Burning coal, damp turf and wood doesn’t help on a night like this.
Aughinish . Aluminum plant . Would be interesting to overlay this with a map of cancer occurrence ???
I dropped one.
If you go to this website: https://www.aqi.in/air-quality-map and click on the button for “fire”, you’ll see that there are three points for “fires” just north of Mungret. That’s where the Irish Cement refinery is. Likely not fire at all, just picked up as such by whatever satellite detects it. If you change the legend for pollution, you’ll see that’s roughly where that marker is.
It’s all the soapbar
It blew in from New York!
Why do you think your man has a bag on his face?
Probably to do with Irish Cement, Auginish Alumina, various other industry.
But if it was solely Irish Cement, I would expect something similar up near Drogheda as Premiere Periclase and Irish Cement have two big plants there and there air quality looks fine.
Ireland’s biggest power station, and only coal burning station, is Moneypoint in Co. Clare. It’s located on the western edge of that purple area.
Moneypoint isn’t used all that much, but as we go into winter it’s increasingly being used. For example, over the last month, it supplied 4% of our electricity and if we look over the last week, it’s supplied around 5%.
Renewables, on the other hand, went from over 50% over the month, to 48% over the week, to less than 6% over the last 24 hours.
So, I would imagine the reason that that area has such poor air quality right is due to the emissions of Moneypoint and the other industries in the area and is being exacerbated by geography. The purple area on that map is basically a topographical bowl, with higher ground on three sides. Plus the prevailing wind blows in from the west, keeping any poor air trapped in that bowl.
Dublin and Belfast are green? This needs a source.
AIR QUALITY in parts of Limerick last weekend reached levels comparable to those in “Shanghai and Hong Kong” due to the use of smokey coal.
Due to increased cloud cover over the city on Saturday night, November 16, an air quality metre located on the Dock Road recorded unusually high levels of soot particulates in the air.
The meter has been installed and is monitored by Breandán MacGabhann, a geoscientist and Limerick Green Party representative.
“People are lighting fires in the evening, and there’s a lot of use of smokey coal when there isn’t supposed to be,” explains Breandán, “even wood and peat fires also emit a lot of particulates.”
“At times, such as on Saturday, when it’s a cloudy evening and smoke from chimneys can’t rise up as much, the dirty air gets trapped closer to the ground,” Breandán explained, “this produces air which is more comparable to a major city in China such as Shanghai or Hong Kong.”
Breandán, who also monitors a meter in Glencairin Raheen, added:“From mid-September onwards, our evening air quality is comparable to a major European city such as London or Paris.”
“Around 4pm you see the particulate levels just shoot up, and by six or seven o’clock the levels are at a daily high.
“For most of the summer, the graphs were pretty much flat. They hovered between zero and five which was really good. We had pretty clean air during summer months.
The meters read the amount of particulate matter per cubic metre in the air, described as a mixture of human-made or naturally occurring solid particles and liquid droplets. The levels read on Saturday night showed over levels of over 175 – with the EU Clean Air for Europe annual average limit set at 25.
“I’d be recommending to people who have asthma and other respiratory conditions to not go out in the evenings in Limerick,” continued Breandán.
“An average winter evening in Limerick is still relatively bad for someone with those kinds of health issues to be out in it for a prolonged period of time.
“What’s normally calculated is the daily average amounts of particulates per square metre. For most of the day in Limerick, there are very low levels, and they are well within World Health Organisation limits.”
Yesterday afternoon that may as well have been centred on Cork. Felt like every vape in UCC was set off all at once.
Wait why is the air quality in and around Dublin so good?
I don’t understand this map, I live in an area marked in red. I’m on the coast and the wind blows in from the Atlantic 300 days of the year, not sure if you could get fresher air. But then again I don’t really know anything about air quality
Anyone able to shed any light about where these measurements are taken from?
As in are the sites a connection of individual citizen scientists each maintaining their own monitor or is this official EPA data or similar?
Just curious if I’m looking at the readout from some lad who’s decided to mount one on the gable end underneath his chimney or not. Not knocking it even if so, full environmental data is difficult to come by as it is here if we’re to rely only on govt sources.
Is there a temperature inversion? Growing up in a Dublin in the 80s there were Winter evenings when you could look out over the city from Howth head and see the layer of smoggy air trapped over the city and the clear air above it. Banning the sale of smoky coal improved things but oil central heating and cars are still filthy.
It would be nice if you could blame this on a few point sources like moneypoint or aughanish but it’s everyone’s fireplaces and vehicles.
Anything to do with the big Aluminium Refinery in Aughinish? Always looks like a massive pollution black spot to me that novody talks about.
31 comments
Shannon? Aughsnish? What’s the source? Looks interesting.
It’s not a glitch.
There is an air monitor in ennis that on cold dry calm nights like tonight measures levels many multiples of safe levels.
Why the Shannon estuary reason so much more than other areas? I don’t have answer.
The limerick concrete plant could be a cause, industry around Shannon maybe.
Edit: in addition I was walking around tonight and you can actually see it in the air. Basically smog.
That’s almost certainly from the Moneypoint power station, which burns coal.
The prevailing wind would tend to blow the pollution east.
https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/#all/generation
There’s very little wind at the moment and Moneypoint’s in operating mode.
what are the parameters that contribute to the high index? the last time i noticed that i think it was ozone but it never made sense
The area is basically a big bowl, low laying area with coal power station and little wind
That’s my fault; shouldn’t have had that Indian takeaway for supper. My apologies to everyone downwind.
The brother lives in ennis and that fucker has an arse that could weld the titanic back together. I’d say that’s it.
Why is it poor in really rural areas on the west coast like achill
I’m going to say the Limerick concrete factory…every night you can hear it pumping out shite and will only get worse
There was a young man from Limerick
Whose farts and whose guffs were fucking sick
They polluted the air
Although to be fair
They didn’t smell as bad as his dick
How is Dublin looking so healthy?
Athlone has some funny skies tonight too.. wtf is that about
https://aqicn.org/map/ireland/
Burning coal, damp turf and wood doesn’t help on a night like this.
Aughinish . Aluminum plant . Would be interesting to overlay this with a map of cancer occurrence ???
I dropped one.
If you go to this website: https://www.aqi.in/air-quality-map and click on the button for “fire”, you’ll see that there are three points for “fires” just north of Mungret. That’s where the Irish Cement refinery is. Likely not fire at all, just picked up as such by whatever satellite detects it. If you change the legend for pollution, you’ll see that’s roughly where that marker is.
It’s all the soapbar
It blew in from New York!
Why do you think your man has a bag on his face?
Probably to do with Irish Cement, Auginish Alumina, various other industry.
But if it was solely Irish Cement, I would expect something similar up near Drogheda as Premiere Periclase and Irish Cement have two big plants there and there air quality looks fine.
https://airquality.ie/
This map is better. The sensors are calibrated at a higher accuracy.
Source: Currently doing a environmental monitoring module in UCC
They misspelt Derry
Coal has been supplying 8.5% of our electricity over the last 24 hours. [Link to EirGrid’s dashboard. ](https://smartgriddashboard.com/#all/generation)
Ireland’s biggest power station, and only coal burning station, is Moneypoint in Co. Clare. It’s located on the western edge of that purple area.
Moneypoint isn’t used all that much, but as we go into winter it’s increasingly being used. For example, over the last month, it supplied 4% of our electricity and if we look over the last week, it’s supplied around 5%.
Renewables, on the other hand, went from over 50% over the month, to 48% over the week, to less than 6% over the last 24 hours.
So, I would imagine the reason that that area has such poor air quality right is due to the emissions of Moneypoint and the other industries in the area and is being exacerbated by geography. The purple area on that map is basically a topographical bowl, with higher ground on three sides. Plus the prevailing wind blows in from the west, keeping any poor air trapped in that bowl.
Dublin and Belfast are green? This needs a source.
https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/495826/limerick-air-quality-comparable-to-shanghai-s-onwinter-evening.html
AIR QUALITY in parts of Limerick last weekend reached levels comparable to those in “Shanghai and Hong Kong” due to the use of smokey coal.
Due to increased cloud cover over the city on Saturday night, November 16, an air quality metre located on the Dock Road recorded unusually high levels of soot particulates in the air.
The meter has been installed and is monitored by Breandán MacGabhann, a geoscientist and Limerick Green Party representative.
“People are lighting fires in the evening, and there’s a lot of use of smokey coal when there isn’t supposed to be,” explains Breandán, “even wood and peat fires also emit a lot of particulates.”
“At times, such as on Saturday, when it’s a cloudy evening and smoke from chimneys can’t rise up as much, the dirty air gets trapped closer to the ground,” Breandán explained, “this produces air which is more comparable to a major city in China such as Shanghai or Hong Kong.”
Breandán, who also monitors a meter in Glencairin Raheen, added:“From mid-September onwards, our evening air quality is comparable to a major European city such as London or Paris.”
“Around 4pm you see the particulate levels just shoot up, and by six or seven o’clock the levels are at a daily high.
“For most of the summer, the graphs were pretty much flat. They hovered between zero and five which was really good. We had pretty clean air during summer months.
The meters read the amount of particulate matter per cubic metre in the air, described as a mixture of human-made or naturally occurring solid particles and liquid droplets. The levels read on Saturday night showed over levels of over 175 – with the EU Clean Air for Europe annual average limit set at 25.
“I’d be recommending to people who have asthma and other respiratory conditions to not go out in the evenings in Limerick,” continued Breandán.
“An average winter evening in Limerick is still relatively bad for someone with those kinds of health issues to be out in it for a prolonged period of time.
“What’s normally calculated is the daily average amounts of particulates per square metre. For most of the day in Limerick, there are very low levels, and they are well within World Health Organisation limits.”
Yesterday afternoon that may as well have been centred on Cork. Felt like every vape in UCC was set off all at once.
Wait why is the air quality in and around Dublin so good?
I don’t understand this map, I live in an area marked in red. I’m on the coast and the wind blows in from the Atlantic 300 days of the year, not sure if you could get fresher air. But then again I don’t really know anything about air quality
Anyone able to shed any light about where these measurements are taken from?
As in are the sites a connection of individual citizen scientists each maintaining their own monitor or is this official EPA data or similar?
Just curious if I’m looking at the readout from some lad who’s decided to mount one on the gable end underneath his chimney or not. Not knocking it even if so, full environmental data is difficult to come by as it is here if we’re to rely only on govt sources.
Is there a temperature inversion? Growing up in a Dublin in the 80s there were Winter evenings when you could look out over the city from Howth head and see the layer of smoggy air trapped over the city and the clear air above it. Banning the sale of smoky coal improved things but oil central heating and cars are still filthy.
It would be nice if you could blame this on a few point sources like moneypoint or aughanish but it’s everyone’s fireplaces and vehicles.
Anything to do with the big Aluminium Refinery in Aughinish? Always looks like a massive pollution black spot to me that novody talks about.