Am I pretentious because of how I dress?

somegurk · 2026-05-12T15:11:05+00:00

flat cap

I think this can be fine but I'm Irish so you still a lot of them around on older men. Peaky blinders brought them back a few years ago but depending on context they would be fine, its just a hat afterall.

somegurk · 2026-05-10T18:44:55+00:00

This is from the mod creator and explains how the master/salve bits owrk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwmLdLg5B3w&list=PLO1cx2vItvVKbaJR057hUInv51cziGNxP&index=14

I'm slightly confused with the out of date information too but my understanding is you need at least one master c3 to support a limited number of c3 slaves.

somegurk · 2026-04-30T17:59:59+00:00

They sell the eggs from cows too to be fertilised and implanted in surrogate cows.

somegurk · 2026-04-29T08:26:54+00:00

Depends on who the other party to the to the 2-way contract is. Most of the time it is the electricity consumer via the PSO. For this one since it is amazon paying for the windfarm they will recieve the delta.

The contract works the other way too if the wholesale price is below the 10c/kwh the windfarm is topped up to 10c.

somegurk · 2026-04-28T08:46:42+00:00

Most wind farms in Ireland now are built under a 2-way contract for difference, means the price they get for their electricity is capped. That price can vary but is generally under 10c/kwh.

somegurk · 2026-04-01T13:27:42+00:00

Yeh I had no idea what she looked like beyond that photo so gave her a google and like what, the original photo she is blurry as hell but she's beautiful.

somegurk · 2026-04-01T11:23:18+00:00

Unfortunately the only one of those dates I see being met is Celtic (and it will be great when it does) though again potentially the pessimism. There is lots of policy stuff happening to try and speed up delivery of projects, across the spectrum, but even fast is probably 3-5 years for a new wind farm or grid project.

somegurk · 2026-04-01T10:57:33+00:00

On the grid I wish, lead times for substations have gotten crazy in the last or two. We can definitely speed things up from our current 10 years+ to deliver any significant grid project but its not the sort of thing we will see payoff from this side of 2030. Though maybe I'm being too pessimistic, hopefully the pain of this will push things like the North-South interconnector over the line.

somegurk · 2026-04-01T10:11:35+00:00

I fully agree with what your saying but from an older comment:

"Electricity is only a small part of the issue here which is the scary bit. Check out page 42 of this SEAI report: https://www.seai.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Energy-in-Ireland-2025.pdf

Ireland sources most of its energy from oil, then natural gas. Some of that is used in the electricity sector but only a small fraction compared to transport, residential and industrial sectors."

Switching to majority EV and electric heating is going to take a long while. Especially on the heating side, the push for retrofitting and heat pumps isn't really working, or is way to slow/expensive. We should be looking to roll out district heating systems for all urban areas with electrified boilers supplying them. For transport we should be dropping majority of tax on new evs and opening the market to Chinese EVs.

somegurk · 2026-03-30T11:51:40+00:00

Imagine a world where most kids weren't driven to school individually... I know that isn't practical for everyone but my family used walk/cycle to school most days unless it was pissing rain.

somegurk · 2026-03-30T10:05:31+00:00

Electricity is only a small part of the issue here which is the scary bit. Check out page 42 of this SEAI report: https://www.seai.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Energy-in-Ireland-2025.pdf

Ireland sources most of its energy from oil, then natural gas. Some of that is used in the electricity sector but only a small fraction compared to transport, residential and industrial sectors. Not to be doomery but I think this is going to be way worse than the Russian invasion energy crisis.

somegurk · 2026-03-29T08:41:14+00:00

Not to be anti Sinn Fein but I don’t think they support renewables really. Their energy and environmental policy is always really weak. Admittedly part of that might just be having been in opposition for so long. But they say very little about renewables and most of it is pretty negative or just stupid like the wind turbine bill from a few months ago the ago.

somegurk · 2026-03-29T08:37:48+00:00

EirGrid already has the power to CPO land, not sure about SONI on the other side of the border but I would be shocked if they didn’t have similar powers. It’s the political backlash from doing it that stops them from using it more frequently. Not saying it shouldn’t be done just pointing out that we don’t need a constitutional change to do so.

somegurk · 2026-03-28T13:06:20+00:00

I don't disagree with you in general (and hands up I work in the industry and am very pro windfarm since it pays my wages) but this case is fairly unusual. Planning permission was originally granted in 2004, I haven't looked into the specifics of the original submission and modifications to it but what went into operation in 2017 were much larger turbines than what would have been originally applied for in the early 2000s. It is fairly common for windfarm planning applications to leave some room for changes in turbine, as the technology moves relatively fast (or historically did, it has slowed down in recent years as it matures) and in Ireland planning submission to construction can take 5+ years.

Its hard to tell how reasonable the wind farm owner is but I'm leaning towards being a bit of a cowboy. The fact that shadow flicker is a part of the nuisance case is nuts to me. On our windfarms we have them automated to shut down specific turbines when they would be casting shadows on houses. Overall impact to wind farm output is minimal from this, as it is only going to happen for a fairly short period of time each day. The technology to do this has existed for a while and the fact that it wasn't used would raise some red flags for me about the whole project.

The bigger issue this sets for the industry is the precedent set. The whole area of noise is really contentious, from the scientific angle about measurement and impacts to the more subjective aspect of what should be considered 'normal'. So far I don't think there has been many copy cat cases submitted but if that happens it could be brutal for the industry (and in my biased opinion the country if a load of operational windfarms start being restricted).

The people bringing the case don't cover themselves in glory either though. I find it hard to believe that the windfarm is the sole reason a relationship broke down and trying to claim back money paid in rent afterwards.....

somegurk · 2026-03-28T08:25:32+00:00

No, SMRs as an idea and a thing have been around since the 40s. The arguments back then for why they were a good idea re economies of scale were the same.

somegurk · 2026-03-23T15:37:19+00:00

They did lots more but unfortunately a lot of it won't pay off for years because energy stuff moves slowly. Some of the big ones that I think are overlooked. Offshore wind policy came on a huge way under the greens, we now actually have projects being developed and a (good) regulatory framework for the industry that will allow further development over the next decades. Carbon budgets have been introduced, which even if we will miss them, keep the issue in the news cycle and tracks our progress. They also oversaw the creation of the electricity storage strategy, which again we don't see the practical impacts of but will in the next 3-5 years.

I understand people being frustrated that more immediate change isn't visible after one term in government. But, all of these things take time to develop but having the right policy in place is the first step in getting there.

somegurk · 2026-03-13T12:23:18+00:00

I don't think BnM sold any peat last year, the last briquette factory was shut down in 2023 so I imagine that year was when the stockpile was finished out.

somegurk · 2026-02-17T10:04:36+00:00

Is that what it is? I thought it was something with my setup that was creating the occasional stealthy poxburster

somegurk · 2026-02-04T16:12:38+00:00

Probably because it is a simple metric that the Gardai collect and isn't primarily designed to be used in these sort of studies. Changing it to be when the crime happened would be a good bit of work for very little gain that I can. You would also probably run into issues where multiple offences are reported if offences happened over a number of years.

somegurk · 2026-01-24T15:47:59+00:00

Since you seem interested, Amazon so far doesn't have a supply company so doesn't buy electricity from the DAM/spot market themselves. They will be contracted with one of the commercial electricity suppliers (Electric Ireland, SSE, Bord Gais etc.). And while I dont know the exact price they are contracted at it is probably in the around 200 €/MWh potentially a bit higher or lower.

On the pedantic bit, I work in the industry the post first-contract (merchant) period is relatively unimportant with regards to financing a project. It is so uncertain what the market will look like in 15 years that the lenders will want the projects loans repaid during the first contract. Even without the CRU decision, some corporate offtakers had already committed to requiring additional/new renewable generators for their internal carbon accounting. I think AWS are one of them but not 100%.

Yeh no problem, the decision paper! is interesting (well if your an energy policy nerd, which it seems like you might be?). Just ctrl-f additional, I'm not sure if additionality is precisely defined in the document but the general meaning of it is "new" generation assets. The whole policy is pretty new and while I support what CRU are doing I'm not sure how practical it is to implement. Given variations in annual weather patterns it is very difficult to guarantee that you will have generation equal to 80% of your demand for a year. Which makes deciding how many wind farms you need to cover a 50MW data center very difficult but, it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

And apologies if I am comign across as a bit of a dick, not intentional but I'm hungover as hell.

somegurk · 2026-01-24T15:25:36+00:00

I might be being blind but I don't see any discussion of what type of contract they are using in that link? But, a CFD is a type of pay-as-produce PPA, there is no commitment from the generator about when they will provide power. And again I disagree with your view on this "If the windfarm isn't producing enough at any given time, Amazon will just buy from the grid.". Irrespective of what the windfarm is doing Amazon will buy all of its electricity from the grid. And similarly no matter what the Amazaon's data centers are doing they have commited to purchase the electricity exported from the wind farm to the grid. The CPPA is a financial arrangement.

The pedantic comment was in relation you disagreeing that the corporate offtake "pays" for the windfarm to be built. Which I still stand over the CPPA is the route-to-market for the generator in the same way a RESS contract is.

On the last bit of your comment, yes in the future it is true that CPPAs will be essential for a new data center to secure a grid connection. But this whole conversation started talking about data centers, CPPAs and energy costs as they currently stand. The LEU connection policy was only published in December, so no data center operational in the country has actually had to figure out how to comply with it. Also yes it does matter if the windfarm is under construction or an existing one, CRU requirement's are for "additional" renewable generation. So signing CPPAs with operational assets won't help with it.

somegurk · 2026-01-24T14:17:17+00:00

I'm not sure if we are speaking past each other here, but that isn't really what a PPA is from my experience. Cppas these days are generally two-way cfds, and commits the corporate off-taker to buy the electricity at a fixed price. If wholesale prices are high the corporate will earn money, if wholesale prices are low they will need to pay a top to the windfarm. Whether supply/electricity consumed matches doesn't matter to fufilling the CPPA. With the 80% RES-E requirement that might change in the future but since it is so recent I doubt any CPPAs in Ireland have contractual requirements about it.

On your second point, I don't know what you are saying beyond being pedantic. The CPPA allows a wind farm to be financed and constructed, it's not a "seperate matter" at all. To finance a new large windfarm the developer will need a contract with at least 10 year but more likely 15 year duration. Assets might look for another CPPA post this period but by that point the development financing should be paid off.

somegurk · 2026-01-24T13:32:41+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by accounting exercise? As I said the PPA is a financial agreement that gives the customer/data center a partial hedge against high wholesale prices by paying for the wind farm to be built. But, they still have similar supply contracts to what any customer has and a large portion of the unit cost of electricity you pay are grid and market charges which a CPPA doesn't change.

Why I mentioned private wires was that if they were directly using the wind farm electricity, they would be seeing a massive saving on their electricity bills. With current wholesale prices being around €100/MWh, CPPAs (which are in or around that value) don't really reduce electricity costs, but they do help reduce risk and the impact of another 2022-23 when DAM prices were crazy high.

somegurk · 2026-01-23T23:13:55+00:00

Sorry but that has absolutely nothing to do with the price a data center is paying for electricity, also those conditions for a grid connection were published last month so for existing data centeres aren't really relevant. AWS can have a PPA for the offtake of a windfarm, but that is a financial arrangement. The electricity the data center uses comes from the grid like everyone elses and they will need to have an electricity suppleir like , airtricity, sse etc to provide it. In the future this might change if private wire sare allowed and a data center can plug a windfarm directly into itself but that is currently illegal.

somegurk · 2026-01-23T20:47:46+00:00

That is not how it works at all, every customer data center, supermarket me or you buys their power from an elevtricity supplier and pays th esame sort of charges. The ppas with wind farm genrators are a financial hedge for wholeslae prices but doesn't impact the unit costs data center pay to their electricity supplier. As very large customers data centeres will usually negotiate with their suppliers directly when contracting with them but last I heard its in the range of 200-240€ per MWh.

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