"Green" policies are destroying this country

Think renewable tech is definitely needed but it's not the silver bullet the greens make it out to be

Nobody claim engine block is made of copper or manganese apart from you. Iron and aluminium are not included in that picture simply because there is no actual or projected shortage of them compared to quite real shortage of other minerals mentioned when crazy targets presented by government and politicians in their quest for green sainthood are taken seriously.

Ireland has barely scratched the surface regarding the potential of wind power and still it generates 1/3 of our total needs...

We have practically no off shore wind farms despite the west Atlantic being the windiest place in Europe. Northern Inishowen (Malin Head) is the windiest part of Ireland by a distance but to my knowledge no winds farms there either

We are a wind swept island being battered daily by the Atlantic. We should be producing so much wind and water power that we have countries lining up to buy from us.

You are asking the wrong questions. How do you generate return on capital for generators that only work 25% to 40% of the time and not always when electricity is demanded? How do you afford a system where generation can within 24 hours, go from consuming power to one that generates too much power and must be curtailed, with curtailment payments. Like it or not, us consumers pay for that inefficiency. It does not matter how many turbines there are when there is no wind there is no generation, not only that, anticyclones can and do settle in across Western Europe leaving the entire continent short of wind generation at the same time. Go look into the business model, it's not cheap and the evidence over the past 2 decades show a correlation between the increases in electricity prices with the penetration of unreliable generation right across Europe.

Your question is easily answered. The answer is the capacity remuneration mechanism which forms part of the all-Ireland electricity market.

What is a curtailment payment? A wind farm does not get paid for curtailed generation.

Ahh sure, build more cycles lanes to nowhere that nobody even wants to use. Park your bike up in the city and get it nicked. Ideology over all else.

Wind is not that prevalent in europe energy makeup and even though there are plans to put more turbines on problems wont go away as wind is finicky and not a stable source as other posters said time and again.

Another thing is that as soon as russia situation normalize which may be closer than some people think everyone will happily flock to cheap gas again. It is all about money anyway. Governments wont be able to subsidy green energy for much longer since this is unable to power manufacturing and economy.

Are you basing the Onshore Wind Price on the most recent RESS auction that was €98/MWh ? If so, it's important to note that value is not indexed. i.e. it won't change at all, and thus the real price will be coming down by at least a few percent each year (more in the last year) until the end of the CfD mechanism.

Realistically, Ireland's ban will move out to 2035 in line with the slowest movers of the Union, because we have no vehicle manufacturing industry and don't have a choice what vehicles are offered for the market.

That said, I think the lag will be in the larger passenger car and mid-commercial vehicle segments. Most of the mainstream model segments will likely be fully EV offerings even before 2030.

There does remain the issue of heavy plant and machinery though. Diesel engine characteristics and gearing have inherent technical advantages for doing work and that won't be easily resolved.

And what will the benefit be. We are still going to be burning gas and coal to generate the electricity to charge them much of the time.