Making more use of the river Shannon in Limerick

moleyv

Can't believe people are against a footbridge, but pro putting a dam across a highly sensitive ecological area.

Priceless....

zulutango

moleyv wrote:

Can't believe people are against a footbridge, but pro putting a dam across a highly sensitive ecological area.

Certainly not in favour of it.

elastico

moleyv wrote: »

Can't believe people are against a footbridge, but pro putting a dam across a highly sensitive ecological area.

Priceless....

I don't think anybody is proposing a dam across a sensitive ecological area, what area are you referring to??

moleyv

elastico wrote:

I don't think anybody is proposing a dam across a sensitive ecological area, what area are you referring to??

The Lower River Shannon Special Area of Conservation. Protected by the habitats directive. Such a project would require an environmental impact assessment and appropriate assessment (HDA) at an absolute minimum.

Protected flora and fauna include various lamprey, fresh water pearl mussel, tidal mud flats, otters and much more.

I also believe there is an SPA (maybe more downstream), but within the scope of requiring various assessments. SPAs are also protected by the habitats directive, and are more specific to birds.

The are probably a raft of Natural Heritage Area too.

National parks and wildlife service has all the information if you want some reading. npws.ie

zulutango

It's impossible to see it happening. I wonder would Ardnacrusha get the go ahead in this day and age. I doubt it very much.

Clareman

zulutango wrote: »

It's impossible to see it happening. I wonder would Ardnacrusha get the go ahead in this day and age. I doubt it very much.

Good gawd no, not a hope would it go ahead now, 1 fifth of the national budget was spent on it, the largest river was diverted to it, it was overseen by a German company with Irish engineers and workers, it was the largest hydro electical dam in the world at the time (surpassed by the Hoover Dam) and all of this was done within a decade of the new state. Ardnacrusha is a fantastic symbol of Ireland in my opinion.

phog

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Unfortunately you can't just close the docks. The activity has to go somewhere. Maybe after the new Limerick to Foynes road is built and Foynes port is expanded, but not before then. And that's at least 5 years away.

Reopen the rail link to Foynes.

When planning the tunnel, I'd have upgraded the rail track to Foynes, built a port at the cement factory for their use, upgrade the N69 and built a bridge rather than a tunnel. Then close the docks and redeveloped the area for residential & leisure.

Blazer

Clareman wrote: »

Good gawd no, not a hope would it go ahead now, 1 fifth of the national budget was spent on it, the largest river was diverted to it, it was overseen by a German company with Irish engineers and workers, it was the largest hydro electical dam in the world at the time (surpassed by the Hoover Dam) and all of this was done within a decade of the new state. Ardnacrusha is a fantastic symbol of Ireland in my opinion.

That I never knew...can you imagine if they tried to do it today?

Clareman

Blazer wrote: »

That I never knew...can you imagine if they tried to do it today?

Electricity was brand new back then and Ardnacrusha supplied the whole country, so the entire National Grid had to be created as well. Funny to think that back then they used to turn it off/down at night cause no-one was using electricity

Chavways

Red King wrote: »

They should forget the river bus to Ardnacrusha thing and focus more on a river bus on the main stretch of river.

As regards promoting kayaking - getwest were ordered by the council to remove their advertising.

Maybe someone from Getwest could chip in here and add some more detail on how they have been treated by the council.

I'm not sure of the particulars but I know Paul from Get West and as far as I know, they told him to take down the big banner he had on the side of the Shannon Rowing Club building because he didn't have planning permission for it.

Just to add to the topic in general, the river is definitely underused but the tides and most people's misunderstanding of how they affect the waterways around the city really hamper any possible plans for use of the river. I know that Get West can only really operate kayaking tours in the city when the tide is in fully so that is quite limiting in itself in terms of there being max 2 opportunities for that a day.

Another hugely underused aspect of the river is the Curragower Wave in front of the castle but with Jamie O Brien having been over with the Red Bull crew surfing it a few weeks ago, I expect a lot more surfers to come to Limerick to give it a go. There were 3 lads surfing there on Friday when we were there kayaking.

zulutango

Clareman wrote: »

Good gawd no, not a hope would it go ahead now, 1 fifth of the national budget was spent on it, the largest river was diverted to it, it was overseen by a German company with Irish engineers and workers, it was the largest hydro electical dam in the world at the time (surpassed by the Hoover Dam) and all of this was done within a decade of the new state. Ardnacrusha is a fantastic symbol of Ireland in my opinion.

I was really querying would it be allowed to happen given the environmental impact it caused. The technical achievement was remarkable. I've been lucky enough to go through the lock gates (both directions) in a small craft a few times and it is truly an incredible experience.

zulutango

Chavways wrote: »

I'm not sure of the particulars but I know Paul from Get West and as far as I know, they told him to take down the big banner he had on the side of the Shannon Rowing Club building because he didn't have planning permission for it.

That's Limerick Boat Club. The taller building opposite it is Shannon Rowing Club.

Poxyshamrock

Would love to see more done with the canal as well. It's in an awful state of neglect.

godfrey

zulutango wrote: »

Would the dam be used for hydro generation? If so, then there's be a huge incentive to keep the water level high all year round. This is pretty much what's happening with Ardnacrusha at the moment, and hence we've plenty of winter time flooding as a result.

I don't think the drop would be sufficient to generate enough power. The project as a whole needs to be large in scale to pay for itself. Being tidal it could only operate while there IS a drop. So my opinion is that it's not possible in that form. The flow of water both in and out can be harnessed, but again, not on a large enough scale I'd think. It would also restrict existing activities like rowing.

g

zulutango

godfrey wrote: »

I don't think the drop would be sufficient to generate enough power. The project as a whole needs to be large in scale to pay for itself. Being tidal it could only operate while there IS a drop. So my opinion is that it's not possible in that form. The flow of water both in and out can be harnessed, but again, not on a large enough scale I'd think. It would also restrict existing activities like rowing.

g

It could certainly generate a lot of power, there's no doubt about that. There's plenty of 'low head' schemes around the world. There's also tidal schemes. What could be envisaged would be a combination of these.

The power available can be calculated easily enough.

Power = (density of water) x (acceleration due to gravity) x (head height, i.e. the difference between the upper level of water and the turbine) x (flowrate of water).

While the third figure is low enough although still a few metres, it's the flow rate that would lead to a big power output, because this would be very significant.