"Green" policies are destroying this country

Where have you been the last few weeks. Fossil fuel companies do not need to use PR to demonise renewables to sell their product. Renewables have shown just how undependable they are and that fossil fuels will be needed for a long time to come. Did you not say not long ago that fossil fuel companies were investing in renewables, so why would they wish to demonise their own investment ?

If fossil fuel companies are demonising any energy source then would it not make sense for them to be doing so for nuclear. More countries investing in nuclear would have a much more major effect on their market in the medium and long term than renewables. But then perhaps they are, which would be ironic as it would have them in bed with greens.

The only present decision to solve the crisis here on electrical supply is to burn more gas because we have painted ourselves into the same corner as Germany by shutting or downgrading every other source hoping that renewables would compensate and they have not because they are intermittent and unreliable. We can point at others in the past for ignoring warnings, but the situation we are facing is a direct result of green policy. A policy that now has us even more reliant on an insecure gas supply and one that Irish Green Party policy has added to with the banning of exploration, hand sitting and attempting to ban LNG where there is a European shortage of gas.

Two of the worlds largest CO2 emitters, China and India, are now also taking advantage of the European crisis purchasing Russian oil at discounted prices. Driving our economy into the ground is not going to make one iota of difference to global emission. No more than cutting our cattle numbers will. Nobody is interested in Ryan`s idea that they will somehow blindly follow our example and do the same. I doubt they even notice our "example" but if they do it`s more for the sake of a good laugh.

There are lots of moving parts between the year ahead prices and consumer bills

Give it another month, two at max and 14 would look pretty good...

Politicians across Europe are panicking and ensuring that coal plants are being reopened and stocked across the continent. Meanwhile commentary from India highlights the sanctimonious hypocrisy of their double standards after the recent COP26. She does illustrate very well the resurgence of coal in Europe. However, there is another side to this, India avoids criticism because it’s an “emerging and developing country” and it is both a producer of coal and the world’s second-largest importer. India does buy oil from Russia, refines it then sells it on to Europe, they are laughing all the way to the bank on this occasion profiting from said hypocrisy.

When it comes to long term impoverishment our legislators are virtuous, banning new oil & gas development, banning LNG storage, banning fracking, banning nuclear. Our local energy economy is tanking because of decisions taken over energy policy in the past ten years. Our current overseers are less brave about decisions to impoverish right here and now. Hence the panicked tilt to coal. If the Ukraine crisis resolved overnight, and they got Russian gas back they’d double down on the Green madness in an instant, but, we’ll pay for it over the course of the next ten years and by that time the ejiits who enacted these policies will have moved on or be drawing down their index linked pensions.

The ESB is a semi state I believe and a semi state that has consistently charged on the high side for it's supply over the years. Very well remunerated staff, probably the best gig of all the state bodies. So not sure that state monopiles running energy production or anything else for that matter is that great either.

I agree with you more than not and it's no harm to develop renewables on the proviso that they are carefully sited and don't wreck our natural environment. However we all know they are not the full solution in themselves and storage of excess capacity is a complex problem with dirty solutions. If we're not prepared to have a small nuclear plant ourselves we need permanent political stability and interconnectors with states that do have nuclear. Otherwise we're screwed and have little leverage in times of crisis. Our geography in relation to the rest of Europe leaves us exposed.

I am very dubious, very dubious about the standard current green tech mantra to power everything with batteries. Again we see that battery production & disposal is a dirty business, as bad and worse that other extractive industries.

If we had invested in nuclear 10 years ago we would be in an even better place.

Nothing Ireland does is going to affect Pakistan one way or another.

Do you just pluck these numbers out of your ass? You just ignore requests to provide historical trends for droughts, floods, etc. Pakistan has had lots of historical floods which, adjusted for population size, have killed or displaced more people. Meanwhile, millions of people are killed by the burning of biomass every year that could be saved by the use of fossil fuels. You need to understand that just screaming "billions will die" is neither true, nor a useful way to galvanise support for your cause. Green fanatics run the risk that they're just going to be dismissed as a pack of screaming loonies when people wake up and realise that their "solutions" are just about the worst way to address the world's problems.

what are you going to do about the toxic waste thats left when you try to recycle solar panels? Or how about when the turbines needs to be replaced - you realise they bury the blades? These things being claimed as being good for our environment - like electric car batteries and the resources computers and cars use - but clearly arent

ER says we need laser focus to deliver 1000MW of backup flexible gas for when the wind doesn’t blow.

Some posters on here want to get rid of gas asap………..

The greens are idiots, I heard some green this morning on newstalk saying the international electricity price should be bound to the cost of renewables and not gas as renewables are the dominant generator of energy in the EU now. I don't know what he was smoking but it must be good. Away with the fairies

Seems to be a lot of blame that the extra gas generators didn’t come online due to not getting planning.

What about heat pumps?