"Green" policies are destroying this country

If you raise the imaginary stakes high enough, you can justify anything to yourself, but that doesn’t actually win the argument. A monkey wrench has been thrown in the machinations of those intending for idealogical reasons to build electricity generation using mostly random generated sources, specifically the availability and economic cost of natural gas used to make up for the difference caused by constant fluctuations in random generation.

Nor are todays problem unforeseen. This was broadcast by Russia Today earlier this year. It features a comment by Russian president Putin back 2010, sliced with a recent advert shown on a German television station. Obviously in the current geopolitical context it has value for propaganda purposes.

Germany’s Reaction To The Energy Crisis Could Be Catastrophic

Exit Nord Stream 2, Enter Power of Siberia 2

EU countries are generally following the same game plan without regard for the economic costs and social consequences of these decisions.

1. Increase demand for secondary energy (electricity) by forcing consumers across the EU to become dependent solely on secondary energy sources for transport and heating.
2. Decrease supply of and massively increase the cost of consuming primary energy sources (Oil, Gas, Coal and Wood)
3. Building a high cost, complex and expensive to operate electricity distribution system that is less resilient and with no spare capacity to meet demand surges caused by adverse weather (primarily cold), even mild conditions (no wind and sun) will entail the need for demand management solutions (i.e kick companies and consumers off the grid when demand is too high).
4. Promoting Hydrogen gas and Ammonia as the fuel of the future while neglecting generation capacity, infrastructure and conversion costs.
5. Imposing massive costs on consumers to convert their housing and vehicles to the approved technologies.

The Irish state aims to have 80% of its increased electricity capacity generation from random energy by the end of the decade. It can only do this with natural gas. Ireland is an island at the end of supply lines from Europe whether you are talking about gas pipelines (Scotland/Norway) or electricity inter-connectors to the United Kingdom or France. The countries on the other end of the electricity cable to Ireland are also removing the spare capacity of traditional thermal power generation plants, this means at times there will be no surplus capacity to distribute. Eirgrid have warned us. Another consequence that has been seen this year caused by the massive price spikes is the bankruptcy of a number of electricity suppliers in the UK, while us consumers in Ireland are having those costs passed on, this is driving another government intervention in the market.

There are also maintenance, financing costs and subsidies of random energy to consider. Electricity can only be sold on the grid when it is demanded, this very often means that Wind and Solar generated output is dumped on the grid at low prices, the thermal plants command premium prices to meet demand surge and there will supposedly be less of it available in future. It may be interesting to note Germany burns more coal to generate electricity than it did when they started their energy transition (energiewende).

• Airlines warn EU that ticket prices will rise due to green taxes
• Report: The Impacts of Aviation Taxation in Ireland

The tourist industry across Europe especially around the Mediterranean is dependent on movement of people from Northern European states for much of it's customer base. All islands (Cyprus, Malta, Canaries, Balearic, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily) with a developed tourist industry depend on air transport to bring most customers to them, the tourists won't get there quickly by train or bicycle for their annual 2 week vacation.

• Tourism accounts for 18% of Greece’s GDP and employs more than 900,000 people, accounting for one fifth of the workforce.
• For Spain in 2017 it accounted for 11.8% of GDP and in 2018 sustained 13.5% of employment (or 2.6 million direct jobs)
• 2016 was a record year for Irish tourism with 8.8 million international tourists visiting the State

It's funny hardly anyone voted for the greens and they make it into government yet the party with the most votes failed to make the cut.

It's not just the Green party, follow the money, the other major political parties are courting the same urban vote AND they are following the money. Green policy across the EU is set by Germany, the single largest net contributor to the EU. The EU is promoting its own Green new deal and the ECB, IMF and BIS are onboard with "Green" finance (i.e. more debt). Politicians in other parties are not blind to this, they are quite happy to use the Green party as whipping boys when it all goes wrong. The Green party got whipped for keeping FF in power after the 2008 crash, they stayed in Government on instructions from party membership that they ban Stag hunting. 2 election cycles later the public forgot about that, and they picked up the floating urban votes. You know this is nothing to do with the environment when you see Irish banks (Irish banks are government sponsored enterprises since the bailout underwritten by taxpayers) pushing debt using terms like sustainable finance, green bonds and green mortgages, banks are in the business of generating income from debt.

Did we learn anything from the last bubble burst? We did not and we are now in a Green financial bubble which will eventually burst. Most surprising of all a man who should be able to recognise bubbles economist David McWilliams is promoting this and using his usual plagiarism of labels from elsewhere. The Brits started used "Saudi Arabia of Wind" before he did. Guess what your pensions funds are going into this.

• Ireland could be the Qatar of renewable energy
• Donegal to Dingle could become the world’s most innovative energy hub

The Green party in Ireland are just a side show for optics, and they like the other politicians are riding bankers coat tails.

The Misanthropic Bankers Behind COP26 and the Green New Deal

"publicly created money via public bodies has a potentially better chance of succeeding our critically needed environmental changes"

How is what you say demonstrably true?

I am pointing out that the current government policies are creating mis-allocation of resources and are decreed by central planning layered on the financial system. The problem starts by decree that electricity generation must happen using random generation sources and that consumers must be penalised for using primary sources of energy for transport, heating and cooking. Each intervention creates it's own problems that can either be addressed by markets (price rises due to allocation of scarce resources) and more intervention by the central planner to address the chaos caused by their previous intervention in the market, the most recent example being the €100 payment to all domestic electricity accounts. This "credit" is being funded from carbon tax and the underlying price rises are directly attributable to the pursuit of policies that increased the demand for natural gas necessary to maintain a functioning grid due to the intermittent nature of random generation sources. How is anyone better off with this? the government are giving us some of our money back minus administration fees as a means of distraction from the underlying cause. The reasons being:

1. Combined gas cycle turbines are vital to maintain a stable grid due the indeterminacy of random energy supply sources like wind and solar.
2. Almost every country in the EU is pursuing the same taxation and electrical generation policy and needs more gas.
3. The trend in recent years has been extended cold Springs (heating and cooking), in 2021 this depleted inventories more than previous years.
4. In 2021 Summer and early Autumn saw very mild weather conditions across much of Europe that required more gas consumed to maintain electricity generation.
5. In Autumn the energy suppliers all went to replenish inventories in advance of the European Winter season, most are buying on the spot market and supplies for delivery did not exist, the prices went vertical and several companies went bust, forcing many consumers to find alternative suppliers at a higher price. Many of these companies that went bust claimed to be green energy suppliers.

Remember in the Celtic tiger boom (~15 years), the governments during those decades had the opportunity to reel in the credit bubble circa 2000 and attempted to do this, it had a negative effect on employment and votes (this is where the rise of todays Sinn Fein starts) and they reversed course. It is true that the government did not start the boom, with the benefit of hindsight they actively encouraged it long after it was prudent until it blew up in everyones face.

Likewise with the Green financial bubble, is the same old policy "jobs for the boys" becomes "green jobs for the boys". The builders doing the housing conversions installing more insulation and heat pumps are "green jobs", car salesmen selling cars with batteries are "green jobs". Taxi and bus drivers with batteries in their vehicles are "green jobs", the installation and maintenance of the wind turbines and solar panels are "green jobs". Administration to oversee the spending those are "green jobs". Of course the banks are lined up with the "green finance" packages subsidised by the ECB. Everyone is a winner, until the bubble bursts . . . then the electricity generation collapses as the subsidies run out.

Until they realise how much it will financially cost them.

EU backed Ireland on Brexit, any tax deviation from EU norms will be considered a breach of trust, EU tax normalisation will see VRT and Fuel taxes standardised with the rest of Europe, Eastern Europe will bring the averages away down. Irish Green Party will be gone in a few years, the remnants joining FG or entering the priesthood,

The realisation that the whole Irish Green( name, nothing else) Party is basically a church needs a new roof ,give us your money scam, European environmentalist parties have little or nothing in common with the Irish varient, If they were what they say they are why aren't we seeing huge investment in flood defences and the dredging of all rivers in flood prone areas, instead they are just gathering money into central taxation

So they claim there's a climate crisis and the seas are rising so instead of financing measures to protect people and property they've decided giving the SIMI a dig out is the best response, O Donovan ,where do you even start? Future Darwin award?

SIMI keep the politicians sweet, nice deals on new cars, free cars given out for canvassing in exchange for protectionist import rules,