https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

I know this is in jest, but that's basically "dam up some valley rivers and put a hydroelectric generator on the end", and unfortunately Ireland isn't so good for that. (It's not just the physical geology, it's also all the people living in the places you'd flood).

Hydro as a battery is easier and works in far more locations, but that's not harnessing the power *of rain*.

But yes, Ireland and the UK have an absolutely huge wind power resource available around them, IIRC enough to supply all of Europe if the grid connections were there to export it all.

Nuclear plants provide base load and they are extremely fast at ramping up/lowering production. All modern nuclear plants are capable of changing power output at 3-5% of nameplate capacity per minute: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

You don't shut down power plants. None of the power plants ever do a "fast cold start"

> The end result now is that electricity in Europe is the most expensive on the World, so all manufacturing is moved to Asia

The production moved to Asia due to extremely cheap labor, not due to electricity costs.

The tech exists - it's mostly just a matter of political will. The economics already justify it. People are making considerable money by starting up BESSs (Battery Energy Storage Systems) and doing time arbitrage on energy.

cf. Iberia, who recently learned that effective storage and intertial pick-up is integral to a stable and efficient power network, and are now spending heavily on both.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha...