"Green" policies are destroying this country

For the 10 millionth time, offshore wind is much more reliable than onshore wind

The 5000 GW is purely offshore wind which can have capacity factors of over 60%. This doesn't mean a turbine produces no power 40% of the time, it produces power 90% of the time but some of that time it's producing less than its maximum capacity

Add solar and the interconnectors and we have 80% plus of our electricity generated from renewables within 8 years.

You do need to keep up banana. There was a discussion about it on boards. Never could figure out how to use use boards search facility but more here and here. If you dont like those - there's plenty more about the guardians so called independent reporting out there.

Yeah American style animation is a great source of information for sure 👍

Yes civilisation has benefited from carbon based fuels. And no one is saying we have to use carbon based fuels forever either.

And for the 10 millionth time you either do not know what the word reliable means or that installed capacity factor means Sweet F A when turbines are only contributing very low energy due to lack of wind. Either that or you are just waffling on attempting to avoid.

You cannot design a system without designing for the worst case scenario. It`s the most basic of all basic engineering design principles and for an unreliable energy sources like wind or solar that it the minimum they deliver on any given day. We all know what happened last Winter and Spring when wind for extended periods only contributed 6% or less to a demand at peak of 6,000MW. So the question you are doing your utmost to avoid answering is very simple.

To go from having the need of over 16 times as many more turbines on shore to ensure 100% reliable source, based on the lowest output from off-shore wind terminals how many would we need to reach 100% dependability ? If you want to throw in solar be my guest on the same principle. But spare me the pie in the sky of storage and interconnectors because the only reliable dependable source from those interconnectors will be nuclear. That is if the French have any to spare when we need it.

Where are you getting rubbish like "Corrib was marginal"????? Thats complete and utter rubbish.

And more News for ya - the UK is running out of natural gas and currently imports over 50% of its gas from the international market. Much of that gas is LNG

Let us not do a fricking rehash of the "wah there's no viable gas in Ireland" bs which has already been thoroughly debunked on this thread. I suggest you read it.

Ireland has several known untapped viable sources of Natural gas atm. Natural gas here is currently sourced from the Corrib gas field. Which is operated by Vermilion Energy  a Canadian oil company.

Previously the Kinsale gas field operated by the US Marathon Oil company provided significant reserves of natural gas. With Irelands natural gas fields having provided up to 60% of the countries gas requirements, with the Corrib gas field currently supplying 30 percent of the country’s gas needs

Two additional reserves of natural gas have been identified. The development of at least one which is apparently being deliberatly stonewalled by Mr Ryan.

The Irish government does not do its own exploration or drilling. Exploration and drilling licences are allocated to companies like Marathon, Providence etc. The government then receives large amounts of tax via the sales of the natural gas once extracted. A win win situation which means the country gets to use its own sources of natural gas and the government receives taxation which it uses on essential services such as health, housing etc etc

Tbh the hypocrisy of the idea that importing gas and electricity from abroad as is the case of gas imported or electricity generated via nuclear power from the UK is grand but refusing to consider any such options for Ireland is truely unbelievable

Thanks for the laugh 😅

I didnt know it was the Simpsons but the accents of the characters did identify it as the US 👍

Btw yeah I see the sneaky sinn fein reference there. And no I'm not a fan either!

"One of the worst things about the EU is farm subsidies. Beef and processed Dairy products should be too expensive for most people. If people had to pay the true cost there'd be less demand and our emissions target would solve itself."

Well that complete and utter rubbish for a start.

The Pie chart below detail the type of agriculture farm supports allocated under the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe to all types of agriculture

EU CAP Farm spending by sector

As you see Arable products get a much bigger percentage of the pie at 40% than beef at 18% or dairy at only 4.6 %

But wtf should only beef and dairy products "be too expensive for most people"? You don't like beef and dairy fine. Don't eat either. However these are foods which are a part of a recommended and healthy diet.

The principle reason our agriculture emissions here are deemed higher than some other countries is that an important part of our economy is based on agriculture. We produce beef and dairy products for our trading partners in the EU because we can produce these foodstuffs well, as they are suited to our soils and climate. Ditto we import foodstuffs from other EU countries and elsewhere who produce what they produce well such as fruit and vegetables which don't do so well here.

Two things. 1. As part of the EU, those countries who are food producers shouldn't get sanctioned for producing foods for other EU countries. 2. Irelands highest ghg emissions do not come from agriculture as some would have us believe. That award goes to Energy consumption which accounts for 59% of all Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions 

Now if you or anyone else wish to make a big difference to our emissions, start by turning of your lights, don't use your phone or laptop and make sure you have plenty of blankers this winter because the bad news is that most of the electricity you consume is not being produced by renewables but by oil and gas because renewables energy generation remains completely unreliable. That way there will be less demand and our emissions target will solve itself

MUMO statistics show that without subsidies most people can't afford beef and processed dairy produced in Ireland.

They are already in operation. Hywind in Scotland generates at least some power well over 95% of the time

I`m not sure we will be able to grow spuds soon with all the restrictions, bans, proposed restrictions and proposed bans on fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides.

Surplus generally means more than was budgeted for

Life isn't worth living without pizza and the odd cheeseburger. The subsidies are worth it

Yeah but what is “some” power?

what’s the minimum the turbines generate as a group so that we know how much fossil fuels need to be on the system to pick up the shortfall.

load duration curves. Older smaller turbines have much steeper curves. The newest floating turbines produce at least 20% of their capacity more than 70% of the time. Ireland will have 15GW installed capacity by 2030 for a peak demand of 6-7GW

Combine this with storage (not as much as you think we need), interconnectors and a diversity of generating sources (geographically and technologically) and we're only going to need gas backup a small percentage of the time