Residents of Conamara, County Galway have expressed concern over the planned placement of off-shore wind turbines which they say will affect communities stretching from Clifden to Ballyconneely, Roundstone and the Gaeltacht districts from Carna to the Aran Islands.
The residents say that the 300 metre tall turbines will have a devastating effect on scenery as they will be visible from a huge distance from their planned placement approximately 5 kilometres from the coastline.
Noting that the area is internationally famous for its scenic and rugged beauty boasting “many of the country’s most scenic and environmentally important habitats”, the group have set up a petition in order to spread awareness of the development of the Sceirde Rocks wind farm.
A photo projection of how the affected areas appear now compared to how Corio Generation forecast they will look should the development go ahead can be viewed here.
The group say that while they support renewable energy they believe that these solutions must be achieved without “recklessly damaging the marine environment or putting corporate profits before the needs of people and wildlife.”
Local woman Siobhan Kennedy, who started the petition, said that there was concern in the area not only about the visual impact of the wind farm but also on the impacts it is believed it will have on wildlife in the area.
Local man MacDara Ó Coileáin told Gript that the basking shark is “known to be very common to the exact location” of the proposed wind farm and is a protected species under Section 23 of Ireland’s Wildlife Act.
“Their habitats will be impacted,” he said, adding that nearby Kilkerrin Bay and the islands associated with it are designated as a special area of conservation for the bottlenose dolphin and the harbour porpoise.
“The noise from the wind turbines deters all the marine mammals and fish,” he said, noting that wind turbines are also known to kill birds.
Ó Coileáin added that local people had been left feeling vexed, noting how planning permission to build “a small house” had been refused to a local woman when the wind farm development had faced no such obstacles.
He said many in the area were “aggrieved” and this and were of the impression that the wind farm developers are benefitting from a “double standard” as concerns for potential environmental impact and impact of wildlife had been cited as reasons for refusal of planning permission for “a regular house” in the area.
Ó Coileáin said that local representatives had been ‘keeping quiet’ about the development and questioned what he said was an unusual silence from many local fishermen.
He emphasised the likely economic impact of the turbines on the area noting that the locality was heavily reliant on tourism as a famous area of natural beauty.
He said that the company behind the development, Corio Generation, had deliberately chosen to place the turbines close to the shore as this was less expensive than placing them further out to sea.
“They have the technology to build windmills further out at sea but the reason they’re building them so close to the coast line is because the water is shallower there and it’s cheaper for them to build them in a shallow area.”
He accused the developers of “disregarding the impact on the environment” and prioritising profit, “that’s why they’re so close,” he said.
In a statement issued to Gript, Corio Generation said:
“Sceirde Rocks wind farm is a milestone project for Ireland that will bring much-needed investment and employment opportunities to Connemara, and to the wider Galway region. The community benefit fund, which is a key element of the project and is expected to total €70 million over its lifetime, will have a transformative positive impact for local communities. At a national level, Sceirde Rocks wind farm has the potential to provide electricity for up to 350,000 Irish homes and make a significant contribution to meeting the Government’s renewable energy targets.
“Our plans for the wind farm involve the installation of 30 turbines at a range of 5 to 11.5 km from the mainland. By way of comparison, onshore wind farms such as those currently installed in the Connemara region would require hundreds of turbines to generate the same amount of electricity, while their turbines can be located as close as 500m to residential properties, making them appear significantly larger to the naked eye than the turbines proposed at Sceirde Rocks.
“As with any major infrastructure project, it is natural that people may have questions about the project’s impact. That is why we have been engaging extensively with our local communities, from holding meetings and public events to publishing detailed information on our website to keep everybody fully informed and able to share their views with us.
“As a part of the consenting process for the project, we are conducting extensive impact assessments to inform our planning application – once complete, this information and data will be made available for public consultation as part of the planning process. We will continue to work closely with our local communities and engage with them on their questions as the project progresses.”
Loading ...
Close the data centres. Problem solved.
(Most of those 70,000 billion instagram photos were never going to be looked at again. Same with ten-year old email mountains. And the perverts will just have to go back to the dirty shops in the event of any resulting loss of access to online porn)
Wind energy – massive, massive scam.
How will you be able to post on here if you close them?
Can happily live without it, despite its use.
Everything worked fine, indeed better, without this technology. Every supposed advantage is counteracted by a legion of negatives.
But in answer to your specific niggle, a terminus point for the lifespan of all digital information not actually needed would reduce the need for data centres by 99.9%.
If people want to keep stuff, let them do it on their own devices. We used to have a limit of a few dozen emails and we were fine. Fuck cloud computing, instagram and social media infinity. Fuck ebay, youtube and amazon. The amount of information that has any valid need to be retained is tiny.
And even the data centre companies were stunned at the Irish government’s willingness to bend over and present its swollen, gaudily-coloured backside to them like a baboon in heat at the big welcome-event given the Industry at the RDS.
Not even the banana republics, never mind other developed nations, would have done such an utterly fucking retarded thing as committing one-third of a country’s energy usage to keeping their balls in a temperate state.
You may as well be arguing in favour of the electronic-recycling industries that entire towns in China were conscripted into. Or the economic model of a country that gets payments for taking nuclear waste.
I genuinely couldn’t give a pube’s-width of a fuck about the data storage industry or any supposed inconvenience arising from the disappearance of their content.
Im not “arguing in favour” rather pointing out that most of the people (not you) dont know what happens in a data centre and how it enables their google lives. They then object to the systems that provides their always-on online mobile devices. Also the idea that rural ireland is supplying power only to Dublin is just laughable. Maybe some of the “roooral immigrants” who live in Dublin can be repatriated to their home counties and add to the large begrudgery mob who rely on Dublin generated tax to keep them. More houses for dubs less bitching from coutry types 😁
Well, yeah – not getting into a jackeen-culchie spat, we’re all friends as far as I’m concerned.
But I get your point. It’s like kids permanently on i-phones throwing soup on paintings for Just Stop Oil.
“Fuck …youtube… The amount of information that has any valid need to be retained is tiny.”
This is an increasing problem wrt information. Good information. Way back, in the 90’s, you could mine the internet for good information. Now there is so much noise and bad information it’s extremely time consuming to locate just the good sources of information.
There is also a big issue now with people being locked out from their data. People who’ve had e.g. a Hotmail/outlook account for 20 years or so and have been permanently locked out from accessing any of it for some supposed infraction that the person has no clue about. If you go on Microsoft forums you’ll find many people raging about it. If the Government cared about us, as part of allowing all these co’s to use Ireland for data storage, they’ve have secured the safety and integrity of every individual person’s data and their ability to access it. Possible this could be tested with FOI or Subject Access Request but for now these foreign co’s hold us to ransom over our data.
According to EirGrids 10 year capacity statement .. “A key driver for electricity demand in Ireland for the next number of years is the connection of data centres..Almost all of this extra load is contracted in the greater Dublin region”
In effect .. Rural Ireland is building Wind Farms in order to Power Data Centres in Dublin !!!!!
https://cms.eirgrid.ie/sites/default/files/publications/19035-EirGrid-Generation-Capacity-Statement-Combined-2023-V5-Jan-2024.pdf
And the content of the data centres is international digital junk.
And surveillance information on the population.
Don’t forget that is the reason why all the data is gathered.
Digital Id vax pass social credit central bank digital currency..15 minute travel restrictions?
So called Dublin data centres enable your post on this subject. Also the wind farm planned for north dublin coast will dwarf that planned for the west. But dont let facts get in the way of your “them above in Dublin” hatred.
Jps, I’m a Dubliner myself, I could live without twitter HQ in Dublin, I could live without Google HQ in Dublin, I could live without Facebook HQ in Dublin, Let them put their Data Centres in America . Data Centres not only use too much power but they occupy too much land and employ very few people.
Its unfair on people in Rural Ireland that the visual amenities and natural environment of their towns and villages are being exploited to power these data centres in Dublin.
I could be wrong, but I think Ronan has said before that he’s from Clondalkin.
We’ve been able to post on the internet since long before there were any data centres in Ireland.
Wind Turbines produce noise and alter visual aesthetics. Wind farms have different impacts on the environment compared to conventional power plants, but similar concerns exist over both the noise produced by the turbine blades and the visual impact on the landscape in a tourist area.
Wind plants impact local wildlife and require regular maintenance by specialised ships. lifting equiipment.and skilled personnel.
An Environmental Impact study and Certificate is required by the EU before the installation of a wind farm.
Several wind projects in Ireland have been cancelled and operational units closed down because of failure to provide or pass the conditions for an EU Environmental Impact Certificate.(Gougane Barra etc)
Wind energy is inconsistent due to varying weather conditions.
Climate Change hysteria , forced Govts to heavily subsidise and award special tax breaks and subsidies to WInd Energy Companies.
Wind energy companies negotiated special subsidy rates for energy delivery of up to 60%. to put them in line with the highest cost fossil fuel generators.
This subsidy cost was passed onto house- holds and is why your electricity costs are the highest in Europe.
Because of the unreliability of wind energy supply and customer complaints,Govs have cut back on subsidies.This has made Wind Energy uneconomic and created a flight of the biggest investors from the Wind Energy sector.
For the sentient ,a well known pattern emerges here.
1) Create mass hysteria using the Media to promote ‘an end of the world’ scenario (Greta Thurnberg ,useful eejit)
2 )Subsidise the Green Party loons for political leverage..
3) Panicked Govt succumb to the Greeb loons and lobbying groups. and finance and susidise uneconomic and unreliable Wind energy projects.
4)The Finance looters make out like bandits, leaving a trail of de-industrialisation ,unemployment and a devastated economy behind.
5) The Financiers return to pick up Industrial wasteland sites for pennies on the dollar to develop as shopping Malls ,’rent only’ high rise apartment blocks,
6) The new Housing Developments to be filled with illegal asylum scammers ( that is another tale)
The uncanny parallels with the Cov19 Hoax are apparent.
Create Fear ,Uncertainly Doubt and Panic ,usng a corrupt captured Media and Science charlatans.
Loot the State and Taxpayer, all a case of rinse and repeat.
This is Finance Capitalism in its end days , like a parasite consuming its Host.
The view from the Sky Road in Clifton is one of the most wonderful in all the world. Simply jaw dropping. To impinge on this is a crime.
Crazy Greeniacs damage tourism, kill wildlife, whirring upsets the neighbours.
What about soil erosion where Cromwell deemed the land so poor?????
In Skerries, Holland, Poland Spain there are architecturally beautiful windmills that have stood the test of time. Why now these short lived monstrosities? If we want to save the planet, this is the wrong way to go about it.
I recently read an article by a scientifically trained man who suggested solar farms generate a micro climate
I am not suggesting all or nothing, but moderation. If we want energy independence and food sources we need to diversify. Remember the people of Texas who died of cold when climatic conditions did not favour these “green solutions”
Green Party = “Build windfarms to save the environment and biodiversity, destroy biodiversity and the environment in order to build windfarms. And can we throw in legalising paedophilia somewhere in the small print ?”
https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679.html
They are diabolical, they kill wildlife and they are not green or environmentally friendly in any way. They are also a complete waste of tax payers money as the climate change agenda is a complete hoax. They need to stop geo engineering and stop spraying deadly chemicals in the sky which cause dementia and cancer. The aluminum goes to the brain and stays there and fluoride helps absorb more of it and faster.
Well done Miss Gunning, this highlights a hugely under-researched (or under-reported) aspect of the ‘New Energy’. Like every sane minded individual, we all want to protect the Earth and All of it’s inhabitants. But not only is the value of wind energy very much disputed, but the effect of planting gigantic wind turbines into the ocean floor against marine life warrants a serious study. The unbelievable majesty of whales, the undeniable intelligence of dolphins and Orcas, all these creatures who are our fellow inhabitants of this planet, operate by sonar and waves and the ways of the oceans that we, as land dwellers, cannot begin to understand. So to once again, in the hubris and arrogance of man, plough headstrong into another’s ecosystem with what seems total disregard to how it will be detrimental to them but will ‘benefit’ us is criminal, when we at this stage should surely know better and have learned from our past mistakes. Let us not blindly assume and take for granted that an innovation is always for the better.
There is a Shannon Estuary development taskforce report which merits reading
F*ck the environment to save the environment, this agenda is nothing but a massive fraud, the attack on Carbon is an attack on the essence of life and those pushing this agenda know this
I love the IDEA of renewable or green energy. Being self-sufficient in energy would be great. Who wouldn’t want that?
I’m skeptical that the numbers stack up. I’d love to see a detailed itemised breakdown of the costs for
1) Installation and commissioning of a wind turbine
2) The maintenance/repairs and running costs for each year over the lifetime of the turbine. Must cost a few bob to head out to sea to change a rubber seal on one of them yokes
3) The income for the energy produced and sold over the lifetime of the turbine
4) The de-commissioning and removal cost for at the end of a turbines lifetime
.
More questions:
What is the actual life-span of a turbine?
How much else do we need to invest in time, money, education and training for people to install and maintain all of these turbines continually?
The upfront costs of a turbine may be relatively low now. What happens if the cost of one of these sky-rockets and in 25 years time we cannot replace them?
Are there more viable and practical alternatives e.g. Biogas/biomethane, tidal hydro-power?
There’s been an awful lot of noise about wind turbines and renewables. It would be good to have some detailed independent studies and an impartial comprehensive analysis.
Even John Kerry the greatest climate warrior of all time objected to wind turbines spoiling his ocean view in Massachusetts. But he is also the greatest “climate change” hypocrite on the planet! Al Gore is a close second!
They are the most efficient bird-killing machines known to man!
Article says “planned placement approximately 5 miles from the coastline.” which is 8km – but the Innovision photomontage of the Sky Rd says nearest turbine 24.9km ?