"Green" policies are destroying this country

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Get on your bike you big spoofer. I'm here. I know what the weather is like. I can see it. You can believe all the made up **** you read on internet all you like.

Next thing you'll be trying to tell me Valencia isn't part of Europe or something .

It is within the normal range of weather patterns in Ireland, most Irish Winters are relatively mild (temps ~4 to 7C), Average lifespan in Ireland is ~82 years, simply the passage of time means you will encounter these conditions at once or twice in your life. If you have lived the first 10 years of your life without encountering a severe Winter in Ireland, then you have no experience of the range of weather patterns in Ireland and you will be surprised and unprepared when they do happen, especially when the mass media tell you how warm and wet it is getting. Many people wear tee shirts indoors during the Winter. During the 2010 event water pipes froze across the country, it was discovered many new estates built in the boom, had pipes that were not buried at regulation depth, frozen pipes & radiators burst and more damage was done once the ice thawed because people did not know to turn off the water supply (or drain water tanks in empty houses).

1982 was great fun if you were a kid, a nightmare if you were an adult, had it lasted even another week, hunger would have become a very real situation for many people, even then many cupboards were bare after 2 weeks. Since 1982, the population has nearly doubled, most people have 3 days food supply at home, we have outsourced the preservation and supply of food to the supermarkets, all depending on a reliable electricity and transport network. Public transport shuts down in adverse conditions, most people use all weather tyres on cars, no Winter tyres, even diesel can turn to sludge and we are not Finland.

"Green" policies are intended to shutdown the populations access to primary energy sources such as turf, coal, natural gas and move everyone to a secondary source: electricity, powered by unreliable solar panels and wind turbines, these fail easily under normal conditions, what lunatic is expecting unreliable generation to work under the worst adverse Winter conditions?

How are Eirgrid or Esb asleep at the wheel? They don't dictate public policy either. One runs the transmission grid and implements policy, the other does the same for the distribution grid (plus owns transmission infrastructure, some generation and supplies some homes/businesses).

He's still happy to take the rent money for his land, and is going to coin a pretty penny by selling it off soon too. Not a peep out of him rewilding it or managing it for nature himself. He wants others to do that. In other news,

EU off track to reach net-zero energy system by 2050

The EU still accounts for 8% of global energy-related emissions and is off track to reach a net-zero energy system by 2050

The article is a summary of a McKinsey report which essentially says more money is needed for renewables.

What does it say though on the existing plans and budgets in place to meet the goals? Seems to me they wildly underestimated the transition cost.

It is an achievement. We're trying to build a new grid. Every milestone like this is a step along the way to our goals of a carbon neutral energy system.

Because they are currently over a decade behind on a large number of grid reinforcement programs. Also, as TSO/DSO/System owners they should be far stronger with the government and stop making promises they know they can't keep. The 30GW of OSW plan is a perfect example where none of the adults (engineers) in the room stood up and told them the emperor has no clothes on.

Saw a very good point quoted today:

"Just because you demand rigorous truth telling with respect to climate change doesn’t mean you don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change jfc it’s actually the opposite"

The methodology of the Stern report was roundly refuted a long time ago, as already outlined on this thread. It's not surprising that greenies don't update their "facts" with new findings as that is the standard M.O. of a cult. But it needs to be called out as often as it is aired (yet again). The costs of transition will be unsustainable as long as greenies hitch their wagon to a horse that can't walk, let alone gallop.

The youngest plaintiff was two years old! 🙄 So they probably understood about as much as the average greenie about the connection between energy availability and human wellbeing. Would be nice to be able to sue the greens for the mental health impacts of selling "solutions" that can't work, but I doubt we'll see that anytime soon. We'll probably have to wait until green policies start killing people in the rich parts of the world they care about. (They're already killing people in poor places that don't count).

Just got a flier (actually, a four-page colour brochure) in the door from local TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. It's about the proposed Dublin Array offshore wind farm. She's Fine Gael, of course, but it might as well be a Green Party manifesto. She's selling the idea that the scheme will "result in an estimated local expenditure of €540 million in the Greater Dublin Area". That's pretty impressive for a project that will create just 80 full time jobs post-construction. You have to read the fine print to notice that the total spend is estimated across a 30 year lifetime of the project.

Anyway, that's not my main quibble. Politicians always big up the impact of their favoured policies. No, it's more to do with the green catchphrases about a "global energy crisis", a "climate emergency", and a "need to end our dependence on imported fossil fuels which is driving up our electricity bills". In support of this last point she includes a section titled "Will my electricity be cheaper?"...

This is bordering on outright lying, in the same vein as the "nine times cheaper" lie peddled by the greenies last year. The reason why wholesale prices were high in April was because of hedging. Gas prices were already under €50/MWh by that stage, down ~90% from the greenies' all time favourite cherrypicked date of 26-Aug-2022.

In fact, if we look at annual averaged wholesale electricity prices in Ireland over the past few years we see the real implications (you have to multiply the left axis by 10 to convert €c/kWh to €/MWh):

Average prices up to 2021 were generally around €50/MWh but as low as €30/MWh in the pandemic period. These wind auctions lock in a base price that is ~100% higher. The idea that this is cutting costs in the long run is a savage lie. And it must be pointed out that the run-up in gas prices long pre-dated the Ukraine war. This was the result of high Chinese demand in the post-Covid rebound, coupled with tight supply due to underinvestment resulting from Green policies. Remember China? The country that produces all the GHG emissions making stuff for western consumers who then weep that we must "Just Stop Oil".

Still, you gotta hand it to the Greens. They cover every angle. Lobby like crazy to surreptitiously bring in legislation that nobody understands at the time. Brainwash the youth and terrify them into supporting the cause. Prevent capital investment in hydrocarbons that is needed to supply vital energy needs. When hydrocarbon prices inevitably go up, complain like mad about oil company profiteering and point out how much cheaper their crazy expensive renewables are. This is where the avaricious backers of the climate lobby really move in the for the big prize -- they are in it to make an absolute killing from guaranteed public funds. If anyone notices a stunt being pulled, just throw your hands in the air -- "we have NO CHOICE ... emissions cuts are LEGALLY BINDING". The final stage is where poor people around the world start dying, as they cannot possibly out-compete the rich world for the hydrocarbons that -- surprise, surprise -- the pampered greenies still entirely depend on. Green policies are not just destroying our own economy. They are the downright lethal and evil machinations of a nihilistic Malthusian cult with no higher morals than alleviating their own self-imposed mental torture. Lest we forget: