I think people really need to understand what peak oil is about. We are on the down slope. But unless it’s understood, the implications etc (note the article on petrol prices!) only when its fully understood will the change to renewable energy take place….at an alarming rate. For anybody interested, a fine documentary called ‘collapse’ shows a starling look at what we could face when black gold runs out. In regards to RE, more third level courses are needed. Nobody will know if we don’t educate.

My wish list is a non profit making government scheme with locally run free training where anyone wishing can learn the skills to build and install energy saving devices and walk away from the course with a viable device and the necessary individual or group skills to install the same. It is possible to make homemade wind generators with some basic knowledge. It is possible to reduce ones energy demands in the home with basic skills. Unfortunately there is little government incentive to do so. For the average person grid tie inverters and lack of smart meters are too expensive an outlay for the return as are geothermal pumps. Grants as far as I am aware are only available via approved installers, there being no incentive for DIY. Still that’s commerce!

I have installed 2 gravity fed central heating systems in the past and presently am installing my third in my current house. At least that saves on running a pump.

Finally I think this country has got the wrong take on septic tanks and aerating the effluent. The power wasted to aerate should be used to start a digester and produce methane for power and cooking.

Agree completely. A local NG/PO of people with the essential skills could work wonders. The allotment scheme currently running in Dublin is taking off, something on a similar line maybe.

Believe me, I tried so hard to get funding from the previous and present governments, and from Brussels, but alas to no avail. Fast return on investment is always demanded, but how can you put a value on the pollution of the whole water system from, say, a landfill? The fines for one week for this by the EU would fund my scheme, which would turn both toxic dumps and industrial dereliction into productive, green wildlife havens and flood control buffers.

While I agree in most part with your comment, I don’t think turning the street lights off is a good idea. There needed even after hours when most people are in bed. A better idea would to have solar powered lights that are energy sufficient. God only knows how much energy those horrible yellow street lights use. Renewable energy is the only way forward!!

Yes, this was done on grand designs years ago. As for street lights, you know they have a purpose – a reason to be on at night

No street lights during WW2 in uk. When I was a lad in uk all street lights turned off at midnight. We have little or no street lights in rural Ireland. Street lights are a waste of energy, it’s the root cause for needing street lights that needs tackling. The problem is crime not lack of light.

Arthur, sadly the cost of effective policing in darkness out weighs the cost to light the streets. Light is a bigger deterrent of crime IMO.

we need to keep the lights on. solar powered leds are the solution. no waste, inexpensive, 30 year life

Hi Michael,

A rare find indeed – a kindred spirit! Many thanks for your encouragement. I’m pretty generous with my ideas but there’s a lot I haven’t published on the website, such as designs and ground plans, plus some exciting possibilities for food production. Hopefully we will get our heads together over this in the future.

Because the big bad wolf will only come along and slap a massive property tax on it anyway

It’s a lovely concept, and can work very well for individuals in the countryside.
But unfortunately it’s not for everybody in todays society. Many of us live now in apartments in cities, which are a necessity also. You can’t build apartments in this style.
Of course the other issue is that current Irish building regulations have moved towards passive spec for dwellings, but unfortunately the cost to value ratio makes it difficult to obtain financing.

It’s not for everybody but what’s ironic about it all is that hundreds of years ago that how housing/huts were made. Muc & straw etc. Seams to me in the next hundred or so years we will go full circle and return to that way of building.

Fossil fuels are the past.

Thank you Micheal for putting the link on your website, and for the excellent write-up which accompanies it. I have included your details in my Links category.

You are welcome Dennis.

Ni neart go chur le cheile … ‘there is strength in unity (working together)’.

2012 is the International Year of Co-operatives and seeing as Ireland was the birthplace of the Co-operative movement internationally it might be a good time to show living examples of a Co-operative for the common good on the island of Ireland. Talk soon. :)

Surely the whole plot needs to be sustainable, city and country. As fossil fuels run out there will be natural rationing due to shortage. Why waste money on slates and tiles (on the sunny side) even in cities when waterproof solar cells would do the job. Many things can be done to reduce energy consumption. Instead of a carbon tax (which is no help at all) a carbon ration would be effective per household. Big unsustainable houses would be a thing of the past, and those already built would have to run cooler or be energy improved by micro generation of power.

Aye Arfur, everything needs to be sustainable but people have to stop kidding themselves about living sustainably in country plots, can’t happen.

Solar cells have just started to be economically friendly, sadly a necessity for any investments. Carbon ration? You mean a Carbon tax that comes in after a certain level?
Ya that would be good but extremely hard to calculate I assume.

However, (this article is more about economic security than environmentally friendly) to reduce our dependence on foreign imports we’re talking about reducing our need for oil, which basically means an almost completely urbanised and/or public transport driven future.

If you want the “perfect future” environmentally speaking its basically as above and a mostly vegetarian future (I’m not a veggie myself, but it makes sense energy wise).

Conor, you need to read through the website and you’ll understand. There are many sides to this – it isn’t rural Utopia I’m talking about.

In 50 years time no-one will scoff at this plan, because it will be the only solution, the central point being that we have to change our lifestyle now so that we’re prepared, because change it will. Imagine that tomorrow there was no fossil fuel available – what would we do? This is the reality for our children and grandchildren.

@Dennis.

I looked at your site. Some would view it as a perfectly nice hobby. But “Imagine we had no fossil fuels tommoro” is nonsense. We have at least half a century lead in time. Just tell me, your plan “can be replicated worldwide.”…

Really?
1) Your plan would require an exodus of Urban centres and the biggest construction push ever.
2)China..? Calculate the square metres it takes to house a community of a thousand with your plan, then multiply by the nine billion people on the planet in 2050.
3)Large scale argicultural production, large scale communities, large scale everything is the future. With coming together we become efficent not down into idyllic country huts. (I know you said this isn’t agricultural utopia, really looks like that on your site)

The Green movement is waste deep in Romanticists who would rather listen to poems about Gaia than do five minutes maths, and a general un-scientific outlook is deep rooted in it. Doesn’t help anyone.

Your houses are perfectly lovely for a select few.They hold no solution for anywheres future and they are useless for Ballymun, Drumcondra or basically anywhere else in evironmental terms. We cant just start again. We have to build on what we have, not go backwards.

but lovely buildings in their own right.

When I said, ‘Imagine you had no fossil fuel tomorrow,’ I was a few days out in my estimation. Someone just Facebooked me from the UK, describing his fuel hunt at empty filling stations.

Dennis Wright, Greenpeat.