Green Party Senator objects to wind farm

[490808]

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/gre ... 44956.html

Senator Garvey added: “I don’t think it is fair to say that Greens are always pushing for wind farms. We have always pushed for green energy in the right place."

So wind farms are OK but not in my backyard.

[Scotty]

It's no great surprise really. Politicians do what get's them votes. Eoin O'Broin (Sinn Fein) is on Twitter every two minutes about social housing but when it's in his backyard, oh no no no.... can't be havin' that here!

[Cyclepath]

She is right. It's madness to have windfarms in an area that's popular with tourists. In fairness to the Greens, I don't think there's a huge contradiction, I'm sure they want windfarms in areas where they will have a lower visual impact and not all over Carrauntoohil and Croagh Patrick

The thing is, I'm sure they've done site surveys etc and there has to be a sustained flow of wind over a site to warrant construction. So ideally they should be up high, clear of obstruction especially from the west. Cliffs of Moher might be an excellent site for example

But it's all tinkering - we need to plan for at least one generation 4 nuclear reactor and have done with it. It's the greenest way to generate power.

[Scotty]

we need to plan for at least one generation 4 nuclear reactor and have done with it. It's the greenest way to generate power.

Hear! Hear!

[Hairy-Joe]

Once there's no shadow flicker on any houses and no appreciable noise heard from houses, I'd say build away. They are not unsightly and they won't ruin a precious view.

From listening to some of the energy experts, the west coast is ideal for wind power. A Green party member objecting to a Green energy project is simply laughable. We need more energy. That's simple. We HAVE to build some energy plants!

[967543]

Nuclear power is the way forward.

[490808]

Nuclear power is the way forward.

I don't think its the whole answer but its certainly part of the solution.

[Boardsie Exile]

Not a snowball's chance in hell of building a nuclear reactor on this island. Hard enough to build a wind farm by the looks of it.

[490808]

Well the wind doesn't blow all the time, solar only works in daylight and we'll never have enough hydro so pretending that there is a solution that doesn't include nuclear is just pissing in the wind, into a dam on sunny day.

But I agree its unlikely.

[CelticRambler]

Given the interminable problems the French are having with their old and new nuclear installations, the amount of land given over to the different sites, plus their associated infrastructure, plus the waste storage, I for one am much happier to see fields of turbines springing up all around me (several of which are almost in my back yard)

For all its supposed advantages, nuclear is not a panacea. France - possibly the world experts in nuclear - still end up importing a huge amount of power to meet domestic needs, and most of that power comes from renewable sources in Switzerland and northern Italy. In the time it's taken to not build and not successfully repair any nuclear installations in France, parts of the country - including where I live - have become entirely self-sufficient in renewable energy.

[Scotty]

Current nuclear builds are taking avg. 22 years and costing €8b. I can't see it happening here in our lifetime but what's the alternative? We're already importing energy (including nuclear) from outside the state. ESB issued warnings twice to gov before Xmas that levels were extremely low. How long before we have to ration electricity?

[PogMoThoin]

I don't buy this green agenda, we need nuclear not jobs for the boys and all this is token gesturing destroying the countryside!

A wind turbine doesn't generate enough power to create itself in it's life span!

[765489]

Put them all out to sea. Only reason they are being built is that the wind farm energy companies are getting huge subsidies from the state to put them up.

Would be great to see a spanner being thrown into Bord Na Mona's plans. All the fanfare a few months ago about rewetting of bogs and it turns out it's only a couple of thousand acres the rest will be pumped with concrete to put up these things while peat is imported by the ship load for the horticultural industry.

They have already failed at their plans to convert some of this bogland to horticultural purposes going by the last machinery auction they had of the processing equipment.

Greenwashing at its best.

Rant over.

[Scotty]

A wind turbine doesn't generate enough power to create itself in it's life span!

Not true.

[CelticRambler]

All the fanfare a few months ago about rewetting of bogs and it turns out it's only a couple of thousand acres the rest will be pumped with concrete to put up these things

The footprint of each wind turbine, and the amount of concrete required for the base, is miniscule. The installation process is far, far, far, far less noisy and intrusive than any other construction going on in the countryside, and certainly considerably more environmentally friendly than anything my local farmers do for themselves.

[765489]

The footprint of each wind turbine, and the amount of concrete required for the base, is miniscule. The installation process is far, far, far, far less noisy and intrusive than any other construction going on in the countryside, and certainly considerably more environmentally friendly than anything my local farmers do for themselves.

Would have been a more environmentally friendy option to rewet the bulk of the bogs and keep a couple of thousand acres for horticultural industry ( which is a tiny fraction of bord na mona's bog portfolio ) Retrain up staff or transfer them to the NPWS.

Missed opportunity to solve some of the country's wildlife decline and flooding problems.

How many tons of gravel for roads and cubic metres of concrete is used for the construction of wind turbines?

[Del.Monte]

+1
The close-down of peat production was badly thought out and while burning it in power stations was crazy the horticultural industry seems to have been completely overlooked. It's a bit like the decision to leave oil resources in the ground - does nobody understand the millions of different uses oil has including the manufacture of plastics, rubber and lubricants needed for all the EVs?

[CelticRambler]

Would have been a more environmentally friendy option to rewet the bulk of the bogs and keep a couple of thousand acres for horticultural industry ( which is a tiny fraction of bord na mona's bog portfolio ) Retrain up staff or transfer them to the NPWS.

Missed opportunity to solve some of the country's wildlife decline and flooding problems.

But that's an entirely separate discussion - nothing to do with wind turbines. It's entriely possible to put a thousand wind turbines in a bog and still use it for horticulture and wetland/rewilding.

How many tons of gravel for roads and cubic metres of concrete is used for the construction of wind turbines?

Judging by the vehicles that passed by my house when building the nearby field of ten, probably not much more than I'll be using when I re-do my own lanes and farmyard. The "road crew" were in and out in a week. At the time, I thought it was the landowner upgrading his lanes, making them wide enough to get the combines up. Then I spotted the "public consultation" notice, and took a greater interest.

Once the tower and blades had been delivered, the road-crew came back and downgraded the lanes to their former less-than-combine width. My new courtyard/farmyard will be at least four times the surface area of the foot of any of the turbine towers; how deep they go I can't say, but none of the wildlife around here seems to care.

Having observed the construction of several sites outside my window and as I pass by them on my travels, the usual timescale is about a week to prepare the access roads, one-to-two weeks to build the towers (depends on how many are in the park - they put all the towers up first, then come back to put the blades on), one-to-two weeks to put the blades on; one week to remove the part of the access roads that are no longer necessary. One team seems to do all the work, so maybe three vehicles between the lot of them.

I don't know exactly how they deliver the towers and blades, because I've never seen them on the "last mile" section of any site - they just appear like magic on the back of their giant transport trailers one day, and sit there until a crane lifts them into position. Then everything disappears, and bar the fact that the local roads and lanes are in a better state than they were before - oh, and there's a windmill half-hidden behind a tree - you wouldn't know there had been any construction activity in the area.

The creamery tanker visiting the goat-farm down the lane every day causes more disruption!

[765489]

But that's an entirely separate discussion - nothing to do with wind turbines. It's entriely possible to put a thousand wind turbines in a bog and still use it for horticulture and wetland/rewilding.



Judging by the vehicles that passed by my house when building the nearby field of ten, probably not much more than I'll be using when I re-do my own lanes and farmyard. The "road crew" were in and out in a week. At the time, I thought it was the landowner upgrading his lanes, making them wide enough to get the combines up. Then I spotted the "public consultation" notice, and took a greater interest.

Once the tower and blades had been delivered, the road-crew came back and downgraded the lanes to their former less-than-combine width. My new courtyard/farmyard will be at least four times the surface area of the foot of any of the turbine towers; how deep they go I can't say, but none of the wildlife around here seems to care.

Having observed the construction of several sites outside my window and as I pass by them on my travels, the usual timescale is about a week to prepare the access roads, one-to-two weeks to build the towers (depends on how many are in the park - they put all the towers up first, then come back to put the blades on), one-to-two weeks to put the blades on; one week to remove the part of the access roads that are no longer necessary. One team seems to do all the work, so maybe three vehicles between the lot of them.

I don't know exactly how they deliver the towers and blades, because I've never seen them on the "last mile" section of any site - they just appear like magic on the back of their giant transport trailers one day, and sit there until a crane lifts them into position. Then everything disappears, and bar the fact that the local roads and lanes are in a better state than they were before - oh, and there's a windmill half-hidden behind a tree - you wouldn't know there had been any construction activity in the area.

The creamery tanker visiting the goat-farm down the lane every day causes more disruption!

That small footprint maybe so on good ground, but I'm talking about building on peatland here.

Have a look at this video if you get a chance and you'll understand what I'm talking about CR. This is from the ESB. The bog to me has more or less ceased to be a bog. You cannot restore or rewet a bog when you have that level of building on it.

[CelticRambler]

Have a look at this video if you get a chance and you'll understand what I'm talking about CR. This is from the ESB. The bog to me has more or less ceased to be a bog. You cannot restore or rewet a bog when you have that level of building on it.

What I'm seeing there is a lot of temporary work-zones that - if the follow they same pattern as what I see in France - will have been removed almost immediately after construction, leaving a small parking and technical area at the foot of the tower. The total amount of building (road and vertical structures) is way less than I see in the Dublin-Wicklow mountains, where the bogs don't seem to have suffered by the creation of lay-bys and stolen-car burn zones.

I spent many weekends of my youth within sight, sound and smell of the peat-burning power station in Lanesboro, and that has certainly caused an awful lot more environmental damage than a few new roads through the former supply grounds. I'm also currently just a few tens of km from one of France's (f)ailing nuclear power stations, and the amount of concrete that's gone into that ... well

Remember, if you put any kind of horticultural business in that same area, you're going to have to also put in roads, parking, foundations for sales and office buildings, sewers, undergound (?) power, phone and internet cables ... All that adds up, and in the end it could be more destructive than building one turbine footing every 500m.