how they could have saved another 350 million easily

Excuse my lack of knowledge,but coal and turf are subsidised and have carbon tax? They shouldn't be subsidised as its money going around in circles.

Turf harvesting, that most environmentally friendly activity.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If green technologies are so innovative and are such great return on investment

then why the hell do they need subsidies?

That is part of the point I was about to make after reading the PO. Going back to Richard Tol, I heard him on RTE recently talking about how it is dangerous for the government to be promoting sustainable energy production. His point was that if we throw up wind farms all over the country this technology will be surpassed in the not too distant future and we will be left with a several hundred million euro bill for something that does not produce a whole lot of energy (wind turbines are off limited use but every political party in this country seems to think they will allow us to export billions of euros worth of electricity to Europe every year, well they wont).

Im not going to get into the efficiency of wind farms and the energy producing potential versus the initial cost, but Tol's point was that we should privatise the energy production sector in this country and allow private companys to develop new technologies here. For wind farms to be effective they will have to become a lot more efficient and cheaper to install so there is no point in just going with the present techology because it will some become obsolete. Private companies would ensure the most efficient system is used and continuously upgrade their systems in order to stay ahead of the competition.

IMO the government should sell off all semi-states that produce energy but retain the national grid (and hydro power plants because these are very important to prevent flooding). This would allow genuine competition in the sector (instead of the current situation where ESB prices are kept artificially high to encourage people to switch to Board Gais or Airtricity to give the illusion of competition). The IDA could get in on this deal to encourage the private companies to set up R&D facilities here. Im sure there are many energy production companies from around the world that would love to avail of our low corpo tax rate and well educated work force. We would all win because these companies would employ thousands of us, our electricity bills would reduce and our tax money would no longer be wasted on these rotten semi-state companies.

I also agree with Tol that we should scrap the whole electric car idea and instead focus on producing bio-fuels.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

offshore is much more expensive to install and maintain, anyways

if they (wind generation) are so profitable then why the hell are all the people and businesses in this country have to subsidise them to such an extent?
its a very simple question, the answers we get are all fluff along these lines:

* we need energy independence; as i pointed out we don't produce these things here and it will cost us our countryside, which the very same Greens seem to make so much noise about protecting from motorways, houses and incinerators. maybe we should put all these windmills in D4, theres certainly enough hot air coming out from the Greens to drive them

* omg ponies the world is going to run out of oil and the climate will change; as i pointed out if these are of such importance then there are cheaper and more effective ways of helping the planet, thats of course putting aside the fact that the country is broke on every level



i find this obsession with windmills very interesting its as if the Green movement got hijacked by the windmill industry and now the greens have become yet another lobby group, who refuse to look at all the options and are costing this country and its people alot of money

people are getting all worked up about few million bankers bonuses (which they should as incompetence should never be rewarded!) when they are being robbed blind by these companies who are sucking of the state tit

remember only a few years ago we were told "sure we build it they come" and you can never have enough homes/offices/shops, we are now fully blowing a new bubble except this time its green coloured. madness.

most of your argument is anti greens not anti renewable energy. i couldnt care less about the green agenda as it is portrayed now in this country and i never mentioned oil running out or climate change

it makes sense to me that if we can reduce imports we should. renewable energy is a way to do that so i support it and dont think the goverment is doing anywhere near enough to make this happen

as far as losing our countryside, wind isnt the only option its just one part of the solution solar and wave energy should be part of it too. for where there are turbines i think they look fine and actually add to the geography imo

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I have no issues with their look (tho certain part of Donegal do look **** now), but i do have issues with hypocrites

the Greens are mostly Dublin based middle class ponchos who think its not ok to build homes and roads in the country, yet at the same time want to cover the countryside in giant generators and pylons to connect these (of course people dont like living next to pylons as current protests in NE show)

I bet Gormley would **** a brick if a few of these where to be build in his constituency lowering the value of his constituents homes :rolleyes: we seen how he performed with the incinerator which was a good idea.

I worked out back of the envelope numbers we would need literary thousands of these things in the country and we still wont have energy independence when the wind stops blowing, building inter-connectors is one solution but they waste alot of energy in transit and we endup back at square one dependant on English/French nuclear power when the wind doesn't blow here.



this whole pampering and subsidising to the wind industry is madness, we replaced one industry (construction) with another (wind) and I am afraid like ghost estates that now cover the country it will all end in tears

if wind is such a great source of energy then it should compete and grow without subsidies, otherwise we endup in a situation where we have an industry that is unable to operate without state support, we already have the banks dragging the country down, we dont need more, thank you very much

Yes but unlike construction, energy will always be needed. Always. No exceptions.

And I do think the Greens are a shower of pr1cks and Gormley should be shot, but wind energy is a very viable sector. We're not saying connect the grid only to wind energy because that would be ridiculous. Have the others on back-up for those still summer days. It would still be worth it if we could power the country for a few months on whats blowin in from over the Atlantic!

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Look

all I am trying to say is that we lost our Republic to a collection of lobby groups such as: construction companies/banks and unions
these groups have destroyed the economy
last thing we need is to replace them with yet another subsidised industry that is promising us the stars
if the state feels that it needs to help renewables then they should be doing things like streamlining planing and building up the grid infrastructure
not directly and indirectly subsidising them at the expense of every one else in the economy


if you are unable to see that what is happening here is analogous to what the construction industry has done over last 10 years, then I am sorry for you for not being to understand where these subsidies will lead, they used to say we can never have enough homes and their price will only ever go up

now we have another group telling us we can never have enough green energy and the price of the alternatives will ever go up :rolleyes:
dejavu :rolleyes: we dont need yet another small group of people hijacking the state for their own gain

Look, unless half the country suddenly leaves or else stops using energy, we'll continue to need just as much energy as we do now, so why not produce a portion of that ourselves? Save on imports in the future. It might cost us a bit now, but it will be of benefit in the future, you can't compare the construction of homes with the installation of wind turbines. Wind turbines will constantly be making themselves viable, by producing energy, whereas when houses are finished construction, that's it.

As regards jobs, are you telling me that no educated, talented Irish people could aid in the design, planning and installation of wind turbines. We got into thi mess because we thought constructionwould last forever. We're not looking for a replacement, we're looking for something to create jobs over the next few years until something different is needed. So why not make that something wind turbines, which will make/save money, whichever way you want to put it, in the future.

You also mentioned that installing them is a once off job creation, what about maintenance?

ei.sdraob wrote: »

As I said self-sufficiency is a noble goal in any economy, but not when it comes at the expense of the rest of the economy, especially when this economy has to beg from the IMF

You are assuming that prices of coal/oil/gas in the future will go up, that is the same assumption made about houses before.
or that no other technologies might come along making wind moot (lets say fusion)

The price of coal/gas may or may not go up, but unless it drastically reduces in price, it will always be worth having a part of your energy coming from something renewable.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

There is nothing special about windmills just as there is nothing special about houses. holding them up on a pedestal of quasi religious worship is silly
People live in homes making them "viable" :rolleyes:
Windmills don't last forever and depreciate just as homes do (something that was also forgotten during the bubble).

Wind turbines MAKE money every minute of the day that it's blowing. Houses sitting there, by themselves, provide no monetary value.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Planning and installation is not exactly highly skilled jobs, how long do you keep putting up windmills like we put up houses to keep semi-skilled men employed?

Tell me where I said we should be putting them up at the rate we put up houses. That's ridiculous, it would be quite ironic to start putting up sustainable energy sources at an economically unsustainable level.:rolleyes:

ei.sdraob wrote: »

ah there was me thinking it was about "long term thinking" :rolleyes:

If you were thinking long-term you would see that they, in addition to solar panels, water turbines, etc. will lead to huge savings in the long-term.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

what about maintenance of houses? how many people are employed now maintaining all those ghost estates?

I don't know, how many are? You back that up. Because as far as I am aware, very few. There is a half-finished estate at the end of our road for the last 3 years, and the only people I have seen in there are young lads drinkin!:rolleyes:

ei.sdraob wrote: »

BTW if you know your history you would know that "import substitution" and the will to become more "independent" has brought down many states before, biggest example being Argentina who at start of 20th century had larger economy than France only to end-up being a leper like us.

I am not talking about trying to completely substitute imports, we will always be dependent on imports, but it would be nice to be able to cut back on the dependency a little. It's a vast resource, which Ireland has in abudance, why not exploit it?

ei.sdraob wrote: »

You seem to be under the impression that I am against renewables

I am not, I am against wasting money we don't have and subsidising private companies

money which we dont have, money which we are borrowing at high interest and need to pay back, money that customers could be using to grow their own businesses


If the state wants to help the wind industry they can do so by:
* providing standardisation
* providing the infrastructure
* reducing/streamlining planning process

the main complaint of companies building wind-farms is planning and connectivity.


It is not the job of the state to subsidise any industry, as is very clearly illustrated by the position the country is in, that is bad idea.

Not only are they subsidising the industry but they also rigged the energy market making all customers (business and private) pay more whether they like it or not.


If wind energy is what its promised to be the the government should help using the methods I outlined above not by directly interfering in the market sowing seeds of another bubble and also hurting the rest of the economy.

I think its very obvious from our experiences with ESB that the state should never get involved in energy generation.

But it is a hugely costly activity, and there are few companies at the minute who are able to invest heavily enough in it to make it worthwhile. So if you want them, either subsidies need to be given, or else it must be completely state-funded, which is not the way to go!:rolleyes:

The problem is that if you want them, subsidies will have to be made. The question then is are they worth it? And I am suggesting that for the production of short-term jobs and the long-term benefits they provide, yes it's worth it.

Just look at it this way. For whatever amount the government backs the company to install them, how much will be saved by not having to pay welfare to the people, and subsequently the tax they will now pay on their income? I would suggest that this would drastically decrease the period over which you would start to see a return on the investment.

All of the opposition have criticised that the government haven't stimulated jobs, without giving any real alternatives or stimuli themselves. Yet here is a sector which can create jobs with a little investment, and you're shooting it down.