Cheaper electricity is coming at a huge cost to the climate

Green party leader Eamon Ryan is is an even-tempered kind of guy, but make the economic argument for keeping Ireland’s only coal-fired power plant going and watch him get hot under the collar.

“It is scandalous to be putting short-term profit ahead of moral obligation,” he thunders. “Moneypoint and the peat-fired stations are massive contributors to our greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Last year, Ireland’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose by 5.5% in the industrial sector.