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Adams arriving at the conference today Alvaro Barrientos/PA Images

Gerry Adams quotes Bobby Sands and hails 'historic moment' at Basque peace conference

The former Sinn Féin leader was speaking at a Basque peace conference today.

FORMER SINN FÉIN leader Gerry Adams has hailed a “historic moment for the people of the Basque country” at an international conference on the region’s peace process today.

Being held in the French Basque town of Cambo-les-Bains just a day after separatist group ETA announced a definitive end to its activities, Adams drew parallels with the situation in Northern Ireland in a speech with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern also in attendance.

He said the Basque peace process is, like the Irish peace process, “an example of what is possible when people of goodwill never lose hope and never give up”.

Adams commended those who had worked to end the conflict in recent years, and singled out Father Alec Reid for particular praise.

“On a personal note, I want to remember my friend Father Alec Reid who played a pivotal role in the Irish peace process and then spent many years travelling her to help foster the conditions for the momentous progress we have witnessed in the past 24 hours,” he said.

In a letter yesterday, ETA said it had “completely dissolved all of its structures and declared an end to its political initiative”.

The group had waged a decades-long campaign for Basque independence, which had left hundreds dead. In 2011, however, it announced a permanent ceasefire and yesterday called a complete cessation to activities.

A major sticking point for the group has been the policy of both the French and Spanish to situate prisoners far away from their homes but Adams called on both governments today to “send a very positive signal of intent” by agreeing to transfer several hundred Basque prisoners to prisons closer to their homes.

He said: “This would not be a sign of weakness but a positive sign of compassion and compromise, especially to the families of those prisoners.”

Adams said that reconciliation, healing and dealing thoughtfully and compassionately with the past is a huge part of any conflict resolution process.

“People on all sides have been hurt. But anger is not a policy. Revenge is not an option,” he said.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death on hunger strike of Bobby Sands MP. Bobby once wrote; ‘Let our revenge be the laughter of our children’. That is my wish for the people of the Basque country and the Spanish state.

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    Mute Gravel Pitt
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:23 AM

    We should build one in Cork – covering the whole county….

    133
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    Mute Big Mickey
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    Feb 11th 2015, 2:43 PM

    Breasts.

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:24 PM

    Could cover cork, would be an improvement

    5
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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Feb 11th 2015, 11:49 AM

    “Firing” homes with “juice”. Apple are so street.

    59
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    Mute Eoin Fleming
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:37 AM

    Wouldn’t it better if they developed more power for their iPhone batteries?

    58
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    Mute GO GREEN
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    Feb 11th 2015, 11:23 AM

    This is good news and hopefullly more big rich companies will follow their example. Saw a progamme on tv last night about wind turbines in countries like Germany where locals are given a share in the wind farms unlike in Ireland where the locals are barely consulted let alone given a share.

    46
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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 12:01 PM

    Resistance to wind power in Germany is snowballing. And it needs to be noted that this resistance is grass roots and sustained almost entirely by volunteers and privately donated time and effort.

    In the latest wind energy critical site http://www.vernunftkraft.de here has a report summarizing the performance of Germany’s wind turbines in 2014. Again the result is so ugly that the wind industry does not want anyone to see it.
    Vernunftkraft.de writes in response to the wind industry’s recent boastings of yet another successful “record” year:

    Rolf Schuster finalized the evaluation of the actual wind energy feed-in data in order to counter the propaganda with honest figures.

    The most important result: 14.8 percent.

    14
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    Mute brian magee
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    Feb 11th 2015, 2:56 PM

    The program was very one sided. They didn’t mention the reason we use peat is for energy security, it’s the only fuel we have in the country that we can be self sufficient on. Yesterday we only had 12 MW of wind that’s less than 1% of our demand.

    How do you think the other 99% came from. Wind isn’t as green as it appears and doesn’t reduce energy costs

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:57 PM

    Second time today you trot out you anti green energy guff. You post a link that to a hoax story about windmills that you don’t deny two weeks ago, Then you decry solar power because a 32 year old obsolete technology solar array was decommissioned in the US as evidence that modern solar power is useless. Now you are here trying to convince us that one of the smartest and richest tech company on earth have got it wrong. If I remember you are also an ardent fan of nuclear….Agenda?Lobby much?

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:05 PM

    Make your mind up about which comment you are having trouble with or is the subject all too much for you?

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:17 PM

    Gosh, Apple are about to spend even more than Solyndra, the bankrupted Northern California solar-panel maker that burned through $535 million in federal guaranteed loans just to prove than solar Pv is a flop. But then roughly 80% of the Department of Energy’s $20.5 billion in loans granted “went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers–individualswho were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, orlarge donors to the Democratic Party.”
    In 2008, Mr. Obama promised his policies would create 5 million “green collar” jobs but failed , will Apple have the same success ?

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:23 PM

    We should copy Germany and plaster the place with 27000 wind towers. The low capacity factor of German wind turbines makes wind electricity expensive. Driven by increased costs from renewables, household electricity rates almost doubled from 13.9 eurocents per kilowatt-hour to 26.0 eurocents per kilowatt-hour from 2000 to 2013. Today, Germany has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, more than triple U.S. electricity prices. The story is even worse 2 years on

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:59 PM

    My mind is made up Mort but I have a day job and don’t have time to spend my day blogging here pretending to be an ordinary Joe, so I don’t always have the time to counter your one man propaganda machine.
    Let’s see, any article on the environment and you are poo-pooing renewables and see nothing of any merit in them, even when Apple endorses solar you try to deflect by pointing to some article about Germany.Now when it is nuclear you see no wrong and even Fukuyama can be reasonably explained away, as if it could. Facts and figures always to hand. Any dissent and you cry luddite.

    All Muslins are bad. All Muslims. All Israelis are good. All. Anyone who questions this is a,- what’s that stock phrase you use? Oh yes, ‘Islamofacist apparatchik’. In other word, someone who disagree with you.
    You were a cheer leader when Ghaddaffi was overthrown & Libya descended into chaos. When people try to escape this hell by getting to Italy, there you are on the shore shouting, go home you are not wanted.
    Now you have the neck to tell me I am muddled?

    For anyone in doubt, read Uncle Mort’s exchanges with Charlie Carlisle. Caught right out there Mort. http://www.thejournal.ie/athea-wind-farm-1915304-Feb2015/#comments

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:20 PM

    Germany may have higher electricity price than the US but the don’t have the US reputation of being one of the world’s dirties economy per capita either. Germany is twenty years ahead in that sense. But the fossil fuel and nuclear industry will try everything to keep it down. No trick too sneaky.
    http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=340&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1679&cHash=a6ffbf36a98ab3ba82069d2486ebd7ae

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    Mute Stephen
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:24 AM

    So there not really gonna blow €850M, had it been a wind farm they were building different story, just saying.

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    Mute Tricia Golden
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    Feb 11th 2015, 1:26 PM

    Thank you!! My thought precisely! What a biased headline.

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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Feb 11th 2015, 4:14 PM

    €750 million is roughly $850 million.
    “The farm will cost $850 million to build and will provide enough juice to fire 60,000 homes.
    Despite the enormous cost Cook insists that the farm will be more than enough to power Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino and will save the tech giant money in the long run.”
    What’s not clear about the article?

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:25 PM

    What is wrong with solar panels ? Fail to understand your criticism

    3
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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:26 PM

    What the hell is biased about the headline ?

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    Mute Tricia Golden
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    Feb 12th 2015, 2:21 PM

    The headline originally said “Apply blow €750 million….” which implies they’re wasting the money. My point was related to that. There headline made it sound like investing in solar energy was a waste. They’ve since changed the headline.

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    Mute Kevin Higgins
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    Feb 11th 2015, 12:41 PM

    Blow? It’s not oil or booze it’s solar. INVEST is the word you dummies

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    Mute Juninho
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:22 AM

    The Chinese marquee is notoriously tough to enter ;)

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    Mute Thomas O'Brien
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:42 PM

    Sugarcoated bullsh*t..

    There is nothing noble about what they are doing, they just want to enter the electricity market and cut costs to their own consumption, are they planning to give away the electricity they generate?

    What good have apple really done? If they wanted to make the world a better place why not start with their workforce, the only company I know of that has to install suicide prevention nets around their factory.. Provide your workers with a decent living wage! You can afford it! You are a $700billion company! Also stop ripping off the consumer with your iShite which is only made to last a couple of years…

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    Mute David Fortune
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:52 PM

    You mean Foxconn? Who made the laptop/phone you’re commenting here on? It was probably made there too. Apple have been the only company that I’ve read about actually push for change in those places, doing checks on them and working to get them to a higher standard. The media obsession with Apple means only Apple gets mentioned when something bad happens at Foxconn, even though your laptop, phone, games consoles, tablet, e-reader, smart watch, all probably made there.

    And regarding suicide levels, apparently they’re in line with the average rates in China, there’s just so many people working for Foxconn it happens a lot. Not great that ANYONE feels the need to take their own life, but nothing seems to point to Foxconn leading to any more than anywhere else in China.

    Why would they give away the energy they’re generating? They’re reducing their dependence on fossil fuels, which is a good thing. I feel like Apple could provide every man, woman and child with free electricity and you’d complain that they’re doing the energy employees out of work.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:58 PM

    No they want to harvest subsidies from poor people

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:30 PM

    Dumb, ill informed trolllike comment. Check your facts first before spouting such rubbish

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:36 AM

    “and will provide enough to juice to fire 60,000 homes.” Balleaux. May I repeat “Not forgetting the scam of solar power which gets frequent mention by greenies here on the Journal. Hawaii and California would seem to be ideal for solar compared to rainy Ireland and look what happened to them.
    http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/4686/Hawaiirsquos-Future-Abandoned-Solar-Farms-Clutter-California-Desert.aspx

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:54 AM

    At 9 p.m. on July 16 2014 total wind power output was a mere 0.334 gigawatts and the day’s last rays of sunlight were delivering only 0.103 gigawatts of power. That means the two sources of wind and solar combined were putting out only [(0.334 + 0.103)/65]100 = 0.7% of their rated capacity. That in turn means the remaining 99.3% had to come in large part from the conventional coal, nuclear and gas power plants.

    Germany’s installed wind/solar systems on average operate roughly at about 15% of their capacity.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:01 PM
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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:09 PM

    As Charlie Carlisle said to you last Saturday.
    That’s the nature of wind energy. It’s budgeted for before the farm goes up (bear in mind that this tech isn’t exactly new).
    Think of it more like a company that has one emoployee and hires six contractors for the busy days.
    Check out the EirGrid dashboard to see how it’s actually quite economical, as when the wind blows we cut down on our natural gas consumption and imported electricity. If it’s blowing overnight, we even manage a few exports to the UK.
    http://www.eirgrid.com/media/All-Island_Wind_and_Fuel_Mix_Report_Summary_2013.pdf (2013 summary, as the 2014 summary has not yet been compiled)
    You’ll never get the same reliability or energy density with wind as with fossil fuels, however it isn’t intended to get that. It’s a supplemental source (and if it’s economical, then it’s probably quite productive).
    We need everything we can get if we’re going to continue to run our fridges and our computers and our 400 inch tvs and our endless street lighting and our washing machines and our tumble driers.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:48 PM

    the savings are tiny relative to the cost.

    the main problem now is that there is an energy bubble because nobody bothered to check whether wind could actually replace conventional plant which is driving industry out

    http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/energy-bub.html

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    Mute Ruth
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:49 PM

    An apple a day keeps the end of the world at bay.

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    Mute Ciaran De Bhal
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:57 PM

    Hey FRANK. Numbers for ya to terrorise us with…

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:37 PM

    That explains why they’re head hunting Tesla engineers.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:57 PM

    Typical, spending millions to throw precious resources and fossil fuels down the drain, What a Waste, people in future will curse us for wasting these resources

    http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/wind-energy-wasteful-use-of-resources.html

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    Mute Flatpack Jack
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:54 PM

    I wonder how much Co2 will be produced just manufacturing all those solar panels? It’ll be a long time before that solar farm balances it’s Co2 books alone!

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