What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? We can solve our energy problems the same way France has done – Nuclear Power.

Did you read the link from Jay above? Here’s one quote “Denmark (population 5.3 million) has over 6,000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002. Yet no conventional power plant has been shut down.”

Didn’t bother reading negative stuff to be honest, I know how to to answer that anyhow, it’s called having a mixed base load, biogas plants, wind power, hydro, wave, tidal and solar, we actually have Similar solar energy figures as Germany, as a whole we have more energy resources than Germany, thing is that they invested, “German efficiency” springs to mind. They have capitalised on it, Europeans energy experts laugh at us because we are idiots for not harnessing out energy resource, if u want to see another good idea some forward thinking Irish people are doing check out http://www.spirtofireland.org …..rant over

David: here’s some facts about Germany then. The average percent output achieved by wind turbines in Germany for 1998-2003 was only 14.7% of their installed capacity. For normal generators it’s more like 90%. Germany reduced the tax breaks to wind power…. in 2004 but you’re holding them forward as an example for us to INCREASE subsidy? In Germany, utilities are forced to buy renewable energy at sometimes more than 10 times the cost of conventional power. You need to read negative stuff to form an educated opinion.

Ireland’s wind regime is unequalled part from south New Zealand and the southern most tip Argentina. Germany wind regime would be at most 30% of ours. A lot of those other places in that article are inland and have a poor wind regime, we are totally different because our wind is in a different class. I’m using the Germans because they subsidy wind to make it work…so what if they do, they create of jobs out of it….governments needs to spend money to make money.better to spend a few bob on an Irish energy company than give multinational companies tax breaks I say…

@David ok you pretty typical of the thoughtless class, wind is ineffective ! you need to build a backup power plant for every wind farm you build ,The increased cost of energy due to wind power in the UK will cost about 2500 deaths among the elderly .In Spain official figures show 2 jobs lost for every one created by there massive investment in renewable’s.Finally if you’re still deluded enough to ignore the FACTS that there is no global warming and the planet is cooling ,then by all means continue to walk around with you’re fingers in you’re ears shouting num num num.

David
Educate yourself on this issue rather than making silly comments. Wind Energy needs an equivalent level of fossil fuel derived power to balance the grid when the wind doesn’t blow and when there is an excess we just shed it.
We will blight our countryside for the few Euro these conmen will make from subsidies and we will be left with another financial mess to clean up. Stop the whole thing now before its too late.

Jeff. Climate Change is an accepted scientific fact. It is also accepted that there is a very high probability that humans are causing it. Only scientific illiterates think otherwise.

Nuclear Power is cheap, reliable, can output huge amounts of power and releases virtually no CO2.

@william I didn’t mention climate change only a moron thinks the climate doesn’t change .The present environmental policy is based on GLOBAL WARMING so cut the BS trying to change that to “climate change” FACT CO2 is rising temps are not! you advocate cutting CO2 why? do you just like killing the elderly or are you just like most inviromental racist’s who kill millions of Africans for a failed policy.

Jeff, perhaps you can send me a link to some scientific site where they have a chart showing that the global average temperature is falling. I can send you lots showing it’s rising.

Global Warming is causing Climate Change. Climate Change is a better name as it doesn’t confuse people who expect nothing but warmer summers.

@William Present energy policy is based solely on the theory that man made CO2 is going to cause ever increasing global temps as predicted by Mann and his parishioners . Unfortunately since 2000 global temperature has not increased in line with all those predictions ,so in a smart political move you banned the phrase GLOBAL WARMING and told the faithful to use Climate Change ,As far as you’re belief in man made GLOBAL WARMING goes pointing out the flaws is a bit like drawing a cartoon of Allah .But if you want a reasonable view of the debate start here: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/12/17/recent-temperature-trends-in-context/

Jeff, like all those that cannot grasp the scientific method you cherry pick data to suit your argument. Why did you pick “from 2000″? It’s not that that particular date range suits your argument by any chance is it? Do you argue that because your particular granny smoked and lived to be 100 that smoking is not dangerous?

Did you get the impression from climate scientists that the temperature would go up EVERY year? It’s a very small (but significant) increase ON AVERAGE over a long time, 100+ years, that we are talking about.

Can you send me a graph over say the last 100 years to support your quack theory? Here’s one, click on the graph on this page and look at the five year average. It’s going UP. Isn’t it? http://tinyurl.com/6ysp687

Yeah, What happens when we get all those sunny warm days with not even a light breeze that stretch for months at a time!

This is a scam by business to steal our wind and the government is fully supporting another theft of natural resources.Already in the midlands farmers are being asked to sign confidential agreements with Mainstream Renewable Power(owned by former head of Bord na Mona and Airtricity) to cover the bogs with 100′s of turbines..wind turbines have many pros and cons and it seems like ireland has become there target to exploit and profit from our free natural resource.The jobs figures are totally fabricated and only a few hundred would be hired at the very most..why are the companies lying about the number of jobs to be created..surely this is a warning sign that they may have something to hide.
Wind energy hub could create over 50,000 jobs http://www.offalyindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2012/06/27/4011127-wind-energy-hub-could-create-over-50000-jobs/

Wind farm operators make most of there money Carbon Trading..a controversial and discredited scam that lets wealthy pollutters buy clean air to offset there pollution:
“The second reason, and you should read this and grow very angry indeed, is because of Renewable Obligation Certificates ROCs. Wind Turbines do not simply produce electricity, they produce something far more valuable, they produce ROCs. Three per cent of the energy provided by non-renewable energy producers, that is power stations and the power companies like Scottish Power, must be supplied from a renewable source. To do this they can buy a Wind Farm (hence Scottish Power’s great interest) or they get fined so much per kWh by the government. If they don’t want the fine they can buy ROCs to make up the 3 per cent.”
http://www.montgomeryshireagainstpylons.org/wind-farms/#.T-e1P5FdnER

Wind turbines can make people very sick..
DONEGAL WIND FARM CONTROVERSY: LOCAL GP WARNS OF ‘HEALTH DANGERS’
http://www.donegaldaily.com/2012/05/28/donegal-wind-farm-controversy-local-gp-warns-of-health-dangers/

Sen Kelly is convinced that, even in the face of fears raised in the British Medical Health Journal, the Irish Wind Energy Association is set against his proposals.
“In Finland they don’t force them on communities that don’t want them. But here, they are adamant about the benefits and they are giving the line about job creation.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/irishsun/irishsunnews/4505185/Eyesore-or-not-this-will-employ-66000-and-thats-not-just-hot-air.html

All the top energy and engineering companies and IT’s are in on the act to control our wind…
“The Atlantic Ocean Energy Alliance (AOEA) is an alliance of like-minded individuals, companies, institutes and representative bodies with an interest in Ocean Energy. Established in early 2011, the AOEA members share the common belief that the West Coast of Ireland possesses one of the best offshore wind and wave resources in the world and is in a position to realise extremely significant economic and social benefits from its exceptional Atlantic location.”

“Ireland possesses a huge natural resource off our western seaboard. We have one of the best readily accessible wind and wave regimes in the world.

We have the potential to exploit this resource to make us European leaders in the renewable energy market. Our Offshore Renewable Energy sector has the potential to exceed the contribution to the Irish economy of the Agriculture sector.

Our Prize: A dynamic Offshore Renewable Energy Industry……located off the Western seaboard…with an export value of €3bn – €3.5bn ..and 25,000- 40,000 potential jobs.
http://www.aoea.ie/about-us/why-ireland/

Hydropower, wind blows William and the turbine produces power to pump water up to higher land. To be released on calm days, to power turbines in a Water damn scenario! Unless you would prefer to burn gas/oil or coal to do that, more Turbines mean less coal/oil/gas/turf burnt to produce electricity. Less reliance on oil, means more oil and cheaper fuel costs? But oil companies don’t want that, they want to bleed us dry and pollute the planet for profit!

Great news only if your name is Pollyanna and your head is where the Sun don’t shine.

Willie, I’d appreciate if you’d keep your childish remarks to yourself.

PS: If you want some actual figures on wind power in this country, check out the eirgrid website.

Sean; Pollyanna by Wiki “The Pollyanna principle (also called Pollyannaism or positive bias) is the tendency for people to agree with positive statements describing them. .. Research indicates that, at the unconscious level, the mind has a tendency to focus on the optimistic while, at the conscious level, it has a tendency to focus on the negative. This unconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle.”

The second comment referred to your obvious lack of knowledge about the facts of wind power because your head is probably where an Ostrich keeps his.

Eirgrid’s graph for today’s energy generated by wind shows it at 250Kw at midnight when no one wanted it and then falling to 125Kw towards breakfast when we need it, then rising in the late afternoon to 600Kw when factories are shutting and then falling again. 100% unreliable as I’ve said. Is this the data you wanted me to see? 125Kw at one stage. It regularly drops to less than 0% to 2.5% of that is needed. It’s hardly worth the effort is it?

Go back through September and you can see the varying amount of power produced by wind reminds me of the undergarments of a lady of the night. :)

Sean…Taking information from Eirgrid’s website as fact is not dissimilar to taking the central bank estimates as fact…they have their own agenda…and it’s not for your good or mine…They’ve already been found out lying to dept of energy sub-commitees re: costing of the north south interconnector…a german independant expert group blasted them for their blatant misleading of the dept of energy in the pricing of undergrounding /overgrounding of 400kva lines…

Thomas… and what percent reaches the consumer? Gas is 40%-60%. But we have to accept that because you can’t run the TV on gas. All operations are less than 100% efficiency. That’s the way the universe works. Wind Turbines are at best about 20% of installed capacity. NP is environmentally sustainable. Wind isn’t anything except a waste of money.

Wrong again William. You are completely mixed up in your arguments. A wind turbine generates electricity far more efficiently than a fossil or nuclear plant. The logic of your efficiency argument means that we should all get rid of our cars… Well they are only working for a fraction of their rated output, a couple of hours a day at only a fraction of its power output… A wind turbine is almost 100% energy efficient. I totally agree with energy saving as the first step in managing scarce resources.

Nuclear has a more limited fuel supply than gas,thats admitted by all the nuclear players. Germany is phasing it out, Japan is cutting back on it. Unless of course you are proposing fast breeder reactors using waste an weapons grade radioactive material. Now who would you trust to run that? Especially the day after the report that found all nuclear plants have safety issues. An inconvenient truth isnt it? we don’t have a viable alternative to renewables. Oil is running out fast. The economic and environmental costs of extraction is getting higher. Gas from fracking as the solution to future energy demands is no answer in a world where a quality water supply is a critical issue. Your subsidy argument is complete nonsense regarding onshore wind energy in Ireland. Nuclear and fossil energy are massively subsidised. In fact the nuclear industry could not exist without subsidy. Wind on the other hand saves money. Check out the Redpoint study on the IWEA website

Of course wind has a subsidy. We as consumers are forced to pay more for wind, biomass etc than from other traditional sources.

You can’t measure efficiency based on one cost alone, e.g. fuel or lack of. Wind turbines generally only produce about 20% of their capacity in power so are many times less efficient than fossil fuel or nuclear plants.

The biggest problem is that they are 100% unreliable. They do not produce electricity when homes and industry want it. How do you measure the efficiency of any business that produces a product no one wants? It’s madness.

Drop the conspiracy theories. Many power companies already invest in renewables. Whether or not the NP industry likes wind or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s a con the same as Big Pharma disliking CAM doesn’t make CAM work.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100181147/wind-industry-big-lies-no-1-fossil-fuels-are-more-subsidised-than-renewables/

Because nuclear is a fossille fuel to which will run out to eventually because Ireland has zero experience in nuclear and it would take years for us to be up to speed because we wouldn’t have a clue what to do with left overs because after a stress test of all the European nuclear plant well NONE is up. To safety standards what more do you want ?? Their also investment and jobs will profit foreign countries like France or England

William, Uranium isn’t a fossil fuel. The word fossil in the phrase “fossil fuel” means previously living organisms that have decomposed over millions of years. Uranium was made in the destruction of a star. Don’t worry about it running out. There’s plenty of it.

We can easily work with France to build nuclear power plants. The vast majority of staff working in Ireland could be Irish. Universities & Institutes of technology here could quickly organise relevant courses. Most of the workers building the power stations can be local building workers. France has one of the the lowest costs for electricity and is 80% nuclear, Denmark is the most expensive and has the highest amount of wind power.

I’m heartened by the realist comments of Ed, William,Adrian etc..Too many people think ” wind turbines = environmentally friendly cheap green energy”. Some poster above seems to be a big flag waver for it after studying renewable energy, what does that say about education here on the subject?? The frightening thing is we’re wide open to exploitation here. Eirgrid is already gearing up to build a huge overground network to transport wind generated power from the west coast to the east through a massive substation in the midlands. So, once again, we’re going to go headlong into an unnecessary ill informed escapade, where we invest in something that’s going to cost a fortune, make a commodity more expensive for the irish people, create very jobs, and leave a horrible mess of visual disasters in pylons, substations and turbines…

Wind Turbines do pollute the planet: they cause pollution when the large amount of materials that make them are extracted and refined, when power stations are ticking over in an inefficient way waiting for the wind to drop, from the building of those extra power stations, from the economic activity that is needed to make the money that is then wasted subsiding them, and from the electricity that they consume for lights etc. In fact any grossly inefficient and useless activity creates pollution.

It’s not oil/coal/gas v wind turbines. It could be oil/coal/gas v Nuclear Power.

Wasting energy is wrong but to control that also costs money which generates more pollution etc. Even if we switch off and on appliances more often we will still need energy.

William, my poor man! You’re a Tit, thumbs up if you agree people!

Stanley, fossil fuels are also natural. Being “natural” doesn’t mean very much.

It took a while for me to understand what your “waist” had to do with this or the “little ram”. Why are we “abstaining from the IMF”? Were these silly comments? :))

Could you read some of the points above re why wind power is a con and if you are correct perhaps you could point out where we are wrong? That’s how debates are supposed to work. Clichés such as, “let someone else deal with it”, contribute little.

Not picking a side here, but wind is free but getting electricity from it isn’t. COncrete foundations, steel/concrete masts, generators, energy losses from transmission, maintenance etc.

The biggest drawback to wind for me is the inability to store the energy at 2am when a wind is blowing so that you can brew your tea at 8am when there is no wind. Sources such as gas turbines are ideal here as you can ramp up or down the output quite quickly to cope with the peaks and troughs of daily demand.

True point but combined with other more consistent renewable energy sources e.g. tidal energy, hydro-power & osmotic energy, fossil fuel use can be minimized.

Obviously there’s an upfront capital investment in renewable energy but it beats pissing money down the ever increasing price of fossil fuels

Tidal has to be stored too. Did you ever hear of the law of 12th’s re tides? There is no proven tidal technology. The few that were tried failed. Hydro is limited in Ireland to what we already have. Hydro is also dependent on the weather and needs back up. As I’ve said before it’s not fossil fuels v wind, it can be fossil fuels v nuclear power.

no have nothing to do with them, just studied renewable energy..