"Green" policies are destroying this country

bb1234567

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965979#Comment_117965979

We don't need to reduce world population, we need to reduce the population of the world who consume way too many resources. That is North America, Europe, Oceanie and wealthy parts of the middle east and east Asia. Thankfully almost all of these regions are recording historically low birth rates so that will really help the planet's chances, but may be offset by increases in quality oflife in big countries like India and Nigeria.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117966771#Comment_117966771

by proven technology, I’m sure you mean technology proven to warm the planet enough to drive whole eco systems to extinction and kill people directly with their noxious fumes

charlie14

What I do not get about all this is 70% of our electricity usage is supposedly going to be provided by renewable energy. Far as I can see the only renewable energy we are producing is wind powered. What happens when the wind is not blowing, where does this 70& shortfall then come from, a battery the size of the country ?

I`m all for doing my bit to help out the planet, but this expectation of the Greens that little old Ireland will save the planet while countries like China pull the piss is like giving someone a spoon and expecting them to hold back the tide.

AllForIt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967172#Comment_117967172

No it was you who ignored the point I was making for a topic that in essence that noting to do with the topic at hand, just like Afghanistan which I also mentioned is not the topic at hand.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967479#Comment_117967479

Why is it up to the Greens to solve all the energy problems? They have been a tiny minority partner in Gov for a wet week, but get the blame for everything. Why haven't FG and FF pushed forward with nuclear over the last decades? And how on earth does anyone ever think this jokeshop country will ever have nuclear, we can't even build cycle or bus lanes without the country going into meltdown?

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967528#Comment_117967528

We are part of the EU, the EU is a massive polluter. The EU is an enormous market for China too, we outsource the dirty factory work to China, so we are as much to blame as they are.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967549#Comment_117967549

Doesn`t answer the question though as to how we are going to make up the shortfall in energy needs when the wind drops ?

China is just one of the many countries that are taking the piss, and that is not due to the E.U. If anything China has improved it`s economy by outpricing countries on production due to it`s cheaper energy sources, and like all the rest who are doing nothing promoting green energy has no intention of changing. That makes us, and especially the Greens, look like innocent naive mugs.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967581#Comment_117967581

How will we make up for it I don't know, but maybe we all need to be using less and less energy, we might even have to be a little **GASP** inconvenienced, something current generations don't seem to be able to deal with. Do you think we should just carry on burning fossil fuels worldwide and heating up the planet until it's no longer habitable?

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967588#Comment_117967588

Who are you and the simpleton Eamon Ryan to decide what a persons energy needs are?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967588#Comment_117967588

GASP you are promoting a policy that when the wind stops blowing you have no answer to how a potential energy shortfall of 70% will be compensated for and you view that as "little inconvenience"

I think we are being made mugs off not just on the alternative we have been ploughing money into, but we are also being made mugs off by following poorly thought out Green ideology that others are more than happy to take economic advantage off to our detriment.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967656#Comment_117967656

I think you will find that is you want to burn electricity that is no problem, the issue you will have is that you will have to pay significantly more for the privilege.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967660#Comment_117967660

why are the Greens dominating everything though if they're a small partner in Government and will be gone after the next election? Why are people allowing the Greens to dictate everything?

joseywhales

One thing I've wondered for a while is:

How can fuel burned to power a turbine to create electricity to be transmitted for miles on power line and converted back into heat in a heat pump be more efficient than burning the same fuel in the home?

Is it the ultra high temperature in the power plant that makes it more efficient?

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967717#Comment_117967717

Politically right now they are a tail that can wag the dog, but a good question, which to me is on a par of how will this 70% shortfall be made up when the wind isn`t blowing. Best I can come up with is God only knows, but I have a feeling that when people get the sudden realisation shortly of how much their policies are going to cost them personally, even before the lights go out, even God wont save them electorally.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967760#Comment_117967760

Not really, Australia already came up with a resolution to that problem and NL have others like using electric cars as batteries to pull and charge to meet peaks. Etc….

Ireland has millions is acre of roof space, put solar panels with batteries onto them, then you remove the basic home requirement during the day, the batteries fill up and they cater for the evening dinner, then as companies close down the electric is moved over to provide for those house and charge cars etc

Richard Hillman

If poorer countries feel they can gain an economic advantage over the traditional powers by ignoring the green agenda, you can bet your bottom that they will be taking it. And you can also bet that big business will move production to those countries.

Countries in Europe even, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania etc, non EU countries but on the doorstep. Where people are struggling with employment and make very poor wages. Do they think the leaders of these places will be giving a poo about the polar ice caps and droughts in Africa? When they can gain an economic advantage over us and create employment.

The Ranelagh Mafia are so removed from ordinary people, it is beyond belief. People are not on the dinner table talking about "The climate emergency" and LBGTQXYZ rights. They are talking about bills, employment, food, the cost of the living, crime, future prospects. They most certainly are not talking about "The Climate Emergency" at the dinner table in effing Ukraine.

People in Ukraine are not going to the local TD to discuss The Great Barrier Reef and snow leopards. They are going to their local politician to say "why am I working 60 hours a week and cannot pay my bills?", "what are you going to do if Russia invade us?", "I've had to hitch-hike to work this week, why are there no buses?".

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967763#Comment_117967763

They're different processes, heat pumps transfer heat, they don't try to create it.

They can be, technically, more efficient than a boiler, but operate at such low temperatures that one requires an airtight, well-insulated building and enormous heating surfaces.

Outside of those parameters, you'd better have plenty of jumpers handy and be sitting down when the electric bill arrives.

The cost of retrofitting every building in the country to a standard where a heat pump is appropriate is gargantuan.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968174#Comment_117968174

Did I say Ireland was Australia? Maybe have a look at this company and see what is possible https://www.mainstreamrp.com/

Arealred

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are in for some hammering in the next election for going into government with the green nut jobs. It's a kin to sleeping with a prostitute and coming home to the wife and thinking everything will be fine and dandy.

If what the Greens are proposing with taxes on diesels and petrol cars come to pass every rural fine fael and fianna fail can consider there seats gone.

The Greens were the ones who encouraged everyone to get diesels in the first place.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968583#Comment_117968583

Nice glossy brochure, but I don`t see where there is a solution to the shortfall we will have in electricity supply due to us putting all our eggs in the wind generation basket to achieve 70% output when the wind drops. If you covered the country in solar panels I doubt, during Winter especially, they would put as much as a dent in that 70%.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968664#Comment_117968664

As I posted already its a mix and it should be part of an overall European plan. Just throwing hands up into air and saying it can't be done wont help.

Solar panel even in winter on every house would keep the base load off the grid if people are back in houses, plus any excess can be used. We should be filling up the roof of datacentre like facebook with solar panels, let them pay for them as well.

We have access to some of the best waves in Europe yet use none of it. They are a potential constant source of electricity etc etc

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968591#Comment_117968591

Leaving aside your rather colourful analogy the reality is it's just not going to happen.

One important thing to note about FF and FG is that they have been at this game a long time.

Whether the outcome will be good for the future of the planet is another days work.

Shoog

When the opening comment describes climate change as a religion you know this is a dead end thread before it starts.

Complex problem needing complex solutions - but hey its just a bunch of religious nutjobs so we don't need to think about it.

Move along people - nothing useful to see here

Jinglejangle69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968946#Comment_117968946

In fairness the greens and their supporters do seem like brainwashed religious nuts.

Mike Murdock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967549#Comment_117967549

China also has a Middle Class of between 300-400 million people (as much as the entire population of Western Europe) that want the consumer lifestyle that we have. So they are not just producing for the "evil" West. They are producing for their own upwardly mobile people too.

Sand

Honestly, isn't the only solution to a clean, always on, reliable power source nuclear? I'm aware there has been a very successful scare campaign by the wind/solar/fossil fuel industry against nuclear power, but what else guarantees 24/7 power within the current bounds of reality? Nuclear is a scary word, but is it anymore scary than going out on a daily basis to share the same road with hundreds/thousands of amateur drivers at 100KM per hour?

Both wind and solar aren't exactly clean power either, given the amount of polluting resources that goes into producing them.

As for the Greens their last term in government - when they conspired to deny the people of Donegal a right to vote for their TD - ought to have disbarred them from any serious consideration for representation in future governments. Whatever policies they come up with are inevitably to the detriment of the Irish people. A shambles of a party claiming to be purer than the driven snow.

Mike Murdock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969028#Comment_117969028

+1

Nuclear or Nuclear Fission is the way to go.

MBE220d

This skyrocketing of electric and gas prices is going to wake a lot of people up this winter, especially the city folk who depend on gas for heating, for years it was a cheap source of heating and not too much notice was passed on all these extra taxes and levies on it. When all these covid payments are wound down and a lot of businesses closing down with job losses the s*it will hit the fan, we will see just see how green the sheep in government are before this winter is out.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968997#Comment_117968997

Maybe to someone who doesn't believe in Climate change. Its the crisis which will impact every aspect of our lives in the coming decades and simply ignoring it isn't a solution.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117968684#Comment_117968684

We don`t have a mix. We have been pumping money into wind energy to reach this magical 70% with no plan B as to what happens when the wind drops. We are living in the Northern hemisphere where if we covered the island in solar panels it is not going to make up the shortfall and wave energy is still a pipe dream. The reality of life is after all the investment we do not appear to have the green energy capacity to make up the shortfall from one gas burning station off line this Winter. If we end up having blackouts this Winter with carbon taxes now pushing up the prices of heating oil and fuel then the Greens and any politician that backs their ill thought out plans will be looking for a new career pronto. For the love of God will we never learn, these are the same people who advised us to use diesel. Did none of them not even see the exhaust from a diesel engine before that idiotic advise.?

If we are serious about reducing our carbon footprint we should have bitten the bullet on nuclear energy long before now. If Sellafield blows we are all going to hell in a hand-basket anyway.