Peat Briquette RIP

Das Reich wrote: »

Southernmost point in Canada is 41,7° degree N but nearly all the country is North than 49°. A country like that can't so different climates despite having a large area. Chile have only 1/13 of Canada's area but 4.270 km from north to south, so if a degree of latitude is 111 km it equals to more than 38° of difference between its northernmost point at 17,5° to the southernmost point at 56,5° degrees. This is a country with different climates, not Canada.

Latitude surely isnt the only consideration, Ive never been, but Id hardly have thought of Canada as country of one climate zone?


Im going with altitude, distance from coast and pictures Ive seen of the place, looks to have a variety of climates to me.

NcdJd wrote: »

When you factor in roadways the footprint can be quite big. The bog in my view is basically destroyed. I think if it was done right and genuinely was about saving what bog habitat we have left, there would be nothing allowed on them. We have a once opertunity to get this right but when you have a company that is only looking what other commercial opertunities they can get out of this my fear is that the environmental end of things will take the back seat unless there is something they can generate positive publicity with.

Sphagnum moss is what is used plant wise to restore a bog as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure about other plant materials.

Id say thats the best option, to restore, Ive read sphagnum moss is what grows on the bog, I thought that was the top layer? but my understanding was it is layers of dead/rotted material, compressed over time. I just checked and found a pdf of bog restoration, would take a bit to read through, I thought the layers would have to built up and I wondered if it could be helped and the optimum conditions artificially helped.


Again, dont know if the landscape has an optimal wind resource, if windturbines could be located close to existing roadways and have them nearer and fewer, Id dislike to think it all just got transformed into a money making exercise, or worse a failed money making exercise that then blights the landscape doubly. Depends if BnM have the right attitude to it, maybe the staff need to be re/upskilled and moved to a different organisation with a different mandate.

Das Reich wrote: »

Southernmost point in Canada is 41,7° degree N but nearly all the country is North than 49°. A country like that can't have so different climates despite having a large area. Chile have only 1/13 of Canada's area but 4.270 km from north to south, so if a degree of latitude is 111 km it equals to more than 38° of difference between its northernmost point at 17,5° to the southernmost point at 56,5° degrees. This is a country with different climates, not Canada.

Is north to south the only indicator of weather change ?
Vancouver and Winnipeg wound not have very different latitudes but Vancouver is known to be the mildest and most temperate Canadian city and Winnipeg has massive swings from cold to hot in comparison

theguzman wrote: »

Every worker should have been retained and the two very modern plants kept open, they could have transitioned into biomass to feed the plants if they were any way interested. They coould burn straw and other sustainable green fuels. Fast growing GMO Eucalyptus could be grown with a 6-7 year rotation.

These bureaucrats from their ivory towers in Dublin 4 don't give a damn, however as a result we are one deep easterly period of sustained low pressure with subzero temperatures away from rolling blackouts as a result of the decimation of Peat powered Electricity. And with Peat fired fuel gone we should be seeing the PSO charge on our electric bills disappear? like hell we will. I hope when the blackouts come that South Dublin is the first disconnected from the grid.

I can't tell if this is satire or not so I'm gonna go with not to be safe.

The government that got the ball rolling on this was full of politicians from outside Dublin some of them were even from rural areas.
I don't know what bureaucrats have to do with it to be honest except to fuel conspiracy theory and I could be wrong but would straw power a plant

They cost €5.20 , you'll get a small bag of coal for €7.50-8.00, 40kg bag for €15, wouldnt consider them value for money any more

josip wrote: »

I thought gusman was proposing that the GMO Eucalypt would be grown on the bog and that in 6-7 years they'd have fuel to restart the stations?

Cant see the Greens signing off on anything GMO

Can't see the midlands being suitable for wind turbines. Not enough wind.

harr wrote: »

Got out two stoves to replace my open fires last year and they have drastically cut down on fuel .. a couple bales of briquettes a week to just start the fires really. After that it’s logs or coal .. one small load of stove coal nearly enough to keep fire going for the night.
House built in year 2000 and we priced a pump system and it was crazy money and a lot of work .
House isn’t particularly cold or drafty so heat pump definitely out of the picture for now.

Jaysus, built in 2000 and you have an open fire from then?? :eek:
You have a gravity system? Sounds like a heat pump might have suited if its not draft or cold, although Id want it airtight properly.

RandomViewer wrote: »

Dont think those involved are too worried whether the wind blows or not, chasing subsidies

my christ,

Bigbooty wrote: »

Eucalyptus trees set fire to half of Portugal recently. Absolutely awful idea having those things here.

Shouldnt really be bringing in non native species and from what I read earlier, it seems cutting down trees planted on cut raised bog is the first thing to do.
IMO carbon capture to hold/fix carbon is only neutral if anything being removed to burn in stoves is also replaced, so it would need to be an ongoing project indefinitely. At some point, you either run out of marginal land to plant on (shoudnt offset farming land) so subsidies should only for land thats not arable OR you are going to reach a limit how much you can supply, as turning wood into pellets isn't carbon neutral.

Das Reich wrote: »

Why they have to say the majority of people in that town was black? Didn't got the connection between the factory and the racial make up of the town and its not the first united states video that I see they doing this.

Its a far-left political activist site masquerading as a "news outlet", I'm just surprised they didn't somehow blame Trump for it. However discounting the obvious race baiting they do show up the obvious hypocrisy of this "Green" fuel of wood pellets for the masses, it would be better for the environment for these people to burn fossil fuel and it wouldn't destroy vast swatches of forest which may never be replanted or allowed regenerate again.

Das Reich wrote: »

Why they have to say the majority of people in that town was black? Didn't got the connection between the factory and the racial make up of the town and its not the first united states video that I see they doing this.



Everywhere in this country is very windy almost all year its the biggest natural resource of this island.

I'm on the Northwest coast, when it gets cold theres no wind theres 13 turbines on a hillside that are static as often as they are turning

breezy1985 wrote: »

Probably similar to what people were saying around the country when BnaM was set up

Turf was always a source of fuel, BNM would have been an industrialisation of the process and subsidies and PSO levies would have been thin on the ground back then

RandomViewer wrote: »

Turf was always a source of fuel, BNM would have been an industrialisation of the process and subsidies and PSO levies would have been thin on the ground back then

Nothing but honest hard working men taking a fair wage with no government subsidies Im sure

Das Reich wrote: »

Everywhere in this country is very windy almost all year its the biggest natural resource of this island.

Thats not accurate or even close, it is not a viable resource sufficient to put down turbines willy nilly that arent going to produce electricity.
There are some locations that are viable, where its windy a lot of the year.
There is no silver bullet solution, aside from the fact, wind turbines have a useful life, until measures are brought in to calculate the WHOLE cost or even how to recycle the non metal components (blades), unless their whole impact (co2) output (electric power) and savings (cost) is less than what it costs to produce electricity consistently and as efficiently by other means, we would just be kidding ourselves that windpower is the be all and end all and viable all over this island.

It is very likely always going to have to be a mix of renewables AND fossil fuels.

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

People are already bulk buying briquettes!

I'm sure they can use toilet paper to start the briquette fire.

gozunda wrote: »

Boglands are complex bio-chemical systems in themselves that depend on a very specific range of environmental conditions . It has been calculated that peat deposition and buildup is in the order of just 1 mm per year.

We're going to be waiting awhile for peatland to reestablish even with the best intentions.

I'll be happy if I can pass on a couple of centimetres of new bog to my children before I shuffle off.

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not going to spend my entire evening reformatting your post but this is a good example of the nonsense. It works IF you also X and Y and Z and J and K. Those things can all be done without the heatpumps so add that all to the cost.
I personally would have the heating off for about 7 months a year. I could get all my heating from crappy electric heaters for a under a grand a year. Yet if I'm building a house I'm supposed to spend €12k+ on something that'll be idle for most of the year and will never cover the cost. Complete nonsense.
I'm currently living in a draughty old rental house and got a 2 month electricity bill, 6 weeks of which I was using electric fan heaters as my only heat source (November and December). Total bill was under €180 quid. They can **** off with heat pumps.

Whats worse about you not knowing what you're talking about is you dont even realise it, and yet you admit to living in a draughty old house, so you admit you have to be losing heat which is wasting money but complain about alternatives?

Do you also have cold showers for 7 months of the year too? or do you just not have any other heating/electricity costs?

Do you know what COP is? you are paying full whack for every kwh of electricity you consume with your "electric heaters", with heat pumps if the Coefficient of Performance of 3.5 you get 3.5kwh for the cost of every 1kwh

I find it hard to believe you have those heaters on all the time, even if set using a stat. I dont think most people are going to be as happy as you to

have cold showers and no heat as they get older, each to their own I suppose.

You arent going to get an efficient alternative for nothing, so there is going to be a payback, no set up comes with zero costs, either initial outlay or some maintenance.



Until it is determined what any individual house is going to need to heat the spaces and what the hot water demand is going to be, its not going to be possible to tell when that would break even or what the ongoing costs would be, but done right, overall it will work out cheaper.
Heat pumps do need to be used in a certain set up, either built from scratch or retrofitted, but its possible to break even and end up with lower running costs.
Bury your head in the sand if you want

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah I'll get onto the landlord now.
I'm not complaining about the house being draughty, my entire point is that even in a draughty house I need to spend very little on heating.

Electric shower, sorry, let me add a fiver a month.


Bord Gais is 5.6c per kWh
3.5 times that is 19.6c per kWH. Wow! Such savings.

Good for you, and good for them. Would be nice to have a choice.

"There's no way to know, but it will happen."
"It's possibly, but it will definitely happen."
Just a couple of contradictions you've put in there.
I've got my numbers and my usage worked out. I've started using the gas more recently, not been using the electric heaters as it happens and at 20 quid per week (and now zero electric heating) the house is nice and comfortable for me, even in the middle of the coldest week of the year we just had.
I only really mentioned the ****ty electric heaters as even though they're the most expensive way to heat a place the payback time on a heatpump would be the rest of my life.

Well, its not my problem or fault, Id say its not even your landlords fault
they cant sort out the draughts and bar heaters.

You can highlight only selected bits in my post to suit a response you have in mind.

Id say its obvious it needs to be calculated what the demand is then payback period can be determined.

Youve no interest or have an ability to avail so why have a go at something you dont know or are even interested in, you sound annoyed you cant avail of something better.

theguzman wrote: »

Every worker should have been retained and the two very modern plants kept open, they could have transitioned into biomass to feed the plants if they were any way interested. They coould burn straw and other sustainable green fuels. Fast growing GMO Eucalyptus could be grown with a 6-7 year rotation.

These bureaucrats from their ivory towers in Dublin 4 don't give a damn, however as a result we are one deep easterly period of sustained low pressure with subzero temperatures away from rolling blackouts as a result of the decimation of Peat powered Electricity. And with Peat fired fuel gone we should be seeing the PSO charge on our electric bills disappear? like hell we will. I hope when the blackouts come that South Dublin is the first disconnected from the grid.

They actually looked into the viability of biomass
They discovered they would have to import the bulk of it to keep the plants producing electricity

1874 wrote: »

Well, its not my problem or fault, Id say its not even your landlords fault
they cant sort out the draughts and bar heaters.

You can highlight only selected bits in my post to suit a response you have in mind.

Id say its obvious it needs to be calculated what the demand is then payback period can be determined.

Youve no interest or have an ability to avail so why have a go at something you dont know or are even interested in, you sound annoyed you cant avail of something better.

I have a new house,.three years old, 2400 sq ft, very well insulated , and the usual air tightness stuff that's in all houses now. But unlike most people these days I went with an oil boiler as opposed to a heat pump. Use ~600-700 litres of oil a year for heat and hot water. Installation was 10k cheaper than an heat pump. Priced both at the time. Bought oil for 38c last year. Cheaper than any heat pump for the year. Without even thoughts of the payback period on the installation.Expected life of a heat pump is ~12-15 years. Then your back for a good rodgering again. The efficiency you are quoting are not the efficiencies these units give during cold weather when you actually need them most. Like the week before last. When a house is insulated well you don't need a elaborate and expensive set up to heat it. People thinking heat pumps are economical in well insulated , air tight houses are blinded by the real contributor, the insulation.