IRELAND’S CHOICE: EU ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY OR

GREEN ECONOMY?
By: Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA

Do you know?
How much the Green Economy will cost?
What the environmental benefits and impacts are?
What the alternatives are?
If not then read on!
 In a Nutshell!

The Ventomobil designed by the University of Stuttgart that won the

international Aelous race in Holland in August 2008 with a record speed of
24 km/h. However, it required a wind speed of 36 km/h (20 knots), which is
nearly double the average wind speed in Ireland. The second day of racing
did not provide sufficient wind for the same vehicular speeds to be
reached again.

The perfect vehicle for the Eco-warriors at the Shell Corrib Gas Terminal
Site, who in summer 2009 as they couldn’t find a tree to climb mounted
tripods to block the landfall of the pipeline that will supply Ireland with
over half its gas and electricity needs.

However, the rest of us have to go to work, pay the bills, educate the children,
hope they will get a job, etc! We need vehicles that work, such as from Mercedes
in Stuttgart.

Unfortunately our Government has approved in 2008 a massive project in the

order of 30 billion Euros to build a second duplicate electricity system that is
wind powered. Despite the massive expenditure it will only deliver significant
power when the wind is twice our average strength. 70% of the capacity we have
paid for will not deliver any power.

Wind energy is the cornerstone of the Green Ideology. Such a programme is not
part of the pragmatic approach of EU Environmental Policy; indeed despite this
massive expenditure on wind energy Ireland will not meet EU environmental
targets and electricity prices soaring to the highest in the world will lead to
massive losses in manufacturing industry.

There are many alternatives to meet these targets at a fraction of the cost. They
just happen to be based on Science and Technology and not Green Visions!
 CONTENTS
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4

2. INTRODUCTION 11

3. CLEAN AND GREEN? 14

4. ENVIRONMENTAL BRAND OR PRAGMATIC APPROACH? 18

5. ECO-NONSENSE GERMAN STYLE – THE SMOKERS MUST FREEZE! 30

6. ECO-NONSENSE IRISH STYLE - INCINERATORS 36

7. ECO-NONSENSE IRISH STYLE - NUCLEAR 56

8. ECO-NONSENSE UK STYLE – THE LIGHTS GO OUT! 81

9. THE MEDIA – NOW OUT OF CONTROL! 86

10. THE THREE PHASES OF THE GREEN ‘REVOLUTION’ 93

11. GREEN ENERGY OR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY? 102

12. IRELAND – BRIGHT NEW FUTURE WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY OR

ECONOMIC MELTDOWN? 131

13. THE APPROACH BEING TAKEN IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 147

14. WHERE IS IT GOING TO LEAD TO? 153

Biography: Pat Swords is a Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers and a Chartered
Environmentalist. Since graduation from University College Dublin in 1986 Pat has worked in
developing the high technology manufacturing industry in Ireland. His work experience has
also included projects in over a dozen other countries throughout Europe and North
America. Since 1999 he has worked extensively on EU Technical Aid Projects in Central and
Eastern Europe helping to implement EU Industrial Pollution Control and Control of Major
Accident Hazards legislation.

Dedication: This book is dedicated to Pat’s brother Joe, a model European, who passed
away in Barcelona after a brief illness in March 2009 - Que en pau descansi!

pat.swords.chemeng@gmail.com
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Republic of Ireland is currently in the summer of 2009 facing a decision that
will have serious ramifications for decades to come; either environmental
protection based on EU policy that is rational and scientifically based or the
creation of an unsustainable and distorted economy based on a ‘Green Ideology’
that will result in failure to meet environmental targets and massive job losses.
Many of these issues are common to other countries where a choice has to be
made over choosing a rational approach based on science and technology or the
emotional approach and visions of the Green Ideology.

Does the public in Ireland know about this critical decision? It seems much of the
country is now thrilled to be Clean and Green and this is being sold as the way of
the future. Yet why then as a highly qualified environmental scientist and
engineer am I standing to one side and shouting loudly ‘Stop’?

• As a country we have two options, we can either choose ‘visions’

or we can look at the facts in a cold hard manner and evaluate
where the limited amount of money that is available should be
spent for maximum benefit. Our tendency to date has been to
ignore the factual approach.

For instance we were repeatedly told by international and national experts in the
field of economics about how unsustainable our property boom of the mid 2000s
was. However, as a nation we chose in that period to ignore this advice in favour
of the vision that the good times would roll on for ever. Bad or toxic loans in
Ireland are now in 2009 estimated at 90 billion Euros. If the citizens of the
Republic of Ireland were to put a Euro every second into a hypothetical ‘piggy
bank’ for the next 2,850 years, then that is what would be necessary to
accumulate the 90 billion Euros.

Have we learnt from this? No, now in the summer of 2009 we have our Green
Vision, which will do as much if not more damage to the economic viability of our
nation. Sadly it will also ensure that our country will not meet the necessary
minimum environmental targets set by the EU for the period 2012 on. Like the
property bubble, there will be winners, those that get in early in the distorted
economy and make the quick money on the pyramid schemes before the whole
unsustainable edifice comes crashing down. However, the overwhelming
majority of us will be severe losers.

What is Green? When I was growing up it was a colour, such as the ‘forty
shades of green’. Now it is a powerful ideological movement. EU environmental
policy and legislation is based on consideration of Costs, Benefits,
Environmental Impacts and Local Conditions with Sensible Regulation based on
the Principle of Proportionality. The ‘Green Ideology’ is very different; visions not
facts play the major role. ‘Green’ depends on political and media spin. When
Germany phased out land filling of municipal waste in 2005 their Green Party
praised the 72 municipal incinerators there. The Irish Green Party obstructed the
implementation of identical technology!
The Brown Ideology of the 20th Century blamed the problems of the world on the
Jewish race and the Bolsheviks, the Red Ideology on the Capitalist Bourgeois.
The Green Ideology is also characterised by ignorance, intolerance and
extensive use of propaganda. Instead of working with science and technology to
meet environmental targets it attacks the very people who can generate the
effective solutions and who contribute immensely to the wealth generation of the
nation. The media may call the Green Campaigners ‘Eco-warriors’, but many are
nothing but thugs who see their cause as being above the principles of
democracy. Let us not forget that democratic legislation is there to protect the
interests of the majority from small focus groups who seek to hijack the system
for their own benefits.

Unlike EU Legislation there is no acknowledgement by the Green Ideology of the

practical considerations of Costs, Benefits and Environmental Impacts.
Technologies are arbitrarily designated as either ‘Clean’ or ‘Dirty’. Hundreds of
millions of people in the developing world suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, many
go blind and approximately two million each year die from the consequences. A
team of German / Swiss university professors have developed a GM rice strain
that can supply the necessary Vitamin A. The Green Ideology is campaigning
vigorously against the rice strain – they are more than happy to let the people die
if the technical solution doesn’t fit their Green Ideology!

So the public is told they should only support ‘Clean Technologies’ and there are
also those with high profiles campaigning to shut down allegedly ‘Dirty
Technologies’ on their behalf. Yet who supplies the public with this information
related to Clean and Dirty? Who picks up the bill when the media generated
controversies and pictures of Eco-warriors clashing with the police come to end?
What are the facts? What are the best solutions for the challenges that face us?
After all if we consult some of the words of wisdom from Warren Buffet, the
philanthropist and world’s most successful investor:

• A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought!

Being Green maybe a lifestyle choice, but is it effective or does one has the right
to force that lifestyle on others? Particularly when there are far more effective
technological solutions that form a part of EU Environmental Policy available at
lower cost to achieve even better environmental performance. The situation in
Ireland in 2009 is that many of those solutions just don’t happen to conform to
the Green Ideology and their development is being deliberately obstructed. The
Irish public must ask themselves if the Green Agenda is effective before it is too
late and the wrong decisions are taken on their behalf with disastrous economic
and social consequences.

But first a few facts for those that are interested, what can the Green lifestyle
choice achieve? If the average household of 2.1 people, reduced their
consumption of electricity by a half, drove a small hybrid car less than 12,000 km
per annum, lived in a 90 m2 (1,000 ft2) highly insulated house with low heating oil
consumption, had a very low consumption of meat:

• Then this lifestyle is calculated to reduce their greenhouse gas

(carbon) footprint by 3 tonnes per person per annum. If all of 800
million of us in the developed world followed this Green lifestyle
we would discharge in one year plus 18 days the amount of
greenhouse gases to the earth’s atmosphere that with the current
lifestyle is discharged in a year!
What are the alternatives? We have no legal obligation to live in this manner – it
is a lifestyle choice. The EU’s definition of sustainable development is that it -
“meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs”. We have an obligation to live in a more
sustainable manner and this is the objective of EU Environmental legislation, in
which the costs and the environmental benefits are fully addressed.

Let us look at what in 2009 we are racing into in Ireland, the biggest expenditure
every by the Nation to create a duplicate electricity supply system based on wind
power! Some countries like Norway with its mountains and lakes have the good
fortune to have a renewable potential that can be that can be harnessed for
hydroelectricity in a cost effective and sustainable manner. Others don’t! Wind is
for racing yachts where the objective is to stay ahead of the other crew. In
Ireland it may be somewhat windier than other countries yet it takes a wind
speed that is double our average wind speed before a wind turbine generates
significant amounts of electrical power. Double the average doesn’t occur often
so that while we can install a 1 MW turbine, over the course of a year it will only
deliver 0.3 MW in a highly variable fashion.

We can finance and build projects such as the above, but if Mother Nature
doesn’t supply the strong winds, which is the case most of the time, what
next?

It is the performance of the overall grid and not an individual power supplier that
counts. A high pressure system on 30th March 2009 resulted in an output of less
than 100 MW for the next 36 hours from the 1,000 MW of wind turbines already
on the Irish grid. Do we manage without electricity until it is windy or use
alternative means of generation? As we rejected nuclear power in Ireland in the
1970s we just continue to operate our fossil fuel power plants but now in a highly
inefficient fashion on a variable output to match the wind generation. It is like
driving a car in the city instead of on the motorway, it burns an awful lot more
fuel for the same kilometres travelled.

How much is the Irish Government’s wind programme to install a total of 6,000
MW of wind generation on our grid going to cost? We will need to install a
duplicate grid comprising an additional 5,000 km of new lines to input the
electrical power from over 2,000 wind turbines located on the top of mountains
and out to sea. The capital cost for the whole project is about 30 billion Euros. It
is also recognised that there will be a far higher risk of power failure and black-
outs. Furthermore, while conventional power stations on the existing grid have a
lifespan in excess of 30 years, the new wind farms will have a far shorter
economic life; gear box failures are routine after as little as 5 years and the
turbines have not proved to last the 20 years of their design life.
The projected environmental benefits of this wind programme will deliver a
maximum reduction of 5% of what the country currently discharges in
greenhouse gases, or less than 1 tonne of greenhouse gas savings per head of
population.

• There are so many other ways of achieving this environmental

benefit at a fraction of the cost.

Neither are we obliged to complete this wind programme as part of EU

legislation. We could have implemented the EU Landfill Directive and stopped
our waste rotting in the ground and put it into incinerators. That would have got
us half of what the above will deliver in greenhouse gas reductions. As it is we
are facing fines of several hundred thousand Euros per day from the EU for not
having achieved these targets – the technical solution wasn’t Green! Then there
is Irish cement company CRH which is rebuilding its cement plant in the Ukraine
and transferring 0.75 million tonnes of credits per annum to its EU operations
while producing better quality and lower cost cement. Other Member States have
phased out the use of landfills, we could have done this, then rebuilt two old
cement plants and have had enough money left to build five Dublin North metros
and a couple of schools and hospitals for the same capital cost and
environmental benefit!

It is very simple, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so is it not logical

to do so in a cost effective manner? There are an abundance of greenhouse gas
reduction projects available for less than a sixth of the costs associated with
wind energy. Why not pick the low hanging fruit first? The answer is because
wind energy is a cornerstone of the Green Ideology!

• Is any country proposing to install anywhere near the percentage

of wind generation on its grid that is official policy in Ireland? Most
definitely not!

• Is any country giving the level of financial support to producers of

renewable energy that is official policy in Ireland? Most definitely
not!

• Is any country planning to construct a second duplicate grid to

facility entry of renewable energy producers? Most definitely not!

• Does any country have a Government that shows such disregard

and hostility to its scientific and technology resources that Ireland
clearly does? Most definitely not!

The cost of Ireland’s wind energy programme is 10% of the total estimated by
the EU for investment in renewable electricity for the 25 Member States
(Romania and Bulgaria excluded from the 27 Member States). Yet Ireland has
less than 1% of the population of the EU 25. Furthermore the EU’s guidelines on
State Aid for Environmental Protection in 2001 were that the amount of aid
granted to renewable energy producers must not exceed 5 cents / kWh. The
2008 guidelines are clear in that the aid is considered to be proportional only if
the same result could not be achieved with less aid and the amount must be
limited to the minimum needed to achieve the environmental protection sought.
The Irish State issued in 2008 contracts of 14 cent per kWh to producers of
offshore wind energy and 22 cents per kWh to wave and tidal energy producers,
all variable low quality inputs that have automatic access to the grid when they
are producing. However, as the do not produce anything near a steady output
they have all to be backed up by the existing power plants on the grid. What are
the generation costs of conventional electricity? For nuclear plants in Europe
between 2 and 3 cent per kWh and for thermal plants less than 6 cents per kWh.
In Ireland the contracts issued for renewable generators clearly exceed the
market costs of generation plus 5 cents.

Electricity prices in Ireland, already one of the highest in the EU, will soar as a
consequence of the wind programme by at least 50% over the no wind case! In
2007 industrial rates for electricity in Ireland were nearly twice that of France,
where electricity is generated predominately by nuclear plants. Denmark has
installed on its grid less than half the amount of wind generation that the Irish
Government is planning to do. In comparison to the high Irish domestic rate of 16
cent per kWh in 2007, the domestic rate in Denmark was 26 cent per kWh. Prior
to 2004 wind energy in Denmark was receiving a subsidy of 5 cent per kWh
additional to the market price. This has since been cut to 1.3 cent per kWh. They
simply cannot afford to keep subsidising this industry sector. The sad thing is
that the greenhouse gas component in a kWh of electricity generated in
Denmark in 2007 was over 10 times that of a kWh generated in France.

Indeed France has one of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in
Europe; a level that is half of what the per capita emission is in Ireland. If we
consider the per capita emissions of greenhouse gases from electricity
generation in Ireland it is 4.3 tonnes, in France it is 0.75 tonnes!

• French electricity technology alone is therefore responsible for a

saving of over 3.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person.

Even after the massively expensive wind programme in Ireland our emissions
from the electricity sector will still be greater than 3.3 tonnes per person. A very
poor performance compared to what current technology can achieve at a far
lower cost than that proposed. Indeed if we went the French route we would
actually lower our electricity prices by 20% or more.

From an environmental perspective if Ireland continues to proceed with the

proposed wind energy programme it will not meet future targets for greenhouse
gas reduction or targets for reduction of key air pollutants, such as nitrogen
oxides.

• Manufacturing industry will not be able to survive electricity

charges which will be the highest in the world, already in 2009 the
inflow of manufacturing industry into Ireland has come to a
complete stop and a the number of manufacturing plants
relocating elsewhere is turning to a flood. The economy will suffer
irreparable damage.
Renewable technologies are seen by the Green Ideology as the future for 100%
of electricity generation in Ireland. Political parties in Ireland are falling over
themselves to be Greener than Green, none of them are willing to address the
economics that are involved or the environmental benefits that will arise.
Alternatives that don’t bear the Green imprint are dismissed out of hand; indeed
Government publications contain false information about the technical suitability
of the alternatives! The reality is that even if the planet’s wind strength was
double what it is now, wind generation would not provide a reliable or economic
method of powering a nation’s electricity supply. All technical analysis of
renewable generation methods sees them solely as complimentary technologies
that can make a small contribution to the energy mix. With the exception of
hydro-electricity essentially none of them provide the necessary economic
performance and reliability.

The EU is implementing in summer 2009 an overall target of 20% share of

renewable energy sources with a 10% binding minimum target for Biofuels in
transport for 2020. The Biofuels target for instance is controversial as it is
potentially could lead to food shortages and damage to sensitive habitats for
limited actual environmental gain. Some Member States, such as Sweden have
extensive hydro-electrical resources and can easily exceed the 20% target set
for the EU as a whole. Ireland has limited hydro resources and as a result our
proposed target is only 16%.

Unfortunately Europe is splitting into two groups:

a) Liberal democracies, where science and technology are respected and

the proper use of such technologies as nuclear power, incinerators and
GM crops are applied to the benefit of all.

b) Technically illiterate societies characterised by windmills and wood

burning stoves in which the brightest and best have left as they cannot
tolerate the ignorance and abuse from the Green Ideology.

Unfortunately not only will the quality of life continue to improve in the first group
but the environmental impacts are already much lower. Despite this in Group (b)
countries the romantic but foolish dream of relying on alternative energy has
been sold so hard to the public that they simply do not know:

• The costs;

• The environmental impacts and benefits and;

• The simple alternatives at a fraction of the cost that can provide far
greater environmental benefits.

I personally have correspondence in early 2009 from the Head of Cabinet in the
office of the Vice President of the EU Commission and DG Environment of the
Commission stating:

“Thankfully there are citizens like you! Thank you for what you have already
done to highlight misrepresentation of EU policy in the Irish media. Please keep
up the good work – writing letters to the press, phoning in to radio programmes,
etc – and please encourage your like-minded family, friends and colleagues to
do the same thing”.
Who controls public opinion when it is clear in Ireland that we do not have
access to accurate information on environmental issues from our media? What
happens when the decision making process of our political leaders is based on
maximising perceived popularity and has little regard to the cheque book or who
funds the cheque book!

Violent clashes between the Eco-warriors and police that have in spring
2009 become routine at the Corrib Gas Terminal construction site. All of us
in Ireland both as consumers of gas and electricity and as taxpayers will
pick up the bill for this behaviour! Do we continue to have our energy
policy decided in this manner?

Why have the Irish have turned their backs on their engineers and scientists that
developed their high technology manufacturing sector that gave birth to the
Celtic Tiger? Why have they decided that the future direction of their energy
policy should be in the hands of journalists and populist politicians, the advice of
the engineers qualified in power generation being irrelevant?

There are other countries showing Group (b) tendencies that will pay a huge
price. In the UK the electricity grid is collapsing and by 2012 there will be
repeated blackouts until a new fleet of nuclear generation is completed by 2018
at the earliest. Germany has become an Exportmeister of an intolerant Green
Ideology, many of its scientists and high technology firms are relocating.
Perfectly good nuclear plants in Germany that are generating electricity, reliably
and safely for about 3 cent per kWh are in 2009 being shut down and replaced
with solar panels that only generate 8% of their installed capacity at a cost of 48
cent per kWh.

It’s a mess and all because people can’t accept the facts and figures and instead
insist on their visions, abusing those who do not conform to their Green Ideology!
2. INTRODUCTION
The Republic of Ireland is in summer 2009 facing a decision that will have
serious ramifications for decades to come; either environmental protection based
on EU policy that is rational and scientifically based or the creation of an
unsustainable and distorted economy based on a ‘Green Ideology’. The sums of
money involved are huge and not only does money not grow on trees but one
only gets to spend it once. Furthermore in an economy that is distorted for
ideological purposes the money men line up in to participate in what is nothing
but a new pyramid scheme, a scam in which those that get in fast and exit at the
right time can make serious financial gains. Ultimately, like the property craze of
the mid 2000s, the bubble bursts and the ordinary consumer and tax payer picks
up the tab once more. Unfortunately by this stage the viability of the Irish
manufacturing sector will have been destroyed and workers in that sector will be
joining the construction crews in the dole office or on the flights out of Ireland.

The World we live in is ever more complex and technology will continue to
advance. If Ireland and other countries persist in ignoring a rational and factual
based approach to their decision making process they will suffer even more
reversals in their standard of living in years to come. Bertie Aherne, the Irish
Taoiseach (Prime Minister) from 1997 to 2008, may have been considered ‘a
nice lad and a man of the people’, so the majority in Ireland ignored the evidence
of the corruption and the cosy relationship with the developers because they
identified with his ‘image’. The result is that the country got what it deserved with
the collapse of the property bubble in mid-2008; there is still a huge bill to be
paid! There is no shortage of Snake Oil* out there, much of it poisonous. There
is also a herd instinct, believe me it is difficult to stand to one side of the herd
and say “Stop, this is madness, reconsider what you are doing!” If you do so you
are automatically an outcast, a renegade and a threat to the stability of the social
order of the herd.

I am that outcast, you do not have to believe the information in my book, but I
assure you in a world of spin and Snake Oil it is factually true, you can check the
content for yourselves on the internet or from many other sources!

*Snake oil is a term used to describe methods and products which are considered bogus or
fraudulent. The name derives from Snake Oil, one type of Quack Medicine widely available in the
United States in the 19th Century.
But firstly we need to understand better the ‘Cute Hoor’ (Irish slang – a shrewd
scoundrel, especially in business or politics) if we are to differentiate between
Snake Oil and substance. Dick Pound was the Canadian lawyer and
International Olympic Council member when Ben Johnson was tested positive.
He then went on to be head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He was
interviewed in December 2008 on his retirement
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,593937,00.html ). It was a
fascinating read, not because of the technology of drug testing but the insight
into the totally driven physiology of the cheat. These were nice highly motivated
people, presentable and part of our communities, often sporting heroes. Yet
behind it they were quite prepared to take the banned substances to get an
unfair advantage over their competitors. They were so driven that the scientist
working on the latest gene therapy for muscle generation would report ‘sports
people’ contacting him to inquire about the research. He would answer that he
works with animals and has no idea how a human body would respond to this
kind of intervention, they write back and say; “That’s okay, do it on me anyway.”
As Dick Pound concluded, “the world of people who dope is a sick world”.

US sprinter Marion Jones was stripped of five Olympic medals she won in
2000 in Sydney after admitting that she took performance-enhancing
drugs.
There are also talented and ethical sports people out there, how do we tell the
difference? By analysing the A and B samples! It is the same in Politics and
Business – there are people in our communities with nice manners and dressed
in nice suits but they are highly driven and will step over ethical boundaries to
get what they want! From my perspective as a Principal Chemical Engineer and
Environment, Health and Safety Consultant, which includes a decade of
experience implementing EU Industrial Pollution Control and Major Accident
Hazard legislation in Central and Eastern Europe, what I see currently in 2009
happening in Ireland and to a lesser extent in some other Member States appals
me! With this book I am going to take you through the principles of the A and B
sampling of environmental protection, hopefully despite some technical content
in a manner that can be reasonably understood by everyone and where possible
with some light hearted touches!

At the end of it you can make up your own mind, Ireland is a democracy, and
ultimately the country gets the leadership and direction the people chooses.
3. CLEAN AND GREEN?
Summary: Clean and Green is a simple rallying cry that is easily grasped.
Furthermore the general public can easily understand and appreciate the
concept of shutting down facilities that are ‘dirty’. However, what criteria are used
to establish whether an industry is clean or dirty, are they based on the concept
of popularity or actual environmental impacts?

The truth is that Clean and Green is based on political and media spin. There is
an alternative, EU environmental policy, which is based on Costs, Benefits and
Environmental Impacts, with Sensible Regulation based on the Principle of
Proportionality. According to that principle, measures of the Community
institutions must not go beyond what is appropriate and necessary for achieving
the objectives. Proportionality is an absolutely key consideration when
expenditure is required for environmental protection, there is only a limited
amount of money, time and resources and it should be applied where it gives the
most effective results.

It seems in summer 2009 much of Ireland is thrilled to be Clean and Green and
this is being sold as the way of the future. Yet why then as a highly qualified
environmental scientist and engineer am I standing to one side and shouting
loudly ‘Stop’?

Let us ask ourselves what is Clean and Green? When I was growing up Green
was a colour we referred to, such as the colour of the grass or the forty shades
of green. However, now it is a powerful ideological movement that has become a
major driving force in the herd!

What is Clean? We are told we should only support ‘Clean Technologies’ and
there are also those with high profiles campaigning to shut down allegedly ‘Dirty
Technologies’ on our behalf. This is highly emotive language, it is easily
understood by the herd and indeed it makes a perfect rallying cry for the cause.
Yet when does less clean become dirty? Does it have to be squeaky clean or
just clean? As I said the world is a complex place, cycling a bike may be
‘cleaner’ than taking a lift in a car but what do you choose when it is pouring
rain? This is a simple example and when complex industries are involved it is
difficult for those that are not trained in the subject matter to be able to define
what the correct degree of ‘clean’ is.

It is therefore appropriate to take some simple examples; take for instance a

delicious fillet steak enjoyed by many, for ever filet steak produced there are
animal by-products or offal. Much of this offal would be considered ‘dirty’, but if
we shut down that industry sector there will be no delicious fillet steaks on the
menu! Although there are many in the Green Ideology who would insist that we
do just that and go vegetarian! However, we do have the techniques and
regulatory control to ensure that the animal by-product sector is run to a very
high standard with minimal impacts, so maybe we should just admit the truth that
there are activities in life that are deemed popular and there are ones that are
deemed unpopular. As the saying goes we need to take the rough with the
smooth, but by careful management we can ensure that the impact of the rough
is greatly minimised.
With regard to clean and dirty we could use the example of underwear as an
illustration to the complexities that can be associated with industrial pollution.
You could be asked by a dinner date if you have clean underwear …well you
could be... and you reply of course it is clean because you put on a fresh pair
that morning! There is a mumbled reply about the fact you went to the toilet
about 10 minutes ago. You are then made to feel like some form of social
outcast as it may not be as clean as you first implied.

But hang on is one ‘dirty’ because one didn’t change into a fresh pair? Let’s be
realistic and consider the Costs of changing the underwear several times a day,
the Benefits of doing so and the Impacts of not doing so. Do we need to
change every time one goes to the toilet or at appropriate intervals? Could the
money involved in changing every time be better spent elsewhere? Particularly
as mentioned already money doesn’t grow on trees and one only gets to spend it
once! Is there a benefit in terms of personal health in changing several times a
day or is your dinner date suffering from some form of delusions and / or
obsessive compulsive disorder? What are the impacts to yourself and those
around you if you do not change every time a bio-break is made? Obviously one
needs to change at some stage as otherwise there will be impacts!

So what is an appropriate interval to change the underwear? Well this depends

to a large extent on Local Conditions, such as if the climate is hot or cold or if
one has been running a 10K or relaxing in the living room. Maybe we should
have minimum standards, such as the children get scolded if they don’t change
at least three times a week? We can call this Sensible Regulation!

Let’s not beat around the bush, issues related to environmental protection are
complex! After all Einstein defined the environment as “That which is not I”. So
what is Clean and Green?

In Germany in 1993 they adopted their technical standards for municipal waste
TASi. This set the target of June 2005 for the complete phase out of direct land
filling of municipal waste – now it has first to be rendered inert before it can be
buried, such as converted to incinerator ash. The target was met. In 1997 Jürgen
Trittin of the Green Party replaced Angela Merkel as the Federal Minister of
Environment. In March 2005 at the Berlin Waste Conference he was enthusing
about how the TASi target was actually being met and the vital contribution the
72 municipal incinerators in Germany made to this goal. Indeed his very words
included praise for the German emissions control regulations for incinerators;
17.BImSchV. “These reduced the carcinogenic emissions from this sector to less
than a thousandth of that in1990 such that today they play essentially no role
anymore”. Note those 17. BImSchV technical standards, first legislated in
Germany in 1990, are now fully implemented throughout the EU by the 2000
Directive on Incineration (2000/76/EC).
Incineration Plant in Hamburg – Germany’s first incineration plant went
into operation in Hamburg in the 1896 to help control a cholera outbreak.

In Ireland on the other hand the Green Party has campaigned vehemently
against incineration. This has helped lead to the situation where currently in
2009 the only disposal route in Ireland for municipal waste is landfill.
Consequently Ireland will by 2010 be facing huge fines of up to 750,000 Euro per
day from the EU for not having achieved the 2009 targets of the Landfill
Directive, which for a staged implementation of a 35% reduction in
biodegradable fraction going to landfill by 2016, fall far short of the total phase
out of landfill that Germany achieved in 2005 and Switzerland in 2000.

• So what technologies are Clean and Green? This example, there

are many others, certainly shows that it depends on the political
and media spin in the individual country!

It is time now to point out that the EU doesn’t have legislation or policies based
on Clean and Green. Instead it has an environmental policy and set of legislation
that has been developed from the 1st Environment Action Programme in 1973.
This is based on consideration of Costs, Benefits, Environmental Impacts and
Local Conditions with Sensible Regulation based on the Principle of
Proportionality.

• ‘Principle of Proportionality’; According to that principle, measures of

the Community institutions must not go beyond what is appropriate and
necessary for achieving the objectives legitimately pursued by the
measure in question, it being understood that, where there is a choice
between several appropriate measures, recourse must be had to the
least restrictive and that the disadvantages caused must not be
disproportionate to the aims pursued.
Proportionality is an absolutely key consideration when expenditure is required
for environmental protection, there is only a limited amount of money, time and
resources and it should be applied where it gives the most effective results, i.e.
there is no EU legislation forcing us to select the more expensive options when
other alternatives are available to meet the goals, instead the minimum
standards for environmental protection are specified in which proportionality
means tailoring measures to the chosen level of protection. Furthermore risk can
rarely be reduced to zero, nor is there a requirement to do so in EU legislation.
However, the EU is bound by UN Treaties, which “in order to protect the
environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States
according to their capability. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible
damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for
postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”.

Currently in 2009 we are coming to the end of the 6th Environment Action
Programme, which will run through to 2010.
4. ENVIRONMENTAL BRAND OR PRAGMATIC APPROACH?
Summary: Branding is a hugely important element in selling to the mass market.
Food production that meets EU regulations does not have any negative impacts
of significance, why then does one have to buy organic? What are the criteria for
organic production based on? It may be the brand and lifestyle choice for some
but the public should not be forced to subsidise organic production.

Global warming may be the biggest environmental threat we humans are facing
but the planet has already been through upheavals that have been far, far worse
– it can look after itself. The question is if it is worth spending the considerable
time and effort combating climate change to reduce those impacts on us to a
manageable level? Has climate change become a new brand to justify a new
Green Ideology and support new business models?

We have faced environmental challenges before, in the past millions died in our
own cities due to rampant water born illness and excessively high air pollution. A
pragmatic approach was adopted in that the problems were measured and
quantified and cost effective solutions were developed and implemented.

European leaders identified air pollution as a major environmental problem in the

early 1970s. Directives on ambient air quality were developed, the
implementation of which resulted in a dramatic improvement and consigned the
winter smog to history. The approach then prevailing for pollution control was
‘dilution was the solution’, power stations used tall stacks to pump emissions into
the upper atmosphere – it returned later to earth as acid rain. However, there
was now a new ‘Game on the Block’ – the Eco-campaign. Huge outcry occurred
in Germany in the early eighties over visible damage to their forests. A massively
expensive programme of retrofitting gas cleaning to power stations was
implemented in record time – it worked, the emissions were reduced by 90%.

While all the hype from the ‘Green Movement’ was about acid rain and dying
forests, the actual quantified benefits relating to the forests were later found to
be essentially insignificant as data clearly showed that we were actually primarily
choking and killing ourselves - not the forests! The World’s first real mass Eco-
campaign had achieved its objective in Germany in rapid time, using to a large
extent emotive arguments rather than rational and quantified assessment, but its
whole justification was totally off balance!

• It certainly shows that before investing what can be enormous

sums of money it is essential to actually work out what the costs
and benefits are going to be.

A ‘calculated approach’ rather than a ‘knee jerk political reaction’ is eminently

possible with the knowledge base we now have in many environmental spheres.
Unfortunately nobody is talking costs and benefits and referring to the available
figures any more – global warming has become the Global Brand of the Eco-
campaign! Emotional arguments are reigning supreme and pragmatism of the
engineering profession no longer features when there are ‘visions’ of a new Eco-
order or a fast buck. As far as the Green Ideology is considered the ‘system’
does not work and they are justified in attacking technologies and developments
that do not meet their criteria. The Green Agenda in Ireland, Germany and other
countries which are ignoring a factual approach, such as in the EU Environment
Policy, is leading to situations, which can only be described as utter nonsense,
indeed maybe what should be called Eco-nonsense!!
A mouse creeps into the kitchen and looks up at the hamster in the cage. “Hey
cousin hamster how do you do it? You get fed and watered and even your cage
cleaned when it is dirty! I on the other hand have to creep in carefully and even if
I get to nibble some food there is no guarantee it is not some sort of poison left
out specifically to kill me”. The hamster replies: “It’s branding my son, just
branding”.

One only has to look at the huge sums of money poured into advertising to
realise the importance of branding, simply put it is a major driving force in the
herd!

So what is the difference between some organic food and some quality food
produced in compliance with all EU regulations which does not require it to be
organic? Science has shown that in a blind taste test the public wouldn’t notice
the difference, neither are their any proven health benefits between the two. Are
there any environmental benefits? Well the EU regulations ensure that the
compliant produce is not going to have any negative impacts of significance, so
what is the additional benefit either for the consumer or the environment of the
organic produce?

Personally I am against the whole organic brand as I see it as a fad that is based
on a mumble jumble set of rules that has only one thing in common – a myopic
concept that a century ago before modern science came along the world was
perfect! For instance it rains a lot in Ireland and the grass pastures that the
livestock feed on is prone to simple animal parasites like worms. A close friend
and very competent engineer manages his family farm with his brother a vet.
While their farming practices meet all the requirements of sustainability, such as
the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme, they refuse to go organic. Why,
because they would be unable to give the livestock the simple and safe
medications that have been around for decades for controlling these parasites,
such as what you would give your dog for worms. Instead the livestock would in
cases of infection have to suffer undue discomfort to ensure an organic produce.

Organic may be a lifestyle choice for some, but food produced in compliance
with EU regulations does not have any significant negative environmental
impacts. The public should not be forced to subsidise organic production but if
individuals want to support the brand, then that is their lifestyle choice!
Another example is global warming. Scientific evidence clearly shows that the
climate has always been a variable rather than a constant parameter.
Greenland got its name from the verdant pastures that attracted the Norse
settlers under Eric the Red in 986, if he had arrived in 1800 during the mini-ice
age, in which ice fairs regularly occurred on the River Thames in London, he
would not have been able to sell that demo-disc or he may have had to call it
Whiteland! However, the majority of scientific opinion is that greenhouse gases
are contributing significantly to the global temperature rise illustrated below that
has occurred in the recent decades.

Yet there are significant number of other scientists who do not agree with this
assessment and who point out with strong evidence that the computer models
we have to predict the future climate are simply not proven enough to model
such a complex system with accuracy. On this second point I agree with them.

Furthermore the planet has been through many major upheavals since its birth,
such as massive volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts. In comparison the
worst projected impacts of climate change would not even appear on the same
measurement scale – the planet can take care of itself! However, there could
potentially be significant impacts – to us the human race! The question is if it is
worth spending the considerable time and effort combating climate change to
reduce those impacts to a manageable level? So we are really back to costs,
benefits and impacts again!

However, has climate change become a new brand to justify a new Green
Ideology and support new business models? It is not as if we haven’t faced
environmental challenges before; epidemics of cholera, typhoid and other
waterborne diseases were rife throughout European cities in the 19th Century.
However, the pragmatic approach of the Victorians in the UK lead to construction
of major sewage collection and treatment projects, which essentially eliminated
the problem. Indeed Thomas Crapper with his porcelain contribution to public
health and the downstream Victorian engineering saved more lives than all of the
medical profession since.
However, people were still regularly dying of respiratory illnesses until the late
1960s due to the quite appalling air quality in the cities from the domestic and
industrial combustion of low quality fuels with the associated emissions of
sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates – all serious respiratory
irritants. Indeed people were regularly dying in their thousands during the major
smog episodes that occurred in London in the1950s.

Prior to the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 there were plenty of smug comments in
the Irish and German media relating to urban air quality in China. Yet if one looks
at the graph below of air quality, i.e. sulphur dioxide concentrations, from
Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr area of West Germany and Leipzig in East Germany it
is clear that until quite recently one did not have to make a long plane trip to the
Far East to experience similar problems! However, one can also see the major
improvements that have occurred, particularly the rapid improvement in Eastern
Germany once the wall came down in the early nineties – some of which must
be attributed to the current Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, who was the
then Federal Minister of the Environment.

Air Quality in Gelsenkirchen (W. Germany) and Leipzig (E. Germany). So

how was it done? Just like the Victorians in a pragmatic fashion in which
the problem was measured and quantified and cost effective solutions
were developed and implemented.

In the early 1970s political leaders in Western Europe demonstrated a keen

interest in environmental matters, indeed an opinion pole of the nine Member
States of the then EEC in 1973 cited pollution as the major problem. These
concerns lead to the adoption of the 1st Environment Action Programme in 1973.
Urban air pollution was a priority and the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’ was laid down
as an important means of internalising environmental (social) costs. Mandatory
air quality targets were adopted in 1980 by means of European Directives;
Member States had to complete air quality monitoring and the quality standards
which they had to achieve were established.
By the early eighties it was obvious that air pollution from industry needed to be
controlled on a European level, although some countries had already
implemented comprehensive national legislation. The first air pollution control
Directive (84/360/EEC) established a system of licensing, although the technical
standards were left to the individual Member States. In Ireland at that time Mary
Harney was Minister of the Environment and helped implement all this
legislation, it worked – the smog in Dublin and other Irish cities was essentially
eliminated! Mary got the credit – but it was really the necessity to comply with
European Directives that drove it.

The next environmental challenge that was facing European Leaders was Acid
Rain. Pollution control of the fifties and sixties was based on ‘Dilution is the
Solution’; you can see it in action in practical terms on the right hand side of the
photograph of the lovely Dublin Bay below, i.e. the Poolbeg power station, which
was constructed in the late 1960s and began to supply power to the grid in 1971:

Scenic view of Dublin Bay

ESB Poolbeg’s two 200 m high chimneys dominate the landscape of Dublin,
providing the backdrop to some famous U2 videos. These were constructed to
provide the then common pollution control method of dispersion for the pollutants
occurring from firing the boilers on high sulphur heavy fuel oil – currently they run
on natural gas. Except what goes up must come down – gaseous emissions of
sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were being converted in the atmosphere to
acid droplets. The fresh water habitats of Scandinavia and the forests of the Alps
were showing major ecological stresses – which just goes to highlight the
overriding principles of environmental protection:

• If you can don’t generate it in the first place;

• If you have to generate it then reduce it at source;

• Don’t just transfer it from one medium to another – it will always

come back to haunt you and remember the ‘Polluter pays!’
But there was now a new ‘Game on the Block’ – the Eco-campaign. Huge
outcry occurred in Germany in the early eighties over visible damage occurring
to their forests, the so called ‘Waldsterben’ or dying forest! Somehow the news
media sense and publicise issues that will attract the public’s concern and
attention (creating customer readership and therefore advertising), and this
concern appears to feed upon itself and attract more publicity. In turn, these
arouse public concerns and capture the attention of politicians and industry
managers, who are more inclined to act once their stakeholders start asking
questions! So far so good, a major political response occurred in Germany and
in 1983 Germany implemented the Federal Imissions Control Act (BImSchG),
which in ten years led to an 89% reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions.

Fantastic! However, the retrofitting of coal and heavy fuel fired plants with
desulphurisation technology was mightily expensive at over 7 billion Euros (14.3
billion DM). Furthermore its implementation was rushed to meet the tight targets
set by the German legislation; processes were not optimised, contractors were
overloaded and it estimated that nowadays it would cost 30% less. There were
other costs, desulphurisation is effective but it requires powdered limestone, lots
of it! Whole hillsides have to be quarried away to supply some of these large coal
plants with a truck of limestone every few minutes. Gypsum is produced as a by-
product, some of this can be used in plaster board manufacture but most goes
as waste to landfill. Ireland had to do a similar upgrade to the ESB Moneypoint
coal fired station in Co. Clare that was completed in early 2008 at a cost of over
260 million Euros in order to comply with the same regulations which are now
EU wide.

In my own case I am an engineer who builds things, not an idealist with dreams!
Costs and value for money are paramount considerations. Therefore the graph
overleaf of Benefits (Nutzen) and Costs (Kosten) of desulphurisation of coal
fired plants in Germany (1997) is of great significance to me. On the small right
hand column we have:

• Costs (max)

• Costs (min)

Which are expressed in terms of Euro per tonne of sulphur dioxide removed. It is
mightily encouraging that this expenditure is overwhelming repaid by the column
on the left, which shows the benefits, but hold on! These comprise from top
down:

• Increased life expectancy

• Reduced health problems

• Reduced material damage

• Reduced harvest losses

Benefits (Nutzen) and Costs (Kosten) of desulphurisation of coal fired
plants in Germany (1997)

Sad that while all the hype from the ‘Green Movement’ in the eighties was about
acid rain and dying forests, the actual quantified benefits relating to the forests,
the one at the very bottom of the graph on the left hand side for reduced harvest
losses, are essentially insignificant as the data clearly shows that we were
actually primarily choking and killing ourselves - not the forests! Acid rain is to all
extents no longer a problem for Europe and the World’s first real mass Eco-
campaign had achieved its objective in Germany in rapid time, using to a large
extent emotive arguments rather than rational and quantified assessment, but its
whole justification was totally off balance!

• It certainly shows that before investing what can be enormous

sums of money it is essential to actually work out what the costs
and benefits are going to be.

As mentioned previously we are in 2009 coming to the end of the EU 6th

Environment Action Programme. A lot of the extensive work completed by the
EU on monitoring and modelling emissions is now starting to bear fruit – it is now
starting to become possible to quantify and predict the costs and benefits of
various policy options. A ‘calculated approach’ rather than a ‘knee jerk political
reaction’ is eminently possible with the knowledge base we now have in many
environmental spheres.
Assessment Methodology used by the EU, in this example for air pollution

A clear example is air pollution which increases hospital admissions for

respiratory illness (pain and suffering, costs of healthcare, lost productivity). The
ExternE (External costs of Energy) European Research network has been active
since the early nineties. It is surprising that so few people know of this work,
because it is so relevant when assessing the relevant merits of different fuels
and technologies for transportation and electricity generation The costs are
‘External’ because the owner of the power plant or vehicle does not take them
into account in his decision process as he doesn’t pay for them in his market
price, but they are real to other members of society.
Example of financial pricing used in EU External cost assessment, more
information at www.externe.info

In reality the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’ should apply to these External costs but the
Polluter is often us! However, the EU 6th Action Plan on the Environment is clear
in that it requires “those who cause injury to human health or cause damage to
the environment are held responsible for their actions”. In other words these
external costs need to be internalised to lead to more sustainable practices in
energy, transportation, agriculture, etc.

The Thematic Strategy on Air forms part of the 6th Environment Action
Programme and its function is to present a coherent and integrated policy on air
pollution which:

• Sets out priorities for future action;

• Reviews existing ambient air quality legislation* and the National

Emissions Ceiling Directive*, which places a cap on each Member
State’s emissions, with a view to reaching long-term environmental
objectives; and

• Develops better systems for gathering information, modelling and

forecasting air pollution.
*Primarily Directives 96/92/EC, 1999/30/EC, 2000/69/EC, 2002/3/EC, 97/101/EC and 2001/81/EC.
The Strategy followed a structured approach of first establishing a baseline
showing air pollution up to 2020 if no extra measures or additional legislation
were implemented. This was then set against the Community long-term
objectives of “achieving levels of air pollution that do not give rise to significant
negative impacts on and risks to human health and the environment. This
includes no exceedence of critical loads and levels for natural ecosystems”.
Then various scenarios were examined to close the ‘gap’ between the baseline
and the achievements of the long term objectives. On the basis of cost-
effectiveness and cost / benefit analysis interim objectives for the Strategy
were set. Note the baseline scenario is sometimes called the ‘business-as-usual’
or ‘current legislation’ scenario. In developing the Thematic Strategies extensive
stakeholder consultations are held. In the case of the Thematic Strategy on Air
over 100 meetings were held and 10,000 responses written to the Internet
consultation. The aim is also, where possible, to simplify the existing regulatory
framework.

EU Thematic Strategy on Air 2020 emission reduction targets based on the 2000
situation are:

• - 82% for Sulphur dioxide

• - 60% for Nitrogen oxides

• - 59% for PM2.5 (sub-micron particulate matter, i.e. very fine soot)

• - 51% for Volatile Organic Compounds (such as dry cleaning solvents

or petroleum vapours)

These are major reductions that are all going to cost money – lots of it! For
instance the next generation of vehicles will have tighter emissions control
standards as most of the particulates are coming from our vehicles and heating
systems, we will have to pay for this out of our own pockets. Why are we doing
this? Because in the EU 25 for the year 2000 it was estimated that the number of
premature deaths due to air pollution, primarily from particulates (PM2.5) and low
level ozone, was:

• 380,000 premature deaths per annum or an average statistical

reduction in life expectancy for everyone of approximately nine
months.

It makes sense to implement the above reductions even if they will only partly
reduce the number of premature deaths by 63,000 per annum. However, it will
cost us in the range of 7.1 billion Euro per annum from 2020. It is a big cost but if
equitably spread over 470 million people it is justified as it comes to 15 Euro per
head. Already in mid-2008 the air quality standards were updated with a new
Directive on ambient air quality and clean air for Europe.

As regards global warming the EU in its ExternE (External costs of Energy)

European Research network has established a cost of 70 Euro per tonne for the
environmental damage that carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, is
causing. The UK Stern report suggested 85 Dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately nobody is talking costs and benefits and referring to these figures
any more – global warming has become the Global Brand of the Eco-
campaign! Emotional arguments are reigning supreme and pragmatism of the
engineering profession no longer features when there are ‘visions’ of a new Eco-
order or a fast buck.
Winston Churchill is attributed with saying “a lie can be half way around the
world before the truth can get its boots on!” There is also no doubt that profitable
businesses or even political careers can be forged on the basis of ignoring the
facts in favour of half truths or even false conclusions. These then become more
and more entrenched with time as to change and publicly support the true
situation would be fatal in terms of business profitability or career prospects.

Let us face it ‘history repeats itself’; Galileo was placed under house arrest and
his movements restricted by the Pope because his scientific publications were
contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Copernicus was also ridiculed by the
church for suggesting a geocentric universe was incorrect. Darwin’s 200th
anniversary is now upon us in 2009, but Darwin delayed publication of his
ground breaking work on evolution for many years, as using the genealogies in
the Bible, Archbishop Ussher of Ireland had determined in 1654 that the earth
was created in the year 4,004 BC. Darwin’s work was an outright challenge to
this understanding of the time and upon its publication lead to a significant drop
in church believers, many simply came to the conclusion that what they had
been instructed by the church as the truth was actually far from it and why
should they except other ‘truths’ as facts! This controversy still ranges today as
many refuse to accept the scientific evidence of evolution or seek to twist it to
suit their agenda.

Charles Darwin and the Scriptures

Scientists and engineers, regardless of whether they work in industry or as

regulators, would be the first to admit that they do not get it right all the time
every time. However, as professionals they are required to provide detailed
justification of their position and are constantly refining and improving their
knowledge base and moving forward. In contrast those in the Green Ideology
often rely on emotionally based arguments and seldom are called upon to
provide a factual account of their position or their alternative proposals to meet
the challenges of the future.

As far as the Green Ideology is considered the ‘system’ does not work and they
are justified in attacking technologies and developments that do not meet their
criteria, but what are their criteria?
Europe was devastated by two major wars in the first half of the 20th Century;
many parts of Central and Eastern Europe are still only recovering from this
period. In other circumstances greater attention would have been paid to
environmental issues, but there was a major rebuilding exercise to be done in
the 1950s and 1960s. By the early 1970s the EEC realised there was a problem
and a report on the State of Europe’s Environment lead to the 1st Environment
Action Programme in 1973, which promoted individual activities in the field of the
environment but had no consistent concept of Environmental Policy. Constant
progress has been achieved since then, indeed the 5th European Action
Programme, which ran from 1993 to 2000, defined the Community’s concept of
sustainable development and started a shift from purely regulatory measures to
market led (fiscal) measures. Sustainable Development is defined as
development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Indeed one of the ‘Themes
and Targets’ of the 5th European Action Programme was waste management
and it lead in 1999 to the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC), the targets of which
Ireland is going to fall well short of and will therefore be facing fines from the EU.

The next sections outline how the Green Agenda in Ireland, Germany and other
countries which ignores a factual approach, such as in the EU Environment
Policy, is leading to situations, which I as a scientific person can only describe as
utter nonsense, indeed maybe what should be called Eco-nonsense!!
5. ECO-NONSENSE GERMAN STYLE – THE SMOKERS MUST FREEZE!
Summary: The German Federal Environment Agency is in 2009 officially
seeking a refrain from the use of terrace heaters – the reason global warming;
the same heat input that can generate one hour’s outdoor heating value can in
theory provide six hour’s indoor heating. However, if one was to plug an
electrical terrace heater into the French electricity grid there would be little or no
global warming effect; the French grid is essentially carbon neutral as it is
nuclear based. No need for the smokers there to freeze outside! Why then was
this alternative not presented by the German assessment when engineering
ethics and EU legislation require proper environmental assessment and a
statement of the true impacts and available alternatives to be made to the
public?

Anti-nuclear demonstrations have characterised German politics since

demonstrations at the construction site of a nuclear plant in South Western
Germany in the 1970s resulted in the political system caving in to minority
interests and halting construction. From this anti-nuclear movement the German
Green Party evolved as a new niche force in German politics. In 1997 the
Greens went into power with the Socialists (SPD). They implemented legislation
in 2002 to shut down after 32 years of service the existing 18 nuclear plants,
which supplied 27.5% of Germany’s electricity. In reality these plants are
capable of operating for more than a decade longer producing extremely
economical electricity that is carbon neutral. So over a decade of anti-nuclear
ideology has dominated the halls of the Federal Ministry for the Environment and
it shows. The result is that publications such as the one on terrace heaters have
started to dominate and the public are fed half truths and even false information!

It is distressing to see a country that for so many years was a centre of technical
excellence repeatedly dragged down by both a media which is falsifying
information and a populist political movement to a point where a factual
approach no longer applies. Despite the rhetoric of the Greens and SPD they
have never produced any pragmatic alternative to shutting down Germany’s
nuclear power plants and a lot of money has been wasted on unpractical
technologies, such as giving supply contracts for 20 years for the feed in of
renewable power at four times the market rate.
The publication below was published on the website of the German Federal
Environment Agency in March 2009 (www.uba.de).

Federal Environment Agency: Terrace heaters – Information over the

disadvantageous ecological impacts.

OK – information about the negative ecological effects of terrace heaters; so

what! Well the document in a very thorough German manner contains
information about the technical performance of the gas fired and electrical
terrace heaters that are typically found outside bars, restaurants and pubs,
particularly where smokers have to congregate in inclement weather once an
indoor smoking ban has been implemented. One could put these units into a
modern highly insulated low energy house and instead of one hour’s outdoor
heating effect one would get up to six hours’ indoor heating effect for the same
energy input and resulting carbon dioxide emissions. No punches pulled:

• The Federal Environment Agency therefore recommends a

voluntary refrain from the use of terrace heaters.
But I am not a Green Disciple; I’m a specialist in environmental protection. I
know that if I was to take one of these electric terrace heaters and plug it into the
French grid rather than the German electrical grid there would be very little
environmental impact – surprised! This is because the French electricity is 80%
generated by nuclear plants with a further 10% derived from hydro electricity and
biomass combustion (principally municipal waste incineration). French electricity
is therefore essentially generated without any significant greenhouse gas
emissions. No reason why one has to feel anyway guilty in having an evening
smoke outside a French café in the glow of an electrical terrace heater. In 2004
the 18 nuclear plants in Germany supplied 27.5% of the electricity demand, but
the Green Party and the Social Democrats (SPD) passed legislation in 2002 to
prematurely shut them down, increasing the greenhouse gas fraction in the
electricity mix. It is a bit naughty of the Federal Environment Agency not to
explain that there was another very viable and perfectly acceptable alternative to
having the smokers freeze their Butts outside, namely apply the French
approach to electricity generation!

Actually it is more than naughty – it is nasty! The VDI, which is the Association of
Engineers in Germany, has a publication “Fundamentals of Engineering Ethics”.
It requires engineers to consider in designing technology the societal, economic
and ecological feasibility of technical systems, their usability and safety, their
contribution to health, personal development and welfare of the citizens, their
impact in the lives of future generations. Responsibilities include suggesting
alternative technical solutions and approaches. Well the Federal Environment
Agency just drove a cart and four through that last one!

However, it is not just a simple matter of a Code of Ethics; we have detailed EU

Legislation on Environmental Impact Assessment in which environmental
assessment can be required for individual projects such as a dam, motorway,
airport or factory ('
Environmental Impact Assessment' ) or for plans, programmes
and policies ('Strategic Environmental Assessment' ). Indeed the Directive for
Environmental Impact Assessments of projects is now almost three decades old
(Directive 85/337/EEC) the last amendment being in 2003. In all cases the
consideration of alternatives is absolutely critical to the impact assessment.

So how did we get to this situation of Eco-nonsense instead of proper

environmental assessment and a statement of the true impacts and available
alternatives to the public? The anti-nuclear movement in Germany has a long
history dating back to the early 1970s, when large demonstrations prevented the
construction of a nuclear plant at Wyhl in South Western Germany that had
already been fully approved by the regulatory authorities. The political process
caved in when confronted by disaffected locals, students from the nearby
university and lots of TV cameras – nothing new there, it set a trend that brought
the German nuclear programme to a halt. The French one continued!
From this anti-nuclear movement the German Green Party evolved as a new
niche force in German politics – and what did it use to rally the troops, why the
waste shipments from the nuclear plants that had already been built! It is
amazing that if one consults the residents in the vicinity of any nuclear
installation, such as near Sellafield in Cumbria, they have no problems with
these facilities in their midst. It is the Eco-warriors who live elsewhere that
consider it a life and death issue, or as I said in Section 3; “those who
campaigning to shut down allegedly ‘Dirty Technologies’ on our behalf”. The
understanding with the development of nuclear power in Germany in 1961 was
that a repository for the nuclear waste from the existing plants would be built at a
different location to the power plants so that the burden would be shared
equitably among the citizens – but it didn’t happen that way! The politicians ran
for cover as they do when potentially unpopular decisions have to be taken, so
the usual situation arose that a problem occurred because the measures to solve
that problem weren’t implemented as they had a perceived public relations
problem connected with re-election to well paid jobs!

A large nuclear plant will go through less than three tonnes of nuclear fuel rods a
year. James Lovelock is one of the founding fathers of the Environmental
Movement, but he is adamant that nuclear power has to play a major role in the
future energy mix. In his book “The Vanishing Face of Gaia” published in spring
2009 he simply points out that the yearly output of waste from a 1,000 MW
nuclear power station would fit in a London taxi. More about this to come in later
sections! However, once or twice a year in Germany a train comes from the
reprocessing facilities in La Hague in France with a number of Castors destined
for the ‘temporary’ storage facility in Gorleben near Hannover. The overwhelming
amount of the material on the train was the massively constructed protective
Castors themselves, not the waste, but a total Media circus occurred in the
1990s for days on end; protestors welding themselves to the tracks, riot police,
etc. A dream for the media and some politicians and total frustration for others!

This helped contribute to the result of the 1997 General Election in which the
Greens went into power with the Social Democrats (SPD). Jürgen Trittin of the
Green Party replaced Angela Merkel, a qualified physicist (PhD) who had
worked for 12 years in the DDR Academy for Physical Chemistry, as the Federal
Minister of Environment. In Germany in 2002 the Greens and SPD implemented
legislation for an accelerated phase out of nuclear power plants (Atomausstieg)
by 2021. This was to be implemented by enforcing a maximum operating life
span of 32 years relative to similar plants that would be run for over 40 years in
other countries. As mentioned previously in 2004 the 18 nuclear plants in
Germany supplied 27.5% of the electricity demand.

In the 2005 General Election the Greens were thrown out, but there was no clear
cut winner and a Grand Coalition was formed between the two largest parties
with Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) becoming Chancellor
and the SPD playing a secondary but major role. The CDU led by Chancellor
Angela Merkel is vehemently against the Atomausstieg but their plans to
overturn the Atomausstieg are being blocked by their coalition partner the SPD,
who see it as a major part of their policy. Indeed the current Federal Minister for
the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel, is total obsessed that an anti-nuclear future is
the single way forward, just like his predecessor. Sadly both never produced any
pragmatic alternative and a lot of money has been wasted on unpractical
technologies, such as giving supply contracts for 20 years for the feed in of
renewable power at four times the market rate.
So over a decade of anti-nuclear ideology had dominated the halls of the Federal
Ministry for the Environment and it shows. Like all organisations driven by an
ideological rather than a rational approach if you don’t toe the party line you get
pushed to one side or find you can’t stomach the ethics and leave for new
pastures. The result is publications like the terrace heaters started to dominate
and the public are fed half truths and even false information! Personally I had
turned away from using the website of the Ministry of the Environment
(www.bmu.de) and that of the Federal Environment Agency (www.uba.de) as a
useful source of information on environmental protection – they were just
increasingly becoming unbalanced.

On the 28th June 2007 there was a short circuit in one of the two transformers
feeding power out of the nuclear power station in Krümmel near Hamburg.

It is not as if transformer problems and resulting fires are uncommon, they are
not, something similar happened shortly afterwards in Clondalkin in Dublin and
left the area without power for over a day. In Krümmel the second transformer
immediately tripped and the plant went into an emergency shut-down. Just like
an aborted take-off for pilots something that the operators train regularly for. In
28 minutes the plant was shut down. The fire at the side of the building raged for
some hours, if you apply too much water to transformer fires a bit of a mess can
result as the oil contaminated fire water is an environmental hazard, it has to be
fought carefully over a period of time to minimise the volume of fire water.

Transformer fire in Nuclear Power plant Krümmel in June 2007

From a technical perspective all went well, the reactor was brought to safety and
as far as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog, was
concerned it didn’t even enter the 1 to 7 scale of nuclear accidents (INES), i.e. it
was a zero. But then the absurdity of the politics came into play. The SPD Social
Minister for the province Schleswig Holstein, Gitta Trauernicht, who was
competent for nuclear safety in the region but by training a social scientist, and
the Federal Minister for the Environment Sigmar Gabriel were soon on the job –
this was not a technical issue but raw political capital! Vattenfall the operator was
accused of having withheld important information, that there was no evidence to
support this was irrelevant; perception is everything in politics and the media.
After years of unfair abuse from the anti-nuclear fanatics the engineers took a
defensive attitude to these false accusations, the media reacted as always – to
emotions and not to the facts presented! It got to the stage that the police
officially investigated negligence related to death and injuries that had been
concealed, the source a report in one of the papers! The reality; on the 28th June
four hours before the incident a craft worker had cut his finger using a drill and
had gone to the first aid service to get a plaster, then he went back to work. That
was the only entry in the medical book that day.

It is painful and distressing to see a country that was such a centre of technical
excellence dragged down to this level of stupidity. In autumn 2008 I was in
Central Europe watching the main 9:45 German news on the State Broadcaster
ZDF, it then rolled into a political debate over the nuclear phase out. It
descended into a total farce. The Christian Democrat Minister for Economics
was presenting the case for the continuity of nuclear power given soaring energy
prices and unstable international sources. The opponents from the Socialists and
Greens were winding up the emotional arguments to high revs. One lady political
figure made a forceful statement about the hundreds of thousand of deaths from
Chernobyl, the representative from the German nuclear industry quietly
answered that she was exaggerating many times over, the camera swung away
from him and the moderator, Germany’s version of Ireland’s John Bowman,
mumbled something. Then it went straight back to the emotional high revs.

I’ve worked in the Ukraine for seven months, more about Chernobyl later, but the
only one who was speaking the truth was the industry representative, the
moderator hadn’t bothered to do her preparation or didn’t care because it would
spoil the ‘story’. I turned it off – it was a world which was created in 4,004 BC
and was revolved by the sun, I didn’t belong there!

But one has to hope that maybe sense will prevail, going through Frankfurt
Airport on the 27th February 2009 I picked up a free copy of Die Welt, the
German equivalent of the Irish Independent, the bottom of the front page “ein
bisschen Plebiszeit”, a bit of a plebiscite, lightened my step that day. Sigmar
Gabriel had used the website of his Federal Ministry of the Environment at the
beginning of the week to conduct an on-line plebiscite, presumably to legitimise
his anti-nuclear ideology. 14,723 hits had been recorded of which 57% wanted to
get rid of the legislation phasing out nuclear power (Atomasustieg), only 28%
wanted it kept as already agreed. The poll had disappeared from the website by
the Wednesday!

Germany is facing Federal elections in September 2009; the energy debate is

playing a major role. Let us hope it will be based on sense and not ideology and
that going forward that those who supply the energy with the lowest
environmental impact, lowest cost and best safety record are no longer treated
as total outcasts to be insulted for political and financial capital!
6. ECO-NONSENSE IRISH STYLE - INCINERATORS
Summary: There is so much Eco-Nonsense in Ireland that for practical purpose
I had to break it into two sections, the first on incineration and the second on
nuclear energy.

With regard to incineration the defining moment in Ireland occurred in 1988 when
the farmer John Hanrahan won compensation of approximately 1 million Euro
from the Irish Courts from the pharmaceutical company Merck Sharpe & Dohme.
Extensive animal ill health had occurred on his farm which was attributed to the
nearby pharmaceutical production facility, which operated a small incineration
plant. It was a classic David versus Goliath case, which as it included the
incineration element became a rallying cry for Greenpeace and the anti-
incineration movement.

The reality of the case was actually very disturbing, there was no scientific
evidence of pollution, admittedly some odour episodes did occur from the facility,
but John Hanrahan was the only one in the area claiming adverse health effects.
The case was dismissed but brought to appeal. The decision to award
compensation was based on the principle of nuisance that had been established
in Victorian Britain where a dam had caused a mine to flood. A few years later a
similar case was brought by a Scottish farmer against a nearby hazardous waste
incinerator. The court there established that the animal ill health was due to
overfeeding by the farmer in order to boost milk production and income. In 2006
the Irish Government officials removed around 500 animals from the farm of
John Hanrahan, acting because of potentially serious welfare issues caused by a
lack of animal feed.

However, the word incinerator had entered the Irish psyche and had become a
rallying cry for politicians and the media. What then began to occur with the
planning of the necessary waste infrastructure for the country became
increasingly shameful. Planning decisions were made refusing permission for
waste infrastructure projects that met all EU environmental and safety criteria.
Indeed it became increasingly evident that the Planning Appeals Board, An Bord
Pleanála, was acting outside of EU legislation and scientific principles with
regard to repeated refusals to approve the necessary waste infrastructure for the
country.

While this may have a short term populist payback with regard to media and
political interests, the longer term consequences are devastating. Ireland has in
2009 singularly failed to meet its environmental targets for waste infrastructure,
this is leading to excessive pollution and production of greenhouse gases. Major
fines of hundreds of thousand of Euros per day are applicable from 2010 as the
targets set for 2009 in the Landfill Directive have not been met due to the
complete reliance in 2009 on landfill as a disposal method. Worse, private
companies which had prepared perfectly reasonable waste treatment projects for
planning permission at considerable expense had been turned down on
increasingly spurious grounds. Ireland can no longer be seen as a rational
choice for investment as the planning process has not followed scientific
principles and EU legislation - there are better jurisdictions to be considered for
industrial investment.
The American company Merck Sharpe & Dohme, then the world' s second
largest manufacturer of drugs, opened in June 1976 a factory in Ballydine, near
Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, to produce sulindac (then the world' s fourth
largest selling drug) and Indocid (then the sixth). This was really part of the
nucleus of the high technology manufacturing sector that went on to drive
Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’. About two years later John Hanrahan, a farmer located
about a mile away, claimed the ill health his animals were suffering was due to
the plant and in particular the incinerator located on the site for the combustion
of the solvent waste. The company and the local and national authorities refused
to accept Hanrahan' s claim that the plant was causing the problem. By 1985,
when Hanrahan took Merck, Sharpe and Dohme to the High Court in Ireland, he
was claiming that over 220 of his once prized dairy herd had died as a result of
the firms activities and his own family were suffering severe health effects.

Four Courts in Dublin

Hanrahan lost his case in the High Court but in 1988 he won a compensation
settlement of 800,000 Irish Pounds (approx. 1 million Euros) after an appeal to
the Supreme Court on ‘the balance of probabilities’. The decision sent shock
waves around the world; it had all the ingredients of the perfect story. David the
small farmer being poisoned and put out of business by Goliath the evil and
polluting multi-national! It certainly became a rallying cry for the Eco-warriors,
like Greenpeace, who revelled in showing photographic evidence from the farm,
such as the one of the dog below:

Dog on Hanrahan’s farm – source Greenpeace

But what really happened? We can start with the dog for instance! I spent about
7 months in Romania between 2001 and 2007 assisting them implement the EU
industrial pollution control and major accident hazards legislation as part of their
accession process. The legacy of Ceau escu was visible not only in the
buildings in the centre of Bucharest but in the large number of stray dogs that
wandered the streets, a consequence of the city clearance that had occurred in
order to build his mega-project. There were lots of dogs such as the above and
often they hunted in packs. Indeed a German colleague got bitten once and had
to go to the hospital for the full rabies treatment. The ‘go getting’ Mayor of
Bucharest wanted to round them up and put them down, but a protest movement
led by Brigitte Bardot was slowing down this process! We must of course in
these circumstances acknowledge once again that the celebrities and media
know best - but I certainly know a scraggy maltreated dog when I see one!

Were Merck blameless? There were incidents of smells from the plant and they
did not operate the incineration unit in the stringent manner that is now
mandatory, particularly with regard to the minimum temperature. But a lot of
things were culturally acceptable in those days that would be looked upon in
horror now, for instance there were an awful lot less cars on the roads in Ireland
then but the annual death toll was of the order of 50% higher than what it is now
in 2009!

However, traces of dioxins were found on the farm, as the analytical equipment
to detect to such trace levels was now just becoming available. Was there any
significance to this? Dioxins are found everywhere in Ireland. The background
levels are higher in the city areas due to traffic and house fires, etc. In the
countryside levels are very low and according to the Swedish expert Prof.
Rappe, who did the first Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dioxin survey of
milk samples in Ireland, the isomer fingerprint seems to indicate the USA as the
main source. Note “Dioxins” is a collective term for the category of 75
polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxin compounds (PCDDs) and 135
polychlorinated dibenzofuran compounds (PCDFs). Seventeen of these PCDD
and PCDF compounds are considered likely to be of toxicological significance.
The most toxic of these is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD).

However, it is important to stress that the toxic responses are dose related.
2,3,7,8-TCDD is now listed on the International Association for Research on
Cancer’s (IARC) high risk list that contains about 100 compounds. The IARC is a
division of the World Health Organisation (WHO) based in Lyon, France.
However, alcoholic beverages are also on the same list, the dose being the
critical factor, for example alcohol in excessive quantities can lead to liver
damage and cancerous growths. However, if consumed in moderation none of
these complications arise.

Traces of dioxins have always been present in the environment, from such as
naturally occurring fires or even volcanoes. Indeed it is clearly understood that
the combustion of damp wood, particularly if it is salt laden from coastal areas,
will lead to dioxin formation. Poor combustion from industrial sources, particularly
when organic materials and chlorine compounds were burned together, did lead
to a detectable rise in dioxin levels as a result of industrialisation.
Examples of such poor combustion sources included older generation
incineration plants or some metallurgical operations such as smelting and scrap
metal recovery furnaces. Other sources were more diffuse, such as emissions
from leaded fuels or from bonfires and the illegal burning of domestic waste.
Diffuse sources, such as back yard burning, are now the largest contributor of
emissions in the EU. Indeed the EPA’s own report of 2000 on dioxin emissions in
Ireland concluded that more than half the emissions could be attributed to the
domestic burning of waste.

We now have analytical equipment that can regularly detect dioxins at one part
in a trillion. A trillion is a very, very big number; one part in a trillion is equivalent
to a second in 33,000 years! While toxic responses to dioxin poisoning include
dermal effects, immunotoxicity and carcinogenicity, as well as reproductive and
developmental toxicity, one has to receive a large dose of dioxins before the
effects start to occur and the levels found on Hanrahan’s farm were only typical
of background concentrations. Indeed the EPA has been measuring dioxins in
milk samples since the mid-nineties; cattle graze on grass and any dioxins
present are transferred into the milk fat of the lactating cow. The dioxin results in
the milk samples from the Ballydine area are actually one of the lowest in
Europe.

Shortly after I finished my project in the Ukraine in 2003, Viktor Yuschenko, the
opposition leader, was deliberately poisoned with some form of dioxin related
compound. He developed the classic symptoms of dioxin poisoning, chloroacne,
as is shown below; chloroacne is severe acne of the upper body and face. Yet
he managed to steer the opposition through the Orange Revolution in 2004 and
as the photo below of President Yuschenko in April 2007 shows, this chloroacne,
as is customary, clears up after about 2 years. He has a somewhat slightly
higher risk of developing cancer at a later stage, but so do smokers and those
who live in close proximity to their habit! Unfortunately dioxins have long since
become a political and media event rather than an environmental issue of any
significance.

Viktor Yuschenko – before and after dioxin poisoning

President Yuschenko in April 2007

So coming back to the Hanrahan farm there was never any scientific evidence
found to prove that the emissions from the plant were having any impact on the
farm animals or the health of his family, which is why the case was dismissed in
the High Court.

Let us skip back forward again, in this case to June 1998, to the city of Aarhus in
Denmark, which gave its name to the “Convention on Access to Information,
Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental
Matters”. A Convention relating to the United Nations Economic Commission for
Europe and seen as significantly strengthening democracy in Europe. So where
does it stand over 10 years later in 2009?

Ireland is in fact a signatory to the Aarhus Convention, but has not formally
ratified it, the only one of the 26 of the current 27 Member States that has yet to
ratify it. As Ireland was holding up the whole EU ratification process it came to a
position in September 2007 that the EU had to draft a note setting down in
writing certain explanations given verbally, such that Ireland will be obliged to
respect the commitments arising from the Convention where they concern
provisions falling within the competence of the Community. Nevertheless, this
obligation has an impact solely on Community legal order.

Ok, it is a very sensible Convention in which the public has a right to

environmental information, public participation in decision making and to appeal
a decision. In other words if you don’t like a proposed project you can get
involved and even take it through the courts. But that is where the problem lies!
The EU commissioned a report on the system of justice in each Member State to
see if it met the requirements of the Aarhus Convention, the Irish one is below:

Report Commission by EU on Access to Justice in Ireland and issued July

2007
There are major problems with the Legal System in Ireland, particular the huge
costs and timeframes involved but also the variability in interpretation, much of it
which must be due to the power of the Courts to exercise their discretion. The
Legal System in Ireland is therefore a significant impediment to access to justice
and may arguably be in breach of the Aarhus Convention. Clearly the other 26
Member States have a better system!

So let us wind back the clock to the Victorians again. In Lancashire in the UK in
the 1860s John Rylands constructed a reservoir on land he was renting to supply
water to his steam-powered textile mill. Thomas Fletcher operated mines on
nearby land and had tunnelled up to old disused mines which were under the
land where Rylands'reservoir was located. The reservoir started to fill and water
entered the mine and flooded it, so Fletcher sued Rylands and1868 produced
the landmark case Rylands v Fletcher that went as far as the British House of
Lords. The application and interpretation of the Rylands rule has been an
important step in the development of legal policy in the British based legal
system relating to modern industry, risk allocation, liability and negligence.

In the case of Hanrahan the appeal process used this Victorian case law as
criteria for concluding that Merck had caused a ‘nuisance’ to the nearby farm. As
a scientist I was fascinated as to what was the scientific basis for this. From the
Court transcripts it is clear that they were appalling weak! Exposure to high
levels of solvents, such as the use of solvent based paints or dry cleaning fluids
in an inappropriate manner, can cause respiratory ailments such as sensitisation
or asthmatic related complications. Hanrahan visited a ‘specialist’ in Dublin about
his respiratory health, this specialist then testified that exposure to solvents can
cause such respiratory illnesses. There are many other causes for the same
illnesses. Furthermore Merck would have to be emitting many tonnes of the
solvent a day to create the relevant concentrations at the Hanrahan farm, this
was clearly not the case. In addition the fact that nobody else in the plant or the
surrounding area was suffering solvent related impacts didn’t enter the judicial
decision. Merck were guilty of the crime of (malodorous) nuisance and Hanrahan
was compensated. Unfortunately the public were convinced that the incinerator
had caused all the cattle deaths!

Was Hanrahan the dinner date suffering from some form of delusions and / or
obsessive compulsive disorder? I never met the man myself but scientific people
who were involved at the time have always reported to me that Merck had
become an all engulfing obsession to him. It was also silly, by claiming in a legal
process that severe poisoning had occurred to his livestock, the dairy to which
he supplied his milk had no option but to break their milk contract with him. The
other farmers in the same area weren’t experiencing any problems and stayed in
profitable business.

Indeed in March 2006 the Department of Agriculture and Food officials began to
remove around 500 animals from the farm of John Hanrahan, near Carrick-on-
Suir, Co Tipperary. The Department said it was acting because of potentially
serious welfare issues caused by a lack of animal feed.
However, after the legal award of compensation in Ireland the anti-incineration
bandwagon was now in full swing. In Scotland the dairy farmers Andrew and
Irene Graham were claiming in the early eighties that the nearby Rechem
hazardous waste incinerator at Bonnybridge was the cause of death and ill
health in their herd. In June 1995 the High Court reached its decision after what
was then the longest piece of continuous civil litigation in English legal history,
the judge said the incinerator “did not emit PCBs, dioxins or furans in anything
other than negligible quantities throughout its operational life”. He said the cattle
died of Fat Cow Syndrome, caused by overfeeding by the Grahams in order to
boost milk production and their income.

Rechem' s defence costs totalled 4.5 million pounds, the Crown picked up a
similar bill for the legal aid costs alone and Greenpeace, who had been winding
up the case as a follow on to their ‘success’ with Hanrahan quietly dropped the
word Graham from their vocabulary.

In Ireland the Hanrahan case was a major incentive to implement environmental

legislation as it showed how fragmented our system of controls really was, not
unsurprisingly as much of it was relating to Victorian legislation. As mentioned
already with regard to Mary Harney the former Minister of the Environment and
the smog clearance, the 1987 Air Pollution Act that drove these measures was
based on the EU air quality directives and the 84/360/EEC directive that
established the regulation of air pollution from industrial plants. However, Ireland
was doing even better than that, in 1992 we adopted our Environmental
Protection Agency Act that not only established our EPA but brought in a system
of integrated pollution control, a system that was only being developed at the
European level at that time and was not formally adopted until 1996 as Directive
96/61/EC on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control. A system that is still
with us today and which I have spent 15 years introducing around Europe – it
works!

However, not everything was so sensible, granted a number of industrial plants

had to be upgraded or shut down and replaced as a consequence of the tighter
emissions standards in the Air Pollution Act, but what happened to the company
operating a medical waste incinerator near the Poolbeg ESB power station was
a shameful episode in Irish regulatory affairs. This company was going to shut
down its non-complaint medical waste incinerator in the early nineties and
replace it with a modern one meeting the German 17.BImSchV standard. The
usual Eco-warrriors and media friends turned up for the gig but An Bord
Pleanála, the Irish planning appeals agency, refused them permission for the
construction of the new unit as while they were in an industrial zone it was not
zoned for ‘special industry’.

The Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 85/337/EEC did

require an EIA for a project of this nature but there is no such thing in legislation
as a ‘special industry’ zone. It was basically a regulator making a decision that
complied with the political flavour rather than the technical content. When this
happens we are on the road deep into Eco-nonsense.
In the mid-nineties when the BSE crises first broke out I was doing trials on
combustion of meat and bone meal in Switzerland at the research site of a major
Swiss incinerator manufacturer– very successful trials they were too. It was no
longer possible to feed this material to other animals but it is an excellent fuel,
about one and a half times the energy content of peat. However, with the
decisions that were being made by the planning authorities and the battle one
would have with the media and certain politicians over the construction of such a
simple combustion plant, it just made sense for private companies to put their
investment money elsewhere. As a consequence the meat and bone meal just
piled up in Government paid storage and was then shipped at taxpayer’s
expense to Germany for incineration – they loved it there, got paid top Euro and
it had a great energy value for heat and power generation.

In 1999 I started working on Indaver’s municipal incineration project for County

Meath. The diggers finally went in to the construction site in mid 2008, nine years
and an estimate 20 million Euros later. Hats of to them for sticking with it and
patiently working with the public relations exercise despite the total abuse thrown
at them by those campaigning to shut down allegedly ‘Dirty Technologies’ on
our behalf. For instance Dan Boyle of the Green Party, now a Senator but
formally a TD for Cork, states on his website with regard to Indaver’s Cork
project:

“Neither is this likely decision surprising in view of the fact that the Director
General of the EPA, Dr Mary Kelly, has gone on record stating that she favours
incineration. We also note that the most recently appointed director of the
agency Laura Burke is a recent employee of the very company, Indaver, which is
seeking this waste licence.”

“What faith can the general public have in a fair and impartial Environmental
Protection Agency when policy seems pre-determined and the Agency does not
seem to genuinely address public concerns on such issues of high controversy
and environmental consequence,” concluded Deputy Boyle.

We live in a democracy; if the Irish Green Party and their disciples want to ban
incineration then they can get elected to the majority in Europe and change the
current scientifically based legislation. It is also necessary to point out that
Senator Boyle and his Party do not offer any alternative to incineration nor
acknowledge to the public that over a dozen incinerators are already operating
without any problems in the country. Senator Boyle may prefer re-cycling but not
everything is capable of being recycled or makes economic sense or
environmental sense to be recycled. The net result is we as a nation break the
EU ‘Proximity Principle’. This is clearly defined in Directive 2006/12/EC on waste
in that the “Community as a whole should become self-sufficient in waste
disposal and the Member States to move towards that aim individually, taking
into account geographical circumstances or the need for specialised installations
for certain types of waste”. This is a clause that was first introduced into
European law in 1991 as part of Directive 1991/156/EEC. In reality some of our
waste material ends up in China making a return trip in the containers that
supply our imports from that country. Why don’t Senator Boyle and his Green
Party ban all export of waste to avoid this waste tourism and let it accumulate on
our shores instead?
It is not in the EPA’s remit to address public concerns other than in keeping with
the current EU and National Legislation. This is because the EPA is strictly non-
political. Therefore their role is to implement the legislation correctly and not
make decisions to get one sort of political creed or another elected to well paid
jobs. Particular when the output of some of those politicians is solely to generate
“high controversy” where no actual “environmental consequences” exist using a
media that has no controls enforced on it and has an insatiable appetite for such
controversy.The EPA in contrast to An Bord Pleanála (The Planning Appeals
Board) makes its decisions against recognised and pre-established standards.
The EPA has been challenged a number of times through the courts over its
decisions but has won every case both against environmentalists and against
the Irish Farmers Association who wanted lower standards to apply to pig farms.

It is also necessary to point out that EU legislation does not ban incineration but
on the contrary actually provides standards for its use, the latest one being
Directive 2000/76/EC. In addition to the 77 municipal incinerators now operating
in Germany, incineration is widely used in Denmark, Sweden, Luxemburg, the
Netherlands, Belgium and France, all countries with impressive environmental
credentials. In Denmark the first waste incinerator was built in 1903 to supply the
local hospital with energy. Much later, in 1993, it was decided that waste should
be preferred to other fuels when producing heat as a by-product of electrical
power generation. Land filling of waste suitable for incineration was banned in
1997. In 2005 waste incineration producing heat and electricity supplied 4% of
the total energy consumption in Denmark. The quantity of waste in the EU that is
incinerated continues to increase as Member States move away from landfill.

In September 2008 I was back on the Leuna integrated chemical site near
Leipzig, which has had an amazingly successful remediation programme
completed to clean up the residues left behind by the East German (DDR) heavy
industry that had been based on Hitler’s coal to petroleum fuels plants. I had just
missed the site’s public open day but got a chance to read the information
booklet. They had started the design and permitting of a new combined industrial
and municipal waste incineration plant in 2002. It was already operational and
was receiving two train loads a day of baled municipal waste from Naples. Not
only were they getting top Euro for it but it was supplying heat and power into the
site and reducing the expenditure that otherwise would have had to have gone
on buying fuels, it was also far better than having the waste rot in illegal dumps
around Naples. Sense and not Eco-nonsense!

Unfortunately all the time we were in Ireland diving deeper into the Eco-
nonsense. The picture overleaf is again of Poolbeg, but this time showing the
Waste Water Treatment Plant for Dublin.
 Treatment Plant

Dublin City Waste Water Treatment Plant at Poolbeg

One of the key EU Directives on the Environment is the 1991 Directive on urban
waste water (91/271/EEC). This required cities and municipalities around the EU
to meet mandatory discharge limits and has resulted in massive investment in
waste water treatment facilities followed by very real improvements in water
quality – the improvement in Dublin Bay being only one of many examples. As
the Sewer network of the city drains into the Ringsend next to the Poolbeg power
station then this is where the treatment plant had to be built, in fact a complete
rebuild of the previous crude treatment plant to install advanced biological
treatment.

How does biological treatment work? Essentially the contaminants are treated as
nutrients by the micro-organisms and are eaten by them. In the process the
micro-organisms grow, this is called excess production of activated sludge. The
plant at Dublin has a capacity of 1.7 million Population Equivalent, where a
Population Equivalent is 0.06 kg/day of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD).
About 50% of the BOD ends up as sludge, so there is a lot of it. The schematic
below shows what they do in the City of London in Canada, a far smaller city
than its namesake in the UK.
Essentially they incinerate the sludge and if the incinerator is unavailable they
dry it and sent it to landfill. For instance Belfast has a nice sludge incinerator
burning 24,000 tonnes of sewage sludge per year and the unit is in 2009 being
doubled in size. The heat generated feeds the drying process and is also used to
generate power. This is standard practice in other cities around Europe.

Sludge Incinerator in Belfast

But for political reasons this wasn’t possible in Poolbeg, after all the area was in
limbo after the decision on the medical waste incinerator by An Bord Pleanála a
few years before. So big sludge dryers were built, it is normal to digest the
sludge to break it down further and to kill some of the pathogenic content but
when huge volumes of hot air are then passed over the digested sludge to dry it
there is only going to be one result – huge volumes of malodorous air coming out
the other side. Can this be treated? Well there are chemical scrubbing
techniques but they are at best about 95% effective in destroying the odour,
there are other technologies that exceed 99.99% effectiveness but they are
incinerators!

So the waste water treatment plant in Dublin went into operation and while
odours were not there all the time they did occur regularly. The result was that
we had the ‘know alls’ in the Sandymount and Ringsend area and their political
representatives, who had been responsible for the anti-incineration gig a few
years before now complaining about the smell!

Remember the third principle of environmental protection from before:

• Don’t just transfer it from one medium to another – it will always

come back to haunt you and remember the ‘Polluter pays!’

If you incinerate sewage sludge you can get useful heat and power and even
better the material is destroyed. However, what were they going to do with the
sludge in Dublin as there was no incinerator? Instead a big marketing campaign
went on for the dried sludge to be used as a fertiliser, called Biofert. In reality
there are only certain times of the year that material can be spread on land and
the farmers were quite rightly not too enthusiastic about spreading it on their
land, so it ended up in sheds on a ‘farm’ in County Carlow. The EPA then
prosecuted because there was no waste management licence for the ‘farm’.
The 2004 Directive on Environmental Liability (2004/35/EC) is new and powerful
legislation that is still in its implementation stage throughout Europe. Indeed
while some of the Candidate Member States, such as Croatia have implemented
it, many of the older Member States have missed the 30 April 2007 deadline for
bringing into force the necessary laws and administrative provisions. In addition
while Article 130r of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, enshrined the ‘Polluter Pays
Principle’ into EU law, due to the complexity and far reaching implications of
environmental liability, it took a further 15 years to develop this legislation.
Essentially under the Directive on Environmental Liability an operator whose
activity has caused the environmental damage or imminent threat of such
damage can be held financially liable. This has the purpose to induce operators
to adopt measures and develop practices to minimise the risks of environmental
damage so that their exposure to financial liabilities is reduced.

Again coming back to those campaigning to shut down allegedly ‘Dirty

Technologies’ on our behalf, the constituency area of Sandymount and
Ringsend, is represented in the Irish Parliament by the current (2009) Green
Party leader and Minister for the Environment, John Gormley. He has been a
consistent anti-incineration campaigner and with his Party has consistently acted
to prevent the implementation of EU legislation relating to waste infrastructure.
Indeed his power base in the Sandymount / Ringsend has been based on a no
incineration campaign there, which is a pity as when they are built the people
won’t notice any difference except for the improved environment, such as no
odours. In the Summer of 2008, more than a year after the Directive on
Environmental Liability should have been implemented the Department of the
Environment had an official consultation on the Directive, but specifically
excluded the issue of sewage sludge in the consultation.

This was fascinating as the EU was in the final stages of preparing a Framework
Directive on Soil. Soil is very important; it is where most of our food comes from
and if you don’t look after soil you could end up with the devastating dust bowls
experienced in the US prairies in the thirties. If you put contaminants on soil they
will just accumulate and affect the soil quality and there are plenty of recognised
contaminants in sewage sludge. If we consider the “Opinion of the European
Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on the Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the
protection of soil and amending Directive 2004/35/EC” (2007/C 168/0086 COD),
it has very strong words about the practice of spreading sewage sludge on land,
such as:

• “Far too little is known about the content of chemical pollutants in

general, how they interact and how they affect soil and food safety
when spread on cultivated land. The EESC takes this very seriously
and would refer to a study presented by two researchers in The Lancet
in November 2006. Although this is a one-off study the results show that
well-known contaminates can have a hitherto unnoticed effect on brain
development in foetuses and small children. The researchers believe
that this could be linked to serious conditions such as autism, ADHD
and retarded development. Many of these chemicals also occur in
household products. In various ways they end up in sewage systems
and we know far too little about how they affect the soil when sludge
has been used as a fertiliser”.
We are now moving from Eco-nonsense into an area of outright criminal
irresponsibility. The Irish Authorities are still promoting the use Biofert, take for
instance the Ear to the Ground Television Programme on the State Broadcaster
RTE on 6th November 2008. Yet if we look at the terms of the Directive on
Environmental Liability, if this land spreading was causing environmental
damage then a member of the public could request the Competent Authority to
initiate an enforcement case against the farmer and the financial costs of
remedying the damage would have to be carried by the farmer or his liability
insurance.

Yet the whole the whole circus just keeps rolling on! A company, College
Proteins in County Meath, who want to incinerate their meat and bone meal as
they can no longer use it as animal feed are in summer 2009 trying to get
planning permission. A big show case Oral Hearing is planned by An Bord
Pleánala. Exactly what needs to be discussed in this Oral Hearing I do not know,
we have been down this circus route so many times and it is the EPA that is
responsible for the environmental licensing. However, in Ireland people get
elected to well paid jobs by having high profiles campaigning to shut down
allegedly ‘Dirty Technologies’ on our behalf. As far as the European Parliament
Committee on Petitions was concerned when petitioned in late 2008 on College
Proteins by John Keogan of North East Against Incineration:

“As the information provided stands, the Commission cannot identify any breach
of EC environmental legislation. However, should the petitioner be able to
communicate to the Committee on Petitions additional information, the
Commission would then re-examine the case”.

So somebody can recognise a dinner date suffering from some form of delusions
and / or obsessive compulsive disorder and say it diplomatically. I wish College
Proteins well, after all I saw this technology working perfectly back in the mid-
nineties, but I would not be willing to put hard earned cash into what has now
become a planning appeals board whose staff are irresponsible and no longer
restricting their behaviour to scientific principles and EU and National Legislation.

If we take Indaver’s Cork project the inspector from An Bord Pleánala

recommended refusal in 2004 on several accounts, such as there was inclusion
of technical terminology in the non-technical summary of the Environmental
Impact Assessment. According to him the Board was not satisfied that “the
proposed development would not pose significant risks to public safety in the
event of major accident hazard”. But industrial safety is the responsibility of the
Health and Safety Authority. As a specialist who has helped implement the EU
Major Accident Hazard Legislation in several Candidate Member States, it is
total embarrassing as an Irish person to read the inspectors report and the
description of that Oral Hearing. Not unsurprisingly as the inspector was
professionally unqualified in that field it is clear that he was hopelessly
inexperienced in the subject matter and could not differentiate between what was
a significant and an insignificant risk, this form of screening is a key requirement
of EU industrial safety legislation.
Furthermore the inspector was critical in his formal recommendation to the Board
that the local emergency planning did not contain an evacuation plan for the
area, indeed this was a recommendation for refusal of planning permission. In
reality the cardinal rule in emergency planning is “Go In – Stay In – Tune In”, you
don’t evacuate!!! For instance Basel in Switzerland has three large chemical
plants in the city centre and seven other smaller sites, a city that is a major
transportation hub for rail, road, river and air traffic. Nowhere else on the world is
there such a concentration of chemical plants, residential areas and traffic
infrastructure so close together as in Basel. Furthermore the city lies in a
recognised earthquake zone, which destroyed the city in 1356. There is no
evacuation plan for any of the city regions. However, even the traders in the city
centre market know that if the sirens go in the adjacent chemical plant there is a
refuge place for them inside the nearby public buildings.

So the whole decision making process in the Indaver oral hearing was based on
the knowledge base of the popular press rather than the combination of scientific
knowledge and the legislative base established at EU level. This stupidity and
ignorance costs companies huge sums of money, they would get proper respect
for it in other jurisdictions! In 2004 Indaver got lucky and the Board overturned
the inspector’s recommendations.

Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way for the municipal incineration project that
was planned for West Dublin (N7). There were three reasons given for refusal of
this project in early 2009, the first was actually protecting the monopoly of Dublin
City unit that had received all final approvals at the end of 2008. The second was
related to traffic access, believe it or not putting some extra trucks on a six lane
dual carriage way primary route, but the third was a direct abuse of scientific
principles:

• “The Board is not satisfied that sufficiently accurate data has been used
in the modelling or that the models can reliably predict the effect of
process emissions on ambient air quality close to the proposed stack.
The proposed development would constitute an unacceptable risk of
pollution of the environment and would, therefore, be unacceptable on
environmental grounds having regard to the proper planning and
sustainable development of the area”.

N7 Resource Recovery Project (Municipal Waste Incinerator) refused

planning by An Bord Pleánala – are large tracks of Ireland being turned
into a National Park on behalf of the Horse Racing Industry?
The issue of emissions from industrial facilities is a matter for the EPA through
the IPPC licensing process and not the planners, who clearly from their
inspectors’ reports are not professionally competent in this technical area. For
more than three decades computer models have been used to predict emissions
from stacks, the complex models have been continuously refined and they are
based on actual measurements. For instance twenty years ago they used to
release radioactive tracers along the Atlantic seaboard and track them as the low
pressure systems took them into Eastern Europe. These models are
conservative, they over predict ground level concentrations by a factor of at least
two, we know that because continuous ambient air quality monitors have been
installed outside many industrial facilities and actual results can be cross
referenced to the modelling results. An example of this was the Irish Sugar plant
in Mallow where the computer predictions submitted as part of the EPA licensing
application showed significant exceedences of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen
oxides ground level concentrations but actual monitoring by the company
demonstrated values that were comfortably below the ambient air quality limits
set by EU Directives.

It is increasingly clear that An Bord Pleánala do not have the technical

knowledge in the areas that they are now exercising a right to refuse a project. In
layman’s terms it is disturbing with regard to industrial pollution control and
industrial risk management that they cannot see the ‘wood from the trees’
because they are simply not professionally qualified, nor do they take the advice
of the specialists in the EPA and Health and Safety Authority that are the
designated Competent Authority in these areas. Even worse and more disturbing
is that it is abundantly clear that An Bord Pleánala is now making decisions
outside the scope of both EU and National Legislation.

As discussed already one of the ‘Themes and Targets’ of the 5th European
Action Programme that ended in 2000 was waste management. We now have
targets to meet, such as those that have been set in the 1999 Landfill Directive.
Ireland is rapidly facing a position where by 2010 fines for non-compliance with a
range of environmental targets relating to waste and wastewater can be applied
by the EU courts. Indeed according to Indaver, a fine of up to 750,000 Euro per
day is possible due to Ireland’s failure to meet mandatory targets set by the
Landfill Directive. It is sad that An Bord Pleánala have consistently obstructed
companies that have at their own expense put forward perfectly good projects to
meet these targets. These companies know the legislative requirements and as
the sums of money in these projects are so large prepare highly professional
planning applications. They are being turned down for more and more obscure
reasons that are now increasingly outside the legislative basis that our
democratic society has chosen as its system of law.

There are many examples of this. As mentioned already we have a large meat
industry that produces by-products in the form of offal. The use of incineration
technology for the combustion of meat and bone meal has been obstructed in
Ireland by An Bord Pleánala, so Green Organics Energy Limited proposed
instead to construct a Biogas and Biodiesel facility at Rosegreen, Cashel, Co.
Tipperary using anaerobic digestion of animal and other organic waste produced
in the area. An Bord Pleánala refused permission in 2008 stating:

• “The site of the proposed development is located in open countryside in

an area of national importance for the bloodstock industry alongside a
major horse training establishment. It is the policy of the planning
authority, as set out in the current South Tipperary Development Plan,
 to support the equine industry. It is also the policy of the Government to
support the equine industry. It is considered that the proposed
development of this large scale industrial type facility at this location,
employing the particular technology on the scale proposed, having
regard to its nature, scale and visual impact, would be incompatible with
equine related activities in the area (including undermining confidence
therein)”.

There was no scientific evidence that the proposed technology, widely used
around Europe, would “seriously injure the amenities of the area” or even the
health of the horses. But let us forget about science and consider our legislation.
We have targets to meet for waste and we can neither shut down our meat
industry nor continue to break the Proximity Principle on waste. The fact that we
are facing major fines clearly demonstrates that we are not compliant with EU
waste policy.

In the veterinary field, the efforts of the Community are mainly geared towards
protecting the health of animals and consequently human health. Is the fact that
a horse may be a fraction of a second quicker over the length of a race course a
matter of animal health? No it is a performance related issue and totally outside
the scope of the legislation. Indeed there is no scientific proof or even valid
evidence that the proximity of an incinerator or an anaerobic digester would
cause that loss of performance! However, An Bord Pleánala despite failing to
provide any evidence of the above concluded that the development was
“incompatible with equine related activities in the area (including undermining
confidence therein)”. We may have a powerful horse racing lobby in Ireland but
we most certainly do not have legislation that requires large areas of the country
to be turned into a ‘National Park’ with restricted industrial development for the
purposed of thoroughbred horse breeding. An Bord Pleánala is essentially
promoting an industry that is characterised by tax avoidance and using this as a
justification to prevent the proper development of legally compliant companies
that do not meet the Irish criteria of ‘popularity’.

A friend and colleague on EU Technical Aid projects, a former director of the

EPA, is furious on how An Bord Pleánala has consistently obstructed the
development of a proper waste management infrastructure in Ireland. This
obstruction is restricted neither to isolated cases nor to incineration projects. In
remote Bangor Erris in North West Mayo a planning application was submitted in
2004 to convert the former Norsk Hydro peat processing facility to a plant for the
manufacturing of fuel and fertiliser products from peat biomass and recovered
non-hazardous sludge biomass. An Bord Pleánala refused planning permission
as there were expected to be 104 car movements, 8 tractor/trailer movements
and 11 Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) movements per day. Considerably less than
the 225 movements per day that occurred with the previous Norsk Hydro
operation.
Another company that applied in 2006 for an anaerobic digester and biogas
facility to treat the slurries and animal byproducts arising in the Munster area
was also turned down. The facility between Fermoy and Mitchelstown would
have produced 32 MW of renewable electrical power, over 40% of the output of
Ardnacrusha, our largest hydro-electrical plant. Where is this slurry and waste
going to go? It is obvious from the river monitoring completed by the EPA that
Ireland has a major problem with excess agricultural run-offs. This situation is
not helped by refusing planning permission for the facilities to treat this waste
because they are ‘industrial in nature’ and not scenic enough! Fine if we
properly designate areas by means of legislation as National Parks and restrict
development in them, but what is scenic? This is totally open to interpretation
and abuse and unlike the necessary treatment of waste is not regulated by
legislation. It is also incredible that An Bord Pleánala have already approved
approximately 3,500 MW of wind energy, equivalent to about 1,500 large
turbines, how scenic is that?

As far as my colleague is concerned this is ‘Power without Responsibility’. When

the EPA licenses a plant based on the demonstration by the operator of
compliance with the legislation and associated technical standards they have to
live with that responsibility, i.e. they have to ensure by means of inspection and
enforcement that the plant is compliant over its lifetime. In contrast An Bord
Pleánala is clearly making decisions that are not based on legislation or scientific
standards, but in many cases perceived popularity and political expediency. As a
result the country’s development in areas that are mandatory under legislation,
such as waste infrastructure, has been severely compromised. Do they or their
political masters care about the economic and environmental consequences of
these short sighted decisions?

From the perspective of industrial development Ireland is equivalent to the dinner

date that is suffering from such a severe form of delusions and / or obsessive
compulsive disorder that no matter how nice you are you are not going to get
anywhere, so you take somebody else out to dinner who is rational. Believe me
we may claim to have been the ‘Land of Saints and Scholars’ but we are now the
land of the neurotic, even our academics from the National University of Ireland
Maynooth are publishing in international journals, such as the Sociological
Review, publications such as Waste management in Ireland: discourses of
domination in an (un)reflexive society. The abstract of which, printed below,
can only be described as very, very strange!

“In recent times, Ireland has experienced dramatic changes in its economic
fortunes, primarily as a result of global / transnational processes. One result of
this dynamic modernity has been a greater public and political focus on its
environmental consequences, evident for instance in the issue of waste
management. Ulrich Beck' s highly influential writings on Reflexive Modernity
promise a seismic social transformation, where risks such as waste can be
negotiated through processes of self-confrontation and democratisation. Yet, this
has clearly not happened in the Irish case, where waste policy concentrates on
disposal rather than prevention options, governance processes are
characterised by power centralisation and marginalisation, and where certain
communities are engaged in campaigns of opposition to government plans.
This article argues that part of the problem in adapting Beck' s framework to Irish
waste is that it fails to account for an asymmetry of power relations, at both a
macro and micro level, and as a result, underestimates the tenacity of certain
societal elites to maintain the current trajectory of economic and technological
development. It is proposed here that the application of a Foucauldian
framework of a multi-dimensional framework of power can address some of
these shortcomings by offering a focus on issues of consent, coercion, self-
regulation (individualisation) and subjugation. In doing so, it is hoped that a novel
contribution can be made to the relatively under-developed field of sociology of
waste and offer a more general critique of Beck' s Reflexive Modernisation
thesis”.

The European Environment Agency’s publication on landfill in 2007 is clear in

that “in municipal waste management, landfilling of untreated waste is generally
the worst option for the environment because of its emissions of methane, its
long-term emissions to soils and groundwater as well as the loss of resources it
entails”. Ireland has in summer 2009 a 100% dependency on landfill and
companies that tried to change this, such as Indaver, have been continuously
obstructed.

Reduction in methane emissions from German landfills in million tonnes

for period 1990 to 2010

As was mentioned already the German TASi regulations of 1993 implemented

the phase out of landfilling of municipal by June 2005. As less biodegradable
waste was sent to landfill due to the resultant diversion to municipal incineration,
the methane production in the existing landfills slowed as the material was
biodegraded and no new material was added.
Methane has a global warming potential twenty one times greater than the
reference gas carbon dioxide (CO2), so the emissions of methane from German
landfills in 1993 was equivalent to 35 million tonnes of CO2. 90% of this has
already been reduced and furthermore the heat and power output of 77
municipal incinerators in Germany is equivalent to an additional annual reduction
of almost 4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, equal to the emissions of about 1.6
million cars. This comes from the fact that 50% of municipal waste is of
biological origin and the combustion of this in a municipal incineration plant can
be seen as climate neutral, i.e. renewable. From a financial perspective the heat
and power output of the German incinerators is also of significance, being
sufficient to provide the energy needs of a large city such as Berlin.

In contrast Ireland’s total emission of CO2 equivalent is currently about 80 million

tonnes per year of which 2.5% come from waste. We could have eliminated this
2.5 % and achieved a further positive balance to our total emissions by
implementing incineration as other Member States have done.

However, instead of implementing EU Environmental Legislation relating to

waste management we chose the Green ‘hocus pocus’ route into
increasing levels of Eco-nonsense.

Is it any of the EU’s business that we are increasingly becoming the dirty man of
Europe and do they have a right to impose huge fine us? The Lisbon Treaty
clarifies that the EU has exclusive competency with regard to:

• Customs union.

• The establishment of the competition rules necessary for the functioning

of the internal market.

• Monetary policy for the Member States whose currency is the Euro.

• The conservation of marine biological resources under the common

fisheries policy.

• Common commercial policy.

Shared competency between the EU and the Member States applies in the
following principal areas:

• Internal market

• Social policy, for aspects defined in the Treaty of Lisbon (includes

improvement of the working environment to protect worker’s Health and
Safety, e.g. prevention of occupational accidents and diseases,
occupational hygiene).

• Economic, social and territorial cohesion.

• Agriculture and fisheries, excluding the conservation of marine

biological resources.

• Environment.

• Consumer protection.
• Transport.

• Trans-European networks

• Energy.

• Area of freedom, security and justice.

• Common safety concerns in public health matters, for the aspects

defined in the Lisbon Treaty (includes measures setting high standards
of quality and safety for medicinal products and devices for medical
use).

Environment therefore is an area of joint competency. This is appropriate, many

environmental impacts, such as pollution from large stacks or discharges into
rivers, do not recognise national borders and therefore have transboundary
implications. Furthermore the EU is a single market with open borders. If Ireland
fails to apply the minimum standards set in the Environment Directives then
distortion of the market will occur for which the EU has exclusive competency,
why pay for proper waste disposal in Germany when it can be shipped to Ireland
and buried for low cost in a hole!

Regional waste management plans were prepared by technical consultants in

Ireland in the early 2000s. These looked at the tonnages of waste that needed to
be collected and recycled / disposed in order to meet the requirements of the
Landfill Directive. However, the local authorities, with the exception of Dublin City
Council and Meath Co. Council, failed to provide for the development of these
facilities or the zoning of land for their development. When private companies
prepared proposals to meet these targets they were subject to tremendous
abuse and obstruction. Increasingly An Bord Pleánala turned down proposals on
grounds that were increasingly flimsy and in which it deliberately stepped outside
its area of competency, refusing to acknowledge the scientific experts in the
relevant competent agencies. At no stage did it offer any alternative proposals
on how the mandatory targets were to be met! Every child that is born on this
planet has an environmental impact; the development that has no environmental
impact is thin air! If the relevant government agency for planning refuses to see
‘the wood from the tress’ because it has compromised itself on the altar of public
popularity then developers are faced with a system that is no longer based on
the application of legislation and scientific principles. They could take an adverse
decision from An Bord Pleánala to the courts but the legal system is a mess. So
many industrial investors will do the sensible thing and put their hard earned
cash into another country.

• We deserve to be punished with these major fines from the EU

because it was deliberate and wilful negligence that led to Ireland
not meeting the relevant targets!
7. ECO-NONSENSE IRISH STYLE - NUCLEAR
Summary: In the late seventies plans to construct a nuclear power plant in
Ireland were abandoned after protests by the anti-nuclear movement – protests
which also proved to be successful at launching political and musical careers.
The anti-nuclear ethos was now embedded in the Irish psyche and facts didn’t
enter the equation not to mention truth and honesty.

The explosion on the 26th April 1986 at the Chernobyl reactor in northern Ukraine
sent shock waves through the world. The accident was a major human tragedy
and had significant environmental, public health and socio-economic impacts.

Yet it has been conveniently ignored that the accident was a combination of
gross technical and managerial failures. Indeed the operators were carrying out
a test programme that had not been approved by the Soviet nuclear regulator.
Although many who fought the fire received high doses of radiation, many of
them and the majority of the residents of areas designated as ‘contaminated’ in
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, over 5 million people, received relatively low
whole-body doses of radiation, not much higher than doses due to natural
background radiation. The reality is that it takes extremely high levels of radiation
before adverse health effects and even death occurs, but this is simply not
presented in the media – instead we have a circus!

Between 2000 and 2003 I worked in the Ukraine on an EU Technical Aid project.
To put it mildly the distortion of the truth in the Irish media was absolutely
shocking. Most certainly some of this can be attributed to Adi Roche' s charity
‘Chernobyl Children’s Project’. While there is obviously a useful and
undisputable humanitarian element to this charity its founder is a fervent and
obsessed anti-nuclear campaigner and every opportunity was used to drive
home the anti-nuclear agenda.

However, this does not excuse the behaviour of the Irish Media. In 2005 the UN
published the Chernobyl Forum report that documented that 50 deaths could be
attributed to the disaster, that 4,000 people at most may eventually die from
cancers caused as a result of the accident, and that most of the illnesses among
the five million people contaminated are down to poverty and lifestyle. This must
be considered within the context that if the Chernobyl incident had never
occurred, some 100,000 people in the area studied could be expected to die of
cancer in the normal course of events. The Irish media, in particular the Irish
Times, then began a campaign to ruthlessly undermine the credibility of this
report. This deliberate misinformation still continues in 2009 to pour from Adi
Roche’s Charity and the Irish media, indeed the reality of the Chernobyl Children
brought to Ireland for a radiation ‘holiday’ is that the aircrews who fly in these
children get over ten times the radiation dose that the ‘victims’ do. Poverty
is being sold as part of an anti-nuclear campaign!

The other side of Ireland’s nuclear Eco-nonsense is the British nuclear industry.
In the 1980s a doctor in County Louth started a campaign claiming that a fire in
Windscale (Sellafield) in 1957 had caused a cluster of Down’s syndrome births
born to former students of a Dundalk secondary school for girls. There has never
been any evidence to connect radiation exposure to Down’s syndrome and
indeed at the time of the fire the wind was blowing towards London and not
Ireland.
Yet perception is everything in Ireland particularly where the Irish media and
politicians are involved. Court cases were taken that finally reached the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague which concluded "The tribunal is
not satisfied that in the present circumstances there is an urgent and serious risk
of irreparable harm to Ireland' s claimed right." The European Commission
claimed Ireland’s action was illegal as Ireland’s actions improperly by-passed the
EU' s legal framework, which Ireland is obliged to follow as a Member State. So
now we had a situation where not satisfied with eco-nonsense and waste of
taxpayers’ money in our own jurisdiction, we were wasting other Member States’
time and money.

Yet Sellafield ‘bashing’ continues in 2009 to be a major National Sport. It is a sad

but undisputable fact that in Ireland the reporting of nuclear issues by the Media
and the behaviour of senior political figures with regard to this issue is now
effectively out of control and the public are being systematically lied to! As
scientist and engineers we know exactly what could happen, indeed the worst
case scenarios have already happened due to shockingly poor controls at the
Soviet equivalent of Sellafield, which is called Majak and located east of the
Urals. Yet life goes on essentially as normal there!

In 1968 the State owned Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced plans for a
650 MW nuclear plant at Carnsore Point in, lodged a planning application for four
nuclear reactors with Wexford County Council in 1974 and contracted with
Urenco for the supply of enriched uranium. Following the oil shock of 1973 the
government' s commitment to nuclear energy strengthened and energy minister
Des O' Malley made it clear at the 1978 Fianna Fáil ardfheis that the "Flat Earth
Society" was not going to determine Ireland's future energy policy.

However, in the late seventies a political / environmental campaign forced the

suspension of the plans to build the nuclear plant – Chris de Burg of Lady in Red
fame and Christy Moore among others launched their music career at the
concerts held to demonstrate against the proposed nuclear plant. Other
politicians, such as Brendan Howlin, who was Minister for the Environment
between 1994 and 1997, helped launch their careers campaigning against the
plant. At the time some of Ireland’s brightest and best technical people returned
from abroad to work on the project. The overwhelming majority of them left in
disgust within a few years as the politicians caved in and the project was
cancelled; history as usual tends to repeat itself.

The legacy of Carnsore was that the anti-nuclear ethos was embedded in the
Irish psyche. One politician tried to outdo the other in hurling insults at the British
nuclear industry, facts didn’t even enter equation not to mention truth and
honesty. The media in Ireland whipped them up like performing dogs and they
out did each other to perform.

• Do people really care any more what the truth is?

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) is the competent authority

for radiological, i.e. nuclear issues. We do know what the figures are; they are
just ignored in favour of a ‘circus’. The graphic overleaf was produced by the
RPII for the Irish Environmental Information Service (ENFO). When radiation
hits our bodies it can cause damage to the cells in our bodies or even kill them.
The amount of radiation is called the dose.
We know that the cells killed by a low dose of radiation are replaced within a few
days or weeks. We also know that a large dose of radiation can kill many cells
causing radiation sickness or skin burns. A very large dose of radiation may kill
so many cells that the body cannot replace them quickly enough and the person
may die. We use a unit called the Sievert (Sv) to measure the amount of harm
caused by radiation when it hits our bodies. For everyday use it is easier to use
the millisievert (mSv), which is one-thousandth of a Sievert. The diagram below
illustrates the doses Irish people receive from different activities. The top end of
the scale also shows the size of the doses associated with radiation sickness
and death. Doses this high are usually only associated with nuclear wars or very
severe nuclear accidents.

RPII graphic showing scale of radiation dose

The British nuclear industry is actually only responsible for about 0.003 mSv of
the average dose of 3.6 mSv dose that an Irish person receives. This dose is
almost entirely from natural sources, naturally occurring radon being the main
source (63%). If we consider the tiny fraction that is from man made sources,
then the main component in this is the combustion of coal. This combustion
releases radioactive elements that are naturally found in coal seams. A person
living near a coal fired power plant actually receives more than twice the
radiation dose that a person living near a nuclear plant will receive!

However, the explosion on the 26th April 1986 at the Chernobyl reactor in
northern Ukraine sent shock waves through the world. The RMBK reactor was a
Soviet Generation I design from the 1950s, a design that had its origins in the
Soviet arms industry to which it supplied weapons grade plutonium.

The accident was a combination of gross technical and managerial failures. The
design was poor as was the quality of construction and operation. On the night of
the accident the operators were carrying out a test programme that had not been
approved by the Soviet nuclear regulator. The operators had not been trained in
this test and nor did they know the design flaw, i.e. gross instability of the reactor
at low power. They had also disabled the automatic shut down to run the test
programme. The result was a massive energy spike followed by a steam
explosion. A second explosion followed from the ignition of the hydrogen
produced in the grossly overheated reactor. The reactor itself comprised of a
huge graphite core, graphite being the carbon material that is found in pencil
‘leads’. The graphite core and the substandard materials that had been used in
the plant construction then continued to burn ejecting highly radioactive material
into the surrounding area.

The plume of smoke rose into the South Easterly winds that were present at a
height of about a kilometre. Radioactive elements like caesium-137, iodine-131,
and strontium-90 were pumped into the atmosphere by the explosion and
resulting fire. A day later the radioactivity triggered the alarms 1,100 km away at
a nuclear plant in Sweden. It took ten days for the fragments of graphite to stop
burning and for the fallout to abate. It was relatively dry that spring but where it
did rain the fallout was at its highest, indeed the Soviets seeded some of the
clouds from the air to generate rain and to prevent the fallout being carried
deeper into Russia. These air and rain patterns explain the distribution of the
contamination shown overleaf.
 Contaminated regions surrounding the Chernobyl reactor

In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people, mostly fire and rescue workers
suffered from acute radiation sickness, of which 31 died within the first three
months. The highest radiation doses were received during the first days of the
accident by emergency workers and on-site personnel, in total about 1,000
people. In time more than 600,000 people were registered as emergency and
recovery workers (‘liquidators’). Although some received high doses of radiation
during their work, many of them and the majority of the residents of areas
designated as ‘contaminated’ in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, over 5 million
people, received relatively low whole-body doses of radiation, not much higher
than doses due to natural background radiation. The mitigation measures taken
by the authorities included evacuation of people from the most contaminated
areas. These substantially reduced radiation exposures and the radiation related
health impacts of the accident. Nevertheless, the accident was a major human
tragedy and had significant environmental, public health and socio-economic
impacts.
 Soviet emergency response to Chernobyl accident

In the spring of 2000 I started working on an EU Technical Aid project (TACIS) in

the Ukraine that was funding the development of energy efficient generation in
the food and related industries. The Ukraine at that period was a mess, not
because of Chernobyl but because of economic collapse, gross political
corruption and mismanagement. It was very much the ‘Wild East’, one had to be
‘invited’ to enter the country, then get a visa and for every night spent in the
country obtain an official stamp in the passport. Because of these issues the
outside world did not know much of what was going on. I was based in Berlin
prior to going to the Ukraine and even in the German section of the largest
bookstore there it was impossible to find any relevant publications describing the
then current situation.

That situation was bad! About 1.6 million Russians had died in the First World
War, this was one of the reasons behind the 1917 Revolution but the Tsars had
left a bitter legacy even before the war. The Revolution lead to a brutal Civil War
that took the lives of some 3 to 5 million more inhabitants of the region. Stalin
came to power and a further 3 to 6 million peasants were starved to death in a
deliberately engineered famine designed to force them onto collective farms,
difficult to know the true figures but the minimum accepted estimate is 3 million.
It was brutal, but worse was to follow when the Germans rolled over the border
in 1941. The region bore the brunt of the fighting on the Eastern Front that left 27
million dead on the Soviet side, a staggering one in seven of the population. For
the Ukraine it is estimated that 7.5 million were lost, including almost 4 million
civilians killed and 2.2 million taken to Germany as labourers. Cities, towns and
thousand of villages were devastated.

Stalin returned and while there were some improvements under communist rule
the Soviet system eventually disintegrated and out of the chaos came the rip-off.
The leader that had arose from the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991,
President Kushma, was highly corrupt and suppressed the media, falsified the
elections and with his ‘friends’ privatised State Enterprises. There may be bums
on the streets of Dublin but in Kiev there were old ladies in their late eighties or
early nineties who had lived through the above and were now begging to survive.
Believe me the streets in Kiev can be cold in winter but not for the Government
officials in their Mercedes. There was money to be made alright for the right type
of person, such as Declan Ganley of Libertas, who through operations in that
part of Eastern Europe during the late nineties became an ‘overnight’ millionaire.

Was Chernobyl an issue? In Ireland that word had become synonymous with Adi
Roche' s charity ‘Chernobyl Children’s Project’. Adi Roche is a fervent and
obsessed anti-nuclear campaigner, who had founded a charity to help the
children in Southern Belarus and adjoining areas that had been worse impacted
by the Chernobyl fallout. While there is obviously a useful and undisputable
humanitarian element to this charity even before I went to the Ukraine much of
what I saw with this organisation and in particular the behaviour of Adi and its
leading supporter Ali Hewson, wife of Bono, left me totally cold. Every
opportunity was used to drive home the anti-nuclear agenda. Ali Hewson would
be interviewed on national radio and pontificate on how technologists were
always getting it wrong and couldn’t be trusted. So Pat the engineer and scientist
would listen to this ‘Trial by Media in the Court of Public Opinion’, in which he
and his professional colleagues were found guilty by the ‘celebrity judge’ willingly
aided by the Irish broadcaster. Fortunately one could always turn it off and listen
instead to a CD!

This behaviour was no means an isolated case; it was clear to me having

already experienced some other Eastern European countries that basic poverty
was being sold as part of an anti-nuclear agenda. Furthermore what was the
purpose of bringing these children to Ireland, was it to use the opportunity to
indoctrinate the Irish public to this agenda? Was it in fact helping this region or
just using them as ‘victims’ in a travelling media circus in which every opportunity
was used to push the most disfigured face in front of a camera? Let us face it;
Europe had lost over half its population in the Black Death, the flu epidemic of
1918 took an estimated 40 million lives worldwide, considerably more than died
in the trenches, the volcanic activity in the 1840s had so disrupted the weather
patterns in Western Europe that the potato blight occurred in Ireland, we then
lost 1 million dead due to hunger and another million due to disease and the
wave of emigration just grew and grew. Yet according to Adi Roche’s charity,
Chernobyl was the worst environmental disaster ever to hit the planet!
As I got to know the Ukraine better in 2000 I was increasingly shocked as I
compared what I saw and learnt on the ground with the gross distortion of the
truth that was occurring in Ireland. Most of my time was spent in Kiev, which is
only 110 km south of the reactor at Chernobyl. Women and children were
evacuated from Kiev in early May 1986 and did not return till mid autumn. The
city was decontaminated by washing buildings and streets, the runoff flowing into
the surface water drains, which flowed into the Dnipro, the massive river almost
a kilometre wide, which splits the city and country in two. Seemingly the lads left
behind decontaminated themselves with copious amounts of Vodka.

Having an innate curiosity that goes with the scientific mind I initially steered the
conversation with the locals around to the experience of 1986, I then quietly
asked if there was now a difference in the cancer rates between the ‘lads’ and
the female population that had been evacuated? I got a very strange reaction –
what was this guy going on about! Clearly it had nothing to do with their daily
experience so I didn’t press further. Neither was there any evidence of problems
on the ground outside of those connected with the economic and political mess
with the resulting poverty and under development. Indeed in the seven months I
spent there I only saw one person with a deformity, walking towards me on
Khreshchatyk, the main street in Kiev, with a deformed hand. My thoughts
initially turned towards Chernobyl until I recognised that he was in his twenties
and would have been born a decade beforehand.

There are some pretty beaches and recreational areas along the banks of the
Dnipro in the centre of Kiev. The Western guide books used to recommend not
swimming there as there was supposedly radioactive material in the silt. I went
down in the sunshine to have a look, not only were there some health young
ones but there was a fine bunch of pensioners that the Forty Foot in Dublin Bay
would have been proud of! I enjoyed my swim except for the water which was
obviously ‘nutrient rich’ from the agriculturally rich soils of the surrounding area
and other sources. One started to relax and take life like the locals!

Kiev – swimming in the Dnipro

Working in the energy field other issues became clear. As the Soviet state had
‘owned’ everything since 1917 there was no effective pricing and billing
mechanisms. How did the electricity company get its money when there was a
single connection into a massive housing apartment and no effective metering?
Could you disconnect pensioners and leave them to freeze in the winter?
Ukraine’s only fuel source was low quality coal from the Donetsk basin in South
Eastern Ukraine and what could be obtained from Russia, often by ‘siphoning’ of
the natural gas transiting through the pipelines to Western Europe. The saving
grace was the remaining Soviet style nuclear reactors, which were supplying
nearly 50% of the electricity. These could be run flat out for at least another
decade and as the Ukraine had decommissioned the nuclear weapons on its
territory there was a source of fissionable material that could be used to keep
them going. This was basic sense; the death toll in winter if they had been shut
them down would have been horrendous.

Then there was the contact I had with other EU specialists. Some of these were
actually responsible for the radiation monitoring in the contaminated zones.
Were they not concerned about their own health and the food they might eat
there? A deep belly laugh followed; sure they hardly ever got a ‘click’ out of their
radiation meters. What about in Chernihiv, a city of 300,000 on the other bank of
the Dnipro about 70 km from the reactor? Not even there where they were
monitoring the vegetables in the market! One of the EU team explained how he
had taken his meter down to Hydropark and buried it in the sand – not a ‘click’!
He then put it in his hand luggage on the flight home and looked at it mid-flight –
bright red! Why wouldn’t it be! Sunlight is a form of radiation but the intensity is
reduced by the shielding of the earth’s atmosphere. Not so much shielding when
one is up at 8 km or greater in a jet aircraft, see the previous RPII graphic. The
limit set for aircrews and nuclear workers is a maximum additional dose of 20
mSv per annum averaged over 5 years. Nuclear workers rarely get more than 4
mSv per annum but aircrews, particularly those on long haul, are pushing the 20
mSv per annum limit.

Is 20 mSv per annum significant? Many parts of the world have high natural
background levels; Kerila in India has background level of about 50 mSv per
annum. Been that way for millions of years and hasn’t caused anybody any
harm, so a conservative limit of 20 mSv per annum was chosen. If we take the
astronauts in space they get a ferocious bombardment of cosmic radiation. The
cosmonaut who got stuck up in on the Soviet space station Mir for an ‘extended
period’ when the Soviet Union collapsed had an over 50% reduction in his blood
cell count when he eventually got to return from orbit. However, as was already
mentioned the cells will replace themselves and he was as right as rain after a
few months.

On the morning on Monday December 4th 2000 I was flying from Gatwick to Kiev
on Ukrainian International reading the Irish Times and I nearly blew a gasket:

“Kiev protest on Chernobyl legacy

Kiev - Victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and their relatives marched
through the Ukrainian capital Kiev yesterday, protesting that authorities were
letting them die in poverty.

Chernobyl is due to be shut down for ever in two weeks'time. Fourteen years
after one of its reactors exploded in the world'
s worst peacetime nuclear
disaster, one in 16 Ukrainians is suffering from diseases caused by radiation”.
Why was I fuming? There are 47 million inhabitants in the Ukraine, one in
sixteen amounts to 2.9 million or about three quarters of the population of the
Republic of Ireland. This was outrageous scaremongering at its best; the real
figure is about one in sixteen of those who fought the fire, a few thousand at
most. So the report had multiplied the health impacts that were occurring by a
thousand fold!

On the plane was the vice-president of Ukrainian International, a native of North

County Dublin he had been involved with the airline since GPA had leased them
their first 737s in the early nineties. He was also incensed, what was the Irish
Times trying to do – ruin any potential for tourism and business contacts? Later
that day I spoke to Heikki my Finnish project manager as to what gone on in Kiev
the previous day. 40% of Kiev had been destroyed in the war and the city centre
had been rebuilt afterwards, a considerable portion by German POWs. The
main street Khreshchatyk had been remodelled as a wide boulevard, which on a
Saturday and Sunday was pedestrianised and populated with street trading and
people enjoying the stroll. Our project apartment was only about 10 minutes
away and although Heikki had been in the city centre that day he hadn’t seen
any demonstration. However, he was a bit perturbed, the only foreign TV
channel we had was Deutshe Welle, the German Foreign Service. Its news
contained a broadcast of the ‘demonstration’ from Kiev but if one looked closely
there were at most only a few hundred participants.

Not only was this disturbing but when I wrote into the Irish Times from Kiev to
clarify the situation it obviously got thrown in the bin, why let an engineer and his
facts spoil a ‘good story’. Unfortunately this was not an isolated case! Each April
when the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident came around the reporting in
the Irish Times, which would do a ‘special article’, just went deeper and deeper
into the world of misinformation. In April 2000 they were reporting:

• “About 3.5 million people, over a third of them children, have suffered
illness as a result of the contamination and the incidence of some
cancers is 10 times the national average”.

In April 2001:

• “The UN has declared the disaster the worst environmental catastrophe

in history”

• “Faced with soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, the gene
pool of the Belarussian people is now under threat”.

In April 2004:

• “Estimates vary over how many people were affected by Chernobyl but
Ukraine says 4,400 of its citizens have died and more than two million
received hospital treatment for illnesses related to the disaster. It is
believed to have physically or psychologically harmed some seven
million people in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus”.

In April 2005:

• “Of the 800,000 liquidators, it is estimated that 25,000 have died since
1986 and a further 70,000 are permanently disabled. A fifth of the dead
are said to have been suicides”.
In fact at the end of 2005 when the eight organisations of the UN family, which
included the International Atomic Energy Association and the World Health
Organisation, and the three affected countries of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia
published their Chernobyl Forum report there was outcry in Ireland. Why
because the report documented that 50 deaths could be attributed to the
disaster, that 4,000 people at most may eventually die from it, and that most of
the illnesses among the five million people contaminated are down to poverty
and lifestyle.

It was totally unacceptable that the accident had happened in the first place, but
this was scientific literature instead of propaganda for an anti-nuclear future.
Despite the stridency of Adi Roche and others if one sits back calmly and
considers – is the world really going to be any different or even any better if all
the examples of this type of power plant which supply 17% of the planet’s
electricity are shut down? Now let us be objective!

UN Report on Chernobyl
The main health impact of the accident was caused by radioactive iodine fallout,
iodine being produced as a byproduct of the RMBK design. Children who drank
milk in the immediate aftermath of the accident received high doses of radiation
to the thyroid, some had received iodine tablets and were less affected but the
majority did not receive this precautionary measure. By 2003 more than 4,000
thyroid cases had been diagnosed in these children and it is likely that a large
fraction of these were attributable to radioactive iodine intake. While this cancer
is over 99% curable by operation, it does leave the characteristic Chernobyl
necklace scar and unfortunately fifteen children in the region did die of the
disease.

The report concluded that “among the 600,000 persons receiving more
significant exposures (liquidators working in 1986-1987, evacuees and residents
of the most ‘contaminated’ areas), the possible increase in cancer mortality due
to this radiation exposure might eventually represent up to four thousand fatal
cancers in addition to the approximately 100,000 fatal cancers to be expected
due to all other causes in this population. Among the 5 million persons residing
in other ‘contaminated’ areas, the doses are much lower and any projected
increases are more speculative, but are expected to make a difference of less
than one per cent in cancer mortality”.

• In other words - if the Chernobyl incident had never occurred,

some 100,000 people in the area studied could be expected to die
of cancer in the normal course of events.

Soon after the Chernobyl accident the Irish Nuclear Energy Board estimated that
for the Irish population “the total number of additional fatal cancers that may
occur during the next seventy years, as a result of the committed radiation
exposures arising from the first six months after the Chernobyl accident is four
and from the first year five. These cancers will not be identifiable among the
450,000 cancers caused by other agents that will occur during the seventy year
period”.

The above represents a huge problem! Go into any house on this planet and ask
for a tale of woe and you will get it – some quite shocking! What do we do? Try
and out do one tale of woe with another or recognise that a woe free world does
not exist and instead apply assessment and quantification? This quantification is
the first step in enabling us to help ensure that the limited amount of time and
money is spent where it achieves the maximum benefit!

Sometimes on EU public meetings in Central and Eastern Europe I and my

colleagues get asked about the health effects of this industrial site or that power
line. We talk about the nightclubs in the North of England and in Sweden! Picture
the scene, working class North of England, the amount of drink taken, body
shapes and physical fitness, etc. Now compare with the reserved and more
modest Scandinavian behaviour, how would the appearance of physical health
differ? Who would have the increased life expectancy? In fact within UK cities
there can be as much as a twenty year difference in life expectancy between the
different social groups! What then is the significance of the industrial site or
power line? Can it even be measured? If it can’t be measured is it of
significance? Politically maybe very much so but from an environmental
perspective it is doesn’t even register!
Many thousands of Ukrainians settled in central Canada after the war. How does
their life expectancy compare with those that stayed in the Ukraine? There is a
massive difference and it is down to a basic condition called poverty. In more
developed societies like Canada there is access to better diets, better health
care, better education and better social and working conditions. Life in the
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia can be very frustrating and too many cheap
cigarettes are smoked and too much cheap vodka drunk. Even in areas where
there was no Chernobyl related impacts the life expectancy is much lower that
Western Europe, by as much as twenty years. When you start to put an area
under the microscope you do find things that were previously not visible. Where
they there before?

The Chernobyl Forum Report reported “that there has been a modest but steady
increase in reported congenital malformations in both ‘contaminated’ and
‘uncontaminated’ areas of Belarus since 1986, see Fig. 4 below. This does not
appear to be radiation-related and may be the result of increased registration”.

Prevalence at birth of congenital malformations in 4 oblasts of Belarus

with high and low levels of radionuclide contamination (Fig. 4 Chernoybl
Forum Report; oblast = county)

There are obviously "Chernobyl children", who do carry deformities, but

deformities have always been part of nature. The study of anatomy received a
major boost during the Italian Renaissance; we still have examples of deformed
children that had been preserved from that era, long before nuclear power was
even conceived. Regardless of the fact that due to the accident there may have
been a modest increase in birth defects or not I still found the manner in which
sick children were ‘exploited’ for their anti-nuclear value on television and
elsewhere as offensive.

As regards the Chernoybl Children’s Project’s main activity of taking children to

Ireland for a holiday, to me this was a business based on totally false claims, as
is visible on their website:

• “For each child taken to Ireland they are ‘returned’ two years of life. We
are hostages to the hazardous aftermath of radiation, and the future of
our very race is threatened with extinction, as our children, our gene
pool, are seriously ill. In the midst of this tragedy we have been given
hope by the people of Ireland”.
The Chernoybl Forum Report has the following to say:

• “Many international charities offer similar ‘health holidays’ abroad to

children of the affected regions. Such programs are popular and
generally beneficial to participants. However, governments should
encourage charities providing travel abroad to engage as well in the
effort to promote better health outcomes in the affected communities
themselves. Both government and charitable recuperation programs
should ensure that travel outside the region is provided in a way that
does not exaggerate the danger of living in Chernobyl-affected areas”.

So what are the dangers? The Chernobyl Forum Report tells us:

• “The vast majority of about five million people residing in contaminated

areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine currently receive annual effective
doses from the Chernoybl fallout of less than 1 mSv in addition to the
natural background doses. However, about 100,000 residents of the
more contaminated areas still receive more than 1 mSv annually from
Chernoybl fallout. Although future reduction of exposure levels is
expected to be rather slow, i.e. about 3 to 5% per year, the great
majority of dose from the accident has already been accumulated.

Unfortunately the deliberate misinformation still continues to pour from Adi

Roche’s Charity; the reality is that:

• The aircrews who fly these children into Ireland get over ten times
the radiation dose that the ‘victims’ do.

Yet on the 22 February 2009 on the Irish Independent we have:

• “Studies undertaken by Chenobyl Children’s Project, who have been

running the programme for 22 years, indicate that a three month holiday
in Ireland helps reduce radiation levels for the children by between 30%
and 50%. A significant number of children hail from poor and isolated
backgrounds -- and a further benefit of the Irish summer break is that
they avoid the high radiation spikes now common around Chernobyl
between May and August”.

The patience of the authorities in Belarus is also wearing thin! On too many
occasions teenagers, as they are wont to do, tell their parents back in poor
deprived conditions back home that they are not coming back. Naturally they find
it far better to stay in the affluent West with the new ‘Foster Family’. Then the
Irish politicians have to vigorously perform on the public stage to get the Visa
programme from Belarus restored.

I also spent a considerable period of time in Romania between 2001 and 2007.
There were initially huge problems there, the economy was no better that that of
the Ukraine in the 1990s. Orphanages in a terrible state had been left behind as
a legacy of Ceau escu’s policy to forcefully increase the size of the population.
However, Romania successfully moved along the path to EU membership in
2007 and as the economy and administration improved dramatically these
problems were dealt with.
Once again the problems in the Ukraine and adjoining regions are related to
historical factors and political and economic mismanagement. Yet time and time
again this was not being conveyed to the Irish public. It was not as if I was the
only one writing in to the papers to point out these facts, I wasn’t. However, the
input from the scientific community in Ireland and abroad had been deliberately
ignored. Now we had the situation in late 2005 with the publishing of the
Chernobyl Forum Report by the United Nations of the formal documentation of
the true situation, which concluded:

• “This was a very serious accident with major health consequences,

especially for thousands of workers exposed in the early days who
received very high radiation doses, and for the thousands more stricken
with thyroid cancer. By and large, however, we have not found profound
negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding
areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would
continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, within a few
exceptional, restricted areas.”

However, the Irish public wasn’t going to be allowed to come to that conclusion.
How could they be allowed to deduce that the Irish Media and the anti-nuclear
campaigners had essentially being lying through their teeth to them for over a
decade? This couldn’t be allowed to happen. What instead did happen is a
shameful example of the Media abuses that are now common in Ireland, in
particular as documented in a later section with the reporting of the ‘Green
Ideology’ versus balanced scientific development. As April 2006 was the 20th
anniversary of the accident the Irish Times published a series of Articles, the
titles give an indication of the content:

• 8th April: “Human Fallout”.

• 10th April: “A teenage life destroyed by blood cancer” and “Neglected

inheritors of a toxic legacy”.

• 11th April: “To want more nuclear power rather than less is insane” and
“Is it going to happen again”.

• 19th April: “Call for WHO inquiry into Chernoybl effects”.

The public in Ireland has a basic right to proper journalistic standards in which
the facts are reported clearly and accurately and they themselves are given the
opportunity to draw their own conclusion. As we will see later this is most
definitely not happening in Ireland and there is an incredibly amount of deliberate
proselytising of the Green Ideology occurring – the herd must not be allowed
access to rational factual information so that it can draw its own conclusions and
make independent decisions! Propaganda has been with us for a long time and
the Green Ideology is in reality little different to the Red and Brown Ideologies of
the 20th Century – the public is not being empowered to make informed
decisions and science and technology is the new target for rallying the masses
where previously the Bourgeoisies or the Jews bore the brunt.

The above are harsh words but they are true, look at the articles yourselves!
There is a deliberate and concerted attempt to undermine the work and
conclusions of the Chernobyl Forum. As I have mentioned already in Section 4:

• Scientists and engineers, regardless of whether they work in industry or

as regulators, would be the first to admit that they do not get it right all
 the time every time. However, as professionals they are required to
provide detailed justification of their position and are constantly refining
and improving their knowledge base and moving forward. In contrast
those in the Green Ideology often rely on emotionally based arguments
and seldom are called upon to provide a factual account of their position
or their alternative proposals to meet the challenges of the future.

It is all too easy to bombard the public with detailed tales of woe so that they
have trouble making rational assessments of the situation, this can be done
deliberately as it was in these articles. As I have mentioned already there are no
shortages of tales of woe in the world, ethanol produced from sugar cane may
be the most effective Biofuel we have but the Kiltegan Fathers can tell some
harrowing tales of effective slavery among the sugar cane workers on the
plantations in Brazil. Furthermore in the articles there was a deliberate objective
to undermine the detailed work of the scientists who had completed the
Chernoybl Forum Report, such as on the 8th April 2006 by stating that “the level
of fallout in human suffering is still debated” and “new research commissioned by
European parliamentary groups, Greenpeace International and medical
foundations suggest that half a million people have already died, that infant
mortality has increased by 20 to 30 per cent and that among the 600,000 who
took part in the clean-up, the rate of cancer deaths was nearly three times higher
than the norm”.

By the 19th April we find that:

• "Although areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were heavily

contaminated, most of Chernobyl' s fallout was deposited outside these
countries," said the report, which was carried out by independent
researchers and commissioned by Rebecca Harms, a German member
of the Greens party in the European Parliament”.

• "Fallout from Chernobyl contaminated about 40 per cent of Europe' s

surface area," the report said, adding that populations outside the three
countries faced "twice as many predicted excess cancer deaths".

• The study predicted roughly 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths by the end
of this century related to Chernobyl, which it said was significantly
higher than estimates by the WHO and the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).

• The report echoed findings by environmental group Greenpeace, which

said yesterday the death toll from the disaster 20 years ago could be far
higher than official estimates, with up to 93,000 extra cancer deaths
worldwide”.

So the scientists got it wrong and Greenpeace got it right – this is what these
articles are hammering home! Greenpeace are not exactly know for peer
reviewed scientific excellence, in fact after the Shell Brent Spar campaign and
the violence that ensued they had to make a formal apology as they had grossly
falsified information to boost their campaign. So let us have a look at their report!
If we see page 2 of the report overleaf then visually it is clear that the
contaminated area was very large, but where are the units? We can detect very
easily low levels of radiation but are they of any significance? Remember the
RPII graph at the start of this section – one needs the units to come to that
conclusion!
Page 2 of Greenpeace 2006 Report “The Chernobyl Catastrophe –
Consequences on Human Health

Then there is their section on Premature Ageing:

• “The apparent ‘biological’ age of people living in known radiation-

contaminated areas of Ukraine has increased disproportionately in the
years since the accident, with assessed ‘biological’ age now exceeding
calendar age by as much as 7-9 years. In a study of 306 ‘liquidators’,
this discrepancy was estimated at between 5 and 11 years. In the most
contaminated territories of Belarus, average age at death for victims of
heart attack was 8 years lower than for the general population”.

The reality is of course as already mentioned you don’t need any radiation
exposure to have a reduced life expectancy, poverty is the killer and the
Chernobyl Forum Report clearly highlighted that the problems in that area were
predominately socio-economic in origin.

The Irish Times in those and preceding articles clearly broke the principles of
proper journalism. Their year end review of 2006 even included a picture from
the ‘contaminated zone’ and the ‘consequences of radiation’; an elderly couple in
traditional old fashioned clothes accompanied by their son, unpaved muddy
roads and old fashioned single storey houses with tin roofs. The reality was that
if one took the train from Kiev in an easterly direction to Kharkov or southerly to
Odessa, into regions untouched by the fallout, one would see similar scenes
every ten minutes.
The Irish Times made no effort to differentiate between economic
underdevelopment and ‘blatant anti-nuclear propaganda’, neither did it make any
effort to enable its readers to analyse the situation themselves and be able to
see ‘the wood from the trees’. Yes Chernobyl was and still is a tragedy but the
number of coal mining deaths in South Eastern Ukraine each year was
amounting to about half the 50 direct deaths that occurred as a result of the
Chernobyl accident. If we consider the 4,000 potential premature deaths that
may occur then this is the number of direct coal mining deaths that occurs in
China each year and pales into insignificance when compared to the 380,000
premature deaths each year estimated for the EU due to air pollution. The
reporting in the Irish Times was nothing short of gross misinformation.

This has unfortunate consequences, there are other Irish charities operating in
the area, who are tackling the socio-economic issues without being involved in
the anti-nuclear agenda. They don’t get a mention. As I have repeatedly stressed
it is not the unfortunate issues that have happened in the past but the
quantification of the problem and the pragmatic steps going forward. Shutting
down perfectly good nuclear plants has no environmental or economic benefits –
it is just pure dogma! The pragmatic step forward is to tackle the socio-economic
problems in the area. This is what Greenfield Project Management Ltd, a
company with strong Irish connections, is doing.

The Chernobyl Bio-clean programme is to take place in the affected territories of

Southern Belarus, a rich agricultural region the size of Denmark. While crops are
grown there and animals reared for local consumption there is no possibility of
export due to the residual levels of radioactive particles such as caesium 137
and strontium 90. The ‘planting / harvest / process / food’ cycle does not remove
the radioactive contaminants as they go back into the soil when straw and other
crop wastes are put back onto the land. The Greenfield project has two pillars;
Pillar one is to ramp up the agricultural production in the area to produce
Biofuels, which can be blended in with Russian petroleum exports to the EU to
fulfil the EU Biofuels requirement, e.g. 5% ethanol in petrol (E5). This will greatly
stimulate the economy in the regional areas. Pillar two is the repeated harvesting
of biomass crops selected for their ability to absorb radioactivity. These will then
be processed to the maximum extent to produce Biofuels and Biogas and the
minimum amount of residuals. The residuals will contain the radionuclides and
will go for safe disposal. The net result is that instead of centuries of natural
decay, this process will cut the time to 20 to 40 years.

Sense not Eco-nonsense, but does the Irish public even know or care?

The other side of Ireland’s nuclear Eco-nonsense is the British nuclear industry.
Britain had suffered two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th
century. For a year between 1940 and 1941 it had stood alone against the might
of the Wehrmacht, it was eventually on the winning side but its economy was in
tatters, it had suffered extensive human casualties and material damage and its
Empire was gone. The iron curtain was very much a reality in the 1950s. Part of
the agreement reached in Yalta was that Stalin agreed to attack Japan three
months after victory was declared in Europe. He was true to his word and exactly
on the 8th August the Red Army invaded Manchuria in Northern China. In less
than 10 days they defeated and rounded up a force of over a million Japanese
soldiers. The Red Army was a battle hardened and very effective fighting
machine with enormous resources.
 Sellafield in Cumbria, called Windscale prior to 1981

Britain did not want the risk of involvement in another major war and Stalin was
still in power up to his death in 1956. The development of the British atomic
bomb was therefore an absolute priority and much of that development occurred
at the Windscale facility in Cumbria, now called Sellafield. Unfortunately in 1957
a nuclear pile that was being driven too hard for political reasons to meet
plutonium production targets went on fire. Neither were there proper emergency
procedures at that time for correctly coping with the emergency and the net
result is that radioactive material was released from the site into the southerly
wind that was blowing in the direction of Birmingham and London.

In the 1980s a doctor in County Louth started a campaign claiming that the fire
had caused a cluster of Down’s syndrome births born to former students of a
secondary school for girls Dundalk on the North East Coast of the Republic of
Ireland. To say that this was irresponsible is a gross understatement. Despite all
the claims in the many newspapers the situation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
the aftermath of the atomic bombings has not lead to any detectable rise in birth
defects and certainly not Down’s syndrome. In fact the health of the 86, 572
survivors of the two bombs, who lived within the 10 km surroundings of the
detonation points have been meticulously studied, the results 60 years later are
that about 700 deaths that can be attributed to the radiation, comprising:

• 87 cases of leukaemia.

• 440 deaths due to tumours.

• 250 through radiation induced heart attacks.

• 30 foetuses developed mental handicaps after birth.

Currently in Japan there is a research project looking at 3,600 people who were
in their mothers’ womb at the time of the explosions. So far there is no evidence
of raised chromosomal abnormalities. However, one does not get to read that in
the Press in Ireland and while there was no scientific basis for the Dundalk claim
whatsoever, perception is everything particularly in ‘modern’ Ireland when a
witch hunt is under way. Indeed studies by University College Dublin and the
Irish health authorities, which have proved since that there was no connection
between the fire in 1957 and the cluster of Down’s syndrome have been largely
ignored by the general public, who were bombarded by the media and convinced
that there was a link.

The result of this media campaign in the 1990s was that the cluster of Down’s
syndrome was firmly attributed to the 1957 Windscale fire in the public’s mind
and in 1994 legal proceedings was initiated by four residents of Dundalk against
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL). Proceedings commenced in the Irish High
Court and Supreme Court and the Irish Media rolled in, particular Lorna Siggins
of the Irish Times. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, who had cut his
political teeth protesting against the Irish nuclear plant proposal for Carnsore,
pledged financial assistance and "other support" to the group, following the
Supreme Court ruling in October 1996, which allowed them to sue BNFL in the
Irish courts.

What continued to happen over this episode was shameful. I can recall BNFL
preparing and paying for a supplement to an Irish Sunday paper to inform the
public of their side of the story with regard to the forthcoming legal processes.
The National Union of Journalists prevented this being included in the paper as it
was against their anti-nuclear policy. To me it was clear that we did not have a
free press in Ireland, in fact little has changed since then.

So the legal processes at considerable cost to the taxpayer went on and on! In
June 2003 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague dismissed Ireland' s
attempt to stop Britain discharging waste into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield
plant when it refused to grant what amounted to an international injunction. "The
tribunal is not satisfied that in the present circumstances there is an urgent and
serious risk of irreparable harm to Ireland' s claimed right," it said in its ruling.
This was not the end of the story; the European Commission claimed Ireland’s
action was illegal and threatened to take legal action against Ireland unless
Dublin dropped its claim over Sellafield' s discharges into the Irish Sea. The
Commission claims that Ireland’s actions improperly by-passed the EU' s legal
framework, which Ireland is obliged to follow as a Member State.

So now we had a situation where not satisfied with eco-nonsense and waste of
taxpayers’ money in our own jurisdiction, we were wasting other Member States’
time and money. There has been so much misinformation and scare mongering
in the Irish Media over Sellafield that it is practically impossible to present the
facts in a rational and logical fashion – but here goes!

Obviously the Britain’s atomic weapons programme and the production of

nuclear generated electricity since 1956 had left a legacy of nuclear waste. Like
other sectors the design standards and management of nuclear waste was not
as developed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s as it is now in 2009. So how much
radioactive waste is there in Sellafield?
 Nuclear sites in the UK

The Highly Active and Liquid Evaporation and Storage (HALES) plant contains
over 90% of the on-site radioactivity, which is stored in purpose design cooled
tanks contained inside a reinforced concrete shell. The total volume of liquor
containing the radioactive metals caesium 137 and others amounted to about
1,400 m3 in 2005 and is being reduced year by year with a regulatory
requirement to reach 200 m3 by 2015. To put this in perspective a railway wagon
contains about 50 m3. It would be criminal to shut Sellafield at the moment, it is
far better to let them continue operation and treat the high activity waste to the
volume reduction above. Indeed emissions from the British nuclear industry as
has already been mentioned are actually only responsible for about 0.003 mSv
of the average dose of 3.6 mSv dose that an Irish person receives.
So what could go wrong? In major accident hazard implementation the first step
is to review the extensive accident databases to determine what accidents, if
any, have occurred in similar facilities worldwide. Other countries have had
extensive nuclear weapons programmes. Stalin’s famous quotation is that ‘killing
a hundred is difficult but a million is easy’, he didn’t ‘spare the horses’ in the race
to develop a comprehensive atomic weapons arsenal after the Second World
War. He had a facility called Majak, lighthouse in Russian, located East of the
Urals in the closed city of Osjork, where the first Russian nuclear reactor went
into operation in January 1949.

Location of the Majak nuclear facility East of the Urals in the city of Ozjorsk

Safety standards were of course very much secondary, workers had to lift the
radioactive fuel elements out of the reactors, sort them by hand and bring them
to the chemical extraction complex for the recovery of the plutonium. Additional
workers, including women, put the elements into the acid solutions wearing
nothing but a protective face mask. In the West this is done using robotic arms.
However, while the Soviet safety and environmental standards left an awful lot to
be desired, they maintained meticulous medical records, including weekly
dosage monitoring of the workers and blood and tissue samples of workers who
had died and additional hair samples and fallen teeth from those that didn’t. This
is now a treasure trove for the Western experts who now have access to this
material and the site. The results are astounding!

For instance from the records of the 6,293, who between 1948 and 1972 worked
in the chemical facility, 301 have died of lung cancer. However, only 100 cases
arose through radiation, the others through cigarettes. Between 1949 and 1952
the waste water containing medium level radioactivity from the plutonium facility
was simply poured into the River Tetscha, the sediments accumulated caesium
137 and strontium 90 and the banks became radioactive, while the downstream
inhabitants, numbering about 124,000, were using the river water for drinking
purposes.
In 1957 a 250 m3 tank near the facility at Majak that contained 80 tonnes of
radioactive salt solution exploded. The staff had failed to notice that the cooling
system had failed, the solution comprising of mainly caesium 137 and strontium
90 salts had over an extended period dried out and a chemical reaction
occurred. The radioactive material was thrown 1,000 meters into the air and the
resulting radioactive plume, comparable in mass to the Chernobyl accident, was
spread over an area of approximately 40 km in width and 300 km in length.
14,000 inhabitants of the surrounding area were evacuated and 1,000 km2 were
designated as contaminated land. In 1982 80% of that contaminated area was
made available for habitation but today 15% remains closed and guarded by
soldiers. However, unlike Chernobyl radioactive iodine was not present and
incidences of thyroid cancer did not arise. However, more bad practices
followed, radioactive liquids were simply pumped into a nearby lake to use it as a
storage lagoon. It partly dried out in the summer sunshine and the dust spread
over the surrounding area.

Majak is still in operation today with 14,000 employees; it is the world’s largest
production centre for radionuclides and these are used in medical research,
including in many Western countries. EU, Russian and US researchers are
carrying out extensive investigations into the effects of long term exposure to
radiation in this area. Studies have shown that of the 29,849 people who lived
along the Tetscha, 1,854 cancer cases have arisen of which about 50 cases
could be related to exposure to radiation. Yet according to Greenpeace 272,000
people were harmed. According to them even in the area of Musljumowo, 80 km
away, every second adult is infertile and every third new born comes with
defects to the world!

But back to Sellafield! Unlike Chernobyl there is no big graphite core in Sellafield
with radioactive elements that can burn for days. However, there is a potential
for a spillage or an explosion in the highly active waste tanks, although this is an
extremely remote possibility due to the cooling systems and back-up cooling
systems on the tanks and the proper monitoring and control procedures. There
are also back-up tanks into which the waste can be transferred if the continuous
monitoring detects any problems. So the consequences would be similar to
Majak in that there would be a high level of radioactivity in the near vicinity of the
plant.

Even the RPII in their 2005 inspection report on Sellafield concluded with regard
to their estimate of the impacts on Ireland of the worst credible accident scenario
at Sellafield:

• “The assessment assumes that the wind direction was such that
radioactivity released to the atmosphere at Sellafield is carried directly
across to Ireland. It shows that the potential contamination levels in
Ireland that could result from such an accident are orders of magnitude
below that at which the implementation of ‘immediate countermeasures
such as evacuation or sheltering would be warranted. However,
regarding foodstuff countermeasures, the assessment undertaken
demonstrates that the BNFL Sellafield reference accident could result in
levels of contamination in the food chain that would require intervention
from the Irish Authorities”.

However, the wind does not blow in the direction of Ireland, but from a Westerly
direction. Met Eireann examined the potential trajectories of a release from
Sellafield using weather data from the period 1961 to 2000, the results are
shown overleaf and show that only 1 to 2% of the trajectories cross Ireland.
 Met Eireann – Trajectories from a release at Sellafield.

Yet this information has never been good enough for the Irish media or senior
politicians. Indeed the State Broadcaster RTE in April 2006 transmitted a ‘docu-
drama’ about Sellafield a year after the RPII report. At least Sean Dunn of Leixlip
called it right in his letter to the Irish Times on the 25th April 2006.

• “Madam, - RTÉ' s Fallout docu-drama, depicting an unrealistic

catastrophic accident at Sellafield, unsubtly supports the prevailing neo-
Luddite agenda that wants to make "nuclear" equal "Chernobyl" in the
public mind. This campaign has fear as its main weapon, and ignorance
and prejudice as its main allies. Fallout succeeds only in increasing that
fear and prejudice, further stifling the possibility of any rational debate
on the topic, while simultaneously exposing the long-suffering Irish
viewing public to dangerously high levels of bad acting. - Yours, etc”.

The usual out of control media depicting mass evacuations, panic, etc. But this
was from the State Broadcaster and the RPII had publicly to state that:

• “The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) has said that the
scenario as depicted in tonight’s RTE drama, Fallout, could not happen.
The RPII, who viewed the drama on Wednesday 19th April, has
analysed the scenario as depicted and has concluded that it is not
possible for such an accident to occur in Sellafield”.

Unfortunately this dreadful misrepresentation continues in the Irish media and

with senior Irish political figures. In September 2006 the Irish Times published an
article that “more than two million Irish people could face compulsory
resettlement should an accident occur at the Wylfa nuclear power plant on the
island of Anglesey off the Welsh coast”. The source of this came from an anti-
nuclear Local Authority group that simply superimposed the Chernoybl fallout
over a map of the British Isles, see below.
‘Pictorial’ from All Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities Forum, published
in Irish Times on September 18th 2006.

In fact the RPII made a joint inspection of this plant, which is located 120 km
from Dublin in October 2006. The effective dose for the worst case scenario for
the population on the East Coast of Ireland was estimated at between 0.053 and
0.138 mSv and if one goes back to the RPII graph at the start of the section it is
clear that in the context of an average dose of 3.6 mSv per year that this is of no
significance, or as the RPII stated; “does not exceed the intervention levels for
urgent protective actions recommended by the RPII in line with international
advice”.

• It is a sad but undisputable fact that in Ireland the reporting of

nuclear issues by the Media and the behaviour of senior political
figures with regard to this issue is now effectively out of control
and the public are being systematically lied to!
8. ECO-NONSENSE UK STYLE – THE LIGHTS GO OUT!
Summary: The UK needed prior to 2009 to build new power plants to replace
both:

• Aging coal and oil fired plants that do not meet EU regulations for
environmental protection and are too old to justify the enormous
expenditure that the necessary investment in gas cleaning would entail.

• Nuclear plants built in the 1970s that are approaching the end of their
lifespan.

However, protests from the ‘Green Lobby’ prevented the implementation of a

replacement programme and from 2012 on the UK is going to lose 20% of its
current (2009) generating capacity. Frequent power outages will occur until at
least 2018 until a new fleet of nuclear generation plants are brought on-line.

The European Pollution Release and Transfer Regulations E-PRTR require

medium and large sized industrial sites to report annual emissions to the
European Environment Agency; the data is then presented in a high quality
format on their website. The diagram below is from a Swedish Non-
Governmental Organisation (NGO) on acid rain, which took the data for sulphur
dioxide emissions from the older EPER system in 2004 and presented it a highly
effective and striking manner.

Europe’s Chimneys: The size of the chimneys reflects the relative

emissions reported for 2004 of the 20 largest emitters of Sulphur Dioxide.

Topping the list are two large coal fired stations in Bulgaria and Spain, together
emitting nearly 650,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year – as much as the
combined total from all of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Equally bad figures apply for
nitrogen dioxide and particulates – but these sources are more diffuse.
Can this go on? Of course not! The first EU Directive on control of emissions
from Large Combustions Plants came out in 1988 and it has been updated
regularly since. It is important to remember that Large Combustion Plants have a
life span of 30 plus years and the costs involved in constructing them and
modifying them are enormous. In France they went nuclear; in Germany as
already mentioned they implemented huge flue gas desulphurisation projects at
their coal fired plants.

In Ireland our 900 MWe coal fired plant at Moneypoint on the West Coast was
built in the 1980s after a political / environmental campaign rejected the state
owned electricity company’s (ESB) plans to build a nuclear plant. In 2008 a 260
million Euro plus expenditure was completed at Moneypoint in order to enable it
meet current environmental standards. Unfortunately there are more stringent
standards coming down like an express train, which will require even more
expenditure.

Moneypoint is a smallish coal fired power plant by European terms, many of the
larger coal power plants in the UK are older such that it didn’t make sense to
upgrade them due to the huge costs and limited remaining lifespan. As can be
seen from the graphic above even though they have been fired on low sulphur
coal in the 2000s they are significant polluters. Legally they are on an ‘End of
Life’ exemption from the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive, under which they
can operate for a maximum of 20,000 hours in total from Jan 2008 up to 2015. In
reality given the huge demand for electricity in the UK these plants are having to
be kept hot, either running or being kept ready to run, so are rapidly eating into
those 20,000 hours (there are 8,760 hours in a year).

The ‘perfect storm’ is therefore in 2009 brewing in the UK. The UK’s generating
plant capacity is about 76,000 MW and there is a 2,000 MW interconnector to
France, which over 90% of the time is importing nuclear generated power.
11,300 MW of generating capacity is on an ‘End of Life’ clause under the EU
Large Combustion Plant Directive. Worse 7,300 MW of nuclear power
generation will have to close within the next decade; some plants such as the
Wyfla in Wales are already on an extension. In Wyfla’s case the unit first
delivered power in 1971.

Where is the UK’s power going to come from in two to three year’s time when it
loses nearly 20% of its generating capacity? Is the EU going to give an extension
to their compliance period when the other Member States have already made
the necessary investments? Regardless these plants are very old having being
constructed in the early 1970s, can they be kept running reliably for much
longer? Why were new ones not built in time?
 Protest in the UK – but it doesn’t stop reality biting!

Unfortunately the public wouldn’t listen to the engineering profession and the
politicians who supported them in the development of new replacement power
plants. As Tony Blair knew they had to learn the hard way! Both Germany and
the UK are facing this problem – renewables and energy savings cannot despite
the claims of the ‘Green Movement’ provide sufficient power to meet the energy
demands related to the quality of life we enjoy in the ‘developed world’.

In the UK the Environment Agency is prepared to deal with the applications for
new nuclear generation that will be delivered by the private sector, principally
EDF of France. It is expected that by the time these applications are being
processed in 2011 – 2012 the UK will be experiencing significant power outages!

Either fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, the UK

survived the last three winters without power outages, so the public never got a
necessary dose of reality! But the electricity power situation there is critical as
the following press report demonstrates:

May 2008 - UK Brown Out:

The UK Grid prefers to run with a 20 per cent safety margin available in case its
demand forecasting doesn' t match reality, and there wasn'
t enough generation
available to provide this through the afternoon.

At 12:45 the National Grid control centre went straight to its stage-two level of
warning to the energy market, a "High Risk of Demand Reduction" notice.

16:11: “Demand Control" went into effect, as distribution companies reduced the
voltage in their supplies. The effect of this on most electrically powered
equipment is to reduce the amount of energy used - in most cases without
causing damage or loss of function, there generally being a built-in tolerance to
variations in supply.
This view would seem to indicate that similar - or more serious - problems could
be on the cards in future, as demand is forecast to rise and most new plants in
the Gigawatt range are facing years of planning disputes and protests from the
green movement.

The preferred green solution, offshore wind, likewise faces severe planning
difficulties - and it would take three colossal, world'
s-biggest-ever wind farms like
the proposed London Array to deliver the same juice as Sizewell B (1,000 MWe
nuclear) does, or at least six to match Longannet (2,400 MWe coal).And of
course, you' d then have problems like Tuesday' s every time the wind dropped -
or rose to gale force - around most of the British coast, which does happen now
and again.

This is not a matter to be taken lightly as the Times reported the next day:

“In and around the Lincolnshire towns of Market Rasen and Louth, 23,000
homes were affected. Thousands of households had no electricity in Wallasey,
Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port and Runcorn on The Wirral.

Eight people were rescued from a lift in a library in Middlesbrough where, along
with neighbouring Stockton and other parts of Cleveland, 30,000 premises were
hit.

Thousands of people in South London were without electricity as the power shut
some businesses. The cut lasted less than an hour but it affected stations, such
as Clapham Junction, and caused road problems as traffic lights went out. North
of London, Watford was also hit”.

It is likely that the above is going to become a regular occurrence, even if the
power plant construction was to start today in summer 2009, which it can’t, the
plants would not be ready in time for 2012 / 2013 when all that capacity is
coming off the grid. Even if EDF get approval in 2012 it will then take at least five
years to construct and commission the new generation capacity.

The situation is not getting any better as the attached press release from my own
professional institute clearly shows:

“A clear majority of chemical engineers say that Greenpeace activists who

vandalised a coal-fired power station in a publicity stunt to draw attention to the
dangers of climate change were acting without justification.

In a survey of 460 chemical engineers, conducted by IChemE (the Institution of

Chemical Engineers), 77% said the protestors’ actions were wrong.

In October 2007, five activists scaled the 200m high chimney at Eon’s
Kingsnorth power plant in Kent, UK using abseiling equipment before daubing
the word ‘Gordon’ (referring to UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown) in an effort to
convince the UK Government to cancel the planned redevelopment of the coal-
fired station. The protestors were accused of causing £30,000 worth of criminal
damage.

Greenpeace defended the charges of criminal damage by asserting that by

acting to close the power station, they were preventing the harm that coal
causes to ecosystems, people and property.
The jury found the activists not-guilty, marking the first case where preventing
property damage from climate change has been used as part of a ' lawful excuse'
defence in UK Crown Court.

IChemE’s Director of Policy, Andrew Furlong described the court ruling as

‘disastrous’ and warns that it could discourage new investment in the UK energy
market: “Any foreign company looking to construct a plant will take a wide berth
of the UK. This court ruling provides a precedent that says ‘It’s okay to break into
industrial facilities and vandalise them’.

“There is no single source solution to our future energy needs. This isn’t about
renewables or fossil fuels. If we’re going to keep the lights on in, we’ll need
renewables and fossil fuels, along with natural gas and nuclear energy,” says
Furlong”.

It’s going to be a mess!

9. THE MEDIA – NOW OUT OF CONTROL!
Summary: It is astonishing the degree of misinformation that is in the media;
from the Y2K bug that was to cause computer chaos, to the imminent threat from
weapons of mass destruction that had long since been destroyed, to the MMR
vaccine that was the main source of autism, to the property market that would go
on rising for ever, etc. Why do people read and watch this stuff when it is clear
that it is of such low quality? Is it an addiction? Yet never in the history of
mankind has there been so much accurate information available, such as from
the EU website or the website of the World Health Organisation.

The situation in Ireland is extremely distressing. Even when it was documented

in 2006 and 2008 that false and inaccurate information was being presented in
the media concerning environmental issues, the regulatory agencies, the Press
Ombudsman and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission refused to take
action. In the case of the Press Ombudsman, an industry self regulation body,
unpublished procedures were used to justify not having to take action, which
were at variance to their published procedures for making a complaint.

The EU is highly concerned over the misrepresentation of EU environmental

policy in Ireland, the Representation in Dublin, Vice President Wallström’s
Cabinet and Directorate General Environment replying to documented evidence
of this misrepresentation presented by myself. However, EU but does not have
the power to interfere in the handling of press complaints in the Member States.
The Irish Government when presented with the same information that elicited the
response from the EU declined to reply.

All I can recommend to the Irish public is “turn it off!” Why let the Irish media
consistently misinform you on matters critical to your future welfare?

The Grand Slam win by the Irish Rugby team in 2009 could not have happened
to a nicer more dedicated and decent bunch of sportsmen – no need for A and B
samples there! However, less than 18 months previously they were being vilified
in the Media; broken marriages, fights over girl friends, gambling depths, not to
mention being incompetent on the field! Who had got it wrong? Yet this is ‘now
par for the course’:

• According to the media in the lead up to the millennium huge numbers

of computers were going to crash on the 1st January because of the
Y2K bug, did any? Despite the fact that the pilots expressed no
concerns about flying their planes over the New Year period the cabins
behind them were empty? Did the media know more about the
technology than they did?

• Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors couldn’t find any
Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq but according to the Media the
situation was absolutely critical and invasion plans were justified.

• With regard to the MMR vaccine, medical advice was repeatedly

ignored in favour of media hype, the next result was 30% of babies did
not received the necessary protection and in Ireland alone several
children have suffer severe complications and even death, currently in
April 2009 there is an outbreak of mumps. However, Kathy Sinnott rode
the hype and got herself elected to the European Parliament.
• According to the media property prices were going to keep rising, the
worse that would happen was a ‘soft landing’, and yes the banks were
as safe as houses!

• Why do people spend so much time viewing, listening to and

reading this material, not to mention paying for it? Unfortunately a
very addictive and almost unbreakable habit has been formed with
the public – but it is increasingly an extremely unhealthy habit.

On the 19th February 2009 I received the following letter from the European
Commission, Directorate General Environment, Directorate A – Communication,
Legal Affairs and Civil Protection (ENV.A.I/AM D(2009) 28241).

“Thank you for your letter of December 18th 2008, which was addressed to Vice
President Wallström and which was passed to the Communication &
Governance unit of the Environment Directorate-General for reply.

As the Representation in Dublin and Vice President Wallström’s Cabinet have

already written, the Commission does its utmost to disseminate accurate
information, to correct factual errors in the media and to foster positive relations
with the media. However, we are, of course, aware that European media is not
always as pro-EU as we would wish!

Thankfully there are citizens like you! Thank you for what you have already done
to highlight misrepresentation of EU policy in the Irish media. Please keep up the
good work – writing letters to the press, phoning in to radio programmes, etc –
and please encourage your like-minded family, friends and colleagues to do the
same thing”.

So what had been written to the EU on the 18th December 2008?

I refer to the letter from Siobhan Duffy of the 9th December (EU Delegation in
Dublin) in which she recommended that I forward my comments to yourself, who
has responsibility for Institutional Relations and Communications in the
European Commission. On the 6th November I sent some detailed
correspondence to the EU office in Dublin relating to some very grave concerns I
had relating to implementation of industrial development complying with all EU
Legislation in Ireland and the reporting of the media here on matters of
environment, health and safety policy. The documentation is comprehensive but
in short:

• The Shell Corrib gas development in County Mayo meets all EU and
National Legislation and Best Practice. It is as much a product of Irish
engineering and technical resources in the design, regulatory approval
and construction as the name plate of the developer.

• The cost of policing at the site has already exceeded 11million Euro and
an explosive device had to be disarmed recently at the Shell office in
Dublin.

• When these unfortunate situations arise it is absolutely essential that

the voice of reason and moderation be heard!

• Unfortunately this is not happening as a lynch mob situation is being

whipped up and enflamed by the reporting of the Irish media on the
project.
• It is a shocking but true fact that while extensive coverage has been
given to a small disaffected grouping called ‘Shell to Sea’, the Irish
media has never explained to the public here that it is simply illegal for
the developer to even consider an offshore option given that in the
event of an production accident off-shore, the Shell directors would be
liable to imprisonment under Irish safety legislation. This implements
the Safety Framework Directive 89/391/EEC and requires the employer
to assess risk, combat risk at source and adapt to technical progress;
simply put with the technical progress of sub-sea technology it is now
possible to process the natural gas on land and avoid the significant off-
shore risks.

• The reporting of the Irish Times, the second largest daily and the
‘quality paper’ has been especially antagonistic to the project. Not only
are basic principles of ‘Truth and Accuracy’, ‘Distinguishing Fact and
Comment’, ‘Fairness and Honesty’, ‘Respect for Rights’ being broken
on a regular basis but false information is being reported, e.g. that the
local Bishop is campaigning to have the development stopped and
relocated elsewhere even though he has clearly clarified in writing to
me that this is untrue.

• The Press Ombudsman is refusing to process a complaint on the above

altering his published procedure of complaints by e-mail to include that
it is necessary for me to be mentioned by name in the article. This is
despite the fact that this Press misreporting is leading to escalation of
violence and tensions at the site towards fellow professionals, whose
prospects of future work on industrial projects in Ireland is being
seriously compromised if fully compliant projects like Corrib can be
delayed for two to three years and incur extra costs of the order of 100
million Euro.

• The Press Ombudsman is an industry ‘self regulation’ body that is not

covered by Legislation. The Irish Government having declined in 2003
to accept the recommendations of the Legal Advisory on Defamation
that a Statutory Press Council be established. The Irish Government
Ombudsman remit does not cover issued relating to the Press and is
refusing to act.

The only course of action available to the technical resources on the project
subject to this misrepresentation, the resulting intimidation and threats to
personal safety and the undoubted loss of future employment prospects in
industrial projects in Ireland is to take a legal route through the Irish Courts,
which as the Publication of the Press Ombudsman states; where in the past
expensive and lengthy actions were often the only option for complainants. It
would also point out that Ireland has failed to ratify the Aarhus Convention, the
only one of the 27 Member States who has failed in this regard. The EU
Commission’s own Country Report on Ireland: Measures on Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters, Country Reports:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/aarhus/study_access.htm , has been especially
critical of the huge legal costs and delays in accessing the justice system here,
which has in effect prevented the Aarhus requirements on access to justice
being fulfilled.
The Corrib project is not the only one in Ireland that has been the subject of this
‘Trial by Media in the Court of Public Opinion’, it is unfortunately a regular
occurrence for industrial projects despite the fact that they undergo the most
detailed scrutiny and meet all EU and National Legislation and Best Practice. It is
particularly worrying that in Ireland that senior Political figures regularly refuse to
support the Statutory bodies for implementation of planning and industrial
pollution control legislation when ‘controversy’ arises, usually whipped up by
inaccurate media reporting. Indeed some present Government ministers have
had a long history of obstructing the implementation of essential EU legislation,
such as compliance measures essential for meeting the targets associated with
the Landfill Directive.

Unfortunately a democracy will only function effectively if the public has access
to accurate information. As an Engineer and Environment, Health and Safety
Specialist I’m appalled at the level of misinformation that is occurring in Ireland,
is this surprising given that there are little or no controls and access to justice in
event of a complaint is essentially non-available to the ordinary person? Since
1999 I have worked extensively on EU technical aid projects in the Accession
Countries, I don’t see this ‘Trial by media in the Court of Public Opinion’
occurring there for projects which meet all regulatory requirements and I don’t
see why companies investing in Ireland or Irish Engineering and Technical
resources should have to endure it here.

Finally the issues above are also leading to a gross misreporting of European
measures in Ireland. Without doubt the cornerstone of the EU Climate Change
policy is the Emissions Trading Scheme. I was appalled in May 2006 on how this
was misreported on Irish radio by the State Broadcaster RTE, which was in
effect giving marketing advantage to a company, whose ‘Green’ credentials were
based on ignoring the CO2 emissions of its product that were discharged in
Germany and instead claiming that it should be given additional duplicate credits
here in Ireland. The complaints procedure was a farce; Broadcasting Complaints
Commission May 2006:
http://www.bcc.ie/decisions_details/May2006/65%2006%20decision%20P%20S
words%20May06.doc . So the inaccurate claims and misrepresentation of the
EU policy continues in the press: Irish Times November 03:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1103/1225523317392.html,
and a company that is actually doing something useful is subject to the usual
‘Trial by Media the Court of Public Opinion’: Sunday Tribune November 02:
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2008/nov/02/cement-
manufacturer-announces-plans-to-begin-waste/

There are a number of serious issues here that need to be considered. While the
Commission’s Office in Dublin does its utmost to correct any factual errors in the
Irish media about the relevance of EU law, the Commission has no power to
interfere in the handling of press complaints in the Member States. There is
unfortunately a serious problem with the quality of media reporting in Ireland.

• Ultimately a democracy will only function properly if the citizens

have access to accurate information. One could even go as far as
to question if the citizens get the politicians they choose or those
politicians that the media help to choose for them. The
consequences of repeatedly inaccurate information can therefore
be devastating!
In my opinion false information should never be published or broadcasted as
fact. Unfortunately as we have already seen this is consistently the case in
Ireland. One then has to ask what mechanisms are in place to prevent this
happening – the reality of modern Ireland is that there are essentially none!
When the Press Ombudsman was established in January 2008 its remit only
applied to those who had been directly affected by and involved in the article or
behaviour in question. Lorna Siggins of the Irish Times had been consistently
publishing inaccurate and biased information over the Corrib gas terminal in
Mayo, she was proselytising her anti-development campaign instead of reporting
facts. Her article on the 29th September was clearly inaccurate, including false
information with regard to prominent individuals campaigning against the
ongoing construction of the terminal.

The Press Ombudsman refused to act invoking new procedures that I would
have to be personally mentioned by name in the article! This was a severe
watering down of the published code, the consequences of which would once
again allow free rein to the press media in Ireland. Even worse while the Press
Ombudsman in the same period censored a prominent columnist Kevin Myers
over his querying of the effectiveness of ‘Charity Aid in Africa’ this was based on
two members of the public, who had been unnamed in the relevant article,
making a formal complaint.

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission had recently been established in

2006 when I made a formal complaint to them over a disgraceful broadcast on
the RTE Five Seven Live programme. This programme promoted the false
claims of a ‘Green’ cement company Ecocem and totally misrepresented EU
Environment Policy relating to control of greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. meeting
Kyoto targets. Cement clinker is produced by burning primarily limestone
(CaCO3) at 1,400˚C to produce lime (CaO), releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) from
the reaction and also from the fossil fuels used to reach these temperatures. The
bulk of cement clinker (CaO) is produced in dedicated cement kilns, such as by
CRH, Quinn or Lagan in Ireland. However, the steel industry in Europe adds
limestone to its blast furnaces and the resultant slag is not unsurprisingly
predominately CaO. For over a century this has been ground up and used as a
construction material, it is considered by the EU as by-product of the steel
industry, for which many blast furnaces tweak their process to get right. The net
result is that some 90% of this material can be used in the construction industry
but the amount of it produced is still only of the order of 10% of the EU demand
for cement clinker.

The ‘Green’ credentials of Ecocem who import this material into Ireland, grind it
down and sell it as Green cement are based on the premise that:

• They place slag derived material on the market for construction use
instead of it being dumped to landfill and fresh clinker having to be
produced in conventional kilns with its associated CO2 emissions.

They use this premise then to justify their ‘claims’ that every truck load saves 27
tonnes of CO2. This ignores totally the fact that CO2 has been released in the
blast furnace and that the material is in fact a by-product.
However, the claims for this ‘Green’ material know no bounds. The corner stone
of the EU legislation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the Emissions
Trading Scheme. This covers a list of industrial sectors that are significant users
of energy, such as power plants, cement plants and steel furnaces. The present
arrangements are that the Member States decide a National Allocation Plan that
distributes carbon credits to these industries, but at a sum below what they
currently use in terms of fossil fuels. Companies must surrender sufficient credits
at the end of the year to cover the amount of fuel they have consumed or pay a
penalty. By implementing energy efficiency measures a company does not have
to surrender so many credits; these can then be kept for one’s own use or sold
to other companies. There is the possibility like CRH has done in the Ukraine to
implement energy efficiency measures outside the EU and transfer credits in. By
this manner a trading system is established which enables the ‘biggest bang for
the buck’ to be identified and implemented. Global warming is a global issue – it
does not matter where the emissions occur as there are no local effects.

Ecocem’s website: “Ecocem cement is the most sustainable building

material in the world. It will increase the service life of your building and
result in CO2 and other emissions savings”. However, where are the
emissions from the production of the Ground Granulated Blastfurnace
Slag (GGBS) in the steel plant?
The carbon emissions from the steel furnaces that produce the Ecocem slag raw
material are already part of the Emissions Trading Scheme and those emissions
inherent in the production of the slag by-product have been accounted for in the
allocation to that steel plant. This though has not stopped Ecocem for a number
of years from claiming that they should be given the same credits on a tonne per
tonne basis for the companies in Ireland that produce cement clinker by the
direct cement kiln process. Given that their grinding operation for slag is a very
minor user of energy and is therefore not even covered by the Emissions
Trading Scheme this would be a nice little earner as they could then just sell the
credits on the open market. The Irish media, including the RTE programme in
question has been consistently promoting these claims without explaining the
proper origin of the ‘environmental benefits’ or how the Emissions Trading
Scheme works. Indeed they were highly critical in the programme and press
reports of how the scheme was being implemented by the authorities (EPA) in
Ireland to the disadvantage of the ‘best pupil in the class’ Ecocem.

I have huge reservations about the claims of this ‘Green’ or ‘Carbon Neutral’
cement as it just skilfully ignores that their product is exactly the same material
(CaO) and the ‘savings’ are only a trick of accounting in which the carbon dioxide
emissions in the generation of the CaO are assigned to the steel product and not
partly to the slag byproduct. When we come to their claim about deserving
carbon credits I have to draw the line as this claim steps totally outside the
boundaries of ethical behaviour. The relevant credits associated with the
emissions in the production of their product have already been assigned to the
steel furnaces that produced the slag and Ecocem’s energy usage in grinding
the slag is so low that they are not an industrial sector listed under the Emissions
Trading Scheme directive. This is nothing short of an unethical cheap shot using
so called ‘Green’ claims to get free advertising and an advantage over
conventional cement producers such as CRH, Quinn or Lagan. However, the
Broadcasting Complaints Commission concluded that because the lead in to the
broadcast had stated that the programme was about meeting Ireland’s Kyoto
targets, the emissions that had occurred in the steel mill in Europe were
irrelevant.

• The above only goes to prove once again that the Irish public is
subject to a deluge of false information about industrial safety and
environmental protection!

The same information package that went to the EU also went to the Irish Head of
State and Head of Government. From the resulting correspondence with this
author it is clear that they are not going to implement measures to change
matters, indeed a reply was not received the Green Party Minister for
Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan to who was
delegated the matter.

All I can recommend to the Irish public is “turn it off!” There have never been so
many alternative sources of accurate information available; examples are the
EU’s own website (http://europa.eu/ ) or that of the World Health Organisation
(http://www.who.int/en/).

• Why let the Irish media consistently misinform you on matters

critical to your future welfare?
10. THE THREE PHASES OF THE GREEN ‘REVOLUTION’
Summary: Europe had suffered two devastating World Wars in the first half of
the 20th Century so it is little wonder that the environment was somewhat less
than satisfactory in the early 1970s. However, it was being addressed by the
political leadership through the mechanisms of the EEC. Unfortunately it was at
that time fashionable to attack the system rather than work constructively with it,
such as was exemplified by the student riots of 1968.

This was clearly evident in the South West of Germany where students from
Freiburg and locals campaigning against the construction of a nuclear plant
illegally occupied the construction site in 1975 and the politicians backed down
as a result of the adverse publicity. So Phase One was now completed, in some
Member States the democratic system could be hijacked!

This provided a lead into Phase Two. There was power and influence to be
gained by promoting the Green cause. Furthermore ‘Doom and Dread’ sells
papers and broadcasting airtime, after all what is the point in telling the public
that the ‘problem’ is being quantified and suitable pragmatic measures are being
implemented to rectify the situation? Even in Member States with a strong Green
Party their best election results have never really exceeded 8%, but that doesn’t
mean their followers think they have to acknowledge the wishes of the 92%, who
didn’t vote their way. Wrap the flag around and launch the campaign, fight on the
barricades until you are sent to prison and then become a martyr to the cause!

In February 1989 planning permission was granted to a US pharmaceutical

company Merrill Dow for construction of a facility in East Cork. At that time the
nearby town of Youghal was a severe unemployment blackspot and this project
was going to deliver over 500 high quality jobs, similar to the pharmaceutical
plants that have operated in other areas of Ireland in the last four decades.
Lynch mob tactics prevented that plant being built and the company pulled out in
disgust. History is repeating itself in summer 2009 as the same tactics, indeed
even the same people, are intimidating the construction personnel on the Corrib
gas project in County Mayo. In 2009 over 50% of our electricity is generated by
gas, which also fuels our homes and industry, currently this comes via a single
pipe feeding a compressor station in Scotland at the end of the European gas
network. Corrib when developed would supply us with 60% of our gas needs,
vital to our energy security.

The Irish political process has capitulated; the Shell to Sea protestors’ website is
full of Irish politicians that have associated themselves with this grouping, whose
cause is to force the developer to complete an illegal act! Government Ministers
are repeatedly ‘engaging’ with these disaffected elements of Irish society while
the Irish technical resources that deliver the State’s infrastructure and industry
are subject to both the usual ‘Trial by Media in the Court of Public Opinion ’and
regular intimidation from these eco-terrorists while their input is totally ignored.

Phase 2 is now complete, eco-nonsense is widespread, the media is out of

control and the interests of the silent majority have been trampled on.

We are rapidly moving into Phase 3 – the rip off of the common man!
It is becoming clear to me that there are three distinct phases in this Green
Revolution that will if not unchecked lead to a Green Economy. As I have
mentioned already Europe experienced two devastating World Wars in the first
half of the 20th Century. It was becoming clear to the leadership in Europe in the
late sixties and early seventies that the state of the environment was far less
than satisfactory and the EEC established the first measures to correct these
with the 1st Environment Action Programme in 1973. However, letting democracy
takes its course in a structured and balanced fashion was not good enough for
some – the hotheads! 1968 was characterised in Europe by student riots, it was
fashionable to attack the system rather than to work constructively with it.

Freiburg is the University town in South West Germany, the ‘Dreiecke’ or triangle
where Germany, France and Switzerland come together. The tiny hamlet of
Wyhl, not far from Freiburg, was first mentioned in 1971 as a possible site for a
nuclear power station. In the years that followed, local opposition steadily
mounted, but this had little impact on politicians and planners. Official permission
for the plant was granted and construction began. Local people then occupied
the site and police removed them forcibly two days later. Television coverage of
police dragging away farmers and their wives helped to turn nuclear power into a
major national issue, with subsequent support coming particularly from the
nearby university town of Freiburg. On 23 February 1975 about 30,000 people
re-occupied the Wyhl site and plans to remove them were abandoned by the
state government in view of the large number involved and potential for more
adverse publicity.

People power? Not really, nothing radically different to what the Bolsheviks did in
1917. A small determined and organised group can take ownership from the
‘silent majority’. This is happening with increasing frequency in some Member
States, particularly Ireland. Development is necessary unless we are all satisfied
to see a reduction in our standard of living – if that is the case then all should be
made aware of it and it should be clearly presented to and agreed to by the
democratic majority! At Wyhl the decision of the democratic process was not
respected, nothing unusual with that approach by the Not in My Back Yard
(NIMBY) creed. First of all we have to ask the question was the democratic
decision to construct there unfair. In fact all the evidence from the other nuclear
plants operating in Germany, such as at Neckerwestheim, is that the surrounding
population is more than happy with the plants, in fact many are unhappy with
their premature closure due to the Atomausstieg. Secondly we need to consider
the action of the students, they were quite willing to use violence and civil
disobedience as their ‘knowledge and cause’ was superior to that of the
democratic process.

So in the German case the politicians who were elected to represent the
democratic system caved in and a rational based decision making process was
totally compromised to meet the requirements of disaffected Not in My Back
Yard (NIMBYs) and hot headed students. Students who had not even managed
to pass their graduation exams, but were clearly ‘demonstrating’ that they were
the experts in the technological issues concerned. Wonderful, the interests of the
silent majority got trampled on and the net result is the French electricity is now
far cheaper and with much lower environmental impact than that generated in
Germany. Note the Irish Green Party Minister for the Environment completed his
language studies at the University of Freiburg.
• So Phase One was now completed, in some Member States the
democratic system could be hijacked! All one needed was a good
cause – history repeats itself doesn’t it!

This started to lead into Phase Two. There was power and influence to be
gained by promoting the cause. ‘Doom and Dread’ sells papers and
broadcasting airtime, hence advertising revenue flows and the herd can be kept
in check and manipulated.

• After all what is the point in telling the public that the ‘problem’ is
being quantified and suitable pragmatic measures are being
implemented to rectify the situation? There is simply no personal
gain in that at all even if the community were to benefit!

Political careers were being successfully forged through the new Green
Ideology. Green Parties were established in some Member States, their
development could be aided and media revenues maximised if the public could
be kept gullible. So incinerators, nuclear power plants and GM crops became the
new threats to mankind’s prosperity - a new ideology needs a new propaganda
to rally the masses. The misinformation became a deluge. Yet the EU
Environmental Policy based on a rational and democratic approach saw no such
threats to mankind. Granted like all technologies, incinerators, nuclear power
plants and GM crops have to be regulated and standards maintained but there is
no justification what so ever for an absolute ban.

The nuclear power plant in Brokdorf, Northern Germany, which has

supplied 1,440 MW to the grid since 1986. Violent protests occurred during
construction at the site, some 100,000 people came face to face with 10,000
police officers. Twenty-one policemen were injured by demonstrators
armed with gasoline bombs, sticks, stones and high-powered slingshots.
Where is this leading to? For some there is the cause and for others there is also
the flag that they can be wrap around themselves to justify …..whatever! Let’s
face it being Green is now seen as being cool and fashionable, history has
always shown us that a significant percentage of mankind thrive as camp
followers, no different in today’s world as the quotation below demonstrates,
taken from the Sunday Times of April 19th 2009 on “How charity work became
sexy”:

• That empowerment brings happiness, agrees recent convert Amelia

Gregory. Her Amelia’s Magazine project is online-only, and her new
passion is Climate Rush, a group raising awareness about climate
change using charity’s latest tools: flash mobs and club nights. “It
doesn’t feel right to do anything else,” she says, and the scene has
become her social life. “I now find people who aren’t connected to
ethics quite shallow. Those who care are far more interesting to me
because they’re considering life beyond their small box.”

Even in Member States with a strong Green Party their best election results have
never really exceeded 8%, but that doesn’t mean their followers think they have
to acknowledge the wishes of the 92%, who didn’t vote their way. Wrap the flag
around and launch the campaign, fight on the barricades until you are sent to
prison and then become a martyr to the cause! As to the needs and wishes of
the other 92%, who don’t behave in such an undemocratic fashion to provide the
media with stories, well…! Let’s face it one of the current rising ‘Stars’ in the
German Green Party was engaged in organising the violent demonstrations at
the G8 summit in Genoa only a few years ago!

But back to Ireland, in February 1989 planning permission was granted to a US

pharmaceutical company Merrill Dow for construction of a facility in East Cork. At
that time the nearby town of Youghal was a severe unemployment blackspot and
this project was going to deliver over 500 high quality jobs, similar to the
pharmaceutical plants that have operated in other areas of Ireland in the last four
decades. The anti-development group Concerned Citizens of East Cork and
West Waterford lobbied Irish Politicians and ran the media campaign and
Citizens against Merrill Dow took a more direct action approach. It got very bitter,
I was working in the US at the time and I can recall a front page section in the
Wall Street Journal on how the Merrill Dow plant in Ireland was going to dump
600 tonnes of waste a day into the nearby river – the truth, take the maximum
volume discharged from the site’s waste water treatment plant and convert it to
tonnes of waste! It wasn’t as if Merrill Dow didn’t engage in “open dialogue” and
“transparency”, they did. There was also a comprehensive Environmental Impact
Assessment completed for the projects.

However, why let facts and figures spoil a good cause. The site was occupied
and when the company’s senior executives came to visit the area they were
attacked by a lynch mob on the Saturday as they entered the local golf club for a
round of golf, filmed of course by arrangement with the State Broadcaster RTE
for the evening news. The project was cancelled early the next week. Who
gained? Certainly not the unemployed in the area! The Allen family, prominent
media figures in the world of showbiz cooking, had played a prominent role in the
campaign. Did the 1,000 jobs they promised they would deliver instead in their
‘organic ventures’ materialise? No, but the father was convicted on child
pornography charges a few years later, demonstrating yet again the unsavoury
nature of their behaviour.
The next pharmaceutical project planned for Cork a few months later by the
Swiss company Sandoz got the same abuse from those parties. Court cases
were taken to obstruct the project as well as the usual ‘Trial by Media in the
Court of Public Opinion’. The legal cases were dismissed as there was no
evidence to support the claims. In one of the legal actions in particular a member
of the local Greenpeace affiliate claimed that the Environmental Impact
Assessment was inadequate, yet it turned out in Court that he hadn’t even read
this document even though it was publicly available. The outcome of this is that
considerable delays and expense ensued, legal cases were dismissed and costs
unpaid, such that the company and the tax payer had to pick up the ‘tab’ left
behind. There was a huge amount of stress for the scientific and technical
community in Ireland, if this second project had been lost in the same manner
then Ireland could have waved goodbye to industrial development in this sector
and the huge economic benefit it has brought to this country.

As time went by I was based in Cork in the mid 1990s and increasingly active in
the design and the regulatory (environmental and safety) approval of new
investment projects for Ireland. One Norwegian company I worked with was
planning a simple facility for the production of wood resin that would be used to
produce finished products for the forestry sector in Ireland. On a personal level I
spent a few weeks in Oslo preparing the environmental permit for that plant.
Unfortunately the witch hunt was still in full swing, political careers were being
forged, particularly that of Dan Boyle of the Green Party, who thrived on the
slogan that there would be ‘no more chemical industry in Cork’. As an Irishman I
was appalled at the treatment this company received, not only were they highly
ethical and met the highest standards but they were the ones who had founded
and financed the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was also most unfortunate that one of the main instigators of the witch hunts
mentioned above was Fr Sean McDonagh of the Columban Fathers, who was
then Chairman of Greenpeace Ireland. Fr Sean did not hesitate to write
inflammatory and false accusations about my professional colleagues and
clients. His followers also were involved in pulling stunts for the TV Cameras,
invading construction sites that as mentioned above had been through the full
legal approval process. It even got to the stage where he was organising Prayer
Meetings (Novenas) in the car park of the pharmaceutical plant that I had worked
in for three years. Certainly wrapping the Green flag around oneself could
excuse a lot of behaviour and the law of the land and basic Christian principles
went out the window.

It was all fun and games for the media, nothing like a bit of controversy, no point
in defusing it by explaining the rational facts? If we take RTE, their marine
correspondent Tom McSweeney was also running a campaign that there would
be ‘no more chemical industry in Cork’. As he wouldn’t find any smoke to include
with his text about ‘smoke stacks’ from the industry in Cork harbour, he would
have a photo taken on a damp winter’s morning, when the water vapour would
rise from the cooling systems of the industrial sites, just like it was coming out of
the photographer’s breath. Did RTE see this as a breech of journalist integrity
and a conflict of interest? No, it obviously served their interests!
Yet the stupidity continues and the interests of the silent majority are cast to one
side. Currently in 2009 over 50% of electricity in the Republic of Ireland is
generated by gas, which also fuels our homes and industry. One high pressure
gas main comes ashore at Inch in Cork from the Kinsale field, but that field is
almost fully depleted. Two more high pressure mains come ashore in North
Dublin fed from a single pipe in Scotland that is at the end of a European grid, a
grid that has its major sources in Norway and Siberia.

It costs over 0.6 million Euro per day to run an exploration drilling rig. The
number of wells that have been drilled in Irish offshore waters is nearly 150. We
had success with the Kinsale field in the 1970s, a small enough field that
supplied our then quite modest gas consumption for the next twenty years. Now
our gas consumption is far higher as we generate the bulk of our electricity with
gas turbine power plants. At the end of the nineties success was finally achieved
with another gas discovery, but this time 80 km of our North West coast at a
depth of 350 meters. This Corrib field is marginal by international standards; it
will only supply 60% of Ireland’s needs for 20 years, a country with a population
of only 4 million. The success rate of exploration in the Norwegian sector has
been about one producing well for every three wells drilled. In Ireland we have
had only two successful finds and the cost of the exploration and the
development of a difficult offshore location have to be factored in to the
economic incentives on the Corrib project. However, as it will supply us with 60%
of our gas needs and as all our eggs are currently in the one basket, a single
pipe in Scotland, the successful completion of the Corrib project is absolutely
and utterly crucial to the energy security and economic security of our nation.

The reality is that the project is now several years behind schedule, held hostage
to NIMBYism and the same individuals, who trace their origins back to Merrill
Dow, with a few known eco-terrorists from the European scheme thrown in. At
the inception of the project a handful of residents in Rossport, where the offshore
pipe will come ashore, decided they were above the law and that they had a right
to stop the project. These residents were not asked for much. A trench about a
meter wide would be dug and a high pressure gas main installed. The grass
would grow back in less than six months and nobody would notice anything. For
this they would be compensated as have the many landowners in the State
where the now comprehensive high pressure gas network criss-crosses the
country. Indeed the two high pressure mains from the North of Dublin and the
high pressure main from Cork join and run under the streets of Dublin out to the
power generating stations on the Poolbeg peninsula. Not only do the residents of
Rossport benefit from a reliable supply of electricity generated in industrial units
elsewhere in the State, but it is shockingly clear from the socio-economic section
of the Environmental Impact Assessment completed for the project that a huge
number are receiving regular payments from the State, i.e. on the live register
and / or receiving supplementary income payments. This money doesn’t grow on
trees but has to be earned by others in this State and the EU who then pay taxes
to support these social structures.
It is clearly evident that a vicious attack was made on this project in which wild
and false claims were made about safety and environmental impacts. High
pressure systems have been around for centuries and are addressed by proven
engineering design and control measures. Thousands of kilometres of high
pressure gas mains criss-cross the EU, operating without incident and
contributing to the prosperity of its citizens. Indeed the major pipeline being
constructed from St Petersburg under the Baltic to Eastern Germany will operate
at 220 atmospheres as opposed to the 135 atmospheres of the Corrib field.
Higher pressures have been used for decades in the power generation stations
that supply us with electricity, while the technology was so developed in 1916
that the Germans were able to generate such enormous pressures in their Big
Bertha guns that they would hurtle high explosives 110 km into the centre of
Paris. Is a soldier that fires a rifle safe while one who fires a large artillery gun in
mortal danger? The answer is clear to reasonable people but not to the
unreasonable ones in Rossport.

As a professional engineer with over twenty years of experience I would like to

point out that as designers and operators of industrial plants and equipment we
are duty bound under the terms of the Irish Safety, Health and Welfare at Work
Act, which implements the EU Framework Safety Directive, to ensure that it is
safe for use. The penal provisions in the same legislation are extremely
comprehensive as are those in the Environmental Protection Act and Protection
of the Environmental Act for those that cause environmental pollution. In my
experience myself and my fellow professionals take the utmost care that these
conditions are complied with, both from an ethical perspective and also because
we take our legal obligations seriously. The evidence is clearly there to be seen
in the extent of the penal provisions that have actually been applied to the
engineering and scientific profession.

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work legislation in Ireland and the EU
enshrine the principles of prevention. Engineers are legally bound to assess the
risks associated with their projects and where these can be eliminated or
reduced at source then that is what they must do. Extensive risk analyses of the
offshore industry were completed after the Piper Alpha accident in the North Sea
in 1988. The results of these consistently showed that that the helicopter
transfers, particularly in bad winter weather, were the highest element of risk.
Indeed more than a hundred deaths have occurred in the North Sea sector from
helicopter transfers. As a result the technology of subsea infrastructure with
piping to the shore was developed. Because of this it would have been illegal for
engineers to build an offshore option as was advocated with extreme
forcefulness by the Shell to Sea campaign, which developed out of the protests
of the five Rossport residents, indeed the Directors of Shell E&P would be liable
for a prison sentence if an accident were to happen on a transfer to an offshore
processing platform. However, the five Rossport residents placed themselves in
contempt of the Irish High Court, were as a result sent to prison and became
martyrs of the Green cause.
Willie Corduff of the Rossport Five with his ‘protest’ that took place the
morning after 15 masked men broke into the Corrib site and attacked the
security guards and vandalised construction equipment. A media and
political ‘darling’ to whom has been handed over the key of Ireland’s
energy security and future energy policy.

In every society there are disaffected elements, in Rossport the local teacher
decided to leave her class, join the protests and drive her car into the police line.
The woman has psychological and drink problems, she was arrested for being
drunk and disorderly in a pub in Galway some months later. She was too sick to
attend that Court hearing but turned the next day in London to protest at Shell’s
headquarters. Since then she has gone on ‘hunger strike’ in 2008 for a number
of days and yet again been arrested for attacking the police in the area. This
time she was jailed for 28 days and sent for formal psychological examination.

To the media this is ‘Big Brother’ Irish style; she is being pumped up like a
performing dog – no ‘voice of reason and moderation’ being heard there. The
Irish political process has capitulated to this fringe group; the Shell to Sea
website is full of Irish politicians that have associated themselves with this
grouping, whose cause is to force the developer to complete an illegal act!
Government Ministers are repeatedly ‘engaging’ with these disaffected elements
of Irish society while the Irish technical resources that deliver the State’s
infrastructure and industry are subject both to the usual ‘Trial by Media in the
Court of Public Opinion’ and regular intimidation from these eco-terrorists while
their input is totally ignored.

• Phase 2 is now complete, eco-nonsense is widespread, the media

is out of control and the interests of the silent majority have been
trampled on.

It is deeply frustrating for many technical people in Ireland and some other
Member States as they can see these issues clearly, but are unable to correct
the stampede that has been deliberately caused in the herd and is driving it
towards the cliff edge. Terry Nolan, a native of Carlow and head of Shell in
Ireland, wrote in 2006 in a section that was published in the Irish Times:

• “Efforts to prevent the Corrib gas project proceeding are a challenge to

our democracy”.

• “As citizens we put our faith in the government that we elect and the
statutory bodies of the State. We all live with the decisions that they
make. Failure to do so will undermine our democracy. The Corrib gas
 project has every necessary government and regulatory consent and
planning permission”.

The Corrib project has long since ceased to be solely an issue of gas supply; it is
how we allow our democracy to function. We have reached the situation in
Ireland that the Media and senior political figures have been guilty of so much
misinformation that the public can no longer be given access to the truth. So
technical resources, who understand the difference between rational
environmental policy and the Green Ideology have now to be suppressed. As
friend and fellow Chemical Engineer, who came to Ireland 11 years ago from
South Africa posted on the Sunday Tribune website in October 2008:

• “Having worked for over 13 years in the design and construction of

environmental technologies and waste management, I am sick of
seeing the profession of engineering systematically undermined by a
complete ignoring of the facts for the purposes of political gain on every
level”.

• “There are currently numerous examples in Ireland of politics and

ignorance driving inherently bad decisions. Mayo, Ringaskiddy, Meath,
Poolbeg...the list goes on. What is particularly troubling is that
intimidation of the engineering profession is now part of the process.
This is unacceptable!! Once you start undermining and intimidating the
very people who actually have the facts available to make the correct
decisions, the ideal of protecting the environment is worthless”.

Where is this all going, what are the goals of the Green Ideology that are so
laudable that it can be regularly involved in such ignorant, intolerant and
completely unchristian behaviour? Does anybody know? Let us go back again to
Freiburg in South West Germany, this time to the Öko-Institut. According to their
calculations if the average household of 2.1 people, reduced their consumption
of electricity by a half, drove a small hybrid car less than 12,000 km per annum,
lived in a 90 m2 (1,000 ft2) highly insulated house with low heating oil
consumption, had a very low consumption of meat, then this lifestyle is
calculated to reduce their carbon footprint by 3 tonnes per person per annum.

Well let’s put this figure in another way, in the developed world of Europe, North
America, Japan, Australia, etc, there are about 800 million inhabitants. So if each
and every one of the 800 million people were to follow the Öko-Institut lifestyle
there would be a 2,400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide savings per year, yet the
planet that has annual global emissions of 49,000 million tonnes carbon dioxide
equivalent. What does this mean in real terms?

• If all of us in the developed world followed the Öko lifestyle we

would discharge in one year plus 18 days the amount of carbon
dioxide to the earth’s atmosphere that with the current lifestyle is
discharged in a year!

Is there a better way of achieving this environmental benefit, which after all is
only 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year for a lifestyle that many may
not be willing to choose? Should we, as is highlighted in the cover page of this
book, not be told what the costs are, what the environmental benefits and
impacts are and what the alternatives are? This is clearly not happening as we
rapidly move into:

• Phase 3 – the rip off of the common man!

11. GREEN ENERGY OR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY?
Summary: Energy is the currency of the high quality of life we enjoy in the
developed world and people naturally have no wish to return to an undeveloped
lifestyle that is prevalent in such places as Central Africa. There are with doubt
opportunities to use energy more efficiently and this should be the first port of
call. However, while the EU has a target of a 20% energy saving by 2020, it will
become increasingly more difficult to achieve further reductions in a cost
effective manner.

Where is all this energy going? The figures clearly show that a ‘big hit’ can be
achieved by targeting transport and electricity generation. Lithium ion batteries are
starting to emerge as a viable option for cars, these electrical cars will be cheaper to
run and can be charged on the existing grid. If all the cars in Germany converted to
this technology it is estimated that the grid demand would increase by 16% and this
demand would primarily occur at night during off-peak times. The electricity grid is
therefore the key to the future.

Just because one can generate energy it is of no significance unless one can do
so economically, with reliability, with a low environmental impact and in a
manner that gives security of supply. So how do we generate electricity for the
grid of the future and how do we design it? First what is the true cost of
electricity? It really isn’t that complex, it is the sum of financial cost that we pay
as users and the environmental costs associated with the impacts that occur in
generation and transmission. All of the environmental costs have been
calculated by the EU in their ExternE programme and generation costs are
published for each technology option and for each Member State. We can clearly
see that the options for both lowest cost and lowest environmental impact are
hydroelectricity and nuclear, nuclear in addition gives the greatest security of
supply.

With regard to nuclear waste this is a political rather than a technical issue. For
instance 1.7 billion years ago 15 natural reactors were running in Gabon in West
Africa. Waste residues including Plutonium have moved less than 3 meters
through the surrounding rock. Zero money was spent on this storage. In reality
nuclear technology has moved on, in the past reactors were designed to produce
‘waste’ that provided plutonium for weapons programmes. Current reactors
produce much less waste, about as much in a year that would fit in a London
taxi. This waste will also become the fuel for the next generation of reactors,
which in turn will produce high level waste that will decay in 500 years to the
level of radioactivity that occurred when it was originally mined from the Earth’s
crust for fuel production. Furthermore nuclear fusion is approaching commercial
development, which will use water as fuel and essentially produce no waste.

There are a number of renewable technologies available. The EU defines

“energy from renewable sources” as renewable non-fossil energy sources; wind,
solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage
treatment plant gas and biogases. With the exception of countries that are
blessed with extensive hydro electrical resources, such as Norway, none of
these meet the requirements with regard to reliability, sufficient availability and a
realistic cost basis. With regard to both a technical perspective and EU policy
they are seen purely as complementary technologies, which can contribute a
limited fraction of our energy needs, in Ireland’s case a target of 16% by 2020.
• The energy with the lowest environmental impact is the energy
that does not need to be generated or transmitted! However,
energy is the currency of the lifestyle we enjoy in the developed
world.

Not everything is perfect in our developed world; we do not for instance always
make the most appropriate choices given the many options that are now
available to us. However, how many of us would want to live in underdeveloped
Central Africa? We only have to look at the flood of illegal immigrants risking life
and limb trying to cross the Mediterranean into Southern Europe to see what the
preference of the people who live there is.

A satellite photo taken of Europe by night; the inhabitants of the West

European Industry States digest enormous quantities of electricity, petrol,
heating oil and gas. The consumption could be reduced by up to a fifth
without impacting on living standard.

Improving energy efficiency means:

• Less carbon dioxide emissions;

• Industry, service sector and private households have lower energy bills;

• Less dependency on gas and oil imported from abroad;

• Lowering the impact of volatile oil prices on the EU;

• Creation of jobs: The provision of specific services promoting energy

efficient behaviour and the development and sale of energy efficient
products constitute a new growing and profitable market.

Naturally given the above the EU has a target of a 20% energy saving by 2020.
However, there is no legal definition of energy efficiency in EU directives and in
engineering terms it is very difficult to accurately access what a ‘energy saving’
actually is. Still there is without doubt significant potential in energy efficiency
measures and they should be the first ‘port of call’. For instance over half of
urban car trips are less than 5 km, do they really need to be taken by car? Can
we not switch unnecessary gadgets off? However, we do need to implement
measures in a rational manner! For example it certainly makes sense to insulate
buildings; the UK Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has made it clear that
the payback period of photovoltaic solar panels is between 50 to 100 years,
while they will only last 30 years. Spending the money on insulation instead can
have a payback period of five to ten years. However, what happens if one goes
to a group of pensioners and explains they should finance an insulation upgrade
on their homes? They might well point out they are not the ones who are going
to be around to benefit from this investment and they would rather keep their
money as they may need it for the increased medical expenses that are likely
with advancing years.

There are therefore practical limits that can be achieved across society, in theory
a 20% reduction in energy consumption for domestic heating may be achievable,
but is it realisable? Obviously the first area to address is the construction of new
buildings. However, in Ireland what occurred in the last few years was utterly
shameful; buildings of poor quality were thrown up, many in urban areas heated
with electricity; the most inefficient way possible, while under the street outside
ran a perfectly good gas main that would have provided the source for a heating
system of much higher efficiency. Furthermore EU Building Regulations were not
implemented in Ireland until the last moment. We now have the situation as the
builders are slack in the downturn the Irish taxpayer has now to fund energy
improvements to housing stock that only a few months previously would have
been built to appallingly poor standards. There was a proper way of addressing
these issues several years ago by means of proper regulation – the Irish
Government simply choose not to do it!
 Europe’s energy consumption in million tonnes of oil equivalent

The above graph shows where Europe’s energy is going, obviously transport
and industry are playing a large part. There is also a very close relationship
between energy consumption and the emissions of green house gases.

Total energy and non-energy related green house gas emissions by sector,
EU-27.

It is clear that a ‘big hit’ can be achieved by targeting transport and electricity
generation. What are the options available in this area?
The answer is a whole lot! Firstly let’s look at transport. While Toyota were
quietly getting to grips with the hybrid, BMW and Mercedes were pouring millions
in the hydrogen car, which as only water came out of the exhaust was seen as
the pacifier for an eco-obsessed German public. As process engineers most of
us would not consider it appropriate to put high pressure hydrogen into the
housewife’s car, it is too hazardous!

A pipe fitter left an acetylene cylinder in his 4x4 over the weekend. It leaked
and when he activated the door…. He was lucky his injuries were confined
to his face and ear drums. Hydrogen is even more hazardous that
acetylene and is now hailed as the Green solution for the auto industry!

The fuel cell previously hailed as the replacement for the combustion engine is
still going to cost at least Euro 25,000 per car and where does the hydrogen
come from. If you strip it off from fossil fuel hydrocarbons, what are you going to
do with the resulting carbon dioxide formed as a byproduct? If you could find
carbon neutral electricity, generated hydrogen by electrolysis from water and
then put it into the fuel cell the inefficiencies of the process would have stripped
out 75% of the incoming electrical energy. Then even with a massive and highly
dangerous cylinder of hydrogen in your boot you would be looking for a place to
tank up every 100 km, if you could find one!

If you took the same electricity and put it into a battery and then used it at a later
stage to drive your car, you would get nearly all of it back to drive the vehicle’s
wheels. The lithium ion battery car of 16 kWh is nearly here, which will do a
range of 100 km, then in hybrid form for longer distances a high efficiency
combustion engine will take over. 16 electricity units (kWh) at the very high Irish
domestic rate of 18 cents per unit are still only about Euro 2.90. A very efficient
car that we would currently drive would require 6 litres of fuel per 100 km, given
fuel at Euro 1.10 per litre, this still amounts to nearly seven Euros. The message
is clear!
Currently lithium ion batteries for the 16 electrical unit car would cost about
Euro16,000. But the auto industry is aiming to reduce unit costs by a third.
Somebody is going to get it right and be the global winner, pick the wrong battery
from a supplier who hasn’t got it quite right and the battery performance may
deteriorate over a short few years or even blow up and start a fire in the car. But
if you get it right!!! At the moment Toyota is not quite happy with its battery
supplier yet. The German auto industry laughed at Toyota’s first hybrid in 1997,
but nobody will be laughing when they put the first lithium ion electro-car on the
market. Motocross trial bikes are very noisy and such facilities are not welcome
near urban areas, now the sport is getting a major boost, lithium ion electric
bikes are available and provide over two hours of silent bike performance before
requiring a re-charge.

Zero X MotoCross lithium ion bike that retails for 7,500 dollars and
provides performance equivalent to a 250 cc engine but it is quiet!!

In fact it looks like the German auto industry went up a hydrogen Cul de Sac,
wasting hundred of millions and letting their arch rival get ahead!

Because of the unbelievable efficiency and simplicity of the lithium ion car, if all
cars in Germany were switched to this technology it would only increase the
demand on the electricity grid by 16% relative to current levels. There is also no
reason why the cars couldn’t be charged off-peak over night, which would be the
preference of most owners, so the grid would not have to be significantly
expanded. For heavy duty vehicles, such as trucks, the capital cost of the
batteries to supply the range and power would probably be too high, so they
would remain on diesel or Biodiesel.

• The electricity grid is therefore the key to the future.

So how do we generate electricity for the grid of the future and how do we
design it? First what is the true cost of electricity? It really isn’t that complex, it is
the sum of financial cost that we pay as users and the environmental costs
associated with the impacts that occur in generation and transmission. We know
the financial charges and surely somebody has calculated the costs of the
environmental impacts? They have!
The ExternE (External costs of Energy) European Research network has been
active since the early nineties, sometimes in collaboration with the US. It is
surprising that so few people know of this work, because it is so relevant when
assessing the relevant merits of different power generating options. Different
fuels and technologies for transportation and electricity generation have been
researched by multi-discipline teams, i.e. the monetary quantification of the
resulting socio-economic damage. This ranges from assessing the health
impacts from air emissions from coal fired plants (see Section 4) to the global
warming effects associated with the transportation of the fuel and the use of
concrete in construction of the plant. The costs are ‘External’ because the owner
of the power plant is not taking them into account in his decision process, but
they are real to other member of society. If the external costs of electricity
produced form coal was factored into consumers bills, it is estimated by the EU
in 2005 that bills would go up by 2.7 cents per kWh in the majority of EU Member
States, i.e. by approximately 20 to 30%.

Energy source for electricity generation ExternE costs in cent / kWh

(2005)

Brown coal 8.7

Hard coal 6.8
Heating oil 6.1
Natural gas 3.9
Hydro 0.4
Photovoltaic 0.8
Wind power (onshore) 0.1
Electricity generation (power plant mix 2005 5.8
without nuclear)

ExternE Costs for different options for electricity generation options taken
from a 2007 German report. The EU’s ExternE figures range from 0.25 to
0.5 cent per unit for nuclear, reflecting that as the nuclear fuel cost is only
20% of the cost of the electricity sold there is enough money put by for the
plant decommissioning and storage of the spent fuel.

The only thing which beats nuclear, and not by much is wind, and this is a totally
unreliable source. Furthermore the above ExternE figures include the risk of
accidents and the resulting financial implications; for instance dams for hydro
electricity generation do fail, with devastating effect. There is now evidence
emerging that the massive earthquake in Central China that occurred some
months before the 2008 Olympics was triggered by the completion of a huge
hydro-electricity project in the area. The additional weight of the water prevented
the usual minor slips occurring along the geological fault line and instead a major
quake occurred.
What are the main contributors to the above ExternE costs? The German report
established an External cost recommendation of 70 Euro per tonne for carbon
dioxide, 3,300 Euro per tonne for sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, 12,000
Euro per tonne for fine particulates (PM10).The UK Stern report suggested 85
Dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide. It is abundantly clear that combustion plants
are big environmental offenders due to their emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur
dioxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulates. Unless we can reduce these
emissions to a very low level they will remain significant environmental
offenders.

However, we will first look at the financial costs of producing electricity. How
much does a power generation unit cost to construct and run? In the spring of
2009 with the present economic uncertainties it is very difficult to say how much
anything costs but the figures below were based on mid-2008 before the
financial storm hit.

• The general rule of thumb is that a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine

(CCGT), the cheapest Large Combustion Plant base load station type,
will cost about 0.9 million Euro per MW of installed electrical capacity.
However, natural gas is not cheap and if we assume a size of 1,000
MW then the plant would use about 670 million Euros of gas per year.

• A coal fired plant would have a capital cost of about 1.4 million Euro per
MW, but the coal cost would be in the range of 225 to 300 million Euros
per year. Therefore significantly cheaper to run!

• Nuclear is very expensive to build, there were over 30 plants coming on

stream each year in the eighties. This came to a grinding halt, now the
nuclear industry is enjoying a renaissance, Finland is building a new
1,600 MW advanced European (EPR) plant, the latest Generation III
design; investment cost was 3 billion Euro on 2003 basis when contract
was placed but the contractor has recently submitted a claim for 5
billion Euro blaming Finnish regulator for the cost overruns. A similar
plant is being built in France in Flamanville, Normandy for a cost of 4.5
billion Euro, which is likely to be the final ‘settlement’ in Finland. This
gives a capital cost of slightly less than 3 million Euro per MW.

• The big difference is that a nuclear plant uses about 3 tonnes of fuel
rods per annum, with a cost including mining and an enrichment that is
about 20% of the cost of the electricity produced or 45% of that paid in
a coal plant for the same energy input. The back-end costs
(reprocessing, wastes disposal, etc) are fairly small when compared to
the total kWh cost, typically about 5%. The reality with nuclear is that
there is a big up front capital investment but the running cost are low for
a plant that will then run for a further 50 years.

• Oil fired plants went out of fashion when the oil embargo hit in the
1970s, the fuel is simply too expensive to consider for a new plant when
coal is so much cheaper.

• The installed cost of wind turbines is about 2 million Euro per MW if

installed on land and over 3 million Euro per MW if installed offshore.
However, they only produce power when the wind blows so over a year
each MW that is installed will only deliver about 0.3 MW in a highly
variable fashion – more about this later!
• Hydroelectricity? One has to get lucky, if the precipitation and the
geography are right then it is a very economical method of generating
electricity with a reasonably low environmental impact, although strictly
speaking that depends on what one has to flood. However, if one
doesn’t have the necessary waterfall to hand your water turbine simply
won’t work!

• Photovoltaic? The record for crossing the Atlantic in a photovoltaic

powered boat is 29 days, completed in 2007 by ‘Sun 21’ following the
route Columbus took south of the Canaries, hardly faster than the
navigator himself. Even in these Southern Latitudes solar generated
power is more than four times the cost of conventional current. Perfect
for recharging the batteries on a sailing yacht or electronic users in
areas where there are no ‘plugs’. However, it simply cannot supply
significant amounts of power reliably or cost effectively.

At this stage I can hear the screams about nuclear waste. It is surprising how
few people in the non-technical world know that 1.7 billion years ago 15 natural
reactors were running in Gabon in West Africa. Waste residues including
Plutonium have moved less than 3 meters through the surrounding rock. Zero
money was spent on this storage. Nuclear waste is a political and not a technical
issue. One might well ask why one hasn’t heard this before? Engineers can
design and construct a repository that will provide even better protection than
that provided by nature in Gabon. Politicians just run scared of the Not in My
Back Yard reaction that occurs in some countries. Then there is the wonderful
approach of the Green Party in Germany, prevent the proper development of an
engineered solution (Endlager), using non-democratic means and violence, and
then claim that there is no solution for the nuclear waste produced by the
German power plants.

The radioactive remains of a natural nuclear fission reaction that happened

1.7 billion years ago in Gabon, Africa, were held in place by the
surrounding geology
Furthermore the quantities of high level waste that are produced are very small.
Each year all of the 442 nuclear reactors in the world produce enough high level
waste to cover a football field to a depth of only 1.5 meters, this will further
reduce as technology improves. Remember, where did this radioactivity come
from – we mined it from the earth’s crust. What we are doing is returning it to the
crust but in a controlled fashion. For the vast bulk of the waste, such as building
residues, the level of radioactivity is low or medium such that it will have decayed
back to natural levels in less than 200 years. High level waste from the fuel rods
is sent to facilities like Sellafield, Cap de La Hague or Majak for reprocessing.
The residues are then sent to a repository for deep storage. How much does this
cost? The French estimate the cost of their repository to be around 15 billion
Euros: 40% construction, 40% operation for 100 years, and 20% ancillary (taxes
and insurance).

However, like everything else technology moves on. Generation IV reactors will
use fast breeder technology, a number of prototype units of this design have run
for many years in the UK, France and Soviet Union. Fast breeders can
‘generate’ fuel and use the high level waste residues produced by conventional
reactors, the high level waste from this time of design will decay to background
levels in about 500 years. The UN International Atomic Energy Association
estimate that uranium resources are in excess of 5.5 million tonnes and as
energy output can be increased by a much as 60 times with the emerging
Generation IV technology there is enough for a millennium. Furthermore the
international ITER fusion reactor, upon which a former colleague and fellow UCD
engineering graduate is working on in France, is likely to demonstrate
commercial operation of nuclear fusion in 15 years time. Nuclear fusion uses
water as fuel and essentially generates no waste.

Like many other Member States that rejected nuclear energy the Irish grid
became totally dependent on Large Combustion Plants. While this solution for
many years provided us with a very reliable power supply at a reasonably price,
it is clear that there is a very high environmental impact. What are the options to
reduce this impact? In Section 4 the desulphurisation programme that occurred
in Germany in the eighties was already discussed. We can remove sulphur
dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates from power plants but it is very
expensive, both from a capital perspective and because of the huge amount of
limestone that has to be quarried and the amount of waste gypsum produced. As
mentioned already the recent upgrade at the 900 MW Moneypoint power plant in
Co. Clare cost 260 million Euros. Furthermore the operation of this emissions
control infrastructure reduces the efficiency of the plant (originally at 39%) by 1
to 2% - therefore more coal is required.

While the sulphur dioxide and particulate emissions from power generation have
been largely dealt with, Member States are struggling to meet 2010 EU targets
for nitrogen oxides and the further reduction of about 60% required by 2020 is
going to be a massive challenge. Furthermore, as in other countries, carbon
dioxide emissions from combustion currently go straight to the atmosphere. As
Large Combustion Plants will be with us for several decades to come how are
we going to rise to the challenges of lower emissions of nitrogen oxides and
carbon dioxide? With regard to the carbon dioxide the approach will be two fold,
make them more energy efficient and consider Carbon Capture and Storage
(CCS), a technology to be developed where the carbon dioxide is scrubbed out
and injected into suitable geological features.
 UN Report on Carbon Capture and Storage

All of this is easier said than done! In the early Seventies coal fired combustion
plants were less than 30% efficient, in which efficiency is based on the ratio of
the outgoing electricity energy to the energy value of the incoming fuel. The most
modern plants can now just reach 44% on high quality coal but we have reached
the mechanical limits of conventional steel. Potentially we could go to up to 50%
efficiency with more advanced technology but this is going to primarily require
the development of very special alloys to operate at these very high
temperatures, pressures and stresses. Unfortunately we are talking about
chrome contents of about 20% and if we go to 700°C the alloys are nearly pure
nickel. There is a limited supply of these materials and they are very expensive,
several orders of magnitude above that of steel. The same principle applies for
gas turbine power plants; the Combine Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) is the most
efficient base load power plant on the market and has an efficiency of about
56%, to increase that by 10% and lower the nitrogen oxide emissions super
alloys will need to be developed.
The first small pilot plant for Carbon Capture and Storage has just gone into
operation in Germany using pure oxygen for coal combustion instead of air, the
Oxyfuel process. This minimises the volume of exhaust gas and maximises the
concentration of carbon dioxide. The technology for scrubbing out carbon dioxide
has been around for a century, but at the scale required for a large power plant it
is just large and horribly expensive. For instance both RWE, the big German
electricity company, and the technical report prepared for the Bundestag
(German Parliament) are estimating 28 to 35 Euros per tonne of carbon dioxide
removed for these new generation coal plants but it will be 2020 at least before
the first one goes into commercial operation. At the very best the cost basis will
be 20 Euros per tonne. The amount of energy to extract this carbon dioxide,
compress it, transport it to a suitable geological location and then inject it 500
meters below the surface is enormous, adding at least 50% to the price of the
electricity generated. Power plants built to the newest high efficiencies when
equipped with this carbon capture and storage technology will have total
efficiencies down to 30%, using about 1.4 times the amount of fuel they would
otherwise – we will be back at the level of overall efficiencies we were in the
Seventies.

So where are we going to store it? As can be seen below from the RWE
publication some but not all of Europe has suitable geological features.

Potential geological storage locations for carbon dioxide

However, all of this is fraught with unknowns. Will the carbon dioxide leak out?
After all at a 5% concentration it is lethal. Even for a 1,000 MW coal plant, which
is small to medium on the European scale, we are looking at transporting and
storing 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Certainly depleted oil and gas
fields and saline aquifers have potential for storage, but they are not located in
all regions of Europe. The recently completed Sustainable Energy Ireland’s (SEI)
report on “Assessment of the Potential for Geological Storage of CO2 for the
Island of Ireland” concluded that the overwhelming number of potential storage
sites occur offshore.
Potential storage sites for carbon dioxide in Ireland lie offshore – hence
more costs!

However, there is even worse in Ireland’s case, Moneypoint at 900 MW is coal

fired, we have three modern peat fired plants of 100 MW each, everything else
we have been putting on the grid in recent years has been gas turbine based.
With combustion in a furnace only the minimum amount of air is used to supply
the oxygen content, so that the exhaust oxygen concentration is less than 3% to
minimise the amount of unnecessary hot air going through the system and up
the stack. However, a gas turbine is an aero derived engine and requires a large
volume of air flow through it in order to burn the fuel and to provide the motive
force, the resulting exhaust volume is therefore much greater and has a
reference oxygen content of 15%.

Unfortunately when it comes to equipment for scrubbing out carbon dioxide or

the catalytic exhaust treatment for removal of nitrogen oxides (deNOX systems)
the costs just soar due to the massive volumes that have to be treated. At best
carbon capture from gas turbines will cost 50 Euro per tonne of carbon dioxide
removed. With regard to nitrogen oxides (NOx) removal the situation is illustrated
by the submission from the ESB to the Irish EPA below based on meeting
targets previously set for 2010.
 Cost per Tonne of NOx Removed
(2010 Emissions Projections)
20,000

Mid Merit SCR

Cost per Tonne of NOx Removed ( )

15,000

CCGT SCR

10,000

Mid Merit LNB

5,000

Moneypoint SCR Current

Controls Only

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
NOx Emissions (kT)

ESB submission to the EPA: The completion of SCR based deNOx

technology at Moneypoint reduced the ESB’s emissions of nitrogen oxides
from 38,000 tonnes per annum to 23,000 tonnes per annum at a cost of
about 2,500 Euros per tonne. However, if the same technology is to be
applied to a modern gas turbine (CCGT) the costs soar to 12,000 Euros per
tonne.

Simply put costs for downstream treatment of emissions from gas turbine based
technology are horrendous and are only going to get worse. Yet this technology
is providing over 50% of the Republic of Ireland’s electricity and will be in service
for at least 25 further years, at which point the gas reserves in Western Europe
will have been well exhausted. This leaves supplies from Russia by pipeline or
by ship in a liquefied form from Qatar as our only option to keep our power
stations running!
In twenty year’s time we will be talking to this man or his successor about
gas supplies for the power plants we have installed in recent years.

Has / is Ireland investing in the wrong electricity generating technology? The

answer to that depends on whether one is a Politician or an Engineer! However,
let us look at some more facts and figures:

• There is plenty of coal available for centuries to come and while the
cost of coal generated electricity is currently quite competitive the
environmental impacts are very significant, hence the large ExternE
figures. Coal is therefore only a sustainable energy source if we invest
massively in improved emissions control.

• Gas power combustion is greatly admired by the investment community

because it is the cheapest and quickest type of power plant to build,
although the running costs are high. But where is the gas going to come
from and how are the nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide emissions
going to be treated? Big unknowns there!

• In France the cost of nuclear-generated electricity fell by 7% from 1998

to 2001 and is now about 3 cents / kWh, which is very competitive in
Europe, although this cost will go up to about 5 cents per kWh over the
next decade as older generation plants reach their lifespan and have to
be replaced by new Generation III EPRs. French nuclear technology
meets all current and proposed environmental standards. Furthermore it
offers the greatest degree of security of supply as enough fuel can be
easily stored for several years. Indeed in Ireland’s case it is clear that
there are potentially significant deposits of uranium around the island.
However, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan of the Green Party has banned
this exploration activity.

The reality of the situation can be explained by the following three simple graphs.
The first two relate to the cost of electricity in each Member State charged to the
domestic household and industrial user respectively and the third graph shows
the Externe costs of electricity produced on the grid of the Member State, i.e. the
environmental impact of their system.
Cost of electricity for domestic consumers in each Member State (2007)

Cost of electricity for industrial consumers in each Member State (2007)

European Environment Agency ExternE figures for generation in the EU
Member States

The lowest ExternE figures are being achieved by Member States that have
either high nuclear or hydro penetration (or both). Clearly we now have a basis
for the total cost of electricity in each Member State, i.e. add the financial
charges to the ExternE figures! The answer is very clear, if you don’t have lots of
hydro available because nature wasn’t generous to you then nuclear is the
answer.

• However, nuclear is not ‘Green’, it fact it represents everything

that the Green Ideology hates and vehemently attacks! Instead the
Green Ideology states that only solution is Renewable Energy. Is
it?

As was already highlighted in Section 4, Sustainable Development is defined as

development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. We definitely needed to
reduce our emissions to protect both current and future generations Does deep
storage of a very small quantity of high level waste comprise the needs of future
generations? Certainly not! The nuclear waste in Gabon hasn’t made the
slightest bit of difference to the people who live there. Furthermore there are
huge reserves of fissionable material available and nuclear fusion is rapidly
coming to commercial fruition having had a technical breakthrough in 2008.
Nuclear fusion will simply use the hydrogen available in water as the raw
material and there is no shortage of water on the planet!
Given that we have perfect sources of sustainable energy why do we need
renewable sources? Is it because as they are ‘close to nature’ as opposed to
high technology they appeal to the Green Ideology (see graphic on front cover)?
What is renewable energy exactly? The proposal for a Directive on the
Promotion of Renewable Energy (2008/0016 (COD)) defines “energy from
renewable sources” as renewable non-fossil energy sources: wind, solar,
geothermal, wave, tidal, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment
plant gas and biogases. The Community has long recognised the need to further
promote renewable energy given that its exploitation contributes to climate
change mitigation through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,
sustainable development of a knowledge based industry creating jobs, economic
growth, competitiveness and regional and rural development.

Let us look at each of these in turn! Hydropower we have already dealt with,
wonderful if one has a waterfall available but it is not without its environmental
and safety impacts! Still from the ExternE figures these impacts are certainly
within an acceptable range.

Biomass is vegetation that feeds us and the animal world, but it can also be
combusted to produce energy or biodigested to produce biogas, another fuel.
Like all combustion there will be emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulates and
sometimes sulphur dioxide with the combustion of biomass fuels. The emissions
of carbon dioxide are excluded from the assessment as it is considered that the
carbon dioxide released goes back into growing new vegetation which is at a
later stage combusted, completing the cycle in a closed loop. In addition to the
emissions there can be environmental impacts from growing the vegetation.

This is all great in theory, but can we actually grow enough of it? In theory the
amount of biomass that grows on the planet each year has been estimated to
exceed our energy requirements by a factor of eight, but we also need a
considerable amount of biomass to feed both ourselves and the animal
population on the planet! Are we going to ‘strip farm’ the planet with significant
environmental impacts from intensive farming?

Intensive farming of rapeseed; it has been calculated that the whole of the
Ukraine would have to be planted with rapeseed to produce sufficient
Biodiesel to cover Germany’s current diesel fuel demand. This is simply
not viable!

Similar problems are now to arise due to the demand for wood pellets.
Traditional forestry practices were to leave the trimmings and roots in the forest
floor where they decayed and provided the necessary nutrients for growth and
soil stability. Now these all go into wood pellet production.
‘Woodcracker’ machine pulling out the roots - the mechanisation of
forestry to supply an ever increasing demand for Biofuels, such as wood
pellets, is starting to destroy the relevant eco-systems.

Government support for biomass and Biofuels if improperly applied can lead to
severe damage to eco-systems. The WBGU, which is the one of the advisory
committees of the German Federal Government, is submitting a formal report on
this issue. The EU has also scaled back its targets for Biofuels. Despite this
biomass and Biofuels do have a role to play, but it has to be done sensibly. In
the tropics ethanol produced from sugar cane can compete economically with
standard petroleum for cars. However, as already mentioned the conditions
under which many currently work on the sugar cane plantations are very
unsatisfactory. In Ireland we have the ridiculous situation where Sustainable
Energy Ireland is engaged in the hard sell of wood burning systems to the Irish
public. In recent years we have for the first time achieved a reasonable standard
of air quality in Irish urban areas, but now Sustainable Energy Ireland want us to
burn wood, despite the fact that we need to reduce our particulate emissions
significant to comply with the EU Thematic Strategy on Air. Unfortunately wood
combustion is characterised by significant particulate emission unless it is
completed in a dedicated power plant with advanced emissions control, for
instance the US EPA estimated in 2002 that wood smoke kills 30,000 people
there each year. Yet again Ireland is a leader is disjointed policy!

As for the Irish Green Party, when in 2003 the EU set an indicative target of
5.75% Biofuels penetration in the EU transport sector by 2010, the Irish Food
and Agricultural Development Authority Teagasc quietly pointed out that even if
our available land under tillage was doubled we would struggle to produce
5.75% of our diesel requirement by planting rapeseed, and that was ignoring the
Petrol replacement target. Yet shortly after becoming Energy Minister Eamonn
Ryan of the Green Party was on our National Broadcaster enthusing as to how
Ireland would be a ‘renewables superpower’, even exporting Biofuels to the rest
of Europe! In summary biomass and Biofuels have a role to play but it must be
done sensibly, there is a limited capacity to produce these and economics must
also be considered.
We must also remember that vegetation, particularly forestry, is a useful ‘sink’ as
it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of the growing process. In
2007 the University of Helsinki concluded in a technical report that the increase
in forestry in Europe since 1990 has absorbed carbon dioxide equivalent to 11%
of Europe' s discharge. For instance in Latvia the trees absorb more carbon
dioxide than the country discharges. The growing trees have double the effect
on Europe’s carbon dioxide balance as all the existing wind turbines and solar
panels. Trees are also cheap!!!!

What about wind? Wind simply doesn’t blow all the time, in Germany wind
turbines produce about 15 to 25% of their nominal rating over the course of the
year. In Ireland it is closer to 30%, what does one do the rest of the time, wait
until the wind comes back?

Wind farm in still conditions in Northamptonshire, an astute member of the

public wrote the following to a Scottish newspaper. “Given the choice, and
being environmentally aware, I would choose to be supplied with electricity
from ‘100 per cent nuclear power sources’. In which case I would enjoy
having a highly reliable, carbon-clean, supply costing me little more than
half of what I pay now. In comparison, those who chose ‘100 per cent
Green electricity’ from wind farms would suffer electricity bills four to five
times the size of mine and when the wind didn' t blow strongly enough they
would have no electricity at all. At these times they would probably want to
share some of mine”.

How an individual power supplier on the electricity grid works is irrelevant when
compare to the performance of the whole grid. On the 30th March 2009 a high
pressure system moved in over Ireland. The output of the 1,000 MW of wind
energy installed on the Irish grid did not exceed 100 MW for the next 36 hours.
Do we manage without electricity until the wind comes back or do we just
generate it in an alternative manner? The reality is that the public want their
system to continue delivering power regardless of what the weather happens to
be like! So every MW of wind energy on the grid has to be fully backed up by
alternative systems. In reality in many countries this means that thermal plants
are now running in a stop / start and variable manner to match the amount of
wind energy supplied to the grid because the new rules require them to stop
producing power as soon as the variable renewable supplies start to feed in.
A car operates much more efficiently on a motorway at a steady speed than in
does in the stop / conditions of the urban cycle. Likewise a combustion plant
operates best on a steady load. The most efficient type of thermal plant we have
is a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) at about 56% efficiency. If the system
is operated at less than 80% capacity this efficiency rapidly drops off. Every time
such a plant is stopped and started the damage to the system is equivalent to
that which occurs from a month of continuous running. Recently the open cycle
areo-derived turbine has become available, the so called ‘peaking plant’, which
has an efficiency of about 45% and can maintain that down to 50% capacity.
However, the more wind generated electricity that is put on the grid the more
inefficient the rest of the generation becomes and while the wind energy is
producing no carbon dioxide emissions it is causing the rest of the grid to
discharge more than it would otherwise for that amount of power generation.

Wind turbines are not cheap, roads have to be built up the side of the mountains
to install them in locations where the wind is strongest or huge costs have to be
incurred in installing them offshore. The gusting wind places huge stresses on
the gearbox and failures of these are routinely happening after as little as 5
years. While a conventional power plant will last for 30 to 40 years and a
Generation III nuclear plant for 50 to 60 years, experience to date is showing that
wind turbines are unlikely to last for the 20 years that the manufacturer’s claim –
caveat emptor! The industry hasn’t yet perfected the smaller wind turbines but is
continuing to race ahead with larger and larger units, particularly for offshore
locations where the environment is extremely harsh. For example in 2004 the
Danish firm Vesta, the leading firm in the world, had to rebuild the turbines in a
complete wind park off the West coast of Denmark. The same problems
occurred in 2005 off the English coast.

A traditional grid goes from power plant to consumer, as transmission losses can
amount to typically 8% of the electricity generated engineers try to design a grid
to minimise these losses, such as locating power plants in areas close to the
consumption patterns. For wind energy completely new grid connections have to
be built up the side of mountains and out to offshore locations where the turbines
are located. As the average power output is only about 30% of the maximum
power output from the turbine these new grid connection are being utilised in a
totally inefficient fashion. Electricity grids costs money, in the UK the grid cost
adds about 1 Euro cent to the cost of the electricity, it is considerably more in
countries that have a scattered population, such as Ireland.

Ireland’s electricity value chain for 2004, which determines the price of
electricity. Double the size of the grid by 5,000 km to accommodate the
Government’s wind programme and these grid costs will rise!!

Electricity grids are highly unsightly, we can put them underground but then a
cooling system is required for the high voltage cables, this has to be engineered
correctly or it could leak – take the cost of a standard overhead high voltage AC
system and multiply it by twenty!
Wind energy ‘Gurus’ such as Eddie of Connor, who made his fortune with
Airtricity, say we can build a Supergrid that is connected to a location where
there is always wind. Our Green Party Energy Minister Eamon Ryan publicly
states that this is the way forward for Ireland. In July 2003 a big high pressure
system moved in over Europe as I was heading to Kiev. There was no wind in
Ireland, in Kiev or anywhere in between on my way out and when I came back
two week’s later there was also no wind, there was even no wind for the period
in between. Europe baked in the sunshine and the German wind energy industry
was producing about 2% of its rated output! These weather conditions are not
uncommon, one can often fly from South of the Alps to Ireland in still sunny
conditions, both in winter and summer. How many wind turbines do we need to
produce 1 MW of wind energy when a 1 MW wind turbine produces an average
of 0.2 to 0.3 MW over the year. How many kilometres of additional high voltage
cables do we need to criss-cross Europe to ensure that we have located these
turbines somewhere where there is always wind? How much is this going to
cost? Will it even work?

If you ask the advocates of the Green Ideology they can’t answer with basic facts
and figures so they latch onto another Green Vision, storing wind energy! In the
past small pumped storage systems were used to modulate the grid at peak
times. By the time one generates a MW of electricity, transmits it to the pumped
storage unit, pumps it uphill, then at a later stage lets it down the hill to
regenerate the electricity and then transmits it on to the user, one is very, very
luck to have 0.7 MW of electricity left!

Nowadays engineers use peaking power plants, the aero-derived gas turbine to
modulate the grid. So if on average a 1 MW wind turbine produces 0.2 to 0.3
MW, we then need to have the install over three 1 MW turbines to produce the 1
MW. But if 0.7 MW of this is going to our new green pumped storage system we
are losing 30% of that energy. So we need to install a further 1 MW turbine. Now
we have in total to carry the cost of four 1 MW turbines and the cost of an
enormous pumped storage system for the days on end in which there will be no
wind simply to deliver a single 1 MW of Green Energy. Pumped storage stations
typically only hold sufficient water storage for operation for between 6 and 11
hours, the amount required to modulate a grid. They are characterised by long
construction times and high capital expenditure, typically 1.5 million Euros per
delivered MW for a 10 hour system, but we would require the storage system to
hold far more water, a much bigger unit as there can be no wind for several days
on end, even as much as 11 days. At this stage the capital cost for delivering a
MW of electricity by this combination of wind turbines, pumped storage and a
massive grid is well in excess of 11 million Euros per MW or at least 50 billion
Euros for a country the size of Ireland – it is ridiculous that people are even
proposing this solution! Not only are there enormous financial costs but the
landscape would be destroyed by this amount of turbines and the pumped
storage would also have major environmental impacts.

• However, if one is selling the wind energy vision rather than

having to buy the power!!!

On this point it is interesting to note that offshore wind parks have only been built
to date in countries where the subsidies are high, for instance the energy
concern E.on is active in offshore wind parks in Scotland but not in other
countries where the subsidies are not so generous.
Wavebob Ireland’s Future Green Energy Supplier floating, as it will
regularly, in the calm waters off the West Coast.

Wave energy is no different than wind energy; the waves are just not there all
the time, so we end up paying for two systems with all the associated
inefficiencies. Do you want to pay for that?

Tidal flows have the advantage that they are predictable – but what are the
flows? A tide has a six hour flood in which it flows into the bay and then this is
followed by a six hour ebb. The cycle then repeats itself. The rule of twelfths
applies in that:

• In the first hour one twelfth of the tidal flow occurs.

• In the second hour two twelfths of the tidal flow occurs.

• In both the third and fourth hours three twelfths of the tidal flow occurs.

• In the fifth hour two twelfths of the tidal flow occurs and finally in the
sixth hour one twelfth of the tidal flow occurs.

Of the two tides per day one is stronger than the other. Furthermore spring tides
occur when the sun and the moon are on the same side of the earth and neap
tides occur when the sun and the moon are on opposite sides. The flow that
occurs in a neap tide is less than 60% of what occurs in a spring tide. All of this
is illustrated on a typical tidal chart, such for San Francisco Bay below.

Tidal chart for San Francisco Bay showing the inherent variability in the
flow, it may be predictable but it is not steady!
It is clear from the above that there are only limited periods when the flow is
strong, i.e. above 1.5 knots (2.7 km/h). While a tidal flow power station has been
operating near Saint-Malo in France for over 40 years, the tidal range there is
one of the largest in the world at 14 meters. An equally massive tidal range
occurs in the UK River Severn. A project of gigantic proportions has been talked
about there for many years involving a 16-kilometer (7.4 mile) barrier, spanning
the inlet between Southern England and South Wales; it would be the world' s
largest tidal barrier and cost at least 19 billion Euros. Its turbines would have the
capacity to deliver an extraordinary amount of energy. At 8,600 MW its energy
output would be roughly equivalent to eight nuclear power plants. It would have
the capacity to provide a full five percent of Britain's current electricity needs --
sustainably and without any climate-harming carbon dioxide emissions. There is
a downside; the output like the tidal flow would be intermitted, worse by flooding
the upstream area the natural cycles would be severely disrupted. Large areas,
which are sometimes dry and at other times flooded, would be permanently
immersed in water. Tens of thousands of shorebirds would be rendered
homeless, and many fish would be unable to clear the barrier on their way to
their spawning grounds.

In Ireland the tidal range is only 4 meters as opposed to 14 meters, so such a

system would not be practical. We can put turbines under water to catch the
flow, locate them where possible in areas where there are strong currents, but it
all comes back to the same question is it cost effective? No it is one of the most
expensive options currently open to us!

The Seagen tidal power unit in Strangford Lough, a massive structure to

produce 1.2 MW, but it only produces during periods of strong tidal flow.
At Euro 4 million per MW for a variable supply is this really cost effective?

What about geothermal? If you live in an area that is geological active, such as
Iceland, then there is a source of significant heat not much below the surface
that can be harnessed for generating electricity. In theory one can drill several
kilometres below the earth’s surface in other regions to find significant
geothermal resources, it just costs an awful lot of money and like the gearboxes
on the wind turbines, who pays after a few short years if the pipes corrode or
block?
However, biogas is a useful renewable energy source as in many cases waste is
being digested and this is also provides a useful form of treatment of these
waste streams. The power output is also continuous rather than variable and by
use of gas storage techniques it is possible to generate more power output in
periods when electricity demand is higher, such as in the evening peak.
Unfortunately An Bord Pleánala saw fit to turn down a number of biogas projects
in Ireland!

The Green Ideology constantly drives home the point that low carbon
technologies, in particular those that are renewable, work out as not much more
expensive than conventional ones and are going to get relatively cheaper over
time. These numbers are not borne out by experience.

Wind is the great technology hope of the Green Ideology. However, it is currently
very expensive relative to nuclear power which produces power for the grid at
lower than the average spot market price, which in Germany in 2006 was an
average of 5.1 cent per kWh (Note: electricity prices peaked in early 2008 but
have now fallen back to previous figures). Even at 7 cent per kWh for onshore
wind energy and 9 cent per kWh for offshore wind it hardly breaks even. There is
little technical progress; it is highly intermittent so requires additional back-up
generation which operates inefficiently due to the variability in the wind output.
Furthermore it needs massive additional expenditure in networks to cope with
the small scale of decentralised power input, in many cases a duplicate grid. The
costs of wind generation has not gone down despite decades of targets and
without significant subsidies it is doubtful if private industry would have installed
any of the wind generation that is there to date.

• From an engineering perspective wind energy is not going to get

any cheaper unless there is a massive increase in global wind
strengths. Wind is for racing yachts in which the aim is to stay in
front of the other yacht, it is not a resource for powering a national
electricity grid unless one is content to pay exorbitant electricity
charges and wait until the wind blows before turning on
appliances!

German legislation currently (2009) requires 17 nuclear reactors with an output

of 21,500 MW to be prematurely shut down at least 10 years before they would
otherwise require closure for technical reasons. Despite all the rhetoric they are
not even coming close to filling that supply gap with renewable energy sources.
Massive subsidies have been given to renewable energy projects, among others
photovoltaic solar installations.

• Under the German 100,000 roof programme solar produced

electricity must be paid 48.1 cent per kWh for feed in to the grid
even though the utility company could generate the same
electricity for less than 5 cent per kWh with their existing nuclear
plants.
The reality of the situation is that for every 1 kWh installed the actual output has
been 700 kWh per year, each year has 8,760 hrs, so these solar units have
produced less than 8% of their installed capacity and their contribution to the grid
has been less than 0.5% of the electricity required by Germany. The Green
Ideology just opened up the taxpayer’s check book, the amount of money
essentially poured down the drain for no actual environmental benefit has
already been estimated at 112 euros per head of population – it is simply stupid
given that the 9 billion Euros that the programme will cost over the 20 years
could have been spent with much better results in a myriad of other ways! Is it
not surprising in Germany in 2007 they were reporting that Green Energy was
costing 27% more than it was five years previously having increased from 9.16
cent to 11.66 cent per kWh, more than double the price of nuclear energy so that
one can simply claim ideological purity?

Installing solar panels in Germany – an incredible price for the German

taxpayer and electricity consumer for ideological pure electrical current!

There is also a very worrying trend appearing in some Member States, their
electricity systems are being so distorted by political interference that rather than
technical optimisation occurring to achieve lowest cost and environmental impact
the systems are being re-engineered to be ‘Green’, the result is the prices are
soaring. If the prices soar then certain technologies, like wind and solar which
are receiving huge subsidies as they conform to the Green Ideology, become
attractive to the user. However, all of this has to be paid for and the overall
economy suffers a massive loss of competitiveness relative to other Member
States that have optimised their electricity networks based on lowest cost and
environmental impact. The situation has become so ridiculous in some Member
States that for instance in Denmark with their exorbitant electricity charges it
would be cheaper for the domestic consumer to buy a portable generator and
disconnect from the grid.
In conclusion then there are lots of ways of generating electricity from renewable
sources, are they relevant? Forty years ago man went to the moon and back, an
incredible technical achievement, he hasn’t been back since, why? It is the
economy stupid! Just because one can generate energy it is of no significance
unless one can do so economically, with reliability, with a low environmental
impact and in a manner that gives security of supply. The Green Ideology is
selling ‘Renewable Energy Visions’, it is not doing the sums itself, probably not
interested in the relevant figures and it is most certainly not telling the public
what the costs will be!

Certainly if we can meet the targets of economic and reliable generation from
renewable sources with low environmental impact then we should do so, but
what is economic? As already mentioned the total cost of existing generation is
the sum of the financial costs plus the cost of the environmental impacts, which
are often referred to as the external costs. The position of the EU in their Green
Paper: A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy –
COM (2006) 105, is that:

• “The Community needs a real Community-wide debate on the different

energy sources, including costs and contributions to climate change”.

The Community guidelines on state aid for environmental protection – OJ C 37

(2001) state:

• “The principle of prices to reflect costs states that the prices of goods or
services should incorporate the external costs”

• “Member States may grant operating aid to new plants that will be
calculated on the basis of the external costs avoided (…). The amount
of aid thus granted to renewable energy producer must not exceed 5
eurocents / kWh”.

• The 2008 guidelines are clear in that the aid is considered to be

proportional only if the same result could not be achieved with less aid
and the amount must be limited to the minimum needed to achieve the
environmental protection sought.

Support to renewable energy is therefore not an open check book! Why should it
be, after all what we need is a sustainable energy supply that reduces
environmental impacts, why does it have to have this added renewable feature,
particularly if it is going to drive up the costs significantly? Is this dogma or
sense?

Responding to the call made by the European Council of March 2006 (Council
Document 7775/1/06 REV10) the Commission presented its Strategic European
Energy Review on the 10 January 2007. As part of the Review, the Renewable
Energy Road Map [COM(2006) 848] set out a long term vision for renewable
energy sources in the EU. It proposed that the EU establish a binding target of
20% for renewable energy’s share of energy consumption in the EU by 2020,
which includes a binding 10% target for the share of renewable energy in
transport petrol and diesel. In April 2009 it appeared that agreement had been
finally reached on this proposed Directive and it will be shortly introduced
Without doubt there are potential conflicts between the production of food versus
Biofuels, there is also the reality that despite the massive costs involved it could
actually do very little to the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. There are also enormous differences between countries; 99% of
Norway’s own electricity requirement is generated from water and Norway also
exports hydroelectricity on a large scale to neighbouring Scandinavian countries.
A particularly warm and dry summer in 2002 was followed by a dry autumn, with
the result that the water level of the reservoirs in Norway and Sweden fell. The
2002 / 2003 winter was especially cold, and even the water supply in the
reservoirs of the hydroelectric power plants froze. An energy emergency erupted
throughout Scandinavia. The prices in the Northern Energy Exchange North Pool
tripled within a few days. In Sweden, energy prices rose 260% compared to the
previous year. Mother Nature is not a proven source of reliable energy! However,
it can work with good reliability if not absolute reliability in some countries due to
their favourable geographical and meteorological conditions. In those countries a
20% target for renewable energy can be reached with no additional expenditure
above what makes sense based on market conditions. However, a blanket 20%
target for renewable energy is difficult to share evenly among the Member States
given the massive differences in geographical conditions and population
densities.

In Ireland we simply do not have the conditions to generate hydroelectricity on

the scale that Norway and Sweden can, our target has therefore been set at
16%. Nuclear is without doubt the correct technology choice for base load
generation where hydro-electricity is not available as it meets current and future
energy requirements. However, in some Member States politicians are
interfering in the technical development of future energy supplies to an extent
that will have devastating effect on the future competitiveness of the economy of
their countries. In these Member States the media and the State apparatus is
feeding to the public total misinformation relating to the sustainable energy
source at reasonable cost that is available to them through the use of nuclear
energy. Indeed in many of those countries policies are being driven to feed huge
sums of money into renewable technologies at grant aid levels which are in
excess of the EU guidelines.

Electricity is essential to the quality of our modern life; it is likely to become even
more important as we move to more efficient and environmentally friendly road
vehicles using advanced battery technologies. Environmental constraints, fuel
costs and availability, security of supply are critical where decisions have to be
made with regard to an investment and operating outlook of over 30 years. The
correct decisions will be based on a quantified approach in which a mix of
solutions is adopted, not just those that are politically correct without any regard
to actual costs and benefits.

A dose of hard economic reality will bite for those countries that make decisions
based on the ‘popular press’ and the Ecobubble will burst, particularly as the
new generation will look to other countries with a wealth based economy based
on scientific progress that includes nuclear technology. Indeed a cynic could also
comment that when countries deregulated their energy sectors and allow
electricity supply and demand alone to regulated the price, then the energy
providers only make money, if the electricity each company and each private
household requires to survive, is kept in short supply!!
We might hope that people learn from history and at least get energy policy half
right, unfortunately as is outlined in the next Section this is not likely to happen
for Ireland, not content with making a mess of our waste management
infrastructure we are now going to make an even bigger mess of our electricity
supply system.

• “The Irish minister in charge of energy policy, Eamon Ryan,

portrays himself as a man of vision. Under his watch, he assures
us, Ireland will become a "world leader" in renewable energy”.

Is it surprising that our electricity system will be a mess when we elect politicians
who will sell the country’s best interest just to stay in Power!!!
12. IRELAND – BRIGHT NEW FUTURE WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY OR
ECONOMIC MELTDOWN?
Summary: The current programme in place in 2009 to increase wind generation
in Ireland to 6,000 MW has already been raised in the executive summary. Not
only will this programme lead to the highest electricity charges in the world but it
will ensure that we do not meet our EU environmental targets for greenhouse
gases and air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides.

In summer 2009 Ireland was the only Member States that had not ratified the
Lisbon Treaty. However, the consolidated version of the Treaty is very much
worthy of consultation. In particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union requires the administration to give reasons for its decisions.
Fundamentally for an investment of this scale the citizen is entitled to know:

• How much is this going to cost?

• What are the benefits?

• What were the alternatives considered?

Clearly this is not happening. Not only is there no officially published information
on the above available but the 2006 Green Paper on Energy (page 56 on the
nuclear alternative) is technically false. Furthermore is there any other country in
the World that would ignore a submission by its engineering profession to its
Energy Policy and then do exactly what the engineering profession advised
against? Well Ireland has!

Wind energy would not survive in an open market economy with free
competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources (Article 120 of the
Lisbon Treaty). It relies on a distorted economy of huge subsidies and artificially
high electricity prices in which the Government has massively interfered in the
efficient generation of a key energy source and has prevented access to supplies
that are based on the principle of proportionality. The way is clear for new
fortunes to be made in an economy that is every bit as unsustainable as the
recent property bubble, while legally compliant companies that are not favoured
by the ‘Green Ideology’ have to carry the massive financial burden and can be
attacked at will by the Media.

There is an alternative, to utilise nuclear power to generate our base electrical

load and a phase out of landfill in favour of incineration. This will ensure we meet
our environmental targets, guarantee our energy security and lower our existing
cost basis. This in turn will protect the competitiveness of our manufacturing
sector and provide value to our citizens. It is exactly the rational approach that
was presented by the Engineering profession in their 2006 submission “Future
Energy Policy in Ireland”, it was ignored. Are we going to continue to ignore it in
favour of High Priests of the Green Movement with no technical qualifications to
implement the country’s energy policy and who go around abusing those who do
have the necessary technical qualifications?
Inshore Ireland is a marine / freshwater environment newspaper compiled by
marine journalists Gillian Mills and Gery Flynn and published by the Irish
Farmers Journal every two months. In December 2008 I had the following article
published in Inshore Ireland.

Joe and Mary Bloggs wanting to ‘do something’ for the planet - install a
photovoltaic solar panel for generation of solar electricity. Pat the Engineer
points out that according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors the
payback period of these units is between 50 to 100 years, while they will only
last 30 years.

This is not an effective way of aiding the planet! The Bloggs point out that were
good grants and good prices available for the electricity generated. But who pays
for their environmental ‘feel good’ factor, as these installations without these
subsidies would be hopelessly uneconomic?

In Ireland, we now have this occurring on an absolute ‘Mega’ scale. Relative to

other countries it is somewhat windy in Ireland, but our average wind speed is
about 11 knots - a strength at which a wind turbine only starts to turn and
produce about 5% of its rated output. To the public this would feel like a gentle
breeze.

By the time our forecasters are issuing a ‘small craft warning’, the wind speed is
double the average at 22 knots and the turbines are only close to producing their
full output. With stronger winds of about 44 knots the turbines trip, playing havoc
with the grid. So over a full year one only gets 0.3 MW for each MW installed as
the turbine will only deliver significant power when the wind strength is to the
right of the line on Graph 1.

Graph 1: Average Hourly Wind Speed Measured over a Year

4
Percent %

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40
Wind Speed Knots
For example if we look at the Graphs 2 and 3 for the 9 January 2008 the wind
was quite blustery in the morning. The system demand in the Republic of Ireland
reached a peak of 5,000 MW, one of the highest ever. However, it can be seen
how much power was actually contributed by the 800 MW of wind generation
then installed on our grid.

Graph 2: Measured Wind Speed in Dun Laoghaire on 9 January 2008

18

16

14

12

10
Knots

0
00:19 02:09 03:59 05:49 07:40 10:50 12:40 14:30 16:20 18:10 20:00 21:49 23:39
Time

Graph 3: System Demand and Wind Generation on 9 January 2008

6000

5000
Wind Generation / Demand (MW)

4000

3000

2000 Wind Generation System Demand Installed Wind Capacity

1000

0
0

0
:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3

:0

:3
00

01

03

04

06

07

09

10

12

13

15

16

18

19

21

22

Time
The ESB now plans to invest 22 billion Euros to promote renewable energy.
Most of the cost will go towards doubling our grid by an extra 5,000 km in order
to enable an increase in wind energy from 900 MW to 6,000 MW. Each wind MW
will cost 2 million Euro if installed on land and 3 million Euros if installed off
shore, so we are facing an additional bill in excess of 10.2 billion Euros for the
turbines, not to mention the visual impact these 2,000 units have on the
landscape

Our existing grid will still be required for the extensive periods when there isn'
t
enough wind but due to the increased variability from wind generation, it will
operate much more inefficiently and it is recognised that there will be a far higher
risk of power failure and black-outs. Furthermore, while conventional power
stations on the existing grid have a lifespan of over 30 years, the new wind farms
will have a far shorter economic life.

Already, approximately 3,500 MW of wind projects are approved in Ireland and a

guaranteed price of 14 cent per kWh has been given to developers of off-shore
wind farms. This represents over twice what the conventional power plant
operators receive.

So, for an investment in the range of 30 billion Euros, we are going to get the
princely benefit of reducing our CO2 emissions by four million tonnes per annum.

In other words, a maximum of 5% of what the country currently discharges, not

to mention that we live on a planet that discharges 49,000 million tonnes per
annum. Even the EU (ExternE) estimates that CO2 is damaging the planet by 70
Euro per tonne, so we have only saved 280 million Euro worth of environmental
damage per year for this outrageous investment!

As the American philanthropist Warren Buffet says: "A public opinion poll is no
substitute for thought". Does anybody in Ireland ask: "How much is this going to
cost? What am I going to benefit by? What were the cheaper alternatives?

We could go nuclear like France, which has 62 million citizens and CO2
emissions from power generation only slightly twice ours. We could have
implemented the EU Landfill Directive and stopped our waste rotting in the
ground and put it into incinerators. That would have got us half of what the above
will deliver in CO2 reductions. Then there is CRH which is rebuilding its cement
plant in the Ukraine and transferring 0.75 million tonnes of credits per annum to
its EU operations while producing better quality and lower cost cement.

It'
s your choice Ireland, start looking at facts and figures and listening to your
engineering profession or pay a terrible price!
Let us go through some of those figures again! The Irish State Electricity
Supplier (ESB) has announced a 22 billion Euro investment to make the ESB
nett carbon-neutral by 2035. Of this, 11 billion Euro is for network renewal to
facilitate wind farms, and a further 4 billion Euro is earmarked for renewable
energy projects, mainly wind farms. EirGrid, the Irish National Grid, is spending a
further 4 billion Euro to facilitate wind projects. Most of the cost is therefore to
double our grid by an extra 5,000 km in order to allow for an increase in wind
energy from 900 MW to 6,000 MW. This extra duplicate grid is necessary as the
turbines will be installed in remote locations, such as on mountains or off-shore.
Each wind MW will cost 2 million Euros if installed on land and 3 million Euros if
installed off shore and we will be adding to our landscape the visual impact of
over 2,000 of these units. As the Government has given huge financial
incentives to developers of off-shore wind farms and the East Coast of Ireland
has running along its length a sandbank less than 10 km from the shore, it is
likely that over 2,000 MW will be off-shore turbines. Realistically we are looking
at a capital investment in the order of 30 billion Euros for the completed 6,000
MW project when we consider both grid and turbine costs. Furthermore a
guaranteed price of 22 cent per kWh has been given to ocean generation, i.e.
wave and tidal.

Currently we have 18 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide emissions from
power generation, yet we will still have 14 million tonnes per annum of carbon
dioxide emissions from our power generating sector after this huge investment
as the combustion plants will be running for the overwhelming period of time
when the wind isn’t there. However, these plants will now operate in a much
more inefficient manner due to the huge variability from the wind input to the
grid.

If we take the 4 million tonnes of savings out of our total of 80 million tonnes of
carbon dioxide equivalent per year, these are theoretical savings which have not
been realised in other countries that have installed wind energy, such as
Denmark. As was already mentioned at the end of Section 6, 2.5% of our
greenhouse gas emissions come from waste. This could be eliminated by
phasing out landfill in favour of incineration and the heat and electricity
generated would contribute a further 0.2 million tonnes, to give a total of 2.2
million tonnes per annum. CRH was the first company in the world to get a UN
Joint Implementation project approved in which it is completing a major upgrade
to its cement plant in South East Ukraine and transferring 0.75 million tonnes per
annum of carbon dioxide savings into its EU operations, while making cheaper
and better quality cement in the modernised plant. There are lots of options out
there at a fraction of the proposed cost of the wind energy programme to achieve
the same environmental benefits - we could easily use the savings to build five
Dublin North Metros at 5 billion Euros each with a couple of hospitals and
schools thrown in and still have money to spare!

You would certainly have got the impression in early 2008 that the Irish media
and politicians were not encouraging the citizens to log on and actually read the
Lisbon Treaty. The consolidated text is certainly quite readable, particular if one
slices off about 70% of it, which is related to purely administrative matters, such
as the staffing of the European Central Bank. If one was to ignore the media and
politicians and actually have a look one would find some interesting material,
such as the ‘Right to Good Administration’, this comprises Article 41 of the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Lisbon Treaty) and
clearly states that the administration has to give reasons for its decisions.
As was outlined above the Irish State is currently implementing a wind energy
programme with a projected capital investment in the order of 30 billion Euro
supposedly linked to the proposed EU Directive on promotion on the use of
energy from renewable sources (COM (2008) 19 final). At Member State level
Ireland is clearly breeching this duty to its citizens with regard to the renewable
energy programme highlighted above. Fundamentally for an investment of this
scale, which has massive costs and environmental impacts, the citizen is entitled
to know:

• How much is this going to cost?

• What are the benefits?

• What were the alternatives considered?

Instead we have a Government sponsored Green Ideology that has totally failed
to communicate these basic facts to its citizens. For instance:

• A massive State sponsored advertisement programme has been

undertaken ‘The Power of One’. While this has supposed to be
connected with climate change measures it is in fact nothing but
propaganda for a Green Ideology that does not even remotely address
or answer the three simple questions above.

• In early 2008 the Government gave a guaranteed price of 14 cent per

kWh to developers of off-shore wind farms, over twice what the
conventional power plant operators receive but given to an inherently
low grade and variable supply that requires massive additional
investment to connect it to the existing grid. No debate occurred on this
issue, neither was there any published material on how much it would
cost the electricity consumer and what alternatives were considered.

• The All Ireland Grid Study, which formed the basis for the expansion of
wind energy to the technical maximum of 6,000 MW, simply does not
state what the cost of the resultant electricity to the consumer will be
relevant to a base case without wind generation.
• An earlier study by the National Grid Company (Eirgrid) in February
2004 concluded that only 2,500 MW of wind energy on the Irish Grid
would increase electricity costs by 24% over the no wind case. Indeed
only 1,500 MW of wind energy on the grid was then estimated to
represent a carbon dioxide abatement cost of 120 Euros per tonne. This
is a massively inefficient cost for carbon dioxide abatement,
technologies such as carbon capture and storage are being developed
with projected costs of in the order of 30 Euro per tonne and energy
efficiency projects have always been traded on the EU Emissions
Trading Scheme at less than this, e.g. currently less than 15 Euro per
tonne. Furthermore with greater penetration of wind power, i.e. more
turbines on the grid, the greater the operational and other problems. For
instance more use has to be made of less efficient ‘peaking plants’ to
compensate for the increasing variability on the grid. The real costs of
wind power therefore rises dramatically with increased penetration
levels.

• Government press releases on the renewable energy programme, such

as reported in the Irish Independent on 20 December 2008, simply fail
to mention the fact that in addition to the Government programme
massive additional private investment will be required to cover the total
cost of the 6,000 MW of wind turbines.

• A modelling study completed by the Commission for Energy Regulation

(CER) in January 2009 (SEM-09-002) of the impact of high levels of
wind penetration by 2020 did not include the very significant costs of
reinforcing the networks and the additional systems costs incurred by
the conventional generators. Instead it only looked at the capital cost of
the wind capacity and the fuel and carbon costs displaced by this wind
generation. No cost data was provided as to the electricity charges the
consumer would pay against the base case of no wind generation. Even
with these simplifications the economic analysis still showed when
using gas at peak prices of 2006 and carbon at 30 Euro per tonne that
the consumer would be a net payer. Given the huge drop in fuel and
carbon prices that have occurred in the last 8 months it is clear that the
consumer could be left with a massive and unnecessary bill.

• The Green Party Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural

Resources Eamon Ryan has repeatedly stressed how Ireland will be a
major exporter of renewable energy. The installation of 6,000 MW of
wind energy on the Irish Grid will mean that frequently there will have to
be a major ‘spill over’ of power to the UK grid on a new interconnector
that has to be installed. In Denmark where there is 3,100 MW of wind
energy currently installed on a grid 25% larger than the Republic of
Ireland (36 TWh consumption as opposed to 29 TWh), heavily
subsidised wind energy is being exported to neighbouring countries at
zero cost or dumping prices. In periods of low power demand in
Denmark these countries also have a low power demand and are
simply not interested in a highly variable and unreliable power source.
Conversely in periods of high demand power has to be imported at high
market prices. The market conditions in which this highly subsidised
wind energy will be exported have never been clarified to the Irish
Public.
• In Denmark in 2007 the domestic consumer was paying by far the
highest electricity charge in the EU; 26 cent per kWh as opposed to 16
cent per kWh in Ireland. Prior to 2004 wind energy in Denmark was
receiving a subsidy of 5 cent per kWh additional to the market price.
This has been cut to 1.3 cent per kWh. They simply can’t afford to keep
subsidising this industry sector. Yet Ireland’s renewable energy
programme plans to install double their percentage of wind energy on
its grid – at what cost to the consumer? We haven’t been informed!

• The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy

Security dedicated only two hours to Representatives of the Waste to
Energy and Nuclear Energy lobby groups, who made presentations on
the 15 October 2008, the session being characterised by the ignorant
and intolerant behaviour of the Green Party member. No documentation
was produced on these technology options by the Committee.

• Tom O’Flaherty, the retired Chief Executive of the Radiological

Protection Institute of Ireland, the competent authority for nuclear
issues, felt compelled to write to the Irish Times on the 21 August 2008,
with regards to the inaccuracies of statements attributed to Minister
Eamon Ryan. The Minister is mistaken to suggest that our existing
electricity network would not suit nuclear energy. “In fact, our existing
network suits nuclear power (i.e. centralised generation) perfectly. What
it does not suit at all, as it stands, is widely distributed generation, as
exemplified by large-scale development of wind energy.”

• The section on nuclear energy of the Irish Government’s Green Paper

on Energy 2006 (page 56) is technically false and in total variance to
the submission of the Irish Academy of Engineering to this Green
Paper. No Chartered Engineer with experience in designing electricity
grids would have put his signature to the section in the Green Paper.
However, one could always get somebody who is not a chartered
engineer with the relevant experience to write it. Indeed the present
direction of the Irish Government is exactly what the engineering
profession warned about in their submission, i.e. refuge in fanciful
solutions instead of policies that result in electricity prices that are well
within the EU range and trending positively.

• The Irish Government announced their programme of offshore wind

energy support on 8 February 2008. In the report in the Irish
Independent the following day it is clearly stated that “offshore wind
turbines have a typical 'load factor', or production rate, of between
40pc-43pc, according to industry experts”. This is clearly at variance
with the graph above for wind patterns in Ireland and with that of 32%
reported in the CER report. On the 28th October 2008 the German State
Broadcaster ZDF carried a news item on ‘Grünes Licht für Windkraft
von Meer” (Green light for offshore wind energy). The German
Environment Minister is positioned in front of a newly developed 5 MW
offshore turbine clearly stating that this technology will reduce costs for
the consumer. Where are these figures coming from that the politicians
are using for their own gain?

• The Arklow Bank project comprising seven turbines located 10 km off

the Irish East Coast was one of the world’s first offshore projects to use
giant wind turbines exceeding 3 MW. It was installed in 2004. A project
 of verification of the project was initiated in October 2006 at the TU Delft
in cooperation with Professor Martin Kühn of the University of Stuttgart,
one of the designers of the project. Yet no data on actual performance
has been published. Indeed the Wind Energy Department of the
University of Stuttgart has not a single publication on the basic
economic performance of these off-shore designs in the three years of
technical publications listed on their site. Engineering ethics, such as
from the VDI in Germany, require engineers to address the economic,
environmental and safety aspects of their technologies and to provide
information to the public on their technology solutions and other
alternative solutions. I contacted the University of Stuttgart on this issue
on the 30 January 2009 but they have so far declined to comment and
advise on the actual generation figures for the Arklow Bank project. The
German Embassy in Dublin was also contacted in 18 March 2009 with
the same correspondence, they too have not replied. Interestingly in
summer 2009 it is clear that two of the seven turbines are out of
operation.

• The Irish Government is consistently misinforming its citizens

about this enormously expensive renewable energy programme as
they have blatantly failed to inform them of what it will cost, what
the benefits are and what the alternatives are. This is a clear
example of the Green Ideology overruling the ‘Right to Good
Administration’.

Furthermore Article 120 of the Lisbon Treaty on Economic Policy requires

Member States to act in accordance with:

• The principles of an open market economy with free competition,

favouring an efficient allocation of resources.

Article 173 (Industry) requires that the actions of the Union and Member States
shall be aimed at:

• Encouraging an environment favourable to initiative and to the

development of undertakings throughout the Union, particularly
small and medium-sized undertakings.

Irish households and industry will be faced with massively rocketing electricity
costs to pay for the renewables grid and for the inefficient operation of thermal
plants that will require huge investment to meet future environmental challenges
in an environment of every increasing natural gas prices.

If we consider the EU report of 2008 - Progress on promotion and growth of

renewable energy sources and systems, Final Report, Section 3.9 on Financial
Impact:
• This report has a projected cost of 308 billion Euros for the 25 Member
States (EU-25; Romania and Bulgaria excluded) for capital investment
in new renewable electricity generation for the period 2005-2020. As
highlighted above the cost for Ireland alone is projected at more than 30
billion Euros, i.e. 10% of the total for a country that has less than 1% of
the population of the EU-25!

• The average annual cost of generating this renewable electricity in the

EU-25 is estimated in the report at 5.7 billion Euros. Currently
consumers in the Republic of Ireland pay about 3.5 billion Euros in
electricity costs, this will easily go up by more than 50% with the new
renewables grid, i.e. more than 1.5 billion Euro, a huge fraction of the
EU-25 total.

• The additional generating costs for renewable electricity for the period
2005 to 2020 in the EU-25 is estimated at an average of 1.74 cent per
kWh, yet the Irish Government has given a fixed price of 14 cent per
kWh, more than double that of conventional generation, to developers
of off-shore wind farms and 22 cent per kWh to marine technologies.

Already industry in Ireland has been put at a massive competitive disadvantage

by Government policies which drove an unsustainable property bubble. It simply
cannot afford the additional costs of electricity produced by the proposed Irish
Grid.
Yet the Green Ideology won’t allow a debate on these issues. The Corrib
development is only one example of how journalists in Ireland consider that they
are entitled to launch ‘moral crusades’ when they see fit and in doing so answer
to nobody, whipping up a lynch mob to attack the development as required. It
has also been clearly demonstrated by this correspondent that senior political
figures consider they are entitled to jump on any populist bandwagon whipped
up by this media, ignoring the democratic institutions of the State that implement
planning and environmental legislation. It is also clear from correspondence with
the highest level of Government that the current situation will continue in the
future.

On the other hand if one is ‘In’ with the Green Ideology one stands to potentially
make millions in a short period of time in a new distorted economic environment.
Eddie O’Connor, the Irish Wind Energy entrepreneur make a personal fortune
estimated at 50 million Euros in a short decade from wind energy firm Airtricity.
In the Sunday Tribune of 16 November 2008 he claimed that in the past high-
ranking Irish government officials told him four times that "our raison d' être is to
make sure you don' t become a millionaire". Which is exactly the point; his wind
electricity would not survive an open market economy with free competition,
favouring an efficient allocation of resources (Article 120). It relies on a distorted
economy of huge subsidies and artificially high electricity prices in which the
present Government has massively interfered in the efficient generation of a key
energy source and has prevented access to supplies that are based on the
principle of proportionality. Now those Irish government officials have been
overruled by the ‘Green Ideology’ and the way is clear for new fortunes to be
made in an economy that is every bit as unsustainable as that based on the
recent property bubble.

• Unfortunately Ireland has signed but not ratified the Lisbon treaty,
so the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is not
yet law!

Eddie O’Connor obviously felt I was a threat to his business interests as he

recently wrote to Inshore Ireland with the following text, which with my reply was
published in the May 2009 edition of Inshore Ireland.

February 19, 2009

Dear Editor

As an advocate of green energy, it is great to read an article by a fellow chemical

engineer, Pat the engineer’. It is so laced with half truths, one quarter truths and
no truths at all that it is quite easy to counter.

I take it Pat the Engineer must belong to the fossil fired school of scientists. He
talks about the distortion of prices that wind power and solar power force on the
electricity consumer. Pat the Engineer surely knows that the fossil fuel industry is
subsidised by about 360 billion US dollars every year. These subsidies can take
the form of tax write offs or paying for aircraft carriers to patrol the Gulf or indeed
special concession for rights of way from Governments, etc.

So what is Pat the Engineer comparing the price of renewable electricity to?
He seems to be unaware that for eight years while I ran another company I had
founded we sold wind generated electricity to 40,000 Irish customers at a price
10% less than the monopoly supplier, the ESB. We subsidised the price of
generating fossil fired electricity for all of those eight years. We received not a
penny of grant assistance or otherwise from the Government here. On occasion
we had to contend with severe anti-competitive practices from the people who
ran the grid. Pat the Engineer must have had considerable influence in Ireland
over the last number of years. His strange type of thinking led to the banning of
wind energy connections to the grid for two years.

We would like to ask Pat the Engineer the following questions:

• How does he go about comparing a power station that has a high fixed
cost but a zero fuel cost with a power station that has a low capital cost
but with a high and fluctuating fuel cost?

• Where did Pat the Engineer come across the fact “that new find farms
will have a shorter life expectancy that thirty years”?

• Could Pat supply this paper with some facts as to the costs of nuclear
plant?

• Who pays for the storage of plutonium for a quarter of a million years?

• Who pays for the insurance premia for nuclear power?

• How much uranium exists in the earth’s surface and how much will it
cost when China erects thirty new nuclear power stations?

The British and the German governments are paying 14 cent a kWhr plus the
grid costs to develop offshore wind. Unlike Pat they realise that the price will
come down dramatically with the widespread deployment of technology.

These governments appear to realise the value of photovoltaics and how

technology is currently collapsing the cost. Why would anybody install
photovoltaics in Ireland, one of the least sunny places in Europe? Surely the
place for these is around the Mediterranean basin. Pat the Engineer wasn’t clear
on the economics of thin film photovoltaics in the Sahara.

Wind energy has the following benefits to the electricity system:

1. Its marginal cost is 0. When the wind blows it collapses the electricity price
for the customer as the most expensive plant is turned off.

2. It is a hedge against rising and fluctuating fossil fuel costs. In fact it was
shown if wind generated electricity went from 23-31% in Scotland, then the
price to the customer would fall by 6% and it didn’t’ matter what price was
charged for wind. The results were due to the risk reducing effect of wind.

3. Wind energy also reduced the demand for fossil fuels and therefore the price
so the cost of producing electricity in all the fossil generators, fall due only to
wind.

Perhaps the Editor would like to explain to the readers what a chartered
environmentalist (c.e.) is.
Yours sincerely

Eddie O’Connor

Chief Executive

Mainstream Renewal Power

Effectively the Irish Government is awarding massive subsidies to companies

that meet the ‘Green Ideology’, creating new millionaires once again in a
distorted and unsustainable market, while legally compliant companies that are
not favoured by the ‘Green Ideology’ have to carry the massive financial burden
and as demonstrated in the previous Sections can be attacked at will by this
‘Trial by Media in the Court of Public Opinion’.

• Phase 3 – the rip off of the common man is well and truly in place
in Ireland.

For those readers that are technically minded there are really two options
available for the future electricity system in Ireland; (a) Green Electricity or (b)
Engineered for Low Cost and Environmental Impact, although a lot of money has
already been wasted on implementing bad policies! The following table is a
summary of the main issues associated with the two options.

Summary of two options available for the Future Electricity System in

Ireland

Description (a) Green Electricity (b) Engineered for Low Cost and
Environmental Impact

Main Existing power plants to Base load of 2,500 MW

Components provide 6,000 MW. transferred to new nuclear
Additional 5,000 km of capacity. Moneypoint at 900 MW
Note: grid to accommodate phased out in period from 2020
Moneypoint, 900 6,000 MW of wind farms. on. Most modern and efficient
MW, coal fired existing gas turbine power plants
and built in used for peak loads and periods
1980s supplies of nuclear outage. No wind
nearly 25% of allowed on grid unless it can
the Republic’s match spot price and results in
electricity. no inefficiencies on other grid
suppliers. Minor reinforcements
to existing grid of 5,000 km.

Total phase out of land filling of

waste with diversion to
incineration technology.

Environmental A maximum of 4 million Current electricity based

Benefit – Global tonnes per annum of emissions could be reduced by
Warming carbon dioxide savings greater than 60% and 2.2 million
(out of a possible 18 tonnes saved due to incineration.
million). Therefore a
maximum of 0.95 tonnes Total: Minimum of 13 million
of carbon dioxide per tonnes or 3.1 tonnes of carbon
capita. dioxide savings per capita.
 Description (a) Green Electricity (b) Engineered for Low Cost and
Environmental Impact

Insufficient greenhouse Huge contribution to meeting

gas savings for meeting short to medium term targets for
Kyoto targets and follow greenhouse gases.
on targets, major fines
would result unless more
expenditure was
implemented to reduce
emissions in thermal
power plants and other
sources.

Environmental Massive visual impact Very little difference to what we

Impacts due to huge number of now have in terms of visual
turbines and high voltage impact. Small amount of high
lines. level waste which would be sent
to France / other country for
Total non-compliance reprocessing / reuse in their
with targets set for 2020 Generation IV technology.
for nitrogen oxide and
particulate emissions Massive reductions in emissions
unless major upgrades of nitrogen oxides and
carried out to thermal particulates from
plants. decommissioning of Moneypoint
and reduced operation of other
Total non-compliance gas turbine plants. Short to
with Landfill Directive, medium term compliance with
major fines from EU. new emission ceilings for these
compounds set for 2020.

Reduced emissions of methane

and aqueous pollutants from
landfills. Compliance with Landfill
Directive.

Lifespan Wind turbines based on Existing nuclear generation has

current experience are demonstrated a lifespan in
unlikely to last 20 years. excess of 40 years and the new
Even the Government All EPR design has a projected
Ireland Grid Study in lifespan of 50 years. Base load
2008 recognised that power supply secured to beyond
most renewable projects 2060.
have a shorter economic
life than conventional
generation.

Security of Totally at the mercy of Ability to stockpile several

Supply the global gas market months or even years of nuclear
price! fuel rendering immune to global
fluctuations.

Ability to secure own sources of

uranium if uranium exploration in
 Description (a) Green Electricity
Upfront costs Wind energy project
estimated at 30 billion
Euro, electricity prices
would soar to well in
excess of 150% of
existing price base.
Additional costs Massive investment
would be required in the
medium term to reduce
emissions of nitrogen
oxides, particulates and
carbon dioxide at
existing thermal plants.
Moneypoint would have
to be replaced by 2020
onwards to guarantee
supplies to 2060, an
investment of over 1.5
billion Euros (excluding
carbon capture).
Estimate carbon capture
and storage of a
minimum of 8 million
tonnes per annum would
be required at a
minimum cost of 30 per
tonne, therefore an
additional cost of at least
240 million Euros per
annum.
Maintenance and
replacement cost of wind
turbines.
(b) Engineered for Low Cost and
Environmental Impact
Ireland allowed.
Greatly reduced dependency on
gas prices, ability to ‘stretch out’
Corrib gas supplies and mothball
Moneypoint and bring on-line if a
crisis arose.
2,500 MW of nuclear generation
would cost approximately 7
billion Euro.
Incineration capacity would cost
approximately 1 billion Euro.
Both projects would be self
financing and electricity charges
would be expected to reduce by
about 20% compared to current
rates.
No additional investment or
additional operating costs
required in medium term.
For long term outlook post 2025
will need to consider options for
reducing reliance on gas turbine
power plants. At that stage other
technology options will be
emerging, such as modular
nuclear reactors or nuclear
fusion units.
• The choice is with the people of Ireland, if you appoint High
Priests of the Green Movement with no technical qualifications to
implement the country’s energy policy and who go around
abusing those who do have the necessary technical qualifications,
is it any wonder you pay an enormous price both financially and
environmentally for Option (a)?
13. THE APPROACH BEING TAKEN IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
France

Ireland’s per capita emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent are over 17 tonnes
per annum, essentially the worst in the EU. In France the equivalent figure is 8.6
tonnes per annum, one of the best in the EU, for a country that is technically
sophisticated and has a very high GDP and quality of life.

Despite France having 61.5 million citizens their electricity system in 2006 only
discharged 46.8 million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide equivalent, as
compared to 18 million tonnes for the 4.2 million citizens in Ireland and 26.8
million tonnes in Denmark for the 5.5 million citizens there. France implemented
a waste management strategy several decades ago that diverted waste from
landfill to incineration.

Currently 26% of green house gas emissions in France relate to transportation.

They do have an electrified rail network that is the envy of the World in terms of
speed and coverage. As a natural progression takes place in the next two
decades to lithium ion powered car transportation these transportation emissions
will significantly reduce as that energy requirement is transferred onto the
existing French grid, which has significant night time capacity from its nuclear
plants. France will be enjoying a sophisticated lifestyle with one of the lowest, if
not the lowest, emissions of greenhouse gases in the developed world.

Denmark

Denmark rejected the nuclear option and proceeded instead with a massive
development of wind generation. Denmark has over 6,000 turbines. In 2007,
wind-power production accounted for 19.7% of domestic electricity supply
against 16.8% the previous year; this was due to better wind conditions. The
reality in Denmark is that the carbon dioxide content of each kWh generated in
Denmark is over ten times what it is in France and their cost basis is shocking at
26 cent per kWh for the domestic consumer.

Thermal plants in Denmark are often linked to district heating systems, an ideal
energy efficient form of urban heating. In the winter these have to be kept
running to heat the houses. However, winter is also characterised by low
pressure systems tracking across the country, so that the output of the wind
generation and the thermal plants often exceeds the country’s electricity demand
profile. This surplus wind energy, paid for with significant subsidies has to be
‘given’ at dumping prices or zero cost to the neighbouring grids of Germany or
Sweden. As this wind energy supply is inherently variable and unpredictable and
the generating capacity in Germany or Sweden is running at low capacity and
low efficiencies during the night hours they are just not interested in this
electricity feed in, let alone paying significant money for it. A writer in The Utilities
Journal (David J. White, “Danish Wind: Too Good to be True?” July 2004) found
that 84% of western Denmark’s wind generated electricity was exported (at a
revenue loss) in 2003, i.e. Denmark’s glut of wind towers provided only 3.3% of
the nation’s electricity.
Worse in the winter months there are huge volumes of water in the hydro-plants
in Norway. This could easily be used to supply the electricity from the wind
generators in Denmark that is being ‘dumped’ to the neighbouring countries.
Instead the sluices have to be opened to bypass the turbines. Is it little wonder
that in 1998, Norway commissioned a study of wind power in Denmark and
concluded that it has “serious environmental effects, insufficient production and
high production costs”.

Yet Denmark has become a significant exporter of wind turbines, this is

contributing to their economy, so official criticism of the wind programme is
muted.

Finland

Finland has loads of open space, but little hydro as it is flat. It has major forestry
reserves and has developed world class biomass combustion technologies.
Having worked with Finnish engineers on energy projects in Ireland and the
Ukraine I can attest to their skills. The proportion of renewable energy in Finland
is already 22% to 25%, they plan to increase this to 27% by 2010, but this is
getting increasingly challenging with poor costs / benefits. They don’t expect they
can go beyond this. They are now in 2009 well advanced in constructing their 5th
nuclear plant and considering a 6th. The Government Programme published on
19 April 2007 specifically said: “No emission-free, low-emission or other form of
generation that is emission-neutral and also sustainable and cost-efficient can be
ruled out, including nuclear power. Indeed all forms of energy must be assessed
on the basis of the overall interests of society.”

New Finnish EPR Generation III Nuclear Plant under construction in the
summer of 2008.
Sweden and Switzerland

Both use a combination of hydroelectricity and nuclear power.

Germany

In Germany in 2002 the Green Party and Socialists (SPD) implemented

legislation for an accelerated phase out of nuclear power plants (Atomausstieg)
by 2021. This was to be implemented by enforcing a maximum operating life
span of 32 years relative to similar plants that would be run for over 40 years in
other countries. In 2004 the 18 nuclear plants in Germany supplied 27.5% of the
electricity demand. The Greens in Germany are not only against nuclear power
but the construction of new coal fired plants to replace Germany’s existing and
ageing coal plants that currently supply another 50% of their electricity. They
want to construct giant offshore wind parks but resist their construction on the
ecological sensitive coastline of the North Sea and the extensive high tension
network that would be required. In Government from 1997 to 2005 they invested
insufficient funds in energy research and are now resisting calls for perfectly
good nuclear plants to be kept running to generate the funds for this research.

The CDU led by Chancellor Angela Merkel is vehemently against the

Atomausstieg – she is after all a qualified physicist (PhD) and worked for 12
years in the DDR Academy for Physical Chemistry. Their plans to overturn the
Atomausstieg are being blocked by their coalition partner the SPD but opinion
polls in August 2008 show well over 50% in Germany are willing to consider
extending the lifespan of existing nuclear plants given the rocketing costs of
electricity and the lack of real alternatives.

Unfortunately in Germany there are disturbing trends clearly visible. In the early
20th Century Germany was an ‘Exportmeister’ for an abusive and intolerant
Brown Ideology. In the 1950s through to the 1970s it was an ‘Exportmeister’ for
top class technology. Unfortunately in the last decade it has once again become
an ‘Exportmeister’ for an abusive and intolerant Ideology, this time the Green
Ideology, which is blatantly anti-science and anti-technology. In 1995 disgraceful
scenes occurred in Germany related to Shell’s proposal for the deep water
disposal of the Brent Spar oil rig. So called ‘environmentalists’ from Greenpeace
picketed Shell petrol stations internationally. Six shots were fired at a Shell
station outside Frankfurt and a Hamburg station was firebombed. Greenpeace
had claimed that the platform contained some 5,000 tons of crude oil mixed with
radioactive waste and other contaminants. On September 5, Greenpeace
admitted its assessment had been incorrect and issued a public apology to Shell.
In October an independent study confirmed Shell’s original assessment. Facts
no longer mattered, bully boys, propaganda and public perception did! History is
repeating itself!
The media is increasingly misreporting issues related to the environment in
Germany, for instance on the State Broadcaster ZDF’s news of 28 October 2008
there were two very disturbing news items. Firstly a new coal fired plant that was
proposed to be built in Lubmin on the North East coast. Claims were made that
the emissions would impact on the biodiversity sites more than 20 km away. It is
very sad that if the broadcaster had the manners and public responsibility to
check the legislation in place and the supporting documentation submitted to the
authorities, then it would have been clear to their uneducated researchers and
presenters that this was pure fantasy. But the story was pumped and pumped,
people were encouraged to attend temporary tents and submit objections to the
licensing authority. So instead of spending the taxpayers money wisely on
inspecting existing plants for compliance the environmental inspection authority
was to be swamped with tonnes of paper relating to fictional claims – all because
the media couldn’t be bothered educating itself on the simple facts!

The second item was the Environment Minister and anti-nuclear campaigner
Sigmar Gabriel standing in front of an off-shore wind turbine and claiming that
this would bring help reduce costs to the German consumer! Pure lies, but when
the State Broadcaster can’t be bothered educating itself and its public on the
truth, is stupidity and fundamentalism not around the corner? Unfortunately it is
now widespread in Germany. The head of the CDU sister party in Baveria, Horst
Seehofer of the CSU is in summer 2009 against GM crops as “no company has
the right to interfere in creation”. Now we are on seriously shaky grounds,
Dogma and Ideology rather than practical consideration of costs, impacts and
benefits. After all has mankind not been breeding crops and animals for
thousands of years? Do we not interfere with creation when we manufacture
contraceptives? Where does one draw the line when Dogma and Ideology are to
be forced onto others?

The behaviour of Greenpeace in Germany is also increasingly ignorant,

intolerant and totally counter productive to any actual quantifiable improvement
in the domestic or global environment. Hundreds of millions of people in the
developing world suffer from Vitamin A deficiency, many go blind and
approximately two million die each year from the consequences. A team of
German / Swiss university professors have developed a GM rice strain that
contains beta-carotine to supply the necessary Vitamin A. Greenpeace are
campaigning vigorously against the rice strain – they are quite happy to let the
people die if the technical solution doesn’t fit their Green Ideology!

The net result is that many German scientists and high technology firms are now
choosing to leave the country and relocate to other jurisdictions, which are less
ignorant and intolerant to the scientific professions. The Federal elections in
September 2009 will be crucial to see what future direction the country takes!
A perfect solution to save a very significant number of lives. However, if it
doesn’t fit the Green Ideology? Let them die instead!

Eastern Europe

Many countries in Eastern Europe have very active nuclear programmes.

Belarus is currently considering building a 2,000 MWe new nuclear plant, the
Ukranians are also continuing to operate the nuclear plants that supply 40% of
their power and are planning new ones. These are the two countries most
impacted by the accident at Chernobyl!

Belarus Energy Charter – Nuclear energy is being considered.

The Lithuanians are very annoyed that the price of EU membership included the
upcoming closure in 2009 of their Soviet RMBK (Chernoybl type design) power
plant. The Baltic States with Poland are now planning a new Western designed
nuclear power plant to replace it, while Poland is actively considering two further
nuclear plants to replace its existing coal based generation which does not meet
the EU pollution control legislation.

Slovakia has five nuclear reactors generating half its electricity and two further
plants are under construction. Romania has two nuclear reactors, Canadian
designs, generating 20% of its electricity; two more plants are well advanced in
the planning stage. Bulgaria has two nuclear reactors generating about 35% of
its electricity.

Why then do all these countries, which were closest to the areas that the
Chernoybl fallout had its major impact, have such advanced nuclear
programmes? Do these countries know something that people in Ireland don’t?
Are they happy with their gas supplier or the price they pay for gas when they
can generate nuclear electricity for prices of about 2 cents per kWh? Draw your
own conclusions!

• Is any country proposing to install anywhere near the percentage

of wind generation on its grid that is official policy in Ireland? Most
definitely not!

• Is any country giving the level of financial support to producers of

renewable energy that is official policy in Ireland? Most definitely
not!

• Is any country planning to construct a second duplicate grid to

facility entry of renewable energy producers? Most definitely not!

• Does any country have a Government that shows such hostility to

its scientific and technology resources that Ireland clearly does?
Most definitely not!
14. WHERE IS IT GOING TO LEAD TO?
Forty years ago three men in the Apollo 8 capsule came around the back of the
moon and stared in total wonder at the small blue, beautiful planet in the
distance. There were three men in the capsule and three billion on the planet!

‘Earthrise’ from Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968: Three billion lived on the
Earth then, now in April 2009 it is estimated we have 6.8 billion.

Of course we have environmental problems on the planet, given that the

population has gone from 3 billion at the end of 1968 to 6.8 billion in April 2009, if
anything it is surprising that those problems are not worse than they currently
are. As mentioned previously, it is not as if we haven’t faced environmental
challenges before; epidemics of cholera, typhoid and other waterborne diseases
were rife throughout European cities in the 19th Century. However, the pragmatic
approach of the Victorians lead to construction of major sewage collection and
treatment projects, which essentially eliminated the problem.

• How should we address current environmental problems? Just

like the Victorians in a pragmatic fashion in which the problem is
measured and quantified and cost effective solutions are
developed and implemented. We do already have many useful and
wonderful technologies at our disposal!

Unfortunately Europe is splitting into two groups:

(a) Liberal democracies, where science and technology are respected and the
proper use of such technologies as nuclear power, incinerators and GM crops
are applied to the benefit of all.

(b) Technically illiterate societies characterised by windmills and wood burning

stoves in which the brightest and best have left as they cannot tolerate the
ignorance and abuse from the Green Ideology.
Unfortunately not only will the quality of life continue to improve in the first group
but the environmental impacts are already much lower. Despite this in Group (b)
countries the romantic but foolish dream of relying on alternative energy has
been sold so hard to the public by unscrupulous politicians and an out of control
media that the public simply do not know:

• The costs;

• The environmental impacts and benefits and;

• The simple alternatives at a fraction of the cost that can provide far
greater environmental benefits.

In Ireland we have a Green Party Energy Minister who wants the country to
develop to a “100 per cent renewable power” stage in the period “post-2020”. It
is unfortunate because if he went and educated himself on what the practical
implementation of this target would entail and cost, or even listened to those that
have educated themselves in this field, he would realise that his behaviour is no
different from that of Ceau escu and his mega project that had no respect for the
costs and benefits to the Romanian people. However, history has shown us that
those who are controlled by their Ideology, believing their own propaganda and
refusing to listen to the pragmatic approach of others, will end up causing terrible
damage! Unfortunately history repeats itself!

In the 1990s Ireland’s best and brightest technical resources developed a high
technology manufacturing sector that was the envy of the World, except in
Ireland where policies were implemented to ‘suck it dry’ and finance a huge
property and banking bubble. The Government were warned time and time again
by both National and International Organisations that this was completely
unsustainable, but why address or even acknowledge facts and figures when
there is the ‘Vision’ of having the good times roll for ever! The bubble has burst
with vengeance, unemployment is soaring and National Asset Management
Agency (Nama) has been established to buy loans with a book value of up to 90
billion Euros. If one puts a Euro in a hypothetical ‘piggy bank’ every second for
the next 2,850 years, then that is what 90 billion Euros amounts to or almost
50,000 Euro to be raised by each of us left employed in the country.

How are we going to do this and get the country back on its feet? By generating
more goods and services than we import! What are we actually doing? Continue
to hurl ever increasing abuse at perfectly good industrial projects, which meet
every EU and National requirement, but do not meet the criteria of perceived
popularity based on the propaganda of the Green Ideology. Now we are going to
suck out whatever competitiveness remains with Irish Industry to finance the
grandiose projects of this Green Ideology, is it any wonder that the inward flow of
industrial development into Ireland came to a halt over a year ago and has now
been replaced with an outward flow that is ever increasing in strength.

We also need to ask us what is perceived popularity and who controls it? Clearly
the media is driving the Green Ideology and hurling abuse at industry, as has
been documented in this Book it is operating without controls – the EU agrees
but the Irish State is making no effort to put appropriate controls relating to the
quality of reporting in place. The only recourse is to the Courts, which as the EU
has documented belong to the most ineffective legal system in the 27 Member
States. The Irish public is therefore being fed a constant stream of
misinformation, in particular with regard to the application of appropriate policies
concerning environmental protection and energy.
Late 2008 was characterised by extensive rioting in Greece. High
unemployment, unaffordable house prices and a political system contaminated
by years of corruption reached boiling point with the youth of Greece. In Ireland
the last three decades has seen unprecedented corruption in senior political
positions, not only have no effective measures been taken to control it but the
worst offender, who pocketed an estimated 45 million Euros in personal
donations, was given a State funeral. Public confidence in the political system is
rock bottom. Unemployment is soaring and will only get worse due to lack of
proper economic management and the house prices have long since been
unaffordable for young Irish people. Public disorder and a further rise in
extremism are only around the corner!

It is not as if the political leadership in Ireland are unaware of the contents of this
document, they are aware! I and others have informed them. For instance
personal correspondence on these issues has been completed over the last
months with:

• Head of State (Aifric Hyland and Linda Farrell; Office of the Secretary
General of the President)

• Head of Government (Paul Mooney; Office of the Taoiseach).

• Dail Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security

(Michael.Mckenna@oireachtas.ie).

• Fine Gael: Members of the Oireachtas and Head office.

• Labour: President, Party Leader and Head Office.

• Industrial Development Authority (IDA).

Indeed as the Irish State refused to act to ensure the ‘Voice of Reason and
Moderation’ was heard over six months ago tensions have continued to build at
the Corrib Gas terminal site in Mayo and violent scenes are now routine.
Unfortunately it is also clear from the behaviour of senior political figures in the
Irish Government that they place more value on the political capital associated
with the Eco-warriors then to the contribution of the Irish scientific and technical
resources which are delivering on this project. A project that is vital to the energy
security of the nation and which is in full compliance with all legislation and best
practices.

We have to accept the reality that the Agenda of the those listed above does not
reflect what is appropriate for the sustainable development of the country but
rather what is perceived popularity and what maximises re-election opportunities.
In August 2008 I was in Croatia preparing presentations on the implementation
of the Large Combustion Plant Directive, reviewing the energy polices of
different Member States on how they were going to meet the challenges of
environmental compliance for the electricity generating sector, I was appalled at
the direction I saw Ireland was rushing into. Writing to sailing friends in Ireland,
who clearly understand the limitations and possibilities of wind, I stated:
“From a person increasingly on the outside looking in with frustration and horror,
it can only say it goes far beyond the simple issue of a technology solution for
energy supply, it goes to the very core of the Irish psyche, in which the emotional
response has to be replaced by one of reason and assessment, respect for the
democratic structures of the State (and boy didn’t we leave a lot of dead and
broken bodies around over the last three plus decades), respect for people who
have skills and knowledge in certain complex areas based on qualifications and
year’s of experience (but we have Kathy Sinnott MEP!).

As I realist I would estimate that this is not going to happen in one generation but
at least two! At the moment Ireland is like the Titanic steaming at full speed in
the darkness into an area with reported icebergs. Outsiders are noticing it, the
German ambassador let fly last year, a steady stream of inward investment has
become a trickle. The high tech industry that I played a part in establishing in the
last 20 years, I don’t expect under the above circumstances to see much of it
around in a decade’s time. I hope I am wrong but I can’t see any evidence to
support a light in the end of the tunnel – make your own judgements but I think
the burst of the property bubble is only the start of a steep downward slide
compared to our European neighbours”.

Seven months later it is clear that the ship is severely holed below the water line
but still continues to plough ahead at full speed with reckless abound. We
simply have to change the manner in which we go about our business and that
has to start with who we choose for leadership and management of our country,
the ship has to be sailed in a different manner! Ivan Yates was Minister for
Agriculture in the mid-nineties. He then left politics and has established a very
successful chain of betting shops. In his book he relates how astounded he was
on entering Leinster House as a new parliamentarian with the low level of
average IQ that was displayed there. It is a democracy, we get what we elect!
Look at the calibre of the people we choose, outside of performing on the
‘political stage’ have any of them demonstrated any track record of substance?

The political system is a mess, why bother to research and legislate for complex
issues, some of which God forbid may not be popular with everybody, when you
can ‘sort out’ the barking dogs or broken street lights for Mrs Murphy. After all it
is easier and one will get Mrs Murphy’s vote next time! The system does not
reward or promote talent or good governance – it ruthlessly destroys it. We have
exceptional people in Ireland but they will never enter or be able to achieve
anything in the present political system of stroke politics and fawning to the
media. A media, which exerts enormous power and operates without any
controls applied relating to the quality and truth of its output.

It is now almost nine decades since independence, more than three generations,
we cannot continue to claim we are a ‘young’ country to explain increasingly
juvenile behaviour. The adult world is complex and will get even more complex.
Yet we in Ireland do not want to know facts or figures, we want ‘touchy feely’
emotional responses that we can easily identify with. We ranted at ‘faceless
bureaucrats in Brussels’, but never read the documentation that was produced
there. If we did we would be surprised with the quality and how easily it can be
read, look up the EU website on a topic such as dioxins and see what the
Commission is doing about it! So instead of making an effort to understand the
‘rules of the game’ all we can focus on is the individual referee. Without knowing
the rules, how do we know if he is any good? We don’t, we just follow ‘gut
instinct’ and choose what ever snake oil and charm that appeals to us!
Is it no wonder that in the ‘boom years’ there was one price for houses in scenic
location in Central and Eastern Europe for the locals, a different price for the
Dutch and Germans and a third price for the Irish? In many cases the Irish price
did not include Title Deeds or information on the local arrangements for property
taxation.

The solution to our environmental problems, and there are solutions available, is
not wishful thinking. It is cold hard realism, spending the money where it is most
effective in achieving quantifiable results rather than in a manner where it
maximises advertising revenues and access to political power. That approach is
incorporate into EU Environmental Policy, a policy that we are increasingly failing
to apply in Ireland as many of its aspects are not Green Ideology, indeed many
in the Irish Green Party are anti-EU.

As the last living patient of Sigmund Freud reported in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
on 27th March 2009, Sigmund said to her “Do not forget – to be an adult, one
must dare to ask, why and how so and also express one’s own opinion or
opposition. If you do not do that, you will always remain a child and it will always
be the others that decide over you!”

In my own case I have completed projects in over a dozen countries. As a

Principal Chemical Engineer and Environment Health and Safety Specialist I
have never experienced outside of Ireland anything that approaches the
ignorance, intolerance and abusive behaviour that I have experienced directed at
my professional colleagues, valued clients and friends in industry in Ireland over
the last twenty years. The truth is I now prefer to go to the airport rather than
continue to stomach it any longer; there is no financial or emotional future for me
in Ireland under the circumstances that currently prevail. Others are / will also
leave! Ireland is a democracy; a system of Government that millions in Europe in
the 20th Century died to protect, it only works and has a future if the public take it
seriously and respect it!

Pat Swords

30 April 2009

Zagreb, Croatia