Pylons

seamus · 09-01-2014 05:40PM

almighty1 wrote: »

I've seen that pic before. The pylons are photoshop'ed onto that picture and its an atrocious attempt too.

You won't see cattle or horses graze up 400kv lines.

This is quite possibly one of the most hilarious arguments I've ever heard.

http://www.geograph.ie/photo/1300256
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-cattle-pylons-image20623468
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2756/4500428851_1d38447957_o.jpg

Photoshops too, I presume. Or maybe the cattle in Munster are a special type of cattle that are afraid of overhead lines.

Though I did discover an interesting article which suggests that cattle may very specifically align themselves with the pylon due the magnetic field produced by the lines:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667019/

Do you have evidence to show that motorways, airports, dumps etc devalue the price of houses in their proximity?

If that was the discussion, I could go and produce some evidence. I've asked you to produce the evidence. "It's common sense" is not evidence.

almighty1 · 09-01-2014 05:43PM

seamus wrote: »

This is quite possibly one of the most hilarious arguments I've ever heard.

http://www.geograph.ie/photo/1300256
http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-cattle-pylons-image20623468
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2756/4500428851_1d38447957_o.jpg

Photoshops too, I presume.

Though I did discover an interesting article which suggests that cattle may very specifically align themselves with the pylon due the magnetic field produced by the lines:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667019/

If that was the discussion, I could go and produce some evidence. I've asked you to produce the evidence. "It's common sense" is not evidence.

Yes I can see the wide open expanses that the cattle to get to, to get away from the pylons .... :rolleyes:

Cienciano · 09-01-2014 06:03PM

almighty1 wrote: »

Eirgid are currently state owned but will soon be privatised, currently abusing their power before they are thrown out into the wide world.

Eirgrid are soon be privatised? Any source for this?

almighty1 · 09-01-2014 06:07PM

seamus wrote: »

If that was the discussion, I could go and produce some evidence. I've asked you to produce the evidence. "It's common sense" is not evidence.

It not my problem that you cannot see common sense. You expect to see statistical evidence for all sorts of things. Normal minded people have a fair idea what causes things to increase or decrease in price. Hence why people have been compensated up to 100k is there house is close to a motorway.

zl1whqvjs75cdy · 09-01-2014 06:12PM

Blahblah2012 wrote: »

Chem trails? and fluoride poisoning? Ha. Your probably well fooked already by the sound of you. Well wired up.
I called u a government lackie..that equates to a monkey...monkey see monkey do.
As for credibility..don't make me laugh.

Mother of Jesus its like trying to reason with a child. I'm out.

Blahblah2012 · 09-01-2014 06:14PM

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

Mother of Jesus its like trying to reason with a child. I'm out.

Ditto. Slán anois.

Kippure · 09-01-2014 06:30PM

micosoft wrote: »

Great! More jobs in the regions!.

Correct

micosoft wrote: »

As well as supplying our own power. The thing is, wind sometimes blows in Ireland, sometimes it doesn't. We import electricity from the UK and France right now as well as pretty much all our gas.

Correct

micosoft wrote: »

Anyway, since when is exporting a bad thing?.

Never said that

micosoft wrote: »

Untrue. Eirgrid are state owned and non-profit. Makes no odds other then the slightly size of the organisation. TBH ESB Networks and other engineering companies will gain far far far far more then Eirgrid. I really don't understand the Eirgrid conspiracy stuff. If they are being malevolent surely they would propose the undergrounding as it means more money and staff....

Sound

micosoft wrote: »

They already benefit - they already get electricity that has run over pylons. It's like the guys in the midlands complaining that they did not benefit from the motorways. It's simply a NIMBY argument and not acceptable. Somebody has to live beside the pylon, powerstation, sewerage plant, dump, firestation, prison etc etc etc. Nobody has a god given right to not paying any of the costs of modern life.

Bull****. People in Ireland have what I would call an old power grid system. In a lot of areas people cant even get a proper 240 volt supply to there home at peak times. There called brown outs and micro breaks and damage all electricity appliences in homes because of low voltage supply.

If theres a pylon near me, I want free electricity. If im a farmer I want compo for cattle been killed while standing under them. Its called Arcing.

micosoft wrote: »

Not necessarily. It's very expensive and difficult to erect wind farms in the sea. You would substantially increase the per KW cost. Like everything you need a mix and land based turbines are part of that.

There are plenty of remote islands of Irish coasts and sure wales built a massive wind farm off its coast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hoyle_Offshore_Wind_Farm

rovoagho · 09-01-2014 06:30PM

almighty1 wrote: »

I've seen that pic before. The pylons are photoshop'ed onto that picture and its an atrocious attempt too.

Oh. My. God.

Mountainsandh · 09-01-2014 08:21PM

Cienciano wrote: »

What do you mean "impact to high amenity area"?
Tourism one is bollocks, health affects is too, zero proof of house devaluation...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/f%C3%A1ilte-ireland-raises-concerns-over-impact-of-pylons-on-tourism-1.1648897

Capt'n Midnight · 09-01-2014 09:54PM

micosoft wrote: »

Hmm. While there is a serious conversation to be had around the whole life cost of Nukes I think you overstate the safety issues there. Most of the incidents that you speak to happen in other types of plant all the time. e.g. shut down because the cooling water intake froze over. This might be because the inlet is too shallow/small from lake/river.

It was more about reliability than safety. Or to put it another way there is a good chance that the plant will shut down with notice on a safety issue. And it can remain closed for days, months or even years.

On one hand the link to radon in granite homes was discovered when a someone coming into work triggered the radiation detectors.

Space Shuttle is not a good comparable example given the small quantity

the problem with the O rings, and with the debris was that in both cases incidents had arisen before and instead of treating them as exceptions to be prevented they were treated as events within normal tolerance. Fukushima wasn't the first nuclear plant to go offline and loose almost all backup cooling systems because a flood event on site within historical records. The French were lucky. BTW Hinkley would be at serious risk if there was a repeat of the 1703 flood.

This stuff isn't rocket science, if you have a site operational for 80 years - don't forget they store waste too - then there is a 1 in 5 chance of having a 400 year flood. If you have 5 sites around the world then it's getting closer to 1:1 There are roughly 200 nuclear plants not too far from high tide.

And far too many of them fall into the category of
"let's build the sea wall a meter lower than the highest recorded flood in this area"

micosoft · 09-01-2014 10:43PM

almighty1 wrote: »

It not my problem that you cannot see common sense. You expect to see statistical evidence for all sorts of things. Normal minded people have a fair idea what causes things to increase or decrease in price. Hence why people have been compensated up to 100k is there house is close to a motorway.

No. Normal people like having facts. Not just making up stuff and whinging when people point out its incorrect.

And that last 100k comment... care to provide ANY evidence for that? Or is it common sense to hand out wads of cash to people close to stuff?

Do you just make up stuff because you think it will bolster your argument or is it pathological?

Cienciano · 09-01-2014 10:47PM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/f%C3%A1ilte-ireland-raises-concerns-over-impact-of-pylons-on-tourism-1.1648897

Interesting. "The potential impacts on tourism has not yet been assessed"
Well, sounds like tourist numbers to ireland will half if they build the line

micosoft · 09-01-2014 10:53PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It was more about reliability than safety. Or to put it another way there is a good chance that the plant will shut down with notice on a safety issue. And it can remain closed for days, months or even years.

etc.

OK then. But you have that with all large base load plants - there were serious issues with Moneypoint when they put carbon scrubbers in (it was an 800 million euro project). This effect is magnified on small grids like Ireland - hence the all Ireland grid now.

Re safety - you have enough nukes running over enough time to make a statically valid safety model. It's always the case that near misses build up to an actual incident like a pyramid (many minor making a major incident) but we have had them - three mile, chernobyl and fukishima. And yet after 50 years of Nuclear plant it's nothing like the death rate from Coal. Chernobyl was about as bad as you can get yet the actual damage and deaths was relatively small.

In any and either case, we won't be building any type of nuke in Ireland so it's outside the point of this thread. It makes no sense from an economic point of view - you build them in fleets. Most likely chance is ESB building one in Wales, but given ESB has no background in running Nuclear plants that makes no sense either. On the bright side we happily buy Nuclear energy on the all Ireland grid right now.

micosoft · 09-01-2014 10:53PM

Cienciano wrote: »

Interesting. "The potential impacts on tourism has not yet been assessed"
Well, sounds like tourist numbers to ireland will half if they build the line

And yet, and yet, the existing HV power lines have had no effect? What wondrous magical property do the new lines have that the old ones didn't? A very strange report.

Birdnuts · 09-01-2014 10:59PM

micosoft wrote: »

Great! More jobs in the regions!

.

R U Enda Kenny?? - pylons create jobs?? - As Senator Whelan pointed out Laois already has the highest density of pylons in the country and there hasn't been an IDA created job in the county for decades. Of course we all know the real reason for these pylons - yet more state support for the wind industry which will mean every more expensive energy bills for Joe public.

PS: Can you cite an example of one company that has refused to set up in this country due to fears about our power supply?? - the pylon apologists would have us believe that are constant rolling blackouts across the country on a par with North Korea:rolleyes:

Fred Swanson · 09-01-2014 11:00PM

This post has been deleted.

Capt'n Midnight · 09-01-2014 11:03PM

Kippure wrote: »

However what I see is Ireland becoming a Industrial power source for Europe. Exporting power.

Just a place to generate free power through renewables for Other countries.

Making Eirgrid a very wealthy company.

Scotland are already up to 40% of electricity from renewables so it's not as if we'd have the market stitched up or anything.

We already get more power from renewables than from coal. And yes a grid will help this. At present we can only incorporate a max of 50% wind/interconnector into the grid, the target is for 75% ( Portugal have hit 70% from wind so it can be done )

Capt'n Midnight · 09-01-2014 11:07PM

Blahblah2012 wrote: »

Walls don't emit electro magnetic radiation.

the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body across all wavelengths per unit time (also known as the black-body radiant exitance or emissive power), j^{\star}, is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body's thermodynamic temperature T: Admittedly walls aren't perfectly black but it's a close enough approximation for thermal imaging to work

Mountainsandh · 09-01-2014 11:10PM

Thanks very much wrote: »

I'm delighted I came upon this post so early in the thread. Please explain the alternative.

I think I have somewhere in the thread, not sure though.
The alternative is :

a) reassess the needs of Ireland without the export elephant in the room, lesser needs, less intrusive lines, less drastic invasion, more flexible routes ?
b) underground lines.

CM don't have the time to look again now, but I found this analysis of a system whereby they had regular checkpoints (and "safety valves") along an underground line, therefore greatly reducing a) the need for maintenance (the system alerted them to anything amiss early), and b) making intervention a lot easier and precise.

These were just little wells at a regular distance, with the relevant apparatus. This set up was 10 or 20 years old I think, so I guess cost and performance wise improvements are to be expected.

Birdnuts · 09-01-2014 11:12PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Scotland are already up to 40% of electricity from renewables so it's not as if we'd have the market stitched up or anything.

)

It will get very interesting in Scotland when/if they achieve independence and have to subsidise all these wind turbines out of their own pocket instead of relying on the London government. This weeks Economist highlighted the financial folly of their plans to dramatically expand offshore wind.

Blahblah2012 · 09-01-2014 11:13PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body across all wavelengths per unit time (also known as the black-body radiant exitance or emissive power), j^{\star}, is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body's thermodynamic temperature T: Admittedly walls aren't perfectly black but it's a close enough approximation for thermal imaging to work

And the relevance to radon gas emitted from concrete blocks is?

micosoft · 09-01-2014 11:17PM

Kippure wrote: »

Correct

Bull****. People in Ireland have what I would call an old power grid system. In a lot of areas people cant even get a proper 240 volt supply to there home at peak times. There called brown outs and micro breaks and damage all electricity appliences in homes because of low voltage supply.

You would call? On what basis? It's regarded as one of the most modern and effectively managed grids in Europe. It's directly plugged into the UK grid FFS. Far more likely to be a poorly wired house then supply issue. I really do challenge you to give me a location where this is true. The gross exaggeration that goes on with some people. As someone who works frequently in Africa and even the US people in this country have no idea how reliable their power system is.

Kippure wrote: »

Correct
If theres a pylon near me, I want free electricity. If im a farmer I want compo for cattle been killed while standing under them. Its called Arcing.

Does not happen that way and certainly never from high voltage line. Lightning is much more likely. What does happen is that if there is an earth failure in a substation you can have animals (mainly cattle) given a heart attack as it earths through the ground. This has nothing to do with overheads and can be caused by local substations. Cattle tend to have weak hearts and conduct through the front legs and out the back. Quite a frequent occurrence in badly earthed concrete floored milking parlours that are damp.

Kippure wrote: »

Correct
There are plenty of remote islands of Irish coasts and sure wales built a massive wind farm off its coast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hoyle_Offshore_Wind_Farm

Which unhappily are not connected to the National Grid. Do you see the problem now? We build a massive wind farm in arklow. It's not that it's impossible - just that its much cheaper, much easier, much cheaper to maintain it, much easier to connect to the grid on land.

micosoft · 09-01-2014 11:18PM

Birdnuts wrote: »

It will get very interesting in Scotland when/if they achieve independence and have to subsidise all these wind turbines out of their own pocket instead of relying on the London government. This weeks Economist highlighted the financial folly of their plans to dramatically expand offshore wind.

It will still be a single electricity market shared with the Republic of Ireland so I don't see how this will have any impact given the subsidy is given through the pricing on that market.

Birdnuts · 09-01-2014 11:29PM

micosoft wrote: »

It will still be a single electricity market shared with the Republic of Ireland so I don't see how this will have any impact given the subsidy is given through the pricing on that market.

The Scottish tax/bill payer will be responsible for carrying their own wind industry as is the case across the Europe. The London government is hardly going to subsidize the SNP's hair brained plans to turn the country into one giant wind farm.

Kippure · 09-01-2014 11:33PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Scotland are already up to 40% of electricity from renewables so it's not as if we'd have the market stitched up or anything.

We already get more power from renewables than from coal. And yes a grid will help this. At present we can only incorporate a max of 50% wind/interconnector into the grid, the target is for 75% ( Portugal have hit 70% from wind so it can be done )

Based on our Geographical that's what I see in the pipe line regard wind turbines and pylons. We could become just a country for generating power.

Mountainsandh · 09-01-2014 11:38PM

Cienciano wrote: »

Interesting. "The potential impacts on tourism has not yet been assessed"
Well, sounds like tourist numbers to ireland will half if they build the line

Absolutely. That would be my argument.

Cienciano, I am French, when I go back to France, I see turbines everywhere. How refreshing it must be for French and other continental Europeans to come over here and discover unspoilt scenery.

As a matter of fact, if you visit the branches of Board Failte abroad, it is evident scenery is a major selling point.
Here's the French one http://www.ireland.com/fr-fr .

I guess what is said in the article is what has been pointed out elsewhere too, that Eirgrid has been costing this in isolation, and have so far refused to consider peripheral costs to the Irish economy.

France has so much more land surface, of varied and wonderful scenery, and luckily some areas are still left untouched/are protected... They have much better weather for outdoor pursuits.
And yet French people (every single French person that I know at least, and of course I know a lot) dream of wild Irish landscapes, the hills, the heather, desolate expanses, waves crashing on an untouched cliff, lush countryside... the sheep are a big deal for them, sheep everywhere, yeah, quick, take pictures !

So yes, tourism imo will be greatly affected once you start overloading the island with intrusive infrastructure.
Solutions have to be found, and partial undergrounding combined with downscaling of the project seem like a better option, to me.

Capt'n Midnight · 09-01-2014 11:47PM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

CM don't have the time to look again now, but I found this analysis of a system whereby they had regular checkpoints (and "safety valves") along an underground line, therefore greatly reducing a) the need for maintenance (the system alerted them to anything amiss early), and b) making intervention a lot easier and precise.

yeah they pressurise they system to prevent water entering, a drop in pressure means you have a problem

which reminds me, we have enough ejits with JCB's that used to hit cables during the building boom, regular outages,

Capt'n Midnight · 09-01-2014 11:48PM

Blahblah2012 wrote: »

And the relevance to radon gas emitted from concrete blocks is?

someone else's post

Mountainsandh · 09-01-2014 11:52PM

micosoft wrote: »

Which unhappily are not connected to the National Grid. Do you see the problem now? We build a massive wind farm in arklow. It's not that it's impossible - just that its much cheaper, much easier, much cheaper to maintain it, much easier to connect to the grid on land.

Sometimes the cheapest options are not projecting far enough though. If tourism is affected (and it will be, imo), this could cost Ireland a lot more in the long run.
I am not talking about looking at the numbers of visitors next year, or the year after...
What will Ireland be like to other Europeans in 30 or 40 years time ? Go further, in 50 to 70 years ?

A giant power station ?

A country trying to patch up what was a bad decision, trying to fix its image (both physical and national) ?

A country that is worth visiting ?

It's not all about money.

Mountainsandh · 09-01-2014 11:53PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

yeah they pressurise they system to prevent water entering, a drop in pressure means you have a problem

which reminds me, we have enough ejits with JCB's that used to hit cables during the building boom, regular outages,

Well then we'll have to teach them won't we ?

Are there no idiots with JCBs abroad ?

Pylons

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