ESB Announces Kamikaze Strike Plan on Irish Economy

The Central Bank
1

Housing crash? Credit crunch? Losing jobs to Costa Rica? Maybe super-economy ireland can take all that. But can it take this on top?

rte.ie/business/2008/0327/esb.html

Now I am really really worried.

The ESB are going to “invest” eur22billion over the next twelve years fixing the grid so it can accomodate 6000MW of intermittent wind energy. The wind isn’t always blowing at the right speed so we will also have to maintain 6000MW of conventional fossil fuel plant to back this up. The capacity factor for wind power is 25%, so the average power produced by 6000MW of installed wind capacity is only 1500MW. So effectively the ESB are going to “invest” eur22billion to facilitate a redundant 1500MW power plant.

How does this “investment” look compared to nuclear?

uic.com.au/nip08.htm

The bare plant cost for the new EdF Flamanville EPR is EUR 2000/kW. So the esb could buy a 1500MW carbon free nuclear plant off the shelf for about eur 3 billion. Instead the ESB will be “investing” 7 times this. :open_mouth:

Ireland really is different. We can afford to “invest” eur22billion in something worth eur3billion. Our competitors would just take the cheap option but we don’t mind paying more for our electricity than anyone else. We can afford to wreck the landscape, because we don’t need tourists (they are only worth eur 5 billion per year).

Economic suicide.

2

As a country we love to piss our money away on projects that make us feel good. Then we wonder why we can’t afford to do other things.

3

Ah bungaloid, could you really see Joe Jacobs (minister for iodine tablets) managing the waste from a whole reactor??

independent.ie/national-news … 33902.html
At the time I laughed until I was sick.

I don’t suppose anyone has a download?

4

This is part of a bigger plan, not invented by the Irish, fortunately.

It’s possible for the whole of western europe to power itself from wind, sun and geothermal. By “power istelf” I mean replacing all fossil fuels currently used in western europe, with no loss of energy output.

Ireland, Portugal and north-western Spain are crucial to this plan. These regions will have massive banks of wind turbines, mostly offshore.

Over 95% of the time the wind is blowing in all or part of these regions. The power will generally be exported to the rest of the EU via ultra-high capacity DC cables.

In return, Ireland, Portugal and north-western Spain will be fed a base-load of power from non-intermittent sources, on the rare occasions when the wind’s not blowing. Our EU partners will ensure no blackouts.

There is a campaign on Politics.ie to assert a negative: that energy cannot be stored, thus our only salvation is nukes. The planners behind this endeavour, thankfully, understand sixth class physics, so they know that’s twaddle.

If you’re not aware of how Turlough Hill functions as an energy storage system, you should look it up, it’s rather neat.

Now, picture several thousand Turlough Hills all over Europe, ready to crank out the megawatts on demand every time the wind turbine banks in Ireland, Portugal and north-western Spain are becalmed (roughly 6 hours every month).

This is all old, proven tech. And the great thing is, the guys running it, making sure it won’t all be screwed up, will have names like Gunter and Karl and Dieter. That makes me feel relieved. So don’t fret.

5

Turlough hill is a hideous blight on the landscape, so please let’s not go there again. If there was some sort of viable storage scheme however (let’s say hyrdrogen) I’d support it.

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Come on guys, has somebody been having a scuba in a New Labour think tank! The clean up costs for the UK’s existing nuclear industry and its waste have been estimated at up to £100bn.

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Ah but Pat, the new nuclear stuff is really clean. You can drink what comes out. And sure it’s in parts per billion or something in the Irish sea. Sure to the fish it’s like having only a few xrays. It doesn’t turn them into mutant girly fish at all. That’s just codswallop. Ha, Ha. And sure the British Isles is tectonically stable. They hardly every have earthquakes there. They haven’t had one since, er, last month. But anyway the reactors are built to the highest safety standards to withstand these things. Look at what happened to the Japanese reactor that was in an earthquake, er, it leaked and has been shut down since. But what do the Japanese know about technology anyway??

8

Maybe I’m just being a bit biased Yog but my friend Windy Miller swears by them whirly things…not at them!

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You have a good point, but you are being disingenuous with the facts.

The money is not being solely spent on renewable energy. A sizeable chunk is being spent on interconnecting the All-Ireland and Irish-British network. Also, the installation of smart meters is a practical idea. It has been shown that homes with smart meters will make cost savings that exceed the cost of the meter in the long run. Not only that, but it allows regular joes to generate their own power and sell it back to the ESB.

I do agree with you on one point though, it’s foolish to put all our eggs into the renewable basket. The nuclear option should at very least be explored.

10

Helical turbines look the business.
Plant enough of them on a hillside and paint them green and you would think it was a forest…remember those anyone?

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If they ever get the transportable storage angle sorted, using the surplus power for hydrogen for transport would be the way to go.

While a small amount may need to be put back into the grid during high demand / low supply moments, it would make sense to over-spec the renewable supply and use the majority of the surplus for transport power.

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In terms of nuclear, perhaps the sensible thing would be to invest in some of the private nuclear power companies in other countries that already have nuclear infrastructure. With the UK interconnetor and later a european one, we could be connected to a large grid where energy is produced on demand by the appropriate method at the time. In this case it makes sense for us to be able to produce energy from what we have a lot of: wind and shite.

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I believe breakthroughs in Capacitor technology will go a long way to addressing the storage issues.

Without knowing rock3r’s bg, I would stand by with what he says.
Hooking up to create a whole system is much better than lots of division.

To simply when wind blows in one area and not the other both locations can benefit, so I suppose in theory we might also benefit from the rays down Mediterranean way, if its comprehensively interconnected.

Buckminster fuller wanted the entire globes system hooked up in a similar fashion and that was back in the 40s.

Tesla felt he could transport electricity via the atmosphere to anyone until JP Morgan pulled the plug when he realized he couldn’t make money!

All I can say I wish this had happened sooner plus a time machine to go back and erase that JP Morgan & Bernaise fuckers from history ! :smiling_imp:

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There isn’t enough Vanadium in the world to build the flow batteries ( the capacitors) people, do the math willye :frowning:

I fully subscribe to the Eurogrid project to deal with renewable intermittence but I strongly feel it should be discussed widely first , just like the Lisbon Treaty …oops :unamused:

JP pulled the plug on Nikolai Tesla because you could not meter broadcast electricity …which is probably technically feasible .

Tesla had separately invented AC current (which can be metered) for a certain Mr Westinghouse … before he proposed broadcast electricity.

Mea Culpa - OW edited this post thinking he was replying DOH! Restored as best I could, with these Admin powers comes great responsibility. I beg forgiveness in the light of my error.

15

I have a mag somewhere with a breakdown of the timeline dry for the most crucial mineral and metal resources we use currently. SOm eare gone oin five years of projected consumption some 15 other 30 but its most worrying.

A very useful phrase noted :wink:

I believe WH got in with the wrong crowd, JP Morgan & Rockerfella, who had him by the balls in the end (see the pattern with this crowd???) and at one stage Tesla backed WH (since he had backed him in the beginning, gentlemen of course) and thus sealed their destiny… WH at that point was in no position to help Tesla form JP Morgans influence. Well thats what I understand to have happened.

*That JP Morgan was some fuck. He has his hand everywhere in the major. junctures of history. *

Well anyway To top all that, during the AC vs DC wars Edison was publicly electrocuting an Elephant and other animals too prove Tesla AC system was far to dangerous as opposed to Edison very range inefficient DC system. Bad blood or Shock & Awe :wink:

As people can probably guess Westinghouse power company made its money on teh back of Tesla AC polyphase motor.

They don’t tell you this shit in Junior Cert science when you meet the Tesla coil for the first time and its so much more interesting, people need stories to remember stuff like, sure look at the jaysus Bible for fook sake!!!

For the Tesla virgins - reformation.org/nikola-tesla.html

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As far as nuclear goes, yeah I think it’s a brilliant plan. Let’s try and get away from our over-reliance on a finite mineral resource on the verge of running out, largely sourced in unstable parts of the world, by spending countless billions building loads of nuke plants, thus neatly leaving us, errr, over-reliant on a finite mineral resource on the verge of running out, largely sourced in unstable parts of the world and with a whole new lethal waste-storage issue to amuse the next 100 generations.

Genius.

17

You forget Sidewinder that the Brits already have a 100000 ton and 10000 year problem so whats another 1000 tons and 30 years on the margins 8) ??

Buy Wylfa and build a new reactor there, then pipe the lekky across the Irish Sea on one of our new interconnects what we must build anyway .

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I’m not forgetting the Brits. I was actually thinking globally. If everybody in the West starts building loads more nuke plants, the world reserves of uranium will run out in about 20 years. Even at current levels of demand there’s only about 50 years worth of the stuff in known deposits.

The Nuclear Option is just stupid.

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Quite right Housebuyer I am being disingenuous.

The interconnectors are a critical part of the plan which will allow us to buy nuclear generated electricity into the future. Of course, we will still be paying more than anyone else because of transmission losses and because the foreign generators will be making a healthy profit. But the interconnectors will give us access to efficient producers. They will also introduce nuclear power and energy security.

The ESB are being disingenous because they want to downplay the interconnector/market element and play up the “renewable” element. This keeps Minister Ryan happy, because it makes it look like he is doing something green. Of course the people at the ESB and Eirgrid are not stupid. Senior people there know the score with wind and that the “renewable energy” export business is a politican’s fantasy. They are just playing along for now.

Cheap large-scale energy storage does does exist despite what rock3r thinks he knows. A lossless supergrid does not exist. Tesla ray power and Flash Gordon don’t exist.

When you make investment decisions you do so on the basis of known facts, minimum guesswork and zero ideology. You certainly don’t bet the ranch on “engineers” called Gunther and Karl or Adolf who are simply salespeople (VIs) for wind turbine industry.

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France generates 75% of its electricity from Nuclear. It is a massive electricity exporter because of low costs.

Oil over $100/barrel. Who looks stupid now?