Energy infrastructure

Can you quit insulting other posters, please? If you don’t like having your points refuted, maybe a forum’s not the right place for you.

I’ve explained already why your arguments are bogus, but lets just summarise:

1. Fixation on short-term effects, ignoring the larger picture (Fixation on irrelevant details seems to be a common thread in both stupid conversations I’ve had with you here)
2. Using Germany’s climate as a basis to dismiss investment in wind energy in Ireland, and off shore
3. Strange belief that interconnect capacity is static and can never increase. Increased interconnection to other grids is part of the plan, and that plan is already in progress, and accelerating.
4. Holding wind energy to an impossible-to-reach ideal in order to discredit it.
5. Belief that stagnant weather in one small part of Europe means no wind anywhere else (hint: High Pressure areas and Low Pressure Areas cause what at their borders…?)

I'm pretty much done with you, there's no point in discussing if all you have to offer is “no, no, no“ and a whine about “greens”.

Offer an alternative solution. Go on. Everyone knows, by now, that you think we’re on the wrong path. Enlighten us…

What is your alternative to “the plan”?

By the way, calling me a liar isn’t a good look.

The "baseload" model hardly seems relevant to the electricity system today. We need as much renewables as we can get supplemented by gas powered backup. I agree with you on LNG though. Maybe, when/if the Greens aren't in the next government, the ideological objection to it can be overcome. The more renewables we can deploy, the cheaper it should make electricity in the long run, in Ireland if not Germany.

Calling me a liar is not the same as saying that you believe there’s an error in what I’ve said. And, yes, it’s wrong to infer too much from what someone writes, especially about “what I am”. I’ve attacked your statements. If I’ve accidentally attacked you as a person, I apologise, but “you” and “your argument” are two separate things, and I reserve the right to call the latter bullshit when I believe it is.

I have no “motive” here except to have an informed discussion about how we will solve the problems with our energy infrastructure, because those problems are a major contributor to our high electricity costs, which I don’t like.

Fundamentally, the problem we have in Ireland right now is that we import more electricity than we export, so we are in a weak bargaining position when it comes to the price we pay for electricity. We are heavily reliant on gas for the energy we don’t import.

We have the opportunity to reduce that dependence dramatically by investing in offshore wind - the only energy resource that we have domestically in any quantity, but to do that requires additional investment in interconnection and energy storage technologies. Wind energy is not stable. It is very hard to manage compared to gas, but I believe that technology only moves forward when we face challenges. Power storage was not a viable business when the world was on the “base load” model, in which the challenge was how to dispose of excess base-load generation. Now that there’s demand for grid-scale power storage, the technology is moving forward.

You clearly think that’s the wrong approach, but you aren’t offering an alternative, and we both know that the status quo cannot continue.

By the way, the world’s first motor-car filling-station opened in 1912, 24 years after the first motor-car trip. Germany, where that journey happened, had to wait until 1922 for its first “Tankstelle”. Before then, motorists had to buy their fuel in cans at pharmacies, hardware stores and oil wholesalers. It takes time for support infrastructure to catch up with new technologies. (I’m also a car enthusiast; that’s not a very “Green” position, but then I’m not a “Green”)

You have not explained how he's wrong by a long shot.

"So, let me be clear about this: Wind alone will not solve our energy issues; we will need a lot of storage"

Your casual dismissive mention of 'a lot of storage', as if there were any affordable or reasonable solutions, is fatuous.

There are no storage solutions. This country has been put on a course to uncharted waters based on hopium.

Whenever I post that ESB video outlining Ireland's sh​it-show of a 'plan' the renewables fans deride everything about it, claiming it's all wrong. The Germans haven't solved the storage problem and it's not going to be solved by us either.

Australia was all gung-ho on hydrogen, but all talk there of it has basically fizzled out with the realisation it would be too expensive.

There's a little Mexican wave and round of cheers every time someone mentions Silvermines, which is less than a pathetic joke compared to what's needed.

If it's not a rousing cheer for Silvermines it's an optimistic statement that batteries have gotten so cheap they will be the magic solution to the vast, gaping hole of the storage problem, when they clearly are not and never will be. How did that ESB video by the learned Dr of Engineering go - ah yes - we would need a trillion tesla power walls, but the good news is she can't do simple maths and must be wrong, because despite having the ESB's data sets at her disposal, she's wrong about how long Dunkelflauts can last here and in Europe, doesn't know what she's talking about even though she's paid a considerable sum to know.

There is no storage. I personally don't mind because I don't believe for a second that net zero is remotely achievable with renewables; so long as you are happy to always be reliant on fossil fuels for a good percentage of generation and energy provision in other sectors then all is well. I'm happy with that, but that's not the plan or intent for this country or the EU in general.

This renewables based energy infrastructure clown-show is another children's hospital, where the builders are given a rough sketch with the 'minor' details to be filled in when the civil servants have worked them out.

What a country!

Yes, storage is the problem. Here is the video I referenced. Watch it and all will become clear - except for a solution to the problem, of course:

The issue with gas is it's not part of net-zero. Yes, that's not a problem until 2050, but there is still no solution and the scale of the problem is head-spinning.

yes storage is really a big problem if any discussion of nuclear is ruled out in first place and we continue to insist that wind is the answer

we have now more than a week of next to no wind in Ireland

Do quick back of envelope calculations on how much storage would have been needed to cover the gap in last week alone if we didn’t have gas, coal and wood from rainforests to burn

I can understand why we wouldn't want fracked gas production in Ireland, obviously, but other than that yes I strongly agree.

But we don't , at the moment if we dont produce wind energy ,then we burn gas ,

And if we dont burn gas it's because the wind is blowing,

Even with a scale up in batteries it's still only going to provide energy in a short gaps when the wind isn't blowing, as hard or not at all ,

So -

Currently the wind turbines are to reduce the gas bill -

Solar ? I'm not really sure ,

We have 6500-7000MW of wind

For better half of a month this produced next to zero

If you double this number of wind, guess what? Yep still next to zero

Double again until you get to 37,000MW of offshore ontop of this 6500-7000, yep still next to zero

maybe slightly more but not by much as capacity factor of offshore is 40% vs 30% for onshore

Building multiples more of wind, even the much more expensive offshore, will barely reduce the gas bill

You be better off burning them euros alongside the imported wood from rainforests we burn

Any danger you might stop bitching about what we are doing, and suggest what we should be doing instead?

Have Dublin Array submitted their Planning Application to ABP yet? The plan was before the end of 2024.

Arklow Bank submitted theirs back in the summer. Are there any of the other off-shore projects further ahead than Dublin Array?

If we are talking about shoulds for Ireland, I as an explicitly pro humanities survival environmentalist (not Green) person believe that yes we should be building a nuclear reactor, using the emergency powers that should be available having declared a climate emergency in 2019. Whatever the most off the shelf gen 5 fission reactor is, get one of those. Same goes for offshore and onshore wind and solar. And interconnections. Maximise our energy independence. I also believe that should include a couple of LNG terminals as a last resort backup. Because while we are now fairly deep into climate breakdown I also realise that people freezing to death and the entire system breaking down because we are without power is a short to medium term likelihood if we dont.

If we go through the full rigmarole of the Irish planning system we may apply for a fusion reactor as it will be a mature technology by the time its approved.