Solar Power Innovation

.

New Fresnel Solar Lens

Remember as a kid playing with a magnifying glass and burning paper etc. using only the sun? A US company is using the same basic idea of a very large magnifying glass to generate power from the sun. Only difference is in the type of magnifying glass being used.

IAS (international Automated Systems) claim to have developed a (sort of) new solar technology. They also claim to be the first company to offer the possibility of competing head-to-head with fossil fuels for power production. They also claim that their current development systems already beats the World Government's goal for solar power cost per kilowatt by the year 2020.





The actual idea is anything but new. What is new is the type of lens which is a segmented thin-film very large Fresnel lens. This huge lens focuses the sun's energy, in the same way as a little toy magnifying glass. It is capable of producing super-heated steam for power generation.





The lenses are inexpensive, efficient, and require virtually no maintenance, (except cleaning I guess) ( the tracking gear would also need a bit of oiling from time to time ;-) ). More typical solar reflectors are quite expensive and require a good deal of maintenance. Once installed, IAS lenses need no further adjustment – so they say!

These Fresnel lenses can be run out really quickly from a manufacturing production unit. Nearly one megawatt of IAS solar panels were manufactured in a short 24-hour run, according to the company publicity blurb.

I guess the breakthrough is that the IAS solar lens can be produced at a tiny fraction of the cost of photovoltaic solar panels on a watt for watt basis.

I hope it is not just another investment magnet. We will wait and see how it pans out in the next year or two.

Have a look at their web site:
http://www.iaus.com/AdvancedSolarCollector.aspx


.

The Big Switch

.

The BIG Switch
use Gas
(The Gas Board) instead
of the
ESB (Electricity Supply Board)

Two ways to save a lot of money on your electricity bill:

(1) Switch all your old type light bulbs for CFL or LED bulbs and you will save more than 15% on your bill each and every month, and

(2) Switch your custom from the ESB to the Gas Board (or Board Gais as it is called in Ireland) and save a guaranteed 10% every month on top of your light bulb saving. The Gas Board is now in the business of selling electricity!! I wonder how long it will be before the ESB start selling gas?

Switch now - don't bother ringing the ESB, I did it already, and they told me that they have no intention of lowering their prices.

https://www.thebigswitch.ie/?gclid=CLGU9LPY6ZgCFQxHQwodOHzx1w


.

Irish Housing Bubble Bursts

.




I am re-publishing a piece I posted nearly two years ago. Because I am shaken by how quickly the property bubble has burst - but not in the way I expected. We have brought a lot of extra problems on ourselves by fact of our government allowing the housing speculation and unbridled greed to run riot like Australian wild fires.

The Bubble will BURST!

I am again tempted to write leakage material outside the general parameters of this blog. What has sparked this rant is a news item on EuroNews about squatters in Barcelona.

The phenomena of squatting has grown along with the drastic rise in property prices coupled with a growing number of vacant properties. Squatting in Barcelona is a growing movement with its own theatre, newspaper and community centre.

This rang immediate alarm bells in my head.

The property situation in Ireland is much the same. With 25% of newer homes are vacant why? House prices in Ireland are up to 60% above real values why?

The situation is almost at the critical mass point, like a nuclear reactor where the control rods have been removed and the mass of uranium exceeds fission starting levels and the whole thing is set to explode like Chernobyl.

What are the factors.

IMHO I see the elements as follows:
1. The dispossessed, the young couples who cannot afford the artificially inflated house prices. 2. The property speculators who have money to buy and speculate on many homes keeping the prices inflated and keeping the properties out of use. 3. Lack of proper Government controls. 4. Lack of proper housing initiatives by the government.

IMHO a Squatters Movement would be Justified Morally in Ireland

I am amazed there has not been a radical seizure of empty speculative properties in Ireland by squatters. They have every rational justification for so doing. The housing situation is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the country. it has made the rich into the super rich, while denying homes to the less well off. One in one hundred 1% of Irish are millionaires - I would only guess that many of these have made the money on property speculation.

It is about time to place a punishing tax on second homes and on property speculation. It is also time for a MASSIVE housing plan for Ireland.

Ireland is a country for the rich, not the poor.

We the Irish have detached ourselves from our history and our Christian past to become "empire builders" within our own land. The Irish empire consists of property and money. The new peasants, fuzzy-wuzzies and wogs of this Irish "Empire"are the poorer Irish. Some Irish are also empire building overseas with this property fever.

Slavery in Ireland

There are two forms of slavery being perpetrated in Ireland at this time.

1. The inexcusable sex trade where children are trafficked into and through this country, currently over 300 non-national children on the missing list in Ireland. This is a total disgrace to Ireland.

2. The young couples who sign up essentially as indentured slaves for 20 to 30 years of their lives in order to get a house to live in. They are borrowing sometimes at 100% mortgages and amounts equal to a 15 full years salary. If the slightest thing goes wrong with the economy or with their health - they will end up in negative equity and financially enslaved for the rest of their lives.

And there was I thinking that slavery was outlawed in the civilized world!!!

The current situation is immoral and cannot be allowed to last.




As the financial structure of Ireland rapidly disintegrates all around us, I wonder if the ensuing depression will bring some sense of reality and fairness back into our lives.

We had lost the run of ourselves during the "Celtic Tiger" in Rip-Off Ireland.



.

.

Attic Insulation Grants Ireland part 2

.

Attic Insulation Grants.
What attic insulation grants?
The Ministers were mistaken!
There is NO attic insulation grant

The Ryan and Gormley attic insulation grant does not exist as such. It would appear that there is, in actual fact, NO ATTIC INSULATION GRANT at all.

According to the SEI information published on their website, there has to be a minimum grant amount claimed of €500. The attic grant is €250 so this means you would have to carry out at least one other project on your home, and pay two BER assessments in order to get a miserable attic grant.

The SEI system is again another complete arse-up. I personally would not waste my time with it. If all you require is a bit of attic insulation, go to HomeBase get the stuff at 50% off and either do it yourself or have someone do a nixer for you.

Idiots!

A simple and effective system to promote attic insulation could have been achieved by simply having a householder purchase the insulation materials from a bona fide dealer, then send in the receipts for a 50% money back grant. It would have been simple and easy for everyone. But OH NO!!! they had to make it complex and keep the "gombeen men" in the formula.

The "experts", the "advisers", and the "installers" are lining up to register at SEI and have a heyday.

I am greatly disappointed and disgusted with this idiotic attempt at promoting attic insulation. It is complex, it encourages money makers, and it is another insult to the people of Ireland.



.

Attic Insulation Grants

.

The Ryan and Gormley
Attic Insulation
Grant Scheme

Eamon Ryan and John Gormley jointly announced the Irish national insulation grant scheme. They claim it will create 4,000 'green collar' jobs and help the unemployed building workers.

The hype has the late launch of the scheme pinned as " the national insulation programme for economic recovery" (cringe – cringe!!) The basis is a fund of €100m for insulation projects for this year. They are very optimistically estimating that 50,000 homes will be upgraded. I would say that there is not a snowballs hope in hell of reaching this target.


The grant system is too darn complex.

There will be a €250 grant towards the estimated €700 cost of attic insulation. The BIG catch is the, “if you go down in the woods” BER. This BER has claws that will tear chunks of money from you. You will have to have TWO - yes (you don't need new glasses) - TWO that is 2 - BER assessments in order to get the miserable attic insulation grant. That means you have to cough up €200+ as your part of the two fees for the BER assessments – that is your grant money down the toilet straight away.

The lads say the scheme will give €700 annual savings on household heating bills. That is not far off my entire heating bill which is about €1100 – so would that mean I would get to heat my house for €400 pa ?

The schemes will be administered by guess who? - Sustainable Energy Ireland.


The SEI Conditions


A BEFORE and an AFTER works BER assessment must be completed.

Roof Roof Insulation: €250
Wall Cavity insulation: €400
Internal Wall Dry-Lining: €2,500
External wall insulation: €4,000
Heating Controls High Efficiency Gas or Oil fired Boiler with Heating Controls Upgrade: €700
Heating Controls Upgrade: €500

Grants are payable when measures are completed in compliance with the scheme’s Terms and Conditions.

Flush the pan please!

If you are one of the few people able to afford the cost of a complete home heat upgrade, and if you are able to put up with the tradesmen, the disruption and mess that it entails, and if you have the patience to jump through all of the SEI hoops involved, it might be worth your while going the SEI route for a whole house upgrade.

For the small guy who just wants to put a bit of extra insulation in the attic, the scheme is a dead loss.

Any incentive needs to be (1) Very Attractive, and (2) simple and easy to use. This scheme is neither.

Screw the grant.

My suggestion, get your insulation materials for half price at Home Base. and get the guy next door to do a nixer. It will work out well cheaper than going the SEI option and getting the grants.



.

Recession – Biomass – National Government

.

Recession
Biomass
and
National Government

Ireland is staggering under the current global financial crisis. Thousands are losing their jobs and the country’s financial deficit is deepening rapidly.

The government are in crisis and appear to be suffering all the classical signs of shock. They are like rabbits caught in the headlights.

So – How to Save Money and Make Jobs?

Guys - Instead of poring money into the corrupt, dishonest, and greedy banking system - how about the idea of an “national government” issuing an emergency order requisitioning all fallow land in the country and starting a massive planting of willow and other biomass? Follow this with setting up say 150 small biomass fuel manufacturing, storage, and distribution facilities in every town land in the country.

In just two years time there will be the first crop of willow. This, when processed, will greatly cut the need for imported fuels.

In the meantime, the tilling, planting, and tending of the plantations will provide thousands of jobs. The building, installing, and operation of the treatment and manufacturing facilities will provide many more thousands of jobs. The distribution and sale of the bio fuels will give many more jobs again. The savings to the exchequer on imported fuels will help to balance the books.

and the really good part - this is a completely sustainable enterprise with benefits FAR - FAR into the future.

My tuppence worth. Thanks for listening.




.

Attic Insulation & CFL Bulbs

.

Private Business
Doing more to Promote
Energy Efficiency
than highly funded
Government Agencies

I received a letter from Change.ie in reply to mine of 16th December last. I guess 7 weeks is not bad for a government funded agency to reply in.


from: info@change.ie
to: thenewoil@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 9:54 AM
subject: RE: Reducing coal usage

Dear Tony,

There are a number of Government schemes currently in place which do support low tech – low cost ways of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and lowering ones carbon number. Details of these and other Government initiatives taken to tackle the problem of climate change can be found on the following page of the Change.ie website:

http://www.change.ie/en/Whats-Happening/National-Level/

We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards
The Change Team



My Reply:

Many thanks for your reply to my e-letter of 16th December last. I have looked at the schemes you have indicated, and indeed there would appear to be some available incentives on low-tech energy saving.

However, for such schemes to be in any way effective, they must be (1) very attractive, and (2) very simple to adopt. The schemes you indicate meet neither of these criteria.

I personally started my own DIY attic insulation job recently, to double the existing amount of insulation. I did it DIY and without any grants, because there was simply too much hassle going the routes you indicated. Additionally, by doing it DIY, I still ended up with more savings than going any grant route.




Ignore the Grants GO-TO HomeBase instead.

Homebase hardware store recently had a special offer on an improved type of fibreglass insulation called “SpaceBlanket”. This insulation is especially suitable for DIY installation.

“SpaceBlanket” is fibreglass enclosed in a plastic sheath and it also has a thermal reflective layer on one side, making it more efficient.

HomeBase were offering 50% price reduction. The Killarney branch was repeatedly selling out their stock, I had to ring several times to get my requirements.

Homebase were also offering Philips CFL bulbs at 79 cent each for a 60 watt equivalent and 1.49 for a 100 watt equivalent. I encouraged a dozen friends to take advantage of these excellent prices and completely change all their household bulbs.

In order to have any real effect schemes must be VERY simple and must be ATTRACTIVE.

Offer people a box of CFL for €20 or attic insulation materials at 50% or 60% reduction and large numbers of people will go for it. Ask HomeBase how many CFL’s they sold in the promotion, and how much of the “SpaceBlanket” insulation they shifted?

Now if Government money and Government agencies like SEI and Change.ie were doing as much to promote CFL bulbs and attic Insulation as HomeBase wouldn't it be great!!!!

Reducing Coal Usage by 50%

Government agencies are almost completely ignoring a simple, inexpensive, and effective way of reducing coal usage and making open fires safer at the same time. Fireplace doors are worth looking at.





.

Are the Irish Greens Composting?

.
.

Green Light Not Burning
so Brightly

Is the Green Party is cracking up? Today it's only Dublin City councillor, Bronwen Maher, was the second Green politician to resign from the party inside of a week.

Her reasons are summed up by her statement "The important issues facing people today are the cost of living and protecting jobs. To be seen primarily promoting environmental issues, the role we are currently playing in Government, is making the party irrelevant and out of touch" .

It would be somewhat OK if the way in which the Green Party are supporting the environment were in touch with reality – but they most certainly are not. Many of the environmental “pushes” sound more like something coming from the loony left.

Green should mean Lean

Masses of money is being wasted by SEI and Change.ie pushing expensive geothermal and wood pellet systems etc. to the very few people that can actually afford to install them. At the same time, simple and inexpensive measures like promoting CFL lamps, attic insulation in older homes, and fireplace doors for the million or so open fires currently burning in Ireland, (a measure that could reduce coal usage by half), are being essentially ignored.

While all this Who-Ha and money is being flung at pushing very costly hi-tech systems, there is at the same time no control of fuel prices, no understanding or acknowledgement of "Fuel Poverty" as a very real issue in Ireland today, and almost no understanding or input into the simple, cheap, and practical methods of cutting CO2.

Get real Greens!!!



.

Sustainable Energy Ireland open another Pandora's Box

.

Sustainable Energy Ireland
Facilitating The Gravy Train Mentality
Again

SEI (Sustainable Energy Ireland), a highly funded Irish Government agency, initiated an “Installer” scheme just over two years ago. Anyone – - yes anyone - could apply to SEI to be listed as an official Sustainable Energy Installer.

The much beloved "Gravy Train" helped set in motion by SEI

What do you know?? Everyone and Anyone and all their cousins and friends got themselves listed. This reckless act of SEI was a licence to print money for the hoards of “expert” “installers”. And - by heavens - did they take advantage of it.

There is enough evidence of the failure of the SEI system to protect the public already available, so I don’t have to reiterate any of it again here.

SEI then set up extremely generous grant schemes for installing wood-pellet and other heating systems. They did nothing to regulate the price of the equipment, nor did they do anything to regulate the price of installation.

So what do you know, yep – the prices shot up and the gougers had a field day.

In promoting the use of wood-pellets systems, it did not seem to occur to anyone at SEI that they should check to see if the suppliers of wood pellets could cope with the increased demand. The consequence of this appalling oversight was that the country nearly ran out of wood pellets one winter.




The latest gaff made by SEI is the setting up of a BER (Building Energy Rating) “Expert” registry. This move had sparked off a new gravy train. For a fee you, me, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, can get a basic training in BER and then for another “fee” we can all become registered by SEI. This gives us a licence to charge up to €300 per hour for an assessment on a private house. No problem to do three of these assessments in a day – nice money for an outlay of a couple of thousand!!!

SEI has opened yet another loop-hole for gougers that could be described as a Pandora’s box. Just take a look at the previous post and its link.

Should not the first principle of a Government Sustainable Energy Promoting Agency be to set high safety standards? (wood-pellet systems had very poor safety standards applied) Should not the second principle be to protect the public, not only in safety and standards but from rogue merchants and price gougers? Should not a third principle be to set-up systems to ensure MAXIMUM value for the public with prices matching those in Germany etc?

All of these principles were substantially ignored by SEI. Sure they did a good job of being a general information and promotion centre. But they served the general public poorly and continue to do so.




.

Sustainable Energy Ireland another Cock-up?

.

BEWARE of the BER
(not a mis-spell)

or

Beware of SEI Licenced
BER Assessors

Another Cock-Up by SEI in the licensing and the releasing on an unsuspecting public of BER energy assessors “experts” who will energy test your house for a hefty fee €275 to €358 for between one and three hours work.

A recent article in the Times Online by Colin Coyle titled “One House, three energy ratings paints a familiar picture of more SEI “experts” at work. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5489435.ece Please do read the article, it's an education and may save you money.

The article details an experiment where three SEI licensed “experts” were hired to assess the same house. All three gave very different assessment figures and charged very different fees and took very different times to do the “expert” assessment.

It would be well for the public to beware of anyone calling himself or herself an SEI registered “installer” or “assessor”.

It is a sadly familiar situation to the SEI installer scandal of two years ago. It is yet another illustration of an over funded organisation which lacks any ability to do joined up thinking and is collectively a few brain cells short of a synapse.



.