Wind Aware Ireland will be launching their new report “The Costs of Wind Energy in Ireland” in Buswells’ Hotel, Dublin at 11.15 on Wednesday (15th November). This report may precipitate the latest scandal in public spending.
The report shows that the Irish State and consumer are spending approximately €1.2 billion per year on wind energy and no one has done the sums to justify this spend.
The Irish Academy of Engineering found that focusing mainly on wind to reduce emissions would create the highest technical risk, would generate the lowest amount of reliable electricity and had lowest public acceptability compared to using biomass or carbon capture and storage. They said “A detailed analysis needs to be carried out of the costs and socio-economic implications of reducing emissions”.
Economist Colm McCarthy noted “It is time for Government to acknowledge that Ireland has enough wind farms, that they cost too much in subsidies and that promising routes to cut emissions lie elsewhere.”
All legally mandated checks and balances for wind energy have been bypassed; no costs benefit analysis, no strategic environmental assessment and no regulatory impact analysis has ever been undertaken to justify this spend.
This sheer lack of accountability and the capture of policy by wind developers should be grounds for a national scandal.
Paula Byrne (PRO)
Phone: 057 86 27048
Mobile: 086 8241523
Email: paula@windawareireland.com
I bet this will be full of cherry picked data and take no account for depleting fossil fuels, the cost of air pollution to our health service, the cost of war in oil rich countries, or the cost of energy security for importing so much fossil fuels.
ReplyDeleteThis flat earthed blog needs to move with the times. We're entering a low carbon society.
I bet all the people behind this are old aged and scared of change.
Oil and Coal imports have increased since 2010 when Ireland introduced its National Renewable Action Plan.
Delete"Move with times" and "old" are not arguments. I invite criticism but please stick to facts.
How amazing that those who want us to live in the dark ages are selling their utopia as progress How did we get here?
DeleteHave you read the report?
DeleteA fine piece of work by the authors of "The Costs of Wind Energy in Ireland" - of which Colm McCarthy wrote in the Farmers Journal “It should not have been left to this voluntary group to raise these vital policy questions”.
ReplyDeletePolicy questions that are vital to you and I, and to everybody on this island. Policy questions which the establishment and vested interests strive to suppress. Policy questions that will be relegated to dusty shelves if we do not drive them viral by bringing them to the forefront of public consciousness.
The authors have done the research – it is up to each and every one of us to now disseminate and promote the sentiments contained in the report by writing to the media and to our public representatives to demand that the authorities pause to carry out a full socio-economic benefit assessment before as a nation we commit further to what the report shows to be an expensive white elephant.
Do not delay – by next week the opportunity will have passed.
Re cherry picked data. The cult members do it all the time. Actually wind turbines do not comply with the Machinery Directive and have essentially been illegal to operate since 2009. These large multi megawatt wind turbines are a pile of engineering junk which have not been designed to cope with the environament in which they operate. That is why they fall down so frequently. Think of that when pray with your cult group.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Anonymous post of 15th inst 12.41, there is enough fossil fuel to last at least 400 years. It's like as if policy makers back in year 1617 were deciding what the worlds would be like to day.
ReplyDeleteIreland exports 120 billion euros in goods and 60 billion euros in services annually (180 Billion) and here we see the begrudging of importing 6 billion in fossil fuel annually. Where did the notion that we have to be self sufficient in everything come from? We are not self sufficient in bananas, oranges, tea, coffee, coco, cars, tractors, motor cycles, bicycles, pepper, potash, phosphate, steel, timber, cotton, tobacco, hardwoods, glass, telescopes, firearms, ammunition, figs, clothes, computers, white goods and TV sets, yet there is no outcry or campaign to produce them in Ireland as there is for electricity. What is wrong with Libya, Oman, Iran, USA, Britain, Poland, Australia and other countries selling us their goods in exchange for out food, pharmaceuticals and computer processors? What is wrong with me selling my beef to Italy and buying an Italian washing machine?
What is wrong with Irish farmers selling dairy products to Oman and buying their oil? It's damn meanness, selfishness, little Irelanders, Paddy Whack punching above his weight.
If we want to be self sufficient then we need to drill for gas and oil
DeleteBut we cannot drill for oil or gas using fracking or even discuss the Nuclear Option. Because the intelligencia in the Dail just vote to make illegal to do so. They might next ban any discussion of Leprechauns as you might end up talking about our Leprechaun Economy. You have to live within the parallel (un)reality set out by our intelligencia. Actual reality is too dangerous and difficult for you to deal with
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