"Green" policies are destroying this country

On your regular tirades against nuclear, you never say whether you think the problems with this power source are inherent in the design? Certainly nuclear has been beset by long delays and high costs. But you never seem to have any interest in whether these issues can be fixed. Most nuclear advocates believe the solutions are design standardisation and regulatory streamlining.

Given that renewables can't work, do you have any other low-carbon alternatives?

How is advocating upgrading houses with insulation and PV and heat pumps advocating for cold homes ? It's the opposite.

There you go again getting all angry like

I had thought of responding to some of the assumptions/assertions in his biased post (capt midnight) but there are some clear red flags so i didnt bother.

Using the word Hydrogen is one of them. It is futile to argue w a person who ignores the full picture and is on the road of 'technology will solve the problems' concerning green tech while AT THE SAME TIME playing down tech advances on anything to do with oil and nuclear and ignoring the role of politics.

It is clear he wants to play the role of witness for the prosecution in an imaginary court without a judge. Well, the witnesses in the other side are piling up over time. You can only spread mis- and disinformation for so long.

We have seen it on Covid18 measures. We are seeing it in regards to Ukraine and w the climate debate.

Reality hurts..

Framing is a wonderful thing. You can attempt to screw an argument any way you wish if you frame it in a clever enough way.

Green hydrogen is not a real contender despite what the government may imagine, it's an unnecessary expensive distraction only suitable for niche applications. By focusing on hydrogen as a critic of renewables ignores the reality that greentech is diverse, evolving and in production at a massive scale. Batteries are advancing in efficiency, capacity and chemistry every year - they are the future. New generations of batteries are removing the rare minerals from their chemistry driving down manufacturing costs.

Meanwhile there are literally a handful of nuclear power plant manufacturers, and for reasons of complexity and security this will always be the case. The chances of them been able to ramp up production to meet our climate needs are vanishingly small. Every single project is beset with delays, complexities and massive cost overruns. Coupled to this those who cry about the damage done by rare earth minerals mining are happy to see mining for one of the rarest and most polluting minerals imaginable - uranium. On top of this, uranium is a finite resource with a peak supply curve that will see it become increasingly scarce and expensive in the future - especially given the proposed ramp up in demand to supply this new fleet of reactors. Then there is the totally unproven technology of fast breeder reactors who are supposed to solve all these issues.

As I have said before nuclear is the answer for people who don't think there is a climate crisis to solve. It is dead because fortunately policy makes do see the insurmountable issues it faces and why it cannot address the climate crisis in a timely enough period to be useful.

Is this the start of the dip in EV sales as the incentives are being phased out?

I see VW are now offering 0% finance on their EV range in an effort to boost sales

There is absolutely nothing to suggest there is any guarantee renewables can do so either. Thus, under your criteria, renewables are a non-runner also.

I have made my choices and am happy Im doing my best in the context of available and affordable choices and my many competing priorities. IMO this pulpit banging and preaching fire and brimestone to those who dont strictly adhere to a prescribed doctrine does more harm than good unless youre going to take the ultimate big stick approach and ban everything you don't like. Likelihood of success?

This is a very crude calculation TBH. Just getting the CO2 emissions from directly burning the fuel in the car, is only some of the CO2 it takes to explore, extract, refine and transport the fuel for each car.

You can add an additional 30% to the CO2 emissions for every litre of fuel burnt during the lifetime of the vehicle for the extraction and processing of the fuel before it gets to the car.

https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/

And that doesn't include the more esoteric emissions, like the wars that are fought to secure oil supplies releasing billions of tonnes of CO2 in the process, or the methane that leaks from old oil and gas wells for centuries after the wells are shut down because they're no longer profitable.

Again, it is all down to how many miles a car is driven. With ICE cars, the more miles the car is driven, the more emissions it will emit, so it is better to get the high milage users off ICE and onto BEVs as the first priority. With BEVs, most of the emissions are in the manufacturing and recycling phase, so it is better for low milage ICE owners to keep their ICE cars for longer, and allow the new BEVs to be driven by high milage users in the initial ramping up phase, with older less efficient ICE cars aging out as the BEV used market begins to mature, so that ultimaely, all vehicles will be zero emissions vehicles powered off fully renewable energy grids.

This is why higher Fuel costs are the best way to migrate from ICE to BEV. It incentivises those who drive the most, to migrate first. They'll save a fortune in fuel and then they'll upgrade their vehicles as technology improves leaving those cars available to the used BEV market where they can replace old retiring ICE vehicles.

Thats a false dichotomy

Most people are not in the market for a new car

That's the same now as it has always been. When people are buying a new car, the choice is between a new BEV, or a new ICE car.

While the BEV may cost more upfront the cost of ownership is so much lower, that for anyone more than, say, 20k KMs per year, they'll save way more in running costs than they save in the lower upfront price for the ICE car.

Now that there is finally some competition in the BEV market, the prices of new BEVs are coming down rapidly, and there are now perfectly good BEV options at reasonable price points with good range for any segment in the new car market.

If you're not in the New car market, the Used car market is starting to see value too, with BEVs with usable range for most people now starting to breach the 10k price point for 6/7 year old cars

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=642922087964148&set=a.421401013449591

Absolutely, agree with most of what you said. It is a very crude (oil) level calculation but just wanted to get the idea across that there will be cases where people replace an ice car with a Bev due to running costs and taxes, when it is not the best thing from an emissions perspective. We need to make sure we don't ramp up taxes so quickly that we indirectly force cars off the road before they come close to the breakeven point.

There is practically nobody in this country who does not feel housing is a huge issue in Ireland.

Blaming immigration is just the lazy way of looking at the problem