Being coal-free is possible. Being fossil-fuel free is harder. Most of Irish energy comes from Natural Gas and Oil - the former is what supplanted Coal, not Wind.
This is a strange claim. During its peak years - in the mid 1990s - Moneypoint (the only coal plant in the country) provided 25% or more of the electricity mix while wind generation consisted of a few tiny pilot plants - contributing a miniscule.
In 2026, coal now provides 0% of the mix while wind provides 30% or more. Peat burning has also been fully phased out while oil (Tarbert) is in the process of being shut down while Moneypoint has been converted to oil but only participates in the capacity market - i.e. as an emergency/backup source - and so barely registers in the mix.
And even if coal was supplanted one-for-one with NG, it would still be a net win - by halving the CO2 intensity of generation as well as being far more flexible, scalable and much cheaper to deploy.
I’m not an expert here, but my understanding is that coal-free steel production is not a solved problem yet. And no, importing Chinese steel and moving the problem elsewhere isn’t a reason to pat yourself on the back.
There is absolutely no good reason to burn coal for electricity or heat in this day and age. If we had sane global leadership, every coal power plant left would be treated as a WMD and be bombed harder than that Iranian fuel depot.
Well, the term "natural gas" is ~200 years old and was invented to distinguish it from manufactured coal gas. But other than that, you're right. It's getting tiring having to explain to people why biogas isn't "natural gas".
Calling something a religion is a lazy and disingenuous way to dismiss it. The effects of airborne and waterborne pollution on human health has been the focus of scientific investigation for centuries at least. Ecosystem destruction is not "a religious belief" - it's something which has been measured, carefully recorded and studied using scientific methods.
> at 1/1000th the cost of re-wiring our entire energy system around renewables
This is alarmist hyperbole. Renewables now account for about 35% of the global electricity generation mix. There are countless examples of countries that run grids where renewables account for more than 80% of the electricity mix. Even if you just consider wind and solar, many countries are approaching 50% penetration in the space of 20 or 25 years without "re-wiring their entire their entire energy systems".
Yes NG generation is the only fossil tech still standing in terms of being able to compete at any level with modern generation tech but it is being squeezed.
Batteries surpassed NG in terms of economics for peaking sometime around 2020/2021 - which is reflected by the share of new capacity investment since then.
> industrializing 3B+ people using windmills
A windmill is a device used to mill materials that happens to be powered by wind, like a watermill, or a pepper mill or a paper/wood/etc mill. I'm not sure what that has to do with electricity generation.
Being coal-free is possible. Being fossil-fuel free is harder. Most of Irish energy comes from Natural Gas and Oil - the former is what supplanted Coal, not Wind.