Wind farms are politically toxic in the UK at the minute with huge levels of opposition from the right wing press but also from the National trust and the Campaign to protect rural England which are both powerful organisations in NIMBY Britain. Personally I think wind turbines are hideous but there is no getting away from the future so if Ireland can make money out of it all well and good although I have to say i think they ruin the view.
sure I can smell a rat somewhere as I don't think such a project will ever move. 2000 full time jobs looking after turbines, FFs there would want to be 40,000 turbines built to occupy a workforce like that. Presume it would get the UK tariffs?? because it sure won't be feasible with Ire tariffs. The midlands will have everything soon, loads of turbines, huge casino, that big chinese hub in mullingar is it, etc,etc. walk up lads. the old scams are the best ones for catching people
Not as much as "nucular" cooling silos. We can make them dutch. Not the old wooden dutch. But rather tie-dyed or camoflagulated. Why are they always sterile white?Originally Posted by the plastic paddy
Ive no problem with it as long as there is a proper stake in it for us.
Ireland's location as a peripheral island next to a highly populated, high density country like the UK could prove to be very lucrative in regards to selling renewable energy, as it is with agricultural produce.
All natural resources in Ireland including wind, sun, water, peat, woodland etc are to be treated as a national asset. What I don't want to see is Ireland getting a poor deal.
This US company are not here because they like us, they want a big slice of what could be a big cake.
Are Irish companies/individuals on the Irish network going to be able to make use of this interconnetor? or is it purely for their use?
Last edited by Huwie; 17th-July-2012 at 18:18.
The axe that cuts the tree can easily forget, but the tree thats been cut will not forget.
Read last week that it was to be a 5,000 MW cluster in the midlands. Eddie o Connor ex airtricity is behind this venture
2,000 long term jobs is not true.
According to spokesman most of the jobs will not come from the wind farms itself but from maintains cable routes from midlands to east coast.
i'm involved in the wind Farm business and to me this story is a lot of nonsense, from a job creation point of view.
Simply put, 5,000 MW @ €1.5m per MW = €7.5 bn investment.
Whatever about the construction jobs, maintenance takes about 5 days maintenance per turbine per year ( averaged over the 20 year lifespan of the turbine). They are virtually maintenance free albeit as a machine they do break down.
taking it to be all the largest 3MW turbines and the full 5GW is installed, this would equate to 5 x 5,000/3 = 8,333man days . With 220 working days in he year this equals 38 full- time maintenance jobs directly relaed to the turbines. Add another 40 for other maintenance ( electrics,buildings maintenance etc) and you are still shy of 100 jobs.
* figures above can change with different maintenance cycles for different turbines etc.
* I could also be completely barking and making all this up
The one point I would make is that the uk gov cannot reach their renewable targets alone, so the project itself is quite viable. I think there was a meeting recently between the two govs re renewables.
Connector is going directly to Uk via undersea cable. No access to Irish network.
Look. When Dell was in Limerick - The profits went west and most of the computers were shipped abroad too. We were thankful for the jobs.
In fairness...The wind comes from Mexico ;-)
Unless you want to nationalise private developers, you have to allow them to thrive alongside the many state-owned companies already active in this space such as Bord Gais, ESBI, Bord Na Mona and Coillte.
If a private company finances and builds an interconnector, it's their asset. It's quite possible they will choose to allow others to use their asset by offering them capacity, enabling these too to sell to the National Grid.
I don't agree that wind is a natural asset. It's a weather system that blows over our damp island, and it happens to be able to turn turbines.
The government has a stated policy of wanting the country to export power. Its own semi-states and some private companies will be licensed and allowed to do that. Element Power are simply taking up the government's offer.
There's no smoke and mirrors here, but posters here seem to have some ideological hangups about this admittedly new way of trading in international services.
Last edited by blackwarrior; 17th-July-2012 at 19:07. Reason: Spelling - as usual
"Playing against ROG, your big game plan is to try and pressure him but he’d dump it off to Wally and next thing you’re five metres behind the gain line because he was an absolute freak." Rory Best, Irish Examiner, May 2012
I don't see how it isn't a natural/natioanl asset, to be honest. How is it not?
The thing here is that the company may be getting very favourable terms. It's the State's responsibility to ensure that it gets a fair deal for the country.
To best of my knowledge there is a provision in the planning laws that allows for the fast tracking of these projects under a "strategic infrastructure" loophole. Doesn't have to go through the local authority route like a standard planning. Goes straight to ABP.
I'd be delighted to see this happening. A connector with the UK would open up the world of possibilities
It's not a loophole. It's there by design and was brought in a few years ago as it was recognised that the local authority planning process was ineffectual at dealing with projects of this nature.
The connector, at least a 500 mw, one is already there. Its going to be used as a source of power for both the markets when needed, with generators on both sides able to bid on the other market providing they can also get space on the interconnector.
It will be useful as a source of security for us for when the wind stops
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
Detail the possibilities please.
4 Feb 2011 - Gilmore on the General Election
"Frankfurts way or Labours way."
28 Feb 2012 - Gilmore on a yes vote for the fiscal treaty
"A vote for economic stability and a vote for economic recovery."
I see on the news that they will be applying for permission on the basis of this being a piece strategically important infrastructure in the national interests.
The fact this is for the UK market throws that argument out the window and puts this on weak footing. I seem to say this with most of these big development proposals, but 'construction jobs' are a total red herring. They're not long term sustainable jobs.
"There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment"
Paul Theroux
The shame for me is that we don't build turbines. If we could develop and build turbnes aimed first at the Irish market, then for every 1.5M per MW invested in Ireland about half that which would normally be going overseas would be staying here.
Thats where there is money.
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
Whilst it is good to see things developing here with regard to sustainable energy and in the long term there is no reason why we cannot be a major power supplier once the problems with wave energy are overcome (and I am sure they will).
What annoys me is that Siemens a few years back wanted to do something similar supplying power to the Irish State helping us to be less dependent on imported fossil fuels and the FF/Green government done nothing with it. So now we can help the UK become less dependent on imported fossil fuels. Stupidity by our Lords and Masters like this just makes my blood boil.
I am one of the 5 clowns woo hoo
We have no proper vision on our energy security - and energy security is the really crucial thing for us, not global warming which we have absolutely no power in effecting.
The spirit of Ireland proposal could well have some flaws and inaccuracies in it, but at least it was somebody giving an example of 'this is how we are going to be energy independent in X number of years. It's scandalous that we don't have a proper strategy for this.
This is probably the best windfarm proposal we've seen in this country, yet it's a foreign private enterprise using it to supply power to another country. What we're doing is simply pockmarking small scale wind farms in scenic parts of the country in an in-efficient manner, summing up our entire approach to energy generation. We need to identify a number of locations for large scale wind power, and mainly off shore. Identify areas on the west coast which aren't high priority scenic/environmental areas rather than continue with small, inefficient wind farms in a vast number of scenic areas.
We need a proposal which says "we're going to be energy independent by 2025, and this is how we're going to do it".
"There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment"
Paul Theroux
ive heard before the east coast may be more viable for off shore wind farms. think its partly due to water depth and buiild cost (may have been BS, could just be political manouvering)
the siemens plan was very good from what i remember. i know a few guys involved in building (well assembling) turbines and they do most of their work in scotland as they cant get the work here
Well, I think getting 40% of our electricity from wind is a pretty huge step.
My own belief after a fair bit of study into this, is that we should build a very large coal plant, larger than moneypoint possibly in Cork to exploit the storage potential of the Kinsale gas field.
Coal is cheap and plentiful, and by far the cheapest electricity we can produce per MW.
There is too much gas supply in the country already.
ON the wind front there are areas which are considered wind zones and have been promoted as such ( to the best of my knowledge)
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
I don't think that's true, Scotscor. It's difficult to pin down generation costs, but gas is still a lot cheaper than coal. Add in the external costs of coal generation and it's not cheap at all.
Aside from costs, we don't have significant reserves of coal here so we'd be importing it and subject to the vagaries of the international markets, and it's also one of the more polluting fuels. We've moved away from coal for good reasons, imo.
Its all got to do with the tariffs, energy that I create here is worth allot less selling back to the national grid that in the Uk. I was/am interesting in building a AD plant, would cost a couple of quid but hopefully guarantee me a future, but at the moment the figures just don't add up. I would provide directly and indirectly work for about 3 - 4 people but the will just isn't there from authority. Even getting planning permission for the development is a nightmare. Funny we have a hugely successful turbine firm in Galway C&F and they do bugger all of there installations in Ireland
BB, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency said that the noughties were the decade of coal. Its seriously cheap.
Gas is tied to oil prces in Europe - less so in the states where fracking has seen the prices diverge.
Moneypoint is producing whatever it wants to from what I can see, I think the main reason that it has been restricted to about 70% of 2006 levels is because of the Large Combustion Plants directive, but its output was in no way affected by the downturn, most of the Gas plants in the country were to some extent. Though the Oil plants were destroyed by it.
Oddly enough Peat is seen as renewable when it comes to generation, so is down as Must Run when available - along with wind. Coal is because of its price. So the Gas plants are basically canibalising each other for market share.
I saw an article recently saying that Coal is on the way back in Europe as well.
Gas supply is a lot less reliable than Coal.
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
Not convinced at all. Need to see more on that.
Besides all that, what do we do with the emissions from coal-fired plant, and the external costs?
Depends on the emissions you are talking about, if you are talking about CO2, then we are more than compensating for that with our wind, if you are talking about sox nox and rocks, thats a different matter, but there are much cleaner coal plants coming out.
The greatest fraud is the emissions trading scheme. Its been money for jam for polluters and has done sweet fa to reduce emissions (in Ireland at least)
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
Emissions trading is a key part of Kyoto. Haven't looked at it in years, but it's meant to slowly but surely encourage polluters to get their act together. I'd like to see an unbiased review of it.
If we can sufficiently limit the emissions from coal, and if it's cheap, I'm all for it. It's nearly 10 years since I had an active interest in this stuff, so perhaps things have changed markedly, but back then there wasn't much hope for clean coal tech.
Emissions trading is a crock.
Our ghgs are roughly 25% power, 15% large industry, and the rest split between residential, agriculture, small industry and transport.power and industry have largely fallen because of the recession, feck all to do with emissions trading.
But the ETS is a "cornerstone" of the fight against climate change, madness, no thought about economic performance in it, if there is a recession then there are way too many permits.
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
Fair point. All the more reason to refine or reform it.
Let’s just take a step back for a second.
This is fundamentally a question of national interest verses saturation point for the public in relation to white skinny windmills.
What the Brits are achieving is the purchase of wind farms in relatively non-controversial lowland areas. However, people’s acceptance of these wind pylons has a limit. High wind areas on the west coast will prove off-limits (and rightly so).
I’m not sure whether the government has any policy in relation to the exploitation of effective natural resources, such as wind.
I believe that because wind/wave/tidal power is a relatively new concept, the industry needs another 10 to 20 years to mature (and us Paddies have some clear geographical advantages) before somebody dominates the market.
My money is on the Danes.
Last edited by NiallGK; 20th-July-2012 at 00:09.
Tommy O'Donnell - David Wallace Mk. 2.
The wind energy industry is already a mature one, Niall. And you guessed it, the Danes are market leaders. Why? Because they recognised they had a great energy resource more than 30 years ago and put a lot of investment into it. Now it's worth many billions of euro each year to the Danish economy, and other countries, some with a far greater wind resource but far less vision and innovation like Ireland, purchase turbines from the Danes.
Turbines are very complex yokes, the need to be able to design the twists on the blades so that they can acheive the appropriate amount of pitch and stall control, and all the bits that go with it.
But at the moment we have about 1600 MW of wind capacity, we are looking at about 5400MW to meet the 40% required by 2020.
Roughly at a cost per MW of 1.5 million. with about 2/3s of the cost of these going on the turbines. Might be out by a bit on some of teh figures.
But that means that already we have spent 1.6 billion on foreign built turbines and will spend about another 4 billion on them in the next seven years.
Surely we have someone who can create a team willing to target that market.
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
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