"Green" policies are destroying this country
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The first article is nonsense, it starts out saying NO2 bad and killing people, then jumps to talking about older cars producing more CO2. Which is it do older cars produce more NO2 than newer ones. There is no point talking about air quality and then jumping to CO2
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Failte Ireland are working through their parts of the Climate Action Plans with two announcements today as part of their first national conference on driving climate action in tourism businesses. The conference will provide practical supports for businesses in measuring and reducing their carbon footprint.
Details on the annoucement
In 2021, the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act set legally binding emission reduction targets of 51% by 2030 through fixed Sectoral Emissions Ceilings limiting greenhouse gas emissions for each economic sector.
Fáilte Ireland has developed 8 expert Climate Action business guides tailored for the tourism sector to enable businesses to make practical operational changes to reduce their carbon footprint. Areas such as energy efficiency, better water and food management systems, biodiversity opportunities and delivering sustainable meetings, events and festivals are covered in the guides.
Fáilte Ireland Climate Action Guides:
- Energy Management
- Waste Management
- Water Management
- Carbon Offsetting
- Biodiversity
- Meetings and Events
- Festivals
- How to Tell Your Climate Action Story
Businesses will also be introduced to the ‘Climate4Business Toolkit’, a carbon calculator which has been developed by the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment with support from Fáilte Ireland and other agencies. It is a user-friendly measurement tool for tourism businesses so they can calculate their own carbon footprint using an internationally recognised carbon reporting framework. Measuring the carbon footprint in a business is a key step in managing and reducing it.
As part of Fáilte Ireland’s marketing plans for 2023 it will dedicate €500,000 to showcase best-in-class sustainable attractions, activity providers and tourism experiences.
Paul Kelly, CEO Fáilte Ireland: “Today is about introducing the tourism industry to practical supports and expert advice to empower and enable them to make operational changes that reduces their carbon footprint. Our Climate Action Guides will provide businesses with proactive steps which they can take towards developing a truly sustainable tourism offering. Businesses will also hear about an analysis we are undertaking of sustainable certification opportunities for businesses. A recommended framework which will allow our marketing and commercial development teams to create new sales and marketing opportunities for sustainable tourism businesses. In the second half of 2023, we will have a dedicated marketing budget of €500,000 to support and promote businesses that are on their climate action journey.”
We'll be seeing more and more initiatives like this as each of the sectors launch programmes to address their specific emission targets.
I wonder which sector we'll hear from next, possibly agriculture. Those lads are doing great work
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Well look no further than the UK to see what shenanigans the power companies get up to with their smart meters.
"A rising number of households are having their energy smart meters remotely switched to prepayment meters, the energy regulator has said.
Suppliers can use the technology to swap customers onto a payment method that is often more expensive without their permission.
It can leave customers, who need to top up, at risk of running out of energy.
Ofgem said some had been left without power for days or even weeks, and a trade body said "mistakes" were made.
"We won't know until the end of the year how many people were switched to prepayment meters," said Dhara Vyas, the director of Energy UK, which represents thousands of suppliers. . . . . . . . .
Once a smart meter is installed, it is a much simpler process for a supplier to swap the customer into prepay mode at the push of a button, rather than having to apply for a warrant and install a physical box.
Ofgem's rules state that energy companies must speak to customers before moving them on to a prepayment meter, but the regulator said it was concerned this was not always happening".
As the article says it's disconnection by the back door. Of course for the power companies it's a lot easier than having to go to court to get a warrant to physically install a pre payment meter, now they can switch people onto such plans with little oversight.
When most of us say "social justice" we mean equality under the law opposition to prejudice, discrimination and equal opportunities for all. When Social Justice Activists say "social justice" they mean an emphasis on group identity over the rights of the individual, a rejection of social liberalism, and the assumption that unequal outcomes are always evidence of structural inequalities.
Andrew Doyle, The New Puritans.
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Surely the meters are connected via the internet, so I'd imagine it's probably not to difficult to disconnect the internet cable or just cut it?
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they’ve been quite aggressively trying to install them where I am. Installers just turning up at the door on one occasion. I’ve very firmly told them where to go with their smart meters
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All smart meters use a national wireless communication network to send information to your energy supplier. So, even if you do not have an internet connection in your home, a smart meter will still work
Will just leave that there for digestion.
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Aye, they have a sim card. Did you think that a smart meter needed a property to have an active wifi connection?
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Hinkley-C might cost £30Bn to EDF to build BUT the UK govt has guaranteed indexed linked payments of €122Bn to EDF which is the Real Unavoidable Cost for the electricity. ( The wiggle room is it's about 3% cheaper if Sizewell goes ahead / 5% dearer if they can maintain a 95% capacity factor , assuming EDF aren't so utterly incompetent as to fail to get it going by 2030 )
€83 commitment for 13.2GW average output is a lot cheaper than €122Bn for 3GW average output. With nuclear you can't walk away if something better comes along as it's a 35+ year contract. Nuclear is utterly inflexible.
I'm not saying Drax is open because Hinkley-C is late. But I am saying that the amount of power needed to make up the shortfall is the same size as Drax , and since nuclear is baseload only we're talking fossil fuel so it's A Drax, not necessarily THE Drax which is on the other side of the country.
Max cost for hydrolysers is £1.5/watt based on Scottish Power's 100MW Felixstowe project due in 2026, ie. sooner than Hinkley-C. There are PEM / Acid / Alkaline / Ceramic versions with different characteristics and different raw material requirements and prices are falling dramatically.
Do I have to remind you that gas storage in disused gas fields or salt domes is cheap ? The Rough Storage Facility was closed to save £75m a year. 40 years that sort of cost would pay for Hinkley-C. Or at least the cost increases. Or rather the cost increase so far this year. Seriously grid scale storage costs are a rounding error on the costs of nuclear. If you have enough storage you don't need baseload. The gas the Dutch have in storage now could supply 70% of our current gas demand until 2026 ( the other 30% from Corrib )
Round trip efficiency is only 40% but even now with 5.2GW of wind we have to curtail output when demand is low.
With commercial nuclear power the closer you look, the worse it gets.
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Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.
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No ofc not. I work In IT someone asked.
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That is why we need long term state investment in large modern nuclear plants and leave private companies to develop small nuclear modular ones that are transportable with the market sorting itself out without the help of subsidies.That is a flexible system despite of what you say, and reliable unlike solar and wind (obviously). Back up the system with gas and leave most of the oil to the heavy industry with some lighter kerosine/diesel f home heating/transportation/aviation. We should continue developing wind and solar but only as far as it doesnt disrupt the grid too much. And keep innovation happening for possible more efficient technologies and step away from banking on lossy and unreliable technologies. This is the only balanced, least disruptive way for the future and will put trust back into society and the markets. But instead we get COP27. Groupthink 2022. Clearly nothing learned from Paris 2015 and doubling down. Skewed to the core..
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In other news
the first 2.5GW of new offshore is up for auction within the next few weeks, woot!
This is a seminal moment in the delivery of offshore wind in Ireland. The offshore auction, the first in Ireland's history, is expected to provide a route to market for up to 2.5GW of offshore renewable energy to the Irish grid, enough to power 2.5 million Irish homes with clean electricity. Coming during the weeks of COP27, publishing details of the auction sends a strong international signal that Ireland is serious about offshore energy and our national climate targets and obligations.
Recognising the critical role of local hosting communities in the development of this critical infrastructure, all offshore wind projects developed via ORESS will be required to make Community Benefit Fund contributions, from construction phase and continuing for the duration of the support period, typically for a total period of 25 years. This will result in lasting, tangible benefits for these communities.
Speaking about this development, Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, said:
"The publication of these ORESS 1 Terms and Conditions is another massive step forward – for offshore wind, for Irish climate leadership and towards Ireland’s future as an international green energy hub. The first stage of this transformative auction will start before Christmas and it sets us on a path to powering many more of our homes and businesses from our own green energy resources over the coming years. It follows the enactment of the Maritime Area Planning Act last year, and the announcement regarding the awarding of Maritime Area Consents to Phase One projects last month."
A final ORESS 1 auction calendar will be published by EirGrid shortly. The pre-qualification stage will launch next month (December). The qualification stage and the auction process will take place in the first half of 2023. Final auction results will be published by June 2023.
There's several projects already lined up
Any project that has been awarded a Maritime Area Consent is eligible to partake in the ORESS 1 auction. Seven projects – known as 'Relevant Projects' – were deemed ready to apply for Maritime Area Consents in Spring 2022. Once Maritime Area Consents are granted, these projects can not only compete for State support via the ORESS, but can also apply for planning permission from An Bord Pleanála.
And there's more to come, a whole more
Further auctions will be required to meet our renewable energy and climate ambitions. At least three offshore energy auctions are currently planned for this decade. The aim is to progress enough viable offshore projects through the consenting system to have competitive auctions. This will ultimately drive down cost for electricity consumers.
One of the great things about how this has been put together, we should see power coming online as fast as possible as there's penalties if bidders take too long
Once successfully awarded a letter of offer via the ORESS 1 auction, projects will be required to reach deployment milestones over subsequent years. Project owners are incentivised to deploy as soon as possible via the offer of extended support periods, and disincentivised to deploy late via a reduced support period duration and financial penalties.
Its not quite what you had in mind @correct horse battery staple but its not far off
ORESS 1 requires offshore wind projects to make set financial contributions to the local hosting community – via a professionally administered community benefit fund.
These funds are required to be in operation in advance of a project’s construction phase. Payments ramp up as the project operationalises and continue for the lifetime of the support period. This results in a significant boon to coastal and marine communities (in proximity to offshore wind projects).
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The investment in the Foynes freight line will definitely help in that ports bid to become a major hub for the construction of offshore wind turbines.
Work is due to start on reopening the Foynes-Limerick rail line as a freight service as part of a €104 million upgrade, which could possibly see a passenger service also return to the 164-year-old rail line in the future.
Clearing of vegetation along the 42km track has already started, and major construction work on the line begins in the coming weeks which will see the old track removed, the installation of new rail track and sleepers, upgrading road infrastructure at level crossings, rehabilitating bridges and culverts and the renewal of lineside fencing.
It also aligns with the Shannon Foynes Port company's recently-launched 2041 Masterplan, which aims to transform the port into a hub for the production of giant ocean-based green wind turbines off the Shannon estuary, and as a location for the production and transport of green energies like hydrogen and ammonia.
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I put electric into the search nothing. So Diesel 😁
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,606 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 89844
Small modular transportable load-following serially produced nuclear reactors exist and have run reliably and safely over most of the last 70 years. But no one's been able to commercialise them. And with the falling costs of renewables it's never going to happen except for niche cases.
https://www.google.com/maps/@46.565551,-119.520194,406m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
The Chinese have taken 15 years to make a small reactor using German tech that was demonstrated in two reactors in the 1960's and 1980's. The Chinese are only considering it for remote areas by Chinese standards and that's still years and years away. Rolls Royce are suggesting that if £32Bn of modular reactors are ordered they'll be able deliver 7.04GW of them by 2040 or in the 2040's or something. Too little, too late.
State investment ? The UK economy is ten times our size, they have been doing nuclear power since 1953 and they still need the French and Chinese governments on board to build ONE nuclear power plant. And it's 10 years late. And insanely expensive.
Nuclear can't be relied upon to be built on time, stay on line, and not shutdown years early. When people talk about 95% uptimes they gloss over the BIG outages.
Japan lost all it's nuclear power in 2011. Of the 50 reactors that weren't destroyed 40 are still off line. You can blame the design or maintenance or public opinion or politics but it doesn't matter. What matters is that nuclear can't be depended upon. Ask the French , most of their nuclear power has been offline since April. Ask the neighbours, 6 reactors shutdown early, 3 offline or at reduced load and 4 due to close in less than 18 months time. And one plant with construction delays, others cancelled and even if Sizewell goes ahead it will be a long time before it delivers a single unit of electricity.
What's Sinn Fein's policy on nuclear power ? What's their policy on handing great wads of cash to foreigners ? Would the Loyalist Communities Council threaten action against nuclear power in a 32 county republic ? Nuclear is exposed to politics for decades is a way that smaller generators aren't.
The market decided on nuclear a long time ago. It was the only part of the UK power industry that wasn't sold off. The companies that build the plants hover on the edge of bankruptcy or nationalisation. They are not financially viable on their own.
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I suggest you investigate modern nuclear power stations like the ones in Canada like Bruce or even the German ones. France has mismanaged their nuclear industry for years as the whole industry has been disrupted. The UK has outsourced theirs to the French state companies.You also vastly underestimate the newest modular ones. So, as far as i can see you dismiss nuclear even though its technology has vastly improved.Well, if that is the case you will have to support fossil fuels, at least for the moment, especially gas and coal and make poor countries less reliant on burning wood which kills many people every year. To make them poorer by forcing wind and solar is most certainly the worst thing you can do. Many failed experiments to underpin that unless you want to deprive poor people from things like refridgerators. Energy has to come from somewhere unless you of course hate modern society. Then you can go the Greta way which seems appealing to many..
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If you could stop with the made up figure it would really help.
The U.K. government has not guaranteed EDF €122 Bn index linked.
It has a strike price contract (a contract for difference) with EDF of £92.5 per Mwh for 35 years from when Hinkley comes on line. Reduced to £89.5 if EDF takes a final investment decision on the Sizewell nuclear plant. By comparison the latest RESS strike price is average €97.87, community €116.41, for onshore wind and solar for 10 years.
Again with the figures! €83 Bn is not the commitment for 13.2 GW, (which btw from your own figures is 12.6 GW) It is the absolute best case scenario based on the U.K. average for just the construction costs for the offshore turbine part of the plan. It does not include the onshore construction cost of the onshore construction for Hydrogen production or storage. Based on the 2019 Hornsea 1 that €83 Bn would increase to €120 Bn.
The proposed 12.6 GW produced would not, like nuclear, be solely for domestic use, but you already know this. It would be a 50/50 split, domestic/hydrogen. 6.3GW for domestic use, 6.3 GW for hydrogen production to fill the gap of unreliable renewables. Whatever the strike price for that offshore electricity would be per Mwh, it is pie in the sky to believe it will be less than the present strike price for onshore.
But lets for the fun of it say it would be. That would leave it being €195.74 per Mwh ( 97.87 X2) plus the unknown costs of hydrogen production and storage on top as the only people paying would be the consumers. That would give a strike price for the ESB plan somewhere well north of €200 per Mwh guaranteed for just 10 years compared to U.K. nuclear strike price of £92.50/£89.50 guaranteed for 35 years.
This offshore plan does not in any universe make sense on capital cost or the cost of electricity. It is unviable financial nonsense.
Once again attempting to connect Drax too nuclear is on the level of "If your aunt had testicles she would be your uncle". Drax is nothing other than a carbon emissions green-washing, book-keeping scam that is costing the U.K. £2.4 million per day in subsidies.
If we have all this storage capacity in disused gas fields and salt domes then would it not have been an idea to use them for storing gas seeing as we have zero energy security, or have the greens an ideological problem with that ?
Because of it`s properties hydrogen is a lot more "leaky" than natural gas, so while those areas may be alright for storage I`m not sure piping it from them would be such a great idea. Moot point though, as there is no point talking about a process which is not known whether it would work or not, and most importantly how much it would cost. With nuclear none of those problems arise.
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This is what the green crowd do not get: no matter how they twist the numbers they cannot make the numbers work for them. So they have to manipulate them to get a desired outcome.
Oh, and they have form in that too and it goes beyond renewable projects. Their buddies in the IPCC have been caught out fiddling the temperature data that they base their alarmism on.
Even this summer we've seen an attempt to have Dublin's 33.0c recorded in Phoenix Park regarded as Ireland's official record high temperature. They wanted to wipe Kilkenny's 33.3c recorded in 1887 out of the history books. Thankfully Met Eireann ran them up the garden with that one.
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There is a saying the Yanks are fond of "Money talks, bullsh1t walks"
Greens have had an easy ride up until now on that. It was butterflies and unicorns dancing in our gardens because of their supposedly cheap electricity from renewables. Now they are receiving huge electricity bills and are asking what the fcuk, is going on. If this is what we are getting for all the money that has been spent, (even if nobody actually knows what has been spent, or if they do they are keeping very quiet), then how much more are they planning on spending and what will that result in in bills with everything supposedly going electric
Michel Martin seems to believe it strange people are asking. Well Duh Michael, why don`t you just tell them. Unless that is you do not know either. If not, then my advice is not to ask the greens as they appear to be totally numerically illiterate. Even their spokesperson for Transport, Climate Action and Environment took two years to work out that the million E.V`s by 2030 was a numerical impossibility.
T
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Same happened to me and my brother-in-law as well. Two different installers and both shown where the road was. I wonder are they on some kind of headage scheme.😎
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I wounder who has the tender and a target to meet or bonus for meeting certain targets. Mine got put in nothing I could do. There all in the same area.
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Just to add any shenanigans around here tends to be white vans from UK I.E the north.
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Indeed. I am usually reluctant getting into the numbers so thanks. The issue, as always is that if you dismiss both fossil and nuclear energy you get to the rest like hydrogen and green hydrogen in particular. That is such a lossy outcome one look would suffice to dismiss it. And again, everything green hangs on the fact of dismissal of efficient energy sources in favour of inefficient ones and runs against the historic record.Now, a properly educated child can figure that one out. Alas, it is the mind set of the current regime with an intrinsic groupthink supported by the mainstream media and celebs. It's all for the history books because reality will trump fantasy eventually.
As a side note, i remember that many years ago the future looked bright for Africa as huge solar farms in deserts would pull humanity out of the clutches of fossil fuels. But, apart from some successful projects, at scale it fails to deliver. Will the greens ever admit defeat or that theyve been wrong on anything? Some do and have but are then waylaid as heretics or simply ignored. Whatever does not suit the Green Agenda must be either destroyed or surpressed. I have to both admit and admire the huge success they've had. I really blame the media, the BBC in particular for pushing the bias down our european throats while still claiming impartiality which is in their statutes. They are so far up their arse it beggars believe..
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I suggest you (and everyone else) read the small publication of 'global warming, a case in groupthink' by Christopher Booker. It is published by the GWPF (www.thegwpf.org) 82 pages.Kindle £2, paperback £3.75.
A short insight of the history of the IPCC. Quite shocking..
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Of course they're never wrong.
The mass movement to diesel because it cut CO2 per KM compared to petrol wasn't an error on their part, no, it's that everyone went and replaced their petrol cars with diesel instead of switching to the (non-existent in many cases) public transport instead.
And now, the target of 1mn EV's being unachievable - both in terms of the ability of supply chains to deliver, and the ability of our grid to sustain the significant increase in electrical load - again, not the Green's fault, but that of everyone owning a car. Everyone on their cargo bikes instead lads! Yes, even you the cheeky pup who bought an affordable house in Port Laoise but works on the Naas Road, you too!
And dare point out the hypocrisy of huge cohorts of people flying here, there and everywhere to climate conferences to preach about how we all need to cut our emissions, work from home more, reduce unnecessary journeys? Is that perhaps failing to lead by example? Well no, you're just being deliberately obtuse and intentionally missing the point by having the absolute cheek to bring that up. Repent, you climate change denying heathen!
And if the green hydrogen plan fails to be the groundbreaking success they would have us believe? Well then the inevitable blackouts are entirely our fault for not significantly reducing our use, and absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with having banked our future energy needs on completely unproven (at scale) technologies like hydrogen and BESS backed solar and wind while increasing demand on the electrical grid on a scale probably not seen since the original electrification of this island.
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Christopher Booker (RIP) wrote a book titled Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion which delved into Darwinism, Global Warming, and politics in general. The PDF on the GWPF website overs a specific part of that book GLOBAL WARMING A case study in groupthink (PDF). He also borrows from Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (1972) and Charles MacKays - memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions.
Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.
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Marketing and PR would be No1 there on list FI priorities
https://supports.failteireland.ie/climate-action/climate-action-story/
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As I've mentioned in the past, Putins little escapade is seeing the EU move faster and faster towards a cleaner energy system.
The latest moves will see the EU27 go from a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 to 57%.
At the rate its going that is likely to be above 60% within another year or two as more and more fossil fuels are removed from the various energy systems.
All in all, great news to see the EU lead the way on this important endeavour
RTE news : COP27: EU vows more emissions cuts
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Just curious - after 17000 posts - has any conclusion been reached by this thread?
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