"Green" policies are destroying this country

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411439#Comment_119411439

No doubt there is some useful data stored in there that actually makes a difference to peoples lives but also a whole load of unneccessary **** like cat videos and social media. And downright evil stuff like megacorps spying on you in order to give you better targeted ads.

Most of the power is not used for storing data but processing and transferring and the vast majority of it is wasted. If you for example open a page on twitter you will download a huge amount of data but maybe only a few 100 bytes of it is of any use to you. Or if boards.ie was a series of USENET groups the bandwidth and processing power required to run it would likely be less than 1% of what is currently required.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411350#Comment_119411350

I don’t know. Zero? Thats as low as they can go, maybe negative if they take some energy from the grid.

How often will this occur? And do we have a plan for that. EirGrid are confident that they can handle this.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411460#Comment_119411460

Who decides which data is useful and which is superfluous?

Anyway. Our planning system has been rejecting applications for Data Centres recently and i would be very annoyed if solar and battery storage wasn't a condition for new applications

If the data centre can run off batteries and recharge them off peak then their power usage becomes a non issue as well be generating surplus power off peak at a very low marginal cost

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119410389#Comment_119410389

No it does not.

A surplus in farming, like every other business, is budgeting for your own requirements plus a surplus you can trade for other goods, produce and services. It`s how economies work. It`s been in operation since the Stone Age. If you are not producing a surplus to trade then you have to be self sufficient for all your need to just stay alive. This self sufficiency idea being promoted by some greens is probably the most ludicrous of all their pie in the sky ideas.

Even if we had the Armageddon some appear to be so keen on, this self sufficiency idea would still be fallacy

Pussyhands

These climate action extremists need to be put in their place.

What are these so called experts response to the fact that all these predictions they made about rising sea levels by now have not come true.

These clowns make out like farmers are evil, yet the clowns forget that people who grow the vegetables etc are farmers too!

There's money grifting by being a climate doomsdayer. It's not in John gibbons and the likes, interests to not be complaining about it.

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411415#Comment_119411415

Lol so you claim of everything Banana. Reading your comments here, the only one "all over the road after 20 cans"(?) is yourself going by the constant barage of daft comments..

Surely you would want an 'expert' to answer the witty question about 'what’s make natural gas natural'? So here you go abanana - I looked it up for you. Enjoy

"Natural gas is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Usually low levels of trace gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and helium are also present. Natural gas is colorless and odorless, so odorizers such as mercaptan, which smells like sulfur or rotten eggs, are commonly added to natural gas supplies for safety so that leaks can be readily detected"

Heres another which you might like 👍

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411635#Comment_119411635

I wasnt talking about farming. I was talking about the national budget

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/budget-surplus.asp

a surplus means more income than expenditure

Not 'lower borrowing than expected'

Running a budget surplus allows the government to pay off debts, reduce tax or increase expenditure.

I would argue that the government should use this surplus to help people get through the cost of living crisis. Nobody should be cold or hungry when there is a budget surplus

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411660#Comment_119411660

Sea levels are rising faster than the most pessimistic IPCC projections (and the rise is accelerating)

https://os.copernicus.org/articles/17/181/2021/

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411560#Comment_119411560

It is more something that you calculate rather than arbitrarily decide it is superfluous. For example if you refresh this page you will be sent all the posts you have already seen and there is a very low probability any of them will have changed unless there is a ninja edit so that is 99.9+% waste. Then there is waste in sending you HTML comments, commented out html code that does nothing for the visual appearance of the page and the fact that none of this information including the text of the posts themselves are anywhere near optimally compressed.

Conversely if refreshing the page gave you 1MB of perfectly random data almost none of it would be waste except for a small bit of protocol overhead. The waste is tolerated now because there is massive investment in increasing bandwidth and it has been an all you can eat buffet for the past number of years. Though there is huge scope to improve efficiency through writing better software rather than throwing more hardware at the problem

Pussyhands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411711#Comment_119411711

And the predictions from 20 or 30 years ago?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411693#Comment_119411693

Apologies for the misinterpretation.

For once we agree on something, but I would see it as more prudent of government pursuing policies that were proactive ensuring it didn`t arise than having policies that require retroactive measures.

It does not say much for government foresight of a crisis they have been warned by many for some time as being a distinct possibility having to scramble at the eleventh hour attempting to alleviate it

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411660#Comment_119411660

Exactly what prediction about sea level rises haven't come true ? Be specific and none of this hysterical handwaving. Anything I have read from reputable scientific sources is spot on and yes some of Dublin will be permanently under water within 100years - exactly as predicted by the experts.

Or maybe your referring to the hyperbole predictions that climate skeptics use to bolster their disbelief.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411221#Comment_119411221

It's distilled solar power created by plants via photosynthesis, essentially.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411233#Comment_119411233

Load duration curves, steeper curves, installed capacity or any other capacity means diddly squat where wind and solar are concerned and you know that so why keep attempting to fool people into believing they do ?

For wind and solar to provide 100% dependable supply then the have to be capable of doing that at the lowest level of wind or solar. To achieve that it`s the number of turbines or solar panels that are required. Load duration curves, steep curves or installed capacity are meaningless, yet you carry on pretending they do. Enough examples have been posted here showing that, yet you still insist on ignoring them with this pretense. Talking about installed capacity percentages and peak demand when we have seen that with peak demand of 6,000MW all the installed wind capacity of around 5,000MW was adding was 360MW.

Talking about storage when nobody has even come close to developing the storage need for that shortfall for short periods let alone for the extended periods we have seen three times in less than a year. Germany has spent 150 Billion to get to more or less the same levels we are at on renewables, by population that would have the cost of ours to date at 10 Billion and would require a further 60 Billion for 100% dependability. If we are not prepared to build our own nuclear plant and instead rely on an interconnector from France to supply us with nuclear energy then rather than throwing good money after bad hoping for storage that may or not work, we would be much better co-funding with France who are happy building such plants.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411728#Comment_119411728

Go to the First IPCC report and you'll get your answer. It was released in 1990 so the data are about 35 years old

dePeatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412576#Comment_119412576

100% agreed and we should be fracking our own gas as well.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412576#Comment_119412576

Wind and solar do not provide 100% dependable energy. Wind, Solar, Hydro, Nuclear (through interconnectors) Storage (micro and Grid scale) geothermal and maybe some gas with CCS to plug the final few percent) is the future of electricity generation across an EU supergrid

This is the plan and we need to get on with it.

Putin has thrown a spanner in the works but ultimately he's only going yo accelerate the divestment from fossil fuels

ps200306

Natural gas consumption continues to increase year on year. Consumption has increased 2.2% annually over the last decade. Oil consumption grew at 0.7% and coal at 0.1%. (Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022). The US hit an all time record for natural gas production last year and is also the world's largest oil producer. Natural gas substitution for coal is what makes the US by far the most successful country for emissions reductions. Meanwhile, renewables have not even kept pace with the increase in energy consumption globally, let alone replacing any of it.

Irish Greens are barking up the wrong tree with their fixation on renewables. You would think they'd be interested in actual solutions instead of their pathetic attempt to eliminate 50% of 0.1% of global emissions. Even that miserable ambition will probably fail, though not before wreaking havoc on the economy. The Green Machine works by preaching doom about rising temperatures and sea levels. When challenged as to how a 0.05% reduction in global emissions will change that, they have no answer except to say that Ireland can lead the world by example. It's a pack of virtue-signalling nonsense. The Irish approach can't work in most of the rest of the world (and probably can't work in Ireland either as it depends on "unobtainium" such as grid-scale storage and low commodity prices even as renewables consume ever greater amounts of them). Unfortunately, pointing out these harsh realities gets one branded as a climate change denier.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119411182#Comment_119411182

Doesn’t really matter. The wind farms provide 100% net energy. And it’s always windy off the Scottish coast.

green policies that build out infrastructure are preferable to those that try restrict usage, unless that’s also technological ie insulation or led lights etc.

Scotland has potentially vastly more wind power than it needs. To convert heating (which is 50% of carbon usage now largely via gas) huge investment is needed in retrofitting pipes and gas creation from wind (which could also power electricity in the summer). That’s good greenism.

bad greenism is the zero growth fanatics. And the EU taxing the average workers biannual trip the Spain but not private jets.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412636#Comment_119412636

the US has only reduced emissions since 2005. Other countries, particularly in Europe, have reduced for longer and greater. Not that replacing coal is a bad idea. ( Well unless it’s replaced with Russian gas, but who knew? )

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412590#Comment_119412590

Fracked gas is worse than coal in terms of emissions over its life cycle. It would be better to continue burning coal than to destroy our aquifers and blight our countryside with thousands upon thousands of well pads across every hectare of our countryside. The other benefit of fracking would be to undermine our agriculture sector which is built on our reputation of having a clean environment.

dePeatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412768#Comment_119412768

Is it?

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-2019/the-plot-against-fracking/

Just another point of view but ya have to read all sides before coming to a conclusion.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412784#Comment_119412784

Sorry but thats from one of the most politically motivated "news" outlets in the UK. My position is based not on a radical right wing editorial piece - but on published scientific papers.

dePeatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412810#Comment_119412810

So therefore your ‘opinion’ is not to be doubted? Bit authoritarian isn’t that?

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412831#Comment_119412831

No my opinion is evidence based - is yours ?

Fugative emissions from Fracking operations are not some abstract theoretical concern - they are measured and quantifiable. In my book that beats a political opinion any day of the week. As i have pointed out before the situation in ireland would be considerably worse since the underlying geology means that the shale beds are very shallow and overlaid with porous limestone beds. Once the shale beds are cracked they will leak methane into the aquifer holding limestone beds forever - and once there will be released to the atmosphere without restraint.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412623#Comment_119412623

Whose plan, France`s or the German plan that has shown itself for the costly mistake it was ?

Renewables are not dependable full stop, let alone being 100% so. Wind and hydro were providing 6% and lower of requirements for extended periods last Winter and this Spring, times when solar (even if we had any) would not have dented the gap let alone fill it. Even for this month we had the same with wind and hydro combined providing just 360MW of a peak demand of 6,000MW for extended periods as well. For all of those three periods gas was not "plugging the final few percent" the grid was effectively gas.

There is no storage, nor any sign of storage in the foreseeable that can plug such gaps, we have no interconnector with Europe and will not have one for the next 5 years, and even then the liklihood is that other than French nuclear nothing will be flowing through it. Everything else has flown out the window along with the rest of Germany`s master-plan based on Putin`s gas.

We have two choices if we want to get away from fossil fuels for electricity generation based on the data from on-shore turbines.bBuild the equivalent of 16 times that number at least at a further cost of 60+ billion. Or cut it the make-believe and recognise that the only viable alternative both in cost and energy wise is nuclear. If we are too saintly to dirty our own hands then co-fund with a country in the E.U. that isn`t such as France.

Mecanudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412169#Comment_119412169

"Anything I have read from reputable scientific sources is spot on and yes some of Dublin will be permanently under water within 100years - exactly as predicted by the experts."

According to the IPCC 2021 Summary Report for policy makers - there are a number of scenarios for Sea Level Rise relative to where we're at with regard to global warming in 2100 (which one we don't know yet)

These are in order from low to very high GHG to emissions scenarios

The likely global mean sea level rise by 2100 is:

0.28–0.55 m under the very low GHG emissions scenario (SSP1-1.9);

0.32–0.62 m Under the low GHG emissions scenario (SSP1-2.6);

0.44–0.76 m under the intermediate GHG emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5); 

0.63–1.01 m under the very high GHG emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5);

We currently don't know which scenario is most likley for 2100.

For reference here are today high and low tides plus heights above mean lower low water for Dublin

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119413044#Comment_119413044

Your point ?

My point was that the science is fairly much on track fore what has been predicted. Current sea level rise is at the lower end of those predictions - but warming is upticking all the time so what has happened so far is not a partiularly good predictor of the next hundred years. What seems certain is that at least 30cm of sea level rise will be seen in Dublin in the next hundred years. That means more frequent flooding and certain low lying areas will be lost.

But the real point is that Global warming advocates have in no way been hysterical about what is to come. Sea level rise is happening and will impact real people living in Ireland in a relatively short space of time.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119412768#Comment_119412768

Thousands and thousands of solar panels across every hectare of our countryside would not add to the aesthetics either and we have seen that when it comes to undermining our agriculture sector greens do not give a fiddlers. Rather appearing to take pleasure from it.

But then there is no need for us to frack gas, We could avail of 500 million cubic meters of gas yearly from the U.S. if the green`s were not so determined to block a terminal

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119413103#Comment_119413103

US fracked gas is not a solution to climate change. Use the Gas we get from the UK to open a window to build out the renewables which will actually meet our legal obligations.