Two years ago we were part of a l o o n n g tailback approaching the Luffany roundabout at the N end of the Waterford ring-road. We had seen the future and its works to mangle Lincoln Steffin's 1919 assessment of the neonatal Soviet Union. Because we have become dependent on energy: for the toaster, the uber, the video-calls, the wireless, that X-ray, those youtubes, the zone underfloor heating. Generating electricity is only part of it; creating the infra-structure to distribute, deliver, store. maintain and service the MWs is also required.
cw: I know buggerall 40min worth of advocacy about Offshore Wind
. . . but should put in the work to know more. Last Tuesday, we invited Dave "Salesforce" Dempsey to talk at the Wexford Science Cafe about Offshore Wind Energy and we got a 40 minute tsunami of data and a hurricane of acronyms [OWE, DMAP, ORESS, GWh, CfD, CBF] and there was time for many questions and informed comments from the floor. One reason why the talk was lucid is that, while Dempsey wrote the book about "Industry Trends in Cloud Computing" [a snip at €130], he's recently had to teach himself the language, politics and numbers of a National Energy Plan. Fewer Curse of Knowledge assumptions! [wch bloboprev]
I think Politics is key here. Offshore was last mentioned at WxScCa when we had the Management of SETU, the ambitious SunnySouthEast multi-campus University, saying they were going to launch MW-engineering and energy-tourism courses at their Wexford Campus. But they don't have a [proper, like, with labs] Wexford Campus! That project is still bogged down in unresolved CPOs, site-changes, finance over-runs, NIMBY, judicial reviews ten years after it was approved in principle. It's like the National Children's NOTpital in small. I don't know if we [the people, politicians, players] are capable of delivering Big. Thinking Big we can do - just listen to blowhards and hurlers-on-the-ditch two pints down in any Irish pub. This is where EirGrid are at:
Tonn Nua [en: New Wave; fr: François Truffaut nouvelle vague] is currently the most favoured and most advanced Designated Maritime Area Plan (DMAP) to launch the energy future of Ireland. If Tonn Nua works, then they intend to roll out ~50% larger capacity wind-farms further out to sea called Li Ban, Manannan and Danu. Tonn Nua is planned to have 60 x 15MW, bottom-fixed turbines spread over 300 km2 more or less shadowing the Costa na Déise from Helvick Head to Hook Head. 60 x 15 = 900MW capacity - enough to power 800,000 homes. I use "shadowing" deliberately, because there will be complaints about The View from people who have bought sea-view retirement homes [with added toasters etc.] all along the coast. Few of them will be complaining on behalf of the crabs and conger which will have their homes turned over in the maelstrom of civil engineering.
Dave Dempsey is not in the pocket of The Man or FAANG; he's made enough money to be independent. Like successful entrepreneurs, he looks at the horizon, thinks big and is prepared to take risks. Independent, sure; but also a Booster for Offshore Wind Energy. He expresses a resistance is useless vibe about Future Ireland. “I'd say it's better for your children to look at that than look at the Burj Khalifa or the Sydney Opera House when they wake up in the morning". Adding that there are 3,500 jobs to be had at peak rollout.
Any 15MW wind-turbine is massive and this is one reason for off-shore windfarms. The changes at Luffany roundabout were to accommodate the first bottle-neck in the delivery of 80m turbine blades from Belview Port to King's County. The blades for 15MW are 120m long. Road improvements to get those big boys where the wind requires them would consume the entire budget of Transport for Ireland. Offshore has no hedges. Nevertheless, 15MW turbines, their towers and blades, need some (flat and extensive) on shore ground for assembly and maintenance. And they need it next week. Rosslare Europort plans to tender to provide this service but they are probably too-little too-late too-entitled. Pembroke Dock / Milford Haven across the channel in Wales, with it's deep-water harbour and existing oil refinery is well ahead in that race. In addition the brownfield site at the old [Tata] steel and heavy industry complex at Port Talbot is 100km East but within the logistic catchment and will get mighty devt grants from the UK government. See: it's not just for Tonn Nua: the winner will get the contracts for servicing all the future Irish, Welsh and Cornish Offshore projects.
The other issue is that the Irish Grid does not have the capacity to land anything like 900MW at Great Island at the head of Waterford Harbour. The Greenlink Interconnector from Wales, which comes ashore at Baginbun Co WX and tootles across county to Gt Island, has been live for a year now. But apparently, when Tonn Nua switches on, that route will all have to be dug up again to install fatter cables from there to Great Island. Some questions:
- Who is in charge of future planning at EirGrid?
- Who is cheese-paring at the cabinet table at Govt Centraal?
- Who among them has a Vision for Ireland longer than the next election ?
But there is "with one leap we were free" solution to the imbalance between supply [too much and uneven] and distribution [inadequate] & demand [insatiable]. Tonn Nua is owned by Helvick Head Offshore Wind DAC: a joint venture between ESB and Ørsted A/S, their Danish oppos. Helvick is already talking to 'private' customers to suck up the surplus when the wind blows faster than 10m/s. And at 03:00 hrs when all the toasters and TVs are asleep. Up above, by using "800,000 homes" I've fallen for the standard narrative where demand is imagined as from reg'lar folk just like me: coming home to their 2.4 children at 6pm and ALL switching on the kettle for a nice cup of tea after a hard day staring at a screen. But it's not like that any more: a single data-centre might need 100MW [the same as the entire city of Galway or Waterford] 24/7 and there are A Lot of data centres. They already the consume 3/10ths of Ireland's electricity and who knows how much water for cooling their chips and discs. Dempsey invites us to imagine 'green' industrial parks discretely tucked in behind the dunes: taking in energy from Tonn Nua, Tonn Dó, Tonn Trí . . . and spewing out Gbytes for MegaCorp.
IMO we should all be more intentional and more careful in our energy usage: a shirt could go two days between washes; two baths a week and showers the other days; walk to school; cycle to work; put on a sweater before putting on the central heating. You get my thrift. But I can see Offshore Wind as [part of] the solution to our energy needs. And I'll vote for the party which has a coherent sustainable energy policy in their manifesto: that budgets for safe clean decommissioning when the blades reach the end of their useful life.
But I will be a very reluctant party to any proposal planning to fill the horizon with turbines which are enslaved to The FAANG Empire.
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