.

    Last year, that rate had more than doubled to 18 per cent of all
    electricity consumed in the Republic — about the same as all urban homes
    in the State.

    AI data centre power consumption is far higher than existing ones.

    The headline is actually way off providing an inkling of the looming problem.

    I'd say Ireland's reputation as stupid patsy is well and truly safe in the minds of those who site data centres.

    There is one solution, though, if the planning permission required any prospective AI data centres to furnish their own zero CO2 power supply with no grid connection, then I wouldn't see a problem hosting them.



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,127 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    They had an eclipse in the US of A.

    You can see the dip in solar on the 8th. Gas stepped in for most of it.

    It was a nice test of dispatchable power.

    Solar is the largest source of midday generation in California and the
    second-largest source of midday generation in Texas, Florida, other
    parts of the East Coast, and in the Southwest.

    We are heading that way too, there's a good bit of solar north of Dublin Airport and some being build near the end of the south runway.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,242 ✭✭✭gjim


    Interesting numbers I stumbled across from the EIA on new grid additions forecast/expected in 2024:

    • solar PV 58%
    • battery storage 23%
    • Wind 13%
    • natural gas 4%
    • All others 2%

    Yes it’s by capacity so adjust by capacity factors to get expected energy contribution. The “all others” category includes nuclear - yes after years of decades of nuclear contributing zero new capacity, the Vogtle reactors are finally coming on line after a bunch of company bankruptcies, nearly 10 years late, 20B over budget, etc. But with nothing seriously planned, it looks like these will be the last new nuclear ever added in the US.

    The battery storage share growth is more dramatic than I expected - although inevitable given that it’s now considerably cheaper than open cycle natural gas. But like with wind, then solar, there are still people today shouting “it will never work!”.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 23,163 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    if you follow battery developments, the speed that battery prices is dropping by is truly astonishing.

    There has been a 40% drop in the cost of LFP batteries in just the past year!

    In February of 2023, they cost €110/kWh, February 2024, €51/kWh, they are expected to hit €40 by the end of the year!!

    LFP is particularly well suited to grid storage, versus Lithium Ion and then there is the Sodium Ion batteries coming online this year.

    Most companies are now integrating battery storage into their new wind and solar developments, even if they aren’t officially a “battery plant”, they have gotten so cheap. They are staring to get so cheap that regular people are starting to buy them for their own homes, to pair with solar as they have excellent returns at these sort of lower prices.

    If prices continue to drop like this, even closed cycle gas will start to struggle.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,242 ✭✭✭gjim


    Yes but it's still amazing to witness - I first heard claims (sometimes disputed) that the TCO for battery beat NG for peaking purposes about 3 years ago. I would have expected that the market would respond but not as quickly? For batteries to have completely wiped out investment in open-cycle NG within such a short time frame is really impressive. It's exciting watching a genuine technological revolution occurring in realtime.

    I find battery prices ($ per kWh) a little opaque - I find it easier to think in terms of $/cycled kWh - LFP can expect up to 5000 cycles. So the round-trip cost of buying an off-peak kWh and selling during peak is less than 2c/kWh. This is a fraction of the production cost of any electricity currently being generated and so has the power to transform intermittent sources into demand following sources for very little money.

    @bk - yes it looks like most of the US installed battery capacity is being done as a component of solar installation. This is surely a winning combination - grid-scale solar PV in the US can produce a kWh for under 10c a kWH TCO, adding 2c per kWh cost to store it intraday and you have the ability to offer rapid response demand following for under 12c per kWh. No wonder the solar/battery share of new generation investment is over 80%.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,275 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Objections to a windfarm I can understand but 300 'submissions' on a solar farm from a community of 250 has a whiff of gombeenism from it.

    http://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024/0419/1444601-solar-farm/



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,127 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    There's an old joke (Robin Williams?)

    Why did New York get all the lawyers, and New Jersey all the toxic waste sites?

    New Jersey got first pick.

    Entitled people shouldn't be supported by the rest of society. Nimbyism must have a cost. Sort of like a social score for a district. There's worse things to have locally like prisons, halting sites, refugee accommodation, incinerators, when you could have agreed to solar / wind / pylons when you had a chance.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,808 ✭✭✭Apogee


    Both positive and negative news on interconnector front. Greenlink cable pull at Baginbun with project "on track to be commissioned by the end of 2024."

    https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/new-ross-news/500m-greenlink-energy-project-hits-water-at-co-wexford-beach/a1024773976.html

    In UK, Ofgem signals its intention to reject both the Maresconnect GB-IRL and Liric GB-NI interconnector projects from the third application window for the cap and floor regime.

    https://www.current-news.co.uk/interconnector-projects-rejected-third-cap-and-floor-window-ofgem/

    Tara Mines owners secures planning permission for 18MW solar farm to supply future mine operations - one of the larger non-grid solar farms to date
    https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/tara-mines-owner-boliden-gets-green-light-for-20m-solar-energy-plans/a624045637.html

    Codling will use now use a smaller number of larger turbines offshore - from ~100 x 250M to 60-75 x ~300M

    https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0405/1441625-codling-park-plans/

    Finally, a nice summary of current battery capacity across ROI/NI from Irish Energy Bot



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 975 ✭✭✭medoc


    https://www.offalyindependent.ie/2024/04/30/midlands-data-centres-mooted-as-amazon-firm-joins-eco-energy-park/


    An interesting development if it comes to pass. Makes sense to locate them near the infrastructure in Offaly. Plenty of wind farms in operation/ under construction / in planning. Plus the solar that’s planned and the biomass Edenderry Power station.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    We shouldn't be allowing data centres to be built unless they provide their own net zero power. It doesn't matter how close to wind farms and solar you build them, they are going to mostly be consuming power generated from gas, so will be increasing the states carbon footprint and liklihood of failing to meet CO2 reduction targets with the hefty fines that entails.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,209 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    Large iron-air battery installation due to be submitted for planning in the NW in the coming weeks.

    Would be one of the first of its kind in Europe iirc?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    I hope this is the future, as I have shares in BHP. I might need to get some more.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,808 ✭✭✭Apogee


    Is it this? Ballynahome Energy Storage - Website mentions 40MW output with 4,000MWh capacity situated over 12 hectares near Buncrana.

    https://ballynahoneenergystorage.ie/fact-file/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,209 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    Yes, they were conducting consultations recently - hadn't seen any website yet. Planning due to be submitted soon according to reps

    Plenty of wind farms in the area with more planned



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,682 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Just a flavour of how much land a bio-digester uses , plus how much concrete infrastructure, obviously there also a fertilizer, harvesting and storage energy component,as well as digestate storage and spreading ...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,275 ✭✭✭✭josip


    We seem to be importing a steady 15% over the interconnectors lately. Assuming Greenlink comes online this year as planned, I guess that can theoretically increase to 25% if needs be. I see that on the Welsh side they've made an, "exciting archeological find". I always thought that on projects such as this, excitement wasn't the usual emotion when old stuff was found.

    https://www.greenlink.ie/_files/ugd/fe51dc_ad7a69c7b7a344ad8585a653c87c9406.pdf



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,771 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    Yep - it has all the environmental merits of other Biofuel scams. Might as well go back to burning whale oil🙄



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,018 ✭✭✭Busman Paddy Lasty


    +1, thousands of labour hours and "food miles" to cut grass, transport, digest and later spread back on land to replicate what an animal can do in the field is madness.

    Digestion needs to be seen as waste-to-energy. Locate digestion plants close to source of existing waste to solve a problem and recoup energy.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,682 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Bio-digesters where the main feed stock is grown specifically are a bit of a zero gain / subsidy farming game -

    Not salwayso bad when the main feed stock is a "waste product ", so animal manures , slaughter house waste , food waste ect , but even then transport costs count a lot , and there still needs to a proportion of maize or grass or clover ect ,

    The bigger the A/D plant the more efficiently it can be run , but the further the input (feed stock ),and the output (digestate) has to travel ,

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 23,163 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Given that we are a major agriculture producer and the amount of waste that sector produces, sending that waste to AD is a no brainer. In fact it is necessary for us to meet our net zero goals, which includes waste from the agriculture sector and not just energy production and use.

    Now if we should go beyond that and actually grow crops specifically for this use, that is a different story.

    I vaguely remember reading a report that Ireland has a great deal of marginal/waste land that currently isn't used for producing food, which could be used for this purpose without impacting food production, but I'd have to look into it in more detail.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,143 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Those waste products have to go somewhere, better bringing it to an A/D plant and gaining energy and fertiliser from it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,275 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Do Eirgrid have any plans to add utility-scale solar generation to their dashboard or is there somewhere else it can be seen?

    There is 350MW of utility-scale solar capacity and growing. There will be an increasing number of days (like today) during the year where it would be generating as much as wind.

    When you include microgen and all the other sized solar gens, there must now be days during the summer where daily solar generation is greater than wind?

    https://www.energyireland.ie/solar-at-scale/



  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,496 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    UK solar was producing almost 9GW at midday yesterday.

    https://grid.iamkate.com/

    Would seem prudent to start adding it as a separate category, especially now that on some sunny summer days it's likely to exceed wind generation.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,136 ✭✭✭Ben D Bus


    And maybe they could get the dashboard to actually work most.of the time when they make the update for solar!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,018 ✭✭✭Busman Paddy Lasty


    Would be worth checking the system demand curve for a daytime dip caused by mircogen solar on a clear day vs a bad day.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    The trouble with this waste thing is that an energy plant needs a near continuous source of input, and agricultural waste is seasonal, being sunlight driven. The amount of enviro BS is monumental. The UK builds a massive bio fuel plant and then the whole waste argument turns out to be a lie as there isn't enough waste, so they feed it the worst thing you could possibly imagine if you actually are concerned with the real environment: old growth virgin forests. You couldn't make it up. They publicly state it only runs on waste, but it takes a BBC team who have to engage in virtual espionage levels of spying and surveilance to discover the truth. As with so much eco-BS, it also runs on burn't money, absolutely vast sums of money extracted from taxpayers:

    The government has handed energy companies £22bn in billpayer-backed
    subsidies to burn wood for electricity despite being unable to prove the
    industry meets sustainability standards, the government’s spending
    watchdog has said.

    Biomass as an energy source is a crock of sh​it. Look at those masters of eco-BS, the Norwegians, with the BEVs and their eco self-delusion. A lot of their district heating is made to look green because it's fuel source is forrest biomass and bio-oil.

    Just look at that, isn't it just so pristine, peachy keen, and squeeky clean? Got to love those apex eco bullshi​tters, the Norwegians

    What they are actually doing in order to look good and salve their eco-conscience, of which they have near zero IMO, is burning money, which comes from exploiting fossil fuels, which they do like like an apex predator tearing into it's first kill in two weeks

    Biofuels have been promoted in the political sphere because their
    production is dependent on subsidies that narrow the gap between
    production costs and market prices.

    The production of advanced, or “second-generation”, biofuels is even
    more dependent on effective subsidy systems, as the technologies have
    not yet become commercialised. These fuels are produced from raw
    ingredients that do not compete with food production, such as leftovers
    and waste from the food industry, agriculture or forestry.

    In order to develop advanced biofuels, the subsidy systems must be
    stable and in place long enough to enable acceptable levels of
    large-scale and profitable production, as well as the production of
    profitable side streams, such as chemicals or other by-products that can
    be sold at a premium.

    let's have some more eco-BS, can never have enough when the taxpayer is paying so much for it in subsidies and you are the clever-clogs being paid to produce copy to sell the eco-vision to the idiots paying for it all. Stuff like this:

    Do we have enough biomass to manufacture biofuels?
    Many people forget that bioenergy is the leading form of renewable energy. In fact, it is responsible for as much energy as all the other forms of renewable energy put together. This is proof of the importance of bioenergy, which will play a key role in the future energy mix.

    Have you got your head around that? Are you in the least bit sceptical? Heaven fobid you are a sceptical cynic like me, who detects a whiff of open sewer when reading that. What's the truth? Bingo!

    In 2014, renewable energy accounted for 14% of the world’s global total primary energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency.
    Solid biofuels represented the largest share of this, amounting to
    44.5% in the EU. These are any renewable, biological material used as
    fuel such as wood, sawdust, leaves, and even dried animal dung, but the
    majority of biofuels are derived from wood.

    Do I really need to spell out that chopping down trees and burning them to reduce atmospheric levels of CO2 might not be ideal, given how many decades it takes to grow trees? If that vast quantity of wood is naturally dried in Norway and other places and not kiln dried using gas, I have a bridge to sell you. I have cut limbs from my own trees and then cut it all up and dried it in an enclosed wood shed that has wind powered underfloor forced ventilation. How long does this process take to reduce the moisture content to that recommended by experts for fueling a stove? Two years. Anyone believe that is what happens, given the quantities?

    As of 2022, data shows that 46.4 million tons of wood pellets, 1.9 billion m3 of wood fuel, and 54.9 mil-lion tons of wood charcoal were produced worldwide.

    Wherever you look into bio-energy you find BS if you can get past the fact free eco-waffle (I need an 'enough to heat/power x homes' to GWh calculator)

    Multiple scams involving fake biofuels have erupted in northern Europe in recent years. A new investigation shows several cases were linked by a Bosnian company that sold thousands of tons of fraudulent fuel across the European Union.
    Key Findings
    • Fraudsters have exploited a key EU climate policy by passing off cheap traditional biofuels as expensive types made from waste.
    • In one alleged scam, Bosnian company Sistem Ecologica is accused of selling U.S. soy biodiesel mislabelled as next-generation fuel made of used cooking oil.
    • Bosnian investigators say Sistem Ecologica supplied 17 companies in nine EU member states over several years.
    • These included biofuels dealers who have been accused of running their own used cooking oil fraud scams in the Netherlands and the U.K.
    The lights were low in the historic Hulstkamp building in Rotterdam as guests sat down for dinner at a 2017 gathering of officials in the fats and oil industry. At one table sat three men who had built reputations — and fortunes — as traders in a new type of biofuel made from used cooking oil that was taking Europe by storm.
    Cornelis Bunschoten reportedly became one of the 500 richest people in the Netherlands after making a fortune as chief executive of major biofuels producer Biodiesel Kampen B.V. Near him sat Wilfred Hadders, a director of another Dutch biofuels company, Sunoil Biodiesel B.V., who at one point amassed 18 luxury cars, including a rare Porsche 911.

    The conversion efficiency of solar energy to biofuels is 5% You want to believe in all the sustainable energy bio-BS, be my guest, I don't.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,989 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    According to Eirgrid dashboard, we are currently importing 24.41% of energy, and only 9.15% renewables.

    Is this going to be the norm during windless days? Mind you, generation is only 2,850 MW.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 23,163 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    22% renewables now. Likely solar coming online. More Solar would help with this. We tend to get low wind days during the Summer.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    When the government is paying the bill for a trial plant there is absolutely no risk to the contract winner and it's a cushy jobs for the boys project which will not loss money. It's a win win for the very fossil fuel companies backing such projects, a zero risk delaying strategy that the government pays for.

    Even the government understands it's doomed to fail but it allows them to be seen to be doing something at little actual cost.

    It's peanuts in the grand scheme of things.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    The energy figures from France are very interesting. Looks like their hydro and nuclear have been proping up Europe again during a dunkelflaute. The widespread and ever increasing dependence on renewables in Europe is going to bite hard, one day.

    This is why I am so against the huge push for interconnectors. When there are conditions like these, you can not rely on your neighbours being kind enough to share:

    France were exporting 16.6 GWh of juice from midnight to 06:45. Then it tailed off. Europe really ought to turn the street lights off at 01:00. In Perth WA, when I was a kid, that's actually what happened every night, the 'city of lights', as John Glenn named it from space, had to specially turn them on just for his benefit. You could go stand out in the street at night and see the great swathe of the miky way and night sky, wheras these days, you have to travel 80+ km out of cities to get away from light pollution to see the same thing.

    Just look at this:

    Imagine how much CO2 emissions could be reduced in Europe by just turning the lights off!

    Also of interst is that it dispels the notion you can't readily adjust the output of nuclear reactors, when clearly they do - reducing it by a third between midnight and 11:30, roughly. Looks like they only throttle it as solar kicks in

    And just look at that little red gas line. They are currently producing 18g of CO2 per KWh while we, the renewbles dependent capital of Europe are producing 268g per Kwh.

    We are never going to make those CO2 targets, not a chance in hell.

    The idea of being reliant on interconnectors for energy security is so stupid. French nuclear can only prop up so much of their neghbours wind foolishness.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    What that little piece actually shows is that the wind is still blowing offshore and Ireland has huge potential to earn revenue from the offshore wind potential it controls.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    There is wind in the north sea, but that's it, very little around Ireland. We are more than a year past the last OSW auction - have any of the winning bidders made planning submissions yet? Multiple OSW projects have been cancelled recently, so it's clearly dependent on cheap finance to be profitable. OSW is very expensive, about four times the cost of that which can't be mentioned.

    Floating OSW is essentialy a failed experiment. Given the disastrous maintainance and cost issues of the main three that have been built, It's incredible there seems no cop-on here and you regularly see people mention it as if it's a feasible opprtunity for Ireland.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    So you want to address the planning issues holding up all aspects of wind roll out and grid upgrade - so do I.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,132 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    Yes, our messed up planning system is so obviously to blame for OSW projects in the US and UK getting cancelled, it needs fixing.

    I mentioned the delay, not in reference to the POS which is the planning quagmire, but to suggest the bidders might be reconsidering making submissions at all due to the economic viability changing. If they start suggesting the agreed price needs to double - it already being double the last Uk price - I wouldn't be in the least surprised.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭Shoog


    Once the post COVID inflation settles down as it is now everyone will have a better ability to price projects without driving themselves into bankruptcy. That equally true of your pet obsession.



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