EPA - Increasing Population and Consumption are a Threat to the Environment

Buried within the new EPA report on the state of the environment, amidst the usual references to climate change and the Green Deal, are the actual reasons for the deterioration of our environment - the growing economy and the resulting increased population. Although they stop short of mentioning immigration as the link between the two. 

These economic and population changes have inevitably brought about changes in our natural environment. The increasing population and increasing levels of unsustainable production and consumption place pressures on water quality, air quality, biodiversity and land, and this is largely at the root of the continuing deterioration in environmental quality since the previously published integrated assessment of Ireland’s environment in 2016.

The government's 2040 plan of increasing the population by one million is therefore in direct conflict with their climate goals. 

The report makes for pretty scary reading and spells out a crisis arguably much worse than Covid-19 :

• 85% of our listed habitats are now in “unfavourable condition”
• The number of ‘pristine’ rivers has fallen from 500 to 20 in just 30 years
• We generate more than one million tonnes of food waste every year

Regrettably no mention was made of the damage wind farms have done to the environment. 

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Despite Large Investment in Wind Energy

Want to reduce GHG emissions? Don't put all your eggs in the windfarm basket.

This week the EPA reported that emissions have risen across all main sectors in the Irish economy. It was widely reported on in the Irish media but certain details were either omitted or not focused on. 

In 2016, we had about 2,800MW of wind energy in Ireland, enough electricity generating capacity to meet about 50% of demand on a winter's day like today. If the wind was blowing constantly all the time. As it doesn't, we get about 840MW output on average. But this output varies every day and year. 

An interesting fact can be gleaned from this, although it is not apparent in the EPA report or in media articles (investigative journalists are in short supply, hence the need for blogs like this one). We built about 460MW of new wind farms in 2016. The EPA report states that :

Renewables now account for 25.6% of electricity generated in 2016 (down from 27.3% in 2015).

     So we built more wind farms, costing somewhere in the region of €600-800 million, but the total share of renewables contribution to electricity actually decreased. Yes, I hear you say, but what about demand ? Demand increased by 2.3%. We can infer from Eirgrid's reports that this was an annual increase of about 630,000MW/hr. This converts to an average growth in power demand of about 70 MW.

This means that the 460MW of new wind farms were not able to keep pace with electricity growth of 70MW or just 15% of the new wind capacity. So you can see the folly of adding more wind. New wind farms do not automatically mean more renewable energy or reduced emissions. 

Meanwhile, eco warriors and greens are warning about the dangers of Irish agriculture. Beef exports make up about 25% of total Irish exports. The same people egging on the eradication of our beef production are also (mostly) the same people freaking out about the negative impact of Brexit on the Irish economy. Looks like a serious case of cognitive dissonance to me.


1)  Eirgrid Report on wind energy 2016 - http://www.eirgrid.ie/site-files/library/EirGrid/Annual-Renewable-Constraint-and-Curtailment-Report-2016-v1.0.pdf

Emissions Rise at Ireland's Power Stations Despite €6 Billion Investment in Wind Energy

One of the things consistently pointed out on this blog is that no matter how much wind energy you deploy, you can never shutdown a single power station. Those who advocate for more wind are slowly realizing this as more facts come out. 

Last year (2016), electricity demand in Ireland rose by about 2.3%.  An additional 600MW of wind was added to the system but the capacity factor (a measure of the annual output from wind farms) fell from 33% to 27%. Also during 2016 the limit on the amount of wind allowed into the system at any one time (non synchronous penetration) was raised from 50% to 55% and then at the end of the year to 60%. 

According to reports by the EPA, emissions and fuel consumption increased in eight out of the eleven power stations for which records were available for 2016. 

Six of these power stations were operated by gas, the other three by oil. Poolbeg (gas), Tarbert (oil) and North Wall (gas) power stations had the largest rises in emissions. Aghada (gas) and Tarbert (oil) power stations had the highest emissions since 2011, while Rhode power station (oil) had the highest since 2007.

Power station	Emissions Increase 2016 Vs 2015	Highest Emissions Since	Fuel Type
Aghada	72%	2011	Gas
Huntstown 2	19%	2013	Gas
Poolbeg	366%	2014	Gas
North Wall	249%	2013	Gas
Great Island	61%	Commissioned in 2015	Gas
Tynagh	70%	2014	Gas
Tawnaghmore	14%	2010	Light Fuel Oil
Tarbert	240%	2011	Heavy Fuel Oil / Light Fuel Oil
Rhode	93%	2007	Light Fuel Oil

Note the three oil run power stations at the bottom all had the highest emissions for many years.

Factors that lead to these increases were :

• The interconnector to the UK was out for four months at the end of 2016. This would partly explain the increases in Dublin power stations such as Poolbeg and North Wall.

• Electricity demand increasing by 2.3%. With new data centres on the way, demand will soon increase by much more than that. 

• Capacity Factor of wind dropping from 33% to 27%. It's an unfortunate fact that no matter how many wind farms there are, if there is no wind, you get no energy. Storage wont fix this problem either as the original energy source is still intermittent wind energy that can remain flat for months on end during periods of high pressure.

• The low price of oil and gas. 

• The low capacity credit of wind energy. Ireland now has 3,000MW of wind, but all these wind turbines cannot replace a single power station. All the power stations must remain on standby. An additional 600MW of wind was added in 2016, roughly a 25% increase on 2015. The only solution for this is nuclear. A nuclear power station can fully replace an existing power station and hence achieves much greater and much more consistent fuel and emissions savings in the long run than wind ever can.

How ironic that Ireland is now dependent on oil again for it's electricity needs after spending close to €6 billion on wind technology and another billion or two on grid upgrades to accommodate this wind. If this is not an indictment of the wind program, then I don't know what is.

Sources :

1) EPA Environmental Reports

http://www.epa.ie/terminalfour/ippc/index.jsp

2) Eirgrid Renewable Energy Curtailment Report 2016

http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/Annual-Renewable-Constraint-and-Curtailment-Report-2016-v1.0.pdf

3) Cost of wind is estimated to be €2 million per MW installed.  

Ireland's air quality is good but particulate matter above WHO Guidelines

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have issued a report which shows that Ireland's air quality is good relative to EU standards but that particulate matter levels are above World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines.

The culprit is not our power plants - which are now mostly gas powered - but our home heating and transport sectors.

• Burning of solid fuel and emissions from vehicle exhausts remain the main threats to air quality in Ireland - EPA, Air Quality in Ireland 2014

So we have on the one hand, a Government spending billions of our money because of their obsession with de-carbonizing our very clean power stations and on the other hand, a Government organisation pointing the finger of blame (quite rightly) for pollution at our transport and heating sectors.

It is like a surgeon operating on a patient's stomach to mend their broken leg.

The full EPA report can be accessed here :

http://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/air/quality/epaairqualityreport2014.html#.Vh1dlIrd_VM

For a complete history of Ireland's transition to a largely pollution-free power generation system, Pat Swords has written an excellent document here :

Clean Energy - What it is and what we are paying for ?