Are the ESRI for real!

[Cahir]

When I was a schoolkid I remember all these photographs in the geography of Ireland books of water-powered electricity generating plants such as Polapouka. Are they all defunct? I would have thought water-power was something the island had plenty of!!!

There a quite a few hydro generating stations in the country (Ardnacrusha, Turlough Hill, Erne etc) which provide some of the power but unfortunately not enough. Wind farms are popping up all over the place too but aren't very reliable if the wind doesn't blow (or blows too strongly).

 

[daltonr]

I should say after my post about the ESRI, that if they are proposing that ALL the revenue from the Carbon Tax be spent on researching and developing alternatives then there might be an argument in favour of it.

Can someone clarify whether their point is to raise extra revenue for alternatives (Ring Fenced), or is it Rainyday's idea of encouraging people to use less Fossil fuels.

-Rd

 

[CCOVICH]

McDowell was also spot on in relation to the M50 tolls. If you make something cheaper, more people buy it. If you make it dearer, less people buy it. Less people on the M50 means less congestion. A lot of people wouldn't mind paying an extra 50 cent per journey if it would eliminate delays.

But the toll has increased significantly in the past year and there doesn't appear to have been any decrease in demand.

And if a lot of people wouldn't mind paying an extra X cent, then the road would still be congested, wouldn't it?

As I see it, the problem with the M50 more than likely can't be sloved with price increases. I'm pretty sure that many of the commuters who are regular users don't really have viable/realistic alternatives (other than moving house), and so will pay whatever it costs to use the road.

Making something cheaper/more expensive doesn't always have the expected effect on demand. It depends on the price elasticity of the item in question. I'd say that the price elasticity of demand for the M50 is fairly inelastic, but I'm afraid I don't have any facts available to support that assumption/opinion, so it will have to remain just that.

 

[Marie]

Cahir - I thought that increasingly the evidence emerging (here in UK certainly) about wind-farms is that they are not economic and not effective in producing the quantities required for the kind of demands made on a national grid - as well as being a menace to every living thing around them! Very different kettle-of-fish to a windmill producing power for a single cottage or farmhouse!!!!

 

[Guest127]

brilliant strategy by the ersi team. We are getting used to high petrol/fuel prices at present. in the event that energy prices fall sometime in the future, (the longer they are high the more used to it we become and the more unlikely to fall but you never know ) they can re-visit this theme and push the prices back up to what we had become used to. on the Q@A programme on rte tonight it stated that petrol in america is 55c a litre. and even though the New Orleans tragedy is going to cost maybe up to $150B, they are unlikely to put taxes on petrol/fuel. the odd thing I found in the ersi report was about subsidising poorer people who couldn't afford heat. What exactly are they saying? If you can afford heat you are screwed and if you cant we will subsidise it for you? I though they were supposed to be trying to reduce engergy consumption not subsidise it. and by that I dont mean that poorer people shouldnt have proper heat. Of course they should.

 

[Cahir]

Marie, I think one of the big problems with windfarms is that you need to have "back up" power plants for the times when they don't produce power. And obviously it costs a lot to keep these plants on standby (staff, maintenance, etc). There's a good few hundred MWs of wind energy being produced at the moment but certainly nowhere near enough for the peak daily demand of approximately 4000MW.

I don't think they're as much of a menace to birds etc as is perceived. I'm basing that on a couple of reports I've read, might try to dig out the reports over the weekend.

It would be great if we could all have our own little windmill in the back garden!! It would certainly help with the ever increasing esb bills!

 

[Imperator]

I have heard David Bellamy give a few interviews in the last 12-18 months, and he is aware of a great deal of research carried out across the EU. If you build windfarms you will decrease the demand on the conventional power stations, so you'll be running them at less than their design capacity, i.e. they won't be operating efficiently, and therefore the concentration of emissions will increase. This is not to say that windfarms are a good idea or not, it's just that windfarms are not automatically a good idea.

Regardsing DaltonRs question as to the reasoning of the taxes, it's probably a good way for the government to raise the cash necessary to pay the massive fines we'll be incurring between 2008-2012 as a result of failing to meet our Kyoto protocol obligations.

 

[Purple]

There is very little price elasticity of demand when there is no alternative. If the toll goes up on the west-link what are people supposed to do. use the other toll bridge on the other ring road?
If petrol goes up in price what are people supposed to do, use the other fuel at the petrol station.
The Americans and Chinese must laugh their asses off when they hear the Europeans going on with this rubbish. It won't be an Irish company that saves the world and gives us the new petrol and a carbon tax here will make no difference at all on a global scale. When it becomes economically necessary a US company will come up with the solution, 'till then drive what you like and consume what you like in the in the sure and certain knowledge that 300 million Americans are doing the same and a billion Chinese are trying their best to do the same.

 

[z107]

I have a funny feeling that no public transport system will ever be good enough to encourage the average car driver out of their car.

I'm probably not the average car driver. I would much prefer to use public transport, and let someone else do the driving. Unfortunately, it is still cheaper to drive than use Irish Rail and Buses do not serve where I live.

When it becomes economically necessary a US company will come up with the solution

Why specifically a US company?

It won't be an Irish company that saves the world and gives us the new petrol and a carbon tax here will make no difference at all on a global scale.

Why won't it be an Irish company? If we had a carbon tax, maybe we'd have a greater incentive to solve the energy crisis. Necessity is the mother of invention. Ireland has been responsible for a fair share of invention.

 

[Purple]

Why specifically a US company?

Because they the biggest economy in the world and spend more than anyone else on R&D.

Why won't it be an Irish company? If we had a carbon tax, maybe we'd have a greater incentive to solve the energy crisis. Necessity is the mother of invention. Ireland has been responsible for a fair share of invention.

It won't be an Irish company because most of the R&D that takes place in this country is done by foreign companies, mostly American. If the money raised by the carbon tax went into developing an alternative to petrol then there would be some logic to having it, but we all know that won't happen.