"Green" policies are destroying this country

That grid would only get dirtier and more expensive if we had brought in fracked LNG from the US and then entered into a contract that obliged us to buy millions of cubic metres of it per year for a few decades

Lol. We literally didn't need it.

The past has already happened

Because like someone else posted here, all politicians are green....

Or are they

The last 'debates' were before the iran war. LNG is even less attractive now as a reserve when its even more expensive and less available than it was 2 months ago.

4 wasted years debating LNG storage when we should have been ramping up renewables

Any nuclear plant would be built a fair distance from Dublin and there would be a lot of gombeenism about it.

Even if the underlying nuclear ban is overturned the usual NIMBYs/BANANAs will keep it stuck in planning hell.

NIMBYs are all the same. They'll simply oppose whatever happens to be the project in the area, be it green, brown, or glowing green.

Building an LNG terminal would only increase the cist of our electricity.

There is a myth that solar and wind generation are cheap, that's myth is pushed using levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) metrics, when you take into account the total system cost of electricity, the real story is told in our electricity bills. When the country most needs electricity (frostly evenings), wind and solar generation totally disappear from the grid, batteries are only used for short term balancing, they are needed along with synchronous condensers due to the problems caused by unpredictable non-synchronous generation sources. Therefore we need a combination of gas, oil and inter-connectors to keep the lights on

Even a new coal plant takes 10 years to deliver a project, nuclear would take 10-12 years to deliver in Ireland. You have to start somewhere and the first step is terminating the 1999 legislation and pass legislation to stymie the eco-mentalists. 2 x Korean APR-1400s would be approx $8.7 billion per unit and take 8-10 years to deliver from start of project, financing etc. to completion. When eco-mentalists are not controlled they would add at least $2 billion to the cost of the project. They are a significant factor in infrastructure bottlenecks experienced today in Ireland. If the EU gets involved especially on financing the state would be forced to take EPR reactors (EDF, France) that would nearly double the cost per unit. Finland (similar population to Ireland) last reactor (EPR) construction estimated total cost $11 billion. Irish consumers pay 1.6x to 2x as much as Finnish consumers for electricity.

Just to meet the projected demand increase for electricity in the next 5 years, Eirgrid are telling us we need another 400MW generation capacity. There are external problems most of the gas we use comes from the North sea. The hostile attitude of various combinations of Labour/Lid Dems/Tory governments since the early 2000s in favour of net zero has meant that production from the British side has fallen substantially, the industry has been starved of investment. That has serious implications for energy security here in Ireland, not just gas but diesel and other chemicals they supply as well.

This article is typical of the zeitgeist, for instance he says "Recent research from Oxford University showed that a country fully powered by renewable energy would save households a huge amount".

He does not say which study, most likely it is this one from 2022 which on the surface looks like computer modelling based on assumptions. Here is an unavoidable fact, nowhere in the world is there a countrys grid that runs on wind, solar and batteries, there is not even a city that can do this, not even a island that can demonstrate this as a successful proof of concept (there have been attempts, but in the end all need fossil fuel backup systems)

As usual these articles ignore costs (Grid expansion, Storage (batteries, peakers), Backup capacity (gas or oil), Curtailment losses (wasted wind/solar) and System balancing costs.) Once you start hitting high penetration (70–90%) of intermittent generation, system costs rise non-linearly.

Then he goes on to say the solution is "already here" and "cheaper" but cites no costs for us to evaluate that claim. Does he know Ireland anymore since he landed the gig in Brussels? Planning/permitting delays (years), Grid connection queues, offshore wind build timelines (5–10+ years) and the usual labour and supply chain constraints and economic costs. He provides no realistic timeline.

As usual with these articles physics constraints are largely ignored. Wind and solar are non-dispatchable sources, to run a modern grid 24x7 supply must match demand in real time. Wind & Solar require large physical footprint, He promotes an offshore wind scheme off Waterford, he fails to mention it is capital intensive to deliver and maintain such diffuse power generation at sea.

Typical of these articles there is no engineering analysis if the proposed solution is viable, and there is no costed transition plan.