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REVENUE OFFICERS AND a detector dog named Elvis made a significant seizure of black market cigarettes in Meath yesterday.
An intelligence-led operation directed the investigators to a business address in Meath where the discovery was made.
A total of 670,000 contraband cigarettes were recovered which Revenue says have a retail value of over €408,000 and a potential loss to the exchequer of almost €300,000.
The specific find represents 33,500 packets of Jim branded cigarettes.
Revenue is involved in the enforcement of taxation and is advising members of the public that they can pass on information on the smuggling or sale of illegal tobacco to the confidential phone number 1800 295 295.
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Imagine a system where houses made their own electricity from the sun and any access power could be put back on the grid. Wow. Ireland would be out of the dark ages if only they could do something like this……!
@Colm Beck: problem is storing all that power. Most is generated during the day, peak demand is in the evening. Put a battery in every home to be charged by wind at night and you are on to something….
@Colm Beck: This is already happening , issue is that properties which are exporting back to the grid when there output exceeds there demand are not being reimbursed by there electricity provider like they are in other countries unfortunately
@Ray Breen: and all the carbon produced during the mining and manufacturing if batteries? (Which need replacing every 5 or so years)
@Colm Beck: I bought a solar light a few days ago and I can’t get more than one hours operation out of it with the current
@Colm Beck: Oh, if only my aunt had the necessary spherical objects in the right place——I’d have loved another uncle!
@Dt125: You need to get a MPPT module which will salvage maximum energy available. They are pretty cheap to buy now.
@Colm Beck: Sorry No! Ireland would be into the dark ages, not out. We would need to be hibernating all Winter and most of the Summer too. The load factor for solar is less than 20% and wind around 35%. No one wants solar or wind power when you don’t want it. The cost of power must be measured not at the generator terminals, but at the consumers’ meters. No wonder we have the second most expensive electricity in the EU, when every Kw of these renewables have to be backed up by fossil fuel plant, held ready on a 24/7/365 basis. Can’t you see who is behind all this renewable pushing. The big fossil fuel corporations of course.
All these realities are fully explained in http://www.environmentalprogress.org
@Colm Beck: Nah. Bit of duct tape and higher carbon taxes are easier.
@Ray Breen: And when is the most power used ? On a dark winters evening when it is cold and frosty, ie, no sun, no wind. Batteries are fine for running led lights, led TVs, charging the mobile, basically anything with low power consumption. They are barely noticeable on the grid overall. The problems arise when heat generating appliances are turned on for cooking, home heating, etc. Current battery technology wouldn’t be up to that unless you had half your home taken over for battery storage and the outside space to install all the solar panels needed to charge all those batteries. And even if you had all the batteries and solar required, we live in Ireland, not exactly known for our sunny weather. A large enough wind turbine might work, but then we’re back to the issue of the coldest nights, when heating is most required, being during the winter when high pressure is sitting over the country. High pressure means little to no wind. Renewables can only be part of a solution, they are not THE solution.
@Colm Beck: already doing so , ive seen 5.4 amps on a sunny day from.our panels, if not used its going back to the network, for free
@Ray Breen: That service is offered, does hot water first and then go to a battery. My estate has a new ESB substation that is set up to receive power back to the grid.
@Colm Beck: power from the sun in winter in Ireland!!!
We need massive investment in out electricity generation. We have ample amounts of wave energy, wind and solar. We need to build big batteries like they have in the UK – Dinorwig Power Station. We cannot stay burning Coal and need to be far more clever. IE get more solar panels on peoples homes, ect ect. They’re should be a scheme were if people put electricity into the grid it gets taken off their next bill or swapped for energy received. At the minute the ESB take my excess electricity from my panels for free, it then gets consumed by my neighbour. ESB charge my neighbour and I still have to pay for every unit received. Most countries in Europe do not do this anymore. Why are Ireland stuck in the past. It would take a lot of pressure of the power stations and good for the environment.
What a way to run a business, closing two power stations in the middle of winter during peak demand!
@John J. Smith: Clever guys in the Green Party.
@John J. Smith: start buying candles
And just closed two perfectly good powerstations in the Midlands that added stability to this grid. It always had to happen but prematurely I fear. We are too focused on being the “nice guys” in Europe.
This situation was always going to occur eventually, as a growing country with power hungry industry like data centres we need more power generation not less. So when a government makes the decision to close two generating plants without first having replacements what did they think would happen, or did they even think?
@Arch Angel: sure isn’t that why we are giving them a pay rise, for running the country so well.
So, we’re all supposed to buy EV cars. How would the grid cope with a significant percentage of the cars on the road if they were electric. Considering most would be charged at home in the evening/overnight, when demand is highest.
@Ciaran Maher: Demand is *lowest* overnight – hence the discounted night rate to encourage people to use energy at that time. Most EV owners charge overnight as a result (when there’s often a lot of wind energy).
@Ciaran Maher: EVs are charged at nightrate after midnight, they have timers for the charging. It is the lowest demand period.
Of course you know what Eamonn Ryan will say
Build more windmills
@Peter Hargan: you would think with the amount of wind turbines in the country that it was enough to cover the electricity. But no ,build more the destroy the country side. We os all the wind electricity going?
@Richard Brogan: They should be built off shore like they did in Liverpool and in Scotland.
@Richard Brogan: it appears my somewhat feeble attempt at sarcasm got lost somewhere
@Great Gael of Eire: Your right
@Great Gael of Eire: sure but off shore wind turbines off our west coast are very expensive to install and also difficult to maintain because of sea and weather conditions.
@Richard Brogan: Which destroys our countryside more, wind turbines or the long term effects of climate change? If you answer wind turbines then let’s revisit the question in the future.
@Diarmuid Hunt: yes let’s. each concrete base for a wind turbine takes approx 60 truckloads of concrete how much carbon to make that ?.
never mind the second major bogslide caused by windmill building . how much carbon released there ?
@Diarmuid Hunt: Good one , what about nuclear power plants ?? Sure if the ones in England go off we are fxxded. So why not build one here.
I thought “Amber Alert” meant a child is gone missing
@Sandra Anderson: In the states, yes.
I wonder how much power data centres were using during the amber alert?
@Ronan: about the same as they use all the time. We can’t just pause the Internet.
Just use the demolish tool on the older power plants and left click in the same space to put replace them with new ones. Used to work in Sim City anyway! Only 6000 quid for an oil plant I think it was…..wouldn’t break the bank too much!
@Joe Kennedy: Ya wha Joe?
@David Corrigan: an old computer game Dave!
@Joe Kennedy: You’re in bringing back memories now. I loved that game. Had it on the Atari ST.
@Celtic Spirit: didn’ realise it had been on the Atari. SC 2000 on the PC was the best one I played by a mile anyway!
Ps they want all cars electric by 2030, great little country etc etc :)
I thought “Amber Alert” meant a child is gone missing
Sure just build a few more data centres that will fix it…
Hundreds of thousands of people are now working from home, this was always going to increase demand in winter. Theres a financial cost to home workers, and a massive environmental cost in heating multiple homes instead of single workplaces all across the country.
@Stephen Byrne: Would that not be offset by the reduction in people having to commute to work coupled with less energy usage in workplaces. Also no harm for these large modern offices to have their lights switced off etc, plus their computers and electronic equiptment switched off, which normally is left on all night. As for the heating homes might be a slight difference comapred to a home that is normaly empty during working hours but many are not.
@Da Dell: but a lot of offices are occupied with maybe just 25% of staff with the remaining working from home. With less people in the office it costs more to heat due to less body heat.
Thankfully a nuclear powered UK stepped in. We are soon to hook up to France a nuclear generating colossus. Way to go!!!
@Adrian Cronin: and what is wrong with that? Nuclear is one of the cleanest forms of energy.
@Ronan: Correct. Any technically copped on person knows that we need to have a minimum of about 40% nuclear in the temperate zones, to make any progress on the climate action. Generation 4 molten salt is the way forward. Actually invented back in the late fifties, but had two major negatives. One, no good for bomb making. Two, would have put the coal mines out of business. The old peat stations are ideal locations. SMR. then data centre. Then waste heat of each to the hydroponic farms and soldier fly factories, the larvae of the latter going to adjacent fish and poultry farms. We have in R.o.I alone, one million tonnes of food waste a year for the larvae to eat.
@Ronan: I agree with you. We’ll eventually get there. 1m EVs and 650k heat pumps by 2030 is a national target. That needs a stable supply of clean power. SMRs are logical. €500m a year is handed over to the wind energy annually by us all thru pso levy. Divert to nuclear. Job done.
The extra energy consumed by work from home should roughly be offset by reductions in power consumed in offices. If it isn’t that’s because white collar firms hire outside contractors as guiding managers and they have no incentive to de-power office buildings while no one is in them. Part of the “facilities management racquet”
Ireland does have a horrible energy generation system. Full stop
A few Bright Sparks here as, well
so the backup generator wasnt tested and dodnt work then
All a result of the mad rush to install wind energy. Which cannot replace a single power station. Capacity credit of wind only 10% which means 4000mw installed is only worth 400mw.
All predictable and was predicted.
Three times technical failures? Unheard of in Germany
Just goes to show that Wind but Solar is the better renewable for Ireland. Winter events are peak demand, solar is useless then
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