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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)

#241

Post by aurareturn »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #221
einr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. To be fair, there's a large (~300mn) agricultural population in China who don't use developed country levels of energy. Nonetheless, this is still good.

Rural areas do not use much energy but Chinese cities are also more energy efficient per capita because of density and use of public transportation, walking, or electric mini scooters.

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

#242

Post by TremendousJudge »

s_dev wrote: post #129
throw567643u8 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China >"China is the world's top electricity producer from renewable energy sources. China's renewable energy capacity is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity.[1] China installed over 373 GW of renewables in 2024, reaching a total installed renewable capacity of 1,878 GW by the end of the year. The country aims to have 80% of its total energ…

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-by-count...

China is the world's top consumer of coal, and accounts for more than 50% of the world's total consumption of coal.

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

#243

Post by rsynnott »

cbeach wrote: post #227
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]

Their comment is kinda nonsense, tho. Every single lump of coal burned in Moneypoint over its operating life was imported. We don't have significant coal reserves, and Moneypoint was designed from the start to run on imported coal; it does not even have a railway link.

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

#244

Post by volkl48 »

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…

Ireland hasn't mined any coal in 35 years, this plant was not operating on domestic resources to begin with.

Anyway your actual problem are data center buildouts that are causing demand to skyrocket. They've gone from 5% of your electrical demand to >20% in less than a decade, and are the primary cause of your electricity crunch.

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

#245

Post by [deleted] »

thrance wrote: post #222
karol wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insanity to stop using country own resources and rely on unreliable tech and energy imports. As I browse the comments here I lament that most "above average IQ" folks still don't get this simple truth.

The real insanity is to keep burning that coal, that we know will render large part of the Earth uninhabitable if we don't stop ASAP. Also, it's more expensive than cleaner energy. You want a culprit so bad? Blame EU neoliberalism whose auterity has diverted important, necessary funds from our energy grid and left us in this delicate position.

[deleted]

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

#246

Post by jodrellblank »

ceejayoz wrote: post #178
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Tha…

Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out.

Daytime doesn't mean the sun is out; the UK has heavy cloud cover and sunset near 4pm in mid-winter. https://grid.iamkate.com/ shows the UK is currently getting 10% of grid power from Solar at 3:30pm in March.

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

#247

Post by 1970-01-01 »

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…

Lots of signal that this top post is now an LLM an not "an Irish man". The generous use of dashes to complete the thought process..have a look: https://www.dcaulfield.com/chatgpt-learning-dev

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47291513

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

#248

Post by rsynnott »

trollbridge wrote: post #15
philipwhiuk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the difference is made up by renewables and not oil?

It isn’t.

Ireland has essentially no working oil power generation capacity these days (I think the only ones are a couple of small diesel units on islands, which are not even connected to the national grid). Moneypoint was replaced with some combo of wind, gas and imports.

(Moneypoint was actually built originally due to Ireland's over dependence at the time on oil for power generation; after the oil crisis, initially ESB attempted to build a nuclear plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnsore_Point#Cancelled_nucle...), but it was such a political minefield that it was canceled, leading to Moneypoint.)

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

#249

Post by tpm »

delaminator wrote: post #225
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]

Just for the record, neither of these things is suicidal. There are many prosperous countries importing energy and allowing foreigners to settle. Probably even most of them.

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

#250

Post by jahnu »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #226
jahnu wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :)

> I think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :) Me too! That was a lot of work, and surprisingly hard to stack.

And turning it would cut your fingers to shreds! But it was great if the weather was fine.
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