"Green" policies are destroying this country

If only there wasn’t bigger parties in the government to disagree with and vote down the Green dictatorship.

This thread reminds me of my father giving out about the Green Party over decisions made by governments prior to the Greens being the most junior party of government.

That's right.

Greens and FF up until the crash.

They do hang around like a bad smell and pop their heads every few years to inflict misery upon us.

Do you not think it’s up to everyone to do their bit rather than point over there and say “if they can do that then I can do this”?

At what expense?

People not been able to heat their homes and blackouts?

All so we can look like the great little bits and girls of Europe.

Are we at the stage where we can talk about nuclear power plants yet or do we have to wait another 30 years?

So maybe Eamon Ryan is right when he pointed the finger at data centres while Michael Martin says there will be no issues this winter.

No, No, you read the OP, it is definitely all the Greens fault! they forced them into doing it. and agreeing to those EU carbon reduction targets!

Eh no.

They shut down two.

Google it, might enlighten you.

That's kind of an Opposition comment and it is something the government, which he is sometimes part of, needs to address.

Im baffled, we have a solution that is decades old and tried and tested. We let others iron out the safety issues, Ireland has almost no tectonic activity etc. Produces almost no carbon and consistent and predictable power output. It's a failure of politics that we haven't got a nuclear power plant.

OK how about the green party shut down two of our biggest power stations and now we are facing electricity shortages and massive price increases.

We now have to import peat from Germany at a massive expense because the greens also put a stop to that here.

Any clearer, can you see the irony?

Maybe you can't actually.

One in Longford and one in Offaly had closure announcements in November 2019. If it those two then the greens have way more reach and influence than would be expected seeing that the current government was only formed on 27th June 2020. There may be a conspiracy theory in there somewhere!

The irish green party and politics in general here are a farce! All this talk of the environment. Smoky fuels still being sold. Allowing virtually all cars since 2008 to have as good as free motor tax, the whole european farce around diesels. A shambolic "transport" system in dublin and indeed the rest of the country... Anti high density housing...

Funny how we could have a then-state of the art hydroelectric scheme when we hadn't two pennies to rub to together but a comparatively super rich Ireland can't build a big project because we're sort of useless at it.

How can the peat power stations closing be the fault of the Green Party when they were in opposition with only 3 seats at the time it was decided?

I wouldn’t say they are destroying the country as of yet, or maybe never will, but for an issue that I think many people on this island and around the world agree needs to be addressed, they really do a piss poor job of bringing the public along with them. As has been reported there is a warning that the lights may go out this winter which is clearly not a good thing, which is why I wonder why the closure of peat power plants were allowed to be closed when there doesn’t seem to be a back up and should be opened back up if possible, which isn’t an anti green stance, it’s a pro energy stability stance when we haven’t got a back up.

I will have to look into it. I would have thought the cost of importing gas/oil+ carbon tax + building and operating plant over lifetime would be greater than importing uranium+building and operating a nuclear power plant and storing waste. I get the huge upfront cost but I presume these modern plants have a very long lifetime.

The fact that Finland and soon Estonia are going in this direction is encouraging.

absolutely, data centers only currently use about 10% of our overall power created, and provide enormous amounts of employment etc etc, its definitely other stuff thats causing these issues!

errr emmm no actually, our current environmental issues are not hysteria, its actually very likely our environmental issues are in fact worse than whats being reported by official organisations such as the ipcc etc

yup, the greens are incredible short sighted though, as probably all our political entities are, we may not in fact be able to produce a 100% renewable system at all, or quick enough, to fulfill our needs. oh yea, most countries are in a similar situation, so.....

yup, again, our governments are kinna dump with this stuff, effectively providing no alternatives to citizens, which will more than likely lead to people not giving a fcuk, and doing what they have to do, in order to survive, which will more than likely include burning fossil fuels, so....

again, no, these green polices make absolute sense environmentally, but by not providing alternatives, they ll probably be largely ignored

oh and a lot of this is also down to flawed ideologies, and our governments are just not gonna accept this, probably never actually will

I agree with you that our environmental record is nothing short of a disgrace.

We were too late to introduce a carbon tax, we have moved too slowly on building offshore wind, we recklessly abolished water charges, we have failed to turn over management of our water resources to Irish Water, we have failed to enforce laws against burning rubbish outdoors, we haven't built public transport quick enough and look at all the delays due to objections, our recycling record is poor, mainly due to Irish people not following the rules, etc. etc.

The data centres are a real red herring. From a global perspective, Ireland is one of the countries best placed to host data centres, due not only to the temperate climate without extremes, but also due to the abundance of untapped wind energy. Yet, that is the issue our pathetic opposition parties are focussed on rather than the tougher choices.

Hinkley c is the only site (of 8) that is under construction , and that's 11 years after the uk government announced the scheme,

It's estimated that the 2 reactors at hinkly will cost in excess of 20 billion to build ,

That 20 billion has to be borrowed and paid for by edf - theyll be paying interest payment on that for at least 30 years ...

Basically it's estimated edf will be paid 50 billion MORE than the market rate for the electricity supplied,over the 40 year life of the plant ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station

On the data centres, to an extent I agree with you on their usefulness, but if the world is going to have data centres (and try and persuade people to leave the cloud), then Ireland is one of the best locations and one of the greenest locations for them.