Flew in yesterday afternoon to Shannon Airport, ahead of today’s site visits with Eire’s electricity provider, ESB. Stayed at the Clayton Hotel in Limerick, my bedroom window overlooking Steamboat Quay – with ships moving in and out.
This morning, after an early breakfast, we were taken by minibus to see a salmon hatchery near Parteen Weir, plus the release of a tanker full of eels that had been netted upstream of a dam and hydropower station which would otherwise have mashed a fair few of them, and were now being released to make their way back down to the Atlantic.
The scale of the Ardnacrusha hydropower station, when we got there, was slightly mind-numbing – particularly given that it opened as long ago as 1929. Then we headed across to Moneypoint, which was even larger – but still burning coal.
More hopeful was the Green Atlantic hub now evolving here. We walked around the Synchronous Condenser, designed to balance the electricity grid as ever-increasing quantities of renewable energy are used. Lots to think about when we get home.
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