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bryanlarsen | on: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)
> Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.

Coal is neither cheap nor abundant in Ireland.

reillyse | parent | next
This. Fossil fuels are not cheap in Ireland, I think we only produce a small quantity of natural gas, everything else is imported. Ireland should be running towards renewables, we have no indigenous fossil fuels industry to lose and every watt we generate from renewables is money that stays in Ireland. We should be focused on reducing nimbyism and building out renewables.
hunterpayne | root | parent | next
Ireland isn't sunny enough for solar to help with AGW. In fact, solar in Ireland actually just frontloads and exports to the 3rd world the CO2 generated. Oh, and the power to make PV panels...comes from coal. On the other hand, if you just put a windmill next to an Irish politician, you could power the entire country.
bryanlarsen | root | parent
That would only be true if solar panels had be trashed and repurchased every 6 months. But instead they last > 25 years, and can be recycled rather than trashed.
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belorn | root | parent | next
How close are Ireland to 100% wind during optimal weather?
Macha | root | parent
In 2023, peak renewable generation capacity was 75% of typical energy demand:

https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/new-record-wind-energy-all-islan...

For actual generation over a longer time period, in February 2026, 48% of energy used was generated from renewable sources, of which the vast majority (41% of energy use) was wind:

https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/almost-50-electricity-came-renew...

(The previous February was slightly better with 54% renewable and 48% wind)

https://www.eirgrid.ie/news/renewables-powered-over-half-ele...

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hihitsdumb | root | parent | next
What does the renewables supply chain look like? Do you build the systems right there in Ireland? Panels? Batteries? How does that money stay in Ireland?
redeeman | root | parent
does this renewable policy of wind farms etc also extend to the rain forest being cut down for balsawood? or the landfilles the massive chunks of fiberglass coated wings then get put into?

I guess we need a new planet when we're done filling it with junk and have depleted all the rain forest etc

sensanaty | root | parent | next
Like fossil fuels are somehow ecologically clean and don't cause massive deforestation themselves? Sure, renewables aren't a silver bullet and there's a real conversation to be had about proper disposal of turbine blades and PV cells, but it's pretty convenient how that same scrutiny never seems to get applied to fossil fuels.
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lovich | root | parent | next
What is the balsawood comment in reference to? I’ve never heard that mentioned in conversation around renewables but it’s not my area of expertise.
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skywhopper | root | parent
Is your point that coal mining, transport, and usage have no negative externalities?
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linksnapzz | parent | next
Coal is cheap and abundant in the English Midlands, which explains much of the industrial revolution starting there.

Said collieries, which if put back into service, would be able to cheaply get coal to Ireland via barge at no great cost or latency.

TheOtherHobbes | root | parent | next
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.

linksnapzz | root | parent
...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.
ianburrell | root | parent
Coal was abundant. British coal was mined out. The coal that is left isn’t economical to mine.
linksnapzz | root | parent
People said the same thing about many gas & oil fields in the Permian Basin back in the '70s.

How'd that work out?

baron816 | parent | next
Coal also isn’t really energy dense since so much of the energy is wasted when converting to electricity
marcosdumay | root | parent | next
It is still one of the densest sources. It's just not as dense as it naively seems.
linksnapzz | root | parent
Rankine cycle efficiency can be up to 45%; monocrystalline solar panels ~25%? I suppose you aren't paying for the sunshine, but if cloudy days affected coal power, James Watt wouldn't be famous.
ok_dad | root | parent | next
Luckily solar panels work for 30+ years while coal works for only as long as you burn it. You can also recycle solar panels, but try reversing entropy to get your coal back and you’ll see what’s up. Cloudy days are solved by wind, ocean energy, geothermal, storage, etc.
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bryanlarsen | root | parent
If you're going to make that comparison, you need to compare apples-to-apples and include solar efficiency in the coal too. After all coal's energy originally came from the sun. Plants converted the sunlight into energy at an efficiency of about 1%. A miniscule fraction of that energy went into the plant growth, and then a miniscule fraction of that energy was captured when the plant was converted into coal.
rs999gti | parent
> Coal is neither cheap nor abundant in Ireland.

But it is abundant in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and Poland. Also, there is nuclear power in France.

However, Russia and Ukraine are at war. Germany is willing to go green and destroy itself. EU hates Poland and other east European countries. And EU and the rest of the world can't disassociate nuclear power with weapons.

So I guess EU can enjoy their limited and expensive green energy.