Energy infrastructure

bk · 28-01-2022 7:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118546985#Comment_118546985

Then we increase production from Corrib. Part of the reason for the balance between the Corrib and the interconnector, is that the interconnector has to continue to be maintained and operated. If the UK is happy enough to skip those obligations, then we can turn up the tap on Corrib.

I mean if you don't care about the environment we could profit off gas and the Russian situation.

Allow the exploration and development of the gas fields near Kinsale and Corrib, build LNG terminals and carry out the project to reverse the flow of the interconnector and we could become a net exporter of gas.

€€€€€€ for Ireland, but not great for the environment.

BTW Also keep in mind that those interconnectors and Corrib supply Gas to Northern Ireland, so it isn't like the UK can just cut it off, not unless they are giving us NI back!

28-01-2022 7:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118546985#Comment_118546985

Sounds like a good excuse to move away from sources of energy controlled by other govt's

Markcheese · 28-01-2022 9:26pm

Pretty sure it's a totally different set up to compress natural to put on a ship than it is to expand it as you take it off a ship .

Plus no one would build a gas export terminal in Ireland - because there's not that much gas - corrib ain't gonna last for ever ..

bk · 28-01-2022 9:47pm

Yes it is possible, but yes it would be cheaper to just reverse the flow on the interconnector. That projects is priced at just €10million.

BTW There is far more gas off the west coast then just Corrib. Frankly we have so far tapped just the tip of the iceberg. The reason why we haven’t really explored it more, is because it is considered expensive to explore and extract gas from the North Atlantic.

However if we get into some fantastical situation where Europe is cut off from Russian gas, North Sea supplies start running dry, then even at higher extraction cost, it becomes an attractive option.

Having said that there has been a lot of talk recently about there being untapped gas fields near both Corrib and Kinsale that could be accessed quiet affordably using existing infrastructure.

I’d say watch this space.

28-01-2022 10:46pm

One interesting thing to note from the article below, the global copper market will swing into a deficit of more than 6 million tons by 2030.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Non-Fossil-Fuel-Power-Capacity-To-Hit-Record-This-Year.html

cnocbui · 29-01-2022 11:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118547036#Comment_118547036

Which is the position I have been arguing since day one, hence my constant criticism of championing of interconnectors. My goodness, we actually agree on something. Ryans opposition to an LNG terminal is an attack on energy self sufficiency and political independence.

An LNG terminal should not be tied to one supplier, either.

cnocbui · 29-01-2022 11:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118547695#Comment_118547695

The ideas are sound, but the problem is time. The lag between crisies and those sorts of resolutions is one of years, when national grid problems need solutions on a time scale of hours or days.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-01-2022 12:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118548033#Comment_118548033

I'd expect we'll see a lot more copper clad aluminium in future which should free up copper for use elsewhere.

If the grid used a DC backbone like interconnectors then you could push more power over existing cables and use lighter transformers. It may become an option in future.

Aluminium is used for overhead lines so copper not needed there. If you use an aluminium alloy containing zirconium you can run the wires hotter so you can push 50-100% more power through a route just by replacing the cables, though at the cost of higher transmission losses.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-01-2022 1:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118549453#Comment_118549453

Hours or days ? Grid constraints mean that inertia of spinning generators is used for the first few seconds, then several other levels of reserves kick in before you get to minutes. eg: cycle gas runs at 66% of full load to allow ramping up to 100% in seconds.

Hours is all you need to fire up extra gas (10 minutes in some cases) and we have plenty of gas. The 2030 target is 80% carbon free. That means that spread out over a year we could run on just gas for 10% of the time, another 10% of the time could be half the power from gas, 10% at quarter power from gas etc. Using more wind the rest of the time is all we'd need to do to meet the 2030 targets.

The infrastructure for surviving with no wind for weeks in winter is already in place.

Nuclear power plants that aren't restarted to full power in hours after being taken offline have to stay offline for days because of they have to wait for poisons to decay. They are the exact opposite of a solution for varying demand as they themselves require massive backup to be ready at all times and possibly for extended periods.

Germany, the UK and France have recently shown that even whole fleets of nuclear power plants can't be relied upon to produce the forecasted power.

cnocbui · 29-01-2022 4:13pm

"The infrastructure for surviving with no wind for weeks in winter is already in place."

It really isn't.

In the case of Germany, shutting them down does tend to make them reliably unreliable. In the case of France, that's after 20 years of use, it will be fixed, and off they go again. Measureed long term and not cherry picking, as you so like to do, their relibility is incomparably higher than wind.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-01-2022 6:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118550338#Comment_118550338

LOL I was talking about Ireland where we have capacity. We aren't England where they will be waiting years for nuclear power and even then it won't fully replace the plants closing down.

In the case of Germany (nuclear can't escape politic anywhere) even after the shutdowns the output of the the remaining plants dropped to 80% and 66% for days this month. Even having 100 nuclear power plants doesn't mean reliability. The USA's total nuclear output dropped down to 76% for a while in October and were below 80% for nearly two weeks.

In the case of France EDF have already forecast 10% less nuclear power this year and it's only January. They have to come up with an Ireland's worth of electricity.

Averaged out over long enough (and ignoring construction delays, extended outages lasting months or years and early shutdowns etc.) nuclear delivers a high % of it's capacity factor. But nuclear plants have a habit of dropping off the grid with little or no warning so you need lots of spinning reserve. They can also stay offline for extended times so you need lots of backup too.

And if you have to invest in spinning reserve and backup you can use them to support renewables which produce power at a fraction of the cost of nuclear which means you can now afford more storage which means you can accommodate more renewables.

We have to decarbonise a lot of transport too this decade. This means a lot of storable energy will be needed. So more renewables.

ohographite · 29-01-2022 6:53pm

I am firmly against the Shannon LNG terminal as the company that would use it, New Fortress Energy, would use it to import fracked gas. Fracked gas is an even worse fossil fuel than coal, regarding the greenhouse gas released by it, because there is methane which leaks from the ground when it is extracted from it, and carbon dioxide released when it is burnt to generate electricity. There are also other negative impacts of fracking, such as contaminating water supplies in the areas where it takes place, which can seriously damage the health of people who drink or wash themselves with the water from these areas. Fracking can also cause earthquakes.

The climate crisis is such an urgent global emergency, so there is absolutely a need to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible, replacing them with clean energy sources.

Markcheese · 30-01-2022 8:46pm

I suppose the thing with an LNG terminal is flexibility ... Sure there could be gas from the states , but also from the Gulf , could even be ships from northern Russia ,

And if we don't have a reliable gas supply .. we're not able to back up wind -

So we wouldn't be getting 80% from renewables ...

eire4 · 30-01-2022 9:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118550885#Comment_118550885

I totally agree with you about how bad and dangerous fracked gas is. No thanks.

bk · 31-01-2022 11:50am

“And if we don't have a reliable gas supply .. we're not able to back up wind -“

Except we can import all the gas we need over the interconnectors, which includes three LNG terminals in the UK.

So I really don’t see why we need these.

And of course ideally we won’t need gas at all in the long term. Instead using green hydrogen, storage, DC interconnectors, highly insulated homes and geothermal.

cnocbui · 31-01-2022 12:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558590#Comment_118558590

Energy independence should be a primary aim. Interconnectors are for Germans and other simmilar species of stupids. Oh sorry, forgot I was still in Ireland - carry on, great ideas you have there.

31-01-2022 12:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558694#Comment_118558694

What is your proposal for long term energy independence that doesn't require another country to supply the fuel?

cnocbui · 31-01-2022 12:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558806#Comment_118558806

I am not allowed to post my answer in this forum.

31-01-2022 1:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558867#Comment_118558867

Ah ok, I know what you are talking about, and it would still require another country to supply the fuel, in fact our options for fuel for that option would be more restricted

tom1ie · 31-01-2022 2:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558590#Comment_118558590

If there was a shortage of gas worldwide, would you be happy depending on the UK to keep allowing the gas into Ireland via the interconnectors?

We don’t need an LNG terminal until we actually do. Too late then.

Of course long term I do think large amounts of excess wind coupled with green hydrogen storage is the way forward.

For the moment we need gas and we need it bad.

bk · 31-01-2022 2:10pm

"If there was a shortage of gas worldwide, would you be happy depending on the UK to keep allowing the gas into Ireland via the interconnectors?

We don’t need an LNG terminal until we actually do. Too late then."

If there is a world wide shortage of gas, then a LNG terminal isn't going to help!

Corrib, our own gas supply will help.

Plus the British would never cut off our Gas supply, because of course it is needed to supply North Ireland too.

Plus Britain itself is a net importer of gas and electricity from the EU. If they cut us off, the EU would retaliate by cutting them off.

As an aside the amount of gas we import from Britain represents just 6% of Britain gas usage. It is a pittance in the bigger picture. It is too small to bother cutting it off compared the political fallout of Northern Ireland and EU.

It simply will never happen, you are all talking about pure fantasy.

bk · 31-01-2022 2:23pm

"Ah ok, I know what you are talking about, and it would still require another country to supply the fuel, in fact our options for fuel for that option would be more restricted"

Plus we have zero experience with it. We would need to get a French state owned company to build and operate it, assuming you aren't getting Russian or Chinese state owned companies to do it instead! If you are worried about relying on foreign nations, I really don't see how this would help!

Surely if we are worried about security of supply, the best road ahead is loads of wind + green hydrogen. We would be completely energy independent then.

And if we do still need some gas, surely developing more of our own gas fields is FAR more independent then trying to import LNG.

Also I don't get how anyone could be against interconnectors. Interconnectors could make us serious €€€€€€€. With our exiting interconnector to the UK we export twice as much as we import. But for the Norwaegian to UK interconnector it is 20:1. If we build lots more wind, we could come close to doing the same and making good money from it.

Saying we shouldn't build interconnectors is like saying Russia shouldn't build gas pipelines or the Middle East Oil and Gas terminals. It is seriously dumb, this infrastructure is how we profit from our resources.

gjim · 31-01-2022 4:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118550338#Comment_118550338

Germany SAIDI (average minutes of electricity loss per customer per year - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIDI) is 12.2 minutes. For France it's 68 minutes - more than 5 times worse. Denmark is even lower - 11.25 - so suggesting more renewables reduces the reliability of the grid or that more nuclear makes a grid more reliable is demonstrably false.

Capt'n Midnight · 31-01-2022 7:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558590#Comment_118558590

Geothermal using shallow heat pump is sorta solar with lots of thermal mass.

There's one form where you use pump solar heated water in pipes under a house in summer so that the heat can rise over several months. Underfloor heating if you like. But you have to remember to turn the heat on half a year before you need it.

Investing in insulation to reduce the amount of infrastructure needed in future is like investing in fibre broadband to facilitate working from home vs. building more roads and importing motor fuel year after year.

Thicknesses to provide the same insulation, the thinner stuff is more expensive but might be retrofitted into existing spaces.

Making vacuum insulation panels (VIP) cheaper or figuring out ways to replace fibreglass wall insulation with Polyurethane would reduce a lot of heating demand which would reduce the load on infrastructure and reduce the extra demand in winter.

tom1ie · 31-01-2022 8:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559360#Comment_118559360

Well I meant gas that is delivered via the grid as opposed to us being able to accept LNG shipments directly into a terminal in Ireland.

I was under the impression that corrib would be empty by 2025.

That’s only three years away, just about enough time to prioritise the building of an LNG terminal.

If we don’t by 2025 we’ll be back to importing gas to the tune of 96% of our needs, but being completely dependent on the interconnectors.

http://ireland2050.ie/questions/when-will-gas-from-irish-sources-run-out/

cnocbui · 31-01-2022 8:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559424#Comment_118559424

Did we have any experience with hydro before Ardnacrusha? Did we have experience with large wind turbines before someone put one up? What a stupid non-argument.

No country has green hydrogen storage at grid scale. There might be a reason for that. Suggesting unproven tech as an answer to a problem is not a valid solution to that problem, it's idealism. As for interconnectors - one reason we export via interconnectors is that the financial geniuses on the receiving end are gettign the power for less than our government is paying the the turbine operators for it. And as if thet weren't bad enough, you do know that it's quite possible the majority of it is generated from coal and gas? I'ts not just wind power.

embraer170 · 31-01-2022 8:41pm

Unfortunately hard to argue with this:

cnocbui · 31-01-2022 8:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561419#Comment_118561419

There is no plan or prospect of reducing load on infrastructure, quite the reverse: the move to EVs and coercing retrospective heat pumps and insulation on unsuitable buildings is the exact opposite and it's the core of current national zero CO2 energy policy.

Capt'n Midnight · 31-01-2022 9:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561786#Comment_118561786

Large scale hydrogen technology has been around for ages. Half the nitrogen in humans and farm animals was taken out of the air using hydrogen in a process that consumes 2% of global energy use, it's not niche. Producing hydrogen from renewables was happening in Norway before WWII and they had a nice side line Heavy Water. Piping hydrogen for hundreds of Km in Europe and the USA isn't new either. Storing flammable gas in salt domes is not new either.

All proven technologies.

Apogee · 31-01-2022 11:43pm

Indo reporting that Shannon Commercial Properties have completed sale of land associated with LNG terminal, despite opposition of Ryan to the project.

A company owned by the State has completed the sale of land for the proposed Shannon LNG gas terminal, the development of which would be against Government policy. Shannon Commercial Properties recently got the final payment for sale of the 630-acre site to New Fortress Energy.

New Fortress has applied for planning permission to build a terminal there to receive shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from overseas.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/state-owned-firm-sells-off-site-for-gas-project-that-is-against-official-policy-41294207.html

josip · 01-02-2022 12:11am

My understanding of Shannon LNG is that it will be privately owned by New Fortress Energy who are extremely unlikely to source their LNG from anywhere except their PA and LA liquefiers. So this will be 100% gas obtained by fracking, something we banned in Ireland in 2017. Maybe Fortress Energy are playing the long game here and are waiting until a sympathetic minister is in power.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/dbe48-policy-statement-on-the-importation-of-fracked-gas-published/

marno21 · 01-02-2022 1:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118562921#Comment_118562921

Importing fracked gas isn’t illegal in Ireland and can’t be made illegal as per the above link.

Eamon Ryan’s personal opinion shouldn’t really come into the equation here. His current stance on this is shared by the Kremlin which should be overruled by national energy security concerns.

Danzy · 01-02-2022 1:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561788#Comment_118561788

Asia, specifically India and China remain committed to coal.

timmyntc · 01-02-2022 10:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561788#Comment_118561788

Most of that increase in coal is due to countries shutting down clean Nuclear, and then crapping themselves about fuel prices (who could have seen it coming?)

CatInABox · 01-02-2022 10:53am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563786#Comment_118563786

That just isn't true. The vast majority of the increase came from Asia adding new plants, mainly in China and India.

Demand in the US and Europe has fallen, not increased, with a large amount of coal plants shut down. It's just that decrease was offset by the construction of new plants in Asia. Even Germany have been reducing coal as a share of their production.

timmyntc · 01-02-2022 11:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563938#Comment_118563938

H1 2020 vs H1 2021 in Germany

Most of EU has a similar (albeit not as drastic) profile wrt coal - in the last year coal generation has jumped by up to 20% across EU and US. A decline in the long term since 2019, but not much. And a big increase from the optimistic 2020 when energy demand dropped and the greens attempted to capitalize by decarbonising quicker - only to discover we could not meet our energy demands and coal, gas jump right back up.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-02-2022 2:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118564014#Comment_118564014

In 2021 Wind produced more energy than Lignite and Solar more than Coal. It's a journey and as more renewable capacity is added the more they will eat into fossil fuel.

Biomass, Hydro and pumped storage have multiplier effects. Here on our grid they allow 3W of wind or solar to be supplied for every Watt they generated.

Ireland used 27.1TWh in 2019 for comparison to Germany's renewable outputs.

Cookiemunster · 01-02-2022 2:46pm

What about Germanys industrial generation which that graph clearly states is not included? You can't just cherry pick just power generated for public consumption to prove your point.

The article states that clean generation was down from 50% to 46% and that lignite picked up the slack from wind.

josip · 01-02-2022 2:51pm

The problem for Germany is what will replace that 65.4 Twh of nuclear production? Any wind/solar that picks up the slack will need a corresponding 1/3 of hydro/bio/pumped according to your 2nd point. Is that likely?

It's really shocking to think that a leading industrial nation such as Germany needs to burn so much lignite to keep the lights on.

01-02-2022 3:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561844#Comment_118561844

I'm wondering what type of building is unsuitable for insulation

timmyntc · 01-02-2022 3:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118565479#Comment_118565479

presumably "heat pumps and insulation" were a single item.

Plenty of houses cannot be retrofitted to good enough standard to suit heat pumps - you would basically have to tear down and rebuild. And as for insulation, plenty of older houses neither have the room for internal insulation, nor do they have a cavity suitable to fill.

bk · 01-02-2022 4:00pm

"H1 2020 vs H1 2021 in Germany"

Now do 1990 to 2021 to see long term trends:

As you can see, coal + lignite has dropped significantly since 1990, in fact by half!

Fossil fuels overall down about 30%

And of course we can see the massive rise in renewables.

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer if the Germans had shutdown more of their coal plants, before the Nuclear plants. But the above graph clearly shows that they aren't replacing Nuclear with coal.

cnocbui · 01-02-2022 7:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118565479#Comment_118565479

One with metre thick stone walls and no prospect of retrofitting an insulated slab. I have such a beast. This would be why historic buildings are specifically excluded from needing a BER cert. It's not an answer to be a smart arse and say it's 'technically' possible, it has to be realistically affordable by someone who hasn't got taxpayers funds to spend.

ohographite · 01-02-2022 9:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556221#Comment_118556221

Shannon LNG would not offer that flexibility, because it would be owned and operated by New Fortress Energy so it would only be used to import their gas, all of which is fracked in the U.S.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563159#Comment_118563159

Just because importing fracked gas is legal doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I think Eamonn Ryan was right to urge An Bord Pleanála to reject Shannon LNG, and I am not partial to the green party or any political party at all. Fracked gas contributes to the climate crisis more than coal or non-fracked gas, so it's a particularly bad fossil fuel to use. I am of course aware that fossil fuel usage can't stop right now, but there are less harmful fossil fuels that can be used instead of fracked gas, so I don't see why it's okay for Ireland to support fracking(which allowing Shannon LNG would). I would even say that fracking should be completely banned worldwide, as soon as possible, because of the damage it does.

02-02-2022 1:55am

BnM going head first into solar with 2.6k acre solar farm planned. Looks like it'll be well over 1GW, possibly 1.5

https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/2022/02/01/major-solar-farm-in-the-offing-for-blackwater-bog/

Birdnuts · 02-02-2022 2:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118565911#Comment_118565911

You must be looking at a different graph cos according to that there has been very little reduction in lignite use(or NG for that matter).

02-02-2022 4:21am

German lignite usage will soon be coming to an end

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal-phase-out-germanys-exit-law-draft

The coal exit law serves to spell out in detail the step-by-step reduction and end of electricity production using coal in Germany. It follows the coal exit commission's recommendations from 2019 and states how much coal power generation capacity will remain in the German power market at future dates. The exit will happen in three stages:

15 gigawatt (GW) hard coal and 15 GW lignite capacity are left by the end of 2022 (from 22.8 GW hard coal and 21.1 GW lignite in 2019)

8 GW hard coal and about 9 GW lignite are to remain by 2030

By the end of 2038 at the latest, there will be no coal power capacities left as the phase-out is completed

Three reviews in 2026, 2029 and 2032 are scheduled to decide whether the phase-out can already be completed by 2035

cnocbui · 02-02-2022 8:59am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118568755#Comment_118568755

You were sticking your under bridge dweller oar into the farming CO2 bollox thread very recently, showering links about how bogs sequester lots of CO2 and how we had to rehabilitate them and stop their further abuse and destruction, and here you are in your little green pleated cheerleader skirt, waving your pompoms in joy at 2,666 acres of bog being put uner the shade of solar panels.

Bog plants sequester carbon using photosynthesis. Do I need to draw a picture?

cnocbui · 02-02-2022 9:02am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118568882#Comment_118568882

No coal, no lignite, no nuclear - no problems there that I can see. /s

timmyntc · 02-02-2022 9:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118568755#Comment_118568755

How much of that 1GW capacity will actually generate something throughout the year?

Energy infrastructure

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