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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)

#651

Post by knorker »

renhanxue wrote: post #648
knorker wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most practical purposes, Swedish electricity generation has been basically fossile free since the 1980's. I think "practical purposes" should include the fact that thanks to also shutting down a bunch of nuclear, Sweden regularly imports German/Polish coal power. Sweden claiming fossile free is only technically true. Practically there's a mountain of greenwashing. So no, I would not say what you just said. I fi…

I mean, you can call it a "mountain" of greenwashing but to me it looks more like a mole hill. Total Swedish electricity production is typically 160 to 165 TWh per year and total consumption is usually between 135 and 145 TWh. In 2025, the net export was about 33 TWh. Gross import from Germany, Poland and Lithuania, including transit to other countries, was 1 TWh. So, imported power from countries with coal power pla…

I think it's huge greenwashing to claim to not have coal power, but just import it when needed. What practical difference is that to having coal power domestically? That's just saying you recycle all plastic, only to send it to the third world to dump in rivers.

So I think it's untrue to say that Sweden doesn't rely on coal power. Without coal power it'd have regular blackouts. I rely on being able to take a breath every couple of seconds. If I only get an annual average of a breath every few seconds, I'll die.

One could show great generation and net export statistics with a sufficiently large batteryless solar installation, and still import coal power every night and cloudy day.

What is true, but can easily imply an incorrect conclusion, is that Sweden's very good in being self sufficient in clean power generation statistically. Yes, very much true. But it's largely due to geography, and not merely something to replicate. Sweden has way more viable places where hydro could be installed, than most countries (though where economical and otherwise acceptable, it already has). And it's sparsely populated; Sweden is bigger than the UK, but with one seventh the population. So if the implication is that "if we can do it, so can you" then that's false.

Luckily the political wind (including population opinion) has started to turn in favor of nuclear power, again. Maybe everything can be solar in 100 years, but we can't have 100 more years of coal.

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

#652

Post by balderdash »

I’m all for the substitution of cleaner energy sources for dirtier ones- but it feels like from a consumer and national autonomy standpoint for a country that imports the vast majority of its energy, concentrating supply might not be the best idea until renewables/energy-storage has been more built out

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

#653

Post by Nemo_bis »

moominpapa wrote: post #625
Nemo_bis wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is happening even in the USA with a federal government dead set on bankrolling coal companies.

I said China

If you are interested in China, I strongly recommend subscribing to the China Briefing: https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-briefing/

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

#654

Post by mrspuratic »

asdff wrote: post #591
invalidusernam3 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much impact does it realistically have on climate change? I would expect it to be relatively small compared to things like owning a car? In a perfect world we would want to reduce emissions as much as possible in every facet of life, but in the real world I think we should pick battles that have the biggest impact.

Might be one of those situations where globally it is irrelevant but heavily fouls up local air due to geography or prevailing airflow patterns.

Smoke yes, but you're also turning a carbon sink into a carbon source. At ~16% of the island's surface area, peatland stores an estimated 53% of soil based carbon. (source: Irish Peatland Conservation Council)

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

#655

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

chaostheory wrote: post #431
jillesvangurp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Great- Lets reuse the energy we have for AI-Centers..

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

#657

Post by ben_w »

hunterpayne wrote: post #526
bryanlarsen wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick Google shows EREOI of solar panels at 10-30 depending on study.

The PV manufacturers themselves say its 4. Those studies you mention say you could make them at 10-30 in theory if you could somehow purify the poli-silica differently. If we made PVs in the west with natural gas (and carbon recapture), perhaps it could get to that number (but perhaps not). However, PVs aren't made in the west and the poli-silica isn't purified with gas but instead using coal. That's why those number…

> The PV manufacturers themselves say its 4.

You've not cited anything for this so far as I can see, but this claim is obviously false.

Reason being, the entire system in my driveway will have paid for itself in one year, including delivery cost and inverter and the aluminium stand it's mounted on (the small bit of aluminium in the stand is the most energy intensive part of the whole kit), and the weakest part of that system still has a lifespan of 25-40 years, and even that as a % reduction in output from peak not as a hard cut-off.

Even if 100% of the cost was energy, even with the 5x price differential between where I am (Domestic Germany) and where they were made (Industrial China, where the low energy cost is… ah… due to renewables, because coal's really expensive :P), it's obviously not an ERoEI of 4 even on the low end of that lifespan.

Given all that and doing the maths, what I will need to replace and when (or rather, kids whose mother I have yet to meet will need to replace when I'm in a retirement home), the ERoEI is at a minimum 14 even if 100% of the cost of replacement panels is energy.

The cost is almost certainly less than 100% energy. Every step of the industrial process wants its own profit margin.

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

#658

Post by cjblomqvist »

simonask wrote: post #541
cjblomqvist wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know at least Sweden has been a net exporter for a long time. It's a little bit complicated (that's what happens in a market economy). Anyhow, we/EU should continue to strive to end coal as an energy source for all countries, be since we can do much better.

The unique geography of the Scandinavian peninsula combined with very low population density makes Sweden a bit less interesting in terms of achieving zero emissions in other geographies, and I doubt Swedes would be cool with expanding hydro and nuclear to the scale required by Germany. But yeah, I mean, good job and all. The answer for the rest of the continent is going to be wind and solar in the medium term, and p…

Totally. Tech neutral state incentives is the way to go for sure, everybody has different environment and context to consider (same within Sweden). Southern Europe has very different opportunities (much better situation for solar for example).

Anyway, my comment was in response to the extreme comment (parent) about how all rich countries became rich using fossil fuels - implying that that's the more or less only way to transition from poor to rich. I think it's important to note that that's not necessarily the case. You don't need to destroy the environment to go from poor to rich, even though a lot of countries historically have done it that way (also noteworthy that they did it without knowing about the consequences for the environment).

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

#659

Post by triceratops »

t0bia_s wrote: post #598
triceratops wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is someone turning off the wind and sun? Once the infrastructure is installed it produces energy for years. Solar panels aren't burned to make energy, like oil or gas are. And you can recycle them.

You need tons of oil to lubricate wind turbines.

Sure you do. You need more oil to lubricate wind turbines than you do for gasoline, diesel, engine oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid...totally believable. And coal and natural gas turbines don't need any lubrication whatsoever.

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

#660

Post by ceejayoz »

gotwaz wrote: post #518
ceejayoz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are also forgetting that Sun can be blocked during times of rains and Wind is unpredictable as well. We already have wires that cross continents to smooth out supply variations. It's exceedingly rare you get no sun and no wind over entire continents for an extended period. > You are forgetting that markets operate after work and the late night culture and so many other things. I'm not forgetting it, they just u…

Its not just about enough sun and wind capacity. There is already over supply in lot of the world. But the supply curve doesnt match the daily DYNAMIC demand curve so grid ops still dependent on coal and gas for different reasons. It becomes about what happens during unpredicted demand spikes, or when congestion on those wires happens whose load gets priority? which producers get curtailed? etc etc That moves probs i…

This is why we will overbuild solar/wind and store the extra for night time.
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