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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)

#551

Post by avianlyric »

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.

How is coal cheaper and easier than buying and deploying solar panels and batteries. Both of which require basically zero additional infrastructure to deploy.

Last I checked mining and transporting coal required quite a lot of heavy industry equipment to do even vaguely economically.

If coal was cheaper and easier than other sources of energy, then the US would be building more coal power plants. But even with the Trump administration placing its weighty thumb on the scale to try and “save coal”. Coal plants are still being shutdown due to simple economics.

If existing plants can compete with renewables, to hard to understand how adding the cost of building new plants is going to change that.

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

#552

Post by cbeach »

triceratops wrote: post #519
cbeach wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means, calculate an arbitrary uplift on the price based on your own definitions of externalities. But don't expect me to take you seriously when you directly compare a raw price of renewable energy with an uplifted price of fossil fuels. Especially when your quoted price for renewable energy ignores the cost of grid upgrades, storage infrastructure, and externalities associated with mining materials to manufac…

> externalities associated with mining materials to manufactur solar panels and wind turbine Solar panels can be recycled, so eventually they will need very little mining. Have you ever recycled gasoline? Have you ever heard of the Deepwater Horizon ? I think you're being disingenuous while accusing others.

Even if all the solar panels in the world were recycled, you’ve barely scratched the surface of the points I made.

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

#553

Post by acdha »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #145
sunaookami wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.

What’s wrong with nuclear energy?

It’s super expensive and it takes forever to build—so much so that fossil fuel companies fund “libertarian” voices to use it as an attack on environmentalists because nuclear means decades of unabated fossil fuel sales. If you commit to solar or wind, you start cutting into their business within as little as months.

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

#554

Post by avianlyric »

linksnapzz wrote: post #485
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's deep mines would be spectacularly uneconomic. Some have been sealed permanently (for expensive values of permanent) and the supporting knowledge and infrastructure would have to be rebuilt. Coal makes as much sense as a modern fuel as horse drawn buses do for transport.

...and, oddly enough, coal provides over half of China's electricity supply. I suppose nobody told them about the future, where bauxite reduction can be done w/ wind energy.

Oh no somebody told China about the future. That’s why they sell everyone cheap PV panels, and are now building out the equivalent of the entire UKs existing solar and wind capacity every year. Plus they’re getting faster.

In 20 years time China gonna be entirely powered by renewables while we’re still having this silly argument about what the future is going to look like.

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

#555

Post by tomhow »

delaminator wrote: post #524
tpm wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did not provide any fact supporting the 'suicidality' of anything, or even any definition of 'suicidality'. Also narrowly defined ethnicities are not humans, they cannot commit suicide.

[flagged]

We've banned this account.

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

#557

Post by realaaa »

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…

like - never ever used coal power?? very hard to believe this...

> Never used coal power: Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway

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

#558

Post by bdangubic »

avianlyric wrote: post #554
linksnapzz wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and, oddly enough, coal provides over half of China's electricity supply. I suppose nobody told them about the future, where bauxite reduction can be done w/ wind energy.

Oh no somebody told China about the future. That’s why they sell everyone cheap PV panels, and are now building out the equivalent of the entire UKs existing solar and wind capacity every year. Plus they’re getting faster. In 20 years time China gonna be entirely powered by renewables while we’re still having this silly argument about what the future is going to look like.

probably more like 15

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

#559

Post by derriz »

pembrook wrote: post #528
bryanlarsen wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

> As with any religion, environmentalism

Calling something a religion is a lazy and disingenuous way to dismiss it. The effects of airborne and waterborne pollution on human health has been the focus of scientific investigation for centuries at least. Ecosystem destruction is not "a religious belief" - it's something which has been measured, carefully recorded and studied using scientific methods.

> at 1/1000th the cost of re-wiring our entire energy system around renewables

This is alarmist hyperbole. Renewables now account for about 35% of the global electricity generation mix. There are countless examples of countries that run grids where renewables account for more than 80% of the electricity mix. Even if you just consider wind and solar, many countries are approaching 50% penetration in the space of 20 or 25 years without "re-wiring their entire their entire energy systems".

Yes NG generation is the only fossil tech still standing in terms of being able to compete at any level with modern generation tech but it is being squeezed. Batteries surpassed NG in terms of economics for peaking sometime around 2020/2021 - which is reflected by the share of new capacity investment since then.

> industrializing 3B+ people using windmills

A windmill is a device used to mill materials that happens to be powered by wind, like a watermill, or a pepper mill or a paper/wood/etc mill. I'm not sure what that has to do with electricity generation.

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

#560

Post by vages »

derriz wrote: post #559
pembrook wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> As with any religion, environmentalism Calling something a religion is a lazy and disingenuous way to dismiss it. The effects of airborne and waterborne pollution on human health has been the focus of scientific investigation for centuries at least. Ecosystem destruction is not "a religious belief" - it's something which has been measured, carefully recorded and studied using scientific methods. > at 1/1000th the c…

I think they may be referring to “wind turbines”.
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