To anyone praising these stupid, politically incentivised initiatives - congratulations to us on making the poor and middle-classes poorer.
But it's all good - we're saving the world I guess. The poor folks can sort themselves out.
You can see here the electricity figures in Ireland: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/IE/all/yearly
> We've graduated from providing cheap energy to now importing most of our energy. We've seen huge energy price increases as a result.
Wrong. As you can see Ireland always produced a very limited about of electricity from coal, around 11% ten years ago when wind was 10% less. In other words, wind simply replaced coal, not imports.
For the last 50 years gas provides the bulk of your electricity, but Ireland produces virtually no gas and has always imported it. The jump in prices was due to these gas prices increasing due to the Russia/Ukraine war as of 2020, it had nothing to do with import changes. Had you invested more in wind/solar, you'd be affected less.
In fact Ireland barely imports anything at all, over the last ten years the net import are close to zero. 2025 was a peak year for imports but even then imports constituted a small 13%, whereas 2024 was a year where Ireland was a net exporter, as was 2020, and 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. In fact of the last ten years it was a net exporter 7 times, more than twice as often as the 3 years it was a net importer. And its imported when the UK has cheaper electricity prices, otherwise there'd be no reason to import.
So your entire argument isn't true. Wind/solar can beat coal on a cost-basis now, evidenced by the fact that the average existing coal plant isn't running half the time because it's more expensive, let alone building out more coal. The smartest thing to have done is mass-invest in solar/wind in a country with a population density 4x lower than the UK.
For one the EROEI isn't 4 for renewables under ideal conditions, it differs wildly depending on the type and location and installation. It's true that for solar in Ireland (which are NOT ideal conditions) its on the low end, though still about twice as much as 4, and it's certainly not the case for wind which can have them as high as 20.
Second, I've got no clue what 'albino' is. Do you mean albedo? In that case, it's completely irrelevant for wind power. Ireland produces 20x more wind than solar, the latter is completely irrelevant in Ireland.
For solar albedo is relevant, but only if you have bifacial panels, which are still the minority.
In Spain albedo is relatively low but it has some of the highest direct sunshine hours in Europe. Albedo is high in places like the Nordics, which have fewer sunshine hours. In other words, EV is brilliant in Spain due to the abundant sun, yet surprisingly is still viable in a place like Norway precisely because of relatively high albedo, not in spite of it. This is why EROEI for solar in Spain can get up to 20. The idea that you get as much power as it took to make (EROEI of 1) is so wrong, and so obviously wrong, that it seems like you just don't have any idea what you're talking about.