Green Ireland

Ireland's green Issues

Archive for June, 2008

Biofuel or Biomass

Jun 27

Posted by admin in biofuel | No Comments

The EU Think tank JRC (Joined Research Center) has published a document on biofuel and the impact it has on food/fuel price, the Carbon offset that may or may not be present. depending on how the bio fuel is grown and made. It also as some recommendations on the use of biomass instead of Oil for heating etc.

There are some interesting things said in this document, it touches on a lot of area including security of supply etc.

The EU as a good energy site, its a bit overloaded with information energy.eu the link for the document is here

Transport Ireland

Jun 26

Posted by admin in Transport | No Comments

I did a comparison for 4 people travelling on public transport via the train/bus and then compared it to a rented car.

The Train:

Dublin -> Galway €24

Galway ->Dublin -> Cork €53.50

Cork -> Limerick Junction -> Waterford €31

*There is no direct connection from Galway to cork.

Cost: €108

Let do the same journey by bus.

Dublin -> Galway €13.50

Galway -> Cork €15.30

Cork -> Waterford € 15.50

Cost: €44.30

Now by Car (Rented).

A Opel astra cost €167 (5 days)

As the cost of travel is depending on distance.

Dublin -> Galway 215~ Km (12 litres)

Galway – Cork 209~ km (12 litres)

Cork -> Waterford 109~ km (6 litres)

Add another 20 litres for good measure ( driving around time)

* The Car has a fuel consumption of 6 litres per 100km

Total cost for 50 Litres would be $66 Euro at €1.32 litre.

Cost: €233

So my simple comparison looks like this.

4 people travelling by train: €424

4 people travelling by bus: €177

4 people travelling by car: €233

There is a lot of things that I am not taking into account.I made no attempt to compare like for like just the cost. I did not for instance compare comfort/ convience /time etc. I just looked at cost for 4 people make a simple tour around Ireland. I would think that the vast majority of people in Ireland know what our public transport is like and I don’t want to be seen taking a pot shot at public transport.I’m sure there is a more indepth report on this somewhere, and would love to see if there is a Government report on it.

Conclusions: It’s cheaper to get the bus, the car comes in second,and last is the train.

Recession

Jun 24

Posted by admin in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The ESRI came out today and said that Ireland is in the grips of a recession. What does it mean to be in the grips of recession ? According to wikipedia article, its the decline of GDP and economic growth. In a world gone made on buying ever cheaper and cheaper goods, this must good thing for the environment. People buy less SUV(Gas Guzzlers) less Goods shipped from china, which mean china consumes less energy. With the higher cost of living especial in Food / transport. People are going to be conservative on what they buy, as Disposable income gets spent on just staying afloat! This is where in Ireland we are not prepared, We have massive personal debts, public transport in Ireland is in chaos. (see previous post). The Government relying on the construction industry to balance the books. It is crunch time for the Government because instead of planning for the future, politicians here plan for the next election term.

The Government will have to invest more in renewable technology that will get manufactured here, Invest in research and development for sustainable living. I think that in the coming few year we are going to be at a disadvantage in comparison to the rest of Europe. we have no manufacturing base, most of it is gone. In hind sight government and government policy has took ireland down a path that is not sustainable in the long term. What does this mean for the average person ? What does this mean for Ireland ?