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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)

#91

Post by Timon3 »

copper4eva wrote: post #76
stephen_g wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you use Renewable Energy Sources, it may happen there will be no wind or no sun I still find it staggering that people feel like this is something that needs to be said as if it’s surprising or a novel idea. Do you really believe smart people haven’t been working through these challenges for decades ?

Did he state it like it's a surprise? Not like there's anything wrong with bringing up this fact.

Yet somehow we don't need a similar reminder for the possibility of fossil fuel power plants running out of fuel after a short time if not regularly restocked. Why is it worth bringing up one, but not the other?

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

#92

Post by throw567643u8 »

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…

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.

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

#93

Post by rowanajmarshall »

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.

Europe is a gigantic manufacturer of vast quantities of goods. It has not deindustrialised at all.

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

#94

Post by jahnu »

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 wrong on the facts views.

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

#95

Post by throw567643u8 »

4ndrewl wrote: post #89
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…

That's not how the international energy market works. You still have to buy your own, locally produced energy at international rates. The huge energy price spikes are down to wars in Ukraine (gas, which is also used for electricity production) and the Middle East.

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.

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

#96

Post by s_dev »

https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/roi/

Here is the dashboard for electricity in Ireland.

Ireland is not industrialised in a similar way to other EU countries like Germany or Italy which has lots of heavy manufacturing. Irish industry is mostly composed of US pharmaceuticals and data centres occupying much of the energy demand. There is a bauxite facility in limerick which does come to mind but that sort of thing isn't common in Ireland.

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

#98

Post by s_dev »

bananzamba wrote: post #34
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.

Air quality will improve, just not CO2

Also the fact that it greatly lessens energy dependence should not be understated.

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

#99

Post by crote »

troupo wrote: post #44
piokoch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use Renewable Energy Sources, it may happen there will be no wind or no sun. So you need some auxiliary source of energy. If you want it at hand, this must be something with fast cold start. So black/brown coal power plan will not help you, similarly nuclear. You need to burn either gas or "biomass", that is wood/turf, etc. Those power plants have about 1h cold start. Hence, in order to have RES you need to em…

> this must be something with fast cold start. So black/brown coal power plan will not help you, similarly nuclear. Nuclear plants provide base load and they are extremely fast at ramping up/lowering production. All modern nuclear plants are capable of changing power output at 3-5% of nameplate capacity per minute: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... You don't shut down power plants. None…

> Nuclear plants provide base load and they are extremely fast at ramping up/lowering production

The obvious counterexample is Chernobyl, where a big contributor was the fact that they were unable to scale it down & back up as desired. Yes, nuclear reactors can scale down rapidly - but you have to wait several hours until it can scale back up!

Besides, the linked paper only covers load-following in a traditional grid (swinging between 60% and 100% once a day) and barely touches on the economic effects. The situation is going to look drastically different for a renewables-first grid, where additional sources are needed for at most a few hours a day, for a few months per year.

> You don't shut down power plants. None of the power plants ever do a "fast cold start"

Gas turbines can. Hydro can. Battery storage can.

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

#100

Post by brynnbee »

wolvoleo wrote: post #71
nixass wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal probably kills more people in a single day than all nuclear accidents ever combined

Probably but damage from nuclear accidents isn't only measured in deaths. No coal plant accident has caused an exclusion zone for 40 years.

If you look at net damage to the planet, fossil fuel burning energy sources kill literally 8 million+ people a year. Coal plants are vastly more radioactive than nuclear plants, and the effects of burning coal will have a vastly outsized share of damage to the planet in the long than nuclear. Its effects are just less concentrated to a single area.
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