"Green" policies are destroying this country

What is clear from this thread is its pointless debating with people who think they are some kind of crusader saving the world by agreeing with any and every kind of overkill "green" tax / grant (basically the same as a tax in this country - just gets added on to the price of the product) compared to other countries.

The faster the tax increases the better also. Its like some kind of weird virtue signalling stockholm syndrome. Its a strange country we live in.

So ya gonna answer dacor?

This is what I think of our green policies, hear Eamon Ryan on the radio back in June talking about energy policy. The man has vision but no practical skills or forethought. He was asked about gas storage and 3 times he answered a totally different question, he simply refuses to look at it.

I don’t expect this winter to go well so I’m preparing for it.  Hopefully this doesn’t pans out and we’ll be OK

We’ve a B3 rated house so heat wise if we use our stove and let the heat escape the room the rest of the house won’t freeze. We’ll need other back up heating it gas gets shut down. Electric Rads I gave them away 4 years ago!  If we lose gas we’ll probably lose electricity too so we’ll need candles batteries and torches.

If we lose electricity so will shops so will our and their fridges so best to have dry or tinned easy to cook food. I’ve a camping stove and I’ve also camper van with a small gas fridge and cooker. I’ll make sure I’ve extra gas just in case. 

To be 100% non reliant on gas, in an extreme scenario where we're in the doldrums and everywhere else in Europe is also experiencing a shortage of energy at the same time, and its extremely overcast so no solar power, then maybe we might need some gas resources as backup.

But in this scenario, we've cut down on our GHG emissions from electricity production by 99% as those gas turbines only need to be mothballed and turned on for a few days every few years.

Or maybe we might decide that we entirely replace that scenario with BESS which can be used to store excess power that can be used to do useful things while also being a backup in case of emergency.

Not to mention the impact of local energy storage. The future of the grid is one where every single household and every single commercial premises has in site energy storage. With smart meters, this means every single building in the country becomes the baseload, and we get away from the ludicrous scenario where we need to have 6000mw capacity for an average energy demand of 3000mw.

If the majority of buildings have battery storage, they can charge from the grid off peak, and draw from their batteries at peak times therefore evening out the spikes, and allowing renewables to deliver energy as it is available rather than shutting them off when demand is low.

The complete elimination of all Gas turbines may be decades away, but with every new installation of renewable capacity and storage, we can reduce the need for those gas turbines and massively reduce our GHG emissions. If we still have a gas turbine in the mix in 2050 but it's only operating 5-10% of the time to top up batteries when we know there's going to be low renewable energy availability, then this is still a massive improvement over where we are today.

Your previous reply to me was "bolloxoligy" now it's some bizarre comment about Sinn Fein. We are getting hammered with taxes / schemes / hair brained rubbish ideas by the Greens that are putting everyone under unnecessary stress and financial pressure. All because of morons who will support any nonsense that looks or sounds like it should fit their eco warrior persona. But yeah it's something to do with Sinn Fein apparently.

Do you think gas is only needed to generate electricity?

Have you any idea how realising industry is on gas for food production, manufacturing parts, steam for hospitals and pharmaceutical etc etc??

Electricity can’t replace all this at the moment.

Its not all about just being able to keep the lights on.

It’s a fact that every new wind and solar installation reduces our need for gas -EXCEPT WHEN THE WIND STOPS BLOWING FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD IN WINTER A LA 2021!!!!😂

Its a fact grid scale storage reduces that need even further - EXCEPT WE DONT HAVE ANYWHERE NEAR ENOUGH STORAGE TO BRIDGE THE GAP IF THE WIND STOPS BLOWING FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD IN WINTER A LA 2021!!!!!

I have addressed the above two points which addresses your last point.

We are clearly not more energy secure with renewables as we don’t have a supply of CNG storage because of the energy ministers lack of action on getting security of energy for Ireland.

Nothing extreme scenario about the rest of Europe being in the doldrums same as us due to a drop off in renewables. We have seen it twice within the last year alone for extended periods when wind contributed 6% and less of our requirements. Battery technology is nowhere close to storing the energy required for such drop offs and there would be nothing flowing through those interconnectors other than perhaps French nuclear if they had it to spare. Something highly unlikely to go anywhere towards filling requirements as the rest of Europe would be drawing on it as well.

Could you possibly for once just visit the real world rather than this one you jump to where we can store all the energy we need for prolonged periods and where we have 100% reliable dependable energy from renewables and explain what it is going to take to get to this magical world. The present great white hope is off-shore wind and greens talk about yearly average capacity from turbines as if it actually meant something. It`s as useful as an ashtray on a motor bike when it comes to determining how many of them would be required to get even close to 100% which is just basic engineering where design is governed by the worst case scenario. For Ireland that is wind contributing 6% of our needs from the present number of on-shore turbines, even less for periods during this month. For last Winter and this Spring due to the totally undependable nature of wind we would have required 17X the present number of on-shore wind turbines.

So the question is how much is this going to cost to bring us to this 100% dependable energy from wind, because we are spending money on this hand over fist while destroying our economy "to teach the world how it should be done" and from greens when asked this question it`s nothing but evasion and dreams of a brave new world as if it will appear by magic. In the real world money talks and bulls**t walks.

Which we won’t have for this winter.

However ER has been in place since 2020 and hasn’t noticed or has ignored the fact we have no gas storage?

Can we take these green idiots as far away from resources and power before they completely fukk up!