"Green" policies are destroying this country

The problem with shutting down the nuclear plant that is they are taking away their reserve generation and it is not being readily noticed by the consumers. The consequence of this green energy transition to unreliable source became apparent in Europe in 2021. Cold Spring weather drove up the demand for gas, during the course of the Summer, wind speeds dropped across Europe for extended periods, meaning the electricity generators had to fall back on gas, there was no other generation source, they had been phasing out coal and nuclear plants. When September came around they suppliers needed to buy gas, they all went into the market, but there was no supply and the gas price increased massively, several suppliers went bankrupt and consumers who had been with those suppliers found themselves being moved to suppliers of last resort on less favourable terms. i.e. more expensive. That happened before the Russians who previously supplied 40% of Europes gas invaded Ukraine and the same politicians who pushed wind & solar, imposed sanctions. The correct response was increase supply, and crash prices, to do that would have meant undoing all the policies of the previous two decades where they actively discouraged extracting oil and gas. Now we are stuck with the consequences, inflating price of energy due to multiple failed policies that cannot resolve the lack of gas molecules.

Ireland has about 2.5gwh of BESS installed. A small percentage of this capacity would be enough to keep critical infrastructure working while power to the grid is restored or backup diesel generators are engaged.

The loss of income from power outages is not the end of the world. There are plenty of scenarios that mean industry has to curtail production temporarily. The COVID pandemic proves that we're pretty resilient, there is always a risk of industrial action that restricts economic activity etc

But the main point you are ignoring is the transition to renewable, carbon neutral electricity is not optional. We need to do this, as quickly as we can to avoid as much of the harms associated with climate change as possible

And we are (re)learning now that fossil fuels are not reliable. The pipes can be shut down. The global supplies are subject to the whims of dictators in OPEC or supply chain disruption

Distributed renewable generation with distributed storage is much less prone to individual points of failure

The point you are ignoring is that it's utterly pointless claiming a necessity in Ireland doing something when it simply isn't true. Ireland is completely insignificant and what it does or doesn't do could hardly matter less. If China, India, Russia and others responsible for high CO2 oitput do nothing, then Ireland might as well do nothing.

That superser heater you mentioned. You could get them for about 70 euro not so long ago. Price pretty much doubled and it is actually sold out in most of the places. Also gas cylinders went up quite considerably. Sign of the times ahead.

• 11 of them available in B&Q seems they sell quite fast.

https://www.energyireland.ie/grid-scale-battery-storage-development/

It truly scares me that there are people this naive.

We are a high tech economy. Loss of grid reliability would not only be a disaster in itself but would be a catastrophic deterrent for future inward investment. The COVID pandemic was world wide, so did not put us at a relative competitive disadvantage. A self-inflicted energy shortage would most definitely cause investment to be redirected to places that can guarantee to keep the lights on. As it was, our debt to GNI ratio went from 95% pre-pandemic to 106% at the end of 2021. It's better than the situation post-GFC where we went from 30% of GNI to 160% in the five years from 2007 to 2012. But the country was more or less bankrupt at that point, and saved only by historically low interest rates. We are still one of the most indebted countries in the world, and the era of zero or negative borrowing rates is over.

Fiscal responsibility is going to be vital for developed economies over the next multiple years. A billion here or a billion there for madcap green energy schemes adds up to serious money. As dyed-in-the-wool socialists, the Green party are the last people I'd trust to have a clue about this, and comments such as the above show how clueless Green thinking is.

Even without the current energy supply shortages, Green policies were going to increase the cost of electricity by at least a factor of two or three between 2020 and 2030. How anybody can be so blind to the implications for competitiveness is frightening, but the Greens appear to be oblivious to the need to even produce any kind of costed plan.

Ireland has managed to stagger along through various headwinds thanks to its outsize economic growth (and tends to be flattered by wonky GDP numbers when GNI is a better metric). But there is nothing automatic or guaranteed about this situation, and energy costs could well be the thing that finally kills the golden goose. The chill winds of slowdowns and likely recession are already blowing through the tech industry and general economy. US IPOs in the first nine months of the year are down 80% on last year and the full year will be worse. This is a time when every economy needs to be looking at its costs, not throwing money around like snuff at a wake.

No, "we" do not need to do anything at all, as Ireland's contribution to global warming reduction will be 0.0°C even if every man, woman, child, and cow dropped dead tomorrow. This is the frustrating thing about Irish Green zealotry. It's like we are inflicted with a deep-rooted psychological need to bring back the Lough Derg pilgrimage by becoming some sort of green flagellants.

Our transition to renewables -- and particularly the rate we decide to do it at -- is optional. The entire EU contributes only 8% of global CO2 emissions, down by nearly a half from 15% in 1990. Ireland's share is utterly negligible. Sure, let's transition along with the rest of the world, but to do it at immense harm to ourselves is insane. It's only you and Eamon Ryan who have deluded yourselves that having done our green penance we'll be able to demand that other much bigger economies do likewise. The level of hubris is mind boggling.

It was only days ago that the Greenies on here took umbridge at the suggestion they were naive enough to think we could do without continued use of fossil fuels. So assuming you agree we need fossils -- 75% of our gas and 100% of our oil is imported -- you presumably also agree that we should be developing our indigenous resources to the maximum extent possible, as both the most secure and lowest carbon option. Eamon Ryan has said that decisions on existing exploration licenses are imminent. You'll be wanting to see a liberal stance on offshore permitting, right?

Do you even read what you link?

So far only 37MW are online and working this time last year. Rest of it is in the same realm as most of the green agenda. LaLa-land.

Care to guess how many more were finished and put to service since that article was published?

Your claim that "Ireland has about 2.5gwh of BESS installed." therefore is just a lie.

I'm so tired of you doom mongers. Quit with the scaremongering about catastrophic consequences from temporary electricity blackouts.

Do you know what is catastrophic? Greenland Ice sheets melting

Or the permanent shut down of the AMOC

Or the permanent complete loss of the Amazon rainforest

The planet where Oil and Gas supplies are used as weapons of war. The world we live in right now

I think it is pretty simple actually. To use an analogy: if you think an asteroid is going to hit the Earth in the forseeable future you will do everything possible to avoid it. That is the mindset of the Greens. Where that analogy breaks down is that an asteroid is a simple one off object that you can target while anything to do with climate is non linear, chaotic and complex which is no help to anybody. So, the solution is not a trade off of elements as it should be but a narrow focus on one element namely Co2 because that is the human variable we can tackle. This assumes a simple modelled equation as true, where THE science is settled with human hand on the global thermostat and in which personal responsibility is seen in moral terms and rules set for people and organizations to be complied with and punished when not. Whether other people, countries are involved is somewhat besides the point.The Truth is an a priori religious supposition and has a strong puritan spirit attached so anybody who objects is seen as a heretic. In other words: an imminent apocalypse is due and we must purge ourselves from our fossil fuel sin with a backdrop of the Gaia theory with a world unbalanced with too many people roaming the planet. To save the planet we need to bring the current one down. Pretty much the same as the socialist dream except for the part that the socialists really believed in industrialization to reach Utopia. So, the Green movement members are the new socialist middle class puritans who consists of a vanguard of soldiers all doing the 'right thing'. The danger is that this vanguard consists of most mainstream politicians, media and quite a few NGO's which keeps the agenda alive. It turns against the people when the **** hits the fan. Goverments increasingly want to keep control on energy and food supply. They dream of getting there hands on our thermostats (via smart meters) and want to control independent farmers as much as possible. In Holland there is a Minister of Co2 with targets who needs farmers to comply with a target cut of Co2 emmissions. But the farmers are pushing back. As the 2nd biggest producer of food (!) this compliance will reduce food production. Never mind, it will only be poor people in the third world who die. By the millions i might add if this agenda will continue in the West.

In short: to save the planet the Greens will push the purge down people's throat, whether they like it or not. It is an undemocratic, neo fascist mindset that will lead to ruin. In fact i see this as an self inflicted armageddon. It WILL lead to a sped up apocalypse if we continue with this wide spread mind virus. In order to save a billion people from the effects of climate change they are willing to sacrifice 5 billion..

There are certain posters on this forum best to avoid engaging with just like when meeting a drunk/deranged person on the street looking for a fight or spouting nonsense. Make no eye contact and just ignore. They are not worth your trouble..

You being tired of doom mongers is quite hilarious seen as you are chief doom monger yourself!

If your so tired of people explaining the consequences of grid outages- then why do you continually post in this thread?