"Green" policies are destroying this country

In the latest episode of follow the money, I mean "ground breaking research", Trinity welcomes Professor Karen Wiltshire (62) as first CRH Chair of Climate Science. That's worth about ~€150-170K salary. The activists in history and political science are not impressed by who her sponsor is. Her appointment ticks all the right boxes, those at the top of the Irish establishment know which side their bread is buttered.

interesting statistic there

Home solar produces; 0.18 TWh

Datacenters use: 1.06 TWh

For all the hoopla about home solar carpeting the rooftops now, the production figure is miserly

Them electric cars and heat pumps won’t charge themselves you know, and apparently the tiny amount of domestic rooftop solar won’t either

The report I linked again mentions moves to EVs and heat pumps. But nothing about where the power for that switch will come from. It really is a pisstake

Here's the SEAI news release on that 2023 Energy Balance report:

Our fall in emissions is attributable to imports:

Reductions in emissions from the electricity sector last year were notable, mainly driven by increased use of imported electricity supply across our interconnectors with the UK, and increased renewable energy generation from wind and solar here in Ireland. Provisional data for 2024 indicates this trend is continuing, suggesting a 17% reduction in electricity related emissions for the first half of the year. 

Residential fossil fuel use fell last year but is increasing this year:

Residential use of coal, peat, oil, and natural gas for heating and hot water all dropped in 2023, and the amount of renewable energy used in Irish homes from heat pumps increased by over 30%, albeit from a low base. Provisional 2024 data however suggests a return to growth in gas and oil for home heating, which could see the gains made in 2023 reversed. Industrial and services sector gas use is also up in the first half of 2024. 

Usual AMOC fear uncertainty doubt (FUD) by people messing with dodgy computer model outputs. . If he wants to use bad computer model outputs, Minister Ryan should stick to inserting bicycle paths in SimCity.

Modelling of the Amoc is difficult because it is influenced by a variety of complex ocean and atmospheric forces and we need to do a lot more monitoring to better understand what is happening. source

I tell you what

You tell us 1. The cost and 2. how much concrete, steel, aluminium and rare earths 37 GW of offshore wind and the infrastructure to support this would need, where 2/3rds are floating kind with a lifespan of 20 ish years

And I tell you the cost of single nuclear plant (2-3x the lifespan) and materials that would require that can do same job

I am at a loss why would anyone argue for them benefit of Chinese industry whom realised they can pollute and emit all they want in China and then sell back greenwashed equipment back to people on west who seem to fail to grasp we share same planet

Good debate 👍

Re A. The problem is the ramming of renewables down the throats not only will hit the physical reality of these being highly intermittent with insane storage costs needed to remedy, but is already doing so

Building more renewables doesn’t solve the problem either as 10x of zero is still zero and quite often our 6.5GW and whatever solar is close to zero, wind can’t displace more than 30-40% of fossil use without insanely expensive storage and solar is only 10% displacement

Unless we build some nuclear in this country we will continue to use fossil fuels as backup for renewables forever, if I were running a fossil fuel company I be laughing at how those who push solar and wind ensure their business continues

We are in position where those shouting the loudest about climate change are actively ensuring the problem is not solved

B. Half of our EU member states do this (and already emit a fraction of our CO2 without expensive adventures into renewables lalaland), Ireland is not somehow special, leave the science and engineering to scientists and engineers

C. But it needs to be discussed, we are in bizzare situation where the touted solutions to “global” climate change is to move the pollution elsewhere in the same globe, out of sight out of mind greenwashing

Or importing electricity which could have been made by coals and counting it as green, or burning wood from rainforests that are trucked half way across country and counting that as green

Stop the daftness!

Wait now, it's been the coldest summer since 2015 so we're on the right track. Despite emissions being well over budget. How is that possible?

https://www.met.ie/climate-statement-for-summer-2024

You are not being honest, all things are not equal. Everyone reading this forum is 100% dependent on the availability of fossil fuels for their existence and standard of living. The very notion that we can aspire to maintaining our current standard of living by consuming secondary energy source electricity powered by dispersed, unreliable and expensive resources such as wind and solar while in parallel shutting down fossil fuel exploration & extraction and pricing it out of peoples ability to consume it, defies all science and rational thought. This green policy stupidity perfectly aligns with authoritarians, who believe they can implement economic central planning by rationing the availability of energy to us plebeians, thus limit and control the human population while they maintain exclusive access to benefits derived from primary source energy use i.e. fossil fuels.

You could make the argument for fossil fuels + solar and wind generated electricity while adapting to seasonal weather variations. As a species we consume more energy today that we ever did, top down treaties forcing the elimination of fossil fuels are not changing the outcome. Western countries that restrict energy consumption are finding the industrial base that built their capital is moving away from them, with no suitable replacement to generate new capital. Who benefits from the green deal imposed on the EU population, and, who pays for it?

Green policies being implemented on energy production and consumption, food production and consumption, restrictions on domestic populations movement while in parallel allowing unrestricted immigration are combining with monetary inflation, war and an aging population dependent on state welfare to create our generations major political and economic crisis. The only thing that is not causing our problems is the weather.

How am I not being honest?

What I am saying is that fossil fuels are finite resources, they will run out, that is a categoric fact. In the meantime, or over whatever period for which they are continued to be used, they will cause damage. That again is a fact.

Even Greta is talking about no new oil exploration, and the wind down of unnecessary or inefficient use of fuels such as by flying rather than just stop completely tomorrow. So I don't know where the idea has come from that any of us are saying zero oil should ever be used again.

But, 'necessity is the mother of invention' and it is when people realize that we need to change, and commit to making that change is when we will see meaningful developments towards the meeting of our needs in alternative ways. And you could argue, I would agree with it in fact, that the advocation for efficiency in the use of electricity is recognizing the fact that we do not have means to sustain our current level of usage with the methods available to us.

The oil industry, and many layers below it, are looking to optimize the resource that is available to them without consideration for the long term consequences of this. They're looking at this with a 20/50/100 yr mindset as in, 'It won't be my problem, so who cares', and that is a bad thing for society.

You and too many more are not looking at reality and judging those who advocate Green policies way way harsher than any one else in the conversation. And blaming them for not having perfect solutions rather than holding those most responsible to account. Time and time and time again people get very worked up about Green ideas, Green advocates and green politicians because they are acknowledging reality rather then literally sticking their head in the sand and looking for oil. Why is that?

And can we stop with the 'unrestricted immigration' nonsense from this conversation, there's enough places here to have whatever flavour you want of that topic so I'm not getting in to it here.