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.

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.

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

> 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.