BS: Boosting the Irish economy

Subject: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 12:02 AM

The Shannon Scheme (1929) and the Rural Electrification Scheme (1946) connected over one million Irish homes and businesses to ESB's network grid.
I suggest a similiar scheme which would convert homes and commercial properties to alternative greener electricity , working on the principle of Keynesian ecopnomics this would not only boost the economy but also contribute to cleaner energy production.
Another suggestion which would have a similiar effect would be the building of desalineation plants to provide a certain proportion of exta fresh water which would be converted from sea water, plus a stockpile of salt which could be used when required for icy travelling conditions
A stipulation that new houses are not granted planning permission without a rainwater collection scheme for grey water use.
Finally a scheme to repair the leaking water pipe system particularly in Dublin and Cork City.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: BobL
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 03:55 AM

Desalination? Thought you were never short of rain over there!

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 07:02 AM

It's the same problem with rain in Lancashire - too much at once and not enough storage capacity to even out demand in drought. We now have six waterbutts around our property to keep the garden watered in the summer and take some of the load off our borehole, which has dried up for a couple of hours once this year. When the water level gets low the silt at the bottom gets stirred up and clogs the filter. We have to let it rest by switching off the pump and the silt falls away.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 09:34 AM

bob l, we get a lot of rain but a lot is not collected and or wasted, massive leaks in water pipes

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 10:33 AM

Have you looked at the cost implications of installing greener energy into rural locations or have you looked at the energy output of such equipment. Would should equipment function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year/

Would there be any surplus energy and how and where do you store or dispose of it.?

Where would you install large and unsightly desalinations plants. Local objects are bound to arise to such plants, how are you going to deal with those?

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 01:07 PM

Surely it would make infinitely more sense to construct storage facilities for the immense quantities of water that fall, completely free of charge, from the sky on to the island of Ireland, than it would to build expensive-to-run and unsightly industrial-scale desalination plants?

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Aug 20 - 05:24 PM

desalineation plants do not necessarily have to be ugly, yes storage facilties would be a good idea,

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Aug 20 - 04:52 AM

how big would the storage facility be? I don't think modern urban humans realise how much water they use and even if they did, can't extrapolate to the country's population. Then - people living near the new lake prefer perfectly good grazing land. Personal storage of electricity & water is preferable, but people eh? What are they like?

In our area Thames Water want to extract it from the Severn and pipe it to a reservoir of ginormous size then release it to the Thames and extract in Lundun (innit?). Lundun has what the hell it wants. And there is a perfectly good idea to resurrect the canal for half of it. And in terms of water storage - how much can a 15 mile ribbon of wet hold? Commercial interests prevail, a reservoir is an asset that accumulates, a canal is borrowed from geeky enthusiasts.

Logic prevails, but it is not the logic of practicality.

The SE of the UK is short of water. Or has it too many profligate peoples? Logic says both are true. Logic also says the SE can't understand that.

People eh? What are they like?

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Aug 20 - 08:15 AM

a very simple starting point is no planning permission given unless rainwater tanks are built on to a wall high to collect rainwater for grey water usage, i have seen older farmhouses in rural ireland that in the past used this idea
think of the amount of water that would be saved in a city if this was put in to practice .

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Aug 20 - 01:17 PM

Mass retrofitting (insulation, cold-proof windows, heat pumps, PV solar panels) would give employment, provide Ireland with free electricity, and massively improve living standards. Expensive to do, but it would pay back in spades.
The sensible way to do it would be a repeat of the schemes that installed central heating into virtually every house in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, when you had the system installed by the utility providers and paid them back the (grant-aided) price on your utility bills over four or five years.
Retraining people who've lost their work because of the Covid-19 pandemic to retrofit houses would give work to thousands, and eminently exportable skills, for those who might want to go away for a few years and come back with a nest egg.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Aug 20 - 01:49 PM

intersting post,Thompson

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 20 Aug 20 - 06:33 PM

With a greater number of isolated properties in Ireland than in England, and hence fewer problems with suitable distancing from other properties, I would have thought that there is more potential in small wind turbines than in England.
We have a small set of panels and a 5kW turbine, the ratio of cost of the two being about 1:5. Today the power generated ratio has been about 1:20 and this is a fairly average comparison where we are in the Pennines. I would think the conditions in Ireland would be similar.
Our heating is all electric using an air-source system. Bearing in mind that the house can require up to 100kw hours in a day in the depths of winter (cold wet weather with higher wind speeds increases the heating demands - that and Christmas day cooking!) a grid connection is needed, but a relativly small battery has a considerable effect on smoothing out the highs and lows of the demand from the grid.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 03:18 AM

Sand person are you sure that rainwater is not used for fresh water? All it needs is clean collection and filtering. Grey water, I am given to understand, is water that has already been used for cleaning and washing, and is then used for flushing. Or can be locally filtered and re-used for more washing, etc.

Desalinization requires a considerable amount of energy and maintenance. Given that Ireland has considerable annual rainfall, as I know personally, it would make sense to determine locations of storage reservoirs and so build them. When you don't need to generate the megawatts, it is the same as if you needed to build the generation plant and then didn't build them. Those are called NEGA watts.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 06:47 AM

Rainfall that Ireland is supposedly well blessed with was almost non existent for the 13 weeks of March, April and May.

During that time the Connemara had 2 small, and 1 very small showers.

A tank big enough to supply just 4 person household for that short period would have to hold over 100 cubic metres.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 07:46 AM

raggy tash how about quting annual rainfall for 2019, instead of 13weeks in 2020.
the obvious answer to unpredictable dry and wet spells is to have what i suggest plus conventional system or the two linked together. a similiar idea to hybrid cars

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 08:45 AM

Dick, you have to plan for the worst case scenario.

Each household would have to have a substantial tank on or near their property to provide water during periods when it doesn't rain, as earlier this year.

I'm not saying it is impossible but the impact on the countryside would be drastic to say the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 08:59 AM

rainwater tanks are built on to a wall high to collect rainwater

Depends where the tanks are. Tanks on the ground need a pump. Higher up on a wall ya gotta do the sums. Water is heavy, and how strong is the wall. Or is the idea to have a tank on stilts?

Then there is the tank cleaning problem. Harder higher up.

Sometimes simple ideas ain't so simple long term. But if these foibles are considered at the outset...............

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 09:45 AM

Main tank lower down, solar powered pump and smaller auxilliary tank higher up; to hold enough for night usage to reduce size of back-up battery needed.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 11:55 AM

The small-scale water capture and use being mentioned requires control and maintenance on a household level, which will result in problems on such a level. Collecting water on a much larger scale might be more reliable and net out more affordably on a public level. Might as well have professionals assuring the quantity and quality of the water, plus you will have it as a public right and not have water poor families having to beg for it.

One of my memories is of the very large areas of bog in that part of the world. I passed a development which was using the bog to provide material for generation of electricity. I was told that many bogs were meters thick, and that when the burden was removed and some of the bog left in place, the land would be arable, which it wasn't under the thicker layers. So why not some of this land set aside for reservoirs?

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 10:25 PM

raggytash, the impact on the countryside?could you elucidate. furthermore it happened to some extent in the past, try being positive

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 06:21 AM

The need to store water for any period would require a tank that held a considerable amount. The average person uses 150 litres per day, so a family of 4 would require approx 600 lites per day.

A tank big enough to store 600 x 90 litres (3 months worth) would have to be capable of holding 5400 litres.

Quite sizable.

Every house would have to have one on their property several time bigger than the average Oil storage tank.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 11:10 AM

5400 litres would require a tank 5.75 ft cube. Or at least 2m tall to accommodate sludge and a tap at the very bottom to let that out, and a cover that could be removed to allow stirring the sludge as it exited. And that would leave you with no water for a day or two or some very muddy water for a day. So you are into two tanks half the size. And more complication.

Regular maintenance and attending to details on something so unconsidered until it goes wrong (for the average modern man) is a recipe for it going wrong at the wrong moment. ie with the loo fully loaded!

Doable, in its apparent simplicity, but to modern man (or sheman) ................ ??????

Still, when robots rule the world, what will we do with our spare time? History has already told us - I submit.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 11:43 AM

Is 5.75 ft cube correct for should read 5.75 metres

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 12:23 PM

The amount of sludge could be small if the collected water is properly filtered before being stored. More of a problem could be legonnaire's etc.
Our hot water tank is heated to 60 degrees Celcius once each week to guard against this; the cold water passed through too quickly to matter as it is pumped from the borehole to a relativly small pressure tank.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:40 AM

Is 5.75 ft cube correct for should read 5.75 metres

Despite the strange mix of units, the maths is correct:

5400 litres = 5.4 cubic metres
= 1.75 m x 1.75 m x 1.75 m
= 5.75 ft x 5.75 ft x 5.75 ft

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 05:46 AM

What's happened? Have I strayed from the economy into the Mudcat boogaloo?

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 07:19 AM

I spoke to an engineer friend over a pint yesterday and this topic came up.

He stated that my figure of 5400 litres was far too small for a family of four.

He suggested a tank of double that size would be required to ensure a constant supply of water.

Subject: RE: BS: Boosting the Irish economy
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 09:34 AM

Just been listening to a radio documentary on leaking loos and it is quite sobering. The problemo is the fancy valve flushes - often double flushes. Twofold.

1) fancy arty farty designs means there is no consistency on which is the small or large flush. 50% of people get that wrong!
2) they use valves to release the water which are prey to detritus. Once that is trapped the valve leaks. And there are two of them so double the chances. Yea, Yea - they should be maintained. Yea yea, who goes into the tank and changes rubber that you never have to hand anyway?

The solution is the old syphon mechanism. No valve, no trapped bits. Except the modern plastic chambers therein don't act like the springs they are supposed to, they fatigue and especially on cold weather.

So that 5400 litres is looking even smaller, and rainwater carries detritus. Ain't life just complicated?