Why can't we have cheap electricity like Norway

Paddy Samurai

The county capital, 40 miles west of Oslo in Norway, extracts most of the heat needed to insulate its houses, offices and factories against the biting Nordic cold from the local fjord, or more precisely from the water held within it.
Averaging 8C throughout the year - it's literally cold enough to take your breath away. So cold, in fact, that open water swimmers classify it as freezing.
But somehow, an open-minded district heating company, backed by an environmentally-conscious city council, together with a large measure of Glaswegian nous, have built a system to meet the heating needs not just of Drammen's 65,000 residents, but its businesses as well.

Instead of all these windfarms why don't we try this ,or are there vested interests that the current system suits

And if it works in Drammen, it can work anywhere there is a constant supply of water, standing or flowing.

That should'nt be a problem for us ,as not only are we are a Island ,but we have plenty of lakes and rivers.

The potential is clearly huge. For example, the company calculates that the Thames river could generate 1.25GW of capacity, enough to heat 500,000 homes.

I wonder how many homes the river shannon ,liffey etc could heat?.

I know it would cost to set it up but the savings due to reduced cost of heat seem huge.

One unit of heat costs 1 pence to generate, compared with 3p for biomass, 5p for gas and almost 8p for oil, according to Star

It boggles the mind why we don't follow the example of countries like norway were they seem to be intersted in reducing costs for their people rather than trying to pander to big business and increase costs to the ordinary people.


http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31506073

darkpagandeath

Nope not to big business just vested interest or your mates greasing each others palms. Tbh though Ireland is perfect for windfarms.

The_Valeyard

Would have thought we could harness the potential of tidal power, considering the west coast.

SEPT 23 1989

Enough of this bloody hippy nonsense just build a nuclear power station

Sheep Lover

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Enough of this bloody hippy nonsense just build a nuclear power station

Let's burn the homeless for a bit of heat.

Lollipops23

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Enough of this bloody hippy nonsense just build a nuclear power station

Said the some dude as they were drawing up building plans for Chernobyl

dpofloinn

For the same reason that we can never have nice things, some greedy bastard (s) along the way will need some financial ''persuasion'' then we will need to spend 3 times the initial set up cost on feasibility studies and so on until it is so over cost that it would be completely un viable

SEPT 23 1989

Lollipops23 wrote: »

Said the some dude as they were drawing up building plans for Chernobyl

its come a long way since Chernobyl was built in the 70's

Augmerson

The Irish taxpayer and the Irish consumer are there to be milked and ripped off. Cheap doesn't enter the equation.

ScumLord

Paddy Samurai wrote: »

It boggles the mind why we don't follow the example of countries like norway were they seem to be intersted in reducing costs for their people rather than trying to pander to big business and increase costs to the ordinary people.

I don't see how it boggles your mind that we don't have the same plant that the Norwegians only recently opened. If these were common place and we were stubbornly holding onto fossil fuels then you'd have a point but expecting us to copy the norwegians entirely new type of plant over night is a bit much.

It also looks like it's a communal heat system rather than providing power, it's their solution to their own problem. That doesn't mean it's going to work for the entirely different needs we'd have here in Ireland.

The Backwards Man

That's not electricity, that's central heating. Norway gets its electricity from hydroplants and still has one of the biggest carbon footprints on the planet, we get our heating from turf.

Lapin

Norweigan ESB might be cheaper than a spud bit a pint of beer in the place costs around €47.95.

Fuk that.

jimgoose

Because you touch yourself at night.

imitation

First off Norway has huge natural resources, irelands natural resources are far more limited. So apart from a few dairy cows, the main source of government income is the edumacated work force.

Second thing is the norweigen government isnt all that interested in making everything cheap, just ask a norweigen about the price of a pint.

Finally a big ass centralized heated water system makes perfect sense some place where you can have -20c winters and the population is centralized. Probably make less sense in ireland with its ribbon developed housing and 6 c winters.

Robbo

A district heating system wouldn't exactly fit well with our love for building rural one off houses so you can be a heavily subsidised Rugged Individualist. Also you can be damn sure that someone would object to the pipes, citing completely made up health concerns which only magically disappear through a topical application of cash.

pillphil

1.21 GIGAWATTS?

scriba

Even if our government decided to invest in something like this, it would be "tendered" to a government favourite, go massively over budget as consultants wade in, get bogged down in endless planning issues, and when finally built, no longer be fit for purpose.

Re nuclear, I wouldn't trust an Irish version of a nuclear power plant.

emo72

Whoever is going around asking questions about why we can't have cheap things, could you kindly knock it off? The plebs will start to question things and it will unravel our little hooley.

Now if only we could tax water.......

jimgoose

Robbo wrote: »

A district heating system wouldn't exactly fit well with our love for building rural one off houses so you can be a heavily subsidised Rugged Individualist. Also you can be damn sure that someone would object to the pipes, citing completely made up health concerns which only magically disappear through a topical application of cash.

Are you referring to the ESB supply to remote areas? Because I can't think what other "heavy subsidy" you might be referring to. If that is so offensive, I'll replace that with a 500HP Cat generator and draw the diesel to it.

nokia69

its still a few years away for us in Ireland but I think solar PV is about to be massively disruptive to the traditional electricity industry

Zen65

Paddy Samurai wrote: »

Instead of all these windfarms why don't we try this ,or are there vested interests that the current system suits

You're confusing a district heating system with an electricity generating power plant. They are not the same. Not by a long shot.

One might ask why do we not have district heating in Ireland? That was tried in Ballymun, but was not extremely successful. It requires a concentration of dwellings to make it viable, such as high-rise accommodation.

Eventually solar will be cheap enough to become commonplace in Ireland and that might be a game-changer. There's no guarantee however that solar will reduce the price of energy; capital costs and stranded costs for standby thermal power have to be dealt with by the market, or else nobody would ever invest in electricity generation.

whiskeyman

There's Norway our electricity bills can be Oslo as theirs...

they can a fjord so much more I guess...





:pac:

For Forks Sake

jimgoose wrote: »

Because you touch yourself at night.

Now , if that energy could be harnessed in some way....

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Why can't we have cheap petrol like the USA?

Why can't we have cheap jewellery like the UAE?

Why can't we have.....

darkpagandeath

Bodie Bumpy Wood wrote: »

Why can't we have cheap petrol like the USA?

Why can't we have cheap jewellery like the UAE?

Why can't we have.....

We could have cheap Electricity, But that would take the government ignoring the people saying windfarms cause cancer or keep you awake ruin the view and all that.

Renegade Mechanic

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

its come a long way since Chernobyl was built in the 70's

And irresponsible switching off of safety systems for even more irresponsible max output experiments is a rare occurrence too.
I remember hearing somewhere that the reason a nuclear plant can't be built in Ireland is because of just how powerful they are. There isn't enough demand across the entire isle for one.

I dunno whether its true or not but even if it is, whose to say we cant build one anyway and send a few cables to Britain?

yoke

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

its come a long way since Chernobyl was built in the 70's

yeah, all the way to Fukushima

darkpagandeath

yoke wrote: »

yeah, all the way to Fukushima

Dam them natural disasters...... :rolleyes:

al22

Any cheap energy (wind, nuclear) can be used to separate water (plenty of it) into oxygen and hydrogen. To fill a small containers with a liquid hydrogen and distribute a liquid hydrogen to houses and instead of petrol.

There are a small units installed in a private/other houses, the size of a less than washing machines. Holds about 8 containers with a liquid hydrogen and it burns providing heat and electricity to many individual houses.

Same electric engine cars, 6-8 containers with liquid hydrogen and other equipment tales about the half of a car boot. Generate electricity to run a car.

Exaust - clean ordinary water. Can be used again. No fumes, it is a clean technology.

Hunreds of a petrol statios can exchange empty container for a filled with liquid hydrogen. Any woman (and man) can easily replace empty containers with a full ones.

Already works in Japan and some places in Asia. Japan is too far from Ireland. :-)

nokia69

al22 wrote: »

Any cheap energy (wind, nuclear) can be used to separate water (plenty of it) into oxygen and hydrogen. To fill a small containers with a liquid hydrogen and distribute a liquid hydrogen to houses and instead of petrol.

There are a small units installed in a private/other houses, the size of a less than washing machines. Holds about 8 containers with a liquid hydrogen and it burns providing heat and electricity to many individual houses.

Same electric engine cars, 6-8 containers with liquid hydrogen and other equipment tales about the half of a car boot. Generate electricity to run a car.

Exaust - clean ordinary water. Can be used again. No fumes, it is a clean technology.

Hunreds of a petrol statios can exchange empty container for a filled with liquid hydrogen. Any woman (and man) can easily replace empty containers with a full ones.

Already works in Japan and some places in Asia. Japan is too far from Ireland. :-)

never going to happen on a large scale, hydrogen is a very bad way to store energy

BoJack Horseman

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

I remember hearing somewhere that the reason a nuclear plant can't be built in Ireland is because of just how powerful they are. There isn't enough demand across the entire isle for one.

Well, reactors can be as big or small as you want.

But some are quite large alright.

2 new reactors are being commencing in the UK in a few years.
They will produce equivalent to 80% of ROI demand.

imitation

nokia69 wrote: »

its still a few years away for us in Ireland but I think solar PV is about to be massively disruptive to the traditional electricity industry

Not in Ireland at least, unless we get it bussed in from europe

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XBeiVZ5b29Q/T8tjZWlqYUI/AAAAAAAAh2Y/ddXrKnmaajs/s1600/Sunshine.png

nokia69

imitation wrote: »

Not in Ireland at least, unless we get it bussed in from europe

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XBeiVZ5b29Q/T8tjZWlqYUI/AAAAAAAAh2Y/ddXrKnmaajs/s1600/Sunshine.png

like I said it will take time for the prices to drop

Eugene Norman

imitation wrote: »

Not in Ireland at least, unless we get it bussed in from europe

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XBeiVZ5b29Q/T8tjZWlqYUI/AAAAAAAAh2Y/ddXrKnmaajs/s1600/Sunshine.png

Even here. The technology is improving exponentially.

But our best bet is wind farms and tidal farms. Exactly what the OP opposed. Why can't we be like Norway? Too many nymbyists.

Renegade Mechanic

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Well, reactors can be as big or small as you want.

But some are quite large alright.

2 new reactors are being commencing in the UK in a few years.
They will produce equivalent to 80% of ROI demand.

Cool. I think they've got Fission down pat at this stage. I wanna see fusion reactors rolling out now..

Aongus Von Bismarck

nokia69 wrote: »

its still a few years away for us in Ireland but I think solar PV is about to be massively disruptive to the traditional electricity industry

Absolutely. I'm really coming round to the idea that this is going to be a revolutionary technology, and an extremely disruptive one as well. One of the areas that I research for investment are cleantech and renewables.

Germany has adopted a policy called Energiewende which is a policy that supports a transition to an energy portfolio made up primarily of renewable energy. The state investment and development bank here, KfW, are investing heavily in PV companies. Storage remains a problem, but the costs are coming down.

I was reading the proceedings of a conference held in Germany a number of weeks ago that dealt with the matter of PV generation and storage. We still have the problem of having to have firing plants ready to go incase wind/solar output on a day won't meet demand.

A number of technologies may minimise the need for having the same offline capacity ready to go. Say for example you own an electric car. You charge it overnight, and drive to work in the morning. Demand for electricity increases during the day. Your electricity utility will alert you that it predicts you will be driving back home again this evening, and would like to buy back some of the electricity stored in your car battery at a higher rate than you were billed to charge the car in the first place. You accept. Enough of these acceptances and this saves the utility from having to bring a fossil-fuel firing plant online to meet the peak in demand they estimate.

It doesn't solve all the myriad variables needed to ensure a reliable supply system. It does present exciting alternatives though.

syklops

Paddy Samurai wrote: »

Instead of all these windfarms why don't we try this ,or are there vested interests that the current system suits



That should'nt be a problem for us ,as not only are we are a Island ,but we have plenty of lakes and rivers.



I wonder how many homes the river shannon ,liffey etc could heat?.

I know it would cost to set it up but the savings due to reduced cost of heat seem huge.



It boggles the mind why we don't follow the example of countries like norway were they seem to be intersted in reducing costs for their people rather than trying to pander to big business and increase costs to the ordinary people.


http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31506073

We have Ardnacrusha. The difference is, the guy who sends out a Norwegian electricity bill is earning 3 euros an hour and the irish guy is earning 8.65 an hour.

nokia69

syklops wrote: »

We have Ardnacrusha. The difference is, the guy who sends out a Norwegian electricity bill is earning 3 euros an hour and the irish guy is earning 8.65 an hour.

what, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world

and in the grand scheme of things Ardnacrusha is very small

Renegade Mechanic

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

A number of technologies may minimise the need for having the same offline capacity ready to go. Say for example you own an electric car. You charge it overnight, and drive to work in the morning. Demand for electricity increases during the day. Your electricity utility will alert you that it predicts you will be driving back home again this evening, and would like to buy back some of the electricity stored in your car battery at a higher rate than you were billed to charge the car in the first place. You accept. Enough of these acceptances and this saves the utility from having to bring a fossil-fuel firing plant online to meet the peak in demand they estimate.

They estimate wrongly. I couldn't see that particular angle taking off, to be honest. The average electric car holds only enough juice for a days commuting. Range is poor on them (ca 180km) to the point that as it stands, fuel needs to cost three euros per litre to justify the financial inconvenience of time spent charging. Very little known fact. At it's current prices An electric car will travel, on the price of a full charge, slightly less than an efficient diesel
will travel on the same price, spent on it's fuel. Generally speaking, at higher fuel prices, the electric car was only marginally cheaper, instead racking up future savings on conventional engine service parts.
Anyway, as for using your vehicles stored energy to reverse charge the grid is wasteful, from a net energy perspective. Even if you ignore the fact that on a wet, cold day when, either parked in traffic or travelling, the use of lights, wipers, heater fsns and the heating elements required to heat the water fed heaters (in the absence of a conventional ICE) along with air conditioning etc will almost half your electric vehicles range, you're still dealing with what is essentially identical to asking people to put back whatever petrol/diesel they reckon they wont use because they're only going home. No one's going to do that, something might come up, people will always keep whatever they have put into their cars in their cars.

nokia69

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

They estimate wrongly. I couldn't see that particular angle taking off, to be honest. The average electric car holds only enough juice for a days commuting. Range is poor on them (ca 180km) to the point that as it stands, fuel needs to cost three euros per litre to justify the financial inconvenience of time spent charging. Very little known fact. At it's current prices An electric car will travel, on the price of a full charge, slightly less than an efficient diesel
will travel on the same price, spent on it's fuel. Generally speaking, at higher fuel prices, the electric car was only marginally cheaper, instead racking up future savings on conventional engine service parts.
Anyway, as for using your vehicles stored energy to reverse charge the grid is wasteful, from a net energy perspective. Even if you ignore the fact that on a wet, cold day when, either parked in traffic or travelling, the use of lights, wipers, heater fsns and the heating elements required to heat the water fed heaters (in the absence of a conventional ICE) along with air conditioning etc will almost half your electric vehicles range, you're still dealing with what is essentially identical to asking people to put back whatever petrol/diesel they reckon they wont use because they're only going home. No one's going to do that, something might come up, people will always keep whatever they have put into their cars in their cars.

in general people charge the cars at night, its not a problem

using lights, wipers or heating does not use half an EVs power

Alexis Sanchez

yoke wrote: »

yeah, all the way to Fukushima

hurr durr i oppose nuclear power in ireland coz the 3rd-most powerful earthquake in history and the accompanying tsunami broke a reactor in japan derp

Seriously, though, the Fukushima disaster is the worst reason to oppose nuclear power for Ireland.

If a 5.4 earthquake 31 years ago in Aberystwyth didn't cause a nuclear disaster in the UK (yes, the UK has nuclear power plants, believe it or not), then I think we're safe .

Eugene Norman

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

They estimate wrongly. I couldn't see that particular angle taking off, to be honest. The average electric car holds only enough juice for a days commuting. Range is poor on them (ca 180km) to the point that as it stands, fuel needs to cost three euros per litre to justify the financial inconvenience of time spent charging. Very little known fact. At it's current prices An electric car will travel, on the price of a full charge, slightly less than an efficient diesel
will travel on the same price, spent on it's fuel. Generally speaking, at higher fuel prices, the electric car was only marginally cheaper, instead racking up future savings on conventional engine service parts.
Anyway, as for using your vehicles stored energy to reverse charge the grid is wasteful, from a net energy perspective. Even if you ignore the fact that on a wet, cold day when, either parked in traffic or travelling, the use of lights, wipers, heater fsns and the heating elements required to heat the water fed heaters (in the absence of a conventional ICE) along with air conditioning etc will almost half your electric vehicles range, you're still dealing with what is essentially identical to asking people to put back whatever petrol/diesel they reckon they wont use because they're only going home. No one's going to do that, something might come up, people will always keep whatever they have put into their cars in their cars.

Why wouldnt they? Be a nice money earner. Store electricity over night at a low rate. Drive to work using 10%. Get an alert on a phone asking do you want to sell some back giving you a profit? Your commute is now free and then some.

It's a real good idea, effectively using car batterys as part of the grids storage.

Eugene Norman

Alexis Sanchez wrote: »

hurr durr i oppose nuclear power in ireland coz the 3rd-most powerful earthquake in history and the accompanying tsunami broke a reactor in japan derp

Seriously, though, the Fukushima disaster is the worst reason to oppose nuclear power for Ireland.

If a 5.4 earthquake 31 years ago in Aberystwyth didn't cause a nuclear disaster in the UK (yes, the UK has nuclear power plants, believe it or not), then I think we're safe .

Nuclear power is not going to happen in ireland

jimgoose

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Absolutely. I'm really coming round to the idea that this is going to be a revolutionary technology, and an extremely disruptive one as well. One of the areas that I research for investment are cleantech and renewables.

Germany has adopted a policy called Energiewende which is a policy that supports a transition to an energy portfolio made up primarily of renewable energy. The state investment and development bank here, KfW, are investing heavily in PV companies. Storage remains a problem, but the costs are coming down.

I was reading the proceedings of a conference held in Germany a number of weeks ago that dealt with the matter of PV generation and storage. We still have the problem of having to have firing plants ready to go incase wind/solar output on a day won't meet demand.

A number of technologies may minimise the need for having the same offline capacity ready to go. Say for example you own an electric car. You charge it overnight, and drive to work in the morning. Demand for electricity increases during the day. Your electricity utility will alert you that it predicts you will be driving back home again this evening, and would like to buy back some of the electricity stored in your car battery at a higher rate than you were billed to charge the car in the first place. You accept. Enough of these acceptances and this saves the utility from having to bring a fossil-fuel firing plant online to meet the peak in demand they estimate.

It doesn't solve all the myriad variables needed to ensure a reliable supply system. It does present exciting alternatives though.

Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler! HITLER!!

Zen65

syklops wrote: »

We have Ardnacrusha. The difference is, the guy who sends out a Norwegian electricity bill is earning 3 euros an hour and the irish guy is earning 8.65 an hour.

The difference is that Norway has vast amounts of hydro resources thanks to their geography, and produces something like 95% of their demand from hydropower stations. These are expensive to construct, so there is a high up-front cost, but very low running and maintenance costs. The plants in Norway have been around for decades so they have paid off their initial costs by now.

Ardnacrusha is Ireland's largest hydroelectric plant and it produces around 1% of the country's needs. Even with the additional hydro plant in Dublin, Cork and Donegal Ireland can manage to produce only about 3% of the electricity demand from hydropower. We just don't have a big enough river with enough of a fall in it.

The guy in Norway is almost certainly paid (in real terms) more than the guy in Ardnacrusha, because the cost of living in Norway is higher. Alcohol is so expensive to buy you would need a mortgage (I exaggerate, of course). Also (somebody may correct me if I picked this up wrong) the Ardnacrusha station is remotely controlled from Wicklow, so there are almost no staff there apart from the people who cut the grass and oil the occasional gearbox.

Norway also has vast oil reserves, which are owned by the state, making it easier to run the state services.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

You forget we have water. Plenty of it to export and yet we don't export a drop.

Edit: and craic... plenty of craic!

imitation wrote: »

First off Norway has huge natural resources, irelands natural resources are far more limited. So apart from a few dairy cows, the main source of government income is the edumacated work force.

...

twin_beacon

yoke wrote: »

yeah, all the way to Fukushima

construction began on Fukushima in 1967, so its pretty much a 50 year old design. We don't have the threat of earthquakes or tsunamis in Ireland either.

chernobyl was also an old design by modern standards (1977), and the disaster there was 100% avoidable.

Lots of lessons have been learned from the past. there are 435 power nuclear plants currently being used around the world, with 71 more under construction.

c_man

Why can't we have cheap electricity like Norway

Because they heat their homes with slaughtered whale oil, and NATO lies.

Connemara Farmer

twin_beacon wrote: »

We don't have the threat of earthquakes or tsunamis in Ireland either.

There is a risk still possible however, I believe there's a mountain in the canaries where one side could slide into the sea. If it happens, have some water wings ready.

Accidents and disasters are usually not foreseen, so built it away from the sea on higher ground that isn't vulnerable to such things. I'd also build it on the Eastern side of this island due to the prevailing winds coming mainly from the South West.

Zillah

yoke wrote: »

yeah, all the way to Fukushima

I always find it mind-boggling when nuclear opponents use Fukushima as a evidence that nuclear power is dangerous.

Fukushima was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes in history, then it was hit by one of the most disastrous tsunamis the world has ever seen, and even then it didn't melt down. It had some trouble, it was contained and didn't cause a disaster. Literally no one died. Comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is like comparing a pebble to a mountain, Chernobyl was off the catastrophe scale because it was a primitive design built and run by cowboys. Modern nuclear plants are incredibly safe. Nothing short of deliberate destruction in war or a feckin meteor strike are going to cause a proper meltdown these days.

I still think renewables are a better idea because they don't generate massive piles of radioactive waste that will be dangerous for thousands of years, and they can be added to and decommissioned easily, whereas dismantling a nuclear power plant is a titanic project in itself. There is also a limited supply of uranium in the world. If we built enough nuclear power plants to supply the world's power, it would require tens of thousands of the biggest and newest plants and we'd burn through all mineable uranium in a few decades. They're at best a stop-gap for building a true renewable infrastructure or for the transition to fusion.

I am so excited about fusion.

paulbok

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Now , if that energy could be harnessed in some way....

It can

For something like that to work, a new hot water pipe network would have to be laid and, dare I say it, metered.
A badly constructed nuclear plant would be preferable to the problems that would cause.