"Green" policies are destroying this country

A recent Yale 360 report tackles many of the claims made on here that renewables are not suitable or lead to increased risk of power outages

"Myth No. 1: A grid that increasingly relies on renewable energy is an unreliable grid.

Going by the cliché, “In God we trust; all others bring data,” it’s worth looking at the statistics on grid reliability in countries with high levels of renewables. The indicator most often used to describe grid reliability is the average power outage duration experienced by each customer in a year, a metric known by the tongue-tying name of “System Average Interruption Duration Index” (SAIDI). Based on this metric, Germany — where renewables supply nearly half of the country’s electricity — boasts a grid that is one of the most reliable in Europe and the world. In 2020, SAIDI was just 0.25 hours in Germany. Only Liechtenstein (0.08 hours), and Finland and Switzerland (0.2 hours), did better in Europe, where 2020 electricity generation was 38 percent renewable (ahead of the world’s 29 percent). Countries like France (0.35 hours) and Sweden (0.61 hours) — both far more reliant on nuclear power — did worse, for various reasons.

The United States, where renewable energy and nuclear power each provide roughly 20 percent of electricity, had five times Germany’s outage rate — 1.28 hours in 2020. Since 2006, Germany’s renewable share of electricity generation has nearly quadrupled, while its power outage rate was nearly halved. Similarly, the Texas grid became more stable as its wind capacity sextupled from 2007 to 2020. Today, Texas generates more wind power — about a fifth of its total electricity — than any other state in the U.S.

Myth No. 2: Countries like Germany must continue to rely on fossil fuels to stabilize the grid and back up variable wind and solar power.

Again, the official data say otherwise. Between 2010 — the year before the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan — and 2020, Germany’s generation from fossil fuels declined by 130.9 terawatt-hours and nuclear generation by 76.3 terawatt hours. These were more than offset by increased generation from renewables (149.5 terawatt hours) and energy savings that decreased consumption by 38 terawatt hours in 2019, before the pandemic cut economic activity, too. By 2020, Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions had declined by 42.3 percent below its 1990 levels, beating the target of 40 percent set in 2007. Emissions of carbon dioxide from just the power sector declined from 315 million tons in 2010 to 185 million tons in 2020.

So as the percentage of electricity generated by renewables in Germany steadily grew, its grid reliability improved, and its coal burning and greenhouse gas emissions substantially decreased.

In Japan, following the multiple reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, more than 40 nuclear reactors closed permanently or indefinitely without materially raising fossil-fueled generation or greenhouse gas emissions; electricity savings and renewable energy offset virtually the whole loss, despite policies that suppressed renewables.

Myth No. 3: Because solar and wind energy can be generated only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, they cannot be the basis of a grid that has to provide electricity 24/7, year-round.

While variable output is a challenge, it is neither new nor especially hard to manage. No kind of power plant runs 24/7, 365 days a year, and operating a grid always involves managing variability of demand at all times. Even with no solar and wind power (which tend to work dependably at different times and seasons, making shortfalls less likely), all electricity supply varies.....

.....To pick a much tougher case, the “dark doldrums” of European winters are often claimed to need many months of battery storage for an all-renewable electrical grid. Yet top German and Belgian grid operators find Europe would need only one to two weeks of renewably derived backup fuel, providing just 6 percent of winter output — not a huge challenge.

The bottom line is simple. Electrical grids can deal with much larger fractions of renewable energy at zero or modest cost, and this has been known for quite a while. Some European countries with little or no hydropower already get about half to three-fourths of their electricity from renewables with grid reliability better than in the U.S. It is time to get past the myths"

https://e360.yale.edu/features/three-myths-about-renewable-energy-and-the-grid-debunked

Ah taking the pedantic escape route. Well that's new 🙄

But yes according to the Merrian Webster dictionary, the mooted state-owned commercial terminal detailed in the article does indeed constitute a proposal, proposition, suggestion, etc etc. That proposal is currently being reviewed.

But we know that where the greens don't want something built - the usual approach seems to be foot dragging, orchestrated objection, mud slinging and any and all other means to fcuk the county up in order that everyone gets to follow their dictates regardless of any logic.

Btw the proposal for a state-owned lng terminal is far from a "guess by a journalist". As detailed the proposal is part of the review, carried out by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. And the way things are going - gas storage and security of supply are becoming increasingly necessary regardless of what the greens may think. Lets hope Eamon doesn't try his usual foot dragging on this one. If he does he should get booted back to growing his lettuces in window boxes permanently.

Not true. It takes about three years to save the carbon used to produce a new car. Old cars can be very inefficient and polluting.

It takes a lot more than carbon to produce a new car - other resources matter besides carbon. And the extraction, refining of those resources and assembly procedures aren’t polluting? Bigger picture.

Cars are one of the most comprehensively recycled products in the world. It still only takes a few years to pay down even accounting for raw materials.

Any of the acolytes want to reply/rebuff this, or are you happy to agree the environment minister has dropped the ball on this?

Its based on scientific analysis of the actual data, I will take over your crying response.

Thanks for the chemistry lesson.

But anyway that's not what the previous bizarre criticism concerned.

At this point in the thread, I believe it has already been well covered that natural gas is the selected transition fuel for the foreseeable.

Ireland doesn't have suitable geography for 5-6 GW of pumped storage that can deliver that for 10 days straight. Pumped storage is some of the worst eco-vadalism imaginable and is a criminal idea.

Ok grand.

Where will this pumped storage site(s) go that will store a weeks buffer of power, that keeps the grid going when the wind stops blowing in the event of a high pressure system during winter?

Spirit of Ireland proposal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland