Went to a talk about Dublin city energy last night, given by sustainability engineer Joe Hayden of Codema as part of the city library science week programme.
I'd heard about Codema before (City of Dublin Energy Management Agency), but hadn't realised the company was set up by Dublin City Council, and that there were some 15 other similar companies, set up by local authorities around the country.
Joe Hayden gave an interesting presentation about Ireland's energy use and our dependence on imported fossil fuels: 90% of our electricity, for instance, is generated from imported oil, gas and coal. As a result, Joe argued that 'peak oil' has major implications for Ireland, and arguably of more immediate importance than climate change. Especially as Ireland is the last customer at the end of a very long oil and gas pipeline, making our supplies increasingly vulnerable.
Dublin city spends (if took Joe's figure down right), €20,000,000 a year on energy alone. But an estimated 20% of all our energy use in Ireland is 'wasted'. That's a lot of money, and it doesn't include the money and fuel 'wasted' or lost, because of the inefficiencies involved in converting oil and gas to electricity, and the inevitable losses that happen when electricity is piped down the National Grid.
So, it was reassuring to see the ILAC library staff turning off all the PCs and lights as we left. Even if, 200 metres away on O'Connell Street, Dublin's new Christmas lights tree was left burning night.
It's made of very low energy LEDs -- cheaper and even more energy-efficient than the compact fluorescent lights being championed by the Minister for the environment. But that's another story.
Image: from http://www.dublinblog.ie/
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