Commentary

This graph shows the indexed manufacturing output of the Irish economy, as a guide to the overall state of the economy's health. Similar indicators for other sectors, such as consumption and services, would tell a similar story.

All three alternative scenarios entail a significant decrease in economic growth compared to the BAU profile's initial buoyancy. The economy gets a real battering under the localisation scenario, from which it can't recover. Likewise the Fair Shares scenario eventually lead to economic decline as manufacturing turns small scale and local, although it weathers the storm far better, and for longer.

The enlightened transition scenario manages to achieve a steady state, just about as it much less dependent on fossil fuel imports but declines somewhat. Also in the Enlightened Transition scenario, Ireland may have installed all its available renewable energy capacity by 2040 with any excess energy requirements coming from dwindling expensive imported fossil fuels hence the moderate decline in manufacturing output after 2040.

Clearly manufacturing output in the Business as Usual scenario takes a nose dive soon after the 2030 oil peak when the cost of imported fossil fuels (as can be seen on the "Fuel Import Costs Graph) rise sharply.

These are preliminary runs of the model, in which we've fed some information into the model. The scenarios are not comprehensive by any means - all still entail some fossil fuel dependencies by 2050. What is needed now is input on further activities to help wean the economy off the increasingly expensive fossil fuels altogether.

What would you suggest?