"Green" policies are destroying this country

But at least the Scots are using their wind or selling it on. We're curtailing ours a lot of the time to make room for Scottish wind because it's cheaper. Cross border market rules say that you can't reduce interconnector imports unless there's a technical system security issue so we're stuck with it. The kicker is that we will also have to compensate the unused Irish and Northern Irish wind regardless.

Something's gone wrong with the forum software. Noticed same problem in 1 or 2 other threads.

It's painful. They've doubled the number of posts per page from 20 to 40, reducing the thread page count by half. I'm guessing it's because the 1000+ page count had become unwieldy. That would be fine if the last two pages (currently 649-650) showed any content, but you have to navigate back to page 648 before you realise there's still any posts here. Given this double-problem, I spent the last month thinking the whole thing was broken. I'm sure there are others in the same boat as the posting rate has gone way down.

I posted a note to the help desk about it:

David McWilliams wrote about our high electricity prices the other day:

He attributes our costs to high gas prices and our failure to develop renewables:

Why is this? It is largely because we have taken the “Sure it’ll be grand” approach to energy, taking the easy position of importing other people’s gas rather than investing in our own renewables… Gas prices have been high since the war in Ukraine, with Irish households paying about €0.14 per kWh … Despite having ample wind and wave potential, our casual approach means we rely on imported energy.

This is wrong on so many levels. Gas prices are lower than pre-war, with the Dutch TTF currently less than 4c/kWh and the UK National Balancing Point price being generally on a par with this. They are much lower than during the 2021 spike caused by a combination of weather and the demand shock due to the Covid-19 rebound, let alone during the temporary spike of the Ukraine invasion.

We may be paying somewhat higher prices for previously contracted gas, but our high electricity costs are fundamentally not because of fuel inputs. If anything they are because of high wind prices, and preferential dispatch resulting in lower utilisation of thermal plant which becomes ever more expensive to operate while remaining essential to reliability. One could also mention the active sabotaging of indigenous gas development and the failure to plan for gas imports.

There is also an implicit assumption that we will have unlimited interconnector capacity and willing customers always ready to buy our wind power instead of low or even negative prices during times of excess production. Unless he realises that we're envisaging going the unfeasibly expensive hydrogen route and imagines that we'll have excess hydrogen and the means to transport it.

Lastly, nobody who mentions our "ample wave potential" has any clue about the state of the technology. I guess the solutions are always simpler when you're a "celebrity economist".

McWilliams long ago drank the wind industry Koolaid,remember Ireland as Qatar of wind. Sweden has nuclear powered steam generation, likewise Finland. Norway because of it's geography has abundant hydro in the south (that is finite). Both Denmark and Norway have gas resources. Denmark sits between its Scandinavian neighbours and Germany making it strategically placed to run inter-connectors that help Germany balance its grid due to the self inflicted "Energiewiende". It is not a problem for Denmark to import the power it needs from Germany and Scandinavia, when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining. Despite that abundance of supply, the average Mr. and Mrs. Jensen don't get cheap electricity prices.

Here is the story at the moment: https://energinet.dk/

Scotland also have some massive rewilding projects underway which will involve a lot of trees being allowed to grow untouched.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyl11604e7o

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/10/herd-of-tauros-to-be-released-into-highlands-to-recreate-aurochs-effect

If some trees need to be cut down to secure clean energy then so be it, they can always be replanted. Any kind of development requires disturbing nature. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, etc. Look at the damage oil and gas do to the environment.

if only there was some sort of green zero co2 cheap power generation with 95% capacity factor that could work on a site a few hundred meters square on each site

yeah if only it didn't take a few decades to implement from start to finish, and there was an appetite for them in people's localities

Yes, the Bus Eireann bus route between Limerick and Dublin was fully operational until 2021, the greens came to power and it was gone. Same happened the X51 Express bus from Limerick to Galway. Working perfectly for years, cut within a few months of the Greens in power

The local links are the greatest joke of them all. Takes over an hour to go from Dungarvan to Clonmel, a journey that's just 42km long

so did the green party end the routes or TFI or bus eireann or who? anyway they'll be gone from gov in probably a couple of months so surely these routes will be reinstated then (although i'm pretty sure you can still take buses between dublin and limerick).

I think the official chain of command is Bus Eireann ended the route, under the instruction of TFI, whose policies are implemented by the Department of Transport, whose instructions are given by the Minister for Transport, Eamonn Ryan who in turn is leader of the Green Party in Ireland. Hope this explains it to you since you felt the need to ask twice

Indeed you can still take buses between Dublin and Limerick by private operators the aforementioned Dublin Coach are never on time and their old rickety busses are always breaking down, Eireagle/Citylink/Flightlink only go to the Airport and JJ Kavanaghs take 4.5 hours to do the route between the 2 cities. Another potential option would be to go via Galway or Cork.

I do hope that whoever takes over from the Greens in the Transport ministry reinstates the routes

We already have nuclear in this country, through our inter-connector with the UK. In 2026 we will have nuclear energy from France through the Celtic Inter-connector.

Only major difference is we are relying on other countries to do the heavy lifting of actually building the plants

I`m one of those that has been in the same boat for the last month.

Being somewhat energy independent is like being a bit pregnant in that you are only fooling yourself until the inevitable happens.

The present wind energy plan, along with not being sufficient to fill our projected needs, is so economically unviable that nobody will give a cost for because they know it is. Even if we did manage to put ourselves in hock for generations to come and it did work, which is very questionable, the resulting electricity charges would wipe out our economy.

It is becoming more and more obvious that even for greens it`s now a case of pick your poision. Fossil fuels or nuclear.