ESB Chief talks nuclear

ESB CEO, Padraig McManus today claimed that while we can rule out an independent nuclear solution for Ireland, that we must look at the possibility of a nuclear plant as part of the UK network.

In a speech to the Magill Summer School in Donegal, the ESB supremo claimed that if we did not get a 'clean coal' solution that Ireland would need a nuclear option. His speech seemed to indicate that given the size of our market that it was not economically viable to build a nuclear power station in Ireland.

Such an option would rely heavily on interconnection between the UK and Irish grid.

More details can be found on the RTE website http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0724/nuclear.html

Germans and French clash over carbon tariffs

I picked this up on a tweet from Green Energy News who themselves were linking to Reuters - SO IT MUST BE TRUE.

Apparently age old friends and occasional golf partners France and Germany are falling out over President for Life Sarkozy's claim that countries who do not make an effort to address climate change should be subject to Carbon Tariffs. This would mean that Countries which refused to play ball on reducing emissions might be subject to punitive trade sanctions making it difficult for them to sell their goods overseas.

Now, here is the conundrum, a particularly difficult one for those of a green liberal persuasion. Obviously you need people to address climate change, but then you run the risk of having people in developing countries say, 'its you guys that caused this problem building your rapacious economies, now in addition to keeping us in economic subservience you want to break our legs as we try to walk.'

What Mr. Flanders might call a doozy of a pickle.

Where to begin

This will be brief, more of an explanation than anything else. The reason I am doing this is to try to raise the awareness of renewable energy and the technologies which are currently in deployment in Ireland.

I'll try and get round all the technologies and give a fair craic of the whip to all. This will be a forum to discuss the news in the energy sector in Ireland and to highlight developments. There will be commentary, discussion and probably a lot of ranting.

What do I hope to achieve? Well it would be nice to get more people enthused about renewables. I get the feeling that people bought into the Green way of thinking because they thought we could afford to. In the Celtic Tiger years, it was ok to be green, it was, like a nice suit, something that the budget would stretch to. In the years ahead I get the feeling that Kermits axiom that its not easy being green will be more relevant.

I'm not a green and I think renewable energy is too important a resource for us to ignore.

Oh and hands up, I work in the sector. This will probably be biaised, I'll try to be objective, but I cant make you any promises.