"Green" policies are destroying this country

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122531155#Comment_122531155

Very few farmers will be building and owning these. Aren't they something like €15m to get one up. Where farms come into play here is supplying it with feed. And they would want guaranteed pricing and index linked in the same way solar/battery companies are leasing land.

I've been approached by a planned AD plant about 15 miles away to supply grass to it. The T&Cs were in no way in my favour. Prices were to be negotiated no later than March 17th each year, and priced on a yearly basis. I'd have to guarantee a certain tonnage, I'd have to guarantee the quality of the product, and I'd have to deliver it to the plant. There were penalties all round for any non compliance. When I did the sums it was more beneficial to me by roughly 28% to bale silage and sell it to local farmers and I'd have none of the T&Cs that were being imposed.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122531370#Comment_122531370

No farmer is going to invest that kind of money for a 20% grant, and no farmer in their right mind will go anywhere near it on the terms you were given which means no company will touch it either. Where you said this plan was as dodgy as fudge you were being overly generous.

To supply grass, not only would a farmer have to predict the volume and quality of the grass before it has even started to grow by 17th March, he/she would have to give guarantees on both on foot of penalties without knowing what future messing there would be as to the levels of fertiliser being allowed. It`s completely bonkers.

I always thought there was more behind greens determination to reduce cattle number than the reason given as it made little or no sense, in that they had another agenda, which would feed into this latest idea on methane production. To me it now looks even more likely that this was the real agenda, but in typical green fashion another plan that lacks any foresight. Inevitably when the reality has hit the road on these plans of theirs, economic sense goes out the window and attempts to save them result in money-tree economics being thrown at them and the whole scheme becoming a money pit.

This one is no different. Nobody is going to supply grass for this without guaranteed index linked prices with all they can produce being accepted and clarity on the fertiliser application allowed. At least this time if it turns into yet anothe money-pit the community in general will benefit rather than primarily foreign investors.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122525076#Comment_122525076

Pristine untouched nature?

Or overexploited bogs?

More the latter, there is no pristine untouched nature in Ireland. We destroyed our forests for profit, we destroyed our bogs for profit, we poison our lakes for farm profit. So why not wind energy?

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122532388#Comment_122532388

Carpet bomb the countryside with windmills for profit that doesn’t go to Irish people and has already left us with most expensive electricity in world?

Sure why not

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122532511#Comment_122532511

I don't see any of the current profit from the countryside, plenty of people who live abroad already own large swathes of it.

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122532734#Comment_122532734

Spoken like a true Green who looks down upon the poor farmers toiling in the mud to grow food for you

I see you did not try to deny either our crazy expensive electricity prices that are due to wind policies

We have 6.5GW of wind and still have the highest co2 emissions in Europe and highest electricity prices in Europe that just keep going up

ps200306

I know the fines that Ireland faces for missing its 2030 emissions targets were discussed on this thread a couple of pages ago. The Biz Post ESG briefing has covered it this week:

Would you like to pay now, or put it on your tab?

Good afternoon,

We hear a lot about the costs of climate change, from the impacts of crop failures on economies, to the expense of clean-ups following extreme weather events, to the impending loss of high-value coastal property.

But there is another significant cost now facing Ireland and other EU countries by the end of this decade: fines.

As I reported this week, Ireland will face EU fines of “at least” €8.2 billion after 2030 if it stays on its current trajectory and misses climate targets, according to the chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC).

Marie Donnelly told the Business Post that while the Department of Public Expenditure had previously done an assessment showing a range of €3 billion to €8 billion in Irish EU compliance costs, the council was preparing a paper demonstrating €8.2 billion as the “baseline” cost

While the government has its own target of reducing emissions across the economy by 51 per cent by 2030 on 2018 levels, the Environmental Protection Agency recently found that even if all the measures are implemented emissions will only fall by 29 per cent.

The CCAC’s analysis is that we are not on track to meet these targets, and as a result we are facing climate fines of at least €8 billion.

That’s not small change, and it would surely be better to spend that money now in an effort to reach our targets.

But between legacy infrastructure problems, planning bottlenecks, and a wider political backlash against climate action, it’s not clear that the political will exists to frontload that investment, despite having to pick up the bill at a later date.

Thanks for reading,
Daniel Murray
Policy Editor

I've been thinking about the lunacy of signing up to targets that any thoughtful person might have predicted we'd never achieve. Why? Because we've been yakking on about it for years without any real progress. Here's a lengthy 2019 article from Carbon Brief. We were already deep in a hole back then:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-why-ireland-is-nowhere-near-meeting-its-climate-change-goals/

I guess 2030 seemed a long time away and politicians felt climate action was a vote-getter. Maybe someone more knowledgable than me can explain how the €8 billion in fines is arrived at. My possibly incorrect understanding is that these aren't actually fines. They are an obligation on us to buy carbon credits from compliant countries to make up for our own carbon overruns.

The problem is, these may not even be available to buy. Europe's dirty little secret is that we are only one of a dozen countries likely to miss their 2030 targets, with seven more at risk:

https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/12-eu-countries-fail-to-comply-with-2030-national-climate-targets-new-study

And one of the biggest offenders is Germany who could be on the hook for €16 billion. At that rate they would have to hoover up 70% of the EU's allocated carbon credits. Italy is similarly in trouble. There may not be any credits left to buy.

Surely at some point we have to accept that targets have been unrealistic from the start. What's to be gained by further impoverishing each other?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534051#Comment_122534051

It just gets crazier by the day.

These United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP) are going around with the begging bowl looking for contributions to help countries transition, (we threw €17 million into the pot at the last two), while at the same time E.U. countries that are having difficulties doing the same are going to be penalised by other E.U. countries.

But then reality doesn`t seem to be a consideration when it comes to E.U. accountancy where 60% of the E.U. energy comes from burning biomass with it being classified as carbon neutral. If this classification was removed and the true figures for emissions from biomass included it would be interesting to then see the true figures for E.U. emissions by country.

Altrnatively we could just campaign to keep it in place. We are already taking part in the game with wood burning plants in Offaly and Mayo, so rather than spending hundreds of billions on offshore wind that is not even going to meet our 2050 needs, just open more of these wood burning plants and in one stroke our generation will be 100% carbon neutral.

Based on the Killala plant that will require 200,000 tons of wood landed in Killibegs and shipped by road to Killala to generate 50MW, we would just need to burn around 60 million tons of wood to reach our projection requirements in 2050. Calm days you would most likely not be able to see your hand in front of your face, with breathing being a problem and the roads jammed with trucks ferrying wood all over the place, but as far as the E.U is concerned no fines for generation.

In case anybody thinks that is a serious proposal, it`s not. It just illustrates how crazy this whole transition madness has become.

thatsdaft

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534051#Comment_122534051

Germany, so countries who doubled down on wind and this week busy blowing up perfectly functional nuclear plants

Incredible that they spent 1.5 trillion (soon to be 2) on failed Energiewende policies and still produce 6x CO2 of France next door day after day

ps200306

A German looks at nuclear fuel storage and reprocessing in France …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiAsmUjSmdI

Mr. teddywinkles

Deleted

patnor1011

Seems that people in the USA are slowly getting it. Nuclear and nat gas.

https://www.mackinac.org/pressroom/2024/grading-the-grid-natural-gas-and-nuclear-top-list-of-reliable-and-affordable-energy-sources

and link to whole paper for interesting reading…

https://www.mackinac.org/archives/2024/MCPP-NWU_Energy_Report_Card.pdf

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122527908#Comment_122527908

To quote my own post, I'm now declaring this is dodgy as ****. To get the grant you have to be up and running by December 2025, with planning permission received in the next 3 weeks

They aren't serious about this stuff at all. It's all great plans, great intentions. Then announce unworkable schemes, or plans for schemes down the line. None of which will make impacts now when required.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538250#Comment_122538250

Seems their politicans are finally getting it as well, when even with the present nature of politics in the U.S., Democrats and Republican Senators voted 82 for as to 2 against to recently pass the ADVANCE Act to bring down the cost for nuclear developers by streamlining permitting process,cutting fees and spending approval times - and spurs more development of new-wave projects like small modular nuclear reactors.

https://edition.ccn.com/2024/06/19/climate/nuclear-energy-bill.index.html

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538458#Comment_122538458

Well, they may have stronger sense of self preservation when it come to the future.

Our politicians don't realize that when grid goes down, pitchforks come up.

gossamerfabric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122484228#Comment_122484228

I buy Tetrapack/purepak orange juice as opposed to plastic bottle orange juice here as I don't want the hassle of bringing bottles to the reverse vending machine…and Tetra are more space efficient in my fridge and wheelie bin. The tetrapak/purepak containers go in to the domestic recycling yellow bin after use.