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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)

#431

Post by chaostheory »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #138
21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What a lot of people also miss is that we’re in the age demographic bomb, where the global population is both aging rapidly and declining at the same time I.e. japanification

This means that global consumption will decline too which coincides with both factories and power plants shutting down

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

#432

Post by triceratops »

zahlman wrote: post #417
deanc wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unclear to me why you've been downvoted here. The data clearly shows that China is taking more serious action on this issue than any other developed or developing economy.

I didn't downvote (as the information is correct and relevant) but I flagged. Accusing others up front of lying, or of being motivated by various political outgroup boogeymen, is not on. It's not greyed out for me, either.

If someone gives incorrect information in a shallow, dismissive way they're either lying or seriously misinformed.

> being motivated by various political outgroup boogeymen

If OP wasn't lying then they were misinformed. I made reasonable guesses to the source of that misinformation. I didn't attribute any political motives to OP themselves.

I don't see how "right-wing" or "right-wing media" is an "outgroup". And it isn't a boogeyman because the majority of the "climate change is fake but it's China's fault anyway" opinion pieces come from there.

Did you also flag OP's lies/propagation of incorrect information? If you did, I appreciate your consistency and fair-mindedness. If you didn't, then why not? What's worse - lies/propagating ignorance or being slightly curt?

Btw OP told this same lie 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282625 and was corrected by someone else. They are clearly not a good faith poster.

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

#433

Post by weirdmantis69 »

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…

Your link is from a disreputable source though. Their literal purpose is to gaslight people.

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

#434

Post by runarberg »

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…

Iceland (never used coal to my knowledge) is missing from the list.

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

#435

Post by elAhmo »

nomdep wrote: post #424

I saw the data. They have replaced coal plants with gas plants. Mostly imported gas. Why do Europeans hate the idea of safe nuclear plants though? https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?cha...

Nuclear has bad branding.

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

#436

Post by ok_dad »

linksnapzz wrote: post #426
baron816 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal also isn’t really energy dense since so much of the energy is wasted when converting to electricity

Rankine cycle efficiency can be up to 45%; monocrystalline solar panels ~25%? I suppose you aren't paying for the sunshine, but if cloudy days affected coal power, James Watt wouldn't be famous.

Luckily solar panels work for 30+ years while coal works for only as long as you burn it. You can also recycle solar panels, but try reversing entropy to get your coal back and you’ll see what’s up. Cloudy days are solved by wind, ocean energy, geothermal, storage, etc.

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

#437

Post by lovich »

redeeman wrote: post #391
reillyse wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Fossil fuels are not cheap in Ireland, I think we only produce a small quantity of natural gas, everything else is imported. Ireland should be running towards renewables, we have no indigenous fossil fuels industry to lose and every watt we generate from renewables is money that stays in Ireland. We should be focused on reducing nimbyism and building out renewables.

does this renewable policy of wind farms etc also extend to the rain forest being cut down for balsawood? or the landfilles the massive chunks of fiberglass coated wings then get put into? I guess we need a new planet when we're done filling it with junk and have depleted all the rain forest etc

What is the balsawood comment in reference to? I’ve never heard that mentioned in conversation around renewables but it’s not my area of expertise.

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

#438

Post by runarberg »

nomdep wrote: post #424

I saw the data. They have replaced coal plants with gas plants. Mostly imported gas. Why do Europeans hate the idea of safe nuclear plants though? https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?cha...

I think it is unfair to specify safe here, as probably all nuclear powerplants are considered safe until they are not, including Fukushima. But plenty of European countries are either building or planing nuclear new nuclear power reactors, and Finland just opened a new reactor in 2023.

But the simple matter is thought that the economics of nuclear power simply are not delivering. They are expensive and slow to build, while at the same time wind (particularly off shore wind) and solar are getting cheaper and easier to build every year (or month even). Germany also stands out as a success story of nuclear phase-out, that by replacing these expensive to run nuclear power plant has offered the economic wiggle room to phase in renewables a lot faster then otherwise.

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

#439

Post by dyauspitr »

nomdep wrote: post #424

I saw the data. They have replaced coal plants with gas plants. Mostly imported gas. Why do Europeans hate the idea of safe nuclear plants though? https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?cha...

30 years of anti nuclear propaganda. They should all be like France, what a dream to have almost all of your electricity coming from a stable, essentially perpetual source.

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

#440

Post by amai »

nomdep wrote: post #424

I saw the data. They have replaced coal plants with gas plants. Mostly imported gas. Why do Europeans hate the idea of safe nuclear plants though? https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?cha...

Because there is no place for nuclear waste in Europe? Especially not on smaller islands like Ireland. Why do Americans hate the idea of cheap renewable energy?
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