Energy infrastructure

"You'd think they'd have linked up to Wylfa since it's already wired to the grid."

Perhaps not enough capacity or resiliency at Wyfla. Might be easier to just continue underwater then fight locals trying to upgrade overground cables.

What I'm wondering, could it possibly connect with offshore wind farms along the way.

“The thing is, we could be getting fracked gas via the interconnector with the UK and the public wouldn't know or care.”

We effectively already do. We import gas from the UK, which has 3 LNG terminals which import gas including fracked gas, so of course some of that gets to Ireland.

The governments objection to Building a LNG terminal, is that it will actually lead to higher prices for gas, not lower!

Basically because the 500 million or more cost of the terminal would need to be recouped of course.

In case folks don’t know, we buy our gas in the UK gas market at the same UK prices, with a very small extra cost for transport through the interconnectors. The UK gas market is extremely liquid and competitive, between the 3 lng terminals, their own production and interconnectors to Norway and mainland Europe.

We really wouldn’t gain much by building our own LNG terminal other then increased costs.

If we are going to spend 500+ million, then it might be better spent on hydrogen production and storage facilities or more wind farms and interconnectors.

But that is the thing, if you are worried about security of Supply, a LNG terminal would barely improve it at all.

Think about it for a moment, if the Russians are willing to hit the Moffat pipeline, then what would stop them from hitting your LNG terminal too or even LNG ships at sea.

And of course if they do any of this, we all have much bigger issues to worry about as WW3 just started and the nukes are flying!

If you are truly worried about security, then continuing to import a fossil fuel that needs to be shipped around the world and comes at least partly from places like Saudi Arabia, really isn't changing anything.

If we need more gas, I'd rather we developed and explored our own gas fields as mentioned above, then desperately trying to import more LNG. Hell maybe even fracking within Ireland would be an option.

Long term though, the only way we get to true security of supply is using wind + hydrogen (+ solar/batteries/geothermal/biogas), only then would all of our energy production be within our own borders and not reliant on foreign powers for fossil fuels!

Also Hydrogen has the advantage that we could produce ammonia from it and thus fertiliser, which is vitally important to the security of our food supply. Ideally for security, you want to be independent on water, energy and fertiliser/food. Wind + Hydrogen would allow us to become completely independent.

"Our energy security position as it stands belongs in the "we're all one big happy family" world outlook from the 90s until the late 10s which is now, sadly, history."

BTW On this point, I'd disagree, on the contrary, this war has caused closer ties between European neighbours. NATO is now stronger then ever, revitalised and with Sweden and Finland joining. Europe has done a fantastic job in quickly weaning itself off Russian gas, filling up storage, neighbouring countries supplying electricity across interconnectors with each other to relieve the burden, etc. Hell even Britain has eased off on all the Brexit stuff and is reconizing that we are all in this together.