"Green" policies are destroying this country

More detail on the rejection of the green label for fossil fuels

https://www.thejournal.ie/eu-committees-taxonomy-gas-nuclear-5790419-Jun2022/

The final votes on it will be interesting, it could still go either way, hopefully they do the smart thing and don't give it a green label

We'll have to wait and see

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202607#Comment_119202607

So if the idiots do get their way then effectively no E.U. recognised transitional power source.

If that is the best they can do for electricity prices then we would be as well to do what Germany is doing. Keep Moneypoint open and re-open coal burning plants that have been shut.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202733#Comment_119202733

Ah come on now lad, you've been going on about "the EU giving gas a green label" long enough to know the ins and outs of this.

Not giving it this designation only means gas projects won't qualify for EU green funding, with that funding instead going to actual green power sources e.g. wind, solar, hydro

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202867#Comment_119202867

I know enough to see at this stage that green power source generators are lining their pockets while scalping the consumer, and the usual E.U. up their own ar*e greens in the E.U. are faffing around attempting to protect their ideology while we are paying for our electricity based on the price of natural gas.

If they are not prepared to do anything about their own marginal pricing policy then the only way we will get cheaper electricity is by using a cheaper fossil fuel in the mix. If that is coal, then so be it. Japan and a host of countries with stronger economies than ours are doing just that.

I really do not see what their fear is by not having gas or nuclear listed as transitional energy sources other than keeping the price of renewables high for such companies to line their pockets at the expense of the consumer, or they are afraid that renewables could not compete

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203002#Comment_119203002

Nowhere is there any mention of gas not being labelled as "transitional energy sources". It's listed everywhere as this so I'm not sure where you are getting that from.

The issue at hand is applying a green label to gas which would allow it access to green funding from the EU, funding that is meant to move our power grid to renewables, not more fossil fuels.

Anyway, its still to be decided, we'll know more after the EU parliament vote

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203066#Comment_119203066

So both natural gas and nuclear are green enough to be labelled as a transitional energy source but not green enough to be listed as green because it might result in them receive funding, so what is the fear greens have on that score . Surely if the future, as we are being told is green energy because it is going to be not just cleaner but cheaper than fossil fuels, then if that is true why would the private sector or anybody else fund either natural gas or nuclear ?

It just comes across as more of the green B.S. that gave us the marginal pricing policy that is allowing renewable energy companies to gouge consumers to continue doing so. They obviously do not give a monkeys about consumers and very much in the "What did the Romans ever do for us" vein then if these idiots are more concerned with their ideology than the ordinary consumer then like many other countries with stronger economies than ours then why would we not do what they are doing. If they are determined to stick to their pricing policy use the cheapest form of fossil fuel in the mix.

While we are at it, we could look to our own government when it comes to gouging.

13th June pump price of petrol 213.2c. Price before taxes are added 108.56c. Total taxes 104.64c.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119203979#Comment_119203979

You continue to ignore my answers and instead ask the same questions in a round about way despite them being answered. As you've shown its pointless trying to engage, I'll leave you back onto the ignore list again, laters

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202867#Comment_119202867

Wrong. Where you getting this "green funding" shite?

The designation of natural gas with a green label (clearly stated in your tweet) is necessary for financial companies to give natural gas a sustainable investment rating, thereby making it more attractive for investment, reducing ff taxes and costs associated with its use, and making natural gas cheaper with the result of reducing the price of electricity for all type of electricity generation across the board.

But nooo we couldn't have lower electricity prices especially when the marginal price policy means that private 'green' investment companies are only to delighted to see natural gas prices rise

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202363#Comment_119202363

Such a long winded post to avoid responding to some questions with very simple 1 line answers.....

SMRs do not exist, the only attempts to deploy them have seen costs and deployment timelines skyrocket so fast that investors pull out and the projects stall

SMRs only make sense with economies of scale, but that's not possible with nuclear, due to all of the unique site specific requirements for each project

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119202733#Comment_119202733

Or plough ahead with renewables

Gant21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204392#Comment_119204392

Eamonn Ryan has covid, give him a chance.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204032#Comment_119204032

Brokenangel may be gone, but her stockpile off reasons for not answering questions lives on.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204392#Comment_119204392

And be gouged on electricity prices by renewable energy producers until we have 100% reliable renewable energy sources ?

Looking forward to seeing that in the next Irish Green Party manifesto.

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204376#Comment_119204376

Didn't read what I wrote then?

That was a detailed reply to your long winded whataboutery when it was pointed out that certain issues such as natural gas and nuclear had already been extensively discussed, which you chose to ignore by flinging a bunch of random questions into the mix about nuclear only and demanding they should all be answered before your would be satisfied lol.

I suggest rather than making blanket statements about how SMRs "don't exist" is you go read what has already been posted about SMRs in this very thread. That and I really cant help where you clearly haven't read up on the current state of SMR technology and "economies of scale". But tbh them that seems par for the course with much green thinking which demands belief in fairy dust and unicorn poop whilst insisting anything else is an impossibility 🤷‍♂️

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206125#Comment_119206125

Whilst some greens appear to be backslapping and high-fiving each other over keeping the price of natural gas (a transition fuel) and therefore electricity as high as possible

In Poland this is making the headlines

"Poland encourages people to collect firewood in forests amid soaring energy costs"

https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/06/03/poland-encourages-people-to-collect-firewood-in-forests-amid-soaring-energy-costs/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206125#Comment_119206125

I think you linked the wrong story there, it has no mention of a deferral of carbon taxes.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206239#Comment_119206239

Meanwhile in Ireland we are going to determine the boundaries of communities with less than 500 of a population, within which it is legal to sell or gift turf, whereas in a community determined to have a population of 501 it will be illegal.

You really could not make this up and be considered rational or even sane. Unfortunately in the Irish greens world of magical thinking, sanity and rationale have both long ago exited the stage.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206398#Comment_119206398

This is why we need governments to implement long term plans to replace our infrastructure and not be distracted by the crisis of the day.

Climate change is the biggest threat facing us (and millions of animal species) but humanity are so short-sighted that we could very well burn the house down just to keep warm for one night

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207420#Comment_119207420

If we are honest with ourselves we aren't going to meet any of the even very soft targets set out and either is the vast vast majority of the planet.

You're right, we're not, and even if we did they wouldn't achieve what has been claimed as they would arrive too late.

A lot more needs to move a lot further a lot faster

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207449#Comment_119207449

"A lot more needs to move a lot further a lot faster"

That won't be the greens then who seem to spend most of the time tripping over their own shoelaces

Akrasia

It won't be FF or FG either given that their MEPs supported the watered down EU 'green new deal'

If you accept that we are in a climate emergency (slow moving but still hugely time sensitive) then we may need to accept short term risks for a higher chance of succeeding.

Delaying action for short term energy security now could cost us long term in a multitude of ways

ps200306

I've always been a stickler for data but very few people seem to deal in actual numbers.

Today, 84% of global energy on which modern society depends comes from fossil fuels. What will it cost to transition to renewables, and over what timeframe is it achievable?

Food costs are strongly tied to energy. How can the transition be achieved while keeping food and energy costs manageable for much of the worlds population for whom these costs are a large share of income? Extreme poverty has been falling for decades, but has gone into reverse due to Covid and current energy prices.

What is the cost of not transitioning rapidly to renewables? Damage from climate events today cost 0.2% of global GDP. What will it rise to under plausible scenarios?

Given the relative costs of action and inaction, what is the best path forward?

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119208877#Comment_119208877

The "green new deal" beloved of AOC and others in the US and whizzed across the Atlantic is more buzz words and socialist utopia than any concrete plan to deal with whats on the ground.

"Delaying action for short term energy security now could cost us long term in a multitude of ways"

No as detailed previously, the need to maintain essential energy supplies is not some vague notion of 'energy security' rather its being able to keep the lights on and the wheels turning.

The bizarre thing is though despite the repeated calls to urgency by various greens, the single biggest global contributor of ghg's amongst others, has being given all kinds of get out clauses and laters by the same interest groups. It really is a bit of a head scratcher tbh

Not as much as it should be but it's just a start I hope

RTE news : €55m to help Irish businesses stop using fossil fuels

http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/0616/1305134-ireland-fuels/

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119206398#Comment_119206398

We don`t live in our own little biosphere in Ireland, but listening to the Irish Green party and their supporters you would think we did. The public aren`t dumb. They see what the present policy here is costing them and the economy while the worlds largest emitters of CO2 do not give a monkeys.

Even within Europe there is no common policy, or at lest none that Ireland is following. The Irish Green party do not agree with the E.U. directive on energy security, or if they do then they are attemting to ignore it, they do not agree on the E.U. policy on LNG, and while others in Europe are suspending carbon taxes because of the energy crises they are raised here. Finland is back harvesting peat, while Eamon Ryan is attempting to ban it with a law that makes sense only in his own head. Germany and others are back exploring for fossil fuels while here that is banned (unless you are bizarrely looking for gold or silver), and the greens are doing their utmost to ensure Barryroe never gets off the ground. Germany back strip mining for coal and have shelved their plans on closing coal burning plant. They are even in negotiations with Columbia to import more coal while here the Irish Greens are determined to shut down out last major coal burning plant. Not that I am entirely opposed to that, but when you see green supporters on here cheering on protesters to gas fired plants to take up the shortfall you wonder what planet these people are on. When questioned on that the answer is more wind turbines or something something else. Last winter and this Spring there were numerous days where had we X16 times the number of wind turbines they would still not have supplied our electricity needs.

There is no point in shouting climate change and climate denier at people as answers for asking relative questions and expecting them to come onside with a policy that is costing them money every day. Especially when that policy has provided no material benefit and is never going to with the marginal pricing policy. Even the dumbest donkey getting all stick and no carrot when getting the chance will give you a kicking.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119208998#Comment_119208998

We've known since the UK Stern Review in 2006 which calculated that the cost of acting was much lower than the cost of inaction

When you're talking about the damage from climate events costing .2% of global gdp I'm guessing this is from insurance claims or something? (you didn't provide a source) if so, this is only the tip of the iceberg of what costs climate change is already causing.

Climate change is already reducing crop yields

Which is leading to increased levels of suicide

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1701354114

Its already causing increased spread of tropical diseases

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01787-6/fulltext

and pests,

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211209124223.htm

millions of man hours are lost as it is already too hot to work outdoors in the heatwaves that are already happening earlier and lasting longer than they used to

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26050-z

This loss in productivity is even greater in hotter countries with reduced access to artificial cooling

Back in 2006 Stern estimated the cost of the actions required to stabilise our CO2 concentrations at between 500 and 550ppm would be approx 1% of global GDP. That cost is undoubtedly much higher now given that we have wasted the past 18 years and to achieve the same aim now requires deeper cuts in a shorter timescale while also suffering the losses to global productivity as the planet shoots past all of the 'targets' we had set and did nothing to achieve. By 2050 if we continue on our current path, 10% of the worlds economy could be lost.

https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/climate-and-natural-catastrophe-risk/expertise-publication-economics-of-climate-change.html

The economics are stark. The costs of preventing the worst elements of climate change increase the longer we delay action, while the consequences of climate change are irreversible and incalculably large. And delaying is the worst thing we can do because we're imposing higher costs on both sides

What price do we put on the loss of 1 million species of plants and animals? What price to we put on the inundation of coastal cities and loss of fertile land? What price do we put on mass displacement of people as their homes become uninhabitable due to oppressive heat and drought? What price do we put on the wars for resources or the collapse in political stability caused by crises sparked by climate change.

Right now we are targeting keeping Climate change to between 1.5c and 2c, but we are actually headed for 3-4c and if all these 'Carbon bombs' go off, we'll see 5+c of warming by the end of the century. That's a catastrophic level of warming that would see billions of people displaced or killed

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01125-x

At these levels, we're going to see 'natural disasters' hitting levels that humans have never experienced in our history and while it won't be possible to reverse that, if we haven't stabilised out planet by then, we could be looking at relentless increases in global temperature. Our children won't thank us for moaning about the cost of petrol in 2022 when they're looking at their own kids struggling to survive

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119209413#Comment_119209413

I sure all those presently struggling due to energy costs are dancing in the streets having learned that seeing as Irish business`s have such an outstanding record of passing on any benefits to consumers.

Banana Republic 1

Eamon Ryan proved right, again

https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2022/06/16/could-reintroducing-the-lynx-solve-irelands-sika-deer-problem/

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119212473#Comment_119212473

Right about what exactly? I thought Eamon wanted to bring back wolves?

Considering the article states

The original Celtic tiger, the Eurasian lynx, was a large cat that roamed this country about 1,300 years ago

When if you actually look up the archaeological evidence for the Eurasian Lynx in Ireland - its possible existence derives from the finding of a single 9,000-year-old bone from deposits of the Kilgreany Cave in Co Waterford. The 1,300 date refers to numerous finds in the UK not here. Even for the Irish Times who often seem to blur the lines between the UK and Ireland - that's a fair old error.

"Eurasian Lynx were known to have become extinct in Britain some time between 1,300 and 1,500 years ago and they still exist on the continent, though they’re now rare in western Europe. Nobody before this discovery dreamed that they had once roamed Ireland."

It is also noted the identification of the bone found in  the Waterford cave deposits - the idea would have been dismissed because the principal prey of the lynx is roe deer, a small species that never made it to this country.

Thing is the Eurasian Lynx are known to be be fond not only of small deer, but sheep, hares and wild birds. And they're apparently also partial to domestic dog if they're hungry enough.

Fabulous idea introducing an animal that was possibly here in small numbers some 9000 years ago and to which our native wildlife today such as Hares would be easy pickings. Great idea altogether 👍

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119212473#Comment_119212473

Stunning animal