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Greens on Eirgrid
Read more about: Energy, Green Party 
Hey, it is great to hear from my favourite Green, Eamon Ryan, and indeed one of my favourite politicians. He is honest, knows his stuff, and just seems genuine, unlike his colleague John “I secretly heart McDowell” Gormley. And as per usual with Mr Ryan, while I disagree with some of his points, he hits the right note more then he hits the wrong note.
Here is the title of the release: “Eirgrid, not ESB, should own network wires – Ryan.” Preach on brother, preach on.
The Government has yet to give a clear answer as to why it is not transferring the ownership of the electricity transmission network into Eirgrid as recommended in the report by Deloitte consultants.
Damn right. If we want a open market, this will have a far greater effect than privatizing a few stations. While that needs to be done, it is useless without a single state-run transmission network, free of any ties to the ESB, which should be privatized. The grid must be left in state hands because there is no way to have competing grids. It would be crazy and as Mary Harney said, the only thing worse then a state monopoly is a private monopoly.
Leasing arrangements aside, the Minister seems to have given little consideration to how Ireland’s dependence on imported fossil fuels will be reduced. Our reliance on highly insecure and expensive gas is the main reason why our domestic electricity prices are 50 per cent above the European average.
Damn right. We don’t want to end up like the Ukraine.
Three new gas fired power plants are likely to be opened in the next three years, Huntstown 2 near Dublin, and Aghada and Little Island in Cork. These will produce twice the level of “brown electricity” as the “green electricity” that is expected to come from new renewable power sources. These fossil fuel plants will be in operation for at least 30 years, at a time when oil supplies will peak and gas prices will consequently go through the roof.
I will take Green to mean Irish sourced electricity and say nail on the head.
One of the biggest challenges facing Ireland is energy, be that global warming or peak oil, and it seems that the Greens are the only ones to cop on to that. Well done.
You know, when I first heard the government were going to establish Eirgrid, I thought that at least this time, they were going to do things right. After all, exactly the same thing ought to have been done when eircom was privatised, and I remember ranting on about how the privatisation would only end in tears. So, as you can guess, I too am completely behind the Greens on this one.
If the government don’t transfer ownership of the grid over to Eirgrid, we’ll just end up with yet another eircom.