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

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

#131

Post by ForHackernews » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

throw567643u8 wrote: post #115

jahnu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is ill informed. Ireland is richer than it has ever been. Poverty and housing difficulties have nothing to do with reducing emissions. Ireland partly got rich by being a massive CO2 polluter per capita. Now we are rich it’s only fair we lead in transitioning to renewables. Renewables are cheaper now than most forms of energy production. Grids need investment. I despair at these short sighted and fairly…

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China leads the world in solar energy, by a wide margin. Yes, they have hedged their bets somewhat with coal, but you cannot claim with a straight face that China believes renewable energy is nonviable.

https://apnews.com/article/china-climate-solar-wind-carbon-e...

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

#132

Post by jahnu » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

throw567643u8 wrote: post #115

jahnu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is ill informed. Ireland is richer than it has ever been. Poverty and housing difficulties have nothing to do with reducing emissions. Ireland partly got rich by being a massive CO2 polluter per capita. Now we are rich it’s only fair we lead in transitioning to renewables. Renewables are cheaper now than most forms of energy production. Grids need investment. I despair at these short sighted and fairly…

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> they know windpower and solar are not viable long term

That’s why they are installing it all over their country at the fastest pace of any country by far? That’s why they probably hit peak oil consumption?

The coal thing is complicated in China. They are replacing many old coal stations, local governments are fearful of being caught short in a cold winter which has happened. Rate of coal consumption increases is slowing. Peak coal may have happened last year.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-china-is-still-bu...

Hopefully this new info might help change your views.

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

#133

Post by entropyie » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

Another Irishman here. Stop trying to harken back to some notional "good old days" that didn't exist. People are better off than they've ever been. Energy was always expensive relative to income. When I was a kid in the 80s, we weren't allowed to turn on the central heating unless there were arctic conditions. The main issue driving COL issues is the complete lack of social housing construction for the last 15 years. You can't blame the tree huggers for that. Renewable energy is a matter of national security, and prevents our hard earned money being sent overseas to regimes like Russia and all the charmers in the Middle East. Our very first electricity plant as a free state was hydro ffs.

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

#134

Post by IE6 » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

throw567643u8 wrote: post #115

jahnu wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is ill informed. Ireland is richer than it has ever been. Poverty and housing difficulties have nothing to do with reducing emissions. Ireland partly got rich by being a massive CO2 polluter per capita. Now we are rich it’s only fair we lead in transitioning to renewables. Renewables are cheaper now than most forms of energy production. Grids need investment. I despair at these short sighted and fairly…

[flagged]

China has a significant investment in solar and wind power - is that just to convince us it's a good idea to buy it?

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

#135

Post by jqpabc123 » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

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.

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

#136

Post by capitol_ » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

throw567643u8 wrote: post #95

4ndrewl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Taiwan and perhaps other Asian countries that successfully make stuff don't expose their industries to this, the government sets a fixed energy price for them rather than leaving them at the whim of speculators.

Typically markets are good at optimizing everything that is priced into the market.

Long term price stability is currently not something that is optimized for.

One way to solve it is of course abandoning the ide of a market economy for power.

Another is to let those industries that need price stability buy that on the futures market.

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

#137

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

sunaookami wrote: post #107

ceejayoz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow that’s an often missed aspect of this. Yeah, ditching coal has a wide array of nice side effects. It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents.

Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.

Respectfully, Can you tell me more about it because I genuinely don't know how you think Nuclear energy is bad. It's one of the cleanest forms of energy.

Is there any particular reason why you think Nuclear is bad in all honesty as its worth having a discussion here? Why do you feel Nuclear Energy is a hazard?

I understand if you feel Chernobyl or any event makes it sound dangerous but rather, Please take a look at this data on the number of death rates per unit of electricity production[0]

Oil is roughly 615x more deadly than nuclear. Nuclear, Solar and Wind (the renewables) are all less deadly and are 0.03,0.02 and 0.04 respectively and nuclear is a reliable source of energy source which can be used in actual generation.

Nuclear is very much a green energy. I'd like to hear your opinion about it.

[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

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

#138

Post by jillesvangurp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #82

cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This doesn't mean what you think it does:

- China is also decommissioning older plants.

- These new coal plants aren't running 24x7

- Peak coal usage is likely to be very soon in China (this year even according to some); after that coal usage flatten and start declining; all the way to a planned net zero in the 2060s.

The newer plants are designed to be more efficient, more flexible, and less polluting than the older ones. They are better at starting/stopping quickly/cheaply. Older coal plants used big boilers that had to heat up to build up steam before being able to generate power. This makes stopping and starting a plant slow and expensive. Because they consume a lot of fuel just to get the plant to the stage where it can actually generate power. The more often plants have to be stopped and started, the more wasteful this is. With the newer plants this is less costly and faster.

This makes them more suitable to be used in a non base load operational model where they can be spun up/down on a need to have basis. This is essential in a power grid that is dominated by the hundreds of GW of solar, wind, and battery.

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

#139

Post by crote » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

nxm wrote: post #78

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China is building solar panels at a record pace, and building wind turbines at a record pace, and building nuclear power plants at a record pace. Meanwhile, the construction rate of coal plants has been dropping over the last decade and a half.

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

#140

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Mon, Mar 09, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #126

sunaookami wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.

Because people are petrified of nuclear but fine with coal. The opposite should be true. I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things. But replacing every ounce of coal used for fuel with nuclear would still be a win.

Nuclear energy can be used to generate 24x7 energy as the grid-power to supply energy to a country whereas Solar and Wind require batteries.

I think that the last time I checked, when you take into factor the CO2 emissions and everything, Nuclear is the best source of Energy.

> I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things

I think that I am interested in seeing thorium based reactors or development with that too. That being said, Nuclear feels like the answer to me.

Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong but I don't think that there is any better form of energy source than nuclear when you factor in everything.