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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)

#491

Post by Dannymetconan »

redeeman wrote: post #392
Dannymetconan wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

21% of all energy is now being consumed by data centers with not enough investment in new forms of energy generation. This is a policy decision by the government. More realistically it is a decision to not proactively do anything and instead rely on market prices to encourage new entrants to the market. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-dcmec/dat...

weird, because wouldnt part of the price for electricity include the network? Are you telling me that the electricity purchasing is like me purchasing from amazon, but but never charges shipping, or factor it into the products, and then suddenly cant ship because all trucks are used and no money to buy new?

Demand has gone up largely because of data centers. Supply has not increased enough so expensive options are the marginal supplier. Grids costs are also build into tariffs.

What is your point?

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

#492

Post by hihitsdumb »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #357
short_sells_poo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'd add that this is only part of the equation because: what do you do on an overcast day with no wind? You need significant storage capacity before you can become isolated from world events. Until then, you need power generation that you can bring o…

> I'd add that this is only part of the equation because: what do you do on an overcast day with no wind? Battery technology is really, really getting there. And in the absence of any more improvements here (unlikely) you integrate your grids with other countries. That's harder for Ireland, but it's still worth doing.

Does this battery technology grow on trees in Ireland, or does it exist in a foreign (and perhaps one day adversial) nation, like China?

The sheer number of people in this thread saying, "we need renewables to be independent!", from countries that don't actually manufacture anything, is astonishing.

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

#493

Post by tpm »

hihitsdumb wrote: post #484
Qwertious wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Coal is cheap No it's not. I'm not talking about the environment either, coal plants are just straight-up more expensive than gas plants and renewables. Coal plants are necessarily steam turbines and not internal combustion, because coal is filthy and the mercury/sulfur/etc would wreck the guts of any machinery it goes through. Thus, it's only used to boil water. Gas turbines don't have that problem, so they spin th…

Nobody is building new coal plants... ...except China, who is building coal plants at a pace never seen in history. Are they dumb, or...?

They are replacing old dirty plants. Actual coal burned is not rising anymore.

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

#494

Post by Qwertious »

zahlman wrote: post #292
bryanlarsen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is to incentivise the cheapest production methods to be invested in. It's also just a rule of economics. The price is set at the cost of the most expensive production necessary to meet demand. So if solar could fulfill 100% of energy demand, price would be the cost of solar, and any other more expensive generation would either lose money, shut down or idle. But if we shut down or idle those today we wouldn't h…

... So then why isn't the solar to replace the more expensive plants getting built?

It is. But solar produces most around midday and then tapers off toward dawn/dusk, so it might supply 100% of demand at midday but only 10% around sunset.

If you build more solar it'll meet 100% of demand for a larger portion of the day, which is what we're doing.

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

#495

Post by Qwertious »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #301
zahlman wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... So then why isn't the solar to replace the more expensive plants getting built?

Snarky response deleted. That rule is a rule of free markets. Electricity is not a free market, so it only partially applies. Texas is closer to a free market, and unsurprisingly it is adopting solar faster than most.

>Snarky response deleted.

We appreciate your restraint.

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

#496

Post by bryanlarsen »

hunterpayne wrote: post #478
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.

Ireland isn't sunny enough for solar to help with AGW. In fact, solar in Ireland actually just frontloads and exports to the 3rd world the CO2 generated. Oh, and the power to make PV panels...comes from coal. On the other hand, if you just put a windmill next to an Irish politician, you could power the entire country.

That would only be true if solar panels had be trashed and repurchased every 6 months. But instead they last > 25 years, and can be recycled rather than trashed.

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

#497

Post by bryanlarsen »

pembrook wrote: post #380
macspoofing wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No country will be truly coal-free Being coal-free is possible. Being fossil-fuel free is harder. Most of Irish energy comes from Natural Gas and Oil - the former is what supplanted Coal, not Wind.

[flagged]

Many consider natural gas to be worse than coal due to widespread methane leakage and methane being a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

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

#498

Post by Qwertious »

owenversteeg wrote: post #318
throw567643u8 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan and perhaps other Asian countries that successfully make stuff don't expose their industries to this, the government sets a fixed energy price for them rather than leaving them at the whim of speculators.

I agree that the government should ensure low energy prices for industry, but Taiwan is a remarkably poor example. Taiwan's energy policy is, as far as I know, the most pants-on-head stupid of any country in the world. As anyone knows, they are a small island at constant risk of a sea blockade and yet rely on sea imports for 98% of their energy. Not only that, but they _had_ more domestic production (nuclear) that th…

Nuclear also relies on sea imports - nuclear fuel still needs to be imported, unless Taiwan has a uranium mine on the island. So nuclear doesn't solve the problem, it just kicks the can down the road.

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

#499

Post by Qwertious »

danans wrote: post #256
throw567643u8 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in England we now drag the coal over on smoke spewing ships from Japan and Australia, rather than mine it here. The sum total of CO2 is higher than if we just mined it here. Net zero box ticking.

> Here in England we now drag the coal over on smoke spewing ships from Japan and Australia, rather than mine it here Australia I see but Japan? Japan is the world's third largest coal importer. I don't think they are sending much coal to England.

Indonesia would be the obvious replacement - Indonesia is a pacific island nation (the islandiest) which exports a ton of coal.

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

#500

Post by hihitsdumb »

tpm wrote: post #493
hihitsdumb wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is building new coal plants... ...except China, who is building coal plants at a pace never seen in history. Are they dumb, or...?

They are replacing old dirty plants. Actual coal burned is not rising anymore.

So they are building new coal plants.
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