Lower population density on a grid without good connections to neighbours.
Previous underinvestment in network infrastructure.
Gas price rises combined with Ireland having less renewables that the EU average (middle of the pack for electricity, 3rd from bottom on total energy).
Maybe saving the world a bit harder would have helped keep prices down. It's certain that building more renewables now is the likeliest path to cheaper electricity.
A report supporting those claims: https://www.nerinstitute.net/sites/default/files/research/89...
Wrong comparison. Most of Europe has way too high electricity prices.
It seems logical that ending the use of existing coal energy infrastructure puts upward pressure on prices. Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.
Yes, burning coal causes lots of problems and I support ending it's use, but this is besides the point.
Coal is neither cheap nor abundant in Ireland.
Only if you externalize environmental costs. The point is that coal is actually really expensive. The only real argument is how fast the implicit subsidy on these externalized costs should be removed. The world has had decades to slowly remove these subsidies and failed to do so. The impacts caused by these externalized factors are starting to stack up and so should the prices.
Way to high compared to what? Some countries do not even have a problem with prices but with capacity (Netherlands). They would be willing to pay but they do not have the grid to deliver where the thing is needed, and it's hard to build new grids in high density areas.
> It seems logical that ending the use of existing coal energy infrastructure lead to an increase of prises.
But doesn't this depend a lot on planning and investing in alternatives rather the just closing or not the coal? Sure, if you just close one source and leave everything else untouched prices will increase, but doesn't sound like the smartest approach overall...
Nuclear defeats coal in all of these aspects, aside from the high upfront cost.
Only if you ignore all externalities including:
- environmental damage from mining (yes this exists for renewables too)
- global warming
- pollution on city infrastructure
- pollution on health
- the sunk costs causing higher transition costs when inevitably you transfer to renewables anyways.
Do not discount how easy that is to do. Your list is of costs not to any bottom line of a company with bean counters. Those external costs are out side the scope of their concerns. Your list of concerns would be something for C-suite types, but the pressure of stock prices again make the external costs easy to set aside.