Energy infrastructure

Little old Ireland has absolutely no control over the gas price, we price at the UK NBP price + transport cost. The power price is historically set by the marginal gas generator which is why on average Irish prices are a little higher than the UK. NBP and TTF gas hubs in Europe price based on the cost of the marginal LNG tanker coming to Europe. Oil and gas are global markets and gas prices are rising because emerging market economies are starting to grow and with it increase demand. There is also pressure on the supply side, the US shale boom is over and ESG concerns are growing, operators are thinking long and hard about investing in all but the most guaranteed exploration projects. More Irish or even European renewables do not mean lower gas prices due to less demand for gas, and European decarbonization efforts barely put a dent in the growth we are going to see in Asia, Africa and South America in general gas demand as well as coal to gas switching. Even the US has a long road to go in switching from coal to gas, all pushing up demand for the latter.

More renewables means less gas burned but the same amount of capacity is still needed as reserve, the question is who is going to build a gas plant running at low load factors that risks being stranded by 2040 without huge capacity payments? Batteries are a nice solution but they are risky for that last 1% - that one period in the year where you get an extended cold snap and the battery is fully discharged - you need to overbuild by a large percentage to account for that one hour and the system operator has to plan for all eventualities. Offshore wind has a lot of potential but we are making it extremely difficult to do business here. Nuclear - no chance ourselves, personally not keen on fully outsourcing a huge chunk of our energy security to a foreign entity - we have already sold out half of our property to vulture funds, we need to create a clean energy industry for future generations not contract it out to France or SK. Interconnectors get a big thumbs up from me but they are just part of the puzzle.

Net Zero is a dangerous and politically loaded term, I have never met a long term energy planner who liked it. In my view 95% decarbonization is a hell of a job, that last 5% will cost significantly more and is not worth considering, there is lower hanging fruit globally that those funds could go to.

There are no grid scale batteries anywhere, you are misusing the term severely, which is a battery so vast it can power a nation's grid for a week or two. Existing batteries like the one in South Australia and the even bigger one proposed for NSW, are more like big ripple smoothing capacitors than large, deep cycle truck batteries.

Wind energy has failed miserably to achieve any of that

We have gas we choose not to exploit. Any negative issues of energy insecurity are theirfore an own-goal, for which Ireland are world class. Noway is the class act to follow.

Clown never mentioned anything about the pressures on the Marine environment or why Ireland has failed to designate any MPAs ahead of the developer led carve up planned for vast areas.

Norway has vast hydro resources - there is nothing like that available here as anyone with a basic knowledge of geography will tell u

Spin, what are you on about?

Take 2020 fuel mix. 43% renewables and 50% natural gas. Do you seriously think electricity would be cheaper now if wind didn't exist and the grid was 93% gas?

Include EU fines for having a >90% fossil fuel mix as well.

Your labouring under the fallacy that ever MW of wind replaces a MW of gas - showing your ignorance of how gas plants and basic load works. There is also the matter of windfarms taking power from the grid in low wind conditions to prevent their turbines ceasing up and the truck load of RESS money they get. You will also find the highest energy prices in the EU are associated with grids with the most installed wind capacity like here, Germany and Denmark.