Spirit Of Ireland on Newstalk

grafter12

Just listening to Newstalk at the moment and they have an article on it about a project called Spirit of Ireland (http://www.spiritofireland.org)where they are proposing to take wind and wave energy and building pump storage facilities in natural valleys on a number of sites and using the generated energy to power these facilities, this will make Ireland Energy secure within 5 years.

The group involve seem to have done their homework on all aspects of pulling it off. It sounds very exciting and it would be good to get some comments from here on it.

Retro-Fit

Igor Svets of Trinity is behind this but it looks like a venture capital scheme. Pity they didn't do their homework, they have plumbed for a funky concept but completely unfeasible. Pumped storage is not cost effective for Irelands plans for Energy independence and all renewable supply. Interconnection is the best option, exporting renewables to offset conventional. Excess wind could be stored in car batteries. The best storage for renewables is as compressed air to boost gas turbines. This increases trebles the efficiency of the gas plant.

There already is a plan for innovation and a renewable energy future. Its called the Green Party. We could simply vote for people who plan for a future that will happen rather than the crowd we usually vote for who just plan to survive for 5 years.

Its all good though, best of luck to Spirit of Ireland. Some initiatives which might work instead. 1. Combine the evil Corib gas project with renewables, to provide an energy island in Mayo/Galway. Roll the Transmission and distribution system operators into one independant entity. Streamline the process for planning, EIS and gate connection into one low risk process. Replace your shooneen councilor with a green one.

gman2k

I think it's a fantastic concept, and it will be a true test of the entire nation to grasp this issue and solve our problems. It will take more than politicians (of any hue) to get this right.
Whenever I hear people talking about something being unfeasible, or costing too much, it makes me cringe.
What is unfeasible is letting the status quo continuing any longer - 92% of our energy needs and costs are at the whims of oligarchs and shiekhs, and peak oil is now with us.
Sitting on our hands any longer is simply not an option.
Continental interconnection will be part of the solution, not all of it.
If we bravely embrace this idea, think about how much money will be kept in this country in the future ( post peak oil prices will cost more than 5% of GDP) At present it is around 1%.

Nuclear is not a long term solution either, for a few simple reasons,
Limited supply of uranium : (nearing peak production) The cost of which will always be prorata to the cost of fossil fuels.
Dealing with nuclear waste: If the Egyptians had used nuclear power, we'd still be dealing with their waste. We cannot hand future generations waste like this, just so we could go on leaving light bulbs on all night!

If, as a nation we go with this idea, the important thing is to keep control of it within our own boundaries, and not let some venture capitalists in Beijing/ Riyadh/ Delhi/ New York dictate to us how we operate it, or how we should charge for it.
This idea is not for our generation, but for the following generations, and will enable Ireland to become a leading area for inward investment in manufacturing, with a clean, stable, guaranteed energy supply.

Fingallion

I do think it is brilliant but I imagine that if the 10's of billions that this would cost would be directed towards large scale Lithium Ion technology (or similar), we would have even a better solution..

Carlow52

Retro-Fit wrote: »

...Interconnection is the best option, exporting renewables to offset conventional. .....

and make us even more dependent on imports from one source: replace the Saudis with HRH and her offering: No thanks:)

being dependent on one source assumes that contracts will be honored if there is a shortage: keep dreaming:D

Borzoi

grafter12 wrote: »

where they are proposing to take wind and wave energy and building pump storage facilities in natural valleys on a number of sites and using the generated energy to power these facilities, this will make Ireland Energy secure within 5 years.
.

5 years -they haven't a chance of that :rolleyes:

But overall, interesting proposal, needs to be properly cost & benefit analysed

acos

we have started a forum, with various topics split out at
http://www.spiritofireland.org/forum/index.php

We will be continuing to update our technical data and our interactions with all political and non political stakeholders.
We will keep reviewing these forums and answering questions when we can but we cant keep posting on all of them. We started today to answer technical questions as they are posted, which also allows one central info point

thanks

Alan

Retro-Fit

They didn't do their homework, pity to waste all that advertising.

http://constructireland.ie/index.php?option=com_myblog&Itemid=&lang=en&show=Examining-the-Spirit-of-Ireland-proposals.html