"Green" policies are destroying this country

Greta Thunberg prefers nuclear over coal now. Let's see how this flies.

Via the RTE website linked to a french newspaper..

https://www.rte.ie/news/

It costs a couple of million per annum to keep the lights on at Providence. Ironically (and outrageously) a chunk of that is annual payments for the exploration licenses that they validly hold. They have spent the past 18 months waiting for Eamon Ryan to finish scratching his gonads and make a decision on a petroleum lease, during which time he actually charges them for the pleasure. Providence have attracted two new deep-pocketed investors over the same period.

The markets have lost confidence in Providence because they know that Ryan is a swivel-eyed green lunatic who will do everything in his power to scupper hydrocarbon production and use in Ireland. As such, Providence's predicament becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- they can't raise funds until the lease is granted, and Ryan is threatening not to grant the lease because they can't raise funds.

Everyone knows the game he's playing and he is absolutely going to end up landing himself and the government in court over it. Yet another waste of taxpayer money (but he's an acknowledged expert at that). There are even rumours that the new investors might only be in it for the law suit. They don't have to make their money from hydrocarbon extraction. They can do it by extracting their pound of flesh from the government (i.e. the Irish taxpayer) thanks to Ryan's zealotry.

Meanwhile, over on the sane part of the continent:

I posted previously that Ireland imports gas and electricity from the UK, the UK imports electricity from France, France imports electricity from Germany. But Germany also needs gas for industry which can't be substituted with electricity, and doesn't have the LNG terminals to import it. France is sending some (admittedly limited) imported gas to Germany, in return for which Germany will export electricity to France.

In effect, Germany is turning its lignite into gas. Never forget the iron law of climate policy -- when energy runs short people will choose reliables over renewables, and they'll use anything that will burn.

Now, if only Eamon Ryan realised that indigenous hydrocarbon production in Ireland would actually offset the burning of lignite in Germany, not to mention having a lower carbon footprint even than foreign gas by virtue of a lower transport footprint. But no, Ryan wants to keep Ireland chaste and virginal when it comes to hydrocarbons, even though it's actually increasing GHG emissions. What more proof do we need that he is nothing more than a performative moron who can't face up to the harsh realities? The man is a thundering disgrace.

Even in what's essentially a puff piece for the Irish Solar Energy Association, RTE reports that the cost of rooftop solar installations has gone up 30% in the past year, completely negating the SEAI grant.

Well that's a stupid perspective. As always with these things the grant gets swallowed up by the installers/manufacturers.

There are lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs to go into business installing Solar PV.

The renewable energy sector is a big opportunity for beople beginning their careers or looking for a career break.

Yes there is, and like all such schemes, it involves fleecing the taxpayer and making a select group of scam artists entrepreneurs very rich.

So called renewable energy needs huge subsidies to make happen, but isn't it great that money grows on trees and no one has to pay for what is touted as 'cheap' energy. You'd think that if something were dirt cheap to supply yet sold for a large price, it would be a slam-dunk commercial proposition, but no, it has to be subsidised like crazy to get anyone to invest in it.

Rather than put solar panels on my roof, I invested the money in BHP shares, who apart from many other things, mine coal. The ROI is better and faster than solar.

The Greens were in power a little over a decade ago and did nothing useful then. We spent 10 years implementing ERs previous folly of proposing wind instead of new CCGTs and here we are, about to go dark and cold. Now he wants us to remove the last few "thermal recyclers" available and live on fairy dust from the sun (which definitely won't impact on the environment in its production, transport and operation)

The grant was taken by the installers as a free gift for themselves from the government, it never reached the homeowner, the whole grant system is flawed,grants distort the market and only the contractors benefit, a much better system would be to abolish VAT on installation and materials.

I say this as someone who has solar panels which were installed without grant at 60% of the cost of a grant job.