Eirgrid almost ran short of electricity last week

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joe sod

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Very little media focus on this strangely but Eirgrid almost had a power outage last week due to insufficient power on the grid. There was a surge in power demand due to the very cold weather there was no wind power and Moneypoint and Whitegate powerstations were offline due to technical problems. They barely got away with it due to just about getting enough power in through the interconnectors from the UK.
Yet the media widely reported that Moneypoint did not get a licence to continue to produce power upto 2025 and we have mothballed the Midlands peat burning stations even though they have 20 years of generating life still left. Are we crazy, why are the media not reporting this very critical stuff that we are running out of generating capacity while shutting down perfectly good generating stations because of dogma rather than real life practicalities.
 
I saw plenty of media coverage of it .

It was an orange warning and they coped with it . It’s not news that We need to continue to fund building resilient power generating infrastructure . Burning peat is not the answer.
 
There are a lot of Christmas lights on at the moment too. They are probably light enough on power but it all adds up.
 
newirishman said:
That’s why there is the interconnector and why there’s another in the pipeline.
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But there was a power surge in UK too, they have the same weather as us and also no wind power then. They barely managed to get enough power through it to cope, it was alot more serious than was reported because if another small generating supply was knocked out then we were into power outages. When you start running power stations at full capacity to crank up supply the higher the likelihood of problems, Oh and the battery backups that are widely touted as storage for wind energy are depleted in a few minutes if fully drawn. Only the RTE website reported it, it did not make the 9 O clock news or newspaper headlines
 
lledlledlled said:
Time to consider nuclear?
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Only if you are happy to let the Taliban look after the storage. While we don't have the Taliban in power here now who is to say that we will not within the lifetime of nuclear waste. Look at who the US has, not as irresponsible as the Taliban but hey !
 
joe sod said:
Very little media focus on this strangely but Eirgrid almost had a power outage last week due to insufficient power on the grid. There was a surge in power demand due to the very cold weather there was no wind power and Moneypoint and Whitegate powerstations were offline due to technical problems. They barely got away with it due to just about getting enough power in through the interconnectors from the UK.
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At least 15 years ago I attended a public meeting in the RDS on nuclear power for Ireland. This particular point on low temperatures and no wind was highlighted. One of the speakers pointed out that Ireland is susceptible to periods of high atmospheric pressure and low temperatures, typically in January. So on a night without clouds it's cold, very cold, but there is no wind, or what little wind there is flows out of the area of high pressure. There is not enough wind at these times to generate sufficient electricity.

So we need something that's clean and gives us energy security, and that's nuclear.
 
@PMU yes I agree however there is not the political will or public support to go down this road, it simply not going to get done in time. So what happens is they close down moneypoint because of dogma but they don't have anything to replace it with. The people and regulators that decide to close down moneypoint are non technical and are not tasked with the job of replacing it. If they were the ones that had the responsibility of replacing money point and risking power outages well then they would think long and hard about not licensing it. Their remit is too narrow , they should also bear the responsibility for the decisions they make.
 
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Nuclear is extremely expensive. It has lots of climate and reliability advantages, but its proponents rarely mention the costs.

Otherwise I am a bit puzzled that demand is peaking now of all times. I would have thought that with so much of the night-time economy closed demand would be down a bit.
 
Peat stations should never be reopened. That period is over. We need massive investment in upgrading our energy users to increase efficiency and increasing our Green supply options. The real crisis is Climate Change.
 
horusd said:
The real crisis is Climate Change.
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It's not a crisis. Covid is a crisis.

Climate change is moving very slowly. If thermometers didn't exist you wouldn't notice the difference over the course of a human lifetime.

The response to climate change needs big, structural changes to everything we do. But the apocalyptic tone of the activists is completely misplaced.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
It's not a crisis. Covid is a crisis.
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Climate change is moving very slowly. If thermometers didn't exist you wouldn't notice the difference over the course of a human lifetime. "Tell that to the people of Sub-sahara Africa and coastal parts of Asia, never min d the Bahama's and other low-lying islands threatened with utter destruction."

The response to climate change needs big, structural changes to everything we do. But the apocalyptic tone of the activists is completely misplaced.
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In our extremely short time in existence as sentient beings, we have almost managed to destroy the environment. Some people say we will destroy the planet, I don't agree with that view - the earth will survive I imagine - we imperil ourselves, and it is avoidable, As a by the by, the UN considers it a crisis. But there ya go. In any event, what is totally missed are the huge economic potentials thru a Green economy, Climate technologies and decarbonization makes economic and environmental sense.
 
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horusd said:
In any event, what is totally missed are the huge economic potentials thru a Green economy, Climate technologies and decarbonization.
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Spending vastly more money to make even less power is not 'economic potential'.

If you think decarbonisation in decadal timeframes is necessary, fair enough. It's a legitimate point of view. But don't pretend it will not make us significantly poorer.
 
Nermal said:
Spending vastly more money to make even less power is not 'economic potential'.

If you think decarbonisation in decadal timeframes is necessary, fair enough. It's a legitimate point of view. But don't pretend it will not make us significantly poorer.
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Nermal said:
Spending vastly more money to make even less power is not 'economic potential'.

If you think decarbonisation in decadal timeframes is necessary, fair enough. It's a legitimate point of view. But don't pretend it will not make us significantly poorer.
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I'll take poorer and sustainable over short-term and unsustainable consumerism and the costs thereof. These costs, which will mount will mostly be borne by future generations. It beholds us, as the last generation that can stop cataclysmic environmental damage, to prevent it. But in any event, i think the argument that tackling climate change will make us poorer is not supported by evidence.

See:

Imperial College.https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/climate-change-faqs/how-will-acting-on-climate-change-affect-the-economy/

OECD: http://www.oecd.org/env/cc/46533174.pdf

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environ...nge-would-grow-global-economy-world-bank-says
 
horusd said:
Peat stations should never be reopened. That period is over.
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it looks like the power station in shannonbridge Co Offaly only shut 2 days ago so was actually operational when we almost ran out of power last week, so it could have been critical without that power station on the grid.

www.rte.ie

Shannonbridge turbines to turn for final time

The turbines at the West Offaly Power Station in Shannonbridge will turn for the final time as the ESB prepares to shut down production.
www.rte.ie www.rte.ie

also heard that the power station is to be dismantled and shipped to China to be operated as a coal fired power station so even more carbon ends up in the atmosphere but it is on China's account rather than ours so its all good :)
 
Nermal said:
Spending vastly more money to make even less power is not 'economic potential'.

If you think decarbonisation in decadal timeframes is necessary, fair enough. It's a legitimate point of view. But don't pretend it will not make us significantly poorer.
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I take it that you are not factoring on the significant fines that we will pay, for not hitting our targets in 2030.
 
Not tackling climate change because it might cost a few bob (and I don't accept this is at all the case) is like a not paying for a resuscitation coz ye'll be charged for the electricity. And BTW, if the planet is unlivable, where are ye and yer family going to live?
 
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