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Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

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Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#61

Post by api »

madaxe_again wrote: post #49
reedf1 wrote: post #27

No country will be truly coal-free until they are a net energy exporter and they do not import any goods that use coal-based energy in their supply chain. Europe has de-industrialized which means it has effectively exported its coal burden.

Steel is the tough one - the vast majority of new steel is produced using blast furnaces and coke. DRI is still a fringe product. I mean, the UK proudly trumpets that they're coal-free, while entertaining a new coking coal mine.

Steel is also a small percentage of coal use. The vast majority of coal is used for electricity generation.

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#62

Post by einr »

aurareturn wrote: post #39
reedf1 wrote: post #27

No country will be truly coal-free until they are a net energy exporter and they do not import any goods that use coal-based energy in their supply chain. Europe has de-industrialized which means it has effectively exported its coal burden.

I agree. Whenever numbers show that China is the largest CO2 polluter currently, it needs to be mentioned that China manufactures much of the world's physical goods.

It should also be mentioned that despite being the factory of the world, China's CO2 emissions per capita are nearly half of the United States and comparable to some European countries.

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#63

Post by troupo »

madaxe_again wrote: post #51
piokoch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use Renewable Energy Sources, it may happen there will be no wind or no sun. So you need some auxiliary source of energy. If you want it at hand, this must be something with fast cold start. So black/brown coal power plan will not help you, similarly nuclear. You need to burn either gas or "biomass", that is wood/turf, etc. Those power plants have about 1h cold start. Hence, in order to have RES you need to em…

Pumped storage hydro is extremely cheap and efficient and has been around for more than a century. LiFePo4 batteries are now cheap enough that they're a cost-competitive alternative. Flywheel storage plugs the inertia gap nicely. 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) an…

Cheap as in "requires proper location and the destruction of ecology on large scale" cheap?

Edit:

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-ana...

To cover Europe's need you only need to build 70 1.5 GW hydroelectric stations at a cost of $92 billion (in reality much higher) while greatly damaging ecology in large areas.

(The link has rather detailed info)

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#64

Post by jamesblonde »

ben_w wrote: post #10
rwmj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd be better off with (and are building out) offshore and onshore wind. If you've ever been to the west coast of Ireland you'll know they've got almost unlimited wind energy. The country is targeting 5GW of capacity by 2030 and 37GW in the distant future[1]. If only they could harness the power of rain, Ireland would truly be an energy superpower. [1] https://www.irishtimes.com/special-reports/2025/10/30/winds-..…

> If only they could harness the power of rain, Ireland would truly be an energy superpower. 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,…

There has been a lot of proposals to dam up massive unpopulated sea-facing valleys in Mayo and Donegal and use pumped hydro with seawater. Was a bit topic 15 years ago, but never happened. All that happened was the silvermines pump hydro plant that seems behind schedule.

Prof Igor Shvets was behind this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#65

Post by stephen_g »

piokoch wrote: post #38
CalRobert wrote: post #13

Great to see, hopefully they can end turf burning too. (For those unaware it's basically where you take a wetland habitat that's also an amazing carbon store, cut it in to chunks, dry it out, and burn it for a very dirty heat source)

If you use Renewable Energy Sources, it may happen there will be no wind or no sun. So you need some auxiliary source of energy. If you want it at hand, this must be something with fast cold start. So black/brown coal power plan will not help you, similarly nuclear. You need to burn either gas or "biomass", that is wood/turf, etc. Those power plants have about 1h cold start. Hence, in order to have RES you need to em…

> If you use Renewable Energy Sources, it may happen there will be no wind or no sun

I still find it staggering that people feel like this is something that needs to be said as if it’s surprising or a novel idea. Do you really believe smart people haven’t been working through these challenges for decades?

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#66

Post by jorisboris »

I feel we’re framing it in a negative way

Our goal shouldn’t be to be coal free. Our goal should be to be 100% renewable.

If we set up our goals in terms of what we don’t want, we end up in the situation we are right now: high energy costs, very dependent on energy imports and a high risk of loosing our industry

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#67

Post by rithdmc »

DamonHD wrote: post #40
rithdmc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the domestic heating use is a drop in the bucket compared to commercial extraction of peat for export, or historical use for electricity generation. I've only so many shits to give, and people heating their homes doesn't rank.

People heating their homes can be very sigificant. In the UK ~15% of all its territorial GHGs come from heating with gas: actual CO2 from the home boiler flues. CO2 from small amounts of rural home heating is probably not the big thing to be worried about, especially if local recent biomass, eg wood from forest management. But there are still nasties (PMs, biodiversity losses, etc) to be considered and that should be…

The actual quantity of people burning turf for home heat is tiny, though.

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#68

Post by rithdmc »

jerven wrote: post #42
rithdmc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where that data comes from. Oil was only around 3% in 2024. https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/electr...

Primary energy compared to electricity as energy. The first adds energy used in driving, chemical industry etc. the second is just the amount of electricity generated.

Got it, thanks. So, not for grid electricity, as in this discussion.

Re: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)

#70

Post by cauliflower99 »

Irish man here - Over the last few years, we've graduated from providing cheap energy to now importing most of our energy. We've seen huge energy price increases as a result. We're seeing more and more cost-of-living protests, the war now means more will suffer with fuel prices and we're still going ahead with closing down energy suppliers (this is a 2025 article but the point still stands).

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.

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