I think this government needs a wake up call. With 455,000 people unemployed, I.E living off less than 200 euro a week, How can they justify this 5% increase. I’m paying on average 700-800 euro per year in Electricity costs. Adding another 5% on top of this would push the bill to 735 to 840 Euro. If receiving the social welfare of 8,800 a year then it would work out to be between 8-9 % of this  yearly income would go to pay for electrical costs, now take out clothes, food, heating. and your barely living.

This TAX could wait a few years before being applied to an already over burdened tax payer  and the unemployed.

Everything I thought the green party stood for in IMHO  is flawed.

Eamon Ryan and Eddie hobbs were the guests, and made for quite an interesting debate. The Issues raised in the show were valid, and I hope that this might spark a wider debate. Its true that Ireland have the best wind coficent of any country in Europe, sitting out at the edge of the Atlantic has benefits, and this was highlighted, Ireland could get 40 % of  electrical power from Wind, some would say that this is too optimistic and that a more realistic 20% would be the more we would get.

Green energy in Ireland is not just about installing wind turbines everywhere, Green Energy is about having a diverse mix of Energy generation available in Ireland for the electrical grid, this must include all mixes of energy generation, wind, Solar, bio mass, hydro. I have left out nuclear power as alternative as the cost of building, decommission of a  nuclear power plant would cost Ireland too much,all the nuclear material would have to be imported, but more to the point nuclear is a finite resource too, there is only so much uranium in the ground, and it takes quite alot of energy to process. I think for ireland to go down the nuclear path would be a disaster and a massive waste of money.

Another  topic brought up was the issue of the electrical Interconnects between Ireland and the rest of Europe, so far we have 1 interconnect to England, but we would need many more, There is a plan in Europe to interconnect all countries so that supply of electrical power can be better generated and distributed, in other words we could sell electrical energy to the rest of Europe.At the moment this is not possible as it will take about 8 – 10 years for all the infrastructure to be put in place, but having all of Europe connected is no good if  local micro generation of electrical cannot get a grid connection. It was noted on the front line that getting a grid connection even when a transmisstion link is only a few kilometres away is next to impossible. This red tape will have to go  and any politics that get in the way of this would need to be side stepped, Eamon Ryan is in the best position to make the required changes, the ESB is owned by the Government and they should be able to make any changes necessary to implement this as soon as possible.

There was also a project called “Spirit of Ireland” I never head about this until last night, It’s an ambious plan to mix and match wind power to hydro power. I think the website would explain it better.

The main point of last night debate was the fact that fossil fuel is running out and we are at the end of cheap oil, the oil we get from now on will be expensive and dirty. So we do have a massive need to move ourselves away for oil, but just how we get there is another story.

There are some good points and some bad things about being an early adopter of technology especially in cars, like the mobile phone, there is still no  common charger and considering that the mobile has being around for 20+ year now, there was ample time to agree on  a common charger.

With  petrol and diesel cars there’s a common connector, the common chargers that the ESB plans to install , 3500 of them,  will  likely have a common 3 pin plug that can be used to connect up using what ever charge cable that came with the car.

The fast charges are a different story as each manufacture will probably  use different battery technology, it will be based on lithium ion or better, but to fast charge (10 -  20 minutes) there will be a custom charge cable as to get 100KW to 200KW of power transfered in 10 – 20 minutes would take quite a chunky cable and all the necessary electrical equipment to allow this to work correctly.

The problem I see is that there are going to be alot of different car manufactures competing to get their car and their technology at the top ( patents and licensing = money ).

Ireland runs the risk of having spend alot of money on infrastructure to support just a minority of car companies and their version of the electric car.

Before we sink money into a project there should be a debate on what is the best strategy for Ireland to take in electrifying our car culture before we waste more money that we cannot afford to loose.

If we are to benefit from being guinea pigs, then Irish firms should at least benefit from the cash injection that OUR government is putting into this, we have no car manufacturing plants in Ireland and Eamon Ryan’s idea about us developing the software to run on these cars is a load of hot air, the software is not going to off the shelf, its going to be custom build for each car, the development of the software will be by a dedicated software development team usually based close to the manufacturing plant.

I suppose it’s another way for Eamon to waste another  200 million ( 3 broadband).

And update:

I read an article about the roll out and a great quote:

“Given the dire state of the public purse, it would be better to let others pay for the demonstration of all-electric vehicles and roll them out in Ireland when, and if, the technology is ready,” said Tol, who believes it is too early to know if we are getting Betamax, an early version video cassette, or VHS, which won. “It’s a gamble and it’s not smart,” Tol concluded.

I understand the need for shops to market them self and give the off the impression of invitation to prospective customers. While most shopping centres are enclosed Kildare village is design like a small village,but  no houses just shops..

While it it looks nice, I can’t help wonder about the amount of electricity used to heat the interiors of these shops, especially in the winter. When the architects were designing Kildare village  did they  bother to check how green and energy efficient their design would be ? It seems to me that  they  miss a great opportunity to make it more environmentally friendly.

I see it here in Kilkenny too,  Langtons and Kytlers pub with patio heaters,shops like Monsoon Dunnes stores, Dunes  are the worst here, even when it was -10 they still had the main doors open to the outside. All they need to do is spend a little money in getting proper doors and it would save a huge amount of energy and money in the long run.

As with everything, one when the cost reaches a certain threshold will there be an re-action, instead of “pro- action”.

We are going to have to think hard about the uses of energy in the future, its getting more expensive and harder to come by, so we should be making better use of the limited resources we have left.

The Ocean currents play a major role in keeping Ireland relatively warm during the winter.

Recent studies have shown that the ocean current is slowing down.

“National Oceanography Centre in the UK found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream from the last such measurement in 1992.”

It has become clear that global warming is having a major effect on Irish weather. If we don’t take action against this in the future, it could lead to Ireland and Europe having very different weather in years to come.

“The Green energy bubble.”

Everyone except those who have headed for the  hills, knows that energy cost is going to rise. The cost of producing electrical energy is going to rise dramatically, Oil,gas, coal are all under pressure far more that they ever were.

Now that governments are waking up to this fact, and investors are thinking of what to invest in now. it looks like that has now been found, Green energy is the new buzz word, but I wonder how long it will last.

I have blogged before about Ireland’s potential on wind energy before, and I still think we are well placed to make full advantage of this.

But the thing that I am afraid is going to happen, there will be a boom in building wind turbines, and then once this ends there will be another crash.

What the government need to do is to do popper planning and not rush projects to “market”. It has like the building boon., if not managed correctly, put ireland of a frenzy of building again.

What we need is a more sustainable way of managing the projects that will proposed to local governments.

If the legislation is not put in place, what might happen is, banks will see this as a quick way to make money or “invest money” and I’m sure some of the nama money will be invested here.

Green energy is a bubble that can only last for a certian length of time, and Ireland does not need another bubble.

When the conversion to a more environmentally friendly mode of transport takes place, More buses that run on electric power more trains that are electric where will the government get the money that it relies on so much ?

I don’t think you can tax electricity more that it is, Ireland is one of the most expensive countries for electricity and that is set to continue, now that the recession has kicked in and we are slowly reaching the point that we will not pay the highest price any more. The realisation that we have got ripped off in the last 10 years or so, we only have ourselves to blame, as we excepted these high prices.

As the government know all too well now with VAT/Stamp duty on houses/ VRT are all in massive decline and the budget still in the RED, I think this will be a glimpse of the future.

Even if economic growth take off to again, I don’t see how it can, that another story. The fact that we rely so much on liquid Fossil fuel for a mean of transportation, I don’t see how we can change the system now without causing even greater amount of pain.

I travel up to Dublin for a good while over the last few weeks, the one thing that struck me is that we have a hell of a way to go in terms of public transport, we have an addiction to the car and its not going to change any time soon.

When I traveled on the Dublin motorway/M50 from Kilkenny what struck me was the amount of trucks. If it wasn’t a road I would have mistook them for a train. I past at least 5 trucks in a row and the more to the left and right of me. It would seem that we have invested huge amount of money in truck transportation, at a cost to transport via more traditional modes of transport, transport of freight on train that can pull 2000 tons V 20 tons for a truck which make more sense ?

The average price of a litre of petrol is about 1.12c and for diesel its 1.03c depending on where you go, what will happen when the price rises to 2 euro/ 3 euro a litre ? and the thing to remember is that there is vat on top of that. I think VAT + duty accounts for at least 60% of the cost of a litre liquid fuel and with the raw product set to rise the VAT on top will also rise.

The good thing when that will happen when the price of fuel rises to a threshold that the market cannot afford, something has to give, either the Government reduces the cost of the Duty and VAT on the raw product or people stop driving as much, the only thing I see about the not driving as much is that for most people that is not an option. Due to this governments planing permission we mostly live outside of the public transport system and this system is too expensive and to inflexible to be any use to all, but to tourists who have all the time to wait around for hours till the next train or bus arrives 2 – 3 hours later.

I do think a radical and painful shift to non fossil fuel will be the only way in which Ireland will be able to sustain itself in the coming years. I cannot find any information on what % of revenue generated is from fossil fuel and the transport industry, I suppose it gets lumped in with general excise duty, when I find the information I will post it and correct this post.

So what if any are the alternatives ? as I seem them not many, we can travel less, live where we work, better public transport.

There are ways of getting revenue from usage of a car, one way would be to introduce a toll for using the roads, or maybe a mileage card that need to be topped up ever once in a while.

Every time I put petrol in my car I think at what stage will it become too expensive for me to travel by car, I’m already paying 200 Euro a month and its getting more expensive as the months go by.

With an alternative to the ICE car a very distant future and public transport that is not going to get any better. How are people going travel to work. I’ve no idea what the solution is to all this but I don’t see an economic recovery unless as I said we make the transition to a better system of transport.

Had the plan for this road gone through the city of Kilkenny would have being effectively cut in two. As Malcolm pointed out in his brief to “An Bord Pleanala” there is more effective ways to reduce traffic.

• Public transport.
• Encouraging the use of bicycles and the provisioning of cycle lanes.
• Park and ride facilities to reduce cars that come into the town.

Also with the down turn in the economy we should be trying to reduce the amount  project which consume money that could be better spend elsewhere. I think Investing in the future is what we need, and reducing our reliance cars, if only for town trips, would be a start.

My experience with builders and contractors is that they will try and get as much money for themselves. Ripping off the taxpayer once again (The grant is almost free money to them).

Will this become another (smaller) building bubble, I’ve never seen so many builders advertising insulation contracting before. Having the tax and insurance clearings will not mean that the contractor is any good at his or her job, I suppose there will be cowboys in this business too.

While I support reducing heating bills and in turn reducing C02, I’m not 100% convinced that it will work, I hope I’m wrong!