"Green" policies are destroying this country

I highly doubt there will be blackouts either, but I would welcome them. Blackouts mean the majority of people won't be suckling on the propaganda teats of RTE and Independent news media. The establishment knows that if that particular situation happens, they are well and truly f**ked. With a bit of luck the lights will be turned out on all these frauds.

The same crock of shite where irelands energy needs can be stored indefinitely in CNG or LNG tanks

"As for costs, I don't concern myself with how much its going to cost a private company to do something as it has no bearing on anything for me."

Huh? Those costs translate directly into how much you are going to be charged for your energy. Are you really not curious about how the guaranteed minimum price of electricity for new onshore wind is double the wholesale cost of electricity from just two years ago? Since there are no fuel costs (for all that free wind you were telling us about), aren't you just a tiny bit concerned that other input costs are presumably rising. Wouldn't you like to know what they are so we can figure out the likely trajectory of wind energy prices and whether they are affordable? Such a lack of curiosity is quite surprising.

Thankfully we still have gas to keep things going in this type of low wind weather.

The wind enthusiasts would have us in blackouts right now.

Would love to hear the greens on here solution to the above..... I think we could be waiting a long time. Amber warnings all over the place because the wind doesn't blow and their solution is more wind !

It's telling when you have to resort to making stuff up as your remaining line of defense.

Nobody here has said CNG or LNG will provide indefinite storage for our energy. No-one.

What 30-days worth of such storage does do is bide us time and allow us to keep the lights on at a basic level for a month while we secure alternate supply lines (or start rolling blackouts to extend our fuel storage out).

Today, if the gas stops flowing without gas storage, yes there will be rolling blackouts, but Moneypoint, Tarbert and the various peaking plants will be able to meet most of the peak demand and almost all of the off-peak overnight demand, at least as things currently stand. So no, we won't be totally unaffected but we won't see a complete nationwide blackout either.

Now here's the problem, Tarbert is going next year, Moneypoint in 2025.

Come 2025, if the gas stops flowing, and we still have no means of storage, the grid will essentially go permanently dark across the country within hours and that's it until the gas starts flowing again, the vast majority of this country will have no power. None. Won't even have enough generation capacity that is not reliant on gas to give everyone a few hours of power a day.

Our renewables will be useless - they need a grid to synchronise to and if the grid is for the most part now de-energised, then they can't generate.

Most of our gas turbine plant can be refired on oil, but you're talking about 25 tons of oil per hour for every 100MW of energy generated in a gas turbine - to meet our typical daily high of 5GW, that's 1250 tons of oil an hour - around 30-40 road tankers of oil every single hour and it'll take a few days to mobilise fuel in that quantity. Days we'll be without power because we didn't have any gas stored to keep the generators running.

And all of that is before we even start to contemplate the next problem coming down the line - how are we going to increase our existing generation capacity to cater for even more electricity usage as we push everyone towards buying EV's and heatpumps...

The current status. It'd actually be comical if it wasn't so serious. The madness of relying on wind is clear for all to see. 2.58% (and much of that is actually hydro). 🙄

Extended blackouts mean no water though.

Extended Blackouts will be a complete disaster if they happen.

We may get rolling blackouts.

I just wonder if gas is stopped do we have enough in the remaining fossil fuel plants and the wind farms (that we can’t depend on) to keep the lights on.

If the wind drops for a period of time do we lose some of the grid or all of the grid? I presume load shedding will have to happen to match the load to the available supply of electricity at that time.

If that’s the case which areas are prioritised to be dropped first?

I would not pay much attention to RTE when it comes to statements from the green cult Acolytes of the Beyond on timelines. They are nowadays being allowed to spout the first nonsense that comes into their heads on anything that does not suit their ideology and are allowed to do so unchallenged.

Just in passing this morning I heard another of these talking heads stating that we could all be merrily dancing at the crossroads without a care in the world with 100% renewable energy if the will was there within 5 years. Energy storage it seems is the answer to achieving this 5 year plan. Not a single question as to how that would be possible. Hydrogen is a long term pipe dream. As has already been posted here the cost of batteries as a stop-gap to fill the void of unreliable renewables would build more nuclear plants than we would ever need supplying us with a dependable source of energy, and when it comes to pumped storage Silvermines is apparently now the answer.

Planning permission for Silvermines has not even been applied for. If it ever is it is nothing but another red herring pointless green fantasy make believe that like everything else has not been thought through. It is similar in output to Turlough Hill which would supply 360MW (5% of peak demand) for 6 hours before the upper reservoir would have to be refilled by pumping all that water back up that hill. Not only resulting in a net loss of energy, but for the periods of stored usage during prolonged periods of low input from renewables, would require fossil fueled plants to do that. Whoever came up with that one is wasting their talent. The comedy world is crying out for them.

Was any of that mentioned in that interview ? Nope, talking head just let ramble away in his own make believe world.