Newgrange eclipsed
Monday December 31 2001
Indaver, a Belgian company, is planning to build an incinerator three kilometres from this world heritage site, which could reduce Newgrange to an artificial rather than a natural spectacle.
The outlet of the incinerator chimney is at least 75m above sea level (40m high chimney and 35m ground level). The following aspects will determine if clouds will block the sun within the Newgrange chamber: wind direction, wind speed, humidity, cloud cover, air temperature and other meteorological information concerned with cloud formation for the last 10 years and 10 days before/after winter solstice at around 09:00 BST.
With all the above issues combined, one can determine that clouds will block the sunlight into the Newgrange chamber if the Indaver incinerator is to be built at the proposed location. This 5,000-year-old world heritage site doesn't seem to be as important as the waste Irish society wants to burn.
The above is argued according to the theory of Victor Reijs, who is involved in archeocosmology aspects of megalithic monuments. He has investigated the possibilities of cloud formation due to the exhaust plumes of this planned incinerator. With certain wind speeds and relative humidities, clouds could be formed due to the incinerator's exhaust and thus could obstruct the sunlight at sunrise around winter solstice.
Michael McKeon,
Rosevale, Drogheda.
