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disgruntledphd2 | on: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)
> Another Irishman here, completely agree with your comment. My domestic gas and electric bills have never been higher, insane inflation for nothing more than political virtue signalling.

The only part of your bills that could be regarded as virtue signalling is the carbon tax, which is driven by government regulation. The vast increases in energy costs were driven firstly by Russia (when they invaded Ukraine) and the US (when they attacked Iran).

And this hits me too, I have (unfortunately) oil heating which has gone from about 500 to 800 over the course of the last week. Fortunately we filled up last month, but it's really worrying.

Ultimately though, the only way to fix this is to build a lot of wind (industrial scale) and solar (residential scale) as otherwise we're at the mercy of world events.

saltysalt | parent | next
A LNG terminal would help. Lots of bad infrastructure decisions have left us extremely exposed to those external shocks you mentioned.
rsynnott | root | parent | next
An LNG terminal wouldn't help with cost (it would probably increase it a bit, if anything, as the cost of building it would have to be paid back). It's desirable from an energy _security_ perspective; as it is we are very dependent on a pipeline to Britain.
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mrguyorama | root | parent | next
American energy exports are turning around in the mid-atlantic to go somewhere else instead because Europe is getting outbid.

"My energy prices are high" because you are getting outbid. You can't stop getting outbid by building more transport infrastructure. That terminal will go unused.

a_paddy | root | parent | next
An LNG terminal would make us more beholden to foreign powers.
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short_sells_poo | root | parent
An LNG terminal would not help for the current high prices. Europe is experiencing a gas price shock precisely because LNG is easy to store and transport. Asia gets half it's gas through the Strait of Hormuz, which is currently experiencing troubles. This means Asia is willing to pay a lot of premium for LNG, which in turn means that Europe has to match this premium otherwise LNG will go to Asia and not Europe.

Being dependent on gas is equal to being exposed to global shocks, unless you can cover your domestic needs purely with domestic gas extraction.

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hihitsdumb | parent | next
Unless you manufacture it locally, with a fully local supply chain, wind and solar are still susceptible to world events.
short_sells_poo | parent | next
> Ultimately though, the only way to fix this is to build a lot of wind (industrial scale) and solar (residential scale) as otherwise we're at the mercy of world events.

I'd add that this is only part of the equation because: what do you do on an overcast day with no wind?

You need significant storage capacity before you can become isolated from world events. Until then, you need power generation that you can bring online on short notice: coal, gas, hydro, etc. Traditionally, gas was used for this because it's easy to store, quick to get going and gas plants can also burn coal if needed.

Unfortunately, the nice properties of gas (easy to store and transport) mean that it's a global commodity. It will go where they pay the most, which means that far away events can cause a price in gas prices globally.

disgruntledphd2 | root | parent
> I'd add that this is only part of the equation because: what do you do on an overcast day with no wind?

Battery technology is really, really getting there.

And in the absence of any more improvements here (unlikely) you integrate your grids with other countries. That's harder for Ireland, but it's still worth doing.

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cbeach | parent
Carbon taxes are huge, and they are 100% politically imposed.

And they're often disingenously included in fossil fuel pricing to claim that green energy is fundamentally cheaper.

I believe in climate change, and I believe in doing something about it. But being disingenous with the public is only going to create resentment and resistance to Net Zero.

p_j_w | root | parent
> And they're often disingenously included in fossil fuel pricing to claim that green energy is fundamentally cheaper.

There’s nothing unreasonable about this: fossil fuels have huge costs associated with them that are invisible to the consumer. They’ve just been getting pushed off onto other people forever.

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