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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)

#81

Post by mrits »

rwmj wrote: post #32
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.

It's more nuanced than that. This article is about the US (a worse polluter than Ireland), but it shows only about a small difference because of offshoring emissions: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-...

What is the point of comparing the US to Ireland? Perhaps compare it to something like the state of Oklahoma.

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

#82

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

cogman10 wrote: post #48
aurareturn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

China's CO2 emissions have been falling for the last 2 years, even as they've increased their manufacturing capacity. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha...

https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...

They have more coal power plants planned and your data hickup worked out during recensions and covid.

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

#83

Post by wolvoleo »

jorisboris wrote: post #66

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

Coal is the worst of the fossil sources though. Getting rid of coal is only the first step but it's a good one.

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

#84

Post by johnflan »

secondcoming wrote: post #36
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)

Can't beat a good turf fire though!

damn right

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

#85

Post by mrits »

cauliflower99 wrote: post #70

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…

[flagged]

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

#86

Post by brazzy »

bramhaag wrote: post #45

https://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/ keeps track of coal phase-out commitments. 24 European countries still use coal generators, and 6 have not even planned to phase them out (Serbia, Moldova, Turkey, Poland, Kosovo, Bosnia). Never used coal power: Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway Phased out: 2016: Belgium 2020: Sweden, Austria 2021: Portugal 2024: United…

> Never used coal power:

> Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

I very much doubt this is true for any of those countries. In fact, I know it is untrue for Switzerland, although they did stop using it long ago (mid 20th century).

Edit: Norway actually ran a coal power plant until 2023, on Spitsbergen

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

#87

Post by petcat »

rwmj wrote: post #32
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.

It's more nuanced than that. This article is about the US (a worse polluter than Ireland), but it shows only about a small difference because of offshoring emissions: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-...

It's even more nuanced than that because the United States is made up of many different states, with many different energy policies. Ireland would most closely equate to the state of Massachusetts by population and economic size, and Massachusetts shut down its last coal plant almost a decade ago.

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

#89

Post by 4ndrewl »

cauliflower99 wrote: post #70

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…

That's not how the international energy market works. You still have to buy your own, locally produced energy at international rates.

The huge energy price spikes are down to wars in Ukraine (gas, which is also used for electricity production) and the Middle East.

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