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Don't Waste Our Future
Too Close for Comfort - Dr Gordon Dalton & Jody Power
Season 1, Ep. 3
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Welcome back to Don't Waste Our Future - a series of interviews about the past, present and future of waste in Ireland. In last week's episode, I spoke with Professor Barry O'Sullivan - an expert in Artificial Intelligence about ways in which AI and big data can and cannot lead us towards a more sustainable future.
This week I'll be chatting with two people who work in Ringaskiddy, very close to the site where Indaver are proposing to build an incinerator.
Dr. Gordon Dalton is an Ocean Renewable Energy Economics Engineer at the MaREI Centre. MaREI is the marine and renewable energy research, development and innovation Centre with over 200 researchers working across 6 academic institutions collaborating with over 45 industry partners. Gordon's specialty is techno-economics, socio-economics and business plans.
Jody Power is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Engineers Ireland and Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, London. Currently, he lectures in Marine Engineering at the National Maritime College of Ireland, Ringaskiddy. The NMCI is Ireland's primary provider of training to those seeking careers in global commercial shipping and considered world class. The Irish Naval Service and other military personnel carry out non-combat training at NMCI and there is a permanent Naval Service training cadre on site. Jody will be running as a Green Party candidate in the upcoming local elections in Waterford East. He is past chair of the Waterford PPN and he also served as community representative on the Waterford City Council Strategic Policy Committee for the Environment.
Gordon and Jodi are both determined to stop Indaver's proposal from going ahead but because they both work for state bodies we need to be very clear from the beginning that their opinions are personal opinions and are not representative of the organisations that they work for.
In this podcast, both Gordon and Jody's discuss their own futures if the incinerator does goes ahead, they also discuss Covanta's incinerator in Ringsend, Dublin, how incineration could incentivise us away from a more circular economy and sustainable future, whether or not Ireland will need to import waste in the future or potentially subsidise any losses that Indaver incur and the difference between pharmaceutical, municipal and toxic waste incinerators.
Next time on Don't Waste Our Future, I would love the opportunity to speak to someone from Indaver or someone who is pro incinerations and would like to bring their ideas to the conversation. If you'd like to be involved or have any suggestions for people would take part I would love to hear them at info@thevidacademy.com. Thanks for listening to the podcast and I'll see you next time.
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2. The Future of Waste - Professor Barry O'Sullivan
42:19Welcome back to don't waste our future - a series of interviews about the past, present and future of waste in Ireland. In this episode, we look at the waste issue from the perspective of artificial intelligence or AI. I wanted to know if AI and big data could hold some solutions for reducing waste but also if AI could help lead us to a more sustainable future. I got in touch with Professor Barry O'Sullivan, who is an award-winning academic working in AI and data analytics. Barry's credentials are expansive and his current titles include Chair, Founding Director, Principal Investigator and Adjunct Professor. In June 2018, he was appointed vice chair to the European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. But what is most interesting to this topic is that he is also an advisor to the Computational Sustainability Network, a network of 13 universities in the US, who try to discover computing methods that can applied to sustainability challenges including conservation, poverty mitigation and renewable energy. Furthermore, Barry is a Carrigtwohill man and the site that Indaver are proposing to build an incinerator on is not far from his home so I wanted to hear his personal opinions as well. And so, in this episode I chat with Barry about population growth, why I'm wrong about my perception of the world, gamification, the sustainable development goals, self-driving cars, social dividends and retrospective negligence. Hopefully, it will all make sense in the end...
1. CHASEing Indaver - Linda Fitzpatrick
57:19Recently, CHASE have raised over €70,000 in crowd funding to appeal another decision by the Planning Board to allow the incinerator proposal to go ahead. This appeal will end in what's called a judicial review and this is set to take place in March 2019. I got in touch with CHASE and their spokeswomen Linda Fitzpatrick who agreed to meet me and do an interview from her kitchen in Carrigaline. We begin by talking about the timeline that CHASE has created on their website. This is a collection of all of the significant moments since the first planning application was filed. It's almost 20 years and there are over 80 entries - but this is just a glimpse at the full picture.