"Green" policies are destroying this country

Thats not going to happen, realistically.

The fact is we will be forced to reduce emissions. No point burying our head in the sand and the govt know this.

There is a phrase now making prominence in relation to wind farms reaching the end of their lifespan "repowering". It is intended to give the impression that these wind farms will continue operating indefinitely for no more than the cost of a bit of paint and a sticking plaster.

The reality is that they are torn down and a completely new wind farm with a new capital cost and strike price replacing them. It would not make any financial sense for any wind farm owner, especially offshore, to continue operating on a 20 year old strike price.

Wind turbines come with a 3 - 5 year full wrap warranty with the cost of that warranty embedded in the price. After that the owners to maintain full wrap coverage have to pay a annual premium that increases incrementally. At 20 years if they wish to continue operating the warrantor will insist on a major refurbishing but will still charge ~€100,000 per MW of a turbines nameplate capacity. €1.5 million per turbine. With the loss of capacity factor over those 20 years it would require ~180 15 MW turbines to generate 1 GW of electricity. The warranty fee for a year would be €270 million plus all the cost of that refurbishing to sell that 1 GW for a 20 year old strike price.

IT would make no sense for a offshore wind farm owner to continue generating after 20 years.

9.5bn is how much French government spent on EDF bailout 4 years ago, since then it paid itself back 3-4x making France a clean green European energy superpower

Meanwhile Germany spent a trillion euro on energywende and has to rely on France to keep lights on while producing multiples of co2 with second most expensive electricity in Europe right behind Ireland

I bet you regret bringing up France now eh?

I`ll deal with the rest of your post when I have more time, but as to my loss of capacity factor claim being unfounded. Offshore wind turbines have a linear drop of 0.5% to 1.0% of their capacity factor annually.

At the lower end that would reduced a capacity factor of 42% to 32% after20 years. I was being over generous in my calculation and used 38%

That is for just aerodynamic loss and does not take into account structural decline.

If I was championing renewables over nuclear the rock I would choose to die on would not be Denmark. They have admitted that a renewables grid is not possible and are themselves now looking to nuclear.

But then those were not the only inconvenient facts you choose to ignore with your three examples of offshore wind farms granted extensions, all of which were in Denmark.

Renewables cannot provide baseload as they are intermittent. Denmark in the past had to rely on wood burning (20%), a green accountancy scam, Norwegian hydro (18%) and Sweden`s nuclear (7%) for that and 45% of the electricity they consume.

Norway got feed up being drained like a battery by Denmark when wind was producing nothing. As are Sweden with Germany and Denmark doing the same. Norway are not renewing the link with Denmark which resulted in a reality check in Denmark. A futher reality check quickly followed with Denmark being unable to get a single bid for it`s largest ever offering of offshore - a potential 10GW - adding to the sense of panic with them appealing to wind farms approaching their end of life to remain operating. What they got was the 3 you listed which with their capacity factors would generate 0.078 GW. for a few years at most before they fall apart. It could not even be termed a drop in the ocean.

The idea that you can just strap a new turbine on top of old fixed monopile or jacket foundations that have been subject to 20 years stress is a load of old nonsense that nobody would insure. Similar to on land the so called "repowering" is nothing other than the whole assembly turn down and scrapped, replaced by a new turbine, new base at a new capital cost and new strike price.

As to nuclear. no problem with baseload. The Capex covers the entire life of the plant unlike renewables that would require three different capital investments and three strike prices in the same time span. Nuclear will generate regardless of weather unlike renewables and do so at over twice the capacity factor.

Nuclear, like renewables, is also governed by the marginal pricing policy, but unlike renewables where nuclear plants are state owned the excess profits from nuclear reverts to the state as it does in France with the state owning the nuclear plants. Renewable wind farm owners pocket that excess profit. Hungary has used that excess profit to subsides the cost to consumers and their electricity is one quarter of that of Ireland. Poland will be going down the same road with their new NPPs as will Belgium who along with Hungary are building new plants, and are now in the process of nationalising those already supplying Belgium.

I often wondered why with a capital expenditure that covered the lifetime of a nuclear plant they did not look for a strike price for that lifespan. Seems it`s not allowed by the E.U. Poland intended doing just that with a 60 year strike price for their new plants, but were prevented from doing so by the E.U. As the E.U. is investing nothing in Poland`s plants I did not see it any of their business, other than just another attempt similar to the marginal pricing policy to protect their precious renewables from having to compete.

Many bought into the pup that the E.U. was selling of the liberalisation of electricity from state control resulting in cheaper electricity. We are the classic example of the more electricity was "liberalised" the more expensive it became. It was never anything to do with providing even reasonably priced electricity. It was, and is, an ideological green push for a carbon zero emissions, which in our case if pursued under this present inane 37 GW offshore plan will bankrupt the country, still have us emitting more than we are now by 2050, while generations to come would still be paying the planet`s highest charges.

The fines the EU will impose will be in the billions.

It will stop us delivering other national projects as the money will be needed to pay the fines instead.

Or, we can reduce agri emissions and avoid the fines in the first place.

Out of all of those only the 9.5 was the actual bailout which was earned back 4x since (unlike Orsted in Denmark btw)

Meanwhile we are about to spend 200bn+ in Ireland according to yourself on wind, a country that’s much smaller than France and is already most expensive in Europe

Thanks for pointing out yet again their stupidity of current policies

We could avoid fines by two means.

For electricity, generate the lot using imported wood from the other side of the planet. Transport it by road for hundreds of kilometers, burn it and join in the pretense that it is carbon neutral like all those that will have credits for sale are doing.

Or, we could just shut down our argi business similar to the green insisted cull on cattle to save the planet by reducing methane emissions where there is a growing demand for beef and as we were culling, Brazil, Argentina, Australia etc. were increasing their herd numbers to take advantage.

Your claim was that Denmark runs an 80% + renewable grid. The figures I gave you are the flow-traced figures for Denmark`s energy mix which track the physical origin of the electricity actually consumed. Which shows you 80% + as demonstrably incorrect.

What a country generates has nothing to do with what it consumes via it`s grid. Electricity exported is a totally different matter. Although exports from Denmark in 2025 didn`t improve their lot overall. They have been net importers since 2020 with last year being the highest for net imports since 2020. With Norway turning off the tap and Sweden looking likely to do the same, that is not going to improve.

As I said, if I was championing renewables, Denmark would not be the rock I would see as a good example.

Chinese emissions peaking at less than half the US emissions per capita 

Seriously? A fair chunk of the Chinese population live in conditions that would be considered very poor by most European/USA standards.

If the green agenda is to lower the quality of life to match second-world conditions, that is a very hard sell to just about everyone in the first world.

China is a super intensively populated country, this 'per capita' hogwash is nothing but a distraction. The C02 entering the atmosphere doesn't behave any differently on a 'per capita' basis. No different than a €30 bag of coal V a €20 bag of coal emits any less C02 based on it's purchase price.

This is the delusion the green agenda chases - per capita and carbon taxes. The atmosphere doesn't give two hoots for any of that!!!

Eh the same China that is currently building more nuclear plants in parallel than rest of world combined? And is planning on doubling down more

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3350847/chinas-vast-nuclear-power-sector-now-able-build-50-reactors-time

While burning coal and using slave labour to refine rare earths and produce “renewable” products for eejits in the west