"Green" policies are destroying this country

You have such little knowledge of the electricity grid in France it's actually funny

Also I see the EU is still trying to pretend it's a player in the world (as reported in the FT but that is behind a paywall) by threatening gas producers:

https://x.com/chigrl/status/1870820861231640722

Along with Norway threatening to cut energy links with the eu:

https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/12/13/norway-aims-to-cut-energy-links-with-europe-due-to-soaring-prices

And Germany still doing its ideology on energy because it doesn't need that gas pipeline and it doesn't need those nuclear reactors and, oh, why are people not voting for us? Must be social media influencers.

Hmm. I wonder where Ireland gets its gas from... Ah sure, it'll be grand. We'll get it from all those turbines we haven't built.

I can't help feeling this is the year when the wheels finally come off the European climate policy trolley. Or maybe they came off long ago but we can no longer ignore that we've been skidding along on our arses.

First there is this intriguing finding:

Some excerpts:

Specifically, the new paper provides insight into how Europe … has come to quietly dominate climate science and policy. It turns out that IAMs [Integrated Assessment Models] are an incredibly important base of soft power.

[It] shows the overwhelming role of European institutions in developing and hosting IAMs … to extend the reach of IAMs beyond climate science and into settings like banking and finance, corporate governance, and a wide range of government policy making.

AR6 scenarios originating in Europe have wind and solar playing a 2.5x greater role in global energy in 2050 than do scenarios originating outside Europe. Similarly, nuclear energy in 2050 has half the role in European AR6 scenarios compared to those from outside Europe. … From 2018 to 2022 IA modelers outside of Europe became more pessimistic about the role of wind and solar and more optimistic about nuclear. The European modelers moved in the opposite direction.

… Such results may simply reflect European values and biases, baked into the fabric of individual IAMs, which have so much complexity that it is difficult for independent observers to tease out how values and politics might influence assumptions and model construction.

The EU emphasis on intermittent renewables as the backbone of climate policy led inexorably to the vision for a green hydrogen economy (which was eagerly lapped up here in Ireland). But a recent EU Court of Auditors special "reality check" report on renewable hydrogen (available here) says that targets may have been politically motivated and that:

The Commission did not undertake robust analyses before setting the EU’s renewable hydrogen production and import targets. These were not broken down into binding targets for member states and not all member states set their own targets. When they did so, these national targets were not necessarily aligned with the Commission’s targets. In fact, the EU targets turned out to be overly ambitious: based on the available information from member states and industry, the EU is unlikely to meet them by 2030. The Commission did not set any EU targets for low-carbon hydrogen.

In fact, one fifth of all European renewable hydrogen projects have been cancelled or stalled. Of 120 GW of renewable hydrogen capacity planned for 2030, just five years from now, we currently have 0.2 GW.

Sabine Hossenfelder has this damning summary:

Hows that snowstorm doing in the states

Hydrogen was always a pipe dream. Most of those "dead" plans you refer to were to have wind or solar farms and then using the excess for hydrogen generation that could then be re-converted to electricity when it was needed. A solid idea on paper but in reality lithium batteries stored and released the same energy with much greater efficiency

Realistically if we want to go green with our electricity grid we need a lot of solar, hydro and wind in such a way that if 2 of the sources produce nothing the third source can comfortably provide the entirety of our energy needs

Hydrogen was always a pipe dream. Most of those "dead" plans you refer to were to have wind or solar farms and then using the excess for hydrogen generation that could then be re-converted to electricity when it was needed. A solid idea on paper but in reality lithium batteries stored and released the same energy with much greater efficiency

But lithium batteries on a scale that could replace baseload power for an extended period are a pipedream too.

Realistically if we want to go green with our electricity grid we need a lot of solar, hydro and wind in such a way that if 2 of the sources produce nothing the third source can comfortably provide the entirety of our energy needs

Wind and solar will always be intermittent. Hydro capacity is constrained by geography, and subject to drought. Even if these three were a viable combination you would be talking about building 3x maximum demand and replacing the wind and solar every 25 years. But since they're not, the backup will always be natural gas.

And whichever way you do it you will always be making electric power substantially more expensive by adding underutilised capacity.