The end of Ireland?

Blue Badger

Recently I've been looking at a lot of peak oil articles on the web and other related things. My question is, what will happen to Ireland?
People will obviously have to begin producing and sourcing food locally, and basically revert back to the way we used to live. But do you think this change will happen too suddenly for us to handle? Is anyone actually changing the way they live yet? Does the government have any plan, and if so when are they going to implement it?

Khannie

We've a few options: More biofuels. More hydro. More wind. Solar's not a great option. Nuclear might be. We have the peat bogs of course and some natural gas.

We're currently in a pretty rubbish position energy security wise though, yeah.

Blue Badger

This could be worth looking at
http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/kinsaleenergydescentactionplan.pdf
but in terms of building hydro and wind farms I don't think we'll be able too. The price of oil will make raw materials sky rocket as well so we won't be able to afford to build them. And assuming that we get our food under control, build the necessary infrastructure etc. what about immigration?
Isn't Ireland one of the few countries in Europe which hasn't exceeded its population carrying capacity. In which case won't a load of people from other countries try to get here making it much much harder to survive?

Soylent_Spleen

You should have a look at http://cultivate.ie and http://feasta.org. They're two
of the main groups in Ireland that are thinking about peak oil in pragmatic terms. There's a lot of good discussions and other information on the Feasta website (and they've just launched a new book that specifically deals with Ireland).

Pete M.

With regard to energy security, I think that we're going to have to look again at the Corrib gas field.

We can seek to improve energy efficiency as a country, but we need that to get us through the transition.

Using the energy available there, we can develop the sustainable and efficient alternatives required going into a future that, at the moment, looks rather dark...

dxhound2005

One change that people could do easily is to eat the food they buy and not throw it away.

http://www.epa.ie/news/pr/2010/name,30454,en.html