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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)

#211

Post by Dannymetconan »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #201
Dannymetconan wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| more and more cost-of-living protests They must have been real quiet. Most the protests are related to how expensive it has become to rent / buy in this country. Ireland has encouraged and allowed a huge number of data centers to be setup here and been very slow to implement legislation for other green forms of energy generation. We don't need dirty forms of energy production here like coal and peat just to make en…

> Ireland has encouraged and allowed a huge number of data centers to be setup here and been very slow to implement legislation for other green forms of energy generation. We don't need dirty forms of energy production here like coal and peat just to make energy cheap. Relying on Oil and Gas leaves us hugely at the whims of the international markets. It's grid capacity more than anything which is the issue, and (like…

Agreed. As I said in another comment it is a policy decision to rely on market forces while making little effort to reform the planning process. We should be a world leader in wind energy but the planning process holds us back hugely.

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

#213

Post by wesammikhail »

jahnu wrote: post #94
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…

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…

> This attitude is ill informed.

> Renewables are cheaper now than most forms of energy production. Grids need investment.

> Now we are rich it’s only fair we lead in transitioning to renewables.

> I despair at these short sighted and fairly wrong on the facts views.

The level of arrogance is unmatched while being both factually wrong AND self-contradictory.

Absolute cinema!

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

#214

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

saltysalt wrote: post #203
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, completely agree with your comment. My domestic gas and electric bills have never been higher, insane inflation for nothing more than political virtue signalling.

> 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 the US (when they attacked Iran).

And this hits me too, I have (unfortunately) oil heating which has gone from about 500 to 800 over the course of the last week. Fortunately we filled up last month, but it's really worrying.

Ultimately though, the only way to fix this is to build a lot of wind (industrial scale) and solar (residential scale) as otherwise we're at the mercy of world events.

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

#215

Post by lugu »

jakobnissen wrote: post #109
nxm wrote: post #78

[flagged]

China is not - Chinas coal consumption is stagnating with about zero growth from 2024 to 2025. China is far more serious than the EU about the green transition. Despite being poorer than the poorest EU country they are dominating renewable deployment. I think that attitude is poorly informed whataboutism.

Interestingly, per capita, china is worst than EU, and will be way worst in 10 years.

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

#216

Post by ceejayoz »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #193
ceejayoz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. Yes I agree but their extraction at scale is still very C02 Expensive. > No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out. With Nuclear energy, let's face it. If you have a nuclear plant running, the input is just some uranium which we have plenty of. Thereotically we have no…

> 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 use less power.

You can see this easily in charts of supply/demand throughout the day: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook#section-net-demand-tren...

> A lot of energy in general is still needed during nights and would we be still burning coal for that?

Again, batteries.

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

#217

Post by belorn »

jahnu wrote: post #160
Spooky23 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this stuff is cheaper, why are prices going up?

A very fair question and the answer is complicated. Production costs and transmission costs are separate. Also demand changes the market rate. And even if renewables are cheaper to produce in a market usually the highest price regardless of source sets the price. This is to incentivise the cheapest production methods to be invested in. It’s a massive topic and I encourage everyone to go and dive into it. It’s endless…

It is not that complicated. When the energy crisis in EU happened a few years ago, it demonstrated clearly that people and industry is willing to pay a years worth of energy bills for a single month to keep lights and machine operating. What this mean is that you could in concept give people free power for 11 months, and then increase electricity prices by 12x for the remaining month, and people would still pay it.

This also demonstrated through most countries in Europe that citizens will vote to have government that fix the energy market. Citizens do not want a free energy market that can raise prices to any degree, and its their tax money that fund grid stability.

This all mean that the cheapest form of producing energy do not result automatically in reduced energy costs for consumers and companies. The product that people pay for is not energy in a pure form, it is energy produced at a given time and given location. Make the energy free but the time and location expensive, and the total cost will still be expensive.

Transmission can help Ireland, but it can also hurt it by linking it to a larger market that can create a even higher demand spikes than exist in the current local grid. If the linked grid has locations which has higher energy costs than Ireland, then Ireland will subsidize those people by linking the markets together. Rules like highest price regardless of source sets the price, and higher amount of transmissions, also tend to result in more companies getting paid to maintain operations and thus more parties getting paid that is not linked to the marginal cost of producing energy.

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

#218

Post by sleepyguy »

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…

I have never been to a country where the wind blows at plus 60kph for months at a time (Wexford). I don't think I have ever been there in the last 20 years where the wind has not been howling, the potential for Wind Power there is insane.....

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

#219

Post by lowdownbutter »

thunfischtoast wrote: post #128
throw567643u8 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

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

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

#220

Post by FpUser »

I think this is very strategically stupid decision (or crime committed by high management). Those should be preserved and be ready for use in case things go south which is not inconceivable judging by what is happening around

Am am not against "saving planet" etc. Just make sure you still have a way to survive if high tech fails. Same as with let's abolish all cash without thinking what a nightmare it can / will cause one day

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