"Green" policies are destroying this country

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521168#Comment_121521168

So you've just gonna lie about me and wrap it in quotes pretending that its my actual position...... Is that the standard on this thread?

patnor1011

Look, nobody dispute that Ryan and his disciples do have good imagination. But that is pretty much all there is. Pure fantasy to which nobody wants to even try to put some numbers to. That is because resulting number will be so ridiculous that there is hardly any country in the world who may even try to get close to what they claim we are going to build.

The only country which is proposing to build something similar is China which may be able to pull it due to cheap labor and materials which they themselves mine, smelt and use in construction. They propose to built 43Gw offshore plant.

We have nothing, zero, nada of minerals or materials needed for insane 37Gw offshore wet dream apart from some abundance of rocks for concrete all the rest will have to be imported. Not to mention one of the most expensive labor.

To get a bit of perspective to the cost involved we can go by numbers say for example from Korea where they plan to build Sinan offshore with 8,2Gw with estimated cost of 36 billion euro. Since our green pope dreamed 37Gw we can quite safely estimate that his wet dream may cost north of 4,5 x of Korean estimate - 162 billion. That is way conservative since we do have more expensive labor cost, zero steel foundries and I doubt that there is single part of that wind turbine produced in here with perhaps exception of some signs "beware of high voltage" or "slippery surface".

That number also do not include any cost which will be needed to completely upgrade our grid not to mention magical hydrogen production and storage plants, battery storage and god knows what else they will try to imagine into reality. Add in our tendency of extending deadlines and overrunning budgets when big construction projects are involved.

I would actually think that 200 billion which few posters mentioned is also very conservative amount. All this is just a bold dream and as someone once said "if you dream dream big", completely apply to our boss of all things green since he was caught quite a few times to take a healthy nap everywhere he can.

I would say that even though there is zero chance anything of this will ever come to existence the cost for this would run close to or over a half of a trillion euro. Dream big I would say. Don't know who is going to pay for it.

Akrasia

Ok, seeing as you're not going to engage with anything I actually say, here's where you've misrepresented my position

1. I don't think climate change is unstoppable. the longer we delay, the worse and worse it gets, but even if we can't meet the 2c target, we can try to limit to 2.5c. Every 10th of a degree matters
2. There is a viable solution. We've known what we have to do for more than a half a century. We have the technology to do it, it just takes investment. We could already have done the vast majority of it already by now, except for political corruption from the most powerful lobby group in the world, who have done a huge amount to poison political discourse and delay action that harm their interests
3. We're not putting 'all our eggs in one basket' Literally, the plan is to have a diverse grid. Wind, Onshore and offshore, Solar, Hydro, Interconnectors and a backup reserve of fuel we can burn if we need it (in this case, ammonia, or it could be biofuel, or some other carbon neutral source if it's cheaper and more efficient.
4. 'We don't know if it will matter' We do know it matters. it is the most important issue facing our civilisation since the bubonic plague and we fixed that by spending an absolute fortune on sanitation and refuse collection.

The 'Green industry' is what exactly? the companies we need to build the things we need to generate renewable energy.

Have you any evidence that the 'green industry' have been lying about the science around climate change? Because there is mountains of evidence that the oil and gas industry knew about climate change, knew that we had to stop burning fossil fuels, and the spent decades lying about it and bribing politicians to prevent any action that would harm their interests.

Akrasia

Oh, and I've already answered the 'question' about how much Hydrogen costs. It's about 20c per unit of electricity, (including capital costs)

That was based on info from IRENA and NREL

Even if the unit cost was double that. Given that the energy is intended as a backup, it would still be a reasonable cost per unit.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121520949#Comment_121520949

They never 'swore blind' anything of the sort. They introduced change to vehicle taxation that focused on CO2 emissions, and it just happened that Diesel had lower CO2 emissions than petrol

I don't think it's healthy to keep repeating the same distorted 'facts' about the past.

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521286#Comment_121521286

Are you actually claiming that's a genuine answer to any question you were asked?

You can't even produce the hydrogen itself for 20c per unit of electricity and that's before it needs to be stored and then converted back into electricity. Nevermind the losses in doing so.

How much are the capital costs for your "diverse" solution (insofar as Onshore and Offshore is somehow diverse) plus whatever storage and grid infrastructure is required? Nearest 50 billion guesstimate will suffice.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121520949#Comment_121520949

No they changed the system to be a CO2 based. The car manufacturers then developed a software to hide the actual outputs of the car to make diesel seem better to the environment.

This happened across the World remember, it wasn't just Ireland who got hook-winked by the car manufacturers.

Diesel is now public enemy number 1 because of what that. If you think the Green Party in Ireland are responsible for the drop in diesel sales across the World you would be wrong. Ireland is one of the smallest markets in the World and we are sold the cars the manufacturers decide they are going to sell.

If they decide tomorrow not to make electrics then Ireland is not going to stop them. VW for instance in Europe concentrate on what the German and UK market want. Not the Irish one

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521292#Comment_121521292

So basically they implemented policy without giving any proper consoderation to the possible unintended consequences of the policy. Or maybe like the oil and gas industry they knew exactly what they were doing but didnt care as long as they could achieve the holy grail of low CO2 emissions, the end justified the means.

Lets hope if this wonderful plan to build massive offshore wind farms goes ahead, there wont be similar or equally problematic unintended consequences facing the Irish population in the years ahead

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521357#Comment_121521357

That's not quite right. The CO2 tax bands were in long before anyone knew about the manufacturers messing about with SW to trick the testers. When we changed over, cars like big BMW 520s seen their motor tax collapse, whereas small petrol cars that were the norm in the 1.4/1.6 range go up. People, en masse swapped over to the cheaper taxed diesels. Thus creating more problems wit NOx in cities, more service costs for punters as they bought wholly unsuitable cars for their needs. The tricky SW was put in to keep cars in the lowest bands but the bands were already set, and diesels were already planted in the lower end.

The introduction of those bands seen car sales rise (logic of punters is very questionable!).

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521152#Comment_121521152

Far left rag, if they reported the sky was blue I'd have to go outside and double-check.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521419#Comment_121521419

The reason diesel prices went so low for tax was because the system was been tricked. If the system was not been tricked would people have moved to diesel?

Also it came to a point in Ireland when you went to a dealer looking for a petrol they had no stock, they only wanted to sell diesel cars. Nobody buys petrol is what you got told by the main dealers.

Same as electric now, you have people going out spending stupid money on electric cars and dumping perfectly good cars. If you listen to the Green Party they have said, Eamonn Ryan as well, that keeping your own car and running it into the ground is the best option for the environment.

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521286#Comment_121521286

20c per unit, that's a wholesale price.

Add on VAT, profit margins and that is at least 40c to the household consumer, even more for the business consumer.

You then go on to say that even double that would be still a reasonable cost per unit.

There you have it folks, 80c a unit to the householder is considered 'reasonable' to the greens.

If you think the current cost-of-living crisis is tough going, the greens are saying 'hold my beer'.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521479#Comment_121521479

vat is 13.5 percent. What are the other wholesale costs that would bring the retail cost to 40 cents?

wholesale electricity costs frequently go above 30c/kWh as things stand.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521341#Comment_121521341

You want a very big number so you can point at the big number and say 'Look how big that number is'

What is the point in me guesstimating (ie plucking a number out of thin air) when you've already completely disregarded the figure I gave for the cost per KWh of electricity produced using Ammonia

You can buy ammonia right now available in the international markets, and burn it in an existing thermal power station and it would cost about 20c per kwh for that electricity

That's using existing plant, that includes all of the fixed costs, capex, opex, transport, storage etc etc etc

If we use very cheap electricity that has an extremely low marginal cost, to produce that ammonia because the energy used would otherwise have been curtailed, then the round trip efficiency of power lost in converting from wind, to H2, to NH3, storing it until its needed and converting it back to electricity is less of a barrier to production.

Even if we lost 80% of the initial energy, we would have lost 100% if the generators were switched off

You might think a round trip efficiency of 20% is terrible, but it's not that much worse than LNG, which has a round trip efficiency of about 35%, and produces an awful lot of CO2 and CO2 equivalent pollution along the way, especially if the LNG involves fracking

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521640#Comment_121521640

Marginal costing is dead in the RESS/ORESS world. It's disengenuous to suggest that the costs of production will somehow be very low when it will not be given the guaranteed prices.

As for wanting a big number, it's amazing how quick you and your fellow green supporters are to rubbish the really big numbers associated with conventional thermal or nuclear generation, but can't offer up the same for your proposed solution? Compare apples with apples at least.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521479#Comment_121521479

Ammonia is intended to be used as a backup for when wind and solar and interconnectors are not available. Battery storage would be used for daily storage needs and balancing loads, Hydrogen/ammonia is only needed a few times a year when demand exceeds supply over a longer period, and even then, it's only covering the gap between renewable output and demand.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521449#Comment_121521449

OK, but the sky is blue, (and if you decided to not believe them, if you went outside to check for yourself, you'd be back in here to say it's actually grey and the Guardian is wrong. )

Anyway, This story is reporting on a report from the CSIRO. Are CSIRO also a 'far left rag'?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521667#Comment_121521667

The MARGINAL cost of production (I put it in bold last time, maybe putting it in caps this time will help) is extremely low because renewables have zero fuel costs, and almost all of the costs are fixed.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521667#Comment_121521667

And the big numbers I 'rubbish' when talking about Nuclear, is the number of decades it would take to actually build one in Ireland

The costs aren't the biggest barrier to nuclear in Ireland, other than the fact that all that investment produces not a single watt of electricty for decades until the plant gets switched on, and in the meantime, we're stuck with the status quo because it makes no sense to do both nuclear and large scale renewables as one of them will be a white elephant

I wonder who stands to benefit the most from countries not building renewables and instead starting multi decade projects to build nuclear power plants? Hmm, whoever could that be??

I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with the Boil industry.

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521713#Comment_121521713

So you're not going to pay the price per the RESS / ORESS auctions?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521365#Comment_121521365

The intended outcome was that CO2 emissions from transport fell significantly following from the change.

If the changes weren't made in 2007/2008 would our transp emissions currently be about double what they are now?

What were the actual downsides of the policy? A slight reduction in particulates air quality in urban centres (this was due to diesel manufacturers cheating on their emissions tests) and it had negative consequences on residuals for cars bought before 2008 who had to pay higher vrt and motor tax.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521751#Comment_121521751

The hydrolyser plant is going to be paying the market price not the strike price.

Not all wind is or will be in RESS.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521751#Comment_121521751

The price paid to the producer under their ORESS agreements is different to the price paid on the wholesale market by whoever would be generating the hydrogen to make the ammonia

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521831#Comment_121521831

Fantastic, thanks for clarifying this. Now if you could just point to the relevant market design documents to support that, it'd be marvellous. It just seems a little odd to me that we'd be paying the RESS and ORESS anyway, including for curtailment in most cases as we build "at scale" but we'd still require other legacy renewables to get low cost hydrogen (rather than the curtailment we're already paying for).

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121520996#Comment_121520996

Yet again this refusal to answer anything. I asked you if you are the same poster who a number of years ago posted something or other on IAEA and unit size but then could not or would not answer questions posed. Do supporters of green ideology give some kind of pledge never to answer anything ?

What this thread has shown, especially lately, is that for supporters of this offshore plan basic mathematics and economics are ignored in favor of the "expertise" of Irish Green Party ideology, when there are examples of how flawed this "expertise" has been strewn all over the place from culling cattle, to energy security on gas storage and LNG etc. My particular favorite was the "expertise" that was going to somehow create boundaries around communities of 500+ and 500- where it would be legal to sell and gift turf in one, when it would be illegal to do so in the other.

antoinolachtnai

it’s all there in the trading and settlement code, the SEMOpx rules and the terms of the RESS contracts. You do have to understand the workings of the market to understand this documentation

Maybe this report helps illustrate the overall picture, though it really only goes up to 2030 and doesn’t account for the longer term impact of hydrogen and ammonia

https://www.eaireland.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Our-Zero-e-Mission-Future-Report.pdf#page47

I don’t think I said anything about what would be ‘required’.

The whole point of hydrolysers is to minimize curtailment and minimize the amount of new generation required to meet the peaks in demand.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521831#Comment_121521831

Do you really not understand this offshore hydrogen hybrid plan and the rational behind it, or are you just playing dumb because on cost alone you know it is insane ?

These offshore providers are being guaranteed we will pay them for all the produce even if we do not need or use it.

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521946#Comment_121521946

Actually, it's not "all there in the Trading and Settlement code". It was queried at a recent MOUG as to when we would get a detailed design of how this would all work and Eirgrid/SEMO didn't have any definitive information.

There's a new initiative kicked off as part of "Shaping our electricity future" which aims to figure it all out, all based on the "Reform of the electricity market design" agreed by the European Parliament and Council just 7 days ago.

https://cms.eirgrid.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Future-Power-Markets-Newsletter-Issue-3-December-2023.pdf

And

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/12/14/reform-of-electricity-market-design-council-and-parliament-reach-deal/

So it's great that yourself and Akrasia have it all figured out and that ye've already made the necessary modifications to the codes. I'm sure the Market mods committee will be thrilled.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121521993#Comment_121521993

Surely it makes sense to use the electricity that is generated?

are you assuming that Eirgrid is procuring tens of gigawatts of generation all at once? They aren’t. They won’t procure more than they think the electricity system and the economy will absorb in the medium term.

This is exactly the same as the procurement of a motorway or bridge or IT system or any other capital item.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121522068#Comment_121522068

What are we going to use it for if we do not need it ?

It doesn`t matter to these offshore providers what GW of generation Eirgrid needs at any given time. They are guaranteed payment for what they generate whether it`s needed or not.

If you somehow beleve it is good policy for a company guaranteeing those tendering to construct a bridge that it will pay them for another bridge that they may not be needed, then I have a very good second hand bridge I can let you have at a great price.