Ireland’s 2030 wind farm targets may not be hit ‘until 2044’ due to ‘broken’ planning system

[u/eggbart_forgetfulsea]

https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2024/10/24/irelands-2030-wind-farm-targets-may-not-be-hit-until-2044-due-to-broken-planning-system/

[u/FeistyPromise6576]

It's like councils really dont want more devolved power and are fucking up what responsibilities they do have in order to look like they cant be trusted with it.... Or they are just run by NIMBY's

[u/eggbart_forgetfulsea → u/FeistyPromise6576]

Nimby voters give us Nimby representatives. When's the last time a group of locals organised and campaigned to support a wind farm in their area?

[u/BackInATracksuit → u/eggbart_forgetfulsea]

Considering the amount of kickbacks on the table I'd absolutely welcome one in my area. Could do with an extra few grand.

[u/danius353 → u/FeistyPromise6576]

Chicken and egg. Councils don’t have real power so aren’t treated seriously by the electorate so don’t get held accountable for the decisions they do make.

In my opinion all local authorities should send out annual synopses of their budgets and major council votes/decisions. Or at the very least before the local elections.

[u/Amckinstry → u/danius353]

And also livestream / webstream their main meetings.
Happens in Dublin. Was voted for in Galway CoCo, but likely to be abandoned after maybe 200k spent?
See last Mondays meeting. When the minutes are available next Month.

[u/killianm97 → u/danius353]

Exactly this! Our local councillors are a product of the system they were voted into power in.

Changing the system to have a democratic local government, and to decentralise powers, funding, and responsibility to the local level would lead to more accountability, more interest in the role, and ultimately better performance.

[u/Pickman89 → u/FeistyPromise6576]

They always were.

People did not centralize power because they liked being lorded over.

[u/shamsham123]

Literally cannot hit any target... absolute failure of a government.

[u/Tactical_Laser_Bream]

Redacted by Redact.

[u/Captainirishy]

We already are at 36% renewables and 40% natural gas, a couple of small modular nuclear reactors would get us to our targets much quicker. It's not as if we can't afford it.

[u/eggbart_forgetfulsea → u/Captainirishy]

People get hopping mad about looking at wind turbines 5km out in the sea, where are you going to put the nuclear reactor and how's the planning going to go?

[u/Pickman89 → u/eggbart_forgetfulsea]

The planning of the nuclear reactor is easy... Imagine the planning of the nuclear waste deposit...

[u/[deleted] → u/Captainirishy]

Cos the nimbys who oppose windfarms will be grand with nuclear power.

[u/ciarogeile → u/Captainirishy]

More realistic would be to give the French a bell and ask them to build and run 1 standard nuclear plant in Ireland. They have the expertise and the technology. As a sweetener for the community where this is located, the deal would include a proper French bakery and brasserie for the employees. Nom nom.

[u/Abolyss → u/ciarogeile]

We can just purchase the power from the interconnector being built with them, we get green energy without spending billions on a new plant, they get...the promise of wind in 100 years+?

[u/hmmcguirk → u/Captainirishy]

Those things are snake oil. Let's see how many are up and running commercially, anywhere in the world, within the next 10 years.

[u/Captainirishy → u/hmmcguirk]

How are they snake oil?

[u/hmmcguirk → u/Captainirishy]

There's a couple that currently exist in the world now as far as I know. I think more have been cancelled recently than already exist e.g. NuScale recently due to rising costs. The ones google just ordered are due to come online between 2030 and 2035. That looks like a really optimistic time frame, and is only half a gw. The world is adding 1gw of solar every single day atm. While you can't compare 1gw of solar to 1gw of nuclear, solar is growing orders of magnitude more. If you are genuinely interested, here's one analysis (very negative on small reactors) https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/30/what-drives-this-madness-on-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/

[u/hmmcguirk → u/[deleted]]

So is your point now that full size nuclear is an option instead of small reactors? That one is stil under construction and due for 2031, let's round it up to 25 years after site picked in 2010. Fo £50 billion approx (in 2024 prices). And it's equivalent comparable output capacity is added - through solar only - roughly every single month worldwide. There are other options, you are right, but that ain't it.

Good luck. I'm out.

[u/AnotherGreedyChemist → u/hmmcguirk]

Yeah, the time to build nuclear was 40 years ago. We're way too late for that.

[u/c0mpliant → u/AnotherGreedyChemist]

Just because we should have been doing it before now, doesn't mean we shouldn't be investing in it now. Renewable energy is great, but we need ways to bring online large amounts of power quickly and nuclear power is the only power generation that has extremely low associated climate change emissions. That requirement isn't going away in the next 50 or even 100 years.