"Green" policies are destroying this country

It's not cheaper and it's not reliable. 99.9% availability means 8 hours of outage per year. The capacity factor on Wind and Solar is very low, most of the year they are producing very little. How many turbines do we have now? Here is the total failure of wind turbine output under normal weather conditions. The turbines even consumed power, presumably from gas and coal generation. Irish electricity consumers are now caught between a rock and a hard place and this is going to become much worse and reflected in the prices. Ireland has no gas storage, has blocked all exploration and is dependent on external suppliers for its gas, to guarantee supply Irish gas generators must pay a premium. Unless there is excess supply in the system or cheap finance, Irish gas suppliers have no leverage. Their only reserves are whatever can be packed into the Moffat line.

Shell got burned on the Corrib field and exited at a loss. The low density and low capacity factor of solar and wind ensures the Irish grid will remain dependent on imported gas for decades to come and our states current policies of increasing electricity demand while putting more unreliable generation and extension leads in while increasing the cost of reliable generation can only result in situation where the price to maintain reliable generation and transmission rise exponentially.

So if we want any form of energy independence where do we go then 1) small scale nuclear 2) drastically cut back on electricity consumption across state, residential and business users.

Then you are conceding that we cannot be energy independent. At best we can use natural wind resources (which hopefully won't change) offshore and some onshore to generate and trade with other states via inter connectors. Other states that have nuclear power stations.

So with this strategy, we will always be over a barrel and dependent on others. And of course using nuclear indirectly. And subject to changes in climate and conditions that may damage this infrastructure on one hand or becalm it in others.

Not a great scenario.

Its more than tight, it won't be achieved, especially given the current immigration policy with an ever increasing population.

Yer forgetting that big projects like that aren't just allowed build willy nilly. They have to show how they will power the place, plus have agreement with providers to provide them with power. Otherwise, no planning granted

This misinformation really needs to be tackled head on. Every single data centre takes years of planning alone and that's before you even get to connection agreements with the grid. Every single data centre has been on the utility providers radar for at least 4/5 years before approval is granted.

What is this mythical cooling infrastructure you speak of?

Here's another piece of information that you clearly didn't know. Those gas plants that were built by data centres are doing so AT the direction of the planning authorities and was a direction from the government.

So tell me, what do you think puts a greater strain on a countries economic and energy sectors. Is it a tightly controlled, well regulated Industry that takes years of planning before a single shovel breaks ground or an open border policy with no controls in place?

You actually think data centres are removing renewables from being available to the grid 🤣

They are part of the grid, not some seperate entity.

And one side of the government still understands that economic growth is important in a developed country that relies heavily on the services sector. Yet, another branch of the government is banning new gas connections to allow plants be self sufficient, all in the name of NetZero (a completely bankrupt idea by the way).

I have no confidence in your wishful analysis.

And you still haven't addressed the issues that we will a) be dependent on the kindness of strangers and b) with no certainty about the sustainability of the wind resource.