[FrojoS]

> The actual causes of electricity cost rises in Ireland being higher than Europe are

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.

[jmward01]

> It seems logical that ending the use of existing coal energy infrastructure puts upward pressure on prices

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.

[bryanlarsen]

> Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.

Coal is neither cheap nor abundant in Ireland.

[reillyse]

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]

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]

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.

[hunterpayne]

No, that's wishful thinking. You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts. Engineers actually calculate all this stuff. EROEI for instance means Energy Returned on Energy Invested. For renewables, its 4. That means under ideal conditions (albino of 1, 20 year lifetime), over the lifetime of the panel you get back 4x the energy that it took to extract the materials, make the panels and install them. So if you site the panel somewhere with an albino of .25 (Spain) you get about as much power out of them as they took to make and install. And that obviously doesn't actually help with AGW.

[gusgus01]

An of EROI of 4 would probably already include the poor sunlight conditions of Ireland or would be some old numbers based off old solar technology. Plus there's contention around EROI because it does ignore the fact that renewables can be recycled and many are used past their lifetimes, and of course it ignores the negative externalities of spewing the one time use fossil fuels into the atmosphere. There are plenty of studies and papers arguing over EROI and its veracity.

[tdb7893]

The ERoEI numbers seem to be under some dispute. This study estimates it at 9-10 in Switzerland.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...

Also you mention albino and I can't find what that would mean in this context. At first I assumed you meant albedo but that doesn't seem to contextually match either. So I might just be misunderstanding your post.

[bryanlarsen]

A quick Google shows EREOI of solar panels at 10-30 depending on study.

[NoLinkToMe]

I think you don't know what you're talking about.

For one the EROEI isn't 4 for renewables under ideal conditions, it differs wildly depending on the type and location and installation. It's true that for solar in Ireland (which are NOT ideal conditions) its on the low end, though still about twice as much as 4, and it's certainly not the case for wind which can have them as high as 20.

Second, I've got no clue what 'albino' is. Do you mean albedo? In that case, it's completely irrelevant for wind power. Ireland produces 20x more wind than solar, the latter is completely irrelevant in Ireland.

For solar albedo is relevant, but only if you have bifacial panels, which are still the minority.

In Spain albedo is relatively low but it has some of the highest direct sunshine hours in Europe. Albedo is high in places like the Nordics, which have fewer sunshine hours. In other words, EV is brilliant in Spain due to the abundant sun, yet surprisingly is still viable in a place like Norway precisely because of relatively high albedo, not in spite of it. This is why EROEI for solar in Spain can get up to 20. The idea that you get as much power as it took to make (EROEI of 1) is so wrong, and so obviously wrong, that it seems like you just don't have any idea what you're talking about.

[belorn]

How close are Ireland to 100% wind during optimal weather?

[Macha]

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...

[belorn]

With 75% in 2023, it means there are still headroom for expansion without hurting the economics too much of existing wind farms. Denmark had a very clear growth of wind farms up to about 100% of demand during optimal weather, and then a very clear stop in growth afterward. On average it still only produce about half the energy consumed in Denmark, so over time I do not expect to see Ireland to go much higher than 50%. It might get a slight advantage given the improved wind farm technology to utilize low wind conditions.

I do see in the political goals for Ireland that they, like Germany and many other countries in EU, are relying on the idea to turn wind into green hydrogen once they hit that 100% during optimal weather. Peoples faith in that strategy has gone down significant in the last 5-10 years.

[hihitsdumb]

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]

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]

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.

[hunterpayne]

That's because the EROEI of FF are in the 100s. The EROEI of renewables is 4. I'm sorry that the laws of physics are inconvenient to your politics but they don't care about your politics (or mine).

If you want solar PV to help with AGW, they must be sited somewhere with an solar albino > .25. That's about Barcelona in Europe and SF in the US. If you put solar PV somewhere with less sun, you are actually making AGW worse.

[sensanaty]

Now this is just moving goalposts. The comment I replied to stated that the problem with renewables was that they too pollute and cause waste that isn't easy to dispose of, and they also affect the environment in a negative light. I didn't even dispute that point, as I said renewables aren't a silver bullet and we should be pursuing as much variety as we can with our energy production & grids, whether it be fossil fuels, renewables or especially nuclear. But we should preferably be moving more towards the latter two and away from fossil fuels except in situations where they make the most sense, and also considering all the facts that usually get conveniently ignored when discussing fossil fuels, like their disastrous effects on the environment.

> The EROEI of renewables is 4

Saying "renewables" have an EROEI of 4 is disingenuous at best. "Renewables" isn't one technology, it covers everything from wind to solar to geothermal to hydro. That 4 figure comes from worst-case transitional modelling of buffered wind specifically, and even then it's a temporary system-wide dip, not a measurement of what these technologies actually deliver[1]. Wind and solar individually come in at >=10:1 and rising as the tech matures[2]. Geothermal actually is in the hundreds, but that obviously isn't globally applicable. Lumping all of that together and slapping a "4" on it is either ignorant or deliberately misleading.

And the "hundreds" figure for fossil fuels is pure fantasy. Conventional oil sits at roughly 18-43:1, and US fossil fuel discovery EROI has cratered from ~1000:1 in 1919 to about 5:1 in the 2010s[3]. A paper in Nature Energy last year took it further and showed that when you measure EROI at the useful energy stage - accounting for all the waste heat from combustion - fossil fuels drop to about 3.5:1, while wind and solar beat the equivalent threshold even with intermittency factored in[4]. So "the laws of physics" are actually making a pretty strong case for renewables here.

> If you want solar PV to help with AGW, they must be sited somewhere with an solar albino > .25

I think you mean albedo. And that claim has been tested[5], a satellite study of 352 solar sites found the actual albedo reduction was much smaller than what's typically assumed, and the warming effect was offset by avoided emissions within roughly a year at most sites. A separate study of 116 solar farms found a net cooling effect on land surface temperature[6]. The idea that solar north of Barcelona is "making AGW worse" just doesn't survive contact with the data.

> ...but they don't care about your politics (or mine)

What a deeply unserious tone to take in a discussion like this. Where in my comment did I mention politics of any kind? Is any mention of renewables in a positive light political to you, or is it where I questioned whether the same scrutiny gets applied to fossil fuels? Because that's not politics, that is just reality which you seem to care so much about.

Newsflash, you don't need to be a leftist (which is what I assume you're insinuating) to realize that relying solely on a very finite, heavily polluting fuel source that has already caused disastrous effects to the Earth is maybe not the smartest long-term play. That's not politics, that's just common sense and basic risk management. Not to mention the decades of propaganda, lies, bribery and other bullshittery that big oil has wrought upon us. You'd think people who call themselves true conservatives and free-market capitalists would be the first ones evangelizing against all of that, but apparently not.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

[3] https://westernresourceadvocates.org/publications/assessment... and also just the wikipedia page on the ROI of various energy sources

[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01518-6

[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01619-w

[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X2...

[lovich]

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.

[awesome_dude]

I didn't know about balsa wood in Wind Turbines either until this thread - looked it up and found that it's being replaced with PET foam because of the problems caused by deforestation (etc)

https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/e...

[skywhopper]

Is your point that coal mining, transport, and usage have no negative externalities?

[reillyse]

90% of the coal that was being used comes from Colombia, thats not really even that far guys and I'm sure it's mined under the most stringent environmental controls.

[kkkqkqkqkqlqlql]

Ah yes, the Landman argument.

https://youtu.be/wBC_bug5DIQ?si=rfKryFd9fgJ1Gw0h

[linksnapzz]

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]

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]

...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.

[avianlyric]

Oh no somebody told China about the future. That’s why they sell everyone cheap PV panels, and are now building out the equivalent of the entire UKs existing solar and wind capacity every year. Plus they’re getting faster.

In 20 years time China gonna be entirely powered by renewables while we’re still having this silly argument about what the future is going to look like.

[bdangubic]

probably more like 15

[ianburrell]

Coal was abundant. British coal was mined out. The coal that is left isn’t economical to mine.

[linksnapzz]

People said the same thing about many gas & oil fields in the Permian Basin back in the '70s.

How'd that work out?

[baron816]

Coal also isn’t really energy dense since so much of the energy is wasted when converting to electricity

[marcosdumay]

It is still one of the densest sources. It's just not as dense as it naively seems.

[linksnapzz]

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]

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.

[linksnapzz]

"Cloudy days are solved by wind, ocean energy, geothermal, storage,"

Or, as Homer Simpson famously put it..."I dunno; Internet?"

But seriously, there's no significant recycling of solar panels, coal extraction is a known process, and good luck running an industrial economy exclusively on renewables.

[toraway]

> storage

There’s the direct answer to your question, cost of installed grid battery storage are getting cheaper by the user and it’s completely viable option at present. It’s not some vague fantasy idea like power plants in space or something, just look at California’s energy mix during peaks that in just a few years has become dominated by solar+batteries.

For longer periods of low-sun in a climate like Ireland see the other renewable options he mentioned. Plus a couple natural gas plants for fallback that can comfortably sit idle until needed.

If some combo of renewables are used 90% of the time when possible, no one is going to be mad about modern clean-burning LNG plants compared to a toxic, expensive relic of the past like coal.

Current trends make it clear the future will be renewables, grid battery storage, and however many natural gas plants are needed for reliability based on local climate (plus keeping nuclear online if you already have it). And that “future” is pretty much here already in places like California.

[ok_dad]

> there's no significant recycling of solar panels

There will be when it’s needed in a decade or two. Right now solar farms installed recently have years to go until they’re decommissioned. There’s already processes for it.

[teamonkey]

There’s no significant recycling of solar panels because they’re still in operation and don’t need to be recycled. Turns out solar panels last decades with only minor degradation so they haven’t needed to be recycled at scale.

They’re almost entirely glass and aluminium anyway. We know how to recycle glass and aluminium.

[bryanlarsen]

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]

> 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.

[Qwertious]

>Coal is cheap

No it's not. I'm not talking about the environment either, coal plants are just straight-up more expensive than gas plants and renewables.

Coal plants are necessarily steam turbines and not internal combustion, because coal is filthy and the mercury/sulfur/etc would wreck the guts of any machinery it goes through. Thus, it's only used to boil water.

Gas turbines don't have that problem, so they spin the turbine with the combustion products directly. They're far more efficient, the machines are smaller and cheaper, and because you don't need to wait for a giant kettle to boil before ramping up the power, they're far more flexible and responsive to demand. It also helps that the gas is fed with a gas pipe, whereas coal needs to be fed with a bobcat.

Which is why nobody is building new coal plants - they're way more expensive than gas plants, even if the gas fuel itself is more expensive than coal.

[hihitsdumb]

Nobody is building new coal plants...

...except China, who is building coal plants at a pace never seen in history. Are they dumb, or...?

[Qwertious]

Chinese state govt is building them in response to poorly thought out federal govt incentives. That plus backup plans (since China had plenty of coal but needs to import gas, so it could easily be navally blockaded by the US). Also gas turbines are a specialty of the West (which again doesn't work well geopolitically), and their demand has massively outstripped supply (we're even seeing jet engines being converted into gas turbines) and the order backlog is years out - all of which doesn't jive with China's "build everything right f'n now" strategy.

China is building everything at a pace never before seen in history. Partly because their construction industry is a jobs program, and their economy is so dependent on it that they prefer building things at a loss rather than not building at all. Which is financially dumb, but welcome to politics.

[ting0]

Or perhaps they aren't drowning in propaganda (that they themselves promote in the West), and are happily reaping the rewards of cheap coal and energy production.

By the way, the round trip of: Sell and export your coal to manufacturers that burn that coal to produce electronic goods that produce energy, then buy that energy technology to power your own infrastructure, is certainly not cheaper than just burning the coal you mined yourself for your energy production.

Cheaper (ergo, more profitable) for the mining companies, yes. That's about it though.

[tpm]

They are replacing old dirty plants. Actual coal burned is not rising anymore.

[hihitsdumb]

So they are building new coal plants.

[pcchristie]

Building coal plants doesn't impact emissions (materially, anyway). It's the using them to burn coal part that causes emissions (and generates electricity).

[avianlyric]

Yes, many of which are expected to never actually be used. Accidental result of how China does its provence based infra funding.

Right now China is building out more solar and wind per year than than the entire total deployed solar and wind in the entire UK, and they’re only getting fast. Their ability build renewables now vastly outstrips their historical coal buildout and their rising energy demands. They’re well on their way to achieving net zero far faster than anyone thought was possible.

[vladms]

> Most Europe has way too high electricity 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...

[selfmodruntime]

Way to high compared to actual cost. Almost half of fuel and electricity costs in Germany is tax.

[pocksuppet]

If it's due to tax it can't be used to advocate the pros or cons of market arrangements, since we don't know what the market would be doing in the absence of the tax.

[eloisant]

It's because of the rules of the European Energy Market where all electricity has to be as expensive as the most expensive source.

So as soon as Germany lights up their gas powerplants, that follow gas prices (wars, etc), French nuclear electricity has to be sold for the same price.

[tonfa]

> rules of the European Energy Market where all electricity has to be as expensive as the most expensive source.

aren't all/most electricity market working this way (pricing based on marginal price, aka pay-as-clear)?

pay-as-bid has other potential issues and might not be better.

[dadoum]

Yes, but that's assuming that there should be a free electricity market.

The fundamental issue with electricity markets is that they cannot rely on any signal other than the electricity price to control whether a given plant will be running at a given time or not.

I think a real alternative would be to set-up an entity charged with negotiating prices with the electricity producers (which would also be a sort of partial reversal on the whole market thing in a lot of countries).

[pocksuppet]

Not just all electricity markets. All markets. Why would you ever sell something cheaper than you know the buyer is willing to pay?

[Qwertious]

>It's because of the rules of the European Energy Market where all electricity has to be as expensive as the most expensive source.

Are you talking about the marginal cost? Don't blame the govt, blame the economics textbook.

[sollewitt]

If you don't count the externalities, sure. Healthcare is a cost too. We need more holistic accounting, the financialising of everything into a tidy but ultimately false P&L column is literally killing us.

[svilen_dobrev]

here some comparison chart, 2nd image in the article below:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/th...

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

there are 2-2.5x times differences between highest and lowest, of 25-30 countries

And here is some current/future (??) prices/increases, which i have no idea where they come from:

https://euenergy.live/

[linhns]

> Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.

Nuclear defeats coal in all of these aspects, aside from the high upfront cost.

[ljf]

Upfront costs... then running costs (in the UK at least, it has to command a premium over other energy prices, to be profitable)... afterwards costs (in the UK no private company is on the hook for decommissioning their nuclear plants, the population will pick up that cost through taxes)...

But sure, nuclear is cheap if you ignore all those things.

[idiotsecant]

We're already ignoring them all for coal plants, why not?

[ljf]

Which to we ignore for coal? Cost to build a new plant? Cost to run? The decommissioning costs? (Yes we ignore the externalities, and no I don't think we should burn coal. My point is Nuclear has yet to pay its way anywhere in the world, without heavy heavy govt support - far exceeding that given to renewables)

Some figures on running costs: Coal costs about £62 per MWh - (£31 for the coal and £31 for the CO2 premium we already charge the energy producers).

As a fossil fuel comparison, Gas costs about £114 per MWh.

Nuclear - Hinkley C will cost about £128 per MWh - but likely to be even higher when it comes online. And we will be on the hook for this price as long as it runs, no matter how cheap renewables are.

[AnthonyMouse]

> As a fossil fuel comparison, Gas costs about £114 per MWh.

You're comparing the cost for coal as baseload to the cost for natural gas as a peaker plant. When using both for baseload, natural gas is cheaper than coal and emits less CO2.

Meanwhile renewables are cheaper than both until they represent enough of the grid that you have to contend with intermittency:

https://www.ourworldofenergy.com/images/electrical-power-gen...

Which doesn't happen until it gets close to being a majority of generation, and which most countries aren't at yet so can add more without incurring significant costs for firming.

In other words, the currently cheapest way to operate a power grid, if that's all you care about, is to have something like half renewables and half natural gas. Add some nuclear -- even just, don't remove any -- and CO2 goes down by a lot because then you're only using natural gas for peaking/firming instead of baseload, while still having costs in line with historical norms.

The obviously bad thing many places are doing is shutting down older power plants without building enough new capacity in anything else to meet existing demand, and then prices go up. But that's not because you're using e.g. solar instead of coal, it's because you're trying to use demand suppression through higher prices instead of coal. It's easy to get rid of coal as long as you actually build something else.

[idiotsecant]

>Which to we ignore for coal? Cost to build a new plant? Cost to run? The decommissioning costs? (Yes we ignore the externalities, and no I don't think we should burn coal. My point is Nuclear has yet to pay its way anywhere in the world, without heavy heavy govt support - far exceeding that given to renewables)

Yes, all three. Building a nuke plant without the additional concern for outcome that we put on nuke would be relatively inexpensive. It's just concrete, pumps, and a turbine. It's a ismilar level of complexity to a coal plant. Same with running cost, same with decommissioning costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...

Suppose we designed, operated, and budgeted every coal plant to make accidents like this a statistical impossibility. Not very unlikely, that's not the standard we hold nuke to. An impossiblity. Imagine what that would cost.

[TheOtherHobbes]

A nuke plant is concrete, pumps, fuel storage and (re)processing, a huge pressure vessel, some very complex moderator machinery, and some of the most complex industrial plant control on the planet.

Even if you ramped down the safety, it still wouldn't be cheap or simple.

[wat10000]

Coal is teetering on the edge of economic viability. In the US, our coal-obsessed administration is now at the point of forcing coal power plants to remain operational against the wishes of their owners who want to shut them down as they’re no longer profitable.

[cguess]

> Coal is cheap

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.

[Qwertious]

>Only if you ignore all externalities

Not even then. Coal is dead, and gas killed it. The externalities are a distraction, coal plants are just straight-up uneconomic.

[dylan604]

> Only if you ignore all externalities

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.

[cguess]

Sure, but as a consumer you can also care about these things.

[dylan604]

Sure, but there's only so many places to buy electricity from