Uploaded on 2016-09-21 by Jack Hyland

Energy in Ireland discussion posted less than a minute ago by JackHyland Vote for this post, there are currently 0 votes 0 Votes Follow Unfollow More I live in Ireland. Here’s Ireland’s IEA Sankey graph: http://www.iea.org/sankey/#?c=Ireland&s=Balance The dominant fossil fuels used in Ireland are, in order of dominance: oil, gas and coal. According to the Sankey diagram, the dominant fossil fuels are used for: Transport “Other” industry From further reading I interpret “other” to mean residential use and the commercial, public service, and agriculture sectors (1). Supply The IEA’s 2012 review of Ireland wrote: “Ireland is highly dependent on imported oil and gas. While the push to develop renewable energies is commendable, this will result in an increased reliance on natural gas, as gas-fired power plants will be required to provide flexibility in electricity supply when wind power is unavailable.” Perhaps a solution to this would be to explore options for storage of renewable energy, such as the way the ETH campus stores summer heat in probes deep underground for winter use. Or perhaps emerging electricity storage technology such as the Tesla Powerwall could be used to store a larger percentage of wind, wave or solar energy creation(2). Usage Residential: while progress has been made in improving the energy efficiency of Ireland’s housing stock, with the average emissions per house almost halving in the last twenty years(3), I believe there is further scope for further efficiencies, such as more intensive retrofitting of homes and the application of standards such as Passive House(4) . Transport A very high percentage of journeys in Ireland are made by private car(5) so there is a strong case to be made for imposing deterrents to car use (tolling, congestion charges, higher parking fees) and incentives to using sustainable modes (improvements to public transport provision, building cycling infrastructure, designing safer and more welcoming pedestrian spaces). Footnotes 1. Energy Policies of IEA Countries - Ireland 2012 Review - https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/IRELAND2012_free.pdf 2. http://uk.businessinsider.com/here-comes-teslas-missing-piece-battery-announcement-2015-4?r=US&IR=T 3. http://www.seai.ie/Publications/Statistics_Publications/Energy_in_Ireland/Energy-in-Ireland-1990-2013-Highlights.pdf 4. http://erg.ucd.ie/pep/pdf/Irena_Kondratenko.pdf 5. http://www.dttas.ie/sites/default/files/publications/corporate/english/transport-trends-2016/transport-trends-2016.pdf, page 7.