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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)

#531

Post by SchemaLoad »

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.

Supposedly they have been replacing old dirty coal plants with new cleaner ones alongside massive developments in renewables and nuclear. Getting air pollution controlled as fast as possible requires doing everything at once.

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

#532

Post by derriz »

islandfox100 wrote: post #196
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.

Coal is a lot cheaper and easier than modern energy sources when your goal is modernizing rural areas. Meanwhile, urban centers are decommissioning old emissive power plants and shifting to renewables. It's a fine way to do green transition and rural development.

By what measure? Coal hasn't been competitive for decades and the only way it had remained competitive in terms of cost per MWh even back then was if you burned it in huge (> 1GW) plants. 1GW plants are the very opposite of what you want to electrify rural areas - construction is slow and expensive, operating large plants requires considerable and qualified head-count, logistics is an issue and they require high capacity and expensive transmission systems.

And if your minimum unit size is 1GW then you lose the flexibility to roll out the tech incrementally - the average modern coal plant requires 3 to 5 weeks per year for scheduled downtime for maintenance - so your first 1GW coal plant requires a bunch of other generation sources to cover demand during these periods.

Solar and batteries are the obvious solution for rural electrification: scaleable, cheaper/simpler to deploy - no large scale civil engineering involved, trivial to "operate", effective without the support of big transmission systems and it's possible to buy everything off-the-shelf.

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

#533

Post by aziaziazi »

rsanek wrote: post #73
reedf1 wrote: post #27

No country will be truly coal-free until they are a net energy exporter and they do not import any goods that use coal-based energy in their supply chain. Europe has de-industrialized which means it has effectively exported its coal burden.

There are existing metrics that adjust for this. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions...

Thank you for the link.

I understand China has about twice the inhabitant of USA+EU but the same consumption based CO2, am I wrong?

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

#534

Post by munk-a »

nomel wrote: post #525
munk-a wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is in an excellent position to massively harness wind and solar and yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage. I am comfortable celebrating Iceland's decision to not be maliciously dependent on fossil fuels.

> yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage Reference? This seems to be false. Coal is still on decline, while solar is what's ramping up [1][2] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67005 [2] https://ieefa.org/resources/energy-information-administratio...

Trump had a few executive orders that derailed phase out plans and the DoE released a coal plant refurbishing subsidy[1].

1. https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-...

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

#535

Post by ok_dad »

linksnapzz wrote: post #479
ok_dad wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Cloudy days are solved by wind, ocean energy, geothermal, storage," Or, as Homer Simpson famously put it..."I dunno; Internet?" But seriously, there's no significant recycling of solar panels, coal extraction is a known process, and good luck running an industrial economy exclusively on renewables.

> there's no significant recycling of solar panels

There will be when it’s needed in a decade or two. Right now solar farms installed recently have years to go until they’re decommissioned. There’s already processes for it.

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

#536

Post by nomel »

munk-a wrote: post #534
nomel wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage Reference? This seems to be false. Coal is still on decline, while solar is what's ramping up [1][2] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67005 [2] https://ieefa.org/resources/energy-information-administratio...

Trump had a few executive orders that derailed phase out plans and the DoE released a coal plant refurbishing subsidy[1]. 1. https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-...

So, in both cases it's helping sustain. "Ramping up" means increasing.

Is there something I'm missing here?

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

#537

Post by selfmodruntime »

jahnu wrote: post #393
selfmodruntime wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„Ireland“ is rich because companies have their office there. „The Irish“ are not rich. Talk about ill informed.

Yes Ireland is rich. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

Not according to your own source

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

#538

Post by tialaramex »

nomel wrote: post #525
munk-a wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is in an excellent position to massively harness wind and solar and yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage. I am comfortable celebrating Iceland's decision to not be maliciously dependent on fossil fuels.

> yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage Reference? This seems to be false. Coal is still on decline, while solar is what's ramping up [1][2] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67005 [2] https://ieefa.org/resources/energy-information-administratio...

I mean, the EIA says "U.S. generation fueled by coal increased by 13% in 2025 to 731 BkWh"

The article you linked is mostly about a model of 2026 and 2027 and sure, in the model coal goes away but that's not a fact about coal it's just a model.

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

#539

Post by belorn »

Macha wrote: post #502
belorn wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close are Ireland to 100% wind during optimal weather?

In 2023, peak renewable generation capacity was 75% of typical energy demand: https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/new-record-wind-energy-all-islan... For actual generation over a longer time period, in February 2026, 48% of energy used was generated from renewable sources, of which the vast majority (41% of energy use) was wind: https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/almost-50-electricity-came-renew... (The previous February was slight…

With 75% in 2023, it means there are still headroom for expansion without hurting the economics too much of existing wind farms. Denmark had a very clear growth of wind farms up to about 100% of demand during optimal weather, and then a very clear stop in growth afterward. On average it still only produce about half the energy consumed in Denmark, so over time I do not expect to see Ireland to go much higher than 50%. It might get a slight advantage given the improved wind farm technology to utilize low wind conditions.

I do see in the political goals for Ireland that they, like Germany and many other countries in EU, are relying on the idea to turn wind into green hydrogen once they hit that 100% during optimal weather. Peoples faith in that strategy has gone down significant in the last 5-10 years.

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

#540

Post by nomel »

tialaramex wrote: post #538
nomel wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet right now it's dialing up the coal usage Reference? This seems to be false. Coal is still on decline, while solar is what's ramping up [1][2] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67005 [2] https://ieefa.org/resources/energy-information-administratio...

I mean, the EIA says "U.S. generation fueled by coal increased by 13% in 2025 to 731 BkWh" The article you linked is mostly about a model of 2026 and 2027 and sure, in the model coal goes away but that's not a fact about coal it's just a model.

Yes with the next sentence explaining why, and how future years are planned to decrease.

"Ramping up" means planned to increase.

Feel free to provide a reference that supports that it's "ramping up". I, and parent, couldn't find one. This is a super boring factual thing that I was curious about, where opinion has no place or purpose.

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