Energy infrastructure

I think you are being overly skeptical (more than cynical). If you'd told me in 2010 that within ten years 42% of all electricity consumed in Ireland would come from renewables, I'd have told you to see a psychiatrist. Yet here we are.

Yes you're right that the planning system is a big drag on the roll-out of renewables but that's a problem that can be fairly easily addressed - either by legislation (pending) or by properly resourcing the planning system so that cases can be evaluated in a timely manner.

But the forces in the other direction are much stronger - the shift to wind and solar for electricity generation is now an unstoppable global juggernaut, driven not by politics or activism but by prices - i.e. plain old capitalism. So even an inefficient planning system cannot stop this process.

Thermal generation (nuclear, fossil-fuels, biomass, etc.) hare doomed because prices for solar and wind have entered a virtuous cycle where more deployment globally causes increases in production which results in increased manufacturing efficiency which leads to lower prices, which leads to more deployment... and repeat.

This cycle doesn't work for most other forms of electricity generation because of the unique aspect of solar PV and wind - they have almost zero operating cost and zero fuel costs. This means the cost of electricity from these sources is almost purely a function of the cost of mass-manufacturing their components. We know how mass production disrupted everything from horse-transport to computers and now it's doing the same for electricity generation.

Mealy mouthed self serving Guff, Just more BS from WEI to justify their developer led agenda of gouging energy consumers

Coal futures are spiking massively over the last few days

European gas prices to top $2k

You'd hope our government will re-think the ban on exploration licenses off Irish coast

Iran will kick back in as a supplier, Saudis will up production, Russia only provide 8% of the world's oil, gas demand will drop as the weather gets milder, expect crude prices to normalise by June/July,

How do they compare to18/19? Covid years are an anomaly

https://images.app.goo.gl/vrF9FTyKkeFtvJJz6

There's quite a few news stories the last few days stating a nuclear deal is close and that Iran could supply 1-1.5million barrells a day

Really wish we could keep this as a state industry instead of a private company coming in and making lots of profit after offsetting startup costs against payment of tax.

Green hydrogen has massive potential if we really push offshore wind.

There will be a massive demand for it in the future.

Good question - I don't have a short/simple answer to it to. There isn't an immediately available drop-in replacement for burning NG or oil for home heating available today which can compete on price while providing the same convenience.

For cooking, the answer is simple - electric induction is clearly the future and although is a small bit more expensive to run, it's a price worth paying for the superior performance in every way and if you don't fancy adding considerable NOx to the air in your home.

While heating is trickier, home heating "revolutions" happen quicker than you'd think. I'm old enough to remember living in a house where burning coal and/or turf/briquettes provided nearly all the heating and hot water with most of the rest of the country doing the same. NG dominates German home heating because it was the best available option for many to replace coal which effectively got displaced quickly within a decade by NG back in the 1980s. In Ireland, because of the more sprawling housing, we went more for oil than NG and it took longer for coal to lose its top position.

Medium to long term, I believe that the answer will be electricity. Even today, night rate prices are not that far away per kWh of heating (about 10c according to the SAEI) from the cost of gas (about 6c) or oil (about 8c).

Consider the sums - using roughish estimates, an average house might require (ballpark) 15,000 kWh per year of heat. About 1200 euro per year for oil say. Using night-rate electricity this would cost about 1,500 euro - not outrageously more expensive (assuming you're already paying the 250 standing charges for night-time laundry or car charging).

If a true hourly variable rate/demand price tariff were available to households, then you could buy the electrical energy for even less. This is surely coming, despite the UK making a mess of it, as more and more intermittents are added to the grid.

Unfortunately, this would only be one part of the solution. The big problem remains that the times when electricity is cheap may not line up with when you actually want to add heat to your home. On the other hand, storing heat is not rocket-science. For modern under-floor heating, the floor mass itself acts as a kind of thermal storage. In older houses, a bunch of companies are selling dedicated thermal stores are available. I was given a "tour" of such a system last year in the house of a friend's in France - it looked fairly complicated but at its core it wasn't not much more complex than a well insulated but massive closed hot water tank - and plumbing to exchange the heat between the tank and the central heating circuit and hot water circuit.