"Green" policies are destroying this country

Throwing unlimited billions at it was not going to alter the fact that when the wind does not blow it does not blow. Ramping up efforts to push up demand with EVs and heat pumps were only ever going to make the problem worse. Until there is a proven economically viable method of storing what is produced on good days sufficient to cater for our needs over a prolonged period then those unlimited billions would be throwing good money after bad. The whole green strategy has been one of cart before horse.

throwing billions into creating new state assets, that makes us more energy independent, and less dependent on international energy markets for our energy needs, in particular fossil fuel markets, makes every bit of sense, baring in mind, one of the main reasons for our inflationary pressures is just that!

not only would we become more energy independent, i.e. and in return become less susceptible to international energy markets, we would have brand new state assets, whereby the wealth created could be used to help provide us with our other critical needs, health care, property, etc etc

yes, wind has its issues, but with modern storage methods such as battery, hydrogen etc etc, many of these shortcomings can be over come, so its really time for us to grow up, and do what needs to be done....

...again, its now possible to have an off shore farm up and running within a couple of years, and the debts required to do so, paid back within a few years of operations, and at the end of it, we d have new state assets, to help do the above!

The new gas plants they are planning are going to reduce our gas consumption because

a) they are much more efficient

b) They are specifically designed to be used as backup generators, not like the the older baseload generators we have now, they are intended to complement the rollout of renewable energy by only turning on when they are needed. Currently lots of our wind power is 'curtailed' because it takes too long for the gas turbines to spin up and down, that they keep them on when the supply is in any way marginal.

The new powerplants should reduce how often the gas turbines are needed.

300 Megawatt Gas Turbine Power Plant Cold Start + Full Tour - YouTube

That our gas problems started with Putin's Ukraine invasion is a convenient fiction. Ryan has been falling over backward the last few months to point out that we don't import Russian gas. Blaming everything on the Russians now is revisionist. Sure, gas prices are going up for everyone, but if we're only going to argue about price, then the gas price spike goes back a long way before Ukraine.

And yes, the Greens have only been in power for two years. But they are behind last year's Climate Action Plan which sets out all those ambitions for EVs and heat pumps, and increases our targets for CO2 reduction. There is no mention of the backup energy generation needed to support that, while Eirgrid and the CRU have been pointing out for years that we are under capacity.

Ryan has been vociferously against sensible infrastructure development. He intervened in a quite unseemly way against Shannon LNG. He's been sitting on his hands with existing offshore exploration licenses. He desperately tried to get emergency gas-fired generation when the SHTF but discovered that actually, nobody wants to build a gas plant when they're told that they'll only get to operate it for 500 hours a year for 10 years. IIRC we had to triple the strike price to get any takers -- in which case renewables are effectively pushing up the price of every other form of power generation (which is exactly what sane people would expect). It's clear Ryan wants to operate a niggardly policy that will allow him to scrape by with a bare minimum of fossils until he's ready to push the "big green switch" when -- as he imagines -- batteries and hydrogen are available to take up the slack.

Former managing director of ESB International has no qualms in saying that the government has had its head in the sand:

lonergans approach is for the state to heavily borrow, and build such faculties, if this was done, they would in fact be state owned, baring in mind, the state can current borrow at 2% fixed...

...we would not being going it alone, we would still need and have private investors involved in the whole process, and would still require the current operation interconnectors, and proposed interconnectors...

...again, all of this has been confirmed and agreed by current energy consultants such as sawers....

...i.e. this is the most feasible approach, but again, i wouldnt overly worry about it, as this more than likely is what will not occur....

Perhaps instead of appealing to authority, you should try doing the calculations yourself. Whoever Lonergan is, I'll bet he didn't run any numbers using current gas prices, which are probably here to stay for quite a while.

The Irish populace can't afford the present planning shi​t show. Events are moving far too fast and are far too important in consequence to allow this nonsense to get in the way.

I don't know at what point the governemnt will come to realise this and that it needs legislation to exempt itself from the planning process when it comes to major infrastructure of national significance, but I the sooner it does, the better.

hes only a respected hedge fund manger, so....

...we cant afford not to do this, hence why it probably wont be done, so bring on the black outs!

...companies already starting to invest in such here in ireland, must be wrong so....

Eirgrid highlighted the gap in generation in 2017.

ER got the energy portfolio in what? the end of 2019?

So did ER not read Eirgrids 2017 report no?

Imminent climate catastrophe, manmade climate change, climate fearp0rn, rising temperatures, sea levels and wholesale end of the world if we "did not do something", carbon and nitrogen vilification... All of that crap.

Read the link all this new green religion fallacies are pretty much summarized there.

We all know the current Greens have only had their boots under the table in last couple of years.

We also know that the debate about renewables and what you have to back them up has been going on for many years.

We also recall that the leading proponent of Climate Action plans for several years has been the Green Party.

And we know that the Greens were implacably opposed to investing in other forms of power generation other than renewables.

The public understand who has been leading this particular charge and where the buck stops.

Uh, you did notice that plant is running on OIL??

Uh-oh. Seems we left it too late! A large new fly in the ointment, per Business Post:

The Greens are one part of the problem. The elephant in the room is Germany, the current crisis is the legacy of Chancellor Merkel and Energiewende. Merkel is CDU and was appointed German federal minister of the environment by Chancellor Kohl back in the early 90s. She organised the first United Nations conference on climate, COP 1 in Berlin in April 1995. Alliance '90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) came out in the same time period, forming officially in 1993. Die Zukunft ist grün is the manifesto adopted by Alliance 90/Greens in 2002. Its been translated in English as The future is Green. Since the German Greens have been most successful politically all other European Green political parties have adopted this manifesto including the Irish Greens. They are just one part of the problem, The German CDU (allied with Fine Gael via the EPP) is the party that tried to capitalise on the environmental politics (trying to head off the growth of eco-socialism) in the wake of the collapse of the communist bloc. There is also Chancellor Schröder who led the SPD in coalition with Alliance '90/The Greens before retiring to sit on the boards of Russian gas companies. Put bluntly German domestic politics has spilled over into other EU countries including Ireland, this is why the establishment parties in Ireland follow the same path as Germany. It therefore follows that the current path only ends with a change in German politics, in particular, Energiewende.

As we are the only answer greens have is using more gas, so you do the figures and let me know how much renewable capacity we would need to guarantee dependability when the wind is at it`s lowest, how much it would cost and how long that would take. According to green financially viable energy storage is just around the corner, so if it is what is the point of firing those billions at more renewables capacity when the base plate capacity of renewables is 75% of our needs .

When it comes to energy consultants advocating throwing more unknown billions at this I would be more inclined to listen to Don Moore ex Head of ESB International. Even if greens are refusing to get it he does and has said so publicly. We blindly followed the German model, (the Irish Green Party still is even though Germany no longer are), based on noting more than hope it would all work out rather than the realities that were being pointed out by Eirgrid and the CRU, and reality just caught up with hope and gave it a kicking.