How much battery power is there in 2030?

 This post here estimated there would be about 16.5GWh of Grid scale batteries power in ireland in 2030.   an actual expert said 13.5GWh. Eirgrid estimate 3.4GWh and SEAI 1.7GWh.

But apart from Grid scale batteries what other ones will we have?

Grid scale solar and domestic solar are about equal. There might be a similar relationship between Domestic and grid scale batteries. In 2019 in the UK 10,000 homes had domestic storage batteries. And those batteries seemed to be about 5KWh on average. They have gone up since. that would be 50MWh. This is tiny compared to the amount of grid scale energy at the time. I do not think currently domestic batteries make up a big proportion of total batteries. I could be wrong on this but that is what the data I see at the moment says. 

One place we do have a lot of batteries is in Electric cars. 73000 Electric cars registered in Ireland each with an average 40 kWh battery. Which is a total of just under 3GWh of batteries. That is over 3 times the amount in grid storage systems.

'Under the Climate Action Plan, the Government initially set a target of having 175,000 electric passenger cars on the road by the end of 2025 which would increase to 845,000 by the end of 2030.' That would be 34GWh of batteries in cars. And given that EV battery capacity keep going up, Range doubles every 7 years  that could be nearly doubled by then. Even if they do not go from 40KWh to 80KWh, 60KWh is pretty standard and probably will be average by then.

70GWh of electric batteries driving around involves us meeting our agreements and increased capacity trends continuing. It would be a huge amount of power 16.5GWh grid + 70GWh EV is a big chunk of a days worth of current electricity usage.

There is a problems getting that much energy into cars in 5 years time. If you could get the electricity out for the owner when it was needed it that would really help but that is not currently practical. I can imagine houses filling up EV batteries in cheap renewables and running their house off the EV batteries. Though this is not practical yet renewable and EV trends mean it would be cheap so there is incentive to make it work. Cars are used slightly under an hour a day on average. Which means 23 hours a day the battery could be used to help the grid.

The average house uses about 12KWh a day. Say 20KWh to include heating with electricity not gas. If you have a battery of 80KWh that could hold 3 days of that power and do the usual short Irish commute (17km) a few days a week. There is a big incentive to charge the battery on windy or sunny times and then use the car battery for the house at peak expensive electricity times.

In a few years based on current trends and agreements Ireland could have a huge amount of its daily energy needs storable in battery form. 

Batteries in Ireland 2030

I think the same estimates for Battery power storage in Ireland in 2030 are really too low.

I have talked here about how I think SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority Of Ireland) estimates for Solar underestimates how much solar we will add to the grid by 2030. 

The SEAI estimate here that we will have 1GW of battery storage in 2030 and optimistically 1.8GW (1.7GWh and optimistically 5.94GWh in total) p87 here 

This estimate comes from p100 of Eirgrid's Ten Year Generation Capacity Statement 2023–2032 

We seem to be nearly at that lower level of GWh already 'Cornwall Insight’s SEM Benchmark Power Curve sees “significant battery storage growth”, projecting that short-medium term lithium-ion battery storage capacity, up to 4h duration, will reach 13.5GWh by 2030, up from 2.7GWh in 2025.'

To take one current planned battery system Ballynahone Energy Storage Co. Donegal 'The company expects the project, which would take 12 months to build, would be capable of storing 1 gigawatt hour (GWh) of energy while future projects will be capable of storing up to 8GWh' That one project could by 2030 surpass the current optimistic estimates

There are domestic batteries, including in cars, which at least reduce peak consumption but could also be used to directly help the grid. If my predictions of close to zero wholesale prices at sunny of windy times by 2030 there will be good incentives for batteries that store power then. and the 13.5GWh estimate could be low. Nevermind the 1.7GWh one of SEAI.


In April 2024 there was 731.5 MW of Battery storage. We added at least 150MW since. Let us say the total now is 880MW. The world has had an annual growth rate of 63.6% in battery storage for the last 10 years (p56 Grid-scale battery energy storage systems). 2023 had an increase of 120.8% so the growth rate seems to be increasing. But if the 63% rate kept going for Ireland's battery storage that would be 43GW. Over 30 times Eirgrid's estimates.

Adding Solar to Wind Farms

 
I talked in 2022 about how I expected Wind farms in Ireland to have solar added to them. The short version is a bad piece of land with a big electricity cable leaving it that is already selling electricity seems idea to put solar on. 

Because solar is during summer days and the wind mostly winter nights the chances of maximum wind and solar being at any one time is small. And when those windy and sunny times do happen the whole grid will have so much electricity that extra watts will not be valuable. Some wind farms are forested but many are pretty bare hillsides.

Solar panels keep getting cheaper. At the moment they are €0.06/W. To take one example Raheenleagh Wind Farm has a capacity 35.2MW which would cost now just over €2 million in panels. 
Panels are about half the costs of solar farms (planning permission permits etc make up a lot of the rest. Stands a 10%ish chunk. With the inverter and other electrical stuff a fairly small percentage 15%ish).

Combined solar and wind farms make sense in Ireland. It means some infrastructure can be reused and a lot of the work that has already been done for an area. For example this planned hybrid site has 'Grid connection via the existing Richfield Wind Farm 38kV substation;'

Ireland's Solar Electricity in 2030

 

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland have released their National Energy Projections 2024. In this they predict Ireland will have *2.6 more solar electricity generation capacity in 2030. And their optimistic estimate is 3 times more. Ireland has promised to install nearly 4 times more.

It is these peoples jobs to make these projections. and they know far more than I do about electricity generation. But I think they are wrong because of straight line continuing reasons

Below is Ireland's increase in Solar generation since 2017, the first year I can find data for. It increases by more than the 40% annual growth Solar has had world wide for decades

But say we slowed down to this 40% increase rate where would that leave us in 2030? We would have 10 times more solar than now. Not the 3 times SEAI predicts on the optimistic path.

Lots of things could interrupt Ireland's trend but
1. there are lots of planning applications for new solar farms. ' If all were developed, it would add a further 9.5 GW in solar energy to the grid,

surpassing our 2030 target of 8 GW'

2. We have promised to install 8GW of capacity so planning hold ups seem less likely

3. Prices keep dropping, and production keeps increasing. Solar installs in general keep surpassing expectations.

I think the SEAI solar predictions are too low and we are going to have over 10GW of solar installed by 2030. Instead of 2030 to have 5.7GW I think that will be 2 years time, by the end of 2026.

Have Batteries for Ireland's excess wind energy

Ireland regularly produces more energy, from wind, than it needs at night. 95GWh is more than the increase that happens 5-7pm. This means that if we could store the wind energy at night it would significantly help during peak hours of the evening.

How much would this cost? 

"Benchmark Lithium ion Battery Cell prices have fallen to $66.5/kWh in September (Benchmark’s Global Weighted Average); falling just shy of 20% this year". So if we store €60.38 worth of kWh energy that means the battery pays for itself.

At retail prices that is 190 stores and discharges. There is a wholesale retail difference but still six months payback time is so short as to still make it really economical.

Solar already significantly add to the electricity supply which means you might be able to get two discharges on a battery a day. Once in the smaller morning peak using overnight wind power and again in the evening using the days solar.

We have excess wind energy, and next summer solar, so often that grid scale lithium batteries could pay for themselves in months.

Summer 2026 everything gets weird

I think in the summer of 2026 lots of fundamental improvements in human lives will happen

1. Energy. Solar electricity will be plentiful enough that everyone starts to notice prices falling. Batteries will be deployed enough that the effect will extend into peak times.

2. Obesity. The glp-1 drugs go off patent in March 2026. And cheap generic versions will be commonly taken

Generic drugs get cheap fast

Patent expiry date. There could be some shenanigans gets the patent extended. 

I'm predicting 10+% of the population lose 6 kilos during the summer of 2026.

3. Health vaccines. New improved vaccines for TB, Malaria and even cancer should be rolled out enough by then to be visible in lifespan statistics.

4. Self driving cars. These have seemed in the cusp of deployment for a long time. I've been wrong before on when they will be regularly seen. But I'm going to risk being wrong again and claim it's summer 2026.

5. Drones. My local MacDonalds has a drone base behind it. Delivering food orders it seems like a few times a minute. This tech from Manna seems mature enough that it could be common lots of places in a year and a half.

6. Housing. I got nothing here. I can't see the build loads of apartments in a factory and assemble them on site solution being rolled out by then. Hopefully I'm wrong though. 

7. LLMS and AI. The tech is there and getting better but it is still not deployed in a way that really helps people. I think I'm a year and a half ai assistants for office jobs will be regularly used though. 

8.... Any other ideas for things that are about to change or lives a lot?

How will we show off next?

How people show off, or signal status, changes over time. Nowadays eating in famous fancy restaurants and travelling are higher status than in recent times. Whereas knowing about music, books and films seem to be less high status. Probably because anyone with bittorrent can look at any of these media for free. 

One way people signal status is to be slim. GLP-1 inhibitors are going to make this less of a signal soon. these drugs will get cheaper, easier to take and more effective. Meaning that more people will take them and reduce their weight. 

People argue that you should eat healthier instead but it is not an instead situation. People on GLP-1 eat more healthy foods, less junk foods and less alcohol.

Studies show an 11% reduction in overall food shopping spend (and more on alcohol).

What will people move to to signal that they are strong willed and look after themselves if weight is not as much of a signal? I guess clothes.

Clothes fashions have always cycled between casual and formal trends. The pandemic made it ok for adults to wander around in tracksuit bottoms and runners. My guess is that a more formal fashion will come in now where expensive clothes and tailoring is used as a signal as the status signal from weight delines in power.

Solar power in Ireland doubles yearly

When will Ireland have enough solar to power the country? Summer 2026 for small periods and Summer 2027 for most of the days.

Solar output in Ireland nearly doubles every year. The most so far is 700mw the 31st of August 2024 17.2% from grid scale solar systems. The highest in 2023 was 400mw.
August is not an ideal month and more electricity than that would be possible if it was sunnier, possibly about 300mw more. But that is the most we have actually gotten.
Grid scale solar and domestic are about equal. Which means this figure is close to 34% solar at the time.

That doubles summer 2025 to 68%. Summer 2026 to 136% and Summer 2027 to 272% of power at peak. That doubling is optimistic, though a particular June day could be really sunny and beat that. But the growth is still so quick that at some point in 2026 the grid will be getting as much solar as it can take. And most summer days in 2027 will be like that. 

I do not think most Irish people realise this. Our electricity plans are not setup to give us cheap electricity when there is a glut of wind or solar. Irish Smart Meters are not Smart Enough.

Solar only gives about 20-25% of the power in winter months. But that still would be a fair chunk of the grid once solar can supply 100%+ of needs.

So if next summer is sunny we could have 'shock as too much solar for grid' articles are written. And by the summers after solar will be so much that electricity prices should get really cheap.

Irish Smart Meters are not Smart Enough

Smart meter electricity plans in Ireland do not take into account how plentiful the wind and sunshine is. You have one time based rate that does not change even if there is a glut of renewable electricity.

If the price dropped like the wholesale price does. It would incentivise people to take up energy when it is cheap. This would reduce peak demand later.
 

A large percentage of people now have electric cars. 20% of new car sales are electric. Filling them when wholesale prices are low reduces demand later. But at the moment there is no connection between wholesale and retail prices.

Even without batteries these times could be used to heat water for showers in the morning Energy Cloud is a charity that encourages this 'Diverting surplus renewable energy which would otherwise be wasted, with a primary focus homes in fuel poverty'. The price mechanism will do it as well. If electricity becomes cheap because it is plentiful people will use more of it then.

'The price of lithium-ion battery packs has dropped 14% to a record low of $139/kWh' and that was 2023 and prices keep dropping. At 44 cents a kWh, the current rate, 285 charges for free would pay for that battery. We are getting to the point where a battery charged at night by wind and during peak sunshine, when there are low wholesale prices, can be used in the morning and in the evening, twice a day. Which means with lower cost electricity than 22c that is currently paid at night in smart schemes batteries pay for themselves really fast.

Large infrastructure projects are now being rejected because of our electricity grid not being stable enough. South Dublin Council refuses Google Ireland data centre planning permission. And one simple way to reduce this is allowing smart meters to actually be smart and reduce retail prices when wholesale prices drop. That incentivises electricity usage to be match supply.

Medieval PAWGs

Chaucer wrote 'This wenche thikke ...I wol nat lye' predating Sir-Mix-A-lot by about 600 years.

'This wenche thikke and wel y-growen was, With camuse nose and yën greye as glas; With buttokes brode and brestes rounde and hye But right fair was hir heer, I wol nat lye.'

This Wench was thick and well grown With a snub nose and grey eyes with broad buttocks and round high breasts but right fair was her hair. I cannot lie

Jaws Gravestone in Ireland?

 'Here lies the body of Mary Lee; 

Died at the age of a hundred and three. 

For fifteen years she kept her virginity; 

Not a bad record for this vicinity.' Robert Shaw says this poem in Jaws 

The scene is here 

Spielberg asked Shaw for the author so he could get it cleared. But Shaw said as it was from a tombstone in a graveyard near him in Ireland it would not need clearance.

But I can't find a reference for the actual tombstone. Does anyone know where it might be? Shaw lived at Drimbawn House in Tourmakeady, County Mayo

It is very unlikely that would ever be written on an Irish gravestone. But some version of it might have been and then altered by local humour. Something like  'Here lies the body of Mary Lee; died at the age of a hundred and three. For all her life she kept her fidelity.'

The only Mary Lee I can find in Irish graveyards database is this one
which is in Moycullen Old Cemetery not too far from Shaw's home

Declan Moore the Archaeologist kindly visited this grave but the text is no longer legible 

  So we might never know if it is the original source of the legendary jaws gravestone. 

The First Virtual Reality Disassociation

What was the first time someone became so immersed in a virtual world that they disassociated and felt like they were really there? 

The term cyberspace has was coined in 1984 but I think the earliest case of thinking your body was out there operating away from your actual body was much earlier. 

Infinity Beckoned is a brilliant book about Space exploration. There's one amazing bit where a geologist gets so engrossed in maneuvering the Soviet Lunokhod 1970 probe on the moon that he disembodies

'Focusing so intently on those TV images, Basilevsky's mind psycholog- ically uncoupled from his earthbound body and replanted itself inside of Lunokhod. As if he was somehow now inside the tub and peering out through its cameras. In this altered state of consciousness, any sense of time utterly disappeared. "The working session ended quite late-maybe at five a.m. or six," he said. "And I get out after the session, and I could see the moon in the sky. I could see Mare Imbrium, and it was for me like splitting of my brain or my conscious. I see the moon, it was there, but I was there too! I had that feeling and it was very strong." Basilevsky needed to unplug—to savor some tea and enjoy a bit of quiet solo hiking through the trees. Something tangible to plant both his feet on Earth again.'

It is possible there were earlier cases. Probably involving radar screens but this sort of disembodiment seems to require your brain having control over where your sense organs can look and see. A loop between doing and sensing.

Junior Cert Irish Audiobooks

 

We should have audiobooks of the Irish books we make kids study on the Junior cert. I made a list here of Irish language audiobooks I think we need. But the wishlist should start with the books we make 13-15 year olds read  

Having these books in audiobook format that would help students with their pronounciation and allow them get immersion in the texts while commuting etc.

Here is the list of the novels and short stories on the Junior cert. T2 is non gaelscoil prescribed texts and there are about 60,000 students per year. Which is a lot of people who could be helped with an audiobook.

The books students have to learn one from are

Sárú by Anna Heussaff 

LabhairAmach.com  by Áine Uí Fhoghlú 

Tóraíocht Taisce  by Mícheál Ó Ruairc 

Amach by Alan Titley

Smuf by Alan Titley

Hóng by Anna Heussaff

Daideo by Áine Ní Ghlinn does have an audiobook here 

Cúpla by Ógie Ó Céilleachair this seems to be the most common book used in Junior cert so this would be a great audiobook to make.

Éalú san Oíche by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh

Trumptaí Dumptaí agus An Falla Mór by Ré Ó Laighléis

Hiúdaí Beag Eithne by Ní Ghallchobhair

Gluaiseacht by Alan Titley recording is here (it is on the gaelscoil list) 

Some of these are used by more schools than others so even just recordings of the most popular ones would help a lot of students.

And the plays are

Gan Choinne by Ré Ó Laighléis 

Gleann Álainn by Brian Ó Baoill Youtube video teaching it with extra explanation 

Na Deoraithe  by Celia de Fréine 

Lá Buí Bealtaine  byMáiréad Ní Ghráda

An Casán  by Séamus de Bhilmot 

I could be missing some recordings that are available. If I am please let me know. 
These books tend to be under an hour of audio. Which means the cost and time for recording any one book is not high. Also because these are relatively simple books other Irish learners can benefit as well.

Irish Language Audiobooks we Should Have

I have moaned a lot about the lack of books with Irish and English text and Irish audio. But how much would it cost to fix this? An hour of audiobook recording seems to cost about €100. For 50 hours of Audio it would cost about 5,000 euro.

With this 50 hours you could get the books 

1. On the Junior and leaving cert cycle Cupla, A Thig ná Tit Orm, LabhairAmach.com, Gluaiseacht, Sárú and Tromluí. Combined these are about 10 hours. And we make kids read these every year we might as well give them good materials to help them.

Some teenage books already exist in audiobook form and they have been a great help to me. You can get them here

2. The classic Irish language books including Blasket Island books. And these would be public domain. An tOileánach, An old woman's reflections by Peig, 20 years a growing. Seadna just needs a digital release. 

3. An Giall, The Hostage by Brendan Behan is still performed pretty regularly so there should be a version people can study. It is about an hour and a half.

4. The open Door series. These really helped me. Making them available outside of libraries would be great. There are 4 newer books in the series without Irish language audiobooks to add to the 8 that exist. Each of these is under 2 hours of audio.

5. Popular English language books that have already been translated into Irish would help learners. 

The Hobbit

Harry Potter

4 Roald Dahl books

3 David Walliams books

each of these is about 10 hours of audio. We would have to be sure the rights holders would allow the audiobooks to be sold at a reasonable price before investing in making the audiobook. But a popular audiobook like this could really help people immerse in the language.
The main reason audiobooks are expensive to buy is they are expensive to make. If that making expense is covered then the audiobooks themselves can be cheap while still ensuring the rights holder gets paid.

6. Irish language Books of cultural importance from the Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks list.
Getting most of the 1-5 up the 50 hours budget. But if you want to add more we should record

Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach Pádraic Ó Conaire  

An tOileánach  Tomás O'Crohan 

An Beal Bocht by Flann O'Brien

Cré na Cille already recorded so we would just have to help make it digitally available

Dé Luain Eoghan Ó Tuairisc 

Ár Ré Dhearóil by Máirtín Ó Direáin

Bligeard Sráide by Michael Davitt 

Cead Aighnis by Nuala Ni Domhnaill

For five thousand euro we could get audiobooks with about 50 hours or 500 thousand words total made. And these could be free, or sold cheaply, because the making was subsidised. This would be all the books teenagers are expected to read junior and leaving cert. Translated popular kids books. 11 books in the open door series for adults. And some of the of the classic Irish language books that are big parts of our cultural heritage.

Say I am wrong and the cost is €200 per hour. That you cannot get an Irish teacher with podcast equipment to record this during a holiday for €100 per hour. Ten thousand is still the price of a second hand car.

Some money is already spent helping Irish and ten thousand euro would be a 0.05% percentage of the most recently announce funding. €20m Irish-language arts and community funding announced

Wiped off the Earth

In 1989 a newspaper report said 'Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not stopped by they year 2000'.

This 30+ year old story regularly does the rounds by people who deny human caused climate change.

I am not sure this one story is even wrong though. It is not saying the nations will be wiped out by 2000. Just that increased warming of the seas will cause the water to expand and at some point in the future that expansion will be enough to put some low lying pacific nations underwater. The article itself talks about the changes taking place over long time periods 'We say that within the next 10 years, given the present loads that the atmosphere has to bear, we have an opportunity to start the stabilizing process.’'' 

'the ocean rose more than twice as fast (4.62mm a year) in the most recent decade (2013-22) than it did in 1993-2002, the first decade of satellite measurements, when the rate was 2.77mm a year. Last year was a new high, according to the World Meteorological Organization' ...'Not only is dangerous sea level rise “absolutely guaranteed”, but it will keep rising for centuries or millennia even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, experts say.'

This one gotcha article goes around regularly in spite of not being wrong.

Jimmy Magee's Memory

The Irish sports commentator Jimmy Magee was famous for his encyclopedic memory of sports facts. And not just stories he would use during commentating but he could be quizzed and was great at knowing the answers. How did he do it?

In this book he describes how he does not use mnemonic techniques like loci or memory palaces. He just had an interest in the area. And he tested himself.

How much can you learn from a Soap Opera?

I have noticed watching Ros na Rún has improved my Irish but how much could it really help?

Ros na Rún has 82 episodes a series each about 24 minutes long.  You could easily watch one a day over about 3 months. But how much could you learn from that? 

I extracted the Irish subtitles from one episode and it had 2964 words in it. 

Over an 82 episode series that would be 243048 total words. Heap's law says that is about 9860 unique individual words. 

'To be familiar with 98% of the running words in a novel or newspaper, you need to know around 8000-9000 different words.' What do you need to know to learn a foreign language? Paul Nation which is less.

Soap Operas are closer to how people talk than the words used in novels. And there is a fair bit of repetition as people spend several episodes talking about the events a hen night or something. But using words again means you are more likely to remember the word. Any decrease in unique words is an increase in the times you hear a word and your chances of remembering it. 

It is easy enough to extract TG4 subtitles and audio if needed. Which allows you to recheck and learn any section you found difficult. 

'Learn Irish with Series 26 of Ros na Rún' would be an entirely practical 3 month process.

Bribes for Defection of Russian Pilots

 It feels like Ireland cannot do much to help Ukraine in its fight with Russia. But I think that we can by bribing Russian pilots to defect with their planes. 

This is allowed under the normal rules of war. Here is a story about Ukraine trying to do it. 'Russian aviators who were in the midst of bombing Ukraine to defect with their warplanes in exchange for $1 million a piece'. And it seems to have worked at least once.

Theres a good few wonk game theory analysis out there of the best schemes and how much it would cost. Make Desertion Fast 

But at a simple level €10 million and an Irish passport would be pretty tempting for any pilot flying nearby to find they had an engine trouble and to ask to come in for an emergency landing. the passport reduces the worry of being repatriated back to Russia later. Of course not every pilot with the opportunity would defect for that money. But no plan is ever 100% effective.

Russia has lost about 300 aircraft in 2 years of war. At 10 million each that would be about €3 billion if offering defections doubled it. Which is not much more than Ireland, reasonably in my view, spends on helping victims of the war at the moment per year. 

A price of €10 million per plane to help bring about the end of the war would be cheap. And if the scheme does not work and no one defects it would not cost us any money.