"Green" policies are destroying this country

When I was a greenhorn I was sent to Oman on a business trip. My two cans of coke cost more than the 25 litres of gas my boss put into the car. 'nuff said.

The advantage of SMRs is that they are...small. A company might actually invest in those if the product has a chance of success and the barriers not too high. Current large investment modern reactors technology is well known and work and should be sponsored. The return on investment is long term and stable. China is able to make them in about 5-6 years fr start to finish. Canada is doing pretty well. France on the other hand has a lot of old ones but invest in other countries. Germany is..well, never mind. Compare those facilities to wind and solar installations f land use alone and it becomes pretty clear it HAS to be part of the energy mix as there is no one panacea. Have an EU/US/ world conference (like a nuclear COP) to come up with a few models w the highest safety and efficiency levels so countries can roll them out without having the current barrage of barriers put in front of them. Critics will point to the limitations of nuclear energy. Fair enough.To them i say: make a summary list of all the pros and cons of every energy production source from start to finish and we'll see. I actually see some people are starting to think that way now that green tech keeps hitting the reality wall. Wasnt Bill Gates talking about this recently? Things shift..

There are no SMR reactors in production. Recently the British government pulled out of backing Rolls Royces proposed SMR program - which shows there are still significant technical challenges to develop a cost effective unit.

But the real kicker is two fold, SMR units are less efficient and so produce considerably more expensive to manage nuclear waste, they are also a defuse security risk which makes the cost of managing security significantly greater. These two factors alone are enough to kill the whole sector dead before it even begins.

Ireland will not invest in the two conventional nuclear power plants it would need so it will never get out of the discussions boards as a future plan.

Green tech has hit the commodities inflation wall which has made many of its in the pipe line projects unviable. Such things as labour shortages are pushing just about all infrastructure projects into unviable costings scenarios and that includes nuclear projects which have similarly seen cost sore. The reality is though that nuclear doesn't operate in a competitive market so governments just tend to suck up the spiraling costs without talking about it - the sunk cost falacy.

As for France, the poster boy for nuclear, it's whole sector has costed it decommissioning cycle at such a rediciulously low price that when the chickens come home to roost (all together in a very short window) it will place such a burden on the government who will have to pick up the bill, as EDS will inevitably have to declare bankruptcy, that it will cripple an already struggling economy. The temptation will be to just keep extending the service life into the future until the inevitable catastrophy forces their hand.

That may be the case of concern for cities like Tokyo. That is also why use of face masks due to smog is common in places like that.

Our largest city do not even make it to top 100 and being also coastal city there is no reason to be afraid. And please do not even try pandemic favorite slogan "one death is one death too many" as it seems EU do not care about it much otherwise they would not pump money and guns to the Ukraine.

I see the limit on Dublin Airport passengers is going to be challenged in order to grow it. Great news for aviation emissions

https://www.businesspost.ie/news/varadkar-scrap-dublin-airport-cap-or-irish-economy-will-suffer/

One off volcanic eruptions are entirely different to the constant man made emissions, even a massive erruption from one of the larger volcanos would be out of the picture after a decade or so - not so the constant emissions of man.

It seems that the fact that climate changes naturally is the big gotcha for some people, but by study natural climate we understand when unnatural climate change is influencing the climate. It's not a gotcha at all - it's the proof that we are influencing climate out of its natural patterns.

Incorrect on so many levels.

First of all, average volcano eruption put out so much different and more dangerous chemicals that talking about CO2 is pointless. Second thing is that ridiculous notion that CO2 is responsible for climate change when all what it is is a made up scapegoat to spread irrational fear to push forward green fascism.

There are dangerous and even deadly man made chemicals and pollutants being dumped left and right which endanger life of humans, plants and animals. CO2 is not one of them.

Our obsession with plastics for example did more damage to planet and life than CO2 ever could.

And again with the double standards:

• There are no suitably large hyrolisys plants, nor has anyone managed to store, transport and produce electricity from hydrogen at anything close to the scale needed for even a small grid like ours but apparently it's still a wonderful idea on which to form future generation needs
• Blanketing the land and sea with as many wind turbines and solar as possible and building in huge capacity fluctuations into the grid infratructure to try and capture as much of the wind that does blow and sun that does shine (oh but traditional nuclear reactors generate too much electricity) is not exactly efficiency personified. Sure, the "energy" is "free" but the infrastructure costs are anything but and by jaysus is that an infrastructure heavy undertaking
• Granted, the potential danger of a nuclear disaster far exceeds that of a hydrogen explosion or BESS fire, but whether we like it or not our two closest neighbours are already using nuclear to the extent that a problem for them is just as much a problem for us. Refusing to even consider it based on ideological reasons is about as sensible as thinking we're going to lead by example and change the world view on climate change. (By the way we'll still quite happily tap into that nuclear energy, ta very much!)
• And to top it all off, if we're not prepared to invest in two conventional nuclear power plants as an example, what on earth makes you think we'd be any more prepared to invest in what an all renewable grid would entail? Perhaps that's why no-one advocating for one will put anything resembling a predicted cost on one completed and fully functioning renewable grid...

As for your competitive market comment - don't make me laugh! Fossil fuel is one of the most taxed commodities in this country, yet renewable producers are guaranteed first dibs into the energy market while still being paid as much per MWh as the fossil generators of last resort get with absolutely none of the input fuel costs. Not only that, put the PSO is literally a subsidy that is being tunnelled straight into renewable energy resources, the total or end game cost of which no-one seems to want to talk about with the added bonus it's the paying public on the hook, not "the government". Sunk cost fallacy indeed...

Until we get an undersea tunnel and high speed rail link to a major international airport with inter-continental routes we're stuck with Dublin Airport as an essential part of the economy, emissions and all.

We could shut down some of the Regional airports to offset Dublin's emissions and banning Cruise Ships from Ireland would be another idea.

Some here believe that plans, commitments and targets can't change. The previous main man behind the EUs climate policies who left to run for prime minister of the Netherlands isn't of such a mindset

Elections can change things. More of this sort of stuff can be expected

Typical Green tunnel vision.

As the oil sheik said, the stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones. Hydrocarbons will always be around. they are too versatile to not be used. Current government energy policies that deliberately strangle oil and gas production, with no practical alternative in place are destined to fail, and fail spectacularly. It is why I am watching German energy and industrial politics with interest, the closure of nuclear power in that country is one of the greatest own goals in history.

I don't waste time on people living in a fantasy world. The science is established and if you proceed from the belief that CO2 isn't a climate change driver you are delusional.

If you don't accept basic physics then where is there common ground for a discussion ?