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Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)
- redfloatplane 8mo ago(June 2025)
- elAhmo 8mo agoI always wondered why someone decides to post something fairly old, as this is 'not really news' given it is so old.
- rob74 8mo agoBecause they somehow stumbled upon the article, thought it was interesting, and submitted it, not necessarily looking at the date?
- throwaway613746 8mo ago[dead]
- DonsDiscountGas 8mo agoIt's new to me. Also is not even a year old, should we only allow info from the last week?
- elAhmo 8mo agoNot everyone is supposed to read every single news. There will always be someone who didn't see it, but that is not my point. It would feel weird to see this as a headline on a newspaper or on TV today, but maybe that is just me and people like to read new that are from last year.
- s_dev 8mo agoIt's not that old in the context of energy generation which operates over years and decades.
- elAhmo 8mo agoIt is old in context of an event happening and we are being informed of it a year later, regardless of how 'slow moving' the underlying thing is.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- cbdevidal 8mo agoJust in time for an energy crisis :-)
- rt56a 8mo ago[dead]
- philipwhiuk 8mo agoMaybe the difference is made up by renewables and not oil?
- rithdmc 8mo agoNatural gas is still the leader by a good margin.
- otherme123 8mo agoLeading is not the same as replacing. See this figure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland#/media/File:Energy_mix_of_Ireland.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland#/media/File:... In 2000, coal was about 20% of the energy mix, gas another 20%, oil about 50%. Wind was 0%. In 2024 coal was about 2%, gas still 20%, oil still 50%, but wind grew to about 15%. It seems that wind actually replaced coal. It is not only logical, but good, that wind first replaced coal (dirtiest), and maybe from now on is will start to replace oil. Only after many decades, or maybe never, gas will be replaced.
- rithdmc 8mo agoI'm not sure where that data comes from. Oil was only around 3% in 2024. https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/electricity https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/electr...
- messe 8mo agoPresumably it's also counting non-electricity energy generation. Road and rail transport still relies heavily on internal combustion engines.
- CalRobert 8mo agoGreat to see, hopefully they can end turf burning too. (For those unaware it's basically where you take a wetland habitat that's also an amazing carbon store, cut it in to chunks, dry it out, and burn it for a very dirty heat source)
- rithdmc 8mo agoI don't think turf (peat) has been burned for energy generation since 2023.
- CalRobert 8mo agoTrue, I was referring to domestic heat in rural areas.
- redfloatplane 8mo agoUnfortunately I think that's going to be very, very hard to sell to many people here in rural Ireland (Roscommon in my case). I would really love to see people stop burning turf but it's such a strong cultural thing that in some parts you'd be ostracised for even thinking the thought. I've personally spoken to people (who are otherwise quite environmentally aware) who suggest they'd never vote for the Green Party because they'd take their turf away. It's a tough sell.
- jahnu 8mo agoI think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :)
- disgruntledphd2 8mo ago> I think they should be allowed for cultural reasons but only if cut by hand like we did when I was a kid :) Me too! That was a lot of work, and surprisingly hard to stack.
- eitau_1 8mo agoDamn, and my country consumes 11 million out of 13 million tonnes of coal used for heating houses in the entire EU.
- oezi 8mo agoTell me where you are from without telling me where you are from... Poland I guess?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- reedf1 8mo agoNo 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.
- rwmj 8mo agoIt's more nuanced than that. This article is about the US (a worse polluter than Ireland), but it shows only about a small difference because of offshoring emissions: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-carbon https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-our-...
- mrits 8mo agoWhat is the point of comparing the US to Ireland? Perhaps compare it to something like the state of Oklahoma.
- petcat 8mo agoIt's even more nuanced than that because the United States is made up of many different states, with many different energy policies. Ireland would most closely equate to the state of Massachusetts by population and economic size, and Massachusetts shut down its last coal plant almost a decade ago.
- zahlman 8mo agoI don't know if I buy this argument. If the US sends oil to another country, which burns it for energy, produces a finished good and exports that back to the US, then the CO2 released isn't accounted for in production-based numbers. But it seems to me like it isn't really properly accounted for in the consumption-based numbers that Noah is holding up, because those are effectively giving the US a credit for exporting the oil in the first place that offsets the imported good. As he says, the US's exports are carbon-intensive and that largely explains the difference being so small. Noah also tries to refute the perception that manufacturing is in decline in the US, but he doesn't adjust per-capita and doesn't account for the obvious fact that major US exports are looking more and more like raw materials and less like finished goods, while imports are the other way around. Aircraft and ICs used to compete for top spot on the US export list. Since 2008 it's petroleum and oil.
- bramhaag 8mo agohttps://beyondfossilfuels.org/europes-coal-exit/ 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 Kingdom 2025: Ireland Phase-out planned: 2026: Slovakia, Greece 2027: France 2028: Italy, Denmark 2029: The Netherlands, Hungary, Finland 2030: Spain, North Macedonia 2032: Romania 2033: Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia 2035: Ukraine 2038: Germany 2040: Bulgaria 2041: Montenegro
- brazzy 8mo ago> Never used coal power: > Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland, Norway I very much doubt this is true for any of those countries. In fact, I know it is untrue for Switzerland, although they did stop using it long ago (mid 20th century). Edit: Norway actually ran a coal power plant until 2023, on Spitsbergen
- bramhaag 8mo agoI agree that the wording is a little misleading. "No coal ever in the electricity mix" is what's stated on the site. It seems they consider only coal use in the 21st century in mainland Europe + UK (i.e. not Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, etc.).
- sampo 8mo agoEstonia has lots of oil shale (not same thing as shale oil). They never needed to import coal, because they have their own fossil fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Estonia#Oil-shale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Estonia#Oil-shale
- jnsaff2 8mo agoThis is true. A nuance often missed. Different rock (that is considerably worse in several ways, needs heavy fuel oil to be added to actually burn and has I think even higher co2 output per unit of energy) but kinda the same.
- okokwhatever 8mo agoOnce they see the oil rising this week plans will be shut down till new notice.
- rsynnott 8mo agoThis happened almost a year ago. Ireland has no normal oil generation capacity (ironically moneypoint has been retained as an emergency-only oil burning plant til 2030, but it would generally only be used in this capacity as an emergency measure when gas plants unexpectedly go down).
- nixass 8mo agoGermany on the other hands..
- brazzy 8mo ago...has been massively reducing its usage of coal (down almost 40% since 2011) and committed to phase it out entirely by 2038.
- bengale 8mo agoI'm not sure it's fair to give Germany too much grief on this front. They are actively destroying their industrial base in a desire to hit net-zero.
- triceratops 8mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341
- jorisboris 8mo agoI feel we’re framing it in a negative way Our goal shouldn’t be to be coal free. Our goal should be to be 100% renewable. If we set up our goals in terms of what we don’t want, we end up in the situation we are right now: high energy costs, very dependent on energy imports and a high risk of loosing our industry
- wolvoleo 8mo agoCoal is the worst of the fossil sources though. Getting rid of coal is only the first step but it's a good one.
- mk89 8mo agoI am not sure it's a matter of how you frame the issue, to be honest, although I have seen this argument used quite a lot. 100% renewables is the exact opposite of "100% non-renewables" and that's including also oil, gas, etc. So "coal" is only a part of the 100% non renewables, but it seems your goal is to get rid of all the non renewables. And here the question is: why would you want a single goal? Why 100% renewable? What drives us should be: save where it makes sense, don't where it doesn't. Iterate every 10 years and recheck. All these single radical goals are literally killing our economy and society. And I am not just talking about coal free or renewable. Even the "let's tear down the windfarms" is dumb because it's radical and non sense. Or unrelated, even this "we need to digitalize everything" (although given our jobs we would profit the most) can lead to a lot of problems (privacy, security, etc). I don't know why we have become so radical in the last 20 years.
- zahlman 8mo ago> And here the question is: why would you want a single goal? Why 100% renewable? Overlapping goals can coexist on varying time frames. Setting aside nuclear (technically not "renewable", but also not carbon-based, and very energy dense) the goal is to stop releasing CO2 into the air from energy generation and return to pre-industrial levels. This is because the surplus of CO2 generated so far has already caused clear and undeniable problems (not all of which are yet fully realized), and continued excess will only make things worse. > What drives us should be: save where it makes sense, don't where it doesn't. Iterate every 10 years and recheck. Solar is already economically competitive in many places and is expected to improve further.
- cauliflower99 8mo agoIrish 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 stupid, politically incentivised initiatives - congratulations to us on making the poor and middle-classes poorer. But it's all good - we're saving the world I guess. The poor folks can sort themselves out.
- mrits 8mo ago[flagged]
- 4ndrewl 8mo agoThat'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.
- throw567643u8 8mo agoTaiwan 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.
- capitol_ 8mo agoTypically markets are good at optimizing everything that is priced into the market. Long term price stability is currently not something that is optimized for. One way to solve it is of course abandoning the ide of a market economy for power. Another is to let those industries that need price stability buy that on the futures market.
- pjc50 8mo agoSure, but then the taxpayer has to pay for it anyway. https://news.tvbs.com.tw/english/2690584 https://news.tvbs.com.tw/english/2690584 "TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) announced on Tuesday (Nov. 19 2024) plans to subsidize Taiwan Power Company (台灣電力公司) with NT$100 billion to address rising international fuel costs and stabilize prices" => over $3bn USD! This is not a small amount of money.
- nxm 8mo ago[flagged]
- jakobnissen 8mo agoChina 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.
- lugu 8mo agoInterestingly, per capita, china is worst than EU, and will be way worst in 10 years.
- triceratops 8mo agoClassic lie by omission. Or you're only reading right-wing media, in which case you can learn something and stop repeating this nonsense. In 2024 88% of new electricity in China came from renewables. https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/chn https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/chn They build new coal plants as a backup, or to replace existing older plants. But they're very clearly not using them more than they already were. They burn coal because they have coal, just like the US burns gas because the fracking boom made gas cheap. India is not doing as well as China but it is still improving. In 2024 64% of electricity growth came from coal, but that's down from 91% in 2023. https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/india/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/india/ I think they'll follow China's lead soon. The economics are inevitable. Ember projects India will be at 42% renewable electricity by 2030, up from 10% today. This is obviously staggering renewables growth in a poor country. The same source projects the US will be at 59% by then https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/united-states-of-america/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/united-states... and it's already at 58% today. So basically 0 renewables growth in the richest country in the world. Both India and China lack oil. Reducing fossil fuel usage is a national security issue for them. They're also poorer. As solar and wind become the cheapest sources of electricity, thanks mostly to China, they're going to rapidly transition. No dumb political games.
- brnt 8mo agoI understand that American shale gas (the largest fraction of LNG imports to the EU) is by certain measures as polluting as coal. If correct, Europe needs to reconsider if the price (and political) volatility is really worth it.
- s_dev 8mo agohttps://www.smartgriddashboard.com/roi/ 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.
- know-how 8mo ago[dead]
- fixxation92 8mo agoDefinitely a step in the right direction, but believe it or not-- I overheard a customer in Aldi asking for coal only last week! I couldn't believe it, the staff member didn't know where to send them
- sourcegrift 8mo ago[flagged]
- FooBarWidget 8mo agoExcept they don't turn on those new coal plants all the time, they use them as peakers. You know, when the sun is not shining and wind is not blowing.
- Zigurd 8mo agoDirty power generation, and dirty toxic hazardous industry in general, discriminate against the poor and minorities. That carries an enormous social cost that goes uncounted in discussions like the ones on this thread. Nuclear discriminates against capitalism. The cost makes the choice of nuclear irrational. The inability to insure nuclear in the private market makes it a travesty of free markets.
- snake42 8mo agoThe top comment currently on this post is talking about the cost impacts being transferred to the poor and middle class with lots of discussion. I think people are well aware of and discuss the social impacts.
- Zigurd 8mo agoThey discuss "social impacts" from the point of view that dirtier power is cheaper, supposedly, hypothetically, net of externalities, while ignoring the cost dirty power inflicts on the people living near the dirty power generation.
- paganel 8mo agoSuicidal move, Europe wide.
- landl0rd 8mo agoIreland is a net energy importer who imports electricity from Great Britain. She, in turn, often imports from nations including France, Holland, and Denmark, who use coal power. As such, it's not really the whole story to call Ireland, "coal-free". It's the same as America outsourcing heavy manufacturing or chemicals to China and claiming environmental victory. It's true in a narrow construction of the concept; it does reduce the burden on one's own country. It is false in the sense of one's contribution to the global commons and externalizes those externalities previously more internalized. It is, in other words, a shell game. Ireland's dependence on imported energy continues to rise and the number continues to tick up on the books of other nations and down on hers, with her people paying the "guilt premium" associated with this accounting trick. They're not exactly dirty grids, but the fact remains, Ireland still relies to some extent on coal. Also note that, though she is building OCGTs and fast CCGTs elsewhere, she converted Moneypoint not to gas but to heavy fuel oil. HFO is quite dirty stuff, only a dozen or so per cent cleaner than the coal it replaces per Ireland's own EIS. This is likely influenced by the fact that the plant was specced to burn some of the cleaner thermal coal on the market, largely from Glencore's Cerrejon mine, with pretty low sulfur and ash relative to others. So, the delta from relatively clean coal (excuse the expression) to some of the dirtiest oil; large boilers like that are likely burning No. 5 or 6, aka bunker B or C in marine. Not sure if you've ever seen (or smelled) this stuff but it's the next thing from tar. Ireland could instead have chosen to pull in gas from the North Sea and reduced the emissions of Moneypoint by not twelve but fifty to sixty per cent with modern CCGTs. Even older, more readily-available OCGTs would give thirty to forty per cent. This is ~250mmcf, i.e. probably a 24" spur line. Though this likely necessitates a few hundred km of loop for the ring main to the west, it's less than a year's work with a competent American crew. Instead, she chose a paltry twelve per cent a few years earlier; when the other gas peaker capacity is installed, cooling infra and existing thermal plant talent base while paying to reconstitute all those on the other side of the island. None of this is to say Ireland's work on decarbonizing her grid isn't real, but "coal-free" rather tends to obscure the present state of things; it is generally understood to make a strong, binary truth claim that isn't subject to "mostly" and implies one is no longer dependent on coal. It therefore demands consideration of electricity's fungibility in a grid.
- empath75 8mo ago
- deanc 8mo agoThere's a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding of the global energy supply presented around me nowadays. I would urge anyone to stop what they're doing and read "Clearing the Air" [1]. It's completely reshaped my understanding of this problem, and I am far more optimistic after reading it. It addresses key questions such as "What about China?" and "Can we stop it?" [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222768021-clearing-the-air https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222768021-clearing-the-a...
- yanhangyhy 8mo agoTry produce everything yourself and then call it coal-free
- speedylight 8mo agoThey might want to reopen it, oil prices spiked to $120 a few hours ago.
- arkensaw 8mo agoironically it's been converted to run on Oil now, as a backup
- FpUser 8mo agoI 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
- snake42 8mo agoFrom the article: the Moneypoint plant will continue to serve a limited backup role, burning heavy fuel oil under emergency instruction from Ireland’s transmission system operator EirGrid until 2029.
- mentalgear 8mo agoMeanwhile the Trumpo US puts "clean" in front of the word coal and that's about it.
- moominpapa 8mo agoMeanwhile China has 1200 of them - well done Ireland I'm sure they will follow your lead once they get around to it.
- moominpapa 8mo ago[flagged]
- henry2023 8mo agoWhat’s the alternative? Keep polluting the air?
- moominpapa 8mo agoWas Ireland's air particularly polluted?
- dewey 8mo agoThe point isn't about Ireland specifically so don't get hung up on that. It's a general shift away from coal.
- moominpapa 8mo agoMy point was completely about Ireland
- moominpapa 8mo agoSo are China, generally shifting away from coal?
- Sebguer 8mo agoyes: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-plans-cut-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-unit-gdp-by-around-38-2026-2026-03-05/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-... do you have any other questions?
- moominpapa 8mo agoYes, are China still building coal power stations? https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-china-is-still-building-new-coal-and-when-it-might-stop/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-china-is-still-bu...
- kayo_20211030 8mo agoThere's a declaration that a 915 MW power-plant was removed from the grid, and moved to emergency status only. However, every other number in the piece is mentioned as some multiple of Wh's (GWh typically). That makes it very hard to tell what proportion of capacity was removed from the system as a proportion of the total generating capacity. I think the writer might have served us better with the use of some helpful percentage comparisons. From the SEAI report (2024) (https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-publications/energy-in-ireland#:~:text=Electricity%20demand%20in%20Ireland%20was,Ireland's%20electricity%20demand%20since%202015. https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-pu...) - Electricity demand in Ireland was 32.9 TWh in 2024, up 4.1% on 2023-levels - Commercial services, which includes the ICT sub-sector, accounted for 41.2% of electricity demand. - The residential sector accounted for 25.5% of electricity demand in 2024. - Data centres accounted for 21.2% of all electricity demand in 2024. - Data centres account for 88.2% of the increase observed in Ireland’s electricity demand since 2015. If I've done my math correctly, Moneypoint generates about 8TWh, if operating continuously; which it's probably not. Can we say 6-7 TWh? That is not an insubstantial portion of the total.
- rsynnott 8mo agoAIUI it’s barely been operating for about a decade. Even before it closed (nearly a year ago; this is an old article), most days the eirgrid dashboard showed little or no coal in the mix.
- turlockmike 8mo ago[flagged]
- hrmtst93837 8mo ago[flagged]
- dalyons 8mo agoCoal use in Germany has declined significantly over the last decade.
- triceratops 8mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46292341
- theodric 8mo agoHighest[1] base electricity price in the EU, some of the worst conditions for solar generation, a war in Iran, and now they've closed the coal plant. Great. Guess I'll just go bankrupt. Edit: instead of downvoting my post, feel free to pay my electric bill, lol [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- rsynnott 8mo agoMoneypoint was barely operating for about the last decade, and was closed almost a year ago (this is an old article).
- arkensaw 8mo agoJust last week they were talking about the future of Irelands energy generation, and the pressure between now and 2028 from data centers and EVs. Reopening moneypoint as a backup has been discussed. It's been kept as a oil fired backup station, but given the current surge in oil prices I could see it turning to coal again. I really hope they just turn heavily toward renewables. We have enough offshore wind in Ireland to power most of the world, if we could just build enough turbines and harness it. We could become a net exporter of green power
- interludead 8mo agoA lot of these plants were built in the 70s-90s and were expected to run 40–50 years. Instead many are shutting early because renewables plus carbon pricing have simply made them uneconomical
- amai 8mo agoIt is 2026 now. So thats 56 - 36 years from 1970-90. So it is not really a lot earlier than expected.
- ant6n 8mo agoMeanwhile, Germany is killing it’s heat pump mandate, re-introducing gas and offsetting it with single percentage “green” gas greenwashing mandates.
- fdefitte 8mo ago[dead]
- nomdep 8mo agoI saw the data. They have replaced coal plants with gas plants. Mostly imported gas. Why do Europeans hate the idea of safe nuclear plants though? https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?chart=single_year&entity=Ireland https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?cha...
- amai 8mo agoBecause there is no place for nuclear waste in Europe? Especially not on smaller islands like Ireland. Why do Americans hate the idea of cheap renewable energy?
- elAhmo 8mo agoNuclear has bad branding.
- runarberg 8mo agoI think it is unfair to specify safe here, as probably all nuclear powerplants are considered safe until they are not, including Fukushima. But plenty of European countries are either building or planing nuclear new nuclear power reactors, and Finland just opened a new reactor in 2023. But the simple matter is thought that the economics of nuclear power simply are not delivering. They are expensive and slow to build, while at the same time wind (particularly off shore wind) and solar are getting cheaper and easier to build every year (or month even). Germany also stands out as a success story of nuclear phase-out, that by replacing these expensive to run nuclear power plant has offered the economic wiggle room to phase in renewables a lot faster then otherwise.
- dyauspitr 8mo ago30 years of anti nuclear propaganda. They should all be like France, what a dream to have almost all of your electricity coming from a stable, essentially perpetual source.
- pollorollo 8mo agoWhile nuclear was cost competitive a decade ago, it turns out that is no longer the case [0]. As of 2025, the cheapest levelized cost of energy is solar ($58), onshore wind ($61), and gas combined ($78). Although the data is US-based, European prices likely follow a similar pattern. [0] https://www.lazard.com/media/5tlbhyla/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025-_vf.pdf?page=14 https://www.lazard.com/media/5tlbhyla/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
- kenferry 8mo agoIs HN being astroturfed? What’s up with all these pro-coal comments?
- teachrdan 8mo agoI wonder if there's a startup out there selling AI-generated comments for astroturfing HN, Reddit, et al. And then I wonder if that startup is a YCombinator company...
- xeckr 8mo agoBad timing.
- AuthAuth 8mo agoDont worry China's opened up more than enough to cover Ireland's loss
- notTooFarGone 8mo agoThat's the low quality comments that ruin everything. China connected 4 solar panels per SECOND last year. China is also has 265x the population and has growing energy demands. They build much less coal than they phase out. All you can muster is a "But uh china is doing something so you are irrelevant" which is neither helpful nor correct. You are supporting the status quo and support not changing a damn thing.
- AuthAuth 8mo agoChina has not had a 3rd party verified emission report published in over 3 years. You can only go based on their word and very low quality articles reporting all this success. Every year I hear their emission are peaking and every time the emission report comes out it turns out they've increased. People say "oh China reduced emissions by 1% this year" but it turns out they only reduced the rate of emission growth by 1%. So I'll believe they are reducing emissions when I see it. Also its fair to bring them up, they are responsible for 36% of the worlds pollution and hold the lowest environmental standards in the 1st world. Without them working to combat this issue its pointless for anyone else to try.
- notTooFarGone 8mo agoChina: per capita about 1.8x the global average CO2 United States: per capita about 3x the global average CO2 Projections for China is that these numbers will go down massively over the next 10 years. How is that going for the US for "lowest environmental standards in the 1st world"? Please get over your 20 year old views of china. They get their act together while the US shits the bed. We can talk about 50% new car registrations are EVs in china and how the US is doing? Or how ~60% of all renewable capacity added globally by 2030 will be in China? Or how it is already at 50%?
- CHB0403085482 8mo agoCoal is Extremely Dumb Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfvBx4D0Cms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfvBx4D0Cms
- realaaa 8mo agoI don't know why it has to be black & white - modern coal plants I am sure are less pollutant than renewables once you factor in total costs of installation & replacement etc
- kenferry 8mo ago…why would you assume that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis... Coal, with any available technology, is more polluting than any renewable energy source. Full life cycle including plant installation included.
- arttaboi 8mo agoThe most sensible continent on this planet...
- throwsetg5678 8mo agoAll the green/peak-oil stuff is coming to a head with the Iran war. (See for eg. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg ) All thanks to our Epstein-class-alien-AI-zionist-lizard overlords.
- ting0 8mo agoThey're going to regret this one when WW3 kicks off over the next year or three. Good luck repairing your renewable energy infrastructure if you're hit by one of many different classes of attacks. Coal and coal-burning energy production is an insurance policy, at the very least. Countries have been getting rid of their oil refineries as well, and now look what is happening to those countries, given the Iran situation. Their price of fuel is skyrocketing, their reserves are dwindling, and panic is setting in. Hope is not a strategy. Relying on third party supply chains for key infrastructure that would result in mass casualty if it were to vanish, is not intelligent. It's a vulnerability.
- torlok 8mo agoA distributed power grid made out of PV panels, windmills, and local energy stores is far more resilient during armed conflict than a handful of large targets along with a supply chain necessary to keep them going.
- laughing_man 8mo agoHow much does power cost in Ireland?
- balderdash 8mo agoI’m all for the substitution of cleaner energy sources for dirtier ones- but it feels like from a consumer and national autonomy standpoint for a country that imports the vast majority of its energy, concentrating supply might not be the best idea until renewables/energy-storage has been more built out
- nephihaha 8mo agoIreland has never had a big coal presence compared to neighbouring countries. An old Irish republican slogan was "Burn everything British apart from their coal ."