"Green" policies are destroying this country

They can be in favour if they want but it is like being in favour of giving everybody a free Ferrari. It is politically, economically and technically impossible.

The technology is being used all over the woeld for decades, so no idea where you get that it is technically impossible. Financially we can see that even for the little we know on offshore wind that even a nuclear plant recently going on-line in Finland even with being over budget beats offshore up a stick economically, and politically as we have seen here alone, from recent changes in legislation, in politics you can never say never.

Charge at home for a fraction of the price? Not unless you're on night rate and to hell with that, you'd be gone broke with prices of electricity outside of the 2am to 5am slot.

LOL.

Did you find "the government document" about how our future grid is going to work yet?

shared already

Why do you keep posting about things you don’t understand?

Why would I do that? What has it got to do with me?

You are putting forward dreamy and unworkable solutions.

Exhibit B of lack of knowledge below... Wow, just wow

You may have missed it but Eirgrid predictions are that by 2050 peak demand here will be in the order of 14 GW. To stick with the current offshore wind hydrogen plan that would require 70 GW nameplate capacity of offshore wind. You brought up that nuclear was not economically possible here so how economically viable is 70 GW offshore wind with all the added hydrogen trimmings ?

Finland has the same population as Ireland and reactors are not just 1.4 GW. South Korea has operational reactors starting at 665 MW so you can cut your cloth to suit your needs. If our grid can handle 14 GW I do not see where your problem is with nuclear in that regards. Having to import nuclear when we needed it hasn`t fried the grid.

Yeah especially by comparison to the free cost of construction of the proposed nuclear plant or the free repairs of our current fleet of fossil power plants

There's something wrong with my above statement. Let's see if you are smart enough to find it. Hint: Bold font

Compared to the costs we know in regards to nuclear, to the cost we already know for just the capital expenditure for this offshore section of this current plan alone with all the hydrogen trimmings cost being a state secret you mean ?

But then you being so much in favor of this offshore plan I`m sure you can enlighten me as to the total cost.

It's not just a bit of insulation though is it, there is alot more to consider and these retrofits cost savage money, even if there are paltry grants offered. Beyond that you are totally at the mercy of the electricity supplier for the costs of heating your home.

Which is my point, diesel is the best value for money and the most convenient for the majority outside of Irish settlements with a population north of 25k. You are also not considering the amount of time it takes to charge an EV - with a diesel/petrol it's pull in and fill up and be gone in five minutes top. People are time poor - they don't want to be sitting around a forecourt for the guts of an hour paying through the nose for fast-charging rates while they look out at the diesel/petrol cars filling up cheaper.

Night rate is junk for the vast majority of people, especially families of 3 or more. The jacked up peak prices more than gobble up any savings to be made through the 2am-5am period.

See my point above.

I have done my research which I have posted on here - the fact remains, EVs in their current form are not suitable for a good swathe of the population. Slow charging, poor range, cost of initial outlay, cost of fast charging - which isn't really fast at all, an almost non-existent second-hand market (where batteries are so hammered you'd be lucky to get 80km from a battery charge), etc... it doesn't paint a very nice picture for EVs - now does it?

The horse has bolted on EV and it's time for a major rethink on EVs and if they have a purpose outside of the bigger population centres. The EU missed a massive open goal when EVs were being mooted.

The manufacturers should have been mandated to produce interchangeable batteries. You pull into a service station and the forecourt attendant should be able to remove your battery and replace it with a fully charged one at a cost, similar to the way the gas cylinder operation works today.

I'm not talking about Ireland as a whole, but there are pockets of the country that can be left many days without power when poor winter weather brings down lines. An elderly customer in a retrofitted house relying on a heat pump with no power coming in off the grid is left high and dry. Often the strongest storms are accompanied with a cold front pushing through once the storm moves on - this brings usually quite cold weather in it's wake. They can't light a fire to stay warm during these times, they're left quite vulnerable awaiting the power to kick back in and even more hours beyond that while the HP slowly cranks up the heat.

There is a recurring theme here - HPs are slow to heat houses, EVs are slow to charge up. Electricity is not a great contender for heating and transport.

On the heat pumps it depends, it's not always the same answer. The hybrid system works by the heat pump bringing the water up to a certain temp and then if the house needs a bump then the oil boiler kicks in. This will work in less well insulated house and retrofits. But I would always suggest insulate first, even if just replacing oil with oil.

I live outside a major town, my brother lives in the countryside and we both have electric cars. In reality 99% of my driving is A-B every day of the year and this is all within the range of an electric car and then charge at night. He is the same. I have one for years and I think I have used the public system maybe 5 times, he has never used it.

I do also admit I have a mate who wants to have a 600km range before he will buy an electric, why? no idea. He does less driving than I do because he lives in a village, kids walk to school etc, but every so often he will go golfing etc and wants the ability to not charge for an entire weekend.

Sorry but a blanket statement saying anyone outside a city can't use an EV is incorrect. Plenty of people it will work for. You just need to do analysis. I would always recommend people to buy based on hardly ever using the public system. I don't have the time to stand for 30 mins at a charger.

In my case try doing 10-15 trips to schools/sports everyday in a diesel and see the cost balloon compared to an electric. I know because I have a diesel 7 seater because at the moment unless I have close to 100k a 7 seater is not available in electric.

In terms of interchangeable batteries, most companies looked at this, it never made sense. I think only NIO are moving forward with it. The reasons are multiple why they haven't done battery swap, Tesla spent a huge amount of time looking at it and backed away from it. The interconnects etc required to swap a battery is huge, it's not like pulling out a couple fo AA batteries

In terms of the market I think we would be a lot better with a mix of fuels, electric/diesel/hybrid. No reason now to have straight petrols anymore. People pick what fuel is best. The false information been fired around about electrics is incredible, mostly because people don't understand the technology. We should also stop all incentives and push that money into public transport. I don't see why the plan is to swap 1 m combustion cars with 1 m electric cars, its ridculous. We need to reduce cars, not swap them

The people in houses that have prolonged electrical outage are few and far between. So cater for them on a one by one scenario. Oil heating is only planned to be phased out for new builds in 2025, no timeline for existing so you can still cater no problem for older house but even oil with no electricity doesn't work.