"Green" policies are destroying this country

Solar not doing a lot in Ireland lately, it's like the lad who gets out of bed with a hangover, arrives late for work, barely does a tap during the day, then fecks off home early for some hair of the dog.

https://www.greencollective.io/dashboard

Where is Germany in that table?, should they not be on top with billions spent on their Energiewende. Obviously the lesson from this is that intermittent, unreliable generation sources with poor capacity factors are not going to get us there. Hydro is tapped out in Ireland. Irish politicians want to be the "best boys in Europe", simple solution, quadruple imports of "solid biofuel" from Brazil. Does importing wood pellets from Latvia to Ireland not count?, they are cheaper than domestic produced sources and they are green. How about heat pumps that run on electricity generated from steam power created in heat exchange from nuclear reactors? Like Sweden and Finland do.

We are.

We will be at 80% of electricity from renewables in a decade.

No. The economics of energy density matters, the very dilute flow of wind and solar means the provision of electrical power becomes exponentially more expensive as you try to both grow the generation capacity to meet demand while also approaching that 80% number. In a decade there will be 8 billion people on the planet who want the most affordable, reliable, plentiful energy, this is the reason why hydrocarbon based fuels are going to continue to be burned, even a decade from now.

Secondly, the deliberate policy of strangling the European economy through lack of affordable energy is forcing German companies to move production outside the EU, as Germany sinks, the whole green house of cards goes with it, including the EUs green new deal. The political backlash is already present, the pendulum has started to swing against the existing incumbents and it's gathering momentum, now that Russian energy is only available indirectly, the EU is highly dependent on the United States and Arabian gulf states for hydrocarbon energy, the EU is highly dependent on China to process the raw materials needed for solar, wind and batteries. Unreliable generation has no way forward in a geopolitically unstable world, getting these projects off the ground is not economically feasible as can bee seen from the Wind project failures. In this insecure environment the lack of security in even sourcing conventional hydro-carbon energy becomes a higher priority in the EU, the lack of LNG platform in Ireland means we we can't secure delivery from a reliable source i.e. the United States.

At last Ryan talks sense:

im all in support of this but it also begs a few questions:

Why only now?

the north quays up in Dublin are a mess. The queue to turn right at the bottom of Church Street to go up the hill causes sever build up back towards Parkgate Street. I’m sure there are lots of other bottle necks - how does he propose to sort these out?

I can but agree with You here. I’ve seen it many times - there is no point in installing cycle lanes when there is no legal obligation on cyclists to use them.

Speaking of bottlenecks, I still cannot understand the logic of taking away the left turn at Butt Bridge ( Amiens/Gardiner Streets ) outside Liberty Hall. Now traffic to make that left turn have to wait on the traffic lights instead of using the filter lane.

True but by having all traffic sitting at lights with engines idling ( thus adding fumes to the atmosphere ) defeating the very objective of Ryan & his crusade?

I realise you can't help yourself. But you really should repeat it to yourself a few times per day until it sinks in:

NOTHING IRELAND DOES CAN OR WILL AFFECT CLIMATE CHANGE.

NOTHING IRELAND DOES CAN OR WILL AFFECT CLIMATE CHANGE.

NOTHING IRELAND DOES CAN OR WILL AFFECT CLIMATE CHANGE.

See how easy that is? After that you should be able to rethink "the massive environmental cost of not transitioning away from climate change". There isn't any. Ireland cannot "transition away from climate change". That's not even a thing.

Here's a thought, though. If Ireland didn't blow all its money on the crazy pipedreams of a green megalomaniac, it would have a lot more left for climate change adaptation if and when required. It would be also well situated to adopt low carbon energy technologies whenever someone with more clout than us matures them, and when the winners in the technology race become clearer. In particular we would be able to see how other island nations like Taiwan fare with their particular problem of grid isolation. Right now Taiwan is looking like becoming another casualty of the monumentally stupid decision to shut down nuclear and rely on offshore wind, with wind developments now also being cancelled due to rising rates.

The supposed longer-term aim is to "force" people out of cars with an attempt to make the experience more horrible than public transport. It doesn't work that well but it is all about virtue-signalling rather than practical results.

I found it quite funny that so many councils decided to give free parking in their car parks up and down the country for Christmas in a bid to get punters into the towns to spend the mullah. No big push for park and ride, or saying how great the public transport is. None of that. It was get into your car, and drive in and get free parking.

https://www.google.com/search?q=free+parking+christmas

And many green councilors on the councils too. Surely they'd be pushing back but not heard much. To me, this backs up the previous Irish Times poll where business overwhelmingly said they didn't give 2 figs about climate change

well what's the alternative? keep putting more and more cars on the road as the population grows? space is limited in dublin, we need people to leave the car at home more and more by providing alternatives. i'm not sure where the virtue signalling lies.

Some Councils with a greater green representation wouldn't have gone for a parking promotion around Christmas, mainly the more affluent, urban ones.

But rural towns where parking controls are in place, prioritise Christmas turnover ahead of virtue signalling and so have stuck with cheaper or free parking.

And of course they'd be right to. If parking isn't easy, the businesses don't enough custom. If businesses don't get enough custom, they don't survive. If they don't survive, the Council loses it Rates base. And if that happens then it has no money to operate and reinvest in local services and initiatives.

So, if the Greens plan to put up any sort of a fight ahead of these upcoming elections, they'd want to come up with some suggestions as to how to fund local government sustainably. Cos the way they're going, they'll have our rural towns boarded up.

Well the mayor in Athlone where free parking is available is a Green Party member. You are right though that green members wouldn't be huge in number. I suppose my point was that public transport and the like is put to the side in favour of getting people in cars into the towns.

Public transport in and out of Dublin, and around Dublin is by far the best in the country. However, according to TII, The N3, N4, N7 and N11 have had more traffic on them to date this year than previous years.

The media leaps upon every extreme weather event these days. Here's a headline you definitely won't be seeing, although it's the result of a preliminary survey of US weather for 2023:

"Mostly boring"

• Hurricanes, below average
• Tornadoes, average
• Hail, a bit below recent averages
• Floods, same as the 2000-2022 average
• Wildfires, well below average, lowest burned acreage for 25 years
• Droughts, unexceptional, same as the medium term average, some drought relief since 2022
• Percentage of very wet days, no real trend in the past century, slightly up on the 1980s
• Percentage of very dry days, trending slightly downward over the past century
• Winds, exceptionally strong
• Average temperatures, average
• Extreme heat, well above average
• Extreme cold, well below average
• High temperature extremes affect winter more than summer -- average high for July is up about 0.3C since 1895 while average high for January is up 0.8C.

They'd never hype up weather events, would they?

(32) Weather Channel Responds To Claims Reporter Was Faking Coverage Of Hurricane Florence - YouTube