EirGrid pushing to erect 400 new pylons

murphaph

What a load of bullsh!t that really is. :rolleyes:

Davy

Even if their was any bit of truth to it, that might be 10 or 20 pylons maybe, still another 380 to find places for :rolleyes:

oharach

North Cork wrote: »

an underground cable running beside existing railway lines

Ah yes, the Meath to Tyrone railway line :rolleyes:

There is only one cross-border line, and it wouldn't be a great idea to run a high-voltage cable along it, as there are frequent threats to blow it up. Idiots.

Davy

oharach wrote: »

Ah yes, the Meath to Tyrone railway line :rolleyes:

There is only one cross-border line, and it wouldn't be a great idea to run a high-voltage cable along it, as there are frequent threats to blow it up. Idiots.

No only that but to bury 400kv cable need mass concrete and the cables well separated apart so would be like building motorway. Just doesn't make sense. Totally different ball game than 10kv that you can put anywhere

Godge

Isn't there a conspiracy theory forum for things like this??

Zen65

North Cork wrote: »

Eirgrid, has used age profiling, targeting elderly farmers living alone, to identify the "path of least resistance" to erect pylons for an interconnector in the north-east that would link electricity grids in the North and the Republic, it was claimed last week.

The extraordinary claim was made to An Bord Pleanala's public oral hearing into the plan for a 140km overhead line on high lattice towers stretching from Co Meath to Co Tyrone by James McNally, who is a chartered management accountant.

Mr McNally, who has worked extensively in Irish business as well as with the HSE and local authorities, carried out an analysis of the planned route in his own locality near Castleblayney, Co Monaghan.
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"Isolated and alone, feeling stressed and worried, the elderly person is most likely to concede to authoritative figures," Mr McNally said.
- JEROME REILLY
Sunday Independent

This is the sort of nonsense that gives conspiracy theorists a bad name. Firstly, it probably credits EirGrid with more planning strategy than they deserve; secondly it is a gross misrepresentation of elderly people. In my experience dealing with the public, elderly people are among the most principled and stubborn of all. You cannot buy them out from their land, because they have probably acquired significant monies anyway, and unlike the young, they generally have less need for money. If I was choosing the route to make it easy for EirGrid, I'd target land owned by 40-something year old married couples; they are mature and wise enough to understand that the health issue is just scaremongering, and they are in need of money because they are tonsil-deep in negative equity. Not that I'm devious enough to do that!!

I shouldn't be surprised that this would come from a management consultant who worked for the HSE. That's the same authority who spent over €120 million on a payroll system (I think they called it "PPARS", but I'm open to correction) a few years ago which didn't work and ended up being scrapped. It made electronic voting machines look like good value!! Perhaps the HSE received very poor management consultant advice back then?

The Romans never tolerated this sort of rubbish while they were building their roads and aquaducts, I'm sure. Maybe that's why we look back on their works with such admiration.

Enjoy the day,

Z.

L1011

Zen65 wrote: »

I shouldn't be surprised that this would come from a management consultant who worked for the HSE. That's the same authority who spent over €120 million on a payroll system (I think they called it "PPARS", but I'm open to correction) a few years ago which didn't work and ended up being scrapped. It made electronic voting machines look like good value!! Perhaps the HSE received very poor management consultant advice back then?

PPARS is in active, albeit partial use and was commissioned by the health boards in 1999 not the HSE which didn't even exist then...

Zen65

MYOB wrote: »

PPARS is in active, albeit partial use and was commissioned by the health boards in 1999 not the HSE which didn't even exist then...

I'm glad to hear it and I accept the correction to my comments. Is it being used as an integrated payroll system, or just a personnel database?

As for Health Boards vs HSE that's really a moot point, since the HSE was just an amalgamation of the old boards with almost no organisational changes. I'm not involved in the health business so I forgot about this name change.

Cheers,

Z

L1011

Its being used for payroll for about 1/3rd of employees and personell for everyone. I think its just the ex-health boards and James' that use it for payroll (the HSE paying many, many people who don't work in health boards, such as every other voluntary hospital, etc).

Solair

In Iceland they decided to turn pylons into works of art :



http://www.dezeen.com/2009/03/30/high-voltage-transmisison-line-towers-by-arphenotype/

Personally, I think electricity pylons are just part of the landscape. We can't really live with out them and they can be done rather tastefully if necessary.

The landscape's far less scared by pylons than it is by other human activity, e.g. farming, which basically creates the Irish landscape i.e. the patchwork of fields, hedges, little roads and fences.

I don't think we should get overly hung-up on electrical infrastructure. Although, I do think that an effort should be made to avoid running cables through scenic areas where possible.

Also, in urban areas, there is a bit of an ugly mess of very messy overhead ESB and eircom cabling strung across streets. A lot of this kind of stuff should be underground, purely for visual reasons.

However, I really don't think there's a very strong case to show that pylons are linked to health risks. Otherwise, would we not see a huge increase in problems for people who have worked around heavy electrical systems ?

Putting the whole thing underground simply isn't practical and it would create huge problems with gaining access and way-leaves across private land, not to mention the fact that some areas are rock, rather than soil so it would be necessary to blast etc. You're looking at construction similar to that of a major motorway.

Also, if you want to see some of the complications of underground major cables check out the NZ Power Crisis in the 1990s.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/misc/mercury.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis

Due to a major failure of a cable system feeding Auckland the entire central business district of that city was left without electricity for 5 weeks!

It did serious damage to quite a large number of companies, cost a fortune and damaged Aucklands reputation very badly as an international business destination. E.g. no company with mission critical data centres would locate there for years afterwards.

Power infrastructure HAS to work, particularly if you're a far flung country like NZ or Ireland. Getting this stuff wrong is an absolute disaster.

Davy

Something similar: http://www.archdaily.com/49670/pylons-of-the-future-dancing-with-nature-hda/

Think its norway who are going with a new vertical spire type.


For scenic places here, I know they are going to try use poles including for angles to save on pylons having to be used.

busman

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/eirgrids-interconnector-application-thrown-out-because-of-typing-error-123743.html

A TYPING error on the public notice announcing Eirgrid’s intention to apply for planning permission to build the much-needed €200 million north-south electricity interconnector has led to the planning application being thrown out.

Oops!!

annfield1978

not very good for who ever was working on the northern section of the scheme