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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)

#261

Post by patrickmcnamara »

landl0rd wrote: post #182
empath75 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland imports less than 10% of it's electricity from the UK. The UK _already_ decommissioned it's coal-based eletricity production. The UK imports roughly 14% of it's electricity, and most of those imports are from nuclear and hydro-electric power. Your entire comment is incredibly misleading.

No, it isn't. Power in a grid is fungible so grids operate based off consumption-based accounting. Britain continues to import at times from countries still burning coal. As such, Ireland is not free of coal dependence. It's really that simple. It is accurate for Ireland to say she no longer directly burns coal, no longer operates coal power, but the common understanding of "coal-free" is, "we are no longer directly…

I saw nobody making those arguments. Most people were thinking that Ireland doesn't burn coal anymore. People who think or care about this stuff know that interconnects exist.

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

#262

Post by FrojoS »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #208
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…

The actual causes of electricity cost rises in Ireland being higher than Europe are: Lower population density on a grid without good connections to neighbours. Previous underinvestment in network infrastructure. Gas price rises combined with Ireland having less renewables that the EU average (middle of the pack for electricity, 3rd from bottom on total energy). Maybe saving the world a bit harder would have helped ke…

> The actual causes of electricity cost rises in Ireland being higher than Europe are

Wrong comparison. Most of Europe has way too high electricity prices.

It seems logical that ending the use of existing coal energy infrastructure puts upward pressure on prices. Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.

Yes, burning coal causes lots of problems and I support ending it's use, but this is besides the point.

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

#263

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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.

An EV running half on coal is better than a gasoline car for carbon emissions. A similar story for heat pumps.

China is more electrified than most Western nations and getting more so faster than Europe or the US:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-as-a-share-of...

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

#264

Post by saltysalt »

rsynnott wrote: post #238
saltysalt wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LNG terminal would help. Lots of bad infrastructure decisions have left us extremely exposed to those external shocks you mentioned.

An LNG terminal wouldn't help with cost (it would probably increase it a bit, if anything, as the cost of building it would have to be paid back). It's desirable from an energy _security_ perspective; as it is we are very dependent on a pipeline to Britain.

Actually it should help with both, because a on-island terminal would also provide LNG storage capacity which would buffer short-term price fluctuations. We have zero such storage.

Again, our poor decision making around national infrastructure is on our governments. They left have left us completely exposed to international markets.

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

#265

Post by falcor84 »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #242
s_dev wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems that you're in violent agreement. China is so large that it tops most metrics you throw at it, even when we consider them contradictory.

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

#266

Post by rootusrootus »

lowdownbutter wrote: post #219
thunfischtoast wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they know windpower and solar are not viable long term Why?

They know that sometimes it's not windy, and they know about night.

Fortunately they also know about batteries.

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

#267

Post by Peanuts99 »

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]

They're also closing down coal plants faster than anyone else and actually faster than planned because of the price of solar. Check your facts.

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

#268

Post by mrguyorama »

saltysalt wrote: post #224
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another Irishman here, completely agree with your comment. My domestic gas and electric bills have never been higher, insane inflation for nothing more than political virtue signalling. The only part of your bills that could be regarded as virtue signalling is the carbon tax, which is driven by government regulation. The vast increases in energy costs were driven firstly by Russia (when they invaded Ukraine) and th…

A LNG terminal would help. Lots of bad infrastructure decisions have left us extremely exposed to those external shocks you mentioned.

American energy exports are turning around in the mid-atlantic to go somewhere else instead because Europe is getting outbid.

"My energy prices are high" because you are getting outbid. You can't stop getting outbid by building more transport infrastructure. That terminal will go unused.

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

#269

Post by bayarearefugee »

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…

When AMOC collapses (which it will relatively soon) and Ireland is plunged into forever winter, get back to us on how great burning all that coal was.
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