alt Hacker News> 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.
Replies
> Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.
Coal is neither cheap nor abundant in Ireland.
> 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.
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:
> 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...
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.
> Coal is cheap, abundant, energy dense.
Nuclear defeats coal in all of these aspects, aside from the high upfront cost.
> 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.
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.
>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.