"Green" policies are destroying this country

"in a few years when another technology is ready and viable we will no doubt pursue it."

And churn the market again? Leave the countryside littered with the environmental vandalism that these huge turbines require in their construction?

How can the public get rid of the greens before the next election?

I have so had so much trouble attempting to get my head around supporters of this offshore plan saying it`s our only or best viable option when they cannot even give an estimate of the cost involved. For me, from what we know, the offshore aspect alone makes it unviable let alone the whole unknown uncosted hydrogen add-ons and I never even considered the water that would be needed.

We are being told to conserve water so I cannot see Irish Water being overjoyed, so that would mean desalination which would also add construction costs and all the kit required, plus it would also require yet more electricity to power the process. Then their is the question of what you do with the remaining brine. Dumping it back in the sea doesn`t sound environmentally friendly, so greens may not be enthused with that.

It also raises the question as to how practical this proposed hydrogen solution would be for large area of the world where there is a shortage of water as well as those that have no shorelines. Either way it would be another unknown added cost.

Strange as it may seem to you if we did go down the road of this E.S.B. plan I would favour a 25 year strike price. Any business plonking anything in the environment those turbines are meant to go into would look to front-load as much of the cost as possible. They are going to do that anyway for a 15 year strike price, but a 15 year strike price leaves them, as they would own those turbines, with the very real option off looking at what shape those turbines are in at that stage and not even bidding for a second 15 year strike price and walking away, or just upping the bid.

Whatever it is, the strike price for the consumer will be double with all the hydrogen associated costs on top. As you said, nobody is going to give it away for free

I may have missed it, but where in the E.S.B. plan does it say they intend selling hydrogen, and there is not much point in claiming we will arrive at hydrogen sooner than nuclear when along with not knowing what hydrogen will cost we don`t know if hydrogen will even work to scale.

The extension lead to sunny climes as far as I recall was at one stage considered by the E.U. Not a great idea imho after what we have seen with Russia to have an extension lead from Sub-Saharan Africa. I cannot see how it would comply with E.U. directives on energy security either. Best of luck to the U.K. if they wish to do ahead with it, but then not long ago their Prime Minister was talking about building a bridge to connect N.I. to Scotland.

We are getting closer to that expression beloved of Yanks, money talks, bullsh1t walks.

Hopefully we get there before irreparable damages to the economic.

From the Greens, the beatings will continue until morale improves. . .i.e their answer more taxes. Considering we must consume energy to do everything we need to survive in Ireland, carbon taxes are a tax on consumption.

Up to 40% of households now in energy poverty

Govt’s failure to cap energy prices or cut taxes has driven 700,000 households into energy poverty claim Rural TDs

If we have not heard enough of climate, climate, climate, there are more subsidies for media and churnalists in Ireland to tow the line. The new media commission will also be mandated to “have regard” for Ireland’s climate minister, and the policies of his department.

It goes without saying, diversity that challenges or upsets the narrative is frowned upon.

Nature also regularly decides the wind output is quite low for a couple of weeks at a time.

Are you happy enough to spend 120bn on a generating source that you can’t depend on for a number of weeks?

It’s not so much an argument as an appeal to authority.

DC interconnection? Very drole.

it’s not the peak demand that matters. It’s the trough.

it’s not a single grid in IoI. It’s two grids with limited interconnection.

500 MW plants? You never proposed that. I presumed you knew that they were stupidly uneconomic.

Thank you for your Wikipedia links. Fascinating

if you accept that your fantasy plant will take ten fantasy years to build (more like 20 including planning and location realistically) what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Sit around and watch the price of carbon in ETS auctions raise to the sky and not do anything?

Hope that we will eventually get a nuclear plant built?

This post should be stickied.

Why would anyone have built widespread nuclear when it was subject to widespread objections, and besides we had an abundance of cheap gas, oil, coal and peat to burn and we had no climate emergency or carbon reduction targets to deal with?

Well, the French did, and mostly through neglect, are now desperately trying to restore their nuclear base to provide many decades more cheap, reliable and carbon free energy to their citizens.

In the meantime, who has deployed a fully renewable grid, since they're so amazing, and where can we see how much it costs? Or are we here in Ireland going to somehow solve the technical constraints of renewables that ramp from two extremes of literally no energy to way too much, but can't possibly even consider the "problem" of nuclear which will provide slightly too much power far more of the time with the risk it may also not provide power for a much shorter period of time?