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Vladimir Putin, Russian president and Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group.

Donnacha Ó Beacháin 'Putin's chef' and enforcer Prigozhin is gone - who took him down?

The politics professor looks at the death of the head of the Wagner Group and says once Prigozhin challenged Putin, he was a dead man walking.

THE REAL SURPRISE is not that Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead, but that he survived for two months after his aborted march on Moscow.

Without waiting for the DNA analysis, Putin has conveyed his condolences to the Prigozhin family, suggesting that we have seen the last of his former ally and warlord for hire.

His death has all the hallmarks of being a very predictable “accident”, less a plane crash than what Putin might call a “special landing operation”. It follows a persistent pattern in Russia whereby those considered a threat to the regime, or simply an inconvenience, have died in implausible circumstances, falling down stairs or out of windows. The method of elimination might be spectacular in this case but the motive remains the same.

Who took Prigozhin down?

The cause of the crash is not yet known and likely will never be. In the absence of conclusive evidence, several theories have quickly surfaced. Some have speculated that the plane was shot down by Russia’s air defence system, which “mistook” Prigozhin’s jet for a drone.

The rationale is that, given the unprecedented wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow, local air defences might have been overly trigger-happy. But any radar operator worth his salt should be able to distinguish a plane from the relatively slow and much smaller drones that fly at lower altitudes.

Another theory circulating is that there was an explosion on board the plane. This hypothesis, circulated amongst some Kremlin-affiliated media, hints at the involvement of ill-defined enemies of Prigozhin, be they Ukrainian or Russian.

The editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-sponsored RT channel, Margarita Simonyan, claimed there is talk of the crash being staged to fake Prigozhin’s death. After all, he had amassed an impressive collection of wigs and disguises. In the years to come, we could see conspiratorial documentaries about where the Wagner leader might be and under what identity.

The Russian state authorities say they will investigate. Perhaps they will identify a pilot error or technical malfunction but who will believe anything Putin’s regime will say on the matter?

From petty criminal to war crimes

Yevgeny Prigozhin spent much of his sixty-two years involved in crime. His is a remarkable career of brutal thuggery, graduating from petty criminal to perpetrator of war crimes. During the last decade of the Soviet Union, he mugged and robbed women, resulting in a prison sentence of 13 years (of which he served seven).

yevgeny-prigozhin-russian-oligarch-and-later-wagner-at-right-in-september-2010-explaining-his-concord-catering-factory-to-russian-president-vladimir-putin-in-black-jacket-watched-by-local-officials ussian oligarch and later Wagner at right in September 2010 explaining his Concord Catering factory to Russian President Vladimir Putin in black jacket watched by local officials. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

His rise and fall are completely intertwined with Vladimir Putin. A junior member of the St. Petersburg gang of associates and hangers-on, Prigozhin found a niche for himself in the provision of fine dining and became known as Putin’s chef.

The internet is packed with photos of Prigozhin serving food to the likes of US President George Bush and England’s Prince Charles.

He then moved into the murky world of mercenaries, becoming a leader of Wagner, through which the Russian state outsourced many of its dirty wars while simultaneously enriching its leadership.

bakhmut-ukraine-25th-may-2023-wagner-group-founder-yevgeny-prigozhin-l-addresses-his-units-withdrawing-from-bakhmut-the-city-captured-from-the-ukrainian-armed-forces-may-25-2023-wagner-force Bakhmut, Ukraine. 25th May, 2023. Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin (L) addresses his units withdrawing from Bakhmut, the city captured from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. May 25, 2023. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

But for most people, it was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that brought Prigozhin into the public eye for the first time as he presented himself as an efficient killer of Ukrainians.

One of his major initiatives was recruiting 50,000 Russian convicts, many imprisoned for murder, torture and/or rape, who were promised a pardon if they survived six months with Wagner in Ukraine.

In stark contrast to the aloof Russian president, Prigozhin proved adept at communicating via social media and he cultivated the image of a man of action. Increasingly, he used his platforms to castigate Putin’s inner circle and the military top brass – particularly veteran defence minister Sergei Shoigu – but studiously avoided criticising the Russian president.

Challenging Putin

That all changed when the mercenary chief launched a daring but aborted rebellion in June. Denouncing Wagner’s actions as “treason” and “a stab in the back” Putin went on state television to proclaim that “Those who prepared the military mutiny, have betrayed Russia, and will pay for this”.

Prigozhin retorted that “no one is going to surrender to the demands of the President, FSB, or anyone else.” Having taken Rostov, one of Russia’s largest cities, without a fight and advanced several hundred kilometres towards Moscow, Prigozhin called off the rebellion, ostensibly to avoid bloodshed. The immediate threat to Putin’s regime ended as quickly and as unexpectedly as it had begun.

file-yevgeny-prigozhin-the-owner-of-the-wagner-group-military-company-right-sits-inside-a-military-vehicle-posing-for-a-photo-with-a-local-civilian-prior-to-leaving-an-area-of-the-hq-of-the-south FILE - Prigozhin sits inside a military vehicle posing for a photo with a local civilian prior to leaving an area of the HQ of the Southern Military District in a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia June this year. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Remarkably, within a few days of the march on Moscow, Putin and Prigozhin met for several hours in the Kremlin. We will probably never discover what kind of deal was hammered out at that meeting, just as we will never know what would have happened had Wagner not abandoned their march on Moscow. It was clear, however, that Prigozhin believed he had come to some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement with Putin.

His behaviour did not correspond with a man who knew he would die soon. Only two days before the plane crash, Prigozhin posted a video in which he claimed to be back in Africa, fulfilling Wagner’s mission of “making Russia even greater on all continents”.

Prigozhin’s assumed death is unlikely to have an immediate effect on Russia’s war in Ukraine as Wagner had already been pulled away from the front lines. In Africa, where Wagner played an important role in providing mercenaries to prop up regional autocrats, it’s unlikely that local leaders in search of mercenaries will care who leads the Russian troops available for hire.

Mafia state

There are several in Putin’s inner circle who’ll be glad to see Prigozhin gone. But an order to eliminate the Wagner leader could not go ahead without Putin’s imprimatur.

Every day he lived made a mockery of Putin’s reputation as a strongman.

Putin goes to remarkable lengths to eliminate those he considers traitors or rivals, such as Sergei Skripal or Alexander Litvinenko. In that sense, the Russian political elite is run along the lines of a mafia gang. If you take on the Don, you must win. Should you miss the target or suffer a loss of nerve the consequences are usually fatal.

Prigozhin seems to have believed he had been absolved and could continue to be of use to the Kremlin. But his utility to Putin ended the moment he openly threatened his reign. From then on, the Wagner leader was a dead man walking.

Donnacha Ó Beacháin is Professor of Politics at Dublin City University. For more than two decades he has worked and researched in the post-Soviet region and has published widely on the subject. 

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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

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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

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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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