RE: Good Article . .16 Nov 2021 14:15
Fr.Quick: "A good article in today's Irish Independent by Conor Skehan, referenced earlier. Accurate and plain."
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/we-must-focus-energy-on-here-and-now-before-drawing-up-dream-climate-plans-41049064.html
I'm pleasantly surprised to see such an article appear in the national media. The messaging around climate policy has, frankly, been scaring the pants off me. The 80% renewable goal for 2030 is simply insane (not to mention impossible) given it has to simultaneously cope with rising demand from existing users, proposed demand from a million new EVs and 150,000 electric heat pumps, the shutting down of all remaining coal and peat, the building of substantial new backup supply and the new transmission infrastructure to integrate both renewables and backups.
On top of that you have the government pricing the 2030 plan at €125 billion, with costs to be borne primarily by consumers. It adds up to €70k for every household in the country. While some of the cost might fall on industrial consumers, they will have to raise their own prices to match. That means significant inflation, which hits everyone regardless of tax-paying status and therefore hits rich and poor alike.
The article rightly points out that a plan that doesn't set out step by step, year by year, how all this is going to be achieved is not a plan at all. For instance, has anyone pointed out that the projected number of EVs is more or less equal to total vehicle sales for the rest of the decade? In other words, it depends on not another ICE vehicle being sold from TODAY! That's clearly nonsense. How much of the rest of the plan is similarly poorly thought out? The plan for a "modal shift" to walking and cycling depends very much on increased tolling, parking charges, and restricted access to urban areas -- i.e. all stick and no carrot.
Energy costs pervade every single aspect of human life, from the food we eat to every product we buy and every service we use. Energy utilities have been paring costs to the bone for a century -- it makes a difference whether the generating cost of electricity is 10c or 10.5c / kWh (generation and fuel costs are about 40% of retail cost in Ireland). To entice both renewable generators and fossil fuel backup operators you have to agree a strike price up front which guarantees that you will pay over the odds for both sources, whether you need them or not. Fanciful ideas about hydrogen etc. involving whole new infrastructures and substantial energy losses are plain nuts.
And finally, the end goal of this entire eye-wateringly expensive plan is to reduce global emissions by 0.05%, and global warming by zero degrees.
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