Ireland Becomes World's First Country To Divest From Fossil Fuels (theguardian.com) 194
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The Republic of Ireland will become the world's first country to sell off its investments in fossil fuel companies, after a bill was passed with all-party support in the lower house of parliament. The state's 8 billion euro national investment fund will be required to sell all investments in coal, oil, gas and peat "as soon as is practicable", which is expected to mean within five years. The Irish fossil fuel divestment bill was passed in the lower house of parliament on Thursday and it is expected to pass rapidly through the upper house, meaning it could become law before the end of the year. The Irish state investment fund holds more than 300 million euro in fossil fuel investments in 150 companies. The bill defines a fossil fuel company as a company that derives 20% or more of its revenue from exploration, extraction or refinement of fossil fuels. The bill also allows investment in Irish fossil fuel companies if this funds their move away from fossil fuels. "The [divestment] movement is highlighting the need to stop investing in the expansion of a global industry which must be brought into managed decline if catastrophic climate change is to be averted," said Thomas Pringle, the independent member of parliament who introduced the bill. "Ireland by divesting is sending a clear message that the Irish public and the international community are ready to think and act beyond narrow short term vested interests."
Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:5, Interesting)
If governments want to be serious, they should remove subsidies for fossil fuels. In many countries there would be a much quicker move to alternative sources of energy if the government weren't giving fossil fuel companies special tax breaks or other forms of government largesse. But if, even after doing all of that, the best return on investment is still in those fossil fuel companies, it's idiotic to ignore the opportunity.
Also, I suspect that a good many of the large energy companies that are currently heavily involved in extracting fossil fuels will still be big energy companies after the world moves passed fossil fuels. I'm not sure that the arbitrary line in the sand that Ireland has drawn is particularly useful.
Re:Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
Holding significant investment in fossil fuel companies creates a potential conflict of interest with regard to passing laws involving regulation or infrastructure investment.
By divesting this conflict of interest is partially eliminated.
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That aside, you'd simply just need to put another entity in charge of the i
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this creates a situation where the government is unable to invest in anything since there is always some conflict of interest.
Government should not be "investing" in any business or industry, full stop.
It can put laws and policies into effect to encourage or discourage certain things but it should not be both a participant in business and the regulator of business. That's how you grow crony-capitalism and I think we've all had enough of that horseshit.
Strat
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Government should not be "investing" in any business or industry, full stop.
It can put laws and policies into effect to encourage or discourage certain things but it should not be both a participant in business and the regulator of business. That's how you grow crony-capitalism and I think we've all had enough of that horseshit.
Strat
Depends on how you run your government. The Norweigan government has about $200k in the bank for every citizen.
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Government should not be "investing" in any business or industry, full stop.
So you'd rather be taxed than your government find other sources of income?
That's a rather odd position for you to be taking.
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So you'd rather be taxed than your government find other sources of income?
That's a rather odd position for you to be taking.
Not at all strange. I want any wealth the government spends to be parceled out by Congress in a budget from accountable and audit-able sources so that they are more accountable to the electorate and less prone to corruption.
Strat
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So do I. What I don't see is how that precludes those funds from coming from an investment rather than taxes. What does the source matter if the accountability is there?
Looking at Norway, they have a massive investment fund that they can strategically tap to improve the country. I don't see a downside to that.
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So do I. What I don't see is how that precludes those funds from coming from an investment rather than taxes. What does the source matter if the accountability is there?
Looking at Norway, they have a massive investment fund that they can strategically tap to improve the country. I don't see a downside to that.
The US Constitution specifies that all moneys spent by the government be doled out by Congress, specifically the House.
You're welcome to amend it, however.
Strat
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Spent.
How does having another non-tax source of income change that?
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How does having another non-tax source of income change that?
We could do away with taxes completely if the government owned and operated all manufacturing, businesses, etc but that's fascism or socialism, both of which are inherently authoritarian in nature.
It also removes the ability of the people to "starve the beast" when it oversteps it's authority and exceeds the limits on it's powers. Not to mention, it also drives private business out of the market as competing with the government is a losing game.
Much safer to keep the government dependent on the good will of
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One word, pensions
Which the government should contract to have private sector pension investment firms handle, not the government.
The other thing that should not ever exist are public employee unions. They are pure corruption as it's union leaders and politicians getting together to decide how much of our money (taken under threat of deadly force) they will spend, and the public unions then kick back some of our money back to the politicians in the form of campaign donations and other political funding mechanisms.
Strat
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Holding significant investment in fossil fuel companies creates a potential conflict of interest with regard to passing laws involving regulation or infrastructure investment.
By divesting this conflict of interest is partially eliminated.
300 million euro is a lot of money for a person, but even for a small country like Ireland you're still only talking about roughly 0.09 % of GDP, and they'll invest it somewhere else. This is a symbolic gesture that costs nothing.
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The role of government is to make laws which benefit society. Having investments (or lack of investments) in particular companies or industries compromises its ability to be impartial when making laws which affect those industries. (Ignoring for the moment the many other ways corruption can creep in.)
Re:Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, if this keeps happening, someone will eventually end up being the one holding all of the oil cards. Being the only one holding all the cards when the market collapses isn't the best financial position to be in.
Your point about the energy companies finding other ways to profit off of energy once oil isn't a thing is valid. Maybe you'd suggest Ireland use their money and power to sway the board's? What is your suggestion? What if their share doesn't change opinion, should they divest then until the companies turn around or split their holdings?
--
"Hi, my name is Teddy Ruxpin" -- T. Ruxpin
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Re:Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:5, Funny)
Just go look at any major "oil" company website - I bet your bottom dollar their renewable investments are prominently displayed or easy to find.. bragged about for cred really.
I went to http://corporate.exxonmobil.co... [exxonmobil.com] and there was not a single mention about investments in renewables.
Myth: BUSTED.
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They have called themselves Energy since... (Score:2)
What are you talking about? Your link perfectly exemplifies what I was talking about - notice the almost overuse of the word energy? "Energy lives here" is their slogan? Energy is the main menu item? One of the first links, "Energy and Carbon Summary", talks about their research and investment in renewables. Even a single google search easily finds articles on the subject.
They've used "Energy" since the 80s at least. Oil got really unpopular around the 70s during the gas crisis and association with OPEC.
Re:Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about?
I quoted what Inwas talking about:
Just go look at any major "oil" company website - I bet your bottom dollar their renewable investments are prominently displayed or easy to find.. bragged about for cred really.
Nowhere on Exxon Mobil’s page was any of this mentioned.
One of the first links, "Energy and Carbon Summary", talks about their research and investment in renewables.
Bullshit. You clearly didn’t actually read that report. The report was mostly about natural gas. The only thing close to them investing in renewables was some paragraph about making petroleum lubricants for wind turbines.
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Congratulations. You picked the one oil company that is widely known as *the worst*. In the meantime a British oil company is also one of the top wind producers in the USA. A French oil company is a major investor in solar power. A Dutch oil major was one of the first to jump up and put electric car chargers in around the place, something others are majorly following up. Before China ate the industry the oil industry were the biggest suppliers of solar panels in the world.
Not Exxon though, they are dicks be
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"Ridiculously Meticulous" wouldn't of missed.
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And the point STILL STANDS. "Easy to find" would imply a simple google search for "ExxonMobil renewable investments" will yield results. What's that? The top story is something about a billion dollar investment in research into synthetic fuels grown by algae?
Still desperately clasping on to the one worst case you can find? Try changing the company name. Visit some of their websites while you're at it. The one I mentioned first literally has websites dedicated to wind and solar listed under "Alternate Energy" immediately next to the menu options for Downstream and Upstream.
I suppose your next complaint is that their website has a picture of an oil platform on the front page so they must be "hiding" things?
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If you look under Research and Development you can find this page:
Advanced Biofuels [exxonmobil.com]
"ExxonMobil funds and conducts advanced biofuels research as an investment in new technologies that could increase energy supplies, reduce emissions and improve efficiencies."
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A table of EROEI can be found here [wikipedia.org] around the middle of the page.
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I was able to find with just a few clicks. Maybe you should stop trying to be so snarky and do what he actually said.
Re:Seems meaningless or foolish (Score:4, Interesting)
are by FAR the largest investors in renewables. They've literally done more than anyone else building renewable infrastructure.
The biggest investor in renewables is the government of China.
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Probably not so great, as the demand for lubricants and chemical feedstock won't be worth even pennies on the dollar compared to the historical demand for energy.
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Subsidizing an industry which is this old is just failed government policy. I wonder how these government officials get bribed, because no sane person would fund an oil company with tax dollars.
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There is a difference between investments and subsidies.
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No, that's the "well if we don't sell electric shock torture devices to totalitarian regimes then someone else will" argument. Sometimes a thing is morally right or wrong, regardless of short term economic disadvantages.
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This seems rather meaningless as Ireland divesting does nothing to the companies if someone else is willing to buy Ireland's holdings.
Yes. If. On the other hand there are more and more projects in fossil fuels struggling to get funding and investment, so your conclusion isn't foregone.
It's worse if this means that Ireland will see a lower return as a result.
The human condition: Save the world as long as it doesn't get in the way of profit!
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If governments want to be serious, they should remove subsidies for fossil fuels.
No, if governments were serious about getting off fossil fuels then they'd remove all taxes from them.
Imagine I believe a horse will lose in a horse race, let's call this horse "Coal". Imagine I believe another horse will win, let's call this horse "Wind". If I thought Coal was going to lose this horse race then I'm not going to put myself in a place where I'd benefit off it winning in the race, or even placing (first three) in the race. If I thought Wind was going to win then I want to be in a place of
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I'll believe the government is serious about getting off fossil fuels when I see them taxing wind and solar, and removing taxes from gasoline and diesel fuel.
This is nonsense. Giving petroleum a tax advantage over wind and solar will not be encourage investment in wind and solar.
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This is nonsense. Giving petroleum a tax advantage over wind and solar will not be encourage investment in wind and solar.
You are correct, this is insufficient to create investment in wind and solar. What wind and solar needs to succeed is for them to create value. Creating value is different than creating money. The government creates money, but it only has value because people can generally get something of value with money through trade. Money is a commodity, and like any commodity it's value is reduced as it becomes more plentiful. The government can withdraw value from the private sector through taxes. The governmen
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Comparatively... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's about 41 minutes' worth of US government spending.
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what they should be focusing on is how the fuck to dig themselves out of the debt
Why? They got tons of good stuff from other people's money. In the worst case, they default and can't borrow money anymore. What exactly is the point of trying to get out of debt?
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Ireland is sadly one of those countries that is in debt up to their eyeballs, what they should be focusing on is how the fuck to dig themselves out of the debt not coming up with aspirational ways to increase it even further.
Compared to which other countries? Countries with worse debt to GDP ratios include Japan, Canada, France, UK, & the USA amoung others. it is about 16% above the world average, so it isn't the best, but defiitly not the worst. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fund" (Score:4, Funny)
Wouldn't seem to me to be a proper function of government.
Best leave private sector investing to private sector investors and concentrate on the actual functions of government like national defense, police, and the courts...
Re:Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fu (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak for Ireland, but lots of countries have "sovereign wealth" funds. Opinion clearly differs on what is a "proper" function of government.
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I can't speak for Ireland, but lots of countries have "sovereign wealth" funds. Opinion clearly differs on what is a "proper" function of government.
For the large libertarian element of slashdot, there are basically no proper functions of government. Except possibly for the military.
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What I find weird is what is Ireland's source of capital for their sovereign wealth fund?
Most nation states with a sovereign wealth fund use them to basically extend the economic benefits of some time-limited resource extraction, usually oil. Basically to extend the party once whatever lucrative resource they extract runs out. I don't remember Ireland having much in the way of oil reserves or any other significant extraction resource.
Ireland has traditionally had a marginal domestic economy, so I wonder w
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As pointed out by someone above, it makes sense when you have paid off high cost debts and can more profitably invest than pay off low cost debts. As for resources, you are correct, Ireland doesn't do much in the way of resource extraction other than zinc, lead and bauxite mining, with the odd bit of copper, silver and gold thrown in.
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Re:Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fu (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't seem to me to be a proper function of government.
Cool story, bro? Why is the government of Ireland supposed to care what you think?
Re:Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fu (Score:4, Insightful)
That approach hasn't worked in one single country in the world. Not one. It's been tried, but it failed.
The problem with leaving investing in the hands of the private sector is that the private sector would gladly throw a baby off a bridge for a dollar. That, and the fact that there are no such things as free markets. They do not exist in nature. They always fail.
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The problem with leaving investing in the hands of the private sector is that the private sector would gladly throw a baby off a bridge for a dollar.
Interesting. What makes the people in government so angelic and the people in private employ so demonic? They are both people, no?
I hear about racist cops that will shoot a black man for driving in the wrong part of town. Cops are government employees, no? Is shooting innocent black men the right thing for the government to do? Or, am I mistaken on the reports of cops being racist and shooting innocent black men?
People in the Army are government employees. They go where the commander in chief tells th
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No. Corporations are not people.
Anyway, it's not about "angelic" or "demonic", although your desire to frame economies in biblical terms makes me wonder if you're some kind of crazy. It's about what works. And there is not a single country that has succeeded by leaving their economy in the hands of the private sector. Ever. Not one. As in it has never happened in the histor
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Anyway, it's not about "angelic" or "demonic", although your desire to frame economies in biblical terms makes me wonder if you're some kind of crazy.
You've misinterpreted the GP's meaning here: they're implying that you're presenting corporations as demonic (complete with throwing-a-baby-off-a-bridge imagery).
And there is not a single country that has succeeded by leaving their economy in the hands of the private sector. Ever. Not one. As in it has never happened in the history of the world.
No country has ever left their economy entirely in the hands of the private sector: since any government action impacts the economy, an absolutely private-sector economy implies no government at all. So this statement of yours looks a bit like a strawman.
In practice, every country has had some balance of public and private sectors in the economy.
Re:Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fu (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Corporations are not people.
I didn't say corporations are people, you did. You said the private sector would toss a baby off a bridge for a dollar.
I said people act on the behalf of corporations. A corporation itself does nothing. What is a corporation? It's a legal construct. It's nothing but words on paper and an idea in people's heads. A corporation cannot act. The people in the corporation act. For a corporation to do some evil act, like toss a baby off a bridge, means someone acting on behalf of the corporation tossed that baby off the bridge.
Perhaps there might be a series of events, where no one person in the corporation tossed the baby off the bridge. Maybe it's a series of acts from multiple actors in the corporation that by themselves would be seemingly innocent but when combined result in the baby being tossed from the bridge. That does not make the corporation evil, just blind and mindless.
What you seem to fail to comprehend is that corporations are, in the end, groups of people acting in concert just like a government. What is the term we use to describe the creation of a government? Incorporation. What is the term we use to describe the creation of a corporation? That's right, incorporation. A government is a corporation, a legal construct that is just words on paper and ideas in people's heads. I'm just trying to understand how you believe that a government corporate investment is inherently any better or worse than a private corporate investment. It's still people acting on the behalf of a legal construct. The actions of both are determined by the people within them. Their actions may be virtuous because the people are virtuous, or because the blind and mindless machine just happened to do something virtuous by chance like a blind squirrel can find a nut.
Anyway, it's not about "angelic" or "demonic", although your desire to frame economies in biblical terms makes me wonder if you're some kind of crazy.
The terms are not "biblical", they are English. Using the term does not mean I'm religious. It does not prove whether I'm crazy or not either.
And there is not a single country that has succeeded by leaving their economy in the hands of the private sector. Ever. Not one. As in it has never happened in the history of the world.
Of course not, because a government that is completely separated from the economy is no government at all.
So seriously, until you have some proof that it works besides a dog-eared copy of Ayn Rand you've been carrying around since junior year of high school, kindly take your mythical free market and go fuck yourself.
Interesting. You want proof from me to defend my theory but provide no proof to defend your own. Go fuck yourself.
Absolutely not. The coal companies will get the same thing Trump has given everyone to whom he's made a promise: Jack and shit, and maybe not in that order. He only pays his bill when it's hush money to a porn star, and even then under protest.
Trump promised to move the Israel embassy to Jerusalem, he kept that. He promised to lower taxes, seems like he kept that promise. He promised to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, that happened. Trump didn't do these things on his own, of course. Maybe these things would have happened anyway because a government is big and in many ways blind and mindless. Maybe Trump is just a blind squirrel that happened to find a nut.
Ther eis a huge difference (Score:4, Informative)
That is a short summary , with caveat, but the bottom line is , if there was no law against grinding live puppy into paste , and it would bring money, a corporation WOULD do it.
forgot another point (Score:2)
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That is a short summary , with caveat, but the bottom line is , if there was no law against grinding live puppy into paste , and it would bring money, a corporation WOULD do it.
For a corporation to make money grinding puppies into paste means people are buying puppy paste. That means people find grinding puppies into paste as something of value. It doesn't have to be all people, just enough people that puppy paste sells well enough for someone to profit from selling it. If you find grinding puppies into paste disgusting then don't buy it. If it disgusts you enough then I expect that you'd expend your own time and money to convince others to stop buying puppy paste. I'm guessi
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Fascism was corporate statism, so they probably fit into both the categories you suggest.
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It's not so much about angelic and demonic, it's about incentives. Imagine you're a company, and you pay your employees like crap. Should you pay them more? That would be nice, they would be happier, but it would cost a lot of money off the bottom line. Your competitors also pay like crap, so they're not particularly resentful of you. Also your competitors are using the money saved from crap pay to spend more on ads or something. It's going to be hard to keep up if you just try to pay them more. So, you co
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Wow, you're bad at this...
Interesting. What makes the people in corporations so angelic and the people in public service so demonic? They are both people, no?
I hear about biased moderators that will censor a conservative man for posting in the wrong part of a forum or video sharing site. Moderators are corporate employees, no? Is censoring innocent conservative men the right thing for a corporation to do? Or, am I mistaken on the reports of mods being biased and censoring innocent conservative men?
People in blood diamond mines are corporate employees. They go where the CEO tells them to, and get funds to do so only with the permission of shareholders. If shareholders don't like what the blood diamond mines are doing then they can withhold funds. With "angelic" representatives in corporations funding the blood diamond mines, and an "angelic" private employee like the CEO in charge, the corporation must be full of angelic people. Angelic people don't abuse innocent brown people in far off places. Therefore what I see in the news is a lie.
I hear that Uber's CEO just appointed a diversity advocate to head their corporate diversity program. I'm guessing that Uber employees will get more diverse now. That's a good thing, no? Because corporate diversity is a good thing. Public investment is bad, private investment is good. Uber is investing in diversity, therefore diversity is good.
In other words, you are a colossal idiot.
Pro tip: don't use arguments I can just copy/paste and flip for the same effect unless your point was that myopic arguments on either side are equally stupid.
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The problem with leaving investing in the hands of the private sector is that the private sector would gladly throw a baby off a bridge for a dollar.
The real problem is that they would take the dollar as pure profit and ignore the costs to society, because they are harder to quantify.
It's like how companies building nuclear power plants are guaranteed a profit because ultimately the taxpayer takes the costs and risks of waste disposal, decontamination and storage, never mind potential catastrophic accidents.
It doesn't mean nuclear power plants are wrong, simply that is absurd to allow private companies to extract any short term profit from them.
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If you had any clue, you'd understand that far right nutters are just as much for planned economy as far left nutters.
People who argue for divestment are far-libertarian types, who rank high on libertarian-totalitarian scale. They cannot be neither far left nor far right, because dogma of both of those extremes dictates totalitarian government control.
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free markets [...] always fail.
Uh ... free-market economies are responsible for the past two centuries of economic growth: the most massive and sustained improvement in the human condition ever.
For an economic system that always fails, are you absolutely sure that you're not thinking of socialism?
The point is that at best we have had pseudo-free-market economies.
I suppose you can argue that things were better with less regulation in the early-mid Nineteenth Century (and ignore why more regulation came about in the first place), but you can't argue that they were pure free markets even then.
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Re:Why does Ireland have a "National Investment Fu (Score:4, Insightful)
Projects and services that span any one government party term and that private investment could see as a short term risk.
Like the US has considered for its use of Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle, or GARVEE, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] but for more projects.
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It was set up to counteract a projected shortfall in pensions in the future - it was known as the National Pensions Reserve Fund until it was raided to pay for the banking crisis during the economic crash post 2008.
In short it is a function of government as they are giving very generous pensions to public servants and hoping that future taxation will pay for it is stupid - make current taxation pay and at least our children will not be left with a huge bill
"If catastrophic climate change..." (Score:2)
If? We've been told, multiple times now, that we're already totally fucked.
So, what's changed? What new data has come in to point to a conclusion that we have NOT passed the point of no return?
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What new data has come in to point to a conclusion that we have NOT passed the point of no return?
None. What was quoted is a statement from someone who is not a scientist.
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This is a big deal for one special reason: Peat. (Score:5, Interesting)
Peat is big, big business in Ireland. Government pushing out of that is a pretty big deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's a huge shift for Ireland, and more than just a token effort potentially. That's pretty cool in my books.
Ryan Fenton
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As an Irish person, I just see this as our incompetent government targeting jobs in peat and crippling the economy deliberately in their continuous effort to destroy anything we have left.
Could be worse. At least you aren't Brexiting.
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As an Irish person, I just see this as our incompetent government targeting jobs in peat and crippling the economy deliberately in their continuous effort to destroy anything we have left.
I don't agree with modding this -1, Flamebait. This seems like very conservative political viewpoint, likely to be held by many in Ireland's large peat industry (and all those in the economy who depend directly or indirectly on the use of peat as a fuel). The comment doesn't contribute much to the discourse, but I don't think calling it "flamebait" is fair.
But if you'll just look at the comment's subject, "As an Iris peron meh", you'll realize that no "Irish person" would ever write that.
Those aren't typos
Hmm ... (Score:2)
... I can see this fueling anti-Irish sentiment ...
Germany (Score:2)
That's great for Germany. I hear that Germany is just looking for more natural gas and oil. I'm sure that Germany will be quite happy to buy up these investments. It's summer now but winter will come again. Without more Russian natural gas it's going to be a lot of cold nights in Brrrrr-lin.
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I hear that Germany is just looking for more natural gas and oil.
And where do you hear that? What would we do with the oil e.g.?
I'm sure that Germany will be quite happy to buy up these investments.
Germany is a country, a nation, or if you want to talk about the government, a government. But perhaps a company like EON or EnBW or RWE in fact would buy those "investments", if so: what is wrong with it?
Without more Russian natural gas it's going to be a lot of cold nights in Brrrrr-lin.
Berlin only would need
They'll still use it though (Score:2)
Just virtue signaling (Score:2)
The Irish parliament just passed a bill drafted by an organization dedicated to "Challenging injustice through innovative legal strategies." http://www.glanlaw.org/ [glanlaw.org] . From TFA:
"Gerry Liston at Global Legal Action Network, who drafted the bill, said: “Governments will not meet their obligations under the Paris agreement on climate change if they continue to financially sustain the fossil fuel industry. Countries the world over must now urgently follow Ireland’s lead and divest from fossil fuels
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"Virtue signalling" accompanied by actually effective virtuous action is not a bad thing.
Because it may encourage more actually virtuous action.
We need a lot of change, fast, on this issue, and a lot of rapid effective action by governments worldwide.
So signal away. Good job Ireland for leading the way!
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"Virtue signalling" accompanied by actually effective virtuous action is not a bad thing.
Because it may encourage more actually virtuous action.
We need a lot of change, fast, on this issue, and a lot of rapid effective action by governments worldwide.
So signal away. Good job Ireland for leading the way!
What are they doing that you believe will be effective, and in what way?
Silly headline, much Ado about nothing (Score:2)
300m Euro is chump change in the realm of fossil fuels. Whether or not the Irish government "invests" this pittance doesn't matter. This has nothing to do with how much fossil fuel is burned in Ireland. It's pointless gesture.
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If it encourages a slowly building avalanche of other countries, states, and pension funds etc to divest at greater scale, then it's not useless at all. It would then be materially effective "virtue signalling". Go Ireland!
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not happening, the worlds ten biggest states aren't going to do that and the rest are a rounding error.
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So then those 10 states are evil AF and all of the rest, and their own citizens, should call them on it.
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call them on being "evil" when they use fossil fuel energy? and you do too.
Curious (Score:3)
Isn't Natural Gas a fossil fuel?
http://ireland2050.ie/question... [ireland2050.ie]
45% of its power comes from natural gas.
Seems a little hypocritical and self-righteous to say "I'm going to swear off any investments in beef production because it's IMMORAL!" ...when nearly half your meals are hamburgers.
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...and this is honestly where I think the whole suspicion of media was born.
I don't think it's unreasonable to hear a story about Ireland divesting itself of 'fossil fuel' investments, and wonder, 'how much do they use'?
It certainly wasn't rocket science to look it up. I think it was an Irish gov't website, for pete's (I avoided the easy pun there, you're welcome) sake.
So why isn't the lead story about this asking the simple and obvious question, instead of parroting the gov't line and obviously trying to
smart, but big deal (Score:2)
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Peak oil was never about immediately running out of oil. It was a theory that oil production would hit a maximum point and then decline from there. Also, Hubbert’s prediction never stated that supply would run out in 20 years. His theory was production quantity would steadily decline over a couple hundred years.
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Peak oil was never about immediately running out of oil. It was a theory that oil production would hit a maximum point and then decline from there. Also, Hubbert’s prediction never stated that supply would run out in 20 years. His theory was production quantity would steadily decline over a couple hundred years.
Hubbert's theory of the future seems to be based on the false notion that conditions remain static.
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Hubbert's theory of the future seems to be based on the false notion that conditions remain static
No, the model only applies to static conditions, but it doesn't say that the conditions will be static.
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Hubbert's theory of the future seems to be based on the false notion that conditions remain static
No, the model only applies to static conditions, but it doesn't say that the conditions will be static.
I see. It's like predicting "England will go on to the world cup finals" when the score was 1:0.
And then after they lost saying "the model only applies to static conditions, but it doesn't say that the conditions will be static"
Re:Dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Ireland has a lot of windy coastline compared to the size of its population. It has the potential to do very well selling energy to other nations in Europe, especially the UK. Brexit may make it a little more complex, but the links to France already exist from the UK, so selling on to the EU via the UK is theoretically possible with more investment in the grid. It could actually be quite a good money spinner.
Hard to believe a whole government of any country would believe in the hoax.
Glaciers seem to be part of the conspiracy, by melting.
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They have plenty of wind. Whist trading that could work to the UK and EU with a big enough tie across the Irish Sea (I am not sure what is there at the moment), it would work better with investment in HVDC. If that's in place Ireland could potentially use solar power from Germany, as Germany gets the sun first. Obviously, this does add a lot of complexity, so there's an increased chance of failure from a putative Europe-wide HVDC, so it doesn't obviate the need for either storage or backup supplies like gas
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Under Hitler at least you had freedom of religion.
Are you serious?
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Virtue signalling: Term used by conservative assholes attempting to dismiss or devalue moral and ethical standards they are incapable of attaining.
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Fixing a problem: pointing out to an illiterate idiot that there's a difference between "then" and "than"...and laughing when they don't get it.
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Given that we all have to get off fossil fuel pretty much completely by mid-century, disincentivising the fossil fuel industry starting now is actually virtuous. If being actuually virtuous also signals that to others so that they can get on the actually virtuous bandwagon too, so much the better.
Not only that, if humanity succeeds at the rapid de-fossilization of energy that is needed (according to the physics of the situation), then Ireland's move will also likely be a financially smart move.
The reality i